Jason’s shoulders sagged and he dropped the ARMS to the ground thoughtlessly. The darkness of the room obscured his face from being seen clearly and his eyes gave the feeling of being lost and unconscious of the world around him. He hadn’t wanted to kill them. Did he need to kill them he thought, replaying the events in his mind trying to think of a way for everything to end in a different way. There were alert notifications in his Visual User Interface, but he ignored them, the same as everything else. Hanshi placed a hand on his shoulder. It startled him, causing him to quickly come back to life.

“Was this your plan all along?! What kind of psycho…, ” he shouted at her. He couldn’t finish. His words were muffled by her chest as she pulled him into her, hugging him in a comforting embrace.

“Now why would I waste such a nice piece of meat?” she asked in soothing voice, stroking his head.

The two of them stayed like that for several minutes, Jason needed this more than he knew. It had been a long time since he had received such human contact. over time his rage subsided. Sadness came and went. Soon they were standing together in an embrace that began to make him feel awkward. He didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t want to be removed from the comfort that Hanshi provided, but the longer it went on he had the impulse to end it.

“I don’t know whether to be depressed or impressed. This is the longest any man has had their head between my tits and not tried to do something. Must be getting old,” she said jokingly.

Jason’s face flushed red and he pulled away from, putting at least 2 arm lengths between them. He heard her say, “Awwwww,” disappointedly as he attempted to find something to distract him. He needed… he wanted an excuse to keep his eyes off of her and hoped that she would not look closely at him. To his delight, he spotted the notifications in his VUI. Opening them he was informed that 548 credits had been added to his account. “What’s this?” he wondered aloud.

“You get credits? Not surprising. You kill something, you get a percent of what they had. You get a lot? Thinking of trying to pay me to play with you?” Hanshi said with a grin across her face.

That only made him blush a deeper shade of crimson and move onto another notification he got. It said that his arena match would be in the next hour, not attending would result in a 30 credit fine being levied upon him. In the event that he didn’t have 30 credits they would put him to use in some way that didn’t require his mental participation or death. Jason shivered at the thought of what they might do to those who fell into that situation.

Hanshi saw his face change in disposition. “You have to come here, or any of the other similar locations around the world, to get there. I was going to give you some fighting lessons, but you naughty boys insisted on fighting over me.”

Jason couldn’t believe she would joke about their attackers like that on one level, but he was also getting used to thinking of aliens as people and their odd behaviors were less strange to him as the month passed. Making a joke after seeing someone get killed wasn’t all that strange for Humans to do. It still felt off to him. It might be the the overbearing sexualization of every situation that made him feel that way or it could be just the combination of the two. “Yeah,” he replied to her, unamused.

“How much time you got?” she asked.

“Less than 45 mins,” he told her.

She put her hand on her chin and looked up, pretending that she was thinking what to do next. After a moment she acted as if she had come up with a brilliant idea. She scanned around the room for something and appeared to find it in short order. “That’s enough time for some shower fun in your room,” she said with a with a devious laugh at the end. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him.

Jason let himself be dragged by Hanshi to a room door. She then use his hand, by force, to open his door and pulled him inside. She swung him towards the shower and took a seat on the bed, “Come on now, get naked.”

He looked at her oddly, “I’m not getting undressed in front of…” he was cut off.

“It’s not good to get in the shower with your clothes on,” she said.

He thought on this. It was perfectly reasonable. He still wasn’t going to take off his clothes for her. It didn’t matter what he thought. Before he knew it his ARMS unit was deactivated and he was standing there naked. Though not long enough for even his involuntary bodily reactions to react to what had happened. Hanshi kicked him into the shower, walked over to the shower door, and waved to him as it shut.

Jason had used this shower before. He wouldn’t say he was used to it, but he was prepared for all its little tricks, unlike last time. What he found surprising is that instead of feeling exhausted like last time, he felt refreshed and clean. Cleaner than he had ever felt before. The surface world didn’t have showers commonly, and the few that he came across were far inferior to those on Earth. He’d have been considered very filthy by Human standards, but now, he was cleaner than just about anyone he’d ran into in the last month. The shower door opened and he walked out, not thinking that Hanshi was there waiting for him. He felt a slap on his back. The shower door closed behind him, and he was reclothed.

“Had she been…?” he asked quietly to himself. It dawned on him that Hanshi had stripped down and waited for him to be done. She too was covered in blood, after all. And now she was in the shower behind him, naked. His mind started down the path dreaming up various fantasies. He wasn’t usually like this, but her body was just so perfect, her smell, her behavior. Everything about her was erotic. He couldn’t help keep his mind from thinking up and envisioning her in his head.

The shower door opens and Hanshi steps out, her scent heavy in the air. Jason turns to catch her naked. Too late. She was already fully dressed. “You weren’t trying to sneak a peek were you?” she asked him, giving a giggle. “What kind of lady do you take me for, getting naked for just any ol’ boy that wants to take a gander?” Her mockery of him burned across his face as she walked past him, turning to squeeze by in the limited space, causing her breasts to light brush passed his cheek..

She took up a position in front of the bed and called Jason over, “Stand over here. Let me see how you’re equipped.”

Jason jumped to attention and did as he was instructed. This revealed a problem. Jason had stood directly in front of Hanshi, as far back as he could within the space of the room. Doing so lined his eyes up directly with her chest and made it near impossible for him to see anything else of what she was doing. She also discovered that most of Jason was obscured from her vision by her cleavage. “Hrmmm, this room is a bit too cozy… How bout standing over there,” she said, twisting and guiding Jason toward the door. He had his doubts about whether that was an accident or not. He still hadn’t been able to pin down her character or intentions. Maybe she just wanted to toy with him he thought.

“Ready yourself,” she flipped the ARMS unit that he’d dropped earlier to him. He caught it but didn’t really understand what she was saying. She saw his confusion, “Activated your weapon ARMS in sheathed mode. Even if you find them easier to use the way you did earlier it’s better to have them activated on you. Makes it harder to steal them, shows you’re prepared, and shows your status. And, not to mention, ladies love big swords, the more exquisite the sword the more they’ll swoon.”

A complicated expression crossed Jason’s face. He was torn in multiple directions, but he also felt a bit trapped, like a pet meeting a new owner that was unintentionally cruel. He placed the ARMS sword on his left hip, forming a scabbard and sword. He hadn’t ever looked at the sword’s design with much interest. It wasn’t flashy, just a standard cross shaped arming sword sword with round pommel. If he didn’t know that it had killed 10 Humans and 1 of those wasp creatures he would have believed it was cheap replica. He then activated his ARMS Dagger on the right front side of his hip. It formed a sheath in a reverse cross draw for a combat knife and the knife that went with it. Unlike the sword, the knife looked and felt like a deadly weapon despite having never having used it to hurt anyone, it felt that way in his hands and having it on him like this made him feel all the more safer.

“Good. Good. Now what do you see when you look at me?” she asked.

Jason looked at her confused, “I see…, “ he began, stopped, and thought about the next things that came out of his mouth. He looked from her chest to her face, back to her chest, down her legs, then back to her face. “I see... you?” he responded ponderously. He couldn’t think of what else to answer beyond some wildly inappropriate things.

She laughed out, one hand moved to her mouth, while her other hand she held out gesturing to stop. “I meant your Visual User Interface. It should give you a status reading, info, and challenge rating.”

“No? I turned on all the settings, but nothing like that turned up,” he looked puzzled. Another notification popped up. It was letting him know that he should enter the Arena as soon as possible and a timer started counting down to 0. “They’re saying I should get to the arena now.”

“Let’s go then. You can find out my measurements later.”

The two of them exited Jason’s room and made their way over to the arena door that had been red up until now for him. The door opened, waiting for him to enter. He hesitated to go through. Amazingly, he wasn’t nervous. Over the last hour he had fought for his life and had a mental freak out, but the shower and Hanshi’s jokes throughout the entire experience had relaxed him. Normally, he’d feel his muscles tightening and anxiety would creep in. It was much easier to not engage in the past so he’d back down. It wasn’t that he thought that he couldn’t do it. It was just that, why risk it when it would be much easier to just walk away and let it slide. Of course, if it was a serious thing he’d react before he thought. This habit of his had caused him several problems since being here, including the current situation. Usually when that happened he found himself with a problem he couldn’t solve, but this time, he felt he could handle what he was about to face.

With that in mind, Jason turned towards Hanshi, bowed, and thanked her. He then stepped into the arena doorway, took a deep breath, and began walking towards his fate. The door shut tight behind him, sealing his destiny. Whatever wa to happen next, there was no turning back, live or die. He’d face it head on.