The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism

My voice carried across the plaza. Her head snapped up, blue eyes wide with surprise.

The zero-pointer raised one massive leg and brought it down where she’d been kneeling.

Felicity threw herself sideways, dragging the injured applicant with her. The impact crater where they’d been sitting was six feet deep.

I closed the distance, Spectral Reach already extending from my palm. The amber construct grabbed a piece of rubble and hurled it at the zero-pointer’s nearest sensor cluster.

The throw connected. The rubble shattered harmlessly against armored plating.

The zero-pointer’s head swiveled toward me.

All four red sensors locked onto my position.

Oh good. I had its attention.

"Lukas!" Felicity’s voice was breathless. "What are you doing?!"

"Something really stupid!" I grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. "Can you move him?"

She looked at the injured applicant, then at me, then at the zero-pointer that was currently repositioning to crush us all. "Not fast enough!"

Two minutes ten seconds.

The monster’s leg came down again. I pushed Felicity toward an overturned vehicle and activated Blitz, dragging the injured guy with me through pure Spectral Reach. We cleared the impact zone by inches.

My stamina bar dropped another chunk. Three Blitz uses left. Maybe.

Felicity scrambled behind the vehicle, her hands shaking as she maintained the illusion wall around the injured applicant. "We need to get out of here!"

"Working on it!"

The zero-pointer’s sensors swept across our position. Its head tilted, processing. Then all four legs began moving at once, converging on the overturned vehicle.

I grabbed Felicity’s hand and pulled her away from the metal corpse we’d been hiding behind. Her fingers were warm. Her palm was soft. This was absolutely not the time to notice either of those things.

Focus, Belmont.

The vehicle crumpled under the zero-pointer’s weight like paper. The injured applicant we’d saved was still lying there, protected by Felicity’s illusion but completely exposed now that our cover was gone.

One minute forty seconds.

"Your illusions," I said, my brain working faster than my mouth. "Can you make it think we’re somewhere else?"

Felicity’s eyes lit up. "You want me to bait it?"

"I want you to give us thirty seconds."

She didn’t ask why. Didn’t demand an explanation. Just nodded and closed her eyes.

The air around us shimmered. Three perfect copies of Felicity materialized fifty feet away, running in different directions. Each one looked completely real, down to the way her ponytail bounced.

The zero-pointer’s sensors tracked all three simultaneously. Its head split, targeting systems locking onto each illusion.

Then it picked one and charged.

"Go!" Felicity grabbed my arm. "Get him to the medical tent!"

I used Spectral Reach to lift the injured applicant and ran. My legs burned. My lungs burned. Everything burned except the desperate need to not die in the next sixty seconds.

The medical tent sat at the eastern edge of the plaza, marked with a massive red cross. Staff members were already evacuating toward the exits but one remained, a woman in white scrubs who looked ready to bolt.

"INCOMING!" I dumped the injured applicant at her feet. "Broken leg, possible internal bleeding, get him out!"

The woman stared at me like I was insane. Then she grabbed the applicant and dragged him toward the exit tunnel.

One minute five seconds.

I turned back toward the plaza.

The zero-pointer had destroyed all three illusions and was sweeping its sensors across the empty space, hunting for the real target.

Felicity stood in the middle of the crater it had created earlier, hands raised, blue eyes focused.

She was buying me time.

Buying us both time.

The System was right. She needed saving. But she was also using every second to make sure the injured guy got clear.

That’s hero shit right there.

I activated Blitz and launched myself back toward her position.

Forty-five seconds.

The zero-pointer found her.

All four sensors locked on simultaneously. The monster’s legs moved with terrifying speed for something that size, positioning itself directly above Felicity’s position.

She looked up.

Her face went pale.

The leg came down.

I hit her from the side in a full-body tackle, Spectral Reach wrapped around both of us as we rolled clear of the impact. We landed in a heap twenty feet away, her body pressed against mine, my arms around her waist.

Her blue eyes were inches from my face.

Her chest rose and fell against mine with each panicked breath.

This was definitely not the time to notice how soft she felt.

Twenty seconds.

"You’re insane," she whispered.

"Been told that before."

The zero-pointer turned toward us again. Its sensors glowed brighter, charging something internal.

An alarm started wailing from the observation deck. A voice boomed across the entire field through massive speakers.

"ALL APPLICANTS CLEAR THE ZERO-POINTER ENGAGEMENT ZONE IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT, CLEAR THE ENGAGEMENT ZONE."

Ten seconds.

I looked at Felicity. She looked at me.

We both looked at the fifty-foot metal monster bearing down on our position.

"Run?" she suggested.

"Yeah."

I grabbed her hand and activated Blitz one more time.

Five seconds.

We cleared the plaza as the timer hit zero.

EMERGENCY QUEST COMPLETE

REWARDS DISTRIBUTED

+1000 SP

GOLD GACHA PULL (SELECTION OPTION) UNLOCKED

+15 REPUTATION WITH FELICITY HARDY (CURRENT: 17%)

The horn sounded across the field, signaling the end of the practical assessment.

I collapsed onto the grass outside the plaza, every muscle in my body screaming for mercy.

Felicity landed beside me, her breathing ragged, blonde hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.

We lay there staring at the sky while the zero-pointer slowly retreated back toward its bay doors. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"That," Felicity said between gasps, "was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen."

"Same."

"You came back for me."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

I turned my head to look at her.

"Seems like what a hero would do."

She smiled. Actually smiled, despite nearly getting crushed by a fifty-foot robot. "You’re either really brave or really stupid."

"Can’t it be both?"

Her laugh was bright and genuine.

The notification I’d been dreading appeared.

BONUS QUEST: ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

STATUS: FAILED

PROJECTED RANK: TOP 8%

PENALTY: NO GOLD GACHA PULL

I stared at the notification for a long moment.

Top eight percent wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty good for someone who’d manifested two weeks ago.

But it wasn’t top five.

I’d traded the bonus objective for Felicity’s life and my own terrible decision-making.

Worth it.

Probably.

Maybe.

Felicity sat up beside me, brushing grass from her pink shorts. "Do you think we passed?"

"You had to have," I said. "You saved that guy and baited a giant robot. That’s peak hero behavior."

"You tackled and saved me too!"

"Touche."

She laughed again and offered me her hand. I took it and let her pull me to my feet.

Felicity squeezed my hand before letting go. "Thank you. Seriously. I thought I was done."

"Don’t mention it."

"I’m mentioning it." Her smile was genuine. "If we both get in, first meal’s on me."

"I’ll take you up on that."