An unknown man is standing on top of a cliff. He looks down upon what seems to be a battlefield. You can make out five fairly strong looking people, dead on the grey floor. The entire environment is destroyed, the ground has cracks all over it and the sky has turned pitch black. Silence has engulfed the area and a breeze blows over the sight. There is a gigantic, destroyed stadium, skyscrapers turned to rubbish and split mountains in the background. The man turns around without a change in his expression and it seems as though he rips something open with his hands.

  A girl is running on the narrow, like a sewer smelling streets of a metropolis. As she runs across many dirty and steampunky buildings in the outer part of the city, her glance falls on the floor which is sprinkled with oil and many broken mechanical parts. The girl lifts her head and you can see skyscrapers and a force field dome over the entire city in the distance. Although it is noon the sky is full of stars. She hears a loud sound from the direction she was running to and speeds up a little. Her bright, orange hair is waving in the wind. Suddenly, there is another noise. The noise of tires squeaking on the road because they need to manoeuvre around someone on the street.

  “Look where you’re going, kid!”, a man in his forties shouts.

  Ignoring the man and running a little longer, she finally arrives at the source of the noise. A crowd had gathered around the ruckus she wanted to see. As the girl pushes herself through the crowd, the metallic parts in her backpack clatter against the often-dirty clothes of other people. She breaks through and finally sees what she came here to watch.

  In between the crowd, in the middle of the road, there are two men fighting each other, over a bag filled with strange mechanical parts. One of these men fights with a giant pipe and is at a clear disadvantage. He is also a little older than the other one. The girl recognizes this man.

  “Isn’t he under Garuphu? The other man… no he isn’t that old, looks as old as me. The other boy’s just wearing a T-shirt and normal shorts.”, she thinks.

  He doesn’t get hit by the older man as he evades every single swing of his pipe. The girl notices a strange, yellow, lightning-shaped curl in the blackhead’s hair.

  She doesn’t recognize him: “Maybe he is a traveller… or even a bounty hunter?”

  The man gets flung toward the crowd and her, so everyone rushes out of their way.

  “Are you done already?”, the boy says slightly annoyed by the man, “You’re just wasting my time at this point.”

  “Shuddup!!”, the man shouts while trying to finally hit the boy.

  “You don’t get to steal such parts from me, you dipshit! The is a neighbourhood where we mechanics help each other. You’re done for!”, the man says as he points at the bag laying on the ground.

  The girl looks at the bag again because something has piqued her interest. A special, glowing part.

  The boy says: “Well, if you’re not gonna give it up, I’ll have to end this with force.”

  He slides one foot back before clenching his hand into a fist. Whispering goes through the onlookers and small lightnings start to appear around the hand of the boy. The man runs toward the boy, screaming while holding up an oily pipe. Unimpressed, the boy takes a swing with his bright, shining fist, surrounded by the crackling and twitching lightning pieces and thrusts a punch at the man.

  “Charged… Monkey Punch!”, he shouts as his fist first breaks the pipe and then hits the man’s face.

  More lightnings pierce right through the man’s body. He is just standing paralyzed and when the man falls over, the crowd bursts out into loud applause, cheering for the winner.

  Someone shouts: “Wait! I think I know this guy! Isn’t he a bounty hunter?”, “Yeah, you’re right!”

  Someone else responds: “He is the Lightning Fist: Raiden Adoratore!”

  After just standing in the crowd for a few more seconds, Raiden picks up the bag from the ground with a wide smile and doesn’t notice parts falling out of it at first. One of these parts is a little, glowing orb. It falls on the ground and rolls between the feet of the onlookers. The girl watched the glowing part and got on her knees to follow its path.

  “Dammit, where is it...”, she murmurs as she crawls around on the dirty floor.

  “There it is!”, she reaches out for the energy piece to finally get her hand on it but is stopped by someone picking it up before her.

  “Oh no, I’m sorry little miss but I can’t let you have that.”, she looks up into Raiden’s smiley face.

  Raiden stands up straight and puts the orb in his bag.

  “Sell it to me!”, the girl says as she’s still kneeling.

  She stands up and suggests: “I’ll give you a fair price!”, she rummages around in her bag in search for her money, “Oh no! I left it at home!”

  Raiden interrupts her: “The parts aren’t for sale. I bought them recently and I really need them.”

  He slowly walks away from the girl. Suddenly, her personality changes completely.

  “Hey! Wait, you greedy jerk! Don’t just go! I didn’t even tell you my price for fucks sake!”

  She follows him while he keeps walking away from the fighting site.

  “What’s a stupid meathead like you gonna do with such important parts anyway!?”, she asks loudly.

  Raiden responds: “I’m gonna fix my ship so I need these parts and you go away now.”

  He makes a gesture to get rid of her.

  “Ha? I bet you’re too dumb to even do the basic stuff anyway.”, she says and keeps following him, “So what are you gonna do? Just stick it together and hope it doesn’t burst?”

  Raiden stops and turns around, facing the girl: “And who are you to make such false accusations?”

  “Oh? Me? I’m just the greatest mechanic of Sarseia, no, the entire galaxy, Erika Leonhardt.”, the girl answers, standing proud in the street.

  “Never heard of you.”, Raiden responds and keeps walking.

  Ignoring his provocation, Erika continues: “Now that you know who I am, give me the Krizylum energy reactor.”

  She reaches out with her hand, demanding the light blue glowing part, sticking out of Raiden’s bag.

  “You don’t even know how to properly use it!”, “And what if I do? What do you even need it for?”, Raiden answers loudly.

  They both continue their way and Erika adds: “Oh really? You?”

  Their argument continues as they walk onto a huge scrap yard with heaps of mechanical parts on it. Finally, they reach Raiden’s destination while still shouting at each other. A shabby, rusty, old wreck of a normal sized spaceship. Hearing the sounds of Raiden and Erika, something comes flying out of the spaceship. It’s a little flying robot with tiny arms, no legs and a flat screen for a head. It watches the quarrelling people as they approach.

  “...It’s never gonna work! I’ll tell you over and over again!”, Erika shouts.

  “Yeah, yeah, and inside your hammer it will? Now fuck off because I have to work, you barnacle.”, Raiden replies.

  “Work? On what? That thing? Please! You’re gonna make me laugh!”, Erika says.

  Unimpressed, Raiden starts to work. The sulking Erika sits down on an old metal plate and watches him. They both don’t notice the little robot swirling around their heads.

  Bored, Erika starts talking again: “I know you’re strong and battle tested as a bounty hunter but… do you even realize what situation you’re in right now?”

  Raiden replies with genuine interest for once: “Hm? No idea. Tell me.”

  Erika explains: “That guy you’ve beaten was a mechanic under Garuphu. One of the underworld overlords of Sarseia.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Underworld overlord is dumb title. Though it sounds like a bounty carrier to me.”, Raiden smiles.

  “Hey! Don’t take that lightly! He controls this entire district. Not even the police can get rid of him because of his fighters! They gave him a bounty of 2.3 million Bon!”

  After a bit of welding and screwing, it looks like Raiden’s job is done and he says: “That’s just enough.”

  As he is trying to get his spaceship started, Erika watches him warily. First start doesn’t work. Second start still doesn’t work.

  As he tries for the third time, he shouts out for somebody: “Oiiii! Shurui-chan! Are you around here somewhere?”

  “Ohh?”, Erika interferes, “So you can’t do it after all! Do you need some help, wittle boy?”

  “You know what? If you’re so full of yourself, why don’t you go fix it up yourself?”, Raiden suggests, sounding defeated.

  “Alright then...”, Erika grabs his tools and disappears inside the broken ship.

  The confused Raiden says: “A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.”

  With Erika gone, the little robot comes out of her hiding.

  “There you are Shurui-chan. Why haven’t you shown up earlier?”, Raiden asks the floating robot who answers, “I was kinda scared of that redhead you brought with you, so...”

  Her facial expression changes rapidly whenever she speaks.

  “What is with her anyway?”, Shurui asks.

  Raiden sits down on a metal plate and replies: “Her name’s Erika. She’s a total burdock. Saying she’s a genius mechanic and that she wants to buy one of our most important parts for the ship.”

  “Well, that’s unfortun-...”, she gets interrupted by Erika stepping out, wiping off the sweat from her forehead, saying: “Welp, I got everything done easily.”

  “Whoa! From a distance I couldn’t tell she was this pretty! Only a week after crashing here and you already found me a new girlfriend.”, Shurui whispers to Raiden.

  He chuckles through the nose and asks: “Does it work now at least?”

  Erika explains: “It works but you donkey forgot to buy an A-600 hyperdrive! And what the hell did you even do to get it this battered? …And what’s with this annoying flying robot?”

  Shurui circles around her head, taking pictures with hearts in her eyes and giving off sound like “Yes!”, “Give me more!” and “That’s it!”.

  Raiden explains to the disgusted Erika: “That is the information hoarding device I built - Shurui-chan! Also known as: The Yurification Robot!”

  “The Yuri- what robot?”, Erika asks confused.

  Raiden tries to explain: “The Yurification Robot. It’s just a nickname I gave her because, despite having a girly personality as a robot, she loves taking pictures of girls and then even fantasizes about them later, which, you know, is usually a stinky-men-type of thing.”

  He points at Shurui over his back who has projected a picture of Erika onto the ground and looks at it, drooling.

  “What a weird-ass robot.”, Erika says with a disgusted face.

  Overhearing their conversation, Shurui comes flying over.

  “Are you introducing me as a lewd robot again!?”, her voice sounds totally normal, just like a little girl would sound and not like a robot.

  “I’m a highly developed attendant-robot, with the specialty to store a nearly infinite amount of information inside of me, in the form of text, pictures and even videos! I’m very important for Raiden’s journey.”, Shurui praises herself.

  “Yeah… right...”, Erika replies sarcastically.

  Raiden defends his robot: “No, it’s true. Despite having an annoying personality and being a nuisance sometimes, she really does help out.”

  Erika, still not convinced, asks more questions: “What’s even the point of collecting a bunch of information with this disgusting robot?”

  Shurui becomes upset: “Eri-chan! Stop being such a meany!”

  Raiden sits down next to her and explains: “You have to know, I always loved reading stories in books or hearing one from a traveller. There is just so much in this endless universe nobody really understands. Well, except for one man. This man travelled to every corner of the universe, has probably met every species there is and is also the reason for my journey. You may know him as ‘The man from Nowhere’.”

  “No I don’t.”, Erika replies and Raiden shushes her, “Don’t interrupt. I’m trying to tell a backstory here. …It all started in my hometown on the planet Prokyon. We were a happy, relatively small family, doing our family business, guarding the shrine of a patron deity.”

  A little Raiden, only about 7 years old, is running around and playing happily with a stick.

  Suddenly, someone calls for him: “Raiden! It’s 8 o’clock, time for our daily prayer!”

  “Coming mom!”, little Raiden answers, throwing away his play stick.

  Both Raiden and his mother walk up to the shrine together and stop in front of a not very detailed stone statue. They both fold their hands and close their eyes while remaining still for about one minute.

  After that, Raiden’s mom suggests: “Let’s go make dinner, shall we?”, while holding his hand.

  Raiden complains: “Would be great, I’m starving!”

  His mother laughs: “Yeah, I bet the others are feeling the same way.”

  With ‘the others’ she meant his father and his adorable little sister.

  “Nii-chaaan! I’ve missed you so much!”, his little sister shouts, running at him with open arms.

  She is only about 4 years old.

  “You two are so adorable together.”, their mother says.

  Then their dad calls them: “Come on kids, you can help me set the table.”

  While having dinner they laugh a lot and altogether have a great time as a family. Later at night on the same day, a storm is brewing outside and Raiden gets woken up by a loud cracking sound. He gets out of bed, out of his room and walks towards the living room.

  He sees his dad, standing at the door, with an expression mixed up of anger and worry and asks: “Dad? Is everything alrighty? I’ve heard a loud noise from outside...”, “Everything is good, you go back to your room. I’m just gonna clean something up.”

  The voice of his dad was flattering and Raiden says: “Ok dad.”

  Raiden now is also worried and doesn’t want to go yet. He walks down the hallway in the direction of his room but stops at the corner and peeks around it. As soon as his dad walks outside, Raiden too makes his way to the door while the thunderstorm is still raging outside. Raiden winced as another lightning struck down. As Raiden got to the door, he heard yet another sound but this time it was a scream.

  With a face full of fear, he bursts through the door: “Dad!?”, but before he could see what happened outside, Raiden passed out.

  “When I woke up again, the first thing I saw was a shady figure asking: ‘Hey. Hey kiddo. Are you finally awake?’ Back then I didn’t realize it but now I know it was him, ‘The man from Nowhere’. He told me that not only did a group of bandits attack our home but also that they killed my whole family. He told me that I was the only survivor.”

  Erika, moved to tears by his story speaks up: “You know, *sniff* I thought you just were a huge asshole… but you are actually just a broken man.”

  “Oh-kay…?”, Raiden responds confused.

  Just as he wants to continue talking, Shurui interrupts them: “I’m sorry to interrupt your friendly conversation but we’ve got some visitors...”

  “Visitors? What do you mean?”

  Erika looks around: “I don’t see anyone but I’m sure as hell they’re gonna be fighters who work for Garuphu.”

  “I saw five people through a camera. One Ocriban, two humans, one Azeoprian and one unidentified species.”, Shurui states.

  “Unidentified species?”, Erika asks and looks at Raiden with a questioning look but Raiden explains, “It means, there is yet another species we can discover!”

  He smiles, jumps down the junk hill he was sitting on and points at the robot: “Shurui-chan, go get some data of that new species. I will welcome them.”

  “Roger that!”, Shurui shouts as she flies off.

  Erika is still standing in place, rooted to the spot, looking a little bit confused. Then she snaps out of it and rushes to Raiden’s side. The troublemakers stand right in sight, in the middle of the scrap yard, showing off their weapons and armours. One human steps forward while he and his companions grin.

  The human asks: “Is the bounty hunter Raiden Adoratore here? Garuphu wants to take revenge.”

  “A Flumuu, that’s what this species is called. They look like slimes but they can’t transform shapes. They seem invulnerable at first but like any slime creature, they can easily be defeated when you damage the little marble in their body. They can move it around freely and make sure to not destroy it or that guy will die.”, Shurui analyses.

  Erika takes a hammer out of her backpack which then extends with steamy noises until it is about 1.2m long with a fittingly big hammerhead.

  She rushes forward and asks: “What force does it take to destroy such a marble, Shurui-chan?”, and Shurui immediately answers, “On average it takes around 10 kN to destroy a Flumuu’s marble.”

  Erika surprises the Flumuu who tries swinging a club at her with her speed, swings her hammer at the marble and knocks it on the ground with a force of around 5 kN.

  “Easily defeatable indeed.”, Erika says with a smile.

  “Wow! You pack a punch, Erika! Now it’s time for me to fight!”, Raiden is positively surprised.

  The Azeopri, a humanoid with blue fur and other feline features, rushes in with a sword but Raiden blocks that attack by hitting it away. He charges his fists and punches a thigh of the Azeopri, following it up with a second punch right to the face.

  “That guy shouldn’t be able to walk for an hour or so.”

  Finally, the two humans and the Ocriban rush in at the same time. Both humans fight against Raiden and the Ocriban, who is fully humanoid with fishy skin and two tentacles for hair, decides to take on Erika.

  Shurui warns: “Hey Eri-chan, you should know that their tentacle hair can regrow and they could… you know… do stuff to you I’d like to see!”, “Stop saying those weird things!”

  The Ocriban punches the hammer out of her hands but that doesn’t irritate her. Erika, as flexible as she is, swings her legs up to the head of her enemy. A small laser blade comes out of her shoe and cuts off a tentacle on his head. He trembles backwards so Erika pushes him on the ground and detains him with some fluffy handcuffs.

  “Let me go!”, he screams, “As if I would do that!”, Erika answers.

  Raiden avoided every attack while Erika was fighting to charge up his Lightning Fists again.

  “This won’t work on me! I’ve seen what you can do!”, one of the humans says and Raiden answers, “Then I’ll make it work!”

  Raiden jumps out of reach and charges his fists again. The humans quickly talk about a strategy so Raiden rushes back into battle and throws a few punches. One human dodges the fists while the other prepares a clean shot in the background with a laser gun. Raiden goes for a dropkick and the first human wanted to tank this kick so the second can shoot but Raiden can also move the charge from his fists into his feet. Raiden kicks the human right in the face and launches him into his friend. They both fly into concrete and are knocked out.

  Shurui comes out as she was hiding from stray lightnings.

  “Thanks for calling me Shurui-chan, Eri-chan.”, she blushes.

  “Erika that was great! Where did you learn to fight that well?”, Raiden asks getting a little too close.

  “Sometimes I need to fight to get my hand on a certain material…”, Erika answers.

  Raiden asks: “So what did you say again I need to fly that ship again?”

  Erika explains: “Only the hyperdrive.”

  She leaves the place and Raiden asks confused: “Hey, hold on! Where’re you going?”

  Erika explains: “Follow me! I’ll show you a shop where you can get what you need!”

  Raiden is surprised by the friendly gesture and with a grateful smile, he rushes after her. “Thank you, Erika!”