Orc lumbered around in the bell tower, he was getting bored. He'd been told to wait there after he got the supplies, but was now starting to regret the decision. It'd been Howard who told him to go there, not Sam– even though it was Sam's idea to meet there in the first place. Orc would never have gone into the tower had Sam told him to do it. But either way he was getting irritated now. He was the first one here, mostly because he only grabbed one baseball bat and came straight here. He was not entirely sure on this plan of Sam's, and thus also not entirely sure on what they needed for it.

All of a sudden Chaz came in through the little staircase that led up to it.

Huffing and puffing he said " 'Sup Orc?", and then heaved himself onto the platform.

"Nothin, i'm bored" Orc replied, and stared out the window.

A couple minutes later, the whole group arrived, Sam with a nervous expression on his face, Astrid contemplating something, Edilio with a game-face, Quinn shaking and wobbling, and Howard's crew seemingly bored. Unlike Sam' group, Howard's group didn't like preparing or timing things right. They'd never needed to do it before, and all this hassle to get what they need and not be seen was boring and annoying, especially watching all the other kids just mill about, read comics, and eat sweets.

"We gonna do something or what?" Orc demanded, looking pissed off at Sam.

Sam looked up surprised to hear Orc talk, but stopped himself short of a witty remark.

"Yeah Sammy, my man Orc here is getting bored." Howard chirped in.

Sam wanted to tell them off. They didn't understand just how crucial this was, how important. How important to him that is, he was so sick of everybody placing the blame on him for being a bad leader. Sam didn't do this, Sam couldn't do that. All the while Sam had to keep his morally good character and never retaliate in a "bad" way, while Caine and Drake and Zil and whoever else were free to run around and become as evil as they'd like. To Sam, it was so unfair how while he was at least doing something right, people just stood around and blamed him. But Sam knew he couldn't relay that message to Howard and Orc now. They had changed through the FAYZ, but now they were back to being the same jerks as they were at school. He kept his expression steady.

"We're ready guys. We need a little patience, and then the action begins." he said "you know like the uh-"

"Calm before the storm" Astrid finished.

Orc scrunched his eyebrows, but seemed to understand. Sam got him interested again with the mention of action.

"Real poetic" Howard exclaimed, giving a chuckle. But Sam saw that his expression was fighting to turn into an anxious frown.

"They're here" Edilio exclaimed, as he knelt by the windows. They had climbed onto the top floor of the fire tower in Perdido Beach. It was close enough to see the area where Caine would first get out of his car, yet far enough that he would never notice them. Kids were already milling by the plaza, watching the cars go by.

All of a sudden, Sam felt a pang of fear. Caine is going to ask for leaders, what if they nominate him? Then Caine will know he exists. He looked fearfully at Astrid.

"Astrid, what if they nominate me?" She turned to him with a calm expression.

"Don't worry, I already took care of that." she smiled sweetly, "I told a bunch of kids earlier that this guy Mark was really brave and went into houses saving a bunch of babies that were left alone, and how he really has leadership qualities." she said with a smirk.

Sam knew that a Mark existed here in Perdido Beach, but he couldn't picture his face. Oh well, he thought, at least that will buy them some time.

"What do you mean nominate?", Panda asked with a quizzical expression.

Howard was staring at Sam as well.

"Caine is going to ask for some representatives of Perdido Beach to come meet with him in the church to discuss plans. Last time, I got nominated, along with Astrid, Quinn, Edilio, Dahra I believe, you–" he looked at Howard, ", Orc, and some other people.".

"And what happened then?", Quinn asked, now more curious than jumpy.

"Then? Then Caine demonstrated his powers and injured Cookie." Sam replied.

This caught Cookie's attention.

"Say what now? He injured me?" he exclaimed.

"Yes" Sam said, staring through the windows. The cars had stopped in the center of the plaza. "He dropped a cross on your shoulder."

This silenced the group for a while, and Cookie looked fearfully on his shoulder, imagining what that would have been like, even though he didn't know which cross Sam was talking about and had never been inside the Perdido Beach church.

"Is that guy Caine? The one with the black hair, standing all cocky in the center?" asked Howard and pointed out the window.

Caine had stepped out of the car and begun giving his speech, lifting his hands into the air as if to say "Greetings People".

"Yes it's him" replied Edilio.

Astrid and Sam shared a look. Astrid took a breath and leaned closer. Orc and Chaz were barely paying attention. You could see a boy standing there, but they could barely see his face anyway. Cookie was jumpily looking at his would-be attacker. While Quinn relaxed a bit, the guy didn't look that scary.

"Drake" Astrid hissed under her breath, as a blonde boy stepped out of the car and walked near Caine. Howard noticed Astrid's strained expression. He turned to Orc.

"Orc, you can beat that guy right?" he asked, pointing toward Drake.

Orc finally placed his full attention at the window, and summed Drake up with a blank look on his face.

"Yea" he replied.

"No you can't." Sam said. This caused Orc to give Sam a glare, but before he could open his mouth, Astrid chimed in.

"Orc, Sam says that because you have already fought Drake, and we were there when it happened. Drake is a real psychopath Orc, he's twisted in the head, which is why he's so dangerous."

To Sam's once again surprise, Orc's facial expression had softened as he listened to Astrid.

"So I fight him, but he wins?" he said with a tinge of confusion.

"That is correct." replied Astrid "in the future that is, the one we have lived through" she added for clarification.

Orc thought this over, while Howard summed up the so-called monsters Astrid and Sam had described for them. Caine stood confidently in the middle, Drake just as confidently on the side. Howard didn't like the competition, especially if they were supposedly crazy as well. He was already regretting siding with Sam, thinking about how to take power from Sam, and now these morons had arrived. He frowned in annoyance.

Caine leaned down and spoke to a little kid. Sam remembered the moment when he had stood there and watched Caine comfort the kid. Touching, he thought, and frowned. The rest of the room seemed to be encased in a breath.

"They're walking" Panda said, "towards the church."

Sam got up from the window he was at, and went to Panda's window. He didn't need to do that to be able to follow Caine, but he wanted to feel like he was on Caine's every move. This time his evil twin was not going to beat him. He'd make sure of that. His face flashed with anger.

Astrid caught his look. It saddened her, as she realized that regardless of what they do now the damage has already been done. Even though neither Caine nor Drake nor anyone else has hurt them yet in this timeline, Sam cannot forget what happened. She sighed and looked at the floor, all this to avoid further bloodshed, but likely they're just causing it another way.