The fire-fight continued raging onward. The number of Ferals was beginning to diminish, but so was everyone's stock. Sure, they could send someone to run inside and get another bag, but no one had the time to do that. The Ferals had been even more vicious and started trying to flank them instead of just rush them down. Even the backline had to deal with Ferals that ran around to come up from behind. The mines that Josh left were a huge help, though.
Over half an hour passed, and eventually, the last of the Ferals was taken out. A bunch of undead bodies littered the ground, along with bullet casings and blood. Everyone felt like taking a shower, but no one moved yet. Why? Because of the Spider.
No one forgot about it. They all prepared themselves for it, but before it could even get close enough, Rose would cut its legs off, and Ion was Warped on top of it with Jessica. Ion would beat a large enough hole inside of it for Jessica to release several fireballs into it. After the tenth one, she Warped both of them away from it since it exploded into a gory mess.
Now that everything was dealt with, they felt they could breathe a sigh of relief. Everyone was exhausted, no one wanted to move, but they did. Everyone started to make their way back to the home. It was then that the earth below their feet began to quake. Everyone except for Ion, Jessica, Rose, and Mark was confused. They didn't know what was going on. Rose would close her eyes and see a different Seed Power. Unlike her Sixth Sense Seed Power, this one was different. It was more like a thermal sensor. It allowed her to see thermal energy. She looked at the ground and saw a large heat signature making its way up from underneath the ground where the undead bodies were at. "Jump away from the pile of the undead!" Rose shouted, and the entire front line did what she said.
Shortly after they did, a large worm broke through the ground and swallowed all of the undead bodies in its path then it came for them. "Run!" Mark shouted, and everyone ran, even the backline, ran down the road. The worm came crashing down and burrowed back into the earth. Rose looked around once again and saw it was coming up from their backline. "Quickly, move away from that spot!" Rose shouted to their backline, and everyone came back towards the frontline. Shortly after, the worm broke through the ground again and flew over them. It crashed into the ground a bit too close to the frontline. In fact, if Ion reached out, he could probably touch the worm's body, but he didn't.
The problem was that there were large enough holes on each side of them that trapped them in. Their only choice was to run towards the house or run away from it. "We need to move, don't go to the house!" Rose called out, and everyone ran away from the house. The worm came up just from the place they were at, which was several meters from the side-walk of the house, and came crashing down towards them. "Oh fuck this! I've had enough!" Ion would exclaim. "Jess!" Ion called out to her, and she warped beside him. "You sure you wanna do this? Remember what happened last time?" Jessica asked, and Ion's lips curved into a grin. "Last time, it was just us, or did you forget we have friends." Ion would remark, and Jessica's lips curved into a grin. Everyone was confused about what they were going to do. The worm's mouth had several teeth inside, all running down into the depths that light could not reach.
Ion would take hold of Jessica to shield her and jump into the jaws of the beast. Any teeth that cut through his flesh would be healed thanks to his Seed Power; meanwhile, Jessica seemed to be concentrating on something. She canceled out her Shared Sense since it wouldn't be needed right now. Her hands were cupped together, and a ball of flame was swirling inside of them, which she was slowly building up.
Meanwhile, the worm would burrow back into the ground. Everyone thought they just witnessed Ion and Jessica commit suicide, but Mark knew what they were doing. "Rose, get ready! Everyone else, please stay back!" Mark would call out as he prepared his strings. Rose was confused at first, but then she realized what was going on. She could still feel her connection to Ion and Jessica after all. So she would cancel out her Thermal Sense Seed Power and Linked Seed Power and focus solely on her Spatial Slash Seed Power.
What most didn't know was that even if you used multiple Seed Powers at a time, their output of each wouldn't be as strong as if one had used them alone. So for what she was about to do, she needed to concentrate on her Spatial Slash. She hovered her hand over her katana and would close her eyes, undergoing a state of full concentration.
After several moments of waiting, the worm surfaced again. Only this time, it was wiggling around in pain. Jessica had unleashed whatever energy she built up, which was burning the inside of the worm. Meanwhile, Mark would create a web of string just above the hole that the worm came out of. Rose would draw her blade and swing-out once; however, unlike when she would sheath her katana right after she didn't. Slowly she brought the katana back to its sheath, and once she did, she would fully sheathe the katana. When the click came, the worm split into several large chunks of worm meat. Jessica and Ion fell from the sky and into the bed of webbing the Mark had created. The chunks were falling down and could easily kill someone. Still, before they could do any damage, they would split off into small chunks, eventually becoming bite-sized pieces of worm meat.
The worm was by no means small. It had both the height and width of one of the tallest skyscrapers. The most interesting part was that no liquid spewed upon them either, as if Rose had also cut that up into nothing. Once Rose opened her eyes, she began to feel unsteady and was about to collapse to the ground until April caught her.
Everyone would look around to see if there was anything else, but nothing showed up. The only problem was that the road had several large holes. They could get back to the house, but they would need to take a longer route to do so. To add, nightfall had already come in. Everyone was completely out of it as well. No one wanted to move. Ion and Jessica managed to regroup with everyone, and Mark detached his string which faded away over time. As he regrouped with everyone, he saw how exhausted everyone was; hell, even he was just as exhausted.
However, he knew that they needed to head back. "Come one, we can cut through the houses and move around towards the back of our base." Mark would remark. "Good idea, we can use the secret entrance." Ion would pitch in, which caused Mark's brow to raise. "We'll show you." Rebecca would comment, and everyone started to head back. Rebecca took the lead with Mark; meanwhile, Ion and Jessica decided to watch their flanks. Pulling up the rear was April, Jen, and Boss. The rest were in the middle, mostly for their own protection considering their ammo count was low. Don had taught them that checking their ammo count in the magazine was important. So they had all done so when they had time to actually catch a breath.
They were cautious since they were traveling in a large group. They didn't know if the sound of the battle attracted any other unwanted guests. Eventually, they managed to make it to the roadside and circled around to the house. They had a few stragglers like flies, undead, even a mosquito, but Tyrone was able to keep them away for the most part. Excluding the normal undead, of course. Tyrone had tried to communicate with the worm earlier, but it was ignoring him completely.
He didn't need to talk to them out loud but merely through telepathy. This applied to all bugs. He had asked the worm the leave them alone and that it could snack on the bodies of undead in peace as long as it left them alone. It refused to even speak to him even after he warned it, so it got killed in the end. Tyrone was just as exhausted as everyone else since it took a lot to talk to the bugs, especially the worm. He had to boost his communication range to even try to talk to it.
Now that they were back, Rebecca would lead them through the secret entrance through the garage. Everyone was covered in gory bits and blood, which made them feel icky. Since Natalie heard someone moving through the garbage, she took hold of her pistol and investigated. Still, when she saw everyone, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Everyone!" She shouted happily, then noticed they were covered in gore and pinched her nose. "I suggest we go out back and hose you all down," Natalie said, and everyone agreed. They would hurry to the backyard, and Natalie would begin hosing everyone down. Once they were all nice and soaked, everyone decided it was time to actually shower and whatnot. Sadly, there was only one shower, so people would have to wait. The girls went first, courtesy of Mark. After they were done, the boys went next. After that, everyone had left their clothes to dry for the night.
Everyone was now in cleaner, better smelling, and comfortable clothes. They were all in the living room now and were deciding what to do.
"Well, that was quite an eventful day..." Ion would be the first to comment.
"I wasn't expecting that either. Ferals, though... have you ever seen them before?" Rebecca would comment, asking Ion and Jessica who would shake their head. "Neither have we." Mark pitched in for Natalie and him. Everyone looked towards Rose. She had been here the longest, but when she shrugged and shook her head, no one knew.
"That is my first time as well. There was never anything in the database about Feral Undead. All the Undead were usually slow-walking corpses with no intellect. But these were different. As Jake had put it, they are faster, stronger, and smarter." Rose would comment.
"Speaking of which, how are those guys?" Rebecca asked, looking towards Natalie. "Fine. Ryan and Jake are just over-exhausted. A bit of rest, and they'll be back up in no time. As for John, he should be waking up soon. Although, I suggest he rest for a few more days. Even with Ion's help, I don't want to risk any further injury." Natalie would explain.
"And Don?" April would ask.
Natalie would shake her head. "He's perfectly fine. No wounds, no internal damage either. His brain is fine as well, but I don't know. It's almost like he is in a coma or something. I can't say when he'll wake up. That may entirely depend on him." Natalie would express.
"Coma?" Jen asked while April seemed to rush off to see Don. She felt like being by his side. "Yeah. It's the best way I can put it. He's pretty much in a deep sleep, but there is something strange..." Natalie would comment, which caused Jen's brow to raise. Everyone was curious as well.
"What?" Josh asked; he had decided to rest on the couch after showering when he came inside the first time. So he was awake and feeling better now.
"Well... I've evolved my Seed Power. So, not only can I see inside of the human body, but I can also see the Seed. It's usually a faint glow that I can easily miss, but..." Natalie paused for a moment. "But, it is vivid and bright." Rose would pitch in, which caused everyone to look in her direction. Natalie's eyes went wide, "How did you know!?" She exclaimed.
"My Seed Power Sixth Sense, allows me to see everyone's Seed Power in the form of aura. I took a look at Don's Seed Power once before. It was when we left to go find them." Rose would motion towards Jen and Boss. "What I saw was a pitch-black aura. Black normally means Space or Spiritual Pressure. According to the research performed by The New World Government. Anyways, back then, It wasn't much, but when I looked at it a second time, it was larger, more vivid, and bright, but there was something else..." Rose paused for a moment to see if everyone was following along.
"It was White and Black. The two auras were not fighting each other for domination either. Instead, they were swirling and dancing together like lovers or something." Rose would finish. Everyone looked at one another in silence before Josh spoke up.
"So wait, you said Black was Space and Spiritual Pressure, right? What about the other colors?" Josh asked. Rose would begin to explain in fine detail what each color represented and how they only knew about Red, Blue, Green, Brown, Yellow, White, and Black. That was when Josh asked another question.
"What about Orange or Gray?" Josh inquired, and Rose shook her head.
"The World Government has never encountered anyone with an Orange or Gray Seed color. If they did, though, I can assure that they would be used for experimentation." Rose would remark, which caused Josh to sigh heavily with an inward, ' Lovely.'
"Okay, back to Don. What does that mean if he has both a White and Black color?" Jen asked.
"Well, as you may all be aware. One person can only have one Seed Power. Unless they use their wish to gain another. Which is what we did." Ion would comment. "So... it's impossible for Don to have two Seeds." Ion would finish.
"Okay, then does that mean he has one unique seed?" Boss asked, and Ion would shrug. "Don't know. Never met anyone that did." Ion would reply.
"I guess we'll all just have to wait until Don wakes up. I am sure he will explain everything himself." Rebecca would comment. She had been listening to everyone and was just as curious, but she knew that they wouldn't be able to figure it out anytime soon. "For now, I think we should all get some sleep." Rebecca would add. "After a quick warm meal, of course." Alice would speak up, and everyone seemed to agree. Alice and Sarah would take to the kitchen. Mark decided to help out since he knew how to cook. At first, they were wary of him, but they were okay with being around him when they found out he was a true gentleman.
Of course, Ion and Jessica knew that Mark only had a thing for Natalie, so they knew nothing would happen. Everyone decided to just talk about random stuff for the time being. Noah and Tyrone would return to the garage and look over some blueprints. They truly have become best friends at this point; it may end up forming a brothership of some kind. As for Dillian and Sussan, they wanted to check up on Ryan. Josh decided to check up on John and Jake. Jessica would begin pestering Ion about his remark earlier day. About how he would do this and that to her tonight. Ion wondered where the hell she had the energy to even do all of this, but he realized she was just doing it to tease him. Even she didn't have the energy for it.
Rebecca and Natalie decided to have a short chat about the future of things. After that, Catalina and Juan decided to answer many of Sofia's questions about what was going on, what happened, and when Don and others would be awake. She even asked if everyone was going to be okay and so on and so further.
Eventually, dinner was ready, and everyone was called to the table. As they sat there, they stared at the food. Mark, Jen, and Boss did since they felt like the atmosphere was tense, and they didn't want to do anything to upset anyone. The others found that this was their first dinner without John's mother. Eventually, Josh said something. "Aunt... No. Mom, I know you are watching over us now. I know you are probably worried about us, but I want you to know that we will all be fine. We will continue to live in a strong and loving environment. We will continue to strive to go home. So, please rest in peace. Thank you for everything you have ever done for our family and me." Josh would finish.
"Thank you!" Everyone said in synchronization. Even Mark, Jen, and Boss said thank you. But it wasn't an empty thank you either. They were truly thankful for the woman. Even though they did not know her, they were thankful that she was here. It was clear that she was an important person to everyone, which made it easier for everyone to have a stable mentality while being here.
A ghostly figure was standing in the doorway parting of the dining room, smiling at everyone. They had a ghostly pure aura around them. They said nothing, but Josh had seen her. It was John's mother. She was smiling brightly at them. He was surprised, but in the end, he just smiled back at her with a soft nod. After which, the ghostly figure faded away, and Josh would begin to eat the meal before him. Silent sobs were running around the table, but no one said a word and just continued to eat.