I set the sample onto the cradle of my materials analyzer and watched as the clamps sealed around it with a soft magnetic hum. A piece of squared metal, really. Polished, unassuming, barely heavier than steel by mass. Trying to cut it was every bit time-consuming. Plasma cutters seem to work after going at it for three hours straight, but they wouldn't cut it.

  Extremely durable.

  The first scan returned values so absurd that I almost restarted the machine out of instinct. Tensile strength readings that outstripped parahuman-grade materials. Thermal resistance off the charts. A lattice structure so dense and so stable that the microscope struggled to resolve the grain boundaries.

  And yet every lab sensor I had was already screaming at me, saying that such readings were simply…

  Impossible.

  It should have been impossible.

  I leaned closer to the display, jaw tightening, rubbing my eyes, thinking I was seeing the data wrong, but no matter how many times I've refreshed it, the data never lies.

  High-density alloy cluster detected. Thermo-mechanical shaping: unknown class. Catalytic infusions: not in database.

  Compression tolerance: exceeds paristeel by 873%.

  Stronger than paristeel. Stronger than parahuman alloys. And the crystalline orientation is something no natural process could have made this. No tinker on the East Coast produced anything remotely comparable. Even Dragon's highest-end prototypes weren't built like this.

  I ran another test, a more invasive one. The analyzer's thermal laser swept a line across the sample, attempting to heat it past the critical deformation temperature.

  No reaction.

  The microstructure was maddening.

  A bizarre marriage of cold forging and thermal shaping, two processes that should have cancelled each other out. The catalyst traces within the alloy were unfamiliar, almost alien in their distribution. There are traces of Carbon, Titanium, Steel and even Neodymium. Those materials are all heavy-duty. In theory, a 2mm thick Neosteel can withstand 5000 pounds of force. The usual build up of any acidic or energy dissipation loss requires 200 million amps of gamma wave to penetrate it in theory.

  The data just doesn't make sense, but the math says it is possible. How could it not be? This piece of technical engineering wonder is right in front of me.

  Antimony chains braided between compressed carbon lattices. Nanoscale support structures that flexed and returned to position with zero fatigue loss. In theory, too, a thick wall made of stuff like this could withstand 100 tactical nukes exploding at the material at the same time.

  Someone decided to just over-engineer this thing and simply said Hmm… this could use more strength. More power. And keep pushing and pushing and pushing…until they decided ahh yes. Nobody could ever send a hundred nukes at the same time at my bunker and simply decide that's enough. Let's stop at a hundred nukes for now.

  Whoever thought of this must be mad, insane…or simply doesn't see any limits to material science technology.

  It wasn't just advanced. It was years ahead. Decades ahead of its time, as if to account for space travel for humans in the far, far future. Whoever Dreamhack really was, his "team" was operating on a different technological axis entirely. Not just an eccentric tinker specialization. Not a unique quirk. This was an engineered refinement built on principles Earth science hadn't even articulated yet.

  pinched the bridge of my nose.

  How was I supposed to recreate this? Even with all the data available, the sheer complexity made my head ache. I could try heat-pressure cycling with adaptive Nanoforge modulation, but without the correct catalyst? Without knowing what these microscopic inclusions actually were? Without even knowing if I even have the right tools to even recreate this.

  It was guesswork at best.

  It's four am in the morning. I haven't slept for the past two days..and then Dreamhack drop this thing on me… It's mortifying.

  The alloy might as well have been grown in a star.

  I tapped the screen again. The analyzer chirped and showed density readings that made structural steel look like brittle chalk. A hundred times stronger than Fe550 CRS. A thousand times purer. Every angle of analysis confirmed it: I was staring at a material more advanced than anything humanity produced.

  I sat back, heart thrumming with equal parts dread and exhilaration. If Dreamhack team could manufacture this casually, if alloys like this were his scrap-tier output, what else was he capable of? What had he refrained from showing us?

  And more importantly…

  How could I ensure something like this didn't become a threat?

  I frowned at the shard of metal in the cradle, suddenly aware of how small it was and how profoundly dangerous. And…he gave a ton of that stuff as "presents" for me to tinker with. The sheer possibility of the things these can be made into. Armor? Impenetrable vehicle? An indestructible weapon of mass destruction? The possibilities are endless. A very dangerous present was given to me, and I dont even know what to do with it.

  The PRT would want answers, Director Pigot and the Protectorate as a whole would demand containment of such material. And I would have to solve something that should not be solvable. I leaned in again, fingers already moving over the console as I began drafting replication trials.

  I need…a second opinion on this.

  The clock on my workshop wall glowed 04:17 AM, its blue digits casting faint reflections across the metal benches. Should I do it?

  I rubbed at my eyes, trying to scrape away the ache building behind them. I had been at this for hours after all, just running tests, rerunning them since the evening, since he came, then rerunning them again because the numbers refused to make sense.

  Dragon.

  She was the only one on Earth who could check my results without bias. The only one capable of understanding what I was staring at a fundamental level, and maybe the only person I trusted not to panic before the data was clear.

  I hesitated, thumb hovering over the comm line.

  Four in the morning, Collin. Even for Dragon, this is pushing it.

  But the alloy shard sat under the diagnostic lamps like a quiet revelation. Too advanced. Too stable. Too… impossible. If Dreamhack could make this, or worse, mass-produce it and by then we couldn't afford to wait. What if he sold this to another villain? To Toybox. What if they misuse this?

  I opened the comm channel."Dragon," I said softly, almost wincing at the quiet ping as the connection was established all the way to Canada during this hour. There was a delay, brief but noticeable. Then her voice came through, warm and crisp despite the hour.

  "Collin? Is something wrong?" her voice was clear. Was she still up during this time?

  "I apologize for the time," I said. "But I need your expertise on something immediately. I believe it can't wait."

  "…I'm listening," she said.

  I pulled up the scan results and transmitted the full data packet. Structural readings, atomic lattice mapping, resilience tests, just everything. For a moment, there was silence on her end, only the faint hum of my lab equipment running several other readings on the material. Her digital avatar went online as I turned on the camera to show her direct readings from the camera I recorded onto the material.

  "Collin… these readings are incorrect. Have you done a retest?"

  "I thought the same," I answered. "But I verified them. Multiple times. Different instruments."

  Another silence followed, but this wasn't confusion. This was a shock for her.

  "Collin," Dragon said quietly, "this alloy is beyond anything humanity has ever developed. Even my highest-tier prototypes, my confidential ones, don't match these resilience curves. Are you sure this is the right data?"

  "I know."

  "It… this structure shouldn't be stable. The energy requirements alone…"

  "...."

  "Where did you get it?" she finally asked.

  I exhaled slowly, pressing a hand to the workstation table, wondering if I should simply say the truth? It's not the first time we've discussed about him. Not to mention the Gauss rifle as well.

  "Dreamhack.. He delivered it to the PRT as a 'gift.' He insists he only works in construction-scale systems. Claims this was made by his 'team.' I'm not convinced."

  On Dragon's side, a soft electronic sound is coming from the computer of her digital avatar.

  "I'll say this carefully, Collin," she murmured. "If this is authentic and all your tests say it is, then the tinker we're dealing with is not simply talented. His technology base is fundamentally divergent from ours."

  "That was my assessment as well."

  "Can he replicate this?"

  "Yes. Casually."

  "That is… concerning."

  My throat tightened at the understatement.

  "Dragon," I said, "given your full capacity, could you recreate this?"

  A longer pause. More processing power than usual. A hundred silent computations unfolding.

  "…Not reliably,I wouldn't have …enough computational power to do a simulation of the right test bed to recreate the right catalyst on a stable enough method," she finally admitted. "Not without significant trial and error. The catalyst traces alone are decades beyond modern metallurgy. And this thermo-mechanical process, Collin, nothing about it matches our current modern technological science. Including parahumans ones."

  I stared down at the alloy again, the cold gleam of it catching the lab lights.

  "Could he be dangerous?" I asked.

  "Anyone with this capability is dangerous," Dragon answered softly. "But that does not mean he intends to be. He gave it all away freely. Perhaps look at the bright side, we have an independent tinker capable of creating a highly durable material with extreme tensile strength that doesn't seem to use it for the wrong purpose.."

  "That's what worries me…Until when will he keep being independent? " I turned to look at that harmless little plate of metal as a potential threat.

  Her voice soften in a gentle tone."You're not wrong to call me. I appreciate that you take the time to get a second opinion."

  I rubbed my face with both hands. "So it's real. It's advanced. And it's repeatable." I thought to myself as I scratched my beard.. It's been a long day.

  "Yes."

  "And we have no way of measuring the ceiling of his tech..."

  "Not at the moment, no. I may try. But we have far more important mission directives to be studying such an alloy unless we have the necessary tools readily available.."

  A long sigh escaped me. It tasted like exhaustion and inevitability.

  "I'll continue tests," I said. "Or at least try to understand the catalytic process. It would give us a window or entry into the fabrication process."

  "And I'll begin simulations of perhaps building something using such materials," she replied."

  "Thank you, Dragon."

  "Of course, Collin." A beat. Then, with a hint of warmth: "And… next time, you can call me at four without apologising."

  I almost smiled, she knows how to make me feel terrible about myself and at the same time grateful and understanding about it. I shouldn't take up her time anymore.

  "Noted."

  The line disconnected, leaving me alone with the alloy and the cold hum of the lab, and I kept staring at the thing. Wondering what I should do with it. I turned to look towards a ton of neosteel within the lab. An entire metric ton of a material that should not exist.

  I turned away from the display and let my gaze settle on the far end of the room, where the containment pallets held the remainder of Dreamhack's "samples."

  The blocks sat there like slabs of night, their surfaces absorbing light instead of reflecting it. Smooth, seamless, impossibly dense just waiting. Dormant, but not inert. Even from here, my mind instinctively mapped stress tolerances, compression ratings, and Phase-III impact thresholds. Numbers unfolded in my thoughts in cascading sheets, each more absurd than the last. If I can find the temperature point to mold It, I can make use of it.

  A ton of this.

  If I devoted the entire PRT ENE R&D budget to research for five straight years, I still wouldn't be able to produce ten percent of this. And Dreamhack had handed it over as casually as if he were dropping off scrap metal.

  The weight of it pressed on my shoulders to not abuse it since nothing we currently possess could budge even a quarter of the pallet without powered machinery, which I might need to build one myself since the current equipment isnt equipped to handle a material like this.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I walked closer, each step echoing faintly against the steel floor. The neosteel radiated the same unsettling certainty as a solved equation. There was nothing experimental about it. This was finished technology. Matured. Optimized.

  Perfected and over-engineered.

  My gloved hand hovered a few inches above the surface. Touching it felt too much like accepting responsibility for it, so I didn't.

  Instead, I studied the block as if it might reveal its origin through sheer scrutiny. What could I do with this? What should I do?

  Armour came to mind first, of course. I intend to use some of the material to reinforce his own armour efficiently.

  Armour that would render conventional firearms meaningless, armour that would make my motorcycle lighter and tankier than any tanks in the world. Something that could stop a tinker-tier railgun without scratching.

  Maybe even build PRT transport carriers for ordinary agents or hull plating that would survive atmospheric reentry without ablative loss. Infrastructure such as bridges that would never collapse, shelters that could withstand an Endbringer….Endbringer?

  Anti-Enbringer application.

  Was that his endgame? Every application branched into ten more, each one violating at least a dozen known engineering limits. Engineered to withstand…Endbringers?

  But there was a darker thread weaving through the ideas one I wasn't proud of.

  Weaponry.

  Weaponry that could take down an Endbringer. For good.

  Neosteel could build containment units, power cores, kinetic penetrators… It could turn any crude prototype into a weapon of terrifying efficiency. Even without tinker processes, its natural properties were already beyond the threshold at which materials became strategic assets. Ammos that could penetrate even the strongest armour in the world…Penetration power that could puncture an Endbringer.

  I exhaled slowly, letting the implications settle. Dreamhack is an Endbringer-class Tinker, and Dreamhack had more of this stuff. Much more. He had said so casually, like sharing a mundane fact of life. Twenty more mechs. More materials. More technology. Technology that's designed to withstand Enbringer or take one down.

  He wasn't a tinker working on the edge of human innovation. He was someone who already lived beyond that edge…Possibilities of a return to form for the human race.

  He didn't realise what kind of tension this put the world under. Or maybe he did and simply didn't care. Does he realise what he has? Or he simply doesn't realise it at all? He has material that could possibly stop Endbringers, and he's using it to build…buildings?

  I stepped back, arms folding unconsciously as I observed the silent geometric mass. My mind spun through the projected report if this was given to the PRT, and the inevitability of federal involvement once someone higher-ranked saw my findings.

  Would they arrive at the same conclusion as I?

  Enough contemplating.

  Staring at the neosteel wasn't going to make it any less impossible, and it wasn't going to give me any more answers at 4 am in the morning. I forced myself to step away from the pallets and return to the workstation, where the rest of Dreamhack's "gifts" waited under sterile white light.

  The first item was the so-called gravity bomb. It sat sealed inside a triple-layer containment cylinder, suspended in a stabilising magnetic cradle. Every scan I'd run so far had come back inconsistent: fluctuating density signatures, anomalous mass readings, and an internal structure that changed depending on the angle of measurement.

  I set the containment cylinder aside. One anomaly at a time.

  The holopad lay next to the bomb, deceptively sleek, no sharp edges, no ports, no visible seams. Just a matte surface barely thicker than a sheet of acrylic. When I first picked it up, it had activated instantly, projecting a clean three-dimensional interface in mid-air. No projector lens. No latency. No visible light source.

  The interface shut itself off whenever I attempted to probe deeper.

  I sat down, activated my recording suite, and placed the pad on the testing platform. If it wanted to play stubborn, I was willing to be patient.

  Test 1: Electromagnetic Sweep

  The holopad hummed faintly as the scanners passed over it. Waveforms came back scrambled, no recognisable pattern, no identifier signature. Not resistance. Not deflection. Hmm..perhaps another test.

  Test 2: Power Source Trace

  No battery. No induction coil. No heat output. Yet the device ran flawlessly when it chose to turn on. Sensors seem to be picking up the signature of a power source, Lithium-based with a gas mixture and even ian mpossible output that could probably last a thousand cycles of recharging.

  Time flies when you're just…

  Testing it properly unlike the Neosteel. These data was not improperable but equally fascinating

  Test 19: Direct Neural Interface Probe

  The pad activated for half a second longer, enough to display a single floating icon and then forcibly severed the connection. My rig logged the attempt as "external error," something I'd never seen outside of Tinkertech with hostile countermeasures.

  I leaned back, fingers steepled, watching the holopad sit there in perfect silence.

  Fine. Time for brute force.

  I looked at the clock, and it's already 8 am…The time when most people woke up and had their breakfast here.

  Oh. One last test, then.

  Test 20: Firmware Access Attempt-

  My intrusion suite deployed across thirty-seven parallel threads, storming the pad's passive architecture. For a moment, it felt like I had traction and found a loophole, one thread made it further than before.

  Then everything stopped.

  My entire system locked up. Every process returned the same message:

  ACCESS REFUSED. COMPATIBILITY INSUFFICIENT.

  I stared at the terminal, a cold prickling settling along my skin. The device wasn't unhackable because it was strongly secured. It was unhackable because I might as well have been trying to pick a lock on a tech that's miles ahead of what I'm equipped for..

  I ran another test, then another, then another, changes in frequency, brute-force electromagnetics, controlled environmental fluctuations. All met with the same result. The holopad allowed itself to be observed only on its own terms. Nothing more. Eventually, I stopped the diagnostics and closed the logs. It was pointless to continue.

  The bomb was baffling. The neosteel was impossible.

  But this holopad… This was deliberate.

  A message, whether Dreamhack meant it that way or not. I exhaled once, quietly, then locked the pad inside a reinforced isolation case. I just use it normally as it's intended, a secure, encrypted and highly advanced piece of communication technology that could be used like a personal computer as a handheld device.

  The civilian application itself could prove popular because of how robust and functional it is.

  I stumbled out of the lab before the room could start spinning in earnest. The holographic pad's afterglow still pulsed behind my eyes with those fractals of light, shifting around the alphabet, unreadable geometry that made my skull throb every time I tried to make sense of it. Some of the asthethic choice Dreamhack did was quite intuitive even if we dont know what the symbols mean, something called an "app" abbreviation of something.

  .My brain felt slow and heavy, like someone had poured cooling metal into the folds. I needed a break before I melted something important.

  Some much needed coffee.

  The canteen was a small mercy. Quiet, almost deserted. The hum of the overhead lights and the bitter smell of burnt coffee grounded me far better than the tests I'd been running for hours.

  I wrapped my hands around a cup of coffee, letting the heat bleed into my fingers. It took me a moment to realise how cramped my knuckles were, like I'd been white-knuckling reality without noticing. Still with the headache…

  It's getting worse. Possibly a migraine incoming.

  I'd barely taken my first sip when I picked up the voices of a couple of PRT agents at a nearby table. Half-awake, half-listening, not expecting anything relevant of course, its all just chatter until their conversation hit me like a brick to the forehead.

  "…Kid Win got it delivered this morning, it's a whole mech, like Christmas came early…"

  "…parked in his lab right now…" another guy chimed in.

  "…techs say no signature trace, so whoever dropped it off was good…"

  I froze mid-sip.

  A mech? Kid Win…delivered?

  For a second, I honestly thought I'd misheard or was hallucinating from exhaustion. But no—they kept talking, and every word only made the realisation sink deeper.

  Dreamhack had given Kidwin a mech.

  I ran for it with the coffee mug. Still need to finish the coffee.

  I stared into my coffee, the surface rippling slightly in my hands as I took sips of it while running, A mech. To a Ward. And I had just… left. No explanation, no documentation, no safety briefing. Nothing…they didn't tell me? Why hasn't anyone told him?

  Instead, I took another sip and pretended everything was fine.

  I tossed the rest of my coffee into the nearest sink and took off down the hallway before the cup even finished clattering. My heart hammered against my ribs hard enough that I could practically feel the pulse in my palms.

  A mech. Dreamhack had given Kid Win a mech!

  An SCV.

  The image hit me all at once: a squat, industrial, heavy-lifting construction unit with enough hydraulic strength to fold a car in half, enough power output to run a small workshop by itself, and just enough arm-mounted tools to cause a catastrophic OSHA violation by merely existing.

  DreamHack had given that to a Ward. A teenage Ward who wasn't even here today.

  I swore under my breath and picked up speed, weaving around technicians, support staff, and one startled trooper who nearly dropped a clipboard. The corridors between R&D and the Wards' labs always felt too long, but right now they stretched like rubber. Every turn felt like a delay. Every footstep felt too slow.

  If an SCV was sitting in Kid Win's lab unsupervised, then God help us all.

  I reached the secured door to Chris's workspace, keyed in my clearance, and practically slammed my shoulder into it the moment it buzzed open. The lights flickered on in segments, illuminating the lab in white and silver.

  And there it was.

  An SCV.

  Right in the middle of the room like it had spawned there from pure spite.

  It stood almost twice my height, squat torso, heavy servos, and the unmistakable multi-tool arm that could switch between welder, cutter, manipulator claw, drill, and half a dozen other attachments nobody at the PRT had the context to properly identify.

  Dreamhack had even painted hazard stripes on it. The thing hummed softly, powered down but not dead, like it was waiting for a command.

  I exhaled a long, unsteady breath.

  Not a combat mech. But still easily capable of punching through a wall, tearing up the floor, or accidentally bisecting a room if someone pressed the wrong button. I stepped closer, slowly, like approaching a sleeping apex predator. The SCV's optical sensor strip reflected the overhead lights back at me in a cold blue glint.

  Dreamhack must've thought he was doing the kid a favor.

  Or maybe this was his idea of a joke. Or a stress test. Or maybe he just wanted to watch the PRT collectively lose its mind. Was there any protocol about gifting another parahuman tinker gear? What about a full mecha?

  "Well, sir..are you alright? You dont look fine" One of the technician officer in charge of keeping all the equipment in check asked but I ignored him and kept staring at the four feet mech before me.

  I murmured under my breath, rubbing the bridge of my nose, "This is fine. This is all perfectly normal. Nothing bad has ever happened from unsupervised -Mech grade industrial equipment. We are at HQ..n-nothing…is gonna be…"

  The SCV remained perfectly still. Still not doing anything. But my head was already spinning. Or was it the room?

  Something was dripping from my nose. Blood.

  I have a nosebleed.

  This is all too much..I was getting dizzier and collapsed.

  —----

  Wednesday July 23rd 7.00 am - Command Centre Abandon Trainyard

  I came awake slowly, the way you surface from a dream that's too comfortable to let go of all at once. The mattress under me was softer than anything a field-built facility had any right to produce, courtesy of Monica's insistence that "command staff must maintain optimal sleep efficiency." Gotta love that gal.

  Knows how to treat a man right.

  Mm…soft mattress, dear lord I never ever wanna sleep on a futon ever again. Or a plastic bedroll in the Supply depot.

  The room lights rose in gentle increments, simulating a sunrise across the curved bulkhead panels. Luxury at it's finest, best terran tech can buy! Cept..I haven't spend any money on it. Stole some yesterday, Dear goddess, I think I went to sleep fearing for my life waiting for a literal bogeygirl with a hat, gonna shoot me in the head,

  Glad nothing happened. I stretched, groaned, and felt vertebrae pop in ways that suggested the bed was doing its job.

  "Morning, Boss," Monica chimed from the ceiling. Too cheerful. Much too cheerful for someone who didn't have to deal with gravity or limbs. Just a hologram.

  "Morning cheeky bugger. Mm..Status report?...hmm..," I mumbled, rolling off the bed and planting my feet on the warm deck plating.

  "I took the liberty of beginning it the moment you sat up."

  A soft holographic interface flared to life beside me, following my movement toward the sink. "Primary fabrication for the Marauder-class CMC suit is complete. Final armour curing finished at oh-three-forty-two."

  That made me blink awake faster than any coffee would've. Trainwreck's new toy. I splashed water on my face, grabbed a towel, and kept listening.

  "It has been moved to the Barracks Workshop for user calibration and neural profiling," Monica continued. "Given Trainwreck's unique biomechanical… morphology, some manual adjustments will be required."

  "Yeah," I said, drying my face. "He's not exactly a one-size-fits-all kind of guy since he's just a piece of blob meat. Wonder where all that food go if he doesnt even have a stomach. Im just glad he even have a proper head. Reminds me of that headless horseman from some European lore…what do they call them? A Ducati? No wait..thats a motorcycle. right..A Dullahan. Fuck..I'm still groggy from all this good sleep."

  A Marauder frame was a beast even when built for a normal Terran marine big and bulky, heavy, and made for the sort of explosive ordnance that turned infantry skirmishes into fireworks shows.

  Trainwreck's own body was a tangle of grafted metallurgy and living reinforcement. I didn't even know if the man knew where his bones stopped and the welded plating started. But he deserved something that fit him. Something heavy metal, with big rocket launchers. Something that wouldn't break him but enhance his menacing spirit.

  Something that'd let him go toe to toe with the capes who'd written him off as a walking demolition hazard, maybe even pull a fast one on that wrinkly ass snake bastard.

  I pulled on my jacket and stepped into the hallway, boots echoing faintly on the immaculate metal floor. The command centre always felt like a contradiction, sleek, military, hyper-advanced, yet somehow home.

  "How's Trainwreck?" I asked as I headed for the lift.

  "In the mess hall," Monica said. "Eating his fifth Zerg Burger."

  I snorted. "He likes them that much?"

  "He said, and I quote, 'It tastes like someone deep-fried nightmares and made them friendly and healthy.'"

  I coughed a laugh as the lift doors slid open. Well, he's not wrong. If only the dude had ever fought a Zerg before, sheesh. Those shitty little buggers are nasty. And I know to make those creepy little buggers using Stetman technology.

  Not sure if I want to.

  Of all the bizarre things in this world, Trainwreck-loving tofu was not the plot twist I expected. The lift hummed downward, smooth and silent. My mind wandered to the armour waiting in the workshop in the barracks, just a walk away.

  Seen a few SCV doing odd things lately. I could have sworn I've seen SCV 7 dancing with a plant together with the turrets just now. Are they getting sentient on me? Need to remind myself to check in with Monica about those guys.

  I thought about the thousand-pound armour with its double-jointed leg actuators, the thick segmented plating, the gauntlets built to withstand volcanic recoil from concussive payloads. And the control system, customised for Trainwreck's neural patterns.

  He'd look terrifying in it. He'd probably cry, too. The guy pretended to be a monster, but Trainwreck was a massive softie under all that steel. The lift chimed. I stepped out, making a straight line toward the Barracks.

  Time to see if I had just built Brockton Bay's most dangerous man…a suit worthy of him. Maybe give the guy some special options for his loadout.

  Trainwreck lumbered into the barracks with all the subtlety of a freight train trying to tiptoe. I heard him before I saw homecoming in with heavy footfalls, the clatter of metal joints, and a humming sound that could only mean he was in a very good mood.

  I was checking the Marauder frame's diagnostic holos when the door opened, and he ducked his head inside, a massive grin plastered across his patchwork features.

  "Morning, boss!" he boomed, voice echoing against reinforced walls. "Those Zerg burgers? Man. I could live off those."

  I didn't doubt it. Given his metabolism and unique biology he probably could.He caught sight of the Marauder suit and froze mid-step, grin collapsing into an open-mouthed stare. For a second, I honestly thought he'd forgotten how to breathe.

  "There she is," I said, stepping aside so he could get the full view. "Your new armour. Built to spec. Reinforced for your… uh… unique frame."

  Trainwreck moved toward it like a pilgrim approaching a holy relic. His fingertips brushed the thick neosteel with Ablative weave plating known as Ablative Scales for heavy CMC600 and the CMC660 firebat, tracing the segmented lines and explosive-reactive bracers and equipped with two Quad K12 "Punisher" grenade launchers on each arm.

  The suit's grenade auto-loader is stocked with components that allow it to manufacture and load hundreds of standard Punisher grenades. By 2503 marauders were being fielded. With foam protection to protect them inside the armour. Dominion special forces has specialised ultra-capacitors to reload faster. Already installed in the package, of course.

  His eyes shone with something dangerously close to reverence.

  "Boss," he whispered, "it's… beautiful."

  "And functional," I added. "But mostly functional. Added a few things to it, see which one you like. We could add afew features later depending on your style and needs."

  He circled it once, twice, then did something unexpected.He placed both hands on his hips, and squinted at the massive concussion gauntlets.

  "…I want bigger guns."

  Of course he did.

  "Define bigger? This is a quad grenade launcher, probably the only one in the world right now." I said, already regretting the question.

  "Like…" He gestured with his hands in a way that would've put most anti-materiel rifles to shame. "Bigger..like a quad rocket launcher or something."

  "You didn't even try it yet," I said.

  "I know when a gun is too small," Trainwreck said solemnly, as if quoting ancient scripture. "And these ain't enough for my soul."

  "Trainwreck… these gauntlets fire concussive packets powerful enough to crater asphalt." It really is that tough. Concussion missiles that are deployed to go against armoured and heavily armoured enemies.

  "I know." He nodded enthusiastically. "But imagine if it cratered, like… more. Something ain't right."

  A true Marauder at heart, a hazard in motion. A child at Christmas with a wishlist full of war crimes. Why do Marauders love bigger guns? Must be some god given nature for big guys with bigger guns.

  "Fine," I said. "We'll run the baseline tests first. If everything checks out, I'll see what we can do about scaling up the payload. Will a shoulder-mounted missile launcher work for now?"

  His entire body lit up with joy, literally. Some of his bio-metal seams glowed faintly when he got excited. Man is like an eel generating electricity.

  "Yes! Boss, you're the best."

  He practically vaulted into the armour rig, and the Marauder suit unfolded like a steel chrysalis, wrapping around him piece by piece.

  The clamps sealed, the neural link synced with a dull chime, and the whole frame powered up with a deep mechanical growl that vibrated the floor. Kinda like Fallout power armour but more clinking and more clamping.

  Trainwreck's voice came through the external speakers, distorted but giddy.

  "Ohhhh, it fits. IT FITS."

  "Uh..huh.. course it fits," I said, stepping back. "Now let's begin calibration. Try not to punch anything... or me. Just me."

  "No promises!" giddy like a child.