My feelings on the topic of minions was, a little complicated.

On the one hand, they were my own creations.

Not in the way that baby would have been, but rather, in the same manner as a massive Mego set. I'd put a piece of myself into each and every one of them. Granting them the self-awareness to know who I was and what they were in relation to me. Whatever complicated emotions they currently had were ones I'd placed upon them at the moment of their birth.

Their rage was my rage. Their hunger, my hunger.

Which was why I was so apprehensive about the plan. I kind of, didn't want them to die.

On the other hand...

These were people's lives we were talking about. I obviously didn't want anything bad to happen to them. In fact, I genuinely thought this plan was smart. It would alert the people of rural towns like this one and the wider governments of the world. Bringing them in the know and letting humanity grow stronger without giving away the colossal resources that the regular Dungeons represented. The idea being that Mr. Robertson could have his cake and eat it too.

He could make sure all the nations of the globe got a fairly decent head-start while making sure the Dungeons would still be exploited to their fullest potential. Without shady agents trading influence in exchange for access. Which would be bad. Unlike his own shady dealings to keep this access all to himself. Which was good.

I chortled at the thought. Wondering just how bad things had gotten the first time around.

'Here's hoping I don't have to find out.'

The hulking root-apes and root-bears were climbing up the sewer grates now. Rushing upwards to meet the gathered parties.

The idea was simple. The creatures I had made would be served up like a buffet for the benefit of other people, in hopes that at least some of them could grow cores and survive the fall of civilization later down the line.

Neat and tidy.

So much so that I genuinely couldn't think of a way to screw it up.

Until the bullets started flying that is.

It was at that precarious moment that I gained a new appreciation for my magic skills. More specifically, the effect that the [Fortitude] stat had on them. In summary, my new pets were, tough. Very tough. A fact that became apparent as I sensed one of the bigger bears making up the frontline charging straight at a cop car. Eating shotgun blasts like they were Tic-Tacks.

Blazing pellets struck solid roots and sheared away splinters of wood. Dealing damage to the exterior of the monster, but failing to impede its assault in any meaningful way.

In fact, I was starting to think they were making it stronger. I felt trails of warmth that I'd used to animate it coming to life once more. Spreading from the monster cores it consumed to the spots that had been peppered. New sections of wood grew from the places where damage had been inflicted. Natural browns and greens being replaced by new layers of bark. Layers that looked oddly, metallic. Almost as if they'd broken down and absorbed the foreign objects within seconds of their arrival.

The nearby fire truck was letting loose at the same time. Hosing down the unnatural forms from behind the cover of three squad cars bunched together.

The bear staggered once the water hit. Stunned by the pressurized water shearing away parts of what would have been the snout and skull of a normal bear.

Then it began digging its paws into the concrete, punching down so hard it made small craters below it. And then it used those to steady itself, before moving at a slightly slower pace.

'Holy cow! It barely felt it!'

In contrast, the ones doing the shooting felt a lot of things once the hulking mass broke through. A great, many things.

Such as broken arms, broken legs, broken collarbones, broken hips, collapsed lungs, ruptured livers, ruptured spleens, heart attacks, concussions, severe hemorrhaging and many, many other colorful afflictions that would have made a team of doctors faint with dismay.

"I thought you were going to keep them in line!" I yelled from behind a corner.

"This is them staying in line." Mr. Robertson answered.

I whirled on him. Flashing an expression that would have curdled milk. I was about to say some very questionable things about the honor of his lady mother when Casper smacked him upside the head.

"How the fuck is this supposed to help anyone? Are we getting in on the mortuary business now? Should I start chopping wood for caskets?"

"No!" Mr. Robertson hissed.

Then he paused, donning a contemplative expression.

"Although, it is a market we haven't explored yet. One that's about to see a lot of business over the next couple of years. It's not a terrible idea."

"Carlyle!"

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"I know, I know. Trying to ease the tension. Geez."

He drew in a dep breath using his mighty beak of a nose.

"Teleport in between them and take all the wounded away. Send them over here so Cecil can do some first-aid. Send each one to the nearest hospital as soon as they're stable.

I stuttered for a few seconds, unable to find the right words.

"Mr. Robertson, I only got my core today. I don't know how to heal people."

"Which is exactly why you'd better get started." Coach Russell interjected. "There's no science to it. I mean, there is, but you don't have to worry about any of it. Its instinctual. Push the magic in and the magic makes the wounds close. You could not mess it up if you tried."

Casper began teleporting people away before I could rebuff him and I was soon faced with an older officer whose entire right side had been slightly, mashed. My hands found him, more out of fear that he might die than from confidence that I could save him.

Yet save him I did. Him and half a dozen others. Mending bones and exposed muscles to the point where my new patients looked like they were suffering from hangovers instead of blood loss.

"See? What did I tell you? Easy as pie. Casper, do your thing."

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm on it."

The wounded lot vanished with another shimmer.

My attention snapped back to Mr. Robertson then. Leaving me in awe of the sheer weight of the magic he wielded.

I felt his magic swirling about. A warmth spreading out from within him, instead of me.

When I did it, the power went around and round within my chest, floating over my newly formed core and through my blood-vessels, so that I could feel the essence pumping through my very veins; before leaving through my fingertips.

When he did it, the energy went from his core to his spine and up through his bones until it reached the skull and the brain it held.

It pooled there. Congealing for half-a-heartbeat, before it shot out from behind his eyes. Purple arrows amidst the fog covering us from view.

Those not-quite real projectiles struck their intended targets and I felt a twinge of feedback from our connections. The hatred, the bloodlust, the will to fight and conquer and survive that all my monsters had, was dimmed. Ever so slightly at first, until the pressure grew and grew and grew. Squeezing all notions of self-preservation out of them.

The bears and the apes still moved forwards, but they no longer charged. They no longer cared enough to do so.

The officers and the civilians behind them lit them up with gunfire. Shots ringing through the warm summer night as leaden rounds found their way past animated chunks of wood and leaf and vine.

Yet it remained more of a challenge than I would've imagined otherwise. Each of my units required hundreds of consecutive shots before they would even begin to suffer from the accumulating damage. The flying projectiles sprinkling the asphalt on the streets and the freshly-mowed grass of the sidewalks with fragments of bark and root. The collecting debris sinking whenever it landed on soft soil.

The bears still trudged forward on two or three legs. The apes' top and bottom halves kept crawling in spite of being severed from each other.

They were all done for, yet currently busying themselves by giving the very concept of death an enthusiastic middle finger. Staying upright out of spite. Not all of the had eyes or mouths. Yet those that did stared daggers at the men and women who would presume to slay them. Maintaining a vitality of spirit that left me gasping for breath.

It was, inspiring. In a brutal sort of way.

A madness was beginning to take hold. Some primordial instinct that called for me to leap into action so that I could lead the countercharge. On the side of the monsters. On the side of my monsters.

I shook my head quickly. Trying to dispel the sudden insanity.

Mr. Robertson placed a bony, withered hand on my shoulder then.

"Its fine. Its a magical connection. That's all. They're moving by your will. By the life you gave them. Other summoning skills make their casters feel the same way. It'll pass."

He paused before adding: "You're doing great Cecil. This will save lives."

I gathered up the recovering pool of warmth inside of me and told myself that was true.

On closer inspection, I did have to give credit to the townsfolk. Hardly any of them fled from the scene of the ensuing clash and those that did tended to come back behind the wheels of pickup trucks, mini-vans, actual trucks and in one case, a school-bus.

Flashes of light barreled into the verdant creatures. Bumpers deforming as the literal tons of steel they were attached to assaulted the beleaguered remains of my first wave.

Those did the trick where the bullets had failed.

Soon thereafter, a crowd of cheering locals was amassing around the carcasses. Watching with morbid fascination as officers poked and prodded the remains.

"Send the second wave now." Coach Russell urged. "Their morale won't get any higher than this and we've gathered a full half of the residents by now. They might scatter in a panic if any of them realize they have no cell reception."

"What about landlines?" I asked.

"Come on Cecil. Who do you think we are? We cut the phone lines the second we got here."

"Of course." I replied with no small amount of resignation.

Still, I called on my forces and bade them topside. Ushering them towards a firing squad that was fresh off a resounding victory. This second wave made it through several grates at once. Surrounding the victors from all directions.

Mr. Robertson wasted no time in stunning this lot. Making sure there wouldn't be any other accidents while under his watch.

"There's more of them!" Someone yelled.

"Shit! Fire! Fire! Don't let them close!"

"Keep shooting! The alpha bear's dead! We can take these ones!"

"They're coming up from the sewers!"

"Fall back! The whole drainage system must be infected! Fall back!"

"Get in the trucks boys! Ram them again!"

While those were all good suggestions, none of them would bear fruit. These new monsters could resist bullets just as well as the old ones. Also, them making a strategic retreat wouldn't mean much, since we'd simply let Casper teleport in re-enforcements. Lastly, those trucks would most definitely not be moving anytime soo....

Wait.

"What. Is. That?" Casper asked. Pronouncing every word with the weight of a mallet.

"Excellent question." Coach Russell acknowledged with a nod. "Cecil, would you care to enlighten us?"

I, had no words.

The scattered remains of the first wave, those that had found soil at least, were now rising once more. Growing ever upwards on thick black roots that spread out like spiderwebs along the ground. Their return saw them combining their previous features as they regenerated. Morphing and distorting their outline until they resembled a ball of yarn.

Only, there was no yarn. In its place was wood mixed with metal and concrete. Also, it was no ball, as a trail of centipede-like legs stabbed at the ground beneath it. A grotesque mashup of pulped bark, stone, steel, soil and leaves that somehow managed to hold up the rest of its prodigious bulk.

They flexed their might as one, and lifted. Bringing the mass up on its right side, followed closely by the left. Freeing itself from the confines of the earth.

Seven ape-like faces peered out from its chest area, grinning down on the officers. Atop them all was the distinct profile of a one-eyed bear. Its jaw slackened and a serpentine tongue emerging from within its broken maw to taste the air.

All of the monster cores that the separate entities had absorbed now became one. A single, beating, heart. Colored in my image.

"Its proud." I said, recognizing the emotion. The echo of my own magic. "Its proud and vain and angry. It wants human blood."