"What?! What is it, James?! Is everything alright?" Tom called at James' sudden yelling.

"I have to go to the bathroom," He replied, much to everyone's annoyance.

"Seriously?" Tom looked pointedly at James. "We thought something was actually wrong!"

"Sorry, but it snuck up on me," James whined as he squirmed in his seat.

"Hurry up and go. We need to get on the road." Tom replied, rolling his eyes as he turned to face forward in the driver's seat.

James practically leaped from the vehicle, running toward a nearby building. As he neared the door to the courthouse, it was opened by a woman exiting the building. Smashing his face on the door, James swore loudly as he danced around rubbing his forehead and grabbing his crotch in a combination pain and potty dance before shoving the lady to the side where she landed in the bushes as he ran into the building.

A few minutes later, James exited the building, and let out a long sigh as he slumped his shoulders in a display of relief. He suddenly saw the woman still lying in the bushes and hurriedly helped her to her feet apologizing the entire time. Laughter could be heard from the entire caravan at the display. Walking back ashamedly, James climbed into the vehicle and they took off down the road.

It seemed as though the entire town had come out to see them off again, and crowds of people lined the street leading out of town. They waved and thanked them as they wished them good luck on their journey back.

"I feel like they are going to be okay now," Tom commented, a smile appearing on his face.

"I think so too. We did good here in helping them see what they needed to do." Derek replied, back in his usual position of co-pilot.

Driving out of the town, the caravan headed out and made their way to the highway, where they continued on the journey. Movement was slightly slowed by the buses being unable to keep up as well as a smaller vehicle, but the time seemed to be made up by no longer needing to stop at signal lights and road signs. Tom commented on how nice it was to have so few drivers on the road compared to their typical commute.

The travel was smoother on this leg of the journey. Almost no creatures bothered them, with the exception of a couple of groups of goblins who had set up on the road. Several times there were creatures seen in the distance that ran back into the treeline on the side of the road, or they would see wolves feating on a carcass of some kind. As signs marking the miles to Dallas became more frequent, excitement began to grow among the passengers for the arrival to their new home.

Many of the travelers had lived in the same state or even within the same metropolitan area their entire lives and had completely uprooted themselves to join Tom and his team. Feeling that pressure, Tom began to worry about whether he had made the right decision. He would never change the choice, because in many cases leaving them would have meant their assured deaths. But could he hold up his end of the bargain to improve their lives in Dallas?

When the team entered the downtown Dallas area, they began to notice changes to the city. The streets seemed cleaner and clear of vehicles. There was an eerie lack of sound as well. After living near the city for so long with its active nightlife, the quiet and lack of bustling streets left an ominous feeling.

Turning down a street, they found themselves facing a Toyota Highlander with a man standing in the sunroof. Seeing the man was TJ, Tom honked the horn and waved his hand out the window. TJ recognized them and waved back. As the cars drew closer together, they came to a halt.

"What the fuck did you do, print fliers and go door to door telling people about our Lord and Savior Vanguard?" TJ asked staring back at the long line of vehicles following Tom.

"What can I say? It's just my magnetic personality." Tom replied through the window of his vehicle.

"Oh, sure. Could you reverse the polarity a little?" TJ joked.

"No, I don't believe it works that way. I think if I turn that knob, it attracts every living being within a thousand miles." Tom replied, smiling at the exchange in its simplicity.

"Well, shit! Leave it! Don't change it!" TJ broke out in laughter. "You guys need an escort back?"

"Sure! Probably best a familiar face leads a convoy like this." Tom replied, thinking it was good that TJ thought of that. What if they hadn't recognized him?

TJ made a U-turn and moved to the front of the parade of vehicles to guide them back to the center. When they arrived at what now was beginning to look like a compound, TJ stopped their vehicle at the gate, where he spoke with a large man wearing black tactical gear and holding a clipboard. The man looked back at all the vehicles and shook his head.

TJ stepped out of the car and stood in front of the man, trying to get in his face. Unfortunately, TJ was about six inches shorter than this mountain of a man whose head had almost scraped the top of the doorway of the security checkpoint stand. What ensued was a comical display of TJ pointing and yelling while the giant seemed to shrink with every word TJ said.

After being very thoroughly dressed down and a lot of saluting, the man opened the gate and TJ looked back at Tom giving him a broad smile and a thumbs up. He stayed at the checkpoint as Tom approached and put a hand up to stop him.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"You all park in the normal place. Have the buses and vans park on the second floor. The parking garage is big enough for buses I promise. This place was able to double as a convention center so it can handle them. All other cars will park on the first level for now." TJ rambled off the orders and directions.

Tom nodded and they took off. TJ remained at the checkpoint to wave all the following vehicles in. They drove around the building's front entrance to the parking garage and entered. Parking in their customary spot, the team hopped out of the GS2 and moved to intercept vehicles to tell them where to park. Sometime during this process, Brian came out of the building to investigate what was happening.

"Brian! Good to see you again!" Tom said once the last of the vehicles had been directed to where they should be.

"Glad to see you are alive and well. Joe told me he spoke with you. Makes me feel a little bad about calling his radio ancient garbage that we could probably make a better version of with magic. But not too bad because I still feel that way." Brian joked as he put out a hand to shake.

Taking the hand, Tom shook it heartily. "We are glad he had it and glad someone in our camp was a radio nerd too. We had no idea what to expect for coming back."

"It's not great, but it could be a whole lot worse. We can catch you up once you've had some time to settle." Brian offered as he turned to go back inside.

"We should make sure these people can find where they need to go," Tom said looking at Brian.

"Oh, no. You don't need to do that. I already have part of the welcoming committee out here with me taking care of them. You and your team can go in and wash up to be presentable. We'll have you meet with them in the gym this evening. Then I'd recommend sleep and we can meet tomorrow to talk about catching everyone up." Brian spoke, turning to face them. "You've done enough."

The smile on Brian's face was enough to wash away all the worry of the moment. Tom suddenly felt as though he hadn't slept in weeks. Realizing that there were now other people ready and waiting to take on the responsibility of helping these people, the team moved toward the building, letting the burden fall from their shoulders for a time. The feeling was truly freeing.

Stepping into the Trammel Crow Center, Tom was immediately struck by the buzz of activity and the fact that the electricity was on. They all stared in wonder at the entrance and the life that appeared to be happening all around them. Everywhere they had been, they had either been towns without power or out in the world camping. A sense of comfort from their previous life was refreshing.

"This is remarkable," Tom managed to say barely above a whisper.

"Yes, everyone has been hard at work to make this happen. The people you have found have been very motivated." Brian smiled as he commented on what they were staring at.

The room was bright and clean with a feather duster moving across a table in the entrance.

"What the hell is that?" Tom asked pointing at the feather duster.

"That is the work of Penelope. She has psychic magic that allows her to control inanimate objects with her mind. She uses the cleaning as practice controlling her powers." Brian explained, smiling even wider at their excitement.

"Wait, psychic magic? That's possible now?" Tom asked incredulously.

"Yes. There appears to be pretty much any style of magic imaginable. Many have been training very hard to be as prepared as they can. We have set up specialized training times that everyone is required to go to so we can assess their powers and help them grow. It's been phenomenal how fast people can grow when we focus on their specialties." Brian commented, folding his arms over his chest and watching alongside Tom.

People moved across the entryway on their way to perform their jobs around the Center. It was so wonderful to see so many working together. Some carried boxes or building supplies around, others cleaned or were meeting about what they were to do for the day, but everyone appeared to stay busy. Almost everyone wore armor of some kind for protection, and many had weapons on their person, be it guns or hand weapons.

"And you are building walls around the Center?" Tom asked remembering the compound look the outside had.

"We are! We had some trouble with goblins and a few other monsters given the amount of space we needed to cover outside. Putting up the walls has greatly reduced the attacks we have now, keeping everyone safer." Brian explained. "Now, no more dawdling. Off with you to the showers. You smell like you've died."

Reluctantly, the teams moved to the shower areas in the gym locker room to rinse themselves of the grime of the road and fighting. Stepping into one of the individual showers and hanging the towel he had been given on the hook outside the curtain, Tom stripped down and turned on the water. He was amazed to find almost instantly hot water coming from the shower. Reveling in the wonderful feeling of scrubbing his body clean, he stayed in the warmth and comfort for almost half an hour.

Tom also noticed that his body had changed from before the System integration as well. With the addition of his stats, he no longer had a small ponch on his stomach from sitting at a desk all day. He actually had abs. And his muscles were more defined. He was by no means a bodybuilder like Kevin appeared to be, but he was lean and defined.

Turning off the water, Tom dried himself in the shower stall and stepped out onto the cool tile floor, a towel wrapped around his waist. He took some clothes out of his inventory and placed them on a bench in the locker area. Taking his time getting ready, Tom reflected on where they had come from and what bringing all these people back meant for them. Everyone seemed to have their own job that they truly took pride in doing. There had even been some people to take their clothes and equipment to be cleaned for them.

After putting his clothes on, Tom left the locker room. He was one of the last ready because of how long he had stood in the shower letting the warm water run over him. When he reached the gym, there were already a large group of people waiting in the stands.

"I see you enjoyed the showers," Brian called to him with a wide grin.

"It was wonderful. How did you get them working again?" Tom asked.

"Oh, there's a long complicated explanation for that, but it boils down to magic and being able to gather the mana and convert it to power for the utilities of the building," Brian explained. "But for now, we need to focus on the people you brought with you. There sure were a fuck ton of them."

"Yeah, sorry about that. But we couldn't just leave them." Tom replied sheepishly.

"I know, I know. But still. Holy shit man. Nevermind. We will manage. We have been able to begin storing food from the gardens actually. The skills for farming seem to rapidly increase the growth time of the plants so they are growing in a couple weeks time to full maturity. We will have many harvest seasons each year." Brian said beginning to talk through some of the issues. "But listen to me prattle on. That is talk for tomorrow. Everyone should be here in the next quarter hour, so let's get ready to talk to them shall we?"