This chapter is mostly brought to you by free time at work. Because Stellaris just updated and oh lord everything is different now! Trade actually has a purpose now! You can literally be a planet!

  Screams in infinite possibilities and predatory organisms combining with Genesis Arcs for some reason.

  Is what I would be saying if the game wasn't broken right now and the bug fixes were being pumped out daily. And why isn't the Wilderness Civic compatible with Catalytics! Oh, and to grow organic ships, they need a special slot to make them get older, for some reason!

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  Blocking Linda's overhead swing was easy enough, metal meeting the bow. I'd done it what easily felt like a dozen times already. Which really said a lot about my life at this point.

  But this time, there was a lot more pressure. I kicked her stomach again, pushing Linda backwards as she scowled.

  "Just surrender already and save both of us the trouble, Linda," I pressed, matching her scowl with one of my own. My eyes narrowed deeply. I knew she wouldn't. Spite was one of her motivating traits. The ASIC could likely be dismantled completely, and she would still keep up the fight. I would find her stubbornness honestly impressive if it weren't for the fact that she was dead set on carrying this torch as far as she could.

  "You really think I'll do that. You've taken everything, I have nothing to lose," Linda growled at me, almost sounding feral. There was a point in my life when I would have found it intimidating. Now?

  I laughed. I couldn't help myself. The only thing I could do was laugh at her. It wasn't even a mean laugh. It was just, one of those laughs. One that formed deep in your gut, and you really couldn't fully explain why you're laughing. Well, I could explain why. It was just.

  "What's so funny you stupid bitch!" Linda's scowl became a full-on snarl, teeth bared at me as I laughed.

  "You really don't get it, do you?" I was still laughing, but there was an undercurrent of danger to it. "You keep saying over and over again that you have nothing to lose. Which isn't true, by the way, but that's not why I'm laughing."

  Linda's expression didn't lose its hostility, but it picked up a hint of confusion.

  "Have you ever considered, for even a single moment, that the reason you've never been able to beat me is because I have everything to lose?" I used the moment of confusion to close the range, taking the initiative as I swung my bow around like a club.

  That was the thing about Linda and I. Spite? Anger? Keeping going on shear willingness to screw over someone else simply for being able to do so and flip them off as you left? I got that. I was that. Being just as much of a spiteful little shit that Linda oh so frequently was? I could be that. That was part of what kept me going over these past few years. The difference was that if Linda fails, she gets arrested, sentenced, possibly breaking out before that, and then we are right back to square one. I fail?

  Then people died. A lot of people died. If I failed, then in the long run, I'd lose everything. The people who put their faith in me. The people who trusted me to keep them safe. Every single person in Leanbox would suffer if I failed. There would be no exceptions. The country I led and the people who made up its population? Everything was on the table. Failure meant I lost every, single, little, thing.

  Linda had nothing to lose.

  I. Had. EVERYTHING!

  Linda danced around the swing with a grimace.

  "You should be exhausted after that fireworks show! You can't even transform right now!" Linda ground out, using her pipe to block the second swing with a crack. She wasn't wrong. I still felt exhausted. Nowhere near as much as I had before, but to say I was winded would be an understatement. I wasn't running on fumes, but I was closer than I would like.

  But as I said, I had everything to lose. If I had everything to lose, then I couldn't afford to lose!

  I scowl, keeping up the offensive pressure. Each heavy swing was largely dodged or blocked, but even in my state, the blocks left Linda's arms rattling.

  "You honestly think I need that old hat trick at this point?" I rumble, faint embers giving me just a little bit more strength to keep fighting.

  Linda let out a shout of rage, lunging at me again, putting me on the back foot.

  "What do you know about losing anything!" Her shriek of rage was nearly deafening as she rained down attack after attack in a near frenzy. "You've lived nothing but a short life in an ivory tower!"

  More than a few managed to man their way through my guard, certain to leave bruises in their wake. But that didn't stop a cruel grin from forming on my face. One swing came in at an angle, allowing me to catch the hook of the pipe with my bow.

  Linda grinned in that moment, preparing to pull in an attempt to disarm me.

  I beat her to the punch, yanking on my bow, causing Linda to stumble, off balance as I kicked her in the ribs hard.

  "What do I know about loss? You really want to claim that! You say I know nothing about you, but it damn well shows that you know jack shit about me!" I shouted back as Linda stood back up with a hiss of pain. My next swing, I didn't even bother with the bow. I just punched Linda square in the face.

  "I lost everything! My home! My family! My friends!" Both our weapons were abandoned now as I continued to swing, Linda using her arms to guard and try to strike back at me in retaliation. It wasn't working. "I'm never going to get to see any of them again! Ever! And the worst part is, there's nobody to blame! Not you! Not Arfoire! Not your damn, stupid cult that's been a pain in my ass!"

  Linda blind sided me with a blow to my nose, causing my head to crack backward, blood already leaking out. Taking advantage, Linda pounced at me, snarling like an animal as her hands went for my throat. I grabbed her arms, spinning and throwing her before she could stabilize herself. The crash that came as she hit the ground was music to my ears. To her credit, she sprang back up quickly, throwing a punch that hit my stomach.

  Only for my haymaker punch straight into her jaw, wiping away the smirk that had grown on her face. Linda staggered from the blow, as I grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her in as my elbow collided with the side of her head. Her punch to my ear was enough to make me let go, even as she let out a yelp of pain from the blow as well, shaking her hand.

  "What's your head make out!"

  Crunch

  "You bitch!" Linda snarled, staggering backwards. I shrugged. She'd already broken my nose, so it was only fair that I return the favor. "So that's what this is about? Just taking your anger out on everyone else around you? At least I have someone to blame for ruining my life!"

  Each blow felt like a sledgehammer as I blocked Linda's strikes with my arms. I was going to be a bruise after this.

  "Yourself?" I connected with her jaw with an open palm, ducking under a swing. Linda growled, trying to hammer in with an overhead strike as I put my second fist into her stomach. "You've always been your worst enemy, Linda. You're the one who kept doubling down. You can't blame me for the choices you oh so willingly chose to make!"

  She didn't like it because it was so true. At any point when she was under arrest, she could have flipped. Taking the punishment for a few months to a year or two with a reduced sentence, not even accounting for parole? Linda could have done that at any point during her various stages of arrest. But she never did. Just double down on every single little thing.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  At the end of the day, Linda was the worst-case scenario. The overwhelming majority of the ASIC were, at the end of the day, desperate people in economic hard times trying to make ends meet. Yes, was there some need for punishment, because at the end of the day, they joined a criminal, terrorist cult? Yes, yes, there would have to be. But avoiding too harsh of a punishment was the ideal to aim for.

  The problem was, you'd end up with true believers. And even if the true believers were outnumbered by simply desperate people? True believers were a massive problem. Because unlike the desperate, they fully believed the mission, either because they were so completely broken or because they were just completely mad. Or lord knows, whatever other reason they fell in that deep with such an organization.

  "Just surrender already," I ground out. "You'll get to go back to your cell, where you can get sentenced for whatever a judge thinks is appropriate for you to serve. And if we fail, then you get to die just like everyone else."

  I didn't exactly favor Linda's chances of getting a light or even reduced sentience by this point. The number of jailbreaks she'd taken part in was staggering, as was the rest of her criminal record. It was straight up getting close to passing for a short novel in length. And all the jailbreaks were going to do nothing but make things so much worse than they already were. Even if Linda was in her early twenties at the absolute oldest, she'd done far too much by this point that many judges wouldn't want to be too lenient with her.

  "Piss off!" Linda snarled back at me, throwing another flurry of punches, her knuckles starting to bleed, though it wasn't like mine were in much better shape. "I'm going to kill you! Leave a nice little corpse!"

  My next hit breaks her nose even more than it already was, blood oozing out of it.

  "You want to kill me? For what? For you ending up with an embarrassing nickname!" I didn't let Linda respond, throwing a follow-up into her chest. "The fact that you act like that is the damn worst thing I could have ever done to you is pathetic! You and the ASIC are trying to destroy the world! And for what? You sure aren't benefiting anymore from this as anyone else!"

  Why was this so hard for some people to get! Why was this so difficult to understand! The ASIC wanted to end the world! By this point, it was beyond impossible to deny thing stimple fact of reality. The ASIC would ruin everything, just for, what? Nihilism? The demands of a mad Goddess that was more Satan and a force of nature than anything else? All that would be left at the end was a dead world, or one that wished it were dead.

  "All for what? Whatever was going on in your life, you still chose this! Over and over again!" My blood was beginning to boil, almost spilling over. "For what? Someone looking down on you? Not like the ASIC did that anyway! Oh, wait, they did!"

  Linda's fist cracked against my forehead with enough force to make me stagger back, ears ringing as Linda spent the briefest of moments nursing her knuckles.

  "Fuck off and fuck you!" Normally, I would be cheeky, taunt and tease her like I'd done countless times before. Continue riling her up and stirring the pot. I knocked aside her blow, a handful of old memories, forgotten in what was more than half a decade of time resurfacing to the front of my mind.

  "No, you fuck off! You can't keep blaming me for your stupid actions! It's not my fault that Arfoire wants to end the world!

  BAM!

  "It's not my fault you ended up with a stupid nickname!"

  BAM!

  "It's not my fault that the ASIC!"

  BAM!

  "Kidnapped!"

  BAM!

  "My!"

  BAM!

  "SISTER!"

  At those final words, something inside me broke. No, not broke. Realigned itself. My final punch sent Linda flying, her collapsing to the ground in a heap. Not like I was much better. My head was pounding, my brain battering against the skeletal prison, as my eye felt as if it was beginning to swell up. And the less I said about the dismal state of my nose, the better.

  Was she breathing after that? A brief look revealed that her chest was rising and full, and a soft mumble of pain coming off her lips. Okay, Linda was alive. That was good news, at least. I didn't want her dead.

  Just needed to handcuff her somewhere so Linda wouldn't escape again, then I was going to nap. Again.

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  Explaining everything that had happened was interesting. Vert was busy fretting over everything, which was understandable given that Linda had tried to murc me in my sleep. Yeah, another point of trauma to unravel. A non-zero amount of money was going to be heading to pay for my therapy after this.

  Compa, bless her heart, was going over to make sure I was okay physically. So far, the only good news was that I didn't have a concussion or any broken bones. I wasn't looking at any stitches either, but that could certainly change in the near future. The way it hurt to breathe was probably a sign of Linda managing to crack a rib.

  I felt like a giant bruise, yes, but beyond all the aches and pains I felt. Tired. But at the same time, I also felt relieved. Like something had slid into its proper place.

  Good news was that we at least had some idea of how to hurt Arfoire permanently this time. Hopefully, we'd be able to deal with her for good this time.

  "I think your lips are going to need stitches. They're still bleeding pretty badly," Compa commented, going towards her bag. Oh, this was going to suck!

  Still worth it, though.

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  I know the saying was, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. The problem was.

  I wasn't good at imitating Romans. Real ones or thought experiment ones. Histoire was right that we needed to relax overall. Everyone else had a time of it in the dungeon while Linda and I were beating the stuffing out of one another. But a hot spring?

  I was from the US. To my knowledge, the closest thing we had to a traditional Japanese hot spring was the public pool. Which, at the end of the day, were drastically different animals. It wasn't that I had body issues or anything. It was just.

  "You're really that shy?" Vert was sitting next to me, wearing a towel, much like everyone else was wearing. Of course, I was trying to avoid blushing like an idiot out of my sense of modesty. Yes, it was a sense of modesty that had received at least one kick from a horse, but I still had it. It wasn't like I wasn't aware of how like looked, either. If I were back in high school, I'd probably be turning heads with ease.

  "I, didn't have stuff like these where I'm from," I pouted slightly, knowing that Vert was trying to help me unwind. To just breathe and enjoy the moment. "Even before I looked like this."

  "It'll be fine," Vert pulled me up slowly, more guiding me than forcing my body to stand. "Nobody will look at you any more than anyone else."

  I let Vert pull me along, knowing that wasn't going to be true in the slightest, and the noise from everyone else partying grew louder and louder with each step. As I stepped into the steamy, open air, I, didn't notice much.

  Well, maybe besides one or two double takes aimed my way. Well, someone was staring at me, but that was it. I let myself sink into the water, letting the heat absorb into my dull, aching body.

  Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

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  Alright, Story is now caught up. Chapter 40 is just about done, so I should have Verdant Green finished by the end of the month.