Chapter 355 - My SI Stash #55 - Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay by Vagabond (Worm)

-Gots to be the first ever Worm fic I've read that has a SI cultivator~ Nut/

Synopsis: ???

Rated: M

Words: 15K

Posted on: forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/lewd-cultivator-in-brockton-bay-worm-lewd-cyoa.12270/ (Vagabond)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1-3 (exceptional)

My name was Alan Marris, a native Brocktonite, a graduate of Arcadia, and a self-employed computer software programmer (and fishing enthusiast). Not rich but not poor, I lived on the western edge of the city's Downtown, right where the western suburb borders Downtown.

But a person named Alan Marris did not exist on Earth Bet until ten seconds ago. Twelve seconds ago. Fifteen seconds ago.

This body did not exist until twenty seconds ago.

My existence was new.

Sitting up on my bed, I began to contemplate how I could be here.

I knew that I was in Brockton Bay thanks to this new body's memories. Brockton Bay didn't exist where I came from but it certainly did. Memories of recent history played out in my mind in ways only memories can, and I groaned as I realized that I was on Earth Bet, the world at the center of the fictional story titled Worm.

Again, why was I here?

I remembered doing a Worm CYOA… a lewd Worm CYOA.

And I went the entire length of it without taking any particularly lewd choices.

I hurriedly searched for a piece of paper and pen, found them, sat down by the desk in my bedroom, and wrote down what I remembered about my own choices.

Wake Up in a New Life

Canon Knowledge

For want of a nail

More points

Male, Young A.d.u.l.t, Caucasian, Slim, Fit

Mindf.u.c.kery: alcohol

Enemies: ABB, E88, Merchants, S9, Endbringers

Kill List: Kaiser, Skidmark, Lung

Uncontrollable Mind, Blindspot

Different Power Source, Early Start, Contact, Costume

Costume: Armor, self-repairing, force field, thematic, mover

Early: 27 days

Amy Dallon: Friend

Cultivation: Enchantment, Progress renewal, Meridian Awakening, Alchemy

Roleplay Excellence, ST

I stared at the piece of paper in front of me.

And then I screamed in panic.

-VB-

It took me … two hours to calm down. It was embarrassing, seeing as I considered myself better than to break down like that.

Well, here I was.

As I sat down to consider what I was going to do.

First off, I had to make sure that my powers worked. The easiest of them to use was Roleplay Excellence. How did I activate it? Did I just think it? Did I say the role I wanted out loud? I … don't quite remember. The only reason why I chose that option out of everything was because it was the only power that wasn't directly lewd.

Why did I even touch that lewd cyoa again?

I steeled myself and then opened my mouth to speak.

Quietly, I whispered. "I am now an expert parahuman analyst with a meticulous personality who writes down everything important."

For a second, my vision wavered and then returned.

I immediately felt the changes. My mind was thinking differently, connecting different information. It wasn't that I was smarter; it was that there was now newfound knowledge in my head (that won't stay there when I dismiss this roleplay) that allowed me to connect information in ways I didn't could connect because I didn't know they could relate like that.

I recognized that this particular power was notably similar to Uber of Leet and Uber, whose power granted him temporary high skill of the job he wanted-

-no, I was different. I didn't affect just skills; I also affected personality.

Right now, I was already writing down all of the important bits of information I was extracting from this so far short session of self-analysis. It was abundantly clear to me that my power took further steps to change me than Uber's power did. Changing personality could not be achieved by shoving new memories into the brain; it directly affected neural pathways. This meant that my power directly influenced my brain chemistry. My mind was now-

-stop.

Poof. Just like that, my mind was clear of all previous thoughts. I remembered what I thought, but there were some points here and there that seemed like a jump in logic to me.

Hmm.

"Okay," I spoke out loud. "So I definitely have a superpower." I shook in my seat giddily. "I have a power!" I cackled out loud, jumping out of my seat and running around in circles of my room. "GYA HA HA HA HA-!"

I stopped myself not in alarm but in ever increasing excitement.

My other power was Cultivation. The overpowered bullshit that let people ascend to godhood.

I quickly sat down to meditate…

Ring ring ring

I stopped even before I could begin, and stood up, walked to my desk, and looked at the phone there.

[Amy Dallon]

Then I remembered that I was Amy's friend. I had memories of meeting Amy first at the hospital she volunteered and then later on as we became friend, enjoyed cold and dry British humor, and alcohol.

It was to my surprise that Amy spiked her fruit juices.

But this happened because I chose Amy as a friend.

And that made me her only friend.

I quickly answered the call. "Hey, Amy! How's my grumpy healer doing?"

"{Haven't had my shot yet,}" she grumbled.

"Me too! Wanna come and hang out at my place?"

"{...Sure. You have orange juice?}"

By orange juice, she meant the jug of orange juice she'd left with me to ferment, because she couldn't keep that in her house or at the hospital. "Yup."

"{I'll be there after school.}"

And then she hung up without so much as a goodbye.

Ah, good old Amy being her rude self.

"Seeing as she's coming to my house in …" I stared up at the clock. It was 8 am. "Seven hours, I should get me some beer."

I too was starting to feel the need for alcohol.

And while I waited for her, I could start myself on my cultivation…

Oh, there was a lot of knowledge implanted into my head. Nice, I can start there. First, I needed to meditate to understand my body and myself.

-VB-

Thankfully, my house provided some privacy with how it was made.

My house was big, despite being on the border of Downtown.

No, that would be incorrect. My actual house was small, barely three thousand square feet. It had a small front yard and backyard, the latter of which was overtaken by Amy's three fruit trees. I was the only one who didn't judge her for the true spectrum of her power and encouraged her to do more.

Which was why those trees made alcoholic fruits, not regular fruits.

Anyways, my house was big because it had two layers of bas.e.m.e.nts on top of two floors.

Those bas.e.m.e.nts gave me the privacy I needed. The first bas.e.m.e.nt was where I had my laundry machines, dryers, and other necessary household equipments of life were at.

The second bas.e.m.e.nt? It had been sitting empty for years with a few furnitures I no longer needed sitting in the corner.

Now?

It was my training room.

Here, I now practiced very few things I remembered about martial arts. Tae Kwon Do, Boxing, and even a little of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I didn't just do it with my body. No, I overpowered myself with a command of Roleplay Excellence: "A martial artist that has mastered three combative martial art."

With each attack, I exerted everything my body could give me. Into each attack, I unleashed the strength of this new body.

And I felt the difference.

I had memories of this body and my life before this. Both of me practiced martial arts for exercising purposes, and I knew what it felt like to exert while practicing martial arts. Here and now, however, felt different. Spin kick felt faster and winds buffeted heavily against my leg. I followed it through with a knee strike, and ended with a backhand strike with my fist.

Each action felt lighter and stronger. The air resisted far more yet it wasn't because I was weak; it was because each of my strikes cut through the air faster.

I jumped, twirling in the air horizontally to the ground while my feet lashed out twice to the same target area, and I landed with a ground stomp that made the bas.e.m.e.nt shudder.

Oops. Might not want to do that lest the neighbors report "strange happenings" in their neighborhood.

I straightened myself and let out a stream of pent up breath.

I was definitely stronger… but not strong enough to be considered anything abnormal. Maybe the world's elite martial artist at best but nothing that can take on a standard parahuman.

Kiii….

Hmm? Was that the sound of the front door opening?

It must be Amy.

…

Wait, how did I hear that from down here?

…

Whatever.

I walked up and saw Amy on the living room couch with a cup of orange beer.

"The first thing you do is get your pruno and not greet the owner of the house?" I asked her dryly.

She took a sip, sighed contentedly, and looked at me.

Amy Dallon was a good friend of mine for the sole fact that I liked her humor, she healed me once, and she made me alcohol.

I was actually a little buzzed right now from drinking her pruno.

"Hi. There, I said it. Now, let me get back to drinking."

I snorted. "You raging alcoholic."

"Idiotic drowned."

"Grumpy healer."

"Masochist."

"Oi, that was once!"

"Uh huh."

I snorted again and walked up to the second floor bathroom.

When I finished cleaning up, changed my clothes, and came back down, Amy was watching the TV with half-lidded eyes.

I raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you normally at the hospital by now?" I asked her.

"I am, but I haven't given you your check-up yet."

I chuckled. "Sure, sure," I said as I extended my hand towards her. I stopped for a moment to dispel the Roleplay Excellence's control over my body. I slouched a little then, and Amy, looking at me with a raised eyebrow, caught my extended hand.

Her eyes glazed over as she looked through my biology.

As she looked through my biology.

Looked.

My biology.

I realized my mistake right there on the spot, and Amy's eyes widened as they gained focus. Her face and eyes snapped up to me, and I returned her look in equal part nervousness and embarrassment.

I didn't expect to be outed so soon.

The thing about cultivators was that their biology changed with their training. They became more than just humans.

And while I might not have done anything, the very fact that I was a cultivator who could do extraordinary things already set my biology apart from regular people.

And Amy here was a biokinetic.

"What happened?" she demanded angrily.

And she was angry because she was thinking that I must have gone to some bio-tinker to improve my body.

Just as she showed trust in me… I supposed it was my turn to return that trust.

While letting her hold my hand, I moved around the couch and sat down next to her. She stared at me.

"So, where would you like me to begin?"

"Who experimented on you?"

"No one."

"Your biology is different from a mere day ago, Alan," she spat. "Who did this to you?"

I smirked. "What if I said it is the product of my training?"

"... Huh? No, that's bullshi-"

Right there and then, I did one of the few things I knew so far about my cultivation: allowing the Qi to flow through my meridian points."

Her retort froze on the spot as her eyes widened.

I knew that she couldn't detect lies, not completely, so I spun her a story. "We humans once dominated nature. Rocks shattered, earth cratered, trees fell, and mountains disappeared under the might of not weapons but our feet and fists," I said. And it was true in the wuxia genre of fiction.

But then again, Worm was also fiction.

"I've finally woken up today and reached a level of cultivation that you see today. This is something I've been working towards. It's not much… but I can show you what I can do."

Tired as I may have been, but I could power through… with just a sip of beer. I stole a sip from her cup of pruno, earning me a light glare. She nodded stiffly, and I led her down to the lowest bas.e.m.e.nt.

I let her stay by the stairs, and I walked to the center of the room. I contemplated how I was going to go about this.

I mean I was a little tired but … it really wouldn't be much.

And so…

I cut it loose.

-VB-

She didn't know what she expected, but it wasn't this.

The air grew heavy on her as if a thick blanket was weighing her down. At the same time, the bas.e.m.e.nt grew darker than before. The light dimmed yet its intensity was the same.

Her hand quickly reached out and grabbed the handrail of the staircase and held on to it dearly.

She watched as Alan, her only non-parahuman friend, lifted his right leg up.

And stomped.

The bas.e.m.e.nt floor cracked and the entirety of the house shook with how strong it was.

He punched away from her, and yet the air buffeted against her face like she was sticking her head out of a train. He kicked, and the rotation of his attack with his bare foot grinded against the floor.

He jumped and twirled in the air, striking thrice, and she knew that such an attack would have knocked out most people on the spot if the attack connected.

'Brute 3 at the very least,' she thought.

And then she saw his hands curl into fists and strike too many f.u.c.k.i.n.g times in under five seconds.

'T-Thirty? No, at least thirty-five…! And each of those strikes felt as strong as the first fist strike that made the winds whoosh around and buffet her face. If anyone without armor or Brute power got hit by those-!'

Death.

The first three strikes might break a bone. By the tenth, multiple bones would be broken. By the twentieth, entire skeletal structures would be gone and organs would be damaged. By the thirtieth, there would be no organ to speak of.

He stopped with a last flourish of a kick and moved way too fast for her eyes. Vicky might be able to follow it but…

"...What the f.u.c.k," she uttered, unable to stop herself.

Alan looked up and grinned. "And I can make you this strong too, though it will be painful."

She looked down at the floor. The cement floor was no longer flat and pristine. It was cracked, shattered, ground down, and … a mess.

And this was done with a bare foot that didn't break or bleed when striking a cement surface hard enough to shatter the entire thing.

"Ah. I went overboard," Alan grumbled. "Now I have to fix everything up."

"What the f.u.c.k, Alan."

"Ow," he suddenly muttered. "I think I strained myself."

"Ugh, idiot," she grumbled as she walked up to him, careful to avoid any broken shard of cement, and touched him. Or rather, she tried to. He stopped her with a finger to the palm of her extended hand. "What?"

"I have to heal the old fashioned way. My muscles wouldn't grow otherwise."

Both of them knew that if he wanted muscles, then she could increase them all she liked as long as she had the materials.

"Does it have something to do with your … power?"

"It's not a power if you can do the same with training, Amy."

She snorted. "I doubt I can do that," she said, pointing to the crater on the cement.

"You never know," he teased before going serious. "But I honestly wouldn't want you to start this. The only method to start this would have you screaming for hours in pain."

She winced. "You…?"

"Not sure," he replied honestly. "I just know that you will if you follow me down this path."

She stopped talking. "... Fine," she said as she turned around. "I'm going to the hospital."

"Be careful, okay?"

"I will."

As she walked up the stairs and then out of his house, she couldn't help but wonder.

Could she be as strong?

Strong and glorious like Vicky?

She needed time to think.

Chapter 2

-VB-

Cultivation.

Did I mention that it wasn't too different from a Tinker or a body builder in how it functioned?

For me, I had the knowledge of what I must do to advance my body; the mind and spirit were trickier, so I was focusing on the body first. After all, what was a mind if the body could not follow through?

So, the body! There were three paths to advancements of the body known to me, thanks to the knowledge download.

The first path was the rigorous training of flesh against wood, flesh against steel, and flesh against flesh: the Path of Rock Flesh. 'Through endless pain and suffering, the body shall achieve the flesh of a mountain. All shall break before the mountain.'

The second path took martial art into the realm of the supernatural: the Art of Peerless Skin. 'Through the infusion of internal Qi onto the skin, the skin shall harden

The third and final path, the one I intended to take, was the practical application of the acc.u.mulated ancient knowledge where Qi was the central overarching force capable of influencing the body. This was the Path of One Thousand Layer.

Now, they all sounded fancy and gave the notion that some kind of supernatural training regiment was needed. Very technically speaking, they did. One could not achieve the Path of Rock Flesh without surviving against throwing your n.a.k.e.d skin against sharpened rock and come out stronger for it. The Art of Peerless Skin would have one master the neigong, which took a decade, if not decades, to master. The Path of One Thousand Layer was the easiest of them but also the most expensive.

Qi was not a force limited to each individual human. Qi itself was the human's internal energy, and there existed many other forms of energy, like the infernal Qi, found in hot springs and volcanoes, and the natural Qi, found in plants and animals.

The Path of One Thousand Layer took the understanding of the flow of Qi to gather ingredients infused heavily with Qi and infused them into the body.

This was why it was expensive. Instead of training the body, the Path of One Thousand Layer sought to implement Qi found elsewhere into the body to supplement its progress. I needed medicinal herbs in hundreds of kilograms, and a specific ratio had to be maintained in each medicinal bath I took after each training session.

Alan Marris on this Earth had $55,000 saved up so far as cash and credit. I blew half of that away in a single day for the herbs, and of that 10% was simply from the shipping fee.

I sunk deep into the medicinal bath, luxuriating in the steaming hot mixture of twelve different herbs ranging from Chinese Knotweed to half a century old wild ginseng. I tried not to think about how expensive this bath was. Considering that I chopped in a half of twenty-five year old wild ginseng, it was at the very least two thousand dollars…

A two thousand dollar (at the very least) herbal bath. Didn't think I'd be doing something so … expensive.

'I can't imagine but the most dedicated or the rich doing this in ancient times,' I thought to myself while practicing breathing with my body.

'Breathing with the body' was not actually taking in oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide with my skin. It was the most fundamental part of neigong, where my body took in energy from the outside. This process, coupled with the medicinal bath, took in nutrients and energy from the medicinal bath and reinforced the whole of my body. When I "exhaled" with my body, acc.u.mulated wastes related to neigong and Qi.

Under the right circ.u.mstances, "bodily breathing" was a way to purify my body as I reinforced it.

Unfortunately, I was not a master of neigong, or even the fundamental step of bodily breathing. If I was, then I would have made this bath cheaper and acquired the same benefit. But I wasn't a master. I knew what and how to do this cultivation roughly but the exact efficiency and path eluded me, because I was nothing more than a disciple in the arts not a master, and even that was because of the knowledge. On top of that, I didn't have a decade to master a single martial art.

Scion may be neutered, but parahuman gangs with their shards' conflict engines was a real thing.

I dove under it, and breathed. The water around me pulsed in rhythm with each breath. I felt the top of my head also move out of the water despite the fact that I hadn't moved. Was I taking the herbal bath water into me?

That's … weird. Whatever. No one ever said cultivation wasn't weird.

Nothing else happened from then on, other than the fact that the bath just got a little dark and stayed that way. Seeing as I wasn't feeling anything different, I pulled the plug on the bathtub, and felt the dirty herbal water drain. The net holding the soaked herbs held, and only the water - nutritiously valuable - left.

Thanks to the makeup of the pipes leading out of the second bas.e.m.e.nt, I knew that this water would end up in the garden underneath Amy's three alcohol fruit trees.

Efficiency for the win, right?

I was, of course, not going to tell Amy I was giving her trees wastewater.

Of course, since I was thinking about efficiency, I also had invested in some … training equipment. At the same time as I had bought the herbs, I also got a baseball launcher, and used it to train my dodging speed. I spent a week dodging but now I was training in lashing out at those high speed murderballs.

Amy had been less than pleased by the bruises all over my body yesterday.

Speaking of Amy…

"Alan, where are you?!"

I wanted to try a few things with her. Also, why was she screaming her head off?

It's been two weeks since I woke up as Alan Marris of Earth Bet and half-lied to Amy (both Alan's did train for the sake of improving ourselves, just not towards cultivation). She had returned a day later but refused my offer of opening her own meridian points. Regardless, she kept returning for the usual routine.

Which was basically to use me and my house as her "alcohol experiment and loot" room.

"Down here!" I shouted as I dried myself with a towel quickly before putting on a dry set of red t-shirt and pair of blue nylon shorts and tossing my training shorts to the laundry bin. By the time I was dry, clothed, and dumping the now useless herbal remains into a trash can, Amy thundered down the stairs and stopped at the base.

"Where did you hide my orange beer?"

"For the last time, Amy, fruit moonshine is called pruno."

"Where is my orange pruno?" she insisted.

I replied as casually as guiltlessly as possible, "I drank it."

I too was an alcoholic and was not above breaking into her stash for a few bottles. I may have practiced the Drunken Fist after chugging three liters worth of Amy's orange pruno, though I did not find much success. "In my defense, you still have a tank of lemon pruno upstairs."

"I like the orange pruno the best!" Amy objected angrily. "You stole my beer!"

"Consider it a fee for keeping it in my house."

"ARGH!" she screamed and jumped at me.

Seeing how slow she was, I neatly sidestepped her. As she fell, I slid one hand underneath her stomach and the other on her back, swung her around, and placed her back on her feet facing away from me. This happened in two seconds.

She stood there for a moment before turning back. "Do that again."

"What, you want to be swung around like a kid by her daddy?" I asked her with a coo.

Maybe she was a little drunk already; she just showed reckless behavior, poor judgement (maybe), and her face was flushed. My words only made that flush deeper.

So it wasn't a big surprise that she decided to headbutt me. She'd been too close for me to dodge, especially since I hadn't expected it. Our skulls conked and I stumbled backward in pain while she dropped to the floor, whining in pain.

"How much did you drink?!" I, the alcoholic man of the house, demanded sharply as I held my forehead.

"Only a gallon…" she whined from her face down fetal position.

"Amy, I thought we agreed on half a gallon per day rule."

She just groaned more. "I had a bad day, okay? Vicky was being her stupid self again…!"

"She kept on blasting you with more of her aura or something?"

From the memories I'd inherited, one of the things Amy complained to me about was Vicky's inability to control her aura. She usually only complained about that when she was really drunk, though.

"No, she set me up on another blind date with another rich snob."

I snorted. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to call that snob and tell him that I'm not interested. And then I'm going to tell Vicky I'm not interested. That I want her p.u.s.s.y, not a f.u.c.k.i.n.g d.i.c.k."

I whistled. "You must be really drunk. You don't say that so loud normally."

"Shut up!"

"Yes, definitely drunk," I said as I picked her up and moved upstairs.

She touched my skin on my hand, perhaps in habit, and frowned. "I see less of your body than two weeks ago."

"I have been training and cultivating at a very fast rate."

"I still call your explanation bullshit. Tell me what biotinker got to you already~!"

"Will you shut up if I let you drink another bottle?"

"Yessir!" she cheered before she leaned into my bridal carry. She looked sullen and upset. Something was bothering her.

"If you have something on your chest, Amy, go ahead and tell me. You know I'm not here to judge."

"... Hey, Alan."

"Yeah?"

"Am I ugly?"

"No. Why?"

"Why doesn't Vicky look at me, then?"

"... Because you're her sister?"

Amy frowned.

"It's not like you're going to **** her, right?"

Despite her drunken state, those words snapped her out of her stupor easily enough. "What the f-!? NO!" she screamed, pushing me away (or trying to) when I was the one carrying her.

"Then why not just give up? It's not like your attraction to her is natural."

She glared at me. "What the f-?"

She's saying that a lot, isn't she?

"You know deep down that her power must have some effect on you, right? Whenever her aura flares, you told me that you just appreciate and awe Victoria more."

She didn't reply as I set her down on my couch in the first floor living room.

Amy was open with me unlike how she was with the rest of her family and her acquaintances. Some of it was from how loose her lip was when she was drunk but a lot of it was just genuine need on her part to have someone to talk with. The me-before-I-took-over had been a good friend to Amy, and I intended to carry on that distinction.

Amy sighed. "... I still love her."

"As you should, you are, at the very least, family."

She looked up at me before nodding. "So how's your training been?" she asked, blatantly changing the subject. "Your body changed again."

"Faster than I imagined," I replied with a grin. "It's only been two weeks since I arrived at my current level, so I really can't say there's been an increase in my cultivation base. What I have improved though is my body."

"I noticed," she narrowed her eyes. "I could see what you were doing with your body, but not all of it. There were even portions that I couldn't change."

That's good news, actually. If a power as versatile as the Shaper could not change me in the hands of Amy, then there were many lesser Shards and powers that wouldn't be able to do that to me either.

Amy continued to talk. "But why are you training so hard? From what I could tell, you must be training all of the time that I'm not here."

"To do what I want, I need power."

She narrowed her eyes. "And what might that be?"

… What exactly did I want to do?

I was in Earth Bet, the home of Worm. This was supposed to be a pseudo-death world, but I had taken charge of this scenario, twisting away calamity like the Golden Morning, by taking options in a …

…

I don't know. I spoke words that sounded right, but they rang hollow to my own ears. I wanted power, yes, but that's because - in truth - I was scared to fight people on my own level. I didn't want to risk myself. I didn't want to put myself on a kill or be kill scenario. I didn't want to fight, but by the rules of power that existed in Earth Bet, I would not have a choice in the matter. Sooner or later, there will be people who seek me out to fight, to dominate, and to kill me.

I leveled a serious, half-lidded stare at her, meeting her eyes. She blinked and then flinched.

"I don't want to be a victim in this pitiless world," I replied honestly. "I don't want to be just another parahuman who dies in the first year of getting their power. I don't want to be forced into some asshole's gang, federal, corporate, or criminal." I straightened myself up and allowed myself to just … release the frustration that I didn't know I had. "I want to have a family. I don't want to die. I don't want to suffer. Being powerless means that I won't have choice in any of this. Some random dipshit can kill me if I'm weak. If I'm weak, the government can screw me over and I'll have to take it up my ass and deal with it. If I'm weak with a family, then I might have to watch as gangsters break into my home, **** and kill my family, and I'll be too weak to stop them."

I stared at Amy, whose adopted family had an experience in the latter kind of experience.

"I don't want to be weak, Amy, especially not in a city like Brockton Bay."

"... Is that why you're training like a masochist?"

I grinned, letting my serious demeanor fall apart. "Being able to grind concrete into dust with my hands also makes me feel better. Girls also like these muscles," I announced gleefully as I put my left arm up and flexed. Now, my body may be on the slim side, but my training was starting to show off in my growing muscles.

Amy merely raised an eyebrow, and then she snorted.

"What?" I asked curiously.

"I just realized that the only reason I haven't seen a pot belly on you despite your daily dose of alcohol was because of your training."

"... A pot belly that you might get, too."

She gasped.

"Join me in my training! You shall become a macho girl by my side~!"

"Never."

Then we laughed.

Amy left soon afterward, and I was left to nurse a cup of lemon pruno by myself. My conversation with Amy played itself again in my head, and I couldn't help it.

I felt weak. No, I knew that I was weak. In a city that hosted Hookwolf, Lung, Kaiser, Skitter, Amy, Victoria, and so many more, I was weak. There was no way I could survive against Kaiser or Hookwolf. Lung would burn me alive. Armsmaster had more combat experience and thus would wipe the floor with me.

I didn't feel weak; I knew that I was weak.

My jaws clenched hard and my hands balled up into a fist, I finished the pruno in my hand and went downstairs to train again. My skin broke but didn't bleed, my bones buckled but didn't break, and my mind struggled under the exhaustion yet I persevered through.

I would get strong.

I had to be strong.

-VB-

Life, unfortunately, did not give me a chance to get stronger.

I was out in the middle of the night, two weeks after that heart-to-heart with Amy, and getting groceries from my favorite cheap supermarket when I ran into the Undersiders.

Undersiders who had just robbed Ruby Casino.

Undersiders who were just escaping the ABB gangsters.

Undersiders who, in the middle of the night, ran into me in high alert.

And I, who had been training to the point of learning all of my own martial arts movements and strikes were ingrained into my body as a habit, lashed out in habit at the fast approaching team, just like I had ingrained myself to lash out at the baseballs that I used for training.

My hand lashed out and I struck the lead gigantic dog on the nose, earning myself a "Keh keng!" of a dog screeching in pain.

"Ah."

I f.u.c.k.i.e.d up.

Chapter 3

-VB-

We stared at each other. I stood by myself with an empty beer can between two fingers and two bags of groceries in my left hand and my right hand remained outstretched. The Undersiders looked at me, but it was only Tattletale who saw the beer can in my hand.

"Brutus, kill!" the barely masked butch looking teenager on top of another dog shouted. This had to be Bitch. The dog-monster she was on quickly sped towards me with its mouth open and fangs bared.

"No, wait!" the helmeted villain, who had to be Grue/Brian, shouted at the same time that Lisa did.

I wasted no time, even if my vision was a little blurry and I couldn't quite control all of myself to the fullest. Tossing the empty beer can in my left hand, I slid across the ground and dodged the charging bulldozer of a dog. At the same time, as the dog-monster passed by me, I lashed out sharply and quickly with a single punch at its rider.

The teenger took the hit and tumbled off of her ride, earning a worried whine from the monstrous pet. Said pet quickly turned on me when it saw that its owner was alright, and then growled at me.

Darkness washed over me, and I knew that Grue had decided to fight.

Instead of waiting for them to attack me, I dashed backward. I got out in seconds, only to be engulfed in the four sense muting cloud again. Clicking my tongue in irritation, I opted to not fight them in this state. Visualizing the area I saw from the brief glance I've seen just a moment ago when I initially escaped the black cloud, I ran for the open stretch of road as fast as my legs could carry me, despite my current less than ideal (and slightly buzzed? Definitely buzzed. Maybe more than a little buzzed) state.

I didn't know how many steps I took, but after what felt like fifteen seconds, I was out of the clouds. I twisted around and came to a skidding stop. I swayed a little to my right after stopping.

The Undersiders stood across from me. Bitch was back on whichever dog she'd been on before, and Tattletale looked at me with such profound confusion that I couldn't help but comment on it.

"Cat got your tongue, fox?" I asked. "Let me ask why the hell you guys thought it was a good idea to try and run over someone?" I swayed to my left a little.

"We weren't trying to," Grue replied.

"You're… not a cape?" Tattletale said out loud. "He's drunk…?!"

Regent whistled. "He's not a cape and he's that fast? That's insane," he laughed. "Hey, can we have him on our team?"

"No, we have to run," Grue shot back. He turned back to me. "I'm sorry about one of Bitch's dogs almost running over you. Can we part ways with that?"

I stared at them for a moment. I … didn't actually want to fight them. There was no point to, and if this was the point in the timeline that I thought it was, then I didn't want to stop them either (Ruby Casino theft).

Attacking them here and now would only draw the attention of Coil and the PRT towards me, which were not the attention I wanted on me right now.

Not when I wasn't ready.

"Very well," I said with a huff. "But please keep your literal bitch on the leash more tightly."

Grue nodded, and they sped off. I watched them go before I turned back to where I dropped my groceries, only to gawk as a truck loaded with gunmen rounded the corner and ran over them.

My groceries!

While I lamented over my roadkill groceries, the truck stopped not too far from me and one of the gunmen walked out.

"Oi, crackhead, where did the monster dogs go?!" he shouted at me. When I didn't respond because I was both a little angry and thinking about what exactly I should do to these gangsters (had to be ABB if they were asking for the Undersiders on the night of Ruby Casino's theft, right?), he walked up behind me and pushed me forward with the tip of his gun.

While I wasn't alright with getting Coil and PRT's attention, I wasn't above punishing these gangsters, especially on a new moon night like today that obscured my face.

I spin-kicked, and I'd twisted myself so fast that I barely saw his face begin to change from irritated sneer into open surprise when my left heel struck his left temple. There was a sharp crack, and the momentum of my kick tossed him away like a ragdoll, flying nearly horizontally to the ground and letting go of his gun.

While his friends gawked at the sudden attack, I grabbed the gun - a Glock - through my sleeves and took aim. Though I wasn't experienced with guns, I had the discipline and muscle strength to keep myself steady.

I fired.

Someone died.

I fired again.

Someone else screamed as they held their shoulder.

I fired again.

They began to hide.

I fired off two more shots before I ran for it.

I wasn't bulletproof. Not yet.

They fired back, but in the dark, poorly lit streets of the Docks South (again, why did I come out during the night for groceries?), they didn't hit me. Their bullets struck the road, the brick buildings, and caused more noise than actual results.

With the sound of return fire to cover the sound of my running footsteps, I disappeared between the alleys.

Time to go home and enjoy this beer~!

-VB-

"I did what?"

"You were laying there, on the couch, with blood all over your feet. Someone else's blood."

I stared up at Amy, trying not to think too hard because hangovers are a bitch and I am still reaching for that canon the countertop-

"Oh no, you don't!" she shouted at me before knocking my hand away from the beer can. "Not until you explain the blood!"

"But I don't remember anything…" I whined. "Give me my sip already!" I lunged for it, and even in my dehibilated state, I was still a martial artist. My body twisted under her clumsy and wide strikes, taking no more than a second to cross four yards in an instant.

And then I gleefully stared at the beer can. I reached for it-.

"YOWCH!" I yelped like a kicked puppy before falling on the ground. "W-What the hell, Amy?!"

She stood over me triumphantly. "It doesn't matter if you're faster than me, Alan. I can still knock you out in one go, even if I'm seeing less and less of your body."

"... you make it sound like I'm some kind of a prude to my wife."

"Who would hang out with you?"

"You?"

"..."

She kicked him.

"Ugh! I thought you were supposed to be a hero! To kick a man while he's down…!"

"Shut up, drunk!"

"Pot calls kettle black!"

"I do not go on murder sprees as a drunk!" she paused. "I go on a healing spree!"

"Damn workaholic, give me my beer!"

"Not until we find out who you killed!"

-VB-

Whatever happened, Amy was able to piece some things together. For one, there was a gunfight in the Docks South and there had been at least two ABB casualties known to the police. Of the two, only one had been left at the spot.

And that man had his left temporal bones shattered to pieces, and his brain had been mulched on the other side.

… If I had struck him with my heel at a certain angle, then I could certainly produce similar results; I don't regularly break flat concrete ground with my heel strikes for nothing.

'Ugh, I feel like I'm missing something.'

"So the gun on the scene didn't have any of your fingerprint, so the police is assuming that you, assuming that it was you, were defending yourself."

"And how are you finding all of this out…?"

"I'm their medic. I'm everyone's medic. They tell me things. Old men gossip like old ladies, don't you know?"

"... Now you have me curious. How often do you have to heal PRT and Protectorate, nevermind the physically weaker and less armored police and firefighters?"

She grimaced. "Too many times," she grumbled. "And sometimes, they have the gall, the gall, to wake me up in the middle of the night for things less than nearly fatal," she groaned dramatically. "Can't they just let me sleep? I can't heal well if I'm dozing off every other minute." She shook her head and then looked at me. "So you were probably defending yourself, even if you are technically a Brute," she poked me in the shoulder, which did nothing but just barely dent my skin.

"I don't think I'm bulletproof."

"Doesn't matter to the PRT. Whatever, it's not like I was going to report you," she grumbled.

I perked up. "You weren't?"

If she had said that she was going to report me, then … I don't think I would have done anything, not against Amy anyway. First of all, she was my second, and second, she was my drinking buddy. Besides, what's a few murder between friends?

I grinned. "Really?"

"Yes," she grumbled. "You already convinced me to make a beer tree, so what's a self-defense manslaughter after that? It can't be worse than my power."

My grin dropped. This … was not where I wanted this conversation to go.

Since I "took over" for this Earth's Alan Marris, I have been doing the right thing by Amy. I made her feel comfortable, made her drunk in a safe environment, didn't blame her for not healing more people, and helped loosen her creative side; aside from fulfilling her Conflict Engine's requirements, people needed to be creative to fulfill parts of self-actualization.

AKA even if she used her powers, being creative was what I considered to be the fastest and best way for me to help her be … not the Red Queen.

"Amy, it's not wrong to use your power however you want," I told her slowly. "I keep telling you that your very thought process goes against our culture."

After all, when one worked, they got compensated.

Amy, however, worked without compensation. Perhaps surgeries and healing worth millions of dollars per month yet received nothing. Yeah, she volunteered, but there was a limit. Whenever she was in the mood to let me "try" to convince her, I did try to get her to demand from the hospital some sort of pay. I've even called them (while a little buzzed) to ask why Panacea wasn't getting paid.

She refused and the hospitals said they had no choice.

Why?

Carol.

The Stockholm Syndrome-addled, baggage heavy, and strict to a fault Carol.

I was half tempted to start calling her a Karen, but that particular meme wasn't popular here. Something about elastic capes with s.e.x scandals that I didn't quite understand...

"Don't say it again," she groaned. "I'm not in the mood right now."

I wanted to push the issue, but it was best not to. Amy, if she was anything like Carol, was stubborn like a bull and tenacious like a donkey in heat. If she didn't want to hear about it right now, then she would walk out of my house to not hear about it.

Sighing, I changed the topic. "Still, you're perfectly fine with a murderer for a friend, hmm? I thought your mommy dearest wouldn't like that."

She glared at me. "I am not fine with it," she shot back. "In fact, I'm upset."

"You are? Why?"

She slapped me over the head. "Because you got yourself in a fight or die situation, that's why!"

"... I honestly don't know whether or not to apologize because I don't remember what I did."

"Isn't that what all of the boys say to the girls?"

"... It is."

"Then what do you say?"

"Sorry?"

"I don't hear the sincerity in that apology."

"I'm sorry, Lady Amy."

"Better."

A pause.

Then we both broke out into giggles.

But on the inside, I began to ponder. Amy considered me important enough to look over a critical issue in her black and white worldview. That was a very good thing for me in more than one way.

That made me wonder… Could I get her to consider me as something … more?

But it was a question for another day and another time, because right now was drinking time.