Kaleb ordered his troop of minions to form up into three neat rows of six, it wasn't anywhere near as orderly as the Roman infantry he had pictured and watching the scowling monsters try to salute him was so ridiculous he almost fell over laughing. He got his giggles under control after receiving a few harsh glares from the traumatised people around him. 'I need to remember this isn't some kind of game.' that thought made him pause in the middle of the street. What if it is some kind of game, like an alien version of Sims.'

He thought on it for a while and conjured three new minions when his first groups timer ran out. Kaleb could feel his motivation drying up as he thought about his whole universe being fake but like everyone else around him he did his best to keep moving and put it to the back of his mind. “Just need to focus on the fact that magic is cool and I have my own army.”

The groups who had come before him to secure Westbank Street had made an effort to move all the cars and junk from the middle of the road. Kaleb had no idea where they had moved the bodies but the street was completely clear of them. It didn't take long to find them, though he never expected them to be up and walking about.

Kaleb reached the next intersection to see a tall thin man in a great looking three piece suit waving his hands like he was conducting an orchestra. A horde of dead bodies shambled around, pushing cars to the side of the road and bringing more corpses to the man. 'A necromancer.' he thought feeling a bit jealous when he saw how many zombies the man had compared to his eighteen minions but from watching them he noticed how weak an individual zombie was compared to his minions. 'we could easily beat this guy.' Kaleb had to snap himself out of that competitive mindset. He was here to help.

“Hi, They sent me here to help out.” he called over to the necromancer who waved at him to come closer.

“I'm just the clean up crew, you need to head to Paterson's Pet Empawrium. Its taking everything the team has to hold back the animals there.” the guy was incredibly relaxed considering what was happening but Kaleb could hardly judge, the pet stores punny name however was unforgivable. He gave a quick thumbs up and continued up the street.

Now that he could see past the large group of zombies the street looked how he would expect. Abandoned cars and bikes clogged the road while everything was splattered in gore as if an effort was made to cover as many things as possible in blood. Six people stood in the middle of the road up ahead with two meter high metal walls to either side of them placed at angles to funnel packs into only one or two at a time. The team of people looked pretty rough and a couple were downing bottles of a strange liquid handed out by a third man who was keeping back from the actual fighting.

They spotted Kaleb and his small force quickly grabbing their weapons. They were a bent metal bat and a bow and arrow. 'The bat I get but where did he find a bow and arrows?' Weapons weren't exactly common in the city but Kaleb could create living beings from nothing so once again he decided to just roll with it.

“That's far enough!” the bow wielder 'A woman.' he suddenly realised. The amount of blood and dirt caked to her made it impossible to tell from far away.

“The police sent me to help. The necromancer told me to come this way.”

the two shared a confused look. “The what?” she asked still aiming at him. Kaleb prepared his minions to jump if she fired at him before speaking again.

“The guy in the suit, With the zombies!” he shouted and waved behind him.

They immediately recognised who he was talking about but kept their weapons up.

“That's Greg!” the man with the bat confirmed. “He's a bit of an odd duck.”

'who cares if he's called Greg! Stop aiming at me.' Kaleb swallowed his words and raised his hands. “I'm here to help get the wall built. Can I come over?” The day had been far too stressful to deal with people threatening him but he did his best to keep his tone friendly.

The archer looked at her own bow as if she hadn't noticed she was holding it and brought it down to her side. Kaleb and his minions kept a measured pace so as not to spook them and then had his group stand back while he moved close enough to speak normally.

“I'm Kaleb by the way.” he said shaking hands with the bat man.

“Derek and this is Lisa, sorry about all of that...Its been one hell of a day.”

Kaleb didn't hold it against them and just nodded that he understood. “ So, anything I can do to help here? These guys are pretty tough.” he said gesturing to his minions who'd taken the break in walking as a cue to sit around and scratch each others backs. “They could hold the line while you all rest for a bit.” he suggested

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“I don't know if they'll be enough. There's a horde of mutant pets coming from the pet shop. What ever the patch did to the rabbits and rats has made them breed and grow rapidly.” Lisa said giving his minions a once over.

“We'll see what they can do.” Derek said grateful for any help at this point.

Kaleb got his minions on their feet and let Derek and Lisa go ahead and talk to the others. One he reached the walls the noise that had faded into the background before became almost overwhelming. Derek had to shout and even punch one of the men in the back to tell them to go rest.

Kaleb's minions flooded into the space the two men left and he got his first view of the furry horde. 'Can you even call these things rabbits?' The once placid bundles of fluff had grown horns claws and fangs, they would of reached Kaleb's knees if they ever stood still instead of constantly hopping. Their fur was drenched in blood and they fought the giant rats attacking them from behind as much as his minions.

His small group huddled close together to make it harder for the pinballing rabbits to force them back and the front line began shredding anything that came at them. He refreshed his minions when another three ran out of time and cycled the oldest to the front though it was getting hard to keep track. When the next set needed to be conjured he brought up his Minion creation window and changed their colour to a bright blue. While watching them slaughter the rabbits he'd decided on giving each batch a colour so he could tell at a glance who was going to expire. The result was a rainbow coloured group of monsters only adding to the insanity of the day. 'It makes them look much friendlier.' he thought holding back a grin.

While he stood on the back line he stole a few glances at the exhausted men and women who had held the line. Some of them had received horrible wounds that would've killed any of them before the patch. The man handing out bottles of what he suspected were healing potion was clearly some kind of alchemist class but the potions only seemed to stop the bleeding and had a small energy boost.

The rest of the team were all melee fighters with random assortments of junk for weapons. Kaleb decided to forgo one batch of minions and conjure them some weapons. “Do you guys want some weapons?” he asked abruptly breaking into their hushed conversation.

“You hiding them behind your back or something?” Derek asked with a laugh.

Kaleb focused for a second and conjured him a thicker baseball bat with studs around the head. It was a much better looking mace than his first attempt back in his bedroom and would do more damage than the bent aluminium bat Derek was still holding onto. The thing was made out of what he guessed was iron and weight more than he could easily throw so Kaleb awkwardly walked it over and let him take it from his hands. Derek gave a few test swings that would probably of killed Kaleb if he'd been the target and he tossed his old bat away.

“Thanks, this is awesome. What else can you make?”

Kaleb conjured two rough axes for Jack but nothing for his brother Eddy who was the one responsible for making the metal walls, apparently he had some kind of Magneto style powers that let him control and shape metal. He made a sword for the only other woman in the group, Addie. she was the cleanest of the five active fighters and had been using a snapped fencing sword to stab at the rabbits. He'd tried to make the sword a kind of fencing sabre which she had accepted with few words.

“So can you just keep making those monsters?” Sam the alchemist asked while the others went to test their weapons before they had to go back to fighting.

“Yeah pretty much, the spell cost is medium and I can do three about every ten minutes. The weapons are low cost so I can do a few more.” Once he had enough mana he made two new red minions to replace the three that perished and used the left over mana to make some arrows. It completely emptied his mana but twelve broad head arrows clattered to the ground all around him. “I might need to work on that one.” he scramble to gather them up and passed them to a grateful Lisa who had a spell to create her own arrows but it was only one at a time and she had to shoot it quickly.

“How do your potions work?” he asked while taking a seat to recover his mana.

Sam ran a hand through his hair embarrassed to talk about himself. “I've got three different ones I can make. Health, Mana and one that's actually a pretty strong poison. I need components to cast the spells but the mana cost is low.”

“Components?” Kaleb asked surprised

“Yeah I need a container and a liquid, I've been using bottles of water from the shop over there.” he gestured to the ruined convenience store behind them. “I doubt anyone's going to mind if I take them.” he added taking a deep breath to keep the heavy emotions of the day back.

“I can conjure water if you run out but you'll need to bring the bottles.”

Kaleb swore when he saw his mana was full. He'd forgotten to make a new batch of minions and his remaining group were beginning to struggle with the reduced numbers. “Are you guys okay to fight again?”

They looked apprehensive but they headed to the gap all the same. Kaleb tried to think of the best way to use his minions to help in the fight. The more he thought of his earlier idea of Roman infantry the more he liked it but the high walls and the small gap were giving him strong Sparta vibes. 'I can probably make a spear.' With his full mana bar he made six spears and passed them to his minions. He considered giving them a shield but giving the small minions a big shield and a long spear would make it hard for them to do anything. “The minions will try to hold off the rabbits while you all kill the ones that get through.” he said trying to think of a plan.

“We need to make our way to the pet shop and Kill the ones that are breeding or It'll never stop.” Eddy said. “I'll close the wall behind us.”

“Sounds good, remember we only have an hour before your weapons duration runs out. If its not done by then we need to pull back so I can make more.”

The only one not joining them was Sam who was going to go get Greg and try to convince him to help fight instead of clean the street.

The pet shop was across the intersection on the corner and took up two floors. It was maybe fifty meters away but it felt like miles when they stared over the heads of the minions at the blood soaked crossroad. “This is so fucked.” Kaleb whispered barely audible with the racket but the others nodded in agreement. He would swear the rabbits were getting bigger and spikier, the rats seemed longer and he spotted a few with multiple tails.

“Lets do this!”