I spent the next five days training King. Shortly after the previous fight, his status went back to stable. He healed a lot faster than I did. That meant I needed to rely on him to take the heat of any monsters we come across. Every night I would work on various projects. At first, king kept his distance. Eventually, he started to sit at my feet. We would curl up together at night for warmth. It was comforting, and I started to like the small demon in a puppies body.

In those days, One eye had yet to show himself. But, we were attacked by several skelkies. The first king did a powered up tackle, which splintered its chest. After that it was too weak to fight back. The second fight was a bit more harrowing. King missed his first tackle, which left me to deal with it like I had one eye. These skelkies were not as skilled or as dangerous as my rival, but I still had to be careful. I kept it busy long enough for king to come back and do another empowered tackle, hitting it in the back of its head.

We were attacked by two skelkies in one day at some point. Each was accompanied by several others, who only watched the fights. My gut told me this was because I was near the skelky territory. I was worried that we would get ambushed, but always they attacked one at a time. King and I had gotten good at fighting them. After the initial shock of their appearance, they were only monkeys with armor. One day we found a skelky corpse that appeared to have been partially eaten by some other creature.

I also had King train on the rodents and birds. But these didn’t seem to be nearly as useful for training as the skelkies. Those were animals. They were not monsters. I didn’t know if that was the distinction or not. King also seemed to prefer skelky meat over actual animal. But, he would still eat almost anything. After those two days, the only stats that changed were power up, and savagery. I had King use pulse once, which increased it to 16%, but I couldn’t figure out what it did. Power up, savagery, and his hatchling status went to 39%, 55%, and 95% respectively. His attributes didn’t seem to increase any. I wondered if they would when his hatchling grew to 100%.

We also had a few encounters with the prinsaur. Every time, we heard it far before it showed itself. It also seemed slow, slower than it should be. So we could easily run every time. Fighting it would be suicidal, but King wanted to every time. Luckily, he was listening to me more and more.

One of my nightly projects was a new spear. I didn’t have a knife, so I used an old technique for making arrows. I burned one end of the staff-like stick, and rubbed it on a stone until it sharpened to a point. I repeated this several times, leaving a hardened, surprisingly sharp point. My father and I once went on a hunt with no tools or weapons, in order to teach me how to use the environment. I couldn't imagine at the time those skills actually would come in handy.

My food stock was also growing steadily. Most of what I caught was stripped and hung to dry over a low fire to make a basic trail ration. There was only one thing to take care of before going back out to explore. Over the last few days I was developing a plan. I gathered my things, and King and I went out for a hunt. This time, we were going to try to find One Eye.

I had found a clearing near the skelky territory that was perfect for my plan. It was where I would make my stand. When we were ready, I dug three holes, and placed in them a stick each. Atop each stick, I placed a skull of a skelky. Grim, I know, but I had to draw him out somehow. I wouldn’t be hunted by it after today, one way or another. I sat on a stone and put my spear on my lap. King huffed and sat at my feet. I reached down and gave him a scratch. He didn’t try to bite me. Yeah, I think we were finally ready.

Soon, I heard a shriek of a skelky. I immediately spotted it. It was hanging by two arms, from the canopy of branches. It was not one eye. I knew these things were clever, smart even. I had no idea how smart, but they could read body language. I shook my head. Then I placed one hand over my eye. The skelky shrieked again, then ran off into the canopy.

10 minutes passed. Then, movement. The shrieking started, coming from all directions, echoing through the trees. Skelkies dropped down like dark specters, moving to encircle me and King. My blood raced as I scanned for an escape, my fingers tightening around my makeshift spear. This was a bad idea—a very bad idea. My blood raced and I looked for a way out. They started to surround me, standing at the edge of the clearing. They shrieked at me and king. He was about to attack one.

“King! Down.” He growled, saliva dripping down his quivering jaw. I couldn’t let him attack recklessly. I had to think. My mind raced, looking for a gap. More and more of them appeared. Then, the canopy above me shook. Like something large was moving through it. Then, it dropped into the middle of a clearing. King had gone from a low growl to a pitiful whimper, crouching down as if he could sense the sheer power radiating from what was coming. He seemed torn between loyalty and instinct, and I knew I couldn’t count on him to win this fight alone.

It was a skelky, that was sure. But it was larger. Over four feet tall. Its arms, chest and leg muscles were well developed. It landed on one knee, breathing heavily. Almost excitedly. In its four arms, it wielded two spears. Slowly, its head rose. Its single, glowing eye seemed to emanate hatred. King stopped growling, and made a whimpering noise.

Holly fuck. This… this was One Eye. I stood my ground, too terrified to move. It… grew. That’s what happened. This must be what happens when out of its hatchling state. I was still taller than him, but it looked strong and confident. One eye’s one eye flicked to my spear. Then it looked at its own. Seemingly admiring them. He switched grip with his hand made sharpened stick, and threw it full force at a nearby skelky. The force shattered the stick and sent the young skelky tumbling out of view. Our audience went wild. Hollering and whooping. I was suddenly brought back to my home planet, watching wrestling matches and cheering on the combatants.

It suddenly clicked—this wasn’t just a fight. This was a duel. A ritual, maybe. These skelkies weren’t just animals; they were watching, cheering, waiting for a winner. And somehow, in their eyes, One Eye was their champion. The one who had grown stronger by fighting me. I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of my own mistakes. Had I created this? I also noted that One Eye gave up one of his weapons. I only had one spear. Now so did he. Was it a sense of honor? I knew ape societies from my planet could be more complex than other animals. Did the skelkies have a culture? A shared belief in single combat. Dozens of skelkies surrounded us. They could have attacked me in number at any time. But they always attacked one on… well, two.

A strange calm washed over me. I didn’t know if it was respect for the skelky, or the cold, creeping realization that I was outmatched. Maybe I was finally accepting that this planet—this hellish, twisted place—would be the end of me. If that was the case, then I’d at least face it standing. I took a look at One Eyed stats.

SKELKY

DESIGNATION: N/A

SOUL: Warrior

LEVEL: 1

HEALTH: Stable

ENERGY: 5

STATUS: Wild

SKILLS:

Challenge: 50%

Weapons: 75%

Spear: 34%

Trickery: 29%

Kinetic Shield: 5%

ATTRIBUTES:

Strength: 3

Agility: 3

Density: 2

Energy: 2

Utility: 4

ATTRIBUTES, DERIVED:

Speed: 4

Intelligence: 6

Toughness: 5

Reaction: 7

THIS WEAPON CANNOT BE BONDED IN CURRENT STATE. REDUCE STATUS TO LIFE THREATENED IN ORDER TO BOND THIS WEAPON.

“King,” I said, “Sick’em.” This snapped King out of his fear and he barked. He powered up as I rushed forward. One Eye Rushed to meet me. There was a familiar sound of rushing air from kings empowered tackle. He shot through the air with true aim. With a flash of blue sparks, One Eye smacked the flying pulse hound with a free hand. Just like when he ricocheted off the prinsaur, King bounced off the skelky. King slammed into the ground with a heartbreaking yelp of pain. “KING!” I yelled. The blow should have at least knocked the skelky back, even with the parry. All that happened was a slight unbalancing. Furious I stabbed with all my might. One Eye blocked the blow and deftly brought the but of the spear around to strike me in the ribs. I felt something snap and pain roared through me. Kings status was wounded. He began to stand back up as One Eye brought the other side of the spear in for another strike. This time I managed to block the blow. My arms vibrated from the hit. He was strong. Much stronger than me. Faster than me too. My only advantage was King, and he was useless without his power up.

The tip of One Eyes spear, my knife, snapped off from the blow. It wasn’t designed for such an attack. One Eye made a disappointed hiss. He turned his head to look for it, turning his blind eye towards me. I swung at his legs, sweeping them out from underneath him. His eye! I thought. That is his weakness. King immediately went for the downed skelky. His tiny jaws closed around One Eyes ankles uselessly. I didn’t hesitate, I stabbed down at him. He was too fast, he rolled out of the way and lept to his feet like an acrobat. King was flung to one side. Suddenly, I remembered our previous fight. True to form, One Eye then hurled a handful of mud at me. I blocked my eyes, but knew what to do. I ducked and jabbed my spear upwards. It connected. One Eye had tried the same trick on me twice. I had stabbed him in the stomach. Unfortunately, I didn’t pierce his armor. One Eye wasn’t actually any better at fighting, I realized. He was stronger, bigger. Maybe faster. But, his skill with the spear was equal to my own. That is to say, driven by pure instinct. Neither of us had formal training in combat. The force of the attack still staggered me back, and One Eye hit the ground with a pained screech. I caught my breath as my opponent stood. He clutched his stomach. The chitinous plates covering his abs were shattered. I suddenly felt confident. The audience exploded in shrieks and whoops.

King ran in front of me to protect me. I noticed he was limping. I leaned down. “Ok, buddy. Your power up should be back online. Your tackle isn’t the best move against him from a distance. Ill distract him, you try to hit him up close. Got it?” King barked. Good dog. One Eye and I squared off. We each got a good hit in. My ribs burned with pain, but I could ignore it for now. He seemed to recover and was waiting for me to make a move. I dashed at him, curving my charge to come at him on his good side. King, thankfully, charged the other side. I wasn’t actually sure if he knew what I wanted, or if it was a pack fighting instinct. Either way, it worked out in my favor. One Eye started his attack, just as we begin to surround him. “NOW!” I yelled.

One Eye, however, wasn’t attacking me. It felt like my heart stopped. The world seemed to slow. The Skelky feinted, swinging my direction, but twirling around with the speed of a blender to strike down King. Kings dome glowed yellow. He leaped a moment before the branch struck him. The world rained splinters and blood. The force of kings tackle hit the weapon head on. The branch exploded the same moment it stabbed him through the chest. I had only recently bonded with King. We were still strangers, really. But, the immediate sense of loss nearly broke me.

“King! No, no, no!” The exploding splinters distracted One Eye. I could feel several large splinters had pierced me. But I didn’t care. King had landed several yards away. I ran to him, dropped down to a knee. His status was near death. Relief and panic fought inside me. Something in the back of my head was screaming at me to focus on the fight. I told it to fuck off. My last ENMS was in my hands in a second. “Sorry buddy.” I said as I pulled the largest splinter from Kings chest. I’d brought him here, to this fight, to my battle. King didn’t ask for this. He was just a puppy, a creature bound to me by circumstances he couldn’t understand. My hand shook as I sprayed the last of the ENMS over his wound, silently begging him to hold on.

Pain exploded from my leg. I screamed and grasped my spear. One Eye had stomped on the back of my calf, cracking the bone. I rolled over, groaning in pain. King was still alive, but his breaths were short and fast. One Eye held his arms up in the air, walking in a slow circle. It was a show of victory. The other skelkies were wild. Their number had at least doubled. This was it. I didn’t even make it one month. I placed my hand affectionately on kings head.

“I’m really sorry, buddy. He’s going to kill me, King. But I don’t think he has a grudge against you.” I watched as One Eye picked up the discarded knife. “Thanks for looking out for me. I wish we could have become better friends.” One Eye stalked towards me. A look of victory on his face. The knife glinted in the light. What a show off. “Listen, King. You can use Power Up one more time. It should be ready. If you can hear me, I need you to use it to get out of here. You can live through this.”

King’s dome flashed yellow, and suddenly, a surge of raw, electric energy raced up my arm. It wasn’t just a glow—it was like liquid fire, coursing through my veins, lighting up every nerve. My muscles felt like they were on the verge of bursting. Somehow, touching the dome when King used power up transfered it to me. I gripped the spear, and with all the force in my body, threw it like a bolt from the heavens.

It shot through the air like a bullet. The spear slammed into One Eye’s stomach with a crack like thunder, blue sparks flaring as it punched through the last of his armor. His body lifted off the ground, suspended in the air, before crashing back against a tree. For a heartbeat, he hung there, pinned, his single eye wide with shock. The silence that followed was as just as intense as the roaring of the crowd a moment earlier. I… didn’t know I could do that.

I crawled to my feet. I knew deep down if I didn’t stand tall in my victory, the skelkies would tear me to shreds. I limped, my whole body screaming with every half step. Towards One Eye. His status: near death. I threw the spear from a low angle so I was able to slide One Eye off. He gurgled as I did. As I looked down at One Eye, bleeding and broken, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of respect. He was no mere beast—he was a warrior, a rival. I needed someone like him on my side if I was going to survive. “You fought well. You have my respect. If you’ll have me, I’d like to fight alongside you from now on. Not against you.” I put my hand on the plate. Vaguely, I was aware I wasn’t really giving him a choice.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BOND THIS WEAPON?

“Yes.”

BOND SUCCESSFUL.

I slowly turned and looked at each of the skelkies. I stood, fists raised, and roared. The skelkies stared in silence. Slowly, the nearest ones lowered their heads, then began to pound their fists rhythmically against the ground. A primal, guttural chant filled the clearing, reverberating through the earth. Moments later, the world was rumbling with their cheers. Amidst the roaring of the crowd, was a small “awoooo!”. It felt like my heart leaped out of my chest. King had managed to crawl to his feet, and joined the cheer. The sudden exhaustion that hit me was like nothing I’ve felt before. The relief, the adrenaline, the crash from Kings Power Up, my broken ribs and cracked leg. It all hit me at once. I fell to the ground, unconscious, and smiling.