System Reboot

Chapter Five: Thirty Seconds

"Down!"

Dax didn't wait to see if Wren listened. He grabbed her shoulder and shoved, hard, sending her sideways into Priya just as the thing came off the ramp.

It moved wrong. Four legs, too many joints in each one, skin stretched tight and gray like something left too long underwater. No eyes that Dax could find, just a wide mouth lined in teeth that didn't match each other, some too long, some barely there. A Tier 2 capped spawn, according to Cutter. It didn't look capped. It looked like it wanted to prove the number wrong.

It hit Dax before he finished raising his arms.

The impact folded him backward into the concrete wall, air punched clean out of his chest, teeth finding his shoulder before he got a hand between himself and the mouth. Pain arrived a half second late, sharp and total, the kind that made the whole world narrow down to one point of contact.

His HUD lit up fast.

[Damage Taken: 47]

[Attrition Tank Effect Triggered]

[+3 STR / +2 CON]

[Buffer Threshold Reached — Retaliation Window Open]

He didn't think about the notification. His body already knew what to do with it, muscle suddenly heavier with new weight, the ache in his shoulder dulling just enough to work with. He drove his free hand up into the thing's jaw and shoved, hard enough to buy himself half a second.

Half a second was enough.

"Cutter!" Priya shouted, dragging Wren further back. "You said Tier 2!"

"It is Tier 2!" Cutter called from the top of the ramp, not moving to help, arms crossed like he was watching a show he'd already seen the ending of. "Capped spawn just means the level's capped. Doesn't mean it fights nice."

"That's a hell of a distinction to leave out!"

"Didn't think I needed to explain that monsters bite. Figured that part was obvious."

Dax didn't have the breath to argue the point himself. The creature reset, snapping again, and this time he let it hit him.

It wasn't strategy so much as math he trusted more than his own reflexes. Attrition Tank didn't reward dodging. It rewarded surviving contact and coming out the other side heavier, tougher, harder to put down. Every hit he took now was a hit that made the next one easier to take. Everyone else on the Grid thought that made him reckless.

It made him exactly what the fight needed.

The jaws closed on his forearm this time, and he felt something crack, distant and strange, wrapped in a numbness that hadn't been there a minute ago.

[Damage Taken: 61]

[Attrition Tank Effect Triggered]

[+4 STR / +3 CON]

[Retaliation Window: ACTIVE]

He swung his free fist into the side of its skull, and for the first time the creature actually staggered, one of its too-many legs buckling under it.

"Now!" Dax shouted. "Priya, get her closer, not further! Trigger window opens when she's in range, not hiding behind a car!"

"That's insane—"

"It's the job! Do it!"

Priya swore, loud and creative, and shoved Wren forward instead of back, staying close enough to grab her if things went wrong. Wren stumbled into range with the crowbar raised, face pale but steady, exactly the way Dax had trained her.

The creature's head swung toward the new target the instant it sensed her, some instinct in it recognizing weaker prey the way predators always did, System-born or not.

"Wren, left leg, joint's soft there, hit it!"

She swung without hesitating, crowbar connecting with a wet crack, and the creature shrieked, high and awful, staggering sideways into the wall.

Dax's HUD flickered again, faster this time, a second notification stacking on top of the first.

[Trigger Condition Detected — Nearby Unranked Combatant]

[Threshold: 60% — Rising]

"It's working," Priya breathed. "Wren, keep pressure on it, don't let it reset—"

The creature reared back, gathering itself for something bigger, muscles bunching along its too-long spine, and Dax recognized the tell from a dozen worse fights than this one.

"It's about to charge full weight," he said. "Everybody down, now—"

He didn't finish the sentence before it launched.

He threw himself in front of Wren without deciding to, old instinct doing the work faster than thought, and took the full weight of the charge across his chest and shoulder, the impact driving him off his feet entirely, concrete meeting his back hard enough to steal the air from his lungs a second time.

[Damage Taken: 89]

[CRITICAL THRESHOLD REACHED]

[Attrition Tank Core Effect: Second Wind]

[+8 STR / +6 CON / +4 END]

[Buffer Fully Restored]

Something changed in his chest, sharp and electric, pain burning off into something closer to clarity. He'd never taken a hit that big before. The System apparently had opinions about what came next.

He surged up off the concrete faster than his body should've allowed, grabbed the creature by whatever passed for its throat, and slammed it down hard enough to crack the floor beneath it.

It didn't get back up.

[Spawn Eliminated]

[Trigger Window: 30 Seconds Remaining]

Silence rushed in where the fight had been, broken only by Dax's own ragged breathing and Wren staring down at her hands, at the crowbar still clutched in white knuckles, waiting for something to happen that hadn't happened yet.

"Ten seconds," Priya said quietly, watching Wren's blank HUD the way everyone watched a countdown they couldn't control. "Come on. Come on."

Wren's breath caught. Her eyes went wide, fixed on something none of the rest of them could see.

"Something's happening," she whispered.

The air around her seemed to bend, just slightly, light catching strange along her outline, and from the top of the ramp Cutter's easy grin finally slipped into something closer to real attention.

"Well," he said softly. "Wasn't expecting that particular notification."

Wren's knees buckled, and Dax caught her before she hit the ground, her whole body gone rigid, eyes rolled back, the trigger event finally, finally arriving three seconds before the window would have closed for good.