Akari and I sit side by side in the tram car, Baylee sitting across from us. As it turns out, the trip to GDF Headquarters is less stressful with friends. Although, I don’t think the building that pierces the sky will ever stop making me feel oh so small.
Baylee, Akari, and I had spent a lot of Wednesday together, both during school lunch and after school, doing homework. I hadn’t been the only one who was woefully behind on my schoolwork due to this whole sentinel thing, and the others had been more than willing to work together. Even our familiars had helped out.
While Baylee hadn’t outright said it, I know she isn’t thrilled with how much time I seem to be spending with Akari. I’d known it was the case, but she clearly has a bias against her. Yet, I had come to quickly trust Akari a great deal, what with her following me around a lot and acting as my protector, which I find very cute. Baylee hadn’t spent nearly as much time with her and also didn’t know her story. I know it will only take time, but I hope that my two friends can learn to get along. At least Baylee doesn’t seem mad at me, more just worried about me, which I guess I can understand.
As a result of this dynamic, I had spent pretty much all of Wednesday with both girls following me around. Akari seeming determined to protect me from the world, and Baylee determined to protect me from Akari. One day, I hope the two will come to their senses and realize just how silly this situation is.
As for the Akari protecting me thing, I’m still really not sure what to think about it. I suppose I somewhat understand her desire to do it. I had helped her out a lot recently, and that had made her feel a need to repay me. Since I’m primarily a healer as a sentinel and have lost the ability to heal myself, Akari seems to have come to the conclusion that I've also lost the ability to protect myself.
She might be somewhat right, as I have never really viewed myself as a fighter. Sure, I love archery, but I’ve never had any desire to shoot my bow at anything other than a target. I just find it fun. Not to mention that a lot of the people I’ve met over the course of my life have acted protective, from my father to my teachers. A lot of people seem to think that I need help protecting myself. Whether or not I agree with them. At the end of the day, though, Akari’s choice to look out for me doesn’t bother me much. I don’t mind her company, and if it makes her happy, I’m happy to have her.
It’s not long before we reach the hub, this time using a back entrance Prof had told Baylee about so as to not draw extra attention. Seeing teenagers in the lobby is a surefire way to find the identities of sentinels. While the GDF cracks down hard on anyone revealing the identities of sentinels without permission, it does still happen. Easier to just stay out of sight, at least when we aren’t in our assault states.
“Guess we’re supposed to meet up again after meeting with our mentors,” Baylee says, looking at her phone as we step out of the elevator and into the hub.
Once more, I look around at the wonderous sight of the hub. Strange that it’s already starting to feel normal to me. Things that I’ve never imagined in my life have already started becoming commonplace. Perhaps the best example of this is the familiar sitting on my shoulder. Celeste had so recently come into my life, and I already don’t want to live without her.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I nod to Baylee. “I’m supposed to go to a shop to meet Audrey. Want to just meet back up at the fountain later?”
She shrugs, “Sounds like a plan, I’ll text Claire and Haruto in the group chat. See you guys then.”
With that, Baylee departs, heading off in her own direction. Akari lingers beside me for another moment before also departing with a small wave. Double-checking the message Audrey had sent me yesterday, I make my way toward a shop in the plaza to meet her again.
I find Audrey sitting on a bench just outside of the inscriptions shop Prof had shown me on my first time at the hub. The shop is a squat little building that sits on one end of the central U of the plaza, and the building itself is covered in inscribed runic markings that glow faintly with various different colors. While I do recognize some of the inscribed runes, the majority of them are completely unknown to me, and the way they are so tightly compacted together leaves me with no idea what the purpose of the script is.
As with the last time I met with her, Audrey has her nose in a book as she waits for our meeting. She looks up as I approach, her book vanishing in a swirl of pink and violet as she regards me.
“Good to see you again, Serena. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I would,” Audrey says, offering a smile and patting the seat beside her on the bench.
I sit down, expecting my stomach to start swirling with nerves once more upon the sight of my childhood idol, but I guess I’m starting to get desensitized to things like this. I’m honestly not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“I wasn’t either,” I answer truthfully. “Ultimately, I decided that I want to have the choice to protect myself and the ones I love.”
Audrey gives me a measured look, “Don’t wish you could go back then?”
My mind flashes through my last few days as I consider. Everything has been changing so rapidly, and I feel as if I’d barely even started down the path of a sentinel. I’d had terrifying experiences and wondrous moments alike. I’ve had my life threatened and helped people in ways I never could have imagined.
“No,” I tell Audrey, meeting her piercing green eyes. “I don’t wish I could go back.”
Audrey’s smile turns just a touch more genuine, “Good. Maybe we’ll make a proper sentinel out of you yet. Although, I’ll be interested to hear if your answer has changed by tomorrow.”
I blink, “What do you mean?”
My mind instantly jumps to her having some insane training routine that will make me hate my life, like some old Kungfu movie training montage. If she’s about to ask me to wax her car, she’s got another thing coming.
“I’m going to be blunt with you, Serena, because that’s just the way I do things,” Audrey starts. “Things are bad right now. The number of incursions happening keeps increasing, and the strength of the volcora inside those incursions keeps going up. Normally, you and your team would train for at least a month before we ever let you see a volcora. However, because the incursions have been accelerated, we are also accelerating the training regimen for the twenty-seventh sentinel generation.”
“Okay,” I say hesitantly. “What does that mean for my team?”
“It’s been decided that the new sentinel teams need real-world experience to springboard them forward, and well, your team drew the short straw and gets to go first. This afternoon, I will be joining your teammates’ mentors in guiding you through the process of stopping an incursion space from breaking down and dumping its volcora into the world,” Audrey explains, her tone flat.
My blood runs cold at Audrey’s words. Right… there’s those butterflies in my stomach. Shame on me for thinking I could get through a day at the GDF without them.
I close my eyes, clenching and unclenching my hands by my sides as I try to take deep, steadying breaths. This is what I signed up for. I knew what I was getting into when I accepted Celeste’s bond. Audrey had told me as much herself when we’d first met. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but… today! I will see my first volcora today!
“Before you say anything,” Audrey starts, distracting me from my building panic, “I know you aren’t ready. General Novak knows you’re not ready as well. If we had any other choice, we wouldn’t be doing this. Ultimately, though, there are lives at stake today. We simply cannot stomach the cost of waiting the extra months getting you out into the field would require. So, we’re going to shove you into the deep end and fish you out if you end up sinking.”
“I-I… you know that this is going to get new sentinels killed, right? Even with you watching over us?” I ask, looking up at my mentor.
To my surprise, Audrey looks away, refusing to meet my eyes. “We know. The other mentors and I will do our best to keep you and your team alive, but I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t any risk. If it helps, I don’t think you’ll die unless you royally screw up. Our assault state’s barriers can take a lot of punishment before they break; yours will be weak as they come, but it should still give us enough time to save you before you die.”
My hands are clenched hard enough for my fingernails to risk drawing blood. The sharp pain of it allows me to remain focused and not balk at what I’m being asked to do. Once more, I firm my resolve. I’d known that this was what sentinels did when I’d accepted Celeste’s bond. It’s time to find out just how much my resolve is worth.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, my voice shaky but certain.
Audrey looks me up and down. “The plan is to turn you into a proper sentinel in the next few hours so you don’t flounder and die.”
“Alright, let’s do it,” I say, wanting to commit all the way before I lost my nerve.
Audrey grins in a sort of manic way that reminds me of Claire. “So, you do have some spine on you. I like it. Let’s get started.”
I swallow nervously but nod my agreement.
“Alright,” Audrey begins, shifting on the bench to face me more directly, “let’s go over what you are going to need so you don’t die immediately. First, you need to understand all of your capabilities as a sentinel; second, you need equipment; and third, you need training on using your powers properly. Come with me.”
Audrey stands, her movements lithe and efficient. With only a glance in my direction, she cuts directly across the manicured grass around the inscription shop, striding alongside the edge of the building but not heading for the front door.
Startled, I scramble to keep up. Audrey evidently has a plan, and not following it seems like a great way to end up in the graveyard beside my mother. If Audrey has a plan to make me into a proper sentinel in the next few hours, then I will follow it to a tee.
Around the back of the inscriptions shop is a small dirt lot with a few plastic training dummies placed around it. The training dummies look suspiciously like mannequins from a clothing store, although I recognize a runic inscription on their chests. It looks like some sort of complex protection inscription; the exact details elude me, but I’m certain that they are for protection. I really should have paid better attention in my inscribing class.
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The dirt lot looks like a disaster. Instead of even ground, the dirt is potted and marked. In some places, it’s scorched black, and in others, the dirt almost looks glassy. I look the lot over for a moment before turning to Audrey, who stands beside me.
Audrey answers the unasked question, “This is where the inscribers test weapons before they put them out for sentinels,” she says, smiling fondly. “They’re mad bastards and love to find new and exciting ways to sew death.”
Audrey’s smile drops as she glances my way, “Shift states,” she orders.
“But what about mana toxicity? Shouldn’t I reduce it as much as I can before I go into an incursion zone?” I ask, still wondering at what kind of insane inscriptions the people here had cooked up to make the dirt lot look like this.
“That doesn’t matter if you don’t know your own powers. We’re burning daylight, Serena. Shift states,” Audrey orders again, her voice that of a commander.
Right… I suppose she has a point. Shift.
Even having done this before, the feeling of power swelling within me as I shift into my assault state is still euphoric. It’s like that heady feeling of excitement when you just got amazing news, and you feel like you could run a marathon. All fatigue washed away in an instant and replaced by lightning flowing through your veins.
It only takes a second for me to find myself in my assault state, still unused to the feeling of my clothes changing as I shift. For the first time, I’m actually shifting at a time when it isn’t absolutely critical for me to pay attention to my surroundings. As such, I take a moment to study my assault state.
The first thing I notice that had changed is my hair. My long sandy blonde locks are gone, replaced by a sapphire blue streaked with lighter aqua colors fading to white. I also note how my hair is now tied back in a tail, whereas before, it had been loose around my shoulders. How strange. Is this really how my soul sees itself?
Looking down, I look at my clothes with wide eyes. My previous outfit is gone, replaced by a stylized sky-blue tunic with accents of white and aqua. White designs, resembling billowing clouds, decorate the sides of the tunic with a larger logo-like design over my left breast. My jeans had shifted into tight black leggings underneath the tunic, with sleek, practical combat boots going up to my knees.
I wear white and blue fingerless gloves on either hand, reaching up my arms with blue and white designs. My left arm and breast are covered by a thicker leather-like material that seems made to act as a guard to protect my arm and breast from the string of a bow. The assault state had definitely been made with archery in mind, and it gives my entire look a very asymmetrical design, with my left arm entirely covered and my right mostly bare.
I look down at my white-gloved hands in wonder, then back up at Audrey. Audrey, who now blazes with pink, incandescent light. Oh…
I hadn’t been the only one to shift, and if I hadn’t known it before, I know for sure now. Audrey is a monster. Pressure pours off of her in waves, an unshakable knowledge that before her, I am nothing. Brilliant pink wings flair out behind her, and in her hand is a bow that seems like it had been crafted out of the night sky. This isn’t Audrey; this is Stardust Angel, Shinara’s most potent protector.
I take an involuntary step back, shaken. Audrey doesn’t seem like the same person who had just been speaking with me; she seems like a goddess among mortals. The difference between our assault states is the difference between the smallest suburban house and the tallest skyscraper.
Before I can come up with words to say, Audrey speaks first. While her voice is unchanged, it rides on waves of power that make me shiver. “Lesson one,” she says, voice resonating. Then, she vanishes.
[Serena! Look out!] Celeste cries in my mind, bounding off of my shoulder and onto the dirt of the lot. She grows in size and flairs out all four of her wings, but we’re both far too slow to react.
Audrey had moved so fast it might as well have been teleportation. She reappears to my right side, holding a small rock in her hand. With blistering speed, she throws the rock toward me. I don’t have time to think, much less dodge, before the rock flashes across the intervening space with a hiss and slams into the blue barrier that flickered into existence in front of me. The rock hits my blue barrier so hard that I feel as if something within me had cracked.
Barrier Integrity: 76%
“Assault state barriers are strong,” Audrey says, suddenly standing in front of me as I reel away from the attack, off balance. “They can take powerful blows, even from those much stronger than you.”
Audrey lunges towards me, and Celeste leaps into the air to try and pounce on her back. Once again, Celeste and I are both too slow to react. With an almost casual punch in my direction, the blue barrier that had appeared to protect me shatters, and Audrey reaches through it to grab my throat.
Barrier Integrity: 0%
I cry out as I feel a draining sensation from my core. It’s feels like she had just broken a part of me with that casual punch. While I can feel it regenerating itself, I feel vulnerable. I look up at my mentor, eyes wide as she grips my neck.
Audrey’s eyes blaze with pink light as she meets mine; her grip is light around my throat, obviously not trying to hurt me. “But our barriers are not infallible,” she continues as if nothing had happened. “Once something does get through it, you are no more resilient than an average teen girl,” she gives my neck a slight squeeze to emphasize her words.
Celeste leaps at Audrey, but a barrier of pink light springs up between them. Claws that I hadn’t realized Celeste had rake against the barrier impotently as Celeste desperately tries to reach me.
Audrey huffs and releases my throat, gently pushing me away from her. “Calm yourself, familiar. I’m not trying to kill your sentinel. Quite the opposite, in fact. She needs to know that her barrier doesn’t make her invincible.”
[Serena is a blue sentinel!] Celeste yells in my mind and apparently Audrey’s too. [She is not meant to fight the way you do!]
Audrey growls, her face twisting with an anger I’d never seen from her before. “Stop putting those ridiculous notions in her head!” she snarls. “A sentinel is a sentinel, no matter the color! You know how many blue sentinels die because they thought their team would protect them? Because of this ridiculous culture the GDF has around protecting blues! Not here! Your life, your responsibility!”
Audrey stops, visibly seeming to calm herself before continuing. “There will come a day when there is no one to save you. No mentor or teammate standing between you and the jaws of death. That day could end up being today, and you need to be ready. You need to know what it feels like to balance on the edge and come out alive.”
My heart thunders in my chest as I watch Audrey closely. Unsure if she would try to attack me again. Somehow, I know she would. This is just the start of her “lesson.” Without waiting to be attacked again, I raise my hands and let mist explode out of me. I doubt it will do much, but hopefully, it will help at least a little.
“Good!” Audrey shouts as I am obscured in white fog. In an instant, she is before me again, her wings glowing vibrantly within the mist. “But don’t expect an enemy to wait for you to take your turn,” she says before tapping on my on the chest with a light finger.
I swallow; this had gone on for under a minute, and already she had essentially killed me twice. Still, I don’t want to just take this lying down. I’m a sentinel, too; I have an assault state, too! How is she this much stronger than me!
Determination surges through me, and I decide that I don’t want to just try and play defense. Stepping forward, I swing a punch at Audrey with all of my enhanced strength. I miss, without being entirely sure as to how. Audrey had simply swayed to the side with casual grace, causing my fist to meet only open air.
Admittedly, my punch had been rather pathetic in form. I’ve never had reason to try and attack someone else. Still, if I want to protect people, I need to be able to fight off whatever they need protection from.
Gritting my teeth, I try again, this time being careful to aim directly at Audrey’s center of mass. If I thought I had a hope of actually hurting her, I would never have tried to fight her like this. However, I think I’m starting to understand what Audrey is trying to do. I need to be able to fight in my assault state before that fight is real.
Instead of swaying to the side, this time, Audrey just steps back, leaving my fist to sail right in front of her once again. I try again and again, but Audrey moves through my mists like a ghost. Her movements don’t seem fast, but they are clinically efficient.
As Audrey dodges, she lectures. “From what I understand,” she says, sidestepping a flying pounce from Celeste, then ducking under my punch, “you are an archer. We will get you a proper bow before we head to the incursion zone. For now, try to get a feel of your strength and speed. While in your assault state, you are more than you were before.”
“Why… can’t… I… hit you?” I ask, never stopping my onslaught as Celeste and I push ourselves to our limits to try and even touch Audrey. We even try coordinating to hit her at the same time, but that proves fruitless as well.
“A sentinel’s rank isn’t for show,” Audrey says, weaving her head to the side and then jumping over my attempted kick. “When a sentinel is placed in a situation of great stress, where they must use their magic to survive, they come out greater on the other side. The magic in our body refines itself, and we grow more in tune with our domain and astral path. Higher ranks mean more power, more benefits, and more abilities.”
Audrey holds out her hand for me to pause. I stop, breathing hard from the exertion. Still, I feel as if I have a better understanding of my physical limits in my assault state than I had before. I am stronger and faster than I was before, but the difference isn’t as steep as I’d thought.
Right now, I feel like I’m at my best. That every punch I threw would hit with the power of the strongest punch I could have thrown before. That every movement I make is done with the most grace and speed I could have managed in my rest state. I feel like I’m at my best in every way, but not beyond what a normal human could already do, not like Audrey, who can move like a speeding bullet and dodge like she was made of mist.
Audrey waits for me to catch my breath before she speaks once more. “Shift back, let’s talk about what you did wrong. You are right about mana toxicity. We should be able to mostly lose the buildup we gained here with a few hours in our rest states, but we want to be at 100% for the incursion.”
With a flash of pink light, Audrey once again shifts back to how she looked before. Her shining sentinel outfit fading back into a standard tank top and cutoff jeans. With a thought, I follow suit. The exhaustion of the short fight hits me harder as my power retreats, and I once more find myself panting for breath. Audrey doesn’t even have the decency to look winded.
Celeste stands beside me, her blue eyes glaring at Audrey. Through our bond, I can feel frustration leaking off of her. Neither of us are happy with our performance, and I know Celeste certainly isn’t happy with how easily Audrey had shattered my barrier.
When I finally catch my breath, I look up at my mentor again. To be honest, I’m slightly peeved about her way of training, even if I get it. If I’m ever in a real fight with that big of a power difference, I really don’t see what I could do. I just hope that I don’t run into any volcora as strong as Audrey in this incursion. Speaking of which.
“How do you even know an incursion is coming?” I ask with frustration as I finally manage to stop panting for breath.
Audrey shrugs, “There is always an incursion happening somewhere around Shinara. We just asked the monitors to watch for one that they think newbies can handle around this afternoon. We might have to wait an hour or two extra to get a good one, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“A-All the time?” I ask, my eyes wide. The news had never indicated that incursions were that common. At most, I’d thought they happened maybe once or twice a week. No wonder they need more sentinels.
Audrey nods, her face turning grim. “Yes, and if we don’t have a sentinel team in place to handle it, then all those volcora will get out to go attack wherever they like. To be honest, we don’t catch most of them in Japan now. Only the ones close to major population centers like Shinara or Tokyo. Pretty soon, there will be a southern front just as there is a northern one.”
I close my eyes; I had known things were bad, but I had never known it was quite this bad. No wonder everyone was moving away from small towns. The GDF just can’t keep them safe there anymore.
The arrival of the Volcora changed the world forever, but it feels like it’s changing again. No longer can the world’s sentinels keep up with the threat. What is the plan for when the volcora get worse?
I open my eyes once more, looking up at Audrey. “What can I do to help?”
“Right now, we need you to be stronger,” Audrey says, eyes intense. “I’ve gotten a good sense of your current capabilities, and hopefully, you have too. Now, let’s see what we can do to augment those capabilities as far as they can go.”