One by one, people began picking themselves up off the ground. Half of us had to crawl out of the portal, and the rest still ended up in the general pile. But now, we should be safe. Moments ago ships from Extra were trying to hunt us down for just doing some simple information gathering. We’d been hunkering down in a rust mole den for a while, and something they’d done had prevented Gate from reaching Earth… but everything was good now.

We had made it to the Order of the Lion, and we should be safe. Sir Kalman would likely be surprised to have so much company all at once, but once he knew the reason he would understand.

“Everyone alright?” I asked.

“We’re good here,” Kendrux said for her three.

“No further injuries,” Swiss Arms said. “However, rust mole is a problem,” she gestured. It currently seemed to be trying to fit Zeb’s head in its mouth. “Now that we’re somewhere secure, I suggest we put it down.” As she said so, she held up her arm. She was probably about to transform it into some sort of gun. Presumably a projectile one, since we knew that rust moles were mostly immune to lasers.

“Noooo!” Zeb said. “You can’t hurt Fluffy!”

The canine stared down Swiss Arms, blood dripping down her forehead.

“... Whatever, it’s your funeral.”

Zeb’s eyes narrowed. “I… get to have a funeral?” She began to wag her whole body. “Does this mean we’re friends now?”

“We did fight on the same side, so yeah,” I nodded.

“Yay!” She turned slightly, her head still held by the giant mole. “Stop that, Fluffy!”

I briefly felt a tingle of something.

Then the door burst open, revealing a small horde of paladins. “Oh, Harold,” I waved. “Hello. Emergency situation forced us to come here. Sorry for the disturbance.”

The paladins continued to stand tensely, their weapons at the ready. Harold’s eyes looked over me, and I felt some mana stirring.

“It seems to be him,” Sir Harold lowered his weapon. “Nobody else would show up with such an odd group. At ease,” he said, and the rest of the paladins sheathed their weapons, though they still stood at the ready. “So, who is this with you? I know Midnight.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Well, aside from him,” I said. “There’s Swiss Arms,” I didn’t know her actual name. “Uh, some codename,” I gestured to Khithae.

“Cling,” she offered.

“Yeah, that,” I nodded. “Zeb. Fluffy. Kendrux, Olim, and Evans.”

“What?” the Martians looked at me in confusion.

“I’m Evans,” said the wrong one.

“Sorry. Evans and Olim,” I said.

“... I’m Warkon,” the other one said.

“Olim is a human,” ‘Evans’ said.

I squinted at them. “Are you… sure?”

“Absolutely,” the self-proclaimed Evans said.

“So those two are Evans and Warkon,” I explained to Harold. “And that’s all of us.”

For some reason Harold sighed. “Very well. Should we be concerned that Zeb’s companion is biting her? I don’t know if that’s a good sign for a druid or beastmaster or whatever.”

“... Beastmaster sounds like a way better title than systems engineer!” Zeb commented. “Can I be one of those now?”

“Sure thing,” I nodded.

“Did you hear that Fluffy? I officially order you to sit!”

I felt that weird tingle again. Then Fluffy unclenched his jaw from Zeb’s head and pulled back.

“You’ve caught us at an inconvenient time,” Harold said. “Though perhaps you may be of some help to us.”

“Oh, well, we were kind of intending to just go back to Earth the long way,” I said. “But we’ll have to hang around here for a bit to recover mana anyway. What do you need?”

“What we need most is to get into contact with Sir Kalman,” Harold explained. “At least, in the immediate future.”

“Well, that’s going to take a bit,” I said. “We’re kinda low on mana and need to regenerate.”

“That’s no problem,” Harold said. “An hour or two against waiting days for a response is quite preferable. Until then, you and your companions should at least sit down. We can provide some food. Assuming they can eat standard sustenance?”

“Yeah we all eat basically the same things,” I said. “Except maybe the mole.”

“Rust moles can eat regular fare as well,” Kendrux commented. “They eat primarily roots, but also small insects, meat, and the like. Energy consumption is a less consistent source for them.”

“We can certainly provide meat,” Harold commented.

Soon enough we were all sitting down at a table. The shorter folk among us were well accommodated for, as there were seats for halflings and other small people available. Midnight and Zeb ended up with their front feet on the table, but it wasn’t a big issue.

“Look at this, Fluffy!” Zeb said. “We get to eat tasty meat!”

Fluffy, as the rust mole was now apparently called, was eating out of a trough on the floor. I noticed he was behaving quite well all of a sudden.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I had no idea what to call our meal because while it was daytime here, we’d left Earth in the middle of the night for New Bay and the Extra facility on Mars had been somewhere around dawn. It could have been breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Khithae came to me after the meal. “Can we talk privately for a moment?” she asked. “Specifically, members of the Brigade?”

“Sure thing,” I said. Some sort of secret thing. Though obviously the fact that everyone was talking wouldn’t be secret, as we were half of the group. Or… slightly less than half, now. The two of us along with Midnight and Swiss Arms huddled together over in a corner. “So what’s the private thing?”

“Well,” Khithae said. “We’re here now. In your old world.”

“That’s right,” I agreed.

“So… I was thinking about what we’ve talked about. And how the powers work. Or rather classes,” she said. “So I thought about this status window and I have a level and points now.”

“Well, you might have had those anyway,” I pointed out. “Definitely the level. You just couldn’t see it before.”

“... I thought you would have a bigger reaction,” Khithae admitted.

“Why?” I tilted my head. “Oh! Congratulations on unlocking your full potential.”

“This is normal for him,” Midnight pointed out. “So he’s not going to react more than that.”

“Should I?”

Swiss Arms crossed her namesake appendages. “Right. We hadn’t intended for this. Considering the circumstances it won’t cause any direct problems but, the issue is the others. Don’t just look over at them!”

“Sorry,” I said. “What’s wrong with the others?”

“They’ll also get class powers, right?”

“Right,” I nodded. “And…?”

“That’s…” Swiss Arms took a deep breath. “You do realize they’re criminals, right? And now they can be supervillains. Kendrux is likely aware of portal powers but if she isn’t reminded they might never activate things… right?”

“More like they’d choose classes subconsciously,” I said. “Like Zeb did.”

“... What?” Everyone asked together.

“Well, you know how all the other portal powers were discovered. People just did stuff,” I said. “So like that.”

Swiss Arms sighed. “Not what we were talking about. What was that about Zeb?”

“Oh, she picked some sort of class and bonded with Fluffy, I think,” I shrugged. “Nothing that crazy.”

“That seems like a pretty big deal to me,” Swiss Arms pointed out. “An alien invader gaining superpowers isn’t something to just ignore.”

“Well, sure. But this isn’t Spot. It’s Zeb. Zeb is a good girl.”

A shocked gasp came from across the room, momentarily halting the conversation. “Did you hear that Fluffy? They said I’m a good girl!”

Swiss arms pressed her face into her hands. “As the sole executive present, this is my fault. I allowed us to use an inadequately private location.”

“Well, she already activated a class before that. So why not just invite her over?”

“... Fine,” Swiss Arms said.

“Yaay!” Zeb called from across the room. “I get to join the secret meeting!” She scurried about halfway over, then paused. The mole bounding after her ended up tripping over her and rolling a few times. “Can Fluffy come? He’ll keep the secrets, promise!”

“Ahem,” Kendrux cleared her throat from across the room. “If this isn’t a Power Brigade specific secret, which it appears it is not, then I already have a pretty clear idea of what it is.”

“Then say it,” Swiss Arms half shouted.

“Remember that our cooperation continues until we all return to safety,” Kendrux said. “On Earth.”

“As long as you don’t betray us,” Swiss Arms agreed.

“We knew about the Status window,” Kendrux said, walking over flanked by the others. “Well, the exact details aren’t on the black market but it was one of the theorized possibilities. And knowing portal powers came from here…”

“You do realize that if you commit any crimes with your powers,” Swiss Arms said. “The response will be… much more significant.”

Kendrux tilted her head. She didn’t exactly have an eyebrow to raise. “Why would we commit any crimes? We’re law abiding citizens. Aren’t we?”

“That’s right,” Evans commented.

“Absolutely,” said not-Olim. Warble?

“Right,” Swiss Arms agreed. “But you have an obligation to use your powers responsibly. So do take care.”

“We can be more responsible if we don’t have to randomly test how our powers work,” Kendrux said. “And you can help,” she said, looking at me. Not that it was easy to tell for Martians, as the all black eyes weren’t clearly focused on individuals- but at least this group didn’t have sunglasses making things worse at the moment.

“You’d have to tell me what classes you are,” I pointed out.

Kendrux looked over at Swiss Arms.

The cyborg nodded. “An exchange of information… might be acceptable. However, as we might only be here for a few hours it seems a bit rushed.”

“Unless you need help with whatever all these knights are dealing with,” Kendrux pointed out.

“Well, I suppose helping citizens understand their powers is a worthy endeavor,” Swiss Arms concluded. “Go ahead and talk… though try to avoid divulging information harmful to anyone we know.” She said that to me for some reason, like I’d intentionally hurt a friend.

“So,” I said. “Classes?”

“Marshal,” Kendrux said.

“Gunslinger,” Evans said.

“Rogue,” Warble or whatever he was called said.

Gunslinger. Gunslinger… should I tell him the class didn’t exist? He sounded so confident. Then again, maybe it did, if guns existed. “I assume you chose those for a reason?”

“Obviously,” Kendrux said. “We had some idea beforehand.”

“When did you guys even choose?”

“Well, I did it as soon as it worked after we came through. Sometime during lunch,” Kendrux said. “When I first tried to pull up the window my head just hurt. Then these two chose during your secret discussion.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “So you were having your own secret discussion.”

“They were!” Zeb nodded from the floor next to us. “But I wouldn’t tell anyone around it without good reason, because we’re friends! But you’re also my friends, and you know, so I can say they were talking about classes and stuff! I already got a degree but I don’t mind taking more classes!”

“A class is a kind of power,” I said.

“Like electricity?” Zeb asked.

“Like superpowers. The kind Spot has,” I pointed out.

“Oh, is that why everyone wanted to rescue him? We never met.”

And thus, I went over the very basics of classes for people. Zeb apparently became a Beastmaster. Gunslinger I could only assume was like an archer with a gun. Marshal did leadership stuff, making allies better. And rogues did sneaky stabby stuff. A whole lot of things, really, but that was one of the big ones.

“None of you will have much mana,” I said. “Don’t worry about using too much there are no proven side effects unless you fall and hurt yourself when you pass out.”

“That sounds like a pretty important one,” Kendrux said. “Passing out.”

“I’m very close to the ground!” Zeb said. “So I’ll be fine.”