David was staring down the Ursok and it was staring right back at him in kind, in the background, he could hear the sound of a small cat crying. Even on the three legs that it had, without standing up on only its hind legs it was still taller than David. Even missing a leg, when he saw its thick shaggy fur and its fangs that were as long as his arm, a voice began to play in his head.

 

“You have no chance against this thing. Hahahaha!” The Machine Lord was laughing at him. “Ursoks always focuses on the first target they see and they hunt it until it is dead. Where I came from they would form hunting parties, where a Martial Force user with a shield would be in front and everyone else would line up behind him and crouch down. Comparing an Ursok with that Butcher Ghoul is like comparing a raccoon to a grizzly bear.”

 

These words that only he could hear were like a splash of cold water, they caused a chill that he felt even through the rain and his damp clothes. Suddenly as he found himself on the other side of the giant bear at the bottom of the valley, he began to question all of his decisions until now. Time itself seemed to freeze around him as the events of the last few weeks flashed before his eyes, in the distance, he could see Lena preparing a spell.

 

“Are you just trying to do everything that I wouldn't do?” The Machine Lord said this seriously, then he burst out laughing as if it was all a joke. “This is both pitiful and pathetic, you got your girlfriend and went straight to your parents. It was just like when you got thrown out of college and found yourself with nowhere to go, you started driving straight home. David, no one can save you from yourself.”

 

David stopped as he looked at the mutated bear in front of him, just the arm it had lost was larger than he was and over twice his weight. Its fangs and claws were all longer than his arm was. Seeing this massive creature as the two were circling each other, a thought crossed his mind.

 

How do humans fight something this big without firearms? 

 

This was the thought that crossed his mind, as he realized that the only reason he hadn’t felt any fear up to this point was numbness. That was the only emotion he could use to describe it, everything had felt so unreal to him that he had gone numb ever since the hospital. He then desperately rushed home just to be given the cold shoulder by everyone, even his parents didn’t take him seriously.

 

The Ursok also seemed to be able to read his distress, it lunged forward and tried to bite him, he was then forced to hold the poleaxe in front of himself to guard, but when he used it to ward off the teeth he wasn’t able to stand the force of the Ursok. This caused the wood to creak, as it was driven into his chest, sending him flying away.

 

Rolling over the wet ground, the mud and water acted more as a slide, covering him in filth, but he managed to keep hold of his weapon. This was the only thing he could use to comfort himself as he immediately turned his sights back onto the bear. He tried to get up as quickly as he could, but he was still too slow to avoid a second lunge and could only block it similarly with his staff.

 

This time he did not have an open area filled with mud to cushion his fall, instead, he felt his back slam into the wood, and all of the air got driven from his chest. As he slid down the large tree to the ground, he found himself at the entrance of a den at the roots of the tree. Behind him, he could hear the meowing that had attracted him to this place, behind him he could see a small black kitten body covered in its blood.

 

Suddenly a scene appeared in his head, that was because he couldn’t help taking in the surroundings when he was on his way. Behind the corpse of the large orange cat, he had seen a small orange and white body, he could imagine this small creature being forced to crawl away. The only reason it wasn’t moving now was that it had probably exhausted itself of all of its energy, it looked like it was on its last breaths.

 

It is just like me right now…

 

David couldn’t breathe, his throat was constricted by his asthma, and bruises were on his chest from the poleaxe shaft. The Ursok began using its claw-like scoop and tried to fish David out of the hole he was in. While he was using his poleaxe as a spear to fight the bear off, he could hear the voice of the Machine Lord in his ear.

 

“Play dead, it will target the woman and leave you alone.” The Machine Lord told him.

 

The moment he heard this suggestion, he felt it go in one ear and right out the other as he used his position to fight off the claw. He could imagine this being a raccoon or a fox den, but he was just able to maneuver his poleaxe outside of the hole like a spear. Every time the bear tried to dig him out he would brace the spear using the back of the hole and fight off the paw.

 

Boom!

 

A ball of fire crashed into the side of the bear, this only caused some steam to rise off the side of the bear’s wet fur. Off in the rain, Lena had a worried expression as she pulled the trigger on her wand, this caused the drum to rotate and a new spell was selected. She then channeled her mana inside of the wand and fed it into the drum, this caused sparks to begin dancing across the blade. 

 

Zzzzaaaapppp!

 

A small bolt of lightning was formed and shot over to the bear, this caused sparks to begin arcing over its dark brown fur. It roared in annoyance, but instead of targeting her it began to dig even faster, it was solely focused on David. This Caused Lena to panic, but her mana was flagging, she kept looking around for anything that could turn the situation around.

 

David on the other hand felt his vision getting blurry, his ribs and chest were bruised, and his arms were sore from trading blows from the bear. His asthma was restricting his ability to breathe and he could feel himself getting faint. Then he heard the Machine Lord speak again.

 

“The least you could do is back up, you are about to pass out anyway.” The Machine Lord said it was clear he was frustrated with him refusing to play dead.

 

Looking behind him, he could see a small black body, when he looked in its eyes he could see hatred aimed at the large bear. Even with only a single breath in its little body, it refused to blink as it looked at the large creature that it could do nothing against. It was small and it was weak, and if he moved it then it would probably die from that small amount of shock. 

 

Fuck off!

 

Sacrifices, living itself was painful, if he had to choose between his morals and his life, then he would rather die. Suddenly a calm filled him, as he felt his vision fading and a smile formed on his face. If he could die in a way that he thought was honorable, then that was fine, he just hoped that Lena could get away.

 

“FOOL!” A dense killing intent was released and seemed to blanket everything. 

 

Before David’s vision could fade away he suddenly felt his throat loosen up, and he was able to breathe. The only problem he faced was some soreness in his chest, but being able to breathe was a blessing. He suddenly heard a crashing noise and looked up to see the Ursok running as fast as it could away from him.

 

Even with the valley only having a single way down that was easy to reach, it still chose the way away from him that was the most direct. Just like before in the kitchen, David seemed to feel a presence manifest behind him, and he could swear that he felt frail hands reaching for his neck. It was like they wanted to strangle him, but then they seemed to disappear before they could reach him.

 

A smile spread across David’s face as he finally realized the thing he hated the most about the Machine Lord, was his utter disregard for the lives of others. Just like the kitten or Lena, everything was just another tool. As he laid in the bottom of the shallow hole covered in mud with water slowly falling on him from holes in the foliage, this thought settled in him.

 

“Are you okay?” Lena called down from him.

 

He could see that she was out of breath, and she looked pale from using lots of her mana during the brief battle. He tried to move but found that his ankle was sprained from one of his falls, and he couldn’t stand. More importantly, he needed something from the house, thinking of the dying kitten behind him, he looked at Lena and said.

 

“I need you to go back to the house and get me the box, please bring it quickly,” David told her.

 

“You are hurt, I can come back for the cat.” She started, but he stopped her.

 

“No, please let me do this. It will die if we try to move it.” He said.

 

Lena sighed when she saw the determined look on his face, she then nodded after several moments.

 

“You need to keep the walkie-talkie, and call if anything happens.” She said.

 

David watched her walk away and he realized it was just him and the small kitten inside of the den. Looking over he could see the rainwater flowing in from the mouth of the den, it then hit his body like a stone and flowed around him and the kitten. If he had fallen any further back he would have crushed it, he couldn't move further back without killing it.

 

“When I saw you in here, I realized that you look about how I feel inside, broken.” He told the little cat. “Ever since I woke up I have been tormented with things I have never wanted to see, I realized that for the first time as an adult that I was rendered to the state of being a child looking for my parents' love,” David told the little cat. “When I was a child I wrecked my bike badly, I wasn’t hurt, but I ended up unconscious for a while. This scared me and I remember crying to my mother about it for several minutes. ”

 

For the first time since he found Lena, he was alone again and he realized that he was just like the Machine Lord had said. David was afraid of being alone, and he felt like he had run to his parent’s house looking for the same love and affection he got when he wrecked his bike. Whenever he didn’t know what to do, he always went straight to his parents.

 

“It is disgusting and it is time I grow up, this isn’t the old Earth anymore where I could fall back on my parents,” David said.

 

Deep down inside he hoped that his parents would be alive when he left the hospital, he figured they would either be here, or they would leave clues to where they went. All of this was because he didn’t want to be alone anymore, this realization caused him to feel some distress until he realized that it is human nature to not want to be alone. These realizations caused an image to begin to form in his mind.

 

Instead of thinking of what he didn’t want to be, he needed to start thinking of what he wanted to be. His family was almost out of food, ammunition, and gasoline to produce electricity with. A lot of the solar equipment was damaged, and they weren’t able to just order parts for it anymore and several solar panels had been completely broken.

 

“Any idea of taking over through force disappeared when all of the survivors realized how bleak the situation was. If someone said they were taking over, everyone would cheer and applaud them, then demand that they solve the situation.” David said.

 

Every single day they were attacked by monsters, it made it to where they couldn’t leave more than a certain distance from the walls, they had probably gone even further out than Dane had. No one had been born with an Esper print among the gathered people inside of his parent’s walls, this didn’t surprise him though. They were fairly rare, to begin with, and they were more often genetic.

 

David was also the only Awakened among the group, he was the only one with memories strong enough to be remembered as more than just a dream, or at least, that was what he told himself. Now after all of these sudden occurrences where he felt like the Machine Lord was trying to reach through the void to get to him, he needed to reconsider his position. This only served to confuse David though, as not even the Machine Lord knew what was happening to David.

 

Wait, hold on!

 

Suddenly he realized there were all kinds of holes in this theory, as there were entire sections of the Machine Lord’s life he did not know about. This made him begin to wonder if the Machine Lord set up some way to transfer himself to another world and possess someone there. When he thought of ghosts and the various types of spirits, he realized this was very possible, then he thought about the mana reading.

 

There is no way to know…

 

The only thing he could trust was getting more powerful, then he wouldn’t end up in a hole after losing to some mutated bear. Then when he looked back at the kitten behind him, a smile crossed his face. He had managed to survive the encounter while upholding his ideals.

 

While he had not been the final one to drive the bear away in the end, he managed to do it without Lena or the kitten dying. He didn’t sacrifice anyone in the end, and he was as different from the Machine Lord as possible. This thought seemed to make the air around him chill and he suddenly felt like he heard laughter off in the distance.

 

“I got it,” Lena reported.

 

Looking over he saw the blonde woman, she was holding the box that was covered in symbols, the shaking was significantly weakened, it looked like a slight shiver. This meant that the demon's soul was on the very verge of death, but this was good for what David planned to do anyway. With it being mostly refined, he reached behind him and placed the box next to the bloody body of the kitten.

 

He knew it was a monster already, but when he saw how the large cat had died to protect its offspring, he decided to give it a chance. Unlike the Machine Lord though, he would never let something he created possibly run amok. Grabbing the monster that was shrunk, he used its claw to begin carving through the rust on the back.

 

In these lines he added some of its blood from the ground, what he was writing was a simple master-servant contract. Once he finished the few lines to complete it, he used the ax blade on his weapon to cut his finger and completed the contract on the back of the box. This caused the little bit of warmth in the cat’s small body to start draining.

 

“Alright, little buddy, time to uphold my end of the bargain.” He whispered to it.

 

Releasing the chains from the outside of the box, he opened the two small metal doors. Inside he could see the candle that was made from his blood and other ingredients, as well as the mirror with the image of the demon. Instead of a clear image in sharp contrast, it mostly looked like grains of sand that had fallen off, and floating around the candle was a small black flame that was stuck in an orbit.

 

“Erwin  Schrödinger once made a speculation about a cat in a situation that was similar to this,” David said.

 

He delicately placed the cat around the candle as comfortably as he could, and he tried to comfort it as it was dying. He wanted this interaction to be a tender one in case the cat didn’t make it, that was a very real possibility. He tried to wipe the blood out of its fur around its face, its eyes were closed, it had been a solid black with white on its paw tips and a bit on its chest.

 

Satisfied, he reached up and closed the metal box with the kitten inside of it. He then thought about how dangerous a monster that could change its size was, they could parade around as something the size of a hamster when they are bigger than a house. They also tended to be emotional and intelligent, he thought of the Machine Lord’s escaped lab specimen Barnabus. 

 

Reaching up he placed his finger on the box, he then issued a command in infernal. What he said had the meaning of “Join” and “Together” this caused a red light to flash, and the box began to shake steadily. This shocked him until he thought of how he found the little cat, even broken like a discarded rag from the same blow that probably killed all three of them, it was ready to stare that bear down until it died.

 

He then reached up and lightly petted the box just like he would have the small monster cat. Since the box was not violently shaking, that meant that even in its dying state that little cat refused to go down. Whatever would crawl out of this box would be more cat than a demon, at least what was left of the demon.

 

“Lena, I think I am going to take over for my parents. After that, I plan to cut a path to Boulder, and then into Denver proper.” David told her. “Marco, the undead in Colorado Springs, and whatever else this world throws at me. I want to build a place for people who are weak to become strong. I plan to use all of the knowledge that disgusting bastard hoarded to claw back the ideals of our modern world!”

 

Lena smiled gently at David, she then reached down for his hand to help him out of the hole, he was forced to lean on her as he held the metal box to his chest. With one arm over her shoulder and the other arm clutching the box to his chest, he was forced to use the woman to lean on. He was shocked at how strong she felt, he also realized that she seemed much stronger than she should have for a formerly emaciated person.

 

“So you want to help your family?” She asked.

 

“Yeah, they wouldn’t make it if I left them. I will show them what I can offer them if they follow me, but to do this I need your help.” He said. "We need to get a lot stronger, fast."

 

The two of them were side by side, they could hear each other's breathing, and he could feel her heartbeat. David realized that she was currently the only person he trusted fully, even when his parents questioned him she had been right at his side. Ever since the two of them made it out of the hospital the two of them had been together, he realized his past girlfriends hadn’t been as close to him as the blonde woman was.

 

“Of course.” She said. “Just promise me one thing.”

 

“What?” He asked.

 

“You are never allowed to leave me.” She said seriously.