Nyz swiftly unpacked his weapons and backpack, placing them into their respective slots in the van, then removed his combat suit and put it into its spot. Then, he pulled off his bodysuit and hung it up, before turning around and pulling a cream-colored bodysuit off a hanger opposite the original.

He pulled it on, then began dressing in the Class C combat suit. Though it weighed thrice as much as his Class S suit, the weight difference didn't affect him. The bodysuits augmented the strength of the wearers, allowing them to lift heavier objects with ease, but even if he hadn't put one on, Nyz was strong enough the weight was negligible.

Dressed in the inferior suit, Nyz began running a check on weapons from that side of the van, including one of each of the two types of NKAR-17 automatic rifles, magazines with bullets, and only a few magazines with crystals loaded inside for that trip. Ready, he pulled on the pack, then waited for Kal's signal.

Nyz opened the back of the van and hopped out, then closed it and locked it, before holding one his NKBAR-17 rifles at the ready, the NKMAR fixed onto the side of his metal pack. He swept his gaze over the ruined parking lot, then turned and faced the broken entrance of the Zenitk facility before walking to it.

He was only a few steps away when the wind from the blades of the helicopter began battering at him, and Nyz swiftly moved to one of the pillars out front to use as shelter as the chopper touched down.

Once he heard it touch down, Nyz held his right hand out to the side so it was visible, giving the exiting crew a thumbs-up, a sign to let them know he wouldn't attack when they approached. A few seconds later, a pair of soldiers in black armor approached, their black visors lifted up. The brown and gold crest of Asterox Corporation adorned their shoulders and the sides of their helmets. The one on Nyz's left was male, the other female.

"Hey," Nyz lifted up the clear visor of his combat suit. "Zenitk said they were going to send a crew only if I failed, and it takes an hour and a half to get here."

"We're not here to steal your reward," the female guard told him. "There was a situation in the city near the Troak Asterox Center. Someone hacked into the network and rerouted power there."

"To the Asterox Center?" Nyz asked. "Why would someone do that?"

"We don't know," she answered. "We and a few other units were sent to investigate, though the redirect was actually for the district it's in, so we're checking everywhere there just to be safe. Zenitk saw the alert as well and warned us they had a Scavenger out here, so we came to check on you. You're here alone?"

"I prefer working alone," Nyz answered. "There's no fights over who splits the reward that way. Got into one a couple of years ago with my old crew, they wanted to take most of it for them, even though I saved their asses multiple times. There were five of us, and they wanted to give me twenty percent of the reward for being the only person competent enough in a fight to take down the Rank 4 that attacked us when all they did was locate an item and leave the fighting to me. After that happened, I figured, why should I keep dealing with greedy bastards like them when I could just make the money myself? Haven't had an issue since. A couple of failed missions, but hey, I'm still here."

Nyz had never failed a mission due to Kal's planning, but he wouldn't say that when playing a role, they needed to think he was more normal than not, and normal Scavengers suffered failures from time to time.

"Alright," she said. "You just arrived?"

"Yeah," Nyz answered. "The maps were a little outdated and some of the roads weren't usable. Had to back up and reroute one time due to a massive beetle. That thing was almost as big as my van!"

"Alright," she chuckled. "If you don't mind, we'd like to assist you with the job. We won't try to claim any part of it, we saw the briefing. No one's made it back alive other than a team which never made it to the city due to the fog monsters' high activity level the last couple of weeks."

"You think there's something dangerous?" Nyz asked. "I have killed a Class 4 before."

"One never knows what might show up," she told him. "Are you okay with that?"

"Sure," he answered. "Are you tuning in to my frequency, or am I tuning in to yours?"

"We'll tune in to yours," she held out her right arm. "Else you'd hear the communication of the other units as they investigate the situation. Sync up."

Nyz held out his right arm beside hers, palms facing up, and they both tapped a sequence onto their forearms, activating the computers in them. After syncing, they pulled their arms away.

"We'll take your lead," the guard told Nyz as they replaced their visors, and her heard her voice through his helmet's comms. "This is your mission, we're here as backup at Asterox's request."

"Priority mission is a hard drive located in the first sub basement," Nyz said as the other eight guards joined them. "Priority two is the vault on sub basement level three. If the power is still running to it, I'm to retrieve several items from it. Priority level three is an office on the fifth floor, they want some paper files out of it. Were you given the maps of the building?"

"No," she answered. "Zenitk only warned us you were here, we're doing this at our own company's request."

"Okay," Nyz said. "Follow me, then."

He led the unit inside and checked the nearby elevator. It was inactive, so they made their way to the nearby stairs, where a thick, dark red, goo-like substance coated the walls and steps. It was nearly half a foot in thickness, and Nyz paused, the thermal imaging in his visor showing the goo was hot. He'd already known about it, due to the visor, but still paused when he arrived, as most Scavengers would.

"Damn," he said as he tapped on his arm, reading the data which appeared on it. "Livarias goo. Magic shots, Type 3, fire type."

"We can do this, too," one of the guards stepped forward, tossing a grenade into the goo.

The grenade sank into the good for a few seconds, then burst, releasing a torrent of crimson flames through the stairwell, burning through the goo. The torrent of magical flames stopped a few steps from the top before fading away, and Nyz quickly switched his NKBAR-17 for the NKMAR-17, changed its magazine, then fired shots into the remaining goo, streaks of crimson flashing as they impacted, burning into it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With the goo neutralized, the team made their way down the steps, the Asterox guards using another grenade to clear out the bottom section of the stairs. When they reached the doors at the bottom, they found a pair of corpses in front of the doors, the bodies pale within their suits.

"Damn," Nyz said. "One team only made it here."

"With how pale they are," one of the guards said. "And the goo on their suits, my guess is the goo found a way in and drained them of their lives."

"Probably," Nyz tried the handle of the door and found it looked, then held up the access block to the scanner, then tapped on his arm. "Looks like power's out here, no backup running in this section. Let's see if we open manually."

"Allow me."

One of the guards approached the door, pressing a putty-like substance against where the latch was.

"Step back," he said, and everyone did.

The guard tapped on his arm, then the putty burst, the door slamming open. Nyz let out a whistle of appreciation at the explosive putty, which blew a hole clean through the door.

"Man, I wish I could get my hands on that tech," he said. "It would make some jobs a lot easier. First the magic flame grenades, then that putty? Damn, that's good stuff. I have to do it the old-fashioned way. Bullets, brute force, and alternate routes."

"It's restricted," the female guard told him as they moved forward. "You wouldn't be allowed to unless you were recruited into an elite military force for one of the countries or are part of one of the leading corporations."

"Like Asterox, which produces it."

"Like Asterox," she confirmed. "That said, if you impress me, I might put in a word with my boss, see if you can't get your hands on a little bit of it."

"You'd do that?" Nyz asked hopefully. He was acting, as he had access to even better tech than they did, but he also knew he couldn't reveal that to them. "Really?"

"Maybe a little," she answered. "Though of course, we'd know who to go to if it was used in a crime rather than a scavenging."

"Nah," Nyz said. "I ain't the type to do that. Look alert, soldiers. There are several routes into the sub levels, others probably went another way when they found the doors wouldn't open or after the goo moved into the steps. However, no team who's made it here has made it back, so there's going to be something dangerous."

The group made their way through the halls, stopping when they turned a corner and found a spider taking up most of the hall, its webbing filling the space.

"Fire," Nyz said after checking the data. "Bullet or magic."

"How about a grenade?" One of the two guards tossed a grenade at the spider, which shot its white webbing at it. The webbing wrapped around the grenade, which detonated a moment later, sending a torrent of crimson flames through the hall, burning through the spider. "Think that's what killed them?"

"Maybe some," Nyz answered. "But not all. Let's go, we have a bit more to go before we're at the room the hard drive is supposed to be in."

They proceeded down the hall, then took a right. Halfway down that hall, Nyz opened a door, finding two different oozes inside, one dark green, one bright red. The remains of two pairs of Scavengers could be seen in the room.

Immediately, Nyz jumped backwards, along with the guards right beside him, just in time to avoid the bursts of green goo which shoot out at them, attempting to grab them. Nyz shot at it with his gun, the goo bursting into flames before the flames faded, leaving behind burnt goo.

"Vinear goo, magic bullets, Type 2, flame," a guard said. "Fieran goo, magic bullets, Type 3, ice."

One of the guards tossed a grenade into the room and it burst, releasing a frosty blast that froze the crimson ooze as Nyz and two other guards shot at the vinear goo that kept attempting to grab them. Another grenade was tossed into the room as the vinear goo was fought off, then three guards began firing ice-based magic bullets into the fieran goo as Nyz and the other two continued shooting the vinear goo.

As soon as the fieran goo had turned black and dark brown, dead, two grenades unleashing torrents of flames were thrown into the room, killing the vinear goo within as Nyz and the two guards dealt with what remained outside of the room.

"Now we know what happened to four more Scavengers," Nyz said.

"I don't think the harddrive is intact," one of the guards said as Nyz entered.

"It's in the room beyond this one," Nyz commented, walking into the room and past the charred goo.

He walked to a door set into the back wall, then used flame bullets to clear away the goo burned against it, before looking at the door and tapping on his arm, adjusting the readings on his helmet, cycling through the various types of scans it performed. Stopping on one, he began the assessment.

"My scanner is picking up a shadow beast through the door," he said. "Your tech's better, are you able to figure out what bullets we should use? I don't have light shots, though I do have a flash grenade. Not sure if that'll help, it's not magic."

"Let me check," the female soldier said, then tapped on her arm as she looked at the door. "Humanoid shadow beast, four arms. According to this, light magic, Type 5 to be safe."

"Type 5?" One of the guards asked, shock filling his voice.

"It says Type 4, but I don't want to undershoot," she explained. "It's an unknown being read through a metal door and reinforced walls."

Nyz took the handle of the door and stood behind it as the Asterox soldiers prepared their weapons, then he pulled the door open, staying behind it as two of the guards threw in grenades, filling the room with light.

He heard an ear-piercing wail come from the room, and again when two more grenades were thrown through.

"Clear," one of the guards said, and Nyz stepped around the door and entered.

The shadow beast was nowhere to be seen, the four grenades more than enough to destroy it. Ny began walking through the room, looking for the location described in the mission briefing.

"What are we looking for?" The female guard asked. "I see computers, filing cabinets, servers. We were only told you were here to retrieve an item on a job no one returned from. You mentioned a hard drive?"

"Yes," Nyz examined the cabinets over a counter on the back wall, running his fingers over their labels.

When he came to a cabinet with a white label, blocky black letters spelling out "ADDITIONAL RESOURCES", he opened it, hearing the lock snap as he pulled on the door. Were he not in the suit, the guards would have probably assumed the lock had rusted away over the years. With the suit on, however, the still-shiny lock wouldn't stand a chance even against a child's casual tug.

Pulling out the stacks boxes of paperclips, staples, pens, pencils, and other supplies, Nyz revealed a metal door at the very back of the cabinet. A rectangular screen was set into the middle of it, a handle cut into it on the left.

Nyz tapped the screen and it lit up, confirming its internal battery was still functional. He punched in the code he was given with the mission briefing, then opened the door. Reaching inside, he pulled out the various hard drives, looking for the one labeled "SHED-17". Once he located the proper hard drive, Nyz placed it into his pack, then returned the rest to the safe and closed it, before neatly returning the supplies into the cabinet.

"That's it?" One of the guards asked. "Out of all those hard drives, you only wanted one?"

"They only wanted this one," Nyz said. "Told me to return the rest of the safe. Come on, it's time to see if we can retrieve the priority two targets."

No mention of the other hard drives had been mentioned in his briefing, but Nyz didn't want to let them know he hadn't thought to just grab the entire batch of them. Kal would probably harass him about it later, but that was fine by him as long as the Asterox soldiers didn't know.

"Was returning the supplies to the cabinet necessary?" Another guard asked. "It's not like it would matter if you left them out. Hell, we could probably bring them back and give them to Zenitk, save 'em a few dozen creds."

"If you want to, go ahead," Nyz said. "I'm here for the assigned mission."

"Which includes putting the supplies back?"

"I'm being respectful."

No one bothered asking him how that was respectful, and Nyz was grateful for it, because his answer wouldn't satisfy them.

"If you want them," Nyz began walking to the door. "Grab them. Otherwise, we're heading down to the third sublevel."