It was time that Asneldean paid the piper as it were, or at least knew what she was supposed to cough up. Then she met Firstblood and the rest of the girls and that’s when she realized she had been had, at least minorly. “That’s not fair!” she yelled. To which Yolanda responded “Backing out of a wager already?” She glared at Yolanda so hard you would think her eyes would pop out and murder her. Better her than Micky himself he thought.

“Fine, you win this round Yolanda, but don’t think I will be taking it easy next time.” She said. As ominous as that sounded, Micky didn’t believe it was meant for him, which made him really glad since it was a check he didn’t need to cash.

His next opponents didn’t fair that much better against squishy. Though there seemed to be more of them than was originally planned for. Micky figured that the old bastards had whined about joining in on the fun and it became a full blown mini tournament. It didn’t matter, each win was more crap for himself. He had the advantage here against his opponents since they were being much more vicious to the other elder’s disciples than himself, going easy on the kid basically, even if it meant losing.

As for why squishy was allowed in the first place? She had become a familiar of Brightfur for her [Beastly Shamen] class. It was an interesting pairing that allowed her some powers of Squishy, not as many had she tamed her herself, or as powerful, or ‘close’ so much as that word is the best that applies. Basically it was weaker than if she tamed a monster herself, but Squishy wasn’t a normal low level monster anymore.

Queen slimes were actually powerful monsters. Their skin hardens considerably, instead of a rubbery surface that bounces, which Squishy can still simulate, it is now a hard strong surface like stone or bronze. She is thicker and thus her cores are harder to reach, her healing factor actually has time to come into play, she has multiple cores, and she can no longer die by simply being swatted away like a fly… at least by any reasonable matchup. All this and that is not including that she is an evolved specimen. Theses are very rare in captivity, queen slimes need to have a lot of freedom and and autonomy to evolve down that branch. Usually they evolve based on a linear evolution getting stronger at what they do, it’s true for most taming.

Or at least that was Yolanda’s speal about why she was trying to save face for the elder gen. And not the fact that Asneldean just really liked the way it made her grand disciples react and wished to purchase Squishy at any cost. Micky didn’t even understand why they squealed so much. It wasn’t like Squishy did anything strange, the tentacles just wrapped around wrists and ankles pinning them down, Squishy was used to non-lethal as she had had to make a few such takedowns for thugs around for the girls. As for the kid that screamed about it being in his shirt? He had done that to himself, everybody saw how hard he was trying to get it in there, nobody was fooled. But the older gen were all giving Asneldean strange looks, she did blush a little at those…

Micky gave Squishy a second thought, but he decided not to sell here even for a dragon’s ransom. She was a good monster and was family to him already. You simply did not sell out family, period. So it was only a passing thought as he considered what it would mean, and never really up for consideration.

As for his next opponents? Seemed to be some old dude that was wagering drinks with Yolanda. She gave him a similar wager to what Micky had this time for armor and a utility item for himself. Micky new that she only did that because she could make the stubborn fool bleed more though.

He brought out the barbarian lookalikes. It was clear what type of disciples these were. They were probably even from a completely different system altogether. There was the barbarian bezerker frontliner that had the least clothing on. More a token to cover her modesty than anything else and she seemed to chafe at the idea of having that much. Then there was the shaman kid in the back who was covered from head to toe in thick furs that covered every inch. Micky wasn’t sure how the kid was surviving, the weather wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold either. Finally there was the archer/ranger that was in between. They were clearly a ranged DPS but they seemed to be able to handle themselves in a melee fight based on the dual blades at their waist, just not their prefered range.

It didn’t matter, they didn’t have a response to squishy and the man’s bluster all faded. Yolanda was vicious about it though. Asneldean would get away with a reasonable amount even if she protested the bait and switch of the other girls. This guy would be taken for his shirt, or he wouldn’t be able to show himself around town every again. And Yolanda had a long enough lifespan that she could make sure of it.

The rest of the old fogies ended up much the same, though much more subdued. This wasn’t because the kids couldn’t if they pull out the stops, just that they were saving them and resting in between so that they could face off against their real opponents. It wasn’t like any of them had a dedicated buffer class that could keep their energy reserves up. By the time the others were partially rested in the quarter candle break, Micky’s team was all rested and ready to fight. This meant that even for the few that did pull out the stops at the end since their trump cards had already been seen, they were too tired to actually face Micky’s girls.

That was true for the classic tank, healer, DPS or the brutal frontliner, ear guard, magic DPS or any of the other combinations that were thrown out.

Finally it was time for the battle with Yolanda’s team. Now it was time for a real battle. Unlike the rest these had something to prove that they were more deserving. Or more like, they had something to prove that Micky was a less deserving disciple and that his girls didn’t deserve to even be here.

For some reason, in spite of this being the closest team and almost family, or maybe to spite it, these were the most vicious opponents. The others only hurled insults in good fun, but these people reminded Micky of the bastards in the village that used to hurl more than insults at him from the village. Like the baker in the village that gave him a beating behind his shop for no reason when he went on a bread run for his family. He wasn’t allowed errands like that afterwards and the family no longer dealt with business with them, nor Susan’s for that matter. Or the old woman that threw stones at him for no reason, or without warning. Or any of a thousand more little slights and shit that had been thrown around.

It was why he wasn’t surprised by anything that happened in the fight that came. He knew this type. They were here to bully people in the darkest ways. The girls had seen this kind around the orphanage themselves. And they were slightly intimidated about it, because it was their nightmare too. They lived through much the same things, the difference is that they didn’t have caring parents that were at the end of their rope and didn’t know what to do. They expected help from the administration, but they were just the minority, why would politics help them when they could get so much more votes from everybody else?

The girls had it worst, they were active targets, the matron didn’t give a shit about them. As far as she was concerned, give her a copper and just don’t break any bones. They were just worth whatever she could screw them over for. Nobody protected them but themselves and possibly the older orphans. Even then though, the older orphans would be beaten if they ‘caused trouble’ so they would only step in when it went ‘too far’. Even then, many of the orphans became a [Crippled] at a young age in their own ‘home’. And if they ran away they would just be brought back by the guard since they were the ‘property’ of their ‘loving guardian’. Micky was still sickened by what they did there but he had already done the most he could. Anything else was up to themselves.