Chapter 204: Escort Duty
Verrick narrated Flicker’s assessment from beginning to end, which Jin had learned was for his benefit rather than the medical file.
"Walking. Reliable for short periods, no collapse." He set Flicker on the mat. "Out of the cradle for the full supervised session. I’m watching all of it, so get comfortable."
Flicker crossed the mat twice, overbalanced once near the end, and spread both wings to catch herself. Verrick made a note without commenting on the wings, which Jin appreciated more than a compliment.
"The thermal log is the part I care about." Verrick turned the display toward him. "She held her own regulation through the session, and her recovery after exertion has stayed consistent. That’s what I’ve been waiting for."
"So?"
"One controlled move. Cleared." He let Jin have that answer for a moment before continuing. "She is not healthy. She is not independent. Climate support stays. Observation schedule stays. Feeding plan stays, and I want the logs."
"How long?"
"Longer than you’d like." Verrick handed him the clearance. "She can’t regulate herself indefinitely. She can’t jump, glide, fly, train, or fight. She can cross a mat and catch herself. That’s genuinely excellent, and it isn’t the same as recovered."
"If the new room is wrong for her?"
"You call me and we fix the room. You do not move her twice. One move is what I cleared."
Jin asked about power stability, backup heat, ambient variation, and how far Flicker could safely move from the cradle. Verrick answered every question without teasing him.
The restricted requisition was approved later that day.
[Restricted Equipment Requisition — approved]
[Item: portable thermal regulator, cradle-compatible]
[Item: linked vital alarm]
[Category: registered beast medical stability]
[Status: issued equipment — academy property]
[Non-transferable. Non-convertible. Not applicable to personal debt.]
[Justification: maintenance of contracted beast condition; candidate readiness]
Meridian was not paying from kindness. It had a provisional defensive-support candidate approaching an Astral Tide, and that candidate had a fragile second beast whose condition could pull him away from training without warning. Issuing the equipment was cheaper than replacing him.
They’ll pay for the machine and not the debt.
Nine hundred Credits still sat against the hatchery, and Jin’s personal buffer remained where he had left it after the transfer home. The requisition changed neither.
He signed for the regulator and alarm and carried them back himself.
At least it’s the one kind of help I can’t accidentally send to Elsa.
Glitch treated the move as a convoy operation through contested territory.
The moment Jin lifted the transport cradle, Glitch planted himself directly in the doorway. Jin walked around him, whereupon Glitch took position on the cradle’s left flank and remained there for the entire journey.
He checked Flicker at every turn, lowering his head to the transparent panel for a long look before resuming his escort.
A student rounded a corner carrying an equipment case. Glitch angled his body between the case and the cradle without breaking stride, and the student flattened himself against the wall.
"He’s escorting," Jin said.
"Right."
The student waited until they had passed.
The lift produced a silent and comprehensive objection through the bond. It moved the cradle upward, failed to keep it perfectly level, and hid the corridor behind closed doors. Glitch disliked every part of the process.
A maintenance technician on the next landing noticed the dense Bronze beast watching him and chose another staircase.
Jin considered explaining that an academy corridor was not hostile territory. Nothing about Glitch suggested the explanation would help, so he carried the cradle onward under guard.
The new room was better in the ways that mattered and in none of the ways that would have embarrassed him. It had more space, a beast-safe floor that did not slide beneath Glitch’s claws, and a proper environmental unit instead of the unreliable circulation vent in the old block. The power ran through a stable line with maintained backup support, which was the feature Jin cared about most.
Glitch could lie down without occupying the doorway. That alone changed the room.
Jin placed the cradle on the low bench, installed the regulator, linked the alarm, and tested the equipment against the room’s environmental system. He checked the thresholds against Verrick’s instructions, disconnected the primary supply, and waited until the backup came online.
Only then did he open the cradle.
Flicker’s supervised period that evening took place on the floor beside it. She stood, considered the unfamiliar room, and began walking. The new surface made her overcorrect twice, but both times her wings spread deliberately and held until she recovered her balance.
Glitch lay at the edge of the mat with his chin on his forelegs. When he shifted closer to the door, Flicker turned and tried to follow.
She managed one committed step. Her entire small body went into it, wings half-spread as she landed and stopped. Then she sat down, breathing quickly but looking enormously pleased with herself.
Glitch raised his head. A wave of grave, put-upon responsibility came through the bond, as though moving away for perfectly reasonable reasons had somehow given him another duty.
He returned to his original position and lay beside her.
Flicker fell asleep on the mat soon afterward and did not wake when Jin lifted her into the cradle. He checked the readings, logged the step, and sat back against the bench.
The room was quiet, warm, and large enough for both beasts. It was the first room at Meridian that felt arranged around something other than where Jin intended to sleep.
He waited until the cradle had remained stable and the alarm had completed its check before opening the Engine.
[Cinderstorm Hawk Dungeon]
[Status: incomplete]
[Previous attempts: 1]
[Previous result: avatar defeated]
The earlier reconnaissance had ended almost immediately. Jin had sent Flicker’s avatar in alone to see the terrain, and the Cinderstorm Hawk had descended through the stone pillars fast enough to make the rest of the attempt theoretical.
He had taken one useful impression from the defeat.
It came out of that dive wide.
Jin deployed Flicker’s avatar again. The real Flicker remained asleep nearby inside the climate cradle, protected by an alarm and a backup power supply he had personally tested. Her digital body could enter the basin, die, and respawn without touching the bird on the bench.
Different bodies. Different consequences.
The basin was a bowl of black stone broken by standing and fallen pillars, with heat rising from the floor in visible distortions. The Hawk was already circling when Jin guided the avatar into the open, making the small, unsteady target impossible to ignore.
It dived.
Fire trailed from its wings as it tore between two pillars, dragging the air after it. Jin sent Flicker sideways behind the nearer column just before the strike. The avatar escaped the direct hit, but the force of the passing dive knocked her from her feet.
The Hawk pulled up, and Jin watched the recovery.
It could not turn tightly while carrying that speed through the pillars. The Hawk swept across the basin in a long, shallow arc before it could face Flicker again. During that turn, its path remained committed and predictable.
There.
The second dive killed the avatar. Flicker had no momentum left for another evasion, and the screen flashed white before going dark.
[Avatar Defeated]
Jin glanced toward the cradle. Flicker’s breathing remained even, and every reading on the alarm stayed stable.
He replayed both dives, comparing the entry angles and tracing the recovery path against the pillars. The second turn was tighter than the first, but neither was tight enough to avoid a beast already waiting near the end of the arc.
The pillars forced the Hawk’s entry. Its speed forced the exit. Slowing down might change either, but the Hawk had shown no interest in doing that.
Jin wrote the next attempt into the deployment plan. Flicker would bait the full-speed dive and break behind the near pillar. Glitch would wait near the recovery point rather than chase an aerial opponent he could never catch. When the Hawk committed to the wide turn, Glitch would strike.
He added Glitch’s avatar to the next deployment and closed the panel without launching it. The hour was late, Flicker’s avatar needed to respawn, and the next supervised feeding would arrive whether he slept or not.
Glitch had settled near the door, angled so that he could see the cradle. Jin checked Flicker’s readings once more, turned off the light, and went to bed with one defeated avatar, a working plan, and both of his beasts breathing in the same room.