Our posting to the outskirts of the city was no reason to take a circuitous route and yet it was endearing to see the progress towards restoration reflected elsewhere. The people were working together to not only restore their own homes, but the homes of their friends and neighbors as well.

That didn’t make it any less sobering when enough time had suitably passed to understand that one’s neighbors weren’t coming home. The building was left to remain in its decrepit state, a sort of memorial to the damage inflicted. Even if we tried to patch up the wounds the beast had caused, that didn’t make them go away. The scars still remained.

But even in their entrenched sadness, the people were persisting. They had to believe in a better tomorrow, lest their living just become a prolonged surviving bereft of any good.

There was a chance for more good in the world. For hope to return. That we could rebuild, become stronger, ensure that nothing like this would ever happen to Titan City ever again. That they would never need to see their neighbors and family die before them, that we would never be terrorized by another city-sized threat, that the waters that threatened to drown the city couldn’t reach behind the walls.

It was a heavy hope to carry, but that was our job. To carry that burden forward and ensure that the people could live as they once did, to the best they could. We had to hold onto Javier’s legacy and live up to his exemplary actions. Thus ensuring our route to the outskirts to shield those who still couldn’t work and were recovering.

Some of our most vulnerable people sat outside the ruined walls of the city, needing a rotating set of forces to ensure their continued existence. It was a shame, but everyone was needed to continue their efforts in rebuilding, and the more that homes were reconstructed, the more that those displaced could go home. From there the refuges remaining on the outside could be pulled into the folds of our city until their homes were also restored. It was an effort that would take quite some time to come to fruition.

I stared at the ruined city walls, tracing their wrecked structure with my eyes. The sun-dappled surface was riddled with cracks, a reminder that even as we repaired the interior of our city, the guard wouldn’t be able to rest until the exterior was also repaired. All that would change would be the perimeter we had to patrol, unable to trust that the walls could hold out against the weakest threats. They wouldn’t last long enough for us arrive and eliminate the problem.

The dirt path along the wall was well-trodden, and while we normally would have taken a gate out of the city, it was effortless to just cross over a ruined part of the wall and close the gap to the refuge camp. I started to make my way across, only to pause at the voice struggling to be heard behind me.

“Well, we might as well address the question on all of our minds,” Mia said, no ounce of hesitation in her voice. “Who’s going to lead the team now?”

Back in the barracks, Amalarys had summoned us to her room, given we were now without a leader for our squad. “I don’t care how you choose,” she said, “but you need to have someone in charge. Javier had nothing but good things to say about all of you, leaving me without the sufficient information to determine who I should appoint as the head of your squad. Ergo, as those closest to yourselves, you should know best. Flip coins, fight, it doesn’t matter to me how you choose in the end so long as the team is cohesive and agrees with the choice.”

I had shared glances with Vera, certain that neither one of us desired to be responsible for the others quite to that degree. But Mia and Alain had a simmering tension going, a desire to take the lead and show they were the best that had been largely suppressed with Javier’s presence. Given his notable and well-defined absence, that left no more room to avoid the conflict, let alone with the new context it had taken.

“I don’t want to,” I said, refusing to take part in the decisive activity any further. I vaulted over the wall, waiting for the rest to close the gap, counting under my breath the seconds until Mia or Alain clamored for attention.

My count got as high as three before Mia replied, fluttering over the gap in the wall. “Well, I think I’m more than qualified to lead our team. I’m a noble, my beast soul is at the third tier, I’m adept at leading others, and I’m used to speaking to a crowd.”

Alain followed shortly thereafter, rolling his eyes at Mia’s proclamation. “There was maybe two good reasons there for you to be the leader of our team, and I’m not quite sold on either of them. However, I think I’m up to the task. I have the skills and attitude to do so. Just think about our experience down in Old Titan City. Who was calling the shots there? Me.”

“Uh, actually, some of that was Perry,” Mia couldn’t help but interject, ready to use anything possible to take down Alain.

Vera casually strode over the wall, unfettered given any surface was though she was just walking forward as usual. She sighed and made her way to my side. “You know, the doctrine doesn’t look favorably on this kind of bickering. Why don’t you try and work out an actual solution to this instead of feuding over the minor responsibility for leading the team.”

“Minor?” Alain sputtered. “Leading the team is the first step towards eventually leading the city guard. There’s nothing minor about doing such a thing. Normally to lead a team you have to have one built for you. We’re having a special occasion here to cut the line and get ahead.”

“As deluded as Alain may usually be, he’s right,” Mia shared. “We’re probably facing unusual circumstances given our test program for prey beast souls in the guard. It’s not like there are others who Amalarys can put above us to take over. We’re about all we have.”

A silence overcame us as we continued out towards the makeshift living space. The sentiment was hard to fight against. I certainly couldn’t disagree. I had left everything behind. Now all there was the city guard and those by my side, with a notable gap where Javier once was.

The people this far out were more noticeably covered in wounds with a few able-bodied citizens standing about, unwilling to leave the feeble behind unguarded. Those that couldn’t work would rest, but rest was hard found when the constant threat of spike feeders loomed in the twisted ashen branches off in the distance.

We walked back wordlessly, a few nods given to people here and there, their thanks for our generalized efforts during the attack on the city making my cheeks flush deeper and deeper hues of red. It wasn’t as though they knew of my contributions more than in a generalized way, perhaps a few at most the people I helped usher into Old Titan City. I could have done more, couldn’t have I? At least, enough so that Javier wouldn’t have sacrificed himself for me.

I shook my head, trying to banish the ill thoughts, our group amassing on the other aside of the grouped refuge tents, facing out against the twisted trees forming the perimeter of Titan City, trying to tune out the low-level argument between Mia and Alain. Just because they were content to bicker didn’t mean that I had to be party to it.

I reached out with my electroreception, looking out into the woods. I wasn’t prepared to be caught with my pants down, noting the signature of a small horde of spike feeders. Nothing nearly as bad as what we had fought before, but that was without active civilian presences nearby. This would require some more preemptive efforts to ensure that they were firmly out of the way and unable to be harmed.

“Hostiles in the trees,” I grunted.

Mia and Alain locked eyes, jostling for control even in this moment, the two reluctant to speak without denying the other the opportunity. Not one to let other’s discomfort phase her, Vera said, “Let’s get moving then.”

Alain and Mia quietly groaned, a sentiment I wished to echo but not aloud. We slowly made our way towards the forest, the others becoming aware of the threats as their senses managed to bridge the gap in awareness. “Perry, Vera, clean up the few on the left. Mia and I will take out the bulk on the right.”

I shrugged, unwilling to argue with Alain, running off towards my targets. Vera trailed shortly thereafter, already calling her second tier attributes, her horns swelling out of her forehead, cloven hooves tearing up the loose dirt underneath.

My brass knuckles slid onto my fists easily, my skin accustomed to their familiar texture. I sent some electricity through the material, the high pitched thrum confirming its presence on my hands. I was ready to tear the spike feeders apart, their presence unable to be hidden by the trees by dint of my electroreception.

I weaved through the thrashing branches towards the panting noises, the monsters frenzied by our presence. They screeched an ear shattering din and pushed ahead, not caring for the flora impeding their passage. One popped battered through a sickly tree, wood chips scattering towards me. I swelled my fur to absorb the impact and just as quickly diminished it, ducking under a callous swipe. I weaved through the stray branches and jumped back from another aggressive attack, before running in and guiding my fist to its stomach.

My knuckles found purchase in the soft flesh, the electricity discharging into the beast. The body shook about, flailing uncontrollably, limbs no longer acting under its will, until the attack finished and it crumpled to the ground. The charge in my knuckles had been spent putting the beast down. I topped them off with another Direct Current and checked in on Vera, who had destroyed more forest than the spike feeders in her efforts to cull the herd. She battered another one, pinning it between her horns and then slamming it into a tree, which splintered on impact.

Another two corpses sat by her side, leaving another one of the monsters unaccounted for by us. I spun around, noting its erratic movement. My spur slide neatly into the flesh, the beast wailing as it collapsed to the ground, effort spent.

“Let’s go check on the others. They should be done by now,” Vera said.

I nodded and we ran through the twisted trees, hampered by the endless low hanging, the sound of a singular voice crying out through the air. “Mia, fly through the trees and strike overhead. I’ll cut them off at their legs.”

“Understood,” was her curt reply, her body taking to the air. She shone under the light that pierced through the thick boughs, slicing at the necks of the spike feeders with her daggers as Alain popped up from the shadows below, his claws tearing asunder their vulnerable legs. The beasts collapsed, unable to endure the assault any longer, leaving no more signs of activity in the area barring our own.

“That’s it then, Perry?” Alain inquired.

“Nothing more for the moment.”

“Then let’s ensure that the civilians are fine.”

We ran back, the people still intact, no worse for the wear. Crisis averted. “Well, I think that is more than enough proof who our leader is,” Vera said.

Mia groaned, gritting her teeth. “You’re right,” she said through her clenched mouth. “Alain, you really took charge there.”

He nodded quietly, staring down at the dirt beneath his feet. “I… I can’t just do this. Not without telling you something, but that may change your perspective of me.”

“Is it alright to say it in front of them?” I said, gesturing to the tents behind us.

“It… it shouldn’t be that bad for them to hear, but you may very well think worse of me for knowing.”

“Well, out with it then,” Vera said, punching Alain in the arm. He winced at her powerful impact, our powerful friend still proving that she didn’t know the meaning of restraint.

Alain sighed, fiddling with his hands, as though if he was needing to find the optimal way of arranging his appendages so that the message would come through without any collateral damage.

“Look. I was initially with the prey soul movement prior to joining the city guard. You could call it an impetus for my joining this program. To see if the city could change and do things better. You could call me a spy, if you would. It wasn’t like I had anything meaningful to relay back, in my lowly role, but I was sort of a test to see the attitudes towards the movement. I won’t say that I continued with them though. When the movement went sour I started to divest myself of my association, but… I would understand if you blamed me, Mia.”

“Oh, that’s what that was?” I said. The others stared at me, eyebrows raised.

“Care to explain, Perry?” Mia asked, welcoming the distraction from Alain’s revelation.

“Well, I heard some things late at night that would imply something like that. Javier was aware?”

“To a degree. We had an arrangement,” Alain replied. “He understood I would avoid doing anything that would hurt the squad, but that didn’t mean that he was fully aware of my actions.”

“Well, that checks out with your whispered conversations over the change in shifts. Was that the full extent of it?”

“You could say that I was responsible for that first team fiasco in the Vessen Swamp. While I did take out a spike feeder at that time, I was also divulging some information.”

“That’s… unfortunate to hear,” Vera put flatly. “But I’m ready to move on past that.”

“You trust me then?” he asked, shaking slightly with each word, a chattering to his teeth punctuating his words.

Mia walked over and drew him into a hug, rubbing his back. “Look. The prey soul movement wasn’t explicitly wrong. The issue we kept an eye out for was the speed it was taking, and that seemed to have been accelerated by whoever killed my father. You weren’t wrong to believe what you did. After all we’ve been through, I trust you. You haven’t made any more foolish mistakes like leaving us alone in the middle of a mission, have you?”

Alain furiously shook his head, tears dropping off and splattering on the dry dirt below, forming wet patches of regret.

“Well then. I think you’ve shown yourself a capable leader of our team. A natural successor for Javier. You’re the one with the closest skill set, truth be told. We are here to support you though. No more unnecessary secrets,” Mia said. She pulled tighter, Alain letting out a gasp from the force of her hug.

“Our shift goes for another few hours. Let’s make this an easy one,” Alain replied, enduring his friendly torture. We nodded and took up our positions, ready to persist through whatever would follow.