War raged through Matthew Albright's veins. It tore through his chest in ragged gasps, forced his eyes open wide, and demanded every scrap of attention he'd ever possessed.

His enemies pressed in on him from all sides, their claws reaching for him and past him for his children. Again and again they hurled themselves against his shield, and against the invisible barriers that his Calling projected around those he loved. Each blow felt like a punch from a prizefighter. Each attack transferred its energy against him and his shield. It felt like a rain of anvils was slamming against him, trying to force him to his knees, trying to force him to drop.

He roared and threw his weight into his shield, casting his defiance into the teeth of his enemy. And with his defiance came rage.

And with his rage came death.

The blade in his hand, placed there by his son, sang through the air, cleaving through a mantis's head like butter. He wrenched the shining steel free and clipped a Mosquito out of the air with the flat on the backswing, and then stomped forward and rammed his shield into another mantis, sending it staggering back.

The strength of Home flared through him like a wildfire, granting him the ability to stand against mantises twice his size and three times his mass. He would not drop. He would not fail. He was the shield of his family against the enemy, and he would not fall.

And suddenly there were no more enemies in front of him. He blinked, dazed, as the insectoid things all started to flee, running back towards the orboid fridge thing at the edge of the clearing. For a second the rage in his heart thought to make him follow, to pursue them, to hound them until they were all dead. He wanted them dead.

And as if in answer to prayer, Dinah blew the thing to hell.

The silence that filled the clearing was filled with shock and tension. It wasn't relief, it was the stunned silence that filled the world just after a bomb went off.

War bled out of Matt's veins, leaving a man behind, tired, sore, bleeding from a dozen different cuts he hadn't registered in the heat of the moment. He suddenly felt like he weighed a thousand pounds, and every cell in his body screamed for him to just collapse and sleep for a hundred years.

"Oh man," Lucas's stunned voice came from behind him. "Oh man. Oh man. Are we… Oh man, are we okay? Did we do it?"

"I think… I think so?" Olivia's voice sounded lost and small. Matt sucked in a breath and tried to turn to reassure them, but even that motion felt like a herculean task. He could only stand there, staring at the guts coating the ground in front of them.

Beside him, he heard Bel sucking in huge lungfulls of air. He managed to turn his head towards her, and saw his oldest daughter standing there, eyes wide, bleeding from cuts on her arms and chest. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Her hands trembled where they still had a white-knuckle grip on her grisly weapons. She was staring straight ahead at nothing.

He heard breaths come faster from his children, felt his own heart rate speeding up, felt the tears gathering in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, and a choked sob was the only thing that came out. What was he supposed to do now–

"TEN-HUT!"

Command Sergeant Alejandra Albright's voice reached down past the fear, past the exhaustion, past the confusion, grabbed him by the base of his spine, and yanked. He felt himself stiffen up, felt his mind snap free, at least a little, of the fog that had been rolling in. Around him he heard sharp gasps from his kids, and he saw Bel snap to attention like she'd been stung on her rump.

Allie marched forward, turned, and started barking out orders rapid-fire.

"Lucas! Check everyone for injuries, but do not heal them yet. Figure out who's worst hurt, and start with them. Minor cuts and bruises can wait. Anyone have broken bones?"

There was a poleaxed chorus of 'no's after a moment.

"Good. Then heal the biggest wounds first. Save the medical supplies unless we need them. They're finite, and it appears we can always earn more coins."

"Okay Mom!" Lucas darted forward, and Matt felt little hands running over his body looking for wounds.

"Olivia!" Allie's voice cracked again.

Olivia jerked to something resembling attention. "Y-yeah?"

"Talk to your owl friend. If I've claimed this clearing somehow, I want to know if we can fortify it. Can we magic up some walls? Sentries? Something else I can't think of right now?"

"R-right! Okay, yeah, I can do that!"

"Good. Bel, Dinah, you're with me as soon as Lucas has checked you over. We're going to sweep the clearing, make sure we didn't miss anything. Matty, stay with the others, cover them until we're back. Clear?"

He locked eyes with her, her brown eyes boring into his own. Her features were cast in iron, and her voice was the razor-sharp bark of command.

And just like that, he got it.

"Understood," he said, forcing life into his voice.

She was keeping them busy. She was forcing them to keep moving, keep thinking, despite the pure exhaustion each and every one of them must be feeling right now. The adrenaline they'd been chewing on for the last–Dear god, had it even been ten minutes? It felt like three years! But the adrenaline was gone now, leaving a great sucking hole in its place that, if they allowed it, would drain them all and leave them utterly helpless.

She's been here before, hasn't she?

Matt watched as his children fell to their tasks. Lucas' hands glowed gold again as he healed first Bel of the worst of her wounds–his eldest daughter had been in the thick of it, standing toe to toe with the Mantises, and had received a couple of nasty cuts that he hadn't noticed in the chaos of combat. But Luc was able to heal them closed, and Bel let out a soft noise of thanks as her brother moved on. She looked like death warmed over, but she straightened and squared her shoulders as Allie beckoned her forward. Together, the three women stalked off and started making a circuit of the clearing, weapons up and ready just in case more enemies lurked somewhere.

"Woah. Hold still dad," Lucas's voice said from his left. Matt blinked and looked down to see Lucas staring at–

Oh.

A piece of mantis claw was stuck in his side, just under his ribs. Funny, he didn't feel it at all.

"Um… That kinda looks bad. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." Matt winced and reached down to touch the wound. Huh. He still couldn't feel it. Maybe that was a function of his Calling or something? "Close your eyes for a moment."

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Lucas obeyed, and with a grunt and a quick motion Matt tugged the six-inch shard of claw out of his side. Blood started leaking from the wound immediately, but not as much as he would have expected.

"Okay," he said. Luc opened his eyes, and immediately started healing. Matt sighed as a wash of warmth spread through his body, and he felt his wounds sealing up.

"Thank you," he said, letting go of his shield–which disappeared–and using his now-free hand to pat his son on the head. "You did good, kiddo."

"I pee'd my pants," Lucas muttered, cheeks reddening. He glanced to the side to make sure Olivia hadn't heard his confession, but his sister was deep in scroll-reading mode, and didn't appear to be noticing anything.

"So did I," Matt said with a little laugh.

Luc's head jerked up and he blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Really." Matt wrinkled his nose as the smell–as all the smells–finally registered in his nose. "I'm glad I brought a change of clothes from the Dilligaf. Come on, let's go get changed while the women-folk are out murdering. You go first."

"You're not… Embarrassed?" Luc asked hesitantly.

"Why should I be? It's a sign of toughness."

Luc blinked. "Dad, are you high?"

"Probably, but that's not the point." Matt chuckled. "Listen, do you know why we empty our bladders before a fight?"

"Because we're afraid," Luc said, looking away.

"Nope, it's because we're tough."

Luc gave Matt a Look. "That's bull, Dad."

"No, true story. It's a flight-or-fight response. And when it's fight, your bladder empties because if you take a hit and your bladder is full, it could burst and flood your system with poison. So your body, when it's getting ready to fight, empties it out so that you're ready to fight better."

Matt grinned and ruffled his son's hair. "Peeing your pants doesn't mean you're a scaredy-cat, kiddo. It means you're a fighter, and you're getting ready to throw down hard."

Luc stared up at Matt for a long moment. Then his eyes narrowed, and a reluctant grin fought its way onto his face.

"That's such bull, dad," he said with a little laugh.

"Nope. Science." Matt said with a grin. "Look it up."

"How?"

"Oh that's right, no internet. I guess you're just going to have to take my word for it then, huh?"

Luc burst out laughing. The sound was like music to Matt's ears.

"Thanks Dad," his son said finally, getting the laughter back under control.

"Any time, kiddo." Matt held up his fist, which Lucas bumped. "Don't worry about it."

"I don't care if it means you're scared or tough or brainless or whatever," Olivia called from where she was going through another scroll. "I can still smell it. Will you please change already?"

"Go grab the spare clothes," Matt said with a smirk to Lucas. "We don't want to offend the women-folk."

"Right!" Luc dashed away as Matt turned back and started sending his eyes around the clearing. Nothing moved, save the flickers of motion he caught from Allie and Bel and Dinah circling around the clearing. He took in a deep breath and tried to re-center himself again. The weariness was still there, his mind was still running a mile a minute, but he could feel a center of calmness forming in his chest.

They'd survived. They'd fought an enemy that should have overwhelmed and killed them all, but by skill and grit and probably just a couple drops of miracle, they'd survived.

Part of him wondered if this was their new normal. Olivia had mentioned that the further inland they went, it was likely the stronger the monsters would get. Would they have to face things like this again? Would they have to face worse? The idea… Was not enticing.

But that was a concern for another day. For now, he put it aside and focused on the present. Focused on the clearing.

Paused.

That… was odd.

He hadn't really noticed it in the heat of the battle, but now that his head was clear and he wasn't distracted, he realized he could almost feel the clearing. There was a subtle note of… something in the air. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. In fact it felt quite calm and welcoming now that he thought about it.

What had Olivia said? He drew strength from his home?

Well. Something to be investigated later. Right now he started making his way over to where Olivia was sitting cross-legged on the ground, reading her way through another one of the scrolls her new owl friend thing had handed to her. Both of them glanced up as he approached, and both of them immediately went back to the scroll without so much as a 'hello'.

Well. Couldn't have that, could he?

"Hey Shortstop," he said gently, stopping next to her. "Find anything useful?"

"All kinds of things. But none of them really useful right now," she said, tossing the scroll away and grabbing the next one that appeared in the owl's talon. "There's a lot of good stuff in here, but like, it's all disorganized. And these stupid translation errors aren't helping either. And like, it would help if I knew exactly what I was looking for. I'm doing a lot of this on instinct, and it's kinda like searching for a needle in a haystack, except you're wearing big gloves and there are a bunch of things that sure look like needles in there but aren't but still need to be grabbed and looked at to make sure."

Matt frowned. "That sounds like an indexing problem. Where are you looking for info?"

"Classes, callings, professions, all that stuff." Olivia said distractedly, tossing another scroll away. "Your Calling in particular. That 'Warden' thing sounds like it's tailor-made for defense, but it all depends on having a claimed territory and defenses already in place, so like, that's stupid. I'm trying 'construction', but that's just getting me a bunch of dumb professions… Rrrg! So frustrating!"

"Have you checked the Consul thing?" Matt asked. "I think mine has something to do with building, if I remember my latin correctly."

Olivia froze, eyes wide open and staring without seeing at the scroll in front of her. Then she closed them and sucked in a breath through her nose.

"Why didn't you have that idea," she asked the owl through her teeth.

"Who?" said the owl, giving what Matt swore was a shrug.

"Who's your friend?" he asked as Olivia grabbed another scroll.

"I needed a way to get system messages fast," she said, not looking up as she scanned the text in front of her. "He was close, so I grabbed him."

"What's his name?" Matt asked, and it was testament to Olivia's distractedness that she must have missed the leading note in his voice.

"Dunno. Don't think he has one." Olivia kept reading. "Oh hey, this might be something…"

"I think we should give him a name then, don't you?" Matt asked, starting to grin.

Olivia blinked, then her eyes snapped up to lock on him. "Dad. Don't."

"I'm thinking…" he said, drawing the last word out as he tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"I swear to god, Dad, don't you dare."

"Hoolio Egglaysias," Matt said with a triumphant grin.

"Awwwwwgh!" Olivia groaned and threw a rock at his head, which he dodged with a laugh. "Dad, that's awful."

"I know," he said, grinning. Then his smile turned soft as he saw the tension fade a little from Olivia's shoulders. He reached down and laid his hand on her head, rubbing gently.

"Thanks Dad," she whispered, a little smile of her own forming.

"Any time," he said, meaning it. "We're going to get through this."

"I know. I just…" her eyes flicked to the gore still strewn around the clearing, the remains of the bug-monsters already starting to decompile into slurry. "I need to work, okay? If I stop and think about it, I'm gonna fly to pieces, and I can't do that right now."

"Right. That can come later, though," he said, patting her head again. "I think we're all gonna need some 'go to pieces' time. Soon."

"Yeah," she nodded and sucked in a breath. "I'm okay now, though. I need to figure out what comes next. We can't do that again, y'know?"

Matt knew exactly what she meant. He turned away and looked over the battlefield, feeling the aches and pains from the previous twenty minutes starting to make themselves known with interest.

No. They definitely couldn't go through that again.

"Does it say anything in there about walls?" he asked, turning back to her.

Olivia blinked, then wrinkled her nose. "I'll look, but first you gotta go change your pants. You smell like the monkey cage at the zoo."

"Deal," Matt said, and turned to go see where Luc was with those spare clothes.

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