Twenty-three years ago from now, the world ended. Normann was six years old at the time, and watched as everything about the world shifted with the arrival of the SYSTEM and the power that came with it. He grew up with operators being superheros, but as Rifts continued to spawn, the world slowly turned for the worse. And once capitalists and businesses got involved, Earth culture shifted even more. All because of a simple invasion of monsters.

  The Topeka Incident, named for the first appearance of Rifts in Topeka, Kansas, United States, occurred in 2003. With the Rifts came operators, seven in total, who killed the hordes of monsters when traditional weapons struggled to hold them back. Eleven days later, and the death of two of the new operators along with thousands of civilians, the last Rift was closed. An isolated event, and while panic and concern was shown on the growing internet across the globe, the Sentinels who fought hard to save Topeka were largely treated as nothing more than oddities.

  Until three months later the next Rift opened up in Kumasi, Ghana, then a month after that along the Southern Mexico Border, then two in China, and the irrational pattern just grew. They came with some regularity, through no one could accurately predict the next one, even in his original timeline. Each time, operators were created to enter and defeat the monsters, entering Rifts and defeating them, hopefully closing them entirely. Each time they survived, they grew in power, bringing materials and magic back with them. People should have known what was going to happen.

  “But hindsight is 20/20, right?” Normann said, looking at his left hand, fingers spreading and twisting in and out of a fist. The voice was strange, but didn’t grate against his head like he thought it should like his originally did.

  As far as anyone could determine, the SYSTEM had adapted into the world, taking a basic structure that could easily translate across cultures and countries. This included a character sheet that provided details on a person's stats and abilities, as well as items acquired from the Rifts or crafted specifically for them. The System called everyone with a core an ‘operator’, as though the bits and pieces of cosmos turned material were somehow just a vehicle or machine for a person to use. A Sentinel was the term the SYSTEM and other operators used for those who actively fought against the Rifts.

  These operators were the sole reason humanity survived as long as it did, but surviving is not thriving, and just like any source of power - imaginary or otherwise - humans revealed their natural corruption and greed for more. Normann figured more damage was done because of the choices that humans in the first ten years after the SYSTEM arrived. Not that he was in any position to truly complain. He’d abdicated his right to do so when first offered.

  This time around was different. This time, he took up the burden that came with the power. This time, he could act and save people rather than simply stand by and watch as the world collapsed around him. Normann survived not because he was powerful or smart; he wasn’t all that tough either. Luck had carried him through to the end, and luck brought him back to this point. He was simply a bystander watching history around him.

  His arrival in the past coincided with receiving the offer for a core that he rejected. The only way to receive said offer would be for a Rift for manifest in the general area. Normann rejected the core and hid with the rest of the school, waiting for someone to close the Rift or to be evacuated. He made the choice and it set it on a certain for his life.

  Instead of hiding, he would actually need to step up. Unlike Beaumont or Lucas, Normann never really received combat training. His power-set was more supportive, even as it expanded and grew as he ranked up. Even Oliver knew how to fight in melee with his staff, and he had worse Brawn than Normann did now.

  He pulled up his Character Sheet again. “Probably not as bad as me now,” he said. The point stood though, Normann wasn’t a striker or even a controller. He barely was an augmenter when with the group. His only saving grace were two special abilities that continuously proved themselves useful. And he had the first, though a bit of a variation of it. With a second chance, he’d probably get different components entirely, so he didn’t know what to expect.

  It would have to be enough.

  Normann stood up slowly, careful to keep his weight balance. He’d been heavier when he was younger, when food wasn’t a luxury, and having adjusted to a frame of barely bones and skin made the transformation more abrupt and encompassing than simply appearing. Standing straight, a wave of vertigo passing, he pressed his left hand against his Core and summoned his character sheet on his HUD.

  “Now,” he started to rearrange his HUD to how he had it previously. “Let’s see what’s different.” The SYSTEM provided a wide range of information, more than a normal, non-operator could comprehend, let alone a Sentinel who’s role was to fight and needed the extraneous information. He shifted his Hit Points and Anima Energy bars to vertical bars on the left side and moved his Stamina to the middle.

  Hit Points represented the damage his body could take before it started to truly injury him, similar to a level of armor or shield. Once they ran out, the operator’s actually body was in danger. It would not regenerate in most Rifts, but could be healed up due to various component abilities or gear. A normal person with no core and components would have zero HPs, but an operator possessed more, especially at higher ranks. As an operator grew in power, so did the level of damage they could take, how extensive and heavy that damage was.

  Anima Energy was the amount of power he possessed to channel into abilities and spells. The amount available increased an operator acquired the rest of their components and remained mostly the same even as they ranked up. Even the cost of the abilities and spells remained near consistent during the rank ups, even if the strength of them increase. Abilities had a lower Anima cost than spells, but tended to be more simple and direct than spells which required for direction and Anima to use. Gear and certain enchants could alter the cost of abilities and spells, but they weren’t plentiful, so operators had to be smart about how they used their AE. The benefit though was that it regenerated in a Rift at a decent pace, so a good operator had plenty to use at any given time. The great ones could spam abilities and spells near constantly, but that required careful planning and developing their build.

  Stamina was the odd one, in that it grew as an operator fought in a Rift from zero percent to one hundred. It wasn’t a resource that had to be watched and planned around like AE nor guarded and protected like HP. In fact, it was hard to gauge how fast it grew, as it wasn’t steady or directly related to certain attacks or spells. Unlike spells, abilities spent stamina as part of their cost, enabling different effects at higher ranks.

  Normann rarely used Stamina with his original core, so the placement was more so out of sight out of mind. His HP and AE mattered more, though his HP was much higher than he expected. A lot higher. He knew his Form was 6, but it shouldn’t translate into that much health. A quick glance through his character sheet and his abilities told him nothing to explain the higher level.

  “Damn,” he closed his eyes and grabbed the bridge of his nose, “I’m gonna have to fight aren’t I?” He was hoping to be able to stand back and direct things, but the SYSTEM had other plans for him.

  Normann possessed zero combat training or skills from his first play through. Physically too weak, he had served as a mobile command center, standing in the middle and sending out orders and supplies of sorts to those who needed it. His spells weren’t even damaging.

  Between his new passive’s effects and the increased HP though, experience warned him to be ready.

  He opened his eyes and finished manipulating his HUD. Other than the bars for HP, AE, and Stamina, he adjusted the location of his abilities and spells into the lower right, along with his Gearwheel’s indicator to the lower left.

  The door opened to his classroom and Normann glanced in its direction, finally recognizing the blaring fire alarm had been shut off. “Mr. Hawkins?” A diminutive woman, light skinned and broad hipped, stepped in with a frightened look on her face. “Are you okay?” She wore a flowery dress with a black sports jacket, her heels click in solid and controlled steps.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” He said. She was familiar, a face from his distance past. He should know her. She was, in some way, connected to his job, but that was ninety-three years ago and frankly too much had happen to make these years memorable. He felt he should say something else, so asked, “are you?”

  “Because there was an explosion and-” she stepped in front of his desk and paused, mouth open and shocked. Principal, perhaps? Maybe vice or assistant principal? Normann couldn’t place her face. “What happened to you?”

  He ignored the question and replied, “right, explosion.” The Rift that brought his Core and offered the choice to him was accompanied by shock wave that set off the fire alarms in the building. He had a job to do then.

  His HUD flashed and a screen popped up in the middle of his vision. “Oh, I was wondering about that.”

  The [Augury Logs] were a quest system, and this apparently was how it showed up. The quest was simple, and while he doubted they would always be as such, it was good for him. Clearing an F-rank dungeon wasn’t the worst thing to over come.

  He closed the screen and it minimized itself to his Gearwheel. He could open it back up and examine it, but this quest lacked any real information. When he closed it though, a red translucent arrow appeared at the top of his HUD. He hadn’t been expecting that, but the guidance of where he needed to go would be extremely helpful.

  “You look- my God is that blood?” the woman said.

  “Huh?” Normann turned his attention back to her, a smile dropping off his face. He glanced down at his torn open shirt, the small amount of blood on it and his chest, and the soft pulsing beneath a black crystal exposed to the world, declaring him to be an operator. “oh, I guess it is, yes.”

  His voice was strange. The lack of broken gravel and hoarse overtones were part of it, but the fact he sounded young and whole was more alien than the somewhat healthy body he found himself.

  “What happened?”

  Normann shrugged and gave her a smile as best he could, though he figured they both knew that it was forced. “I made a choice. That’s all,” he said, matching her gaze, and tapped his exposed core. His anima raged inside him, wanting to escape and free. It urged him to move.

  “So there’s a,” she trailed off and stepped back, hands covering her mouth and eyes widening.

  “Yeah, there is.” He took a step then another around the desk. His body felt more steady, as the steps were more natural as though they belonged to him and not a stranger. “best not keep it waiting huh?” That was why he was here after all.

  Standing in front of her, a weak smile on his face, Normann remember this day again, what he went through the first time. Lock down for nearly six hours with three dozen students and ten staff members, waiting for rescue that would never come. Finally leaving after an all clear is given only to step out into destruction of the city block before them, bodies of humans and some strange green-skinned skeleton, buildings and cars smashed and turned into rumble. Not a single person around. Their school was forgotten, and though it eventually reopened soon, it would close before the school year finished.

  The devastation continued on, like dominoes falling. His students would’ve had to find new schools, but most wouldn’t because of the struggle for survive Chicago faced over the following months, the failures of the guilds and government, both local and federal, to do anything of real support for the under-privileged areas. By the end of the year, most of the city was lost and what remained was under the control of a single entity: The Hammers of the Honored guild.

  The world may not have ended because of this single Rift, but Normann’s life had, at least the form that he knew and was comfortable with. It was simply the start of everything that would bring about the end: the lack of cooperation, the hording of resources and talent, the greed that consumes humanity and the desire for power that drives them. In the end, this day was nothing more than a Tuesday to humanity; for Normann, it could be more.

  The woman pushed passed him as she ran out the classroom, shouting about locking the school down. Normann felt a pang, a sense of sorrow that he should be doing something similar, but he couldn’t find that sense of duty to the building he stood in or the people he supposedly worked for. For the Normann of this time, these were his colleagues; for Normann who lived once and probably died, who came back in time, these were strangers and he could do more for others if he didn’t stay

  Normann stepped out the nearest fire door just as an announcement came over the loudspeakers of the school. He didn’t even hear the first word before he walked away.