Stanley could feel the distress coming from Zeke and his sister as he Moved them through the tunnels and then back outside. All three of them shot through the air at a breakneck pace, the ground moving past them in an indistinguishable blur.

"Zeke, we'll need a big, aura heal from you." Stanley let his mind rest from the acceleration while they were outside and didn't need to dodge or change course abruptly. In the process it allowed him to talk to the others at a normal speed. "Saw lots of wounded before I left. Probably a lot of dead too." Stanley did note that he hadn't been very bothered by all the dead people before. He was mostly under the Effect of his Still Mind Skill but nevertheless, he just didn't care about most of them. There were people at the Tower that he did care whether they lived or died, people like Walter, Daryl, and Adrian, people who had helped and protected him when he needed it.

And now Kira and her team, more people that had fought and either died or lost friends to save him. He didn't feel the emotional weight of their lives underneath his Skill but he did understand that he may only have lived thanks to their sacrifice, or Caffeine had lived and at the very least suffered less pain because of their efforts. That was deserving of some reward. Then he was slowing them down for the approaching tower.

Zeke looked a bit green but was spreading a growing golden glow from himself. It trailed behind them like a comet's tail and Stanley didn't try to figure out why magic healing light would behave in that manner. Eve looked even worse, with her eyes squeezed shut, and she had stopped screaming to cover her mouth with her hands. Maybe it was the healing light helping the boy… Stanley shifted Eve over to be in the trailing golden light and she immediately started to look better. Both of them flinched when Stanley went directly inside the building and all their momentum ended above the crowd of people in the ballroom.

He set them both down as they took in the situation, and Zeke, to his credit, immediately started pushing his healing aura out to its maximum range. Eve managed to stay on her feet but Stanley could feel her struggling with the very abrupt change in scenery. He left them too it and dropped into [Soul Meditation] to regenerate his Psi Energy. Stanley guessed that the trip there and back, to bring Zeke to the Tower had taken less than thirty seconds, most of that time spent talking, but that incredible speed came at the cost of more power drain and he was nearing the 25% mark. Now it was time to recharge.

The pain of his accelerated mind was growing and Stanley dropped his Still Mind. He was safe enough at the moment, between Walter, Zeke and the fact that he had absolutely crushed the monsters earlier.

[Still Mind of the Psionic Beast] Deactivated.

Rage, fear and worry blossomed inside him, though diminished by his meditation. Stanley held the meditation for as long as he could, then leaned forward and wrapped an arm around Caffeine while his other hand gave very gentle pets to the pug. "We're okay. Caffeine is okay." His hand on the dog felt only soft undamaged fur with no sign of the former wounds, not even scars. "Caffeine kept me safe. Kira and her friends helped. Even Walter… What the hell happened here?" He looked at the previous notification.

Victory! You have Contributed to the Successful Defense of your Lair. +2 All Base Attributes

He looked again at the earlier Notification and mostly understood what had happened. The only real question was why had Walter failed so badly. The man should have been able to repel this himself, unless… He looked at the man, the beat up and wounded man who even now was blinking around and trying to save the wounded. One after another he was moving people into the aura of Zeke's healing.

"Walter." Stanley floated to Walter when the man finally stopped bouncing around. "How did this happen?"

"I am sorry, Sir." Walter looked at him but Stanley felt like the man was looking at something else. "I sorely overestimated my ability to protect this place, most certainly against a higher Rank opponent." He looked away. "I should have not delayed my own progression, I fear that was a large part of how this happened." He blinked away and back three times while he spoke, each blink moving someone closer to Zeke.

"Then Rank Up." Stanley looked around. He had noticed the Cores literally piled around the room, but did not intend to take them just yet. He had other ideas, one of which involved Walter. "Take what you need and Rank Up now. I Will hold your Tower for you until it is done."

Walter wouldn't meet his eyes. "I will, Sir. After…"

"Now." Stanley stated. "Everyone here is dependent on your power and you were too weak." Stanley may have been a tad upset and still feeling the anger of seeing Caffeine so wounded. He took a deep breath and held up a hand to Walter. Once he had composed himself, Stanley explained what he had learned from his Rank Up regarding Fortification and the better options that had mentioned both of his fully Fortified Attributes. Stanley didn't go into the specifics of his own options but did emphasize that his best options had all mentioned Fortification.

Walter was quiet as he digested the info and Stanley could still feel some hesitation in the man so he added a bit more. "Take what you need Walter. I will see that the others get what they deserve." Stanley glanced to where Kira had collapsed into unconsciousness in Zeke's glowing aura. "I guarantee that everyone who helped me will be raised to the absolute peak of what they are capable of." He looked back at Walter. "Everyone here is counting on you. They need to know that this place is safe." There was still a smidgen of resentment in Stanley's voice at that last statement but he hugged Caffeine close and calmed himself further. "Neither me nor him knew what could happen. It's not his fault anymore than it is mine. I should have waited for Adrian and Daryl to return but I was in a hurry."

"Very well, Sir." Walter moved a hand and a pile of Cores appeared beneath it before some vanished in a stream of light into his flesh. Walter took one last look around. "Thank you, Sir." Then he became slightly more stiff as more Cores vanished and the light flowed into him. Over the next few minutes, trickles of light periodically streamed into the man while his expression remained unchanging. Stanley watched over him while Walter pulled in Core after Core, the whole time showing none of the strain that Stanley had fought desperately against, until finally the man went limp and collapsed. “He is still a badass. I have to give him that.”

Stanley caught the falling man and settled him gently onto the floor. "Good Luck, Walter." He glanced around with his eyes and mind, making sure that nothing else would dare to intrude into this place. He saw Sven's drooping eyelids fighting to stay open while he sat next to Kira and watched her with a worried look. Arnold was nearby and watching Stanley with wide scared eyes while resting a hand on the now healed and sleeping Amanda's shoulder. He met Stanley's eyes and flinched.

"Sorry about what I said!" Arnold glanced at the pug in Stanley's lap. "Your dog deserves all the Cores he wants!"

"It's all right." Stanley smiled slightly as he reassured him. "You guys brought me down here, right?"

Arnold looked away and nodded. "Yea…"

"I know you lost some friends and I'm sorry about that." Stanley said softly, his smile fading. "I didn't know them…" He sent his mind reaching into the stairwell and up to the top floor. He found the Human bodies, both on the stairs and in his room. "I will remember this." Stanley told him softly. "You saved me, helped Caff. I will repay what I can… though I doubt it will be enough." What could make up for losing friends and loved ones? He didn't think anything could make up for losing Caffeine or Lee, but what else could be done? This was the world they were all trapped in now.

"Did you hear what I told Walter? About Fortification?" Stanley finally asked after a long silence and Arnold nodded. Stanley gathered up some of the Cores strewn across the battlefield and then remembered the huge monster outside. He found that Core too, surprising himself with how easily he reached so far. “It really was a step up from the last Rank… but all of the Raid Leaders must be at this Rank by now, if not higher.” He reached out and caught the Core.

[Attribute Shard](D Rank)

+10 All Base Attributes

"Whoa." Stanley stared at it in surprise for a moment before another thought occurred to him and he held it out to Arnold. "What does this say it will give you?"

Arnold took it and his eyes went wide. "It… Plus one hundred! How?"

Stanley took the Core back and looked at it curiously. "Is that the difference between E and D? Ten times? Or is it something else?" He looked at Arnold. "Do you want…"

"No!" Arnold exclaimed as he pulled back. "Just touching that makes me nervous! Like I might die!"

Stanley looked at the Core. "If I had this before I ranked up it would have almost completely maxed my Fortification in all Attributes… or killed me…" He hadn't forgotten the pain and struggle from earlier. Increasing all of his stats by one hundred all at once might be very, very… dangerous. But Caffeine on the other hand… "He sometimes does things that I don't think he should be able to… even the Raid Leader thought so." Stanley looked a few times between the Core and the pug in his lap. "He did earn it." Stanley held it in front of Caffeine's nose. "You hungry, Caff?" If any E Rank could handle this, it was Caffeine.

The little curled up gray pug sniffed at the glowing Core in front of his nose a few times, then opened his mouth and gently picked it up. His mouth moved a few tentative times and then there was a crunching sound accompanied by a few flickers of light from his mouth. "He ate it!" Stanley tensed up as he instantly feared that he had just done something terrible, but then he felt energy swirling around the pug and immediately recognized it when Caffeine sighed, curled up, and relaxed. "He is Ranking up." Stanley snuggled Caffeine a bit tighter in his lap and gently kissed his head. "Good boy, good, impossible boy. Get stronger, Caff. I'll watch over you."

Stanley only smiled at Arnold's incredulous expression and looked over the room again. Zeke was in the middle of the room and using his direct healing on the more severely wounded while he talked quietly with someone that Stanley didn't know, presumably another healer, maybe the 'doctor'.

Eve was nearby her brother and glaring at everyone while she pulled stuff from the metal case that had been on her back. It looked like she was building something and it took Stanley a moment to recognize the little towers he'd seen back at the other base. "Her Mana Drain towers?" She finished setting one up, complete with a small radar dish on top, and handed a wire running from the tower over to the man with Zeke. The wire held a faint Energy that Stanley thought felt familiar. The man shook his head at a question from the girl and Eve cursed while stomping back to her tower.

Eve was angry while did something with magic that Stanley didn't understand and this time received an affirmative response from the other man. She quickly pulled more metal rods and poles from her case and approached Stanley. Eve didn't look at him as she started setting up another of the flimsy looking towers, more akin to camera tripods than anything. When the dish at the top was in place, she pointed it almost but not quite at Stanley and finally looked at him. She was angry, Stanley could tell that obviously, but there was much more than that coming from her Soul and Stanley could see it in her eyes as well.

"What the fuck happened here?" She glanced around furtively and then back at Stanley. "How…" She was scared and horrified.

Stanley took another look, trying to see what was bothering her. "I don't see it." Dead monsters and dead people, as well as all the wounded screaming and whining crying. "Isn't that normal now?" Stanley realized something, he was taking all of this better than he should have. Especially if he considered the part where Caffeine had been hurt while protecting him from getting killed… Stanley took a second to check that he wasn't using Still Mind, he wasn't. "Is it because I was asleep? It wasn't really in my face?" But then what about Caffeine? He should have been… much angrier. Granted he was mad that it had happened, but the monsters were dead, he had killed his enemies and Caffeine was safe and getting stronger even now. "Is it my higher stats? Or something to do with my new Evolution…"

"Why didn't you fucking stop this?" Eve demanded and Stanley realized that he'd zoned out. He met her eyes even as she looked away and he felt the regret coming from her. "Sorry, it's not your fault."

"Wow!" It seemed that she was indeed getting better. "I was Ranking up." Stanley told her, answering the question anyway. "That thing was waiting and did this as soon as I was down."

"What thing?" Eve had a hand up to her contraption and Stanley could see a wire running out from under her gauntlet and melting into the metal on the tripod before running back out as another wire that she extended away. He couldn't tell what it was made from exactly but it definitely had her Soul in it, both when it left her gauntlet and when it ran away from the tripod as a wire.

"Didn't you see…" Stanley trailed off. "Never mind." He had brought them in pretty fast and the huge monster was only a pile of gore now. "Big monster, gave Caff quite the Fight…" Stanley pulled [Soul Meditation] over himself. "Guess it still bothers me a little…" He 'watched' Eve move away with her Soul wire in tow. She handed it off to the man with Zeke who was definitely a healer, based on how the Soul of the man he touched suddenly relaxed. Zeke touched another and then both of the healers moved further through the crowds.

Eve walked back towards him and Stanley dropped the meditation when she arrived. "Thanks for helping, Eve. I only brought you because I figured you wanted to stay with Zeke."

"I did…" Her anger spiked but faded back down quickly to her normal range. "It was… good… that you brought Zeke here. This is bad…"

"This is why everyone needs to get stronger." Stanley spun a few Cores in the air above his hand. "How close are you to D?"

"I've been working on my Skills…" She said defensively. "Zeke is close though." Stanley opened his mouth and she held up her hands. "Yea, yea, I heard your little speech, but I thought we had more time… This shit isn't as easy to figure out for some of us." She sighed and started to sit down before stopping. "Is it really necessary to leave this fucking shit in here?"

Stanley looked at the meat orb she had almost sat on and smiled. "Don't like seafood?"

Eve glared, opened her mouth, then shut it again. Stanley took pity on her, he could feel the turmoil going on inside her, aside from the anger, there was a lot of fear, and some of it was directed at him. He took a moment to throw all the dead monsters in the large room out the gaping hole where a wall of windows used to be but left the rest strewn throughout the building inside, unsure if Walter might want or need them for food. Eve watched the meat flying out then looked around at all the destroyed chairs before she sighed and sat on her metal case. "Fucking stinks in here."

The cleanup action left a field of glittering Cores across the floor and Stanley saw more than a few heads perk up at the sight. He watched a few people reach out and grab the ones nearby, most absorbing them in swirls of light. Stanley let it happen until a man picked one up and stuck it in his pocket and reached for another. "Stop." The man froze and heads turned as Stanley floated closer.

It wasn't that the man was pocketing the Cores, no, it was the fact that he was F Rank. Stanley stopped in front of him and released the man from his power. "What are you doing?"

The man flinched backwards with a startled yell. “Ahh! Don’t do that! You damn freaks!” The man flinched again when Stanley pulled the Core from his pocket and into his own hand.

[Attribute Chip](D Rank)

+1 Vitality

“So no more partial attributes?” Stanley ignored the man in front of him and pulled a handful of slightly different Cores to himself. The small ones were all variants of the first but some of the bigger ones were new.

[Attribute Shard](D Rank)

+1 All Base Attributes

[Attribute Shard](D Rank)

+2 All Base Attributes

He saw a lot of those but no more plus tens. “Is it because the big one was technically a leader, or was it just higher up in D Rank?” After all, if D Rank followed the pattern of the previous Rank, then would the Threshold be at… “Five Hundred? What if it goes higher? It did say this was the ‘first true step’...”

“...running around and threatening people!” Stanley stopped his musing to focus on the man in front of him who was ranting about something. “When the military gets here, you’ll all be in big trouble!”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Stanley looked at one of the plus one to all Cores and then held it against the man’s face. “What does this say it will give you?” He tried to back away in alarm but Stanley held him easily. Too easily. It felt like absolutely nothing to restrain the man. “Tell me.”

“You can’t tell me what to…” He started yelling again and Stanley reached a hand towards his face but then diverted and instead flicked his ear. His flicking finger went right through the man’s ear, tearing a bloody hole through the flesh and without him using any of his actual power. “Good thing I didn’t flick his head…” Stanley watched the man scream even as his body remained frozen in place. It got old fast…

Silence

It looked like he was still screaming and maybe even yelling something but no sound emerged. “Cool!” Stanley held up his hand and after flicking the blood from his fingers, he held it in a threatening and meaningful gesture, reaching towards the man’s other ear. His point was taken and the screaming man shut his mouth. Stanley pulled his power back from where he could feel it hovering around the man. “What does this say it will give you?” He spoke slowly and calmly while touching the Core to the man’s head once again.

“Plus… plus… one hundred to… to all…” Stanley held up his hand and the stuttering and whimpering man stopped speaking.

He looked at the Core and then back at the man. “You know what? I’ve changed my mind. Here.” Stanley held out the Core and let go of the man. “You can have this one. Go ahead and absorb it.”

Fear and uncertainty rose quickly in his pathetic Soul. “I… I don’t want it!”

Stanley considered forcing the issue. He was curious what would happen. Would the guy explode or would he get a really good fortification? Would it damage his Vitality if all of his Attributes went over the Threshold at the same time? “That would be like… sixty over the Fortification Threshold? Meh.” Stanley shrugged and turned back to Arnold, only then noticing that he had a rather large audience. “Meh.” He held it out to Arnold. “What does this…”

“Walter!” Stanley stopped in surprise at the outburst behind him. “I demand this lunatic be removed at once!”

Stanley stared for a moment, then smiled at Arnold and turned around. “Walter is busy. I am in charge right now.”

“You… you can’t do this!"

"Why not?" Stanley asked, genuinely curious about what this moron thought. Someone who had all this time to do… something, anything to get stronger, and yet chose not to. Not even to get past F Rank.

"I own property in this building and all of you are trespassers!”

That was a terrible argument and Stanley felt a wave of resentment rise up from everyone within earshot. “And what did you do to protect your property?” Stanley asked him coldly as he floated closer. “Have you done anything to help since this started?” Stanley looked down at him with disdain. The man was useless, he would probably die if Stanley punched him, and would definitely die if someone like Nate even bumped into him. “Or did you just cower in here while other people died to protect you?”

“These degenerates! They should be grateful to even be here! I worked hard for everything I have and these… these people, they just think they can move in and take what doesn't belong to them!" He was shouting now. "One of them probably brought these monsters here!"

"You should stop talking." Stanley said softly, when the man paused for breath. "Some of 'These People' died to protect you."

"As they should! Dying to protect their betters is probably the best thing that they will ever…"

Stanley 'felt' the spear coming and Stopped it. He stopped it before it hit the terrified woman behind the yelling man. He even caught the blood before it splashed over her. The man finally stopped talking, thanks to a surprisingly large hole in his chest, and collapsed to the floor with a wet thud.

Stanley hefted the spear in his mind, he'd felt the power in that throw, felt an actual drain on his power from catching it, not a big drain but still… “She has real potential.” He turned to Kira and floated the spear back to the enraged woman. “Kira, remember that your spear goes through people and could kill someone you didn’t mean to.”

Kira staggered as her rage faltered and the fatigue of the recent battle caught up to her. She snatched the bloody spear out of the air and sat down. She stared at Stanley and the body behind him with confused, exhausted, angry, and despairing eyes. “Stanley…” She said. “You woke up… I… we survived.”

“Yes.” Stanley floated over to her. “Thank you… for helping. I… I hope you are stronger than me.” He hadn’t handled nearly dying very well himself, after all.

“I killed him…” She was still staring at the body.

“Psh. He was only F Rank. I could have killed him with way less effort.”

“You…” Her Soul was still in turmoil, a jumble of regret, anger, guilt, and fear.

Stanley stopped joking around. “I killed something like that before.” He said softly. “It is good to kill monsters like that before they get their hands on real power and start doing terrible things.” He shivered just a bit at the memory of that… thing. 'It' had done terrible things already, but the thought of what it could have become… "Demons might be a real thing now. Human demons… " He wasn't sure what to say. She had killed a Human and he had killed something that was no better than a zombie and arguably was so much worse. "I was going to dump him outside so you probably did him a favor."

Stanley felt her Soul warring with the different emotions before settling on anger. "He was a piece of shit!"

"No doubt." But Stanley would try to remember to make sure that Marie talked to the girl… Stanley didn't turn his head or even flinch when the sonic boom announced the arrival of Nate. He did 'see' the man kick off the air somehow to slow his approach. "Hi Nate." Stanley did give him a nudge to assist him in not landing on one of the unconscious people though.

"Stanley…" Nate trailed off as he looked around. "Damn. What happened?"

Stanley told him what he knew, after which, Kira and her group filled in the rest. They had barely gotten through the tale when a deafening screech heralded the return of the Tower's other leaders. Stanley had a moment to see the massive Phoenix slam into the building and latch onto the edge of the opening, before a wave of red-gold fire exploded across the room. A truly alarming sight except that everyone was either unconscious or had seen Adrian at work before.

He saw Princess come flying off the back of the huge bird but didn't see Daryl. Stanley did 'feel' him though, when the man dashed past him under some kind of illusion that blended him in with the roiling Phoenix flames.

"Walter!" Daryl appeared at the old butler's side, terror and worry radiating from his Soul.

"He's okay, Daryl." Stanley moved quickly to his side. The man was already fully healed of all the wounds he'd suffered, thanks to Zeke, but his clothes told a bloody tale. "He is Ranking up right now. I, uh, insisted." Stanley only felt a little bad about demanding that from Walter, but to be fair, it wasn't a big ask and the man had more than earned it. In a good way…

"What happened here?" Daryl didn't look up from the older man, his worry only abated a small fraction by Stanley's words.

Stanley suppressed a sigh and moved the both of them towards the others. "Come on. Let's do this all at once." He made sure to get Adrian to join them as well. Once the duo was brought up to speed, Stanley told them all once again about his Rank Up and the Fortification, then gathered up every Core in the building, the tiniest twinkle of Soul that each one held, making it child's play to find. He did suggest that Adrian and Daryl wait until Walter was finished though. No need to get too greedy, despite how strong he was feeling at the moment.

Nate left, leaving behind Zeke and Eve, to go check on his own base. An understandable desire given what he'd seen. He did stop before jumping out the window though. "You know that a large number of monsters are out there and closing in, right?"

Stanley smiled. "Yes. I don't want to scare off the more cautious ones just yet." He had felt the Souls out there, felt more and more trickling in, drawn in by the smell of blood and the lure of wounded prey. Stanley had been keeping his Soul Shield going the whole time in an attempt to avoid scaring them away. They would need a lot of Cores to get people promoted, especially the people who he knew had paid dearly for him and Caffeine. As for the rest, those who had earned it would be promoted with the same zeal, for those who hadn't… Walter would hopefully know just who deserved to be given power, and with it, life.

A few of the weaker Souls outside had fled when Nate came in and more when the Phoenix made its very obvious landing, but with the rather disturbing number of D Ranks out there, many of them started creeping in again when Nate left. None of them came close to the power of the monster that had fought Caffeine and Stanley would kill them all, easily. It was time to build an army of Humanity and take back their world.

Stanley really wanted to kill those undead monsters himself, but after feeling his newfound power and knowing that the Undead had been this strong awhile back, it was probably a good idea to bring some back up for the coming war. Zeke, for one, would definitely not be leaving this tower without Ranking Up. Getting more people to his and Nate's level would probably pay off more than gaining a few more points himself… at least the strong people. He hoped.

He did worry though, just a bit, about why the Undead hadn't already attacked in mass. "I can't have scared them that badly, can I? Are they cowards? Or is something else going on?" Either way, Humanity needed to step it up. "I'm going to find you all." Stanley thought as he pushed his mind out further and further. "I'm going to show you Eternal Fucks!" He touched every monster that thought it could come into his territory, could fuck with him. "Nothing is Eternal!"

CUT