“Well, I was… EVERYONE DOWN!” Karl yelled, his hands reaching for a pair of odd pistols tucked into shoulder holsters under his armpits. His strange green plant woman rolled off his lap, across the large conference table, sliding to the floor with a large wooden spear spinning into her hands. Allison reached for the 9mm PPQ she kept tucked into the back of her skirt, under her blouse, just as the glass windows to her right exploded to reveal several black clad shapes tumbling through them.

Two of those shapes rolled directly at the Governor who was looking around in confusion. With her years of experience in the Company, she recognized this for what it was. An assassination attempt that was likely to succeed as she seemed unable to move fast enough to protect the Governor.

As the two figures sprinted towards the Governor, Allison’s world slowed to a crawl. Based on the attacker's positioning, she could only intercept one of them before they reached her charge with drawn daggers. She stiff-armed the closest across the shoulder, deflecting them off their trajectory while raising her pistol tight to her abdomen and pulling the trigger three times in quick succession.

With the adrenaline pumping in her veins, she didn’t hear the gunshots, or the distinctly feminine grunt as two of her three rounds slammed into the opposing woman's stomach. The woman lashed out with one of her daggers in reflex, though Allison noted the attack was sloppy and easily evaded. She caught the woman’s arm in her free hand, shoved her pistol in her attacker's armpit and pulled the trigger three more times.

The woman she fought tensed briefly before slumping to the ground dead at her feet. She turned her pistol on the second attacker to see that she’d already reached the Governor, who was feebly grasping at the dagger shoved into his eye. It happened so fast she hadn’t the time to intervene.

She heard the man’s scream cut short as the assassin’s other blade practically ripped out his throat. He fell backwards, already dead, before Allison could empty the rest of her pistol magazine into the woman’s back. Sound rushed back into her ears as the reality of what had just happened slammed home.

Allison watched the assassin that had just succeeded in killing her boss stumble under the barrage of bullets, then fall over, a tremendous amount of blood pouring from her body onto the ground. Recognizing that the second attacker was no longer a threat, she rushed to the already dead Governor’s side in hopes that he wasn’t as dead as she suspected. The blade sticking out of his right eye socket, combined with his missing windpipe, would suggest that that particular ship had sailed before his quickly cooling body hit the carpet.

With years of practice squelching her emotions during combat, she surveyed the chaotic battle around her with a trained eye for detail. David Gonzalez was scrambling away from an attacker on his elbows as Captain Devers engaged the assassin with his sidearm. The woman, armed only with a pair of daggers, as all the assassin’s she had seen thus far had been, spun away from David as a quartet of rounds tore through the woman’s chest.

At some point, Irene had managed to crawl behind the weird looking fish man who had skewered one of the female assassins through the chest with what looked like Posiedon’s own trident. He wrenched the weapon free in a spray of blood, then took up a protective stance over Irene, backing her to the inner wall.

Allison stayed crouched next to her former boss's lifeless body, watching in awe as Karl and Junipher tore into the remaining attackers. Over half a dozen assassins had swung through the windows closest to Karl. She wasn’t positive, but she was pretty confident that his opening salvo of gunfire halted another pair before they could even hit the window, leaving their bodies plummeting to the street below.

He moved so fast Allison almost couldn’t keep track as he holstered his pistols, swapping to his axes in a spinning flourish that removed the head of the closest of his opponents. The others attempted to encircle him and his woman, but the green skinned plant woman, who was now visibly covered in thick layers of bark rather than the festive flowerings she wore before, actually sang while swiping her spear through the air creating a zone around the pair that couldn’t be entered without risk of serious bodily injury.

When the next clash came it was almost too fast to process. A pair of the assassins, seeing no way to get behind him with his woman defending his back, attempted to go in for the quick kill. A spray of blood and limbs erupted from the black blur of Karls axes. One woman’s arm tumbled through the air to flop onto the table in front of Allison. The other stumbled backwards attempting to hold her steaming entrails into her stomach, long ropes of those vital organs were already slopped on the floor.

The remaining assassins paused at the sudden burst of violence, or maybe it was the visage of the seven and a half foot, bald, bearded, blood splattered, viking throwback grinning maniacally at the violence he’d delivered on their companions. Allison shivered, she had seen men gripped in battle lust before, Karl took it to a new level.

Unfortunately for them, his woman was just as adept at killing, in the short pause of battle, Junipher managed to skewer one of their other attackers, while roots sprung up from the floor grabbing at the arms and legs of another. The woman yelped in surprise before she was yanked back to the wall by more of the alien looking grasping roots.

“One is restrained my savage love! LET’S KILL THE REST!” She yelled over her shoulder and dove spear first at the last of her opponents. The woman, too stunned to respond properly, caught the tip of Junipher’s spear through her throat. She swiped up ineffectually with one arm, then fell limp at the end of the surprisingly effective weapon.

The final assassin, seeing the battle had been lost and not wanting to end up like her companions, decided it was time to flee back out the window she’d just tumbled through. The woman sprinted for the edge of the conference room and lept from the fifteenth story window. Karl walked forward calmly, drew one of his strange alien looking pistols and pulled the trigger. The weapon released an energetic snap, then the sound of a projectile shattering the sound barrier sent slight vibrations through the floor, causing the shattered glass to hop about. Allison crawled to the window edge to see what was left of the woman’s body tumbling uncontrollably to the concrete below, a light spray of pink mist floating away into the quickly coming night.

“Christ… he’s a monster.” She silently muttered.

“Is it over!?” Yelled Irene from behind the merman she called Srook.

Junipher sauntered over to David and Captain Devers with a friendly smile, humming gently between her teeth. Then she saw the Governors’ body on the floor. “Oh, Karl. The Governor is dead.”

Karl looked over with irritation shown plainly on his blood splattered face. Allison flinched as he walked forward, blood dripping down his arms, travelling down the curvature of the blades held in his hands. She had yet to stand as suddenly all eyes in the room turned in her direction, focusing on the dead Governor at her side then on her crouched and terrified form.

“Everyone else alright?” Karl asked as he stopped over the Governor's body.

“MALDITA PERRA! Got cut across my arm.” David cursed in Spanish as he accepted John’s assistance standing, then joined everyone else by Allison and the former Governor. “Thanks for the help, el Capitan, I’m not much of a fighter.”

“No problem, it’s kinda what I get paid to do, or… well, at least I used to.”

“So what now?” Irene asked, still standing behind Srookimal, peering over his shoulder at Allison.

She realized they were waiting on her input and she found herself at a loss for words, “I- I dunno. Daniel never designated a successor, I’m assuming the Core will soon be up for grabs?” She offered, finally standing and holstering her pistol. Her mind was still reeling from the very brief, very violent fight.

Governor Daniel Smits, owner and administrator of the City of New Phoenix has been defeated!

City Core is now available for capture!

“And there it is.” The blood covered man, the Warlord of Winslow, the Merciless Reaper of the Foolish, muttered mirthlessly with a heavy sigh. Allison thought he looked like death incarnate, a viking god risen to exact retribution on the world. Stifling her flight of fanciful drifting thoughts, she began working the problem in front of her. The Governor was dead, she couldn’t protect him. Karl, the big fucker standing over her, was likely to be her new boss. He clearly was capable of protecting himself.

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Irene commented flippantly, “He was far more preferable to some of the alternatives” She eyed Allison cautiously.

Allison finally stood and faced the group directly, “He was a narcissistic prick, but he didn’t neglect his people when the shit hit the fan, and he refused to run with the other civilians.”

Everyone shifted slightly where they stood around her and the dead Governor’s body, “You’re federal. FBI? CIA?” Captain Devers asked while her and the Warlord stared directly at each other, neither daring to break the others gaze, like two children on the playground attempting to assert dominance over the other . After a long moment she responded to the Army Captain.

“CIA, part of a Task Force monitoring the Cartels. You going to take the city for your own, now?”

Their staredown ended when David offered the big man a towel, “You might need this.”

Karl slumped into the nearest seat, wiped his face and smiled, “I really don’t want another city. Least of all Phoenix. What I want is for our little pocket of humanity to be united when the real Aliens come looking to take the planet from us.”

Before she could process what he was saying, a dozen men and women bearing the badge of the Warlord, a silver stylized coyote on a blue background on their left shoulders, appeared at the door of the conference room.

“Centurion Mack, we have one prisoner.” Karl nodded to the woman still wrapped in roots, “We’re gonna need a new room. One with no windows, preferably.”

Centurion Mack began directing the men and women in his platoon, then waved for their group to follow him to another location in the middle of the building. When they’d all settled in the new location, Allison finally gathered her thoughts.

“What do you mean, I thought all these monsters were the invasion.”

“Veep, hop on out here and explain to these good people what we’ve been talking about the last couple months. The short version, please?”

Karl’s Virtual Private Assistant appeared in the middle of the table where they now congregated.

“Hello! Nice to meet you all! So, here’s the deal. You have all survived Phase One of the Universal Mana System integration. Initiation. You are currently in the middle of Phase Two. This is commonly referred to amongst the rest of the civilized Universe as the “Growth” phase. This is where mana saturation is completed across the solar system. Any other sentient life forms will be initiated, uplifted if need be, and any planetary bodies that contain even the slightest ability to sustain life will have terraforming processes started by the local Mana Saturation Administrator.”

Allison had to pause the assistant, “Wait, do you know which planets are being terraformed?”

“Yes, all this information is made public across the System Net, currently Venus and Mars are undergoing operations to make them suitable for hosting life for both Humans and Europans.”

Everyone but Karl blinked at that last statement, “Excuse me, Europans?”

“Show em’, Veep.”

An image of a being that looked oddly similar to Srookimal appeared on the screen, though with slight differences, larger fins across their legs and arms, spiky protrusions along the spine, larger eyes adapted for seeing in the dark, and gills in the neck, rather than under the ribs like the merman.

The merman spoke up, “This Europan, comes from a water planet like my people?”

Veep responded with a buzz and a bob, “Yes, Europa, to be exact, a satellite of your largest planet, Jupiter. I believe your pre-System scientists postulated on complex life in your solar system. They didn’t expect sentient life, however. The first batch of these people should be arriving on planet any time now if my calculations are correct, but they are not your primary concern.”

“Uh, my mind is a little blown here, but I have to know, what is our real concern, you mentioned other aliens?” David asked

“Yes, Phase Three. In this phase, full on migration commences. There are certain restrictions, specifically that they can’t send anyone over Master rank for the first 100 years. They cannot settle any landmass that has a successful native settlement within 200 miles. They can’t lay claim to any habitable planet as a whole for the first 100 years of integration, and can only lay claim to Earth and Europa if all native habitants cease to exist.

Additionally, if any native being of Earth or Europa advances past their Master Rank in the first 100 years, then that restriction is removed and the planet is open to all ranks. This doesn’t happen often, though it has happened, so for some of you, it is something to consider as you grow. Though you’ll find advancing through your Master rank to be glacially slow compared to Advanced.”

Everyone hearing this information for the first time was stunned into silence. Allison struggled to parse the information dump she just received, then quickly and silently confirmed the authenticity of the information with her own VPA. When the answer came back that everything Veep said was true, she visibly paled in her seat.

“Mr. Brunett, what is your plan then? What is your ultimate goal?” Allison asked after releasing a shaky breath.

“That’s easy, to survive.” Allison looked at him with a confused expression on her face, before she could press for more he continued, “Look. I can… see things every now and then. I could do this occasionally before the System. When the System arrived, it went into overdrive, the System calls it Deja Vu. I’ve seen what happens if we don’t all come together, or at least if we don’t stop fighting and killing each other in our little slice of the world.”

She looked at him skeptically, dubious of his claim of foresight, “Why just Arizona, why not conquer the country, or even the world?”

“I don’t want the country. Or the world for that matter. Though as soon as I feel things are secure on Earth, I definitely plan to explore the Universe a bit.” This was the first time Allison had seen the man display a passion for anything other than killing and his strange woman. “But first we need to make sure the aliens don’t take the planet right out from under us. To do that, we have to put down these bastards in Litchfield, then probably stall the Cartel. I’ve seen what happens when the aliens win our planet, it’s not pretty.”

“In one of your visions?”

“Yes. And Veep has begun cataloguing the immigrants waiting at the edge of our system for the doors to swing open. Apparently our systems administrator is an Ascendant class being of some renown in the Universe. Think about that people, one man is essentially enforcing the rules laid out by the System. One man has that much power, that an armada of alien ships doesn’t rebel at his authority.”

The room was silent for several long moments as everyone processed the rapid dissemination of new and terrifying information delivered by Karl and his VPA. Allison couldn’t squelch the feeling of dread in her stomach.

“I haven’t been able to reach my handlers in Washington. So I latched on to the Governor, seeing as he was the highest recognized governmental authority in our region. I’m not really a field agent, just an analyst. And at the moment, I have no boss. So, I don’t know what use I can be to you at the moment.” She lifted her hands in the universal gesture of “fuck it”.

Karl just smiled at her, his brilliant grey eyes seeming to pierce her soul, “You can go claim this city core, then you can form a federation amongst the other fine leaders here. When you’ve done that, you can then enter into the mutual defense pact that I will forward to you, after I’ve kicked the shit outta Litchfield, of course.”

“Uh, what? You want me to run the city?”

“No, Miss Green, I want you to head the New Phoenix Federation, and run your city. I suspect you were the one running the city anyway, now you can come out of the shadows and do it in the light. I told you, I don’t do the bullshit. And I’ll always tell you exactly what I want or need.”

She worked her mouth for several short seconds, attempting to come up with some way to refuse the man. Her brain stalled her from saying anything before she came to the same assessment that Karl already had. She, in fact, was pretty much running the city, or, mostly making sure the Governor didn’t do anything too stupid and get everyone killed. She doubted her effectiveness in that last thought, though she knew it would have been over far sooner if she hadn’t been the guiding hand behind the man.

“Screw it, I guess I’m about to become the legitimate ruler of a city-state. If I ever make contact with my superiors I hope they don’t black bag my ass. Let’s go to the basement. Irene, David, are you on board with this?”

They both agreed, though Irene was clearly skeptical, she saw the benefits of their three cities forming a mutual federation to protect all of their people as best they could, and she said as much.

“Excellent, I’ll send Centurion Mack to gather his men and escort you in case there’s more assassins lurking about. I am going to get a shower and a change of clothes, meet you guys later for dinner.” With that, the big man walked off with his woman in tow as if he didn’t have a care in the world.