The basement room was larger than Val expected initially. Looking at the ceiling, she idly tried to remember the size of the abandoned building above her for reference. Immediately, a set of wireframe schematics were superimposed on her vision, showing her the locations of the buildings above the surface.

It startled her for a moment before she realized Noir must actually be paying more attention to her thoughts than they let on. The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a slight smile. Sulking but still professional, eh? I can work with that. Thanks Noir. As expected, she got no response from the Daemon, but she channeled her inner Fynn and regarded it as a breakthrough moment in their budding partnership.

The wireframe schematics clearly showed that this basement – maybe better to call it a compound – extended beyond the walls of the warehouse above. In fact, it seemed to encompass the better part of the entire block. The back half seemed to be more living space, but her attention was immediately drawn to the forward portion of the room.

As she expected from the sounds, a training gym and fighting ring dominated the space, and four people populated the room. A massive person stood in the center of the ring, decked out from head to toe in bulky nano armor. They gripped a mace loosely in one hand, and a large tower shield completed their loadout.

The armored giant shuffled loosely around the center as a lithe young woman danced around them, slamming a pair of swords into the shield. One of the swords snapped from the force of the blow, but the woman didn’t miss a beat, throwing the hilt at the defender’s head before reaching down to pluck another sword out of the sand. Val noticed now that the field was dotted with various weapons, although half of them lay shattered in pieces.

An older woman, maybe in her mid-forties, sat on the sideline watching the pair. Despite her focus on the spar, she seemed to be the only one to notice Val’s entrance. Instead of greeting her in any way, she gave a slight nod and turned back to watch the fight.

Unsure how to proceed, Val looked at the fourth figure in hope of finding a way to introduce herself. That hope was immediately squashed as she watched a short, portly man bent over some sort of workshop table. Val watched curiously as he made a few adjustments, froze, followed by a frantic sequence of picking up the construct, throwing it halfway across the room, and ducking under the table as it blew up with a sharp bang. Picking himself up off the floor, he grumbled and made some notes in a charred notebook. Taking a closer look, Val could see he was missing a few fingers. And probably a good deal of common sense.

Shaking her head, Val gave up on making a smooth entrance and decided to go for a less tactful option. “Hello?” she shouted, trying to make herself heard over the noise.

Everything paused as four pairs of eyes swiveled towards her. Swallowing her nerves, Val stepped up towards the edge of the ring. “My name’s Val. I just finished up with User Selection, and uhh… Not everything went according to plan. So I was sent here to meet up with the other… Irregulars. Am I in the right place?”

The giant’s armor started dissolving away, getting pulled back into their body as they deactivated the construct. His body, as Val could see the man’s head appear, helmet retracting to reveal piercing blue eyes set into a rugged face topped with short blonde hair. He looked at her with an appraising glance. Despite the intensity of his gaze, Val didn’t feel threatened by it; instead, she got the impression that he was the leader of the group, trying to decide where she fit in.

“Yes you are in the right place. And you can say Defects, we’ve all come to terms with our limitations. I’m Zavis. I tend to make most of the calls out in the field, although it can be hard to get everyone to listen.”

The woman who was sparring with Zavis stepped up, a friendly grin on her face. “Ooh, welcome! I’m Cambrisa, but you can just call me Bri. I’m so excited to have someone new join us!” Her eyes opened wide as a thought came over her. Letting out a small giggle, she turned to the quiet woman standing on the sidelines. “Isn’t this so great, Kaya? The girls finally outnumber the boys!”

Slightly overwhelmed by Bri, Val turned to greet Kaya. The woman looked at her with a neutral expression before giving another slight nod, almost identical to the one she had given earlier when she had noticed Val enter. Val nodded back, confused but unwilling to initiate anything more.

“Oh, don’t worry about Kaya, she takes a little longer to warm up to people. Speaking of warming up, Wallon, come say hi!” Bri had hopped down from the ring at this point, grabbing Val’s arm and starting to tug her towards the mad scientist figure at his workstation. Surprised at the invasion of her personal space, Val tried to tug away before realizing that she couldn’t break Bri’s grip or even slow her down. Holy crap she’s strong.

Wallon didn’t look up from his work, muttering excitedly under his breath. “No time to say hi, the last trial reached critical instability too early, but the potential is there! Can increase the yield by… 15… no, 17%!”

Looking up and noticing Bri still dragging Val over, he continued, “Oh, yes, fine. Nice to meet you Val, welcome to our merry band of adventurers. Say… ” A wicked gleam entered his eyes as he rubbed his hands together gleefully. “What did you think about that little explosion earlier?”

“Uhh… very impressive? But was it supposed to go off so unexpectedly?” Val answered, feeling completely out of her element.

“Oh yes, good eye! I knew you were a fellow admirer of detonations and conflagrations when I saw you. As for the timing, well… A mild side-effect of my own imparity. Hard for me to input the precise amount of energy to make a stable explosive device.”

Val’s brow furrowed. “You have issues with energy control, and decided to specialize in making devices that require perfect energy manipulation or they will blow up in your hands?”

“Yes, it’s much more exciting that way!” He gave her a wide toothy grin before turning back to his workshop. Val quickly started backing away, and this time Bri let her move freely. She opened her mouth to say something else when a message showed up in her display.

Mission Alert: A pack of direwolves are harassing a group of injured Scouts returning from a patrol to the southeast. Move out immediately to provide backup. Primary objective is the safe return of the Scouts. Secondary objectives include the elimination of the pack and the retrieval of any Enhanced cores. Mission difficulty estimated at low D grade.

Val read through the message twice before realizing it was her first mission as a User. Zavis beckoned to Val and she rushed over to him, dodging a few broken swords jutting out from the sparring pit. “I would have liked to talk a little more before our first mission, but we’ll make do with the time we have. Any combat experience?”

Val nodded. “Did rotations with Guardians and Scouts. Technicians were my third.”

Zavis grunted. “Any preferred combat styles?”

“Passable across the board, mild preference for hand-to-hand or small arms. My specialty is nano injection and disruption, and in principle my Daemon is a good match for that, but…” Val trailed off.

“Not on the best terms with your new Daemon?” Zavis asked, holding her gaze.

Val nodded, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment. If she had a few more days to work with Noir, maybe she could have made a better first impression. At the moment, she felt fairly useless compared to the other Defects.

To her surprise, Zavis just nodded. “It takes some time to acclimate with your Daemon under the best of circumstances, and I’ve been told it’s been a trying week for you. Especially among Defects, setting the terms of the partnership can be difficult.”

He clapped a hand on her shoulder. The heavy impact caused her to nearly stumble to the side, but Zavis continued speaking uninterrupted. “Thanks for your honesty. I know that can be difficult coming into a new situation like this, but I appreciate it. We’ll continue debriefing and figuring out your role in the upcoming mission as we move. For now…”

Looking up, he raised his voice to be heard by the other Defects. “Suit up. We move out in five.”

The Defects started moving out for the staging ground quickly and efficiently. They moved with an air of professionalism that seemed almost incongruous with their previous antics. Val followed the group with equal measures of nervousness and excitement. Here we go.