Bright spotlights shone down from above as Chad stepped onto the stage. The stadium's audience roared, cheering in rabid anticipation for the next match.

He heard the well-dressed announcer call out his name, though it sounded more distant than usual. As though he were calling it out from a few blocks over rather than into the microphone in his hand. Shrugging the strangeness off, Chad approached the center table where his opponent waited.

Before him, Vladimir "The Leviathan" Romanov stood, a wall of bulging muscles and sinew. The man was larger than the last time they'd wrestled – much larger. In fact, the man stood easily three times as tall as Chad himself. He had to tilt his head to meet his stony glare. Black feathers seemed to grow from his back and shoulders, wreathing the hairy man in midnight plumage.

The table shook as The Leviathan's massive elbow landed on the pad. His hand stood open, palm open and expression serious. Chad looked at his own arm. It was large, sure, but not that large. In fact, it seemed far too small at this moment. But he had to do this. He had to defend his title. So he stepped forward and placed his elbow down.

"He moved! I think he's awake!"

"Chad? Can you hear me, friend?"

The indistinct cheers from the audience began to solidify into actual words. Chad ignored them. He had to focus. It was game time.

"Chad? Hey, Chad!"

The referee – a walrus-like man with a slight belly – brought the pair's hands together. Chad's was nearly engulfed by the sheer size of his opponent's.

"Chad! Wake up, you big lug!"

"Go away…" He muttered, his grip struggling to find an advantage. "Need to… focus…"

This crowd was really getting to him. Why were they so hard to ignore? Usually, he had no issues with keeping his head in the game. In fact, he was often the one doing the distracting. And this was set to be the biggest match of his life. It was no time to slack off.

Suddenly, the feathers exploded from Vladimir's shoulders and flew forward, buffeting his face. Chad batted them away in surprise, right arm still immobilized in the giant's grip. "What the…?"

"CHAD!"

Suddenly, Chad's eyes opened as he awoke with a start. The stadium spotlights resolved into bright lamps set into a hotel ceiling. The dark feathers lightened into grey ones that slapped at his cheeks. Vladimir's form disappeared, replaced with the concerned faces of Rick and the Nurse woman from earlier.

"Finally!" The grey feathers receded to reveal Squawkers standing on his chest. "I thought you'd never wake up, you lazy lug!"

"Huh?" Chad tried to sit up and look around. As soon as he did, fresh pain erupted all across his upper body.

He croaked out a cry as the Nurse put a hand on his chest. "Don't move. You're in bad shape, sir. Just take deep breaths."

He tried to follow the woman's advice, wincing as each inhale sent new stabs through his back, neck, and shoulder. Eventually, he settled on quicker, shallower breaths. "What… what happened?"

"You almost drowned, that's what!" Squawkers piped up.

"I... what?"

Rick nodded in confirmation. "It's true. After you killed the large Ghoulture, you fell face-first into its blood. If not for your parrot threatening us back upstairs to drag you out of it, you may have truly suffocated."

"I swear," the parrot shook its head in disapproval. "You can't just go and do something all awesome like that then die in such a lame way. Honestly! Who does that? It's even worse than getting crushed by the thing's corpse! Or some kinda spooky curse!"

The parrot continued ranting about how lame Chad's death would have been and how awful his plan was. As he did, the memories came flooding back. The Ghoulture, the ax throw, the final punch – he remembered everything.

Chad wet his lips and spoke again. His voice felt like sandpaper. "I thought I told you to get away with the others."

"Yeah, well, If you think you're getting rid of me that easily, you've got another thing coming." The bird looked away. "And good thing I didn't. I don't know how many times I've saved your ass now. You really owe me."

Chad simply stared at the bird for a moment. As much as Squawkers tried to hide behind his words, his actions spoke loud and clear.

We've known each other for… what, a day now? That's it. But still… he's really stuck his neck out for me.

It was even more touching when he considered that Squawkers could have just flown off at any point. He had wings, after all. And yet, he'd chosen to stick around whenever things went south.

"Thanks, Squawk." Chad gave a weak smile. "You're a good friend."

"Damn right I am." The grey parrot puffed out his chest. "And don't you forget it."

Before Chad could say anything further, he heard a woman's familiar voice from outside his vision. From her tone, it was safe to say she was fuming. "...Twenty whole rooms. Twenty! All of them, completely destroyed, and don't get me started on the damaged ones. I can't even use the top two floors like this. Who wants to walk out of their room and see a massive hole in the roof?!"

Is that… Donna?

Chad wanted to turn and look but thought better of it. Luckily, he didn't have to. Heels clicked against the lobby's tile floor as the muttering voice grew nearer. Sure enough, Donna's face entered his view. "He's awake? Good. Now all of you, get the hell out of my hotel."

***

Despite Donna's firey insistence that they leave immediately, it took a bit of time to get on the road - mostly because Rick and his friends were busy coordinating evacuations. Now that the Ghoultures were gone, the Milton Inn and Suites's occupants were finally free to leave the hotel behind. They bustled about in a flurry of activity, packing their things and gathering into groups while the more capable ones checked the vehicles outside. Fortunately, many were still usable, even if they were pretty damaged.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Chad listened to the bustle where he lay, only catching the occasional glimpse of activity as it entered his sight. Families dragged their overstuffed suitcases toward the front door or consoled children about the changes in their vacation plans. Hotel employees loaded up spare food, water, and other supplies onto cleaning carts. A man with a pistol directed people to one group or another as he double-checked for threats outside. All of it was done as quickly as they could manage, as Donna presided over things with a withering look.

As for Chad himself, the Nurse didn't lie. He truly was in bad shape. Even the painkillers the medic gave him only took the slightest edge off of what might have been the worst pain in his life. And to top it all off, he could barely move his arm. Attempting to even wiggle his fingers yielded nothing but a slight twitch. A twitch that was accompanied by fresh stabs of fire for his efforts, of course.

He was certain that he'd torn something, if not multiple somethings. His shoulder was also dislocated, for sure. But pushing his arm back into place was a tall task with all that muscle, especially since their first attempt nearly made him black out from the pain. After that failure, they'd agreed that maybe the Nurse's efforts were better spent repairing those tears. Something that she wasn't exactly equipped for, but she did what she could.

She continued to work on Chad as the others worked on the evacuation. He watched the hustle and bustle, letting his mind wander.

Actually… I turned notifications off during that last fight. I wonder how many levels I got?

With nothing better to do – and needing to focus on something other than how much he hurt – Chad opened his notifications. His vision instantly filled with a solid wall of text.

You have defeated a Ghoulture (Lvl 3)! +3 Exp.

You have defeated a Ghoulture (Lvl 5)! +10 Exp.

You have defeated a Ghoulture (Lvl 4)! +6 Exp.

On and on and on it went. Dozens of lines confirming Ghoulture kills kept on coming. There were so many of them that the text actually had to scroll across his vision to display everything. But that wasn't the most exciting thing. No, what really held his attention were the level notifications peppered throughout the repetitive wall.

Dang – I'm level 12 now? Chad whistled appreciatively. That's a lot of levels for a few minutes of work.

Of course, those few minutes of work had nearly killed him. But that didn't matter. What did matter was all of the gains he'd reaped. He'd shot up seven whole levels. Seven! The boost brought him up to level twelve and granted him a whopping twenty-one more stat points to play with.

Not only that, but he'd also collected a bevy of other goodies, too. Levels six and nine had each awarded him a new skill, meaning he'd soon have even more options to use during combat. His throwing proficiency had also leveled up to rank D, for whatever that was worth. At level ten though, something strange caught his eye. A new string of text he hadn't seen before.

You have reached a level threshold (Level 10). To progress further, you must meet the following conditions:

* Defeat an enemy at or above your level (Level 10).

All experience from this point onward will be banked until the threshold condition is met.

You have defeated a Ghoulture (Lvl 13)! +75 Exp.

Level 10 threshold requirement met!

Rewards:

+2 Skill Upgrades

+1 Trait Upgrade

Applying banked experience…

You have reached Level 11!

Rewards:

+3 Stat points

You have reached Level 12!

Rewards:

+3 Stat points

A threshold? In the middle of all the chaos, he'd completely missed out on the block of strange new text. But apparently, it didn't really matter. He'd unwittingly passed whatever conditions it set with flying colors.

As for the rewards, those would obviously need investigating - the Trait Upgrade in particular. Specialized Training says it's at rank one. That means there's probably a rank two, right? Chad couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. What is that gonna look like? Am I gonna be able to make my arm even beefier?

He tried to raise his arm to look at it. The slight motion was enough to send his entire body aflame with fresh aches. Chad groaned as stars flickered across his vision. Right. Shouldn't have done that.

The idea sent a thrill of excitement through him. Even in his current predicament, the idea of simply not beefing up his arm never crossed his mind. It was a given that he would. The real question was, how could he make sure it stayed in fighting shape?

He recalled how the pain in his shoulder and back had intensified every time he added strength points to his arm. If he did that now…

…Yeah, maybe I should wait on that for a little bit. It went against every instinct that he had, but Chad knew it was the right call. Maybe I can beef the ol' tournament winner up more once I get Annie to take a look at me. If she doesn't kill me first.

Still, that didn't mean he couldn't mess with his stats at all. He remembered how adding constitution had actually shrunk the limb somewhat and healed his injuries. So maybe...

He didn't want to waste any more than he had to. But if it would lessen the pain, then it might be worth it.

With a thought, Chad pulled up his stats and pulled up the Specialized Training Menu. The projected figure's right arm glowed red as he selected it and assigned one constitution. Just one, for now.

Right. Here goes nothing.

As he confirmed the selection, Chad focused on his arm to see if there was any difference. It was honestly hard to tell. The thing seemed to shrink a little, but with how monstrous it had become, that wasn't saying much. He did notice a slight dampening of the pain, though. As much as sprinkling a bit of water on an inferno might manage.

He gritted his teeth. Fine. I'll keep going, then.

It took three more points until the pain receded to a manageable level. By the time he was done, his arm had finally lost some of its cartoonish quality. Now, it almost looked like something an actual human being might have. Almost.

Poking the limb told a different story, though. His already dense muscles had condensed even further, to the point where they really did feel like steel.

Damn. Is this what Superman feels like?

Satisfied, Chad closed his menus. He'd accomplished his goal, even if his shoulder and back did ache mightily. Still, no need to spend any more points on constitution. He could handle this level of hurt.

A short while later, Jerry came to check up on him. The kid strode through the lobby with quick, graceful strides.

"Hey, Jer-bear!" Chad grinned as he approached.

Jerry winced. "Please don't call me that."

"Aw, come on. Don't tell me you hate nicknames too?"

"I don't hate nicknames. I just take particular issue with that one." Jerry let out a long sigh. "Anyway. I'm glad to see you're all right."

"Yeah, same here. You should've seen me a few minutes ago, though." Chad chuckled. "Where've you been, actually? I haven't seen you around at all."

"Ah. I was taking a nap in the ballroom up until just a short while ago. Percival told me about everything that happened above. It sounds like you had quite a close call."

"Damn, napping through something like that again? How the actual hell do you do that? Also," Chad frowned. "Who's Percival?"

"Percival? Your parrot?" Jerry cocked his head.

"Oh, Squawkers!" Chad laughed. "Sorry, didn't realize he was still trying to make that other dumb name stick."

"Ah. I see I'm not the only recipient of an unwanted nickname then," he responded dryly.

"What's that, Jer-bear?" Chad's grin widened at the younger man's look of resignation.

"Anyway, it looks like it's nearly time to head out. I've been sent to fetch you."

"Finally." Chad grinned. "Let's go home."