With the rise of literal superheroes and magical girls fighting against aliens, people have been trying more and more to get to know these people, and so has the rise of streaming Samurai. They come in all kinds of varieties. They show their daily live talk with their fans to consider potential upgrades to their gear, as well as watch closely as their favourite samurai jumps into the fray to kill thousands of aliens. Now, it is one of the more lucrative businesses samurai can jump into that don't want to sell their soul to a corp.

  rise of the Streaming Samurai, 2052 by The Purple Truthe

  If there is one thing that I still don’t understand, in all my years of being a Samurai, it is the scavengers running along behind a samurai in the middle of an incursion to grab their discarded weapons. That could definitely be profitable, if you survive, that is, but I don’t doubt that there are people desperate enough to attempt it. No, what really boggles my mind after all this time, is the people and corporations that go after samurai themselves, trying to capture them so they can extract all their valuables. I mean, there is enough proof to suggest that samurai are, in general, not the most stable of people and tend to overreact in those situations.

  “Magenta? Do you think she is inside there?” Silver Scorpion asks, looking rather uncomfortably at the warehouse. I guess he still doesn't have the best impression of Maniac.

  “Maybe, I don’t know. We have been looking for a while now. It would be great if she was just in some random warehouse, but I highly doubt that. But if we are lucky, they might have some useful information as to her whereabouts; we did find those pieces of her mask after all, and they did come from here.” I shiver, trying not to think of the bits of gore we found on the mask.

  Silver just sighs, “Well, if you say so.”

  As I watch him leave, I consider the different files on every samurai Maniac left behind. At first, I thought she just did that to piss everyone off, but in some regard, she was definitely correct. Scorpion is definitely still immature and makes obvious mistakes, so she was kind of on point there, but I am definitely not a narcissist.

  I turn to face the girls from PsyCo who came with us on this mission. With the increase in fake Maniacs running around, we decided to make the mask more distinct, painting on different faces as well as giving them more animalistic ears, making them look like the festival mask you would see in old shows about Japan, each of them representing a different animal; a girl in a red hoodie and a fox mask, one in a brown hoodie with a dog mask ,and one in a white hoodie with a spider mask, of all things. I reprimand myself. What they look like doesn't matter. What matters is; if they can do their job and if they are loyal, and with a person like Yun Min leading them, that is hardly a problem. Where did we fish up that talent anyway?

  “Have you girls scouted all the exit points?” I ask them.

  “Besides the main entrance, we have spotted two side exits. There might be another underground, but we need more time to investigate that possibility.” Fox says

  I nod. “Good, Scorpion and I will go in from the front. Wait two minutes, and then you girls can come in from the sides, prioritise your own life, but try your best to take prisoners and not kill everybody. They might become useful informants.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” All the girls salute in unison. Honestly, that still feels the oddest to me. Normally, these are just my friends that I hang out with in the hotel lounge, but here, they act like well-disciplined soldiers.

  The girls disengage, heading to their respective positions as I head to where Scorpion is hiding, close to the main entrance. “Are you ready?” I ask as I crouch down beside him.

  “Yeah,” he shows me a little device in his hand, “Got this from Sam. If we jam it in one of the terminals, she should be able to get into their network rather easily.”

  “That's good. We should get going. I will lead, you cover my back.”

  He nods, and with a thought, I make sparkling pink crystals bloom all around my body, forming into my battle armour. I materialise my gun blade and slowly get up, walking towards the front gate in a casual gait. The guards react almost immediately, one of them radioing someone while the others become more alert, hands going to their weapons.

  “At ease, we are just here for an inspection. Let us through.” I say with all the authority and heat I can muster.

  “You don’t have the clearance to enter here.” one of the guards says.

  I raise one of my perfectly manicured eyebrows. “Ooh, do you know who I am?” I say, levelling my gun at him. “No one in the entire continent of Europe can bar me entry from anywhere, especially not some low-life thugs.” I smile brightly at them. “So what will it be, the easy or the hard way?”

  There is silence that lingers for a while, and when I decide I have had enough of it, I turn on my gun, and the coils of the laser weapons zoom to life. The guard that I have pointed the weapon at goes as white as a sheet.

  “Right away, open the door.” one of the guards stumbles out as he heads for the door.

  I give them all one of my perfect smiles, then I send out a message to the girls and head inside. Silver Scorpion following close behind me. The building itself is not that impressive, and the inside does not suggest anything nefarious going on. With the lack of any real security, these guys truly might just be simple scavengers, after all.

  “Magenta, was that wise?” Scorpion asks, looking at me with concerned brown eyes.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, having a pretty good idea what is wrong, but I would still like to hear it.

  “I mean, threatening people like that, is that not a thing Maniac does? Are you the great Sparkling Magenta Explosion? You always lecture me about having an image, but would this not ruin yours?”

  I nod. “Then what do you think my image is? How is it different from Maniacs?”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I don’t know. But even before I became a samurai, I thought you were kind and took care of people; in comparison, Maniac looks like a crazy loon that does whatever she wants.” There seems to be some doubt in his voice.

  “I am kind and caring.” I say, putting my hands on the back of my head. “At least I like to think so, but there are only two groups of people I extend that kindness to, and those are other Samurai and my fans, and these guys are neither.”

  Scorpian eyes go wide. “I see, so is that what image is?”

  “Yes and no. It's setting a pattern; take the Maniac. She is seen as this crazy psychopath. If you don’t get out of her way, she might go through you- dangerous and violent. But is that the Maniac we know?” I look at the guy, and as he shakes his head, I continue, “Exactly, she is both extremely smart and caring, but she still has that image, and that is because she knows how to play the game. In her case, having a bad reputation makes threatening people a lot easier, but it will also make people think twice before they start investigating her identity.”

  “But what if she does not want to threaten someone?” Scorpion asks, looking confused.

  “Then she can ask Liquid Catalysis or myself for help, in the same way that I would ask for her help if I need to threaten a corporation into behaving.”

  “I still don’t get it,” he admits

  “I guess it is somewhat of a weird social game, but it is all about expectation. If everything goes to shit and I show up, people know that they are well protected; if a maniac shows up, you know to do as she says because she might kill you if you bother her. It sets expectations for the masses for the people who don’t have the opportunity to sit in a room with us for hours until they fully understand our personalities. It's a snapshot, something they can use to understand the very basics of us and act accordingly in case of an emergency.”

  “I see, then what would people think if I showed up?”

  I look over Silver Scorpion “Loyal and reliable. Strong, but maybe a bit simple. You would feel safe, but would still worry if everything will turn out okay.” I say, after having given it some thought.

  “Did you just call me stupid?” he asks with a small smile on his face

  I nod. “Kind of. Not stupid, really, just you have less experience and tend to lose focus of the bigger picture. You are a capable fighter, but it would be easy to mislead you.”

  “I guess. I am sorry.” he says, looking slightly embarrassed.

  “It’s not really a bad thing. Looking at stuff from close to the ground can add some perspective, and for all the big-picture thinking, you have PsyCo behind you, so you don’t really have to worry. Now, stay sharp. I hear gunshots in the distance.”

  With that announcement, his entire stature changes. Gone was the shy boy who does not know what to do. In his place is a soldier who is ready for some action. And just in time; as we cross the next corridor, the loud barking of guns can be heard as a trio of turrets start to fire at us.

  I quickly deploy my crystal shield, catching the bullets, then I quickly flip down my heads-up tiara and select the offending machines. And with a quick flick of the wrist, three panels on my back slide open, releasing three miniature missiles. Sparkles fill the air as the war machines are turned into nothing more than bits of scrap metal.

  “Why am I even here?” Scorpion asks with a sigh.

  I laugh, then give a quick shrug. “I don’t know, emotional support. We should continue. Someone doesn't want us to see what's behind that door.”

  We continue pressing forward, but besides some token resistance, there is nothing special. We keep clearing the building until we run into the other girls, still having found nothing of note. The only thing that seems to be of any value here is the corpse of one of the Dread Queens tech zombies.

  “There really is nothing here,” Spider says. sounding concerned.

  “I guess not. Did Sam find anything in their data?”

  “Just some weird seller that got them a bunch of samurai gear, probably a black market seller of some kind,” Scorpion says. “The only weird thing Is that they opened the trash chute a few seconds after we entered.”

  “Hiding evidence?” I ask, with some dread. I just had this armour cleaned and did not feel like walking in the garbage.

  “Maybe. You want to check it out?” he asks, with a smirk on his face as he notices my apprehension.

  I sigh. “Better safe than sorry. Where is the nearest access hatch?”

  A small ping of the location later, and we are on our way. Maniac better be grateful for all of this. We climb down the small victory ladder into the access tunnels and make it to the trash collection area, just a large container that can be wielded out of this place whenever it is full. We jump into it and start looking, and it is not long until we find something.

  “Aah!” one of the girls shouts, putting the rest of us on high alert.

  I slowly make my way past discarded polymers and mangled metals to the location. My breath catches at the sight of a body.lying between the discarded pieces of tech. Its blond hair is the first thing I notice; then the caved-in skull. Someone removed every piece of tech out of the woman's face, and it is a woman. Even though her chest is carved open, some evidence is still there because nobody tried to preserve her modesty.

  “Cyan, please tell me this is not what I think it is?” I ask my AI, desperate to hear something.

  It is hard to tell based on the damage, and all the identifiable biochips have been removed, but the body has a 56 percent chance of belonging to Vanguard Maniac judging by hair colour and relative size

  I take a long, steadying breath. 56 percent is not a lot, which means that this doesn't have to be her. She can still be out there. I take another look at the body. I have not seen her face much, and this body does not really have a face, so it would be hard to tell regardless. Her hair looks so similar that I need answers.

  “Cyan, show me! Where is the closest guy with any amount of say in this company? I need answers!”

  Sending you his location now.

  I quickly make my way back up and head further into the building. My target is tied up in one of the staff rooms. Apparently, they did not want to listen to the Spider, so she tied them all up here. I send a quiet prayer to whoever granted me these competent subordinates.

  I open the door with a loud bang, making everyone inside jump in fear. I quickly locate the man I am looking for and drag him onto his feet.

  “The body you threw away, what is the story there?” I ask the cowering man, all emotion having left my voice.

  “It was a special offer for a girl with a bunch of samurai tech on her,” the man stammers out.

  “So you just killed her?” I shout at him.

  “No, she was already dead when the Akechi people delivered her. A shame, she would have been really pretty with those eyes.”

  “Her eyes?” I ask, feeling a small amount of dread

  “Yeah, they were naturally golden, some kind of mutation if I had to guess.” he quickly explains.

  I want to throw up. Please, no!

  With that point of data, the likelihood of it being Vanguard Maniac rises to 90 percent, due to there being only ten people on record with natural golden eyes.

  “Fuck! Cyan, send a message to every samurai I know. Maniac has been murdered. Kill anyone wearing her likeness on sight.”

  On it. Do you want me to put this as a talking point for the global Vanguard meeting as well?

  “Yes, please,” I let out a long breath. “Now, how am I going to tell Claire?”