Before Callie left for the Necromedes, we all had a meeting about what exactly we might need. To my surprise. Benny actually shot down my plan, or at least advised an adjustment.

“Look. I get what you're going for.” Said my best friend. “But more than gear, what we really need is intel. Except we’ve tried reaching out, and all the means of communications we can find are jammed.”

It took me a second to catch up, given how keyed up I still was, but I finally caught on. “Shit. We have no eyes on pretty much anything that's happening.” I turned to my wife. “Any chance your range with Abyssal Infiltration covers the whole planet?”

“Not even close.” She said bluntly. “I could maybe get eyes on Valen from here if I pushed my power to work in a straight line, and even that's up in the air.”

I glanced at Benny. “You want her to stay up there.” I said eventually. “Act as our eye in the sky. I'm guessing you want to use the bond to bypass any communication blocks?”

The bond was…esoteric. Even in the faction games I was able to communicate with Callie on some level, and having just ranked up it was a good bet it would work even more smoothly. Actually, I was fine with the idea, but I was betting-

“The fuck you say!” Callie spat. “I'm not going up to space to eat bon bons on a high ranking space ship while my friends and family fight for their lives on an occupied planet!”

“Yes. You are.” Came Amelia's voice. We all turned to see the expectant mother looking at her oldest child grimly. “Because despite how much it sucks to be useless, you'll do what you need to do to end this nonsense.”

Callie looked pained. “Mom. I can't just-”

“Yes you damn well can!” She snapped back. “I don't care about your pride or your reputation. I care that my daughter is safe and that it gives us the best chance of getting out of this alive. So you get over whatever martyr complex is telling you that you need to stick around and you go do the damned job, Calliope.”

I'd never heard Amelia sound so harsh before, but her eyes were hard and determined.

It was easy to forget when I was talking to her how much she'd been through. She'd been the wife of a unity branch guild master, and was an Ascendant now in her own right. She didn't seem scared or panicky at all. Hell, she was more stable than I was right now.

“I…” Callie looked pained. “I guess you're right.” She looked miserable. “If this is the best way to keep everyone safe I'll do it.

I could feel her frustration and rage through the bond, but even without it I’d have known how upset she was. Her face was tight and her jaw was locked. I stepped forward to wrap my arms around her. “Hey.” I said quietly in her ear. “We’re lucky we have this kind of option. An eye in the sky with a direct line to my brain? We’ll run circles around the idiots with your intel.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Ok. Everyone should be safe here anyway. No one beyond E-rank is on this planet, so any wishes should be more than up to holding them off.”

Unless they had more divine toys to play with, but I was pretty sure if they were sporting anything like that they’d have used it. I couldn’t imagine those cloaks were easy to make, even for a god. This plan was just a basement level terror op, I doubted they had THAT much support from their gods.

Callie hugged her mom, said goodbye to Cass, gave me a kiss, then closed her eyes and focused. There was a flash from her wrist, and when it faded she was gone. The starpluck bangle had worked. I grinned smugly. No way that asshole Madigan’s space barriers would interfere with something that powerful.

“Can you hear me?” Callie’s voice asked in my head. “Because if not I’m coming RIGHT back to help.”

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I laughed, replying mentally. “I’m here, love. Sorry, you’re stuck on overwatch. Find my mom and Zeke immediately, see what they have to say.” We might not have them on hand, but we could still benefit from their wisdom.

“They found me.” She said in amusement. “In like…fifteen seconds. Your mom is freaking out and hugging me. Zeke looks like he wants to punt someone into the sun. I’m telling them all about what’s happening. Hold on.” I felt a flex of the bond and Piece of Mind triggered for her. Sorry, that was really bugging me. Talking out loud and in our brains at the same time is weirdly complicated.”

I rolled my eyes. “I mean, I’m glad you figured that out, but what are they saying. The bond ranked up, can we like…share senses now?”

There was another flex, and before I could blink, I was looking at my sobbing mother. “Are my babies ok?” She was asking frantically. “How about your mom? And Bethany? Did everyone get out of there alive?”

“We’re fine mom.” I answered reflexively. Her eyes widened, and I realized that my own voice had responded. “Oh, shit.” I said in confusion. “That’s super weird. I can feel Callie seeing through my eyes. She’s not talking to anyone but I think she could.” I shook my head, clearing it of distractions. “Sorry, focusing. Anyway, we need you to help Callie run surveillance. I have the brief beginnings of a plan, but it’ll be rough.”

Shockingly, my mom adjusted to my voice coming out of my wife’s mouth quicker than I would have. “Intel is always a good start. Does your plan involve that cold storage you found?”

“Yes.” I said with a sigh. “But those bastards are probably still surrounding Wintervale. We need more than eight or nine E-rankers. We need an army. Which means we need to do some recruiting.”

She nodded. “You need information on the WCP and guild branches in the various cities so you can pad your forces. We can do that from up here. We can even help you plan your moves.” Her eyes hardened. “As soon as this labyrinth is down we’ll come to help. Do you know where the creator is?”

“Nope. He’s an old enemy of Abel’s. Or friend. Or something? It was hard to tell, he’s VERY insane.” I gritted my teeth. “But I don’t know where he went when we bailed, and chances are good they’ll hide him. The only upside is I don’t THINK they know about the cold storage. There’s no way any of our people told them. We all signed a contract, and I don’t think any of his copies were present anyway. We have time.”

“Agreed.” She said slowly. “Which is good, because most towns don’t have many E-rankers, if any at all. You’ll need to work your way up to retaking Rajak. Luckily I know most of the Unity and WCP leadership have shelters and backup plans. Even with numbers, they aren’t going to be taking this planet as easily as they might think.”

Her voice was proud, and honestly, I was right there with her. It was nice to think of Callus resisting. Certainly nicer than considering all the people who were probably already dying.

She escorted Callie to one of the observation decks, having the Necromedes lock onto the planet and scan it for life signs. A holographic image of Callus appeared in the center of the room, and she circled it, observing the feedback. “Ok. There are…a lot of them. A thousand or so. I do not recommend a straight fight. You’re all good, but quantity is a quality all its own.”

“That’s what the intel is for.” I assured her. “We aren’t going to fight a force of people two entire orders of magnitude larger than we are. We’re going to recruit all the E-rankers on the planet and fight a force ONE order of magnitude larger. And win.” My mother’s face twisted in a parody of a smile, but it was obvious she couldn’t manage real amusement. I pulled her into a tighter hug. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll be fine. We have Bethy and Gabe and Abel and even me. We’re kind of monsters, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Snorting, she gave me a tight squeeze. “I suppose you’re all decent. But don’t let it go to your head. Be careful. We don’t know how many E-rankers survived. My forces in Wintervale are probably mostly gone, but several of my powerful E-rankers had escape measures in place as a matter of course.”

“They’d probably have gone to ground.” I said with a grimace. “The tundra is a pain in the ass to track in. I can send Bethy. She’s tough enough to escape even if she gets noticed. Wish we had some more people with transportation based abilities. Maybe we can find the teleporter who ran the scavenger hunt. He might be useful.” I didn’t remember his name, but I was sure someone would. “Oh, and keep an eye on my wife for me, will you. She’s not happy about being left out, and honestly I wish I had her with me. We’re stronger together, but her position up there gives us a huge strategic advantage.”

“We’ve got her, kid.” Said Zeke solemnly. “You just focus on where you’re going to be recruiting. Branch managers and guild masters will be E-rank in most relatively large cities. Stella can help. She knows what’s what. Oh, and kid…”

“I’ve got her back.” I said before he could finish. “Chelsea too. And Gabe. We’ll all watch out for each other.”

“Good boy.” Said my mom tearfully. “Oh…and tell your sister not to bother hiding her abilities anymore.” Her face hardened. “Even if my mother doesn’t take care of Black Sorrow, we can worry about it later. Make those sons of bitches sorry they ever tried to lay a hand on my kids.”

I grinned, the feeling odd using Callie’s face. “Oh she’s going to love that. Zeke, any advice on combining those two powers?”

“Yeah.” He said wryly. “Don’t do it in an enclosed space. Corruption and purification are diametrically opposed. Enshrining Darkness doesn’t play nice, even for a corruption Skill. I have no idea where Black Sorrow came up with that shit. It’s like…anti reality toxic waste. Make sure Chelsea knows the ratio won’t be one to one. If she mixes them it’ll be more like ten parts flame to one part darkness. Otherwise the flame will be consumed, they are NOT on the same level.”

I hadn’t noticed him doing that back during his fight, but it was possible he’d just used really thin darkness to disguise the imbalance. Whatever he’d done, he was the expert, and I promised to pass it on. Telling my family I loved them I slipped back to my own body.

“Take care of my wife?” Callie’s voice rang in my head waspishly. “Who’s going to take care of YOU when I get my hands on your condescending ass?”

I smiled softly. “You will, same as always. Love you too honey. Don’t worry too much. I’ll be careful down here. Just give me the details I need and I promise I’ll get us all out of this in one piece.”

There was a long pause. “You’d better. If you die down there I’m going to kill you. Be safe, Shane. I love you.” The bond relaxed, still there but not so actively in use, and I turned back to go find Stella. She had info we needed, and I couldn’t wait to get at it. The faster we got some more E-rankers to fill out our ranks, the faster this would be over, and my wife and I could go on our honeymoon. Hopefully without any tragedy marring our happy times.