System initialising...


    “People of Earth, your planet has been scheduled for assimilation by the Void Imperium in the near future. The Illuminated Alliance has chosen to intervene and provide you with a fighting chance. We are not able to intervene directly at this time and wouldn''t even if we could. You must earn your place in the worlds to come. However we will help you help yourselves. This will not be easy on you, without struggle, without sacrifice nothing worthwhile can be achieved.


    The time is now 06:00 local time. Your movements will be restricted initially, each village, town and city is encapsulated in an impregnable barrier and you cannot leave your starting area until the end of the recruitment process. Communications technology has been limited. All citizen soldier recruits of sufficient age will receive one Essence as a gift and have an ability unlocked automatically. Learn to use your new powers swiftly and learn to use them well. They are all that now stands between you and oblivion.


    The recruitment process will involve a winnowing of your species. There will be three attacks on each settlement, chosen by lottery, your task is to adopt, adapt and survive. Those of you who emerge from the crucible will be reforged and ready to remake your world into a valuable member of the Alliance.


    The first wave will begin at 09:00. At 08:45 the details of the wave will be announced.


    Good luck.


    The Light shines


    Well, that’s a first, thought John. He had been woken up in some fairly strange ways over the course of his life. The dog deciding to try and confirm if she prefers the taste of his earwax over her own and taking advantage of his sleep-slowed reactions to get a suitable sample was ill advised.


    Then there are nicer ways to wake up. Waking up gently as the autumn sunlight falls through the curtains on a weekend safe in the knowledge you don’t have to get up yet, a lover''s embrace or a small child bouncing up and down because it’s Christmas and you will get out of bed and open presents at half past five in the morning whether you like it or not.


    John rolled over, dislodging the dog who had been using his legs as a pillow as usual and reached for his phone. He glanced around his room as his arm stretched out. Still a mess, he thought. His dumb bells were mostly covered with dirty laundry, it had been a few days since he''d felt the urge to pretend to exercise.


    The phone showed 06:01 but had no wifi or data service available. He clicked on messenger and whatsapp, trying to send messages to family members, he tried to make a call but nothing connected or went through. He felt like this should worry him more but found he was strangely unmoved by the situation. He put the phone down and laid back on the pillows.


    He felt a sort of numb contentment, not the rising panic you would think a man with glowing golden letters in his face telling him his world was about to be invaded should feel. He clicked on the browser... “Unable to access the network” - the net was down. He reached for his tobacco and laid back. He began rolling a cigarette. A routine is a routine for a reason.


    “Kid, are you awake? Are you seeing this as well” he called out to his daughter, Evie.


    “Dad it''s the holidays, I''m not getting up for...” she began groggily.


    “What the hell! Wow! Are you seeing this?” she finished with the panic of a preteen being cut off from the internet. The thumps and bangs of her hurriedly climbing down from her bed echoed through the house. It seemed it took glowing letters and the promise of magic powers to make Evie even vaguely a morning person.


    “Yes I am, that''s why I asked you if you could see it,” he called back.


    “Clear”, “Delete”, “Minimise”, “Get Rid”, “Sod off!”. He muttered trying to remove the notification from his vision as he swiped at the writing with one hand. He was wondering how he would manage with a wall of text floating in front of his eyes for the rest of his life when it vanished and a new screen appeared.


    “You have received one Essence and automatically advanced to level 1. Say or think status to review your information”


    “It says I''m too young to receive an Essence! This is crap dad, I am not an NPC!” a now enraged eleven year old yelled. She stumbled into John’s room putting on the oversized hoodie she used in place of a dressing gown and glowering at the world like it owed her money.


    “Language child! Uh, status?” said John.


    Level: 1


    Name: John Borrows


    Ability: Teleportation


    Constitution: 100%


    Reserves: 100


    Ability: Teleportation: A shut in who hates to travel. You’ve barely left your house for years and now you can go wherever you like with a thought. Have fun with that.


    Guidelines:


    Maximum weight: 100kg


    Maximum Distance: 1km


    Line of sight required


    Modifications: none


    John sat dumbfounded. If this worked it was going to make putting the bins out a doddle. Well, at least it''s a useful power he thought to himself. A grin slowly spread across his face as he stared at the text before him. He dismissed the notification. As usual their dog, Zeeg, immediately crawled out from under the duvet as Evie sat down on the edge of the bed, the dog stretched like she should have been born a cat and moved to Evie.


    Her tail was wagging like a whip and she wanted her morning scratches. Evie''s heart was clearly not in it, more concerned at being robbed out of becoming a superhero. Or losing access to the internet. Could have been both, John supposed. Evie patted Zeeg twice on the head and immediately broke into an angry tirade.


    “I haven''t got an ability! I can see the message but when I think “status” all I get is “You are underage, try again when you are sixteen,” she threw her hands in the air, "what the hell is all this Dad!”


    She is not taking this well, thought John with his usual deep incisiveness, and it’s a shame because I could use a gamers mind to help make sense of all this.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    “I''m sorry but I don’t understand what’s happening kiddo,” he said with a gentle smile as Evie tried to settle the pup down. John concentrated on his dressing gown hanging on the door and felt his mind catch on to it and twist in a very unsettling way, then his dressing gown fell onto his head.


    “What did you just do?” asked Evie in an awed voice continuing her half hearted attempts to give Zeeg the necessary attention required before she would calm down.


    “Teleportation kiddo! I got teleportation for my “ability”. I''m not sure this system has been very well thought out,” he finished in a more thoughtful voice,


    “Because you dropped it on your head?” she asked, giving him the look daughters reserve for their fathers when they know the father in question has made a mistake and is faking infallibility.


    “It wasn’t bad for a first try, thank you very much! But no that isn''t what I meant, Youngling.” he mumbled scratching his head after removing his new head wear. He checked his status, just bringing up his Constitution and Reserves and found his reserves were showing at 98.


    “Does it give you any other information? Ability, constitution and reserves?” John asked her.


    “It just says You Are Underage. Lamest system apocalypse ever dude.” she sat down in what promised to grow into an epic huff and crossed her arms with a frown.


    The dog was now getting more and more excitable, Evie had stopped fussing with her, weighed down by her disappointment at not getting a power. When Zeeg started getting worked up she kept going until something settled her down so John called her over and began giving her a fuss to try and let Evie have some space for a minute.


    “C''mon puppy, who''s a good girl? Tummy rubs?” The dog jumped next to him on the bed and rolled over for the tummy rubs, tail still wagging frantically.


    “You''d like super powers too wouldn''t you? Yes you would,” John said in the soppy voice humans insist on using when talking to animals and spoiled children, “you''d get super powers and then I''d invite you to my team and you''d be the super dog in the group. Would you like to join my team, Zeeg?”


    For discovering the Team function before the start of the first wave you are rewarded one Essence. Would you like to use one Essence on Dog: Zeeg Borrows to awaken her ability and invite her to your team? Y/N


    “Oh , OK!” John thought about it for a moment, concluded Evie would literally kill him if he gave the dog magic before her, then said “No”


    “Invite Evie to Team” he declared with a hint of smugness in his voice.


    “What are you doing dad? I''m a bloody NPC you can''t...” she replied grumpily.


    Would you like to use one Essence on Human: Evie Borrows to awaken her ability and invite her to your team? Y/N


    Donating Essence to juveniles is not recommended.


    “Yes”


    You have gifted one Essence to Evie Borrows and she has joined your team. Initialising advancement to level 1 for Evie Borrows.


    Calculating...


    Complete.


    Level 1


    Name: Evie Borrows


    Ability: Electrogenesis


    Constitution: 100%


    Reserves: 100


    Ability: Electrogenesis: You hate physics and maths so here’s a power that will be more useful the better your understanding of physics and maths. You can create and control electricity. Good luck!


    Guidelines:


    Maximum Discharge: 240V


    Line of sight required.


    An almost ultrasonic scream of joy erupted from Evie. She jumped up and down on John’s bed, launching the dog to the floor in the process and yelling extremely unladylike things. After about thirty seconds she calmed down enough to throw herself at John in a cross between a flying rugby tackle and a hug.


    “Thank you, thank you, thank you! No more NPC Evie! This is going to be so cool. So I can Zap stuff now?” she asked smiling like a lunatic. John was knocked off balance and had to spin around to bleed off the momentum.


    “No worries Ginger; as to the zapping we''ll have to find out. but not in the house!” he chuckled, “the phones aren''t working and the net is down but the power is still up... I''m going to have a smoke and get us some breakfast. Then we can see what we can do to prepare for this first wave”.


    “It''ll be a cake walk dude, now that I''m Electro Girl! Nah that''s terrible. I''m the Great Zap! Lightning Bolt? Also bad, sounds too much like an animated sled dog. Picking a character name is always the hardest part isn''t it?”


    “How about Spark Plug? “ She scowled and shook her head in response. “Let''s eat while we figure it out.” John said firmly with a grin. Picking a character name in a game was always the longest part of character creation for anyone with any class.


    They went downstairs into the kitchen/dining room. The dining part of this room was largely occupied with a two tier planter by the window to take advantage of the south facing aspect and the room had ended up cluttered with random bits and bobs. They never ate there. They were very much an "eat on your knees in front of the tele" kind of family.


    John went into the kitchen and moved some rubbish and unwashed pots out of the way, thinking to himself that cleaning up will be a lot easier now he could teleport stuff with his mighty brain powers... He looked at the chopping board, still greasy from the garlic bread he had cut on it yesterday to go with their dinner and twisted space and time. It appeared in the sink with a blip and a splash. Neat but need to work on the landing, he thought. Evie had gone through into the living room and judging from the intermittent pops and crackles was probably going to start a house fire, blow all the fuses or both.


    Once the bacon was cooking he had a thought. Why not see what his ability could do? He teleported four slices of bread onto a fresh chopping board, opened the cutlery drawer and teleported a knife to the board then opened the fridge and teleported the butter to the board. He checked his reserves and saw he was down to 94. Two reserves per use. So fifty uses from a full charge? How fast does it recover? He looked out the window and saw the two large thirty litre bags of compost he hadn''t put on the vegetable patch yet, checked his reserves, still at 94, then teleported them to the end of the garden, about five metres.


    His reserves dropped to 84. “Interesting, so the rate is variable depending on the weight maybe?” he muttered before turning his attention back to making bacon sandwiches. He got out his phone and started a timer, keeping an eye on his reserves while putting breakfast together. He put the kettle on for a coffee and grabbed an orange juice for Evie.


    “Here you go, Sausage,” he said handing the plate with the sandwich to her. He then went back to the door so he could see the glass of OJ he left on the side and teleported it next to her plate. John moved to his seat and sat down with a smirk. He started eating while waiting for the kettle to boil.


    “Show off” she mumbled around a mouthful. “Check this out” she proceeded to make sparks flash between the outstretched fingers of one hand. “I guess I’m not going to see Mum today then? It was meant to be a girly day as well!” Evie had lived with John since she was four due to what might be called “some unpleasantness” so these days she saw her mum for visits every other Sunday and on Thursday during school holidays, making today a “mumday” that wasn''t destined to happen.


    “I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m guessing this is happening everywhere and she won’t be able to travel to see you.”


    “And it was going to be a Greg-free-day as well. Sucks.” Greg was her half brother who was a few years younger than her and had a “challenging personality”. She continued rolling sparks around her hand with a grimace of disappointment.


    “How much of your reserves are you using?” John asked to try and change the subject, “I got mine down to 84 by blipping the sarnie components around the kitchen and moving the compost. After three minutes or so they were back at 100. So that''s a regen rate of five per minute I guess? 5% per minute isn''t’ too bad? Is it a percentage based rate or a flat 5 per minute? Could be other factors I guess, those books you read always have ambient levels of magic in the air that affect regen rates and stuff right? Moving the compost took a lot more Reserves than moving the butter. I’m not sure why though.”


    “Check your log,” she replied casually, chewing into the bacon buttie.


    “My what?”


    “Your combat log. Think or say “Log””.


    “Log”


    Combat log:


    Previous entry:


    Teleport Glass of Orange Juice


    Successful


    Reserve cost: 20


    Cost mitigated by the following factors:


    Less than 10% of Weight Limit – cost reduced by half


    Less than 10% of Distance Limit – cost reduced by half


    Minimum cost cannot be reduced by more than 90% of base cost.


    Final Cost: 2 Reserves


    “You, child of mine, are a god-damn genius.”