Book 9: Chapter 7:

The crowd in the town’s arena was even more hyped up than usual as an exchange of heavy blows, fist to fist, created shockwaves powerful enough to knock the hair back of everything spectating.

Only two combatants were actually fighting, but they were the two that everybody loved to watch the most due to how intense the sparring sessions between them could get. And this time, it was more than just a sparring session. They were having a full, proper fight to see who would be the last one standing, and neither had any intention of stopping until the other could no longer stand.

And those two rival fighters were Mary and Fenrir. Though, Mary was embracing her Mister Smiles side as she had her bodysuit and helmet on since it helped bring out the most of her strength.

“What—what’s gotten into ya?!” Mary shouted at Fenrir as she was forced onto the defensive, holding her arms up in front of her to defend against the flurry of blows.

“Something good happened!” Fenrir shouted back. He felt fired up ever since he saw Nell and had every intention of burning through all that energy she gave him. There was also the desire to dominate burning within him. After submitting to Nell, he wanted to put somebody in their place to reassert his dominance, so why not try to defeat the strongest other brawler around?

He even refused to use Rod and his ability to transform his limbs for more strength.

He wanted to defeat her with nothing but his normal, natural body. Even though she had the advantage of her suit that seriously weakened blunt attacks against her, he wanted to beat her without using any tricks that might put them on an equal level.

Biting her neck was against the personal rules in his mind, too.

So, for the first time in a serious fight against Mary without using anything to equal the playing field, Fenrir punched through her defenses with enough force to knock her back.

The crowd couldn’t help but to cheer at the sight of it. They weren’t taking any sides; they just wanted to see a good fight.

And a good fight was exactly what Fenrir planned on giving them.

Panting underneath her mask, Mary caught her breath before looking back up at Fenrir who was standing there waiting for her to recover.

“Ah’ve… ah’ve never been pushed back like that before. Not just by fists,” Mary said between her labored breaths.

“These fists will do more than just push you back. They’re going to beat you down until you can’t even think about standing,” Fenrir teased, cracking his knuckles and neck.

Had anybody else said that, Mary would have found it amusing at best, downright pitiful at worst.

But Fenrir was the one who said it.

And Mary knew that there was as much weight behind his words as there was power behind his fists.

“Come on, you plan on keeping everybody waiting? They want a good show,” Fenrir teased some more.

“Hah… that cocky attitude is pissin’ me off,” Mary replied.

“Then get over here and shut me up.”

The smile on Mary’s helmet could never compete against the annoyed, yet excited, smile on her face as she lunged at Fenrir with speed that he never saw from her before. He wasn’t even able to raise his arms to protect himself before her fist crashed into his abdomen, sending him flying into the wall of the arena as he coughed blood out of his mouth.

He might have done some damage to Mary, but he didn’t crush any of her internal organs like she just did to him.

“That… that was a good punch,” Fenrir said as he struggled to breathe significantly more than Mary just was.

“Ya pissed me off. I want ya dead now, ya damn wolf,” Mary said.

It was the first time that Fenrir heard such words from her. Had it not been for the fact that he just got done being dominated by Nell, he might have even liked hearing those words with a different sort of excitement. But, rather than feel aroused by her fighting words, he felt excited to beat her even more.

He knew he was going to have to be quick, though. It was obvious from how he felt that there was something seriously wrong inside of him. If he could last for even another minute, that would probably be a miracle.

That meant he had to fight through the pain and beat her down, with crushed organs, in under a minute.

He had no idea if he’d be able to manage that, but he had every intention to try.

Fenrir pushed himself off the wall. “You won’t hate me if I break you, right?” he asked.

“Ah’d respect ya if ya could,” Mary answered as she leaned forward and dug her foot into the ground again.

She did the exact same thing just a split second before crashing into Fenrir with that insane punch that sent him into the wall.

If there was one thing that Fenrir knew he was better than her at, it was instincts and adapting.

He couldn’t wait to dodge her until she was right in front of him. He’d very likely already be dead at that point. So, instead, he sidestepped in the exact moment that he saw her legs move to lunge at him again. He moved before her feet were even off the ground.

And he made the right choice to as she wasn’t able to change her course once she started. She lunged in the direction of where he just was, throwing her fist into the wall and and sending splinters running throughout it.

Before she could move again, Fenrir’s own fist crashed into the center of her arm at full strength, snapping the bone loudly enough for everybody in the arena to hear and cringe at.

With that, her dominant arm was out of action.

But he failed to anticipate her swinging around with her other arm to slam it into his left shoulder, shattering the bone and taking his left arm out of action. She immediately followed up by twisting her body and kicking her right leg at him, which he managed to soften the blow of by putting his left arm between him and the rest of his body, and then he slammed his right fist into the side of her knee.

He might not have completely shattered her bones like she did to him due to the suit she wore, but he still broke them.

Despite it being a battle between friends with minimal blood lose and gore aside from when Fenrir cought some blood out, the fight still managed to be the most disturbing one that many in the crowd saw in quite a while. Or rather, it was the most disturbing battle that they heard due to the breaking bones.

No more words were exchanged between the two, either. They were in a fight for their lives—a fight for dominance, and neither planned on losing.

But while Mary might have crushed Fenrir’s organs and destroyed his shoulder, Fenrir took out her main arm and one of her legs. She could no longer kick, could barely move, and had to rely on her weaker fist.

Fenrir, though, was in a race against the clock. He felt his eyes grow heavy as darkness spread through his vision, already consuming the sides of his field of view. He weakened her, but she already delivered a fatal blow on him.

The question was who would actually die first now.

Mary swung her fist at him.

But Fenrir ducked.

While lowered, he looped his arm around her leg and lifted her up to spin and swing her headfirst into the wall. She might have looked like she would weight a lot because of the suit, but it was all looks. She was more than light enough for his in-game strength to pick her up with a single arm.

Before she could fall after being swung into the wall, he brought his knee up against her abdomen and then swung his fist down into her back to try and sandwich her between his knee and fist, hoping to damage her spine.

He didn’t consider that she might do the same thing that he did to her by swinging her fist into his nearest knee.

The final blows were dealt.

Fenrir dropped Mary and collapsed onto the ground… in the exact same moment that Mary fell from his knee onto the ground.

They fell at the same time and neither one could get up again.

Despite Fenrir’s absolute best efforts, he was only able to turn the battle into a draw. Though, that was still an improvement for him considering that he lost every other time he tried to fairly fight her without going for her neck.

But it was only a draw to Fenrir.

“Ah… damn it,” Mary sighed. “Ya win… this time.”

“Does it look like… like I can get back up?” Fenrir asked before coughing out some more blood.

“Ya went easy on me. Ah know when ah’ve lost. If ya used yer abilities or yer partner… there’s no way ah woulda won. Ya damn wolf, turnin’ me into a loser.”

Even if Fenrir was hoping for a more conclusive victory than what they ended up with, if Mary herself recognized that battle as her loss, then maybe he could feel a little proud about it.

More importantly, by telling him that she lost, she submitted to him.

Fenrir made the strongest brawler around aside from himself submit to his strength.

Alright, he thought. My ego has been healed. I’m ready to die now.

“Too bad, onii-wan,” Saya said within his mind.

Before Fenrir could ask her what she was talking about, he felt a familiar force flow into his back from above.

“Both of you took that too far!” Cassiel shouted as she healed him. “You’re not supposed to literally try killing each other in here!”

“It’s been too long since you’ve yelled at me,” Fenrir groaned. “Yell some more, please. It makes me feel like you care about me.”

“We-well of course I care about you! You dumba—you… dummy.”

“Ah… this is the best. Being healed by a tsundere while on the verge of death.”

“What are you, some kind of masochist now?”

“I guess I’m switching back and forth a lot today.”

“Geez… I don’t like seeing you like this even if it’s just a game. I almost cried watching you fight! Is that what you want to do? Make your girlfriend cry?”

“Only from happiness.”

“Then don’t fight like this unless you have to!”

“I did have to. My ego demanded it.”

“You—ugh. You’re lucky that I love you.”

“I’m the luckiest in the world, I know.” Fenrir turned his head just enough to see her blush.

Cassiel looked away as soon as she saw him looking. “I obviously got worked up for nothing if you feel good enough to say cheesy things like that.”

“I’ll always be cheesy for you. Whether I’m on the verge of death or in the prime of my life, I will embrace the cheese to make you blush and cringe at me. You can call me… Cheeserir.”

“All I’m going to call you is an idiot.” Cassiel’s choice of words might have sounded harsh, but she looked anything but harsh as she smiled while looking down at him.

“I feel fine now, by the way. Just… really tired. Pretty sure you fixed everything critical. Help out Mary.”

Cassiel nodded and was ready to move to Mary when Mary shook her head and said, “Don’t worry about me. Ah’ve already healed. Just ah… didn’t want ta ruin the mood or anythin’.”

Cassiel blinked a few times. “A-are you sure? How did you heal already?”

“Ah, my bones heal real quick outta combat. Back when ah first started playin’, what ah wanted ta be was like… a fighter who never goes down. Somebody who can jump into the middle of a fight and throw fists until nobody else is standin’. So, ah focused on strength and regen. Didn’t really work the way ah wanted it to. Can’t regenerate my bones durin’ a fight or anythin’, but ah can heal ‘em up real fast outta combat. But…”

“But?”

“Downside is ‘at it hurts. A lot. Imagine the worst cramp ya’ve ever felt, then imagine feelin’ it all over yer body at the same time. Even with my pain settin’s so low, still hurts like takin’ a bath in a tub of lava.”

Fenrir sighed and asked, “What’s with everybody and dipping their body parts into lava? When did that become the standard for pain?”

He was probably never going to get an answer to that.

Now, while Mary may have said that she didn’t need any healing, Cassiel still helped her out. Her magic was still able to speed up the healing process to reduce the amount of time that Mary was in pain for, and then she went back to helping Fenrir get topped up on health. “I’m going to hurt you if I catch you fighting like that again just for fun.”

“Wow, such an abusive girlfriend, threatening to hurt me,” Fenrir teased.

“It’s not abusive! It’s not like I’m going to physically hurt you!”

“Then how are you going to hurt me?”

“I’ll make you sleep on the couch for a night.”

“I promise to never do it again. I’m sorry.”

“Good. Hmph.”

“Thank you for the ‘hmph.’”

“You’re so weird. You’re lucky that I—”

“That you love me, I know. And again, I’m the luckiest man in the world. The luckiest man to have ever existed and that ever will exist. There is nobody luckier than me and it is impossible for anybody to ever even try being luckier than me.”

“G-good… you know how lucky you are. I won’t have to punish you then.”

“You’re still welcome to punish me. Especially if it involves stepping on my head.”

“I’ll smack you upside the head.”

“Also acceptable.”

Cassiel looked at Fenrir with dead eyes and a sigh. “Seriously, what’s gotten into you today?”

“That’s what ah asked,” Mary said.

Fenrir shrugged and said, “Let’s just say that I was reminded that I like being in a certain position and now I’m in the mood for more of it since my ego has been recharged. But, I should probably go and get some work done before I think about doing some more of that.”

“What are you talking about?” Cassiel asked.

“Ask Nell. She knows.”

“You don’t need to say anything else. I can already figure it out if Nell is involved.”

“I don’t know. I bet you’d guess the opposite of how it is.”

“The… the opposite?”

Fenrir wiggled his eyebrows before giving her a kiss and saying, “Thanks for healing us. I’ve got something I need to do, so I’m going to go deal with that.”

“Need help?”

“As much as I’d like some, it’ll work better if I’m alone. Also, I don’t want to give our newest prisoner the honor of getting to look at you.”

Cassiel took a step back and blushed. “That… that one was pretty nice.”

“But while I might not give the prisoner the honor of looking at you, everybody still hanging around the arena has been getting the honor of watching us flirt and seeing you look all cute and embarrassed.”

A creeping red slowly spread from Cassiel’s neck to the tip of her ears as she placed her hand on her blade’s handle. “I-it’s… been a while. You like those girls in your shows who chase the guys they like around trying to kill them after they embarrass her, right? So… if I kill you right now, it’s not abuse. It’s just fanservice, right?”

“And that is my cue to leave.” Fenrir pecked her on the lips with his own before giving Mary a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks for the fight!”

He rushed out of the arena after that.

Cassiel huffed and stomped her feet. “He’s so selfish sometimes…”

Mary tilted her head as she was a bit confused. As far as she knew, Fenrir was the kind of man who would never do anything that his girlfriends didn’t approve of, yet Cassiel seemed pretty upset about what he did. “Sorry if it… ain’t my business, but… have ya tried talkin’ ta him about it?”

“It’s fine. It’s not like I’m upset or anything. Just… it’s embarrassing… even if…” Cassiel turned her head away. “Even if… I like it. Gah! It pisses me off that I like it. I was never like this before! This is all his fault! Look at what he’s done to me. I’ve been corrupted by his stupid… perfect face.”

“Ah think ah know the feelin’. It was embarrassin’ when he bit my neck, but now I—”

Mary stopped when she realized what she was doing.

She was about to say how much she enjoyed it when the boyfriend of the girl in front of her bit her neck.

Mary brought up her hands and waved them in front of her. “I-it ain’t like that! Ah mean, ah—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cassiel said. “I already know the effect he was on people. If anything, I would be surprised if you didn’t like him with how much time you’ve been spending together lately. Tabs is the only girl immune to him and that’s because she’s only into women with huge muscles.”

“Is… is ‘at so?”

“Yeah. God, I really have changed. A few years ago, I never would have imagined telling somebody that it was okay to fall for my boyfriend. But here I am, telling another girl that it’s alright if she likes my boyfriend.”

“Are ya… are ya really okay with that?”

“I never expected to get involved in this sort of lifestyle, but I don’t dislike it. Actually… I really like it. It’s nice having a boyfriend and girlfriends and being friends with everybody. Also, the only way I’d ever break up with him is if he cheated on us. He can’t cheat on us if we bring every girl who’s interested in him into our relationship.”

“Ah… guess that’s a strategy.”

Cassiel shrugged. “Anyways, don’t worry. We all know you like him. Pretty sure everybody knows.”

“Ev-everybody?!”

“That’s one of the things about Fen. One of his most deadly skills is that he has this aura around him where, when you talk or look at him, you forget that there are other people around. So, people end up staring at him like lovestruck schoolgirls with their first crushes. Not even a mask can hide the intent.”

Mary pressed her hands against her mask’s face to hide her blush even though her mask didn’t blush and always had the exact same expression.

“I just realized I’ve been corrupted in a completely different way, too,” Cassiel said.

“Wha-what’d that be?”

“When I look at you… I think of the cartoons—don’t let him know I called them that, that he likes to watch. The animators for those would probably be in love with somebody like you. They’d never have to draw any moving face parts.”

Mary blinked a few times underneath her mask. “That’s… huh?”

“Don’t mind me. I’m just being stupid like him. Anyways, if you really want to win him over, don’t forget about winning us over, too.” Cassiel smacked Mister Smile’s other shoulder. “It’s not like you’d only be dating him.”

By the time that Mary could turn to look at Cassiel, the latter woman was already walking away, leaving Mary alone with a heart that just skipped a beat because of a woman for the first time.

Cassiel didn’t realize the effect that she had on women just as Fenrir didn’t.

As for Fenrir, he went to where the newest prisoner was being held, which was in the exact same building as the last one.

Multiple members of the End Bringers survived their failed bombing, but only one made it back to the makeshift prison cell. The others were able to kill themselves or break free to start a fight and got killed by other players.

So, upon arriving at the cell, there was only a single person in there from the attack.

“Howdy doody,” Fenrir said as he stepped into the cell. “How’s the weather? Pretty nice, right?”

The prisoner, another man, cringed at Fenrir’s introduction.

Unlike the first prisoner they had, this prisoner looked to be a man in his forties. He had a gruff appearance with short facial hair, large muscles, and an edgy scar going over one eye. He looked like he was trying way too hard to go for the badass older man look. That meant he was probably actually barely eighteen years old in reality.

“Fuck you,” the prisoner said.

“Sure, daddy,” Fenrir answered and winked. “When and where? Right now? I could bend over for you. Or, as the kids say these days, I could ‘spread dem cheeks.’”

The prisoner blinked a few times. “Are… are you for real?”

“I might not be a cute femboy, but a boy pussy is a boy pussy, right?”

“… the fuck?”

“What? Oh, I know. You don’t want to fuck boy pussy, you want to have your boy pussy fucked. Well, in that case, you could bend over and drop your pants for me.”

“There’s no way that this is real right now.”

“This is real, daddy. I want your cummies.”

“… I was expecting some fucking prisoner roleplay or something. That’s the only reason I stayed logged in. Thought it might be fun to be a prisoner. Instead… this is what you fucking do?”

“I’m only offering to do this for you. Either your boy pussy or mine. One of them is going to have a cock up them before our meeting is over. Our tummies will be full of cummies.”

The man did a double take and blinked a few more times. “… alright. Just… just tell me what you want to know and kill me so I can go respawn.”

“I want to know your favorite sexual position. Want to ride me or be ridden? A good ol’ sixty-nine, maybe?”

“I’m not even joking. I fucking swear I’ll tell you whatever you want to know as long as you shut up and stop acting so stupid.”

“Ooh… daddy, it makes me feel squishy when you talk to me like that. Swear at me some more. Degrade me.”

“You are so fucked up.”

“I want you to fuck me up.” Fenrir smiled and waited for a few seconds before adding on, “I also want to know what the End Bringers want with us.”

“Fucking finally. I’m not even in the mood to RP as a defiant prisoner anymore. Just… if I tell you what you want to know, will you please kill me so I can respawn?”

“Sure… daddy.”

“Ignoring that, all we want is to fuck with everybody. I mean, maybe the higher-ups have some secret goal or something, but all any of us really care about is fucking with people. The more people we can make ragequit, the more fun we have.”

Relatable, Fenrir thought.

“You’re a horrible person, onii-wan,” Saya chimed in.

I know. “So, it really is that simple. All you want to do is fuck with us. You want to scare us and screw with us until we give up and quit.”

“Yeah. But if this is the risk of failing… fuck that. I’ll ask to be reassigned to screwing with ships to the west instead of coming up here.”

“Come on, a little bit of dick has never hurt anybody.”

“I know, I’m gay, but I can’t handle the fucking cringe of this.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit, it was effective at making you talk, wasn’t it?”

“Unfortunately.”

Fenrir took a seat across from the prisoner and stretched. “You don’t seem that bad. Is wanting to screw with people really so great that you want to help the End Bringers?”

“They’re the only major group that does it. All the other factions are a bunch of roleplayers who should be playing strategy games if they just want to build kingdoms all day.”

“I see. You know, I used to be like you. The best enjoyment I got out of games came from screwing others over and making them rage. Even when I got death threats, I felt excited from it. I felt like I must have done a really good job if I pissed them off so badly that they had to send me death threats.”

“Damn… that’s kind of scary, but I think I’d feel the same. But if you’re about to try and get me to stop by being relatable or something, it won’t work.”

“Oh, no, no. I’m not that stupid. You’re going through a phase that I do think will eventually end, but I know better than to try and prematurely end it. The only way it’ll end is by you getting burnt out on it over time and deciding to change yourself.”

“Maybe, I guess. It’s not like I want to be doing this for the rest of my life.”

“Right. So, here’s what I’m thinking. You want to fuck with people, right? You want to make them ragequit. You want to ruin their days. You want to laugh in their faces as they curse you out, and you want to feel the power of dominance from knowing that you beat them and that they’re powerless to do anything back to you.”

The prisoner nodded. “Yeah.”

“But you know what the best thing to do is?”

“What?”

“Going after bigger fish. You see, I know what it’s like. I know how fun it can be to camp in a starter zone as a max level character to kill noobs over and over until they never log back on. That was how I got started with my phase. I was a seriously shitty person. Like, brand new players to the game, and I just completely ruined their impression of it. The devs probably hated people like me.”

“Heh. I did that before.”

“I don’t blame you. Anyways, then I started working with others to screw people over. I saw people who everybody hated because of how big of trolls they were, and I wanted to be part of them. I thought it was cool. I respected them for being the most hated players of a game, and I wanted to be shit talked in general chat channels as much as them.”

“Yeah. Too bad this game doesn’t have chat channels.”

Fenrir nodded a couple of times. “But then I realized that there’s something even better. The only thing that can beat trolling the weak… is trolling the strong. The stronger they are, the sweeter the trolling is. Not only that, but trolling the trolls. Personally speaking, I respected people who could troll me. I admired their efforts and congratulated them if they could do it, the very few times they managed to do it successfully. Most trolls, though, hate being counter trolled.”

“I disagree. Most would think you’re mad and trying to act like you’re not.”

“Are you one of those types?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why’d you become so desperate to shut me up when I barely even messed with you? All I did was tease you a little and you practically begged me to stop.”

“That… that wasn’t trolling.”

“Don’t worry about trying to cover it up and let me finish what I’m saying. Some of the people who hate trolls the most are trolls. That’s part of why they do it. They can’t stand being trolled, so they go out and troll others to feel power. If you deprive them of their trolling and you troll them back, they get so fucking mad. They go on massive public ragequits where they hate everybody and everything and just… cause an absolutely beautiful shitshow. Trolling some random person just makes them get bored and give up. Trolling somebody who thinks they’re untrollable because they’re the troll—well, now that’s really asserting your dominance.”

The prisoner gulped. “I… guess I can agree to that, but what’s your point? What’s the point of talking to me about all of this?”

“It’s simple.” Fenrir leaned closer and held his hand out over the table for a shake. “My name is Fenrir, and I want you to be my spy.”

The prisoner looked down at Fenrir’s hand, back up at Fenrir, then back down at his hand. “Is this a joke?”

“I’m serious. I want you to be my spy in the End Bringers.”

“My hands are tied behind my back.”

It was finally Fenrir’s turn to blink a few times as he looked down at his own hand, up at the prisoner’s face, and then leaned to the side to try and look behind the prisoner’s back. It was only then that Fenrir slouched over and whined. “Damn it… do you know how cool I thought that line was? I was waiting this entire time to say, ‘My name is Fenrir, and I want you to be my spy!’ I was impressed with myself for that! And then I imagined you shaking my hand and fading to black like the end of an anime episode, but… damn it. I ruined it.”

“You like anime?”

“Yeah,” Fenrir whined.

“Well… alright. I fucking love anime but most EB members are always talking about how cringe it is, so that’s pretty annoying. If it means getting to put them in their place, I’ll help you. Plus that other stuff you said sounds pretty nice.”

“But I already ruined my cool recruitment line…”

“I’ll pretend you never said it the first time if you want to untie my hands.”

“You… you’ll do that for me?” Fenrir asked, looking up at the prisoner with puppy eyes.

The prisoner actually blushed and looked away a little. “Ye-yeah.”

With a smile, Fenrir untied the prisoner’s hands before returning to his seat across from him. He then cleared his throat and said, “It’s simple.” He leaned forward and held his hand over the table for a shake. “My name is Fenrir, and I want you to be my spy.”

The prisoner smiled back and accepted Fenrir’s hand for a shake. “Name’s Lazarus. I’ll be your spy.”

Fenrir sighed. “Perfect. Now we can fade to black.”

“Wait, uh… this is… kind of awkward, but uh… all that stuff you said about boy pussy. I’m just saying, but if you were even a little serious, then—”

“I’m straight.”

Lazarus looked straight at Fenrir. “Seriously? After all that?”

“Sorry.”