To everyone’s credit, they reacted quickly. Their group dashed out of the alleyway into the street beyond. Out here they could see entire swaths of the street cleared of Corrupted. Flame-charred corpses littered the ground. It looked to Mark like she had baythd more than just the alleyway in flame.

Boe was suddenly acting strange. He seemed to have all this nervous energy.

“Not now boy, stay close,” he said patting Boe firmly.

Mark pulled in his construct. He was impressed by the display of power these two showed, but then again these two were the reason their group was heading to Prospect Park in the first place. They were the ones he had originally seen in that video. Her name was Samantha and he was pretty sure the guy's name was Jonathan.

“We need to keep in line with home base. I have non-combatants here” Davis said.

“Sure thing sarge, I know just the spot. Jon, you remember that lookout point” Samantha said with an excited look in her eye.

Jonathan had kept his eyes trained on the recovering horde behind them and as soon as their group got to them he said.

“Follow me and stay close, it's nearby”

Then he was off, moving down the destroyed road, while still carrying Samantha. They hadn't even moved a block before the streets started clogging up with Corrupted once more.

They poured from the alleyways, trying to block their path.

Jonathan simply drew a long blade and cut a path through for them. He worked his way through the lines of Corrupted. His blade cut cleanly through them, leaving neatly bisected corpses in his wake. All while moving fast enough that they had to rush to keep up with him.

Rather quickly a firehouse came into view.

When they got there he sheathed his sword and put Samantha down. Lifting up one of the large roller shutter garage doors. The metal and motor squeaked in displeasure.

They moved inside.

It was dark in here and Jonathan let the shutter slam down. Closing out the sight of roaming hordes, which slammed up against the doors seconds later.

“Right, I’ve already cleared this place but be careful we don't know if anything got in here since,” Jonathan said.

Boe was panting excitedly.

He led them through the building to the upper floors. It lead out into living quarters and an observation deck where they could look out into the street below.

Masses of Corrupted were moving in the roads and they were only increasing in number, becoming denser by the second.

For the first time, the two groups finally had the time to take a real look at each other.

Samantha moved forward and held her hand out to Davis in a familiar greeting.

“It’s good to see you’re alive Sergeant Davis” a smile still on her face.

He in turn laughed and shook her hand.

“Good to see our other unit finally showed up. Appreciate the save, thanks to you guys and our friend Mark here we may complete our mission yet. I can assume the den was cleared out then” he said while throwing a thumb behind himself, pointing in the direction of the family and Mark.

Both her and Jonathan’s eyes flicked over to take them in.

Her smile dulled to one of sadness.

“The others?” Davis asked.

She gave the barest of shakes of her head.

“Right, well we can mourn all our losses when we are safe. At the moment we have a stage two Influx due any moment now. If we time this right we can get out of here without a scratch” Davis said.

While they were talking Mark had been watching their exchange. When Davis had pointed to them Samantha had simply smiled politely in their direction and continued talking with Davis.

However, Jonathan had not. In fact, he was staring at Mark.

Mark was confused at first until he realized that he wasn’t staring at him.

Jonathan's eyes were locked on Boe in confusion. Then realization.

Jonathan drew his sword and closed the gap between them in a single second. Mark had been watching him and as such reacted in time.

[Shape Mana] wrapped around himself and his hand dropped to his holster. Three [Force bolts] surrounded Mark at the same time as a pressure appeared in the room.

Immediately everyone except Mark, Samantha, and Jonathan hunched over or dropped to the floor. Mark felt the pressure on his spell as Jonathan's eyes glowed an angry reddish-gold.

Jonathan's blade was pointed at him but did not attack.

Coldly and quietly he said.

“What the hell did you do to my family”

This guy was out of his mind. What the fuck was he talking about?

Boe chose this time to Bark happily at Jonathan and pad over towards him. Seemingly unaffected by the pressure. His tail was wagging and when Jonathan's eyes looked down at him the pressure let up a hint.

“Hey, Boe how you doing my boy,” he said as he took a deep breath, the pressure in the room was quickly dropping off entirely. His eyes moved back to Mark with no less hostility.

“Let me ask that differently, how did you get hold of Boe and where is my grandmother? These two are usually attached at the hip, there is no way she would have willingly given him to you”

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Mark did not appreciate being threatened and was tempted to simply take his chances outside, but he understood what was going on here so he said.

“I’m assuming your grandmother is Ethel. I owe her one, however, if you don't get that weapon out of my face right now things are going to get ugly”

Mark had seen firsthand just how strong this guy was and he was running low on pretty much everything, but if this guy thought he was going to back down at a show of force, then fuck him.

Both of them stood there staring at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. Power thrummed through the air and the room was completely silent.

That is until Samantha shattered it.

“Yo! Would you cut it out!? You’re scaring the kid.” she admonished.

Jonathan's eyes briefly flickered over to the family and seemed to regain some measure of cool.

As if he had stepped in dog shit he slowly lowered his blade, sheathing it.

“Fine. Explain.” Jonathan said shortly

Mark's eyes never left him, but his body did relax and he let the [Force bolts] wink out. His hand didn't move from his holster, but he decided to tell him what he knew.

“I don't know exactly where Ethel is right now, but when I left her she was still alive. I had to leave because of something the system enforced and she willingly offered Boe’s help to keep me alive.

We have plans to meet up at Prospect Park, which is why I’m with them” he said indicating toward Davis.

Jonathan looked at Samantha for confirmation, who squinted her eyes at Mark and said.

“I can't tell, something’s blocking me”

Mark realized she had just tried to use some kind of truth spell. His construct was currently wrapped around him, so it had probably blocked whatever she had done.

They were both looking at him with suspicion now. Mark looked over at Samantha.

He dropped his construct around himself and cast [Cleansing surge] to keep out any mental influence from taking control and repeated himself.

“Oh yeah, he’s telling the truth…” she said any shadow of hesitation gone for her face.

Jonathan seemed to relax when he heard this. The tension in the room began to dissipate.

“Look, I’ll apologize for how I came at you like that, but not for protecting my family,” he said as he knelt down and started patting Boe.

Unfortunately, Mark could understand that. He didn't have any family left to protect, but he could see where the guy was coming from. He chose to simply let it be.

“Listen everyone we are all high-strung right now but we need to be ready to move at any moment for the second phase of the Influx,” Davis said. He didn't look at all shaken by what had just happened.

The Mother of the child chose this time to ask.

“What does the second phase mean?”

Davis nodded and said.

“An Influx and a sudden massive wave of Corrupted that collects together. When their numbers get to a certain point they begin to merge. This is the second phase. The Corrupted that come out of this Influx will be faster stronger and much bigger. The one saving grace is that during this merge they become inert. We will use this time to put them in our rearview mirror”

Mark was reminded of the Corrupted they had fought under the bridge so long ago.

“Can’t they be killed during this phase?” Mark asked.

“They can, but they surround themselves in this protective layer so they’re tough to get to. Not to mention any sound seems to agitate them during this process. I’ll have my men keep watch and the moment the second phase starts we move, we’re almost home free” Davis said

Looking around Mark could see the determination on the soldier's faces. The fear of the family, Mark had noticed the man was simply ignoring him.

Both Jonathan and Samantha were quietly talking to Davis and he heard him say in a quiet voice.

“I don’t like the fact that they are so close to home, we don't have the personnel to clear this out right now”

Mark didn't miss the curious glances they both kept throwing his way.

Mark moved to a comfortable-looking couch and sat down. Boe was moving between himself and Jonathan.

Davis came over.

“I wanted to come and thank you for what you did back there, you helped keep my men and my charges alive, so I Just wanted you to know it won't go unrewarded”

Mark had had one hell of a night, but in the end, it had brought him to this group. These people might not be alive if he had not gone through all of that.

Not one to turn down someone's gratitude he said.

“I’m actually glad I was there at the right time, so you’re welcome. I am sorry for the loss of Mike, he seemed like a nice guy” Mark said solemnly.

Davis nodded sadly and left to go check on the family.

Mark was about to activate his [Meditation] skill when Jonathan and Samantha came over.

“Yo, Mark we just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. I get that we lost a bit of trust earlier and we’ll work to get it back but something you said caught my attention and I was hoping you could help me understand some things”

Mark looked at them. Samantha seemed nice enough and right now Jonathan just looked like he wanted answers and probably to be with Boe a bit more.

“Okay Samantha, but if I don't want to answer a question you’ve got to respect that, and I’d like to ask a few of my own,” he said

“Woah. Please. Call me Sam, no one but my father is uptight enough to call me Samantha. But that sounds fair ” she said while balking at the use of her full name.

“Sure” he responded.

“Good, so you said the system made you leave your last group, why?”

So she went straight to the ones he was uncomfortable answering.

Grimmancing he said.

“Well it didn't make me, but it became necessary to leave to keep them safe,” he said

She looked at him like one of her suspicions were confirmed.

“Were you marked?” she asked.

Shock must have shown on his face because she looked like she got the answer without him opening his mouth.

“You did? Cus if so it's pretty impressive that you survived on your own. I only survived because we had an army at our backs, not to mention it was the first day so their numbers weren't nearly as bad as they are now. How did you do it?”

"Wait, what about my gran did you see if she was using the system? I tried contacting her, but she can't use anything but SMS and those are down right now"

They were hitting him with question after question he didn't even have the time to answer.

But one thing he could tell was that she had also been marked at some point. Which meant she had killed a guardian too. That must have been what the video had been about. How did she get the army to believe her and help?

He had as many questions as they did.

Mark held up his hand in a calming gesture

“Okay. Okay, one question at a time. Yes, I was marked and I managed to figure out how to hide myself, it's over though. Yes, Ethel started using the system, she was pretty powerful from what I could see” he said. He then went into detail about how he had come to be here and what he had learned.

Normally he would have just kept this to himself, but they were the first people that might have some answers to the questions he had so he decided to tell them what he knew. Plus in Jonathan's case, he wouldn't hold out information related directly to the safety of a loved one, no matter how much of dick he'd been at first.

“So do either of you know what this 'Guardians of the First Rite' is, because as far as I can tell they are going to become more and more of a problem”

Sam and Jonathan looked at one another and he nodded to her.

“Right, well we think that the seven guardians are put here by the system to allow us to unlock the next stage. The Corrupted are just getting stronger as time goes on. We think that humanity has to kill all of them to give themselves the best chance at survival. Each sector gets its own guardians and it doesn't seem like a main quest, but if we don’t kill them they will make things worse. Jonathan and I think it's our best chance at survival is to remove them. After we kill all seven the system said it would give us more answers”

Everything she said aligned with what Mark knew. It almost sounded like they had spoken to the caretaker directly.

One thing was certain though, every guardian that lived decreased their chance of survival and Mark had an idea of where one might be.