Chapter 408: 408. Here We Go! She’s Trying To Snitch One Me (I’ll Make Sure She Regret It)

Rex told him. He told it in the structure of a report, starting with his ambush to try stopping the Legion, but he didn’t tell Alexander that he killed them all, then the extraction of Apollo and the others, and finally Rex’s pursuit through the earthen passage, the recovery of the captives, and the recovery of the key.

He presented the information in a manner that was factually accurate regarding its individual components while strategically omitting certain details. He left out what he did in the canyon that caused the result and made it seem like the outcome was just due to the extraction ring not working and the Legion thinking their position was no longer good.

He delivered his report calmly and in an orderly fashion. Alexander listened with the professional attention of someone accustomed to receiving field reports. When Rex finished, Alexander looked at him for a long moment.

"The Legion just decided to leave," Alexander said. "This is going to be a bad thing for us in the future..."

"Once their leader lost the ring, they lost their operational leverage," Rex stated. "They’re not irrational; they made a calculated assessment."

Alexander’s gaze shifted from the canyon to Mireya and then back to Rex.

Mireya was about to say something, but she felt that this situation wasn’t appropriate for her to reveal the truth.

"Thank god you recovered the key then," he said. "That’s the most important thing there is so that we can end this war against the Underlayer before starting a new one."

"Yeah," Rex said, and he pulled out the key.

Alexander gazed at the key. The dimensional material captured the late afternoon light streaming through the canyon’s upper opening, reflecting it in the unique way that objects of considerable power often did.

He looked at it with the expression of someone who has dedicated significant professional effort to retrieving it and is now seeing it for the first time.

Then his expression changed. It developed a quality Rex recognized as the preamble to a request that the person making it suspects is unreasonable but has decided to make anyway.

"Rex," Alexander said. "Can I hold it?"

Rex looked at him.

"Not to keep it, but..." Alexander said quickly. "Just to hold it for you."

"Elizabeth hasn’t seen it yet, and she’s going to be insufferably calm about everything like she always is, and for once I want to be the one who gets to show her something before she already knows about it." He paused. "I am... aware this is not a reasonable request given the current circumstances."

"It’s also not the priority right now," Mireya said.

"I know that," Alexander said. "Well, I’m asking it anyway."

"You know... man to man..." he giggled. "I want to impress my fiance."

’What a fucking bum, but... heh... this is it... the plan to fucking steal her away from him starts from this key.’ Rex thought. ’It’s going to be a chain reaction for sure...’

Rex looked at Alexander for a moment with the patient attention of a person deciding whether something is useful. Then he held out the key.

Alexander took it with both hands, carefully, and looked at it with the specific satisfaction of a person who has been working toward a goal and is holding the physical evidence that the goal was accomplished.

He turned it once, examined the dimensional material’s surface, and then looked up with the expression of a person who has just confirmed a belief they were fairly confident in.

"She’s going to be so proud of this," he said. "Proud of all of us. Proud of the mission."

"She’ll be professional about it," Rex said.

"She will," Alexander agreed, "but underneath her professionalism, she will feel proud."

Mireya, who had been watching this exchange with the expression of someone recalibrating their understanding of the people around them after a difficult afternoon, said, "Can we please carry the three unconscious people to the carriages now?"

"Ah! Y-yes," Alexander said.

He was still holding the key with both hands and looking at it.

"Alexander," Mireya said.

"I’m helping," Alexander said, and he was already moving toward Veylor to take his weight, still holding the key in one hand.

...

The path from the canyon floor to the carriage point was steep in several sections and required careful footing with the weight of an unconscious person, and it took longer than the descent had taken because descending with three people who were not conscious and not contributing to the process of being moved required considerable coordination.

Rex carried Apollo. He could have used the telekinesis to make it easier, and he did use it at margins, the kind of continuous low-level support that looked from the outside like good carrying technique rather than active power use.

Apollo was heavy in the way that people who are genuinely strong tend to be heavy, which was more than their size suggested.

Mireya walked beside Rex for the first section of the climb, which she had not chosen so much as the path’s width had produced. After thirty meters of silence she said, "I’m going to tell them... they deserve the truth..."

Rex said nothing.

"When we get to the carriages," she said. "I’m going to tell Miss Elizabeth what happened in that canyon."

"You’ve mentioned that," Rex said.

"I’m telling you again so you know."

"I heard you the first two times," Rex said. "The answer hasn’t changed."

Mireya’s jaw was tight for the next twenty meters of climbing. Then she said, "You don’t think anyone will believe me."

"I think you believe what you saw," Rex said. "I think that’s a different question from whether what you say will produce the result you want."

Mireya didn’t answer that. She kept moving.

The afternoon sun was well past its peak by the time they cleared the canyon entrance and began the approach toward the carriage point. Elizabeth was visible from the approach, standing at the edge of the first carriage’s position with her arms crossed in a way that communicated waiting rather than distress, which meant she’d assessed the signal and concluded the situation was resolved rather than ongoing.

Aurelia, Aisella, Nerith, Talyra, Iris, and the others were with the carriages. Iris had found Veylor’s position before the group had even reached the upper passage, which meant she’d either tracked through the canyon on a secondary approach or had been in the process of doubling back when Alexander found them.

"Veylor!" Iris shouted.

She was the first person to get to Veylor when the group came into range, taking his weight from Alexander with the careful precision of someone who had been preparing for the specific task of this moment for several hours and intended to perform it correctly.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. She just checked his face and his pulse with her hands and then held still while she processed the confirmation.

"He’s going to be fine," Aisella said from behind her, gentle and direct. "The unconsciousness is from the ring’s suppression, not from injury."

"He’ll wake up in less than an hour."

"Same for Apollo," Rex said, settling Apollo against the carriage wall. "The ring’s extraction field suppresses the designated ability and knocks the person into a kind of enforced rest."

Talyra had come to Rex’s side immediately when the group reached the carriages, checking him with the particular attention of someone running a quick damage assessment before anything else.

"You’re not hurt after handling all of that on your own?" she said. It was a statement but had a question underneath it.

"Nope," Rex said. "They manage to run away." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Heh, I always knew you could do it." Talyra gives him a small pat on the back.

She looked at him for a moment, interpreting the expression on his face, then nodded once and stepped back without pushing further. That was one of her qualities.

Aisella, for her part, had come around to Rex’s other side with the same instinct, and her hand found his arm briefly, not holding, just a point of contact that said something and then let go.

Mireya observed this and then took a deep breath, preparing to speak the truth.

"There’s something important you all need to hear," she said.

The group turned toward her with varying degrees of attention. Elizabeth was already turning from Rex’s account.

Alexander had become still, with Veylor’s weight still half resting on him. Iris hadn’t looked up from Veylor’s face.

"In the canyon," Mireya said. "After Rex dealt with all the Legions..."

"What happened was not what he described."

Rex thought. ’Here we go... she’s going to get fucked for sure.’

Elizabeth looked at her. "In what way?"

"The Legion didn’t leave because the ring stopped working," Mireya said. "Rex went through the canyon alone and killed them... I mean it...! All of them are dead because of him!"

"The unnamed members, followed by Kael, Varek, and Seris. Then Kregg and Virella, who had already surrendered and given him everything he asked for."

The group was quiet.

Talyra looked at Rex. Rex was watching Mireya with the neutral attention of someone listening to a report.

"Mireya," Alexander said carefully, "you were on the ground when I got there."

"You said yourself you’d taken a hit from a lightning strike working."

"I know what I saw," Mireya said.

"You were in shock," Alexander said, not unkindly. "After a direct electrical discharge, perception can—"

"I wasn’t in shock," Mireya said. "I was on the ground because Kregg knocked me down, not because I was incapacitated!"

"I was fully conscious, and I saw everything that happened after that."

Elizabeth looked at Rex. "Rex."

"Mireya was on the ground when most of the engagement concluded," Rex said. "She was conscious for the end of it."

"That’s not a denial," Mireya said.

"I didn’t say it was," Rex said.