Leveling a final glare at the trio, Lucy stomped off. It was more than clear that they were not supposed to follow her.

  “Gonna be honest, that went a lot worse than I thought it would.” Emile said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.

  Liza turned on him, her mouth opening and closing, as you try to find the words to properly express just how stupid he was. “He just got kicked out of the district. What are you talking about? How are you making light of this right now?” She asked incredulously.

  “What? It's not like he doesn't have somewhere to go. Trinidad would probably welcome him with open arms. Besides, he's right next door to us. We can still go visit him. It's not that bad. At least she's not calling the College of Science down on him.” He said.

  “I can't believe you right now.” Liza said in a huff.

  “Hi, I am just as upset about this as you are. But you have to understand that there are worse outcomes to this than what we just went through. He hasn't even truly been kicked out of the district yet. We'll be out here in the swamp for another week or two. There's plenty of time during that for Lucy to change her mind or to feel a little bit better about him. Look at him he's charming.” Emil said, extending both arms out towards Ozzy in displaying motion.

  Liza frowned at Emile and looked at Ozzy dubiously, not entirely convinced.

  “I mean, just look what he did to Trinidad.” Emile offered.

  “That whole situation was pretty out there. You cannot apply that to any other relationship he has with anyone.” Liza argued.

  “I am very charming.” Ozzy offered, a little less than enthusiastically.

  Well, he didn't want to admit it. He saw the wisdom in what Lucy was doing. She was separating him, who was a known catalyst of conflict and danger from her home. While he might want to, he couldn't find any fault in her for that, had the roles been switched, chances were that he'd have done the same thing.

  “I'm just glad no one was around to hear that.” Ozzy muttered. “What now then? How do I even go about getting Lucy to let me stay in the district?”

  “Listen, Ozzy.” Emil said gingerly. “I know what you want is to stay here in the district. But do you think that maybe that might not be the best thing for you?” Emil asked. “Or even the best thing for the people in the Firelight District?”

  Liza opened her mouth to speak, a look of clear affront stricken across her face, but Emil held a hand up silencing her.

  “I said this to you before, but you're strong. Stronger than most of the people in this district, and you don't even have all of your shorts yet. You just barely got your last core filled up, and you're tangling with the biggest things that are getting thrown at us. I mean, sure you didn't kill it, but that serpent that came at Lucy before the Hydra showed up? You brained that thing. Lucy wasn't able to do that and she's tier 2. I get that your powers leave you vulnerable, but what you have to understand is that no one else around here is able to pick up one of their weapons and duke it out with something that's a tier and a half above them. Maybe what you need is to join the Watchers. Sure, Trinidad is a little weird, but she's got a place for you and room for you to grow.” He explained, having to speak over Liza more than once.

  “And what about us? He's a member of our household now. We can't just let them have him, we’re a team. He saved your life, you saved his. That means something, at least it means something to me.” Liza reasoned with him, pushing his silencing hand out of her face.

  “I'm not saying we kick him out. I'm saying maybe the Firelight District isn't right for him, and by extension, maybe us. I'm already getting stronger, sweetie. I mean, we've crossed that bridge. I never thought I would, and I'm on the track to filling out my course. Maybe we're outgrowing the district.” Emil said, and Liza looked equally offended at the suggestion they leave.

  “I can't believe you’re even saying that! This is our home, our friends are here! Staying is the only thing we can do. We convince Lucy. Ozzy stays with us. And then if it ever gets to the point where he's off doing who the hell knows what, fighting other gods and leading wars, he leaves. But that's years from now, he doesn't even have a second shard for his last core. We need to stay in our District, in our home, with our family. End of discussion.” She said, her voice trembling with emotion as she set her foot down firmly on the topic.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Look I appreciate the thoughts, I appreciate you guys looking out for me, willing to change, willing to stick up for me. But we can cross that bridge when we get there. Let's do what we came here to do. Let's have a great time hunting, getting stronger, training. We'll come back to this once it's time to. I mean, Lucy really has the final decision.” Ozzy said, more than anything just not wanting to think about the chance of losing another home.

  “Fine.” Liza said, not meeting the eyes of either of the men on the top deck. “I'm going back to the room.” She said before stomping off, leaving the two men to their devices.

  “I appreciate it man.” Ozzy said.

  “We're brothers, I go where you go.” He said, before turning back to watch Liza stomp off. “So long as she says it's okay.” He amended with a smile.

  “But what do you say we do something productive?” Emil asked.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  ***

  Ozzy had an overwhelming feel of nostalgia as they skimmed across the surface of the swamp. Ozzy, Emil, Lars, Myla, and Patrick, were packed into an albeit larger than the last dinghy Ozzy had been on, but a dinghy nonetheless.

  With nearly 90% Of the districts still on board the Swamp Train, they were free to go out and do a little bit of hunting on their own. This was great news because not only would they be able to have access to the first spoils and the easiest hunts of the area but they would be able to get a prime lay of the land.

  This is important for hunting in the swamp Emil had explained to him because they would be able to understand the current movements of the animals and monsters around them, and not just that, but be able to better track them. Since most monsters in the swamp were constructs given form by some of the gods of the below, they moved about in certain patterns. Juveniles would stay around the areas they were spawned. Adolescent monsters would begin moving around and hunting, creating a bit of territory for themselves and protecting it with ferocious efficiency. Then, as they grew into adulthood, they would move on and head towards the Murk.

  All of that had been explained to him as a gross simplification of the habits and life cycles of the different monsters. Though for about 90% of the creatures that were around the swamp, it was accurate. The main prey they were looking for were adult monsters. Not only because they were the most dangerous, and killing them before they got to the Murk would lower the load that the elite hunters and reinforcements on the Murk convoys would have to deal with, but also because they garnered the best loot.

  They had explained that the chances a juvenile sting crab would drop something like a shard or a core were slim to none. An adolescent might. It was rare, but something like 1 in 6 kills might find you a shard. Maybe 1 in 20 and you would find a core. Adults moved in packs, however. Which made the 1:3 odds of finding a shard nearly guaranteed.

  A pack of adult sting crabs could travel in a pack of up to ten. Which for their small group would be disastrous and a probably life-ending encounter, but if they were able to get away and bring in a larger group of hunters, then they could expect to get at least two shards and potentially even a core.

  As the group who'd found the theoretical pack of Sting Crabs, that would grant them priority access to the loot. Putting them head and shoulders above the rest of the hunters who had been lazing about on the Swamp Train. So it was common for groups to leave early and act as spotters for the swamp train. Granting themselves the greatest pick, but also granting themselves the greatest chance at getting something that they might actually be able to use.

  Patrick had explained the system for sharing loot to Ozzy, and it favored the younger core-users by a huge margin. If a Newbie so much as sneezed on the group of spotters and they came back with a core that was compatible with the direction of that newbie’s powers, and they were all but guaranteed to receive it.

  In the Firelight district, newbies were classified as people who had less than half of their core abilities unlocked. Which, funnily enough, put Emil in the same camp as him. Though no one in the district really considered him as such. A strain of thinking that might be changing, however, as Emile began to search out different powers for himself. As it turned out, Emil was most interested in following in the footsteps of someone like Lars. While he did have great ranged options, existing in the same party as Ozzy meant that they would always be overshadowed. So instead, he was opting to move into more of a brawler/tank role: leaning heavily into the themes granted him by his Wortle core.

  Ozzy, on the other hand, wasn't quite sure what he wanted. So far, his powers had lent themselves to granting him incredible damage, recovery, and range, while also making him just about as vulnerable as he could be. His rat core even leaned into this, lowering his mass and giving him a healing ability, which was as dangerous to use in combat as it was to remain injured.

  Truthfully, he was leaning more towards utility powers. Interested in potentially a looting power or something that would allow him greater movement or even stealth. During his time in the military, Stealth had never been much of their MO. Sure, they were all for keeping a low profile, but when you were going through a town looking differently from everyone and driving a Hummer that was nearly three times as heavy as the average vehicle on the roads, you were bound to get noticed.

  More than anything, he'd hated how exposed it had always made him feel. An ability he thought would be super cool was something like shadow jumping or teleporting. After all, what could be more useful and unique than that? He seriously doubted there was anyone else who had a shadow jumping ability. It would basically be like cheating when it came to close quarters fights, one second, he'd be in front of them barely holding off his enemies attacks, and then the next, jumping out of their shadow behind them. A palm on the back of their head, and boom. Goodbye brainstem.