Chapter 2: Life Mission

  The Black Tower's current main base location is on a desolate world called Era. It was once a True World full of life. Now, it is a barren dark sandy wasteland. The Black Tower's base looks like it fits right in. It was a massive and tall black fantasy tower that looks like it would belong to the demon lord in those typical fantasy books where demons are always the bad guys without exceptions. The only difference was that it looked more like it was a burnt castle than a dark one. Surrounding below were many silver bases and even a few towns. There, demi-humans could be seen milling around living their life. It would be a wonderful and heartwarming sight...if it wasn't for the fact that everyone single one has a weapon, mostly guns. That includes the children.   In the sky was a large floating silver building with ships going in and out. There were eight main docks and on each dock was a black scaled dragon. Out from one of those docks came a grey and pink small ship. It circled the dock before landing nearby next to one of the towns below. A couple of children ran towards the ship, seeing it land. They've never seen that ship before. They wondered who it belonged to. So it was their surprise that the person who came out of the ship looked younger than them.

  The person in question looked to be nine, though they were taller than someone of age nine. She had smooth white skin and blond hair. Her hair was tied into twintails held together by a pink band. She was wearing a pink and white somewhat frilly dress with matching pink and white boots. Strapped on her back was a pink and black sniper rifle, though the pink on the gun was noticeably darker. But the oddest thing about the girl was her eyes. Her eyes were pink.

  Now the demi-humans knew what a human was. They've seen plenty. They also know if someone has magic. The kid in front of them had no magic inside her. She was by all means, normal. Still, the children rushed up to her despite her weirdness.

  Now for Mara, the last thing she expected to see when she got out of her ship was a bunch of animal-eared kids running up to her. Now she has seen demi-humans in the past before, even worked with one, but children was a whole other thing. Back in her own world, no kid would just run up to her. Mara was a pretty noticeable figure. After her kill count reached the thousands and police officers stopped trying to confront her on their own, parents have warned their kids about her as they warn them about strangers. Now here, where the kids have no idea how dangerous she is, or don't care, she finds herself at a loss.

"Oh! Um...Hi there."

Hey! Think of a way out of this.

Calculations show that the best way out of this is to teleport.

STOP TRYING TO RUSH ME WITH THE TRAINING!

No.

Ugh. Fine.

  Mara was never good with the whole teleportation feature her computer has. It not only feels oddly addicting but makes her hella bad afterward like she has had her nerves stimulating in a bad way. It was too weird of a feeling. It was why she held off on training with it. Yet it seems she has no choice here. She thought of where she wants to go and punched it. The next second, a green flash enveloped her and she found herself in her room. She had done it.

"YES!"

  Mara pumped her fist in the air, excited that she got it right on her first try, before bending over clutching herself looking drunk.

There was a slight mistake. The diameters were too high.

Huh? What do ya mean?

  Mara woozily made eye contact with a black-haired boy wearing a grey shirt.

"Ah. I see."

Fixing mistake.

  The boy disappeared in a flash of green. Now finally alone, Mara sighed and collapsed on her bed. The pain from her fall from earlier plus the sensation from teleporting was making her feel sick.

I wonder when I will get my life task

  A life task, or life mission, is a mission given to certain mercenaries either after they complete twelve missions in a row successfully or are here long enough. The mission can be as simple as protecting a store from taking down an entire universal wide empire. You not only get a massive raise during the mission time but also get to accept jobs from other people while out of the base without worrying if this would interfere with your current task. The reason why they're called life missions is that generally, you stick with one for a long time. The only time you abandon your life mission is if a code orange and above is called at the base. Even then, you can take measures to make sure your task is under your care.

  For someone like Mara, she wants a task mission so she can let free and make the worlds fear her again. She has no idea if there are others named Clown trying to take her name from her but if there are, she will kill them to make sure that everyone understands that the name Clown is hers. That and the money that comes with it.

  Mara couldn't help but smile, showing her sharper than normal teeth. She has completed fourteen missions successfully now so she should be getting her life mission soon. She is the fastest person to get their life mission this quick from joining. The person who was faster was a friend of the boss and was not actually interested in getting one. From what Mara heard, she did it just so she could hang out with the boss some more and for shits and giggles. Plus, for one of her mission, the person punched a planet into dust. They clearly weren't normal.

And you are?

I'm more mortal and normal than them.

True.

  Another good side about her new computer friend is that she isn't as lonely anymore. Her computer has a pretty good personality itself. It was like a condescending monotone version of herself.

Is that an insult?

Nope! Just came out that way. Sorry.

  Mara twitched when she heard a buzzing sound coming from an alarm in her room and got off her bed and out the door. The boss had called for her. Even the sickness she is feeling can't stop the excitement bursting through Mara. She was twitching sporadically and many gave her weird looks and backed away. Ever since Mara got out of the "void", she has been like this. Whenever she gets excited, she would twitch. It would be u unhealthy for a normal person but for Mara, it was actually mentally healthy. That and the excessive shaking did not affect her enhanced body. Her computer did much more than allow her to teleport.

  There was a couple of other side effects of her going into the void. One was that she will randomly say what she is thinking in the form of hovering red-pink words. She also is much less cautious, being more of a daredevil than she ever was. That and her mind didn't really feel pain as....pain anymore.

  When she arrived at the elevator that would bring her to her boss's room, Mara couldn't help but feel a little nervous. After all, she wanted a task that would be exciting! Not some lame dull task like protecting a newspaper stand.

Still can't believe two people got that as their life mission.

"Oh. Hi Mara."

  I turned and blinked at the large shady person wearing a red hood behind me. The outfit they were wearing looked like they were made from rags but at the same time, looked cleaner than you would first think. Two crosses were on each sleeve and the sleeves were longer than the person's hand. Above their head was a couple of wooden beams with black strings attached, leading into the person's back. When they looked up, I met light tame red eyes and an extremely tried look.

"AH! Sleep-Deprived Trap! I haven't seen you in a while."

  The person's actual name was Andrea, and despite looking like a young boy, she was a girl. She has gotten many confessions before in the past from girls thinking she was a guy. They all backed off once they realized that Andrea was a she.

  Andrea let out a long sigh at Mara's teasing before walking up next to her. She too had business with the boss which was important enough to come without a schedule. She figured either boss forgot that she was coming at this time....

....or didn't and just wanted some amusement...which is the most probable cause. Boss can honestly be quite a kid at times. She once made a deal with the dragons to protect the docks after finding them in the ruins of a burndown planet. She doesn't know if the boss beat them into submission or what, but the dragons were now an everyday sight here. However, after some investigation, Andrea found that the real reason why the boss wanted the dragons on board was because of the scales they had. For most, even when dropped off, they produce a heat source. She thought it was going to be too tiresome to buy some or just kill the dragons. Instead, she got them and the scales free of charge.

  The elevator opened and the two got in. It was a bit of a cramped fit as the boss thought it would be fun if someone tall were to break their legs if the elevator failed. No, she seriously said that to Andrea when she asked her.

"So, what are you going to see the boss for?"

  Mara decided to be the first one to ask. Besides, she was curious to know too. From what she can tell, Andrea and the boss were close. Andrea answered to the boss and often carried out missions and tasks from her directly. If Mara worked under the mercenary guild here instead of being a "freelancer", she was pretty sure that Andrea would be her boss as well!

  Andrea met the odd yet intense pink eyes of the girl beside him. If she remembers correctly, this was the person that the reality-warping machine chose. Mara The Clown. Fitting name for her childish antics but it doesn't have enough menace in it to describe the pure terror this girl caused in four short years. Andrea had looked into her when she found out that both the boss and the machine were interested in her. What she found shocked her, and she has been around for a while now.

  Mara The Clown came from a pretty large and important world. There she killed more than twelve thousand in confirmed kills in four short years....and starting at age ten. Despite having the mind of a child, Mara was a genius. She made weapons and gadgets that put the entire world to shame. The governments of the world at the time wanted her tech badly. They wanted her too, as the only one who can make and even work her technology is herself. Still, she grew such a reputation that the governments couldn't do anything to her body or her tech. Her tech went dead when she died and locked up, throwing any efforts to learn more about them in the trash. But her tech isn't what makes mara stand out at first. No. It would be the reason for her killings. She was a mercenary, but she will kill anyone with the name clown except for circus clowns. Be it a random kid saying he was the class clown to whole criminal empires that stood in her way of the person whose name was Clown. She killed a lot of good but also killed and brought down a lot of bad without meaning to. That was who Mara was. Apparently, she finally got the name Clown only to die the very next minute. After learning more about her, Andrea could understand perfectly why her boss and the machine were interested in her. Bringing her back was easy enough too. The machine had long collected her soul the moment Mara died in her own world. That just goes to show that the machine had already found its host. All that was needed was a sample of the body. That had to wait until the deterioration of her world, unfortunately. So technically, if you count the years Mara was in hypersleep, or a fancy word for a coma, Mara is over one-hundred and eighty-two years old!

And even today, The Clown has lived up to her reputation, breaking the record time for getting a life mission. That must be why she is here, right?

"I have urgent news to tell the boss. It has to do with our third biggest hotspot for business. Losing it would be quite bad for us."

"Ah. Got it."

"Now, what are you seeing the boss for."

  Mara chuckled before showing Andrea a sly smile, though her expression said more of 'praise me now' like a kid than it did come off as being sly.

"I'm here for my life mission six or so months after joining!"

Was she really here for six months or was it shorter? I'll look into it later.

  Before any small talk could come back again, the elevator came to a stop. Then, it slowly opened. Both Andrea and Mara took a big breath of air, though both for a different reason. Mara did it to quell her ever-rising excitement. Andrea did it because she suddenly felt like her life was about to become even worse than it already is.