Alex looked around, the entire group had woken.

He had been worried for Jessica at first, but she woke quickly.

Apparently her guide had treated her with a bit of a heavy hand, Jessica was behaving a lot more timid for now.

Eian and Sarah woke by the end and Alex called them all out.

Hopefully by now things had settled down, everyone had had time away from each other.

Alex realized Eian had the right idea, everyone needed a break from each other sometimes.

Even he had been treating Sarah a little roughly, he wasn't that kind of guy and the first thing he had to do was apologize.

"Alright, first off, Sarah I want to say sorry." Alex nodded at her and gave her, what he hoped passed as, a contrite smile.

Sarah blinked and tilted her head.

"What?" Sarah looked about at everyone.

"I was treating you badly a while ago, I'm not like that and I'm sorry. I've been a little stressed lately, so I just wanted to say that." Alex shrugged lightly.

"You don't have to apologize Alex. She was being mean too." Jessica frowned at him, Sarah frowned at her.

"Jess, let's not burn bridges, please. She was responding to my negative attitude and we've all been through a lot." Alex patted her shoulder and hoped she calmed down.

"What's your problem anyways? I've done everything to help you and you're taking it all for granted. There's a limit to goodwill." Sarah's frown deepened and she crossed her arms, she was looking at Jessica.

Alex sighed, this was not how he wanted things to start off.

Eian had a smirk on his face and he shook his head lightly, Alex felt exasperated.

"Helping me? How? Everything you do is to scold or berate me!" Jessica huffed and folded her arms as well.

"Who do you think made you get your powers! I've been feeding you half my kills! You'd still be a regular person without me! I could be stronger if I hadn't!" Sarah got up definitely looked pissed.

Jessica opened her mouth to retort and closed it, she pouted, then looked away from Sarah.

Alex tried to remember, then figured out it was true recently.

Even he had benefited from Sarah.

"Thank-you for that as well. Please! Let's move on, we shouldn't be fighting." Alex inwardly sighed.

Sarah turned to look at him with narrowed eyes.

"Alex. I agree we should move on, but first we have a problem." Sarah stared at him directly.

"Yeah?" Alex sighed, he thought he knew where this might be going.

"Yes. Normally it wouldn't be a concern, but out here? Alex, Jessica, I don't know what type of thing you two have going on, but..." Sarah was looking at them both.

"That is none of your business." Jessica growled and interrupted her.

"You two a thing now?" Eian raised an eyebrow.

"None of your business." Jessica huffed and a flush came to her cheeks, Alex flushed a bit too.

Sarah rubbed her face and muttered something under her breathe.

Alex thought he heard something about idiots.

"Look, it's not a problem in and of itself. I have no problem with you two dating or whatever. The problem is if it's going to affect our teamwork, or the lack of it so far." Sarah was rubbing the left-side of her face, with one hand .

"It shouldn't affect us working as a team." Alex scratched the back of his head.

"It already did. Back when Eian was lost you were obstinate and stupid trying to help Jessica. I could have gotten hurt and I tired myself out fighting so many enemies. Alex wake up, we aren't ever safe. You're our only medic, what would you do if I had died?" Sarah stared at his face.

"I wouldn't have let you die." Alex backed away a little, he looked away from her though.

"Really? If you had to choose between saving me or Jessica, whom would you choose then?" Sarah rolled her eyes.

Alex licked his lips and remained silent, the answer was obvious, but saying it out loud was a dumb idea.

"He would choose Jessica obviously." Eian broke the silence, still smirking.

"What does that matter? We just don't have to get in a situation like that." Jessica frowned.

"It matters, because it means I can't depend on either of you to save me in a pinch. Eian's the only reliable one here." Sarah nodded her head at him.

"We just have to work a little on our team-work. We have a base now." Alex scratched his neck and tried not to look at the other two.

"Yeah. I have a few ideas about that." Eian threw that out there, nodding at him.

"Don't try to move away from topic here. If I can't depend on you, how can you expect me to watch your back as well? I'll have to look after me first." Sarah's frown deepened.

"Heh. I'm just glad I'm hard to hurt." Eian chuckled.

"Shut up Eian." Sarah frowned at him, he lifted his hands helplessly.

"What are you trying to say, Sarah?" Tilting his head, Alex was confused.

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"I'm saying that next time you're surrounded by ten boars, I'll kill my enemies and not help you, till I'm done of course." Shrugging, Sarah watched for his reaction.

"You'll leave him to die?!" Standing, Jessica looked ready to jump Sarah.

Alex held her hand and squeezed lightly.

Jessica looked at him worried and then glared at Sarah.

"She's saying she'll leave you to die!" Jessica pointed at Sarah, whom remained still.

"I think she's trying to make a point Jess." Alex's throat felt a bit dry.

Sarah was the strongest of them, her fire and lightning made everything much easier.

"That includes you as well Jessica." Sarah briefly looked at Jessica with contempt.

"Bitch!" Jessica almost charged her, Alex held her back.

Eian stayed out of it looking at them with a frown.

"What are you trying to say, Sarah?" Alex frowned with concern, he knew she wanted to say something.

Sarah looked at him in the eye, she briefly looked at Jess then shook her head.

"You're both a liability. Jess can barely fight, your healing makes you useful, but that's it." Sarah shrugged.

"His healing saved Eian! It healed your arm too!" Jessica sat down, but was still glaring daggers at Sarah.

Alex held her hand tight and waited for Sarah to continue.

He knew he wasn't the strongest defender, nor the one with the most killing potential, but he had an important role to play.

They all had an important role to play, he understood Sarah was angry with him over her injury though.

"I don't make it a habit of agreeing with Jessica, but she's right Sarah. Alex's healing is more important than you're letting on." Eian nodded at him and frowned at Sarah.

Sarah lifted her hand and closed her eyes.

A second later an identical version of his own healing bolt appeared on her hand.

Alex's eyes widened, he heard Jessica take a deep breathe and Eian blinked a few times.

How? A few seconds later, the bolt fizzled out leaving Alex speechless.

Sarah took advantage of the silence.

"I agree, his healing is important. I don't want to be stuck being a medic too." Sarah shrugged.

"Neat." Eian was rubbing his chin, eliciting a small smile from Sarah.

Sarah's face quickly lost all mirth.

"Alex listen. I'm not going to repeat myself, so listen closely. If I believe you and Jess will continue acting as you are. I will focus on myself first. That means I won't be sharing my kills, I won't be giving you advice and for gods-sake I won't be risking my neck for you. Understood?" Sarah's steely eyes focused solely on him.

Alex stared at her dumbly.

What can you say to that?

Alex chewed on the inside of his cheek for a while.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're saying." Alex squeezed Jess's hand.

"I'm saying, I want you both to start doing your part." Sarah stared at him intently.

"You want us to do what you say? Obey you? That it?" Alex frowned and his eyes narrowed.

"No. For...Ugh......I want you to do your part as the medic Alex. To HEAL the person that needs it the most. Not just rush off to save HER, when she doesn't even need it." Sarah pointed at Jessica.

Jessica looked angry enough to storm Sarah.

Alex squeezed her hand a little tighter.

"What about Jessica? You mentioned her too." Eian held his head sideways on his open palm, while sitting and looking a bit bored.

"I want her to start focusing on how to kill things more efficiently. We can help her get another point in spirit. She should get a damage spell then." Sarah nodded.

"We don't get a choice in this?" Alex clenched his free hand.

Sarah looked at him as if a simple child.

"Of course you do. You can choose to work with us, as an actual team, or we can each just lookout for ourselves. I'm confident in protecting myself." Sarah shrugged.

"What's up, all of you?" Eian looked around puzzled.

"What's wrong, is you are both just deciding how to do things without us man." Alex kept his voice low.

"Hey, hey, we aren't deciding anything! I'm willing to listen to anything you have to say too. I think it's a terrible idea to not work together." Eian held his palms up and opened.

Alex relaxed a bit at that.

At least Eian seemed neutral.

"So you think, it's fine if they get one of us killed?" Sarah's lips formed a thin line.

"What's up with you? All the doom and gloom now anyways? I'm the one that stupid-over-cooked-bird almost ate." Eian quirked an eyebrow at her.

"You didn't see how he was acting when you weren't there." Sarah's tone was getting  a bit accusatory.

Alex tuned them out for a minute and tried to focus on the situation.

He kept hold of Jessica's hand so she didn't try to get in there.

He calmed himself down too, he had gotten a little riled up too.

Maybe he was acting a little over-protective, but still she didn't have to say it like that.

"What do you think Jess?" Alex looked at her and asked her in a whisper.

"She's so bossy. She always thinks she's right, belittling us all the time." Jessica was whispering, frowning also.

"She has been helping us get stronger." Alex tried to figure out what to do.

"What are you two doing? This is a group discussion." Sarah interrupted them.

'If only James were here.' Alex sighed.

"What gives you the right to boss us around anyways? You're not the leader." Jessica jutted her chin out.

"Why are you so...Ugh!!!" Sarah closed her eyes and grit her teeth.

"We don't have a leader." Eian was looking at the ceiling.

"Maybe we should change that then. I say Alex, he's the one that always worries about everyone." Jessica pouted and crossed her arms.

"No ones going to vote, when you two already have half the group." Sarah rubbed her fore-head.

"Yeah, seems kind of unfair. Besides its best to decide things together." Eian shrugged, Alex nodded.

'A leader sounds like bad idea anyways. We'd have to follow everything one person decides.' Alex closed his eyes briefly, before opening them after a small breathe.

Everyone went silent for a while.

"How 'bout we all just try to figure things out first?" Eian suggested, after a very long awkward silence.

"What do you mean?" Sarah looked at him head tilted, eyes puzzled.

"I mean like. Mmmmm. Let's......try to re-work our team-work. I'm the one at the front taking hits, Alex is always beside me, but I think I can manage alone now. At least with small groups." Eian nodded after a brief pause to think.

"And what will Alex and Jess do?" Sarah frowned.

"Well we can experiment and see how things work out in the field. We just need to be careful. We can come up with all kinds of things in here, but out there is what matters." Eian shrugged.

"I agree. We can all come up with something together." Alex nodded, that sounded like something James might say.

As long as one person didn't just take over and ignore everyone else, Alex was fine.

Everyone needed to voice their opinion, Sarah seemed to want to ignore Jess and be the boss.

"So we still haven't decided a thing." Sarah sighed.

"We have time. Why the rush? We could be here weeks. Plus like Alex said, we could use some training." Eian looked at her.

"Jess has just gotten control over her powers too." Alex hoped they took that into consideration.

"Yeah!" Jess nodded at him a happy smile plastered on her face and she squeezed his hand back.

"Eian's right, we can all pool together and see what each can bring to the table." Alex looked at an empty space between them, he was metaphorically speaking of course.

Jess' power was amazing anyways, she could have already saved his life by evading the bog.

"FINE, but I want to see you both doing more on your part. I feel stressed all the time, I have to worry about what you two are always doing. Alex, I just don't want you to forget I might need help too." Sarah frowned at him.

Jess glared at her, Sarah frowned at her with narrowed eyes, Alex sighed as they both got into a brief staring contest.

He and Eian watched them both to make sure they didn't get physical.

They waited in silence for a while, everything was dead.

"Roger then. I think we should do that. Let's hear what each of us can do and try to work out something." Alex stretched a bit, his arms felt stiff.

Alex wanted to break the ice, before things got too awkward.

"Right. It was my idea, so I'll start." Eian nodded.

Alex half-smiled, he hoped this was the actual beginning of a prosperous team.