Jimmy “Breaker” Barnes was a big man. He wasn’t just tall, although he was, and he wasn’t just muscled, but he was that, too. He had a weight to him, a presence oh I get it, and he seemed to take up more of any room he was in than he should have. Hunter just stared up at him, wondering how that happened, how someone could just get that big, could have hands that could have palmed crushed his entire skull, could have a voice that boomed even if he was speaking normally.

“So, you want me to fight the kid, huh,” Jimmy said as he looked over at Ernie. “He’s a buck and a quarter, maybe. I hit him, I put him through the wall.”

Hunter looked around the training area quickly, a large open space where the nearest wall was at least twenty feet away sounds about right.

“Yeah, but he’s a buck and a quarter trained by my sister,” Ernie replied, arms folded across his chest. “That means he’s fast, and he’s tough, and he’s probably mean.”

The teen felt himself blush at that, embarrassed, and rubbed the back of his neck bet Breaker doesn’t get shy. He was pretty sure Jimmy had the better idea of what would actually happen in the spar, but it was nice that his uncle was talking him up.

“Alright, works for me,” the very big man said as he turned to face Hunter. “You want me to scale it down, right? What do ya figure, classer level?”

“Nah, he’s past that,” Ernie muttered as he flipped through his book. “Give him full advanced, no style, pull your stats. And wait for Pete, he wanted to watch. Hunter, get yourself loose. You’re looking nervous.”

Hunter nodded and pulled off his shoes and socks, looking around for somewhere to put them before he noticed the odd looks on the two men’s faces, then just threw them into the corner with a grin no rack no hamper no rules. He twisted his feet on the slightly cushioned surface of the mats on the floor, then rocked from foot to foot to see if it affected his balance, before starting his most basic, calming stretches. He was about halfway through take the biggest step when he heard the last member of Ernie’s group come into the room, and took his time, left leg sliding out behind him as he crouched on his right, both arms reaching forward, his whole body low to the ground.

“That does look like the second coming of Devil Hallahan, doesn’t it,” Pete said, laughing. “Just about two-thirds scale, though.”

“Ah, lay off him, Walker,” Jimmy rumbled, “Rile him up any and he’s liable to go for the low blow. Seem to remember that other redhead sending you off with one, yeah?”

“I dunno,” Pete said, arms folded as he stood next to Ernie. “Kid doesn’t look a fraction of how mean his mama can be.”

“Hey, Hunter,” his uncle called over, “Tell these guys how you knocked off a classer when you were what, thirteen? The short version.”

Hunter straightened up slowly and settled into his most comfortable fighting stance, right arm across his body, palm up, left arm tucked in with his elbow back, knees loose with one foot pointing toward Breaker’s huge bulk. “Snuck up, broke its back, drowned it in the mud. And I was twelve.” Ernie had coached him to tell that abbreviated sequence of events, if he ever wanted a story that sounded cooler.

“Ok, he’s got the right attitude at least. Anyway, I don’t have all day. Still tuning up the popper after the mess you two fed it.”

“Well,” Ernie said, snapping his book shut. “You heard him, boys.”

The rules to an official spar, Ernie had explained earlier, were pretty simple. Both combatants agreed to it within Infra, there was a countdown both could see to avoid accusations of cheap shots, and then you fought. Whatever reality-bending Infra usually engaged in, that allowed human or Breaker sized bodies to wield and withstand immense forces, was flipped around, ensuring that someone could fight with everything they had and not splatter a friendly opponent with one good hit. It even worked for magic, which Hunter was both intrigued and wary about, since taking a fireball or similar to the face without most of the consequences sounded interesting.

He tried to remember that fact, that he wouldn’t get punched hard enough that he popped like a balloon, he really did, but it was difficult to keep that in mind as the counter reached zero and Breaker moved toward him, swiftly and steadily, feet staying in a firm stance huh no booms. In fact, it was hard to keep anything in his head when all his instincts were saying it was going to be shortly disconnected from his body. Hunter could work with that, though, a clear mind was one of the keys to a perfect demonstration of the forms, and his mind was completely, definitely terrified clear.

Breaker’s first attack as he stepped in was a left jab, picture-perfect like you’d expect from a man who’d spent the last nineteen years punching things for survival, and then for a living. It didn’t even seem to phase him that Hunter was almost a foot shorter than him, the punch angled down directly toward his face. In response, he clasped his hands together and raised both arms as he shifted to his left, all of his weight suddenly slammed onto that foot as his forearm struck just underneath the oncoming fist and deflected it just to the side of his head ok that hurt. Now twisted slightly to his left, Hunter moved his left hand to the angle he thought a follow up strike might come from and flicked his right arm out to try to jam his fingers into Breaker’s armpit.

Hunter figured his best chance would be to get close, minimize his opponent’s range of motion, and use the extra leverage to nullify some of the strength advantage. He started to see the problem with his theory with Breaker’s second attack, fractions of a second later. What started as a cross body punch with the man’s right hand, which Hunter could have avoided by turning even further to shrink his profile, turned into an elbow halfway through, and the minor opening Hunter thought he might have had to hit a nerve cluster vanished as Breaker twisted his entire body with the strike footwork must be amazing as he sent the elbow rushing straight at the boy’s face.

Luckily, or unluckily, Hunter had guessed correctly where the second blow would come from, and his hand was already sweeping upward, palm to the ceiling, a finely executed waiter’s walk. His arm was just knocked toward the floor, though, the downward angle of the elbow combined with all the weight on his back foot leaving him unable to manage that extra pop upwards that might have saved him. Instead, all he managed to do was duck his head and drop, Breaker’s elbow cracking against the crown of his head, solidly but not devastatingly, and sending him to the ground.

With his arms slapping at the mat just before his back hit, Hunter landed and then had what he knew was a really bad idea, but went for it anyway. That twist Breaker managed was fast, and it wasn’t just his upper body, Hunter knew, because he could feel the thump on the mat as the man shifted his feet. Breaker didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d stay out of position for long, though, so Hunter, still bouncing and rattled from the slam to the floor, kicked out his right heel directly in the path of where Breaker’s left foot would go if he immediately shifted into his ready stance, after knocking the teen down.

Hunter felt a very satisfying impact, heel against toes only protected by an athletic sock, heard what was maybe going to be a very funny curse word and the start of someone’s laughter, before a very big, very off-balance man crashed down on top of him, and then everything hurt.

You are unconscious!

You have lost your spar! Would you like to send a request for a rematch? Y/N

You are conscious!

He snapped his eyes open, checked the clock function of his Infra to see less than a minute had passed, and then noticed Pete waving a buzzing piece of plastic over his forehead, each pass making Hunter feel much less woozy.

“Ok, Little Devil, that was pretty funny,” Pete said when he noticed the boy was awake. “Never seen Jimmy trip over someone he just knocked down before. Not a good showing on your end, though.”

“Didn’t trip,” Hunter shook his head, then realized that made his whole brain feel awful. “Thought he was fancy, quick switched his stance on me. Tripped him. That’s a tie.” He turned his head to the side to see Breaker crouched down next to him, looking worried, but he just stared him in the eye and said, “Tie.”

The big man laughed, and with a quick glance at Pete Infrachat, helped Hunter to his feet. “Alright, it’s a tie. You really think I was being fancy, though?”

Hunter shook out his hands, still sore from the attempts at parrying, and nodded. “Yeah, umm, yeah. You’re fast, you’re good, and you’re slumming by fighting me. You can handle me southpaw just as good. Or you coulda kicked me and sent me flying. Except you wanted to get right back into first position, like you’re ready for the next one. That’s, you know, fancy.”

“Kid’s right,” Ernie said, scribbling in his book. “Hell, if that was my sister and that happened? She’d have had a knife lodged in your guts when you landed on her, and chewed her way out from under you when she woke up.”

“Devil Hallahan,” both of his teammates muttered, just out of sync, while Hunter looked at his uncle wide-eyed Mom’s so cool.

“Anyway, you guys want to go again?” Ernie continued. “I think I underestimated how far sixty points goes at that level. You want to hit him with half advanced this time, Jim?”

The second fight felt better to Hunter, but went pretty much the same except for the knockout ending. Now that Breaker was moving not much faster than he was, and wasn’t going to take things lightly, the man started to bring his years of experience to bear. Hunter pushed a punch out of the way with a very slim margin, but before he could retaliate, got rocked back with a heavy blow to the shoulder. The next exchange, he twisted all the way out of the range of both Breaker’s massive fists, and took a shoulder check that sent him to the floor and popped up his loss notification.

The fight after that, he actually landed a few touches that would have signalled a win to one of Jenkins’ farmbots, as he ducked forward and under a looping feint of a punch, then turned and jabbed his fingers in a pattern along the man’s side that was supposed to hurt an awful lot. Against Breaker, it felt like poking a wall oh, he’s a golem, and the fight continued, Hunter having to duck a quick, nasty back elbow. That bout ended when he tried to be fancy himself, dart in low and see if he couldn’t aim for a tendon at the back of Breaker’s knee, but only caught the other one in his chest for his trouble, actually lifting into the air for a brief moment before crashing back down.

By the fourth round, Hunter was breathing heavily, the explosive bursts it took to put any power and speed behind his slight, subtle movements taking a toll, but he went into another stance and waited for the countdown anyway. He settled into one of the earlier forms he’d learned, one palm facing up and ahead of him, the other hand in a weird little claw for nerve strikes and held behind. The rest of his body he kept loose, weight split evenly between both feet, his body turned at an angle on the border of open and closed, not quite facing his opponent but not fully in profile either.

Hunter had a good feeling about this time, which, if he thought about it, probably meant the knock on his head earlier was harder than it had seemed at first. When the zero flashed in his Infra, he moved forward to meet Breaker head on, each step quick but careful, keeping his gaze on the man’s hips and shoulders. The first two fights he’d had an opening jab to deal with and the third a probing low kick toward his shins, basically the same strategy, so Hunter had a decision to make. Jimmy seemed like a professional, even while fighting a kid half his size, he stayed safe and cautious, leveraging his physical advantages with precise strikes instead of opening up to really crush him.

So, he figured his only chance was to see what happened if Breaker actually opened up can’t die but would die, and find out if the man had any gaps in his guard in the brief moment before he got clobbered.

Hunter dropped right before getting into the range of one of Breaker’s kicks, sliding forward on his left knee with his right leg extended toward Breaker’s back foot. He kept one arm free to guard against a blow coming from overhead, while twisting his torso and sending his clawed fingers on the other hand at the inner thigh of Breaker’s front leg. Ideally, he’d never get this low while fighting, never slide forward in half of a splits just to see what happened, never threaten an unfair blow instead of just going for it, but the regular rules passed down from his mother just weren’t working.

So when Breaker twisted his right leg to take the finger strike on the top of his quad still tight guard, slid his other leg away from Hunter’s kick even tighter, and went for a hip check that would have shoved the boy down to the ground shoulder check on someone taller, Hunter grabbed. One hand had a fistful of pants, his guarding arm over his head grabbed at shirt, and he launched himself upward to meet Breaker’s hip with his shoulder, while pulling the opposite direction on the clothing.

He didn’t throw him. Hunter wasn’t even good at that sort of thing, but he knew enough to fake an attempt, and it might have even worked if Breaker wasn’t just enormous, but that wasn’t the point. When he felt the larger man’s arm hook under his and lift him up from the ground as easily as an empty sack, he managed to deflect the first punch that immediately followed with his knee that’s a bruise, jab the fingers on his free hand into the hollow of Breaker’s throat, and even make a half-decent attempt to wriggle out of the way of the second punch, but his luck ended there.

If it didn’t hurt so bad, Hunter later reflected, getting hit squarely in the gut so hard he went flying five or six feet was pretty fun. The aftermath was extremely awful, though, so when he’d finally finished coughing up spit and wheezing, he choked out, “I need a break, please.”

“Yeah,” his uncle looked down at him and his mess, nodding. “Take five, or ten. Catch your breath, kid.” Then he turned to his friends, opening his book again, and asked, “Thoughts?” but Hunter was too distracted by his stomach and notifications to listen in.

You have lost your spar! Would you like to send a request for a rematch? Y/N

You have raised Parry to one hundred (100).

You have one (1) talent available from maxing your parry skill.

You have earned two (2) achievements!

You have two (2) free talents available from achievements.

You have raised Touch Attack to one hundred (100).

You have one (1) talent available from maxing your touch attack skill.

You have advanced your [Soft Style Martial Arts] base skill to [Devilborn Soft Style]!

You have raised each Body stat by three (3).

Resilience now at 32/113.

You have one (1) talent available from advancing a base skill.

Your Style skill max rank has been raised to two hundred (200).

Disclaimer: Combat path members cannot raise path skills above one hundred (100) while sparring or otherwise practicing. Advanced ranks require essence-generating conflict to progress.

“-why it’s not a dead end, Pete. Some kid in Egypt-”

“Somalia,” Breaker interjected.

“Right, Somalia,” Ernie continued. “Some kid in Somalia just broke the numbers on those two talents, and I think they’re viable.”

“Hey, it’s your nephew,” Pete said with his hands up. “Besides, no offense Jimmy, but B.E.’s are boring and take way too much healing. This could be one of them, you know, paradigm shifts.”

“Hey, umm, guys?” Hunter tried to interrupt, his voice still hoarse. “I’m going to need more than ten to figure this out.”

Hunter managed to get up and stumble to the corner of the room to have a seat leaning against the wall, as he looked over his too many options. He didn’t even know what one of them was, and following the link didn’t seem very helpful.

[Devilborn Soft Style] An offshoot of Devilbear Soft Style, this advanced martial art focuses on precise, minimalist defense and nerve and joint-disabling strikes, with either one’s fingers or a staff. +three (3) to body stats

“I don’t get it,” he muttered, then did what he’d been taught to do any time he was stumped.

You have entered the [Training Room for Bump] messaging group.

Nicknames have been enabled by the group creator.

[Hunter]: ok so, i got this achievement already but i didn’t know what it did. [Young Expert]

[Hunter]: did that link? good

[Hunter]: anyway what the flip is a base skill?

[Hunter]: because now i got this: [Devilborn Soft Style] and i’m pretty sure it’s only called that cuz Ernie’s friends are scared of u

[Ernie]: Wow, kid. You advanced your style that quickly? Not bad. Guess that’s what three separate boosts will do.

[Ernie]: And yeah, they’re not really scared of Cat, not exactly. More like, they feel your mother is way too much trouble to be on her bad side.

[Mom]: Oh, are they still calling me Devil Hallahan out there? I swear, those men are just intimidated by a woman who knows how to stand up for herself.

[Ernie]: Cat, they’re intimidated by a woman who literally ripped the arm off of a seven foot tall robot, said “Whoops, there’s a person in there,” when yellow blood came spurting out, and then ripped off the other arm.

[Hunter]: BLINK BLINK <- that’s me blinking like whaaa

[Mom]: Oh, never mind about that, bump. When you’re older, much older, and you’ve had enough experiences to put that sort of thing into a proper context, I’ll tell you some stories about the early days.

[Mom]: To answer your question, however, there are four generally recognized base skills, and the potential for a fifth. Affinity, which is basically magic, Infratech, magic science, Patron, a bigger yet less controlled magic, and Style, which is knowing how to fight. The fifth is generally customized, and I’ve yet to encounter enough people with one to discern a pattern.

[Mom]: When you become proficient with a number of skills that are grouped under a base skill, you’ll “unlock” that base. That means it will get a new name and a specialty. Style may be fighting in general, but Soft Style Martial Arts is all about evading blows, redirecting momentum, and controlling combat.

[Mom]: When you advance your skills under a base even further, perhaps raising them to one hundred in what I’m sure were safe and proper conditions, you advance your base and gain bonuses. Later, you can typically refine one base, which is a similar increase.

[Ernie]: Perfectly safe conditions, Cat.

Huh, he thought. That’s neat. Enable nicknames on all messages from now on, please.

His mother and uncle had decided to chat a little about his progress, but Hunter was still thinking about what to choose, and dismissed the window to think. One rule they’d given him was that he had to make all his own decisions when things like talents came up, something to do with Infra giving better options to those who worked out their ideas on their own. The old Emergency Protocols were weird, and Hunter had a thought that it was some sort of carry-over.

“Ok well, start with the easy ones,” he muttered.

Two (2) achievements unlocked! [Skilled II] You have maxed two (2) skills. +one (1) free talent [Quick Learner III] You have maxed two (2) skills at level one (1). +one (1) free talent You have one (1) talent available from maxing your parry skill. Please pick from the following pool of parry talents. [Sweeping Guard] You deflect blows with authority, unbalancing your foes. +strength difference to parry chance [Fencing Knowledge] You are skilled enough at the fighting arts to use an opponent’s skills against them. +ten percent (10%) of parry skill to attacks, when opponent attempts a parry (synergy) [Deft Hands] You are careful and precise when you fight. reduce damage to weapons or body parts used for successful parries to zero (0) You have one (1) talent available from maxing your touch attack skill. Please pick from the following pool of touch attack talents. [Opportunist] You see no reason not to do two things at once. after a successful mitigation roll guarantee a free, reflexive touch attack [Anatomy Study] You have built a reputation of striking where it hurts. +damage to critical successes on touch attacks (note: touch attacks still deal minimal damage normally) [Bully] You are adept at controlling the flow of battle, and pushing people around. after a successful touch attack, -opponent’s next mitigation roll You have one (1) talent available from advancing your style base skill. Please pick from the following pool of style talents. [Offensive Art] You are a monster on the battlefield, always attacking. -X mitigation chance, +X attack chance, +damage dealt (variable) (toggle) (synergy) [Defensive Art] You have combined the evasive arts into a skilled dance. forgo direct attacks, combine parry and dodge skill values (avg. +20%) with full bonuses (100%) from both (toggle) (synergy) [Tenacious Art] You are a mountain, a wall for attacks to bounce off of. reduce movement speed greatly (-90%), combine block and endure skill values (avg. +20%) with full bonuses (100%) from both (toggle) (synergy)

“Umm, yeah, flip. Those are the easy choices?” Hunter sighed and slumped further against the wall. He selected [Deft Hands] immediately one down, still feeling everywhere one of Breaker’s blows bounced off him and looking forward to avoiding that particular ache in the future, and then peeked back into the message group, scrolling down past the very long argument going on.

[Mom]: Ernest Michael Hallahan, if you want me to come over there and show James exactly how badly someone can get hurt even in an Infra-approved spar, I will be on my way to Kansas City as soon as I’ve finished with class.

[Hunter]: [Opportunist] [Defensive Art]

[Hunter]: is this a combo? did i find my first combo?

[Hunter]: i mean, umm. can i toggle on DA and still attack people with the other one?

[Ernie]: Actually, yeah. What do you know. Usually the opportunity attack talents are much higher up the tree, and do reduced damage. Never seen anyone actually focus on touch attacks. They’re more of a mage thing, kid.

[Hunter]: so dodge parry dodge free touch attack BOOM KO?

[Hunter]: combo!

He took his new talents, closed his eyes, and imagined the fights with Breaker. He already had a good idea of the mistakes he’d made, but with the new abilities swirling around in his offload or however that works, he could see movements he wouldn’t, couldn’t have done that were possible now. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of part of his brain living and working somewhere else, somewhere outside of the actual universe, but the benefits were pretty nice.

Free talents were much more intimidating than the pool choices. At one point, Hunter had looked at the actual, complete list that was available to him, and had immediately gotten a sharp pain like lightning flashing around in his skull from the scrolling text. There were hundreds, if not thousands of tweaks Infra would be glad to apply, and for the most part he just tried to ignore them or else he’d be locked into the screen for weeks, comparing the math. Luckily, the filtering system seemed to be the one aspect of Infra worked without giving him any further sass or headaches, and now he needed to use it liberally.

He already had some rules that he’d worked out with his mom and uncle, some easy guidelines to tell him which of Ernie’s three categories a talent fell into. He’d said anything Infra would offer would either be worth it, situational, or a trap. Worth it talents were things like the percentage boost to dodge he’d taken, where you get a clear, obvious boost to something that’s worthwhile to you. Traps were things like Bully, because it didn’t really do much at the end of the day. If you could land a touch attack already, Hunter figured, you didn’t need to drop your opponent’s mitigation. Maybe there was something to it, but he couldn’t see it. The situational pile could obviously go either way, but since there were so many to choose from in the first place, if he wasn’t immediately sure about the benefit, then it wasn’t good enough.

Show me, umm, he paused in his thoughts. Ok, show me some talents that will boost dodge or parry chance. And or. Including ones I can unlock with one talent and pick with the other. Sort by, what’s the word, efficacy?

[Parry Expert] Locked (take one (1) more parry-related talent to unlock). You have taken the next step along the path to being an expert at deflecting attacks, and now even close grazes pose no threat. greatly reduce (-90%) the incidence of incoming glancing blows [Hard to Hit] Unlocked (Dodge Expert taken). You are hardly ever in the path of an opponent’s strike. +fifteen percent (15%), additive, to all dodge rolls [Practiced Parry] You have worked at and succeeded at deflecting oncoming attacks. +ten percent (10%), additive, to parry rolls

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he mumbled, rubbing at his temples. “Glancing blows? Why’d the tutorial suck so hard?”

[Ernie]: In conclusion, Cat, and by in conclusion I mean I’m done talking about it, you asked me to do this. No, wait, you and Henry asked me to do this, and you both knew how I do things. In fact, it’s a little telling that he didn’t ask you to drag the kid out into the woods and make a fifth baby bear out of him, isn’t it? This is the best way to do it, and the fact that you’re implying I just said, “Breaker, smash him,” is frankly pretty offensive, considering. Leave it alone, Cat. He’s a good kid, and he’s doing well.

[Hunter]: hey guys, it’s me. back again

[Hunter]: sort by efficacy is supposed to show me which is better on top, right?

[Hunter]: so why’s [Parry Expert] > [Hard to Hit]?

[Hunter]: what’s a glancing blow?

[Jimmy Barnes] has entered the group.

[Breaker]: Hey, kid. Your family took their fight to another window. Sorry, I know what that’s like.

[Hunter]: oh. oh hey Breaker. i’m still not ready. trying to figure something out

[Breaker]: Yeah, Ernie sent me in to help, if I can.

Hunter glanced up and noticed he was alone in the training room, then laughed a little. He didn’t realize how long this was taking, and everyone else must have cleared out.

[Hunter]: hey, thanks. umm, dunno if this matters, but i don’t think you hit me too hard

[Breaker]: It probably doesn’t, but I appreciate it.

[Breaker]: I don’t know what I was expecting, but you didn’t do half-bad. Good form, good instincts. Maybe a little crazy when you’re out of ideas, but that’ll just make you get more ideas.

[Hunter]: aww, thanks

[Hunter]: so glancing blows? what are they?

[Breaker]: Ok, I’m not up on the math like Ernie, so I’ll just give you the gist.

[Breaker]: Say you’re just as good as fighting as someone else, nerds like your uncle’ll call that the fifty-fifty. You hit em half the time, you miss the other half.

[Hunter]: haha, nerds. got it.

[Breaker]: But if you’re just as good as someone, and they’re higher level, you don’t got that fifty-fifty no more. Stuff that shoulda hit will graze for not a lot of damage, and stuff you shoulda blocked fine will nick you for a point or two.

[Breaker]: You wanna get a real hit in, you don’t gotta beat the guy, you gotta beat him and however much higher level than you he is.

[Hunter]: level diff then? so if Ernie shoots at me, i have to dodge by, umm, 402 higher than whatever he rolls?

[Breaker]: Sounds about right, yeah.

[Hunter]: and with [Parry Expert], it’d only be 40? wowowow

[Breaker]: Sure, kid. But how often are you planning on fighting anything that much higher than you?

[Hunter]: much as i can, i figure. hey you wanna go one last time? see if i got any better?

[Hunter]: and do you know how i can get some resilience back? i’m awful hurt

Hunter took the two parry talents, and then when Breaker brought him down something he called a med focus, he sat for a while with it until he figured it out. Now that he’d integrated, Hunter had noticed that meditating like his mother had taught him to didn’t just clear his thoughts, it also restored his missing vigor after exercising. According to Breaker, it did the same for his affinity and resilience too, just the resilience rose a lot more slowly than the others. But by holding onto this weird, thrumming cube, he could apparently concentrate on one stat to replenish a bit more quickly, and this particular focus was good for his health.

After a while, when he wasn’t quite full but definitely feeling better, Hunter set the focus down, stood up, and stretched out his back and legs after being hunched over in the corner for too long. He looked over at Breaker, who was leaning against the opposite wall, huge arms folded, pale and constantly sleepy looking, and wondered. Jimmy “Breaker” Barnes was a big man, that was easy to figure out, but even after getting to know him for a while, Hunter still couldn’t decide what else he was.

“Hey, Breaker,” Hunter said as he made his way to the middle of the room and settled into a stance, sending a spar request. “You’ve been at this adventuring thing a while, right?”

“Yeah, guess you could say that,” was his reply as he ambled over and accepted. “Half advanced again?”

“Nah, half peak, please.” Hunter hesitated a moment before figuring out how to activate his defensive art, then shifted his feet to a form that felt more comfortable, weight on one foot, the other out in front about a foot, ready to lift from the ground. He kept his arms loose, hands held up in front, then with another glance at his opponent’s height how do I keep forgetting that, lifted them a bit more. “You ever think about it like, ‘aww nuts, what am I doing?’”

“Well,” Breaker said as the counter flashed zero, then moved forward and snapped a quick pair of jabs at Hunter, who ducked the first, slapped the second to the side, and then pushed with his foot, not quite a kick, leading leg against leading leg, to make a quick step backward. “I don’t think I ever said it in quite those terms, but sure.”

“What, umm,” Hunter had to duck a third jab, then dart forward and to Breaker’s left to avoid the followup snap kick. “I mean, what did you do after? To get over it.” He was still low and a bit out of position, but managed to knock the swinging left elbow over his head, digging his fingers into the nerves just below, then stepped through to resume a comfortable distance.

“Nice,” his opponent said under his breath, before feinting another quick kick that Hunter fell for, and then twisting to deliver a right cross that would definitely knock the boy flat. “Not much, really. Never happened when I had time to think about it.” Breaker whiffed the punch by a less than an inch when Hunter ducked even lower, then stepped in to drive a rising knee into the teen’s chest.

“Oh, right,” Hunter was twisted at the waist, almost in a full crouch as the knee sailed toward him, but he quickly uncoiled, both hands flat as they slapped at the side of Breaker’s knee to change the trajectory, the sheer force behind it sending him skidding back a few steps, managing to get himself upright while the man followed up, close behind. “Kinda a crisis thing, then.”

“Yup,” he replied before launching a quick combination at the teen, right, left, faking a knee, then another left. Hunter guided the first punch away with one hand, his body swaying in the opposite direction, leaned back and slap the second fist upward with barely any room to spare between his nose and Breaker’s knuckles, didn’t even see the feint with his head tilted back briefly to the ceiling, and then spun completely out of the way of the third punch, only reaching out to brush his fingertips against Breaker’s wrist as it sailed past. “Hey, that stings, kid.”

“Really?” Hunter exclaimed, wide-eyed, and then held his hands up. “I yield, I yield.”

“It was just getting good, you sure?”

“Yeah, but I’m exhausted,” Hunter laughed and then slumped forward, hands on his knees. “Did that last one really hurt?”

“It stung,” was the reply, but Breaker was grinning as he said it, shaking out his hand. “So, you’re worried you’re racing off into danger for no good reason, then.”

“Umm, pretty much?”

“You see those kids from the college everyday, I hear. They ever seem like they know what they’re doing?”

“Nah,” Hunter bit back a laugh that would’ve been mean. “I mean, Ajit’s pretty smart. But, umm, they’re all learning stuff, they just can’t really explain why?”

“Plenty of the old K.C. orders hanging around town, still. Ever look at them and think they got the right idea, either?”

“No, but, they don’t seem to do much either,” he said with a frown, still panting.

“They do some, but in their own way. Look, kid. I ain’t some motivational speaker here. I just know, I’ve had bad times. Lost people. Had a crisis or two, like ya said. But I kept going, and you wanna know why?”

Hunter straightened up, looked at the big man, really looked at him instead of marvelling, and mumbled, “Because you had to?”

“Because I had to. Because doing anything else with my life didn’t seem right. Same as you, looking round and wondering what you should be doing, when you’re already doing it. Should drag you out, toss your skinny butt in a Source, and tell you ‘I told you so,’ when you come out dragging the worst thing in there. Kid who ain’t supposed to be fighting for a living ain’t going to get that much better at fighting in a day. Don’t worry about stuff too hard.

“Now, get some rest. Ernie’ll be out of the fit he’s having on account of your ma by tomorrow, and probably work you twice as hard.” Breaker clapped him on the shoulder and sent him stumbling before walking off.

“So,” Ernie said as Hunter wandered in from his exercises the next day. “I hear you went half peak against Jim yesterday. Sorry I wasn’t there to see it.”

“It’s, yeah,” he mumbled as he poured himself some cereal. “I know how Mom gets, I guess it was bound to happen sometime? She’s not, umm, headed over here right now, is she?”

“Nah, kid,” his uncle said with a faint chuckle relief, “We worked it out. That’s part of why I started you on sparring. Your mother likes Breaker a lot more than Walker, and if you got banged up learning something from Pete, she’d burn this whole city down.”

“I’ll just make sure I don’t get banged up then, sure.”

“Right, right. Optimism, good plan. So, bet you’re wondering what’s next.”

“Well,” Hunter said in between bites, “I’ve still got staff to max out. Never could get the hang of fighting the bots with it, so it’s trailing.”

“Already talked to Jim about it. Next time he’s got a day to blow, he says you can try to hit him with a stick all day. Don’t think he knows how heavy that stick of yours is, though,” Ernie said with a wink.

“Oh. Sounds fun.”

“Let me ask you a question, and don’t get offended, please.”

Hunter just nodded and kept eating in response.

“From what I can tell, you don’t know all that much about skills, even the ones you already have.”

“Oh, for sure!” Hunter laughed, then stopped abruptly, embarrassed. “I did a lot of research on the tablet you got me, but it’s all really kids on there you know? Everyone on Plus, umm, mostly talked about talents and magic and stuff. Skills are just like, what you do though, right?”

“In a way, yeah. They are just what you do,” Ernie paused for a moment and sighed. “Jim said you didn’t even know what meditation is for, in Infra?”

“Well, I mean,” Hunter’s voice trailed off. “It’s for centering myself in the world. Don’t use it for recovery, really. But I guess I could, huh. I mean, I will.”

“Look, kid. Just pull up your general skills in detail and share it over. I’ll walk you through it.”

Hunter pulled up his menu and fiddled with it a little, only seeing the barest names and numbers for his skills, but after a moment he figured out how to zoom in deeper, mumbling, “Wow.”

General Skills Athletics: 80/100 Running, jumping, climbing, swimming, and every other way you can use your body for getting places faster. (body) +movement speed, -vigor usage Awareness: 45/100 Finding the hidden, whether it be sneaking foes or buried treasures. (mind) -opposing surprise bonuses, +detecting traps Meditation: 62/100 Letting yourself be one with the circle of essence that runs through you and the rest of existence. (spirit) (toggle) +resource recovery, +recent skill gains Stealth: 32/100 Skulking in the shadows and the quiet, avoiding undue attention. (wield) -opposing awareness rolls, -noise created

“Any questions, or?” Ernie trailed off.

“Umm,” Hunter bit his lip, reading the screen. “Sure, what’s wield mean? I get body, mind and spirit, but wield?”

“Really?” Ernie gave him a quizzical look, to which he just shrugged. “Carry, wield, bear?”

“Total blank,” he said, and shrugged again even harder.

“They’re the rows your stats are organized on. Carry is strength-”

“Oh, power, speed, and endurance?” Hunter cut him off. “Why the funny names?”

“Is that what the kids are calling them, these days?”

“Yeah, why?” he frowned as he spoke. “It tracks, right?”

“Not,” Ernie paused a moment, “exactly. See, the thing is, for all of Infra’s number-crunching and data-tracking, at its core it wants to be a holistic system. For instance, hmm, agility. You’re a fan of that one, right?”

“Yessir.”

“It’s not just how fast you are, you know that right?” Hunter nodded and Ernie continued, “It’s how well you place your feet on uneven ground, how often you get the trash in the bin from across the room. It’s a number for how well you wield your body, same as intelligence isn’t just the speed you think at, but how well you do it.”

“Ok so, carry wield bear, carry wield bear,” Hunter said under his breath. “Got it. More questions? I mean, I’ve got more questions. The bonuses each skill gives, that’s not all they do right?”

“Right,” his uncle nodded and smiled, apparently glad they were back on track. “Once again, holistic system. Anything that sounds like it would fit under a skill, it probably does. There might be a numerical bonus, there might not.”

“And like, those are the only four skills Infra has? Out of all the stuff you can do, that’s it? I mean, where’s like, finding roots to eat?”

“That would be survival,” Ernie said, “And it’s a general skill too, you’re right. But Infra only tracks four skills per base, maximum, and it selected the four that you were best with at integration. There’s a way to swap them out for different bonuses, but to be honest, kid, that’s a pretty good set for a soloist.”

“So Mom probably has teaching in her general skills, Dad has farming, and I got farming in other paths, because?”

“Other path skills are, hmm,” Ernie started. “They’re complicated. You won’t get any bonuses from them, but you can use them. So for farming,” he paused again, probably to check his Infra, “there are plants you can’t even try growing without a rating. So I guess you won’t ever be an expert at it, but you can still do more than the average person.”

“Makes sense, sorta?” Hunter nodded along, poking around his other skill screens while he listened.

“So, for your next step, I want you to raise all those general skills, unless you can find some you’d rather have to replace them.”

“You want me to, umm,” he paused as he looked at the descriptions again. “Basically do what I’ve been doing my whole life, just harder?”

“Not exactly.”

Hunter thought back to that conversation a few days later, as he held onto a very narrow ledge about ten stories off the ground, trying to calm himself enough to get back a little energy from meditation. He didn’t, on reflection, think that Ernie had been completely forthright about what kind of challenge this was going to be, but on the other hand, maybe his uncle just believed in him.

A few years back, apparently, a bored Arax resident of the city had gone around and painted a series of murals in bright, vivid colors as a sort of thank you gift to the humans for being so welcoming during the troubled times. Except, as Hunter’s friend Kiki liked to remind him often, Arax almost never do things simply, and absolutely never do things that aren’t infuriatingly amusing. The pictures zhe’d put up were about a foot square when they weren’t irregularly shaped, and were scattered around the entire Alien Town area in no particular order.

A few enterprising folks had, from time to time, collected as many holoscans of these mural pieces as they could and puzzled them all together, then tried to sell the reproductions as a souvenir of sorts. That never lasted long, however, because the Arax had collectively decided that the journey to view the art was just as important as the art itself, or at least that’s what they said. Hunter suspected they just thought it was funny to tell people it was culturally insensitive to sell the paintings.

Already, he’d found four fragments of the mural, and one piece of old graffiti that looked awfully like one from a distance. His fifth was inside the abandoned building Hunter was hanging off of, that had been damaged at some point in the recent past and seemed ready to collapse, and was just a splash of eye-catching pink and green just inside the window. Trips was clinging to the shoulder of his armored coat, worn just because it would protect him at least a little if he ever fell, and had already taken the holopic for him after he climbed up.

The reason he was still holding on instead of looking for the next piece, the reason he had time to wonder how much of a sadist his uncle was, the reason his fingers were cramping on the ledge and his bright yellow sneakers were slipping on the slick window underneath, was that there were people underneath him, who’d wandered by as he was peeking in windows one by one. He could have made his way down, since usually derelict buildings like this one didn’t have more than one of the pieces except when it’d be funny to make an exception, but he was pretty sure he’d be seen if he slid down.

The theory, as Ernie had explained it, was that you could unlock your general base skill into something interesting, even if it was a fairly rare occurrence, that the best way to do it would be to use three or four of the skills all at once, and that an even better way would be by following your path as you did it. So Hunter spent most days exploring downtown, in and out of buildings as well as up and down them, searching for a vast, hidden piece of artwork that he was sure would turn out to be some lewd joke, and he did as much of it as he could trying to stay unseen himself.

He’d crawled under more huge garbage cans in a week than he’d ever even seen or thought an area could have, he’d fallen off an oldtech lamppost and almost been arrested by the SysPols, and he’d figured out where to hit an old window and how hard to break it as silently as possible, among other things. In general, Hunter was having a lot of fun, even if at that moment he specifically wasn’t. On top of that, each time he found something interesting, Infra dropped a few crystals into his currency account and he wondered what level he’d be by now if he wasn’t wearing the armband.

He just really wished that the group of people underneath him would stop talking nothing is that interesting, so that he could shimmy down and take a nap. When he finally climbed down, Hunter wondered, more than a little sheepishly, why an extra point or two of stealth seemed important when falling from way up there was a possible consequence of earning it. That was not a question he could innocently drop into the training room group, though. He’d have to find someone else he trusted if he really wanted to explore that.

“Hey, Mom,” he said to Trips as he walked home. “I think I’m doing dangerous things for minimal gains, and it was all Ernie’s idea.” The bot did a tiny bob up and down that made its pistons whirr, which Hunter thought might be how it expressed amusement, and he laughed along with it. “That would be pretty funny, if it didn’t get all of us killed.”