Tidehaven announced itself before it appeared, salt cutting through rot like something deliberate, clean and sharp, and Felicity slowed without meaning to with her ears tipped forward tracking the distant churn of turbines beneath the sound of waves, and Victor said "someone's been maintaining power" and she said "and cleaning" and they both looked at the city thinning ahead of them, buildings still leaning but fewer collapsed, streets cracked but cleared, debris pushed into organised piles rather than left to rot, and the absence of uncontrolled panic sitting over everything like a held breath.
Then the wall rose through the fog and it was not a crude barricade, it was engineered, pale stone reinforced with dark metal ribs curving upward like the skeleton of something enormous, channels carved into its base redirecting harbour currents into controlled veins that glimmered with embedded glyphwork, and above the main gate bold letters inlaid with blue resin caught the late light and said TIDEHAVEN and Rose exhaled slowly and said "that's confident" and before anyone could answer the water beside the gate parted and a woman stepped out of the channel like walking through solid ground was simply something she did.
Tall and balanced, blue hair braided thick down her back, faint scales shimmering along her neck and temples, a spear in her hand that hummed with restrained power, and her gaze swept them with professional efficiency before she said, "State your business," and Felicity stepped forward before Victor could. "We clear routes, eliminate threats, and don't steal from people who feed us. We're looking for work, trade, or somewhere not actively trying to murder us."
The woman's eyes sharpened. "Levels."
Victor said "fifty" without hesitating, and a subtle shift moved along the wall above them, the guards not panicking but recalculating, and the woman looked between them and said "you know the number but not what it means", and Kai shrugged and said "we feel it, that's about it" and that seemed to satisfy her.
"After the shift, people started changing," she said. "Some faster than others, stronger, harder to kill, wounds closing better, reactions sharpening. You survive something bad enough, you feel it afterwards, like something in your body locks into place. That number is just how far along that process you are. Nobody installed it. Nobody tracks it. But people who fight long enough notice patterns. Civilians settle under ten. Fighters climb into the twenties. Thirties are dangerous. Forties are problems." Her eyes moved to Victor. "Fifty means cities stop assuming they can control you."
Rose let out a quiet whistle.
"And above that?" Kai asked.
The woman shrugged. "We're still figuring that part out." She looked at Felicity. "And you?"
Felicity felt the quiet warmth under her ribs. "Forty-eight."
A ripple passed along the wall guards, not disbelief but interest, and the woman said, "You don't look forty-eight," and Felicity smiled faintly and said, "I don't scream it," and the woman looked almost amused for half a second before she said, "I'm Pia, acting commander of Tidehaven", and the gates opened.
Inside, Tidehaven rose vertically, walkways and balconies ringing a massive central basin with reinforced glass flooring revealing water flowing beneath their feet, light refracting upward in shifting blues and silvers, and the people watching from above were not starving or desperate, they were alert and well fed and disciplined, and Snow Team felt the pressure of it immediately, that tangible density of high-level individuals radiating outward like standing too close to a high-voltage line.
The trial was not subtle. A reinforced gate slammed open below them and something massive stepped out, scaled and old-tech bolted into flesh that had healed around it, metal plating fused into muscle, and its roar vibrated through glass and bone, and Felicity placed one hand on Victor's arm and the other against Voss's chest and said "together" softly, and they went, Victor splitting the air with fire and ice, Voss folding space as weapons assembled mid-air, Rose's vines erupting from cracked stone, Kai blurring through distance, Sarge's lightning crawling through metal seams, and Felicity threaded through all of it without flooding, small adjustments, reflexes sharpened, weight shifted at critical moments, wounds sealed just enough to keep momentum intact, and when the creature collapsed steaming and torn apart the only sound left was water tapping against glass.
Pia catalogued them methodically after, fire and ice, spatial distortion, plant manipulation, electrical conduction, spatial weapons, and then her attention settled on Felicity and she said "adaptive amplification, you refine the team, reaction speed, recovery, precision" and Felicity said "I just help" and Pia clearly did not believe that, and then her gaze moved to Tommy who had been leaning on the railing watching the water below the glass, and the basin water moved, not violently, just slightly wrong, like the tide had taken a breath, and Pia said "hydrokinetic" and Tommy scratched the back of his neck and said "I mean, yeah" and Rose pointed at him and said "he pretends it's subtle" and Tommy shrugged and said "it's polite."
Pia looked at the corpse below and Pia looked at the corpse below and then at Snow Team and murmured, "So that's fifty," in a tone that settled the question permanently. eath the waterline, glass walls looking directly into the basin where engineered fish drifted past in synchronised formations, and other mercenary teams lingered at the edges watching Felicity with the focused attention of people trying to measure something they couldn't name, and a tall man with clean worn armour stepped forward and introduced himself as Calder, Breakwater lead, fifty-three, and said "zombies don't usually organise, something's stirring them" and Felicity said "or someone" and he smiled and said "if you make it back I'll buy you a drink."
"I don't drink with strangers who f"I don't drink with strangers who flirt over mass graves," Felicity said pleasantly, and Victor's wing shifted slightly, and Voss's jaw set, and Pia said "Snow Team deploys at dawn" with the energy of a woman closing a conversation before it became a situation.ry teams filtered out and Felicity hummed as she walked toward the exit with her hands clasped behind her back and her tail swaying lazily and Rose muttered "oh no, she's in a mood" and Felicity spun once on her heel and said "that little blue fish waved at me" and Kai said "it did not" and she said "I think it did" and then Rhys from Calder's team brushed past too hard and said loudly "careful, pearl, healers break easily when their guards aren't watching."
The corridor went quiet, and Felicity stopped and turned slowly and said "oh, I'm okay, thank you" with complete sincerity, and Rhys scoffed and reached for a weapon, and security reacted faster than thought, water surging from channel vents, spears snapping into formation, Rhys slammed into stone and was restrained in one fluid motion, and he did not get up again.
Silence settled over the corridor and Tommy exhaled slowly and said "that escalated" and Felicity looked at where Rhys had been and said "oh" very quietly because she had not meant for someone to die because of her and her shoulders dipped briefly, and then she straightened and skipped once and then again and said brightly "okay, that was uncomfortable, let's go somewhere with air" and every mercenary in the corridor stared and Calder stared and Pia stared and Victor watched her like she was both fragile and unstoppable and Voss watched her like gravity had shifted and Calder watched her like a force of nature that hadn't realised what it was yet.
Pia stepped in front of her. "That fox," she said sharply. "She's a problem."
Felicity blinked up at her with genuine concern. "I'm really sorry about the yelling," she said earnestly. "And the death. That wasn't my intention at all."
Pia looked like she wanted to scream, because the real problem wasn't Felicity's power; it was that everyone in the room could feel her level, and they could feel that it was still rising.