Jackson had ordered Davis and Jones to kill Luke, and Luke didn't think it was a figure of speech. However, while they could do it, any half-assed investigation would lead it back to Luke if he killed them. He couldn't do it.

In fact, even injuring them at all might have been unwise. Punches and dislocated forearms were all nice and good, but visible cuts? Even Jones' missing teeth were an issue.

His new instincts had taken over before, but maybe that had been a mistake...

The memory of the locket came back, and the fury was reignited in his heart.

No, it hadn't been a mistake.

"Wha' did you do to my grandfather?!" Luke yelled, his speech a bit slurred because of his bloody and unusable nose.

Jackson was holding his hand close to him, his body bent in pain. "Fuck! Nothing! I told him you wanted to show me your mother and he gave it to me! Fucking animal! You broke my finger!"

"And you people broke ma nose for the twentieth time!" Luke spat back, then turned to Davis, who had stepped forward. "Don' test me!" he warned. "I jus' hav' to put this 'nife in the right place and even if you survive, you'll never play football eve' again!"

That gave the boy pause. Back alleys fights were all nice and fun until the consequences became permanent.

"Are you fucking insane?" Jackson yelled. "You broke Jones' arm! You might survive today, but your life is over! You hear me? Over!"

They were bullies, not stupid. They knew Luke had the advantage with the knife and decided to let him go. Just like had said, even if he put the knife at the wrong place by sheer luck, it could become a huge issue.

Luke wondered: should he let them go relatively unscratched? Or was it better to permanently maim them so they couldn't come for him later? He already expected bad consequences for fighting back. How worse could things become if he also stabbed them?

'Much worse,' he decided.

He wasn't sure if he could go to trial as a minor for that fight, but if he stabbed them, they might argue it was attempt murder instead of a brawl. Luke felt powerless to have to cling to a hope rather than taking some measure of revenge against his bullies, but his grandfather would probably have a heart attack if his grandson went to jail.

So he walked backwards slowly to the alley's entrance, never taking his eyes out of the bullies. Tomorrow's problems could wait until tomorrow. Today, he had to check on his grandpa.

"Fuck!" Jackson yelled. "Fuck! Davis, check on Jones." He turned to Luke. "I'll break both your arms and legs for this! I swear, you fucking pig!"

Luke trembled, but he did his best to ignore it. Soon, he was out of the alley. After giving his bullies a last glance, he put his knife way and turned to run away.

Recovery 1 → 2

As expected, his stats were growing fast. It wasn't just his hybrid bloodline that was doing that though. The lower the stat, the easier to grow it without spending system points. As a weakling, things should be pretty easy until he reached the average stats for his race and age at least, which should be close already.

Luke felt his nose with his hands and concluded it was indeed broken. With a grunt of pain, he put his nose more or less in place. He would have to visit the school's doctor—they were rich enough to afford a resident one—and ask them to properly set his nose. It had to be soon too, or the nose would set wrong because of his faster regeneration.

As much as he wanted to check on his grandfather ASAP, he couldn't just rush home. The man's sight was terrible, but it would be hard to miss on all the blood and injuries Luke had. So his first stop would be the school to clean himself.

He arrived there quickly. Lincoln High grounds were already almost empty by now, and the few people who saw him with a bleeding nose were shocked, but not enough to ask what had happened. As for people on the streets, who cared about strangers on this day and age?

He went to the gymnasium bathroom and took care of himself in a quick shower. The hot water felt marvelous and helped the tension leave his body for once. With the tension gone, Luke thought things true more carefully and started shaking.

What the hell had he done?!

He had attacked Jackson! He had broken the guy's finger! Jackson had been so furious that he had promised he would break Luke's arms and legs, and Luke believed him.

Things only got worse the further he thought about it. Now that Jackson had shown he wasn't against messing with Luke's grandpa, stealing a necklace was nothing. If Luke resisted again, he had no doubt his grandfather would suffer badly. The only silver lining was that messing with his grandad had been what had made Luke go crazy, so Jackson might think twice before doing that again. The bully would certainly at least come for Luke first.

That helped calm him down. His grandpa was relatively safe. With his hybrid regeneration, he could deal with some broken bones as long as he could study from the hospital not to lose his year. The hospital bill would become an issue later, but there was nothing to be done about it.

When his heart calmed, he let himself smile.

Beating the jocks had felt wonderful. Luke had never felt so good in his entire life. It wasn't about inflicting pain on them, as he was still conflicted about it, but the sensation of being in control of himself, of his life, at least once... Of not having to cower in fear... Of justice being met...

He couldn't even remember the last time he had felt like that.

"Are you a human or an animal?" Akira had asked.

Luke cried, because for the first time in almost two years, he felt he might be human after all.

= - = - =

A visit to the school's doctor was usually bad, as it led to questioning later, and maybe another teacher would be fired for trying to interfere with Jackson. However, despite Luke having experience with first aid now ingrained in his brain, professional, external aid would assure him nothing went wrong.

He could almost feel his nose healing already from his hybrid regeneration. It hadn't even bled as bad as it should have, and was not bleeding at all anymore even when he moved his nose a bit. His shoulder was also barely hurting. So after taking the bath, he went to the doctor.

Lincoln High had actual written rules against hiring attractive young staff. The teachers were either old or ugly—usually both—and only money and power could explain how the school hadn't been called out on hiring people based on their looks rather than their ability in this day and age. However, there was a single exception to the rule, as it was decided that an attractive doctor might incentivize the young to take better care of their health rather than hiding things they believed were minor.

And Doctor Taylor, like her male counterpart that came every other day, was a damn muse.

She was young, probably not even in her thirties, with a thin figure and beautiful curves. She wore a professional white coat that hid a little of that, but it did nothing to hide her face's beauty. Lump red lips, bright brown eyes, and long blond hair made her an eye-candy for anyone.

Unfortunately for most would-be young warriors of love, her professionalism wasn't just kept to the way she dressed. She treated her patients with a cold more extreme than what could be found in the heart of an iceberg. When Luke entered her office, she looked up from what she was reading on her secretary's table to him with eyes that might've frozen the sun.

"Broken nose," she said at once. "Injured cheeks, probably internally too. And something wrong with your shoulder?" She smiled sarcastically. "Let me guess, you fell down the stairs."

Luke swallowed. She knew his injuries weren't from such a fall, but that's what he always said, and she could only report it to the principal. The cops had made a show of investigating it the first time, but Jackson's family had dealt with that swiftly by changing the school's rules about the extent of the injuries they were supposed to report to the authorities.

"Yes," he said ashamed, looking down. For all her coldness, she was a great doctor that took perfect care of him the five times he had forced himself to come. "I'm clumsy."

"I'm sure you are," she said humorlessly. "Come."

They were currently at a small reception room where the office's secretary would usually be, but the girl was out somewhere. There were five seats for students to wait there, and a door to the actual clinic chamber where medicine was practiced.

The room was large, with five beds surrounded by curtains, all empty. There was a tall bed in the center too where incoming patients could seat for the doctor to take a better look at them. The walls had cabinets filled with locked medicine and medical equipment, and three laptops.

"Strip down to your underwear," she ordered with an icy tone right after he got inside and she locked the door. "I have to check what else you hurt. If your intimates are hurting, take your underwear too. And don't dare lie to me about it."

Luke just blushed and obeyed awkwardly. She went to get some bottles and cotton from some drawers while he undressed. Soon, he was standing only on his underwear, fully ashamed of himself.

When Doctor Taylor turned back to look at him, he saw surprise at her face for the very first time. It was followed by a thin smile. "Well, looks like some has been working out to stop falling down the stairs." The smile was replaced by cold professionalism so quickly that Luke wondered if he hadn't imagined it.

He took a closer look at his body. Gone was his sickly thin frame. His ribs were still poking a bit from his chest, but there was meat where once there had been none. There were also some well-tuned muscles on his belly, chest, and even legs. Today, his physical stats had increased by four points total, and they had been so low before, that it only took that to make a visible difference.

"Sit on the bed," she ordered, and he obeyed. With him sitting there, she had a good view of his entire body. She examined him closely, starting from the back, then arms, legs, upper body, and only then did she get to his face. "You're lucky you didn't break a tooth," she said, looking into his mouth.

To be honest, Luke had almost forgotten about the slap that had made him taste blood. The blood from his nose had overwhelmed that taste, and its pain had made him not even notice the pain on the insides of his cheek.

The pain from the nose had subsidized a lot too. He might not have comic hero-level regeneration, but he was certainly stopping feeling pain way too fast. And for someone who had a few broken bones incoming, that was just perfect.

Doctor Taylor continued with the examination, then proceeded to clear his knees' and palms' injuries, and put some medicine on them. She also covered his knees with bandage. Next, she set his nose on place and put some bandage there too to keep it in place. Finally, she gave him a useless prescription for painkillers that he couldn't afford. Not that he needed it, since he had his phoenix heart, anyway.

"Out with you," she ordered when she was done. "And at least try to make up a better excuse for whichever poor soul decides to help you in a couple days. Have some respect for their sympathy."

Luke could only give a small smile as she talked about the teacher that would come talk to him after he gave her report and it was forwarded to their table in a few days. Thing is, if he changed his history, it might give the teachers hope that he wanted to tell the truth. It was better for them to give up as soon as he hit them with the stairs story.

"Shoo," she said, waving him away as she took care of her things.

He dressed up quickly and left in a hurry. The school bus was long gone and he had to go home to check on his grandad. He had a long, long way to run and a lot of free time on his hands in the meanwhile.

It was time to check the icons that had appeared in his lower vision while he had been fighting.