"Aren't you supposed to be..." Arthur paused as he pointed towards Fishman. "You... You should be sick. So ill that you're bedridden. How are you..."

"You're still on that?" Fishman chuckled, standing in front of Arthur and glancing down at him. "Answer my question. Why are you here?"

Arthur gulped and stepped back. "I'm in Atlantis to kill you."

"Lier," he said, tilting his head and looking at Arthur's soft orange eyes. He pointed his right hand at Arthur, water drifting around it. "And I'm terminally ill. Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?"

The white room that once smelled of a retirement home gradually transformed into something akin to a salty wave surging without predictability. A flow that would never succumb to its surfer because it was a tide that caved its intruder. The surge muffled its serenity by drowning encroachers. This renewed scent drifted from Fishman's right hand — water swirling around and extinguishing any fire from outside forces.

"You seem to have misinterpreted what I said. I'm not joking, I will kill you without hesitation."

"Really?" He faced the ceiling with his chin up, exposing his neck to Arthur. "Do it then."

"Before. I. I..." Arthur said, mumbling in panic as he forgot what he was going to say, so he flared his arm. "I haven't even told you about your own men wanting to murder you."

"Do you think I'm unaware of that?" He shook his head and pointed to his hand, where water revolved. "That's why I'm preventing anyone from hearing our conversation."

Arthur gripped his hands, trying to think of something, but he couldn't as he focused on Fishman. He saw something peculiar. The king was bereft of a respectable canvas, not because he was blank but because he had nothing left to get stroked, he was already full of mistakes, and nothing could conserve him. That man was far beyond salvation.

Fishman slapped his thigh and shook with laughter. "You expect me to believe that a man with transparent eyes of ease has killed before?"

Arthur raised his hand and got ready to intervene, but it hit him: he had never killed anyone before. He was a child amongst men, a small fish swimming with sharks, a karate specialist at an MMA fight. He was outmatched.

"Give me one convincing reason to kill me? It better not be because the heroes told you or even some agency hired a hit on me. Hell, I'd rather have it be that my army's general hired you."

Arthur, without hesitance, shook his head. "I can't name a reason to kill you."

"You can't," he said. "Or you won't? Perhaps under that pathetic skin, you call a joke of a spirit; maybe, you're just scared. A frightened baby that still wears his diapers when he goes to sleep. Don't tell me you're going to piss yourself standing here. SPEAK."

"Just stop," Arthur yelled, punching his left hand at Fishman's stomach, and as the attack neared, it wrapped with Tuam. Like a water balloon being popped, a rupture was heard. He gaped at Fishman's stomach. His fist was stuck in another man's appendix and blue blood trickled from his hand to his arm, dripping onto the floor.

"Oh," he said, lowering his head and looking at his wound as the blue blood soaked into his white clothes. His eyes didn't show emotion. And somehow he remained calm, not worried at all.

"I..." Arthur pulled his hand out and focused on it. His eyes shook as he watched blood drip off his hand. The droplets pounded like drums as they splashed on the floor, each drip louder than the last, so deafening that he covered his ears with his hands, but the pounding continued. He peeked down at his chest and held his heart. He wished for the noise to stop.

"Good hit." Fishman clenched his teeth and grabbed his wound, constricting it with his hands. He shook his head and sat down. "You have one heck of a punch. One fucking punch is all it took. Fuck..."

"I didn't mean to," Arthur said, his hand trembling, but he grabbed it and forced it to stop moving. "Why did you let me? Why? Why?"

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"Stop being dramatic," Fishman said. "Finish the job."

Arthur stepped three times towards Fishman, each step heavier, each step tougher, and each step direr than the last. He walked on a thin line, shaking even more as he trekked on the streak between sanity and delirium. He breathed in, his facial expression becoming austere. "I want. No, I need to kill you in order to gain experience. Learn how to kill heroes so I can when it matters."

"Have I wronged you in my times as a hero? For a villain to go this far is crazy." He smiled, coughing two times as blood spewed out, but he acted normal, tilting his head and blinking. "You surely aren't a villain. Nor are you a hero, so who do you belong to... perhaps it doesn't matter. Yeah, perhaps you aren't any of those."

"You're right. I don't care about villains or heroes. I don't even care for The Wanderers or even being the Wanderer. The only thing that matters is my goal."

"It all makes sense. Meth warned me about my death. He said it would be at the hands of the Wanderer, but he added one minor detail. He told me it would be a fish. I laughed at him, but little did I know a fish would actually be the Wanderer."

Arthur's body spasmed from human skin to orange scales. His body was out of sync. He widened his eyes and flung a wave of red Tuam at the bed, shattering it. "Why? So why did you stay here? You knew... And even if you didn't, you were so capable as a hero, a star among them, why choose to fake an illness? No real hero would do that. No man would."

"Sure," he said, pressing his lips together as he raised a finger in the air. "Fantasy is heroism, for we're not accommodating, only bearable; we were forced to demands, caged to cameras and lights; we were not benevolent, we were civil; nor heroic but well acted. We wooed the public in order to exist as icons; we stooped as civilians to subjugate ourselves in their miserable shoes. Only for us to call them heroes. We exchanged our endeavors for valor; our lives for theirs; we shifted falsehoods to reality; all for the dawn of new to take over the dusk of old. Heroism is fantasy."

"Don't bullshit your way out of this. You just gave up, say it as it is." Arthur gritted his teeth. "All because you couldn't take it anymore?"

"Hey," he said, smiling. "If you really need to justify yourself into killing me, I can just say all the horrendous things I've done. I've eaten my brother, killed my mother, destroyed my city to oblivion for another, I've even slept with virgin otters. Need I say more until you shut the fuck up?"

"No. No, you stop," Arthur said, holding his hands up and circulating them in the air at Fishman. "I-"

"There is no I, only your goal," he said. "I know the eyes of an ambitious man; a person who hungers for the next opportunity; the man who will slaughter his own kin to achieve his goals. I've seen them, but yours scorch with a vehemence I've never glimpsed. So burn me with your fire."

"And I've seen yours before, a fire waiting to be extinguished." Arthur grabbed Fishman's shoulder and pulled him. "Do you really think killing yourself is enough to put out a legacy like yours? It won't redo all the wrongs. Not even my suicide allowed peace; a mere fish wasn't allowed peace. So why would a hero that's also a damn king be allowed such an easy way out? If you want to die, then do it yourself."

"Aren't you the one here to kill me? Now don't be foolish. Complete your goal."

"Your death won't help me. How is killing someone who wants to die a way to test my strength against heroes? It isn't."

Fishman slammed his water-revolving hand against the floor. "Get it over with. As we speak, the general is trying to break down the door. It's because of my powers that he can't."

'What would Meth do?' Arthur turned around, looking at the door. He closed his eyes and nodded his head, playing with his fingers. 'Meth would trick me into doing something for jokes.' And that's when it hit him...

"Do it, kill me, Wanderer."

"The name is Arthur," he said, kneeling down and placing his right hand near Fishman's wound. He centralized a small amount of spinning water onto his palm. "Move your hand."

"What?"

Arthur punched Fishman, forcing him to let go of his wound as he flung back. He clenched his hand and thought of a tiny needle-like shape, and the boiling water turned into such. He used his right hand to grab the injury and close it, and then he brought his left, using the water needle to seal the wound as he pressed it against the ripped skin.

Fishman was unconscious from the punch. He was lucky since the excruciating burning would have been hellish to feel.

Arthur slapped Fishman five times and then really hard the sixth time, which somehow woke the once-slumbered man up.

He groaned, his face crunching in agony. It took him a minute to stand up and look at his seared belly. "What have you done?"

"I did what I wanted, not what I was ordered," Arthur said, grabbing Fishman's shoulder and pressing it. "You've been bedridden, but you still remember what your city looks like, right?"

"Why wouldn't I?" he asked. "What are-"

Arthur grabbed Fishman by his legs and back, holding him like a baby. Fishman flared his arms, trying to escape, but Arthur's grip was too firm. He ran forward and kicked the door, flinging it at the general and two other guards; the door pushed the Atlanteans into the wall, forcing them through it.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? We're escaping, duh."

The general threw the door off himself and ran towards the disarray.

"Take a right," Fishman said. "I'll take you through a secret passage."

"Alright!" Arthur yelled, sprinting forward as an assertion rushed through his head. 'I'll do whatever I want; whenever I want; fuck the rules and fuck Meth.'