~~~Stanley~~~

Samantha was grinning like an evil mastermind when Stanley laid eyes on her again. The bitch had probably done something to Caffeine... seduced him somehow... with pets and food.

"You're all coming with me," Stanley said. "You have ten seconds to grab your stuff."

Jerry was the only one who scrambled to gather anything; primarily his knives and skewers. Arthur stood still like an idiot, mouth gaping as he looked between Stanley and Samantha. She already had a bag over her shoulder and was smiling up at him... as if she'd been expecting him to return. The bitch.

Arthur yelled when Stanley dragged all three of them into the sky. Jerry stayed silent while Samantha squealed gleefully, arms wide. "Now that's how you sweep a girl off her feet!"

No one complained when Stanley's engine block armor surrounded them in semi-darkness. He kept them away from him, closer to the edge, and went engine harvesting. There were too many gaps in his shell after the last fight, mostly from him throwing the engines at the birds, and it was easier to tear up some cars rather than going to look for the projectiles.

Samantha copied him by crossing her legs, and Caffeine betrayed Stanley by immediately bounding into her lap. "Who's a good boy!? Did you miss me?"

Stanley ground his teeth and resisted the urge to yank Caffeine back into his own lap. He could feel the pug's tail wagging... and he wanted Caffeine to be happy...

"Okay, now you should go back to your best friend," Samantha said. "I think he misses you already!"

Caffeine bounded back, all happy wagging tail and face licks.

"So, are you going to tell us your name? Or should I just keep calling you mister?"

"Stanley," he said through gritted teeth.

"Nice to meet you, Stanley. Can I call you Stan?"

"No." Lee was the only one who called him that...

"Understood. So, what's the plan for us? How can we help?"

"I don't need help."

"But now that we're here, maybe we can help you, anyway?"

"You can be a backup food supply."

"I'm serious..."

"So am I!" Stanley yelled, turning to loom over her in the near darkness. "I don't need your fucking useless help!"

"Understood. Got it." She just kept smiling...

"You're only here to keep my bed warm," Stanley growled, looming closer. She didn't even blink. "All three of you." She kept smiling. "Because I can do whatever the fuck I want, and none of you can stop me!"

"I know you can," Samantha said, her smile softening but not going away. "But I know you aren't that kind of person."

"You don't fucking know me!" Maybe she'd lied about the tree thing? Maybe she had some mental magic... It might be better to kill her now... Stanley's power wrapped around her, squeezing... Caffeine would get over it. In time.

"You... you're right. I don't know you," she wheezed. "But I've met Caffeine, and I think he knows you, and he... he trusts you."

Caffeine chose that moment to whine and lick at his face. God damnit! Stanley backed off. This bitch was fucking crazy... and probably up to something... but he couldn't make Caffeine cry.

"He protected us," she said, rubbing her throat. "I'm not sure if you saw that, but when you first fell out of the sky, and then again when you... um... tried to eat us?"

"That means nothing." Stanley knew he'd lost the argument. It wasn’t his fault he’d tried to eat them, but using Caffeine against him was cheating. "He likes everyone."

"Dogs know more than we give them credit for, and he doesn't fear you even a bit," Samantha said.

Stanley deflated. He didn't even know why he was arguing with her... "I only brought you along because Caff wouldn't shut up."

"I know," she said, smiling even brighter. "He’s a good boy! Doesn't mean we can't help."

"Can you even do anything useful?" Stanley said, opening a hole in the shell long enough to orient himself and find where he'd left off earlier. "I can't believe you chose such a useless class..." Then he stuck his mind inside a building. Something squirmed, and he crushed it. That set the place boiling, and he immersed himself in the fight until it was once again calm.

The building was only a few stories tall, apartments; from the brief glimpse he'd gotten, and he had a new idea when the fight was over. He split the shell open and dropped the trio onto the street. "You want to help? Then go inside and bring me the cores."

Samantha saluted. "Aye, aye, Captain!" Then she went and hugged one of the trees lining the street... "Who's a good tree? Oh, yes. I know. That miasma is bad. How about I help you out a little?"

Stanley watched the tree hugger talk to a tree, its branches bare for the winter, and was only a little surprised when the tree started growing bigger. It stopped growing at double its previous size, and was covered in green leaves... So she wasn't lying about her class.

"That should help. You think you could help me out, too?" The bark split open under her hugging arms, and a spear slowly took shape in the opening. Once it had fully formed, the spear fell free, and the bark closed up behind it. "Thank you!"

It was... kinda cool, and completely useless for anything that mattered. Stanley closed up his shell and left them there, heading next door.

Caffeine whined, and Stanley reluctantly opened the shell again to give the pug access to the ground. "Fine. Go play with your new friends." It only bothered him a little...

Caffeine gave him a nose lick and bounded after the others. It was fine. He would keep them alive. Maybe they would work faster knowing he was there. As for Caffeine's safety... they were all too weak to pose a threat.

...

A few blocks, and after a few visits from Caffeine that helped immensely with his mood, Stanley started gathering his own cores. The others weren't keeping up, and he didn't want to lose too many to other monsters.

He caught up with them a few buildings back, and they were a sight. Blood and... other stuff covered all of them. Except Caffeine, he was still pristine. "How are you all covered in blood? I said to get the cores, not go swimming in the corpses?"

Arthur looked pissed. At least, Stanley thought he did. It was hard to tell under the gore. Samantha smiled, white teeth showing disconcertingly through the red patina. "Hi, Stanley! I actually thought you were going to make us hunt the monsters. Didn't even see you kill them. Just fly past, and they're dead. Very cool!"

Did she really think he would send them to die? A hoard of monsters with her little spear? And she still went in? She was an idiot.

"As for the blood," Samantha continued, bending down to pet Caffeine, who shied away from her filthy hand. "Well, this little cutie can shake like nothing I've seen."

Okay... that would probably do it.

"Think you could fly us to the river for a rinse?" Samantha asked.

Stanley wasn't averse to the idea. Though he needed more clothes... what he was wearing now were little more than rags after that damn owl… thing. "When we're done. Now, where are my cores?"

Arthur had an identical spear to Samantha, and he was also wearing the backpack instead of her. He shrugged it off and opened it to reveal a glowing mass filling almost half of the interior. Still, the cores were individually tiny, so it was a decent haul. It actually looked more substantial all together like that.

Stanley took it, shoved his arm inside, and accepted the mass notifications as the pile dwindled away.

It felt much less substantial when he checked his gains. A grand total of...

+3 Strength

+3 Vitality

+4 Dexterity

+3 Wisdom

+3 Intelligence

+2 Willpower

It was slightly better than that, but his status didn't show the decimals, only changing once he hit the next whole number. The worst part was that the willpower cores no longer offered a full point one to him. Ever since he'd passed the fifty total willpower mark...

+0.09 Willpower

It was the diminishing returns he'd feared after hitting F-grade. Perhaps because he was killing stuff in the low F-grade range? It was hard to tell most times. With his high bonus to willpower, only the crazy strong monsters like that owl even registered. Even the monsters' magic was easier to block. The weak ones, at least...

"Are you past F-grade?" Arthur asked, interrupting Stanley's musing.

Stanley didn't answer, only stared at him as the pack floated back down to the man. He dragged them all up the street past the buildings he'd already looted and said, "Keep going."

Caffeine jumped up for some pets while Stanley killed everything in the building, then he followed the others inside. Stanley went on with his own slaughtering.

...

Stanley stayed away until the sun was approaching the horizon. Then he stopped and waited for them to catch up. He heard Jerry before they came into sight. "No, Caffeine. This is for later. I will cook it for you then."

Caffeine whined at the man as they came around the corner, then saw Stanley and bounded the thirty feet up into his lap. Behind him, Arthur and Jerry were carrying a pole on their shoulders that was draped over with a massive pile of raw meat. Stanley's stomach grumbled right along with Caffeine's.

Samantha had a few extra bags, and she skipped toward him with a big smile. "Stanley, I got us all some extra clothes!" She slowed and her smile slipped. "Well, technically, I stole them... but I don't think the owners will mind..."

"Yea, cause they're all dead," Arthur muttered.

Her smile didn't stay gone for long. "So, how about that bath? I think we'll all feel better once we get cleaned up!"

"Cores," Stanley said, lifting the pole from Arthur and peeling him away from the backpack.

"I could have just taken it off..."

Stanley ignored his whining and absorbed almost all the cores in the bag. Then he looked closely at all of them. "How many of my cores did you steal?"

Arthur and Jerry stiffened, but Samantha laughed. "We didn't steal..."

"How fucking many!?" Stanley shot forward to loom over them.

"N... none," Arthur stammered.

"Stop that!" Samantha shouted. "No one stole anything from you. A few more attributes won’t let us survive any better than we could with you."

Stanley couldn't tell if she was lying, and Jerry only looked slightly nervous. It was Arthur that looked terrified... "Tell me the truth, Arthur. I'll let it slide for today only."

The man shook his head vehemently before Samantha slid between them. "Stop this, Stanley. Why would any of us risk something like that?"

"Because that's what people do!" Stanley screamed into her face instead of Arthur’s. "You lie, steal, and kill!"

Caffeine squeezed between them, growing larger and forcing them both to back up as he whined.

"No, Caff," Samantha said, pushing futilely against Caffeine as she stepped around him. "Let us talk. Assuming we can still communicate like adults..."

"Your insults mean nothing if you're too weak to back them up!"

"That wasn't for you. I was telling myself not to overreact to your tantrum."

Stanley grit his teeth and resisted the urge to break her in half. He'd only wanted to test their reactions, and now he was getting angry over nothing. He was angry, too. He could feel the increase in his power that came with the rage. Samantha was weak before, but now she was a twig that would snap with the slightest effort...

He smashed the three-story apartment building they stood next to instead. Smashed it clean from the foundation, through the one behind it, and across the street beyond. It shattered to pieces on the next building, a lair by the feel of it.

Samantha blinked, her smile faltering for the first time.

Stanley took his victory and turned away before he could get any angrier. Then he threw the pack at her feet, a handful of cores still inside. "You can split those however you want." He'd taken all the willpower for himself already.

"Thank you, and I still think we'll feel better after cleaning..." Stanley didn't let her finish, and instead dragged all of them into the sky.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Caffeine sat down in his lap as they flew, and Stanley felt his anger drain as he ran his hands over the pug's fur. He never should have taken them with him... this was all a mistake. But Caffeine looked so happy to have new friends... Was Caffeine tired of him? Was it too much work to put up with him? Why did he need anyone else?

At the river side Samantha produced multiple pairs of pants from a bag, from sweat pants to khakis and jeans. "I had to guess your size, but I'm usually pretty good at that."

After setting Caffeine aside, Stanley scooped up a sphere of water from the river, then brought it around himself. It was easy enough to make the water spin, and he did so, faster and faster, until it stung his flesh. That it shredded what remained of his pants was... not part of the plan, and he only noticed when the now brown water splashed away.

Samantha wasn't smiling, but it looked like she wanted to... Instead, she held a bar of soap in her outstretched hand. "I was going to say I also brought some soap... if you want it."

He grabbed more water and repeated the tactic, only with soap this time. Then a fresh ball to rinse.

Everyone was politely looking away when he emerged, naked and cleaner than he'd been in... ages. Stanley took the sweatpants. He didn't need anything fancy, and they'd probably get destroyed, anyway. He felt great... clean. Why hadn't he done this before?

"Um..." Samantha said, sneaking a peek and then turning to face him when she saw he'd dressed. "Could you do that for me? Please? It looked like an amazing bath, and I haven't felt clean in ages."

"Fine. You going to take that off?" He gestured at her bloody clothes.

"Do you have to look at me to do it?"

"Yes," Stanley lied. He didn't technically have to, but it would be easier, and he also wanted to see just how far she would go to stay close to him.

Samantha sighed. "Okay, but don't get any ideas." She started undressing. "This means nothing, and it's not an invitation for anything else."

"Whatever," Stanley said, pulling up another ball of water.

"I just think honest communication would help avoid a lot of..."

"Oh shut up," Stanley said, and ripped the rest of her clothes off before dunking her. "Oh, and hold your breath."

She'd faced away from him, but it didn't matter since she couldn't hold herself stable in the churning water. She spun and flailed wildly as he pushed the water back and forth. Though he made sure she had closed her mouth. He didn't want to drown her... at least, not by accident.

"That was not..." she sputtered when the water fell away.

"Rinsing time." Stanley threw the next ball of water on her.

"Not... cool," Samantha said when it was over, dripping wet and covering herself with her hands. "You did that on..."

Caffeine growled, and Stanley snatched everyone into the sky instantly at the warning.

Below them, on the beach, a massive octopus tentacle slammed down into the sand where they'd been standing.

"Ah! What the..." Samantha's screaming shout cut off when she gazed down at what had almost flattened her. "My clothes..."

Stanley watched as the withdrawing tentacle dragged all of their luggage into the river.

That was... disconcerting.

The owl had been a sky king... was this thing a sea king? River king? Would it pay out another plus ten core? It was tempting... but he didn't know how big it really was down there, or even how he'd go about killing it... Could he pummel a giant octopus to death with engine blocks? Was it even an octopus, or some twisted version like everything else?

"So, Arthur? Jerry? Who wants next?"

Neither volunteered, so Stanley washed them anyway. They smelled terrible... something he only noticed after cleaning up himself. He took them further down the river to do it, though. Then he carried them all back to the neighborhood apartments, where they stole more clothes.

Samantha stopped hiding behind her hands, strolling brazenly through the building stark naked. She said nothing to any of the men, who, aside from Stanley, avoided looking at her. Stanley stared openly. Partly trying to make her break the cool facade, but also because she was stunning. It was amazing what a wash in the river could do...

It was also clearly some kind of trick she was trying to play on him. A manipulation or distraction to get him to lower his guard. And it was working... So he left them there and went hunting for more monsters for Jerry to cook. Maybe she had some kind of seduction powers... that might have been why she wanted to go to the river in the first place...

When he carried them closer to downtown, and into his favorite skyscraper, which had only a few busted windows, that got some concerned looks. Especially when he told them it was his base. A base with monsters roaming the halls.

Because something had clearly moved in during the day while he was gone.

You have entered a Lair: [Iron Tusk]

They were birds... or maybe bats? Whatever they had been, now they were hairy birds with tusks. Still, they were new here, with low numbers and no chance to resist Stanley. They died, and he threw the corpses down a few floors before setting up in the queen's room. Only one way in and easily barricaded. Extremely strong walls, and a view to die for. Or it would have been if the city lights still existed. Now it was just dark.

Funneling the smoke from their fire outside the queen’s room wasn't too hard, and Stanley enjoyed a meal with more flavor than he'd grown accustomed to. A perk of keeping these people alive. Or at least Jerry. Maybe he could ditch the other two...

He eventually barricaded himself in the bathroom with Caffeine, away from the others, and checked his status as he lay down.

Status

Name: Stanley Cascade

Race: [Psychomancer](F-Grade Human)

Titles: [Titan Slayer]

Traits: [Adaptable] [Energetic Resilience] [Psycho]

Class: Psionic (Rare) - Level 19 (Basic)

Class Skills: Psychokinesis (Uncommon) - Level 24 (Basic) | Premonition (Epic) - Level 9 (Novice)

Attributes:

Strength: 45(-10%)40

Vitality: 46(-9%)41

Dexterity 43(-4%)41

Wisdom 47(+90%)89

Intelligence 40(+89%)75

Willpower 55(+534%)293

Twin-Soul ???

Non-Class Skills 1/3: Knife Work (Rare) - Level 6 (Novice)

Buff:

Debuff:

His stats were going up. Today had actually been his best day so far... having other people gather cores saved time. Not enough time. Not with the risk they posed. As for his skills, well, Knife Work had stalled. Likely because he wasn't using a knife lately.

Premonition had likewise stalled at the threshold of the next tier... though that one he might be able to level by letting a monster try to attack him over and over. Something to consider for the next day. The increase he expected from it reaching basic rank would be worth a small delay... or maybe he could get a monster to chase him while he slaughtered lairs.

Stanley didn't notice when he drifted off, Caffeine a comforting presence against his legs.

He did notice when the monsters came for him. Twisted creatures striking from the shadows with flashing silver talons while his every attack against them was like trying to catch smoke in his hands as they sliced his flesh apart without mercy.

The laughing, eyeless face of the man who'd nearly killed him made an appearance. Twin gaping holes in his face where Stanley had stabbed out his eyes now glowing with sickly light as the man laughed at every futile attempt to send him away. Then he started teleporting and stabbing Stanley's own eyes with hooked, bloody blades.

Stanley was a ragged and bloodied ruin when Samantha appeared like a goddess from the heavens, illuminating the darkness and driving back the shadows with the golden glow of her naked body. Beautiful, seductive, with a coy smile on her lips as she sauntered closer. She reached out to him, fingers trailing a gentle caress over his chest as she leaned in closer.

His heart pounded as he stood transfixed, mesmerized. His hands moved of their own accord, yearning to touch the vision before him.

Then her smile shifted. The look in her eyes turned predatory. Stanley tried to recoil, tried to escape... but it was too late.

Her gentle fingertips became barbed talons that stabbed deep into his chest. Her lips parted to reveal a bloody maw full of needle-like fangs, and she pounced, biting down on his throat like a vise.

Stanley tried to push her away. Tried to flee. But her claws were too deep, and they dug deeper still into his chest, reaching for his heart, stabbing into it.

Strength fled from him as Stanley dangled in her grasp, helpless. Darkness encroached on all sides, dragging him down, down, down... until pain was the only thing left. The pain of her digging his still beating heart from his chest... biting into it...

From far away, Caffeine howled in the darkness, crying out in pain and fear...

~~~Samantha~~~

Samantha was too embarrassed to muster much conversation as they ate, especially every time those glowing violet eyes swept over her. She'd seen other people with glowing eyes. Nearly everyone had some glow when they used magic. But never so bright, and never constant.

She still felt unsure about the man's intentions with them. For all of her bluster and confident talk earlier, it was just that. Bluster.

There had been that moment where he looked at her with the same expression she'd seen so many times on so many men. Hunger. Lust. But it left as quickly as it appeared, and he went back to silent stares full of menace.

One other expression slipped onto his face occasionally, likely without him even noticing. It was fear. He was afraid of her. Afraid of all of them.

Which was preposterous. He could crush them with a thought. She'd seen that all too well. It was one thing to witness his fight with the owls, even at that uncomfortably close distance. But to see him demolish a building without even a flicker of effort... they were nothing but ants to him. Sure, they could bite him, cause some mild irritation, but he would end them as easily as pinching an ant off your skin. Which begged the question; why did he even bother with them? Was it truly because of the dog?

That was the one thing she hadn't been bluffing about. Not really. The little guy was likely as powerful as Stanley. They'd all seen it when a few giant rats charged from a pit in one building where they were collecting cores. She hadn't even seen him move. One moment, the rats were leaping for her throat, and the next they were headless.

Only the pug held no sense of danger, no menace. He only begged for their food when he could devour them without effort, then took the proffered meat from her fingers with a gentle brush of whiskers. No teeth or roughness. As if he knew how dangerous he was and went out of his way to be extra careful.

The opposite of Stanley, who dragged them as violently as he pleased through the sky. She still had some bruises...

He left them alone to sleep. Both a mercy, and also a new stress since they were still inside a lair… not that she’d had much experience with them. But she’d heard the stories.

She slept fitfully, waking at every small sound, and then any prospect of sleep fled completely when the building started shaking around them.

Getting hit by a flying chair knocked the last drowsiness from her and nearly broke her nose when it shattered against her face. She ducked the table, and it crumpled against the wall. Then the pieces flew across the room to break even more against the far wall.

Caffeine's cries were audible from behind the pile of junk Stanley had piled over the door, and it turned her thoughts from a monster attack to an even more worrying prospect. "Stanley!" she shouted through the barricade.

No answer. That wasn't good… had a monster appeared? They were in a lair… "Caffeine!"

This time, the already rattling pile of furniture crashed away from the door and a giant pug appeared for an instant. Then he was small again, looking at her with a whine before vanishing back inside.

Samantha shared a look with the others, both of them nervous and hiding behind the far doorway. Arthur saw her eyeing the doorway and shook his head.

She ignored his warning and stepped through the door, ducking out of the path of another flying chair on the way.

Stanley was stretched out on his back and twitching. He was also hovering a couple feet off the ground, his hands clenched into fists at his side and he was sweating. She'd never seen him sweat before... not even once. She could see his eyes moving wildly behind closed lids, and his breathing hitched and stuttered between heaving gasps.

It was a nightmare.

"Stanley?" she yelled, inching closer. Then staggered when an unseen force sent her falling sideways into the wall.

Stanley spasmed in the air, back arching before he curled up into the fetal position. She saw Caffeine's claws carving furrows in the tile as he grew in size while sliding away. Then he shrank, shot forward, and was big again while licking at Stanley's face.

Samantha followed his lead, plodding toward Stanley like she was climbing a mountain. Sliding back a few inches with each step forward.

His skin felt scalding when she finally laid a hand on his back and shook him. "Wake up!"

There was no response other than Caffeine crying while trying to squeeze his head through to reach Stanley's face.

She considered slapping him, but decided against it rather quickly. Violence of any sort could end badly. For her. Instead, she went to his head, cradling it as gently as she could, and did the only thing she could think of; sang a lullaby.

It was a song from her childhood. A song her mother used to sing when the nights were extra dark. She sang and brushed his sweat-dampened hair off his forehead. It had an effect. Stanley slowly uncurled and started drifting back to the floor...

Then he spasmed as if in terrible pain and his eyes snapped open with a searing violet light.

Samantha had a single instant to see the terror in those eyes... and then it felt like one entire side of her body shattered beneath an unstoppable force as it launched her across the room. Her back struck something soft enough that it didn't instantly kill her as more of her body broke. Then she was through the wall and sailing across the larger room beyond.

She got a brief flash of Arthur's horrified face before she went through another wall and had only enough consciousness left to wonder why she'd left such a big... hole...

...

Waking up was... strange. She should be dead. Unless the night had all been a dream… Seeing the list of notifications waiting for her confirmed it had not been a dream and that she was still alive, but not how.

A strange repeating noise prompted her to open her eyes, and she found herself half propped up with Jerry carving bloody meat from a monster corpse in front of her. He pulled a strip out and then fed it raw to the pug lying on his side near her feet. The little curly tail wagged as the dog gobbled it up, but he didn't move otherwise.

Jerry's gaze roved past her and then snapped back. "You're awake." He looked over his shoulder and yelled, "Arthur, she's awake!" Then back at her. "Hungry?"

Samantha was hungry, starving even, which felt odd considering how much pain currently wracked her body. She tried to nod and her neck screamed at the attempted motion. "Y... yes," she whispered.

"Good. Drink this." He was dribbling some thick sauce into her mouth when Arthur staggered into view, dragging another furry bird corpse behind him.

"Samantha! Thank god!" He dropped his burden and rushed to her side, hands reaching out but only hovering, as if he was afraid to touch her. "Can you move? We need to get out of here!"

"W... where is... Stanley?"

"He left. Blew a hole in the wall and flew away. But he left his dog here. We need to get out before he comes back!"

"No... can't leave."

"Samantha, he almost killed you! He could come back at any moment and finish the job. We have to run!"

"He... needs... us."

Arthur scrubbed both hands through his hair as he stared at her. "He's insane!"

"No... just... hurting."

Arthur jumped to his feet and started pacing while shooting looks at her. "This is the Peter fiasco all over..."

"Don't you dare say that name!" Samantha hissed, her anger granting enough strength to sit up slightly. "He is nothing like that snake!"

"Another wounded soul that you can save, even if it kills you?"

"It wasn't like that! It was an accident! I scared him..."

"You know what that sounds like, don't you? Almost verbatim to what you said about... him."

Jerry fed another chunk of meat to Caffeine on the floor, and the pug struggled to his feet after gobbling it up. Then he looked at the ceiling and howled softly... a mournful howl. "What happened to him?" Samantha asked, ignoring Arthur's insinuation. It wasn't the same thing. Not at all.

Arthur sighed and stopped pacing. "He ran through the damn wall ahead of you... best as I could tell..."

"Saved your life," Jerry said. "Busted himself up good. Figured some meat would fix him up like Stanley. It did."

Samantha's vision blurred as she watched the pug howl at the sky. She'd been right about him... and it said something about Stanley that his dog would go to such lengths to save someone he'd just met. "Stanley needs us."

Arthur shook his head, looking defeated, and she continued before he could offer another rebuttal. "He's obviously had a rough time of it. Worse than most, I think. You saw how hurt he was when we met him? Yet it didn't seem to faze him... he was more worried about Caffeine than himself."

"Monsters don't feel pain like us..." Arthur said.

"Or he's suffered even worse before."

"Another reason for him to be insane. We need to get..."

"I think he's only met bad people out here," Samantha interrupted again. "We need to show him not everyone is like that." Her breath caught from the pain wracking her body, but she pushed through it. "He's so powerful... he could protect so many in this hell..."

"Or snap and kill everyone because he has a bad dream?"

Samantha nodded stiffly. "Exactly. That's why we have to help him!"

"God save us from fools and..." Arthur carried on with his arguments and the night passed as her body slowly healed.

Though not completely, and not correctly. Samantha could feel the places where her bones fused back together slightly off from where they should be. She did what she could to adjust things, and the others helped, but it wasn't quite enough.

Nevertheless, she never wavered in her stance. Jerry played at ambivalence, but that was enough to force Arthur's hand. He wouldn't leave without them.