Ren and Kai arrived in front of their local SIED building. It was white and magnificent, and there was a blue four-point star symbol in front of it—the symbol of Star Island.
The two of them entered the building and went to the register and did the paperwork. It was simple and easy to understand. Even someone unfamiliar and young as them who never even touched a paperwork before could see it was perfectly clear and safe to sign.
The register told them to wait for someone to come to them, so they sat and waited.
And after a while, someone did come to them.
"Hello there. You must be Ren Dover and Kai Mercer. My name is Kelsey Graham. It's very nice to meet you," the woman greeted.
They stood up and shook her hand. She had two thin round glasses and white pinkish hair.
"Come on with me. I want to give both of you a very quick tour and explanation of the place."
She took them around. She showed them the gym, the cafeteria, the restrooms—everything. Everything was incredible and looked great. The view of every room, at every location, was great. It wasn't one of those offices where it's very bleak and very dried out of life.
And ironically, they called this place an office.
So along the way, she explained a bit more about the operations.
"So, you already know about the fact that most of SIED officers are students, right?"
Ren and Kai nodded along.
"Well. But here's the thing. Most people don't know the keyword here—most. Obviously, not everyone working in SIED is a student. There are adults working logistics and other stuff, but they are not exclusive to that. Like you probably know, there are actual adults working for the security of the island in much more important stuff than what SIED and the Island cops deal with."
"But there are also adults working as SIED agents. They deal with the most dangerous missions that SIED could handle. They're the ones in charge of that."
"Also, SIED student agents aren't truly exclusive to going out and fighting criminals. There are student agents working on other stuff, like logistics, or making gadgets for students."
"If there is a position that needs to be filled that isn't a major priority, there's probably a student working on it. But again, most of that work will be done by adults."
Ren, who was still following her, decided to ask her a question.
"So… what do SIED agents usually do? Like, how do they work normally?" he asked.
Kelsey smiled and replied, "Well, it's very simple."
"There are some days where the student agents have to go on patrol at certain times. And if they want to go on patrol on their free days, they can freely go on patrol if they want to."
"When you're on patrol, you stop whatever crime you find yourself in. Obviously, if it's way too much to handle, you call for backup from the office."
"But don't think this is it. SIED doesn't just walk around the cities looking for trouble."
"In fact, you are also assigned missions. Those missions could be whatever, but I gotta tell you—don't expect anything crazy. The dangerousness of that mission is entirely dependent on your experience."
"Wait… experience? What does that mean?" Ren asked.
"Well, it's very simple. It's your experience on the field. It means how well you did on your patrol, or the things you solved, the people that you arrested, how successful a mission you finished was… everything you do is experience."
"So the more good you do, the more interesting missions you can go on."
"Obviously, that isn't a mandatory thing. If you get a dangerous mission, you have the right to refuse to go on it. You have the option to never go on a dangerous mission and just go on small easy ones. No one is gonna judge you on that."
"Also, the most important thing that you need to know is everyone is placed in a trio—three people team. That is something mandatory, and you can't just join as a solo agent. At least not without some special circumstances."
"Oh, so you kinda are not restricted to three. You could join another trio to form a six-person team, but it's not an official thing. You can decide to go with that other team to do a mission together."
"You two will be on the same team since the two of you got recommended together."
And by the way, just to be clear, I'm gonna be like your handle the one that will be in charge of your trio giving you missions and the one that you will be reporting to.
"Also, by the way, this is your very first day as agents… so you're gonna go on patrol soon, okay?"
"Wait, what?!" Ren and Kai exclaimed.
"But miss, isn't there like a lot more that we need to know before literally starting our first day on the job? Isn't this the opposite of what we need to do right now?"
Don't worry," Kelsey said calmly. "It's all gonna be handled by the third member of your trio. He holds the senior position in it."
Ren and Kai were about to ask what that meant, but she explained before they could even speak.
"The senior position is very simple. Since members of the trio can be from wildly different backgrounds—ranging from normal students to hero legacy families—some members of the trio could be lacking more than the others."
"And that's why we have the senior position. The one with this position will be responsible for mentoring his fellow teammates with whatever they are lacking in their capabilities."
"Of course," she added, "obviously, two of you are capable. But this guy has been with SIED for a while, waiting to be assigned to a team, so he knows more about it. And he is more skilled and experienced in combat."
"Basically, for a while, he's gonna be like the de facto leader of the team until the two of you can keep up. Then you can decide on that topic once you reach that point."
She finished talking as they finally stopped in front of a room.
"I think we're done with the small tour and explanation," Kelsey said. "Your teammate is inside this room."
And with that, she opened the door.
They all entered.
Finally… Ren and Kai looked at their teammate for the first time.
He was around their height—and they were quite tall for their age.
His ears were Long and pointy, like an elf.
He had black hair and black eyes, and there were two black lines stretched under his eyes.
Ren and Kai were surprised.
Ren blinked, then asked, "Wait… is this guy an alien?"