"Holy shit," John cried out on reflex, eyes widening as his gaze slashed back and forth between the two birds flying on either side of him.

-100 Aura

For fuck's sake. John wanted to scream. Instead, he cleared his throat and gave each of the parrots a nod in greeting.

"Polly. Zazu. It's good to see you."

For once, the pair of parrots didn't give any crass mimicries in reply, instead contenting themselves with some warbling squawks as they flitted around John's head, corkscrewing and pinwheeling and flipping over with excitement.

Laughter made a daring escape from his belly, and he was too tired to stop it. It came out far too freely, sounding odd to his own ears. Not hollow, exactly, but containing a subtle brittleness. He swallowed it back, finding he disliked the sound. "Where are the others?" he asked.

In response, a dark shape emerged from the shadows below him. The crow rose up to his height with visible effort and came to hover in front of him, matching John's speed and trajectory. It didn't look back at him, choosing instead, it seemed, to take the lead.

There was a brief moment where he worried about how his system would react to him being led around, but decided it should be fine. He wasn't ceding overall leadership or anything, and he'd let others take the lead before.

Somewhere behind him, a light briefly sparkled. He looked back to find the dove bringing up the rear, white feathers pristine enough the bird looked almost holy. Its beady black eyes were fixed on him, animal emotions unreadable.

Reacting to the appearance of their other two party members, Polly and Zazu finally stopped fluttering around near his head, instead backing away to flank him on either side, completing the diamond-shaped escort formation.

Heart racing in a mixture of shock and relief, John took a moment to examine his avian comrades, and he had to hold back a wince at what he saw, both for the sake of Aura, and not wanting to offend then.

The signs of battle were everywhere. Singed or missing feathers, scratches and scars visible beneath their plumage, scrapes on their beaks and legs. But those were just the physical indicators. Worse was the look he could see in their eyes. Something fragile. Something dangerous.

It was hard to describe where he got that impression. Maybe it's just projection.

He was sure there was something similar in his own eyes.

An extra bit of guilt added itself to the already substantial weight around his neck. He hadn't thought about the birds much, if at all, since entering the portal world in the school. Now that he thought back, he was pretty sure they hadn't even joined them in there. Maybe they'd suspected betrayal, and hung back. Or perhaps it was simply a matter of trusting them to get the job done, and deciding to stand guard outside instead.

Either way, their fate hadn't crossed his mind in some time. He felt more than a little awful for that. Though they weren't human, they were creatures of Earth, and his comrades besides. Perhaps he couldn't bring himself to genuinely believe they were as intelligent as people, but they still had value, morally and practically.

There was so much he wanted to ask them, and things he wanted—no, needed to tell them about, but he could feel his eyelids drooping. Exhaustion was making him feel twice as heavy. The only part of 'his' body with any substantial energy were the magical wings sprouting from his back. The rest of him was practically drooping; he'd had to redirect the Shadow Stream to cover most of his body aside from his head, making it look like he was wearing a cloak made of oily darkness.

"You guys," he said. His voice was a little raspy. "I've had a long fuckin' day. There's a lot we need to talk about, I know, but first I need to sleep."

Without looking back at him, the crow altered its trajectory, banking hard to the left and starting to descend in a long spiral pattern. The other birds followed its movement with eerie coordination, and John had to move quickly to maintain his position in the formation without looking like he was scrambling about like a fool. He reckoned he just about managed it.

It was a struggle to pay attention to his surroundings. In terms of what he'd subjectively experienced since his last Rest, it didn't feel like it had been that long, and he'd used a couple of level ups for healing besides, so he was somewhat surprised at how quickly exhaustion was closing in on him.

He was vaguely aware of the greyish blob below they were descending towards, and it took far too much mental processing power to calculate their likely destination and realise it was within the boundaries of Watford.

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Part of him wanted to call out an objection. His plan had been to land somewhere outside the town where the monster waves wouldn't be able to disturb him while he was trying to Rest. Unfortunately, tiredness robbed him of his desire to argue the point. The birds could watch over him. It would be fine.

The comfort of that thought lasted until they were little more than a hundred feet off the ground and making the final loop of their descent, aiming for the car park of a two-story building close to the north-eastern outskirts of one of Watford's industrial districts.

Surrounded by sports fields, a play park, a hybrid tennis/basketball court, and a sign reading Meriden Community Centre in big yellow letters, the building itself was pretty ugly, with mostly brutalist architecture broken up only by a weird wooden trellis thing at one corner of the otherwise brown brick building. It looked pretty beaten up, as most buildings were these days. Broken windows, smashed doors, bloodstains. He took it all in at a glance, registering little of it.

The majority of his attention was on the two humans standing in the car park, watching his descent. Through his blurry vision, it took him way too long to recognise who they were.

It really shouldn't have, considering one of them was a hulking Adonis of a man wearing only a pair of swimming shorts that barely reached halfway down his thighs, and the other was wearing a chainmail shirt thing that almost reached her knees, paired with jeans and a motorcycle helmet. Blame it on his exhaustion making his eyes bleary.

John found mixed feelings at war within him as he swooped lower and lower. On the one hand, he was delighted to see his comrades still alive. Of course he was. Though they hadn't exactly grown super close in the time they'd known each other, he could say they hadn't treated him poorly, and he hadn't embarrassed himself as far as he knew, which was better than most of his human interactions. And there was something to be said for the tenuous bond formed from going into battle together and surviving. Knowing they were alive was one worry off his back.

Though, admittedly, seeing only two of them standing there dragged his heart up into his throat, making him feel like he was going to choke on the intensity of his pulse. There was no sign of Jade or Chester. Where were they?

But that worry was only one small faction among the conflicted emotions currently doing battle somewhere deep in his psyche. The bloc winning the war, he was ashamed to admit, was a coalition of multiple different emotions that were born from a selfish desire overwhelming his soul.

He really didn't want to deal with people right now. He didn't want to put on a 'cool' persona and act like everything that had happened wasn't bothering him in the slightest. All he wanted to do was activate his Rest Spell so he could finally stand in a place untouchable by the system's influence and let the world know just what he thought of all that had happened in the last few days.

But when did John ever get what he wanted?

A quick browse through the Outfits menu let him equip his sunglasses without having to physically put them on. Hopefully, that would hide his eyes well enough. His feet touched down on the ground, and he let his Draconing Wings fade away, swapping the Spell out for Biokinesis. Keeping Shadow Stream running in its current configuration, he set his dark cloak billowing around him, showing only his head as he moved forward, doing his best to keep his gait even and shoulders squared so it looked like he was gliding. Polly and Zazu landed on his shoulders, halfway sinking into the darkness. They made no sound, for once.

+800 Aura

Blinking the notification away disinterestedly, he approached Doug and Lily. He hadn't had much practice with Biokinesis yet, but it was fairly intuitive, perhaps owing to the First Aid aspect he'd shoved into it. Still, he started small, shoring up his throat, trying his best to ensure there were no embarrassing mishaps when he finally spoke.

"So you guys made it, huh?" he asked, aiming for casual. His voice came out pretty even, he reckoned. No sign of fatigue or distress, at least to his own ears.

Close up, he could see Lily's luminous green eyes looking him up and down beneath the visor of her motorcycle helmet. He didn't know what she expected to see, given his body was covered in the darkness of Shadow Stream. "Yeah, we all made it out. Jade and Chester are sleeping inside right now," she said softly.

Why was her voice so gentle? It made it hard for relief at the news to work its magic on his soul when she sounded like that.

"The birds saw you flying around," Doug said. His tone was much more even than Lily's, but there was still a delicateness to it, and he was staring at John with a strange intensity, no hint of his usual grin on his lips. "I came out to see it for myself, accidentally woke Lily up."

"You looked pretty badass up there. I like your new sword," Lily said, and though he couldn't see her lips, he could tell from the curve of her eyes she was smiling.

+400 Aura

And yet, John's stomach twisted a little at her comment. Surely they hadn't figured out the truth of his system?

"Every time I look away, you get a new ability, it feels like," Doug said, eyeing him. "And I looked away for quite a while, this time. Save a lot of people?"

John didn't know whether to be relieved at that comment. Did it mean they hadn't figured it out after all? His brain was too foggy, his thoughts oozing along like he was having to drag them through treacle. He considered trying to alter his brain and shock himself back to alertness with Biokinesis, but decided against doing anything so reckless when he was inexperienced with the Spell. Who knew what he could end up doing to himself by accident.

"We can catch up later, though," Doug said. His face had turned carefully blank, and there was a casualness to his voice John didn't like. "Come on in and get some rest, we've got some beds from a store of camping gear, and the birds will give us an early warning if any monsters come this way."

John blinked slowly. It was impossible to miss that Doug was treating him carefully, and he probably should've been more concerned about that. It meant his act wasn't landing. The man was seeing something in his demeanour, or hearing something in his voice. John didn't know what. He found he didn't want to know, right now. If he'd been seen through anyway, then fuck it. Whatever.

So all he said was, "Sure."

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