Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner

Somewhere out in a discreet high location in the western Cardinal of the four cardinals on Earth, a ship was making landing.

Diana pressed her face nearly to the window as the estate came into view below, gardens sprawling out in careful patches of green and gold, a lake catching the afternoon light like something poured out of glass rather than filled.

”Okay,” she said. ”I didn’t come from a poor background, Kelvin. My family had money. But this is different. This is a different tier of rich.”

”Don’t,” Kelvin said.

”I’m just saying.”

”Don’t be impressed by it. That’s my one request.”

The ship touched down on a private pad, engines cycling low, and the ramp lowered onto stone that had probably cost more per tile than most people made in a year. Diana stepped out first, still craning her neck at the seven-story structure ahead, curved glass throwing sunlight back in a dozen directions.

Kelvin came down behind her slower, hands in his pockets, jaw already tight.

”You look like you’re walking to your own execution,” Diana said.

”I feel like I’m walking to my own execution.”

”It’s a house, Kelvin.”

”It’s not a house,” he said. ”It’s a monument to everything I spent my whole childhood resenting. There’s a difference.”

A figure was already crossing the courtyard toward them, arms wide before he’d even closed half the distance.

”KELVIN!”

Webb Pithon looked exactly the way Kelvin remembered him, mid-forties forever, gray creeping in at the temples but nothing slowing him down, moving like a man who’d never once had to wait for anything in his life.

He pulled Kelvin into a hug that Kelvin didn’t return, arms staying stiff at his sides.

”My boy,” Webb said, pulling back, hands on his shoulders. ”Three years. THREE years. Look at you.”

”Dad.”

Webb’s eyes moved to Diana, and his whole face opened up into something warmer, more careful.

”And you,” he said, ”must be the woman who’s finally going to make an honest man out of my son. Diana, is it?”

”That’s me,” Diana said, shaking his offered hand.

”Absolutely stunning,” Webb said. ”And smart, I hear. Engineering background. Kelvin, you actually found someone who can keep up with you. I’m shocked. Genuinely shocked.”

”Great to see you too,” Kelvin said, flat.

”Come, come,” Webb said, already turning, already walking, gesturing them both toward the house. ”I’ve had dinner prepared. Nothing extravagant, just the essentials, though my chef’s idea of essentials tends to run a bit further than most people’s.”

---

Dinner sprawled across a table long enough to seat twenty, though only three places had been set at one end, close enough together that conversation didn’t require raised voices.

”So,” Webb said, cutting into something that looked like it had never touched a factory farm in its life. ”A wedding. Finally. I have to say, Kelvin, I was starting to think you’d never settle down. Too busy building things that explode.”

”Things that explode responsibly,” Kelvin said.

”Is there a responsible way to explode something?”

”Ask Diana. She’s the one who usually detonates things on purpose.”

”Guilty,” Diana said, smiling.

Webb laughed, warm, easy, and reached for his wine.

.”How’d you two actually meet,” Webb said, leaning forward, wine forgotten. ”Properly. I want the whole story.”

Diana’s whole face changed, something lighting up in it, and she set her fork down like the food had suddenly become secondary to the conversation.

”Okay, so,” she said, ”everyone assumes it’s some cute faction meet-cute thing, right, oh they worked together, isn’t that sweet. That’s not it. That’s not even close to it.”

”Diana—” Kelvin started.

”No, let me tell it,” she said, waving a hand at him without even looking. ”It’s my favorite story, I get to tell it my way.”

Webb was already grinning. ”By all means.”

”Okay so,” Diana said, ”four years ago, interschool competition. I’m a senior, number two in my whole academy, and this—” she gestured at Kelvin, ”—this scrawny little junior barely out of orientation shows up on the opposing side.”

”I was not scrawny.”

”You were extremely scrawny.”

”I was compact.”

”You were a stick with a tablet,” Diana said, and Webb laughed, loud and genuine. ”Anyway. Students took that thing dead seriously back then, so I didn’t think anything of him at first, honestly. He was just some kid from the other camp.” She paused, thinking. ”And then we ended up on the same track after everything shook out. Pathfinder Team Seven. Months of training together. Near death, more than once, which, you know, tends to fast-track how well you get to know someone.”

”Sure does,” Webb said.

”And somewhere in the middle of all that,” Diana said, ”I figured out I was into him. And it’s not for the reason everyone assumes.”

”What do people assume,” Webb said.

” We could say it’s because he’s handsome or that it’s because he’s funny,” Diana said. ”Which, fine, he is, he’s got this charm nobody else on that team has, not even Noah and Lucas, whatever the streams like to pretend. But that’s not it. That’s not what actually got me.”

”So what was it,” Webb said, genuinely leaning in now.

Diana took a breath, like she was working up to it even though she’d clearly told this story before, at least to herself.

”Power,” she said. ”Just. Power. Raw and unmatched and honestly kind of unpredictable, and I know how that sounds, I know it sounds weird coming out of my mouth talking about a guy who talks this much—”

”I resent that characterization.”

”You talk a LOT, Kelvin—”

”I have a lot to say!”

”See, this is exactly what I mean,” Diana said, gesturing at him like he was proving her point in real time, and Webb was laughing again, harder now. ”Okay. Back at my academy, they called me the Ice Queen. And not, like, affectionately. I’d already been through a few competitions, my reputation always got there before I did, and people were scared of me before they’d even said a word to my face. And I liked that, honestly. It made everything simple. Nobody got close enough to disappoint me.”

The table had gone quiet in a different way now.

”And Kelvin just,” she said, ”wasn’t scared. At all. Not even a little. And he didn’t do the thing everyone else did, where they reduce me down to one thing, cold, dangerous, whatever. I watched him solve problems that stumped soldiers twice his rank without even really trying, and I watched a whole room settle the second he walked into it, because everyone just knew, somehow, if Kelvin was there, whatever was going wrong probably wasn’t staying wrong for long.” She looked at him now, something soft breaking through all the teasing. ”And that’s when I let my guard down. First time in years. Because I finally didn’t have to keep being the Ice Queen every single second of every day. I had someone who could actually stand between me and whatever was coming.”

Webb’s eyes had gone glassy, no performance in it at all this time.

”That’s just beautiful,” he said, voice cracking slightly. ”Genuinely.”

Diana grinned, sudden and bright.

”Plus he makes really cool inventions,” she said. ”So. Bonus.”

Kelvin nearly choked on his water.

”Sounds about right,” Webb said. ”He fixed things nobody else could fix from the moment he could hold a screwdriver. Terrifying child, honestly. I’d leave prototypes half-finished on my desk and come back to find he’d solved problems I’d been stuck on for months. Nine years old.”

”He mentioned you were an inventor,” Diana said. ”Pithon Industries. Weapons, mostly?”

”Weapons, defense systems, satellite installations, whatever the war actually needs at any given moment,” Webb said. ”Someone has to build the things keeping soldiers alive out there.”

Diana glanced at Kelvin again, something curious in it now.

”What exactly did you say your father did again?” she said smiling at Webb. Clearly, his peoples charm was working on her. ”I feel like I got a very different picture.”

Kelvin didn’t answer right away.

”I might have left some details out,” he said.

”Which details.”

”We’ll circle back.” Kelvin said.

Webb watched this exchange with a faint, knowing smile, and refilled his own glass.

”Ask me anything,” he said to Diana. ”I’m an open book.”

”Fine,” Diana said. ”When did you know you wanted to marry Kelvin’s mother?”

Something shifted in Webb’s face, softened.

”Immediately,” he said. ”I was twenty-three. She walked into a research symposium wearing scrubs she hadn’t bothered to change out of because she’d come straight from a shift, and she stood up in the middle of my presentation and told me my numbers were wrong.” He laughed, quiet. ”She was right, by the way. I married her eighteen months later.”

”What was she like,” Diana said.

”Brilliant,” Webb said. ”Kinder than I ever deserved. She could heal things nobody else could touch, Diana, actual regeneration, tissue nobody thought was salvageable. She used to say healing wasn’t about fixing damage. It was about convincing a body it still wanted to be alive.” His eyes had gone glassy. ”I think about her every single day.”

”Dad—” Kelvin started.

”I do,” Webb said, voice cracking slightly, reaching for a napkin he didn’t actually need. ”Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what we lost. What Kelvin lost.”

Kelvin set his fork down.

”Cut it out,” he said.

”Kelvin—”

”Cut the theatrics.” His voice had gone flat, hard. ”You weren’t even at her funeral.”

Webb’s face froze.

”You were offworld,” Kelvin said. ”Meeting with EDF brass about a satellite weapon contract. The one chance you had to actually show up, to actually respect her the way you never let yourself do while she was alive, and you spent it playing handsome billionaire tech genius for men who wanted your signature on a contract.” He shook his head. ”So don’t sit here at a dinner you planned, in front of my fiancée, and act like you miss her. You don’t get to do that.”

Webb’s jaw tightened.

”Excuse me,” he said. ”What did you just say to me.”

”You heard me.” Kelvin said.

”Have you lost your mind.” Webb’s voice climbed, sharp now. ”You’re a grown man sitting at my table saying things like that. You’re still a boy to me, Kelvin, and I’d suggest you remember whose house you’re currently eating in.”

Kelvin stood, chair scraping hard against the floor.

”Whose house,” he said. ”Sure. Fine. Let’s talk about whose house this actually is.” He leaned forward, both hands flat on the table. ”Who are you, Dad. Without the guns. Without the blasters, the cannons, the mechs sitting around this place like discarded toys nobody bothered putting away. Strip all of that off you. Who’s left standing here?”

Webb stood too, chair scraping back to match.

”Watch your tone with me.”

”Answer the question.”

”I built an empire,” Webb said. ”I kept this species alive through weapons your little faction couldn’t have dreamed up—”

”That’s not who you are, that’s what you MADE,” Kelvin said. ”I asked who you ARE.”

”ENOUGH!”

Diana was on her feet, chair knocked back, both hands pressed flat against the table.

Neither of them said anything.

She turned and walked out.

---

Kelvin found her twenty minutes later, sitting on a low stone bench near the edge of the lake, knees pulled up, face turned away from the house.

”Hey,” he said, sitting down beside her, careful, giving her room.

She didn’t answer for a second.

”I’m sorry,” Kelvin said. ”That wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t mean for you to see that.”

”Why does it always come find me,” Diana said, voice thick. ”Bad luck. I swear it just knows where I am.”

”What do you mean.”

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, sharp, annoyed at herself for crying.

”The whole reason I kept pushing you to invite your dad,” she said, ”is because I was never going to invite my own parents. I decided that a long time ago. And I told myself, fine, at least Kelvin’s side will be different. At least there’s some version of family that isn’t a performance built on top of a wound nobody’s allowed to talk about.” She laughed, short, bitter. ”And then I sit here and watch you two do exactly that. The same thing. Just with better lighting and a bigger dining table.”

Kelvin sat with that for a second.

”Wait,” he said slowly. ”I never actually met your parents. Not properly. I meant to, we talked about a real wedding, introductions, all of it, and then—”

”Kruel happened,” Diana said. ”Then the Purge. Then One. Then Harbingers, always Harbingers.” She shrugged, small, tired. ”I don’t blame you for forgetting. There wasn’t exactly room.”

”Why didn’t you want them there,” Kelvin said. ”You never told me that part.”

Diana looked out at the water for a long moment.

”Because what you just watched,” she said, ”that’s basically my whole childhood. Except my dad never bothered with the sentimental speech first. He just skipped straight to the yelling.” She pulled her knees tighter. ”I thought maybe your family would be different. Warmer. And for a second at dinner it actually was, and then it wasn’t, and I don’t know why that hit me as hard as it did.”

Kelvin pulled her into him, and she let him, resting her head against his shoulder.

”I’m sorry,” he said again, quieter this time. ”I should’ve told you the real story before we ever got on that ship. Not just the version where he’s a difficult guy I don’t talk to.”

”So tell me now.”

He did. All of it. The party. The tracker. His mother going into an active engagement zone believing he was still there. The words his father had thrown at him in this exact house three years ago, words that hadn’t come from nowhere, words Kelvin had never told anyone he’d already been carrying himself.

Diana listened without interrupting, her hand finding his and holding on tight by the end of it.

”We should leave,” Kelvin said finally.

”We can’t,” Diana said.

”Diana—”

”Not for nothing,” she said, ”but for Lucas. You need him. Whatever’s actually broken between you two, you need to find some kind of ground with that man, because we don’t have the luxury of you two not speaking right now.”

Kelvin sighed, long and heavy and then noticed a look on Diana.

”What,” he said.

Diana looked at him, something steady settling into her expression despite the redness still around her eyes.

She didn’t say anything else.

She didn’t need to.