Reaching Salvation: Post-Acer Part 2

"Once we're done here, I'm leaving," Zackary said to Sage. He seemed to be getting into an even worse mood than he was earlier...

The magic girl sighed, swearing in Latin before returnign her gaze to Paul. "But, you always have the right intentions at heart..."

Joey sighed. "If you want to know more about the village, go find Ade." Joey said, before turning around. "...I need to find my wife."

"That's debatable," Paul chuckled, "Seems Zackary isn't in the mood for jokes."
Paul then raised an eyebrow. "Ghost girl's here too? God, what the Hell did I miss?"

"He rarely is," Sage responded to Paul, leaning onto her staff. "At least some people don't change." She then smiled.

The twins looked at Joey with slacked jaws after seeing what he had done. "So cool..."

After a couple minutes, Joey had been successful in finding his wife, and had quickly retrieved her from Carly, having given order to nearby villagers the whole time, on what to do now.

In less then a half hour, everything was a lot more calmed down, as the townspeople began gathering up the prisoners, and Jey began to carry his wife back to his- no, their- house, so that she could get some proper rest.

"Yeah, well five years isn't that long," paul rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, causing a fair bit of dust to shake loose.

Sage gave a small smile before sneezing from the dust. "For some it is..."

Zackary was getting more and more annoyed from every second he was staying in here. He needed food however...he would have to suffer for now.

Instead of going with the other prisoners, the twins snuck into one of the empty huts.

"So, what do we do now, Al?" Josh questioned.

Al, his brother, shrugged. "Not sure. I suppose we could try and wait it out until the others get back... or we could join these guys."

"Are you nuts?! We just tried to kill them." Josh replied. "And they didn't go easy on us, either..."

"Not everyone made a deal with Klaus like Eric did, J." The boy replied calmly. "A lot of them were being controlled by him."

Paul looked around. "Not such a bad place, it seems. Got life pretty good."

Sage nodded as she looked around the place. "Yeah, much better than wandering around."

Erika groaned as she came back into the world of the living.

Joey smiled as he laid his wife down on the bed. "Ah, Mrs. Hadden, you finally awaken."

"Certainly wouldn't want to step on another landmine," Paul chuckled again.

Adeline sighed, pulled out her watch and checked the time. She decided to head over to the graveyard.

Erika looked over at Joey with a smile, before that quickly turned into a groan. "So that wasn't all just a dream-turned-nightmare... what happened?"

Sage nodded, glancing back at Zackary. "If he stays here...he won't have to get stronger, he won't have to continue to harm himself...right...?" she asked herself before looking back up at Paul.

"Uhm...so..."

"Well," Paul glanced around, "seems like that's not that case here."

Joey sighed. "Don't worry, we got it all under control, I just fixed the village, and I've got everyone to help out with cleaning up, watching the temporary prisoners, until we find out what to do with them, and I currently have Sam, Dan, and Jess organizing patrols." He finished. "So, how'd I do?"

Sage nodded as she recalled that small battle. Before her eyes went wide open. "Wait, you heard me!?"

Paul shrugged. "I can hear for miles if I add energy to the sound waves."

"Good... how many casualties?" The woman lifted herself up, going back into leader-mode.

"None." Joey siad, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down, everything is under control, Ade is seeing to things, and Mike, Helena, and Evan are seeing to the wounded from both sides, so just rest."

Sage went silent, drawing circles in the ground with her staff.

Zackary pushed himself off the wall he had started to lean against. He started to wander around the town, just to try and calm himself down.

"Fucking christ. Joey has to be here, Paul. Bad enough Sage followed me around for a while before I finally decided to let her join." Zackary muttered under his breath. "It's like that god damn tournament all over again."

"Something on your mind?" Paul asked, raising and eyebrow.