“Gordon… how many weapons do you have stashed in your trunk?”

Despite Cassandra's rushing, they still had two days before they needed to worry about reaching the convention, so they were taking their time with packing. And, in Gordon's case, clearing out his car.

Gordon shrugged. “You keep giving them to me.”

Levi held up a crossbow. “For you to use, not stuff in a stash and forget about.”

“You forgot about them too.”

Levi shrugged off the accusation. “Managing inventory has never been my problem. Keeping track of the weapons assigned to me is.” He patted his two swords, and manabow, and scowled at Gordon. “As it should be yours.”

Gordon grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ve never let you enter a fight without your assigned weapons. Not once.”

Levi sighed. “For someone who takes everything else so seriously…”

“Man… if I took this end of the world thing any more seriously, I don’t think I’d be capable of functioning. You’ve got to find the fun in it or it’s going to kill our souls long before the demons kill the rest of us.”

“Some things are easier without a soul to worry about.”

“Every time I think I’ve reached the depths of how bleak your outlook is, you find a way to go even deeper.” Gordon punched Levi’s shoulder lightheartedly. “You know I’m here to help your family in any way I can, but you really should try lightening up some.”

“I am as lighthearted as I can in the circumstances,” Levi protested. He worked very hard to keep up a positive persona, joking with his minions, bantering with Gordon. Pretending that everything could be fine.

“You should tell that to your face.”

“Of course.”

“No, really, you constantly look like you want to kill someone.”

“I do not.”

Gordon shrugged. “And I don’t think I’ll ever use this.” He held out the two-handed greatsword. “Feel free to re-gift it.”

Levi gripped the sword’s hilt. “Are you still planning to avoid learning to fight?”

Gordon stilled, then sighed and straightened, one hand still resting on the open trunk. He turned slowly to face Levi. “Can’t we agree to disagree?”

“This is exactly the kind of thinking that got all the other Tamers and Summoners killed! Damn it, Gordon! You’re supposed to be better than that. This isn’t something we can put off, cram study the night before the presentation. It takes years to learn to use mana, health, and stamina properly, we’ll be rushing even if we start now. And you want to put it off even longer?”

“I’m pursuing alternative options.” Gordon grabbed out the battleaxe and slammed the trunk shut. He shook the weapon in Levi’s face. “Are you really telling me that this is the best we have to work with? Swords and axes? Maybe an old-time crossbow if we’re lucky? This is obsolete garbage, and you want me to just go along with it because it glows?”

Levy pressed a hand to his forehead. “I’ve explained this. You need to use mana. Pure physical force won’t remain effective for long, and it will hardly scratch the demons. You’re putting your effort into something that won’t remain viable.”

“So you say.”

Levi felt his temper fraying. The temptation to punch Gordon was strong, maybe he could beat some sense into him. “Yes, because I’ve seen it happen. More than once! The people who think they can force the new paradigm to play by their rules are the ones who die. I don’t want to watch that happen to you.”

Gordon shrugged. “You don’t know everything. Just because other people died doesn’t mean I will.”

“Why are you acting like this? What happened?”

“From where I’m standing, there’s no way through this whatever I end up choosing as my weapon. You can say we’ll last longer all you want, but from everything you said there’s nothing we can do to win this. It’s just slowing down the inevitable. If I’m going to go down in a blaze of glory, it’s damn well going to be my blaze of glory, not some glowy sword crap.”

Ah. So that was it. Levi had seen too many people lose hope. He never knew what to do about it. How did you comfort someone in the face of the impending reality of what was coming to destroy everyone and everything?

“Listen to me,” Levi said, voice low and serious. “We will find a way to stop this. Maybe not today, maybe not this year, but I will not let the same thing happen again. We have a chance to get it right this time. I promise you. This will not be the end.”

“You’ve already admitted you don’t know what you’re doing! We keep changing the plan every few days. None of us is going to be enough.”

“You’re right. None of us can do this alone.” He gripped Gordon’s limp hand, pulling it up between them. “But none of us is alone. I don’t care what it takes, how much time, how much work, we will find a way. Don’t give up on us so soon.”

“How can I not?” Gordon’s subdued tone was gone in a flash of pure hysteria. “You keep pounding it in, again and again and again, just how overpowered and underequipped we are for this! Everyone and everything is superior to us, and we have to, what, blindly trust that you have some magical solution to let us win anyway?”

“It’s not about me, it’s about all of us. You, me, Laurence, Cassandra, everyone else we reach. I’m a pebble, thrown into a pond, and you are a ripple. The demons may be like sand but enough ripples will drown them all.”

“That’s a really crappy metaphor.”

“I’m not really a metaphor guy. But I believe in us. I’ve seen what humanity can do when we unite and fight with everything we have. And this time, we’re going to see to it that the global resources are higher. Even a few months of a head start on leveling, collecting weapons and equipment, it could be enough to tip the balance. The early waves were close, close enough that with a bit more we could decisively win instead of just surviving. It’s only in later years that we were overwhelmed completely. As long as we can get ahead of things now, we’ll be better poised to drive them off for good.”

“Words are cheap.”

“Gordon, you’ve been with me since the first few days of this. Are you saying I’m not following through? That I’m just throwing out empty words? If I’m not doing enough, then please tell me, what else should we be doing? I’ll do it. Whatever it takes.”

Gordon looked away, finally ashamed. “I know you’re trying. But you can’t pretend all this will be enough to actually make a difference.”

Alturas. Demonic beasts flooding through the portal, a city on fire.

Screams. Death.

The laughter of imps as they burned everyone and everything in their path. The endless flood of hellhounds that just kept coming, pouring out from the portal like a wave of flame that never stopped.

Awakened, but untrained. Entirely ignorant of his potential. Watching as his neighborhood was destroyed, his home and family turned to ash in moments. Frozen with terror, hating himself, unable to even try to act.

Knowing there was nothing he could do to help, that if he left his hiding place he’d be able to do nothing but die.

Wishing he were brave enough to try anyway.

“It will.” Levi said it fiercely, almost snarling, the promise weighted with a decade of self-loathing and grief and fury. “I will not let it happen again. This time will be different.”

“How!”

“I don’t care how.” Levi stepped forward, looming over Gordon, who backed away against the car. “I don’t care what it takes. This time. Will. Be. Different.”

Not again.

Never again.

Gordon stared up at him, and the dullness behind his eyes finally flickered. He took a breath, his shoulders firming just a little, his expression turning from resignation to… not quite determination, not yet unquenchable resolve, but there was a spark there. A tiny ember of defiance, a flicker of hope.

At least Levi could be sure Gordon wouldn’t simply lie down and wait for the end to come. Unquenchable resolve could come later.

For now, this was good enough.