Harem Apocalypse: Every Moan Levels Us Up!

Where does a teleporter go when he has no reason to be clever? Straight at you. Every time.

I let him hit me one more time, just to be sure. Then I got up, looked at him, and smiled.

He slowed down. Stopped a few feet away, reading me the way you read something that wasn’t where you left it.

"Told you I was paying you a visit," he said, walking now instead of launching.

"That was a mistake, Mute."

I started toward him, closing the distance myself. His corridor, his rules, his advantage. None of it mattered anymore and we were both just beginning to understand that.

He laughed. "Wow. The outsider grew a pair. You think I’m a zombie?"

"I’ll give you one chance to walk away clean."

"You’re a fool," he said, something shifting behind his eyes. "I was actually going to spare you. Then you put your hands on me in the hall in front of everyone."

"This isn’t about the hall." I kept my voice level, kept walking. "It’s about Mable. Bro to bro. Real men don’t fight over girls."

That landed differently. His face tightened around the edges.

"Bro to bro," he repeated, tasting the words like they offended him. "I’m going to kick that zombie-bitten ass of yours."

He launched. But he was already close. Too close for his own pattern. I punched him before he could vanish.

[God-Hand Punch | Attacking Skills]

The impact sent him into the wall hard enough to crack plaster. He slid. I stepped back, shaking out my hand, genuinely surprised by what had just come out of me.

That’s new.

He was up in a second. Faster than he should’ve been. But his eyes were different now — recalibrating, not quite willing to call it luck but not ready to call it anything else either. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He launched again. This time moving. Left. Right. Up. Right.

[Resonance: Tracking.]

I could see him. Not with my eyes exactly. With something else, glimpses at the edges of my vision, mapping his positions between materializations, reading the pattern inside the pattern. And the moment he appeared in front of me I put the second punch through him.

Wall again. Harder this time.

"I’m going to kill you, Abram." He said it quietly, which was worse than if he’d screamed it. He disappeared, pulling back, regrouping, reaching for something he didn’t show people often.

The glimpses came faster. Irregular. A pattern inside the pattern. He was quick.

[Defence System — Electrical Body Launched]

He came out of nowhere and grabbed me — and the moment he made contact, something discharged out of me like a live wire. The current hit him from the inside out. He dropped.

He lay there for a second, processing what had just happened. Then I watched it cross his face, the specific expression of a man who has just understood, too late, that he picked the wrong room on the wrong night.

He moved to teleport. I grabbed his leg.

"You’re not going anywhere."

He went anyway. Took me with him. The corridor dissolved. We snapped into a classroom, walls and desks materializing around us in a blink.

"Let go," he said.

I held tighter. He drove me into the wall, and for a half-second the impact broke my grip. He scrambled to set off. I caught him again.

We snapped back. Our wing. Same corridor, same cracked plaster, same dark.

He was breathing hard now. The teleports were costing him. Last time he had found me defenseless and left on his own terms. This time he couldn’t leave at all.

I got my arm around his throat and took him down. He went to his knees, shaking, one hand clawing at my forearm.

He wasn’t done. Even on his knees, even shaking, he raised his face toward me with what was left of his pride.

"You think you’ve won." His voice was steady in a way his body wasn’t. "Don’t forget what you are. You’re an outsider. I have family inside these walls."

I kept my grip. He’d interrupted my sleep, teleported me through a classroom, and cracked my ribs. I wasn’t in a hurry.

He spat blood on the floor. Looked back up at me.

"Go on then. Kill me." A beat. "Kill me, you fucking monster."

Who told you I want to kill you.

I looked at him. Really looked, past the anger and the pride and the teleportation ability. Underneath all of it was something smaller. A boy who had picked a fight over a girl and lost badly and now needed a version of this story he could live with.

I didn’t see a threat. I saw a bruised ego that had gotten expensive. I let go.

He dropped. I crouched to his level and kept my voice low, just for him.

"Hogsby will be a much better place for you if you work hard and stay away from girls that Abram chooses." I kept it simple. "There are a lot of girls in here. Chase after them."

He stared at me.

"Fuck you." He raised a single finger.

I could’ve broken it. Wasn’t worth the energy. I stood up, rolled my shoulder, and turned away from him.

"Don’t think you’re so special." He wasn’t finished. "The government wanted expendables. Stupid people from outside who’d come running if you opened the door wide enough." He paused. "That’s what you are. All six of you."

He teleported out before I could respond. Gone, off to wherever people go to nurse their wounds and rebuild their story. I stood in the corridor alone.

Six of us, I thought. Accepted into the walls. Given beds and food and a school and a mission nobody had explained yet. Sherry had told me. The government doesn’t open doors it spent decades closing without a reason. And we still had to level up to find out what the reason was.

[Vitality: Wound Closing]

[Warning: Sherry Has Witnessed Everything]

I looked toward my door. Dark through the glass. Still.

Then I heard it, the small, careful sound of someone moving quietly back to a bed. The sound of a person trying very hard to sound like they’d been asleep the whole time.

I stood there another moment. Then I went inside.