Fortunately for Fenrir, Cassiel both wanted to kill him and wanted to not kill him at the same time. Meaning, after she caught him and repeatedly dropped his health as much as she felt she could without killing him, she healed him up.

She would have been fine with leaving him healed, but he just had to keep on finding ways to earn her blade.

A couple hours of this borderline S&M training later and they were finally done. Fenrir was on the defensive almost the entire time, and that was exactly what he wanted. He could physically feel stronger – more durable. He became faster as well, and he had an easier time reading the moves of Cassiel and Eva. Though, that may have been because he was training with the same partners the whole time rather than developing some sort of skill that allowed him to read moves better. Regardless, it proved that just training for a few hours was enough to get a nice boost to personal ability.

Now, the three rested on a wood log overlooking a small pond where they could catch their breath together.

“What are you smiling so much for?” Fenrir asked Cassiel with a teasing tone.

“What? It was fun. I started getting into it and thinking of all the annoying things you’ve done, so I had an excuse to hit you for all of those,” Cassiel answered.

“That makes it sound like you were using our training as an excuse for spouse abuse.”

“I-it’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, yeah. Abuser. And what annoying things have I done anyways?”

“You know. Things.”

“That – that makes me kind of worried. Is there anything I should stop doing that I don’t realize I’m doing?”

“Not really. They’re things you either don’t have control over, or they’re so small that I’d be a bitch to make you change.”

“Well, now I’m curious. You can’t just tell me something like that without going into detail. Come on, tell us. You’re curious too, right, Eva?”

“I… guess I’m curious since it was brought up,” Eva answered.

“See? We both want to hear. Shit talk me to your heart’s content, Cass Cass. Let it all out.”

Cassiel slouched her shoulders and sighed. “You leave the toothpaste cap off of the tube. Nell already told you to stop doing that, but you haven’t.”

“I… I haven’t? I swear I stopped doing that.”

“We literally watched you as you took the cap off, brushed your teeth, then left it off.”

“Maybe I thought that you were going to brush your teeth right after me, so leaving it off was alright for the sake of efficiency?”

“We don’t want you to be efficient. We want you to put the toothpaste cap back on the tube.”

“I’ll – I’ll try to remember. What else?”

“I’m seriously going to sound like a bitch if I go on. I already feel bad about the toothpaste thing.”

“Don’t worry about it. I genuinely want to know. Even if it’s something extremely petty that shouldn’t bother anybody, I want to—”

“You use mugs for pop but glasses for coffee.”

“Oh.”

“Wait,” Eva said, “who does that?”

“He does,” Cassiel answered, pointing a finger at Fenrir.

“I have no excuse. I’m sorry,” Fenrir said.

“By the way, it’s soda,” Eva said.

Both Fenrir and Cassiel turned to look at Eva and said in unison, “It’s pop.” They then shared a high five while Eva rolled her eyes.

“So, what else? What about one of those things I have no control over, supposedly?” Fenrir asked.

“It’s your hands,” Cassiel answered. “Whenenever we’re sleeping in bed… you start – you… start groping me in my sleep.”

A bead of sweat formed on Fenrir’s forehead. “Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not bad, it’s just… you go on and on and it makes it hard for me to sleep, and I’d feel bad waking you up to do anything when you’re not even aware that you’re doing it.”

“Cass, if you’re saying that you wish you could wake me up whenever I do that so we could have some fun, you know that I will always, always, consent to being woken up for that, right?”

“I know, but still. I’d feel—”

“He’s lying,” Eva cut in. “Or at least… he’s hiding the truth.”

“Huh?” Cassiel asked.

“I can tell because I already theorized the situation myself. Between already having the same idea and seeing his reaction to when you brought it up, I know the truth.”

That bead of sweat on Fenrir’s forehead dripped off of him only to be replaced by several more.

“Fen… what is the truth?” Cassiel asked.

“We-well… sometimes if I can’t sleep… I’ll just, you know… play with your boobs since I have nothing else to do thanks to always being trapped in the middle of all of you,” Fenrir admitted.

“You mean all those times that I thought you were groping me in your sleep… you were awake?”

“I – I can’t confirm or deny that. It’s not like I would know if I did do it in my sleep sometimes.”

“You did it three times last week. How many of those were you awake for?”

“Maybe… probably… most likely… all three times?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“I’m sorry. There’s just something about them that puts me to sleep whenever I play with them. They’re like stress balls, except they’re also sleeping balls. The more I grope them, the more tired I feel, the faster I fall asleep whenever I’m struggling. I always figured that you were asleep and didn’t even know I was doing it. I guess that’s the con of being the big spoon sometimes.”

“So you were groping me even though you thought I was asleep?”

“Yeah. Do – do you not want me to do that? I was groping under the assumption that the discussion Nell made us have was still in effect.”

“Discussion?” Eva asked.

“Yeah. Once we moved to our new place, Nell wanted us to go over whether it was okay for us to do anything with each other’s bodies in our sleep. We all consented to each other doing whatever they want to us in our sleep.”

“Oh. It’s good that you discussed something like that and agreed on it beforehand. You don’t sound like a villain anymore thanks to that.”

“Thank you. I’d rather not be a villain for groping my consenting girlfriend’s chest.”

“Well, technically, she can’t consent if she’s asleep even if she consented to it beforehand. That’s technically assault in the same way that a happily married couple having drunken sex is technically and legally rape.”

“Yeah, I get that. Anyways, Cass Cass, if you don’t want me doing that, I can stop.”

With reddened cheeks and a huff, Cassiel replied, “It’s not that I want you to stop or anything. Just… instead of pretending that you’re asleep and assuming that I’m asleep, do more than only that. It’s not fair if you get to have all the fun yourself…”

“Ugh,” Eva groaned, causing both Fenrir and Cassiel to look at her with confused expressions.

“Something wrong?” Fenrir asked Eva.

“Oh, no, sorry. I didn’t mean to let that sound out.”

“Well, if you made that sound while me and Cass were talking about doing things to each other—”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. I’m not annoyed or bothered or upset or anything. I’m just jealous. I wish I could be sharing a bed doing that stuff with you guys, too.”

“I mean, you could always come visit us at any time.”

“I know, but I’d feel bad meeting all of you in real life before Aza does. She’s been with you guys for even longer and hasn’t gotten to meet any of you yet, so I feel like it wouldn’t be fair to jump the line.”

“I don’t think that she’s see it that way.”

“Yeah, but I’d feel bad even if she didn’t. I’d rather wait until that visit to Nell’s place so we can all meet each other at the same time.”

“Want me to grope Cass’s boobs extra hard for you tonight?”

A sad sigh might have escaped Eva’s lips when she was asked that question, but she still nodded her head. “Please.”

“Why are you both obsessed with my chest so much?”

Both Fenrir and Eva turned to look at Cassiel and said in unison, “Because you have great boobs.” They then shared a high five while Cassiel rolled her eyes.

“You’ve come a long way, Eva. I’m proud of you,” Fenrir praised, giving Eva a pat on the head to go with his words.

“Thanks. I did lots of studying on how to be a good boyfriend.”

“Any reason why specifically how to be a good boyfriend?”

“Because you’re the only guy in the relationship, but there are four girls. There’s a ton of good advice when it comes to girls when you approach it from a masculine perspective. When trying to look up how to be a good girlfriendto girls… it’s kind of useless. There were no good studies or articles that I could find. Everybody only talked about how great it is and how fun it is to be with a girl who’s your best friend and your girlfriend, and it was just… there was no good advice. When it came to stuff meant for guys, like, a lot of it was wrong, and there were also some pretty sexist things thrown in since I guess that’s the type of crowd who usually has to google how to be a boyfriend, but there was still some good stuff in there. Now, as a scientist, it’s my job to separate the good from the bad, categorize it, analyze it, experiment with it, and create new theories based off of my results. I have learned how to be a boyfriend as a girlfriend.”

“Masculine, feminine – screw all that,” Fenrir said. “It’s annoying how some people still try to hold on to applying specific qualifiers to behaviors and all that.”

“Well, I agree, but just because something is not as politically correct as we would prefer it to be doesn’t mean that it can’t still have valid advice. In the same way that you separate the art from the artist, you separate the results from the researcher.”

“Separating the results from the researcher is how people got oil companies claiming that they weren’t screwing us all over,” Cassiel said.

“There was merit in their research and conclusions. What mattered, though, were the methods and data used. Their numbers weren’t wrong, simply manipulated to look good. That’s why you never blindly trust the results, either. You have to thoroughly understand the process to analyze the results on your own to come to your own conclusion of what the data means.”

“That’s too smart for me,” Fenrir said. “I’ll leave all the smart people stuff to you.”

“Same,” Cassiel agreed.

Eva shrugged. “Back to the point, even though I’m a girl dating mostly girls, I thought it would be smart to research how to be a boyfriend. So far, my experiments have been nothing but huge successes. Not that I’ve experimented much, yet. The sample size is still pretty small.”

Fenrir went to ask, “Was the tail thing one of the ex—,” but he was cut off by Cassiel’s elbow jabbing into his side.

“It is,” Eva confirmed since the rest of the question was obvious.

“Nice. So, now I’m curious. If you did research for them, what about for me?”

“That was easy. All I had to do was watch how the others act around you.”

“Then, did you study me to figure out how to treat them?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“I could tell,” Cassiel sighed.

“Wait,” Fenrir said. “If you’re studying all of us, and this other stuff online, then… it almost sounds like you’re turning yourself into a hybrid of all our personalities to become the ultimate boy-girl-friend. A hybrid personality for a hybrid body?”

“I like that. Let’s go with that,” Eva said with a nod.

“You didn’t realize that yourself?”

“Nope, but I probably should have.”

“Got it. Anyways, now this is making me curious about how you act by yourself when you’re in real life without anybody else around you.”

“I wear oversized sports jerseys, drink lots of hot chocolate, and tinker with stuff. I hate cooking, so I turned my kitchen into a workshop. I have a bunch of parts and projects filling all the cabinets instead of dishes and silverware and all that.”

“Then what do you do for food?” Cassiel asked.

“I order it.”

“You – we need to meet sooner rather than later if you’re living off of delivery.”

“The hot chocolate isn’t delivered. Well… the packets are, but I still have to mix the milk and the powder on my own.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Fen, take my side,” Eva said, surprising Fenrir with the sudden request.

“Why?” Fenrir asked in response. “I mean, Cassiel is looking out for your health, so she has a poi—”

“I’ll combine Serra’s lewdness with Cass’s hot-and-cold-ness for you if you take my side.”

“You know what, Cass, I think that we should let Eva live her life however she wants. It’s not good of us to be overbearing lovers who force her to live how we tell her to.”

Cassiel had no intention of taking that. That was she she grabbed Fenrir’s nearest ear atop his head, pulled him down in front of her face, and said in a low voice, “Don’t make me revoke your groping privileges, and don’t even try telling me that it’s not good for people in relationships to use anything sexual as a bargaining chip. Making sure she eats healthier is worth breaking the rules of a good girlfriend.”

“Ri-right… Eva, I think Cass may have a poi—”

“Something I realized while doing some other research,” Eva said, “was that there were plenty of things involving tails, but almost nothing involving wings. Fen, want to help me experiment with my wings? My wings are fluffy and warm, and I can kinda grab things with them.”

“You know, Eva, you make an excellent point. Maybe I’ll join you in your delivery-and-hot-chocolate-only diet. I mean, you’re smart, so maybe it’s the next big thing – the next mega diet that everybody will want to—”

Cassiel bit her lower lip before leaning in close to Fenrir’s ear, whispering him a sweet and secret offer that perked his ears up in an instant.

“Cass wins. Eva, eat healthier. End of story,” Fenrir said.

“What – how did she convince you?” Eva asked. “You look like a man with an impossible resolve now. I can’t even think about trying to change your mind.”

“She did the smart thing and offered services instead of threatening to take them away.”

“Shush,” Cassiel said with a new blush on her cheeks. “I should have used that first since now I feel bad about threatening you at all.”

“This is why you’re the best, Cass Cass. I know that no threat you give me is ever serious.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

“Well, if you were really giving me a serious threat, I think I’d know to take it seriously. But stuff like this – I know you’re just being you.”

“That makes me feel even worse.” Cassiel sighed. “I need to get back on track trying to be nicer. I’m slipping into some old habits.”

“You’re perfect just the way you are. And the same can be said to you, Eva, so don’t worry about trying to be perfect for us or anything like that. Just be your usual, hot-chocolate-loving, jersey-wearing, tinkering, scientist, delivery-ordering self.”

((This series is only officially posted to: scribblehub.com, acearriande.com, patreon.com/acearriande, and royalroad.com. If you are reading this series on any other website, please send me an email at [email protected] I will not be able to continue posting my stories for free if my series continue being uploaded without my consent to other platforms. If you have paid money for this on Amazon, email me, file a report, and request a refund as it has been stolen and illegally published.))

“But not the last part.”

“What happened to being nicer?”

“Being nice means not letting her eat nothing but unhealthy food.”

“How do you know she’s not ordering healthy food to be delivered?”

Cassiel turned to look at Eva. “What kind of food do you usually order?”

“Stuff like original pizzas and original Chinese,” Eva answered.

Fenrir looked away and scratched his cheek.

“Seriously?” Cassiel asked. “You don’t even order from the normal places? You specifically go and order original food?”

“It’s more satisfying to eat stuff that’s made the way it has been for hundreds of years. Sure, the new normal is healthy and the meat is lab-grown and even stuff like super chocolate cakes can be made low calorie… and I know that it all tastes the exact same as the original stuff, but it’s just more satisfying to eat original.”

“There’s just something about a buzzword starting with the letter O. First it was organic food at the beginning of the century that was overpriced while tasting the exact same as the non-organic stuff. Now it’s original food being overpriced tasting the same as non-original stuff.”

“You have a point. Original food is really overpriced.”

“Well, that’s what happens when we don’t have massive factories packed full of animals for the slaughter anymore. No point when we can just ethically grow meat in a lab that tastes the exact same and has less impact on the environment.”

“Right.”

“But that also means that original food places have to order from the few small businesses that there are still raising livestock and growing organic food.”

“Look at it this way. I’m not only indulging in my preference for original food, but I’m supporting small businesses by paying their insane prices.”

“In that case, if I order a body pillow of an anime girl, can I justify it by saying that it’s to support small businesses?”

“No,” Cassiel answered. “You’re both ridiculous. No body pillows with fictional girls on them, and at least try to order some healthy food every now and then.”

Fenrir and Eva knew that it was a battle they would not win. Cassiel’s motherly instincts were out in full force and she refused to stand down. Fortunately, though, they both liked this side of her and were only pretending to put up as much of a resistance as they were.

The two of them, like children scolded by their mother, said, “Fiiiinneee,” with their heads hung low. Meanwhile, they each thought of how they could bring out this appealing side of Cassiel more often without relying on the same tricks. There was just something about her acting like a mother trying to make sure that they’re both being healthy. Well, in Fenrir’s case, it was less about being healthy and more about not being an absolute degenerate when he already has several girlfriends to do whatever he wants with.

Either way, it was a winning situation for all involved. Fenrir and Eva got some fanservice that they didn’t know they wanted, and Cassiel was satisfied they were seemed intent on listening to her.

The best outcome was the one where everybody won, and that was exactly the outcome they received.

“By the way,” Fenrir spoke up, “did either of you feel like you improved at all during that training?”

“Hm? Yeah, I guess,” Cassiel answered. “It got easier to track where you were going, and working with Eva got easier. It was like… I started getting an idea of what she was going to do before she even moved. Like, I could tell that she was going to go to the right to try and attack you from that side before she even started to move and without her saying anything.”

“Same,” Eva answered. “Us Scholars call it the Combat Coordination skill. Anybody who fights together can get it depending on their… what’s the word… oh, compatibility. The more compatible you are, the faster you’ll ‘learn’ each other. Also, just because you can do it with one person doesn’t mean you can do it with others. If you learn how to fight really well with one person to the point where you know what each other will do without saying anything or even giving any signs, you would still have to start over from the beginning with anybody new.”

“So,” Fenrir said, “it’s like a skill that has a unique version of it for every single pairing of players in the game?”

“Basically.”

“Why not name it Combat Compatibility instead of Combat Coordination?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there when they voted on it.”

“They have votes on names?” Cassiel asked.

“Yeah. Whenever we have enough proof of a skill existing, we – the Scholars, have a meeting to go over the evidence that it exists, what its parameters likely are, how much potential it has, and then we give it a grade and a name. Combat Coordination is a grade B skill because of how much potential it has, which means that it’s a really good skill to have.”

“What other grades are there?” Fenrir asked.

“We rate stuff on an F to S system. F is generally anything related to basic life skills. For example, walking. You can get better at walking long distances if you… walk long distances enough. Sure, it’s useful in its own way, but being able to walk a long distance isn’t exactly going to make somebody a better fighter.”

“What’s an example of S skill?”

“Anything that Aza can do, basically.”

“What about the thing where I can transform my arms?”

“I would give that… a C, probably.”

“Only a C?”

“You transform your arms, making holding weapons and other equipment more difficult in exchange for greater physical strength—in your arms—and the ability to break magic with them. Is that everything?”

“Ye-yeah.”

“C grade. It’s a partial transformation skill that has both positives and negatives, it only helps you, is both offensive and defensive which means that it excels at neither, and is extremely situational. It might serve as a counter against any pure magic user, like Aza, but even a tiny bit of creativity would still leave you vulnerable to magic. All Aza would have to do is shoot her magic at the ground in front of you to create an explosive blast that hurts you and knocks you away, and that’s just the first idea that came to mind. And while I’ve never seen you in a situation where you were against any sort of debuffing magic… you usually don’t get a chance to claw debuff magic out of the air. If somebody casts a weakening or virus spell on you, for example, it just happens with no way of countering it. Those are the kinds of spells that usually even make it past magic barriers. The stronger ones are balanced by being blockable, but the weaker ones just sort of… affect you with no way of defending against it. So, even when it comes to the defensive aspect of your partial transformation, it’s only good against magic that directly targets you with a pseudo-physical cast that can be hit, blocked, or deflected by your arms. And again, if the spell has potential to be effective without directly hitting you, such as exploding near you or hitting a target next to you, then your arms are useless against that.”

The more that Eva explained just how C-tier Fenrir’s skill was, the more dead inside he looked. “I – I always thought that my skill was awesome and I never saw anybody else use anything like it…”

“It’s unique and and useful, and I’d still give it a C grade, so it could be worse. Well… now that I’ve said all that, maybe I would move it down to D.”

“Please don’t. My ego can’t take it if you move my signature thing down to D tier.”

“You could always get a new signature thing that’s even better. Or try to evolve your skill in a way that makes it even better.”

“How do I do that?”

“By training with it and thinking of new ways to use it.”

“I don’t even remember how I figured out how to do it in the first place, and now I’m supposed to figure out how to change it to be even stronger?”

“Aza would be able to help you with that better than me. I analyze skills, I don’t create them. All of Aza’s skills are original and unique to her, though.”

“They are?”

“Yeah. She’s made every single one of them from scratch as far as I know, and she can modify them on the fly to behave in different ways. Like when she used it to give Fraydranth a massage.”

“She’s seriously impressive, isn’t she?”

“She is. The Scholars would love to study her and find out how she manages it so easily.”

“This is giving me an idea.”

“I don’t like the look on your face,” Cassiel said to him.

Fenrir smiled and said, “If I go to Aza for her to teach me how to become stronger and develop new skills… I’ll get to experience a combination of her in her chuuni form and her teacher side. A chuuni teacher. It’s usually one or the other, but I think this would bring out both at once.”

“It’s really not that hard to do. All you have to do is… I… I actually don’t know how to explain it. Coming up with new skills just kind of… happens. It’s like a feeling that’s just there and all you have to do is follow where it takes you.”

“Yeah, that means absolutely nothing to me and sounds like some sort of pagan magic. That’s more vague than televised ghost hunters.”

“Oh, I love those shows,” Eva said.

“Seriously?” Cassiel asked. “They’re so fake. How could you like them?

“You’re not supposed to watch them for the ghost hunting. You watch them to laugh at people acting like scared idiots. I believe that they’re not even trying to sell people on the actual ‘ghost hunting’ stuff. I bet they know nobody believes it, so all they do is try to make themselves entertaining. It’s basically comedy that you watch for the comedians instead of for what they’re pretending to do.”

“That actually makes them sound kind of tolerable.”

“We should watch them together sometime. My favorite has this huge guy with a beard that reaches the bottom of his belly, and he acts scared while using this really heavy accent, and he’s always using all these slang words and sayings that I’ve never even heard of. One time, he got ‘trapped’ in a room and said he was, and I quote, ‘boxed in like a turtle’s pecker.’ Funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I think that’s a quote from some older movie,” Fenrir said.

“I never heard it before he said it, and I doubt that anybody could say it with an accent better than his. He also ‘snuck’ a shotgun with him into this haunted asylum once that he was supposed to sleep in, and the camera guy took it away from him while he was sleeping since he wasn’t supposed to have a gun. The rest of the episode was basically him complaining about how much he wished he had his gun since it, supposedly, would have been able to solve every problem he faced. Door not opening? Gun. Creaky floor? Gun. Sudden, cold chill? Gun. No gun? Gun. Someday, I want to go to a convention while cosplaying as him. I wonder how many people would get the reference.”

“How would that even work?” Cassiel asked.

“I’d get a fat bodysuit, a fake beard, a plaid shirt and torn jeans, some ghost hunting equipment, and a fake shotgun.”

“I like how you didn’t have to say that the ghost hunting equipment would be fake,” Fenrir said.

Eva shrugged. “It’s all fake, so it would be redundant to say ‘fake ghost hunting equipment.’”

“I’m sure Nell would be willing to help you out with that cosplay. She’s great with that sort of stuff.”

“Yeah,” Cassiel said, “but she does… you know, really girl stuff.”

“The way I see it, anybody who’s good at cosplay can be good at pretty much any single cosplay that there is. They stick to what they like mainly, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t do an amazing job at other styles. The end result is different but the skill involved in reaching that result is the same.”

“Makes sense.”

Fenrir stood up and stretched out his arms. “I guess that I should go get tutored by Aza. I think I’ll take Serra with me, too.”

“Why Serra?” Eva asked.

“Well, she wants to get stronger, too. She wants to fight alongside us and be just as powerful as we are without having to rely on stationary weapons and all that like cannons and that magical gatling gun.”

“I see. That sounds like a good idea, then.”

“Yep. So, I’ll be leaving you two here alone. You can have some more tail fun or something.”

Cassiel took a deep breath to restrain herself from punishing him for that.

“Also, I’ll be looking forward to that wing fun.”

Eva copied a trick she learned from Serra in the form of giving him a thumbs-up and subtle smile.

“Also part two, Cass… I’m not going to forget what you whispered to me earlier.”

“Go train already!” Cassiel shouted. “You’re keeping them waiting!”

“They’re not going to be kept waiting if they don’t even know to be waiting for me in the first place.”

“I – I… I can’t think of any response that doesn’t involve threatening you, so you’re lucky that I refuse to say any of them.”

“Isn’t that basically the same as threatening me in the first place? I mean, you don’t have to be direct to threaten somebody. Telling me that you’re thinking of threats is the same as indirectly threatening me.”

“Crap, you’re right,” Cassiel said. “I have to somehow stop myself from even thinking of threats. I have to get rid of them before they even become thoughts.”

“That sounds impossible because of how thinking works in general, but I’ll be a supportive boyfriend and wish you the best of luck. Good luck, Cass Cass.”

Cassiel sighed and gave him a wave goodbye.

“And thanks for the information, Eva. You’ve inspired me to get some even better skills now.”

“I’ll be a supportive boy-girl-friend and wish you the best of luck. Good luck, Fen Fen,” Eva said.

“Is this what you’re like when you’re copying me?” Fenrir asked.

“Is this what you’re like when you’re copying me?” Eva copied.

Naturally, there was only one thing to do when somebody was copying everything that they said. “I love giant cocks,” Fenrir said.

“I see. I’ll add that to my analysis of you,” Eva said, immediately ruining Fenrir’s fun.

He raised a finger to object, but it was too late. All he could do was walk away in silence as he was thoroughly defeated.

Back at the coast, Fenrir was lucky to find Serra off by herself almost right away. Though, he was confused about what she was doing. He found her standing on the beach, looking out over the ocean, occasionally raising her arms out to her sides for a few seconds before lowering them and repeating the process.

It looked like some sort of arm exercise – maybe stretching.

“Doing yoga?” Fenrir asked the exercising shortie after reaching her.

“I’m practicing a special move,” Serra said.

“A special move?”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I saw a video of a guy who had a bunch of glowing gold portal things appear behind him, and then a bunch of swords and stuff shot out from them, and it was really cool. I wanna do that but with cannons.”

“You… you want your own Unlimited Cannon Works?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you even come across a video of that?”

“Internet gonna internet.”

“That’s a perfectly valid response to pretty much any question ever. Anyways, you picked great timing to want a special power like that. I have no idea if you’ll be able to get your own Unlimited Cannon Works, but want to go get tutored by Aza on how to create new skills with me?”

Serra’s eyes sparkled as soon as she heard his plan. “I won’t let my memes be dreams.”

Fenrir wasn’t sure how to respond, but he did know that Serra was as adorable as ever, so he lifted up her pirate hat to give the top of her head some pats.

Hopefully, by the end of the day, he would have a new skill or two that deserved a higher grade.

And maybe Serra would even create her own Unlimited Cannon Works.