The night air cut at Steven, and he hurried for the warmth of his car.

As soon as he got it running, he punched the heat to max, shivering as he did.

He pushed the things the System had said to the back of his mind for now. He didn’t have the time to go over them or panic.

He needed to focus before things really started spiraling. Alaskans were most likely going to hunker down as a whole, but that would change as time went on. And that was without factoring in what the System was going to throw at them.

Alright, Steven, plan your next steps. What are you going to do?

First things first, he needed to check on Margie, then came food and shelter. His dorm should serve him as well as anywhere. The only other option was…No, he would stay in his dorm.

Food might be an issue, he didn’t have anything like a stockpile, and while the System had said grocery stores would magically produce food after a week, he still had to survive a week. The first thing people were going to do was pick the shelves clean.

If he went now, he could get to a grocery store or at least a gas station before the rush. Of course, plenty of others would have the same idea, but he was already out driving around. He actually could beat the rush.

Okay, food, then Margie.

He still had her number; he should call her.

“Hey, Siri…” he paused, his mouth suddenly dry. He hadn’t had a real conversation with the woman in months. She had called to check in on him, but he’d been so numb that it was like watching someone else talk. He wouldn’t have that luxury this time.

He wouldn’t have any shields.

He swallowed and continued. “Call Margie.”

The phone rang, and his heart pounded. Three rings later and the call went through. “Steven!?”

“Hey, Margie,” he tried to sound casual and failed. “Are you safe? Anything weird around your house?”

She snorted, and he heard barking in the background. “Quiet Buford! Strange? You mean aside from the sky changing color and the voice in my head telling me we’re stuck and might get magic?”

“Yeah, anything strange aside from that?”

She chuckled. “No, dear, that was the strangest tonight’s gotten for me. Thought I was losing my mind. They do say it’s the first thing to go.”

Steven felt a wave of relief so strong it almost took the breath out of him. He hadn’t realized just how worried he’d been until he heard her voice.

Though her old, achingly familiar voice also brought back memories. Memories he wasn’t ready to face.

He shook his head and focused on the task at hand. “I’m coming over. You shouldn’t be alone with this going down.”

“I’m safe enough, honey, but your welcome to come stay-“

“No,” he cut in. “You're not safe on your own right now. There’s more than just lights and a voice making bad jokes.“

“Bad jokes?”

“Yeah, the jokes were- never mind, that’s not important. A moose that could shoot balls of blue energy out of its mouth almost killed me earlier. Who knows what else is out there.”

There was silence on the line for several seconds. “Hmm. My shotgun will still take care of that, but I see your point.”

Steven laughed. “Can you even shoot that thing and stay on your feet?”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I’m a great shot! I just need a convenient wall to brace myself with.”

He turned into a gas station with a convenience store attached and quickly got out.

“I’m heading into a gas station before they get cleaned out. What do you need more of?”

“I got plenty of food and toilet paper to last us the week, but make sure to grab a case of bottled water. I have some, but we need to plan ahead if the water gets cut. Aside from that, whatever you want. And some ice cream.”

“Are you still boring?”

She huffed. “Yes, I still like vanilla.”

Steven chuckled. “Got it. See you soon.”

“Be careful.”

“Of course.” He hung up.

He pushed open the door with a chime. Three other people were in the store, an older man with a heavy jacket, a short guy in his twenties, and the cashier—a heavyset woman with a tired smile.

Steven nodded to her and made his way to the bottled water. He should probably make two trips since he didn’t want to try and balance the water under one arm.

Bottled water, ice cream, snacks. Jerky would be best, long-lasting, and high in protein. Maybe- his train of thought paused as the doorbell chimed again.

He glanced over and saw a woman had walked in. Steven took one look at her and put down the case of water.

She stalked in, her grey hoodie torn and splattered with blood and chunks of raw meat. Her dark red hair was matted and clumped to the side of her head, wet with water…or more blood, making her gaunt features look downright ghoulish.

She turned to the cashier and raised a finger. “This is my store now.”

“Beg pardon?” The woman responded.

The red-haired woman snarled and took a threatening step forward. “This is my store now!”

The cashier stammered and repeated herself. “be-beg pardon?”

The other woman yelled and clutched at her head. “Stupid broken NPC dialogue! You can only repeat that one line!?”

She spun, looking about the store. An unnerving calm settled over her, like a line under tension, still for the moment but ready to explode.

“Oh, I get it. There’s other NPCs here. Must be screwing with the scenario. I got it. Just gotta remove the problems.”

Steven tensed. The woman was clearly unwell, but from the way she was speaking in game terms, not to mention the manic light in her eyes.

He swallowed. How did a player react to frustration in GTA or Skyrim after quick saving?

The old man walked towards the woman, his hands raised and voice steady. “Are you alright, ma’am?”

She smiled at him, the motion showing far too many teeth to be comforting. “Well, aren’t you polite? You may go.”

The old man studied her, then spoke slowly. “Is that what you want me to do?”

She cocked her head at him, the motion bird-like.

“Yes.”

He hesitated, then started walking towards the door.

He was treating her like a dangerous animal, and Steven felt like that was the right call.

The short guy stopped beside Steven and spoke up. “Who’s this bitch? You can’t just say you own a store now. That’s not how it works.”

The woman turned and considered him for a several long seconds.

Dark brown sparks of energy erupted around her fist.

Oh shit.

The old man stumbled back, then he and the cashier went for the door.

The woman charged, her lips pulled back into a snarl.

“The hell!” The short man choked out.

The two of them stumbled back as the woman swung. It was a wild, uncontrolled blow that didn’t come close to hitting them.

Instead, her crackling fist slammed into the shelf.

The area around her fist crumpled, then the energy pulsed and raced out into the shelf. The brown light constricted, and the entire thing crumpled exactly like the first section.

Enhanced force, and it duplicates the hit in a larger area. Steven realized. If that hits me…

“Holy shit!” The short man screamed, stumbling over his feet as he backpedaled.

“Run!” Steven snapped, then he reached out to the emerald box in the corner of his vision. He could feel something different about the box. It pulsed with a quiet energy as if waiting to be used.

The woman pulled her fist back from the wrecked shelf, eyes locked onto the fleeing man. She started after him, completely ignoring Steven.

Steven seized the box with his mind.

Then he summoned a shield.

Emerald green light materialized right in front of the woman's chest.

She had just started to run but hadn’t picked up much speed. So while she slammed into the small shield with a pained “Oof!” Steven didn’t think it did much damage.

She staggered back, rubbing at her sternum, then her eyes locked onto Steven with unnerving intensity.

“Oh, oh, you’re a Player! You want this store too, huh? Well I said I wanted it first!“

Steven palmed a heavier bag of candy without breaking eye contact. “This isn’t a game. This is real life.”

“Real life doesn’t have floating screens or superpowers, dumbass! Of course, this is a game. What else would it be?”

He wasn’t sure how to counter that. Steven didn’t think for a second that this was a game, but he couldn’t think of how to argue the point.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“We don’t have to fight. We can-” she cut Steven off with a laugh. “Of course, we have to fight! Think of the levels I could get from a Player!” And with that, she charged him.

The brown sparks raced along her fist as she slipped around his shield.

Steven panicked and started backpedaling. He had never been in a real fight before. He wasn’t trained for this!

She closed in, and he desperately threw up a second shield. Without breaking stride, she ducked under it and kept coming.

Steven threw himself to the side, narrowly dodging the punch.

Her fist slammed into the glass fridge door and punched clean through. The brown energy splashed out, infusing the glass. It pulsed and the glass flexed, then shattered, sparks of power blasting it back like shrapnel.

Holy shit, that Skill is ridiculous. What rarity is it? It has to be uncommon, at least!

Steven scrambled to his feet, his shoulder smarting from his dive.

Drawbacks, there had to be drawbacks to that Skill. Sure, but what are they? It's limited to her fist, that’s one. If she isn’t in punching range, it’s useless.

No, that wasn’t true. It splashed after she struck, extending her range.

Maybe it had a cooldown? His shields just took energy, but with how powerful her Skill was it would make sense if she couldn’t spam it.

Steven scanned the shelves for anything else he could throw. He was still palming the candy, but he would prefer something like a can of soda or one of the bulky energy drinks. Slight problem, though. She was standing between him and the drinks.

“Stop dodging! You have those little shield things, don’t you! Fight me instead of dodging like a bitch!”

Steven’s breath came in fast gasps. He needed to slow down before he hyperventilated.

He needed to get a grip.

Steven sucked in a slow, deep breath.

He’d been actively leaning into every emotion since the moose, desperate to avoid falling back into apathy. But he needed some of that now, not the indifference, but the calm.

It came easily to him, washing over his fear and his mounting panic.

Think, Steven. Use your head.

He had two shields and a 10-foot range; it was time to use that.

She charged him, energy dancing along her fingertips.

Steven dismissed his shields and then summoned them right in front of her. One hovered at eye level, the other at her ankles.

She ducked under the first, only to slam into the second with a yelp. She crashed to the ground and rolled. Steven took the chance to run past her towards the fridges.

She took a swipe at him, but it went wide.

He made it to the fridge and snatched one of those 24oz energy drinks.

She started climbing to her feet.

Range was his biggest advantage. He needed to keep abusing it.

“Well, at least you used a shield that time. Almost made me break my fucking ankle!” She spat.

Steven paused. Wait, he was an idiot! The first shield he’d made had been horizontal! He could have made one of those in front of her feet. The edge was far too thick to cut anything, but it had a much better chance of breaking something than the face of the shield did.

“I’m still down for talking this out,” he offered.

“Pound sand!”

Well, that was about what he’d expected. He decided to start counting the next time she used her Skill.

She pushed herself to her feet and rolled her ankle back and forth. “That hurt.”

Steven shrugged. “You're the one trying to kill me.”

She responded by pulling her arm back and driving a crackling punch into the tiles.

The splash reached Steven but didn’t cover his feet, sticking to the ground instead. Did the skill only affect one target at a time? Maybe he and the floor counted as separate?

Technical questions vanished as the power constricted and the tiles cracked beneath his feet. He stumbled, and the woman launched herself at him.

He dismissed and re-summoned his shields to slow her as he caught his balance.

She was done playing around, though, and more brown sparks erupted. Only, instead of framing her fist, these raced along her foot.

Oh, that’s bad!

She stomped, and the energy splashed out. But instead of constricting into the ground, it reversed, shoving back against her foot.

A second Skill!

She flew into the air, sailing right for him.

Steven was too shocked to react in time, only managing to stumble backward before she crashed into him.

He slammed to the ground with a blast of pain and a gasp as the wind was knocked out of him.

Only pure luck kept him from braining himself on the floor.

The woman kept at him with psychotic focus, raining down punch after punch as he gasped for air.

They weren’t infused with her Skill, it must’ve been on cooldown, but they still hurt like hell.

Still gasping for breath, Steven got his arms in front of his face before remembering he had superpowers.

He frantically dismissed them before calling his shields in front of his face.

The woman’s fist immediately bounced off a shield. She cursed and reeled back. Steven took the chance to try and buck her off him. Already off-balance, his thrashing was enough to topple her.

Steven finally sucked in a breath. Oh, sweet air!

He’d dropped the energy drink, but the candy was still clutched tightly in one hand. He partially sat up and hurled the bag at her face. The throw went wide. “Shit!”

“Did you just throw mike and Ike’s at me and miss?” She shook her fist out and winced. “Goddammit! I think I cracked a knuckle!”

Steven scrambled to think of a plan. He didn’t have a way to safely hurt her, especially not if he couldn’t aim for shit.

And getting close was suicide. She only needed one empowered punch to kill him. Hell, if she wasn’t fighting with nothing but pure aggression, he’d already be dead. He could already think of ways she could be abusing that Skill.

She’d turned glass into shrapnel with the fridge. She could easily have brought some stuff to use as makeshift grenades.

Wait, psychotic aggression…

She was treating this like a game and she was desperate for kills. Maybe if he gave her a little push, she would do something really stupid.

“Hey, lady, what’s your name?”

She climbed to her feet, still clutching her hand. “Reina, why?”

“You kinda suck, Reina. Your Skill seems pretty broken, too. Shame that the System gave it to such a dumbass.”

Her eye twitched.

He needed to bait her into wasting her Skill. She hadn’t used it on him while raining down punches for a solid ten seconds, so the cooldown had to be longer than that. If she used it and missed, he’d have a window.

Though the movement skill is probably on a separate cooldown.

He tried to sound as condescending as possible while giving her a slight smirk. “Maybe you need some tips on how to use your Skill? I’d be happy to help someone in need.”

“Motherfucker!” She screamed and threw herself at him.

This was as good a chance as he was likely to get.

Steven banished his shields and pulled his knees up to his chest. He materialized the shields under his feet then shoved off as hard as he could. He slid back along the tiles as Reina’s Skill enhanced punch slammed down where he had been.

As the energy started to constrict, Steven used his momentum to roll backward. He intended to roll to his feet, but middle school gymnastics was a long time ago, and all he managed was to get a knee under him.

It was enough, though, and he quickly scrambled to his feet. Before the floor even finished cracking, he snatched the energy drink from the floor.

He jogged a few steps back as Reina scrambled to her feet. He cocked back, then held for a second.

As soon as they locked eyes, he threw. The heavy can flew right over her head to scrape against the broken tiles.

Steven gave her his smarmiest smile and shoved his hands in his pockets. With a thought, he dismissed his shields.

“I considered hitting you with that, but you can’t seem to land your punches, so it felt unfair to hit you. Unsportsmanlike, even.”

She just used the punch, so it should be on cooldown. The smart thing for her to do is wait until it comes back up to charge me, but…

Reina let out a wordless scream, and power enveloped her foot. She stomped, the brown light surged, and she was flying right at him.

Except this time, Steven was ready.

As she soared towards him, flashes of brown light dancing along her body, he reached out to the Skill box, which was still pulsing with a quiet power, and called his shields.

It appeared right in front of her face. If she’d been on the ground, she’d have slowed down or tried to slip around. But in the air?

She had just enough time to widen her eyes before slamming into the shield head first.

She crashed to the ground with a thud.

Did I…did I just kill someone?

Panic started to rise up but he pushed it down. Not now, panic later!

Keeping the emotions at bay was easy, too easy.

Reina twitched slightly and groaned.

Steven jumped. She was alive!? She had smashed into his shield head first! She should have a broken neck or a cracked skull.

Brown light has been covering her body as she flew. Had the Skill protected her?

She hadn’t been hurt at all when she crashed into him either. What rarity were her Skills? And how had she gotten two?

Steven stared down at her, a mixture of fear, relief, and exhaustion washing through him.

It had been a long night.

While he was incredibly relieved that he hadn’t killed her, that left another problem.

What did he do with her now? He certainly wouldn’t kill her now that she was out, but he couldn’t leave her either. She was unhinged and was likely to kill the first person she came across if he let her go.

The police? No, 911 was probably getting a torrent of calls right now, and even if he did manage to get through. There was no way they’d have an officer to spare. And even if they did, how would they hold her? She’d have to be put in a straightjacket to keep her from wrecking the jail cell. And that was assuming she didn’t have other Skills.

Panic started threatening his calm once again, like a tide creeping over the shore.

He pushed it down. It was even easier this time.

He wouldn’t kill her while she was unconscious on the ground. That wasn’t who he was. But he couldn’t leave her. What did he do?

He licked his lips. …The System had said it was granting them things it wouldn’t typically, so maybe…

“System? Are you listening?”

“…You really don’t want to kill her, huh?”

Steven started. He hadn’t really believed the System would respond. It had been a desperate shot in the dark on his part.

There was something different in the Systems voice this time too. The mocking edge was gone, replaced with an emotion Steven couldn’t pin down.

“Well, I give every seed city this option, though it isn’t usually utilized until much later. Most take a while to realize they can try asking me for something. A prison of my own creation, it’s utterly impossible to escape from inside. And inmates will remain in it for the duration that the seed city’s dome stays up.”

The humor returned to his voice, and the System laughed. “Before you get any funny ideas, you can only send people there AFTER you’ve beaten them. And I’ll know if they're really beaten or not. This is simply an option that the less bloodthirsty can use, so they aren’t punished as much for their morality, not a cheat code.”

Steven felt anger boil inside of him at that last bit. “Why do you care about morals? How many people have already died because of what you're doing?” Lipping off to the thing that was effectively their new god was a terrible idea, but Steven didn’t care.

“107”

Steven paused. “What?”

“107 people died in the time it took me to integrate. More than that have died since, but those are because of their fellow man.”

Its voice stayed cheerful, positively brimming with humor as it told Steven the number.

“I give this nonlethal option to those who seek it. That’s all you need know for now. Use it if you want, or don’t. I don’t control people's morality. System out!”

The Systems nonchalance, its indifference to the suffering it had caused. Steven’s anger threatened to break his calm again, but he crushed the feeling.

He took a deep breath. No more looking a gift horse in the mouth. If he could stop Reina from hurting people without killing her, he would.

…How did this work?

He stared at Reina and thought hard about sending her to prison. He felt stupid doing it, but less so after words popped into his head.

Send ‘Reina Williams’ to the Systems Fun Camp For Losers?

Steven sighed at the name but nodded.

“Yes.”

A bolt of green light slammed onto Reina with a crack of thunder. Steven blinked from the sudden light and wiped at his eyes. When he looked back down, he was alone in the store.

*Ding! For defeating a foe several levels above you, you have gained bonus rewards!*

Ding! For being the first person to send someone to a System prison, you have gained a reward!

The words kept going, but Steven tuned them out for now. He just stared at the spot Reina had been.

“Man, I really hope I didn’t just send her to a concentration camp.”