Morning light filtered through Noah's window, painting the room in soft gold. Seraleth stirred first, her luminous eyes opening slowly, focusing on Noah's face beside her on the pillow. A small smile crossed her features—something rare and genuine that she only showed when completely comfortable.

She leaned over and kissed him, gentle and sweet. "Good morning."

"Morning," Noah replied, his voice still rough from sleep.

Seraleth's fingers traced idle patterns across his chest, her expression carrying contentment that looked almost foreign on someone usually so formal. "I had a wonderful time last night. The movie was educational. The other activities were..." She paused, searching for the right word. "Enjoyable. Very enjoyable."

"I had an amazing time too," Noah said, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

"I should freshen up," Seraleth said after another moment of comfortable silence. "I have chi cultivation classes to teach this morning. The new recruits are still struggling with basic meridian pathway activation."

"Same here. Training schedule has me running combat drills at oh-nine-hundred." Noah sat up, stretching muscles that protested slightly. "Guess we should get moving."

They dressed in comfortable silence, the kind that came from being at ease around each other. Seraleth's white hair was disheveled in ways that made her look younger, less severe. She attempted to smooth it down while Noah pulled on a clean shirt.

Noah walked to the door first, opening it to let Seraleth out. Diana stood in the corridor, her hand raised like she'd been about to knock, and her expression shifted from casual to something approximating surprise as she took in both of them standing there.

Her gaze flicked between Noah and Seraleth, noting the disheveled appearance, the fact that Seraleth was clearly leaving Noah's quarters at dawn, the obvious implications. But Diana's expression smoothed almost immediately, returning to a neutral look.

"Thank god I found you both," Diana said without addressing what she'd clearly just figured out. "I need you to come with me. Now."

"What's wrong?" Noah asked.

"Just come. Training hall. It's..." Diana paused, seeming to struggle with how to explain. "It's complicated."

They followed her through headquarters corridors that were just beginning to fill with early risers. People heading to breakfast or morning duties, the normal rhythm of faction life starting up. But as they approached the main training hall, that normalcy fractured.

A crowd had gathered outside the entrance. Maybe twenty people, all of them standing in a loose cluster, their expressions mixing shock with uncertainty. Some had hands covering their mouths. Others just stared at the closed doors like they were looking at something they couldn't quite process.

Diana pushed through the crowd without explanation, and Noah followed, Seraleth close behind. The training hall doors opened, and the scene inside made Noah stop completely.

Lucas sat on the floor near the center of the hall, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. He was rocking slightly, back and forth, his face buried against his knees. His entire body was tense, muscles locked in a posture that screamed trauma response.

Sophie stood ten feet away from him, her expression carefully neutral but her body language suggesting she had no idea how to approach the situation. Kelvin was near the equipment storage, talking rapidly to Sam in low tones. Lila leaned against the far wall, her pale blue eyes tracking Lucas's movements with concern.

"What happened?" Noah asked quietly.

"It happened this morning," Sophie said, not looking away from Lucas. "Maybe thirty minutes ago."

"It wasn't his fault," Kelvin added from across the hall. "He didn't see. Couldn't have known."

"She probably just spooked him," Lila said. Her voice carried a gentleness Noah rarely heard from her. "Wrong place, wrong time."

Noah looked between them, trying to understand. "Someone needs to explain what I'm looking at here."

Sophie moved closer, keeping her voice low. "Lucas came in for early training. Alone, or so he thought. One of the new recruits was already here, running through solo forms in the back corner. Lucas didn't notice her at first."

"And then?" Noah prompted.

"And then she made a sound. Startled him, I think. He turned around and..." Sophie gestured vaguely toward Lucas. "This. He just shut down completely. Won't talk, won't move from that spot, just keeps rocking."

Kelvin approached, his prosthetic fingers tapping against his leg in agitation. "Look, I know Lucas went through hell in Arthur's shadow dimension. Time alone in that place, whatever psychological damage that causes. But this seems like more than just being startled, you know? This is a trauma response."

"The recruit?" Noah asked.

"Fine. Shaken up but fine. Sophie sent her to medical for evaluation, made sure she wasn't hurt." Kelvin lowered his voice further. "But Noah, she said Lucas looked at her like she was a threat. Like he was about to defend himself from an attack that wasn't coming."

Sam joined them, his tablet showing notes he'd apparently been taking. "I've been researching psychological effects of extended isolation. What Lucas experienced in the shadow dimension fits criteria for severe PTSD, possible dissociative episodes, heightened threat response patterns."

"Which means what, exactly?" Diana asked.

"Which means his brain is still operating like he's in danger, even though he's not," Sam replied. "Sudden stimuli, unexpected presence, anything that mimics the conditions of his captivity could trigger defensive responses before his conscious mind can process what's actually happening."

Sophie looked at Noah. "We need to get him out of this state. Talk him down, help him realize he's safe, that there's no threat. But every time anyone gets close, he tenses up more. It's like he can't distinguish between us and potential danger right now."

"What do we do?" Lila asked. "We can't just leave him like this."

"We need to be careful," Seraleth said from where she'd been observing quietly. "Approaching someone in a dissociative state without proper protocols can escalate the situation. He needs to voluntarily return to present awareness, not be forced."

Kelvin pulled Noah aside, his voice dropping to barely audible. "Look, I'm not a psychologist, but I know trauma. My own history with losing limbs and rebuilding myself gave me some perspective on how the mind breaks when reality gets too overwhelming. Lucas needs professional help, not us fumbling around trying to fix something we don't understand."

"We can't exactly call in professional help without escalating this publicly," Noah replied. "Lucas is the son of King Damien Grey. If word gets out that he's having psychological episodes after his captivity, that becomes political fodder."

"So what, we just handle it internally and hope for the best?" Kelvin's frustration was clear.

Sophie moved closer to the conversation. "Noah, ultimately this falls on you. Lucas trusts you. To everyone, you two led Team 7 together, you fought beside him, you helped rescue him from that dimension. If anyone can reach him right now, it's you."

"And if I can't?" Noah asked.

"Then we figure out plan B." Sophie's expression was grim. "But right now, you're plan A."

Lila joined them, her arms crossed. "Whatever we decide, we need to do it soon. Lucas has been in that position for thirty minutes. The longer he stays dissociated, the harder it'll be to bring him back to present awareness."

Noah looked at Lucas, at his friend who'd survived months in a nightmare dimension and come back changed in ways they were only now beginning to understand. He opened his mouth to suggest an approach, some way to help without making things worse, when sensation hit him like physical impact.

Not pain. Just awareness. His void energy suddenly spiking, responding to something he couldn't immediately identify. The feeling was urgent, demanding, pulling at his consciousness in ways that made his teeth ache.

A notification appeared in his vision, text rendered in the distinctive format only he could see.

[DOMAIN ALERT: Draconic Agitation Detected]

[WARNING: Contained entities displaying unprecedented behavioral patterns]

[RECOMMENDATION: Immediate investigation required]

Noah's hand went to his chest instinctively, feeling void energy circulating faster than normal. His domain was reacting to something, and the dragons inside were clearly the source.

"Noah?" Sophie was watching him with concern. "What's wrong?"

"I need to check something," Noah said. His mind was already half in the domain, feeling the pull of whatever was happening inside that pocket dimension. "Give me five minutes."

"Five minutes for what?" Kelvin asked.

"Just trust me."

Another notification flashed.

[ALERT ESCALATION: Draconic entities attempting boundary breach]

[Domain stability: 94%]

[Duration of agitation: 47 minutes and increasing]

Storm had broken out of the domain once before, back when he'd first evolved into the Blizzard Monarch and hunger had driven him to force his way through dimensional barriers. But that had been singular, instinctive. This felt different. Coordinated. All three dragons agitated simultaneously suggested something was very wrong.

"Domain," Noah said.

Purple void energy erupted around his body, wrapping him in familiar darkness. Reality folded, the training hall vanishing as dimensional travel activated. Sophie's voice called after him but the words were already distant, unreachable.

The transition completed in microseconds. Noah's feet touched grass that shouldn't exist in any physical location, standing in the pocket dimension he owned and maintained through void energy manipulation.

The sky above was wrong.

Storm, Nyx, and Ivy were airborne, all three of them circling in overlapping patterns that created a maelstrom of wings and scales and elemental energy. Storm's Arctic Shroud manifested in visible waves, frost spreading through the air and dissipating before reaching the ground. Nyx's flames flickered across his scales, brief eruptions of heat that painted the sky in orange and red. Ivy's vine appendages extended from her body in ways they normally didn't, reaching outward like she was searching for something beyond the domain's boundaries.

They weren't fighting. Weren't playing or hunting or doing any of the normal behaviors Noah had observed over months. They were searching. All three of them, flying in patterns that looked like they were trying to find something rather than aimlessness, their gazes fixed on points beyond what Noah could see.

Storm shrieked, the sound carrying frustration and urgency in equal measure. Nyx roared in response, his flames intensifying. Ivy's own cry was different, more melodic but no less insistent.

"What's wrong?" Noah called up to them.

None of them acknowledged his presence. Storm passed directly overhead, close enough that Noah could have reached up and touched his tail, but the wyvern didn't react. His attention stayed fixed on something distant, something outside the domain's boundaries.

Another notification appeared.

[DRACONIC BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS COMPLETE]

[CONCLUSION: External stimulus detected]

[CLASSIFICATION: Alpha Signal]

[SOURCE: Unknown]

[DISTANCE: Indeterminate]

[URGENCY: Critical]

Noah felt his blood run cold.

'Alpha signal.'

He knew what that meant. Every biology course at the academy had covered pack dynamics in beast populations. Alphas commanded. They didn't request, didn't negotiate. When an alpha called, the pack answered. It was hierarchy carved into instinct, authority that transcended individual will.

'But dragons aren't pack animals. They're solitary apex predators. There shouldn't be hierarchy. There shouldn't be some higher authority calling to them like this.'

Except his dragons were clearly responding to something. All three of them, simultaneously agitated, trying to break through dimensional barriers to reach whatever was calling. That wasn't coincidence. It seemed more like instinct overriding everything else.

'If they're reacting this strongly, if they're willing to force their way out of the domain against my will, then whatever's calling them isn't just any signal. It's something they recognize. Something they need to answer.'

The implications settled over him like ice water. His dragons weren't just beasts he'd managed to bond with. They were part of something larger, something he didn't understand. And that something was calling them home.

A final notification materialized, and this one carried weight that made Noah's chest tighten.

[SYSTEM ALERT]

[Your dragons have detected an Alpha's Call]

[STATUS: They must answer]

[RESTRAINT: Inadvisable]

[WARNING: Preventing response may result in behavioral degradation or bond severance]

[RECOMMENDATION: Immediate investigation and facilitation required]

Above him, Storm shrieked again, his voice carrying across the domain with desperation Noah had never heard from him before. Nyx and Ivy circled tighter, their patterns becoming more frantic, their elemental energies flaring in ways that suggested they were seconds from trying to force their way out through sheer power.

They weren't asking permission anymore. They were preparing to leave whether Noah allowed it or not.

And somewhere beyond the domain's boundaries, something was calling them home.

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