~~~Adrian~~~

"I can't believe you were holding out on me," Daryl bitched again.

"Would you let it go already?!" Adrian hissed while looking out the open doorway at the scattered undead wandering the street. While it was nice that Daryl seemed to take their near death in stride, the nonchalance was bordering on suicidal.

"He lied right to my face!" At least he kept his magic going while bitching about the lack of alcohol in a mana-eating bat prison...

"You think he was right?" Hallie asked. "About the invader?" She'd lost her blade. Everyone had lost their weapons... It would be all up to the magic users until they got more.

Daryl stopped bickering with Donny as everyone looked at the girl. "Probably just fucking with us. Guy was a total nut bag."

"I don't think he was lying," Adrian said. "Why would he? Remember the building shaking earlier? The hole!?"

He couldn't forget the sight of that little dog sleeping in the man's lap. And its little howl... That pug couldn't really be the beast lord, could it?

"What does that mean for us?" Howie asked. "Is he actually using us as bait?"

"Fuck that guy," Travis said, spitting on the floor. "I say we make a break for it. Cross the street to the next lair, at least... and get the fuck away from these damn bats."

Everyone had a reaction to the reminder. This entire run had been a disaster. Bats that absorbed mana... and exploded if you killed them. They hadn't made it past the first floor before everything went to shit.

Adrian had barely managed to heal everyone before they got to him—only thanks to Daryl feeding them his own magic. Then the giant bats dragged them away, one by one. Getting captured by monsters was a new and terrible experience. But they were still alive because of it, so better than the alternative, he supposed.

He listened to the others bicker and realized he wouldn't be able to convince them to wait. A night spent in a bat cage while having their mana drained repeatedly was apparently an upsetting event, and now they all just wanted to go home. Never mind that there might be an even worse monster waiting for them outside.

It was immensely reassuring to have full mana again. Perhaps that was the feeling driving the others' confidence. Mana was still a recent phenomenon, but going without was already an unconscionable option.

"What's the skill shard?" Daryl asked, sidling up beside him with eager eyes.

Adrian looked at the shard in his hand. The one that had appeared in the doorway once the lair closed the way back upstairs. "This isn't ours."

"Aw, come on! That lunatic's long gone."

"What if that lunatic comes back and asks for his core?" He tucked it into a pocket because it was indeed tempting. "I'll give him a day. If he doesn't come for it by then, we can decide who gets it."

Daryl lingered, leaning on him and tilting his head to rest against Adrian's.

"Are you okay?" Adrian whispered while taking the other man's hand into his own. He let some of the fire inside him spill out of his fingers and crawl up Daryl's arm.

"I just want to go home," Daryl murmured. "Walter's going to be so pissed..."

"He won't be. I'm sure he's worried, though, and I wouldn't say no to his cooking right now."

Daryl chuckled and stood up straight again. "Let's go then. We'll only get more tired if we wait. Unless you want to hole up in here?"

Adrian wasn't completely against the idea, but the bats were too dangerous. There was no telling how long they'd leave them alone without that other guy here. "Let's run for it."

"Bet you a drink that I beat you to the tower," Daryl said.

"No bet. Because I know you'll lose and then try to force me to drink."

Daryl grinned.

They all sprinted through the door... and they all flinched when light suddenly shone around them at the same time as something boomed overhead. Only the light did nothing... "Up there!"

Adrian's gaze was already going that way, following the countless glowing lines that stretched into the sky, where they all arrived at a single point. There, they wrapped around a human hanging in the air between skyscrapers. He wasn't lying.

The man who'd saved them from the bats stuttered further across the sky, but the magic followed until he stopped again. Then the skeleton appeared...

"Run!" Daryl's shout was unnecessary. Everyone but Adrian had already taken off, sprinting for the tower and home.

Wait... Adrian followed. Reluctantly. While violence erupted in the sky over their heads. We should help him... he saved us!

"You can't do anything with them way up there," Cheesesteak's voice echoed in his mind as the evolved bird flew beside him. A parrot before all this, only now he’d become... something else... something more.

As if in response to the bird, the sky exploded with light and noise. Also, with power. A terrible power. One he immediately recognized as what he'd felt when they got a notification about the invader dying...

The only question remaining—the only question that mattered—was if it came from the human or the skeleton.

That flash of power only lasted an instant. It was immediately followed by a screaming sensation of unimaginable agony that blanked out his mind and sent Adrian tumbling across the street.

It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't him feeling that pain. It came from the man who’d saved them—the man who was falling closer with every second, his body glowing with a horrible light...

The skeleton followed him down, one of its hands buried in the man's chest.

Adrian didn't stop to think about it, and he unleashed every scrap of fire that burned inside him at the monster. Cheesesteak was of the same mind, and he swooped in like a tiny fire-breathing dragon.

He was just in time to delay the wave of swarming zombies that were pouring in from every direction.

Daryl copied him, and his fox partner unleashed her own fiery breath into the onrushing horde.

Adrian could feel his magic devouring the zombies. They were extra weak to his power. Which made it even more disheartening to feel how ineffectual the flames were against the skeleton. The giant skeleton, as he now saw it up close.

He also saw the pug...

There was no longer any doubt in his mind about the beast lord pug. Not when he saw it fighting. What he could see. It moved constantly. Faster than his eyes could follow. It changed size constantly and shattered the street wherever its feet touched down...

All that, plus the notification that came with its howling scream.

You have heard the Wrathful Howl of the Beast Lord.

+100% Effectiveness of All Attributes to Friends

-100% Effectiveness of All Attributes to Not Friends

Power flooded into Adrian along with that sound, and he had time to realize it had considered him a friend... Then magic shot from the skeleton and stopped the dog mid attack... magic that lashed and ripped it open in bloody...

The skeleton shattered into pieces with another burst of pain that drove Adrian to his hands and knees in the street, and he only glimpsed the skeleton reforming from little more than broken fragments of bone dust.

It had died; it was dust! How... The sight drained his resolve, and his eyes sought Daryl in the sea of flames. They would not win this—none of them. They would all die...

More humans appeared out of nowhere. People that Adrian hadn't met before, and they attacked with fury to match the now raging pug. Attacked with the same futility as everyone else...

Adrian saw an orange light flicker around the monster and fade away instantly. He saw blinding lasers that barely scorched the pale bones. Gleaming spears of crystal flew in... and ricocheted right back out. A man jumped at it... the wrench in his hand driving down on the thing's skull like a sledgehammer... until the skeleton slapped him away with an almost casual backhand.

We're going to die here.

He felt sick at the thought of watching Daryl die... which he wouldn't ever let happen! Adrian reached deeper inside himself, down into the core of his being, where everything precious to him lived. Into his heart...

"No!" Cheesesteak screamed in his mind. "You'll die!"

I won't let them take him away! I won't let any of you... The sensations he felt from Cheesesteak shifted, and Adrian realized, a moment too late, what was happening. Nooo! Don't...

"Wait for me," Cheesesteak whispered, his flight turning into little more than a red streak across the sky. "I'll always come back to..." Cheesesteak hit the skeleton in the face... and erupted in a blast to rival every other attack combined.

The firestorm finally blasted the skeleton away from the human. It blasted the skeleton into pieces. It blasted apart the street beneath.

An explosion that blasted Cheesesteak into nothing.

Nothing but flaming embers evaporating into the air...

Soul Bond: (Cheesesteak) has died.

Adrian hit the ground as a hole ripped open inside his chest. No... It can’t be...

He looked up through blurring vision and saw the skeleton once again unharmed and stalking back to its target. It was all for nothing...

He watched everyone else fight while his own mind drowned in a haze of horror.

Daryl's expression was grim and equally haunted as he threw out never-ending streams of fire. He had to know they were losing. Why didn't he run away? Could they run away? Would this monster even let them leave? Did it matter if they escaped? Or would it simply hunt them down at its leisure...

Magic bloomed from the skeleton as it advanced, and a glowing dome sprang up, cutting them off from the monster. The pug was massive but unmoving as he unleashed a deafening bark, cracking the dome.

The skeleton ignored the dog. It was ignoring all of them as it stalked toward the only other thing inside the dome. The human who'd saved them.

They could run away. The man was right; it wasn't after them. But if this man died... what was stopping it from coming for the rest of them?

It had to die. Here and now. It was the only way to keep Daryl alive. To keep him safe. He could break through the dome... he could end it. He had to end it! I'm sorry, Daryl.

Adrian took off, sprinting toward the monster, ignoring Daryl's shout and refusing to risk a glance. He reached for his heart again, reaching for the power nestled within. I'm the only one who can do this. Please, forgive...

He never even made it to the dome. He never got the chance to save Daryl. Adrian felt the rage emanating from within the dome. A deadly, hateful rage.

Reality trembled... and Adrian blacked out from the pain.

Invader Defeated. Contributions Earned. Defeat the remaining invaders to claim your rewards.

Debuff: [Soul Shaken]

Hidden Attribute Unlocked: Soul

-1 Soul

He came back quickly. Fast enough that he heard the pug barking and saw the shockwaves blasting the undead away. His own fires hadn't quite faded, and he unleashed a fresh wave. Enough to surround the humans who were in various states of consciousness. Enough that it drained his mana down to near empty.

"Adrian!" Daryl was next on his feet, and he helped supplement the flames while staggering closer. Princess limped beside him, the fox hugging his knees, as she breathed out cones of fire toward any undead that got close. "Are you... is Cheesesteak..."

Daryl caught him when Adrian's legs gave out, and they ended up clutched in each other's arms as Adrian sobbed with bittersweet relief. Daryl was alive! They were both alive! But Cheesesteak was gone... he'd sacrificed himself for...

Adrian sat up abruptly when he saw something in his status that he hadn't expected. Something he couldn't believe...

Soul Bond: (Cheesesteak) Phoenix Rebirth(199:59:59)

Was it true? He'd always thought the whole phoenix moniker on Cheesesteak's race was just a fancy name... but if it wasn't... Adrian felt the sensation then. It was weaker than before, almost lost in the surrounding chaos... but it was there!

He scrambled to his feet, with Daryl right behind him calling, "What is it!?"

"Cheesesteak isn't dead!" Adrian screamed as he sprinted through the burning zombie hordes... and slid to a stop beside a small, flaming egg resting on the ground amidst a pile of ashes. His hands shook as he scooped it up, desperately gentle and terrified that he might damage it... even as tears blurred his vision.

The loud whine eventually pulled his attention from the egg, and Adrian looked at the little pug laying half atop his human's unconscious body. Adrian knew the man was unconscious and not dead. He knew because he could feel it... could feel Him. He wasn't glowing anymore with that creepy light from before, but there was... something. A buzzing, grating, screaming sensation which radiated from him.

It didn't seem to bother the woman, who crouched beside the man as she used magic on him while the pug watched. "It's okay, Stanley. You'll be okay. Caffeine is okay! He's fine, you hear me? You just rest; we'll take care of everything... Please be okay... I don't know what's wrong... I can't heal it... I don't know..."

Adrian stared for a long moment, then let Daryl pull him to his feet while he clutched Cheesesteak's egg close. He approached the woman and her patient. "I'm a healer," he said. "Let me try."

She blinked at him in daze before nodding.

"It might look weird," Adrian said with a glance at the pug. At the beast lord... "But it will heal him." Then he let fire spill from his hand and over the unconscious man.

The pug didn't react, even when the fire crawled over him as well. Unfortunately, the fire didn't seem to help... though it softened the grating noise emanating from the man and scratching at Adrian's brain. Or his soul...

That's what it was. It was scratching at his soul...

"I'm sorry," he said to the woman and the dog, the latter of whom was staring at him with big brown eyes while it whined. It sat up briefly to growl at something behind him, then lay back down with another whine.

"We need to get him out of here," the woman said, still looking shaken but better than before.

"We have a safe place," Adrian said immediately. Though... if another of those skeletons showed up, was anywhere truly safe? It was so powerful... How were any of them supposed to survive this dungeon? Or were they never meant to survive? Were they just fodder? Earth was a dungeon. Were they the monsters put here only to be killed by things like that skeleton?

Only... the skeleton was dead. It had lost in the end. So maybe there was still hope.

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The woman, Serenity, carried the man she called Stanley. With the pug she called Caffeine lying atop him.

Together, they traveled through the endlessly swarming undead. But only the weak undead. The undead Adrian could burn. And burn them, he did. He rained down such a fire that the humans had to wade through it.

It was while wading through a sea of fire that he saw the timer on Cheesesteak's rebirth ticking faster. A few experiments proved that he could speed it up by funneling his own fire to the egg. Not a lot, but some. Enough that he left the remaining zombies to the others and channeled all his flames to Cheesesteak.

Until that awful feeling from Stanley grated on everyone's nerves... a clawing, digging, scratching ache.

Adrian spared a little fire for the unconscious man. To everyone's relief.

The trip wasn't long, only a few blocks, though it took longer with the endless hordes of undead to fight off—hordes that seemed far more aggressive than usual.

Then they reached the open doors into the atrium, Walter standing in the gap, his expression almost, but not quite, blank. He tried so hard to be stoic, but Daryl was his weak point... and Adrian couldn't blame him for that.

"Welcome home, Master Whitehall. I trust your excursion went well. May I prepare some refresh..."

"Can it, Walter," Daryl said, cutting him off. "We all almost fucking died... I'm going to eat and take a nap. I'll shower later."

Walter showed no displeasure at the brusk treatment. "Very good, sir. Shall I find room for our... guests?"

Daryl waved as he strode deeper into the building. "Yea, sure. Whatever."

Adrian saw the wince flash over Walter's face when Stanley entered the building, but the butler hid it well. "He saved our lives, Walter. Take good care of him."

Walter bowed slightly, inclining his upper body a few inches. "It shall be as you say, sir." He held out his hands to Serenity. "If the miss would allow it, I would relieve you of your burden. I assure you, he will come to no harm while under my care."

Serenity tightened her grip. "I... I'll carry him... Walter?"

"Of course, miss. Right this way, and please do not hesitate to ask for anything you should desire. I am at your disposal."

The residents of the tower were used to Walter popping in and acting the way he did, but these newcomers all stared at him with confusion. They were the normal ones.

"Can you pop us all upstairs?" Adrian asked, still pouring every drop of his mana into the egg in his hands. Walter didn't advertise his abilities, but Adrian knew. He'd never witnessed it directly, but Walter got around too fast...

Just like that, they were all in the penthouse. I knew it.

The victory felt hollow after all that had happened. Especially with Stanley's unconscious body radiating that sickening pain.

Adrian reluctantly diverted some flames to cover Stanley again. It helped. Muffling the sensation but not stopping it.

~~~Daryl~~~

Daryl watched the surroundings abruptly change into his penthouse, and he resisted the urge to look at Walter. Even the old man was holding out on him, and after all the times they'd climbed the stairs... The bastard!

Adrian's smile was beautiful... so much better than that brief and terrible moment when they thought Cheesesteak was gone...

As for the newcomers, one of them, James, kept asking about their power and how strong they were. Did they have a lot of fighters? Did they have enough lookouts to watch for incoming? Could they defend if another undead attacked?

Honestly!

Who the fuck could fight against impossibly powerful monsters like that thing? It had talked to them! The fucking skeleton had talked!

It didn't help his mood at all to have the unconscious man in here with them...

Daryl's hands shook as he scrounged through the cupboards. Where is it? They hadn't drunk everything, had they? No, he was sure they had more.

Cupboards slammed and rattled, and Daryl was about to go kick Donny awake when he spotted a bottle sitting on the counter. That hadn't been there before. Walter. Are you policing me now, too?

He snatched it up and hesitated. Rather than chug straight from the bottle, he grabbed some glasses and took it all to the coffee table. He could play host. "Anyone want a drink?"

The discussion halted as gazes swiveled to him and the cargo in his hands. "You know this is your job, Walter. Offering refreshments to our guests?"

"Pardon me, sir. You are quite correct." Walter didn't even bat an eye. "Welcome, honored guests. Please sit down and make yourselves at home. Miss, if you would lay your burden down, we have a guest bed through here that he is most welcome to use. I will have something to eat brought up..."

Daryl tuned them out and poured himself a shot of the homebrewed and ridiculously powerful spirits. It burned going down, but it spread a welcome warmth to the cold inside him.

He blamed the debuff...

[Soul Shaken](23:10:42)

Your soul was bombarded by stray soul energies of a powerful soul attack.

Effects:

-50% Effective Soul

That bastard! Dragging them into his fight... using them as bait! Not that it had worked...

His hand shook, and he slugged back another shot. Those fucking bats! That fucking guy waltzing in like he didn't even give a shit! He'd just glared at them, and the entire fucking army of bats surrendered! Who the fuck was he to be so powerful!?

And still too weak...

Now Walter was fawning over the old fart. Over all the new faces.

There was another base out there. A stronghold of humanity that was carving out a place in the wilderness. A stronghold full of powerful people... though they claimed Stanley was the strongest.

Apparently, he wasn't their leader. That was some guy named Nate, the second strongest.

"Olie keeps pinging me. I think Nate wants us back."

"Just send it back. Let them know we're alive, at least."

Daryl poured another glass of liquid fire down his throat while they jabbered and bickered. His soul ached... Was it just him? Did none of them feel this? How could they talk so... normally? Didn't they know how doomed they were? Didn’t they understand just how fucked all of them were?

Edward took a glass and then exclaimed after downing the liquor. "Wow! That's wicked strong!"

"Seriously, Edward?" James was clearly a buzzkill kind of guy. The stuck-up prick. "We need to reconnect with Nate as soon as possible, and getting drunk will help no one."

"All of your party are welcome here for as long as you wish," Walter said. He was being way too nice to these people...

"I'll stay here with Stanley," Edward said while eyeing the bottle on the coffee table.

"A drunk bodyguard won't..."

"Aw, come on, man. I wouldn't do that to Stanley. You're talking some mad shit right now!"

James pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly. "You're right, Edward. I'm sorry. Adrian, you said you're a healer?"

"You're goddamned right, he ish," Daryl said, surging to his feet and only swaying slightly. "Better than anyone!"

"I can heal most injuries," Adrian said, with a glare at Daryl for some reason. "But I can't tell what's wrong with him... and I can't heal it."

"We have a healer who might be able to help," James said. Then he muttered, "If he's still alive..."

Daryl snatched the bottle off the table and stalked away. If they weren't going to drink, he'd find someone else to party with.

He did.

...

Murmuring voices dragged him into consciousness, and Daryl wished they hadn't. God damn you, Donny!

Magic super liquor came with a magically supercharged hangover... but he had a cure. If he could only reach it...

Daryl didn't try to speak past the vile flavor coating his mouth and only gagged as he crawled from his bed. Walter must have put him in here... and the sadistic bastard had probably left the curtains open on purpose. So he kept his eyes shut and felt his way to the door.

The main room was even more brilliantly lit, but even squinting, Daryl could see a differently colored light flickering beneath the guest room door. A fiery light.

He barely noticed the scratching ache from his soul over the other... sensations, but he noticed when it became immeasurably worse after he pushed the door open. Luckily, something else came with it.

Buff: [Cleansing Phoenix Fire]

Buff: [Purifying Light]

Daryl didn't question the new buff or the sea of fire covering everything, and he only collapsed gratefully into it.

Debuff Removed: [Extreme Dehydration]

Debuff Removed: [Poisoned]

Debuff Removed: [Blood Toxicity]

Donny made some fantastic stuff...

"Feeling better?"

Daryl picked himself up from the floor and glowered at Adrian. "You could have healed me while I slept."

Adrian didn't look away from the egg in his hands. "You could have had one or two drinks after a traumatic experience instead of downing the entire bottle and getting blackout drunk."

"You..." Daryl bit back his retort when he saw Princess glaring at him from beside Adrian. He looked away. "I... I just..."

The room was full of strange people. Including the group he'd seen... yesterday? Hard eyes watched him from every direction while tense bodies shifted to stand between him and a glowing boy who was laying hands on Stanley. Presumably, their healer...

Daryl stared down at his hands when they started trembling. "I'm sorry."

Princess sauntered into his line of sight and brushed against his leg. He didn't need to see her angrily lashing tails to know her mood. "You are mean! Mean to me! Mean to Adrian!"

"I'm really sorry," Daryl said, reaching down to scratch her ears in the way she liked. Then he recoiled when her snapping teeth drew a line of red across the back of his hand. "Ow!"

"You deserve!"

Daryl sat down in the fire covering the floor, and the flames licked at his hand, healing the scratch instantly. He held his arms out to the fox. I'm sorry, Princess. Let me make it up to you.

She sat just out of reach of his hands and glared at him. She was really mad. What had he done the day before?

"Any progress?" Daryl asked Adrian instead of trying to reason further with his bonded pet. She'd only gotten more spoiled since the system, and he knew it might take her a while to calm down. Not that he was complaining. Princess was wonderful before, and she was even more perfect now. He loved her and would do anything to protect her... but she really lived up to her name.

"The timer is still over a week..."

Daryl felt an ache in his chest at seeing the expression on Adrian's face as the other man stared at the egg. He stood back up and approached, going wide around the glaring fox. "He'll be fine, Adrian. It will be no time at all, and he'll be back to begging for snacks at every opportunity."

Adrian said nothing and only nodded silently while Daryl squeezed his shoulder.

Then Daryl turned away and looked at the elephant in the room. The human elephant, whose soul wouldn't stop screaming. It was a stark contrast to the motionless and unmoving form that lay in bed amidst the sea of flames. "Are you still healing him?"

"No. Just muffling him."

"Muffling?"

The fire pulled back from the man, and the screaming rose to a deafening and terrifying cacophony before the flames spread back over his body. "Yeah. Muffling."

"Jesus... why is he still here?"

Adrian glared at him.

"I didn’t... Nevermind." Daryl turned his attention back to the strangers in his home.

Aside from the glowing boy, who was crying now, one other stood out. As if the man could feel his gaze, he turned, and knowing eyes bore into Daryl. But only for a moment. Then they moved on, sweeping across the room and its occupants, looking for threats... before settling back on the boy.

It had to be Nate. He was the only one who hadn't flinched when Adrian pulled the fire away. The second most powerful human. Allegedly.

"It's not working," the boy said through his tears. "Eve, it's not working! I can't heal him!"

The girl, an older sister going by their looks, pulled him into a hug. She said nothing as he cried in her arms, only staring blankly with a haunted expression. It turned into a glare when her eyes landed on the trio sitting apart.

Daryl sighed and moved toward them. It was probably time to introduce himself, and... maybe he could convince them to take their friend away.

Every face but the boy snapped to him after the first step, their eyes hard and bodies poised for sudden violence. Twitchy... but who wasn't these days?

"Nate, I presume?" Daryl offered his hand, more out of habit than anything else. "Will you be taking your friend away?"

"No." Nate shook his hand and his head. "I don't think we will."

Daryl hid his irritation. "Why not?" Another thought struck him. "Are you moving in?"

He wasn't against the idea, in principle. They were supposed to be strong, and it wouldn't hurt to have another healer around, but Stanley was... giving him a headache. Just standing next to him, even with Adrian's muffling, was like being in front of the speakers at a concert... a fucking shitty concert.

"Walter assured me you wished to keep him here."

"He did what? Why?"

"I assume it's related to the fact that Stanley's drawing more monsters here..."

Daryl blinked. "He's... what!?"

Nate cocked his head at him. "Have you not been downstairs lately?"

"Walter, where are you!?"

"Sir?" Walter stepped through the door.

He hadn't been out there a minute ago... and the thought triggered a memory that Daryl couldn't quite remember... Something from yesterday... before he'd started drinking. "What's going on, Walter? You want to keep..."

Walter vanished.

Daryl remembered. Walter had been holding out on his powers...

Walter reappeared. "Pardon me, sir. I..." He vanished again.

Nate was watching him... Adrian was smirking. Princess, what's so funny?

"I won't tell," Princess said, looking away, clearly enjoying his annoyance.

Traitors! Daryl stalked out of the room. He'd go find out himself. "Walter!" he yelled. "I know you can move people..."

Between one step and the next, he was abruptly in the wide open atrium, looking at a dozen ongoing fights between humans and monsters. Monsters that looked like giant beetles the size of cars...

His whole team was down here... along with a bunch of people he didn't recognize.

Donny staggered sideways away from the snapping mandibles and punched through the stick-like leg of the bug as he went. Howie came in from behind and placed both hands on the beetle's rear. Lightning crackled, and the bug stiffened. It remained unmoving just long enough for a girl to drive a red spear straight through its head and deep into its body, killing it instantly.

None of the other fights went as well. At least not for the human combatants.

Walter was the sole reason many of them weren't dying or dead already. He would appear beside a beetle and kick it back a step before it could rip someone in half, or he would pull the people back instead, if not outright vanishing with them.

Daryl flinched when he saw a younger man get completely impaled on a mandible through his belly. He was summoning his magic, too late once again, when the man jumped back with a cry of... joy? "Holy shit, it worked!"

The young man, or maybe a teenager, tried to stab the beetle with a much cruder-looking spear. His strike glanced off the carapace, and the spear fell from his hands while the massive mandibles closed around his waist... about to cut him in half.

The girl threw her red spear across the room, and unlike the previous attack, her weapon blasted into and through the bug, driving it away from the idiot teenager. She had some promise...

More beetles were already charging through the doors, so Daryl unleashed his magic on them. Balls of fire flew from his hands, with the first crashing down well ahead of the bugs and exploding in a spectacular spectacle of light and sound.

He'd missed on purpose. Because his magic was all a lie. There was no fire. No heat. No concussive force. Only light and sound.

An illusion.

But it was an illusion with one special property. If anyone or anything believed it was real... it would become real. At least for them.

So he gave the bugs a show. An example of what they should expect from the followup fireballs.

They bought it. They almost always did...

Guts and carapace flew. The flesh beneath burned to char. The beetles died.

"Hey! No kill stealing!"

The shout startled him, and Daryl stared in disbelief at the culprit—a tiny girl with what looked like icicles in her hands. "Walter said this is for newbies only."

As if summoned, Walter appeared beside her. "Please rejoin your group, miss. Once again, your entire team has scattered while you stand here disparaging the one who protects you."

She wilted further with each word and then sprinted away with a squeaking, "Sorry, Walter!"

Daryl watched her join up with a few others, including the idiot who got impaled and the girl with the red spear, all of them far too young and clearly too stupid to be doing this. "Walter, what is going on here?"

"Sir," Walter didn't look at him as he spoke. "We are weak."

The words hit like a slap in the face. "I'm not..."

"You are weak," Nate said as he strolled into view from the stairwell. "That's why I'm leaving Edward with you. He can signal us if everything goes to shit." His entire squad followed behind him.

"This is a good setup you've got here, Walter. But don't waste time. These monsters are just the dregs." He continued walking toward the door as he spoke.

"It's only a matter of time until the real threats come knocking..." He turned back to look at Walter, then glanced at Daryl. All while a fresh horde of beetles charged through the door toward his back. "But I think you know that."

He turned away casually, as if completely unconcerned with the giant bug about to bisect him, and backhanded it in the face.

Daryl didn't even see what happened. One moment the beetle was there, and the next it splattered against the wall after plowing through a half dozen of its fellows.

Orange light surrounded the surviving bugs, and they moved in slow-motion while Nate's party jogged past.

It was much quieter following their departure, mostly because everyone in the atrium was staring in wide-eyed disbelief at Nate's casual show of power. They hadn't even seen Stanley fight. Daryl hadn’t even really seen Stanley fight anything. He’d only felt it...

"I fear he is right," Walter said softly beside him. "We have fallen behind. Even were I able to assist you beyond these walls... I cannot say we would have emerged victorious."

Daryl didn't want to think about that monster. The human or the skeleton. He knew what Walter wanted. "I guess you have it under control. I'll leave you to..."

"Sir."

Daryl froze and watched his former team all pull back while the kids faced the next beetle. They were obviously acting as the reserve force. As the most experienced fighters in the building. He swallowed. "They died, Walter. All of them... because I screwed up."

"This is a war, sir. More will die before it is over." As if to punctuate his statement, Walter vanished and reappeared across the room. Just in time to disable a beetle before it killed someone.

Daryl was eyeing the diverse and scattered groups when Walter reappeared at his side. The kids with the spear and icicles were unfortunately the best group here... both in skills used and in their eagerness to fight. They would probably die first.

Of course, with them fighting in here... and Walter ready to carry them to Adrian... perhaps they wouldn't die just yet. Daryl gritted his teeth. "Fine. I'll help."

Walter smiled.

The old bastard hid it well, but Daryl had been with him a long time. He saw the smile. "I'll help you here. I'm not taking them outside!"

"Of course, sir." Smug bastard...

"How are they doing on useful skills?" As far as he'd heard, way too many people had fuck-all fighting potential.

There were the cores they'd gotten from the bat lair... and the skeleton outside... but that was a terrible idea. Stanley might still wake up. If he wanted those cores and found them missing...

Daryl shivered. It might be a better idea to kill that monster in his sleep if he wanted to steal from him... Or it would be, if not for the dog.