The Darkzone was a bit further than a few blocks away. It was immediately noticeable thanks to the high number of people idling around in tac-gear. Bastion’s CDF and Valkris PMCs surrounded the area in a defensive line. Anything that tried to escape? It’d be shot down before it could even get close.

  Rabbyte approached a group of them to chat, and then came back to me. She casually picked up the mechanical bunny and dropped it on her shoulder, letting it have a wider view to film from. It bounced on top of her head and held onto her power armor’s ears to stabilize itself.

  She turned to me. It was a bit eerie having four eyes stare at me. Five, if I counted the camera. “We need to go a couple blocks to our left for the admin center.”

  I followed the Mythek around the evacuated zone to a park underneath a skyscraper. In between the pillars holding up the building, several tents were set up. They practically radiated the scent of blood and gore. Some of them looked like medical tents, but the others were… looked like maybe some kind of corpse holding?

  It was a safe bet, anyway. Heavy duty trucks parked around one of them, offloading corpse after corpse into the tent. Another group loaded them up onto a HAT from a different tent. There were a three different kinds of monsters, all treated the exact same and loaded up one after another.

  Rabbyte led me to the main tent in the center of everything. It was filled with administrator staff and Wardens of all kinds. We had to wait in a short queue, and then we moved to a rather drained looking dwarf.

  “We’re here to register!” Rabbyte excitedly called out. The bunny on her head tossed up a fist as if to cheer her on.

  The dwarf looked her up and down, and then did the same for me. “Are ye sure, lassy? Look a bit…”

  ”Overgeared?” Rabbyte’s mechanical ears flapped cheerfully.

  ”Aye. This only be an F-rank zone. No need to nick from the wee Wardens.” The dwarf rubbed at his bushy beard. He didn’t seem to care much about me. Guess I looked poor or something.

  Rabbyte nodded her head to me. ”Weapons testing. Is that an issue?”

  The dwarf waved a hand dismissively and tapped on a dataslate. “Nae bother, lassy. Thought I might ask is all. Normal registration?”

  “Yes, please.” Rabbyte flashed her SIGIL.

  The dwarf raised the dataslate to scan the magitech. He looked at it for a moment and then motioned to me. “Yers?”

  “…” I followed her example and flashed mine. The white spool of interlocking runes and lines floated just above the back of my hand with just a thought. SIGILs sure were convenient.

  “Warden Rabbyte and Moon, aye?” The guy tapped around on his dataslate and nodded his head a few times. He reached below the table and pulled out a handful of small pill looking devices. “‘Ere ye go. Rest be five a pop.”

  Rabbyte grabbed them and handed me about half. Her ears flicked toward the distance like she was listening to something, then bobbed up and down. “How long until it's purged?”

  ”Two days.”

  “Should have more than enough time!” Rabbye excitedly bounced toward the area. Her Mascot held onto her ears for dear life. “Let’s go, Moon! The gun isn’t going to test itself!”

  I followed her beyond the CDF’s defensive line and lifted one of the pill things. “…?”

  ”Oh, the trackers?” She turned around, walking backward so she could stare at me with her helmeted head. “It’s to mark the monster corpses. Researchers, Mysteks, and all sorts of people want them, so leaving them out to rot isn’t really an option.”

  “Monsters?” Probably should’ve asked before, but I was distracted by all the new stuff. Never been to a Darkzone before. Usually, they were only declared when a particularly bad rift, or several, broke. It was a bit weird seeing an F-rank one considering how quick Feeble rifts were usually cleared.

  ”Um…” The lights on her helmet flashed erraticly. “Three different kinds. Cobblins which mainly just throw pebbles. Grimlins, which cover themselves in gore. And last but not least, Pikxies.”

  We entered through the main entrance, spotting far more Wardens than actual threats. Most of the Wardens around here weren’t even in combat gear either. They stood around, letting Mascots film them. A bunch of trend trotters by the looks of things. Doubt any of them had even seen combat in their life.

  Hmm… Pursius called them something back when he went off about concepts and all that. What was it? Goblins? The name certainly fit. They were weak and cowardly Wardens that relied on public perception and careful media management to make a living instead of actually doing their job and fighting monsters. Complete waste of the OS’s blessings.

  We walked for several blocks into the Darkzone. The neon lights and flashing holograms were entirely shut down. The streets were completely abandoned, with cars parked haphazardly all around. I guess that’s why these got their names? They were, well, zones of dark. No need to keep power flowing to a place no one was in.

  The signs of battle damage grew, and the Goblins slowly but surely faded away. They were too scared to even leave the relatively safe fringes of the Darkzone. Warriors without courage always irritated me. There was just something about them that made me want to slam their heads into the pavement. Repeatedly.

  To be fair, this place was a bit creepy. Abandoned places also seemed to unsettle me. Maybe since I spent so long in one? There was a certain eeriness to-

  Rabbyte stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and motioned forward. Her voice dropped into a low whisper. “Detecting vibrations. Tangos up ahead. Probably a Cobblin?”

  I summoned out Thorn’s Defiance. The heavy-duty wooden sniper appeared in my hands with a flash of ether. Guns were still a little weird to me, but eventually I found the right way to hold it. I looked down the scope and got used to the zoom. There was a glowing red ring around the thing’s scope. “Zero?”

  ”Oh! It should be auto-zeroed. Just point and shoot.” Rabbye raised her arms and dramatically imitated the kick, throwing them up into the air.

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  That was handy. I looked down the scope a bit more and got used to it. The thing had several zoom toggles, though I just kept with the most zoomed out one for now. Not like I’d be doing any long-ranged sniping with this thing given our current environment.

  A… Cobblin? Was that a Cobblin? It was a small creature made of rock. Looked like some kid cobbled it together from a bunch of pebbles more than anything. It walked out from an alley and pounded the road, creating small pebbles. It promptly ate them like some kind of snack.

  “Is the scope red? Red is for Thorn Grasp. Green is Thorn Weave. There’s a toggle right-“ She flipped a switch on the gun’s receiver. The scope flashed green, then back to red. “Here. Basically, red offense. Green defense.”

  I nodded my head a few times. Hopefully that wouldn’t get too confusing. Probably best I just left it on offense for the time being. I scoped in on the Cobblin way down the street once more. It didn’t even know we were looking at it.

  ”Now, the Defiance has a lotta kick as a heavy sniper, so I’d recommend mounting-“

  Wumph!

  I pulled the trigger, completely cutting off whatever Rabbyte was about to say. Green electricity sparked along the weapon, wrapping around the barrel. It compressed and fired off, carrying the tip of the heavy sniper’s barrel alongside it.

  The massive wooden thorn fired off like a bullet crackling with green electricity. A beat later, dozens of smaller thorns shot off from what was left of the barrel, chasing after the thorn like they were magnetized.

  The heavy thorn slammed into the Cobblin, punching a hole straight through the Feeble rank monster and into the building behind it. As if that wasn’t enough to kill it in the first place, the dozens of smaller thorns followed like an angry swarm of bees. They splintered across the Cobblin’s rocky body and easily inflicted dozens of other wounds. It dropped dead before it even knew what hit it.

  While all that was happening, Thorn’s Defiance slammed into my shoulder hard enough to knock it out of socket. Only a thin layer of Ebonshroud prevented the worst from happening, and even then my muscles took half the brunt of the impact. Definitely going to leave a bruise.

  [Nighteye lets out a low whistle and her whiskers twitch in fascination. How did the gun even fire?]

  Literally no idea. Did I need to know the inner workings, though? Magic was just magic. As long as it worked, it didn’t really matter if I knew the exact principles and theorems. Besides, this thing was made from a Myth Fragment, right? No telling what weirdness Mythek’s used.

  [Nighteye eyes your weird companion. Indeed.]

  My jaw dropped in surprise. Did- did we just agree on something?!

  Rabbyte bounced around me, checking the wooden sniper and my arm. Her words slowly got through the ringing in my ears. “… designed to be mounted, psychopath! Not just fired while standing! How are you even still up?”

  I slung the sniper with one arm and flexed. “Strong.”

  ”That’s! Ugh-“ Rabbyte shook her head. “You’re insane!”

  Insane? No I wasn’t. Next time I’d wear ear protection. I checked out the sniper rifle. The sharp spear at the end of the barrel was gone, leaving a rounded numb. The little thorns that grew along the barrel were also gone. Was it a one and done type weapon like some kind of musket?

  A small trickle of ether flowed from me, absorbed by Thorn’s Defiance. Slowly but surely, the barrel and little thorns all along it regrew. “…?”

  ”It was only a low-tier Fragment.” The red dots on her power armor flicked to the barrel of my new gun. “I had to make some sacrifices to get its damage so high. There’s about a fifteen second ‘regrowth’ period between shots.”

  That wasn’t too bad. Not great, but not bad. I wouldn’t have to worry about ammo at least. “Rank?”

  She bounced lightly on her feet and looked up at me. There was a certain smugness to the way her power armor’s ears wagged around. “Crushing. On par with an anti-material fifty cal.”

  Primo. Quite the heavy hitter, then. I nodded my head in appreciation and ran a hand along the leafy receiver. It was already done growing back. I was a bit worried about heading into a C-rank rift without enough firepower, but I could probably manage now.

  “Green?” I asked, flipping the firing mode to the other version.

  Rabbyte shrugged and pulled her rabbit Mascot off her head, tossing it to a nearby truck. The Mascot immediately flicked around and started recording us once more. ”It’s a rooting attack. No point using it against these little guys, though. It’ll probably still one shot them. Shall we keep going?”

  “Yep.” We moved on after marking the dead Cobblin with one of the pills. We ran into a few more after that, though not much else. The Cobblins were surprisingly sparse. That may’ve had to do with how long this place had been a Darkzone though. Plenty of Wardens came through here.

  As for the gun? Couldn’t quite compare to melee combat, but feeling the kick, hearing the heavy impact, and seeing the damage? There was just something so stress-relieving about hitting a monster with a heavy weapon and watching it explode. It was the same even back home with String Sorcery.

  Sting Sorcery… I kinda wish I could still use that stuff. No Weave here to pluck though. Even back home the Weave was destroyed by all the contamination, so I guess it wasn’t much of a surprise. My weapon arts and magic were still completely useless here.

  A lifetime of learning all for nothing. Unless I somehow managed to convert ether into an artificial weave… maybe I should look into that? It’d be a lot easier to protect Lucia if I had even a fraction of my peak strength. I didn’t even-

  “Moon!” Rabbyte stopped in front of me, drawing me from my thoughts. “Want to head up? Might get a vantage point and use the sniper as, you know, a sniper?”

  I looked up and down the street. Completely empty. The sniper was loud when it fired. It seemed like it scared most of the monsters away. ”Yep.”

  We entered into a small ransacked bodega. Looked like looters tore through here after this area was declared a Darkzone. Rabbyte led the way forward into the dark store. Flood lights on her helmet clicked on, illuminating the dark space. The rabbit Mascot likewise tapped on its camera, lighting the place up.

  The emergency stairs were in the back, which led straight up to the roof on the thirteenth floor. No electricity meant no elevators too, so we had to climb them. I had no problems with it, but the same couldn’t be said for my companion. It seemed she skipped cardio. By the time we got to the top, she panted heavily through her power armor’s speaker.

  “Suppressor?” I motioned to the barrel of the weapon. I think that's what they were called, at least. Might not be a bad idea to get one.

  ”I can- hah- try to figure- hah- one out.” Rabbyte waved a hand as if to say go on without me. “Need materials though. New- hah- Fragment to evolve it.”

  Oh, there were evolutions for this kind of thing too? Primo. There was just so much to do in Bastion. I could probably spend a couple centuries here and still not know everything. I guess that could only be expected considering this place was a nexus between so many worlds.

  I moved away while she caught her breath and looked off the roof. While this building wasn’t the tallest one around, it was higher than the majority. I had a great view looking up and down the dark street.

  A flash of fire caught my eye. I scoped in, and adjusted the zoom to sixteen times, checking out a small park that was in the Darkzone. In it, a group of three Wardens fought against what looked like garden gnomes covered in pieces of flesh and rock. Based off Rabbyte’s description, they were probably Grimlins?

  There were dozens to the three Wardens, and they were slowly but surely encapsulating the trio. The Vanguard looked heavily injured, and the two others behind him weren’t much better. Add in the fact more and more Grimlins were pouring into the field, and the situation didn’t look good.

  The… Striker? Maybe. She waved a staff, sending five fireballs spewing from the tip. They impacted the surrounding Grimlins, though seemed to do little damage. Definitely more of a flashy attack than an effective one.

  At the rate this was going… they’d probably all three die within a few minutes. I shifted, leaning Thorn’s Respite against the concrete barriers around the roof. Small bits of Ebonshroud flowed out of my skin, forming earbuds. I carefully put my finger on the trigger.

  Before firing, I even activated one of my new Skills, Brace. I thought I wouldn’t get much use out of it given its nature, but this beast of a rifle proved to be the perfect testing grounds.

  [Brace - Resist impact]

  Ether flowed from me, embracing my muscles and skeleton. I could feel it under my skin, hardening and enhancing my body. Hopefully it’d help with the kick a bit? I lined up a shot on a Grimlin flanking the group and carefully squeezed the trigger.

  Wumph!