Let's get started shall we?

Opening theme for Book 3 is "Golden Time Lover" by Sukima Switch(FMAB OP3) and takes place two years after the events of Book 2

Just Another Day

Aro scratched the itching hair growing under his chin, leaning against his ship, "Why are we pretending I support Dead Orbit again?" he asked, wincing and raising his hand when the sun came out from behind the clouds.

Crona walked over, carrying a two heavy box of tools and gears for the ship on each shoulder like they weighed nothing. She dropped the boxes at his feet and shrugged, "We need the shaders."

"We?" Aro asked, sticking an accusing finger in her face, "Or you?"

She knocked his hand away, "Pick one. Doesn't change anything."

"Soooo we're…scamming them?"

"I was thinking more like outright stealing."

Aro sighed tiredly. She had been at this for weeks, "We are not stealing from Dead Orbit."

"Why not? We already stole my sister in law and her son." she pointed out, jerking a thumb at the ship. As if on cue, a brown hand stuck out from the bottom of his ship accompanied by the shout of the name of a random tool, causing Aro to quickly rummage around to find it. Just above their heads, he could hear Asura attempting and failing to keep the energetic six year old in one place, boots clanking back and forth.

"Akira is a grown woman. She can do whatever she wants." Aro argued back, handing Akira the tool, "And your words were "liberated". That we "liberated" her from your brother's Consensus meeting. He's probably wondering where they are by now…"

A mop of black hair suddenly dropped from the ship, followed by Akira herself, "Aro, get in the pilot seat. Try to turn it on." she said, wiping the black oil off her hands, "And what are we stealing?"

"Absolutely nothing!" Aro yelled from the top of his ship.

"Shaders from Dead Orbit."

Her eyes popped open, "Ooh, the black and white ones?"

"No!"

"Yep." Crona answered again, ignoring Aro's muffled protest from inside the ship.

"Those always look so good." She beat her fist against the ship, "Turn it on some time today please!"

"Alright, alright!" Aro replied right before his ship started up, smoother than it had been in days.

"That takes care of whatever you heard clanking." Akira removed stray hairs from her face, "But next time you go to Mars, try not to fly directly over a Goliath tank. Spacecraft isn't an issue for them."

"Duly noted." Aro snarked, dropping to the ground and following her and Crona up the staircase. Asura had finally managed to capture and keep Zavala the Third or Trey's interest. The boy was curled up in his lap, listening to Asura read one of his books out loud. His efforts went out the window when Trey saw his mother and aunt. Crona quickly caught Trey before he could get to his mother, who was covered in engine fluid and sweat.

"Mom, when's Dad going to be finished?" the boy asked.

"Umm…" she picked up her phone, scrolling through a multitude of messages. All most likely from him. "Daddy should be here very soon. I should probably go wash up before he does."

Akira turned around and started up the stairs only to stop and slowly start walking back down, her eyes trained on whoever was at the top.

Z slowly followed her down, an annoyed but amused look on his face. Crona cursed. Asura made sure to cover the child's ears before she did.

"Akira." He said simply.

"Heeey, love. How was your meeting?" she asked.

"Ended early. Figured I'd spend the rest of my afternoon hunting you two down." Z looked over at Asura with his son and held both his hands out. Trey promptly ran into his open arms.

"You could've sent me a text, you know. I got worried." Z said, frowning.

"Is your phone's volume off?" Akira asked.

"What?"

"Is…it…off?" she repeated.

"Why does that even matter?!"

"Because you always forget to turn it off unless I tell you! Or do you not remember it going off during one of your meetings last year?"

"I…" Z was about to argue but fell silent with a huff.

"Exactly." she let out a resigned sigh, stood up on her toes and kissed him, "I apologize. Okay?"

Crona took the moment to try and sneak past both of them. Z's hand latched onto her shirt and dragged her back into the group, putting her face to face with him.

"You had something to do with this, didn't you?" Z accused.

"I have no clue what you are talking about, dear brother."

"I'm tired, Crona. Don't play with me."

"Alright, alright. You sound like father." Crona raised her hands in a failed attempt to placate him, "You look like him when you're angry too. Anyway, Akira told me she was stuck there with Trey and Amanda seemed like she could use an extra pair of hands with the ships today."

"So you came and kidnapped my wife and son?" Z asked, squatting down to adjust Trey's clothing.

"Liberated."

"Mmhmm." He rose back to his full height and looked at Aro and Asura, "And I guess she roped you two into helping her?"

"You could say something like that." Asura answered, handing Akira the book and conveniently leaving out the fact that he was a very willing participant.

"I figured. I'm going to get you back for this. You know that right?" Z said, pointing a finger in her face. A finger she promptly knocked away.

"Whatever you plan to do, you'll have to do it later." Aro said, lifting up off the railing.

"Why, is something going on?"

"Today's our training session." Aro sighed, "With Shaxx."

Akira grimaced, inhaling through her teeth. Z started laughing.

Aro landed hard on his back, getting the breath and probably more knocked out of him. Shaxx was not going easy today. Then again, he never did.

He rolled to the side to avoid a massive boot dropping towards his face. Shaxx landed where his head used to be with a resounding thud, "Sleep later, kid!" Shaxx warned, charging him again.

He jerked to one side, narrowly avoiding an Arc filled Storm Fist, rather than try to block it like he had before. Just the sound of both his forearms snapping in half was enough motivation to make sure he never tried that again.

A normal, laughing, boisterous Lord Shaxx was already an intimidating sight. But when Shaxx was fighting was a completely different man. He had stripped down to waist, exposing a terrifyingly strong upper body. Combined with a scowl and glowing Arc blue eyes with small streams of lightning emanating from them, Shaxx had always managed to rattle their focus with his simple appearance, no matter how many times they fought against him.

Eyes glowing a similar Arc blue, both Crona and Asura came at Shaxx, Asura Blinking forward to try and catch him with his knife and Crona throwing a Storm Fist at his head.

As they should've expected, it did not work.

Asura, being the faster one, got to him first. Shaxx ducked under the knife and threw a hard right hook at Asura's side, using his flinching to quickly twisted the knife from Asura's hand. He turned and threw the knife directly at Crona, who screamed as it embedded itself in her shoulder, stumbling in her charge. Shaxx got behind Asura, kicking his legs out and jumping clear over his falling body to deliver a punishing blow from above to the distracted Crona.

By the time he had noticed Aro, it was too late. Aro mustered all the strength he could and sent the force energy out of his palm directly into Shaxx's hard stomach.

The sound of the impact echoed across the room. Shaxx grunted from the force of the attack but otherwise did not move an inch.

"Shit." was all Aro had time to think before Shaxx kicked him several feet back. Despite the strength of the kick, Aro had managed to stay on his feet. He had no time to react before Shaxx tackled him to the ground and brought his massive fist down towards his face.

The fist stopped right before it could connect with his face, the wind of the punch kicking up dust around them into the air.

Shaxx glared down at him for a few seconds before he stood, "You three are getting better at this." His expression softened and he extended a hand to Aro, helping him stand. He went around, doing the same for all the others.

"We are? I didn't notice." Crona groaned, rubbing the shoulder where Asura's knife had landed.

"Well I did. There's room for improvement, of course but you'll get there." Shaxx ran a towel over his head.

He took a look at the three of them, noticing how dejected they all looked. He sighed, "I'm not doing this because I'm trying to be mean or anything like that. The Heralds, at least the ones we know about were all exceptional Guardians in life. All Rank IV Guardians and as Fireteam Aashir and now Mira's team and Katrina's team can tell you, that is no easy feat. I even taught some of them."

"Teams Mira and Katrina still out of commission?" Asura asked.

"Of course. It's only been a week. You saw what they went through." Shaxx said, "I'm just trying to increase your chances of coming home alive. That's all." With that, Shaxx donned a shirt and walked out of the room, leaving the three to ponder his words.

Kain did his best to repair Aro's injuries. He still had to limp home. Asura had taken off to wherever, probably to bother someone like Shino or Katrina, who he heard were still stiff from the Trials and couldn't attack him.

There had been no sighting of any of the six remaining Heralds. Aro was grateful for their periodic disappearances but it made him wonder what they might be planning this time.

He was sure he was still being watched. He and his team had just been promoted to Rank III a few months ago, so both Venus and Mars were now accessible to him. The first thing he did was visit a certain location in the Meridian Bay on Mars; the grave of a dead Ghost, fulfilling the last wish of a dying man. The man who saved his life on the Moon. The man he had been forced to kill himself.

He turned on the shower and slipped out of his sweaty clothes. He turned around slightly in order to see his Will of Light clan mark tattooed on the upper right side of his back. It was nothing complex, just an image of a Sun surrounded by an intricately designed corona. If it didn't remind him of everything that had happened to him since the very day he was revived, he would appreciate it more. Maybe one day, a clan mark is all it will be.

It wasn't required once starting or entering a clan but according to the others, it was customary. All fifteen of them had gotten their own in a different place. Aro had placed his where he would only see it when he wanted to. He didn't need a reminder of what he was dealing with anytime he tried to change clothes.

His shower was quick as he did not want to stand for much longer and he was still rather busy. He dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist, wiping off the mirror to examine his face.

"You letting it grow this time?" Kain asked, appearing next to his head.

His eyes flicked to his Ghost quickly before he answered, "I might. It looks like a mess but I don't really feel like shaving right now."

"You know, Daniel-"

"Yes, Daniel would like it if I grew it out." Aro quickly interrupted, "It's just too much work."

"Or you're just lazy."

"There's that."

Aro sighed and pulled himself away from the mirror and left the bathroom. He was surprised at what he saw when he returned to his room, although he shouldn't have been by this point.

Daniel had let himself in and made himself right at home, a shoeless foot propped up on Aro's bed and his bare back pressed against the headboard, clan mark exposed on his left ribcage. He was flipping through one of Aro's many textbooks, a hopelessly lost look on his face.

"Don't hurt yourself, Titan." Aro teased, coming around and pulling the book out of his hands.

"How the hell do you make sense of anything in there? What is it even saying?"

Aro looked at the title, "It's just some theories on how the Hive power their weapons and technology. How do their ships cut holes in space and time? How do symbols lock doors, things like that."

"Then why don't they just say that?!"

Aro laughed, "When I meet the old Thanatonauts, I'll be sure to ask." He dropped the dusty book onto his work desk and began skimming through the closet for something comfortable, "So you're back rather early."

Aro heard Daniel's weight shift up off the bed, "Yeah, we took out the targets rather quickly. Besides…" he moved in close behind Aro, "I missed my boyfriend."

Aro started laughing, "It's been two days."

"You're pretty hard to forget." Daniel squeezed his sides, causing Aro to grimace slightly. Daniel frowned, "Something wrong?"

"Shaxx worked us over today."

Daniel smiled painfully, "I remember. It'll be our turn soon. Speaking of which, you busy at anytime today?" Daniel asked gruffly, moving closer, a finger hooked into the towel already slipping off his waist.

Aro inhaled sharply when Daniel's teeth sunk into his shoulder. "Unfortunately." He sighed.

Daniel moved back slightly, "Does it have to do with the Heralds?"

Aro simply nodded.

"The world won't end if you forget them for a little while." He turned him around, "In here, it's just you and me."

Aro laughed slightly, "Alright. But fair warning, I can barely move."

"Fine by me." Daniel pulled him closer, "Let me do the work. I'll take care of you."

Immortal Superhuman Space Boyfriends. They need a ship name.

I was watching "Over the Garden Wall" as I was writing the draft of this, in case some parts looked familiar.

P.S: I've been going back and editing House of Devils, make it easier for people to read, in case anyone wanted to go back and look at it again. Feel free to message me any continuity issues you might spot that I may have missed.