Laya gripped Jenna in place and held the knife at her neck.

I stood in horror, helplessly watching, unsure of what the hell I needed to do. Obviously, I had to save Jenna, but could I bring myself to kill Laya? What about Kisk?

Footfalls rushed behind me. It was the rebels, and they raised rifles at our new enemy. I raised my hand to stop them, and they stepped back.

Ai-Gee clapped with a stupid smug grin on his face. "Oh, look at this, LOOK AT THIS. The great Obi Imsi caught in a bad spot." He chuckled. "What happened, Imsi? Did your dick go soft? You would've pounced right from the get-go, but you DIDN'T."

He was right. Had I been my younger self, I wouldn't have cared about Jenna. I would've just started swinging from the start. But shit was complicated now. Different.

"I'm not the only one who's changed," I said. "It isn't like you to run into the enemy's camp like this. A guy like you would bitch out first."

He barked out a laugh. "Ha! Rich coming from a man who got too WOUND UP with the WRONG WOMAN, instead of--you know--doing our FUCKING DUTY." He slicked back his hair. "And to think, even AFTER you took her all for YOURSELF, I was the one to finally take her."

Laya and Kisk said nothing. They only stared patiently like snakes.

I reach out to Laya with a soothing gesture. "Laya," I called out. "Sweetheart. Listen--"

She hit me back with a look of utter disdain. Almost as though she just saw a roach.

I looked over to Kisk. "Kisk. Listen," I said. "I can explain."

She crossed her arms and turned to Ai-Gee. "Please, Master, let me kill this weakling so we can return to our chambers."

I felt a knife in my gut. That wound Marianna had dealt me. It still hadn't healed.

I looked again at Jenna. She remained calm, and she kept her hands on Laya's forearm that was wrapped across her neck. She seemed more angry than worried.

"If only you could see your FACE, Imsi." Ai-Gee laughed.

"What do you want?" I demanded. "Why come here all alone?"

He looked at me with disgust. "Why the FUCK do you THINK I came? To end your sorry limp DICK of a life, you backstabbing CUNT."

"Laya," I said. "And Kisk. Both of you? You both want me dead?"

Laya said nothing. Her eyes were wide and haunting. She held Jenna still and kept the knife on her throat with laser focus.

Kisk didn't even look. She held out her palm and her meter long black dildo snapped into existence, flopped into her hands, and she wielded it like a whip. "Well, Master? Shall I end him here, or will we return him to Marianna? I wish not to trifle with these rats any longer."

"It won't work," I told Ai-Gee. "If you kill the girl and me, you'll have an entire battleship to fight. Even the three of you couldn't face everyone here alone."

Laya made a strange noise, a mix between a scoff and a hiss, and she said, "Enough of this dribble, Master." Her voice was cold and distant and robotic. "Allow me to purify the world of his sin."

Wait... Laya called him master. Laya never called anyone master, not even me.

Ai-Gee grinned. "Do you get it now, Imsi? Do you FUCKING GET IT?" He held up a scarlet gemstone. It was--no--it was the blood gem! My blood gem! The one Marianna had made from my fucking kidney! And as long as Ai-Gee owned the blood gem, he owned the harem.

Fuck! That was my harem. Not his.

If I could take that stone back, I could take back my harem. Yes. Of course. I only needed to beat Ai-Gee. It's all I needed to do.

I noticed more rebels were positioning themselves on the ship for a crossfire. I needed to use this to our advantage.

Cassandra whispered inwardly to me. "Imsi, I detect the Gimp King's life signature in the lower decks. It appears he is moving strategically."

"Show me," I mentally replied. I blinked, and a visual overlay appeared in my vision. It was an opaque heat map of the world around, and I could see through the decks of the ship that--of course, why didn't I think of that?--the Gimp King and several others were getting into an ambush position. They moved slowly and silently, and they needed more time. "Tell him to get there and wait," I told Cassandra. "He'll know when to strike." It was a lie. Even I didn't know when to strike, but I knew I had a better shot at trusting my comrades than myself alone. For now, I needed to buy as much time as needed.

"Well, Imsi," Ai-Gee said. "How about we cut a deal? Surrender yourself now, and we'll leave the ship alone. Or you could fight back, and we'll--"

"You used to be cool," I said. "What happened? Now you take young girls hostages? Whatever happened to that hero you wanted to be?"

His face twisted, and his eyes sharpened with hot anger. "YOU. FUCKING. CUNT." He took a breath. Then another. "Open your fucking eyes, Imsi. You were the fuckin' chosen one. I might've been bad," he nodded, "hell, I might still be fuckin' bad, but I wasn't you." He shook his head. "Oh, I was far, far from you."

The Gimp King crawled into the ventilation space right under my feet, squirming like a snake toward where Laya stood. Just a little longer.

Ai-Gee continued. "I never Stockholm-syndromed vulnerable young WOMEN to be in my HAREM. I never abandoned girls out of boredom. I never stole them from their families and used MIND CONTROL MAGIC to FORCE them to become my SEX SLAVES."

It stung. It was true.

"That's the difference between you and me," he said. "I'm just an asshole, but you're a predator of the worst kind."

I looked around. The rebels looked at me in disgust. I looked at Jenna. She looked... hurt. Disappointed. Ashamed.

"Kisk," Ai-Gee said, "Beat him until he can't walk."

She grinned her demon's grin and said, "With pleasure, master."

Kisk dashed. Her floppy, wet dildo snapped erect, and on its head, spikes shot out, and she swung.

It was a feint. It whipped by, and she braced for my inevitable counter, but it never came. I never moved. I just stood there, frozen, defeated.

Ai-Gee burst into laughter.

Kisk reared back her weapon--

I deserved this.

--and she swung.

It slammed against me, the spikes puncturing my side, ripping through my Trash Armor with ease, and she yanked the dildo-whip out of me. I grunted and fell to a knee, and she reared back again.

Thwoop!

Some of the rebels rushed in. Laya pulled Jenna's head back and angled the knife. I raised my hand to force them to stand down.

Kisk hit me again.

And again.

And again.

And her power shredded my body, tearing, ripping, dismantling as her dildo whip dug into my metal skin with each wet slap into me, and I keenly felt the teeth of that thing as it tore me apart, bit by bit.

After a minute or two, Ai-Gee stopped laughing. Kisk's expression grew angrier, but her attacks grew weaker and more complacent.

I just stayed there on my knees with my head lowered in defeat. This was my burden. My sin. I deserved this punishment. How could I not see it before? How could I just live doing all those fucked up things and never bat an eye? What was wrong with me then, and how was I any different now?

I looked at Jenna. She stared back, confused and angry. She had every right to be.

Even so.

That was the old me. That was Obi Imsi, the sinner, and as much as I deserved punishment and hate and torture, I had a job to do. Not to defeat Marianna, but to save Jenna, and to right my wrongs and make things as they ought to be, to remake things, to recycle things.

That's what I was. A recycler. And even when someone shits in my mouth, I'll turn it into something anew. Something better. Something the world needs.

Hmm-click.

Kisk jumped back.

Ai-Gee groaned. "Enough of this shit. I'm getting impatient." He looked at Laya. "It's time for his ultimate punishment."

Laya nodded with duty, gripped the knife to Jenna's throat, and--

I hurled it.

Laya thrust her palm to stop it. A burst of wind erupted. The potion slowed, slower, and stopped midair right in front of her, and Laya snatched it, glanced at me, then back to it, and studied the potion's color.

It was just a simple regeneration potion, glowing a familiar aquatic blue.

She tossed it aside--

And Jenna spun out of her grip, kicked her hard--Laya stumbled back--and Jenna took a running leap off the deck. She flew as if in slow motion, and she looked to me, and she mouthed the words, "Thanks."

They tried to chase her. A burst of wind threw them back. It was Vil.

Laya aimed to cast a spell at her. A death ray!

Blossoms and magic circles blinked in, and the spell shattered against them. The healer and mage.

Ai-Gee aimed a pistol.

His entire body yanked over--the Knight! Ai-Gee grunted as he tried to pull away, but he couldn't. He was firmly provoked. "Why are you fuckin' RATS defending this FILTH?"

The Knight raised his shield and laughed. "I know not the villainous deeds of Sir Redrim's past, but I know of his heroic actions of the present days, and because of this--"

Ai-Gee fired, and the bullet shot over, time slowing, the bullet phasing into multiple copies of itself--a curse bullet!--and the world froze for an instant, the color drained into black and white, and the mage spoke with that trying-too-hard-to-be-cool voice. "And because of this, for the sake of the future, we'll throw our lot in with Redrim." The bullets reformed, readjusted, re-aimed--and the world clicked back to normal, the bullets erupted back at Ai-Gee, and Laya jumped to block them with a spell.

They sparked away.

"He's TRASH," Ai-Gee shot back. "A CRIMINAL. A MANIPULATOR." He pointed at me, and Kisk dashed in with her spiked rubber dick weapon, and in an instant, she was upon me, and she swung hard enough that a ring of white bloomed around the black dildo whip--

And a blur flashed in front of me. The Gimp King! He took the blow directly across his bulge--no effect!--and it throbbed nobly and with resolve. "Though the crime yet unforgivable, the criminal may yet be saved," he rumbled, "For what better is a man who has done wrong and learned than a man who has never known what wrongs are his."

Three arrows shot toward Ai-Gee. Laya spawned in her staff, thrust it, and a flower petal shield bloomed--

And promptly shattered like glass as the arrows ripped through.

Nullification-tipped arrows. The archer nocked another set of three, smiled, and said, "The lad's a walkin' trash can. Of course, he's shit. But he's our shit now, and he's our responsibility." She fired again.

Kisk swatted the arrows away with the rubber dick, they splintered off, and a dense red mist poured around and covered her--dragon's blood--and before she could recover from the attack, a magic circle flashed beneath her feet, and an invisible force yanked her down as if gravity multiplied countless times over. She struggled to stand, but she could only rest on one knee.

It was a demon-binding spell, and the dragon's blood mist glistened with power, enhancing it. The healer held firm her staff and grinned. "Now what kind of priestess would I be if I couldn't forgive even him?"

Ai-Gee stepped back. Laya protected him. He shouted, "You're a ship of FOOLS! I've known Imsi for HUNDREDS of years, and someone like him CAN'T just change that easy."

Vil stepped beside me. "He's a trash can, not a trash can't."

"Ten out of ten," Jenna said on my other side. She was now dressed as a musketeer, and she aimed her rapier at our foe. "Redrim might not be a perfect person, but who am I to judge? All I know is that he's heading somewhere right, and by-the-gods do I intend to follow him there."

Emotion welled up inside me. I stood up and took a deep breath of the crisp air. The waves rushed against the hull of the ship. The wind blew and smelled of woodsmoke and salt.

I took a step toward him. Then another. I got closer. Ai-Gee stepped back. Laya grit her teeth.

Though I needed punishment, though I deserved death, I knew what needed to be done.

I stomped closer.

Ai-Gee cast his duelist dome. The red magic bloomed around him, protecting him and the two women from me.

I didn't stop.

Jessie laughed over the ship's loudspeakers. "I don't have anything cool to say, but I at least know that holding underage kids hostage is kind of uncool, so..." The ship's aft dipped into the sea, and the bow lifted out of the water and turned--people slid across the ship, the arena dome clipped away from our enemies, through the ship and out the other side--and the ship splashed down. The spell hovered midair beside us. Jessie had simply moved the ship out of his spell using her Machinist magic.

And I stomped closer.

Laya jumped in front of me.

And I reached out.

And I clicked my fingers.

Now entering: Dungeon Dimensional Room 1.

The world blinked, and I found myself in a trash desert, a sea of it, the mounds of garbage rising and falling and cresting and flowing like waves, and across from me, ankle-deep in discarded soda cans and plastic food wrappers, stood Ai-Gee, confused and angry.

And alone.

He laughed darkly, held out his hand, and a red longsword flashed in. "So the piece of trash has friends. So what? He's still trash." He waved out his hands around. "And he's APPARENTLY the owner of a trash DUNGEON! How about that?"

"I'm not trash," I said. "I'm a recycler. I take trash, and I make it anew."

Emergency Power activated.

"That includes my identity, my ego, my fate."

Hmm-click-kerthunk

+12 Longswords (Epic)

We stepped toward each other, weapons braced, eyes locked into one another. The breeze of this trash desert blew, and he dashed in and swung.

I parried and jumped back.

He thrust.

I rolled away.

His weapon sparked with red lightning. It cracked and thundered and sparked off my longsword--I had thrown it--and it tumbled past him.

He saw me unarmed and leapt for a downward slash.

I reached out and slapped my hands together--and I caught it!

My manipulator arms shot out from my back, reached into my side slots, and drew their swords, and they bloomed out around me.

Ai-Gee's eyes grew wide, and he spun like a breakdancer, kicking me away, and he jumped before my spider arms could strike him.

I tossed his sword away.

He held out his hands, and an array of longswords blinked in, one by one by one until a dozen of his own floated around him. Each flared with pinkish-red flame, each arcing with red lightning.

He pointed his finger at me.

A sword aimed and fired itself like a bullet.

I parried with a longsword. Both shattered into metal pieces.

He fired another.

Blocked.

And another. Swatted.

And again, and again, and I expended another long sword, and again, and the swords broke against one another, and he flashed in a new one, and I took another step closer, and he fired more, and I blocked them, and I stomped closer, and he roared with power as he summoned a thousand red blades, and it was too late.

Heart of Dragon activated.

They shot like a rocket barrage into me, and each reflected back to him, and each sparked off his mana shield, whittling him down, throwing sparks of pinkish-red flame with each ricochet, and by the time it was done--

Heart of the Kraken activated x50.

Tentacles shot up from beneath him, gripped his arms and legs and hands and feet and neck, and held him there. He struggled. A sword spawned, but a tentacle slapped it away. It clanked inertly with the rest of the garbage here.

He gurgled. He spat. He watched in horror as I walked right up to him.

"Give me the blood gem," I said.

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll be over."

He laughed weakly, he laughed in defeat, and he spat in my face. "Then fucking KILL ME you goddamn RAT--"

Blood erupted from his mouth. My manipulator arms worked through his body, slicing him efficiently, careful not to damage more than necessary, and they burst out of his chest.

He gasped for air.

His heart glistened in my recycler hands, and staring down at him, I pushed it into my mouth.

+1 Human Heart

New ability unlocked: Heart of the Sadist

As it burst inside me, as my mouth and throat and stomach filled with the hot and syrupy blood of him, the dungeon room shattered like glass, the pieces fluttering away with the wind, and we found ourselves back on the deck of the ship.

Laya and Kisk were still in their positions from moments ago, people still mid-movement as they were when we left, and time resumed. Ai-Gee thumped on the deck, blood pooling beneath him.

My metal tentacle arms dug around his pockets, and I found it. The blood gem. As soon as its rigid, rocky surface touched my metal skin, Kisk and Laya changed. Laya's eyes widened, brightened, and she grinned wide. Kisk smiled, and she laughed, still bound by that spell.

This was the blood gem, the magic stone that contained my kidney, perhaps the last existing ounce of my blood—and with it, all magic spells and enchantments and genetic knowledge. It was invaluable. This was the key to the harem. The key to going back to the way things were.

I looked back at Kisk and at Laya.

They stared submissively and in waiting.

And I held out the gem.

And I smashed it.