Leaving the red behind


You are tempted by the red, but it is not worth loosing yourself to gain a little more power, and the Lords hinted that they might have other abilities that the reds do not. You will work on your own choice here with them until you are sure of your course.


A couple of hours later one of the Lords links to you and you join them again. They are both clearly happier with you and mention that your colour had already lightened, evidence of you rejecting the red.


You spend the next week with them, learning a few tricks that the Old Man hadn't taught you and getting used to new food. You ate the flesh of the infected that died in the arena and it wasn't so bad. It didn't have the rush of fresh human but you got more used to it the more you ate and your old hunger reduced now that you knew it wasn't even needed. You even get to really enjoy the special arena events the Lords host.


The Old Man soon makes his appearance though to make things more interesting. You are eating lunch when the Lords contact you and direct you to a ledge on one of the buildings, it is 60 stories up, which is only half way up the building they tell you that they can't go too high or they won't get the best view. As you stretch your senses out you see the tiny red sun on the western horizon, slowly getting closer.


"It seems he is attacking in the hopes of you following his plan to kill us as he does so, it is your move now friend, what do you choose to do?" One of them says to you. They showed you how to reveal lies In a mind by how the colours change, it is not exact but it is fairly accurate and you know they are much better at it than you, part of their being green you guess so you cannot lie to them.

You say "The Old Man is a psycho and I owe him nothing, I will help you"

You aren't going to help a psycho slaughter everyone here and turn this place into a giant living meat locker. Even if you were, telling two harbingers to their faces while 60 stories up was just the same as committing suicide.


They nod to you "Your job will simply be to shield, you can leave the infected gathering below to us, as well as any attacking. So long as you concentrate only on shielding and we aid you in that, we will win easily."

You nod and prepare for battle

You watch the Enemy get closer and closer and begin sensing his horde, you judge about 1500 infected, and a great number of those mutants. Normally this would have terrified you, but right below you were arrayed out nearly 4000 infected of various types and an extra thousand or so shamblers in a block in front of them. You can also sense quite a few of the strange infected minds that indicate human mutants "The Old Man has brought a large army today, I don't see how he expects to win though." One of the Lords comments.


"You really went all out on the defense then." You comment for lack of anything better to say. One of the men laughs "Oh this is just a small part of the forces we could bring in but we knew he couldn't have brought more than two thousand so we judged these sufficient and kept the rest in place to guard other areas." You nod, you had seen some of the ring of defenders that these two had moved into place and it was no idle boast that this was just a part of their forces.


The approaching red mind suddenly flares and you slam your defenses into place, putting your shield over the two Lords through the link you had formed. You feel the other two adding strength to your defense as you feel some pressure pushing lightly on your mind.


Suddenly you feel rage strongly emanating from the Old Man and his attack slams against your defenses. Despite his rage and power, with your two allies supporting you, your defenses hold strong and you know you can easily hold him at bay. "It seems he knows you are choosing to support us then!" one of the Lords jokes. "Just keep the defenses up and this shall be fast."


You do as asked and keep your defenses up but it quickly becomes apparent that it won't matter soon. His horde was caught up in the block of shamblers, obviously devoid of fin control and will. In comparison, being free to do as they wish with you protecting them, the two Lords start dismantling his army in huge chunks while attacking him. Within minutes his attack has weakened then stops as he has to split his attention between his forces and defending.


You know it's no use though as they pick up their attack on him once they took the more dangerous of his forces away and send in their own army to slaughter the rest. You watch him rage and fight harder but with the two of them attacking him, you can see he is losing badly and suddenly staggers back clutching his head. One of your allies shouts out "Ha flashed him! It's over now!" and you can tell it as, before he recovers two of the humanoid mutants reach him and literally tear him apart.


You expect some shouting or celebration but the Lords simply stretch then start heading back inside while chatting "Well, we will eat well tonight at least, that was good exercise, I wonder how all the betting went?" You are confused for a moment but a quick scan shows that all the humans are in various buildings nearby watching the battle "You had them watch and bet on whether you would win or lose?" You ask after a moment.


"Oh dear me no." one replies "We had them bet on enemy forces, losses and how long he would last. The big bet was what would kill him, us or the Army, it seems we only took the assist and the army stole the kill though." He jokes. You shrug and follow them down inside, glancing at the screen in the arena as you pass you see that it has "BATTLE OF THE CENTURY! BZ, SETH AND SURPRISE NEWCOMER VS. PSYCHO OLD MAN!" displayed on it.


"What do you even need money for now?" you finally ask.


"Oh, not much, but it's fun to fill bath tubs with." BZ replies as you all head to a late lunch.

You relaxing in the New City

Life is pretty good after that and the Lords can teach you a lot, the entertainment is good too!


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Well done, you have reached another of the good endings in this version, later this arc will be greatly extended but I ran out of time so it ends here, congratulations!