“So that’s a crater corundum, huh. Looks… well, I don’t gotta say it.”

Noem shook his head as he dissolved the foam that kept all of his possessions in place. Little miss meteor was near the top, and she was strangely quiet. Both in Qi and in movement. “Nope. Not the kind of thing you’d expect to be worth millions.”

“Tens of millions. Hell, I’d say that’s a hundred-million credit chunk you’ve got there. Cut as nicely as it is.” Sylvie nodded in appreciation and bent down to feel at little miss meteor’s clean cut sides. “Mona’s anchor’s a lot nicer than this one, too. That’s gotta be your magnum opus, yeah?”

“Hell if I know.” Noem chuckled. He barely needed to sift through the pile to find the pack he’d prepared for Mona, whose straps dug into his hand as he picked it up. Sylvie lowered her anonymity and raised an eyebrow, but accepted the pack nonetheless. “Take good care of Mona for me.”

Sylvie hesitated. “You could come with us, Noem. I know the university don’t got anythin’ for you, but not-Mona seems like she’s really takin’ to your way of doin’ things.”

Noem waved off Sylvie’s offer. “You know I can’t go back. And don’t call her not-Mona. She didn’t ask for this to happen, so she doesn’t deserve any hatred either of us can muster.”

“Uh-huh.” Sylvie nodded slowly. “Noem, you lost your sister. Shouldn’t you hate Keira a little more?”

“Probably. Maybe it’s the goddess fucking with my emotions.” Noem shrugged and activated Ambidextrous for absolutely no reason. “I… I don’t fucking know, Sylvie. The second I saw Mona actually trying to learn, and getting excited with it… maybe my brain’s completely fucked. But I can’t bring myself to hate her. Hell, I can’t even bring myself to dislike her.”

His eyes met Sylvie’s, and she flinched away at the intensity she saw within. “She had every chance to take little miss meteor from me. The goddess even told her I was a monster, which I bet was to get her to feel more comfortable taking the gemstone from me, but she didn’t once look like she was going to steal from me. She even trusted me to make an anchor for her bond. For an apex bond!”

“I know, Noem.” Sylvie said gently. She slung Mona’s pack over her shoulder, then Punk appeared on top of it in a flash of electricity. “Good to see you didn’t stop workin’ even though you can’t get one of your own. Shoot me a message whenever you find out what those seven places meant, yeah?”

Noem slowly inhaled to calm himself. “Yeah, yeah. You already deleted the message and the message history?”

“Dead and gone.” Sylvie confirmed. She opened her interface and spun the hologram around so Noem could confirm for himself, but he didn’t need to. He wouldn’t have told her anything if he didn’t absolutely and utterly trust her.

Noem pushed her interface back at her with a shake of his head. She paused, then swiped it away. Her feet tapped impatiently on the dusty ground, as if she had something she wanted to say, but wasn’t sure how to say it. Or she could’ve been searching for something–anything–to say.

Eventually, she settled on pulling Noem into a hug. “Don’t disappear for another four years, ya hear?”

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“No promises.” Noem said seriously as he patted her on the back. “Don’t know where I’m going from here, but I’m gonna have to lay low when Ajiana finally reports little miss meteor stolen. And I’m gonna have to find somewhere to set up a new inventory, too, which is a huge pain in the ass…”

Noem shook his head and sighed. He broke the hug and held out a closed fist, which Sylvie bumped with her own. “No time for feeling sorry for myself. I got everything I was wishing for, but no happily ever after.”

“You gotta work at that for your entire life.” Sylvie said sagely. She rubbed two fingers over her scar, then waved them at Noem. “Any two fingers raised upwards for the signal next time. Hetti would recognize the four finger scoop if we used it again.”

“Two fingers.” Noem nodded and repeated her gesture. “Thanks for everything, Sylvie. Keep Mona safe.”

Sylvie saluted with two fingers and walked away. Signaling the end of four years of Noem’s life. He waited until she pushed off and left the smoke, then turned and stared down into the far reaches of the quarry. He couldn’t see anything through the smoke, but he could feel something deep in its recesses. Far, far deeper than the quarry had been a few months ago.

Little miss meteor bumped into his foot. He bent over and tucked her under one arm, then rustled through his possessions for whatever he could feasibly take with him.

“Well, little miss meteor, looks like it’s just the two of us now.” He said as he grabbed a vacuum-sealed backpack that had shrunk down to the size of a small melon. “You want to go find out what drew that apex here in the first place?”

----------------------------------------

Mona stretched her arms over her head with a little grunt of effort. She’d gotten used to being called that a lot faster than she’d expected, but that’s what happens when you’re the chosen one. Just like in all the stories she’d ever read. And now she even had a powerful sidekick, bond, whatever the right word for it was, at her side. All thanks to Noem.

She smiled and held out a finger for Hao to brush against. He’d lost most of his scary aura when he went into Noem’s anchor, and he hadn’t stopped praising its craftsmanship until she’d found the people from the university. They were… nice and all, but they talked about Noem like he was some kind of powerful monster.

Just like the goddess had. Mona frowned and spun on her heel to walk backwards, staring at the quarry as it grew further and further into the distance. Noem’s message had led her to these two, but something about them didn’t sit quite right with her. They were strong, sure, but compared to Noem, they were nothing.

A woman in an anonymity hood appeared next to her in a crack of lightning. Mona yelped in surprise and stumbled back, but after her brain let her process what she was seeing, she recognized the braid that peeked through the hood. And the backpack she carried.

“That’s my bag.” Mona said reluctantly. “Why do you have my bag? Shouldn’t Noem have my bag? Where’s Noem?”

The woman shrugged the bag off her shoulders and handed it to Mona. “Didn’t you get his message? It said I’d be the one with your bag.”

“Oh. Right.” Mona laughed brightly and shouldered her bag. It was heavy as heck, but after a quick press of the internal Qi circuit on the side of it, it was no heavier than a brick. “So Noem’s going to catch up with us, right?”

The woman didn’t answer. Mona blinked as a creeping feeling she really didn’t like welled up in her chest. “Noem’s coming with us, right miss silver?”

“Sylvie.” The woman said quietly. “Call me Sylvie.”

The feeling grew just a little stronger. Mona grabbed her arm and held it to keep it from shaking. She opened her interface and quickly typed out a message with her one free hand, then sent it off to Noem. Before she even had time to process, it came right back with a big red X over it that informed her it hadn’t reached its destination.

She snapped to Sylvie with tears in her eyes and short, painful breaths. “Noem’s okay, right? He’s going to come with me, right?”

Sylvie wouldn’t meet her gaze. Her face covered with anonymity stared straight ahead, but Mona could hear her grumbling something about someone being too right for their own good.

“He’s not coming, is he?” Mona squeaked.

“He isn’t.” Sylvie confirmed. “There’s… no good memories for him at the university. And some things are goin’ to catch up to him real soon that he don’t want to swallow you up in.” She paused for a second, then cleared her throat. “He told me that he’d message you once he was safe and sure he wasn’t being wiretapped.”

Mona wiped away the start tears and nodded. The pain in her chest hadn’t gone away in the slightest, and she couldn’t explain why she wanted Noem with her so badly. Her actual brothers had been horrible bullies, but Noem… he was everything she’d ever wanted in an older brother.

“Okay.” She said quietly, in the loudest tone of voice she could manage without it cracking. “He isn’t hurt, right?”

“Not physically.” Sylvie muttered. She put a hand on Mona’s shoulder and gently spun her so she was facing forward. “Mentally, though? He’s been in pain for a long, long time.”