“Ahhh!” Truffle screamed as he sprinted down the metal street, an armoured guard hot in pursuit.

  “Stop right there!” It shouted in a robotic voice.

  Truffle was pretty sure that it was a robot, a humanoid robot in black and white armoured casing with a whacking stick clutched in its hand.

  “Kesh, help!” he squealed, not daring to look behind himself.

  He had been following the orc when a patrolling guard found them, they had both sprinted away but Kesh was much faster and he’d soon lost her. He couldn’t believe she’d ran off like that, she was supposed to be a warrior, and his friend.

  Damn these tiny legs!

  Truffle kept running, squealing as he went, and the robo-guard followed at an alarming pace. The worst thing about fleeing from a robot was that it didn’t get tired.

  Not to mention that Truffle wasn’t allowed in this section of the space arena and he didn’t even have his card power to rely on as he hadn’t consumed anyone in a while.

  He wondered if eating robo-guard would give him a power, that would be sweet.

  “Little one!” Kesh whisper shouted.

  She was peeking out from a side alley up ahead; she had her trotter held to her lips and she winked slowly at the pig. He ran towards her, keeping his mouth shut.

  As he ran past her he skidded to a halt and turned around just in time to watch the guard’s head fly off in a smattering of sparks as metal wires screeched and protested before ripping at the neck.

  “Stop right… there… stop… op… I am… the… law.”

  The robot spewed a string of increasingly slowing words interspersed with beeps and boops as the little red light in its helmet went out, presumably as the electricity faded from its head.

  Its body was another case though, it continued running down the street like a headless chicken. Thankfully, it couldn’t see Truffle and Kesh and after a few long strides it ran into one of the many exposed pipes and fell backwards onto the ground.

  “That was a close one, thanks Kesh.”

  “It good, almost back, come.”

  ***

  Truffle and Kesh returned to the VIP box laughing conspiratorially in hushed tones.

  “That was great, that part where it ran away without a head… classic!” Truffle said, barely able to contain his amusement. Taking a deep breath, and in his usual scatter-brained way, he continued.

  “I’ve been wondering, how come Boss and everyone else can speak pig now?” He asked, “I’ve been talking this way for as long as I’ve known him and he only recently started to understand me.”

  “System alter brain at planet induction, you understand all language now. So does human. You would need different vocal cords to speak human language, humans need different vocal cords to speak Orc language. System alter brain to account for this.”

  “Buck said the human language was too basic for him,” Truffle lamented, thinking back to when he’d first met the dinosaur.

  “Human language use vocal cords, Buck’s language use thought transfer. System make brain alteration to allow communication, harder on thought based species than us.”

  Truffle nodded along but he didn’t really understand what Kesh was saying. As far as he was concerned, John had learnt to speak pig. What a nice Boss, learning a new language to better communicate with his companion.

  “Go-go gadget arm!” John shouted from across the room as the two entered. He thrust his left arm out dramatically. “Damn it,” he muttered when nothing seemed to happen.

  Truffle’s eyes widened and he ran straight for the odd man in the cowboy attire, squealing “Boss!”

  John turned just in time to be headbutted in the shin as the teacup pig barrelled towards him with violent affection.

  “Where have you been?” He asked, bending down to rub his shin and pat the pig on his head.

  “We went on an adventure!”

  “Oh, well that sounds fun. I got through to the final round. Though I can’t work out how to use this new card, I got a new card by the way, my instincts are telling me to harden my skin, but when I try it doesn’t seem to do anything.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Chunttering softly as his Boss patted his head, Truffle could tell that his mind was too fixed on his own issues to be interested in the awesome adventure he’d just had exploring the ship. That wasn’t going to stop him from talking about it though.

  “You got a new card? That’s great! We made a sketchy deal in a back alley and got chased by a robo-guard. This ship is huge, but it’s not as nice back there as it is in here. It’s like a metal slum for poor people whilst we get to live it up in this VIP box.”

  The patting stopped suddenly as John removed his hand and crouched down, looking at Truffle with a furrowed brow.

  “What?” He said, sounding a little dumb as Truffle repeated himself almost verbatim.

  “I thought you were supposed to be looking after him,” John scolded Kesh, standing up and completely ignoring the little pig, hands placed firmly on his hips, “not taking him to drug deals and fighting cops.”

  “No drug deal, I help little one level up,” Kesh replied sternly, taking a seat at the bar and pouring a drink.

  “Level up?” John looked between the two suspiciously.

  “Be quiet human, watch,” Kesh said, taking out the amber coloured gem that she and Truffle had worked so hard to get.

  “Little one, fetch,” she said, tossing the gem high into the air.

  Truffle instinctively moved beneath it and jumped slightly, catching it in his mouth and swallowing it whole.

  “I was supposed to eat it right?”

  Kesh nodded her affirmation as the light began to break through the skin around Truffle’s stomach. It looked like he’d swallowed a potent glow stick as it beamed through his pink flesh. Reddish veins and lines of sinew became visible as his skin turned semi-transparent against the light.

  “My tummy is all rumbly, I think I need to poop,” he said, trying to look down at his stomach and failing.

  “No poop, just wait.”

  “But this is exactly what it feels like when I’ve eaten something funny and it always ends with poop.”

  “I can second that,” John said raising one hand from his folded arms.

  Truffle remembered all the times John had gotten up in the middle of the night to take him outside, so he knew his Boss wasn’t lying.

  Rumbling shook his core as his stomach continued to gurgle and bubble like a witch’s caldron. He felt gassy as pressure built up inside him.

  Am I about to burst open like a pinata?

  Level Up Complete:

  You are now: E Rank.

  Truffle farted… loudly.

  ***

  John pinched his nose as noxious fumes erupted from Truffle’s behind. If he had been a cartoon character it would have been visible green gas. Instead it was simply a warm, rotting smell.

  “I hope that’s not toxic,” he said, his voice sounding nasally due to his pinched nose.

  “It smell toxic,” Kesh added, placing a three pronged trotter over her own snout.

  “I did it!” Truffle cheered, bouncing around the floor.

  “We know,” John said dryly.

  “Little one get notification?” Kesh asked and Truffle nodded, “odd, usually messier.”

  “So… what now?” John asked, looking between Kesh and Truffle, “he doesn’t look any different.”

  “Level up subtle, increase unseen stats: strength, agility, standard game stuff,” Kesh replied with a casual wave of her trotter.

  “Buck mentioned that you can’t see stats,” John mused, rubbing his chin as he thought back on that conversation, “but it makes him stronger?”

  “Yes, harder to kill. He sleep now, process tyring.”

  As if on cue Truffle yawned loudly and John moved to pick him up, swaddling him in a nearby blanket and placing him on the sofa. He was snoring before his head touched the upholstery.

  “Then it was worth doing,” John nodded to Kesh, keeping his voice low, “thank you. You don’t happen to know anything about the new card I got do you? I can’t seem to make it work.”

  “What name?”

  “It’s called Adamantite-Lite.”

  “Strong card, much better after level up. Saw it on last season, contestant made small circle of hard skin. Like steel.”

  John nodded along, furrowing his brow as he tried to work out exactly what Kesh meant. She was an Orc of few words and limited English.

  “Small circles?” He asked after a few moments, “I’ve been trying to harden my entire fist.”

  “No work, not until level up. Only small circles now.”

  Nodding along he felt something click into place in his mind and decided to try again, this time without the verbal cues from old cartoons.

  He tried to start small, first just holding out his hand and facing his palm towards himself. He imagined hardening a small circle in the centre of his palm.

  Grunting as he strained to keep control of the power, he felt something click into place and a small part of the skin on his palm turned gunmetal grey. He prodded it and it felt like metal, cold and hard.

  That must be how Baz caught my bullets, he thought as realisation struck.

  It stood to reason that Baz had hardened part of his palm and caught the bullets in his hand, which was a very impressive feat even with the card power.

  Surely no human could pull that off, there had to be more too it. Looking towards Kesh, he got his answer.

  As he moved to turn around he found himself moving too fast and he spun completely around with minimal effort and minor disorientation.

  “Card make reactions faster, gets better after level up.”

  “You’re telling me, this is going to take some getting used to,” John replied, feeling a little dizzy, which was something he’d had more than enough of after the last battle. His equilibrium still felt off even now, though he was pretty certain it was just his mind playing tricks on him since the stasis light healed him.

  The card’s enhanced movement speed must have been how Baz had appeared to fire the bullet back at John. First he’d caught it, then he’d simply thrown it with the extra momentum provided by the card. It was pretty impressive, and lying about the nature of his card was clever, even if it was a gamble.

  If John had realised at the time, he could have simply fired a barrage of bullets at the man and ended the round there and then. He’d had the real advantage all along, but Baz had tricked him.

  Never take anyone at their word, his father’s voice reverberated in his head. He pushed it away.

  “How long do I have until the next round?” He asked Kesh.

  “Few hours, final take place at night.”

  “Right, then I better not waste them, I need to be able to master this power before then.”

  “Ha! Good luck human, power tricky.”

  Knowing that he had to try, John set about practicing. If he’d had a speaker he would have blasted Eye Of The Tiger and turned it into an 80’s montage. Sadly, the real world didn’t work like that, this would take hours of non-stop, deliberate practice.