“Any fool can bring guns to a fight. Winning requires knowing where to point them.”

  — Midorikawa Corp. Strategic Assessment, Rev. 7

  A mech.

  Not like the corpo security I’d seen sometimes patrolling around my home when rich people felt unsafe, or even the heavy industrial mechs used to squash bugs. This screamed ‘invader military-grade annihilation’.

  It stood maybe eight meters tall, humanoid, all angular plating and weapon hardpoints that bristled from every available surface. The arms ended in rotary cannons that were already spinning up with a whine that carried across the plain, and mounted on its shoulders were missile pods that tracked independently, searching for targets.

  The thing moved fast, stepping through the gate with long strides, each footfall shaking the ground hard enough that I felt it through the haptic suit. Probably shouldn’t at this distance—

  No, bad tinkerer brain! I’ll enjoy the game.

  “Oh,” Alice sighed. “FINALLY!” She screamed, flames erupting around her entire body in a corona of fire that made the air shimmer. “Last time it was just a car! This is WAY better!”

  Cecilia’s response was more focused. “Different spawn with three players.” Her swords shifted in her grip. “Alice, crowd control. Keep the reinforcements off me.”

  “You got it!” Alice was already moving, sprinting toward the base’s walls where more soldiers were pouring out to support their heavy hitter. “Dash! Just—do sniper things! Shoot stuff that moves!”

  The mech’s targeting systems locked onto Cecilia.

  I could see it through my scope, the way its sensor arrays focused, the missile pods adjusting their angle. It didn’t even acknowledge Alice as a threat, didn’t track the pyromancer who was currently setting an entire squad of infantry on fire with casual sweeps of her hands.

  It wanted Cecilia.

  “Ceci—” I started.

  She was already moving.

  The missiles launched with a sound like tearing metal, six of them streaking toward where she’d been standing, their trails cutting through the air in perfect arcs designed to saturate an area and guarantee a kill.

  Except she wasn’t there anymore.

  She’d covered maybe ten meters in the time it took my brain to register she’d moved at all, her enhanced speed trait turning evasion into something that looked choreographed, and the missiles slammed into empty ground behind her in a cascade of explosions that threw dirt and simulated debris in every direction.

  The mech adjusted instantly, its rotary cannons tracking her movement, and opened fire.

  The sound was incredible, even through the simulation; a continuous roar of electromagnetically accelerated rounds that chewed through the terrain like an industrial shredder, each impact creating divots in the ground that sprayed earth in geometric patterns.

  Cecilia wove through it, moving in patterns that seemed random but had to be calculated, had to be her reading the weapon’s tracking speed and exploiting the split-second delays in its targeting system. She got closer with each dodge, closing the distance in bursts of speed that looked wrong for human physiology.

  I settled my scope on the mech, trying to find something useful to shoot, something that would actually matter against eight meters of military-grade armor plating.

  The joints, maybe. The hydraulics visible between armor segments where flexibility required gaps in protection.

  I fired at the knee joint.

  The round sparked off the plating, leaving a scratch. “Shit,” I muttered, adjusting my aim, trying the hip joint where I could see exposed mechanisms.

  Another spark with another meaningless impact.

  The armor was too thick, the angles too well-designed, and my coilgun might as well have been throwing rocks for all the damage it was doing to critical systems.

  Through my scope, I watched Cecilia reach melee range, her swords already moving in strikes that targeted the same joints I’d been shooting at, and even with her enhanced strength the blades barely bit into the reinforced plating.

  The mech’s response was brutal; one massive arm swinging down in an arc designed to paste her against the ground.

  “Nope!” she quipped and rolled under it, the mechanical limb missing by centimeters, and came up slashing at the weapon pod on its shoulder.

  The blade connected, cutting through something important, and the pod exploded in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.

  “YES!” Alice’s voice crackled through the comm. “ONE DOWN! Ceci, you’re amazing! I’m handling like—” An explosion punctuated her sentence. “—twenty guys over here! Having a PREEM time!”

  I panned my scope across the battlefield, trying to find something, anything I could contribute.

  Alice was exactly where she said she’d be, surrounded by burning corpses and soldiers who were learning too late that charging a pyromancer in an open field was a bad tactical decision. Fire erupted from her hands in controlled bursts, each one precisely placed to catch groups of enemies, her laughter carrying over the sound of screaming NPCs.

  She didn’t need help.

  Cecilia was dancing with the mech, her movements too fast for me to track properly even through magnification, swords flashing as she exploited every opening, every moment when its weapons were pointed the wrong direction.

  She didn’t need help either.

  So what was I supposed to—

  Movement.

  Not from the mech, or from the burning soldiers, but from the base’s secondary structure, a building I’d dismissed as administrative or storage because it hadn’t been spitting out troops.

  A door opened, and figures emerged with weapons I recognized immediately from the intro cinematic, with wrapped energy around conventional projectiles, turning them into something that could threaten even enhanced system users.

  They were setting up a firing position, their weapons tracking toward where Cecilia was still engaged with the mech, completely focused on the immediate threat and unable to see the ambush forming thirty meters behind her.

  “Ceci!” I shouted. “Three o’clock! Building with the broken windows! They’re setting up—”

  She moved before I finished the sentence, breaking off her attack on the mech and throwing herself sideways as the first spell-enhanced round screamed through the space where her head had been.

  The mech capitalized instantly, its remaining rotary cannon tracking her new position, forcing her to keep moving, to stay mobile instead of closing for another attack.

  I shifted my scope to the ambush position and started firing.

  First shot: miss, hitting the wall beside the doorway.

  Second shot: closer, punching through the shoulder of one soldier hard enough to spin them around.

  Third shot: hit, dropping another before they could properly brace their weapon.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The last one scrambled back inside the building, its tactical AI deciding that staying in my line of fire was a bad idea.

  “Nice!” Cecilia’s voice carried actual relief. “Keep watching! I can’t see past this thing!”

  I nodded even though she couldn’t see me, and the mech’s shoulder actuator shifted. “Ceci, missiles! North side pod!”

  She adjusted position—

  The rotary cannon opened fire instead.

  The tell had been for the cannon, not missiles. The rounds chewed through where she’d moved to, forcing her into a desperate roll that looked nothing like her usual controlled grace, more like barely controlled panic.

  “Shit! Sorry! I thought—”

  “No!” Cecilia stopped me, breathless but excited. “Keep calling! I can adapt!”

  The mech’s weight shifted, and I forced myself to watch more carefully, to see the whole pattern, not just one joint—

  “Right arm swing, low!”

  She ducked under it.

  “Missiles NOW!”

  She was already moving; the projectiles screaming past.

  “Good!” she actually laughed. “What else?”

  That’s when it clicked.

  She couldn’t see past the mech. Alice couldn’t see past the walls she was burning through. They were in the fight, focused on immediate threats, their enhanced abilities letting them handle the close-range chaos but leaving them blind to anything outside their immediate engagement zone.

  But I could see everything.

  My elevated position, my scope’s magnification, the tactical overview that came from being a few hundred meters back and not actively dodging death… I had information they didn’t.

  “Alice!” I called out. “Door on your left! Six guys stacking up!”

  “On it!” Fire roared, and through my scope I watched the door become a crematorium, Alice’s flames pouring through the opening with enough heat that the metal frame warped.

  I panned back to Cecilia, watching the mech’s attack patterns through magnification, seeing the split-second tells before each weapon fired, the way its weight shifted before each melee strike.

  “Ceci, it’s winding up for missiles! North side pod!”

  She adjusted her position without question, moving to where the angle was wrong for the missile pod to track her, and when the mech fired its missiles, they curved uselessly into empty air before self-destructing.

  “Dash!” Alice’s voice crackled. “More guys coming from the barracks! The big building with the antenna!”

  I was already tracking there, already settling my scope on the doorway where soldiers were pouring out. “I see them. Ceci, you’ve got about ten seconds before they flank you from the west!”

  “Understood!” She sped up her assault on the mech, her blades finding gaps in its armor, cutting through hydraulic lines and exposed wiring with strikes that showed she’d been fighting these things before, and knew exactly where to hit for maximum damage.

  The mech staggered, one leg seizing as critical systems failed, and Cecilia pressed the advantage, her swords blurring as she dismantled it piece by piece.

  I fired at the flanking soldiers, dropping two before they could establish firing positions, forcing the rest to scatter for cover instead of pressing their attack.

  “Alice, they’re falling back toward the vehicle bay! If they get armor—”

  “NOT HAPPENING!” The vehicle bay’s entrance disappeared in a column of flame, the entire structure collapsing inward as its support beams failed.

  The mech made a final desperate attempt, its remaining arm swinging in a wide arc that would’ve caught Cecilia if she’d still been there, but she’d already moved, reading the attack from the mechanical tell in its shoulder joint, and her swords found the exposed neck section where armor gave way to articulated plating.

  One blade went through the primary control systems. The other severed something critical in its power distribution network.

  The mech froze, locked mid-swing, and then collapsed, eight meters of military hardware crashing to the ground hard enough to shake my position.

  [Midorikawa is proud! Operation successful! Beacon secured!]

  The notification filled my vision in triumphant letters, and the battlefield dissolved around us, enemies fading into wireframe before disappearing entirely.

  A system notice came after that.

  [Mana LP progress: 2%]

  Okay… so I won’t get strong by gaming.

  The simulation ended completely, the plains and sky dissolving into white projection room walls, and I was left lying on the floor in my haptic suit, coilgun reduced back to its blank white prop form, my heart still hammering from the engagement.

  Alice whooped, flames still dancing around her hands. “THAT WAS AMAZING! Did you see when I melted the whole vehicle bay? It was SO PREEM!”

  Cecilia was breathing hard, her swords lowering slowly. She looked toward me, and I could see her smile. “Good callouts,” she said, and coming from her felt like higher praise than any mission success notification.

  Alice appeared above me, grinning widely, offering a hand. “Come on, sniper! Let’s see our scores!”

  I let her pull me up, and a final window materialized in front of us, floating in the white space.

  [MISSION COMPLETE - OPERATION JUNGLE STORM]

  ALICE: 47 KILLS | MVP: AREA DENIAL

  CECILIA: 1 KILL (BOSS)

  DASH: 23 KILLS

  TEAM GRADE: S-RANK

  BONUS UNLOCKED: HARD MODE AVAILABLE

  Alice read it and immediately grabbed both of us in a hug that threatened to activate the haptic suit’s impact warnings. “S-RANK! ON OUR FIRST RUN WITH DASH! This is the BEST!”

  Cecilia extracted herself, but she was smiling too. “We should play again. Different game maybe. Something Dash can—”

  The white room’s door opened, and the clerk from earlier stepped through. “Excellent game! If you’d like to continue, we offer extended session packages—”

  “YES!” Alice didn’t let him finish. “How much for another run?”

  We played three more games, each one crazier than the last.

  A racing simulator where Alice somehow set her vehicle on fire and still placed second.

  A rhythm-based combat game that Cecilia dominated with the same timing she used for swordwork.

  Something called “Extraction Protocol” that devolved into chaos when Alice decided the stealth objectives were “boring” and just burned through every wall between us and the exit.

  Somehow, every game we played had a pyromancer option. Suspicious, but when I asked, Alice just laughed.

  Figures.

  By the time we stumbled back into the changing room, I was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion and everything to do with sensory overload. The haptic suit had spent hours convincing my nervous system I was being shot at, blown up, set on fire, my car set on fire, and thrown off buildings.

  I stripped it off with relief, my actual clothes feeling almost uncomfortably loose after hours of sensor-covered compression.

  The clerk returned my MIRAGE chip and power cell, and I reconnected everything while Alice’s excited chatter echoed through the wall from the female changing room.

  When we regrouped in the lobby, the bodyguards were waiting.

  They materialized from wherever they’d been stationed, falling into their professional triangle formation as if they’d never left. Alice groaned dramatically but didn’t argue, and Cecilia just sighed with resignation.

  The Neon Vault’s entrance doors slid open, and we stepped back out into the West Corporate District’s rain.

  It was still falling; the neon-soaked streets exactly as grey and wet as when we’d entered hours ago. The crowd in the plaza had thinned slightly, but the district itself was still alive with constant urban energy that never quite stopped.

  Alice turned to me, steam already rising from her hair as rain evaporated on contact. “You know any local food? We should celebrate our S-rank! Grab something preem, maybe it’ll help you forget coming in dead last on the circuit.”

  “I would’ve won if you hadn’t thrown a fireball at me,” I said, still not over how she’d somehow turned a racing simulator into a combat game.

  Alice burst out laughing. “Skill issue, Dash! You should’ve dodged better!”

  “It was a racing game! There was no dodge mechanic!”

  “Exactly!” She grinned. “You just admitted you had no skills for the situation; that’s literally what skill issue means!”

  I opened my mouth to argue, realized I was arguing with Alice, and gave up. “I don’t actually know any restaurants around here,” I admitted. “West Corporate isn’t really my usual district.”

  Alice immediately turned to her sister. “Ceci! Food mission! Deploy your scary rating knowledge!”

  Cecilia was already pulling up her holoband, the glow reflected off her face as she scrolled through what looked like an extensive database of reviews and ratings.

  “You’re a TagoEats user?” I asked.

  “Pro user,” Alice corrected, grinning widely. “She’s got like a thousand reviews posted. Rates everything. Remembers every meal she’s ever had. It’s honestly kind of terrifying.”

  Cecilia’s cheeks colored slightly, but she didn’t look up from her holoband. “I just appreciate knowing what I’m eating before I order it. The standard options are perfectly—”

  “BORING!” Alice interrupted with cheerful finality. “Standard is so boring, Ceci! We want exciting! Something with flavor! Something that doesn’t taste like it was optimized by an Aurelia nutrition guru!”

  “You don’t even know where we’re going yet,” Cecilia protested.

  Alice pointed dramatically in a random direction, arm extended like she was declaring a quest objective. “That way! I can feel the preem food calling to me!”

  Cecilia let out a long-suffering sigh and glanced at her holoband, then at the direction her sister was pointing, then back at her holoband.

  “That way is...” She paused, reading. “Something called Busaba Eathai. Apparently, the best noodles around here, according to verified reviewers.” She looked up at Alice with narrowed eyes. “How do you keep doing that?”

  “Doing what?” Alice’s grin was pure innocence.

  “Randomly pointing at the highest-rated restaurants in whatever direction you choose.”

  Alice shrugged, still grinning. “I can smell delicious food, I guess! Now come on! The noodles are calling!” She grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward her randomly selected direction, leaving Cecilia to follow with the bodyguards flowing around us like professional shadows.

  We’d made it maybe half a block when Cecilia moved closer, her dry zone creating a weird bubble of moisture-free air that clashed with the rain hammering down around us.

  “You asked him?” she whispered. Alice shook her head, steam obscuring her face.

  I glanced between them, confused. “Asked me what?”

  Alice sighed. “I was... creative at school today.”

  “She torched a building,” Cecilia added helpfully.

  “It was just one building!” Alice protested. “And it was barely a building, more like a storage shed! And that girl said I couldn’t do it, so really it’s her fault for—”

  “Alice.”

  Alice deflated slightly, her shoulders slumping. “Yeah, okay, I torched it. It was stupid. I know it was stupid.” She was quiet for a moment, which was deeply unsettling coming from her, then looked up at me with an expression that was attempting seriousness and not quite succeeding. “So, Dash...”

  She paused, glanced at Cecilia, then back at me.

  “So... you know any fixers who could, like, hypothetically get someone to break into Aurelia and maybe delete some files? Hypothetically?”

  TODAY’S CHAPTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY Midorikawa Corp.

  Join me on or

  On Patreon you can read 2 months ahead (~200 pages)