"Thanks," Thomas replied to the praise with a grin that grew more confident over time. For all his internal turmoil, lack of knowledge of who he himself was and wanted to be, and the dark wound he had, what he received was a salve to his injured self esteem. Not enough to heal it, but it went on the way to mitigating the damage. [i]Yes, after all, none of the people you care about, and contest your leadership, were around to see it,[/i] reminded his voice in his head.

Thomas growled internally as they moved to depart for the race track, to get the people out of here before the big 'ole army of bug things showed up to kill everything. [i]I know,[/i] he shot back. [i]But Jake saw, and he's a pretty old hand at this sort of thing. His compliment means more than theirs would. I mean, Reno would compliment me even if I just shot a firework in there, and Joshua doesn't go for positive reinforcement as far as I can tell. They don't matter.[/i]

He could almost hear his other self shrugged as he flew via glider towards the grandstands at the race track. [i]If you don't care what they think, then why do you keep trying to impress them?[/i]

Another growl [i]You should know why, you're in my head. Now shut up. I'm busy[/i]

Arriving, Thomas assisted with the evacuation as best he could, more in the area of 'making sure people didn't get hurt trying to get out' rather than 'expedite a quick exit'. A Glider was useful for that, allowing him to dart about and intervene in dangerous situations before they could turn ugly, or tragic. Not that that arose very often, but it was good that he was around when it did. 

"Oh, that's not good," Thomas commented aloud as he brought his glider down on the track, Cy-Bug's popping up out of the woodwork like a horde. He brought out his keyblade and activated his armor, covered in white, gold, and blue. He turned to see the Cy-Bug Queen, big and hulking, waving tentacles around and generally looking nasty. So he went in to help Calhoun, using the tactic he had used to such great effect before, of using Thundara on the top of the thing while trying to freeze and then smash the tentacles with Blizzara. This was not going to be fun.