An evil wizard with a darkened hood stood just beyond a doorway. He stepped forward, through the doorway, the eager crowd cheered and chanted. Yet his shoulder pads got stuck in the door frame, giving off a loud clang. He held up a finger to the crowd and twisted his body until he fit through. The chants grew more ominous with each step he took on stage.

Approaching the podium, he reached out a hand to silence the room. He waved to his guards and they turned to face the crowd. He then pulled out a piece of parchment to read from. His eyes strained as he realized he had only brought the piece of parchment with the boobs he had sketched earlier– a perfect replica of his mother’s chest. It had taken several hours to get the shading on the nipples just right. But now, he’d have to do his speech from memory.

“My brothers, the time is upon us.” he said, putting the piece of parchment back in his pocket. The crescent moon has revealed the location of the final chaos gem.” With all seven chaos gems, a man could take over the entire world. Or a woman if she was raised on a farm and always thought she was special. “Sidival deciphered the code, Merciless planned the travel, and Jeff retrieved it.”

The crowd all clapped as the three men stood up and blushed. What the men lacked in teeth, they made up for in patchy facial hair.

“Now, we will put our final plan into action, and soon we will rule over the entire–”

Another man in a different colored hood than the rest of the cult–lame ass green–walked through the front door of the meeting room. He greeted the room with a wave and stumbled his way toward the podium. The speaker motioned for his guards to stand down.

When the man in the green hood reached the podium, he pulled out his sword, pointing it toward the speaker.

“You’re Dark Lord Deathicus I presume?” He said, half yawning. He shook his head and slapped his cheeks to wake himself up.

“Aye. You are indeed in the presence of a God.” The man held up his hand, showing his gauntlet. Six magical gems embedded into it, and a magical frost surrounded them. “I control the legendary deathfrost, which is said to kill anyone who comes into contact with it. If you’re here to fight, then I must warn you that no blade can pierce me. My skin is as hard as ice. My magic–gaw!” He let a scream out as the man in the green hood stabbed him through the heart. “Dude!” He fell to the floor, bleeding all over the stage. “You can’t just stab someone mid-monologue…”

“Sorry! My bad… I’m a bit new at this. In my defense that monologue did suck though.”

Though his words went unheard as Deathicus died.

“Yeah that’s fucked up” a minion from the crowd claimed.

Others quickly agreed.

“What’s this jerk’s problem?”

The crowd erupted into a heated debate.

The man in the green hood grabbed the podium’s gavel and rapped it against it.

“Hey! You don’t know me and I don’t know you.” He reached down and grabbed the various colored gems from Deathicus’s gauntlet. “Well, I’m a concerned citizen, and this is some cool shit I can do.” He squeezed the gems in his hands until they turned into dust. His hands turned over, emptying the dust onto the podium. He used his sword to cut lines, snorted the gems’ dust and shook his head violently.

Astonished, the crowd stared with wide eyes.

“Ah, that’s some good shit!” He did a little awkward dance which involved a surprising amount of knee movement. He slapped his hands together. “Whoo! Okay. So here’s the deal.” He stabbed his sword into the ground in front of him. “Your leader’s dead, I snorted your gems, and I fucked someone’s wife last night”

“I bet it was Carl’s!” A man yelled out from the back. “Total slut”

Carl stood up. His chin strap of facial hair circled his hideous scarred face. “Shut up guys! I told you that in confidence.” He folded his arms and made a pouty face. “Besides, we worked through that already.”

“It was definitely that guy's wife,” The man with the green hood said. “Now that you mention it, I distinctly remember her saying, ‘Cum in my face, my husband Carl can’t get hard, I saw him fingering the dog’ or something like that.”

Carl nodded in agreement.

“Yeah…That sounds like her.” Carl said.

“Anyways! Boys, men…and cucks.” A serious look overcame his face. “I don’t have a lot of time so I’m gonna give you two options here. Option one I straight up murder everyone up in here.”

A look of fear crossed the crowd. A few yelled their disapproval. “Option two, if one of—”

“Hey! Wait a second!” One of the men called out from the crowd. “Isn’t that the guy from the tavern last night?”

“Pardon?” The man in the green hood said.

“Yeah…It’s that Cadivus guy! The one who drinks beer with his asshole!”

The crowd erupted into chatter and laughter.

“Ass Juice! Ass Juice! Ass Juice!” They cheered.

Cadivus, in his green hood, examined the room more carefully and recognized various faces within the crowd.

“Oh wow. It’s you guys? Charlicum, Sidival, and where is he?” He scanned the crowd and pointed at a man with a blond beard. “And who could forget Timotharian, my seventh greatest friend.”

Timotharian stood and waved at the crowd.

“I still have no idea how you performed that pint glass disappear trick. Absolutely brilliant.”

“What are you doing Cadivus?” Charlicum asked. “I thought you were cool. Why did you kill Deathicus?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“I told you I was a vigilante, did I not?” Cadivus said.

“What? No! You said you were gonna sign up and join, so we told you where our secret meeting was held.” Sidival said. His bald head turned red. “If we knew your real plan, we would certainly have refused. You’re a liar and a big jerk!”

“Jerk! Jerk! Jerk!” The crowd chanted.

Cadivus slumped his shoulders and broke eye contact.

“What was your plan anyways?” Sidival asked.

“Well, the plan was…” He pursed his lips and lost words.

“Oh, just be out with it then!”

“Kill the leader of the death cult and then kill all his henchmen…” The crowd’s eyes widened, and the moment Cadivus had anticipated all morning fell flat.

“What the fuck did we do?” Someone called out.

“Um, have you forgotten the whole ‘death’ cult thing?” he asked.

“We haven’t done anything yet besides snatch a few gems! Not even the king himself kills people for theft!”

He pondered this revelation.

“Hmm, I guess I just assumed you’ve been raping and murdering this whole time. You know what they say…”

“What do they say?”

“You know. All right, I may have gotten ahead of myself. What we need here is a compromise.”

“What’s compromise?” A man towards the front of the crowd asked another next to him.

Cadivus got on one knee in front of him.

“Compromise is when the woman gets everything she wants, and the man has to appease himself in the outhouse.”

He smiled revealing his few remaining teeth.

Cadivus smiled and nodded back to him. “But of course in this setting, it will mean not killing everyone.”

“I’ll fight you scum!” A man with a tattered beard yelled out.

“Oh, fantastic! Anyone else with this man?” Cadivus pointed around the room and counted hands as they shot up. But he soon lost count and came up with a new strategy. “Okay! Let’s do this. Everyone who wants to avenge their dead leader go to this side of the room.” He pointed towards the left. “Everyone who wants to go home and swear to do no evil ever again on that side of the room.”

Squeaking chairs, footsteps, and conversation filled the room.

Cadivus glanced down, saw the parchment Deathicus had been holding, and put it in his pocket. As the noise died down, he looked over and saw the room was split almost evenly. “Okay! Let’s bid a farewell to the reformed citizens shall we? How about a hand for these newly upstanding citizens!”

The reformed men walked out to applause, waving goodbye to the room.

“Please bar the door on your way out if you would!”

After the last man exited, a loud thud echoed as the door was locked from the outside.

“Now what?” one of the men asked.

Cadivus grabbed his sword, sheathed it, and hopped down from the stage. He pushed all the chairs to the outer edges of the room, and the men ready to fight him followed suit, assisting him. He then stood in the center of the room.

“Alright let’s make a circle around me then.”

The men took their places around him as he stretched his legs.

“Okay,” he said. “So I figure this: you attack me one at a time for a few men. Then two at a time. And when there are three left…the last three attack in unison. Now, if someone could–”

“Charge!”

The yell spurred all the men to attack at once. They threw Cadivus to the ground, punching and kicking him. He put his hands in front of his face, not wanting his teeth to get kicked out. Still on the ground, he tripped one man who fell on top of him, which spurred a dog-pile.

As he struggled to free himself, a finger poked into his asshole. He rolled onto his back and screamed.

“Fingerer!” With all his might, he pushed, sending the pile flying toward the walls and ceiling. He then rolled onto his side, equipping his sword as he stood up. “You want to play dirty? Let’s frolic in filth then!”

He charged the closest man to him and began the onslaught. He sliced at necks, stabbed vital organs, and punched the fingerer in his ass. His sword work had been practiced, but he had only trained with trees and dummies. Nevertheless, the motions felt natural to him.

Then men also removed their weapons and charged, making wild swings at him. A grace moved within him as he danced through them, every swing a kill. Every dodge and parry placed them off balance, begging for a counter attack. A part of him wanted the fight to last forever.

He dodged an overhead mace attack, grabbed the man by the neck, and threw him into a pillar. The neck cracked as he bounced off it. He searched around for his next opponent…Yet no eyes met his own. Only one other man was trying to stand, still upon one knee. He ran in for a strike and stopped himself right before his blade frenched his neck.

"Oh! Last one?" he asked the man who now had his eyes closed. He poked the man’s forehead to get him to open his eyes.

Looking around the room made the man vomit.

Cadvius turned his head away from him and patted the man’s back. "There, there evil henchmen. Get it all out now. Look, let me be quick. You always gotta leave one fella alive, so they can spread the word of a hero. Just make sure you get my name right and describe me properly."

The man wiped his mouth and looked up, nodding.

"Yeah…I'm going to need to hear your description so I can make sure you get it right."

Baffled, the shaking man opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t find the words.

"Just tell me what you want to be described as, and I'll just say that." the shaking man said.

"Look Trevor?”

The man shook his head

"Well, I'm gonna call you Trevor. Now, Trevor, if I tell you what to say, you're gonna fuck it up. I need you to tell it in your own words, so I can hear how you're gonna do it. Just….pretend I'm a low-level hoodlum and you're telling this story and he asks what I look like, what would you say?"

"Well he was average height, short brown hair, skinny fellow. Not much of a jaw or anything. His arms are too long for his torso, his face is kind of asymmetrical. Not much of a looker this one. Dresses like a peasant on laundry day. Smells like the poor streets on ‘toss your actual shit’ out the window day. His eyes are yellow and pink. Although that could be because he snorts anything in powder form. Oh! Even though he's skinny, he has these chubby fingers and weird gut bulge. Average cock. Shaft is abnormally hairy. He–"

"Alright stop!” Cadivus grabbed the man’s mouth and held it closed. “It’s not my fault I tend to get naked after drinking. I’m an empath, after all. Anyways, first off, my name is Cadivus. Learn it proper. Secondly, Can't you say something about me being handsome or something in that speech of yours?"

"But sir, how would they recognize you if I did that…" Cadivus closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "It's not that you're ugly. You're just weird looking. Like a baby bird or something."

"Okay. I'm gonna need you to stop talking to me. Just when you're telling the story later, make sure you mention how nice my hairline is, or how fearsome a foe I am."

"Right, as long as you don't mean your gobbles and whatnot, that thing is freakishly hairy. It looks like a hairy hot dog. Why don't you just shave–"

Cadivus stabbed the man through the stomach. A look of instant regret took over his face.

"Ah, shit! Hey buddy." He spoke in a calm soothing voice. "You're okay. You're okay. Just a little friend in your kidney. You'll be fine. You got two…I think.”

The man barely registered his words.

“Don't be a pussy and die! Come on Travis. Think of little Travis having to have a stepdad who doesn't really want him around and never opens up to him emotionally. That kid will never know how to display vulnerability and will never have a healthy relationship in his adult years." Cadivus slowly removed the blade, blood poured from the wound. "Don't worry. I can cauterize this. I'm a fire hybrid, afterall."

The man groaned as Cadivus placed his hands to the wound. "Just a moment please." Cadivus’s hands trembled. He rubbed them together and focused once more. As he thought of a small fire, his chest tightened.

“Come on then!” the bleeding man groaned out weakly.

“Oh! You think it’s so easy? Then you do it!”

The man croaked and tilted his head to the side, He lay still in a puddle of his own blood.

Cadivus paused yet he knew he had done his best and that was all that mattered. On the other side of the room, a piece of the ceiling fell onto a man's groin, and he let out a cry of pain.

He glanced over and smirked.

"Ah Timothy. Have I got the job for you!"