Veronica wasn't quite in tears but she was visibly distraught. It was a bit surprising. I had expected her to be more to the point of tears when she finally found me but maybe it was Donnie's help keeping her calm? Or maybe this place's queen bee hadn't seen a need to go after Clark after all. I have been wrong before.

Donnie was the one to speak up after I was dragged away to somewhere more private. "Something happened with Clark. He started acting all weird and now he says that we should all just go on without him." I nodded along as he spoke. "I figured that you might have some idea on how to deal with it?" She looked over toward us with both skepticism and hope.

I took a deep breath. Lets see how good my simplistic predictions were this time. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Our 'magical girl' was the one to speak up. Her voice only got faster as she spoke. "Everything was fine at first. She asked us what we could do and I told her I was a magical girl with pretty explosions and he said that he was more of a supporter. It wasn't until later when he was practicing his healing on some of the injured aliens; you know, making it slower or more targeted or last longer; it wasn't until then that she showed up. He didn't even say that he wasn't going to stay. All he said was that he wanted to give it more thought. Suddenly she was all over him and then he was saying that if I was worried that I should go on without him. Just leave him behind. Before I could do anything the gadgeteer was dragging me off to speak to you. And now I'm here."

Donnie, the aforementioned gadgeteer, took this chance to try to calm her down. Encouraging her to breathe and all that sort of stuff.

I just sighed. This was why I hadn't told them about the possible mind controller. Neither of them had anything like a poker face and several of the group had wanted to check back at the base to see how everyone was doing. Clark specifically brought up wanting to heal whomever he could. As nice as he is, sometimes he acts like the poster child for the whole 'good is dumb' thing. So I wasn't exactly surprised that the outpost's dictator saw a healer and decided to not let him walk away. Nor was I surprised that Clark had let on that staying here wasn't part of his plans despite being in the middle of a base that she controlled and surrounded by angry alien primitives.

"Don't worry. I'll have a talk with him. Maybe I can snap him out of it." She nodded, taking my half truth at face value. It wasn't like I wanted to lie to her or anything, I just didn't know what it would take to bring him back to himself. Still, even Jeong didn't succumb instantly so there should be hope. Hopefully.

She looked up at me, calmer than before. "Are you sure?"

"Don't worry," I repeated, "we will figure something out."

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So apparently you can do a lot of tying someone up with 50 feet of rope. Who knew? Clark looked halfway to being one of those cartoon rope mummies with how many times we had wrapped it around him. I'm just saying, none of us knew anything about how to use rope so this was the best we could figure out.

Also Dimitri helped, because of course he did. All it took was the explanation that 'we were trying to leave' as for why we were mobbing Clark and he was all in. It was a good thing too, as none of us had any clue how to hold down our squirming target to tie him up. Meanwhile one of the alien matriarchs saw us and laughingly told us to "have fun boys"... so that happened. In other news Veronica apparently knows how to put her hand over someone's mouth to keep them from screaming "because sisters", whatever that means, and she very self-consciously wanted us to know of the origin of her skill. Also Donnie makes a weird high pitched sound when he gets kicked in the balls and the rest of us were smart enough to learn from his mistake and be careful of Clark's legs.

The kidnapee seemed to calm down once we had him 'properly' tied up. I don't know if he had worn himself out or if he had resigned himself to his fate, but it did make carrying him easier. After some discussion Donnie and Dimitri ended up carrying him since our 'magical girl' had her lights and I could use one of the shotguns for offense, meanwhile none of the others could defend the group in an instant if the need came up. The walk started out far less eventful than I would have thought. A couple of the civilian aliens laughed and I learned that eye rolls were universal language. A small part of me even hoped that we could get out without any trouble, though a much larger part had known how unlikely that was and that knowledge had resulted in Veronica and I guarding our prisoner from the rear and the front respectively.

It isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you. I was reminded of this when Celestia stepped out in front of us to stop us from leaving. "You have had your fun. Put him down." She stepped forward and I stepped back, aiming my weapon at her torso.

"I don't think I will." I had a moment where I considered trying to intimidate her, then remembered that I was a skinny nerd, then remembered that I was currently pointing a gun at her. It was a surreal experience and my indecision must have shown on my face considering the look on her face.

She turned to look back at me with a hand on her hip in a posture that perfectly displayed incredulity. It was so perfect that I had to wonder if it was rehearsed. "We both know that weapon doesn't work or you would have used it by now."

I was about to speak up when Veronica beat me to it by screaming from the back of the group. "What did you do with him!?! Leave us alone!"

From there the chaos only escalated. Dimitri yelled something out that wasn't important while Donnie reached out his free arm to keep Veronica from rushing forward. A small crowd of aliens and a single human were now crowding around us with the warrior types looking more ready. Donnie started struggling again and the mind mage in front of me started stepping forward again. I needed to do something and I needed to do it now.

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An explosion jarringly rang out and everyone went still as my weapon exploded with power. The sound wasn't quite as painful as a 'modern' firearm would have been but the base toned result could be more strongly felt right into my bones. From the look of things I wasn't the only one who was jarred by it.

Half a second later people started looking around and saw that nobody was hurt. One of the newly constructed wooden guard towers, however, was now missing a sizable portion from one of the supports and would need to be rebuilt. The thing about any argument, something I have learned through countless internet 'discussions', is that whoever speaks first and loudest is assumed to be right... assuming they don't come across as loosing control. Now that I had control I couldn't loose it. Time to reframe the situation a bit better. "Stop with the mind control of my friend and we can all go our separate ways." I made a point about aiming the weapon at her as I spoke.

I waited only as long as it took for her to open her mouth, not even waiting to see if her answer was a denial before shouting back. "I don't believe it. Clark is our friend. We talked about what we were going to do after we were here and where we were going to go. I could believe that he might want to come back but there is no way he would just abandon us." I adjusted my weapon as I spoke, "So are you going to let our friend go?"

She looked around at the surrounding aliens, every one of the warriors and none of them stepping forward. One of them looked like he was about to, a larger one who I couldn't see clearly and didn't pay much attention as he was standing behind several others, but several of his buddies held him back through words and positioning. Several seconds passed before she flashed an ugly face before waving her hand in our direction. "Fine. Go if you want."

Immediately I heard some commotion going on as Clark relaxed. Veronica called out to, "help him", while Donnie responded with a quick, "I've got him", and an attempt to remove the gag that we had fashioned out of a rolled up sock and some rope. I continued facing Celestia, not letting her out of my sight for even a moment.

"Guys, I'm ok. Just get me out of this and we can go." The others took some time unwrapping him as the mind mage and I glared at each other. No one else intervened during the entire process, though they did start talking among themselves. Murmurs spread as the aliens tried to keep quiet, although not enough to avoid my ears. They were talking about the revelation of her abilities and questioning their loyalty.

She had to know about their questions, and I caught the barest hint of a reaction, but she remained steady throughout it all. Then she stepped to the side and motioned with a mocking scowl. "Away you go." Her eyes were narrowed and I could almost feel the hatred rolling off of her.

As for myself, I held the alien shotgun to my shoulder and continued aiming. She was shorter than me so naturally I was aiming downward as we inched around her position and as the aliens made space for us. In the meantime I accessed the controls for the gun with some motions of my eyes to my computer that could actually access it. For safety sake I turned down the AoE and the Concussion settings that I had used to make such a big noise and instead turned up the Accuracy and Penetration on the other side of those scales. I also aimed a bit more downward to reduce the chance of hitting anyone else with potential blow through.

"I don't trust you." I spoke neutrally, and pulled the trigger.

The shot was far more quiet, enough that it could have been missed if someone had been playing loud music, but no less deafening. The last survivor from the military/semi-military and VIP group, what we had called the 'Cheaters', was knocked back into the ground below and behind her. Her body bounced once and then she was gone. It was so quick that I don't know if she even knew what was happening before she disappeared. She left behind some effects on the ground, including some of the food supplies I had brought and a weapon, but nothing else.

Half a second later a roar came from beyond the outer circle, where the taller alien had been, and the circle quickly parted for him. As he stomped forward he revealed himself as the alien leader. The large man looked enraged and glared at both the spot where Celestia had been and at us before staring at me. He looked at me and my weapon and then narrowed his eyes as his hand tensed on his spear, lifting it off the ground to be readied.

"Go." he commanded.

Our five quickly turned to obey. A notification came up for my system and the others gave me a sideways glance but getting out was currently our number one priority. We kept going until we got to the forest, several hundred yards away, before we stopped running to rest. It was then that it became clear we had a stalker. It was Jeong and he didn't look happy.

"You left me behind." He hissed out at us all. His face twisted in anger and he began to try building up steam behind his accusations. "I was your leader and you just left me behind..."

Dimitri seemed to want no part of this argument and immediately answered back, going so far as to cut him off. "You were our spokesperson at best. Nobody trusted you to lead and when that witch got you we couldn't have cared less."

His face twisted in even a more ugly way before he started screaming at us. "I was the best of you all! I was the one who stopped their initial push! I was..."

"Dead weight." Dimitri answered back, silencing him by stepping forward in silent intimidation. "We lost good people carrying you all that time. Good useful people died at the end. The enemy only stopped because they reached their quota of dead, and you weren't one of them."

There was silence among the group. I had known that, in the zero sum game of 'only a certain percentage can pass', his survival was taking up the slot of someone else. I had understood the implication of the rules and what it meant. But I had not fully realized that everyone else had done the same. Well, everyone except possibly Jeong, though he might actually have known and thought he was worthy of the spot. By the awkward silence and furtive glances, it was clear they did. It shouldn't have been a revelation. Every one of us had extreme levels of either money or talent in our background and so none of us could be accused of being anywhere near average. And yet somehow I had just missed the fact that their resentment toward him might be deeper than I had supposed. I wrote him off through a logical assessment of his abilities and, in a similar but more emotional way, so had they.

"Do you all believe that?" he spoke back, tone halfway between dumbfoundedness and accusation.

There was no answer, beyond a derisive snort from Dimitri, and that was answer enough.

"Fuck you. Fuck you all." Jeong called out as he turned and walked away. His words started to waver at the end and Clark looked like he was almost about to run off to chase but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Dimitri shook his head in the negative, and that was that. Instead we all watched our former teammate and 'leader' leave.