Scorching Ascension - 2.49: Rebuilding

A.N: Pretty cliffy ending... sorry. It's prolly better that it gets its own chapter rather than be the end of this one, I think.

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As he left the cold and humid cloud behind and as New Dawn came into view, Ethan’s flight almost stuttered as he took in the sights below. For a moment, he thought he had his landmarks wrong, and that the brightly lit town below couldn’t be the same one he had left a few hours ago. But as the ground grew closer and as he realized what was happening, it all made sense.

He just hadn’t expected it.

The main thoroughfare was lit up by a bright row of street lights, making the artery look like an airstrip, and up and down the stretch, a few constructions sites were being tended to. Some groups were on demolition and clearing duty, bringing down whatever was too flimsy or damaged and piling up the debris in carts and when they were done, another group would come in to flatten out the ground and prep it before a new building could be raised. Through the settlement, multiple spots were showing different stages of these processes but when the work was done, Amanda would show up with a small posse and a new building would materialize out of magic and fragments, standing higher and taller than whatever had been in its place.

The one she just raised was a three story wooden construction with clay tiles and as soon as it was up, Amanda moved on to another site while her people went inside. To inspect the construction, he assumed.

We must have unlocked some new building types, Ethan thought as he eyed some of the new structure that had sprang up since he had left. He had been gone for only a couple of hours but already, most traces of the fires were gone, and while the park still showed the scars from the fight against melee fighter, most of the damage was being wiped by the minute by a couple of earth-magic specialists.

A smile tugged on his lips. In a couple of days, he’d bet the town would be unrecognizable.

A few shouts reached his ears as he approached the ground and by the time his feet hit the new grass that surrounded the pylon, everyone had stopped what they were doing. Ethan peered about, slightly unnerved by all the attention on him. He even picked up a few of the faces he had carried in earlier. The people he’d brought from what remained of the Brotherhood. He saw a few nods here and there, and then the clamor and shouts came back as people focused back on their work. As if they weren't in the middle of the night, and through the crowd, he picked up a familiar face making her way toward him.

Amanda called out a couple of instructions to the workers as walked toward him. Her eyes were sharp as always, but there was no denying the effort she was making to keep them open. The dust and soot were gone from her face, and she had her hair tied back and her shirt sleeves rolled and in no time, she was in front of him, a tired but proud smile on her face. “I told them to keep working and not make a scene when you get here,” she said. She was rubbing the back of her neck as she glanced about, and as if her brain realized she’d been idle, a yawn came over her which she covered before she shuddered. “Sorry about that. How was it? I already got a message from a certain Sarah Brightwood saying that you told her to get in touch, but I wanted your input before I got started on that front.”

Images from his stop at the Union’s capital flashed in his mind, and immediately, he cringed a little. Now that he had cooled off a bit, he felt that maybe he’d gone a little overboard there. Still, he nodded. “She’ll be your agent until we get the council for their cities up and running. But that’s for tomorrow. You need to sleep,” Ethan said as he watched another yawn tried to force itself out, which she suppressed, though it still made her eyes water a little.

Amanda shook her hands and rolled her neck about. “Argh. Sorry. Long day. But I’m fine. People are motivated. I can’t be going to sleep right now,” she said, nodded back toward the street.

“I can see that,” he said as he followed her gaze. People were still doing their thing, but he could see a few peek at them from time to time. “How’s the morale?” he asked after a moment.

“Shaken a little. But they’ll be alright. Believe it or not, for most, the caves had been worse. At least this was people. And we all know people. Tomorrow we’ll be doing a memorial for those who passed. We’ve buried them on the other side of the river. Half a mile or so downstream.”

Ethan nodded. He had been thinking of asking, and he was glad the matter was being taken care of. She listed their names, and Ethan felt a pinch of regret at not recognizing any of them. He hadn’t been that involved in the day-to-day, to be honest, and aside from the few people in New Dawn and Wyldrock he had often interacted with, he didn’t know much of those who’d joined their faction. Aside from the coach and a couple of the high schoolers, that is. But New Dawn’s population was growing, so he couldn’t realistically know everyone. Already, some of the refugees from the paramilitaries had joined them, and so did the new batch from the Brotherhood. The capital was swelling in size, but that didn’t mean the names should be lost within the rest.

“We should look into contacting their families. As soon as the communication network gets to that level,” he said as he glanced toward the approaching Diego and Audrey. Both were exhausted, but they were still going as well.

Diego gave him a clap on the shoulder, and all three just stood there and watched for a few moments. Now that the adrenaline was fading away, exhaustion was creeping in and right now, all four of them were feeling it. After a moment, Ethan asked about Amelie, Liz, and George.

“George’s probably still in the cemetery, clearing out the space. He said he wanted some time alone, so I left it to him,” said Amanda as she suppressed another yawn. “Liz is still out, and Amelie exhausted herself countering the poison. They’re out, but they should be fine in the morning.” she quickly summarized, brushing some dust off of her once white shirt.

“I think I’m gonna call it for the day,” said Diego after a few more seconds, and Ethan had to nod. He wanted to take a shower and crash as well. But glancing around, he wondered if he should stay up instead, just in case something happened. But as always, Amanda seemed to have thought of everything.

“I’ll be finishing up one last building, and then I’ll tell everyone to head home,” said Amanda, rubbing her face. “We’ll speak more of this tomorrow, but I already selected a few and scheduled them to keep a watch tonight. Tomorrow we’ll start on some walls, and we’ll look into some more long-term security matters. And what’s going on in the new settlements. And everything else.”

Audrey smiled, and Ethan chuckled, rubbing his own face as he glanced in the direction of his cabin. “I think you’re about to need some assistants.” She pursed her lips, but she didn’t deny it, so Ethan nodded. “We’ll talk tomorrow. We’ve got a lot to go through, but it can wait for the morning.”

***

The next day, the ceremony went through peacefully. The day was clear and breezy, and they had all stood at noon next to the river, where a memorial had been raised. A stele with the fallen’s names inscribed, which George had spent the night working on.

After that, the rest of the day went by pretty quickly. In the security meetings which he hoped he wouldn’t have to attend too often, Ethan emphasized that the key people of New Dawn—like Amanda—needed to start putting more hours into their leveling. That would be their best defense against malicious attempts. If not that, then they needed new elite corps of high-levels which would act as both security for their important figures and as their fighting force.

They already had some high-level individuals who could fight well, especially with all the new pylons they’d just integrated. But right now, everyone was out for themselves. Every settlement was handling their rifts as they saw fit. Some prioritizing them, and some leaving them to fester. What they needed was an organization that oversaw both their fighting squads and the state of the rifts at the faction level. A complementary, martially-minded structure to the more general council that handled the administrative day-to-day. A system with which they could assign teams more effectively, and which they can harness to empower their key people faster.

These talks, of course, had not been resolved in just one sitting, and thankfully, Ethan could go out and stretch his legs in a rift or two before he checked in on another meeting. But all in all, they went by pretty smoothly, and the new organization’s idea was slowly but surely taking shape. And it was in the meeting that was putting in the final touches on the project that it had finally happened.

Amanda cut herself off mid-sentence, and her eyes swiveled to Ethan, who grinned and leaned forward over the nice wooden table around which they were sitting. Everyone else’s eyes glazed over as they began reading, and Ethan pulled up his own interface to see as whispers and chatter grew louder in the conference room of the new administrative hall Amanda had rebuilt.

It had been 48 hours since the last System’s message, and the leaderboards were out. So without further ado, Ethan loaded them up, wondering how well they were faring compared to the rest of the planet.