The woman behind the bar—Jett—stopped her polishing mid-stroke, her eyes narrowing as she took me in. My tactical gear was scorched, my hair was a mess of soot, and I was still trying to reconcile my gamer memories with the physical weight of the leather gloves on my hands.
"The name's Squall," I said, my voice coming out steadier than I felt.
Jett's eyebrows shot up. "Squall, huh? A heavy name for a man who looks like he just fell out of a Lumina exhaust pipe." She slid a heavy, chilled mug toward me. "Drink up, Squall. Around here, we don't ask many questions, but we do expect people to carry their own weight."
I took a long draught of the amber liquid. It wasn't the bitter ale I expected; it was sweet, crisp, and left a faint tingling sensation on my tongue—like a low-level static charge. This was the "comedy" of my situation: to them, I was just some eccentric specialist with a strange accent and a "phone" obsession. To me, I was a man living inside his favorite RPG, hiding the fact that I knew exactly which corrupt CEOs were running the show above our heads.
"Squall's more than just a stray, Jett," Alex interrupted, his voice a low vibration that seemed to command the room. He leaned his back against the bar, his massive Cleaver Blade resting within reach. "He knew the layout of the Reactor before we even stepped inside. He's got instincts I haven't seen in years."
Lyra, who had been busy poking at a bowl of neon-blue peanuts, leaned into my personal space. Her floral scent was intoxicating in the cramped, oily bar. "So, Squall," she purred, a playful glint in her green eyes. "If you're here to save the world, where are we starting? Because my garden needs a new irrigation system and the Zenith guards have been awfully grumpy lately."
I looked at her, then at the brooding Alex. In this world, men were a rarity—powerhouses like Alex were the exception, and now I was the second outlier in their tight-knit circle. The romantic tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a buster sword.
"We start by staying alive," I replied, setting the mug down with a firm thud. "Zenith isn't going to let that reactor explosion slide. They'll be sending the Crescent Unit down here by morning."
The humor vanished from Lyra's face. Jett reached under the bar, and the distinct click-clack of a magipunk shotgun echoed through the room.
"The Crescent Unit?" Jett muttered. "Those silver-plated vultures don't usually come to the Rust-Lands unless they're looking for something specific."
"They're looking for us," I said. I didn't tell them I knew this because it was the 'Chapter 2' plot trigger. I just looked at the door. "And if I'm right, we have about ten seconds before—"
The front door didn't open; it was blown off its hinges by a blast of concentrated frost. The temperature in the bar plummeted instantly, turning our breath into white mist.
Standing in the doorway was a woman clad in shimmering white armor, her rapier glowing with a deadly, crystalline blue light. Her eyes scanned the room with icy precision, landing squarely on me.
"Squall," she said, her voice like cracking glaciers. "The Board of Directors has a very special place for you."
I stood up, feeling the Fire Sphere in my pocket pulse with warmth. I didn't know how I'd gotten here, and they didn't know I wasn't from this world, but one thing was certain: this adventure was just getting to the good part.
"Sorry," I said, reaching for the sphere as Alex unsheathed his blade in a spray of blue sparks."I'm not really a 'corporate' kind of guy."
The bar erupted into chaos as the first battle of our never-ending adventure began.