"She responds to people who refuse to accommodate her," Diana said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial murmur. "Most people who spar with Aurelia dance around her."

"They hold back... They soften their strikes because she is Aurelia Morr Nightwing, the household head’s daughter!"

"A woman of immense standing and someone who could shatter your ribs without breaking her stride if she weren’t consciously restraining herself."

"That accommodation makes her dull and it makes her sharp in a way she despises..."

"She doesn’t want a dance partner, Rex... but she wants someone who fights like they actually mean to hurt her."

Rex’s jaw tightened. ’I’ve kicked her ass before... the second time won’t be any different.’

The implications settled into his mind like lead. This wasn’t a request for assistance; it was a test of intent.

"Anything else?" he pressed, his eyes narrowing. "You knew her for years through Theo."

"There has to be something deeper than just tactical preference... something like... there has to be a tell."

Diana paused, her expression shifting from that of a strategist to someone offering a genuine confession. She wasn’t giving him a rehearsed answer anymore; she was searching for the truth beneath the legend.

"She likes people who stay after," Diana said finally. "The sparring itself, the technique, the blood, the broken bones—that is secondary to her."

"What matters to her is what happens when the adrenaline ebbs and the muscles begin to scream."

"She watches what you do when you’re exhausted, when you no longer have the energy to perform or maintain your pride."

"That is when she decides if she actually respects you."

"Most people flee the moment the drill ends, desperate to lick their wounds in private, but she... notices who stays to stand in the wreckage with her."

"That is useful," Rex said, already cataloging the psychological requirement.

He needed to show her not just strength, but endurance of spirit.

"I thought it might be," Diana replied.

There was a faint, unmistakable edge of pride in her voice, the satisfaction of a woman who had just handed her partner a weapon he could actually use.

"Do you know her schedule?" Rex asked, already moving past the sentimentality. His mind was already halfway to the training hall.

"On normal days, she’s in the training hall by the seventh hour," Diana said. "But after yesterday’s incident... I would guess she arrived at the sixth."

Rex turned toward the corridor window. The morning light was pale, stretching across the floor in thin, honest lines.

The day was claiming itself.

"Can you get me there without me arriving as a stranger?" he asked.

He didn’t want to walk into that den of wolves alone; he wanted the legitimacy that Diana’s presence would provide.

Diana met his gaze, her eyes fierce.

"I can get you there," she said, "but I want to come with you."

"Well, no shit, you should come," Rex agreed.

In that moment, something in Diana’s expression transformed. The guarded sentinel melted away, replaced by something warm and focused, the look of someone who had been given exactly what she wanted without having to negotiate for it.

"Lily," Diana called out, turning to her sister.

"Go," Lily said immediately.

There was no hesitation, no protest. She had already done the math, weighed the emotional cost, and decided that this was where she needed to be.

"I’ll be here when you get back."

Diana crossed the space to Lily, pulling her into an unreserved hug, the kind shared by two people who had weathered storms together and had finally found their equilibrium. They stood there for a moment, anchored to one another.

Then, Lily leaned in. Her lips brushed Diana’s ear, but her words carried enough clarity that Rex’s enhanced senses caught them effortlessly through his ambient awareness.

"You still have your night with Rex, Diana... I haven’t forgotten... so better make it count this time..."

Diana pulled back, her face flushed with a mixture of gratitude and that particular, warm embarrassment that comes from being seen so clearly in front of another person.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Lily turned her gaze to Rex. It was a silent communication, a complex web of meaning woven through her eyes that bypassed words entirely.

Rex met her stare with a single nod, an acknowledgment that required no elaboration. They understood the stakes.

They understood the unspoken promises.

"Come back for dinner," Lily commanded, addressing both of them. "If you can’t, then it’s fine anyway, hehehe~!"

"Yes," Rex said. Then, his tone sharpened with a protective edge. "And Lily, if Elizabeth wakes before I’m back, tell her where I’ve gone."

"Do not let her worry about it in silence."

"She has this infuriating habit of thinking that suffering quietly is the mature option."

Lily offered a small, knowing smirk. "I noticed that about her too. I’ll handle it."

"I know you will," Rex said, his voice final.

The preparations were complete. The target was set.

...

They departed the Starlight household as the morning light began to bleed across the horizon, not with the promise of a new beginning, but with the cold, harsh clarity of a day forced to confront what the night had wrought.

The city around them was caught in that peculiar, suspended animation that follows a catastrophe: the post-crisis rhythm where the world moves through the mechanical motions of assessment, triage, and the desperate human endeavor to reassemble normalcy from the rubble.

Pulverized stone and burnt magic filled the air.

As Rex and Diana moved toward the training grounds, they skirted the edge of the northern plaza. The devastation there was visceral.

Reconstruction crews were already swarming like ants over a wounded beast, their voices muffled by the distant sounds of grinding machinery and the occasional wet cough of collapsing debris.

The golem impact zones had been staked out with the distinctive assessment flags of the academy’s engineering corps, bright, jarring markers that bled color against the gray, pulverized wasteland.

Rex watched them pass, his jaw set in a hard line. The number of flags was staggering; they were far more numerous than his initial assessment of the night’s golem output had suggested.

The destruction wasn’t just surface level; it was arterial.

’How much deeper did those impacts go?’ he wondered, his inner voice cold and analytical despite the tightness in his chest. ’The energy signature wasn’t just kinetic... It was invasive...’

’The earth didn’t just break; it screamed.’

Diana walked beside him, maintaining a comfortable, functional silence. She didn’t offer platitudes about how things would get better, nor did she ask if he was alright.

She knew better. Instead, she watched the reconstruction efforts with the sharp, unblinking eye of someone who understood that survival was not about feeling better but about functioning better.

"The northern residential district took the worst of it," she said finally, her voice cutting through the ambient noise of distant jackhammers. "The structural integrity of the lower blocks is compromised beyond simple repair."

"The golem output was concentrated there," Rex replied, his gaze fixed on a particularly deep crater where the cobblestones had been fused into glass by the sheer heat of impact. "The distribution wasn’t random... It was targeted."

Diana turned her head to study him, her expression unreadable but curious. "You read the geological impact patterns quickly."

"Most wouldn’t have noticed the discrepancy between the force applied and the resulting displacement."

"The Earthen Authority’s passive awareness reads the substrate continuously," Rex explained, his voice flat and matter-of-fact. "To me, the impact patterns aren’t just holes in the ground; they are data points written into the geological record."

"The earth remembers exactly how hard it was struck."

Diana nodded slowly, accepting the explanation without question. She understood the burden of that kind of awareness the way the world became less of a place to live in and more of a series of interconnected systems to be monitored.

They continued their walk, two figures moving through a landscape of scars, their footsteps echoing against the broken bones of the city.

The Nightwing estate materialized before them as they turned onto the approach street, a looming monument of architectural intimidation. This wasn’t merely a residence; it was a fortress of legacy.

The heavy stone construction spoke of generations of survival, built with the defensive paranoia of a family that had spent centuries perfecting the art of being dangerous. The walls didn’t just stand; they loomed, scarred by history but unyielding in their purpose.

The front gate was attended by guards who moved with the economical precision of predators in repose. As Rex and Diana approached, the guard’s eyes locked onto them, his entire posture shifting into a calibrated assessment.

He recognized Diana immediately, but his gaze sharpened on Rex, weighing whether the man beside her was a guest, a threat, or an intruder.