I stepped in front of the others and brought my shield up, peering over its edge to examine the approaching people.

There were two of them, one with scales of a light sky blue, the other with scales of a dark hunter green. Both had clawed hands in addition to their scales, but the green one went far beyond that. He or she was by far the most heavily-Augmented individual I’d seen. Spines slipped out from in between the scales of their back, arms, and legs, and those arms and legs were inhumanly bulky; either they’d been enhanced in some way by the alien abilities, or I was looking at a professional bodybuilder. In addition, a long curving tail lashed behind the green one’s back. It was reminiscent of Gavin’s, but covered in scales and with spikes that reminded me of a thinner stegosaurus tail. The green one was carrying a sledgehammer over one shoulder, but lifted their other clawed hand to wave at someone behind us.

“Good job, Sam!”

The voice was masculine, free of the distortion I had expected. Priya hadn’t been able to speak clearly at all after taking Armored Skin; this guy must have had the points to spare to snag Shapeshift as well. The thought flitted through my mind as I checked behind us, not letting the shield drop.

Two more scaled people were emerging from the left side of the house behind us, and a glance to the other side showed another pair slipping out from behind a bush to our right. Most of them carried some kind of weapon, and the two who didn’t had their arms spread wide, clearly displaying their talons.

They had us surrounded.

I was surprised and scared—who wouldn’t be?—but not shocked. I’d been trying to anticipate their actions, and I’d come up with possibilities much more unlikely than this. This was, admittedly, pretty bad. I couldn’t even see them all at one time, let alone try to defend our group from them.

“George, watch the ones behind us,” I muttered. He might not be able to do much if they tried anything, but I could trust him to warn me, at least.

He shifted to put his back to mine, and I carefully pushed the surprise and fear off my face, adopting an expression of cold disdain. “You do not want to fight us.”

Shadows flickering on the sidewalk let me know Alexandra had lofted her constellation of blades into the air, and I silently cheered as two of George’s kitchen knives came up to join her formation. One extremely powerful telekinetic and one sword-carrying enigma would be far more intimidating than two weaker telekinetics.

The hunter green abomination in front of me grinned, showing a mouth of oversized fangs. “You’re right. We don’t.”

I couldn’t keep the confusion off my face. I glanced around at his companions, ready to Parry if they tried anything. They had spread out to encircle us, but hadn’t come too close, remaining about thirty feet away.

The green one shrugged. “There’s no point in fighting you. We’d win, but you might hurt us. Plus, we know you’re just the flunkies. I’d rather give your master a warning than start a war here and now.”

Not exactly accurate, but if it would keep this from turning into a bloodbath, I could roll with that.

“What’s the point of all this, then?” I asked him, jerking my chin toward his followers. “Awfully aggressive move if you’re not looking for a fight. You only need one person to buy food.”

He laughed, dismissive. “We're not here to shop.”

This guy clearly had a thing for drama. There was no way everyone in this group ended up with Armored Skin by chance. I tried to keep myself from rolling my eyes as his unnecessary pause, restraining myself to a lifted eyebrow.

The good humor fell off his face. “You need to take a message back to your leader. This fake nice-guy crap? It has to end.”

“Fake? My apologies, but just because you feel no need to aid others does not mean everyone is similarly selfish.”

Alexandra did not sound apologetic in the slightest, and I shot her a warning glance. Don’t piss off the crazies. I let my eyes drift toward Sofia, and Alexandra flinched.

“Don’t be an idiot.” The leading Dragon’s voice was rich with scorn. “Didn’t you hear what they said on the first day? They’re gonna keep throwing worse and worse shit at us until 95% of us are dead.”

“Nineteen out of twenty dying isn’t the only way for this to end,” I said.

He scoffed. “What, that whole land claiming thing? No one’s even seen a way to do that.”

“I have,” I said quietly.

That got his attention. “What? How?”

“The same shop that sells the rations we’ve been handing out… it had an option to spend Money to claim land. We claimed one section.”

“And how much Money did that take?” His voice was shaky. Nervous? Angry?

“Uh, 144? Not for a big area, though. Probably would take about two of them to cover a front yard.”

He seemed to relax. “Oh yeah. So you’d need like… a thousand Money or something to claim one house? Yeah, that’s happening.”

One of his minions spoke up from behind us, clearly lacking the Shapeshift ability the leader had used to make himself understandable. “Chlis, don’t you think le should look into…”

“Shut up, Mikey! No arguing in front of strangers.”

I glanced behind me, where an orange-scaled man was cringing at the shout. “Chris, was it? I assure you, we’re perfectly sincere about trying to keep everyone alive. I believe we can win this by claiming land.”

He snorted. “Yeah, and that’s why you’re idiots. A thousand Money? For one house? How many houses in your neighborhood? How much space in this city that’s not houses? Roads and businesses and parking lots and churches and shit? Even if you get all that figured out, it’s two hours drive south from here to Birmingham, and there’s the next best thing to nothing in between. Just a damn ocean of cottonfields and a couple of hick towns.”

George spoke up. “The new enemies this week drop two Money each. If the amount we can earn keeps scaling up, it will definitely be doable.”

The leader⁠—Chris?⁠—laughed again, a mirthless sound. “You just told me you were spending Money on food.”

“Well, yeah, for now,” George said. “We’re trying to get farmers ready so we don’t need to do that anymore. And anyway, food will be easier and easier to afford as time goes on. You kill two of the bladetails—the new fliers—and you get the same Money as you would for four of any of the earlier things.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, I’m sure. So what? You really think that’s gonna be the last expense?” Chris was animated now. He’d set his sledgehammer on the ground next to him and was jerking his clawed hands in staccato motions to emphasize his words. “Why would they let us win? We’ve been at this for two weeks and you’re all pleased with yourself because out of both of our neighborhoods, y’all have Claimed enough space for a popsicle stand. Woo-hoo! Throw these fine folks a parade, boys! These here heroes are gonna save us all.”

“We could have claimed more,” I said, defensive.

“Maybe. But you didn’t.”

“We wanted to keep some Money back for—”

He cut me off. “Sure you did. You had great reasons. And y’all are gonna keep having them.”

His pessimism chilled me. I hoped he was wrong. I wanted and needed him to be wrong… but his arguments weren't crazy enough that I could write him off completely.

He offered me a smile at my silence that was almost sympathetic. “We don’t have no chance to win. That’s pretend. They put that in there to make us struggle. To make us think we had a chance. Our own politicians did the same thing. You think these aliens are nicer? They’re actually gonna give us a chance to win? Hell no! It’s all make-believe.”

“You don’t truly believe that,” said Alexandra.

“Oh yeah, lady? Why not?”

She gestured to the homes around us. “The people in this neighborhood. You believe they must die, but by and large you have not killed them. You have not taken all their food. Why not, if you are so sure about what you are saying?”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Because I’m not a starry-eyed idiot like you. If we took all their food at once, they’d fight. A lot of people will fight a Dragon for their lives. Not so many will fight one for… lunch.” He grinned at us, and it wasn’t a nice smile. “Plus, the Siphon lets us take Points from them whether they have Points or not. It won’t be worth it forever, but for now, leaving them alive is making us stronger.”

It was a cold thing to say, and I was silent, uncertain of how to respond.

“Get going,” he told us. “Get your idealistic asses out of our neighborhood, and tell your pie-in-the-sky leaders to cut this fake save-everyone shit out. I don’t want to see you here again, and I don’t want to see you anywhere else, either. If we have to fight you morons, we will. Stick close to home, wherever that is. Just let the weak ones die.”