It was nearly evening again by the time Levi, Diego, and Skarm reached the rendezvous village. Irene, Cassandra, and Snap arrived shortly after, having never fallen behind more than a few minutes.

Gordon and a handful of the others were missing, but Peter and half the other people who'd wanted to keep fighting had set up camp to wait.

Having his family back together again, even though they'd been apart less than a day, felt like an immeasurable relief. Something in the back of Levi's mind insisted that if he wasn't able to see them right in front of him, they'd disappear and he'd never see them again.

Their kidnapping had brought back all the old fear and pain of loss that he'd nearly managed to suppress until then. He wasn't sure he'd be able to bring himself to leave them unescorted again, ever.

Every time they were separated for more than a few hours, something went wrong. Not going to happen again. From now on, they'd be a unit.

"Anyone heard from Gordon?"

Peter's copy of Crackle buzzed over to Levi, bobbed up and down eagerly, then hovered in place a moment before humming over to Skarm. The gremlin and scarab conversed in their strange collection of squeaks from Skarm and bobbing movements and loops from Crackle.

Skarm conveyed the information to Levi in turn, his gestures more clear and comprehensible than the scarab's.

"They've engaged the Essence, things are going well, but they won't be done for a while because it got very scattered?"

Skarm nodded.

"Then we can rest here for a while."

He was entirely unsurprised to see that Peter had co-opted his T-Rex, convincing one of the other tamers to revive it for him. Levi transferred ownership readily, having only grabbed the creature in a moment of necessity. He copied down the stats for his records, but overall the large dinosaur was too slow and heavy for Levi's tastes. He preferred fast and sleek.

"Where's everyone else?"

Crackle bobbed; Skarm pointed.

Turned out, they'd found a closed restaurant with a dining room big enough to fit all of them. It was missing furniture and lighting, but some of the more creative among their group of Awakened got the stoves working and between them put together an edible-enough batch of makeshift quesadillas.

Levi didn't know how they got the ingredients, and didn't ask. He could see how the warm food helped the low-level group feel more comfortable with the awkward wait.

By the time Gordon and his team arrived, everyone who’d stayed in the town was talking and joking, the fact that a few days ago they’d been strangers forgotten.

Wordlessly, Gordon handed Levi an essence vial. "Ice essence, I saved it for you. I know you collect them."

Levi stared at the frosty teal substance, a smile growing on his face. "Yeah, I sure am. But first, tactical debrief. I need to know everything that happened while you were fighting the Essence.”

Irene and Cas had plenty of time to talk during their flight back, and she was properly indignant over the whole mess. The sight of the destroyed compound built around the Beast dungeon brought all her ire surging back to the surface.

“The attitude this group has toward people is appalling. I’m half of a mind to go back just to give them a stern talking to.”

“I’ve already done that. Also, they’re too powerful for us right now.”

"Then I'm going to get too powerful too," Irene declared icily. "If this sort of person thinks they can mess with me and my family, then they've got another think coming."

"What are you going to do?" Cas asked, her voice playful.

"Same as we have been. Fight, level, improve myself. But I'm done holding back."

"You were holding back?"

Irene huffed a snort. "You can't deny this is kind of insane."

"Yeah."

"Sure, I went along with it. Played the game. But this isn't a game."

"Good."

"And don't you act all high and mighty, you know you were treating it as a game long before I was."

Cas grinned. "True. But I play hard and I don't play to lose."

"I don't play to lose either."

"Good thing we're on the same side. The demon armies won't know what hit them."

Irene scowled. "And to the idiots who think that this is something to be exploited against one another, even more so."

"You're not going to go on some kind of misguided vengeful spree, are you?"

Irene tried to relax her clenched fists and tight shoulders, but only managed a stiff facade of relaxation. "Not planning on it, no."

"Then what?"

"This is so big, Cas. So big. The dungeons were huge. The people are huger. The demons... I don't know. I can't imagine. That much power, that much destruction. We're never going to be ready on time. I don't care what you and Levi say, the scale is insurmountable."

"That's why we're doing everything we can to mitigate that first wave. Once we're into the second year--"

Irene shook her head. "I don't want there to be a second year, Cas. You're acting like this is inevitable, that we have to let it happen and only afterward can we start really preparing. I don't want to let invaders into my world for a year just to convince the world to listen. We need to be ready now."

"We've done as much as we can. We'll continue doing the best we can. But this is a global catastrophe, and everything we've done to get word out--"

"Has been actively suppressed by morons who think they can be the wolves and don't need to worry about the lions! But we don't need a handful of elites, we need a million auxiliaries, a militia of billions. Be Switzerland, have everyone prepared to defend themselves, and we'll survive. Hundreds of thousands of demons? We've got billions of people. Even if only a fraction of a percent of us are Awakened and prepared, we outnumber them by vast amounts. We just need to be ready and we can shove them back where they came from."

"And the more powerful ones? The Elites? The Demon Lord in charge of the invasion?" Cas shook her head. “We’ve done the math. It doesn’t matter how many people you throw at them. Without sufficient health to survive, they’ll be destroyed by the thousands.”

"That's what we're for." Irene clapped a fist to her chest, then gestured in an all-encompassing wave to indicate the group below, and back toward where Levi stood in discussion with one of the other tamers. "I'm not going to leave it to chance. You, me, Levi, Peter, we're the ones who need to be prepared, the ones who need to be on the front of the front lines."

"So you're planning to, what, keep doing what we're doing?"

"I'm not going to put the fate of the world in the hands of anyone like those people back there who think they know best. We're going to take over this region."

Cas grinned. "You want to directly go up against the overpowered, potentially government funded group directly? When we're outnumbered and outleveled by a lot?"

"This dungeon is ours, and we're going to use it. We're not going to wait for it to refill, we're going to patrol it and each monster that appears we'll deal with individually. We can hold them off. We have more knowledge, we have more Tamers, we don't have to run away. We can make a stand, and I can't think of a better place to do it than here. This kind of resource isn't one we can walk away from. I know Levi keeps talking about starting a dungeon loop to train in, well, we've already got one here that's begging to be used."

"You really have gone full warrior maiden, haven't you?" Cas laughed. "You don't need to ask twice. I'm in. Let's conquer this place."