Lucas wrenched his arm back, already adjusting. The trial puppet pursued. Relentless. Fists thundered forward like rain hammering stone.
He twisted away from the first strike, sidestepped the second, and ducked under the third. Each one close enough that the air displaced inches from his metal skin.
He jabbed with his spike during a gap in the assault, but again the barrier shimmered to life, his point stopping inches from its target.
Another jab. Blocked.
Again. Blocked.
They circled the platform in an intricate pattern of thrusts and parries, a deadly dance with no music but the ring of metal and the hum of barriers. Lucas searched for openings, found them, and used them.
But each time, the same rippling resistance met his attacks. His spike proved useless against something it couldn’t pierce, couldn’t even touch. His mind whirled as he cycled through every form of attack, trying to keep pace, searching desperately for any way to get it to drop its defence.
Each attempt ended the same way: stalemate. The trial puppet would simply raise a hand, and the air would thicken into an impenetrable wall.
Frustration bloomed inside him. How long could he keep this up? Would they go on like this forever, locked in eternal back-and-forth? His puppet form might not feel fatigue, might not need to breathe or rest, but something powered it; some reservoir of energy that would eventually run dry. And when that something ran out, when his movements slowed and the trial puppet’s didn’t, he wouldn’t like the result.
Suddenly, his foot caught on nothing. A stumble born of distraction. He regained balance an instant later, but the trial puppet didn’t give him a moment to breathe. Its fist drove toward his head with brutal force.
Lucas threw himself sideways. The blow glanced off his shoulder instead, but it still struck with crushing force, metal shrieking as it deformed under the pressure. Pain would have blossomed there in his human body, radiating outward in waves.
But in that exact moment, when the trial puppet had fully committed to its attack, when its guard dropped for just a fraction of a second, Lucas’s spike slipped through and punched into its side.
Not a clean hit—the tip scraped across its armoured surface before finally slamming home—but it landed.
No barrier. No protective energy. Just metal piercing metal.
The realisation slammed home like a ton of bricks. How had he not seen it? Each time he’d lunged, its hand would snap up. The shield never appeared in any other situation. Only when it had time and enough space to prepare.
Lucas cursed himself, even as he jumped back, creating some distance between him and the trial puppet. Its faceplate tracked his movement before it dove in again, completely disregarding the attack he’d thrown earlier. That didn’t change what he’d realised, though.
Blocking the strike, Lucas kicked out, catching the puppet’s leg. It didn’t raise the shield, but threw another jab at his side. He blocked and took a step back. He had to force it to make a choice: take a hit or activate its shield.
Dancing at the edge of its range, he kept his movements sharp, dipping in and out with feints. The trial puppet’s frame shifted, reading each one. Then it attacked, fists driving forward. Lucas darted inside the blow’s arc.
His spike carved across the puppet’s side, shearing through another layer of metal that peeled away in thin ribbons. The puppet lunged back. Lucas did the same, and they resumed their circling dance—jabbing and retreating in rhythm.
Lucas threw in feints, hoping to lull it into a false sense of control. Though the puppet rarely took the bait. Even so, he managed to chip away at the armour, shearing down the plate piece by piece. Through the exchange, the puppet’s frame degraded. Gouges exposed the intricate wiring beneath its silver shell. Blue fluid leaked from ruptured lines and dripped onto the black stone in splotches. When it summoned the shield, though, the barrier remained as strong as ever.
Lucas’s feet hammered across the platform. He launched himself into the air, spike raised overhead, and brought it down in a devastating arc. The trial puppet’s palm snapped up, the barrier thickened, and Lucas pulled back. The puppet dropped its palm as he landed in front of it. Now was his opportunity.
He snapped his arm up, twisting his waist and throwing all his weight behind the strike. The spike slammed through metal and screamed as it penetrated the trial puppet’s raised forearm, bursting through the other side. Blue fluid sprayed. Wiring sparked. Lucas planted his foot against the trial puppet’s chest and kicked. The spike ripped free in a gush of blue, and the trial puppet stumbled backwards, its ruined arm hanging uselessly at its side.
Not that this meant victory. He didn’t pause, couldn’t give it time to recover. Lucas charged, closing the gap before the trial puppet could re-establish its stance. Its remaining hand rose. Lucas sidestepped, surprisingly fluid, and drove his spike into its battered side. The impact resounded through both frames, and the trial puppet staggered. Then Lucas swept a foot behind its knee, and the force buckled the puppet’s joints. It dropped, its weight slamming onto the stone with a grinding screech of metal against rock.
The fall brought its head to the perfect height. Lucas pulled back, spike aligned with its blank faceplate. Then he thrust.
The point penetrated the puppet’s head with a wet crunch of metal and circuitry. Wiring sputtered, sparks fountaining from the wound and illuminating the platform in strobing flashes. An electric groan warbled somewhere deep in the puppet’s core, like a dying machine’s scream. The sound set Lucas’s nerves on edge. Would the thing explode? If it did, would that kill him?
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He leapt back, anticipating an explosion. But the trial puppet simply sparked for a moment before collapsing. It toppled sideways onto the black stone, limbs clattering. Blue fluid pooled beneath its ruined head, spreading in a slow, viscous puddle. Sparks guttered and died, leaving only silence.
Lucas stood motionless, his puppet’s frame tense but ready. He couldn’t tell if the explosion was just delayed. After all, he’d seen it in movies—things looked fine one moment, then exploded the next, throwing him off this stone platform to crash in the white void below.
Seconds passed. He glanced down at himself. Dented arms. Fingers bent at odd angles. Silver plating scraped and scored. If he’d taken a few more hits, the puppet probably would have destroyed him. He raised an arm, reaching for his shoulder where the metal crumpled inward, blue wiring dribbling liquid down its length, then his hand moved to his hip.
“I can’t believe it.” The words emerged as a distant sound, almost as if they weren’t his own. “That was a lot more intense than I thought. The wolves, in comparison, were easy.”
He stared at the defeated puppet, processing what had just happened. On one hand, it was a miracle he’d won the fight. But then again, once he’d figured out its little trick, it was only a matter of time.
He chuckled, the sound strained and scratchy. He wouldn’t call himself a terrible fighter by any means, but professional training was far off his radar. After all, spending most of his days frying chicken and bagging chips didn’t exactly leave much time for him to hit the gym after work and box his heart out.
Not that he could afford a gym membership to begin with.
Lucas approached the fallen puppet, moving around it, careful to avoid the spreading blue pool.
A thought emerged, and he almost wanted to say Harvest, but this space existed only within his mind. Would there even be anything to extract? But he raised his hand anyway, and the word slipped past his lips. As expected—though still disappointing—nothing happened. No magic circle materialised. No materials remained after a blinding light. The puppet just lay there, lifeless and still.
A moment later, a chime echoed through the white expanse, and a text box materialised. Trial complete.
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SYSTEM MESSAGE
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| Congratulations: Level up achieved!
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Lucas’s consciousness snapped back, and he found himself in his capsule, glass hissing as it lifted. The transition jarred him. Why had he been snapped from his puppet? What had happened? He looked past the rising glass to where his puppet still stood frozen, staring down at the defeated trial puppet.
As he moved to exit the capsule, a wave of energy slammed into him. His muscles tightened, his breath quickened, and his mind cleared.
The text box still hovered in eyeline, and he found himself unable to look away. Level up.
Subtle pressure filled the air, a faint hum emanating from the capsule. The world sharpened, as though he’d been walking around half-blind until someone handed him glasses. Lucas pressed his palm against the capsule’s interior, pushing himself upright. He scanned the platform, taking in the black stone and the white expanse beyond.
Across the platform, at the far edge, movement caught his attention. Another step rose from the stone and settled into place.
That made sense. The level up was just for reaching level one, but would level two mean fighting another puppet? Something even stronger than this one? He swallowed. Could he even fight something stronger than this?
The timer in his peripheral vision caught his attention.
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SYSTEM MESSAGE
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| 00:00:10
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Ten seconds remaining. He hadn’t been paying attention during the fight, but surely more than six minutes had passed. Either way, Lucas exhaled, taking in the scene again.
“All right,” he said to the void. “Next time I come here, I’m going to make it to step fifteen at a minimum.”
Then reality yanked. Lucas opened his eyes, nestled in the beanbag. The garden materialised around him—worn stone slabs beneath his feet, wind chimes tinkling at the back of the fence, and Isabelle sitting at the table, fingernails drumming against the glass in an absent rhythm. Her gaze snapped to him.
“That was quicker than I expected,” she said, surprise lifting her voice.
Lucas blinked and shifted in the beanbag, sitting up. His hands moved to his head, fingers tangling in his curly hair. Quick? It felt like he’d been there for an hour. Or, as the system timer had said, six minutes or so. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Isabelle’s fingers stopped. “I mean, you were definitely in there longer than last time. You weren’t in there for an hour, though. I can guarantee that.”
Laughter drifted from inside the house, another voice along with his mother's and one he didn’t recognise. Had his mother invited a guest over? But who? By his estimates, the neighbours should be inside their own houses, taking stock of what little supplies remained. Maybe a few still hoped the authorities were coming, but to come over and be buddy-buddy—especially to have his mom laughing—that struck him as odd.
Tension crept into his shoulders. Frowning, Lucas shifted again. “Who’s that?”
Isabelle shrugged. “One of your neighbours came over earlier, asking your mom about supplies. Raw meat, specifically. Said they wanted to have a little barbecue since the electricity’s gone and most of it will probably spoil by the end of today.” She paused. “She said we didn’t have any. But then he just stayed.”
“He just stayed?” he asked dryly, raising a brow.
She shrugged again; her gaze moving to the end of the garden. “Also,” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “I know you seem to have some thoughts on how things are going to turn out, but your neighbours want to put together a search party. Some are getting worried that the authorities might not be coming. That they might not have everything under control.”
“What do you mean?” Lucas pushed off the beanbag, getting to his feet. The garden hadn’t changed, but somehow it seemed smaller to his senses now. More confined.
Isabelle’s gaze narrowed slightly. “I think they’re coming to terms with the idea that they’ll have to look after themselves, at least for a long while.”
The words settled over him, heavy. Lucas nodded, rubbing his chin. Interesting implications. Good for the long term, but problematic in the short term.
Whilst he didn’t want to hoard resources—after all, having too much posed its own danger when others got desperate—scavenging the local area would become tricky. Others would see when and where you looted. Or borrowed, as he hoped to put it, at least for now.
His mind turned to other scavengers. The brother and sister pair they’d encountered earlier when returning. Were they part of this organising group? What role did they play?
As he mulled it over, he noticed Apollo was no longer sitting by the door. The dog had taken up that spot before he’d undertaken his level-up. Moving his eyes to the kitchen window, it occurred to him that the dog had probably moved inside when this ‘neighbour’ had come over.
“Is it alright if I try to get some steps in now?” Isabelle’s question pulled him back, and Lucas nodded.
She rose from the garden table and exchanged spots with Lucas. He took her seat, the chair still warm, whilst she settled into his beanbag. She adjusted her position, squirming slightly, then closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed. Lucas assumed he probably looked the same. They were quite vulnerable in such a state. He was glad he’d tasked her with guarding him.
But the question remained. His gaze turned towards the kitchen door. Who was that man, and what had his mother said to him?
