Watching the battle was fascinating. The vast majority of people were doing nothing except shouting and waving their weapons. Occasionally on would throw something or a spell would be cast but the perpetrator usually slunk away into the crowd after. Only a few people in the middle of it all were actually fighting and what a fight it was. Kaleb watched a seven foot warrior in a navy uniform rip a slab of concrete out of the ground and smash it over the head of what looked like a teenager who caused the shadows to turn into spears and stab at the sailor. The others were equally impressive using a mix of elemental attacks and special abilities.

“Wouldn't want to be in the middle of all that.” Viv said slowly munching on the cube of food.

“Yeah we'd die. I'm more of a backline kind of guy and you need to get more beast limbs before you jump into the middle of stuff.”

Viv looked at him incredulous “I'm not going to turn myself into some freak of nature. One cat arm is plenty, thanks.”

Kaleb didn't want to upset her after everything that had happened so let it go for now. 'She'll need to do something with her powers if she wants to survive though.' He knew he wouldn't always be around to help in a fight. He half focused on the battle and half on his minion creator. Shifting the size of the minions to the extremes and swapping parts around gave him tons of new options. The largest thing he could currently conjure was a four legged thing that reminded him of an Edmontosaurus, the main difference being a lot more spikes covering its back and teeth that definitely belonged to a carnivore.

He had a full mana pool and this thing would take all of it but it looked too cool to not conjure. His mana vanished and the air next to the car shimmered before revealing the giant beast. Viv leapt off the car screaming and hid behind it whiled the minions barely reacted. Edmo as Kaleb named it was five meters tall while on all fours and roughly twelve meters long with a good bit of that being a thick spiked tail. From the screen before him Kaleb knew it weighed eight and a half tons and could only stare in awe at the almost dinosaur. Its skin was a dark green with brown striped radiating from the spine. 'Now this is worth the apocalypse.'

“He's a minion Viv, not going to eat you.”

Viv popped her head up from behind the car still afraid. “What did you make it for? Its huge!”

“He's called Edmo and I just wanted to mess around with my spell. I should be able to make another in about ten minutes.” 'Or maybe I'll go as small as possible. This is the best spell ever.'

Kaleb was snapped out of his creation of a chihuahua sized dinosaur at the sudden odd lack of sound. The noise from the fighting had been a constant for the last couple of hours but now there was nothing.

“I think Edmo has been spotted.” Viv said dryly.

She was right, the people had all stopped to gawk at the giant Edmo and the twelve colourful power ranger-esque minions next to him. “Should we go talk to them?” she asked

Before Kaleb could answer the navy and port security charged in to the ranks of the distracted gangs. The fight from before seemed like a warm up for this brutal assault. This time people fell and didn't get back up and the back ranks fired spell after spell in arching volleys. 'That must be the military discipline my grandad always said I lacked,' Which was fair since Kaleb had never been in the military unlike the rest of his family. Fighting and putting your life at risk had never appealed to him before. 'I didn't have magic bodyguards back then.' he justified to his own conscience.

By the time his mana was full again the navy was mopping up the few who hadn't run away or surrendered. Most people had surrendered. While they wrapped things up Kaleb checked his smallest minions out and was surprised to see that he could add little leathery bat wings. 'I can conjure a swarm of these guys.' He swapped the model to a regular minion instead of the dinosaur and was able to shrink it even further. He didn't mess around with them too much and they were essentially the same as his first imp like minion except with tiny wings and shrunk down to the size of a finger. He conjured forty of them which didn't quite empty his entire pool of mana since he wanted to keep some in reserve. Viv swore as the cloud of tiny people popped into existence in front of her face.

“Went as small as possible this time?” she asked.

“Yep.” Kaleb was distracted by the large group of people in uniform walking up the hill towards them. He moved the swarm on the back of Edmo and ordered his minions the stand in a loose formation around him and Viv who got off the car to stand next to Edmo.

Despite having family in the military Kaleb had no idea how to tell who was in charge but from movies and games he guessed it was the guy with the most gold stripes on his shoulder. He moved to the front of his minions but kept one on either side for protection while the other leader done the same.

They stopped about ten meters away and slowly took in the monstrous sight of Kaleb's group. The leader was smeared with blood. It looked like he was missing part of his ear and was it stuck out since his black hair was barely stubble with a touch of grey at the temples, despite looking old and scarred the man's eyes were like inky black pools that sucked in the light and gave him a frightening presence.

“I am Commander Lee. You will follow us to the naval college were you will be assessed and assigned your duties.”

“What?” Kaleb asked confused by the blunt commanders demands

The man gave a world weary sigh and ran a hand over his face in frustration and muttered something under his breath. “My apologise I assumed you were here because you'd already heard. The country has been placed in to a state of emergency. Effective immediately you and every other person who's still in one piece has been drafted and has seven days to make their way to the nearest recruitment facility.”

'Fuck, the docks was probably a bad idea.' “And if we don't want to be drafted...” Kaleb let the sentence hang for the now grinning commander to finish.

“It's called conscription for a reason son, I wasn't asking. You've seen what happened to those who tried to fight it, though I do appreciate your timely distraction.” he said with a quick glance to Edmo. “So what's it gonna be?”

Kaleb looked over the group and went over his options 'Edmo could mess a lot of them up. but do I want to? If I take out these guys then It just means there are less people to fight the monsters.' It was a difficult choice since he'd stubbornly refused to follow the same route as his family for so long but if he joined he would be able to help people. “Viv?” he asked. She gave him a shrug drawing a few looks at her cat hand. “Might as well.”

It was only a short walk to the naval college and no one bothered them since they followed behind the commander. There was an improvised wall clearly made by different wall building spells similar to what had been done at the city centre. The queue of people waiting to get in and be assessed was massive and the commander left Kaleb and Viv at the end of it before heading back out into the streets. 'Hurry up an wait.' he thought fighting a grin. It had been the old mans favourite joke. 'Made him laugh every time.'

Despite its size the line moved quickly and it wasn't long until he and Viv were ushered into separate rooms. Kaleb left his minions outside at the assessors insistence and took a seat at her 'table'. He couldn't bring himself to call the thing a desk since it was a flimsy piece of patio furniture that bent when he leaned on it. The chairs were comfy at least. The assessor was a short orange man in a singed button up shirt and he still had a tie on despite reality breaking two days ago. Kaleb couldn't help but stare. The man was Oompa Loompa orange and if his hair was green the image would have been perfect.

“Yes, I am sure you have noticed my skin.” the man said wearily. “Monster fish guts are apparently orange and I strongly suggest you avoid them. Now, please tell me your name, class and spells please.”

Despite his tired and stressed demeanour Kaleb couldn't help but like the man and quickly answered. He was expecting more questions about his minions but the man almost jolted out of his seat when Kaleb said he could conjure food.

“And water!” he crowed he rushed to the door and yanked it open shouting “Get me Barclay!” and then rushed back to his seat.

“Tell me everything about the spells.” he ordered

Kaleb did so describing everything from the size and texture of the food block to colour of the water. A man in uniform Kaleb assumed was Barclay marched in and he was forced to repeat himself.

“It's a God damn miracle. Good thing you made it here still in one piece.”

“I can conjure a lot of minions as well, they're really good in combat.” Kaleb added lamely but the two men waved him down. “You'll be lucky to see the outside of a warehouse from now on.” Barclay said excitedly. “We have plenty of fighters and water for the time being, what we don't have is enough food to feed half a city. But you!” he grabbed Kaleb by the shoulders and shook him. “Come with me. You'll need to work on levelling that spell up as much as you can.” he spoke as they walked. Kaleb did his best to keep up with the larger mans energetic stride. “how many people are there to feed?” he asked wondering just how much food he'd be able to make.

“Lots!” Barclay said without turning. The entered a large kitchen bursting with people and pushed their way through to a set of double doors “This is your new home.” The warehouse wasn't much to look at. It was poorly lit and cold which might have been perfect for warehouses as far as Kaleb knew. There was space for five rows of shelves no including the ones along the walls and they already looked a bit bare.

“This whole thing caught us at a bad time. There was supposed to be a delivery today but that's not likely to happen. Fill the shelves with the food blocks once a day for now and then ask one of the cooks to show you where to sleep. We'll see what the demands like after a few days and we can get shifts worked out.”

With a clap on the shoulder he was left alone. For the first time in two days of chaos he was awake without either his minions or Viv next to him. He obviously knew there were people in the next room but having a moment of peace and quiet in a safe place was amazing.

“Well, better start making blocks or they'll probably kick me out.”