“And they even saw it coming!” Colonel Dillo said as he slapped his knee. “What do you think, Major? Should I help them out a little?” No one answered since the Major had stepped out to use the restroom. Something about those boys from test room two escaping must have excited his bladder with how quickly he left. “Oh, you think so?” Dillo said to the seat as if Caps were still there, “well, aren’t you a big softy. I guess I can help them a little.” Dillo reached his awareness beyond the back of his mind for his Halo. He struggled to get hold of it, missing a few times before feeling his mind connect to that filtered infinity of Artideus. That always felt extra funny when he was drunk. Not that he was drunk, goodness, there was important work to be done! But he was still just tipsy enough to feel the difference between most of his mind and the part that was clear as day. He pulled an app from that feeling of clear sunshine into his wavy vision. The kids were showing far too much promise to not let them fully experience their Halos! Plus, he needed them to get moving. There wasn’t going to be as much time to play around with them as he’d hoped. He pressed at the app icon with a mental finger, and on his second attempt--which wasn’t too bad--he got it. A sensation of relief washed over him. Like the feeling of releasing some weights. [Major Halo Suppression Barrier] Released. “And there we go!” Dillo sipped his drink. Huh, was that water? Bleh, was he subconsciously trying to stop the fun? The door to the room slid open and Major Caps walked inside. He looked even more stiff than usual. The Colonel spun a full 360 degrees in his chair to show his excitement at tattletale's return. “Welcome back! Feeling any lighter?” The Major didn’t look at Dillo. His attention was on the screens. “Yes,” said the Major curtly. “Great! Me too, actually,” with a grunt, Dillo stood up from his chair. “But I still need to use the restroom myself. Must have been all that water.” Before leaving the room, Dillo pulled another app into sight and opened it. A small window appeared in the corner of his vision to show the front lawn of his estate. He swiped at the window with his mind to toggle between viewpoints of his home from all angles and entry points. All clear, for now. He wondered how long he had to prepare his proposal. *** Even Jace was about to give up on moving the key. With both Satch and him lifting it still wouldn’t budge. Was it there to destroy their will? To give them a clear path to escape but make it impossible to access? Jace fell on his butt again. He rolled onto his feet and kicked his ball hard enough to send it bouncing all around the room. What could they do now? “Whoa! What’s that!” Satch said as he pointed at Jace’s head. “What’s what?” Jace looked behind him. “Behind your head! It's moving with you!” Jace spun in a quick circle and planted his feet like he was ready for a fight. But there was nothing. “What are you talking about--” A ring of golden light formed behind Satch’s head. Jace pointed at it. “Behind you too.” “Really?!” Satch jumped forward, spinning to land on his back to catch the newcomer red-handed. It didn’t work. The ring moved in sync with his head. What the… Jace stepped up to Satch. “Where is it?! Is it on me?!” “Still in the same place. Hold still.” Jace reached out to touch the golden light behind Satch. His fingers went right through it. He didn’t feel it all. Odd. “Do you see what I see?” Jace said, “there’s a ring of light behind your head.” “Yeah, that’s what’s behind you too.” Little streams of light swung into view from Jace’s peripheral vision, drawing out a sequence of words. Jace was about to read them when a soft voice in his head did so for him. System Artideus-- Online. . . Halo activated. First Name: Jace Lineage Name: [Null] Class: [record unavailable] Halo Rank: Bronze Halo Typing: None Processing Apps. . . Processing Abilities. . . Processing Stats. . . “Uh, are you seeing this, Satch?” “If you're talking about a bunch of words that don’t make any sense, then yeah.” Jace could feel something happening in the back of his mind like a door had opened that he hadn’t known was there. Nothing came in through that door, but it felt as though he could reach through it, into a deep space beyond his own mind. But just as he tried to, the opening shut. More words appeared. Downloading Apps. . . Loading Apps. . . Inner Window App. Complete. Outfitting App. Complete. Caster App. Complete. “What is it talking about?” Satch said, meekly, “where is this voice coming from?” Loading Abilities. . . Lineage Ability: None. Passive Ability: Unformed. Personal Ability: Unformed. Loading Stats. . . Opening Inner Window App. The words were replaced by an image of a human-shaped silhouette with a square window at its center. The icon hung in the center of Jace’s vision for a moment before expanding to fill it entirely. Light bent and shifted, forming into shapes and numbers, most of which made no sense. HP: 18/20 Stamina: 27/30 Artima: 9/10 Overall Level: 13 Physical Level: 8 Mental Level: 4 Spiritual Level: 1 Halo Slots remaining: 5 Casting: 0 [stage 1] Enhancing: 0 [stage 1] Altering: 0 [stage 1] Then, almost as quickly as the array of numbers and shapes had formed, they vanished. The two boys waited in silence for a while, unsure if the strange experience had ended. “What was all that about?” Jace muttered. They waited a bit longer, but still, nothing happened. “So, what was your physical level?” Jace asked. “Uh, I think it said nine.” Jace felt a tinge of irritation. “Well, what was your mental level?” “Wait, tell me your physical level, first.” “It was the same as yours.” “Really? Do you think all our stats could have been the same? My mental one was three.” “Hah, mine was five. I guess I am smarter.” “What? No way! How do I get those numbers back? I need to check again.” Jace leaned back, face relaxed and smug. “It’s okay Satch, look on the bright side. Ignorance is bliss. Just lean into your lack of intelligence and maybe you won’t be so scared all the time.” “Shut up. Three isn't far from five, ya know.” Jace chuckled as he stepped over the key again. He couldn’t think of why the sudden strange series of sensations would have changed anything related to the key, but he figured it was worth a shot. He knelt down and lifted, but nothing changed. The key still wouldn’t budge. “Trying that again?” said Satch, “I’m pretty sure you're lying about your mental level.” Jace shrugged. “It was worth a shot. And you can believe whatever makes you feel better.” Without a plan of escape or an explanation for the new rings of light hovering behind their heads, boredom returned. Jace decided to retrieve his ball. The moment Satch heard the first bounce, he sprung into action to wrestle the ball away. Jace had to admit, while it sucked being stuck back in their room, it was fun playing keep-away from Satch. Every time Jace bounced the ball, Satch darted around trying to catch it. Eventually though, Jace wanted to see just how close he could bounce the ball to Satch without him catching it. That was a bad idea. Jace bounced the ball in the corner of the room to make it shoot back at Satch. He was aiming for the back of his head, using the ring of light as a target. But apparently, Satch remembered when he was hit in the back of the knee with that move. He spun around and snatched the ball out of the air. Then he placed it on the ground… and stomped it. The ball popped and flattened under his foot. “Hah!” “Satch, what the hell?!” Jace felt a wave of anger swell from his chest up to his head, like a speedy simmer on its way to boiling. He suddenly found himself wanting to share the pain. How would Satch like having his head popped under Jace’s foot! “Don’t look at me like that,” Satch said, “you knew I wanted the bouncing to stop. I’ve been saying so forever.” Jace walked up to Satch. The two were the same height but Jace felt taller. He could have taken revenge right there. A feint with his left fist would bait Satch into a counter by reflex, causing him to put his weight into his right leg. Then Jace would kick out his knee to put him on the ground. There he’d place his heel right on his—he looked at Satch’s bruised eye. The fantasizing came to a screeching halt. If he hit him would he feel the same pain as before? That tough-to-explain ache in his chest… The heat he felt rising in his head began to cool, the simmer stilling. Jace should have known what would happen if Satch got the ball. Of course he would destroy it. He wouldn’t just hold onto it and incite a wrestling match. If Jace would have stayed true to the game and focused on keeping the ball away from Satch then he’d still have it. “Whatever,” Jace said as he turned away. He grabbed a chair and spun it around to rest his arms over the backrest when he sat. He stared at the immovable key. Just like there was no point in trying to lift that thing, there was no point in attacking Satch over his lost ball. Making his fingers ache wasn’t putting the key in the lock, and stomping on Satch’s head wouldn’t bring his ball back either. The ball was just a distraction anyway. It wasn’t really helping himself think. What he really wanted was to get back into the hall. To get to that staircase and meet those other guys. The door was interesting too. There were so many things right outside that he wanted to check out if he could just get past the wall of chains. He started tapping his fingers. Satch leaned on the wall by a painting and slumped, staring at the floor. Without having a ball to bounce Jace tried to keep track of time with the taps of his finger but his mind drifted off somewhere around six hundred as he stared at the key. What if the key didn’t even open the lock? Why did he even assume it would? At this point, it could have just been something to keep them occupied. That would be infuriating. Jace imagined himself training in the forsaken room for years until he finally gained the strength to lift the key. But when he tried to fit it in the lock it didn’t even fit. So much time gone to waste! Jace’s fantasy blurred with reality, and as he imagined throwing the key at the wall, he actually threw his chair at it. It hit close enough to Satch that he yelped in shock. Satch looked at the dent in the wall where the chair leg hit. “that could’ve killed me!” “Stop being dramatic.” “No way!” Satch pointed at the dent in the wall. “That could have been my head!” Jace huffed but walked over to the wall anyway. Sure enough, there was a dent in it the size of Jace’s thumb. The edge of the chair leg was no joke apparently. He studied it, just rods of metal holding up a flat surface. Wait. He had just damaged the wall with that. Jace picked up the chair excitedly and swung it against the wall. He felt the vibration of the impact shoot through his arms. Satch jumped away. Jace dropped the chair and inspected his work, shaking out the tingling from his hands. It was smaller than the first one, but there was definitely another dent inches from the first. “That’s it.” Jace scooped the chair back up and started hammering it against the wall. “Screw that key!” He slammed the chair into the wall so hard that the chair burst apart, sending pieces flying at Satch, who swatted them away like a frightened cat. Jace hardly noticed. He was on his knees inspecting where he’d hit. It was the original spot, but now it was a wider dent with a web of cracks. The wall could be broken. He looked at the scattered pieces of the chair. It was never the ideal tool to deal damage. A chair was used to sit on… What was the tool to break through things? Jace picked up one of the chair legs, now just a bent metal rod. He swung that at the wall. But it didn’t do much damage. Hmm… He needed the weight of the chair. More weight put behind an impact equals more damage. Like when he threw his whole body into a kick instead of just thrusting his leg. He held up the rod in front of his face. But the way the weight of the chair was distributed wasn’t very efficient. It was much more awkward to swing than just the leg alone. He needed the weight of the chair, but he needed all of that weight as condensed as possible. As he thought about it, he started to imagine a dense block of mass at the tip of the rod. That was the word! Hammer, he needed a hammer! He imagined its exact shape, how the weight would feel, the sensation of swinging it, the cracking of the wall at its strike. “Uh Jace, something’s happening to that, um, ring thing.”

Opening Casting App...

Running [Creation Function]

Jace felt it, like a door opening at the back of his mind to fill a dark room with a marvelous light. It was as if all that he was imagining before was a crude pencil sketch done by candlelight. Now, his design was under a spotlight and he had more tools to create with than he could ever dream of. Specks of light began to coalesce at the end of the rod. Jace saw what the shape could be and then he willed it to be. What he imagined had literally become a translucent mold that he was filling with the light pouring out of his mind. A blue bar appeared in the corner of his vision that started depleting rapidly. His grip tightened on the rod as its weight started to build. A glowing block was forming at its end. He felt the pull on his biceps and shoulders. Once there was a solid cube, he quickly stretched the imagined mold at one of its sides. It was as if he were pinching and pulling it with a phantom limb, letting the light fill the new space created. Once it formed into the tip he wanted, it was perfect. The blue bar ran out. Artima Depleted. The door at the back of his mind shut, and the glowing formation went dull. Jace had his forearms braced on his hips, shifting his weight to hold his creation upright. He stared in disbelief. His creation? The rod he was holding was now an obsidian hammer with a wicked spike at one end. Jace looked at slack-jawed Satch then back at his imaginary-item-turned-real. He let the hammer end drop to the floor and felt a solid thump through his feet. Satch must have too. “So um,” Satch pointed at the spike hammer, “that’s real?” With two hands and a grunt, Jace lifted it and dropped it again. It hit the floor with a tremor. He could see it, feel it, and hear it… “real enough,” he said, “but what really matters is--” Can it do what I want it to do? Jace would have had a hard time picking the hammer back up and then trying to swing it. So he decided on spinning it off the ground like a fan blade. He pulled and spun with all his might until, and on the fourth rotation, he slammed the spiked end of the hammer into the wall. The crunch echoed as it tore through thick plastic. Jace felt excitement tingle across his body like lightning. He yanked on the hammer that was now lodged in the wall. It took a few tugs before it pulled free with more satisfying cracking sounds. It left a hole the size of his fist. The hole didn’t go all the way through to the other side, but that was only the first hit. Jace lifted his new pride and joy, one hand under the hammerhead and the other at the end of the rod. He pointed a toothed grin at Satch, “it seems real enough to me.”