Trash In The Apocalypse

[Jun: Why? What is it? I"m doing something.]

[Evo: Do you remember that the police force managed to find an old CV Radio a few days ago?]

[Jun: Yeah, what of it?]

[Evo: They found someone! I mean, they were able to talk to someone. There"s another group out there, and they"re asking for help!]

[Jun: Uh-huh. So, why call me? Can"t they do it?]

[Evo: This group couldn"t go out and scavenged since a horde was idling around their base. And the Lieutenat guy was asking for what to do since you"re the MAYOR in town.]

Oh right... I"m the mayor.

[Jun: There"s really no reason for us to help, right?]

[Evo: Have you forgotten why you founded our group?]

[Jun: No... get all the information about them, and send it to me later...]

Jun closed the holograms and looked around. In the distance, a convenience store appeared pleasing to his eyes, including the numerous carriers around it.

"Listen everyone. That"s our last stop for today. After we clear that, we"re porting back."

"Yes."

***

The surrounding of the statue brightened up and numerous bright lights simultaneously spat out bodies.

At the same time that Jun"s vision cleared up, he noticed the crowd of people in front of the munic.i.p.al building.

The flowery guy, Henry, was a.s.suring everyone about something. Several seconds later, the crowd dispersed unwillingly. Henry noticed Jun"s group pa.s.sing by and initiated a conversation.

"h.e.l.lo there. I know that you probably don"t remember me, or you probably would after I did something foolish like the last time we met, but let me apologize for my manner back then. You know, I got so used to acting like that to everyone, even to my parents and my friends. So, I hope that you don"t take it to heart."

"I don"t really care." said Jun, not interested for a chat.

He continued walking and heard Henry say, "Do you know who killed my father? I think I can trust you"re words much more than some rumors, since you knew the mayor died before everyone else did."

Jun turned back and stared at him.

"Well, you know, it"s my dead father we"re talking about. So, I atleast wanted to know."

"How would I know."

Jun left without looking back.

A hint of disappointment glinted on Henry"s gaze as he watched Jun"s back. He murmurred, "Okay, so that"s how you want to do it."

He then went back inside the building, escorted by his bodyguards.

***

The group hunt was called off and Jun advised everyone to be around the area after an hour.

Jun entered the compound and greeted everyone he pa.s.sed by. He went straight to Old John"s smithing room and found him grinding some bones manually, using pestle and mortar.

"You"re still alive old man." Jun greeted as he casually piled up several steel beams on the floor.

"More work for me I guess?" said Old John before even turning around. He shook his head after seeing the pile of steel beams on the floor, then focused on Jun.

"What is this?" said Old John.

"Metal." replied Jun.

Old John angrily stared at Jun, then spitefully said, "I"m fully aware of that. Haaa... just tell me what you want."

"Can you make s.h.i.+elds with these? I don"t know if they"re good enough to be smelted but these are the ones that I could find. Once we get more people, I"m planning on checking out the old district mines for iron and other stuff. What do you think of these?"

"What? Did the one I gave you already got destroyed?!"

"Oh right." Jun brought the alloy s.h.i.+eld from his dimensional storage out, and placed it on top of the pile. "This one needs repairs too. There"s a lot of scratch marks and I"m afraid of it getting split into two, so I barely used it. And the s.h.i.+elds are for the people, just make them durable enough, so that they won"t break while fighting."

"What are you implying?" said Old John while glaring at Jun. "I won"t make a subpar product! That would be a disgrace to my family!"

"Okay, calm down calm down. Please take this and take care of your health. If you"re reading at Evo"s database, you should know that energy can be used for almost everything. Eat this, okay?"

On the table was a green fruit that could only be harvested from the legendary tree of life, an energy fruit.

Jun didn"t explain further and left. He next went to spend some time with Marianne, praising her cooking skills, chatting with her, making her feel good, then finally went to Evo"s office and sat on the side.

"What do you got?" said Jun.

Evo took a piece of folded paper and read it to Jun.

"There"s twelve survivors and they"re hiding in a camp site. Do you know the marble mine? On the mountains? No? That"s okay. There"s a mine up north and it was closed due to government policies and some nature thingy rules. You know what I mean, the path going down was blocked by standed carriers and they couldn"t go down to scavenge for food. According to them, their stocks could still last a day or two, but they"re not sure if nothing bad would happen, that"s why they"re asking for immediate help."

Jun stared at the ceiling as he thought things up.

The world changed and now he would go save people in dire need of rescue. But why? Because he got so bored of his life that he created a gang to help people in need.

Just for fun.

"Have you ever thought of stopping?" said Jun.

Evo turned to him confused.

"Stopping what?"

"You know, this and that."

"You mean helping people?" Evo scoffed and threw down the paper  onto his table. "You had your fun now? Is that it?"

"It"s not that... I"m just scared. You know that Marianne and I just got on a relations.h.i.+p, right?"

"Then what about me? I didn"t join for fun. You know what? Forget it. Get out."

"I"m sorry. I"ll do this as the last one."

Jun stared at Evo one last time before standing up and leaving.

Evo snorted as he watched Jun walked out of the door. He shook his head, then smiled. He remembered that night when Jun was trying to recruit him. A stupid boy who only knows how to brawl trying to impress a geeky nerd to become one of the core members of his group. A group that would help all kinds of people in need while protecting everyone as they lurk from the shadows of the night.

Evo joined Jun"s group simply because he was tired of getting bullied and taken advantage of.

Since he was skilled in his area of expertise, anything bad that happens would be attributed to him, giving him a lot of enemies everywhere.

And since he doesn"t want to join bad people, he finally picked Jun over the local powers since he was the only "good: one among them.

He hated evil people and wants to protect the weak simply because he was once weak and couldn"t protect someone he loved. He wanted to feel how it felt to be able to protect people and he was able to do it with Jun"s help.

With a bitter smile, Evo looked outside the window as he thought to himself, "I"m happy that my friend found someone special."

Afterwards, he sighed and murmurred, "I"m alone again huh."

He tapped the table with his fingers rhythmically as tears fell from the corner of his eyes.

"I miss you Mia... Yes, yes, I"ll find them. Even if I have to do it alone, i"ll find them for you."

***

Jun contacted his main attack team through the wireless earphone. Thankfully, they were in the area and was able to respond. Adrian and Sheila arrived together with Edward behind them.

"What"s the rush? We"re eating..." grumpily said Sheila before they could even stop in front of Jun.

Sheila was having a luncheon date with Adrian when they were called over by Jun. Edward on the other hand was shopping around even though there"s barely any stalls set up. They"re just spending time together since they don"t know what could happen the next day.

"We"re going somewhere. What levels are you?"

"We"re all level eight." replied Adrian.

Jun turned to him startled. "How did you level up, so fast?"

Adrian didn"t know how to answer him and explained it simply.

"We have to baby sit the others as we scavenged, meaning we killed almost everything, and we didn"t have dozens of skilled bodyguards who kill steals from us."

Edward added. "We also kill steal when there"s a huge scramble. We just help with everyone"s medical bills to keep everyone happy. Oh by the way, you"re coming tonight, right?"

"Where? What"s going on?" said Jun.

"What? You don"t know about Veronica"s event?" replied Edward.

"Ohh the drinking contest? Let the people compete. I"ll have to ask Marianne if she wants to."

After Jun answered Edwards inquiry, Sheila nudged Adrian"s side. He turned to her but just frowned at her.

"What is it?" said Adrian.

"Nothing! Humph."

At that time, Jun saw some masked men walking towards them. Jun recognized the masked man from his rank, and said to Nik, "Where is everyone?"

"They"re having a meal at the newly opened eatery by the road side." said Nik.

"Didn"t they just have their lunch earlier? It"s not even an hour ago and they"re eating again?"

"It"s not like they have their lunch made for them. Almost everyone just ate some snacks."

"I think you"re getting a bit too cozy with me, huh? Should I teach you some lesson? Is it time for your beating?"

"I"m just afraid you won"t have people to talk with, so I"m talking to you."

"Ohh, his good. I like him. I"m Edward, I"m the teams tank, also the vanguard."

"Oh, h.e.l.lo nice to meet you, I"m—"

Nik suddenly stopped talking. It felt weird that he was able to introduce himself. Like he wasn"t meant to be able to. He backed off and bowed his head, "h.e.l.lo, I"m the ranked one elite guard."

Edward felt awkward and backed off too. He chuckled as he nodded his head.

"As expected, he"s weird like you." commented Sheila.

"Shut up. I"m not weird." replied Edward.