They slammed the main door to outside shut before wind could snatch them away once more, Kit quickly speeding away from the ark as she did. Ash was sitting at a small sniper port, but got up and welcomed Sunny back with a high five that the fugitive returned in kind.

“Good seeing you again.” Ash said. To balance, Kit got up and smacked Sunny in the back of the head, quickly returning to their seat and cursing under their breath as Sunny laughed it off.

“Goddamn idiot making us raid an AVARICE ARK OF ALL THINGS?!” They were shouting, still pulling the controls as they descended. “What did you even do in there?”

“Seized the means of production.” Sunny shot back, smiling at them. Ren looked back to see the Avarice ark a few hundred meters behind now, wondering what was happening since they left, if the workers had managed to really take over. He was jolted from his thoughts by Kit pulling hard to portside, narrowly avoiding a small gunship that passed them.

“Shit!” They screamed, righting them again as another ship flew past. Ren looked back to see the keel of the ark, still above and behind them suddenly burst with flames, and explosion rocking it before another followed. The gunships blasting the ark.

“Why are they shooting at the ark?!” Ren shouted, looking back as more missiles were fired into the keel.

“Son of a bitch told the truth.” Sunny said, arms crossed in front of him as he studied the ships looping around again. He approached the door they had just entered, swinging it open once more as the fierce winds rushed in to ransack the bridge.

“No! We just got you out, dammit!” Isshin was saying, running to stop him.

“Sunny!” Robin was limping up the stairs, still holding her gut where the sword had run through. Sunny smiled at her as she appraoched.

“Hey, captain. Got a few things to mop up then we can talk.” He said, winking back at her before making a jump straight off the deck.

“Holy shit! Ren said, rushing close as he dared to the door and staring as the gunship passed again, Sunny now grappled on and reeling himself in to the cockpit door. “Where’s his glider!? He’s going to die if he falls!”

“Told you he was batshit.” Ash said, watching as Sunny went to work with the plas-dagger, carving through the latch and making his way in. After a moment the pilot was forcefully thrown from the same door, now hurtling to the ground. The gunship pivoted, making a beeline after the second. A missile flew from the front, catching the second enemy ship and exploding on impact. Debris blasted out as Sunny’s ship flew through it. They saw him pull up beside them before leaving the console and grappling back over to the Pigeon.

“Labor camp didn’t do much to you, did it?” Ash said, clapping him on the back as he re-entered. Robin walked up to him and the two stood for a moment, staring into each other's eyes before Robin gave him a ferocious right hook straight to the jaw.

“That’s for getting yourself caught, asshole.” She said, turning back and walking down the stairs again. Poe headed up from the kitchen, laughing. while the smell of savory food wafted from the galley.

“Figured you would be hungry after all that. Food on those things is shit.” She said, raising a hand to Sunny for a quick handshake that Poe turned to a bear hug. Kit was barely paying attention to the reunion, instead punching commands into a screen and shouting into a microphone nearby.

“Paging Avarice ark? Y’all okay over there? This is The Pigeon.” Kit was broadcasting, trying desperately to see if the Ark was still there as more fire could be seen on the front keel. “Avarice, can you read? Is the ship stable?”

“Uh, Pidgy? Pigeon? Was that the name? Uh, we’re okay. Took some damage to the hull but nothing serious we can’t fix.” A nervous voice stammered back. “Um. I don’t really know… what happened? A lot of guards suddenly ran away and now we’re just kind of taking a break. Uh… corporate called.”

“Oh god… please. Please tell me you lied to them.” Kit said, putting two fingers up to each temple and rubbing their head. “Did you tell them workers had taken over the ark?”

“Oh, god no.” The worker gave a laugh back. “Told them everything was fine and quotas were currently exceeded.”

Kit couldn’t help but laugh in relief at this, giving a shout back over the speaker as the others watched, “Good to hear Ark. Y’all deserve a good rest. Pigeon out.”

They leaned back, leaning back in their chair with a heavy, relieved sigh.

Ash shook his head, motioning everyone to head down to the galley as Kit began setting coordinates again. Ren stayed where he was, originally staring at the controls of Kit’s terminal but now seeing far beyond that as he shut the world out. He kept replaying the moment in his head, finally remembering the warm gush of blood the guard had spat as Ren’s grapple punctured his neck. All this replayed as he sat, watching as Kit punched buttons and entered numbers, their comprehension beyond his current, shattered mind.

Kit finished setting coordinates, pulling back the throttle so the ship would keep a steady pace just over the Veil as they left the ark.

“How was your first prison break?” Kit asked, finally looking back at Ren. “Finally feel like a pirate?”

He heard their voice, but it felt far away, lost in the ringing chaos of the Main Line corridor. He felt his throat closing again, being constricted by the guard. Something was keeping him from breathing, he had to run.

“Oh, shit! Are you you alright? Ren?” Kit was beside him now on the Pigeon’s bridge, a small trash can in front of him filled with vomit and bile. Aeris stood beside him, squawking in concern. He took a moment to comprehend everything that must have happened… for a moment he had the briefest glimmer, a flash of hope, that the entire ark had been a dream and he was just waking up. He and Kit had fallen asleep stargazing, they hadn’t gone to the ark yet… he hadn’t murdered a man. “Hey, hey. You’re on the Pigeon. You’re with Kit and Aeris right now. Everyone is safe, we’re just above the Veil, and the ark is free. You’re safe. Promise.”

Ren looked at them as Aeris nuzzled her way under his neck, the feeling of her soft feathers and Kit’s voice bringing him back down to earth, or as close as he could get under the circumstances. He put a hand on the back of his neck, still praying it was all a bad dream but needing to know. He felt the dried blood in his hair and down his back, flaking off as his hands moved over it. He choked again, barely managing words that he himself didn’t know.

Kit pulled him in close, taking his hand from his own neck and holding it in theirs. They stoked his hair and rocked him, describing their surroundings for him to hear as he cried with eyes shut tight.

“Whatever happened, I’m here if you want to talk about it. I have flashbacks too. I know mine might not be the same but… I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Ren simply cried more.Tears overtaking him again in waves. One moment things were getting better, his anxieties fading as he felt Kit’s safe embrace. The next he was in fight or flight again, choking… choking…

The air grew thing and world grew louder. Ren was in the Main Line yet again, feeling the guard squeezing down-

BOOM!

Ren was thrown back to the present as the blast’s shockwave finally caught up, rocking the Pigeon as it sailed through the air. Kit ran to the controls, quickly taking their seat and pulling the Pigeon around hard just in time to see three more Strat ships fly through above them, the Avarice ark behind them slowly falling as explosions burst from the sides and hull.

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The others rushed back up the stairs, Ash splitting off and moving to his gunner seat. Kit stopped the Pigeon where it was, all of them gazing in horror at the ark as it began dipping.

“Well? Can’t we do something?!” Ren shouted, awake now to the understanding that millions of lives could be wiped out instantaneously. He wasn’t the only living person on earth anymore. It felt like he had suddenly hit some self awareness of his scale in the universe. He looked to the others, not understanding all the heavy stares and stone faces around him. Isshin and Sunny both stood, arms crossed as they watched. Robin stared as the ship fell, anger slowly creeping into her expression. “There were thousands of people on there!”

“Millions.” Sunny said, not taking his eyes away.

The ark began a chain reaction, molten sparks igniting further along the hull as the explosions spread inside. Ren saw some survivors make their way out to the top deck, only to be torn away by the high winds and hurled through the sky. He could see even more bodies coming down from the sides that were on fire, whether dead already or jumping so as not to burn to death… he wasn’t sure.

Another explosion rattled the Pigeon’s frame, this one coming right off the front bow nearest them, where the original shots had been fired. Ren remembered the ark safety maps from his memory, finally piecing together the initial targets. “Those were family quarters…”

“Motherfuckers…” Isshin said under his breath. The ark continued to fall, speeding up toward the Veil as it went. More pieces of the ark and its population rained down from it even faster. Ren was transfixed at the falling bodies, one particular a feminine figure wildly flailing her arms as if trying to fly. It would have been a funny sight in some show they watched back on the ark, just a comical gag. Instead the debris and bodies falling through the Veil had caught somethings attention.

A massive beast emerged from the sea of smog and lightning, one massive eye over a gaping maw, rows of long, narrow teeth, so translucent they almost weren’t visible except the glowing tips, he couldn’t tell if the skin was scales or feathers, but it was such a pasty white it stood out like a hole punched into the darkness of the Veil. The eye stared at the falling woman before pushing further up to meet her, teeth piercing through the woman as skin met tooth before closing its mouth on her and diving back into the Veil. The rest of it’s body curved through as it dove, long and serpentine, covered in something between feathers and scales that Ren couldn’t quite place. He realized his mouth was open and fists clenched. Tears were welling in his eyes again as he looked over to Kit, seeing rage and despair well in their eyes.

“Call my mom.” Ren muttered. “Robin, call my mom!”

“She’s not coming to pick you up, kid. You’re a criminal now.” Sunny said, anger and contempt in hids voice. “You’re a fucking adult, and you killed someone on there. You’re going to have to come to terms with that. You’re gonna have to come to terms with a lot of shit, because sitting and calling mommy at the end of the day isn’t going to get rid of the shit you’ve done.”

Ren gave him a cold stare back, wiping away tears and hardening his expression. “I’m calling to tell her how many people she killed.”

Sunny gave a wry smile, arms still crossed but now moving from Ren’s path. “I’m sorry. I doubted your resolve.”

Isshin looked at his brother, eyes wide for the first time since they had left the ship. He looked at Ren, nodding.

“Alright. Kit, dial it in.” Robin nodded to them. Kit turned and wiped their eyes, pushing buttons on the console and bringing up a screen before them. The Strat seal flashed for just a moment before Ren’s mother picked up.

“Oh my god, Ren! You’re alive. Oh my god… I thought…” He had never seen her this flustered before. Even when she went through her first election loss the most he had seen was her sigh when hearing the results. This emotion was foreign, not the same mother he knew. “Ren? Ren can you hear me?”

He stared at her on the screen, right into her eyes. He hoped she could feel his glare, hoped she could sense the amount of pure contempt he had for the woman that brought him into all of this. The weight of what she had actually said clicked in his mind.

“You knew.” He said quietly.

“Ren? Ren I can’t hear you. What did you say? Have they hurt you?” She was yelling now, going red in the face. “Give me back my son. If you’ve harmed a single hair on his head I swear to…”

“I’m not your fucking son! You KNEW! YOU KNEW!” He was shouting at her now, seeing her suddenly recede as if he was spitting hot acid right at her. “You knew that was going to happen with or without me there, didn’t you? You knew they were going to shoot it down?”

Her face hardened, suddenly putting on the mask, turning into the mother he was so used to. Now the diplomat came out, offering her best corporate apologist attitude she could. “Yes. I tried to have them delay if not call it off completely. I tried to speak with Hayward but he made the case to Avarice they could save extradition costs. I am sorry, Ren. I did try.”

“Bullshit!” He screamed at her, pointing outside at the still flaming ark now dipping halfway through the Veil and sinking rapidly. “There were millions of people on that ship, mom! You mean to tell me you couldn’t even be bothered to argue for them? You have to have more pull than that jackass. He tried to kill my friends!”

“Ren, do you understand how vital the Avarice company is to the Strat and other atmos layers?” She said, matter of factly, “They employ 90% of the Strat population in some way or another. That ark was home to most of thier manufacturing business as well as multiple servers for their systems. That ark was such a massive loss of revenue it may lead to a recession for the entire world up to the outer layers! Do you understand what that could mean? The people on that ark made the sacrifice to sustain the rest of the earth.”

“You know people live totally fine under the Veil without them?” He replied simply, monotone. “You’re more concerned about SOME FUCKING UNITS than the thousands of VERY REAL people that were just fucking MURDERED? Have you seen what happens there? Those people aren’t ‘working’ those people were actively dying! How the fuck are you just letting this happen? These people were drained, mom! For what? For them to be shot out of the sky by the same people they’ve slaved away supporting?”

She simply stared at him, still giving the stonefaced, straight shooting politician character. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Ren, but it couldn’t be helped. This was an order from Exo, and I’m powerless to stop those. It was inevitable.”

“But you just stood by and let those people die! You’re no better than them! You’re a goddamn monster, not my mother. Claarence is dead. Sorry for your loss.” He pushed over past Isshin and toward Kit, pushing the red button on the screen as his mother became flustered again. He didn’t let her get a full sentence before hanging up. As soon as the screen blinked out he smashed his fist into a nearby locker, denting it as he fell to his knees, screaming guttural, pained cries. Kit came over and put a hand on his back as he hunched over on his knees, hands on his head. He wanted to disappear, fold into himself until nothing was left, disappearing in a singularity of despair and anger.

“Your mom’s kind of a bitch.” Ash said, prompting Robin to give him a swift kick in the shin, making him double over in pain. Sunny and Isshin both gave him a swift smack to the back of his head to reinforce the point.

“She’s not my mom anymore.” He said, standing up. “I mean it. Clarence Calvert is dead. He died on that ship.”

“Sunny, Isshin, did you let Clarence Calvert die on that ship?” Robin said, looking at the twins.

“Saw his body with my own eyes.” Sunny said, looking over at Ren now.

“Wasn’t anything we could do. We tried.” Isshin gave back, giving a small nod to Ren.

“If Clarence Calvert died on that ship then who stepped onto mine?” Robin was now leveling her gaze at him, waiting to get the final answer he had been skirting around the past few days without ever addressing. Who was he?

“Ren. Just Ren, for now at least.” He said, breathing a sigh of something between frustration, exhaustion, and relief. “Whatever I am, it’s against those monsters.”

Robin extended a hand to him as Kit put a hand on his shoulder. He took Robin’s hand as she gave him a direct look in the eyes, affirming his resolve. They shook, now formally captain and crew for the first time. Robin looked around at the rest, smiling “Welcome aboard, Ren.”

Everyone let out a small cheer for Ren as he smiled in return, Kit hugging him close. Robin kept going, if her wound still hurt she made no sign of it, instead immediately giving out orders on what to do.

“We need to show people what happened here.” Kit said, motioning to the last falling ashes being tossed around by the wind. “After we get back under the Veil.”

“We can figure something out at my place.” Isshin said, looking over to Robin. Sunny smirked at him, laughing.

“Thought you were too good to be associated with pirates?” He said, teasing his brother. Isshin rolled his eyes, shaking his brothers nonsense off.

“Shut up, not like I can stay long, unless they just assume you cloned yourself. How far out are we, Kit?” Isshin looked to them now as Kit turned back to the console, pressing buttons and dials as they keeyed in a new course for The Pigeon.

“Few hours at least, we’ve basically done a circumnavigation of the globe by now but I’m going to bring us back down through the Veil. Sooner we’re under dark, the better. Y’all hold onto something.” They barely gave anyone time before grabbing the controls and thrusting them forward, sending the ship into a nosedive as they scrambled to stay upright. Ren falling back against one of the seats and hanging on while gravity did most of the work in their descent.

The Veil’s clouds passed by them quickly, the lightning flashing and crackling around them through the darkened, rolling abyss. Ren saw something go screaming by the window outside, thin, white body slithering through the Veil’s ocean of pollution, before they broke free into the lower atmosphere, darker as night with the sea underneath mirroring the Veil’s occasional lightning. Ren felt his heart return to his chest from the brief express ride it took to his throat.

“Could warn us better next time.” Ash said, sounding like he may throw up at any second. Meanwhile Isshin and Sunny were still standing stoically, like nothing had even happened. As they looked at him he shook his head, “Damn monsters. How do you do that?”

“Mags.” Isshin said.

“Power of will.” Sunny chimed.

“Shut the fuck up.” Isshin shot back to his brother, smacking the back of his head and walking back down the hall stairs into the galley. “I’m hungry and exhausted. Poe! What is there to make!?”

Isshin and Poe began squabbling back and forth in Japanese as the sound of pans and knives rang out. Soon the smell of food followed with it. Ren and the rest were still sitting silently on the bridge, nobody sayiing what was bothering them.

“So they’re more willing to kill people than lose profit.” Ren said, monotone as he comprehended everything that had transpired. Exhaustion had caught up, steamrolling over him then backing up and making another pass for good measure, . “Really giving that better tomorrow promise they advertise, aren’t they?”

“They don’t give a damn about tomorrow. It’s what they can ring out of people today.” Sunny’s voice was calm for the amount of hatred behind it. . Robin and Ash nodded along. “I’m going to bed, haven’t slept more than half an hour at once since they brought me to that place.”

“I’m seconding that.” Ash said as the two left the bridge, heading toward the cabin downstairs. He quipped at Sunny, “They do anything to fix your loud ass snoring?”

“See you tried to fix your dumb ass hair.” Sunny replied. The door shut behind them as they could still be heard shooting insults back and forth, old war buddies catching up after a long time. That was quickly cut off by Sunny shouting, “What the fuck happened to my bunk? Is this a NEST?!”

“They have a good idea. We could all use some rest.” Robin mentioned, holding her side as she got up and made her way out. As she reached the stairs she turned, looking Ren in the eyes. “Get some sleep. You’re part of the crew now, so we need to figure out what you can do.”

“Did say you wanted to tell stories.” Kit looked at him now, smiling, “We’ve got one hell of a story already.”

“Good, we’ll need someone to tell people about this. Avarice is already spinning it, I bet.” Robin turned and walked down to the galley, bringing up news bulletins on her brace and searching through as she entered the door to more shouting and pots clanging.