26 (First Part)

Mickey has the name of a conqueror. He is the icon of a terrible economic empire that has had its grim claw on a good portion of the world market during apocryphal times. Beyond the stigma of the name, to say that he possesses a dominating desire is an exaggeration. He has his ambitions, his desires, but the main reason that set his story spinning was.... That he was fat.

Fofo. Fatty. Granny tits. Cholesterolman. Foca. Mr. Belly. Deadly kilos. The dough. Steven Seagal. President Maduro. He was given many nicknames, in the neighborhood, at school, so much humiliation that he decided to order a submachine gun online, willing to go down in history as a killer instead of a clown. But in the week of cooling off before the delivery, Mickey discovered how much he loved wrestling, and began to exercise.

He started exhibitions with his cousins during the summer, in small towns, then uploaded those exhibitions to the internet, and the viral of a near-fatal ladder accident, attracted the attention of the WWE.

He trained, earned his tights, his name. Lion Mouse, fast as a mouse and strong as a lion, a catchy slogan. He got his fame, he fought against The Rock's clone, he held several rounds against the new Rey Misterio, he even surprised the audience with his acrobatics in the last Budokai Tenkaichi. He also lost miserably, Kentaro was too much for him, first time facing a samurai, and even though he knew the tournament rules dictated that the sword be blunt, Kentaro managed to almost break him in two and throw him off the platform.

(Dishonor! Shame!)

How to return to the league after that deplorable spectacle? Lion Mouse was tainted. He needed to polish his skills, come back with a new name that embodied his metamorphosis into a better warrior. He packed his tights and ordered a flight to one of the most dangerous landscapes on the planet: Australia.

He arrived with the intention of confronting slavers and polishing his techniques. For the first month he did well, there was no one to measure up to him when it came to close combat, everyone was left teary-eyed under his fearsome wrenches, before being dispatched with audible crackles to heaven or hell.

(But I fell into temptation.... And now I'm paying the consequences)

Since childhood he always suffered from chocolate allergies. A small drop of that sweet ambrosia on his tongue, would swell his head like a red balloon and lay him on the floor between retches of pain. A harsh cost that made him shudder, for nothing tempted Mickey more than chocolate. So much so that he once considered hiring one of those surgeons from the Principality of Elon to redesign his genetics, but the risks were too high, and in the end he desisted, limiting himself to tasting chocolate very occasionally, mainly in the privacy of his New York apartment, where he can moan and writhe away from the gazes of his fans.

(If the devil wants to seduce, there is no doubt that the form he takes is that of chocolate)

As he traversed the desert on foot, with the sun and the backpack on his back, and the tight black tights brushing against his crotch, it was that he noticed an ice cream stand on the horizon. Free ice cream! the sign said in Jaspanglishinese. A pale, bespectacled, gray-bowed little old lady said to him:

"Good morning, young man. Would you like some ice cream?"

Mickey began to sweat. He drummed his fingers on his legs. His eye twitched. And his glassy gaze was focused on the bowl with three cold scoops that the kind little old lady was holding out to him with both hands. But her undivided attention, her untraceable desire, only gave room for the color brown. So much so that he didn't even notice the skeletons piled up behind the stall.

"A little won't hurt" he said to himself and smiled, knowing it was a vile lie. That he would soon be lying on the ground suffering.

(But don't I deserve it?! Haven't I been training and fighting for a full month now?! wasting my body on this lawless continent, with no place for the weak?!)

He picked up the bowl, took the spoon, and brought a portion to his lips, which closed in slow pleasure. Half a minute, and Mickey was already lying on the floor, writhing, his face turned into a basketball. The allergy acted faster than the toxin expelled by the glands of the beast in the form of an old woman.

Mickey lost consciousness before he saw the mutant creature's retractable teeth break through the earth, forming a corral around him. The rest of the head emerged from the dust, revealing that the little old lady was actually an appendage of something bigger. She did not see when the slavers arrived and fought the desert demon.

When she awoke she was in a cell, on a mission to fight to win her freedom and the love of a woman she doesn't even know.

(I just want my life back)

With that in mind, he raises his hairy hands, and pins his eyes on the back of the man standing between his return to the league.

(Nothing personal, swashbuckler, my fans crave my triumphant return!)

He shakes his fingers, bends his knees, and prepares to pounce. But a twinge in the back of his neck stops him. He trembles as he notices how from his head an insoldable chill spreads.

(And that...?)

Confused, he notices how something gray intrudes into his vision and splits the space between his eyes, right where his nose should be. The steel disappears with a slithering sound, and the whole world is tinged red before collapsing and disappearing.

...

Virgil El Nixx retracts the rapier. He wipes the blade clean, scattering scarlet spray with a single, graceful sweep of his arm. The fighter in front of him collapses. He dispatches him with the naturalness of one who squashes an insect, because to Virgil, everyone there was little more than cockroaches. He, by comparison, is a nobleman, lord of the skies, belonging to one of the eleven great houses of the Principality.

(When all is said and done, the one person I long to bury my rapier in is far, far away, beyond the reach and dreams of any of these filthy little people)

He grits his teeth in a grimace that sours his handsome features. There is no one there worth enough of a damn to disguise his rage. He sees only cannon fodder to sweep up, the first priority on his list being that man with the pilot's warrior, haughty pose, and blue mane.

(I sense a Lancasterian of the purest blood... But which one of all? And why is he fighting here?)

For a moment Virgil thinks of joining his cause and challenging the slave master. It was clear that a man capable of challenging a sea of chainmen with such confidence must have kept an Ace up his sleeve. Perhaps important forces that have his back.

Virgil looks out of the corner of his eye at the sky waiting for an army to appear, waving the blue lion's banner... So far, nothing. The fanfare has to wait, because a grubby dwarf with one less arm and a huge hook, throws himself at him with the impetus of one who wants to take the jackpot.

(How dare you compare your prowess to mine, you drone!)

He shouts in his mind, feeling insulted that someone so ugly would look capable of being his enemy. He deflects the hook's first lunge, and also the second. The opponent, though short, lashes out with a fury that makes up for the size. Despite the outburst, he was slow, predictable. When he pulls back his hook to pounce with a blow in which he applies all the weight of his body, Virgil strides past him. The Nixx is followed by the rapier. Again, blood sprays, and the dwarf's upper and lower halves separate from the abdomen.

(Why is it a requirement of battle to bring such a gruesome scenario?)

He thinks, not at the sight of the dwarf split in two by his own hand, but as he notices the drops of blood soaking his white suit. To his trained eye, it is easy to tell that the suit is a crude imitation, the gold threads of the outline are not real gold, but a very shiny dye that resembles it, and the buttons on the brim of his wide sleeves are machine-stitched, rather than hand-sewn as the best Muskite stylists point out. He wore it to fight, to show off, but they hardly looked better than the rags he was forced to wear during the last year of exile.

(Now I am stained, but not with the blood of the man who stripped me of my pleasures)

Alphonse El Nixx. Remembering that name he curses outwardly, because his inner voice betrays him and tells him that he is talking about someone beautiful. He tightens his grip on his rapier and faces two new enemies, who rush at him with the intention of sweeping him away, but Virgil no longer saw their features, but those of Alphonse...

Short stature, smooth and pure as milk skin, that small nose, those juicy lips, eyes with the pastel tints of a sunset, and a pink hair that goes down in two pigtails over his shoulders, perfect icing for an androgynous being whose presence created discussions about the sex of angels, and made men and women alike doubt. He was nicknamed "The Rose of the Principality" for a reason.

(A rose that never tired of pricking with its vigorous thorn)

How many wives was Alphonse wearing the last time they saw each other - ninety? A hundred? Virgil was impressed how someone with a colossal harem could carve out time to lead the South Asian campaign. But Alphonse was more than capable, because he was not only a pretty face, but also one of the best strategists the Nixx lineage gave birth to in perhaps its entire history.

(So when he pointed his exquisite hand at me, and ordered me to work for him, I was fascinated as well as honored. I imagined glory and fortune, making a name for myself in the fight against the China Republic and its yellow troops. But reality is a far cry from fiction)

Virgil slashes his sword across the face of the nearest Alphonse, who threw his head back in a grimace of surprise and pain. Virgil grins, wants to strike again, to ruin his beauty, but the second Alphonse unloads a mace on him. He dodges and retreats.

(A woman... Another one for the collection. In love! Of course. In love just like the dozen times before. There is no human being in the world who can love so much, and if there is, he would be a mutant)

He remembers the face and figure of the woman who ruined his life. Chinese, of course, teacher, with a couple of essays important enough to get her picked on the welcoming committee.

(A glance this way from him, a smirk from her, double-entendre remarks, a pigtail of interest from my lord, mild resistance from the slut. How foul that game of seduction under the diplomatic table..... I was not surprised to discover that he took her to bed that night!)

Since he had important news about the progress of the Peking campaign, it was his turn to wait seated on the sofa in the living room of the Pent House, hands curled on his knees, head down, the pink curls of his bangs shining with sweat, and cheeks aflame.

On the other side of the double doors at the back, gasps and moans rose from a bed of pleasure as honest as it was carefree. He wanted to hold on, wanted to keep his mind from being taken down the routes he already feared. But it was impossible, the tent in his pants marked his limit, and his imagination took him to the bedroom, to take the place of the yellow one.

Virgil masturbated, seeing himself receiving all the virility of his master. When he finished, and came out of the trance with his hand and shoes splattered with white stains, the emptiness and self-contempt arising from a banal pleasure, took hold of him, to immediately look urgently for a handkerchief with which to clean his mess.

(Son of a bitch!)

It pierced Alphonse's heart with a cut face, entering him through his chest and exiting him through his back.

(Die!)

He draws the blade in one swing of his arm and turns to face the second Alphonse, that one with the mace held high.

(A guard full of holes! Weren't you the best swordsman in the family?! You disappoint me, sir! Die for the second time!)

And in a blink of an eye he runs the tip of the rapier across his belly. Alphonse drops the mace, and seeks to stem with too gentle hands the red tide, prelude to a long hose almost as pink as his hair. He falls with his eyes lost and his guts between his fingers. Virgil smiles with ephemeral satisfaction, as if he had just masturbated. Before his eyes Alphonse's corpse transforms into that of an unrecognizable commoner. His smile fades.

(Why did you leave me to babysit that woman...? You knew how much I longed to earn a name for myself in the war, and at the same time, to stay away from you. But no, you obviously had to reserve in me undeserved trust!)

Guardian of the lord's new wife. An honor, of course, if the lord's wives were not to abound like mushrooms in a quagmire. And with guardian came the responsibility of carrying her shopping, arranging her appointments, escorting her wherever she pleased, answering her questions as if fornicating with a nobleman made her one.

(But fate is capricious. Too easy for me to prepare her destruction. I only needed Alphonse to step away, which didn't take long due to Neo Taiwan's surrender)

He made a call to the Red Guard, violent and nationalist youth, to tip off where the dear reactionary, traitorous teacher will be. When Alphonse returned it was too late, she was found lying on a school platform, dressed only in a heel, her face painted with lipstick, and a wire crown alluding to her new position as princess of heaven. Virgil admitted to himself that even as pale as the corpse she was, there was still beauty in the curvature of her bruised breasts or the contours of her buttocks whipped with bamboo rods until they bled. But the smile faded as he turned his face to Alphonse, wrapped in his scarlet cloak, kneeling before the remains of his wife, Virgil shivered, for the coldness he found in that angel's face, terrified him.

(I really expected an execution.... By his hand, his sword. And before he fell his steel on me, I would have looked him in the eye and confessed everything, my love, his mistake, everything. But obviously such a conclusion would be too ideal. When they captured the members of the red guard, and interrogated them, news of the snitch quickly got out, and soon those suspicions fell on me)

Two weeks of dungeon that ended in exile. Alphonse was not even there at the end to see him off, to spit in his face, or to curse him. That would have been cathartic, because it would show that in spite of everything Alphonse ended up having feelings for him, negative yes, but worse is nothing. And that was just what Alphonse gave him to send him there, to nowhere, to Australia.

(Pure indifference...)

The uneasiness led him to lower his guard, his hand, his sword. When Virgil notices the shadow covering him, he remembers where he is, and turns quickly enough to raise the blade in front of the descending halberd. The heavy metal impacted against the light one with crackling force, fury that replicates itself to his fingers, now numb, his wrist, now cramped, and his arm, now faint under the throb of fatigue and pain. A blow so monstrous that his arm remains inert and unwilling to continue.

The adversary, whom Virgil has no chance to see well, raises the halberd with the intention of hitting him again. Virgil screams and forces his arm back up. The halberd comes down, and when it collides with the rapier, it is not the arm that bursts, but the blade, half of which flies away and buries itself in the skull of one of the other best warriors, who was just about to throw his javelin at Chester's back. But Virgil doesn't even notice the falling javelin, he was too busy feeling his flesh being torn, his bones being broken.