I stared at the Level 8 Drill Sergeant, my heart nearly beating through my chest. It stood around 8 feet tall, with a head that was disproportionally large to its giant body, unlike the ground pounder and corporal variant Trimeans. The Drill Sergeant had rippling muscles all over its body, with primarily blue skin containing specks of orange. It wore a tight grey body suit, black knee-high boots, and a forward-tilted campaign hat on top of its head. The boss was carrying a thick baton that crackled with electricity, and I wondered how the hell I would get past it since it was blocking my path to the stage.

  “It’s enormous! How am I supposed to get past him?!” I asked, “I mean…I’m assuming it’s he. I admit I don’t know much about Trimeans, but if that is a female I feel sorry for the guys in her dating pool,” I added.

  “Well, firstly, that’s a bit sexist. Secondly, all Trimeans are parthenogenic,” Tiff responded.

  “I really don’t have time to get into that, but I gotta say… gross,” I whispered.

  “Andrew, it is a big galaxy out there, and not all species are gonophoric,” she replied.

  “Hey, I’m pretty open-minded, but I draw the line at mating with yourself,” I replied.

  “Not based on your internet browsing history,” Tiff replied. Remember, I have access to your file.”

  “Wow, that’s a low blow, Tiff. Let’s just get back to the task at hand,” I replied.

  “Poor choice of words,” Tiff replied

  “Conversation over,” I hissed, trying my hardest to dig out of the verbal hole I created for myself. Looking around, I spotted a couple of burned-out ships. It seemed that the Drill Sergeant wasn’t going to let anyone take a random ship, which probably explained the earlier explosions. The drill instructor just stood there, slapping the baton into his massive hand, waiting for anyone to try and get past him.

  “That explains the explosions from earlier,” I said, “I guess I’m not going anywhere unless I go through them.”

  “We really should try to avoid an encounter with that boss, Andrew. I don’t think you can take it in a straight-up fight,” Tiff replied.

  I sat down to ponder for a minute, going over all my supplies, trying to determine if I had anything that would give me the edge, I needed to make this fight winnable.

  “What are you doing?” Tiff asked as I started untying my boot to take off my sock.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “I can’t take that thing one-on-one, not in a straight-up fight, but I’m betting it’s not fireproof.”

  I fumbled around with my boot and took my sock off before reaching into my pack and pulling out the MREs.

  “Okay, I’ve got four; that will have to do,” I muttered as I started opening the packaging of each one. Honestly, I had kept them for a while and didn’t plan on eating them unless things got really bad. I guess this would qualify as really bad, but I had things other than food on my mind right now. I would figure out how to get food if I survived this mess.

  “MREs have packages that contain Magnesium powder, which is highly flammable and hard to put out. I’ve got 4 of these, so about 30 grams of magnesium dust,” I explained as I started ripping open the chemical heater packages containing the magnesium dust. “I may not be stronger than this thing, but it doesn’t look very fast. If I had to guess, I would say it is gonna try his hardest to hit me with that baton and end things quickly.”

  I crouched down and started pouring the magnesium powder into my sock. I then took out the first aid kit that had a small pair of finger-sized scissors. I made a few very small holes in the sock using the scissors.

  “I just need to get close and dodge that baton for a few seconds. If I can do that, I think this will work,” I said, twisting the sock and tying it in a knot. I held the sock up triumphantly. “I’m gonna introduce him to the sock of shame.”

  “Sock of shame? That is what you are going with?” I could hear Tiff sighing in frustration. “Andrew, I am gonna ignore that you just said sock of shame. Let’s never bring that up again. I am being serious when I say that you need to stay away from that thing! There should be a way to avoid the boss; it usually isn’t mandatory on the tutorial level.”

  “Well, I can’t see any other way to get through to that stage,” I said. “I’m not sure how these things typically work, but I assume I need to get past that Drill Sergeant, or it’s all over.” I knelt down to put my boot back on, feeling the dampness of my bare foot inside it. “You mentioned the Lacertines were crooked, right? So it makes sense that they included this guy as a mandatory boss. Maybe it’s not legal or normal, but it’s definitely here,” I stood up slowly and looked toward the Drill Sergeant, “and it definitely sees me.

  “The Drill Sergeant held the baton over its head and howled a deep guttural howl before slapping it back into his palm.

  “Well, I guess there is no turning back now,” I said as I ran toward it.

  The Drill Sergeant was about 50 yards from me, but I closed the distance faster than expected with my increased stats and higher level. “Good,” I thought to myself. I was hoping the increased stats would help here, and it looked like I was right. As I approached, the Drill Sergeant stepped forward and swung the baton with it’s right arm. Just as it did, I baseball slid right under his swing; I could feel the crackling electricity as it came close to my head, lifting my hair slightly as the static electricity pulled at the individual strands.

  As I slid by, I took the sock I was holding in my left hand and swung it into the alien’s chest. Magnesium powder covered its torso, creating a small cloud of dust. Immediately upon stopping, I popped up and hit them again, covering its back with the magnesium powder. The Drill Sergeant spun around furiously, a small cloud of dust surrounding them, before lifting their baton and screaming in rage. As it did, I raised the sock and slapped it in the face with it again.

  “Oooh, that’s a tad disrespectful,” I heard Tiff say as I dodged around to his back.

  The Drill Sergeant coughed as magnesium powder filled its mouth and lungs, stumbling back as it wiped at its face with its free hand, trying to escape the powder that covered its torso. The cloud was not necessarily large as I continued slapping the alien, but it grew big enough to see as it fell loosely to the ground around him.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The Drill Sergeant quickly became enraged, gathering itself up and spitting to clear the magnesium powder from its mouth as it looked me dead in the eyes. The Drill Sergeant yelled loudly as it raised its hand to swing the baton, but I was ready. The alien swung wildly with its right hand, but I dodged the left and peppered it again with the sock. This time it was ready for me. The Drill Sergeant shot out its left hand faster than I had ever seen any living thing move before and grabbed me by the throat, quickly lifting me off the ground. It happened so fast and with such utter force that I didn’t even have time to react.

  “guess I was wrong about you being fast,” I choked out as it lifted me off the ground.

  See, the problem here is that I am no trained fighter or soldier. I am just….. an ordinary guy. I had done okay so far, early in the tutorial, but let’s be honest - the enemies up to this point were pretty weak. The Drill Sergeant? It was a different story. It was fast, strong, and obviously intelligent. A couple slaps with the sock got past him, but it would not let it happen again. That was fine by me since my sock was pretty much empty now. Still, the blinding speed with which it grabbed me caught me off guard.

  As I hung there grasping at the Drill Sergeant’s giant three-fingered hand, it cocked its giant head, looked at me, chittered something I couldn’t understand, and nonchalantly touched its baton to my chest. When the baton made contact, electricity rippled through my body; It felt like a horse - a horse that shot lightning from its damn hooves had kicked me. The blast of the baton knocked me back several feet out of its hand.

  I lay there, stunned. My whole body ached, my chest burned, and my shirt was in tatters. I landed hard and it felt like I cracked at least one rib. In my interface, I saw my health indicator blinking red with about 10% left. I felt like a damned idiot. Who did I think I was? I came into this dungeon and assumed that I could make a difference? I believed I would be able to stop what was going to happen to my world? I thought that I had a snowball chance in hell of somehow claiming the Right of Reaping? Nah, this makes more sense, I thought as I lay my head down on the ground. My chest was on fire, it hurt to breathe, and then I heard the Drill Sergeant’s footsteps, slowly, intently approaching.

  “Get up, Andrew!”

  Was that Tiff? She seemed so far away, and the ringing in my ears was so loud.

  “He is almost on top of you! Get the hell up!” she screamed in my head. “You wanted to matter, didn’t you? You wanted to be something more, something that people would remember? THEN GET UP!”

  Then, the Drill Sergeant was standing right over me, looking down, laughing.

  ”ha, ha, ha” the thing growled with contempt.

  I looked over at my pack, which had fallen off during my fall. My baton lay on the ground beside it, just within arm’s reach. I looked back up at the Drill Sergeant, who was now looking down on me, and with my bruised, bleeding face, I smiled.

  “Stop drop and roll, bitch!” I growled as I stabbed the baton into its chest.

  Normally, the Level 3 baton wouldn’t do much to a much higher-level enemy, but in this scenario, he was covered in magnesium powder. The large alien’s entire chest, back, face, and even inside its mouth were covered, and it lit up like a pile of dry kindling as the baton’s skill flashed to life. The Drill sergeant howled in agony and flailing its arms around wildly, it tried to escape the chemical flames. I quickly rolled away and fell back to what was becoming my signature move. I grabbed my tire iron, and with two quick moves, I tried to finish it.

  Baton to the knees, and once it was down, tire iron through the temple. Right before the tire iron made contact, the Drill Sergeant shot its right hand up and grabbed the weapon. The alien was still burning but had enough presence of mind to block the killing blow. We stayed locked in the stalemate for one or two eternal seconds before I reached around to the back of my waistband, pulled the flare gun, and pointed it at the Drill Sergeant’s burning face. This would have been the perfect time for another witty one-liner, but I was tired and in pain. I pulled the trigger, and the red flare shot out directly into the Drill Sergeant’s eye. Without another sound, the alien fell to the ground dead as the flare continued to burn in its eye cavity.

  Level Up – Level 4

  Boss – Trimean Drill Sergeant – Level 8 Defeated – (This is UNBELIEVABLE. A review will be filed to ensure the tutorial was completed without foul play.)

  Claim your reward in your ship’s safe room upon exit of the tutorial.

  “Holy shit, everything hurts,” I said as I slid down against the side of the parade stage. “Let me catch my breath real quick and remind me to get a new pair of socks,” I laughed. “Also, I’m pretty sure Randi is pissed. We can deal with that later.”

  “That was impressive, Andrew. I honestly didn’t expect you to get through it. The good news is that your health should be refilling as we speak. It will usually top off after a level-up,” she said.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, chuckling, “and you’re right, my health is filling back up quickly; I can feel myself healing, and it feels really damn weird. Let me get topped off, and let’s check out this console.”

  As I leaned against the stage recovering, I pulled up my stats to check out my new level.

  Name – Andrew Timothy Dawes

  Race – Human

  Level – P-4

  Class – Havok Bringer

  Stats –

  Strength – P4 – 22%

  Intelligence – P4 – 36%

  Dexterity – P4 – 49%

  Defense – P4 – 12%

  “Hey, I see that my intelligence jumped up some. I guess the trick with the sock impressed Randi,” I said.

  “The Master AI does assign stat points based on the tactics used and outcome of a fight, so you are correct in your assessment,” Tiff replied.

  After a couple of minutes of resting, I walked up the stairs and onto the stage, where I saw the podium. As I walked up, it lit up with words:

  Congratulations on completing the tutorial level (pending review). Participant Andrew Timothy Dawes! You will now be presented with your ship based on selections made during the class selection portion of the tutorial.

  Participant Andrew Timothy Dawes, you have selected class N/A and will be designated ship N/A. Please proceed to the parade ground and board the highlighted ship.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked Tiff. At that moment, she reappeared beside me, returning to her space-age uniform look.

  “Something is off here, Andrew. I know the class you selected was provided but they are always approved by the system and added to all codices. The system doesn’t seem to recognize your class and, therefore, did not assign you a ship,” she said, looking concerned.

  “What do you mean it doesn’t recognize my class? It gave me the damn class!” I said.

  “No, it presented options. An outside entity provided the class, thus the Rule of Duplicity,” Tiff said. “The Council usually provides all outside assistance, if any is given, but something different is going on here,” she said, looking concerned.

  “Well, we can figure that out later,” I said. “I just want to get out of here, and I see a light over there, so I must have a ship. Let’s go check it out.”

  As we ran over, I saw a ship light up as we approached. I stopped, my mouth opening in disgust. “What in the hell is that?” I asked as I approached the “ship” if that was even the word to describe it. “All the super advanced, space-age ships that are sitting in this parade ground, and I get that? How is this fair?” I asked.

  The ship was a large rusty brown rectangle. It had a propulsion engine on each side and what I guessed was a bridge on the top. The bridge was raised and ran about one-third the length of the hull. The body of the ship was large, like if you took four mobile homes and stacked them on top of each other to make one big rectangle. It had two pieces of landing gear in the back and one large piece in the front that looked like a big ski. There was an open loading bay in the back.

  The name “Bloodhound” was painted on the ship’s side, like a fighter jet’s nose.

  I identified the ship, and it simply said:

  Blood Hound

  Havok Hound Transport and Evac Ship

  As Tiff and I approached the open back loading bay door, I could hear music…

  “I can feel it coming in the air tonight”

  “Hold on. Is that fucking Phil Collins?” I asked.

  As we walked up the ramp, I heard a voice speaking in broken English:

  “We kill now, we go, we kill now!” the voice was low and rumbling, very gravelly but very excited.

  The music was still playing.

  “Who is that?” I asked. “Is someone here?”

  “I am Ship AI; you are Captain. We kill now!”

  The damn ship AI could talk, and apparently, I was now The Captain.