TPK (Pt. 2): A Duel of Wits, Ink, and Blades

--- Joshua ---

The guild lieutenant rushed him, crossing half the arena with a single kick to the ground and her sword pulled behind her.

Reading his tag on her hand he adjusted his footing ever so slightly, so close to the perfect distance that the blade crashed but a hair’s width behind him.

“Ooh, you missed, does that mean I get a kiss?” He wondered idly as he glanced over his shoulder to meet her eyes bashfully.

TPK grinned with more fangs than he was expecting, before telling him, “Only if you can give me a proper dance.” as she backhanded him with enough force to generate a gust of wind.

Or rather she tried to backhand him, and unfortunately -(for her)- chose to use the hand he tagged, letting him move as soon as her hand began to twitch.

“Since you seem intent, I’ve no problem letting you lead, beautiful.” He grinned back as he gave her a half bow.

“Oh, not going to hit me again?” TPK asked with a pout, despite swinging her sword with enough force to cleave him in two if she hit him.

“What can I say?” He shrugged ever so casually as he continued to avoid her strikes, some part of him having realized that her swings were about twice the length of his legs, allowing him to dance around her swings with an odd sort of two-step. “A proper gentleman knows to only go as far as the lady is willing.”

“Really, in that case I’m thinking…” She lunged forward stabbing her blade towards him. “penetration!”

“Oh, my!” He gasped, putting a hand to his mouth as bashfully spun around, and just so happened to avoid getting stabbed. “Who’s the forward one now?”

“And who’s the fight tease?” TPK scoffed as she swung at his open back, before watching him backflip over the blade without touching it. (I didn’t even know I could do that!) “You’re not even fighting back!”

“Oh, that?” He smiled as he took a step forward, leaving their faces close enough to breathe on each other. “I was just figuring out what you’d find most… pleasurable.”

TPK swallowed and -(that is my victory)- didn’t notice his hand swinging for her face until he toonified it on impact, causing her to stagger back a step from the unexpected blow.

The redhead blinked before giggling as she wiped a bit of blood from under her nose and gave him a smile of her own, one notably more deranged than his own. “Oh, that was a good one.”

He was about to offer her another innuendo before she blurred out of existence, causing him to drop to the ground as he felt her reappear behind him, just barely avoiding the swing that would’ve taken his head.

“Give me another!” TPK laughed as she kicked him in the ass, sending him tumbling across the arena a good few meters.

“F-u-uck.” He groaned, as the song in his head began to skip and sputter a bit. (She is really crossing the crazy threshold for her hotness.)

He shook his head as he forced himself onto his feet and immediately rolled to the side to avoid being cleaved in two by the (crazy) woman’s skull splitter, which instead left a visible fissure in the ground.

(Right, okay time to start cheating.)

(Best idea you’ve had all day.)

“Whoo, you are… something… darlin’.” He coughed as he twisted his Madness in the general direction of TPK, trying to get his field to latch onto her but finding that it didn’t want to listen to him for some reason.

“Oh, getting serious enough to really bring out the Madness, eh?” TPK smiled with more fangs than he remembered her having. “Should warn you whatever you’re trying to pull there ain’t going to override my field.”

“Uh, what?” He asked, realizing that no matter how hard he focused he just could not get his field to target her. (Oh, this is bad, this is very bad.)

“Yeah, perk of being so close to my little sis.” TPK explained as she slowly walked towards him with a bloodthirsty grin. “To directly attack me with Madness, you have to use enough Madness to override hers, and well…” The Gamer Guild lieutenant gestured to the arena around them. “We’re kind of in the middle of her domain here. My corner of it maybe, but still her domain.”

(Ah, shit… I thought that was just Jack’s weirdness…)

He swallowed, as the tune inside his head finally snapped leaving behind an ominous silence and a feeling of weakness.

“Ahh, don’t tell me you’re going to give up because your little trick didn’t work?” TPK cooed as she lifted his chin with her sword. “Unless that and talking are your only real tricks?”

(She’s looking down on me…)

“No.” He growled, grabbing her blade and moving it away from him so that he could stand. “It’s not.”

“Then what’s your next trick?” The Guild lieutenant smirked, her pupils contracted to pinpoints. “Because you promised not to bore me.”

“I did.” He admitted, before bending down to pick up the hat he had lost. “And I assure you it is going to be a stunning performance.”

The moment his hat touched his head he flooded it with Madness, causing a flash of light to erupt from it and TPK to stumble back as she blinked the spots out of her eyes.

While he did this, rather than pressing the advantage, he tightened his grip on her blade and began pushing his ink into it, hoping to toonify her sword in the same way he’d turned a goblin’s blade into his knife.

TPK shook her head and turned to him, having overcome his stun faster than he’d been expecting, before her eyes darted down to her sword and the ink spreading across it with a glare.

Instead of trying to wrench the blade from his hand, she instead let go of it, leaving him with all of the weight as even his strength wasn’t anywhere near enough to hold it up with a single hand.

With her now free hands TPK grabbed both sides of his head before pulling back her own and headbutting him hard enough that he could swear he heard his nose crunching beneath her forehead. She then pushed his head back before slamming his face into her knee and proceeding to kick him hard enough to send him flying into the arena wall.

“Fuck!” He gasped as he staggered to his feet.

“Frak, you really screwed with my sword’s coding with whatever you were doing here.” TPK told him as the blade in her hand seemed to give off pixels along the edge of where his ink coated it. “Hmm, welp not much I can do with this, so I guess you can have it.”

TPK deftly flipped the blade in her hand before raising it into the air and proceeding to hurl the broadsword at him as if it were a javelin.

“Oh, shi-” He barely managed one step before the blade pierced through his bicep. “-UCK!”

Blinking through the pain, he tried to move but found the blade was pinning him in place.

“Shit.” He cursed, before looking at TPK who was slowly making her way over.

“You know, I’ll admit that was a bit interesting but it wasn’t really the stunning performance you promised.” The guild lieutenant told him as she stuck a hand through another hole in the air before pulling out a sledgehammer with a head made of stone.

He swung his ink whip at her hoping to force her back until he came up with an actual plan, but the more experienced fighter simply weaved through his strikes as she got ever closer. Something made all the worse when in his panic he swung his ink whip without refilling its ink, causing the whip to splatter against TPK’s clothes on the one strike she couldn’t avoid.

“Ah, done so soon? Ya couldn’t keep it up just a bit longer?” The redhead pouted as she pulled her hammer back. “I guess you really were all talk.”

---

“Boss!” Avery cried out running up to him as he hit the cabaret floor.

“The, the fuck?!” He blinked looking around in a daze as he pushed himself up. “How, how did I get here?”

“That, that woman she knocked you out and you, you come here when you’re, you’re unconscious.” Avery tried to explain as he set a couple of half empty bottles next to them before mixing them into a glass and shoving it into his hands. “If you, if you want to get back up you-you have to drink this. It’ll consume a bit of Madness but, but it’ll let you get back up right this second!”

“The… the spirit raising spirits?” He asked, half-recognizing the drink despite his pounding headache.

“You need to decide quick, I-I know she said she wasn’t your enemy but, but she’s from a rival gang! Can you, can you really trust her?!” Avery panicked.

He stared down at the glass in his hand, before