The first thing that came to my mind as I was being carried off into the woods was ‘wow, this guy is fast.’ The second thing was, ‘is he getting faster?’ I tried paying attention to what he was doing, since I had no hope of keeping track of where we were going and it seemed that he was doing some sort of magic every time just before he speeded up. This, of course, led to the very understandable rabbit trail of wondering why a tracker mage, what I had mentally come to think of as a ‘head fuck mage’, was also a buffer? I knew that the guy was a blaster, I had seen how his attacks had burned away at his enemies, but shouldn’t ‘buffer’ include the ‘buff’ that let people work as a group without friendly fire? Why were those abilities not together?

Also, is it a little weird that I’m thinking about theory crafting while I’m being kidnapped? I feel like it is a little weird.

Moving on, maybe it would help to try to categorize what I know of the different ‘classes’? It sure beats the heck out of counting trees or wondering just how far this guy is going to run with me. It also beats my feeble attempts to grab onto trees to try to leave behind marks of our passage. I hadn’t been able to grab any and I doubted that people in this world tracked that way regardless.

The first thing is that everyone gets two classes. No clue on why two but I haven’t seen anyone really focusing on more than two different groupings. Well, except some people who do all sorts of stuff with no logical regard for other groupings; but I have no idea if that is a separate class to itself or if there is just some way to avoid the class structure altogether and just take abilities willy-nilly. Also ‘willy-nilly’ is a funny term that makes me want to giggle like I just said a bad word, which is weird and completely off topic and I should stop thinking about it.

Right. So beyond that one confusion most of the others seem pretty straightforward. You have the ‘Clerics’ and the ‘Head Fuckers’ who are the supports, with the Clerics apparently not doing buffing stuff but otherwise run around healing and basically undoing any other bad stuff that is going on. The Clerics can also teleport and do that intangible thing, but how in the world do those go together? Furthermore the Clerics don’t really have to be religious but the power set reminds me of the traditional healer so much (except for the teleportation etc.) that I can’t get the name out of my head. The Head Fuckers, of which Freddie the kidnapper is one, seem to focus on info gathering and tripping people up by doing weird stuff like making them smell bad or turning them purple? I’m not really sure what the utility is of turning someone purple, but at least I know that their key stat is Charisma and I know that they can do buffing as well, even if they usually don’t. I have no clue what stat healers focus on, but I’m guessing it might be intelligence for the extra mana? Maybe Dexterity for the extra speed for teleportation and such? I don’t know.

The next two groups seem to be the more straightforwardly offensively focused. The ‘Punch Mages’, who don’t always use their fists but often do, are the stalwart defenders and the biggest ‘get up in their faces’ class of them all. Their key stat seems to be Constitution and I’ve seen them stand firm through anything they could see coming as though they could just negate the attacks. People in this group include Row, my Mother, and Mayhu. In fact, it seems like Punch Mages and Clerics are the most common classes by a good margin. Again, I have no clue why. The other offensively focused class is the Blasters, who can blast, make stuff fly around with their minds, and possibly fly? I really want that class if I can possibly get it; mostly for the ‘pew-pew potential’, though if anyone asks I’ll tell them it is because I want to fly. Unsurprisingly the Strength of their magic and abilities are the most important to them.

Finally we have the oddball Summoners who don’t seem to fit into any category other than that they summon lots of creatures and have a way to keep people in groups from hurting each other. Non-Summoners can have pets, Row has a few, but they don’t really focus on them for combat. I have no idea if you can have a Summoner who doesn’t focus on their summons but apparently they have other talents that aren’t pet-centric. For instance each of the different attacks I learned so long ago (several weeks at least) seem to go with one of the groups. The Health-sucking punch is for the healers, the unstoppable punch goes with the Punch Mage, the piddly blast goes with the Blaster, and the weird attack that seemingly has completely random effects fits perfectly with a Head Fuck Mage’s style. This would mean that the attack that I tend to favor, the one that makes further attacks easier, is probably a Summoner staple. It makes some sense within the context of ‘make team attacks not hurt team members’ but not for the actual summoning side of Summoner’s skillset. Afterall, considering the whole ‘your mana can’t hurt you’ thing and that pets draw from their master’s mana, pets can’t hurt their own masters; a fact that Row already confirmed for me.

Actually, if pets draw from all their master’s stats, not just mana, then it might explain Mayhu dying before. That seems like a really dangerous class, since getting killed by your pets dying seems like it would suck, but the utility of being able to guard the entire perimeter of a fight by yourself might make it worth it to some people. I still want to be a Blaster, though. I also can’t be sure what a Summoner’s main stat would be. Maybe Intelligence to keep up with what your pets are doing? Dexterity to be fast enough to tell them what to do? I could even see Wisdom being important, in a roundabout way, if the extra senses let you keep track of your horde.

For the moment, though, the most important thing is that Freddie the kidnapper is a Head Fucker/Blaster combo. This means he won’t be teleporting or BSing attacks away like they are nothing but he can take me out at range easily and fly and I guess turn me purple? It doesn’t have to be purple, it could be any color. Also there might be a ‘I know what is in your head at all times’ thing means that would mean I can pretty much assume that I can’t trick him. My Mom is a Head Fucker as well, so I know well how getting away with anything while she is around is completely impossible, although that might be normal ‘mom powers’ at work. Wait, is that an actual thing here? Does becoming a mother actually give you superpowers in this world?

No, wait, back on topic. Kidnapper is kidnapping. I can worry about the existential nature of procreation and the maternal bond, but that is something for later.

I took a closer look at him to see what I could see. Mostly he just seemed generic. Generic sturdy leather armor with no real distinguishing characteristics, and even his claws somehow retracted into his gloves to seamlessly disappear. How this worked with three inch claws coming out of his fingers I had no clue other than ‘magic?’ He obviously focuses on Dexterity with this kind of speed, so if he has a typical build that takes care of the defensive component. His offensive side isn’t Inteligence, since he wasn’t spamming or charging his attacks, and, since he doesn’t seem to be doing weird stuff to the enemies like color changing them, he probably has no reason to focus on Charisma either. This would make him a Strength/Dexterity type of build. So not only will trying to run away not work, because of the whole ‘tracking’ thing, but it will really not work, because he could probably keep up with me while sleepwalking.

The less said about my potential to fight him off, the better. Being a kid sucks, especially when there are adults around to showcase how much sucky stats matter.

So I can’t run, I can’t hide, and I can’t fight the guy. He obviously wants something, but there is no telling if I can give it to him or what it would cost. I don’t exactly have much of a bargaining position, after all. Not that any of that is important; I already know how to mess him up and make him loose. Just play to the story, as weird as that is. When he shows himself as the Villain Mastermind, that will be my que to make him loose his temper and thereby loose his ‘Chessmaster’ status, though I might be able to make him mess up sooner. Of course, why this world works like it is a story: that is probably just bad writing. Sure, ‘tropes are tools’ and all that; but when it becomes so obvious that you know what is going to happen then where is the real story?

Suddenly I watched in bewilderment as Jason took a slight detour, flung out his claws on his free hand, and skewered a rabbit as we continued on. Part of me thought I should be more horrified but that part was overwhelmed by how hard I was trying to not roll my eyes at the universe. I mean, really, can things get any more cliché in terms of signaling ‘he is absolutely a bad guy whom little children shouldn’t trust, not even if he opens the door of his van and offers you candy’? I guess there are no puppies around for him to kick and so carrying around a dead rabbit by his hand skewers is as much as the universe could handle. I mean, I understand hunting and the fact that all meat comes from somewhere (and no, not the supermarket), but it is the timing that is so weirdly poignant. You know?

Should I be more disturbed that I’m not more disturbed by what is happening, simply because I know what it signals and because I’m somehow jaded by too many scary movies? Or should the real disturbing thought be about how the mechanisms work behind this world, things that somehow force this guy to send out ‘stranger danger’ signals even as he is trying to con me into thinking he isn’t a bad guy? Is this some sort of mind control, destiny control, or is it ‘just’ some sort of perceptual filter that makes me see things differently than they really are in order to get the point across?

I was fortunately spared from descending too far into the hole of existential dread and madness by Freddie slowing down at a clearing next to a sheer wedge of stone. Carefully he set me down, and I was reminded of my messed up leg, but the experience was mostly just awkward since the pain had faded.

“We need to rest a bit till your leg is healed. I’ll make some food to speed things up but we have a long trip ahead of us and it would help if you can move to hide if we get attacked on the way back.” Freddie said as he started a fire and then started preparing the meal. The process was both magical and mundane in equal measure. He prepared a spot by blasting a circle in the ground and using some sort of telekinesis to pull soon to be dead grass together for kindling, and then he pulled out what looked like a cigarette lighter to set the thing alight. It took him several tries before it worked. He blasted trees to make wood for the fire but manually placed them into the improvised campsite and physically blew on them to get the thing to catch. He even carved the fur off of our future meal with an impressive display of skill with a beam of energy lancing from his palm, also using it to vaporize some other objectionable bits but then used a random stick to place it over the fire.

Meanwhile we talked, and I took the first question. “Shouldn’t we be heading toward the meet up point to join with the others?”

He shook his head, facing away as he worked on the preparations. “No way anyone else made it. Row was low on mana and stamina and was still surrounded and I felt Mayhu go down. No, our best bet would be to avoid that area as much as possible and go straight back.”

“Still, shouldn’t we go try? It couldn’t hurt, afterall.” I attempted.

He shook his head. “We will be heading back for days, no need to add another quarter day’s travel to that. Besides, there is a good chance that the swarm is still around and anywhere that we rested before could draw them in. Better to not chance it, you know?”

He sounded sincere and I wanted to believe him, “but still…” I spoke out softly.

He got a look on his face, evidentially having heard me. “Look,” he said, “I think we got off on the wrong foot. Lets try starting again straight from the introductions? How about that!”

I frowned, but he seemed reasonable enough. “I’m William Emmerson Townsen. My initials are ‘wet’, which apparently doesn’t translate into other languages but is a little funny to me. This whole world feels like a video game and so I want to have fun with it. There really isn’t anything more to say, really.”

He shook his head. “That isn’t all. Your father is fairly well known in higher circles as ‘The Professor’. A researcher studying things so important that a common man like me can only guess. Your mother is an accomplished manslayer who moved here from the other side of the planet. Your parents claim that they want to live quiet lives, but they currently reside in a border town that is owned by your extended family. And you, despite being four, are going on light hunting expeditions as though that were normal. There is no need to be overly modest, not about yourself or your background.” His body language was neutral but his tone spoke slightly of exasperation.

“Hu,” I said. Dad being a researcher wasn’t a secret so I never really considered that his specialty wasn’t. He never really seemed to have a problem talking about it with me or anyone else who was willing to listen. In fact, getting him to shut up was usually the bigger struggle. What really gave me pause was everything else he casually mentioned. Mom is a ‘manslayer’? My family ‘owns’ the town? I knew that mom wasn’t from around here, but the other side of the planet was way out of my expectations. And what was that whole thing with my home being a ‘border town’?

“You speak like you are a small town boy but the advantages you have make you anything but. People from the aristocracy just don’t understand what it is like for the rest of us.” He had a slight frown as he spoke, then took a deep breath before continuing with only slightly less tension. “I am called William Fredric Cody. I come from a small town near the rim where nothing really happens. It was a nice place but there are limits to how far you can go with only a small town’s resources. That is why I came to MillStorm. If I were to be honest, that is also why I was so eager to work with you. The difference between moving forward and stalling out is often as simple as knowing the right people.” He took that moment to remove the meat from the fire and used a knife to cut it into two pieces. I hadn’t been paying too much attention when he prepared it except to notice that he sprinkled some sort of powered spices on it from time to time. Cooking isn’t really my thing. “Here.” He said, handing me my portion. It was a bit dry but surprisingly tasty. The seasoning seemed to be a mixture of salt and something green. Again, cooking isn’t my thing.

“This is really good.” I told him as I ate. Even after the first few bites I felt more than before. Stronger. Whatever he had cooked seemed to be giving me a buff to my fortitude that caused my leg to visibly clear up as I watched. It was hard to look away from and really freaky.

Freddie gave me an indecipherable smile as he watched my fascination. “Is that the worst injury you have had?”

I shrugged. “I might have gotten worse while sparing with Row’s pets but he always healed things up really quickly. This feels worse just because it lasted so long. Except it stopped hurting within like half a minute. Why did it stop hurting so fast even though my leg is still not usable?”

“Everyone regenerates over time.” He answered. “Pain, and anything that would cause long term issues, are always quick to be cleared up.”

I nodded back. It made sense, though that made me wonder about the mechanism by which it prioritized the healing and how those priorities differed because of our weird biology here. Hitting a brain shot, while worse than most injuries, wasn’t the one-shot-kill that it would have been before.

“So are we good? Do you want to be my friend?” he asked. It almost seemed like there was a note of hopefulness in his voice. It made me pause due to how far it was from the image I had of him in my mind. Everything up to now had made me think of him as a bad man whom I needed to treat with caution, but this note of vulnerability gave me pause.

I mean, he hadn’t really done anything too bad. He butted in on the expedition but that was about it. And he had protected me when things went bad. “I guess.” I answered slowly. “I don’t see that there is anything too bad about trying to be friends.”

He smiled in a more relaxed way and held out his hand. “That’s good. I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to relax around each other. Here is to your new friendship.” He reached closer to me and I realized that he wanted to shake my hand.

“Uh, no. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be shaking anyone’s hand. That’s how you make deals and I don’t really know enough to do that right. I’m not really a lawyer, you know?” I shook my head and continued to eat. Why would he want to shake hands to become friends anyway?

He frowned, pulling his hand back a bit but not putting it down completely. “Look, I know that you are some big shot noble’s kid but there is no reason to be rude just because I don’t run in the same circles of influence.”

Hu? What? “No, I’m not trying to be mean. I just…”

“No, I completely understand.” He cut me off with a dissatisfied frown. “You don’t know me well enough to trust me. I understand this and I know just how to fix it.”

From there he started going into a long story about the tiny rural town where he grew up and where nothing ever happened. How he had risen in power there and become a champion of that town due to his exploits and strength. His story took so long that my leg was healed up by the end of it. So long, in fact, that I started to figure out the story and my eyes grew wide as I listened. He took this as encouragement and continued with a hint of excitement.

And yet, all I could think was ‘Come on, is he going to do it? Can he really be about to say it, seriously and without any sort of realization of what is coming out of his mouth?’

“If only my parents were more powerful, more connected, and had more resources. If only!” I tried, only somewhat successfully, to not roll my eyes at his statement and how villainous it sounded. That’s it! He has gone full on villain! He can’t possibly say something worse.

“I can tell; deep down you and I are truly the same.” He said, immediately proving me wrong. “You will be like my own family, if you so choose.” He continued, sounding a little more like a normal not-crazy person. “Together we will rule the world!” And then he had to go ruin it.

He must have noticed the incredulous look on my face because, after a moment, he spoke up again. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

“Look,” I cut in, deciding that it was either this or listen to him go on like a cartoon villain. “I get it. The world didn’t turn out how you wanted it, so you turned evil. That sucks but that doesn’t mean that I want to be evil too.”

He nodded his head sadly. “I’m not asking you to be ‘evil’ or whatever. All I’m asking is to give me a chance. Take my hand. Be my friend.” He reached out to me again.

I groaned. Why does the villain always have to seem so reasonable when they are doing the worst stuff? Is it because the writer wants to pretend that their cardboard prop of an antagonist actually has depth? Is it because the moral is supposed to be that good intentions and good logic don’t necessarily result in good actions? Maybe it is just because the bad guy is a manipulative bastard and wants to screw with other people’s heads? I don’t know.

What I do know: “LA-DEDA-DEDA-DEDA!!! I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!!!” I started yelling out at the top of my lungs. “I JUST WANT TO GO HOME AND NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH ALL THIS STUPID STUPIDITY!!! LA-DEDA-DEDA-DEDA!!!” I didn’t really have a plan of what to say, I just made a point to scream in as annoying a way as possible.

He sat there with an annoyed look on his face as I continued, wearing myself out with the volume. Then he perked up, somewhat unexpectedly. “Quiet.” He commanded. I halted for only a moment before I caught myself and dove back into my attempts to annoy him. “Something is coming. Your foolish actions are bringing them right toward us.” He grabbed me up around the waste, stuffed me under his arm, and started carrying me away… going in the same direction as before.

“Then take me home!” I demanded in a more reasonable volume before starting up with the noise again.

“I am!” he lied in an exasperated tone. “We are going as fast as I can!” I wasn’t fooled. Row and I had set out toward the east, toward the rising sun, much earlier today. We were now heading away from the setting sun rather than toward it, heading farther east and farther away from home.

I had had enough of this. Arguing with him wasn’t working and it would be dumb of me to try to argue with him or annoy him when there was a much better solution. My dagger was still in its sheath across my chest so I carefully pulled my top open to get at it. Sure I would be weakened for a good number of hours from death, but it would be a lot better than listening to this idiot any longer. Also, as a side benefit, it would get me home a lot sooner as well!

Of course that didn’t mean I stopped yelling. Just because I have a new ‘plan A’ doesn’t mean I should give up on my other plans. It was difficult with the movement but eventually I got the dagger out, braced it in my hands, and immediately watched as it flew away from me into the underbrush.

“No trying any of that.” Freddie called out without slowing down. “I’ll get you back safe and sound.”

I resummoned my knife. He knocked it away again before I could use it. I could tell, this would be a long trip.

Several hours later I had tried to ‘reset’ myself a couple dozen times. Not all at once, mind you; I could only summon my knife a couple times before I lacked the mana to do it a third time. Then he physically took the weapon and it became even harder to get it back. If I tried to make it appear slowly then he would shake me, somehow interrupting the process. If I tried to do it quickly I nearly bottomed out of energy and then just helplessly watched as he stole it away again. He had me completely under his control while showing enough strength, speed, and experience such that my attempts to escape appeared as nothing more than the tantrums of a child. Somewhat literally, in a twist of irony. That plan may have failed but I wasn’t completely out of options yet.

“…GOES: I KNOW A SONG THAT MAKES EVERY-BODY MAD! I KNOW A SONG THAT MAKES EVERY-BODY MAD! I KNOW A SONG THAT MAKES EVERY-BODY MAD, AND THIS IS HOW IT GOES: I KNOW A SONG THAT…” I continued, yelling out at the top of my lungs and intentionally messing up the notes. I had worn my throat out a while back, then learned that my passive healing fixed that too, then pushed myself to that point a couple more times in a cycle of aggravation that was starting to visibly annoy the guy.

Still, credit where credit is due: he was still somehow holding onto his ‘I’m a nice guy’ act. “Seriously, would you just calm down. I think we lost the thing that was hunting us.” He took this chance to set me down and rest. I didn't run, all it would do was make me tired.

“I think we lost the thing hunting us.” I mocked him in a display of maturity fit for a four year old.

The annoyed look on his face remained. “Are you having fun?” he asked in a deadpan tone.

I let out a long sigh. “Honestly it is exhausting. Any enjoyment I might have gotten out of it wore off hours ago. At this point I just wish I could give it a rest already.” A look of surprise and then relief started to cross his face. “I mean, not enough that I’m actually going to stop.” I answered, killing his hope where it lay. There was more than a little truth in my statements: I may be a bit of a troll sometimes, but I’m not a malicious one and this had gone on long enough a long time ago. Even so, I stared a deadpan rendition of ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’. His annoyance spiked.

“If you hate it so much then why don’t you just stop?” he asked in a tone that made it clear that he did not expect an answer.

“Why don’t you ‘just stop’ being evil and trying to trick me into something? We could probably be friends if you stopped trying to force me into things, but you keep trying anyway.” He looked surprised as I spoke. Also probably a bit relieved that I had stopped singing. We can’t have that, now can we. “THIS IS THE SONG THAT DOESN’T END! YES IT GOES ON AND ON, MY FRIEND! SOME PEOPLE STARTED SINGING IT, NOT KNOWING WHAT IT WAS, AND THEY’LL CONTINUE SINGING IT FOREVER JUST BECAUSE: THIS IS THE SONG…” I began again with my song and watched as he valiantly struggled against his mounting annoyance in a battle that he was clearly loosing.

Finally he spoke. “In truth, I’ve had plenty of people say one thing and deliver something else.”

“So you do the same to other people?” I quickly asked before he could try to use his pain to justify his current actions. “What would have really happened to me if I had taken your hand before?” Then, because I could and because his words were really starting to annoy me, I started my song over from the beginning with even more volume. “THIS IS THE SONG THAT DOESN’T END!!! YES…”

“This is just the way the things work.” He answered with a shrug.

“If you really believed that then you wouldn’t be trying to change yourself.” I shot back. “THIS IS THE SONG…”

“I have to become stronger. I have to become better.” He answered back more forcefully.

I interrupted my song. “You don’t become ‘better’ by copying what is bad with the world.” I waited half a second before starting up again. “THIS IS THE SONG…”

He gave me another annoyed look. “I guess I have no choice. This is just how ‘god’ made me.” He answered with a mocking jeer.

I rolled my eyes before stopping my song to answer. “You use ‘god’ as an excuse when it is convenient and ignore them the rest of the time. THIS IS THE SONG THAT DOESN’T END. YES IT…” I continued my song, and then had an idea. “… AND THEY’LL CONTINUE SINGING IT FOREVER… You are just angry that you aren’t good enough, you never were, and nothing you do can make you any different. THIS IS THE SONG THAT DOESN’T”

My song was immediately cut off as he backhanded me across the face. I felt myself hit the ground before I had consciously realized that I had left it. I hurt but there wasn’t much actual damage, especially compared to what I knew he could do. Four lines of pain burned across my cheek, barely stopping before my eye, and I realized that he must have attacked with the tips of his fingers rather than the full weight of his fist. This was meant to hurt, not kill or create lasting damage, and he had experience with keeping to the one side of that line.

I could feel something warm draining into my mouth and I knew I had won. From my place on the ground I turned my head toward his direction and gave him a bloody grin.

He gave me a confused look.

A sword appeared mid swing, aiming for the back of his head. I caught a glimpse of Row’s eyes, devoid of the normal amusement and any of the kindness that I had grown to expect. Instead they were filled with disgust and what seemed like a hint of resignation. It reminded me of the mundane look someone might give when taking out a bag of trash with a particularly bad smell; a chore and nothing more.

Freddie was clearly taken by surprise but managed to tilt his body enough to turn the headsman’s swing into a glancing blow that was far less effective. The blade slashed through his shoulder but was deflected enough to only graze the side of his head. The chunks of flesh that had been cut away disappeared in a fading light as his body was instantly restored by a similar glow.

What happened next was almost too fast for me to see. Row moved to the side as he brought down his sword toward Freddie’s back in a reverse swing, correctly judging which direction his enemy would turn to face him so that he would remain at his target's back as they turned. At least the sword looked as though it would have caught his back until Freddie blured with speed. The next thing I saw the blade was stopped cold by one of Freddie’s hands. His skin was barely injured despite the blade glowing with magic that he had just stopped. I watched intensely, trying to figure out how Row would deal with this.

Then, without a word, a single beam of magic erupted from his opponent’s free hand and drilled a chunk the size of a basketball from Row’s left side. I watched in silence as he fell to the ground, the silence broken only by the slump of his body hitting the ground. It wasn’t the thump that I expected. In fact, if I had been only hearing the sound by itself I could have believed it nothing more than a particularly heavy set of clothes being dropped to the floor. His body didn’t land neatly either. One leg fell awkwardly beneath him and one of his hands almost seemed turned around in how it fell. Freddie just looked down on him while still holding the sword that had been so ineffective.

Worst of all was his eyes. I looked away at the gap where part of Row’s torso had been. It was glowing lightly but his HP was gone and so there wasn’t the regrowth going on there that I was expecting. Most wounds are healed over instantly. Some catastrophic wounds and critical hits leave behind lingering aftereffects. All of them that I had seen, however, still had the strong glow of working magic. This was stagnant. Dead. But it was still better than looking at his eyes. I had expected a hollow emptiness like a dead fish, but what I saw was pain and agony. For some reason Row was still holding on rather than letting his consciousness fade away. I didn’t understand why. He wouldn’t get better on his own. I couldn’t help him. Freddie certainly wouldn’t help him. Yet still he held on to consciousness and life.

I was brought out of my stunned state by the sight of Freddie reaching down to loot my friend’s corpse, taking the bag of crystals that we had been collecting then searching several of his pouches before giving up. “This is all your fault.” He spoke into the silence with a strangely level voice. “I could have convinced the boy if it weren’t for your interference. But you just had to go and try to play the hero. Now things will work out badly for everyone.” He kicked the body, knocking it over till it fell next to Row’s discarded sword; I hadn’t even noticed when Freddie dropped it. I had never understood why the term ‘ragdoll’ was used in video games to describe the motion of a dead body. Now I knew.

I glared at the man when he turned around. Row was safe, or at least he would be once he faded away. Sure, he would be weakened for a while due to the death, but he wouldn’t be permanently dead. He wouldn’t even be permanently inconvenienced. A few days of exhaustion and that would be it. The way that Freddie had disrespected his opponent just didn’t sit well with me. But the truth was that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. So I glared at him and ineffectually tried to figure out what to do next.

“Don’t give me that look.” He stated calmly. “You act like I did something wrong. In truth, you are the one who is wrong for expecting something different. There is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’, there is only power. I have it; you don’t.” I paused my glare as the shock of his words hit me. Was he seriously doing the whole villain monologue thing again? He smiled. “I can see it in your eyes. There are no tears or sadness in your expression for your fallen friend.” He made a noise of assent. “There may be hope for you yet.”

“Seriously, what do you even hope to accomplish with all this? You know he will revive back in town somewhere and immediately tell everyone what happened. Right?” I asked in an annoyed tone.

He looked down at me for a moment before replying. “You haven’t died much. Have you? The process is a lot less smooth than some people like to believe. It takes hours for a person to return at all, and even then they are confused and disoriented. By then we will be too far away for them to track; not even if your parents somehow got ahold of the Grand Marshal herself.” He leaned down, taking my confused expression as a sign of victory. “What are you going to do now?”

Confusion after death? I mean, maybe at first, but I couldn’t remember the last time that it had taken longer than a gasp of air in my new working body to reorient myself. And as for it taking a long time to come back, that wasn’t true either. From what I remember before, Mom would stab me and then as soon as I let go I was back. She didn’t even have the chance to put her knife away between the final stab and my revival. Maybe he was the one without much experience with death. But no, that didn’t make sense either; he obviously had killed a lot of people, if his attitude was something to judge by. It was annoying but this would just have to be one more unsolved mystery, at least for now.

Still, I had to reply somehow. I took a calming breath. Then I took a deep breath.

“100 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL, 100 BOTTLES OF BEER! TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND, 99 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL! 99 BOTTLES…”

He nodded his head before grabbing me around the waist. “Come on, we have a long ways to go.”

It was a couple hours later and I was running into a problem. I couldn’t remember how you got from ‘0 bottles’ back up to ‘100 bottles’. I was guessing that nobody actually expected a person to go through all 100 and still be sober enough to sing. Still, the song must go on, so I just tried making something up. I tried “Find a new pub, set them all up” and “find a new bar, kill the alarm” and “go to the store, buy some more” but none of them really fit very well, so I just jumped straight back up to 100 the next time I went through the song.

Also, it is getting dark soon. Also also, my throat is getting raw, too raw to sing for a while till it recovered. Also also also, I think he has been getting better at just tuning out my racket. Also to the fourth, I don’t think my backup plan to try to leave a trail is going to work out very well. We were staying far enough away from the underbrush for me to break any branches and I was only able to pull off a few frayed strings from my clothes at any given time, so there wouldn’t really be much to try to follow. Also to the fifth, what was up with how he fought off Row earlier? How can his dexterity be so fast and his defense be so high and his attack be so strong at the same time? You can’t just block an attack with your bare hand without taking damage, not unless you are a Punch Mage, but this guy is a Blaster/Stupid Head mage. Also to the sixth, in case it wasn’t obvious, I can’t really successfully run, hide, or fight this guy off. I can’t even stab myself effectively without him stopping me. But hey, at least he was coming to a stop now!

… I might be in trouble.

“Good” he said after setting me down. “You seemed to have calmed down a bit, and by that I mean ‘shut up’. Let’s have a bit of a talk, shall we?”

I just glared at him in as defiant a manner as an little kid could. Hopefully I’d be growing up again soon. Being a kid stinks.

He took my silence as permission, rather than the raw throat that it really was. “Look, you want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! But here it is anyway:” How can he still be throwing out bad guy quotes at a time like this? Isn’t the ‘well intentioned extremist’ line a bit much? “I once said, ‘If only my parents were more powerful, more connected, and had more resources. If only!’ But then I realized that they were nothing more than my past. Loads that were designed to weigh me down. The strong will inherit the earth. That was my first lesson about how the world truly works. I couldn’t let anything, not even my feelings for my new family, hold me back. You understand this fact of life. You know that, when all is said and done, no one else truly matters."

He gave a dramatic pause and all I could think was that this was a much better ‘bad guy’ speech than his last one. He doesn’t do ‘sympathetic’ very well. But still, he is laying it on a bit thick there. ‘Look out for number 1, no one else really matters?’ He isn’t exactly winning points for creativity here.

“You want to deny it, but I saw the look on your face when you saw your friend as he lie mangled on the ground. There wasn’t pain or sorrow in that look. All I saw was anger that his attack failed. I can tell; deep down you and I are truly the same.”

That did make me angry. I mean, it wasn’t as though I didn’t care, I just knew he would be back. He wasn’t dead forever, just a bit hurt for a while. But then an unwanted memory suddenly came to mind: ‘It is like looking at the aftermath of a particularly bloody car wreck. When you see that death and those mangled bodies you can’t help but feel something.’ Both Freddie and that oh-so-helpful person from my past used that particular word: ‘mangled’. But in neither case did I feel the wrongness and disgust that both of them assumed was normal, even if both are on complete opposites about if that is good. I… maybe I’m not all that right in the head…

And if he is the same way…

Freddie smiled neutrally, but it creeped me out anyway. “So this will be my gift to you. Something that I never had. The opportunity to have it all laid out before you so that you can choose. Work with me and I’ll show you how to gain real power, the likes of which scares the people of this backward little town. Enough power to do what you want whenever you want without consequence. Or you can be like those cowards who choose to act out of baseless emotion and fear, and suffer the consequences of that choice.”

His smile got darker as he continued but his tone sounded strangely eager. “You will be like my own family, if you so choose. I killed those weaklings when they tried to stop me and, when they still tried to slow me down, I made sure that they would never be able to forget exactly who was in charge. I could easily do the same to you. Pain and loss would be your every waking breath till you finally accepted reality for how it is. That, or you would simply break under the pressure. I would get what I want either way.”

“Torture?” I asked, intending to use my tone to convey how little I thought of him, but instead my word only came out as little more than a croak with a fair helping of fear. After all, pain hurts and I had no doubt whatsoever that he was capable of it. There was no reason to try to bluff me.

“Education.” He immediately corrected with that same unnerving smile. There were a few seconds when everything began to sink in.

When he began to speak again it was calmer in that he had lost the manic vibes but he had gained a tone that spoke of bored inevitability. “Of course, things don’t have to be like that. We could work together. You have talent but that is easy enough to steal away, if a bit troublesome. It does work so much better when the target is willing, and as a bonus you would even gain something from the experience. By yourself you can do nothing, but with me nothing is impossible; together we will rule the world.”

So he did need something from me? But what, talent? That got measured at my first birthday and came up disappointing. Sure, I was a decent hunter, but that was mostly due to practice and the fact that I refused to act my age.

My confusion must have shown on his face because he paused, gave me a strange look, and then waved for me to go on with my question.

“I don’t get it. Why me?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Do you really think that normal children go out to fight fully grown monsters? That takes power. It might not be of the type that those sheltered brats in town can recognize, but it is real. Even if they trained and forced themselves forward and were lucky, do you really think they would have the fortitude of spirit to be sitting across from me so calmly? I find your lack of faith disturbing. Power of that sort should not be discounted.”

And suddenly, for the first time, I saw that he might be right. Ok, yeah, I can be an idiot sometimes, but it never really occurred to me that what I was doing was a big deal. I mean, sure it may be unusual, but I just figured that I was getting started a little earlier than most and others would just catch up with me eventually. A kindly meaning woman’s words speaking about a car wreck and the emotions it should cause suddenly came to my mind. She seemed to think that, unless one had a visceral fear and disgust toward seeing other’s pain, people would become heartlessly evil and try to cause that pain themselves. It wasn’t like I liked what I saw, I was just better able to put it in its place so that it didn’t overcome me. I did the same with my childish impulses, whenever I noticed them, and the exhaustion that came from my exercise. No injuries here from overexertion meant that I could put off rest till I got a chance to recover. I had always treated this as a bad thing, but maybe it wasn’t.

“I just never wanted to be ‘evil’.” I explained out loud. I didn’t go around kicking puppies or anything, and I never wanted to actively cause people pain, but it became painfully clear that I just had more control over myself and could choose to push dark things aside when I needed. And for that ability people decided that I must not realize the gravity of what was happening. It was the first time that my confidence was truly shaken. Later, when I never made it in e-sports, was far more public a failure; but at least then I could console myself with the fact that I was still living the dream and had a job playing video games long after others had retired back to ‘real life’ stuff. But I never got over the idea that my odd way of looking at the world was anything but bad. “I just didn’t want to be evil.” I repeated.

He smiled, and it seemed much more genuine this time. “You worry too much. When you get power then you can do whatever you want with it. Help the poor and needy, fight off dragons and calamities, or live like a king; that is your choice. I’m not asking you to be ‘evil’ or whatever. All I’m asking is to give me a chance. Take my hand. Be my friend.” He reached out toward me with his hand.

And so I took his advice. Not the ‘taking his hand’ part, that would be stupid, but the part about embracing the weirdness that made me a bit different. He weirded me out but still seemed genuine as he was speaking with me. I set those emotions aside so that they wouldn’t make me nervous, unstable, or willing to trust him despite the fact that I had very good reason to know that he was my enemy. Next I focused on my fatigue and the childish desire I had to just run up to the nearest adult to follow whatever they said. I still felt like a child and those desires were still there, I just chose not to follow them. There were other impulses, distractions from where I was and what I needed to do, but I refused to let them have power over me. Finally there was a small nagging thing within me, so quiet that I might not have even recognized it without readjusting my focus to block out those distractions. This took a few seconds but Freddie still sat there with his hand out and a look of expectation on his face.

“ ‘Take my hand. Be my friend.’ You said.” I repeated back to him. “You want me to be your friend but does that mean that you will agree to be my friend as well?”

He jerked his hand back immediately. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

“So that was your plan.” I said, thinking out loud. “Were you going to use the old scam where you start with something small and build up to something bigger, or was that one agreement all you needed to do whatever ‘evil’ deed you had planned?” I would bet money on it being the latter. You know, assuming that I actually had any money.

He shook his head as he stood up. “There is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’, there is only power. I have it; you don’t.” He gave a disappointed smile that gave way to a cruel smirk. “The fact is that I really was trying to give you your last chance. In the end, I can do whatever I want and there is nothing you can do to stop me.” He made his way over at a menacingly slow pace. He was about to pick me up and we both knew that I couldn’t get away even if I tried to run. I couldn’t fight and I couldn’t hide. He was right that there was seemingly nothing I could do to stop him.

“Do you want to know the truth?” I asked, causing him to pause in his tracks. “The real reason why I haven’t been drawn in by your promises of power?”

He said nothing. He just stood there and looked at me while towering above. It should have been intimidating, and was probably meant to be intimidating, but all I saw was a grown man who was currently failing to scare a mere child.

“The truth is that I don’t care. You think that power is the end-all be-all of everything, but you have no goal for it other than to have more power. But so what? I’m just trying to live my life, enjoy it, and make the most of this second chance. So what if I could rule the entire planet? It might be interesting for a day, but I’ve got better things to do than all that paperwork.”

The look on his face was priceless. His confusion at my words had completely broken through his stony façade. He even dropped his intimidating sneer. Did he really not realize that people didn’t lord it over others for reasons other than inability? Still, my goal wasn’t to make him think, my goal was to break his collected demeanor completely.

If this world worked like a giant story then I already knew how this one goes: The ‘evil overlord’ has a plan for everything and enough power to make every attempt against him completely fruitless. The best that the heroic protagonist can do is to stall him out. But this isn’t a story of wits and power, this is a story of ideologies; or, in simpler terms, ‘good vs evil’. The hero speaks and their words either destroy the overlord’s entire pretense of having taken the high ground by destroying the foundation on which that position stands or they show that the seemingly moral position of the antagonist was nothing more than a delusion. Only then does the hero’s plans come to fruition, or a deus-ex-machina comes to save them, or the overload self-destructs in his anger at being proven wrong.

So I would have to do that. “Look, I might not care about being powerful, but you obviously do. But in the end, neither of our opinions make us right. I might not know if I’m right but I know you will never be the most powerful force in the universe. In the great words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: ‘There is always a bigger fish.’ Or if there isn’t then a group of people will come together to make one or will just happen to be better than you at something that will be your Achilles heel. Take it from someone who once wanted to be the best and who studied the best to see how it was done.”

Step one, destroy the ideology has been completed. I mean, it wasn’t exactly hard. His position was basically: ‘Dur, I want power to have power because power, duh, because power?’ It isn’t exactly original either, all I had to do was repeat the forums insulting any number of shows with stupid villains. Still, I had one more thing I needed to do. I needed to prove that even his attempt to claim that ‘virtue’ was a lie. With that completed his part in the story as an unbeatable foe would be well and truly finished. Fortunately he was just standing there. I guess most villains really are dumb enough to let the hero get out his final soliloquy.

So I dug deep within myself, grabbed at my inner troll, and let loose. “None of that ‘power’ stuff really applies to either of us, though. You lack the power, talent, power, ability, or power to really be the most powerful person in the city, let alone the planet.” I could see him twitch every time I said the word ‘power’ so I thought I would throw a few more uses in. “As for me, I might have the talent, ability, and someday even the power, but I don’t care about having all that power! You are chasing after a goal that was never possible in the first place! Power! And as for me… I was thinking about spending some time working in retail.”

The kick came too quick for me to seen it coming, but I honestly expected that. What I didn’t expect was to survive the ordeal. The anger on his face made it clear this was intentional. He wanted to do more than just kill me in one somewhat painful hit. The pain itself was bad, but it was an overall body ache that I could ignore rather than something more piercing. He didn’t speak, instead he was charging up an attack that somehow glowed with a hollow black light while snarling at me in a way that honestly made him look a bit crazy.

“Look, I was lying about retail. That is honestly the worst job ever. I do have a friend who might be willing to show me a few things. He works in crafting!”

His eyes blazed with anger and I saw the slightest movement of his posture that warned me that he was about to fire. Immediately I felt a jerk and then looked around to find myself in a completely different place within the same endless forest being set down on the ground by some strange man I had never seen before. Row stood to the side and quickly started healing me. I mean, it was obvious what had happened. Either Row or Mayhu had told either my Mom or Dad what had happened and they sent someone to rescue me. I waved at them with the dagger in my hand, something that I had recovered in those last few seconds without even really thinking about it, and tried to think of something to say. It would have to be cool and heroic and fit the situation of me having only just been rescued from the clutches of defeat.

I looked at the two of them in turn and gave them my biggest grin. “What took you so long?”

Row face-palmed and the other guy just raised a disbelieving eyebrow in my direction. I think I’ll call that one-liner a success!