Lindy was listening to Leon discuss the situation with Caitlyn. He had finally relieved her of the humiliating position as team leader, but the social chess continued.
"Can you let me… no, never mind!" Lindy cried softly.
Above her was Leon, who was having a casual chat with Caitlyn.
Below three hundred feet of dead space stood between her becoming her own flavor of onomatopoeia.
Lindy looked at Sarah, who was trying her best to tremble nervously but wouldn't do so because it would risk falling from Caitlyn's arm.
"Do I honestly not know anyone around me?" Lindy asked in shock.
"That tends to happen when you speak in personal pronouns while traveling next to your non-recently-confirmed psychopathic friend." Leon replied out of nowhere.
He was pointing out she always talked about [her] survival and never addressed Sarah.
"Why do you always do this?" Lindy snapped back reflexively.
"Is it necessary to always criticize me, let alone why dangling in the fucking air? You look like Michael Jackson showing a baby to the Serengeti photographers."
"I'm not sure why you always get so mad when I welcome you as one of us." Leon chuckled in response.
"What the fuck does, wait! What?" Lindy cried in perplexion, "I'm so confused right now!"
Lindy looked up to find Leon looking down at her with a cheeky smile.
He was so casual about holding her as if she was light as a feather. She finally noticed the absurdly refined muscle on his body that looked as though they were chiseled from stone.
It dawned on her that she had never seen him wear anything but long sleeve t-shirts, even in the summer!
"I'm just saying we're all fucked up," Leon said with a smile, "Caitlyn's an obsessive stalker, I've been upgraded to psychopath, Sarah's a compulsive liar, and you likely have Borderline Personality Disorder."
"Ekkkkkkk!" Sarah screamed in embarrassment before calming her shaking for survival.
Caitlyn blushed when she was addressed, and the woman dangling from Leon's arm had a complex expression.
"Putting aside how profoundly rude it is to diagnose people with mental health problems," Lindy replied dryly, "Why do you make it sound so positive?"
Leon laughed grandly, "Look down and look around you!"
They were hundreds of feet in the air. It was a rare destination for the swarms of flying creatures swooping and screeching below.
The city was on fire, half the buildings were destroyed, and she couldn't see the rising sun because of the smoke clouds.
"Normal people probably started killing and pillaging each other when the apocalypse broke out," Leon mused.
"I doubt God could fight the mental health epidemic if they pumped the world with laughing gas and sent down angels armed with rifles that shot some… ah, what's that drug? Whatever, shot super dystopian anti-depressants."
Caitlyn started giggling, and Lindy couldn't help but join her.
"In a world where developing mental health disorders is the key for survival," Leon said with a profound smile, "we're like gods."
Lindy's face turned bright red when she saw Leon's face turning to look into the distance. It felt like she had seen it for the first time. It took her breath away.
She wasn't just horny, she was captivated.
How bad did he [design] his style, how many class clown antics did he pull, and how douchey had to have been to hide how attractive he looked? That was the thought on her mind.
"No… he was always moderately good-looking with potential…." She muttered breathlessly, "Add some style and a haircut, and he would always pull off a high seven. But this?"
Lindy looked up at Leon again and started chuckling in self-deprecation.
"You're an idiot. A serious fucking idiot…." She chuckled in disbelief, "I'm just now realizing how much I ignore the things right in front of me. I mean really, common on!"
Was she beating herself up for never seeing the true beauty and potential of Leon Traxler?
No! The dude was glowing! He was seriously fucking glowing! Leon Traxler looked like a weak demihuman being protected by the gods during the battle of Troy.
Lindy was crying because she jumped to the prior conclusion before she noticed the obvious!
Most people wouldn't notice the slight light radiating from him, but her eyes had been glued on him like a starving hawk since they met up.
Something had to have happened to make him [glow] radiantly.
Indeed, something had happened. When Leon saved Lindy, he got a notification, but he ignored it as always.
"Sooooooo… I don't really have room to ask for anything…." Lindy said sheepishly, "But… are we going down soon? My arm's numb, and it's seriously cold. Is this a punishment?"
Leon snapped back to reality at her reasonable request.
"No, it's not a punishment." Leon chuckled in amusement, "Caitlyn, did you manage to find out if we can store normal items in our item storage?"
"Yes… Unfortunately, we can't. It's used for items bought or gifted by the gods." Caitlyn replied with a frown.
Leon took a deep breath. He wanted to check himself but couldn't close his eyes without worrying Caitlyn would drop Sarah.
He was prepared to jump out of her arms after her, as his blind faith in Caitlyn saving him was concerningly irrational, probably due to their bonding stat.
Leon didn't care about their lives as people.
He realized that if he couldn't win over these two trainwrecks, who already knew Caitlyn, it would be impossible to convert [anyone] to his harem. So he was protecting them obsessively, if for the practice alone.
"Do you have a store function?" Leon asked Caitlyn.
"No…." She replied dejectedly, "I mean, the general info says I might obtain one, but I don't have one. Do you?"
He chuckled with madness in his eyes.
Lindy, Sarah, and Caitlyn turned to him.
"Yes. But unless we want to commit to a twelve-hour orgy to get a rare-grade bottle of body chocolate to feed us, we're shit out of luck on the sustenance front." Leon explained bluntly.
All of the women's faces flushed bright red in embarrassment. He was surprised he wasn't cringing but attributed it to answering [Caitlyn's] question.
"So I guess we shouldn't rely upon our powers for basic survival," Leon sighed, "Let's find an Inexpensiveco."
Caitlyn nodded her head in agreement. "I'll find one now."
"Thanks, Caitlyn." He chuckled with a self-deprecating smile, "I hate relying upon you for everything, but you're just too damn amazing."
The woman flushed bright red, and the others opened their mouth in astonishment. Everyone could tell he was being genuine by his inflection.
Leon smiled wryly. 'It's awesome when the gods reward me for something as simple as a compliment, but it's humiliating when humans do it.'
Worse, he was complimenting the powers of an overpowered superhuman, flying in the air out of reach of most flying monsters. It shouldn't be a shock.
"I found one!" Sarah announced.
Leon blinked twice before turning his eyes to the left at the woman next to him.
She was holding her phone!
"Ah, I'm not sure why I expected the power grid that runs 24/7, backup generators, and wifi towers to get nuked in one day." Leon chuckled in amazement.
It would shock most people that electricity, Snookle, and the internet would work for weeks if all humans abruptly disappeared.
In their situation, there was a high probability that they'd be able to Snookle information on a smartphone long after the power grid went out, so long as it had power.
"Where is it?" Leon asked.
"Five miles in… that direction." Sarah replied while pointing to the south.
"Can I see?" Caitlyn asked respectfully.
"Sure." Sarah meekly replied while handing her the phone.
Caitlyn took the phone and studied it.
The scene filled Leon with satisfaction. After all, he was investing in Sarah as a potential haremite, and she had shown him nothing but compulsive lying behavior.
"My phone's at 5%, so we better—"
"Wait! Sarah, don't—" Lindy tried interjecting with terror in her eyes.
"—hurry? Eh? Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Caitlyn finally got an excuse to go fast with the extra choke strength again, so she used it enthusiastically.
Leon didn't mind too much. He was an abnormally strong superhuman, and a hundred-pound woman was nothing to him.
Lindy didn't feel the same way. Obviously.
She and Sarah screamed in fear as the four G's of gravity pulled their bodies horizontal like real, flying superheroes.
…
"Caitlyn, it's okay. Everything growls at everyone, so you don't need to take it as a microaggression towards me when it happens." Leon sighed.
"Hmmm? But weren't you the person that told me that brand value and reputation matter?" Caitlyn asked innocently, "Isn't respect part of that?"
"SQUUUUEEEEE! SQUEEEEEEEE!"
"Yes… to humans… specifically women." Leon replied with dead eyes, "Said women will avoid us like the plague if we show off our decrepit war trophies like a child showing their teacher a drawing."
The group was currently in the last half-mile stretch toward Inexpensiveco.
In the last 3.5-mile stretch, Caitlyn had yelled [did this bitch just yell at my man!?] before plunging 100 feet at a time to teach the beast a lesson.
Eventually, she got fed up flying around and hearing Lindy complain unreasonably, so she decided to fly around with an [example].
That was what led to the current sight above the skies of Martingale Metro City.
Caitlyn had a flying creature in her hand that she had caught along the way.
"Does this really look that bad?" She asked while turning to Sarah and Lindy for a response.
The two's faces screamed, [are you blind? Of course, it is!], but they shook their head in the negative.
"See, women aren't afraid, love. You worry too much." Caitlyn asserted with a slight smile.
Leon looked down and frowned. The creature looked up at him with pleading eyes that begged for death. "Squeeeee…."
While it squealed like a pig with a sore throat, its appearance didn't match up.
It looked similar to a crocodile if it had armored bat wings and juiced twice between protein shakes. Weighing at least a metric ton, the beast was a monster's monster.
However, it currently looked like a household lizard that got run over by a black sedan in front of a funeral home.
Despite having huge, bulky thighs, she had no problem holding one in her hand because she crushed and juiced the leg until it was holdable.
She didn't want to risk losing grip on it, so she performed the same convenient operation on its other limbs.
Caitlyn caved in its teeth, of course. So it was officially useless for anything but squealing like a pig.
"It's fine. It worked beautifully to get us here fine. So thank you," Leon chuckled with a lukewarm smile, "but get rid of it now."
"I'm glad you saw my intentions," Caitlyn replied with a beaming smile, "As you will, I'll get rid of it immediately."
The creature looked at Leon with eyes filled with gratitude. "Squeeeeee…."
"Just make sure to make the most of it and knock out a creature when you throw it," Leon added.
"SQUUUUEEEEE! SQUEEEEEEEE! Squuueee! Squuueee! squuueee…."
"Kiiiiiirrrrraaaaaaa?" Boom!
Boom… boom.
"Good shot." Leon noted while stroking his chin.
"Wait! How are you stroking your chin?" Caitlyn asked in bewilderment.
"Oh shit!" Leon cried.
Caitlyn instantly downward, looking for Lindy.