This reset, things were a little off.

  Her physical combat test wasn’t being run by Ren, the veteran, this loop. Instead, some new face from security was waiting—a guy she’d never seen before.

  Why? Kelly had no idea. Maybe her existence had shifted something, a butterfly effect from all her tinkering. Or maybe the universe was just being petty. Either way, she wondered which of her actions had caused it.

  Her best guess was her own improvement. This time, she’d pulled her punches killing that creature in the Mistmarket. The fight ran four seconds longer than her previous average. Maybe four seconds was enough for Ren to lose interest. A four-second efficiency gain, and suddenly the ghost had better things to do.

  The guard was a mountain of polished chrome and grafted muscle, a walking advertisement for excessive augmentation, and he was level 25. That put his EQ enhancement a solid 16.4 levels above her baseline, with a specialization in speed that should have turned her into a stain on the floor. So, of course, he and everyone watching from the upper galleries were more than a little surprised when she knocked him flat, and handed him his own disassembled firearm in a neat, three-minute package.

  Soon, three more guards joined the party, looking personally offended by the upstart recruit. Kelly sighed, dodging a powered fist. This was going to take all day. She didn’t have all day. "Ren Sato!" she yelled toward the observation level, her voice cutting through the grunts and impacts. "I didn't sign up for this…. we had a deal!”

  They broke contact as she yelled, and eyed her curiously.

  One of the three guards leveled a nasty-looking coil rifle at her chest. “Your file says you’re a scientist,” he said, voice flat. “This assessment was a courtesy. Clearly, someone in research made a mistake.”

  The second guard, arms crossed over a heavily augmented frame, snorted. “She moves like she trained at some polished military academy—too rough, though. Not a graduate. Maybe a dropout. Pathetic.” The third guard shifted his stance, the hostility between them thickening. This wasn’t just about the test. It was departmental rivalry—a chance to haze a new upstart and cover the fact that she’d beaten one of their own.

  The first guard nodded, his grip tightening on the weapon. “You get assigned somewhere prestigious, haven’t even seen your first century, and suddenly you think you can show off against real fighters? You got lucky.” He flicked his eyes to the others, their elite-grade weapons all trained on her. “We won’t kill you. But you’ll leave on a stretcher. You can spend your first day of employment in the emergency wing.”

  Kelly’s gaze moved from the coil rifle to the three guards, her expression unimpressed, already counting the lost seconds on her precious day.

  “How thoughtful,” she said dryly.

  They fought.

  It was a violent calculus of gunfire, strafing drones, and cover-seeking droids. Close-quarters combat dissolved into superhuman movements—augmented strength against augmented mobility, weapon mods tracking and failing to track through a storm of return fire and kinetic deflection. The three exploded into a blur.

  Against Kelly's stacked augments, her jury-rigged tech, her reverse-engineered magic, and her new footwork—a stuttering, feinting burst of unpredictable speed—they didn't fare any better than the first guy. She beat them senseless. With nothing but a handgun and her transforming, rune-engraved weapon shaped like a mundane shovel.

  It was slightly embarrassing. For them. For Kelly, it was partially excessive, partially payback for wasting time she could have spent running more tests on her time attunement. But there was a method to the madness. She needed to do something uniquely disruptive to catch the old monster's eye.

  She stepped over a groaning guard and raised her voice toward the observation galleries again. "Ren Sato! Next person who comes down here to assess me that isn't you gets the same treatment, but I start using the sharp end. Your call."

  More staff filtered into the upper galleries to watch the spectacle. A few were promptly called away, likely pulled back to urgent duties by buzzing comms. Kelly thought she spotted someone on a live video call, projecting the feed of her and her victories to other parts of the building. Good. She hoped the old veteran would see it and decide to show up.

  Unfortunately, the main result was drawing more guards who could afford a break from their posts. They stepped onto the training floor with a certain military bravado—home-turf pride, a collective need to break the newbie.

  Someone from the balcony called down, skepticism thick in their voice. “She’s beating her examiners black and blue and thinks that’ll get her a meeting with the division head? Please.”

  Kelly paused. Her stubborn eagerness might have made her come on too strong against people who were, technically, just doing their jobs. It was a heavy-handed way to send a message. The efficiency was questionable—she’d used energy, created a mess, and now waited for a bigger problem. She looked at the groaning guards, at the fresh faces moving to replace them. These weren’t Ren. They were just people doing a job. She’d been excessively efficient at dismantling them. The thought wasn’t quite guilt. It was a tactical recalibration. There was a difference between breaking a system and breaking the cogs who happened to be turning it. This way was fast, but it was also loud. She considered the best way to get her grumpy, annoyingly-overpowered tutor's attention.

  One of the downed examiners—an early expert-stage fighter—struggled to her feet. She gave Kelly a baleful look as she keyed something into her palm, a gesture Kelly couldn’t see clearly.

  “Miss Voss,” the woman said, her voice strained. “Our division vice captain is on his way. He’s asked you to wait for him. To prevent… further loss of resources.” She swiped up, projecting the formal request to Kelly’s own display.

  They limped away, carrying the other guards, likely heading to the infirmary.

  Kelly let them leave. She stood waiting.

  The man who arrived was the Combat and Defense Division Vice Captain, followed by an attendant of some kind.

  The man himself filled the doorway. A massive man with a soldier’s crew cut and a proud scar over one eye and through his lip. He wore a mechanized suit—a powered exoskeleton fused with his own biomech augments. Nanotech webbing gleamed under composite plating. Weapon mounts protruded from the frame. The suit boosted his physical presence, making him look like a giant. His EQ level registered him far beyond the threshold. The tank range started at an Enhancement level of 30 and ended just below the elites, at 59.

  The vice captain scored a solid 45.0.

  A mid-level tank. Far higher than the battle-crazed Tüin ambassador, Ithili. The exosuit added formidable numbers to his already staggering level.

  He stood almost double what Kelly could reach even with Death’s Foe active. His latent speed surpassed what Giant’s Bane could grant her. Facing him was like facing Ren again—a problem that couldn’t be solved with straightforward force.

  He looked down at her, his expression unreadable behind the scar and the permanent dismissive scowl.

  Kelly sized him up. Like when she faced the old monster, she wouldn’t get through this with stats. She’d get through it with every tool, augment, custom tech, and stolen magic she’d reverse-engineered.

  She’d win it by cheating.

  The man entered with a furious, irritated look. He walked at a measured, angry pace toward her, a single colleague falling in step beside him.

  "Kelly Voss. Codename, Timer." His voice was a low, annoyed grumble. "I've seen your file, although clearly it needs updating. There is considerable information on your capabilities and credentials missing from it.”

  Kelly groaned. Timer? That was it? That was the cool, covert callsign someone in a windowless room had assigned her? She stared at the vice captain, her expression flat. It was the most generic, milquetoast label imaginable. It sounded like a kitchen appliance. Couldn't they have at least tried? Something with a little more punch.

  Where was the creativity? The menace? Something with more personality. Something like 'Chrono-Cock'? No, even that was stupid, and also unprofessional. Why not ‘Skip’ or ‘Fast-Forward’? Hell, even ‘Schedule Conflict’ would have shown some effort.

  The whole thing was a letdown. For a second, she wondered if she could file a complaint. Probably not. They’d likely just change it to ‘Stopwatch’.

  Unaware of her internal despair, the vice captain continued. “If you continue to cause a disturbance and injure defense members during a crisis, we'll have to terminate your contract and ask you to leave. Consider this a pass.”

  Her eyes tracked him as he advanced. He had a unique weapon augment—a massive, single-edged power blade that ran the length of his reinforced forearm, humming with a low-frequency distortion field that probably shredded armor. It was serious hardware.

  He had to have seen her EQ level. He’d definitely seen his injured colleagues. He knew exactly what she was capable of. So for him to march straight toward someone with her ability meant one of two things. Either the man was profoundly stupid. Or he was utterly confident in melee combat.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  People who made it to the Tank-level and beyond were far from stupid.

  "Got it," she muttered, adjusting her grip on her shovel. "A close-range strength specialist." This was going to be a very specific kind of problem. Good thing she’d brought her own set of rules to break.

  From what Kelly had seen, power armor users usually went one of two ways: all mobility and heavy artillery, or a total commitment to defense and close-quarters combat, using the armor to literally weather any storm. The Vice Captain looked like the second type, dialed up to eleven.

  “I’m here for Ren. Mr Sato,” Kelly said, her voice cutting through the hum of his suit. “The old man. He’s supposed to train me. Or test me. It’s my sign-up bonus.” She gestured at the man’s weapon, and at the slowly self-repairing arena. “This is just bad onboarding.”

  The Vice Captain visibly reacted. His gaze hardened.

  “Your file is convenient,” he said, watching. “Either fabricated or you’re a very dedicated forger,” he stated, his voice a low rumble. “You move like academy stock. One of the fancy ones from their high-gravity colonies. Jupiter, maybe.” He glanced at a readout on his wrist. “Vaughn is your employer. Genecorp sanctioned your crisis upgrades.” He ticked the points off. “Two of the four major corps are on your paperwork. That suggests you’re a promising upstart from the Echelon. Or backed by them. Or by a demigod.”

  He took a step forward. The floor plating creaked.

  “But we don’t summon department heads and company partners because a guest feels like it. You passed your review the moment you defeated the first examiner. What followed was excessive force against non-examiners. Injuries outside the combat protocol.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you think you can walk away without providing compensation?”

  He paused, the silence heavy.

  “Who are you?” The question was blunt. “Not the cover. Who are you, really? An Echelon outer-member? A soldier wearing a younger face? Who is your backer? Which member of the Echelon supports you?”

  What he really wanted to ask was: Where did you serve? Which post? Which skirmish? The unspoken truth was that anyone capable of dismantling not just Threshold-stage fighters, but peak military-trained Expert-level combatants—people who had seen real conflict—at her apparent age, could only be a famous prodigy from one of the major academies, or a military Expert themselves. He knew the names of all the academy students worth a damn, and he could count on both hands every one of them with the battle power to toy with an Expert. Her face and name were not among them. Not even close.

  That left him with disturbing implications about why she was really here.

  “I’m not affiliated with those dickheads,” Kelly said, her tone derisive. “Not from some loser rich-boy academy. Never served in any military. I’m not some experienced Echelon member pretending to be normal.” Like that annoying yet somehow likeable dipshit Reggie. She shrugged. “What else can I say? It’s the truth.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” the man asked, mounting anger evident in his voice.

  “I’m not lying.” Kelly said, her own eagerness for a good fight creeping into her tone. It would be a good chance to test what she could do against a higher-level opponent, one who wasn’t over a hundred times beyond her, and one who probably wouldn’t try to kill her. Probably.

  Both parties, for very different reasons, were now spoiling for a fight.

  She had inconvenienced him greatly. It was a planetary crisis—a portal apocalypse. The world was literally ending outside their fortified building, and he was the Vice President of Defense and Security. His critical affairs had been interrupted because he’d been called to deal with a madwoman who had sent his men to the medical bay. In a crisis where every pair of arms was valuable, and morale was more important than ever, the indignity of having his loyal men thrashed was grating his nerves. And despite his bluff, he couldn’t simply kick her out—she was Dr. Haider’s guest. So he went for the next best option.

  “I see. If that’s the case,” he replied, his voice suddenly calm. “We’re almost done here.”

  Kelly shifted her weight, her systems priming.

  “But since you are so desperate for a final stage to your assessment,” he continued, “since you insist on harming my staff, I will provide the last combat competence test myself.”

  When Kelly had asked around earlier, people hadn’t had much to say about the Vice Captain. But when they mentioned him, she’d noticed how their postures changed—backs a little straighter, words a bit clearer. He inspired them. They were proud of him. Something in his aura, in the respect he commanded, made her inclined to take him a little seriously.

  A dangerous aura ignited around his biomechanically-enhanced fist. A concealed weapon augment of some kind. His first attack was a forward blast of concussive force aimed directly between Kelly’s eyes.

  Kelly had never deactivated any of her system hacks. Not the near-death state that triggered her Title’s conditions, not the automated reactions, defenses, and guided counter-movements, not the perception boost sharpening her vision, not the partial Werewolf Trait form making her bigger, stronger, tougher, and meaner, nor the sheet of dense metal through her shifting mimic skin that immediately covered her entire face as the blow landed.

  All of Kelly's abilities, traits, and magic activated, an entire layered cascade of hacked-together advantages, and a single Title flared.

  She immediately reciprocated the violence.

  What followed was an absolutely titanic clash of gunfire, fists, kicks, and concussive grenades that began to crater the reinforced ground they fought upon.

  The attendant who’d been standing with the vice captain took one look at the situation and hurried out of the hall. Smart. He’d realized he was about to become a stain on the floor from the collateral damage, and that he’d be zero help against someone who could actually trade blows with his boss.

  To his credit, when Kelly’s face shifted into reflective metal and didn’t budge an inch from his first powered swing, the vice captain’s eyes did get wider. They widened again when she kept pace with him, blow for blow. But he got his expression under control fast, locking into a stare of pure focus. His weapon-augment, a massive single-edged power blade that ran the length of his reinforced forearm, hummed to life with a low-frequency distortion field that definitely could shred standard armor for fun. The man got serious.

  The exchange that followed was a frenzy of motion, moments stretching in the heat of it.

  Kelly snapped her fingers three times. The gravity around her spiked for a split second, just enough to throw his balance off. She switched back to Death’s Foe. Her shield sprang to life. A grenade she’d stored in her shadow-space earlier in the day materialized and detonated at point-blank range, angled right at him.

  She gained ground by fighting dirty. Her shadow shot projectiles. Instant shields blinked around her. Her Disciple of Deflection title sent his attacks glancing away. She used every unpredictable feint, every debuff, every rune and scrap of magic she had. Her augments pushed her specialization in all directions at once—speed, strength, resilience, cognition—spiking her score to the peak of the expert level.

  But the man wasn’t a mere expert.

  His strength was insane. The way he used his weapon augments and biomechanics was borderline suicidal. He could take everything she threw at him and not fall. His face got hit at point-blank range by grenades and flames, and he never lost strength. He was a tank. His power armor bent under her impacts but never crumbled.

  His eyes stayed open even as flames washed over him. When the smoke cleared, he stepped forward. There was a look in his eyes. Like he was asking for more.

  For once, Kelly had to wonder if she’d met someone as mentally unhinged about not quitting as she was. It was a strange thought. Even with all her passive modifiers, cheats, and advantages in a fight, he was keeping up.

  He couldn’t hurt her, thanks to Disciple of Deflection, Fortress of Endurance, Fortress of Flame, her instant shields, and the metal mimic skin negating anything that landed. But despite the crazy number of blows she landed, his biomechanical power armor would concentrate on the impact areas, repairing and covering the damage, making it vanish. She didn’t want to switch to more lethal means and risk killing him. That would ruin her access to the organization and the hired muscle she needed.

  She had all the advantages. Experience. Tech. Runes. Magic. The ability to tweak causality. A shadow full of explosions and sonic weapons. She could break his flow. Increase his gravity. She had a bag full of tricks and a status screen full of Traits and Titles. She wasn’t playing fair.

  After thirty seconds of high-speed exchange, the damage she was dealing began to exceed his armor’s ability to repair itself. The system was wearing thin, unable to keep up with the transformations.

  “You’re telling me you’re not from an academy? The Echelon?” the vice captain asked, his voice a grating rumble between impacts. “Are you really as young as you look?”

  “I’m twenty-one,” Kelly said, blocking a blow that cracked the floor. ‘Though, baby time-god stuff probably makes me more like twenty-five, mentally and chronologically,’ Kelly thought. She internally wondered if one day she’d be mentally hundreds of years old like the relics from the older wars.

  “You’re not overclocked,” he stated, like he was checking a list. “My scan would’ve pinged a warning. So what are you? Some kind of mutant? Is that it?”

  “No.” The answer was automatic. Then she paused, remembering Ren’s words from a past reset. She’d taken the same tests everyone else did, checking for dangerous mutagens in the worst parts of the city. She’d come back negative every time. Taken every precaution. Kelly had crafted her power with sweat, blood, a few tears, and her own two hands. She was no mutant.

  But Ren thought she was a mutant. That misunderstanding had gotten him in the room before. It opened doors. Once again, she decided to run with it, all for the sake of getting closer to her goals.

  “Yeah,” she said, her tone flat. “Great mutation. Makes me super strong.”

  The man’s eyes turned contemplative at her reply, then hardened with decision. “Room, initiate Combat Assessment Test Squad Protocol,” he ordered, his voice flattening into a system-ready monotone. “Pre-lethal force authorized.”

  A segment of the floor split, sliding open. An exosuit ascended from the cavity, a layered silhouette of dark armor and dense machinery. The large exosuit hissed open in a smooth, concentric motion—like a blooming metal flower. He stepped back into its frame, and it sealed around him with a series of heavy clunks and a rising power-whine.

  It should have been simple. Kelly turned Experts into paste for fun. A few Tanks, too. She’d trashed more enhanced corporate soldiers than most cities had citizens.

  But a straightforward demolition turned into ten long minutes of brutal exchange—of furious, deadlocked fighting. The suit was the problem. It didn’t just protect him; it learned. It read his moves and amplified them, letting him push past his limits. It studied her moves and then boosted his speed and strength in the specific ways needed to counter her. The metal thing was teaching him how to fight her as they brawled.

  In the end, she had to time-skip the damn thing off him to finish it.

  She reached into the local timestream with the part of her that was a baby time god. Her perception shifted. The exosuit encasing the vice captain existed to her as a solid block of continuous presence. She isolated the suit's timeline from the man's. Her focus narrowed to the machine, its entire duration in the present moment.

  She connected, gripped that timeline, and wrenched it forward. The displacement was three seconds.

  The exosuit vanished from around the vice captain. It did not fade. It teleported in a concussive burst of sheared energy and displaced air, reappearing with a deafening CRACK-THUD ten feet away. It hit the floor as a dead, inert heap of armor and machinery.

  Stripped of its support, the vice captain stumbled. His own momentum and the sudden absence of the frame sent him tumbling across the polished floor. He slid to a stop several yards from his disconnected power source, his personal armor clattering.

  Kelly walked over, the heel of her boot clicking against the floor. She stopped beside him, looking down. She raised her hand, and a gun solidified from a swirl of shadow-particles in her grip. She aimed it directly at his eye.

  "Look, I could do this all day," Kelly said, her tone practical, almost conversational. "Well, I can't, because I have plans. I came here to see your boss. Ren."

  A shadow fell over her—a shape that hadn't been there a second before. The air cooled. A voice, dry and textured like old stone, sounded from directly behind her.

  How did he—?

  "Now," the voice said, cutting through her thought. "Who's going around causing a scene and asking for a kind, humble old man like me?"

  Kelly turned, her gun lowering a fraction. Standing there, hands clasped behind his back, was none other than the old monster himself.