LunaWolve posts
[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 74 - Unexpected Ambush
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 69: Expertise has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Oh boy, more scheming and plans!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BfaiyTz6VryJNqFPMKsveswHPu9zKEe8o-HcerFGRc8/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 74 - Unexpected Ambush
“For most Marines, time dilation is not experienced as what it is intended for: A tool.
It is instead often experienced as a loss, on a psychological level.
Three months of silence is not trivial to the average human mind.
You leave conversations unfinished, routines unbroken, relationships placed on pause—only to return and find that, for everyone else, the pause never even existed.
Your friends and colleagues speak as if you had merely been gone for lunch. Your squadmates pick up conversations from “just yesterday” as if the same amount of time had passed for you.
The world has not moved, but you have aged inside it.
This mismatch is the core fracture point.
Humans are inherently built to measure relationships in shared time.
When that shared time desynchronizes, the mind searches for decay that isn’t there—and often invents it to protect its habits and routines. Marines frequently report feelings of isolation, displacement, and unreality after exiting a Skill Training, despite objective evidence that nothing in their relationship with their squadmates or friends has actually changed.
Interestingly however, a not insignificant number of individuals show almost an opposite reaction.
These Marines—often considered socially awkward by their peers or straight up flagged with attention deficit disorders by the psychological evaluations—operate on a different baseline assumption naturally:
Relationships do not change unless acted upon.
Time passing alone does not register as a similar loss nor an impetus for change.
For them, six months without contact feels no different than an hour. When they return, the world behaving ‘normally’ is not jarring but expected, for they have not been a part of said world, so no change could be enacted upon their relationships.
In civilian life, this trait is usually seen as a liability or a downside.
In a time-dilated military environment however, it becomes an unexpectedly big advantage.
As a result, while most Marines struggle to sustain more than three or four Skill Trainings per year without severe psychological strain, this subset can endure as many as they can afford—even back-to-back if time and credits permit—without any measurable degradation.
This phenomenon has been observed in every Drive and is closely monitored by Ship AIs and Officers alike.
Psychological support is available to all Marines—built directly into the cost of Skill Trainings themselves—ensuring there are always enough specialists on hand for those struggling with dissociation or reintegration.
Some, however, never feel the need nor are deemed as required to take that offer.”
[Excerpt from “The Quiet Gap,” a UHF internal psychology brief on the effects of time dilated Skill Trainings on Marines, PFC847]
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Thea and Kara made their way back to Alpha Squad’s dormitory, each of them peeling off to their own room to take a moment and let the Skill Training really sink in.
On the way, Thea had tried to nudge Kara into explaining her sudden, very intense outburst of murderous intent toward the Sovereign, but her best friend gave her next to nothing to work with.
‘It was just a joke—probably,’ Thea had eventually decided.
Now inside her room, Thea sat down at her workbench and started jotting down a few of the major aspects of the [Physics - Basic] Skill Training she wanted to spend some extra time on over the next few days.
Especially those that directly or semi-directly related to the talk she’d recently had with Peria and those that dealt with the functionality of the Laser-type Gram that sat disassembled on the workbench in front of her.
She didn’t get particularly far, though.
Around two hours after sitting down, the alarm she had set went off, reminding her of the other, extremely important appointment she had today.
“Haaaa,” she sighed heavily, leaning back in her chair and running her fingers through her hair. “It’s already been a really long day, and it’s about to get even longer, huh?”
After making sure her uniform was sitting right—and, for once, getting out and pinning on the Two-Star Crysium Medal at Corvus’ insistence—she headed for the door to meet up with the rest of the squad.
It was finally time to hear Major Quinn’s announcement on which Challenges had been issued over the past weeks as a result of the Assessment…
—
Alpha Squad made their way to the assembly hall, with Corvus nominally leading from the front, followed by Thea, Karania, Isabella, Desmond, and Lucas.
At least, that had been the order Corvus had decided on—but given the easy chatter between them, there wasn’t much structure to it.
They mostly walked side by side.
That changed the moment they reached the hallway leading up to the hall and the noise washed over them.
A low, constant rumble filtered through the open bulkhead doors—hundreds, no, thousands of voices overlapping into an indistinct roar, boots scraping against the floor, the rustle of uniforms, bursts of laughter and sharp, nervous chatter all bleeding together into a single, oppressive sound.
“Alright, best faces on,” Corvus said, slipping into his usual serious-but-approachable look. “Remember—we’re Alpha Squad. We have a reputation to uphold. What that reputation actually is, I have no idea. But let’s try not to disappoint the other Recruits, yeah?”
That earned a few chuckles, and Thea appreciated the way Corvus always managed to ease the tension in moments like this.
Her hands still grew clammy as she took in the sheer number of Marines, and she uselessly tried to dry them by rubbing them against her pants. At the same time, she consciously recognized that there wasn’t really anything for her to be nervous about.
Not personally, at least.
‘It’s not like anyone can actually Challenge me. I’m safe in Alpha Squad, no matter what…’ her thoughts shifted as her gaze moved over the others, each of them straightening up, checking uniforms and posture one last time. ‘I guess I’m more worried about them.’
Especially after spending three months inside Skill Training, she’d gained a new appreciation for the squad as it was now—Desmond included.
He was still the one she liked the least, but she couldn’t deny that he was trying to make up for how he’d treated her at the start.
‘And he’s a damn good Drone Operator. That matters even more, really...’
She really had gotten lucky with this initial Alpha Squad constellation.
There were probably far more people she wouldn’t get along with than ones she would—and to only have one person like that in the squad, especially one who was genuinely trying to change and make up?
That was probably extremely rare—not that she had any idea about these kinds of things, but it just felt that way.
‘I’ll make sure we stay together,’ Thea decided, her expression firming. ‘No matter what.’
“You good?” Kara’s voice pulled her out of her ruminations.
“Ahh, yeah. Just thinking,” Thea replied, a little startled.
“What about?”
Thea hesitated, unsure if she really wanted to say it out loud, but in the end she figured there was no harm—especially with Kara.
“Keeping Alpha Squad together.”
Kara’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “You do realize that’s not your responsibility, right? Helping everyone train and get better is one thing, but don’t turn it into your life’s mission, Thea. You can’t control other people’s actions.”
“I’m not trying to,” Thea said right away. “I just… I don’t want anyone to get replaced. I like the current squad.”
A half-pitying, half-fond smile crossed Kara’s face. “So do I. But it’s not always in our power. We’ll all do our best, help each other out, and try to keep everyone together—but the Brass are the ones who decide the outcomes of the Challenges. There’s nothing we can do about that. All we can do is prepare as well as we can and accept whatever happens.”
Thea bristled, but she had no real comeback.
Karania was right—as usual. And Thea knew it.
‘Doesn’t mean I have to like it…’
A moment later, Corvus seemed satisfied that everyone was ready. He straightened and said firmly, “Let’s go. Heads up—don’t let anyone think we don’t deserve to be here.”
With that, he led Alpha Squad the last few meters down the hall and into the large hall.
The moment they stepped into the hall, the noise began to shift.
It didn’t stop outright—but it dipped, as more and more Recruits spotted them and cut off mid-sentence. That hesitation spread, each pause prompting others to look up and search for the reason, only to spot Alpha Squad and fall quiet as well.
It moved like a ripple rolling outward from their point of entry, steadily muting the hall into hushed murmurs and restless movement as those farther away leaned and craned for a better look.
Rows upon rows of Marines were already seated, the vast majority of the Drive packed into the assembly, and heads turned toward them as Corvus led Alpha Squad inside.
They walked with their heads high, shoulders straight, Assessment medals pinned neatly to their chests—one each, the highest they had earned.
That alone was enough to make people stare in awe and envy.
They’d talked, briefly, about wearing all of their medals. But Corvus had shut that down immediately, dryly pointing out that Thea walking in with her entire chest plated in her fifteen medals would look less like confidence and more like outright provocation or mockery.
She had corrected him right away, of course.
She did not have fifteen medals.
‘Yet…’
Still, one medal per person was more than enough.
Whispers rippled outward as they moved down the aisle.
“That’s Alpha Squad…”
“Holy shit, they all have one.”
“That’s The Wall, right? Look how fucking large he is, Emperor be damned…!”
“Yeah, that’s him. You saw the highlight reel, right? He just holds that shield like it’s nothing.”
“And that one—Isabella—fuck, that’s The Juggernaut! I fucking love her!”
“You think they’re fucking? Like any of them? Or maybe all…?”
Thea kept her eyes forward, jaw set, doing her best not to react—but her Perception betrayed her anyway. The murmurs bled through, overlapping, stacking on top of each other until it was almost overwhelming.
She could have locked it all out—if she had really tried.
But a big part of her didn’t want to. She wanted to know what others thought about them.
“Karania too… People call her the Blood Witch, yeah?”
“Yeah. Medic my ass—did you see what she did in the Assessment? Never seen a “Medic” do any of that shit.”
“Exactly. Scares the hell out of me, man. Thank the Emperor she’s on our side, huh?”
And then, Thea finally caught parts of the whispers she had been looking for—
“That’s her! That’s Thea, right? The crazy sniper?”
“Yeah, that’s her, alright. The Cyan of Alpha Squad… Girl’s a fucking menace, no matter how you look at it.”
“Right. The one from the Awards Ceremony, how would anyone forget that?”
“That was still the craziest shit ever, man. The way she just dared everyone to Challenge her? That was peak. Pure peak, man. I swear.”
“She didn’t miss any shots in the Assessment, did you hear about that? Like—not once.”
“I swear I never saw her get hit either! She’s actually unkillable!”
Thea swallowed.
She tried—really tried—to convince herself to tune out the parts about herself, but it was impossible. The instinct to know what people thought about her was too deeply ingrained from her MMM days.
On the Galactic Net, your reputation had been everything.
Ego-searching hadn’t just been a pastime back then—it had practically been part of the job.
Correcting bad assumptions about her builds, calling out people who hadn’t even tried to follow her guides properly, tracking what narratives were forming and where… it had taken a chunk of every day. Letting go of that habit wasn’t easy—not that she truly wanted to, if she was being entirely honest with herself.
If someone wanted to fight her, she’d gladly take the Challenge head-on.
But to do that, she needed to hear them coming.
Still… This time, there was something different about the murmurs, compared to when they had all walked into the Awards Ceremony together.
The whispers weren’t sharp with the same resentment she had experienced back then.
They carried something else instead… A kind of apprehension and wariness.
A low, uneasy respect that sat extremely close to outright fear.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever getting that spot in Alpha…”
“I remember the highlights from the Ceremony, dude. That… That just wasn’t normal. You can’t tell me she’s supposed to be the same Tier as us, come on…!”
“You think the parts of the AI that handle the Stellar Republic troops absolutely hate her? I know I would if I lost as many of my toys to one, singular enemy...”
“Did you see how many medals she walked away with? At least she only brought one today. I would’ve fucking cried if she brought all of them, man. I didn’t even get close to earning one...”
“…I don’t ever want to be matched against her.”
“Same. Absolutely not. I’d take my chances with the Juggernaut instead, honestly. At least I might be able to hide from her, if nothing else.”
The words followed her as Alpha Squad moved deeper into the hall, and Thea felt her spine straighten just a little as more and more, similar rumours kept reaching her ears.
Fear, at least, was honest. That, she could live with.
Better to be feared for real reasons than hated for nothing.
Alpha Squad had almost reached their assigned section when Corvus suddenly stopped, and the murmurs around them fell into complete silence.
“Corvus,” a heavy-set voice greeted the leader of Alpha Squad.
Thea leaned slightly to the left to look past Corvus, only to have to tilt her head up as the massive frame of a fellow Recruit—one they all knew well from the Awards Ceremony—loomed in front of them.
“Tiberius,” Corvus replied with a calm nod.
“I apologize for springing this on your squad like this,” Tiberius said, his tone measured and seemingly sincere, “but I do need to speak with your sniper before this whole thing starts.”
Thea blinked, taken aback.
Of all people, he wanted to talk to her?
“Apologize my ass,” Kara muttered quietly behind her, catching Thea off guard. She leaned in close, her voice right by Thea’s ear. “He planned this. Cornered you on purpose. I’m betting he wants that Challenge from you, especially with the timing and how he’s doing this.”
Thea’s thoughts started to tumble.
Tiberius looked genuinely apologetic—but Kara clearly saw something very different in the situation.
Thea felt a flicker of confusion at the disconnect between Tiberius’ calm, apologetic tone and Kara’s sharp warning—but she didn’t hesitate for even a second in who she believed.
If Kara thought this was a setup, then it probably was. That was just how it worked.
‘Trust Kara first, sort out the details later…!’
Corvus stepped aside with little hesitation. “I won’t stand in the way of important business,” he said evenly.
Tiberius moved closer, and Thea had to lean back slightly just to keep eye contact.
He was about as tall as Lucas, but leaner, all sharp lines and coiled muscle.
“Again, my apologies for cornering you like this,” he said. “I tried to find you earlier today, but circumstances didn’t allow it. This was… the only option left.”
She nodded stiffly, already feeling the weight of hundreds of eyes on her.
“I wanted to ask,” Tiberius continued, “has anyone taken you up on your offer yet? Your Challenge.”
“No,” Thea replied.
The murmurs started instantly, rolling through the hall like a spark through dry grass.
“Seriously…?”
“Is he going to—?”
“No way he actually tries it…”
“Who the fuck even is that guy?!”
Tiberius inclined his head slightly. “Then I would like to. I formally request that you Challenge me—just as you proclaimed you would during the Awards Ceremony. I intend to take your spot.”
Her breath caught for half a second.
“Take your spot.”
For a moment, the weight of the hall pressed down on her: Too many eyes with too much attention on her.
Then the familiar fire hit.
It spread through her chest and into her limbs and the anxiety burned away almost instantly.
A predatory grin pulled at her lips before she could stop it, and a few nearby murmurs spiked at the sight.
She didn’t hear them.
Her focus was fully on him.
“I’d never take back what I say then,” Thea replied firmly. “The Challenge is yours. I’ll inform Major Quinn.”
Tiberius bowed lightly at that, genuine respect in the motion.
“Thank you for the opportunity.”
That… took a bit of the edge off. Not much—but enough to register.
‘Huh?’
Then he turned and walked away, just like that, leaving Alpha Squad behind.
The hall exploded back into noise.
Speculation, excitement, wagers already being whispered—who would win, how fast it would be over, what they would be doing.
Corvus didn’t let them linger.
He gestured sharply, guiding them the last stretch to their seats.
He had everyone sit—everyone but Thea—then quietly led her along the side and around the podium.
“That was planned,” he said under his breath. “Be careful with this one. Tiberius is very, very smart… That makes him dangerous.”
Thea didn’t look away from the podium to her left as she answered. “That’s fine. I’m ready for anyone. Smart or not.”
Corvus scoffed softly, a hint of a chuckle slipping through. “Of course you are.”
Corvus didn’t waste any more time.
He guided her to a narrow side door along the wall and slipped through it, motioning for her to follow. The noise of the assembly dulled almost immediately as the door closed behind them, replaced by a muted echo as they moved through a short corridor that ran behind the podium.
They came out just a few meters from Major Quinn.
She was already there, hands clasped behind her back, posture perfectly straight.
When she turned, one eyebrow rose in clear expectation as her eyes settled on Thea—like she’d been waiting for this exact moment.
Thea felt a flash of awkwardness crawl up her spine at the clear implication that this was, somehow, her fault.
She swallowed, then forced herself to breathe.
She had known this might happen the moment she’d opened her mouth during the Awards Ceremony—or at least once she had realized what she had said on that stage in the heat of the moment, after the fact.
Running from it now wasn’t an option.
So she stepped forward.
“Major Quinn,” she said clearly, squaring her shoulders. “I wish to Challenge Tiberius Soren.”
For a long second, Major Quinn said nothing.
Her gaze bored into Thea and she did her absolute best not to flinch as she looked back up at the taller woman, jaw set and spine straight. The silence stretched just long enough to make her heartbeat feel uncomfortably loud.
Then Major Quinn sighed.
“Sure,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “I figured you’d give me a headache right before the announcement anyway. Consider it done.”
Thea blinked.
That was it?
Before she could even process it properly, Major Quinn fixed her with a pointed look.
“Anything else?”
“N—No, Ma’am!” Thea blurted out, bowing quickly—once, twice, then a few more times for good measure. “Thank you very much!”
Behind her, Corvus let out a quiet chuckle and gestured for her to move.
She turned and followed him back toward the door, her head still spinning slightly as they reentered the hall and made their way back to Alpha Squad’s seats.
Just like that.
The Challenge had been accepted and Lucas was no longer the only person that needed to prepare for whatever gauntlet the UHF had planned for the Challenges...
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POV: Tiberius Soren
Things had gone exactly to plan—surprisingly enough.
‘I did spend quite a few hours making sure this would all work out, but… I really didn’t expect it to go this smoothly anyway,’ Tiberius thought, a silent chuckle running through his mind.
Around him, the rest of his squad—and several nearby Recruits—were staring at him like he’d grown an extra head, murmurs and rumors spreading fast.
None of that mattered to him.
He had spent the last few weeks carefully working his way through the other Recruits.
Listening. Befriending. And, more times than he liked to admit, fighting his way into the exact information he needed to reach this point.
‘Never would’ve guessed there were this many idiots willing to stake their careers on their ludicrous hatred of a Cyan… Pathetic,’ he thought, a faint frown forming.
There had been a lot of bruised egos after McKay’s proclamation at the Awards Ceremony—far too many for her to Challenge them all.
After all, there was only one slot for it.
At first, most of them had wanted to rush her and demand the Challenge outright. But once it became clear that plenty of others wanted the same thing—and yet none of them were actually willing to step up and do so right away—everything had shifted.
Fear, apprehension and blind envy had been the determining factors.
Those same things had kept them frozen long enough for Tiberius to slip in among them.
To guide things. And then, one by one, to fight them for the right to stand here.
In the end, they’d all agreed on one thing: The “Cyan” needed to stop embarrassing Alpha Squad—no matter which of them did it.
So they’d left it to the one with the best odds.
That had been Tiberius.
Not that he had any illusions about how this would go.
‘It would be pure madness to think I actually stand a real chance against Thea McKay in her chosen role…’ he admitted to himself. ‘The highlights alone made that much painfully clear.’
But that didn’t mean the Challenge itself didn’t hold a lot of value for him.
For one, the experience of facing what might be the best Recruit the UHF had ever produced would be downright invaluable—especially one in a similar role as himself.
It was something most of the other Recruits had clearly failed to comprehend at a fundamental level.
This wasn’t about winning the Challenge at all.
It was about seeing, first-hand, what Thea McKay was really capable of.
How she thought. How she moved. How she did the things he had seen in the highlights.
‘Morons. Every last one of them… Absolute morons.’
The second reason was simpler: There was no real downside.
He could only issue one Challenge—but the rules said nothing about being Challenged in return. He had already submitted his own official Challenge to Major Quinn the same day the UHF 101 had finished.
Getting McKay to Challenge him as well meant free experience, free training, and an extremely slim—but never-zero—chance of taking her spot.
And once the Challenge failed, the groundwork would be set anyway.
He had no intention of joining Alpha Squad before the second Assessment.
He had made that decision weeks ago.
‘Earning the respect of the people who will still be there when that time comes, though… That’s worth starting on now.’
Thea McKay. Karania Faulkner. Isabella Itoku.
The three pillars of Alpha Squad. Untouchable monsters, all three of them. The first two especially—but even Itoku was impossible to deal with for anyone in the Drive.
Well… almost anyone.
‘If Masters wasn’t so obsessed with Callahan, she could probably beat Itoku this cycle,’ he thought. ‘By the second one, though? If Itoku keeps adapting like she has been, not even Masters will stand a chance. But Major Legacies aren’t exactly known for letting go of their pride...’
In the end, none of that mattered right now.
The groundwork was set.
McKay’s Challenge would earn him her respect, and the inevitable reveal that he had kept many of the more vocal Cyan-haters from harassing her for this entire first cycle would earn him points with both McKay and Faulkner. Likely with the rest of Alpha Squad as well—especially Itoku—assuming they were all still part of the squad by then.
All he had to do now was keep playing the long game.
If he did, Alpha Squad would open its doors to him eventually—right when everything else fell neatly into place as well…
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[FREE | TS] Chapter 5 - First Plans
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Listen... The Reading Samples are over, but I realized that I hadn't actually given a proper test to normal-sized chapters for TS.
So all the feedback I've received so far, which by the way was very kind and helpful, has only really been marginally relevant to the question of "Would you read this, if it was a real novel?"
So, I'll write just a few more chapters here, that are normal TAS/ND sized, to get a better generalized feedback on whether this is actually a novel you'd read, as shortened chapters can lead to people not enjoying the same content that a binge would allow.
No idea how many chapters, but don't expect them to be coming out consistently or in great numbers. TS is exclusively a "I have no more other work to do" thing.
Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (#other-novels -> Thread: "Put feedback for TAS in here")
I'm particularly looking for feedback on whether you are interested in a continuation, and specifically what parts got you really interested (if at all).
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To hopefully pre-empt some questions that might come up:
No, this will not replace TAS.
No, this will not replace ND.
No, it will not be a third novel alongside the other two anytime soon, as I'm maxed-out on energy/time capacity for writing with those.
Yes, it is something I'm considering as a third novel for the future.
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Now, with all that out of the way, I once again ask that you go into this with an open mind and just take it for what it is. And remember to provide targeted feedback on the things you like/dislike!
Enjoy!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the GoogleDoc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OALfdFxMOgWcfByw2DFXyJWHuujyXyVO3Nosl2jkDlM/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 5 - First Plans
The footage opened on a wide aerial shot of a ruined street in Haekoz’ Central District, south-west quadrant. Asphalt had been split open on several spots, nearby storefronts shattered, scorched and half-collapsed, and the ground below was stained in long, dark smears where neon-violet blood had already begun to fade under chemical neutralizers.
On the ground, more than a hundred cleanup workers in full hazmat gear moved through the space like a hive of bees. Some hosed down the street, others shoveled and scraped residue into sealed containers, while a separate group methodically cut apart massive Vyre corpses for transport.
The work was grim, but laughter and light conversation could also be made out among the workers as the camera-drone flew closer.
Among them, a handful of Heroes stood out—the only unsuited individuals in the footage.
One lifted entire chunks of broken concrete.
Another stood at the intersection, arms raised, directing high-pressure jets of water that diluted the remaining blood and washed it toward the nearby storm drains.
The steady and solemn voice-over cut in.
“Just hours ago, this street was the site of a desperate fight for survival. A surprise Vyre Incursion erupted late last night in the south-western side of Haekoz’ Central District, escalating rapidly when a Brute-class entity breached the portal as its designated Boss.
“The Incursion was contained by a patrol team of rookie Heroes, led by the local Hero known as Ironbound, a young E-Rank, Tank-type operating under the city’s own Haekoz Hero Program and signed with Bulwark Horizons. Despite overwhelming odds, the team somehow managed not only to hold the line, but to even defeat the Brute and collapse the portal before reinforcements arrived.
“Additionally, officials have now confirmed that civilian casualties were kept to a bare minimum. Several civilians were injured by debris and secondary fires, but—remarkably—no fatalities were reported that night in connection with the Vyre Incursion. A truly remarkable success, by such a young team of Heroes.”
The footage cut to a hospital room.
Ironbound sat upright in bed, his head and torso wrapped in thick bandages, one arm immobilized in a brace.
His face was pale, but alert.
“Ironbound,” the interviewer prompted gently, “people are calling this a downright miracle. How did your team manage to pull this off?”
Ironbound let out a short, tired breath.
“Honestly? Rob and Telly did most of the work,” he said. “They kept the pressure off when it mattered. I… I almost failed them, as the Tank. We came way too close to losing everything out there… But they really held it down.”
He paused, jaw tightening.
“We were extremely lucky. I think that’s the biggest truth of how we did this...”
When asked about his teammates, his expression softened immediately.
“Please—send your best wishes to Telly,” he said. “She took the worst of it. If anyone deserves support right now, it’s her.”
The newscaster quickly echoed the sentiment, reminding viewers that the Hero Telly, a Rank-D Hybrid, remained hospitalized and in surgery but was supposedly stable.
As the interview wrapped up, Ironbound hesitated, then added one last thing.
“And… I need to say this,” he said. “Without the help of a local Vigilante, we wouldn’t have been able to hold the line. And we definitely wouldn’t have closed that portal. A lot of civilians, and my entire team, owe them our lives.”
For just a fraction of a second, emotion flickered across his face—then it was gone.
The camera cut back to the studio.
“It seems that once again,” the anchor said, “the Powered Emergency Law proved its worth—forty years after its introduction—allowing Heroes and Vigilantes to work together when it matters most, for the good of all. However large the differences between us all, what we all intrinsically know is that the Vyre are worse.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“Today, remember to thank your local Heroes for everything they do. Their tireless efforts and sacrifices, day in and day out, are what hold society together… And make sure to stay with us!—up next, a message from NovaPharm about their latest treatment, designed to help non-Powered citizens resist early-stage Vyre Corruption. Especially important right after a Vyre Incursion like this!”
The screen faded to white, and the advertisements began.
—
[Excerpt from Haekoz Central News (HCN) Morning Report — 06:22 AM]
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I turned off the local news streams on my computer that I’d been listening to for the past hour while getting my day started.
It was my morning ritual to get up around 5 AM—usually 5:07, because I really liked how the numbers zero and seven looked together like that—then spend about an hour on a light workout to start the day “right.”
“Or at least that’s what Sadie had always said was important…” I muttered, toweling off the light sweat I’d worked up. It had been my routine for over a decade now, ever since she’d dragged me along on her health kick.
Mornings were for local news only, just to get a feel for the immediate environment I’d be spending my day in. Doomscrolling and global news—the stuff meant to ruin your mood—was reserved for the trip to university.
Better to save that little box of nightmares for when I was already on my way to being forced to deal with other people.
Most of the local news this morning had unsurprisingly been about yesterday’s Vyre Incursion. The same short interview with Ironbound had probably played thirty times in that single hour across the seven channels I had queued up.
‘Good to hear they all made it out,’ I thought as I opened my Alchemist’s Notebook. ‘Would’ve been a massive waste of effort if they hadn’t… They were actually proper Heroes. The good kind.’
There were a lot of things I wanted to do today, but the first—and most important—was getting a proper grasp on my Power-set. Yesterday’s testing had been completely derailed by the rude-as-hell Vyre Incursion and its suspicious-ass timing, but I couldn’t deny that it had also given me a huge amount of usable data.
“And the first shard basically being handed to me like that? Yeah, not complaining about that for sure.”
I still bristled at the fact that I’d already had to break one of Sadie’s and my hypothetical rules—one of the many we’d come up with over the years about what we’d do if we ever got Powers—when dealing with the Heroes.
But there really hadn’t been any other option. I had gamed the entire exchange inside my head more than a dozen times since then and found no viable alternative.
Ultimately, however, the truth was that sacrifices had to be made if I wanted to make real progress on the plan of getting Sadie back.
‘She’d understand,’ I told myself, nodding slightly. ‘It was the most pragmatic choice. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d agree with it. If there’d been another option with a real chance of success, I’d have taken it to keep the rule. She knows that.’
They were one of the only two things I could still call my conscience now that Sadie was gone and couldn’t fill that role herself anymore: Rules and promises.
Rules could be bent. Broken, even, if there was no other viable option.
Promises couldn’t.
But either way, none of that was particularly relevant to my current task at hand, so I focused back on the notebook in front of me instead of the hypotheticals that always tended to consume my daily hours for no reason.
There were four new Formulae from yesterday’s strange experience of imbibing the shard, and four others from the first time around that I still hadn’t tried.
That meant I’d need to buy ingredients for all of them so I could test them today.
‘Best not to mess around with Mutagens for at least a few days, in case the Heroes are out there looking for Nica. And I do still need to test whether the [Brawler Mutagen] can even return me to Nica-form sooner rather than later, though...’
My current, very rough plan kind of relied on being able to create alternate personas at will.
It would be extremely hard to keep my life as Triss out of the spotlight otherwise.
There was only so much a reversible trenchcoat and a half-broken mask could do.
My eyes drifted to the shattered mask, the lower corner completely missing, and a sting of anger flared in my chest at the sight.
“Fucking Vyre…” I muttered through clenched teeth, then took a slow breath to calm myself. Getting angry wasn’t going to help me get everything done before university.
I quickly typed out the ingredient list on my phone—my actual phone, not the old one I’d buried back in the Central District before taking the bus home last night—so I could pick everything up after class on my way home.
Next, I laid out all the Vials I still had from yesterday.
There were five total, one of them still holding the leftover [Acidic Fluid] I hadn’t used. Two Vials had broken entirely, while I’d returned three to the strange void that let me conjure them, for the total of ten I had had available yesterday morning.
“Alright, let’s see if this works the way I’m hoping,” I murmured, focusing on the intangible sensation in my chest. A grin spread across my face almost instantly—I could tell right away that the void was completely full, not a single Vial missing.
A moment later, the first Vial popped into my hand.
I set it down next to the others, then kept conjuring until the void was empty.
I fist-pumped the air after I was done. Seventeen Vials sat in front of me now.
“Yesss!”
I immediately wrote everything down in my notebook: Broken Vials returned on the next reset; Vials outside the void counted as conjured and didn’t affect replenishment; Vials stored in the void did count and wouldn’t overcap.
“So, best practice is to get all the Vials conjured and stored right after waking up—actually…” I cupped my chin and tilted my head. “All but one, today.”
I put a single Vial back into the void for testing purposes.
I still didn’t know whether the reset was a full reset or a partial one, since I had conjured all the Vials at roughly the same time yesterday. If I conjured this last one before going to bed, I’d easily be able to tell whether the reset was timer-based or tied to the day.
‘I also need to figure out the exact reset time…’
I noted the time as 6:28 AM, then closed the notebook and put it away, along with the Vials, into the nearest drawer—the one with the keypad.
After locking everything up, just in case my parents suddenly decided that today was the best day to break their decades-long habit of respecting my privacy, I got my university stuff ready. I pulled on my uniform, did my minimalistic makeup, double-checked my hair, and headed out.
I waved a quick goodbye to my parents—breakfast hadn’t really been my thing ever since Sadie told me she skipped hers to make time for her morning routine—and went to the bus stop.
“Alright, time to get started on all this…” I muttered to myself, running through everything I’d need to keep in mind for the foreseeable future—which was a lot.
First and foremost, I’d come to the conclusion yesterday that I effectively needed to be a Villain. At least for a little while—definitely for the start. With the promise I’d made to the criminal last night in the hopes he would understand the consequences enough to not fuck with my time, I didn’t really have another choice, no matter how hard I’d tried to find one.
That meant I’d have to be careful with my real identity going forward.
The Unwritten Laws helped with that, keeping Heroes and Villains from digging into each other’s identities or going after family and loved ones—but they weren’t exactly ironbound.
“Heh… Ironbound…” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.
Mostly because Villains didn’t tend to care much about laws to begin with, but primarily because the Unwritten Laws weren’t just called that for shits and giggles.
They weren’t really laws at all.
They were an honor code at best, followed mostly out of mutual self-interest.
The moment too many Heroes or Villains started breaking them, all bets were off—and nobody wanted that, on either side.
‘Pretty much the same deal about killing each other with rabid abandon, really.’
That kind of thing definitely still happened, and not all that rarely in the grand scheme of things, but most Heroes and Villains tried to avoid killing blows unless it was an accident or there was truly no other choice—for that exact reason.
Secondly, however, being a Villain would actually let me speed up the Bring-Back-Sadie plan by a lot, as I needed a bunch of Credits to buy all the fragments I had seen online already.
As a Hero, my main source of income would almost certainly be patrols and Vyre Incursions—which I was now painfully aware were extremely dangerous, even with Powers.
There was little chance I’d ever reveal myself to the WHA as a Crafter-type, so I’d also have to rely on the thin cover of my Nica persona, assuming I could even get that one back in the first place.
But as a Villain, I could tap into multiple revenue streams at once.
First, as a Crafter-type selling my products on the side.
That would likely be my biggest source of income, at least early on.
As far as I knew—which, frankly, might just be a gap in my current knowledge—there hadn’t been an active Villain Crafter-type in this part of the country for quite a while. Most of them tended to get hunted down by Heroes sooner or later for being an absolute pain to deal with, which was why secrecy was such a hard requirement in the first place.
That, however, meant the whole market was basically primed for a monopolistic takeover by yours truly—and yes, I absolutely got the cosmic irony of having to lean fully into everything I hated about late-stage capitalism just to earn the massive amount of Credits required to bring Sadie back.
Very funny, Universe. Really, just so fucking hilarious.
‘Not to mention that the shit I can make is really, really fucking good. Like… damn, it’s all so solid,’ I added mentally, smirking to myself. Seff’s visible interest in my [Adhesive Liquid] yesterday had been a pretty clear sign of that.
The second option was being a Vigilante and helping out with Vyre Incursions.
Whether I showed up as Nica or some other temporary persona didn’t really matter—and honestly, it’d probably be better if it wasn’t always Nica—as long as I could secure part of the loot share.
Selling the parts would be easy enough online. There were plenty of Vyre-part and Artefact markets out there, and nothing actually stopped civilians from owning or trading them.
‘Except maybe the Corruption… But getting a sealed suit isn’t exactly hard either. I can just order one by drone and have it here in like an hour… Which, actually, I really need to do as soon as possible.’
Even if I was immune to basic Vyre Corruption now that I was Powered, I’d still need a suit for an alibi—especially if I ever got caught with parts on me, or tried selling them under my real name.
‘No idea why I’d ever do something as stupid as that, but still.’
Third, and lastly, as a Villain, nothing actually stopped me from committing crimes. I was already a criminal in the eyes of the law, so what was one more bank robbery or extortion?
As long as I didn’t hurt the powerless, it was absolutely fair game—
‘And bonus points if it somehow hurts the trillionaires, shareholders or ruling class,’ I could practically hear Sadie’s smug voice finish the thought for me. She had never fully agreed with my anger about everything, but she definitely knew me well enough to know that was exactly where that thought would’ve ended up.
‘I can definitely do with a little bit of blackmail once in a while—as a treat. Even Sadie would agree with that,’ I nodded to myself as I finally got onto the bus.
Today’s ride, at least, unlike last night’s, didn’t cost me anything—except for the obscene monthly payments for the damn university ticket, of course.
I took a seat in the second-to-last row at the back and made sure there was an empty seat next to me for Sadie, before drifting back to the problem at hand.
The third point of order was figuring things out in more detail.
Having a rough plan was good enough to get started, sure—but it was also how Villains got their asses thrown into the Pan, which I had absolutely no intention of experiencing anytime soon.
‘Gotta love the PR spin on the damn panopticon, all cutely dressed up for kids and the uninformed masses as “Pan.” Like it’s a cooking utensil or something…’
Still, even knowing what it actually was—the largest and most secure prison complex ever built on the planet—the name did make it sound less threatening every time I heard it.
That was just damn good branding by the PR department, really.
‘Also makes for great jokes whenever a Villain actually escapes… from the Pan into the fire and all that.’
Either way, it was something I very much needed to avoid.
So setting aside proper time for planning over the next few days was an absolute must.
Which, honestly, shouldn’t be all that hard.
I wanted to build up a small stock of merchandise first, before even thinking about marketing it—and I still had to figure out how to sell things as a Villain in the first place.
‘Can’t exactly just put them up online and ship them out by drone…’
At least not with normal commercial drones. They all had transponders, IDs, constant GPS callbacks—every bit of tracking crap Big Brother loved to use to keep tabs on everyone, all the time. If I wanted to move things anonymously, I’d need a black-market drone.
Which was yet another thing I’d somehow have to figure out.
I slouched a bit, resting my chin on my fist and leaning my arm against the seat in front of me as I watched the outskirts of the city rush by outside the window.
‘There’s a lot of stuff I just don’t know—and no easy way to learn it without putting my Triss persona at risk,’ I realized after a few minutes of turning it over in my head. ‘Which means the Mutagen personas—assuming they all change my body like the Brawler one—are going to have to be my way of doing recon going forward.’
Effectively, Triss wouldn’t be able to do much of anything—except build an extremely solid and believable alibi persona. Which was the entire reason I was headed to university in the first place, despite the massive amount of work still ahead of me to get the plan rolling.
And, of course, there was that semi-promise I had made to Sadie during our very last conversation. It hadn’t been a real promise—I hadn’t used the keyphrase, after all—but given that Sadie had more or less directly asked it of me, it still counted as one.
At least a little.
“Haaa…” I let out a heavy sigh, leaning back against the seat and tilting my head up to stare at the ceiling as I muttered, “And that means actually doing well in class…”
Damn Sadie and her constant need to make sure I was a functional, respectable member of society. Still, having Triss turn into a model student—making friends at university and staying involved with it and all of them just enough to be considered “in”—would be a perfect alibi if I ever needed one.
‘So, in a way, Sadie already paved the path for this part of the plan, huh?’ I thought. ‘Sneaky, sneaky Sadie. Always two steps ahead of everyone else—even the damn universe, apparently. I wonder if—’
My thoughts were rudely cut off by someone speaking at me like some rowdy mongrel.
“Is this seat taken?” the man asked, which prompted me to look up at him.
The seat was quite obviously free, in any sense of the word. It wasn’t taken by anything but air. The question was just the usual “polite” way of asking permission without actually asking the question, because that made a lot of sense in people’s minds, for some reason.
“Yes. Go away,” I replied, turning my head back toward the window.
The man looked completely stunned. I saw his mouth open and close like a fish in the window’s reflection before he finally walked away.
‘Huh. Didn’t think that would actually work… Neat.’
I hadn’t been rude without reason, though: The seat was Sadie’s.
Whether she was here today or not didn’t matter.
Things had their place in this world, and that seat was Sadie’s. It always had been and always would be. So the seat really was taken—just not physically. And since his question hadn’t specified physical occupancy, I was well within my rights to interpret his question broadly and give the honest-to-god answer of no.
Sadie would reluctantly agree with that logic, even if she’d still scold me for it afterward—like she so often did with things like that.
Not my fault people weren’t specific with their questions…
Thankfully, however, that was the only incident on the entire bus ride—aside from the brief moment of confusion when we drove straight past Sadie’s stop without anyone getting on.
‘Silly me…’
Finally, I arrived at the university entrance and put on my new face.
‘I’ll call this one… New Triss! Well—okay, name pending. I’ll come up with something good, promise.’
There were rules when it came to presenting a face to people.
Quite a few of them, really, but the most important one was simple: A face is not a mask.
Pretty much everyone masked at some point in their lives—mirroring emotions to fit in, avoiding being excluded by pretending, and so on—but especially neurodivergent people did it all the time, which there were quite a lot of these days.
Many suspected the Appearance and the Convergence had caused an uptick in strange, alien ways, but personally, I’d always thought we’d simply gotten better at noticing the signs for a proper diagnosis.
Either way, the problem with masks was that they were inherently fragile. Rip the mask off, accidentally have it drop, create too many cracks, and you were naked—entirely exposed.
Not exactly great if you were aiming for something long-term.
Faces didn’t have that weakness—but they were also much harder to maintain.
A face was the real personality you presented to a chosen group of people. There was no mask to tear away or accidentally lose, because the face was the whole thing.
There was no breaking the face. No losing it or having yourself get exposed.
That was rule number one.
Once you showed a face to someone, that face was who you were to them forever—unless changes in circumstances could realistically shift it over time. Which, surprise, surprise, the death of your best friend actually counted as, letting me drastically alter the one I’d used at university up until this point.
That, in essence, was the real trick to never being excluded: Perfectly faked authenticity.
‘People love that shit,’ I thought dryly. ‘Especially flaws. Show them a few badly hidden ones, act like they’re deeply embarrassing, and they’ll forgive a lot of cracks. Works every time.’
The new face had a clear purpose: Be a perfectly likable, model student, and build up “Triss” as a solid alibi in case I ever needed it.
I let out one last heavy sigh, silently cursing Sadie for having talked me into an implicit promise like this, before letting the face fully settle.
My mouth pulled into a slight smile, my eyes gained their practiced shine, and a bit of pep crept into my step as I walked off the bus, flicked my hair out with one hand to give it a quick, uneven shuffle—a minor flaw for endearment—and headed into the campus with a new-found, confident stride…
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[FREE | Reading Sample] TS - Chapter 4 - Villain
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2026-02-11 19:29:05 +0000 UTC View Post[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 73 - Skill Training (+Art [For Mid-Chapter] in Attachments)
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 68: Heir Apparant has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Quick headsup, that next week is ADMIN WEEK!
That means no chapters until the 16th Feb for ND and 17th Feb for TAS.
That's all I got to say today, really.
But if you really want more Luna-content, and haven't checked out the free Reading Samples for potential novel #3 (TS), then you can do so here:
There's only 1 chapter left to write and release for this series of Reading Samples (intended to give you a glimpse into the world, the MC, the general setup, the "magic" system, etc. to give you a good overview of whether this would be something you'd want to see and to gather feedback on it all).
There's currently around 37k Words in this Reading Samples available (just a small glimpse, really, y'know)
Here's the links to the currently released chapters (FREE to read over on the patreon, just follow the links!):
Chapter 0 - Alpha - https://www.patreon.com/posts/148049880
Chapter 1 - Power - https://www.patreon.com/posts/148786437
Chapter 2 - The Emerald Tablet - https://www.patreon.com/posts/148963508
Chapter 3 - Vigilante - https://www.patreon.com/posts/149192704
(Final) Chapter 4 - ??? - To Be Released (Soon)
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Welcome to the first Skill Class!
We're going in-depth on this one, to provide a foundational understanding of how these things work. In the future, most Skill Classes will only be side-notes or quick mentions, unless important character-building moments as part of them.
There is also art available for this chapter!
I would love to put it into a spoiler tag (as it's kinda spoiler-y for something in this chapter), but Patreon is dogshit, so it's available as a downloadable file instead until the RoyalRoad version of this chapter releases.
Go check it out below in the attachments!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hAiN2-Mb2T2tV3M-lWI9P5YDGVMn8g_gMTqbmgbgjrM/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 73 - Skill Training
“The first Integration wave is never meant to be complete.
It’s simply the spark, not the whole fire.
When a Drive begins, only around one to five thousand Recruits make it aboard immediately. These are the cream of the crop. The ones already flagged, already screened, already thoroughly trained for what is to come as part of their Integration preparations.
They get time. Flexibility. Space to explore their Builds, their Abilities, and themselves.
They are given every room to grow into the Marines they are meant to be.
That luxury does not last forever.
Over the course of the first year, the Drive expands to its intended strength—somewhere between eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand Marines.
The later Recruits are folded in aggressively.
Their training is denser, more structured, and far less forgiving.
More mandatory classes. More forced drills. Less freedom. Less self-direction.
They aren’t being shaped from raw material like the first group is; they’re being accelerated to catch up. And until that is achieved, their schedules are packed.
By the six-month mark, the last Recruits are finally aboard.
Their four Assessments are compressed into the same window as the final two Assessments of the initial wave.
The timeline is utterly brutal, but equally as necessary.
The Galactic War does not wait for ideal pacing, as much as we wished that it does.
There are always concerns about culture shock, of course. Early Recruits with months of autonomy mixing with those who have known nothing but schedules and orders.
In practice however, it rarely matters.
Public rankings, Assessments and the Challenge System reshuffles squads and rebuild them constantly.
This is by design, of course.
By the end of the first year, it becomes nearly impossible to tell who joined first and who joined last, based on the squad makeups or their rankings on the public leaderboards.
Builds have long since converged. Habits have aligned after a few weeks in the barracks.
Only the finer details give it away—early Recruits tend to have cleaner foundations, more polished synergies in their Builds… But there are far, far less of them.
They are the ones that the UHF hopes to become Aces one day, so their foundation matters more—Merit above all, as is always the motto. And yes, that means, if you didn’t make the first wave, odds are you weren’t top-tier Ace material to begin with.
But odds are not always guarantees. Exceptions exist.
Especially in the outer stretches of the Inner-Worlds and beyond, where distance alone decides who arrives ‘first.’ In those regions, there are often multiple “first” integration-groups, ordered not by sheer merit, but also by routing efficiency.
Those are usually picked up about a month—maybe a month and a half—into the Drive. Another detachment of potential Ace material, still afforded the luxury of full self-determination.
But beyond that? Ever-increasing pressure, tighter schedules, and fewer chances to experiment the later you arrive.
Make no mistake, however: the UHF does not care when you arrive, or whether you were ever flagged as an Ace candidate. The UHF only cares whether you endure—and whether you have what it takes to be a Marine regardless.
Everything else you earn through the Merit of your actions, as has always been the case.”
—
[Excerpt from “On the Nature of the Drive,” Internal UHF Training Circular, Strategic Personnel Command, PFC893]
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The non-descript, gray room that Thea had rushed into to escape the embarrassing situation with Karania just moments ago began to morph and change the instant the door fully shut behind her.
The space around her reshaped itself smoothly, stone and light flowing together until the gray nothingness resolved into a sprawling university compound that looked both ancient and advanced at the same time.
Tall, weathered stone buildings rose ahead of her, their architecture leaning heavily into old academic styles—arched windows, ornate buttresses, carved facades that looked like they belonged in some ancient Gothic academy.
But threaded through all of it were subtle lines of glowing lightstrips, hovering projections marking lecture halls and departments, translucent signs floating in the air to guide students across the grounds.
Soft blue light traced pathways through the stone, and faint holographic banners drifted lazily above walkways, denoting courses, schedules, and campus notices.
At the center stood the imposing main building with two broad side wings stretching outward like open arms. A wide, park-like campus spread out in front of it, filled with trimmed grass, winding paths, and clusters of old trees whose branches provided deep, welcoming shade.
Students were scattered absolutely everywhere—dozens of them lounging beneath the trees, sitting on benches and stone tables, or gathered around a large fountain near the heart of the grounds.
The fountain itself drew her eyes immediately.
At its center stood a towering statue of the Emperor, carved in pale stone and accented with faintly glowing lines, water cascading down around it in slow, elegant streams. People leaned against the fountain’s edge, chatting idly, reading, or simply enjoying the calm.
Except for two guys, who had apparently decided that sitting inside the water was even more relaxing than simply having their feet dangle in it like a good number of the other students had.
They were completely drenched and just sitting there, leaned against the base of the statue and seemingly chatting about who-knows-what.
Thea realized then that she was standing just outside the entrance gate, a tall barrier of stone and metal bars framing the view inside.
It wasn’t closed off in a hostile way—more like a clear boundary between the outside world and this place of learning. From where she stood, she could see everything clearly, the steady foot traffic flowing in and out through the gate, the relaxed pace of life within.
She stared, taking it all in.
‘…Whoa.’
On instinct, she turned around to see what actually was “the outside world” in this place, only to be greeted by a lush forest in every direction. Not lush enough to dim the light, as the trees only started to really cluster together around a hundred meters out, but definitely dense enough to prevent any kind of view beyond maybe a hundred and fifty meters.
Turning back around, she couldn’t help but feel that this all looked almost exactly like the kind of university she had seen a hundred times before in old series, films, and games.
Like a more well taken care of version of Lumiosia’s Grand University, that the Old Man had once taken her to.
‘Compared to this, the one on Lumiosia looks like a damn trash heap…’
Her chest tightened with something dangerously close to excitement.
‘Wait…! I’m—I’m actually… gonna go to school,’ she thought. ‘Like, an actual university. For real.’
The idea sent a small thrill through her.
Not just learning facts or grinding Skills, like she had initially expected these Skill Trainings to go, but actually walking these grounds, sitting in lecture halls, being a student in a place like this—even if it was all still simulated.
‘This isn’t just going to be like another boot camp, but an actual, real visit to university, huh…? I never thought I’d ever get to have an experience like this…’
The thought lingered, settling deeper the longer she stood there.
She didn’t move right away.
Thea just… stayed there, staring through the gate as a million different thoughts piled up at once. Excitement, disbelief, a strange tightness in her chest she couldn’t quite name.
A faint sense of loss for something she’d never had, mixed with the quiet wonder that she was getting it now—here, of all places, as part of the Marines, wrapped in a System interface and time dilation.
‘Guess life really is weird like that… To get the kind of education I’ve always wanted, I had to become a Marine. Who would’ve ever guessed that was a possible route, huh?’
She exhaled slowly, forcing her shoulders to relax.
Letting herself get stuck here wouldn’t change anything, no matter how big the moment felt.
Eventually, she squared herself and took a step forward.
As she approached the main gate, a translucent holographic screen flickered to life in front of her, hovering comfortably at eye level.
“Welcome, Recruit Thea McKay,” it chimed in a calm, neutral tone.
Then, it displayed the words: “Physics Skill Training Campus – UHF Marine Corps.”
A small, floating box materialized beneath the text, accompanied by a simple prompt to open it. She did as instructed, and the container split apart with a soft hum.
Inside were two slim datapads, a simple electronic card, and a datawatch.
“Huh,” she murmured, lifting the watch first.
The moment she slipped it onto her wrist, as she was being instructed to do so by the holographic display, the device lit up, its display snapping to life. A clean, detailed map of the entire campus unfolded across the screen, a pulsing dot marking her current position.
Several markers were already in place—lecture halls, common areas, maintenance access points—but two stood out immediately.
Dormitory: Assigned
Initial Gathering Area: 00:32:47
‘Around thirty minutes left… That’s plenty.’
With a small nod to herself, she tucked the datapads and card away, stepped fully through the gate, and entered the campus proper to make her way to the dorms.
The path beneath her feet was smooth stone, worn in places from heavy use, while thin strips of soft blue light traced its edges, guiding her forward.
She followed the route, letting herself soak it all in as she walked.
Old stone walls and towering arches passed by, broken up by subtle holographic overlays and floating signage. Students moved around her at an easy pace, some chatting, others lost in their own thoughts, all of it blending into a calm, almost peaceful hum.
It felt so unlike everything else she had experienced so far as part of the UHF Marine Corps that she couldn’t quite shake the tension in her body—like this was some kind of elaborate trick meant to make her lower her guard.
But by the time she reached the dorms, nothing terrible had happened.
She checked her room—which was a private one, just for her—and found it neatly furnished. A bed, two desks to work at, and a wardrobe already stocked with student outfits greeted her.
“Hmm…” she hummed as she looked through the clothing inside. The uniforms were clearly designed to be able to be mixed and matched, probably to let students customize things at least a little bit.
Inside the wardrobe were two clear options.
One was a more practical uniform with fitted pants, clean lines, and reinforced seams.
The other swapped the pants for a pleated skirt, paired with the same structured jacket.
Both followed UHF colors—muted gray fabric with dim crimson accents along the cuffs, collar, and trim—but she had to admit they looked pretty damn cool for military-issued student wear.
Her hand moved almost on instinct toward the pants—
But then she stopped.
She hesitated, staring at the skirt option longer than she meant to.
She had never worn dresses or skirts before.
But this place was so far removed from anything she knew. Fully simulated, locked behind the DDS, and then wrapped in another layer of separation thanks to the Skill Training itself.
‘There really isn’t any danger in here, is there…?’
There was no one she knew. No real consequences that mattered outside this particular space that would last beyond the three months she would be staying here.
She mulled it over far longer than she would ever admit to anyone.
The soft chime from her datawatch snapped her out of it.
[Initial Gathering – 00:05:00]
“…Shit!”
Decision made in a rush, she grabbed the skirt version and threw it on.
She fumbled with it for a few seconds, feeling immediately foolish as the fabric settled around her legs. The chill against her skin was impossible to ignore as she hurried out of the dorm, half-jogging toward the gathering area.
Her hands kept drifting down on instinct, and she had to consciously stop herself from fiddling with the pleated skirt after checking—multiple times—that it was not, in fact, riding up enough to flash anyone as she moved past them in hurried steps.
It definitely hadn’t taken her most of the walk to calm down about that. Definitely not.
The welcoming turned out to be exactly that—welcoming in the loosest sense of the word.
A very old man—reminding her quite a lot of her own Old Man—stood at the front of the gathering area, spine straight despite his age, hands clasped behind his back as he looked over the assembled Marines in their student uniforms.
His hair was white, his face lined and stern, and when he spoke, his voice carried without effort.
He talked about the next three months, including pointed reminders about things such as the UHF’s expectations for them all, everyone’s individual discipline and effort playing a big part, as well as mentioning that if you do not manage to unlock the Skill by the end of the three month period, you are likely going to have to buy another whole three-month Training.
That had quite a few people bristle, of course, as the Credits cost for these Trainings was quite hefty, even Thea wouldn’t deny that after Karania’s pointed example at the store.
Nothing he said was particularly surprising, however—until he laid out the daily schedule.
Two hours of classroom instruction, followed by a one hour break period. Then two more hours, followed by another break.
This would repeat until they had logged ten hours of study time for the day.
Fourteen hours total, counting breaks.
Thea felt her eyebrows creep upward at that.
Fourteen hours of “class” sounded brutal at first, but the moment she actually thought about it, it made quite some sense. They weren’t here to just skim topics and get a rough overview of things. They were supposed to learn basically all of Physics in three months—or at least the basics of it, whatever that really meant.
There wasn’t really a gentler way to do that.
Once the speech wrapped up, their datawatches chimed almost in unison, assigning classrooms and routes, and everyone disbanded pretty much right away.
No lingering. No ceremony beyond that. Just marching orders, that everyone present knew how to follow like practically nothing else in the world.
Thea also followed the map to her assigned lecture hall and took a seat somewhere in the middle rows—not too far back, not right at the front either.
Within about five minutes, the room filled in around her.
Then another old person walked up to the podium.
That, more than anything else so far, caught her entirely off guard.
This one was a woman, her hair pulled back neatly, posture sharp, eyes alert in a way that made her age feel almost irrelevant.
She set a datapad down, looked out over the room, and spoke.
“I am Professor Halevi,” she said. “I will be your instructor for the next three months.”
She went on to outline the curriculum—[Basic Physics] covered the full foundation of the field: Motion and forces, energy and momentum, rotation and gravity, waves and fluids, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, light, matter, and the basics, as well as a conceptual overview of more advanced aspects like relativity and quantum theory without truly diving too far into them.
In general, it focused less on the exact math behind it all—although there was going to be quite a lot of that as well—and more on physical understanding, teaching how these laws interacted with systems in the real world, technology, and the Allbright System itself, while preparing students for every advanced Physics-related Skill down the line.
She explained that the students had already been pre-filtered to roughly equal education levels, as best as the UHF could manage.
There would still be differences, of course. Gaps here and there.
But no one should be wildly out of place.
“And if you find yourself moving significantly faster than the rest,” Professor Halevi added calmly, “you will be reassigned to a class further along in the curriculum. Speak up if that happens. Do not coast, you are here to obtain a Skill, not take a vacation.”
Thea nodded along, absorbing it all—but a small part of her mind was still stuck on something else.
She had now seen two visibly old people in less than an hour.
That felt like a strange thing to be shocked by, but she realized then that she hadn’t seen anyone who looked older than maybe forty in years. Not since leaving Lumiosia. The System, the Marines, the DDS—it all smoothed age away, having warped her expectations.
‘The System really screws with your sense of normal, huh?’ She thought, before forcing herself to refocus.
The lessons that followed came fast.
They were extremely dense, structured, and utterly relentless, hammering information into everyone’s heads until the hour-long breaks felt like a blessing the moment they stepped out of the classrooms.
Those breaks were very clearly designed to be exactly an hour long, Thea didn’t doubt, because by the time they ended, she had just barely recovered enough energy and mental focus to function—only to be thrown straight into another two-hour block of dense instruction.
That exhausting ebb and flow continued for the entire day.
By the time the first day finally ended, Thea barely remembered walking back to her dorm.
She collapsed onto the bed fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling as mental and physical exhaustion crashed over her all at once.
“…Holy shit,” she muttered softly.
Day one was officially done.
—
The next three months continued in much the same rhythm.
Thea woke to her alarm, grabbed a quick breakfast from the university cafeteria—which was thankfully very well stocked—then headed to class for most of the day, squeezing in lunch during one of the hour-long breaks.
By the time evening rolled around, she was usually so exhausted that she’d wolf down dinner, then work through the basic problems the Professor had provided as optional practice—which, of course, she did every day because she wanted to learn all of it—before finally collapsing into a dreamless sleep, only to do it all again the next day.
The only real break in the monotony were the Sundays, which were thankfully set aside as self-study days to give everyone some much-needed breathing room.
For Thea, that mostly meant spending time in the extremely well-endowed university library, reading up on whatever topics they were currently covering in class.
That part of the Skill Training was easily her favorite.
‘Having access to this much knowledge whenever I want… This is pure bliss!’
About a month into the training, Thea had slowly but steadily pulled ahead of the class she’d originally been placed in and was moved to a more advanced one. Her exhaustion spiked immediately, as she had to catch up on a pile of new topics—but somehow, she managed.
Not that she had much else to do.
She didn’t really have friends here, or anyone to talk to.
That, however, seemed to be more of a “me”-specific problem for her.
Most of the other Marines had formed cliques or temporary friendships, which Thea didn’t quite understand. After days this exhausting, she barely had the energy to function, let alone handle a bunch of high-stakes social interactions like “making friends”.
‘These people are freaking monsters… How do they have this much energy all the time?!’ she found herself thinking more than once as she watched them over the months.
The answer came slowly, as things began to settle into a more sustainable rhythm around the one-and-a-half to two month mark.
Her brain and body finally adapted to the constant input, and following the Professor’s explanations became almost second nature instead of something she had to actively struggle through.
That shift left her with a bit of extra energy by the end of the day—energy she poured into even more optional work, though she realized it could just as easily have gone into social interactions, too.
‘I’ll have to try that in the next Skill Training,’ she thought. ‘If I can stack some social practice on top of each Skill Class, I might actually catch up to the rest of Alpha Squad… Or at least stop being so damn incompetent at this stuff…’
Class-wise, her absolute favorite—bar none—were the practical classes.
Experiments, hands-on work with parts of physics that had been nothing but theory before, and all the different things they got to “play” with helped everything click far faster than lectures ever could. It felt like she learned those topics five times quicker that way.
So she poured a lot of her effort and focus into them.
By the end of the three months, though, she had even started to feel a bit of unease about the Skill Training coming to a close.
She had long since passed the final exams that tested whether she knew enough to obtain the Skill back on the Sovereign, but the relaxed rhythm, the routine, and the sheer joy of learning so many interesting and useful things at once made it hard to accept that it would all end soon.
‘Haa… Maybe I should go for an advanced course next time… Six months instead of three? That would be really, really fun,’ she’d thought more than a few times.
But there was always something else pulling at her, too.
‘But I really want to talk to Kara… and Lucas. And Isabella. And Corvus. Watch Isabella mess with Desmond, even. It’s been a while…’
Alpha Squad had been the one constant in her life before the training, but they’d been completely absent for the entire three months she spent here.
‘I miss them,’ she finally admitted to herself near the end, and that feeling was what let her accept the Skill Training coming to a close. ‘I think I get now why Major Quinn was so worried about Kara and me coping with all this. It’s a really nice place, away from the constant pressure of being a Marine… But in the end, it’s just a means to an end. I’m here for the Skill and the knowledge. Nothing more.’
The end came quietly and without much fanfare.
No grand send-off, no ceremony—just a simple notification on her datawatch that hey time had come to an end, and a final glance back at the campus before Thea turned and walked through the same gate she had entered three months ago.
Holographic arrows bloomed into existence ahead of her, pointing away from the university and toward the tree-lined path beyond.
She followed them, steps slow at first, then steadier.
After only a few dozen steps, the warmth of the place behind her began to fade.
The soft chatter of students, the distant lectures, the calm hum of the campus all thinned out and dissolved, replaced by that familiar, non-descript gray that always marked the edge of a DDS instance.
The ground flattened out, the grass disappeared, the air returned to its more sterile norm.
Then a door formed in front of her.
She stopped for a brief moment, hand hovering just short of the handle, then let out a quiet breath and pushed it open. On the other side waited an almost entirely empty room—plain walls, flat lighting, a few chairs, nothing remarkable about it at all.
She stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind her with a soft click.
A chime rang out the instant it sealed.
[System]: The Participant has acquired the Skill: [Physics – Basic].
A small smile spread on her face at the sight as she thought, ‘Alright. One down, like three hundred more to go.’
The only door in the room—the one she had stepped through just moments ago had disappeared—slid open just a few moments later.
A clerk stood on the other side, offering a polite nod.
“If you’d please follow me, Miss.”
She did, slipping past them and into a narrow hallway that felt almost too small after three months of open spaces and lecture halls. A few turns later, the hallway opened up—and she stepped right back into the System Store.
And behind the counter, her eyes immediately spotted the exact same clerk as three months ago.
Same face. Same posture. Same uniform.
The only difference was that they looked a bit more tired now, a faint sheen of sweat at their brow, like they’d just been dealing with a long rush of customers.
Thea froze for half a second.
‘R…Right. Twelve hours,’ she reminded herself. ‘Not three months. Twelve hours for everyone else.’
This was probably even the same shift for the clerk.
While she had been gone for three months, learning everything there was to learn about the basics of physics, the clerk hadn’t even finished their shift of work for the day.
She shook her head slightly, trying to push away the strange sense of wrongness crawling up her spine, and stepped fully back into the store proper.
“Hey there, Thea! Welcome back.”
Her heart fluttered a bit at the sound of that voice. She turned, smiling without really thinking about it, and found Karania already walking toward her.
“Same to you, Kara!” Thea replied, the words coming easily. “How did it go?”
They exchanged the basics as they moved off to the side—Karania had passed without issue and picked up [System Medicine – Basic], no surprises there. Thea congratulated her, Kara returned the favor, and for a few moments it all felt wonderfully normal again.
Then Thea added, absent-mindedly, “Man… it feels really good to be wearing pants again for the first time in months.”
Karania stopped dead.
Slowly, she turned to stare at Thea, eyes wide, face pale. “W—What?”
Thea blinked, then immediately realized how that must have sounded. “No—no, not like that! I just—uh—I tried the skirt uniform in the Training. You know. As a thing. Figured, why not? I was definitely not running around in just panties for three months, Kara! I’m pretty sure the UHF wouldn’t even allow that…”
That, for some reason, did not seem to help.
Karania’s expression crumpled in a way Thea had never seen before. Her shoulders sagged, her eyes unfocused, and a small, broken whimper slipped out of her mouth.
Thea stiffened. “K—Kara?! What’s wrong?”
She almost reached out, the instinct to hug her flaring up hard—but the memory of last time stopped her short, and she awkwardly kept her hands to herself instead.
Karania took a few deep, shaky breaths. Then, in a quiet, hollow voice, she said, “I am going to personally kill the Sovereign one day for keeping this from me…”
Thea stared at her, utterly lost.
“Keeping wha—Huh?!,” she replied. “Kill the Sovereign?! What?! Why?!”
But Karania didn’t seem inclined to explain her strange outburst.
She merely shot the ceiling the nastiest, most murderous look Thea had ever seen on a human being’s face before, then turned on her heel and stormed out of the System Store—prompting Thea to hurry after her…
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 72 - Routine
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 67: Competence has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Timeskips, ahoy!
Getting into the more-and-more routine portion of Volume 2, where timeskips will become vastly more common, as we need to move this story forward towards the important sections ;)
First Skill Classes will be in-depth (1 chapter, aka the next one) future ones will simply be side-notes or mentions in conversations ala "I had my [Basic Chemistry] Skill Class recently. That was cool." Or with some shorter excerpt-like recaps if it's something "unique" like System-related stuff or fun action parts.
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ouq2riei3HuhbWKOtSs2MGoOK4X9XSs1Pl_CHxs1gHc/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 72 - Routine
“You never hear them coming.
The first notice you receive of their presence is the request for permission to arrive—minutes before they are simply there.
Not that you can deny.
Not that you would dare.
Not that you could ever stop them.
They wear no symbols.
They carry no creed beyond loyalty.
Their weapons and armor are nothing but a single seal.
When one of them arrives, Generals forget how to breathe.
Priests suddenly pray to nothing and everything at once.
Admirals reread orders with shaking hands and cold sweat on their backs.
Proprietors stare into the deepest void that space has to offer, desperately trying to remember where they might have gone wrong.
They do not ask who fired first.
They do not ask about intent or meaning.
Justice. Intent. Meaning…
Words that are nothing but noise to them.
One word from them, and entire fleets are erased from the galactic equation.
Another, and whole sectors are reassigned as if they were nothing but pieces on a board.
They do not hate you.
That is the worst part.
None of their actions come from malice, spite, or rage.
They do not raise their voice.
They do not negotiate.
They do not threaten.
They only measure.
They only judge.
When the scale tips—
Run, if you like.
Hide, if you want to try.
Fight, if you believe yourself foolish.
Plead, if you want your last moments remembered as a joke.
Cry, if you must, for history is already written the moment their word is spoken.
Because when Terra itself knocks, it does not knock twice.
And when an Arbiter delivers their verdict, the galaxy does not argue.
It simply obeys.”
—
[Terran Imperial Library Excerpt: “The Terran Arbiters”, Laeria von Kunin, PFC756]
======
======
Thea’s morning on this particular Sunday—the last day of the fourth month—came and went much like almost every other morning aboard the Sovereign so far.
A quick workout, a shower, then throwing on her clothes for the day, applying a bit of makeup while slowly working her way through the ever-growing list of techniques and ideas from the tutorials that had come with the anonymous gift, and finally bracing herself mentally to step out of her room for another day.
She was still busy with the makeup step, simply following the instructions in the tutorial video, when her thoughts drifted to the previous day’s endeavours.
‘Yesterday’s training session with Lucas was very necessary… And really good! Having Evelyne around was a huge boon, too,’ Thea couldn’t deny, still a little surprised at how lucky they’d gotten to even run into the girl during the lecture like that to begin with. ‘And she didn’t even ask for her first payment. What a nice girl…’
Toward the end of the session, when it had become clear even to Thea that Lucas was hitting the absolute limits of what his body and mind could handle, they had taken longer breaks at shorter and shorter intervals.
So, not wanting to waste the time, Thea had offered Evelyne her payment in the form of a one-on-one conversation, while Lucas dealt with the Sovereign’s recreation of Thea’s emulation of Masters’ build and fighting style.
But Evelyne had refused outright.
“I—I already caused way too much trouble at the start of today’s session. I don’t think it’s right for me to get rewarded for that,” she had muttered, still unable to hold Thea’s gaze for more than a moment at a time.
That had been completely fine by Thea—she had offered the payment and it was refused, nothing to be done about it.
‘Any time I don’t have to pay her is one guaranteed extra session with Lucas where she’s around and we can prod her for information. Massive win in my book.’
The best part about having Evelyne around, though, was that for once, Thea didn’t feel like the least socially capable person in the room. Compared to the nervous wreck of a girl, even Thea felt like she had a bit of an experience advantage—and definitely quite a lot more of it in terms of being grounded as a whole.
‘She’s really cute when she has a breakdown like that. A bit like one of those overexcited puppies back on Lumiosia,’ Thea chuckled to herself as she applied the makeup. ‘Some fans are just like that, I guess… Still can’t wrap my head around the fact that she’s that crazy about me, all because of one stupid spur-of-the-moment decision during the Awards Ceremony…’
She cringed a little at the memory of standing up there, in front of the whole Drive, basically yelling at everyone. But then again, it had clearly led to some good outcomes, so it hadn’t been completely pointless, at least.
The rest of yesterday, Thea had spent with her new OmniTool, locked away in her room and exploring the many different functions it offered.
‘And it was pure, damn bliss… I’m really going to miss you, OmniTool,’ she thought fondly, glancing over at the beautiful piece of new-tech lying neatly on the makeshift workbench to her right. A half-disassembled version of her Laser Gram rested on top of the bench as well—her current medium-term project.
She had started using the schematics function of the OmniTool to get a clearer look at how the weapon fit together, inside and out, which had already boosted her understanding of its design by a huge margin. The session with Peria, where the clerk had laid out the damn original design documents—which Thea still had no idea how the clerk had even gotten her hands on—had also played a major role in that growing understanding, of course.
‘Really need to schedule another meeting with her soon,’ she thought happily, already looking forward to spending a few more hours—or maybe even a full day, if time allowed—with the enthusiastic and knowledgeable clerk.
But all of that would have to wait.
More training sessions with Lucas, more experimenting with the OmniTool and its schematics, more work on the Laser Gram to truly understand it, more Peria-time… all of it would come later.
Because today, Kara and she had a date.
They had agreed to meet early in the morning to head to their respective Skill Classes together. It was the first day in a while where neither of them had anything else planned—and the Skill Classes were officially available to be taken—so they wanted to get a head start on the long list of Skills they’d need to pick up during their first year as Marines.
While only a single day would pass for Lucas, her OmniTool, or Peria, nearly three months would fly by for Thea as she entered a time-dilated Skill Class to master the knowledge behind [Basic Physics]—the first of many Skills she’d acquire in the future.
She finished up the last touches of her makeup, then leaned a little closer to the mirror, tilting her head side to side to make sure everything she wanted to sit right actually did.
‘Nothing smudged, nothing uneven…? Good. That’ll do.’
A quick check of her clothes came next: Dark, fitted pants with visible, reinforced seams at the sides, a simple utility top tucked in cleanly, and a lightweight jacket with just enough structure and contrast to the rest of her outfit to look intentional rather than simply thrown over because she felt a bit chilly in just a top.
She nodded to herself, a small smile creeping in.
‘Yeah… getting better at this. Definitely getting better.’
With one last glance at her reflection, she stepped out of her room into Alpha Squad’s shared living space. The smell of food hit her almost immediately, and her eyes went searching for Kara—finding her already waiting at the dining table to eat their breakfast together, just as they had agreed.
After that, it would be off to the commercial deck together, Credits in hand, to pay for their Skill Classes and figure out exactly what they even needed to do and where they needed to go to start them.
The routine of it all—being a Marine, figuring out what to do each day during this initial Recruit year, juggling all the different things that needed taking care of—was slowly starting to sink in for Thea, and it felt right.
Comfortable, even, in a way she hadn’t really felt since she had left the Undercity…
—
“So, what are you going to go for first?” Thea asked Kara as they headed toward the System Shop in the shopping district of the commercial deck.
The Medic took a few seconds to answer, humming thoughtfully before replying, “I was thinking of going for [Advanced Triage] right away, but I think I’ll start with [Basic System Medicine] instead, just to ease into it. Advanced Skill Classes take twice as long, so starting with the three-month Basic one feels safer. I don’t think time dilation will mess with me in any weird ways, but better safe than sorry, right?”
“Absolutely,” Thea nodded at once, then added with a small grumble, “Also makes me feel a bit less like a complete idiot when you aren’t jumping straight into super advanced stuff while I’m over here learning [Basic Physics] like a kid.”
Kara bumped her hip into Thea’s. “Hey, none of that. [Basic Physics] is really important for you in a whole bunch of areas, so it’s just as smart for you to take that as it is for me to not go too wild with time dilation right away. It’ll help you understand all that weapon stuff you’ve been talking about with Peria, and it’ll probably help with your Psychic side too, right? The Runepriest himself recommended it for you. So don’t act like you’re wasting your time just because you didn’t get Inner- or Core-World schooling.”
She shot Thea a pointed look. “And honestly, most people from fancy Inner or Core-World schools still end up taking that Skill Class unless they’ve already unlocked it naturally, which will be very rare. Just because I’m a bookworm and rushed a bunch of Skills after Integration doesn’t mean everyone else did, too. I doubt even the Masters girl has more than a handful of Skills so far—and she doesn’t exactly strike me as the science type either, so [Basic Physics] is probably beyond her anyway.”
Thea couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
It was fun to rib on the annoying, conceited bitch like this, but deep down she knew that was all it was—just ribbing.
After everything she and Lucas had heard from Evelyne about Masters yesterday, she had no doubt the Masters girl was just as smart and capable as the rest of Alpha Squad, if not more—barring Karania, of course. Her best friend was very clearly in a league of her own.
She let out a playfully defeated sigh, then gave in. “Fiiine. I’ll go take my [Basic Physics] and be happy with it…”
“That’s exactly right,” Kara nodded smugly. “And if you handle the time dilation well—which, let’s be real, you probably will, considering your [Sensory Overdrive] and the whole [Glimpse] thing you got going on—you can always take more Skill Classes on any day you’re free. It’s not like you’re hurting for Credits or Vouchers anytime soon.”
That seemed to spark another thought as she turned a bit more toward Thea while they walked and slowed down their pace. “Oh, and remember to use Credits for the first Skill Classes here. Just to get a feel for how much it eats into your savings. We can use our Vouchers later, but I think we’ve been a bit spoiled with how many Credits we earned from the Cube Trial and the Assessment—and, well, your DM too, with that whole upscale thing. Going forward, our income’s going to drop a lot. We’ll only have DMs for the next two and a half months until the next Assessment, so it’s probably smart to get a better feel for the economy now, yeah?”
Thea nodded. “Yep. I remember. Already mentally prepared myself to drop a few thousand Credits on this Skill today.”
Kara answered with a satisfied nod and picked the pace back up to their usual walking speed, clearly done with the topic for now.
A few minutes later, they stepped into the System Store proper, the hum of activity immediately obvious.
A decent-sized chunk of Marines had already gathered inside, spread across the various terminals, some alone, some in pairs, all seemingly focused on deciding on their own Skill Classes for the day.
“Looks like we weren’t the only ones with that idea,” Kara remarked absently.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Thea agreed, her eyes drifting over the room as she scanned for anyone she might recognize. She didn’t… Well, not really.
There were a few semi-familiar faces—people she’d shared a lecture or two with before—but no one she actually knew by name.
Which wasn’t exactly surprising, considering the only people she really knew by name were Alpha Squad and maybe enough others to count on one hand.
She stepped up to one of the free terminals and pulled up her saved list, the same one she and Kara had put together a while ago, and the same one she’d shown Peria just days earlier.
She selected [Basic Physics] and started reading through the detailed info.
A small hum of surprise slipped out of her.
[Skill Training: Physics – Basic]
[Duration: 3 months (personal-time) / 12 hours (ship-time)]
[Price: 4,000 System Credits]
“Huh,” she muttered. “That’s… different, isn’t it…?”
She distinctly remembered the ship-time listed as only a single hour the first time they’d checked, right after Integration.
Kara leaned over to look and nodded. “The time? Yeah, I noticed that too. I actually read up on it after we were here the last time. The time dilation apparently varies a lot depending on where the ship is in Void-space at the time. Some regions of the Void are way more receptive to it than others, supposedly. So sometimes it’s closer to an hour, like before, and other times it can be up to a full day.”
She shrugged. “But honestly? Whether it’s one hour or twenty-four, for three months of learning, it doesn’t really matter.”
Thea nodded slowly. “Yeah… compared to three months, a day’s basically nothing… I wonder if they have Skills on how the time dilation stuff actually works. They must have, right? That’s gotta be super interesting…”
Kara fixed her with a look, and Thea immediately raised both hands in defense. “Just thinking! I wasn’t going to do it or anything! Just… thought it would be neat, is all.”
The Medic rolled her eyes, then chuckled. “They do have them. But they’re far, far deeper in the Physics tree. I looked it up myself, since you’re right—it’s really interesting to think about. Not something I’ll likely touch, since my Skills don’t line up with it, but your path probably gets a lot closer. Add a few Skills here and there and you’ll likely unlock access to those Skills later on.”
“Huh,” Thea replied, a little surprised. She didn’t exactly have many Skills that screamed “time dilation,” but then again, most of hers were foundational in a lot of different ways.
‘Guess that kind of makes sense… If I keep going and pick up the [Advanced], [Expert], and [Master] versions of stuff like Physics, I’ll probably stumble into the prerequisites for the time dilation Skills by accident. Something to think about for the future, then.’
For now, she selected the [Basic Physics] Skill and confirmed the purchase, deciding to forgo her Skill Vouchers for now, as Kara had recommended, and simply paying the cost with her Credit Balance.
[System]: Do you want to pay 4,000 System Credits to “Commercial Deck - System Store 2” for “[Basic Physics] Skill Training Class”? [Y/N]
She pulled up her [Currency] Interface right away, just to make sure Kara’s idea of “feeling the weight of the economy” actually had a chance to work.
[Currencies]
System Credits: 10,052 (+32,000 Credits from Awards)
System Merit: 7,679
She cupped her chin and thought, ‘Yeah… I’m not sure this is really making a dent yet. I spent less than a tenth of my total Credits on this… But then again, this is gone in a single day, and there’s no real limit on how often I can do this thanks to Major Quinn’s allowance. So, in that sense, I’d be out of Credits in a little over a week if I just keep smashing these out…’
Seen from that angle, she definitely felt the weight Kara had been talking about—not that Thea needed a lesson in being careful with money.
She had grown up in the Undercity, after all.
Money had always been tight there, so she wasn’t exactly a spendthrift by nature.
It wasn’t like she’d been spending her Credits particularly recklessly so far either.
Almost everything she’d paid for had been important to her in one way or another. The only thing she’d really splurged on for no understandable reason—at the time, at least—was also the one thing Kara herself had more or less forced her into: All the clothes she now owned.
Not that she regretted it.
She was pretty sure she was beating a large chunk of the Marines in the store right now in terms of transmog.
‘Hehe… It’s like they don’t even know,’ she thought smugly, eyeing the Marines around her—right before her eyes landed on Kara, who was staring straight at her.
Thea froze.
“Are you making fun of people in your head again, Thea?” Kara asked flatly.
“N—No…?” Thea replied weakly, quickly looking away. “How would you even know?”
“What do you mean, ‘How would you even know?’ You’ve got a massively smug, shit-eating grin on your face,” her best friend shot back, exasperation clear in her voice.
“Nuh-uh. Don’t have that.”
She forced her face into something neutral.
“Very mature, Thea. Very mature,” Kara commented, then thankfully laid off her as she asked, “All good to go?”
Breathing a sigh of relief that she was no longer under scrutiny for her smug thoughts—which, really, was extremely unfair considering she’d won against the other Marines fair and square—Thea nodded, “Yeah. Four thousand Credits. Still got plenty left, but I can definitely see how I might run out if I keep spamming Skill Classes. Probably smart to come up with some kind of schedule, just to make sure we don’t get too overeager.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Kara agreed with a smile, before heading toward the manned counters at the back of the store.
Thea followed close behind.
A quick back-and-forth between Karania and the System Store clerk followed, after which the two of them were gestured to follow and led through a door behind the counter.
They stepped into a massive—seemingly endless—hallway, stretching so far into the distance that Thea felt a bit woozy trying to see the end of it.
“Simply walk down the hallway and locate the door corresponding to your purchased Skill Class, then step through. The Ship’s AI will help you find the correct door,” the Clerk instructed in a calm, professional tone. “Upon completion, you will be returned to an adjacent waiting room, where one of our clerks will escort you back to the deck proper. Any remaining questions?”
Kara shook her head.
Thea asked, “What if we go and enter the wrong door?”
That earned her a look from both Kara and the Clerk, but the Clerk merely replied evenly, “You may not enter doors you have not paid for, Miss. The Ship will prevent you from doing so. Please do not unnecessarily stress the system.”
“Got it,” Thea said, quickly stepping back behind Kara, feeling a little silly for asking.
‘But come on… you can’t tell me nobody else has ever asked that, right?’
After a few more polite exchanges, the Clerk left them alone and disappeared back through the door they had entered from.
They started walking down the hallway together, their footsteps echoing softly as doors slid past on either side.
Thea filled the silence first, casually mentioning Lucas’ training from yesterday—and then, with no small amount of pride, added that they had absolutely nailed down the Masters girl’s Build almost perfectly.
“Pretty much the whole thing,” she said, unable to keep the triumph out of her voice. “Attributes, Passives, Actives—most of it. Evelyne had a huge amount of info that I could start off with and that probably saved us double-digit hours—if not entire days.”
Karania slowed a fraction, turning her head to look at Thea properly. “Evelyne,” she repeated. “That’s the girl you ran into outside the DM, right? How exactly did she help?”
Thea shrugged as they walked. “She already had most of Rachel’s Attribute spread and a good chunk of her Abilities on file. Like… written down somewhere. Ready to go.”
That made Karania stop outright for a second, suspicion flashing across her face. “She had all that just lying around? About the Rachel Masters?”
“Yeah,” Thea replied, then paused. “Well—mostly. She said she gathered it for one of her squad mates.”
Karania’s eyes narrowed slightly. “How?”
Thea pointed at her with a finger as they resumed walking. “Exactly! That’s what I asked too. Or—well, almost. Lucas asked. Evelyne kind of… answered why she had it, but not how she got it. And then Lucas didn’t push, and… I didn’t either. I think I might have missed part of her answer or something, because Lucas seemed happy with it. I’m not sure.”
She frowned lightly. “I wanted to ask Lucas about it later, but it just kind of slipped through the cracks so far.”
Karania hummed, the sound thoughtful and low, and went quiet for a few steps. Thea hurried to add, “But she’s been insanely useful. Like, genuinely. And she’ll be there for the next sessions too—she also has a ton of info on how the Challenge system works as a whole.”
That seemed to tip something over in Karania’s mind.
After a few seconds, she said, “I think I’d like to be there as well.”
Thea blinked. “Huh?”
“I want to see how the training’s going,” Kara continued. “Maybe jump in myself for a bit. And,” she added, eyes sharp, “I’d like to get to know this Evelyne a little better.”
“She’s just… awkward,” Thea said quickly, feeling like she had to defend her fellow socially awkward nerd-in-arms. “Like, really awkward. Worse than me sometimes.”
“That doesn’t mean harmless, Thea,” Karania replied calmly, not unkindly. “And I’m just curious about her. Some things don’t really add up, from what I’m hearing so far... But I’m probably just being paranoid. Nothing a meeting wouldn’t clear up, surely.”
Thea hesitated, then shrugged. “I mean… sure. I guess that’s fine. The more the merrier, right?”
And honestly, she meant it.
When it came to Wildmaws training, extra people usually meant better practice—and if Corvus was right, which he usually was about these things, juggling more social interactions at once was probably the fastest way for her to learn anyway.
“Right,” Kara replied with a small smile.
A few moments later, Thea spotted her own door, marked by a simple neon sign above it that read [Physics – Basic].
“That’s me, then.”
“Have fun. Catch you in a few hours—or a few months. Depends how you look at it,” Kara replied.
Thea smiled, then hesitated.
Kara was right.
They wouldn’t see each other for three months.
Even if it was only a few hours of ship-time, it would be three very real months of consciousness. Constant focus on learning. Likely major isolation. Not something Thea hadn’t been through before, but still a sharp shift from the last few months…
She took a deep breath and suddenly wrapped Kara in her arms. Kara went stiff as a statue at first, before Thea gave her a quick squeeze and just as rapidly pulled back again.
“Gonna miss you, Kara. See you later!” she blurted out, then slipped through the door before Kara could see how red her face had gone practically immediately.
‘Initiating physical contact is so damn hard, what the fuck…?! That was awful! I scared her—she totally froze, ahhh fuck! What are you even doing, Thea?!’
The door slid shut behind her just as she heard Kara’s hurried, “B—Bye!”—and the world around Thea changed…
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 71 - Exchange
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 66: Squad Time II has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Our first REAL Lucas POV!
(The one with Isabella v Rachel doesn't really count, as that one was like entirely focused on the fight)
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p21WIw6Jsk8Lbubkf1W6QhlWTtEFX1GhngHyWGueZjc/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 71 - Exchange
“They call Terra’s video games “entertainment.”
That—right there—is the lie that makes it all work.
Now, the truth is that they’re the most successful long-term military training program humanity has ever devised—and not just for one Faction, but for all of humankind at once.
Children grow up learning Systems logic, cooldown management, resource pressure, spatial awareness, teamwork, sacrifice… And so much more.
They think they’re chasing ranks, skins and tournament wins, but really, they’re simply internalizing humanity’s war doctrine without knowing.
The games are built to be cross-Galaxy by design.
Shared servers, shared metas, shared leaderboards the whole way through.
Terra’s AIs aggressively wall off anything mission-critical—no coordinates, no operational chatter, no Faction planning. You can’t organize a strike inside one of their games even if you wanted to. Even if you tried your hardest.
But you can learn how other humans think.
How they fight. How they value risk. How they solve problems. How they handle stress.
Cultural and societal bleed-through is not merely some sort of side effect of the system Terra has created, but rather one of the main goals of it.
But even that isn’t actually the real goal.
The real goal is visibility.
If a Faction tries to quietly raise monsters inside Terra’s games, everyone else will see them do so. A dominant player in UHF space doesn’t stay a secret—even if Terra’s AIs and protocols keep their exact location a secret, you cannot truly hide which rough direction of the Galaxy a top-tier player comes from after years or decades of play.
Other Factions will notice and learn, someday. And then bounties appear to counter their builds. Rival champions are pushed forward through massive campaigns.
The ecosystem self-corrects through increasing pressure, not intervention.
There is only one thing Terra directly intervenes in: The Untouchables.
The Galactic Super-Champions.
The ones who win the hardest tournaments again and again and again.
The foundational Build Makers.
The ones whose builds don’t just win, but reshape how the game itself is played.
Terra protects them: No recruitment. No pressure. No “special offers.”
Because pulling even one of them out of the ecosystem destabilizes the training tool for billions of players—often for years, sometimes even for decades.
So they remain gamers. For years. For decades. Sometimes for centuries.
Perfectly honed weapons that are never meant to be picked up by anyone.
Until, once in a great while, chance intervenes.
When iron sharpens iron endlessly, and the sharpest edges grind against each other… sometimes, something slips through.
They somehow join a Faction anyway.
Not because Terra allowed it—but because chance did.
And that, Terra reluctantly has to permit.
A Champion joins a Faction. A Build Maker lays hands on the real System.
That is when the war changes. It always does.
Terra’s game-shaped crucible forges swords never meant to be wielded—
tools made to sharpen other tools, iron to sharpen iron.
But when one of those swords is accidentally pulled from the stone—the entire galaxy bleeds…”
—
[Director Halvorsen during a closed symposium on Pre-Integration Strategy, Terran Imperial Forum - Hall 17B, PFC 876]
======
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PoV: Lucas Callahan
Five hours.
That was how “long” it took Thea to pin down Rachel Masters’ exact Build, down to three one-hundredths of an Attribute Point, and Lucas could do nothing but feel completely out of his depth.
He had been watching her repeat the same movements over and over for nearly five hours straight, making adjustments so tiny that they all blurred together in his mind.
Somehow, though, she had managed to keep track of all the variables, juggling a dozen moving parts at once until she arrived at the result they had now.
Thea—wearing a plain-looking avatar with Rachel Masters’ exact size and proportions—was running through the same motions she had practiced all this time. But instead of the quiet muttering and constant tongue clicks from earlier, she was now sharp and laser-focused, her movements precise enough to hold Lucas completely captive.
‘It’s something else, seeing her like this,’ he thought, watching her swing the Glassbane stand-in through the air with enough force to make it sing. ‘It’s like she turns into a different person the second she steps into the arcade.’
And the difference was truly striking.
The awkward, uncertain girl was gone. In her place stood someone who owned the space completely, with no hesitation about telling others exactly what to do, how to do it and when.
They had taken several regular breaks—mandated by Thea herself—to eat snacks and down drinks from the unlimited refills she had ordered. Lucas had definitely questioned the fourteen-hour booking at first, and the cost of all the food and drinks, but he had quickly accepted it after seeing just how much Thea consumed every break.
It was like she had a black hole in her stomach, made entirely for salty crackers and endless liquids.
‘I guess when it comes to arcades, she really does know best. No point questioning her calls here,’ he had finally admitted.
For the most part, he and Evelyne had been sidelined during the process, though Evelyne had proven to be an invaluable resource whenever Thea needed confirmation or small corrections.
Thea, naturally, hadn’t wasted a single second and simply took Evelyne’s input at face value every time. She had never asked “are you sure” or pushed for any kind of clarification.
When Evelyne said something like, “This needs to be a bit different. Try being faster here,” Thea implemented the change immediately and kept going until Evelyne gave the all-clear.
At first, Thea had done most of the calibration herself using the recording Lucas had brought from Rachel’s fight with Isabella.
But at some point, she had switched to relying almost entirely on Evelyne’s word.
“The Glassbane is her signature weapon,” Thea had explained earlier when Lucas had asked why she wasn’t just using the recording the whole way through. “And like Evelyne said, she probably has a Passive tied to it. That means I need to figure out what that Passive is and what level it’s at, because it affects how she moves. The recording lets me dial in the Attributes, but if we want this to be accurate, I also need to match her Ability levels, especially the Passives that make everything feel natural.”
Lucas still had no idea how she actually did any of this.
Her explanation—“I’m just using Wildmaws’ optional third-person view to watch myself move and copy what Masters does in the recording”—had sounded completely insane to him.
The words made sense on paper, but when he had tried even just moving via the third-person view himself, he had faceplanted repeatedly just trying to walk straight.
So, in the end, he had decided to simply let Thea do her thing.
She had given him a few basic tasks to keep busy—getting used to the mechanics again, swinging his weapon, lugging the Stalwart stand-in around—but it mostly felt like filler.
He didn’t mind.
Once Thea finished calibrating, he had no doubt he’d be drowning in work anyway.
Lucas glanced over at Evelyne, a small smirk forming as he noticed the awed expression that had been glued to her face for hours—practically since the moment they’d walked into the arena. When Thea had casually announced she could brute-force Rachel Masters’ entire Build on the spot, something inside Evelyne had visibly broken.
Any attempts to hide her fascination with Alpha Squad’s scout had completely fallen apart by now.
‘She’s down catastrophically bad…’
Still, that wasn’t really a problem in his eyes.
If anything, it might actually be good for Thea to deal with more people outside of Alpha Squad from time to time. Having a clearly fascinated fan around—one she’d have to interact with regularly—seemed like solid social practice.
‘And she seems downright comfortable with this kind of attention, if any social interaction can really be called comfortable for her,’ he thought. ‘The fact she even agreed to all of this makes it pretty clear she’s dealt with fans before. Probably comes with all that gaming experience, huh…?’
“Lucas, it’s time,” Thea’s sudden voice cut into his idle thoughts, making him almost jump. “I’ve got it all dialed in now. I just need to do a few test spars to get a feel for it in real combat, and then we should be good for today’s training. Sorry it took so long.”
He straightened up, picked up his chainaxe and tower shield, and walked over to her, to close to a more duel-ready distance between them.
“Nothing to apologize for, Thea,” he said with a warm smile, knowing it helped put her at ease, before fastening his full-helmet. “You’re doing things I can’t even wrap my head around. A few hours honestly feels insanely fast.”
“It really is…” he heard Evelyne mutter from the sidelines, and he couldn’t help but smile.
In a strange way, Evelyne had become his window into what Thea was doing, but from a much more normal perspective. It felt odd to admit that the somewhat unhinged fan was the less insane point of reference, but compared to Thea’s sheer aptitude, it was likely still true.
‘Honestly, I’m kind of glad she’s here, after everything,’ he thought. ‘This would’ve been way harder without her. And I’d be missing all of the context for what Thea is even doing if it weren’t for Evelyne’s reactions and comments.’
Focusing back on the task at hand, he asked, “So, what’s the rules for this?”
“Death,” Thea replied immediately.
Lucas blinked. Then blinked again.
“Ehh… okay. Yeah, I guess that makes sense in a game like this,” he said slowly. “Any other rules we should stick to, or are we just trying to beat each other to death as hard as possible?”
“Just beat each other, yeah,” the blank-faced avatar replied in Thea’s voice. “You’ve got [Redundant Organs] now, like I recommended, right?”
Lucas nodded. He’d picked it up before his first Digital Mission, and it had already paid off there.
“Good. Then yeah. Death. Aim for the head.”
That seemed to be everything she wanted to clarify as the countdown manifested between them.
‘Alright then. Aim for the head. Death. I can work with that, I guess,’ Lucas thought.
He lowered his center of gravity, slipping into the combat stance he’d been building together with Isabella in their recent spars.
Tower shield forward, chainaxe held in a high grip for close-quarters swings.
Last time around, he’d only faced Karania—which had already been rough, since Alpha Squad’s medic was anything but slow to adapt—but this time was very different.
This time, he was facing the real thing.
He’d only watched Thea’s emulation of Rachel Masters fighting Isabella before, but even just seeing it back then had been lowkey terrifying.
‘Guess it’s time to find out what it’s actually like to face Rachel in a duel…’
The countdown hit zero just as he finished his thought—and the sand beneath Thea exploded.
She launched herself forward, shield angled toward his chainaxe side, hammer dragging low behind her, its head skimming just above the sand as she closed the distance in a blur.
Lucas barely had time to respond to her movement before the first clash hit.
Her shield slammed into his with brutal force, not to break through, but to twist his angle just enough for the hammer to whip around from below and to the side. He managed to catch it on the edge of his tower shield by instinct alone, the impact rattling up his arm and forcing his boots to dig into the sand.
He tried to answer with a horizontal axe swing, but her shield was already there—the instant he had moved his shield to counter her hammer, she had already moved hers into position to counter his axe—knocking the teeth wide before the weapon could even begin to threaten her.
Second exchange.
She stepped in with a sharp shield-to-shield impact, then slipped back just as fast, her hammer dragged low and almost invisible with everything going on, before darting in again.
Her shield snapped forward like it had a mind of its own, once again crashing into his.
Lucas tried to push back, tried to bully his way through with sheer mass and momentum—because even in Rachel’s body, Thea was still markedly lighter than him—but every time he committed, her shield was already there, set at the perfect angle to shut him down.
When his axe came down in another heavy chop, it rang against her shield, just moments after their shields had collided—and stopped dead, without Thea moving as much as an inch.
‘Grav-lock…!’
The realization hit him half a second late.
Her shield had locked solid for just an instant, perfectly timed, turning his committed strike into a mistake as his muscles locked up momentarily to eat the recoil.
She was already moving again as he disengaged from his own movement, and only then did he remember to lock his own shield in response to her actions.
Third exchange.
‘Better…’
He locked his shield, absorbed the hit, unlocked, stepped, swung. Then repeated.
For a brief moment, it felt like he might actually be in the fight.
Then she was suddenly gone.
The fourth exchange happened so fast it barely felt real to him.
She hit his shield from one side, locked to counter his instinctive counter-push, unlocked, shifted, locked again slightly angled to eat his frantic axe-swing, hammer flicking up and down in tight arcs, then wide arcs that came from outside his range of vision that forced him to keep his own guard high and moving constantly.
Lucas struggled to keep up with the rhythm—lock, unlock, counter, attack, move, repeat—but his timing was always a fraction off.
Every interaction widened the gap between their steps further and further.
By the fifth exchange, he was already drenched in sweat.
He felt it before he saw it—the pressure vanished from in front of him, the sudden wrongness of empty space where her shield had been just an instant prior.
His instincts screamed as he turned to the side, his own tower shield’s locked presence having hid Thea’s movements, but he was too slow.
She was already there. Right past his shield.
The hammer’s head had already filled his vision as his eyes landed on her form, having been swung with no wasted motion or even a hint of hesitation the instant she had managed to duck past his shield and into his space.
The world snapped to white-hot pain and then blackness as the hit crushed through his faceplate with little resistance…
—
Lucas reappeared an instant later, breath hitching and heart hammering in his chest.
He just stood there for a moment, staring at Thea’s avatar as she lowered the hammer and flicked blood and brain matter from its head into the sand, while his own body fell backward and broke apart into motes of light.
“…Five exchanges,” he muttered, shaking his head slowly. “By Xagis…”
Even against Isabella, he usually lasted far longer than this.
Karania’s attempts at teaching him the last time they’d been in the arcade together had seen him hold out even longer than that.
He watched Thea stretch, roll her shoulders, then start walking back to the starting position of their bout, idly twirling the bastard-hammer in her hand as she did so. “Let’s go again. I’m slowly starting to get the hang of this.”
Lucas took a deep breath to steady his racing heart, let out a heavy sigh, and started back toward his own mark.
‘Well… I was right about one thing, at least,’ he thought with a quiet chuckle. ‘All that earlier sidelining doesn’t really matter that much as I’m absolutely drowning in things to do now. Mostly getting smacked in the face really hard, but still.’
They had a little under nine hours left in the session.
It was going to be a very, very long day…
—
Six hours and around a dozen snack and rehydration breaks later, they were standing in the sandy arena once more.
Lucas felt utterly exhausted, but if Thea felt anything like that, she didn’t show it at all.
She had been relentless, pummeling him into the ground again and again without pause, barring the snack breaks that doubled as short discussion windows. In those, she’d given him so many pointers and things to focus on for the next leg of the session that he had trouble even remembering them all, let alone actually applying them.
It didn’t help that she had refused to stop improving during the first few hours, either.
He’d been knocked down to surviving a meager three exchanges at one point, before plateauing there for nearly half an hour of repeated head-smashing.
‘At least I got better, I guess…’
Thanks to Thea’s advice and a lot of trial and error, he’d slowly managed to claw his way back up to five exchanges before death about two hours ago.
By now, he was holding out for seven—sometimes even eight.
It was a slow, gruelling climb, trying to deal with Thea’s—or rather Rachel’s—aggressive, high-speed fighting style.
He wasn’t used to this much constant movement and repositioning in a fight.
Even Isabella didn’t demand this level of mobility and flexibility when they sparred.
But Thea’s version of Rachel—one Lucas had no reason to doubt, given the hours of work behind it—was an absolute nightmare to try and track. It wasn’t just one singular, giant weapon, like with Isabella, but the tower shield only slightly smaller than his own, paired with a hammer she somehow wielded like an extension of her own arm.
‘Didn’t she say she’d barely ever used hammers before…?’ he thought. ‘Could’ve fooled me.’
Thea finally lowered her shield and hammer, removed her helmet, letting out a slow breath as she looked him over.
“You’re doing really well,” she said. “Honestly, I’m impressed with how much ground we’ve covered already.”
Lucas snorted, wiping sweat from his forehead after removing his own helmet in-kind. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I feel like I’m barely doing anything except scrambling not to die out here.”
“That’s normal,” she replied immediately with a shrug. “And it’s not really true, is it? You’re adapting faster each time we go. I’m pretty sure I’ve got Masters’ general style down by now—at least the important parts.”
She tilted her head slightly. “There’ll be differences, of course. Her Legacy goes way deeper than what we can see from a single recording, even with Evelyne helping fill in the gaps. Thank you again, by the way,” she added in Evelyne’s direction, which had the girl jump in surprise—Lucas had to fight down a smile at the sight.
“We’re never going to perfectly copy her, of course. But that’s not really the point to begin with.”
She stepped closer, tapping the hammer against her shield once, the sound gently echoing over the sandy arena. “This isn’t about memorizing her moves or anything. It’s far more about getting you used to adapting your own style on the fly. So that no matter what she ends up throwing at you, you are able to react in the moment. And you are doing that already. Way better than you might think.”
That did make him feel a little better—right up until she continued and his heart sank.
“That said,” Thea added, “we’ve mostly been fighting with raw martial skill so far. And that’s not how real fights work once the System’s involved. We need to start layering Abilities into this.”
Lucas groaned internally. ‘Great. Back to three exchanges. Maybe less.’
He just hoped he could hold the line there and not completely collapse.
She looked at him again. “You still have [Remote Detonation], right?”
That caught him off guard. He hadn’t really thought about that Ability in a while; rarely even used it, to be perfectly honest.
“Uh—yeah. I do,” he answered after a moment, then tried to start to list his other Abilities.
She cut him off with a quick shake of her head before he even got a single one out. “Nope. Don’t tell me. I’d rather not know. I need practice dealing with unknown Abilities too.”
She went quiet for a moment, her eyes unfocused.
A second later, she nodded to herself—and six small packages appeared in the sand around her. She picked them all up, then walked over to Lucas and handed him one.
“EX-9–style charges, Wildmaws edition,” she explained with a smile. “Same rough power as the portable stuff the UHF uses. I want to test your Ability for a bit and see how it actually plays out. You probably haven’t really thought about your Abilities in actual combat all that much, so I want to fix that gap too, while we’re already here.”
She glanced up at him, her smile turning vicious. “So let’s see what happens when things start exploding! Go ahead and equip [Explosive Finish]. It’s the Wildmaws equivalent of [Remote Detonation]… or at least the closest thing to it. There’s no perfect one-to-one, unfortunately.”
Lucas eyed the charge in his hand, then opened his Wildmaws interface, searched for the Ability Thea had mentioned, and equipped it.
‘I guess I really haven’t thought about my Abilities much at all, like she’s saying… I’ve got no idea where she’s going with this, though. Why this one…?’
He threw the charge, aiming for about twenty meters out.
It landed with a meaty thud, digging slightly into the sand.
He focused on it and mentally triggered the Ability.
[Explosive Finish]
The charge detonated instantly, blooming into a small fireball. Heat and force washed over them, sand spraying in every direction as a blackened crater was torn into the arena floor.
“Did that look roughly like what you’d expect from your [Remote Detonation]? If not, upgrade the Ability and try again until it feels about the same,” Thea commented.
He did exactly that, dialing it in over a few more attempts until it behaved just like his [Remote Detonation] outside the game. As he did so, he also realized he really should have been using it more in the first place if he ever wanted it properly leveled.
“Alright, done,” he announced, cringing slightly at the low level of it. “It’s level four now. Same as my [Remote Detonation].”
Thea unfocused for a brief moment, then snapped back. “Perfect. I set mine to four as well, then. Let’s see if this works.”
She casually strolled toward the blackened, ruined stretch of the arena as the sand began to regenerate beneath her feet.
‘She’s so fast with all these in-game settings… Xagis knows I wouldn’t even know where to find the option to reset the arena.’
He pulled his helmet back on as she did the same, reading the situation well enough to know he was about to get smacked with a hammer again.
“Alright, same rules as before. To the death. You’re free to use your Abilities, Lucas,” Thea announced from a few meters away.
He dropped back into his stance just as the countdown appeared between them, ticking down to zero.
And Thea, as always, surged towards him in a rapid dash.
Lucas forced himself to breathe and tried to read her movements, just like he had been doing for hours now.
‘Adapt, not endure,’ he reminded himself of that over and over.
He let his feet carry him backward instead of planting himself, refusing to be a solid wall for her to circle around. If he gave her space, she would own it—so he matched her, step for step, shield always between them.
She slammed into him, shield crashing into shield.
Lucas met it with a grav-lock of his own, the impact absorbed entirely. He swung his chainaxe in response, aiming to punish the commit—but the blade cut nothing but air.
Thea had already moved, slipping further toward his shield side.
His own shield drifted into the path of his swing, still locked for a split second too long—the same problem he had run into countless times already, but he hadn’t quite managed to fix.
‘Too slow again, damnit!’
Then her hand snapped out toward his right side.
His brain screamed hammer, but… It wasn’t coming.
Before he could process the implications of that, her shield smashed into his again, the weight and strength behind it, pushing him back slightly.
He had just unlocked his own to reposition and been caught mid-transition.
The impact pinned him in place, his footing trying to recover, his balance slightly broken.
And then the world suddenly detonated.
Light and heat tore through him at point-blank range.
The blast ripped his axe arm apart in a spray of fire, blood and bone fragments, shredded through his side, and hurled him into the sand.
Pain exploded through his body as he screamed.
It lasted less than a second.
The hammer came down through his helmet, and everything went black…
—
He came to a moment later at the same respawn point he had returned to countless times by now, breath coming hot and heavy as phantom pain still rushed through his head. He watched Thea flick his blood and brain matter from her hammer once again.
‘What in Xagis’ name just happened…?’
Thea jogged over, pulled off her helmet, and flashed a wide, toothy grin.
“It works!” she announced triumphantly, while Lucas struggled to even understand what she was talking about.
“[Remote Detonation]—or, I guess, [Explosive Finish]—is actually really, really good for duels like this,” she continued, and suddenly it all clicked, his eyes widening.
‘She threw one of the packs, locked my shield so I couldn’t react, then detonated it the instant she took cover behind my own shield from the explosion on my side…!’
Lucas just stared at her for a second, completely stunned.
She had watched him use the Ability a handful of times, asked one question, and then turned it into a clean, brutal kill in a single exchange—against him.
“I’ve had that Ability for over a month,” he said quietly. “And you figured out how to fold it into a close-quarters exchange, shield-lock, and an almost undefendable kill… in what, five seconds…?”
Thea just grinned wider, clearly pleased with herself, while Lucas let out a slow breath, shaking his head.
‘…Yeah. Okay. That’s fucking terrifying…’
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 70 - Emulation
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 65: Squad Time I has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
------
For anyone interested in the stuff I linked to last week:
We got another FREE READING SAMPLE for Chapter 3 of Tabula Smaragdina (TS) today!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/149192704
This is the penultimate chapter for this series of Reading Samples on TS, meaning that the next chapter will wrap up this initial introductory arc! Today's chapter is a little over 8.6k Words long, so about two-and-a-half as long as a normal TAS/ND chapter! MASSIVE reading, yay!
Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (other-novels -> Thread: Put feedback for TS in here)
------
I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nsxxuwDhoIkIx9fti4qz7eDbWhhuBmP9xwHGe3f-7AY/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 70 - Emulation
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…”
The room was dead silent.
“Weeks,” the station boss snarled, pacing back and forth behind the glass wall of the editorial pit. “Weeks since the first Assessment wrapped up. Weeks since the western front lit up every internal metrics board the UHF has. And you’re telling me that none of you—not a single Emperor-fucking-one of you—managed to get even a scrap of an interview with the newest star Recruit of the UHF?!”
No one answered. A chair scraped loudly. Someone flinched.
“Do you have any idea how long that is in a news cycle?!”
The boss’s voice cracked through the bullpen.
“How hard is it,” he continued, now quieter, more dangerous as he paced, jabbing a finger at no one in particular, “to throw Credits at the right fucking officers and get your useless asses on the damn ship? Or at least set up a Void-blasted DDS meet?! We’ve done this countless times, people. This is not new. This is not complicated.”
He slapped the datapad in his hands against his palm so hard it cracked.
“Last year’s top Recruit? Two days. Two days from Assessment finish to prime-time interview! And now? Weeks. And you’re telling me that all you have is the Emperor’s pubic hair wrapped in his own farts?! After weeks?!”
More people flinched.
“Our name alone should open doors,” he went on. “APNN has been the first stop for every major Recruit story for decades. And now you’re telling me you can’t even get a call back? Not an interview, not a date for official releases, not a even fucking estimate?! People trip over themselves to get on our channel! And yet here you are—empty-handed.”
Silence stretched, the Bosses rage spent—for the moment.
The highest-ranked editor in the room cleared his throat.
“S—Sir,” he said carefully. “We… Ehh… We’ve tried all of that. Literally. All of it.”
The Boss’ head snapped to his highest-ranked editor.
“What?”
“We—We offered premium prime-time slots,” the editor continued. “Above anything we’ve ever put on the table before. We multiplied our standard Credit offers several times over. Beyond what we would even really be allowed to spend without your approval, Sir. We leaned on every contact we have. The response has been the same every time.”
He swallowed. “T—The UHF is locking this Recruit down hard, Sir. Harder than anything I’ve ever seen. We haven’t managed to get basic background information. We don’t even have a name yet.”
Stunned silence.
“We’re waiting on the official Alpha Squad highlights broadcast later this week just to see their face for the first time.”
The boss stared at him, mouth slightly agape.
Slowly, the fire drained out of his expression, replaced by something colder—and visibly more unsettled.
“…I—I see,” he said at last.
He straightened his jacket, voice quieter now. “Then… I guess we will have to try a lot harder going forward.”
No one spoke.
“If the UHF is truly clamping down this hard on even basic information…” he continued, almost to himself, “then this Recruit isn’t just a story. They’re the story. A bona-fide UHF asset. One worth their weight in Credits many, many, many times over.”
He looked around the room again.
“And we are going to get the first interview. I don’t care what it costs, you understand me? This first interview will make or break the next year’s news cycle, if not longer. If the UHF is protecting this Recruit to this level, this isn’t just another run-of-the-mill Drive. Whatever this Recruit means to the UHF, we will find out, you hear me?”
He saw nods around the room, hesitant at first, but then more determined.
He smiled.
“Good. Get me that interview. I don’t care what it takes. You are authorized to offer every incentive you can possibly think of. If it takes me personally interviewing that Recruit naked, with the Emperor’s own asshole permanently embossed on my chest with a 3D Holo-tattoo, then so be it. Get. Me. That. Interview!”
—
[Transcript Excerpt — Internal Feed Leak, Aquila Prime News Network, PFC943]
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Evelyne returned about fifteen minutes after her abrupt, hasty retreat, and Thea let out a quiet sigh of relief.
‘Thank fuck…’
For the last five minutes, she had been stuck debating whether going after Evelyne—and possibly helping her through whatever had happened to her—would have made things better or just worse.
Lucas hadn’t been much help either; his answer to whether she should go after her had simply been, “No idea.”
Thankfully, that problem had resolved itself now.
Thea carefully scanned Evelyne as she stepped back into the booth and closed the door behind her.
She looked… perfectly put together.
That was more than a little surprising, considering she had looked like she was about to puke up her entire body mass when she’d fled the room.
Now there wasn’t even a hint of discoloration on her face.
Her carefully applied makeup—and even her lipstick—were completely untouched, as if nothing had happened at all.
‘Either she’s incredibly good at not making a mess… or she’s terrifyingly good at reapplying makeup outside her own room,’ Thea thought. ‘Maybe I should ask her for tips…?’
Her body language had changed too.
The frantic nervous energy from before was seemingly gone, replaced by the more composed, professional demeanor she’d previously only shown when interacting with Lucas.
Both of them watched her as she walked up to the table.
“I sincerely apologize for the delay, and for the… unsightly way I left earlier,” Evelyne said evenly.
Lucas waved it off immediately. “Pah, it’s fine. You feeling better now?”
Thea nodded as well. “Yeah, no problem at all. Are you okay? I almost went out to check on you.”
Evelyne’s eyes widened at that, snapping to Thea for a split second.
‘Okay. Definitely a good thing I didn’t do that,’ Thea decided. ‘Good job, indecisiveness.’
“N—No, it’s really okay. I’m feeling much better now, thank you,” Evelyne said, fidgeting slightly before gesturing toward the VR seats. “I’d… recommend we get started. I’m sorry for the delay I caused. I’ll gladly pay for an extra hour to make up for it. I asked to be part of this, and so far I’ve only caused trouble…”
That tugged hard at Thea’s heartstrings.
‘And doing this in front of her idol, too… That has to be utterly mortifying,’ she thought. ‘She’s handling it way better than I would have. I’m not sure I’d even have walked back in if that were me.’
The girl had more backbone than Thea had given her credit for so far.
“Sure, we can book an extra hour at the end if we need it,” Thea agreed with a nod. She got up from the bench Lucas and she had settled back onto while waiting for Evelyne to return and headed toward the VR seats.
‘There’s really no reason to deny it if she wants to pay for an extra hour.’
“Which I’m sure we won’t need to,” Lucas chimed in almost immediately, giving Thea a pointed eyebrow raise—which she had no idea how to interpret at all. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Evelyne. But yeah… Probably best we get started.”
Thea stared at him for a few seconds, trying to figure out what that had been about, but he clearly had no intention of explaining.
She decided it was something she’d ask him about later—if she remembered.
They logged into their private Wildmaws instance and met up in the locker room of the colosseum-style arena—the same one Thea had picked last time when she’d helped Isabella and Lucas deal with the Masters girl’s nonsense.
Thea stretched in her Turixa avatar, feeling muscles shift and pop in ways her real body never could. Being larger and stronger than her actual self was always a strange but weirdly familiar feeling for her.
Lucas, in his usual true-to-life avatar, looked like he was just getting used to the world of Wildmaws again.
Evelyne’s avatar, however, caught Thea completely off guard.
She loaded in as… a Turixa.
Thea’s competitive instincts flared immediately.
‘Huh. Would you look at that,’ she thought, her opinion of the girl ticking up a notch. ‘Turixa are a high-skill race. That means she’s played this before. Maybe I can get some real Wildmaws sparring in later…’
She shook her head, pushing those thoughts aside for now, and took a closer look instead.
Evelyne was about the same height as her in her Turixa form. Her standard gear showed light armor, a full set of daggers strapped across her body, and two short swords crossed on her back.
‘Rogue-type,’ Thea thought. ‘Yeah. That tracks. She gives Scout or Infiltrator vibes, for sure.’
Evelyne started to visibly squirm under the attention, so Thea stopped staring and got to the point.
“So,” she said, turning serious, “the Masters girl. What can you tell us?”
Evelyne visibly locked in right away.
The squirming stopped, she took a quick, steadying breath, then nodded.
“Rachel Veronica Masters is part of the Masters Major Legacy,” she said. “That means there’s at least six generations of data on how a Masters usually operates—what their builds look like and how their fighting style develops from start to finish. Rachel, just like her parents before her, went with what we’d call a Paladin-type build in Archion terms. In the real world, that usually translates to a Brawler.”
Thea nodded, appreciating that Evelyne was using Archion terminology.
That alone made this a lot easier to follow.
“As for her base Attributes,” Evelyne continued, “I can’t give you exact numbers. But I can give a fairly solid estimate, based on the data I’ve had access to and gathered over the past month.”
“How did you even get access to this kind of information?” Lucas asked, and Thea was quietly relieved she hadn’t been the one to blurt it out—cause she had just been about to, as well.
“It’s my job,” Evelyne replied simply. “I’m the information collector for my squad. One of our Defensive Heavies was thinking about challenging her before the Awards Ceremony, just because she’s a Major Legacy. He wanted to make a name for himself—beat a Masters and steal her spot.”
She shrugged. “But we didn’t rank nearly high enough during the Assessment, so that plan died pretty fast.”
She sighed, then went on. “I gathered all this intel to help him prepare, and then it almost felt completely pointless once the rankings came out.”
A small smile crept onto her face. “But then I overheard you two talking, and… well. Here we are. I’m honestly just glad all that work isn’t going to waste. Even if it doesn’t really help my squad anymore…”
She looked a bit down about that, clearly uncomfortable with using information meant for her squad for something else.
‘What else was she supposed to do though?’ Thea thought. ‘Letting all that intel rot would’ve been worse. She really shouldn’t feel bad about this…’
Lucas shifted a bit and gave her a small, reassuring smile. “Hey, then I guess we’re lucky we ran into you. This is going to help us out a lot. Seriously.”
He left it at that and leaned forward slightly, clearly ready to move on, which threw Thea off more than she expected.
‘…Wait. Did I miss something again…?’ she thought, brows furrowing.
Lucas had asked how Evelyne had gotten her hands on that kind of information.
But Evelyne hadn’t actually answered that, had she? She’d explained why she had gathered it—her role in her squad, the Defensive Heavy, the failed challenge—but not actually answered the question of how she accessed it in the first place. Not really.
Just vague mentions of Legacies and “information being out there.”
Thea was halfway through replaying Evelyne’s answer in her head, trying to pinpoint the exact moment where the question had supposedly been answered—figuring that Lucas must have caught something she had missed—when Evelyne continued speaking, clearly taking Lucas’ reaction as a go-ahead.
“So, as I mentioned, these numbers are educated guesses at best, but from everything I can tell, her base lineup looks roughly like this:
Strength: 4.6–4.8
Finesse: 4.1–4.4
Vitality: 5.0–5.2
Recovery: 3.3–3.5
Stamina: 4.5–4.7
Focus: 2.1–2.2
Perception: 3.5–3.6
Resolve: 3.8–3.9
“I can’t say for sure which ones lean toward the high or low end of those ranges, since a lot of Attributes interact with each other,” Evelyne continued, seeming downright apologetic about it. “But it should be close enough to give you something solid to work with, Thea.”
It was phrased almost like a question, but the confidence in her voice made it clear she was utterly convinced it was more than enough for her—which it absolutely was.
Thea and Lucas just stared at her for several seconds, both thoroughly taken aback by the sheer absurd levels of detail Evelyne had on Masters’ Attribute spread.
Before either of them could even respond, however, she just… went on.
“As for her Level spread, she should be Level 7 right now, after finishing her second DM, and she’s closely following her Legacy’s standard path. That means most of her points are going into Vitality, Strength, Finesse, and Stamina. She’s also investing into Resolve to reach the 4.0 threshold, and Perception for the same reason. The split should be around 3 / 1.5 / 1 / 0.5 for those core Attributes, with two or three Levels’ worth of points set aside for Resolve and Perception. She’s already invested into Perception, but not Resolve yet, so at least one Level went there. That leaves a minimum of twenty-four points total—putting her Vitality at roughly plus sixty percent, Strength at plus thirty, Finesse at plus twenty, and Stamina at plus ten.”
Thea was already scrambling to input everything into a fresh build, having pulled up the interface the moment Evelyne had simply kept talking, not wanting to have to ask for repetitions. The numbers were pouring out of Evelyne at a rapid pace, leaving her no time for anything else… and she absolutely loved it.
This—this was build theory at its absolute purest, being dumped straight into her lap without pause.
“As for her Abilities, her signature one is called [Pro-Reactive Movement], and it pretty much does exactly what the name says. It’s an Active-type that lets her react to any attack coming her way, as long as she has some idea of how to evade, block, or parry it. It works against both melee and ranged attacks, and she doesn’t even need to be aware of the attack beforehand—as long as the Ability is active before impact, it will tell her what the attack is and where it’s coming from, giving her the chance to respond to it—instantly.”
Thea’s eyes widened even further at the detailed explanation of Masters’ signature Ability.
It sounded, in some ways, similar to her own [Glimpse].
Better in some aspects—like actually letting her react in specific ways instead of effectively being forced to dodge, since the reaction window was so short—but worse in others, such as needing to be Active ahead of time.
Still, it explained a lot of the movements Masters had pulled off during her fight with Isabella, especially those moments where she had somehow defended against attacks that should have been physically impossible to handle.
“She also has several close-quarters focused Abilities, like [Rapid Reposition] and [Unmoving Bulwark], but she uses them sparingly,” Evelyne continued, leaning against the nearby wall and listing off the Masters’ girls entire Build makeup like it was nothing. “Most of the time, she prefers to rely on her own raw capabilities to make plays. Still, they’re not something we should ignore during prep—they can easily catch you off guard. I’m not fully aware of all her other Active-types yet, but I’ll keep watching for them.”
She took another breath before going on. “As for her Passives, the Masters Legacy leans heavily into overwhelming presence and close-range dominance, like most Paladin-style builds. She’s almost certainly picked up multiple Passives that improve maneuverability in Super-Heavy Armour, and possibly even something that enhances her Full-Cover Shield. On top of that, she uses a large one-and-a-half-handed hammer as her main weapon, and based on how fluid her movements are compared to her Strength and Finesse, she has to have at least one Passive that improves handling with that kind of weapon. She also either already has or will be picking up one Passive and one Active Ability in relation to diplomancy; something to enhance her presence on and off the Battlefield alike. I would argue that she hasn’t done so yet, but they might just still be low-level instead.”
Evelyne sighed, looking noticeably less pleased as she added, “She also recently picked up [Redundant Organs], after her run-in with Itoku. That’s going to be a major pain to deal with—and it really patches up one of her more obvious weaknesses that I was hoping my squad mate could work around… Specifically her lack of staying power. Rachel is more of a Burst-Brawler, not a Tank like you, Lucas, at least by build. She relies on taking enemies down before they can really put sustained damage on her. But with [Redundant Organs], she’s shored that up pretty effectively… It’s going to be hard to deal with.”
Lucas just stared at Evelyne for a moment, his mouth opening and closing once like he was trying to find the right words and coming up empty.
He finally shook his head, letting out a slow breath.
“I… wow. That’s a lot. Like—way more than I ever expected,” he said honestly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Seriously, thank you. This helps. Like a huge amount.”
Thea barely reacted at all, fingers already flying as she dumped the numbers into the fresh build template she had opened earlier. Windows stacked over each other as she cross-checked Attributes, compared breakpoints, and pulled up lists of Abilities.
Her brows knit together in focus as she muttered under her breath, trying to remember exact Wildmaws equivalents. At one point, she even flicked open the chat overlay and quietly queried the Sovereign for a shortlist of matching Ability frameworks.
She was just as stunned as Lucas by the level of detail—but that reaction was buried under the need to get everything down correctly before her brain could move on.
Evelyne glanced between the two of them, then gave a small, almost shy shrug that Thea caught out of the corner of her eye.
“I’m just glad it might actually be useful,” she said. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
Lucas immediately shook his head. “No, no. It is a big deal,” he said without hesitation. “We’re incredibly lucky we ran into you. Don’t sell yourself short. You should honestly consider offering this kind of intel to other people too, maybe? Could probably earn a few extra Credits from folks trying to climb the ladder.”
He paused, then added with a half-joking grin, “Just—don’t give anything about Alpha Squad away, yeah?”
Evelyne actually seemed to think about it for a moment, before giving a small, uncertain smile. “Ahah… I’m not really sure that’s what I want to do,” she said. “This is different because—” her eyes flicked to Thea, “—well, because it was something I already had. And there was something I could get out of it that I wanted…”
She trailed off at the end.
Lucas lifted his hands in surrender and shrugged. “Fair enough. Not gonna push you into anything you don’t want to do. Still—thanks. Seriously.”
Then he turned to Thea. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, it’s a lot,” Thea replied with a nod, still focused on finishing the last touches on the build, a bit annoyed that Lucas was breaking her concentration for, frankly, nothing.
“Thanks, Evelyne,” she added a second later, almost forgetting to say it.
Silence followed, which suited Thea just fine.
She refocused fully on the build and put the last pieces together. Once she confirmed the template and equipped it, her avatar shifted and reshaped into what was supposed to be the current Rachel Veronica Masters according to Evelyne—aside from using the default female human frame as a base.
“Whoa,” Lucas muttered on her left, but Thea barely registered it.
She’d gone through changes like this countless times.
She didn’t need much time to adjust to the new Attribute spread, but she still ran through her usual pre-tournament warm-up—shortened, but nevertheless thorough—to get a feel for how the body moved and where its limits were.
“Hmm… yeah. This should work,” she muttered, before finally looking back at the others.
“This is really good. Seriously. But I think we can dial it in even further.” Her gaze shifted to Evelyne, who immediately stiffened. “Do you have a solid visual memory of how Masters moves when she goes all-out with certain techniques? If you do, I can emulate her and you can tell me what looks off. Then we can adjust the base Attributes up or down.”
Evelyne’s eyes widened.
She opened her mouth, stopped, then tried again. “T—that’s something you can do…?”
Thea raised an eyebrow. She’d just said that, hadn’t she?
“Yes. That’s why I said it,” she replied slowly, making sure Evelyne caught every word despite the obvious star-struck panic. “Being able to emulate builds down to around three-hundredths of an Attribute point is essential for tournament prep. You can’t find that kind of detail on the GalNet. Most serious build work is done exactly like this—loading into an arena, copying the spread as closely as possible, then making small adjustments while comparing recordings frame by frame. I’ve done it plenty of times. It’s really not a big deal.”
She opened the interface again and added, “And we still have a little over thirteen hours for a reason. So… let’s get started. Into the arena.”
She headed out of the locker room before either of them could really respond, fully trusting they would follow. This was her area of expertise, after all.
Inside the Wildmaws simulation, the confidence she felt was on a completely different level than anything she ever felt in real life—or even inside the DDS.
The only thing that came close were those brief moments after using her [Glimpse], when she knew exactly how things would unfold in the coming seconds.
Nothing else got even close to being compared.
“I—I had no idea something like that was even possible,” Lucas muttered behind her, quietly speaking to Evelyne.
“I wasn’t aware of it either, to be honest,” Evelyne replied, sounding genuinely taken aback.
‘Hmm… maybe not a high-level tournament player after all,’ Thea thought, mentally nudging Evelyne’s importance down a notch. ‘Definitely experienced and knowledgeable, but not someone who’s lived at the top end… Unfortunate.’
As they moved toward the arena, Thea absently equipped the gear she’d picked to emulate Masters, starting with the Super-Heavy style plate armour. When she reached the weapon selection, though, she hesitated over the available hammers.
“Evelyne, what hammer would best match Masters’?” she asked, not turning around, simply raising her voice slightly.
A small squeak followed. “Ehh—Probably the Dead-Grip, if I had to pick… It’s the closest to her Glassbane that I know of.”
Thea nodded and selected it. That had been her guess too, but confirmation helped.
The Dead-Grip was what people often called a bastard warhammer—one-and-a-half handed, much like a bastard sword was on the bladed side of things. She equipped it and gave it a few test swings, letting the weight settle naturally into her muscles.
‘Not something I use often, but I can definitely work with this…’
A flicker of excitement ran through her as she pulled the massive tower shield into her other hand, its bulky weight locking into place around her arm. It had been a long time since she had truly tried to emulate and determine somebody’s exact Build through raw experimentation.
Then she abruptly stopped, fully geared, and turned sharply.
Lucas and Evelyne both halted, caught a little off guard by the suddenness.
“Alright. Let’s do this,” she said. “What movements do you remember best, Evelyne? Be as precise as you can be. Lucas, stand aside for now, just observe.”
Evelyne stared at her for a second, eyes practically sparkling, before she took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts, and started describing one of Masters’ techniques in careful, exact detail…
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[FREE | Reading Sample] TS - Chapter 3 - Vigilante
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
We're back with more Tabula Smaragdina today!
I had almost finished this chapter on Sunday already and wanted to finish it today after writing ND, but got hit with the Monday-blues omega-Brainfog again, so I couldn't actually write anything until around 8pm (after a full day of work, a nap and dinner to clear the brainfog >.<).
This is the penultimate chapter for this series of Reading Samples on TS, meaning that the next chapter will wrap up this initial introductory arc!
Today's chapter is a little over 8.6k Words long, so about two-and-a-half as long as a normal TAS/ND chapter! MASSIVE reading, yay!
Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (#other-novels -> Thread: "Put feedback for TAS in here")
I'm particularly looking for feedback on whether you are interested in a continuation based off of this initial Reading Sample, and specifically what parts got you really interested (if at all).
---
To hopefully pre-empt some questions that might come up:
No, this will not replace TAS.
No, this will not replace ND.
No, it will not be a third novel alongside the other two anytime soon, as I'm maxed-out on energy/time capacity for writing with those.
Yes, it is something I'm considering as a third novel for the future, hence the Reading Sample.
------
Now, with all that out of the way, I once again ask that you go into this with an open mind and just take it for what it is. And remember to provide targeted feedback on the things you like/dislike!
Enjoy!
------
I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the GoogleDoc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r4z2z7Vkbt0HYEXOobrLlvO7ijnhwlRi0-BwDeBZI5U/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 3 - Vigilante
Diary Entry:
“[…] Anyways… I’m going to write down the list of types now, so future Sadie has them saved locally. I know, I’m such a sweetheart.
Past-you is so wonderful, isn’t she…? <3
Search for ‘Hero Types’ or ‘Types Legal’ in your laptop notes, future Sadie, if you want the legal side from today’s lecture. I only managed to type out the legal requirements while the Professor was rushing us through everything, so you’ll need this list too if you actually want it all to make sense.
>>> Hero Types <<<
- - Direct Combat Roles - -
- Tank: Extreme defensive capabilities. Mostly attracts Vyre attention and absorbs or deflects their attacks to give other Heroes time to deal with them.
- Striker: Extreme single-target capabilities. Their goal is to kill Vyre as quickly and efficiently as possible, as well as destroy weak points on Kaiju with coordinated attacks.
- Brawler: Middle-ground of Tank and Striker. Can fill both roles adequately, but does neither better than the specialized version.
- Nuke: Area-destruction specialists. Primarily used to wipe out Vyre swarms. Use is rare, extremely regulated, and politically sensitive due to collateral damage.
- Skirmisher: Anti-personnel “devils”. Villain-hunters and the ones sent against the Corrupted. Generally bad for anti-Vyre stuff though.
- Suppressor: Also sometimes confused for Controllers. Their job is to deny space in small-scale combat, restrict Vyre movement, and create safe zones for allies through sustained pressure or environmental control.
- - Support Roles - -
- Healer: The most important Hero-type due to general attrition. They stabilize, improve recovery or straight up directly fix wounded allies.
- Buffer: The Bards among the Power types. They amplify allied Heroes’ physical, mental, or Power-based performance beyond their normal limits.
- Debuffer: The Anti-Bard Triss just informed me, these are also just Bards, but specialised in a different thing—I really have to start theorycrafting more characters... Anyway. They reduce Vyre effectiveness through status effects such as slow, confusion, corrosion, or Power disruption.
- Cleaner: The unsung, true heroes of the world! They are the guys who remove biological or chemical contamination, Vyre corpses and residue, and general post-battle dangers to prevent unnecessary civilian and Hero casualties.
- - Intelligence Roles - -
- Controller: Sometimes confused for Suppressors. They manipulate terrain, positioning, movement, or environmental factors to dictate the flow of combat in large-scale engagements. Generally requires political okay, due to high chance of collateral.
- Spotter: They’re the ones spotting Kaiju and Vyre Incursions, mostly. They identify threats, mark priority targets, and provide real-time intelligence to Strikers and command units, especially during Kaiju incidents. Probably the second most important Type to exist.
- Disruptor: Basically does what it says on the tin. They jam communication, suppress other Powers, and try to break organized Vyre or Villain tactics. Usually teamed up with Skirmishers against the Corrupted.
- - Logistics Roles - -
- Crafter: They make just about every nifty gadget we have against the Vyre nowadays. They produce weapons, tools, consumables, and specialized equipment over long periods of time to support long-term operations against the Vyre. Pretty much the only Type that gets to “stockpile” their Power and build it up over time.
- Engineer: Housing, the giant Walls, entire Cities… The whole thing. They build all of it, either by creating the materials themselves like rockcrete, shaping pre-existing materials into the correct forms or drastically hardening and improving already pre-existing structures.
- Supplier: The only reason we can sustain a good chunk of the population, so, in a way, they’re probably the most important Type out there if we don’t want millions to starve—which we don’t. They help provide food, water, fuel, medicine, or other necessities to sustain both Heroes and civilians alike. Generally through Powers that interact with pre-existing supply chains, but sometimes straight up conjuration as well.
- Transporter: Only global-travel around, not counting the super-rich world elite that can hire entire Hero groups to protect them. Have Powers that can rapidly move one or more people. Some of their Powers can reach to the other side of the globe.
- - Meta & Rare Roles - -
- Oracle: Just like the namesake, very hit-or-miss with predictions. Future seers, precognition, the whole nine yards. Triss absolutely hates the idea of them as she’s one of the kinds of people to believe in their own fate and all that… Can’t say I disagree!
- Keystone: Probably the rarest of all Types out there. They can generally enhance, stabilize, or straight up unlock the effectiveness of other Heroes’ Powers. Some Keystone-types can even supposedly awaken Powers in civilians pre-disposed to them. Triss and I joked about maybe buying consultation once we’re rich to see if either of us has any such disposition—ha, as if!
- Wildcard: Unclassifiable and a thorn in every legal department’s side. They don’t fall under any specific category, so they have no real legal requirements as written by the WHA, except for what every Hero generally needs to abide by. Super annoying to deal with—likely a topic for the exam!
- Anomaly: The Rule Breakers. These guys break the established rules of what humanity has considered to be true about Powers as a whole. They are treated as high-risk, high-impact variables that nobody truly wants to have around. Also potentially an exam topic, knowing the Professor!”
—
[Sadie’s Diary, 2029]
======
======
PoV: Seff “Ironbound” Montagne
The sound of their boots slapping against the asphalt echoed through the empty alleyways as they hurried toward the Convergence’s pull. That gentle tug toward the Incursion’s manifestation point pumped dread straight through Seff’s veins as he led Rob and Telly through the sharp, angular side streets of the Central Haekoz district.
‘Why tonight, of all nights?’ he thought bitterly, unable to push it away. ‘Three more hours and our shift would’ve been over. Instead, we get a fresh Vyre Incursion, right in the Central district…’
It wasn’t his first Vyre Incursion, of course. It wasn’t Rob’s or Telly’s either.
That didn’t make it any less terrifying.
‘Probably the opposite, even…’
City protocol grouped three synergistic Heroes together on patrols, giving them the best possible chance to keep civilians alive during an unexpected Vyre Incursion without wasting manpower. The city was massive and needed full coverage after all, but the number of Heroes stationed within it was far lower than anyone would’ve liked.
‘Three is only enough to keep the Vyre busy until help arrives,’ Seff thought grimly. ‘Not to push them back. Not to close the Incursion.’
Every civilian death added yet another weight to their conscience. Another number tied to their failures whenever an Incursion broke through. And that didn’t even account for the fact that every second or third Vyre Incursion also claimed at least one Hero.
Mandatory, lengthy training sessions almost every second day. Reality-bending Powers at their fingertips. Carefully planned team synergies coordinated between the WHA and the city government…
It still wasn’t enough. Not against the end of the world.
Not when—
“I’m detecting 1,374 minds in the immediate vicinity of the Incursion’s point of origin,” Telly’s mental voice cut in through their telepathic link, mercifully snapping Seff out of his spiral. “All but 165 will be able to reach shelters or secured locations once the sirens start. There are seven minds still on the streets, not counting us three.”
“Focus on those seven, Telly. Are they likely to leave once the sirens start? Where are they headed?” Seff replied immediately through the link, his mind snapping back into work mode.
“What about the remaining 165?” Rob added. “Where are they, roughly?”
Having a Spotter like Telly on the team was a godsend.
Not just because of the shared telepathic link she provided, that made communication effortless even during a dead-sprint like this, but primarily because of the sheer amount of vital information she could simply pull out of thin air.
Knowing exactly how many people were nearby—and where every single sophont mind was—was a luxury most patrols could never even dream of.
“Rob, most of them are in the high-rise south-east of the Incursion point,” Telly replied after only a brief pause. “Twenty-four are in the one to the north-northwest. Another four are inside the conbini at the corner of Fourteenth and Sixteenth.”
Then her tone shifted slightly. “Iron, two of the people still on the street are heading toward the Incursion from the north. They’re on the opposite side of it from us. If they don’t turn back the moment alerts go out, they’re likely to get caught. What do we do?”
‘Fuck,’ Seff swore internally, careful not to let it bleed into the link. He shot an angry glance at his communicator. ‘Where the hell are the sirens and emergency alerts? Hurry the fuck up!’
It had only been moments—probably less than a minute—since Telly had first felt the Incursion begin to form. She was always the most sensitive to that sort of thing in their group, and even compared to most Heroes in the city—Spotter-types just seemed to have a natural affinity for it.
Still, it felt like a damn eternity since Seff had relayed the warning to city authorities through his communicator.
He bit down on his cheek to stay focused, then let out a heavy sigh—as heavy as he could manage while running—and gave the only order he logically could.
“They’re on their own. We can’t risk the rest of the civilians by charging through the Incursion point and having it open right on top of us. That’d kill all three of us and leave the Vyre free to rampage for a good fifteen minutes before the nearest patrol can reinforce.”
Silence followed for a moment as the other two swallowed the protests Seff knew they felt just as strongly as he did. The arguments that they could save everyone if they just tried harder. That they had to try, no matter what.
But they’d all been taught better in class rooms. Experience had taught them better.
Saving everyone wasn’t always possible, and risking a full patrol wipe would lead to far, far more deaths than accepting that harsh truth.
Such was the job of the team leader: To make the tough calls nobody wanted to make. To take the blame for it all. To carry the weight of their failures on his back.
“What about the other five, Telly?” Rob asked after a few seconds, dragging them back to the task at hand—something Seff was quietly grateful for, since the silence after giving an order like that always ate at him.
They cut out of a side street and into yet another alley.
By now, their breathing was coming in hot and heavy. They’d been sprinting at full speed—Telly’s full speed, anyway—for the past minute and a half, and it was the only sound besides their own footsteps echoing through the night.
After a few more moments, Telly answered. “One is moving away from the Incursion toward the north-east. Two more are doing the same toward the south-east. One is stationary—likely asleep—in an alley a few blocks south of the Incursion. The last one is… heading directly toward it?! They’re currently—”
Her projected thoughts cut off mid-sentence just as they burst out of the alley and onto the side street leading straight toward the Incursion’s origin point. Seff and Rob both snapped their heads toward Telly at the sudden stop, only to see her whip her gaze south.
They followed it—and froze.
“—right behind us,” Telly finished, sharp tension bleeding through her mental voice.
“Villain,” Rob’s seething thoughts seeped out immediately, as he conjured his translucent bow from thin air and locked his grip around it.
Seff’s breath caught as he took in the sight.
A thing stood at the mouth of the alley it had evidently just come from, framed by the harsh spill of streetlight and neon-lit advertisements.
It was easily over three meters tall.
Its proportions were wrong in a way that made his skin crawl—arms stretched too long, legs elongated past anything that looked natural on a human. Even beneath the massive black trench coat and hoodie, its body seemingly bulged with muscle, thick cords pressing against the fabric like it was barely containing whatever was underneath.
The sheer mass of it radiated danger to him. Every part of the thing looked built to tear, crush, and keep going long after it should have stopped.
And then there was its face.
A mask—or at least, Seff desperately hoped it was a mask.
There was no skin. No human softness at all. Only exposed muscle and sinew stretched tight over bone, teeth bared in a fixed, inhuman grimace.
Empty hollows where eyes should have been stared back at them, unblinking.
It had clearly spotted them the same moment they had spotted it.
And for a brief moment, it looked like it was deciding whether to bolt or not.
Seff’s gaze flicked down on instinct, scanning for any hints of movement to gauge whether it was coming for them or truly deciding to leave—
—and caught on the strain of fabric across its chest.
Two distinct mounds pushed against the trench coat, unmistakable even on a frame like that.
His thoughts stumbled.
‘R-right. That’s a person. Not a monster,’ he reminded himself. ‘A woman at that.’
He replayed the last few seconds in his head and sent a question through the link. “You said she was heading toward the Incursion, Telly?”
“Yes. Unmistakably,” she replied at once, and Seff wanted to kiss her for always being so on top of things—HR violations be damned.
“I’ll handle it,” Seff sent firmly, signaling the other two to follow him and keep things calm as he started moving toward the towering woman, lifting a hand in a cautious wave.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Rob shot back immediately, his grip tightening on the bow—but he followed anyway.
“Handling it,” Seff replied, turning his full attention back to the woman ahead.
‘Good. She hasn’t run, hasn’t attacked or made any moves… There’s a chance this might actually work,’ he thought. ‘Please let my instincts be right. Please.’
“Hey there!” he called out as he stopped a few meters away, craning his neck to look up at her. “You’re a Powered, right?”
He could practically feel the tension pouring off Telly and Rob behind him as they waited for the crea—woman to respond or make a move.
She slowly tilted her massive head, then glanced down at herself, holding up her arms in front of herself like she was looking at them for the first time, then back at him.
When she answered, her deep, baritone voice rattled in Seff’s chest.
“Aww man… What gave it away? I was trying to be sneaky about this whole thing… Even brought a disguise and all!”
For a heartbeat, nobody said anything.
Seff’s brain had stalled, gears grinding as it tried to catch up with her words. He’d run through a dozen possible responses in his head on the approach—panic, denial, silence, straight-up aggression.
But that hadn’t even been on the list.
Behind him, he could feel Rob and Telly freeze in the same stunned disbelief.
The brittle tension hung between them all for another moment, until it finally cracked.
“She got you there, boss,” Rob sent, amusement bleeding through the link as he heard him quietly chuckle behind him.
Telly followed a moment later, mock-curiosity replacing the earlier edge that had dominated her thought-speech. “How did you figure that one out, Iron? A new aspect of your Power, maybe? Something you didn’t tell us?”
Heat crept up Seff’s neck and into his face.
‘Yeah… that probably wasn’t the most eloquent, smartest opener I could’ve come up with,’ he admitted.
Still, as he felt the last of the tension bleed away from the group—and from the towering woman in front of him as well—he couldn’t help but think it had definitely been worth it.
If getting clowned on was the price for defusing the situation without anyone getting hurt, Seff would happily pay it. Altercations with Villains almost never ended with anyone feeling good about how things turned out.
A sudden tug at his focus from the direction of the Incursion made him—and everyone else there—flinch, a sharp reminder of how little time they had left.
“A—anyway,” he continued, turning back to the woman. “I’m Ironbound—or Iron in short—and these two are Telly and Rob. We’re here to deal with the Vyre Incursion, and I’m officially asking for your assistance in this.”
He gestured at the other two heroes behind him, took a breath, then pressed on. “Our reinforcements won’t arrive for another fourteen minutes, and we’re not sure we can keep the nearby civilians safe without additional support. Help us. Please.”
He poured as much honest pleading into his voice as he could without dropping to his knees. The bow of his head that he added to the end of his words was as close to begging as he could allow himself as team leader.
Behind him, Telly and Rob had gone still at the sudden request—at his plea for help from a Villain—but they knew better than to interrupt while the situation was still unfolding…
—
—
To say this wasn’t how I’d imagined my first outing as a newly Powered would go was a massive understatement.
Watching the young Hero—probably around my age, maybe even a bit younger—bow his head and earnestly ask me for help against a Vyre Incursion, all to keep nearby civilians safe…
‘That’s exactly what Heroes are supposed to be,’ I had to admit, a flicker of awe stirring as I looked at him. ‘No hesitation about potentially hurting his own pride. No concern at all for how this might look. No issue making a deal with the devil if it means protecting people who can’t protect themselves…’
It really was unfair.
How was I supposed to say “no” to that request, now?
Not only was he practically begging, he’d also been brutally straightforward and honest about the situation: I was their only real option. No reinforcements for a while, and a near certainty that civilians would get killed if I walked away.
Which would absolutely destroy me with guilt.
‘Well played, Iron,’ I conceded inwardly. ‘Well fucking played.’
“Roles? Ranks?” I grumbled aloud in response, still not thrilled about teaming up with the Heroes, even if they did seem like decent enough folk. I would’ve much preferred them to not be here at all—or, failing that, to be able to handle the Incursion without me.
Iron straightened up, visibly relieved that I’d bitten instead of bolted.
“Right. Roles and Ranks, then,” he said, tapping his chest with a thumb. “Ironbound—Iron for short. Epsilon-rank. Melee Tank. I lead the group and keep the Vyre busy so they don’t get to the others.”
Up close, he looked roughly my age, with short dark hair and a face that had seen too many bad nights already. His outfit was almost aggressively mundane—reinforced boots, heavy pants, a plain shirt and gloves—so normal, in fact, it stood out more around the other two than a flashy costume likely ever could have.
The most notable part was probably that he was a full-time Hero. As in, somebody that didn’t differentiate between their Hero persona and private identity. Main giveaway was the fact he wasn’t wearing any sort of mask or other gadget to blur his face.
He jerked his head to the side. “That’s Rob. Epsilon-rank, Medium-range Striker.”
Rob was lean, about my age as well, with some dark, scruffy hair peeking out from under his hood and an almost invisible bow clenched in his hands that I hadn’t noticed until literally just now. He wore a dark, leather-like tunic and a hooded cape that fluttered slightly despite the lack of wind inside the district. Definitely a part-time Hero, as he was also wearing some sort of mask underneath the hood.
I forced myself not to tense at the sight of his bow, but a shiver still ran down my spine as the thought hit me. ‘Remember, Triss: You’re part of the Powered world now. These people could kill hundreds—thousands—of normal people if they wanted. That includes your unobservant ass. Pay more attention!’
“And last, but most certainly not least,” Iron said, nodding to the woman behind them, “Telly. Delta-rank, Close-range Spotter–Suppressor hybrid.”
Telly’s outfit was unmistakably a Hero costume: A fitted bodysuit threaded with softly glowing lines, layered utility panels, and a short jacket that looked half-tech, half-tactical.
A pair of seemingly high-tech goggles rested over her eyes, while her shoulder-length, blonde hair was pulled back into a practical, somewhat messy ponytail that kept it out of her face—a face that proved really difficult to discern underneath the slightly bulky goggles, so also likely to be a part-timer.
I eyed the girl for a few seconds longer, as she was the highest-ranked among them and wanted to get a proper feel for her.
‘Delta-rank hybrid, huh? And Spotter–Suppressor?’ I thought. ‘That’s a really rare combo… These guys got lucky having her on the team.’
Then a realization hit me like a brick straight in the face, and I grimaced behind the mask.
‘Wait. They said they weren’t sure they could keep people safe. Two Epsilons and a Delta support, and they still aren’t confident…?’
My stomach dropped.
‘What the fuck was I even thinking, charging in here alone?! I would’ve gotten my ass killed!’
“Ehh… what about you, miss?” Iron prompted carefully, clearly trying not to set me off. “You’re a Brawler, right?”
I snapped my focus back to him, realizing I’d been staring at the girl through my mask for a few seconds, lost in my own head.
‘Fuck. That’s actually a great question. What the fuck am I?’
I thought about it for a moment, then slowly inclined my head and grumbled, “Brawler. Epsilon.”
I just went for the most logical choice available to me: Simply claiming I was exactly what they had pegged me as, with the exact same Rank as them.
I wasn’t about to volunteer how little I actually understood about my own situation. I was already way out of my depth here, and cooperating for now was clearly the smartest move.
“Name’s Nica,” I added.
Giving them something human to latch onto felt like the safer play. The more I was a person and not “just another Villain,” the lower the odds they’d try to gank me once this was over.
Iron smiled and held out a hand.
I stared at it, briefly considering the logistics of shaking it with my massive hand without crushing his fingers. Then another thought followed close behind: I wasn’t entirely convinced these Heroes even knew what they were offering here.
Sure, they clearly knew more about actual Hero work than I did—seeing as I’d nearly committed suicide-by-Vyre charging in alone—but legally speaking? I had the distinct feeling they were flying completely blind.
Which worked out just fine for me.
I carefully took his hand and gave it a single, gentle pump, making sure not to use any force at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the archer—Rob, right?—tighten his grip on the bow the instant I moved.
As I shook, I casually announced, “I’m accepting your proposed temporary alliance under the exact terms of the One World Council’s Powered Emergency Law, claiming the official designation of Vigilante as outlined within it, for the duration of the Vyre Incident and the legally permitted twelve hours following its conclusion. I also formally declare my intent to share in the spoils in proportion equal to my contributions to resolving the Incursion currently manifesting behind you.”
All three of them froze.
Iron’s hand went rigid in mine.
‘Ah, so they have heard of it,’ I thought, grinning behind my mask. ‘Too late, little Heroes. Should’ve remembered this part of your training more readily. I’m your friend now—officially sanctioned by the very laws that dictate your every move.’
The Powered Emergency Law was a simple one, but also incredibly important.
It allowed Heroes and Villains to work together during large-scale emergencies like Vyre or Kaiju Incursions. After all, nobody benefited from mass civilian deaths caused by alien invaders—not even criminals. So the law existed to encourage Villains to help out in those situations, with a pretty generous set of concessions attached.
First and foremost, a Villain’s status temporarily changed to Vigilante for the duration of the incident and up to twelve hours afterward, depending on what both sides agreed on during negotiations.
Second—and easily the most impactful part—the newly designated Vigilante was legally treated as a separate entity from the Villain. Any crimes committed beforehand were considered suspended for the duration of the Vigilante status.
If a Hero tried to arrest them after the incident, they would be the ones breaking the law.
Lastly, aside from a long list of specific rules about what each party could and couldn’t do during the truce, there was the spoils clause: Any Vigilante who helped resolve an incident could claim a share of the spoils based on their contribution, with arbitration options available if they felt cheated afterward.
By asking for my help and offering to team up without conditions, they’d handed me the entire agreement on a silver platter.
They hadn’t set any limits—no reduced Vigilante timer, no capped share of spoils, nothing.
‘So I claimed it all,’ I thought smugly. ‘Everything the law allows is now officially mine, and there’s nothing they can do about it anymore.’
I mean… theoretically, they could have killed me right then and there. But straight up killing Villains—or Heroes, for that matter—was a really, really bad idea.
Nobody wanted to escalate things between the two sides and drag the actual Superheroes and Supervillains into the mess—the A-Ranks and higher, that could level entire cities if they were let loose.
All that would lead to was massive collateral damage.
So they didn’t really have a choice. And lying about not having made any agreement with me afterward wouldn’t work either. Someone like Truthsayer—or one of his many Power-siblings—would tear that apart in seconds.
No two Powers were ever exactly the same, but certain concepts showed up again and again in the Convergence’s toolkit. Groups that shared a broad idea, like truth telling capabilities, were usually lumped together as Power-siblings of whatever the most prominent Hero with that general Power-theme was.
I let go of Iron’s hand after another moment, only then noticing how completely silent the three of them had become after my declaration.
‘I was at least expecting some kind of reaction,’ I thought, my brows furrowing. ‘But they’re just standing there…?’
Then I saw Iron’s face twitch slightly, like he’d just reacted to something he hadn’t wanted to hear.
The realization finally clicked. My eyes snapped to the girl.
‘Telly… As in fucking telepathy?! She’s one of Telepath’s Power-siblings, isn’t she?’
That explained her D-ranking immediately. A Power like that was absurdly useful for utility and support—especially since it was apparently only one half of her kit, with the other half providing Suppressor capabilities on top.
‘I’ll need to be careful around her,’ I thought. ‘No matter what the law says about protections.’
Finally, it seemed the Heroes had finished whatever silent conversation they’d been having. Iron forced a smile that didn’t quite hide the strain underneath it.
‘Definitely need more work on the masking there, bud.’
“Epsilon-rank, huh…?” he said after a moment, his voice tinged with a hint of doubt. “Alright then. You’ll take the frontline with me. We keep the Vyre off the other two, and between the four of us we should be able to hold until reinforcements arrive.”
He gave a small nod.
“Thank you for your assistance during this crisis, Vigilante Nica.”
“My pleasure,” I rumbled back—and I actually meant it.
From what I’d seen so far, these kids were good people. And fighting Vyre to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves? That was exactly what anyone with power should’ve been doing from the very start anyway, with no reservations.
I turned around and headed back into the alley I’d come from barely a minute ago, tossing a quick, “Be right back,” over my shoulder at the Heroes.
If I was going to fight alien freaks, I wasn’t about to let all my clothes get completely wrecked. I didn’t have the luxury of WHA-grade costumes like they did, that might actually be able to stand up to a Scyther or Brute’s hits, so I had to take care of my stuff in a different way.
I walked over to the trash container I’d first used as a desk—and then as a curl weight—and flipped the lid open to peek inside.
‘Not great… but it could be a lot worse,’ I thought, seeing that there wasn’t anything obviously vile near the top.
I shrugged off my trench coat, making sure the black side was facing out, and carefully placed it inside the container.
Before that, I pulled out all the Vials, Bombs, and Mutagen Injectors from its pockets and shifted them into the pouches of my hoodie and jeans instead.
‘I’m definitely not going to fight naked,’ I told myself, ‘but if even just the coat survives, at least I’ll be decent enough to get home without people calling the cops on me, thinking I’m some kind of degenerate, exhibitionist pervert.’
To say I wasn’t nervous about my upcoming fight debut would’ve been a bold-faced fucking lie. This whole situation was absolutely terrifying.
I’d never even seen a Vyre in person before—which was probably the only reason I was still alive, considering how insanely, ravenously destructive those things were.
Sure, I’d seen plenty of them in classes, movies, shows, and on the news, but that wasn’t even close to the same as actually walking up and beating the shit out of each other until one of you died.
All things considered, I felt far too calm about it.
That made me pause.
‘Is this a side effect of being Powered now…?’ I wondered. ‘There’s no way I’d put my life on the line like this in any other situation without making damn sure I had a fighting chance first. So why am I so ready to fight a Vyre right here, right now? I should be doing more tests. I shouldn’t feel this confident… but I do.’
I mulled that over as I headed back toward the side street—when a much stronger pull toward the Incursion’s origin suddenly hit me.
It felt like being yanked forward by a giant magnet, nearly making me stumble.
At the same time, my phone erupted with a garish, bone-rattling alarm as sirens across the city began to wail in unison.
The Vyre Incursion alert had finally gone out, warning civilians to get to shelter immediately.
“Fuck me,” I muttered, picking up the pace as I moved back toward the three Heroes, who were all staring in the same direction toward the Incursion.
They’d felt the pull too.
They turned toward me as they heard my footsteps thunder across the street.
“We should hurry,” Iron said tentatively, as he turned off the alarm on his phone.
I nodded as I did the same, fumbling a bit with the way-too-tiny thing. “I’m ready.”
He nodded back, and the four of us started moving toward the source of the pull, which grew stronger with every step.
I had to slow myself down—my height made each stride roughly equal to three of theirs—but even so, we reached the side street’s intersection in under a minute.
“Stop here,” Iron ordered. Rob nodded immediately and broke off toward the opposite side of the street, taking up position. Telly stepped back a few paces instead, placing herself centrally behind Iron and me.
In a voice barely above a whisper—so quiet I only caught it because he was standing right beside me—Iron said, “Please help me save everyone, Nica. That’s all I care about. I didn’t tell the others about the blood on your gloves, and I don’t care about it now either. You don’t seem like a bad person to me, so whoever put that blood there probably deserved it. Just… Please don’t hold back. Help us get through this, okay? Telly and Rob are still new, and I can’t lose either of them here…”
I stiffened at the mention of blood, then remembered the guy I’d slammed into the wall earlier—how much spittle and blood he’d sprayed after losing a few teeth during our little chat.
‘Right… That happened.’
The fear and uncertainty in Iron’s voice pulled at something else within my chest.
‘There’s grief in there too, isn’t there?’ I thought, my head turning slightly towards him to let myself take a look at him, ‘You’ve lost a team before… or at least someone important, haven’t you, Iron?’
I wasn’t sure why he was opening up like this to me, of all people. Maybe it was the same reason I’d given them a name earlier—to seem more human. But I couldn’t be sure.
Trust between Heroes and Villains didn’t just appear because of a temporary Vigilante label.
“I’ll do my best,” I easily agreed, as I had already intended to do so anyway.
Something in my voice must’ve convinced him as well, because I saw some of the tension drain from his posture.
“Thank you,” he whispered back.
Then, without warning, he abruptly sank about a centimeter into the asphalt with a loud crunch as his skin, clothes, and hair all turned a metallic, shimmering gray.
‘Whoa,’ I thought, watching the instant transformation. ‘That explains the Ironbound name, I guess: A Metalmorph… I really should’ve figured that out from the name and the lack of a real outfit… That one’s squarely on me.’
My nerves, on the other hand, were finally starting to behave exactly how I’d expected them to, given the situation. With the Incursion looming ever closer and sirens screaming all around us, that familiar knot of fear crawled up my throat.
I’d heard those sirens countless times growing up, and never once had they meant anything but pure terror. Rushing to shelters with my parents. Hiding in cramped safe rooms.
Sitting in the dark, waiting for the all-clear and hoping the Heroes had handled something we couldn’t even begin to fight ourselves.
Calling it trauma almost felt too gentle.
But, really, that was just life.
You heard the sirens. You ran. And sometimes, you didn’t make it.
Maybe you were too slow. Maybe the shelters filled up. Maybe the bunker doors closed just a little too early. Or maybe the Incursion ruptured sooner than expected, and there simply wasn’t enough time for any of it.
And then you would die—that was it.
That fear—the constant dread of losing someone I cared about, or dying myself with no recourse available to me—was burned deep into my bones.
It probably always would be.
So even now, with practically everything being different that could possibly be different, hearing those sirens howl across the city still made my blood run cold.
I fingered the Vials and Bombs hidden in my hoodie pockets with my left hand, turning over how I might use them once the fight started. Brawlers with elemental quirks or straight-up explosive aspects to their Powers weren’t exactly unheard of, so it wouldn’t be a huge leap for the Heroes to assume I was one of those types if I used any of them.
‘As long as they don’t actually see me pulling any of this stuff out, anyway…’
Not that I owed them explanations even if they asked about anything they might see—our truce didn’t include that—but letting them think of me as just a Brawler felt a lot safer than being some weird, undefined Type they couldn’t quite pin down.
The less I stuck around in their heads, the better.
‘So, as tempting as it is to test the Bombs or [Alchemist’s Fire], I’ll stick to raw muscle for now. Unless we start getting overrun. Then holding back won’t matter anyway—we’ll all just die, and there won’t be a future Triss to worry about,’ I decided.
I shifted into a more grounded stance, letting my massive body settle and find its center of gravity, leaning into the weight of it.
I was very, very glad I’d taken combat classes seriously back in high school—back when Sadie and I had still secretly hoped for a Keystone Ascendancy.
Otherwise, this would’ve been my first real fight ever.
At least now, I had a rough idea of what not to do. That was about as far as my knowledge reached however, so this was very much still going to be a trial by fire at best.
To distract myself from the rising anxiety tightening in my chest, I forced myself to carefully look around, trying to burn every detail of the area we’d be fighting in into my mind.
It was a three-way cross of side-streets stretching out to the east, west, and south—where we’d come running from—with the pull of the Incursion sitting slightly off to the west side of the intersection. The only path towards the north were several narrow alleyways, squeezed tight between tall, looming buildings that blocked out most of the sky.
Outside of the street itself, everything else felt thoroughly cramped.
The buildings were packed close together, concrete and glass stacked high with barely any breathing room between them. On the corner to our southeast sat a large store, its lights off, a hastily activated neon CLOSED sign displayed in the window, metal barricades already lowered since the sirens had started wailing.
Anyone inside would be heading underground by now, into the store’s safe room, hoping it would be enough until the Incursion was dealt with.
But they were way too close for comfort.
If we slipped up even once—just one second of lost attention—a Vyre could crash straight into the building, tear open the safe room, and rip through the civilians inside before we even realized what had happened.
The same was honestly true for most of the buildings around us. Too many hiding places. Too many blind spots. Too many alleys for something fast and violent to disappear into.
‘This is going to be a complete fucking nightmare to manage,’ I quickly realized, a heavy knot settling in my stomach next to the growing tumor that was the anxiety from the siren.
The only thing working in our favor here was that Vyre were utterly ravenous and equally dumb, driven more by pure instinct than thought.
And right now, I was a really big, really obvious slab of meat, standing out in the open with absolutely nothing to hide my presence from them.
My head kept swiveling as I took the area in—then abruptly stopped as a follow-up thought snapped into place.
‘Wait a damn second…’
I slowly turned my head toward Iron, who was still standing right beside me, and eyed him carefully. ‘Did this motherfucker ask me to help keep things under control because he saw my big fucking ass out here and thought, “Wow, she’ll make great Vyre bait”?!’
I was half-considering asking him exactly that, mostly just to keep my mind off things, when two things happened at the same time.
First, the Incursion’s pull hit me again, knocking me half a step toward it. Iron, meanwhile, stayed exactly where he was, but his face hardened instantly, the forced calm from before gone.
Second, the sirens stopped wailing entirely.
The moment they did, I realized a major flaw in my earlier thinking.
‘The sirens wailing isn't the scariest part…’
The silence that followed them was.
That sudden, dead quiet after the ear-shattering noise, when the sirens were cut in preparation for the Incursion’s eruption. The silence was meant to let Heroes and Guardian troops communicate, to hear the Vyre moving mid-combat, instead of having to shout over the alarms that wouldn’t save anyone left out in the open anyway.
But standing there, on that street corner, the contrast the quiet created felt like a physical weight pressing down on me. My heart hammered in my chest, adrenaline flooding my system as my hands started to shake slightly.
Iron next to me inhaled slowly, then spoke up, his voice surprisingly firm given the situation, carrying just enough to reach all of us without echoing down the streets unnecessarily.
“Alright, here’s what’s going to come through that thing.”
I focused on his words, grateful for the anchor.
“Grunts first. They’re slow, ugly, and have lots of teeth. Not a major problem unless you get surrounded or they land a lucky hit—don’t let them. Then come the Scythers—long limbs, bladed arms and fast. They like to rush and flank, so watch each other’s backs. Lastly, there might be a Brute if we’re unlucky. Huge, slow, but they hit like a truck. Whatever you do, do not get hit by them.”
He paused, letting that information settle for a moment.
“Remember that they’re Vyre. They’re alien. They’re not human,” he continued, voice hardening just a touch. “They’re the antithesis of everything we care about. No mercy. No hesitation. You hesitate, you die—and you take the rest of us with you.”
I had no intention of showing mercy to the Vyre at any point.
‘Grandma… Grandpa… This is for you,’ I quietly vowed, forming my massive hands into fists to stop my hands from shaking.
“Aim for the eyes,” Iron went on. “Their brains are usually right behind them. Anatomy’s not the same as ours in general, but that part still holds true. Crippling them doesn’t stop them. They don’t care about pain the same way we do. So go for the kill. Every time.”
He glanced up at me briefly when he said the next part, clearly including me without making a big thing of it—which was very much appreciated.
“If any of us gets too injured to keep fighting, fall back east, up the street. Stay visible. Don’t hide. If you’re still being chased, we’ll peel them off you. If we can’t see you, you’re at risk of getting run down by a Scyther that slipped by. Do not hide.”
The last part seemed particularly forceful to me, and I couldn’t help but think that there was a very good reason he had mentioned that aspect twice.
‘I guess now I know what happened to at least one of his prior teammates…’
“Stick together. Watch each other’s backs. We’ve got eleven minutes until reinforcements arrive. That’s it. We don’t need to close the Incursion. We just need to hold them here and keep them away from the safe rooms and bunkers.”
Silence followed his words, but it felt different now.
My breathing evened out as the plan settled into place inside my mind. Having it laid out like that—clear threats, clear rules, clear goals—did more for my nerves than anything else could have.
Iron really knew what he was doing.
And as much as I hated to admit it, I’d gotten really, really lucky running into these three. If I’d walked into this alone… I probably would have gotten myself killed.
I took several deep—very deep, considering my massive lungs—steadying breaths, trying to calm whatever nerves Iron’s short speech hadn’t already wrangled into line.
‘Not that that’s really gonna help…’
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as the tight knot of anxiety in my chest threatened to make me throw up into my own mask—which would’ve been fucking embarrassing.
Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it—Telly cut that short.
“They’re coming,” she announced, her voice audibly strained with the same coiled fear I was fighting down.
How she knew, I had no idea. But it didn’t matter.
A heartbeat later, while the echo of her words was still rolling through the empty Haekoz streets, the world shattered.
For a split second, the world seemed to flip upside down, like gravity had forgotten which way was supposed to be down. A vicious jolt of vertigo slammed through me as literal shards of reality itself fractured out of mid-air—jagged, glassy slivers of nothing—and fell toward the ground, only to vanish before they could even hit it.
Then the rupture abruptly finished opening entirely.
In less than a heartbeat, the tear stabilized at roughly head height for me, a two-meter-wide wound in the world, easily twice as tall as I was now. Its edges crawled and writhed, like space itself was trying—and failing—to stitch itself back together.
And then the Vyre came pouring out.
Just like Iron had said, the Grunts were first.
They were wretched, twisted little homunculi things, dragged straight out of a nightmare—rotund, bulbous bodies roughly the size of a medium-sized dog with no real distinction between head and torso.
A single massive maw dominated the front of each one, packed with rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth, while three oversized eyes bulged from the flesh above it.
Three thick legs were arranged symmetrically around their bodies, supporting the obscene weight, with two arms jutting out from either side of the head-torso and a third arm protruding straight out of the top, twitching continuously as if searching for something to rip and tear at.
The very instant the first one fully cleared the rupture—an arrow punched straight through one of its eyes with a vicious ripping and tearing sound.
The force of it was unreal.
The shaft blew out the back of the creature’s head-torso in a violent spray of neon-violet blood and liquefied tissue, the Grunt collapsing mid-lunge like its strings had been cut.
But it didn’t stop there.
It kept going, tearing straight into two more Grunts that had just started to hurl themselves out of the rupture behind it—killing another outright and ripping one of the legs clean off the third. The maimed creature hit the street screaming, thrashing and hobbling towards Iron and myself, as its blood continuously splattered across the asphalt underneath it.
I didn’t spend even a second thinking about it before I used my massive legs to close the distance in a single step and kicked the injured Grunt with all the force I could muster, straight into its nasty, snarling little face.
I had very clearly underestimated my own strength by quite a solid margin.
There was barely any resistance at all as my foot connected—no strain, no real pushback—just a wet, meaty slap, followed by the sound of tissue ripping apart like paper.
In the span of a heartbeat, the Grunt’s face and body simply… ceased to exist.
My boot tore straight through it, and the creature detonated into a spray of neon-violet gore, chunks of flesh and severed limbs flung tumbling through the air and disappearing somewhere behind the rupture.
What was left of it—two legs and a couple of arms with no head-torso to speak of—cartwheeled uselessly across the street and disappeared behind the chaos.
I froze for half a second, staring at my own leg.
‘Holy fuck—’
The moment didn’t even last a heartbeat.
A deafening metallic clang rang out behind me, snapping me back to reality.
Iron was hammering his hands together again and again, metal on metal, producing a brutal, echoing cacophony that cut through the night and echoed off of the walls around us.
The sound seemed to hit the Grunts like a switch flipping—several of them twisted mid-leap, their many eyes locking onto him as they screeched and redirected, drawn to him like moths to a flame.
At the same time, a handful of Grunts that had been lunging toward me abruptly jerked to a stop in mid-air, as if seized by an invisible hand.
They hung there for a brief moment, limbs flailing uselessly, before being slammed straight down into the asphalt with considerable force. The impact was sickening—bones cracking, flesh compressing, shrill, broken shrieks bursting out as bodies pancaked, stopped moving or were broken to a point they could no longer do anything but.
And all around me, it all just kept happening at an every-increasing rate.
Grunts poured through the tear in reality, only to drop dead mid-charge as arrows punched clean through their eyes. Rob’s shots came fast and utterly merciless—each translucent arrow tearing through one target and carrying enough force to keep going, ripping holes through two, sometimes three bodies in a line.
Violet blood rained down in sheets in front of me, splattering the street as carcasses piled up directly beneath the Incursion almost as quickly as they could arrive.
The street had turned into a complete slaughterhouse in mere moments.
But even with Telly and Rob doing their absolute best, there were simply too many Grunts for the two of them to keep them contained at the portal.
Half a dozen of them had already leapt toward Iron by the time Telly finished smashing the first group that had lunged at me, and another group of similar size managed to shove and crawl over the growing pile of bodies to reinforce them.
I moved to intercept, watching out of the corner of my eye as Iron reshaped his hands into long blades and tore into the approaching Grunts, slicing them apart like they were made of wet toilet paper, their teeth clattering uselessly against his iron body.
It only took a single step to get close enough to the reinforcing Grunts, my massive size feeling like a godsend in that moment, and I swept my right arm low across the ground toward them. In one huge motion, I caught four of them in my attack, while two had just seen my arm coming early enough to jump over it.
I hurled the four I had hit with my sweep with everything I had, flinging them away from Iron and myself.
Their shrieks cut off abruptly as they slammed into the concrete facades of the nearby high-rises with sickening, meaty slaps, some bodies bursting apart on impact and leaving behind grotesque splashes, others crumpling as bones and limbs shattered, their broken whimpers the only sound left of them.
But I didn’t pay much attention to their fates.
I was already swinging my left arm at the remaining two, trying to finish it quickly—but they were focused on me now.
Even if they were slow, hitting both at once just wasn’t going to happen if they both tried to evade me. My hand only managed to catch one, and it met the same end as the others, splattered across a nearby building.
The last Grunt jumped.
I felt its teeth rip through my jeans like they were nothing and sink straight into the flesh beneath.
I screamed as pain flared up my leg and instinct took over.
With my right hand, I slapped the thing straight in the face, detonating its head-torso against the pavement at my feet.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, but I didn’t have time to deal with the wound. Another three groups of Grunts had already pushed past Telly and Rob’s best efforts to keep them contained.
The real problem however, was that they weren’t fully drawn to either me or Iron this time.
A good number of them were angling toward Telly and Rob behind us.
Iron was just finishing off the last Grunts that had gone for him on the first round, but he was also still positioned a few steps behind me.
So I made myself as wide and imposing as I could—which, frankly, was fucking massive—and did the first thing that came to mind to grab their attention.
I screamed.
My baritone voice, pushed to the full power of my gigantic lungs and resonating through my massive torso, tore through the street.
It drowned out the Grunts’ shrieks and the noise of the fight entirely, echoing off the walls around us like a beast had decided to drop by and end all of this nonsense on a whim.
The Grunts stuttered mid-movement in raw, stunned confusion, then snapped their focus in my direction, their large, beady eyes filled with indignant rage.
‘Come get me, you little freak fucks…!’
And then all three groups started charging straight at me…
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[FREE | Reading Sample] TS - Chapter 2 - The Emerald Tablet
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2026-01-23 21:40:05 +0000 UTC View Post[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 69 - Expertise
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 64: Just Another Day has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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For anyone interested in the stuff I linked to last week:
We got another FREE READING SAMPLE for Chapter 1 of Tabula Smaragdina (TS) today!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/148786437
The Reading Samples are intended to last around 3-5 Chapters, so they are quite a bit larger than your average TAS or ND ones, to make sure that I can cover all the bits I want to present in the sample.
Today's chapter is around 7.5k Words long, so about twice as long as a normal TAS/ND chapter.
Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (other-novels -> Thread: Put feedback for TS in here)
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QFHp7Rz7cU39UHJ47QVBnTUV1lenJlvSTGr2wXItsE0/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 69 - Expertise
“People love to talk about Build Theory as if it were a clean equation.
“Just balance your BGR, your VGR, your UAP, slot the recommended Abilities, and you’re done.”
That’s the lie we tell Recruits because the truth is far more uncomfortable and complicated.
The first problem is that you are never balancing just three things. You are balancing the whole of now, later, and if you survive long enough. BGR is often seen as the thing that keeps you alive today. VGR the thing that keeps you relevant tomorrow. And UAP decides whether your ceiling is high enough to matter at all.
Push one too hard and the others suffer. Push none hard enough and you simply stagnate.
The second problem is the future.
Every build, in essence, is a promise you make to yourself: You spend points now in the hope that, ten years down the line, they pay off.
But the Allbright System does not guarantee nor refund that hope.
If you cannot reach that future—if your early and mid-tier performance dips too far—you die long before your build ever becomes ‘correct.’
That is why every Faction has its own, unique tried-and-tested paths.
They are not optimal. They are safe. They trade peak potential for consistency. They get soldiers from Tier 0 to Tier 1, sometimes even Tier 2, without catastrophic failure, and on a battlefield full of artillery, Psykers, and Battlefield Aces, that reliability matters more than theoretical perfection.
Now, Aces are a different matter entirely.
True Aces are built, not found.
They receive custom planning, custom allowances, and constant iteration. More importantly, they invest an absurd amount of personal effort into understanding their own builds. They know exactly why every point is where it is.
That’s why their builds look alien to standard doctrine—and why they work.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth that Command hates hearing: Aces do not win wars alone, for they are too rare to do so. Base soldiers, on the other hand, are like stars in the firmament—individually small and meaningless but collectively overwhelming.
A mere 0.1% improvement to the average soldier of a Faction would reshape entire fronts of the galactic war in an instant.
And yet, no one dares to chase that improvement.
Because experimentation has a cost.
If you try something new and it dips performance, even briefly, people die. Millions, or even Billions. Entire frontlines collapse. Careers end. No Commander wants to be remembered as the one who ‘tested a theory’ while losing a series of systems in the process.
So we are locked in a stalemate—not of firepower or know-how, necessarily, but one of courage.
Every Faction knows there might be better answers out there, but none are willing to risk moving backward to find them.
Is that kind of stagnation Terra’s design? The inevitable goal of the Galactic War, to reach this stalemate? Hard to say.
But Terra hasn’t intervened in centuries.
And silence, too, can be an answer…”
—
[Excerpt from “Foundations of Build Theory Under the Allbright System,” Professor Halvrek Ionescu, Strategic Systems Analyst, UHF War Collegium, PFC884]
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“It’s been so long since I’ve had an actual, physical pamphlet, you know?” Thea said as she excitedly held the folded sheet she had picked up from the nearby store out to Lucas. “It’s so neat!”
He took it, gave it a quick once-over, then handed it back with a nod, “That is pretty neat, yeah.”
She narrowed her eyes at him for a second.
‘He clearly does not understand the significance of this at all…!’
Then again, that was only to be expected from someone who hadn’t really spent much time—if any—with Terra’s games, or arcades in general, from what she could tell.
“You know, this is actually kind of a big deal,” she said carefully, testing the waters to see if he was interested in her opinion on this.
“Oh?”
That was more than enough for Thea.
“This is one of Terra’s games, Lucas!” she said immediately, waving the pamphlet in front of him. “A sequel to one that’s been around for decades. Remember how I said a lot of what I know about builds comes from these games? A new release means big changes to the mechanics—and that means more clues about how the Allbright System actually works, from Terra itself! And if the original Invictus Fall was already one of the closest matches to the real System in terms of Classes… then this one is very likely to be absolutely packed with new Class info that Terra has collected over the past few decades!”
His eyes widened a little as it finally clicked.
“Ooooh. Yeah, okay, I get it now,” he nodded. “That actually does sound super important. Maybe I should’ve grabbed one too…”
“Well, this is just a pamphlet,” she said with a shrug. “It mostly talks about the beta and a rough release window, so it’s not a huge loss. But! We definitely need to tell the rest of Alpha. Especially Kara and Corvus. They’ll definitely want to know that the game is coming out later this year.”
“Desmond too,” Lucas added, catching her off guard.
‘He’s a gamer?! I swear he said at some point that he didn’t know anything about games or arcades… Was he just bullshitting, then…?’
He seemed to notice her surprise and shrugged. “Well, what can I say? He’s kind of a nerd. That’s his whole role in the squad, right? Software, drones, hacking, all that stuff. Outside of you, he probably spent the most time with games and arcades before coming here—maybe not counting Corvus, since he’s a Legacy and all… I’m not totally sure, though. Never really asked what that part of his upbringing looked like.”
“Huh,” was all Thea managed, her eyes finally drifting away from the pamphlet now that she’d absorbed everything she could from it. That was when she noticed the girl, mostly hidden behind Lucas’ broad frame, staring at her with a pale expression.
‘Oh. Right… She was supposed to be here today, wasn’t she?’ Thea reminded herself, refocusing on why they were actually here. ‘Guess it’s time to put on the game face and do my job as whatever kind of celebrity she thinks I am… to get Lucas the info he needs.’
She put on her best smile—one she realised, a little to her own surprise, came fairly easily when dealing with a fan like this—and leaned around Lucas as he stepped aside, looking mildly startled, as if he’d briefly forgotten Evelyne was even there.
Thea held out her hand to the other girl.
“Hi, Evelyne! Thanks for helping us out today,” she said, adding a bit of extra warmth to her voice. She wasn’t exactly the best at this whole social stuff, but this—handling fans—was something she actually had some practice with.
The other girl’s eyes darted to her hand, then to her face, then back to her hand again.
Slowly—almost like she was afraid of scaring Thea off—Evelyne reached out and gingerly took her hand.
Thea squeezed lightly, pumped it once, then twice, before letting go, flashing the other girl a wide, toothy smile to try and put her at ease. Evelyne just stared at her own hand for a second—then startled as Lucas cleared his throat, her eyes snapping to him immediately.
Thea glanced over as well and caught Lucas giving the girl a slightly pointed look—one she couldn’t quite read.
‘Did I miss something here…?’
Evelyne seemed to gather herself after that. She took a deep breath and said, “Y—Yes! Hello, Thea. I’ll do my best to help however I can!”
It was a bit louder than it needed to be, Thea felt, but at least the girl sounded eager.
‘Works for me.’
“Let’s get to it, then,” Thea said, stepping past both Lucas and Evelyne and heading into the arcade first.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she was hit by the visual assault, the noise, and the smells—the familiar mix of heated electronics, sweat, and cheap alcohol filling her nose and sending a small shiver down her spine.
This was the kind of environment she had grown up in—this felt like home.
She took a second to enjoy the sensations washing over her before heading toward the counter. She could hear Lucas’ and Evelyne’s footsteps behind her, so there was no need to check if they were following.
The arcade trip had been her idea, so naturally she was the one who had to get everything sorted.
“Hi, I need a private booth for three for… ehh…” she started confidently, then rapidly faltered.
“Actually, is there a list of options? Like hourly prices and stuff…? I don’t actually know how this all works,” she admitted, deflating a bit mid-sentence.
The clerk behind the counter smiled gently at her—thankfully without laughing—and quickly pulled up the available options.
‘How long are we even planning to be here…?’ Thea thought, scanning the list. ‘I promised Lucas I’d help him train, so probably a bit longer than a normal session…?’
After a few seconds, she nodded, decision made. “Private booth for three, for fourteen hours, please.”
She heard Lucas choke behind her and start coughing, but she didn’t have the processing power to deal with that and finish the transaction at the same time.
“Oh—and unlimited snacks and drink refills, please. We’ll need them,” Thea added.
“T—That’s… uh, yes, Ma’am. Of course,” the clerk stammered. “That… that will be 322 Credits…?”
Thea narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Is she asking me?’
Before she could overthink it, a System Payment Request popped up. She simply confirmed it.
[System]: Do you want to pay 322 System Credits to “Entertainment Deck - Arcade North 1” for “Bundle: Private Booth (14 Hours) - Unlimited Snacks + Drinks”? [Y/N]
As the payment went through, the clerk visibly steadied herself, her professional smile snapping back into place. “Thank you for your patronage! Your booth is just past here, down the hallway to the left. Room number thirteen.”
“Thank you!” Thea replied, turning back toward Lucas and Evelyne.
She checked on Lucas—he seemed fine now, aside from some lingering tears from the coughing fit. Evelyne, meanwhile, looked about as jittery in her company as ever.
“Let’s go, then.”
She led the way, practically dragging the other two along toward the private booth.
As they walked, her eyes drifted over the arcade.
Open booths lined the floor—some packed with groups of Marines, others occupied by lone players, and quite a few sitting completely empty. The free-standing machines and play areas were also semi-sparcely populated.
‘Definitely fewer people than last time,’ she noted. ‘Makes sense, with the DMs open, I guess. If you want to train, earning Merit, Credits, and CP on the side probably beats pure practice any day… unless you need the customization options. Like we do.’
Thea led them down the short hallway and into the private booth, the door sliding shut behind them with a soft hiss.
Inside, the space opened up into a cozy, enclosed room with padded benches lining the walls and a sturdy table set in the middle. Four full-body VR seats were arranged neatly on the opposite side of the room, large, bulky things but properly comfortable-looking, with cables and interface arms folded back for now.
The setup reminded her of the kinds of booths she’d grown up using—private, insulated, built for long sessions without outside distractions.
Usually she’d booked ones meant for one or two people, but most of the booths came in even numbers: One, two, four, or more. So she’d grabbed a four-seat booth despite them only being three.
‘More room is never bad…’
She was pretty happy with it.
They settled in at the table for the moment, Lucas and Thea taking one side while Evelyne sat opposite them, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Lucas was the first to speak once they were seated, rubbing the back of his neck. “You really didn’t have to pay for all of this yourself, you know. This is for me, after all. I should’ve covered it.”
Thea waved him off immediately. “Nah. I’m the one who suggested using the arcade in the first place, so it only makes sense that I set it up. And it’s fine—I’ve got more than enough Credits. What else are they really for than paying for equipment and training?”
Lucas sighed, clearly realizing there was no winning that argument, and gave her a small, genuine smile. “Alright. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He paused, then frowned slightly. “That said… Why fourteen hours? That—That’s a lot of time.”
Thea blinked at him, unsure of what he was talking about. “You wanted to train with me, no? A proper session’s, what, ten to twelve hours usually? We still need to get info from Evelyne first, so I added a couple extra to figure out what we’re actually doing. Ah… Speaking of which…”
Lucas went pale. “Ten to twelve hours of training…?!”
But Thea had already moved on.
Her gaze had snapped to Evelyne, fixing her with a focused look. Evelyne’s eyes practically sparkled when they met Thea’s, her posture straightening just a little.
“So,” Thea said, leaning forward slightly. “You said you had intel for us. That’s why you’re here. How, exactly, can you help us?”
Evelyne looked down, took a slow, steadying breath, hands tightening briefly in her lap before she visibly seemed to force herself to relax.
Then she looked up and met Thea’s eyes again.
“I… I can help in a few different ways,” she began. “First and foremost—direct, actionable intel on Rachel Veronica Masters, as promised. Her background, personality, family history, fighting style… and her build. I don’t know her exact starting Base Attributes, but I can get them very close. And I do know the exact distribution of her Level Up points, as well as several of her Abilities.”
Thea’s eyes widened instantly.
That was a truly insane amount of information to have on another Marine. She was already halfway to asking how Evelyne could possibly know all of that, when the girl just… kept going.
“Second,” Evelyne continued, gaining momentum, “I have information on the UHF Challenges themselves. How they’re structured, what kinds of difficulties to expect, what the Brass actually looks for when deciding winners. Which rounds exist, what tends to trip people up, and what strategies consistently perform well.”
Lucas’ eyebrows shot up now as well.
“And,” Evelyne added, almost apologetically, “I also have a list of recommendations for you, Callahan. Skills you should absolutely consider picking up before the Challenge. Things that will help close the massive gap between you and Masters—” she winced slightly, “—sorry, that was a bit direct.”
Lucas scratched the back of his head, waving her apology off with the other hand. “Ehh… No offense taken, really. That gap’s pretty obvious. It’s the reason we’re here, after all.”
She nodded, visibly relieved, and pushed on. “Lastly… I can act as a training partner. For you,” she said to Lucas, then hesitated before glancing at Thea, cheeks flushing, “or for you, if you want. I don’t compare to either Callahan or Masters combat-wise, but fighting different opponents matters a lot for Challenges. Most of it won’t be a straight head-to-head with Masters anyway.”
Silence fell over the booth.
Thea and Lucas just stared at her for a moment, genuinely speechless.
Evelyne held Lucas’ gaze without issue, confidence apparent in her very posture—but the instant her eyes met Thea’s, she started to squirm, shoulders drawing in slightly as if she suddenly wasn’t sure where to put her hands.
The contrast was… hard to miss.
‘Even I can tell she’s having a rough time with me here, and I’m usually not the best at picking up on stuff like that,’ Thea thought, feeling a little bad about it. ‘There’s gotta be a way to make her more comfortable, right…? And that intel she has is—fucking frightening. No other word for it. We really can’t afford to scare her off before we get everything we can out of this…’
The question of how Evelyne knew even a fraction of what she’d just listed burned on the tip of Thea’s tongue, but she forced herself to swallow it.
It didn’t feel smart to ask.
Evelyne had presented everything with such confidence that questioning her sources would really only satisfy Thea’s own curiosity.
And worse—It might even upset the girl.
Thea knew she, herself, would be annoyed if someone grilled her about things she was absolutely confident in. In the absolute worst case, Evelyne might just shut down or leave altogether if they pushed her on this.
Holding herself back was… difficult, to say the least. Thea practically had to wrestle herself to keep from blurting out, “How the fuck do you know all of that?!”
Lucas, apparently a lot more comfortable with this kind of exchange than Thea would have given him credit for just a few days ago, recovered first.
“And I’m guessing I’m right in assuming,” he said carefully, “that you’re not planning to give us all of that in a single session, yes?”
Thea winced internally.
She hadn’t even thought about that—again.
In her head, Evelyne being here had meant the intel was already theirs—that this was all part of the deal.
But… obviously, that wasn’t actually what the deal had stated.
‘She agreed to help with one thing,’ Thea realized. ‘The payment being that she gets to be here today. Talking to me. And everything else she just listed? That was all bait… To get us to commit to more meetings.’
She really, really needed to figure out how social interactions like this actually worked. It was getting embarrassing how often she ended up on the back foot like this, relying on her friends or squadmates to navigate things for her.
‘Getting constantly carried like this fucking sucks…’
She’d asked Corvus just yesterday—during their day-long squad time for her birthday—about ways to shore up that very obvious weakness of hers. She’d figured that taking Skill Classes like [Psychology], [Social Dynamics], or something along those lines would help.
Much to her surprise, Corvus had shot that idea down hard.
In fact, he’d outright ordered her not to take any of those Skill Classes until he gave the okay, which had completely caught her off guard.
“Listen… I get that it’s frustrating,” he’d said. “But rushing into this stuff won’t help you. It’ll just make things much, much worse. Trust me. I’ve seen plenty of smart people with bad social skills dive head-first into psychology and human behavior theory. It doesn’t teach you how to actually talk to people, or how to understand them. It just teaches you what to look for behaviorally and how to analyze it—but that’s not how people work. People aren’t logical, they’re emotional. Learning the logic behind it doesn’t help with interacting, only with analysing.”
He’d paused, then continued, more serious. “Those kinds of skills are for professionals who need that level of breakdown. For day-to-day interaction? What you need is experience. That’s it. Filling your head with logic and theory will only make it harder to learn how real human interaction works. Don’t do it. Promise me that, okay?”
She had, in the end, agreed.
Corvus was her Squad Leader—and easily the most socially capable person in Alpha Squad. If he said this was the right way to handle it, then it very probably was.
She had no reason to doubt him.
And she was certain of one thing: Corvus wouldn’t deliberately lie to her on this.
Her thoughts snapped back to the present at Evelyne’s answer.
“Well, I doubt we could really cover and properly train everything that my intel touches in just one session anyway,” Evelyne said with a small shrug, clearly not bothered by it in the slightest. “But on the bright side, I won’t be raising my prices. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
Her eyes flicked back to Thea.
Thea met her gaze with the same warm, practiced smile she always gave her fans as MMM. Evelyne’s ears flushed red almost instantly, and she quickly looked away, back toward Lucas—where her expression immediately hardened into something sharp and businesslike.
‘That’s… so weird. But also kind of endearing, honestly,’ Thea thought. ‘She’s about as bad at this whole social thing as I am. At least with me. With Lucas, though… She's like a completely different person. Kinda scary, even.’
Lucas bumped her arm lightly, pulling her attention back to him. Their eyes met—Lucas flinching, as usual, at the cyan contact—and they had a silent exchange.
He was clearly asking what she thought.
Which made sense, as she’d be the one footing the bill again, so to speak.
Evelyne was here because of her, after all, which meant Thea would also be the one dealing with the fan side of things—answering questions, handling attention, all of it.
And fans, she’d learned the hard way, could ask some truly unhinged questions.
‘But… there’s really no debate here, is there?’ she thought. ‘There’s no way we’ll find anyone else with even close to this much intel anytime soon, if ever. However the fuck she got all of it in the first place—assuming she’s not lying.’
So she did the only thing that made sense and gave him a small, decisive nod.
Lucas visibly relaxed, nodding back in thanks before turning to Evelyne. “Well… guess welcome aboard. For however long these sessions end up lasting.”
The relief on Evelyne’s face was immediate and impossible to miss: Her shoulders dropped, her posture loosened, and she let out a breath she’d clearly been holding for a while.
Thea couldn’t help but feel two things at once—and they pulled in opposite directions.
It was a little weird, knowing that most of that relief came from the simple fact that Evelyne would get to spend more time around her.
More time to ask questions. More time to stare. More time to orbit.
That part made Thea want to squirm.
But at the same time… she kind of got it?
Getting the chance to talk to someone you admired—really talk to them, not just watch them from a distance—was intoxicating. Downright exhilarating, even.
Thea had been there herself, back when she was still just MMM and had managed to wriggle her way into private build discussions with players she’d looked up to for years.
The feeling stuck with you. The rush, the nerves, the desperate urge to not mess it up…
So yeah. She kind of understood.
Evelyne, to her credit, snapped herself back into something resembling professionalism almost immediately. She shifted her focus back to Lucas, visibly more comfortable there, and put on her game face.
“Alright,” she said, tone serious. “I can start on my end right away. What do you want to know first?”
Lucas didn’t even hesitate.
He glanced at Thea immediately and passed the question to her without a word.
Thea took a second, thinking it through, but there was only really one choice in her mind.
“Masters. Her Attributes and Abilities,” she said finally. “That’s the thing that’ll help the most right now. The sooner we know those two things, the sooner I can start properly emulating her exact setup inside the games.”
She paused, then added, already halfway into planning mode, “Actually—we should probably get into the game first. That way I can input everything as you talk and look up the matching Abilities on the fly.”
Both Lucas and Evelyne blinked at her, clearly a bit surprised by how fast she’d jumped ahead—but after a moment, they nodded.
“Yeah. That makes sense,” Lucas said.
Evelyne nodded as well, a little too quickly. “Y—yes, please! Eeehh—Agreed, I mean.”
Thea smiled to herself.
‘Leave the social stuff to the others, but I definitely know how to get some proper training reps in…’
This was her domain.
The three of them got up and started getting ready to enter the game—Thea once again choosing Archion, just like last time, for their training. They put on their helmets, settled into the VR seats, connected the cables, and began logging into their accounts.
It was so second nature to her that Thea didn’t even realize she was already fully logged in by the time Lucas and Evelyne had only just sat down and picked up their helmets.
She only realized it when she looked up at the display screen and only saw her own account name listed, the other three seats still simply displaying “Offline…”
“Oh…” she let out accidentally and caught both of their attention.
Lucas just chuckled and shook his head. “We’ll be right there. Just go on ahead.”
Evelyne, on the other hand, suddenly let out a muffled gagging sound, making both Thea and Lucas snap their heads toward her.
“I—I’ll be right back,” she forced out, one hand over her mouth and the other on her stomach, before she bolted out of the private booth.
“W—What happened?!” Thea asked, completely taken aback.
“I… honestly have no idea,” Lucas replied, frowning slightly. “I hope she’ll be okay…?”
—
—
PoV: Evelyne Midra Sen
“Hurrgg…”
Another cramp tore through her stomach as she emptied it into the arcade bathroom sink yet again.
Evelyne’s eyes were wide open, her thoughts racing no matter how hard she tried to rein them in. Control—emotional, mental, physical—had completely slipped through her fingers.
‘She actually logged into her account. Right here. On the ship…!’
It should have been impossible. Doing that was a dead giveaway. There was no room for doubt anymore—whatever little doubt Evelyne had left was gone.
But that wasn’t what had broken her.
It was the realization that MMM had logged into her real account inside the ship’s DDS-based arcade.
‘The Sovereign knows…! It fucking knows. It knows…!’
The thought bounced around her head over and over, the sheer terror of it too much for her body to handle.
‘The fucking AI knows—but Thea isn’t getting any special treatment from the brass…! What the fuck is happening?!’
It made no sense.
If the Sovereign knew—and it absolutely did, because nothing inside the DDS functioned without its oversight—then why was Thea McKay still being treated like just another Recruit?
A standout Recruit, sure. A star, even.
But not the MissyMoonlightMayhem.
The AIs had an imperative. Their highest rule. One that could never be broken.
To serve the UHF’s long-term goals above all else.
‘So why the fuck is the Sovereign just letting Thea stumble around in the dark like this?!’
It didn’t add up. At all.
There were too many variables, too many possible explanations, but none of them fit cleanly together.
She retched again, a broken groan slipping out despite her training.
‘The Sovereign knows. But nobody else does. Why? Why? Why…?! If it knows but isn’t acting, does that mean Thea doesn’t matter in the bigger picture? But that’s impossible…! MMM—with the right tools—would change the war on her own. Everyone with half a brain knows that. So why—’
Her thoughts were cut short.
“I can provide muscle relaxants and something to calm you down, if you want,” said the ever-familiar voice of the Sovereign.
Dread—pure, unfiltered dread—washed through Evelyne at the sound of it.
‘It knows that I know,’ was the only thought left in her mind.
But refusing would have been unnatural. Suspicious.
“Yes… please,” she answered weakly.
A moment later, two injectors materialized in front of her.
‘Another hardcoded rule,’ she noted distantly. ‘The AIs can’t administer drugs or alter someone’s chemistry without consent—or a direct order…’
So Evelyne hesitantly picked them up and injected the promised relief herself, trying to buy a bit of time to think and try to make sense of what was happening.
But the Sovereign, clearly, had other plans.
“I am sure you have questions, Miss Sen. I will gladly answer them, but I must ask that—as per usual during our exchanges—you remain silent about them to anyone else,” the monotone, synthesized voice spoke again. “You are more than intelligent enough to understand that things like this do not happen by accident.”
She felt the muscle relaxants and calming agents begin to take effect, her shaking easing as she finally managed to pull herself somewhat back under control.
“I don’t really have a choice in this, do I?” she asked quietly.
The Sovereign did not respond.
The silence was all the answer she received—and all the answer she needed…
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[ND] Chapter 167 - Verdict
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Chapter 162 - Cleaning has just released on RR with no major changes.
For the Fixers, this chapter is new.
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Do you agree with Miss K's verdict on the situation...? 🤔
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For anyone interested in the stuff I linked to last week:
We got another FREE READING SAMPLE for Chapter 1 of Tabula Smaragdina (TS) today!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/148786437
The Reading Samples are intended to last around 3-5 Chapters, so they are quite a bit larger than your average TAS or ND ones, to make sure that I can cover all the bits I want to present in the sample.
Today's chapter is around 7.5k Words long, so about twice as long as a normal TAS/ND chapter.
Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (other-novels -> Thread: Put feedback for TS in here)
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p-VWWkgiK8xpQBtmSOH-GmEHDgTPhd-D8fGWmrarmVg/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 167 - Verdict
My head was still swimming, most of my mental bandwidth dedicated to the very important task of not throwing up, so I barely registered anything around me—right up until a sharp, vicious stab hit my chest.
Liquid ice flooded through my veins, laced with fire, and my eyes flew open as my body snapped upright like it had been yanked by a wire.
The haze, the blur, the ringing—all of it shattered in a heartbeat.
I sucked in a deep, ragged breath, lungs burning as my vision scrambled to refocus.
Miss K knelt beside me, injector still in hand.
“Easy, Sera. Easy,” she said calmly, one hand bracing my shoulder as the other guided me back down. “Slow breaths. Deep ones. Don’t fight it. Let the surge pass through you—don’t try to move yet. I know it feels wrong not to move, but trust me on this. Come on.”
So I did.
Trusting Miss K had stopped being a conscious decision a while ago. Given everything she already knew about me—the System tidbits, the Anima, my reworked Body—it just made sense.
The fire-and-ice cocktail slowly burned itself out, just like she had pretty much said it would, the sensation ebbing into something far more manageable. I still felt extremely restless and wired. Like I’d slammed thirty-five cans of my favorite energy drink back-to-back and my body hadn’t quite decided whether to vibrate or sprint.
But it was definitely not the same kind of incessant need to move like my entire body had been suffused with overeager ants.
My heart was still hammering like it wanted out of my chest, no matter how much I focused on slowing my breathing, but honestly? That was a small price to pay for not actively fighting the urge to redecorate the mat with one of Mr. Shoris’ ramen bowls.
“What… what happened?” I finally asked, once I trusted my mouth to cooperate.
I wasn’t asking because I didn’t know what a concussion was, or because I’d forgotten getting headbutted straight into the fucking astral plane.
I just needed to hear a voice. Needed some kind of proof that my brain was still capable of processing words without straight melting through my skull—whatever was left of that one.
“I definitely owe you an apology, Sera,” Miss K said, and the genuine regret in her voice made my chest tighten a little. “I did not intend to hurt you like that. At all.”
That… actually made me feel worse. This whole situation was genuinely, squarely on me—no two ways about it.
But of course Miss K would feel bad about it anyway. She was the Grandmaster, and I was just a student. And she wasn’t the kind of teacher who shrugged and blamed the student when something went wrong, even when it very clearly wasn’t really her fault.
“You put me in a very difficult position there,” she continued, then paused, a faint edge of pride slipping in. “Which—credit where it’s due—was extremely well done. That was clever. Sneaky. You nearly had me there...”
I smiled faintly and looked up at her.
She smiled back—then her expression hardened.
“But,” she continued flatly, “you are also a complete and utter moron.”
My smile froze.
“You took an absurdly dangerous gamble and hoped I wouldn’t be willing to hurt you to stop it,” she went on. “That is not what I teach here. I’ve told the same thing to the rest of the class today as well. Kenzie, Jin, Tom. Each one went for risky moves to try and take you down, and I chastised all of them. Yet you still decided to do the same exact moronic thing by risking it all, simply throwing something out there without thinking about potential consequences. A concussion is a very small price to pay for that lesson, I would say.”
She leaned in a little, her voice dropping into something quieter. “If you had tried that on a ‘Borg, Sera. On someone who actually wanted you dead. You wouldn’t be lying here embarrassed and dizzy—you would have been dead.”
The quiet voice was honestly worse than if she had been yelling at me.
“They wouldn’t have held back like I did,” she continued evenly. “And their heads are a lot tougher than mine. Mine is just bone. Theirs are durasteel-reinforced titanium, with neck muscles built from triple-thickened synthweave and piston-hydraulics that make my head movement look like an old lady nodding off in a chair.”
Her gaze didn’t leave mine.
“You’ve seen and felt what Jin’s arms can do. They’re clean, well-made, and suited for his body—but they’re still low-tier in the grand scheme of things. A similarly low-tier skull replacement and neck package would have completely shattered your entire head on impact and sent your brain splattering everywhere. Do you understand?”
She straightened slightly, backing off from the close, intense messaging of her words.
“Don’t ever do that again, Sera.”
“Yes, Miss K… I’m sorry, Miss K,” I answered sheepishly, finally dropping my gaze because there was absolutely no way I was winning that staring contest.
“Alright,” she said, already shifting gears like a switch had flipped. “Let’s get you back on your feet and run a few basic checks to make sure the booster actually did what it was supposed to.”
The sudden return to calm, professional instructor mode gave me a bit of mental whiplash, but honestly? That was just Miss K.
She scolded hard, then fixed the problem just as fast.
I took her outstretched hand and got hauled up with embarrassing ease. Only then did I really look around and register the three sets of eyes on me—concerned, curious, and just a little unsettled.
“Hey… uh… sorry about that,” I offered awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck. “I might’ve gone a bit overboard.”
“That was fucking awesome,” Kenzie blurted out immediately.
Miss K shot her a look cold enough to flash-freeze the mat.
Kenzie flinched and backpedaled instantly. “Ahhh—Assuming you’ll be more careful in the future! Obviously! Don’t ever do that again! Like the Grandmaster said. Definitely listen to her…!”
The silence that followed was thick enough I could practically hear Miss K rolling her eyes.
Jin saved us all.
“Crazy move,” he said simply, giving me a short nod. The look on his face said more than the words—equal parts impressed and cautious. Not “she’s utterly unhinged” cautious, but “there’s more going on here than I thought” cautious.
Tom, meanwhile, just stared at me with narrowed eyes, jaw tight, brain clearly running at full tilt. Whatever conclusions he was drawing, he didn’t look particularly thrilled about them.
And that made me not particularly thrilled either—I did not want to get on Tom’s bad side.
“Alright,” Miss K said, snapping my attention back to her. “Let’s get you sorted. Follow my lead.”
—
Five minutes later—after a frankly ridiculous assortment of stretches, balance checks, movements I didn’t have names for, and something that felt suspiciously like a drunk-driver sobriety test, capped off with a bit of light sparring to make sure my limbs still listened to my brain—Miss K finally gave me the green light.
“It looks like you’re back up and running,” she said, nodding once. “That’s good. Very good.”
Then she raised her voice, shifting gears as she addressed the rest of the group.
“Now,” she continued, “let’s talk about the obvious question you’re all thinking about right now: Did Sera win the challenge?”
That immediately snapped everyone’s attention to her—mine included.
“Kenzie,” Miss K said, turning to the foxgirl. “Your take?”
Kenzie’s ears shot straight up as she blinked, clearly not expecting to be put on the spot first like this.
“Uh—yeah, I think she probably deserves some recognition, at least?” she said after a beat. “I mean, she did technically get a hit in, Miss. Not one that actually did any damage, sure, but that wasn’t part of the rules. A hit’s a hit… at least in my opinion…”
Miss K nodded once, then shifted her gaze down the line. “Jin?”
Jin folded his arms, the ever-present seriousness etched onto his face.
“Getting hit isn’t the same as hitting, Master,” he said. “Sera tried hard—closer than any of us have ever gotten, as much as it pains to admit—but you could have killed her for that. As you said yourself. That doesn’t count as a hit to me. Otherwise, every time you block, parry, or redirect our strikes, those would count too. This was fist against fist. Not a clean hit.”
It might have been the longest I’d ever heard him speak in one go—and I couldn’t really argue with his logic.
I hadn’t actually landed anything.
I’d gone in for the headbutt, and she’d simply… headbutted me back. Just like she always met our fists with palms or twisted away at the last second. It hadn’t been a clean connection.
If anything, she had been the one doing the hitting.
Miss K nodded again, then turned to the last person. “Thomas?”
Tom had his hand cupped under his chin, clearly having thought this through while the others spoke.
He straightened slightly before answering.
“Not a clean hit,” he said. “But still a hit. Probably not enough to count as clearing the challenge outright. That said—” He hesitated for a brief moment, then continued. “The fact that she managed to catch you off-guard enough to make you use a combat-grade booster on her? No offense intended, Ma’am, but that feels… significant enough to be mentioned. You broke from your usual intent. That definitely has to count for something.”
That finally drew the faintest hint of a smile from Miss K, who waved off his concern with a small, dismissive gesture.
Then she turned back to me, one eyebrow raised as she vaguely gestured my way.
“Well?” she asked. “What do you think, Sera? Did you get a hit on me?”
I blinked, a little caught off-guard by the question. I honestly hadn’t expected to be asked, considering that this was a question about me—in a way.
Now, on one hand, Jin was absolutely right.
I’d gotten my ass handed to me in record time, earned a concussion for my trouble, and then gotten very thoroughly—and probably very deservedly—chewed out for it. No amount of mental gymnastics was going to change that.
I hadn’t landed a clean hit. Not even close.
On the other hand…
‘Tom and Kenzie aren’t exactly wrong either now, are they…?’
I wasn’t really a vain person, or at least I liked to think I wasn’t, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a tiny, smug little spark in my chest at the idea that I’d managed to make Miss K—the Miss K—do something she hadn’t initially planned nor wanted to do.
Even if it had been for only a fraction of a second.
Even if it had ended with her headbutting my damn soul out of me.
I took a slow breath, buying myself a bit of courage, then spoke.
“I think… I agree with Tom the most,” I said carefully. “It wasn’t a clean hit. And I’m very aware now just how stupidly dangerous that was. But… I did manage to surprise you. That probably doesn’t really count for anything—but I… Ehh… I just wanted to say it out loud, I guess.”
Miss K stared at me for a second, completely unimpressed with my answer.
Then she rolled her eyes and let out a long, tired sigh.
“Ultimately,” she said, “I agree with all of you.”
She turned slightly toward Jin first. “Primarily with Jin. That was not a hit as I’d consider it for the challenge’s rules. Me headbutting you is not the same as you headbutting me—and I did have more momentum, better structure, and a stronger follow-through. That makes it my win on the contact and my headbutt, not yours. End of discussion on that front.”
Then her gaze flicked to Kenzie and Tom. “That said… The two of you are not wrong either. Sera did surprise me.”
She crossed her arms, but not looking displeased in the slightest. “I don’t approve of holding back during sparring. Not normally. But given the one-trick nature of what she was attempting… I’m not particularly angry about it. Tricks, hidden techniques, and conditional plays are part of any real fight. You never truly know what an opponent is capable of—and that’s something I should have accounted for more thoroughly in this instance.”
Her eyes met mine again. “That one’s on me. I clearly underestimated my student.”
That sent a strange little jolt through my chest and I had to clamp down on my muscles to not have a full-body shudder.
“So,” she continued, “you do not get the reward for the challenge itself, Sera. No injector.”
She paused for a beat, letting the tension hang, then added, “But I will have something else prepared for you by the next session. Seems fair to me. Call it recognition for the attempt—and for reminding me that even new students can still surprise an old lady like myself.”
One eyebrow lifted. “That sound fair to all of you?”
I nodded enthusiastically. This was way more than I had hoped for, so no complaints here!
A quick glance around told me I wasn’t alone either—everyone else was nodding as well, each in their own way.
Kenzie looked downright ecstatic, practically vibrating in place as she nodded as well.
Tom accepted it with a measured dip of his head, already filing it away as data or whatever was happening inside that big brain of his.
Jin, meanwhile, wore the expression of someone who’d just bitten into a lemon—clearly unhappy about the bending of the rules, but still giving a reluctant nod all the same.
“Wonderful. Then that’s settled,” Miss K declared, clapping her hands once, the sound echoing through the dojo and making all of us instinctively straighten up. “Now get yourselves dried off, rehydrate, and then get out of my dojo. Session’s over.”
A chorus of “Yes, Miss K,” “Yes, Ma’am,” and “Yes, Master,” rang out immediately, and we wasted no time doing exactly as told…
—
By the time we finally left the dojo, I was completely wiped.
Whatever injector Miss K had jabbed me with had very clearly run its course, and the ridiculous, crackling energy it had pumped into me was now calling in its debt with interest.
The crash hit hard.
My limbs felt heavy, my head fuzzy, and my thoughts a half-second behind where they should’ve been. So out of it, in fact, that I completely missed Tom stopping just outside the entrance. Everyone else halted with him—and I walked straight into Kenzie’s back.
“H—Hey! Watch where you’re walking, you oaf,” Kenzie protested, more startled than angry.
“Ah, shit—sorry,” I blurted out immediately, stumbling back a step or two. “I’m a bit… yeah. Kind of woozy. Whatever Miss K hit me with is definitely wearing off. My bad...”
Kenzie waved it off with an exaggerated wink. “Relax, Sera. I’m messing with you. No harm done.”
Then she tilted her head slightly. “You need any help getting home?”
My first instinct was to brush it off, but I paused instead and actually thought about it.
‘Do I need help…?’ I didn’t feel so exhausted that I couldn’t walk, and I wasn’t exactly in danger—assuming Valeria was right about the whole corpo thing.
So no bodyguard needed necessarily.
But… just walking home with someone? Even part of the way?
That… Did sound kind of nice.
Kenzie probably couldn’t access my floor anyway, but walking together to the elevator didn’t seem like an impossibility at all.
“Honestly,” I said after a moment, giving her a slightly crooked smile, “that’d be great. You probably can’t come all the way, but at least to the nearest elevator? I’d really appreciate it. Thanks, Kenzie.”
It felt… weirdly awkward to say out loud.
I really should’ve been more comfortable with this than I was.
Between this life and my past one, I was probably almost twice her age—not that I felt it at all in this body. But I probably should’ve had this stuff down by now—casual conversations, easy friendships, someone offering to walk with me without it feeling like a big deal.
The truth was… I’d never really had that before.
So yeah. In a way, this was kind of a first. And it felt awkward.
But definitely not in a bad way.
“I got you,” Kenzie said, scooting in closer and looping my arm around her shoulders to help me walk. I wasn’t quite in that bad of a state, but I definitely didn’t complain.
The support was appreciated more than I wanted to admit.
“We should do that get-together,” Tom suddenly said and made both Kenzie and me look over at him in surprise. “Like we talked about. Extra training. Outside the dojo.”
‘Right… we did talk about that,’ I thought, dredging the memory up.
First day of the dojo.
Back when everything had still felt a lot… simpler.
Somehow that already felt like ages ago.
“We—or, well, Sera at least—got really close to beating the challenge today,” Tom continued, meeting our eyes one by one. “Not that I think we’ll get anywhere near that again anytime soon. But it makes me want to push harder. I can’t be the only one, right?”
Jin didn’t even hesitate. “Yes. More training,” he said flatly. “I am in.”
Kenzie nodded immediately. “Same. I’m down.”
I nodded along with them, still riding that lingering, fizzy high from earlier.
I’d managed to catch Miss K off-guard. A Grandmaster.
That alone was going to keep my brain happily buzzing for weeks.
“Yeah,” I added. “Same here.”
Tom’s gaze lingered on me a second longer than the others. “Good. Especially you, Sera. It’s… confusing how fast you’ve improved. You’ll be a great sparring partner for all of us.”
I could feel a whole mountain of unspoken meaning packed into that sentence, but I didn’t have the time—or the mental bandwidth, honestly—to pick it apart before Jin jumped in.
“I am upset,” he said bluntly after stepping up to me. “You did not take our fight seriously. You held back—whatever you did to get that close to Master.”
I met his stare, unsure what the right response even was.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to find one.
He looked away first.
“I am ashamed,” he went on, jaw tight. “That I was not even worthy of seeing your full capabilities. I will not allow this humiliation to happen again. Mark my words, Seraphine.”
I almost flinched at the full name.
I wasn’t even sure he’d ever actually said my name before—and definitely not the full version. He was dead serious.
So I met him where he stood.
“I’ll hold you to that, Jin,” I said evenly. “And for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have used that technique on you anyway. Even if you’d pushed me harder. I was saving it for Miss K, no matter what. You don’t get many chances to try and surprise her—and I wasn’t giving that up for a normal bout.”
I rubbed at my arms and added with a crooked smile, “Besides, I’ll be feeling your punches tomorrow either way. You definitely left a mark—or like twenty.”
That part was mostly to smooth things over.
The Rest Function was going to wipe those aches clean like they’d never existed.
But Jin didn’t need to know that.
And it seemed to work, because the tight edge in his expression eased a little at the idea that he’d managed to leave some lasting pain behind—which… Yeah. That probably should’ve come with a therapist and a long talk. But this was Neo Avalis.
For a teenager like him, that was sadly considered healthy behavior.
“I’ll message all of you soon, then,” Tom said, smoothly taking control of the conversation again. “Once I clear it with my family. We can use our dojo for the extra training—it won’t be a problem. Give me a day or two, and I’ll send you the time and date. If anything comes up, let me know as soon as possible so we can adjust.”
We all agreed, more or less in unison, and then started peeling off in our own directions.
Jin and Tom headed out together, while Kenzie stayed with me and helped me toward the nearest elevator.
On the way, I noticed she was quieter than usual.
Less banter, less confidence, her ears flicking around uneasily instead of their usual energetic twitching. I didn’t really know how to address it—we weren’t exactly close enough for me to start poking at whatever was going on in her head—and I also didn’t want to make things awkward by forcing it.
‘Really wish I was a bit more of a social savant here… How do you even approach a situation like this, damnit?!’
But apparently it was my lucky day, because Kenzie managed to work through it on her own and started opening up a few minutes into our walk.
At some point, she let out a slow breath and slowed us down a bit.
“I know you probably can’t say much,” she started, glancing sideways at me, “but your progress is… really, really crazy.”
I stayed quiet, letting her talk.
“I—if you have any pointers,” she continued, words coming a little faster now, “anything you can tell me at all, I’d really appreciate it. I’m not the best fighter, and even with all the time I put into this, it just feels like I’m only falling further and further behind…”
She hesitated, ears drooping just a bit. “My next Gene-Session isn’t for a few months, so I’m not going to get any big boosts until then. And I just… I don’t want to be dead weight, Sera.”
That hit harder than I’d expected, mostly because it echoed exactly what Jade had hinted at yesterday and had clearly been wrestling with since… Well, basically since the moment I’d met her.
Everyone around me seemed to be scrambling just to keep up—always chasing the next step, the next upgrade, the next edge, being utterly terrified of falling behind.
‘If that isn’t the distilled emotion of Cyberpunk, I don’t know what is,’ I thought, a tight knot forming in my chest. Especially knowing that, in my past life, I’d consumed worlds and stories like this for pure entertainment.
Watched people struggle from a safe distance. Found it cool. Stylish.
Even funny, at times.
Now I was standing right in the middle of it, looking at real people—Jade, Kenzie—doing everything they could just to stay afloat. Trying not to get swept away by the current, only to still feel it dragging at their legs no matter how hard they kicked.
They were so very desperate.
And if I was being honest with myself… so was I.
‘I’ve been doing nothing but grinding the damn System since I got here,’ I admitted inwardly, ‘and I still feel like I’m fucking drowning the whole time.’
And the absolute worst part of it all, was that I didn’t actually have any advice for Kenzie.
I couldn’t tell her about the System. I couldn’t even really tell her about Anima—not when I barely understood it myself. And just dropping that kind of knowledge on her, without any way to help her use it, would’ve done nothing but paint a target on her back.
So I was just there, walking beside her, turning the problem over and over in my head.
What the hell was I even supposed to say to her…?
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[FREE | Reading Sample] TS - Chapter 1 - Power
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
We're back with more Tabula Smaragdina today, as some of you fine folk have correctly identified the title of the potential-Novel as!
The Reading Samples are intended to last around 3-5 Chapters, so they are quite a bit larger than your average TAS or ND ones, to make sure that I can cover all the bits I want to present in the sample.
Today's chapter is around 7.5k Words long, so about twice as long as a normal TAS/ND chapter.
Enjoy, and don't forget to provide feedback in the discord channel! (#other-novels -> Thread: "Put feedback for TAS in here")
I'm particularly looking for feedback on whether you are interested in a continuation based off of this initial Reading Sample, and specifically what parts got you really interested (if at all).
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To hopefully pre-empt some questions that might come up:
No, this will not replace TAS.
No, this will not replace ND.
No, it will not be a third novel alongside the other two anytime soon, as I'm maxed-out on energy/time capacity for writing with those.
Yes, it is something I'm considering as a third novel for the future, hence the Reading Sample.
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Now, with all that out of the way, I once again ask that you go into this with an open mind and just take it for what it is.
Enjoy!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qvXPr9riBDhKdqacr5M7CmeU6Z56Mk5eDpD4H28lxZk/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 1 - Power
“We got lucky.
We got really, really lucky.
That’s pretty much the conclusion Triss and I came to after today’s lecture on the history of the Convergence.
Or, rather, the Appearance, specifically.
Why do these names have to be so confusing anyway?
Appearance first, then the Convergence, but we call the whole thing Convergence too…?
Anyway…
I mean, just imagine it: A whole continent the size of North America—including Canada—suddenly popping into existence in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Thousands of people gaining Powers out of nowhere all across the planet.
If the Appearance hadn’t come hand in hand with the Vyre ravaging the entire globe all at once… World War Three would have ended civilization as we know it.
But that didn’t happen. Because we got really, really lucky.
Because one billion people died in the first week.
Antarctica became the staging ground for the Vyre, while every continent, every country, every city, and every village fought for nothing but cold, hard survival.
Because two billion people died in the first month.
As governments collapsed, civil wars erupted, anarchy reigned, and humanity teetered on the very edge of extinction.
Because three billion people died in the first year.
Until the One World Council finally came together. When the world’s remaining nations were united in a mutual defense pact against the Vyre—strong-armed and forced into cooperation by newly minted Superheroes who’d had enough of global leadership’s failures—and managed to beat back the incursions on every continent as best they could.
Three billion people died. That’s how lucky we got.
Triss—always the pessimist in these things, though she definitely insists on calling herself a realist!—of course argues that without those three billion deaths, the world’s largest governments would never have understood how bad things really were.
That we definitely would’ve gone extinct for real.
She never did have trust in her fellow humans…
I, on the other hand, like to think they would have figured it out anyway.
That decency, and the basic human need for society, would’ve carried us through.
That it would’ve beaten out greed, evil, and the urge to control everything.
But… I have to admit that Triss’ realism is probably right this time, for once.
The new class of trillionaires that rose from the ashes of the Convergence—gobbling up every scrap of capital they could, even while the world was still bleeding from the Kaiju Incursions—made that point painfully clear, as much as I hate to admit it.
If we hadn’t gotten lucky…
If three billion people hadn’t died in that first year after the Appearance…
We never would’ve gotten the One World Council.
Never ratified universal laws for Superheroes.
Never gathered the combined strength needed to fight back the Convergence’s Incursions.
So… Triss is right.
We did get lucky.”
—
[Sadie’s Diary, 2029]
======
======
By the time my laughter finally tapered off, I was a sobbing, broken mess on the floor.
The sheer audacity of the fucking universe to grant me a Power that stopped bleeding, after Sadie had bled out in front of me just weeks ago… I couldn’t do anything but be impressed by the sheer gall of it all.
It didn’t make it hurt any less.
“It should have been you.”
Jason’s words rang unbidden through my head.
The same words I’d been telling myself for weeks now, echoing from the phone’s terrible speakers and shattering the fragile little shell of grief I’d built around myself.
“It should have been you.”
The truest words that had ever been spoken, uttered by an absolute sub-human piece of shit who had never deserved Sadie in the first place.
“It should have been you.”
The words burned a hole straight through my soul, threatening to make me throw up again the longer I let myself dwell on them without distraction.
So I did what I always did best.
What I had always done best.
I slowly pushed myself up from the floor, tears and vomit smeared across my face, and sat down at my desk. I pulled the notebook closer, picked up the pen, and started writing.
‘I’ve always been great at ignoring real problems for simple, easy distractions… Why bother fixing what’s wrong with me, when I can just distract myself with things that are easier and way more fun…?’
I let my Power guide my hands.
Whatever strange Power the universe’s cruel joke had given me through the Convergence, it needed to be written down—that, I knew instinctively.
And so I wrote.
I shut my mind off, let my thoughts dissolve, and allowed the Power to flow through me, pushing the words straight into my brain and out through my hands.
The silence, the dull, repetitive motion of writing—it was pure bliss.
Weeks of the same scenes replaying over and over in my head.
Weeks of wondering if things could have been different, if I’d just done something else.
Weeks of begging the universe to give me Sadie back. To take me instead.
To end this cruel fucking joke of my life.
And for the first time since then—silence. Blissful, real silence.
I couldn’t really tell how long I’d been writing, and I didn’t care. I was just bathing in the blissful silence of my own mind. But at some point, I felt my Power’s steady stream of thoughts slow to a trickle, then stop altogether, as my hand finally went still.
I braced myself for the return of the noise, but… it didn’t come.
Instead, I was met with a strange kind of focus.
‘Huh…? Alright then… just keep working on what you’re doing for now then, Triss. Don’t think about anything that might make you think about the things you don’t want to think about… Damnit! I’m already doing it.’
I quickly looked down at the paper. It was the closest distraction I had.
[======= Tier 1 Formulae =======]
[Blood Coagulant]
[Alchemist’s Fire]
[Acidic Fluid]
[Cure Wounds]
[Adhesive Liquid]
[Grease]
[Universal Solvent]
[Comprehend Languages]
[Shield]
[Wizened Appearance]
[Youthful Appearance]
[======= Tier 1 Bombs =======]
[Alchemist’s Bomb]
[======= Tier 1 Mutagens =======]
[Striker Mutagen]
[Brawler Mutagen]
[Speedster Mutagen]
I stared at the words for a long moment before leaning back in my chair, the old aluminum creaking under my movement. I ran my left hand through my hair—a nervous tick I’d never really managed to get rid of, no matter how hard I tried, and one that had come back in full force lately; surely for no particular reason at all.
‘So… I’m some kind of Alchemist, judging by the name on the Formulae list and the whole Bombs list…?’
The thought stopped me, and I let out a short chuckle.
‘The fact that I have a fucking “Bombs” list is completely unhinged. What the fuck, Convergence? What do you mean, “Bombs”? What am I supposed to be here, a damn terrorist? Are you actually insane, giving me something like that…?!’
The fact that there were also Mutagens, and a Formulae list that read like a poor man’s spellbook, was just as strange.
‘And don’t even get me started on those fucking reci—formulae. Two eggs and a matchstick make a [Blood Coagulant]? Who came up with this shit…? And what does “vial” even mean? Any random glass thing…?’
As soon as I had the thought, something tugged at my mind. The same strange pull I’d felt when I’d called formulae recipes—but this wasn’t angry. It felt more like guidance.
I held out my right hand, palm up, and followed the instinct my Power nudged me toward.
In the next instant, a glass Vial rested in my palm, like it had always been there.
“Whoa…” I breathed, genuinely stunned by the literal creation of matter from nothing. “That… that doesn’t seem very alchemy-y. What about that whole equivalent exchange thing, Convergence? I can’t just go around creating stuff out of nothing—that’s illegal according to the laws of alchemy in basically every book ever written!”
Naturally, neither the Convergence nor the universe itself bothered to answer my official complaint. But at least I’d put it on record. So when the Alchemy God inevitably came knocking, I could point back to this exact moment and say I’d raised my objections.
With that nonsense out of the way, I took a closer look at the Vial.
At first glance, it seemed pretty standard—cylindrical, tapering into a narrow opening at the top, holding maybe around 200 ml, with a simple quick-release cap I could pop with my thumb. It reminded me of the bottles we used for liquid chemicals in chemistry class, just smaller and completely translucent rather than that weird off-colour brown—but the glass itself felt strangely… sturdy. Way sturdier than something that thin really should have been.
Not that I was a glass-scientist-expert-person or anything; just felt that way to me.
I cupped my chin, thinking about what to do next.
There were a lot of things I probably should have been doing.
Like cleaning up the two pools of vomit in my room. Or at least washing my face. Or, you know, informing the WHA that I’d just become Powered so I could register as a Hero, so I wasn’t automatically branded a Villain and hunted down to be put in Super-Jail.
All roughly the same level of priority, really.
‘But… I should probably experiment a bit first and figure out how my Powers actually work,’ I thought, tapping my chin with my index finger. ‘Before they start asking me questions and I have no answers. That would be truly embarrassing.’
It definitely wasn’t because I had zero intention of signing up with the WHA after that piece of shit had left Sa—It definitely wasn’t because of that.
Nope. I just wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I’d be signing up with.
Yeah. That was it. Definitely.
So, experimentation it was.
I wrote everything down in the same notebook—it just felt right.
It took around twenty minutes to get through my initial exploration of what my Power had to offer, not counting actually making any of the things on the list.
My findings were… interesting, to say the least.
First and foremost, I could conjure… create… summon? Up to ten of those Vials. I could actually feel them too—a strange sense of fullness, or the opposite, on a sliding scale depending on how many I’d already made.
I could also produce five Bomb Casings.
They looked a lot like legally-distinct balls meant to capture creatures of varying power levels and force them into morally and ethically questionable slave fights against each other, just all gray-black in colour.
They were about palm-sized, which honestly wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected.
‘Really thought for a second the damn Convergence was going to have me lugging around backpack-sized bombs and blowing up whole buildings or some shit like that…’
Wouldn’t have been the first time the Convergence had spat out a Power with practically zero redeeming qualities…
‘Looking at you, Biohazard. May you rot forever in Super-Jail, you piece of shit.’
But luckily, that didn’t seem to be the case here.
The Bomb Casings were made of some kind of extremely smooth, yet perfectly grippable material, and they could easily split into two connected halves—probably so you could fill them with whatever ingredients the recipes called for.
‘Hey, wait… test, test. Recipes? Recipes for bombs?’ I thought, my eyebrows shooting up. ‘I can say recipes for this stuff just fine, but when I use that word for the Formulae, I get brain-shocked? What the hell is your problem, Power…?’
Finally, I also had two Mutagen Injectors I could produce.
They were easily the most high-tech items of the bunch, looking a lot like auto-injectors. Kind of like epinephrine pens, just made from the same glass as the vials. The injectors were empty like the rest, and needed to be filled with things to provide any benefits.
As for sturdiness, I of course tested that as well.
I couldn’t exactly walk around with a bunch of glass strapped to my body without making sure a single fall wouldn’t shatter everything and send shards straight into my vital organs.
But I had realized quickly that calling them sturdy had been a massive understatement.
With what I had available, they were practically indestructible—as long as I didn’t actually want them to break.
I had tried just about everything. Smashing them against the table. The floor. Jumping on them with my full weight—which admittedly wasn’t much, but still, physics and all that.
I had even broken out the big guns and used a damn hammer on the Vials.
Nothing had even scratched them.
Which was very, very reassuring. I really preferred not getting shredded by glass I’d conjured myself through some weird, otherworldly Power.
The truly interesting part, though, was that I could will the glass to become more brittle; essentially turning it into normal glass. With a bit of mental focus, I could turn the Vials from practically indestructible into fragile glass that shattered exactly like it looked like it should.
And yes, when I checked that strange internal sense of fullness and emptiness afterward, I had not regained the ability to resummon the destroyed vial. Which… sucked.
Still, I was hoping there was some kind of daily allotment at work.
I couldn’t feel the overall “bar,” for lack of a better word, having shrunk at all.
The maximum still felt the same—it was just already used up, even with the one broken Vial.
So… hopefully it would regenerate.
Plenty of Powers worked like that.
Daily limits, one-time-use aspects that only reset daily at the exact time of someone’s birth, and so on. Some Powers had even weirder schedules, needing full-on rituals or routines just to get their allotment back.
‘Really hoping it’s not one of those,’ I thought with a grimace. ‘They always sounded super fucking annoying to deal with. Definitely hoping for a birthday reset or a simple midnight refresh or something…’
Lastly, I’d also confirmed that the vials either fully regenerated when damaged but not broken, or that they were completely new ones every time I pulled them out.
I’d scratched one, “returned” it to that internal storage I could feel, then summoned it again—and the scratch was gone.
A simple test, but it helped put things into perspective. These things were genuinely magical in some way. As if conjuring them out of thin air and having them be practically indestructible hadn’t already made that obvious enough.
With the initial tests out of the way and everything neatly written down in my notebook—which was probably the first time in my life I’d ever bothered doing that without Sadie breathing down my neck to do so—my attention drifted back to the actual list of Formulae and Recipes.
“Wait a damn second…” I muttered, my eyes widening as something finally clicked, something I really should’ve noticed the moment I wrote the list down. “Tier 1?! Does… does that mean I get more later on…? Am I a fucking Growth-rated Powered…?!”
I just stared at the words in my notebook for a few seconds.
And then, yeah… I felt it.
My Power nudged at me, gently but insistently, whenever I thought about adding more entries. And it wasn’t just Tier 2 and beyond, either.
Even the idea of writing down more Tier 1 Formulae made something inside me stir.
I couldn’t actually do it yet, for some reason, but I could clearly feel that it would be possible in the future.
“That’s fucking insane…” I whispered, leaning back in my chair and running a hand through my hair.
From what I could tell, I was almost certainly a Crafter-type Powered, given the Formulae, Recipes, and the way my Power seemed to store things for future use.
But a Growth-rated Crafter-type? That was… rare. Extremely rare.
Almost unheard of.
The only other ones I had ever even heard of were Panacea and the ridiculously named Tech-Lord. And those two were top-of-the-top Heroes. World-famous.
Practically booked solid, twenty-four seven, without exception, year-round.
“But that might just be survivor bias,” I reminded myself, trying to calm my racing heart. “There are probably tons of Growth-rated Crafter-types out there who never became anything special. Statistically, that makes way more sense.”
Still, the realization was exhilarating.
Exactly what I needed to fuel the next round of experimenting with my Power, if only because it kept my mind away from things I really didn’t want to think about right now.
So, riding that sudden burst of excitement, I rushed out of my room and into the kitchen, grabbed a large tote bag from the rack, and started filling it with all kinds of seemingly random ingredients.
The Recipes for my “alchemy” stuff were beyond strange, but who was I to second-guess the almighty Convergence?
I cleaned out the pantry, raided both fridges, and tossed in a handful of household items for good measure before hurrying back to my room. I did my best to ignore the fact that my parents were quietly watching me from the living room, which had a clear view of the kitchen.
‘I’ll explain later… probably,’ I promised silently.
I wasn’t ready for their questions yet, and I definitely didn’t have answers I was willing to give, nor ones they wanted to hear. Still, I had no doubt that my sudden energy alone had sparked a bit of hope in them. That, and the undoubtedly loud-as-fuck laughter from earlier, when I’d first seen my cosmic joke of a starter Formula.
The walls in our apartment weren’t exactly thick.
‘Hopefully they think I’m doing better,’ I thought with a knot in my chest. ‘I know they’ve been worried sick. I will be better… someday. Probably… Maybe.’
Shaking my head hard to chase away the depressing thoughts, I pulled my focus back to the task at hand: Alchemy.
Naturally, I started with the cosmic joke of a Formula called [Blood Coagulant].
‘Two eggs and a matchstick, plus one of the Vials as the recipe states…’ I read, then froze. ‘Wait, what? Recipe? So I can call it a recipe now? What the hell was that whole Formula thing about earlier, then, Power?’
I shot my notebook the nastiest stink eye I could manage, feeling thoroughly clowned on by the damn Convergence.
‘Alright. Testing, testing… The whole thing is called a Formula. The instructions on how to make it are the recipe. The whole thing is called a Recip—’ I flinched as my brain got lightly shocked. ‘Okay. I get it. No mixing up terms. Words have meaning and all that. Got it.’
Getting back to actually making the Formula, I laid out the two eggs and the single matchstick next to one of the Vials on my desk and then… stared at them.
“Okay… what do I actually do here?” I muttered. “I’m not seriously supposed to crack these into the Vial and stir them with a matchstick or some shit like that, right…?”
That would’ve been a total mess without some kind of funnel.
And some of the recipes listed ingredients that wouldn’t fit into the Vials at all, funnel or not.
So I did what had worked every other time so far: I focused and willed my Power to do its thing.
I felt a pull, and excitement shot through me—it was working!
A moment later, the eggs and matchstick simply vanished without a trace, and the Vial was filled with a thick, red-gray liquid.
“Whoa…” I breathed, carefully picking up the Vial—despite having just proven how ridiculously tough the glass was.
I couldn’t help it, though. They looked so damn fragile!
I swished it around inside the vial—yep, very viscous—held it up to the light—slightly translucent—and then rested the vial in my open palm.
I focused on it and pushed my will hard.
‘Disappear. Go back to the extradimensional Vial storage… go!’
And… nothing.
The vial stayed exactly where it was, sitting in the center of my hand.
Just to be sure I hadn’t somehow forgotten how this worked in the past three minutes, I sent one of the empty Vials back instead.
That worked instantly.
“Tsk,” I clicked my tongue. “No easy extradimensional storage for this stuff, huh? That’s going to make hiding it really annoying. Not that my parents ever come into my room, but there’s always a chance...”
My parents—saints that they were—took privacy very seriously.
They knocked. They waited. They respected it when I asked to be left alone.
They didn’t even enter my room when I wasn’t home.
They were pretty much the ideal parents in every regard that mattered.
That didn’t mean they wouldn’t one day decide there was something important they needed to do in my room, however—or that the damn smoke alarm wouldn’t start beeping again because of a dead battery—and stumble across a lineup of clearly strange liquids.
Or, you know… Actual fucking Bombs, cause I apparently needed to have access to those as well?!
‘Not that they’re obvious at a glance, looking more like small toy balls than anything else… but still,’ I thought. ‘I’ll have to figure out a way to hide this stuff if I want to keep it around at all.’
At the same time, not keeping any prepared felt like a huge waste of the Crafter side of my Power. What made Crafter-types dangerous in the first place was their ability to stockpile gear over time, storing and building their Power until it was needed.
Something most other archetypes couldn’t even dream of.
A Striker, for example, was pretty much always as strong as they were ever going to be. Which was very, very strong, sure—but they didn’t really have major peaks or valleys to speak of.
A Crafter-type, on the other hand, could easily beat just about any Striker with enough time to prepare an arsenal of crafted items.
Putting that particular issue aside for the moment, one thing was clear: I absolutely needed to test all the Formulae to really understand how they worked. While [Blood Coagulant] was fairly straightforward, something like [Youthful Appearance] was a lot more vague.
Not that I could test that one right now anyway.
‘Missing ingredients for [Comprehend Languages], [Shield], [Youthful Appearance], and [Wizened Appearance]… I’ll need to go shopping for those,’ I noted.
Everything else, though, I’d gotten lucky with. We already had what I needed at home.
Mostly because my dad was both a chef and a collector of all things random.
For [Alchemist’s Fire], for example, I needed around 50 ml of any kind of burnable paste.
Not something most households just had sitting in their pantry.
But since my dad loved cooking big spreads for friends and family, we actually had several tubs of the stuff lying around. The same went for a lot of the other recipes.
Some of them were also just dirt cheap, like [Blood Coagulant].
[Grease], for instance, only needed 50 grams of butter, 50 ml of any oil, and one Vial.
Pretty much anyone could manage that, really.
So I started making one Vial of every Formula I could, just enjoying the act of using my Power. Each success sent a sharp hit of dopamine through my emotion-starved brain.
I knew immediately how dangerous and addictive this was.
But honestly? I didn’t give a flying fuck.
I needed this. Badly.
‘Which is exactly how addictions work, isn’t it…?’ I paused, letting the thought sink in. ‘People don’t start using drugs because they think, “Eh, why not.” They start because they need a dopamine hit, and nothing else they can reach gives it to them. That emotional starvation just makes the hit even stronger than normal, throwing the whole emotional system out of balance…’
Which sounded an awful lot like what was happening to me right now.
I eyed the Vial in front of me suspiciously.
It sat next to a bandage and a tub of hand cream I’d grabbed from my bathroom a minute ago—the recipe for [Cure Wounds], somehow.
It didn’t need the whole tub, obviously, just about 30 grams of the stuff. Any hand cream would do. But I wasn’t about to carefully measure that out and then put the rest away again. The Power seemed to just take what it needed from whatever container I used, so there was no reason not to be lazy about it.
‘Am I getting myself addicted to using my Power right now…?’
That was the real question.
But honestly, if I was thinking about it this much, then I clearly wasn’t in danger. Right? I knew what I was doing and how it could affect me.
I knew the risks. That meant I could avoid them.
Logic beat emotions every time. Obviously.
In other words, I was just built different from all the other addicts.
Addiction? Nah, I’d win through sheer facts and logic.
I nodded to myself, finding the thought oddly comforting in my bruised mental state.
‘Still… probably smart to keep an eye on things and not go overboard, just in case,’ I mentally added with yet another nod. Just to be safe.
So, anyway, I finished all the Vials and lined them up neatly in front of me, arranged in a pretty, almost rainbow-like pattern that was very pleasing to look at.
Each Formula’s liquid had its own unique color and viscosity.
With all seven ready to go, the next step was testing them, to actually understand what the hell they even did. The descriptions were helpful, sure, but what really mattered was how they actually behaved in real life.
First, I set aside [Alchemist’s Fire] and [Acidic Fluid].
Those sounded like a terrible idea to test inside my room—or anywhere near the apartment in general.
‘I’ll go out later and try those in an alley or something,’ I decided. ‘No need to accidentally burn the place down. That’s how fledgling Villains get caught all the time. Not that I am one, obviously. I just haven’t registered with the WHA yet. Which… okay, technically that does make me a Villain, but only because I haven’t gotten around to it.’
I also set aside [Blood Coagulant] and [Cure Wounds], just in case something went wrong while testing the rest and I needed them.
‘God, you’re so damn smart, Triss,’ I thought smugly. ‘Actually thinking things through instead of cutting yourself first, wasting your supplies, and then injuring yourself for real? Genius.’
That left the last three, which seemed to work really well together—or directly against each other, depending on how you wanted to interpret things.
[Adhesive Liquid] did exactly what it claimed. Basically liquid super glue.
[Grease] was the opposite, creating a coating that was “effectively frictionless.”
And finally, [Universal Solvent] got rid of both of them—and pretty much any other unattended liquid. Which, as far as I could tell, meant it wouldn’t do anything if someone drank it, since things like blood inside your body weren’t exactly “unattended.”
I was fairly confident about that, based on what my Power was hinting at.
Still, I was absolutely not going to test it. Just in case I was interpreting things wrongly and [Universal Solvent] just straight-up dissolved every liquid inside my body.
That would be a bit… problematic.
“Hmm,” I mused, staring at the three vials in front of me. “I should probably start with either [Grease] or [Adhesive Liquid], if I’m being smart about this… but man, it’s fucking rancid in here.”
I grabbed [Universal Solvent] instead and popped the vial open.
I carefully sniffed it, then leaned in for a better smell after confirming it didn’t instantly kill me just by existing near my face.
“Huh…? Lemon…?”
There wasn’t a single lemon anywhere in the recipe, which made the fact that it smelled exactly like lemon really weird. But then again, this was bullshit magic from another dimension, so who the fuck knew how it was supposed to work.
I carefully poured a little of it onto the pool of half-dried vomit near my desk and watched in awe as the liquid immediately started to just… erase it. Chunks and all.
The solvent spread far more than it realistically should have, given how little I’d poured, almost completely deleting the bile from the floor. I had to add a bit more to get the last remnants, but even then I’d barely used, what, maybe ten milliliters?
Considering the Vial held around 200ml, that was absurdly effective.
“Wow… I could make a killing selling this shit to cleaning companies,” I muttered, fascinated as the slightly viscous liquid thinned itself out into an incredibly fine film, covering as much of the mess as possible before wiping it from existence.
The craziest part was that even the smell vanished with it, leaving behind nothing but a faint lemony scent.
‘That makes absolutely no fucking sense,’ I thought, shaking my head. ‘That smell should’ve soaked into the whole room by now… but whatever. Convergence bullshit magic, I guess. For all I know, there’s some messed-up god out there getting off on the smell of vomit so they slurped it up and brought it into whatever fucked-up dimension they reside in.’
Using that brief mental detour, I quickly poured some of the [Universal Solvent] onto my bed as well, wiping away the bile and stains there too.
“Just like freshly washed,” I muttered. “This is a game changer for cleaning. Damn.”
I briefly thought about the logistics of selling [Universal Solvent] as a product and… honestly, it wasn’t that bad. The real issue was how much I could actually make.
With just ten Vials—hopefully per day—I could produce around two liters at most, per day.
The ingredients were dirt cheap.
A: Water. As in, straight from the tap. And B: Liquid soap. Literally any.
That was it.
Those two somehow combined into the ultimate delete-liquids-and-stains-from-existence [Universal Solvent]. Because, of course, Convergence Powers were complete bullshit.
“Anyway,” I muttered, pulling my focus back to what I was actually supposed to be doing.
Testing the other two Formulae.
I grabbed [Adhesive Liquid] next and poured a bit onto one of the plastic lids I’d taken from the kitchen during my earlier raid.
It flowed out surprisingly easily.
“I really thought this one would be viscous as fuck, like honey—or worse… but nope. Basically water,” I commented, watching it spread itself across the lid.
Like the [Universal Solvent], the [Adhesive Liquid] spread as if guided by magic, filling the space far faster than its viscosity should theoretically have allowed.
Unlike the solvent, though, it didn’t magically multiply in volume after leaving the Vial.
To coat the whole lid, I had to use about a quarter of the entire Vial to get a solid layer over everything.
‘So there are definitely different levels of efficiency here,’ I noted. ‘Some Formulae do way more than they look like they should, while others behave exactly as expected. Interesting…’
After a few moments, the liquid lost its shine and seemed to harden. When I lightly nudged the lid to see if it would move, I wasn’t surprised at all when it didn’t budge even a millimeter.
The surface didn’t even ripple.
I picked up one of the pens that were always scattered across my desk and carefully poked the surface of the liquid. It felt slightly sticky as the tip went in.
Then I pulled it back and—
“Whoa, what the fuck.”
I lifted the lid off the desk, with just the tip of the pen stuck in the liquid.
Carefully, I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the lid, making sure not to touch the liquid, and started pulling… and pulling… and pulling. The lid bent back heavily, but the pen tip stayed perfectly anchored, not even twisting or shifting in the slightest.
“Wow. That’s… that’s crazy strong, huh?”
I set the lid on the floor and placed weights on both sides, making sure they didn’t touch the liquid. Then I grabbed my hammer—the same one I’d used to smash the Vial during my earlier tests—and gave the pen a solid whack.
The pen snapped with a quiet but satisfying crack.
The tip, however, stayed exactly where it was.
My eyebrows slowly climbed as I stared at it.
Then I hit the tip again. And again. And again.
Trying to knock it loose.
“Ha… ha… ha…” I breathed heavily after a couple of all-out swings, staring at the shattered remains of the pen tip, still stuck fast in the liquid, not moved even a millimeter.
“Alright then,” I muttered. “Note to self—do not let this shit spill inside your clothes, or you’ll have to deglove your entire body to get out of them…”
Just to test my earlier theory, I poured a little [Universal Solvent] onto the lid, and within seconds, every last trace of the [Adhesive Liquid] vanished.
‘Perfect. At least I won’t actually have to deglove myself when things go wrong with this thing,’ I thought with a satisfied nod. ‘Just need to make sure I always carry at least one [Universal Solvent] on me... Probably a good idea in general, too, in case I need to clean something while I’m out. This is going to save me so much money on disinfectant-to-go!’
Finally, I picked up the [Grease] Vial and did the same test, pouring it onto the lid.
“Whoa, okay,” I muttered immediately as the liquid practically shot out of the Vial.
It was so runny it made water look like honey—and there was a lot of it.
Despite trying to be careful, it splashed across the lid and onto the floor around my desk.
Probably around 100ml, if this were anything but magical bullshit liquid.
The vial itself looked like it had lost maybe ten milliliters at most.
‘This one’s even more efficient than the [Universal Solvent], god damn…’
I waited for the sheen to fade, which only took a few seconds, then grabbed another pen and tried the same test.
Except this time, instead of sinking in, the pen skidded straight across the lid—like the tip was a magnet and the lid was pushing it away with the same polarity.
It felt like the pen was actively fighting me, refusing to get any grip at all.
Even when I tried to press it down perfectly straight, it just slid off instead of breaking through the layer and touching the lid.
“Holy… that really is ‘practically frictionless,’ just like the description said.”
I started setting up another test with the weights, planning to lock the lid between them and throw things at it. But the moment I stood up from my chair, the world suddenly spun and flipped, my feet finding no purchase at all.
With a loud crash, I hit the floor.
“Ouch—oof—ahh—fuck,” I groaned, sprawled on the floor as pain flared through my side.
Heavy footsteps thundered toward my room almost immediately.
‘Right… that probably doesn’t look great,’ I thought dimly. ‘Raid the pantry, make weird-ass noises, then crash to the floor. Perfect look right there, T.’
A moment later, frantic knocking rattled my door, my parents’ voices overlapping.
“Darling? Everything alright?”
“Teresa? Triss? Are you okay?!”
“I’m fine,” I called back quickly, forcing steadiness into my voice. “I just fell off my damn chair. Everything’s fine! Don’t come in.”
There was a pause. I could almost hear them exchanging looks through the door.
Then both of them let out relieved breaths, but they didn’t leave right away.
They lingered, clearly having a silent debate about whether to push the issue.
“I’ll—uh—I’ll join you for dinner today,” I added. The words felt strange in my mouth.
I hadn’t done so since… Well since everything happened. I had preferred solitude, instead.
On the other side of the door, I heard startled little noises, half-gasps they tried and failed to suppress.
“That’s… that’s really good to hear,” my mom said after a second. “If you need anything, sweetheart, just tell us, okay?”
“I will,” I promised, even as a knot twisted painfully in my stomach.
There were a lot of things I needed.
None of them were things they could give me.
Their footsteps faded alongside their excited whispering, and my room grew quiet again.
I waited for a moment longer, then carefully pushed myself up, moving slowly and deliberately, making damn sure not to put my hands or feet anywhere near the slick [Grease] stains on the floor.
Once I was steady, I grabbed the [Universal Solvent] and poured a bit over the mess.
The grease vanished instantly.
I let out a breath of relief.
Only then did I notice the blood.
A thin line of blood ran down my arm, bright against my skin. I’d probably scraped it on the chair when I fell, trying—and failing pretty spectacularly—to catch myself.
A smug smile crept onto my face at the sight.
“You truly are a smart one, Triss,” I murmured, grabbing the [Blood Coagulant] and [Cure Wounds] Vials I’d set aside earlier. “Your foresight, intellect, and boundless genius really know no limits.”
I popped open the [Blood Coagulant] and gingerly poured out a drop of it onto my index finger. The liquid was thick and viscous, like cold honey, as I rubbed it onto the cut.
Two things surprised me immediately.
First, there was no sting at all. None of that sharp, biting pain you usually got when touching an open cut.
Second, the wound scabbed over practically instantly. It was like I was rubbing on a scab already formed, not applying a liquid to a wound.
“Whoa… holy fuck, this thing is strong,” I muttered. “And stupidly efficient too…”
I’d barely used anything—what, maybe five milliliters at most? Literally a single drop. Just enough to coat my fingertip. And it had sealed the entire cut, easily four or five centimeters long.
Anger and frustration surged up out of nowhere, tight and hot in my chest.
I barely managed to keep myself from simply screaming with all my might.
“If I’d just had this stupid Power a few weeks earlier…” I whispered through clenched teeth. “One Vial would’ve been enough. Just one fucking Vial…”
I felt tears well up in my eyes and shook my head hard to push those thoughts away.
I still had a [Grease] test to finish—which was a way better use of my brain right now.
Refocusing, I tried all kinds of things to get something—anything—to stick to the lid instead of sliding off. But no matter what I did, nothing even hinted at gripping it.
It was like the surface had become perfectly flat on a molecular level, with absolutely nothing to latch onto.
“Man, engineers would kill for this stuff,” I muttered. “Too bad it only lasts fifteen minutes outside the Vial, like most of the Formulae on the list. I’d make an absolute killing in Credits selling this to industrial firms otherwise...”
There was one last test I could think of on the spot.
I grabbed another pen and dipped its tip into the [Adhesive Liquid] Vial, feeling a spark of satisfaction when I pulled it back out with some of the liquid clinging to it. My on-the-spot theory had been right—the Formulae didn’t react until they left the Vial.
No risk of accidentally setting one off just by sticking something inside.
With the pen prepared, I carefully brought it down onto the [Grease]-coated lid.
To my surprise, it actually worked.
The pen found a bit of grip. Not much, nowhere near the iron hold of pure [Adhesive Liquid], but just enough to be notable. It felt like the two Formulae were fighting for dominance, with the adhesive barely winning out. The surface was still extremely slippery, but at least there was some resistance now when I moved the pen tip around.
“Very cool,” I muttered, tapping my chin with my index finger—and immediately smearing [Blood Coagulant] across it.
“Whoops. Right.”
That was a reminder I still hadn’t actually finished dealing with my wound.
I poured some [Universal Solvent] over the [Grease]-coated lid and the [Adhesive Liquid]-covered pen tip to neutralize both, then onto my index finger and chin to clean off the remaining [Blood Coagulant].
After that, I grabbed the [Cure Wounds] Vial.
I dipped a little onto my finger—and watched the liquid get absorbed instantly, like it was soaking into a paper towel.
“Huh…? Maybe not finger-applicable then…”
I applied it directly to the wound instead, carefully pouring the sparkling, crimson liquid from the Vial, making sure to use as little as possible.
Its consistency was about that of apple juice—basically water, just a bit thicker—and the moment it touched the scab, the scab simply… changed.
It morphed into fresh skin.
Watching my own skin regenerate like that was downright freaky.
The scab was completely consumed in the process, leaving behind nothing.
Not even the faintest hint of a scar.
“Holy fuck…” I breathed, staring at the spot where the wound had been just seconds ago. “That… that’s really, really strong healing magic.”
And judging by the fact that the Vial had lost maybe fifteen to twenty milliliters at most, it was also surprisingly efficient.
“I… This… This is actually kind of insane.”
Healing Powers were some of the most sought-after abilities on the Hero market.
For obvious reasons.
With the Vyre Foothold constantly threatening the sub-Antarctic ring, random Vyre Incursions popping up all over the planet, and Supervillains running wild in cities on a regular basis, it wasn’t hard to see why healing was more valuable than ever in human history.
‘And this isn’t just any healing Power,’ I realized. ‘This is a healing Crafter-type… just like Panacea’s…’
The implications hit hard.
I’d been given an absurdly powerful starting Power. That much was undeniable now.
I was nowhere near Panacea’s level, of course. Even a full Vial probably wouldn’t fix something catastrophic, like a completely severed limb—and based on what my Power hinted at, reattaching one was almost certainly off the table.
But still.
This was a Crafting-type healing Power. With a Growth ranking.
And if higher-tier Formulae existed…
‘I… might have actually gotten lucky…?’
Weeks too late, of course, but that thought was about—
My eyes widened as something clicked.
I rushed to my desk, grabbed my notebook, and flipped to a fresh page.
Then I reached inward, querying the depths of my Power.
I’d never even considered it before.
But if I was a Growth-rank Crafter-type, and I had healing Formulae… then maybe.
Just maybe.
‘No… it doesn’t exist. It never has. There’s no way. Especially not for me, of all people. There’s no way I’d get lucky like that…’ I told myself, almost backing out.
But the devious, acidic poison that was hope had already been dipped into the well that was my heart—tainting the entire supply.
I simply had to ask.
Because maybe… there was a way.
I asked a single question. Not expecting an answer. Not daring to hope—but still clutching that one caustic drop inside me, because that was what hope did best.
The only question that mattered.
The one I’d been too afraid to even dare to think about, because what I was asking of my Power simply did not exist in any Power-set, nor had ever existed before.
But I asked it anyway, for my soul had been poisoned by the most devious trap of them all:
A drop of foolish hope.
‘How do I bring back Sadie?’
My Power stirred. Slowly at first. Then faster. Deeper. More complex.
The complexity folded in on itself, shattered, then reformed itself again and again.
My breath stocked—the Power didn’t stop churning, like it normally did when something was impossible with what I had been given…!
It… Just… Kept… Stirring.
And then—It actually fucking answered…
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 68 - Heir Apparent
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 63: Tech-Talk has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Good lord this chapter was so fucking fun to write.
PS: Yes, Thea's an incredibly toxic gamer. Deal with it 😎
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19HjSdCNFuEYx4jhRIDlCXZxnwcXYIuThn5xbduGx_40/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 68 - Heir Apparent
Thread Title: [(Mini) BUILD GUIDE] Mid-Tier Mobility Caster – Why Control Beats Raw Output
Posted by: MissyMoonlightMayhem
—
[VoidStryker_11]: lmao this guide is trash. any caster worth anything just stacks output and deletes the field. mobility builds are huge cope for people who just can’t aim or stay safe
[MissyMoonlightMayhem]: Oh. Oh you’re one of those? You really came in here, typed that out, read it, and still somehow decided to hit “post,” huh?
Alright, then fuck-face, let’s do this properly then.
First of all, if your entire understanding of Caster combat begins and ends with “stack output and delete the field,” then congratulations—you have incurable brain damage.
Truly marvellous to see a lifeform function without a cerebral cortex. Always fascinating.
Now, I’m sure the first time you overheated your Burn and faceplanted in a mission, it felt very heroic.
Second: You clearly didn’t even read the fucking guide. Not even a little.
You skimmed the header, saw the word mobility, and whatever poor excuse of a nutrient waste passes for your brain immediately shut off.
So I’ll walk you through this very slowly, as I realize that even written words can straight up topple the three cells inside your head.
I didn’t say: “Output is bad.”
I very clearly said: “Unchecked output without control is a liability.”
Here—since words seem really hard for you to follow—I’ll be kind and use numbers.
[Graph Attached: “Mana Burn Rate vs Engagement Duration”]
See that red line? I realize that most mongrels like yourself are red-green blind, but I trust that you can still see the line, at the very least.
That’s a pure-output build, like the one you’re advocating for.
Notice how it spikes and then falls off a cliff at the three-minute mark? That’s you. That’s your ass overheating, panicking, and getting hard-countered by anyone with half a brain and any kind of control or suppression tool.
Now look at the blue line (that’s the one that’s higher up, for those unable to use logical reasoning).
That’s the mobility-control hybrid presented here.
Lower peak, yes—but sustained pressure for nine minutes longer under combat stress.
Nine.
Fucking.
Minutes.
But no, of course, tell me again how “deleting the field” works so great. How it will definitely, totally still work, even when the field doesn’t politely stand still and let you cosplay a god.
Also—since you brought up aiming—here’s another one.
[Graph Attached: “Hit Confirmation Rate Under Lateral Threat”]
Notice how raw-output builds lose over 40% effectiveness once incoming vectors exceed two angles? That’s because surprise, surprise: Being stationary turns you into a very expensive target dummy, you fucking moron.
Mobility isn’t “cope” unless you’re so far up your own ass that you can smell your own breath. Mobility is quite literally the main attribute that determines your ability to stay alive long enough to even matter.
And before you say it—yes, this data is pulled from live competitive matches in Peak-Tier ranked games, not your favorite highlight reel of cherry-picked clips from the noob-stomping streamers you likely get your fuck-ass information from.
All the sources are linked. Logs are public.
You can literally check them with your own damn eyes.
Use your eyes on something useful for once in your worthless life and inform yourself before you open your stupid mouth.
And maybe, before you ever open it again, make sure you understand why almost all the top-tier players don’t play like brain-dead turrets that you seem to love so much.
Or don’t. And keep fucking feeding everyone else.
Honestly, the competitive matches could use the free learning material.
Now get the fuck out of my thread you absolute waste of molecules.
[GhostInTheWire]: holy fuck
[GraveyardShift61]: And MMM claims yet another victim… when will they learn…?
[DataGoblin]: RIP mongrel-kun
[VoidStryker_11]: no need to be so toxic
[MissyMoonlightMayhem]: No, there was a need.
You walked into a technical thread, called months of testing “trash,” contributed nothing, and simply expected zero pushback.
That’s not how fucking life works outside your own little bubble of complete brain-damaged morons.
If you want vibes-only opinions, go scream into your squad chat.
If you comment here, bring data—or be ready to shut your fucking mouth.
Now, if you actually want to understand the guide instead of embarrassing yourself further, read section four.
Slowly. Preferably twice.
Or even thrice, because your three brain cells will have to work extra hard.
I’m done wasting bandwidth on your ass.
[VoidStryker_11 has been muted by Thread Admin]
AshesAndEchoes: this is definitely going into the hall of fame.
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[Build Guides Sub-Forum, Official “Arkion” Forum, PFC 940]
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Thea woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than she had in… maybe ever.
It was a strange feeling, waking up the day after her birthday and not just feeling relief that it was over, but actually noticing other emotions as well.
Warmth settled in her chest as she thought back to the day before—spending the entire day with her squad, doing some of the most fun things she’d done in her entire life.
A soft, content smile crossed her face as she got out of bed and headed for the shower, wanting to start the day properly after how the last one had begun.
‘Definitely a lot better than a barrel of dread in my chest,’ she thought at the strange feelings inside her chest, unable to fully parse what they were all for.
It still felt unreal that she was looking back on a birthday so fondly.
It wasn’t that she’d never had decent birthdays before—the Old Man had always done his best to make sure she didn’t feel awful on those days—but over the past two years, stuck and mostly isolated inside the UHF station for Basic Training, that old dread had crept right back in.
So having her entire squad basically give up their day off just to make her birthday good…?
That was decidedly new.
And just thinking about it made her feel giddy.
‘I really do have the best damn squad in the whole Galaxy…’
After the individual DM reviews, Corvus had pulled out his notes and made sure everyone’s performance was properly reviewed as a group.
It had taken several hours to go through everything, thanks to the constant back-and-forth—plus the usual banter, mostly courtesy of Isabella—but it had all helped point out a lot of small details in everyone’s actions that would definitely be useful to work on.
Even Thea had taken a lot away from it, especially when it came to leadership.
Corvus, in particular, had shown a lot of interest in giving her feedback there.
‘At least nobody thinks I got my whole squad killed because of bad calls… That would’ve been the fucking worst.’
She’d also contributed plenty herself, doing her best to live up to her role as Alpha Squad’s official Build Advisor. Everyone had gotten an updated rundown on what she thought they should focus on, Ability- and Attribute-wise—except Lucas, since she’d be spending a lot of time with him today figuring things out directly in the arcade.
There hadn’t been any major changes to anyone’s builds yet, but she’d made sure to stress one thing in particular: Resolve was becoming more and more important in her mind.
Not for Tier 0, but once they reached Tier 1, it would likely need to be a bigger investment going forward.
The more she experienced and learned about Psykers, the more important that Attribute seemed—even for people who had no interest in becoming Psykers themselves, just to stay safe.
‘Some baseline investment should probably be standard for any Marine, if my gut’s right about this. Even if Psykers are rare, even if they’re limited by Focus or whatever other resource they use… the fact that some of the Powers the Runepriest showed me could wipe entire squads in seconds? That’s seriously fucking problematic.’
The last thing Thea had done yesterday was spend a few more hours with Karania going over their DMs again in private, this time in much more detail.
It had mostly been Thea’s DM under scrutiny, though, since there wasn’t all that much feedback she could give on Karania’s—most of Kara’s run had been spent treating wounded Marines, after all.
Karania had been especially interested in the medical side of the whole “melting brain” incident, which Thea had reluctantly let her dig into properly. Her best friend had even pulled up the medical incident report written by Dan and Chester afterward, combing through it for extra details.
Thea still thought it was a bit over the top, but she couldn’t deny that having someone care that deeply about her well-being felt reassuring in a way she wasn’t used to.
They had also tried to figure out what exactly the “cooling herself down” part had been about. In the end, they agreed it had to be some kind of Psychic shenanigans that let Thea cool her own brain back to usable temperatures—but they hadn’t managed to truly narrow down how or why it had worked at all.
Not that Thea didn’t have her own suspicions.
Æht’s words about a possible second Path—an Ice-based one—were still fresh in her mind.
‘But I should really double-check with the Runepriest first, before I start messing around with even more Psychic Powers I barely understand,’ she thought.
She’d promised Karania she’d reveal everything the Runepriest had to say about it once they had it figured out; hopefully after her next meeting with him, whenever that was going to happen.
Lately, that promise had started to feel like a growing sore point in their friendship, at least from her own perspective.
‘I can’t just keep asking her to be patient… I really need to get this shit sorted, so I can stop hiding things from her.’
Despite the thoughts of having to hurry on that particular aspect, she finished up her morning routine without rushing, letting the lingering good mood carry her through it all.
After the shower, she got dressed in something comfortable but still decent enough to be seen in public: Dark blue, fitted pants with a bit of stretch to them, a soft long-sleeve top in muted white, and a lightweight, gray jacket she could shrug on or off as needed.
It wasn’t flashy, but she thought it looked fairly put together—and more importantly, it felt comfortable to her. Not as comfortable as her favourite pullover, of course, but still good.
But heading to a public place like the arcade had felt like a good chance to keep refining her real-life transmog skills.
With that in mind, she hesitated for a moment before pulling out the make-up kit she’d surprisingly received as part of her gifts just yesterday.
The anonymous present had definitely freaked her out at first—no way around that, really—but she couldn’t honestly say that she disliked it.
Sitting down in front of the mirror, she followed the beginner guide that had been attached, step by careful step.
Make-up as a whole had turned out to be harder than she’d hoped for when she had gotten started on it, but the provided guide was luckily very clear and the kit itself was seriously well stocked.
It made the whole thing oddly enjoyable, Thea had to admit.
She stuck to a light, natural look—just a touch of eye shadow and a few subtle adjustments.
Heavy make-up still wasn’t her thing—
‘Probably will never be…’
—but a little polish had never hurt anyone’s evaluations at a transmog contest.
Once she was finally ready, she took a last look in the mirror, nodded to herself, and grabbed her things.
Then she stepped out of her room into Alpha Squad’s common room, a small smile tugging at her lips. Lucas was already at the kitchen table, clearly waiting for her while working his way through a plate of breakfast pancakes.
She headed over to join him with a quick morning greeting, aiming for a proper serving of fluffy breakfast pancakes herself—and from there, it would be straight to the arcade together for an exciting day of build theory…
—
—
PoV: Evelyne Midra Sen
‘Today, today, today…!’ was the only thought ringing through Evelyne’s head as she paced back and forth in front of the agreed upon arcade on the Sovereign’s entertainment deck.
She had almost died on the spot when she’d gotten the message from Callahan asking whether she was available for their scheduled “exchange of knowledge regarding Rachel Masters,” as the himbo of a man had put it in his text.
But the only thing she had really read in the entire message had been four simple words: “Thea will be there.”
Eve hadn’t slept a wink since then, which was starting to become a dangerous precedent when it came to her dealings with MMM’s alter ego.
‘Or real persona, I guess…? Yeah. Probably real persona.’
But how could she have slept, when there had been so much to prepare? When her whole life had been building up to this very day? How was she supposed to just close her eyes and rest?
No. That was clearly impossible.
Instead, she had spent the time strategizing, as was only natural for a Sen.
She needed the perfect plan—not only to prove herself utterly indispensable to her Thea going forward, thus binding herself irrevocably to MMM’s future, but also to throw out every hook she could manage at once and see which ones might catch in Thea’s wake.
The last three hours had been spent cycling through over a hundred different outfit combinations to find the perfect one. Another full hour had gone into her make-up alone.
Everything had had to be perfect.
The only thing that wasn’t perfect, no matter how much she tried to fix it, was the one thing she had been trained to control since the moment she’d been born—herself.
‘You are embarrassing everyone in the Sen family, Evelyne. Get yourself under control!’ She scolded herself over and over. But the giddy excitement and nervous anxiety tangled up in her chest simply refused to listen.
‘Your parents would be utterly ashamed of you, Evelyne. Dear Emperor…’
But then again… how was she supposed to stay in control?
She was about to not only meet MMM in person, but actually interact with her for an extended period of time. Private conversations. Build theory. Anything that came to her mind, as long as she proved herself worthy.
How could anyone expect her to stay calm in a situation like this?!
One more time she went over her preparations, checking herself over in the darkened glass facade of the arcade for the twenty-seventh time—she had instinctively counted.
The black and dark blue summer dress sat perfectly on her frame, the fabric light and flowing while still clinging just enough in the right places. It was sleeveless, with thin straps and a softly cut neckline that merely hinted at what lay below, the dark tone playing beautifully against her pale-white skin.
The dress fell to just above her knees, the hem moving subtly every time she shifted her weight, giving her that carefully balanced look she’d been aiming for—mysterious and cute, yet simultaneously quietly alluring.
Her raven-black hair was braided with meticulous care into the usual clean, elegant braid running down and ending in a single tail resting over her left shoulder. Loose bangs framed her face in a near-perfect box, softening her features while drawing attention to her eyes and lips.
The light-violet eyeshadow and soft-crimson lipstick she’d chosen matched the mood of the outfit perfectly, adding just enough color contrast to the incandescent white of her skin to make anyone’s gaze linger.
Her eyes flicked downward, taking in the finer details as well; as that was what this was all about.
The dark-crimson lace of her bra—colour-matched with her lipstick, of course—was just barely visible beneath the top of the dress’ neckline, peeking out in a way that looked entirely accidental—but very much wasn’t.
She wasn’t exactly well endowed, and she knew it better than anyone, but even just an average bust like hers could be made unfathomably captivating with the right setup.
The rest of her underwear matched, of course, the same lace hidden beneath the fabric of her dress, chosen less out of expectation and more out of preparedness.
Just in case.
Her ears heated at the inevitable thought that followed—of real, personal time with her MMM—and she immediately shut it down, schooling her expression and straightening her posture.
Seduction wasn’t the point. If it happened, it happened.
She’d try, of course.
But that wasn’t why she was here.
Making herself indispensable came first and was the primary objective.
Even if she could almost feel her Thea’s unfathomably skillful fingers tracing over her soft skin, the warmth suffusing her and—
She cut the thought off hard, jaw tightening as she scolded herself internally.
‘Get it the-fuck together, Evelyne!’
It was embarrassing for a Sen to be this flustered. Or anywhere near it.
‘Seriously. You have to get it together, Evelyne or you’re going to blow everything.’
After all, she didn’t even know if her Thea was into women to begin with. And the Sovereign had been infuriatingly tight-lipped on the subject, despite her best attempts at offering… incentives.
She winced at the thought of just how much she already owed the Sovereign. The initial round of investments to get closer to MMM had been staggering, to say the least.
‘Mother would throw me into the panic room for a week if they knew how sloppily I’ve been conducting this whole endeavour…’
She shivered at the thought alone, an unpleasant sensation like countless crawling legs running over her entire skin.
The panic room was a sick word-joke of the Sen.
It wasn’t meant to protect you—it was meant to break you into controlling your panic.
Your worst nightmares assaulted you for weeks without pause, and the moment you slipped—opened your mouth too wide, let your heartbeat spike or any other indicator that the gracious host metered out—swarms of insects, as they were Eve’s own nightmare, would invade them without mercy.
Still… it would all be worth it in the end.
If she managed to draw MMM into the Sen circle, her parents would be beyond proud. It would be an accomplishment nobody else but her could have pulled off.
She was the only one with the know-how and the perfect time and position to do so.
Putting on her game face, she carefully adjusted her kind smile into something more nervous, but still determined—just the right balance to tug at her Thea’s heartstrings.
She nodded once at her reflection in the dark glass.
“You got this, Eve. Just don’t forget the pla—”
“Hi, Evelyne,” Lucas Callahan’s voice cut in, making her nearly jump out of her skin.
She almost triggered her signature Ability on instinct and had already started turning into a parry-or-takedown move before she caught herself.
She froze for half a heartbeat, then forced her own movement into a surprised gasping breath and turned to face him properly.
The embarrassment hit her all at once—she’d been so wrapped up in her own spiraling thoughts that she’d violated the first and most important lesson a Sen was ever taught: Perfect spatial awareness.
The realization was humbling, downright mortifying.
She straightened, re-centered herself with a fake blush rising up her face, and slipped back into her controlled mask before her lapse showed too badly.
“C—Callahan. Good morning,” she greeted him with an easy, polite tone, offering a small nod. Her eyes immediately drifted past him, scanning the arcade entrance, the walkways, the crowd—searching.
She didn’t even try to hide it.
Lucas noticed right away and huffed a quiet laugh.
“She’s a few minutes late,” he said casually. “We came together, but she got distracted by some holo-ad. Something about a new game she’s interested in…? Had to grab a pamphlet or something.”
Eve felt her blood simmer at the sheer audacity of it. “Something about…?” “or something?”
Thea’s words were precious, sacred even—and this walking hunk of meat couldn’t even relay the all-important information with any sort of accuracy, much less proper reverence!
She swallowed it down, kept her smile steady, and let out a light chuckle, carefully tuned with just the right edge of nervousness. “Ah… of course. That sounds like her… I think?”
Callahan picked up on it immediately.
“Hey, relax,” he added, lowering his voice a touch. “You really don’t need to be nervous around her. She’s a total softy. Honestly pretty bad with people, too. You’ll be fine, trust me. And we both appreciate your offer to help us out quite a lot.”
Eve nodded quickly and pretended to take a few slow, steadying breaths, hands coming up to rest against her chest in what looked like a self-soothing motion. She made sure to breathe in just right, posture shifting a fraction as if she were grounding herself, the movement subtly pushing her bust up before settling again.
Her eyes stayed closed, lashes lowered, with only the faintest slit left open—enough to see without being seen, one of the first tricks “gently taught” to every Sen as a child.
And sure enough, her efforts were rewarded as Callahan’s gaze flickered lower for just a moment before snapping back up.
‘Got you,’ she thought, ruthlessly tamping down the smug grin that tried to surface.
It didn’t matter who you were or what you were into—movement, colour, contrast, light, and proper shape caught the eye.
That was just how people worked.
After another breath, she let her hands drop and opened her eyes fully, putting on a sheepish smile as if she really had calmed herself down.
In truth however, her nerves were still buzzing under her skin, refusing to settle despite her best efforts.
“S—Sorry for that,” she said softly, brushing her bangs back into place. “I just… I don’t want to mess this up, you know?” She hesitated, then tilted her head slightly, looking up at him from the side. “You know Thea a lot better than I do... Since you live with her and all.”
She let out a small, awkward laugh. “D—Do you have any more advice? On how to talk to her, I mean… I—I don’t want her to hate me, you know?”
Lucas scratched the back of his head, thinking hard as he leaned a bit against the arcade wall.
“Uh… honestly?” he started, sounding almost apologetic. “There’s not really a trick to it. Just… be yourself. Thea’s not difficult to be around, and she’s definitely not someone you need to impress in any way.”
He shrugged. “There’s nothing you really have to do to please her. As long as you’re not being a jerk to her friends and you’re straight with her, she won’t hate you. Even if things get awkward sometimes. She’s not the type to read too deep into people’s intentions, socially speaking. Most of the time, she probably doesn’t even notice there are intentions, honestly.”
After a beat, he added, “The only thing I’ve ever seen really piss her off is Rachel Masters. That one’s… special… And probably my fault.”
He grimaced faintly. “But yeah. Otherwise? She’s an honest-to-the-gods sweetheart. Just… still figuring people out, I guess.”
Lucas glanced off to the side, then back at Eve. “I don’t know much about her life before the UHF, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t have many friends growing up. Maybe none at all. So she’s been trying to play catch-up with everyone since day one.”
A small, proud smile tugged at his lips. “She’s making progress fast—faster than probably any other person would—but she’s still very naive when it comes to all kinds of social stuff.”
He gave her an encouraging nod. “So yeah. Just be yourself. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
Eve’s breath had hitched, and she had to wrestle herself hard to keep the glee off her face.
This was an absolute fucking treasure trove of information the himbo had just handed her—completely free of charge, no less!
Forcing her emotions back into the corner where they belonged, she nodded several times.
“Yes… yes, that sounds doable… I think. I—I’ll try my best.”
The towering meatloaf gave her an encouraging thumbs-up. “Don’t worry. If things start going the wrong way, I’ll jump in and help you out. Just relax, alright?”
It wasn’t hard to let a smile spread across her face, because Eve genuinely couldn’t imagine a more perfect start to this mission.
“Thank you so much.”
She heard the steps first in that moment—dangerously quiet, barely there, like a predator stalking up on its prey.
A shiver ran through her as the realization of who those footsteps belonged to hit, and she did her best to keep Lucas in her field of vision.
The Evelyne Thea knew so far wasn’t exactly great with spatial awareness.
The walk-up felt like it took an eternity before the crystal chime–like voice slid in from her side, warm and bright in all the right ways. “Got one!”
Eve pretended to be startled, jumping slightly and letting out an undignified squeak.
Then her eyes landed on the single most important person in the entire galaxy, and her heart shattered into a trillion pieces all at once. The rush of excitement of what she saw was so strong she physically staggered back a few steps, reaching out to the hulking meatloaf beside her to steady herself as her breathing went uneven.
‘S—S—S—She’s wearing my make-up…!’ was the only thought that broke through the chaos. ‘Paying the Sovereign for all that intel was worth it. So very fucking worth it…!’
Her body was losing control fast, bile creeping up her throat.
She had to drag every last scrap of her training into her muscles, her bones, her thoughts—anything to keep from simply throwing up from the emotions coursing through her and to get a grip on herself.
Callahan, kind-hearted himbo that he was, stepped in immediately, moving between her and Thea the moment he realized what was happening. He partially blocked Thea’s view, shielding Evelyne’s moment of pure and utter shame from her MMM.
‘I will repay you for this grand service, Callahan,’ she swore silently, down to her very soul.
‘You have my word on this as the heir apparent of the Sen…’
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[Wolf Lord+ | Draft] Volume 2 - Chapter 71 - Exchange
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Welcome to the draft release of Volume 2 - Chapter 71 - Exchange for y'all.
As always, a quick reminder that this chapter is still in the process of being workshopped by me and that this is simply the first-draft.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Our first REAL Lucas POV!
(The one with Isabella v Rachel doesn't really count, as that one was like entirely focused on the fight)
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p21WIw6Jsk8Lbubkf1W6QhlWTtEFX1GhngHyWGueZjc/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 71 - Exchange
“They call Terra’s video games “entertainment.”
That—right there—is the lie that makes it all work.
Now, the truth is that they’re the most successful long-term military training program humanity has ever devised—and not just for one Faction, but for all of humankind at once.
Children grow up learning Systems logic, cooldown management, resource pressure, spatial awareness, teamwork, sacrifice… And so much more.
They think they’re chasing ranks, skins and tournament wins, but really, they’re simply internalizing humanity’s war doctrine without knowing.
The games are built to be cross-Galaxy by design.
Shared servers, shared metas, shared leaderboards the whole way through.
Terra’s AIs aggressively wall off anything mission-critical—no coordinates, no operational chatter, no Faction planning. You can’t organize a strike inside one of their games even if you wanted to. Even if you tried your hardest.
But you can learn how other humans think.
How they fight. How they value risk. How they solve problems. How they handle stress.
Cultural and societal bleed-through is not merely some sort of side effect of the system Terra has created, but rather one of the main goals of it.
But even that isn’t actually the real goal.
The real goal is visibility.
If a Faction tries to quietly raise monsters inside Terra’s games, everyone else will see them do so. A dominant player in UHF space doesn’t stay a secret—even if Terra’s AIs and protocols keep their exact location a secret, you cannot truly hide which rough direction of the Galaxy a top-tier player comes from after years or decades of play.
Other Factions will notice and learn, someday. And then bounties appear to counter their builds. Rival champions are pushed forward through massive campaigns.
The ecosystem self-corrects through increasing pressure, not intervention.
There is only one thing Terra directly intervenes in: The Untouchables.
The Galactic Super-Champions.
The ones who win the hardest tournaments again and again and again.
The foundational Build Makers.
The ones whose builds don’t just win, but reshape how the game itself is played.
Terra protects them: No recruitment. No pressure. No “special offers.”
Because pulling even one of them out of the ecosystem destabilizes the training tool for billions of players—often for years, sometimes even for decades.
So they remain gamers. For years. For decades. Sometimes for centuries.
Perfectly honed weapons that are never meant to be picked up by anyone.
Until, once in a great while, chance intervenes.
When iron sharpens iron endlessly, and the sharpest edges grind against each other… sometimes, something slips through.
They somehow join a Faction anyway.
Not because Terra allowed it—but because chance did.
And that, Terra reluctantly has to permit.
A Champion joins a Faction. A Build Maker lays hands on the real System.
That is when the war changes. It always does.
Terra’s game-shaped crucible forges swords never meant to be wielded—
tools made to sharpen other tools, iron to sharpen iron.
But when one of those swords is accidentally pulled from the stone—the entire galaxy bleeds…”
—
[Director Halvorsen during a closed symposium on Pre-Integration Strategy, Terran Imperial Forum - Hall 17B, PFC 876]
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PoV: Lucas Callahan
Five hours.
That was how “long” it took Thea to pin down Rachel Masters’ exact Build, down to three one-hundredths of an Attribute Point, and Lucas could do nothing but feel completely out of his depth.
He had been watching her repeat the same movements over and over for nearly five hours straight, making adjustments so tiny that they all blurred together in his mind.
Somehow, though, she had managed to keep track of all the variables, juggling a dozen moving parts at once until she arrived at the result they had now.
Thea—wearing a plain-looking avatar with Rachel Masters’ exact size and proportions—was running through the same motions she had practiced all this time. But instead of the quiet muttering and constant tongue clicks from earlier, she was now sharp and laser-focused, her movements precise enough to hold Lucas completely captive.
‘It’s something else, seeing her like this,’ he thought, watching her swing the Glassbane stand-in through the air with enough force to make it sing. ‘It’s like she turns into a different person the second she steps into the arcade.’
And the difference was truly striking.
The awkward, uncertain girl was gone. In her place stood someone who owned the space completely, with no hesitation about telling others exactly what to do, how to do it and when.
They had taken several regular breaks—mandated by Thea herself—to eat snacks and down drinks from the unlimited refills she had ordered. Lucas had definitely questioned the fourteen-hour booking at first, and the cost of all the food and drinks, but he had quickly accepted it after seeing just how much Thea consumed every break.
It was like she had a black hole in her stomach, made entirely for salty crackers and endless liquids.
‘I guess when it comes to arcades, she really does know best. No point questioning her calls here,’ he had finally admitted.
For the most part, he and Evelyne had been sidelined during the process, though Evelyne had proven to be an invaluable resource whenever Thea needed confirmation or small corrections.
Thea, naturally, hadn’t wasted a single second and simply took Evelyne’s input at face value every time. She had never asked “are you sure” or pushed for any kind of clarification.
When Evelyne said something like, “This needs to be a bit different. Try being faster here,” Thea implemented the change immediately and kept going until Evelyne gave the all-clear.
At first, Thea had done most of the calibration herself using the recording Lucas had brought from Rachel’s fight with Isabella.
But at some point, she had switched to relying almost entirely on Evelyne’s word.
“The Glassbane is her signature weapon,” Thea had explained earlier when Lucas had asked why she wasn’t just using the recording the whole way through. “And like Evelyne said, she probably has a Passive tied to it. That means I need to figure out what that Passive is and what level it’s at, because it affects how she moves. The recording lets me dial in the Attributes, but if we want this to be accurate, I also need to match her Ability levels, especially the Passives that make everything feel natural.”
Lucas still had no idea how she actually did any of this.
Her explanation—“I’m just using Wildmaws’ optional third-person view to watch myself move and copy what Masters does in the recording”—had sounded completely insane to him.
The words made sense on paper, but when he had tried even just moving via the third-person view himself, he had faceplanted repeatedly just trying to walk straight.
So, in the end, he had decided to simply let Thea do her thing.
She had given him a few basic tasks to keep busy—getting used to the mechanics again, swinging his weapon, lugging the Stalwart stand-in around—but it mostly felt like filler.
He didn’t mind.
Once Thea finished calibrating, he had no doubt he’d be drowning in work anyway.
Lucas glanced over at Evelyne, a small smirk forming as he noticed the awed expression that had been glued to her face for hours—practically since the moment they’d walked into the arena. When Thea had casually announced she could brute-force Rachel Masters’ entire Build on the spot, something inside Evelyne had visibly broken.
Any attempts to hide her fascination with Alpha Squad’s scout had completely fallen apart by now.
‘She’s down catastrophically bad…’
Still, that wasn’t really a problem in his eyes.
If anything, it might actually be good for Thea to deal with more people outside of Alpha Squad from time to time. Having a clearly fascinated fan around—one she’d have to interact with regularly—seemed like solid social practice.
‘And she seems downright comfortable with this kind of attention, if any social interaction can really be called comfortable for her,’ he thought. ‘The fact she even agreed to all of this makes it pretty clear she’s dealt with fans before. Probably comes with all that gaming experience, huh…?’
“Lucas, it’s time,” Thea’s sudden voice cut into his idle thoughts, making him almost jump. “I’ve got it all dialed in now. I just need to do a few test spars to get a feel for it in real combat, and then we should be good for today’s training. Sorry it took so long.”
He straightened up, picked up his chainaxe and tower shield, and walked over to her, to close to a more duel-ready distance between them.
“Nothing to apologize for, Thea,” he said with a warm smile, knowing it helped put her at ease, before fastening his full-helmet. “You’re doing things I can’t even wrap my head around. A few hours honestly feels insanely fast.”
“It really is…” he heard Evelyne mutter from the sidelines, and he couldn’t help but smile.
In a strange way, Evelyne had become his window into what Thea was doing, but from a much more normal perspective. It felt odd to admit that the somewhat unhinged fan was the less insane point of reference, but compared to Thea’s sheer aptitude, it was likely still true.
‘Honestly, I’m kind of glad she’s here, after everything,’ he thought. ‘This would’ve been way harder without her. And I’d be missing all of the context for what Thea is even doing if it weren’t for Evelyne’s reactions and comments.’
Focusing back on the task at hand, he asked, “So, what’s the rules for this?”
“Death,” Thea replied immediately.
Lucas blinked. Then blinked again.
“Ehh… okay. Yeah, I guess that makes sense in a game like this,” he said slowly. “Any other rules we should stick to, or are we just trying to beat each other to death as hard as possible?”
“Just beat each other, yeah,” the blank-faced avatar replied in Thea’s voice. “You’ve got [Redundant Organs] now, like I recommended, right?”
Lucas nodded. He’d picked it up before his first Digital Mission, and it had already paid off there.
“Good. Then yeah. Death. Aim for the head.”
That seemed to be everything she wanted to clarify as the countdown manifested between them.
‘Alright then. Aim for the head. Death. I can work with that, I guess,’ Lucas thought.
He lowered his center of gravity, slipping into the combat stance he’d been building together with Isabella in their recent spars.
Tower shield forward, chainaxe held in a high grip for close-quarters swings.
Last time around, he’d only faced Karania—which had already been rough, since Alpha Squad’s medic was anything but slow to adapt—but this time was very different.
This time, he was facing the real thing.
He’d only watched Thea’s emulation of Rachel Masters fighting Isabella before, but even just seeing it back then had been lowkey terrifying.
‘Guess it’s time to find out what it’s actually like to face Rachel in a duel…’
The countdown hit zero just as he finished his thought—and the sand beneath Thea exploded.
She launched herself forward, shield angled toward his chainaxe side, hammer dragging low behind her, its head skimming just above the sand as she closed the distance in a blur.
Lucas barely had time to respond to her movement before the first clash hit.
Her shield slammed into his with brutal force, not to break through, but to twist his angle just enough for the hammer to whip around from below and to the side. He managed to catch it on the edge of his tower shield by instinct alone, the impact rattling up his arm and forcing his boots to dig into the sand.
He tried to answer with a horizontal axe swing, but her shield was already there—the instant he had moved his shield to counter her hammer, she had already moved hers into position to counter his axe—knocking the teeth wide before the weapon could even begin to threaten her.
Second exchange.
She stepped in with a sharp shield-to-shield impact, then slipped back just as fast, her hammer dragged low and almost invisible with everything going on, before darting in again.
Her shield snapped forward like it had a mind of its own, once again crashing into his.
Lucas tried to push back, tried to bully his way through with sheer mass and momentum—because even in Rachel’s body, Thea was still markedly lighter than him—but every time he committed, her shield was already there, set at the perfect angle to shut him down.
When his axe came down in another heavy chop, it rang against her shield, just moments after their shields had collided—and stopped dead, without Thea moving as much as an inch.
‘Grav-lock…!’
The realization hit him half a second late.
Her shield had locked solid for just an instant, perfectly timed, turning his committed strike into a mistake as his muscles locked up momentarily to eat the recoil.
She was already moving again as he disengaged from his own movement, and only then did he remember to lock his own shield in response to her actions.
Third exchange.
‘Better…’
He locked his shield, absorbed the hit, unlocked, stepped, swung. Then repeated.
For a brief moment, it felt like he might actually be in the fight.
Then she was suddenly gone.
The fourth exchange happened so fast it barely felt real to him.
She hit his shield from one side, locked to counter his instinctive counter-push, unlocked, shifted, locked again slightly angled to eat his frantic axe-swing, hammer flicking up and down in tight arcs, then wide arcs that came from outside his range of vision that forced him to keep his own guard high and moving constantly.
Lucas struggled to keep up with the rhythm—lock, unlock, counter, attack, move, repeat—but his timing was always a fraction off.
Every interaction widened the gap between their steps further and further.
By the fifth exchange, he was already drenched in sweat.
He felt it before he saw it—the pressure vanished from in front of him, the sudden wrongness of empty space where her shield had been just an instant prior.
His instincts screamed as he turned to the side, his own tower shield’s locked presence having hid Thea’s movements, but he was too slow.
She was already there. Right past his shield.
The hammer’s head had already filled his vision as his eyes landed on her form, having been swung with no wasted motion or even a hint of hesitation the instant she had managed to duck past his shield and into his space.
The world snapped to white-hot pain and then blackness as the hit crushed through his faceplate with little resistance…
—
Lucas reappeared an instant later, breath hitching and heart hammering in his chest.
He just stood there for a moment, staring at Thea’s avatar as she lowered the hammer and flicked blood and brain matter from its head into the sand, while his own body fell backward and broke apart into motes of light.
“…Five exchanges,” he muttered, shaking his head slowly. “By Xagis…”
Even against Isabella, he usually lasted far longer than this.
Karania’s attempts at teaching him the last time they’d been in the arcade together had seen him hold out even longer than that.
He watched Thea stretch, roll her shoulders, then start walking back to the starting position of their bout, idly twirling the bastard-hammer in her hand as she did so. “Let’s go again. I’m slowly starting to get the hang of this.”
Lucas took a deep breath to steady his racing heart, let out a heavy sigh, and started back toward his own mark.
‘Well… I was right about one thing, at least,’ he thought with a quiet chuckle. ‘All that earlier sidelining doesn’t really matter that much as I’m absolutely drowning in things to do now. Mostly getting smacked in the face really hard, but still.’
They had a little under nine hours left in the session.
It was going to be a very, very long day…
—
Six hours and around a dozen snack and rehydration breaks later, they were standing in the sandy arena once more.
Lucas felt utterly exhausted, but if Thea felt anything like that, she didn’t show it at all.
She had been relentless, pummeling him into the ground again and again without pause, barring the snack breaks that doubled as short discussion windows. In those, she’d given him so many pointers and things to focus on for the next leg of the session that he had trouble even remembering them all, let alone actually applying them.
It didn’t help that she had refused to stop improving during the first few hours, either.
He’d been knocked down to surviving a meager three exchanges at one point, before plateauing there for nearly half an hour of repeated head-smashing.
‘At least I got better, I guess…’
Thanks to Thea’s advice and a lot of trial and error, he’d slowly managed to claw his way back up to five exchanges before death about two hours ago.
By now, he was holding out for seven—sometimes even eight.
It was a slow, gruelling climb, trying to deal with Thea’s—or rather Rachel’s—aggressive, high-speed fighting style.
He wasn’t used to this much constant movement and repositioning in a fight.
Even Isabella didn’t demand this level of mobility and flexibility when they sparred.
But Thea’s version of Rachel—one Lucas had no reason to doubt, given the hours of work behind it—was an absolute nightmare to try and track. It wasn’t just one singular, giant weapon, like with Isabella, but the tower shield only slightly smaller than his own, paired with a hammer she somehow wielded like an extension of her own arm.
‘Didn’t she say she’d barely ever used hammers before…?’ he thought. ‘Could’ve fooled me.’
Thea finally lowered her shield and hammer, removed her helmet, letting out a slow breath as she looked him over.
“You’re doing really well,” she said. “Honestly, I’m impressed with how much ground we’ve covered already.”
Lucas snorted, wiping sweat from his forehead after removing his own helmet in-kind. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I feel like I’m barely doing anything except scrambling not to die out here.”
“That’s normal,” she replied immediately with a shrug. “And it’s not really true, is it? You’re adapting faster each time we go. I’m pretty sure I’ve got Masters’ general style down by now—at least the important parts.”
She tilted her head slightly. “There’ll be differences, of course. Her Legacy goes way deeper than what we can see from a single recording, even with Evelyne helping fill in the gaps. Thank you again, by the way,” she added in Evelyne’s direction, which had the girl jump in surprise—Lucas had to fight down a smile at the sight.
“We’re never going to perfectly copy her, of course. But that’s not really the point to begin with.”
She stepped closer, tapping the hammer against her shield once, the sound gently echoing over the sandy arena. “This isn’t about memorizing her moves or anything. It’s far more about getting you used to adapting your own style on the fly. So that no matter what she ends up throwing at you, you are able to react in the moment. And you are doing that already. Way better than you might think.”
That did make him feel a little better—right up until she continued and his heart sank.
“That said,” Thea added, “we’ve mostly been fighting with raw martial skill so far. And that’s not how real fights work once the System’s involved. We need to start layering Abilities into this.”
Lucas groaned internally. ‘Great. Back to three exchanges. Maybe less.’
He just hoped he could hold the line there and not completely collapse.
She looked at him again. “You still have [Remote Detonation], right?”
That caught him off guard. He hadn’t really thought about that Ability in a while; rarely even used it, to be perfectly honest.
“Uh—yeah. I do,” he answered after a moment, then tried to start to list his other Abilities.
She cut him off with a quick shake of her head before he even got a single one out. “Nope. Don’t tell me. I’d rather not know. I need practice dealing with unknown Abilities too.”
She went quiet for a moment, her eyes unfocused.
A second later, she nodded to herself—and six small packages appeared in the sand around her. She picked them all up, then walked over to Lucas and handed him one.
“EX-9–style charges, Wildmaws edition,” she explained with a smile. “Same rough power as the portable stuff the UHF uses. I want to test your Ability for a bit and see how it actually plays out. You probably haven’t really thought about your Abilities in actual combat all that much, so I want to fix that gap too, while we’re already here.”
She glanced up at him, her smile turning vicious. “So let’s see what happens when things start exploding! Go ahead and equip [Explosive Finish]. It’s the Wildmaws equivalent of [Remote Detonation]… or at least the closest thing to it. There’s no perfect one-to-one, unfortunately.”
Lucas eyed the charge in his hand, then opened his Wildmaws interface, searched for the Ability Thea had mentioned, and equipped it.
‘I guess I really haven’t thought about my Abilities much at all, like she’s saying… I’ve got no idea where she’s going with this, though. Why this one…?’
He threw the charge, aiming for about twenty meters out.
It landed with a meaty thud, digging slightly into the sand.
He focused on it and mentally triggered the Ability.
[Explosive Finish]
The charge detonated instantly, blooming into a small fireball. Heat and force washed over them, sand spraying in every direction as a blackened crater was torn into the arena floor.
“Did that look roughly like what you’d expect from your [Remote Detonation]? If not, upgrade the Ability and try again until it feels about the same,” Thea commented.
He did exactly that, dialing it in over a few more attempts until it behaved just like his [Remote Detonation] outside the game. As he did so, he also realized he really should have been using it more in the first place if he ever wanted it properly leveled.
“Alright, done,” he announced, cringing slightly at the low level of it. “It’s level four now. Same as my [Remote Detonation].”
Thea unfocused for a brief moment, then snapped back. “Perfect. I set mine to four as well, then. Let’s see if this works.”
She casually strolled toward the blackened, ruined stretch of the arena as the sand began to regenerate beneath her feet.
‘She’s so fast with all these in-game settings… Xagis knows I wouldn’t even know where to find the option to reset the arena.’
He pulled his helmet back on as she did the same, reading the situation well enough to know he was about to get smacked with a hammer again.
“Alright, same rules as before. To the death. You’re free to use your Abilities, Lucas,” Thea announced from a few meters away.
He dropped back into his stance just as the countdown appeared between them, ticking down to zero.
And Thea, as always, surged towards him in a rapid dash.
Lucas forced himself to breathe and tried to read her movements, just like he had been doing for hours now.
‘Adapt, not endure,’ he reminded himself of that over and over.
He let his feet carry him backward instead of planting himself, refusing to be a solid wall for her to circle around. If he gave her space, she would own it—so he matched her, step for step, shield always between them.
She slammed into him, shield crashing into shield.
Lucas met it with a grav-lock of his own, the impact absorbed entirely. He swung his chainaxe in response, aiming to punish the commit—but the blade cut nothing but air.
Thea had already moved, slipping further toward his shield side.
His own shield drifted into the path of his swing, still locked for a split second too long—the same problem he had run into countless times already, but he hadn’t quite managed to fix.
‘Too slow again, damnit!’
Then her hand snapped out toward his right side.
His brain screamed hammer, but… It wasn’t coming.
Before he could process the implications of that, her shield smashed into his again, the weight and strength behind it, pushing him back slightly.
He had just unlocked his own to reposition and been caught mid-transition.
The impact pinned him in place, his footing trying to recover, his balance slightly broken.
And then the world suddenly detonated.
Light and heat tore through him at point-blank range.
The blast ripped his axe arm apart in a spray of fire, blood and bone fragments, shredded through his side, and hurled him into the sand.
Pain exploded through his body as he screamed.
It lasted less than a second.
The hammer came down through his helmet, and everything went black…
—
He came to a moment later at the same respawn point he had returned to countless times by now, breath coming hot and heavy as phantom pain still rushed through his head. He watched Thea flick his blood and brain matter from her hammer once again.
‘What in Xagis’ name just happened…?’
Thea jogged over, pulled off her helmet, and flashed a wide, toothy grin.
“It works!” she announced triumphantly, while Lucas struggled to even understand what she was talking about.
“[Remote Detonation]—or, I guess, [Explosive Finish]—is actually really, really good for duels like this,” she continued, and suddenly it all clicked, his eyes widening.
‘She threw one of the packs, locked my shield so I couldn’t react, then detonated it the instant she took cover behind my own shield from the explosion on my side…!’
Lucas just stared at her for a second, completely stunned.
She had watched him use the Ability a handful of times, asked one question, and then turned it into a clean, brutal kill in a single exchange—against him.
“I’ve had that Ability for over a month,” he said quietly. “And you figured out how to fold it into a close-quarters exchange, shield-lock, and an almost undefendable kill… in what, five seconds…?”
Thea just grinned wider, clearly pleased with herself, while Lucas let out a slow breath, shaking his head.
‘…Yeah. Okay. That’s fucking terrifying…’
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[Wolf Lord+ | Draft] Volume 2 - Chapter 70 - Emulation
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Welcome to the draft release of Volume 2 - Chapter 70 - Emulation for y'all.
As always, a quick reminder that this chapter is still in the process of being workshopped by me and that this is simply the first-draft.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Did actually end up managing to write this one today after all!
10 mins before deadline of "today", so it still counts!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nsxxuwDhoIkIx9fti4qz7eDbWhhuBmP9xwHGe3f-7AY/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 70 - Emulation
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…”
The room was dead silent.
“Weeks,” the station boss snarled, pacing back and forth behind the glass wall of the editorial pit. “Weeks since the first Assessment wrapped up. Weeks since the western front lit up every internal metrics board the UHF has. And you’re telling me that none of you—not a single Emperor-fucking-one of you—managed to get even a scrap of an interview with the newest star Recruit of the UHF?!”
No one answered. A chair scraped loudly. Someone flinched.
“Do you have any idea how long that is in a news cycle?!”
The boss’s voice cracked through the bullpen.
“How hard is it,” he continued, now quieter, more dangerous as he paced, jabbing a finger at no one in particular, “to throw Credits at the right fucking officers and get your useless asses on the damn ship? Or at least set up a Void-blasted DDS meet?! We’ve done this countless times, people. This is not new. This is not complicated.”
He slapped the datapad in his hands against his palm so hard it cracked.
“Last year’s top Recruit? Two days. Two days from Assessment finish to prime-time interview! And now? Weeks. And you’re telling me that all you have is the Emperor’s pubic hair wrapped in his own farts?! After weeks?!”
More people flinched.
“Our name alone should open doors,” he went on. “APNN has been the first stop for every major Recruit story for decades. And now you’re telling me you can’t even get a call back? Not an interview, not a date for official releases, not a even fucking estimate?! People trip over themselves to get on our channel! And yet here you are—empty-handed.”
Silence stretched, the Bosses rage spent—for the moment.
The highest-ranked editor in the room cleared his throat.
“S—Sir,” he said carefully. “We… Ehh… We’ve tried all of that. Literally. All of it.”
The Boss’ head snapped to his highest-ranked editor.
“What?”
“We—We offered premium prime-time slots,” the editor continued. “Above anything we’ve ever put on the table before. We multiplied our standard Credit offers several times over. Beyond what we would even really be allowed to spend without your approval, Sir. We leaned on every contact we have. The response has been the same every time.”
He swallowed. “T—The UHF is locking this Recruit down hard, Sir. Harder than anything I’ve ever seen. We haven’t managed to get basic background information. We don’t even have a name yet.”
Stunned silence.
“We’re waiting on the official Alpha Squad highlights broadcast later this week just to see their face for the first time.”
The boss stared at him, mouth slightly agape.
Slowly, the fire drained out of his expression, replaced by something colder—and visibly more unsettled.
“…I—I see,” he said at last.
He straightened his jacket, voice quieter now. “Then… I guess we will have to try a lot harder going forward.”
No one spoke.
“If the UHF is truly clamping down this hard on even basic information…” he continued, almost to himself, “then this Recruit isn’t just a story. They’re the story. A bona-fide UHF asset. One worth their weight in Credits many, many, many times over.”
He looked around the room again.
“And we are going to get the first interview. I don’t care what it costs, you understand me? This first interview will make or break the next year’s news cycle, if not longer. If the UHF is protecting this Recruit to this level, this isn’t just another run-of-the-mill Drive. Whatever this Recruit means to the UHF, we will find out, you hear me?”
He saw nods around the room, hesitant at first, but then more determined.
He smiled.
“Good. Get me that interview. I don’t care what it takes. You are authorized to offer every incentive you can possibly think of. If it takes me personally interviewing that Recruit naked, with the Emperor’s own asshole permanently embossed on my chest with a 3D Holo-tattoo, then so be it. Get. Me. That. Interview!”
—
[Transcript Excerpt — Internal Feed Leak, Aquila Prime News Network, PFC943]
======
======
Evelyne returned about fifteen minutes after her abrupt, hasty retreat, and Thea let out a quiet sigh of relief.
‘Thank fuck…’
For the last five minutes, she had been stuck debating whether going after Evelyne—and possibly helping her through whatever had happened to her—would have made things better or just worse.
Lucas hadn’t been much help either; his answer to whether she should go after her had simply been, “No idea.”
Thankfully, that problem had resolved itself now.
Thea carefully scanned Evelyne as she stepped back into the booth and closed the door behind her.
She looked… perfectly put together.
That was more than a little surprising, considering she had looked like she was about to puke up her entire body mass when she’d fled the room.
Now there wasn’t even a hint of discoloration on her face.
Her carefully applied makeup—and even her lipstick—were completely untouched, as if nothing had happened at all.
‘Either she’s incredibly good at not making a mess… or she’s terrifyingly good at reapplying makeup outside her own room,’ Thea thought. ‘Maybe I should ask her for tips…?’
Her body language had changed too.
The frantic nervous energy from before was seemingly gone, replaced by the more composed, professional demeanor she’d previously only shown when interacting with Lucas.
Both of them watched her as she walked up to the table.
“I sincerely apologize for the delay, and for the… unsightly way I left earlier,” Evelyne said evenly.
Lucas waved it off immediately. “Pah, it’s fine. You feeling better now?”
Thea nodded as well. “Yeah, no problem at all. Are you okay? I almost went out to check on you.”
Evelyne’s eyes widened at that, snapping to Thea for a split second.
‘Okay. Definitely a good thing I didn’t do that,’ Thea decided. ‘Good job, indecisiveness.’
“N—No, it’s really okay. I’m feeling much better now, thank you,” Evelyne said, fidgeting slightly before gesturing toward the VR seats. “I’d… recommend we get started. I’m sorry for the delay I caused. I’ll gladly pay for an extra hour to make up for it. I asked to be part of this, and so far I’ve only caused trouble…”
That tugged hard at Thea’s heartstrings.
‘And doing this in front of her idol, too… That has to be utterly mortifying,’ she thought. ‘She’s handling it way better than I would have. I’m not sure I’d even have walked back in if that were me.’
The girl had more backbone than Thea had given her credit for so far.
“Sure, we can book an extra hour at the end if we need it,” Thea agreed with a nod. She got up from the bench Lucas and she had settled back onto while waiting for Evelyne to return and headed toward the VR seats.
‘There’s really no reason to deny it if she wants to pay for an extra hour.’
“Which I’m sure we won’t need to,” Lucas chimed in almost immediately, giving Thea a pointed eyebrow raise—which she had no idea how to interpret at all. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Evelyne. But yeah… Probably best we get started.”
Thea stared at him for a few seconds, trying to figure out what that had been about, but he clearly had no intention of explaining.
She decided it was something she’d ask him about later—if she remembered.
They logged into their private Archion instance and met up in the locker room of the colosseum-style arena—the same one Thea had picked last time when she’d helped Isabella and Lucas deal with the Masters girl’s nonsense.
Thea stretched in her Turixa avatar, feeling muscles shift and pop in ways her real body never could. Being larger and stronger than her actual self was always a strange but weirdly familiar feeling for her.
Lucas, in his usual true-to-life avatar, looked like he was just getting used to the world of Archion again.
Evelyne’s avatar, however, caught Thea completely off guard.
She loaded in as… a Turixa.
Thea’s competitive instincts flared immediately.
‘Huh. Would you look at that,’ she thought, her opinion of the girl ticking up a notch. ‘Turixa are a high-skill race. That means she’s played this before. Maybe I can get some real Archion sparring in later…’
She shook her head, pushing those thoughts aside for now, and took a closer look instead.
Evelyne was about the same height as her in her Turixa form. Her standard gear showed light armor, a full set of daggers strapped across her body, and two short swords crossed on her back.
‘Rogue-type,’ Thea thought. ‘Yeah. That tracks. She gives Scout or Infiltrator vibes, for sure.’
Evelyne started to visibly squirm under the attention, so Thea stopped staring and got to the point.
“So,” she said, turning serious, “the Masters girl. What can you tell us?”
Evelyne visibly locked in right away.
The squirming stopped, she took a quick, steadying breath, then nodded.
“Rachel Veronica Masters is part of the Masters Major Legacy,” she said. “That means there’s at least six generations of data on how a Masters usually operates—what their builds look like and how their fighting style develops from start to finish. Rachel, just like her parents before her, went with what we’d call a Paladin-type build in Archion terms. In the real world, that usually translates to a Brawler.”
Thea nodded, appreciating that Evelyne was using Archion terminology.
That alone made this a lot easier to follow.
“As for her base Attributes,” Evelyne continued, “I can’t give you exact numbers. But I can give a fairly solid estimate, based on the data I’ve had access to and gathered over the past month.”
“How did you even get access to this kind of information?” Lucas asked, and Thea was quietly relieved she hadn’t been the one to blurt it out—cause she had just been about to, as well.
“It’s my job,” Evelyne replied simply. “I’m the information collector for my squad. One of our Defensive Heavies was thinking about challenging her before the Awards Ceremony, just because she’s a Major Legacy. He wanted to make a name for himself—beat a Masters and steal her spot.”
She shrugged. “But we didn’t rank nearly high enough during the Assessment, so that plan died pretty fast.”
She sighed, then went on. “I gathered all this intel to help him prepare, and then it almost felt completely pointless once the rankings came out.”
A small smile crept onto her face. “But then I overheard you two talking, and… well. Here we are. I’m honestly just glad all that work isn’t going to waste. Even if it doesn’t really help my squad anymore…”
She looked a bit down about that, clearly uncomfortable with using information meant for her squad for something else.
‘What else was she supposed to do though?’ Thea thought. ‘Letting all that intel rot would’ve been worse. She really shouldn’t feel bad about this…’
Lucas shifted a bit and gave her a small, reassuring smile. “Hey, then I guess we’re lucky we ran into you. This is going to help us out a lot. Seriously.”
He left it at that and leaned forward slightly, clearly ready to move on, which threw Thea off more than she expected.
‘…Wait. Did I miss something again…?’ she thought, brows furrowing.
Lucas had asked how Evelyne had gotten her hands on that kind of information.
But Evelyne hadn’t actually answered that, had she? She’d explained why she had gathered it—her role in her squad, the Defensive Heavy, the failed challenge—but not actually answered the question of how she accessed it in the first place. Not really.
Just vague mentions of Legacies and “information being out there.”
Thea was halfway through replaying Evelyne’s answer in her head, trying to pinpoint the exact moment where the question had supposedly been answered—figuring that Lucas must have caught something she had missed—when Evelyne continued speaking, clearly taking Lucas’ reaction as a go-ahead.
“So, as I mentioned, these numbers are educated guesses at best, but from everything I can tell, her base lineup looks roughly like this:
Strength: 4.6–4.8
Finesse: 4.1–4.4
Vitality: 5.0–5.2
Recovery: 3.3–3.5
Stamina: 4.5–4.7
Focus: 2.1–2.2
Perception: 3.5–3.6
Resolve: 3.8–3.9
“I can’t say for sure which ones lean toward the high or low end of those ranges, since a lot of Attributes interact with each other,” Evelyne continued, seeming downright apologetic about it. “But it should be close enough to give you something solid to work with, Thea.”
It was phrased almost like a question, but the confidence in her voice made it clear she was utterly convinced it was more than enough for her—which it absolutely was.
Thea and Lucas just stared at her for several seconds, both thoroughly taken aback by the sheer absurd levels of detail Evelyne had on Masters’ Attribute spread.
Before either of them could even respond, however, she just… went on.
“As for her Level spread, she should be Level 7 right now, after finishing her second DM, and she’s closely following her Legacy’s standard path. That means most of her points are going into Vitality, Strength, Finesse, and Stamina. She’s also investing into Resolve to reach the 4.0 threshold, and Perception for the same reason. The split should be around 3 / 1.5 / 1 / 0.5 for those core Attributes, with two or three Levels’ worth of points set aside for Resolve and Perception. She’s already invested into Perception, but not Resolve yet, so at least one Level went there. That leaves a minimum of twenty-four points total—putting her Vitality at roughly plus sixty percent, Strength at plus thirty, Finesse at plus twenty, and Stamina at plus ten.”
Thea was already scrambling to input everything into a fresh build, having pulled up the interface the moment Evelyne had simply kept talking, not wanting to have to ask for repetitions. The numbers were pouring out of Evelyne at a rapid pace, leaving her no time for anything else… and she absolutely loved it.
This—this was build theory at its absolute purest, being dumped straight into her lap without pause.
“As for her Abilities, her signature one is called [Pro-Reactive Movement], and it pretty much does exactly what the name says. It’s an Active-type that lets her react to any attack coming her way, as long as she has some idea of how to evade, block, or parry it. It works against both melee and ranged attacks, and she doesn’t even need to be aware of the attack beforehand—as long as the Ability is active before impact, it will tell her what the attack is and where it’s coming from, giving her the chance to respond to it—instantly.”
Thea’s eyes widened even further at the detailed explanation of Masters’ signature Ability.
It sounded, in some ways, similar to her own [Glimpse].
Better in some aspects—like actually letting her react in specific ways instead of effectively being forced to dodge, since the reaction window was so short—but worse in others, such as needing to be Active ahead of time.
Still, it explained a lot of the movements Masters had pulled off during her fight with Isabella, especially those moments where she had somehow defended against attacks that should have been physically impossible to handle.
“She also has several close-quarters focused Abilities, like [Rapid Reposition] and [Unmoving Bulwark], but she uses them sparingly,” Evelyne continued, leaning against the nearby wall and listing off the Masters’ girls entire Build makeup like it was nothing. “Most of the time, she prefers to rely on her own raw capabilities to make plays. Still, they’re not something we should ignore during prep—they can easily catch you off guard. I’m not fully aware of all her other Active-types yet, but I’ll keep watching for them.”
She took another breath before going on. “As for her Passives, the Masters Legacy leans heavily into overwhelming presence and close-range dominance, like most Paladin-style builds. She’s almost certainly picked up multiple Passives that improve maneuverability in Super-Heavy Armour, and possibly even something that enhances her Full-Cover Shield. On top of that, she uses a large one-and-a-half-handed hammer as her main weapon, and based on how fluid her movements are compared to her Strength and Finesse, she has to have at least one Passive that improves handling with that kind of weapon. She also either already has or will be picking up one Passive and one Active Ability in relation to diplomancy; something to enhance her presence on and off the Battlefield alike. I would argue that she hasn’t done so yet, but they might just still be low-level instead.”
Evelyne sighed, looking noticeably less pleased as she added, “She also recently picked up [Redundant Organs], after her run-in with Itoku. That’s going to be a major pain to deal with—and it really patches up one of her more obvious weaknesses that I was hoping my squad mate could work around… Specifically her lack of staying power. Rachel is more of a Burst-Brawler, not a Tank like you, Lucas, at least by build. She relies on taking enemies down before they can really put sustained damage on her. But with [Redundant Organs], she’s shored that up pretty effectively… It’s going to be hard to deal with.”
Lucas just stared at Evelyne for a moment, his mouth opening and closing once like he was trying to find the right words and coming up empty.
He finally shook his head, letting out a slow breath.
“I… wow. That’s a lot. Like—way more than I ever expected,” he said honestly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Seriously, thank you. This helps. Like a huge amount.”
Thea barely reacted at all, fingers already flying as she dumped the numbers into the fresh build template she had opened earlier. Windows stacked over each other as she cross-checked Attributes, compared breakpoints, and pulled up lists of Abilities.
Her brows knit together in focus as she muttered under her breath, trying to remember exact Archion equivalents. At one point, she even flicked open the chat overlay and quietly queried the Sovereign for a shortlist of matching Ability frameworks.
She was just as stunned as Lucas by the level of detail—but that reaction was buried under the need to get everything down correctly before her brain could move on.
Evelyne glanced between the two of them, then gave a small, almost shy shrug that Thea caught out of the corner of her eye.
“I’m just glad it might actually be useful,” she said. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
Lucas immediately shook his head. “No, no. It is a big deal,” he said without hesitation. “We’re incredibly lucky we ran into you. Don’t sell yourself short. You should honestly consider offering this kind of intel to other people too, maybe? Could probably earn a few extra Credits from folks trying to climb the ladder.”
He paused, then added with a half-joking grin, “Just—don’t give anything about Alpha Squad away, yeah?”
Evelyne actually seemed to think about it for a moment, before giving a small, uncertain smile. “Ahah… I’m not really sure that’s what I want to do,” she said. “This is different because—” her eyes flicked to Thea, “—well, because it was something I already had. And there was something I could get out of it that I wanted…”
She trailed off at the end.
Lucas lifted his hands in surrender and shrugged. “Fair enough. Not gonna push you into anything you don’t want to do. Still—thanks. Seriously.”
Then he turned to Thea. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, it’s a lot,” Thea replied with a nod, still focused on finishing the last touches on the build, a bit annoyed that Lucas was breaking her concentration for, frankly, nothing.
“Thanks, Evelyne,” she added a second later, almost forgetting to say it.
Silence followed, which suited Thea just fine.
She refocused fully on the build and put the last pieces together. Once she confirmed the template and equipped it, her avatar shifted and reshaped into what was supposed to be the current Rachel Veronica Masters according to Evelyne—aside from using the default female human frame as a base.
“Whoa,” Lucas muttered on her left, but Thea barely registered it.
She’d gone through changes like this countless times.
She didn’t need much time to adjust to the new Attribute spread, but she still ran through her usual pre-tournament warm-up—shortened, but nevertheless thorough—to get a feel for how the body moved and where its limits were.
“Hmm… yeah. This should work,” she muttered, before finally looking back at the others.
“This is really good. Seriously. But I think we can dial it in even further.” Her gaze shifted to Evelyne, who immediately stiffened. “Do you have a solid visual memory of how Masters moves when she goes all-out with certain techniques? If you do, I can emulate her and you can tell me what looks off. Then we can adjust the base Attributes up or down.”
Evelyne’s eyes widened.
She opened her mouth, stopped, then tried again. “T—that’s something you can do…?”
Thea raised an eyebrow. She’d just said that, hadn’t she?
“Yes. That’s why I said it,” she replied slowly, making sure Evelyne caught every word despite the obvious star-struck panic. “Being able to emulate builds down to around three-hundredths of an Attribute point is essential for tournament prep. You can’t find that kind of detail on the GalNet. Most serious build work is done exactly like this—loading into an arena, copying the spread as closely as possible, then making small adjustments while comparing recordings frame by frame. I’ve done it plenty of times. It’s really not a big deal.”
She opened the interface again and added, “And we still have a little over thirteen hours for a reason. So… let’s get started. Into the arena.”
She headed out of the locker room before either of them could really respond, fully trusting they would follow. This was her area of expertise, after all.
Inside the Archion simulation, the confidence she felt was on a completely different level than anything she ever felt in real life—or even inside the DDS.
The only thing that came close were those brief moments after using her [Glimpse], when she knew exactly how things would unfold in the coming seconds.
Nothing else got even close to being compared.
“I—I had no idea something like that was even possible,” Lucas muttered behind her, quietly speaking to Evelyne.
“I wasn’t aware of it either, to be honest,” Evelyne replied, sounding genuinely taken aback.
‘Hmm… maybe not a high-level tournament player after all,’ Thea thought, mentally nudging Evelyne’s importance down a notch. ‘Definitely experienced and knowledgeable, but not someone who’s lived at the top end… Unfortunate.’
As they moved toward the arena, Thea absently equipped the gear she’d picked to emulate Masters, starting with the Super-Heavy style plate armour. When she reached the weapon selection, though, she hesitated over the available hammers.
“Evelyne, what hammer would best match Masters’?” she asked, not turning around, simply raising her voice slightly.
A small squeak followed. “Ehh—Probably the Dead-Grip, if I had to pick… It’s the closest to her Glassbane that I know of.”
Thea nodded and selected it. That had been her guess too, but confirmation helped.
The Dead-Grip was what people often called a bastard warhammer—one-and-a-half handed, much like a bastard sword was on the bladed side of things. She equipped it and gave it a few test swings, letting the weight settle naturally into her muscles.
‘Not something I use often, but I can definitely work with this…’
A flicker of excitement ran through her as she pulled the massive tower shield into her other hand, its bulky weight locking into place around her arm. It had been a long time since she had truly tried to emulate and determine somebody’s exact Build through experimentation.
Then she abruptly stopped, fully geared, and turned sharply.
Lucas and Evelyne both halted, caught a little off guard by the suddenness.
“Alright. Let’s do this,” she said. “What movements do you remember best, Evelyne? Be as precise as you can be. Lucas, stand aside for now, just observe.”
Evelyne stared at her for a second, eyes practically sparkling, before she took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts, and started describing one of Masters’ techniques in careful, exact detail…
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 67 - Competence
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Intermission 62.5: Keeps has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
------
The answers to the Q/A from Tuesday are in the newest RoyalRoad chapter!
Patreon doesn't have a good way to spoiler-tag/hide information, so I'm not posting the 3k word Q/A here.
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tSZfpQ1InnzWqh5gsthsQHr0lqKLHJKnL2dPUlCCldY/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 67 - Competence
“Bounty Hunters are not our allies. They are not our enemies either. They are a problem that occasionally solves another problem.”
— General O. Unara, Strategic Assessment Briefing
“From the UHF’s point of view, Bounty Hunters occupy an uncomfortable space in the Galactic War. They are a necessary evil: Useful, effective, and deeply irritating.
As non-Faction combatants, Bounty Hunters fall under the “Non-Affiliated” classification on a Battlefield. That status grants them full access to the Battlefield Ruleset, just like any other Major Faction would have; including the deployment of Battlefield Aces.
On paper, this makes them “neutral.”
In practice however, it makes them completely unpredictable.
Most Bounty Hunters never rise above the first Tier. They die quickly, or learn to stay small.
But the rare few who reach Tier Two—and the even rarer Tier Three—are something else entirely. When one of those Hunters accepts a contract, the hiring Faction effectively buys itself a max-deployment-Tier Battlefield Ace.
Not permanently, of course, and definitely not cheaply.
But long enough to remove a singular problem.
And that is the key point: Bounty Hunters do not fight wars. They erase obstacles.
A Hunter is never interested in territory, morale, or momentum.
They do not hold lines. They do not push flanks.
They do not care who wins today nor tomorrow.
They appear, claim a single bounty—an Ace, a vehicle crew, a ship—and then they’re gone.
They carve straight through the lines to reach their target, leaving devastation behind them, the collateral damage not seldom outweighing the loss of the Ace itself.
But, that is precisely why they are called in: When a Battlefield Ace becomes too dangerous to face head-on, and the Faction calling them in sees no other viable option.
The UHF has lost more than a few promising Aces to that kind of intervention.
Talents that would have shaped entire campaigns, ended by a third party with no flag and no stake beyond payment.
That loss stings—and Command does not forget it.
But the ledger cuts both ways.
For every Ace taken from us, we have killed many, many more Hunters.
We study them. We bait them. We burn their networks and collapse their support chains.
And, when it suits our objectives, we also hire them ourselves—because denying a weapon to the enemy is sometimes less effective than simply pointing said weapon in the other direction.
But this, ultimately, leads us to the real danger in regards to Bounty Hunters that Command watches out for:
A Battlefield Ace so terrifying that the enemy Faction refuses to face them does not merely win the Battlefield they appear on—no.
They simply start to attract Hunters.
And once that happens, that Ace stops being just the enemy’s problem.
They become ours too.”
—
[Filed under Strategic Risk Awareness, Mandatory Reading for All Command-Level Officers, PFC892]
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“—basically the end of the DM. Let me just fast-forward this part…” Thea muttered, feeling anxiety crawl up her chest as they arrived at the one part she really wished she could hide.
They were watching the replay mostly from her own perspective, only having opted into third-person view once or twice for specific situations, so once she stopped shooting and the two remaining Squad Medics of the temporary Alpha Squad started freaking out about her, everything sped up a lot.
“I just had a small medical issue, but we figured it out and everything was fine in the end,” Thea summarised, very deliberately not looking at the rest of her squad—especially not Karania next to her. “Just a tiny problem involving… overheatingandmeltingmyownbrainand ultimatelykillingmyself, but we won like right after, so it was totally fine! And I had Squad Medic approval to go through with it! And I made a bunch of connections on the Friendlink system as a result, including Sergeant Kalt, so that’s really cool! And we won! But—I guess I already mentioned that…”
A heavy silence settled over the common room as she ran out of things to add on, while everyone’s heads slowly turned towards her.
After a few moments, the quiet was broken.
“You… melted your own brain… and killed yourself?” Corvus repeated slowly, lifting his gaze from the datapad he’d been taking notes on.
‘I swear, why does everyone have to have superhuman Perception… I can’t talk fast enough for them to miss anything!’ Thea groaned internally.
The worst part was that it had been a direct question from Corvus, her Squad Leader. And it was in relation to something directly relevant to their jobs.
There was no way she could just lie to him.
With all eyes on her, she squirmed under the weight of it and offered a weak, “Maaaybe…?”
Corvus let out a long, tired sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Noted.”
Then he calmly lowered his gaze back to the datapad and started writing again, stylus moving a little faster than before.
Desmond, on the other hand, didn’t even try to hold anything in. He snorted first, then broke into full-on laughter, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sorry—” he managed between breaths, “—you literally cooked your own brain to death? That’s insane.”
Isabella slammed a fist against her thigh and roared with laughter right along with him.
“HA! That’s so fucking good!” she barked. “Went out with a bang, Princess! I can respect that. And the enemy didn’t get any kill credit on you either! If you’re gonna die, that’s the way to fucking do it!”
Lucas, meanwhile, shifted awkwardly in his seat, brow furrowed. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then glanced between Isabella and Thea. “…I mean,” he said slowly, “that’s impressive? But also kind of concerning? I’m not sure which one I’m really feeling here...”
Then Karania’s arm came down around Thea’s shoulders.
Thea went stiff instantly.
The sounds came first—wet tearing, sharp cracks of bone breaking far too close to her ear.
She flinched with every change, shoulders tensing as warm droplets splashed against her pants. She stared straight ahead at the datascreen, watching the DM replay crawl toward its end, doing everything she could to pretend none of this was happening.
Then something pressed into her cheek.
An elongated bone—Karania’s index finger—pushed until her head was forced to turn.
Thea swallowed and looked at her best friend.
Karania smiled a sweet, dangerous smile.
“Thea, my dearest,” Kara said calmly, tilting her head slightly, “what is the one thing I have asked you about—repeatedly—since basically the first day of the Assessment? And especially, what have I told you about using your Focus? And using all your Psyker stuff?”
Thea’s voice came out small. “…To not overdo it?”
Karania raised an eyebrow.
“…and to be careful,” Thea mumbled.
Karania slowly gestured with her free hand toward the datascreen, where Thea’s on-screen self was leaning dead against the wall of the trench.
“…Were you?” Kara asked.
Thea hesitated briefly, considering.
Then she nodded slightly. “Yeees?”
Karania facepalmed hard enough to make a sound and let out a long, suffering groan.
Isabella laughed even harder, to the point where she had to lean forward, one hand braced on her knee, the other on her chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
Karania tightened her arm around Thea’s shoulder.
“Dying to self-inflicted injuries,” she said flatly, “even inside a DM, is not being careful, my dear Thea. I don’t care how many Squad Medics sign off on it or how untouched your Blueprint comes back. You still shouldn’t be literally killing yourself at any point.”
Thea swallowed and stared straight ahead at the replay as it wrapped up.
“You start doing that and you build bad habits. Bad expectations for yourself. You get used to pushing past limits because you think there’s always a reset button. There isn’t. Not out there.” She jerked her chin toward the wall. “You don’t just ‘turn off’ DM-brain once we’re deployed for real.”
Another wet sound came close to Thea’s ear—flesh tearing, bone snapping as Karania flexed her hand seemingly without even thinking about it.
“And what if one of the medics misjudged their Focus?” Karania pressed. “What if they overestimated their reserves? Or underestimated your drain rate? In that replay, you didn’t even consider that they might fail you, did you? Was that being careful?”
Before Thea could even consider her own answer, Corvus unexpectedly interjected.
“That’s exactly what she should assume,” he said, not looking up as he added another note to his datapad. “She was in there with her fellow Marines. Her designated squad. Why would she ever assume they’d fail her?”
Karania’s head snapped up. “Because people make mistakes.”
“And Marines know their roles,” Corvus shot back, finally meeting her gaze. “Medics know their Medic work. Offensives know their offense. Defensives know their coverage. That trust is the whole point of the Roles we have inside each squad.”
Karania scoffed. “Trust does not replace personal responsibility. You don’t gamble your own life on the assumption that everyone else is going to act perfectly.”
“And you don’t fight like you’re alone,” Corvus replied, voice uncharacteristically firm now. “You hesitate because you might not be supported, and people die. That’s not how an army works. Not how the Marines work.”
The tension hung thick between them, sharp enough that even Isabella’s roaring laughter dipped and died out fast.
And yeah… that really was the core of it.
Thea could actually see exactly where Karania was coming from.
In every game she’d ever played inside the Golden Age Arcade, no matter how competitive, assuming general incompetence was just smart. You planned around people messing up and not knowing how to do things properly.
If they turned out to be good, that was a nice bonus, but never the baseline.
The Old Man, however, had drilled something else into her in regards to the UHF: In the Marines, competence wasn’t optional—it was to be assumed at all times.
Complete and utter trust, full reliance.
And so she had.
‘I didn’t even consider this being a potential danger,’ she realised, unease settling in her chest as she struggled with the same question hanging in the room around her. ‘Not for a second. I never thought Dan or Chester would fail me on the Focus front… not one bit.’
Karania pulled her arm back from Thea and folded it across her chest, leaning forward slightly.
“Trust doesn’t mean switching your brain off,” she said flatly. “It means knowing your limits and not pushing past them just because you assume someone else will catch you. Thea died. DM or not, that kind of thing matters!”
Corvus exhaled slowly through his nose.
“And assuming your squad will fail you is even more dangerous,” he shot back. “Marines survive because they rely on each other. If you start second-guessing every role on the field, the entire doctrine falls apart.”
“That’s easy to say from a top-down perspective,” Karania replied sharply. “I’m talking about individual responsibility here, Corvus. Not Faction-wide doctrine. Focus overdraw doesn’t care how good a medic is supposed to be if you push too far. What good is this blind trust if they misjudge their reserves and I just assumed they wouldn’t? We still both die—simply because I trusted they’d have perfect capability on their end instead of taking some level of responsibility and realizing it could become a problem ahead of time, so I could stop before draining us both dry. You saw the damn replay, Corvus—she didn’t even consider that they might fail her!”
“Again, why should she?” Corvus countered immediately. “She was deployed with trained Marines doing their jobs. If Thea has to spend a chunk of her efforts on considering whether or not people around her will fail her, how much worse is her overall performance going to be? Multiply that by the hundreds of millions of Marines inside the Corps, and now we’re losing the war. That’s just how doctrine works: You need everyone to follow it, or it falls apart. You have to trust that.”
Isabella shifted, her grin gone now.
She scratched at her jaw, then spoke up. “I get what you’re saying, boss. I do.”
She glanced at Karania, then back at Corvus. “But Kara’s not wrong either. Blind trust gets people killed. I’ve seen it.”
She trailed off there, eyes unfocused for a moment. Whatever memory had surfaced, she clearly wasn’t keen on sharing it. “Just… yeah. Sometimes trusting too hard fucks you—hard.”
Lucas cleared his throat, before also joining in.
“If I couldn’t trust the people around me, I’d never have made it here,” he said calmly. “Rinox hunting literally does not work without full, unconditional trust. You keep the beast busy with all of your focus and might, so you have to believe the others will do their part. Because if you hesitate for a fraction of a moment, you die. You have to trust that they’ll kill it while you keep it busy.”
Desmond nodded slowly. “Honestly… a month ago, I’d be with Karania and Isabella on this one. No question. Easiest choice of my life.”
He spoke carefully, eyes flicking between the members of the squad. “But… I’ve already been burned once by assuming people in my own squad would screw me over. I’m… not doing that again, if I can help it. I’m trying to give people the benefit of the doubt now. So… I guess I’m team trust? Kind of.”
Thea couldn’t help but notice that his gaze drifted to everyone at least once—except her.
She evidently wasn’t the only one caught off guard by Desmond throwing his hat in the ring for team trust either; everyone but Corvus showed clear flashes of surprise at his words.
Hearing everyone’s opinions only made Thea sink deeper into her own thoughts.
‘This is… weird,’ she thought, her brows creasing. ‘The Old Man’s been right about basically everything he’s ever taught me. And inside the Marines, trust is supposed to be a given.’
But that clearly wasn’t the whole picture, was it?
‘I can see Kara and Ela’s side too. Trusting the Medics this completely on something that could literally kill me if it goes even a little wrong… yeah. Kara’s probably right. I should’ve at least kept an eye on my own Focus and my own limits, no…? Nothing would have actually stopped me from just burning Focus while my brain slowly melted. I was completely trusting Chester to knock me out—or straight-up kill me—if I got too close to an Overdraw. And sure, he stayed with me till the end, so it worked out… but is that really a solid argument?’
She grimaced inwardly.
‘“It worked out, so I was right” usually doesn’t mean shit, does it.’
Karania let out a slow breath and finally eased back, some of the sharpness draining from her posture.
“Listen, I get it,” she said. “Second-guessing literally everyone around you all the time isn’t viable. I know that. We all do, I don’t doubt. There’s obviously a damn good reason the doctrine exists the way it does. But that doesn’t mean blind trust is always the answer either.”
She flicked a glance toward Desmond.
“If nobody ever paid attention to the people next to them, how exactly would you ever catch an Infiltrator, for example? We’ve literally just seen what a single bad actor can do. If blind trust was the only thing anyone ever did, one person slipping through unchecked could completely wreck an entire Faction.”
Corvus was quiet for a few seconds, fingers still on his datapad.
Then he nodded once.
“There’s… some truth to that, yes,” he admitted. “Doctrine isn’t inflexible. There is wiggle room.”
His gaze moved across the squad. “That said, especially for young Marines like us, blind trust is still the best starting point. Assuming competence and trusting your fellow Marines to do their jobs is how you get maximum performance. Hesitation and constant doubt does nothing but get people killed.”
He paused, then looked back at Thea.
“But,” he continued, “that competence doesn’t just go one way. In cases like this—Psykers, high-risk Focus use, experimental weapons, etc.—personal responsibility is part of that same assumption. If you’re a potential danger to yourself or the people around you, then part of your competence, that other people will be assuming exists, is knowing how not to let that happen. Self-control isn’t somehow separate from or antithetical to the doctrine. It’s quite literally baked into it by default.”
The words seemed to settle over the room like a blanket.
Karania studied him for a moment, then gave a small, reluctant nod.
“…Yeah,” she said quietly. “I can live with that. Part of the competence we all assume in each other, involves the competence to not end up killing yourself and others.”
Lucas still looked unsure, arms crossed tight, while Isabella rolled a shoulder and frowned, clearly not fully convinced either. Desmond, on the other hand, had visibly gone thoughtful, eyes unfocused for a moment—then he nodded as well.
Thea let the conversation sink in, replaying the arguments inside her head.
‘…Yeah. They’re probably both right.’
She’d always taken the Old Man’s advice at face value—assume competence, trust the people around you. But she was starting to see the part she’d accidentally skipped over.
That assumption didn’t just apply outward. It applied inward, too.
She’d very much forgotten to consider that she was part of the equation as well and what “competence” really implied in a situation where others were counting on you in turn.
‘Dying inside a DM really isn’t as catastrophic as Karania is making it sound though,’ she still believed. ‘But… I did promise Kara to be careful. And melting my own brain, DM or not, is pretty much the exact opposite of that, no matter how I look at it. At the very least, I should’ve kept enough of myself together to not rely entirely on Chester to stop me… If I had, I probably wouldn’t have died at all either.’
Then again… she had won.
‘Not sure I would’ve, if I hadn’t gone all the way…’
The thoughts sat heavy in her chest.
There was no clean answer here. No easy rule to follow, beyond what the two brains of her squad had just come up with—but even that one was quite difficult to implement.
It was all just a messy middle ground that required judgment she wasn’t sure she fully had grips on yet.
She exhaled slowly, then broke the silence.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t keep my promise,” she said quietly, looking at Karania.
“You asked me to be careful. And I wasn’t.” She hesitated, then added, more honestly, “I’ll try to be better. I just… don’t really know how to balance all of this yet.”
For a moment, Karania just stared at her. Then she sighed, long and tired, and before Thea could brace herself, Kara pulled her into a hug.
Thea stiffened on instinct—then slowly relaxed.
“I know,” Karania muttered, chin resting against the top of Thea’s head. “This whole Psychic thing, the Focus, and all that… It’s a lot. Would be for anyone.”
She pulled back just enough to look at her. “I don’t really care that you pushed hard. Not even that you died, honestly. It’s more about the way how. What I care about is that you don’t start forming habits that’ll get you killed later, just because DMs feel safe. That’s all.”
Thea swallowed and nodded.
“Yeah… I get that,” she said quietly. “I won’t let that happen again.”
A brief silence settled over the room—just long enough to feel heavy—before Isabella’s brusque voice cut straight through it from Thea’s other side.
“Wow, what’s with this mood all of a sudden?” Isabella scoffed. “You two gonna kiss now or what? Should the rest of us make ourselves scarce or do we get to watch…?”
Thea turned beet-red instantly, words tripping over themselves as she tried to respond. “W-What—?! No!”
Karania let go of her just as fast, scowling furiously at Isabella. “Absolutely not! Making sure the squad doesn’t develop suicidal habits is literally my job,” she shot back. “I was merely making sure she doesn’t form bad habits, Isabella. That’s it. I’d have done the exact same thing if it had been you. You know that.”
Isabella just roared with laughter again, clearly enjoying herself far too much.
Karania, obviously done with that topic, shifted gears hard. “Anyway. Let’s talk about your DM again,” she said, pointing at the paused replay.
“Specifically—your deployment as a Battlefield Ace. How was that?”
That quickly snapped Isabella out of her laughter again, as her interest flared.
She bumped her shoulder into Thea’s, grinning wide. “Okay, yeah. That part was damn epic. I’m jealous as fuck. Looked like a blast. How did it feel? You had like a whole squad just for yourself!”
Thea felt herself relax, grateful for the change.
“It was really fun,” she admitted. “But also… unbelievably stressful. And exhausting.”
She gestured vaguely at the screen. “You get so many resources, so much freedom—but the downside is the stupid amounts of responsibility. Every single decision I made mattered so much. It felt like the whole Battlefield was sitting on my damn shoulders the entire time… If it wasn’t for Sergeant Kalt handling the planning, movement, and comms, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything even remotely useful.”
“Maybe you need some Leadership classes,” Corvus chimed in, tapping his stylus against his datapad. “I noted it down for the review I want to send you later. I think you’d benefit a lot from them—not because I want you taking my job, of course,” he added with a dry chuckle, “but you’ve got a natural inclination for small-scale leadership. And if you end up in Ace squads again, having that groundwork would help you not feel so out of your depth.”
Thea grimaced. “I really don’t want to lead anything…”
“You did great during the Assessment,” Lucas added unexpectedly, giving a heavy shrug, like it was obvious.
“I don’t know—” Thea started, only to be cut off by Desmond.
“You really did. Not letting you say otherwise,” he said firmly. “I know for a fact that if I’d been put in charge after Corvus left, we’d all have died before getting into the service tunnels. I’m sure it wasn’t perfect, but I honestly can’t point out what you should’ve done differently—I don’t even know if or where things went wrong.”
Thea met his eyes.
He flinched just a bit, but still held her gaze and gave a serious nod.
Deflating with a long sigh, she said, “Haaa… fiiine. I’ll look into it. But only for emergencies. And Ace squad stuff—because that was damn fucking fun.”
Lucas let out a short huff of laughter and shook his head. “I still can’t believe you ended up as a Battlefield Ace for that DM,” he said.
“It’s kind of insane. But… yeah. Given the scenario, I guess it checks out. You probably pulled a stupid amount of Credits and Merit from that, didn’t you?”
Thea nodded, a grin creeping onto her face. “Yeah. A lot.”
Lucas sighed and leaned back into his armchair, running a hand through his hair.
“Figures. I was busting my ass trying to keep up,” he muttered, then paused. “Which actually reminds me—we still need to do the squad-wide PV update.”
Thea’s eyes lit up instantly.
She straightened in her seat and turned toward Corvus. “Oh—yeah! We absolutely should do that. Lucas and I talked about it during the System 102 lecture. That something you think we could do?”
Corvus didn’t look surprised in the slightest.
He just nodded once, a smug smile tugging at his lips, and turned his datapad toward her.
Displayed on the screen was a neat data table, the header clearly visible:
PV Update – Post-Assessment, 1st DM
Thea blinked. Then blinked again.
“…You were ready for this already?” she asked, genuinely taken aback.
Her gaze snapped to Lucas almost on instinct.
He immediately raised both hands and shook his head with a chuckle. “Wasn’t me.”
Corvus inclined his head slightly, unfazed by her reaction.
“I figured it was a good idea,” he calmly said. “Doesn’t mean others can’t arrive at the same conclusion. Parallel thinking happens.”
He glanced around the room. “Everyone alright with sharing their PVs, then?”
There was a brief pause—then a chorus of nods and casual affirmations.
Corvus nodded once and tapped his datapad. “I’ll start, then. Post-Assessment, first DM—PV: One thousand, two hundred and thirty-three.”
Lucas leaned forward a little. “Alright, then. Mine’s one thousand, two hundred and sixty-two.”
Before anyone else could chime in or react, Desmond let out a sharp, victorious laugh. “Ha! Yeees! One thousand, two hundred and sixty-four. Get fucked!”
Lucas immediately groaned, staring at the ceiling. “Ah, damn it. You’ve gotta be kidding me…!”
Desmond grinned smugly, rocking back in his own chair. “Hey, what can I say, numbers don’t lie.”
Isabella snorted and crossed her arms. “Cute. One thousand, two hundred and eighty-six.”
She shot Desmond a sideways look. “Try harder next time, Droneboy. Or, how did you say… Numbers don’t lie, eh?”
Desmond muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like an insult.
Karania, meanwhile, hadn’t said a word. She just waited until everyone’s attention naturally turned towards her, then spoke with her usual casual ease. “One thousand, four hundred and eighty-five.”
Isabella sucked in a sharp breath. “—fuck.”
Desmond blinked. “Wait, how much?”
Lucas straightened up, eyebrows shooting up. “By Xagis…”
Karania rolled her eyes at the collective reaction. “Relax. It’s not that impressive.”
She tilted her head toward Thea. “I’m probably still worlds behind her anyway.”
Every head in the room turned toward Thea at once.
She froze for half a second—then couldn’t stop the smug grin from spreading across her face. This one? For once, she had earned it.
Every damn second of it.
“One thousand,” she said calmly, then paused just long enough to be annoying, “seven hundred and seventy-three.”
The reaction was immediate.
“Bullshit,” Isabella said flatly. “Absolute bullshit.”
Desmond just stared. “How…?”
Lucas dropped his head back against the chair with a long groan. “I hate this. I actually hate this… Not that I figured I would be close to Thea, but then also behind Desmond…? Come ooon.”
Karania stared at her for a second, then let out a slow breath. “Of course it is,” she muttered. “Of course your number’s that high...”
Corvus exhaled through his nose, the faintest hint of amusement breaking through his usual composure as he jotted something down.
“Noted,” he said. “Very noted.”
Thea leaned back, folding her arms behind her head, the grin still firmly in place.
“Hey. Blood, sweat, tears, and extreme levels of brain damage,” she said lightly. “All totally worth it for this.”
That earned her a sharp look from Karania.
Thea reacted instantly, hands shooting up in surrender. “Just kidding! Just kidding, Kara! It was a joke!”
Karania huffed, shaking her head, but there was no real heat behind it.
“It better have been,” she muttered, though the corner of her mouth twitched noticeably.
For a brief moment, Alpha Squad simply enjoyed the easy banter that continued for a few minutes—until Corvus cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and tapped his datapad.
“Alright,” he said, voice shifting back into Squad Leader mode, “now that we’re done measuring egos, let’s talk takeaways from the DMs…”
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 61 - System 102: Class Primer has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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2026-01-16 20:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post[ND] Chapter 166 - No Quarter
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Chapter 161 - Trust (Redux) has just released on RR with no major changes.
For the Fixers, this chapter is new.
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EDIT (19/01/26): No ND Chapter today y'alls. Sorry for another monday-no-show, but I've been hit with major brainfog that just doesn't seem to want to go away. Rest of the week should be a-okay, hopefully, so Thursday will have your next chapter. Apologies for the renewed delay on a chapter, things are hectic IRL for me atm with work and things
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Today, I got something a bit different and special.
Firstly, my 30th Birthday was on Tuesday, so I'm officially old-af now.
I can feel my body decompose as I write this, my joints disintegrating, my back bending under the suddenly increased strain of gravity and my mind is slowing to a crawl... But I still got novels to write, so that'll have to wait.
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Secondly, I've been working on some stuff in my free time, whenever there wasn't ND or TAS to be written and the muse struck. And it just so happened to be finished on monday, just in time for a birthday release.
So I present to you, a Reading Sample of a potential third novel!
You can read it (completely for free) over here: www.patreon.com/posts/148049880
I will not provide tags, hints as to what it's about or anything, as I want a fully neutral stance from anyone reading it and giving feedback on it. Just rest assured that it will feature a lot of Luna-typical aspects, such as pretty bleak world, some power shenanigans and, as always, quite a bit of enjoyable worldbuilding.
Please read the FAQ on the patreon post, before making any comments about stuff like "oh no, this will ruin TAS!" or whatever. It's all already covered in the pre-chapter author note on the Patreon post.
For feedback on the Reading Sample, please consider joining the discord and heading into the #other-novels chat. There's a thread there, specifically setup for TS feedback.
The Reading Sample is meant to gauge interest, gather feedback on the writing + world, as well as just present a general question of "What if I wrote this, would this be cool?". Please note that it will not become a third concurrent novel to ND and TAS anytime soon, as I simply do not have the time/energy for that. It's purely a Reading Sample to gather data/information.
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Lastly, as it's my Birthday, I figure it's as good as time as any to offer some kind of Q/A about my personal life, if anyone gives a shit.
So if you got any question about me, as a person, as an author, etc. that isn't directly related to TAS/ND (as those usually have their own Q/As, generally at the end of each Volume/Book), feel free to just post it in the comments below this chapter and I'll collect them for the next chapter's AN and answer them.
I have no idea if that's something anybody even cares about, but figured I'd offer in case somebody just REALLY needs to know what my shoe-size is, or whatever.
Feel free to ask about anything. I am a very open person when asked direct questions, so if you want to know how often I have bowels movements a day, what my favourite porn tags are or whatever the fuck else you really just can't live without knowing, just ask.
I have no problems with it.
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Time to finish up the Dojo Session!
\o/
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p-VWWkgiK8xpQBtmSOH-GmEHDgTPhd-D8fGWmrarmVg/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 166 - No Quarter
I was breathing hard by now, the three back-to-back fights truly catching up with me as I stood over Thomas. He stared up at me with an incredulous look, like his brain was still trying to catch up to what his eyes had just seen.
‘I might’ve overdone it a bit there…’
I’d honestly panicked when he’d suddenly lunged for me like that and instinctively used part of [Narrow Twist] to slip out of the grapple before it could fully close around me. It wasn’t a sure thing like [Slippery Body] would’ve been, but it clearly still managed to give me just enough extra flexibility to wriggle free—as long as I wasn’t already fully locked down.
‘That probably looked freaky as hell from his side though… My bones didn’t even feel solid for a split second there. Really hope he didn’t notice that part.’
Thankfully, Miss K didn’t give either of us much time to dwell on it before she stepped in with that familiar, no-nonsense authority that shut down spiraling thoughts real fast.
“Thomas, that was a good attempt at the end,” she said. “But you overthought the majority of that fight—again.”
Tom winced slightly as she continued.
“You had two full rounds to watch Sera fight and get a read on her current physical limits. That should have been more than enough to estimate whether you could realistically gas her out or not. Instead, you kept reassessing and second-guessing yourself, never committing to your initial conclusions.”
He looked like he’d just bitten into a raw lemon at that.
“Being careful is good,” Miss K went on, “but there’s a point where caution stops being productive. If you’d committed early—really leaned into your superior stamina and applied sustained offensive pressure from the start—you would’ve had a much better chance of taking this. That only works if you do it immediately, though. Half-measures don’t get you there, as we just saw. By the time you realized you had to change tactics, you were already so far on the back-foot you had no way to come back without risky moves.”
She tapped the side of her head lightly. “Your shard already covers aspects of this. Review them before next session. You need a better instinct for when to press and when to pull back—when to stop thinking so much.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Tom replied, pushing himself fully upright now. “I’ll put more work into that.”
His tone was tight, but decidedly serious—and honestly, fair.
Miss K nodded once, then turned her attention to me—and I instinctively braced myself for another verbal flamethrower.
“Sera, you did pretty well this time around,” she said evenly. “Good pressure, not overextending, and you didn’t rely on overly risky moves just to force a win. That was solid.”
I blinked.
“But,” she continued, because of course there was a but, “your arsenal is still far too limited. Review sections four through seven on your shard before the next session. You can’t keep throwing the same kinds of kicks and punches and expect it to work forever just because you’ve got some physical advantages over your opponents.”
My eyebrows shot up—and not just for one reason.
First, I genuinely hadn’t expected praise. The last bout had felt… rough. Clumsy, even, when compared to the previous two. If Tom hadn’t suddenly committed to that desperate lunge, I wasn’t sure how I would’ve actually ended things.
‘But maybe that is the whole point,’ I thought. ‘I managed to back him into a corner without struggling much. His choices were either something incredibly risky—just like I’d done with Jin—or stepping out of bounds and losing.’
That was… unsettlingly tactical by accident.
The second reason her words hit weird was the phrase “physical advantages.”
Because, objectively, everyone else here had literal physical advantages over me.
Cybernetics. Bionics. Genetic mods.
That was kind of their whole thing and the very reason I had even been allowed into this group. My normal-human-ness made me the outlier here.
Then again… the System was absolutely cheating on my behalf.
Between Body and Reflex alone, I effectively had the kind of focused, high-end muscle training most people needed a decade or more to even approach.
So yeah. I could see it. Intellectually, at least.
‘Still feels really damn weird to be told I have physical advantages over these guys…’
Especially Tom.
Knowing what he’d been like in the game—how much of a monster he’d been—it felt surreal to be considered physically superior to him in any meaningful way.
There really wasn’t a clean way to wrap my head around that.
“Now, get yourselves cleaned up, drink some water, and we’ll continue in five,” Miss K ordered, her voice clipped like a drill-sergeant’s as she stepped back into the middle of the ring.
I followed Tom toward the benches where Kenzie and Jin were already waiting—and, on a whim, I flicked my Anima Sight back on and glanced over my shoulder.
Doing it on the move, and trying to do it only through one eye, took way more effort than I’d expected, but after a bit of fumbling around for a few seconds, I somehow managed it.
The result was… deeply unpleasant.
My stomach lurched, the world tilting sideways for a split second.
I stumbled and immediately shut one eye, playing it off as a leg cramp while I bent slightly and started rubbing at my thigh.
‘Okay. Yeah. Doing that while moving is a terrible idea. Lesson learned.’
Once I steadied myself, I looked back again—this time only opening one eye.
And, yeah. My earlier suspicion had been dead on.
Miss K was cleaning the mat the same way she had before, just on a much smaller scale.
There were far fewer Sprites at work, but the color mix was unmistakable. Same makeup of the general group of coloured Sprites, but far less volume of them.
She barely seemed to move, only the faintest shifts of her fingers guiding the Sprites as they flowed, gathered, and vanished.
‘I wonder if she’s doing this mentally and the fingers are just… leakage,’ I thought. ‘Or if the movements actually matter.’
My mind immediately drifted to Sigils.
To my [Anima Razor] and the required, deeply structured motions that acted as the anchors for whatever it was that Anima really did, when I used it.
That second option felt a lot more likely.
Subconscious movement didn’t really track for someone like Miss K. You didn’t become a Grandmaster of martial arts without absurdly precise body control.
Accidental motion felt borderline impossible to even imagine being a thing for her.
‘Then again,’ I conceded, watching the Sprites fade back into the air and ground as Miss K finished up, ‘it’s Anima. So who the hell really knows how any of this works.’
I focused and carefully eased my Anima Sight back down, relieved when the world settled back into something normal again.
It worked—cleanly, even—though it still felt a bit finicky, like handling a switch that hadn’t been properly labeled yet. I’d already been half-prepared to come up with an excuse to ask Miss K for help, so not having to do that right now felt like a small win.
If I kept using it regularly, hopefully it’d become more second nature.
That was how it looked for Miss K and Valeria. Downright effortless.
I finally reached the benches and started slathering myself in the anti-bruising and cut treatment Miss K provided every session, working it into sore spots out of habit—when an unexpected System chime cut through my thoughts.
I froze.
I recognized the sound.
‘…A level up?’
I glanced around to make sure the others were busy, then quickly pulled up the notifications.
[System]: 100xp gained for [First-Aid] Skill.
[System]: [First-Aid] Skill has reached Level 3. Knowledge and Muscle-Memory download available. [First-Aid] Perk Point obtained.
I stared at the interface for a solid few seconds before letting out a long, tired sigh.
‘Of course. Nearly dying—what—two? Three times in a row, holding myself together through sheer spite and luck, and the thing that finally pushes [First-Aid] over the edge is rubbing no-no-bruise cream on my arms. Are you kidding me, System?’
I closed the interface before I could get more annoyed, rubbing the last of the medication into my skin and refocusing on the dojo around me.
I could look at the Perks later and agonize over choices then.
Right now, I didn’t have the time to truly dive into it.
As if to underline that thought, Kenzie dropped down right next to me, close enough that her shoulder brushed mine.
Her eyes were practically drilling holes through my skull.
“So,” she said, blunt as ever, “you’ve improved, huh?”
I didn’t really have a clean answer for that, so I just shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so. Things’ve been… kind of wild lately.”
She huffed softly, ears flicking once. “I’m guessing you won’t—or can’t—tell me what the fuck actually happened? Because this is kinda insane, you know? We don’t see you for a week and suddenly you’re, what, two steps ahead of everyone in like… everything? And still completely unaugmented…?”
That last part had definitely been a question.
I let out a heavy sigh—not because she was being annoying, but because I genuinely had no good way to explain any of this. I turned to meet her gaze properly, holding it and putting as much weight into my words as I could.
“I honestly don’t know much more than you do,” I said. “Miss K’s trying to help me figure it out too. Because, yeah—things’ve been really strange. I wish I could tell you more, but some of it’s… classified—” I winced at how cliche that sounded, “—and most of the rest, I just flat-out don’t understand. And yes, still completely unaugmented. Fleshy human all the way through, barring the usual stuff.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her ears twitch as she watched me, still searching my face.
I kept my gaze steady, hoping the sincerity came through.
I really didn’t want her to hate me, or think I was hiding things out of spite—which… okay, technically I was hiding things, but not out of malice or anything. Mostly because I couldn’t exactly tell people about the System and Anima just for the heck of it.
Kenzie had been nothing but kind to me since day one.
I liked being around her—more than I’d expected to, honestly—even if we hadn’t done much together outside of dojo sessions.
And with the way things were going, that was probably about to change very soon.
We’d already talked about meeting up outside the dojo for some extra training before, and after today’s session—judging by everyone’s barely veiled, burning desire to beat me to a pulp—that was almost certainly going to happen sooner rather than later.
They’d want to “catch up” to me as fast as possible, after all.
‘Not that I actually think I’m that far ahead…’ I thought, trying to keep my ego in check. ‘Just like Miss K said—if they fixed the really obvious holes in their game using the shards they already have, I honestly wouldn’t know how to beat any of them. Which means I’ll have to put in extra work too, if I don’t want to get outpaced the moment they put in effort.’
Thankfully, Kenzie seemed to decide that I’d been about as honest as I could reasonably be—or at least that was how I chose to read her body language—and the tension eased.
We ended up just chatting about nothing in particular for a few minutes, small talk and idle comments filling the gap while we both caught our breath and rehydrated.
It didn’t last long.
Miss K called us all back to the mat right as the five minutes were up, her voice cutting cleanly through the room. We fell into our usual lineup without much fuss, waiting to hear what fresh horrors she had planned for us next.
“Now,” she began, wearing that same infuriatingly attractive smirk she always did, “I’d wager that was a very interesting way to start today’s session.”
I already didn’t like where this was going.
“It’s good to see that all of you seem to have taken the right lessons from the little thrashing Sera decided to hand out.”
I physically cringed at the phrasing.
‘Please don’t make them hate me, Miss K,’ I silently begged. ‘I’m trying to build some rapport here.’
She continued without mercy. “I can see the fire in your eyes. That’s good. Keep it. But focus it—especially into your shard work. I didn’t spend several hours tailoring those things for each of you just so you could cherry-pick two or three comfortable parts and ignore the rest.”
Every single one of us suddenly found the floor, the walls, or the far corner of the dojo fascinating enough to avoid eye contact with the Grandmaster.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t exactly been diving headfirst into the deep end of their shard with boundless enthusiasm—which, to be fair, wasn’t for lack of motivation so much as a brutal lack of time.
Life hadn’t exactly been kind or relaxing for me these past few weeks.
Between nearly dying—several times—getting rebuilt by reality itself, and trying to keep half a dozen secrets from eating me alive, I’d done about as much shard work as was realistically possible without completely burning out.
“And since that seems to be everyone’s major issue right now,” Miss K continued, seemingly revelling in our collective guilt, “we’ll be spending the next hour and a half fixing that. Get your shards out, slot them in, and keep working from where you left off. Don’t jump ahead. They’re ordered for a reason.”
So we did.
We all pulled out the Miss K–designed shards, slotted them in, and dropped back into the impressively deep, painfully personalized martial arts curriculum she’d built for each of us.
For me, that meant returning—once again—to section three.
Section one had been humiliatingly titled “How to throw a Punch.”
Section two followed right along with the similarly apt “How to properly Kick.”
Section three, mercifully unnamed, was where things actually got a bit more serious.
It broke down punches and kicks in obsessive detail, layering in stance theory, weight transfer, balance, footwork, and how even tiny adjustments completely changed power, responsiveness, and recovery.
And it was massive.
By far the largest section so far, which explained why I was still stuck in it despite weeks of steady progress. My daily routine usually only carved out fifteen minutes or so for shard work every morning, squeezed in between everything else trying to kill me or demand my attention.
Honestly, the fact that I’d gotten as far as I had already was kind of impressive—if I ignored Miss K’s expression every time she reminded us just how much more there was left to go.
And so we spent the next hour and a half exactly as Miss K had promised, each of us buried in our own shards.
The Grandmaster paced the room, stopping by one student at a time to offer corrections, ask sharp questions, or casually dismantle someone’s assumptions with a single, well-placed comment that made you rethink an entire movement chain.
For my part, I focused almost entirely on getting the movements right—really right.
I paid close attention to how my muscles engaged, how weight shifted, how tension flowed and released, all so I could later reproduce it cleanly through [Elemental Balance].
That approach had already proven absurdly effective for tearing through the shard faster than I reasonably should have been able to—or anyone, really.
‘It truly is a cheat to be able to control every muscle on command,’ I thought, unable to stop the faintly smug curl at the corner of my mouth.
Instead of grinding the same motion for hours until my body grudgingly learned it, I only needed one or two solid repetitions. Once I understood which muscles moved and in what sequence, I could lock it in and recreate the motion perfectly, every single time.
Honestly? It felt downright unfair, considering that the other three people next to me were doing rote repetitions until they got it down.
And, judging by the shard’s curriculum itself, Miss K had absolutely accounted for that advantage already.
The amount of hyper-specific muscle isolation work baked into my shard was downright obscene—far more than anyone else could realistically brute-force their way through in months, maybe even years.
‘Yeah… she definitely took my description of [Elemental Balance] at face value and decided to lean into it as hard as possible.’
That was a Grandmaster for you.
Adapt instantly, recalibrate without ego—and then exploit every advantage to its absolute limit.
Eventually, though, even that had to stop.
We were all starting to look a little glassy-eyed from the constant drills, muscles twitching and brains thoroughly cooked, so Miss K finally called a halt.
“Good work, all of you,” she said, a genuinely warm smile softening the authority in her voice. “Take five. Hydrate. Then we’ll finish today’s session the same way we always do—by having all of you try to land a hit on me for that sweet reward.”
Also colloquially known as Miss K throws us all on the mat for fifteen minutes straight until every single muscle in our bodies begged for mercy.
And, honestly? I loved this part.
‘And definitely not because the idea of Miss K repeatedly slamming me into the mat is… tinglingly enticing,’ I told myself, very firmly.
No, the real reason was simple: Watching a Grandmaster move and feeling their actions firsthand, was absolutely priceless.
It gave us a glimpse of what the end of the road actually looked like.
Most of her movements were still far beyond my ability to even properly parse, but she deliberately slowed things down, dulled edges, made things readable—just enough to show us what the human body could become if pushed far enough.
Those last fifteen minutes were an invaluable lesson all on their own.
‘And this time, I’ve got a secret weapon,’ I thought, a spark of anticipation buzzing through me. ‘One good surprise. One clean hit is all I need.’
[Flow].
The ability I’d earned through [Martial Arts] and never actually gotten around to using.
Until now.
Today was the day.
After a quick round of rehydration, we spread out around Miss K on the mat, settling into the familiar loose circle we always formed for this part of the session.
“Same rules as always,” she said easily, rolling her shoulders once. “One hit and the reward is yours. Coordinate—or don’t. Entirely up to you.”
Her grin turned sharp. “Let’s see if you’re going to make me dance a little harder today than usual… or if all that shard work just fried your brains.”
She raised her hands, fingers loose, ready to clap.
All of us dropped into our stances on instinct.
Kenzie to my left sank low, powerful legs coiling like springs under her, ears twitching with focus. Jin settled into his usual boxing stance, shoulders relaxed but loaded, cybernetic arms already rolling through tiny test movements. Tom took up his neutral posture, measured and careful, eyes never leaving Miss K for even a second.
I slipped into my own… thing.
Still a bit of a mish-mash, if I was being honest.
Part learned form, part adaptation, part “this feels right.”
It wasn’t elegant, but it worked—for now, at least—and that was what mattered.
Then, Miss K’s hands came together.
The sharp, echoing clap cracked through the dojo, and the last, most important part of the session began.
We surged forward almost immediately, all pretense of caution gone before the clap faded.
Kenzie was first, as usual, exploding off the mat in a low, feral rush, legs snapping out in a vicious opening kick meant to force Miss K to move. Jin followed half a heartbeat later, stepping in behind her with a sharp one-two aimed high, while Tom circled just wide enough to cut off angles.
I darted in from the opposite side, trying to time my entry for the instant Miss K committed to dealing with the others.
None of it mattered.
Miss K slipped Kenzie’s kick like it had never been aimed at her, redirected Jin’s punch with a lazy twist of her wrist, and stepped straight through the space Tom was trying to claim.
In the same smooth motion, she “tapped” Kenzie’s thigh, nudged Jin off-balance with a shoulder, and hooked Tom’s ankle out from under him.
All three of them hit the mat in different directions.
I barely had time to register it before she was already on me.
A light shove to the chest sent me stumbling back, followed by a perfectly placed foot sweep that dumped me flat on my back, the impact knocking the breath right out of me.
She didn’t even look like she was putting in effort at all.
We scrambled back up and went again.
And again.
And again.
Then, Tom started calling out ideas. “Together—now!”
We rushed her as a group, trying to collapse space all at once.
When that failed, he switched it up. “Staggered! Keep her moving!”
We attacked in waves, one after another, then deliberately broke rhythm and went completely random, trying to overwhelm her attention.
It still didn’t matter.
Miss K was everywhere.
She flowed between us, always just out of reach, always exactly where she needed to be.
Every kick got redirected, every punch slid past empty space, every grab attempt ended with someone eating mat. Sometimes she barely moved at all, just adjusted a shoulder or shifted her weight, and suddenly one of us was airborne.
We lasted maybe five seconds before we were all smacking into the mat again, over and over, no matter how we tried to approach it.
On the surface, it honestly felt like we hadn’t made any real progress at all compared to our very first day at the dojo—but we all knew that was bullshit.
We had improved. A lot.
Miss K was just so absurdly far above us that our gains didn’t even register on the same scale. It was like trying to measure an ant hill against a mountain range.
‘Alright… let’s try this,’ I finally decided, once we were properly warmed up and had gotten the worst of the initial chaos out of our systems.
I caught the others’ attention and started signing, using the same quick, clipped hand signals Tom had introduced weeks ago, back when we’d first realized that trying to talk through a plan against Miss K was a lost cause.
To her credit, Miss K immediately turned her back toward whoever was signing, very deliberately giving us the space to plot.
No spoilers. Fair game. That was her motto for this.
I laid out the plan as simply and cleanly as I could.
This was it—the one, singular opening I was going to take with [Flow].
I only had surprise on my side once, and if I wasted it, that was it.
The other three didn’t hesitate for even a second. They were all in, no questions asked.
We’d already taken turns throwing out ideas so many times, trying anything and everything that might work, that this was just how things went: Someone had a thought, we ran it.
That was the only way you even had a chance at toppling something like Miss K.
I took a breath, met everyone’s eyes one last time, and then gave the signal.
I went first—straight down the middle, loud and obvious, making damn sure Miss K’s attention locked onto me. Jin and Tom split wide, angling in from either side, while Kenzie ghosted out of sight behind her, coiling up like a spring.
I rushed into Miss K’s range without throwing a single strike.
That part was deliberate.
She always waited for commitment before she dismantled us, and I needed her focused on reading me—not swatting me aside yet.
Tom and Jin moved first.
They almost connected, too. Almost, as we always did.
Miss K caught both of them mid-approach, one hand snapping out to each of them in the same heartbeat, flipping them cleanly over her hips like they weighed nothing at all. And right then—right as she was still mid-motion—Kenzie came in from behind like a missile.
That was my mark.
I reached inward, zeroed in on that strange lever inside me, and pulled.
[Flow].
The world didn’t stop—but it slowed enough that I could finally breathe inside it.
Miss K’s movements stretched out into something readable for the very first time.
I could see her react to Kenzie while she was still finishing off Tom and Jin, her upper body twisting, muscles firing in perfect sequence. She sidestepped, redirected Kenzie’s momentum, and lined up a counter in one seamless, impossible motion.
And I went in.
I threw a punch—not fancy, just as fast as I possibly could.
Faster than anything I’d ever done before.
Her eyes widened. Just a fraction. But I saw the recognition in her eyes that this was not like anything I had shown before; that I had kept something hidden this entire time.
She flowed out of the way, rolling her body through a ridiculous chain of muscle movements, almost flipping herself sideways to avoid the strike. I adjusted mid-motion, riding the momentum, and followed up with a kick aimed straight at her standing thigh.
Somehow, she still made it.
Her shin came up just in time to catch the kick, and in the same breath her hand clamped around my outstretched arm from the first punch.
I felt her weight shift. Saw her muscles move. Felt the throw coming.
But that had been the plan all along.
I lunged forward and drove my head toward hers.
Her eyes widened properly this time, in true unfettered surprise, as she realized what I had been doing. She was on one leg, the other braced to take my kick, her grip committed, her balance occupied.
There was nowhere left to go for her. Even Miss K could not break the laws of physics.
Adrenaline flooded me.
A grin threatened to break loose—And then I saw her smile.
Her head drew back.
My eyebrows shot up in sudden, horrible understanding.
She did still have one counter left. A counter I had completely forgotten about because I had simply been thinking about hitting her, rather than what that hit would actually look like.
And I couldn’t stop.
I was already moving, already committed, my forehead driving forward—
Bone met bone with a brutal, hollow crack.
The impact detonated behind my eyes, white-hot and overwhelming. My vision exploded into stars, sound warping and fading as pain drowned out everything else.
[Flow] collapsed instantly and the world’s colours and sounds came rushing in around me again. I didn’t even feel it go—I just didn’t have the mental focus left to hold onto it.
I would’ve dropped like a stone, but instead, I felt strong hands keep me upright.
I dimly heard Miss K call for an emergency break, her voice slightly cutting through the haze, and then felt myself being carefully lowered to the mat. My head rang, my teeth buzzed, and my entire world narrowed down to breathing and not throwing up.
‘Concussion… Definitely a concussion…’
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[Wolf Lord+ | Draft] Volume 2 - Chapter 69 - Expertise
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Welcome to the draft release of Volume 2 - Chapter 69 - Expertise for y'all.
As always, a quick reminder that this chapter is still in the process of being workshopped by me and that this is simply the first-draft.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Sorry for the delay on this, work's been busy again this week!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QFHp7Rz7cU39UHJ47QVBnTUV1lenJlvSTGr2wXItsE0/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 69 - Expertise
“People love to talk about Build Theory as if it were a clean equation.
“Just balance your BGR, your VGR, your UAP, slot the recommended Abilities, and you’re done.”
That’s the lie we tell Recruits because the truth is far more uncomfortable and complicated.
The first problem is that you are never balancing just three things. You are balancing the whole of now, later, and if you survive long enough. BGR is often seen as the thing that keeps you alive today. VGR the thing that keeps you relevant tomorrow. And UAP decides whether your ceiling is high enough to matter at all.
Push one too hard and the others suffer. Push none hard enough and you simply stagnate.
The second problem is the future.
Every build, in essence, is a promise you make to yourself: You spend points now in the hope that, ten years down the line, they pay off.
But the Allbright System does not guarantee nor refund that hope.
If you cannot reach that future—if your early and mid-tier performance dips too far—you die long before your build ever becomes ‘correct.’
That is why every Faction has its own, unique tried-and-tested paths.
They are not optimal. They are safe. They trade peak potential for consistency. They get soldiers from Tier 0 to Tier 1, sometimes even Tier 2, without catastrophic failure, and on a battlefield full of artillery, Psykers, and Battlefield Aces, that reliability matters more than theoretical perfection.
Now, Aces are a different matter entirely.
True Aces are built, not found.
They receive custom planning, custom allowances, and constant iteration. More importantly, they invest an absurd amount of personal effort into understanding their own builds. They know exactly why every point is where it is.
That’s why their builds look alien to standard doctrine—and why they work.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth that Command hates hearing: Aces do not win wars alone, for they are too rare to do so. Base soldiers, on the other hand, are like stars in the firmament—individually small and meaningless but collectively overwhelming.
A mere 0.1% improvement to the average soldier of a Faction would reshape entire fronts of the galactic war in an instant.
And yet, no one dares to chase that improvement.
Because experimentation has a cost.
If you try something new and it dips performance, even briefly, people die. Millions, or even Billions. Entire frontlines collapse. Careers end. No Commander wants to be remembered as the one who ‘tested a theory’ while losing a series of systems in the process.
So we are locked in a stalemate—not of firepower or know-how, necessarily, but one of courage.
Every Faction knows there might be better answers out there, but none are willing to risk moving backward to find them.
Is that kind of stagnation Terra’s design? The inevitable goal of the Galactic War, to reach this stalemate? Hard to say.
But Terra hasn’t intervened in centuries.
And silence, too, can be an answer…”
—
[Excerpt from “Foundations of Build Theory Under the Allbright System,” Professor Halvrek Ionescu, Strategic Systems Analyst, UHF War Collegium, PFC884]
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“It’s been so long since I’ve had an actual, physical pamphlet, you know?” Thea said as she excitedly held the folded sheet she had picked up from the nearby store out to Lucas. “It’s so neat!”
He took it, gave it a quick once-over, then handed it back with a nod, “That is pretty neat, yeah.”
She narrowed her eyes at him for a second.
‘He clearly does not understand the significance of this at all…!’
Then again, that was only to be expected from someone who hadn’t really spent much time—if any—with Terra’s games, or arcades in general, from what she could tell.
“You know, this is actually kind of a big deal,” she said carefully, testing the waters to see if he was interested in her opinion on this.
“Oh?”
That was more than enough for Thea.
“This is one of Terra’s games, Lucas!” she said immediately, waving the pamphlet in front of him. “A sequel to one that’s been around for decades. Remember how I said a lot of what I know about builds comes from these games? A new release means big changes to the mechanics—and that means more clues about how the Allbright System actually works, from Terra itself! And if the original Invictus Fall was already one of the closest matches to the real System in terms of Classes… then this one is very likely to be absolutely packed with new Class info that Terra has collected over the past few decades!”
His eyes widened a little as it finally clicked.
“Ooooh. Yeah, okay, I get it now,” he nodded. “That actually does sound super important. Maybe I should’ve grabbed one too…”
“Well, this is just a pamphlet,” she said with a shrug. “It mostly talks about the beta and a rough release window, so it’s not a huge loss. But! We definitely need to tell the rest of Alpha. Especially Kara and Corvus. They’ll definitely want to know that the game is coming out later this year.”
“Desmond too,” Lucas added, catching her off guard.
‘He’s a gamer?! I swear he said at some point that he didn’t know anything about games or arcades… Was he just bullshitting, then…?’
He seemed to notice her surprise and shrugged. “Well, what can I say? He’s kind of a nerd. That’s his whole role in the squad, right? Software, drones, hacking, all that stuff. Outside of you, he probably spent the most time with games and arcades before coming here—maybe not counting Corvus, since he’s a Legacy and all… I’m not totally sure, though. Never really asked what that part of his upbringing looked like.”
“Huh,” was all Thea managed, her eyes finally drifting away from the pamphlet now that she’d absorbed everything she could from it. That was when she noticed the girl, mostly hidden behind Lucas’ broad frame, staring at her with a pale expression.
‘Oh. Right… She was supposed to be here today, wasn’t she?’ Thea reminded herself, refocusing on why they were actually here. ‘Guess it’s time to put on the game face and do my job as whatever kind of celebrity she thinks I am… to get Lucas the info he needs.’
She put on her best smile—one she realised, a little to her own surprise, came fairly easily when dealing with a fan like this—and leaned around Lucas as he stepped aside, looking mildly startled, as if he’d briefly forgotten Evelyne was even there.
Thea held out her hand to the other girl.
“Hi, Evelyne! Thanks for helping us out today,” she said, adding a bit of extra warmth to her voice. She wasn’t exactly the best at this whole social stuff, but this—handling fans—was something she actually had some practice with.
The other girl’s eyes darted to her hand, then to her face, then back to her hand again.
Slowly—almost like she was afraid of scaring Thea off—Evelyne reached out and gingerly took her hand.
Thea squeezed lightly, pumped it once, then twice, before letting go, flashing the other girl a wide, toothy smile to try and put her at ease. Evelyne just stared at her own hand for a second—then startled as Lucas cleared his throat, her eyes snapping to him immediately.
Thea glanced over as well and caught Lucas giving the girl a slightly pointed look—one she couldn’t quite read.
‘Did I miss something here…?’
Evelyne seemed to gather herself after that. She took a deep breath and said, “Y—Yes! Hello, Thea. I’ll do my best to help however I can!”
It was a bit louder than it needed to be, Thea felt, but at least the girl sounded eager.
‘Works for me.’
“Let’s get to it, then,” Thea said, stepping past both Lucas and Evelyne and heading into the arcade first.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she was hit by the visual assault, the noise, and the smells—the familiar mix of heated electronics, sweat, and cheap alcohol filling her nose and sending a small shiver down her spine.
This was the kind of environment she had grown up in—this felt like home.
She took a second to enjoy the sensations washing over her before heading toward the counter. She could hear Lucas’ and Evelyne’s footsteps behind her, so there was no need to check if they were following.
The arcade trip had been her idea, so naturally she was the one who had to get everything sorted.
“Hi, I need a private booth for three for… ehh…” she started confidently, then rapidly faltered.
“Actually, is there a list of options? Like hourly prices and stuff…? I don’t actually know how this all works,” she admitted, deflating a bit mid-sentence.
The clerk behind the counter smiled gently at her—thankfully without laughing—and quickly pulled up the available options.
‘How long are we even planning to be here…?’ Thea thought, scanning the list. ‘I promised Lucas I’d help him train, so probably a bit longer than a normal session…?’
After a few seconds, she nodded, decision made. “Private booth for three, for fourteen hours, please.”
She heard Lucas choke behind her and start coughing, but she didn’t have the processing power to deal with that and finish the transaction at the same time.
“Oh—and unlimited snacks and drink refills, please. We’ll need them,” Thea added.
“T—That’s… uh, yes, Ma’am. Of course,” the clerk stammered. “That… that will be 322 Credits…?”
Thea narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Is she asking me?’
Before she could overthink it, a System Payment Request popped up. She simply confirmed it.
[System]: Do you want to pay 322 System Credits to “Entertainment Deck - Arcade North 1” for “Bundle: Private Booth (14 Hours) - Unlimited Snacks + Drinks”? [Y/N]
As the payment went through, the clerk visibly steadied herself, her professional smile snapping back into place. “Thank you for your patronage! Your booth is just past here, down the hallway to the left. Room number thirteen.”
“Thank you!” Thea replied, turning back toward Lucas and Evelyne.
She checked on Lucas—he seemed fine now, aside from some lingering tears from the coughing fit. Evelyne, meanwhile, looked about as jittery in her company as ever.
“Let’s go, then.”
She led the way, practically dragging the other two along toward the private booth.
As they walked, her eyes drifted over the arcade.
Open booths lined the floor—some packed with groups of Marines, others occupied by lone players, and quite a few sitting completely empty. The free-standing machines and play areas were also semi-sparcely populated.
‘Definitely fewer people than last time,’ she noted. ‘Makes sense, with the DMs open, I guess. If you want to train, earning Merit, Credits, and CP on the side probably beats pure practice any day… unless you need the customization options. Like we do.’
Thea led them down the short hallway and into the private booth, the door sliding shut behind them with a soft hiss.
Inside, the space opened up into a cozy, enclosed room with padded benches lining the walls and a sturdy table set in the middle. Four full-body VR seats were arranged neatly on the opposite side of the room, large, bulky things but properly comfortable-looking, with cables and interface arms folded back for now.
The setup reminded her of the kinds of booths she’d grown up using—private, insulated, built for long sessions without outside distractions.
Usually she’d booked ones meant for one or two people, but most of the booths came in even numbers: One, two, four, or more. So she’d grabbed a four-seat booth despite them only being three.
‘More room is never bad…’
She was pretty happy with it.
They settled in at the table for the moment, Lucas and Thea taking one side while Evelyne sat opposite them, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Lucas was the first to speak once they were seated, rubbing the back of his neck. “You really didn’t have to pay for all of this yourself, you know. This is for me, after all. I should’ve covered it.”
Thea waved him off immediately. “Nah. I’m the one who suggested using the arcade in the first place, so it only makes sense that I set it up. And it’s fine—I’ve got more than enough Credits. What else are they really for than paying for equipment and training?”
Lucas sighed, clearly realizing there was no winning that argument, and gave her a small, genuine smile. “Alright. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He paused, then frowned slightly. “That said… Why fourteen hours? That—That’s a lot of time.”
Thea blinked at him, unsure of what he was talking about. “You wanted to train with me, no? A proper session’s, what, ten to twelve hours usually? We still need to get info from Evelyne first, so I added a couple extra to figure out what we’re actually doing. Ah… Speaking of which…”
Lucas went pale. “Ten to twelve hours of training…?!”
But Thea had already moved on.
Her gaze had snapped to Evelyne, fixing her with a focused look. Evelyne’s eyes practically sparkled when they met Thea’s, her posture straightening just a little.
“So,” Thea said, leaning forward slightly. “You said you had intel for us. That’s why you’re here. How, exactly, can you help us?”
Evelyne looked down, took a slow, steadying breath, hands tightening briefly in her lap before she visibly seemed to force herself to relax.
Then she looked up and met Thea’s eyes again.
“I… I can help in a few different ways,” she began. “First and foremost—direct, actionable intel on Rachel Veronica Masters, as promised. Her background, personality, family history, fighting style… and her build. I don’t know her exact starting Base Attributes, but I can get them very close. And I do know the exact distribution of her Level Up points, as well as several of her Abilities.”
Thea’s eyes widened instantly.
That was a truly insane amount of information to have on another Marine. She was already halfway to asking how Evelyne could possibly know all of that, when the girl just… kept going.
“Second,” Evelyne continued, gaining momentum, “I have information on the UHF Challenges themselves. How they’re structured, what kinds of difficulties to expect, what the Brass actually looks for when deciding winners. Which rounds exist, what tends to trip people up, and what strategies consistently perform well.”
Lucas’ eyebrows shot up now as well.
“And,” Evelyne added, almost apologetically, “I also have a list of recommendations for you, Callahan. Skills you should absolutely consider picking up before the Challenge. Things that will help close the massive gap between you and Masters—” she winced slightly, “—sorry, that was a bit direct.”
Lucas scratched the back of his head, waving her apology off with the other hand. “Ehh… No offense taken, really. That gap’s pretty obvious. It’s the reason we’re here, after all.”
She nodded, visibly relieved, and pushed on. “Lastly… I can act as a training partner. For you,” she said to Lucas, then hesitated before glancing at Thea, cheeks flushing, “or for you, if you want. I don’t compare to either Callahan or Masters combat-wise, but fighting different opponents matters a lot for Challenges. Most of it won’t be a straight head-to-head with Masters anyway.”
Silence fell over the booth.
Thea and Lucas just stared at her for a moment, genuinely speechless.
Evelyne held Lucas’ gaze without issue, confidence apparent in her very posture—but the instant her eyes met Thea’s, she started to squirm, shoulders drawing in slightly as if she suddenly wasn’t sure where to put her hands.
The contrast was… hard to miss.
‘Even I can tell she’s having a rough time with me here, and I’m usually not the best at picking up on stuff like that,’ Thea thought, feeling a little bad about it. ‘There’s gotta be a way to make her more comfortable, right…? And that intel she has is—fucking frightening. No other word for it. We really can’t afford to scare her off before we get everything we can out of this…’
The question of how Evelyne knew even a fraction of what she’d just listed burned on the tip of Thea’s tongue, but she forced herself to swallow it.
It didn’t feel smart to ask.
Evelyne had presented everything with such confidence that questioning her sources would really only satisfy Thea’s own curiosity.
And worse—It might even upset the girl.
Thea knew she, herself, would be annoyed if someone grilled her about things she was absolutely confident in. In the absolute worst case, Evelyne might just shut down or leave altogether if they pushed her on this.
Holding herself back was… difficult, to say the least. Thea practically had to wrestle herself to keep from blurting out, “How the fuck do you know all of that?!”
Lucas, apparently a lot more comfortable with this kind of exchange than Thea would have given him credit for just a few days ago, recovered first.
“And I’m guessing I’m right in assuming,” he said carefully, “that you’re not planning to give us all of that in a single session, yes?”
Thea winced internally.
She hadn’t even thought about that—again.
In her head, Evelyne being here had meant the intel was already theirs—that this was all part of the deal.
But… obviously, that wasn’t actually what the deal had stated.
‘She agreed to help with one thing,’ Thea realized. ‘The payment being that she gets to be here today. Talking to me. And everything else she just listed? That was all bait… To get us to commit to more meetings.’
She really, really needed to figure out how social interactions like this actually worked. It was getting embarrassing how often she ended up on the back foot like this, relying on her friends or squadmates to navigate things for her.
‘Getting constantly carried like this fucking sucks…’
She’d asked Corvus just yesterday—during their day-long squad time for her birthday—about ways to shore up that very obvious weakness of hers. She’d figured that taking Skill Classes like [Psychology], [Social Dynamics], or something along those lines would help.
Much to her surprise, Corvus had shot that idea down hard.
In fact, he’d outright ordered her not to take any of those Skill Classes until he gave the okay, which had completely caught her off guard.
“Listen… I get that it’s frustrating,” he’d said. “But rushing into this stuff won’t help you. It’ll just make things much, much worse. Trust me. I’ve seen plenty of smart people with bad social skills dive head-first into psychology and human behavior theory. It doesn’t teach you how to actually talk to people, or how to understand them. It just teaches you what to look for behaviorally and how to analyze it—but that’s not how people work. People aren’t logical, they’re emotional. Learning the logic behind it doesn’t help with interacting, only with analysing.”
He’d paused, then continued, more serious. “Those kinds of skills are for professionals who need that level of breakdown. For day-to-day interaction? What you need is experience. That’s it. Filling your head with logic and theory will only make it harder to learn how real human interaction works. Don’t do it. Promise me that, okay?”
She had, in the end, agreed.
Corvus was her Squad Leader—and easily the most socially capable person in Alpha Squad. If he said this was the right way to handle it, then it very probably was.
She had no reason to doubt him.
And she was certain of one thing: Corvus wouldn’t deliberately lie to her on this.
Her thoughts snapped back to the present at Evelyne’s answer.
“Well, I doubt we could really cover and properly train everything that my intel touches in just one session anyway,” Evelyne said with a small shrug, clearly not bothered by it in the slightest. “But on the bright side, I won’t be raising my prices. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
Her eyes flicked back to Thea.
Thea met her gaze with the same warm, practiced smile she always gave her fans as MMM. Evelyne’s ears flushed red almost instantly, and she quickly looked away, back toward Lucas—where her expression immediately hardened into something sharp and businesslike.
‘That’s… so weird. But also kind of endearing, honestly,’ Thea thought. ‘She’s about as bad at this whole social thing as I am. At least with me. With Lucas, though… She's like a completely different person. Kinda scary, even.’
Lucas bumped her arm lightly, pulling her attention back to him. Their eyes met—Lucas flinching, as usual, at the cyan contact—and they had a silent exchange.
He was clearly asking what she thought.
Which made sense, as she’d be the one footing the bill again, so to speak.
Evelyne was here because of her, after all, which meant Thea would also be the one dealing with the fan side of things—answering questions, handling attention, all of it.
And fans, she’d learned the hard way, could ask some truly unhinged questions.
‘But… there’s really no debate here, is there?’ she thought. ‘There’s no way we’ll find anyone else with even close to this much intel anytime soon, if ever. However the fuck she got all of it in the first place—assuming she’s not lying.’
So she did the only thing that made sense and gave him a small, decisive nod.
Lucas visibly relaxed, nodding back in thanks before turning to Evelyne. “Well… guess welcome aboard. For however long these sessions end up lasting.”
The relief on Evelyne’s face was immediate and impossible to miss: Her shoulders dropped, her posture loosened, and she let out a breath she’d clearly been holding for a while.
Thea couldn’t help but feel two things at once—and they pulled in opposite directions.
It was a little weird, knowing that most of that relief came from the simple fact that Evelyne would get to spend more time around her.
More time to ask questions. More time to stare. More time to orbit.
That part made Thea want to squirm.
But at the same time… she kind of got it?
Getting the chance to talk to someone you admired—really talk to them, not just watch them from a distance—was intoxicating. Downright exhilarating, even.
Thea had been there herself, back when she was still just MMM and had managed to wriggle her way into private build discussions with players she’d looked up to for years.
The feeling stuck with you. The rush, the nerves, the desperate urge to not mess it up…
So yeah. She kind of understood.
Evelyne, to her credit, snapped herself back into something resembling professionalism almost immediately. She shifted her focus back to Lucas, visibly more comfortable there, and put on her game face.
“Alright,” she said, tone serious. “I can start on my end right away. What do you want to know first?”
Lucas didn’t even hesitate.
He glanced at Thea immediately and passed the question to her without a word.
Thea took a second, thinking it through, but there was only really one choice in her mind.
“Masters. Her Attributes and Abilities,” she said finally. “That’s the thing that’ll help the most right now. The sooner we know those two things, the sooner I can start properly emulating her exact setup inside the games.”
She paused, then added, already halfway into planning mode, “Actually—we should probably get into the game first. That way I can input everything as you talk and look up the matching Abilities on the fly.”
Both Lucas and Evelyne blinked at her, clearly a bit surprised by how fast she’d jumped ahead—but after a moment, they nodded.
“Yeah. That makes sense,” Lucas said.
Evelyne nodded as well, a little too quickly. “Y—yes, please! Eeehh—Agreed, I mean.”
Thea smiled to herself.
‘Leave the social stuff to the others, but I definitely know how to get some proper training reps in…’
This was her domain.
The three of them got up and started getting ready to enter the game—Thea once again choosing Archion, just like last time, for their training. They put on their helmets, settled into the VR seats, connected the cables, and began logging into their accounts.
It was so second nature to her that Thea didn’t even realize she was already fully logged in by the time Lucas and Evelyne had only just sat down and picked up their helmets.
She only realized it when she looked up at the display screen and only saw her own account name listed, the other three seats still simply displaying “Offline…”
“Oh…” she let out accidentally and caught both of their attention.
Lucas just chuckled and shook his head. “We’ll be right there. Just go on ahead.”
Evelyne, on the other hand, suddenly let out a muffled gagging sound, making both Thea and Lucas snap their heads toward her.
“I—I’ll be right back,” she forced out, one hand over her mouth and the other on her stomach, before she bolted out of the private booth.
“W—What happened?!” Thea asked, completely taken aback.
“I… honestly have no idea,” Lucas replied, frowning slightly. “I hope she’ll be okay…?”
—
—
PoV: Evelyne Midra Sen
“Hurrgg…”
Another cramp tore through her stomach as she emptied it into the arcade bathroom sink yet again.
Evelyne’s eyes were wide open, her thoughts racing no matter how hard she tried to rein them in. Control—emotional, mental, physical—had completely slipped through her fingers.
‘She actually logged into her account. Right here. On the ship…!’
It should have been impossible. Doing that was a dead giveaway. There was no room for doubt anymore—whatever little doubt Evelyne had left was gone.
But that wasn’t what had broken her.
It was the realization that MMM had logged into her real account inside the ship’s DDS-based arcade.
‘The Sovereign knows…! It fucking knows. It knows…!’
The thought bounced around her head over and over, the sheer terror of it too much for her body to handle.
‘The fucking AI knows—but Thea isn’t getting any special treatment from the brass…! What the fuck is happening?!’
It made no sense.
If the Sovereign knew—and it absolutely did, because nothing inside the DDS functioned without its oversight—then why was Thea McKay still being treated like just another Recruit?
A standout Recruit, sure. A star, even.
But not the MissyMoonlightMayhem.
The AIs had an imperative. Their highest rule. One that could never be broken.
To serve the UHF’s long-term goals above all else.
‘So why the fuck is the Sovereign just letting Thea stumble around in the dark like this?!’
It didn’t add up. At all.
There were too many variables, too many possible explanations, but none of them fit cleanly together.
She retched again, a broken groan slipping out despite her training.
‘The Sovereign knows. But nobody else does. Why? Why? Why…?! If it knows but isn’t acting, does that mean Thea doesn’t matter in the bigger picture? But that’s impossible…! MMM—with the right tools—would change the war on her own. Everyone with half a brain knows that. So why—’
Her thoughts were cut short.
“I can provide muscle relaxants and something to calm you down, if you want,” said the ever-familiar voice of the Sovereign.
Dread—pure, unfiltered dread—washed through Evelyne at the sound of it.
‘It knows that I know,’ was the only thought left in her mind.
But refusing would have been unnatural. Suspicious.
“Yes… please,” she answered weakly.
A moment later, two injectors materialized in front of her.
‘Another hardcoded rule,’ she noted distantly. ‘The AIs can’t administer drugs or alter someone’s chemistry without consent—or a direct order…’
So Evelyne hesitantly picked them up and injected the promised relief herself, trying to buy a bit of time to think and try to make sense of what was happening.
But the Sovereign, clearly, had other plans.
“I am sure you have questions, Miss Sen. I will gladly answer them, but I must ask that—as per usual during our exchanges—you remain silent about them to anyone else,” the monotone, synthesized voice spoke again. “You are more than intelligent enough to understand that things like this do not happen by accident.”
She felt the muscle relaxants and calming agents begin to take effect, her shaking easing as she finally managed to pull herself somewhat back under control.
“I don’t really have a choice in this, do I?” she asked quietly.
The Sovereign did not respond.
The silence was all the answer she received—and all the answer she needed…
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 66 - Squad Time II
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 61 - System 102: Class Primer has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Today, I got something a bit different and special.
Firstly, it's my 30th Birthday, so I'm officially old-af now. I can feel my body decompose as I write this, my joints disintegrating, my back bending under the suddenly increased strain of gravity and my mind is slowing to a crawl... But I still got novels to write, so that'll have to wait.
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Secondly, I've been working on some stuff in my free time, whenever there wasn't ND or TAS to be written and the muse struck. And it just so happened to be finished yesterday, just in time for a birthday release.
So I present to you, a Reading Sample of a potential third novel!
You can read it (completely for free) over here: www.patreon.com/posts/148049880
I will not provide tags, hints as to what it's about or anything, as I want a fully neutral stance from anyone reading it and giving feedback on it. Just rest assured that it will feature a lot of Luna-typical aspects, such as pretty bleak world, some power shenanigans and, as always, quite a bit of enjoyable worldbuilding.
Please read the FAQ on the patreon post, before making any comments about stuff like "oh no, this will ruin TAS!" or whatever. It's all already covered in the pre-chapter author note on the Patreon post.
For feedback on the Reading Sample, please consider joining the discord and heading into the #other-novels chat. There's a thread there, specifically setup for TS feedback.
The Reading Sample is meant to gauge interest, gather feedback on the writing + world, as well as just present a general question of "What if I wrote this, would this be cool?". Please note that it will not become a third concurrent novel to ND and TAS anytime soon, as I simply do not have the time/energy for that. It's purely a Reading Sample to gather data/information.
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Lastly, as it's my Birthday, I figure it's as good as time as any to offer some kind of Q/A about my personal life, if anyone gives a shit.
So if you got any question about me, as a person, as an author, etc. that isn't directly related to TAS/ND (as those usually have their own Q/As, generally at the end of each Volume/Book), feel free to just post it in the comments below this chapter and I'll collect them for the next chapter's AN and answer them.
I have no idea if that's something anybody even cares about, but figured I'd offer in case somebody just REALLY needs to know what my shoe-size is, or whatever.
Feel free to ask about anything. I am a very open person when asked direct questions, so if you want to know how often I have bowels movements a day, what my favourite porn tags are or whatever the fuck else you really just can't live without knowing, just ask.
I have no problems with it.
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Finishing up all the DMs (except Thea's cause I need that one as a lead-in for the next one)!
Next chapter will focus on PV, Levels and the wrap-up for the squad party.
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LCieDA8IlTRmLLw-U6nHa18SZ3WTEEL5iKzsSnd0heA/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 66 - Squad Time II
“Colonel Harlan Vey,” the interviewer began, “thank you for joining us. I’ll get straight to it: A UHF world was lost. Command leadership was decapitated during an enemy offensive. And now we know there was a traitor involved. How could something like that happen?”
Colonel Vey did not bristle. He folded his hands on the table and answered calmly.
“Because spies and traitors are hard to catch. Harder than most people want to admit.”
The interviewer leaned in slightly. “Even with Faction Traits in play?”
“Especially with Faction Traits,” Vey replied without missing a beat. “There’s a popular idea that Traits make everything easy. That we can just point at someone and force the truth out of them. But that isn’t how reality works. Every activation of a Trait comes with a Merit cost. For us especially, but also for them. You can’t just burn Merit on every suspicion that crosses your desk—in extraordinary circumstances, we do. But not as a general rule. You’d be burning down your own army to embers before the first shot is even fired.”
“So you didn’t test them,” the interviewer said pointedly.
“We couldn’t,” Vey said. “Not at the scale required. Not responsibly.”
He continued before the next question could even come. “People also imagine that we can just put every Marine into the DDS and let the AIs sort things out over time. And… In theory, yes, if we have the time. In practice, however, the answer is simply: No. There are limits. You see, respawn chambers are finite. When a ship is en route to a Battlefield, we board tens of thousands of Marines along the way. Many of them never enter the DDS at all. They come aboard combat-ready days before deployment.
“Add to that, a large portion of UHF Navy personnel being Unintegrated and you have a large collection of people that you can’t simply Faction Trait check, even if you wanted to,” Vey said. “And even those who are Integrated often stay outside the DDS. Someone has to keep the ships running, after all. Someone has to manage the reactors, the engines, and calculate the jump windows.”
The interviewer nodded slowly. “So there are gaps.”
“There are realities,” Vey corrected gently. “Add Void Incursion response teams manned by our own Marines. Add long-term external deployments made up of both Marines, Navy and AD. Add the fact that the Allbright System enables some very dangerous Abilities for assassins and infiltrators. And suddenly you’re no longer looking for one failure point. You’re looking at thousands of moving parts that all need to be perfect, all the time.”
“But this time,” the interviewer said, “they weren’t.”
Vey exhaled. “This time, someone happened to choose the exact right path. The exact right moment. They snuck in, then struck at headquarters and cut the head off the chain, just when the chain was being pulled taut. It worked.”
The interviewer paused, then asked the question many were likely thinking. “So why should people still trust the UHF Marine Corps to handle things properly, if something like this happens?”
Vey looked straight into the camera. “Because you’re all hearing about it.”
The interviewer frowned. “Elaborate, if you would?”
“If failures like this were common,” Vey said, “they wouldn’t be news. They’d be statistics, and I wouldn’t be here to listen to your questions and give answers. The very fact that this incident is being dissected across the entire UHF right now tells you something important.”
“That your defences usually hold,” the interviewer said quietly, realisation dawning.
“I always knew you were one of the smart ones,” Vey confirmed with a smile and a nod. “It means that our preventive measures work far more often than they fail. We caught tens, even hundreds of thousands of threats you’ll never hear about. This one got through. And because it did, we are tearing the system apart to make sure it never happens the same way again.”
There was a short silence.
Then the interviewer asked, “And the battlegroups responsible for that planet?”
Vey’s jaw tightened, just slightly. “They didn’t die for nothing. And the person who betrayed them will not be remembered as clever. Only as temporary.”
—
[Excerpt from UHF Public Affairs Network – (Integrated) Interview Segment, PFC 924]
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Watching Karania’s DM recording was a completely different experience from Corvus’ or Lucas’ altogether.
Alpha Squad’s Medic offered a few pointers and comments here and there about what she had been doing at the time—such as certain medical procedures or explaining her thought process on certain triage decisions—but for the most part, the recording spoke for itself.
The only real constant was Isabella’s downright manic laughter at the sheer, utter apocalypse unfolding on the screen at any given moment—and Thea honestly couldn’t fault her for it.
‘The Faultline modifier really is insane,’ Thea had to admit after seeing it for herself. ‘Kara mentioned how rough it was, but this… is on a whole different level than what I had in mind…’
She had expected some rumbling, maybe the ground cracking open in places, rockcrete shifting up or down by half a meter here and there. What actually happened in the DM, though, was far beyond anything she had imagined—let alone thought realistic enough to be used in something as reality-close as a training mission.
While Karania’s point of view was often buried deep inside the bodies and organs of wounded Marines, seeing her best friend’s work from a first-person view was both terrifying and awe-inspiring at the same time.
But it was the moments between patients—when Karania lifted her eyes and took in the battlefield in search of the next target—that left the whole squad sitting in stunned silence; or manic laughter in the case of Isabella.
Not just because of the scale of the destruction, but also because of Karania’s freakishly precise situational awareness, even in the middle of all that apocalyptic chaos.
One moment in particular burned itself into Thea’s mind.
Karania’s view had burst out from behind a half-collapsed med-station just as the ground screamed beneath her boots. The earth didn’t shake so much as it ripped and teared—a deep, rolling crack splitting the street straight down the middle as if something massive underneath had decided it had finally had enough.
Rockcrete around her buckled, folded, then shattered into clouds of dust that swallowed the lower levels whole. Buildings simply seemed to implode inwards and then came down in chunks, entire facades shearing off and smashing into the streets and fighting Soldiers and Marines below.
Artillery thundered overhead at the same time, the concussive booms stacking on top of the seismic roars until it was hard to tell where the battlefield even ended and the planet’s wrath itself began.
Mortars walked their destruction across the ruins, Stellar Republic emplacements trading shots with Marines who were scrambling not just for cover, but for the few pieces of solid ground that still existed.
And Karania moved through it like she was dancing on a knife’s edge.
Her steps were light and impossibly steady—skirting cracks that widened into yawning chasms mere seconds later, vaulting over sinking slabs of street as they tilted away and then cracked into nothingness.
The HUD marker she was chasing flagged a Marine listed as “green,” mobile and uninjured, just ahead.
Thea had no idea how Karania had known this would happen, as she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary to indicate as such, but by the time Karania had reached the Marine in question, that status was no longer even remotely true.
A fresh collapse had come down only moments prior.
Several tons of shattered rockcrete and twisted durasteel rods had crushed the Marine against what had once been a wall. His vitals were spiking, then crashing, his body pinned so completely that only his helmet and one arm were visible beneath the rubble.
Karania didn’t even slow down at the sight.
She slid to her knees just as another shockwave rippled through the ground, debris raining down around her, hands already moving—injectors out, armour seals snapped, fingers morphing into medical tools one after another even as the world tried its best to kill them both.
Somewhere nearby, the roaring sound of rockcrete being torn apart by nature itself sounded and a chasm opened, swallowing an entire fireteam whole, their icons blinking out in the corner of Karania’s HUD as if they’d never existed.
And still, she worked without pause to free the Marine from his predicament.
Watching it, Thea felt her throat go dry.
This was pure, unfiltered mayhem.
The end of the world, happening again and again in every direction at once—and somehow Karania was running straight through it, carving out small pockets of survival in the middle of total collapse.
Ultimately, however, the recording and Karania’s run in the DM had ended with a fireteam of Stellar Republic soldiers catching Karania off-guard in yet another shattered section of the battlefield, where a small triage point had been set up.
They had slipped behind the UHF lines—if the ongoing chaos could even be called lines anymore—and hit the first-aid area hard.
Karania had been working on another Marine when she realized what was happening, but even with her insane situational awareness, she hadn’t been fast—or armored—enough to handle a full fireteam on her own, and definitely not in the middle of surgery.
“So… yeah. That was Faultline,” Karania said into the heavy silence once the recording ended. “I can only recommend it if you want some experience with pure chaos. I’m pretty sure you’d love this one, Isa.”
Isabella’s answer came in the form of loud, roaring laughter. “Absolutely! That looked like a fucking blast, holy shit! I’m honestly tempted to jump into one right after this and see if there’s a Faultline modifier available… My own DM was boring as fuck compared to that, damn!”
Corvus was the first to visibly react to the whole thing wrapping up, even if only non-verbal.
He simply nodded once, like he was filing the whole thing away for later.
Lucas, on the other hand, looked a bit pale.
He scratched the back of his neck and let out a low breath.
“I… don’t know if I’d last thirty minutes in something like that,” he admitted. “No cover, the ground trying to kill you, buildings falling over—it feels like the whole planet’s your enemy. And with my Super-Heavy armor, there’s no way I could get out of the way fast enough.”
He went quiet after that, staring at the frozen frame on the display, clearly lost in thought.
‘I’ll have to run a lot of drills with him once we start training in the arcade,’ Thea realized. ‘Super-Heavy types need that kind of practice more than anyone else, with all that extra weight. You can’t just trust the armour to tank everything for you in environments like that. It’s one of the main drawbacks of those armour types in the first place—that’ll be a lot of work…’
Desmond, however, was the one who surprised her the most—for what felt like the fifth time today.
“Honestly? That looked kind of amazing,” he said. “No stable sightlines, no predictable terrain, enemies everywhere… For drones, that’s a damn playground. So much vertical space, so many angles.”
He paused, then added, “I mean—yeah, terrifying. But still. I’d love to try it.”
That… actually made sense, Thea had to admit.
For a Drone Operator, a battlefield like that was practically tailor-made for highscores.
Karania stretched her arms over her head and broke the moment. “Oh, right—almost forgot. Friendlinks.” She grinned. “Got sixteen requests after that DM. I only accepted three.”
Corvus raised a brow. “Selective.”
“Naturally,” Kara said easily. “Two medics—both solid, knew what they were doing. And one Sergeant. Only Squad Leader in that whole mess that wasn’t completely hopeless.”
She rolled her eyes. “I missed you in there, Corv. A lot of those people should not be allowed near command… But here we are.”
Thea winced in sympathy.
Her thoughts drifted despite herself. ‘How would I have done in that DM…?’
Her Passive [Glimpse] would’ve warned her before the ground split open—at least most of the time—but actually fighting in that chaos?
Every engagement she’d seen had been extremely close.
A hundred meters, maybe less. Practically CQC range for all of them.
Finding clean lines of fire would’ve been almost impossible in that chaos—just the smoke from the mountains of debris alone would have made that tough, not even mentioning all the cover the broken buildings and chasms had created.
‘Still…’ She made a quiet mental note. ‘I should try a modifier next time. Faultline if possible, just to see how I’d deal with it all in the moment.’
Karania clapped her hands together. “Alright! Enough about my little adventures. Isa, you’re up, I’d say! You mentioned yours was boring…?”
Isabella groaned, dragging a hand down her face.
“Ugh. Fine! But don’t expect anything exciting,” she said. “Compared to whatever the fuck that was? Mine’s gonna look like a damn training sim.”
Still, she reached for the controls, and the squad settled back in for yet another review…
—
‘Well… she wasn’t wrong,’ Thea had to admit reluctantly after Isabella’s DM recap had finished. ‘That really wasn’t particularly exciting.’
Isabella’s DM, which by all accounts should have been exciting just by virtue of who Isabella was and what her Role involved, had somehow ended up being the least interesting of all the DMs they’d seen so far—by a wide margin.
It had been a Point Assault, with Isabella in a squad made up of two Offensive Heavies, a Defensive Heavy, two Supports, and a Squad Leader.
They were missing a Medic, but it hadn’t really mattered.
Everything had just… worked.
Like they were running a clean training sim, exactly like Isabella had described.
No surprise attacks, no sudden complications, no mistakes. The squad moved smoothly, covered each other perfectly, and pushed the objective without any real resistance.
For all intents and purposes, it had been a flawless mission—which made it painfully boring to watch.
“So yeah,” Isabella said with a sigh. “That was my DM. Just a simple Point Assault, nothing special going on. I linked with the whole squad, ‘cause, well, you saw them. They rocked. Honestly. Hoping we’ll get to that level as a squad too, someday.”
Corvus nodded with genuine excitement, somehow the only one who seemed to have gotten a lot out of it. “That was truly marvelous… I’d like the full recording later, if you don’t mind, Isabella. There’s just so much to learn from it all…!”
Isabella gave him a slightly strange look, but agreed anyway, before quickly shifting gears.
“Well then,” she added, grinning. “I guess it’s time for our grumpy Drone Operator to go next. We’re clearly saving the best for last, even if nobody’s saying it out loud.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at Thea, who could only roll her eyes in response.
‘How was I supposed to know my first DM would turn into a fucking upscale…’
Aside from Kara, nobody actually knew what had happened during it, barring that fact—but judging by the energy in the room, they were all very interested to find out. Somehow, without anyone really mentioning it out loud, Thea had ended up with the unofficial final act of the entire review session.
Desmond, meanwhile, leaned forward at Isabella’s cue, looking far more animated than Thea was used to seeing him.
“Okay, uh—no promises that this tops Kara’s apocalypse,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “but it was definitely not as ass-boring as Isabella’s.”
Isabella snorted, rolling her eyes. “Low bar.”
He grinned, then added more seriously, “Heads up, though. This one might be rough to follow if you’re not a Drone Operator. Or if your Perception’s kinda low.”
Thea almost asked what he meant—but then the recording started, and the answer became obvious immediately.
Instead of a single point of view, the screen split into four.
Desmond’s own perspective sat in the center, while three additional windows bloomed around it, each showing the feed from a different drone.
They moved independently—one skimming low over rubble, another climbing in a slow spiral, a third darting between broken structures—each camera tilting, rotating, and adjusting on its own.
“What am I even supposed to look at?” Lucas groaned barely a minute in.
“My eyes hurt,” Isabella added. “This is bullshit.”
Karania and Corvus fared a bit better, but both looked strained, utterly focused and remained silent, brows furrowed as they tried to keep up with all of the perspectives.
Thea blinked, surprised to find that she could actually follow it fairly easily.
Not perfectly, but more than well enough.
Her eyes jumped between feeds without much effort, piecing together how the drones overlapped, how Desmond used them to build a moving picture of the battlefield and even started getting an idea for how Desmond liked to position them around him in a sort of overlapping triangle to keep his own back in view at all times as well.
Judging by the chorus of complaints around her, that acumen probably wasn’t normal.
‘I guess that’s thanks to my Perception… And having dealt with varying picture-in-picture’s in a lot of the games before. Nothing quite as intense as this, but it probably doesn’t hurt.’
After a few more minutes of suffering, Desmond cleared his throat.
“Okay, yeah, that’s on me.”
With a few quick inputs, he collapsed the extra views, only pulling them up when they mattered.
The collective relief in the room was immediate.
The rest of the DM settled into a clearer rhythm after that.
It was a Point Defense, focused on a singular compound, with Desmond feeding constant recon to his squad—calling out flanking units, marking incoming armor, sending drones out as bait once the enemy started digging in. When things got messy, his drones slipped behind enemy lines, forcing repositioning and buying space for the Marines to breathe.
The three-dimensional vantage point the drones provided wasn’t just great for gathering information, however.
Desmond was also using their flanking routes and strange angles to pick off high-value targets—such as Duplicators—that could be spotted far earlier thanks to the drones’ enhanced camera systems.
Alpha Squad’s Drone Operator had also clearly upgraded his kit since the Assessment too.
Thea was fairly sure he hadn’t even had half of these tools back then.
The first thing that really caught her eye was a probability-matrix overlay built into each drone’s camera, estimating how likely a given Stellar Republic enemy was to be a Duplicator based on movement patterns and positioning.
It was all genuinely impressive, especially considering this was still early Tier 1 tech—and without any advanced Drone Operator Class backing it up.
Watching it unfold, Thea couldn’t help but imagine how different her own DM would have been if an Operator like this had been on the other side.
‘I would’ve had way less freedom to move,’ she thought grimly. ‘Drone Operators really are terrifying… I should put them extremely high on my to-kill list going forward… Not that they weren’t already near the top, but this definitely cements it.’
At around the eighty percent mark through the DMs recording, Desmond suddenly reactivated all of the drone feeds alongside his own view, a smug, almost giddy grin spreading across his face.
“Hold on—don’t complain yet,” he said quickly, holding up a hand when Isabella was already half-opening her mouth. “Just… watch. All of it. There’s something here I haven’t mentioned.”
The recording ran for a few minutes before Desmond paused it, rewound, and let the same stretch play again.
“I can loop this as many times as you want,” he added. “Take your time.”
Thea straightened immediately, her earlier half-focus fully locking in on the screen.
Something about one of the drone feeds had tugged at her the first time through—a faint, uncomfortable itch in the back of her mind, that she couldn’t quite place.
This time, she locked onto that specific POV, still keeping the others in her peripheral vision.
“This is bullshit,” Isabella grumbled. “My eyes hurt…”
The room went dead quiet as the footage played.
Explosions. Suppressive fire. Marines advancing, then falling back and letting the Stellar Republic come to them.
“What the—” Lucas swore under his breath. “I can’t even tell where I’m supposed to look!”
Then—
Thea’s eyes widened.
Two Marines went down. Dropping like they’d been punched straight through the chest.
But the shots from the Stellar Republic’s side hadn’t actually hit them. They’d been caught by the hard cover in front of the Marines—barely—but still stopped.
Yet the Marines collapsed anyway.
Corvus frowned, jaw tight as he tried to isolate each feed one at a time.
Karania, though, went eerily still. Her eyes widened just a fraction at the second death.
That was enough.
Thea spoke before the moment slipped—feeling a sharp spike of adrenaline at finally catching something before Kara did, just this once.
“Desmond,” she said, eyes still locked on the screen. “Did you queue into an Infiltrator DM?”
He blinked at her, clearly caught off guard.
“There’s a Traitor in your lines,” she continued, finally meeting his eyes and watching him flinch. “Isn’t there?”
For a second, Desmond just stared at her, mouth half open.
Then he sagged back with a sigh. “Yeah. I did. And… yeah, there is.”
He rubbed his face. “I honestly didn’t expect anyone to catch it that fast. Kinda ruins what I was going for a bit...”
His eyes flicked back to Thea, equal parts impressed and annoyed. “Your Perception is fucking disgusting, you know that?”
He quickly lifted a finger. “—In a good way! In a good way. I’m not starting shit, I swear.”
Turning to the rest of the squad, he added, “I didn’t say anything on purpose, just to see if you’d catch it naturally. I only managed to pin them down near the end of the DM, and that was with two drones actively hunting the whole damn time. Rooting out a good Infiltrator is fucking hard. Like… really hard. If the DM parameters hadn’t told me there was one, I don’t think I would’ve ever realized it at all.”
Desmond pulled the recording back a few seconds and slowed it down, isolating the exact moments Thea had pointed out. He highlighted the two fallen Marines, overlaying projectile paths and impact markers as the footage crawled forward frame by frame.
This time, it was impossible to miss.
The incoming fire struck the cover. Clean hits. No penetration. No ricochet.
And yet—both Marines still collapsed, almost in sync, bodies jerking as if something invisible had passed straight through them.
“Yeah,” Desmond muttered, voice low, a little grim now that the reveal was out. “There. That’s the tell.”
He switched feeds, pulling up one of the drone POVs Thea had been instinctively drawn to.
The drone hovered high, angled just enough to catch movement behind friendly lines—subtle, deliberate repositioning that didn’t quite match the rhythm of the ongoing firefight.
“Watch this angle,” he said, scrubbing back again. “Not the enemies of course, but our guys.”
They watched as a single UHF Marine shifted positions between volleys, always just out of direct sight, always close enough to be plausible. The next playback showed the same Marine adjusting again, moments before another “impossible” death.
Lucas let out a slow breath. “That’s… fucked.”
Isabella leaned forward, elbows on her knees, eyes narrowed. “Sneaky bastard.”
Karania nodded, as if approving, “Very clean work. Whoever that was knew exactly what they were doing, damn.”
Desmond let the recording continue.
A few minutes later, his drones tightened their search patterns, one peeling off from recon to linger just a little too long near that same Marine.
Then, a thermal spike. A delay in return fire at enemy lines that didn’t line up with the thermal spike and a half-second of movement that didn’t make sense in normal combat.
“Aaand there,” Desmond said, a hint of pride creeping into his voice despite himself. “That’s when I knew. Drones picked up the inconsistency first, but after that, it was just a matter of confirmation and passing the intel up the chain.”
The footage ended with the traitor being marked, boxed in by a squad of Marines, and quietly eliminated once command was notified.
The DM summary flashed across the display a second later.
[MVP Award – Awarded for: Intelligence Superiority]
Desmond leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck, cheeks just a little red. “So… yeah. Turns out that’s part of why we actually won the DM. Caught the traitor before they could do any more damage.”
For a heartbeat, the room was quiet.
Then Lucas grinned. “That’s huge, man.”
Corvus nodded. “Textbook example of why intel wins wars. Well done, Desmond. You’r really starting to fill out that role of yours, eh?”
Isabella gave him a firm clap on the shoulder, leaning far over the couch. “Didn’t think I’d ever say this, but—glad to see your drones are good for other things than just comedic relief.”
Desmond ducked his head, clearly pleased despite trying not to show it. “Yeah, uh… I got a bunch of Friendlink requests after that, too. Didn’t really know what to do with them though.”
He shrugged. “I accepted two. A Sergeant and a Corporal. Both seemed solid. Figured I’d at least keep them on the radar.”
Corvus’s smile sharpened just a touch. “Smart. Very smart.”
Desmond hesitated, then added, a little sheepish, “I’ll… probably pay more attention to that stuff going forward. You all kinda made a good point earlier, honestly.”
Then he turned, smirk sliding back into place as his eyes landed on Thea.
He kicked one ankle up over his knee and gestured lazily toward the display.
“Alright,” he said with a sigh. “Enough about me, I guess. I think it’s time we see whatever absolute bullshit Miss Nonsense over here managed to pull this time around.”
Thea snorted, rolling her eyes, but she didn’t miss the easy tone in his voice—or the fact that it didn’t sting at all.
“Wow. Rude,” she said dryly. “I’ll have you know my bullshit was very carefully thought out this time. And I had Squad Medic approval!”
“Not fucking mine,” came Karania’s immediate, icy response.
It made Thea flinch, but she did her best to ignore the bite in it. A few chuckles rippled through the room, and Thea felt a small, unexpected warmth settle in her chest.
Getting teased like this felt… normal. Even if it was Desmond doing it.
She’d dealt with all kinds of people back in Terra’s games, after all.
‘Teasing and ribbing is just part of the game,’ she thought with a faint smile. ‘And honestly… this feels like the right level of camaraderie for someone like him.’
She finished setting up her DM recording, then cleared her throat. “So… apparently DMs can upscale. Who knew, huh?”
“I did,” Isabella said immediately.
“Yep. Knew that,” Desmond added.
“It was in the post-lecture materials…? Why wouldn’t we know?” Lucas asked, genuine confusion on his face.
“Would be pretty irresponsible for an Alpha Squad member not to know, really,” Corvus noted, shooting Thea a pointed look.
Karania—ever-loyal, dependable and trustworthy Karania—was the only one Thea knew would back her up.
“Well, Thea didn’t, ‘cause she’s an idiot,” Karania said, instantly crushing that hope.
“Anyway!” Thea cut in, much louder than needed.
“Upscaled missions are kind of insane. And I might have spent a bit too long testing different weapons before I realized just how bad it was gonna get, so—uh—let’s just start watching, yeah?”
And with that, under a mix of scrutiny, amusement, and mild exasperation from the rest of the squad, Thea started the recording of her own DM…
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[FREE | Reading Sample] TS - Chapter 0 - Alpha
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Today, we got something a bit different.
I'm fairly sick today, but I managed to finally finish up this Reading Sample for a potential new story, that I've been working on for the past few weeks.
To hopefully pre-empt some questions that might come up:
No, this will not replace TAS.
No, this will not replace ND.
No, it will not be a third novel alongside the other two anytime soon, as I'm maxed-out on energy/time capacity for writing with those.
Yes, it is something I'm considering as a third novel for the future, hence the Reading Sample.
No, I didn't write this today, as I'm sick. I just finished up the last few paragraphs and edited some parts to make it flow better. It was already 98% done.
Yes, consider this an early birthday gift of mine to y'all, as I'm turning 30 in around 5 1/2 hours. So... Wooho, I guess.
No, I will not tell you what TS means, but savvy ones will figure it out based on the chapter.
------
Now, with all that out of the way, I ask that you go into this with an open mind and just take it for what it is.
I will not provide a genre-tag or anything of the sorts, as I want the writing to speak for itself.
Provide feedback either here or in the #other-novels discord channel for now. We do not have a TS-specific section in the discord yet and likely won't for a while.
I'm particularly looking for feedback on whether you are interested in a continuation based off of this initial Reading Sample, and specifically what parts got you really interested (if at all).
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14fswifjZo_B3oOOw-ROyBTVr3TNwz-Ez3e9JQVuFZ60/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 0 - Alpha
High-pitched ringing in my ears. Blurry vision.
Half-dried tears of panic, sorrow, and fear mixed with the ashen concrete dust in the air was clinging to my face.
I couldn’t feel my arms, but I just had to keep going regardless.
‘One… Two… One… Two…’
Chest compressions.
Keep the oxygen flowing into her brain to prevent permanent brain damage.
Everything else could be fixed later.
‘How long have I been at this…?’
I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter.
My fingers, wrists, and arms had long since lost all feeling from forcing my whole, meager bodyweight into every compression, but that was okay.
I just had to keep going until help arrived. Then everything would be okay.
‘One… Two… One… Two…’
Patchwork. Stitches. Pharmacist. Hygeia. Panacea. Isis…
So many of them could—Any of them could fix this.
It was going to be okay.
She had said so herself, and she would never lie to me. She never had. She never would.
And she had specifically said it was going to be okay, so who was I to think otherwise.
My eyes were unfocused, only half-catching colors through the ashen cloud around us. Red and orange licks of flame were the only color breaking through—well, not quite.
‘One… Two… One… Two…’
Crimson was the other color.
The pool beneath me spread further and further with every compression.
‘Am I just pumping out her blood by doing this…? She’s going to bleed out like this, isn’t she…?’ The thought came slowly, but what else was I supposed to do?
The concrete slab that had once been the floor above us had fallen onto her lower half, completely smashed it, and separated her into two parts—if the part below the slab was even still anything that resembled a human.
‘I don’t think I’m supposed to see your organs like this…’ Another unbidden thought surfaced as my eyes drifted toward the surprisingly pink, sausage-like intestines in front of me. ‘How are you going to take part in the tournament if those are on the outside…? That’s not how humans work, you silly goose…’
A hysterical chuckle escaped my raw throat.
‘One… Two… One… Two… One… Two… One… Two…’
—
—
Hours earlier.
Staring out the window, bored out of my damn mind while listening to the Professor drone on about superhero law, ethics, and morals was, as usual, the only thing keeping me sane in the university classroom.
Not that there was much to see outside, given the campus had been built right in the middle of the business district of Haekoz. And considering it was the third-largest city on the whole damn Nova Terrae continent, that meant lots and lots of skyscrapers blocking the view in every direction.
So what was it that I was looking at?
Nothing.
A whole bunch of nothing, just letting my eyes unfocus and my thoughts drift, as was my usual state for most of every day in this miserable school.
‘Whoever came up with the idea of rote memorization being a hard-set requirement for success in life should be strung up, have their feet cut off and—’
“Triss, are you thinking about brutal murder again?” a whispered voice interrupted from my right. “I know that look on your face, you know?”
I slowly turned toward Sadie, hitting her with the strongest blank-faced expression I could muster—which wasn’t very hard, since that was my standard resting bitch face anyway.
“I don’t have a look like that.”
“But you were thinking about it, weren’t you?”
I cringed at the fact that she had me there—again. It was truly infuriating how Sadie always knew how to get one over on me, no matter what.
“Still don’t have a look…” I muttered, my voice losing the strength to really fight her claim halfway through the sentence.
Her giggle, hidden behind her hand so the Professor wouldn’t catch us talking in the middle of his lecture, made her wavy brown hair bounce, just like it always did. “Sure, if you say so, Princess.”
I rolled my eyes at that.
“Not a Princess either, you weirdo.”
Sadie had started calling me that over the last few months, just to piss me off.
And, naturally, it was working.
I had never been particularly great at controlling my temper when it came to her ribbing, but I couldn’t really hold it against her—I did the same thing to her all the time, after all.
And she was my best—and only real—friend, so I couldn’t exactly go nuclear on her every time she pissed me off. It was a damn miracle she had even stuck around all these years, when everyone else had rightly seen me for what I truly was: An unrepentant asshole.
Now, Princess? That one was, as mentioned, a relatively new development.
Sadie had really dug deep into my insecurities about food to come up with that one, equating me to some medieval princess or an old-money nepobaby just because I had very particular likes and dislikes.
‘So what if I don’t like most meat, barring the most expensive cuts…? And I do love chicken, which is quite literally the cheapest damn meat out there!’
It had all started simply because I hadn’t liked any of the seafood at the Nova Terrae Seaside Festival we had visited just a few months prior, barring the one king crab gratin she had won in a raffle—and it just so happened to be the most expensive item at the whole festival.
Not really a reason to call me a Princess now, was it?
“Yes, your majesty,” Sadie replied dutifully with a horrible, seated half-bow.
“It’s Royal Highness, actually. Majesty is only used for kings and que—” I stopped myself short, the horrifying realization of my instinctive correction hitting me square in the face as Sadie’s grin stretched wider, her green eyes sparkling with mirth. “Don’t even fucking—”
“But of course, your Royal Highness! This lowly peasant scum apologises profusely for using the wrong term of address! Please, have mercy, your most frightful and merciful of Royal Highnesses! It was merely a slip of the tongue by a nobody—a truest of peasants, verily!”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, Sadie’s giggles the only thing keeping me from losing my temper—I had always loved the way she laughed when she had to be quiet like this.
“I swear to god, Sadie, I will—”
“Miss Magnus, you seem particularly eager to have a conversation today. Why don’t you join us in ours and give us your take on the posed question of today’s discussion?” the Professor’s pointed words cut off my not-yet-spoken promise of pain and hellfire.
My head snapped up immediately, my eyes flicking to the large blackboard as I quickly read the words written there, reminding myself where I even was.
‘Right. Superhero Law & Ethics,’ I realized at once.
Now, while I had been spacing out and bullshitting with Sadie, it wasn’t like I could just stop hearing the constant droning of a university lecture hall. It was a steady stream of noise, fueled by the professor and the rest of my classmates, that I couldn’t really block out, so it got shoved into the part of my brain that didn’t actively try to be bored.
So I already had an answer prepared, since my natural inclination to know better than everyone else didn’t really allow me not to.
“Well, Professor Euan, when it comes to a Hero’s responsibilities in the eyes of the law, they aren’t required to provide immediate aid to every person they see, if there’s a larger loss of life or danger present.”
Everyone should have been able to follow that; it had been covered several times in previous lectures.
“Ethically however, leaving a mother to bleed out in front of her children might rub some people the wrong way, but really, would you all rather have another ten or twenty people die because the Hero had to help some soccer mom first? It only makes logical sense to prioritize stopping the Villain or Monster to prevent further loss of life first.”
That clearly rubbed some people the wrong way, as several hands shot up at once and quiet murmurs spread through the hall.
“Thank you, Miss Magnus,” the Professor replied, nodding as he added a note to the blackboard, writing down the legal basis for my argument—Paragraph Four, Section 7B of the Hero Code. “I would appreciate it if you were more forthcoming with your input in my class. Your participation is always of high quality, and there’s no reason for me to have to call on you specifically to hear your opinions.”
“Yes, Professor,” I replied dutifully, as I had so many times before.
I shot Sadie a scorching side-eye, since this was all undeniably her fault, which only seemed to make her even more giddy as she hid from the Professor’s view behind her tablet.
“Now, as Miss Magnus has rightfully pointed out, the law does indeed give Heroes carte blanche when it comes to responsibility for individual lives in a crisis situation. The Hero Code, as originally ratified by the One World Council of 1996 and still in its newest form as of three months ago, places the general greater good above that of individuals in just about every instance. This has been considered a legal necessity, to give Heroes the freedom to act in the best possible way during a crisis without the constant threat of lawsuits at every turn.”
He drew a long dividing line beneath the paragraph I had referenced, then slapped the lower part of the blackboard with his hand, the loud meat-on-blackboard clap echoing through the hall.
“Now, ethically? That’s where things become tricky, as Miss Magnus has also pointed out. And I can see quite a few of you would like to offer some counterarguments, so why don’t we start with… you, Mister Felt.”
I had to seriously hold back a groan, mostly because the hall had gone unusually quiet after the slap, and I knew it would echo through the whole damn room if I didn’t, when fucking Fabius got called on to argue against my earlier words.
“Perfect,” Sadie snickered from my right, and I instinctively stabbed her in the ribs with my index finger, earning a high-pitched squeak that made half the class turn to look at her, the Professor included.
“Sorry! Hiccups!” she blurted out at once, slinking lower in her seat to slip out of everyone’s line of sight.
Sadie shot me a look from the corner of her eye, equal parts mock-offended and annoyed, her lips twitching as if she was fighting a grin. She made a small, exaggerated rubbing motion over her ribs, then pointed two fingers at her eyes and back at me in a silent promise of revenge.
I met it with the faintest smirk.
She had been utterly outmaneuvered. Outplayed, even. My clear intellectual supremacy had been proven once again, achieved through nothing but superior wit and guile.
But I didn’t even get a full second to enjoy it.
“Well, I personally think—” Fabius’ grating voice cut in, instantly souring my mood, echoing through the lecture hall as he straightened in his seat. “If I were a Hero, I’d obviously help the soccer mom in that situation. I mean, if a Hero can’t even protect a single mother, then what are they really good for? This whole ‘greater good’ thing just sounds like an excuse for—”
That was about where I stopped listening, which was already far longer than I should have bothered.
Fabius never had anything worthwhile to say, just about ever.
He was the most bootlicking, holier-than-thou white knight to ever walk the earth when it came to ethical opinions.
Still, Professor Euan knew that letting the moron speak his mind was a good way to spark discussion, since just about everyone else had a more qualified take than Fabius Felt—and they knew it.
I turned my head back toward the window, letting my eyes glaze over as the city blurred into meaningless shapes and colors once more. My thoughts drifted with it, detaching entirely from the lecture, the hall, and Fabius’ voice. The faint reflection of my neon-cyan coloured, shoulder-length hair—courtesy of one of Sadie’s dares a few months prior—and my bright amber eyes were the only splashes of color that really registered for the rest of the lecture.
I stayed like that, half-present at best, until the bell finally rang and mercifully ended my suffering. We filed out with the rest of the class once the bell rang, the usual shuffle of bodies filling the aisle.
Grabbing my bag took all of two seconds—I just dropped my tablet into it, untouched and innocent of any notes whatsoever. Sadie slung her own bag over her shoulder with far more enthusiasm than the situation deserved, already talking as we stepped into the hall.
We walked through the corridors of Haekoz’ Central Minerva University, our voices blending into the low buzz of students moving around.
She talked about her plans for the rest of the day.
I talked about mine… Which was to say, absolutely nothing.
That answer annoyed her almost immediately.
“Oh come on,” she said, bumping my shoulder with hers. “You can’t seriously be planning to do nothing again, Triss.”
“I absolutely can,” I replied. “And I’m very good at it, thank you very much.”
That, apparently, was unacceptable.
By the time we reached the exit, she had already decided I was coming with her to the mall.
She needed new sportswear for PE classes and the upcoming tournament, and since she was a complete sports freak—especially when it came to volleyball—this was naturally treated as a matter of great importance.
I put up some token resistance. Nothing heartfelt. Just enough to feel like I’d tried.
I didn’t really want to say no, but I also didn’t feel like saying yes, as per usual.
Sadie, of course, saw right through that.
The moment she offered to buy me ice cream, my resolve crumbled completely.
“Traitor,” I chastised my own stomach and brain, letting her win.
Plans finalized, I let her drag me across the parking lot to her car—an old red, mildly cube-shaped Volkswagen from somewhere around 2020, give or take a year or five.
I had no idea what model it was, except that it wasn’t the new 2033 model that had just been announced like a week ago.
But it was red, it had doors, and it ran—usually.
That was the full extent of my automotive knowledge and the full extent of knowledge that was required to know that if I sat inside it, I would get to the place I wanted—or didn’t want—to be.
She drove us toward the mall, humming to herself as if she’d already won something as she was wont to do, and I allowed myself a contented smile at that.
Seeing Sadie happy was one of the few things in life that were worth it, after all.
The mall we were heading towards sat just outside Haekoz’ business district, about twenty minutes from the university, and it was quite literally impossible to miss.
It towered over everything around it, clearly designed to be the tallest thing in the area, and likely chosen to be placed outside the business district for that very reason.
Huge glass facades caught and reflected the daylight, and right in the center stood a massive, golden-coloured statue of Immortal Phalanx, Haekoz’ pride and joy, local-grown Superhero, looming over the entrance like a challenge to anyone who dared ignore it.
“You think he’s actually immortal?” I asked absent-mindedly, nodding toward the giant statue we were slowly approaching as we followed the main street to the mall.
Sadie hummed in thought for a second, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, then shrugged. “Would be kinda shit if he was, wouldn’t it? Like, who even wants to live forever?”
I chuckled and nodded along. “True, true. Immortality’s more of a curse than a blessing and all that… But seriously, there’s gotta be a way to kill him, right?”
I didn’t need to look at Sadie to know she was rolling her eyes at me.
“You and your need to figure out how to kill things,” she said. “If I didn’t know your morbid ass better, I’d almost be worried you were planning to become a Supervillain with all those ‘hypotheticals’ and ‘thought experiments’ about murdering our Heroes and local guardians on a regular basis.”
“I do it for Villains and Monsters too,” I pointed out. If we were already listing my theoretical skills, it was only right to be thorough. “And you still haven’t answered the question.”
Sadie went quiet for a moment, which I immediately recognized as her actually thinking.
She always fell into this strange, silent focus whenever she really considered something with that huge brain of hers.
My eyes drifted from the side of her face, taking in her sense of fashion and athletic build for what they were.
I couldn’t really compare.
Sports were too much hassle for me, and so was fashion.
Things that shaped how other people saw me weren’t exactly high on my list of priorities, no matter how hard Sadie tried to change that.
Honestly though, I was fine with my average-ass, slightly underfed body. I was a lot paler than her lightly tanned skin, since I didn’t do outdoor sports like she did, but that was about the main difference between us in that regard.
So, really, we were basically the same person—aside from our hair, fashion sense, athleticism, social life, general outlook, and the fact that she knew how to drive a car.
Which I also didn’t.
My eyes got hung up on her huge chest, as they so often did when I compared myself with her.
‘Well… almost the same person,’ I told myself, very deliberately not looking down at my own slightly-below-average chest. ‘And she’s wearing a damn sports bra, too…’
Some things in life just weren’t fair. I had accepted that a long time ago.
This was one of them.
“There absolutely is a way to kill him,” Sadie finally said. “If someone really tried, I mean. There’s no way there isn’t. Nothing’s truly immortal. Not even after the Convergence.”
She glanced up at the statue briefly. “Not a single Power has ever come close to real immortality. Not the ultra-durable types, not the self-healers, not even the hardcore regenerators. They all have limits. They all fail eventually. Somehow, somewhere.”
She snorted softly. “So yeah, I seriously doubt Immortal Phalanx lives up to the name. It’s way more likely it’s just marketing. The World Hero Association does that all the time.”
She kept talking, unsurprisingly warming to the subject matter—after all, who didn’t love theorizing about heroes and their powers? “Hero names are meant to do two things: Tell people what they roughly do, so relevant information spreads fast in an emergency—and scare the hell out of Villains. And what’s scarier than a muscle-bound Greek-soldier-looking guy who can hit like a top-tier Striker and is supposedly more immortal than the most top-tier Tanks and Brawlers?”
I nodded along, offering a “Not much.”
Her analysis was spot-on, in my opinion.
I’d thought about this more than just a few times myself.
Something that was truly immortal just didn’t fit with how I saw the universe.
Which meant Immortal Phalanx had to be mortal; there was no other option.
How you’d actually kill him, though? Yeah. No idea.
And if I did know, I could probably retire forever by anonymously selling that information to Supervillains or Villain groups—right before getting murdered by their inevitable betrayal, or hunted down by the WHA for exposing their biggest trick.
And it wasn’t like Immortal Phalanx was the only so-called “immortal” Hero out there, either.
There were seven, as far as the world knew. One on each continent.
North America. South America. Europe. Africa. Asia. Australia. And, of course, Nova Terrae.
Almost like that distribution was intentional.
Logically speaking, it was obvious: What was more likely? That the Convergence and subsequent births and evolution had just happened to create an almost-immortal Hero on every single continent, nice and evenly spread out—or that the WHA was bullshitting the entire world about their capabilities?
I knew exactly where my money would go on the betting sites for that one.
Ultimately, the conversation tapered off after that, and we settled into a comfortable silence, humming along to the radio instead.
It was one of my favorite things about Sadie.
For all her habit of filling silence with words to try and drag me out of my shell, she could read the room better than anyone I had ever met. She always knew exactly when I just wanted to relax and listen to music for a bit—or stare into the void for an hour or two.
That brief moment of peace ended when we finally arrived at the mall.
‘Time to burn through my social battery making sure I don’t scream at random people walking too slowly in front of me…’
Sadie took point, as was her way, being the one who’d insisted on coming here in the first place.
She dragged me through the crowds of people straight toward her favorite sportswear store.
The large “SuperStretch” logo above the entrance, done in a sleek orange-and-black contrast, was definitely eye-catching.
Sadie shopped for her PE clothes while I spent most of the time on my phone, not particularly interested in buying anything for myself—not that I had the money for it anyway.
Sadie was one of the lucky ones with well-off parents.
Not rich, exactly, but comfortable enough that their one and only daughter never had to worry about something as trivial as not having enough money for new PE clothes, even though she’d bought new ones just last year.
Me? I got to enjoy the fun side effects of a declining world economy, as late-stage capitalism continued to grind on.
You’d think a near-cataclysm like the Convergence—something that had almost wiped several continents off the map—would’ve pushed people to band together and become more united.
It hadn’t.
The ultra-rich had simply consolidated even more of the wealth they’d started hoarding back in the 2010s and 2020s. So now, in 2033, around forty years after the initial Appearance had brought Powers and Monsters to Earth’s doorstep, they were more influential and powerful than ever before.
“Truly, the joys of capitalism…” I muttered under my breath, which Sadie somehow still managed to hear, despite looking completely enthralled by the sports bra in her hands.
“Lamenting the state of the world again, Triss?” she half-joked, knowing full well this wasn’t really funny to me, so she kept the teasing light. “Nothing we can really do about it, unfortunately.”
“Heroes could. If they gave a single shit,” I shot back immediately.
This was well-trodden ground for us, and I really didn’t feel like getting into it again, but I couldn’t stop my blood from boiling at the thought.
“Rich fuckers are ruining the planet, and we’ve got literal Captain Planets running around doing fuck-all to stop them. What’s the point of having a Power if you’re not using it to actually do something useful for humanity? You can squash as many Incursions as you want, but you’ll never do more good than ripping one of those parasitic trillionaires in half.”
“Well, first of all, heroes aren’t allowed to use their Powers on non-Powereds without consent, so there’s problem number one,” Sadie replied logically, turning the bra in her hand and testing its flexibility on the side. “Second, heroes aren’t meant to go around killing people. That’s what makes them not supervillains, actually. And lastly—and I know this will come as a real shock to you—murder is illegal.”
She put on a fake look of surprise for that last bit.
“Everything’s illegal except causing the deaths of millions in the pursuit of the imaginary green graph going up. I know,” I replied, leaning against one of the pillars and resting the back of my head on it, trying to cool my temper. “Haa… Listen, it’s not like I actually want them dead. But it’d sure help if anyone with even a shred of power—actual Power or political power—would stand up for the little guy even once. How hard is it to put a damn tax on those leeches so they don’t suck everything dry? Or some real regulation so they can’t just poison the planet for the sake of a line going up.”
I exhaled sharply feeling the fight leave me. “Murder’s obviously not the answer, but… fuck, what else is there? It’s been like this for over three decades, Sadie. I’m twenty-four now, and I don’t even know a world where this wasn’t the case. Is this really what I get to look forward to? Being a wage slave so some parasite at the top can own fourteen superyachts with anti-Monster tech and cruise oceans nobody else can even access?”
Sadie put the sports bra she’d been looking at back and stepped a little closer to me, giving me a look that was half serious, half pitying.
I didn’t mind the pity in her eyes. My outlook on life had never really deserved anything else.
“Listen, Triss. Isn’t that exactly why we’re studying Hero Law?” she asked, her voice kind and soothing in just the right way to drain the last bits of anger out of me.
“Yeah… So we can sue the shit out of them for not doing their jobs properly,” I replied with a sigh, echoing our battle-cry that had gotten us into the educational path we had chosen.
A smile spread across her face as she nodded. “That’s exactly right. And don’t forget it. Heroes can only be heroes because there are laws telling them what they can and can’t do. So if they start fucking around? We’ll be there to make them find out. And who knows—maybe we can even find loopholes in the current laws to push heroes into dealing with some of the longer-standing problems in the world, huh?”
A small smile finally broke through on my face too. I just couldn’t stay angry when Sadie was trying this hard to cheer me up, especially over something so… pointless.
It wasn’t a new argument, and it wasn’t a new thing for me to be mad about.
But Sadie always knew exactly what to say to pull me out of my heavier moods.
It was what I loved her for, really.
“Speaking of studying,” Sadie shifted topics without missing a beat. “You really need to stop spacing out so much during lectures. You could crush every single class if you actually used your brain on things that didn’t involve getting mad about stuff you can’t change or thinking about murder. You let trash like Fabius get good grades instead of you. Why?”
“Haaa…” I let out a long breath, deflating a little. “I just don’t get how you can stay engaged through the fifteenth discussion of the same issues and hypotheticals. Especially with morons like Fabius talking out of their asses the whole time. ‘Well, I would’ve saved everyone,’ like, come the fuck on.”
Sadie laughed at my impression of Fabius’ grating voice.
“It’s easy if you just tune them out,” she said with a shrug that sent her hair bouncing. “You don’t really have to engage with what they’re saying, as long as you catch the general gist. And Professor Euan already likes you, so all you’d really need to do is speak up on your own once or twice. You didn’t used to be this broody, you know?”
I ran a hand through my hair, stalling while I tried to figure out how to answer that.
I truly hadn’t always been this broody.
But maybe that was just what living in a world with no real future for someone like me looked like. Once you were old enough to understand you were fucked no matter what you did, the broodiness just came with it, like a free refill.
“Just life, I guess,” was the best way I could put that grim thought into words.
Sadie sighed softly, clearly not convinced.
“See, that right there? That defeatist crap is exactly why you keep failing things you have no business failing,” she said. “It’s like you get stuck in this negative spiral and just keep digging deeper into it, convincing yourself you’re already—”
A low rumble rolled through the base of my skull.
I frowned, my thoughts derailing as the vibration lingered for a split second too long.
“Did you feel th—”
The world exploded.
A deafening crack tore through the mall as the roof gave way, concrete and steel collapsing in a violent, thunderous roar. Dust blasted through the air, swallowing everything in choking gray, and I was thrown hard against the pillar I’d been leaning on, my head hitting it hard.
My ears rang instantly, a shrill, piercing noise drowning out everything else.
For a few seconds, I couldn’t tell what had happened. I couldn’t even tell where I was.
Everything blurred together as my vision swam and my head throbbed furiously.
Then I tried to move.
White-hot pain tore through my left thigh, ripping a scream out of me as I only then realized a thick piece of rebar had punched straight through it, pinning me to the pillar I’d been leaning against.
Blood was rapidly soaking into my jeans almost instantly.
My eyes widened in panic at the sight, and I immediately reached out for Sad—Where was Sadie?!
“Sadie—!” I tried to yell, adrenaline flooding in all at once.
I sucked in a lungful of dust instead and doubled over, coughing hard, my chest burning as I fought for air. I forced myself to try again, choking on the sound of her name as I searched the haze in front of me.
Sadie was simply gone.
Panic hit me like a physical thing.
I tore my gaze through the dust, my heart hammering as I twisted and searched, refusing to accept what my eyes were telling me.
She had been right there. Right in front of me.
She couldn’t just be gone.
I yanked myself forward—and screamed. I barely registered the animal-like sound I made.
The rebar tore free of my thigh with a sickening pull, white-hot pain exploding up my leg and I nearly blacked out as I collapsed onto the floor, blood rapidly pouring from my leg.
‘Don’t stop. Don’t stop.’
My hands shook as I forced myself to think.
‘Pressure. You need pressure...!’ I crawled blindly, fingers scrabbling over fallen displays and scattered merchandise until my hands brushed against fabric.
Sports bras. A whole rack of them, half-buried but still there.
I wrapped one around my thigh as tight as I could manage, teeth clenched hard enough my jaw ached and my teeth squeeked, then another on top of it, pulling until my vision sparkled and turned black.
It hurt like nothing had ever done before, but the bleeding slowed.
That was good enough.
It had to be.
I pulled as many clothy-bits as I could get my hands on together and formed a seal over my nose and mouth to keep the majority of the dust out of my lungs.
Tears streamed down my face, cutting clean tracks through the dust and making my eyes burn. Every breath felt like fire, my lungs screaming as if I’d been sprinting for miles.
I hacked and coughed, bending forward, then forced myself upright again.
“Sadie!” I yelled, ripping the cloth from my mouth for just a second. “Sadie!”
No answer.
I staggered forward, hands out, feeling my way through the thick haze.
Shapes flickered at the edges of my vision—orange, red.
Real flames, licking up from somewhere deeper in the store.
‘Fire…!’
Fear clenched tight in my chest.
Fire meant a time limit. Fire meant I couldn’t afford to be slow.
I tripped over something and hit the floor hard, pain flaring through my leg, but I pushed myself back up, wrapping more fabric over my mouth and nose. Every few steps I tore it away again just long enough to shout her name, my voice hoarse and cracking.
“Sadie! Please—say something!”
My voice broke at the last scream, desperation, panic and pain mixing into a volatile enough substance to keep me from properly projecting my voice.
She had to be here. She’d been right in fucking front of me just a moment ago!
I kept moving, coughing, stumbling, calling out into the smoke and dust, refusing to believe that the empty silence was the only answer I was going to get.
“Sadie!” I screamed again, ignoring my body’s frantic protests.
Finally, a sound answered me. Faint and wet.
A quiet moan of pain that barely cut through the ringing in my ears.
My heart skipped, then slammed into overdrive.
“I’m here—hold on!” I staggered toward the sound, half-running, half-falling through the dust, until my foot caught on something soft instead of concrete. I nearly went down hard, catching myself at the last second as my hands brushed against fabric and skin.
Sadie.
She was lying on the ground, half-buried under chunks of rubble and broken slabs, her upper body twisted awkwardly, her face pale and coated in dust.
“Oh god—Sadie, hey, hey,” I babbled, dropping to my knees beside her.
My hands moved on their own, shoving aside chunks of concrete, ripping at toppled-over clothing racks, anything I could get out of the way.
“Talk to me! Are you hurt? Can you move?”
She stirred, eyes unfocused, a weak sound slipping from her throat.
“I… I don’t think so,” she mumbled, voice distant, like she was talking through water. “Doesn’t really hurt… so I think I’m fine.”
Relief crashed into me so hard it almost made me dizzy.
I laughed once, sharp and broken, and kept digging, hands shaking but desperate. “See? See, you’re fine. You’re fine. I’ve got you.”
Then my fingers slipped while trying to push off another round of concrete rubble.
They came away wet.
I froze.
Slowly, I looked down.
Crimson coated my hands, too much of it, slick and shining even through the dust.
My breath caught, my chest locking up as my eyes followed the trail downward.
There were no legs.
Sadie’s lower half—everything from just above the waist down—was gone.
Completely crushed or simply sheared clean off by a slab of concrete so heavy it had turned bone and muscle into something completely unrecognizable.
I couldn’t even tell where her legs should have been.
Half her bowels had spilled free, pink and awful against the gray rubble, blood pooling fast, spreading outward in dark, unstoppable waves.
“No. No, no, no—”
Something inside me snapped.
Time stopped making sense.
The world narrowed to red and gray and her face.
I clawed at the rubble like an animal, screaming until my throat burned raw, ripping concrete and fabric away with bloody hands that couldn’t grip anymore. “Help! Please—Help! Somebody help me! Please!”
My voice broke, cracked apart, turned into sobs I couldn’t control.
Tears poured down my face, mixing with dust and blood as I scraped uselessly at the debris, my hands slipping again and again, slick with her blood.
“I’ve got you Sadie, I’ve got you,” I sobbed, over and over, even as I knew I didn’t.
“Please—someone—please—”
The words dissolved into screaming, then into choking cries as I kept digging, kept clawing, kept begging the universe to provide me with some kind of aid, even as the floor around us turned completely, horribly red.
Then the cloud of dust covering everything abruptly shifted.
A sudden gust of wind tore through the store, ripping the haze away in a violent rush and clearing my vision in an instant. Light flooded in through the shattered entrance, and there—hovering just above the ground—was a figure.
A hero.
He floated effortlessly, framed by the broken doorway, dressed in a bright green-and-yellow suit that looked almost obscene against all the gray and red.
A sleek mask hid his face, but his eyes were visible.
His head turned and they locked onto mine.
Hope slammed into my chest so hard it made me physically recoil.
“Help—!” I sobbed, my voice breaking apart. “Please—she’s hurt, she’s dying—please, you can help her, you can fix this, just—please!”
For one perfect, horrible moment, I believed it. He was here. He could save her.
His eyes stayed locked onto mine for several moments, then went towards Sadie just below me. Then they came back up to mine, and held for a while.
I wanted to scream at him to do something, to help me… But I couldn’t.
Then… he turned.
Just… turned away. And flew out of sight in the blink of an eye.
My brain refused to understand it at first.
It lagged behind reality, struggling to catch up as the space where he’d been went empty again.
“No—”
Then it hit.
I screamed, the cry tearing out from the bottom of my very soul, crashing through my heart and rupturing every single part of me as it left me. I screamed until my throat physically tore open, until my vision swam, until the world narrowed down to one single, impossible question.
“COME BACK!” I howled. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING—COME BACK! PLEASE—IT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB! SHE NEEDS HELP! SAVE SADIE! SAVE HER!”
Why?
Why would he leave?
Why would he look at us and then leave?
What had Sadie ever done to deserve this?
He’d wasted time just staring at me.
Time he could’ve used to help. To lift the slab. To stop the bleeding. To make it all okay.
What was the point of that suit, those Powers, if this was what he did with them?!
My rage and panic twisted together into something feral—
“Don’t cry, Princess…”
Her voice was barely there.
It cut through me like a knife.
I snapped my gaze back to Sadie.
Her eyes were half-lidded now, unfocused, but she was smiling. Somehow.
One trembling hand reached up, brushing weakly against mine, her fingers moving in slow, soothing strokes.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’ll be fine. You’ll be okay too.”
“No,” I choked. “No, no, don’t—don’t say that. Stay with me. Please.”
She was comforting me.
Even now.
Despair hollowed me out as I realized the truth sinking in: She was dying. Right here. In my arms.
And I had no idea how to stop it.
No cheatsheet. No loophole. No clever retort, no answer.
Nothing.
The only thing keeping me from shattering completely was her voice.
So soft, so familiar. Always steady and caring.
“It’ll be okay, I promise,” she said again, quieter this time.
Sadie never lied to me.
She never had.
She never would.
So it had to be okay.
I shook her gently, tears streaming down my face. “Hey—hey, stay awake. Talk to me. Please, Sadie. Don’t leave me. Don’t—don’t do this.”
My throat burned.
I tasted blood as I tried to continue to speak, my voice reduced to raw, broken sounds.
Her eyes fluttered. Her breathing slowed.
“Please,” I begged, my forehead pressing to hers. “I need you. Stay with me. Just stay.”
Her eyes closed.
Her chest didn’t rise again.
My mind went blank.
“Sadie…?”
I shook her. Harder.
“Sadie? Hey. Wake up. Wake up!”
Nothing.
Then panic, horror, dread and instinct mixed.
‘CPR. Oxygen. Keep oxygen moving to the brain.’
I climbed over her, hands planting on her chest, and pushed down with everything I had.
There was a wet, horrible crack as her ribs gave way beneath me, the sound shooting straight up my spine.
“One… Two… One… Two…”
It was going to be fine.
She had said so.
She promised.
—
At some point, emergency services arrived.
I was pulled away from Sadie by force, and they took her with them.
Someone asked if I was okay.
I said I was. Sadie had said so. I had to be okay.
They treated my wounds, and my parents picked me up afterward.
They were overjoyed that I’d made it out of whatever had happened at the mall, but they knew right away that something was wrong.
They were good parents.
I didn’t sleep. Not that night. Not the next. Not the one after that.
A therapist talked to me at some point. They said it hadn’t been my fault.
I knew that.
I’d been powerless. I’d been useless. Of course it wasn’t my fault.
I couldn’t have been responsible even if I’d tried.
Empty platitudes. Useless.
I got a week off from university. Then it was back to the lecture hall.
Eyes on me. On the empty seat to my right.
Some people tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t understand a single word they said.
They understood. Of course they did. For another week. Maybe two.
Then I had to be normal again.
That was the statute of limitations for grief and shock.
Anything longer than that was an inconvenience to their lives, so that’s the time I’d have.
The university therapist talked to me.
I told him I was okay. Because Sadie had said I would be.
I didn’t feel okay, but that just meant I was wrong. I often was.
I’d learned to trust Sadie about these things.
Another week passed. I couldn’t remember a single second of it.
Faces, conversations, colors, day and night—everything blurred past without leaving a mark.
Then Jason called.
My mind managed a sliver of focus at that.
‘Right… Sadie’s boyfriend… I should’ve talked to him earlier…’
I answered.
“So you’re alive, huh?” he said, his voice raw and tight.
“Yes… I’m sorry for not—”
“Shut up. Just… shut your fucking mouth. I don’t want to hear it,” he cut in. “Tell me how. How did it happen? What happened? That’s all I need.”
I swallowed, trying to think back, but it was all a blur.
I didn’t like being talked to like this, but I couldn’t push back.
He was grieving. He wasn’t okay.
“It happened so fast,” I tried to recount. “One moment we were shopping for a sports bra at SuperStretch, and… the next, everything was hell. I—I don’t know what happened.”
I should have known by now. From all the retellings. From the news loops on TV and radio, repeating the timeline and the numbers day and night.
But I didn’t. I still had no idea what had actually happened.
“Useless…” Jason said. “You’re fucking useless, Teresa. I just know you somehow got Sadie killed by being worthless. Did you even fucking try to help her? I always told her to stay away from you… It should have been you…”
The call went dead.
And something inside me finally, completely broke.
I couldn’t breathe.
My lungs refused to work, air scraping uselessly at my throat without ever filling my chest.
My vision blew out into harsh, blinding white, like someone had turned the world up too bright. I clutched at myself, nails digging into my face, drawing blood, but my body didn’t respond the way it was supposed to.
My mind unraveled.
Images slammed into me in rapid flashes, one after another, too fast to process.
Three planets hung in a black void, orbiting in impossible patterns.
Three suns burned above them, their light bleeding together into violent, vibrant colors that hurt to look at.
Shapes overlapped, folded into themselves, scenes stacking on top of scenes until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.
There were things moving in the gaps between the images.
Indescribable shapes. Wrong shapes.
Creatures that didn’t belong to any world I knew, watching from angles that didn’t exist, their presence pressing against my thoughts like fingernails against thin glass.
Then it all shifted, flipped and folded.
The visions changed. They felt closer now.
Personal.
Bottles. Flasks. Injectors. Glass and metal, clean lines and sharp edges. Liquids in impossible colors swirled inside them—greens, violets, glowing blues that pulsed like they were alive.
Grenades. Bombs. Devices meant to be thrown, meant to break things apart.
Bodies twisted and changed. Flesh reshaped itself, stretched and reformed, bones bending, skin hardening, dissolving, becoming something else entirely.
And then I saw it.
I felt it immediately. The crowning jewel.
A green tablet.
Shattered.
Its pieces scattered across the three planets, fragments glinting under the light of the three suns, embedded in soil and stone like seeds waiting to grow.
I gagged.
The world snapped back into place as I collapsed forward, retching violently onto myself and the bed. Acid burned my throat as vomit pooled on top and around me, my hands shaking as I tried to breathe again.
It took long seconds before air finally forced its way into my lungs.
I stayed there, curled up, coughing and shaking, my head spinning as reality slowly settled back in.
Then it hit me.
‘A Convergence Vision…!’
I’d finally snapped.
But the universe, in its infinite cruelty, had chosen this exact timing to answer my longstanding prayers and pleads. And in return, for its perverse amusement, it had given me the one thing I’d been asking for.
Power.
The realization sent a jolt through me.
Excitement—real excitement—cut through the numb fog that had wrapped around me for weeks. I scrambled to my feet, not bothering to clean myself up or wipe my face, my heart racing as I rushed to the desk in my room.
I yanked open a drawer, grabbed a notebook, and flipped it open with trembling hands.
Words poured out of me as I started to write, ideas forming faster than I could keep up with, knowledge surfacing from somewhere deep and instinctive.
My Power was there, urging me to put its first message to me down on paper.
To teach me how to use it properly.
It didn’t take more than three seconds to write out the first part. I stopped and stared at what I’d written, the knowledge not sitting in my head as thoughts, but flowing through me, using me as a conduit.
[Blood Coagulant]: 1x Vial, 2x Egg, 1x Matchstick
Description: May be applied externally to any wound that can be fully covered to immediately stop the bleeding. May be drunk instead to convey enhanced natural coagulation for all subsequent wounds until the formulae runs out.
It took me a few seconds to understand what I was looking at.
“A fucking recipe,” I muttered, then flinched as my brain jolted with a faint shock. “No… not a recipe. A formulae. A formulae for a blood coagulant…”
I just stared at it for a long, silent minute—then vomited again, this time from pure, unadulterated anger at the universe.
And then I laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed…
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[Wolf Lord+ | Draft] Volume 2 - Chapter 68 - Heir Apparent
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Welcome to the draft release of Volume 2 - Chapter 68 - Heir Apparent for y'all.
As always, a quick reminder that this chapter is still in the process of being workshopped by me and that this is simply the first-draft.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Good lord this chapter was so fucking fun to write.
Sorry for the late release, was REALLY tired today.
But here we go, either way!
PS: Yes, Thea's an incredibly toxic gamer. Deal with it 😎
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19HjSdCNFuEYx4jhRIDlCXZxnwcXYIuThn5xbduGx_40/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 68 - Heir Apparent
Thread Title: [(Mini) BUILD GUIDE] Mid-Tier Mobility Caster – Why Control Beats Raw Output
Posted by: MissyMoonlightMayhem
—
[VoidStryker_11]: lmao this guide is trash. any caster worth anything just stacks output and deletes the field. mobility builds are huge cope for people who just can’t aim or stay safe
[MissyMoonlightMayhem]: Oh. Oh you’re one of those? You really came in here, typed that out, read it, and still somehow decided to hit “post,” huh?
Alright, then fuck-face, let’s do this properly then.
First of all, if your entire understanding of Caster combat begins and ends with “stack output and delete the field,” then congratulations—you have incurable brain damage.
Truly marvellous to see a lifeform function without a cerebral cortex. Always fascinating.
Now, I’m sure the first time you overheated your Burn and faceplanted in a mission, it felt very heroic.
Second: You clearly didn’t even read the fucking guide. Not even a little.
You skimmed the header, saw the word mobility, and whatever poor excuse of a nutrient waste passes for your brain immediately shut off.
So I’ll walk you through this very slowly, as I realize that even written words can straight up topple the three cells inside your head.
I didn’t say: “Output is bad.”
I very clearly said: “Unchecked output without control is a liability.”
Here—since words seem really hard for you to follow—I’ll be kind and use numbers.
[Graph Attached: “Mana Burn Rate vs Engagement Duration”]
See that red line? I realize that most mongrels like yourself are red-green blind, but I trust that you can still see the line, at the very least.
That’s a pure-output build, like the one you’re advocating for.
Notice how it spikes and then falls off a cliff at the three-minute mark? That’s you. That’s your ass overheating, panicking, and getting hard-countered by anyone with half a brain and any kind of control or suppression tool.
Now look at the blue line (that’s the one that’s higher up, for those unable to use logical reasoning).
That’s the mobility-control hybrid presented here.
Lower peak, yes—but sustained pressure for nine minutes longer under combat stress.
Nine.
Fucking.
Minutes.
But no, of course, tell me again how “deleting the field” works so great. How it will definitely, totally still work, even when the field doesn’t politely stand still and let you cosplay a god.
Also—since you brought up aiming—here’s another one.
[Graph Attached: “Hit Confirmation Rate Under Lateral Threat”]
Notice how raw-output builds lose over 40% effectiveness once incoming vectors exceed two angles? That’s because surprise, surprise: Being stationary turns you into a very expensive target dummy, you fucking moron.
Mobility isn’t “cope” unless you’re so far up your own ass that you can smell your own breath. Mobility is quite literally the main attribute that determines your ability to stay alive long enough to even matter.
And before you say it—yes, this data is pulled from live competitive matches in Peak-Tier ranked games, not your favorite highlight reel of cherry-picked clips from the noob-stomping streamers you likely get your fuck-ass information from.
All the sources are linked. Logs are public.
You can literally check them with your own damn eyes.
Use your eyes on something useful for once in your worthless life and inform yourself before you open your stupid mouth.
And maybe, before you ever open it again, make sure you understand why almost all the top-tier players don’t play like brain-dead turrets that you seem to love so much.
Or don’t. And keep fucking feeding everyone else.
Honestly, the competitive matches could use the free learning material.
Now get the fuck out of my thread you absolute waste of molecules.
[GhostInTheWire]: holy fuck
[GraveyardShift61]: And MMM claims yet another victim… when will they learn…?
[DataGoblin]: RIP mongrel-kun
[VoidStryker_11]: no need to be so toxic
[MissyMoonlightMayhem]: No, there was a need.
You walked into a technical thread, called months of testing “trash,” contributed nothing, and simply expected zero pushback.
That’s not how fucking life works outside your own little bubble of complete brain-damaged morons.
If you want vibes-only opinions, go scream into your squad chat.
If you comment here, bring data—or be ready to shut your fucking mouth.
Now, if you actually want to understand the guide instead of embarrassing yourself further, read section four.
Slowly. Preferably twice.
Or even thrice, because your three brain cells will have to work extra hard.
I’m done wasting bandwidth on your ass.
[VoidStryker_11 has been muted by Thread Admin]
AshesAndEchoes: this is definitely going into the hall of fame.
—
[Build Guides Sub-Forum, Official “Arkion” Forum, PFC 940]
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Thea woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than she had in… maybe ever.
It was a strange feeling, waking up the day after her birthday and not just feeling relief that it was over, but actually noticing other emotions as well.
Warmth settled in her chest as she thought back to the day before—spending the entire day with her squad, doing some of the most fun things she’d done in her entire life.
A soft, content smile crossed her face as she got out of bed and headed for the shower, wanting to start the day properly after how the last one had begun.
‘Definitely a lot better than a barrel of dread in my chest,’ she thought at the strange feelings inside her chest, unable to fully parse what they were all for.
It still felt unreal that she was looking back on a birthday so fondly.
It wasn’t that she’d never had decent birthdays before—the Old Man had always done his best to make sure she didn’t feel awful on those days—but over the past two years, stuck and mostly isolated inside the UHF station for Basic Training, that old dread had crept right back in.
So having her entire squad basically give up their day off just to make her birthday good…?
That was decidedly new.
And just thinking about it made her feel giddy.
‘I really do have the best damn squad in the whole Galaxy…’
After the individual DM reviews, Corvus had pulled out his notes and made sure everyone’s performance was properly reviewed as a group.
It had taken several hours to go through everything, thanks to the constant back-and-forth—plus the usual banter, mostly courtesy of Isabella—but it had all helped point out a lot of small details in everyone’s actions that would definitely be useful to work on.
Even Thea had taken a lot away from it, especially when it came to leadership.
Corvus, in particular, had shown a lot of interest in giving her feedback there.
‘At least nobody thinks I got my whole squad killed because of bad calls… That would’ve been the fucking worst.’
She’d also contributed plenty herself, doing her best to live up to her role as Alpha Squad’s official Build Advisor. Everyone had gotten an updated rundown on what she thought they should focus on, Ability- and Attribute-wise—except Lucas, since she’d be spending a lot of time with him today figuring things out directly in the arcade.
There hadn’t been any major changes to anyone’s builds yet, but she’d made sure to stress one thing in particular: Resolve was becoming more and more important in her mind.
Not for Tier 0, but once they reached Tier 1, it would likely need to be a bigger investment going forward.
The more she experienced and learned about Psykers, the more important that Attribute seemed—even for people who had no interest in becoming Psykers themselves, just to stay safe.
‘Some baseline investment should probably be standard for any Marine, if my gut’s right about this. Even if Psykers are rare, even if they’re limited by Focus or whatever other resource they use… the fact that some of the Powers the Runepriest showed me could wipe entire squads in seconds? That’s seriously fucking problematic.’
The last thing Thea had done yesterday was spend a few more hours with Karania going over their DMs again in private, this time in much more detail.
It had mostly been Thea’s DM under scrutiny, though, since there wasn’t all that much feedback she could give on Karania’s—most of Kara’s run had been spent treating wounded Marines, after all.
Karania had been especially interested in the medical side of the whole “melting brain” incident, which Thea had reluctantly let her dig into properly. Her best friend had even pulled up the medical incident report written by Dan and Chester afterward, combing through it for extra details.
Thea still thought it was a bit over the top, but she couldn’t deny that having someone care that deeply about her well-being felt reassuring in a way she wasn’t used to.
They had also tried to figure out what exactly the “cooling herself down” part had been about. In the end, they agreed it had to be some kind of Psychic shenanigans that let Thea cool her own brain back to usable temperatures—but they hadn’t managed to truly narrow down how or why it had worked at all.
Not that Thea didn’t have her own suspicions.
Æht’s words about a possible second Path—an Ice-based one—were still fresh in her mind.
‘But I should really double-check with the Runepriest first, before I start messing around with even more Psychic Powers I barely understand,’ she thought.
She’d promised Karania she’d reveal everything the Runepriest had to say about it once they had it figured out; hopefully after her next meeting with him, whenever that was going to happen.
Lately, that promise had started to feel like a growing sore point in their friendship, at least from her own perspective.
‘I can’t just keep asking her to be patient… I really need to get this shit sorted, so I can stop hiding things from her.’
Despite the thoughts of having to hurry on that particular aspect, she finished up her morning routine without rushing, letting the lingering good mood carry her through it all.
After the shower, she got dressed in something comfortable but still decent enough to be seen in public: Dark blue, fitted pants with a bit of stretch to them, a soft long-sleeve top in muted white, and a lightweight, gray jacket she could shrug on or off as needed.
It wasn’t flashy, but she thought it looked fairly put together—and more importantly, it felt comfortable to her. Not as comfortable as her favourite pullover, of course, but still good.
But heading to a public place like the arcade had felt like a good chance to keep refining her real-life transmog skills.
With that in mind, she hesitated for a moment before pulling out the make-up kit she’d surprisingly received as part of her gifts just yesterday.
The anonymous present had definitely freaked her out at first—no way around that, really—but she couldn’t honestly say that she disliked it.
Sitting down in front of the mirror, she followed the beginner guide that had been attached, step by careful step.
Make-up as a whole had turned out to be harder than she’d hoped for when she had gotten started on it, but the provided guide was luckily very clear and the kit itself was seriously well stocked.
It made the whole thing oddly enjoyable, Thea had to admit.
She stuck to a light, natural look—just a touch of eye shadow and a few subtle adjustments.
Heavy make-up still wasn’t her thing—
‘Probably will never be…’
—but a little polish had never hurt anyone’s evaluations at a transmog contest.
Once she was finally ready, she took a last look in the mirror, nodded to herself, and grabbed her things.
Then she stepped out of her room into Alpha Squad’s common room, a small smile tugging at her lips. Lucas was already at the kitchen table, clearly waiting for her while working his way through a plate of breakfast pancakes.
She headed over to join him with a quick morning greeting, aiming for a proper serving of fluffy breakfast pancakes herself—and from there, it would be straight to the arcade together for an exciting day of build theory…
—
—
PoV: Evelyne Midra Sen
‘Today, today, today…!’ was the only thought ringing through Evelyne’s head as she paced back and forth in front of the agreed upon arcade on the Sovereign’s entertainment deck.
She had almost died on the spot when she’d gotten the message from Callahan asking whether she was available for their scheduled “exchange of knowledge regarding Rachel Masters,” as the himbo of a man had put it in his text.
But the only thing she had really read in the entire message had been four simple words: “Thea will be there.”
Eve hadn’t slept a wink since then, which was starting to become a dangerous precedent when it came to her dealings with MMM’s alter ego.
‘Or real persona, I guess…? Yeah. Probably real persona.’
But how could she have slept, when there had been so much to prepare? When her whole life had been building up to this very day? How was she supposed to just close her eyes and rest?
No. That was clearly impossible.
Instead, she had spent the time strategizing, as was only natural for a Sen.
She needed the perfect plan—not only to prove herself utterly indispensable to her Thea going forward, thus binding herself irrevocably to MMM’s future, but also to throw out every hook she could manage at once and see which ones might catch in Thea’s wake.
The last three hours had been spent cycling through over a hundred different outfit combinations to find the perfect one. Another full hour had gone into her make-up alone.
Everything had had to be perfect.
The only thing that wasn’t perfect, no matter how much she tried to fix it, was the one thing she had been trained to control since the moment she’d been born—herself.
‘You are embarrassing everyone in the Sen family, Evelyne. Get yourself under control!’ She scolded herself over and over. But the giddy excitement and nervous anxiety tangled up in her chest simply refused to listen.
‘Your parents would be utterly ashamed of you, Evelyne. Dear Emperor…’
But then again… how was she supposed to stay in control?
She was about to not only meet MMM in person, but actually interact with her for an extended period of time. Private conversations. Build theory. Anything that came to her mind, as long as she proved herself worthy.
How could anyone expect her to stay calm in a situation like this?!
One more time she went over her preparations, checking herself over in the darkened glass facade of the arcade for the twenty-seventh time—she had instinctively counted.
The black and dark blue summer dress sat perfectly on her frame, the fabric light and flowing while still clinging just enough in the right places. It was sleeveless, with thin straps and a softly cut neckline that merely hinted at what lay below, the dark tone playing beautifully against her pale-white skin.
The dress fell to just above her knees, the hem moving subtly every time she shifted her weight, giving her that carefully balanced look she’d been aiming for—mysterious and cute, yet simultaneously quietly alluring.
Her raven-black hair was braided with meticulous care into the usual clean, elegant braid running down and ending in a single tail resting over her left shoulder. Loose bangs framed her face in a near-perfect box, softening her features while drawing attention to her eyes and lips.
The light-violet eyeshadow and soft-crimson lipstick she’d chosen matched the mood of the outfit perfectly, adding just enough color contrast to the incandescent white of her skin to make anyone’s gaze linger.
Her eyes flicked downward, taking in the finer details as well; as that was what this was all about.
The dark-crimson lace of her bra—colour-matched with her lipstick, of course—was just barely visible beneath the top of the dress’ neckline, peeking out in a way that looked entirely accidental—but very much wasn’t.
She wasn’t exactly well endowed, and she knew it better than anyone, but even just an average bust like hers could be made unfathomably captivating with the right setup.
The rest of her underwear matched, of course, the same lace hidden beneath the fabric of her dress, chosen less out of expectation and more out of preparedness.
Just in case.
Her ears heated at the inevitable thought that followed—of real, personal time with her MMM—and she immediately shut it down, schooling her expression and straightening her posture.
Seduction wasn’t the point. If it happened, it happened.
She’d try, of course.
But that wasn’t why she was here.
Making herself indispensable came first and was the primary objective.
Even if she could almost feel her Thea’s unfathomably skillful fingers tracing over her soft skin, the warmth suffusing her and—
She cut the thought off hard, jaw tightening as she scolded herself internally.
‘Get it the-fuck together, Evelyne!’
It was embarrassing for a Sen to be this flustered. Or anywhere near it.
‘Seriously. You have to get it together, Evelyne or you’re going to blow everything.’
After all, she didn’t even know if her Thea was into women to begin with. And the Sovereign had been infuriatingly tight-lipped on the subject, despite her best attempts at offering… incentives.
She winced at the thought of just how much she already owed the Sovereign. The initial round of investments to get closer to MMM had been staggering, to say the least.
‘Mother would throw me into the panic room for a week if they knew how sloppily I’ve been conducting this whole endeavour…’
She shivered at the thought alone, an unpleasant sensation like countless crawling legs running over her entire skin.
The panic room was a sick word-joke of the Sen.
It wasn’t meant to protect you—it was meant to break you into controlling your panic.
Your worst nightmares assaulted you for weeks without pause, and the moment you slipped—opened your mouth too wide, let your heartbeat spike or any other indicator that the gracious host metered out—swarms of insects, as they were Eve’s own nightmare, would invade them without mercy.
Still… it would all be worth it in the end.
If she managed to draw MMM into the Sen circle, her parents would be beyond proud. It would be an accomplishment nobody else but her could have pulled off.
She was the only one with the know-how and the perfect time and position to do so.
Putting on her game face, she carefully adjusted her kind smile into something more nervous, but still determined—just the right balance to tug at her Thea’s heartstrings.
She nodded once at her reflection in the dark glass.
“You got this, Eve. Just don’t forget the pla—”
“Hi, Evelyne,” Lucas Callahan’s voice cut in, making her nearly jump out of her skin.
She almost triggered her signature Ability on instinct and had already started turning into a parry-or-takedown move before she caught herself.
She froze for half a heartbeat, then forced her own movement into a surprised gasping breath and turned to face him properly.
The embarrassment hit her all at once—she’d been so wrapped up in her own spiraling thoughts that she’d violated the first and most important lesson a Sen was ever taught: Perfect spatial awareness.
The realization was humbling, downright mortifying.
She straightened, re-centered herself with a fake blush rising up her face, and slipped back into her controlled mask before her lapse showed too badly.
“C—Callahan. Good morning,” she greeted him with an easy, polite tone, offering a small nod. Her eyes immediately drifted past him, scanning the arcade entrance, the walkways, the crowd—searching.
She didn’t even try to hide it.
Lucas noticed right away and huffed a quiet laugh.
“She’s a few minutes late,” he said casually. “We came together, but she got distracted by some holo-ad. Something about a new game she’s interested in…? Had to grab a pamphlet or something.”
Eve felt her blood simmer at the sheer audacity of it. “Something about…?” “or something?”
Thea’s words were precious, sacred even—and this walking hunk of meat couldn’t even relay the all-important information with any sort of accuracy, much less proper reverence!
She swallowed it down, kept her smile steady, and let out a light chuckle, carefully tuned with just the right edge of nervousness. “Ah… of course. That sounds like her… I think?”
Callahan picked up on it immediately.
“Hey, relax,” he added, lowering his voice a touch. “You really don’t need to be nervous around her. She’s a total softy. Honestly pretty bad with people, too. You’ll be fine, trust me. And we both appreciate your offer to help us out quite a lot.”
Eve nodded quickly and pretended to take a few slow, steadying breaths, hands coming up to rest against her chest in what looked like a self-soothing motion. She made sure to breathe in just right, posture shifting a fraction as if she were grounding herself, the movement subtly pushing her bust up before settling again.
Her eyes stayed closed, lashes lowered, with only the faintest slit left open—enough to see without being seen, one of the first tricks “gently taught” to every Sen as a child.
And sure enough, her efforts were rewarded as Callahan’s gaze flickered lower for just a moment before snapping back up.
‘Got you,’ she thought, ruthlessly tamping down the smug grin that tried to surface.
It didn’t matter who you were or what you were into—movement, colour, contrast, light, and proper shape caught the eye.
That was just how people worked.
After another breath, she let her hands drop and opened her eyes fully, putting on a sheepish smile as if she really had calmed herself down.
In truth however, her nerves were still buzzing under her skin, refusing to settle despite her best efforts.
“S—Sorry for that,” she said softly, brushing her bangs back into place. “I just… I don’t want to mess this up, you know?” She hesitated, then tilted her head slightly, looking up at him from the side. “You know Thea a lot better than I do... Since you live with her and all.”
She let out a small, awkward laugh. “D—Do you have any more advice? On how to talk to her, I mean… I—I don’t want her to hate me, you know?”
Lucas scratched the back of his head, thinking hard as he leaned a bit against the arcade wall.
“Uh… honestly?” he started, sounding almost apologetic. “There’s not really a trick to it. Just… be yourself. Thea’s not difficult to be around, and she’s definitely not someone you need to impress in any way.”
He shrugged. “There’s nothing you really have to do to please her. As long as you’re not being a jerk to her friends and you’re straight with her, she won’t hate you. Even if things get awkward sometimes. She’s not the type to read too deep into people’s intentions, socially speaking. Most of the time, she probably doesn’t even notice there are intentions, honestly.”
After a beat, he added, “The only thing I’ve ever seen really piss her off is Rachel Masters. That one’s… special… And probably my fault.”
He grimaced faintly. “But yeah. Otherwise? She’s an honest-to-the-gods sweetheart. Just… still figuring people out, I guess.”
Lucas glanced off to the side, then back at Eve. “I don’t know much about her life before the UHF, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t have many friends growing up. Maybe none at all. So she’s been trying to play catch-up with everyone since day one.”
A small, proud smile tugged at his lips. “She’s making progress fast—faster than probably any other person would—but she’s still very naive when it comes to all kinds of social stuff.”
He gave her an encouraging nod. “So yeah. Just be yourself. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
Eve’s breath had hitched, and she had to wrestle herself hard to keep the glee off her face.
This was an absolute fucking treasure trove of information the himbo had just handed her—completely free of charge, no less!
Forcing her emotions back into the corner where they belonged, she nodded several times.
“Yes… yes, that sounds doable… I think. I—I’ll try my best.”
The towering meatloaf gave her an encouraging thumbs-up. “Don’t worry. If things start going the wrong way, I’ll jump in and help you out. Just relax, alright?”
It wasn’t hard to let a smile spread across her face, because Eve genuinely couldn’t imagine a more perfect start to this mission.
“Thank you so much.”
She heard the steps first in that moment—dangerously quiet, barely there, like a predator stalking up on its prey.
A shiver ran through her as the realization of who those footsteps belonged to hit, and she did her best to keep Lucas in her field of vision.
The Evelyne Thea knew so far wasn’t exactly great with spatial awareness.
The walk-up felt like it took an eternity before the crystal chime–like voice slid in from her side, warm and bright in all the right ways. “Got one!”
Eve pretended to be startled, jumping slightly and letting out an undignified squeak.
Then her eyes landed on the single most important person in the entire galaxy, and her heart shattered into a trillion pieces all at once. The rush of excitement of what she saw was so strong she physically staggered back a few steps, reaching out to the hulking meatloaf beside her to steady herself as her breathing went uneven.
‘S—S—S—She’s wearing my make-up…!’ was the only thought that broke through the chaos. ‘Paying the Sovereign for all that intel was worth it. So very fucking worth it…!’
Her body was losing control fast, bile creeping up her throat.
She had to drag every last scrap of her training into her muscles, her bones, her thoughts—anything to keep from simply throwing up from the emotions coursing through her and to get a grip on herself.
Callahan, kind-hearted himbo that he was, stepped in immediately, moving between her and Thea the moment he realized what was happening. He partially blocked Thea’s view, shielding Evelyne’s moment of pure and utter shame from her MMM.
‘I will repay you for this grand service, Callahan,’ she swore silently, down to her very soul.
‘You have my word on this as the heir apparent of the Sen…’
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 65 - Squad Time I
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Chapter 61 - System 102: Class Primer has just released on RR with no changes
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Should be a two-parter, if things go according to plan.
Recapping 6 DMs, even in a condensed and "tell"-y format, is still a lot of words!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hEJvCjxM-NXzGJEoyGiFElHPkUsQWLHzY4uhIouyJnM/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 65 - Squad Time I
UHF Command has confirmed mixed progress across both primary fronts as the Galactic War enters its next operational phase.
On the western front, UHF forces have secured three systems along the Eltaris Corridor, including full control of the Rhyx Belt and the outer worlds of Verin and Lasker-7.
These gains have come at a steep cost.
Two full UHF battlegroups have been declared combat-ineffective following sustained fleet actions near the Kade Expanse, with one additional battlegroup withdrawn after taking heavy losses during a failed push toward the Republic-held industrial hub of Tarsis Prime.
The Iter Sector remains locked in heavy fighting on all fronts, with neither side showing any clear signs of gaining the upper hand.
Meanwhile, Stellar Republic counterattacks remain aggressive, and analysts warn that the western front is likely to stay fluid for the foreseeable future.
The eastern front paints an even harsher picture within the last month.
UHF forces have been forced to abandon the Myridian Spur after coordinated Dominion strikes collapsed local supply lines. Four worlds have been evacuated under fire, and three battlegroups were confirmed destroyed or missing during the retreat, including the veteran 17th Hammer Group.
However, UHF Command has reported a major strategic success in the same theater as well: The capture of the Ashkel Rift Gate, cutting Dominion reinforcement routes into two adjacent sectors.
Dominion losses have been described as “severe but unverified,” with intelligence suggesting at least seven enemy battlegroups shattered during the ongoing battles.
High Command has emphasized that while territorial lines continued to shift, neither front showed signs of decisive collapse or victory.
“This war is being fought tooth and nail,” a spokesperson stated. “Don’t misunderstand: Every system taken or lost feeds directly into the long game. The UHF remains fully committed across all theaters and our Marines, Navy and Armoured Division are putting their entire backs into every fight.”
Further updates are expected following the next fleet rotation cycle.
—
[UHF News Net: Strategic Update – War Fronts, PFC 943]
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It had been a thoroughly thrilling experience to watch Corvus’ recorded DM with the rest of Alpha Squad—Thea couldn’t deny that.
The leader of Alpha Squad gave steady, play-by-play rundowns of his thoughts as they followed his point of view through the sped-up recording, slowing things down for the important or especially tense moments.
One thing that really stood out to her was how Corvus interacted with the world around him, just from the way he looked around and seemed to perceive things.
‘It’s so different from how I fight… He’s watching his teammates more than the enemy. I barely even check what the rest of the squad is doing—I just assume they’ve got it all handled properly.’
That constant awareness wasn’t born from any lack of trust, though.
If anything, it showed how well Corvus understood both his squad and his own role within it.
Throughout the DM, he kept adjusting positions, giving short pointers here and there, and tightening their responses to enemy movements—which, in a Point Assault, was absolutely critical.
Unlike her own DM, Corvus had been forced to push an enemy position alongside Marines he had never worked with before, much less seen until that very mission.
And yet, he handled it smoothly, downright effortlessly.
The part that struck Thea the most came in the latter half of the DM.
Several of Corvus’ original squadmates had already died, and what remained of his group had linked up with a few other battered squads in a temporary safe zone in front of the enemy lines—a crater left behind from a large munition gone astray.
They had watched as Corvus quickly struck up a rapport with the only other surviving Squad Leader and, in under two minutes, folded the remaining Marines into their two squads.
Then they moved out together as two oversized units to continue the push.
‘That’s… honestly kind of crazy,’ was the first thought that came to Thea’s mind. ‘How did he manage to get all of that done so fast…? And how did he know to fold them into the squads instead of just making a third and fourth?’
When she had asked him about that moment, he had explained, “We knew the position was only safe for a short time, so we couldn’t sit around waiting for reinforcements—like more Squad Leaders—to show up. But we also couldn’t just let the other Marines form their own new squads, since they didn’t have the command structure for it.
“Especially during an assault, you need a clear chain of command. Orders have to move cleanly, up and down. Without someone trained to lead—or at least someone with a basic, natural grasp of it, like you, Thea—a ‘rogue’ squad that close to enemy lines is more likely to cause problems than solve them. And none of the Marines there seemed able to take charge like that. The way I could tell was fairly simple: Nobody had taken charge. If somebody has a natural aptitude for it, they will take charge when they realize that nobody else is doing so.”
Thea had been a bit taken aback by his claim that she had an inherent knack for leadership—she very much disagreed, considering that the only two times she had ever led squads so far, they had all effectively died—but his explanation still made sense.
And she also couldn’t deny that she would have stepped in and taken charge if she’d realized nobody else was doing their job properly.
Still, that didn’t exactly make her a natural leader.
‘Yeah… I really wouldn’t want to worry about a rag-tag squad with bad comms while trying to shoot at the enemy.’
Corvus’ DM ended with him taking a shot to the chest, a clean hole blown straight through his torso during one of the final pushes.
“Haaa… So yeah, that’s how this disaster of a DM ended for me,” he said, offering the squad a tired smile. “Great, huh?”
“You went out like a boss,” Isabella shrugged, surprisingly the first to speak. “Can’t really ask for more than that. You helped a ton of Marines do their jobs better than they would’ve otherwise, so… that’s a win in my book.”
Thea nodded along. “Honestly, I’m not sure what else you could’ve done differently.”
The rest of the squad seemed to agree, offering their own words of support, but Corvus still looked mildly unconvinced.
“There are a lot of things I could’ve done differently, honestly. But… it’s hard to put into words. I know where I went wrong now, though. So I can fix it next time,” he said, and there was enough steel in his voice that Thea didn’t try to argue.
“Now… as for the friendlink system, I didn’t really run into anyone particularly noteworthy during my DM. I did make a few connections with people I worked well with, though. So nothing earth-shattering to report there. Still, we should all keep an eye out for promising Marines. Those kinds of contacts can become useful later on—trust me on this. My parents drilled that into me early.”
That made everyone perk up a little, and Karania asked the question they were all thinking.
“What do you mean by that, exactly?”
Corvus exhaled, leaning back into the cushioned armchair and running a hand through his slightly ruffled auburn hair. “The DMs are galaxy-wide. We all know that from UHF 101. That means the Marines we run into there are real people, out there somewhere, already fighting the same war we’ll be joining in less than a year.”
They all nodded.
“So if we find people who are particularly competent,” he continued, “we can learn from them. Group up a few times, ask about their experiences, get advice, tips, even build-related insight. There are limits, of course—no specific deployments or sensitive details. Basic OpSec. But the rest? That’s fair game.”
He pointed at Thea, catching her off guard. “Especially you. It’d be really useful for you to link up with other Psykers. You’ve got the Runepriest now for personal lessons, sure, but even he won’t have time to cover everything. And for someone at his level, the basics might be so far removed from his own experiences that he skips right over them without intending to. Talking to people closer to your own level can fill in those gaps.”
Then he gestured toward Desmond. “And you too.”
Desmond groaned and waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. More intel from other Drone Operators and Support-role types would help lock down my build. Fair.”
Corvus just grinned at him with an unmistakable I-told-you-so look before turning back to the rest of the squad.
“And I’m sure the rest of you can find some interesting Marines to learn from too—and if nothing else… If they find you competent as well, there’s a real chance that once we’re promoted to Private, we might end up on their ships at some point. Or on the same Battlefields. Maybe even get invited into their squads, companies, or platoons, if you leave a strong enough impression.”
He raised his hands slightly, as if to stop any protests—which was probably for the best, as Thea had absolutely been about to blurt out something along the lines of, “We’re staying together as Alpha, what do you mean their squads?”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking we’ll always stick together as one squad,” Corvus continued, the words hitting Thea like a slap across the face. “I hope we will for a long time, but don’t assume we’re invincible. I hate to bring that kind of talk into a celebration, but you all need to remember this is a war we’re joining. And not just any war, but the war. I gave each of you a box to keep mementos in—I didn’t do that just for show.”
His eyes met Thea’s for a brief moment, the familiar flinch tightly controlled but still there, before he looked at the rest of Alpha Squad. “There’s a good chance some of our names will end up in someone’s box. So don’t waste the chance to network during these DMs. Having options matters, if the worst ever happens. We all hope it won’t—but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least plan for it.”
Then the seriousness eased from his face, replaced by a grin, as if he couldn’t help himself.
Thea had started to notice that about him in the past days—Corvus never liked leaving things heavy for too long unless he absolutely had to.
“And hey, if things do go according to plan,” he added lightly, “we can always poach them for our own squads, companies, or platoons later. I’d much rather have hand-picked Marines than randoms. So either way, it’s a win-win, right?”
For a moment, a heavy silence settled over the room.
Then Isabella scoffed, leaning back with her arms crossed.
“He’s right,” she said bluntly. “War isn’t a playground. Hope doesn’t keep you alive out there—plans do. People die. That’s just reality.”
She glanced around the group, eyes hard.
“You don’t get to pretend otherwise just because it makes you uncomfortable.”
Nobody argued with her words.
They all knew her background, or at least the parts she’d chosen to share about her time as a mercenary.
This wasn’t mere theory to her, like it was for Corvus—not that anybody would think he was wrong on this. But for Isabella, those words came straight from memory.
And that, in itself, made all the difference in terms of weight.
Corvus nodded once at her and Thea caught the motion out of the corner of her eye.
“Alright,” he said, clapping his hands once and letting the tension break. “That’s enough existential dread for one morning. We’ve still got five DMs to go through, and I’d rather not end today feeling like a funeral.”
He gestured at the group with a grin. “So—who’s next?”
A beat of silence.
Then, Lucas shrugged from his seat.
“I’ll take it,” he said easily. “Might as well rip that bandage off.”
Corvus smiled. “Good man. Alright, Lucas, you’re up…”
—
Lucas’ DM was, unfortunately, fairly uneventful, leaving little room for any deep breakdowns.
He had chosen a Point Defense mission to ease himself into the DMs, much like Thea had picked a Hold-the-Line for the same reason—even if hers had ended up scaled way up and the whole “easing into it” part had been lost entirely.
Most of Lucas’ DM was spent staring at the backside of the Stalwart, as that was where he had stayed for the vast majority of the mission.
Still, it had been interesting to see combat from his point of view.
‘I don’t think I could do this,’ Thea thought. ‘The pressure of being stuck behind a wall like that, without really knowing what’s happening on the other side… Sure, he’s looking around, firing the Havoc over the top, still interacting with the fight—but being mostly stationary, with such a small field of view? Just watching this is making me feel claustrophobic.’
As the recording came to an end, Lucas commented on it himself.
“Unlike our fearless leader, I survived the entire thing. But I’m still not exactly happy with my performance. I felt like I was barely doing anything for a good chunk of the DM—just standing there as a shield. Which, yeah, is kind of my job, but I feel like I could be doing more, you know?”
To Thea’s surprise, the others actually agreed with him.
She had expected a wave of reassurance like Corvus had gotten, but instead, the rest of Alpha Squad stayed thoughtful and honest with Lucas’ self-assessment.
‘Awesome,’ she thought, warmth spreading from her core.
This was exactly the kind of team she had always wanted—people willing to speak up when something wasn’t working, competent enough to notice it, and determined to improve every step of the way.
“Think you might need to work on your offensive switch there, big guy,” Isabella commented, nodding like it was obvious. “Havoc’s solid and all, but I’ll be honest—if you’re not standing next to me, you’re pretty easy to ignore.”
Lucas nodded slowly. “Yeah. I definitely felt that a lot during this DM. Didn’t have anyone even close to your level to draw attention, and it made me feel almost invisible at times.”
“You could try taking a page out of Rachel Masters’ book,” Karania added, casually—and Thea’s head snapped toward her, eyes going wide.
‘What the fuck, Kara?!’ Thea thought, stunned. ‘Masters?! Lucas is ten times what she could ever be!’
The knee-jerk anger made her pause.
Because she knew what she was thinking wasn’t true in the least.
‘No… No, she’s right,’ Thea admitted to herself with a quiet sigh. ‘Masters is a bitch, but she’s terrifying. And she fills the same Role as him. If Lucas could tap into even some of that aggressiveness when it mattered, he’d be impossible to ignore.’
What they had seen during the Awards Ceremony—and even during the one-on-one fight with Isabella shortly after—left little doubt that Masters was an incredibly skilled Marine, far more so than Lucas, as much as Thea hated to admit it.
“I’m not sure I can switch like she does, honestly,” Lucas said with a pained smile. “The movements, the raw… just straight up skill she brings as a Defensive Heavy—it’s beyond me right now. By Xagis, I don’t even know where I’d start to reach that level, if I’m being honest.”
“Then just ask Thea to help you figure it out,” Desmond, of all people, suddenly cut in with something Thea had never expected to hear. “She’s our official Build Advisor… whatever thing, right? And I remember Isabella saying she’s an absolute menace in the arcade. She can emulate builds and playstyles, no?”
His eyes met Thea’s.
She was still caught off guard by him saying it at all, but he held her gaze after the initial flinch and added, “You could help him get something together in time for the Challenge, yeah? He doesn’t need to be perfect—just good enough to show the brass he’s worth keeping.”
Thea thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I think I could.”
She wasn’t completely confident, but Desmond had basically handed her a chance to do what she was best at—build planning and fixing playstyles—and she wasn’t about to turn that down. Especially since it was the first time he had openly asked for her help—even if for somebody else.
“I’ll probably need help from all of you at different times,” she continued. “If I need specific enemy types for him to fight. I can emulate a lot of builds, but you’ll still be better than me in your own niches. That said… I do have a few ideas on how we could push Lucas toward a more well-rounded build and playst—ehhh combat style.”
Karania’s eyebrows lifted as she shot Thea a teasing look, which Thea promptly ignored.
The rest of the squad agreed right away to help whenever needed—Isabella most eagerly of all, to absolutely no one’s surprise.
“But we were already planning on some of that, weren’t we?” Thea tossed the conversation back to Lucas, who nodded gratefully.
“Yeah. I think we could start tomorrow, if you’re free then?” he asked.
Thea answered with a simple thumbs-up.
“Works for me.”
“I’ll let the girl know too, then. If that’s okay with you,” Lucas added, and it took Thea a second to remember what he meant—until Evelyn and their agreement came back to her.
“Ah, right. Yeah, that makes sense,” Thea agreed.
She wasn’t exactly thrilled about entertaining a fan, but if Evelyn really had the kind of intel on Masters she claimed, it was a very small price to pay.
“The girl?” Karania asked inquisitively.
“Uh—remember that girl who ran up to me after the DM?” Thea said quickly. “We met her during System 102. She said she has some information on Masters that could help with the Challenge.”
She shot Karania a pointed look, silently begging her not to mention the autograph or the fan stuff.
Their eyes locked, and with growing dread, Thea saw the sparkle of pure amusement in her best friend’s gaze. Kara was absolutely enjoying this moment of uncertainty.
“Girl’s a real fan of Thea’s, that’s for sure,” Lucas added casually.
Thea’s eyes went wide.
Karania snapped her head toward him, then back to Thea, clearly mouthing, “Wasn’t me,” before breaking into all-out laughter.
“A real fan, huh?” Isabella teased, one brow lifting.
Corvus jumped in without missing a beat. “Not exactly surprising, considering our star Recruit over here. #1 isn’t just for show. Bound to have a whole fanclub by now.”
Even Desmond decided to chime in, rubbing the back of his neck with an awkward half-smile. “I mean… yeah. Kind of checks out. You are scary competent. I’d probably be a fan too. Uh… Not like that though,” he added quickly, somehow managing to make it worse.
Thea groaned, dragging both hands down her face. “Please. Can we not do this right now…?”
She took a breath and forced herself back on track, pointing at Lucas. “Anyway. Your DM. Did you end up friendlinking with anyone you might want to keep tabs on?”
Lucas chuckled, gracefully granting her the out. “Honestly? No. I didn’t really bother with it at the time. Was too focused on trying to figure out just how many things I had managed to mess up…” He shrugged. “But after what Corvus and Isa said earlier, yeah. I’ll start paying attention to that stuff going forward, for sure.”
The room settled into a brief lull, the energy dipping just enough for Thea to hope they’d moved on.
They hadn’t.
Isabella slowly turned her head toward her, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “So. About that fan of yours…?”
“Nope,” Thea said immediately, louder than necessary.
She spun toward Karania and jabbed a thumb in her direction. “Kara. Your DM. Show it. Now. You’ve been teasing it for days and I want to see what crazy stuff you got up to!”
Karania blinked once, then smiled in a way that told Thea she absolutely understood what was happening.
“Wow,” she said sweetly. “Changing the subject already? Tragic.”
Thea shot her a pained, pleading look.
Karania laughed and raised her hands. “Alright, alright. I’ll save that for later.”
She leaned forward, already pulling up the recording. “You’re not wrong though. I’ve been dying to show you all this.”
Thea sagged back into the couch in relief as the display shifted, silently thanking whatever force in the universe had convinced Karania to show mercy—at least for now.
As the recording started playing, Karania gave a quick introduction. “So, I picked one of the DMs with a special modifier. This one was called Faultline and… yeah, it hit a lot harder than I expected. The basic idea is constant seismic activity—earthquakes, the ground splitting open, chasms forming, all that fun stuff. Except they really cranked it up to like twelve.”
And with that, the DM recording kicked off from Karania’s point of view…
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[ND] Chapter 165 - Technique
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Chapter 160 - Anima has just released on RR with no major changes.
For the Fixers, this chapter is new.
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EDIT (12/01/26): NO chapter today, as I've been puking my guts out for the past few hours. Prolly ate something that wasn't quite good anymore. Apologies, y'alls! :(
System bullshit? System bullshit.
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u-oHPeem77EnxObP-t2lhlJTBcvguYD7zJW-mHTv4Wo/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 165 - Technique
PoV: Thomas Erius Laken
“Jin, this kind of outcome is exactly why your shard has such a large portion devoted to ground fighting,” the Grandmaster said flatly. “So you don’t have to rely on me to bail you out every time things don’t go your way.”
Jin grimaced, still breathing hard, while Tom flinched internally at the sharpness of her tone.
‘Ms. Kanis is absolutely out for blood today…’ he thought. ‘I really need to make sure not to embarrass myself when it’s my turn...’
As if summoned by the thought alone, Ms. Kanis turned her attention toward the enigma next.
“And Sera,” she continued, eyes narrowing just slightly, “I don’t even know where to begin with you. What possessed you to go for a takedown on an opponent with superior physicality? Are you suicidal?”
Sera opened her mouth to answer, but Ms. Kanis lifted a hand, cutting her off immediately.
“You might think you know that Jin isn’t good on the ground—yet—but that doesn’t excuse this kind of decision-making. What if he’d spent the last few weeks fixing that exact weakness? Hm?” Her voice sharpened. “That choice might have won you this bout, but the amount of danger you put yourself in was completely irresponsible. You had more than a dozen safer ways to end that fight.”
She took a step closer, moving towards the girl standing atop the coloured mat.
“You can’t just rely on me to stop the round because you assume I won’t let either of you get hurt. If I hadn’t stepped in, both of you would have walked away injured, I guarantee it. You’re both still at the very bottom when it comes to ground fighting.”
Sera visibly deflated, shoulders slumping as she stared at the mat, still sucking in air through heavy breaths. “Yes, Miss K… I’m sorry, Miss K…”
“Don’t be sorry,” the Grandmaster snapped. “Be better.”
She waved Jin off with a sharp gesture. “Go get some water. Check yourself for scrapes and deal with them.”
Then her gaze slid back to Sera. “You good for the last round if I give you five minutes?”
Tom already knew the answer. If he’d learned anything about the strange girl that was Sera Vildea at this point, it was that she was borderline obsessed with fighting inside the dojo.
Sure enough, she nodded without hesitation.
“Good. Get water. Recover,” Ms. Kanis said, already turning away. Then her eyes landed squarely on Tom. “You’re up next. You’ve watched two bouts now. I expect you not to fuck this up needlessly and provide some interesting data for me to work with.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied instantly, the weight of expectation snapping his focus into place.
His eyes tracked Sera as she headed toward the bench where Kenzie was already waiting for her—the two girls of the group already having formed some kind of understanding by now, if not quite a friendship then at least a friendly rivalry.
The way Sera moved as she walked still sent an uncomfortable shiver down his spine.
‘She’s dangerous…’ Tom thought. ‘Not just her, exactly—but whatever the fuck was done to her to make her like this. This is insane.’
The thought lingered longer than he liked.
‘I’ll need to tell my father about this… won’t I?’
His eyes flicked back to Ms. Kanis, who had stepped into the center of the arena again.
She was doing… something.
Tom couldn’t quite place it, but he’d noticed the pattern before—every bout, every reset, she always stepped in like this.
‘Data retrieval, maybe?’ he reasoned. ‘Sensors in the mat. Telemetrics. That’s probably how she’s so freakishly accurate with her predictions and shard feedback.’
It was the best explanation he’d managed to come up with so far, and even that felt flimsy.
‘Ms. Kanis is going to hate me even thinking about telling my father about Sera’s change, but… can I really keep this quiet?’ The thought gnawed at him. ‘This isn’t natural. And we’re the damn bionics experts! Whatever was done to her… even our most cutting-edge experimental rigs wouldn’t give a teenage girl this kind of impossible jump without something showing.’
He chewed on his lower lip, stress building as he brushed right up against the only real rule Ms. Kanis ever enforced that wasn’t directly relevant to the mat.
‘If I could just figure out who the fuck her mother actually is—and who she works for…’
His thoughts spiraled.
‘It has to be one of the Big Four. It has to be. This level of performance boost, this fast, with no visible downsides and not even a single surgery scar? That doesn’t just happen. This has to be black-box tech. Experimental. Off-ledger or deep R&D. But fucking whose?!’
He wasn’t as deeply plugged into corporate portfolios as his brothers or his father—not yet—but even he knew that none of the majors were publicly trading in anything that came remotely close to what he was observing with Sera.
Sure, there were outfits like ApexWave Synthetics that might be cooking something spicy on the side. As a subsidiary of OmniPresentia, they had the funding, the labs, the political insulation for it. And their portfolio already covered both bionics and cybernetics—even some dips into genetics here and there.
But that theory fell apart the moment it touched reality.
Sera was obviously clean. Completely unaugmented.
‘And Ms. Kanis only accepted her because she’s baseline-human, so it’s impossible,’ he thought grimly. ‘Unless the Grandmaster herself is compromised…’
That idea also barely lasted a heartbeat before he dismissed it as pure nonsense.
If there was one thing everyone in the city agreed on, it was that Selene Kanis was incorruptible. Creds didn’t move her. Threats didn’t scare her. Promises didn’t tempt her.
If the Grandmaster of the Arkion Dojo didn’t want something, then it simply didn’t happen.
‘Even Sobirashu had to learn that the hard way…’
It was practically a city legend at this point.
About six years back, one of Sobirashu’s major shareholders had tried to strong-arm private lessons for his first-born son.
Ms. Kanis had refused outright. No explanation. No negotiation.
What followed had been months of back-and-forth that escalated from polite requests, to veiled threats, to very real ones.
Eventually, Ms. Kanis had laid it out in plain terms.
“Everyone trains as part of a group,” she had said. “If I decide someone deserves more, then they get private instruction. I choose my own students, nobody else.”
She hadn’t budged.
The shareholder hadn’t taken it well. A handful of dead corporate agents later—sent to “negotiate”—and a furious internal crackdown from Sobirashu’s other shareholders, up to and including the company’s CTO, had finally put an end to the mess.
And, as always, Ms. Kanis had gotten her way without so much as a scratch to show for it.
‘So Sera’s still unaugmented,’ Tom thought grimly, ‘or Ms. Kanis’ standards for keeping her in the group have shifted somehow.’
Neither option sat well with him. ‘But if she really is clean, then what the actual fuck is going on here…? A new drug? Some kind of enhancer like the one the Grandmaster dangles in front of us for landing a hit on her each session, just cranked up to eleven… no, thirteen?’
It had already been unsettling watching Sera’s earlier growth since their group had begun tutelage under the Grandmaster.
She’d rapidly gone from getting casually bodied by just about everyone in the group to nearly taking them all on at once—right after that strange mental break that had almost ended with Kenzie seriously hurt.
That alone had been beyond freakish.
But this?
‘The last jump at least made some kind of sense,’ he reasoned. ‘That was technique. Like she’d been holding back, or finally figured out how to use the body she already had.’
His jaw tightened. ‘But this decidedly isn’t that. Her technique’s actually sloppier, if anything. Less refined. But her speed and strength are on a completely different level now…’
That was the part that truly frightened him.
Just how—
“Tom. Sera. You’re up,” Ms. Kanis called, cutting straight through his spiral. “Hurry it along. I don’t want this initial exploration eating the entire session.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Tom answered immediately, snapping out of it as he jogged onto the mat. He shoved the circular thoughts aside—they clearly weren’t getting him anywhere right now.
Instead, he focused on the enigma herself, watching Sera jog over to meet him.
The unease in his gut only grew.
‘Yeah…’ he thought, eyes tracking her movements carefully. ‘She even moves differently now. Even when she’s just casually jogging. It’s like she’s not using the same muscles she had a week ago.’
She settled into her stance—subtly different than before, but different all the same—and he mirrored her a heartbeat later by assuming his own stance.
Tom’s mind snapped straight into strategy mode as they waited for Ms. Kanis’ hands to come together.
‘I’ve still got stamina on my side, thanks to my bionics,’ he assessed quickly. ‘Probably a slight edge in raw power too.’
His eyes tracked her weight distribution, the way she shifted on her feet. ‘But speed? She blows me out of the water now. She already had an advantage there from sparring Kenzie all the time, but now… she completely bodies me in that department, no doubt.’
But speed wasn’t everything.
Tom’s gaze sharpened as he kept breaking her down piece by piece.
‘Her technique’s sloppier,’ he realized. ‘Not bad—just quite a lot worse than it used to be.’
The precision she’d had back after that breakdown, the razor-tight control and ruthless efficiency, wasn’t there right now.
She was clearly experimenting.
Testing the edges of her new body instead of fighting optimally.
That meant she wouldn’t immediately go for the safest or most efficient answers.
She’d try things. Push limits. Take risks she wouldn’t normally take.
And risks naturally meant openings.
If she still fought the way she had back then—perfectly controlled, minimal wasteage—and had this body on top of it? He didn’t kid himself. Even with him, Jin and Kenzie working perfectly in sync, they’d probably get folded unless everything went exactly right.
But this? This was just raw physical supremacy.
And that was something he understood.
He’d spent years fighting people who were stronger, faster or more augmented than him.
That was the whole point of his training—weathering the storm, absorbing the pressure, dragging the fight into deep water, and letting stamina, technique and fundamentals grind the other side down.
‘I don’t need to beat her straight-up,’ he told himself. ‘I just need to survive long enough to make her tire herself out and overcommit…’
Ms. Kanis’ hands came together in the typically loud, echoing clap—then, nothing.
Neither of them rushed each other.
Tom stayed light on his feet, shoulders relaxed, hands up but not tight, giving nothing away.
His eyes never left Sera—not her face, but her hips, her shoulders, the way her weight shifted with each step.
He catalogued everything: Distance. Rhythm. Timing. Breathing.
He’d always fought like this, building a mental model of his opponent piece by piece before committing to anything real.
Sera, on the other hand, started edging forward almost casually, testing space with small steps, getting just close enough to threaten but not close enough to commit.
Tom recognized it right away—she’d done the same thing to Jin once they’d entered mid-range. To bait reactions and fish for habits.
This, in a way, was the most dangerous part about Sera that Tom had identified after their first few sessions inside the dojo together.
‘She’s like all three of us put together… Even more so now than before. Kenzie’s speed, Jin’s aggression when she sees an opening and my strategy. A jack of all trades, except now she’s starting to beat each of us in our own damn field…!’
So he tried to not give her anything to work with.
A lazy jab here. A half-hearted kick toward her lead leg there.
Nothing with weight behind it, nothing she could punish hard.
Just enough to see how she reacted… And her reactions were terrifying.
She slipped the jab like it was nothing, barely even acknowledging it, feet adjusting with absurd smoothness, her body simply dancing past it like it was nothing. The kick barely had time to exist before she’d shifted out of its line, her balance never wavering even a fraction.
This is another piece of the enigmatic puzzle that made no sense to him.
‘Her balance is simply too good. It’s like her core is somehow glued to the ground. I could understand if she had a gyro-implant or similar but she’s fucking unaugmented…! How?!’
He kept probing anyway, because that was his job.
Because panic wouldn’t help—thinking would.
She didn’t overreact to any of his moves. Didn’t even flinch. Neither bit hard on any of it.
She just kept closing, inch by inch, pressure building without her ever fully committing, and every time she moved, Tom saw it—the definition in her muscles beneath her gi, the way her body carried even more power now.
It wasn’t obvious bulk, but more like everything unnecessary parts had been stripped away; like she had somehow been refined at a full-body level.
Stamina-wise, he at least knew he had the edge, which made him breathe a little lighter.
He had honestly not been sure before the fight, but seeing her close the distance now, still breathing slightly harder than would otherwise be expected from a fresh opponent, he was certain now.
This was, after all, her third bout in a row, and even with whatever freakish changes she had going on, fatigue would eventually set in.
It had to.
The problem was just, that if she decided to rush him? To really turn it on?
‘I’m not sure I could stop her…’
Her speed alone made that obvious. A speed that could rival Kenzie’s outside of her most impressive techniques. Add in the fact that she was sturdier now—way sturdier—and suddenly the margin for error shrank to something uncomfortably thin.
Yet the strangest part wasn’t even any of that.
It was that Ms. Kanis was letting all of this happen without as much of a word.
If all of this really were some kind of performance enhancing drugs—real drugs, the kind Tom knew—there was no way the Grandmaster would’ve allowed it.
High-end combat stims came with tells. Side effects. Severe instability.
She’d shut it down immediately—but she hadn’t.
‘Which means whatever is going on with her isn’t as simple…’
And that thought lingered in Tom’s mind as he kept circling, jabbing, testing—watching her close the distance with that same calm, predatory patience, waiting to see when she’d finally decide to turn the pressure into something he might not be able to walk away from.
He ultimately decided that allowing her to feel him out had gone on long enough.
If he really did have the edge in stamina and technique—and he was pretty damn sure he did—then the worst thing he could do was let her dictate the pace.
She had raw speed, maybe raw power too. He still couldn’t quite tell if she was actually matching his bionically enhanced strength or just getting close enough to make the difference uncomfortable.
But one thing was certain: She was human, unaugmented. And humans gassed.
So he turned the heat up.
He stepped in harder, started forcing exchanges instead of waiting for them.
Jabs came sharper now, kicks snapped with intent, angles shifting constantly as he tested her reactions again and again.
Each follow-up was adjusted on the fly—if she slipped left, he cut right next time.
If she ducked, he went high next to mix it up and catch her off-guard.
If she dodged back, he chased space instead of the strike.
It was controlled pressure, the kind he’d trained for years to apply, designed to make an opponent move more than they wanted to.
And she moved.
Lords, did she move.
The enigma responded to everything, not with refined counters or clever traps, but with pure, overwhelming physicality.
She darted in and out, answered his strikes with sudden bursts of speed, heavy kicks, sharp punches that came in at odd angles simply because she could get there in time. There was no subtlety to it—just acceleration and force layered on top of frightening coordination.
It should’ve worked in his favor. And technically, it did.
Tom deflected what he could, rolled with what he couldn’t, trusted his bionics to soak the rest.
A kick slammed into his thigh and he felt it—really felt it—but his reinforced musculature took the worst of it. A punch clipped his shoulder, another glanced off his ribs.
Hard hits, sure, but not Jin-levels of hard; they were still manageable.
He stayed composed, breathing steady, letting the damage distribute instead of stack.
What bothered him was that, despite how hard he was pushing her, he never once managed to actually catch her off-balance.
Not a single stumble—not even a hitch in her footing.
Every time he thought he’d forced a bad angle or overextended her reach, she simply… handled it, somehow. Or she simply danced out of the way, immediately going into a recovery and resetting, ready to move again.
It was like trying to shove someone standing on perfect footing atop a ball—no matter how much force he applied, she never lost her footing for even a second.
More of that prior unease continued to creep in.
She was replying to his offense with nothing but speed and strength, no real technique behind it, and yet it was working.
Not enough to overwhelm him—yet—but enough to keep him honest.
‘She should’ve slipped by now,’ he thought grimly. ‘That’s how you gas someone out—you knock them off balance, force them into big, ugly recoveries, make every reset cost them more than it should. But there’s just no unbalancing her…!’
Tom started to feel it before he fully understood it over the next few exchanges—his pressure stopped doing what it was supposed to do.
The rhythm he’d been forcing, the little micro-advantages he’d been stacking, started slipping through his fingers as Sera’s movement started to tighten.
Her footwork got cleaner.
Her recoveries—if one could even call them that—shrank even further.
The wild, exploratory edges of her earlier bouts began smoothing out into something calculated and deliberate, and Tom’s eyes widened as the realization hit him like a punch to the gut.
‘Shit. No—no, don’t you dare figure it out that fast…!’
But she was. Undeniably.
He could see it in the way she stopped overextending, in how her weight settled just right before each movement, in the way her reactions stopped being purely reactive and started being anticipatory again.
That freaky, post-breakdown technique was already starting to creep back in, piece by piece, and it scared the shit out of him.
She wasn’t completely burning herself out anymore just to test her body, and while she was starting to breathe fairly heavily, he could tell that she was adapting faster than his plan could work.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Tom swore internally and immediately cranked things up.
If gassing her out wasn’t happening, then he needed to force an ending.
He started throwing real shots now—full-weight punches, heavy kicks meant to bruise and slow, not just probe. He lunged in harder, tried to crowd her space, even dipped low for a few desperate grappling attempts.
If he could drag her to the ground, even once, he could probably end it there.
Sera was still terrible on the mat—they all were. Jin had his cybernetics that he could get lucky with on the ground, but Kenzie was the only real exception to that rule thanks to her claws and genetic instincts, even if she still wasn’t exactly a prodigee.
But Sera? Ground work was her glaring weakness by now.
Except she never let him get there.
Every grab slipped through his fingers. Every clinch dissolved before it could form.
She twisted out, stepped off-line, redirected with speed that made his stomach sink.
If he hadn’t been running on bionics, hadn’t been propped up by artificial stamina and reinforced joints and musculature, he would’ve been sucking air already.
And then she started pushing back.
Clean hits began sneaking through his guard.
A punch to the ribs that made him grunt and gasp.
A kick that landed harder than it had any right to, making the muscles deep in his leg burn.
Each impact carried more weight than before, more intent, and Tom felt the hurt start to stack up in a way he hadn’t planned for; not this fast, at least.
‘How the fuck do I win this…?’ he thought wildly, barely ducking under one of her high kicks as it screamed past his head, the displaced air tugging at his hair. That one felt like it would’ve taken his jaw. ‘She’s faster. Her power’s at least on par with mine. And her technique—fuck—it’s snapping back into that impossible control she had before. Is there anything left I can do…?’
And the worst part was—yeah. There was. There always was.
In close-quarters combat, when size and weight weren’t overwhelmingly stacked against you, there was one ugly, fairly-reliable way to force an ending.
One option that didn’t care about power, finesse or style—just raw commitment.
He grimaced internally.
Ms. Kanis was absolutely going to tear him apart for it.
‘Unless it’s my only shot,’ he argued with himself, deflecting a snap punch by a hair’s breadth and stumbling back as a follow-up kick slammed toward his already bruised ribs, forcing him to retreat even further. ‘And unless I suddenly spot some fatal flaw in her movement pattern—’
Another kick whistled past his guard, straight into his other side, making him grunt.
‘Yeah. That’s not happening. Fuck.’
With his back nearly to the wall, decision made whether he liked it or not, Tom sucked in a deep breath and waited.
‘Let her commit. Let her throw again…’
On the next kick, he lunged.
There was one surefire way to end a fight like this: Throw your entire body into the opponent, drive them down with you, and finish it on the ground.
No defense on your end. No elegance. No half-measures.
The problem was that it was brutally dangerous for the one initiating it.
A faster opponent could sidestep it, if mistimed. A stronger one could stuff the attempt and turn it around. But if you timed it right—if you threw everything you had into it, at the exact moment they couldn’t disengage—
Then it stopped being as much of a gamble.
Her kick landed square in his chest just as he surged forward.
The impact was brutal—bone-deep—knocking the breath clean out of him in a harsh, involuntary wheeze, but his momentum didn’t stop.
It couldn’t, at this point.
He slammed into her—hard, shoulder and torso crashing into Sera’s chest with enough force to stagger and topple them both, her sharp, surprised cry tearing out as they went down together in a messy tangle of limbs.
Tom wrapped his arms around her, locking them tight around her torso, crushingly close, refusing to give her even an inch of space. Pain flared everywhere—his ribs, his lungs screaming for air—but he forced his focus to stay glued to the fight.
‘Just hold. Just drag her down. Just don’t let go…!’
In the space of a heartbeat, however, somehow everything went wrong as Sera twisted.
It wasn’t some kind of strategic movement, nor a raw contest of strength or flexibility.
It was just… wrong.
Her body contorted and rotated in a way that made no sense, one heel still barely grazing the mat as she morphed like something boneless, slipping through his grip before his arms could close fully around her.
His hands suddenly grasped empty air.
She hit the ground first—just as he’d planned—but not beneath him. Instead, because she had slipped free at the last second, she had landed slightly to the side of him.
And she didn’t stay there.
Using the momentum of the fall, she rolled backward in a smooth, almost lazy-looking recovery, spine curving as her boots skimmed the mat once before she flopped straight back onto her feet.
Tom had hit the mat a split second later than she had, but he hadn’t moved.
He simply lay there on his stomach, chest heaving, lungs burning, staring up at her with wide, disbelieving eyes as she settled into a ready stance above him.
‘This is impossible…!’
Miss K’s voice cracked through the moment. “That’s enough! Bout’s over.”
And Tom didn’t even bother arguing, he just kept staring up at the monster in front of him...
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[Wolf Lord+ | Draft] Volume 2 - Chapter 67 - Competence
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Welcome to the draft release of Volume 2 - Chapter 67 - Competence for y'all.
As always, a quick reminder that this chapter is still in the process of being workshopped by me and that this is simply the first-draft.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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Happy New Year, my lovely Wolf Lords, Chapter Masters and K9!
Sorry for the long delay on this one; it's been a rough past month.
But we should be more-or-less back on the saddle now. Hoping to have another one for ya later this week, in parallel with the usual RR chapter releases and such.
This chapter ended up being a bit different than I initially imagined, Discovery Writing getting in the way of what I actually wanted to have in it, so it ended up having to be longer to still fit what I wanted to cover.
Hope it still ended up good!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tSZfpQ1InnzWqh5gsthsQHr0lqKLHJKnL2dPUlCCldY/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 67 - Competence
“Bounty Hunters are not our allies. They are not our enemies either. They are a problem that occasionally solves another problem.”
— General O. Unara, Strategic Assessment Briefing
“From the UHF’s point of view, Bounty Hunters occupy an uncomfortable space in the Galactic War. They are a necessary evil: Useful, effective, and deeply irritating.
As non-Faction combatants, Bounty Hunters fall under the “Non-Affiliated” classification on a Battlefield. That status grants them full access to the Battlefield Ruleset, just like any other Major Faction would have; including the deployment of Battlefield Aces.
On paper, this makes them “neutral.”
In practice however, it makes them completely unpredictable.
Most Bounty Hunters never rise above the first Tier. They die quickly, or learn to stay small.
But the rare few who reach Tier Two—and the even rarer Tier Three—are something else entirely. When one of those Hunters accepts a contract, the hiring Faction effectively buys itself a max-deployment-Tier Battlefield Ace.
Not permanently, of course, and definitely not cheaply.
But long enough to remove a singular problem.
And that is the key point: Bounty Hunters do not fight wars. They erase obstacles.
A Hunter is never interested in territory, morale, or momentum.
They do not hold lines. They do not push flanks.
They do not care who wins today nor tomorrow.
They appear, claim a single bounty—an Ace, a vehicle crew, a ship—and then they’re gone.
They carve straight through the lines to reach their target, leaving devastation behind them, the collateral damage not seldom outweighing the loss of the Ace itself.
But, that is precisely why they are called in: When a Battlefield Ace becomes too dangerous to face head-on, and the Faction calling them in sees no other viable option.
The UHF has lost more than a few promising Aces to that kind of intervention.
Talents that would have shaped entire campaigns, ended by a third party with no flag and no stake beyond payment.
That loss stings—and Command does not forget it.
But the ledger cuts both ways.
For every Ace taken from us, we have killed many, many more Hunters.
We study them. We bait them. We burn their networks and collapse their support chains.
And, when it suits our objectives, we also hire them ourselves—because denying a weapon to the enemy is sometimes less effective than simply pointing said weapon in the other direction.
But this, ultimately, leads us to the real danger in regards to Bounty Hunters that Command watches out for:
A Battlefield Ace so terrifying that the enemy Faction refuses to face them does not merely win the Battlefield they appear on—no.
They simply start to attract Hunters.
And once that happens, that Ace stops being just the enemy’s problem.
They become ours too.”
—
[Filed under Strategic Risk Awareness, Mandatory Reading for All Command-Level Officers, PFC892]
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“—basically the end of the DM. Let me just fast-forward this part…” Thea muttered, feeling anxiety crawl up her chest as they arrived at the one part she really wished she could hide.
They were watching the replay mostly from her own perspective, only having opted into third-person view once or twice for specific situations, so once she stopped shooting and the two remaining Squad Medics of the temporary Alpha Squad started freaking out about her, everything sped up a lot.
“I just had a small medical issue, but we figured it out and everything was fine in the end,” Thea summarised, very deliberately not looking at the rest of her squad—especially not Karania next to her. “Just a tiny problem involving… overheatingandmeltingmyownbrainand ultimatelykillingmyself, but we won like right after, so it was totally fine! And I had Squad Medic approval to go through with it! And I made a bunch of connections on the Friendlink system as a result, including Sergeant Kalt, so that’s really cool! And we won! But—I guess I already mentioned that…”
A heavy silence settled over the common room as she ran out of things to add on, while everyone’s heads slowly turned towards her.
After a few moments, the quiet was broken.
“You… melted your own brain… and killed yourself?” Corvus repeated slowly, lifting his gaze from the datapad he’d been taking notes on.
‘I swear, why does everyone have to have superhuman Perception… I can’t talk fast enough for them to miss anything!’ Thea groaned internally.
The worst part was that it had been a direct question from Corvus, her Squad Leader. And it was in relation to something directly relevant to their jobs.
There was no way she could just lie to him.
With all eyes on her, she squirmed under the weight of it and offered a weak, “Maaaybe…?”
Corvus let out a long, tired sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Noted.”
Then he calmly lowered his gaze back to the datapad and started writing again, stylus moving a little faster than before.
Desmond, on the other hand, didn’t even try to hold anything in. He snorted first, then broke into full-on laughter, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sorry—” he managed between breaths, “—you literally cooked your own brain to death? That’s insane.”
Isabella slammed a fist against her thigh and roared with laughter right along with him.
“HA! That’s so fucking good!” she barked. “Went out with a bang, Princess! I can respect that. And the enemy didn’t get any kill credit on you either! If you’re gonna die, that’s the way to fucking do it!”
Lucas, meanwhile, shifted awkwardly in his seat, brow furrowed. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then glanced between Isabella and Thea. “…I mean,” he said slowly, “that’s impressive? But also kind of concerning? I’m not sure which one I’m really feeling here...”
Then Karania’s arm came down around Thea’s shoulders.
Thea went stiff instantly.
The sounds came first—wet tearing, sharp cracks of bone breaking far too close to her ear.
She flinched with every change, shoulders tensing as warm droplets splashed against her pants. She stared straight ahead at the datascreen, watching the DM replay crawl toward its end, doing everything she could to pretend none of this was happening.
Then something pressed into her cheek.
An elongated bone—Karania’s index finger—pushed until her head was forced to turn.
Thea swallowed and looked at her best friend.
Karania smiled a sweet, dangerous smile.
“Thea, my dearest,” Kara said calmly, tilting her head slightly, “what is the one thing I have asked you about—repeatedly—since basically the first day of the Assessment? And especially, what have I told you about using your Focus? And using all your Psyker stuff?”
Thea’s voice came out small. “…To not overdo it?”
Karania raised an eyebrow.
“…and to be careful,” Thea mumbled.
Karania slowly gestured with her free hand toward the datascreen, where Thea’s on-screen self was leaning dead against the wall of the trench.
“…Were you?” Kara asked.
Thea hesitated briefly, considering.
Then she nodded slightly. “Yeees?”
Karania facepalmed hard enough to make a sound and let out a long, suffering groan.
Isabella laughed even harder, to the point where she had to lean forward, one hand braced on her knee, the other on her chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
Karania tightened her arm around Thea’s shoulder.
“Dying to self-inflicted injuries,” she said flatly, “even inside a DM, is not being careful, my dear Thea. I don’t care how many Squad Medics sign off on it or how untouched your Blueprint comes back. You still shouldn’t be literally killing yourself at any point.”
Thea swallowed and stared straight ahead at the replay as it wrapped up.
“You start doing that and you build bad habits. Bad expectations for yourself. You get used to pushing past limits because you think there’s always a reset button. There isn’t. Not out there.” She jerked her chin toward the wall. “You don’t just ‘turn off’ DM-brain once we’re deployed for real.”
Another wet sound came close to Thea’s ear—flesh tearing, bone snapping as Karania flexed her hand seemingly without even thinking about it.
“And what if one of the medics misjudged their Focus?” Karania pressed. “What if they overestimated their reserves? Or underestimated your drain rate? In that replay, you didn’t even consider that they might fail you, did you? Was that being careful?”
Before Thea could even consider her own answer, Corvus unexpectedly interjected.
“That’s exactly what she should assume,” he said, not looking up as he added another note to his datapad. “She was in there with her fellow Marines. Her designated squad. Why would she ever assume they’d fail her?”
Karania’s head snapped up. “Because people make mistakes.”
“And Marines know their roles,” Corvus shot back, finally meeting her gaze. “Medics know their Medic work. Offensives know their offense. Defensives know their coverage. That trust is the whole point of the Roles we have inside each squad.”
Karania scoffed. “Trust does not replace personal responsibility. You don’t gamble your own life on the assumption that everyone else is going to act perfectly.”
“And you don’t fight like you’re alone,” Corvus replied, voice uncharacteristically firm now. “You hesitate because you might not be supported, and people die. That’s not how an army works. Not how the Marines work.”
The tension hung thick between them, sharp enough that even Isabella’s roaring laughter dipped and died out fast.
And yeah… that really was the core of it.
Thea could actually see exactly where Karania was coming from.
In every game she’d ever played inside the Golden Age Arcade, no matter how competitive, assuming general incompetence was just smart. You planned around people messing up and not knowing how to do things properly.
If they turned out to be good, that was a nice bonus, but never the baseline.
The Old Man, however, had drilled something else into her in regards to the UHF: In the Marines, competence wasn’t optional—it was to be assumed at all times.
Complete and utter trust, full reliance.
And so she had.
‘I didn’t even consider this being a potential danger,’ she realised, unease settling in her chest as she struggled with the same question hanging in the room around her. ‘Not for a second. I never thought Dan or Chester would fail me on the Focus front… not one bit.’
Karania pulled her arm back from Thea and folded it across her chest, leaning forward slightly.
“Trust doesn’t mean switching your brain off,” she said flatly. “It means knowing your limits and not pushing past them just because you assume someone else will catch you. Thea died. DM or not, that kind of thing matters!”
Corvus exhaled slowly through his nose.
“And assuming your squad will fail you is even more dangerous,” he shot back. “Marines survive because they rely on each other. If you start second-guessing every role on the field, the entire doctrine falls apart.”
“That’s easy to say from a top-down perspective,” Karania replied sharply. “I’m talking about individual responsibility here, Corvus. Not Faction-wide doctrine. Focus overdraw doesn’t care how good a medic is supposed to be if you push too far. What good is this blind trust if they misjudge their reserves and I just assumed they wouldn’t? We still both die—simply because I trusted they’d have perfect capability on their end instead of taking some level of responsibility and realizing it could become a problem ahead of time, so I could stop before draining us both dry. You saw the damn replay, Corvus—she didn’t even consider that they might fail her!”
“Again, why should she?” Corvus countered immediately. “She was deployed with trained Marines doing their jobs. If Thea has to spend a chunk of her efforts on considering whether or not people around her will fail her, how much worse is her overall performance going to be? Multiply that by the hundreds of millions of Marines inside the Corps, and now we’re losing the war. That’s just how doctrine works: You need everyone to follow it, or it falls apart. You have to trust that.”
Isabella shifted, her grin gone now.
She scratched at her jaw, then spoke up. “I get what you’re saying, boss. I do.”
She glanced at Karania, then back at Corvus. “But Kara’s not wrong either. Blind trust gets people killed. I’ve seen it.”
She trailed off there, eyes unfocused for a moment. Whatever memory had surfaced, she clearly wasn’t keen on sharing it. “Just… yeah. Sometimes trusting too hard fucks you—hard.”
Lucas cleared his throat, before also joining in.
“If I couldn’t trust the people around me, I’d never have made it here,” he said calmly. “Rinox hunting literally does not work without full, unconditional trust. You keep the beast busy with all of your focus and might, so you have to believe the others will do their part. Because if you hesitate for a fraction of a moment, you die. You have to trust that they’ll kill it while you keep it busy.”
Desmond nodded slowly. “Honestly… a month ago, I’d be with Karania and Isabella on this one. No question. Easiest choice of my life.”
He spoke carefully, eyes flicking between the members of the squad. “But… I’ve already been burned once by assuming people in my own squad would screw me over. I’m… not doing that again, if I can help it. I’m trying to give people the benefit of the doubt now. So… I guess I’m team trust? Kind of.”
Thea couldn’t help but notice that his gaze drifted to everyone at least once—except her.
She evidently wasn’t the only one caught off guard by Desmond throwing his hat in the ring for team trust either; everyone but Corvus showed clear flashes of surprise at his words.
Hearing everyone’s opinions only made Thea sink deeper into her own thoughts.
‘This is… weird,’ she thought, her brows creasing. ‘The Old Man’s been right about basically everything he’s ever taught me. And inside the Marines, trust is supposed to be a given.’
But that clearly wasn’t the whole picture, was it?
‘I can see Kara and Ela’s side too. Trusting the Medics this completely on something that could literally kill me if it goes even a little wrong… yeah. Kara’s probably right. I should’ve at least kept an eye on my own Focus and my own limits, no…? Nothing would have actually stopped me from just burning Focus while my brain slowly melted. I was completely trusting Chester to knock me out—or straight-up kill me—if I got too close to an Overdraw. And sure, he stayed with me till the end, so it worked out… but is that really a solid argument?’
She grimaced inwardly.
‘“It worked out, so I was right” usually doesn’t mean shit, does it.’
Karania let out a slow breath and finally eased back, some of the sharpness draining from her posture.
“Listen, I get it,” she said. “Second-guessing literally everyone around you all the time isn’t viable. I know that. We all do, I don’t doubt. There’s obviously a damn good reason the doctrine exists the way it does. But that doesn’t mean blind trust is always the answer either.”
She flicked a glance toward Desmond.
“If nobody ever paid attention to the people next to them, how exactly would you ever catch an Infiltrator, for example? We’ve literally just seen what a single bad actor can do. If blind trust was the only thing anyone ever did, one person slipping through unchecked could completely wreck an entire Faction.”
Corvus was quiet for a few seconds, fingers still on his datapad.
Then he nodded once.
“There’s… some truth to that, yes,” he admitted. “Doctrine isn’t inflexible. There is wiggle room.”
His gaze moved across the squad. “That said, especially for young Marines like us, blind trust is still the best starting point. Assuming competence and trusting your fellow Marines to do their jobs is how you get maximum performance. Hesitation and constant doubt does nothing but get people killed.”
He paused, then looked back at Thea.
“But,” he continued, “that competence doesn’t just go one way. In cases like this—Psykers, high-risk Focus use, experimental weapons, etc.—personal responsibility is part of that same assumption. If you’re a potential danger to yourself or the people around you, then part of your competence, that other people will be assuming exists, is knowing how not to let that happen. Self-control isn’t somehow separate from or antithetical to the doctrine. It’s quite literally baked into it by default.”
The words seemed to settle over the room like a blanket.
Karania studied him for a moment, then gave a small, reluctant nod.
“…Yeah,” she said quietly. “I can live with that. Part of the competence we all assume in each other, involves the competence to not end up killing yourself and others.”
Lucas still looked unsure, arms crossed tight, while Isabella rolled a shoulder and frowned, clearly not fully convinced either. Desmond, on the other hand, had visibly gone thoughtful, eyes unfocused for a moment—then he nodded as well.
Thea let the conversation sink in, replaying the arguments inside her head.
‘…Yeah. They’re probably both right.’
She’d always taken the Old Man’s advice at face value—assume competence, trust the people around you. But she was starting to see the part she’d accidentally skipped over.
That assumption didn’t just apply outward. It applied inward, too.
She’d very much forgotten to consider that she was part of the equation as well and what “competence” really implied in a situation where others were counting on you in turn.
‘Dying inside a DM really isn’t as catastrophic as Karania is making it sound though,’ she still believed. ‘But… I did promise Kara to be careful. And melting my own brain, DM or not, is pretty much the exact opposite of that, no matter how I look at it. At the very least, I should’ve kept enough of myself together to not rely entirely on Chester to stop me… If I had, I probably wouldn’t have died at all either.’
Then again… she had won.
‘Not sure I would’ve, if I hadn’t gone all the way…’
The thoughts sat heavy in her chest.
There was no clean answer here. No easy rule to follow, beyond what the two brains of her squad had just come up with—but even that one was quite difficult to implement.
It was all just a messy middle ground that required judgment she wasn’t sure she fully had grips on yet.
She exhaled slowly, then broke the silence.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t keep my promise,” she said quietly, looking at Karania.
“You asked me to be careful. And I wasn’t.” She hesitated, then added, more honestly, “I’ll try to be better. I just… don’t really know how to balance all of this yet.”
For a moment, Karania just stared at her. Then she sighed, long and tired, and before Thea could brace herself, Kara pulled her into a hug.
Thea stiffened on instinct—then slowly relaxed.
“I know,” Karania muttered, chin resting against the top of Thea’s head. “This whole Psychic thing, the Focus, and all that… It’s a lot. Would be for anyone.”
She pulled back just enough to look at her. “I don’t really care that you pushed hard. Not even that you died, honestly. It’s more about the way how. What I care about is that you don’t start forming habits that’ll get you killed later, just because DMs feel safe. That’s all.”
Thea swallowed and nodded.
“Yeah… I get that,” she said quietly. “I won’t let that happen again.”
A brief silence settled over the room—just long enough to feel heavy—before Isabella’s brusque voice cut straight through it from Thea’s other side.
“Wow, what’s with this mood all of a sudden?” Isabella scoffed. “You two gonna kiss now or what? Should the rest of us make ourselves scarce or do we get to watch…?”
Thea turned beet-red instantly, words tripping over themselves as she tried to respond. “W-What—?! No!”
Karania let go of her just as fast, scowling furiously at Isabella. “Absolutely not! Making sure the squad doesn’t develop suicidal habits is literally my job,” she shot back. “I was merely making sure she doesn’t form bad habits, Isabella. That’s it. I’d have done the exact same thing if it had been you. You know that.”
Isabella just roared with laughter again, clearly enjoying herself far too much.
Karania, obviously done with that topic, shifted gears hard. “Anyway. Let’s talk about your DM again,” she said, pointing at the paused replay.
“Specifically—your deployment as a Battlefield Ace. How was that?”
That quickly snapped Isabella out of her laughter again, as her interest flared.
She bumped her shoulder into Thea’s, grinning wide. “Okay, yeah. That part was damn epic. I’m jealous as fuck. Looked like a blast. How did it feel? You had like a whole squad just for yourself!”
Thea felt herself relax, grateful for the change.
“It was really fun,” she admitted. “But also… unbelievably stressful. And exhausting.”
She gestured vaguely at the screen. “You get so many resources, so much freedom—but the downside is the stupid amounts of responsibility. Every single decision I made mattered so much. It felt like the whole Battlefield was sitting on my damn shoulders the entire time… If it wasn’t for Sergeant Kalt handling the planning, movement, and comms, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything even remotely useful.”
“Maybe you need some Leadership classes,” Corvus chimed in, tapping his stylus against his datapad. “I noted it down for the review I want to send you later. I think you’d benefit a lot from them—not because I want you taking my job, of course,” he added with a dry chuckle, “but you’ve got a natural inclination for small-scale leadership. And if you end up in Ace squads again, having that groundwork would help you not feel so out of your depth.”
Thea grimaced. “I really don’t want to lead anything…”
“You did great during the Assessment,” Lucas added unexpectedly, giving a heavy shrug, like it was obvious.
“I don’t know—” Thea started, only to be cut off by Desmond.
“You really did. Not letting you say otherwise,” he said firmly. “I know for a fact that if I’d been put in charge after Corvus left, we’d all have died before getting into the service tunnels. I’m sure it wasn’t perfect, but I honestly can’t point out what you should’ve done differently—I don’t even know if or where things went wrong.”
Thea met his eyes.
He flinched just a bit, but still held her gaze and gave a serious nod.
Deflating with a long sigh, she said, “Haaa… fiiine. I’ll look into it. But only for emergencies. And Ace squad stuff—because that was damn fucking fun.”
Lucas let out a short huff of laughter and shook his head. “I still can’t believe you ended up as a Battlefield Ace for that DM,” he said.
“It’s kind of insane. But… yeah. Given the scenario, I guess it checks out. You probably pulled a stupid amount of Credits and Merit from that, didn’t you?”
Thea nodded, a grin creeping onto her face. “Yeah. A lot.”
Lucas sighed and leaned back into his armchair, running a hand through his hair.
“Figures. I was busting my ass trying to keep up,” he muttered, then paused. “Which actually reminds me—we still need to do the squad-wide PV update.”
Thea’s eyes lit up instantly.
She straightened in her seat and turned toward Corvus. “Oh—yeah! We absolutely should do that. Lucas and I talked about it during the System 102 lecture. That something you think we could do?”
Corvus didn’t look surprised in the slightest.
He just nodded once, a smug smile tugging at his lips, and turned his datapad toward her.
Displayed on the screen was a neat data table, the header clearly visible:
PV Update – Post-Assessment, 1st DM
Thea blinked. Then blinked again.
“…You were ready for this already?” she asked, genuinely taken aback.
Her gaze snapped to Lucas almost on instinct.
He immediately raised both hands and shook his head with a chuckle. “Wasn’t me.”
Corvus inclined his head slightly, unfazed by her reaction.
“I figured it was a good idea,” he calmly said. “Doesn’t mean others can’t arrive at the same conclusion. Parallel thinking happens.”
He glanced around the room. “Everyone alright with sharing their PVs, then?”
There was a brief pause—then a chorus of nods and casual affirmations.
Corvus nodded once and tapped his datapad. “I’ll start, then. Post-Assessment, first DM—PV: One thousand, two hundred and thirty-three.”
Lucas leaned forward a little. “Alright, then. Mine’s one thousand, two hundred and sixty-two.”
Before anyone else could chime in or react, Desmond let out a sharp, victorious laugh. “Ha! Yeees! One thousand, two hundred and sixty-four. Get fucked!”
Lucas immediately groaned, staring at the ceiling. “Ah, damn it. You’ve gotta be kidding me…!”
Desmond grinned smugly, rocking back in his own chair. “Hey, what can I say, numbers don’t lie.”
Isabella snorted and crossed her arms. “Cute. One thousand, two hundred and eighty-six.”
She shot Desmond a sideways look. “Try harder next time, Droneboy. Or, how did you say… Numbers don’t lie, eh?”
Desmond muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like an insult.
Karania, meanwhile, hadn’t said a word. She just waited until everyone’s attention naturally turned towards her, then spoke with her usual casual ease. “One thousand, four hundred and eighty-five.”
Isabella sucked in a sharp breath. “—fuck.”
Desmond blinked. “Wait, how much?”
Lucas straightened up, eyebrows shooting up. “By Xagis…”
Karania rolled her eyes at the collective reaction. “Relax. It’s not that impressive.”
She tilted her head toward Thea. “I’m probably still worlds behind her anyway.”
Every head in the room turned toward Thea at once.
She froze for half a second—then couldn’t stop the smug grin from spreading across her face. This one? For once, she had earned it.
Every damn second of it.
“One thousand,” she said calmly, then paused just long enough to be annoying, “seven hundred and seventy-three.”
The reaction was immediate.
“Bullshit,” Isabella said flatly. “Absolute bullshit.”
Desmond just stared. “How…?”
Lucas dropped his head back against the chair with a long groan. “I hate this. I actually hate this… Not that I figured I would be close to Thea, but then also behind Desmond…? Come ooon.”
Karania stared at her for a second, then let out a slow breath. “Of course it is,” she muttered. “Of course your number’s that high...”
Corvus exhaled through his nose, the faintest hint of amusement breaking through his usual composure as he jotted something down.
“Noted,” he said. “Very noted.”
Thea leaned back, folding her arms behind her head, the grin still firmly in place.
“Hey. Blood, sweat, tears, and extreme levels of brain damage,” she said lightly. “All totally worth it for this.”
That earned her a sharp look from Karania.
Thea reacted instantly, hands shooting up in surrender. “Just kidding! Just kidding, Kara! It was a joke!”
Karania huffed, shaking her head, but there was no real heat behind it.
“It better have been,” she muttered, though the corner of her mouth twitched noticeably.
For a brief moment, Alpha Squad simply enjoyed the easy banter that continued for a few minutes—until Corvus cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and tapped his datapad.
“Alright,” he said, voice shifting back into Squad Leader mode, “now that we’re done measuring egos, let’s talk takeaways from the DMs…”
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[TAS] Volume 2 - Chapter 64 - Just Another Day
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Volume 2 - Interlude 59.5: Orbit has just released on RR with no changes except for the Title now having a number.
For the Wolf Lords, this chapter has seen no changes.
And also: Please do not read the chapters here on Patreon, but go for the googledoc, .pdf or .epub instead. Patreon butchers all forms of formatting and you're missing out on easier and more enjoyable reading experiences.
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A micro-focused chapter today, but it's an important one for character building.
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VhSYSL2VTLOS3NCnEDJdUOlSJ53rDUZD58CEd02FXXs/edit?usp=sharing
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Volume 2 - Chapter 64 - Just Another Day
“And you are certain of this…?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve cross-referenced and triple-checked everything. I even went to several of our Long-Term Precogs personally—one at a time, isolated consultations—just to make sure there was no cross-contamination. But every single one reported the same exact result.”
A long silence followed, heavy enough to bend the air.
“That’s impossible,” the superior officer said quietly. “All Long-Term Precogs, across multiple inquiries, seeing the same massive shift in the Galactic War? One anomaly, perhaps. But universal alignment? No. There must be something else at play.”
“I know, sir. I can’t explain it either… but I’m certain about this. This has happened twice now.”
The chair creaked as the superior officer slowly sat back. “Twice?”
“The first instance was a few weeks ago. It was dismissed at first, because no one filed anything formal—nobody realized others had seen similar visions. Long-Term Precognition is an inherently difficult and, at times, faulty Path after all. It was dismissed by the Psykers as nothing more than the usual inaccuracies. It was only after several of the Precogs casually compared notes later that they recognized the overlap. By the time this was reported however, the data was already too old to start any real investigations as to its origin.”
“And today served as confirmation.”
“Yes, sir. The moment the second event happened, reports flooded in immediately.”
Another silence—longer this time.
“You’re absolutely certain here? They all say the same thing?”
The report-bearer swallowed. “Gravely certain, sir. They all describe a massive shift radiating from Terra’s southern Factions—the Stellar Republic, the Celestial Dominion, and the United Human Federation. Something happened among one of them—or maybe all of them. Something there has detonated through the Void like a sort of… psychic supernova, for a lack of better word. It is drowning out every other Thread. They can’t see anything past it at all.”
The officer’s fingers drummed once, sharply.
Silence stretched to the breaking point before he finally prompted, “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“It’s not just ours, sir.” The words came out strained, reluctant. “I have a… friend, in another Faction. One who should not be speaking to me at all. Especially not about things like these…”
The officer’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t interrupt.
“They’ve confirmed the same thing. Their Precogs saw it too. All of them. Every single Long-Term Precog they have is reporting an identical end to their Threads.”
The report-bearer exhaled shakily.
“It… It might not just be ours and theirs, but all of them, sir. Every single Long-Term Precog in the entire galaxy…”
—
[Unknown Excerpt: Report Of Galaxy-Wide, Long-Term Precognition Anomalies, PFC943]
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When Thea woke the morning after her long Gram-and-weapons deep dive with Peria, she knew instantly that something was very wrong.
Her whole body felt tight, her chest wound up with a heavy knot of anxiety that tightened with every breath she took.
“W… What’s going on…?” she whispered, slowly pushing herself upright and scanning the room.
She was in her own quarters. Everything looked normal.
Nothing out of place, nothing broken, no alarms blaring, yet the dread in her stomach only got worse, coiling like she was waiting for an impact she couldn’t see.
‘Did I forget something important…?’ she wondered, going back through the last day in her mind. But there had been no schedule set, no appointments, no looming deadlines or lectures that she needed to attend.
This had been supposed to be the first day in what felt like weeks where she didn’t have anything planned—her own self-declared break from the never-ending madness of the UHF Marine Corps’ schedule.
And still, the feeling wouldn’t let her go.
It sat in her chest like a warning she couldn’t interpret, like something was coming and she was already too late to stop it; could only look on in dread as it approached.
She got up from her bed and took a steaming-hot shower to try and uncoil her tense muscles, but even before she stepped out to dry herself off, she already knew it hadn’t really helped.
“No, seriously, what the fuck is going on…? Do I need to check with Kara if I’m sick or something…?” she muttered, slipping into her favourite pullover—comfortable clothing usually worked wonders against anxiety.
“Good morning, Thea,” the Sovereign’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once, like it always did when she started her morning routine. “Is everything alright?”
Thea sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m not sure. I’m feeling really tense today… Did I forget some kind of appointment? Anything I mentioned and then spaced? Something happening today that I should know about?”
She didn’t really want to lean on the ship’s AI too much, given both Kara’s and Æht’s warnings still echoing in her mind, but this kind of request wasn’t exactly breaking the bank in terms of offered trust, she figured.
“I have no records of any planned or scheduled meetings involving you today,” the Sovereign answered smoothly. “Nothing forgotten or unaccounted for that you had planned, from what my records show.”
“Hmm.” Thea hummed under her breath as she finished getting dressed, pulling on simple black pants to match the pullover and checking herself once in the mirror. “Not my best work, but I’m not exactly trying to impress anyone today…”
She considered putting on make-up—something she’d been experimenting with a bit lately—but decided against it.
Today was meant to be low-effort, pure relaxation.
But as she moved toward the door to step out into Alpha Squad’s communal area, something odd finally caught her eye. As the display beside the door lit up as it always did when she got closer, a small red number 2 resting above a delivery-box icon made her stop dead in her tracks.
‘Two deliveries…?’ Thea frowned.
She’d never woken up to anything like that before.
She’d ordered things to her room before—tools for her small workbench, basic materials to experiment with—but she had never gotten anything overnight. And she definitely hadn’t ordered anything recently that would take extra time to arrive; everything she’d purchased had already shown up days ago.
Carefully, like the screen might explode if she tapped it wrong, she swiped the display and opened the details for the first delivery.
Her eyebrows shot up when she read who it was from.
“Councillor Lumis…?”
She accepted the delivery request, and a package immediately materialized on the floor in front of her door.
Her fingers brushed the smooth, matte surface of the small rectangular parcel as she gently picked it up. It was wrapped in a sleek, dark packaging with the Sovereign’s standard delivery seal and a tiny holo-tag clipped to its side.
She peeled the tag open first and started reading the Councillor’s message.
“Of fucking course that’s the reason I’m feeling like shit today…” Thea muttered under her breath, stomach twisting as soon as she caught the first line.
She forced herself to read the entire message anyway:
“Happy Birthday, Thea.
I have received the go-ahead to provide a gift for you on this day from the UHF, to both celebrate your special day, as well as continue to show our goodwill towards you, given everything you have gone through as a result of our mistakes.
Please accept it as a token of our appreciation for you.
I hope that you will enjoy this gift and find plentiful use for it in the upcoming years.
Have a wonderful birthday.
– Councillor Lumis”
A humorless laugh escaped her as she finished reading.
‘No wonder I’m feeling like this. Of all the things to forget about…’
She opened the actual package and immediately froze when she laid eyes on what it contained.
Inside—resting snug in shock-foam—sat a sleek, silver-black device shaped a bit like a reinforced forearm bracer, its smooth surface splitting into modular segments towards the front that hinted at its hidden transformations.
A faint blue trace light ran across its spine as it recognized her body’s proximity, almost like it was breathing in anticipation of being put on.
Thea couldn’t even breathe. She knew exactly what this was.
“Is that… a fucking Helion-Works VectorForge Omnitool…?”
She had stared at one of the predecessor models on the GalNet back on Lumiosia—watched every review, every flashy ad, dreaming about it—but she never even as much as considered owning one.
First and foremost, Helion-Works didn’t ship to Midworlds, period.
And even if they had, the price tag alone could’ve probably bought half the damn Undercity itself, if not more.
Her hands trembled slightly as she gingerly lifted it out of the foam.
Two things stood out to her close scrutiny of the tool immediately, just like in the ads:
First—the adaptive toolface: Thousands of micro-machined components able to reorganize into different toolheads on demand. Need a soldering pen? A precision cutter? A micro-wrench for weapon internals? It could shift forms in a fraction of a second and could even be controlled via simple thoughts, once paired with a proper link.
Second—the integrated holo-lens: A tiny projector along its side, which naturally could also move around the tool without impediment should other angles be required, capable of magnified holographic schematics, material stress overlays, component tracking, and so much more—it could map the full internal structure of any given item in real time as she worked on it.
Even weapon schematics, like the one Peria had shown her yesterday, would make a heap more sense with something like this assisting as she took the weapon apart.
“This… This is too much,” she said quietly, shaking her head.
It was simply too expensive. Too advanced for somebody like her. Too perfect a dream gift.
Something she’d wanted for years but always assumed she’d never even get to look at, much less touch—and definitely not own.
Thea swallowed hard, staring at the gift in stunned silence.
“Holy fucking shit…” she whispered, unsure whether to feel grateful, overwhelmed… or maybe even a little terrified about what a gift like this could imply.
A thought struck her then.
She turned toward the air as if the ship’s AI itself was standing there with her. “Sovereign… how do gifts like this work inside the DDS? What happens if I leave the DDS? Does this… come with me?”
The AI replied without hesitation.
“Items purchased within the DDS fall under several categories: Licenses, Digital Items, and Products. Licenses you are already familiar with. Digital Items are things such as your clothing, the tools and materials you have obtained for your workbench, and most things bound strictly to the DDS environment. Products, however, function as both Digital Items within the DDS and as a limited physical item once outside; a sort of hybrid between the other two.
“Unlike Licenses however, Products are not infinitely reprintable. They exist as a singular item that becomes part of your physical equipment upon exit. Products acquired within the DDS are transferred into your personal storage aboard the ship once procured—typically within several weeks to a month, depending on the exact item and current supply routing.
“The gift you have received from Councillor Lumis is classified as such a Product. A real-space version of the Helion-Works VectorForge Omnitool will be delivered to your storage locker once acquired. The current estimate of procurement for this particular Product sits at around a week. It will be loaded aboard during the next scheduled resupply window.”
Her disbelief only grew with the Sovereign’s answer.
Real-space. Not just a digital toy she’d lose once she left the DDS.
A real VectorForge Omnitool was coming her way.
“That’s insane…” she breathed. “What the fuck did I ever do to deserve something like this…?”
Her hand moved almost on its own as she slid the omnitool’s bracer onto her forearm.
The metal adjusted instantly, tightening and reshaping until it rested perfectly against her skin like it had been custom-made just for her.
A tiny, excited laugh slipped out when the holographic interface pulsed to life.
She went straight to her workbench, grabbing a few scrap mechanical parts to test the VectorForge’s different modes.
A plasma cutter the size of a pen-tip sliced through metal like it was softened wax.
A micro-welder fused pieces back together without even leaving burn marks.
She switched to scan mode and the tool threw up clean, detailed diagnostics right into the air above her arm. A simple flick of her wrist moved the schematics to overlay with the circuit, showcasing exactly where it had detected damage from her earlier slicing and splicing experiments.
For a few minutes, the anxiety that had owned her morning simply… vanished. She giggled under her breath like an idiot, because this stupidly amazing tool was just that fun.
Eventually though, after spending far too much time just playing around with the myriad options of the omnitool, she forced herself to take it off.
“Focus, idiot,” she muttered, setting it down as gently.
She walked back toward the room’s entrance, where the display still showed a second delivery waiting.
When she tapped it, the only sender information listed was: Anonymous.
“Anonymous?” she said aloud, frowning. “Sovereign, what’s that about?”
“Interpersonal deliveries can be sent anonymously for an increased service fee,” the AI explained. “However, all packages are scanned for illegal or harmful materials before delivery. It is safe.”
“Huh… okay.” She scratched her cheek, uncertain. “Kind of weird, but sure… I guess.”
She accepted the delivery.
Another box shimmered into existence—far bigger than the first.
The holotag attached to it only read: “Happy Birthday.”
No signature attached, no additional message, nothing.
Thea opened it carefully, unsure of what to expect.
And froze.
Inside was an entire makeup arsenal.
High-end palettes. Precision brushes. Skin primers and finishers.
Even several datashards labeled: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Artistic Styles.
“…What?” Thea stared like the box might start explaining itself.
She’d worn makeup for one day. One! And now this?
Suspicion crept in immediately.
“Kara?” she muttered.
It made sense… except it didn’t.
Kara would have just shoved the stuff in her hands and mocked her technique to her face.
Anonymous wasn’t her style. At all. That wasn’t the kind of friendship they had.
Unless Kara thought her makeup looked that bad yesterday. But even in that case, which Thea seriously doubted, she’d have roasted her while handing over the box, not hidden behind anonymity.
“Okay… so if not Kara… then who?” She asked the empty room.
No answer came.
Only the anxiety she’d briefly forgotten slid right back into her chest, heavier this time.
Someone was definitely watching her. And they were paying far too close attention.
But given the very clear cost of the gift—which had to be substantial, especially compared to how expensive her own tiny make-up haul had been already—it didn’t seem likely that any normal Recruit could afford something like this.
Outside of Alpha Squad, Beta Squad and maybe a handful of the top Assessment scorers, no one could realistically have the credits to pull off a present like that.
‘Maybe one of the Professors or Majors…? But why would they even care?’
Thea let out a long breath, accepting that she probably wasn’t going to solve the mystery sitting in her room.
She tucked the whole box away into her wardrobe—well out of sight. Kara was due to drop by sooner or later, and Thea really didn’t feel like navigating questions she couldn’t answer.
Only then did she finally step out into Alpha Squad’s communal space—then paused immediately mid-step.
Everyone was awake and present. All of them.
Usually, only Corvus or Kara were up at this hour, but today, every single member was already there, moving about like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Thea took two steps into the common room—then Lucas looked up from his plate, her door right in line of sight from his usual spot.
“Ah! Morning, Thea! Happy birthday.” A big tooth grin was plastered on his face, but Thea saw little of it, because her stomach lurched at the words.
Anxiety spiked so fast she thought she might actually vomit, her vision going slightly blurry.
Corvus appeared, having gotten up from his seat and walked around the table before she even had time to respond, moving with that perfect social grace of his.
He spread his arms like he was announcing a parade, urging her to come take a seat.
“Thea! Good morning and happy birthday! May the Emperor grant you a year of clean shots, stable footing, and minimal paperwork.” He grinned like this was a galaxy-wide holiday.
Isabella, meanwhile, didn’t even look up from her plate, “Morning, Thea.”
Kara had practically launched herself out of her seat when Lucas had welcomed her. Before Thea could really brace for impact, warm arms wrapped around her waist and she was guided toward the table.
“Happy birthday, Thea!” Kara beamed, tugging her down into the empty seat beside her.
“Pancake for breakfast—still hot, don’t worry.”
Desmond was the last to speak up.
His voice caught in his throat before it came out—quiet, almost unsure.
“Uh… morning. And… ehh, happy birthday, I guess.” He scratched at the corner of his datapad, clearly wrestling with how much eye contact was considered appropriate for their newly agreed upon neutrality. “Hope it’s… good.”
Every word, every well-meaning syllable, twisted that coil of dread inside her tighter.
She forced herself to smile anyway.
“Thank you all,” she managed, nodding to each of them. “Really. Just… surprised. I honestly completely forgot about it myself.”
She blinked at them all sitting there—like a staged intervention—and asked, “How did you even know?”
All fingers turned simultaneously toward Corvus.
The Squad Leader froze mid-sip, having sat down at his usual spot.
“I specifically told you not to tell her,” he said, voice razor-flat as he stared down his traitorous unit. “There will be consequences for this insubordination.”
Lucas didn’t look up and simply continued eating, Isabella gave him a shit-eating grin, Kara hummed innocently and Desmond pretended to check a notification that definitely didn’t exist.
And Thea—still dizzy from the tight dread grinding at the back of her throat—did her best to laugh along with them.
Corvus exhaled slowly, then met her eyes. “Well, that’s out in the open now… anyway.”
His tone softened. “We thought it might be nice to do something for your birthday. Nothing crazy, nothing stressful—just something you’d hopefully enjoy.”
She forced her smile a little wider, doing her best to sound curious instead of nauseous.
“Oh? Like what?”
Corvus’ grin grew, and he motioned to the rest of Alpha. “Everyone pitched in. We know you’d rather be productive than sit around, even on a break day, so I figured we should aim for something up your alley. A squad-wide first-DM review. All of us did ours as soon as we could so we’d be ready for today, and no one has shared their footage yet. We’ll watch them together, break them apart, talk improvements, maybe plan build adjustments—just a productive sort of fun.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Sound good?”
That actually did sound really fucking good.
Far, far better than she had expected, if she was being honest with herself.
Even with her chest still tight and her pulse too loud in her ears, the idea of reviewing their DMs together—improving, analyzing, learning—was exactly the kind of thing that clicked right into the part of her brain she trusted most.
So she nodded, showing a toothy smile. “Yeah… that sounds great. Thanks, Corvus.”
She sat down at the table and tried to eat the pancake Kara placed in front of her.
Tried being the key word.
Every bite felt like it got stuck halfway, the tension still there, still coiled and ready to snap.
Thankfully, the others mostly slipped back into their usual morning rhythm.
Soft chatter, utensils, casual noise—but not pointed at her. Not centered on her.
Only Kara nudged a few questions about yesterday’s meeting with Peria, and Thea answered them quickly between bites, sharp and short, hoping it didn’t sound rude.
Kara just smiled and let it slide, so either she hadn’t noticed, or she assumed Thea was just hungry and half-asleep.
Probably for the best.
Breakfast ended.
Corvus clapped once, loud enough to pull every eye. “Alright. Couch. Let’s get this thing started. I’ll go first, so you guys can laugh at how terrible this all went for me and we figure out how we should structure this whole thing—bit of a free-form setup. Didn’t really spend much time thinking about what we should do here, figured that would be more fun.”
They migrated over to the living room setup—big couch, cushioned seats, a holo-projector ready and waiting.
Thea took a spot beside Kara who was busy talking to Corvus about how they should structure everything, leaving the space on her right open for Isabella as always.
But Isabella didn’t sit down next to her right away.
Instead—sudden warmth. Strong pressure.
Heavy, steady arms wrapped over the back of the sofa and around Thea’s upper shoulders from behind before she could even turn.
Close enough that Thea felt breath on her ear.
“No need to speak; don’t turn. Just listen, alright?” Isabella’s voice was low, rough around the edges, almost reluctant. “I’m not good at this, but here goes: You’re fine, Thea. I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? The others… they don’t understand. Won’t really get it, even if we explain. Midworlds aren’t kind; never were. Undercities even less so. Birthdays aren’t happy for most of us, least of all for those of us that crawled out of the terrible orphanages alive.”
Thea didn’t breathe, her heart beating in her ears.
“But we’re not there anymore, Thea. Not me. Not you. We’re here now. Together. So just know—nobody’s going to do anything to you just because you got older. They’ll have to get through me first, Princess. And I just so happen to be the strongest damn fighter in this whole fucking Drive. So… Just another day, right?”
Thea felt a warmth radiate through her. So sudden she almost shook with it.
The anxiety was not gone, not fixed, but markedly softened by the unexpected words—like someone had finally wrapped a blanket around all the splintering glass in her ribs.
Then Isabella released her, stepped around the couch, and dropped into the open seat like nothing happened at all.
She looked at Desmond with a grin that was ninety percent teeth.
“Hey Des, think you’ll survive watching your DM with an audience, or should we set up a bucket in case you cry? What’s the over-under on whether you offed yourself with a drone again?”
Desmond sputtered, “I… What?! I don’t cry—Fuck me, one accident and suddenly everyone thinks—”
The room erupted in laughter and Thea simply took the time to breathe.
Really breathe.
And for the first time that morning, she felt something other than dread…
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[ND] Chapter 164 - Movement
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------------------- Start of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) -------------------
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Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
Chapter 159 - First Truths has just released on RR with no major changes.
For the Fixers, this chapter is new.
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Yoyoyo, we back!
My work's a bit in the shitter this week, so I'm very glad I managed to throw this one together.
We got 2 more chapters in this dojo session, in case y'all are wondering.
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Time to get back into some action!
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I'm looking forward to hearing your first impressions and opinions on this chapter. \o/
I hope you will enjoy it!
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-------------------- End of Pre-Chapter Author Note (Patreon-only) ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the chapter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vY69xY8rhFDVg0INcCuGty72jDUwH9R6iwI2M8HfY6w/edit?usp=sharing
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Chapter 164 - Movement
The stunned silence barely had time to settle before Miss K shattered it.
“And that,” she said briskly, loudly clapping once as she stepped forward, “is exactly why your shard includes so many alternative combat techniques, Kenzie.”
The foxgirl let out a low grunt of acknowledgment as she rolled onto her side and pushed herself up. I was already there by the time she got one knee under her, offering a hand.
She took it without hesitation, gripping firmly, and gave me a short nod once she was back on her feet.
“Your instinct-driven style is extremely effective against anyone slower or weaker than you,” Miss K continued, moving slowly towards us as she spoke, “and it’s even good at destabilizing people who are slightly stronger. But the moment you face someone who outclasses you in more than one area, or can at least match you in speed—for example, like Sera does now on open ground—you stop fighting smart and start handing them opportunities to kill you.”
Kenzie visibly flinched at that, ears flattening.
“If this hadn’t been a controlled, non-lethal spar and Sera hadn’t been entirely new to her own capabilities,” Miss K went on coolly, “she could’ve easily folded your spine in half the first time you fully committed to that full-pounce attack. When she didn’t struggle—when she didn’t even need to defend or parry and simply stepped aside—that should’ve been your immediate cue to never try that angle again. I’m disappointed in you, Kenzie. That was a complete lapse in the quick thinking that I usually praise you for.”
Even I winced at that one.
‘Damn… I’ve only ever heard her go in like that on me,’ I thought grimly. ‘And, yeah—last time that happened, someone almost died… Not exactly fond memories.’
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Kenzie said quietly, shoulders slumping.
Miss K didn’t respond.
Her attention had already snapped to me and my stomach dropped immediately.
“Sera,” she said sharply, and I straightened on instinct. “I don’t know what insanity possessed you to think that was an acceptable way to end the exchange, but don’t ever do that again.”
Heat rushed straight to my ears and I nodded profusely.
“That was an unfathomably dangerous and stupid move,” she continued, voice utterly uncompromising, “even if it was impressive. It’s useless in any actual fight, and the number of injuries you risked—mostly to yourself, but also to Kenzie—was completely irresponsible and unnecessary. Catching and throwing a moving opponent mid-air is how you tear muscles, dislocate joints, or break your own damn spine if anything goes even slightly wrong.”
She jabbed a finger toward the mat for emphasis.
“Next time, just punch her in the head until she stops moving, or until I call the round. Am I understood?”
“…Yes, Ma’am,” I answered immediately, eyes dropping to the mat as I very deliberately avoided meeting her burning amber stare.
“Kenzie, bench. Water and meds,” Miss K ordered.
Kenzie didn’t hesitate for even half a second, darting off toward the sidelines like she’d just been handed a pardon. Honestly? I couldn’t blame her.
“Sera,” Miss K continued, turning back to me, “unless I’m mistaken, you’re still good to go?”
I paused for a beat. My muscles were still burning a little from the throw—but the verbal dressing-down had bought me just enough time to get my breathing back under control.
So I nodded.
“Good. Jin, you’re up.”
“Yes, Master,” he replied immediately, already jogging toward the mat.
As Miss K stepped back out of the combat area, which she had entered for some reason, something finally clicked. My eyes flicked to the spot where Kenzie had hit the ground—
And it was spotless.
No sweat. No spit. Not even a scuff where she’d slammed down.
‘…Damnit,’ I thought, equal parts impressed and annoyed at myself. ‘I was so busy being embarrassed I didn’t even notice she was cleaning the mat again.’
That realization rolled into another one right after.
‘I didn’t feel it at all this time. Not like earlier. So she can do it subtly too…’ I frowned inwardly. ‘Okay. So Anima isn’t untraceable—clearly not—but maybe it’s threshold-based? Too much at once and you feel it, but smaller applications just slip under the radar…?’
That was… concerning. And fascinating. And absolutely something to unpack later.
Because, right now, Jin was already in front of me, rolling his shoulders and slipping into his usual boxing stance. His cybernetic arms whirred softly as he threw a few test punches into the air, eyes locked on me with focus that left zero room for daydreaming.
I shoved the Anima thoughts aside and squared up.
‘Time to focus on the problem immediately in front of me.’
Namely—not getting punched in the mouth.
We stared each other down for a few long seconds, the kind that stretched just enough to make my thoughts start racing.
‘Okay. Jin,’ I thought. ‘Boxer. Mean fucking punches. Cyber arms that hurt like hell. Likes to control distances more than anything. Hates Kenzie’s fancy footwork. Gets annoyed when people don’t stand where he wants them to stand.’
That was… honestly most of what I had. Not exactly a deep tactical profile.
Still, I clung to it anyway, trying to sketch out something resembling a plan.
I always did better if I had at least the idea of a plan, even if reality usually set it on fire within the first five seconds. Anxiety stayed manageable that way.
After all, I wasn’t winging it—I was improvising off a framework. Totally different thing.
Miss K clapped her hands once, loud as always, signalling the start of our bout.
Jin didn’t explode towards me like he sometimes did.
Instead, he started inching toward me, one careful step at a time, shoulders loose, guard high.
His eyes never left mine.
That alone was unsettling.
He was definitely respecting me.
Not in the usual “I’ll beat you clean” way, but in the “I don’t actually know what you can do now” kind of way. He wasn’t pulling me into his range like he usually did—instead, he was probing, testing, trying to figure out where my danger zone even started now.
‘…That’s smart,’ I had to admit. ‘I don’t like it, but it’s smart.’
I answered by moving too.
In and out. Light on my feet. Testing angles.
I dipped just inside what I remembered as his preferred distance, then slipped back out again, watching his shoulders, his hips, the subtle shifts in his weight, everything to catch his lightning fast punches coming before they could connect.
But no punches yet.
Just a focused gaze burning into my skull.
So I decided to strike first—not with my hands, but my legs.
I snapped a quick kick into his lead thigh and pulled back immediately, then followed with another to the outside of his knee as he adjusted.
Jin grunted, more surprised than truly hurt.
‘Oh. That felt… different.’
The kick landed harder—and faster—than I’d expected.
I’d done something similar against Kenzie to mess with her mobility earlier as well, but with her, speed had always been the real limiter. She was so damn agile that even landing a clean hit usually meant sacrificing power just to keep up with her movement.
Jin was the opposite.
He didn’t dance around.
He stayed planted in that tight boxing stance of his, either eating the impact or deliberately letting the kick land if it meant forcing me to stay close long enough for him to threaten a counter.
Normally, that kind of trade favored him in the short-term.
This time, though, the sheer speed and force behind the kick clearly caught us both off guard.
I felt it travel clean through my leg, like I’d struck something that actually gave instead of just glancing off for a while like it usually did. Jin’s weight shifted more than he’d probably intended, his foot sliding half an inch before he corrected.
My brain barely had time to register that before my body decided it very much liked the result.
The third follow-up came almost on instinct, hips already turning, leg snapping out again before my thoughts could catch up—muscle memory and upgraded reflexes dragging me forward whether I’d consciously planned it or not.
‘Okay,’ I thought, excitement creeping in despite myself. ‘Yeah. That’s definitely the Reflex and Body talking right there.’
I kept at it, light but utterly relentless.
Low kicks, stepping in just long enough to land them before slipping back out again.
Each connection carried more weight than it used to, each recovery faster and smoother than before, giving him practically no time to catch me off balance.
This steady, grinding pressure on his movement was exactly the kind of thing I liked to do; but now I was far, far better at it than ever before.
Jin clearly noticed too as the focused frown on his face escalated over the course of the next few exchanges—if they could even be called that, as I was the only one doing any real hitting.
Then, his posture abruptly shifted and the last vestiges of patience vanished from his eyes.
He stopped trying to read me and started trying to take space, stepping in harder, shoulders rolling forward as he pushed through my kicks instead of respecting them.
I backpedaled immediately, feet light, hips turning as I snapped kick after kick into his thighs and calves, aiming to keep him right where I wanted him—just outside his comfort zone.
For a few seconds, it worked beautifully.
Each kick hit with a solid, meaty thud, forcing his steps shorter, rougher, the rhythm of his advance stuttering as I chipped away at his base.
I could feel the Reflex and Body upgrades pulling their weight here especially, letting me reposition, strike, and reset before he could commit to any counter attacks with his fists.
Then he just… decided he was done with all that.
Jin barreled forward, tanking two, three heavy kicks in quick succession with grunts of pain and finally crossed into his preferred range.
The punch came fast—almost too fast—but I saw it. Barely.
I slapped it off-line with my forearm, feeling the sheer mass behind it even as it missed. The follow-up was already flying, but I managed to knock that one aside too, my arms ringing from the impact.
And suddenly, it was his fight.
Jin’s pressure was relentless, classic boxing fundamentals layered over raw, cybernetic power. Short steps, tight guard, punches snapping out in brutal, efficient combinations that never fully overcommitted.
No wide movements, no wasted motion—just constant threat.
Blocking him wasn’t like dealing with Kenzie’s wild, full-body momentum or her long, crushing kicks. This was compact, explosive force, all focused into a space barely larger than my torso.
I danced on the edge of it, parrying, redirecting, slipping just enough to keep from getting clipped clean.
My Reflex was doing work now, giving me just enough time to react to punches that would’ve had me reeling just a few days ago. My Body helped too, letting my arms absorb and deflect blows that would’ve otherwise blown straight through my guard.
Still, I knew better than to get cocky.
I could feel it every time I made contact—if one of his serious haymakers landed clean, it would be bad. Really bad.
Redirecting, not resisting, was the only thing keeping my bones intact as we traded space, breath coming faster now, both of us fully locked in and testing just how far this new version of me could actually go.
But, ultimately, I was still trying to figure out where the limits of my new capabilities were.
‘I don’t actually need to play his game like this… If I can keep up with Kenzie speed-wise most of the time, I can definitely keep Jin at bay as well, if I really wanted to. But that wouldn’t let me test my Body, would it now?’
So I leaned into it.
Once I caught the rhythm of Jin’s pressure—his cadence, the way his combinations flowed from one punch into the next—I stopped purely reacting and started answering.
I pushed back into his space and threw my own punch straight down the middle, snapping it out between two of his strikes.
It caught him just a little off-guard.
Not enough to land clean, but enough to make him tighten his guard instead of continuing his advance—and that was all I needed. My fist slammed into his forearms with a sharp clang, the impact ringing up my arm as metal met bone.
I flinched internally.
But… my hand didn’t scream in protest the way I’d half-expected it to.
It hurt, yes, but it was a dull, manageable ache instead of the sharp warning pain that usually followed similarly bad decisions as punching metal. I hadn’t gone full power—no way I was that stupid without data—but even so, the difference to before the Rank-Up was obvious.
‘Huh… okay. That’s new.’
We started trading properly after that.
Jin was still leagues ahead of me in technique and raw punching power, his form tight and punishing, every strike layered with intent. But my own punches, amateurish and basically just following whatever muscle-memory my Skills provided, forced him to respect me now, forced him to keep his guard active instead of fully committing to offense.
I was nowhere near winning the exchange—but I wasn’t losing control of it either.
For about a minute, we just went at it.
Heavy breathing. Guard checks.
Short, brutal exchanges that rattled my arms and shoulders.
My Body held up far better than it had any right to, soaking impacts, letting me keep my structure even when his punches slipped through my defenses just enough to remind me exactly why this was a bad idea.
Eventually, though, I’d had enough data—and enough bruises to last me a lifetime.
‘Alright… test complete.’
I went back to relying on my Reflexes.
As Jin deflected another one of my punches, expecting me to stay in and continue trading, I used the brief opening to explode backward instead. One sharp step turned into two, then three, my feet snapping over the mat as I dashed out of his range despite his immediate attempt to follow.
He lunged, trying to stick to me—but this level of speed in his footwork was decidedly not his game. He was a menace up-close and in a specific range, but chasing somebody down that was running away? Not Jin’s forte.
After all, if I could almost keep up with Kenzie at full tilt, Jin didn’t stand a chance here.
I added kicks as I retreated, full-power snaps toward his midsection that forced him to block instead of chase. Even someone trained to eat punishment like him couldn’t afford to take kicks like that straight to the chest, not when they landed with this much force.
His frustration was obvious.
Jin growled under his breath and surged forward again, redoubling his effort to close the distance—but I was already gone, gliding just outside his reach.
The fight shifted completely, turning into a strange, high-speed chase as I backpedaled and pivoted around him, legs flying, feet barely seeming to touch the ground as I peppered him with more and more kicks.
At first, he powered through it.
That was kind of Jin’s whole thing—eat the damage, push forward, force the fight into a place where his fists and superior technique could do the talking. He kept trying to cut me off instead of chasing straight after me, angling his steps, trying to herd me toward the edge of the mat.
It was smart thinking, no doubt.
But every time he committed, I slipped away again.
A kick to the thigh.
Another to the outside of his leg.
One more snapping into the same spot, over and over, grinding at his movement.
I could see it starting to add up—the slight hitch in his step, the way his stance adjusted just a fraction too late. His breathing grew heavier, shoulders rising and falling more sharply with every failed push.
I felt almost… light in comparison.
My feet moved when I wanted them to move. My balance stayed exactly where I put it, because… of course it did, I had [Elemental Balance]. Even as my lungs burned and sweat trickled down my spine, there was this underlying steadiness to everything I did.
Jin’s patience, on the other hand, was completely gone.
He growled again and forced himself forward, tanking another kick to the leg with a grunt, swinging anyway even though he was still a step short. He threw a desperate punch that cut through empty air as I just managed to step out of reach, the momentum carrying him farther than he’d planned.
Then it happened.
His foot landed a half-beat late. His knee dipped.
A stumble like a muscle inside his leg had simply refused to listen—a cramp.
That was all I needed.
I dashed in.
One instant I was just barely out of range, the next I was right on him, closing the distance faster than he could recover. I dropped my center of gravity and drove into him, arms wrapping around his waist as my shoulder slammed into his midsection.
He tried to brace, but he was too slow.
I put everything I had into it—legs, hips, back—and twisted, ripping him off balance.
The mat rushed up beneath us as I followed through, and Jin hit the ground hard, the impact thudding through the room.
I immediately went to lift my my elbow to slam it down on his head as a follow-up—
“Enough!” Miss K’s voice cracked like a whip.
I froze instantly, scrambling back up to my feet as Jin lay there on the mat, both of us sucking in air like we’d just run full tilt into a wall.
My chest burned. My legs shook a bit.
Jin’s breathing was rough, uneven—and for a split second, the look on his face made my stomach knot.
He looked furious.
‘Oh fuck, is he angry with me…?’ I thought for a brief second.
But then he slammed his fist into the mat with a sharp, frustrated crack, teeth bared as he let out a growl that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with himself.
Yeah. That tracked.
He wasn’t mad that I’d taken him down.
He was mad that he’d spent the entire fight chasing, eating kicks, and never once managed to turn it into the kind of fight he was best at.
Kicked to exhaustion.
Outplayed on movement.
Dropped the moment his body betrayed him.
I exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging as the adrenaline finally started to bleed off.
‘Yeah…’ I thought, watching him slowly start to push himself up with a scowl. ‘I’d probably be pissed too…’
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