"Here, take one."

Miguel held out a beer to me as he came over with a tray of food, "Uh, dude, fourteen, remember?"

"De nada. You beat two supervillains, founded three companies, and bought a fourth that you're bringing back to life in the same calendar month. If you haven't earned some cervaza, no one has," He shrugged, sitting down across from me.

We'd gone out to a food truck by the beach for the meeting, on the premise that holding it in the hotel room was less than ideal, and Dad had hung back to check Miguel's information. Dad hadn't heard of Miguel when I approached him, but he wasn't H.A.A., so I mean, unenhanced, there wasn't an issue in hearing him out. Plus, there was something I liked about him. Hard to explain, but there was this sort of odd aura of trust to him, a feeling that he just had things in hand. I'd dealt with a lot of people, especially in the last few days, evaluating who to keep, who to let go... who to fire. Say the truth, coward. I'd seen so many people break down in the last few days, and I at least owed them the respect of not hiding it behind euphemisms.

"You couldn't have saved them, ese,' He offered me the beer again, and I took it. It tasted wretched, but honestly, a part of me welcomed it. Miguel loosened his tie a little bit, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, "I remember when my pops got laid off. Worked for the same company for twenty years, and then... boom! Gone. You think any of the guys who let him go let it tear them up like this?"

He wasn't wrong, but it didn't make it better. Better to focus on something else, "Why throw in with me? I read your resume. You've got a BA in finance, with a minor in financial law, top of your class. You went to UCLA on an Eagle Scholarship, and you've got letters of recommendation from your internships and professors. You could do this anywhere, for anyone, so why me?"

Miguel took a pull from his beer, "Cause you're not them. Heck, you're even still wearing a Scout hat. I had to stand there when Pops lost the home he'd built, and I couldn't do a damned thing. I had to watch as he went from owning a home to being stuck in a cramped one-bed with Mom. They sleep in the living room, so my sister can have a room to herself."

He teared up, "Dad worked construction his whole life, and now they've got him bagging groceries, and Mom goes around to his old construction yard to sell tamales. She has to smile in the faces of the guys who fired her husband every day so they can just scrape by! Meanwhile, I wear this suit, and I look at men and women who could have saved them with the change in their couch."

He stopped, wiping at his eyes while I half-heartedly ate tacos, and when he came back to the conversation, he ran a hand through his hair, "So yeah, I want in. If there is a one percent chance that you can do it, that you can find a way to fix this mierda, then I have to try. It's like you said one time, that you can't just sit back, you can't unsee it. There are so many people like me, like you, and we all just want something to believe in. Some chance that we can get better, so yeah, I'm in, whether you want me or not."

I wanted to give him a shot, I truly did, but as I looked at the road in front of me, I saw it getting so much worse before it got better. I sighed, "Look, I've got the H.A.A. consistently up my ass, I've gotten into two supervillain fights, and I'm looking at a massive fight no matter where I look, and I have no idea if this even works. It can go down in flames, and if I fuck it up, I can make things a lot worse than they are already.

"It's gonna be an unending street fight, and when we get someone down, two more are gonna take their place. It won't end, cause there are just too many, and the longer we last, the bigger the new guys are gonna be."

Miguel, "Great. I'll start now."

He pulled a book out of his briefcase- The Art of War. I'd heard of it, of course. Technoblade had used quotes from it during The Potato Wars. I'd never read it before, however, "I'm not sure I really want to go to war."

He smiled, and shook his head, "Ese, you're already in the war, they just don't know it yet."

Depressingly, he was right. I took the book, and we exchanged information, then finished our meal. Miguel said he'd be in Portland within the week, and I got the impression he wasn't kidding. I also got the impression he absolutely didn't have the funds for that, so I Venmo'd him some cash to get himself to Portland, and let Dad know to set him up with at least a studio apartment. It definitely felt like Miguel would otherwise end up sleeping in his car.

Talked with Dad, and he'd been able to talk to Miguel's former Scoutmaster, confirming he was an Eagle Scout and fellow Order of the Arrow. The next day, we confirmed with UCLA his graduation status, and his class ranking. He was on the level. I read the book, and I started to get it. The biggest key was to break the will to fight me, to know myself and my enemies. I knew myself pretty well, but I didn't really know who I was fighting. They were a very nebulous 'they', and I would need to learn who I was actually going to be fighting for Portland if I wanted to find a way to step over them.

I was completely sacked by the time I got back to Portland. I had enough time to shit, shower, and shave before my last Scout meeting before Camporee. Mom and Dad both thought I should skip out on the meeting, but I didn't want to. Scouts was always a safe space for me, somewhere I could go and just be. Far from stress, it made me feel relaxed like I knew my place in a world around me that was changing too damned fast. I was in for a surprise, though, as Aimee and her dad were waiting in the parking lot of the church we had meetings at. I was thrilled to see her, but by the look on her Dad's face, I was in trouble.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Aimee came directly up to me, and yeah, she was pissed, "What the hell? I haven't heard from you in days!"

I dropped my head, and pulled off my cover, "I'm sorry... I... was in a bad place. I-"

She slapped my shoulder, "Idiot!"

Aimee came forward, and hugged me tightly, "That's when you need to talk more!"

I just let her hold me there for a minute, until I got the five-minute warning from my watch, "Uh, not that I don't love this, but I kinda have a scout meeting to run. Would you... wanna come in? We can talk after."

She nodded, and she and her dad followed me inside, where the boys of the troop, on seeing me holding her hand acted like a bunch of teenage boys. Mr. Bethel snapped up three fingers quickly, and they did settle down, at which point I directed Aimee and her dad to where the parents and coffee were, while I broke off to the podium. We left for Camporee tomorrow after school let out, but as I looked around, I noticed an oddment, "I'm sorry, uh, do we have more boys than last week?"

Sure enough, we'd gained nearly a twenty-five percent increase in the number of boys in the troop, I just hadn't noticed it until now. At first, it had been one or two following the Reaver fight, but now I was starting to notice we had definitely gone up in membership. I'd just been so busy with other things, I hadn't thought about it. Oh right, I did fight off a supervillain in a Boy Scout uniform.

One of them was Brad, standing over by Darryl, who just shrugged at me, and I couldn't delay the meeting for this, "Well then, welcome, and I'll make sure to learn all your names in just a bit here. First order of business-"

I had everyone go over supplies for tomorrow. I'd already known what we had and had replaced a lot of it. I really wanted better tents, though, and the chuck boxes pretty much just needed to be replaced. I had the materials, I just needed to get to work on them. The main point of the exercise, though, was to make sure that the boys themselves were taking active responsibility for the gear themselves, and not just trusting it out of hand. The patrols of the troop each put forward names for their individual patrols, and that took a bit since some had chosen names that were just silly, or purely because they sounded cool. Then I sketched patterns for the patrol flags, adding their creation to my list of things I needed to do.

At the very least, this would get me finished up on a few different badges, such as woodworking and sewing. Mr. Bethel leaned into my ability, laying out a process to clear me on my hunting, fishing, fly fishing, backpacking, orienteering, archery, riflery, shotgun, as well as disability awareness badges, and, hunting ability willing, leatherworking. Aimee had been a bit shocked when she saw Mr. Bethel. I'd talked about him a lot, but hadn't mentioned the fact that he looked like the lost lumberjack member of ZZ Top and that he was in a wheelchair. I'd never seen him out of the wheelchair, and he'd been involved with me in Scouts since Tigers. I just didn't think about it until Aimee saw it. I knew that he'd used to work for a railroad company until his accident, but I'd never really asked, just picking up what the adults mentioned about it. He was just Mr. Bethel.

I finished up the meeting, made sure the new kids got seen to, and then checked in with the adult leadership to make sure we were all set for Camporee on drivers and such. Everything was in order, or at least, it hadn't gone horribly wrong yet, so I headed out. I got a lift home with Aimee and her dad, and sat in the back with Aimee, bringing her up to speed on the last few days. She didn't bother telling me there wasn't anything I could've done, I'd clearly had that speech several times, but she listened. When we got home, she kissed me, and after she left, I went straight to the garage.

Yeah, I'm tired as shit, but it was mental and emotional exhaustion, not physical. I'd slept in the car, and I was too awake to try and sleep. Instead, I looked at the supplies in the garage and got started, chuck boxes first. The previous ones had been cheap plywood, and a lot of the hinges were rusted or broken. they'd also been measured wrong, so they didn't really properly fit together, and the wood wasn't properly treated, leading to warping. That shit ends now.

I decided on cedar for the wood. For one, it was far more durable than the crappy plywood the previous ones had been made out of and didn't warp in humid climates. Portland is a temperate rainforest, so yeah, humidity is a thing. It was also naturally an insect-repellant, which worked in the woods, and frankly, having a chuck box that actually smelled good when you opened her up was just nice to have, and it looked great. I set a camera up, laid out my materials, and went over every step of creation as I worked through it.

I didn't bother with paint, instead woodburning the troop numbers, patrol names, and insignias into the wood itself, then, once that was done, and everything was assembled, I applied a solid amount of clear coat to each, keeping the garage door open for ventilation, alongside wearing a mask. They looked great, and while they were setting, I uploaded the video I had and turned my attention to the next thing: tents. I wanted a ratio of one tent for every two boys and leaders, assuming 100% attendance.

The tents we had were older, and pretty beaten up, and honestly, they hadn't been great tents to start with. They were what we could afford as a small troop with a limited budget. Now, however, we could get some real tents. I got to work and Reaver assisted, reforming into tools as I needed them, using tendrils to grab items I needed, and Syncing me so I could work faster than even my 1% could allow for. I modeled the new tents after army tents, tents we could fully stand up and move around in, rather than being straight stuck to the ground. Even if it was pissing rain, we would be up off the ground and dry in the tents.

I treated the canvas, ensuring it was as weatherproof as I could make it, and then got to work on cots and foundations, again using cedar. It was durable, it could put up with pretty regular abuse, and I could work them together so they could be broken down easier for transport. I spent the whole night working, finally crashing out somewhere around sunrise, but it felt good. As a final bit of outfitting, I lined up some cardboard boxes for the troop. I might not be able to participate in the challenges for the weekend, but damn it, we would look the part of champions.