It was emotionally exhausting putting up a brave front in the face of his friend's enthusiasm about their new cores. They had discussions deep into the night, broke up to go to sleep and woke up and did it all over again. Dorian understood the feeling very well and with all the bad stuff his friends had been through and been put through, they were seeing the core as a new lease on life.

Which it was. He just wished he could be genuinely happy for them. The crack on his core always coloured his smile false.

Any other time Jax would have seen through the veneer of a smile that Dorian had on. But filled with a sense of purpose and anticipation for what the core meant, Jax saw his friends smiling and took it at that.

There was one thing that made the time Dorian waited for a call from the power plant bearable. The outrageous and frankly wild theories his friends came up with about their individual cores, Dan who said his core felt and looked like a planet had the wild idea that he could move Earth, then the moon for some reason. Jax and Leo each opted for the sun, though Jax had to settle for just manipulating space when Leo refused to budge on controlling the sun.

The reason behind their wild theories was that since Dorian could control a fundamental force of reality, it was only logical they got something better. Dorian shook his head at his friend's antics and checked his terminal for the thousandth time. He didn't fault them for their excitement, seeing that was all they could do till the power plant reopened and he could refill the cores.

Discussions were had about them possibly going to the fringes of the wild lands to hunt for monster cores. The whole thing was just that, discussions because entering the wildland after such an upheaval and with an empty core for Dorian and an empty unknown core for the rest was most definitely courting death.

After the mini monster surge, Kowloon City had been on lockdown and rightfully so. The city had suffered some minor damage and the Stewards were working around the clock to clear out the last surviving ratkin. It was made nearly impossible by how well the monsters hid when they had no pack to fall back on. It would be a chore to get rid of them and Dorian didn't want to think of the work that entailed. He knew, he'd done it numerous times when starting as a hunter. Ratkin were pests.

The news from the city had calmed and there was talk of an expedition to cull the growing numbers in the wild lands. As the city closest to the wild lands, Kowloon had the best of everything, Case in point— the Dragon Core Power Plant and its massive collapsible walls. It was called the walled city for a reason. And now, the other cities, justifiably spooked about more monster surges had come calling.

There was a large-scale conscription and an expedition into the wild lands in the future of the denizens of Kowloon City, Dorian was sure of it.

As a hunter, Dorian didn't give a damn what happened to the city. Once, such thoughts would have seen him running to the nearest healer to be scanned for a parasitic brain-eating worm. Now though none could call his views evil or callous, if anything he was mild compared to the substantial number of hunters who would love to see humanity face an extinction-level event all so they could sit back and watch it all crumble. And if he gave them the knowledge he had about cores— it just might happen.

One of those people was now discussing how it only made sense he should have the power to move the planets in the solar system and possibly beyond.

Such thoughts brought Dorian's mind to something he and his friends had astutely refused to discuss— who could they tell? It was out of the question to keep the knowledge to themselves and yet, hunters now dead had strapped on their gear and visited murder— what they were good at on ordinary civilians when they found out how their minds had been abused.

It was a problem that had reduced in its occurrence but hadn't entirely gone away. Some Hunters still did snap and go on a murdering spree before they were put down, permanently. The thought of handing such power to people like that was both horrifying and cathartic at the same time, a confusing medley. Humanity deserved every bad thing coming to it for the way they treated their former Saviours, and yet it was only those in charge that were culpable for the crime. Dorian was sure most hunters wouldn't care for that distinction.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Dorian was pulled out of his depressive thoughts when his friend's discussions reached absurd levels. He decided to end it before they set their hopes too high.

“Look, I don't know what power you're all going to get,” he began, “but I think the ability you get sort of corresponds to the power the monster you killed had.”

Dorian's pronouncement unleashed a new wave of theory crafting and some disappointment. Dan had gotten his essence stone from a Direhorn charger and sadly proclaimed the beast had exhibited no abilities before he killed it by having it charge onto his planted spear. He still had its ridiculously long horn hanging over his bed. Leo smiled mysteriously and simply mimed shooting down a bird.

Dorian lifted his head from his screen when he didn't hear Jax chime in about where he got his. He was thinking of the best way to ask or even if he should when Jax began, “It was after the dragon had made its first pass over the city, one moment people and buildings were there and the next moment they were so much ash. It was the screams that alerted us, the whole city was screaming and burning with unquenchable fires but that one desperate scream somehow made it through the hell that place was. We ran towards it and arrived too late but just early enough to witness the Garou finishing off the last of the survivors. The damn monster had snuck into the city in the shadow of the dragon— guess there was a reason we called them wolfmen. They were smart. This one though not so much, it had gotten its fur set alight by the dragon's echo flames. I doused it in its blood. And now I get to carry whatever ability it had.”

The vitriol and hate in Jax's short speech and the sadness at the end put an end to all discussions and a heavy feeling descended onto the room. Dorian sighed when he remembered that once such hate was only held for the monsters plaguing the human race, now most hunters considered both humans and monsters one and the same.

His mind was about to go back to the depressing thoughts when his terminal nearly buzzed itself off his wrist. Dorian pulled it up to reveal a flood of messages from his fellow workers all asking if he was alright. He was confused at first till he checked out the time the messages had been sent. It coincided with the raising of the walls of Kowloon and thinking about it gave no reason as to why personal communications would be shut off between…

It suddenly hit Dorian why, someone was hoping a second surge or the remnants of the first would target the Lodge. And the Stewards, the new guardians of humanity who were busy with Kowloon city would have had to respond to protect the hunters, unless of course it just so happened that communications were 'lost' between the two settlements, it would have been an unfortunate accident. The damage and death toll in the Lodge would have been catastrophic. They had no futuristic giant walls.

Dorian thought it through and couldn't decide whether he was right or wrong. It sounded right but it might also be his heavy thoughts and the possibility of losing his abilities that made him see plots where there weren't any. Whatever it was, it had crystalised what he needed to do— he was giving the method to regain power to all the hunters. Humanity be damned.

The decision lifted a weight off his shoulders and he dived back to his terminal, waiting for the message that said the plant was back in business.

It was days later before the message finally came and it caught Dorian ready and waiting. Jax had been subtly asking him if he felt okay, the overly perceptive man had finally noticed something and Dorian was doubly glad for the message. He couldn't bear the looks of pity he knew his friends would give him should they find out. His pack weighed down by all the depleted cores they had managed to scrounge up, Dorian increased the throttle on his bike and blasted towards Kowloon city— fervently hoping the echo in the core room could fix his broken core.

Dorian made it to the city in record time and immediately noticed the effect the monster surge had on the city, closed shops and only a handful of people out and about, coupled with a visible uptick in Steward presence, their armoured forms were patrolling the city from the sky. Kowloon city had been shaken.

With a feeling he was still trying to decipher from seeing the state of the city, Dorian gunned his bike towards the power plant and was met with the alarming sight of multiple Stewards offloading equipment under the razor-focused gaze of a very stressed Robert. This feeling though Dorian could easily work out.

Something was up and whatever it was he didn't like it.