<+=/ Jenna \=+>

Before the invaders came, she'd been a pilot. Technology on Vuxarina had advanced precipitously after the discovery of the alien ship, and with that came the ability to experience possibilities that were exciting and new - if you had the right credentials to access them.

The ship Jenna dreamed of was far less grand than what the alien's crashed craft had been. No bigger than a bed, the simple cigar-shape was flanked by a pair of engines each half as large as the body of the ship itself. It ran on fragments of the main power source that had been found in the alien craft - and she could fit both of those crystal shards in her hand at the same time. But still - they were enough to carry the whole thing aloft.

Nothing they'd built with the new technology could be considered space worthy. It had been hundreds of years since flags were first planted on her planet's moons, and the impetus from the ruling family to further explore their local space died out with the comet trail disaster of 8904. It was a truly tragic thing where four ships and one thriving extraplanetary habitat got shredded by pebbles traveling faster than a rocket - but even more terrible because it spelled the end of space exploration for her people.

Jenna didn't care about the danger - or rather, she loved the idea of space exploration in spite of it. The old official forces for space exploration were long decrepit, so she'd pursued the next closest option - flying. Flight school was easy. Running transports, then fighters in the air force was a simple and unchallenging task. But when she'd gotten into the experimental testing program, things finally became fun. She flew - and survived flying - over 20 experimental aircraft. That was a record, where second place had only made it to 15 before meeting a violent end. Some of her number was luck, but most of it boiled down to skill and understanding your vessel.

And then came the cigar. Part of a program that was above her 'top secret' testing grade, it had been dubbed Exo-7. The program only ever had one active pilot, and part of the reason she was chosen at all was because of her familial status - or lack thereof. The implication was, of course, that Exo-6 had killed the former pilot for the program, and they needed someone else expendable.

None of that mattered.

The cigar's experimental engines rocketed her forward like she was strapped to the middle of an ICBM. It snapped, turned, and rolled as if the laws of physics were mere suggestions. The ship's frame - an alloy of alien metal and local material - groaned and strained with the pressures. But Exo-7 held strong, and flew true.

She'd been mid-flight when the awakening came. Jenna was transported suddenly into a white room, while her craft was left to crash into a vastly-changed landscape. With geography so mixed up, she didn't even know where to begin looking for the cigar's wreckage.

Shortly after the planetary awakening, the "Belar Trade Corporation" arrived. An official-sounding name for a group of merciless aliens. They claimed Vuxarina and her riches as their own, and forced people into camps - then into the tutorial. Jenna had never believed in aliens, nor the stories of abductions. But there were a multitude of different shades, furs, and bodies on display as the thugs rounded them all up.

Jenna was part of a 'special' group of prisoners. People that were deemed to have useful skills. They were kept in pens and retrieved for specific jobs - like utensils in a drawer. And when they weren't being used, they were stowed back in the cages. Metal bars and a metal floor, wrapped in thin corrugated walls. A work camp and prison built steps away from the tutorial's entry point so Belar could continue to shackle anyone that came through.

An alarm sounded at the arrival area and brought Jenna out of her attempt at rest.

The pair of guards lazing in front of her cell stood at the noise.

When the screams and sounds of battle began, they traded concerned looks.

Ten minutes later, after a fraught and cowardly exchange, the guards marched outside with their gear and closed the doors behind them. Jenna could only shake her head and hope.

A handful of fighters had made their way into this tutorial space, but none lasted more than five minutes. Not unless they surrendered. Pre-awakening weaponry did little to the armor the Belar thugs wore, and was altogether nearly useless. Belar's fights against the army and special forces had proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. That meant someone fairly powerful had come into the tutorial space - and that they were powerful by the standards of the new post-awakening Vuxarina. From the noise, it was obvious they were giving the Belar invaders a hell of a fight. Jenna rooted for the new arrival.

#

The ground shook, and dust hovered in the air. Behind her, a young girl whimpered in the arms of her father.

The violence had been continuous for the last half hour. Great cracking booms joined rattles that seemed to shake the ground itself.

Most screams had been further away from them. Now, shouting voices were close enough to the door that Jenna could make them out. The new arrival was still there - and... it sounded like they were winning.

"Shoot for the gaps in his armor! Bring him down!"

"AHHRRGGG!"

"Stand and fight! Stand and fight! What the h-"

"Flee! Flee! It's a monster! Flee!"

"It's just the three of us left, we have to - No - not that way, no!"

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The ground shook.

"Oh, All-God's B-aahggghhh!"

A screaming guard slammed though the doors and sent woodchips flying in all directions. He gurgled out a final breath as his arms and legs twitched.

The guard's last breath faded, and brought silence to the night. There were no more shouting guards - not even groans and complaints of wounded. Whoever had entered this space, they'd managed to clear and finish the entire camp. Hope sparked in Jenna, and she could see the reserved optimism creeping over her fellow Vuxarinan's faces. Whoever this was, maybe they'd see her and her people free of this terrible mess.

Her breath caught as the doors were thrown open.

In the doorway, an ivory-coated figure gleamed in the tutorial's moonlight.

A fighter. A warrior. A hero.

He removed a helmet as he approached, and she took more of him in.

His odd frame.

His kind eyes.

His friendly smile.

The blood and gore that coated the bottoms of his boots.

The hero held a hand up to the lock on the cage door, and it melted.

His words were a promise of salvation.

"Hi - I'm Lycra. You're free now."

+ Reid +

The guard, in a burgundy set of armor, held a rifle-looking thing pointed at Reid's chest.

From the moment he entered the tutorial space, Reid found himself in a large rectangular area that was surrounded by chain-link style fencing, topped with a thorny looking razor wire. Straight ahead, a three-story building loomed large, with walkways around the outer edge of each level. More guards in armor stood there, rifles ready. Most weren't wearing helmets - and weren't Vuxarinan.

"I said stand completely still!" A voice shouted from off to Reid's side.

There was something to be said about repeating mistakes. Reid could get himself into a fight against an enemy of unknown power, or he could pretend to go along for a bit before he did anything that would give him or his power away.

As he and the guard faced off at each other, Reid noticed the cells.

Two rows of six open-air cages made of crossed metal bars spread out to his far left. Each one was a 10'x10' square, and chains and manacles sat on a discolored floor. To his right, a drab looking building took up a nearly identical amount of space - and more shackles hung on the wall next to the building's door.

Reid sucked a breath through his teeth.

Yeah. Nope. Fuck caution, I'm not going along with any of these people's shit.

A pinprick against his ethereal self told him identify was used before the voice called out.

"G grade! No level! Serroc."

The guard in front of him flipped a switch on the side of his rifle. "Serroc, drop all weapons and remove your armor. Do it now."

Reid knelt down, and picked a rock the size of his thumb off the ground. He moved Requiem to his left hand.

The guard fired a shot into the air. "Last warning! Weapons down, now!"

In his hand, Reid could feel that the stone was... substantial. It was an interesting thing. He hadn't known what to look for back on Earth, but it was clear that rocks and natural resources had undergone a qualitative shift when the planet awakened. Trees were bigger and bark was harder. In the same way, stones were heavier, denser, and harder to break. They'd increased in grade, the same way the King's Fang increased in grade.

He felt it in the mole den, when he went through his geology phase. He could feel it now. What he held in his hand was hard and tough. But how would it fare against the armor the guard was wearing? Probably not well. Reid let one of the small black stones he'd kept on himself fall out from his sleeve and replace the rock in his hand. Black stone was probably strong enough.

"*AHEM*. Reid, I believe that man is threatening to shoot you."

"Yep. It definitely looks like that."

The guard's voice came back from behind him. "Hey, Terry, he's not listening. Want me to just pop him in the leg?"

"Boss said to not damage potential replacement workers." The guard in front of him answered. Both sounded bored and a bit annoyed. Reid's eyes flicked back to the empty cages.

"Want to test your aim?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hit him in the left shoulder, about two inches out from his neck and three inches up from the obvious seam in his armor. There's a little V looking thing there, try to get it right at the tip of the V."

Reid rolled the black stone between his fingers, stood, and put power into his arm. There were cages. Guards threatening to kill him. The right and wrong sides were pretty damn obvious. If the fight was going to happen - he may as well be the one to officially start it, right?

Reid's arm whipped out with all the fine power enhancement he could control. The projectile hurtled through the air for a quarter of a second before it reached its target. The rock slammed into the armor like a wrecking ball and took the man off his feet. But the biggest reaction was yet to come.

As the man scrambled to stand, Reid realized the rock hadn't managed to make it through the armor - it simply wasn't tough enough to fully penetrate the burgundy material - but it had put a deep dent into the surface of the thing.

A dent that was now smoking.

Rather than start shooting at Reid, surrounding guards were sprinting away from the man in the smoking armor. His lip quavered. "No - no no no no n-!"

Reid covered his eyes as the power armor the man wore exploded in a flash of light. A burgundy sliver embedded itself in Reid's pauldron. Other parts of the armor peppered fleeing guards - and took one down. Bits of the dead man fell softly to the ground like a gentle rain. Only his boots, just up to the ankles, were still intact.

You have defeated Belar Trade Corporation Guard - lvl 14. Experience awarded.

The system had recognized Reid as having killed the man, and it also simply identified him as a guard instead of his race or lineage. It was a bit of a departure from what Reid was used to seeing on kill notifications, but it was far more understandable than how the man in front of him had suddenly exploded.

"Nyx. What just happened?"

"Reid, let me give you a crash course on step-down armor. It's when someone intentionally forces a crafted item into a lower grade by giving it a huge flaw. If you 'fix' it, you can then use that item like the grade it should've been. In this case, F rank power armor that was stepped down to G grade, then fixed so it could be used at F grade again. But this is the fun bit, and the reason why its absolutely stupid to play with stepped-down materials. No matter what you do to fix something, once its been stepped down it is inherently unstable. Know where to apply the right kind of force and..." She made explosion noises.

"You figured all that out just from looking at the armor?"

"Most of it... Eyeballs are pretty great tools."

Reid rubbed the corners of his eyes. "You've played with step-down armor before, haven't you?"

"Reid I am appalled you would say such a thing. I didn't play, I experimented. My discoveries helped to develop t-"

Her voice cut off abruptly. Around Reid, the guards were starting to cautiously re-emerge from where they'd sheltered themselves from the explosion

Reid let another rock fall down his sleeve into his palm. He felt Nyx recovering herself.

"Nyx, are you alright? Still with me?"

"That sucks just as bad, every time. Long story short, Belar is breaking a bunch of laws that would get them the death penalty. Now wipe out this riff-raff. You need to clear this base, figure out what's going on in the tutorial, and then let people out of those cages."

Reid rolled his shoulder. "Sounds good."

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