John was filled with trepidation as he took the lead once more. After explaining the situation, the group had collectively decided to go and meet the other portal invaders. Despite mixed experiences with other humans since the apocalypse had arrived, Doug insisted that it was better to team up wherever possible. The others had agreed, and that was that. John didn't dare to make too much of a fuss about it, lest they see his apprehension for what it was: anxiety over meeting new people.

It reached the point where his reluctance was nearly overwhelming his concentration. He was barely paying attention to the monsters his comrades were fighting anymore. Blue souled monsters were truly beneath his notice. He only bothered to stir himself when greens appeared.

The problem was this: John had long been anticipating the moment when they inevitably encountered people who would use their powers to be colossal dicks. With everything else going on, he hadn't had time or spare processing power to consider the possibility that Doug's group might be hostile—he supposed that seeing them protecting a pair of children had subconsciously eliminated any of his suspicions.

The same could not be said for the unknown party moving adjacently through the bus kraken. There wasn't enough to distract him from his speculative thoughts, here. The blues were dealt with too easily. The greens were too infrequent. So he was left to wonder just who these people were, what their goals were, how they would go about achieving those goals.

Being a rather pessimistic individual when it came to assessing other human beings, John's mind naturally went to negative places. He imagined them turning a corner and coming face-to-face with some barbarian arseholes with mohawks and tattoos and attitudes more suited for a Mad Max movie. He pictured a sudden and desperate fight to the death, as the other humans wanted to build up whatever their equivalent of Aura was, and didn't care who or what they had to destroy to get it.

At this point, John was confident he could hold his own in a fight. But he wasn't so conceited as to think he was invincible, and nor did he believe for a moment that he was the strongest out there. In the wrong circumstances, he knew he could lose. And there were much higher stakes for losing here, than there had been when he'd foolishly stuck up to his bully back in the fucking playground.

And even all that wasn't the factor causing him the worst anxiety. No. Ashamed as he was to admit it, the trouble really, truly weighing on his mind was this:

What if they think I'm a loser?

None of his current companions had seen through him yet. But he couldn't help worrying these people would be more insightful. The scenario where they took one look at him and saw him for the nervous wreck he truly was just wouldn't leave his mind alone.

And there was an even worse possibility.

What if it was someone he knew? What if it was Luke Farnell? Or Jessica Clements? Or Danny Baker? Or any one of the other dozens of people who had given him a hard time over the years? That would be just his luck.

John shook his head as if to try and dislodge his spiralling thoughts. They were getting closer and closer. Mana Sense was pinging out with every increasingly rapid heartbeat, giving him a moment by moment insight into the progress of the other party. They were on adjacent corridors now, almost level. If the windows hadn't been blacked out, they would've been able to look at each other. He tried to see if he could spot them with Soul Vision, to no avail.

The other group was moving quite considerably slower. When he first noticed them, they had been significantly further ahead in their corridor. He had seen no sign of any other people in the few minutes it took them to cross from the portal to the bus kraken, so they must've had a big head start. Did that mean the other group were weaker than John and his comrades? Or was their group simply smaller? It was also possible that they were just being more cautious, he supposed.

Speculation kept turning over in his mind. He felt like he was moving on autopilot as he led the way through the monsters blocking their path. Technically, they could have rushed through and left the monsters behind, since they appeared unable to transfer between buses themselves once they reached their designated zone. But leaving monsters alive felt wrong, no matter how much of a rush they were in.

Before he knew it, they reached another crossroads in the Labyrinth of buses. This one was different to the last; there wasn't just multiple branching routes in front of them, but behind, too. They had overtaken the other group at a while ago, and were now a few hundred metres ahead. Looking down that corridor, he could see distant flashes of light and here sounds of battle, but the route curved slightly, cutting off his view of what was happening.

"Do we wait here, or go and meet them?" Doug asked.

The group had arranged themselves in a line in the strange landing room that connected so many bus corridors together without prompting. John had found himself in the middle of said line. Glancing from left to right, he found a mixture of curious expressions. He wondered if any of them were hiding their apprehension as he was. Doug and Alissa had apparently already encountered hostile humans, so they had to be considering the possibility, surely?

Notably, no one spoke up in favour of going to meet these new people.

"Let's see what these guys can do," John said eventually. He managed to keep any nervousness out of his voice, which he saw as a win.

They could see a mixture of red, gold, and blue flashes of light illuminating the curve in the corridor, and throwing up long shadows. Screeches, screams, and roars echoed. Vibrations shuddered through the ground. John frowned—they had to be pretty strong to be causing the entire bus to shake like that.

The faint echoes of a high-pitched voice reached them. A deeper voice replied. It was followed by a woman's voice. There was a call that sounded like the death throes of a demonic bird. The deep voice said something again, only for a completely different man's voice to talk over it. None of their words were comprehensible, as the echo distorted them too much, and even without it, they would have been fighting against the mixture of roars, screams, and sounds of battle.

Even so, John was sure he recognised one of the voices. A deeper one, but young. His heart dropped. He couldn't put a name or face to the vaguely familiar voice, but it being recognisable at all was more than enough cause for alarm. He briefly considered excuses for abandoning this course of action and moving on, but the choice was soon taken out of his hands as the sounds of battle quieted, and the other party came around the corner.

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John blinked. Then blinked again. He had tried to mentally prepare himself for quite the variety of possibilities. Somehow, the reality of this situation had not even occurred to him for a moment.

Doug let out a bellowing laugh. Alissa made a disbelieving wheeze. Lily gasped, one hand flying to her mouth. Jade whispered something too quiet to hear. Chester just muttered a flat "what".

The sound of flapping wings echoed down the corridor as four birds flew into view. One was the biggest crow John had ever seen, with oily darkness akin to his Shadow Stream oozing from its black feathers. Beside it flew a regular-sized dove that sparkled like a freshly cut diamond.

And behind them came the explanation for why John had recognised the voices. Finally, mercifully, his anxiety melted away.

One of the parrots was red and green. The other was blue and yellow. Yapping at each other in a variety of different voices, they flew in formation with such precision that John found himself wondering if they were telepathically linked. Considering this apocalyptic world they found themselves in, that seemed a realistic possibility.

All four birds carried themselves down the corridor at an unhurried pace, before coming to land on the last row of chairs before their corridor would transition to the in-between room where John and company stood. The crow's black eyes were an infinite abyss. The dove regarded them with a sharp gaze, then started preening its feathers. The two parrots bobbed up and down like they were dancing.

Silence fell. Humans stared as birds. Birds stared at humans. Somehow, John got the impression the birds were just as surprised as the humans were.

"These wouldn't happen to be the parrots you mentioned in your story, would they?" Doug asked, voice full of mirth.

"Polly want a fucking cracker," said the red one in an old man's gravelly voice.

"Fuck you," said the blue

"Yeah, it's them," John said. "Don't know how or when or why they ended up in here, but these are definitely the same parrots." He paused. "And it seems they've picked up some friends of their own."

The crow stared at him with those depthless, abyssal black eyes. He felt like he was being judged down to his very soul. Soul Vision told him these things were living beings just like the humans, appearing silver to his arcane sight.

"How intelligent are they?" Alissa asked.

The crow let out a low caw. The dove flapped its wings. The red parrot dropped a shit on the chair it balanced on, then went back to bobbing its head up and down in eerie synchronicity with the blue one.

"Hard to tell," John said.

The crow cawed again.

"At the very least, the parrots had figured out how to use the system to unlock powers last time," Jade said.

"Maybe it works differently for them," Lily offered.

Chester was frowning, brow furrowed. "I'm trying to remember what they said when we met. Was it just me, or did it kinda feel like they were actually communicating, rather than just repeating things their old owners said?"

"Punk bitch," the blue parrot said in a teenage boy's terrible attempt at an American accent.

"See, that. It said that last time," Chester said, pointing at it accusingly. "Why do I feel like you actually know that you're insulting me?"

"Punk bitch," said the red parrot in that exact same voice.

"See! It can't be a coincidence that they both copied the exact same phrase and they used it while looking right at me!"

"Maybe it's just that obvious you're a punk bitch," Jade said, but there was a smile in her voice, and she gave Chester a playful little shove.

If that had been John, the insult would have cut him to his core even with the little shove. He had plenty of experience with people trying to pass off the horrible things they said to him as jokes.

Chester just snorted, though. "Yeah, maybe even a brainless bird can comprehend universal truths."

"Fuck you," the red parrot cried, followed by an indignant squawk.

"Fuck you, fuck you," the blue parrot agreed, flapping its wings.

But they both went quiet when the crow tilted its head fractionally towards them. After an apologetic little whistle, they went back to their little bobbing dance.

The crow returned its attention to their group, and John realised it was looking at him. Has it identified the strongest person here? He thought, and then, grimly: Is this going to be like that prison urban legend thing, where you pick a fight with the toughest guy there so no one fucks with you?

Literally unable to back down without consequences, John forced himself to raise an eyebrow at the crow. It stared at him for a moment longer, then exchanged a silent look with the dove. After a few tense seconds, the crow and the dove spread their wings and launched into the air, soaring above their heads and circling a few times before gliding down to land on the ground roughly at the centre of the room.

A show of trust, as far as birds are concerned, John thought. He was no expert, but he figured birds were far more vulnerable on the ground. That was why bird feeders were a thing, after all. There were no cats around here, but plenty of danger besides.

As he was distracted by the crow and the dove's little display, he didn't see the parrots coming until they were already perched on each of his shoulders. Blue on the left, red on the right, digging their little talons into the shoulder-pads of his red leather jacket. He looked between them, eyebrow raised.

"Polly want a fucking cracker," the red one said, and John decided its name was going to be Polly from now on.

"I haven't got any crackers for you, Polly," John said. "But I can help fetch you some if you help us destroy this fucking place."

+400 Aura

"Beautiful boy, precious boy, gorgeous boy," the blue one said, in the croaky whisper of an old lady. The words were spoken with such tender care that it took John off guard. A lump formed in his throat as he pondered the chances the owner of that voice was still alive. Morbid as it was, he hoped she'd passed long ago, before all this mayhem had unfolded.

"I'll take that as a yes," he managed to say.

Blue bobbed up and down in his little dance.

"You can be Zazu, because that's the only famous bird name I can think of right now," John declared. He was pretty sure Zazu wasn't even a parrot, but whatever.

Zazu kept bobbing. It was a cute sight. John just had to remind himself that this parrot could create ghostly projections of itself that set things on fire, and the other one could shoot lasers from its beak.

And God only knew what the crow and dove could do. They were evidently strong or competent enough for the two parrots to act deferential to them, if nothing else.

Holding back a sigh, John stepped towards the corridors. "Let's do this, then."

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