“What are they doing?” Alexander asks. “I don’t see what getting in front of us is going to accomplish.”

While The Steel Tiger maintains its course, The Shoebill has gained enough distance to safely evade Alexander’s fiery spells while positioning itself in front of his ship.

“Should we change course?” one of his men asks.

“There’s no need. Whether they are behind or in front of us, they will die once we reach our allies,” Alexander says.

…

“Are you sure?” Cassiel asks. “This sounds… like a really stupid plan.”

“It’ll be fine. I think,” Fenrir says as he straps Rod to his back, standing at The Shoebill’s bow. “I just have to deal with Alexander. The rest of you can come join the fight as soon as I’ve got him distracted.”

“I’m not letting you near me if you smell like wet dog,” Cassiel says with her arms crossed over her breastplate. “You and your stupid plans… it better work.”

“It’ll work,” Serra says.

“Have some more faith in the dumb dog. He hasn’t screwed us yet – well, maybe he’s screwed you two, but ya know what I mean,” Tabitha says.

Serra and Cassiel have two very different reactions to this. Serra looks proud with a nod of her head and a thumbs-up, but Cassiel just blushes and grips her blade’s handle.

Fenrir picks up one of the remaining explosive bolts.

“What’s that for?” Cassiel asks. “You didn’t say you were going to take one of those.”

“Something stupid,” Fenrir says with a smile before diving off The Shoebill’s bow!

“H-hey! Wait!” Cassiel shouts, but it’s too late.

Tabitha cringes at the thought of the ship’s propeller carving him up. “Hope he went deep enough,” she says.

“That’s Fenny for you. Bone and I might come up with our own stupid plans, but he’s always been the most eager to actually go and be stupid. He tries denying it, but I swear he’s a masochist,” Oleander says. “Just like a certain somebody,” he continues, tracing a finger along Corwin’s side.

While Corwin gets teased by Oleander, Fenrir finds that swimming is far easier than he remembers it ever being in real life or other games. Whether he wants to go up or down, swim to the sides, or even perform maneuvers such as underwater flips, it all seems almost effortless now. Furthermore, when he tests out the other part of the boon that Nell gave him, it works. He can open his mouth and not choke on ocean water; it’s as if water just doesn’t enter his mouth unless he wants it to.

“Can I talk? Yep, I can talk,” Fenrir says, talking to himself several feet beneath the surface of the water. Even looking around is easy! He would’ve thought that it might sting his eyes given that it’s saltwater, but it feels no different than looking around outside of the water. “Guess I’m a wolf-fish hybrid now.”

He takes Rod off his back with his free hand and looks at the incoming vessel.

The Steel Tiger, unchanging in its course, is heading directly for him.

“Alright, partner. I hope you’re ready to do something other than fishing for once,” Fenrir tells Rod and gets a pulse of light in return. “I really hope I don’t die doing this.”

Fenrir places the ballista bolt in the straps that he prepared for Rod and waits for The Steel Tiger to pass directly overhead. It doesn’t have a propeller like what Tabitha made for The Shoebill, so he doesn’t have to worry about losing any limbs or being chopped up when the stern gets closer. Instead of having to worry about that, he grabs onto the ship’s rudder and holds on with all of his might! Which, right now, is easy.

He’s close enough to Nell now that he’s benefitting from her stats, so all of her Strength is assisting his own in clinging to The Steel Tiger’s rudder and then helping him climb up along it.

Nell is so close now. The only thing separating them now is the wooden hull of the ship.

“What are you smiling for?” the man now watching Nell asks.

“Just fantasizing,” Nell answers.

Fenrir can even hear their muffled voices.

“Just a bit longer, Nell,” Fenrir thinks as he looks at Rod. It’s time to put that bond strengthening practice to use.

Hanging onto the rudder with his right hand and with Rod in his left hand, he thrusts himself up to the top of the ship! His increased ability when around Nell is still surprising as he isn’t used to it yet. In just a few seconds, he has gone from hanging onto the ship’s rudder to standing atop its deck with a single jump.

“What was that?” the man watching Nell asks, looking at the ceiling above him.

Nell’s smile is as wide as ever. Were it not for her tail being pinned to the floor by Alexander’s sword still, it would most likely be wagging.

Fenrir instinctively shakes to dry off and opens his eyes to see Alexander staring at him when he’s done.

“How did – where did you come from? Why are you here?!” Alexander shuts, clenching his fists.

“Hey, Alexa. Thought I’d drop by to congratulate you on coming in second place,” Fenrir says as he pushes his hair off from his forehead. “What’s the hurry? I thought you would’ve wanted to stick around for the free food at least.”

Alexander shoots a spear of fire at Fenrir that is only dodged thanks to the shared stats from Nell.

He feels Nell underneath him on the ship, and Alexander is standing at the front, so it should be safe to do this.

“I’ve got a fiery spear too now. Well, it’s more of an exploding spear, and it’s not really a spear,” Fenrir says, taking the explosive bolt from its straps on his back.

“Why do you care so much about her?” Alexander asks, eyes locked onto the bolt that Fenrir holds.

“I could ask the same thing to you and everybody else trying to force her into being their property. At least I just want her to choose her own path instead of forcing anything onto her. Plus, she’s a cute monster girl. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ll go and be a white knight for some cute monster girls. I mean, have you seen her tail?” Fenrir jokes around, dodging another flaming spear mid-speech.

With that, Fenrir throws the bolt like a javelin directly at Alexander!

Alexander dives forward to get away from its path. Mid-dive, an explosion erupts behind him that sends him flying toward the ship’s stern as its bow is all but destroyed.

“Those things are seriously OP against small ships like ours,” Fenrir says.

Two of Alexander’s men go to charge up the stairs at Fenrir but get stopped by Alexander.

“I will deal with him. He clearly wants a fight, so I will give him that – I will put him in his place and show him the strength of our empress,” Alexander says before taking a swig of a yellow potion.

The damage he took from the explosion is instantly healed. There were a few cuts on his face from debris cutting him, but now there are none.

“Thanks, Alexa. I know I can beat you on your own, but I wouldn’t be so sure if your friends there helped out,” Fenrir taunts, taking mental note of what was said about an empress as he readies himself.

Alexander looks Fenrir over for any more tricks or weapons. He fails to see anything. “Are you going to fight me without a weapon? You really are an idiot,” Alexander says.

“Oh, no, I’ve got one,” Fenrir says and looks at the hand holding Rod.

“You intend to fight me with a fishing rod?”

“Sure, why not? Rod here is pretty awesome.”

Alexander looks as if he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cringe with rage at Fenrir’s words. “And you really think you are going to defeat me with a fishing rod?”

“I don’t think that, I know that. Like I said, Rod is awesome and we make a pretty good team. I think. I’m not sure, actually. Never fought with him before unless you want to count when he was still in his rebellious phase and kept trying to hook my ears.”

Alexander takes the sword from one of the men standing next to him and walks up the stairs to Fenrir.

“By the way, you’re too easy to distract. Don’t you know that monologuing is one of the oldest tricks there is? I mean, really?” Fenrir asks.

Alexander and the other two men look around to see what he’s talking about.

What they see is The Shoebill on a collision course with The Steel Tiger, their bows—or what’s left of them—lined up for a head-on crash.

Alexander’s grip on his sword tightens, turning around to face Fenrir once more.

“You brought us a replacement for The Steel Tiger? I’ll make sure that we treat her well and give her a better name once we’re done killing all of you,” Alexander says.

“Man, I know that I can sound cheesy and cringy at times, but you sound way too much like a tryhard. Are you forgetting this is just a ga—” Fenrir shuts up when Alexander charges at him.