Halcyon Days (English Version)

Chapter 2: Family

After stretching for a moment, Fang stared at the figures in the photo one by one. It was a picture of seven siblings, of which three looked like each other, and the other four were slightly different but also similar. Presumably the first was a triplet, then the second was a quadruplet and looked younger than the first three. Solar must be one of the younger four, the one posed on the far left, as he was the only one wearing glasses. Fang didn't know why Solar tore up this photo. Are all six of Solar's siblings dead? Are Solar's parents still alive?

Thinking about all this, Fang unconsciously squeezed his hands.

Kaizo had hardly spent much time with his brother since the two of them fled their home planet, Gogobugi, which was attacked by a group of evil aliens. Since then, they had been living on a giant space ship belonging to an intergalactic organization. It took a few years for Fang to understand that his parents had died at the hands of Bora Ra, the leader of the evil aliens who attacked Gogobugi back then. That was why Kaizo trained hard and was accepted as a member of TAPOPS, the name of the organization that helped them. Sai and Shielda also lost their mother in Bora Ra's attack on Gogobugi. Along with their father, they joined TAPOPS.

Not all TAPOPS members are selected using power sphere compatibility. For most recruits, after screening for intelligence and physical strength, it is decided whether or not they will be further screened for the power of the most compatible power sphere. These are the lowest ranked TAPOPS soldiers, the Prebets and the Cadets. Sai and Shielda belong to this group.

Currently, the top leadership of TAPOPS is Warmaster Pyrapi and his deputy, Commander Koko Ci. Solar has the same rank as Kaizo, Captain, a mid-level officer. Fang entered TAPOPS earlier than Solar, but he is still a lower-ranking officer. TAPOPS doesn't look at years of experience. Fang wanted to catch up to his brother, so he humbly asked for guidance from Captain Solar, who was the same age as him.

"Infiltration of Captain Vargoba's base?"

Fang remembered a few weeks ago, when the mission was announced. Sai had been assigned to infiltrate the headquarters of the most fugitive galactic criminal of the time and he wasn't allowed to carry his distinctive weapon.

"So far, it is unknown what other power spheres Vargoba is carrying from reports." Fang also remembered Solar's explanation at the time. "One thing is for sure, we know he has Stealthbot with him. His troops can suddenly appear out of nowhere, even though Klamkabot's teleportation power is in our hands. Then we've had several attacks with metal weapons broken off. My guess is that Vargoba also possesses Magnetbot."

With his metal shield hat unusable, Sai was sent to the rogue's lair armed only with his martial arts skills. He had to find the base during a pre-planned attack, sneak in safely, install a tracking device without being spotted, and then let the base's location be known by TAPOPS radar. The tracker that was installed was special because it took into account the power of Stealthbot, which could make any large base invisible.

"The new tracker that Nut developed took three times twenty-four hours to activate."

The problem was that Sai was spotted on the third day and cornered by Vargoba's underlings. The next team sent was Fang and Shielda, to retrieve Stealthbot and possibly Magnetbot (Solar didn't mention any details about Sai). The location of Vargoba's spaceship was detected to find only the dying Sai and Fang was forced to choose. Fang witnessed first-hand that Vargoba did have a Magnetbot, which meant Shielda's weapon could not be used. With quick thinking, despite first reporting the situation to Solar and being warned about the mission objectives, Fang made his own decision. Relying solely on the shadow power and the Prebet lady's martial arts skills, they would not win against Vargoba and his men, so Fang decided to return to the TAPOPS headquarters. In fact, they had been hunting Vargoba for years. Solar was obviously very angry and disappointed with him. Would Solar still want to be his mentor after this?