Gus opened his logs as he stepped on the lift and hit the top button.

Your team 'The Crew' has defeated 10,000 Swarm Flier Drones. Your contribution is calculated at 9%.

XP awarded: 900

FP awarded 25,000 FP(team)

Congratulations, you have learned the skill Unarmed Combat!

XP awarded:1000

FP awarded: 500

Unarmed Combat[passive](Level 1): You have finally improved your skills enough to actually be dangerous without a weapon.

You have leveled up the skill: Unarmed Combat to Level 2!

XP awarded: 500

FP awarded: 1000

23,600 XP to Level 26

1 day 8hrs left before the XP modifier applied when the song chain ends.

Gus unmuted the song and laughed as Safety Dance was just ending. Remembering the music video, he could see Darik dancing around with a yellow and black jester hat. It was going to be harder to spar without seeing that in his head later.

Yuki interrupted his musings as she addressed him on comms.

"Gus, we just got a huge dump of FP. What'd you do?"

"I just checked my backlogs, why?"

"Well, whatever it is, do it sooner next time. I can make some upgrades, but there's no time to calibrate everything. If you're the party leader, you can't let things like that slide."

"Message received. Sorry, I really didn't know. You know, I think we need to have a big meeting sometime and get a lot of things out on the table, so we're all on the same page. Sort everything out about Nth, and our powers, and the manor,"

"What are Nth?"

"See? Exactly things like that. I have some ideas I want to present, and they sound crazy even to me. We need to schedule something--"

"No, you need to schedule something. I like you Gus, but I'm not your secretary. Got it? I'll have your six, but don't try to pin me down or delegate stuff to me. I've already got too much on my plate."

"Sorry--"

"And stop being sorry for everything! You're the leader, you've got to lay down the law. Set the boundaries. That's nice that you want to be considerate and all, but just be frank and tell us what you need. We'll let you know if you're overstepping. But no more Mr. Nice Guy. You have a different hat to wear when you're the boss, and it's not to be everyone's friend. Like it or not, that's what the situation demands. That being said, I don't envy you. But just do it. Don't overthink things. Just do. Things will sort themselves out if you just get busy."

"Got it. Thanks,"

"No problem, now get your ass to the corsair, almost everyone's here."

"Almost there," The doors slid open and wind whipped into him as he stepped out onto the tarmac. Darik was waiting for him on the out the opened doorway, beckoning him forward. The corsair had already pulled away from the loading gangway and was turning in preparation to take off. A portal appeared in front of him and Gus reluctantly jumped inside.

He dropped to the floor inside the cabin as Darik pulled the door closed and latching it.

"Now where were we?" Darik ushered him to the center of the transport.

Gus saw the island fall away without any hint of motion inside the corsair. Looks like there would be no break after all.

###!###

Hours later, Gus was grateful he had Nth to help him recover. He still had a fair amount of bruises and when Gus had peeked in to ask BoJack for a quick heal, he saw him tending to Rory. His minor aches could wait and felt insignificant when his mentor straining over the large man. Gus stepped back out of sight to let BoJack work. Aurora was right to worry. Rory was a huge slab of a man, his size made even larger in the context of the small medical bed he laid in.

Gus stepped back into the hallway, perhaps some meditation would do the trick. As he started to leave, BoJack exited the room, hair slicked to his skull with sweat. He looked like he had just run a marathon, panting deeply and shoulders slumped.

"How is he doing?" Gus asked. BoJack waved tiredly forward and Gus followed. Nearby was a dispensary and BoJack pulled out a blue-tinged sports drink and began to chug. He downed an entire bottle and then cracked another open, pausing only to grab a few hurried breaths. When he had finished half of the second bottle he swiped his brow with his forearm and rubbed some sweat from an eye.

"It's not good, I'll tell you that,"

"Is he dying? " Gus probed. "He's looking like death warmed over,"

"We used to call something like this 'failure to thrive'. But I've only seen it in the elderly or those with severe immunocompromised conditions. The tissues are healing when I'm actively involved, but as soon as I stop, they go slack. His system isn't sustaining itself. He's slowly degrading."

"What do you think about getting him closer to Purple territory? Do you think that will help at this point?"

"I really can't say, Gus. I've never seen anything like this. It's like his body's just abandoned its will to live. He's on the respirator and I have leads attached in case he needs defibrillation. But it's bad Gus. Worse than Aurora knows, so do not let her in there. I don't think she is ready to handle his loss."

"What are his odds?"

"Maybe 1 in 4 of pulling through? Possibly less."

"Damn,"

"Yeah, damn. Hoo. Breaks over, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back. I can only leave him alone for so long,"

"Do what you got to do," Gus said and BoJack nodded and jogged back to the infirmary.

###!###

Gus checked his logs and found he had gained another level in Unarmed Combat but it was hard to feel excited after seeing Rory in that state. It even made it difficult for him to focus enough to meditate. Gus had often felt helpless in his life, but that was with his own situation. It was another level of stress to be unable to help someone else. That nothing in your skillset would make a dent in the problem. He was in good hands though. He just hoped that it would be enough.

Giving up on meditating, Gus took out his Quorian cube, looking at it for the first time in a while. Gus activated Electronic Mind and tried to access the glittering side that must be 'diamond'. Try as he might, he was repelled like a magnet with the same charge. He was pushed to one of the adjacent sides. After a couple of tries, Gus settled on visiting the orange plane. Activating Electronic Mind, he fell forward and found himself in the jungle again. He took a few steps down the pathway through the jungle, his hand searing through a large leaf as he went to push it out of his way. Gus crouched and looked at the edge of the leaf and it looked like it had been slit with a razor, the edges perfect and sharp.

This place is so weird.

Gus came closer to one of the fuzzy mirage-doors. Unlike last time, Gus could make out a lintel and supports around the doorway. Did I not notice those last time? With a shock, Gus realized he recognized the pattern the energy took as it sped around the frame of the doorway. Checking to make sure, he quickly confirmed he was correct. The same red foundation energy that coursed inside of him followed the same winding path around this door. The only difference was that there was much more energy so it formed a continuous thready frame, reminiscent of time-lapse photos of traffic in a busy city.

Gus stepped next to the door and raised a hand to touch the shimmering surface. Part of him was drawn to it, but as his hand neared the rippling entrance, Gus felt a sharp pain in his gut, doubling him over. As he pulled away, the icepick of pain disappeared from his belly. More slowly, he attempted again and noticed that the next node in series above the red one pulsed orange behind the crack in the rocklike growth around it.

Gus tried to pull in energy as he did when he meditated and found that it was like inhaling. Much easier here than outside of the cube. However, it was like a breath that pulled in no air. His efforts resulted in no energy being added to his pathways. Still, it did seem that it helped the scant energy he did have to cycle more quickly, so he sat on the ground and began to get in a session. Breathing out, Gus saw the expelled spheres tumble out as usual and they quickly winked to life, all orange. Like the other colors, the orange did not move...much. They trembled slightly but did not float like the red orbs, even when Gus attempted an exaggerated pull and inhale. Gus turned his attention to the small wedge of orange in the next node and kept his focus there.

The red energy kept speeding up and if Gus hadn't been paying attention he would have missed it. A small fork of energy arced over from the red to dance across the rock-like coating on the orange node. It was brief enough that Gus wondered if he was seeing things, but the little pitted score marks there was evidence that something had happened. He had noticed that his foundation energy had become dimmer, however. Try as he might, he could get no more to arc again and repeat the process. He needed more energy. But was this how they were all unlocked? Gus wished he had the luxury of time to experiment. He continued to cycle for while until the alarm he had set on his display signaled him to drop back into reality.

Yuki and Prime were excited about this next little escapade, and he didn't want to keep them waiting.