Silence reigned as the two creatures sized each other up. The woods themselves seemed to hold their breath, pausing in their constant motion to see how this would end.

At the edge of a particularly thick copse of trees, a highly evolved pursuit predator stood. He was stock still, rooted to the ground like a tree himself, shock plastered across his face. His right hand rested on the back of the tree next to him, his left raised in a warding gesture. His center of balance was low, and his breath sat still and heavy like stone in his chest. He felt no fear, only shock and awe at the beast before him. The creature looked both perfectly alien and completely natural.

At the edge of the clearing 30 feet ahead, a former prey animal contemplated. It also felt no fear, but two sets of instincts were at war within its chest. One, low and hot, screamed at its tense muscles to turn and run away. These were prey instincts, ones that had been present all its short life. Another set, high and clear, almost artificial, tightened its muscles further and insidiously coaxed the creature to charge, gore, kill and eat. These were predator’s instincts. The deer’s body crouched low to the ground, watching, waiting for either something to change, or for one set of instincts to win out.

Sarah took a picture. The scene was a rather dramatic tableau, and she would need pictures like these in the future.

A second passed, then two as both system touched creatures continued to stare. Then, as the deer recognized the body language of the bipedal predator as nonthreatening, its prey instincts relaxed. It raised its forehead level with the biped’s waist and let out a long, low breath.

Chris was shocked out of his reverie as the maybe deer charged him in a storm of hooves and fur and horns. He ducked behind the tree to his right just as the deer would have hit him, and while the creature struggled to reorient in the thick copse of trees, he managed to get his knife out of his pocket, open it and settle into a fighters crouch.

The two squared off, and the deer raised up on its hind legs, swinging its front two hooves down towards his chest like hammers from god. Chris caught all the blows on his raised left arm. He deflected most of them, but a few hit his arm full force. Fortunately, the deer couldn’t have weighed more than 80 pounds, and he could take the hits, barely. For every swing the deer took, he replied with one of his own, driving his knife up and around the flailing hooves to stab into its chest. After eight swings and eight stabs, the two combatants separated, and squared off again.

The scene had an eerie similarity to how this whole confrontation had begun, and both combatants had the same emotions playing through their minds.

The pursuit predator was again in shock, both at how strong this baby deer was, and the fact that baby prey animals don’t normally charge people. His left arm radiated the dull ache that he recognized as endorphins numbing the pain of severe bruising. His breath came heavy in his chest, as he tried to force himself into the correct breathing patterns.

The deer was again in conflict. The predators instincts still urged it to kill and eat, but they were tempered by the prey instincts, still low and hotter than before, screaming at it to run. Lines of fire crisscrossed its chest, the oldest going numb as a flood of sickening, wet heat soaked its fur. Both sets of instincts started to slow, its thoughts trickling like sap, but not before the prey instincts began to win out.

Sarah once again took a picture.

The stare broke as the deer turned and bolted as fast as it could through the clearing and into the brush beyond.

Chris slowly stood up straight and caught his breath as he looked at the blood on his knife. It was a dark, dark red, almost black. He then wiped it on a nearby leaf, put it away and leaned up against the tree that had given him time to react. He absentmindedly patted it as thoughts raced through his head and a few things clicked into place.

“You knew that would happen, didn’t you?”

Chris, I was not…

“Stop. You only use that much emotional inflection when you’re trying to convince me of something. Just stop”.

…Yes, there was a strong possibility that a confrontation would occur.

“How strong? Give me the percentage” Chris said, acid in his voice, tiredness in his bones as he came down from the adrenaline high.

94.53%.

“Of course.” Chris’s eyes swept the woods around him as the noise of the forest swelled. The confrontation was over, and the chittering small animals and buzzing insects were resuming their daily routines. “That… deer was yours. You did the same thing to it that you did to me”.

Not exactly the same thing, but similar. Most creatures don’t have the cognitive…

“Why?” Chris spat.

I told you, the system is designed to bring humanity up to par with the other sentient races of the galaxy. If you wish to speed the development of a species, it is not enough to add power, you must also introduce…

“Competition.”

****

Chris trudged through the woods back to his car. It had been 15 minutes since the fight, and his arm was already starting to bruise. However, the bruise seemed to be advancing oddly, a spattering of dark red blotches across his arm, almost as if the blood was being reabsorbed into his system as soon as it leaked. It didn’t do anything for the pain, though, and his arm radiated it from the bone out, splitting his focus and giving him a blinding headache.

He certainly didn’t view Sarah as an ally anymore, but she still seemed perfectly willing to answer his questions and debate with him, and he was planning on getting as much information out of her as possible.

What would be the point? Do you think your government would take a different approach if they knew that the rash of powerful, mutated animals were due to an alien system? What additional steps would they take, other than to lock you in a research facility?

But damn if she didn’t make good points.

“I’m still going to tell people about you. I don’t care if they think I’m crazy, if I demonstrate powers, they’ll have to believe me and take steps.”

You wouldn’t be saving lives. Again, the measures the average citizen could take would be no different knowing whether I exist or not. As we speak, humanity is having their first contact with system integrated creatures.

“People are dying. I hate that that doesn’t bother you”.

Different value systems, Chris. People die every day due to inefficient distribution of resources in your world and for the most part, no one lifts a finger. Did you know that half of all food produced in your country never gets consumed? At least these lives mean something. They will spur your progress.

Chris scowled in distaste. Sarah would never understand the immutable value of a life. He continued crashing through the woods, but stopped dead when a sentence slotted into his mind.

System Integrated Creature Eliminated: Adolescent Deer

1 reward point allocated

That is why I pushed you towards that confrontation, Chris. Every time a system integrated creature kills another, they will be assigned reward points according to the strength of the creature.

“So what are you hoping here? What’s your goal? Do you want me to get addicted to the reward points, and start hunting? Killing other system integrated people for points?”

Is that not how your video games are played?

“I’m not a killer”.

But there are people that are.

Oh god, she was right. In every video game, there are PvPers, people who fight and kill other players for experience, and to take their stuff. In the real world, there are people who kill for money and power. Imagine how many people would for superpowers, for immortality.

Chris set his jaw and trudged forward. “Then I’ll just have to get strong enough to stop it.”

Sarah said nothing in response to that, but she was glad that everything had fallen into place as planned.

See, every good story needs heroes as much as villains to drive the plot along. One of the heroes had just been set, and he was shaping up to be an excellent one. If only every character was as easy.