Kaiden stepped out of the command tent with Vespera at his side, and the staging plain opened before them under a sky still hazy with residual mana.
Fifty meters out, Pebble lay where he'd planted himself before the meeting began, six burning eyes fixed on the tent flap since the moment Kaiden walked through it.
The awakened fighters standing perimeter between him and the tent had the rigid posture of people doing their duty while wishing very badly it was literally anything else.
Camera crews from four different networks had lenses trained on the Guardian from behind every available piece of cover.
Pebble's tail twitched when the flap moved, then those eyes found Kaiden and the twitch became a full wag that sent a tremor through the air hard enough to rattle camera tripods off their legs.
Pebble rose.
