The junction between Sector 4 (The Sewers) and Sector 4.5 (The Foundry District) was a no-man's-land known as "The Throat."
It was a vertical shaft filled with dripping coolant pipes, rusted maintenance ladders, and darkness so thick it felt like velvet.
Varian sat on a suspended catwalk in the middle of the shaft. He was dangling his legs over the abyss, humming a tune he had heard in the Gilded Gear ballroom.
On his wrist, his comms unit—a stolen Union piece—was blinking red.
BEEP... BEEP...
He had deliberately tripped the perimeter alarm ten minutes ago.
"They're coming," Rix whispered from the shadows of a ventilation grate above. "Heavy boots. Smell like gun oil and cheap coffee."
"How many?" Varian asked, checking the edge of the Sun-Piercer.
"Five. One Big Leader with a cyber-eye. Four grunts with plasma-rifles."
"A standard Hunter-Killer squad," Varian noted. "The Cog-Lords must think I'm still hiding in a hole."
He looked at the black metallic armor covering his chest and left arm. It rippled slightly, like water disturbed by a breeze.
"You ready to stretch your legs, Onyx?"
The metal hummed. A face formed on his shoulder pauldron—a smooth, featureless mask of chrome—and nodded.
Ready, the vibration echoed in Varian's bones.
Above them, a hatch opened. beams of tactical light cut through the gloom.
"Visual on target!" A voice shouted. "He's sitting on the catwalk! Sector 4-B!"
"Box him in!" The leader ordered. "Don't kill him yet! The bounty is double if he breathes!"
Five figures rappelled down the shaft. They moved with military precision, landing on the catwalks surrounding Varian. They were heavily armed mercenaries, wearing Cog-Lord colors (rust and gold).
The leader, a man with a jaw made of exposed pistons, aimed a heavy rotary cannon at Varian.
"End of the line, Scavenger," the leader grinned. "You caused a lot of trouble upstairs. Boss Gearhead wants a word."
Varian didn't stand up. He looked at the leader.
"You're the Iron-Fangs, right?" Varian asked casually. "Top-tier bounty hunters. You usually charge ten thousand a head."
"Twenty thousand for you," the leader bragged. "You're a celebrity."
"Good," Varian smiled. "That means you have good gear."
The leader frowned. "What?"
"Light him up!" the leader ordered, sensing something wrong.
The four grunts opened fire.
PEW-PEW-PEW.
Plasma bolts hissed through the air. At this range, there was no missing. The bolts struck Varian directly in the chest.
Or they should have.
In the microsecond before impact, Varian didn't dodge.
The black armor on his chest exploded outward. It didn't break; it expanded. It formed a semi-liquid wall of dark mercury in front of him.
SIZZLE. SPLAT.
The plasma bolts hit the Quicksilver Shield. They didn't burn through. The liquid metal absorbed the thermal energy, rippling violently, then dispersed the heat across its surface area.
The shield retracted instantly. Varian was unharmed.
"Plasma resistance?" The leader gasped. "That's military tech!"
"Biological tech," Varian corrected.
He stood up.
"Onyx. Kill Mode."
The black armor detached from Varian's body.
It slithered off him like oil, landing on the metal grating. In the blink of an eye, it stood up, forming a six-foot-tall humanoid figure made of polished chrome and matte black steel.
It had no face. Just a smooth, terrifying mirror.
"What the hell is that?" a grunt screamed.
Onyx tilted its head.
It raised its right arm. The metal flowed, extending, sharpening. The hand vanished, replaced by a meter-long scythe blade.
SWISH.
Onyx moved.
It wasn't a run. It was a slide. The metal feet didn't lift; they skated across the catwalk.
The first grunt fired his rifle. The bullet hit Onyx's chest. The liquid metal didn't crack—it rippled like a stone thrown in a pond. The bullet passed through the fluid body and clattered harmlessly against the back wall.
[Physical Immunity: High Velocity Projectiles.]
Onyx reached the grunt.
SLASH.
The scythe arm moved so fast it was a blur. The grunt's rifle was sliced in half. So was the grunt.
The mercenary fell in two pieces, cauterized by the friction of the blade.
"Open fire! Maximum voltage!" The leader roared, spinning up his rotary cannon.
The other mercenaries unleashed hell. Bullets, plasma, and shock rounds rained onto the chrome figure.
Onyx didn't stop. It walked through the hail of fire. Every time a bullet hit, it reformed. Every time plasma burned it, it shed the damaged layer and regenerated.
It was a Juggernaut. A Terminator.
It reached the second and third mercenaries.
Onyx didn't use the scythe this time. It grabbed their heads.
Its hands dissolved into sludge, engulfing their helmets. Then, the metal hardened instantly.
CRUNCH.
Two skulls crushed. Onyx dropped the bodies.
"Monster!" The fourth mercenary panicked. He dropped his gun and pulled a grenade. "Die!"
He threw the thermal detonator.
Onyx caught it.
The chrome hand wrapped around the grenade. The metal flowed, sealing the explosive inside a sphere of super-dense titanium.
Muffled Boom.
The grenade exploded inside Onyx's hand. The Juggernaut's arm bulged slightly, like a snake digesting a rat, then returned to its normal shape. Smoke vented from its fingertips.
The mercenary stared, paralyzed by fear.
Onyx extended a finger. A needle shot out.
THWIP.
It pierced the mercenary's forehead. He dropped.
Four down. Thirty seconds.
The leader stood alone at the end of the catwalk. His rotary cannon was empty. He was shaking.
He looked at the chrome monster. Then he looked at Varian, who was still leaning against the railing, picking his nails with a knife.
"What... what are you?" the leader whispered.
Varian walked forward. Onyx stepped aside, melting back into a puddle and reforming as armor on Varian's shoulder.
"I told you," Varian said. "I'm the celebrity."
He stopped a foot away from the leader.
"You have a direct line to Boss Gearhead, don't you?"
The leader nodded frantically.
"Good."
Varian grabbed the leader's cybernetic jaw. He squeezed. Metal groaned.
"Tell him his hunters are trash. Tell him his bounty is an insult."
Varian's eyes glowed gold.
"And tell him the Parasite Monarch is coming for the Gilded Gear. If he wants to keep his city, he should start running now."
Varian released him.
"Go."
The leader didn't wait. He scrambled up the maintenance ladder, slipping on his own sweat, fleeing back to the surface.
Varian watched him go.
"Rix," Varian called out.
The Rat-Boy dropped from the ceiling, landing on one of the dead mercenaries.
"Shiny bits!" Rix squealed, prying a cyber-eye out of a corpse. "Good chips! High grade!"
"Strip them clean," Varian ordered. "Take the weapons, the ammo, the cybernetics. Scrap-Jack needs parts for the reactor."
He looked at Onyx, who was currently absorbing a puddle of spilled plasma coolant from the floor.
"Good work, Onyx."
The armor pulsed warmly.
Varian looked up the shaft.
"That was the invitation," Varian whispered. "Now we wait for the RSVP."