“You’re joking!” Cole said as he looked at the grate that had been pushed aside, before turning to look at the cyborg lady that had moved it aside.

One half of her body was made completely of metal, it was an amalgamation of small intrinsic plates, tiny pistons, rods and tubes. Her hair was a metallic grey, and she didn’t talk much. All she had done was show a hand out asking for a fee, which unfortunately Cole could not bargain her out of as she pretty much acted like a dumb machine the entire time they had met, which by this point was only about ten minutes. So as it stands he was short 2 Tisons. Which was a fucking lot of money, but still he needed to get back to the plaza and quickly back to the coliseum.

Cole shook his head visibly annoyed and then turned to Tiana. “Stay out of trouble kid, I wouldn’t be here to protect you and even though some of your ‘information’ is legit, there would be people here who wouldn’t believe you, and will instead try to exploit you. I would prefer if you keep your head down till I return, but ultimately I don’t give a shit what you do, take what I just said with a grain of salt.” With that said Cole dropped down into the grate, ignoring the sputtering and shouts of indignation behind him.

He furrowed his eyebrow in contemplation, with the way he was now, he had no idea why he had given advice to Tiana, but in the end it was just that something about her reminded him of himself… and somehow he was just able to relate to that. He landed hard on the ground, his boots making a metallic thud as his countenance changed, and the cyborg who up until this point had still not given her name, so Cole could only address her as Coyote. Dropped down and took the lead, leading Cole forwards within a dark and somewhat dank smelling tunnel.

Tiny red bulbs provided illumination of their path, but the lights blinked on and off at intervals as if to give a warning. It didn’t matter much to him either way as he followed behind her. She moved quickly and silently too, barely making any sort of sounds as she progressed through the tunnels. Eventually they came up to a bend that opened up into an antechamber. There was a deluge of rushing water coming from other tunnels in the wall and down into a pool at the bottom of the chamber. But the pull had a massive wind turbine that spun and let water through, or was actually being spun by the water itself, Cole was not exactly sure.

There was a metal bridge stretching from the tunnel he was in to another that was directly opposite him. The coyote turned to him and spoke in a scratchy voice that gave him pause. “From here you’re on your own. Thank you for the money.” With that said her form seemed to ripple and blend as she vanished into her surroundings. Cole was quite confused for a moment before suddenly he felt a force on his back that pushed him forwards onto the bridge. The moment his foot stepped onto the bridge he felt as if he had gone past a barrier and multiple system prompts popped up in front of him.

[1st Floor Side Quest! Survive the Revenant’s Betrayal: Rewards: 500 Tisons, 2 Small Iron Rank Loot Chest]

[You Have Entered Instance Dungeon: Revenant Undercity! Completion Rewards: 50% Completion Rate (20 Tisons, 1 Large Bronze Rank Loot Chest, Bronze Rank Armor) 75 %( 200 Tisons, 1 Small Iron Rank Loot Chest, 2 Iron Rank Armor Set Pieces) 100% (1 Tigon, 3 Large Iron Rank Loot Chest, 1 Complete Set Iron Rank Armor, Silver Rank V Essex Collective Special Forces Combat Chip)]

Cole didn’t have much time to exclaim in shock when he saw how lucrative the rewards were, heck he didn’t even have enough time to properly envision how in the hell had he not been able to see past the cute visage of Tiana, and not see the betrayal that was coming his way. Obviously she had to have come across most of her information someway, there was barely enough time since the launch of the event for her ton have gathered all of it. He turned around, but a shimmering field of hexagon plates blocked his path back, and soon enough the antechamber was filled with the sounds of eerie cracklings and hacking laughs along with the hiss, whirls and creaks of mechanical gears.

Four individuals dropped down from the top of the antechamber, a grotesque amalgamation of man and machine. Hanging over their heads were the words [Level 7 Revenant/ Rank: Bronze] their arms ended up with the left being a wicked looking blade that had its edges glowing a neon red with laser, and their right hands ended up in wicked looking blasters that seemed capable of punching a hole the size of a basketball on his chest.

“Give us your mind!!!!”

They spoke in tandem, and just as they spoke, they also attacked. Cole reacted faster though as he pulled out his gun and blasted a whole right in the forehead of the first revenant within his sight. Their AI was pretty much advanced as they reacted to the death of their colleague by looking down at him, before turning to hiss at Cole, but once again they had made quite the mistake in facing him…. They thought he was going to wait for them to finish reacting to his actions.

[Wild Charge] .𝘤𝘰𝑚

A blue green aura covered his form as he sped forwards, building up momentum to smash right into their midst, throwing the revenant further back down the bridge, spinning head over heels until it landed in a twisted heap of its own body and mechanics, blood and engine fluid mixing into stomach churning goop. Two swift shots later and the remaining two who had been caught off guard were silenced, and a few seconds later their bodies evaporating into motes of light with none of them leaving behind a prism.

“Tch! So stingy.” Cole cursed as a loud clank drew his attention and he looked up, silently swearing to himself as he noticed that the roof of the antechamber was covered with dozens if not almost a hundred revenants, all crawling over the walls with part man, part machine bodies, their red eyes glowing eerily in the dim lighting…. “Fuck this!” Cole shouted as he ran straight for the other side of the bridge, this was an ambush through and through and it would be better if he quickly got his ass out of town before…

Cole’s eyes widened as a beam of oscillating circles showed up all over his body. As a long time somewhat casual and semi pro player of Titan rising online, the bullet lines were a staple for characters with predictive skills or high perception stats. They could see the direction of an attack, or just where a bullet was going to hit. But then again seeing was a whole lot different than dodging. You might have a high perception stat, but the absence of agility, dexterity or even the finesse stat would see you in a body riddled with bloody holes. Fortunately Cole had the dexterity stat, the unfortunate news however was the fact that his dexterity stat was not yet high enough to help him dodge bullets…. He would have to be at least silver or gold rank for that.

[Wild Charge]

But Cole was not without his tricks, as his form blurred forwards, just in time to smash into the still airborne form of a revenant that had dropped down from the ceiling; the creature was blasted forwards for Cole and backwards for itself off the bridge and through the tunnel ahead that pretty much guarantees his salvation. But even that was not enough as more of them had dropped down from the ceiling, with one of them even dropping down on Cole’s back, sending him straight to the ground.

[Gravity]

While these bloody revenants are heavier than humans, they were still as affected by gravity as any other being, especially if it was aimed at just a particular part of their body. It was mainly a move drive by instinct, but Cole made a move by creating a small sphere of gravity in front of the chest of the Revenant on him and squeezed. The ensuing result was as terrible as it was beautiful, there was a loud bang as a singularity was formed, before suddenly exploding outwards in a release of energy and power that slammed Cole back into the ground and blasted the other approaching Revenants back.

Instincts or desperation, in such close quarters with such a move, it was not something he would be trying again with how limited in range he was with his gravity mastery skill. He picked himself up in time to smash his knee to the side of the head of a revenant, bouncing the abominations head of the side of the metal bridge, completely ignoring the shower of sparks that burst out of its red mechanical eyes. Cole whipped out his Vibro blade with his left hand, and stabbed upwards into the jaw of a female looking revenants, but this one had strips of flesh hanging or rather peeling off a metal skeleton. He twisted the blade and pulled it forwards, removing her jaw and leaving a bulbous tongue filled with warts hanging out before pointing his gun at her face and blasting half her skull to oblivion.

He felt a burning pain on his back as a revenant sliced through his defenses. He arched his back in pain, but turned to deliver a backhand before taking a face full of blaster fire. He was thrown backwards, his face, neck and upper chest on fire as his meagre clothes had been burned away and much of his black skin had been darkened to a deep black crisp. He screamed out in pain and fired off a volley of shots until his gun clicked empty, buying him a few seconds, as he used two of his bronze rank healing agents, and the quickly brought out his adrenaline inhaler, and took a massive whiff out of it.

[All Stats increased by 1 stage! Energetic Status Effect Engaged!]

“Arghhhhhhh! Come get some fuckers!”