Sixth months before the Volta job


    Seras pulled off on the turn before Broadway freeway, slipping her bike past two cars that weren’t going fast enough for her liking. Which was to say as fast as her bike could. She popped up onto the sidewalk and revved around the beaters, narrowly avoiding the pedestrians.


    There were some angered shouts, but Seras ‘Blackiron’ Cross didn’t give a shit.


    Seras only slowed down to a less heart thumping speed when her destination. ‘Sin and Misery’ was a seedy looking place on the outside and was hard to find on any map. But any merc worth their chrome knew of it. holographic dance floors, booze to short circuit a liver implant, and some of the highest class joytoys around, were just a few of the dive’s attractions.


    However today Seras was here for business, not pleasure.


    She slipped her bike, a sleek black Jetfusion 1800 S-series, into a VIP spot. A force field snapping up into place to prevent any street punks from getting any ideas. Down the alley, and into an abandoned maintenance tunnel Seras strode right up to the bouncer who was dealing with some overstuffed punk.


    His hair was neon green, and done up in spikes that went out of style years ago. His jacket was raggedy, and not in the good way, his shoes looked brand name but were obvious knock offs, and worse yet he kept his iron shoved down the waistline of his high-vis shorts. He was only sporting the bare minimum of chrome to survive, and he was all up in Rocker’s face.


    “The fucks wrong with you, I did a job for Jackle yesterday, let me in.”


    Seras couldn’t help herself, and laughed, he wheeled around reaching for his iron, but she had her gun in his face faster than he could pull his little peashooter out. His eyes went wide.


    Seras smirked “This bar’s a place for real Mercs punk. Jackle’s a third-rate burglar, and you aren’t even that.” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder “Fuck off, before Rocker here needs to clean your meat off the wall.”


    He stared at the gun, then at her. “Blackiron.” He mumbled before he scooted around her and ran.


    Seras snorted. “You really shouldn’t let punks like that hold up the door.” She chided towards Rocker.


    Rocker grinned, exposing row upon row of serrated metal shark''s teeth. He crossed his arms, two massive titanium reinforced arm augs that could punch through concrete. “I was planning to make an example out of him, send a signal to the rest of the riff-raff that we don’t play around here.”


    “I guess you’ll need to find a new mark then.”


    “Nah, he’ll be telling all his friends how Blackiron held him at gun point for weeks. It’ll do for now. And keep my doorway clean for a little longer.”


    Seras shrugged, she stepped forward, patting a hand on Rocker’s colossal shoulder, and walked into the bar proper.


    The smell and noise of a busy bar hit her senses in a rush of air as the door slid closed behind her. In the little hall of the entrance way were bullet proof cases with the custom weapons of over a hundred legends. Nightmare’s iconic glossy black mask, the hacker R3L1C’s bulky tech gloves, and even one of Bankston’s silver arms. It was a memorial to all the great legends who patronized Sin and Misery, and one day Seras would be among them.


    She had already donated a pair of black guns to the bar owner for when her time came.


    She had made it, now she just needed to make sure she out shown everyone who came before her, to become the benchmark by which everyone after was measured.


    Seras stepped up to the bar and a bald woman with and third eye implant in her forehead stepped up. “Cross, it''s been a while, new gear?” Mystra asked with a mischievous grin.


    Seras held up an arm showing off a bicep, with a mental command the RGB lines across her skin lit up. the lines were a relic from the time before good smart skin became available on the open market and most augs could only simulate human skin in static patches. Now they were the maker’s mark of high-end gear, each company having their own unique marks for their clientele to show off their wealth.


    Mystra’s three eyes bulged “Wow, is that?”


    Seras smirked “Yup, full suite too.”


    Mystra crossed her tattooed arms “Biolite, mil-grade Biolite. Is it the silver package?”


    “No, I could only get my hands on the Bronze set, the silver’s too well guarded.” Seras made fist “But with this and few more jobs under my belt getting the silver is only a matter of time.”


    She shook her head. “Leave some glory for the rest of us Blackiron.”


    Seras smirked “No” she said plainly.


    Mystra threw her head back and howled with a deep throaty laugh, “At least you’re honest. Jake’s already booked a private booth for your meeting, lucky number seven. Want a drink before you go in?”


    “Of course, can’t go into a meeting all stiff.”


    She set her hands on the bar, “What’chu drinking then?”


    Seras put her own arms on the bar and leaned in “Do you even need to ask.” She asked softly.


    Mystra stood up “One Blackiron coming up.” she turned and began pulling bottle, all from the top shelf. Whiskey so dark it looked black, vermouth, and three of Mystra''s special ingredients in unlabeled bottles, when it was done she shook the concoction and poured into a glass.


    “To glory” Seras toasted before she downed it in one gulp. It wasn’t actually her favorite drink, but when you had one named after you the flavor wasn’t the only thing you savored.


    Seras set the glass on the table and sauntered to the side of the bar where the private booths were lined.


    She shot her ID over the door’s computer and it slid open for her.


    Inside were three others, all just as heavily modded as Seras.


    The largest of the group, Heavy, waved her in. “You were almost late Cross.”


    Heavy was a fitting name for the man before her. Larger than even Rocker at the front door, Heavy had built himself around the old altruism “Bigger is Better”. He was nearly two tons of metal and raw power, and often found himself as the spearhead to their little team since there were few doors sturdy enough to withstand him.


    He was much taller than the booth and had to hunch over to fit. It would have been comical if he weren’t so dammed intimidating.


    “Come on Heavy, you know I’m never late.” Seras said in lieu of greeting as she stepped in.


    Heavy took up a whole side of the booth, and the other bench was occupied, so instead she leaned against the privacy field like it was an ordinary wall. Seras glanced towards the rest of the crew and nodded. Each one of them exuded cold confidence, no fidgeting, no talking. Just calm professionalism.


    They waited.


    They waited some more.


    Their professionalism broke.


    Everyone had the glazed look in their eyes of people browsing the net when their potential contractor finally deigned to show.


    The rooms holographic projector flicked on, and the slightly blurred image of a corpo man appeared. His hair was jet black and slicked back, his suit crisp lines of black and white. He glanced around and them disdainfully.


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    A flash in Seras’ vision signaled a net message from Heavy “FUCK THIS PRICK” it said. This was going to be fun.


    “Let’s not waste anymore time.” He said, disregarding the fact that he was wasting their time by making them wait so long. “Your target is Volta station, the Morris group has been-”


    “Hold the fuck up” Heavy growled.


    The corpo glared at Heavy. “Is there a problem, Heavy?” The man said the name as if it were an insult, and not the mark of respect that Heavy had more than earned.


    “Yeah I do, the fuck is this hologram crap. You wanna make a deal with us then you do it face to fucken face.”


    The corpo sneered. “That would be difficult seeing as I’m not planet side at the moment. So unless you can afford a ticket to Terminus station then-“


    “-Then this meeting is over” Seras finished for him. “We’re not working with someone who can’t be bothered to show up.”


    His eyes flared “Are you serious-”


    “Yes.” Seras interrupted again. “We’re not some small-time punks, and this ain’t a small time job. Volta’s as secure as it gets, and you want us to even consider this then we need to know that you’re serious about this. And a hologram and poor punctuality tells that you’re not. You’re too busy playing games and we won’t be a part of that.”


    His fa?ade broke just a bit, and Seras saw the panic in his eyes. “If your concerned about your payment-”


    “No” Frost said, speaking up for the first time since the meeting began. Her whole style revolved around being cold and calculating to the groups boisterous energy, when she spoke it sent chills up spines. “This is not some bargaining tactic. You failed to show us the respect we deserve as the best Mercs on Ruin. And now you need to pay the price. We’re done.” She said with grave finality.


    Their hacker Spike, who probably had a backdoor to every system in Mantel, shut off the projector. He then went through the system to lift the recording of the meeting and sent it to the Corpos direct manager. With any luck that man would soon be a suit-sickle floating in high orbit.


    The booth was silent for only a second before the whole group broke into laughter. One year ago they wouldn’t have been able to get away with this, but that was before they proved themselves to be the best of the best.


    They were at the top of their game, and nothing could knock them down.


    ~~~*~~~


    Present day


    Seras swirled the dark amber contents of her glass. She had tried to describe a Blackiron to the paunchy man behind the bar, only to learn that half of the ingredients didn’t exist on this world.


    The bar was the pits. Dark poorly lit interior, stained floors, and drunks passed out at the bar. It was an establishment to match her mood.


    Her second day in Karstess and she was finally beginning to realize how kind Dustin’s offer had been. No one was hiring a mysterious woman with no references, an essence no one’s heard of, and an attitude they thought was too haughty.


    At first she tried checking out this adventurer society place since Dustin’s description of it sounded reminiscent of merc work. Seres had been told that you needed a full set of essences to join, but she had been hoping that her abnormal strength and above average skill would be enough to bridge the gap. She just needed to give them a demonstration. But they wouldn’t even hear her out.


    Without essences the question of her application was a non-starter.


    After that she tried poking around the other guilds present. Everything from the artificers society to the forge society. But she found the door slammed in her face at each location. They were too busy prepping for some expedition underground, and couldn’t spare her the time of day. After that she tried normal work, Seras was stronger, faster, and more enduring than your average laborer. But the employers who were willing to hire a women seemed less interested in what Seras could do on her feet, and more interested in what she could do on her back.


    It was insulting.


    And she let them know it.


    But apparently crushing man''s family jewels, while not enough to arrest her, was enough to get her blacklisted from every employer in the city. Some sort of commerce guild nonsense.


    Which led her here, to a bar where Seras had to push a drunk off his stool just to get a drink.


    Seras had been sitting there staring at her booze for about an hour, she hadn’t even touched it.


    Just a week ago she had been at the top of the world, literally! And now here she was, another sad sop.


    Seras had held it together during her time with Dustin and his crew, but now, now it was harder. The emotions she spent so long bottling up were finally welling up, and if she still had tear ducts then she might be crying.


    “Hey” a sluring voice said behind her, “tha’ booze is fer drinkin, not, not, for starin’. Yeah” a large smelly man said as he leaned against the bar. His clothes were notably nicer than that of the average patron of this shit hole, but any elegance they were supposed to give him was ruined by the stains of beer and potential vomit.


    Seras sniffed, then nearly gagged. Vomit confirmed. Disgusting fucking meat bag. “I bought it, and I’ll whatever the hell I want with it.” Seras growled as uninvitingly as she could.


    “S’not even good booze. Let me buy you something nicer.” The meat bag said, ignoring everything Seras had just said. “I’m flush with cash sweetheart. Y’see I’m an adventurer, Bronze rank” he dragged raising his voice so the whole bar could hear. “Dale Cowling.”


    Seras glared at Dale. “Not in the mood Dale,” she warned.


    He continued ignoring her. “I’m so good, I killed a Sand skinned patptor, parptor…”


    “Raptor.” Seras supplied.


    “Yeah that. It was tough, me and the boys had to work hard to get it, but it was worth it to get this” he said while producing a metal cube.


    At a glance it looked like steel, then the light shifted, and it was copper, then it was gold, then a black metal.


    Metal Essence. 3 star rarity. A manifestation that grants the wielder power over metal


    Seras locked her eyes on the cube. After getting black marked she had gone to an auction hall to look at essence and awakening stone prices. It was hefty. The common one to two star ones ran into the several hundred bronze coin range, while the rarer three stars she saw were measured in silver coins. Seras had considered Dustin’s advice about selling the strange awakening stone in her pocket space, but had a gut feeling that selling it was wrong.


    The man saw the look on Seras and grinned. “Yup, I’m going to be loaded after I sell this… thing, whatever it is. Tonight might juss be the last time I come here.” From the lecherous gaze he was giving her Seras knew exactly what this asshole was after.


    She stood up “Look, Dale, I’m sure you’re a truly awful person even when your sober. You’re ugly, you smell, and you’re not the smartest. But if your truly looking to stick your dick in something I saw a hole in a splintered wood over there.”


    The fat bartender coughed.


    Dale’s eyes went wide with anger, after a few seconds for the insult to set in. “You bitch! Do you know how many women would be crawling over each other just to be in your position.”


    Seras clenched her fist, ready to throw down, then let it go. She wasn’t the top dog here, she couldn’t just throw her name around and get people to back off. She was a stranger in a strange land, no friends, no allies, and no idea what the ramifications of her tantrum might be.


    She needed to be the mature person and deescalate. “Look, Dale, I’m not in the mood for dealing with people like you, just take your drink and go back to your table, and we can both pretend this never happened.”


    Then Seras heard the whispers. Dale’s loud drunken outrage had drawn a crowd, a crowd that was now watching as some strange woman in their bar insulted Dale, and then told him to sit his drunk ass down before things got bad. Dale also heard them, and realized that his rep was on the line.


    “Oh I know how to get you in the mood.” He declared. Then he moved, far faster than any meat bag should have been able to move.


    He made a low grab, a grab for something below the waist, something he had no right to touch. His other hand struck out and grabbed her chest.


    Reason and cool tampers be dammed, no matter what world Seras was in she would never let this slide.


    She gritted her teeth, grabbed him by the shoulders, and slammed her knee into his nethers with all the power of a jackhammer. His confident smile was replaced with a chocked grimace, and he let go of her.


    Seras wasn’t done.


    A left hook from Seras cracked into his jaw and several teeth went flying. He stumbled back, staggered by the blow, and Seras followed up by lifting her bar stool over head and onto Dale. The stool exploded in a burst of splinters, dust, and mold.


    Seras still wasn’t done; she felt the anger and frustration of a whole week burble up and overflow. Her depression was replaced with a white-hot rage. Dale became the embodiment of all her feelings and uncertainty’s.


    He was crouched over so Seras stepped forward and brought her other up for a kick. Dale went flying across the room and people scattered as he landed hard on a table.


    “You dammed whore” Dale roared as he got up from the wreckage. Then he began to change, his muscles bulged, his ugly rat like face elongated, and his stained clothes ripped.


    Before Dale transformed into a mutant wolf man, and his bronze rank aura descended around Seras’ shoulders.


    Bronze rank aura from Dale Cowling has suppressed your normal rank aura. All damage is reduced. Speed is reduced. Mobility is reduced.


    Aura power, ‘might of the Beast king’ has boosted all beastly transformation powers and inflicted primal fear on all non-allies.


    Primal Fear failed to affect Biomechanical physiology.


    “Oh fuck” Seras muttered as Dale charged forward.


    People were now in full panic as they felt the weight of Dales aura. The bartender bolted for the backroom.


    Seras leaped onto the bar to avoid Dales charge, Dale turned and swiped out with a clawed hand. Seras jerked back to avoid the swipe and struck out with her foot. Dale’s reaction speed once again proved to be too fast for her as he grabbed her leg.


    Dale’s wolfish face grinned as he yanked her off her feet and threw her across the room.


    Seras struck the wall back first, and felt the breath knocked out of her.


    Dale just stood there, clenching, and unclenching his fist “Your fatter than look, don’t think I could have thrown ya if I wasn’t a might user.” He grumbled, his voice coming out garbled. The fight had sobered him up just a bit, but he was still stumbling around.


    Seras got to her feet, “And your even uglier than I thought, didn’t think there’d be an essence for ugliness, but I can’t think of any explanation for how unbelievable ugly you are besides that.” she quipped.


    His head jerked back towards her. “I’m gonna make you pay for that.”


    “Doubtful” muttered as she went in for a charge.


    She fainted for the right, then came up on his left with another punch to the jaw. But under the aura suppression of a bronze rank essence user her punch was lacking, and he swiped out racking her chest with his claws.


    He then went in for a series of strikes, they came far faster than they should have, and increased in force with each blow.


    Chest cavity at 67%. Repair time 2 hours and 23 minutes.


    Chest cavity at 56%. Repair time 3 hours and 1 minutes.


    His flurry of blows then ended and he picked her up and slammed her against the bar. He then took a claw a raked it across her vest and shirt, exposing her skin.


    Dale stared at her chest and grinned sloppily. “This could have been fun for both of us, but now I take whats…” he trailed off as he saw where his claws had ripped skin to expose metal and wiring, “what the fuck?”


    Seras didn’t waste this sudden opportunity. From where Dale had thrown her over the bar she could just reached one of the long-necked liquor bottles. She gripped it around the bottle neck, cracked it against the bar edge, and stabbed the now jagged bottom it his neck.


    “Gah!” he roared at the bottle now stuck into his throat, he let go of Seras’ neck and stumbled back. Seras stood up once more to see dale stumble back, high proof liquor now staining his chest. It gave her an idea.


    She hopped over the bar and started grabbing everything from the top shelf and flung them at Dale. Each bottle broke against his head and he stumbled back, Seras emptied the top shelf around the time Dale had finally gotten his baring and charged forward. Seras’ leaped over his head and dashed to the little wood stove in the corner of the bar.


    This world had an equivalent to lightbulbs with mana lamps, it even had ways to heat of a room with fire quintessence. But the owner of this place was either too poor to afford to burn magical distillation of fire, or simply didn’t have the magic array to do so. Instead he warmed the bar with small pot belly stove. Seras ripped the grate off the front and reached in to grab a hand full of burning charcoal.


    Dale had pulled the bottle out of his neck and charged forward again. Right into a fist full of embers Seras had chucked at him. The alcohol was high enough proof to catch fire from the ignition source Seras had given it, and soon Dale’s whole body was ablaze.


    But as it would turn out, fire, multiple concussions, and even a stab to the neck wasn’t enough to kill a bronze rank essence user.


    His claws grew to the length of Seras’ forearm and began to glow, an essence powered attack. Seras was pressed against a wall and had nowhere to move. Dale’s claw dug into her chest, and she felt it penetrate all the way through and pin her to the wall.


    Then she felt something just about every chromed-up cyborg feared, a power surge as Dale grounded out the electronics in her chest.


    The power arced up his claws and traveled through Dales body as the electricity flowed from positive to negative.


    His eyes went wide, then blank as the amperage killed him. His knees buckled, his transformation faded, and he fell to the ground. With his claws now gone Seras’ was no longer skewed to the wall. But the surge had tripped every safety measure in her body, and she now her limbs were rigidly locked in place.


    Auto repair in progress. Time to full functionality 13 hours and 06 minutes. Consume 1 bronze rank monster cores, 25 iron quintessence, and 6 bronze rank spirit coins to speed up process.


    Blood, real red iron rich blood, was seeping through the wound in her chest. Seras had augs to help repair her organs and prevent internal bleeding, but all of it was pointless with her chest cavity ripped open. Seras’ only hope for survival was that the auto repair worked fast enough to prevent her from bleeding out. She selected the sped up auto repair, and felt a draining sensation as she realized her mistake.


    The surge had drained her already low battery, and the auto repair would consume more. She watched in terror as her battery dropped from 6% to 3%.


    Then 2%.


    Then 1%.


    Energy levels are critical, engaging emergency sleep mode. Mental backup is being prepared. Mental backup failed.


    Warning, entering sleep mode without a mental backup could result in permanent memory loss and brain damage.


    Sleep mode engaged.


    The world winked out as Seras’ consciousness was forcibly turned off.