Chapter 34

Does a Skull-Man Still Have Testosterone?

“This guy is a fucking fraud.”

The crowd rumbled with anger. How dare he speak that way about their glorious leader.

“The hell are you talking about?” Someone said.

“We fought these idiots, on the very first day. We were seconds from tearing them to shreds when the monster girl went completely psycho on me and my men. The fuckers–especially that red head–are weaklings.”

The crowd became increasingly rowdy. Angelia came over beside me and whispered, “Who are they?”

“Like he said, we fought them on day one. We didn’t leave a very strong impression.”

Angelia chewed on her lip. “This is bad.”

A girl spoke up next, she threw her menu in the guys face, the video of me and Stephen meeting the monster head on played on a loop.

“How do you explain this, then?”

The man chuckled, sounding like rumbling thunder. “A trick. A gravity disruptor to be more exact.”

“Oh my god,” Angelia said. “We are positively boned.”

“Those things are crazy expensive!” Someone exclaimed. “No fucking way any normal person can afford that.”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know how. But that’s how they did it. Don’t believe me? Let’s see your glorious leader take me on. One on one.”

I couldn’t see Stephen’s reactions to any of this from my postioin behind the chair. He hadn’t moved or looked back at me a single time.

He jumped out of his chair, taking me by surpirse. “I accept your challenge.”

Angelia flipped her shit, pushing me out of the way as she whispered like mad from behind the chair. “Stephen, are you insane? Look at that creepy dude, you don’t stand a chance!”

Stephen peeked around the chair at her. “We’ve gotten a lot stronger. We can do this.” He winked at me.

“Um, hello, there is no we in a one on one battle,” she said.

“Only if you play by the rules,” I said. “Go on, I’ll back you up. We can take him.”

The girl slammed her head against the chair. “Have you two gone completely mad!?”

“Make room!” Stephen shouted as he walked down to meet the man, who’d already stepped back near the rubble of the boulder.

As Stephen walked through the crowd he popped his neck, gave some high fives and fist bumps, playing up the crowd. I don’t think the Stephen I first met in that support group would have been capable of any of this. But that was before he met me, before we found our power.

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I trailed after him, really feeling like a lackey providing support to her master. Not a role I liked playing but, damn it, I was going to play and these stupid masked fuckers were not gonna screw it up for me.

The man cracked his knuckles and started unequipping his many guns and bladed weapons. He dropped them to the ground instead of just putting them back in his inventory, playing up this whole thing as much as Stephen. If I didn’t know better I would think he was a plant of ours, to make Stephen look even more badass. I wished that was the case. There was a high possibility this could go way wrong, even with me providing Magic backup.

The man's own lackeys joined the main circle of people surrounding the action. I did the same, melting into the crowd. I tried not to notice that they scooted away from me as I came into their ranks, as if scared of catching some noob disease.

“Need any rules, pussy?”

Stephen didn’t back down, only chuckled. “Nope. But if I hurt you too much, just say uncle.”

It was hard to tell because of his mask, but I thought that really pissed the guy off. He got real quiet after that.

“Would someone like to do the honors of a countdown?” Stephen asked.

A real chubby dude emerged from the crowd. “Me!” His voice was super deep, a perfect announcer kind of voice. “Okay. Three… two… one… FIGHT!”

The man ducked his head and charged, so fast Stephen couldn’t act quick enough. The man’s shoulder slammed into Stephen and he was thrown back into my arms. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah. I got this.”

I lightly pushed him back onto his feet and he used the momentum to charge back into the fray. The man blocked his punch and delivered his own into Stephen’s cheek that brought him to his knees.

Get up Stephen…

The man walked forward.

Get up…

Reeled his foot back for a kick.

Fuck!

I mentally grabbed Stephen and yanked him to the side, narrowly dodging the man’s attack.

Mumrurs from the crowd.

“The hell was that?” The man said.

I had to make the move fast so it looked super unnatural. I managed to do it without moving my hand at least so no one would link it to me, but still. Another possible breakdown of our big show.

Stephen jumped to his feet and rolled his shoulders. “Just warming up.”

“That wasn’t a warm up, it looked like you were fucking dragged across the–”

Stephen darted forward and punched the man so hard in the face that he fell back, his mask going sideways.

“I’m going to drag you.” It wasn’t a great line but the crowd lived for it, they gave a cheer, the unnatural dodge confusion tossed aside in favor of action.

“You little–”

Stephen pounded his left fist on the other side of the man’s head, righting the mask on his face back into place.

Stephen ran forward and threw out a kick to the man’s face. But his lucky shots were over. The guy caught his leg with ease and pulled him off his other one. He swung him around in a circle and tossed Stephen over to the rubble of rocks. I reached out and made a spce for him, trying to prevent any extra damage.

The man didn’t give Stephen a chance to reorientate. He walked over to him and readied a punch into his gut. Stephen rolled out of the way, the man’s fist hitting against a stray rock. It crumbled with no pain done to his fist.

Stephen whirled around and tossed a rock at the man’s head. He blocked it easily but it distracted him from Stephen’s real attack: a swift dropkick to the guy’s gut. The man went flying and landed painfully onto his back, sending out a cloud of dirt as the crowd cheered.

A message popped up from Angelia:

[ He’s actually not doing too bad. Do you think we’ve got this? ]

Stephen waved his arms, hyping up the crowd, and I thought that maybe he could. It was an example of that cliche phrase, “fake it until you make it.” He was a bumbling goofball in real life, but every day we did grow stronger, there was no questioning that. It’s possible right here, right now, he had what it took to beat this guy. Literally, all we needed was to squash this and we would have everyone else on our side. All he had to do was win this one fight.

Stephen bent down and hoisted the man up by his armor, getting right in his face.

“You shouldn’t have fucked with me. Walk away and I’ll forgive–”

The man headbutted Stephen, so hard his mask cracked, Stephen stumbled back, threatened to fall over but he righted himself.

“Lucky shot you–”

The man brought his boot up, nailing Stephen under the chin. He jumped to his feet and rammed his shoulder into him, sending him flying toward the crowd. He fell at the feet of the outer rim of the circle of people, limp and unmoving.

That one fight he had to win? I think he just lost it.