"Don't worry about harming me. You may begin when ready." The chilled voice of a pitch black skeleton called out to him from the other side of the sparring ring. David was suddenly struck by the sheer absurdity of his life so far. This would be the second pitch black skeleton he's fought thus far. He was fully expecting to go his entire life without fighting a single skeleton, let alone two of the same color.

He shook off the thought and got into the stance that Smasher taught him. It still felt a little wrong, posture wise, but he ignored that with practice. Fists raised defensively, but wound up and ready to go on the offensive in an instant, feet placed solidly to steady himself, but tensed and ready to move him in any direction if need be.

"Begin when ready, right?" He asked, just to be sure. The skeleton nodded and he started his offense. He lept forwards, making it seem like he was going to punch him head on in his midsection.

As he approached, he saw Kagekaze's hands begin to drop to defend himself. He grinned, and stomped one foot into the ground, pivoting on it to spin kick his head…

His foot went through air. His eyes widened.

A skeletal fist impacted his torso and sent him flying back. He landed with a groan, air knocked from his lungs. He picked himself up as fast as he could, and looked to see what had happened.

The skeleton had bluffed his feint, ducking his attack and punching his open midsection. That's why his hands were dropping, to ready an uppercut.

David felt stupid and angry. He was about to growl and jump right at him again…

"Ah, a feinted punch into a heel-rooted spin-kick. A complex feat of physicality, very impressive."

David shook off his confusion, and quickly thought of how to approach this. Alright, a feint didn't work. What about a double feint?

He approached with another leap from his chrome legs, sending him forwards through the air. He pretended that he was going to do the exact same thing, a feinted punch into a kick. The skeleton lowered his arms to counter yet again. David didn't stomp to spin himself though.

He stomped to push himself forwards into a straight punch, letting his arm vibrate into it. He didn't punch with his right hand though. He punched with the hand that wasn't readied, the one that wasn't obvious.

It wouldn't do as much damage, but any hit in was a win here.

At least, it would have been. The skeleton tilted its torso and dodged the punch.

His side burst into pain, and he was sent flying off to the side. He rolled a bit before standing with the momentum. His side hurt, but that didn't matter. Being immobile was the same as being dead.

His body was shaking apart. A looming metal corpse. An ancient song.

He rolled his shoulder, the pain from using panzerfaust already starting to show up. It had been getting faster and faster recently, which meant he was probably doing something wrong. It had gotten better after getting all the new bioware, which clearly meant that it was just the result of his body not being strong enough. He'd get stronger in time, for now he just had to deal with it.

That had been his line of thought for the last few weeks now. Which is why it startled him to be interrupted by the skeleton he was about to attack again.

"Your movements… Adam has been teaching you panzerfaust?" He sounded… off, slightly emotional rather than the utterly calm tone he normally used.

"Uhh, yeah? What about it?" He responded, slightly confused as to where this was going.

Kagekaze looked at him, up and down. He took a moment before sighing and speaking.

"You have been experiencing pain recently. A dull thing, primarily centered in the places that your flesh joins with metal. Correct?"

David paused for a bit, and rubbed at his shoulder.

"Uh, yeah a bit. How's you know?"

Gravely, he responded.

"There is a reason that panzerfaust is not taught to men of flesh and blood. Their bodies are not able to handle the intensity of its movements."

"But I've been doing it just fine for months now!"

"A credit to your new bioware and mostly cybernetic body. That is enough to perform the movements, that is not enough to prevent the long term damages."

He paused and walked over, before gravely speaking to him at a more conversational volume.

"You have been ripping your flesh apart on the microscopic scale, damage growing with each punch. Progress would have been slow enough to prevent you from noticing until permanent damage was done. It would have rendered you a complete cripple before too long."

…a hot fury started to settle in his veins.

"It is likely that your battle with Ordo Panzer Grandmaster Blackbeard greatly accelerated this damage through his unique form of sonic attack. It was enough for you to start noticing the damage far before incurable harm was done."

He wanted to yell and punch the dude, but punching hadn't worked twice so far and he was better now. He wasn't losing himself, not again. He was in control.

He was rather pissed though.

He ground out his next question. "Then why the fuck was Smasher teaching it to me if he knew about this shit?" His glare was hot and furious.

If Smasher had been pulling this shit for shits and giggles, laughing to himself as he ripped himself apart… He was going to flatline that fucker.

"He has been fully cybernetic for sixty five years, young Martinez." Kagekaze spoke calmly, smoothly. "I doubt he even remembered why normal men are not taught panzerfaust, he has not been one for most of his life."

David glared at nothing for a bit, before closing his eyes and breathing in and out. He thought back to the brain dance from Smasher's point of view. The overwhelming rush of sensors and unyielding steel body.

The skeleton was right, Smasher probably didn't even remember what being a regular person was like. The dude was careless that way.

He opened his eyes, holding onto his anger at the situation. He was pissed, he was going to stay pissed until he found a solution. Until he was taught better. Until he scrapped the next fucker who came after his crew.

"So what are my options?" He looked at the skeleton again.

"If you would heed my advice, there are three paths. The first, is that you stop using panzerfaust and find a style of fighting meant for humans, lest you continue to tear yourself apart. This is the path that men like Morgan Blackhand took."

No way, can't do that. He wasn't fighting humans here, he was going to be going up against monsters made of chrome. It was too strong for him to stop using. His frown probably conveyed as much to the skeleton, who continued.

"The second path is to leave behind your flesh, and undergo a full cyberization process. You would no longer worry about your flesh tearing itself apart with panzerfaust, and the road to further cybernetics would be yours. This is the path that men like Adam Smasher took."

…He considered it strongly. The sheer number of benefits it would bring to him. No longer worried about being too weak, or too slow, or too fragile. He would be stronger than he ever had before. Strong enough to protect Lucy, his mother, Rebecca, his crew.

Strong like Smasher.

"That chip contains my long-term contract."

…He refused. Even at his strongest, he wouldn't be strong enough to protect them from himself if he was ordered the right way. There was no way he was going to hurt any of them, he refused to even allow the possibility.

He looked Kagekaze dead in the eye, his brow furrowed and his will set in stone. He spoke.

"No."

And that was that. Kagekaze nodded, accepting his decision, and spoke a last time.

"The third path is one that has not been traveled by practitioners of panzerfaust, likely due to the suppression of the style by those revived myths. It is the most difficult path, and the one with the greatest potential reward."

Kagekaze leaned forwards a bit, conspiratorially and eyes almost twinkling.

"The third path is one of innovation. To see if you can create a new style altogether, with strength to match its parent. To see if you can adapt the principles for men of flesh."

David was liking this idea, even as Kagekage finished speaking.

"Perhaps not a Tank-Fist, but something similar. Something that men can use to fight steel."

David grinned, and his choice was made. Kagekaze's eyes glinted in delight.

"How wonderful. I look forward to learning alongside you."

—

Later, after Kagekaze had sparred with each of them and identified their strongest shortcomings, they were seated around a table for 'mental training'. David wasn't sure what kind of mental training involved cups and dice though. Gambling usually dulled the mind in his experience. He thought back to the kids in his highschool, the ones that would always try to win his BDs in a game. Fuck no, he was selling these, buy them or not.

He blinked. Man it had been a long fucking time since he had thought of Arasaka academy. He didn't even remember any of his classmates besides Katsuo. That reminded him, he needed to visit the dude again while he was in the tower, they hadn't talked in a couple days.

"...so uhh, what's this mental training going to be like?" Becca asked from where she was almost slumped over. He looked again and noticed that his mother, Lucy and Becca were all really tired. Was their stamina that bad? It was just an hour or two of sparring. He made a note to start going to morning runs with Lucy again, and maybe ask her if the others can come along. He liked running.

"We are going to be playing a few games of Liar's Dice."

David had never heard of that one. Also wait, they were in fact playing a game here?

Seeing their confusion, Kagekaze continued.

"The game is simple. We each roll the dice in our cup and then look at the result, but do not reveal it to the table. Then we shall take turns guessing how many of a particular type of result is on the table. Each subsequent guess can only increase in overall value, more of a type of result, or the same number of a higher value result. "

"This continues until one person calls the bluff of another and all reveal their cups. If the person was lying then they are out, if they were telling the truth or their guess was less than the actual total then the accuser is out. This game teaches several useful skills, such as the ability to estimate probabilities, the ability to bluff and detect bluffs, and more. It serves as a way for me to quickly estimate your abilities on these skills as well."

"We will play a game to practice the rules first, and then continue. Any questions?"

Seeing that there were none, he demonstrated the proper way to roll the dice and gently slam them against the table. They followed, and David looked under his cup.

Two threes, one four, two fives.

He wasn't sure how good that was. He looked up and saw the skeleton patiently waiting for them to finish checking. Once they were done, Kagekaze spoke in the same tone that he always had.

"Two ones." he announced. He wouldn't lie on the first turn, that wouldn't help him any… Wait, no it would, wouldn't it? It gave him room to move up later. But if he was telling the truth, then that would mean losing on the first turn…

David refused to be that stupid. This was another test. Kagekage was probably telling the truth here, which meant that there were at least two ones on the table. It was his turn, there were at least two threes on the table, and he was willing to bet that there was another somewhere else. If he wanted to win, he had to force a lie from the rest of the table.

"Three threes." he announced, as confident as he could be. He was never good with lying, but he was pretty sure that this was the truth.

Then it was Lucy's turn and she locked eyes with him. A small competitive smile on her face.

"Three fours." Oh so that's how it was going to be, huh? He felt the spark of competition glow. He wasn't going down that easily. She had bid the minimum she could here, increasing the value but not the number. She was going to drag this out as long as possible.

Heh, she can try, he can keep this up all night.

"Eight fours." The guess dragged him from his staring contest, and he shook himself a bit. He looked over to Becca, who looked incredibly confident in her bold declaration. Eight? He glanced down at the table. Five dice per person, four people, six sides per dice.

…The chance of eight dice being the same was… decently likely. He looked at her face, still as confident as ever. He was never good at telling what Becca was thinking, and he was quickly realizing that he wasn't good at telling if she was lying or not either.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, even as she smugly sat on her chair. Her chair that she had a jacket rolled up in to boost her height.

"Eight fives." His mother spoke out, hesitantly, something that Becca immediately pounced on.

"What?! That's bull! Show 'em sister!"

A bluff was called, and everyone revealed their dice. His mother had three fives, Lucy had two, he had two, Becca had one…

He stopped when he got to Kagekaze's dice.

Five sixes.

He looked up at the skeleton that seemed to grin without a face. The game could have ended in the first turn if he had trusted his instincts.

"I'm sorry Ms. Rebecca, but it seems your call was incorrect. You will be out until we begin a new game. Don't worry, we will play several games tonight."

Rebecca gave an exaggerated huff and pout with her arms crossed. Her good natured glances assured that this was good fun for her.

"Now then, shall we begin the next round?" The skeleton lifted his cup and started shaking it again, ready to roll. They quickly followed, and despite this supposingly being training, it felt much more like a game.

Which it was he supposed. A game that the robotic skeleton ninja was using to estimate their abilities to lie to each other.

David was starting to disregard the absurdity of his life. It wasn't going to help him to dwell on it.

—

Smasher's new techie wanted to meet with him, and David wasn't sure what he was expecting.

When he thinks of the words "Corpo techie" he usually imagines a pretty serious, non-nonsense guy in a suit and glasses talking about the best way to maximize the profits of their bullet sales or something like that. He wasn't expecting… well, this.

A short, flat chested girl in booty shorts who kept gushing at him about chrome and acting standoffish towards the others.

"...and the fact that you were able to handle a full set of limbs on streetwear is really impressive, it's no wonder Smasher-san took an interest in you. I look forward to working with you, Martinez-san!"

"Are your bosses gonna get mad for working with someone other than the big guy?" Becca asked, brow raised and with genuine concern for the bubbly woman talking about cybernetics to him.

The techie's face fell into a flat expression, and she gave a disinterested glance in Becca's direction. "Hm." she eventually replied.

…That wasn't much of a reply. David exchanged a glance with Lucy, who had gotten a similar response earlier, and shrugged. He tried it himself, Ignoring the small glare that Lucy was giving them and the tightened hold on his arm.

"Right, I wouldn't want you getting in trouble for me or anything."

The techie's face immediately brightened up again, and they properly replied to him. "Oh, don't worry about that, I can just file your upgrades under a request by Smasher-san, and they'll be fine with it. " The techie paused, before shyly twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "I'll need him to sign off on it though, if you can ask him to visit again for your upgrades."

He nodded, that sounded about right, although he wondered why they couldn't do that electronically. Maybe it was a security thing? "Yeah I can ask him about it."

"Hehe, thanks Martinez-san. Say, have you ever thought about using Battlegloves? They'll let you fit more cybernetic options without needing to replace your existing arms, and you can swap them out on a per-mission basis."

…He hadn't thought about that at all. That sounded incredibly useful.

"Are they going to strain him?" Lucy asked, vigilant and alert. Oh yeah, cyberpsychosis. He didn't want to go off the deep end again.

The techie's face blanked again. It was kinda odd how they were so distant from people who weren't him. Was she… did she only like people with lots of chrome?

"Hey, what's the big idea? We're just making sure Davey doesn't lose himself again!" Becca finally snapped at the techie, who responded fairly promptly.

"I hate women."

…what? A girl who hated other women, was she jealous or something? Wait, she came from Japan, where the marketing stuff was really popular. Did he have a fangirl or something?!

"You hate other women?" His mother asked, a bit hesitant.

"I'm a guy." The techie curtly responded.

…Did he have a fanboy or something?!