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"Get the hell away from that console, Vance!"
Bane’s voice roared over the screech of grinding metal. He didn't wait for me to move. He lunged, his heavy boot slamming into my ribs and sending me skidding across the oil-slicked floor of the workshop.
I coughed, tasting copper and ozone. "It’s almost stable, you idiot!" I spat, scrambling back toward the workbench.
"Stable?" Bane sneered, stepping over a pile of rusted gears. He looked at the reactor—a jagged, humming piece of forbidden tech—and then at me. "You're trying to fuse a dead-core into your own damn arm. You're not a genius, Darek. You're a suicide case."
He grabbed the collar of my grease-stained shirt and hoisted me up. His grip was like a vice, smelling of cheap tobacco and desperation. "The Cartel knows you have it. They’re five minutes out. Give me the core, and maybe I can negotiate a price for your head that keeps me in booze for a year."
"Go to hell," I hissed.
I didn't fight him. I leaned.
With a sudden, violent jerk, I threw my weight forward, slamming my mechanical prosthetic—the one missing its power source—directly into the reactor's open socket.
*CRACK.*
Blue fire didn't just ignite; it screamed.
A wave of kinetic force blasted outward, throwing Bane backward into a rack of scrap metal with a deafening crash. I didn't feel the impact. I didn't feel the floor. I felt like my entire nervous system had been replaced by white-hot needles.
"God... damn it!" I shrieked, my voice breaking.
My left arm wasn't just humming now. It was glowing. Veins of neon-blue ether were crawling up my forearm, stitching themselves into my skin, fusing metal and meat in a way that should have been impossible. The pain was a physical wall, a mountain of agony that threatened to crush my skull.
Then, the noise started.
*BOOM.*
The front door didn't just open; it disintegrated.
Dust and splinters filled the air. Through the haze, four silhouettes stepped in. Hex-Cartel Enforcers. Black armor, glowing red visors, and those oversized steam-rifles that could punch through a brick wall.
"Darek Vance," the lead enforcer barked, his voice modulated and metallic. "By order of the Syndicate, you are under arrest for possession of forbidden arcane technology. Surrender the core, or we liquidate the premises. Including the pests."
Bane was groaning on the floor, clutching his shoulder. "I told him!" he yelled, sounding pathetic. "I told the kid it was a bad idea!"
"Shut up, traitor," the enforcer snapped. He didn't even look at Bane. He kept his rifle leveled right at my chest. "Last warning, Vance. Hands up. Now."
I looked at my arm. The blue fire had settled into a low, predatory thrum. I could feel it—not just power, but *hunger*. The reactor wasn't just a battery; it was a brain, and it was currently rewriting my biology.
"I'm not really in the mood for a chat," I muttered.
"Wrong answer," the enforcer said.
He pulled the trigger.
I didn't think. I didn't have time to. My arm moved on its own—a blur of blue light that intercepted the bolt. I didn't block it. I *caught* it.
The plasma blast hit my palm and vanished, absorbed instantly by the core. The energy surged up my shoulder, making my teeth ache.
"What the—" the enforcer started.
I was already moving. I didn't know how I got across the room so fast, but suddenly I was inches from his face. I could see my own terrified reflection in his red visor.
I swung.
I didn't just punch him; I unleashed everything the core had stored.
*K-BOOM.*
Blue lightning exploded from my fist. The impact sounded like a thunderclap in a closet. The enforcer didn't fly back—he disintegrated. His chest plate shattered, and the shockwave sent him spiraling through the back wall, leaving a human-shaped hole in the masonry.
Silence hit the room.
The other three enforcers froze. Their rifles were still up, but they weren't firing. They were staring at the smoking crater where their leader had been.
"What the hell was that?" one of them whispered.
"I don't know," I panted, staring at my hand. Smoke was curling off my knuckles. I felt a surge of adrenaline so thick it tasted like metal. "But I think I just got a promotion."
"Kill him!" the second enforcer screamed, snapping out of his shock.
They opened fire.
I dove behind a heavy iron smelting table, the bolts shredding the wood and metal above me. I could hear them flanking, their heavy boots clanking on the floor.
"Come out, scrap-rat!" they yelled. "You can't hide in a closet forever!"
I looked around. My workshop was a wreck. Tools everywhere. Half-finished automatons. And the core—still pulsing in my arm—demanding more. It wanted more energy. It wanted to burn.
I grabbed a handful of loose copper wiring and a discarded runic capacitor from the table. In a second, I didn't just see them as junk. I saw the flow of energy. I saw how to connect them.
I jammed the capacitor into the wiring and slammed my glowing hand onto the circuit.
"Eat this," I whispered.
I shoved the rigged device under the table and kicked it toward the center of the room.
"What is that?"
*FLASH.*
An electromagnetic pulse ripped through the air, shorting out their visors and locking their rifles' steam-valves. They gasped, blinded and jammed, stumbling in the dark.
I leaped out from cover, my arm humming a lethal tune. I caught the nearest one by the throat, lifting him off the ground. The metal of my hand burned through his collar.
"Who sent you?" I snarled. "Was it Sterling?"
"You're... dead..." he wheezed, clawing at my wrist.
I didn't have time for the drama. I slammed him into the floor, knocking him unconscious.
I stood there, chest heaving, surrounded by broken men and smoking ruins. For the first time in my life, I wasn't the one being hunted. I was the weapon.
Then, the air changed.
It wasn't a blast this time. It was a precision strike.
*K-CHAK.*
A breaching shell hit the remaining wall, not blowing it inward, but slicing a perfect circle through the stone. The slab fell with a heavy thud.
Through the settling dust and the swirling blue embers of my own power, a figure stepped inside.
She wasn't wearing the bulky armor of the enforcers. She wore a sleek, midnight-black tactical suit that clung to her like a second skin, with a silver cloak fluttering behind her. Her eyes were sharp, cold, and currently locked onto me with lethal intensity.
In her hand was a long, humming vibro-blade, the edge shimmering with a violet light.
She didn't say a word. She just shifted her weight, the blade tilting toward my throat in one fluid, predatory motion.
"Darek Vance," she said, her voice a low, dangerous velvet. "You've caused a very expensive mess."
I raised my glowing arm, the blue fire flickering. "And you are?"
She stepped closer, the tip of the blade stopping a fraction of an inch from my skin. I could smell ozone and something like winter rain.
"The person who's going to decide if you get to keep that arm," she whispered, "or if I just cut it off and take it with me."