Daniel Onslow

  Upon finally making it back from Nevada, Daniel was displeased to find that the city of Los Angeles had spiraled into chaos. To most people, that would seem like hyperbole. The Tier 3 incursion that struck one of the major universities near the center of the city was big news, at least locally, and there were some fears going around that it was a sign the calamity a state over from them was now beginning to 'spill over.' That wasn't the case, though—Daniel would know better than quite literally anyone else—and the reality was far worse.

  One of the Red Faction's most critical assets had finally lost control, but that had been almost inevitable. It was a problem, yes, but one that they'd prepared for and had experience handling many times before. No, the real headache was in the particular way the events unfolded. Somehow, what should have been one of their most valuable assets had quickly collided with what had been an unexpected and extremely promising new lead, and the result was, well, a total mess.

  Now that T59H—for security, Daniel and one other were the only two people who officially knew her name was Alexis and she lived in LA—now that she'd gotten involved with the 'cult' they'd been tracking down, it made things a lot more complicated on both fronts. There was upside, of course—now that T59H was entangling herself with the remarkably unique cult, the tenuous protection she enjoyed from the Blue Faction would extend to cover the cultists.

  That alone was quite useful, actually. The Blues had gotten wind of things sooner than Daniel and many others had hoped—though not necessarily sooner than they expected—and so the wrench T59H unknowingly threw into things might go a long way to keeping things from rising to the same level they did back in 2011. It was a temporary fix at best, though, and it came with its own unique problems. For one, it was going to put a lot of scrutiny on the cult, and that wasn't something the Reds wanted.

  Daniel was sitting alone on the roof of the building T59H lived in, patiently waiting for her to return. Earlier, he spoke with David, reassuring the man as well as poking and prodding him for any salient information, no matter how trivial many details might seem. It sounded like T59H was carrying through with her plan to masquerade as an active Guardian. Her growing association with the second newest Star Guardian was amusing—it was certainly going to be a constant thorn in the side of the Blues, and, for once, Daniel was interested to see how it would continue to play out in a purely social sense.

  The Tier 8 Star Guardian usually wasn't one for gossip, drama, and—worst of all—the incessant politics, but the emerging alliance between a promising new Star Guardian and one of the Red Faction's so-called "crimes upon reality" simply tickled him. I give it roughly similar odds which way Ms. Legato ends up landing, though. It seemed equally likely that she'd bond with T59H and become a staunch Red or that learning the truth would send her straight into the Blue Faction. Time will tell.

  For now, Daniel would wait for Alexis and Ms. Legato to finish whatever it was they were up to, and then he'd finally give T59H the 'talk.' A big city, high rise rooftop was an oddly relaxing place to be, and he was all alone—well, he was a second or two ago. A masked woman in an armored jacket had alighted on the edge of the roof. Daniel frowned. He hadn't expected her to show up. Perched on the edge of the roof like a bird, she tilted her head at him. With the matte black, solid mask that perpetually covered her mouth and nose—similar in overall shape to a medical mask—the only thing he could see were her eyes.

  The perpetual jacket and gloves certainly didn't help, nor did her complete unwillingness to communicate with her fellow humans.

  Daniel didn't bother hiding his sigh. Walking over to the other side of the roof, he joined her next to the edge. "I didn't think you'd come. What was so interesting about this that you'd miss your shot at Nevada?"

  Something almost no one knew was why the higher tier Star Guardians were so reluctant to go around stamping out incursions. It was hard to accuse any of them of laziness or apathy, given what it took to get to that point, and the fact that many—such as Daniel himself—had played a pivotal role in the first wave of incursions close to forty years ago. There was a lot of speculation, of course—some people claimed that it was a plan to 'toughen up' the various nations, or similarly, to continue producing more regular Guardians.

  There was an element of truth to that—as a general rule, something Blue and Red alike agreed on was that human civilization needed to continue strengthening itself, but they certainly wouldn't let massive, high tier Incursions run rampant for that reason. There were other theories, but none of those had any real merit. The real answer was depressingly simple and deeply frustrating. A high tier Star Guardian merely entering a regular incursion would instantly tear the breach several tier higher and simultaneously open many new ones.

  Even with breaches already at a high tier, like in Nevada, the number of Tier 7 and 8 Star Guardians who could safely enter at one time was painfully limited. Even the number of Tier 5 and 6 needed to be monitored and controlled. Daniel in particular was a bit of a special case, as his abilities could have the opposite effect, stabilizing reality around an incursion instead of worsening it. That was why he'd been so tied up in Nevada even while incredibly important developments were happening with T59H and the cultists.

  He was finally taking his leave, though, and the woman crouching next to him was supposed to replace him. She'd clearly skipped out though, which meant someone else would have grabbed the opportunity. That was strange. While Daniel himself wasn't too keen on combat, it was basically the only thing she seemed to care about. Anyone who reached Tier 8, or even 7, was going to be a bit strange—Aurora, for instance, despite seeming so normal in his little interviews and media appearances, had a habit of speaking in the third person in private.

  Even then, at least he would still communicate with people. The woman beside him hadn't lost her voice or anything—she just wouldn't so much as write a simple message to anyone. Daniel had gotten good at understanding her despite that. Right now, for instance, her eyes lingered on a particular area of the city below them. "Fair point," he conceded. "And I do appreciate your presence. Better deterrence is always welcome—I just found it surprising, is all. You would have loved Nevada."

  She turned her gaze back onto him. And Daniel immediately felt a bit awkward. "Okay, that's also a fair point. I probably shouldn't rub it in like that." Clapping his hands, he nodded at the roof access stairway. "She's not actually here right now. She should be back in a few hours though, and that's when we'll talk."

  A head tilt in response. Daniel grimaced. "Assuming she doesn't lose control again, yes. It's certainly possible. I wouldn't bet anything on it, though. She was by far the most—uh—coherent, I guess, immediately after awakening. Definitely aggressive, but not at all disoriented or confused." That was part of what made T59H so promising. Daniel really wanted to know how much of that was attributable to the Anathema type—there was statistical evidence that the type did influence the resultant personality—but T59H was the only chamelium they'd ever managed to acquire. There was nowhere near enough data to draw proper conclusions there.

  "She's also supposed to be visiting with 2780 right now, so I doubt anything will happen. Her name is Katherine, by the way." All Star Guardians were assigned a number based on seniority. They were rarely used for anything, but it was a simple and convenient way to keep track of the newest additions. It also constantly emphasized just how few of them there were, even after four entire decades. Yet, at the same time, it was a major inconvenience. While that was a small enough number to build a single small community, they could never gather too many of them together in the same place.

  Unfortunately, Daniel started to get a bad feeling as the other Star Guardian on the roof with him rotated her head to stare straight in the direction of Ms. Legato's residence. "Wait—" he started to say, but she'd already zipped off. "Damn it."

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Katherine made a very convincing argument for why we shouldn't just roll up into the same area near the ditch where I encountered the gang and start showing guns to people. "That's fucking crazy," she literally yelled at me, "and there is something seriously wrong in your head." Ouch. She wasn't even wrong, which actually spooked me a bit. I was pretty sure that was just a normal person reaction to me acting a little too silly, though, and not some kind of scary telepathy bullshit.

  She actually freaked out quite a bit, and I got literally kicked out of her aunt's house. As in, Katherine grabbed the duffel bag, shoved it into my arms, and then physically shoved me out the back door. She really wanted those guns out of her home. I didn't think she was 'done' with me, though, and I anticipated she'd somehow guilt herself into feeling like she was the bad guy at some point in the near future. What I did think was that the guns specifically were sending her normal, suburbanite brain into a panic state. Not just because they were guns, but because they were illegal ones that I'd also stolen.

  And you know what? Fair. That was honestly super reasonable, and I was kind of kicking myself for not realizing how much potential that had to spook someone like Katherine. It would be like dragging her to a party and then trying to give her a big sack of cocaine or something. The poor girl would probably collapse from the stress of something that was both 'bad' and way too far beyond the bounds of her usual operating zone.

  In retrospect, I really shouldn't have done that. I wanted to do a dramatic reveal, just for fun, but I realized I'd subconsciously mixed together what I wanted to do with the gang people with how I wanted to broach the subject with Katherine. I should have just come to her house without the guns, outlined the exact same plan, and said 'yeah, and I actually looted a big duffel bag of stolen guns from them, so we can definitely use that.'

  She probably would have still freaked out a little, but more in a hair-pulling, pacing, 'I'm not sure what we should do about this' sort of way and not, you know, physically removing me from the property. Damn it.

  Also, she seemed to have forgotten my backpack, which was kind of inconvenient. I didn't want to leave that behind—not because I needed it, but for Katherine's sake. Well, strictly speaking, for the sake of our relationship because of the ways it benefits me. I really didn't want to go back up the porch steps and ask her to get it, though—so I just kind of sat there in the middle of her aunt's backyard garden. There were three ways things could play out from here, at least in the immediate future.

  One, Katherine could calm down and come out to talk to me herself. There was nothing I could do to control that possibility, unfortunately, and it would either happen or it wouldn't. I couldn't just loiter in her aunt's hedges forever, though, so there was also a time limit on that one.

  The second option, in the case that she wasn't about to come out and talk to me, was to go knock on the door and beg her for my stupid backpack. I really didn't want to do that, but it seemed like the 'best' thing to do, assuming the problem didn't magically fix itself in the next five to ten minutes. There was obviously also the third option, which was to just fuck off entirely, returning home without the backpack and letting her figure out what to do about it.

  I was rather drawn to the appeal of that last one, I had to admit. Just letting it fester in her living room could possibly help her along with the self-guilt—maybe. I wasn't sure. What I was sure about was that something stupidly tasty had just crashed straight through the wooden fence. The fuck? It was so tasty that I noticed it without even having first licked at the air.

  It was also stupidly powerful—powerful enough that I could feel a spooky, dangerous aura just from being near it. Even my dad—a Tier 8 Star Guardian—hadn't felt or tasted this dangerous. I just sort of leaned against the bushes for several seconds, too dazed by the sensory assault to even turn my head and look at the absolute calamity that had just strolled into the yard. Please be friendly please be friendly please don't want to kill me.

  Oddly, I didn't feel terror at the thought of dying. I didn't want to die, but the overwhelming taste of danger wasn't inducing some kind of mortal panic. I was actually more afraid of looking to see who it was, for some reason. Like the anxiety of looking at a test score or opening an email. It wasn't fear of the thing itself, but this weird, illogical fear of finding out. Snapping myself out of it, I sat up and got my first real look.

  Oh, you have got to be shitting me. It was a Star Guardian, of course, because what else could it have been? And, logically, I don't know what I should have expected. You could count on ten hands the number of Tier 8 Star Guardians, and my dad was one of them. This woman was even stronger than him, so, logically... but still, what the fuck is Saber doing in Katherine's aunt's garden?

  Coming for you, obviously, the little voice pointed out. What else could she possibly be here for? It was still surreal to have the strongest Tier 8 Star Guardian in the entire world show up out of nowhere. She might even be the second strongest Star Guardian ever, depending on where you ranked Fabrica. Being Tier 9 didn't automatically make you the biggest menace in straight combat.

  She was also just staring at me. The iconic mask and jacket were, well, iconic, and I knew she had almost zero media presence, but the silent treatment was starting to bother me. "Uh, hi there." I gave her a little wave. "You're Saber, right?" She just kept staring—well, she tilted her head, but that was it. "Either way, I'm Alexis."

  I assumed she already knew who I was, and it didn't feel like there was any point in pretending like I was someone else. But still, she just kept staring at me, not saying anything. Is she actually mute or something? Then, finally, she pointed at me—and then pointed off in the distance. Back towards downtown? Wait, is she saying that—umph! Suddenly, I was flying through the air.

  No, not flying—she was carrying me. On foot, no less, but the sudden and unexpected nature of it, combined with the sheer speed, gave me this strange sense of flight. She was also stupidly fast, which I already knew—but she wasn't moving that quickly right now, probably so that she didn't kill me. I doubted she would just by running, but I also didn't know how much she knew about my level of durability and regeneration.

  So, given that it was just recklessly fast and not mind-bendingly fast, I was able to catch a glimpse of Katherine finally stepping out of the door, another glass of sweet tea in her hand—for me, there was no doubt—and that meant she was just in time to see me get 'kidnapped' again.

  We'd moved well beyond her block in just the first few seconds, and based on the direction, all she was doing was dragging me back home. For what reason, I had no idea—but it calmed me down, and that meant I suddenly started laughing.

  Oh man, this is so great—I'd been hoping she would guilt trip herself, but now, she'd calmed down and come out to try to talk to me—only for Saber to snatch me straight off the lawn and whisk me away! Saber herself didn't react to my mad cackling, and I was sure I sounded absolutely deranged.

  Oh, this is so great! Well, assuming she wasn't actually about to murder me or something—Katherine is going to make herself so fucking stressed about this!

  The only downside there was that I wouldn't be there myself to witness it.

  MGAAD Spotify Playlist

  Discord Server