Aw-k, for being a magical assistant, had not just a little sass, on her side, and was enjoying being the “tutorial” a little too much, for her own good.

-Alright then, explanations on the awakening interface: every single action could influence your skills and transform into a menu of some sort, like creating a new spell or receiving a new quest, plus everything you do is going to give you experience, master, piling it up until you will be able to level up.

He knew that was true, because even using his “Intimidating Croak” on Samson, technically having brought his defeat, had popped up a screen with a large number of experience.

-Let's start by opening your skill list, master: say, or think, “skill list” out loud now.

She continued

-Skill list?

He repeated a little uncertain.

A piece of parchment in the same colors of Aw-k's popped up near the little fem-cat face, with the title “Skills” right on the top, and a list, with small icons near them.

-Very well, let's start filtering the page by selecting the “Passive” voice, shall we?

A silver arrow was blinking near the word passive on the top left; under it, were voices such as “Active”, “Defense”, “Attack”, “Healing”, “Elemental” and “Mana”.

As the Rokian pressed his finger on the button, only five skills were left on the page:

“Adaptation”, “Rokian scaly toughness”, “Natural Singer”, “Regeneration” and “Primal Blood”.

-All of these skills are always active, some of them could be deactivated, as you will gain them in the future, but not these. “Natural singer”, in example, is a skill that you created at birth allowing you to learn and release the “Intimidating Croak” before, and will let you master all kind of battle chanting you will ever need; not all people have it.

On the other hand, something like your “Regeneration” is a skill that allows you to naturally regenerate wounds, fractures, even re-spawn whole body parts if needed, that comes from being a Rokian. The first thing to check, is if the human “Pope” has something of the sort.

-R... right. How do I do that?

-Well master, for starters, you should invite the young man to your party, which is a fancy way to say you would share your Awakening Meta-Enchantment with him.

Now, he seems to be shamefully unconscious at the moment, so you will have to accept the party invitation using his hand. In order to invite him, you need to know his exact name: do you?

The Rokian shook his head in denial.

-We are in luck, in your Aw-k system you have unlocked an active skill called “Identify”, which will reveal it to you, together with many other data and facts on its target. Please master, say the word identify while pointing at the man.

The Rokian's head was spinning wildly in the attempt to follow and understand all that he was learning. With the biggest smile ever on his face, the Rokian did as asked.

Near his skill window, another appeared, not as shiny or pretty, but stating what he needed to know. Clearly it was bearing Pope's Meta-Enchantment.

“Name: Tommy Renee Pope.”

-Tommy Renee Pope, now that is a fancy name if I've ever seen one. Alright, let's create a party. Master: you need saying “Party Create” followed by the name of the party.

-Alright, “Party Create”... Aaargh! I don't have a name for it.

-The party “Aaargh!” has been successfully created.

-Really?

He asked with a hint of sadness

-Afraid so, master. But back onto the task at hand, “Invite” Mr. Pope, will you?

-Right: “Invite” Tommy Renee Pope.

As he did say the words, in front of Pope's face a pop-up black page with silver, refined characters appeared, with the options “Accept” and “Refuse”. As previously instructed, the Rokian picked up the unconscious man's hand and, with a little effort, dragged his finger on the first button.

When he did that, another window appeared in front of the Rokian with some of the party options, followed by the little, crooked, mellow face of Tommy's pale and sickly, yellow-green interface helper.

At the same time, Madame Boule was still watching, not losing a second of it, with increasing interest, while biting her lower lip a little.

-Master, this troglodyte interface appears to be Master Pope's Meta-Enchantment System.

Aw-k looked to be in a disgusted and shocked status.

-Is something the matter, Aw-k?

-As a representative of the magical A.I.s I can't but be ashamed. Whoever designed that thing had no love for whatever he or she was doing. I am afraid there would be no helping Master Pope, until that “individual” is in control of his System.

-Is there a way to...?

-Simply put, yes, we can erase the silly piece of fecal engineering by just letting my Meta-Enchantment take over! Overwrite the entire thing for good, if you will.

-Mmm, why is his Meta-Enchantment so bad? How is it different from you?

She sounded even more outraged after the comparison

-Well, it doesn't update for starters, it doesn't interface with the commanding user, and it is faulty and buggy. For what Master Pope is concerned, he might even have forgotten he had one entirely. That thing, to say it mildly, is a mutilated, cheap, aberration!

The anger in Aw-k's voice was reflected by her reddening color too: she wanted nothing more than forgetting the other “thing” even existed.

-I see... how do we overwrite it then?

-Just two simple clicks away from righteousness: in the option panel that has popped-up for your “Party System” window, switch from shared control to leader. Worry not, Master Pope will be able to revert to that disaster later, should he so desire... even though, I wouldn't...

-Noted, and switched.

-Be gone, heathen.

Aw-K said slowly, with her most glacial tone yet, glaring at the crooked pale monster. The sickly thing coughed and then just popped like a soap bubble, slowly taken over by the other, more sophisticated system.

-It is done! We shall now proceed with the analysis. Try and Inspect him again.

The Rokian did just as suggested, only to find out this time the panel was different, in the same shapes and fabric of his Aw-k, but in a lush deep green color with scarlet letters and with way more details, on four pages: “Skills”, “Equipment”, “Social” and “Stats”. On the social page was even a detailed Biography of the poor man, but the Rokian refrained from reading it for respect of the other's already tarnished privacy.

A gust of wind finally spurred to life, passing between the crests on his head, but he didn't feel a thing, so much he was focused on the unrealistic and yet amazing thing that was happening. Going through Tommy Pope's Skills, he found very little active ones, with names that made him think of commerce, like “Haggle” so he went for the passives like he had done before with his own. The list was still long, but reading through all of them, he found two skills that made him wish well: “Sunflower: Health regenerates faster while exposed to the light of day” and “Bad Weed: through being exposed to excessive and repetitive traumas your body got used to regenerating faster and with less scarring.”

Heavens only knew what kind of pain that kid had gone through, but there was hope. Actually, given the presence of not only one but two regenerative skills, he thought he had to move fast, or the man's body could have healed in some weird way.

-How do we... help him now?

-Master, his neck appears to be swollen and battered: given my knowledge of human physiology I can safely assume he has slivers of bone stuck in his tissues. The safest way to make this mess right would be collecting them all, if possible, and maybe putting it all back together.

-Alright, how?

-Well, you need to cut open the back of his neck and grab the shards, but it should be done into some kind of safe environment, aseptic, possibly. A dirty lawn seems hardly the best choice. And you need to disinfect the part too, before and after it all. Without talking about stitching... acting recklessly would make him more harm than good, I am afraid.

-Then I can't do anything for him? He saved me... I can't let him be like this.

All the Rokian was left with was a saddened heart and a very stinging headache.

He put his hand on Tommy's chest: he could feel his heart beating, his breath, regular yet still a little bit shallow. He really was as useless as a newborn, he thought to himself.

-Feeling useless?

The voice he recognized was that of Madame Boule: she had come back! He nodded without turning to look at her, secretly resenting her for those words and reading him so easily.

-You know, I was a drill sergeant in another life, so to say, I have thought many things to many men and women. You are a first, in more than one way: you are a talking, thinking, magical Rokian...

He had been found out and felt a knot in his throat, making it hard to breath, as soon as he came back to his senses from the shock, he tried his best to look bewildered and dumb, shaking his head in denial.

-I saw you: you do have magic. The question is why do you think you have to hide it from me?

He thought about his answer well, before formulating a sentence and he decided to go with what he thought being the truth.

-I don't know you, plus I have been “alive” for not even three days and you already said I'm not normal. Call it trust issues.

-I see, help me bring him inside into my operating room and I'll let you help me with fixing him.

The woman was clearly observing the Rokian like he was something really precious, for some reason; it was apparent she wanted him to trust her and the little creature knew it. She was strong, extremely strong, sure she didn't need him to carry the feather weight Pope was: damn, even he didn't need her to carry the thin man. Still she wanted to involve him into healing what she thought being someone of importance to him so that he could feel indebted to her, at the very least.

He really didn't know her and he didn't want to judge her for something she was not, but how could someone who was a skilled healer and had an operating room in her private residence, be classified as a bad person?

He decided to follow her.