It wasn’t on the way, but Serenity visited Serenity Settlement on the way to Denver. His father had asked him to close the portal; apparently, they’d learned everything from it that they thought they could in a short period of time, and Lex no longer wanted to leave it open.

He said it was too big a risk, but the way he said it - in a formal letter - told Serenity that there was more to it. Serenity wouldn’t ask until he had a chance to talk to his father in person; if Lex had wanted to say anything, he would have called.

Serenity was grateful for the side trip; it gave him the chance to set up the Teleportation Beacon at Serenity Settlement. It turned out to be relatively simple; supposedly, all he had to do was set the ceramic plaque against a vertical surface near the Settlement Crystal. Serenity suspected it was intended to be used in a building, since most Settlement Crystals had buildings built around them, but Serenity Settlement’s Crystal was outside.

Serenity shrugged to himself and pressed it against a nearby housetree, one of the gigantic trees that supported all of the buildings in the Settlement. It was large enough that the bark was nearly flat anyway. As he watched, it seemed to settle itself into the bark as though he’d created a mount just for the plaque.

When he checked the Settlement Crystal, it said that there was a teleportation beacon available. Serenity took that to mean he’d completed the setup correctly.

The next step was attuning the Blank Keys; that was also supposed to be simple. Serenity pressed one of the magic rocks against the plaque and fed in some of his mana, concentrating on attuning the Key. It didn’t immediately take, so he pushed a little essence at it as well.

The rock shifted in his fingers, feeling like putty for a moment before flattening into a disc shape. One side was blank, while the other had the same symbol Serenity had on his chest. He stared at it for a moment, then sighed. No one from Earth would recognize it, but it was all too likely that Ita, Katya, and Raz would. It wouldn’t surprise Ita, but he’d have to explain it to Katya and Raz. At least the word “Friend” would make it easier. Hopefully.

Serenity went ahead and Attuned the rest of the keys. It wasn’t particularly costly.

That evening, he Attuned one to each of Echo and Doyle. It was clear whose was whose, since a different image appeared on the blank side for each of them. He’d give the others theirs on the flight to Denver; there would be time enough to explain then.

Maybe he could pass off the symbol as standing for Serenity Settlement, since it was the first true Settlement?

Naah. That would never work.

Handing over the tokens was anticlimactic after all the stress Serenity gave himself about it. Even Katya didn’t say more about it than “Huh. Don’t know when I’ll need it, but thanks.”

As far as Serenity could tell, she didn’t even look at the design before tucking it in her bag. He decided not to worry about it more; he had more important things to worry about. After all, he was going to be working with television crews during the battle. He’d probably have to give another interview. No, more than one. Plus they wouldn’t be nicely timeboxed into a half-hour; he’d be there for hours, if not days.

This was going to be terrible and that was even before the fighting started!

While Serenity was in Europe, the precise location of the blue centaurs’ invasion portal was determined: east of Denver, in the flatlands. It wasn’t where the Battle of Denver was fought the first time, but it turned out that it was far closer to the blue centaurs’ Invasion Portal.

Serenity thought back to those times. The Battle of Denver was almost two years after the Tutorial started, wasn’t it? Things were very different this time. He didn’t think they’d ever found where the centaurs came in from; instead, they’d fought off their attempt to take Denver itself. The fight was bloody enough that while individual centaurs were a problem, Denver was never again truly threatened before the world exploded.

Serenity didn’t think either Vengeance or the Final Reaper had ever found out where the centaurs came from, but perhaps he’d simply forgotten. He seemed to have forgotten a great deal of what the Final Reaper, in particular, went through.

Serenity was just as happy about that.

Azav, formerly BattleLord FlameHeart’s aide and now Serenity’s interface with the Sterath, met Serenity near the planned battlefield. “Lord.”

Azav crouched respectfully until Serenity waved at him to stand normally. Unlike Ita, Azav didn’t seem to be capable of comprehending that protocol wasn’t always necessary; he followed it even when told not to. “Lord, we are ready. I have been told that you will be staying back, to reinforce us only if the battle is otherwise lost?”

Serenity wasn’t sure if that was a mild push to get out in front where a proper Sterath war leader belonged or simply Azav trying to confirm his orders. He nodded. “Yes, that’s correct. I’ll be guarding some noncombatants who will be watching; I expect that a lot of my time will be spent trying to keep them from getting too close.”

Azav froze for a moment, then resumed his normal movement. Serenity wasn’t sure what that meant. “Noncombatants? What is that?”

Serenity was fairly confident he’d used the correct Sterath word; where was the problem? “People who aren’t involved in the fighting.”

Azav still looked puzzled. “Cowards?”

Why was he trying to explain this, again? Serenity wasn’t sure, but he’d give it one more try. “No, noncombatants. People who aren’t expected to fight.”

Azav nodded, like he knew he had it now. “Oh! Breeders and slaves. Must be valuable to guard them. Why did you call them people?”

Serenity blinked at Azav, then looked over at Ita. “Did I use the wrong word?”

Ita’s shoulders shook as she quietly suppressed laughter. “Haaah, no. That’s the right word, but he’s Kaelitha.”

“Was Kaelitha,” Serenity corrected her. “He’s my problem now.”

Ita grinned at Serenity for a moment, then seemed to realize he was serious. Her eyes went back and forth between Serenity to Azav before she sighed exaggeratedly and slumped forward, staring at the floor.

Serenity stared at her. Was she deliberately acting like a teenager?

Ita straightened back up and stood normally again. “Which means he’s my problem too. I’ll teach him the difference between a noncombatant and a slave.” She paused, then looked at Serenity doubtfully. “You won’t need me during the battle?”

After Serenity shook his head, indicating that he didn’t expect to, she continued. “I will also keep him back from the main assault force; we should not put in so much effort and then let him get himself killed. Even if he was Kaelitha.”

With Ita to keep Azav in line and make sure the Sterath would follow the instructions of their human commanders, Serenity felt far more comfortable. He still hadn’t had time to get to know Azav, but he knew Ita. She would do what it took to follow what he wanted.

Serenity headed over to the trailer where he was supposed to meet the news crews. It wasn’t a simple trailer; it was more like a towed RV or maybe a small mobile home, exactly the size of a standard truck trailer. It didn’t look military to Serenity’s eye, but that was probably because they hadn’t painted it in camo or anything; it was a flat, ugly gray instead. Temporary metal stairs led up to a surprisingly large door; Serenity had expected a single-width door, but it was a pair of doors instead.

There were several windows, but despite the time of day it would still have been dark inside without lights. With the lights on, it was a little strange looking; there was a couch, a small table, and a number of chairs. The only “kitchen” area seemed to be a tiny sink next to a fridge and microwave. There was only a curtain between the main area and a pair of bunkbeds, then a door that led to the bathroom.

If someone had told Serenity it was twenty years old, he’d have believed them; it looked about that age. It was clean but worn, though the chairs, couch, and bedding looked newer.

No one else was there yet, so Serenity settled down in a chair, leaned back, and started wandering around the internet. This time, he didn’t have a goal; he was simply wandering while he killed time. He didn’t want to get deeply into working on his magic and then have to drop it when someone walked into the room; that always left him cranky, especially if it happened repeatedly. It was better to simply wait until he had a nice long uninterrupted block of time.

It quickly turned into a nap.

Serenity woke to Raz’s whisper. “Wake up, both of you! There’s someone coming.”

“Wasn’t sleeping. Just resting my eyes.” A warm weight left Serenity’s arm and he realized that Rissa had been sleeping against him; however much she protested, he knew she’d actually been asleep.

He grinned, but didn’t contradict her. “Well, I was sleeping. Who’s-”

Serenity stopped as the door to the trailer opened.

“This is the news trailer; head on in. I’ll be back soon with the next group.”

Someone Serenity didn’t recognize appeared in the doorway. “I thought we were the first ones here; who are you with? I’m Jim Larkin, News Eight.” Jim bounded into the room, full of energy and reached out to shake Serenity’s hand.

Serenity smile, trying to look friendly instead of amused. “I’m not with a news channel; I’m your security. I’m Serenity.” He started introducing the others. Jim seemed surprised, especially when he noticed Raz.

While Serenity was introducing everyone, another large man entered, carrying a tripod and several bags, so Serenity started the introductions over. The man turned out to be the News Eight cameraman, and he was far less thrilled to be at a battle site than his news anchor.

Over the next three hours, six other news crews filtered in. Some had cameramen, while others carried their own camera or simply didn’t have one. Two of the crews were from newspapers, while one was radio news. They all seemed to have slightly different ideas of why they were there, but most of them seemed to think it was some variant of the embedded reporter tradition.

Serenity didn’t enlighten them that it was part of the deal his father had made to be allowed to deal with the blue centaurs; as far as he was concerned, that didn’t need to be reported. If it did, they would already know; Serenity could think of several ways to safely leak it, and if he could then certainly his father could. Which meant his father didn’t want it known.

Serenity hated thinking in circles like that, thinking about what other people should know or would have done if they wanted some other thing. Half the time he got it wrong, anyway; he hoped that his father wasn’t intending him to be the one to leak the information, but surely he knew his son well enough to know he had to be clear?