Summer had changed them in ways both visible and subtle.

  Valoris stood on the academy transport platform as students disembarked in waves, watching her squadmates arrive with anticipation she hadn't expected to feel. Two months of training alone at the Kade estate. Two months of polite family dinners that felt like performance evaluations, of wondering if the found family she'd built would still exist when they returned. Returning was a relief.

  Zee emerged from Transport Seven looking taller; at least two inches, maybe more, with broader shoulders and callused knuckles that suggested she'd spent the summer doing exactly what Valoris would have predicted: training until her body demanded she stop, then training more. She wore civilian clothes that somehow still looked tactical, moved with that constant combat-ready alertness that had become second nature.

  Their eyes met across the platform. Zee grinned – a real grin, nothing like the professional half-smile she'd worn through most of first year – and jogged over.

  "You got tall," Valoris said, because it was true and safer than saying I missed you or I spent two months wondering if we'd still be us when we came back.

  "Growth spurt finally hit," Zee confirmed. "My family couldn't stop commenting on it. 'Kessa, you're almost as tall as your father now.' 'Kessa, you'll need new uniforms.' Like I didn't have more important things to worry about."

  "Did you train all summer?"

  "Most of it. Worked with the local defense force some. They're not academy standard but they’re practical, street-smart, know how to fight when resources are limited." Zee's expression shifted slightly. "Came back ready. Second year. Summoning year. Everything we've been working toward.”

  The weight of that statement hung between them. Summoning year. The year that would determine everything: whether they'd become pilots or wash out, whether any of them would survive the process of reaching into dimensional space and pulling forth entities that would become extensions of their bodies.

  "Yeah," Valoris said quietly. "Everything we've been working toward."

  Transport Nine arrived with a hydraulic hiss, and Saren descended with crisp movements that suggested summer hadn't softened her even slightly. She'd grown too, enough to notice. Her grey eyes swept the platform with tactical assessment before landing on Valoris and Zee.

  She approached with military bearing that had somehow become even more ingrained, standing at almost-attention before deliberately relaxing her posture. Progress. Small, incremental progress.

  "Kade. Zavaretti." A pause. "You both look... adequate."

  "That's Saren for 'I'm glad to see you,'" Zee translated.

  "I’m capable of expressing sentiment directly," Saren said, though her tone suggested she found the necessity vaguely irritating. “I said that I found Chimera Squad more cooperative than most.”

  "You missed us," Zee said, grinning wider.

  "I acknowledged our squad's comparative excellence. That’s not the same as–" Saren stopped, seemed to recognize she was being teased. "Yes. Fine. I missed the tactical efficiency and reliable coordination. Don't make it weird."

  Valoris felt something warm and fragile unfold in her chest. They were still them. Older, changed by summer experiences, but still them. Still Chimera.

  Quinn appeared from Transport Twelve like a ghost manifesting from vapor; one moment the platform was empty, the next they were simply present. Taller, thinner, more ethereal somehow. Their platinum blonde hair had been cut shorter, practically a pixie cut now, making their pale eyes more prominent. They moved with that eerie grace that had always set them apart, carrying a single bag with economical efficiency.

  "Squad present," Quinn observed, their flat affect unchanged by summer. "Growth noted. Zavaretti: estimated two point three inch increase. Kade: one point seven inches. Maddox: one point one inches. Personal growth: negligible, point three inches." They paused, and something almost like amusement flickered across their face. "Acceptable distribution."

  "You measured our growth," Zee said. Not quite a question.

  "Observable data. Relevant for physical training adjustments." Another pause. "Also... I missed having data to observe."

  "Right. Obviously."

  Milo arrived last, stumbling off Transport Fifteen with characteristic chaos; two bags, one of which appeared to be leaking something, glasses slightly askew, broader shoulders and maybe an inch taller but still fundamentally Milo. He saw them clustered together and his face lit up with genuine joy.

  "Chimera Squad!" He dropped his bags with complete disregard for whatever was leaking and practically lunged at Zee, catching her in an enthusiastic hug that she returned with a laugh and a pat on his back. Then Valoris, who accepted the embrace with warmth even as she tried to subtly check if the leaking bag was about to explode. Then Quinn, who stood perfectly still and accepted the contact with their characteristic flat affect, enduring with stoic patience until Milo released them.

  Then Milo turned toward Saren.

  She looked at him. Just looked. Grey eyes steady and assessing, posture perfectly neutral, but something in her expression suggested that any attempt at physical contact would result in immediate and precise retaliation.

  Milo froze mid-reach. Reconsidered. Slowly lowered his arms.

  "Saren," he said instead, with slightly awkward enthusiasm. "You look... taller."

  "Renn," she replied, her tone professional and just slightly amused. "You appear structurally intact despite whatever’s currently leaking from your luggage."

  "Oh, that's probably just–" Milo glanced back at his bags. "Actually, I should probably deal with that before it melts through the platform. But first… I missed you all so much! Family visit was fine but I kept thinking about coming back here. Built a whole bunch of things over the summer. New engineering software on the tablet. Don't tell Commander Thrace."

  "She already knows," Saren said. "She monitors everything."

  "Then don't tell her I know she knows?"

  "That makes no sense."

  "Welcome back, everyone," Valoris said, because someone needed to redirect before this devolved into typical Chimera banter and they missed mandatory check-in. "We should get to barracks, settle in, then figure out our schedule."

  They moved together across the academy grounds in a group of five instead of separately, formation maintained through muscle memory and choice. Around them, the academy stirred with returning students: year-threes heading to advanced facilities, year-fours (those who'd survived summoning and made it through their first year as pilots) moving with the strange altered grace that came from neural bonding, new first-years arriving wide-eyed and terrified just like Chimera had been twelve months ago.

  Valoris watched a cluster of first-years navigate the platform, saw their fear and uncertainty and desperate hope, and felt something between sympathy and distance. She remembered being that scared. But that felt like years ago now, not months. She'd been paralyzed by her family name then, trying to control everything through rigid planning, unable to trust anyone including herself.

  "They look so young," Zee murmured, following Valoris's gaze.

  "We looked exactly like that," Saren said.

  "That's what makes it weird."

  The barracks was exactly as they'd left it; same metal bunks, same scratched table, same windows overlooking the training grounds and the dimensional rift's ragged edge. But it felt like theirs now.

  Zee claimed her corner bunk and started unpacking with efficient movements. Saren took the opposite corner and began arranging her materials with obsessive precision. Quinn claimed the bunk nearest the bathroom (optimal positioning for their tendency to wake at odd hours) and began organizing with mathematical exactness. Milo took the bunk closest to the common area table and immediately started spreading components across every available surface.

  Valoris settled into her bunk in the middle position, a strategic placement that let her see everyone, and watched her squad reassemble their shared space. Personal touches appeared: Zee's family photos on her wall, Saren's academic achievement notices arranged in chronological order, Quinn's meditation schedule posted above their bunk, Milo's increasingly chaotic collection of half-finished projects occupying three shelves and counting.

  "Feels like home," Milo said quietly.

  Nobody disagreed.

  They had thirty minutes before mandatory second-year assembly. Thirty minutes to exist together as something other than soldiers in training, students under evaluation, legacies and scholarships and statistics. Just five teenagers who'd somehow found each other in the chaos and decided to stay found.

  Zee pulled out care packages from her family; real food, not academy rations. Saren contributed chocolate from somewhere. Quinn produced nothing but didn't object when everyone else shared. Milo had a box of junk food. Valoris wished she’d thought to bring something and made a mental note to do so next time she went home.

  They sat around the common room table like they had during winter break, a comfortable silence interspersed with casual conversation, intimacy that came from choosing to be together rather than being forced together.

  "Rankings reset for second year," Quinn said, consulting their ever-present tablet. "All squads start from baseline evaluation. Previous year performance noted but not weighted heavily. Summoning preparation program begins next week."

  "Cheerful," Zee muttered.

  "Realistic," Saren corrected. "Summoning consideration alone eliminates fifteen to twenty percent. We need to be prepared."

  "We finished first year ranked third," Valoris said. "We're Chimera Squad now, officially. That means something."

  "Means we have a reputation to maintain," Zee pointed out. "Means expectations are higher. Means if we fail, everyone knows."

  "We're not failing," Milo said with surprising firmness. "We made it through first year when predictions said we'd dissolve by week twelve. We climbed from bottom tier to top three through actual cohesion and trust. We're good at this now. We're good at being us."

  "Optimistic assessment," Quinn observed. "But statistically supported. Squad dissolution rates decrease dramatically after a successful first year. Our probability of maintaining cohesion through summoning preparation is approximately seventy-three percent."

  "Only seventy-three?" Zee asked.

  "Summoning creates significant psychological stress. Some squads fracture under pressure." Quinn's expression shifted, something almost protective flickering across their face. "But our foundation is solid. Better than... most."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Valoris looked at each of them; Zee with her restless combat-ready energy, Saren with her rigid perfectionism and hidden warmth, Quinn with their eerie intensity and desperate need for structure, Milo with his chaotic genius and infectious optimism. They were incompatible in theory. Fundamentally mismatched.

  But they'd made it work. They'd learned each other's languages, adapted to each other's strengths and weaknesses, built something functional from fractured pieces.

  They could do this. They could survive summoning year.

  They had to.

  "Ten minutes to assembly," Saren announced, checking her tablet. "We should move."

  They filed out together, five in formation, heading toward the main assembly ground where every second-year student would gather for orientation and the official beginning of the year that would define their entire lives.

  The second-year assembly was held in a smaller venue than the all-academy gatherings, a briefing hall that felt intimate and intense, designed to hold only the cohort that would face summoning this year. No first-years watching from the back. No third or fourth-years present. Just the students who had nine months to prepare for the most critical moment of their lives.

  Commander Thrace stood at the podium, dimensional exposure scars catching the cold light. She surveyed the assembled second-years silently.

  "Second year," she said. "Welcome back. Some of you, anyway. Forty-three students from last year's cohort did not return. Twenty-seven washed out during final evaluations. Sixteen were deemed unsuitable for summoning consideration." She paused. "This is normal. Expected. Part of the process."

  None of the assembled cadets made so much as a rustle.

  "This year, you will prepare for summoning. Every lesson, every exercise, every meditation session… all of it builds toward that singular moment when you will reach into dimensional space and pull forth the liquid metal that will become your mech. Some of you will succeed brilliantly. Some will succeed adequately. Some will fail. Some will summon but be deemed unsuitable for deployment regardless."

  Valoris felt her squad shift slightly as every word landed with weight.

  "Summoning is scheduled for end of year. Approximately nine months from now. You will spend those nine months in intensive preparation: Advanced combat training to prove you can handle yourselves on the battlefield. Deeper dimensional theory to understand what you're attempting. Intensive meditation practice to develop the mental discipline required for neural bonding. Physical conditioning because summoning and bonding are traumatic to the human body."

  Thrace paused, let that sink in.

  "The pressure you felt last year was training pressure. The pressure you'll feel this year is existential pressure. This is not about grades or rankings or proving yourselves anymore. This is about whether you survive the process of becoming pilots. Whether your bodies can handle neural integration. Whether your minds can maintain coherence during dimensional contact. Whether you're strong enough, disciplined enough, compatible enough to bond with mechs pulled from space that operates under rules we don't fully understand.

  "You will be monitored constantly. Medical evaluations, psychological screenings, dimensional resonance checks. Any signs of instability, incompatibility, or structural weakness and you will be removed from summoning consideration. Not as punishment. As protection. We don't send people into dimensional contact if they're not ready. The cost is too high."

  She let that statement hang in the cold air.

  "Rankings matter more this year. Your final ranking before summoning determines your chamber priority, instructor-to-student ratio during the process, and post-summoning recovery support. Top-ranked squads get first choice of summoning dates; when you're most prepared, not when there's availability. You get dedicated instructor oversight during dimensional contact, not rotating supervision. You get private recovery facilities with specialized dimensional exposure treatment, not shared wards with standard care. You want to summon successfully? Earn the ranking that ensures you get optimal conditions."

  So that's how they motivate us, Valoris thought. Through institutional resource allocation. Elegant and brutal.

  "You have nine months," Thrace said. "Use them well. Prove you deserve to summon. Prove you can handle what comes after. Or wash out now and save everyone time and resources. Dismissed."

  The assembly broke apart in controlled chaos. Squads dispersed toward barracks, training facilities, academic halls. Chimera Squad moved together toward a quiet corner of the hall, away from the crowd, finding space to process.

  "Nine months," Milo said quietly. "Nine months until we summon. Until we find out if we're actually compatible. If we survive dimensional contact."

  Nobody had a reassuring response to that. Because he was right. Nine months until they discovered if everything they'd worked for was possible, or if they'd break under the strain of reaching into space that humans weren't meant to touch.

  Quinn consulted their tablet with that obsessive focus that meant they were processing anxiety through data analysis. "The cumulative probability of entering this year and becoming deployed first-year pilots is approximately forty-eight percent."

  "So barely half of us make it," Zee said.

  "Statistically. Individual variables matter. Squad cohesion improves outcomes." Quinn paused, something shifting in their expression. "Our foundation is solid. Better than most."

  "Solid enough to beat fifty-fifty odds?"

  "Unknown. But superior to baseline." Another pause, quieter. "And I... prefer these odds. With this squad."

  They stood together in the corner of the briefing hall as other squads dispersed with varying levels of confidence and fear. Some moved with determined energy, ready for the challenge, eager to prove themselves. Others showed visible anxiety, understanding what they were facing. Most moved with resigned acceptance. This was the year, no turning back.

  "We looked like that," Valoris said quietly, watching a pair of students who seemed particularly shaken by Thrace's statistics.

  "Terrified and incompetent?" Zee asked.

  "Uncertain and alone. We're not anymore."

  "No," Saren agreed. "We're not."

  They returned to their barracks as afternoon light slanted across the academy grounds, casting long shadows that stretched toward the dimensional rift's distant edge. Inside their quarters, they settled into the familiar rhythm of organizing their space, preparing for the intensity that would begin tomorrow.

  "Training schedule posted," Quinn announced, tablet glowing in the dimming light. "Mornings: advanced combat simulation. Afternoons: dimensional theory, neural bonding preparation, summoning mechanics. Evenings: meditation practice mandatory three hours daily. Academic coursework integrated throughout. Physical conditioning during gaps. Schedule runs six days weekly. Seventh day optional personal training or rest."

  "Three hours of meditation daily?" Milo sounded pained. "That's... a lot of sitting still."

  "Required for dimensional contact preparation," Saren said. "Meditation develops the mental discipline necessary for reaching into dimensional space without losing coherence. We need it."

  "Doesn't mean I have to enjoy it."

  "None of us enjoy it," Zee said. "But we'll do it anyway. Because that's what pilots do. Whatever's necessary."

  Valoris watched her squad settle into their evening routines: Zee reviewing combat videos, Saren organizing her academic materials, Quinn already meditating despite it not being required yet, Milo tinkering with some component he'd pulled from his bag. They'd grown so much in a year. From strangers who couldn't coordinate to save their lives to family who chose each other through conscious decision.

  But summoning year would test that foundation in ways first year never had. Because first year was about proving they could work together. Second year was about proving they could survive becoming something other than human; their minds would maintain coherence during dimensional contact, or they would break under the strain of touching space that operated under rules they didn't understand.

  Nine months of pressure building toward that singular moment when they'd reach into dimensional space and pull forth the mechs that would define the rest of their lives… however long or short those lives turned out to be.

  "Hey," Zee said, pulling Valoris from her spiraling thoughts. "You're thinking too loud. I can practically hear the anxiety from here."

  "Just processing. Everything Thrace said. The statistics. The pressure."

  "Yeah, it's a lot. But we've handled 'a lot' before. We'll handle this too."

  "Will we? This isn't squad coordination or combat simulations. This is reaching into dimensional space and pulling forth mechs while maintaining mental coherence despite exposure that corrupts veteran pilots. This is voluntary trauma that might destroy us or change us into something we don't recognize."

  Silence spread through their quarters. Because Valoris had just said what they'd all been thinking, all been avoiding thinking about directly.

  "So we get scared," Zee said finally, her voice rougher than usual. "We're allowed to be scared. Doesn't mean we quit."

  "Fear is a rational response to legitimate threats," Quinn observed, still in their meditation posture. Their eyes opened, focusing on the squad with unusual intensity. "The statistical probability of negative outcomes is significant. But quitting guarantees failure. There is no success without continuing." A pause. "And... I prefer success. With all of you."

  "Very inspiring," Zee muttered, but there was warmth in it.

  "It's practical," Saren corrected. "First year proved we can function as squad. Second year determines if that matters. Walking away now wastes everything we've built."

  "It's not about wasting effort," Milo said quietly, adjusting his glasses with that fidgeting motion that meant he was processing something difficult. "It's about... we chose this. All of us. For our own reasons. And those reasons haven't changed just because the reality is scary."

  They all looked at Valoris. Squad leader. The one who'd somehow ended up responsible for holding these fractured pieces together.

  "Then we do it scared," she said. "We do it uncertain. We do it knowing the odds are terrible and the cost is high and there's no guarantee any of us make it through intact. But we do it together. Because that's the only way any of this works. We're Chimera Squad. We function despite not making sense. That's what we do."

  "Together," Zee agreed, like she was swearing an oath.

  "Together," Saren said seriously.

  "Together," Quinn confirmed, and for once their voice wasn't entirely flat.

  "Together," Milo finished, managing a small smile despite the fear visible in his eyes.

  The word hung between them, a fragile desperate hope that five incompatible people could somehow be enough to survive what was coming.

  The first week of second year was designed to remind students exactly how little they knew and how much they needed to learn.

  Combat training escalated from basic coordination to advanced tactical scenarios involving multiple entity types, urban warfare, resource limitations, and ethical complications. Academic coursework shifted from theory to practical application; how dimensional mechanics actually worked, how neural bonding functioned at biological level, what happened to human consciousness during extended mech connection.

  And meditation. Three hours daily of sitting in silence while reaching for the edge of dimensional awareness, training minds to touch something fundamentally other without fracturing from the contact.

  Chimera Squad fell into rhythm quickly. They'd learned how to function under pressure during first year. By Friday evening, they were exhausted but functional.

  "First meditation session was intense," Milo said, leaning back in his chair with fatigue written across his face. "I touched something. Just the edge of it. And it was so huge. Like looking at the ocean for the first time and realizing how small you are. How small everything is."

  "I felt it too," Zee admitted. "This... presence. This awareness at the boundary of dimensional space. It wasn't hostile. Just immense. Alien. Wrong in ways I don't have words for."

  "That's what we're preparing to touch," Saren said quietly. "That's what we'll contact during summoning. That enormous cold space between spaces. And we'll reach into it and pull something out."

  "I touched the edge," Quinn said, their voice quieter than usual, eyes reflecting something like fear, or maybe wonder. "Dimensional awareness. The boundary between here and there. And it was cold. So cold. Empty but somehow full. Silent, yet screaming. Paradox given spatial form." They paused, something shifting in their expression. "Beautiful. Horrifying. I pulled back gasping."

  "We all did," Valoris said. Because she had too. She'd touched the edge during that first deep meditation session and felt something vast and cold and aware and fundamentally other and had pulled back with her heart hammering and sweat soaking through her clothes. "That's why we have nine months of preparation. To condition ourselves to that sensation so we can maintain coherence during dimensional contact long enough to summon."

  "And if we can't?" Milo asked quietly.

  "Then we wash out. Get removed from summoning consideration. Probably get medical discharge from the academy. Go home and explain to our families that we weren't strong enough, couldn't handle touching the dimensional boundary without breaking."

  The silence that followed was heavy with implications.

  "That's not happening," Zee said firmly. "We're Chimera Squad. We've survived everything the academy's thrown at us. We'll survive this too."

  "Statistically–" Quinn started, then stopped when they saw Zee's expression. Something almost like understanding flickered across their face.

  "I don't care about statistics," Zee said, but not harshly. "I care about us. About this squad. About the fact that we've beaten expectations at every turn. We'll beat these too."

  Quinn nodded slowly. "Yes. We will."

  Valoris looked at her squad, exhausted and scared, but determined. Facing down nine months of preparation for something that might break them or change them irrevocably. But facing it together. Choosing to stay together through conscious decision rather than obligation.

  "We have nine months,” she said quietly. “We'll use them well. We'll train harder than anyone expects. We'll support each other through whatever comes. And when summoning day arrives, we'll be ready. All of us. Because we're not facing this alone. We're Chimera Squad."

  "Fractured but functional," Saren added.

  "Mismatched pieces," Quinn said.

  "That work anyway," Milo finished.

  "That work anyway," Valoris agreed.

  They had nine months until summoning. Nine months until they discovered what they could become. But tonight, they were together. That was what mattered.

  Everything else – the pressure, the fear, the cold wrongness at the dimensional boundary – they'd face when it came.