Author’s Note: This is my first foray into story writing. I hope everyone enjoys and I welcome constructive criticism and questions.
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Prologue 1
A furious battle was raging as I moved my hands along the controls around me, I needed to make sure that everything was ready when the time came. I kept an eye on the view screens showing my fellow guild members as they fulfilled their own roles. I watch particularly closely at the small Saboteur squad as they were hacking at the console terminals that were connected to the enemy’s shield generator. They were being swarmed by the spider looking robots while the Enforcer and Empath squad surrounded and protected them. A quick glance at the corner of the view screen told me that the Attack squad that made up the rest of the guild members was waiting at their proper location too.
Woops, almost let myself get a bit too distracted there. I quickly engaged the mech’s thrusters and fly in reverse, dodging out of the way of the giant metal foot that crashed down on the location where I had just been. Damn, this Behemoth Titan mech didn’t know how to be a good boy and just stay still.
As I controlled my mech I started skating around with the thrusters making the Behemoth move around to catch me. I made sure to use the spare gun in the mech’s left hand to keep its attention by firing one bullet every few seconds. This would be a lot easier to do if I could use the right as well but that was out of the question right now.
I noticed a flare shoot up in the air from the Saboteurs. Good, phase 1 is done and it means the shield could be brought down at any time. This meant I could now move beyond being simply distraction and it was now time to bring this thing down.
I tossed aside the gun from the left arm and reached down to grab one of the blades attached there. For the first time since the fight began I boosted toward the Behemoth, dodging the sporadic weapon fire that tried to rain down on my position. I flew straight between its legs and quickly turned around now that I was behind it. Some of the missile launcher emplacements on its back fired, but they had no guidance system so they were easy to dodge. The giant’s steps resounded as it tried to quickly turn to face me, not that it would get the chance to.
I flipped the switch on the override for the mech thrusters to overcharge. There would only be one chance at getting this right and if I failed we’d probably have to come back tomorrow to try again. I sent the signal for the shields to come down. I grasped the controls and aimed my mech at the place on the Behemoth where the armor layers were thinnest.
As soon as I saw a flicker in the air around the Behemoth I unleashed the overcharged thruster boost I had been holding. I cleared the 500 meter distance and slashed out with the blade I had been holding in my left arm. The blade dug into the Behemoth, and I expended all the power in the arm to make the hole as large as I could. The slashed open section was only around 10 meters long and 4 meters wide, but it was all I needed.
Using the blade to brace myself as I hung a good 150 meters in the air, I finally used the right arm that up until now had been unusable. I inserted the barrel of the shoulder mounted super-heated plasma cannon into the gap and fired.
I observed as armor layer after armor layer in front of me was torn through in seconds. The knife finally came loose and I activated the emergency thrusters in an effort to hold aim on the precise spot as long as possible. I heard sounds which could only be the Attack squad moving into action.
The plasma cannon was draining in power rapidly, but I could tell that it was almost through. At a corner of the view screen was a timer displaying estimated time until the shield went back up. It was current displaying exactly a minute, so it was going to be a close call.
It was at this point that I saw it. The plasma cannon had broke through to the core deep inside the Behemoth. I used the last bit of energy in the cannon to hit the inner reinforcements and defenses protecting the core. It was at this point that I saw the Behemoth’s hand reach down and grab my mech and pull it off its back. Damn, at least my role in this is done. As I felt the mech begin to be crushed around me, I pulled the eject switch and the cockpit pod is launched out.
I watched as the Attack squad with their jetpacks flew into the opening to the core and began their all out attack. I glanced at the estimated time until shield power would be back and saw 14 seconds left.
10 seconds left.
5 seconds left.
3 seconds left.
It was at this point that a rumbling explosion was heard and the Behemoth began toppling over.
*Achievements Unlocked* -Destroy the Behemoth Titan with your company only bringing a single mech
-Destroy the Behemoth Titan without allowing its shield to come back up
*Title unlocked* -For unlocking all achievements related to the Behemoth Titan you have earned the title Titan Slayer
There was a loud roar of cheers over the company com channel as everyone got their achievements and title. I didn’t bother joining in and contented myself with just a wide smile. This was after all the last boss title I had been missing.
Over the com I heard as our company boss Tam brought everyone back to order. “Ok excellent work everyone, especially Seri with the mech piloting. Now let’s salvage the usable weapons and materials and get out of here and go celebrate!”
Fresh cheers erupted and I decided I probably shouldn’t be sitting around either and started unstrapping myself from my pilot seat.
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“Ahh my baby! How could I have let this happen to you!” I was in despair as I looked at the crushed pile of metal that used to be my prized mech.
We had finished transporting the materials and other acquired loot to the hangar on our capital class starship. The remains of my poor mech were also there, though there wasn’t much that was salvageable from it.
“It’s fine, Seri. We can just build you a new one with the materials gotten from the Behemoth.” Tam said as he looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
“You just don’t understand, Tam! I can’t just replace my baby so easily! Plus, even if we do rebuild it, that would take about a month and the big game update is finally next week. What am I going to do without my mech for the start of the update!?”
“Just do what you always do, Princess. You don’t need your mech, and you know it. If anything you’re stronger without the thing” A new artificial sounding voice cut in.
“Shut up Carson, you tin can! I’m not talking with you, and I told you not to call me that.” I glared at the human sized robot that walked up to us.
“Oi. That’s going a bit far Princess. I’m a proud Guardian, not some tin can.”
“You’re just a piece of a scrap metal to me, so shut up Carson.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Now now, no reason for fighting you two. He has a point though, Seri. You’re perfectly capable of exploring new systems without your mech.”
“But what if I come across an enemy impossible to take care of with just my personal weapons. That’s what my baby is supposed to be for.”
“Seri, I’ll splurge a bit and hire some of the best to get the mech rebuilt in two weeks, rather than a month. Is that good enough for you?”
“I guess it’s ok.” I grumbled. I knew I was pouting like a child, but I couldn’t help it. I decided to change the subject. “Anyway leader, what does your contact in the company know about the big secret update that is coming? I mean, there’s so many rumors after all.”
“Hey, my contact isn’t some all knowing guy, he’s just one of the hired contract testers. He only knows about what he’s paid to test. He’s basically told me that he can’t reveal anything this time because the changes are going to be big. He told me to just wait and see it for myself.”
“Damn I was hoping for better than that. I wanted to try to prepare as much supplies and other goods as possible on my personal ship before next week. Even small hints about the future content could save me a lot of grinding.”
“Well the only small hint he actually told me was that the game was going to become more realistic, but he wouldn’t say in what way.”
“More realistic, huh? That could mean any number of possibilities. I mean the NPCs are already really realistic but the tech and crafting is a bit simplified. Well whatever, I’m going to head to my ship to log out. Make sure my mech order gets sent out, you have a copy of the specs right, I want my baby rebuilt exactly how it was. I’ll be very upset if I find out you forgot.”
“Don’t worry so much. I’ll send the order right now, and yes I have a copy of the specs.”
I lifted my right hand in a gesture of farewell to Tam while using my left hand to flip off Carson. Before he could react, I turned and ran out of the large hangar and headed to the smaller hangar that served as my personal base and where my own ship was docked. <((This series is only officially posted to royalroad.com. If you are reading this series on any other website, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual. If you have paid money for this story, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.))>
I made my way through the ship exchanging high-fives and cheers with the company members I came across. When I reached the door and placed my palm on the scanner, the door unlocked and I stepped through, hearing the door lock behind me. Ahead of me was my personal starship that I had named the Lullaby, a frigate class which was probably too big for me to use alone but it was the smallest ship I could find with a mech hangar bay.
I called out “Lynn, I’m home, open the door.” At my words the airlock opens and a small ramp begins to lower toward the ground by my feet. I ignored the ramp and jumped easily up and into the door.
A small pink hologram of a girl that looked to be about 18 appeared in front of me. Her hair was long and straight. She was also wearing what appeared to be a simple dress. She had an angry look on her face as she glared at me.
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“Mistress, how many times have I told you to use the ramp!? Don’t just jump straight into the ship, you could get hurt!” Lynn scolded.
“Calm down Lynn, I’m not going to get hurt by a simple 5 meter jump. There’s more important things to worry about right now. Can you give me the current list of materials and supplies we have stored on board?”
I watched as she tilted her head as she processed the request and prepared the result for me. As she took care of that, I started walking toward the ship’s canteen to get a snack and drink, her little hologram projection floating along behind me. As I reached the canteen the door opened and I headed towards my sweets cabinets. I opened the doors and tried to decide what I felt like having. I settled on a package of chocolate chip cookies and put a handful on a nearby plate. Snack prepared, it’s time for the drink, I headed to the wine rack and grabbed a bottle of wine that is similar to a banyuls wine that is sold in the real world, it’s an excellent wine to go with these cookies. I opened the bottle and with my now free hand I grabbed a glass and fill it.
I sat down at the table and began to enjoy my cookies and savor my wine. About a minute into my reverie my ship AI interrupted “Mistress, I finished reviewing...ahh you just finished working and you’re already drinking!?”
I sighed “Lynn, I don’t want a lecture right now, can you just give me the info.” I could tell she wanted to go into lecture mode anyway despite my words but then sighed herself and brought up a holo screen in front of me.
“Mistress, we’re well stocked on food, though you might want to increase the supply of real food. We have enough of your sweets to last over a year but the real food we only have about two months worth.”
“Hey, sweets are a perfectly legitimate source of nutrition.”
“No Mistress, they are not. As for materials for maintenance and the synthesizer, most everything is at optimum levels though we still have room to pack in extra. We are critically short of etherenite and quasigen though, so we’ll need to purchase or collect more of those.”
“I see.” I continued running my eyes down the list of materials. We really were well stocked on everything so there’s honestly not too much for me to do in the next week or four weeks as it would be in game. I started tapping my boot against the floor as I considered my options.
I stopped and a sweep of my hand cancelled the holo screen. “Alright Lynn, I have a general idea for what we’re going to be doing until the government opens up the new systems for exploration, but first though I have a question. Since my baby is destroyed, we now have a whole empty mech hangar on board. Give me your best estimate of how much extra materials we can store in there of the common stuff we use the most of with a quick conversion of the space to hold it all?”
Lynn went back into thinking mode and I went back to enjoying my cookies and wine, just as planned.
This time I managed to finish my treat without further interruption. I stood up, walked over to the corner of the room and put the glass and plate into the dishwasher unit. I noticed the dishwasher was getting full, but figured I’d just tell Lynn to have one of the maintenance droids take care of it later.
Lynn popped up back in front of me with another holo screen. “Here Mistress. This is the best use of the space I calculated based on the materials we use the most of.”
I gave the list a quick perusal. Ananium, chromanite, destabilized phonite, haloril, high-density aquanite, hyponite, titanil, and vibromite. Lynn had listed all the quantities for me so I saved a copy of the data on the screen to my terminal for use later.
“Alright. First we’ll head to the nearest station, that should be the Felicity Colony. I should be able to purchase all of this there, including the etherenite we need. The quasigen might be a bit harder to get since it’s found closer to the edge of known space. Since we’re already going to be headed to the edge of known space though, to be ready for when the ban for exploration lifts in four weeks, we’ll just gather that there. Now that I think about it, we’ll probably have to stock up on food at Felicity while we’re there since you won’t let me live on sweets.” I gave a nod to myself, satisfied with my plan.
“That sounds workable Mistress, would you like to pilot the ship to Felicity or shall I?”
I shook my head and gave Lynn a weary smile “You can take care of it, I’m going to go to my room and change and then get some sleep. Today has been a long enough day already.”
Lynn gave me a smile of her own, “Yes Mistress. When you next wake up we’ll be at Felicity. I’ll have the maintenance droids start remodeling the mech hangar into a temporary cargo while on route.” Lynn’s hologram vanished and I heard the sounds as the ship’s systems began starting up and preparing for our flight.
I walked along the hall of the ship toward where my room was located. Since I was the only living person on board I had converted a number of crew bedrooms into one larger bedroom for myself. The rest of the crew rooms I had converted into extra supply rooms.
My door opened and I walked in, immediately feeling the difference as I felt the very comfortable atmosphere of my room. Unlike the rest of the ship, I kept my room at what I felt was the perfect cold temperature, sadly it took too much energy from the ship’s core for me to keep the rest of the ship the same. No longer walking on metal floors but cushy carpet, I slipped off my flight jacket and shirt and tossed them toward the hamper in the corner. Next, I unzipped, slipped my boots off and sat them next to some of my other pairs of boots by the shoe rack. I slipped off my shorts and threw them at the hamper as well.
Due to how my character had been created, I walked naturally on my toes not even minding that I was no longer wearing the 10cm heeled boots. I moved over to my mirror and gazed at my character’s reflection in it. My character Seri had a bit of a weird appearance, but after a decade in the real world which translated to four decades in game I was more than used to it. The long elf like ears, the small horns on the forehead, the small metal encased crystal implanted in the forehead between the horns, the bright violet and teal heterochromia eyes, the very pale skin and the various dark black markings that stood out on it, and the very long, dark purple hair that was currently tied in a simple ponytail. If you ignored all those odd features, she otherwise simply looked like an adorable young teenage girl of maybe 14 or 15, only 149 cm with a modest chest and figure.
Back when the game had come out, I had struggled between which race to choose. Humans were the normal, average at everything race. That was too boring of an option for me. Guardians were the humanoid robot race that specialized in taking hits with their strong builds, but I had played a tank in my previous VRMMORPG and didn’t want to do so again in this one. I had crossed off all the races that were too inhuman, since I couldn’t see playing them for a long period of time and eventually I got to the last on the list, the Experiment race.
This race had a lot of extra customization options for how they could look and also high stat growths in the stats that would be considered necessary for damage dealing. On the other hand, their ability to take hits was next to non existent. An Experiment might have a quarter of the health pool of a Guardian, if that, while boasting maybe only a 15 or 20% increase in the stats that helped determine damage dealt over the next strongest races. They were the epitome of the glass cannon.
I didn’t bother selecting one of the premade Experiment types, and elected to create a unique one. After a few hours of adjusting and making my way through the options, Seri--or Experiment S341 as I titled her--was fully customized and brought into being, and had a whole elaborate role playing backstory that I had tossed in for fun. The game creators had promised that NPCs would have reactions to backstory info if you submitted it, so I decided to try it out.
I had been amazed as I started playing that some of the starter NPCs had actually wept when they performed the background checks before assigning me training. I mean, I might have gone a bit overboard with it, talking about how she had gone through torturous experiments since birth in an illegal lab. And that when the government had rescued her when she was fourteen she had been completely dysfunctional and required eight long years of rehabilitation before she was allowed to go free to attempt to live a normal life. I had quickly found myself the center of attention at the training center, as instructors offered me specialized courses and any extra help I might need. Other players, noticing the extra attention I was being given, asked me what I had done but I was too embarrassed to share the tale of tragedy I had designed for my character so I just kept quiet.
It had been a really long journey since those days. Now my character Seri was one of the most well known and respected mercenaries in the game. I sighed, I was letting myself get bogged down in nostalgia. I was still just standing here in my underwear too. I took off my personal shield equipment and set them on the nightstand beside my big bed. I picked up my nightgown that was lying folded on the bed and slipped it over my head, pulling my hair out afterwards. I sat down on the edge of my bed and opened my status screen.
Name: Seri Race: Experiment S341(Unique) Displayed Title: Sniper Princess ⏬ Class: Pilot L100 ⏬ Subclass: Technician L100 ⏬ Vitality: 2040 Psi Energy: 8355 Physique: 562 Endurance: 158 Willpower: 749 Expertise: 691 Resilience: 184 Grit: 346
I swapped my class and subclass back to my usual Ranger and Gunner and closed the screen. I slid under my nice, comfy covers and settled myself down with my many fluffy pillows. My room lights automatically dimmed and I mumbled “Log out”.