Chapter 66: New Kid on the Block

"Rain," Captain Arthur’s voice came through the receiver, clear and clipped over the soft background hum of a moving vehicle. "I’m on my way back from the regional transport hub, but I wanted to catch you before the evening got away from me."

"Is everything all right, Captain?" Rain asked, keeping his voice low as he stepped off the paved walkway and onto the grass near the side of the C-building.

"I found him," Arthur said simply. "Maren’s brother. Took longer than expected, the civil registry had him listed under an old address that hadn’t been updated in years, but I tracked him down yesterday."

Rain’s mind went back to the gate outside the academy, weeks ago now, Nyra’s transport pulling away after they’d finished selling the Bone Widow core, Arthur waiting there to check on him. The captain had offered him an open favor that day, a blank check from a man who felt his own guild’s negligence had cost a civilian her life. Rain could have asked for gear, for cash, for a dozen things that would have made his own situation easier. Instead he’d told Arthur about Maren, someone he’d known for less than a day before she died. She’d mentioned once, in passing, that she had a brother with zero mana affinity depending on her, that she was the only thing standing between him and real trouble. Warrick hadn’t just gotten Maren killed. He’d quietly ended two lives with that same abandonment, hers immediately, her brother’s slowly, whenever the money finally ran out.

"Where is he? Is he okay?" Rain asked.

"He’s alive," Arthur said, his tone careful, measured. "Living in a shared unit on the edge of Sector Four. He’s not doing well. Zero mana affinity means he can’t hold most jobs in the city, and without steady income he’s behind on the neural stabilizing serum he needs to keep his condition from worsening. He has no idea anyone’s looking into this. He just knows a White Tiger representative showed up asking questions about his sister."

"How much does he actually need," Rain asked, "to get current and stay that way for a while?"

"I didn’t ask him to put a number on it," Arthur said. "That’s not really my place. If you want to help, the honest thing is to reach out yourself. I’ll send you his contact information now."

"Send it," Rain said.

"You’ll have it in a minute," Arthur said. "Take care of yourself out there, Rain."

"You too, Captain."

The line went dead.

Rain stood there in the cooling evening air, waiting, his thumb tapping idly against the side of his phone. He thought about a stranger somewhere in Sector Four who didn’t know he existed, sitting in a shared unit with a serum bill piling up and a sister in the ground, and something in Rain’s chest pulled tight and insistent, the same way it always did when he heard about someone drowning quietly where nobody was looking.

He knew, somewhere underneath the impulse, that most people wouldn’t do this. Most people would have asked Arthur for gear, or cash toward their own debt, or anything that actually served them. Rain had thought about it for exactly as long as it took to remember Maren’s voice mentioning her brother once, almost in passing, like it embarrassed her to need anyone to know. He hadn’t needed longer than that.

’She died because of Warrick,’ Rain thought. ’And because of that, somewhere out there, a guy who never did anything wrong is about to lose the only thing keeping him upright too. That’s not fair. None of it is fair. But I can do something about one piece of it, so I will.’

His phone buzzed with the text from Arthur.

Elias Fenwick. 09-4471-2286.

Rain stood under the darkening sky for a moment, composing the message carefully before sending it.

*Hi. My name is Rain. I was with your sister Maren the night she died. She mentioned you before that happened, and I’ve been trying to find a way to reach you since. I’d like to send you some money to help with your serum costs, no strings attached. If that’s alright with you, let me know and I’ll transfer it tonight.*

The reply came back faster than he expected.

*who is this really*

Rain typed back: *I know this sounds strange coming from a stranger. I was a carrier on the same run. I don’t need anything from you. I just didn’t want to let it go.*

A long pause. Then: *ok. send it ill believe it when i see it*

Rain pulled up his banking app, opened a new transfer, and entered the name Arthur had sent him along with the account number attached to it. He typed in two thousand credits, enough, he figured, to clear whatever backlog had built up and buy some real breathing room, and confirmed the transfer.

[Transfer Confirmed]

[Recipient: Elias Fenwick]

[Amount: 2,000.00 Credits]

[Reference: None Provided]

A minute later, a single reply came through.

*...thank you. seriously.*

Rain looked at the message for a long moment, something quiet and steady settling in his chest. He didn’t need anything back from this, no thanks, no explanation owed, he’d have been satisfied knowing it simply landed and helped. The gratitude was just a nice surprise sitting on top of something he’d have done anyway.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket. He had roughly seven thousand credits left in his account from the Bone Widow sale. It was enough. He turned toward the C-dorms to shower and change, his mind already shifting to seven o’clock and the old training track.

The old agricultural testing grounds were completely dark by seven. The pale autumn moon hung low over the pine trees, casting long, black shadows across the overgrown grass and the rusted frames of abandoned farm equipment.

Rain stood near the broken chain-link fence, his hands tucked into his pockets. The air was cold enough to turn his breath into faint white clouds.

A rhythmic crunch of gravel announced Nyra’s arrival. She stepped through the tear in the fence, her dark hair tied back in her usual tight knot, her heavy wool coat buttoned up against the wind. Beside her walked a tall, broad-shouldered young man who moved with a sharp, aggressive swagger, his boots kicking loose stones out of his way as he walked.

Rain kept his posture relaxed, his blue eyes taking in both of them as they stopped ten feet away.

"Rain," Nyra said, her voice crisp in the cold air. "You said you had a lead on our funding problem."

"I do," Rain said, his gaze shifting to the tall guy standing next to her.

The newcomer was built like a heavyweight fighter, his dark hair cropped close with a single, aggressive shaved line running through his left eyebrow. Despite the cold, he wore a sleeveless tactical vest pulled a size too tight over a thick compression shirt, clearly tailored to showcase his massive chest and shoulders. A small silver medallion, a minor tournament medal from an academy regional brawl, hung prominently from a chain around his neck, catching the moonlight every time he moved.

The guy stared down at Rain, his dark eyes sweeping over Rain’s plain jacket, worn boots, and lack of visible guild insignia with open, unvarnished disdain.

"This is the F-rank you were talking about, Nyra?" the guy asked, his voice a loud, booming rasp that carried across the empty field. "You got me out here in the dirt at seven at night to meet a kid who looks like he got his gear out of a donation bin?"

Nyra shot him a sharp, warning glare. "Theo, keep your mouth shut for five seconds. Rain, this is Theo. He’s a D-rank vanguard, currently sitting at the absolute upper threshold of his rank evaluation. I mentioned this morning I was looking at expanding our registration list to bring down the municipal bond costs."

Theo let out a loud, obnoxious laugh, crossing his heavy arms over his broad chest. "Upper threshold is an understatement. I should have been cleared for C-rank six months ago, but the academy evaluation board is run by blind bureaucrats who don’t know a real frontline fighter when they see one. My brother was C-rank by his second semester in the Vane Dynamics cadet program. I’ve won three regional amateur dueling brackets in the last year." He tapped the silver medallion on his chest with two fingers, smirking at Rain. "You ever seen a real tournament medal, kid? Or do you just watch them from the cheap seats in the dining hall?"

Rain didn’t blink. He stood perfectly still, taking in Theo’s posture, his weight distribution, and the subtle ways he flexed his forearms while talking. Theo was arrogant, loud, and deeply insecure about his evaluation score, but his stance was solid. His feet were grounded, his center of gravity was low, and his heavy leather boots were worn down at the toe, the distinct mark of someone who spent hundreds of hours driving forward in heavy infantry drills.

’Arrogant,’ Rain evaluated quietly, ’but not a fake.’

"I don’t spend much time in the dining hall," Rain said, keeping his tone flat and unbothered. He looked back at Nyra. "We can talk about party registration in a minute. First, we need to handle the core."

Nyra’s dark eyes sharpened instantly. "The core? Rain, what core?"

Rain looked at Theo, then back at Nyra. He knew he had to be careful. Revealing the full truth of how he acquired a C-rank Boss core while remaining an unattached F-rank student would raise impossible questions. But Nyra was his actual partner; if they were going to build a real independent team, she needed to know he could produce results, even if he kept the precise details of his system mechanics private.

"During the drainage run a night ago," Rain said, choosing his words with cold precision, "the party I was attached to collapsed when an uncatalogued anomaly breached the lower wall. In the chaos, while the raid squad was breaking formation, a C-rank Boss entity got isolated in the secondary flood channel. I didn’t fight it head-on. I used the environmental collapse, a three-ton concrete slab from the ceiling, to crush its head while it was pinned in the rising water."

Theo let out another snort. "You scavenged a C-rank Boss drop? A bottom-feeder kill on a dying beast? Give me a break."

"The core is intact," Rain said, ignoring Theo entirely and keeping his blue eyes locked onto Nyra. "A C-rank Boss core. Peak purity, zero lattice fracture. I kept it safe."

Nyra stared at him, her dark eyes wide with shock. She took a step closer, her voice dropping into an urgent whisper. "Rain, a C-rank Boss core? Are you serious? If you have a core like that, it’s worth tens of thousands of credits!"

"I know," Rain said. "That’s why we’re going to see Gideon tonight."

Nyra swallowed hard, processing the news in two seconds flat before her sharp, practical mind kicked into high gear. "Gideon. Right. The same fence who brokered the Bone Widow core for eighteen thousand. He has an insulated buyer network in Sector Three who can liquidate high-tier drops without triggering a municipal audit." She turned to Theo, her face setting into a hard, professional line. "Theo, you wanted to see if this party was worth your time. You come with us. Keep your eyes open, keep your hands off your weapon, and don’t say a word while we’re talking to Gideon."

Theo scoffed, but the mention of a C-rank Boss core had clearly piqued his interest. His dismissive smirk flickered for a fraction of a second, replaced by a greedy, curious gleam in his dark eyes. "A C-rank core? Fine. Let’s see if this kid actually has what he claims, or if he’s wasting my night with a cloudy piece of D-rank scrap."

----

Sector Three’s lower industrial strip was a maze of narrow, rain-slicked alleys, rusted iron fire escapes, and humming generator housing units.

They walked through a cramped basement corridor beneath an abandoned textile warehouse, stopping in front of a reinforced steel door fitted with a heavy mechanical deadbolt and a small sliding viewing slot.

Nyra knocked three times, two short, one long.

The sliding slot snapped open. A pair of sharp, yellowed eyes peered out from the darkness inside.

"Nyra," a gravelly, rasping voice spoke from behind the steel. "You brought company. Who’s the heavy?"

"This is Theo," Nyra said through the slot, her voice calm and authoritative. "He’s with us. And you know Rain. We have a high-value drop, Gideon. Unregistered, high purity. Open the door."

The slot snapped shut. A series of heavy iron latches disengaged with loud, metallic clanks before the steel door swung inward, revealing a small, dimly lit workshop packed with workbench tools, Mana testing scales, and rows of insulated lead-lined storage boxes.

Gideon stood behind a heavy oak desk in the center of the room.

"High purity, huh?" Gideon grunted, sweeping his yellowed eyes over the three of them before coming to a rest on Rain. "Last time you kids came through here, you brought me a clean Bone Widow core. That was eighteen thousand credits clean. What do you have tonight?"

Rain stepped up to the wooden desk. He slid his right hand into the deep front pocket of his hoodie, his fingers curling around empty air for a fraction of a second before he issued a silent, focused command to his dimensional storage.

The weight landed in his palm without a sound, without a flicker of light, without anything a watching eye could have caught. He drew his hand back out of his pocket and set the heavy, crystalline sphere of the Husk Regent’s core down firmly onto the green felt pad on Gideon’s table.

Theo’s eyes went wide anyway, though not from witnessing anything strange, just from the sheer size and quality of what had appeared in Rain’s palm. "That was in your pocket this whole time? You’ve been carrying a C-rank core around campus in your hoodie?"

"Pockets are useful," Rain said flatly, not offering anything further.

Gideon didn’t ask about it either. Old fences in Sector Three survived by ignoring how goods arrived and focusing entirely on what sat on their scales.

Gideon pulled his magnifying goggles down over his eyes, picked up a pair of insulated brass calipers, and leaned over the crimson core. He pressed a small mana-density probe against the crystalline surface. A digital gauge on his desk flared to life, its blue numbers climbing rapidly before locking into place:

[Density Yield: 99.4%]

[Lattice Integrity: Flawless]

[Rank: Class-C High (Boss Entity)]

Gideon let out a long, low whistle through his yellowed teeth, stepping back from the desk and pushing his goggles back onto his forehead.

"Well, I’ll be damned," Gideon muttered, staring at Rain with new respect in his eyes. "Ninety-nine point four percent yield. This thing hasn’t bled a single spark of volatile mana since the creature died. It’s like it was harvested twenty seconds ago."

"How much, Gideon?" Nyra asked, her voice tight with anticipation.

Gideon rubbed his stubbled chin, his mind working through calculations. "On the open market, through a registered guild refinery, a core this clean brings forty thousand. But you kids don’t have a guild permit, and I have to move it through two secondary insulated transit routes to keep the Portal Authority from tracing the energy signature back to Sector Seven."

He tapped his fingers against the wooden desk.

"Seventeen thousand five hundred credits," Gideon stated flatly. "Liquid transfer to your personal accounts right now, no questions asked, no records filed."

Rain frowned slightly. "The Bone Widow core was smaller and yielded eighteen thousand."

"The Bone Widow core was a Class-C High with zero heat on it," Gideon countered sharply. "A Class-C Boss core coming out of a collapsed drainage rift in Sector Seven has the municipal investigators running spatial scans all over the lower ward. My transit costs are double on this run. Seventeen thousand five hundred. Take it or leave it."

Nyra looked at Rain, giving him a subtle, almost imperceptible nod.

"Seventeen thousand eight hundred," Rain bargained smoothly, his blue eyes holding Gideon’s gaze without flinching. "And you cover the secure terminal transfer fee."

Gideon stared at Rain for three long seconds, then let out a raspy chuckle, slapping his hand against the desk.

"Seventeen thousand eight hundred," Gideon agreed. "You’ve got sharp teeth for an F-rank kid. Hand over your terminal ID."

Rain pulled out his phone, holding it over the secure receiver on the desk. Gideon tapped a few keys on his screen.

[Transaction Confirmed: 17,800.00 Credits Deposited]

[Current Account Balance: 24,800.00 Credits]

Rain slipped his phone back into his pocket, his face expressionless, though a quiet, triumphant heat hummed in his chest.

Gideon picked up the core, carefully placing it into a lead-lined steel container and locking the heavy latches. "Pleasure doing business with you, kids. Now get out of my basement before the Sector Three patrol sweeps the alley."

Ten minutes later, the three of them emerged back into the cold night air of the upper street, standing under a flickering street lamp near the transit station.

Nyra turned to Rain, a genuine, glowing smile breaking across her face. "Seventeen thousand eight hundred. Rain, that puts us well over the thirty-thousand mark in liquid funds. We can pay the municipal bond tomorrow morning, buy our baseline safety compliance gear directly from certified vendors, and pull a legal F-rank rift contract by Friday!"

"Yeah," Rain said, a small smile appearing on his face as he looked at her. "We’re in business."

A loud, heavy cough interrupted them.

Theo was standing four feet away, his arms folded over his chest, his dark eyes shifting between Rain and Nyra with a complex mix of irritation, awe, and reluctant respect.

"All right," Theo growled, stepping closer until his broad frame shadowed Rain. "I saw the core. I saw the seventeen grand."

He pointed a thick finger directly at Rain’s chest.

"You’re an F-rank kid with zero guild backing, but you’re holding high-tier drops and pulling off results that don’t make any sense for your level," Theo said, his voice loud and aggressive. "I’m a D-rank vanguard at the upper threshold. My family has guild lineage in Vane Dynamics, and I need a party that can actually clear rifts fast enough to force the academy board to grant my C-rank promotion."

Nyra stepped between them, holding up a hand. "Theo, if you’re joining this party, you need to understand how we operate. Rain is my co-founder. We split contract decisions fifty-fifty. If you come on board to drop our insurance bond per capita, you don’t get to bark orders at him because of his rank."

Theo let out a harsh laugh, looking down at Nyra, then back at Rain’s cold blue eyes.

"I don’t take orders from F-ranks," Theo said flatly, his dark eyes flashing with arrogance. "If I join this squad, I take point in every breach. I lead the frontline, I set the combat tempo, and I take thirty percent of the core yield on every Class-D run. You two can split the rest."

Rain looked at Theo. He saw the genuine, high-tier combat capability in the guy’s posture, but he also saw the volatile, arrogant chip on his shoulder that could ruin a party’s cohesion in a high-stress rift encounter.

"Thirty percent is a guild rate," Rain said calmly, his voice cold as ice. "Independent parties split yields based on combat contribution and risk. You get a quarter share, just like the rest of us."

Theo’s jaw tightened, his brow furrowing as he leaned down, getting right into Rain’s face. "You think an F-rank kid tells me what my share is worth? I bring real vanguard protection to this party. Without me, you two are a stealth scout and a fragile squishy stepping into rifts that will chew you alive."

"We built twenty-five thousand credits of capital in twelve hours without you," Rain replied, not backing down an inch, his blue eyes locking onto Theo’s with unwavering intensity. "We don’t need a dictator, Theo. We need a vanguard who knows how to hold a line without letting his ego pull the team into an ambush."

Theo stared down at Rain, his broad shoulders tensing, his fists clenching at his sides as the cold wind blew between them under the flickering street lamp.

Nyra stood between them, her eyes darting back and forth, her jaw set as she waited to see if the fragile alliance was about to collapse before it even officially began.

The street lamp buzzed above them, casting long shadows across the pavement as the question hung heavy in the freezing night air, unresolved, tense, and waiting for a single spark to ignite.