=== One Week Later in Real time / Four Months Later in Virtual Time ===

I rushed into his space, blocking his kick while sweeping my own leg under his own. He hopped and struck out with another kick to my head as I rolled backwards out of his range, only to roll again as he rushed in with a stomp that would have shattered the bones in my foot.

While my skills had not been to Murk's level, we had closed the gap quickly these months with daily training. It was weird, at first, that I got tired and needed to sleep and eat in this virtual reality, but I was taught that it was mostly to build habits and understand limits so I wasn't thrown off in the real world.

Made sense to me.

Every day, physical training, martial arts training, having to do the chores to instill discipline despite any level of difficulty or tediousness of the task, undergoing these things over fourteen hours with times to eat and sleep being my only break. I had been living a working life before coming to this world, but never to this level, even when I was younger and things were harder. I was exhausted and snapped at Murk after two months, pushed to the limit as I was, but wasn't punished for it. At least not with pain or harder work. Instead, he nodded and I was teleported into the deep forest. Given the task to find my way back, with only a direction of where to go. No tools, or food, water, or anything that would have made it easier.

I was furious for the first few days of traveling. After that I calmed down and was moving at my own pace, and began to relax and appreciate the nature around me, despite it being a simulation. Not having too much of a choice when it came to getting food and water, I ended up eating berries, what I assumed were nuts, and root plants I recognized as I went.

The time I felt like meat, I got a small rock and threw it at any birds I could. I got meat occasionally. I was also forced to drink water from streams since there weren't exactly any wells around. I was careful not to drink from still waters, though I doubt Murk would let me die, I would probably get a simulation of sickness.

I got the runs a few times as I continued on, proving I could get "sick" and it sucked.

After a week of travel, I made it back and was welcomed back in Murk's gruff way. I was allowed to rest a few days, and then I was back at it, hard as ever.

I can't say I didn't break again, but it seemed that when I was getting close, Murk gave me the break I needed, thus allowing me to center myself and not have to take a walk a second time.

I got to my feet and he went with a left side punch that I blocked, and raised my left leg to avoid his sweeping kick with his right leg, only to spin and hit the back of my head with his left elbow. I could see stars as I fell forward, only to get a hammer fist to my face as Murk spun again and struck with a reverse strike with his right arm.

Things went black for a moment, and I was on my back as the ceiling came back into view.

Pain, that was the feeling as I struggled to get up. Looking about the dojo, I could see Murk sitting in a meditation pose. Not that he needed it, but it irritated me. It felt dismissive. Probably…Likely on purpose.

I could see an inhaler beside me, and used it to "restore" myself.

On my feet once more, Murk came out of his meditation and faced me once more in a ready stance.

"Again." He commanded.

=== Two Weeks Later in Real Time / Eight Months Later in Virtual time ===

I gasped as the phantom pain that wracked my body slowly disappeared. I laid there, and coughed a little as my mind came down from the terror of falling off a skyscraper, and slammed into the ground explosively.

"Again." Murk commanded.

I groaned, and slowly rose up. My coughing stopped and I simply breathed deeply.

"Is there a reason I keep feeling pain even after I restart?"

Murk stared at me for a moment before answering.

"To teach you what not to do, how not to do it, and what awaits if you fail for real. There are no second chances there."

I wasn't about to point out him being here was the second chance for him. I didn't need to start a lecture simply because of my sass.

With a pained grunt, I stood and walked over to the edge of the building we stoop upon. The city was all lit up, not hampering my sight in the least despite the dark of the night. The pain went away completely as I just gazed over the world I was now a part of, but came back to earth when a timer appeared in my vision.

"Let's try again." I grunted as I readied myself.

With a beep, the timer started and the rooftop I stood upon disappeared as I leapt off. My senses increased in focus as I landed on a lower leveled rooftop, and rolled into a sprint. Night City's sky-high advertisement holograms, and neon buildings covered everything with a cascade of color as I leapt over marked obstacles on my timed run.

Parkour, as I figured, was pretty fun once you figured out what you were doing, but there were risks involved where you had to make judgement calls on the fly. A normal person could pre-plan their route and what leaps and climbs they took upon themselves based on their skill and confidence. As a replacement for Murk, I had to do so on the fly without any prior knowledge on what lay ahead of me.

Murk and Batman seemed to know the paths and city they worked in like the back of their hand, for the most part, and after running across Night City in this training, I could see how and why they did it. If I didn't make the right call, I could get killed for real and that would be it. So, I had to learn to do things on the fly based on my experiences here, and based on what I have to deal with in opposition.

A horn sounded, and I pushed myself to run harder as Murk released three Arasaka combat drones. I could hear their engines whining in the air behind me, followed by the sounds of smart guns firing. I jinked and dodged with whatever was on the roof for cover as the miniature missiles whizzed past me or into whatever was between me and them.

I leapt down to another level, landing on a stairway over a highway, and then jumped again and landed upon a speeding van. I grabbed the roof, and held on dearly as I adjusted to the momentum of the vehicle pulling me along with it. I had died dozens of times falling off and being run over before I was able to figure out the trick, even with Murk instructing me beforehand.

The drones weren't confused by my disappearance however, and were chasing after the van, and firing at me. They changed from smart guns to regular "power" guns instead since the missiles from a smart weapon weren't all that fast in comparison. The Van swerved as the simulated driver began freaking out, realizing he was being shot at.

I jumped from the van, onto the bed of a large truck, and off that towards a steep incline that made up the base of an off-ramp towards Watson. I landed and slid down into a roll as I hit the ground. It hurt my ankles and feet, but I ignored the pain as I dashed away towards a throng of people. The drones were confused and following slowly, scanning for my signature near the ramp as I passed through the crowds and traffic. I lost them soon after and began to look for a path back up to the roof tops.

I was cut off from my searching when an NCPD patrol car came to a screeching halt nearby and both cops jumped out, guns in hand, and pointing in my direction.

"Hands in the air dirt bag!" one shouted, and people quickly backed away from my general area, especially as I took off in a sprint, and they began firing at me.

"Fuck!" I snarled as I ducked under a food stall and vaulted over another, forcing the cops to chase and get line of sight. Running around a corner, I spotted stairs going to a lower level and practically jumped the whole thing, using garbage bags as landing pads to soften the impact, reaching the bottom in seconds.

Gunfire echoed and bullets struck beside me as I ran, and soon out of their line of fire. The stairs led to the roads on the lower levels that were busy, and I spotted a car that was going a bit slower. Running along its path, I leapt as it passed and landed it.

The car just kept going as if I hadn't just landed on the roof, and I squared myself in case it was just slow reacting and about to jerk the wheel and throw me off. At least, I was until a larger Arasaka drone appeared at the mouth of the tunnel and spotted me.

"Shit!" I ducked, hugging the car roof, as it began to fire rapidly upon the vehicle. It must have killed the driver because suddenly the car veered into oncoming traffic which tried to dodge out of the way as I rode through the lanes.

I heard more than saw the giant freightliner coming at me, and everything went black as it slammed into me and the car with a few dozen tons of force.

I awoke with a gasp, and coughed as I turned over on the roof.

Murk stood there, staring down with a hard glare.

=== Three Weeks Later in Real Time / One Year Later in Simulated Time ===

I vaulted over the concrete divider, firing my Copperhead combat rifle's entire magazine into the possessed robot infantry unit. It quickly fell apart in a cloud of sparks as its battery burst open and unleashed its charge explosively.

Shifting focus, I quickly dove behind an overturned Militech truck as the "team" I was a part caught up and joined me in cover, firing their rifles towards the small platoon of Maelstrom Zom-Borgs. They shuffled mindlessly, firing with only the most basic accuracy towards us. The situation was completely FUBAR as the city was now under siege by some Blackwall AI named, of all things, Brainiac. It lacked tentacles and a dispassionate arrogance over humanity, but it was malevolent all the same as it hacked and took over more or less every single weakly protected, networked system across all of Night City.

"Your actions will be in vain. All shall fall before Brainiac!" a robotic voice announced from behind the line of Zom-Borgs, and soon revealed itself to my squad. A tripod straight out of War of the Worlds, but Cyberpunk Style with neon lights lining the hull for no discernable reason, appeared, charging up some kind of energy weapon attached to a robot arm. It shifted, taking aim, before unleashing a bright beam of concentrated heat that filled the air with deafening hiss.

"Fucking Laser Cannon!" one of the Militech grunts shouted as he reloaded his weapon. I wasn't sure it was actually a laser, but I didn't really reply as I was a too busy to really think about it. I threw a grenade towards the Maelstrom Zombies, who didn't even bother to move as it exploded them into a fine red cloud of blood covered chrome.

The loud shrieking of an engine filled the air as a military AV flew in behind us, and I watched as it floated above us and began firing a pair of gatling cannons into the intersection. The last of Maelstrom Zom-Borgs fell apart and the Tripod quickly reoriented itself.

"Effective, but pointless." The AI spoke before it fired a harpoon cable into the aircraft, and within seconds the AV had been compromised as it began flying erratically, ejecting its pilots, while its paint job quickly morphed into a red color.

"Shit! It got our air support!"

The AV moved to float above the Tripod, turning around to face us, while its gatling cannons were spinning.

"Fall back! Fall back-" the Sergeant shouted before he and a few others were cut down by gatling fire, while the other half of our squad who were taking cover behind the concrete dividers, were burned to ash by the heat ray.

I, and one other grunt, had already been sprinting towards an alleyway as the fire poured down towards our position, and the corners exploded in chunks as we dodged fire into the alley.

"Fuck this shit!" the guy whose name I didn't know shouted.

"No kidding!" I replied as we both ran. We both fell as the ground suddenly shook violently, and the air boomed with the sound of thunder. Within moments, dust from whatever happened behind us on the road filled the air and absolutely engulfed the two of us. I tried to use the various sensors in the helmet to see through the dust, but was met instead with errors.

"Damn, I can't see shit! You alive?" I shouted out.

"Yeah, but I'm blind too!"

I crawled over towards where his voice was, unable to see more than a few feet, before coming upon him on his hands and knees. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I guided him towards the nearby wall of the alley.

"Someone called in artillery and didn't tell us?" he griped as he leaned against the wall and I stood up beside him.

"As if they would call us. They probably think we're fried."

"Yeah…fucking assholes" the man growled.

The sound of metal footsteps on concrete filled the air, and we both tensed up, rifles pointing in its direction. The dust was still in the air, and while we knew what it was, we couldn't see where it was.

"Move along the wall. Let's get as far as we can from it." I said, pushing back my back against his shoulder.

"Good idea." He agreed and began moving, our armor scraping against the building as we moved away from the sounds.

The sounds didn't fade away, if anything they got louder, closer, and I was getting jumpy and my finger itchy.

Then a tripod leg appeared and a bright light shone down upon us from above light an orange spotlight. The dust in the air allowed us to see the malevolent beam the light had cast, and I felt a shiver down my spine as I looked up into what appeared to be a glowing red eye.

"There you are." Brainiac said with a dull, but amused tone.

"FUCK!" me and guy shouted as we fired at the light source, practically running beside the wall as we rushed away from the killer AI. We didn't notice the stairs until we were falling over ourselves. We tumbled down hard steps, and I'm sure my ribs just cracked as I fractured my elbow, crying out in pain all the way down. We were hurting units, unable to move, by the time we stopped at the bottom of the flight.

I moaned painfully as I leaned up, only to hear the sound of a weapon charging up, and a red light appearing above me.

"…fuck." Was my last word when the beam of light burned me, and the world went black.

A few moments later I appear in a military center, Murk was Murk-Glaring at me.

I tiredly looked him in the eye.

"Tripods with heat rays and hacking harpoons, and Zombie Cyborgs...Really?"

"You must be prepared to face everything. Plus, stranger weapons had been used in the Corporate Wars." He stated in his stern tone that he seems to never stop using.

Given what history lessons I've had about the Time of Red, and prior, I couldn't refute that.

"Still bullshit."

"Noted. Now, again."

=== Four Weeks Later in Real Time / Sixteen Months Later in Virtual Time ===

I put the finishing touches on the suit. I let out a breath, giving it one last look over, and checked the laptop beside me to see if my programming was working. All appeared to be in order, and with nothing left, I turned to Murk and nodded.

"Finished."

Murk nodded in his typical stiff manner and took my position. He took his time as he looked all over my work with a critical eye. After twenty minutes, he finished, and with a very rare grin, he nodded.

"Adequate. With this, you passed the test."

I cheered quietly. It took me over a year of technical training, alongside all the physical training, but I finally am able to maintain, repair, and even build a suit provided I have the parts. I wasn't near ready to actually design a suit from nothing just yet, but I knew what the hell I was doing now, officially.

"So, what now?" I asked confidently.

Murk glanced at me before looking back at the suit.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"It's now time for you to learn to use it. Combined with everything else you've learned so far."

About damned time!

"But for now, let's get over to the rest. Weapons and equipment."

My grin became a bit smaller in disappointment, but I nodded regardless.

"Alright."

=== Five Weeks Later in Real Time / Twenty Months Later in Virtual Time ===

I leapt over the edge of the housing block, allowing myself to fall into a dive as the Tyger Claws fired down at me. Bullets whizzed by as they gangers missed almost all their shots, and I focused as I came closer to hitting the ground. My arm whipped out and a smart-grapple shot out, hooking itself onto the ledge of nearby rooftop. My fall quickly became a swing.

I grinned, adrenaline rush enhancing my senses as I swung beside the small block of apartment buildings like I was Spider-Man. At the end of the swing, I fired another grapple towards an overpass, and was forcefully pulled towards it. The wind rushed past me as I flew over the elevated highway and cars as they rushed below, and off the opposite side towards the Chinatown slums. I slapped my arms to my sides, and brought them parallel to my shoulders. A pair of smart-fabric wings extended outwards, appearing similar to bird wings, and my fall became a glide as I moved through the air.

I turned north, flying past the slums of Chinatown and into the North Side Industrial Area. Grappling a smoke stack from a deactivated factory, I was tugged once again towards the structure before my momentum launched me into the air past it. Gliding once more, I flew above the desolate factories and abandoned work yards, grappling here and there before landing on the monolithic "Housing Block 12".

I took in a breath of air, being something a bit cleaner at this height despite still being in the city and turned to look over the city. It looked like it was an industrial hell covered in garbage, littered with wreaked vehicles. The old instinct to clean up and fix things once more came to the fore, but I shook it off as a call came in.

"I'm here."

"The goal is accomplished. The mission is complete. The Tyger Claws, if this actually happened, would take years to recover."

"So, is that it?"

"No. You have one last mission. You happen to be in the right spot to start it. H12 is home to Maelstrom on the upper levels. They use it as a base to command most of their cells across Night City. This is the final mission, and the most difficult. You must go in and infiltrate their control network, allowing you to find every single member in the city that's connected. Once you accomplish this, you will then contact me."

I blinked. That was pretty hardcore, and very likely to be near impossible to accomplish.

So of course, I will be doing it.

"Send me the details."

My helmet HUD showed me plans and diagrams of the building itself, along with the necessary hacks needed to actually penetrate the network. With a nod, I began my work.

Finding an entrance into the top of the building was easy, but going through it without alarming the locals was the hard part. Accessing my helmet's "Netware", I accessed the quick hacks that I installed and used the Breach Protocol. The code was a bit difficult, but holo-typing via eye tracking allowed quick work. With the system easier to access, I insert a sensor demon to block rooftop access alerts, and open the door.

I carefully walk down the stairwell, the soles of my boots muffling my steps as they soften according to the pressure of my foot. Seeing the cameras lining the stairwell, I breach the system and insert a "demon" of my own design. It was a project I did while learning to make and use quickhacks, and all it does is record whatever the system sees for about ten seconds, and then the demon inserts the recording in a loop over and over.

I doubt it would work on actively monitored systems such as a megacorp would, but it works on the street, and in places like this…usually.

The program monitored dozens of cameras and I picked out the ones that were directly in my travel route, and each one that had no traffic were inserted by the demon, the ones where people appeared to be moving seldomly were also inserted in. The rest were left alone. No need to make things too obvious. In fact…I thought twice and fiddled with the demon again and had it so the camera affected would resume normally after I was beyond twenty feet and out of line of sight.

Satisfied, I proceeded down again until I was near the bottom of the "luxury" levels.

The door was locked, and couldn't be accessed wirelessly.

"Right then." I murmured as I pulled a cable out of the vambrace of my left arm, and plugged into a socket. A quick bit of code breaking, and inserting a sensor demon, and the door was unlocked without anyone noticing yet.

Beyond the door, it looked like any other Luxury Level, except for all the Maelstrom graffiti everywhere along with various devices, whose purpose I could only guess at.

I used a ping quickhack and cameras and turrets were revealed, along with bodies of people. I tagged them all, and realized these systems were a separate one from the cameras I hacked before. I also couldn't hack them because the wireless was blocked.

"Old fashioned way then."

With look on my HUD, I activated the optic camouflage built into the suit, rendering it nearly invisible save the specter like outline, and proceeded forward. I had to move quickly though, while the suit could in fact remain near invisible to the naked eye near-indefinitely, it traded the cost of a time limit for increased heat. Anyone with thermal vision or heat detection would see me if I remained cloaked for more than thirty seconds. Great against everyone save those with advanced optics…like Maelstrom.

These luxury grade sensors weren't normally programmed to see heat, but they could be modified easily to do so by someone who knew what the hell they were doing. Again, Maelstrom.

So, I was forced to move slowly, out of sight of the cameras and the occasional body that patrolled the floor. I was noticed a few times by some enforcers, but they dismissed it once they checked and saw nothing.

When I reached the inner most portion of the level, I found the door that would lead to the inner sanctum. I couldn't just break into the room with my quickhacks like before though, as these were actively coded and watched by security. At least…I assumed they would be. Most of the Maelstrom here aren't here aren't Gonks. They wouldn't put morons in charge of such a facility either.

So, I plugged into the access node and placed the sensor demon into this door, Pinged to see if anyone or any cameras were on the other side, and did a stupid thing. With a roll of the shoulders, I pulled out my mono-knife and shoved it between the door and the jam. Sliding doors like this have a mechanism that gripped it to the jam so you couldn't just pull it open. Only overwhelming strength, or appropriate cyberware could brute force it.

The suit had built-in coreless motors that increased my muscle power by a factor of four, allowing me brute force it, but simply ripping the door open would alert anyone with hearing amplification that something was up. Cutting the pieces of the door that were being held with a mono-molecular blade was easier, quicker, and quieter.

Within seconds, the door was loosened, and I pulled it open with a near silent mechanical whir as the sliding motor spun, and after closing the door it appeared normal unless you were within five feet of it, and only on one side.

My eyes were moving about, quickly taking in all the details due to now being in blindness territory. No map, no floor plans, nothing to provide navigation or warning. Only my camouflage would protect me from immediate detection now.

As I crouched near every corner, I extended a wire from my right vambrace, and the mini-camera on the tip allowed me to see around the corner, and I felt my throat tighten slightly as I saw the area was an open floor. There were a dozen netrunners hooked into chairs near large computer centers, and about twice that of normal gangoons, with a few heavies among them.

It was a quick decision as to how to handle this, as Murk taught me, I began to sneak over to where I needed, using what cover I could as members wandered about with their tasks, and talked to one another, or lounged about.

I was close to being noticed a few times, only objects providing cover and the goon not really taking a second look prevented me from being spotted. Utilizing small pieces of drywall or junk as distractions here and there allowed me to slip past a few others until I reached where I needed to be.

Finding an access port, I pulled out my portable cyberdeck and activated the demon "Alucard", and activated its "Going for a Walk" subroutine. It would act as a proxy, making Maelstrom netrunners think it was an infiltrating netrunner, attacking and defending, making an absolute mess of everything in a wild way, all while the demon program Murk gave me did its job and cracked the network.

I didn't make Alucard, I just help develop its network appearance and personality, while Murk did all of the actual coding and programming. I was able to make some decent-to-powerful demon programs if they involved combat, but subtle stuff, and adaptational programs are currently beyond me. Especially something like Alucard, as he was basically the Abridged character in programmed form.

The monitors in the place began to fizzle with white noise and static, and all the netrunners reacted quickly, though in different ways. Some quickly alerted whoever was in charge while trying to access their systems, while others actively began searching for the intruder. The rest of the gangoons just watched, realizing something was up, and began to get agitated.

Then the show got started.

"Hey there four-eyes! What do you get when you mix a spider with a Cyborg? A Maelstrom Love Doll! Gotta get those arms a jerkin on the jerk-offs while things get heated up!" the cartoon vampire shouted with manic glee before shooting the screen.

Suddenly a spark of electricity, a loud bang, followed by smoke spraying from a heat fan began to fill the room from five locations.

A quick scan of the portable deck showed me that Alucard went straight for the jugular and attacked the cooling systems attached to the computers about the room. With powerful units like these, they had to have a dedicated heat exchange system, with cooling jackets and everything. The Netrunners began to freak out and pulled out canisters of cooling film as they rushed to the now currently burning cooling jackets that Alucard had broken. I activated my optic camouflage and snuck around the chaos to an abandoned computer and inserted a cable into a port.

Within a few seconds I had inserted Murk's program into the system, and disconnected upon completion. Looking around for a moment, no one was even looking in my direction, so I quickly moved back to the Cyberdeck, just as Alucard went overboard and hit everyone in the room with a whammy.

"Wow, I barely did anything and already you're all screeching like babies. Or rather, you will screech like babies. Now come to daddy, I got a paddle for a spanking!" and finished with a punch to the screens, which immediately caused a wireless attack upon all the Maelstrom in the room with a "short circuit" quick hack, combined with a "Sonic Shock" quick hack that blasted white noise into their ears instead of making them deaf.

Everyone was writhing and shouting in pain as I began to pull Alucard out.

"Well it's been fun kids, but I gotta scram. I'll leave you with a present though! Here's glass in your eyes!"

Alucard activated an optics reboot on all the cyborgs in the room, before then short circuiting them, causing the cybernetic eyes to pop like light bulbs. The shouts turned to screams as everyone but a handful of borgs began scraping at their eyes, and I took the opportunity to leave quickly with the portable cyberdeck back its place.

"A little much there." I murmured.

"Oh please, like these dark mechanicus wannabes didn't have it coming." Alucard replied as he shut himself down.

I declined to reply as I leaned up against the wall as the doors swished open, and more gangoons rushed in. I had to hide several times as ceiling turrets were on search mode, scanning for a target, and I barely kept myself hidden as the heat of the camouflage began to make me easily detectable.

A few quick hacks to reboot optics, and I was able to slip past them, and out. Soon enough I was on the roof, only to see six Maelstrom cyborgs. They looked to be regular borgs though, so I just activated my camouflage again, and leapt off the building before gliding away and out of the district.

Finding a warehouse a decent distance away, I landed on the empty rooftop and deactivated the camouflage.

Letting out a breath, I sat down and allowed myself for a moment before calling it in.

"It's done."

"So I see. You were messy though. Next time, try to distract people in a more subtle manner. You won't often be so lucky as you were here."

I nodded. It was true, as the last few months have shown in instances where I did what I did, only for it to backfire, like when I was doing it to the Animals. Their lack of cyberware often gave them an edge more borged up people lacked.

"Is it satisfactory?" I asked as my vision began to fade.

"Yes, but if you did it this way for real, they would be on alert citywide for trouble." He replied as my vision went to black, and then faded back into the command center of the Murk-Cave. He stood before me, arms crossed as he murk-stared at me.

"Right. Consequences."

"That's right. For now, however, you passed. So, we'll move on."

=== Six Weeks in Real Time / 24 months in Simulation Time ===

The Murk-Cave lit up as various systems that had been in low power mode returned to full power. The sound of a hiss filled the air, and a section of wall retracted, opened, and revealed the pod within.

With another hiss, the machine slowly went through its "wake-up" procedure and opened itself to the world. The man within it, the same one from six weeks ago, looked nothing like his past self. Much taller, muscular, and almost entirely modified with bioware. Bone and muscle lacing combined with grafted muscles, skin weave, and various nano-based modifications, altered the man into the closest thing that one could call superhuman without outright super human abilities.

He groaned, having slight aches in the body in places where it hadn't been mobile for nearly two months, but otherwise, he merely felt groggy. Stepping out into the familiar 'cave', he slowly wandered over to the closet and gave himself a look in the mirror.

The build he started with all those months ago had filled out. He wasn't no longer just fit, but now possessed the stereotypical "super hero" build that so many characters possessed in such works. He had grown used to it because he'd seen it repeatedly in the two years he had been training, but still, feeling my chest and arms, it still felt unreal.

He wasn't quite like Bruce Wayne in appearance, but damn did it come close.

"…huh. Matches me in the simulation."

"It should. It was what we were building towards." The voice of Murk filled the speakers lined across the room.

Nodding, the man opened the closet and got himself dressed in boxer briefs and an under-armor suit that had been made during his time in the pod. It fit him like a glove, and he glanced at the armor.

"Do you have a few missions?"

"I do. Suit up and get ready. It's time for the city to know that which Murks in the Night has returned."

It was cheesy, but the man grinned nonetheless. "Showtime."