Chapter 2: Learning to Die
POV: Ben
Two weeks of surveillance have taught Ben that monsters keep schedules just like everyone else.
He crouches on a fire escape three buildings down from Mr. Patel's bodega, notebook balanced on his knee, pencil worn down to a stub. The margins overflow with times, patterns, routines mapped in desperate precision. Every Tuesday at 3 AM, Juice Box arrives like clockwork to collect tribute and terror in equal measure.
The bodega's neon sign flickers against the pre-dawn darkness, casting sickly yellow light across empty streets. Ben's shoulder still aches—a constant reminder of his first lesson in superhuman physics. Three cracked ribs have healed crooked, leaving him with a new geography of pain that the System cheerfully catalogs as 'battle experience.'
[COMPOUND V DETECTION: ACTIVE]
[TARGET APPROACHING: ETA 7 MINUTES]
[PREPARATION TIME: OPTIMAL]
His apartment has become an amateur armory built from YouTube tutorials and hardware store desperation. Sharpened rebar spears lean against the wall beside Molotov cocktails that smell of gasoline and automotive hope. The crossbow took three failed attempts and two trips to the emergency room, but it holds together well enough to punch bolts through plywood at twenty yards.
"Not his skin though. Nothing's getting through that skin."
Ben's fingers trace the acid burns on his palms—courtesy of his latest chemistry experiment. Battery acid mixed with industrial cleaner in proportions that probably violate several federal laws. The mixture had eaten through three layers of concrete when he tested it. Whether it could blind a Supe remained theoretical.
The sound of footsteps on his fire escape makes Ben's heart skip sideways. He turns to find Sarah Chen climbing toward him with a medical bag slung over her shoulder and concern etched into every line of her face.
"I've been looking for you." She settles onto the metal grating beside him, close enough that he can smell the hospital antiseptic clinging to her scrubs. "You missed your follow-up appointment."
"How did she find me? How did she even know where to look?"
"Been busy." Ben closes the notebook before she can read the murder plans. "Working."
"At three in the morning?" Sarah opens her bag and produces supplies with practiced efficiency. "Take off your shirt. I want to check those ribs."
"They're fine."
"They're crooked. I can tell from here." Her voice carries the particular authority that comes from years of treating patients who lie about their pain. "Shirt. Off. Now."
Ben complies because refusing would require explanations he can't give. Sarah's hands are warm against his skin as she examines the healing breaks. Her touch is clinical but gentle, fingers mapping the new terrain of his damage with professional competence.
"These should have been properly set." She frowns at the irregular bumps beneath his skin. "What kind of doctor treated you?"
"The YouTube kind."
"Jesus." Sarah's expression shifts from concern to something approaching horror. "You've been treating yourself? With what?"
Ben gestures vaguely toward his apartment window, where the chemistry experiments gleam in the darkness. "Whatever works."
Sarah follows his gaze and goes very still. Through the glass, she can see the weapons, the chemicals, the maps covered in red ink. Her hands pause in their examination, fingers pressing against his pulse point. Ben feels his heartbeat betray him—too fast, too irregular, the rhythm of someone living on borrowed time.
"What are you investigating?" Her voice has gone soft, careful. "Your friend's death—what really happened?"
The lie builds itself while Ben watches her face. "Gang stuff. Enhanced individuals involved. The kind of people who don't stay down when they're supposed to."
"Supes. She'll understand if I say Supes. Everyone knows about them here."
"Why you?" Sarah's fingers continue their examination, but her attention has shifted to something deeper. "Why not the police?"
"Because the police can't do anything about them." The truth tastes bitter but accurate. "And someone has to."
Sarah finishes re-wrapping his ribs in silence. Her movements are efficient but distracted, as if she's working around thoughts too large for easy processing. When she's done, she sits back on her heels and studies his face with the intensity usually reserved for X-rays.
"You're going to get yourself killed."
"Probably."
"Definitely. The System's been quite clear about my life expectancy."
"There are people trained for this kind of thing. Professionals." Sarah packs her supplies with movements that border on aggressive. "People with backup and equipment and—"
"People who take orders from the same corporations that employ the enhanced individuals." Ben watches Juice Box approach the bodega through his binoculars. Right on schedule. "People who get told to look the other way when it matters."
Sarah follows his gaze toward the street below. Even from this distance, Juice Box's unnatural confidence is visible in the way he moves—too casual, too certain that the world will bend around him rather than the other way around.
"That's him, isn't it?" She keeps her voice low, instinctively understanding that they're watching something dangerous. "The one who hurt you."
"One of them."
Ben adjusts the crossbow's sight, muscle memory from three weeks of obsessive practice guiding his movements. The bolt tips gleam with fresh acid—not enough to kill, but maybe enough to blind. Maybe enough to level the playing field for thirty seconds.
"I should go." Sarah stands, but her feet don't follow the command. "You should come with me. Leave this alone."
"Can't."
"Why not?"
Ben lowers the crossbow and looks at her—really looks. Sarah Chen, who works double shifts to pay for medical school, who keeps plants in an apartment that barely sees sunlight, who hums while treating gunshot wounds because she believes in healing things that everyone else has given up on.
"Because if I don't, who will?"
The answer sits in the space between them like a bridge neither wants to cross. Sarah sees too much in his expression—the weight of knowledge he can't share, the certainty that comes from seeing endings written in blood and corporate press releases.
"She knows I'm lying. Not about what, but about how much. She knows there's more."
"I'll come back." Sarah's voice is barely above a whisper. "When this is over. To check on you."
"If I'm still alive to check on."
"You better be."
She disappears down the fire escape like smoke, leaving Ben alone with his weapons and his terrible mathematics. Three blocks away, Juice Box enters the bodega to collect his tribute from Mr. Patel. The old man's fear is visible even from this distance—shoulders hunched, hands shaking as he opens the register.
Ben loads the crossbow and checks his escape routes one final time. The acid burns on his palms throb in rhythm with his heartbeat, a chemical reminder that some victories require sacrificing pieces of yourself in advance.
[TARGET ENGAGED: OPTIMAL STRIKE WINDOW APPROACHING]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 23%]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 67%]
[RECOMMEND: PROCEED WITH CAUTION]
Twenty-three percent. Lottery odds painted in blue mathematics. But Mr. Patel's terror is worth more than statistics, and some battles have to be fought regardless of the probability of winning them.
Ben climbs down into the alley behind the bodega, each step carrying him closer to a confrontation that will either make him stronger or make him dead. The acid sloshes gently in its improvised container, eager to test itself against enhanced skin and corporate confidence.
Through the back window, he can see Juice Box counting money while Mr. Patel wrings his hands like a man attending his own funeral. The Supe's back is turned, his attention focused on profit margins rather than the predator creeping through shadows behind him.
"Second verse, same as the first. Except this time, I know how hard he hits."
Ben raises the acid container, muscle memory from a hundred practice throws guiding his aim. The liquid arcs through the air like liquid starlight, beautiful and terrible in its trajectory toward Juice Box's unprotected eyes.
The Supe turns at the last second—some instinct or enhanced hearing giving him warning. The acid splashes across his face in a constellation of chemical fury, and his scream shatters the pre-dawn quiet like breaking cathedral glass.
"My eyes! My fucking eyes!"
Juice Box stumbles backward, enhanced strength meaning nothing when he can't see what to hit. Ben follows up with the crossbow, the bolt punching through the Supe's shoulder with a wet sound that makes his stomach turn. Enhanced durability doesn't extend to everything, apparently.
But enhanced healing does. Even as Ben watches, the acid burns begin to fade, skin knitting itself back together with unnatural speed. Juice Box's vision clears, and his expression shifts from pain to something far more dangerous.
"You."
The word carries the weight of recognition and promise. Juice Box remembers the broken toy from two weeks ago, remembers the entertainment value of teaching lessons to things that think they can fight back.
"You came back for more."
Ben doesn't waste breath on conversation. He dives through the bodega's front window as Juice Box's fist punches through the space where his head had been. Glass explodes around him in a shower of sharp possibilities, and he rolls behind the counter as enhanced strength reduces the cash register to scrap metal.
Mr. Patel huddles in the corner, hands pressed over his ears, whispering prayers in three languages. His terror is a living thing that fills the small space with the taste of copper and desperation.
"Back exit," Ben gasps, grabbing the old man's arm. "Run."
They stumble through the rear door as Juice Box systematically demolishes the front of the store. Enhanced strength applied without precision turns merchandise into projectiles and shelving into weapons. The Supe is having fun now, enjoying the hunt more than the capture.
Ben shoves Mr. Patel toward the mouth of the alley. "Go. Call the police. Tell them—"
Juice Box explodes through the back door like a corporate-sponsored freight train. His shoulder wound has already healed, and his eyes burn with the particular fury of someone whose morning routine has been disrupted by inferior beings.
"No more running."
The backhand sends Ben tumbling through empty air. He hits the alley wall with enough force to crack brick, and something essential tears loose in his chest. Blood fills his mouth with the taste of pennies and poor life choices.
[CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED]
[HP: 34/110]
[INTERNAL BLEEDING DETECTED]
[RECOMMEND: IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION]
Sirens wail in the distance—Mr. Patel's call to the police bearing fruit. Juice Box hears them too, and his expression shifts from predatory pleasure to irritated calculation. Killing Ben would be satisfying, but explaining superhuman violence to civil authorities requires paperwork that cuts into profit margins.
"Next time, stay down."
Juice Box disappears into the pre-dawn darkness, leaving Ben bleeding against brick that's painted with newer, redder graffiti. The taste of failure sits bitter on his tongue, mixed with blood and the knowledge that he's barely scratched the surface of what these monsters can do.
[SURVIVAL ENCOUNTER COMPLETED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 30 XP]
[CURRENT PROGRESS: 35/100 TO LEVEL 2]
[SKILL POINT EARNED: 1]
[NEW SKILL AVAILABLE: WEAK POINT DETECTION]
Thirty experience points. The price of getting beaten half to death calculated with digital precision. Ben limps through Queens as emergency vehicles paint the bodega in red and blue emergency lighting, each step a reminder that he's fighting a war with weapons designed for smaller conflicts.
But something has changed in the spaces between his broken ribs. As he recovers in Sarah's apartment three hours later, letting her gentle hands clean acid burns and set dislocated joints, Ben feels it stirring—a cold resonance where Juice Box's fists had connected.
"Hold still." Sarah works with the focused intensity that comes from treating damage she doesn't fully understand. "Whatever you hit him with, it worked. The police found chemical burns at the scene."
"Not enough."
"More than last time." She secures a fresh bandage around his ribs. "You're learning."
"Learning to die better. Learning to fail more efficiently."
But the System's new message hangs in the peripheral vision of his thoughts like a promise wrapped in blue mathematics:
[SHADOW RESONANCE DETECTED]
[DAMAGE TAKEN INCREASES EXTRACTION COMPATIBILITY: +2%]
[CURRENT COMPATIBILITY: 12%]
[PAIN TOLERANCE: DEVELOPING]
Sarah falls asleep beside him as dawn paints her apartment in shades of exhausted gold. She trusts him enough to be vulnerable in his presence, which makes him the kind of monster who accepts that trust while planning worse violence in the darkness behind her sleeping form.
Ben stares at his bruised hands and whispers the truth to shadows that have started whispering back:
"The strong eat the weak here. So I'll start at the bottom and work my way up, no matter what it costs."
The System pulses once in acknowledgment, a gentle reminder that some costs are calculated in advance while others come due when the bill arrives.
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