"Usagi. Ivo. Azimuth wants you back," Ivo said, counting the money from a previous job.
He rolled his shoulders, wincing slightly. The job had paid well, but the aftermath had left him sore. He had overextended his artificial nerves again, pushing them beyond their safe limit.
Usagi frowned, her eyes narrowing.
A portal opened behind her.
"I'll be back," she said, already dismissing herself.
Ivo scratched his purple-haired scalp as he watched her disappear.
He remembered what had happened on his last assignment. His client had been targeted by another mercenary—a Kodai, of all people. One of the rogue ones.
Her armor had been white as ivory.
"She was strong," Ivo muttered.
Strong enough to force him past his safe limit.
He reached behind his neck and jabbed himself at the nape, where his exposed artificial spine connected to the rest of his nervous system. A small injector clicked into place, and replacement conductor fluid began flowing through the damaged channels.
Ivo hissed.
"Anarch," he swore. "You cost me half a million creds in conductor fluid."
The raw static crawling through his nerves gradually faded. He let out a long sigh of relief, then reached for a glass of whiskey.
"Worth it," he muttered.
In another location, a woman sat in a room that seemed almost spartan in design.
A mask opened, allowing her to swallow a handful of pain medication and medical agents. She waited for the effects to settle before replacing the bandages around her injuries.
A pained sigh escaped her.
Then came a sharp hiss as the prosthesis was secured into place.
The armor followed almost immediately.
The underlying fabric had been specifically designed to prevent chafing against her skin, but even that offered little comfort. She adjusted the fastening, then sat still for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside.
She had tried almost everything.
Medication. Medical agents. Healing augments.
None of them had been enough.
Her Armament was unusable in one arm, and her right eye barely functioned.
The ailment responsible was known as Lethal Red Rot.
It was a rare disease contracted in a particular type of biome—a place where a virus had evolved through the natural biome evolution cycle until it had become something far more dangerous than its original form.
Hyper-evolved.
The initial exposure had nearly wiped out an entire expedition party.
Only three had survived.
Not because they had been lucky.
Because their augments had given them alternative biology.
One of the survivors was, for all intents and purposes, a golem.
Another had a gaseous transformation.
The woman had been struck by the virus the moment her augment entered its rest period.
The infection had ravaged her body.
The expedition had been forced to retreat, leaving behind whatever they had been sent to retrieve.
And when they returned, the damage was already irreversible.
Her licence had been suspended.
The official reasons cited the loss of her arm, which had decayed due to exposure to the virus, and the loss of sight in her right eye.
But the paperwork had never captured the full extent of it.
The pain.
The damage.
The fact that her own augment had failed her at the worst possible moment.
She flexed the fingers of her remaining hand.
Then she looked toward the portal that had opened earlier.
Azimuth wanted Usagi back.
Anarch had no idea what that meant for her.
She only knew that the last time she had seen Ivo, he had been in a bad way.
And she had been the reason.
The memory returned without warning.
The client had been worth more than the contract suggested. That much had been obvious from the moment Anarch had arrived.
The problem was that Ivo had arrived too.
She remembered the purple-haired mercenary standing between her and the target, his artificial spine exposed beneath the damaged plating at his neck.
He had looked confident.
Then the fight had started.
Anarch had expected resistance.
She had not expected him to keep coming after the damage she had dealt him.
His artificial nerves had been pushed beyond their safe limit, and she had noticed. The twitching. The brief hesitation. The way his movements had become less precise.
She had exploited it.
Not because she knew what it would cost him.
Because it worked.
Her own augment had given her the advantage in that particular fight, and she had used it without hesitation.
By the time she had forced him out of the engagement, he had been in no condition to continue.
She had left him alive.
That was all she knew.
She had not seen what happened afterward.
She had not seen the replacement conductor fluid.
She had not seen the half-million-credit bill.
And she certainly had not known that he would still be sore days later.
Anarch leaned back in her chair.
"Idiot," she muttered.
She was not sure whether she meant him or herself.
The room remained quiet.
The medical agents had begun to take effect, dulling the worst of the pain. Her right eye still refused to focus properly, and the prosthesis in her arm felt heavier than it should have.
She looked down at it.
Then she looked away.
There was no point dwelling on it.
She had a job to do.
Or at least, she had once had a job to do.
Now she had a suspended licence, a body that was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, and a disease that had already taken more from her than she cared to remember.
Anarch reached for the helmet resting beside her.
The armor was already secured.
The fabric beneath it was already in place.
She had done everything she could.
So she put the helmet on.
The mask sealed with a quiet hiss.
For a moment, she sat motionless.
Then she stood.
The movement was slow, but deliberate.
She had no intention of letting the Red Rot decide when she stopped.
Not yet.
The new contract had been worth the risk.
That was what Anarch kept telling herself.
The payout was high enough to make the danger worthwhile, and the employer had offered something more valuable than money.
Experimental healing technology.
Technology that might stop the burning in her stump.
Technology that might ease the persistent pain spreading through the right side of her body.
Technology that might, if the claims were true, give her a chance to live without constantly managing the damage.
She had tried not to think about how desperate that made her.
The contract was simple enough.
Defend a shipment.
The cargo was valuable, the route was dangerous, and the employer wanted someone capable of dealing with hostile interference.
Anarch had accepted.
She had not expected the other mercenary.
Nathaniel Alderman was currently out of knight attire.
He wore a heavier black jacket over a black T-shirt, his phone in one hand as he scrolled through the quest forums.
The Illumine Guild had no pending operations at the moment.
His skills, however, were not going to waste.
There was a surprisingly high market for strong individuals. People whose augments possessed offensive capabilities above A-rank were paid exceptionally well, especially when the job involved dangerous cargo, hostile territory, or a client who preferred not to involve official organizations.
Nathaniel had the strength.
He had the experience.
And with Valerie in his care, getting involved was easy.
A simple identity change would work.
For this particular job, he would go by Turbine.
He had already informed Valerie of the plan.
She had not been particularly enthusiastic about the idea of him taking a job alone, but she had not stopped him either.
Nathaniel had no intention of making a habit of it.
This was an experiment.
Nothing more.
He left the apartment alone.
A full-face mask concealed his features. His Uratsu presence had been eliminated, and he had activated Armament at a lower level, shifting his arms and face into a metallic state.
His head was covered by a metallic visor that, by all appearances, looked like a mutation.
His eyes were an odd grey-black.
The modified Rainbow Mantis Shrimp Sight made them unusual enough to be memorable, but not so unusual that anyone would immediately suspect his identity.
He looked unremarkable in his weirdness.
That was the point.
The meeting location had been sent through two separate encrypted message files.
The ciphers had been hidden inside recommended books.
One was a fantasy series called Matty Churner.
The other was a non-fiction book titled Sword Chaser.
Nathaniel had found the arrangement amusing.
Whoever had designed the system clearly had a sense of humor.
The meeting itself took place at the docks.
A contractor approached him and spoke the specified quote.
Nathaniel answered with the specified riddle.
The contractor studied him for a moment, then turned toward a nearby hangar.
"Follow me."
Nathaniel did.
Inside the hangar sat a modified aerial transport vehicle.
The craft was large enough to carry the shipment and its escort, but not so large that it would attract unnecessary attention.
The contractor explained the mission while they walked.
It was a mobile defense operation.
The cargo was an illegal shipment of high-grade material recovered from a high-level biome.
The substance had been identified as Rivechalcam.
A high-grade holy metal.
Nathaniel's job was to defend the shipment until it reached its destination.
The payout was substantial.
The healing technology was the real incentive.
He boarded the automated craft.
A hooded figure was already waiting in the cargo hold.
The hangar doors began to close.
Nathaniel glanced at the carrier box.
Then he touched it.
The package faded into motes of light.
A moment later, it was stored in his inventory.
A mass of crystal resin was pumped into the package, retaining its original shape and structure.
The Rivechalcam was still there.
The box was still there.
But now the cargo was protected by a layer of his own material.
He had already informed the employer of the tactic.
He had also informed them that he possessed the device necessary to store the shipment.
There had been no objections.
The transit was expected to take four hours.
The craft accelerated to Mach one, moving over the open waters.
That was slow by its standards.
But the cargo was precious, and the employer wanted the journey to appear routine.
The flight was peaceful.
For a while.
Nathaniel was beginning to relax when his senses flared.
A foreign object had entered his sensory range.
Fast.
Very fast.
He turned toward the cargo hold.
The hooded figure looked up.
Nathaniel raised a hand.
"Stay here."
The figure hesitated.
Then Nathaniel opened the hatch.
Wind tore through the hold.
He stepped outside.
The air currents collected beneath his body almost immediately.
He made a series of guiding gestures, similar to those used in martial arts.
Aerokinesis was a strange augment.
He had received it from Zeroth after breaking its core.
The ability allowed him to manipulate the general air supply, manifesting controllable directed channels that influenced its movement.
With his experience using HellCharge, flying using air thrusters was easy.
He found the offending presence in two seconds.
A figure was flying toward him.
Oddly enough, she was wearing ivory-white armor.
Nathaniel smirked.
"Alright."
He spread his palms.
Uratsu began to build.
The air vibrated.
Then a massive gust of wind raced forward in a powerful air column.
Air Cannon.
The attack tore through the space between them.
The white knight ran along the air column.
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
A dull white light trained from her eyes.
A noticeable ring of light appeared over her head.
He paid close attention.
The woman moved with unnatural precision, using the air column as a path.
Nathaniel had expected resistance.
He had not expected her to run on the attack itself.
A vibrating blade emerged from her forearm.
She shot toward him.
Nathaniel blasted himself backward, channeling air into a compressed nozzle.
Small amounts of sand and metal shards generated from his hands.
The material struck her armor.
A section of the pauldron was sheared away.
The sandblasted material was then unnaturally redirected.
A pulse of dull white light sent it away from her.
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
"Interesting."
Valerie had told him about many of the famous mercenaries operating in the region.
By what he could recognize, this woman was Anarch.
The specific intricacies of her augments were unknown.
But she was a Kodai.
That much was obvious.
The blades on her arms were a good indication.
So was the rifle now forming from her arm.
Nathaniel's smirk returned.
"Right."
The rifle aimed at his face.
He sent out sharper wind strands.
Faster.
The enhanced bullets were deflected.
Not simply stopped.
Deflected.
They bent through the air, their trajectories altered by the force of the wind.
And then they accelerated.
Way faster than normal.
Nathaniel estimated roughly fifty times their original speed.
He was impressed.
Then he saw the same speed boost targeted at him.
His arm cracked.
A deep gash crossed his chest.
The vibrating blade cleaved through him.
Nathaniel's eyes glowed orange.
Energize.
The ability activated.
His body surged with power.
Then—
Scorch.
Zeroth's second heat-based ability activated.
Beams of scalding hot air erupted from his body.
The white knight was forced back.
The carrier continued moving at full speed.
Nathaniel followed the attack.
The heat tore through the air.
The white knight's helmet cracked.
He saw a grey eye beneath it.
The white circle in her eye glowed again.
The augment reactivated.
A snarl escaped her.
Nathaniel had hit her badly.
But she was still moving.
The circular halo bent horizontally.
Then she was in his face.
The head of a supersized ion-charged rifle pressed against his skull.
Nathaniel's eyes widened.
"Oh, shit."
The shot fired.
Part of his upper body exploded.
Blood splashed across Anarch's damaged armor.
The impact tore through his jacket, shredded flesh, and sent fragments of metal through his body.
His left eye went dark.
His arteries spurted.
Nathaniel cursed.
"Fuck!"
Anarch's armor was drenched in his blood.
Some of it seeped into the seams of her armor, touching raw flesh through the frayed anti-chafing fabric.
She blanched.
She had swallowed some.
The new cuts opened as the shrapnel shifted.
Nathaniel remained in the air.
Barely.
His remaining orange eye glowed white as he looked at the Apotheosis System.
His stats appeared.
His status window opened.
MAX-REGEN: FULL CHARGE.
Nathaniel stared at it.
Then he sighed.
"Alright."
He had been trying to keep this non-lethal.
That was no longer an option.
He activated it.
The damage reversed in an instant.
Blood surged backward.
Muscle knitted together.
Bones reformed.
Structures restored themselves.
The ruined sections of his body rebuilt with terrifying speed.
Nathaniel's vision returned.
His chest closed.
His jacket did not.
He looked down at the ruined fabric.
Then he looked back at Anarch.
"Seriously?"
Anarch stared.
A few seconds ago, the man in front of her had been a bloody flying mess of metal and flesh.
Now he was whole.
She felt something else.
A sudden massive drain on her reserves.
Her body faltered.
The air beneath her feet disappeared.
She had been using one of the commands available through the zero state of her power, removing the limitation of where she could place her feet.
That was simple.
But her Infinite State was different.
It eliminated inertia, drag, and energy conversion for the selected period.
It was how she had managed to eliminate him in that initial second.
And now—
Her reserves were draining.
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
He could feel it too.
The blood on her armor was reacting.
The same energy that had restored him was being drawn from her.
Anarch lost her purchase on the air.
She fell.
Nathaniel remained suspended.
No strong wind currents.
No visible support.
Just him.
Floating.
Anarch looked up at him.
"What the hell?"
Nathaniel looked down.
He could have let her fall.
He considered it.
Then his conscience got the better of him.
"Ah, fuck."
He activated Authority.
The air around them seemed to tighten.
An invisible force caught Anarch before she could drop.
Nathaniel reached forward.
Resin spread from his hand.
It hardened around her body, binding her limbs while leaving enough room for her to breathe.
Anarch struggled.
Nathaniel tightened the restraint.
"Don't."
She stopped.
He dragged her alongside him.
The carrier continued its journey.
The delivery was a success.
When they landed, Nathaniel removed the resin from the hold.
The Rivechalcam was restored to its original position.
The contractor verified the shipment.
Then the payment arrived.
Nathaniel checked the transfer.
"Good."
He turned toward Anarch.
She was unconscious.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he sighed.
"Alright. You're coming with me."
He lugged the unconscious mercenary along with him.
The job was complete.
The payment had been received.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, Nathaniel was already wondering how much the healing technology was actually worth.
Because if it worked—
Well.
That would be a different problem entirely.