The Administrator had put Merry and I in a quiet place in the middle of nowhere. There were a lot of ways we could have done this--we could have waited until we got into town, or just found an out of the way place. But something about knowing that there wouldn't, couldn't be witnesses except me, Merry, and her... it felt right.

Of course, I needed rest first, but that was a boring bit of sitting and potion-drinking. As we sat there, waiting for my mental fatigue to fade a bit--this would have been much easier in the upcoming Town's inn, but then we'd be in unable to reach the Administrator again--my thoughts randomly latched on to one idea that I just couldn't put aside. Merry didn't agree with me, or not at first, but... all things considered, I forced the issue.

I fed the entire Eightfold Spear, and several other items besides, into my Class' recycler port, and with all those extra pieces of Dungeon stuff and both of the massive bottles of Experience I'd just been gifted, we remade Merry's body one more time. Looking back on it now, it was silly, but... it was also, clearly, an important decision--one that let us cheat the Administrator's restrictions, and one that she doubtless figured was possible, even if she didn't lead us directly to it. Because the item itself was ridiculously overpowered, and it was meant to be. The restrictions the Administrator had placed on it, and the trials I'd had to go through to get it, both made it worth far more in terms of its raw parts than anything I was likely to lay my hands on, outside of a gift from one of the multi-hundred-level people I'd met, and that seemed a very low-chance thing. If we followed the rules, this powerful item would slip from my grasp very soon; it was too powerful for my class to eat, even stacking all kinds of crazy advantages in my favor. And once we realized it was best to cheat... I very quickly knew where I came down on what to do with the damned thing. It's not like I wanted it.

As soon as I jammed it in the recycler, nine items worth of powerful special abilities spilled out into some internal space within my Dungeoneer body, so many that it was painful--they took up more room than I really had to spare, inside. It was like when Merry had moved in, and pieces of my soul were being pushed out of place simply to make room, but... not as close to my brain, and also, it was entirely my own damn fault. It took Merry a ton of effort just to make sure no pieces had been left in... sensitive places, and the fact that she hadn't been ready when I started feeding the item in--that she was still arguing with me about it at the time--only made that job harder, and made it all take longer.

Once I'd started, though, there was no way back, and she and I both put everything we could into doing this right.

I could talk at length about the work that went into it, but if we're being honest, more than anything... it was just good for me to have something to focus on. It made the ache in my soul, from where Merry bit me, fade to nothing, and it made me ever happier to call Merry my sister. I watched her piecing things together, organizing them, adding structure and logic to it that I could only barely begin to follow, and only then did we start looking at the aesthetics of it. And as far as I was concerned, that was important--as much as I respected Herman, I was not going to have my sister dress like him. Really--if I had to give her the shirt off my back to ensure that her outfit was an actual outfit, and not the fashion equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, I would have, literally and figuratively.

When we got to the last step... well, it was painful, but this time we were prepared, and we had the benefit of experience. We started with one of the massive bottles of Experience, and controlled the flow, but that wasn't nearly enough to reshape all the pieces that we'd spilled. Both of them, plus every drop of Experience that I had left, plus a bunch of Forge Points and Skill Points, plus recycling some pieces and junk items into what I could only summarize as 'dungeon goop'... all that was just enough for Merry to work with, as long as she kept some thematic elements.

When Merry finally emerged from my head, she looked like she was just a fairy, in all the most important ways. She had a bracelet on each arm and an anklet on each leg, a little scarf, a necklace shaped like a sword, two earrings, and a one-piece dress. Each of them had some various decorations on it that were recycled from one thing or another, but in the end, they were subtle. You might think, looking at her, that her new ensemble was purely decorative. It wasn't.

"The Gazebo and the Lord of All Chairs are actually both defensive," Merry told me as she practiced resizing herself up and down. It was weird to see my fairy sister me-sized, though she took it in stride, I guess because she'd done it once before. "The Chair spear was supposed to wrap you in some kind of berserk armor, but I separated the pieces so all the attack power is in the rings. The Gazebo... it's a domain that responds to emotion. I don't think I'll be able to use it for more than defense any time soon."

"But you think it's stable?" I was worried for her, but less worried about this specifically than I was generally worried about what we were going to do next.

"Yeah, we can fight." Merry chose to become my size and took a few steps back, willing the rings on her arms and legs to detach and float around her, and pulled the sword icon from her neck, resizing it into a proper blade. "Any time."

I didn't take it that flippantly, instead shuffling around my enhancements for my Soulforged items for a few minutes, trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to approach this. Because while I had no intention of killing my fairy sister, the whole point of this was for me to... to not hold back. For her to see me as I was, and not as a brother, and still be able to say that I wasn't some kind of monster. It was a weird mindset to try to get in, but I forced myself along, having benefitted from distracting myself for long enough to have reached a sort of emotionally dead place, where I was at least ready to give it a shot.

A few minutes later, I finally summoned my blade, and extended the Vampiric Cloak. "Ready?" I asked, already feeling a little tired. It felt weird when Merry gave me a very serious-looking nod, but that... made me feel a little calmer, somehow. "Okay. Here I come."

I tested her with a few normal strikes first, and it felt... weird. I guess because I didn't spar against people, much less people I like and want to protect. I didn't... normally fight against something while being afraid of winning. But she blocked the strikes, and I could tell from the Cloak that she was using some kind of domain power to resist the Cloak and my damage, both. I nodded to myself, and came at her harder and faster, unsure of whether I was really ready to go further than that.

Until the moment when Merry parried me, deftly stepped aside, and aimed a thrust right at my throat--a thrust I wasn't expecting, but still dodged, easily, whether because she let me or because I was just faster than her.

My next attack was rougher, but one of her rings got in between my sword and her, and her domain flared. Merry stepped forward into a place where the strike wouldn't have hit her even if I'd continued, and thrust again in a hole in my defenses. I stepped back and tried to knock her blow away, but she dodged and thrusted again, aiming for many light, precise attacks.

I found myself smiling, even as a light blow landed on my arm.

Things took a turn when I started expressing the Cloak mostly in terms of throwing weight behind my attacks. There was a sort of... drag, around the sword when I did that, that made it just a touch harder to dodge them, and she simply didn't have the Dungeon resources to counter that. She could still dodge my swings, but the weird momentum of the skill seemed to make it difficult for her to move cleanly, and shook her a little whenever it came close.

And then, suddenly, one of Merry's floating rings came out of nowhere and hit me in the balls.

In the moment that staggered me--and normally, a Dungeoneer didn't feel a whole lot of pain, but it was a definite distraction--her other three rings spun and impacted me, and she started a chain of hits that kept me from immediately recovering, until I flexed the Cloak into more of a full defensive screen. She switched to focusing all her efforts into the tip of her sword, somehow exercising her new domain and cutting into the Cloak with that, which was... correct, I had to admit, and I went back to a more nimble defense only to have her blindside me with something new.

I could sense her burning a bit of her lifeforce, and part of the Cloak slipped away from me for a moment.

Now, I'd thought she could win against the cloak using her own domain, so I didn't entirely freeze up there, but it did freak me out a little bit. Instead of stopping, I jammed my own sword back towards her, gambling that she would suddenly be distracted by dealing with a new problematic thing, and as I expected, she only managed to roughly block with her sword and domain. I pulled on the Cloak, and the parts she was trying to control sort of ripped in half, with me taking back a large part of the skill's power, and I flung the energy I did have at her like a more general telekinetic punch, the sort of thing I would have done before I reforged the skill.

It knocked her back, but all that force was absorbed by her domain--it did no damage, as far as I could tell. What I could see, though, was that she was already tired--a problem we'd known, and talked about, before starting. Without being a Dungeoneer, she wouldn't just passively get more energy, so this fight was difficult for her. Even with her pulling away at the energy of the Cloak, she was spending a lot more than she could get back.

Despite it all, though, I hadn't hurt her once, not for anything like damage.

It wasn't desperation or hatred that had me suddenly making a series of several quick, intense swings and thrusts at her. If anything... I guess I still expected to be proven right, and I felt like this was the time. I expected that when I broke through her guard, she would suddenly be scared and hurt, as we all are when all of our efforts come to nothing in the face of something awful. But she had a remarkably even and determined look on her face even as I blew away the last of the mana she had to spend on defense, and she suddenly reverted to a small fairy, her items returning to become part of her body again.

Stolen novel; please report.

"You still weren't serious," griped Merry, and I could hear how tired she was in the lower pitch to her voice, the lack of energy. But she... also wasn't scared. "I could have taken more."

I was surprised, and I'm sure I looked it. "Sure, but--"

"I've seen you serious, Jerry," she said. "I know that you're scary powerful, but you aren't, like..." she paused, and then in a sudden burst, fluttered over to sit on my shoulder. I looked over at her, confused that she was just immediately back to being Merry, but she didn't even pause. "you aren't supernatural. The rules don't bend around you. I know why things work the way they do. You could have been going a lot faster, and I could still predict you."

Predict me? The words seemed strange, but I guess I could understand them. Everyone else I'd met, I'd met for the first time, and I was so unique, so out of their experience... but I was also all that Merry had ever known. I took a deep breath, and then another, without replying, not entirely sure what to say.

"On the plus side," she suddenly sounded cheerful. "This body kicks ass, bro. I have to say, I still think you're dumb as shit for doing this before you go fight, uh, heretic-boy, but this is a hell of a thing. I bet... no, I'm sure I could beat whats-her-name, checkpoint rabbit lady. Well, maybe not her star thing; that seemed pretty badass."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "She was pretty badass in general. I think you're kidding yourself."

"Maybe." Merry grinned at me. "Feeling any better?"

Was I feeling better? I'd pressed Merry, and nothing had gone terribly wrong. "A little," I said, not content with where we were.

"Give me a few minutes inside you to recharge and we can try again."

So Merry slipped back inside my head, and I sat there and meditated, aware that she could use anything I thought about against me if I was concentrating on the upcoming fight... but I could trust her not to deliberately cheat, and also we hadn't really gotten to a point where the difference was really about tactics. She had incredible control and reflexes, and enough knowledge about me that she could see weaknesses in my patterns that doubtless had been there a long time, but which hadn't really been relevant when fighting Dungeon monsters. But... none of that meant that I was desperate enough to hit the level of desperate that I'd seen in real fights, where I had to scrap together every last advantage and pull apart her tactics looking for weaknesses. Yes, I still wanted to work harder and push her, but not to that degree, certainly not yet.

It was weird trying to think about what I could do to make sure I could beat her, not least because... I really didn't want to beat her. I didn't have any kind of deep burning desire to prove myself to her, and I wasn't afraid that losing to her would kill me. Really--as weird as it was to say--she was perhaps the most otherworldly creature I could possibly have made friends with, and yet she was also my anchor in the real world. The more otherworldly creatures--Administrators, Gods, elder Fairies--were out of reach, all with their own business and responsibilities, but Merry... she was what brought me back to the world and made it feel real.

She and Louise, of course, but Louise held attention in a very different way, and after seeing Merry temporarily my height, I was just as happy to think of her as a sister and not have any confusion about our relationship.

Yeah, yeah, love you too, bro, Merry grinned at me from somewhere to the left of my soul. But seriously, you're everything I've got, too. My success in that fight before, and my success against you just now... that's all you, too. You're not just a fighter; you've taught me plenty. And there's that chick you met in Pearland, too. And you helped the others, too.

You haven't succeeded against me yet, I pointed out, though I knew I was being a little pedantic.

Oh, sure, because just anyone could have gone through what I did with equal results. You know I have zero class levels, right? Yes, my body's made of magic and Dungeon stuff, but your Key is a cheat that lets you get stronger constantly. I have none of that and no personal fighting experience--just you.

That made my heart ache, a little, and I wasn't sure exactly what that meant. No... I know, you're right. I'm just... I don't know.

My fairy grinned. But seriously, you'll be okay. Right now, you're an outsider, and it's weird, but... in time, things will get better.

I wasn't sure that was in any way possible to predict considering I was expecting to become a Dungeon Administrator, but the thought was touching anyway.

Right, but even given that, she answered my unvoiced doubts, Your point was that I wouldn't like you, that Louise wouldn't like you, that your friends wouldn't like you. So show me what you're scared of.

She wasn't fully recharged, so that comment wasn't really aptly timed, but for the sake of making it sound prescient, we'll skip ahead. I know, I could have just not mentioned that, but the point is, shut up.

Merry stood there, facing me with an item she'd only just started using, and I stood there opposite her, with a lot of levels and a lot of fighting experience, and I just... I don't know. I'm not sure what I was expecting; I'm not sure there's anything I can say that makes sense. Except that the point of all of it was that I expected her to run, or break down.

I put weight and determination and skill and experience behind my blade, and I expected her to run.

I put fire and hell and pain and fear behind my blade and I expected her to run.

I multiplied my blades and flung them at all angles and did things essentially backwards and blindfolded and expected her to run.

And Merry, although she couldn't hold up stamina-wise, didn't run. She saw the killer in me from the victim's point of view, but... I guess all she saw was her brother.

And eventually, I just got very tired, and I stopped, and Merry was tired and she stopped, and we sat there, and I realized the truth: I really didn't have a good reason for being such an antisocial dickhead all the time, except that I was scared. Yeah, most people wouldn't understand, especially at first, but... some people would. And that was all I really should have ever cared about in the first place.

"Sorry," I said, after a long moment.

"You know, that's kind of the point," Merry said, still sounding tired. I just looked at her. "You're sorry you killed people. You're sorry that you're weird and different. You're sorry that you're a battle monster. Almost everything that you expect other people to hate about you, you're sorry exists."

Merry flew over, in miniature, and sat on my hand, and I looked at her. "I'm pretty sure," she said, "that the people that deserve to be feared are the ones who aren't sorry that they're evil."

While that made sense, it wasn't the point. "It's not just whether or not I deserve to be feared," I said, still just... tired. "People just... do that. They fear people, and hate them."

"And that's why you're scared of them," Merry said, as though it had been her point all along. "The ones you're scared of, they aren't sorry that they're scared. They aren't sorry that they hurt you or drove you away. But Louise, or me, or any of your friends... if we scared you or hurt you, we'd be sorry. If any of us have done it, we--and I think I can speak for them--we would all be sorry as soon as we found out. There are monsters out there, Jay, but it's not us."

I looked at my fairy, and she looked at me, and I chuckled, and I looked up at the sky, towards wherever the Administrator probably was. "If you drove me away, you'd be sorry, wouldn't you?"

The insane, arguably psychotic, nightmare given flesh declined to answer my accusation in any way. It's possible she wasn't even watching, though I doubted that.

So I just sighed and looked down at Merry. "Do you think we can still take this stupid heretic asshole?"

She flew up and fist-bumped my nose. "Hell yeah," she said, with a grin that I really couldn't focus on at that distance.

We spent a little more time experimenting and testing with Merry's new body, but soon enough, we ducked out of our private training grounds and challenged the end of the Doomsday biome, where I met Mr. Four Armed Flaming Asshole for the second time and was... just completely unimpressed. Instead of spears, he did essentially the same pattern with flaming meteors, but they lacked punch. I let Merry play with him for a while, and she experimented with rapidly changing her size to dodge ranged attacks, but apparently that was pretty draining, and she ran out of stamina too soon.

I even offered the Administrator a change to change up the fight if she wanted, but nothing came of it. So not long after, my sword met the Doomsday Asshole's face and just split it right down the center, and that was all she wrote about that fight.

The next Town was, of course, the Docks, the one I wasn't supposed to go past unless I was ready. This was the last chance to leave, and I took that thought seriously. We stopped and spent some time on our own stuff, taking time to relax as much as possible. I sent some messages to Louise, and to Harry, and even a short missive to Jenna (that mostly prompted by a list of questions she'd sent me, but... I could have ignored it. Instead, I found it a little bit fun, not that I'd tell her). I'd been intending to come back with a crew--with the baker asshole, with Susie, with whoever. I'd been intending to wait and have a lot more experience. I'd been intending a lot of things.

Instead, most of a day later, I left the Docks by taking a long walk off a short pier, feeling a strange fizzy sensation as I entered the next biome.

The realm beyond the docks was supposed to be underwater, but it had obviously been changed, because while the trappings of the water theme were still there, the actual dungeon was a cobblestone path leading downwards, and it felt... closed in, like a narrow box instead of a wide world. At intervals, there would be a wide cobblestone plaza with a man or woman standing there in a martial arts outfit, waiting patiently, but there were no decorations nor anything else. As was often the case, there was also no environmental hazard from the "water" trappings--no need to breathe, no crushing pressure or freezing temperatures, just a sort of floating sensation that was a little off-putting.

I was briefly disappointed to find that the human-like enemies had no personality at all, and simply tried to fight me immediately, with little more than a single bow as an introduction. They used no words and had no soul, nor anything like it. They were also--unsurprisingly--completely uninteresting combatants. It's not so much that the fact that they were weak; they were too predictable. They all ran off the same script, and after beating two of them, I could have killed the rest without breaking stride. One step to the left and a thrust through the neck, and it was done.

Three floors of that same boring, repetitive fight, and I started to feel personally insulted.

The end of the third level was a whirlpool of some kind, and when I jumped in the bottom of it, I found myself at the base of a mountain, with--you guessed it--a cobblestone path leading up, and periodic cobblestone plazas where martial artists with no personality waited for me. It wasn't much of a boss level, but I suppose this so-called Heretic Knight, appointed by a Fairy Queen to invade the place, was lacking in the training necessary to be a real Administrator.

That was a problem that I resolved myself not to have. Despite all the dangers of the Dungeons, boredom seemed a step too far. If the future of humanity was riding on this, it just wouldn't do for it to be dry, clinical, garbage floor design. If I had to choose between this and any of the other Administrators, I wouldn't choose this, even for greater rewards.

I shook my head, double checked all my equipment and abilities, and walked calmly up onto the mountaintop.