Reever's metallic fingers hovered over the glowing disc, its light pulsing faintly like a restrained heart. For a moment, he simply watched it—studying the rhythm, the way it seemed almost alive. Curiosity flickered through him, a rare feeling these days.
"Let's see what you're hiding," he murmured, and selected Initialize.
A low buzz rippled through the air, cold and sharp like static running through his circuitry. The system's voice followed, flat and emotionless.
"Access Denied. Auxiliary Module currently locked. Insufficient clearance."
The light within the disc flickered once, then died. A thin trail of green static slipped through his fingers as the device disintegrated into nothing.
Reever stared at the empty air, then scoffed. "Figures. The one thing that looks interesting, and it's behind a paywall."
The system ignored him—just as it always did.
"Rookie Aim Bot 067," it said, tone unchanging, "would you like to begin your first practice session?"
Reever's smirk was small, humorless. "Yeah," he said. "Let's see if this world remembers who I am."
The white expanse around him began to fracture, light shattering into a storm of green pixels. They swirled around him, folding reality in on itself until everything exploded outward—reassembling into a new world.
The air shifted.
He found himself standing in a dense forest, the canopy thick and wild, sunlight slicing through the leaves in thin, golden beams. The ground was damp and rich with the scent of metallic soil. He could hear insects, the whisper of wind brushing against the trees, the distant rumble of unseen wildlife. It felt real—too real for something that existed only as code.
A prompt materialized in front of his eyes, floating faintly in the humid air.
"Mission: Eliminate 30 targets.""Accuracy requirement: 90% headshots.""Reward: Rank Evaluation Upgrade."
He flexed his hands, feeling the weapon's subtle hum beneath his fingers. The Crossfire-44 was eager—like a living thing yearning to be fired.
"Thirty bots, ninety percent headshots," he muttered, rolling his shoulders. "So basically, don't miss."
The forest shifted. A faint crunch of metal boots echoed through the distance. Then came another—closer, deliberate. Reever's eyes narrowed, his HUD sharpening the motion between the trees.
Shapes flickered through the underbrush—humanoid, but crude. Their movements were stiff, mechanical, lacking the fluidity of higher-tier designs. Their armor was dull, matte gray, wires exposed and glowing faintly red beneath the surface. They weren't like him. They were basic—training models built to die.
The first one raised its weapon.
Reever didn't wait.
Three clean bursts tore through the air. The plasma bolts cut in quick succession—crack, crack, crack!—each finding the mark between a pair of glowing red eyes. The bots dropped instantly, dissolving into a haze of green particles.
He didn't even need to aim long. Instinct guided him.
"Still got it," he said under his breath, reloading with a smooth snap.
Another volley of plasma hissed from the right, scorching the bark of a nearby tree. Reever rolled behind a thick log, shards of wood scattering across the damp soil. He peeked out just long enough to mark two bots advancing through the foliage—predictable, clumsy.
He fired twice. Two headshots. Both targets evaporated.
The rhythm was addictive. The forest pulsed with combat, each sound crisp, every motion clean. The Crossfire-44 responded like an extension of his will—no recoil, no delay, only precision.
But they kept coming. More targets poured in from between the trees, forming jagged lines and half-coordinated patterns. Their programming tried to mimic teamwork, but it was sloppy—two flanked too early, another exposed its head behind a bush, one charged blindly.
Reever took them apart one by one, each kill methodical. He was no longer just shooting; he was dissecting the battlefield.
Fifteen kills. Seventeen. Twenty-one.
He leapt from the ground, planting a boot on the side of a tree, using the force to spring upward. His body twisted midair, servos whirring softly as he landed on a thick branch. From that vantage point, he could see everything—their movement paths, reload intervals, heat signatures glowing faintly through the mist.
He crouched low, took a breath he didn't need, and began firing again.
Each shot was poetry—swift, controlled, deliberate. The world seemed to slow around him. Every bullet was a line, every kill a verse. The forest echoed with brief flashes of light and silence that followed like punctuation.
By the time the twenty-fifth bot fell, Reever barely noticed the motion anymore. It was instinct, pure and perfect.
He swung higher, grabbing onto a vine that hung between two massive trees. His momentum carried him across the canopy. The air rushed past, cool and sharp, scattering a trail of digital particles in his wake. Mid-swing, he spotted two targets below and fired without hesitation—two quick headshots, both collapsing before they could turn their rifles.
He landed silently in the undergrowth, rolling once before coming to a crouch. His HUD glowed softly—28/30 kills.
Almost done.
That's when he heard it.
A low, mechanical growl—deep and deliberate. Not the static sound of training bots, but something heavier. More aware. The footsteps that followed were slow, deliberate thuds that made the ground vibrate faintly.
Reever turned toward the sound. From behind a fallen tree, a new figure stepped out.
It was taller than the rest, its armor black and lined with glowing crimson veins. Its posture was steady, its movements fluid—too fluid. This wasn't a dummy. This was something built to fight. Its glowing visor locked onto him, and Reever immediately saw the designation etched into its chest:
BOT 097 — KILL UNIT.
A rookie, just like him. But there was nothing rookie about its stance.
For a long second, neither moved. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
Reever slid silently behind a boulder, his fingers checking the Crossfire's charge. The weapon's hum was low, steady—ready.
Across the clearing, the Kill Bot mirrored him, ducking behind a thick trunk.
Leaves fluttered between them, catching glimmers of sunlight. The wind rustled, then stilled completely.
Two predators. One hunting, one waiting to be hunted.
Reever smirked, whispering to himself, "Guess practice is over."
His sensors picked up faint energy spikes—the Kill Bot was charging its weapon.
He crouched lower, breathless though he didn't need to breathe, feeling the faint hum of adrenaline that shouldn't exist in his mechanical veins. It was instinct—ancient, human.
Both waited for the other to make the first move.
And in that stillness, time stretched.
The digital forest, the artificial sunlight, even the hum of the system—all faded to a single, silent moment.
Then—one wrong sound, one flicker of movement—and the real game would begin.