Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner Chapter 812: Numbers game

"All I’m saying is using my father for personal gain only seems fair. And it’s not the same as me talking to him again. I mean, I plan to ghost him afterwards, but the man’s a billionaire, he’d live. Who knows, he probably has kids across all four quadrants of the globe anyway. You don’t find out this type of thing until the old man passes and it’s time to address the will!"

Diana stared at him.

"That’s the plan," Kelvin said, nodding at his own logic like it had just proven itself in real time. "Use him for the labs, the funding, the resources, then vanish back into radio silence the second Lucas is stable. Genius. Airtight. No downside."

"You’re insane," Diana said. "You know that, right? I hear it every time you talk."

"I prefer visionary," Kelvin said, "but I’ll accept insane if it comes with affection."

They were walking the corridor toward the labs when a soft chime pulled Kelvin’s attention sideways, one of his mechanical hands already flicking upward, pulling a thin holographic panel to life in the air in front of him.

"Hang on," he said, scanning it. "I’m picking up heightened stream activity. Could be a live contract, could be something breaking, if someone’s out there needing backup, we should get eyes on it before—"

He stopped.

"Oh," he said.

"What," Diana said.

"Chat’s losing its mind," Kelvin said, still reading. "She’s back. Someone typed that she just walked in."

"Who’s back," Diana said.

Kelvin pulled the footage instead of answering, angling the panel so they could both see the lobby camera feed, and there, unmistakable, walking through the main entrance with an easy smile and a small wave to two passing faction members, was Lila.

"Shiiiit," Kelvin said, already moving.

Diana was right behind him, both of them cutting through the corridor at a jog, and by the time they reached the lobby Lila had already stopped near the front desk, chatting with someone about nothing in particular.

"Lila!" Kelvin said, arms already spread, voice pitched about two notches too bright. "Hey! You’re back! You look good! Your eyes, is that, is that new? New shade of something?"

Lila blinked at him. "It’s the same face I left with, Kelvin."

"Right. Right, of course. Just checking. Comprehensively." He glanced sideways at Diana with an expression that was trying very hard to look casual and failing.

Diana didn’t bother with the pleasantries.

"Where have you been, Rowe," she said. "You were supposed to be with us for the Amazon trip weeks ago."

Lila’s smile didn’t waver. "Oh, yeah. Had a few things to sort out. Family stuff, mostly. My friends mother’s been going through something, I needed to be there for a bit. You know how it is."

"We do not know how it is," Kelvin said, still smiling too wide. "None of us know how it is at all."

"I’m sorry I missed the mission," Lila said, glancing between them. "Heard it got rough out there. How’s Lucas?"

Something flickered across both their faces before they caught it.

"He’s fine," Diana said, flat. "Resting."

"Good," Lila said, easy, unbothered. "Well. I’m gonna go get settled back in. Long trip."

She walked off toward the residential corridor, and Kelvin waited exactly until she’d turned the corner before grabbing Diana’s arm and steering her hard toward the labs.

"Oh, alright," he said, loud enough to carry, "glad to have you back," and then, once they were moving, dropped his voice to something urgent. "Come on, come on, lab, now."

---

The lab door hissed shut behind them, and Diana rounded on him immediately.

"Kelvin," she said. "She just lied. To our faces. Family stuff. That was not family stuff."

"I know," Kelvin said.

"Then why didn’t you say anything!"

Kelvin sat down heavily on a stool, dragging both hands down his face.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, my beautiful bubble queen, let’s do a hypothetical here. Play along with me. Why, in any conceivable version of events, would Noah’s crazy blonde girlfriend, who used to be an actual card-carrying member of a terrorist organization, lie about visiting a terrorist organization?"

Diana opened her mouth.

"That’s not rhetorical," Kelvin said. "I actually want you to sit with the weight of that sentence for a second, because I have been sitting with it since the lobby and I have not stopped vibrating internally."

"You knew," Diana said slowly. "You had the tracker data. You knew exactly where she went."

"I had the tracker data," Kelvin confirmed. "Shipping manifests. The shuttle route. The bay in the industrial district. I know precisely where she went, Diana, because I’m the one who found it in the first place, remember? I told Noah myself. I said, and I quote, I think she’s gone and done something a lot worse than stow away."

"So say something."

"To who, her?" Kelvin’s voice climbed half an octave. "Diana. Think about this like a movie for one second. Think about every single story where the trusted teammate comes back from an unexplained absence with a suspiciously vague cover story and everyone just goes, oh, cool, family stuff, works for me. That’s not a plot. That’s a countdown timer. That’s Star Wars, that’s literally the setup to at least four different Star Wars subplots, someone vanishes, comes back a little too calm, a little too smiley, and forty minutes later they’re force-choking somebody in a hallway."

"Lila doesn’t force-choke people." Diana said exasperated.

"She telekinetically launches people through support beams, Diana, that’s basically the same energy."

Diana pinched the bridge of her nose. "Kelvin."

"I’m just saying the pattern is documented," Kelvin said, standing now, pacing, hands moving the way they always did when an idea had gotten too big to sit still with. "This is ancient. This is older than fiction, actually, this is just how betrayal works historically, I’ve read entire Chapters on this. You don’t get the dramatic reveal at the moment of departure, you get it later, disguised as normal behavior, everyone being so relieved the person’s back that nobody wants to be the jerk who asks the actual hard question."

"So we ask the hard question."

"Not yet," Kelvin said, stopping. "That’s the part I actually mean. Not confronting her right now, alone, off the cuff, in a hallway. That’s not fair to her either, if there’s a real explanation. She’s our friend, Diana. She’s Noah’s girlfriend. He trusts her completely, he said so himself, right there in the bay before we even left. If we go marching in and start interrogating her based on vibes and one lobby conversation, and it turns out there’s an actual reason—"

"The last person whose name started with L that we trusted," Diana said, cutting him off, "was Lyra. Also on our original squad. Also someone we vouched for. Also working for Arthur the entire time, feeding him everything about us while we treated her like family."

Kelvin’s mouth closed.

"So no," Diana said. "I’m not willing to just sit on this out of politeness. She had her chance, right there in the lobby, to tell us the truth. We asked her directly. She lied. Completely. Not a half-truth, not an evasive non-answer. A full, constructed lie, delivered smooth enough that if you and I didn’t already have the tracker data, we’d have believed every word of it."

Kelvin sighed, long and heavy, and dropped back onto his stool.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. You’re right. I hate that you’re right, but you’re right."

"So what do we do."

"We don’t do anything alone," Kelvin said. "We bring it to the others. Properly. A real conversation, not an ambush, not us cornering her in a hallway with accusations. I’ll ping Sophie, get something set up for later, when there’s actual time to sit down and go through this carefully."

He pulled up a quick message on his forearm display, thumbs moving fast.

"There," he said. "Sent."

He stood, stretching, some of the manic energy finally bleeding out of him.

"I need air," he said. "I’m gonna take a walk. Clear my head before I say something I regret to the actual person in question."

"I’m going to go beat up an overzealous faction member who wants to spar," Diana said, already heading for the door. "Feels appropriate."

Kelvin laughed, short and a little tired. "Try not to break anyone important."

"No promises."

They split off in opposite directions, and Kelvin made his way through the underwater facility’s winding corridors alone, thoughts still churning, until he reached the maintenance hatch that let out near the harbor’s edge, the one most faction members used when they wanted air without dealing with the main entrance’s traffic.

He climbed out onto the street, blinking against the sudden daylight, and nearly walked straight into someone standing a few feet away.

He stopped dead.

"By the gods," he said. "Is that Miss Brooks?"

A busty, striking woman stood there, tall, dark-haired, unmistakably still the same formidable presence that had once had an entire academy class sitting up straighter without her ever raising her voice.

He stopped dead.

"Pithon," she said, arms crossed, studying him with the same patient, assessing look she’d always given a student who’d clearly changed but hadn’t yet earned the right to be told so directly. "How are you."

"I’m, uh," Kelvin said. "Good. Great, actually. Statistically my life’s gotten measurably more chaotic since academy days, but productively chaotic, so I’m counting it as a net win." He blinked, still processing that she was standing here at all. "Wait. What are you doing here."

"I resigned my commission," Brooks said. "Full separation from the EDF. I’m here to join Eclipse."

Kelvin’s whole face lit up.

"You’re serious," he said, already grinning wide. "That’s incredible. That’s genuinely incredible, do you have any idea how much better this faction’s tactical training is about to get, I’ve been trying to get Noah to formalize a real curriculum for new recruits for MONTHS and he keeps saying we’ll get to it eventually, which is Noah for never—" He stopped, catching himself. "Wait until Noah gets back and hears this."

"Where is Noah," Brooks said.

Kelvin’s smile faltered slightly.

"That’s, uh." He rubbed the back of his neck. "That’s a bit of a longer story."

"I have time.

"Lucas is in cryo," Kelvin said. "On Raiju. Something happened out there, something involving One, he came back aged decades in a matter of hours, and the odds on him ever waking up are sitting at about fifty-fifty right now."

Brooks’s expression went very still.

"Grey," she said, quiet.

"Yeah," Kelvin said. "So Noah’s not here because the second he found out, he went after One himself. Alone. Told us basically nothing about a plan, just left."

Brooks exhaled slowly.

"Let me guess," she said. "That’s related to why you’re standing outside instead of inside working."

"Little bit," Kelvin admitted.

He shook his head, trying to reset, and looked at her properly again.

"Okay, separate issue," he said, pointing at her. "You knew you were planning to quit the EDF this whole time and Noah knew, and neither of you told me, and I only just found out because you’re standing on a street outside our secret facility entrance like it’s nothing."

"It wasn’t a secret," Brooks said. "He simply didn’t bring it up."

"He mentioned the alpha dragon," Kelvin said. "Mentioned the ice giants, the whole thing, gave me the entire play-by-play when he got back. Left out the part where his old homeroom teacher told him, presumably during a yoga session, that she was planning to follow him into Eclipse. That’s the actual headline of that entire trip and he buried it."

Brooks allowed herself a small, genuine smile.

"Are you upset I’m here," she said, "or upset you weren’t told sooner."

"Absolutely the second one," Kelvin said immediately. "I’m thrilled you’re here. This faction needed you before it knew it needed you." He gestured toward the hatch behind him. "Come on. Let’s get you inside, get you settled. There’s a bunch of recruits in there now, actual Eclipse members, who are going to lose their minds when they see you walk through the door."

"Lead the way, Pithon," Brooks said.