The only people from the family who would be attending this meeting were myself, Dad, and Grandpa of course.

  Grandpa was already going, but he asked if anyone else wanted to attend, and myself and Dad were the only people who wanted to go. Dad only volunteered after I raised my hand, so I think that’s why he decided to come.

  I’m sure if we didn’t volunteer so quickly that a few others would’ve eventually done so.

  Grandpa wouldn’t have to go alone, but that’s okay.

  Everyone’s been pretty busy lately, so attending a meeting is probably not on the list of priorities. Especially since Grandpa was already going.

  Anyway, we made our way over to the location Rakeon came back with. It was another house a few streets over. There were already a few people gathered outside, and it seems we were all waiting to be let in.

  So, the shenanigans were already beginning.

  Again, I could very well be overthinking things, but as of right now I’ll assume whoever is hosting this meeting is attempting some sort of power move by making all of us wait out here.

  I took a look around the gathered group and noticed that even though there were a few looks of annoyance, no one seemed to be too angry. That’s good, didn’t feel like dealing with the weird trope of people getting unreasonably angry about small things.

  The one about someone or a group trying to become the leader of a ragtag group of survivors is enough for now.

  It took a few minutes, but eventually the door to the house opened and a woman came out to welcome us in.

  I’m sure if we had to wait any longer Grandpa probably would’ve just left outright. I guess they knew the limits of how long people were willing to wait for something.

  Anyway, the woman looked to be Hispanic, about 5’3, black hair, and a really fit build.

  “Sorry about the wait everyone. It took us a bit longer to get everything ready, but it’s all good now. Please come in and head straight ahead. Feel free to sit wherever you want as long as the seat is open.”

  She had a slightly apologetic look on her face as she said that. Looked real enough, and it very well could be and I’m being paranoid, but hey.

  No one really said much to her, and eventually a small queue formed as we all lined up to get in the house. When our time came around, we nodded at the woman as we passed by and entered the home.

  What awaited us wasn’t anything crazy. It was just a fairly large great room with a bunch of chairs arranged in a semi-circle.

  My family members and I found some chairs, took a seat, then after a couple more minutes of waiting, the woman came back in, and a few people walked out from another room and joined us in the great room.

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  It was six of them, including the woman who welcomed us in. Five of them stood off to the side while one man walked to the spot that all the chairs were facing.

  He was a relatively tall and black muscular dude. Maybe like 6’1 or something around there. Probably around his mid-30s or so as well.

  Looking around the room, there were probably about 20 of us in here not including our hosts.

  That number was definitely not the total amount who’d been battling with us, but just like how myself, Dad, and Grandpa represented the whole Williams family, I’m sure it was something similar for everyone else here.

  No matter what the setting is, as long as a bunch of people are gathered, it will be very easy for different groups to form naturally. Nothing bad needed to happen or for there to be any beef either. People will just gravitate toward what they find comfortable.

  Nerds hung out with nerds, yoga folks hung out with other yoga folks, and etcetera etcetera.

  This was no different. Especially not after a month of fighting had occurred. I’m sure having to fight with your life on the line almost every day had its own special way of bringing people together.

  Ah, he’s about to talk.

  “My name is James, and I want to thank you all for coming. Now, since all of our time is valuable, I’ll just jump right into it. I’m going to assume most of you have gotten a chance to read them books in the store by now. If you haven’t, I sure recommend you do.

  “For those who have, then you probably know about the whole subjugation stuff. Without any sugarcoating, the aliens are here to take control of Earth and probably kill us all. I don’t know what they wanna do with Earth, but fact of the matter is, they been trying to kill us, so I do think it’s ‘bout time we try kill them for once.

  “I got no clue what’s happening anywhere else, but I do know for a fact these aliens are in our town, and ain’t no military coming to save us. They are clearly weak, and everybody in this room is a lot stronger than they were a month ago.

  “Not only can we take ‘em, we should take ‘em and we will take ‘em. Now, my people and I are already planning to attack their camps with everything we got, but it would be a whole lot better if all of you could join us.

  “We’ve fought them together twice a day, damn near every day for a while now. One more group battle like that and we can boot these aliens out of Lagia once and for all.

  “I’m not up here to beg you to join us, just asking, and if you do agree, then we’ll follow up this meeting with a planning session immediately.

  “If you’re interested, please stay seated. If you aren’t, feel free to leave.”

  Honestly.

  I thought just the fact we showed up to this meeting was proof enough that everyone here wanted to participate, but I suppose it’s not a bad idea to get a final confirmation before you move forward with anything.

  The room was silent after he finished talking, and as expected no one got up to leave. Everyone here had already agreed to go alien hunting by coming here.

  James over there smiled when he saw this.

  “Good, glad to have you all. Then unless anyone has any questions, let’s get right into it.”

  No one said anything, and James nodded over toward his little group that was standing off to the side.

  Two of them went back to the room they came out of, and this time when they came out, they were pulling a large dry-erase board with them.

  There were already things on it.

  A whole bunch of circles, lines, squares, rectangles, and X’s.

  “The X’s represent all the camps we’ve found over the last couple of days. The circles and squiggly lil lines are bodies of water and rivers we’ve confirmed. The squares and rectangles are all different-sized buildings.

  “This big building over here-”

  He turned towards me and my family before continuing.

  “This is something anyone from Lagia could tell you ‘bout. The Lagia Castle, home to the Williams family.”

  A few heads turned in our direction, but it wasn’t a secret who we were or where we lived. So the looks weren’t anything crazy and only lasted a moment. We paid it no mind.

  “This is where we will meet to get this show on the road and stage our attack.”

  Oh?

  I turned to look at Grandpa, and I almost wanted to laugh as I watched his brows slowly get furrowed.

  This was about to get interesting.