John was filled with trepidation as he made his way back toward the shed. The Fire Bat sat heavy in his grip, warm as touching a radiator with a glove. He'd been gone maybe twenty minutes, but the time stretched in his mind, replaying his exit over and over.

Had he seemed sulky? Walking off like that after announcing he'd scout ahead played back in his memory like a teenager storming out after an argument. Worse, they all knew. Almost everyone in that shed understood that he needed to act cool to gain Aura, which meant every decision he made would be filtered through that lens. Did they think he'd left just to go kill things and look impressive? Was that what he'd actually done?

He'd told himself it was practical. Test the new menus, see what he could make, clear some monsters from their path. But standing here now, approaching the shed with an enchanted rounders bat and the memory of insect corpses dissolving behind him, the justification felt thin.

The door came into view. He could already picture them insider, sitting in that uncomfortable silence people fall into when they're waiting for someone, probably having just finished a conversation about him. About whether he was upset, or just doing his Aura thing, or both.

When he opened the door, he found them all looking at him. He couldn't decide if it was in that caught-out way where people whip their heads around guiltily, or in the casual manner of people who'd been interrupted in the middle of a totally normal conversation.

Jade stood near the center of the space, and John almost did a double-take, for some reason. She looked wrong somehow. Not in a bad way, just unfamiliar. The hoodie and tracksuit bottoms threw him, grey fabric that had seen better days, paired with scuffed white sneakers. He'd gotten too used to seeing her in medieval armour, only ever getting glimpses of her face when she lifted the visor. Seeing her in normal clothes, the kind of thing anyone might wear for a morning jog or a lazy Sunday, drove home just how much she'd lost with her revival. Her short hair stuck up at odd angles, and her grey eyes fixed on him with an intensity that suggested she'd been the one doing most of the talking before he arrived.

Doug leaned against the wall to the left, still wearing nothing but those absurd swim shorts. The man stood ridiculously tall, and the liver spots across his shoulders and arms marked him as someone well into his pension years. But the face didn't match. Doug looked younger than when they'd first met, the lines around his eyes softer, his posture straighter. His System was steadily reversing some of the wear that age had put on his body, and John had to wonder how the man felt about it. You'd think most people would be delighted to shed some of the years that had accumulated, but the System, as an absolute rule, did not give people what they wanted. Quite the opposite.

Chester had positioned himself near the far wall, still kitted out in his hockey goalie armour thing. The army helmet sat slightly too large on his head, and his pale face peered out from beneath it with those wide eyes that never seemed to stop scanning for threats. He stood tall and broad-shouldered, muscles visible even through the protective padding, but everything about his posture screamed discomfort. Like someone had built a warrior's body and installed a nervous librarian's personality inside it. The mismatch between his physical presence and his demeanor would've been funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Lily sat on an overturned box to the right, her motorcycle helmet resting on the concrete floor beside her boot. She'd draped her chainmail shirt over her shoulders like a blanket, the metal links catching what little red light filtered through the shed's grimy windows. Her long red hair fell past her shoulders in waves that looked like they'd been hastily combed through with fingers rather than a brush, and when she glanced up at John, her green eyes—

He looked away.

Pretty. She was pretty. That fact registered in his brain with all the subtlety of a brick through a window, which was strange because he'd been around her for days now and somehow hadn't really processed it until this moment. The green of her eyes, the structure of her face, the way she held herself even while sitting on a crate in an abandoned shed…

John shut that line of thinking down immediately. He had a perfect track record of humiliation when it came to women, and he had exactly zero interest in adding to that tally during an apocalypse. Focus on survival. Focus on the mission. Focus on literally anything else.

His gaze swept across all of them again, taking in the complete picture of their group. Jade in her tracksuit. Doug in swim shorts. Chester in hockey armour with a military helmet. Lily wearing chainmail like a shawl. The ragtag assembly of gear and clothing would've looked ridiculous in any other context, but here it also looked vulnerable. Chester's hockey padding might stop a lucky blow, and Lily's chainmail could potentially turn aside a blade, but neither would hold up against sustained monster attacks. And the other two had even less, just normal clothes that offered no protection at all for Jade and literally no protection at all for Doug.

And he was no better himself. Having burned away his own clothes using Draconic Inferno to melt a red-souled boss monster, he was reduced to wearing a backup outfit: a white shirt, jeans, and scuffed sneakers, none of which he could remember where he'd looted.

John thought about the menus he'd unlocked. With enough materials and time, he could outfit every person in this shed with proper gear. Real armour, enchanted weapons, equipment that would actually keep them alive instead of just making them slightly less squishy targets. They wouldn't need to rely on luck or their own System abilities as much.

The Fire Bat felt heavy in his grip, a promise of what he could make real.

"So," John said, stepping inside and letting the door swing shut behind him. He figured it was best to take the initiative here, much as it killed him inside still. "I cleared out a wave of insect monsters. Must've been a couple hundred of them, all clustered about two streets over. Path's clear if we want to move."

Doug's mouth twitched. "Yeah, we heard."

"Heard?"

"The roar." Doug gestured vaguely northward. "You're not exactly subtle with your dragon fire thing, lad. Sounded like someone dropped a jet engine into a megaphone."

John held back a grimace as he thought of what to say to that. Before he could formulate a response, Jade stepped forward. Her eyes locked onto him with an intensity that made him want to check if he'd somehow gotten monster blood on his face.

"Hundreds?" she said. Her accent hit different than before, thicker, the vowels rounder and the consonants softer in that distinctly Scottish way. She'd dropped some of that careful stress that had been present in her voice throughout most of their time teamed up. This version of her accent felt looser, more natural. Whether that was because she felt safer now, or just because the absurdity of their situation had worn down that kind of self-consciousness, John couldn't say.

"By yourself?" Jade continued, eyes wide. "That's brilliant, that is. Absolutely mental."

+1000 Aura

She wasn't quite fawning—Jade didn't strike him as the type—but the praise came out enthusiastic in a way that felt oddly deliberate.

John stared at her. What the…?

Again, he didn't have time to come up with a response, because Jade was stepping closer, her dark eyes shining with… determination? Was that what that look was? He really wished there was an option in his menus that let him read people better.

"But then again," she said, "that's only expected of someone as badass as you, John. A few hundred monsters? Pfft. That's a joke, like. You could take on ten times that many without even blinkin'."

+1000 Aura

He looked at the others, but they weren't reacting at all to her strange behaviour. Suspiciously not reacting. John couldn't imagine Doug failing to comment on Jade's current actions in regular circumstances.

It was only when he registered the notification that immediately followed her words that an idea dawned on him, and he narrowed his eyes at her.

She knows that my System rewards me for looking cool. I straight up told her. So is she pretending to think I'm cool to get me points?

Is… she pretending to fangirl over me to help me Aura farm?

One thousand Aura at a time felt like a paltry sum when compared to some of the totals he'd been accumulating recently, but he wasn't exactly going to turn it down, awkward as it was.

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"Right," John said. Unsure how to behave in this situation, he fell back on tried and tested 'aloof edge.' He shrugged one shoulder, adopting a slight slouch. The only hitch came when he moved the hand that held the Fire Bat towards upwards before realising it wouldn't fit in his pocket because of the Fire Bat in it, then felt too self-conscious to put the other hand in the opposite pocket in case anyone had noticed. "They weren't that tough, really. Just a lot of them."

+400 Aura

"Still." Jade crossed her arms. "Most folk would've run from that many. You went straight through them, eh?"

+1000 Aura

That didn't actually reflect the reality of what happened, since he actually flew over them and thus was never in danger, but he couldn't point that out.

Also, is there just a set sum for someone gassing me up, or something?

"I never run away," he said, even though he had multiple times. At this point, however, he had to admit that he could only imagine reds and maybe oranges—the latter of which he hadn't actually faced all that many of—posing enough of a threat, individually, to force him to flee.

The System didn't care either way.

+400 Aura

Jade nodded in agreement, smirking. "A tough guy like you would never need to. The monsters should be the ones running away from you."

+1000 Aura

Kind of wanting to die from second-hand embarrassment that looped around to being first-hand embarrassment when he thought about it, John held up the Fire Bat as a distraction. "I made this while I was out there. Figured we should test something."

Jade's eyebrows went up. "Test what?"

"Whether you can use this without the System." John turned the bat over in his hands. "I enchanted it to shoot fireballs when you swing it. If it works for you, then we know I can equip everyone. Make you all more dangerous."

+200 Aura

He held it out. Jade took it carefully, adjusting her grip on the handle.

"Outside," Doug said. "Please. I've seen enough buildings burn down this week."

They filed out into the fields surrounding the community centre. Yellow grass had already started growing wild, pushing up through the packed earth. Growth and decay at the same time.

The sky burned overhead, that constant roof of fire that had replaced the atmosphere all those days ago. Flames twisted and rolled across the heavens in shades of orange and crimson, casting everything below in a hellish light that made it impossible to tell morning from afternoon without checking on a clock.

John hated looking at it. Hated the way it turned every surface the colour of dried blood, hated how it made the air feel thick and wrong. Mostly he hated that he was already getting used to it, that his brain had started accepting this as normal, filing away the apocalypse sky under "things that just are now."

He wanted the blue back. Wanted clouds that were actually clouds instead of a single burning mass. Wanted to look up and see a sky that belonged to Earth instead of whatever nightmare dimension the System had dragged them all into, or dragged to them.

But wanting didn't change anything, so John focused on the scene ahead and tried not to think about what he'd lost. What they'd all lost.

Beyond the shed, perhaps a few hundred yards distant, the community centre's remains dominated the landscape.

The building was collapsing in on itself. It looked kind of that same dissolving process John had watched happen to monster corpses so many times, rather than the natural way structures failed when left to decay. Walls sagged inward, bricks turning translucent at the edges before simply ceasing to exist. The roof had caved in completely, leaving exposed beams that flickered like they were glitching out.

Jade stopped walking. She stood there staring at the wreckage, the Fire Bat hanging loose in her grip. Her shoulders had gone rigid, and she'd tilted her head at an angle, barely seeming to breathe, staring at the crumbling building.

The place where she'd died. Also the place where she'd been freed.

John watched her process it. The tension in her jaw, the way her fingers flexed on the bat's handle. She'd gone quiet in a way that felt different from her usual focused silence. This was more solemn than that. Like they were at a grave.

"Jade," John said.

She turned her head slightly, not quite looking at him.

"Aim for it."

Her grey eyes met his, questioning.

"The building," John clarified. "Test the bat's range. See what you can do."

Understanding crossed her face. She looked back at the dissolving community centre, raised the Fire Bat to her shoulder, and swung.

The fireball erupted from the bat's end with a crack like she'd connected with a pitch. It flew straight and fast, crossing the distance in a heartbeat before slamming into what remained of the community centre's eastern wall. The impact point burst into flame, orange and hungry, spreading across the semi-translucent bricks in a way that shouldn't have worked on material that was already halfway to not existing, and probably wouldn't have worked that way on tangible bricks, either.

But it did work. The fire raced along the dissolving structure like it had found the world's most potent fuel instead of fading matter. Within seconds, the entire building was ablaze, flames climbing through the exposed beams and licking at the sagging walls. The whole thing went up too fast, too eagerly, like something had decided this needed to be a proper funeral pyre.

John stared at the inferno. That wasn't normal fire behaviour by any stretch of the imagination. He'd seen enough things burn recently to know what combustion looked like, and this wasn't it. This was theatrical. Someone had put a finger on the scale, made sure the moment landed with appropriate weight.

Narrative weight, huh?

He was seeing that sort of thing more and more recently.

"Holy shite," Jade breathed. She stared at the bat like it had just grown teeth.

"Does it feel weird?" John asked. "Like, using it?"

"No, it's..." She looked down at the weapon, turned it over in her hands. "It's like it reached into my head and just told me what to do. Same as casting one of my old Spells felt. Completely natural. Like I took a course on using the damn thing."

John turned, heart racing, and watched the flames consume the community centre's remains. The enchantment worked exactly as he'd hoped. No System required, no special attunement, just a weapon that did what it was supposed to do for whoever held it.

Fuck yes, he shouted in the comfort of his own mind. Then, for posterity, he used Shadow Stream to shroud himself and bellowed it at the top of his lungs, too. Then he crossed his arms and dismissed the shadows, acting like nothing had happened.

"This changes things," Doug said. He moved to stand beside John, arms folded across his chest. The two of them stood there together, arms crossed, aloof. John resisted the urge to stand on his tip-toes. "How does it work?"

"It's simple. I can basically Enchant any item with one of my Spells or Skills." John pulled up his Inventory, thinking over what he could make, what Skills and Spells he could imbue into items for the best effect. He'd barely tested it yet, and the possibilities were vast and tantalising. There was one snag, though: "I need monster parts to Enchant objects like the bat. It can be anything, but there needs to be a… Sacrifice, I guess you could say. It costs Aura too, but that's for me to handle."

Jade looked back at him, a mirthful look in her eyes that perhaps said, We'll see about that. But he hoped he was imagining it. Facing forward once more, she struck another flaming fastball, this one arcing higher before coming down on the community centre's rising flames, a drop in the ocean. "How many can you make?"

"Depends on materials. I unlocked Crafting, Alchemy, and Enchanting all at once, plus the Armoury menu. Between those, I can theoretically kit out an unlimited number of people if I have enough reagents and Aura." He paused. "Which means I'd need people gathering those reagents."

Doug arched an eyebrow. "You want to recruit?"

"I want to… organise." John watched Jade test the bat's range, walking backward while launching fireballs at increasing distances. He briefly wondered if they played rounders a lot in Scotland. "I can outfit a lot of people with my System menus. Weaponsand armour that work without needing the System. But I need materials from the monsters. So I was thinking we could get people harvesting those parts for me, and in exchange, I create equipment for them. Give everyone a way to contribute and stay armed."

Doug nodded slowly. "You realize what you're describing, right? You'd be putting yourself at the centre of a human resistance force. The person everyone looks to, depends on. The leader."

The word hit John like cold water. Leader. Him. Leading people. Not just this small group where he could barely manage to not look like an idiot, but potentially dozens of survivors. Having to make decisions that affected all of them, having to be impressive and competent and cool in front of crowds of people who'd be watching his every move, judging him, waiting for him to screw up.

His throat felt tight. He could already picture it: standing in front of a group, trying to give orders or instructions, and someone questioning him. Challenging his authority. Or worse, just looking at him like they'd seen right through whatever act he was putting on and found him wanting. The humiliation would be spectacular.

"I mean, it's not…" John trailed off, his voice coming out weaker than he'd intended. He cleared his throat. "It's just practical, really. Resource management."

Doug's hand landed on his shoulder. Heavy. Grounding.

John looked up at him.

"We'll handle it," Doug said. His voice stayed level, matter-of-fact. "You focus on being what you need to be. The rest of us will manage the logistics, deal with people, keep things running smooth. You just point us in the right direction and do your thing." He paused, and something shifted in his expression. "Someone's got to be the tip of the spear. Might as well be the one who can actually kill the bastards."

The phrasing was deliberate. It cast John as the weapon, the fighter, not as someone who needed help because he couldn't handle the pressure. Doug was offering support while preserving the image, making it sound like tactical efficiency rather than accommodation for John's social anxiety.

Their eyes met. Understanding passed between them, an acknowledgment of what they were both doing here, what they were building together. Doug knew. They all knew. And instead of using that knowledge to mock him or undermine him, they were going to help him maintain it.

John felt something loosen in his chest.

"Yeah," he said. "Alright."

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