1 To the Beginning

Jake looked out over the flat terrain so different from the rocky rough ground with the short twisted trees he had grown used to. Tufts of dry grass speckled the dark red dirt field that stretched in front of him. God's Fist was the name of the huge section on the map that looked as the name implied as if God's own fist had punched the land. Twenty miles long and fourteen wide it was an unusually flat section where huge sheer sheets of rough red stone jutted around as if pushed up from the impact of the mighty fist.

He was still wearing the starter chest armor he had been given. A metallic small plate strapped over his shoulders and around his lower ribs. It was smooth, plain metal without any decorations and seemed far too small to protect much more than his heart. Of course, it was the personal shield it projected that enveloped his body. It would absorb all physical damage until the power cell was depleted.

Beneath his breastplate was a grey sleeveless t-shirt tucked into his dark heavy cloth pants. These pants were then tucked into heavy boots that oddly looked like combat boots, only made of metal. As he shifted his weight they moved as if leather despite their appearance.

A pair of fingerless gloves seemed to be made of the same dull grey metal covered both hands. While a featureless smooth metal helmet fully encased his head. It offered no visible way for him to see out. But from within Jake saw as clearly as if he wasn't wearing anything at all. Minus his helmet's heads up display that is. He ignored the health bar currently outlined in a faintly glowing blue aura representing his armors shield. Instead, he was busy focusing on the enemy roughly five hundred meters ahead.

As he focused on them red bars would hover over their heads but he was too far for even his helmet's advanced HUD to give him anything else. There were thirty of them. Each looked like a Doberman pincher hound only the size of a small pony. He knew they were the B ranked monster simply identified as a Maw. On the current level he was at players were C ranked other than a few B ranks that had not yet left for the next region.

B rank monsters were the toughest enemy he could find in the area. They were rare and highly contested. But here in God's Fist, no one hunted despite the huge number of B ranked monsters. More precisely no one hunted BECAUSE of the huge number of B ranked monsters. The Maws hunted in huge packs. Were exceptionally fast on the flat terrain and insanely aggressive.

That was the exact reason he was here.

One of the Maws lifted its "head". It was in the right place but had no ears, mouth, or eyes. Just a roughly oblong lump of dark fur covered flesh with a twitching nose at the end. It shifted in his direction. His helmet zoomed in enough for him to see that nose twitching wildly then suddenly the beast froze for a brief moment. It threw back its head and a hyena-like cackling rose up from its chest. A chest that had split open to reverse a mouth that took up most of its barrel chest. Filled with jagged and crooked shark teeth it was the monster's only weapon.

Around the first, the others started cackling before the entire pack charged forward in his direction. They were fast shrinking the distance between him and them terrifyingly fast. Jake didn't bother to move. He couldn't outrun them nor did he have any ranged attacks. There was nothing left to do but wait.

A handful of the monsters pulled ahead from the pack and Jake finally started preparing. The dull grey metallic boots seemed to take on a liquid appearance as they flowed up his leg. The flow stopped just below his knee where it seemed to meld with the cloth of his pants as it became solid again. Now his lower legs and feet looked metallic complete with clawed toes that dug into the red dirt below. His fingerless gloves did the same moving halfway up his forearm before seeming to merge with his flesh. While more liquid metal swelled up around his hands until what was left were hands four times the original size. Each finger ending in thick sharp claws.

When the lead monster was just twenty feet away he flexed his toes into the dry ground before kicking off. Launching himself forward as a spray of crimson earth erupted behind him. The lead monster never slowed as Jake lunged forward with his left arm outstretched. His oversized hand closed on the creature's head crushing it. A gory mess sprayed from between his fingers as he obliterated its head. Twisting to the right he flung the monster behind him, using its own momentum to propel it farther. Now leading with his right arm he thrust out a hand with all his fingers stiffened into a knife blade.

His hand thrust claws first through the center of the next monster's head before he slashed out to the side cleaving the top half of its head off. Again he twisted this time turning all the way around bringing his left arm around like a whip. His fist backhanded a third monster in the head. The added force from the spin accelerating his oversized fist to cause the monster's head to explode like an overripe melon hit with a cannonball.

Leaping up he allowed the latest corpse to skid under him before he crashed down. Twisting his body mid air he managed to slam fist first down on the head of the last of the leading pack. Its neck shattered and was pushed in as its legs splayed out. A heavy wet thud was accompanied by the impact as the monster was smashed down into the ground.

His movement had been fast and brutal. Each attack killing a monster in a single blow. But his momentum was spent. As he rose up to recover he barely looked up before he was bowled over. The rest of the pack was on him. Huge mouths slobbered and chomped as they bore him to the ground. They clamped on his arms and legs. Scraped at his torso and tried to bite down on his entire head. None of the teeth found flesh even if they attacked his exposed parts. Instead, the teeth scraped against an unseen force just over his skin.

In his vision, he saw the blue glow rapidly shrinking from his health bar. It would only be a few seconds before it was depleted and the monsters would get what they wanted. Jake started to rally, to try and throw the two dozen monsters off him. Then laid back almost lethargically. He had known this was going to happen. It was why he came here where no one else would be.

"It's pointless to fight back now." His voice sounded odd coming through the filter of his mask. Around him, there was the manic cackling laugh and snarling growls before he felt the first shock of pain as his shield depleted. He didn't scream or cry out. This kind of pain was easy enough to deal with. It would be over soon enough. As his health bar raced towards empty he closed his eyes and waited for blessed darkness to engulf him.

When it came he almost sighed in relief. But all too quickly it was replaced with a rush of memories. He found himself remembering the beginning, where it all started.

**********

Jake heard the now familiar chime.

[F grade power core acquired]

The message flashed in front of his eyes as he pulled the small marble sized object from the beetle's corpse. He moved to drop the rough sphere into the special pouch strapped to his right thigh. He looked at the white goo covering his clawed hand and rubbed his metallic covered fingers together.

"Eww. Despite wearing these gloves I can feel everything like I'm not wearing them. Bleh." He looked back at the nearly foot long beetle still held in his left hand before digging back into it with the clawed tips of his right hand.

[F grade mutagen acquired]

He pulled out the small wad of pulsing dark red "flesh" from the bug. He took a moment to shake a bit of the white bug goo off it before making a disgusted face. "I better not have to eat you." It wasn't much larger than the power core and went into a pouch on his left thigh almost identical to the one for power cores.

Jake looked up from where he was crouched surveying the area. There were dead beetles everywhere. Their shells looked like reddish brown rocks but since they moved around they weren't hard to spot. As far as he could tell they didn't even really fight back. He had obliterated the first few before he discovered killing them in such brutal fashion tended to destroy the mutagen inside too.

Now there had to be nearly a hundred of the bugs dead around him and he didn't see any others moving around. "Did I get them all? Shouldn't they respawn or something." he eyed the large number of corpses. "And shouldn't these despawn? This game is weird." He pulled up his status menu again, shaking his head at how it responded to just thought. There were no levels in this game. No experience for killing. From the robot at the starting area, there were only three ways to progress.

The first was to gather power cores to buy and later craft stronger equipment. Pretty basic and he had already checked out the limited upgrades available here in the starting area.

Second, gather and absorb mutagen to increase his basic attributes. Speed, Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Spirit, and Intelligence. He had noticed almost all of the mutagen he had gotten were a dark almost purplish red but a few had been a more bright almost orangish red. He figured there was enough distinct difference they were for different attributes.

The third was to acquire skills both passive and active. Unfortunately, he couldn't do much of the third.

He tapped on the clawed fist icon in his menu and again read his class description.

[Power Claw]

A durable brawler class possessing unrivaled vitality and offensive strength. A highly mobile melee only class.

{Pros}

Extremely high health ratio

Extremely high offensive potential

High mobility

Can utilize any universal skills or equipment as long as you meet the base requirements.

{Cons}

No ranged attacks

No class-specific passive or active skills

Provides no party buffs or utility abilities

Jake still wasn't sure what to think. A tanky melee damage dealer was all fine and good but he had actually hoped for something like a magic caster. Only when he had first logged in this was the class he had been given. No option, just assigned this class. Worse, he couldn't find any way to create a new character. For now, he guessed he was stuck playing like this.

Standing up to stretch he squinted his grey colored eyes looking for more of the Rock Beetles. He almost ran his fingers through his short curly brown hair before he stopped himself, they were still covered in bug goo.

He stood up to his full five foot six. His height annoyed him but luckily he had started a growth spurt. At fourteen he felt he was way overdue and too many of his class mates were already shooting past him. "Ok, smashing bugs is a start. But there has to be something else around here right? I know it said there were only F and D ranked monsters here. But I've only seen these silly bugs." He kicked one of the beetle corpses then cursed as bug goo splattered over his tennis shoes. For a moment he froze. He rarely cursed, unlike so many of the kids at school. His mother always seemed to know when he did. For a moment he expected her to pop up and scold him. Then his face fell and he kicked another beetle swearing louder.

"There should be something else to fight around here right?" He checked the time and let out another swear that felt odd coming out of his mouth. It was later than he thought, way later. If he wanted to have time to process the mutagen to be absorbed and cash in his power cores he needed to get back to the outpost. Plus he could only log out when at one of the outposts.

Jake raced across the barren red rock strewn expanse between him and the outpost. Despite saying he needed to head straight back something caught his attention. It looked like a small hill was moving. Slowly but moving. Veering off in that direction he jogged feeling sweat roll down his brow and his breath coming in short pants. "Stupid robot better be right about raising my vitality adding to my stamina." He came to a huffing stop to look at the moving hill.

"Now that is more like it." In front of him, the shuffling hill was another beetle. Its red rock colored shell was identical to the ones he had been killing. Only it was the size of a box truck and shuffled. After only a moment's hesitation, he charged the seemingly oblivious monster and smashed his fist into it.

[Enduring Queen Rock Beetle added to beasteary]

The beetle made a loud chittering sound and then started scuttling away, fast. Much much faster than Jake had expected. He had smashed his fist into it with all his strength. That same power had obliterated the smaller beetles leaving nothing but a gooey mess behind. This felt like he had punched a solid wall. Jake sighed as he watched the beetle rushing away while raising a dust cloud in its wake. It was too late to start a chase even if he could catch it.

"Tomorrow. I'll get it tomorrow." Jake realized what he had said. When he logged in to the game he hadn't intended to play it much. Just poke around the strange early access to the game titled Wasteland Hero after reading the rather generic description about the game. It had mentioned magic and high tech wielded side by side by heroes that explored the vast wasteland. So far he hadn't seen anyone else and definitely nothing magical seeming. But the game was beyond anything he had expected.

He couldn't tell the difference between the game and reality. Except in reality, he didn't have menus and messages popping up. No giant bugs running around. Definitely, no shape changing clothing. He looked down at his gloves which had become a set of fingerless gloves again.

Still, it was way ahead of the last time he had played a game. Of course that had been at a friend's house using a much cheaper machine. His mother had the newest model. Well the newest before she got sick, he didn't know if there was a newer one. Then again she had gotten sick and then died in less than six months… was that a long time for new machines to come out? He wasn't sure.

The outpost was a small boxy building occupied by a rather run down looking robot. It didn't even have legs. Was just a vaguely humanoid torso with a head and arms. The face was painted on and looked almost like a child had painted it. Where there should have been legs there was just a metal pole bolted to the floor. A counter in front of it had the interfaces where he had looked at equipment to buy.

"D-D-Did you have a good hunt, hero?" It gave a stuttering greeting as if a record was skipping.

"Uh yeah." Jake pulled the pouch from his right thigh and moved over to the little chute in the counter labeled Power Cores. Dumping the contents in he listened as the hard rough marble objects rattled as they rolled in.

"One hundred and two grade F power cores. Five hundred and ten credits added to your wallet." A synthetic female voice said loud and clear. It was much better done than the voice of the robot.

"W-Wow that is amazing!" The robot exclaimed his voice full of static and skipping.

Jake ignored them and pulled his other pouch off and poured the mutagen into a second chute. "Sixty Two grade F Vitality Mutagen. Thirteen Grade F Strength Mutagen. The processing time is five minutes. Mutagen lower than Grade C will be combined into single doses." Again the better done female voice stated.

Jake again ignored the robot's sudden exclamation as he started using the menu on the counter to sort through items. He went straight to the weapons section and found the upgrade he wanted. It would take all the credits he had earned as well as the starting money he had. When he started he had been given five hundred credits and only two pieces of gear. His Power Claws, which were the transforming armored gloves he wore and the basic chest guard. It generated an energy shield over his body. The starting gear offered here had been a set of boots that increased his movement speed slightly, a helmet that offered an upgraded user interface, and a D grade starter weapon upgrade.

There was a section for skills but it was empty for him.

He had intended to buy the boots and helmet, each of which cost five hundred credits. But he noticed the weapon increase would more than triple his damage. He had held off on buying anything until he had time to look around. That and he hadn't actually planned to play as much as he had.

Soon enough there was a chime letting him know the mutagen was processed. Two small objects like liquid filled capsules of Dark Red and a brighter Orangish Red were ejected onto the counter. Jake pulled the injector from his utility belt and loaded first the Dark Red capsule. Doing as the robot instructed he placed it to the side of his neck and jumped. "Ouch!" It had stung as if a needle had pricked him. "Damn this game puts too much realism in the wrong stuff." A message flashed on his screen.

[Twenty of Sixty Two Grade F Vitality Mutagen absorbed successfully]

"Eww, only twenty? What is that like one third? That sucks. Why doesn't it absorb them all?" He checked his menu and saw his vitality was still D ranked. He tapped on it trying to get more detail, maybe a percent bar or exact number but nothing.

With a sigh, he repeated the process and got another message.

[Five of Thirteen Grade F Strength Mutagen absorbed successfully]

"Not much better." He grumbled.

He turned back to finish his transaction and purchased the weapon upgrade. That stupid big beetle needed punching, he thought.

A small square cube of dull gray metal popped out of an opening in the countertop. Following the robot's stuttering instructions he held it between both palms. The cube melted away and spread over his hand seeming to grow well beyond its starting size. He stepped back and looked at his now four times larger hands and flexed them. Reaching over he ran his finger down the counter and could feel the cool metal of it even through his new giant gloves.

"That makes no sense." Then he shrugged. It was a game after all. Glancing up he saw the time and grumbled as he rushed towards the log out chamber. He clambered up on the table and laid out.

"Disconnect!" He snapped out and around him, the room went impossibly dark. There was nearly a minute of darkness then light started to shine. His bedroom came into focus around him and he set up to take the visor off his face. He looked at it for a moment before glancing over at the base sitting on the table next to his bed. It all made him think of his mother again. He gave it a bitter smile before getting up to shower.