“Now that the Ruptures have collapsed, should we push through and find a safe room or something?” Olivia asked, slipping over to one of the windows. “I feel like we should get off the street if we can.”

“Absolutely not,” Agent Wright snapped. “Even if the Ruptures have collapsed, there may still be active entities within the building. You kids should stay out until it’s been properly cleared by a security team.”

I turned towards Pam, someone I considered a far more reliable source for information, and watched her nod slightly. “Unfortunately, in ninety-nine percent of Rupture events, there are always a handful of entities that fail to retreat through the portal properly, and end up finding a hole to hide up in until they can sneak out and attack unsuspecting civilians.”

“What about the other one percent?” Amelia asked.

“The entire invading force manages to retreat into the Rupture before it closes. That usually only happens around extremely powerful, empowered people, when more intelligent and powerful entities can come through,” Pam replied.

“Ahhh… So having the invaders just flop over and die whenever a Rupture closes…” I started.

“The BEI has only documented half a dozen cases of that happening during its entire operation,” Pam replied. I saw her glance at me for just a moment before returning her gaze to the carnage inside the building.

“So that’s why you can’t allow you to go inside,” Agent Wright announced, missing that brief interaction between Pam and me. “Even though it may look safe, you never know what might be hiding in all that debris.”

“You do realize that most of us are regular Empowered students, right?” Kyle growled, glaring at the younger agent. “School rules state that in case of a Rupture we’re not allowed in a safe room and have to fend for ourselves.”

I watched Wright’s mouth flap open a couple of times as she tried to figure out what to say, but before she could, Pam stepped in between the two. “This school isn’t designed to coddle you; it’s designed to prepare you for the real world. The unfortunate truth is that from the moment you became Empowered, until your final breath, you’re going to be a danger to yourself and those around you. We’ve done everything in our power to make this place as safe as possible, including minimizing class sizes, adding multiple entry and exit points to the school buildings, and eliminating as many choke points as possible. Still, it’s up to you to take advantage of the training we’re giving you,” she declared.

Kyle tried to stare her down for a couple of seconds, but the stern look on Pam’s face must have intimidated him a bit, because he ended up turning away and looking back towards the Darmont building. “I’m just saying, by preventing us from going inside, aren’t you promoting a sort of double standard? You’re not going to protect us, but you’ll prevent us from going into a safer area.”

“A potentially safer area,” Kira pointed out.

“Even though the building looks secure, we won’t know whether it’s secure or not until a security team does a sweep of the area,” Pam said, wandering towards the front of our little frozen shelter. “I know that most of you kids have just started your schooling, but let me give you a little tip. The most important skill you can learn is evaluating and avoiding danger. You may have ‘superpowers’, but you’re not immortal. You can get injured and die just as easily as anyone else. The best way for you to protect yourself is to avoid trouble.”

“Besides,” she continued, striding into the doorway before turning around. “The entire building is compromised, which is how this entire mess started. Do you really want to go in there and risk exposing yourself to whatever substance the terrorists have been spreading around?”

Kyle flinched back from the window. “Uhhh… no. With everything else going on, I kind of forgot that,” he admitted. “Maybe staying here is the best option.”

Pam nodded, but didn’t move from her position in front of the door. It seemed that even though she’d made the situation very clear, she wasn’t going to take any chances and let someone slip through.

As I backed away from Pam and started looking for a place where I could make myself comfortable without having to rest my back against the freezing fortress that Kira had built up around us, the radio in my hand crackled, making me jump.

“This is Alpha Leader, we’ve finally managed to regain control of the utility building, and take down the radio jammer the terrorists had connected to the school’s generators. It also looks like they patched into the Rupture detectors and bypassed the alarm system. None of my people are familiar enough with the system to detach it without causing damage, so we’ll need Central to send some experts over,” the radio squawked, causing everyone in the little shelter to turn and look. “Is anyone at Darmont? The last message we received before communication was disrupted was that multiple simultaneous Rupture events were occurring inside. Can anyone confirm?”

I fumbled with the radio for a second, nearly dropping it, before finally getting a solid grip on it and handing it over to Pam.

“This is Agent Lawson. I’m currently on site with Agent Wright,” Pam said after bringing the radio up to her mouth. “There were two class two Ruptures here, but the situation has stabilized.”

“Agent Lawson, can you repeat that? Did you say two class two Ruptures?” a second voice asked. “And they’ve already closed?”

“That’s correct, Central. Your questions about how or why will have to wait; I’ll make sure to include all the details in my report, but I have something much more important to report,” Pam replied. “Agency security has been compromised. I left one of the men assigned to my team to guard some students, and he attacked them using the same substance as the terrorists. They managed to restrain him, but he may not be the only one.”

“Who?” The Alpha leader asked. Even though it was only a single word, I could hear the coldness in his voice.

“Agent Henderson. He’s currently…” Pam started, before pausing and glancing over at the rest of us.

Before I could say anything, Olivia spoke up. “Back where you found us before. We didn’t have proper restraints, so Kira froze his limbs together.”

Pam nodded. “He’s currently about a hundred meters east of Darmont, on the path between Darmont and the administration. I’ve been told that the kids had to encase his limbs in ice to restrain him.”

“I’ll send one of my team to pick him up. Hopefully, he’ll be able to shed some light on who this terrorist organization is and what they want,” Alpha Leader replied. “Once again, can you confirm that Darmont is secure? My team received multiple reports of Ruptures opening in other buildings before the communication blackout. If things are clear there, it would really alleviate some of the pressure on us.”

“I can confirm the Ruptures have closed, the most dangerous entity that emerged from the Ruptures has been neutralized, and the remaining entities have gone dormant. We lost agents Sanders and Young in the opening engagement, so we don’t have enough people to clear the building right now. That’ll have to wait until we receive backup,” Pam replied.

The line was quiet for a minute. “The alpha entity was neutralized?” Alpha finally asked. “If that’s the case, I really look forward to reading your report, agent. Central, can you contact Bravo Team and let them know that the campus-wide lockdown now includes all BEI agents. No one is to leave the area until our investigation is complete.”

“Copy that, Alpha,” Central replied in a controlled tone. “Since I’m not one hundred percent sure when we lost contact, I have a complete list of the current hotspots on campus. I could go over them with you if you’d like.”

“Contact Bravo first, then switch over to channel three. I’ll take it there. Now that we’ve reestablished comms, I want to get off the emergency channel,” Alpha leader said. “But before I leave, I have a quick message to all agents monitoring this channel. As you’ve heard, we may have been compromised, so if you see anything suspicious, no matter how small, make sure you report it to command as soon as possible—got it? I don’t want to lose any more agents today. This is Alpha Leader, out.”

“So, Tamera and I haven’t been here long enough to learn the classification levels,” Olivia said, once Pam had put her radio away. “Can someone explain why that guy was so surprised that there were two class two Ruptures here?”

“Class two Ruptures typically require a tactical team to deal with safely,” Agent Wright replied sullenly. “And since they require a certain level of instability to form, we rarely, if ever, see them on campus. The students just haven’t had enough time to accumulate enough Prosch particles to allow them to form.”

“Which means that whoever orchestrated this whole thing not only figured out how to trigger the instability in Empowered people, but they also figured out how to cause them to escalate. Is that what you’re saying?” Amelia asked quietly.

The young agent just nodded.

“Then, will the special response team be okay dealing with all those Ruptures?” Kira asked hesitantly. “Won't it be dangerous?”

“Don’t worry, the special response team is made up of our best people and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. They’ve taken on class three Ruptures without flinching. Even if the Ruptures are stronger than expected, they can handle it,” Pam declared. She checked the band on her wrist, then leaned against the door, shotgun still firmly gripped in her hands. “Might as well get comfortable, kids. Even though the excitement around here has died down, it’s going to be a long day.”

TheWackyWombat

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Wombat's Discord	Come in and join the community! I occasionally post some of my other short stories and test chapters, ones that I don't plan on posting on RR (at least for now), for people to enjoy and give feedback. Feel free to drop in and say hi! Here's the link: https://discord.com/invite/2hWwV2Au7D
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Check out my Stories:

	Teddy Bears On Brigade Evelyn "Teddy" Claire is a street kid just trying to make ends meet, in the slum deep under Calgary Megacity. That is, until the Antithesis attack, and she's given the power to fight back. Available on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]
	Duelling Dungeons A story about Talia, an Arachne girl, finding her place as a floor boss in a competitive dungeon. Half cozy slice of life, half action. Available on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]
	Imaginary A young girl's attempt to find her place in a world where superpowers come with severe downsides. Available on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]
	Tarnished Honor Reina and Skyler, long term girlfriends, fight Alien invaders in the Cyberpunk City of Vancouver. Available on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]
	The Wicked Witch of the Wild West (ON HIATUS) A young outcast witch tries to find her place in the world by traveling the remote wilds in the wild west Available on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]
	Unexpected Guests (TBoB x DD crossover) Evelyn (From Teddy Bears on Brigade) ends up in the world of Duelling dungeons and needs to find a way home. Available on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

 

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Want to wear your favorite bear loving samurai? Get a shirt! Commissioned by RavensDagger himself, and hosted on the official SCS webstore you can get the Teddy T now! Sorry, no bear hoodies... yet, but if you show your support who knows what might happen in the future.  Teddy T-shirt: https://litrpgforge.com/products/scs-secret-merch-teddy And if you don't feel like supporting me, you can still take a look around at the other Fan fiction shirts, or even official SCS merchandise here: https://litrpgforge.com/collections/stray-cat-store

 

Finally: Big thanks to all those people that review my draft, the chapters would be a lot rougher without your feedback!