Heir Of Chaos

As Trevor walked to the doll, the silver light representing its eyes flickered and dimmed a little.

The sabers retreated into its hands and it waited there for Trevor to make a move.

The latter smiled lightly and spoke a command. "Fail!"

At first, the already dimmed light fluctuated as though it was about to be extinguished, no differently from a candle at the end of its wick.

But before it could, a large mass of the relaxing energy of Eden that was in the basement vanished and the light in the doll’s eyes stabilized, burning brighter than before.

The little fiasco didn’t go unnoticed. Dale placed a hand under his chin.

’The energy of Eden pretty much diminished as the doll overcame Trevor’s command. Is this a function of it or a glitch?’ Either way, it seemed as though the doll did in fact use Eden’s energy to function.

Dale struggled to imagine just how many tricks the military had up their sleeves and how many he’d see.

Trevor watched the stationary doll for a moment and tried again. "Break."

A NovelFire of net cracks spread through the torso of the doll, expanding with every second. Occasionally, the cracks connected, and broke off a chip from the doll.

It seemed as though it was about to get destroyed, something that Dale dreaded.

He was about to tell Trevor to stop when the doll moved. It spun about its torso, swinging out its arms faster and faster.

A few clicks were heard from the doll as a line appeared on the blank slate that was its head. Dale had seen this before.

’Is it about to scream? I thought it happened because of the nature of the Energy Pulse. Maybe I was wrong.’

As soon as the mouth formed, a voice that sounded like machine parts grinding against each other screeched.

A pulse of energy followed its scream but apart from making everyone there regret being able to hear, it accomplished nothing.

The display confirmed something for Dale. It only acted up when trying to imitate an ability. Alas, it simply couldn’t.

Even if one understood the mechanics behind it, they wouldn’t be able to replicate it.

Abilities were boons attached to the Awakening pools and unless humans learned to create their own Awakening pools then there was no hope for ability replication.

Dale’s eyes squinted. ’But its constant glitching and reactions show an attempt. Was that what it was initially meant for?’

The training dolls were perfect enough to completely imitate any and almost all martial arts and weapons. If it could imitate abilities as well, then it would be the perfect machine to deploy on the front lines.

Who is to say that that wasn’t the original intention behind the creation of the dolls? It would make a lot of sense.

’Clearly, the idea must have been abandoned for a lack of fruition.’

Dale wondered if he could learn the mechanics behind the doll. If he could, then that would certainly inspire his rather dormant creative side.

And if he couldn’t, he had one of said dolls to learn from. The very doll that Trevor was destroying.

"Okay, that’s enough," Dale said and Trevor nodded, letting go of the command.

The doll’s active deterioration ceased and its cracks started to close. It wasn’t long until it was as good as new.

’That self-repair function is certainly very useful.’ He was curious as to the limits of its self-repair.

If he took off a limb and it grew back, then how many would he take before he could pretty much build one himself?

Once one was built, he would rinse and repeat until he essentially became a factory with self-renewing materials.

No matter what, he couldn’t let the military — or anyone else, really — know. Knowledge was an invaluable currency that ensured untold power.

The less they knew about what he could do or what he was up to, the less power they had. Likewise, the more he learned, the more power he had.

And no sovereign state would let its citizens, soldier or not, get too much power.

He also didn’t plan on telling his friends. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them — he did, more than anyone else — but if he learned anything from the renegade recruits first attempt on his life, it was that sometimes people could let information leak.

They didn’t even have to say anything directly but just something that implied it would be enough.

Dale could easily imagine a case where Austin would mention him taking apart a training doll.

Most people would assume he meant beating it into shards but if someone was to suspect otherwise, it would quickly turn against him.

As the famous saying goes, ’once bitten twice shy’.

He had been bitten once — albeit by a giant centipede — but he was definitely twice shy!

Dale shook his head, wincing as a headache hit him. "Guys, I think that’s enough for today. I need to rest and the noise from further fights against this thing will just make my headache worse."

His friends nodded and patted his back as they left. "Rest well." Austin waved goodbye.

"Thanks."

As he heard his front door close, he let out a breath.

Inhaling sharply, he ran a hand through his hair. Normally, lies fell with ease out of his tongue but he didn’t like lying to them one bit.

’How odd.’

He approached the doll. It shifted back and took a defensive stance similar to Winged Snake.

Dale smiled and tapped its chest twice. The silver light in its eyes died out and it returned to being an inanimate doll.

The main reason he had gotten them out of his house was simply because of the lack of information he had about the doll.

Perhaps there was a limit to how much it could fix itself in a day or even a total cap entirely.

Dale aggressively rubbed his palms against his face. The list of things he had to do just kept going on and on.

"You know what they say, ’No rest for the kind-hearted’. Yup, it’s my fault for being so kind." He nodded as he resolved to find out what he could, when he could.

It would be a while before he could, though. Their days of rest were over. Tomorrow was the day each of them had to pick a task to complete.

"How troublesome."