Del stared at the man holding a glowing black stone and considered that she might be insane, stupid.… Or both.

She should run. She knew she should run. This wasn’t her neighborhood. She didn’t know anyone here, and she didn’t owe them a thing.

All of that was true, but for some reason, she couldn’t make her feet move.

A simple step back, a quick turn, and she’d be out of here.

The words still hung in the corner of her vision, and she couldn’t ignore them.

“Lapis lazuli has begun an area claim.”

“You can fight them for the territory, you can flee, or you can give it over.” The System said in her typical bored tone.

Del swallowed.

The man with the black stone threw it through the window of a small two-story home, and black shards erupted, blasting apart the wall.

A woman screamed from inside, though it sounded like it was coming from a different room.

The man fished out another stone and tossed it in another window closer to where the screams had sounded.

Another blast, another set of screams. The man had missed whoever was inside twice and decided to give up. Shrugging, he turned and kept going down the road.

It’s not your problem. It’s not your problem.

De started to turn, then stopped.

Dammit.

She had discovered something about herself. Well, honestly, it was less of a discovery and more of a confirmation.

She didn’t like bullies. She didn’t like seeing people get pushed around. And she saw a lot of it traveling with Regan.

Del liked helping people, and in a self-serving way, it made her feel better about herself. She had the power to do something. She had the power, and even if she didn’t know these people, she wanted to help.

She firmed her resolve and studied the trio making the Claim.

One was a tall man with tan skin and short black hair. He wore loose clothes, and bits of debris swayed around him as if carried by an invisible breeze.

To his left was a stout woman with long blonde hair and a small creature on her shoulder. The thing looked like a flying squirrel mixed with a raccoon, and small bursts of fire and ice danced along its paws.

It was kind of cute, honestly.

And lastly, there was a guy with the stones. He had a real goth look going for him, with gaunt features marked with dark makeup and dark clothes.

A chain hung from one pocket, and his black jeans were, of course, torn at one knee.

Del took a deep breath. No one had challenged them yet, but that didn’t seem to matter. They were still breaking shit as they went.

They were around her age, and she’d seen their type. Casually disdainful expressions, only briefly lighting up as something broke.

Vultures, who saw the end as an opportunity to do what they wanted without pushback.

Her hands balled into fists.

The goth threw another stone at a mailbox. It detonated, erupting into a nest of black spikes that tore the metal apart.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out another stone.

If he has a stash of them, he probably can’t just pluck them out of thin air. He’s either infusing normal rocks or summoning them cost something.

The others hadn’t shown her anything useful yet, but she was taking out goth boy first.

Del readied herself, her eyes flicking to her new Skills. After two weeks, she still wasn’t totally used to the power they brought.

Her Augment from Bullwinkle was nothing fancy. It increased her Skill's effectiveness against cold. It didn’t affect her current build much, but it could be good someday.

It was the passive Skill she got that was the real treasure.

Depth of the Beast.

Epic

Effect: allows you to layer the same skill multiple times. Max layers on self: 4. Max layers on others: 2.

Cooldown: none

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Range: none

Energy cost: none

The power boost that Skill represented was insane, and it would only get better as her Skills grew.

The fight with Bullwinkle rocketed her past level 10 and all the way to level 12.

For passing the Threshold, her Skills each received a bonus charge, and after getting Depth of the Beast from Bullwinkle, one of her options stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Stack Me Up

Passive

Rare

Effect: if a Skill has multiple charges, increase those charges by one.

And her Threshold Trait, Longer On Me, made her Skills last longer on herself.

She had some more support-oriented options, but they already had Micheal filling the role of a hard support, and Steven was flexible. So she decided to pick choices that made her better at fighting while giving her a bit more flexibility as well.

When did ‘we’ become a thing?

Del wasn’t sure when she’d begun thinking of herself as part of the group, but some time over the last two weeks, her thinking had shifted.

The thought made her uneasy but now wasn’t the time to dwell.

The trio moved further into the neighborhood, wrecking shit as they went.

The tall man threw his hand out as they passed by a parked car, and the debris around him surged. Rocks and newspapers flew, soaring through the air as if thrown by a pitcher.

The windows shattered in a spray of glass as the rocks landed home. The car alarm sounded, screeching out into the afternoon air.

The woman swore, her voice barely audible over the alarm. “God dammit, Brenden, you couldn’t break something quieter!”

The man waved her off without speaking.

Del looked around as the trio started to argue.

A man was staring at her from a nearby house. Late thirties, early forties, with curly brown hair. A kid hovered next to him, their face drawn.

The man pointed at the trio, then her, then raised a brow.

Del shook her head. She was hiding behind a snowbank; why would she do that if she was with them?

The man nodded, then noticed the little girl behind him. He shooed her to get back.

Del frowned. There was a decent chance none of the people in this neighborhood had a Class. If all you’d done was stick near your house and keep your head down, you weren’t getting a Class.

No one was quite sure what made the System decide to give a Class yet, other than that danger was involved.

Del rolled her shoulder, checked her shoelaces, then rose from the snowbank.

The trio was still arguing and going by their pantomimes; the goth would blow the car up to try and shut it up.

The car was a blessing, it stole all their attention, and the blaring alarm masked her footsteps as she broke into a run, her feet carrying her along the graveled ice with ease.

She clenched her fist, layering all four charges of her strength buff on each other and two of the durability.

White light blazed to life, sinking into her skin with a blast of power. Her strength more than doubled, and she had to try not to jump with every step.

She’d planned on taking the goth out first, but he’d shifted to the front of the group, putting the other two in her way.

Ah, well.

Blonde with the Pokémon or wind boy.

She was almost on them. She had to decide now.

The goth threw a rock into the car just as she reached the trio.

Two cracks sounded out, one from the car and one from the impact of her fist against wind boy’s head.

She hadn’t applied her debuff, but she had underestimated her strength. Something cracked, and it wasn’t her fist.

The man collapsed in a heap, and the others screamed.

Send to the System’s Camp!

The man vanished in a blast of light.

So not dead then, ‘just’ a fractured skull.

The now duo was slow to react, but the woman’s pet wasn’t.

A wall of flame sprung up, and Del hurled herself to the side. With the strength of four stacks running through her, the jump took her 10 feet to the right. She hit the ground and rolled.

“You bitch! You sucker-punching bitch!” The goth screeched.

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

Del firmed her jaw. She had no issue sending them to the System Camp, but they had thrown fucking explosives into a home. They had aimed for the screams.

Del had a little more than twenty-thirty seconds left on her buffs. She couldn’t afford to be gentle, and she was fine with that.

Del ignored their taunts and questions, pushing off with her back foot and racing for the goth.

His eyes grew wide as she closed in. He stumbled back, scrambling in his pocket for a stone.

He pulled out a rock and threw.

Del jumped, the force of it hurling her past the rock. She heard it break behind her, and something brushed her leg, but then she was landing, and all her focus shifted to the man in front of her.

Del punched. He tried to block, but he was too slow. Her fist slammed into his ribs, and the goth went down. She pulled the punch slightly, but she still felt bones give.

Pain seared into her shoulder. She screamed and spun, fire covering her sight.

The pain was unreal, but she had been around more fire than this.

She threw her arm out blindly and hit something solid.

10 seconds left.

Cursing, Del layered her remaining durability charges onto herself as she backed away.

But before she could decide what to do, the flames dropped. The woman lay on the ice, a bruise already forming on her cheek.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” The System drawled. “That went much better than I expected.”

A moment later, just how much pain she was in registered, and Del started to swear.

The System laughed.