Still Falling THE FIRST OUTING
The guest-room ceiling sat lower than he was used to—school-town house, not his own flat. Val eased out from borrowed blankets, boots already stacked where he'd kicked them off after midnight on the sixth. Winter light crept around curtains he'd never hung; he pulled on clothes without rattling the hall. The weekend felt ordinary to everyone else under this roof. To him it still carried the weight of a branch only he remembered.
Dawn was up before the twins—cardigan over sleep shirt, hair twisted back like she'd claimed the morning on purpose. He caught her in the corridor between kitchen and closed doors.
"Good morning," he said.
"Morning." Easy answer, no surprise he was already moving.
Mei and Xian stayed behind their doors. The house held that early hush—tile cooling underfoot, kettle not yet touched.
He cracked eggs into a pan until the kitchen smelled sharp and hot. Sizzle climbed the stairwell; he set plates on the table for whoever surfaced.
Mei came down first, then Xian—heavy steps, hair tied in messy knots, the slow blink of teenagers who'd laughed too late the night before. Val and Dawn were already eating when the twins drifted in. Four chairs, four mugs, sleepover warmth still in the air between bites.
When bowls were empty they shrugged into gate gear. The school-town house door shut behind them; Val walked with Dawn flanking Mei and Xian toward the clan's assigned E-rank gate. Block A's sleepover plan had always been heading here—comfort traded for damp forest and portal light.
The first portal opened on trunks and moss. Green canopy filtered the sun; earth smelled wet under boots. Goblins spilled from brush—crude blades, fast feet, no discipline worth fearing if the party held shape.
Val slid along the flank. Knife work stayed short: cut, step, never plant his feet where Mei's line needed room. He tagged stragglers and let the front absorb the crush.
Dawn held mid-formation, hands ready to mend before blood showed. The steadiness she'd drilled at the house the night before—Beginner-tier Aura, not flashy, just there—kept panic out of the spacing.
Mei drove the pack open. Blade and shoulder broke the first wave; goblin bodies bounced off her guard like she'd been born for the line.
Behind them Xian shaped fire and control—spells finishing what steel started, heat licking bark without torching the whole biome.
The Goblin Chief rose taller than the rest, high E bark ripping through the trees. It charged Mei. She took the rush on her guard; Val and Xian sheared the flanks in the same breath. Dawn's Aura stayed under everyone's feet. The chief dropped. No one limped out.
Experience settled into Val's bones—the gate's monster yield, not classroom theory. First time he'd cleared with a full party on the living timeline. Gu clan assignment. Not the Silver Cross pipeline he'd been building elsewhere.
Outside the seal Mei wiped her blade and asked if they wanted a few more runs. Xian nodded like the question had already been answered in her head. Val looked at Dawn; she shrugged once—easy yes. The morning still had hours; the party moved like four people who trusted the rhythm they'd just proved.
Three more E-rank portals followed without a break in pace—brush and bark, goblin teeth, another oversized chief at every end. The party stopped improvising; Mei broke the front, Xian's spells drew lines through the pack, Val cleaned the gaps, Dawn patched before anyone needed to limp. Seals shut. Yield pooled. After the second repeat Val stopped cataloguing individual kills and tracked only the tally climbing in his chest.
Four gates, one Saturday—that was the whole haul. Reflexes answered faster than they had at dawn; Aura sat thicker along his ribs, a private upgrade he intended to keep off the schoolyard. He trailed the twins and Dawn toward the school-town house and left the numbers unspoken.
The house smelled smaller after hours under canopy light—same guest room, same kitchen grease when they stripped gear off in the evening.
They spread Aura drills in the living space the way they had on the sixth. Mei stopped copying Xian's explanations mid-form. Her Warrior body caught the flow on its own—Initial entry breaking into Beginner sense, aura suddenly readable in the room like a second skin. She froze, surprised by her own perception. Val watched the click land. Dawn's Beginner tier from the night before finally had a peer in Mei.
Xian ran the same forms beside her sister and stayed one step short—Initial entry, no Beginner click yet, while Mei tested the new weight in her wrists. The difference between them was a hand-span, obvious to anyone watching.
Drills slowed. Gear was stowed. The four of them shared the house again until lights-out—weekend gate work done, sleepover still in progress, hallway finally still.