“We’re here, Captain. Right at the periphery of Queensland.”

Red frowned at the shorter man beside him. Even fully kitted out in power armor thrumming with electromana current, he could perfectly sense the hungry smile on the other man’s face.

“We stick to the mission, meet our objectives, and earn our bonus.” he curtly said, his entire team of power-armor covered mercs quickly nodding their understanding. “And that means no getting side-tracked or taking off your armor to have fun with the natives, are we clear?”

“Yes, Captain,” said the man beside him, the other three nodding alongside him.

“You seem awfully high strung, Captain,” said the point man with a line of blue skulls painted on the forearm of his battle armor as he checked his blaster rifle. “We successfully made it through the gate, a virgin White-tier world ripe for ascension. So what’s the worry?” He gestured at both the peaceful rolling fields of lush greenery before him, and the waist high grasses filled with darting shadows and the screams of nighttime predators, none of which dared to even approach the mercenaries, behind them.

“Our only risk was running the imperial brigade. Now that our boy Dusty got us past, we’re gold! Absolutely nothing here can touch us. And assuming your goblin contact wasn’t blowing smoke up our ass, there will be absolutely no record or memory of anything we do here until dawns first light, which we were all told wouldn’t happen for over a hundred Terran-standard hours. So why not fucking live it up? Hell, all we gotta do is slaughter every last goddamned pointy-eared shitball we find, plague on all the fucking worlds, claim their shit castle for ourselves, and we’re fucking grandfathered in! Can you believe this ascension world bullshit?” The man gave a greedy chuckle. “This will be a cakewalk!”

Red, far from being offended, chuckled along with his underling. “That’s my hope Tim.” Before rushing him so fast that Tim didn’t even know what had happened before he was flat on his back, grunting when his commander held a vibro-blade to the base of the frightened looking man’s neck.

Tim’s eyes widened with genuine fear when his helmet was ripped off his head, his commander’s blade suddenly kissing his throat.

“Boss, please, I...”

“We stick to the mission, complete our objectives, and earn our bonus. Are we clear, Tim?”

“Yes... yes, Captain. Crystal clear!”

“Good. And for the last time, lock-seal your helmet! I don’t care what kind of bonuses your fucked-up class gives you, it’s all too easy for anyone to just tear it right off and rip out your throat, and I invested way too much into your armor and in getting your sorry ass to Bronze to eat that expense. I own you, Tim, and you’re going to make me, and yourself, a shit-ton of money before I let you croak to your own fucked up stupidity. Are we clear?”

A flushing Tim quickly nodded. “Yes, captain. Crystal clear,” he said, shaking hands sealing up his helm to the snickers of his teammates as he got up from the waist high grass and finished sealing his helmet.

“Hey, you guys hear gunfire?”

“Time to die, motherfuckers!” Roared a young humman a short distance away, wearing nothing but animal leathers and wielding a battleaxe shimmering with arcane energy, moving so fast and darting so skillfully that he was actually able to dodge the musket fire of his 20 Quickness opponents without a scratch.

“Die, human!” the handful of orc scouts patrolling the area around their main force roared, the closest pulling out an ugly looking gladius-like blade and chopping at the smirking human who darted under his blow before his battleaxe bit into his opponent’s shirt and carving a massive furrow in its back, spraying the boy and the orc behind him with blood even as the nearby band of young humans wearing an eclectic mix of armor and arcane instruments cheered.

“Fucking hell yeah, John! You ‘axed’ that motherfucker!” Hooted a freckled boy a heartbeat before the air flashed with lightning. “Forzar! Yeah, take that motherfuckers!” He curled his fist in triumph when the orc champion who had chosen to charge the group of four young adventurers instead of their friend collapsed with a groan in his now smoking armor, before being put out of his misery with a pilum whistling through the air to pierce it right through its skull.

“And that’s one more Level 25 champion under our belt,” said the Javelineer with a smile.

The freckled mage snorted. “Kill stealer.”

“Just finishing the job and backing up my friends, the larger youth said with a smile, before furrowing his brow in the distance. “Hey, I think I see another adventuring group up ahead.”

The girl beside him brushed back a lock of silky blond hair before her brown eyes squinted off into the distance as their laughing friend brutally put down the final angrily squealing orc. “Shit, there is. And... hey, are those guys wearing powered armor?”

The Javelineer whistled. “Shit, do you think they got that massive quest boon being offered by the Sylvan alliance? Help fend off as many orcs and gnolls for the duration of a single night, and make ten whole gold per every ear claimed, and a nudge and wink you know that’s twenty gold for each of these fuckers we take down!”

“Yeah, but would players so elite they actually found fucking mech armor be wasting their time sniping stragglers in the dead of night like we are? Because god knows we’re taking a major risk here. If we hadn’t all invested in that running skill...”

“We’d be dead twice over, I know!” Declared their barbarian with a grin as he approached, holding six bloody ears in his hand. “OR at least that was the case until I got my Barbarian’s Aura perk. Now I’m as well protected as our tank, with no armor at all!”

The fully armored adventurer with them snorted, crossing his armored forearms. “Sure, you keep telling yourself that, Philip... and shit, it looks like those mech armor gents are heading our way.”

“Think they want to party up with us? Freckle asked with a hopeful grin.

Their tank snorted. “Hardly. I’ll bet they’ll tell us that this is now their farming spot, and they want us out like, five minutes ago.”

Blondie glared, her own wand glowing an eldritch purple. “They wouldn’t dare.”

Their smirking tank turned to the girl, gently squeezing her wrist. “No, Marcie. Put it away. This isn’t a game. Power really has gotten to some people’s heads, and we risk serious problems if high levelers really want to grief us.”

“Shit,” the Javelineer said when he got a closer look at the five adventurers wearing fully rigged suits of powered armor crackling with eldritch currents, each of them carrying blasters far more powerful looking than the very few any of them had seen certain goblins carrying but were smart enough to tell absolutely no one. “Those boys clearly mean business.”

Instinctively the entire party fell behind the tank as the five elites closed the distance.

Then, so fast the kids were a bit nonplussed, the armored titans, each well over six feet tall, were looming over them.

“Did you kids really just kill a handful of orc scouts?”

The tank paled, his expression that of someone who thought he was hunting for tadpoles, only to see a great white shark filling up the whole damned pond. “Uh... sorry, honored Contender. We didn’t realize you had staked this territory. We’ll happily leave.”

The ochre colored powered armor gazed at the youth for long seconds before his mouthpiece broke out in tinny laughter. His whole group’s laughter washed over the youths who could only grimace.

Before crumpling to the ground with cries of dismay when the quintet quit holding back, allowing their killing aura to truly shine.

“I’m afraid you kids are way over your head.”

Their tank trembled, struggling to stand up once more, but unable to withstand the killing aura demanding absolute submission. “Please... we didn’t know!”

Red shook his head. “Oh, you knew, kid. You might like to pretend that you didn’t, that this was all some kind of game, and when you found that a worthless first generation loser could actually level up a bit, maybe it got to your head. But any fool can tell you kids are from Freetown, and you know damn well who runs Freetown, don’t you?”

Blondie sobbed, “What is he talking about?”

“Shit, he means the goblins,” the Javelineer sobbed. “You mean the goblins, right?”

Red looked toward his friends. “See,?I knew the kids would get it. Eventually,” he said, earning snorts from his friends. “And being as these are smart kids, I’m sure they know that the goblins have declared all out war on the elves. Which means that anyone who sides with the doomed elves is no friend of the goblins which puts them on the wrong side of the powers-that-be. And we all know what happens to dirt sucking scum that defies the natural order, don’t we?”

“Just put them out of their fucking misery already,” sighed a female voice from the smallest of the five power suits.

The tank’s eyes widened with horror. “Wait, what do you mean put us out of our misery? We were just filling a System quest! We didn’t do anything—No! Marci!”

Light flashed and the boy screamed in horror when the girl beside him collapsed, eyes wide with panic as blood shot out of her mouth, thanks to the massive hole where her stomach used to be, giving the boy before her a final despairing look before her eyes faded to lifelessness when the top of her skull was torn off in a second blast of plasma fire.

He inhaled for a desperate scream, what would have been a shout for his friends to flee for their lives and he’d hold off these monsters while he could, only to find that he couldn’t say a word. All he could do is gulp air that wouldn’t fill his lungs no matter how hard he tried, eyes bulging with hideous pain as something awful tore open his chest from behind him, puncturing his class-reinforced flesh and steel like it was less than nothing.

The air rang with cold laughter as his eyes were drawn to the black steel blade wedged in his chest, then he knew no more.

Tim laughed as he peeled off his helmet and licked his blood covered blade. “I fucking love the look in their eyes the instant before they realize that all their storybook idealism is absolute shit, that all dreams are nightmares, and we’re the biggest nightmare of their miserable lives.”

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The female among them shook her armored head. “You’re a sick puppy, you know that, Tim? I could have put them all out of their misery in the blink of an eye. They wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

“Yeah, Marcie, but where would the fun be in that?” Tim snorted, before his eyes lit up with fresh excitement. “Oh look, fresh meat!”

Red couldn’t help grinning underneath his visor. His blood brothers and sisters were definite characters and hotheads, the only kind who would work with a high-risk high-reward outfit like his own, but he loved them all like the family the were. Hell, some of them had even lifted themselves off trash-tier worlds like this one, even if none of them had been ascending, and forged themselves into dogs of war worthy of hunting beside him. He’d like to think he’d elevated a lot of worthy lives, even if Tim did sometimes push the limits of good taste, he thought with a smile.

If nothing else, his senses truly were sharp like a wolf’s, so when he turned his head and sniffed, all of them, even while cracking jokes at his savage ways, were turning right along with him, blasters raised.

Red whistled at the sight before him. “Gotta give him this one, Marcie,” he said over his intercom as a savage looking elf emerged from a cove of trees that abruptly burst into flame behind him. Red’s eyes widened as his easygoing confidence twisted into eerie uncertainty.

“What the fuck happened to him?” Bethany whispered, though her blaster was right were it needed to be, and Red wholely agreed. The kid was glowing hot, and fully kitted out in Mithril armaments with a nodachi secured to what was an actual dragonhide hilt.

“Fuck, that kid’s glowing with hyperion radiation so hot he should be dead!” Narl cursed. “What kind of fucked up Contender shit is this?”

“The bleeding kind!” Tim hooted, and immediately charged forward with his knife at the ready at speeds no low level White-tier Classer could hope to follow.

“You killed them.” The words echoed strangely. Hardly a whisper, yet they thrummed against Red’s soul.

The boy tilted his head, tears of fire dripping from his eyes. “You butchered them all in cold blo—”

His words were cut off when Tim suddenly appeared behind him, whipping out his blade in a slash that would have torn out the kids throat in an instant.

“Get back here, Tim,” Red shouted. “He’s too hot, no point in fucking around wi—”

Red’s words cut off in surprise to see Tim frowning down in puzzlement, as if unable to believe that he missed.

Then Red blanched. Seeing the boy suddenly appear behind Tim.

“Fuck, he’s Bronze! Get the fuck back here, Tim! Open fire when Tim’s Cle—”

Red stumbled back with a cry when his visor flared white hot before his mask was filled with crackling lights and integrity breach warnings.

His heart pounded in his chest, choking down the ball of tightening panic crawling up his throat as he tore off his helmet as his friends screamed.

“Blinding flash! How?”

“I’m blind! I’m blind!”

“Transcendent attack! The flash wiped out our electromana circuits!” Spoke the panicked, nasally voice of Glin.

“Take off your helms!” Red shouted in a voice he swore wasn’t a scream. “Transcendent flare wiped out the electromana circuitry!”

“Shit... oh shit oh shit!” Bethany whimpered, Red seeing her looking just as wide-eyed, innocent and beautiful as the academy grad so filled with big ideas and even bigger breasts that he had so enjoyed recruiting into his company and his bedroom shortly thereafter, more than pleased when she had shown the initiative and gumption to be more than just a bed-warmer, training her ass off until she became a valued part of their team.

He wouldn’t say he loved her. Love was fool’s weakness. But maybe Red did position himself in front of her as he shouted orders.

“Narl! Glin! Fall Back! Weapon status!”

“I’m good!” Narl said.

“Yeah, she’s in one piece,” Glin, wearing bifocals of all things when his helmet was off, said with a relieved smile as he patted his weapon.

Yet whatever relief Red felt was tempered by the horrified realization that Tim was nowhere to be seen.

Just the shriek in his party interface, a backlash of pain he hadn’t had to feel since long before he ever ascended to Bronze.

Red glared at the culprit just... standing there. As if that glowing doomed elf had no fear at all.

Only when Red caught his gaze did the boy step forward. Just a single step, a youth almost half a foot smaller than Red’s six and a half foot frame. And Red somehow found himself stepping back, roaring fury he was surprised to find himself screaming aloud.

“What did you do to Tim, you twisted motherfucker? What did you do?”

The youth glared at them with a look that chilled Red to the quick.

“Why did you kill those children?”

“Because that’s our job, you twisted psychotic fuck! Orcs are claiming this territory, and no one interferes! Greed’s orders!” Red said, snarling as he shook off the last of his fear. The young Bronze might have deadly right hook, but that didn’t mean he was match for—

You have saved versus sneak attack! You have been struck by a Glancing Blow.

You have been critically struck by Transcendant Flame!

The awful words filled Red’s world as he was consumed by a pain so hideous and utter it was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. His armor? Nothing. Like a candle burning through paper. And the flesh underneath? Not just gone, but far worse. He was now missing parts of himself. His right hip and a massive part of his glutimus maximus simply no longer existed. He could even see it on his character sheet. Parts of his body in red. Marked off. Like a curse or... as if it had never been there at all. As if he had always been a crippled man with a mangled smoking ruin of a right leg that had somehow still managed to run a mercenary crew for almost a century.

His mind screamed at the violation beyond anything he could have ever fathomed. The pain a constant hideous thing that did not abate, his natural regeneration keeping adverse cascades from causing organ collapse, but doing nothing to heal the hideous damage done.

Thoughts of the galaxy’s most prestigious hospitals and enhancement surgeons flashed before his disbelieving eyes. If he somehow managed to get out of this alive...

“No, foolish boy! Not fire! THAT path you already know.” Snapped an imperious sounding voice as an elven woman dressed in exotic formfitting armor radiating the power of a Silver emerged out of nowhere, yet somehow filled the entire clearing with her presence.

Marcie gave a panicked cry. “No, No, it can’t be you. He swore to us you weren’t here. He swore this was a clean sight!” She sobbed, raising her arms and stumbling back even as the wild-looking youth that had caught both Red and Tim so off guard just stood there, closed his eyes, and appeared to be meditating, of all things.

Narl and Glin exchanged looks, before turning to Red, who forced a nod through his pain.

Even if he knew he was somehow in way over his head with what should have been the easiest of assignments, even he knew the rules. No Silver could attack Bronze or White without provocation in an Ascending world, or the System itself would banish them, at least for a time.

Unless of course that was all bullshit, just another subtle lie he had somehow absorbed while hobnobbing with the most corrupt assholes in the local cluster, one in particular willing to pay so damned much to help put the elves in their place.

As if she could read his mind, the ancient Winter Queen chuckled coldly. “Don’t worry, foolish children. I won’t lift a finger to help my deliciously savage boy. If you can best him? You’ve earned everything coming to you. And if you fail to do so?” Her laughter was like a winter gale. “Then you truly will be getting what’s coming to you.

Red’s eyes widened in alarm. “No, don’t do it. Don’t!” He caught the gaze of the youth now peering at him so coldly. As if he were a bug. Less than nothing. And despite the agony of his hip and his growing panic, his tongue sometimes had a mind of it’s own.

“So what if we killed those fools by your feet? They were trash! Nothing! You think I’m a monster, fuckwad? Half my men are diamonds from the rough I rescued from shit holes like this! All of them with complete sets of five, six, even seven nodes! All of them got their second chance. But this trash? No, fool! Not one of them had a complete nodal set. None of them would ever ascend!”

His words weren’t a guilty conscience, of course. He knew he was justified in his actions. Always had been. Those kids wouldn’t have lasted more than a year before they were slowly ground to dust, or their souls tricked free and torn away by one goblin consortium or demonic infestation or another. What he had done was sheer them free of a doomed existence where they might be reborn in safer times. Hell, save for Tim having his fun, he had done that trash a fucking favor.

“You’re right,” Eric said with an eerie lilt to his voice. “None of those children will ever ascend. None of them will know what it’s like to taste true power. What it’s like to understand the transcendent underpinnings of higher order concepts. Or what it feels like to avenge their deaths against the monsters that took their lives for NO REASON!”

At that very moment Narl and Glin struck, just as Red knew they would, he himself having also positioned his blaster, patiently letting the fool blather on and on with his self-righteous morality as he shone so brightly against the swaying grass behind him and all three of them fired enough white-hot plasma to send a Level 15 Bronze to the grave.

And they would know.

“Got you, motherfuck—” Narl’s words and Red’s jubilation where instantly cut off when the man crumpled and began to shiver and groan.

Red’s eyes widened with dismay.

That kid was fast. So fucking fast.

Level 20 Bronze combat-classer fast.

Yet his second blow hadn’t killed Narl. It had barely marked his armor for all that he wasn’t doing much more than groaning.

“Narl!” Marcie screamed. “Get back here!”

But it was clear when the elf casually picked up the fully armored groaning Narl and tossed him into the air a good dozen feet that his Strength was also way beyond what any White tier should have.

Narl cried out, clearly making the most of his hang time to brace himself for a hard landing and a furious rebuttal, but of course the kid had positioned himself right behind Narl, and when the latter twisted around, it was to go cartwheeling back with a groan when the boy’s right hook sent Narl flying, and he was now flopping and spasming on the ground, froth streaming from his lips.

“What did you do?” Marcie shrieked.

“I took his heat,” Eric admitted. “And gave him bitter cold in its stead. Only my right hook was an easy head shot, which meant that his Bronze-tier brain just gave me a good portion of its heat.”

“NO, you mon—” Her horrified words were cut off when Eric was suddenly in front of her, ripping her blaster from her hands and tossing it behind him as effortlessly as Red could take candy from his nephew. “No, you’re just a native! How can yo—”

Eric’s face twisted in a furious snarl. Red lurched back, seeing fangs and serrated teeth that went on and on in a face that looked like it could devour him in a single gulp as a monstrous right hook cracked Marcie’s armor, all of it shorting out as if the mana batteries had been instantly drained. Now it was Marcie spasming and twitching upon the ground, her body temperature having abruptly dipped, her interface sheet showing multiple potency pools partially drained.

“Boss, how the fuck’s he doing this?” Glin shouted, as if forgetting that his helmet was off and he no longer had comms.

Before Ron could even think of an answer, that awful creature of ice, winter, and chilling tales applauded the sylvan boy like the most innocent of damsels. “Yes! That is the way of it, Eric. Steal their heat, their potency, their strength, speed, their very lives! Take it all, Eric. Take it and master Winter’s blessing!”

Time seemed to slow for Ron as he sensed their true peril, that no matter how many successful runs they had completed, all it took was one bad score to spell their end. He never should have underestimated this bizarre looking wildcard for even a second. He should have demanded they all strike with absolute killing intent the instant they spot their targets and never even think of playing with their prey.

It was because they had underestimated their opponent, obviously a pawn of Winter, that this had happened. It was a mistake that Ron was determined he’d never repeat, even as he uttered his penultimate phrase that had saved his life more than once as a White, and was totally worth the node invested.

“Second Wind,” he whispered, and instantly their wounds began to heal. Even Ron’s... or at least he realized he could walk to his immense relief, and even if it was just a force construct that would fade by night’s end... it was more than enough to do what needed doing.

He shared a look with eyes both desperate and determined as they all locked gazes and sights on the wild-eyed elf before them.

“PUT HIM DOWN!”

The night lit up with plasma fire and the tinkling laughter of the Winter Queen.