“Run!” one of Ull’s men shouts, withdrawing his spear from Bonekraka’s thigh before turning around and taking off!

He only makes it two and a half strides before a bolt of lightning pierces through his chest. His body violently convulses as electrical energy courses through it, and when the final sparks of electricity dissipate, he drops to the ground with smoke rising from his body.

Lichtenberg figure scars cover every inch of his exposed skin.

His eyes are rolled back into his head.

Looking at where the bolt of lightning came from, the men see none other than the Lightning Witch of the High Seas herself pointing her now-drawn rapier at the corpse. “Anybody else?” she asks them.

One of the men reaches for the axe on his hip, but an electric arc connects to his hand from the tip of her rapier which causes him to pull it away from the axe’s handle.

Fenrir understands why Cassiel was fangirling over this famed witch now.

“Listen,” she says, pausing to brush some hair out of her face, “this whole tournament has increased Blackstache’s workload, and that means that my workload is increased. If it is increased, I am annoyed. If I am annoyed, I am not willing to play games with you. Now, would you rather be good children and submit, or do you wish to continue trying my patience?” she asks them.

“Move,” one of the men says, stepping in front of all the others.

Looking up at him, Fenrir sees that the man isn’t wearing much armor—nothing more than a leather vest over his clothes—but he has a sort of dominant, intimidating presence about him. He looks just as strong as Bonekraka does, but something about him just tells Fenrir that he is as strong as he looks unlike Bonekraka.

“Duel me. If I win, you let us go. If you win, we will go with you,” the man says.

The Lightning Witch rolls her eyes and sheathes her rapier. “Alright. Come,” she says, tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest.

Her challenger lets out a ferocious battle cry and charges at her!

The Lightning Witch speaks a single word, “Surge.”

Electricity surges forth from her body and pierces her opponent’s flesh in nearly a dozen different spots! Despite being electrocuted for just as long as the first man, he is still standing and takes a shaky step toward her.

“You’re stronger than the delinquent who tried running,” she tells him, stepping just close enough to allow her to perform a spinning hook kick right into the side of his face with the back of her high heel. Looking closely, those watching the display see sparks of electricity fly off from where her heel slams into his face, and a second later, his entire body flies into wall!

“How – how the fuck strong are you?” the man who cut off part of Fenrir’s ear asks.

“Triple S in Intelligence, S in everything else. Does that answer your question?” she says.

“Damned early alpha testers. It’s not fair they never did any wipes.”

“Just like how it is not fair for you to gang up on two players in an alleyway, as stupid as it was for them to get caught in an alleyway in the first place. Why did,” she does not pause despite her latest opponent’s body falling from the wall and landing in front of her, “you run into an alley in the first place? I saw what you did during the tournament. Aren’t you smart enough to know that being followed into a secluded place is the opposite of what you want to do?” She reminds Fenrir of a teacher.

Fenrir looks up at the sky and sees an owl circling above them.

“Well, it was either let them be goons and follow us around, making everybody feel uncomfortable, and potentially put my girlfriends at risk, or lead them underneath where I saw an owl flying around,” Fenrir says.

The three of Ull’s men not electrocuted to death look up. Surely enough, an owl is circling above them.

“How did you know it would report to us?” the Lightning Witch asks. When Fenrir looks up at her, he actually sees her smiling – she looks impressed.

“I know this city is all about its rules, and to be as crimeless as it is, I figured that there’s got to be some way that it’s being monitored.”

“You’re smart for a dog.”

“I get that a lot. Oh, and thanks for saving our asses.”

The Lightning Witch nods and returns her attention to the other three men. “Where are your spawn points set at?” she asks them.

“Our ships, wh—” the man to answer her gets a shot of electricity straight into his forehead. The man standing next to him is next. The bindings around Fenrir and Bonekraka disappear with the fourth man’s death.

Only one of them is left now.

He drops to the ground. “Please! Please – please, please don’t kill me! I – I haven’t got a new rebirth counter yet! I’ve been playing this for a couple of months, so please, don’t kill me!” he begs, crawling towards her now on his hands and knees with tears in his eyes.

“Stop your whining, you sound pathetic. I didn’t hear either of your victims here whining and crying while you were torturing them, so to act like this in front of them – you are seriously pathetic,” she scolds him before stomping down on the back of his lowered head with her heel.

Fenrir originally pegged her as a tsundere when he first saw her getting on Blackstache’s case, but now he’s pretty confident that she’s just a dominatrix. With the high boots and heels that she’s wearing, the black leather corset, her almost unnaturally black hair, and a permanent case of resting bitch face – he looks over at Bonekraka.

They nod at each other.

She’s definitely a dominatrix.

With a sigh, she continues talking. “I am not going to kill you. You will be answering to Blackstache and your leader. They might kill you, but I will not. Now, stand up,” she orders, taking her heel off of his head.

The man immediately jumps up and keeps his hands to his sides.

“Bind,” she speaks. Blue lightning shoots from her body and forms cuffs around his wrists and ankles, but the ones around his ankles allow him enough space between them to walk. “Try running or attacking and the binds will tighten. They’ll kill you if they tighten too much, so I suggest you behave.”

“Wh-what if I accidentally tighten them?” her prisoner asks.

“Then they will give you a pleasant shock that reminds you to behave.”

He gulps and nods.

Fenrir and Bonekraka stand up. “I have to admit,” Fenrir says, “part of me thought I’d get ignored. I don’t think I’m on Blackstache’s good side.”

“You weren’t,” she says.

Weren’t? Then—

“Now, come with me,” she says to the prisoner, grabbing him by his collar, pulling him down so that he is forced to slouch over, and leads him out of the alley.

She pauses right before turning out of it. “Good luck in the tournament, dog,” she shouts and waves over to Fenrir, leaving him alone in the alley with Bonekraka.

“Well. That happened,” Fenrir says, brushing himself off. Bonekraka does the same.

“Look,” Bonekraka says. He points at the four bodies around them.

They look at each other again and nod.

It has been less than an hour since Fenrir and Bonekraka left The Shoebill. Now, they return to it each holding large, wooden crates that they drop down onto the deck.

“Fen! What happened?” Cassiel asks, ignoring the crates’ contents and raising her hands up to his ears.

“I decided to match with Rock. What do you think? Oh, and can you heal Bone?” Fenrir answers, pointing to Bonekraka’s thighs which each have large, bleeding gashes in the back of them.

Cassiel looks at the pier and sees a trail of blood leading all the way back to the streets. “Y-yeah,” she answers, crouching down behind Bonekraka to heal his wounds.

“Are you okay?” Serra asks in the most worried tone that Fenrir has ever heard from her. It makes him want to hug her and comfort her despite her likely feeling like he’s the one who needs that.

“Better than ever. Where’s Rock?” Fenrir asks.

Rock comes running from below deck when she hears her name. Fenrir feels a bit insulted that she didn’t come running up on her own as soon as she heard his voice, but this is good enough. “There you are!” Fenrir says, leaning over to pick up Rock and hold her up to his head. “What do you think? I got jealous of your new style, so I had to copy you.”

Rock happily barks and crazily licks at his face.

Serra looks into the crates that the two men brought with them.

Each one is full of various pieces of armor, clothes, and weapons as well as various smaller items such as necklaces, rings, item pouches, and potions.

“Don’t you love full loot games?” Fenrir asks out loud between licks from Rock.

“Da,” Bonekraka answers.