"Honestly, I'm surprised there wasn't more resistance. I was expecting heavier weapons at least," I said as Pryte and I took seats in the most comfortable room we had found so far. It looked like someone's private office, but it was big enough to work for the purposes I had in mind, and I figured it was just another show of power to have stolen some bigwig's personal room.

"I don't know enough about the weapons on this planet to give you a good answer, but I assume firing more powerful ammunition in an enclosed space might cause some issues for their own men," Pryte replied.

"Oh yeah, true, and they still wouldn't have done much to the shields, I suppose. Guess they hadn't really been counting on me being tired of them already," I said. Even if I wasn't entirely sure my shields would have held, I figured they were spying on the room, and I'd rather let them think I believed their weapons were useless.

I wasn't usually this good at bluster, but considering the underlying anger that I felt for the GPA, it was easy enough to keep up the guise. I held no fear in the idea of facing off with them. But I felt a need to control myself from going too far, and getting to play the smug asshole in dealing with them was doing wonders to tamper down the rage.

"I wonder if they are stupid enough to try to take the gate to Alexandria while we are waiting." Despite his words, Pryte didn't at all look worried about the possibility, and he was right not to be. I had left Alpha behind just in case something like that did happen.

"If they want to make that level of a mistake, I welcome them to try," I replied, still sure we were being spied on. I suspected had Connie been here, she'd have judged my acting skills poorly, but this was almost a fun distraction in the sea of shit that we had recently dealt with, and I was going to try to enjoy that instead of letting the anger win.

We spent the rest of the wait discussing some of the fights we had won in the Arena, making sure to go into detail about the level of magic others in the squad were capable of. If I were going to make this a threat of power, I may as well go all out. Just as I was getting to the Mel's single blow ending attack, the door finally opened.

"So, you made a pretty big scene just to see me," Roberts said as he walked in, closing the door behind him.

"We did ask for some pacemakers as well. Any news on those?" I asked, as Pryte snapped his fingers next to me.

A weird static hum blanketed the room following his snap. The lights dimmed briefly for a second, and a loud latching sound came from both the door and the window. That was new. What had he done?

"I figured we might want a private conversation with no chance of interruptions," Pryte said without further elaborating. I could pick out a few of the mana threads, but I couldn't tell if it was a spell or something else.

Roberts dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his temples before finally speaking. "What exactly did you want to speak to me about, because with this stunt, I promise the GPA isn't going to just let things go back to normal. I don't think you understand how much they wanted to cut off their relationship with you already."

The man looked like he had aged ten years recently. How much pressure were they putting on him? All the more reason for what I was about to offer, because as many problems as we may have had in the past, I actually believed he cared about people far more than the new alliance did.

"If it wasn't obvious, we are done with them. They've made at least one play against me, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was two. And to be clear, if I had any proof they were involved in the second thing, I'd be ripping this place apart until there was no GPA left. But I don't want to do that," I answered.

"What the hell happened?" the former president asked, giving me a very serious look.

"We were attacked. My grandson was taken."

"Damn. I know I'm sorry isn't enough here, but I don't have any better words." Roberts looked serious, another reason I could appreciate the man. He was the rare sincere politician.

"That means more than you realize, and the fact that I knew you'd feel that way is part of the other reason I'm here. Come work for us." I looked directly in the man's eyes as I made the offer, curious about his reaction. It wasn't a small choice I had just offered him. This was something that would fundamentally alter his life going forward, for better or worse.

"What's the catch? We didn't exactly get off to a good start when we first met, so I find it hard to believe there's no strings attached." His eyes narrowed as he met my own appraising gaze. It was a fair question.

"I want your expertise. As good as Pryte is at the political game, he's not a native of Earth. He doesn't have connections. And I'll never be the kind of man you are, emperor or not. I'm tired of fighting with the GPA for anything. I want all the scientists who want to come to the city, and I want them as soon as possible. Getting your help seems like the best way to do that."

The trickle of scientists that had been allowed in so far, while extremely helpful, especially the two who had helped Karlinovo with saving the city, just wasn't weren't enough. There were tons of fields we could be working on, given enough manpower and expertise. And while initially we had seemed poised to get that, once the GPA took over, that flow had dramatically slowed.

"Ah, now I see why you didn't want us overheard. You want a list of scientists, engineers, and specialists to go along with me. Look, Dave, I don't dislike you exactly. In fact, of the people that could have ended up in charge, you're probably one of the better-case scenarios we could have ended up with. But I need a promise if we are going this route," Roberts replied, a serious look crossing his face.

"I don't know what I have that I can promise here, but what do you want?"

"No dictators. I understand, at least in name, you are the emperor, but that doesn't mean it has to be a true single source of power. There are plenty of constitutional monarchies that do exactly that. People have the right to govern themselves."

"Done. I don't even want to be emperor. The fact that we haven't just taken over the world stems entirely from that. I'll rule the Empire of Dave only in the sense that it seems to be required that someone sits at the top for Spiral interaction, but I do not want to be making decisions for the lives of the people that live within the empire. I want them to do that for themselves."

I was considering going so far as to bring Roberts in on the issue of the deepscales once we returned, well, maybe not immediately, but eventually. At the very least, it was probably best he met our jester captive. Hell, I haven't even done that yet. I also didn't know where Timon was keeping him, so that was something else to check on when I returned.

"Then I think I can agree to join you. We need to head back to my office and collect my folders there."

"Wait, why do you have folders? You were already planning on jumping ship here, weren't you?" Pryte asked, cutting into the conversation.

"I was strongly considering it. Things have been getting more and more tenuous. But it's probably best I explain once we are back at Alexandria," he answered.

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What the hell had been happening in the world? Considering how divorced I was from geopolitics at this point, it was possible it could have been anything. But if Roberts had already been considering running, it seemed like something significant had to have changed.

A chat window popped into view, distracting me from my thoughts.

Karlinovo: Along with pacemakers, if it's possible, we need people who are experts on biotechnology.

Dave: Why the sudden need?

Karlinovo: Because I think I understand how the soul knots work now, and if we can get some detailed scans of them, it should help us in the future. Plus, I have some theories on dungeon energy and local animal life that they could probably help with.

Dave: Okay, I'll do what I can.

"Ivan has requested that we add biotechnology experts to the list of those we need. So let's go get our pacemakers, everything you need, and get back. I think we are about to go on a recruitment drive," I said after closing the window.

"Probably…" Roberts started to stay before a loud explosion rocked the room. There was a black mark on the door where something had impacted it. Surprisingly, it neither destroyed or opened the door. Whatever Pryte had used to seal us in had proved surprisingly potent.

I sighed. "So they were just buying time to get heavier ordinance, it looks like," I said, trying to keep myself calm. I was only a little surprised they had made the attack, and all of that surprise came from the fact that they were willing to kill the former president so easily.

"Took longer than I expected to be honest. Put a shield around Roberts and let's get his things before we head out." Pryte stood up and walked to the door as he spoke, examining the black spot once he reached it.

I released Gamma from my System storage as I also stood up. "Keep it non-lethal, but I want you to head through the base, making a point about everything they've done. Destroy all their equipment. Electrical charges through any tech you see should be enough to fry any computers. I have to assume they aren't giving us the pacemakers at this point, so we will need to grab them ourselves from somewhere else."

"I'm not sure I entirely approve, but I understand the need, I suppose," the former president said.

"Do you wish me to meet you back at the gate or just return to your storage before you leave?" There was an excitement in the words of Gamma's question.

I could entirely understand how they felt. Getting to cut loose was fun, and this was the first time I had trusted them to this level. But considering they had taken Corey's place for the trip to the archives without incident, I had full faith that they were past any sort of megalomania phase.

"I'll let you know, once I know," I answered.

Walking toward Pryte to join him at the damaged door, I placed a shield around Roberts and Gamma. I further reinforced all of our shields with soul energy, as whatever they had used on the door worried me just a bit. I hoped I would only need to defend against a few attacks before they decided it was a fruitless attempt, but I had no idea how determined they were or how much info they had been fed about shield capabilities by whoever was behind them registering for the competition.

Then again, considering my understanding of how mana and class orbs worked, would it even be possible to feed someone accurate information about them? Unless they slotted my exact orbs to examine them, or used some other ability to scan them while already socketed, they wouldn't know just how mine had developed. They especially wouldn't know about any special pathways that had been created from being exposed to my rather unique core.

It was entirely possible I was a walking mystery box to anyone we fought. That alone could explain some of the increased attention we seemed to attract, beyond just Sanquar. It still didn't fully explain why anyone cared enough to ally with the GPA. It just didn't seem like a viable long-term solution to me.

"Ready?" I asked, looking toward Roberts as I pushed the other distracting thoughts away for the moment. I knew Pryte and Gamma were as prepared as they could be.

"I guess," he replied, not sounding overly happy with this. I couldn't blame him. We were about to cause another dramatic shift in his life.

The moment I swung the door open, I was hit with a barrage of several large blasts. Based on the amount of force thrown against the shield, I had to assume they had broken out the anti-tank rounds. From the other side of the door, I also got a much better idea of what they had done to try to get inside. It looked like some sort of shaped charged had been used. The damage to the hall was significant, and the newest attack had just added to it.

Another explosive round hit the shield, draining off more of my mana. I stepped into the hall, turned toward the men firing at me, and looked each of them directly in the eyes for a split second, doing my best to look unbothered by the attack. In truth, I could probably only take another thirty or so before my core started to drain much faster than it filled. I had no idea if they had enough ammo for that, but I also had no intention of finding out.

Gamma flew past me just as I slammed our attackers into the ceiling. As the compass zoomed down the hall, several arcs of electricity hit their weapons, causing significant damage to them. Good, Gamma was trying to stay nonlethal.

Quickly giving the men a smile, I turned back to the other two and spoke. "Alright, which way to your office?"

"Hopefully they aren't about to bomb the building," Roberts said as he led us through the corridors.

Every so often, I was forced to knock another attacked away with a small burst of magic. I was using as little mana as I felt I safely could. We didn't have the benefit of an Orc army causing chaos to keep us safe. So if the GPA managed to get enough men here fast enough, this could easily turn into a fight I didn't want.

"Is there a real chance of that? They'd kill their own men?" I asked, worried at the thought.

"I don't know. This is part of why I was already considering getting the hell out. The people in charge don't seem exactly sane anymore. The old alliance cared about making sure the people were taken care of as we tried to rebuild the planet. The GPA just seems to want power."

That further convinced me the GPA hadn't sprung up on its own. We were going to have to figure out exactly what the outside influence wanted. But first, we needed to get out of this building and fill Timon in on everything we had learned.

"Here," Roberts said, stopping in front of a door. He attempted to scan a keycard, resulting in a beep and a red light. "Damn, already locked out. I'm a little surprised they bothered considering they've seen what you two are capable of."

"Probably just an automated security measure. With the number of explosions going off in this place, they are likely all being triggered at this point." As I said this, I gripped the door handle and yanked as hard as I could. I had shown off my direct magic enough already. It was time to give them an idea of where my physical strength was at these days.

The handle ripped off into my hand, and I followed that up with a hard kick to the door. The whole frame cracked. I gave it a second kick, and the door flew inward, having entirely broken free from its hinges. That should give whoever was watching a nice show.

"Those are a lot of binders. Do you want them all?" I asked as I looked over the room. One whole wall was covered in bookcases, with at least a couple of hundred large binders lining the shelves. That was a level of meticulousness I could be impressed by. I was sure the former librarians would feel the same.

"As many as we can take. Are you able to put it all into whatever it is that you can use to hold things?" he asked.

I could. Though now that I thought about it, I never really had figured out what the limitation in space there was. I knew it existed. People had mentioned expanding it in passing before. I made a note to look into that when I had some free time. It was probably best not to run into a lack of space when I needed it.

"Yes," I answered as I started gathering it all up. More explosions boomed through the building as I did.

"Sounds like Gamma is enjoying themselves," Pryte said, his tone giving away how jealous he was.

"Likely, but I want to get out of here before the GPA decides to do anything truly idiotic. Is there anything else we need, Roberts?" While it was likely he preferred to be called by his first name, I was only reasonably sure it was Stephen, and I figured it was best not to get that wrong while he was giving up his current life to join us.

"No, let's go," he answered.

While we made our way back to the gate, I sent Corey a message telling them to meet us there.

"That looks like a problem," Pryte said as we reached what used to be the room holding the gate.

"Dammit, I didn't think they'd go that far!" The anger flared as I saw charred remains of the room. How powerful a blast had they used to completely destroy the gate? How had I been stupid enough not to realize they'd try it?

They never expect you to dance.

The Lesser Used Tactical Options by Sir Lemsworth Fenil

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