"How close are we to the Central Park zoo?" One of the humans asked for what had to be the twentieth time.

  The crowd had swollen to roughly thirty. By that time the squirrels has done their best to attract as much attention as possible. Which is to say that they were a beacon for and endless wave of mobs. This felt like how Staten Island was when they'd shown him footage. It was overwhelming then just seeing it. Living this now? He could understand how that borough had hallowed out of people.

  He didn't even want to be there at that moment and he had spent his entire 3 months since awakening. The walls were not great. The people were fine and there was enough summons but he did not want to be there so much that he was considering flying off at the dragon possum the next time he summoned it. It wouldn't get him that far but he might be able to see what was going on.

  A drone above them let him know that the adventures guild was tracking them and he just had to hold out. Ashley received several text messages that it stated that they were sending a team, but who knew how long that was going to happen.

  And so every time one of his mobs s died in The siege, he summed another one and powers that Ashley had come by with meatballs. Powers made them move rocks into place and start constructing more defenses around the Central Park zoo. When humans had designed it, they had made it so that people could easily get in and out and that was a problem. But with the power of construction and friendship, meatball was placing the rocks in places where they belonged to build them more fortifications as the squirrels kept the horde at Bay.

  It was far from ideal.

  He drew a flying mascot card and decided to play it, seeing if it could maybe follow some commands. "Look for flyers."

  It was a simple idea. He was hoping that the dungeon surge was contained and that they could start turning the tide. But he would need someone to tell him if it was going to thin out. The first time this happened it been a thin wave that hadn't really been of consequence. They'd had to go into the dungeons and clear them but they couldn't even find them. And if they couldn't find the dungeons, they couldn't clear them and they couldn't clean it out.

  There was going to be a mess. It was why he had walls installed around his area of control. Being so far away from it, he could really get a sense for what the pigeons were feeling when they left. Left. At least if he was higher up, he wouldn't have to deal with them directly. Flying mobs were rare. They weren't so rare that he could count them out but... The vine beasts were plentiful.

  He just wished that he could see past them. That was when it all followed to place for him.

  If he could use this as a microcosm for his efforts then he get more people to come in his confidence and save more people so they could pay him more credits... He was going to need some more cards.

  ---

  Bagel pulled back and healed his possum dragon. This was his fourth time summoning it and he was ready to call today. There wasn't a statistic for how many times you could sell in a car during the day. It was assumed that you could summon creatures infinitely so long as you were patient. If anything, Bagel was patient. He wanted to know what he could do about this and it had given him so many ideas that he was going to work with.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  But the squirrels finally made a dent in the wave as it slowed down. The circle of so many high-level deck bearers with hundreds of summons has to be like catnip for the mobs. I took them awhile to clear out but it was a satisfying look to see the scorch marks across the ground over and over again as it depicted there walk from the northwestern corner of Central Park to the southwestern over a mile.

  He had proved himself to himself. Now he just needed to make sure that the swirls would back him up. He waited for a lull in the attack to finally approach Apollo on the wall.

  Just because each squirrel had a distinct smell, did not mean that he could easily distinguish them. That was something that took him a while.

  But seeing the probable leader of La Noche looking as tired as he felt, Bagel could understand the situation that he was putting the squirrels into. They wanted to survive just as much as he did but they did not have the resources. It was unlikely that they would get that without him. The were-house cards were the single most valuable card that he could get and it was getting harder to deny that the population at large should benefit from them. It wasn't going to take that much for them to get more were-house cards. He just need to think of it like a pigeon.

  If the only thing standing between him and the loyalty of La Noche was getting them more cards?

  That would be worth it.

  It would all be worth it in the end. All you need to do would work out a deal with the squirrel in front of him. He could see that Apollo was scanning the horizon just as he was. It was so warm despite it being late afternoon and nearly December. A fire squirrel cards made sure of that. Far more places than he thought were still burning but Apollo just sat there.

  Bagel cleared his throat. "I feel like this is a terrible time but, thank you for working with us. I don't know if we could have survived that alone. With your help we saved a bunch of humans as well."

  Apollo nodded.

  Bagel let the quiet fall for the longest moment. This was it. This was key. Whoever talked next would lose. He wasn't selling something that the squirrel didn't want. He was trying to sell a New vision of a divided Manhattan. It was one that they would divide long lines that they picked out. It wasn't going to be a city planner. It was barely going to be someone that was affiliated with the city. It would just be one cat and one squirrel and potentially one human making these choices for others as so many had made choices for them before.

  "I think that we are interested in a deal now," Apollo said.

  Bagels heart nearly leapt out of his chest. "Do you want the final details now or should we return at a later date? He had an idea but he wasn't entirely sure what their idea was. It would be easier for them to work this out together. Amicably well they still had good feelings about each other. Once this was done? He didn't know if he would be leaving Turtle Bay for any reason for a long time.

  "I think that I have a deal for you."

  ---

  It took them hours before they could link up with the adventurous guild team. I'm by then, Bagel had in his possession a deal with La Noche. No matter what happened, they would be able to work other differences and he could count on them to not compete with him. And he didn't even have to give him that much. But he knew that surviving this wave and surviving with them had been the thing that would push him past his limits.

  He knew that all of that was secondary to the people upstairs.

  As expected, they were happy to see him. He felt so relieved that he didn't even know what to do with his paws. It felt like they were passing him and meatball around. One second. He was in Raul's arms. The next second he was in lies's arms then she'd been passed to Khaleesi and then Paolo. He felt the warmth of a home that he'd never had at that moment and maybe... Maybe this was enough.

  He'd put so much effort into creating a safe place for him and the adventurers guild and all of Turtle Bay and now all he had to do was figure out a way to make the rest of Manhattan safe. And to that end, he knew what he was going to do. He didn't know if he was going to have money to do it but the squirrels and their defense of the Central Park zoo had given him something to work towards.

  And he was going to fight for that.

  The end

  ---