Spotting the sunrise Jim started to wake everyone who was still sleeping. The other students outside of the storeroom could still rest as Jim had to talk with his group about some things.
After getting awake and eating their fill the group turned their attention to Jim who wanted to speak with them, “Okay. First of all, who isn’t rank two yet?”
Looking around the room everyone kept their arm down apart from Charlotte, Emma, and Jake. All this fighting wasn’t for nothing. Almost all of them reached the second rank by the third day, which seemed rather impressive, considering the few rank two mutants they encountered.
Only Emma, who only joined them yesterday, Charlotte, who fought from the distance making getting energy hard, and Jake, who rarely fought, were still of the first rank. He looked at them seriously and said, “Since yesterday I made some thoughts and we should talk about this transformation again.
From what we know that is our best point to get more information and now we have the experience of myself, Clay, Max, Lukas, Dennis, and Chirs. I’m not sure but it seems like the things that change after the second transformation vary more than I thought.”
Nodding his head Clay said, “Definitely I also observed this. For myself my senses and stamina greatly improved, my speed and strength on the other hand almost didn’t change.”
“Good so my assumption was right,” said Jim before stating, “For me, my body improved relatively even. The thing that confuses me is this sort of sixth sense I developed. I don’t know how to explain it, but sometimes I can feel an attack without seeing or hearing it.”
Joining Max, who was still injured, said, “I also think that my improvement was rather even, but my speed and eyes had the greatest changes.”
Next Chris said, “For me, it was mostly a speed improvement. The other aspects are rather unnoteworthy, but my speed isn’t comparable to before.”
Agreeing, Lukas said, “I also think my speed was affected the most, but more importantly for me is the time it took for us to undergo the second transformation. You know that I almost died at my second transformation and I want to know why.”
Raising his hand to gain the attention of everyone Dennis said, “After experiencing it for myself it seems like this transformation isn’t as superficial as we suspected. The time it takes to undergo a transformation and the things that improve vastly differ from person to person. Also important is that my transformation was quite weird.”
Confused, Charlotte asked, “What do you mean by that?”
Taking a breath Dennis explained, “From your statements, it seemed like all the transformations were very similar. You feel your blood accelerating and body temperature rising, while your muscles and nerves are rapidly broken down and renewed.”
Seeing everyone now Dennis said, “For me it was different. Lukas and Max couldn’t watch over me so they wouldn’t have noticed, but after the transformation, I can say that my body stayed almost the same. No more strength, speed, or better senses.”
“Okay but what changed then?” Max asked with interest.
“I don’t know how to describe it but instead of my body improving it felt like the energy was gathering at my chest or to be more precise my solar plexus to form a marble-sized hole and then construct something like a ball.”
Completely bewildered by Dennis' description Jim asked, “Do you know what it is or does?”
“No, I have not even a clue I just thought that you would want to know,” replied Dennis with a shrug.
Nodding his head Jim summarized, “That is definitely important, but a concern for the future. For now, it is enough to know that it seems to be very important how well you can withstand this new energy. From how I see it I’m very adapted to this new energy, while Lukas body strongly rejected it and almost died due to that in his second transformation.”
Hearing this Charlotte added, “This should also be the reason why so many people died after their first transformation.”
Agreeing Jim spoke about the next matter. “I don’t know if you all understood what happened when we fought the apes so I wanted to talk about it.”
Confused Max asked, “You fought apes?” Right, they didn’t tell the others yet of their ambush and after shortly summarizing it Jim said, “After the ambush started I was beyond furious and did something quite strange. It felt similar to a transformation but was still different.
My blood and heartbeat accelerated, my temperature rose and I got stronger. The thing is that this increase in strength was not permanent like the transformation, but temporary and the symptoms weren’t as bad, compared to the transformation. Afterward, I was really exhausted and fell unconscious.”
“I think I know what happened.” Looking at Clay he explained, “It seems like this new energy that came after the light has the ability to change and strengthen our body. You get more energy by automatically absorbing the energy of others after their death. The closer you are the more energy you absorb.
After you assimilate a certain amount of this energy it automatically is used to strengthen your body. However, this would imply that until you use this energy for your transformation it has to be stored somewhere and could in theory be used to strengthen your body. Due to the limited amount this strengthening is only temporary and not permanent.”
Hearing this Jim said, “That does make sense, but after I used this boosting I didn’t lose any energy I even gain-” Jim’s stopped mid-sentence as he realized what happened. He couldn’t feel a decrease because he was killing the apes, thus immediately replenishing his energy.
Thinking further Jim’s eyes widened in shock and he could see a predatory smile emerging on Clay’s face as he explained, “So you finally realized it. That what you just discovered by accident could be a weapon for us humans to turn the table and make up for the advantage mutants have.”
Still, a little confused Emma asked, “How can this help us to wind against all of these monsters?”
“Think about it. Currently we humans face a disadvantage against mutants even with weapons. We need time and resources to produce and maintain weapons, while a mutant always has its weapons with it, they are born with them. Furthermore, they have a several times bigger increase in strength than us humans.
Now you have to imagine that you can use this energy to increase your strength, if only temporarily, to who knows what limits. While killing we would immediately regain the energy we just used for our boosting to further increase our strength,” replied Clay with a grin.
Finally realizing Emma exclaimed, “It would be an infinite cycle where one continued to get stronger, as long as mutants were there and your body is able to withstand all of this energy.”
“Precisely and you have to think further. Who says we have to improve our whole body? We may be able to only boost certain parts of our body giving us the ability to adapt to any situation,” said Clay with obvious excitement.
Realizing the huge worth of his discovery Jim asked, “If that really works it would indeed change the whole situation, but how do we do that? How can we control this energy?”
Shrugging his shoulders he replied, “I don’t know. You explain it, you are the one who used it after all. I’m sure with some more training we should feel this energy more clearly and eventually control it, for now, I have a more important question.”
“What is it?” Asked Jim with a frown, what could be more important than this discovery?
Pointing behind his back in the direction of the ground hall where the other students were sleeping, Clay asked, “What are we going to do with them?”
For a few minutes, no one spoke, as they thought about the question. They were able to rescue the students but what now? They didn’t really have an adult or leader that decided what to do.
After a moment Max was the first one to break the silence, “I think we should expand our group and form something like a new society. We don’t know how the rest of the world is doing right now or how many humans survived all of this.
In the worst-case scenario, we don’t get help and can’t leave this place in the near future. If we want to survive we need to start producing food and water.
For now, we have plenty of food and water from the supermarkets, or tanks in all the houses but this is not going to last forever. We have to look further into the future. We have a good place of shelter and now enough people to defend it. The only thing that we are lacking is a water and food source.”
Interrupting Max, Lukas asked, ”Wait for a moment. You want to form a new society with what rules?”
Hesitating for a moment Max said, “We first have to decide if we want a democracy or a monarchy. I first thought that we should go with democracy but after some thinking, I discarded this idea.
A democracy needs too long to make decisions no matter how efficiently it is structured, there will always be someone who doesn’t agree and this would just lead to us taking too long to make decisions.
My plan is relatively simple. I will play the monarch who holds this bunch of people together and stops them from killing each other, while we in reality make the decisions together like a council.
To do this it is of utmost importance that you venture out into the city and kill as many mutants as possible. We do this to gather more survivors, secure our surroundings, and most importantly make sure we are the ones with the most power.
In this venture, we grab everything that could be useful and slowly build this society out and build a stronghold that can survive in this new world. While you are exploring the city, I will form something like a household guard. Together with some of the braver students, we keep the surroundings in check and defend against any threat in the vicinity of the school.
With this method, the strongest group will always be the ones who venture and the city and monopolize most of the energy. With that, we can guarantee that no one else gets too much power.”
They were shocked by the revelation of Max and the plan as crazy as it sounded it could actually work. Looking at Max Jim asked, ”You do realize that some of the people especially if we find adults are not going to just accept this, right?”
“Yes, but they don’t have another choice as long as we are the strongest group. Only a few people would be crazy enough to survive somewhere else if they could choose an already established organization and if they wanted to live here they had to obey the rules.
I know that this isn’t the best solution but for now, it's the most realistic option. Fear can be a very useful tool to control people and I mean we are not going to force them.
Everyone who wants to leave can do this. We could also use the tactic of 'carrots and sticks'. We punish those who break the rule and the people who fight get some benefits like better clothing or their own rooms.
The others have to help reinforce the school, help on the field, or do something else to make themself useful and get in return food and safety. For that it should be our top priority to get a food and water source, while there is still enough around," said Max with a stern face.
With a slightly worried face, Jim said, “I will trust you with this one. It is not a bad plan, but we have to be very cautious about how we present it. For now, most of the students would accept you as a leader, considering your popularity and skill with people.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
You just have to be careful with adults and be aware that this is not far from dictatorship and we all know how most dictators ended; dead. I will support you if the others don’t have a problem with this plan,” said Jim while looking at the rest of the group.
The plan sounded good for their current situation and even if some voiced their concern they still accepted the plan. Next, they had to find a reliable water and food source.
On this topic, Charlotte asked, “Can’t we just eat the meat from the dead mutants? Now that they are bigger they have more than enough flesh to feed us for weeks. We just have to preserve the meat.”
Hearing this Lukas said, “That could be risky. We don’t know what effect consuming a mutant would have without even considering the problems a diet consisting only of meat had.”
“That is not a problem we just have to test it and if we could eat the meat our food problem would be resolved until we have fields,” said Chris.
“Yes but who is going to test it?” Emma asked with a frown.
“I don’t know if worst comes to worst we will just test it on one of the unsuspecting students outside,” said Max with a shrug.
“Max! They could die. We can’t you just experiment on students,” said Charlotte with a startled expression.
“Relax, I would never test this on someone innocent. A rank two should consume the flesh anyway in case it is really poisonous, as we have stronger bodies. Besides I’m relatively sure nothing will happen so I volunteer to test it out,” replied Max with a chuckle.
At this moment Dennis also joined in and said, “I also know where we can build the fields. You all know that at the back of our school is a small part of the woods that is fenced in. We were prohibited to go there because of wild animals, but I was there anyway and just a few meters behind the fence was a stream with clear water we can use for the fields or drinking water after boiling it.”
This was a great idea and should be enough to supply a few hundred people. If they ever grew bigger than that they could always find more solutions, but for now, that was more than sufficient.
After the group agreed on Max’s plan and decided how to resolve the immediate problems they started to put it into action. After gathering everyone in the hall Max started explaining the situation and gave them three choices.
“Your first option is to leave here and now, with a little bag of supplies, and never return.” Not surprisingly no one from the about forty remaining students chose this option.
“Your second option is to stay here and get food and protection. In return, you have to help out in the school and are not allowed to leave without our consent. This is just to guarantee your safety. Leave the vicinity and we will not guarantee anything.
Your last and third option would give you a bit more benefits over the others but you would have to fight the mutants outside, together with me to keep this place safe.”
It was important to note that almost everyone from the supermarket didn't want to fight for their survival, they were fine with helping but risking their lives was too much.
The hardest battle was always the first one. After your first battle in most cases, it only gets better. That’s also one of the reasons why Jim’s group hadn’t a real problem with continuing to fight for their survival. After all, someone had to do it.
In the end, only five students volunteered to participate in the hunting party Max wanted to organize.
This wasn’t a surprise for him and was also what he wanted. He needed a small group of people who he trusted. Someone had to enforce the rules when Jim and the others were gone. Max alone couldn’t possibly supervise the whole school.
Max also decided to name the group who ventured outside the vanguard. With this Jim was the leader of this group for the simple reason that he was the strongest. To a new society, a functioning system was most important.
This system of course had the basic rules every society should have. No killing or harming, no stealing, no sexual harassment, no discrimination, and everyone had the same rights.
So even if you were part of the vanguard you wouldn't have the right to murder or something similar. The only difference was that the ones who held the rules in place and could give punishments in emergencies were the vanguard and household guard.
Considering the situation, punishments could be enforced immediately or were put before Max who decided over their fate to uphold ‘justice’.
After explaining the rules nobody was against them. At least no one expressed their displeasure openly.
They then explained what their plan was and gave each student a task befitting for them. Additionally, Clay went around to learn from everyone what they experienced at their first transformation to hopefully learn more about it. Chris accompanied him with this undertaking.
Most of the new students were not too useful for their plans. They gave the people who volunteered more attention. Max also was eager to quickly organize the first adventure of the new household guard. The sooner they reached the second rank the better.
They also planned the next route for the vanguard and after some arguing decided to go to the church. Why the church you ask?
For the simple reason that it was almost exactly in the middle of the city and would be the best location to explore the rest of the city.
This was also the place where the chance of meeting other survivors was the highest. Not only because humans tend to turn to God in situations of crisis but also for the good protection the church provides.
The reason for that was very simple. The whole church was surrounded by a seven-meter high and three-meter thick stone wall. Their city didn’t have the name Churchville without reason and was indeed a rather special place.
It had an interesting past and was often only overlooked because it was so small that nobody really cared for it. Here, like in many other places in Europe, religion played in medieval times a huge role. After the expenditure of the city in the fifteenth century the center wasn’t the castle but instead the church.
In reality, the castle was built on one of the many mountains surrounding the city. In a moment of crisis, most people would go to the church instead of the castle to seek protection and after some years the church itself became a little castle in which the people sought refuge.
The castle of their small city had an unbelievably good defense and enemy armies had an incredibly hard time breaking through the defenses.
In despair, they tried to destroy the city and kill their people to lure the people out of the castle. The people barricaded themself in this moment of crisis in this church.
To this day nobody knows if it was the help of God or just luck but in all the wars this little city had, the church was not destroyed even once. Even if the castle was stormed or damaged the church always stayed tall, magnificent, and undamaged.
After some years the people decided to rename the city to ‘Churchville’ to honor this very special place that did a better job protecting the common people than the caste could protect its nobles. To this day the church was the most special place for the city’s inhabitants.
Another very important factor in their decision was the person who took care of the church. He was a bit crazy but also the most respected person in all of Churchville.
Jim immediately remembered this person after they started talking about the church. Solaire Pelagius was the name of this well-respected person. If you live your whole life in Churchville at some point you will meet him and most likely be in a situation where he helps you in some way. It could be advice, the inspiration to change something, or a direct solution to your problem.
No one in the city helped as many people as Solaire did. By now his reputation was enormous and he was seen as a living legend. People even believed he was blessed by God and a priest to help the vulnerable and helpless.
He was also special regarding the religion he spread. The city of Churchville was mostly Christian like most others in Europe, but they didn’t despise other religions and were open if the religion conveyed understandable lectures.
Father Solaire was a believer in the sun and worshiped it like a god. Not a real god but the sun itself as he believes the sun is the beginning and end of everything.
He was mentally a bit unstable after serving in the army for over thirty years. After his service, he became a priest in this little city and as everyone liked him, his unique way of spreading the lectures of the sun was quickly accepted.
Not only that, at some point some people even started to believe in the teaching of the sun, and a sort of cult formed. The religion Solaire spread wasn’t really strict and completely harmless to others so many were enticed and converted.
Most of the time they just direct their prayers to the sun rather than to a god. He was the reason why many people went to the church and he was the key to uniting the survivors of this city. Without him, it was nearly impossible to reunite the city. It was hard to describe what a big value Solaire had for the people of Churchville.
***
It was still the morning of the third day when Jim’s group was almost ready for their journey to the church as they made their last preparations.
After some thinking, they decided that Jim, Jake, Chirs, Clay, Lukas, Emma, and Charlotte formed the group for this mission. Max wanted Jake to stay behind because of his great logistical abilities, but Jim was persistent that his battle tactics were more needed.
In truth Jim only wanted his best friend to reach the second rank. As time went by Jim slowly realized what the future could hold for them and he knew that strength determined who survived and died the very next day.
They just said their farewells to Max and the rest of the survivors before beginning their journey. The vanguard set off for their first expedition. Like they had planned for the next few days their group cleared the way to the church and killed every animal on their way and found now and then survivors in the ruins of the city.
After the fourth day, they successfully rescued 23 people. Most of them were adults and just like they expected brought new challenges with them.
Max had to talk reasoning into them before they accepted the situation and got on with their lives or refused the situation and returned to the ruined city. This could have not been possible if Max wasn’t already of the second rank. The adults were thankfully only of the first rank and couldn’t win against Max.
Other than rescuing people Jim and his group fought many mutants. In the beginning, the group focused on getting Charlotte, Jake, and Emma to the second rank. Which was relatively easy as they were now more experienced and had no shortage of enemies.
They also started developing more fields where the garden of the school was. They used the seeds found in one of the shops in the city. Max also tried the meat of the mutants and after he ate it everyone was shocked as his eyes widened and he held his hand for his mouth.
Worried Charlotte asked, “Max is everything alright?”
Shaking his head he replied, “No nothing is alright this tastes like shit.”
Hearing this everyone was first silent and then broke into laughter. After waiting for a few hours it was clear that the meat was okay to eat apart from the really questionable taste.
The first thing Max and the household guard did was to return to the museum and get the other weapons. The weapons were limited but enough to equip Emma, the household guard, and about a dozen more people. The other weapons were stored in the storeroom of the school which was protected at all times.
Emma chose for herself a bow like Charlotte as both of them went together to the archery club. Over the past few days, Jim finally realized the huge value of having archers supporting them.
Just like that time passed and on the seventh sunrise since the start of this whole mess the sun on the horizon slowly woke the people at the school. Jim was sure that today they could finally reach the church.
On their way to the church, the group fought countless mutants of all kinds and grew ever more comfortable with fighting.
Even then no one was able to get to the third rank and Jim was probably the closest of them all, but was still quite far from it. The same went for the mutants, as they didn’t find a single rank three mutant.
They also found multiple rank two mutants but these were relatively easy to kill in a group, as they slowly grew in their teamwork and reaction against different mutants. They did nothing else for the past week and they saw the results.
Over the last few days, Jim also tried constantly tried to replicate the boosting he used against the apes but didn’t succeed even once.
After going yet again out in the city the group was finally near the church and only a few more streets were between them and their destination.
As the group got closer and closer to the church they could almost feel the presence of people. Another sign was the increase of mutants as they got closer.
After one last turn, Jim’s group finally saw why so many mutants were in the vicinity of the church. Standing before the closed iron gates, was Father Solaire. He wore his usual brown robes as they fluttered in the wind. His unkempt long gray hair dangled in front of his face as it reached down to his chest.
With a cigar in his mouth and a huge smile on his face, he looked at the animals in front of him. Almost two dozen animals surrounded him. From the looks, they were mostly rank one but it was still a frightening sight.
It was like a small army of animals fletching their teeth and claws at you. Solaire just stared at them and screamed, “Ohhh.. Holy sun! Give me the help and strength I need to vanquish these foul creatures! I, your apostle, sword and shield will fend them off.”
During his speech, Solaire raised both of his hands into the air, no to the sun, and stopped his speech for a short moment to catch his breath before screaming at the top of his lungs, “Let the holy sun be my witness as I vanquish these creatures. HAHAHA!!”
*...*
Saying this the mutants suddenly stopped growling or fletching with their teeth. They were just standing still as they felt something. They were frozen in fear. At the same time, Solaire abruptly brought his arms down and pointed his palms at the animals as a small spark from his cigarette flew in front of his palm…
*BOOM*
Like an explosion, flames erupted from the small spark and grew into a huge inferno. Controlling the flames with his palms Solaire directed them like a flamethrower to the mutants and burned every single animal in front of him. He started in the middle and then slowly spread his arms outwards.
The animals wanted to flee but… it was already too late.
In just thirty seconds the animals were burned to a crisp and died as they painfully shrieked at the sky in their dying moments. The flames were reflected in the bright orange eyes of the priest as he didn't stop laughing like a madman.
Then the flames in his hands died down and with one smooth movement the priest continued to spread his arms high to the sun and screamed,
“PRAISE THE SUN!”