Prestige Network News was showing every angle they could, hoping to catch good footage of the short war that was taking place outside in the city. The frontline had been pushed back significantly since Logan dispatched the butchers, allowing them the chance to live up to their name. The teams that were able to break through to the headquarters were now stymied against the wall of chitin and death that was the devourer swarm, meaning Logan and his team were enjoying some peace and quiet for a change.

As the hours ticked by, slowly but surely, eventually the forces fighting on the side of the militia began to dwindle. Players were leaving to explore somewhere else for a while, to jump into their ships to watch the end of the show from above, or to simply log out and take care of their physical bodies for a while.

The Free States line was eventually pushed completely out of the city, and the devourers didn’t pursue them past the last line of buildings. Not just the walled-in section that Dust Haven was before, but the entire metroplex area that Logan saw when he first arrived, meaning that his original queen was also safely inside of his area, having deployed a second wave of butchers from the apartment building they had built the initial army from.

Newscasters tried to keep everything interesting, but after the final push from Logan, the hive of insectoids was less interesting to watch, so they promised to come back on to see what would happen when the timer was finally over. Logan and his group went over their levels, stat distributions, and skills together, trying to build a better understanding of what they could each bring to the table, knowing that if this worked how they wanted it to, they’d be able to play the game mostly like normal.

Pat had gone farther into the soldier's talents, making her grenades even stronger, and allowing her to throw two of them before having to wait for the cooldown to be over. She still put points into her scout stealth capabilities, but those were less important now that they had a frontline fighter to stay between her and the things she was trying to blow up.

Jones had gone fully into turrets, making each of them stronger individually while also increasing how many he could deploy at the same time. Three assault turrets would create a hailstorm of weapons fire, and he hoped that it would help create confusion for Logan to do his thing up front while Meghan was in back trying to score critical hits. He put a few remaining points into an aura which boosted the resilience of his allies gear, hoping that would help to offset the damage that Pat was throwing around.

Meghan put more points into the sneak attack talent, making it so the multiplier for her critical hits was even higher. Logan knew from experience that a baseline of 400% was applied to any critical hit, while Meghan’s was closer to 600%. A boost of half-again more damage was something to be quite impressed by, but she could only do it if she had the chance to stop and take aim properly, which is where the other three came in; distractions.

Logan kept his twin valkyrie drones as well as his twin devourer soldiers. He added a pair of assault drones to his repertoire, hoping that it would provide a bit of extra threat when they needed to keep the enemies off of their back lines. The devourer class he had hadn’t unlocked many choices other than the first two, but he couldn’t select the Summon Workers option now that he had taken Summon Warriors. He wasn’t too upset by it, but figured that the rest of the abilities would be locked behind getting his brood stronger.

They all took stock over what they had achieved so far, hopeful for the near future and the new change they were bringing.

—

Mason had logged off after the monster broke through the door and crushed him. He knew his time in the Far Reaches of Space was over, so he decided to look into the other worlds he could join.

He wasn’t much for fantasy as a genre, so the Realms of the Fantastic wasn’t really a choice. Mason enjoyed watching older space films and shows, a lot of them being about the struggle of living on the frontier of civilization, building to a better tomorrow.

Of course, he also was known to wear stereotypical cowboy attire, but that’s because one of his favorite shows blended the western and science fiction genres together into a wonderful blend that was unfortunately canceled before it could go anywhere super interesting. There was the movie that came afterward, but it didn’t have the same vibe to it as the show.

Surviving against zombies would probably feel like fighting the devourers again, just a swarm of the same creatures trying to slash and tear at him as he struggled to stay alive with people he didn’t trust very much. The overall idea appealed to him, but maybe staying away from swarms of things would help for a while, because rebuilding some form of society in a lost world sounded fun, but Mason was terrified of getting overrun again.

Stolen story; please report.

So that was the Ruins of the Apocalypse gone as a choice, which just left the western based one. Wilds of the West was a much more skill-based game world, without any magic or fantastic elements, it boasted an enjoyable cowboy versus outlaw narrative, all while everyone moved further to the West to hopefully find harder enemies and better gear.

Being more realistic didn’t mean it got rid of all of the game features, just that they were a lot less important overall, but they were still important. A bad gun was still a bad gun, no matter who was holding it. It meant that he wouldn’t be able to bring a minigun to bear, unless he wanted to wheel a mounted version all over the place with him, so he’d have to learn how to aim and be careful with his shots.

Mason’s choice was made, even if it wasn’t actually a choice. He was going to leave space for good, and hopefully never have to look back.

—

Jordan was one of the men who worked with Jackson in the conscription squad, but he was the newest member. He still had the B-Safe brand equipment for the most part.

He didn’t know what happened after the initial attack, as he had fallen before the room had been cleared. Jordan had to wait for everyone else to respawn a few minutes later before he learned about the butchers and what they were capable of. Everyone was terrified, since they were all killed by the same creature, and it didn’t look like they had even hurt it. They knew that wasn’t true, as they could see its hit points, but the amount of armor it had made it almost impossible for them to kill it without some serious firepower.

Too bad the one with the minigun was the first one to die, without even firing a single shot at the creature.

They sat around for about half an hour, keeping an eye on the news so they had something to report to Jackson when he finally respawned. They hoped it would be soon, but they weren’t so hopeful after another thirty minutes went by.

News of the militia being pushed completely out of the city limits was startling, and Jordan couldn’t stand waiting anymore.

“Guys, I think it’s time we move out, try to get away from this place before things get too bad for us here.” He said, a bit of a quiver in his voice.

“C’mon, man, it’s just a bunch of big bugs. When Jackson gets back, we’ll try again and this time, we’ll succeed.” Another of the group responded, sounding sure of himself and his choice.

“Well, you can wait for him, but I’m going to call my ship to the roof and then I’m out of here.” Jordan said, knowing that the response he would get wouldn’t be favorable for him.

The other three pulled their pistols out and pointed them at him. Exactly as he knew they would.

“If you’re thinking of deserting, then we’ll just make sure you can’t run very far, and you’ll respawn here, and we’ll ask again until you choose to stay.” The cocky man said, making sure to emphasize his point by standing up and placing his weapon to Jordan’s head.

Little did the others know, because they didn’t actually know him that well, he had a hidden blade installed in the left arm of his suit, and a shield generator that Jackson had requisitioned for him. He didn’t use it before the fight with the bug people who were trying to take the planet because he was led to believe that he wouldn’t need it with the amount of firepower they had brought, but that proved to not be the case.

Jordan activated the shield, a shimmering blue bubble forming around him, and at the same time he sent the command to his suit to deploy the hidden blade, shoving it into the armpit holding the weapon to his head. Drawing his own pistol and using the man in front of him as a physical shield, he shot the other two until they stopped moving, making sure that the weapon in front of him had been moved, even if the user couldn’t fire it.

Jordan looked to the man in front of him, but the helmet he was wearing was covering the look of betrayal and rage that lay beneath. “I told you that I’m leaving, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Let Jackson know that I’m out of the squad, and I’m not coming back.” Jordan shot the man in the head, directly under the seal for the helmet, and his head snapped back, falling to the ground.

“Please, just don’t come for me. I can’t take being a bully as easily as you guys can.”

Jordan cleaned his hidden blade on the corpse in front of him, allowing it to retract back into his armor as he holstered his pistol. He moved to the roof and called his B-Safe brand ship, getting comfortable in the pilot’s seat before flying out of the atmosphere. He took one last look at the dusty planet behind him before entering the coordinates for another planet he knew he could be relatively safe on, at least for a while.

The small B-Safe craft became a colorful streak for a moment before disappearing into the inky void of space.