“Calm down, Craig, calm down!” I shouted. Craig was losing his shit right now. He was spinning around trying to figure out exactly where the hell he was.

“CJ!” I shouted, “calm your shit!”

He looked up at me. His name was Craig Jennings. I usually called him Craig but I would alternate between that and CJ.

“Where the fuck are we?!” CJ asked. He was now swearing profusely. His baggy grey t-shirt and khaki shorts were soaked. He had on a pair of dirt white Crocs to go with them and he was wearing on old Circle C Ranch trucker hat. He was probably my best friend in the world and we had been through some shit over the last couple of years.

“How long has it been since you saw me?” I asked.

“What do you mean, bro? We were standing near the orb, it started acting super weird, you touched it, and then zapped away,” he said as he started to calm down.

“As soon as you went through, a bunch of, like, portals or something opened around the orb. Some giant lizard-headed alien things appeared all around it. I started to run and then I just showed up here. It has literally been like 30 seconds since I saw you last,” he said. “Andy, where exactly are we?” he asked nervously.

“It’s a long story but I'll try to fill you in. To start, it’s been about 10 hours for me and I’ve been through some crazy shit,” I shrugged. I proceeded to catch CJ up on everything that happened.

When I got to my interface and stats, he perked up. CJ was a big gamer before the drop and loved this sort of scenario.

“So, in summary, we are in a space dungeon and it's up to us to try and stop the end of the world,” I shrugged.

“Where is my interface?” CJ asked.

“And this is where the curse comes in,” Tiff spoke up.

CJ had noticed her; I can’t blame him it was hard not to.

“He won’t be given an interface or stat increases,” Tiff added. “He is just a normal, everyday human. I’m not sure what value he can bring.”

“Hey, I can bring value!” CJ said with an offended tone.

“If he dies, you lose the gear, so it’s best if he stays on the ship. Maybe Elvis can find something useful for him to do,” Tiff said while looking at CJ with a bit of disdain.

“Look man, there is a lot of dangerous crazy stuff out here; I don’t even know the half of it. I have a ship and we're about to start figuring out what to do next. You can find a cabin and settle in until we find out how you can help but I can’t let you leave the ship for now. There is nowhere for you to go anyhow. We're in an alternate dimension,” I explained to CJ.

“I get it,” he replied, “I’m just happy to have gotten away from those crazy lizard men.”

“Those were the Lacertines,” Tiff said, “I imagine they sent an advanced team to prepare for The Reaping. They will begin to move into populated areas and cull the population. They are assuming they will easily come out on top of this whole thing. Luckily, the time dilation will mean things move very slowly back on Earth.” She looked at CJ and I, “It’s possible you two could be here for years but I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about Earth for now.”

After getting CJ up to speed and talking through some of the finer points of where I currently stand, we moved on to the task at hand: gear.

As I walked up to the Havok Bringer Battle Armor, the platform spun so that the front of the armor was facing me.

“This is sweet,” I said, walking around the armor and inspecting it.

“Captain can equip armor whenever ready,” Elvis said.

“What was that?” CJ asked.

“Oh yeah, that’s Elvis. He is the ship AI.”

“You NUB!” Elvis said to CJ.

“Hey, what the fuck?!” CJ responded.

“It’s a naval term,” I sighed and said to CJ, “it means Non-Useful Body. Don’t worry he will get used to you.”

“Elvis, you need to make sure you get CJ up to speed so he can help with things around here. He is a smart guy and he will be super useful,” I said looking up.

“Captain says do it, Elvis will do it,” Elvis replied.

“How do I equip it?” I asked.

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“It’s probably Nano tech,” Tiff replied. “Once you touch it, it should be genetically bound. You won’t have to take it on and off. It will have a neural response system. It will somewhat alter your physiology but on the molecular level. It's hard to explain; you will just have to do it.”

“Well things can’t get any weirder so why not?” I said as I reached up to touch the battle suit.

As soon as I made contact, the suit disintegrated. It became a cloud of black powder. It covered my body, entered my eyes, nose, and mouth. I was absorbing the entire suit. I screamed in pain as I fell to my knees.

“It’s killing him!” CJ shouted as he ran to me, “we gotta stop it!”

“It has to complete the initiation process!” Tiff warned, “we couldn’t stop it now if we wanted to; We just have to let it happen.”

I was now in the fetal position; I couldn’t breathe. I could no longer scream as the nano tech molecules of the suit entered my lungs. It was an intense, seemingly never-ending pain. I passed out.

I woke up. The first thing I did was check my interface. My health and stamina bars were still maxed out but something was different. The blue circle that sat beside my health and stamina bars now had a green circle around it.

“Ugh,” I groaned as I rolled up onto my knees, “that sucked.”

“Bro! Are you okay?” CJ said, kneeling beside me.

“Yeah, I’m good. No lasting damage," I replied. “Hey, Tiff, we haven’t discussed it yet but there is a blue bubble beside my health and stamina bars and now it's outlined with a green bar. What is that?”

“The blue bubble is your ability meter; you can use abilities as long as it is full. Stamina and intelligence will help create a bigger pool for you to pull from. I think the green bar outlining it is your battle suit status; sort of like a health bar for your suit,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll need more info on the ability meter later, but for now, how do I equip the suit?” I asked.

“It should work like everything else. Focus on the suit. There may be a prompt on your interface or it may just be a mental command," she replied.

I stood up and looked at CJ. “Give me some space," I said. I focused on the suit; it was weird. I could feel it inside me. Not in a particular place inside me, more like it was everywhere inside me all at once. As I focused, I heard a computerized voice in my head: “Havok Bringer activated”.

Immediately the armor was just there. It didn’t feel like I was wearing it, it felt like I was the armor. “Holy shit!” I said laughing. My interface changed. Everything was outlined in red and I now had targeting data on my screen. There were environmental readings and altimeter, everything that an orbital drop assassin would need I assumed.

“Dude, you’re glowing!” CJ said, “you look badass!”

I stepped over to one of the Havok Hound armor lockers. It was a stainless metal cabinet. The suit was black with what looked to be reinforced armor sections covering all of my vital areas. The suit was big but still very tactical. I guessed I was standing nearly 7 feet tall now. Between the plates of armor covering my torso, arms, and legs, the armor glowed lava orange. The helmet had an angled faceplate that also glowed orange with a glowing orange stripe on the top, all the way to the rear of the helmet. I had some sort of pistol on my left leg in an enclosed holster. I could feel something on my back, like a booster pack or jet pack, for lack of a better term.

“I do look badass!” I said as I looked at my hands now fully encased in the armor.

“Now, equip the daggers,” Tiff said.

Just like the battle armor, I thought about the daggers and they appeared in my hands. They were called daggers but these things seemed huge for something called a dagger. They were approximately two feet long and the handle was a black sort of carbon fiber like material. The blades were made of something I didn’t recognize. It looked like some sort of obsidian rock, and instead of smooth sharp blades, it looked like they had been made by chipping the stone to an edge. The blade curved to a very sharp point and there was a black aura emanating from the blades, almost like a black flame.

I could feel them pulsing lightly in my hands as I held them.

“Those shouldn’t be here,” Tiff said, “someone is gaming the system, and you are benefitting for now, but those should not be here.”

I almost didn’t even hear her. I was amazed as I looked at my reflection. I could feel the power of this suit, I could feel the potential.

“Hey Tiff, the suit has a level, too. It's Level 4, just like me. Does that mean that it will get stronger?” I asked.

“Yes, the suit will level up with you. As I said, it's genetically bound to you. There will be times where you will need to fight without the suit and, in those situations, your enhanced stats will be required. The extra stats will also help you while you have the armor equipped. After all, you are still the same person under that armor and, while the suit does enhance speed and strength while activated, you will need every edge you can get in the upcoming fight.”

“I can see that the suit’s bar is dropping,” I said. It had started to slowly drop down and it was at about 80% now.

“That explains a lot,” Tiff said, “you’ve been in the armor for about a minute so, right now, at Level 3, it looks like you get about 5 minutes of use out of it. You need to make sure you use it only when you absolutely need it. I’m sure there is some sort of cool down between uses. Later we can go to the VCR room and test it out properly,” she said.

“VCR room?” I asked, looking back and forth with CJ.

“Yes, I saw it earlier down the hall from the armory. It stands for Virtual Combat Readiness room. You can use it for sparring and testing your suit before live combat.”

“Alright. I guess I’ll need to learn to fight properly," I shrugged.

I felt more prepared for whatever we would be dealing with next.

“How do I store the daggers?” I asked.

“There are sheaths on your back; just put them in there and they will be removed with the armor. You can equip them and unequip them on command. You have a trans-dimensional storage feature that allows you to store non sentient items as long as they are equipped to you. Sorry, you can’t just store any random item you pick up,” she replied.

With a quick mental command, the armor and daggers disappeared.

“We need to let Elvis brief us on the next step of this dungeon. I assume we should have coordinates to Level 1 and an idea of what to do next. Before we do that, I think everyone should try to get some sleep. CJ, like I said before, we have several open cabins. You can pick any of them. Let’s all get some sleep, then we can meet in the galley for some food before we go to the bridge for briefing," I said.

With that, I headed back to my quarters. I needed sleep. I needed to reset and really reflect on what I had been through in the last half day.

After that, it would be time to start thinking about how to deploy the Havok Bringer.