"..." >>> Is for the talk everyone around can hear.
{...}>>> For the talk heard only through his earpiece.
=====
The group soon boarded their vehicles and followed the pickup back to the interstate and into the road leading to the farm that is around two miles away, where Carl is being treated.
"Sasuke, what happened exactly?" Katniss, who was driving the Humvee, asked, as Amy had told her briefly before that his shoulder was injured.
It was also at that moment the earpiece shared with Morgan and Billy transferred their voices.
{Now is the time you tell us what happened, boy. Who was that trash piece tied to a tree, and what happened back there?} Billy asked Sasuke, confusing Jenner beside him until he pointed at his ear.
Tapping his earpiece Sasuke detailed the incident of him luring the horde and then how someone shot him.
{You were shot!? Why? Who?} Morgan asked him.
"There were 5 of them. Unfortunately, I caught only 3 before the others ran away on motorcycles. Anyway, we may have a hostile community a few miles south of the farm we are heading to."
{Only 3? You killed two driving a fucking car with two knives from who knows how far? Anyway, are you good?}
Katniss and the two Harrisons wanted to ask too but understood when he signaled them to be patient and just listen for now.
"I'm totally okay, anyway...from what I'd gathered, they had a leader who is nicknamed the Governor, a ruthless kind who survives by plundering other weak camps and scattered survivors...the issue is, the people in his camp, they are not all like him; 90% of them are the sheltered type who don't know what is really going on outside the shelter and what kind of person their leader and his men trully are..."
{So the few who ran away will report you?}
{Governor? Another asshole to deal with... do we need to follow the scorched ground rule?} Billy asked him what mattered, to kill or not.
"It doesn't matter really; we should first focus on dealing with Carl's issue now, and guys...a good shelter needs to be found as soon as possible, a fort type as discussed."
{A police station, college, resort club, military fort, or anything built with strong walls and maybe fences with clear surroundings around it for more than a hundred meters}
{Or prison; they fit the descriptions.} Morgan agreed with Billy.
"Yeah, we clear one suitable, fortify it more, and discuss the right arrangements. With visible enemies and even more not, we need to start moving the plan soon. We don't lack the armory; I and Billy already stashed them at a safe place accessed only by the two of us and ready to be retrieved at any moment. So the more important is the base and the backup."
{Noted, we deal with the main one before thinking about the backup base.}
{And what about people, Sasuke? Would they accept going for that?} Morgan asked him remembering what kind of people they have on this group.
"Our people, are they ready to follow us?" Sasuke asked, to both the two men and the Everdeens in his car.
"You know I won't be going anywhere you aren't in." Katniss smiled and shot a little smirk to the confused Amy in the backseat.
{Ready whenever you are} {always} Morgan and Billy didn't even hesitate; they already have the plan forward and the means to achieve it.
And that was all Sasuke needed, his people's trust...
"Then that's all I hope for. We will give the chance to everyone; they will all be with us as long as they don't endanger the group and follow the arrangements. Those who don't want to...they can try their luck the way they want to."
{Alright, we decide when the blueprint is ready. Now have a rest...I can't believe you deflected a fucking bullet. Next time you don't go running alone.}
"For your information, Billy, for reasons I can't say, I'm at my weakest this week; a bullet was the least of my worries before that, so you better not turn to my grandma, and can I leave the infiltration of Woodbury to you later?" Sasuke already smelled it miles away.
Billy would turn to be overprotective since this is the first time that illusion of invincibility Sasuke gave him was shattered, and he didn't want that.
And that shit had to happen just before he gained the right amount of chakra to stop worrying about his body's slow reaction while being sniped.
{Sure, you know I won't joke about such an important thing; I'm the best at that field. Give me a week and I'll have their fucking panty colors laid for ya.} He didn't even question the statement.
For Billy? Vanishing things was the fucking pinnacle; deflecting bullets was hardly as shocking.
"Alright, just be safe." Sasuke decided to trust him to that; if Billy can figure out that Shane nearly attempted to take Rick's life, Dale connection to the two Harrisons and who was the best to trust with serious tasks on the quarry...then that proves his ability.
Disconnecting the call, Sasuke turned to them.
"Sorry about that. So...any questions?"
"What do you mean by taking only those who want to?" It was Andrea who voiced her worries; the amount of info she heard was staggering, and even more so was the way Sasuke spoke of the detailed plan.
"Exactly that, we plan to secure a safe place ASAP. That means some will agree to move on working on this while others may not. I needed that point to be clear from now...I won't beg anyone to join me, but I will take every person willing."
She nodded her head, and Amy voiced exactly what Andrea was wondering.
"But why would you think that people may refuse? You are strong, and no one right in their minds would put down such a suggestion to work on finding a shelter."
"Short relief, short belief." Ciri surprised them all by that.
[[[ I plan to make her the future best strategist of the group.]]]
And Sasuke fought hard to supress the smirk he was holding, he was damn proud about the little girl and how much more matured she was.
It proved him right that she was smart enough to keep up with his lessons.
"Huh, what do you mean?" Amy was really confused now; what was the little girl spouting now?
"Can I, Sasuke?" Ciri asked him with a little smile; he was the one who drilled all those into her mind after all when he taught them and made them discuss and share their own ideas.
"Sure, princess."
"Okay, so...as Sasuke told me, and he showed me later the effect of it.
People tend to lean more toward the option or person who gives them the relief, even if it is brief and false.
I didn't really understand before. But when Sasuke defended the attack back in the mountain, people thanked him.
That was the short relief. They were relieved they were saved and believed in him at that moment. But it's just for a short moment. That effect will soon lose its shape like an ice-cream melting if you don't decide on consuming it.
And it did when some of the people didn't have that same belief in him the next morning. As their short relief changed from being near him to the belief they have a better chance themselves, outside instead of heading to the CDC."
She shrugged; she had already grasped the idea, but her inexperience didn't help with putting more examples.
It was the same with her and her sister. They took his food, and their short relief that time was staying in the secured building rather than following him and risking their lives outside for the unknown.
Had she and her sister stayed back?...she knows what would follow that short relief.
Katniss, who was wondering if she was the little sister here, chuckled before making it clear to them, as she understood what Sasuke meant.
"In short, if people find a place that gave them that short relief, safe with food and no walkers visible. most would hold onto that illusion and would object to the idea of working more to search for the fortified place Sasuke needs and make it ours."
"But we hadn't even found a place?" Andrea couldn't keep up anymore with their line of thoughts; they were still travelling...
"You don't mean—The place we are going to?" Amy suddenly thought of the possibility.
"Exactly, people are there in the farm, those who took Carl in. And if you still didn't notice, we hadn't seen a walker since we hit the road to this farm, meaning alive people who survived until now, who may be self-sufficient. Who may be strong enough to wipe out all walkers around..." He tapped the wheel, thinking about the last hypothesis.
Which Andrea caught too. "Or hadn't met them at all, just like we experienced in the camp?"
He nodded.
"Our people are tired; they were attacked in the mountain, then came close to exploding in the CDC, and right the next day a large horde marched through us, nearly making us lose a little girl, let alone the info I shared with you...which I ask to be kept a secret for now."
Sasuke told the two Harrisons to keep the matter about the governor's community secret for now.
No need to make the people who can't change anything just the more anxious.
"They will take the offer to stop trying and moving around the moment we find any good place. That's why you are making us ready to not be hoping? You already deemed this place as non-suitable?"
Andrea asked as the caravan came to a stop in the distance from a big farmhouse, with big clear lands around it with cattle and such, it looked peaceful, too peaceful.
"Yeah, this is anything but the shelter I want my people to be in."
She reflected, and Andrea wondered if she was truly going to become just another hoping idiot searching for the short relief they were talking about.
If even a little girl not even half her age can have that vision under his tutelage...
At first she viewed him as just a skilled young guy who charmed her sister with that damned face of his; she wasn't interested in anyone younger than her, but...
"Remember, handsome, you promised to teach me how to use a gun, and I'm in, in whatever plan you guys have," she whispered loudly as she leaned to his ear, trying to annoy both girls.
She found it amusing at the thought of beating the two girls in their game as the mature lady here, even if her interest in him wasn't truly that of a maiden in love...
'But I won't say no to a D from such a specimen.' Andrea smirked before getting out.
He may be young now, but she knows she would be willing to do anything in a few years once he hits his peak. Once she is past hers as well...