Novels2Search
Big Sneaky Barbarian
Ch. 88 - Camp Nowhere

Ch. 88 - Camp Nowhere

Boy, oh boy.

Let me tell you something, homies. It absolutely sucks to think you’ve finally made it to a place of respite only to have everything turn upside down the moment you make it. Like swimming up for air and when you reach the surface, inhaling a gallon of snot, instead. That’s what it was like arriving in this encampment.

I’d been looking forward to seeing the gang—you know, the crew who’d been haphazardly jettisoned from good ol’ Earth and into…whatever the hell this world was. I mean, sure, I know it’s called Regaia, but like…what is it? It wasn’t a normal world. It was fantasy and junk. But like, bad. I mean—in my esteemed and venerable opinion, all fantasy is bad; but this was worse. It had math.

To get you up to speed, I’d just survived a night of horrors in a city under siege by giant centipede creatures and fought off death—again—just to catch a glimmer of hope in the idea that I could meet up with the others from my world. Only when we got here, we saw the whole place was a smoking ruin.

So yeah, a big, hot mouthful o’ mucus.

Fuckin’ best of times, worse of times, am I right?

Oh, but get this, to make matters worse: the minute we stepped inside the radius of the camp, a group of deranged psychopaths came shrieking out of the woodwork, seemingly hell-bent on showing us their best idiot impressions.

“What the fuck is going on?!” I roared as the stampede of humanoids came rushing out at us.

We’d been here all of, what, ten minutes? And now we were gettin’ the whole-ass belt strap—buckle and all—from whatever needling nasties had decided to lay waste to this particular stretch of forest.

Rua, transformed now into a red-haired elf lady, brandished her weapon—an absolute unit of a motherfuckin’ monster known as the Behemoth Sword. Edwig, meanwhile, lifted one of the wands I’d lent him in his jiggly, amorphous appendage, preparing to rain down magical oblivion. Jumpy, Clucky, Slappy and Mortimer—my ride-or-die, pinkish-pearl egg-monster bad boys, took defensive positions around us, while Rexen, the once-powerful wizard—now insane fluorescent specter—cackled with the unhinged glee I’d learned to associate him with.

I, being the voice of reason, removed my haladie from my waistband and screamed, “Fuck it all. Let’s do this, you bitch-sucks!”

As we prepared to unleash a hot load of death and dismemberment on these indeterminate individuals, I could suddenly make out a little more as to what was happening.

They’re not running at us with malicious intent. They’re…running at us in fear?

I saw quite a variety of different races heading our way, weapons or magically-charged hands raised, prepared to take us all out or die trying. It wasn’t until Rua dropped her sword slightly and the folks leading the charge began to slow with realization that I understood. This wasn’t a group of camp-destroying terrorists. These were the survivors. Which meant that these also happened to be the people I’d been on the train with.

“Rua?” Asked a man with sandy-brown hair and a poised sickle. He was wearing pretty shabby clothes, and no armor that I could see. Really, he just looked like a medieval peasant, especially compared to the others in the group—who, by the way, in case anyone was wondering, wore a myriad of metal, leather, and expressions of confused anger.

Rua held up her hands.

“Hey!” She called, straining to lift her voice louder than the din of the chaos. The rest of the group began to slow or stop, muttering in bafflement.

“It’s Rua,” someone said.

“Oh, thank god it’s not another one of those—”

“ —couldn’t have been a second attack, you idiot. That would—”

“ —the fuck is she hanging out with? A globby—”

“ —the ugliest creature I’ve seen so far.”

Man, I hated this level of pandemonium.

“Alright, everybody shut up!” I yelled.

There was a momentary lull of silence, before everyone piped up again.

“ —the hell does he think he is? Probably a—”

“ —what is with those spots? I —”

“ —kill him and the slime creature over there if—”

“ —working with those monsters. Not safe at all.”

“I said—” I shouted, taking in a huge intake of breath before releasing Blackout Warchant. “SHUUUUUUUT! UUUUUUUP!”

The sound erupted from me like a feral roar, and I was quite pleased that it was easily the best death metal scream I’d yet been able to produce. Furthermore, it quieted the group up real fast-like when the colorless blast hit them, ruffling their hair, fur, and clothing. I took another breath, raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Alright, all y’all need to calm the fuck down right now and tell us what the holy piss is going on. We’re not your enemies—at least, not yet—and I—”

“Loon!” Rua snapped, and I paused, looking over at her.

She was hitting me with the most withering glare imaginable and gestured to the group.

“They’re obviously rattled. You can’t say things like—” she dropped her voice and sounded suspiciously dumb and scathing. “‘We’re not your enemies yet, hee hee.’ They’ve just been attacked, man. Don’t give them a reason to kill you.”

I released a noise of pure contempt and slumped my shoulders before ushering her on with my hand to continue. She turned to the group.

“What happened? Was it those gold things again?”

A tall, handsome human in a leather chestpiece stepped forward. In his dark hands rested the haft of a huge hammer and he made sure to keep a concentrated gaze on me before turning back to Rua.

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t the things from before. These were new. They were kind of like…I don’t know, fire…spiders? Anyway, they hit us in the middle of the night and we barely had a chance to defend ourselves. But we did.”

The last line was delivered with a sense of finality so severe, I felt an involuntary goosebump or two rise to the occasion. But it wasn’t just what he said. It was the way he said it. I knew his voice. Of course I would know his voice, I’d heard it every day for years, and pretty regularly for the last few. It was a little different due to, I guess, the change of form…but it was still mostly the same. This tall, dark, muscular paragon of humanity was my former childhood best friend Nick Harmon.

“Any casualties?” Rua asked, all business now.

“Hard to say,” Nick said, rubbing his chin in thought. “We can’t seem to find Alpha or some of the others. I mean, I doubt they’re dead, but it’s weird that they weren’t around at all for the attack.”

“Hopefully he’s inside the belly of a flaming spider right about now,” said another individual—a very tall dog…person?

“Even if he is, he’ll probably be trying to blame the flames for being too hot, or woke or something,” said the serf-looking guy.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nick said. “Whether or not he’s survived, we’ve got work to do. So we should probably get started as soon as possible. Rua, great timing on your arrival. Did you run into anything we should know about out there? You were gone for a while.”

“Yeah…” Rua said hesitantly.

Nick, seemingly sensing something was off, raised an eyebrow.

“You good?” He asked seriously.

“Yeah!” Rua said, realizing she’d unintentionally cast some suspicion on herself. “Just exhausted—and I definitely didn’t anticipate coming back to a smoke-choked hole in the woods.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick said, clapping her on the shoulder. “As long as there’s nothing pressing we need to be watching out for. I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of time to chat about your adventure. Now—”

He cast a glance out at the rest of us.

“Who’re your friends?”

At that moment, Edwig decided to slither on over and produce a jiggly appendage for shaking.

“Pah! How rude of me! I’m Quintham—Edwig Quintham, Undermagister Researcher of the august and venerable Mages Order at Yosper Hall in Tallrock.”

The rest of the group—about twenty people or so it looked like—regarded Edwig with the usual amount of skeeved-out suspicion you’d expect to have for a creature that looked like a walking, talking, anthropomorphized sinus infection. Nick, though, was all class. He grasped the offered arm and gave it a solid pump before introducing himself with a grin.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Edwig Quintham,” Nick said politely. “I’m Saban.”

Instantly, Edwig turned to me with a look of smug satisfaction.

“You see, Loon! This is how you properly greet someone new!”

“Hey Edwig,” I said. “How about you go find a bucket of bleach to crawl into?”

“Pah!” He exclaimed. “Not on your life, Loon. I’m too busy fraternizing.”

“Yeah, well you’re talkin’ a lotta shit for somebody who still owes me money.”

“Pah! Not this again!” Edwig groaned.

“Yes this again,” I shot back. “You owe it, so pay it. Don’t try to deadbeat-dad me, you ass. I got eggs to feed, so gimme my motherfuckin’ blood money.”

I realized suddenly that I hadn’t really even given Nick his due hello. So, noticing how baffled he seemed by me and Edwig’s exchange, I thought I’d offer a few more servings of chaos and confusion into his daily pyramid. I cleared my throat, smiled, and took a step forward to spill the beans on who I was. But, before I could greet him, he wheeled specifically on me with a severe expression plastered onto his features.

“And who are you?” He demanded stoically.

I cocked my head to the side. Man, if I hadn’t known who he was, I might’ve been a little intimidated by that. However, because I, in fact, did know who he was, I was marginally less impressed.

“I could ask you the same thing, Hammertime,” I said. Then, I immediately realized my mistake.

“...Gabe?” Nick…um, Saban, now, suddenly asked, his eyes widening as he took me in.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Fuck! I forgot I can’t be dropping homeworld references to other people from the old country if I want to be mysterious.

“No!” I exclaimed, then caught myself again. “I mean…uh, who’s Gabe?”

Nailed it.

Rather than respond to me, he looked to Rua, who nodded and shrugged. Then Saban dropped his hammer and did something very strange: he raced over and wrapped his arms around me in a hug.

“Ah!” I roared, trying to push him off of me. “What the fuck is with this whole crew and hugging! I do not consent! I do not consent!”

A small flash of pinkish-purplish-blue appeared next to my face as, suddenly, Rexen was floating there, his own arms wrapped around my head to mimic Saban’s action.

“Everybody back off—I’m in fighter flight mode and I’m not going to apologize if you get hurt!”

“It’s fight or flight, Loon,” Rua said.

“Not the way I do it,” I said. “I’m going to get away in the most painful, combative style possible—now. Let. Go. Of. Me!”

I successfully removed Saban’s strong grasp and stared down in a huff, but he was just grinning in that familiar way.

“Jesus, man,” I breathed. “What’s your fuckin’ Strength score, five hundred?”

“You’re alive,” was all he said in response.

“Not without many, many glorious attempts by countless people to correct that fact,” I said. “But, yeah. I’m here. Looks like you’re not doing too bad for yourself Mister…Saban.”

He actually looked a little bashful. He knew that I knew. Of all the things to name yourself after, this goofy bastard goes and chooses a fuckin’ production company?

“Yeah…” he said softly.

“Hey,” I started, grinning like an idiot. “I’m just happy to know that Power Rangers is still as much of a core memory for you as it is for me.”

“Ah, shut up,” he laughed.

“No, I’m serious,” I said. “I have like five strong recollections from my life, and that’s one of them. The other four are just me trying new Pop Tart flavors.”

“What can I say?” He asked. “That shit was kind of lame, but…still kind of slapped.”

“Yeah, we turned up pretty hard for it. Except you’d never let me be the Gold Samurai Ranger—I always had to be Jayden.”

“Still with this?” Saban sighed, shaking his head. “It’s been years, my dude.”

“You never forget the first time you’re betrayed,” I said. “Making me be Samurai Fire…I’m mad all over again.”

“Dude,” he said. “What’s wrong with Jayden? He’s the leader.”

“First of all: Jayden’s a bitch, and you know it,” I said. “Second, you can never trust an adult man with blond hair. Also, I’m going to talk about it: we’re just supposed to believe that some white guy and his Aryan sister are descended from an ancient Japanese samurai clan? Hard pass. Antonio was the real GOAT and his Ranger suit looked way cooler.”

“Speaking of looks…” Saban started, grinning.

Oh, don’t you dare, you dick.

“What are you?” He continued. “You sort of resemble, like, I dunno, a big…goblin, or something? But then you have those shiny pink speckles on your skin. And your hair is…well, it’s unique.”

“Wow,” I said. “Really? You know this is my body now, right? No takesies-backsies. So—rude. Also, you need to go to the optometrist and up your bifocal prescription, Mr. Magoo, because I’m clearly an orc. And I’ll have you know that I earned these spots. It’s a feature I picked up after being exploded—so, show some damn respect: I fought and died for this country. And don’t even get me started on these luminous locks.”

I gave Rexen—the culprit of my follicle monstrosity—the stink eye, but he just smiled back at me.

“Exploded?” Saban asked, a disbelieving grin on his face.

“Yeah, exploded,” I said, shrugging. “Or, like, whatever you call it when you get crushed so hard your body parts pop like a spoiled grape.”

He shivered.

“Yeah, let’s go with exploded.”

Then he shook his head, looking me up and down in amazement. "You've changed a lot, Gabe. Or it sounds like I should call you Loon now, right?"

I shrugged.

"Loon is fine. But yeah, a lot’s different." I glanced around at the other survivors, trying to gauge their reactions to the revelation of my identity.

Most of them seemed surprised, but not hostile. Some were whispering among themselves, probably trying to remember who I was. Others were eyeing me warily, as if they didn't quite trust a big-ass spotty monster with electric hair.

"So, I know you guys are having a moment right now, but…we should head back to the central part of the camp," Rua suggested. "We can catch up on the way, and figure out what to do about these new threats."

Saban nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, let's get moving. We don't want to stay out here and risk another attack."

New friends! Buddies! Rest! Finally, relax! Came the mental messages from my foursome of possessed roe. They bounced happily next to me, earning some concerned looks from the others.

Maybe, I returned through our weird telepathic link. Keep your glowing red eyes peeled, though, m’babies. We don’t know what to expect.

As we began to walk, I fell into step beside Saban, and we exchanged stories of our time in this world. He told me about how he and the others had banded together, learning the game-like rules and seemingly only barely surviving all the while. Much like my own experience, their trip so far had been one hilarious misfortune after the other, where twice now they’d had to defend themselves from large-scale threats.

I shared my own badass origin story, explaining how I'd been separated from everyone else and had to survive on my own. Which I did expertly because I’m a fuckin’ champion. You’d be proud of me, because I only bragged like twenty-five times. Then I told him about the companions I'd met along the way—Stinky, Edwig, my egg posse, Jes and Frida’s crew, and of course, Rexen—and how we'd formed our own odd little team.

I found it a teensy bit fucked up how normal it seemed now to drop casual references to things like Spells, and magical weapons and all that noise, while still being perfectly understandable and relatable to all parties.

During our stroll, we finally came upon the guts of the train wreckage, a vision of wrenched steel and shattered glass that looked like some pretentious artist’s version of a post-apocalyptic sculpture. It was a monstrous, gnarled mass of charred railcars, strewn around like a child's discarded toys, crumpled and crushed beyond recognition.

Surprisingly, it had taken some auxiliary pieces along for the ride; skewed tracks clawed their way from the ground, glistening in the morning light like the skeletal remains of some prehistoric beast. Here and there, the torn entrails of luggage spilled open, their contents a memento mori of the lives that had been forever altered on that ill-fated journey. It was clearly stuff that was obliterated too badly to be of use, because, I couldn’t imagine any other reason they weren’t using every part of this particular buffalo.

And amidst the wreckage, the telltale signs of violent disruption were all too evident—shredded seats, splintered wood, shattered window panes that lay around like a thousand glittering teardrops. I was impressed that the homies had just allowed it to lay around messy like that—grab a broom or something, ya sloppies.

It was one thing to hear about it, another to see the remnants of the chaos from afar, but to stand in the heart of it, to breathe it in, to see the haunting remnants of life as it once was, was fucking surreal. It felt like I was standing in the mouth of hell, staring at the twisted teeth of the beast that had tried to chew me up and spit me out. The real kicker? They’d walked away from it—crawled out of this mechanical monstrosity's belly, survived its fiery wrath, and lived to tell the tale. Damn, if that didn't make your balls shrink, I don't know what would.

But we continued on. Presumably to the ‘central area’ or whatever Rua had mentioned. I couldn’t be assed to tell what anything really was, because it was, as I mentioned multiple times: destroyed. However, I kept jabberin’ on, like I be doin’ sometimes. In fact, I was smack dab in the middle of my incredibly professional retelling of my encounter with Pontivex, when we were interrupted.

“—and this fuckin’ dude was all like, ‘gimme tasty meats,’” I said in a squeaky voice reminiscent of Beaker from the Muppets, “and I was all like, ‘you want meat? Like, raw?’ This asshole didn’t even want it cooked or nothin!’ Just regular, ol’ still-on-the-bone, shanks of—”

“What the fuck happened?!” An annoying voice interjected. Whoever it was, they sounded like they sucked.

“Hey!” I roared into the direction I thought it had come from. “I’m trying to tell a fuckin’ story here, guy, so—”

“Who the fuck said that? That’s insubordination. I promise you don’t want any of this—not after the night I’ve had.”

I scowled. Who was this now? He had a really suck-ass tone and I didn’t appreciate it at all. I was the sassy sour-puss around these parts and I wasn’t about to let some random dude…give me grief, or whatever.

“How ‘bout ya show yourself?” I roared, glancing around for whoever had been getting shitty in their hiding spot. “I’ve got a big-ass foot lookin’ for a butt to call home, so if you’re trying to catch an attitude, you’re going to get more than you bargained for!”

I kept looking around, not quite able to spot where in the immediate surrounds this little dick-touch was wagging his chompers from. I saw Saban tense next to me and Rua’s intake of breath. The crowd we’d been sorta orbiting slowed, and a dread settled among them.

“What the fuck?” I said, shooting glances in every direction. “What’s goin’ on—is there going to be another attack?”

“Ooh! I hope so—it would be a delight to see how my valiant disciple would fare in a forest!” Rexen said.

“Arjee,” I said. “Shut up. I’m serious, why’s everybody got their funeral faces on?”

“So!” The voice came again, dangerously close to me. I jumped.

“Gah!”

I craned my neck over my own shoulder to see the shape emerging from the trees not ten feet away. A stumpy figure began shambling into view from the shadows of the canopy, and he wasn’t alone. A…dwarf—at least, that’s what it seemed like—appeared, flanked by others. They were an every-flavored assortment of fantasy-inspired races, not all of which I recognized. The dwarf gave me the impression that he’d been the one who’d been trying to rattle my cage, and let me tell you: he looked dumb. Pale skin, paler hair and beard plaited into cute braids that screamed that he was compensating for something. He wore a vibrant technicolor dreamcloak that barely concealed the leather chest piece he wore beneath and his hands were clad in silly cut-off leather gloves. He probably thought he was super edgy, but he just looked like he’d gotten kicked out of a medieval motorcycle club.

The hodgepodge of equally unimpressive LARPers that made up his entourage consisted of some sorta gray-skinned…devil…woman? I dunno. Anyway, next to her was a boring human who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. Rounding out their ragtag team was a haughty, smug-as-fuck-looking elf-man.

I wasn’t bothered by this anemic lumberjack and his cronies. But it was clear by the tension-temperature of the group around me that there was something more to this.

“Sorry,” the dwarf announced—definitely not sounding sorry in the slightest. “Did I startle you?”

“Yeah, I’m not used to garden gnomes coming to life,” I said. “Did a witch cast a spell on you or something?”

“Hilarious, Spot. Did you get full-body herpes from that blob creature?” The dwarf shot back pointing at my illisinaf companion.

Okay… I thought to myself. Go after me all you want, but why you gotta drag Edwig into this, he’s—oh, Jesus Christ, he’s heading over to introduce himself.

Sure enough, Edwig was slopping his way on over, appendage outstretched in the perfect picture of politeness.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said with a smile. “Quintham—Edwig Quintham, Undermag—”

“Eww!” The dwarf exclaimed, leaping backward as if he’d seen a particularly hairy spider. Edwig seemed taken aback. Almost…hurt. I remembered my teasing of him, and saw his expression now and felt a jolt of guilt in my guts. The dwarf, like all bullies, seemed to recover quickly from his temporary grossed-outness. He straightened up, bolting a shit-eating smirk back in place and let out a scoff.

“I’m Alpha,” said the dwarf. “And just who the fuck are all o’ you stomping around on my property?”

“Property?” Rexen asked “Who’s got property?”

The little covetous apparition seemed to tingle with the promise of treasures, but I stepped forward to cut off his line of thought, drawing a clear barrier between my group and the dwarf’s. I already knew who this guy was since I’d been traveling with Rua for the last few days.

“You’re that asshole from the train,” I said, glowering.

“You could be talking about anyone,” he mused. “There were a lot of assholes on th—”

“The big one with the shitty friends,” I clarified. He’d been appropriately nicknamed Steroid Steve during the scuffle, and I actually didn’t know what his real name was. Now, apparently, it was Alpha. What a joke.

“And you’re…who exactly?” He wondered, looking at Rua as if expecting her to provide additional context.

“I’m Loon,” I said, crossing my—now—substantial arms over my barrel chest and raising an eyebrow. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but your whole camp got attacked while you were apparently off doing…friendship…practice, or something.”

I grinned, satisfied that I’d salvaged that.

Alpha’s smirk disappeared and was instead replaced by a grimace. He marched over to Saban to stand directly in front of him.

“Is that true? We were attacked?”

Saban nodded grimly.

“Some kind of fire spiders,” he said. “I’m not entirely sure what they were, but—

“Did they destroy our stuff?” Alpha interrupted.

“Hey, fuck-face,” I said, getting pretty miffed at this dude’s attitude. “Maybe take a look around for a half-second. Obviously they destroyed your stuff. What, were you hiding?”

Alpha snapped his head to me with a scowl.

“I swear to fucking god if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’m going to melt you from the inside out.”

I bristled.

“Oh, really?” I asked warningly, straightening my back and putting a hand on my haladie. “You think you can back that up, you chapped—”

“Loon,” Rua said.

I turned to look back at her.

“Eh?”

She just shook her head as if to tell me I didn’t know what I was getting into. Curiously, in the back of my brain, there was an itch. Something telling me I should maybe take her opinion into consideration.

However.

I thought that maybe, right then and there, it would make sense for her to take the fact that I was clearly the strongest person here into consideration. Well, at least, I thought I might be. I was Level Twelve, and she’d just recently ranked up to Level Four—and she’d been battling shit with me while the rest of these jabronis were just hanging around playing Little House On the Prairie. There’s no way I wasn’t the strongest person here, right? I could take him.

“Anyway, don’t write checks your shitty combat abilities can’t cash, butt-dick,” I said. “You’re rude as fuck, and someone needs to show you you’re not—”

“Duellum,” Alpha said simply, cutting me off. There were audible gasps of horror around me, and I craned my neck to look at everyone’s faces.

“What’s due…what’s that?” I wondered. “An insult?”

I turned back to Alpha.

“If you’re going to say something snarky, at least make sure the person knows you’re talking shit. That’s like, the first rule of insults, or something.”

However, he just smirked.

“It’s not an insult,” he said. “You look like a chunky piece of shit. There, that’s an insult.”

“Yeah, well, you look like someone whose hometown smells like dog food,” I said. “Now that’s a real—”

“Loon,” Saban said with a groan. ”Alpha just challenged you. If you accept, you will be obligated to fight him. I’d recommend—”

“A Kumite?!” I roared triumphantly. “Oh, hell yeah. Sign me all the way fucking up! I’m gonna beat this dirty dickhead all over the…you know what? I hear it. The phrasing was bad. Anyways, how do I accept? Do I just have to say Due—”

“Don’t,” Saban said seriously. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, man. It’s not a good idea.”

“Oh, this monster knows exactly how smart he isn’t,” Alpha said, shirking off his robe in preparation for a rumble. “Let him make his decision and find out firsthand who the top dog is around here.”

“You can’t be serious,” Rua said, and her sentiments were echoed from the crowd of people forming. “We don’t have time for this. The camp was just attacked. Don’t we have stuff to do?”

“Yeah, we should probably—” someone else began, but was cut off.

“Nah,” Alpha said. “Nothing’s more important than busting down some annoying asshole who thinks he can just waltz into my home and start acting like he’s hot shit. So, maybe everyone who disagrees should just shut the fuck up or face a similar consequence.”

Rua had told me all about this guy. He’d been quick on the draw in saving everyone when they’d first arrived, and now he was something like their leader, having used some…I dunno, magic stone or some bullshit to make them his hostages.

Man, why don’t these people just overthrow this bitch? He can’t be that strong, can he?

I looked over at Rexen, who had been strangely silent. He had adopted that uncharacteristically dour expression he’d had when we’d been in the stomach of the oomukade queen back at the town.

Well, you’re fucking useless, I thought. Jumpy, Clucky, Slappy, Mortimer?

I heard a chorus of responses in my mind and smiled.

You guys feel like showing off?

I got a very strong impression of affirmation from them—which was how they communicated sometimes. I nodded.

“Right, so, we gonna do this thing, or what?” I demanded. I had a hankerin’ to put this guy’s dick in the dirt. He’d been such a fucking toolbag on the train in our previous world, and apparently, he’d only gotten to be more of a pest in the last couple weeks here.

“Say the words, bitch,” Alpha spat, cracking his knuckles.

“Oh, right,” I said, sidling closer and adopting a confused expression. “Uh…what were those words again?”

Alpha sneered.

“You dumb motherfucker,” he began. “I just told you it’s—”

“DUELLUM!” I roared as I kicked him in the chest.

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter