I’ll Level Up So My Friends Don’t Die

I could hear them groaning behind me — Rael gasping through grit teeth, Naevia barely conscious, her breaths thin and sharp. They weren't getting up anytime soon.

That left me.

I stood between them and the thing that wanted us dead.

The creature was massive. At least twice my size. Its skin wasn't skin — it was armor, plated and dark, covered in faint, pulsing lines like veins full of molten metal. It moved with weight, but not like a beast. There was calculation in its steps, in the way it shifted its stance, tilted its head. This thing was thinking.

My blade was gone. It had snapped when I buried it into the thing's side — not deep enough. Just enough to piss it off.

I backed up a step, chest heaving, hands shaking from pain and cold. One eye was swollen shut. Blood dripped from somewhere near my scalp, hot and sticky. I tasted iron.

The thing snarled, low and guttural, then charged.

I dove sideways — not graceful, just fast enough. Rolled hard. Came up near a half-crushed pipe jutting from the floor.

Grabbed it.

Didn't think.

Just swung.

The metal cracked across its jaw. It staggered — just slightly — and I used the opening to slam the pipe against the back of its knee. It hissed and kicked out. I flew backward, crashed into a wall. Something in my shoulder popped. Fire tore down my arm.

I screamed. Then bit down on it. Screaming didn't help. Moving did.

Scrambling, half-blind, I grabbed a coil of sparking wire from the ground and flung it at the monster's face. It sizzled, snapped against its armor — useless. But it blinked.

That was enough.

I launched forward with a bent rebar I didn't remember picking up. Drove it toward the soft joint beneath its arm — but the thing turned, caught my wrist.

Pain flared. Its grip crushed like a vice.

No way out.

Its other hand reared back, claws gleaming. It was going to gut me.

I spat blood into its face.

It growled, raised its arm.

And I thought: This is it.

Not smart. Not clean. Not some final strategy.

Just fists. Blood. Heat.

I didn't feel heroic. I felt angry. Angry at the system. At the monster. At myself.

At Eli.

Eli, who I couldn't save.

Eli, whose voice I heard in my head now — a whisper: "Move, Lucan."

And I did.

Even before the claw came down.

Even before I saw the flash of warning in its eyes.

Even before I could think.

I moved.

The pipe bent in my grip. My palms were slick with blood — mine. It was hard to tell how much was left. Every breath scraped against something broken in my side, but I didn't stop. I couldn't.

The monster lunged. I ducked under its swing, rolled across the ground and came up near a bundle of wiring torn from the wall. My hand shot out. I grabbed it without thinking. The thing turned — too fast — claws slashing toward my face.

I flung the wires. They slapped across its snout and sparked violently.

The creature shrieked, head jerking back.

Blinded — not for long.

I was already moving. Slid behind it, kicked at the back of its knee. It dropped slightly. I looped the wires around its elbow, twice, then yanked hard — using its own weight to wrench its arm tight against the corner of a support beam. Metal groaned. The monster roared.

It yanked free — and in the process, dragged me with it.

My shoulder snapped again. The same one. Pain exploded behind my eyes.

I screamed. Didn't care. There was no one left to impress.

I caught my balance, barely, and swung the pipe like a club — struck it in the jaw again, then the side of the head, then the joint where the shoulder met the neck. Sparks flew as the pipe sheared across armor.

It clawed back — caught me in the ribs.

I felt them break.

Fell to my knees.

Couldn't breathe.

But I got up.

One step. Then another.

The lights above flickered, smoke thick in the air now. Steam hissed from a nearby vent. The whole room felt like it was closing in, warping, pulsing to the beat of my racing heart.

I saw Eli again — just for a blink — lying in that alley. Blood down his face. The look in his eyes. Why didn't you save me, Lucan?

"I tried," I breathed, dragging the pipe behind me like a crutch. "I tried."

The monster charged.

I didn't dodge.

I slammed a steel panel down from the wall, sparks flying as it hit the exposed power lines beneath. I timed it — barely — so the flash went off as it lunged.

It screamed again, blinded for real this time.

I drove the pipe into its leg, braced it with my foot, and shoved. It stumbled. I leapt onto its back, raining blows down on its head, neck, spine — wherever there was flesh beneath the armor.

My body wasn't mine anymore. Just a weapon.

I was the pipe. The wire. The fury.

"I can't stop," I muttered. "I can't fall. Not again."

Its tail whipped and slammed me into the wall.

The last thing I saw before my vision blacked at the edges was the thing turning toward my friends.

No. Not again. Not this time.

The monster pinned me against the floor. One massive claw clamped down on my chest, crushing the air from my lungs. My ribs screamed. My body was jelly beneath it — nothing left to fight with.

The other claw rose slowly, deliberately.

It wasn't a wild strike. It was surgical. It knew exactly where to cut, where to end me.

I tried to move, to roll, to scream — but nothing obeyed.

The air vibrated around me.

And then I heard it.

A whisper. Distant. Distorted.

"Move, Lucan."

Eli's voice.

I blinked. The world stuttered. My HUD, glitching all fight — flickering, blanking out, rebooting — suddenly went clear. Crystal sharp. A tone chimed in my ears.

 LEVEL UPNew Trait Unlocked – Instinct Surge"Under critical stress, subconscious reflexes override conscious control. Movements accelerate beyond normal processing."Sync Rate: 61%

I didn't understand it. Didn't need to.

Because in the next second, before the claw came down —

I moved.

Not from thought. Not from instinct. Something deeper.

My body twisted sideways, slipping under the weight of the monster's arm. The claw grazed the floor, throwing sparks where it missed.

I was already rolling. Up on my knees. Up on my feet. My left hand grabbed a shard of metal I hadn't even seen a second ago.

The monster turned — too slow.

My body jerked backward just as its tail sliced past my ribs. I didn't see the attack. I felt it coming — like a thread in the air pulled tight before it snapped.

The shard in my hand flew. It pierced the creature's eye.

It shrieked, stumbling back, one hand over its face.

I didn't pause. I was on it again, slamming my elbow into its side, sweeping its legs. It fell, but barely — claws raked across my arm as it went down.

Blood poured. It didn't matter.

Every part of me was alive. Not from adrenaline — something else.

It lunged blindly. I stepped around the attack like I'd practiced it a thousand times.

My limbs weren't reacting. They were leading. I wasn't driving the fight — I was the weapon someone else had already fired.

I ducked, pivoted, slammed a pipe into its mouth mid-roar. Then struck again — ribs, neck, temple.

It tried to flee. I was faster.

The beast backed into a corner, confused. Wounded. Dying.

It raised a claw again — desperate now.

I let it swing.

Then sidestepped and drove a rebar into its shoulder joint. Deep.

It screamed and staggered, the fight draining from its limbs.

It didn't understand what had changed.

Neither did I.

But I could feel it:

I wasn't just fighting anymore.

I was becoming.

My lungs burned, every breath scraping against something torn inside me. My arms were trembling under their own weight, blood dripping down to my fingertips. The trait—Instinct Surge—was still active, but I could feel it draining me, like something underneath my skin was unraveling faster than I could hold it together.

The monster bled from the eye, shoulder, and side where I'd struck it, thick black ichor pouring out in steaming globs. But it wasn't slowing down. It circled again, wounded but determined, relentless as ever.

And I had nothing left.

I lifted the pipe one last time, but my hands didn't respond fast enough. The creature closed the gap in an instant, slapped the weapon away, and slammed its claws across my chest. I dropped to my knees, breath knocked out of me, my vision swimming. I tried to rise, to move, to fight — but my body refused.

It raised its claws for the finishing blow.

Then the world lit up red.

A pulse of searing energy exploded against the monster's side, staggering it mid-strike. Molten fragments of armor sprayed across the floor as the blast knocked it back. Smoke flooded the room.

I turned my head, barely able to lift it, and saw the source.

Rael was still standing — somehow — propped against the far wall, his arm extended, the tips of his fingers glowing faintly. His chest heaved with shallow breaths, and his eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion, but locked on me.

"Move, Lucan," he said.