“Aunt Ina’s. She’ll pick me up at the station, I called her when I got to the Metro.” Mandy didn’t even look up from her phone as she spoke.

“Why don’t you call her again now? She’s probably worried about you.” Mandy looked up at Serenity. She seemed puzzled, so Serenity continued. “It’s been hours, she won’t know why you weren’t there when she expected you.”

Mandy shrugged but called her aunt.

Serenity checked out the rest of the subway car. Roy was tapping at his phone. Raz was watching the board that displayed the next station. The rest of the people on board seemed to be watching Raz.

When Mandy got off the subway car, it wasn’t the station Serenity had intended to use to change lines, but it would work; the blue and orange lines ran together in this section of the Metro. Serenity followed her, and saw that both Raz and Roy followed him.

Mandy headed up a set of stairs, then out to another platform, where she sat down to wait. “You don’t have to follow me. Aunt Ina said she’d meet me here.”

“It’s fine,” Serenity said. “I’ll be more comfortable knowing you’re with family.” He knew it was probably fine to simply let Mandy go; she seemed to know her way around and had clearly been on the Metro on her own before. Serenity couldn’t remember if he’d traveled on his own at her age, but it seemed likely. Even so, he wanted to make sure.

As he sat down, Serenity stretched his arms and his neck. He couldn’t really get at the worst cramps; they were in his wings, and he couldn’t spread them here without disturbing the illusion from his cloak. Moving his shoulders helped some.

While he waited, Serenity tried to reach out to the different electronic devices around him. All he managed was to be able to limit the noise he heard to coming primarily from one device; others would fade into the background. He could only manage even that much with concentration; if he stopped working at it, the others would surge back to his attention.

It was annoying, and even more annoying was the fact that he still hadn’t managed to get anything other than noise no matter what he concentrated on.

It was about half an hour before a woman stepped off a train, looked around, then hurried over to Mandy and swept her up in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re safe! You’ll have to tell me all about it while we make cookies.”

“Cookies?” Mandy’s voice showed how much she looked forward to that. “Ooh, can we do the ones with sprinkles?”

Ina didn’t seem to notice them, and Serenity didn’t see any reason to bring her attention. Mandy was with family.

Serenity chuckled as he turned his attention away from Mandy. She was so young.

“Roy, can you lead us to…” Serenity trailed off as he saw that Roy had fallen asleep while they waited. He’d have to either wake Roy up or figure out how to get to the orange line without him. That should be quite possible, but if Roy really was reporting in, it was probably better not to lose him. Serenity didn’t want to scare anyone into trying to hunt down a couple of possible invaders in the middle of the nation’s capitol. He could imagine that going sideways quickly. Serenity reached out and shook Roy’s shoulder.

“Huh wha?” Roy shook himself and focused blearily on Serenity. “Oh, uh, did the girl get picked up?”

“Yeah, her aunt met her here. Can you lead us to the orange line, headed west?” Serenity looked around. He could see where the signs were, but he couldn’t read any of them. He didn’t want to explain that if he didn’t have to. Maybe it was just as well that Roy wasn’t really awake.

“Orange? Yeah.” Roy looked around, then led them back down the stairs they’d followed Mandy up. “It’s the same platform we came in on, we just have to catch an orange train instead of a blue one. You really are headed for Arlington, then?”

“My folks still live there. I need to know what’s happened while I’ve been gone so I can figure out what to do next.” Serenity was sure they were both deeply involved in whatever was happening. He hadn’t paid too much attention the previous time; he’d been too angry about Rissa’s death.

He hoped Rissa was still safe. He missed her every night, but there hadn’t been anything he could do until he got back to Earth.

Roy touched Serenity on the shoulder to get his attention, then led the two of them into a half-full subway car. It was clearly later in the day; a lot of the people Serenity saw were dressed as though they’d been at work.

Serenity tried to listen, but the hum of the car’s electronics was more interesting than the discussion of the latest episode of Stars and Daggers. Serenity had never seen the point in the show; it was an attempt to do a high fantasy comedy, but it seemed to be about evenly split between dark, serious drama and silly comedy and the mix didn’t work for him.

It was hopeful to think that new episodes of a TV show were more interesting than current world news. Maybe things weren’t all that bad yet.

Serenity went back to trying to listen to the electronics around him. Maybe he’d have more success if all he tried to do was isolate what was around him? If he could find electronics, that might be useful. It wouldn’t be as useful as being able to see through a camera, but at this point he’d take what he could get.

There weren’t any further complications on the trip home. Serenity was able to lead the way from the Metro station to his parents’ house; it was only a few blocks away, after all. As they came up on the house, Serenity saw two cars in the driveway. That was a little odd; he’d expected his folks to be at work, and even when they were home, they usually parked in the garage.

Serenity rang the doorbell. A minute or so later, the door opened and his father enveloped him in a completely unexpected bearhug.

“Dad?” Serenity hugged his father back. There was something about his father’s scent that seemed different, somehow, but Serenity wasn’t sure what it was. It reminded him of all the people he’d found in the later Tutorials with nonhuman heritages; was his own family less human than he’d always assumed?

Why were so many of Earth’s people not entirely human? He’d always thought of Earth as a human planet. Was that one of the reasons the Great Factions had attacked?

Serenity’s father squeezed him tighter for a moment, then let go. “Your mother’s not home yet, but she’s on her way.” Lex Rothmer turned to the two behind Serenity. “You two can come in too - oh, you must be Roy. Would you like to come in, or would you like a lift home? I heard you were on your way off shift when you found these two.”

“Home.” Roy said. “I need to sleep. Don’t need a lift, though, I can just take the Metro.” He yawned; he’d been doing that often on the short walk. “You don’t need me with-” He stopped and looked at Raz.

Lex shook his head. “It’s covered.” He turned and looked into the house. “Miller! Need you to give Roy a lift home. Come back here when you’re done, I doubt we’ll be done here before then.”

Serenity felt strange out of the armor; he’d worn it almost continually for what felt like years, though he knew that much of that was time in the Tutorial. Still, he knew it would make others more comfortable if he wasn’t dressed to fight, and while wearing an illusion would help, it wasn’t the same.

Serenity had sacrificed one of his old shirts to the cause. He’d made a pair of slices in the back from the shoulder blades down so that it could go over his wings. There was no point in hiding the wings now; he wasn’t surrounded by people he was trying to keep from panicking. Instead, he was about to be surrounded by people who needed to understand how different the new world was.

Or so Serenity told himself. He had to admit that part of the lure of freeing his wings was simply how uncomfortable they’d been. Even stretching them simply wasn’t the same.

There were four other people sitting around the table in his father’s study when Serenity and Raz were ushered into the room. Serenity’s father didn’t introduce them; it seemed like he’d forgotten that Serenity might not know who they were.

It was a bad habit Serenity remembered from more than one past event.

Two of them were in uniform, while the other two weren’t. A quick look at the two in uniform told him they were generals - a two-star and a three-star. Serenity was sure that the two in civilian clothing were equally important; they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.

There was also a videoconference screen at the end of the room. Serenity assumed it was running, because he could hear sounds coming from a speaker that seemed next to it. It gave off a little of the technology noise he was starting to recognize, but less than the computer next to it or even the cell phones everyone other than Raz and him were carrying.

Someone Serenity couldn’t see was the next to speak. “Everyone, this is Serenity and this is Raz. Raz is from another planet, while I’m sure you’ve all heard of Serenity. They’re here to answer whatever questions you have that we haven’t managed to get answers to yet. This is the first chance we’ve had with a direct source, so don’t be afraid to ask all the weird stuff you haven’t been able to figure out. As a reminder, this is an unclassified line. Classified questions will be handled in a separate forum. Additionally, we are recording the call so we won’t lose anything that’s said here. The recording will be available afterwards.”

There was a short silence while everyone gathered their thoughts. Serenity expected the first question to be something about the Tutorial or the invasions or maybe dungeons. It was probably still too early for major threats outside of dungeons other than invaders, but that was possible too.

The first question was none of those things.

“So, you’re from Earth, right? Are you human?”

Serenity didn’t catch who asked the question; it was probably someone on the video conference screen. He had to come up with a way to handle the question; fortunately, it was one he’d spent a lot of time thinking about.

“What gave it away, the eyes or the wings? I bet it was the wings.” Serenity winked ostentatiously. “I am from Earth - I was born here in Arlington. I used to be human, as human as anyone else here - well, except for Raz. He’s never been human, and I doubt he’d want to be.”

Serenity paused and looked around the room, then directly at the camera. “Physical form is far less fixed in the greater universe than it has been here on Earth. It’s going to get less so here, as mana becomes more common. This is especially true of monsters, which are either creations of mana or animals who have absorbed enough mana, but anyone can change.”

Serenity paused. Should he drop the information about many of Earth’s people being only partially human? No, that didn’t seem like it would help anything. “I’d really prefer to avoid the word human. That isn’t what’s important to me; what’s important is that I’m from Earth, and that I’m an American. Some of the invaders will probably be human; that doesn’t mean they’re not here to conquer us.”

That was the best Serenity thought he could do with that question. Hopefully the next one would be easier.

Lillene

It's not exactly the homecoming Serenity was looking for ... and yet at the same time it is.