The approach of the bones was slow and inevitable, they inched toward him like the tears that slowly rolling down his cheeks. When they got within a foot of Dorian, they started smoking and glowing red again, and he was slowly turned around so his back faced the bones. The bones smoke and the runes became bright like the sun - Dorian could feel the heat on his skin grow more powerful with every second.
“Noooooo, no, no, no” he frantically cried, his screams had never sounded so desperate, tears freely flowing like a river after rain. He couldn’t see them, but he knew the bones were inches from him, he felt the heat pouring off them. He screamed even louder, gagging on his choked sobs, the intense heat licking his back through his shirt before he felt it start to burn the cloth away. When they made contact Dorian didn’t feel anything at first; he heard a sizzle. He smelled a burning steak, and then it was cold for a moment, just one moment, before it hit him like a semitruck of magnificent heat and pure pain. The scream he let out earlier, which was a personal best, was shattered as the one he let out now made his throat bleed; it sounded like three people screaming at once. He felt the bones push into his skin like a blazing knife into butter before everything just shut off.
He woke up, screaming and flailing until he fell off of something and hit the floor which shut him up as he brought his hands to his temples. He cursed at his own foolish mistake and stood up; the phantom pain forgotten for a moment before he started twitching. “Just a dream?” he asked himself as he saw that the bed was back in the room and that’s what he fell off of. It was then he realized he was completely naked. His eyes went wide as saucers and he knew it had been no dream, he had gotten his Focus and, from what he remembered, it was one of the biggest he'd ever heard of.
He wondered how to use it before even wondering how to get some clothes, his priorities at the moment were a little skewed; if a bystander had been watching they would comment on how quickly he accepted the fact he'd just had a skeleton burned into him. He looked around for another table or anything really when he saw, not a hallway, but a door this time. He walked over to it and cracked it a little, looking into the room. It wasn’t the way out and he didn’t see anyone in there, so he didn’t feel too awkward walking in naked. When he was all the way into the room, the door closed like the first one had, slow and quiet. The room brightened into a sunny afternoon level and Dorian could now see the entirety of the vast room he found himself in.
The size of a non-focused football field paired with a high ceiling. There were tables on the sides with food, water, and clothes, a bed stood near it with what looked like a door to a bathroom on the other side of it. The far side of the giant room, in which he could now see had a line of mannequins, each one looked different, it seemed as if each was unique with a different equipment loadout. Heavy armor wearing tanks with an assortment of weapons, archers, some caster looking ones, light warriors. There were maybe a hundred of them and they intimidated the hell out of him. He could see a door on the other side of them but somehow, he knew they wouldn’t let him just pass by them. He walked toward the tables without taking his eyes off of the mannequins, with his current luck they would be some of those mannequins that move when your back is turned.
He got to the clothing table first and looked at it quickly before returning his gaze to the mannequins which had not moved an inch; he let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He pulled on some pants and a shirt, still glancing at the dummies slowly making his way to the food table. He felt like he was closing his eyes in the shower, and something was going to grab him whenever he blinked. The food was rations made to last, jerky, dried fruit, nuts, water, things like that.
He was starving, vomiting up his breakfast then sleeping really made him work up an appetite. He picked up some water and drank that first, not too fast but quick enough to clear half the bottle before stopping for air. He took a piece of jerky and ripped off a chunk, thinking as he chewed. He took a few cautious steps toward the dummies, as he did, one stepped forward and took up a guard stance, Dorian stepped back and so did the mannequin.
“Hmph?” He pursed his lips and repeated the movement; he glanced down and saw a black line that stretched the length of the room. He moved along the line and stepped forward, a corresponding mannequin copying his movement and preparing to fight. “Is this for training? Do I fight one of them… all of them?” he mulled over the possibilities mentally and then answering himself aloud. It was kind of like having two people there.
“Only one stepped up at a time so probably not all at once… does everyone get training like this?” he sat on the bed and thought, no longer concerned about them popping up in front of him when he changed his shirt or something. He sat there eating some almonds from the table, staring at the mannequins furtively. Blowing out a breath and putting hands to knees he stood up, “well, I guess I just have to figure it out by trying it. Like skipping the tutorial and banging your head against the wall trying to figure out how to play a new game”.
He chose a warrior in leather, one that didn’t look like he would crush Dorian with one swing or burn his hair off with a fireball, that would really stink... literally. He had an axe and mallet, and when Dorian got close, he saw the axe was blunted and padded along with the mallet. He was about to charge the mannequin when he realized he still had no idea how to actually use his Focus and powers, he stopped paying attention and turned to head back to the bed when something crashed into his back. Shocked and in pain he gasped as he flew forward onto his face and heard something clunk onto the ground behind him. The mannequin had thrown its mallet at Dorian, who, as he stood, noticed the line on the ground… he thought he knew what that line meant but he didn't realize that as soon as you passed that line, you’re fighting.
It seemed to slow down its charge as it drew closer to the prone boy. Dorian crawled backward away from it as it bent down and picked up its mallet, turned, and replaced itself in line. “If you get back over the line it leaves you alone.” Dorian murmured, mentally making a list of things he’d figured out, laying on the ground and breathing heavy. He stared up at the ceiling letting the adrenaline drain away. He stood up, his hand reaching for his back which still hurt and started to plan his next moves. Before anything though, he had to learn to use his power.
Some amount of time went by, having no clocks or windows made it pretty tough to tell what time it was, or if the sun was up; Dorian didn’t mind though, he was locked in. Laser focused on learning his powers, defining how he would use them, then he would practice, practice, practice. He didn’t know if you only had to beat one mannequin, but he decided he wanted to try and stay to defeat them all.
The use of his Focus was more intuitive than he’d thought, he didn’t know how others worked but all he did was imagine the barrier forming in a spot he could see and there it was. They were translucent, not invisible; if you were looking for them you could see them pretty easily, if you didn’t know what to look for, though, it might just look like an unfocused spot in your vision.
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He started forming different tactics and approaches to fights depending on his role, defense and support were no-brainers, there were almost too many possibilities for these two paths. But offense took a little more time. For offense he could place barriers in locations for “attacks”, but he didn’t really have anything seriously offensive yet and he couldn’t think of anything. The barriers could be summoned in squares, the largest he could form at the moment was a 6ftx6ft square which could be constructed with not a little bit of effort. He hadn’t tested their durability yet because he hadn’t actually fought a dummy since learning his power.
For support he developed a style that, if used correctly would cover all three aspects and then some. He started testing how quickly he could form and dissolve the barriers; little hand sized barriers could be formed almost instantly while the bigger ones could take seconds to build. He had thought of this particular style as soon as he’d felt the description of the bones. He flinched at the thought of the bones; the pain had been so immense he didn’t think he’d ever forget it. He couldn’t remember the pain itself just the memory of it, faint echoes of it that almost paralyzed just at the thought.
After another chunk of time spent planning and practicing, Dorian stood and dusted off his pants, “Oh… shoes…” he looked at the table and didn’t see any, he glanced at the mannequins and saw they all had boots. He grinned greedily at the thought of his first fight, first victory, and first pile of loot.
His new method of ‘fighting’ was way, way harder than he thought it would be. “Everything sounds easy in your head.” He groaned, wiping blood from his lip while he imagined the warrior’s weapons skillfully dodging his barriers and striking his flesh with powerful thuds from his blunted and padded weapons.
Dorian was trying to construct barriers in the trajectory of incoming attacks to block them while he moved freely, he could use this to protect allies from attacks, set up his own attacks; he could place them at opponents’ feet to trip them up or at eye level for them to run into it. There were hundreds, no, thousands of possibilities, but he wasn’t even close to being good enough to use this style effectively. After an uneasy first sleep, he kept thinking the mannequins would move toward him as he slept even though he knew they wouldn't. He woke up and stretched, wincing at the bruises the mannequins left all over him, his sore muscles, an odd ache in his bones which he attributed to the phantom pain he kept experiencing after the initial bonding process. Overall, though, he felt much better than he thought he would.
He had some water, dried fruit, and jerky for breakfast, throwing the occasional nut into the air and trying to dribble it on his barriers like a soccer player and a ball. He stared at the light warrior, it had to be him first, the dried blood on its weapons padding made it so.
The problem was that he put a barrier in the way of one weapon and the warrior would just use the other weapon. It sounded like a simple problem but placing two barriers in two different spots in front of moving targets was, well, complicated as hell. When Dorian started trying to add the second barrier the asshole just started changing trajectories mid swing, he didn’t think a human could do what it was without hurting themselves… or maybe a Focused could? Whatever the case, it was bullshit and it was pissing Dorian off more than he wanted to admit. He walked out again, calmly, used to this by now; his opponent was emotionless as always.
What had to have been days passed, the only thing Dorian had achieved was acquiring a record number of bruises and busted lips/noses/brows, he didn’t think anything was broken but everything hurt so bad he really had no idea. He didn’t know how he was actually still moving or how nothing was clearly broken. Due to his pain and injury he decided to stay in bed longer than usual, sleeping well into another day. When he awoke, he found that he felt noticeable better, again. Sore yes, but much better. He stood up and looked at the bed, under the pillow, lifting the sheets and mattress, then glancing under bed. "A-Ha!" The wooden frame had a soft pattern engraved into it, flowing like gentle waves rolling onto dry sand. Dorian assumed it was helping him recover at an advanced rate as he slept, there was no way he would be feeling this good otherwise. This room really was built for training, it had everything.
He gave little thought to how long he’d been there, after what felt like the first week everything blended together. In some of the video games and books he played/read there were little side dimensions where time moved slower than the real world, he imagined it was just like that. He ate another small breakfast while he lay in bed, strategizing. He wasn't sure if the healing would work if he wasn’t fully asleep, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. When he got up, Dorian stretched then crossed the line at a sprint, the light warrior charging right back at him in the inevitable robotic way Dorian had gotten used to seeing.
When Dorian was almost in the warrior’s range, he constructed two barriers like steps and ran up them flinging himself into the air. The faceless mannequin looked up without eyes and tried to jump backward only to stumble on a barrier at its feet. As it was falling backward it flicked its wrist and the axe flew up toward Dorian in a flash, a barrier appeared right in front of his left eye, so close to him that if he had been a second later the axe would’ve cracked him right in the eye socket. He didn’t flinch as it bounced off, his gaze locked onto his target, peripheral vision always alert waiting to show Dorian where his next barrier needed to go. Dorian made another barrier under the axe, catching it on the way down as he landed on top of the mannequin in a full mount.
He made two barriers simultaneously as the mannequin tried to retaliate again but they were formed right over its forearms, they were small, so all the dummy had to do was shift its arms an inch up or down and he’d be around them, but it was too late. The barrier that held the axe had disappeared as Dorian set himself, he caught it, and in one swift movement, brought it down on the dummy’s face over and over again until the cracked wooden head rolled away. The axe fell to the floor and a triumphant shout filled the room. Dorian was yelling with all of his soul, a liberating yell that screamed victory and freedom.
His smile was ludicrously huge, his lips cracked and bled slightly, but his manic greed for skill and power pushed every logical thing his mind tried to tell him away. His drive to get better oozed from him and he stared at each of the other mannequins in turn. He pulled the rugged leather boots off the defeated warrior, slipped them on and took a minute to feel how comfortable they actually were. He stood up with a content sigh and bent down to pick up the mallet, it would be much better for breaking these wood mannequins than a blunted axe. He walked back over to his living area and grabbed some jerky to eat as he walked to the bathroom. He had a small dinner, a quick sleep and then breakfast. He did his morning workout, a small routine he’d created to stretch out his sore muscles which had then turned into a morning ritual with more bodyweight workouts mixed in.
Pushups, squats, things of this nature before he spent the day fighting. He had lost all concept of time, not just because he didn’t have a way to tell the time, but because he was having so much fun. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun; it was how he felt when he gave his all in a sport and no one complained about it, he could be free to give it everything without feeling weird or being admonished for it.
If he lost, he could get right back up, over and over again until he inevitably won. He looked at the mannequins again, his smile widening psychotically far as he stared at all the variants he had to beat still, he didn’t even look at the exit. He couldn’t leave until he’d defeated them all. He locked onto his next target, an archer with a long bow as opposed to the one to its left with a short bow, “Only ninety-nine more.” He said to himself as he charged over the line, mallet in hand, manic smile still adorning his face. He was alive, free, and unbound; he was himself.