We all stand in a ring at the top of a squat building in the slums — a laundromat, I think, but I haven’t taken the time to actually check. In the center of the ring, Celeste stands tall — or as tall as she can manage — her wings are flared, and her body swirls with mist. She’d just finished telling us what she’d seen, and now she stares up at us with challenge in her eyes. As if we might not help.

  “Well, let’s go!” I exclaim, meeting my familiar’s eyes. “If they have captives, then there is no time to waste!”

  Beside me, my teammates offer nods of agreement. We’ve been out here practicing for a long while now, and our mana toxicity isn’t where it should be for a fight, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let people suffer for longer than necessary.

  Kayne raises a hand, his face contemplative. “Hold on. I agree that something needs to be done urgently, but rushing blindly in is not the way to do things. Especially if your familiar is right and there is an overlord present. It could be A Rank, and none of us stands a chance if one that strong decides to fight. Maybe, just maybe, Audrey and I could kill it if we fought it together, but killing you kids would be an afterthought. And having that battle in the middle of the city… the death toll would be catastrophic.”

  “Then what do we do, sir?” Baylee asks, her tone sharp. “We aren’t just going to leave those people there.”

  Kayne sighs, “More than likely, the Reavers and the overlord are already pulling out of the location they were spotted. In fifteen minutes, they’ll have everything they really need packed up, and the rest of it destroyed. That may or may not include killing the prisoners. Even if they don’t know anything, these people might not want to take any risks. As such, the only reason for us to hurry is if we want to try and catch them before they leave, which isn’t likely. Even if we did, I wouldn’t be able to kill an overlord on my own. Instead, we plan and think instead of making impulsive choices.”

  Baylee frowns, her face scrunching up in concentration as she thinks. I, however, am still itching to run off and save those people. Consequences be damned, potential danger be damned, there are people right now being kept in cages and used as lab experiments! I’m not going to let that go!

  “Could we gather a strike force?” Baylee asks after a moment. “Find some off-duty sentinels and a squad of soldiers to join us?”

  “That’s what I’m considering,” Kayne says, letting out a breath. “Gathering sentinels is hard, though; we only have around a dozen peak C Rank and low B Rank sentinels. Almost all of them will be handling incursion zones right now, but the ones that are off-duty might be able to be called up. I’m thinking it will take around six hours to pull it all together.”

  “That’s not fast enough!” I exclaim, “Those people need help now, Kayne! Especially if they’re potentially going to be killed!”

  Kayne levels a dark glare on me, making me immediately take a hesitant step back. “Serena, if those people are going to be killed, they are probably already dead. If not, they can wait another six hours. We need to wait to make sure they’ve pulled out and then find whatever they leave behind. We can’t risk a fight with just us; we’ll be wiped out.”

  “So, we’re just going to let the people who did this get away with it?” I ask, incredulous.

  Kayne closes his eyes for a moment in exasperation, “Unless we can get the drop on the overlord, we cannot handle human threats. The city government won’t just allow us to drop in on some common criminals like the hammer of God. Because there is a volcora involved, we can take some action. Whatever action we take, though, we’re going to have to justify it later. Basically, what I’m saying is that we can act as first responders because of the volcora, but it will be up to Karma’s politics to see if we continue handling this case afterward. It may or may not be judged as in our jurisdiction.”

  Grudgingly, I nod my head in understanding. “Can’t we get there faster, though? What if we pull Audrey?”

  At that comment, Kayne’s expression turns complicated. “Audrey is going to be busy for the next few days. Until then, you’re just going to have to deal with me.”

  I bite my lip in concern. What is Audrey up to? I can only pray that she hadn’t decided to do something rash like try to revive Jessie. Or maybe she’s just handling a more distant incursion zone… yeah, let’s go with that one.

  After Kayne decides he’s finally dealt with my questions, he looks around to the others. “Come on, let’s get off this stars-damned rooftop and see if we can find something to eat in these slums. I’ve got a few phone calls to make, and you kids need to discuss your abilities with each other. You’re not getting out of training just because I’m setting up a raid.”

  Half an hour later, my team and I find ourselves sitting around a table in a greasy burger joint I’d distantly known about from my time living in this area many years ago. The place is mostly empty, save for a few underpaid teenage workers who eye us nervously. We’d shifted out of our assault states in the privacy of an alley, but we still stick out. We’re too clean, our clothes are too new, and we generally just look out of place.

  Baylee in particular stands out starkly with her immaculate dress and appearance — she looks dressed to appear on television, not go to some burger joint in the slums. The poor teenage boy at the counter had turned red as an apple while taking her order.

  Now, while waiting for our food, we look to Baylee to get the conversation started in lieu of Kayne, who sits alone in a back corner, having hushed discussions on his phone.

  Finally, Baylee rolls her eyes. “So, according to the instructions, we need to discuss what powers we have and what synergies we share. This is supposed to help us work together as a team and less like a group of individuals. So, I think let’s start by discussing our core power sets and the abilities we recently gained. Then, we can move into what we can do to work together more effectively. I’ll go first.”

  The resulting discussion takes hours but is one of the most intriguing experiences I’ve had in a long while. Obviously, I understand how my own powerset is developing, but learning about the powers of my teammates as well shows me the true diversity sentinels can have with their abilities.

  Starting with Baylee's abilities, almost all of them revolve around direct magical attacks from a distance. One of the most critical of them being her dominion art, Concussive Will. While in her assault state, all of Baylee’s attacks have a large amount of additional physical force behind them — including things as simple as punches. She combos this with several devastating attack spells and projecting beams of light from her wand. In short, she’s absolutely a glass cannon, but at least she can hit hard.

  Claire’s abilities work in much the same way, but rather than hitting hard with distant magical attacks, Claire likes things up close and personal. Her dominion art is called Crimson Overdrive and allows her to supercharge her next action. During the charge-up phase, she’s protected by the red lightning that crackles all over her body, and then she can release all that built-up energy into any action she likes — whether that’s jumping up onto a building or combining it with another ability. In concert with her other abilities, Voltaic Slash and Lightning Rush, her dominion art can be used to great effect.

  Haruto, we discover, had ended up with one of the strongest dominion arts on the team. Aegis Unbound allows him to freely manipulate any shield of his own creation in any way he wants. It had only been somewhat useful until he’d gained his first proper ability, Conjure Barrier, but once he had…

  Haruto can shape his shields — including his assault state’s natural barrier — into anything with a mere thought. Using this, he’d discovered that he could pretty much create whatever he wanted as a hard light construct, including swords and spears to make ranged attacks. He can make shields flash into existence with perfect timing to save a teammate or himself, and he had even recently discovered that he could conjure a sphere around something and crush it by making it smaller. The mental image of a volcora being crushed into a ball of wet meat is nearly disturbing enough to make me throw away my hamburger.

  That leaves Akari, who — of the rest of us — is the oddest in her powerset. Violet sentinels, in general, are archetype breakers. They are the sentinels whose powers don’t fit cleanly into any other classification. In Japan, Kayne himself is the most famous example of this. With half his abilities acting like he’s some kind of fire mage and the other half acting as if he is a hand-to-hand fighter, he’d developed a completely unique style to adapt.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  For Akari, the best classification I’ve been able to come up with for how her abilities work right now is duelist… kind of. Her dominion art is called Soul Sever and can be infused into her blade. By doing this, she can attack by not just harming her enemies physically but conceptually. She attacks her enemies' Astral Path directly, something she’d explained can have horrifying results.

  By damaging her foe’s Astral Path, she can temporarily or permanently damage their access to their abilities, destabilize their mana flow, and, according to her ability description, “cause conceptual wounds that can weaken the integrity of the target’s existence, leading to physical, mental, or spiritual unraveling.” While her attacks don’t do much physical damage, the damage she can do to an opponent’s spirit is horrendous.

  As of now, Akari only has one other ability. Mediative Focus which allows her to focus absolutely on her current task to the degree that she can accomplish things she couldn’t before — like climb up the side of a building.

  In short, Akari’s abilities are only just starting to properly develop, but the direction they’re heading is terrifying. I think all of us make a mental note not to spar with Akari unless she promises to deactivate her dominion art first.

  Ultimately, we spend quite a while at the little restaurant just discussing our abilities. We do our best to make sure no one overhears, but anyone that does will probably just assume we’re an average group of teenagers discussing a video game or some such nonsense.

  Kayne occasionally joins in on the discussions between his calls, but apparently, there is a lot to organize to get the strike team put together. The risk of the overlord staying around is just too great to send anything but a fully equipped force with multiple full sentinel teams — including ours. Occasionally, he grumbles about how he highly doubts that any of this will be necessary as it’s very likely the Reavers have gone to ground instead of setting up some kind of trap. Still, he follows procedures incredibly closely to make sure that no mistakes are made.

  Finally, as the sun is getting close to setting, Kayne stands from his table and strides over to us. And stars, even in his rest state, he’s intimidating. An older couple is forced to scramble out of his way as he forces his way through the now crowded restaurant — the dinner rush having started not too long ago.

  “We’re ready to move out,” Kayne says, his tone gruff. “A transport is coming to pick us up at a location nearby. We need to be shifted and over there by the time they arrive.”

  Hopping to our feet, we follow Kayne outside. Happy to finally be free of the waiting.

  I’m not sure about the others, but I’ve been growing increasingly antsy the longer we wait. The thought of those poor people in cells, some of them kids, fills my heart with anger and my body with the need to act.

  After returning to the alley we’d used to shift previously — and scaring off the homeless man who’d moved in while we were away — we shift back to our assault states and make our way back up onto the rooftops.

  True to Kayne’s word, it only takes a few minutes until a transport, rotor blades churning, appears from above Shinara’s skyline and descends straight toward us. Instead of landing on the nearby street as I’d expected, however, the transport lowers itself to hover right beside the edge of the building before opening a side door.

  With a powerful leap, Kayne jumps into the transport, his weight rocking it slightly in its flight. After looking at each other with a shrug, we follow suit, entering the transport without too much effort before finding seats near the back.

  This transport, I notice, is significantly smaller than the one that had been used to deliver us to the slums for our first incursion zone. Most likely because flying between the buildings and skyways of Shinara to get to our destination on the ground requires much finer control.

  As we fly, I stew in my unease. It’s all too easy to imagine this going exactly the same way as the last time — flying into unknown danger to save people who may never know my name. But stars-damn it, I’m not just going to let people die!

  Threats like the Reavers and the Volcora have to be confronted by someone. Why not me? Why not us? We have the powers, the shields, and the healing to be able to survive these kinds of encounters. Stars, maybe I’ll even get a chance to use my new bow! What’s important is that we’re doing something. We’re working for a greater goal: to save Shinara and to protect the people who can’t protect themselves.

  When I’d gone into the last incursion zone, I’d worried and wondered about the morality of killing an intelligent creature. I have no such qualms now. Celeste had told me, in detail, what was being done to those poor prisoners. Intelligent or not, anything that would willingly do that to a person is evil and needs to die. Celeste had been right about the Volcora. For the world to be safe again, they’ll need to be dealt with.

  [Serena… are you okay?] Celeste asks in my head, her voice tentative. [You look — I don’t know — angry. Almost… hateful.]

  I grit my teeth, “I’m okay. The thought of what’s being done to those people is bothering me. It’s just… how could anyone work with them, Celeste? The Volcora are evil, through and through. I don’t understand why this Reaver group would work with them.”

  Celeste, sitting curled in my lap, nudges me softly with her nose. [I don’t know. They are evil; I agree with that. But you can’t let them bring you down to their level, Serena. Hate… that’s their weapon. We don’t need it to beat them.]

  I close my eyes, trying to let my anger go… but stars its difficult. I don’t want to let it go. I want to march into that Reavers base with my new bow and make every single one of them pay for what they’ve done. But that’s not me… that isn’t healing.

  Letting out a heavy breath, I open my eyes. I haven’t let my anger go, not entirely, but at least I’ve managed to control it. “You’re right,” I respond before forcing myself to focus once more. We might be going into combat soon.

  The strike force is massive, comprising at least sixty people — two dozen of which are sentinels. We all stand, fully geared out and weapons ready, on the smog-filled streets deep in the heart of Shinara. Now bustling with soldiers and sentinels glowing with power, these streets are more active than I’ve ever seen them before.

  With a wave of his hand, Kayne and the majority of the strike force begin to move forward, guided by Celeste whose job it is to lead them to the pile of rubble that disguises the trigger for the secret entrance. Guns are leveled, and safeties are clicked off as the soldiers begin to move; their eyes are forward — focused on the task before them.

  My team and I, however, aren’t with the majority of the strike force. Instead, we hang back with a small squad of reserve troops. Officially, we’ve been given the task of protecting this reserve squad — which comprises mostly of blue sentinels and soldiers. Unofficially, we’re here so we won’t get caught up in the fighting between powerful high-rankers.

  Personally, I’m more amenable to this arrangement than the rest of my team, who’d insisted that, since normal soldiers were going to help, we should too. As a blue sentinel, though, I’d have been kept back in this squad anyway as my team went ahead. As such, I’m just glad that my team members are here, and I won’t have to worry about them. In large-scale operations like this, oftentimes, blue sentinels end up grouped together so we can be more easily defended and act as an emergency healing point.

  How much protecting we’ll actually need to do is also very debatable. Calan is the leader of our little squad, and — even as a blue sentinel — his peak C Rank puts him far above us in terms of combat power. The other two sentinels in the squad are named Kaipo and Hina.

  Kaipo is a large islander man with broad shoulders and the physique of a surfer. His tan skin is marked with dozens of black tattoos — thankfully normal ones rather than the ones Celeste had seen. Kaipo looks at the world with a wide smile and bright eyes. Stars, the man had nearly crushed me with a hug when we’d first met — which had almost given Akari a conniption.

  Hina, on the other hand, is much more reserved. She smiles gently and seems to have an easy-going relationship with Calan and Kaipo. She’d even acted extremely welcoming to me, if not to the rest of my team. To Hina, with her pale skin and inky hair, anyone who isn’t a blue sentinel seems to be made of snakes. Anytime the other members of Team Picnic get close to her, she shies away nervously.

  “So,” I ask, standing by Calan as we watch the majority of our strike force disappear into the smog. “How often is it like this?”

  “What? The waiting?” Calan asks, glancing down at me. He fidgets with his wizard’s hat on his head, which I find to be more than a little bit adorable. I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a group of high-tech soldiers with a wizard from a fantasy story. He even has a staff!

  I nod, looking back towards the retreating forms of the soldiers. I can’t only just pick them out as they vanish.

  “For blue sentinels,” Calan says, “it happens more often than you’d think. Sometimes, we’ll get an incursion that we know has an A Rank in it, which usually means a lot of B and C Ranks, too. The GDF takes A Rankers very seriously, and we mobilize a lot of our forces. Generally, blue sentinels like us are grouped together near the aperture out. Meanwhile, the other sentinel teams will go out to try to deal with the threat. We don’t send soldiers in high-grade spaces like that — not a lot they can do but die — so they have us blues hide by the aperture so we can duck out of the space if things get dicey.”

  My eyes widen, “They have us abandon the other sentinels in the space?”

  Calan shrugs, “Common wisdom is that blues are more valuable. More combat-capable blues sometimes stick with their teams, but those of us that are more healing-focused can’t do much but get ourselves killed as well.”

  I frown, “How do I know if I’m more combat-focused or more healing-focused?”

  “Depends on what you do,” Calan responds with another awkward shrug. “Fight more than you heal? You’ll probably end up more combat-focused, and most of your healing will be to stabilize and make sure your team gets out of danger. After that, a more healing-focused blue sentinel would pick things up from there. Hina is more combat-focused like that, although she’s been spending more time healing with me since she lost her teammates. For Kaipo, you can’t drag that man away from someone who needs help. He hardly goes into incursions at all.”

  My eyes go wide with amazement at this. What would it be like to be a purely healing-focused sentinel and spend my days working with Calan at the urgent care center? I wouldn’t have to risk my own life nearly as often, and I’d only have to go out to fight when I wanted to try and increase my rank as a sentinel. That would mean abandoning my team, though, which I refuse to do. Still, it’s a nice thought.

  Calan and I fall silent as we all watch the gloom for any sign that we’re needed. The only sound is that of the talkative Kaipo fussing over Claire’s missing arm. Claire threatens to stab him more than once as he tries to get a closer look, but Kaipo is determined, and eventually, Claire just gives in and sits down to allow Kaipo to look her over.

  Minutes tick by as we all wait, muscles tense, and fingers clenched around weapons. We wait like that for almost an hour before the radio on Calan’s hip lets out a chirp. Calan takes it out and listens for a moment before speaking his confirmation.

  Once he’s done, he turns to the group. “No sign of the Reavers or the overlord. Apparently, the place is a wreck. We’ve got some surviving prisoners, though, so we’ve got work to do. Let’s get going.”