Anger Management

(Author's Note:

THERE! I WROTE THE FUCKING CHAPTER! IT'S DONE! THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!

On a more serious note, I'm glad that I was able to rewrite the chapter within a single day. To those of you who are just tuning in and didn't see my delayed chapter statement that I deleted before posting this new chapter, I had to re-write more than half of this chapter because Microsoft OneDrive (Which I didn't even know I was freaking using) is an utter piece of trash and didn't save my hours of writing despite me clicking the save button multiple times and saving the document locally.

In other news: I've seen a few mentioning's about about the genderbending in the last two chapters. One reviewer even stated that I should put a tag on his story for genderbent characters instead of just having it in the synopsis.

Well, guess what buttercup? THERE IS NO GENDERBEND TAG. I searched for it forever, and the system won't allow me to add the tag on my own. I can only mark the story using tags provided by Webnovel.

In short: Suck It Up

And to those who are wondering why I'm being so abrasive right now: you must not have been around to read the rant I made yesterday about the deletion of my work on my computer

Anyway...ON WITH THE STORY!)

***

<On the way to Iliasport>

Even days after the events that took place in the forest surrounding Enrika, Kevin still hadn't completely recovered from the experience. On the outside, nobody would truly be able to tell that anything changed about his bored and sarcastic demeaner, but if one were to look inside his head, they would see an argument taking place.

'Are you completely certain that I can't get rid of my Sylveon evolution?' he mentally asked for what had to be the millionth time.

[The Eeveelution System is not sophisticated enough to include an Evolution Removal function.]

If the System had the ability to have independent thoughts, it would be incredibly annoyed. It had repeated this statement well over a hundred times at this point, and Kevin still wasn't willing to give up on his pursuit.

'What about deleting the memories of my actions in that form?'

[The Eeveelution System is not sophisticated enough to include a Memory Erasure function.]

'An adjustment to the personality?'

[The Eeveelution System is not sophisticated enough to include a Personality Reassignment function]

The frustration and desperation were building up so much inside the teenager that he felt he might scream out loud. 'Are you "sophisticated enough' to do anything useful!?' he mentally shouted.

The fact that he practically took 1d6 of damage every time he remembered even a second of his time as a magical girl was driving him insane.

Alice had obviously noticed the way he kept twitching and shivering at random intervals, or when she intentionally brought up the words "friendship" and "love." To say she was enjoying taking revenge for him poking fun at her fear of ghosts would be an understatement.

***

<Flashback – Four Hours after leaving Enrika>

Kevin was staring down at the smoking body of an unconscious monster girl. This one was classified by the System as a Leech Girl, with the upper body of a naked woman and a giant leech in place of her legs. He was starting to notice a trend with the insectoid monsters having the torso, head, and arms of a human but the lower body of a bug.

His normal method of setting Bug Types on fire wouldn't work on this one, as she was a mixture of Bug and Water Type, so he'd had to settle for frying her with a few thousand volts of electricity. As she slowly shrank into a sealed state, he started to wonder if he would ever encounter a true challenge in this world.

Alice reappeared beside him shortly after the monster lost consciousness, as usual. This time, however, instead of her usual neutral expression, her lips were curled into a mischievous smirk. "So you used lightning on this one?" she asked.

The Eevee, not turning around to see her devious expression, replied nonchalantly. "Yeah. She was classified as both Bug and Water Type, so Electric powers were the only ones I had that would be super effective."

"Hm…" Alice hummed, as if thinking over his statement. "Although it worked, I think your decision making skills could use some improvement."

"Oh? How so?"

"I just think that there was another element that could've worked better in that battle," she shrugged.

"What other element could've possibly helped here?" he asked, turning around –

– only to see her grinning maliciously. "I thought that the power of Friendship would help you here, but that might be a matter of opinion."

She had to hold herself back from breaking down laughing at the twitching of his eye and the glob of blood he coughed up out of nowhere.

***

<Back to the present…>

As Alice was reminiscing over the potshots she'd taken at him over the last few days, Kevin was finally getting a different response from the System.

[The Eeveelution System is capable of submitting an Update Request to the Being, which can include some of The Host's suggestions.]

While that sounded like good news, the fact that the Being was involved triggered a sense of caution in the teenager. 'What's the likelihood of him actually listening to my requests?'

[There is a 5% probability that the Being will grant your desires with no strings attached. There is also a 50% chance is that the Being will grant your desire, but also include equal and opposite disadvantages in the update to keep everything balanced.]

To be honest, Kevin was expecting things to be a lot worse. According to the system, there was a 55% chance for his request to be granted, and the vast majority of that was likely to come with some kind of catch. Unfortunately, he was just desperate enough to accept those odds and go along with it. 'Submit the request, then.'

[Submitting Update Request]

[Estimated waiting time for update to be developed: 3 days]

Kevin sighed out loud. "It's better than nothing," he mumbled.

"What is?" Alice asked, her monster hearing picking up his voice.

Instead of answering, the boy looked at her with no small amount of disdain. It had only been a few hours since his last monster encounter, which had been a Rafflesia Girl, and the Monster Lord's subsequent mentioning of the powers of his Sylveon form…again. It usually took a lot to make him angry – aside from his food trigger, obviously – but she was getting dangerously close to making him register her as an enemy and turn his powers on her.

For now, though, he decided that the silent treatment would suffice. 'I wonder if she realizes that the more she needles me with this, the more violent I am with the monsters we encounter,' he idly wondered, before turning his attention back to the road.

The lamia actually had noticed this, and was starting to worry that he would actually disable his sealing abilities and just kill one of them to spite her. He was already to the point where he refused to speak to her, after all, and the amount of time he took to freeze the Rafflesia girl proved that he would likely reach a breaking point soon.

She was about to speak up again when yet another monster entered her field of perception. Sending up a quick prayer to the first that Kevin wouldn't brutalize this one too badly, she proceeded to vanish.

As usual, the Eevee boy was quick to notice that his companion disappeared, so he knew that another crazed rapist was coming up. It was just in time, too, as his argument with the system had increased his frustration and anger to the point where if he didn't hurt something, he would probably explode.

That wasn't an exaggeration, either. He'd been eyeing up the [Self-Destruct] move for over a day now, tempted to use it to teach Alice a lesson. It might incapacitate him for a period of time, but the power behind it might just take out a chunk of her body, so he'd count that as a win.

When he finally spotted the monster girl on the side of the road, he was more than a little disgusted. The only human parts of her were the typical large-breasted upper torso, shoulders, and a woman's head with long purple hair. Below the boobs aw a pillar of green and red flesh with multiple tentacles coming out of it. The only upside was that she didn't have legs and appeared to be rooted in the ground, so she needed to wait for him to get closer to attack.

[Roper Girl]

[Type: Bug]

"Hm?" the monster said, turning to look at whoever was approaching her. Her expression turned lewd as she licked her lips. "It's been a long time since I last had a delicious treat!"

What she didn't expect was for the boy to stop and give her a look completely devoid of amusement. "I'm only going to say this once," Kevin said, barely holding himself back. "If you don't just let me pass by, I will not hesitate to subject you to pain on a level that you can't possibly comprehend."

To most sane people, a person saying that to them while staring at them with dead eyes would raise all kinds of red flags in their heads. This Roper Girl was a wild monster, though, and didn't have enough common sense to see the danger.

"Don't be like that, little boy," she purred, waving her tentacles in what she assumed was a seductive way. "Don't you want to feel good? Just let me wring all of those delicious juices out of you and eat you."

It was obvious to the teenager that this creature wasn't going to let him pass without a fight. Instead of holding himself back anymore and trying to reason with her, he immediately triggered the transformation into his Flareon form.

Near instantly, the silent anger he'd been feeling for the last few hours turned into a burning inferno. His lips curled into a snarl as his blank expression morphed into one of pure rage, and it was directed toward the only living being in the area who he could vent his frustrations on.

Before she could fully register the transformation, Kevin raised both of his hands toward her and silently activated the Move [Will-O-Wisp].

[Will-O-Wisp – Fire Type Move]

[Description: The user shoots a sinister flame at the target to inflict a burn.]

Four ghostly wisps of fire shot out of his hands and homed in on the legless monster girl. She was unable to react quickly enough to shiel herself as they came into contact with her body, leaving third-degree burns on her torso and tentacles. Every movement caused her pain, now, and it was about to get even worse.

Another wordless attack was launched at her as her mind was distracted by the agony of the burn. A punch coated in fire collided with her unprotected face, causing a loud cracking sound to echo through forest as her jaw was broken and a burn shaped like a fist remained on her cheek.

[Fire Punch – Fire Type Move]

[Description: The target is punched with a fiery fist. This may also leave the target with a burn.]

From her hiding spot in the distance, Alice decided that it was in her best interest, and the best interest of every monster they would come into contact with in the near future, for her to stop bringing up Kevin's Sylveon form. Watching him slowly incinerate the poor roper's hair down the scalp while simultaneously burning every movable part of her body proved to the Monster Lord that he was closer to just offing one of her cute subjects than she previously thought.

It was ten minutes later when the enraged Flareon determined that the monster had suffered enough. He placed his hands on either side of her head and, with one last brutal movement, snapped it around backwards. Within moments, the roper girl shrank and was sealed into the form of a regular roper, only at the size of a finger.

Alice reappeared behind Kevin as she usually did, but this time she was bit put off by the fact that the teenager immediately turned to glare at her. The look in his eyes dared her to make a comment about how he took out the monster girl, begging for a reason to turn his wrath toward her. She wisely stayed silent.

Upon confirming that her mouth would remain shut, the Flareon proceeded to storm off in the direction of Iliasport, not bothering to drop his transformation. In fact, he decided that he wouldn't change back until his rage cooled down.

Needless to say, that wouldn't happen any time soon.

***

<Iliasport>

It took the duo about five more hours to reach the port town. It was only shortly before they spotted the outer buildings when Kevin determined that he was calm enough to shift back to his Eevee form, upon which the tenseness of the silence between him and Alice seemed to dissipate. It was quiet, but it was the normal silence that they were both used to when it came to one another. Instead of one being angry at the other, this silence signified that they just didn't have anything to talk about.

The town of Iliasport itself both was and wasn't what the teenager expected. It matched Iliaburg in architecture and the quality of its roads. Numerous stores were open on the streets, with a few outdoor stands set up. The docks could be seen in the distance with a multitude of boats tied to them, just waiting to set off on their next excursion.

What made both him and Alice pause, though, was the sheer lack of people around. Sure, there were the owners of the shops and stalls, the sailors sitting around the docks, and the occasional resident going about their daily business, but that was it. The usual crowds and sounds one would associate with what should have been a major trading hub were completely absent.

"For a port tow, it isn't very lively," Alice commented as she looked around.

Kevin nodded. "No kidding. This place is one step away from being a ghost town."

Their conversation was interrupted by a nearby shopkeeper speaking up. "Of course, it's deserted. Since last year, nobody has made a round trip to the Sentora continent."

'I didn't say the word 'deserted,' but I'm gonna chalk this one up to scripted lines,' the Eevee thought idly. "I'm guessing that there's a good reason for that?"

"There's a horrible storm," the man replied. "Every time a ship leaves the coast, it's hit by a huge storm."

"…Every time?"

"Yes, every time. No matter how clear it looks, as soon as a ship sets out it starts storming," the shopkeeper nodded.

If Kevin were back in his old world, he either wouldn't believe that such a thing was possible, or joked about how some had angered a god of the sea. In this world, though, where magic existed and there were creatures more powerful than any human could imagine becoming, there was only one explanation for the consistent changes in the weather.

As if the confirm his suspicions, the shopkeeper continued. "As rumors go, it's the work of monsters. They're harassing us or something. I don't really know." With that said, he went back to manning his counter and waiting for customers that likely would never arrive.

"Hmm…I see," Alice hummed, bobbing her head in understanding.

"I'm guessing that you know what's going on?" Kevin asked.

She nodded again. "Mmm…A little."

"…"

"…"

"Are you going to share it with the rest of the class?" he asked sarcastically.

Alice hummed. "I can't speak too much about it –"

"*cough* bullshit *cough.*"

" – but I can say that a strong monster is blocking the ships from crossing. Their goal is to block the pilgrims from making it to the Ilias Temple," the Lamia concluded.

"Hmm…" Kevin hummed. "I can definitely see the appeal in keeping the religious morons from getting baptized."

Alice raised an eyebrow at him. "That's all you have to say about it? I thought you'd be upset that the only way off this continent for you is no longer a viable option."

"Eh," he shrugged, idly looking into one of the store windows as they passed. "It's not that big of a deal. If push comes to shove, I could just swim to the Sentora continent. Maybe even [Surf] if I feel up to it."

If literally anyone else, bar an aquatic monster, had said that to her, she would've laughed in their face. There were literally hundreds of miles of ocean separating Ilias Continent from the Sentora Continent, and even most monsters capable of flying would see the journey as too far. However, Alice knew enough about her travel companion to believe that at least one of his 'evolutions' could probably do as he says without any issues. Many impossibilities were rendered null and void by his existence.

"There's another way, my Hero!" a voice Kevin was hoping that he'd never hear again called out.

From an alleyway just a few yards away came…Amira. She stood in their way, posed with her feet spread out, her upper snake torso bent over, and her head staring at them from between her legs.

"I am Amira, an Unfortunate Lamia!" the abomination exclaimed. "A snake swaying in the breeze!"

The Eevee let out a loud sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why are you here, Amira?"

"I am Amira, a snake that travels! In short, a Snavel. I follow my darling, and sometimes go ahead of him to welcome him," she proclaimed proudly.

"…"

"…"

"Alice."

"Yes, Kevin?"

"Does the permission you gave me to kill this thing still stand?"

"Considering the fact that she hasn't given me a single reason to take it back…yes. Yes, it does."

"Good," Kevin nodded.

"Wait, darling!" Amira continued, her voice displaying how unconcerned she actually was with their decision to murder her. "I'm not just an annoying character. For my darling, I collected information from the "sort of" illegal information shop."

That got both of their attention. "Very well," Alice said. "We'll listen only to that."

"Quiet you!" Amira hissed at her.

"What!? You –!"

It would be a lie to say that Kevin wasn't enjoying the sight of the Monster Lord trying to hold herself back from killing the aberration herself. However, he remembered the conclusion that he had come to before that she was a special character meant to give exposition, so offing her would be next to impossible. This wasn't a world made by Fromsoftware, after all.

"Please, just say whatever you have to so we can leave you," he groaned.

Turning back to him, Amira continued. "For my darling, I'll tell him anything! My three sizes –"

"Finished that sentence and I'll test how far I can throw you into the ocean."

"Alright then! From what I've gathered… If you go out of the town and head east a ways, you will come across a cave. In there lies the treasure of the legendary pirate Captain Selene."

"…you say that as if I'm supposed to know who that is," Kevin deadpanned.

Alice spoke up. "She was a famous pirate about a hundred years ago who traveled all over the seas," she provided.

"In that treasure trove seems to be the legendary Poseidon's Bell," Amira continued. "If you carry that bell, no matter how the sea rages, your ship won't sink. But the cave is a monster's den. Many adventurers have attempted to claim Selene's treasure. Most that went looking never returned. Kyaa! Amira is scared!"

That loud feminine squeal was the last straw for the Eevee. As he continued to blankly stare at her, his left arm started to smoke with flames popping up along it, while his right arm was coated in a layer of frost.

It was at that moment that Amira remembered that while she was an immortal plot device, both in the game and in this story, she was not immune to pain. The original protagonist may have been able to restrain himself from maiming her due to his strong morals and beliefs, but Kevin didn't have either of those holding him back.

Seeing her doom rapidly approaching, she determined it would be best to end this interaction here. "Amira's happy embarrassing information session ends here! I shall leave with the breeze!" She then crawled back into the alleyway as quickly as physically possible.

It took a few seconds for Kevin to calm down enough to dispel the flames and ice from his arms, but when he did, he let out a sigh. He'd been planning to just use his Vaporeon form to swim all the way to the Sentora continent, but the information provided by Amira reminded him of something.

'System?' he thought.

[Yes, Host.]

'If I remember correctly, you told me that new forms could be unlocked by absorbing the Elemental Energies of magical objects, right?'

[The Host is correct.]

'…what are the odds that Poseidon's Bell has an Element that I don't?'

[The System calculates that there is a 50% probability of the object Poseidon's Bell containing Elemental Energy that the Host does not have access to yet.]

At that, Kevin audibly groaned. Unfortunately, that was a chance he'd be willing to take. "Come on, Alice. Let's head to the cave."

Said Lamia raised an eyebrow at him as she followed by his side. "I thought you said you didn't need a boat?"

"I don't," he admitted. "But something tells me that I may be able to get a power-up from that bell. Something like what happened with Angel Halo."

That was…slightly unnerving to the Monster Lord. Kevin was already strong enough with the forms he'd shown so far. Did he really need another? Well, regardless of her personal thoughts, it wasn't her decision to make. This was Kevin's adventure; she was just following him around.

As they walked from one end of the town the other, they overheard a few random parts of the citizens' conversations.

"They say there's a cave of treasure to the east. Full of gold and silver, enough to live in comfort for the rest of your life. Now it's a monster's den. That guy went to look for treasure, but he hasn't come back yet. I'm sorry bro," a man down by the docks stated.

"Furthest from the Ilias Temple, the monsters around here are the strongest on the continent. The further north you go, the stronger they will get until you reach the Monster Lord's castle," a soldier explained to another.

'Because that monster wouldn't let the ship pass, my father's store closed down. Are the monsters so happy in tormenting us?" A little boy sitting outside a closed shop sulked.

By far, though, the most interesting interaction was that which came after a young sailor made a comment. "I saw a little fox earlier in the port. I didn't think they would be out of the countryside like that."

Upon hearing this, Alice turned to look at Kevin. "Let's find the fox and eat it," she stated, her expression showing that she was completely serious.

Kevin chuckled lightly. "Not a fan of foxes, are you?"

"Let me put it this way," she said, looking particularly irritated by whatever memory was being pulled up in her mind. "You are the most tolerable foxlike creature I've ever encountered in my entire life."

That definitely put things into perspective. After all, Kevin knew that his personality could be described as incredibly irritating and abrasive to most people. He also took note of the fact that from the lamia's words, she had a lot of experience with fox monsters. Were they so common for her to encounter them enough to develop a hatred for them? He wondered how many he'd run into in the future.

If only he knew.

***

<Treasure Cave – the Next Morning>

It had only taken them about half an hour to stock up on food before they left Iliasport in search of the cave. The food itself was a bit lackluster, considering the lack of trade going through the ports, but they were lucky enough that Kevin's cooking skills could add a bit of flavor to balance everything out. Otherwise, Alice would've complained so much more.

It took them longer than they had expected to reach their destination, but they had finally come upon the large entrance to the cave. From what Kevin could see, the walls further in were smoothed just enough to appear uniform, while simultaneously maintaining their jagged surface. Mounted on them every few yards were torches that illuminated the foreboding hallway that led deep underground.

"Eh, I give it a six out of ten," Kevin shrugged as he stared down the passageway. "The bandits' mountain hideout was much more ominous, despite its disappointing inhabitants."

Alice sniffed the air. "Hmm…it smells like a fox."

The teenager raised an eyebrow at her. "Really? What does a fox smell like?"

"Thin fried tofu," she replied with a disgusted grimace.

"…at this point, I'm just gonna take your word for it and move on."

With no other words, the duo entered. They continued for a while without seeing or hearing any signs of life. The passage branched, twisted, and looped back on itself in a few places, but neither of them were particularly offput by the maze-like quality of the cave system. No, their attention was mostly drawn to the traps.

It seemed that someone had come through here before them, as every single trap they encountered had already been triggered. Giant boulders covered in spikes were embedded in walls, bottomless pitfalls were wide open and easy to jump over, spears extending from the ceiling had nothing impaled on them and could be maneuvered around with no issues, etc. The whole experience was a lot more boring than either of the travelers expected.

"At least the atmosphere is creepy enough to make it interesting," Kevin commented. "It reminds me of some of the horror stories I've read. I keep expecting to see some kind of mutated abomination come out from behind the corner, or maybe a ghost to rise up from the floor."

Only when he finished speaking did he realize the mistake he had made.

"G-ghost!?" Alice exclaimed, their surroundings taking on a more sinister ambiance in her eyes.

Kevin shook his head at her. "No, Alice. We are not doing this. There are no ghosts here."

"Of course, there aren't!" the lamia exclaimed, a shiver passing through her long body. "Ghosts are unscientific and don't exist!"

"…that is technically incorrect," the boy replied, causing her to freeze. "I knew of a few Ghost Type pokemon back where I come from. But, even if one of them somehow made their way here, they wouldn't likely to harm us…probably."

Let it be known that Kevin is very bad at assuaging the fears of others. Case in point: Alice was now paralyzed by realization that her greatest fear was not only real, but also had a small possibility of being nearby, and she couldn't do anything about it. After all, what could a mere super-powerful Monster Lord do to ghost?

A clattering sound in the distance was just the trigger needed to break her paralysis. It also caused her to scream in terror and leap toward the closest living being for protection. Unfortunately for her, that living being happened to be Kevin, whose reflexes were good enough to allow him to dodge out of the way before she could try wrapping her body around him for comfort. Instead, she ended up collapsed in a noodly heap on the ground, visibly shivering.

The Eevee stared at her with amusement. He'd gotten the impression around the time they'd left Iliasburg that she was afraid of ghosts; but to think that it was this bad? Where was the stoic, sarcastic bitch that had been following him around for over a week? Was she really this pathetic noodle who shivered at the mere thought of a phantom coming to get her?

This went on for solid minute, before the lamia suddenly stopped and seemed to regain her senses. She even went so far as to let out a small his in the direction the sound had come from. "That's not a ghost."

The fact that she was able to say that without even seeing whatever was down the passageway did not bode well for Kevin. There was only one reason for her to react as if there was only a minor annoyance on its way toward them, after all.

"Please tell me it's not a monster," he said, his eyes begging her to say it wasn't.

"Just finish this up quickly," she replied, before visibly fading away from existence.

Kevin groaned in exasperation. "Fiiiiiiiiine. Let's get this over with."

He continued to walk toward the intersection a few yards away, waiting for whatever monster was waiting for him to pop out and try to forcefully subdue him. What he didn't expect, though, was the surprised shout that came from the creature as it jumped out in front of him.

"Wawa! A human appeared!"

***

(Author's Note Part 2: Electric Boogaloo!

I know that the chapter ended on a cliffhanger, and a lot of you who look daily are going to be annoyed by it. Worry not! I'm still inspired enough to write chapter 15, and maybe even chapter 16 and above, over the next few days to keep you happy.

On to the question of why I haven't updated in almost a month (Aside from the rant):

As I stated in the synopsis of the store, I am prone to losing inspiration like a moron losing track of the point they were trying to make. In order try to re-stimulate my brain, I read a bunch of other stories both here and on Fanfiction.net. Unfortunately, that has an equal chance of re-igniting my inspiration, or causing me to just seek out more stories to pass the time.

You can probably tell which one this binge mostly led to.

It's what I get for being a finicky author.

Anyway! Another thing I wanted to mention is that I have another story that I'm simultaneously writing alongside this one. Only problem is that I'm having a hard time deciding which fictional universe to send this particular main character to (No, it won't be Kevin again.) Please, comment on this chapter with any anime, games, or stories you want to see me write about. The only limitation is that it has to be a world with a lot of violence.

Until next time SCRUBS!)