Not even pausing to rest, Tom, James, and Kiera ran over to the rubble of the building. The others who had not been there before stared in confusion, except Briana. As soon as they got to the pile, they jumped in to help Derek remove the fallen pieces.

They removed enough pieces to find Seth in the pile and he groaned as he sat up, blackened slightly and with ash in his hair. He coughed before he sat up and looked around at the people gathered in front of him.

"What the hell? That fucking sucked." Seth said.

"How the hell are you still alive?!" Derek exclaimed.

"I have no idea, but I'm still here," Seth replied.

"Shield spell," Briana said walking up from behind them. "It's really handy."

"Briana with the save again," Kedron said, smiling at her.

"I had been watching from the window. Fortunately, glass doesn't appear to stop my spells." Briana said.

"She was the one that told us where to go for the monster and we hurried over as soon as we could," Bobby said. "You guys probably could have handled it, but we figured better safe than sorry."

"Not sure we could have. Thanks for the assist." Tom said.

"So, who's this?" Kedron asked.

"This is Seth. He's the masked avenger." Derek said, sitting on the ground in relief.

"You mean that guy that killed the ogres?" Kedron asked.

"The same one," Seth said sitting up. "It's nice to meet you, OW!"

Seth grabbed at his side as he sat up wincing in pain.

"Yeah, I figured something hurt you in that blast. It's amazing you're alive, I would have been in complete disbelief if you had been totally unharmed. Hold still a moment." Derek said, white light enveloping his hands.

Seth's look of pain softened as the healing took effect.

"Thanks. That feels a lot better." Seth said. "I'm guessing since you're all here that we won?"

"Actually we're all dead and this is heaven. Really not everything the televangelists made it up to be." James said.

Seth laughed at the joke. "Those guys were dicks anyway."

"I also think this makes a pretty great point to take back to the townspeople, Seth," Derek said looking pointedly at him. "If we hadn't been here, you would have been dead and this town would have been flattened."

"You're right. They can't continue on this way. I'll definitely talk to them again." Seth said.

Standing up, Derek extended a hand to Seth to help him off the ground. After searching for a bit longer for his katana, the whole team went back to the courthouse and rang the bells again. This time when the crowd gathered, the mood was very different. People were celebrating the heroes who had saved the town and praising their great acts of fighting prowess.

"Listen! This is not something to celebrate! I nearly died in that fight, and if it hadn't been for these people here, I would have been killed and this town would have been destroyed by that creature." Seth said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. "You all cannot continue to ignore the world around you and must learn to cope with the changes that have taken place. You will have to fight."

"NO!" Screamed Jeffery from behind them, walking down out of the courthouse again. "I won't allow it! You have to keep fighting for us so we can continue to live in peace!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Seth screamed at him.

Jeffery recoiled at the vehemence in Seth's voice. He had never been spoken to this way by his son before and didn't seem sure of how to react.

"Shut your goddamned mouth you pompous old windbag! You think you know what's best for everyone here, but what you are really doing is setting them up to be served to these monsters on a silver platter." Seth continued. "You need to get off your high horse and open your eyes to what's happening around here. It's insane that anyone followed you this long and I've been stupidly going along with your plan out of fear. But no more!"

"Seth, I don't know where you got this new rebellious spirit from, but you will stop it at once and act like a proper gentleman," Jeffery said.

"No Dad, I won't. You will stop trying to put blinders on these people and wake up to the fact that this world isn't safe anymore and sitting around here cleaning up the town and going about our normal business won't keep us safe either. They need to be trained to fight." Seth replied.

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Jeffery's face began to turn red as he stared at his son in disbelief. Beginning to sputter he turned from face to face of the people in the crowd as their resolve began to harden against him as well.

"This is all your fault!" Jeffery said pointing at the members of Tom's teams. "You came here and poisoned his mind. You are taking my son away from me."

"No, sir. You are doing that all on your own. All we did was take off the chains of childhood and show him that he is able to make his own decisions." Tom said.

"So you admit that you turned him against me?" Jeffery said.

"We couldn't possibly have changed his mind if he had truly been loyal to only you. If there hadn't been a seed of doubt already growing in his mind that this wasn't the right way." Derek said. "You have been slowly setting yourself up for this moment all along. All we did was give him a little nudge and help him find the light at the end of the tunnel you kept him trapped in."

"Seth, you will go back to your home and await the next monsters. This is unacceptable behavior." Jeffery tried again.

Everyone in the crowd began shouting at him at this.

"You leave him alone!"

"He's right, we can't keep relying on him for this!"

"He almost died you son of a bitch!"

"What kind of father sends his son out to the slaughter like that?"

Continuing on, the team began to worry that the crowd was beginning to transform into a mob.

"People! You cannot let your emotions get the better of you either! You have to be rational." Derek yelled over the calls of the crowd. "You must not react hastily. Let's give him an option. Either change the way you lead to a mindset of preparation for the future or leave."

"Yeah!"

"Here, here!"

"Make your choice!"

Calls came from the crowd in agreement with Derek.

"You all put me in charge because I was doing what was best for all of you." Jeffry tried to plead with the crowd. "I have done nothing but look out for your well-being."

"Liar!"

"Get out of town!"

"We don't want you in charge anymore!"

Came the crowd's jeers.

"The people have spoken!" Derek yelled again.

Quieting down, the crowd stopped to listen to what he had to say.

"You will leave the town and let someone more competent run things instead," Derek said.

"I will never give up! I am the mayor of this town and I will decide what is best for these people!" Jeffery said.

"I'm sorry Mr. Mayor," Edward said, also coming out from the courthouse. "But I can't allow that. The people have chosen and we can't just ignore what they want. We were chosen to represent them and we have to abide by their wishes. If you would come with me, sir."

"Even you Edward? Why would you betray me?" Jeffery said pulling away as Edward tried to take him by the arm.

"Because I promised to protect the people, not you Jeffery," Edward said. "I know we've been friends for a long time, but you are making a huge mistake, and I can't justify standing with you any longer."

A look of complete betrayal came over Jeffery's face.

"You'll regret this. Mark my words, you will all regret this!" Jeffery said as Edward grabbed him by the arm and led him off to the cheers of the crowd.

Some of the crowd broke off to follow them and make sure that Jeffery was taken to jail while most of the others stayed to cheer for the heroes.

"So, what do we do now?" Someone in the crowd asked.

"Now you find someone that can represent you properly, and we will help teach them as much as we can while we are here. Then you will have to learn to work and fight for yourselves and not let someone else tell you how you should live." Tom said. "That way you can grow strong and fend off the monsters."

Now that the main source of their outrage had been taken away, the people began to talk amongst themselves and mill about in the street while they began to figure out what would happen next for them. Seth walked over to the team.

"Thank you, for what you did." He said.

"No thanks are needed. We did it because it was the right thing to do. We're just glad you could see what was happening. Is there anyone you know that would be good for the position now to lead?" Tom asked.

"I do. I'll approach them and see what can be done. Then we can work with them before we need to leave." Seth said.

"Good. Because as much as I hate to say it, we have to leave in the morning. I know that's not a lot of time, but we can't delay too long on this quest." Derek said.

"OK. Let's see what we can do while we still have time." Seth said.

Heading out into the crowd, Seth approached a man who was surrounded by a group and spoke to him. He walked back to the party and introduced them to the man.

"This is John Waters. He was the leader of one of the large companies here in town and knows how to manage people. He will be the best bet for leading this town in the interim. They can decide later if they need someone else." Seth said.

"Alright John, let's get you up to speed on everything we know about this new reality and how you can make the most of it," Tom said.

For the next eight hours, they worked together on getting some basic infrastructure set up for the town. Edward was more than happy to help with training people in basic fighting and shooting weapons. the vending machines in town were used to equip people with weapons and armor from the monster cores the security team had been gathering from the random encounters they had been fighting against in helping Seth.

People were shown how to choose classes and what they all meant to make the best of their skills. They explained how to form parties and how to set up a guild so the people of the city could use the bonuses they got from that to become stronger.

At the end of the time they had spent together, the team was exhausted and fell into their beds in the hotel they were staying in.

"That was a lot more work than I had anticipated doing when we stopped here," Tom said.

"But we did a good thing. And Seth is going to come with us," Derek said.

"I guess we'll just have to see what tomorrow holds. We have to get on the road again and make it to the Grand Canyon. You know the roads aren't going to be easy to get through so it's a long trip." Tom said.

"I know. But I feel good now that we didn't just leave these people to their fate." Derek replied.

With that, the two of them rolled over and fell asleep.