Lucian woke up to the gentle tune of the Program's alarm. The sound wasn't strictly necessary. After all, the Program could have just woken him up by manipulating his biological functions. Still, it was a nice and comforting gesture to wake up to.
Opening his eyes, he was greeted to the sight of old wood beams overhead. Some of them were broken, and most had been overgrown with vines. On his chest was an unfamiliar weight—Nics had crawled on top of him during the night and sprawled over. Somehow, their blanket hadn't been kicked away or otherwise removed the entire time.
Lucian bit back a chuckle at the sight. Nics' hair was a veritable mess, and he had drooled all over Lucian's shirt as well. Lifting a hand, he planted it on Nics' head to massage his scalp and fix his hair.
"Wake up, bub. Come on. It's morning," he said.
Nics groaned, pulling in his limbs. His hands clutched at Lucian's shirt, and his legs soon kicked out to stretch, yanking the blanket with them. With a yawn that sounded more like a prolonged squeak, he rolled off Lucian's body and back onto the vine-woven sheets, taking what was left of the blanket with him.
"Wha' time is it...?" He asked with a small, sleepy voice.
Lucian peeked at the holographic clock in the corner of his vision. "A little past five in the morning," he replied. "I'll go fix us some breakfast. Gotta leave for work soon."
"M'kay..." Nics drawled, still sleepy.
Giving him one last scritch on the scalp, Lucian stood and packed up what he needed for the day. On his trip down the tower's winding stairs, carrying both his supplies and something to cook, a tiny black shape followed just behind him.
"Morning to you too, Belle," he greeted.
The kitten's response was a tiny "Mew!" Her little paws pitter-pattered across the steps at a volume that only Lucian could hear. Soon enough, they were in the chapel proper, where Waylon was just rousing awake himself.
"Mornin', big guy," said Lucian, loud enough to carry through the space, but understated enough to avoid startling anyone.
Waylon's response was a grunt that sounded like a stack of bricks had just fallen over. "I guess you're leaving me and Nics here for the day?" He asked.
Lucian approached the rock stove that Waylon had built at some point in the night as he replied. "Should be back before dinner... I gotta meet with a friend after work."
"This gonna be a regular thing?" Waylon followed up.
Lucian shrugged. "Yeah, kinda... at least, until I find a way to get money without being away most hours."
Waylon snorted at his words and said, "Eh, don't worry about us. Nics might miss you a lot the first few weeks, but we're not a couple of kids that you need to keep an eye on all the time."
Blinking, Lucian set down a cheap pot on the now-lit stove, filling it with water. "I mean, I can see that with you, but... Nics?"
A grimace asserted itself on Waylon's face. "Yeah... well, technically some people might call us both kids. I don't really know about you, but I just turned nineteen... Nics is seventeen, but that'll change in a few months."
Lucian frowned. 'That's a really bad case of malnutrition,' he thought.
Even if he was borderline superhuman, the disparity between his health and that of Nics was a deeply concerning thing. There was the gap in their ages, but it was a small one. He was definitely not that small and frail when he was seventeen. There was a chance that genetics could have had a hand in Nics' condition... but terrible malnourishment was the most obvious cause.
In that case, Waylon was lucky—his skin condition must have had some sort of positive side effect for him to gain so much mass without consequence besides the obvious.
"Food must've been a real issue, huh?" Lucian commented.
Waylon nodded without a word, staring down at the pot as it filled with raw noodles.
Dropping seasoning into the heating mixture, Lucian pulled out some plastic bowls from the same bag that the food came from. "Well... that won't be such a problem anymore. Just keep an eye on the place and clean it up, and I'll do right by you."
"Counting on it," Waylon replied.
The tremble in his voice was easy to miss... but Lucian's senses were already bordering on superhuman. It was due to those senses as well that he caught the sound of Nics descending the tower's stairs, prompting him to initiate an entirely different branch of conversation.
...
Lucian made his way back onto the streets soon after sharing breakfast with Nics, Waylon, and Belle—the last of which enjoyed an entire can of wet food all to herself. The rest of the early morning was a substantial deviation from the routine he had been building before. For one, he only came to the gym for a shower.
He dried his hair in the shower rooms after a long and therapeutic cleansing session with cold water, now mostly dressed—he was only missing his jacket that was still hanging off a rack. That was when he overheard a conversation in the gym proper.
"Mannn... where's that short girl this time?" One of the earlier gymgoers said. "She used to be here every day..."
"Maybe that new guy scared her off," said another voice.
The first one scoffed. "Him? That pretty boy? Nah. Know what I think? I say she got on that dick and decided she didn't need to come here anymore..."
Clicking his tongue, the second one spoke. "Fucking hell... I swear if I see that guy again, I'm gonna wreck his face so bad, that girl wouldn't want to be anywhere near him."
The first one laughed and there was a weak thud. "Let me have a go with him too, then! I knew we should've just grabbed her while we had the chance..."
That did it for Lucian. He psyched himself up and drew in a long, deep breath. The sigh that followed came out as a jet of steam as he put his jacket on. He then pulled up his status panel to confirm where his power was at.
– ৹ – ৹৹◎৹৹ – ৹ –
Host: Lucian Sant-Pearce
Matrix: One for All: Lost Flame
Level: 4
EXP: 385/500
Classes: Brawler [4]
———
Attributes:
Power: 18
Vitality: 18
Agility: 18
Intellect: 12
Mentality: 13
Spirit: 13
Luck: 0
– ৹ – ৹৹◎৹৹ – ৹ –
Then, he checked on his abilities under the Brawler class.
– ৹ – ৹৹◎৹৹ – ৹ –
Class: Brawler [4]
⨽ Level 1: Rough-Houser
• Increased damage when unarmed.
• Increased damage when using improvised weapons.
⨽ Level 2: Iron Grip
• Increased chance of success when attempting to grab or grapple.
• Increased resistance to being disarmed.
• Increased grappling, pinching, and crushing damage.
⨽ Level 3: Heavy Blow
• Increased direct physical attack damage.
• Increased physical recoil resistance.
⨽ Level 4: Sticks and Stones, Flesh and Bones
• Increased physical damage resistance.
• Increased pain tolerance.
⨽ Level 5: Danger Sense [ ! Locked ! ]
– ৹ – ৹৹◎৹৹ – ৹ –
'Well, I've been accumulating some positive karma, if that's even a thing... I can afford to be a bit vindictive.'
Packing up his things, he left the bathroom. The moment he did, his eyes locked onto a pair of gym rats who were obviously on gear, and their eyes locked onto him as well.
One of the pair of 'roid rats had a baby face with a receding hairline. The other had an aged version of the first one's face, and he had a lot of scar tissue along his chest that looked nothing like those that came from normal wounds. It reminded Lucian of a bad case of chickenpox—one of his sisters had caught the disease before.
He sauntered over and set his backpack down on the floor. "Heard what you said about my friend earlier. Mind repeating it to my face?"
Babyface snorted and laughed while Scars frowned.
"He said friend!" Babyface exclaimed. "This fucker was too pussy to shag her! Oh, or are things just not official between you?" He leaned over what he must have perceived as an easy victim—he had a good several inches over Lucian, after all, not to mention his sheer volume.
"Well, don't worry," Babyface continued. "If you're too chicken to peck the kitty, leave it to some real roosters to do it for ya!"
Scars remained silent, but his body was now tense, angled with clear readiness for confrontation.
Lucian sighed. "That was pretty creative," he said in a voice nearly as flat as Maxie's. "I didn't peg your for someone with a lot of brains."
Babyface's mouth clicked shut. "Tsk... well, whatever. Hey, Darren. Mind if I take my turn on him first?"
"Go for it," Scars replied, now revealed to be Darren. His unblinking eyes remained fixed on Lucian.
As Babyface turned to get ready for the impending fight, Lucian had already moved. With power far exceeding that of a veteran rock climber, he grabbed onto Babyface's balding head and pulled himself up with explosive speed. His knee drove up—there was a sickening crunch on impact, followed by a squelch. That likely gave his victim a concussion, and this had all been done without One for All's help.
Darren, in his shock at how fast Lucian had acted, could only stare as Babyface fell face-first to the floor. Blood poured out of his slack and shattered mouth while his unconscious body moaned in pain.
Before he could even react to Babyface's defeat, Darren had been brought to heel as well. Lucian had a skin-bruising grip on his throat and forced him to look up while on his knees.
"Ultimatum," Lucian said plainly. "Apologize now, and I won't force you to eat through a straw like balding baby over there."
Darren obeyed like his life depended on it, and a stream of apologies and attempts at placation slipped out from his blabbering mouth. Lucian let him go with a punch to the gut—one that drove all the breath out of his lungs, and would bruise purple across a large area for a long, long time.
A crowd of early gymgoers had gathered around him and the roid rats at some point. They parted like the Red Sea had done for Moses as he passed, and he was able to leave the gym without issue.
...
[ Combat EXP: 20. ]
[ Next level: 95. ]
...
Lucian entered Iñigo's from the rear entrance in a mostly neutral mood. However, judging by a certain someone's reaction upon his entry, his experience in the gym must have left its mark on his face.
The server he'd talked to the first time—Ellaine, as her nametag indicated, probably on kitchen duty for the day—cocked one of her brows at him. "Damn, was the bed all wrong sides today? You look evil."
To Lucian's surprise, the statement brought a half-smirk to his face. "Well, that cheered me up a bit," he replied. "But no, uh... just some trouble on the way here."
Ellaine's expression turned serious. "What kind of trouble?" She asked.
"Case of 'roid rage," Lucian answered. "I ain't got my own place yet, so I gotta go to a gym for hygiene. A couple of meat monsters picked a fight with me, that's all."
From serious, Ellaine's face became disbelieving as she eyed him up and down. "No offense, but... well, you might be a good fighter, but I don't think you could've handled all that."
Lucian was actually smiling now as he tilted his head to the side. "Yeah? Wanna test that hypothesis?"
For a few long moments, Lucian resisted the urge to laugh while Ellaine narrowed her warm and shimmering brown eyes at him. The tension between them was broken as a familiar voice rasped from up the kitchen's stairs.
"Hey, there he is!" Iñigo exclaimed, his stout frame bounding down the steps with agility that belied his bellied appearance. "Are you ready for work, amigo?"
"Been itchin' for it since we last talked," Lucian replied, promptly ignoring Ellaine as she returned to her work leading the kitchen staff.
Iñigo must have caught the tail-end of their interaction though, as he said, "Don't worry about Ellaine, niño," patting at his pot-belly with his big, leathery hands. "For now, focus on your work! Here."
He thrust something into Lucian's hands—something he'd brought with him. It was the restaurant's uniform. Well, uniform shirt, which was a pure black tee with the restaurant's logo on the left breast, sewn in as a patch. Employees seemed able to wear whatever they wanted besides that.
"I got the biggest size, so it might be baggy," said Iñigo as Lucian removed his current shirt in favor of the uniform.
Luce patted the shirt over his abdomen once it was on. Like his boss had said, it was a loose fit—but not that bad. It mostly just hid his physique and nothing more. He tucked it into his pants and smoothed it out, then layered his jacket on top of it.
"Well, would you look at that?" Iñigo remarked, grinning with his head tilted. He then pulled Lucian down to his height and whispered something in his ear. "Looks like you caught some of the girls' eyes, you Adonis... heh-heh-heh~"
Shrugging off the attempt at a tease, Lucian wrangled the conversation back on track. He was given his schedule without much further delay, and was assigned to one of the rickety old motorcycles out back. The keys were given to him, alongside a notepad and pen that he had no use for—they were to help him keep track of addresses and the meals that were to be delivered to them.
Eager to make some (mostly) legitimate bread, he took off into Gotham's busy streets with his first collection of orders.
—=—=—=—=—=—=—=—
[A/N]: This chapter was... well, it was supposed to further the plot, but I got engrossed writing out these calmer, slower scenes. Adding actual plot now would just make this chapter excessively long.
RIP to those two bozos at the gym, but they were lucky. Randos in Gotham get eliminated from the population for less.
Also I'd rly appreciate some Power Stones n nice comments pls
Also also, you can support me on Ko-fi~
Here be [just remove le space]: https://ko-fi. com/mr_blorp