Routine Maintenance Suggested

The scent of oil and metal clung to Donte's skin like armor he hadn't yet earned.

He followed Marcus through a narrow alley behind Arcton's southern market. Steam hissed from overworked pipes, fogging the air with heat. The low thrum of machinery vibrated through the cracked ground beneath their boots. Grit fell from overhead walkways as they passed beneath them.

At the end of the alley, tucked between towering stacks of junk and cables, stood a rusted metal door—half-buried in scrap, all but forgotten.

Marcus keyed in a code on a flickering panel.

The door groaned, shuddered, and slid open with a stubborn whine.

"Welcome to my quiet corner of the world," Marcus said, waving Donte inside.

The workshop was organized chaos—cluttered, but intentional. Pegboards held rows of tools sorted by shape and size. Workbenches were strewn with stripped-down firearms, cracked holoscreens, and rolls of blueprints. Fragments of ancient gear blinked softly in standby mode, while low-tech tools hummed with integrated magical circuits.

Donte's eyes were drawn to a long rack of rifles along the back wall. Sleek, elegant—some traditional, some enhanced by Magic Script, glowing faintly along barrels and chambers in jagged glyphs.

"You live here?" he asked.

Marcus smirked. "Work here. Sleep upstairs. Pay nothing, build everything."

He tossed Donte a rag that smelled like gun oil and copper. "First lesson: if you treat your weapon like garbage, it'll repay you the same. You don't shoot until you can strip it down, clean it, and rebuild it without thinking."

Donte nodded, wiping his hands as he stepped closer to the nearest bench. "Got it."

They got to work.

Marcus talked him through the anatomy of a basic bolt-action rifle—every screw, every chamber, every flaw in the old Velorian design. His voice was calm, slow, and patient, but left no room for laziness.

Disassemble. Oil. Recalibrate. Reassemble.

Repeat.

Donte's hands weren't fast at first. But they were steady. Precise.

By the third reassembly, Marcus barely said a word. Donte's movements had found rhythm. No hesitation. No wasted motion.

"You've got good instincts," Marcus muttered, examining the final result. "Like muscle memory, buried somewhere deeper than your skin."

Donte didn't reply. He just slid the final pin into place and locked the action with a clean click.

The next day, Marcus handed him two new weapons.

A compact sidearm—lightweight, street-model. And a short-barrel shotgun modified with etched glyphs from Magic Script embedded along the pump.

"Sniper work looks pretty in stories," Marcus said. "But real fights? Real fights are loud, chaotic, and close. You need to know how to adapt—how to move when things get ugly."

Donte nodded.

They moved underground, to a tunnel Marcus had converted into a hidden training range. Long-abandoned rail lines split the path, lined with broken barricades and pressure-activated targets.

Down here, the air was heavy. Musty. Silent except for the metallic ring of spent casings.

"Draw. Fire. Shift. Duck. Fire again. Get low—keep moving. Tight corners. Don't overthink."

Donte fumbled at first. His shotgun kicks were clumsy. His sidearm reloads, slow. He tripped. Missed. Cursed under his breath.

But over time, his form sharpened.

His footwork grew more fluid. Transitions between weapons—smooth. Each shot came faster, cleaner, tighter. He stopped aiming like a textbook student and started reacting like someone who didn't have time to die.

He didn't stand still to line up shots. He fired on the move. Pivoted mid-slide. Cleared corners with his body tight to the wall, ready to shoot, to strike.

Marcus watched in silence.

"Now we're getting somewhere," he said one day after Donte landed three back-to-back headshots in rapid succession. "This isn't training anymore. This is muscle and mind syncing."

When they weren't working with weapons, Marcus trained him physically.

"Your eyes are good. But if the body can't follow, you'll die anyway."

So they ran.

He forced Donte up the slope of the old factory hill until his legs gave out. Then again. And again. They trained balance across old pipe scaffolds. Lifted broken machinery. Jumped gaps between warehouse rooftops.

No fancy tech. No magic.

Just sweat and repetition.

Donte felt it in his bones—the slow burn of change. Lean muscle formed under his frame. His breath held longer. His strides lengthened. He still looked small, but now he moved like someone prepared to do damage.

One night, Marcus brought him to a broken skywalk. Two towers, barely stable, connected by a fractured bridge with loose cables and missing panels.

Far below, Arcton's lower districts flickered with weak neon.

Above, skyships cut across the clouds like slow-moving gods.

Marcus dropped a hardcase at Donte's feet.

"Let's see what you can do now."

Inside was a long-barrel rifle. Sleek black frame. Modified grip. Magic Script lined the barrel, flickering with faint blue energy. A prototype, maybe. A testing piece.

Marcus pointed to the rooftops across the district—barely visible in the hazy distance. Each target pulsed with a faint glow.

"One shot per. On the move. Go."

Donte didn't hesitate.

He crouched low, rifle tight against his shoulder. Stepped forward. The scope aligned.

One breath.

Move.

He crossed the skywalk like a shadow—silent, smooth, controlled. Pivot, fire. Slide, roll, fire again. Each target dropped in a blink. He didn't pause. Didn't think. He reacted. Fluid. Efficient.

When he reached the end, Marcus let out a quiet whistle.

"You're going to surpass me," he said, more serious than ever. "And that's saying something."

Donte lowered the rifle.

"I plan to."

The change didn't go unnoticed.

Back at the orphanage, Kaelen still stalked the halls like he owned them—but he didn't push anymore. Didn't sneer. Not directly.

Donte didn't posture. He didn't threaten.

He simply existed with a different weight.

Vespera leaned on his doorframe one evening, watching him clean a sidearm.

"You're not the same," she said quietly.

Donte didn't look up. "Change is inevitable."

"No," she said. "This feels like something else. Like you already know where you're going."

He paused. Then finally glanced up.

"I do."

She held his gaze for a moment, then sighed. "Just don't lose the part of you that still cares."

Donte wiped the slide clean, slow and steady.

"I don't know if I ever had it."

At the end of the week, Marcus handed him a rifle frame.

Barebones. Untuned. Nothing special—yet.

"Your turn to build," he said. "You've got the mind for it. Make something that's yours."

Donte ran his fingers across the barrel, already visualizing every change—recoil reduction, smart linkage, adjustable focus grips. Not standard upgrades. Not copies.

Something custom. Unique.

His.

Marcus crossed his arms, voice steady.

"You're not just a shooter. You're a builder. You've got clarity, control. When you act, you mean it. When you fire, it's personal."

Donte looked toward the distant skyline, where purple light spilled behind towers.

He didn't smile.

But his voice was calm. Sure.

"I'm not a sniper," he said.

"I'm a problem."