I felt fingers running through my hair. I hadn’t realized it, but the women on either side of me had gotten closer while Andy had been talking. One had an arm around my shoulders and was pressing against my side, while the other was the one playing with my hair. My eyes flickered over to Sigrid. She was looking right at me, big grin. Then I hazarded a quick glance at Jane. How do I explain it? She wasn’t looking directly at me, which is to say that her eyes were pointed at Andy, not at me, but somehow I felt positive that she was still carefully monitoring my every move. I didn’t dare budge.

Andy continued with his story, the words pouring out fast. “At first it was Daniel versus the guy who slapped him. He was a bruiser, and went to overpower our little stringbean physically, but Danny boy would have nothing of it. He danced around, avoiding everything the other guy had. Couldn’t lay a finger on him. Kinda reminded me of the way you fight, Jane. All acrobatic and stuff.”

Jane grunted.

“You said something about that once, Daniel, what was it? Like a breeze,” Andy said.

“She’s like the wind,” I corrected.

“That’s it. That’s what you were like, Daniel.”

“Nobody puts baby in the corner,” Sigrid said. As soon as she did, my eyes shot back to her. Trust the film studies student to know her old movies. I just prayed that Jane didn’t make the same connection. The lyrics to that song hit a little too close to home.

I tore my eyes away from Sigrid and prayed that nobody had noticed anything. Andy certainly hadn’t. He was using his hands like puppets, performing the actions to go along with the words. The hand representing me was dodging around while the other hand kept coming after it.

“Uh, yeah. sure. It’s not like the other guy was bad or anything,” Andy was saying. “I mean, I could tell he was stroooong. But dude was way too slow. Daniel had the right idea. I’d have done the same. The guy kept going for a grapple or trip, anything to slow our boys down, but by the time he got there Daniel was already way gone. Whoosh. Dude tries again, whoosh. Again, whoosh.”

I must’ve been using omni-do with superspeed, or maybe I was pulling a Jane and blinking around, hard to tell. Glad to know whatever it was worked even when I was drunk out of my gourd. Not that I intended to get that drunk again. Like, ever.

“The other guy got more and more frustrated and started spewing all kinds of hateful shit, but Daniel just kept dodging. Daniel’s face never cracked a smile, just this droopy, bored kind of look, but I could tell he was having the time of his life. Or maybe that was just me. Anyway, meanwhile the other guy just got really pissed off. His teammates were all shouting rude shit too and telling Daniel to fight like a man and stuff. So then Daniel just stops and says,” and at this point Andy stood up and his whole body got into the act, swaying drunkenly as he imitated me, slurring, “you want know how am thinking you beer, eh?”

Sigrid snorted again, and this time Jane laughed too. I have no idea how close the imitation came to the real thing, but it was funny regardless.

Andy stopped reeling around like a drunkard and started waving his hands in front of himself. “Then I don’t know what happened exactly but it was like out of a manga or something, I swear Daniel left trails in the air he moved so fast. The next thing we all know Daniel’s got the other guy wrapped up like a pretzel in a choke hold and then bam, dude’s out cold.”

If I left trails I must've been using superspeed. Or else Andy just saw them because he was hammered too.

“Seriously?” Sigrid said.

“Seriously," Andy said. I mean, I know Daniel’s gotten pretty good and stuff, but I had no idea.”

“You must have drunken boxing somewhere in that crazy martial art of yours,” Arthur said.

Not yet. Still haven’t seen anyone else use it.

I felt the woman with her arm around me rest her head against my shoulder. Then I felt Jane’s eyes on me, glaring. I still didn’t dare budge. Mercifully, Felicity returned at that moment with a tray of food.

“Scooch,” she said to the two sitting with me, and they both grumbled but slipped off the arms of the chair and took a seat on the floor in front of me. Then Felicity perched herself on the arm of my chair and began trying to feed me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jane murmured, rolling her eyes.

I put my hand out to stop Felicity from spooning a forkful of eggs into my mouth.

“Thanks, I can do it myself.”

Felicity pouted, but handed me the fork. She didn’t move from the arm of the chair, though. I put the fork down and picked up a piece of toast instead. I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle eggs just yet.

“What happened then?” Arthur said.

“Well the other Overgeared jerks said it was a fluke and challenged him, too. Probably wanted to make back the gold they just lost. So the next guy steps up. He wasn’t a melee fighter like the first one. He was gearing up like he was gonna use some kind of elemental attack. His hands started to get covered in flames then bam, he’s wrapped up in these ropes of ice and topples over. Can’t do a thing. Daniel goes over and asks if he yields and the guy just spits at him so Daniel bends over and starts flicking him on the nose and keeps asking if he yields.”

Sigrid snorted. “You flicked him on the nose?”

I just shrugged and said, “I have no recollection of these events, your honor,” then took a buttery bite of toast.

Andy kept going. “But Dude Number Two refuses to say uncle so Daniel just stood up, waved his hand, and the guy’s entire body is encased in ice all except for his head. Then the ice starts creeping up the back of his neck, then it’s covering his ears, then only the guy’s face is exposed, then his eyes are frozen, then his nose, and finally he shouts I yield! I yield!”

“You used ice to counter his fire,” Arthur said.

“Opposite affinities are the most effective attacks,” I said.

“Yeah, that's right,” Andy said. “So after the guy gives up the ice vanishes, but as soon as Daniel turns his back on him he starts again with the flaming hands. Daniel doesn’t even look back, but before the guy can even form a fireball...” Andy snapped his fingers. “His head disappears in a ball of black, you know? Like he’s wearing one of those big old school astronaut helmets only it’s all black with some, like, swirly colors. Pretty trippy. Dude starts wiggling there on the ground, legs thrashing, hands clawing at the blackness, then he goes all limp and stops moving and the black vanishes again. Dude’s out cold, just like his buddy. The weirdest part was, for all his struggling he never made a peep.”

“Void?” Sigrid said.

“Had to be,” I said.

“Nice.”

Andy continued unabated. “Well, after that, the next one steps up but Daniel goes and says this’s gonna take all night and tells them all to come at him at once. Well, the peanut gallery starts going wild at this point.”

“Wait, what peanut gallery?” Arthur said.

“Oh crap, I forgot to mention. It wasn’t just us who left the bar. There was a whole gang of people watching the argument there, and a bunch of them followed us out to watch the fight.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Oh dear.

“How many?” Sigrid said.

“Gosh, I dunno,” Andy said, rubbing his hand over the stubbly hair on his scalp. “A couple dozen maybe? Mostly Players, I think, but there were definitely some NPCs in the crowd too.”

Oh dear oh dear.

“And how many Overgeared were there?” Arthur said.

“Six in total, but Daniel already took out two of them, so it was four on one in the end.”

“And you just let this happen?” Sigrid said.

“Damn straight,” Andy said. “I wasn’t gonna step in unless he looked like he was in trouble, but it never once looked that way. The four of them lined up facing Daniel in this diamond formation. You know, tanky guy out front, damage dealers flanking, support guy in the back. Standard stuff. But they didn’t even talk about it, they just took up positions automatically. Must’ve practiced it.”

Arthur nodded approvingly. “Nice teamwork.” But then Jane slapped his thigh.

“Stop admiring the bad guys,” she said, and Arthur bit his lower lip, face flushing.

Andy charged forward, undeterred. “So the support guy in the back casts some kind of buff on the others, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t even get to move before all of a sudden bam, three of them fall to pieces. Like, literally.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur said.

“Like, they fell apart. In pieces. Like someone had chopped them up where they were standing. One second they’re standing there, and the next there’s just that support guy left standing there surrounded by all these big square chunks of bloody meat on the ground. All that’s left of his buddies. Sliced clean right through, bones and all. I have no idea what happened, or even if Daniel did anything. Maybe it was that purple-haired hottie.”

Arthur looked at me. “I don’t understand.”

Andy shrugged. “Honestly, neither do I. Daniel hadn’t even moved from the spot.”

“Andy?” I said. “Did you happen to notice if my fingers moved at all?”

“No, why?”

“I think I know what happened.”

“Good, because I’m dying to know.”

I sighed. I’d been trying not to use that power in public, but I guess drunken me forgot and went ahead and used it. Darn it.

The first thing I did was check my mana. What I was about to do would use a fair bit of it so I needed to make sure I had enough. By the sounds of it, I must’ve used a crap ton of mana the previous night, and checking my mana confirmed that. Even after sleeping the gauge was only sitting at about one-third, so I’d definitely used a lot. Still, one-third was more than enough for what I was about to do. It was only going to be a small demonstration. I looked around for something to demonstrate with, but I didn’t want to ruin any of Madame Devorah’s things so I decided to just make something else instead.

“Madame Devorah,” I said, “and ladies. Please don’t be alarmed by what’s about to happen.”

Then I summoned a snowman.

At first I was going to conjure up a real animal, but figured that might’ve been a bit disturbing, not to mention messy, so I chose to use Ice affinity with the summon power. Then I was going to make it in a human shape, but I thought that might also disturb some people so I made it look like a regular big old snowman, three balls of packed snow stacked on top of each other. It blinked its coal eyes a few times.

The prostitutes oohed and aahed over it.

Sorry, Olaf.

My fingers moved, and the snowman instantly fell apart. Cubes of ice about a foot along each side tumbled to the floor. The magic nanofibers of my razor floss had cut clean through the ice without even shattering it. Sliced and diced. I could’ve made more threads and cut it into smaller chunks, but more threads increased the mana requirement exponentially. This was enough for a simple demo.

Silence.

“What the heck?” Arthur said after the shock wore off. “What did you just do?”

“Yes!” Andy said, pointing at the pieces of ice on the floor. “Just like that.”

“What kind of power is that?” Sigrid said. Jane said nothing, just regarded me with an enigmatic look. I still couldn’t tell you what she was thinking.

“It’s razor floss. A new power I made.”

“Holy crap, Daniel. That is beyond awesome. I’m gonna call you Shadow from now on,” Andy said, eyes shining. "He who lurks in the shadows to fight the shadows, or something like that."

“Huh?” Jane said.

“It’s a nerd thing,” Andy explained. “From an anime.”

“You can do that to people?” Sigrid said. I could see from her expression that she was imagining what that might look like, and that it was not a pleasant image.

“Apparently,” I said, sitting back down. I picked up the fork and scooped up some egg. Even that simple use of the power had zorched a lot of mana, and I needed the food. I just hoped I could keep it down.

Felicity bounced on the arm of my chair. “Go on, Andy, Tell them about the last guy.”

“Yes Andy,” Jane said, “do tell us about the last guy.”

“Right, the last guy.” Andy stood still, arms dropped to his sides, shoulders slumped like he barely has the strength to stand. “So Daniel’s like this, right? Fed up or worn out, doesn’t matter. He’s just standing there like this, and the last guy’s standing there looking at all the chunks of his pals with this holy shit look on his face. And Daniel raises his hand and points at the guy and says, gonna yield? And the guy barely manages to croak out this weak yes. And it’s all over.”

“That’s our Daniel,” Felicity said.

“I know, right?” one of her co-workers said. “He’s amazing.”

“Your Daniel?” Jane said.

Felicity put her arm around me and squeezed. “Yeah. Why, was he yours before?”

Jane bequeathed one of her tremendous eye rolls upon us all, then turned to Andy. “So you’re saying our Daniel,” unnaturally heavy emphasis on the possessive pronoun, “single-handedly destroyed over half of another team.”

“Yup.”

“While drunk.”

“Yup.”

“In front of a crowd.”

“Yup. But, to be fair, he completely passed out right after.”

“Sounds about right,” Jane said with a smirk.

“It uses a lot of mana,” I said, stuffing my face with eggs. “Like, a lot.”

“Idiot.”

“It was kinda funny, really,” Andy said, returning to his seat and squeezing back between the two women. “Like, two seconds after the other guy gives up Daniel just topples over. Out like a light. But he'd already won, so whatever.”

“That still doesn’t explain how he ended up here,” Sigrid said.

“Or what he did here,” Jane added.

“Well I can tell you how we got here,” Andy said. “But as for what happened after that, well...”

“Let me guess,” Sigrid said. “Once you arrived in this fine establishment, you became otherwise occupied?”

Andy didn’t say anything.

“I can vouch for that,” one of the women said. She was blonde.

“Me too,” said another, also blonde. Andy had a type, for sure.

“Andy, Andy, Andy,” Arthur said, shaking his head.

Andy still didn’t say anything.

Sigrid laughed. “Sounds about right.”

Andy looked up at her, confusion all over his face. I guess Andy thought Sigrid would be mad that he’d spent the night with not one but two of these women, but instead she seemed decidedly unconcerned. I knew exactly what she was thinking: maybe this meant he’d stop being so needy and trying to cling to her like a zebra mussel. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that him being with other women wouldn’t change his infatuation with her. After all, he’d apparently been with lots since we got here and his behavior with Sigrid hadn’t changed so far, so I didn’t think this was gonna make one whit of difference. If anything, her acceptance of his philandering would only fuel his puppy love.

Sigrid’s attitude, however misinterpreted by Andy, seemed to reinflate him and he launched back into his story. Yup. Puppy love had been fueled.

“We left the arena after that. Lance and I carried Daniel out, of course. He was still out cold. We found a food cart still open and forced some energy back into him so he caught a second wind. After his duels, I thought there was cause for celebration.”

“So you brought him here,” Jane said.

“Well, yeah.”

“Where were Bruce and Galahad?” Arthur said.

“I had Bruce,” a woman said.

“Gally was with me,” said another.

“Men are ridiculous,” Jane said. “So who had Daniel?”

The prostitutes looked around at each other.

“I guess we all did,” Tasha said.

“Say what now?” Sigrid said.