Chapter 3: First Blood, First Shadow
POV: Ben
The third attempt begins in rain that falls like the city's tears, each drop carrying the weight of postponed violence.
Ben crouches in the shadows beside Mr. Patel's bodega, Sarah's stolen medical bag positioned carefully beside him—not for healing this time, but for what comes after the killing blow. The leather handles are slick with moisture that might be rain or might be the sweat from his palms as he checks his equipment one final time.
The surgical spike gleams in the streetlight's yellow glow. Titanium alloy, military grade, borrowed from the hospital's orthopedic department during Sarah's shift yesterday. She'd been humming while organizing supplies, trusting him completely as he memorized which drawer held the tools for precision violence.
"Weak Point Detection showed it three days ago. The hairline fracture behind his left ear, barely visible beneath the scar tissue. Old boxing injury that never healed properly."
Ben's fingers trace the spike's length, muscle memory from a hundred practice strikes guiding his movement. The rain drums against the bodega's tin roof like a countdown, each impact marking seconds until Juice Box arrives for his weekly tribute collection.
[COMPOUND V DETECTION: ACTIVE]
[TARGET APPROACHING: ETA 3 MINUTES]
[WEAK POINT CONFIRMED: SKULL FRACTURE - 87% LETHALITY IF EXPLOITED]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 73%]
Seventy-three percent. Better odds than any lottery Ben had ever bought, painted in the System's cold blue mathematics. The vent cover above him hangs loose—three weeks of careful preparation reduced to loosened screws and memorized timing.
"Sarah made pancakes this morning. Blueberry. She was happy about something—a patient who'd recovered, maybe, or just the fact that I'd stopped coming home covered in blood every night."
The memory tastes like ash mixed with maple syrup. By tomorrow morning, he'll be something different. Something she won't recognize even if she never learns the truth.
Juice Box rounds the corner exactly on schedule, his Patriots jersey stretched tight across shoulders that could bench-press small cars. Enhanced muscle density gives him the particular swagger that comes from knowing physics apply differently to you than to everyone else.
Ben watches through the vent grating as the Supe enters the bodega. Mr. Patel's fear is visible even from this distance—hands shaking as he opens the register, shoulders hunched like a man attending his own execution.
"Weekly collection, old man." Juice Box's voice carries the casual cruelty of someone who's never faced real consequences. "Plus interest for last week's inconvenience."
"The acid. He means the acid. He's charging extra because I fought back."
Ben removes the vent cover with surgical precision, each movement practiced until it required no conscious thought. The ceiling tiles are cheap industrial—designed to support fluorescent fixtures, not human weight. He'll have maybe two seconds after breaking through before enhanced hearing alerts his target.
Through the gap, he can see Juice Box counting money while Mr. Patel wrings his hands. The Supe's skull is perfectly positioned beneath the fracture point, as if the universe has finally decided to offer Ben a fair fight.
"Next week, we go up another twenty percent." Juice Box pockets the cash with movements that speak of long practice. "Cost of doing business in a dangerous neighborhood."
Ben drops.
The ceiling tile explodes around him like cardboard confetti. Juice Box's enhanced reflexes kick in—head turning, muscles tensing, enhanced speed preparing to dodge whatever's coming. But enhanced doesn't mean precognitive, and Ben's trajectory has been calculated with obsessive precision.
The surgical spike punches through the old boxing injury like the universe's cruelest punchline. Titanium alloy meets hairline fracture meets desperate mathematics, and physics chooses Ben's side for once. The impact reverberates up his arm as enhanced bone gives way to superior leverage and three weeks of accumulated rage.
Juice Box convulses once—a full-body spasm that sends him crashing into the lottery machine. His eyes go wide with the particular surprise of someone discovering they're not immortal after all. Blood pools beneath his head in a spreading constellation of red possibility.
Then he's still.
Ben stares at the corpse for ten heartbeats, waiting for enhanced healing to kick in, for superhuman durability to prove the killing blow insufficient. When Juice Box remains definitively dead, Ben's stomach finally catches up with his actions.
He vomits against the potato chip display, three weeks of planning and rage reduced to bile and shaking hands. The taste of pennies fills his mouth—blood from where he'd bitten his tongue during the fall. Reality sets in with the weight of absolute finality.
"I killed him. I actually killed him."
[TARGET ELIMINATED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 800 XP]
[TUTORIAL QUEST COMPLETED: FIRST BLOOD]
[BONUS XP: 500]
[LEVEL ADVANCEMENT: 1 → 3]
[SHADOW EXTRACTION AVAILABLE]
[COMMAND REQUIRED: "ARISE"]
The System's messages blur together in Ben's peripheral vision. Mr. Patel huddles behind the counter, hands pressed over his eyes, whispering prayers in three languages. The old man has seen violence before—this neighborhood specializes in varieties of breaking—but watching superhuman strength get punctured by human desperation is a new category of trauma.
Ben kneels beside Juice Box's corpse, his knees squelching in blood that's already cooling. The spike protrudes from the entry wound like an accusation, its sterile titanium surface now painted crimson with the price of justice.
"Do it. Whatever comes next, whatever this makes you—do it."
His hand hovers over the corpse's chest, fingers trembling with adrenaline and something deeper. The System waits with digital patience, blue text hanging in the air like a loaded gun.
"Arise," Ben whispers.
The world explodes.
Shadows erupt from Juice Box's body like black lightning, tendrils of darkness that seem to devour light itself. The bodega's fluorescent fixtures flicker and dim as something fundamental redistributes itself according to laws that predicate quantum mechanics and human understanding.
The shadows coalesce into a form that wears Juice Box's face but moves with different purpose. Translucent, gray-tinted, empty eyes that reflect Ben's face like mirrors designed for studying monsters. The shadow kneels without being commanded, head bowed in recognition of new hierarchies.
[EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL]
[SHADOW QUALITY: COMMON]
[POWER RETENTION: 15%]
[MANIFESTATION DURATION: 5 MINUTES]
[MP COST: 20 PER MANIFESTATION]
Ben stares at his first shadow—a dead man's echo wearing loyalty like ill-fitting clothes. The satisfaction that floods through him is cold and complete, more disturbing than the killing itself. This isn't justice. This is ownership. This is making death into a tool that serves your will rather than ending it.
"I should feel guilty. I should feel something other than this... hunger."
"Stand," he commands, and the shadow obeys with mechanical precision. Enhanced strength flows through its translucent form—fifteen percent of Juice Box's original power, but still enough to punch through concrete or bend steel bars.
Mr. Patel peers over the counter with eyes that have aged a decade in the last five minutes. "Is... is he...?"
"Dead." Ben dismisses the shadow with a thought, watching it dissolve back into normal darkness. "It's over."
"You killed him." The old man's voice carries wonder mixed with terror. "He was... and you..."
"I'm sorry you had to see that."
Ben cleans the spike on Juice Box's jersey, muscle memory from three weeks of weapon maintenance guiding his movements. The blood comes off easily—titanium doesn't hold stains the way steel does. Another lesson learned through careful preparation.
"Will they send others?" Mr. Patel finally emerges from behind the counter, stepping carefully around the expanding pool of blood. "His... associates?"
"I don't know." Ben pockets the spike and shoulders Sarah's medical bag. "But they'll think twice before bothering you again."
He leaves through the back door as sirens begin to wail in the distance. Someone had called the police—probably multiple someones, given the way sound carries in Queens at three AM. Ben disappears into the maze of alleys behind the bodega, each step carrying him further from the scene and deeper into something he can't undo.
The rain has stopped, leaving the streets washed clean of everything except blood and the memory of violence. Ben's reflection in puddles shows a stranger—someone who's learned to kill efficiently and extract power from death. The face looking back at him doesn't belong to the person Sarah makes pancakes for.
"She'll notice. The blood under my fingernails, the way I smell like violence and antiseptic. She notices everything."
Ben scrubs his hands with industrial soap in the abandoned factory's washroom, watching crimson swirl down the drain like liquid guilt. Three applications of degreaser and a wire brush finally remove the evidence from his fingernails, but something essential has stained deeper than skin.
Sarah's apartment smells like coffee and promise when he arrives at dawn. She hums while making breakfast, sunlight streaming through windows that overlook a city where one less monster draws breath. Her happiness is infectious in the way that innocence always is—untouched by knowledge of what Ben had done to preserve it.
"You're up early." She turns from the stove with a smile that could power small cities. "I was going to surprise you with breakfast in bed."
"Couldn't sleep." Ben settles at her kitchen table, careful to keep his hands visible. "Bad dreams."
"Not dreams. Plans. Strategies. A growing list of targets who need to die before they hurt more people."
Sarah serves pancakes with blueberries arranged in smiley faces, her playfulness a stark contrast to the weight settling into Ben's bones. She notices everything—the way he holds his fork, the careful movements that suggest recent violence, the hollow look behind his eyes that wasn't there yesterday.
"What happened to your hands?" Her voice carries practiced medical concern. "Those look like chemical burns."
"Bar fight." The lie tastes like ash. "Guy had acid. I defended someone."
Sarah examines his palms with gentle fingers, tracing the burn patterns with professional interest. Her touch is warm and careful, designed to heal rather than harm. Ben wonders what she'd think if she knew these same hands had driven titanium through a human skull three hours ago.
"You're becoming someone different." She doesn't look up from her examination. "I can see it. In the way you move, the way you watch people. Like you're cataloging weaknesses."
"Because I am. The System taught me to see vulnerabilities first, strengths second. Everyone's a potential target or potential ally."
"People change." Ben keeps his voice level. "Trauma does that."
"I know. I see it at the hospital." Sarah finishes bandaging his hands with practiced efficiency. "But usually, they change into something smaller. More afraid. You're becoming something... larger. More dangerous."
The observation hangs between them like a bridge neither wants to cross. In the corner of Sarah's kitchen, where morning sunlight can't quite reach, Ben catches a glimpse of movement. His shadow—Juice Box's echo—manifests for a split second before dissolving back into normal darkness.
Only Ben sees it. Only Ben knows what it means.
"I should go." He stands before Sarah's kindness can dissect him further. "Work to do."
"Ben." Her voice stops him at the door. "Whatever you're investigating—whatever happened to your friend—be careful. Some things aren't worth becoming a monster over."
"Too late. Already there."
"I'll be careful," he lies, and kisses her forehead with lips that taste like violence and false promises.
That evening, as sirens wail over Juice Box's discovered body and news reports speculate about "mysterious vigilante killings," Ben tests his new shadow in an alley that smells of garbage and possibility. The shadow's fist punches through concrete like tissue paper, enhanced strength flowing through translucent knuckles.
"One down," Ben whispers to the darkness that now contains pieces of his victims' souls. "Hundreds to go."
The System pulses once in acknowledgment, blue text painting the alley walls with gentle encouragement:
[QUEST PROGRESS: BUILDING AN ARMY (1/5)]
[NEW SKILL AVAILABLE: SHADOW COORDINATION]
[NEXT TARGET RECOMMENDED: SEEK HIGHER VALUE EXTRACTION]
+1 CHAPTER AFTER EVERY 3 REVIEWS
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
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