A bit of a strange, in-between-scenes chapter this time. As always, let me know what you think, comments, messages or ratings are all welcome! 

The sun rose over an abandoned town. Amber light shone down on shells of houses, smashed shop fronts, and empty cars stopped askew in the street. This first banishment of the night disturbed some of the local residents, rats skittering to hide and birds fluttering aloft. Only two days after the madness and chaotic violence of the first general System notice, nature was showing its resilience, animals returning to normal practices.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the human remnants. That same light rose across a shopping mall, ground floor clumsily secured with barricades of mannequins, overturned tables, and empty shelving units. The occasional glint reflected from gun barrels as the dawn watch waited out the hours until they were relieved, still jumpy and unused to this new routine which had been forced upon them.

Inside the mall, people gathered. The vast majority of the survivors were already awake, either unable to sleep or woken by the restless ones around them. Those that could sleep were a lucky minority. Whispers of conversation sounded as people began to prepare for the trials of the coming day. In one corner, a young man and a small boy were sound asleep. They were seemingly undisturbed by the refugee camp conditions that surrounded them.

Further away, in a small office space above a clothes store, two other figures rested on a mattress which seemed to have been pulled in for the purpose. One of them stirred, then sat up and stretched alluringly, hair glowing like fire in the red tinted dawn light. Her seductive figure was quite clearly displayed as she stretched, the sheer shirt she still wore not doing a good job of concealing it.

"You realise that I know you know I'm awake, right?" The other figure turned his head, and questioned lazily.

"You're a spoilsport Oli, you know that? It hurts my feelings!" The beautiful redhead pouted unconvincingly. "We're supposed to be a couple, remember?"

"And that's why I'm in here. But you should remember that this isn't real. Don't fall for me Elle!" Oli teased her as he sat up, more open than usual due to the lingering after effects of his nap.

"Humph," Elle snorted. "As if I would fall for a bully like you!"

As they continued to snipe good-naturedly at each other, the two stood and prepared for the day. Oli splashed his face in the sink before putting a clean t-shirt on, whilst Elle smoothed her rumpled shirt and skirt, and tied her hair back loosely.

With a playful twirl, she span around like a model. "How do I look sweetie?"

"Nope. No. Sweetie is not going to work."

"Honeybun? Cuteypie?"

"I think Oli will work fine. I'll be calling you Elle."

"You really do ruin all of my fun."

"What can I say, one crazily powerful beautiful lady in my life is already causing me issues enough." Oli's face became a little more subdued as he thought of Malia. With a sigh, he moved over to the door, and opened it wide.

"So..." Elle twirled a stray lock of hair around her finger in a coquettish way. "I'm beautiful, eh?!" With a cheerful laugh, she left the sombre Oli behind and skipped down the corridor.

Oli sighed again and shook his head as he muttered to himself, following her.

"Why do I have the feeling that this is going to give me a headache?"

-    -    -    -    -

The practically glowing form of Elle, skipping and laughing cheerily, was a marked contrast to the area she entered, drawing all eyes, and waking several sleeping forms up, including the pair in the corner. The difference between her and Oli, who followed her in a much more subdued fashion, seeming tired, caused many speculative eyebrows to raise. A couple of conspiratorial whispers and several outright laughs raised the mood immediately.

Isaac stretched and stood, smirking as he considered his brother's luck. Making his way carefully through the figures separating them, he approached Oli and Elle.

"You know I'm going to need an explanation for this, right?"

Thinking quickly, Oli sent a thought to Elle.

'He can't know that we went after Hughes, I don't think he's ready to accept killing other people yet. We stayed in Newbridge for a couple nights last week, say we met there. Keep it vague.'

"Oh, we have so much to talk about!" Laughing merrily, she grabbed Isaac's arm and dragged him off, leaving Oli shaking his head in mock despair.

Oli's grin quickly faded however, and he turned to see Bjorn approaching him.

"She smells of blood. And you don't smell of sex. You can lie to the simpleton for a while, but it will bite you if you aren't careful. And we both know whose side I'll be on if it comes down to it." Bjorn looked at Oli coldly, before turning away again and marching off in search of food. Oli sighed again and frowned. Bjorn's appearance made it much too easy to forget that he was not human, and in some ways, was a lot more canny than Isaac. Somehow, Oli doubted that Bjorn would have had a problem with killing the Hughes brothers.

A steely glint flashed through his eyes. If it took lying and night-time assassinations to secure his brother's safety in this new world, he had no compunctions about doing so. And as far as Elle was concerned, she had proven useful, and hadn't been caught lying to him so far. Keep your friends close, enemies closer... whichever Elle proved to be, he was best keeping her near for now.

The kind hearted and fairly childish man who had played with his new skills and fallen out of a window, who had cried after witnessing the brutality of the Lizardman cave, and blushed when a goddess kissed him was nowhere to be seen. Whether or not the change is for the better, Oli was indisputably not the same person anymore.

-    -    -    -    -

When the group had gathered food and found a table to sit at in the cafeteria where yesterday's showdown had occurred, they were joined by Jenny and Allard. Allard was openly grinning, whilst Jenny just blushed and sent sidelong glances at Oli and Elle. Elle, seeing this, smiled even wider and began attempting to feed Oli forkfuls of bacon.

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As he fended her off, Allard coughed gently, and began to speak.

"We've begun storing water and implementing a rationing system, working on our assumption that technology will start to fail. We have a group heading out to a local supermarket. They're going for water bottles, dried food and tins. We thought we'd be okay for a few days with what is here, but I'd like to prepare for the worst. I won't beat around the bush, we want you to join a group. Your friends are already stronger than anyone we have."

Isaac and Bjorn both looked to Oli for an answer. Seeing this, Allard and Jenny also stared at him, as Elle became serious. Oli thought for a moment.

"We have no intention of staying here indefinitely. I'm sure the accents already gave away the fact that we aren't locals. We have a long, and probably nasty trip ahead of us. Endangering ourselves now doesn't make any sense."

Jenny immediately flared up, but Allard stopped her before she could make a scene.

"If you have a long and hard journey ahead then you'll need to be prepared. That means gear, supplies, weapons. I'm assuming from your... familiarity, that Miss Elle will be joining you? That's four people to provision. My people know the area, they can speed up your preparations. You accompany supply runs for the next few days, I'll give you space on each run to gather things for yourself. By then, my people will have gained a couple of levels and be able to protect themselves. And you and yours will be able to move on faster than before, while also having a friendly base to fall back to if you need it. Way I see it, we all win here."

"As far as Elle goes, I don't know yet if she'll be accompanying us. And we could gather supplies ourselves. But I take your point. Okay, we'll accompany supply runs for five days only, and on three conditions. One, we keep our own stockpile, which you and yours do not touch. Two, I make the calls in the field. If I decide we retreat, we retreat. I have no intention of dying for you. And third, she comes with us on every run." With a nod, Oli gestured towards Jenny.

Elle gasped in mock horror, and with an expression of overwrought shock, smacked Oli's shoulder. "You beast! Aren't I enough for you?! After everything I did for you last night..."

Oli didn't pay any attention to Elle's theatrics, although both Isaac and Jenny turned bright red at her comment, Jenny especially so. Allard however maintained his focus on Oli.

"Why her?"

"She's visibly supporting you, the people here trust her. If she disappears it impacts on you a lot, meaning you're less likely to try and have us removed when you think we aren't necessary."

While the surrounding listeners looked horrified at the very idea, Allard nodded calmly.

"And what makes you think she wouldn't be in on the effort?"

Oli laughed sardonically. "I very much doubt that she could lie that well. Call it intuition."

Jenny finally spluttered and joined the conversation. "I'm right here you know! Allard would never do something that scummy, and I'm more than happy to come with you. But it will be to keep an eye on you. Don't think I trust you one little bit, I'll be watching you the whole time."

"Sorry hun, he's taken," purred Elle.

Face red with anger this time, Jenny glared at the other woman. "Don't worry, I have no interest in your... your boy-toy." 

She turned and stormed off, snapping at anyone that got near her. Allard nodded at Oli, signifying his consent to the agreement, before turning and hurrying after her. Presumably he was trying to placate her before they left on the first supply run.

Elle just laughed once more. "She really doesn't have a good impression of you, does she Oli?"

"I wonder why..." Oli muttered. "So, will you be coming with us on these supply runs?"

"Me? No way, I'm not cut out for all this violence and fighting, I'm much too fragile! I'll wait here with Allard and hold the fort down."

Oli shook his head at the idea of this woman being fragile. She was at least as strong as him!

"And afterwards?"

"I guess you'll need to wait and see!" Elle smiled at the look on Oli's face, and then turned to leave the table, heading in the direction that Allard and Jenny had taken.

"Sometimes I don't know whether to be jealous of you, or scared for you." Isaac reached over and patted his brother on the shoulder. And then, any semblance of pity vanished from his face as he grinned widely. "I get the feeling Malia really isn't going to like Elle!"

"Laugh it up while you can. You get to babysit the angry deputy on our shopping trips!" With that as his comeback, Oli turned back to his interrupted meal. "Eat up. I have the feeling you're gonna have a long day!"

-    -    -    -    -

Allard caught up with the furious Jenny just as she reached the small room they had been using as an armoury. He waved the armed guard away and followed her in.

"Don't let him get to you. He's cleverer than he seems, or he wouldn't have made such a public statement. Even if we wanted to get rid of them we couldn't after that. He's playing with you deliberately, to keep you off balance."

"I know," she snapped. "Don't worry, I'll watch him."

"I don't think he is a threat, especially if they intend to leave soon. But I'm not certain. Watch him and his friends, try and figure out their skills if you can, especially his. And use him to level up. The stronger you are, the better it will be for all of us. But be careful, we haven't seen what he can do yet."

Jenny calmed down, and nodded. "It isn't him that I'm concerned about anyway. But that Elle. I've asked around, no one here knows her, or where she came from. She just showed up. There's something off about her, how did she survive on her own, completely unharmed?"

"I'll watch her, don't worry about it. Hopefully she leaves when they do."

"Hopefully. She's definitely hiding something, I can feel it. Something's... off."

Jenny picked up a spare clip for her pistol, and after a moment's thought, picked up a vicious looking machete too. Still talking, she followed Allard out of the room, locking the door behind her.

In the corner of the room, the shadows seemed to move. A silvery laugh rang out, and then faded back into silence.