Those who choose to enter the other world for the riches held within, Divers are a peculiar group. They come from all walks of life and, save for a small few that sought employment, are freelancers. Becoming a diver isn't a simple feat. While generations ago, one could enter a gate with a rudimentary Cross Gear, that time has passed. In order to gain the strength to enter and fight on the other side, each Diver has a surgery to implant an AEGIS within them. Besides the details of a controller at the neck and a battery in the gut, the specific details of the system are lost on most divers.

The cost of each AEGIS is very high. As a result, most fledgling divers have their rewards garnished until fully paid off. The process can take months or even years, depending on one's ability. It is a one time procedure, however. An AEGIS evolves alongside the user. By absorbing more and more of the other world's energy, a battery strengthens itself. The AEGIS is responsible for strengthening the body, powering the tools that divers use, and regenerating mortal wounds in emergencies.

While augmentations such as robotic arms exist, they are relatively unused by divers as most prosthetics are unable to scale with an AEGIS like one's flesh and blood. Those that do use them have to spend the money on replacements. Those who do use prosthetics do so out of necessity rather than choice.

The vast majority of divers work as self-employed independent contractors for Diver Services. However, they do have a code all divers must follow. The exact specifics are in a legal document, but the general gist is "don't harm people", "don't steal", and "don't be a dick".

Diver Services could be considered as the bureaucratic vanguard that allows for the current system. They post the location and level of gates for all Divers, handle rewards, implant AEGIS, handle government contracts, operate UNITs, maintain gear, and do all of the heavy lifting so divers can do their job without any hassle.

Originally named after the manufacturer of the first specialized anti-outsider weapon, a Cross Gear is a general term that refers to any weapon specifically designed to hunt outsiders. Most Cross Gears are fully modular, allowing for easy upgrades and on the fly repairs. The form of a cross gear has no limits; so long as it can deal damage, it can be used. Cross Gears do require energy to fuel themselves, otherwise they are nothing more than paper weights.

Notable Cross Gears used by famous divers include:
An anti-materiel rifle that fires implosive rounds.
A great hammer that doubles as a jet engine.
Gloves that create a razor sharp wire out of thin air.

Most newbie divers carry a generic, easy to manufacture Cross Gear that has no specialty.

The energy brought from the other world didn't just advance science; it fundamentally changed the biology of a small group. While rare, holders don't require an AEGIS. They are instead born with an extra organ acting as a natural battery. This organ stores the otherworldly energy rather than any mechanical part. Not only that, holders can assimilate the neon blood that outsiders possess, gaining what's known as a code. By using a Interpretation Device (ID), a holder can use their collected energy and a code to alter reality. Similar to a mage in a fantasy world, they can cast spells.

This comes at a price, unfortunately. Holders are more fragile and possess less strength than their artificial brethren.

Despite the variance of Cross Gears, abilities and talents, each diver carries a set of equipment ubiquitous to the job.

The EC-K is standard issue. Short for energy collection knife, the knife acts as four things: a razor sharp and nigh indestructible tool to dismantle monsters, a siphon to catch and absorb any stray energy, a debit card for trading in the energy, and identification in the event of total annihilation. The shape of an EC-K varies to the user's preference, but remain a tool unsuitable for combat.

A holograph projecting drone, UNIT, does most of the pencil pushing of a diver. Acting as a black box, the UNITs record and analyze one's actions in the other world. They also act as a map, can display one's internal condition (and any issues within), communicate with other hunters, disassemble and store dismantled outsiders, and more. UNITs are an entirely closed system, refusing to interface with any system without consent (save for the event of death). Units are the size of one's palm and relay information to their diver via an earpiece and hologram.

For cash, divers deal in two currencies. The first being the cash of the city they stay in. This lets them buy luxury meals, stay at civilian accommodations, and use regular services. All divers registered with Diver Services receive a monthly stipend. Enough for some meals, accommodations, but not much else. The second, and more important, currency are credits. Credits are an abstraction of the amount of energy and resources brought into Diver Services. They allow divers to buy gear, upgrades, and any other diver related item.

Beings of the other world, outsiders are aberrant monsters that occasionally raid the real world. Their appearances vary by considerable amounts. Some outsiders are entirely machine-like, resembling alien robotics. Others are much more bestial, like hulking monsters that spew brimstone. They constantly evolve to gain new traits, to the point of changing mid-fight. No two outsiders are exactly alike, save for the weak mooks. Unlike humanity, they are not strengthened or weakened by changing worlds.

Gates are the lifeblood of the new world. They are portals to the other world and the strange energy contained within. Taking the form of a floating ball of otherworldly glowing black goo, closed gates are constantly monitored by Diver Services. Open gates, whether temporarily to allow entry or newly created, appear as warping window to another world. The inside of a gate is wholly unique and evolving, though they do retain aspects as they change. While inside of a gate, the AEGIS and Cross Gears are capable of unleashing their full power.

Gates are rated by three aspects: environment, enemy type, and general risk.

The cities of the new world are large. Stacked with skyscrapers and neon, they're shining concrete jungles contained via massive walls and energy barriers. Every single city has some form of Diver Services office and infrastructure to support any reasonable amount of divers. While there is some amount of hegemony between the cities (mostly due to the limited space they build themselves within), most are diverse as an insular culture forms.

Travel from city to city is usually done via passenger plane, though some choose to stay and use either underground rail or convoys to travel.

The old world was abandoned by most. Though some enclaves of the destitute and those who wish to remain outside of the cities exist, they are few and far between. Much of the world has become ruins. Skyscrapers have collapsed, roads that don't lead to other cities are often split and filled with holes, nature reclaimed much of the old cities, and the occasional outsider can be found.

Despite this, the old world is not traditionally apocalyptic. Vivid greenery can be found, wild animals met, and outposts meant for travel and divers can be sought via the intact roads. Vending machines containing food and supplies for divers can be found in the more tread areas away from outposts; the less travelled areas contain supply drops designed for a single diver, accessible only via EC-K.

✣ Name: Reina Kurowai
✣ Age: 26
✣ Type: Reina's AEGIS specializes itself in vitality.

✣ Personality: Devil may care is the image Reina likes to paint herself as. Manic, brash, and cracking inappropriate jokes, Reina’s demeanor is akin to a walking time bomb on the battlefield and in the heat of missions. She’s a natural Diver, plain and simple; greedy and selfish in desires. Thankfully for her sake, and for the sake of other Divers, her craving for adrenaline and battle are usually sated and expressed through the killing of Outsiders. Were it not so, she’d no doubt have been kicked out of any Diver Services for her reckless behavior. By means of honor or survival, Reina has enough sense to follow the Diver’s code.

That said, she still enjoys freaking out whoever is unlucky enough to get paired with her as a Diver. While Reina’s dark humor can be chalked up to only that, practical joking, her insistent bloodlust when her hands hold a gun no doubt make others around her wonder whether she’s serious or messing around. Again. And that’s just the way Reina likes it. To her, it’s better for everyone to keep their guards up at any time, preparing for the unexpected or the inevitable.

Towards her fellow Divers, at least outside of missions, she’s relaxed and carefree, bordering on the line of complete laziness. Indeed, it seems the only thing in this world or the next that truly motivates and excites Reina is the promise of violence, whoever it may fall upon. Some say she does fancy an interest here and there when it comes to certain people but most of the time, all the time, if it doesn’t involve shooting something, it earns half her interest. Maybe less.

✣ Background: Truthfully, Reina doesn’t care much about her background. Nobody cares and nobody cares to care, least of all Reina herself. To those few brave enough to poke around and inquire, she’ll only give them a big grin then spin some wives’ tail of how her life came to be. One day she’s the sole survivor of a mob hit, seeking refuge in the life of a Diver. Another day she’ll be an ex-child soldier who never shook off her taste for battle with no tolerance for normal society. The range of absurdity to her stories always escalate and she’ll only ever stop when the other party has enough of her bloated words.

Indeed, Reina couldn’t much care about her life before becoming a Diver because nobody else does. All that can be said objectively is that she was “cast aside” and “abandoned” to a life of bloodshed; her exact words. At some point in her early life, Reina was perhaps truly ostracized by family be it by morals, a falling out, or a commentary on Reina’s own unhinged attitude towards life. Regardless of the reason, the life of a Diver appealed to her more than anything else and soon it wasn’t long before she was given her AEGIS.

As one of the few Divers who sought employment and enjoyment in the lifestyle, Reina never shied away from a job. Each operation was a source of income and a reason for living. Each battle was just another experience to write off as her personal brand of fun. Regardless of what her true origins are and what story is fact, and which is fiction, it’s become obvious to her fellow Divers that Reina Kurowai is very devoted to her work. So long as she has fun.

✣ Cross Gear: Reina’s Cross Gear is crude and simple. From an outward appearance, it looks like a standard military assault rifle, easy enough to customize and upgrade. In her line of business and experience, her Cross Gear has evolved and modified to the point of having a special ability as well. When needed, Reina’s bullets can be imbued with a paralysis effect, stopping the motion of whoever they hit for a short amount of time; the longest recorded was five minutes. So potent is the paralysis that it can freeze most large Outsiders depending on the type. However, the bigger the target is, the harder it becomes to paralyze them. Likewise, this marks these stubborn types as worthy prey in Reina’s eyes.

✣ Equipment: Aside from her Cross Gear and EC-K, Reina also possesses the usual Diver UNIT. Over time she’s spent the payload needed to customize her model. In some sense of depraved hilarity, she’s since fashioned her UNIT in the shape of a small cat, one that acts out all the functions of a UNIT. In such a form, it serves well in disguising itself from unwanted attention as well as providing an extra degree of mobility and speed in traversing alongside its Diver.

In addition to this, Reina often carries around a spare handgun, a few grenades, lots of ammo, and of course her signature arm augmentation. Acting as an extra hand in combat both for her Cross Gear and other needs, Reina conceals her third robotic arm folded behind her back. Keeping maintenance of it has occasionally taken a toll on her budget and paycheck, but with her insistence of dangerous missions as well as her enjoyment of being a Diver, there’s no shortage of possible income.

Finally, the AEGIS inside her specializes in vitality. Overtime, it’s developed to provide stimulation, adrenaline, and other such healthy serums directly into Reina’s bloodstream. These have the varying effects of keeping her stamina from dipping, painkillers, adrenaline spikes, and even briefly healing her wounds, albeit usually internally not externally. If nothing else, it can be described as stem pack inside her body. The intent is clear; her AEGIS reflects her desire for blood, eager to make its user hunt and feast until her body deems she longer can.

✣ Skills: Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Reina is rather fond-and quite good at it too-of knife tricks and other knife play. Some say that, in her most private moments, she can be found practicing knife balancing on her fingertips with her EC-K. From cutting food in slim pieces, to hitting objects from across the room, it seems there’s really nothing that’s considered “fancy” Reina can’t do with a knife. She’s also quite the expert on “stabberscotch”.

Name: Michael Ongi

Age: 29

Personality: A calm, quiet professional on the surface, Michael's sole motivation is making mad cash. This mentality stems not from greed, but rather a series of poor life choices that resulted in Michael accumulating an insurmountable amount of debt in his life. Despite working as a Diver for years now, Michael still can't shake off the feeling that he's not cut out for the business at all. Despite this, Michael approaches all his jobs with a cool head and an unbeatable poker face, masking his fear and displeasure all in the name of making fat stacks in order to keep his loan sharks at bay. So long as he believes he can one day pay off his financial obligations, Michael's resolve as a Diver will never falter.

Background: Throughout his entire life, Michael was plagued with financial problems. While his family wasn't poor by any means, Michael's upbringing was still within the seedier parts of his home city. This surely didn't stop Michael's father from developing a nasty habit of gambling, one that lead to his early demise. Sadly, even death won't stop the various people that Michael's father owed money to, with such obligations quickly transferring to the son. Unlike his father, Michael believed that he could pay these debts off without turning to a life of crime, and instead focused on his education, believing that he could land a stable job once he has a college degree.

Years of making bad friends and borrowing money from the wrong sorts of people only lead to Michael's debt increasing, and when he finally found himself an adult, it was only then he realized that his degree of choice would not net him any gainful employment. Desperate to find himself some quick cash and with various loan sharks closing in, Michael soon found himself in a strange office, offering him a way out of his financial slump that doesn't involve selling parts of his body...

Nearly a decade later, and Michael was able to make a name for himself as a professional Diver, protected from his pursuers so long as he continues to unearth vast treasures from parts unknown. To his clients and even other Divers, he is a professional blade-for-hire, cleaving through gate after gate armed with only a rudimentary Cross Gear. To his true employers however, Michael is a mere cash cow, bringing them untold amounts of riches in order to pay off his increasingly inflated debts.

Type: Speed AEGIS, enhancing both physical and mental processes. Allows the use of high-speed calculations close to the abilities of a "super-computer", as well as facilitating faster movement and reaction time. Modifications were made with the intention of allowing the Diver's body to "move as fast as one is capable of thought", though such capabilities have not completely evolved yet.

Cross Gear: A highly sharp blade-type Cross Gear that can easily cut through steel and harder metals like mere paper, capable of slicing through Outsiders with ease when empowered. The blade accomplishes this by seamlessly separating objects cut by the blade at a molecular level. Without energy to fuel it, it is still a highly durable sword, and has been chosen for its reliability and totally not because Michael was too poor to afford something flashier like a gun-type Cross Gear at the time. Takes the shape of, get this, a katana.

Equipment:

• Standard-Issue EC-K, taking the shape of a tanto knife.
• Standard-Issue UNIT with the downloaded personality of a stern sword instructor.
• Composite weave full-body suit made with a variety of lightweight durable material. Allows its wearer adequate protection from both the elements and combat without sacrificing mobility. Worn underneath Michael's clothes.
• A specialized device worn on the arm that allows the user to track objects at high speeds, ranging from ballistic projectiles to faster-moving Outsiders. In sync with Michael's arm movements as well as the cutting ability of his Cross gear, the device is also capable of scanning for both accuracy and potential effectiveness of targeting certain points. Essentially "aimbot" for swords.
• Crippling debt.
• A degree that cannot feasibly be used in his current line of work.

Skills: Michael is expertly proficient in bladed weapons, combat training he obtained solely from his experience as a Diver, capable of performing the techniques of a seasoned swordsman through the use of his AEGIS. As another benefit of his experience, Michael is also well-versed in calmly analyzing and avoiding danger, and has used these skills along with his mental and physical enhancements to avoid death on multiple occasions both in and out of the other world. That said, it could be said that Michael's "greatest" skill is accumulating debt.

Other: Despite his enhanced mental prowess, Michael has still yet to figure out that he's essentially being scammed. Recently, Michael has began to consume Japanese media, using it as an outlet for his dangerous lifestyle. How could he die if he has another episode to look forward to, after all?

✨ Name: Erika Hardt
✨ Age: 17 years
✨ Personality: Erika's is a chill and confident girl. She likes to live each day at a time, without worrying about what's goign to happen tomorrow, or what happened yesterday. She enjoys the thrill of adventure and games, being rarely seen without a handheld console or her phone. Also she can be kind of a tease to those she consider close enough to call friends but not to the point of being mean.
✨ Background: Erika's past is kind of a mystery. She doesn't like talking too much about it it, probably to avoid people judging her because of her origins instead of her current self. However, the fact that she comes from a well-off brougeois family is almost universally agreed upon by those who know her.

How and why Erika decides to take on the life of diving is also a mystery but it most certainly has to do with her abilities as a Holder, or perhaps just because she's a natural daredevil. Maybe she just wanted more money to fuel her utterly capitalist lifestyle. Cool clothes, junk food, and games don't grow on trees, after all.
✨ Type: Holder (Psychoknectic type)
✨ Codes:
✨ Shield: Projects a psychokinectic energy shield to protect herself against attacks.
✨ Psychokinesis: The ability to move objects with the power of the mind. Erika is able to control a couple tons at once or so with her maximum output.
✨ Light Bullet: Shoots blasts of psychokinectic energy converted into electricity and light.
✨ Shift: Short range teleportation for herself and others.
✨ Master Spark: Erika's most powerful ability. It's essentially an empowered version of Light Bullet with an unprecedented range and destructive power.
✨ Cross Gear: Erika's Gear is a set of rings she named Solomon. Their purpose is to control and intensify her Holder powers. They are always evolving along with her powers, granting access to new abilities and increasing Erika's energy output.
✨ Equipment: As mentioned above, Erika is always seen with some gadget like a phone or gameing console at hand. Save for that and the expected gear of a Diver she also tends to carry various kinds of junk food like chocolate bars and energy drinks with herself.
✨ Skills: Erika is really good at gaming, and surprisingly smart when it comes to random trivia and things like that. Outside of skills acquired through gaming, Erika doesn't have much other than a pretty decent knowledge of self-defense martial arts and a basic notion of first-aid.
✨ Other: N/A