Maniac’s Mayhem Chapter Twenty-Two: Meeting

"leadership of any kind can and will be blinded by their desires and biases.

When this happens there are a few thods to deal with it, my favorite being The Snow Globe thod. Rock their world view until the shit they are in starts raining on their heads as well."

-- my daughter, 16, who is a lot smarter than i am

I do my best not to fidget too much as I make my way to the command outpost. Yesterday evening, I sent Katelyn a ssage asking if she could arrange a eting with the leadership of the undercity. Luckily for , Katelyn works fast, so the eting would take place this afternoon, close to the northern wall.

Just like Maniac, I have decided to put on a disguise, but instead of the punk girl style Maniac favoured, I decided to go for sothing more subdued. Brown hair with freckles, hoping that a more basic look would allow everyone to take a bit more seriously. To that effect, I even had the mask produce a set of fake glasses.

I try my best to stay calm as I walk, reminding myself that I have been in a bunch of etings like this before, and that was when I was used as the scapegoat for so manager that fucked up. So this ti, it should go a lot better. No money was lost, and I was actually coming up with a solution to our problem. Sure, it probably was not the solution everyone was looking for, but it was sothing.

As I enter the spartan-looking eting room, I note that I am not the first; both the twins and an older man with a more stoic-looking expression are already there. I give the unknown man a small nod before sitting down next to the twins.

“Hey, guys, how are you doing?” I say, trying to drown out my own nerves.

Jojo looks at in confusion. “Your face changed again.”

I chuckle, taken by surprise by how forward he was being “Yeah, I guess it did. Do you like it?”

“It's okay, but which is your real face?” he asked, sounding completely innocent.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” I truly didn’t know whether the face that was currently carved into my flesh, so to say, was actually just an imitation or the real .

Jojo nods. “It is hard for us to tell whose face belongs to whom sotis as well.” That is not exactly what I ant, but he got the spirit, at least.

It takes a little bit longer for the rest of the room to fill up. Most of the people here are male, and all look to be sowhat older. Besides Katelyn and myself, there is another woman who has black hair in a side cut, and looks about as an as the rest of the n combined. Once everyone is seated, Katelyn stands up, and all eyes are on her.

“Hello everyone, I know that we are all busy, so I will keep it brief. Today, we et because of her. This is Maniac,” she gestures at . “She has been studying the barrier above our heads and has called this eting to discuss her progress.” She smiles at before sitting back down.

I slowly stand up, making sure that all eyes are on before I speak “Hey, everyone, so I don’t think there is much point in explaining how the barrier works exactly. It's big, and it's strong, but it is not impossible to crack; it just will take so specialised power in a certain area.”

“And where do you suggest we get this power from?” one of the n interrupts .

I am montarily taken off balance but manage to regain my composure quickly. “Power is not the issue; I can easily provide it myself without much issue. The real issue is what happens with all of that resulting power.” I wait just a few seconds for the emphasis, “The entire city will collapse on top of us, aning that we will either get squished to death or are buried under tons of rubble.”

“So, instead of breaking the barrier, should we head to one of the sides and start digging our way out?” One of the other n suggests.

“That won’t really work. Sadly enough, the barrier is not just a plate on top of us but more like a sphere or an obloid that is all around us.”

The room goes silent after that. until Katelyn speaks up. “So what do you suggest we do?”

“We restore the infrastructure. I don’t think we have the ti to put back all the pillars, but we can construct so in the important areas to make sure that once the city falls, it falls more controlled, leading to less casualties.”

“Less casualties? Not no casualties?” the woman asks, giving a questioning look.

I swallow. “I think that whatever we do, people will die; it is just a question of how much we can reduce the amount of death.”

“Why? If it is not safe, can’t we just make it safe?” the woman presses in.

I just shrug “Sure, it would require all the samurai to go out and start killing plants. Assuming none of us die, we might be able to slowly start pushing the plants back until they're all dead, if we are lucky. Then we need to rebuild the support structures and disable the shield, all while hoping that whatever fucker turned it on in the first place does not turn it off.”

That at least seems to get so reaction out of the group, all of them mumbling to themselves. “So you assu that they will turn it off at so point?” One of the n asks.

I shrug ”I would assu so. Granted, we don’t exactly know why they turned it on, but I assu that whoever did knows that this can’t last forever, so when they wrap up whatever they are doing,” I make a dropping motion with my hand

“So whatever we do we have to do it fast since we have no ti to waste.” Katelyn says, jumping up from her chair and I nod. “I don’t think we need to reinforce all that much. We can build out from the towers on the wall, and our headquarters has a bunker in, it so we can easily house everyone. Jojo, how long would it take to set everything up?”

I frown; it's not exactly what I wanted, but they got the spirit, at least

“Less than a week if we can keep the plants off us and make sure they don't destroy the towers.” the boy answers.

“Good. Well, let's get to work, and we can be out of this hell hole before the week is over.” Katelyn says as she gets up.

“Hey, hold up! We should still…” They all ignore , my voice not coming over the cacophony of noise of that the people make as they are trying to get out of here ”Stop! Please listen!”

As no one pays any attention to , I feel my body grow cold. I make my halberd appear in my hand and slam it down on the table, the table buckling under the force. The room goes silents after the loud collapse of the table “Everyone march your butts back in here and sit down, before I give you a spanking.”

While everyone mutely makes it back to their chair, I unravel my mask from my wrist and put it on. I let out a sigh of relief as my familiar hoodie covers my body.

“Now I know that all of you chuckle fucks are very excited to get out this rat trap, but I'd rather not have the entire city above us collapse.”

“Why should we care about the people upstairs? They left us down here to die.” My love asks, sounding rather angry.

“Then, my love, tell why should I care for the people down here. What have they ever done for ?”

It stays quiet for a long while as we look at each other, waiting for the other one to speak. “But they don’t care. They used and put here when they were done with . How can you defend that?” She starts out soft-spoken, but becos angrier towards the end.

“And I think that the people that put you in that situation deserve to suffer, but that is not everyone up there. There are children up there that did nothing wrong.” I plead with my girlfriend.

She snarls, “I don’t care!.We want out of here! We can do a rescue mission once this is all settled, but like you said, we don’t know when the ceiling will fall, so let protect my people."

I take a deep breath as I try to centre myself. There is no point in getting angry here, and she is hardly the only one with this feeling. As I look around the room, I notice that most of the people gathered here seem to agree with her. It is hard to fully disagree with her. She never had the best cards, where we had Cierra to at least sowhat protect us; she had no one. As I try to co up with sothing to say, I feel soone, Evelin co back to the front and let her take over.

“I see. Well, I can’t force you to help , so I will leave you to fortify the city.” Everyone seems to calm down after that. “So, I guess I be leaving the city, then.”

“What? Why?” my love basically shouts at at full volu.

“While you all have the right to stay here and protect your own, I still have the right to go out there and try and save as many people as I can.”

“lody, please don’t be difficult. What if sothing happens when you are out there? You don't know when the ceiling is going to fall.”

I shrug “Won’t be the first ti sobody dropped a building on ; I'll be fine.” I activate the teleport protocol and appear back on top of the wall.

After a brief mont of vertigo, I almost fall over the wall.

“Fuck, Evelin! Can’t you be more careful?.”

Evelin, inside our mind, suddenly snaps her attention back to . “Sorry, what?”

I pause, wondering what is going on.

“I am sorry I ssed stuff up, and you are now fighting with your girlfriend,” Evelin says in a tiny voice, full of sha.

“It's not your fault. She has a lot of trouble that so psychologist needs to look at.”

“You think Lyssa could help her?”

I start laughing. “I give it even odd that it would just create a different problem.”

Evelin chuckles. “Co on, don’t be an; she helps in her own little way.”

“Anyway, please tell you were the one to teleport to the wall.”

“No, weren’t you the one to do that? You took over when nobody listened to .” She says, sounding confused.

“Oh boy! Evelin, please tell you are alone in there!”