Xtreme Manly Man Force of Intense Badassery: Book One: The Fountain of Testoserone (23 page)

“Well, I’ve never killed a women
before. My mom told me that they crack with a better noise
than-”

“Shut the hell up! That’s sick!” DTO
snaps back at SISY, who is quite surprised by the
outburst.

“What do you mean? What’s the problem
with breaking bones?”

“No! Women! Girls! Ladies! Females! You
can’t kill them. It’s wrong!” DTO says with an intense glare. UDGD
stays silent, noting that the group of women are now very-gradually
moving forward, raising their guards with intense
caution.

“Wait... What?” SISY questions right
before he sharpens his gaze knowingly “... Oh, you’re a sexist,
aren’t you, Dick?” SISY says with a smirk.

“What? No! It’s just evil! Killing
women is evil!”

“It’s not evil, it’s fair. If we were
to spare them, then we would be treating these fine ladies as
inferior warriors, not even worth our time to kill. You wouldn’t
want to hurt their feelings, would you? Everyone deserves a chance
to die honorably,” SISY says with a capable, satisfied
nod.

“Wha-... wha-... Are you insane?! Look
at them! They’re terrified!”

“So were the men we were fighting,
friend. No one likes it when their weakness is pointed out to
them,” SISY says with a smile. DTO is dumbfounded; just what are
children taught in the Crimson Kingdom?

“Well, yeah, but that’s
different.”

“How’s that, friend?” SISY asks as the
women close the distance about halfway.

“Because they’re weaker! Men are
supposed to protect women!”

“Don’t be weird, man. As if you could
just say ‘you can’t fight’ to half the population.”

“No! Women don’t like to fight! Look at
them!”

“They’re just afraid; that’s not their
gender’s fault.”

“But they wouldn’t have a
chance!”

“Let’s see and find out, friend. My
mother was quite the fighter.”

“N-no! Dude! You can’t
just-”

“Hey,” UDGD interrupts, his calm,
bitter chords overpowering DTO’s weak little voicebox. SISY and DTO
turn to the Grim Axeman.

“Yeah?”

“What?!” the two respond.

“I’m going to get these girls to take
us to the boss. Don’t kill ‘em,” UDGD states. DTO and SISY look at
one another, and then back at UDGD.

“Yes! Great idea!” DTO says with an
awkward thumbs up and stars in his eyes. SISY shrugs.

“Yeah... yeah I guess that’s good,” he
responds with a frown. DTO lets out a sigh of relief, and then
inhales quickly again, coming to the realization that UDGD just did
something halfway decent. He didn’t have to spare all of them, but
apparently he’s going to try and protect them from the wrath of
SISY.

The women are now only ten feet away.
The front one raises the edge to best-copy what she’s seen her
father do, and eases forward. UDGD sheathes his axe.

“ENGAGE?”

One of the other girls, well
categorized as a “spiteful bitch,” pushes the front one forward,
right into UDGD’s attacking space. She’d rather have this over
with. The woman at the front, in a daze of confusion thrusts her
sword forward, her blade caught by UDGD’s hand. She squeals in fear
a moment as she expects to have her head ripped off by the brute,
but the Graveman simply pulls the blade from her grip and throws it
aside. There is a pause of hushed tones and relief washing over and
around the keep, but then UDGD raises his hand. With a quick,
dominating smack, UDGD oppressively slaps the girl, no older than
twenty, straight across the face. The other women gasp, and draw
back.

“Stupid bitch. Don’t ya’ ever raise a
sword at me, ya’ hear?” he says with a direct, respectless gaze.
The girl nods readily as tears of both fear and joy stream down her
face. He’s not going to kill her, she realizes. “Good, now you five
are going to get us into the castle, got it?” he adds. She loses
her breath again.

“They’ll kill us,” the girl pushes out
weakly.

“They won’t cuz I’ll kill them first,
got it?” UDGD assures. She wipes the tears from her eyes, and
nods.

“BLOODLESS VICTORY!”

The front girl points to the right side
of the wall inside the fortress complex, leading the three to move
in that direction. As a rush of cussing, booing, and a few cries of
joy exude from around them, UDGD leads them all to the right keep
door.

Inspecting it now, the door, while
painted white like the rest of the complex, is made out of wood,
rather than the heavy metal doors guarding the central keep. SISY,
who did not sheathe his sword, smashes down at the center of the
double doors, splitting them open easily.

The moment the doors swing open, DTO
and UDGD redraw their weapons, spotting several men clamoring for
something to fight with. SISY, feeling a bit cheated for sparing
the women, charges forward to get another helping of
blood.

“ENGAGE!”

Against DTO’s plea to stop, SISY leaps
at the first man, equipped with a broomstick, and throws his giant
blade down into his shoulder, spicketing out blood and leaving his
head twisting off as SISY pulls the sword out. The second one he
catches is armed with a kitchen knife. SISY simply steps back with
a simple downward swing, overpowering the man’s skull with the
weight, and splitting his brains out from his unfortunate skull.
The other men by this time have escaped down a hole, once covered
by a table.

“VICTORY!”

SISY laughs with glee as he wipes his
face with some of the second man’s blood, and then turns to the
front most lady. Quickly overcoming her shock, she points at the
hole.

“That route leads to the main keep,”
she says amidst the other women, a few of them completely checked
out of the violence by the moment SISY gave his first obliterating
swing.

“Thanks,” UDGD says to the girl as he
pushes SISY aside to be the first one down. SISY is quite okay with
going down second, not aware that this is UDGD’s way of keeping him
from killing whomever he finds in the tunnel. DTO sees this, but
instead presumes that UDGD simply wants a piece of the carnage, or
thinks that he should be thought of as the leader.

The group makes their way down the hole
into a lantern-lit tunnel. UDGD can hear the frantic footsteps of
retreaters from deeper in. Naturally, he leads them through, it
being the only available path. It only takes about twenty seconds
of rushing to find the men escaping up the ladder.

“There! They’ll seal it!” the leading
woman says, putting UDGD into action, who is not a big fan of being
suffocated in a tunnel with an idiot, an insane guy, and a bunch of
crying ladies. UDGD leaps forward and with an acrobatic motion
surprisingly rare for him, he grips the ladder upside down and
smashes his heavy black armored boot into the hole the moment
before it was closed. Screams and anger come from above out of the
tunnel as several men attempt to seal it by crushing his foot. UDGD
expresses his disagreement by shoving his axe into the entry way as
well, using it as leverage to push aside the heavy objects used to
seal the hole. SISY quickly joins him with his own blade. After a
few seconds of force, they move the weight aside and leap out of
the tunnel into the main keep. The two of them are instantly met
with more cowering men, this time sealed inside the keep’s entry
way along with the truer warriors. SISY grins, is about to go
forward and kill them all, but is stopped by UDGD.

“What?” he asks with a gaze of honest
curiosity. UDGD sighs.

“Look at them, they obviously don’t
want to fight,” he says as DTO and the ladies make their way up.
SISY rolls his eyes.

“Not you too, Death.”

“Yes, me too. I don’t care about them
all that much, but I’m sure not all of them are that bad, and can
you imagine how much DTO will bitch if you do it to them too?” the
Grim Axeman asks to the Crimson Swordwielder.

“I can hear you!” DTO snaps with a
scowl, clearly overhearing UDGD’s offence. UDGD turns around to
DTO, and locks eyes.

“I know,” UDGD says plainly. DTO rushes
up in anger.

“Then if you knew then why would you
say i-”

“Because I don’t care. I swear, you’re
almost as bitchy as your brother,” UDGD says with a sharp scowl.
DTO scoffs, and stays silent.

“Fair enough, friend, but what if they
attack us from behind?” SISY asks UDGD. UDGD sighs.

“Then we’ll kill them,” he says,
crossing SISY’s face with a smile.

“Awesome! Let’s go!” the tan-skinned
swordsman says as he steps up to the metal doors. “Hmm, this door
looks pretty tough,” SISY notes as he looks over the enormous metal
doors. UDGD sighs again seeing the new obstacle, and turns to one
of the cowering men in the corner.

“Hey,” UDGD asks. After a quick wimper
of fear, one of the men answers.

“Yes?”

“How d’ya’ open the door?”

“Um, they have the keys on the other
side.”

“Shit.”

“Um, actually, they don’t have all of
them,” one of the women interrupts. All eyes turn to her, an older
lass with a smart look about her.

“Eh?” UDGD says, him assuming this is
an acceptable way to say “What do you mean, Madam?”

“I have a set of keys to all the locks,
but you’ll have to get through the barricades yourselves,” she says
as she takes out a heavy iron key from out of her apron and
presents it to UDGD. The Grim Axeman snatches the key from her
hand, and walks up to the door.

“Thanks,” he says simply. The lady,
quite used to constant, careless disrespect, curtsies with a
smile.

“My pleasure,” she says as she steps
away from the now unlocked door. UDGD and SISY step up to the door,
steeling themselves to smash it down. The two large men take
stance, and raise their feet. The mighty warriors smash their metal
boots into the door once, twice, and then a third time, pushing out
the barricade from the other side and splintering the door
inward.

They enter amidst the frantic screaming
of the final soldiers in the keep, most of them already on their
knees the moment they break in.

“Oh gods, don’t kill us!”

“Have mercy! Take the
women!”

“I have so much to live for! Please!”
are a few of the exclamations they are met with upon entry. UDGD
finds no big problem with letting these guys live, and SISY tends
to agree, considering they seem as though they’ve already
surrendered. The man at the end of the hall and up on the
sapphire-colored metal throne, however, has a very different
disposition.

The Group rushes into the throne room.
A bluish-silver dome room with an enormous glass skylight that
takes up the majority of the roof. The light shines down on a
sizable throne with an eight foot man sitting upon it.

“Well, shit. And here I thought I could
let my servants prove their strength by killing you,” the man,
dressed heavily in plate armor even more lavish than the first
warriors, says with a bitter, calm disappointment. The armored
figure covered from head to toe in plating stands up.

“Surrender. You don’t have to die. We
only want to pass through!” DTO offers quickly.

“Hell no we’re not sparing him,” UDGD
says with a scowl, inspiring another smile on SISY’s face. DTO
turns to UDGD with a stare of confusion.

“But why?!”

“Because this dumbass forced a bunch of
defenseless... well, he’s obviously an ass for attacking our giant
tower, so he needs to die so we can leave peacefully,” UDGD
explains as he brandishes his axe. SISY slams his heavy blade
against the ground in excitement.

“Alright! Tell me, leader guy!” SISY
addresses with a vicious, insane scream.

“Yes?” the fully-armored man responds
calmly.

“HAVE YOU TASTED YOUR HEART BEFORE?!”
SISY questions, giving a laugh that proves to be most discomforting
to everyone in the room. The tall figure scoffs.

“No, and I don’t plan to. It seems that
the old saying is true: ‘If you want something done right, you have
to do it yourself.’ I’ll show you children the meaning of a true
warrior. Watch carefully,” the tall, elegant man says as he reaches
for his lance resting at the side of his throne.

Suddenly the Subspace Orchestra breaks
out in a flurry of confusing woodwinds, blowing wildly at every
note and tone. The chorus of instruments is brought to a halt as he
grasps his lance, signifying the great power of his grip. Slowly,
as he raises his lance, the woodwinds again rise, this time in
perfect octavial unification, now accompanied by a chorus of men
and women, solemnly issuing a warning to the three warriors. By the
time the man lifts the lance to its piercing height, the orchestra
flourishes in a dramatic apex, providing a halo of sound over the
man.

The various warriors and servants all
kneel, reassured in the abilities of their leader. UDGD sighs,
hearing the Subspace Orchestra make such a big deal out of this
idiot.

“Suit yerself,” UDGD states with a dark
tone.