Steps

I watched Felix gingerly sit down near Abby, the guy looking like a steamed crab. "Are you okay? Being that red can't be healthy." Oops, he got more red.

Before the red bastard could even speak, his son called out to me. "Silence!" It was less of a call and more like a screech, but whatever.

The loud brat pointed straight at me, rather harshly I might add, and said, "We will fight." At the very least, he's straightforward about his desire.

"I will win." Oh, he's still talking.

"You will die." Ok wow, what a jerk.

"You know…" I started. "You really shouldn't talk about killing me so easily." I stared into his narrowed green eyes. "Unless you're really serious." He squinted in confusion.

"Your words ring hollow, they mean nothing." He snarled.

"Then shut up, and kill me." I sat down in a full lotus, my palm keeping my head up. I looked up at him with very expectant eyes.

"Very well, I will honor the last request of my lesser." Just because you're taller than me does not make you better than me!

As he stepped onto the broken center of the room, he shrugged off his black cloak for some reason, and set it aside. Haah, how clique. Though I wonder why he-holy shit! He's getting even taller!? Easily more than four times my height, but since I'm sitting down that made him even bigger. His muscles rippled and bulged, growing scales and turning his skin green? His human face molding into a more lizard-like shape, with a long snout and sharp teeth that were drooling as well, I couldn't help but look on in curiosity.

I grinned as some of his clothes got ripped off. Now, this is interesting. A giant lizard man? Sounds like fun.

He towered over me, grinning with a murderous grin. I wonder how much he has to eat to keep his size? Does he eat people? He is still drooling…

"Ukeire." I could swear that the Lizard guy twitched a little, looking back at the Chair guy. "You will not fail me." He nodded, face resolute as he did his best to look down at me.

I kinda feel bad for him now… oh well! He wanted to fight me so I'll give him a chance.

"What are you?" He smirked.

"I had the pleasure of obtaining and eating the Lizard-Lizard fruit: Model Megalania! One of the rarest fruits in the world, it's an Ancient Zoan made for the next King of the Saikyō Kingdom!" Spreading his arms wide, he flexed his lizard muscles with pride. I can respect that. Also, does he have 'mega' in that name? That's never a good sign.

Still, I'm invested at this point. "Cool, I wonder if you can hit me?" I would of course die if he could, but that's just part of the fun, isn't it? To live is to suffer, and I like living.

He exhaled through his nostrils, steam practically spewing out of him. Rearing back a giant fist, he launched toward me. His feet broke the ground with each step, killing intent practically radiating off him. I leaned forward with curiosity.

His fist never even touched my head.

Bouncing back like everything else, he tried again only to get rejected at every attempt. His fist turning black didn't help either, besides lasting a second longer until his arm nearly got wrenched off his shoulder by my rejection. His killing intent kept rising, he even started snarling. Despite getting even faster, his arms a blur as they pounded at me. I was unbothered through all of it.

I felt my thoughtful look slowly go away, this was getting boring. Unlike Blue who moved perfectly, too perfectly in my opinion. Liz, (heh) instead fought ferociously, but also desperately. All of his efforts felt wrong somehow like he wasn't fighting me in the right way or something. Then again, Blue's fight felt wrong as well. I sighed, knowing I had to stop this stupid 'fight'. I backhanded the air in front of me, and one of his attacks met my arm. He then cradled a hurt wrist while I stood back up. "Stop it."

Clenching his hurt fist, he glared back at me. "You have no say in-

"I thought you were gonna kill me?" I didn't let him talk, his words were nothing. "Stop trying to kill me," I glared, for once. "And kill me."

He froze, unable to move. I was looking up at him, Liz's eyes were wide open. None of his pride was there. Only an old fear remained. What a weird little brat.

Liz still didn't move, I noticed his head slowly turning around to see his dad before snapping his neck back so fast I thought I heard a crack. This time, he looked determined. Still… something about him felt like shit to me.

My eyes went unfocused on Liz, I instead focused on my thoughts. Liz saw this, his eyes full of hate went even more unhinged. As if that's possible.

"You will acknowledge me!" Liz's throat made some gurgling noises that were mildly disturbing before regurgitating a big ball of clear liquid. Splashing onto me.

Ew…

"Did you just spit on me? Dude, that's gross." Liz looked triumphant. What a weirdo. Who gets proud about spitting on someone?

"That was my venom, you fool! It will soon be absorbed through your skin, your blood pressure will then decrease, paralyzing you in shock before finally dying in a torturously slow fashion!" Liz let out one of those, cliché evil laughs after the villain thinks he's won. Oh, you poor boy.

His venom slid right off me, pooling at my feet while still not touching my black shoes. I looked at him, and he twitched. For the second time today, I couldn't help myself. I laughed my best laugh. I've always been told that my real laugh was scary. And I always thought that since we were all kids at the time, they were being scared for no reason, but when I laughed in front of all of these hardened fighters. I saw a few of them flinch.

I'm not that bad, am I?

OTK

Despite all his newfound dedication, Liz still can't even touch me. I would've respected his stubbornness if it wasn't coming from such a stupid place. Case in point, his eyes kept drifting to his dad whenever he wasn't wailing on me. His lazy bastard of a dad still looked pissed and mildly constipated. How do I know what being constipated is like? Well, funny story I actually tried this new diet once when I was bored and I just could not stop my asshole from-

"I understand now!"

Hey! I was in the middle of reminiscing my weird as hell childhood!

"Be honored you absolute rebel scum! You've forced me to use… this!" He pulled out a flintlock from, again somewhere, and pointed it at me.

His gun is so tiny it's not even funny. Due to his size, he needs to use his claws to pull the trigger. I'll admit I probably should've been more worried about the weird turquoise bullet being shot at me, but I keep distracting myself with how funny it looked.

I really wanted to look cool and catch the bullet as it shot toward me, but it didn't even let me touch it. The weird bullet went flying away from me as soon as I reached for it. The bullet just bounced back to Liz.

I let out a little giggle when the bullet clipped the side of his face, karma I would say. Then I let out a sigh, he really was annoying me at this point. All I want is to beat up his dad for being a jackass. I'm not the most patient of people, I'll say that much,

Before he could spew out some crap about whatever the fuck he was saying before, I rejected the ground beneath me, flying towards him with my palm outstretched. I stopped as soon as my hand met his chest. Then I pushed.

The bottom of the stairs leading up to his dad's stupid chair got a huge Liz-shaped imprint on it. He's probably alive, hopefully.

I put my bored hands in my tired pockets, lifting my dead eyes to stare at that Anaconda or whatever the fuck his name is. "Can I kick your ass yet?"

My question got answered by cheering coming from behind me. As I looked back towards the cheering I was met with the other rebels smiling at me, even if Colton's collar and mouth mask hid his face I could still tell by his eyes. Funny-Name Berk hollered at me. "Not bad ya brat!"

Karyu came up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder, "Thanks." She smiled at me.

This is… nice. I smiled back at her. I like this.

"But," Karyu ruined it by continuing. "It's my turn to fight. You guys are all my responsibility. Can't have all the fighting done by you, now can I?" Her smile got very amused when I frowned at her.

I kept staring at her, feeling a weird pressure coming from her. I stared her down, even more, hoping she looks away first. I stared. And stared, and stared. Until finally I couldn't ignore the urge anymore and I blinked. "Damn it, I lost!" I had the unpleasurable honor of watching an even smugger smile grow on her face, the only consolation being that she also looked confused.

"This is so unfair! Can't I just hit him through a wall at least?" I definitely did not whine to her.

"Nope! Now sit down and take a rest, you've earned it." She looked cheeky as all hell when she walked past me and towards the big chair guy. She said some crap to Abe and I just grumbled while crossing my arms before I sat down on her chair.

This is so bullshit!

OTK

"Great showing." Colton nodded at me.

I only nodded back, still grumpy from my fight being stolen from me.

"Are you still upset at our leader?"

"Yup."

"May I ask why?"

"Sure, whatever."

Colton sat up straight in his chair, eyes never leaving Karyu's and Abzu's confrontation. "Why?"

I slumped in my admittedly comfy chair, my arms still crossed. "I wanted to beat the big chair bastard myself and now she gets to have all the fun! She didn't even fight any of the other guys!" Hopefully, Octa's doing good. I move my eyes to where he's sitting and… yup, he's still slumped over. Poor guy.

Colton nodded once again, his face betraying nothing. Since he was wearing a mask. "She hasn't." He admitted. "Would you like to know why?"

"Meh."

"Very well then, Bastard King Aki, as we love to call him, is a tyrant to this kingdom. You see, it all started when his wife died to an assassination plot of a previous Challenge, one less noble than ours. In his grief, he decimated the challengers. Finding blood to be more seductive than tears, he changed his-

"Sorry, but can you skip to the end. I'm getting kind of bored."

Letting a soft sigh escape him, he summarized the rest of the story. "He became a monster, then another Challenge was declared. Karyu's father was at the head of the charge. He fought valiantly but ultimately-

"Okay, I get it. Why did she go through all this effort to invade the kingdom then?"

Colton's left eye twitched at being interrupted again. Heh, sorry, man. "No matter how strong she is, she cannot take on an entire army and win. He needed allies to take care of the soldiers and trusted friends to be her loyal guard. Her strength needed to be conserved for the final fight."

"Huh, guess that makes sense." Still not going to forgive her until she gives me that feast she promised. I'm starving over here. Maybe a nice hot cake for dessert, then I'd forgive her.

"You two done yapping?" Both Colton and I were shushed by baldie, who still had a name like Berk. Pfft! Gets me every time. "Fight's about to start!"

Taking my eyes off of a smirking Berk, I returned my attention to the two leaders. I swear to whatever god's out there that if she doesn't win, I'm kicking that asshole to the moon.

I'm getting my food, no matter what!