In addition to a main and sub weapon, players are allowed to equip gadgets to their NBS. There are four areas of a NBS where a gadget can be equipped: head, arms, back, and legs. A player can equip up to one gadget in each of these areas. While they provide their share of benefits, the weight of an equipped gadget can lower a player's speed. It is typically recommended to always equip gadgets on the head and legs, as they have the lowest chance to reduce speed.

-Cyber Nexus Online Manual: Gadgets

I still remember the first time I met Violet.

It was early November, about three months after I had started playing CNO. There was an event where powerful raid bosses appeared in the fields. The only thing bigger than their difficulty level was the rewards they gave to those that defeated them. Several raid groups were formed, with many welcoming players outside their own parties to join in order to increase their chances of victory. Violet and I were both solo players that had been recruited into the same raid group. There was nearly a full total of fifty players in our raid group challenging the boss.

Nearly an hour after the fight began, Violet and I were the only ones left alive.

I had heard a few rumors here and there regarding Violet before that raid. It was that reputation that had first gotten her recruited, just like mine had for me. But seeing her in action firsthand was another thing entirely. It was tough to believe that she was able to move so well in VR. She had skill, there was no question about that. Perhaps she had played another VRMMO before CNO and transferred her account over using the Seed. But when I asked her later, she said the only game she had ever played on the Seed was CNO. Natural talent, I guess.

The raid boss was easily the toughest enemy either of us had ever faced. By the time the raid group was down to just the two of us, it still had half of its last HP bar left, the other nine having been gradually depleted throughout the raid by other players. Despite it being our first time working together, Violet and I had managed to coordinate our movements rather well. It was a close fight, with both of us nearly dying more than once, but we managed to eventually deliver the final blow to the raid boss and defeat it.

Our reputations might have shot up just a little because of that. People like to gossip.

After the raid, I met up again with Violet. The two of us had worked so well together, we had decided to add each other to our Friend's List to call on one another if we ever needed help.

And today was yet another one of our days working together.

I ran through The Cube, moving through room after room as I tried to locate wherever the Ultra Core was. Players weren't provided a map of The Cube since it was randomized every time it was used for an event, but we could still accumulate the map data of each specific layout as we explored it. From what I could tell, this particular layout had several floors and I had started on the lowest one. Assuming every player's starting distance from the Ultra Core was more or less equal, two possibilities for its location came to mind. The first was that everyone had started out in far rooms around The Cube's perimeter and the Ultra Core would be in the center of the structure. The other was that everyone had started out on the bottom like me and the Ultra Core would be at the top floor.

The center was closer to me, so that would be my first target.

I hadn't run into any other players yet outside of Banzai at the start. There were supposed to be 70 players competing in the event today. With the Ultra Core being such a coveted item, there obviously had been far more players registered at first, but The Cube only had so much space. So a preliminary tournament had been done two weeks ago to thin the herd down to a reasonable number. A basic 1v1 battle tournament had brought the original 754 players that had signed up down to the current 70, or rather 69 since Banzai was probably back at Serulis cursing me out right now.

I had gone up two floors from the one I had started on. Ten minutes had already passed. Was Violet closer to the Ultra Core than me? Was she further behind? Had she already been taken ou- yeah, no that last one was hard to believe. Violet wasn't the type to go down that easily, I knew that much from my time working alongside her.

I made my way into the next room as I continued my search. This latest room was the largest yet, with several pillars scattered around it holding up the ceiling. There were also beams between some pillars, just wide enough for someone to stand on, though I could see no such players. So I hurried on my way through the room. If this kept up, I could have two floors in a row of not running into a single enemy.

Lady Luck, thanks a million you beautiful goddess.

Judging from the size of the previous two floors of The Cube, I had already mapped through a good twenty percent of this current floor already. Each room that led to a higher floor had a terminal to operate an elevator that would lead players up. I just needed to find it. I had already been rather lucky with running into only one enemy so far, so perhaps my luck would keep up and I'd find the elevator room in another room or two.

I had been so focussed on my destination that I almost missed a small circular shadow moving near me. And as I turned to see what was casting the shadow, I was greeted with the oh so welcoming sight of a grenade.

Lady Luck, you are a sadistic bitch.

"Shit!" I cursed out as the grenade exploded just a few meters away from me. I was blown back by the shockwave and tumbled along the floor. A quick glance at my HP bar at the top left of my vision showed me that I had lost roughly 60% of my HP from the blast just now.

Using the explosion debris as cover, I quickly moved behind one of the pillars in the room. I then swiped open my menu and materialized a recovery item known as a Recovery Charge. A white box with a red cross symbol appeared in front of me and I grabbed it with my hand, pressing the button on it down. Gradually, my HP - or rather the HP of my NBS - began to go back up.

The charge unit would bring my HP back to around 80%. While that was going on, I needed to find the player who had given me such a gracious welcome. But just as I was about to glance out from the pillar I was hiding behind, I saw a thin blade of light coming for my head.

I quickly slid my body down, just barely avoiding having my head impaled. I glanced to the side and finally saw my attacker. They had a black-colored NBS I recognized as a Shinobi model. Fitting with the name, the design was very similar to that of a ninja outfit, even including a mask for the lower half of his face. The player's name read Kage.

"Is this how you greet everyone you meet?" I asked. "Sounds like someone has trouble making friends."

Apparently Kage took my joke so well that they skipped the step where they were supposed to laugh and went straight to trying to kill me. What can I say? It's an effect I have on people.

I leaped back to put some distance between myself and Kage. But Kage didn't seem to have any intention of giving me a chance to catch my breath as he pressed the attack. Well if he was going to be so insistent, then I was just going to have to oblige.

As Kage swung his short sword down at me, I responded with an upwards kick that knocked his arm holding the sword upwards. I followed up with a roundhouse kick at the head, knocking him off his feet and twisting his body, before finishing with a third kick aimed at his gut. Kage flew back and slammed into one of the pillars, his HP bar going down into the yellow.

"Well? I sent you flying just like you did to me. Does this mean we're friends in your book?"

Kage stayed silent. He seemed dedicated to acting just like a ninja. As I awaited his next move, he leaped up and landed on one of the beams up near the ceiling. This guy really was just like a real ninja after all.

I didn't have the jumping prowess of Kage's Shinobi. But who needed jumping prowess when you had a trusty Grappling Hook gadget? I aimed and fired my gadget at the beam before using it to reel myself up. Soon, I was standing on the beam with Kage.

"So are you finally going to say something, or do we just jump straight back into trying to kill each other?"

It was hard to tell with the lower half of his face covered, but I could have sworn I saw Kage's expression show annoyance for a split second. Nah, couldn't be. I'm too charismatic to annoy people.

The two of us both charged at one another. Our Speed stats seemed to be just about on par with one another, so it was going to come down to whose movements were better. Kage brought his body low in an attempt to avoid me parrying him with another kick. A clever attempt, but not one I couldn't deal with. I responded by leaping up and avoiding the swing of his blade that came for my legs. I jumped off Kage like a springboard and landed right behind him. As he turned around to face me however, he was met by a right hook from me. The blow made him lose his balance and he fell over and began to plummet towards the ground. However, he regained his balance just in time and straightened himself out. Bursts of flames thrusted out from the soles of his feet, slowing his descent and allowing him to land safely on the ground without sustaining any damage.

The thrusters on his legs didn't really surprise me. It was a feature many leg-based gadgets had. Players that had them could output thrusts from them with the simple motion of clenching the soles of their feet. It wasn't the most comfortable feeling in the world to keep up for a long period of time, but it certainly came in handy even if the thrust output of the gadgets wasn't enough to make players hover midair.

Deciding to resume our fight back on the ground rather than waiting for Kage to jump back up, I shot the wire from my Grappling Hook at a nearby pillar and reeled myself towards it before hopping off the pillar and landing on the round. Kage looked at me with narrowed eyes wondering why I hadn't simply jumped off and used thrusters to slow my descent and land safely. The train of thought that followed probably led him to believe I didn't have a gadget equipped with a thruster function. Well he was wrong. I did.

Was it pointless to land the way I did instead of using my thrusters? Sure. But I had my reasons.

My recent blow to Kage had his HP in the low yellow zone. Meanwhile my HP was back in the green thanks to the charge pack I used. Chances were, Kage would try to slip away and heal himself. But there was no chance I was going to let him get away easily after he had been the one to attack me.

Just as Kage seemed like he was about to make a move however, something happened that neither of us had expected. A spear came flying out of nowhere and impaled Kage from the left. I blinked for a moment, wondering if I was seeing things, but the next thing I knew the rest of Kage's HP had been depleted and his avatar shattered into fragments as the spear that had finished him off fell to the ground.

I didn't have long to be surprised as the sound of footsteps coming my way were quickly growing louder. I glanced to the same side the spear had come from and saw a female player with a pink NBS and a surprisingly large hammer charging at me. She leaped up and swung her hammer down at me, which I managed to dodge just in time as I leaped back.

As the hammer-wielding girl and I stared each other down, another female player moved in and grabbed the spear. She twirled it skillfully, as if to further show she was the one that had thrown it. I was grateful that she had dealt with Kage before he could potentially deal me any further damage, but something told me these two weren't planning to just walk away and let me go on my merry way.

"Heh, just our luck. We come across two players already worn down fighting each other." the hammer girl said.

I rubbed the back of my head as I looked at the pink girl with the hammer. "Judging by your appearance, do you really have time for me? Shouldn't you be busy chasing after speedy blue hedgehogs?"

"Heh, well aren't you a little comedian."

I shrugged my shoulders, glad that she had gotten the reference. "I try."

"Well then, let's see if your jokes can get you out of this fight."

Before I could get another word in, the hammer girl charged at me. She swung her hammer around, but my speed was more than enough to dodge the bulky weapon. After evading a few swings, I jumped to the side. The spear-wielding girl tried to use the opening to attack me, but I jumped back and clenched my feet, using the thrusters to propel me backwards a few meters.

As I skidded to a halt, I waved my finger mockingly at the two girls. "You're too slow~."

"Ok screw eliminating the competition. I want to kill this guy now just to shut him up." the hammer girl said.

It seemed that Violet and I weren't the only ones that had plans to team up for the event. The only difference was these two had found each other before I could find Violet. Out of the frying pan that was Kage and into the fire that was these two. Again, Lady Luck can go to hell.

The hammer girl came at me once again. I sidestepped her hammer swing. The shockwave of the pact threw off my balance for a brief moment, but it wasn't enough to stop me from delivering a punch to her face. She grunted as she stepped back a bit, but her friend dashed around to attack me. The sudden nature of her spear thrust made it tough to dodge, causing the tip to scratch my side slightly, depleting roughly 10% of my HP. I counterattacked with a kick to her gut, knocking her back and lowering her HP a bit.

I knew I couldn't keep this up. Normally, this 1v2 matchup wouldn't pose too much of a problem for me. But I still hadn't gotten a chance to catch my breath from fighting Kage and these two were in perfect condition when they had attacked me. On top of that, every second counted in this event. So that left me with only one option.

Run like hell.

I turned to the south exit and ran as fast as Hermes's legs would carry me. As I ran, I could hear the hammer girl shout behind me.

"H-Hey! Where do you think you're going?! Get back here, coward!"

"Sorry girls, I'll have to postpone our date for another time." I called back. I dashed through the passageway and went into the next room. But unfortunately for me, I quickly found out the room was a dead end with no way out other than the way I had come in.

Lady Luck, seriously. Go. To. Hell.

I attempted to turn and run for another exit, but my two pursuers had already appeared and blocked off my path. They both brandished their weapons, clearly reaching the same conclusion I had that there was no way for me to escape.

"Well, well. Look who just ran out of options." the hammer girl said.

The spear user pointed her weapon at me. "Do us a favor and let us make it quick. You clearly have no chance at getting through this alive. The least you could do is be a good sport and not make us have to waste time healing afterwards."

I rubbed the back of my head. "Sorry but I'm kind of a sore loser." I then took a fighting stance. "You could always let me go and we could all be on our separate ways."

"Nice try."

"Pretty please?"

"Die."

Negotiating, as it turns out, was not my strong suit.

Spear girl took the lead. I had to give her credit. She knew what she was doing with it. I was managing to dodge her barrage of thrusts, but they were so swift and precise that there was no opening for me to get close. Just as I thought an opening was about to come as she moved back, her partner came in leaping over her with her hammer. I was forced to leap back to avoid being flattened like a pancake.

After the shockwave of the impact subsided, I dashed in. Taking advantage of the time it took her to lift her hammer back up, I got in close. I hooked my arm around her neck to prevent my next attack from knocking her back and drove my knee into her gut. It didn't do that much damage, but the blow would likely take a few seconds to recover from and move again, giving me time for a more powerful hit.

In theory.

To my surprise, hammer girl turned out to be tougher than I thought. Rather than reeling over, she let go of her hammer and hugged me tightly, preventing me from getting away from her. She shouted to her partner. "Impale us!"

"You sure?" the other one asked.

"He's got a Sprinter model! I have more HP and Durability than he's got!"

She wasn't wrong. Although there was no official ranking for NBS models in-game to determine how good they were, there was one thing to help newer players narrow down the list of models to choose from. Every NBS had a class assigned to it to give an idea of what character build it was made for. My Hermes was a Sprinter class. As the name implied, they specialized in the Speed stat. The downside to the Sprinter class however was they were one of the weakest when it came to Durability so it didn't take as much to kill them as the other classes.

Meanwhile hammer girl's NBS was a Titan model, which was a Guardian class. Essentially, they were tanks. High Durability and HP, along with the Strength to carry heavy weapons, but having the downside of abysmal Speed and Luck. If her partner impaled us both with her spear, I would run out of HP well before she did. So I needed to prevent that from happening at all costs.

I tried punching and kneeing her in the gut repeatedly, but she didn't give. Her HP was depleting slightly from the blows, but even at this rate my HP would hit zero before hers. I racked my brain for a plan before finally coming up with an idea.

I aimed my right hand at the wall as best I could and shot out my Grappling Hook. It flew out in an upwards diagonal motion and hit the wall just as spear girl was getting ready to turn us into a shishkebab. I quickly made the hand motion to reel myself towards it. The girl holding onto me flew with me, though the added weight brought a lot of resistance. Thankfully, with our position, she slammed into the wall and absorbed most of the crash for me. It was enough to make her lose her grip and plummet down onto the floor.

Even if she did straighten herself out, the weight of her Guardian class NBS was far too much for any thruster to slow down enough to negate the fall damage. She laid down on the ground, groaning in slight pain as her HP took a nosedive into the yellow zone.

"Guess it's true what they say." I told her as I lowered myself down with the Grappling Hook, landing right on top of her. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall."

Reeling my arm back, I slammed my fist down on her. Another small chunk of her HP whittled away. But before I could do any more, the sound of her partner's footsteps were rapidly approaching. As I prepared to get away, I found that danger was even closer than I thought as she was preparing to hurl her spear at me. With her partner out of its line of fire, there was no more reason for her to hesitate. I wasn't going to be able to dodge in time.

And that's when it happened.

A pink blur appeared right next to the spear girl in an instant. Gripped tightly in the new player's hand was a thin photon blade with a shimmering silvery light. They swung it in a series of swift motions almost too fast for the eye to follow, leaving several red pixelated gashes along the spear girl's avatar.

I instantly recognized the NBS. It was a Flora model, easily identified by the flower-shaped decorations on various parts of the body. But it wasn't just the model I recognized. It was the player wearing it. Clear blue eyes. Lavender hair flowing down past the shoulders.

It was Violet.

Lady Luck, I officially rescind my earlier comments. Thank you for this bountiful gift you have brought before me.

"Damnit." the spear girl muttered as she moved back. Violet's slashes had taken out a large amount of her HP, bringing her from a full bar all the way to the low yellow zone. "You should have stayed out of this fight."

"Apologies, I only came to pick up my idiot over there." Violet said, pointing her blade over at me.

I shot a cheeky smile at her. "Aw, you do care. And here I thought you might be mad at me for flirting with other girls."

"Shut up. Don't give people the wrong idea."

"If you two are done…" hammer girl said, clearly annoyed that I was still standing on her. "Get the hell off me!"

I jumped back to avoid the swipe of her arm. She got to her feet, but her hammer was still far out of her reach from where she had dropped it earlier.

Violet turned her attention back to the spear girl. "I'll deal with this one. Hurry up and deal with yours so we can keep moving already."

"Will do."

"Hmph. Don't get cocky, asshole." hammer girl said as she glared at me.

Guardian class models weren't exactly my favorite types to go up against. They were slow, but their bulky exterior typically meant my martial arts fighting style didn't affect them as much as others. But this one had lost their weapon and their HP was already well below half. I could handle this with Violet keeping her friend busy.

I made the first move as I sped in. My opponent attempted to hit me with a punch, but it was far too slow to have any real chance of hitting me. I ducked under it and sent a punch directly at her face. But although her HP took another slight hit, she didn't even stumble back. I had to give the girl credit. She really knew how to take a hit.

I quickly sidestepped away before she could grab me again. I used my superior speed to my advantage as I danced around her, delivering blow after blow whenever I saw an opening. Before long, her HP had finally dipped into the red.

Suddenly the sound of an avatar shattering was heard and we both glanced to the side, seeing Violet standing near the floating polygons that had once been the spear girl.

"Damn you!" she shouted. "I'll kill you, you-"

Checkmate.

During her momentary distraction, I swung my leg around at her head. Keeping my foot parallel with the rest of my leg, I clenched my foot to activate the thruster. The extra force it provided gave the blow the power it needed to finish off the last shred of hammer girl's HP. She shattered into polygons just like her friend had seconds ago.

Violet switched off her photon sword, the light vanishing from it just like the lightsaber it was based off of. "Why is it I'm always bailing you out of trouble?"

"What can I say? Trouble has a crush on me."

Violet rolled her eyes in response. "We better hurry. No doubt some players are already ahead of us."

Knowing Violet was right, I silently nodded in response. The two of us ran out of the room and hurried along as we continued to make our way through The Cube. Now we just had to hope we could reach the Ultra Core in time.

A/N: Hello readers. Back again with the next chapter of Broken Wings. Hope you all enjoyed it. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in comments or PM. Like I mentioned before, as this is a bit of a change from the usual for me, I'm always happy to know if you all like how it's going or see where I might need to improve.

Next chapter should be out in a couple of months, like this one. Until then, faithful readers.