Isaac slowly releases his hands from his head and with his sleeve wipes the blood from his nose. Jack stumbles across to the side and sits on the curb holding his damaged arm up and scrunching his face in agonizing pain. Grace runs out of the car over to Jack.

“Jack! Jack! Are you okay?” Grace sobbed as she sat by Jacks side.

Grace looked at Jacks wounds. Large scratch marks had deeply opened Jacks skin exposing the flesh while blood ran down his shoulder and across his arm. The blood drenched Jacks clothes and continued to drip into the grass and the concrete curb.

“Jack needs help!” Grace screams as John and Jenny race over.

“We need to get him up and to a hospital.” John frantically says as he leans down and drapes Jacks good arm around him.

“Oh my!” Jenny mutters grabbing her face in shock after seeing Jacks wounds more clearly.

John lifts Jack to his feet. Jack shrieks in agony. John begins walking Jack to the jeep as a trail of blood leaves Jacks arm.

“Wait!” Isaac cried out while staring in the opposite direction.

“Hurry Isaac, we have to go.” John says as he continues to move Jack towards the jeep.

“No.” Isaac responds.

“I don’t get this at all yet, but something is happening.”

“What is happening Isaac?” Grace questions curiously with tears in her eyes.

Isaac appears to regain focus and turns around to look at John.

“I think I have magic. Some kind of leveling system like the online massively multiplayer games I play. I still don’t understand it. Just give me a few minutes. I am trying something”.

“That is what Jack said too. But he never mentioned it afterwards.” Grace says as Isaac once again lost focus.

Isaac stares blankly and then all of a sudden regains focus.

“Okay, so I think Jack and I have something called a Dust companion. It’s some kind of entity that gives us access to their power. My Dust companion made up his own name and called himself Masao.”

Isaac walks over to Jack and looks him up and down.

“The first skill we are given is something called Dust Vision. It allows us to see ‘The Hidden’. My guess is our Dust companions call these creatures The Hidden and they have the power to go invisible or camouflage. I don’t know why we get a Dust Companion from killing one of them yet or even if you get one 100% from killing one. But I am guessing our companions gave us this skill out of our need to see The Hidden.”

Isaac gently touches Jack who flinches in pain.

“Sorry Jack, I just need to try something. I don’t know what will happen.”

In Jacks head a female voice can be heard.

> [Party Member: Isaac Barron – New Skill Acquired: Gaia Heal Level 1]

Jack looked at Isaac’s hand as a green aura began to envelop it. Jack looked down at his wounds, the blood began to slowly stop dripping and instead started to reverse back up his arm and back into the cuts.

“Ouch!” John shrieked, accidentally letting go of Jack.

Isaac stopped. The blood once again began to flow out of Jacks wounds. Jack shriveled his face up in pain as he dropped to the ground.

“What happened?” Isaac questioned to John.

“I don’t know but my hand all of a sudden started hurting. Look at it.” John says as he raises his hand.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Isaac looks at Johns hand to see small cuts and bruising covering it.

“Interesting.” Isaac responds while gently grabbing John’s hand.

“Let me check something.” Isaac curiously says as he appears to lose focus again.

“Okay, damn. So… okay… we need to move him back to the grass or as close to plants and stuff as we possibly can. This is just a theory.” Isaac inquisitively says.

John lifts Jack up, and they move back to the curb. John sees a tree about two metres in height with the base cleanly manicured as it was managed by the government for the sidewalk. John moves Jack to the tree and sits him down so he can lean back against it. The blood still flowing begins to pool at Jacks feat in the grass.

Isaac kneels next to Jack and once again gently touches his injured arm. Isaac's hand again becomes shrouded in a pale green light. Jack realizes there was a small green tail of light coming from the glowing ball around Isaac's arm and licking the ground like electricity. The pain in Jacks arm stopped and the blood once again began to reverse slowly.

Jack looked down at the ground. The grass where the light was licking began to slowly die and shrivel. Isaac notices Jack looking at the dying grass.

“This skill takes the life of other living things to give life to the thing I am healing.” Isaac calmly says.

The grass continued to die, and the circle of its death became larger and larger until it touched the tree. The wound was still open and the blood in some areas was still flowing outward while the areas Isaac was focusing on was flowing in reverse. Isaac lost focus again. Jack noticing his eyes turning a slight purple.

“Fuck, it’s not strong enough and it’s sapping my Dust Output.” Isaac says while his eyes go back to normal.

Isaac looks at Jacks injury and reaches out his other hand.

“Let me try something.” Isaac says looking at Jack.

“Dust On!” Isaac shouts.

Isaac's body is suddenly enveloped in a green aura, a warm wind begins flowing away from Isaac and gently hitting Jack in the face lifting his brown hair. The tree began swaying away from Isaac as the aura around both of Isaac's hands grew.

Jack could feel a tingling sensation as the blood quickly began to reverse all over. Isaac's face grew more stern as if he was focusing. The open wounds started to dry and a clean layer of skin quickly grew out from the healthy skin and inwards to cover the wound. Suddenly, the aura around Isaac stopped. His face sweating profusely. Isaac then unfocused again, eyes turning purple.

“That’s it… That’s all the Dust Output I currently have. It acts like mana.” Isaac said as he slumped to the ground in exhaustion.

Isaac lies on his back panting next to Jack as the others from the group formed around the two.

“So, our Dust companions give us skill. They also give us something like mana or magic in computer games called Dust output. It appears that active skills like Gaia Heal drain this output.”

Isaac pants turning his face to Jack to see how he is doing. Jack gently touches his wounds which now appeared like tender scars. Jack flinches a little.

“How is it?” Jenny questions to Jack.

“Sore, but I think I will manage.” Jack responds.

“So, Isaac, how do you actively see the Dust stuff?” Jack inquires.

Isaac breaks out into laughter.

“You were never good at the massively multiplayer games I put you on were you?. Okay, so it’s a Dust companion that is giving you this power. You need to think about your Dust companion and you will see a heads up display of sorts appear before your eyes. I don’t know how effective that is in battle as the display kinda seems to block my view. What’s the name of your Dust companion?”

“Chicka.”

“Ah yes, I think that’s a Japanese name for great wisdom or something like that.”

Isaac turns to see Jack’s mocking face.

“What… I watch a lot of anime Jack. Sounds like now you should have to!” Isaac quips.

“What is anime?” John asks.

Jack looks to John.

“Japanese animation. Basically, cartoons but with Japanese subtitles.” Jack replies.

John looks to Jack in a sarcastic face like saying “ahh okay” with sarcasm and not actually saying the words.

“Hey, don’t diss it!” Isaac leered.

“Anyway, think of Chicka and see what happens.”

“Hey Chicka, you there?” Jack says to himself.

Jacks’ eyes turned purple and he could see his status bar appear in his mind.

Dust Power: NONE

DUST OUTPUT: 9/10

Skills:

Dust Vision Level 1

Gain the sight to see the hidden.

Curved Shotgun Shell Level 1

Imbue a single shotgun round with the ability to curve towards target. Consumes 1 output per round.

“Interesting.” Jack thought.

“Oh, little Jack your back. What’s so interesting huh?”

“That I randomly got that skill.”

“Why wouldn’t you have silly Jack? You willed it into existence.”

“How do we get more output or skills?”

“Simple little Jack. Fighting. But you are a little unique compared to your party member. In fact, I’ve never seen someone like you do that before…”

“Do what?”

“Not telling, I will eventually take your body you know? So go away and leave me alone!” Chicka says in a rude tone.

The heads-up display begins to fade. Jack turns to the group.

“I kind of get it. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of questions, but my Dust companion is kinda rude we can get them answered later. Let us get to that safe house!” Jack beckons to the group.

The group agree and continue picking up the remaining weapons and return to the jeep.