Team Crafted: Second Generation

Tyler

"What's going on?" I asked, and Alyssa shook her head. 

"You'll see." She grinned, and ran back out of the door, so fast it swung a few times after she was already gone. 

I glanced over at Shane, who just shrugged, and something kind of passed between us in a way, I guess. We both didn't say anything, but ran out of the door at almost the same time, with me right behind him. 

It took us all of twenty seconds to realize what she had meant. 

"Woah..." Shane mumbled, and there was nothing I could've said that would have better explained what I thought about the situation other than that, either. 

There were hundreds of players on our campgrounds. Actual, living players. Not demons. Not scary monsters. Just people, but they were all armed in some way. 

"Are we...under attack?" I asked, leaning over to talk to Shane. 

"I don't think so?" Shane said, clearly just as confused as I was. 

"Hey, there you are!" 

I turned around, and about half of my questions were suddenly answered when I saw the person who was calling to us. 

Josh was waving at us from a few blocks away, and Lily stood beside him, talking to my dad. 

"Guess they found the survivors." I said. 

"Yeah, you think?" Shane said, and I ignored his sarcasm, running up to Josh. He nudged Lily's arm when I came close, and she waved at me before going back to her conversation with my dad. 

"Look who it is!" Josh grinned. "The amazing Tyler!" 

"I'm not amazing." I said, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly, a smile on my face. 

"Are you kidding?" Josh asked. "You saved your dad. You're fighting against a demon, and we've got a good chance of winning. I knew you could do it, kid." 

"Well, we've definitely got a good chance of winning with all of these people here." I said, smiling at the compliment. At least I was making one person proud of me. 

"Hey, better late than never, right?" He joked. "We managed to find most of the survivors. And they may have been raised in a kingdom, but they're all players at heart, just like the rest of us. They were doing alright for themselves out in the wilderness." 

"How did you find us?" Shane asked, coming up behind us. "It's not like we just went straight in the opposite direction that you did throughout this whole adventure."

"Do you really think my sister was going to let you go without a way to get back to you?" Josh asked. "Lily may be paranoid sometimes, but this time, that paranoia paid off. There's a tracker in one of those backpacks we gave you, I think it's in the one we gave to Macey." 

"Glad she put it in there." I said. "How many people did you bring?" 

"I dunno'. We didn't count. We kind of just said, who wants to take the fight to the demon who destroyed your kingdom and took away your heroes, and people just came along."

"There must be at least two hundred." Shane whistled. "Bet you Cameron would know exactly how many just by the shape of the crowd." 

"Probably." I said, and looked over at my dad talking to Lily. Shane started talking to Josh again, but I zoned them out, trying to listen only to my dad and Lily. 

"...don't think that's the best idea." Lily said. "It's as much of his fight as it is yours, now." 

"Lily, I'm not letting him risk his soul just to help take down something we can take down ourselves. You know what Darklox does to people, even if you haven't seen it first hand. Who knows what his minions are capable of."