[Now, entering the contested zone,] the system boomed as my team and I stepped through the entrance into a bombed-out, burned-over city covered in half a foot of snow. I looked around as I directed the fire team to spread out. “Sanders on point. Chavez and Dorman, take our flanks. Mitchell, Weeks and Ling, stay close."

We were standing in what had once been a fairly sizable city. The buildings in front of me were three or even four stories high, except most of them had been shelled and were caved in now. Empty doors and windows gaped like wounds. The street was filled with rubble and a few destroyed vehicles. They were old-fashioned, World War II era if I had to guess, and they looked foreign. The couple of signs I could read from the various destroyed buildings were all in Russian.

I relayed the information back to my overwatch team, Arjun, Juana, and Allison back at headquarters. "I'm thinking it's an alternate WWII scenario. It looks like we are in a siege of Moscow." I said. I strained my ears and made out distant thump, thump, thump noises. "Sounds like artillery bombardment, but not particularly close. This part of the city seems to be abandoned."

My team reported back no sign of any enemies just yet. "Keep alert," I said grimly.

I wasn't thrilled about my team's makeup. I had Hester and Will at my side. I'd asked Lara to come, and she flat out refused. She was smarter than I was, I guess.

That had been my first refusal. I worked my way down my list, collecting no after no, until finally, we went with a backup plan I wasn't fond of at all and got a bunch of the best of our military recruits. Since they were technically under my command while I was training, I didn't have to ask them, but I did anyway. This was one heck of a ruleset change. Officially, they weren’t out of training yet, but this would be for real stakes.

A system message popped up: [Trial by Fire. Conditions: defeat all enemies on map. Enemy count: 100/100.]

I’d accepted Kronos’s assurance that anyone who was killed would be respawned at the entrance, minus their memories. There were some philosophical questions there that I was refusing to think about. Juana said I had my head in the sand and was unhappy about this whole thing, but I’d requested the numbers from Councilor Dinkins. We needed more Ethereum. If I had to risk a few memories, so be it.

"Alright, we are go," I told my team. "Keep your heads down."

I used my Lay of the Land ability. Kronos had upgraded it for me. Now instead of having to concentrate on a specific point, I could use the ability to gain a map of the entire level with points of interest marked.

A very basic city map appeared. The street we were on right now was labeled, but in Russian, which didn't do me much good. It must be a pretty big thoroughfare because I only saw another six labeled streets on the map. There were a few squares, and then toward the center of the city, a building highlighted in red. I sent the info along to Arjun for a translation. I was wearing an All-Seeing Eye, and my team was monitoring me. If worst came to worst, and my whole team got wiped out, they’d be able to tell me what had happened.

“Red Square,” he reported back. “It’s in the wrong place, by the way. The building is the Kremlin. You’re in Moscow, all right.”

"Keep your eyes peeled," I told my team. "Advance by the numbers."

We started up the street. About a block along, a rifle bullet cracked past my head. I threw myself to the side, pressing myself against the building. I targeted the enemy, but couldn't tell where they were. So I loaded a tracer round into my revolver and fired a Trick Shot. My round arced forward and up, leaving a line of golden light hanging in the air. We followed it all the way to a third-floor window of a building ahead and to the right, less destroyed than most of the others around us.

We were definitely under fire. Three more rounds cracked into the pavement at my feet. "Inside," I bellowed at the team, shoving open a door to my left. We ducked into the partially ruined building and took stock.

I turned to Weeks, our recon expert. "What can you get me?"

Her eyes crossed. I could tell she was concentrating. "Uh, there's ten in that building and six right above our heads."

We were in a narrow stairwell, dusty and covered in soot. The stairs led upward at a steep angle. I could hear footsteps overhead. "Sanders, Chavez, up the stairs!" I shouted. "We're on your tail!"

They had their M4s out, held in the low ready position. Now they took the stairs together, racing up. The door at the top of the stairs burst open. My men raised their weapons and fired on full automatic. Their weapons had enhanced 300-round magazines, making their M4s effectively Squad Automatic Weapons. They had auto-reload abilities. I wasn't worried about them running out of bullets.

I heard a thump and then another thump, and the counter in the top right of my screen updated. [98/100.]

Sanders stepped onto the landing at the top of the stairs. He aimed his weapon at the door as Chavez stepped in front, sweeping through the doorway and then cutting the corner. They were a pleasure to watch.

A second later, more fire. "Dorman and Ling, up the stairs!" I ordered. I followed behind them myself. We rushed into the room after Sanders and Chavez. They had taken down two more.

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A window overlooked the street we had just been on. The room was a dingy apartment, clearly abandoned in haste by its inhabitants. A table was overturned, scattering dishes everywhere. A chest stood open, cloth items hanging out where they'd been dropped as the inhabitants rushed to pack anything of their lives.

There was a door at the end of the room. Sanders and Chavez advanced on it. his time, Sanders kicked in the door while Chavez stood guard. They emptied another long string of bullets into the room. The counter in the corner updated. [94/100].

"Clear!" Sanders shouted.

I called back down to Weeks. "Anyone left in the building?"

"No, sir."

I went to the window and peered out. The building across the street was offset from ours. None of our windows looked into theirs. I backed off and ordered us to retrace our steps.

We paused in the entrance to this building. Hester and Will looked a little uncomfortable, like they weren't used to being told to sit around and wait, but my army squad was excited.

"This is just like Call of Duty, sir," Weeks said enthusiastically.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Of course it is."

But she had a point. The objective was fairly straightforward. Clear the map. The enemies seemed to be, based on their clothing, Russian partisans. We'd have to go house to house, clearing the city. But there were only ninety-four of them, so how bad could it be?

"All right," I said. "Out the door, across the street, rush to the next building." I pulled up my map, wishing it had more granularity. It didn’t show buildings or even most of the cross streets. "Any suggestions?"

"Yes, sir," Sanders said. “Since we know where they are, how about shooting some smoke grenades into the building first?"

"Good thought," I said.

I turned to Ling and Mitchell, who were my heavy weapons specialists for this team. "How many grenades have you got?"

"A dozen each, sir."

I did some calculation, but if Weeks was right and a full ten of our enemy were waiting in the next building, it would be worth it.

"I want you both to shoot smoke grenades in through the upper window where we think they're located," I said. “Then hang back and wait for instructions."

"Yes, sir. Dialing in smoke grenade now."

We stepped out into the street. The two fired their grenade launchers. The grenades arced in through a pair of broken windows into the mostly destroyed building beyond. A moment later, clouds of smoke emerged.

Sanders and Chavez pulled bandanas over their faces. I checked. The bandanas had no special abilities on them whatsoever. They were just the sort of thing that a normal soldier would use to cut down on dust and smoke. Then they burst through the doors of the buildings. We followed, me feeling somewhat useless as the squad expertly cleared the building.

When we regrouped outside, I said, "So, you all played Call of Duty, huh?"

They nodded, grinning. "Plus, of course, plenty of this sort of clearance drill," Sanders said.

"Yeah, I know. I was a boot once, too," I said, feeling a bit defensive. "Just 'cause I've got captain's rank now doesn't mean I don't know how to do clearance."

"No disrespect meant, sir."

Hester and Will joined us. "What should we be doing, sir?"

"Preparing for trouble," I said. "I don't trust this. It's too straightforward.” We couldn't have asked for a more perfectly tuned mission. Then again, maybe I was overthinking this. This fragment was only a part of Kronos's power, after all. Maybe it didn't have the intelligence to come up with something truly devious.

We moved through the ruined streets of Moscow toward Red Square and the Kremlin. The cross streets were all blocked by flaming debris. It was clear we were supposed to stick with the main thoroughfare, just like a game where the map has the illusion of being vast but you can’t really get to most of it. I checked, and wasn’t able to get past the debris. I’d need someone on my team with a wall-clipping skill, but I didn’t know anyone like that any more. I needed more depth to my team’s abilities. I set that thought aside for later.

By the time we were most of the way to Red Square, we had killed over half of the enemy. I was feeling about as useful as a head cold, and from Morgan and Will's expressions, they felt about the same. My squad, though, was in their element, whooping and cheering with every kill.

Dorman had been hit once, but Mitchell used a bandage skill to patch him up. Hester kept her Confused Guy Just Here on a Date spell up to make it harder for our enemies to hit us, and it seemed to be working. Will occasionally warned us that a building we were thinking of entering was structurally unstable.

I noticed the artillery shots were getting louder. As we cleared what had once been some sort of industrial tailoring workshop, a particularly loud “crump, crump" sounded from nearby, and a ruined facade fell over into the street in front of us. I held everyone back.

Weeks yelled, "Bogey, incoming! Two o'clock."

And a tank burst through the building next to us. It was a German Panzer, and as we scrambled quickly back up the street we'd just come down, it was joined by four more.

Mitchell threw out a "Sticky Pitch" grenade, covering the street in dark creosote-smelling muck. Will lobbed in a Fire Bug ability, setting it on fire. The flames lapped up around the tanks as they rotated their turrets toward us. Will's fire damage buff ate away at the tank's health pool quickly.

Hester tossed up Criticisms Roll Off My Back as one of the tanks finally got its muzzle pointed and shot at us. The tank round bounced off of Hester's shield, landing in the street. It exploded. Hester's shield took most of it, but shrapnel pelted us. I heard a quick scream. Sanders was down.

Will rushed forward, using his First Responder spell to grab Sanders and pull him back out of the danger zone.

"Light 'em up," I ordered my squad.

"Our bullets aren't going to touch those things!" Chavez shouted back.

"Do it!" I growled, and they pulled out their M4s and started firing. The tank's health continued to drop faster now that my squad was contributing their damage.

"This makes no sense!" Weeks shouted. "These rounds should be bouncing off that armor!"

"This isn't real!" I yelled. "It's not even following Call of Duty rules!”

Now I was in my element. I used Barrage to fire an entire cylinder of armor-piercing rounds through the closest tank. It ripped giant holes in the tank's structure. Smoke billowed out, but the tank fired again. If this had been real, there was no way the crew would have been able to shoot under these conditions. But this wasn't real. It was a reality engine simulation.

Hester's shield was down. The shell landed ten feet from us. Ling ran for it. He hurled himself onto the shell, and I saw him cast "Greater love hath no man" just as the shell went off. He took all the damage. It blew him to pieces. Chunks of Ling flew everywhere, but the rest of us were unscathed.

The tanks ticked down to zero and went still, flames still lapping at their carcasses.

I sent a quick message. Ling, are you there?

Sir? I thought we were all entering together. Where are you guys? I’m standing at some sort of barricade in a ruined city. I can hear artillery somewhere. Did we get seperated?

Ling had been restored from backup, like Kronos promised. He didn’t remember any of the last couple of hours. I made a quick decision. We didn’t have a timer running. “We’re going back for Ling. He’s at the entrance. I know we’ve cleared behind us but I don’t want him or us running into any surprises. Double-time, go!”