Framework Installation

The next two weeks passed like clockwork—brutal, deliberate, and unrelenting.

Each morning began the same. Donte would rise before the sun crested Arcton's jagged skyline, his limbs aching and breath slow as he dressed in the orphanage's quiet dark. Vespera had stopped asking where he went. She only gave him a look sometimes—half concern, half curiosity—but never pressed.

And then he would slip into the city.

The journey to Markus's workshop was short but always heavy with expectation. Arcton was a city that didn't sleep, merely shifted moods—its alleys murmuring with pipe steam and distant engines, its sky bruised with smog and flickers of neon. By the time Donte arrived, Markus would already be there, arms folded, mechanical hand tapping some unspoken rhythm against the workbench.

"On time," the older man would say each morning. "Good. You're learning already."

Then, the work began.

Donte's first task was no more glamorous than his last: building the same standard-issue bolt-action pistol from scratch—again and again and again.

Each component had to be memorized, handled, fitted by feel, and tested under Markus's critical eye. Barrel, chamber, magazine, grip, spring. Sand. Fit. Screw. Disassemble. Clean. Repeat.

By the third day, he could build one with his eyes closed.

By the fifth, he could do it faster than he thought possible—fingers moving before his brain caught up.

Markus watched with a tight-lipped nod. "It's not about speed. It's about precision under pressure. A good pistol's not for comfort. It's for control."

Then came the range.

Markus led Donte into the converted maintenance tunnels beneath the workshop, now a crude shooting gallery lined with reinforced walls and reactive targets. The stale scent of gunpowder hung in the air, old and settled like forgotten memories.

At first, Donte's shots were wild. Shaky breath, unsteady hands.

Markus didn't correct him. He simply stood nearby, arms crossed.

"You're building the gun with your hands," he said after a miss, "but you're firing it with your breath. Again."

So Donte tried again. And again.

He began to notice things—the subtle pull of the trigger, the way the barrel shifted after a single misaligned screw, how the weight of the grip affected his stance. His hands remembered what his nerves tried to forget.

By the end of the week, his grouping was tighter. The misses were fewer. The rhythm of load, aim, fire, reset began to settle into muscle.

When they weren't crafting or shooting, Markus pushed him through conditioning drills—sprints through narrow alleys, pushups on gravel, pull-ups from corroded scaffolding.

"You want to fight alone," Markus said, watching him run with a stopwatch, "you need to be a one-man army."

Donte didn't complain. He ran harder.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The second week brought change.

One morning, Markus laid a long, cloth-wrapped bundle across the table and unrolled it. Inside was a wooden training spear—its shaft worn but balanced, the metal tip dulled for safety but heavy enough to feel real.

"Time to learn reach," Markus said simply.

Donte raised an eyebrow. "You're training me in melee now?"

"You're not a tower sniper," Markus replied. "You're mobile. You're tactical. Close-range will happen—whether you want it or not."

Training with the spear was nothing like the rifle.

It was rhythm and motion. Control and flow.

Markus drilled him relentlessly. The first hour was footwork—stance transitions, pivots, weight shifts. Donte stumbled more than he struck. The spear's length threw him off, and he struggled to keep balance.

"Strike without grounding and you're just spinning in place," Markus said, tapping Donte's leg with the blunt end of his own spear. "Reset. Try again."

They moved on to thrusts, sweeps, and diagonal cuts. Markus demonstrated slowly, then faster. Donte mirrored as best he could, his muscles burning, his grip slipping. Sweat soaked his collar.

But it was different from crafting. There was no blueprint here—only instinct, repetition, and correction.

And he liked it.

Each evening, they'd end with weapons training: sidearm transitions, close-quarters firing drills, and dry-run reloads under pressure. Markus showed him how to shoulder roll, kick out from a crouch, and fire in mid-motion.

"You're learning how to flow," he told Donte after a sparring session. "Eventually, the spear and the

rifle—neither will be your weapon. You will be."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Donte's muscles ached by the tenth day. Not from pain—but from growth.

His body was still lean, still narrow-shouldered, but there was density now. Movement felt sharper. Cleaner. The boy who had flinched under Kaelen's glare felt distant—like someone else entirely.

Markus noticed it, too.

"You're adapting faster than expected," he said one morning, handing Donte a mug of scorched tea. "I thought I'd have to drag you through the basics for another month."

Donte sipped the drink, wincing at the bitterness. "You're still dragging me."

"Good," Markus said with a smirk. "Means you're not cocky yet."

Later that day, Markus led him back into the workshop and gestured to a shelf near the back.

Donte recognized it now—the prototype section.

Nothing rare. Nothing fancy. Just clean, precise designs.

"Pick one," Markus said. "Build it from scratch. No guidance this time. Let's see if the work stuck."

Donte scanned the shelf and chose a pistol design—not flashy, but intricate enough to challenge him. He laid out the parts. Measured. Cleaned. Fitted. Filed. He built slowly, triple-checking tolerances and balance.

It took him four hours.

When he was done, Markus picked it up, inspected the magazine, clicked the slide back, and fired a dry shot.

No misfires. No flaws.

Then he handed it back. "Unranked quality," he said. "But clean work. It'd hold up in a firefight."

Donte blinked. "Unranked?"

"No enhancements. No scripts. No elemental coating or synthetic charge—just parts and precision. That's what we call 'unranked.' But don't take that as an insult. Most soldiers only ever carry unranked sidearms. What matters is the reliability."

Donte nodded, absorbing the term. "So enhancements are what bump it up?"

"Exactly," Markus said. "Once you start adding augmentations, you hit classifications. But don't rush. Basics matter more."

That night, Donte sat in the corner of the workshop as the forge hissed softly in the background. His shirt clung to his skin. His palms were black with grease and soot. The finished pistol sat on the bench beside him—his first solo build.

He stared at it for a long time.

It wasn't just a tool.

It was a start.