New System, Who Dis?

March 26th, 2069

“We’re here with Abbas, the last survivor of the Sayyad Guild’s main attack force,” Fleece, the news anchor introduced, as he sat across from a very dour but well kept Arab man. After the man gave a nod, Fleece asked a question, the one which I’d been waiting for since the segment started on my line-mate’s tablet. “What happened in there Abbas? Sayyad is one of the top Guilds in the World. What did you find? What attacked you?”

Abbas looked off camera for a moment, before it panned out and revealed a second man sitting beside him. Eva, my beautiful companion in holding our places in line, saw my confusion and simply whispered, “It’s a translator, Brodie,” even as the other man leaned into Abbas’ ear.

Abbas then turned to the camera and responded in English, surprising me. I guessed that the translator was only there to make sure Abbas fully understood the question. “My Guild was mighty, yes. What we found in the Dungeon in Qatar was nothing Sayyad could have expected.”

The translator leaned into Abbas’ ear again, and I began to think that Eva was wrong in her assessment. Public Relationship Manager maybe?

Abbas continued once the man leaned away. “The rank of the Portal was only B-rank and we didn’t send our main attack force. What we ran into was certainly a creature of at least A-rank, if not higher. What me and my fellow Hunters fought was a creature of Myth and Legends. Something that the Faris quested to root out from our World in those Legends. We fought a Dragon!”

I sucked in a breath of air, even as Eva beside me did the same. I was a second year Portal Management and Materials major, and while I still had a lot to learn, I felt like Dragons should have been the first thing teachers mentioned. Surely that would get a class's attention, but only if they knew they actually existed I guessed.

“You’re saying that Dragons actually exist, Abbas?” Fleece asked, leaning forward in his seat, mirroring my own thoughts.

“Yes, Flek, they exist, and they guard treasure beyond your wildest dreams.” The translator or PR Manager leaned in and Abbas’ excitement seemed to dry up, even as his mouth turned down inside of his bushy black beard. “My team died fighting it, but their sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.”

I wasn’t sure if I could hear the forced enthusiasm or if it was my imagination. Still, in Abbas’ eyes I could see the pain of losing his friends and Guildmates. So, false or not, he likely wanted to give them a legacy. There probably was an amazing weapon or Monster Core that came from the encounter. Something that might one day—

“Are the rumors true then?” Fleece asked, in a dramatic stage whisper. “Did your team uncover the first permanent B-ranked Portal, Abbas?”

I blinked. Unable to control myself I exclaimed, “They what?”

Eva jumped from my volume above her shoulder, and then slapped at me playfully. “Don’t scare me like that, Brodie!”

Her giggle made my unintentional jump-scare somehow okay. Still, a Permanent Portal of that rank could be a blessing or a curse for the world. To Eva I said, “I’m sorry, but what happens if that Portal Breaks?”

Eva had already paused the news story, and her giggling cut off as she went deathly silent. Her tanned face was at least two shades paler when she spun to look at me with a forced smile. “Surely that’s far enough from us here in Canada to not worry. Right?”

“He said there was a Dragon, Eva,” I raised an eyebrow. “Those things can fly.”

Her unblemished skin grew even paler before she grunted and slapped me on the arm. “Stop trying to scare me!”

I could only nod with my own forced smile.

B-rank wasn’t something that usually would be considered a catastrophe waiting to happen, but the fact that Monster Fields and the containment around them existed for lower ranked Permanent Portals—didn’t seem to provide much hope for this thing not having a Break someday.

“Maybe they’re wrong and they’ll find a way to close it?” I said, truly hoping that might be the case. While a permanent B-ranked Portal would provide ample Monster Cores and limited Resources to the World—it was like a ticking time bomb.

Eva nodded, even as she visibly swallowed. I could tell she shared the sentiment.

* * *

Prologue

(Not the MC)

Saturday, March 30th, 2069

Morgan Hallsbrad pulled out a pen from his breast pocket, opened a small notebook using the fabric bookmark, and crossed out an entry about midway down the page. The thin sheet of paper held a simple list, each line of the list didn’t even fill up more than half the small page. As he lifted his pen, Morgan breathed heavily out through his nose—the ink was black, and yet there was a red smear glinting freshly above the entry.

Turning over his gloved hand he found a small smear of sticky red on one of his knuckles. That was the culprit of untidiness. He licked his teeth and then peeled off his two gloves, turning them inside out before stowing them in an outer pocket of a practically brand-new jacket.

Inhaling deeply, he examined the page one more time—at least the stain was above the crossed-out line of the page. The next, not crossed-out line read ‘Tara Isand’, but the one before it, the recently crossed-out entry, was for a ‘Craig Chaput’.

Morgan looked down at Craig. Another of the far too abundant single Skill Awakened. One of the unchosen, unlike him. He shook his head.

The young man lay on the ground, face as white as the paper in Morgan’s book—his eyes wide but unseeing. Atop the corpse, right above its heart was a small blue sphere, and Morgan put on a fresh pair of gloves, pulled from a different pocket of an entirely different interior jacket before picking it up.

In a practiced motion, he turned this pair of gloves inside out as well, with the small blue sphere inside of them, and then placed those into a plastic bag before sealing it. Morgan took one slower look around the dimly lit alley, seeing nothing but the corpse as ‘proof or witness’ he had been there, he spun on a toe and strode away.

As soon as he got out of the alleyway, he pulled out a cigarette from the breast pocket of his more internal, thinner spring coat. He lit up and exchanged his lighter for his cell phone before sending a quick text one-handed. The text simply read ‘complete,’ and went from sent to ‘read’ before his first drag on the cigarette ended. He was holding his breath and savoring the taste of the pull when his lowering hand felt the phone begin buzzing.

Reversing his elbow’s direction, Morgan glanced at the phone and was surprised to find that he was receiving a phone call and not simply a reply. He glanced back across the street he just crossed, toward the alley he just exited and deemed the distance to be insufficient to answer and hit the do not accept red button, sending his contact to his inactivated voicemail. People were much more likely to make note of a man talking on a phone than one just passing by.

Just as he finished his cigarette and was preparing to flick it into a road a few blocks away, the phone buzzed again. Morgan hadn’t bothered putting it back in a pocket, knowing that the broker on the other end would be calling back. This time, however, he was several streets away and could talk, so he answered.

“What’s up?” he said by way of greeting.

“You know I don’t like that particular idiom, Mr. Hallsbrad.” The line on the other end said dryly even through the voice changer, but then continued as if he hadn’t just scolded Morgan. “I’ve got a high-priority target for you.”

Morgan simply waited to allow the silence to stretch. He wasn’t exactly a huge fan of the anonymous person on the other end of the phone. He always corrected Morgan’s word choices and had a snobbish way of speaking that the voice modulator couldn’t hide. If he knew who the asshole was, he would probably at the very least punch him in the face. Although, it was only at the other man’s ‘teachings’ that he’d gotten this good at his job. Yet, he debated if the teaching, constant information, and money were actually good enough to save Mr. Anonymous from Morgan’s wrath if they ever met.

Morgan actually believed he’d met the anonymous caller in the past, but had somehow forgotten the interaction. He didn’t know why he got that feeling—but he had a new Skill that would likely prevent something like that from ever happening again!

He lit up another cigarette and let the silence stretch.

“Alonzo Mars,” the voice on the other end of the line finally gave in. “That’s just his SwiftGram alias, his real name is Brodie Flacarada. He has a high-demand Skill that I can flip for hundreds of millions.”

“Okay,” Morgan answered simply.

“Before you hang up, make sure you don’t use any Skills or siphon Mana from him. Understood?”

“Sure,” Morgan responded even as he rolled his eyes. The fact that the person on the other end said stuff like that, didn’t support his theory that they’d met. That just wasn’t how his Skill worked! “Can I go now?”

“Mr. Hallsbrad, I can’t stress enough—” Morgan hit the end button, not happy with the tone and the way it paired with the usage of his name.

Does this husker think he’s my mother or something? He asked the air.

“Well, he certainly knows he’s smarter than you,” a somewhat squeaky voice said from the awning of a late-night pizza shop. Morgan glared at the gargoyle-like creature but continued to walk past the building before turning into the alleyway that ran behind it and many other shops in the area.

He saw what he was looking for immediately and adjusted his path to move directly toward the dumpster. A third pair of gloves slipped onto his hands, and he stripped out of his second jacket, tearaway pants, and even his shoes. He slid into a pair of crocs that seemed to be placed there just for him—because they had been, and he had done the placing. Afterward, he continued down the alley after balling up everything and depositing them into a corner of the half-full container.

“You know I don’t like it when you speak without me addressing you, shit-stain,” he said over his shoulder.

The large gargoyle, which no one else but him could see, floated there, not even using his wings to stay aloft. Morgan hated that he couldn’t hurt the creature that came with his Skill—but this had been his life for over twenty years now.

Well, the Demon had grown a bit, since Mr. Anonymous helped him figure out how to best use his Skill. At least he and the Gorilla-sized demon had a bit of an understanding, now.

As he walked toward the other exit of the alley, he pulled back out his notebook and flipped to a new unused page before writing, ‘Alonzo Mars’ and then Brodie Flacarada under it.

He circled both and even added a star next to the name.