“Noughtfire’s first,” said Reina, unfurling the red scroll. “His offer’s mostly the same. He'll take you as a Direct Disciple. You’ll keep your list of special incentives. You'll also have access to all of his Lightning Constellation stars and the training they give—but you won't be a Core Chosen anymore, since you're not exclusive to the Azure Flame Faction. You won't have a Chosen’s stipend either. The Faction would never agree to that, he said. That means you’ll need to make your own money.”

That sounded fine to Zane. He'd never had much trouble with money. In large part because of Reina, actually…

Speaking of—“If you need any just tell me, alright?” she said, taking his hand. Her brow was furrowed in a way he found quite cute. “It won’t be any trouble.”

He blinked at her. He doubted it’d be necessary, but—“Sure,” he said, and she smiled, and he felt the warmth of it all through his chest.

He wasn’t really used to being taken care of like this. …It was rather nice, actually.

“In return, you get to have dual membership,” said Reina. “Here's where things get interesting…”

She unfurled the silver letter. “The Barbarian Sage is willing to take you on as a Direct Disciple as well. This very rarely happens—actually, it's the only case of it this Chaos Cycle. In the few cases it’s happened in recorded history, it's always been to Masters in the same Faction…”

Zane could tell she was settling into a good mini-lecture—her eyes began to brighten, her posture went from lounging on him to upright. She held up a finger. “It's not for reasons you'd expect. You might think that a Faction’s techniques or Concepts would be jealously guarded. But the Great Factions mostly have cooperative relationships and friendly rivalries—they’ve always had to band together against the Monster Waves. But more than that, they share a breadth of Concepts—especially as they get into higher and higher Laws—so cooperation is a necessity. Studying abroad—the practice of having ‘guest disciples’— is very common. Most Disciples spend at least a tenth of their time in another Faction, which might have more expertise in a particular shared Concept.”

“Oh,” said Zane. “Cool.”

“Actually,” Reina continued. “There's even good precedent for Azure-Flame and Steelheart Conclave cross-study. They’ve got a high-powered portal linking the two star systems just for this purpose. The most popular Azure Flame discipline, Core Magma, shares many concepts with Steelheart’s Molten Steel—as you might imagine.”

“Makes sense,” said Zane.

She could tell he was paying a lot of attention, like he always did when she went on. He just didn’t have much to say. She had a lot to say. This tended to work out nicely.

“It’s just that most Elders are very stingy with who they accept as a disciple. And most disciples can’t handle more than one Path at a time. You would have to have a great aptitude for multiple elements, as well as an enormous comprehension speed.”

Here she looked proudly at him.

“Right. As for the rest of the Barbarian Sage’s offer—it’s also mostly the same, but there’s a few things he’s had to cut back on. You’ll still get four Godbeast body parts, but the rest you'll procure yourself. The Patriarch wouldn’t let the full set out if it doesn’t stay in the Faction, so to speak. And you also won’t get official Core Disciple stipend or status, since they require exclusivity too… All in all, though, I think you should be very satisfied with how things have turned out. I talked them into a lot.”

Reina thought they were also only willing to do this because Zane was a special case. Being #1 on that Rising Dragon Scroll, or whatever it was, seemed to mean a lot to them.

The Steelheart Patriarch was particularly resistant to it, but Reina threw in a massive discount to their elixir purchases good for the next century, and he caved.

Zane blinked at her in wonder. He often thought he’d be quite lost without her…this was something else, though.

“You are a miracle worker,” he informed her, and she flushed. She took it in stride.

“Here’s how things stand,” said Reina. “You’ll split your time between the Azure Flame Faction and the Steelheart Conclave. In the yearly Inter-Faction tournaments, as a compromise, you’ll represent neither—you’ll instead represent Earth. And in the case of severe breaches and Monster incursions, you’re sworn to defend both Factions.”

This sounded pretty fair to Zane.

“And you’ll also have freedom of movement privileges, meaning you’ll be able to teleport back every week if you like.”

Reina seemed particularly pleased about that one. “And they’ll each contribute a defensive array to protect Earth from possible invasion while you’re gone—along with a Minor God to come stand patrol in case of emergency. And… I believe that’s all.”

She looked up at him. “So? What do you think?”

He thought about it for a few seconds.

“Sounds good,” he said.

That was how it was decided.

***

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

It was quiet in the dead of night around Zane’s skyscraper home. The only sounds were the crickets, the occasional hooting coming from the distant golden apple orchards. A little crowd was huddled outside the fences, mostly Luminous Faction members drawn from all around the world, mostly silent—breathless. Even the television crew camped outside.

It was rumored Zane was making his decision tonight.

Then a wave of silver light flashed out of one of the middle floors, enveloping the building. Cries erupted

But just a few seconds later, a ring of phantom Stormfire blazed out, trailing into the distant skies…

Inside, Evan and Avery were watching the World Ranker Network’s broadcast.

After the silver light, Tall Baldy gloated for all of about three seconds. Then came the Stormfire, and Big Mustache bristled. “So he went with the Azure Flame after all!”

“But—but the silver came first!” said Baldy.

“It must have been a mistake. Unless—”

They looked at each other, then at the anchorman, who was equally baffled.

They didn’t get an answer until Zane came out the next morning. He was not a big fan of crowds these days, mostly because he had a lot of trouble getting places with them around. The World Ranker guards did a good job keeping a little zone clear.

One of the guards that morning, a frizzy-haired Archer girl with glasses, asked him about it all excited. He told her, and moved on, and didn’t think much of it.

Just a few hours later, over noodles with his friends—

“Exclusive—we’ve heard Zane’s signed a two-Faction deal!” said the anchorman. “I didn’t even know that was possible—I’m being told, though, it’s a one-of-a-kind deal—a one-in-a-Chaos-Cycle deal, even! A few other prominent World Rankers have since tried to get something similar… No such luck! How do you think he’s managed to secure such a deal?”

Up popped a split-screen of reporters.

“Well, it is Zane,” said Tyler.

The reporters all nodded, like this was more than enough as an explanation.

“More reports are coming in!” said Becca. “Breaking—Emeka Eze has decided too! He’s now a Chosen of the Deep Earth Hall, with a signing bonus of 10,000 Sky-grade stones to boot!”

On the bottom of the screen a ticker ran by, showing all the details. They included a Godbeast body part, something called a ‘resource moon,’ and more.

“Yuki the Sky Painter’s gone to Mount Thunderclast!”

A cherry blossom orchard, and the lacquered-red pagoda where he made his home. A puff of pink clouds came out of the square wood windows.

“And as for Jason Walker and D’Angelo Hall…”

An Empire State Building, painted pitch-black; the windows shone eerie purple. A witchy smoke trailed out the upper floors.

Then a tornado of shadows burst out, whipping overhead, darkening the sky, creeping into the distant horizons… Jason himself sat on the skyscraper’s edge, smiling lazily. His eyes flashed red. He gave a wave, like he could sense Zane’s gaze. A wave goodbye, maybe.

Zane blinked.

When he saw his brother now, he just got a pang of distaste—that was all. But he wasn’t moved to anger anymore, which he found rather interesting. He examined his chest for feelings, the way you might look under a rock.

…Nope. Nothing.

It was like a scab that scarred and faded—he never thought much about Jason anymore. He thought much more about his friends. It was nice to see.

***

He saw new additions made to their home Beacon as he strolled by that afternoon. They had things that looked like satellite dishes welded on, but fitted with giant crystals bobbing at the end. Special portal teleporters, Reina said. Quite expensive to build and to run. These would beam them deep into space. To wherever their Factions lay.

There was also an array set out on the ground scribed on Sky-grade Spirit Steel, thick with runes of immense power. Zane could feel their power sizzling over his skin as he got close, like some high-voltage electric fence. Supposedly they threw out a shield all over Earth. So if any Ascendant Monsters got close, they would be repelled. Even some Minor Gods would have trouble getting through, Reina said.

It was run by a chunker of a power cell, a cube of pure white wrapped in gold. Some very high-grade Spirit Stone. It was one of the protections the Steelheart Conclave sent over to secure Earth, as they promised.

***

Reina held one last conference of World Leaders at the Luminous Faction Town Hall just before their grace period expired. Before some of the other top World Rankers started going off-world, starting their new lives as Great Faction disciples. Before they said their goodbyes, they reaffirmed their commitments to Earth. Everyone was quite fond of the place. Somehow when the scale of everything widened, and aliens and Monsters loomed on the horizon, Earth felt like everyone’s hometown.

Zane shook hands with a few of the folks there he was friendly with. He exchanged some nods with Eze and shook hands with Cain. Vanessa leveled a cool gaze at him. “I’m the Eternal Ice Faction’s #1 Prospect this cycle,” she said. “They plan to invest a lot in me… I'll be much stronger when next we meet. I expect you’ll be too.”

He got the feeling she put him on some kind of pedestal. Like he was something to chase after—she sounded like she would be disappointed if he wasn’t much stronger.

Zane felt she didn’t need to worry on that front.

***

One by one, the strongest people on Earth all headed off. Most agreed to meet back up at the end of the year. For Evan and Avery and Reina, their departure date was tomorrow.

Zane made the most of one last night with Reina before they both headed off.

Level up!

Essence Level 340 -> 341

Level up!

Essence Level 341 -> 342

It had been quite some time since he’d Leveled twice in a row—it took a massive amount of essence to pull it off. But that night they managed it.

Next morning he lay there in his king bed, draped in silk sheets. Reina was sprawled all over him, breathing deeply, head on his chest, smiling exhausted but content. She wouldn’t wake for a while.

He watched the sun rise through floor-to-ceiling windows, washing the world in warmth… he wanted it to go on forever.

***

At last, it was time.

Reina gave a backpack to Evan, which was packed with cookies and elixirs, and patted him on the head. Evan sniffled. “I’m gonna miss you guys,” he cried.

He hugged Zane, then Reina, then Avery. And then waved, a little teary-eyed. And at last, marched bravely into the portal-beacon-thing, and was beamed away.

Zane watched him go, and felt something tighten in his chest.

Avery went next. “Bye! See you guys in like a month!” She grinned and waved and was gone.

Then it was just Reina and Zane. He knew it wouldn’t be long until they met back up again—Evan and Avery would come back monthly, but Reina would be back every weekend with him. And she still left him with a long-distance communication crystal. The thing in his chest was still tightening though. He frowned; he wondered if it was a medical issue.

She gave him a kiss. “I’ll see you soon,” she murmured, pressed up to him. He nodded.

She stepped with confidence into the beam, and was gone.

Then it was just him. Standing there blinking. Alone again, just like when he started this whole thing.

He waited, feeling strange.

Because he was headed to a special zone of the Azure Flame Faction—the Lightning Constellation, Noughtfire’s secret realm—he couldn’t go there directly. There was meant to be an escort coming to guide him there.

Sure enough, the portal-beam began to glow…