“Who?” Ceres asked again as one of the other cleaners tried to explain to him about the upcoming ‘festival’. Ceres had hardly heard about this guy, and judging from the bored look on Halyon’s face, it looks like the enforcers did not care either.

However, Ceres was intrigued by the ‘famous’ exosuit called Mirage Runner, worn exclusively by Saater. Apparently, it was a personalized design made to perfection only for him, making Ceres excited.

“I wonder if I’ll get to see the exosuit in action.” He muttered to himself as they cleaned out yet another beast cage.

“If you want to see it, you should participate in the fights.” Halyon cheered Ceres on, but Ceres looked at him like an idiot.

“Are you stupid? If I go out there and stomp everyone including the Mirage Runner, I’ll paint a large target on my back from everyone out there. And if any of the fights get harder than expected, I’ll be forced to use my black armour or go berserk. Wouldn’t the enforcers immediately know it’s me?” Ceres snapped back.

“Er… wear a mask? Like the one you are wearing now?”

“Yes, brilliant idea. If the mask could block the black goo in my body from coming and all my special abilities, sure. Why don’t you go out there and fight?”

“I like my head on my neck, thank you very much. Do you really think there are enforcer spies in Rockhold?”

“If a hooded man walked up to you and offered you 1000 L-credits to simply tell him if you see anything that looks remotely like black goo, would you do it?”

“Yes,” Halyon responded without a doubt, thinking of all the cup noodles he could buy, human organs or not.

“Exactly.” Ceres sighed. Despite Rockhold being touted as a more ‘free’ zone, it also meant that the residents were free to align themselves with whomever they wanted. And of course, money speaks the loudest in such a place.

Ceres had a living wage now, but he either needed more money or more reputation in order to get closer to the ‘White Fang’.

“I feel like this is so stupid though. Why don’t we just go up to wherever the rebellion hideout is, show your face and everything is finished?” Halyon complained.

“So where is the rebellion hideout?” Ceres smiled gently.

“Hmm… good question. We could ask a rebel nicely?”

“And said rebel would tell you immediately where exactly to find their commanding officer?”

“I’ll use ‘please’ in a gentle tone.”

Ceres didn’t bother replying, giving up on Halyon. Ceres had already tried asking around for any hints as to how to find the rebellion, but surprise – strategic disinformation employed by the rebellion led to a dizzying array of possible locations that numbered in the hundreds.

He wondered how the rebellion recruited people if it was so secretive.

Secret messages? Coded posters? Ceres had already walked around the surrounding area but didn’t spot anything out of the ordinary. He even kept an eye out for the said bonfire logo, but it was as though that logo never existed anywhere.

Ceres concluded that the rebellion most likely operated using direct recruitment via verified rebels. It was a much safer approach than putting a ‘Locate Us’ section on their website along with directions on how to reach them.

So, Ceres had no choice but to think of other methods to get into contact with such recruiters.

He had already heard that the ‘White Fang’ has recruited people from the arena before, or so the rumours say.

If he could get his name out there without exposing his abilities, that would the best. He didn’t know how people in society would treat him when they found out that the great instigator of the infamous Ceres Riots was still alive. “Probably stoned to death.”

Ceres was very clear on the possibility that both outers and inners might come to hate him, especially after the hundreds of thousands of deaths inflicted by the riots.

Even though he was merely a scapegoat, he had to play around with the fact that he could under no circumstances reveal himself to a large audience beyond his friends.

It was also part of the reason why he had to keep Halyon within his sight at all times. Ceres stared at Halyon, who had just slipped on a pile of dung and fallen face-first into it. Ceres naturally reaffirmed that if Halyon ever returned to the enforcers, all information on Ceres could be considered as good as leaked.

For now, Ceres already had a solid plan in order to get him into the old man’s workshop, but he needed time and effort to get him in. Without the tools in the workshop, there was only so much he could do with his bare hands.

“Disposal duty again? You know you can try rotating through the other roles right?” Cain asked worriedly, afraid something had awakened within Ceres who had asked him to be posted to the disposal room yet again. He stared quietly at Ceres, his mind running wild.

“It’s not what you think, but I’m afraid of dying in the other roles too,” Ceres replied with a stoic expression.

“Well, you have the chance of dying in the disposal room too, especially when the patient is not actually dead and lashes out at you.”

“Better than trying to reign in a beast the size of a truck.”

Cain sighed and agreed, assigning Ceres to the disposal room. Halyon too excitedly asked for disposal duty, not wanting to risk his life as well. Thanks to the time spent with Ceres, Halyon actively knew for a fact that staying near a known character with verified ‘plot armour’ was the safest place here, whatever that meant.

However, Cain assigned him to medical duty, despite him not knowing anything about it. “Everyone gotta start somewhere as a medic. You look like you got a good head on you so better to start now!” Cain roared in laughter as he slapped the frustrated Halyon’s back.

The arena matches began yet again, though the audience and fights were noticeably more lacklustre.

Everyone was anticipating the upcoming week-long event with Saater fighting in the arena, so nobody bothered to buy tickets or bet on ‘loser’ matches before that. It was like watching the advertisements before the actual holo-movie.

Ceres, however, still had his fair share of dead bodies thanks to the non-stop stream of fighters willing to risk their lives for a few hundred L-Credits or did not have the confidence to participate in the Saater event. Instead of focusing on the dead bodies or organs, which he could now process in a flash, he focused his remaining attention on the damaged exosuits.

“It’s hard to repair it without any tools.” Ceres had already tried to get his black goo to form into a sort of engineering multitool, but it failed. He could already form a spear-head on his hand, something learnt from the temple. He was inspired by the doctor slovesa orb who had multiple arms, thinking he could somehow mould his own black goo into more precise shapes too.

This limited his range of actions, but there were a few simple modifications he could perform on the exosuit using his sheer strength and deft fingers.

Using his black goo-hardened hands alone, he did a few slight adjustments to the location of certain systems, shifting tubes and performing wire management. He also shaved off a few edges of the structural frame, making it lighter and more comfortable to well but equally sturdy.

“Well, that should be about the extent of what I can do.” Ceres wondered if he could ever get the black goo to form a soldering iron or act like a 3D printer, but he doubted it.

Over time, it felt like the black goo was more like another individual residing in his body rather than truly an extension of him.

He repeated the process multiple times, doing very simple improvements that made the exosuit slightly more comfortable too. The other cleaners didn’t know what the hell Ceres was doing, even laughing at him for taking on extra work.

No one complained about him though, as he was the fastest among them in processing a body now.

The effects of his plan began to bear fruit in a few days. Arena fights became slightly longer and more exciting by a marginal percentage, but the ever-focused Saul noticed it through the statistics, as it made for a better attraction too. His audience was also staying longer, allowing him more time to sell more merchandise.

“It’s not even time for the Saater event yet, something interesting is happening.” The data was showing the truth that could not be hidden. An unknown benefit was occurring, and as a businessman, he was more than willing to pounce on it.

Saul decided to take a tour of the fighters, assuming that they were the reason the fights were better. As he entered one of the generic holding rooms for the fighters, he saw five people fighting over a single exosuit, punching each other out.

“Hey, hey, hey! Save the fighting for the arena. What’s going on here?” Saul immediately ran in to break up the fight. No way in hell he was going to let his precious fighters injure themselves before entering the arena, because he would then have to pay their medical bills too under the contract.

“I was specifically assigned this exosuit, but everyone keeps fighting me for it and I have no idea why!” One of the new fighters complained, pointing fingers at the other four who required Saul’s guards to come forward and restrain.

“That’s one of the better exosuits. You’re not even fighting today, just let me borrow it!” Another fighter yelled, trying to break free of the guard’s restraints. Unfortunately for them, Saul had invested heavily in security, which was especially important for running an arena.

Each of his guards had the best implants and prosthetic limbs he could get his hands on in Rockhold, granting them unbelievable strength against a poor fighter who was a basic human without an exosuit.

However, Saul was curious about what the fighter said. “Better exosuit? Compared to which one? We have so many different types!” Each of the arena exosuits was a second-hand purchase thanks to Saul’s thriftiness. This meant that every arena exosuit had its own variation and design as well as years of unknown modification. Could such amateur fighters even tell the difference?

“Compared to all of them! Fifteen people have already worn that exosuit, and even the veterans among them said this was the better exosuit!”

Saul immediately left the room, but not before scolding the fighters for fighting before their appointed matches. He immediately ran straight down to the arena’s exosuit workshop. “Old man, have your skills finally returned?”

“Huh?” The old man was oblivious to what was happening outside. He had not heard anything special or different in the last few days, but Saul explained to him what was happening. The two of them quickly grabbed some of the said ‘better’ exosuits, with the old man examining them.

Saul even showed the old man a before and after clip of the same arena exosuit fighting, though it was two different fighters of about the same skill level. “Haha, it seems that my skills are truly on the verge of returning!” The old man laughed and clapped in joy.

“That’s great! You’ll have to show this level of skill for the event next week. Keep up the good work, old man!” Saul patted him on the back before leaving. As soon as Saul left, the old man’s cheery face immediately descended into one of despair. He re-examined the exosuit multiple times over and over, before finally throwing his tools onto the floor in anger.

“I don’t even know what is the difference I’ve made.” The old man said in exasperation. “What makes this exosuit better than the ones I repaired last week?” He decided to walk over to the fighters to try and get a clear answer.

“Oh man, it’s like, better, you know? Just more swoosh swoosh, and more like feel. Less like grind grind thingy stuff yea? A bit more poke poke, a little less woo worroww.”

The old man slapped his forehead in anger, cursing himself for being so idiotic at asking such fighters. But the fighters recognized him as the exosuit repairer, thanking him for making better exosuits. This appeased his ego and made him walk with a skip in his step all the way back to his workshop.

“Well, whatever it is, I will just keep doing what I’m doing since it’s working!” The old man smiled to himself, returning to the same old procedure, not bothering to waste any more time examining the changes to the exosuit.

Later in the day, the exact same exosuit became damaged again, arriving back in the old man’s hands. The old man repeated the same repair procedure, smiling to himself as he truly believed his old skills had returned.

However, suddenly, the next day, a group of angry fighters barged into the old man’s workshop. “Old man, what the hell did you do to the exosuit? Why did you make it worse?”

“Wha… I didn’t do anything! Get out of my workshop! Security!” The old man yelled, but not before one of the fighters rushed in and gave the old man a good punch in the stomach. Saul immediately arrived down, breaking up the fight with his guards and restraining the fighters again.

“How are the exosuits worse now?” Saul sighed as the two of them examined the exosuit again. Saul wasn’t an exosuit repairer, so he could only judge based on arena results and fighter’s feedback. The old man remained silent, nursing his wound while trying to check the exosuit.

The old man could not tell the difference at all! To him, the exosuit was exactly the same as when he saw it in its so-called improved version. “Old man, are you on drugs again? I already told you not during working hours.” Saul squinted carefully at the old man.

“No I’m not! I need to spend more time figuring it out. Don’t disturb me!” The old man shouted at Saul, who obediently left. Saul naturally was not happy, but he wasn’t about to antagonize his only exosuit repairer.

He did not even know where to get another one as any good exosuit repairers were either with the rebellion, the Queen’s Guards or Bee Strathon. He would be left with fledging repairers that might be much worse off, seeing as there was no proper training syllabus in Rockhold.

The old man disassembled the exosuit and assembled it again, trying to follow the procedure to the letter. He brought in the original complaining fighter again to his workshop, getting him to test the exosuit.

“No man, it feels super wrong!”

“What does that even mean!? Can you explain yourself in clearer terms?” The old man asked angrily.

“I mean like, it’s a bit like out there yea? Like, you know, it feels like I’m wearing a cupboard!”

The old man desperately tried to get more concise explanations out of the fighter, but the fighter was just a musclehead who didn’t know any better.

The old man had to get the guards again to drag the reluctant fighter out of his workshop, while he himself sat on a reclining chair in disbelief, continuously triple-checking the schematics of the said exosuit.

“Was I really on drugs? I haven’t taken anything in the last two weeks!” The old man muttered to himself when Saul and Cain suddenly entered the workshop with Saater, showing him around.

“Ah, let me introduce our in-house exosuit repairer – Ian Hardingon. He used to be an established exosuit designer in New Saint, but circumstances revolving around betrayal had forced him here.” Saul said.

Saater extended his hand, shaking Ian’s hand. “It’s an honour to work with you, sir. My own exosuit repairer is currently away on another assignment by the order of the Queen, so I’ll be counting on you.”

“Yes, yes of course! You will not regret working with me!” Ian was excited at the prospect of working on an amazing exosuit such as the Mirage Gunner – a successful repair would catapult his reputation into high society.

However, a sudden terrible thought hit him from behind: he only had five days left till Saater’s first match. Would he even be able to figure out what the hell was going on with his own repairs? What if he fucked it up?

Saater smiled and bowed in respect, leaving the workshop with Cain first to tour another area. Saul quickly ran up to the old man, hastily asking: “Old man, have you figured out what’s the difference in the exosuit? Under no circumstances can you fuck it up again like today, you hear me? If anything goes wrong with the Mirage Gunner, you can forget about ever seeing daylight again!”

Ian nodded in agreement. “Don’t worry, I have a few acquaintances who can help out on such a big project!”