As they trailed through Mesa and into Tempe, TJ wanted to rush forward, to just push them all to getting to campus as soon as possible. After all, he had gained some levels and needed to keep getting more. Though he wanted Molly and Tessie's families to continue growing and even thriving, he needed to hit Silver as fast as possible. Junior remained his priority, and that pushed at him to leave them behind, to force them to stop killing the damned Dirt tiers while he was protecting them.
As they stopped for the four parents to kill a giant feathered rat called a Colocolo, TJ tried to understand just why he was so antsy. Was it the Kukulkan blood, or was it just him? With so many things influencing the way that his mind and body worked, he couldn't guarantee that anything he did was what he wanted to or if it was the System or Bloodline or something else entirely. With a sigh, TJ shook his head and, hopefully, with it, his impatience. Instead, he watched as William tried to bash the monster away with his shield, only to strike only a glancing blow. The rat rolled over itself and darted forward to catch the man's ankle in its mouth.
Not wanting to take away from their opportunity to gain experience, TJ stayed back and watched. Maybe that was the wrong choice, as William swayed on his feet and started to fall. The Colocolo remained latched on the man's ankle, his blood flowing freely into its mouth. Even though the huge rat was the size of a large dog, it was obviously growing larger and larger as it drained William's blood. TJ was about to go forward and kill the thing when Stella, the other Zealot in the group, raised her spear and plunged it deep into the monster's back. It thrashed and released William's ankle, screeching in defiance. As soon as the man had some space, his wife rushed forward, her handheld crossbow held high. The bolt flashed with a sparkling light, and then flew true into the Colocolo's eye.
The corpse fell, and TJ strode forward to take a look at William. Brad was quicker, and as he laid his hands on William, William's painfully pale complexion regained some of its color. After taking just long enough to ensure the other man was able to stand, Brad stood and let out a long, slow breath.
"I'm not sure how many more of those I can do." the Disciple confessed. "My MP is running pretty low."
"I can help with that." TJ offered. "It'll take a minute or two, but I can get you back up to full. Make sure you don't miss out on any experience we can get you."
After looking back and forth, Brad nodded.
"Oh, this is a little creepy, Mr. Brad." Molly said in a sing-songy voice. "But you'll be ok, I promise."
TJ sighed. "That's not a great way to instill confidence, kid." He turned his attention to the somewhat worried adults as he explained, "I have a Skill that can transfer people's resources around. In order to do it, though, I need to do a ritual, which involves me using a little bit of my own blood as the catalyst. So, I cut myself enough to have my own blood serve as something to paint small sigil about one inch square on your foreheads and the back of one hand. After I do that, it'll last for a couple hours, unless we start moving a lot, in which case it drops to about thirty minutes. If I get your permission to do that, I can do that and basically guarantee that, for a while at least, I can absolutely keep you alive and fighting against anything Dirt tier while protecting you against a Copper."
Brad cocked his head, but he didn't hesitate to shrug and just say, "If that's what it takes. Go ahead."
With permission granted, TJ pulled out his blade, cut his hand, and set about preparing and completing his ritual. As he went through the increasingly familiar movements of the ritual, the feeling of connection that the Skill gave him with the other participants allowed TJ to see the general state of each of their bodies. Most were generally fine, but Brad was genuinely nearly depleted of MP. As TJ looked, he was reminded of just how much lower his Attributes had been before he'd evolved. The people at Dirt tier were just… completely different organisms.
Just a couple hundred of each resource. Brad was so much weaker than him that, if TJ wanted to use the Disciple's resources to fill his own, it'd take at least ten. The others weren't any better, and TJ sighed as he joined the whole group together through his ritual. He filled Brad's MP from his own Stamina, and then, just in case, filled the other Dirt tiers with enough to ensure they weren't in immediate mortal peril. Even so, being reminded of the fragility of the people around him, TJ worried more and more about Junior's inevitable return to this world. For a time, TJ half decided to just wait until he'd reached true Divinity. After all, a god could protect a child, right?
No. That would be losing too much time with Junior. He wouldn't be a dad at that point, but would be nothing more than a far-off being, trying to protect someone who didn't know anything about him. And how long would that take him? Sure, if getting to Silver took him a couple months, that was just a day or two to Junior. TJ would have experienced so much more, but all he really cared about was making sure that Junior remembered how much he loved and cared about him, not the possibility that he'd reach Divinity and he wouldn't have any enemies as strong as he was, or that the System wouldn't throw similarly dangerous foes his way.
TJ ground his teeth and swallowed, and focused on the things actually in front of him. There were still a couple more miles ahead, and there were two more packs of monsters to get past as far as TJ could tell. The winter sky was only an hour or so away from lighting its usual reds from the setting sun, and he needed to control himself. It wouldn't do him any good to try to hurry these people along, and, all other things disregarded, he wanted them to level up and evolve. If not for his sake, then for their daughters. That there weren't any other children with them was interesting, but TJ hadn't asked about that.
Instead, they focused on continuing on their path forward, and TJ just watched as the other parents struggled with god-blessed monsters at the Dirt tier, and then a set of run-of-the-mill goblins. How easy everyone else's Tutorials had been again settled into TJ and he found himself grinding his teeth in unwarranted frustration. As he did so, Tessie came up to him.
"It's… not fun." She said.
"I can't think of much of anything that's been fun since all this began." TJ replied. "You wanna give me a little more information?"
"Seeing my dad, the guy who always said he'd protect me, that he'd always be in my corner… be so weak." She whispered. TJ wanted to say something, but decided against it, letting her fill the silence after another moment.
"Granny Penny said she'd protect me too." The words were so quiet that TJ only barely heard them. "And then she died. Almost everyone died. Only the 'strongest' survived, but now I just feel broken. When I was killing the monsters, I didn't think of them as anything more than mindless monsters, almost like NPCs in a video game. But… they feel like they're family to each other. They care, in their way. And we killed thousands and thousands of them. To keep ourselves safe, we're going to have to keep doing it. I was covered in blood, and I deserved it. I'm a butcher, a murderer, and I just… want to be done."
TJ nodded slowly, wanting to make sure that he didn't say the wrong thing. After giving himself almost a minute to ensure that he wouldn't regret what he said, he asked, "Do you want to just… stay on campus, just do whatever your Occupation is?"
She shook her head just enough for him to see it.
"So you think you should keep killing things?"
"I feel like that's wrong, but I need to do it to keep my parents and Molly and myself safe. You have Junior too, and you'll need help to make sure that he doesn't get hurt or killed by anything, so you'll need Copper friends, and—"
"Don't make decisions thinking about me." TJ corrected her. "I'm a grown adult, and apocalypse or not, I'm the one in charge of myself and my family. I appreciate you caring, though. Now, I'll ask again. Do you just want to stay on campus and not kill things?"
"That's a bad idea." Tessie shrugged, a couple tears running down her face. "I need to be able to protect myself in this new world."
"You don't technically have to." TJ corrected, though he agreed with the sentiment. "You could depend on someone else to keep you safe. Get a patron or something like that. Become someone's Crafter or subject or something."
Tessie recoiled hard at that. "No. I won't depend on someone else like that. Not even you."
The vehemence in her words seemed to take her by surprise, and realizing an aspect of what she'd just said, she looked up at TJ as she waved her hands apologetically.
"No offence! I just… I don't mean you couldn't do it, I'm just saying that I don't want to be dependent like that on someone. I want to be able to take care of myself and my family."
"There's nothing to apologize about. I wouldn't want to be dependent on someone like that either. It's way better if someone's able to take care of themselves, if you ask me. But if you so desperately want to not fight, I can do what I can to get you taken care of. To make sure that you can live as close to the life you want to in this new world."
Tessie scoffed bitterly, and TJ didn't need to ask why that was. He shrugged helplessly as he qualified his statement. "As much of a life as we can get you, that is."
She shook her head, the movement stronger and more sure with every shake. "No. I'm going to miss that as a possibility, but it's never going to happen. I'm out of luck, and I won't be able to get that life back. The best thing I can do now is to get strong enough to keep other people from suffering the way that I have. I'm a Copper now, and I need to protect people as much as I can. It's my responsibility."
TJ sighed as he walked forward and placed his hand on the girl's head. "If that's how you want to live, you can. But remember, there is another option. I wish that there were better options available to you, but remember that there always are multiple possibilities. Ok?"
Tessie nodded, gave him a quick, tight hug, and then jogged off to Molly, who grinned widely, activated Divine Transformation, and then hopped around to allow them both to check out whatever was in their surroundings. Even if there was a Copper Elite nearby, TJ was confident that they'd be able to handle themselves long enough for him to come and offer further support. If there was a Silver… well, TJ was frankly sure that there wouldn't be any survivors at this point.
"Thank you, TJ." Stella came and said. "She's not been well since we all returned."
"I'm not surprised, and I can give you the same explanation that I gave William, if you'd like."
"I don't think I need it." She shook her head. "Tessie hasn't been especially open since the Tutorial, but I suspect she'd been more honest than Molly has been. What little we've heard is harrowing, and I know that they have you to thank for their survival through the Tutorial. I just want to thank you as well."
"It's what I could and should have done." TJ shrugged.
"And I still appreciate it."
Her genuine words had something stirring in TJ's chest, and he thought he felt something… something… the thought slipped away. Instead of holding onto it, he just nodded at Stella as they stepped into the grounds of ASU campus. Somewhere far off, he heard an argument, but discounted it… until he realized that he recognized those voices.