Stat Crusher - Gate Rivalries and the Screening Trial

Forty miles south of Yilan, Highway 102 died in a sea of idling iron and blue diesel exhaust. Three miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic choked the concrete lanes—armored Raptors, six-wheel technicals, and heavy tracked crawlers all sitting bumper-to-grille under the harsh midday glare. Dust kicked up by idling cooling fans hung over the asphalt like a yellow fog, smelling of burnt oil, hot rubber, and stale coffee.

Stone slammed the Raptor’s gear shift into park, spat his cigar stub out the driver-side window, and cursed.

“What in the hell is the garrison doing?” Marcus grumbled from the back seat, leaning his elbows on Garrett’s headrest to squint through the heat waves rippling off the hood.

“We’ve been sitting here fifteen minutes. At this rate, the bear’s gonna die of old age before we even smell the county line.” Garrett didn’t answer.

He sat in the passenger side, his Black-Dragon Spear resting between his knees, its heavy iron tip propped against the floor mat. His eyes were fixed on the temporary fortification stretching across the highway a quarter-mile ahead. It wasn’t just a routine toll booth. The Citadel Alliance military garrison had dropped heavy concrete jersey barriers across all four lanes.

Two automated thirty-millimeter chain-gun turrets sat mounted on flatbed trucks, their twin barrels scanning the line of vehicles with low, mechanical hums. Razor wire coiled along the ditch, and fifty garrison guards in grey tactical fatigues stood at the line, rifles slung over their chests. Stone opened the heavy door, his combat boots hitting the cracked pavement with a dull thud.

“Garrett, Marcus. With me. High, stay on the ring mount. If someone gets cute with a mortar behind us, take their wheels off.”

“Copy,” High’s raspy voice came through the roof hatch.

Garrett stepped out into the heat. The dry Outland air hit his face, sharp and biting compared to the filtered cab. They walked along the shoulder, passing a dozen mercenary teams lounging on the hoods of their trucks. Some were sharpening heavy broadswords; others were smoking cheap cigarettes, arguing over fuel prices and guild bounties.

At the barricade, a garrison captain in a sweat-stained campaign cap stood behind a folding steel table, checking permit codes on a heavy tactical terminal. Stone pushed his way through a small crowd of complaining operators and slammed his Tempest Lodge credential slate onto the metal table.

“Captain Stone, Slayer-5 squad,” Stone said, his tone clipped.

“What’s the backup, Captain? We’ve got an Outland transit permit stamped by Fort Sterling West Gate Garrison.” The military officer didn’t look up immediately.

He tapped a few entries into his slate, took a slow drink from a dented canteen, and finally raised his eyes. He looked tired, the skin around his collar raw from sun and grit.

“Your permit was issued before four hundred other teams decided to drive north, Stone,” the Guard Captain said, his voice raspy from barking orders all morning.

“Highway’s locked down. Total perimeter freeze for all private operators heading toward Yilan County.”

“The hell do you mean, locked down?” Marcus stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his twin broadswords.

“We’re registered Tempest Lodge Operators. We aren’t freelance scavengers.”

“I don’t care if you’re the Director’s personal driver,” the officer snapped, pointing a gloved finger down the road.

“Word about that wounded B-Rank Giant Paw Bear leaked out last night. Every greenhorn from District 1 to District 8 who can buy a secondhand rifle thinks they can stroll into Yilan and bag an eighty-million-credit bounty. Right now, there are over twelve hundred operators crammed into a ten-square-mile zone around the central ruins. You know what happens if twelve hundred panicked rookies stir up the fauna in there?”

“Beast surge,” Garrett said quietly, stepping up beside Stone.

The Guard Captain looked at Garrett, taking in his young face, the 150-pound spear strapped to his back, and the silver Tempest insignia on his jacket. The officer grunted.

“At least the kid’s got a brain. That’s right. A Rank-A migratory surge from the Khingan timberline. If the noise triggers the local herds, Yilan turns into a meat grinder, and my garrison has to spend three weeks burning carcasses off the highway.” Stone rubbed his stubbled jaw.

“So what’s the game? You aren’t turning four hundred teams back to Fort Sterling. The guilds would break your gate down.”

“We aren’t turning you back, but we aren’t letting trash through either,” the Guard Captain said.

He turned the terminal around, displaying a satellite wireframe of a ruined suburban town five miles to the east.

“Municipal Command set up an Outland Screening Zone in Sector 4. It’s a twelve-hour trial. You want access to Yilan County core? You register your squad, go into the screening ruins, and hunt.”

“What’s the metric?” Stone asked.

“Beast tokens. Ears, tails, cores. F-Rank kills are worth one point. E-Rank ten. D-Rank a hundred. C-Rank a thousand. If your squad logs thirty thousand cumulative points in twelve hours, you get a green pass through the military checkpoint and priority clearance into central Yilan. If you fall short, you turn your trucks around and go home. Simple.”

“Thirty thousand points?” Marcus barked a laugh.

“That’s three hundred D-Rank beasts in half a day. You’re asking for a body count.”

“I’m asking for real operators, not tourists,” the Guard Captain replied, sliding a credit scanner across the steel table.

“Fifty thousand credits per Martial Officer, twenty thousand per Warrior or Junior Operator. Squad entry or solo. Squad scores pool together, but if one guy dies, you don’t get his points. Pay the fee or clear my highway.” Stone looked back at Garrett and Marcus.

He pulled out his Tempest card, tapped it against the terminal without asking for their input, and authorized the transfer for all five squad members.

“Slayer-5 enters as a team,” Stone said.

“East gate of the screening town opens in thirty minutes,” the officer said, issuing five neon-green wrist tracking bands.

“Get your truck in the staging lane. And watch your back in there—the garrison doesn’t police operator disputes inside the trial zone.”

Dozens of heavy diesel engines idled along the dirt apron outside the screening gates, spewing a thick wall of blue exhaust into the muggy afternoon air. Operators in mismatched scrap-plate and polished corporate armor lounged on the hoods of their trucks, shouting wagers, cleaning weapon actions, and checking ammunition seals.

Garrett adjusted the deer-hide strap of his Black-Dragon Spear, the hundred-and-fifty-pound iron shaft resting solid across his shoulder blades. Beside him, Marcus was chewing on a dry protein bar, complaining about the entry fees the garrison officers had gouged out of Stone’s account.

“Fifty grand a head just to hunt boars in a fenced-off suburb,” Marcus grunted, wiping a streak of yellow dust from his forehead.

“The military’s running a straight-up protection racket out here.” A loud, obnoxious laugh echoed near the weapon calibration tents fifty yards away.

Garrett turned his head. Five operators stood beside a high-clearance matte-black technical fitted with reinforced brush guards and custom corporate decals. Leading them was a lean, scarred man with a four-foot broad-saber strapped across his spine—Zhou, the leader of Fiend Squad. Beside him stood a girl in slick, tailored black body armor, a high-magnification sniper rifle slung casually over her shoulder.

Her dark hair was swept back into a tight braid, her face pale against the dark leather collar. Lyra Mercer. Garrett stopped in his tracks. It felt odd seeing her out here in the Outland dust, caked in grit and wearing four-thousand-dollar tactical gear. A month ago, she’d been his neighbor on the 28th floor of the concrete tenements in District 6.

Her mother used to bang on the plaster walls through the thin hallway whenever Arthur Cole ran his soy-press past eight at night. Lyra had graduated a year ahead of Garrett, landed a corporate Tier-3 spot, and moved out of the slum belt three weeks later without saying goodbye to anyone on the floor. A girl with dyed purple bangs standing next to Lyra—Romy—flicked an unlit cigarette into the mud and nudged Lyra’s elbow.

“Hey, Mercer. Is that little stray over there staring at you, or has he just never seen real corporate armor before?” Romy tapped the optical lens of her shoulder-slung rifle, smirking as she took in Garrett’s scuffed leather jacket.

“Check out the Tempest recruit badge. What’s a high school kid doing at an Outland screening trial? Did Stone’s squad run out of actual adults?” Zhou didn’t even bother turning around.

He stayed leaned against the technical’s bumper, idly rubbing synthetic oil into his saber hilt.

“Ignore ’em, Romy. Tempest has been scraping the bottom of the barrel all winter. Stone’s so desperate for body count he’s dragging high schoolers out here to fill his roster.” Lyra turned.

When her eyes landed on Garrett, her eyebrows knit together in genuine, sharp disbelief. She stepped away from her squad, her heavy boots crunching across the gravel toward Garrett. She didn’t look at Marcus or Stone; her eyes stayed locked straight on Garrett’s face.

“Garrett?” she asked, her voice tight.

“What in God’s name are you doing out here?” Garrett kept his hands resting casually near his spear belt, his face expressionless.

“Working, Lyra.”

“Working?” She let out a dry, incredulous breath, looking down at his scuffed boots, then up at the long leather scabbard on his back.

“You graduated two weeks ago, Garrett. Your dad’s still recovering from getting his ribs cracked in the alley, and your mom spends fourteen hours a day hand-stitching embroidery for penny wages. You’re supposed to be taking a municipal clerk job or an entry-level desk contract in District 4.”

“I signed with Tempest,” Garrett said.

“As a green recruit!” Lyra leaned in, her voice dropping into an urgent whisper so her squad wouldn’t hear.

“Listen to me. The Outlands aren’t your high school testing gym. There aren’t any rubber pads or emergency sensors out here. That bear in Yilan has already gutted six Rank-7 operators. Half the mercs in this staging area are cutthroats who’d knife you in an alley for the spare battery in your vest.” Romy sauntered over, leaning her hip against the fender of a nearby truck, a razor-thin smile on her face.

“Aw, Mercer, don’t be so mean. Maybe the little guy thinks his big iron pole makes him a real operator. What’s your strike force, kid? Two hundred kilos? Two-fifty?” Garrett looked past Romy, his eyes cold and still.

He didn’t bother mentioning his 794kg baseline strike or his 0.021-second reflex index. In the Outlands, explaining yourself to dead men was a waste of breath.

“You’re in way over your head, Garrett,” Lyra insisted, grabbing his sleeve.

Her fingers were stiff, her knuckles pale under her leather tactical gloves.

“I know you want to prove something. I know you want to buy your parents out of the tenement block—I wanted that too. But taking a side-contract with Stone’s squad is suicide. Turn around. Take the garrison shuttle back to Fort Sterling before the screening gates open.”

“I’m not going back, Lyra,” Garrett said, pulling his sleeve gently out of her grip.

“And Stone’s squad isn’t washed up.” Zhou called out from the technical, hitting the horn twice with a sharp, blaring screech.

“Mercer! Romy! Line up! Garrison’s unlocking the screening gate!” Romy laughed, turning on her heel.

“Come on, Mercer. Leave the high school boy to his fairy tales. If he’s lucky, a Rank-F toad will swallow him whole before the boars get a turn.” Lyra stared at Garrett for three long seconds, disappointment and frustration flickering in her eyes.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she muttered, turning away and marching back toward Fiend Squad’s matte-black rig.