"I call the city council meeting to order. Council herald, report."

"Production, the Military and R&D are all on track for this quarter."

"Good, anything of note from outside the incursion zone?"

"The retirees have managed to keep everyone away. They did send through an unusual request though."

"Oh? What is it?"

"As you know, services are limited on the other side. One of the krakens requested a permit to open a restaurant catering to kaiju tastes."

"An interesting idea. While unique, I don't see how it would be unusual. This is hardly a concern for the council. What will be on the menu?

"That's just it sir, the restaurant will be primarily serving a dish called, "fish and ships."

...

"On second thought, let me take a look at that request form."

--City Council Meeting, Incursion City. AC 1126.

----------------------------------------

All I hear is an "ARGH!!!!" before the lobster is rushing straight for me.

His claws are raised up high and he's moving with a high rate of speed. He's been yelling, and it looks like he's about to attack. There's only one thing I can do.

"PREPARE FOR COMBAT!"

I push myself back, moving up the stairwell, grabbing Luna and spinning as I do. I'm shocked as I move twice as far from that single shove off the floor than I ever have before. I quash those distracting thoughts as I release Luna to fly towards the enraged lobster. I'm panicking, not understanding the situation... but there's one thing I know...

I'm not going down without a fight!

A split second has passed, and Luna is halfway to the lobster as I activate my [Earth Manipulation] armor. I don't know the strength of this guy, but he's twice the size of me, so defense is first!

I raise my claws in order to receive his attack. Luna's about to engage with a first strike and then I'll move to follow up. I manage to say the first line of my song,

"SIR..."

Before a white light expands from the lobster, encompassing us both.

I'm instantly crushed to the ground, and I can barely lift my eyes to see Luna flattened as well. The lobster has completely stopped any speech or movement and seems to just be staring at us. It's like gravity has increased a hundred times over and I can barely lift a claw from the floor, much less raise any kind of resistance. The light is somehow suppressing my skill activation, and I can hardly move a muscle.

It's like the lobster has completely flipped a mental switch as he slowly walks over and coolly stares at us. He speaks, in a voice that's even scarier than the yelling, with a dead monotone sound. He asks us,

"First lesson. What you're experiencing is known as a domain. They're commonly held by tier three class holders." He cocks his body to the side and examines each of us with a single eye. He then follows up with, "You should have just viewed the introduction holo. It specifically warned you what to expect. So, what made you think that attacking a non-commissioned officer was a good idea?"

The white light recedes just a bit, enough for me to choke out,

"What... is... a... holo...?"

The lobster maintains his cautious demeanor and continues speaking. He says, "I'm going to release my domain and then we're going to talk calmly, like sapient beings. Try to attack me again and it'll go even worse for you next time, understand?"

I manage to express my agreement and the white light vanishes. Luna moves over to me and takes her place on my back. The lobster with the green hat asks us, "What do you mean you don't know what a holo is? Didn't you inprocess? Go through the offices? Explain Private."

I recount to him our experiences upstairs. He waves a claw as I tell him about the first two rooms, but when I tell him about getting kicked out of the third without seeing anyone, he lifts his claw to stop me.

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"Tell me exactly what happened, don't summarize."

"Uhm, we walked in Drill Sergeant. There was no one at the desk. Then a voice called from the back that said, "We're in a meeting, go away." So, we went away."

The lobster sighs loudly. He gains an edge in his voice, though he's still much calmer than before. He says, "Alright. Basic training starts tomorrow. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to enter the room behind me and..." at this point his voice abruptly raises to a yelling volume, "...and THESE MAGGOTS WILL EXPLAIN THE VIDEOS YOU SHOULD HAVE WATCHED, GOT THAT?" His last words were directed at the motionless line of sea creatures in the room. They yell back, "YES, DRILL SERGEANT!"

The lobster nods and then turns to the two of us. He says, "I'm going to go implement some corrective training." A creepy smile grows on his face as he ominously *snips* his claws in the air. He walks past us and begins his journey upwards. As he does, he says quietly, "Oh, and good job reacting to contact. Bad job assessing enemy forces. See you tomorrow."

The lobster vanishes in a blur of motion and it's just Luna and I on the stairwell, stunned by what happened. As the lobster finally disappears, the seahorse from inside the room swims out and whisper shouts, "THAT WAS SO COOL!" She starts gushing, "First you were like, "What don't you know?" And then you were like, "Prepare for Combat!" and then you were crushed to the ground..." I wave a claw to stop her rambling and decide to introduce myself.

"Uhm, thanks? I'm Private Crabby."

Luna speaks up, waving an arm, "Private Luna."

I look at the others in the room, staring at me in a mixture of awe and disbelief and I ask the only thing that comes to mind.

"What just happened?"

*****

We walk into the room as the seahorse introduces herself and the others. Her name is Mina, and she currently has a [Bard] class. The two crabs are brothers. They are hermit crabs, and their names are Bill and Billy. They both have some sort of weird class called [Artificer]. I'm unable to figure out what they do from the class name, so I make a note to ask them later.

What I do know is that their shells are plainly artificial. They're constructed out of stone and wood and appear to have various openings and ports leading to the outside. I try to keep from staring as finally, the fish is introduced as a [Berserker] named Wilhelm. Introductions made; they finally get down to explaining what I missed in the apparently mandatory briefs.

"Yeah, so the Drill Sergeants can't hit us. But we have to do everything they say and there will be tons of yelling and stuff like that." The seahorse, Mina explains. Her voice is light and airy in the water, and she continually bounces around as she speaks. "There's some allowance for us as first-gen, due to... to our experiences thus far... but attacking any other military member outside of training is grounds for severe punishment."

Okay... I'm not sure I like the whole, "getting yelled at." Hopefully, it's not a long-term thing. I ask for clarification.

Wilhelm grumbles, "It's just because we're in basic training. They want to put us under stress so that when we're faced with the enemy we don't have to think. We just instinctually know what to do."

One of the crabs, Bill I think, pipes up. "Yeah, the holo also said it's because the city born need to be toughened up, they've lived their whole lives pretty sheltered."

This is the second time a holo was mentioned and I ask what it is. The other crab, maybe Billy? This is getting confusing, they both look similar, with similar names and similar shells. I'll go with Billy for now. Billy starts gushing in an excited voice, "Oh yeah! It's one of the new inventions they have in this place! They call it SV!!!"

"SV?"

"Yeah, apparently it stands for "Scry-O-Vision!!!" He says the name with a tone of awe in his voice. "They can project an image from a central location or from a recording. Come check it out! There's one in the rec room!"

We all follow him out of what I can now see is a sleeping area. There are various mats and bedding that can accommodate a wide variety of races. I put it out of my mind for the moment as we enter another corridor. We walk down the hallway, and I imitate the others in trying to move as quietly as possible. Wilhelm whispers, "We're still in holding right now. Like the Drill Sergeant said, training doesn't start until tomorrow. After that, we won't have access to this room anymore."

I nod, and Bill opens a nondescript door in front of me. We enter and I see a row of couches throughout the room. On the wall is shelving with brightly colored and labeled boxes. We pass by them, and I take a glance at the lettering. There's a wide variety and with just a glance I read some of their labels. "Kraken-Land, Octopi and Ladders, Ticket to War."

I pull my gaze away as everyone hops on a couch. Floating in the center is a white diamond shaped crystal. It glints gently in the cool water and Mina says, "check this out!" I sense a flicker of mana from her, and a soft image is projected from the top of the crystal. It floats in the water and sound quietly accompanies the picture. It appears to be some kind of advertisement,

"Tonight, on Crabemax... See the sordid conclusion to the Confession trilogy..." The image shows two crabs looking at each other over a desk. They seem to be staring rather intently at each other... hmm. One of them begins to speak, "I have the expenditure reports right here ma'am." The lady crab behind the desk leans forward slightly and with a husky tone says, "well why don't you place it in my... inbox..." I feel a flicker of mana from the fish and the picture flashes and is replaced by another.

A resounding chorus of "aww..." comes from Bill and Billy. Wilhelm looks at the two of them and grumpily says, "Sorry, not a fan of the crab channels." I shrug, expenditure reports sound boring anyway. And besides, who cares about reports when there's all this new and exciting stuff going on!

One of the brothers speaks up, "But isn't this a fantastic device? Billy and I only had crossbows and spears to work with in our dungeon and here in the city they have all this crazy stuff!" The other brother chips in with a tone of awe in his voice, "Yeah! They even have a word for it. They call it... Magi-tech! Cool huh?"

I nod and prepare to reply when Luna asks a question. I can see the direction of her gaze as she inquires, "You said you had spears and crossbows? How do you manage that?"

They turn as one to look at Luna. Then, about a dozen different holes open on each of their shells. One of them says, "Spears." I hear quiet clicking sounds before tiny spears jut out of his shell. The other says, "Crossbows." Ratcheting noises come from the other and I can see the tiny glint of arrows peaking from inside his ports.

Okaaayyy... not messing with these guys.

They add, "Yeah! We're hoping to upgrade these once we learn more about how all the Magi-tech works. We only arrived here about three weeks ago."

The new channel finally materializes, and a fish is staring at me from the projected screen. He appears to be presenting some kind of factual information. The fish says, "In local news, a new elder has been discovered! We currently have no images of him, but sources indicate he's currently engaged in a record search at city hall. He's looking for some of his lost companions. If you, or anyone you know, originated from the Deepwater [Dungeon] and wish to meet up, please contact your local guild representative. The elder Todd wishes to see you! Now, onto weather!"

Luna excitedly taps my shell, "It's Todd! He's doing okay!" I give Luna a tap with my claw, sharing in her excitement. I smile as I look at the creatures around me. The two quirky crabs, the gruff fish and the excitable seahorse... Besides the first bad meeting with the lobster, things don't seem to be so terrible after all...