"And we're here," Rose announced with a sulking expression as she wriggled about on Daz's lap uncomfortably.

"What?" Jim was beyond shocked. "It's not even been 5-minutes since we left Waterford!"

Rose smirked condescendingly. "L.A. is exactly 154.4-miles away from Waterford and we maintained a perfect speed of Mach-4, which is four times the speed of sound. We arrived exactly 3-minutes and 3-seconds after Daz started the car. If the acceleration didn't take 2-seconds to pick up to Mach-4, we'd have gotten here in a second over 3-minutes."

"What're you bragging for? It's my car, not yours," Daz pointed out. "Also, if we're 154-miles away, that means that Fort Sky will get here in less than 3-minutes."

"Only if Grid uses most of his 3-minute a day allowance. Sure, that city can move at a mile a second, but only for 180-miles once every day, whereas, this beautiful creature can go all day at only a slightly slower speed. I want this thing's battery, its gravity management system, and its pressure management system for my wheelchair," Rose gushed.

Daz kissed the top of her head and said, "Okay, you little nerd. You keep geeking out over my car all you want, but first, take this," before handing his sister an earpiece. "If you learn anything important while you wait for us, then give me a ring, okay?"

Daz had bought a matching pair of communication earpieces that were immune to explosions and bullets up to a calibre of 50 - just in case.

He still had the old regular ones that he'd used previously during attacks to communicate with the recently deceased Ger as well as with Lyle but after his encounter with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, he didn't really feel like having his only means of talking to his sister taken from him during the negotiations or the fighting.

"Huh, pricey," Rose said.

Daz nodded as he glanced at his merit point allowance.

The total merit balance of the host is now: 139,112,230. [-6,000,000].

At 3,000,000 per earpiece, they certainly weren't cheap. It seems that making an item immune to both most bullets and all explosions was extremely costly, which was a bit of a letdown for Daz.

In all honesty, he had intended to add such an upgrade to Fort Skip's outer walls, but he had asked the system and had confirmed that such a change charged based on the surface area of the item being made invulnerable.

Just making the walls immune to bullets up to a calibre of 50 alone would cost him billions of merit points, making it an impossible endeavour. Perhaps he'd consider it for tactical locations on the wall that made sense to attack, hell, he could even create such weak-looking points solely to make them invulnerable to attacks, but that was a matter for another time.

Daz got out of the car carefully so as to not hurt Rose as he squeezed out from underneath her. He then summoned Hamson and stood atop of the shovel.

He moved to the back of the car before opening the trunk to release his contracted gems that were stowed away in there. Once that was done, he controlled the little ones to move next to Jim's door.

Not a moment later, Daz opened it and looked at Jim expectantly.

"W-What?" Needless to say, the lucky man was a bit baffled and scared to be exposed to the air. They were hundreds of feet up in the sky, after all.

"Are your shoelaces tightened?" Daz randomly asked.

"Uh... My shoes use velcro straps..." Jim answered hesitantly.

"Shame. I've only got four baseball-sized ones. Oh well, means you'll have pebble-sized tanzanites pressed up against your armpits. Get out of the car," Daz ordered.

Jim was, quite frankly, terrified of heights. Despite all of his money gained from winning the lottery seven times and from cleaning out casinos, he had never once gone to a theme park or gone sky-diving. In fact, he'd never even left the states since he refused to step onto a plane.

"I-I think I should stay here..." Jim's face was pale and his lunch was very quickly threatening to leave his stomach.

He was fine in the car since it drove perfectly smoothly and if he didn't look out of the windows he could force himself to forget that he was several hundred feet up in the air, but now, his mind was threatening to force him into unconsciousness from sheer panic.

"No. Step out and onto these spinels or I'll drag you out," Daz warned.

"C-Can't we just- urg, I'm gonna be sick... Can't we land f-first?" Jim muttered as he held his gut with one hand and his mouth with the other.

Daz shook his head. "Half of our work as Waterford's representatives is presentation. We come in flying on tools or not at all. Why do you think I've got an entire flying city? The thing's useful, but it's also intimidating. Now, are you going to get out of my car, or do I have to drag you out before you get it dirty?"

"If he doesn't get out, I'll taze him and make him fall out. I'm the one who has to stay in here, and I won't tolerate vomit all over the dashboard," Rose coldly stated.

With no other choice and with all of the cards stacked up against him, Jim made up his mind. He closed his eyes and counted to three. On three, he leapt out of the car.

The baseball-sized spinal cuboids moved to wedge themselves between his feet, two to each foot, one on the top of the shoe while the other went to the bottom, acting like clamps of a sort. Then, two of Daz's three pebble-sized peridots pressed themselves up against Jim's armpits, stabilising his body's upper half.

Jim slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He saw Daz closing the door to the flying car and then he moved his attention to the skies.

Jim could see clouds, birds, the ground below, he could see... nature. It was surprisingly beautiful and serene. "T-This might not be so bad..."

Daz slapped him softly on the back. "There you go. You may be luck-stealing scum, but you're still just a person, now aren't you? Facing your fears makes me respect you a bit more, you know?"

"I-is that so?" Jim asked with uncertainty. "W-What are you afraid of? I-If you don't mind me asking... I need to distract myself... Your slap almost brought my lunch back up..."

"Me?" Daz chuckled. "I'm scared of myself. What would I do if my family was ever hurt or killed? Funnily enough, we might have an answer to that question very soon."

"I-I hope not," Jim said a bit insincerely, but the sentiment was still there.

"As do I," Daz replied coldly as he began moving both himself and Jim slowly towards the sprawling city of Los Angeles which lay beneath them like a dormant beast just waiting to be provoked.

"Quite the warm welcome," Daz sarcastically stated as he looked at the many red dots covering his entire body coming from the direction of the Welshire Grand Center - a towering skyscraper that stood over 300-meters tall.

A massive television screen that had clearly been installed after the apocalypse - as evidenced by its somewhat alien design - flickered to life.

An elderly man wearing a very nice suit who had slicked-back grey hair smiled softly as he appeared on the screen. "Please, consider the laser markers a formality of sorts. I have no doubts in my mind that you would be just fine if you happened to be shot by any or all of them. They're just there to satisfy my army's general."

"Curious how you have none pointing at my friend, Jim here," Daz perceptively noted.

"Who?" the elderly man asked as his smile deepened.

Daz glanced over to Jim and wore a mildly confused expression on his face. Seeing that, the blonde-haired man answered his looming question. "If he acknowledges my existence, then that's the first hurdle for me to start siphoning his luck."

Daz nodded. "So, you're aware of espers, Governor Marglow?"

"Indeed I am, King Daz, and your abilities, in particular, made this all incredibly challenging," the governor said with a light chuckle.

'He's an esper too? That's news to me... Then, his sister as well? But why's she crippled if she's a functioning esper?' Jim wasn't very affluent in the circle of American espers as perhaps he could have been. His attitude and greedy lifestyle were possibly to blame for that.

"I'm glad to hear that," Daz said. "Well, first thing's first, how is Maddy?"

"Who?" Governor Marglow feigned ignorance.

Daz sighed softly. "If you play coy with me, then I will destroy this entire city. I'll ensure the safety of the citizens, so don't worry about that, but do worry about me. I'll destroy every county that you own and search high and low with the power of the system to find you to kill you assuming you're not here if you try to play games with me. Do I make myself clear, Timothy?"

He then pressed his finger against his ear and said quietly, "Rose, can you find Maddy for me? She's our top priority, though I doubt she's in any real danger."

"Will do," Rose replied simply.

"Ahaha, how quick to anger, no? I see emotions and handling them aren't your forte, Mr Hamilio, now, are they?" Governor Marglow asked.

Daz frowned. "I see this is going nowhere. Spit out your demands then, though do be aware that you have incredibly little bargaining power."

"I beg to differ, Mr Hamilio. Not only have I shown myself to be capable enough to kidnap one of your closest family members from right under your nose, but I have also successfully attacked the heart of your soon-to-be-founded kingdom. The very life of your loved one hangs in the balance of my decisions. So, were I you, Mr Hamilio, I would perhaps speak and act a little bit more candidly," the governor claimed.

"Were our positions swapped, Timothy, you would be dead and all of California would belong to me. Even when you were given the perfect opportunity to strike at me, you failed disastrously and chose the wrong person to kidnap. As I said, there are very few cards on your side of the table," Daz coldly stated.

"I chose the wrong person, did I? I wonder about that..." Governor Marglow said mysteriously.

Daz shrugged. "Act like that if you want, but I know for a fact that you have no power over Maddy. If she wished to, she could escape. I'm willing to wager that she's peacefully waiting for me to come and collect her. Hell, knowing her, she may have threatened you all with something disastrous like, oh, I don't know, a bomb or something. I doubt she'd die from something like that with her angelic powers, so she's probably got your people under her adorable little thumb."

For the first time during their conversation, Timothy's smiled cracked. He quickly fixed it, but not without Daz first noticed his slip-up. 'That wasn't even instinctual, I just know the woman I love. So she actually threatened them with a bomb? That's hilarious. Knowing her, she didn't even build-up to it. It was probably a refusal of some sort of request then an immediate bomb threat.'

"You asked for my demands, yes?" Governor Marglow asked in a composed manner. "Well, simply put, leave California and make a promise to never set foot in nor try to build a community or government in the state's borders ever again. Do that, and I shall return Miss McArthur to you. I can guarantee that no harm has come to her, however, should you refuse or delay your decision to my proposal, her status may... change."

Daz reached onto his head and brought down Mr Barrier who was peacefully laying there. He brought the creature to his mouth then he whispered something to it before putting it back on his head.

"Timothy, would you like to hear my response to that?" Daz asked oddly.

The governor nodded, unsure of what the young man was up to. "Naturally. I hope we can end this without bloodshed, if at all possible."

"Timothy Marglow, I only have one thing to say to you," Daz stated with coldness in his eyes as he stepped off of Hamson and onto the ancient peridot that was easily the size of two footballs.

"I do not deal with terrorists," the reaper said, and, with one clean swipe of his hand, he activated his skill, Death Beam. Using it, he cut the Welshire Grand Center clean in half at an angle. The building slowly began sliding down itself and was very quickly going to careen into the city below. "I teach them in the ways of terror."