LOCATION: SIROVA FAMILY HOME
CITY: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
DATE: OCTOBER 24, 2048 | TIME: 5:00 PM
Two weeks after Kaela’s birthday, Elena had her own day. The family didn’t bother trying to surprise her that morning.
It was hard to get one over on Elena. Being Vanessa’s daughter, she had always enjoyed sneaking around. So, to nobody’s shock, by the time everyone rose in the morning, they found her already in the kitchen.
She was sitting on the island with a cup of coffee as if she’d been there for hours.
Which, Kaela thought, knowing Elena, she probably had.
“What took you all so long?” Elena asked, smugness written all over her face.
Vanessa laughed.
“Yeah. We should have known better than to think we could surprise this one.”
Elena hopped down to the floor.
“Grab your coffee. Let’s do this!”
And so, with considerably less fanfare than Kaela’s class reveal, Elena set her coffee down, plopped down on the couch, and leaned back.
She closed her eyes, and a few minutes later, opened them again.
The family waited, but Elena loved the spotlight, so she stayed quiet for several seconds, a blank expression on her face.
Kaela poked her, and Elena couldn’t hold it in any longer. She burst out laughing and read her new class description.
“It’s called Field Agent.”
She cleared her throat and sat up straighter, still giggling at her own antics.
“Field Agent: a specialist trained for infiltration, intelligence gathering, and extraction. The Field Agent relies on nanite-assisted stealth, adaptive camouflage, and emergency stabilization protocols to survive hostile environments and keep their teams operational.”
She took another sip of coffee.
“It looks like I’ve got access to some heals, too.”
Now that the sisters were twenty-one years old and had graduated from university, they had access to Profession paths.
Both had decided to join the Peacekeeper Force, and at the start of November, they entered their Tutorial.
This many years after the global rollout, new Peacekeeper recruits would all have been born into the System. They would have had stats since the age of five, and many would have achieved their Rare class at the age of 21.
This meant that, unlike at the beginning, weapons and fighting styles were almost as numerous as the people joining.
However, certain elements remained consistent.
First, Healers were always welcome, absolutely needed, and highly respected. They were treated like the VIPs of every recruit class.
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Elena, of course, was quick to warm up to this. Even with her limited healing capability, she still fit right in with this group.
Another unaltered element was the leaderboards for hand-to-hand combat. The Peacekeeper Tutorials were now six months long, and the leaderboards ran weekly throughout the duration.
Kaela topped this list almost every week.
In the end, the two Sirova sisters made quite a name for themselves during the Tutorials, and afterward were stationed together at their own request.
Their first deployment was to the sunny islands of the Turks and Caicos. Anomalies had been detected by the HEX blanket overlaying the planet, and a new incursion was expected any day now.
The Peacekeeper Force surged troops to Providenciales, preparing for the portal to form.
For the first three weeks, the large Caribbean town played host to two thousand hungry and thirsty soldiers.
The group nearly ran the town dry, but one morning at 0400 hours, all soldiers were woken by an alert sounding in their minds.
---
Anomaly detected.
Prepare for deployment.
Follow your Map to the port.
You have 30 minutes.
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Kaela rose from her bed and took a quick shower. She donned her armor and checked on her ethereal blade.
“Fully charged up and ready to go.”
With her new class, Kaela’s armor had to be reforged completely.
While she previously wore thick leather which could limit her movement during combat, her armor was now made of form-fitting nanite-infused fabric that tightened upon impact, spreading blunt force over a wider surface area. Strikes that did land would hurt less.
Not that she allowed many to land.
The armor also included reinforced metallic plates in certain areas that she could use for blocking attacks.
Finally, the remade armor featured a new capability: it now automatically created a force field around itself during the moments she spent moving through another realm with Phantom Step.
Kaela knocked on Elena’s door, and found her sister dressed and ready to go.
The Field Agent armor was also a big change from the leathers Elena had previously worn.
Her new armor was similarly composed of form-fitting fabric with plates for protection. But the reinforced plates on Elena’s armor served an additional function. They were also nanite storage devices. Similar to the staves Healers used, Elena’s skills were all powered by nanites.
The plates on her armor constantly pulled in nanites from the air around her, until they were full.
When she healed someone, it would pull from her nanite store. When she used active stealth, the nanites covered her body, erasing her from view.
And when she used her offensive skills, the plates amplified the force of every strike. All of this combined to make Elena a very useful ally and deadly opponent.
“I’m good to go,” Elena said. She sighed. “Although I will miss the margaritas.”
Kaela laughed.
“I have a feeling we’re going to enjoy the combat far more than the leisure.”
They took the stairs to the ground floor and began jogging toward the point on their Maps.
“Speak for yourself,” Elena replied, smirking. “I enjoy leisure quite a bit, too.”
They arrived at the port, and troops were lined up, loading onto boats as they came.
“The island is twenty-minutes away,” the onsite Commander said. “The portal hasn’t formed yet, but we expect you won’t have long to wait when you arrive.”
The next boat pulled up to the port, and was barely stopped before Kaela, Elena, and twelve other Peacekeepers leapt on board.
The captain nodded to the Commander and pressed the pedal to the floor.
Kaela felt a rush of excitement as they started moving.
She’d heard about the incursion portals, of course. They were a major course of study both at the universities, and the Peacekeeper Tutorial. They learned how, at the beginning, the portals used to stay open for months or even years at a time.
That was before Trevor Gant, the only Hollow Mantle on Earth, bravely passed through under disguise and spent months studying portal technology under one of the Empire’s magisters.
Now, Earth wasn’t satisfied to simply leave portals open and fight what came through. Humanity didn’t just sit there and let beasts and soldiers rush through onto our planet.
The new process was a lot more proactive.
The Obsidian Empire had certainly taken notice by now.
Only time would tell how they adjusted for the new reality. Humanity wasn’t a passive life form on a distant planet any longer.
No, this adversary had teeth, and wasn’t afraid to bare them in defiance.