Unconquered Pt. 03

"Thanks," they mumbled.

"Thanks?" Ember chuckled. "You're the one who let me lose my virginity to you."

Chirp snorted. "I know it has to be true, but it's also the silliest thing to imagine that this was your first time." They shook their head, then buried their face against them. "B-But...it was the first time I...other...people, they..." They trailed off. "Girls and boys, they always tried to take my pants off. To...touch me. To find out. You know?"

Ember caressed their head, gently. His fingers found the narrow points of their ears. "Well, that's a dick move," he said, then grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. "Only a total cunt would try and do that." He wiggled his eyebrows more.

Chirp looked up at him. Then they buried their face against his chest, trying to muffle their wave of giggles. The giggles, then, turned to something different – their shoulders shook and he felt the hot drip of moisture on his chest. Ember managed, through a titanic effort, to sit up, cupping Chirp's head. Looking into their eyes, he saw the tears.

"I'm sorry!" he said.

"N-No!" Chirp sniffed, then whimpered as more tears flowed. "T-They're happy tears..."

"Oh..." Ember paused, then kissed their forehead. "I hope that...I..." He paused. "I'll be the best Unconquered I can be. For you, Chirp." He kissed their nose, then. Their mouth. Tasting the salt of their tears. And then, together, they laid in bed. And as they laid there, Ember caressed them.

"S-Say, Chirp," he whispered.

"Mm?"

"How did you incarnate?" Ember asked. "I was chosen when I stood up to Jerin Kah. What about you? How do Lunars get incarnated?"

He felt Chirp stiffen. Then he heard their snore – loud and clear. Ember shook his head with a grin, closing his eyes. Chirp's snore remained loud until he drifted off to sleep as well. And when Ember fell to sleep, Chirp stopped snoring. They sat up, sliding out of Ember's arms. They looked down at him, then whispered.

"You...don't...want to know..."

They looked away. Guilt flared across their face.

They made a move, as if to leave. But then the bond of marriage – supernaturally granted, but guaranteed through nothing more magical than a young boy's earnest attempts to be good – drew Chirp back. They laid against their husband and they watched him sleep until, at last, they joined them.

***

Nex-Ho was the largest city that Ember had ever seen.

Looking at it from above, in the darkness of night, hadn't really communicated to Ember what it would be like. But dropping down from the cloudy Starshrike and landing in an alleyway between two buildings taller than any building he had ever seen before in his life had hammered it home quite effectively. The alleyway itself was strewn with trash, most of it crinkly paper covered in blocks of text – the ink cheap and runny. There were a few...remarkable looking paintings, but on each of the papers, and each painting was the same: A woman with huge tatas and midnight black eyes, with wavy hair. Her muscles were bulging and she had a strange protrusion sticking out of her back, but the angle was poor and Ember couldn't quite see what it was.

"What are all these things?" Ember asked, his glow fading as he picked up one of the crinkly papers.

"Newspapers," June said.

"News...papers..." Ember played with the word in his mouth. "How did some poor scribe make so many of them? Talk about quill cramp."

"They have a machine that makes lots of them using magic," June said, striding to the mouth of the alleyway – a press of people walking past stopped her. "Come on." She said, twitching her tail to indicate they should follow. Chirp hopped out of Ember's pouch and grew to their full size. Ember took their hand and, together, they walked up to June. June paused only to daub a concealment potion over their soulgems, and then they were gone, down the street.

Nex-Ho impressed itself on Ember's brain as they followed after June. A massive throng of people, going in every direction at once. People at stalls, selling cheap food, shouting about their wares. Spires of metal, about six feet tall each, tipped with flames of white light that never dimmed. Glowing signs that looked like they had been carved of lightning and shadow, announcing what they sold in letters and in glowing figures. The number of them that had women with bared breasts, strutting around in time with flaring words, made Ember pretty sure that they weren't exactly what his mom would call 'religious establishments.' And every few alleyways, they passed homeless people: Some of them human, some of them not.

"Prayers, sir?" a wheezy god that was made entirely out of noses and phlegm wobbled out of an alleyway as they walked past. "Prayers for a god, down on his luck-"

June hissed, pulling out a pinch of red powder from her spellpouch. She threw it down and a flare of sparks hissed out of the ground, forcing the god back into the alleyway. "And you will come out no more!" June shouted, making a sign against evil. The god continued to shuffle back – and from the many limbed, many eyed creatures that Ember saw deeper in the alleyway, he was sure there were others. He shook his head.

"Kinda mean, isn't it?" He asked.

"Gods of sickness," June muttered. "Pay them no mind."

They started to move down alleyways then. The dark, twisted, narrow parts of Nex-Ho, where the buildings were smaller and shabbier. Where the lights were dimmer. Where the sound of crying babies could be heard. Where they walked past alleyways where skulking figures eyed them with speculative looks before June hissed at them, flipped them off, and then walked on as if daring them to do anything about it. After what felt like an eternity, they came to a house that was built right next to one of the three rivers that flowed through Nex-Ho. The river itself stank. It stank of sewage and it stank of the corpse that was bobbing in it, floating gently with the stream towards the wall of the city proper. But the house that June approached looked barely better: It had rickety walls of sheet metal and brick, with a door that looked poorly fitted for the frame.

"Is this where the sifu lives?" Ember whispered.

"Yup," June said, her tail flicking.

"Okay..." Ember stepped away from Chirp, then placed his palms together and bowed to them. "How is that, Chirp? Respectful enough?" He paused, then tried bowing even lower. "There!"

"Perfect!" Chirp gave him two thumbs up.

"Yes!" Ember stood, then nodded to June, who was looking at him with the oddest expression on her face. Ember nodded. "Ready to meet the sifu!"

June cocked her head. Shrugged. Then she turned over to the door and hammered on it as hard as she could. "Hey! Fuckup!" She shouted through the thin wood. "Drag yourself out of your stuporous, drug induced haze of perpetual uselessness and open the fucking door for your friend."

Ember gaped at June. He was still gaping when the door opened and the sifu stepped out. He had a scraggly beard that nearly reached down to his hips – which themselves were on display thanks to his mostly naked, loincloth'd status when it came to clothing. His skin was covered with deep liver spots and wrinkles, while his body had the strange mixture of being too skinny in the ribs, shoulders, arms and legs...and a bit too paunchy in the belly. His head was as bald as his beard was long, and his skin was, around the liver spots, the color of a birch tree that had been cut down. His eyes were narrow and green all the way through, without iris or pupil.

"June!" he exclaimed. "You slavering, rapacious whore! What brings you here, run out of virgin nuns to seduce between your blasphemies and sins against the gods?"

"I don't know," June said. "Are you done fucking girls young enough to be your granddaughter, between trips to the street to beg for scraps by dancing for passing fool's amusements?" She cocked her head. "Not that I think you can fuck girls with your tiny pencil dick."

"It is equestrian, I shall have you know," the old man said, then grinned – showing yellowed teeth. "I'd show you, but I'm pretty sure it has teeth down there."

"As if you wouldn't have it bitten off for a shot at me," June said, smirking. Then she stepped forward and swept the old man into a tight hug – a hug that lasted for such a short, fleeting period that Ember wasn't entirely sure that it had happened. She stepped back. "Good to see you, Goat." She jerked her thumb at Ember. "That's the Unconquered, by the way."

The old man eyed Ember, who had one hand up, as if he was about to clasp both, but the other one was hanging in shock. He gaped at the old man. "Uh, hi?" he asked.

"We're completely and totally fucked, aren't we?" the old man snorted. "My name is Goat Who Wrestles. So, Sunboy, you ever fight before you got incarnated?" He stepped forward and started to pace around Ember, his eyes roving up and down his body. Then he stopped as he saw Chirp. His eyes widened. "Ah...you already got your Ruby..." He smirked. "Not exactly a likely looking one. You even kill anyone, girl?"

"Saris!" Ember snapped.

"Sore spot, huh?" Goat scratched his chin. Then, to Ember's shock, he pressed his palms together and bowed to Chirp.

"My apologies, Ruby One," he said, his voice gruff. "You're from the Gyognor Islands – I know you've chosen a hard path to walk. But I respect that." He stood straighter. Well, as straight as he could. Then he snapped his head back to Ember. "Do you even know what the Gyognor Islands are?"

"They're islands, duh," Ember said, his cheeks coloring.

Goat snorted. "You don't even know what kind of treasure you have..." he made a tchs noise – but Ember shook his head.

"That is another place where you're wrong, sifu," he said, locking his eyes on Goat's. Goat looked back, and he did not flinch. Ever so faintly, Ember saw him nod – but the motion was almost lost as Goat flipped his hand dismissively. "Come on. Come inside. I must evaluate you before I even begin to think of possibly imparting some basics to you."

And with that, he stalked inside – grumbling under his breath. Ember glanced at Chirp. They looked more pale than usual, their eyes wide. Ember's brow furrowed, but Chirp shook their head hurriedly and plastered a big smile on their face. It looked false. "Lets go train!" They said, pumping a fist into the air. And before Ember could ask any questions, Chirp had planted their hands on his back and shoved him through the door.

***

The dawn was breaking and June had just barely begun to show the tiniest signs of being tipsy, while Goat slammed down his seventh bottle of the cheapest, nastiest rum that Ember had ever had the misfortune in his life to smell. "And then," Goat said, grinning. "The devils broke through the left flank and there was just me, The Babystar, and that fucking asshole, Brigstalio. Brigs, of course, ran for it the instant the devils got close, but the Babystar at least knew its buisness. It started to lay around itself with Fist as Star Technique – burned half the devils into bubbling glass like that." Goat's palm slapped into the table, causing the glasses to jump. Chirp, who had been nursing a single, heavily watered cup since sitting down, squeaked and clapped their hands over the cup to keep it from spilling.

"Gods, what a shitshow," June said, shaking her head. "And I was on the hill. With that fucking dragon trying to seduce me while we were in the middle of a fucking war." She shook her head.

"Fortunately, I was there to save your life," Goat said, cheerfully as he knocked back his bottle and started to drink.

"Ah yes, it was you who called down the Death of Ten Thousand Butterflies on the left flank," June said, her voice sneering. "It was you who broke the fifth and sixth pike regiments by hitting them at juuust the right time with some sorcery. It was you who didn't spend half the battlefield underneath a devilpig."

"I will have...have you know... "Goat said, his voice very steady – the kind of overly steady tone that people used while being very, very drunk. "That devilpig was, in fact, trying to kill me the entire time."

"You killed it at the start of the battle and it fell on you while Baby did all the real work," June mumbled into her cups.

"Guys?" Ember asked.

Goat and June turned their heads to look at him.

"How much longer do I have to balance on my finger?" Ember asked, his body poised with his feet in the air and all of his weight resting on the index finger of his left hand. "You told me to balance and then, uh, started talking." He gritted his teeth. "Five hours ago."

"Oh," Goat said. "Okay, yeah, I can train him."

With a flick of his finger, Ember sent himself flying up and twisting around. He landed on his feet. "Okay, what do we learn first? Uh..." He mimed a punch. "A death punch! Like a regular punch, but it makes their bones explode or something. Or! No! A thousand fold kicking stance, so I can kick so many times that I can defeat an entire army just with my kicks. Or, or, or, that style where you start to...like...make rocks move and stuff!" He punched at the air. "Woosh! Wham! Earth punching!"

Goat blinked at him slowly, looking faintly shocked.

Ember's cheeks heated, even as Chirp giggled quietly behind their hand. "Right. No. Sorry. I should be more humble. More...restrained." He nodded, hurriedly. "We should begin with, like, practices for blocks. Or throws. Or holds?" His brow furrowed. "Meditating?"

Goat sighed. He started to stand, with a slow, creaking sound. His knees audibly clicked and popped. "You are a rank beginner, Sunboy," he said, his yellowed teeth flashing. "But you are also the Unconquered. This does mean that we're not going to start you off at zero, like we would with most martial artists who came to learn at the foot of Goat Who Wrestles." He nodded, curtly. "But before I teach you, I need you to know...I learned the single most destructive combat style know to the Land. It was taught to us by the Lost Champion: Vengeful Crystal Hawk Style." He lifted his hands, flattening them into blades. "You strike like iron, with muscles of steam, and with a heart of brass. It is a style that has a snatch of demonishness about it – but also of magic older than the Cycles, older than the Sun itself. It's a style that has killed more people by trying to learn it than it has killed in battle...understand?"

Ember gulped and nodded hurriedly. "I understand."

"Do ya?" Goat asked. He slammed his heel into the floor. A green crack shot along the ground, then slammed into Ember's chest. The impact felt wrong. Like his whole body was being rung like a bell. He flew backwards and crashed into the wall. He landed on his knees, groaning, as green flames flickered along his body – and when he looked at his hands, he saw that they had become nut brown. And he had tits. They were faintly familiar too – his hands went to his face. Her face. But before he could really touch himself, the greenish flames faded and he once more was...well, red, and himself.

"What the fuck!?" Ember squeaked.

Goat nodded. "I kicked you, for just a teeny bit, outta this timeline. In another slice of the world..." He made a cutting movement with his palm. "A different person got incarnated. A real fucking looker too – blue eyes, brown skin, knockout tits."

"Korrine?!" Ember yelped. The idea of the easily distracted gay disaster of a village guard becoming the Unconquered as as unlikely as...

Yourself? A snide part of his brain whispered.

Ember shook himself sightly. "Whoa," he said, starting to stand. "I...I understand now. Like, if you can do that with a kick, what could I do with it?"

"Either way more or way less," Goat said, yawning. "The power of the Sun does sometimes squash other kinds of abilities out of you – the Fifth Unconquered never quite managed thamaturgy, despite spending a fuck of a lot of time on it."

"Right..." Ember said.

"Now," Goat said. "Your first lesson is waiting outside."

Ember nodded, then glanced over at Chirp, who was looking at him with concern. He gave his Lunar a thumbs up and then hurried after Goat. Once he was standing outside, under the pale yellow light of the sun, shining down from above them, he started to bubble over with questions: "Okay, so, what's the first step? Practicing a block? Oh! Bowing? I bet its...oh! Maybe it's washing your house? Like, but then, the washing movements I use, they're actually used for a super cool move!"

Goat narrowed his eyes at him. "Sunboy, if I have you cleaning my house, it'll be to clean the fucking house." He drew a deep breath in, snorted, then spat the mucus into the river. "No. As I said, you're the Unconquered. So, we're going to start with something that's on your power level, but still fairly simple."

"Got it," Ember said.

Goat pointed at the river. "Punch that river in half."

***

"Xora, baby! Xora! You need to hit em harder next time, baby!"

Xora sighed as she strode down the corridor leading away from the ring – where she had left her tenth challenger sprawled in a puddle of blood and teeth. Xora's knuckles ached. They ached almost as much as her heart. She hated the feeling of it. The thunk of fist against jaw. The way her enemy's head snapped back. The spray of blood. She just wanted to curl up under a blanket and cry every time. She unwound the bindings around her blue-gray knuckles, her teeth tightening more and more and more as her manager kept talking.

As her owner kept talking.

"Next fight, it's gonna be against a slave we bought from down south," he was saying, his eyes glinting. "A huge buck, real tough. And if you can just...snap his spine in half over your knees...that'd be exactly what I think the crowd wants."

Xora looked away. She sighed, slowly. "Okay," she said, her voice as deep and as gruff and as hateful as ever. Her manager slapped her shoulder and Xora stepped through the door into her changing room. There was a very pretty boy in a collar, lounging on the bed, a bottle of oil in his hands. His hair was blond and his eyes glittered. "Hey babyshark," he crooned – but Xora flipped her fingers, shaking her head.

"Not today, Renaldio," she said, her voice husky and deep.

The slave – the slave her managed her bought for her, because no one would ever touch Xora the Maneater without being paid – shrugged and stood. He walked outside and the door closed, leaving Xora alone, in her room. She sat down and looked at the window, which itself, looked out on the sweep of Nex-Ho. The city gleamed under the growing light of morning. Slowly, Xora reached up and slipped the headband that had been a part of her costume for months now off her forehead. Her finger rubbed the bizarre purple gem that had grown from her forehead.

The day that the fights had become easy.

"What is wrong with me?" Xora whispered. Then, softly, she tried to pitch her voice higher. Tried to sound more feminine. "What is wrong with me?"

It sounded ridiculous.

Xora sagged.

And then, at the other end of the city, an explosion of water shot into the air, high enough to clear the roofs of the taller buildings and the wall itself. Slowly, the water started to drift down – turned to mist by the force of the impact.

Xora gaped. But in the midst of the mist, she could see a humanoid figure. They glowed with a golden light – a glint of movement. As they fell back to earth, vanishing from sight, Xora felt her heart race. She gulped, then looked around the room. Around her cell. She knew what her manager would do if he came to the room and found her missing. Xora looked back at the city. Then she tied her headband on, stood up, grabbed the chair before her dressing table, and hefted it up in the air.