~~~Stanley~~~

[Dungeon Perimeter] No Dungeon Entities may cross until All Invaders or Defenders are Defeated.

The notification served as a stark reminder of Stanley's purpose here. It was the entire reason he'd attacked the enraged woman in front of him. Well, why he'd attacked her again.

She took the impact better than he'd expected and instantly sent another streak of light toward his head. She even had enough breath to yell, "You!"

Move

"Psycho!" Stanley spun her around, and the pink magic shattered harmlessly against the impenetrable blue wall.

Warning! Attempts to breach [Dungeon Perimeter] may incur heavy penalties.

"Motherfucker!" Mostly harmlessly. And why was it warning him? It was her magic.

"Let's..." Stanley started as she blasted away from the wall in a flash of pink and went for a headshot. Again. He didn't blame her. Besides, he was doing the same thing.

"Talk," he finished while psionically punching her in the head and moving himself alongside as she cartwheeled through the air.

She didn't go far before catching herself, but it was enough to break her concentration and, with it, her attack. It was the only reason he kept going for the head. Meanwhile, she just wanted to kill him. "You're dead!"

The consequences of his actions were all too apparent in the fresh and ugly bruises that marred her face. It also served as a cruel reminder of past mistakes, when he'd lashed out in fear at another woman... one with the exact same name. The universe, it seemed, was not without a sick sense of irony.

It could be argued that he was doing the same thing now as he had then; lashing out in panic and fear. But he hardened his heart against that thought. Against that weakness. This had to be done. Not only for himself but for everyone whose lives depended on him. He would become a monster if that was the price of their survival.

Sam didn't know it, and he was skeptical that she would believe it if she did, but she was seeing his nice side. All his other options were far worse. For everyone involved. He'd dragged her, kicking and screaming, all the way out here so that they could have a chat. One free of interruptions and potential liabilities.

Unfortunately, she wasn't feeling very talkative at the moment. Which was fair. Totally understandable. So he fought on until she was ready.

She was breathing hard, and Stanley had a starving debuff when the lull finally appeared after her previous attack shattered against the dungeon wall, and she didn't instantly throw out another.

Stanley reciprocated and didn't hit her again.

Sam stood on nothing, her chest heaving, and her eyes twin fires of pure rage as they glared out at him from a bloody face. But there was also something else in there. A new wariness. Almost respect. She absolutely hated him, but she couldn't deny his power. Not any more.

He understood and shared the sentiment. She had fought way longer than he'd thought possible. He'd expected her mana to run out ages ago... which was probably the only reason she'd stopped now. She was waiting for her mana to regenerate.

"Can we talk?"

She said nothing as twin fires of blazing pink light glared back at him. Yeah, she definitely hated him.

Stanley took her silence as a reason to continue. It was probably the best he was going to get. Except, he then found himself unsure of where to start... Perhaps with an explanation? An excuse for his behavior.

"I recently..." He smiled a bittersweet smile. "Well, I realized I care about more people than I thought I did."

She failed to see the humor in that, as her eyes burned brighter and she opened her mouth. Meanwhile, both her hands lit up with that same pink light.

"What I'm trying to say," Stanley continued quickly before she attacked. "Is that your friends, the invaders, represent a substantial threat to everyone I care about. So I need you to tell me everything you know. Or else I will have to do... something worse." He thought that sounded perfectly reasonable. He'd even been polite about it. Well, relatively polite. "Please?"

She laughed then, a humorless sound of disbelief. "They aren't my friends. I don't give a flying fuck what happens to those stiffs, but you're delusional if you think I'll ever help you."

"I get it," Stanley said, resisting the anger that would have been his usual response. "Perhaps more than I ever could before. You're protecting your friend, right?"

Her lips thinned, and she only continued glaring at him.

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do as well. So tell me, how far would you go to protect this friend? Or are you not that close?"

She flew closer, and Stanley let her come, until they were face to face. Then she spit in his face. "Fuck you! You arrogant son of a bitch!"

Stanley let it go, though it helped that her spit never reached him. And really, so what if she had a little temper? Who wouldn't after getting beaten bloody and dragged across an entire city? He could understand where she was coming from, even if he still had to...

Sam exploded into a cloud of pink stars, with cloud being a rather lacking description for the billions of glowing specks left where she'd stood an instant before. Not even billions. Trillions. As if every atom in her body became abruptly separate from all the rest.

That was all he had time to notice in the single instant before the pink stars shot toward him at the speed of light. There was no time to dodge. No time to react. He only knew it happened because it was inside his domain. One moment she stood before him, and in the next, she was inside him.

Partially.

The trillions of stars coalesced back into the woman. Or at least most of a woman. Her right hand reappeared inside his chest—inside his heart—and neither his heart nor her hand survived the attempt to occupy the same space.

Her left hand did the same thing to his head.

Skill Level Up: Premonition

MOVE

Stanley shot away from her as fast as he could... and it wasn't fast enough. She missed his head, but not his chest. Though she did at least miss his heart. So, small victories. The explosion where one of her fingers tried to occupy the same space as his breastbone wasn't too bad, but the shrapnel got awfully close to doing serious damage.

Debuff Gained: [Bleeding]

Sam didn't pursue afterward, though she was slightly less angry now. Instead, she felt... thoughtful? Oh, she was still pissed off, but something had changed. Worse still, he was pretty sure he'd just gotten an up close look at her teleportation skill. Which meant she could teleport at will. Which was even more baffling. Because why the hell hadn't she done that before now?

She didn't come out of the attack unscathed either, now with one of her fingers missing. Did she have regeneration like his? Or was she just pissed enough that she was willing to sacrifice limbs to kill him?

On that note, Stanley reached down into the ocean, where his dripping blood had already created a feeding frenzy and dragged a dozen of whatever was down there up into the sky.

cut

He diced them up and immediately filled his stomach with chunks of... fish? Mostly fish. Stanley didn't worry about the fact that some of them had legs along with fins. They were all meat.

Sam watched him warily but didn't interfere with his snack. In fact, her soul was... disgusted? Well, she'd be a lot more upset if he went ravenous and tried to eat her.

Then she started drifting closer, and Stanley had to make a choice.

He didn't know if there was a short range on her teleport. It would explain why he hadn't seen it in their first fight, but not why she'd held back until now. Her finger definitely wasn't regenerating as fast as he did, so that was something.

Debuff Downgraded: [Famished]

Debuff Removed: [Bleeding]

Stanley held his ground. She was more dangerous than he'd thought, but it was worth the risk. Too many lives were at stake. His premonition skill would be enough if she tried that again, wouldn’t it?

Sam halted her approach with only a foot of space between them, and Stanley watched her tensely, ready to move at the slightest warning while also struggling with what he could say that might convince her to tell him what he needed to know. She took the initiative.

"I can overlook you trying to kill me before," Sam growled, her burning gaze locked onto his. "Heat of the moment and all that, but this..." She finally looked away at the expanse of ocean and then toward the distant Boston skyline. "You what? Dragged me out here to make an offer I can't refuse?"

Stanley answered honestly. "Pretty much."

"Why the trip?" she asked, her gaze returning to him. "You didn't want your precious friends to watch?"

Her question hit a little closer to home than he thought it would. Despite his talk of becoming a monster if he had to, Stanley didn't actually want his friends to hate him... "Not quite," he hedged. "You're too powerful, and I couldn't risk you killing any of them."

That statement calmed her slightly, and she pulled back, though he couldn't figure out why from the jumble of emotions beneath her anger. Then she started pacing, walking on nothing in a circle around him. "Smart, since I don't give a shit about any of them and wouldn't hesitate to use them against you. But you know that, don't you?"

Stanley didn't turn to follow her. She was close enough to be within his domain, and that gave him far more information than his eyes ever could. "Your soul is pink. Like, really pink."

She smirked. "I know." The smirk turned into a frown and she muttered, "That ability is so annoying."

Why was she complaining? He wasn't even using Soul Sight now and had only used it briefly in their last fight. Or was she mad he hadn't done this at the stadium where she could take hostages? "I still need you to..."

"You're not very good at this," Sam interrupted while still pacing around him. "Say I give you what you want. What then?"

"I kill the invaders and get out of here. You'll never see me again."

"Really? And what's to stop me from killing your friends while you're busy?"

Stanley stiffened. "Because I'll kill you if..."

"You can't kill me. I think we've established that." She stopped in front of him and glanced meaningfully at the finger-sized hole through the layers of clothing above his chest, then met his gaze again. "But I can kill you."

She was underestimating him, but she wasn't completely wrong... She was also an idiot. Because, by her own reasoning, it would be better to skip the talking and get straight to mind controlling her. That would remove the risk of retaliation after the fact. The only issue with that plan was that he wasn't sure if he could subdue her long enough for Harem to mind control her.

He would need to knock her out and do so while dodging her self-destructive teleports. Considering the lack of unconsciousness after the beating he'd given her, it might take a while... Then he'd have to get her to Harem before she woke up, which probably wouldn't take long since her finger had already healed over; it hadn't regrown though, for whatever that was worth. At the very least, it put a limit on how many times she could teleport her limbs inside him.

Well, this was as good a place as any. Or... what if he dragged her down into the ocean? Her teleporting would make it harder, especially if the range was further than she'd shown so far. But the water might slow her down—more so if he could get her into the depths. Maybe she'd be more pliable if slightly drowned? Or fully drowned? Would her core start forming the moment she stopped breathing, or could he revive her after the fact? Ideally while Harem dominated her mind.

It was worth a... Sam teleported.

The spike of adrenaline flooded Stanley's mind far too late, long milliseconds after she'd already reappeared. Luckily, she'd only teleported further away... and he knew why. Damn it. He wrapped his soul back behind the Soul Shield while Sam's soul prepared for the resumption of violence.

Move

Stanley took her and himself toward the ocean below...

MOVE

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

He lost an ear at the cost of another one of her fingers and retaliated.

Cut

She wouldn't be able to sacrifice her limbs if he cut them all off first, and maybe she wouldn't... Her passive teleport blinked her away, arms intact. Not counting the two missing fingers... Sam came after him again. And again.

Debuff Gained: [Bleeding]

Debuff Upgraded: [Major Bleeding]

Debuff Upgraded: [Starving]

Their third round was a far bloodier affair than the previous two, and Stanley went back to punching her in the head when her teleporting proved itself as a hard counter to his attempts to drag her into the ocean. He couldn't even get a snack in, and every time he tried, she forced him away. Though not without cost to herself.

"You can't keep this up," Sam finally gasped out after another bloody exchange, and she was one to talk, especially with both of her hands sporting little more than jagged stumps for fingers by that point. She'd even started trying to hit him with her feet.

Stanley was a little out of breath himself, and he hauled up another fish while she was...

MOVE

...not distracted enough.

She grinned, her teeth bloody and shining out from a battered and bruised face. "Not gonna happen."

"You know, Zeke can heal you right up if you'd just tell me what..."

"I know." She kept grinning. "And I'm sure he'll be more than willing to do just that once you're dead."

Stanley grimaced. This wasn't working and getting angrier wouldn't do shit if she could just teleport out from every fucking attack! So he tried a different tactic instead and activated Still Mind.

Sam's grin fell away slowly as his thought processes sped up and his anger vanished. She was a difficult opponent, more powerful than the invaders, and almost as impossible to kill. He'd be in serious trouble if she was D-grade... Luckily, she wasn't, but he still needed to eat. If he could maintain a food supply, then he would at the very least outlast her.

Move

Stanley moved in a zigzag pattern across the sky and around her position. While he did that, he also dragged every single fish he could touch up to join them. Except this time, he didn't pull them to himself. Instead, he filled the sky with their flopping bodies.

Cut

Then he diced them all into a cloud of raining fish pieces.

Sam tried to stop him repeatedly and succeeded, but only most of the time. He took more injuries and missed a lot of potential snacks, but not all of them. His faster thoughts were enough to let him snatch a bite here and there. Enough to keep him going.

She realized it was over quickly, and her soul lit up with resolve... right before she teleported. Only this time, she not only reappeared further away, but then she immediately teleported again, and again, in a straight line, back towards the stadium. She was running... or going after his friends.

MOVE

Stanley chased after her and was... displeased when she outpaced him. Her teleport range didn't seem to be that far, but there was almost no delay between each jump... She was faster than him.

Cut

Cut

Cut

It was hard to hit a target that only sat in place for an instant, but he managed. Of course, his attacks did nothing but speed her along. This wasn't good...

He was surprised when she abruptly reversed course and appeared almost in his face. She appeared with one hand up in a halt gesture—at least, what was left of her hand. Was she surrendering? Her soul felt—well, not like a surrender, but something akin to it. A... ceasefire?

Stanley gave her what she wanted. Then used the opportunity to grab some more fish from the shallower waters while deliberately not even glancing toward the white tower that loomed far too close. He did not want to give her more targets.

She didn't appreciate him having another snack, but also didn't interfere. Instead, she spoke while he shoved the fish down his throat. "I'm faster than you. I can kill your friends, and you can't stop me fast enough. So why don't we call it even and go our separate ways?"

Her soul felt... mostly confident about what she was saying. But she was forgetting something important. Caffeine. The beast lord was waiting at her destination, and he wouldn't appreciate her trying to kill his friends. That teleporting, though... would Caffeine be able to catch her, especially if she stayed in the sky?

"Besides," Sam said. "I literally can't help you find the invaders."

"Your friend..."

"They can't tell you anything, and I know you can see my soul, so you know I'm not lying."

Stanley studied her. "Explain."

She glared at him, then sighed. "They took some kind of oath when they joined. I don't know the specifics, but it limits what they can say."

It appeared that she was being honest. That was... a problem. "You can call your friend and I'll follow them back to..."

"I can't call them. They show up out of nowhere and disappear without a trace." Stanley opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "Don't even think about stalking me! You know I'm not lying, and I will go to war if you so much as try to touch them!"

She wasn't lying.

"Also," Sam said. "From what I've heard, they'd see you coming a mile away. Something about your soul being a beacon..."

There was that. But shouldn't his soul shield hide him? Or was it because of the wound? Stanley ate some more fish as he tried to think of a way around the problem. He couldn't find one. "Then there is no reason for us to fight."

Debuff Downgraded: [Famished]

Debuff Downgraded: [Bleeding]

"I mean, you're a schizo asshole and I would really like to kill you," Sam said honestly. "But other than that... no."

The only alternative was that she had a way to trick him into thinking she wasn't lying. But he wouldn't be able to prove that without another fight. Which would endanger his allies. Which was unacceptable. Though he would definitely try following her. She believed it wouldn't work, but she may simply be ignorant.

Stanley flew away toward the sensation of Caffeine in the distance.

Sam followed, flying rather than teleporting, but staying behind him.

He found Caffeine and the others not at the stadium but on the journey home. Then a pug-shaped missile crashed into him at the same time that Still Mind deactivated. A lot of emotions swelled up in him, but Stanley forced all but one of them away to focus on what mattered most while he gave the pug what he deserved.

"Good boy, Caff." He'd stayed with the others and kept them safe. Though it was possible that Sam wouldn't have found them all the way out here... was that Nate's intuition at work? "Very good boy!"

His friends all watched him descend from the sky with mixed feelings. Though he wasn't sure if they were nervous about him or the woman flying in behind him... Stanley stopped and looked back, anger rising. "What the fuck do you want now?"

Sam smiled and held up two arms that ended in stumps where her hands should have been. "Well, since we're all friends now, I figured your healer wouldn't mind patching me up."

Zeke actually took a step closer before Stanley blocked him. "We aren't friends! You're useless! Your friend is useless! And why the hell didn't you just tell me that before!?"

"Because instead of talking to me like a sane person, you fucking attacked me out of nowhere! You're an asshole, a schizo, and a goddamned bully! So fuck you!"

That wasn't... he had asked. She just refused to answer. Hadn't he?

She kept approaching, despite Stanley's glare, and didn't stop until she was inside Zeke's aura. There, she grinned while watching her hands slowly regrow. "That is some good stuff," she said with a sigh of relaxation. "It really is a shame the invaders have it out for you."

"Turn it off, Zeke," Stanley said, and the kid looked at Nate instead of complying. Stanley was about to drag Zeke away from her... and stopped. Was he really about to bully the boy? No, he was just trying to avoid helping this bitch. Right?

"You could help us protect him," Nate said while standing blatantly between her and Zeke. A useless position when the bitch could teleport. "We're all stronger together than we..."

"Can't do it," Sam said. "I'm officially neutral in your little war."

That was the dumbest thing he'd heard from her yet. "Then shouldn't you fuck off away from us?"

"Nah." She grinned at him. The bitch! "You can help me all you want. I just can't help you fight the invaders."

"You gave me that core earlier! That's helping!"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Please. It's the spirit of the deal, not the letter."

"Does that mean that your stadium is a safe place?" Nate asked eagerly. Far too eagerly.

She shrugged. "Like I said, it wasn't really a formal deal. They promised to leave me alone so long as I didn't fight them."

"That seems like a... generous offer," Nate said. "Or they fear your power."

Sam shook her head. "I doubt it. My neutrality was part of the deal my friend made with them. They had a skill the invaders wanted..."

"Why do you keep saying they?" Stanley growled. "How many of your friends decided to become traitors!?"

"It's the singular they, asshole!" Oh. Stanley shut his mouth but didn't stop glaring at her.

"They," she emphasized the word while glaring back at him. "Had a skill the invaders really wanted, and so the invaders offered them something they wanted in return. A deal that included my neutrality."

"Traitor," Stanley muttered under his breath.

"You think the invaders will honor it?" Nate asked. "Don't they need to defeat all of us?"

"They have so far, and maybe my neutrality will be enough."

"I understand the position you're in," Nate said. "But you should warn your friend. We are going to win this little war, and if they come against us in battle, we won't hold back."

"They aren't really the fighting type, so I don't think that's likely." Sam smiled at Zeke while wiggling her newly restored fingers. "Thanks, kid. That would've taken a lot longer without your help."

Zeke smiled back, like an idiot. "You're welcome!"

Sam turned her grin on Stanley while rising slowly into the air. "Later, schizo. Don't forget our truce, and I won't have to do anything... drastic."

Stanley gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to restart the fighting until she'd flown away. Then his gaze fell on a strange woman and child lurking among the rest of the group. Oh, right, Martha, wasn't it? The F-grades.

He was going to give her a core to... He patted his jacket and found a ragged hole where a pocket should have been. Shit.

~~~Sam~~~

Sam was almost completely certain Stanley wasn't following her home after he vanished over the horizon. At the very least, she couldn't feel his soul looking at her, and unless he had an invisibility skill, she would see him anywhere in the open. Because everything the light touched was hers to see, though it was slightly harder to focus on details when peering beyond the horizon...

It was still early, and she should have kept hunting, but that fight had been... rough. Annoying as hell, too.

He fought unlike anything else she'd faced in battle to date. She couldn't see any of his attacks coming, and then there was the way it felt like he was spinning the world around her... Worse, he didn't even have a teleport skill and she could still barely touch him. He had something—maybe a prediction skill of some kind? Otherwise, there was no way he should have been able to avoid her teleport.

It would have been a different story if he hadn't wanted to fight in broad daylight and above the ocean, no less. Light fueled her mana regeneration, and having the ocean reflect even more light onto her had made a huge difference. It had been less pleasant when he tried to drag her under the water...

The stadium was quiet when she got back, and she had plenty of time until darkness arrived and the bugs came with it. Plenty of time to relax in her skybox turned home.

Having a friendly face waiting for her inside was nice as well. "Welcome home, Sam. Would you like dinner early today?"

"No thanks, Henry. Later is fine." She was actually hungry, but watching Stanley shovel raw fish into his face had ruined her appetite. So she dismissed the cook and then just reveled in the peace and quiet as she looked out over her domain.

"That was so cool!"

Sam didn't flinch or turn at the sudden voice coming from what should have been the empty room behind her. "How long have you been here, V?"

The voice laughed cheerfully. "Oh, I was already here when Stanley showed up. I was waiting for you to come back from your hunt, and holy shit, am I glad I did! I loved watching you fight, especially when you almost killed him. You should have seen his soul; he was actually scared!"

Sam spun around to stare in shock at the skeleton standing behind her. "You followed us? What if he'd seen you!?"

Twin red lights flashed brighter in the empty eye sockets while the sound of laughter filled the room. "Relax, Sammy. He'd never spot me." The lights dimmed, and the skeleton turned its head toward the windows. "Besides, I think his dog started picking up my scent after you both left..."

"Forget the dog! There's no guarantee I could've protected you from that schizo!"

V took a step closer and grabbed onto her with both hands. "Oh no! The dog is much more dangerous than Stanley! You should never fight it!" Their hands shook her and their voice was pleading. "Promise me you won't fight it!"

Sam took an involuntary step back from the overenthusiastic skeleton. "Geez, okay. I won't!"

She didn't realize she was rubbing her arms where V had touched her until their eyes dimmed and they ducked their head. "Sorry. I know you don't like..."

"No," Sam said as she closed the gap and placed a hand over V's nervously fidgeting fingers while her other hand lifted their chin. "I'm the one who's sorry. I'm just... I'm still getting used to it."

"You don't hate me?" V whispered. Their jaw didn't move when they spoke, but oddly enough, their voice sounded the same as it had before the... change. Including the fear of rejection that came through all too well, and it left an ache in Sam's chest.

She pulled the skeleton into a hug. It felt weird as hell, but they were still her friend. "I love you, V. No matter what you look like. The only thing that matters to me is that you are happy."

V leaned back and grinned up at her with a huge, if also slightly disturbing, smile. "I am happy, Sammy. I've never been happier!" They stepped back and spread their skeletal arms wide. "I feel amazing and not like a prisoner in my body anymore."

Sam smiled. "So, the flesh was the problem?"

"No. It's..." They paused and looked down at their hands. "These bones don't feel like a body. Not really. It's more like a puppet that I ride around on. Not me, but a... vehicle?"

"I'm really glad you like it," Sam said with a genuine smile. "That's all that matters to me. Though you better let me know if those eternals misbehave."

"I do! And they're being really nice! I've been having so much fun working on the..." Their voice cut off abruptly. "Oh, I can't say that. Um... magic... um..."

Sam put her hand on V's arm. "It's okay. You don't have to explain. Knowing you're having fun is plenty for me."

V glanced down. "You could join me... then we could talk about everything."

"Not knocking you, but I wasn't a fan of turning into a skeleton before, and I'm still not. What if I just..."

"No, don’t join yet!" V exclaimed. "I can already make a race shard, but I've been learning how to change it!" They paused, head tilted. "Oh, I can talk about that. Cool! You have to wait, Sammy! There are so many more eternals than just skeletons, and I'm going to make you a perfect one! Then we can be together forever!"

Sam smiled, despite not being fully on board with joining the undead. It was worth it just to see V so alive again. Alive-ish. "I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with."

V grinned up at her. They were still grinning when they looked down, but now their voice came out with a hint of worry. "They are going to win, Sammy. The magic they are... I can't talk about it, but they will win the war, and I don't know what they'll do to you when that happens. They won't need me anymore..."

"Guess what?" Sam said while pulling them into another hug. "I will always need you. So don't worry about those stiffs. Alright?"

V leaned into the embrace, and their voice was a whisper. "I love you."

"I love you too."