Launch

Inside a private room within the Triskelion, a beautiful red haired woman in comfortable black shorts and a baggy blue t-shirt, laid atop a bed while wearing a new pair of custom built 'VR glasses'. Though they were called as such, they were little more than an image projected onto a lens and linked with a web browser. Personally, the woman just thought it was an attempt by the tech's to get Fury off their back after they'd failed to make headway on anything related to ASTIR.

After the release of Halo's final trailer an hour ago, like everyone else, SHIELD was chomping at the bits to get their best agents into VR as soon as possible. This was no longer a simple 'exploratory mission' for them, where they'd just scout the new game out to see if there were any plausible threats to society lingering within. No, now it was a race to see who could extract the most usable intelligence, as fast as they can.

"Are you ready Agent Romanoff?" one of said tech's asked from a speaker, probably observing her condition. She gave a nod, which was picked up by one of the many cameras within the room, and the man continued, "Alright, we will be sending you in for the next 8 hours. You already know your mission; make it as far as possible and find out if there's anything we can extract from this world at the moment.

Also, we've been notified via initial reports that there are multiple difficulty levels currently available at this time. You Agent Romanoff, have been tasked to enter in 'Legendary' and report back on your experience.

Sadly, we've been told that in order to reach the instance known as 'ODST,' you must first complete four separate 'Campaigns' before it becomes available and your difficulty settings are locked in from the beginning. It is for this reason that you will be entering in the most difficult game mode.

Others will be racing through the games on Easy, while your mission is to gradually work your way there and report back any differences."

That was news to her. She hadn't played the last game much, but she knew there wasn't such a thing previously. Though now that she thought about it, Pokémon was more strategy based than skill, so she guessed it didn't really require more than one difficulty setting in the first place?

And if she was being thrust into the hardest mode from the start, then that means the director probably assigned Clint to Easy. She inwardly snickered at her partner's misfortune as it was most likely due to his poor showing in the tournament that Fury had left him in the kiddie pool, for now.

"That is all, if you have no questions regarding your objectives at this time," the man paused and watched the woman shake her head before continuing, "then we will start sending you in."

Natasha nodded calmly while watching through her glasses as someone opened up a web browser and typed 'astir.portal' into the search bar. In less than a second, the now world famous website appeared on her lenses.

"Ready in; 5, 4, 3…"

Hearing the countdown, Natasha focused her mind and mentally 'clicked' the game's icon. That was another thing the tech's couldn't figure out, no matter what language one knew, or whether they were blind, dumb, or crippled, the ASTIR website was viewable and understandable by all. There had even been a test where only one screen was shown to an audience of over ten thousand people and all had been able to enter the VR, without ever having left their seats.

"…2, 1. Good luck age-."

The voice of the technician drew the woman out of her wandering thoughts and at the count of "1," she fully 'willed' her consciousness to enter the VR. Before she could finish hearing the man's words of encouragement, she was already gone.

•••••••••••

All across the globe, millions of people entered VR by the second.

Everyone that had already experienced Pokémon, knew how magical the worlds created by ASTIR were. For those that were either new or on the fence to VR, they had been gradually drawn in by the trailers and series.

So, it didn't come as much of a surprise to the two beings watching over the release, that Halo's initial player count surpassed Pokémon's peak in less than an hour.

"Sir, we have now reached over two billion concurrent players and still rising," the ethereal and regal voice of Queen spoke from her creator's side.

James turned to face her and nodded before returning to watch the streams of the people he believed would achieve the most in this game. He'd expected as much, a game with realistic graphics and a compelling story would undoubtedly appeal to more people than an animated one primarily aimed at children.

While focusing on the world of a former Marine Corps lieutenant, a question popped into James' mind and he asked his AI about it, "Queen, how many people are attempting Legendary Campaigns and how many have already dropped down after growing frustrated with it?"

The woman closed her eyes and searched for the answer for a moment before answering, "Roughly 30% of new players attempt Legendary upon entering Halo. Of that 30%, 24% have dropped down to Heroic, 43% have already dropped to Normal, and 6% have dropped straight to Easy.

If we follow this trend in the future, then the estimates of both Gravemind and myself lead us to believe that, once players stabilize themselves within the game we will have around; 8% in Legendary, 23% in Heroic, 42% in Normal, and 27% in Easy, sir."

"And that's only counting those playing solo Campaigns, not Co-Op, Multiplayer, or Forge, correct?" James asked.

"Yes sir," Queen nodded.

James hummed while going over the numbers in his mind. While he knew he could trust the two AI's answer, he had a feeling that those statistics would change once someone beat the entire Campaign on Legendary for the first time.

James had built in more than a few Easter Eggs and Hidden Achievements into these games. Some could only be found in solo, co-op, forge, or multiplayer modes, and the best rewards came from the most difficult challenges. Honestly if this wasn't Marvel, with its insane number of ridiculously talented individuals, he didn't think some of those achievements would be unlocked for years.

While James was pondering over who would be the first to do so, one of the individuals he had high hopes for entered Halo for the first time and caught his attention. The man grinned when he saw that she had chosen Legendary for her Campaign and, without a second thought, closed out the other streams he'd been watching.

With a flick of his digital sleeves, he materialized a couch and a bucket of popcorn for both Queen and himself. While sporting an expression akin to a kid on Christmas morning, James plopped back onto the impossibly comfortable leather sofa and propped up his legs.

His AI gave him a look of disappointment as she took her seat as well, but the man couldn't care less. This was going to be good.

_______________________________

Author Note: For those who are interested in reading ahead, I've just started a Patreøn and will be adding more chapters as they come.

You can read 5 chapters in advance or just support me at: patreøn.com/TrojanRabbit