It was a good thing Charles knew most of those locations already. He had been the one to create the towns at each of them, after all, with the obvious exception of the non-associated ones inside the god’s kingdoms.

Cassy stared down at the world she had come to love and felt anger like she had never felt before welling up inside her. She had never particularly hated Dantanian before this moment. She had been annoyed with him for sure, there had been some fear when he went too far, and disgust for his actions; she even pitied him to an extent. Despite all of that and more, she had never hated him. A small part of her had always remembered the small boy who was her friend.

Now he had ruined that.

Something inside him had changed. What he was doing now was beyond anything she had expected. It drove home just how far he was willing to go to obtain someone who didn’t even want him.

“I don’t think I should be down there with you all, not right now, at least. If he sees me, it could drive him to do something completely insane.” She muttered, one hand covering her mouth, while the other clung to her husband’s arm.

“I hate to say it, but you’re probably right, mom.” Charlotte agreed.

“Is the space station even safe for her, then?” Kira wondered, glancing back at their family gathered around them.

“Where would you suggest she go then?” Scott demanded; he was going to be staying up on the station with everyone else. Without the use of their inventories, his alchemist class couldn’t even fight.

“The tower,” Beth suggested, holding tight to Kate. “She could go inside the tower and be with her parents and Gaia. Surely that would help to keep her safe from him, right?”

“That’s assuming she can even get inside the tower right now.” Charles glanced at his mother. “What do you think, mom? It might be the safest place for you right now. We’ll need your help when we go up against him, but until then, we’ll just be dealing with all these distractions he’s set up for us.”

“Distractions. That’s a good way to describe what he is doing.” Cassy nodded. “Fine, let’s go with that. I’ll take care of making a portal to mom and dad. You just worry about saving each of those towns.”

It was a tall order; they weren’t attacking every town that could see, but the number was still over forty. Not to mention with the system down, they couldn’t tell which ones were in the direst need of help. There were no messages coming through the town system at all. Then there was the limited number of available ‘Zero Door’ spells Charles could use. They hadn’t even started and already things were looking grim.

All they could do was try their best and hope that was enough.

“Alright, everyone who is coming down with us, begin memorizing which towns are being attacked. Maybe we can do this in groups. Go to one and then run and fly to the next closest one.”

Kate and Beth were lucky to have been inside the space station’s dungeon when everything went down. It was the only reason Beth had her weapon out and the two were coming down with them. Inara was naturally always ready, but she wouldn’t have left their side otherwise.

Sierra was coming down as well, but only in a support role. Her bow was currently locked inside her inventory.

Charlotte was the last member of their eight-person party.

Everyone else would be staying up on the station where they would hopefully be safe. Who knew what Dantanian had up his sleeve?

The barriers that protected the towns were strong, but they also depended on the taxed mana to maintain their function. The towns would fall eventually if the people inside weren’t careful.

Myriam gave them each a hug, including Cassy, before reluctantly stepping back to Kory and Krystal’s side. She was slowly warming up to Steve and Cassy, but it was clear they had an uphill battle before the little girl accepted them as grandparents.

Silvi shifted forms to her Alli-self and then took up position beside Charles.

Everyone said their goodbyes, and Charles opened a doorway down to Dungeonville. They had been able to see that the town was also one of the ones being attacked and had decided to start there.

Right away, it was clear they had chosen the wrong town to start with. Dungeonville had been attacked enough times that its older inhabitants knew exactly what to do. Older, being a relative term in the case of a town that had only existed for around three months.

They had everything under control for the most part and were even using the occasion as a training exercise for the newbies.

Ray was standing on top of the walls beside the rest of the defenders, a heavy hammer at his feet. Donna was at his side, her newly remade dragon scale pugilist gloves hanging from her waist. They couldn’t fight from a distance, but the two could certainly help keep everyone’s spirit up.

“It looks like the only thing attacking here is regular monsters, no fallen gods or anything we should be concerned about,” Sierra informed them after a moment.

“Let’s move on to the next site, then. I’ll help them out a little as we leave.” Charles decided already heading for the gate. He and Charlotte could go up directly through the barrier. However, the same couldn’t be said for Alli and Inara, not to mention whoever they were carrying.

Exiting through the gate was a slight bit of a risk, as it would need to be opened unless they all felt like just climbing over it. Not that any of them were particularly worried. Even with their reduced power, Charles and Charlotte were still a force to be reckoned with. That was discounting the rest of the group as well, which would be a very bad idea.

Regardless, a few minutes later, they were all outside the town and ready to move on. Kira was strapped to Charles with the harness, while Sierra was on Alli’s back. Kate and Beth were on Inara, who had mentioned she was used to carrying them both. Only Charlotte didn’t have a companion to keep her company.

Charles took to the air and rained down some lightning on the monsters around the town. It wasn’t enough to kill them all, but it gave them some more breathing room. The channels in his right arm had been completely healed with Charlotte’s help after she had finished using the potion. It had taken another two uses for her until she felt completely fine.

By then his arm was already nearly back to working condition, but she had still given him the potion, regardless.

The group headed towards their next destination, the town of Columbia in Missouri. It had been a marker town that had come as somewhat of a surprise to everyone. The city had been utterly demolished beforehand, and no one thought people were living there. That is until one of the rescue groups came back with word of it for him.

Now it looked like something was bent on destroying it again.

The silence was oppressive as they moved as quickly as they could without leaving the slowest members behind. In this case, the slowest members were Inara. Alli could slip through shadows at extreme speed and easily keep up with the speed of those flying. However, Inara was limited to the speed her paws could take her.

“This isn’t going to work, not at this rate. We’re moving too slowly.” Kira muttered.

“Yeah, but how are we supposed to get them to move faster?”

“I guess she can always just pull them through with her?” He suggested. It was something Alli did during fights, and it worked well, though it did take a bit more energy to pull off.

He swooped down and stopped beside Alli. “Do you think you can pull Inara and the girls with you through the shadows? Or will it take too much energy?”

“I should be able to manage it. Long hops are easier to maintain and less energy intensive. The short ones are the worse.” She projected to them.

“Let’s do that then. We’ll meet you there.” He jumped back into the sky with a flap of his large wings, leaving a confused-looking trio of girls behind.

“Are we good?” Charlotte asked as he and Kira rejoined her in the air.

“Yeah, but we can pick up speed now. Alli is going to pull Inara and the girls through the shadows with her. So, they won’t be far behind.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun for them.”

Kira snorted. “Kate and Beth have done it before, and I don’t believe they liked it. Not that I can blame them. It was somewhat unsettling the first few times I did it myself.”

Below them, Alli vanished into the shadows, with everyone else already in tow.

“Well, come on, she’s going to get ahead of us at this rate!” Charles joked, putting on a burst of speed. He had no idea exactly how fast Alli could travel in that state, only that it was fast. He wouldn’t be surprised to find the five already there and fighting when they arrived.

Charlotte caught up with him a few moments later and together they sped towards their destination.

They arrived to find the town under siege by a fallen god and a horde of monsters. Unfortunately, there was no Alli or the rest to back them up. Even after waiting a few minutes, they never showed up.

The only explanation was that something had gone wrong along the way.

Charles quickly checked on all of their threads and his connection to Alli. “I’m not sure what happened, but they are alive. Alli seems confused herself. The impression I’m getting from her is that even she doesn’t know what happened.”

“Great!” Kira threw her hands out to the side and began to tremble with rage. “Take us down. I need to hit something a lot. Then we are going to find them and hurt whatever kept them from joining us.”

“Yeah, I’m good with that.” Charles hurried to comply. More than a little scared himself at that moment.