More bullets flew at Veronika, but she was just able to dodge them. Thanks to System’s aid with her scope vision, she could stay alive and moving.

“Get the Concordat git!” A deep voice grunted in her direction.

Veronika turned her head as she sprinted for her life and saw two brutes in mercenary gear. Human men in heavy metal boots, bulky utility belts, ugly armor mismatched and banged up. None of them seemed to have bathed and shaved in weeks. Their odor wafted in her direction as they raced after her trail. One of the brutes raised a sub-machine gun for her and fired more bullet rounds.

“Hell!” She ducked and did a flip and roll to evade the line of fire.

It was frustrating her that all she could was sprint like an idiot out of the building complex and back into the mechanical junk land. At least she could find coverage behind the hills of metal waste.

Sparks and flints of steel ricocheted from the waste hills she hid behind and navigated through on her plight.

Wait. She didn’t have to run like this. She was once Wu Chen: the greatest immortal cultivator for the Light Sword. A near unbeatable legend in her former life! The only cultivator to gain the Rune of Pain from the Demon Lord’s lands to wield the Power of Thunder!

Damned if she was going to keep running like an idiot from ugly mercenary brutes who probably didn’t even know how to turn on a shower! With this in mind, she found a clear area between junk-pile hills where she could face her attackers.

“Got ya.” One of the brutes gruffly said, with full confidence, at what he thought was the easy shot before him.

Veronika pulled out her brush-pen; stupidly waved it at them with hasty strokes and a strong mental image of the landscape around her being volcanic rock, spewing molten lava. She was standing on safe ground, while her mental image pictured the brutes on bits of rock that floated precariously toward a lava waterfall. Everything was sketched out crudely, which only added to the chaotic impact the Brush Actualization skill was able to produce.

The men cursed with fright and confusion as they saw themselves about to sink into lava.

“What the hell is this magic?!” One yelled out to the other as they struggled to keep balance on their platform of tiny hot rock.

But Veronika didn’t stick around to check out the damaged. She turned and jumped from a safe pile of rock to another until she was out of their sight. The true landscape resurfaced before her.

[Veronika. There is an empty space-car parked nearby. If you enter it, I can hack the starter motor for our getaway]

Not thinking twice, she weaved her way around piles and jumped over more rubbished wires and tech junk. Just when she felt she had cleared some distance from the danger, she felt the breeze of a bullet whizzing past her cheek. Those mercenary brutes had caught up to her so quickly: she had to divert away from her current path for a safer option.

[It is fortunate that these mercenaries use cheap technology. If the bullet was a plasma beam, your head would a small splatter stain on the ground]

“System. If you’re trying to encourage my ability to dodge bullets, it’s not helping!” Veronika yelled out as she ducked to avoid another round of flying bullets determined to make a small crater in her head.

[Only stating facts. Although, if you feel encouraged by statistics forecasting deaths by gunfire I will be more than happy to provide reports of such deaths, filtered to gun model types]

“What the...? Just help me find a safe way to this car!”

System changed Veronika’s vision to a heat map view of the area, where red-orange blips pinpointed organic lifeforms within a two-meter radius of her current location. The way ahead was the usual metal scrap hills, but her internal view did a 360 pan to see the two mercenaries still hot on her trail.

[Interesting. The good news, there are only two of them. The bad news, they are two skilled trackers. I suspect they have internal scanners through biometric eye lens. It is quite possible we have mistaken them to be mercenaries]

“Whatever they are, they want to kill me.” Veronika concluded on the reality of their situation whilst keeping track of the brutes.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Panic aggravated her heartbeats when she saw a dead end mountain of tech junk looming before her. The mountains surrounded her like a great wall running for miles. It was too late to back up and try for another exit. The brutes had caught up to her back to block her way out.

“Nowhere to go now, sweetheart.” A brute smirked as he cocked his shotgun for a surefire hit to her chest.

Seeing this image of a scruffy, heavy armored rogue shoving a crudely designed shotgun in her face stirred up ire.

Goddammit! She was once Wu Chen: the always-an-ace-up-the-sleeve-Wu Chen. Veronika Shepherd surely wasn’t any less great, despite what was said of her.

The brute pulled the trigger to send a bullet flying.

[Activating Basic Combat Dodge and Survive skill: level 1] System’s voice chimed in her head.

On instinct, Veronika twisted her body around to avoid the blow, and did an arc-flip toward a pile of metal, where she grabbed a rusted pan and used it as a shield to block the bullets.

Sparks ricocheted off the surface as it took the impacts before it shattered. By this point, Veronika had swapped out the pan leftovers with a large cord. She used it as a whip to flail at her attackers to catch them off balance.

“Damn it. She’s meant to be useless! How can this skinny, young bitch be so much trouble?!” A brute grunted out his disbelief when she had successfully whipped his gun out of his hold.

But the other brute had his gun ready to fire a clean shot at her head. “I’ve got this. Watch me splatter this pretty girl’s head like a melon.”

“Stupid. I bite arm!” Growled a newcomer to the fight.

The mercenary cursed and yelled with surprise at having to deal with his gun-arm being mauled by a snow wolf. Metal debris was being stained with blood before the wolf let go of his hold.

Veronika had whipped a path through junk piles to a spot she could take cover behind. From her cover, she was able to dish out some decent damage to her attacker.

“Damn it. Retreat!” A brute cried out.

The attackers clumsily fled the scene via jet boots.

“So that’s how they could catch up so fast.” Veronika calmly mused when she had caught her breath. Although, she was glad that the immediate danger was over, she also questioned who and what they were. Especially, why they were attempting to kill her.

[I’ll scan the external networks for answers when we reach a comm-node] System commented.

“If you could. We need to know.” Veronika turned her attention to the snow wolf sitting attentively near her boots.

“You again. Didn’t I say, beat-feet?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at it.

“Grr, that not a good thank you.” The wolf growled his complaint toward her lack of gratitude at having saved her life.

Veronika relaxed her stance and sighed. “True. Thank you for saving me.”

[We need to give him a name if he wishes to travel with us] System popped up into her view.

Veronika’s eyes widened with surprise when System appeared physically before her as a digital image of a passive white canary with female qualities. Up until now, System had been digital text and a voice in her head.

“You can materialize before others?!” She gasped.

“If it’s required, but this drains some of my RAM node capacity. So it’s only for a few minutes.” System matter-of-factually commented.

“What happens if you over extend the capacity?” Veronika asked, feeling dread.

“The most likely outcome would be the implant shorting, and you’ll end up brain-dead.” System responded nonchalantly.

“What the heck? Get back into my head now!”

“What are you?” The wolf cut into their conversation.

“I am System. This is Veronika Shepherd.” System introduced them before disappearing and returning to the default state.

Veronika blew a sigh of relief: not keen to see System re-emerge for fears of shorting out her brain.

She returned her attention to the snow wolf. “What should we call you?”

“I just wolf.”

“You can’t really be called wolf. What was the name your mother gave you?”

“Pup.” The snow wolf innocently answered, not understanding what the human wanted to know.

Veronika sighed. “Fine. You’ll be Kami.”

The snow wolf pondered on the name for some time, and looked like he was about to growl his complaints, but instead nodded his agreements.

“System. What do you suggest we do next?”

[Head down the path and turn east at the red pile of metal junk on your left. The space-car is there. I suggest we reach it]

Kami followed Veronika’s lead down a rocky path, which they picked their way through to reach the vehicle.