Rubberman shrieked through his bondage mask as Ava tore a chunk out of his stretched-out upper arm, splattering blood on her face and soaking her mouth and chin as she took muscle and sinew with it. She spat the hunk of partially-rubberized flesh onto the deck, where it made a horrible squeak.

Just as she’d expected, the loss of focus caused by the sudden shock made Rubberman’s arm slack as his Code wavered, and she ripped it away from herself to free her movements, taking a fighting stance.

“You stupid little psycho bitch!” the man shrieked. “I’m going to fucking kill you for that!”

Ava smiled, her teeth stained red from blood.

“No, you’re not,” she said, advancing on him. He tried to throw another punch with his good arm, but it flew wild; a chimpanzee would’ve seen it coming a mile away, let alone a skilled fighter like Ava. She caught it in her left hand.

The bite had been a gamble, but it had paid off: Ava had learned the downside of Rubberman’s Code. His body would stretch easily, sure, but it would also tear easily… and when it tore, he bled just like anyone else, as the river spewing from his upper right arm made clear.

Ava opted to press this advantage; she reached up with her right hand to grab Rubberman’s left wrist, and wrenched it hard enough that, on an ordinary human without a Code, it would have broken.

Rubberman’s wrist, however, snapped off like a rubber band that had been wrapped around too many times, sending arterial spray across the deck as he shrieked in pain.

“Let’s see what happens when I punch rubber,” Ava said, standing the shirtless, effectively armless man up by his waistband and winding up a haymaker.

Her fist met rubberized flesh, and stretched it, and stretched it further, resembling nothing more than a deflated balloon made of human flesh. Eventually, with a loud rip, Ava’s fist tore straight through his torso on the follow-through, coating her arm in blood and leaving what Ava assumed to be bits of his heart in her hand.

She tossed them to the side, slightly disgusted by the results of her punch, and ran up to Scott and Luke. She checked their pulses; both intact. Scott seemed partially conscious, so she went for another gamble, rolled Scott onto his back, and placed his hands on his own chest.

Fortunately, his Code worked in this state, and with a loud grunt of pain, Scott’s bones started to crack back into place and mend themselves. His eyes opened fully, and he blinked.

“Ava? What happened? Are we at the island yet? Is that… I really hope that’s not your blood?” Scott asked. Ava looked over at the mutilated corpse of Rubberman, and then back at Scott.

“You two got attacked by some dumbfuck in a gimp mask with Luffy powers. I guess he threw you over the railing up there or something,” Ava said, looking up at the skylight. “Anyways, I got to find out what rubber human tastes like. Answer, not great.”

Scott couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Ava glanced meaningfully at Luke.

“You should probably go fix up your brother. I’m gonna go deal with Grandpa Zangief over by the elevator and then go see what Sam’s been doing,” she said, standing up and wiping some of the blood off of her face as she started to walk away.

“Perhaps I misjudged you,” Maxim said as Ava approached.

“Oh, come the fuck on, now you’re gonna start trying to kill me, too?” Ava asked, exasperated.

“It is a compliment,” Maxim said, placing his massive hand on her shoulder and briefly stopping her in her tracks. “And I do not simply mean that I will use lethal force against you; I believe you may be the one to finally defeat me.”

Ava did a double take as she stepped into the elevator, unsure if she’d really heard that correctly. It had barely been an hour since her fist had helplessly clanged off of Maxim’s chest; what did he see now that she wasn’t capable of seeing?

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When Ava arrived back at the stateroom, she smelled a distinct scent of blue raspberry, and noticed Sam snoring loudly in an armchair, the disposable vape pen in one hand, occasionally half-waking up to giggle whenever Danny DeVito was on the TV.

She shrugged her shoulders slightly; on some level, she was a little offended that she’d just been fighting for their lives on the top deck while Sam was down here getting high and watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but frankly, something about the idea of doing that sounded just about perfect. She took a quick shower to get Rubberman’s blood off of herself, as she was starting to feel a bit gross, and changed into fresh clothes, then began rifling through the shopping bag she’d left. As she rummaged through the assorted weed products, Sam started to stir and properly wake up.

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“Hey, sleepyhead,” Ava said, not looking at him. “How’s the disposable?”

“Strong as shit,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

“I can tell,” Ava said. “When I came in, you were passed out, except you’d start laughing whenever Frank showed up.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right, I feel like I’ve spent the last hour asleep aside from occasional random images of Danny DeVito,” Sam said, groggy.

“Well, I spent the last hour killing a dude, so, you’re welcome,” Ava said.

“Oh, word? You got the Russian?” Sam asked, perking up. Ava looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.

“Oh, fuck no, are you kidding me? Holy shit, no, we need to talk about that when Scott and Luke get back, I think we may need to call an audible on this Johnson guy’s plan,” Ava said. “But yeah, no, I got to find out what rubber man tastes like. Turns out it tastes kinda like plastic toy food.”

Sam blinked.

“…do I want the full story here, or do I want to just remain blissfully ignorant of why you know what rubber man tastes like? What the fuck is rubber man?” Sam asked. Ava looked mildly disgruntled.

“Come on, it’s not that weird, it’s kinda badass,” she said. “Long story short, some dickhead attacked Scott and Luke up on the minigolf floor, yeeted them down a deck to where we were. Fall would’ve damn near killed them if it weren’t for, y’know, Scott’s whole thing.”

“Alright, so what part of this involves you eating rubber people?” Sam asked, still deeply confused.

“I’m getting there, don’t worry. So, dude’s gimmick is he’s made of rubber, right? You know, stretchy arms, stretchy legs, the whole Luffy package,” Ava said.

“Luffy?” Sam asked. “What the hell is a Luffy?”

“…shit, right, I keep forgetting you’re not a weeb,” Ava said. “You know Mr. Fantastic, from Marvel?”

“Oh, okay, yeah, I get what you’re saying. Huh, so there’s an anime ripoff of that guy?” Sam asked.

“…I guess?” Ava said, shrugging. “They’re not really that similar aside from the stretchy powers. Kinda getting away from the point here, though. Anyways, so, guy’s made of rubber, right? So his trick when he’s fighting me is, he’s gonna throw a punch, and when I dodge it, he’s gonna wrap his arm around me and squeeze me to death.”

“Sounds pretty clever,” Sam said.

“Yeah, it was, until I bit him and took a huge chunk out of him because my teeth went right through his arm,” Ava said. “See, now you know why I know what rubber human tastes like. Because I had to fight some dumbfuck who could turn himself into rubber, and I had to bite him. That better? You still freaked out about me being a… rubber cannibal or whatever?”

“Nah, that pretty much all tracks,” Sam said, nodding. Ava was still hunched over the bag, trying to decide what, precisely, to take out and make use of. “Hey, I was wondering,” he added, “how the hell does some of that stuff even work? Like, what the fuck is that resin diamond thing?”

Ava grinned like a maniac and produced a contraption that looked sort of like a mad scientist’s beaker, with a glass bucket attached to the smaller of its two openings, then filled it with a little bit of water from the stateroom sink and fished a miniature blowtorch out of her bag, before grabbing Sam’s hand and pulling him up from the armchair.

“I need to relax,” she said. “Let’s go up to where Scott and Luke were and check on them, and if they’re doing alright, let’s get blazed as fuck and watch the sun set.”

“What if Russian Beefcake Yoda is still up there?” Sam asked.

“I’ve been calling him Grandpa Zangief,” Ava said. “But… honestly, you know what? Fuck it, he’s cool, I’m down to let him hit this if he’s up there,” she added, gesturing with the dab rig. “Might make him less likely to murder me in the ring if he’s baked.”

Sam burst out laughing as they left the stateroom.

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When Ava and Sam arrived at the grand atrium where the fight had taken place, Rubberman’s body had already been cleaned up by the ship staff; Scott and Luke were at least somewhat up and lounging on the deck chairs. There was no sign of Maxim; Ava was unsure where, exactly, he would have gone, but based on his age, had a sneaking suspicion he was sitting at the penny slots.

“Y’all holding up okay?” Ava called out as she approached. Luke held up a hand and lazily waved.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Scott said. “Luke’s still kinda out of it, but I think he’ll be alright by tomorrow. Kinda the same situation you were in. I think he took a worse fall than I did; did you hear where the bones were cracking when you made me do my thing?”

“Kinda sounded like your back and legs,” Ava said.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Luke broke his neck,” Scott said. “Would’ve been dead if I hadn’t been there. Or… actually, me too, if you hadn’t been there. Thanks for that, Ava.”

“Hey, he would’ve killed me too,” Ava said. “I’m happy to help, but don’t take it personally.”

Scott looked annoyed for a moment.

“What’s with the tough-girl act?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, what act?” Ava asked, severely taken aback by the question.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “Ever since I met you, you’ve been putting up this weird nothing-matters, I’m-a-badass-who-doesn’t-care-about-anything front. And I can tell it’s a front, because every time the chips have been down, you’ve stepped up to the plate and saved people’s asses, even if it means putting your own on the line. What’s the deal? Why are you so desperate to make people think you’re an asshole?”

Ava blinked.

“I… honestly have not had nearly enough therapy to be able to give you a good answer to that,” she said. “Like, I’m gonna be completely real with you, you’re not wrong, but I don’t really know what to say in response.”

Scott smiled.

“That’s alright,” he said. “You’re a good person, even if you don’t want people to look at you that way. Just always keep that in mind. Being violent doesn’t mean you’re shitty, so long as you’re pointing that violence in the right direction.”

“God damn it, not you too,” Sam said, scooting a deck chair around as he and Ava took positions. “What’s with everyone and the Yoda shit today?”

Luke grunted, stirring slightly, as if to remind everyone that he was merely sleeping off serious injuries and not dead.

“I guess going to a martial arts tournament’s just got everyone in the Bruce Lee kinda mindset,” Ava said as she heated up the glass bucket of the dab rig with her miniature blowtorch. Once it turned red, she waited a moment, then held the yellow crystal up to the hot side of the bucket with a pair of tweezers, inhaling as she did so; when she exhaled and passed the dab rig to Sam, the sunset looked like the most beautiful thing in the world.