Helena slowly descended the stairs from the observation room to the arena, her heels sounding more hesitant than usual. The confident smile she wore earlier had vanished, replaced by a slightly puzzled expression. She looked around at the wreckage of the armor and the completely deformed ground, as if an earthquake had hit the place.
"This... was supposed to last at least five minutes," she murmured, looking at the data on her tablet. "It was a level one urban combat simulation, Lisa. Level one."
Lisa merely shrugged, a slight smirk on her lips, as if she saw no fault in what she'd done.
"Blame the system for being weak."
Helena sighed, unable to suppress a nervous smile.
"This isn't exactly what we were trying to test... but... well, we can't raise the level just yet. These are initial simulations. We can't throw teenagers into catastrophic-level threats," she scratched her head, frustrated. "But one thing's for sure, Lisa, your rating is going to be... high. Very high."
Lucas whistled, clapping slowly.
"Congratulations, little villain," he said with a cheeky grin. "You broke the game. Literally. Happy now?"
Lisa crossed her arms, trying to maintain a superior posture, but her face was a little more flushed than before.
"Tsk. Of course I'm happy. It was obvious it'd be easy for me. Idiots underestimate my looks."
But inside, she was laughing.
'Of course it was easy. Obviously I'm strong. But this... this isn't what I really want.'
Lisa's gaze drifted to Lucas. She studied him carefully—his arm muscles beneath the shirt, the way he smiled shamelessly, his beautiful neck, his chest hidden under the fabric. That body she knew was toned, because she'd seen it in glimpses when he came out of the shower.
'What I want... what I really want is you, you idiot.'
She chuckled softly, a subtle sound that only Lucas heard — enough to leave him slightly confused.
'I want to rip that shirt off right now... lie on your chest... feel your warmth... force you to hug me... make you blush... Ah, Lucas... you'd be so red. So cute trying to resist, all flustered by a little sister who's not as innocent as she pretends...'
She squeezed her cheeks with her hands, trying to contain her imagination, but couldn't hide the slight psychotic gleam in her eyes. Her smile widened.
Lucas noticed the look and took a step back, frowning.
"Hey... why do you look like you're about to devour me?"
Lisa blinked, snapping back to reality, and immediately turned her face away.
"N-Nothing! Stop flattering yourself! As if anyone would want you, you idiot! You... you walking hunk of meat!"
"Huh? Hunk of what?"
"Shut up!"
Helena, still unsettled, just shook her head, already aware that this kind of madness was normal between the two. But something in Lisa's gaze made her pause for a moment.
That glint. It wasn't just anger or pouting. Helena had seen Lisa pissed many times, had seen the girl act like she wanted to kill Lucas — and sometimes, maybe she really did. But this... this was different.
It was desire.
Her stomach turned.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, and the forced smile she'd been holding slipped for a moment. Lisa still had her face turned away, cheeks tinged red, but Helena knew how to read signs. And she recognized that look. After all, she herself had cast that same look at Lucas when he wasn't looking. Or... at least, she thought he wasn't.
"So..." she began, her melodic voice trying to sound casual, but with a sharp edge at the end, "what exactly were you thinking about while destroying the arena, my dear Lisa?"
Lisa turned to Helena with a slight jolt. There was something in her tone. Something dangerous. But Lisa wasn't exactly the type to back down.
"Hm? I thought I wanted to finish this whole nonsense quickly. I have better things to do than play fake superhero."
"Oh, really?" Helena stepped closer, her heel clicking sharply on the broken floor. A sweet, almost maternal smile appeared on her lips. But her eyes... her eyes said something else. "And what would be more interesting than a simulation made especially for you?"
Lisa smiled, almost innocent, almost cute. But just almost.
"Maybe... looking at something prettier. Something more useful. Something tastier to watch."
She looked directly at Lucas, who was still trying to understand why his little sister seemed like she wanted to rip off his skin and wear it as pajamas. Her smile widened. Helena noticed.
She noticed — and hated it.
"Tastier, huh?" Helena repeated, her voice now lower, almost a whisper. She also turned to Lucas, scanning him with a slow, overly deliberate gaze. "Well, I have to agree with you on that one."
Lisa froze.
Helena took two steps, stopping beside Lucas, and ran her hand over his shoulder with a slowness that bordered on perverse. Lucas looked from one to the other, completely oblivious to the silent battlefield forming around him.
"Uh... guys?" he asked, but no one replied.
"But you know, Lisa..." Helena continued, sliding her hand from Lucas's shoulder to his chest, letting her fingers rest familiarly on his torso. "When you look too much at something tasty... you might end up getting burned. Especially when you're not old enough to handle it."
"You're a cow," Lisa replied instantly, her voice cold.
"You're a plank," Helena responded with a sweet little sing-song voice, not even hesitating.
Lucas could only mutter a "here we go again" before stepping aside, trying to distance himself from the cold war that was about to turn nuclear.
But the two didn't stop staring at each other. The ruined arena around them seemed small compared to the electric tension between their gazes. Helena was smiling, but her fingers gripped the tablet tighter. Lisa was smiling too, but the psychotic gleam had returned to her eyes.
"If you keep looking at him like that, Lisa..." Helena said calmly, "I'm going to start thinking you want my man."
"Who said he's yours?" Lisa replied, her innocent smile turning into something more like a veiled threat. "You really think he'd choose someone as old as you?"
Helena raised an eyebrow, pretending to be offended.
"Old? Sweetie, I've still got milk in my breasts. You still need to grow just to learn how to use yours."
Lisa's eyes widened and she took a step forward, but before the war could truly break out, Lucas raised his hands.
"Enough!" he shouted. "For God's sake! One at a time! Or better, neither! What the hell!"
Both of them looked at him at the same time.
Lisa, blushing, trembling with rage.
Helena, pretending to be innocent, but visibly pleased.
And Lucas? Lucas just wanted a bit of peace.
He sighed, resting his hands on his hips as he watched the two size each other up like predators about to pounce — if predators were this tiny and moody, anyway.
On one side, Lisa, 1.40 meters of pure condensed fury, her face flushed with anger and fists clenched at her sides.
On the other, Helena, with her 1.86 meters of pure provocation, a mischievous smile and a relaxed stance, as if dealing with an angry child.
Except... for Lisa, facing Helena wasn't simple. The height difference between them was ridiculous. To maintain eye contact, Lisa literally had to crane her neck up, standing on tiptoes without realizing it, as if that would somehow make her more intimidating.
Lucas almost laughed.
Helena, noticing her niece's desperate attempt, didn't miss the chance to rub it in.
She slowly crossed her arms so that her ample breasts lifted even more, pushed up by the position. The generous cleavage seemed to mock Lisa's very existence.
Then, with a venomous little smile, Helena said:
"Did you know you're so tiny that my boobs can't even let me see your little face properly?"
Time seemed to freeze.
Lisa blinked once. Then again.
Lucas widened his eyes, feeling like some invisible line had just been crossed.
And then—
"COO-W!" Lisa exploded, taking two steps forward, her face completely red, looking more like a walking tomato than an actual threat.
Helena merely leaned her torso slightly forward, making her breasts bounce deliberately, as if she were showing off weapons of war in response to a diplomatic offense.
"It's not my fault nature was generous here..." she said, pushing her chest out even more. "Whereas with you, well... it seems she forgot."
Lisa, for a moment, seemed to lose all ability to speak. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Only small squeals of impotent rage.
Lucas finally couldn't hold it in. He laughed out loud, bringing a hand to his stomach.
"Oh no… you two are perfect! Makes me want to film and sell it as a reality show: 'Family Fight — The Cow and the Plank'!"
Both of them immediately turned to him.
Two identical expressions of homicidal fury.
Lucas froze, feeling a chill run down his spine.
"Oops… I think I said too much."
Luckily, one of the examiners arrived, saying:
"Hrm... Sorry to interrupt, but Lucas Gracefall hasn't taken the test yet. It's his turn now."
The silence that followed was almost sacred.
Lisa and Helena were still staring at him with the eyes of predators hungry for blood, but the examiner's call made them instinctively back off — as if a referee had blown the whistle for the end of the first round. Lucas, in turn, let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding, like a condemned man whose sentence had been postponed at the last second.
"Ah, yes. Finally," he said, cracking his knuckles and rotating his shoulders like an athlete about to step onto the field. "Time to shine, ladies. Watch and learn."
Lisa huffed. "Just don't faint from nerves when the robot blinks at you."
"If it's a hot robot chick, maybe I'll blink back."
Helena just rolled her eyes, but her arms were crossed a little too tightly. The slightly bulging vein on her forehead said more than any words.
Lucas headed toward the arena, now restructured — metal plates fitting together with metallic hisses, the floor rebuilding itself through nanotechnology. The artificial intelligence was preparing everything again for an urban combat scenario, the walls and obstacles simulating buildings, alleys, abandoned cars.
"Simulation Level One," announced the system's voice. "Three enemy units. Beginning in: 3... 2... 1..."
The world flashed red for a second.
Three robots emerged from the alleys — tall, metallic, with blades on their arms and eyes glowing in threatening hues. An electronic roar echoed through the arena.
Lucas didn't move.
He just took a deep breath. And smiled.
But it wasn't a cheeky or provocative smile like before. It was… different. Slightly crooked. A little off. Almost as if something inside him had changed.
He tilted his head, observing the robots like he was evaluating toys.
"Same test as Lisa, huh?" he murmured to himself. "Three enemies. Urban combat. Level one. Way too easy."
The first robot charged, blade raised.
Lucas stepped to the side, dodging with elegance, tossing out a sarcastic comment:
"Wow... that almost hit, just missed by actually hitting."
He then placed a hand on the robot's arm, releasing an electric surge that fried the robot's internal circuits.
Sensing the other two robots closing in together, Lucas calmly used the first robot as a shield.
When the blades of the other two robots struck the first one's metallic body, Lucas took advantage and released an extremely powerful electric charge into the other two, using the first robot's body as a bridge.
Lucas finished the test in 30 seconds, achieving a result nearly as impressive as Lisa's — even though his "ability" was ranked lower than hers.
The last crackle of energy still echoed through the metallic space, and the three robots were on the ground — smoking, their bodies twitching slightly before going completely dark. A faint smell of ozone and burnt plastic filled the air.
Lucas just brushed off imaginary dust from his shirt and cracked his neck, as if he had just finished a light workout at the gym.
From the observation room above, the evaluators looked at each other. Murmurs began to spread among them, and a woman with her hair in a bun, wearing a white lab coat, frowned at the data blinking on the holographic display in front of her.
"This... is not possible," she said, typing frantically.
Another evaluator — a middle-aged bald man with a serious expression — leaned forward. "Did the sensors confirm? The discharge came directly from him?"
"It did. No external amplifier, no auxiliary source. He channeled it through touch. The electrical current should have been dissipated by the internal insulators. Those robots..."
"...aren't the most advanced we have," added another evaluator, a young man with data glasses, frowning. "But even so, burning the internal circuits with an external electric discharge should be impossible. They were specifically designed to resist that. None of the previous examinees could do it."
"What are you suggesting?" asked the woman. "That this boy... bypassed the model's defenses?"
"He didn't bypass," said the bald man. "He overloaded them."
While the evaluators' debate grew heated, down below, Helena was trying to process what she had just seen. Her expression had completely changed — there was no room left for irony. She looked at Lucas with a mix of surprise and... unease.
Lisa was also speechless.
Her eyes fixed on her brother, eyebrows slightly raised, mouth slightly open.
'That wasn't normal.'
She knew his strength, knew the looks, the mannerisms... but that smile. That crooked look. The way he used the robots as a conductor... There was no hesitation. No pleasure. It was as if he were just... playing a role.
"Lucas..." she murmured, without realizing it.
Noticing the strange silence, he looked up, raising one hand.
"Are you gonna give me a score or would you rather keep staring like I just summoned the devil?"
Helena blinked, snapping out of the trance, forcing a smile.
"Yeah... Lucas, that was... impressive. Way beyond what we expected."
"Impressive?" repeated the woman in the lab coat, emerging from the side of the arena with a tablet in hand. She was walking fast, almost tripping over her own feet. "Do you have any idea what you just did? These robots were designed with fourth-generation insulators. They're resistant to electric shocks. Not just external ones, but internal too. Burning their main cores with a single surge isn't just difficult — it's statistically improbable!"
Lucas shrugged, smiling with the same "wasn't me" face he used when he knocked over the cookie jar.
"Maybe I have a special way with machines. You know how it is… charisma."
"That's not charisma," she replied, slamming the tablet. "That's broken physics."
"Well. Maybe physics needs an update. I'm trending."
---
End of chapter.