Raymond Everington was no liar.

A single word whispered in the ear of an attendant granted them access to a long hallway lined with purple LED lights at about head height. The lights guided them through a twisting hall before opening out into a circular room with five doors leading away from the central space. Each door was guarded by an attendant with a tray of towels in one hand and a plate of appetizers in the other. As Chase entered, a cackling couple exited the door on the far left. They were basically wrapped around each other, which made Chase kind of want to gag, but he couldn’t help noticing the two servants following after them with bags of armour (or in this case, robes) in their hands.

Private paradise, Raymond had called it.

They were approached by an attendant dressed in a white suit with a diamond necklace around his neck. Unlike the diamonds on Kim’s dress, these were undoubtedly real.

“Good evening, Mr Everington and company. Would you care to enter one of our private viewing areas?”

Raymond stepped forward, pumping the attendant’s hand up and down and nearly yanking him off his feet.

“Love to, my friend. Watcha got for us?”

The attendant tapped at a tablet, glanced at the attendants by the doors, then turned back. “The Volcano Room, Blizzard Hall, Jester’s Court, and Lover’s New York.”

“Oh, fantastic,” Raymond drawled. “Best not let these two into New York or they’ll never leave, eh? Eh?” He paused to clutch his belly in a fit of laughter. “No, no, dearie me. Let’s see, here, yes…They’ll go for the Volcano Room?” He glanced at Chase and Kim for confirmation.

Chase nodded. Kim smiled and smoothed out her hair. Their guide was generous and vivid, but his odd antics and sheer volume were getting tiring.

Finally, Raymond gave them both a business card, hugged them goodbye, and returned to the main room. The attendant opened the door to the Volcano Room, handed them a warm towel each and a plate of appetizers, then ushered them in.

Silence reigned.

They both took a moment to slump into cushy armchairs and relax. Chase threw off his boiling suit jacket and Kim took out the complex of hair ties and bobby pins holding her hair in place. It cascaded down her shoulders and spread over the back of the chair.

“Sweet relief,” she mumbled. “If you ever grow your hair out — and please don’t take that as an invitation — never style it so it all sits on top of your head. This headache is gonna murder me.”

Chase stopped his eyelids from drooping shut and climbed back onto his feet. He’d made it to paradise, so he figured he’d better enjoy it.

As Raymond had indicated, they weren’t in just one room. Instead, they had a suite all to themselves, in which each room allowed one to view the Lounge’s parade of armours in a different setting. The first room was relatively simple, though after the assault to his senses that the lobby had been, he’d probably categorise a raging carnival as a ‘relatively simple’ setting.

He focused on what he was here for. The armours. They drifted across one wall, tempting him with their infinite combinations of colours, styles, enchantments and stats. Kim had picked up a tablet from the quartz side table next to her armchair and was messing with the settings.

“Shall I order champagne?” she asked. “I can do it from here, look.”

“Don’t—” He stopped as she held out the tablet and pressed ‘Order’ on a bottle of champagne. There was no price next to it, which meant it was either complementary or such an ungodly price that Chase didn’t want to know.

“I thought you said you had a headache!” Chase cried. “What if it costs more than the armour? Was it French?” His tone dropped. “Was it…Spanish…?”

Almost straight away, there was a light rap on the door and a waiter entered, holding a tray with two champagne glasses, a cup of strawberries and their bottle of champagne. He announced it as originating from a vineyard in New Zealand, set it down, then scampered out in the same breath.

Kim angled the bottle toward the armour display and wrangled with the cork. “Shall I shoot this at one of them? It’ll be a nice test to see how strong the stuff is.”

“You spill a single drop of that and I’ll cry. Pour me a tiny sip of it, please.”

Finally, Chase turned to the armours. He didn’t care for the privacy and the luxury or the option to view his potential purchases whilst reclined on a sun lounge in a zen garden; he just wanted results. He wanted to front up to a Gate of any size and feel comfortable going inside.

This was his chance.

He began by setting a hard limit on cost at fifty-thousand Credits. He could supplement the funds Jenny allocated to him by tapping into his own personal reserves, but it probably wasn’t worth it. Throwing an extra measly thousand or so at the problem wouldn’t solve it. Besides, fifty-thousand Credits was an unthinkable sum of money for him — if he couldn’t find anything to suit his purposes, then maybe this whole adventure would have to come to an early end.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Next up were the more difficult restrictions to satisfy. Already, his cost limit was thinning the herd, and seeing all the glistening armours race past made him uneasy. The last thing he wanted was to drag Kim all the way here, talk a big game to the Titans Guild Leader, order a vintage bottle of champagne, only to walk away empty-handed.

While he waited for the machine to respond, he thought of something else he could do.

“Enro, how you feeling, my man?”

{I dunno my man, like, totally, like, epic, dude.}

“Great,” Chase said, ignoring his Relay’s antics. “Is there any information about armours worn by S-Ranks and Ultras? I’d like to know cost, primarily.” He crossed his fingers. If he could bet on any group of people wanting to show-off their wealth, it would be Hunters. In a profession built around constantly improving oneself, bringing in larger and larger kills and in turn, profit, it was practically guaranteed.

{I wouldn’t think…Oh, never mind. There’s an honestly…staggering amount of information here. Wow, these people like to talk about themselves. Did you know Shadow Piercer has a special compartment in his armour to let him urinate while fighting? And the Masked Lord has, what’s that, an air fryer attached to his arm? It says here that he just really likes chicken schnitzels.}

“I didn’t know any of those things, no. Mind focusing your search to what I asked?”

As he spoke, he tapped in a restriction to focus on Magical Defence, Physical Defence, Speed and Agility. He had a very specific combination of these skills in mind, but he knew the likelihood of finding such a thing. At a certain point, all armours seemed to grant at least a bit of everything.

{Very well, let’s see here…S-Rank from Poland says she spent thirty-five thousand, though by the look of the armour, I’d trust her about as far as I could throw her, and because I lack arms…}

“I get the joke. Keep it moving.”

{Western Gale reckons forty-eight before paying for extra enchantments, and the Ecuadorian Ultra, Anthony, says…oof. One-hundred and eighty, plus a new car to the nephew of the Hunter who found the armour.}

“Shit. Alright, cheers. We’ll see how we go.”

{Pleasure to be of service, O’ Wise Master.}

Kim scooted her chair closer to the display, holding out a hand to touch the shining blue finish of an armour suitable for a Tank. Giant plates of some navy metal interlocked all over the chest plate and down the sides of the mannequin’s body like tiles on a roof. She turned to Chase and crossed her arms.

“I think I’d make a good Hunter,” she said. “What do you think?”

Chase had taken a break to have a sip of champagne. He put down his glass and tried to picture her in the suit of armour behind her.

“I mean, you’d probably have better aim than I do, so Ballistic would snap you up in a heartbeat. Plus, I’m the boss, so I can just jig things around a bit and slot you in. That’d be classic.”

Kim frowned. “I’m not completely joking, you know. I used to be so jealous of Pearl for getting a Talent, especially when she got into Majesty, too.” Her face fell. “You’re lucky to be an only child. Having an over-achieving sister really sucks sometimes.”

“You don’t think you’re an over-achiever?” Chase said. “Considering the Chief of the CIU was praising your work not long ago even though you don’t even work for him anymore…that’s something I’d probably consider an over-achievement.”

Kim shrugged and inspected something on one of the armours. “I dunno. I guess. On that note, though, I think Jamieson is pulling a few strings and maybe getting my old position back. So if you don’t make me a damn good offer right now, Ballistic is going to miss out on the next big thing.”

Chase scratched the back of his head. This wasn’t a conversation he’d ever expected to have, and certainly not in this room at this moment. The machine had finished narrowing down his search filters, and now the forty or so remaining options beckoned him, gleaming with enchantments and the lustre of otherworldly materials. But Kim’s gaze was firm.

“I…I’m not sure. I’m not kidding when I say you’d be a better shot than me. It’s just that…Dungeons are really dangerous places, and—”

“You don’t think I can handle it?”

“What? No, I think you’d wipe the floor with almost all the new Hunters we’ve hired, but…” He stopped, trying to formulate the right words. It was hard. “I don’t want to willingly put you into danger,” he tried. “And I know you’ve seen your fair share when you were at the CIU, but I didn’t put you in those positions. I could never forgive myself if I sent you off to a massive Gate and never saw you again. I’d…” He sat down, drumming his fists on the arms of the chair. If only Raymond would burst through the door with his great galloping laugh and overbearing, ceaseless chatter.

Kim’s frown melted into a smile, and he knew he’d at least said something right.

“Good save, Chase. Good save. Firm but fair. And for the record, I think the CIU is probably where I belong for now. I just thought I’d check, cause, you know, it’d be pretty damn cute if we were like a Hunter couple or something like that.” She brought her hands together, mimicking a pistol. “Back-to-back fighting, bang bang bang, blood everywhere, spaghetti everywhere, that kind of thing.”

Chase laughed. He had to admit, it was an appetising vision. It was nice having people he trusted watching his back, and he would’ve accepted her if she’d pushed for the position, but for now it was probably for the best that they did their own thing.

Plus, as he’d found out, it never hurt to have a contact at the GRA or the CIU. Hopefully he’d never need to use that connection, but it was a nice safety net. Due process had not been his friend recently.

“Alright, well, let’s get to it. Any of the armour sets you see before you could potentially be exactly what I’m looking for. I’m prioritising Physical Defence, Magical Defence, Speed and Agility, but Regeneration might also be handy, and some Burst Strength wouldn’t be the end of the world. But don’t sacrifice the Big Four, all right?”

“Sure.” Kim was already using her System to read through the boons of the first few armour sets, so Chase jumped in.

The armour that would take him to new heights was here somewhere.

He just needed to find it.