Chester and Lily woke up only a little while after Jade, having had about six hours of sleep each. They looked remarkably refreshed from what was ostensibly a too-short rest. With how exhausted they'd seemed beforehand, John had been expecting them to sleep half the day away. None of them had a Rest ability, so he could only assume it came down to their systems and the points it had given them to assign to stats.

They didn't immediately jump into planning or anything. The house they'd stopped to rest in still had running water and electricity, so they took turns showering—John was glad he hadn't been deducted any Aura for not thinking of that, instead walking around still covered in grime for the last six hours—and scrounging up what breakfast they could. The former occupants of the place hadn't exactly kept their kitchen full, but there was bread, butter, coffee, and a functioning kettle and toaster.

Half an hour later found them all back in the living room, somewhat refreshed. John's heart was in his throat, and he had his hands stuffed in his pockets so he wouldn't fidget with them. He managed to slouch in the seat in a way that mostly hid the tension in his posture. Hopefully, his turning stomach wasn't making his face pale. Even then, with all that free time in the shower and eating breakfast to psyche himself up, building up to this moment, he almost let himself chicken out and allow the conversation to proceed on someone else's terms.

Man, I so don't want to do this. Why can't I just go out and fight monsters and forget all this optimal Aura bollocks?

Letting his shades fall over his eyes, he closed his eyes, took a breath, then spoke, "You guys need to get stronger."

Every atom of his being tensed in discomfort as three pairs of eyes fell on him.

"Power is the most important thing in the world, and that's even more true now," he said, following the little script he'd laid out for himself, hoping it would sound cool.

+400 Aura

The sheer surprise he experienced at that moment was so overwhelming that, paradoxically, he was left with no capacity to react to it. Otherwise, he was sure his eyes would've been wide as dinner plates, and his mouth would be flopping open like a fish out of water.

400 Aura just for that? Why, when I only got 200 for that comment to Jade earlier? Was what I just said cooler, or was it because more people heard it?

Encouraged, John continued, "Those monsters out there want nothing more than to see you dead. They hate you. They deny your very existence, and they want to see it come to an end as painfully as possible, just as they've done to probably millions of people around the world already. Hell, maybe that number's even in the billions." Behind his sunglasses, he forced himself to meet their stares one by one. They wouldn't be able to see he was doing it, but it was a step forward for him, buoying his confidence. "I'm going to assume none of you want to die?"

Three positive responses answered him: Jade nodded her head angrily, Lily whispered a near-silent "I have to live", and Chester's bottom lip trembled.

"Good," John said. It would have been incredibly awkward if any of them had revealed they were giving up. He'd no idea how he would've proceeded from there. "Then it's imperative that you train up your abilities in whatever way your system wants you to. The only way to beat these monsters is to be stronger than them."

That wasn't precisely true, considering some of the tactics he'd deployed in his monster-killing career so far, but it sounded cooler. Case in point:

+400 Aura

"And we are going to beat them. 'We' meaning humanity, and 'them' being the monsters." John held back a grimace at that awkward little correction. Completely unnecessary, you idiot. Of course they're going to understand that 'we' means humanity, for fuck's sake. He stood up and soldiered on as if it hadn't happened, "They think they can just wipe us out with no resistance, well it's not going to work. I don't know where it came from, but we all have the power to fight back, and we're going to make use of it. They're not going to wipe us out and steal our planet for themselves. I won't allow it."

+400 Aura

Ahhhh this is so cringe.

But the gains were undeniable.

They were all staring at him with wide eyes, now. It was Jade who broke the silence, "You gonna tell us how you got so much stronger, then?"

"Grinding," he said. It was the truth, though it evaded what she was actually asking, a bit. "So far, you've been focused on escaping, surviving. That has to change."

This part felt particularly hypocritical, considering he'd been doing the exact same thing. Hopefully, the Aura system wouldn't pick up on that and punish him for being all sanctimonious; he hadn't actually stated that he'd been doing anything different, after all.

"Your primary focus has to be on killing monsters, searching for the method that wins you the most points with your system," he continued. "Which has the added benefit of contributing to the necessary cause of purging these ugly bastards from our planet."

+400 Aura

"You really think that's possible?" Chester asked, voice subdued but with the slightest spark of hope in it.

"We'll make it possible," John said, immediately having to turn away and hide a wince at the cheesiness of that line.

Lily's eyes were distant. "I don't know what I can do. It's—" She seemed to choke on her words, then chuckled under her breath. "It feels like this system thing rewards me for fighting in the last goddamn way I want."

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You think I want to be in here, giving a speech to you guys? All I want to do is run out the door and never look back!

He couldn't say any of that, though. Even without the Aura system looming over his shoulder, saying something so direct and confrontational on purpose was far beyond him. "You have to," he said instead. "It's for survival. Everyone's survival. There's no other choice. Maybe there's some super martial artist out there who can fight the monsters without any superpowers. And I guess there's probably some army guys mounting a counterattack. But that isn't us."

"There was a lot of gunfire earlier on," Lily pointed out. "It's mostly stopped now, though."

John nodded, feeling a little sick at that realisation. When everything had first started, London had been plunged into an endless cacophony of noise. Explosions had been constantly going off. There had been, as Jade said, gunfire, too. Mingling with screams and shouts and roaring engines and sirens and myriad other sounds, it had all blended together into one thunderous din that seemed like it would go on forever.

Now, it was largely quiet outside. Any loud sounds came every few seconds, and there were long stretches of total, absolute silence.

It was eerie. London wasn't supposed to sound like that. It was a place of constant hustle and bustle, with the din of city life ever present even out in the suburbs.

"Maybe a spell will make them more viable," John said, putting all that out of his mind.

"No way I'm using a gun," Lily said, voice suddenly trembling. "It's bad enough using that bloody crossbow."

John didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't. They were straying, but he was still able to keep to his plan, somewhat. "The point is, you all need to grow the power your system gives you. As do I. That means we need to go on the offensive, to actively go after the monsters and wipe them out."

"How do we do that?" Jade asked. "You seemed to always know where they were, and you talked about seeing their souls so you could tell how strong they are, but we don't have anything like that."

John managed to twist his lips into what he hoped was a smirk. "Good thing I'm still here then, isn't it?"

+400 Aura

~~~

They took some time to stock up on supplies from the house they'd stayed in, as well as its neighbours. John already had plenty from his earlier scavenging, so he only picked up a few things here and there, like a new toothbrush that was still in its wrapping, some clothes to replace everything that had been torn up in the Underworld aside from his badass red leather jacket, any bits of food that would keep well, and so on.

With his social battery thoroughly spent, he allowed himself to fade into the background, feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. Gaining 1000 Aura from a relatively simple conversation lifted his confidence to new heights, but there was only so much talking he could bring himself to do, and now that it wasn't necessary anymore, he was happy to let the others chat among themselves, following them with the security that they thought he was a mysterious badass rather than an awkward tag-along.

It was a heady feeling, triumph. He hadn't experienced it often in his life, but it was always intoxicating. Admittedly, it was offset a bit by the knowledge that he'd approached that entire conversation with considerable forethought, and things could still go pear-shaped if a tête-à-tête got sprung on him with no warning.

But that was a problem for future John to face. For now, he could revel in this small victory and proceed with a bit of self-belief. Anxiety still tickled at the back of his mind, whispering dire possibilities while citing past experience as evidence, but as long as he told himself he could lean on his persona and the skills the Aura had granted him, he'd be able to get through it.

He could stick with these people for the moment, using their presence to massively increase his Aura accumulation. And if it did go wrong, he could just… leave. There were surely more people out there who he could con into thinking he was much cooler than he actually was. Losing this connection wouldn't be the end of the world, when inevitably—if it did eventually happen.

There ended up being another aspect to his victory here that he hadn't anticipated. He was learning a lot about the situation without having to find a way to ask that didn't diminish his standing, because the other three had apparently gathered enough strength from his encouragements to discuss all that had gone on.

"No, I definitely saw something like that before," Chester said. They were in another house on the same street, rifling through the kitchen cupboards for feed that would travel well. Everyone had re-equipped their gear. "It was at the back of the gym, just before everything kicked off. It was like a yellow laser beam blocked off the door to the gym's changing room. We thought maybe management put it there to stop anyone from trying to go in, so we went up to the reception to ask. Never got the chance, though, because monsters showed up and started killing everyone. They were green ogre things like Shrek, but huge, muscly. And naked. Ripped people apart with their bare hands." He paused, took a shaky breath, swallowed. "Looking back at it, that must have been another portal, right? Like the ones to the Underworld. Maybe the monsters came from there."

"Remember the rats on the train back there?" Lily said, looking up from the fridge. "There weren't no other types of monsters already down there, unless my memory's fuzzy. All the other types were the ones that chased us from up top."

"And they were all blues, according to John," Jade said with a nod. She was carefully inspecting medicine in one of the cupboards. "So these portals maybe contain only a certain type of monster relating to their colour, and they only allow in other monsters of that colour, too, ya reckon?"

Lily looked thoughtful. "Sounds right, doesn't it? I dunno how that squares away with the Underworld, specifically, what with the implication that there were stations on the line that led to other, more dangerous lines."

"I think I got mixed feelings on that one," Jade murmured. "Don't get me wrong, I agree with John's decision to get the fuck out of there before findin' out it was the worst case scenario. But lines on the real Underground don't connect straight to each other, do they? I'm thinking we technically could've stayed on the train and kept going without ever meeting the higher power monsters. Not that that would've benefitted us much, since there would've been plenty of other trains with rat monsters, probably."

"We would've been fucked anyway if we stayed," Chester said.

Jade nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I'm just wondering how this shit all works. The portal at your gym looked nothing like the Underworld entrances, right?"

"It just hung over a normal doorway," Chester confirmed.

"So we can figure it's pretty unlikely it would've led to another Underground station," Jade surmised.

"You think there are portals that lead to different places?" Lily asked.

"Seems likely, doesn't it? No way of guessing what'd actually be on the other side, except for monsters that match the portal colour, I guess. Figure it'd be some fucked up facsimile of the real world, though, if that Underworld shite's gonna set the theme."

"And that's where the monsters all came from. It's why it felt like they just showed up out of nowhere," Chester said, sounding distressed. "But where do the portals come from? Can they just appear anywhere?"

Jade grimaced at him. "Fuck knows, laddie," she said. Then she turned to John. "Guess we're gonna have to find out, eh?"

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