Harley remained on watch duty using her sensors while the group discussed things inside the house. Scott's initial concern that Michael would prove to be problematic since his house was overtaken by a bunch of homeless people was only partially correct.

"Fortification and logistics are the most important concerns for the moment," said Michael. He gestured to a map of the area that he'd retrieved from his room. "You did a great job in holding down the fort, but we need to build this place up further."

Scott nodded to Michael. The man was a natural leader as far as he was concerned. The moment that the group reconvened inside the house, the discussions about the future began. In all honesty, Scott could easily tell that the man was far more qualified to lead during a combat related crises.

"What were your plans? Do we have any external assets?" asked Michael curiously. He stared at Scott with a measured gaze. It was obvious that the next words out of the faction head's mouth would greatly influence the new arrival's opinion of their glorious leader.

"Yes, we have two dedicated assets at preset and several assets available to everyone," said Scott. He pointed to the location of the bridge near the house. "I've made an alliance with the lizard queen who rules this bridge. I also used system money to buy my house out in the residential area beyond."

"An alliance?" asked Michael. The man glanced down at the bridge area on the map. "What are the terms?"

Scott looked Michael in the eyes and said, "I need to spend quality time with the queen whenever our people cross the bridge."

"You could not have just cleared the bridge?" asked Michael.

"No, she's easily fourth-tier. Further, this particular group of lizard folk are not hostile toward us and can act as a buffer zone between our current headquarters and anything on the other side of the river," said Scott.

Michael's gaze intensified briefly, but after that tense moment passed he nodded his head slowly. "If that's the case, then it was a good idea."

"You approve?" asked Rosa.

"I tried something similar with a group of scorpion men, but in my case it was too late," said Michael.

"Hey, you were overseas right?" asked Cia, "What was it like there?"

Michael shook his head. "Hell basically."

Everyone waited while Michael collected his thoughts. It did not take long for the man to begin relating his story in a brief manner. "We'd flown out of Riyadh on our client's private jet enroute back to Jerusalem."

"Riyadh?" asked Scott. "Sounds familiar."

"Biggest city in Saudi Arabia. I think there were six or seven million people living there before all this happened," said Michael.

"Jerusalem is in Israel though, right?" asked Cia. A hint of surprise escaped her lips as she asked, "They go to Saudi Arabia?"

"Don't let the propaganda go to your head. They keep quiet about it, but the Saudis had no trouble paying a fortune to Israeli tech firms to help upgrade their defense systems. Neither of them liked Iran, after all," said Michael. He followed his words with a derisive snort after a moment, "Not that any of that matters now."

Scott didn't care much about long dead political issues. He moved the conference forward by asking, "So, you tried to ally with scorpion men?"

"They seemed agreeable since their first princess took a liking to me after my team saved her from a swarm of fanatics," said Michael. He wrinkled his nose a little as he spoke the last word. "Damned fanatics."

"Was it Isis?" asked Frank.

"Ah, nothing like that. It was some weird group of people that just weren't right in the head. I think they were some kind of monster. Racist as hell, too," said Michael.

"Racist?" asked Scott.

"Yeah. The only thing they would ever say was 'Durka-Durka.' It was like they were a parody of a real person," replied the man. "They couldn't hit anything for shit, but they did have automatic weapons."

"Anyway, between them, the ghouls, and the nasnas we were pressed on all sides," said Michael. "If we could have coordinated properly with the scorpion men, we would have had a chance, but we were pressed in with a bunch of locals townsfolk in the small town we'd crashed near."

Michael snorted loudly then bit his lower lip in frustration. "There weren't enough fighters, and only two people could use magic. That left a lot of people sitting around since they could not fight back."

"So, how'd it all end?" asked Harold. The older man had kept to himself a little since the resurrection of Rosa's father. His voice cut through the air a little and brought all eyes toward him.

Michael looked at the man briefly then shook his head. "When people don't have anything to focus on in a crises sometimes they lose their minds. There were some in the local populace who hated 'The Great Satan' and decided we were his agents."

Rosa reached out and squeezed her father's hand. He smiled at her slightly then nodded his head before he continued, "They convinced themselves that the Fanatics roving in packs outside the evacuation shelter were sent by Allah to punish the Americans and usher in al-Qiyāmah."

"The alky thing? What's that?" asked Cia.

"I'm no scholar of the Muslim faith, but I think that's their version of Judgement Day. The dead would be restored to life, and non-believers would go to hell or something," said Michael. "While those of us who could fight went out to try and make sense of the situation, one of the more hateful religious leaders whipped the other people up."

Michael took a drink of water then snorted out a laugh. "We came back after joining with the scorpion men, and these people heard of it. They declared us demon lovers or something, I forget their word for it. Next thing we knew, they'd thrown open the gates and ran out begging the fanatics to cleanse our wickedness so that Allah would forgive them."

"They cleansed you, I take it?" asked Scott with a frown.

"They cleansed everyone. My team barely made it out, but we were overrun by a group of nasnas not long after our ammunition ran out," replied Michael.

"You mentioned those before, nasnas," said Frank. He leaned in and asked, "What are they?"

"Some sort of monster out of Arabic monster. It's basically half a man cut vertically from head to toe. They jump instead of walking, and are stronger than half a man has any right to be," said Michael.

"Weird," said Frank.

"I thought so, too," said Michael with a shrug. "Deadly as hell, though. Saw one knock a man's head off his shoulders with a single punch."

"Really?" asked Rosa, her eyes wide.

"Remember when I let you shoot a pumpkin with my shotgun last year," replied Michael. "Looked kind of like that in the end."

Rosa made a disgusted face then shuddered a little. There was an obvious and disturbing image on her mind at the moment.

Frank let out a slow whistle, "Damn."

Michael shrugged, "I doubt things have been much easier around here considering the situation."

"Most of the people died here in town. Some are ghouls now. I'd be surprised if there are more than a few hundred humans left alive in the area, and most of them are probably outside of town," said Scott.

"Sounds about right," said Michael. "Everyone starts out so damned slow and weak..."

Scott nodded to the man then clenched his hands into fists. "Once we're set up solidly, we can begin working on bringing some of them back like we did with you."

"Right, sounds good," said Michael. "You're supposed to be in charge of this faction, as you called it. Did you actually have a plan?"

Scott ignored the man's tone and pointed to the map once more. "We need to build our strength and increase our supplies. I've been on both sides of the river. So far it's much safer on the other side as long as we clear out the ghouls."

"You thinking of moving over there?" asked Michael, a hint of incredulity in his tone. The fortified house was the best location in the area as far as inherent defense went.

"No, but there are a lot of houses, tools, and supplies. It's also a place where we're less likely to run into other groups of survivors who want to rob us due to the river being a natural barrier," said Scott.

"You plan to start expanding, soon?" asked Michael curiously.

Scott drew on his limited knowledge of the military, earned mostly through playing games, and said, "We need to fortify this place as a forward operating base so that we can have easy access to places in town. But we'd be better off expanding our residential territory on the other side of the river once we have the people."

He took a breath then began again, "After we claim that area and fortify it, we'll have enough space for the people we ally with or bring back to life. In time, we'll also have enough people, to begin reclaiming the city and the surrounding areas. We especially need a fortified route that leads to the shopping arcade."

"Ambitious... can it be done?" asked Michael.

"If we continue allying with some of the other non-human groups, we can make a go of it. We have a few enemies, but fewer allies at the moment," said Scott. "The most difficult prospect is fortifying the shopping arcade route. There are powerful non-human groups, and survivors congregate there. Someone is bound to try and lay claim to the place again."

Michael asked about the mentioned enemies. The group explained the situation with Daniel, and Scott spoke of both the goblins and the raiders.

"Those raiders sound a little like the fanatics I dealt with before," said Michael.

"Probably the same basic sort of enemy," said Scott. "We got raiders who talk about their mama, and you had fanatics."

Michael nodded slowly then looked to his daughter. "What do you think of this guy?" he asked, before gesturing toward Scott.

"I'd be dead if it was not for him," said Rosa softly. She took a shuddering breath then closed her eyes and continued, "He's a little naive, and takes a lot of stupid risks that would have gotten most people killed, but he's done a lot. He even managed to find a way to start bringing people back from the dead."

She looked her father in the eyes then clearly stated the words, "I trust him."

He took her words to heart then looked to Scott. "My daughter's a good judge of character. I know the rules state that I'll die if I cause too many problems for the faction, but I'm one of those people who would rather die that live under someone's thumb if they're an incompetent, self-important, asshole."

"I'm not particularly self-important," said Scott. "As to the other two, this is all so new that only time will prove that either way."

Michael nodded once more. "Fair enough. The situation is far better here than back in the hell I was in earlier."

"We have a chance to change things for the better. The old way of living isn't coming back, but we can build something where people can at least live and possibly be happy," said Scott.

"That's a noble sentiment and all, but what about your immediate goals," said Michael.

"There aren't many of us, and we can't afford to leave this place undefended," said Scott. "My current plan was to take everyone hunting in shifts today and tomorrow to increase their levels. The day after, I would take a small squad across the river to begin gathering supplies while clearing the area."

"What sort of supplies are we talking? Food? Medicine?" asked Michael.

"We can't carry much currently, so those and tools are the most important things. We need to save up the funds to buy a working vehicle to haul things around," said Scott.

Michael's eyes lit up. "Vehicle? There are working vehicles?"

"Yeah, but they're expensive. Other than Harley over there, I don't think anyone else has motorized transport that works, yet," said Scott.

"The little girl?" asked Michael, confused.

"Yeah. She's more than meets the eye," said Scott.

"Oh?" asked Michael.

Scott looked over to Harley. "Care to show him?"

She nodded shyly then transformed into her dirt bike mode. She honked once then drove around the table and stopped beside Scott.

Michael blinked slowly then turned to look at his daughter. "Did I just see that?"

"She turns into a bike," said Rosa in a quiet tone.

Scott reached over and lightly patted Harley's handlebars. She immediately transformed back into her human form and made a cute noise as Scott continued patting her on the head. "So embarrassing..." she whispered before looking away from everyone.

"So, what... she's a transformer? Have you found Optimus Prime, yet?" asked Michael, his eyes lighting up.

Scott looked to Harley. "Do you know Optimus Prime?"

Harley acquired a thoughtful expression for a moment then softly replied, "I do not believe so. Are they famous?"

A thought suddenly occurred to Scott. If he became better acquainted with Eloa, he could recruit lizard folk. Sure, that seemed to be sex related. But Harley was just a little girl. There should be an alternative recruitment method.

He looked down at Harley. "Is there a way that I could recruit more of your people?"

Harley looked her master in the eyes briefly. Slowly, her eyes widened and she turned away from him. Her face became bright red and she stepped away from him a little. "To ask such a thing so casually..."

"Wha—?" asked Scott.

"Harley's blushing?" asked Cia with a laugh. The other girls who had been quiet up until that point began to laugh with her.

"So cute!" cried Rachel and Gretchen.

"Aww..." said Hana as a sparkle came to her eyes.

"Don't tease me!" exclaimed Harley with a frown. She crossed her arms over her chest and refused to look in anyone's direction. Her blush intensified, however.

Scott blinked at Harley then sighed loudly. Given her reaction, there probably wasn't an alternative recruitment method.

Briefly, Harley glanced in his direction out of the corner of her eye. The moment she noticed Scott looking at her, she made a high-pitched noise, "Eeh!" and turned away again.

The girls went on about how adorable her response was, and Scott sighed once more. Michael took it all in while shaking his head. What kind of people had he signed on with again?