Xtreme Manly Man Force of Intense Badassery: Book One: The Fountain of Testoserone (31 page)

“ ’Bout time ya’ woke up,” UDGD says
with a hint of humor, not at all displeased at getting the chance
of dropping his comrade. HTO groans in pain as he rubs his shoulder
from the drop, and gets to his feet. He’s silent a moment, as he
doesn’t know what to say.

“What’s the matter, noob?” Honks
questions. HTO shakes his head.

“I-it’s nothing. I’m ready,” he
responds.

“Good- and watch your face next time
you jump around like a dumbass. It makes you look like a huge
pussy,” UDGD says with his ever-present look of disgust. HTO pauses
just a second in thought, and nods.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he responds to the
Axeman, looking him directly in the eyes. UDGD notices that while
the boy’s voice says “sorry”, his eyes say, “thank you”. This is,
of course, incredibly unmanly, and is swiftly combatted with a
rolling of the eyes from UDGD.

“Yeah, cool. Now let’s go get to the
fountain,” UDGD says as he approaches the door, the others agree
with varying amounts of manliness, and follow up.

The doors are wide, very wide; looking
as though an adult dragon could fit through them. Carved along the
surfaces is a mural of a great manly beast holding limitless power
in his hands as other beasts below him eviscerate themselves in
admiration.

“Okay, on three,” UDGD says as he leans
against the doors as if he’s about to push. HTO, SISY, and IMRM
join him. Mr. Honkers just watches. “One... two... three... push!”
On the axeman’s mark, the four men push at the doors with all their
force, but are unable to move the great stones shaped as
doors.

“Wow, scrubs can’t even open a door,”
Honks bites calmly, trying his best to get his mind off of how bad
his afro looks right now. SISY laughs at Mr. Honker’s pretentious
statement.

“Oh yeah? And how would you open the
door, friend?” he asks with his usual grin, completely contrasted
to UDGD’s scowl. Mr. Honkers rolls his eyes and chuckles lightly.
He points at the men’s feet, to another mural. It displays a group
of men letting blood into a circular groove, with a dipection of
the door opening above them. Honks then points to a circular groove
at the base of the doors.

“I’d use my brain, something only a
real man could do, T-Y-V-M,” Mr. Honkers replies, using a shortened
phrase for “thank you very much”. SISY’s grin sharpens.

“So I guess we just need to bleed into
this little pool-shaped thing?” SISY questions as he gets on knee
over the groove.

“Seems that way. Door must be enchanted
or somethin’,” UDGD replies as he removes his left hand gauntlet.
HTO quivers at the thought of self-harm the moment SISY
begins.

The muscular swordsman presses a finger
into his wrist so deeply that he tears open the skin, flays the
flesh, and begins bleeding profusely out of the new
wound.

“Oh, gods,” HTO whimpers.

UDGD is next, raising his left hand up
to his mouth, the Axeman chews into his palm, and tears a wound
with his teeth.

“Oh, gods!” HTO again says, this time
with even more fear. UDGD spits out some blood, and turns to the
youngest in the group, HTO. The pool is roughly
half-f.

“You’re next. Get over here,” the
Axeman commands to the rapier-user.

“Uh, um, I think that maybe Mr. Honkers
would be able to eh,... do you think maybe you two could
ju-”

“Holy shit, you’re such a little
pussy,” UDGD says with bitter deepness.

“COME ON, FRIEND. BLEEDING’S
FU-”

“Volume.”

“Right, sorry. Bleeding’s super fun!”
SISY encourages after a quick noise-level correction from UDGD. HTO
feels sick to his stomach, and breaks into a sweat.

“O-... okay,” the young man says as he
kneels down with the other two. UDGD looks over to Mr. Honkers, who
begins biting his hand.

“Mmmph! Ugh, my skin is too hard to be
broken. Looks like you noobs’ll have to bleed more in my place!”
Mr. Honkers says with a shrug. UDGD and SISY exchange a quick
glance, neither expecting him to be of any help, and turn again to
IMRM. They realize that from all the wounds he’s taken, he hasn’t
bled a drop- weird, but not what they’re interested in right now.
The two turn back to HTO.

“Go on,” the Axeman says as he pulls a
small shiv out from one of his armor-bound compartments. HTO pauses
a moment, takes a breath, and grasps the small knife.

“Alright,” the young man agrees as he
pulls up the sleeve from around his left hand and takes off his
gauntlet. The knife hovers there a moment, trembling over the palm
of HTO’s choosing. Mr. Honker snickers, as HTO steels himself, and
finally stabs himself in the hand. It incision was a bit clumsy
though, causing it to hurt far more than it would
normally.

“SHIIIIIIT! SHIT SHIT
SHIIII-”

“QUIET THE FUCK DOWN.”

“YELLING PARTY!”

“Wow, you guys are such casuals,” honks
Mr. Honkers with an air of complete superiority. The group is
silent for a second, with the exception of SISY, who is giving a
hearty laugh to his companions. He finds this all way too
fun.

Surprisingly enough, nothing heard
their shouting, leaving HTO to bleed the last drop needed for
entry. Just as the last bit of crimson falls from his palm a great
shaking erupts from the doors, and the Subspace Orchestra fires up.
The opening gap lets lose a torrent of blood, flowing from its
waist-deep height down to the heels of the group. The rush of blood
is accompanied by a full orchestral score. The sweeping strings,
woodwinds, and brass instruments introduce the room of their
greatest encounter yet and perhaps their last. The opening lets
loose a blinding, crimson-colored light, pushing the orchestra to
an apex. The music retreats in decibel and complexity as the doors
finish their movement, but the bowed instruments continue playing
lightly, as if to provide a backdrop for the insane badassery that
awaits the group.

UDGD, at the forefront of the group,
looks back to the others just a moment. IMRM is the only one who
notices, but there is a glint of camaraderie in his eye, looking at
all of them.

“Well, scrubs, what are we waiting for?
You know if it was just me exploring this dungeon I would’ve
finished in about a minute. You noobs may not know it, but my legs
are pretty swag for running long dista-”

“Let’s go,” the Graveman says,
interrupting Honks and pushing the group into the bloody light. Mr.
Honkers shrugs.

“Yeah, kay,” is all he has to say as he
enters along with the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: THE FOUNTAIN OF
TESTOSTERONE (AKA: THE MANLIEST OF FLUIDS)

The moment the group walks into the
enormous circular room, easily the size of a fair-sized town, the
group feels an intense pressure pushing attempting to overwhelm
them. HTO is instantly brought to his knees. It is impossible to
see more than ten feet ahead of oneself in the sea of crimson mist
around them, but the entire group can clearly hear heavy breathing,
emanating deeper inside the large room.

“Wh-what the hell is this?! It’s like
I’m being pushed down by something!” he grumbles as he struggles to
get back to his feet. Mr. Honkers rolls his eyes.

“Scrub, that’s the manliness of the
fountain’s owner,” he says as he taps his foot, clearly displaying
his ability to stand amidst the pressure along with the other
“true” men. UDGD isn’t surprised to see HTO so quickly put to the
ground, he’s having trouble standing himself.

The Axeman realizes that whoever’s been
using the fountain for all this time must easily be the manliest
person alive, so manly in fact that their masculinity gains weight
and density, manifesting into reality to show others that he’s the
#1 boss. If this pressure is any indication of who it is they’ll be
taking this from, it’s no question that this guy is probably not
only a 10/10 on the man scale and a 10/10 on the badass scale, but
it could be that yet another echelon of measurement will be
required for this creature. UDGD thinks it up in his head. This
beast will be judged on the “Ultimate manly destroyer badass
Xtreme” scale. UDGD nods with grim certainty. It doesn’t matter how
manly this guy is, he’s going to kill him and claim the fountain.
He’ll be manly enough to surpass the #1 mercenary, and finally his
days of painful work will be over. He’ll finally be able to take a
break, and focus on what’s most important to him.

UDGD offer’s HTO his hand, which he
takes.

“Thanks,” the rapier-user says,
averting eye-contact with the powerful axeman out of
shame.

“Yeah, sure. We need to keep our legs
strong if we’re going to win this fight,” UDGD says, coming off as
slightly sissyish to Mr. Honkers and SISY. SISY groans as he stomps
his bare foot into the slick stone, producing a deep thumping sound
each time. The group gives him his attention.

“GU- Guys, I know it’s nice to fall on
the floor and all but I think the fight of our lives is just around
the corner! By Ree’s wounds, Can we just all go and take what’s
ours?” SISY asks of the others, really, really itching for a fight.
UDGD and Honks nods.

“Yeah, get this over with,” the Death
Man says with abyssal darkness. The others follow along as UDGD
enters deeper into the crimson mist.

Very lightly, the group can hear the
Subspace Orchestra rise in tension as they make their ascent up the
stone steps to what seems like the center of the room.

“Hah... haha... hah... haha...-” the
chorus of men sing quietly, but with a deep, manly purpose. A deep
drum accompanies every note they sing, promising the adventurers a
fight they will not soon forget.

Thea fight they will not soon
forget.

They are only half-way up the steps
when they can hear a powerful, fist-like voice, punching their
ears.

“HA! LOOK AT YOU.” The voice begins,
“YOU STUPID, WEAK, WEAKLINGS! IT’S SO FUNNY, AS IF YOU EVEN THOUGHT
YOU COULD FUCKING LAY A FINGER ON ME. DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I
HAVE 100,000 CONFIRMED KILLS, AND GRADUATED WITH TOP HONORS FROM
MEGA-EXPLOSION ACADEMY. I’M SO MANLY, MY GIRLFRIENDS ARE MEN! I’M
GOING TO BURN YOU ALL TO A CRISP SO FAST NOT EVEN SOMEONE MANLIER
THAN ME COULD SAVE YOUR SOULS BEFORE I SLAM THEM TO THE ENDWORLD!
TELL ME, PUSSIES, ARE YOU READY TO BE FUCKED IN THE HEARTS?” the
voice monologues as the group makes their way up the steps to the
top of the fountain.

At the top, at the highest pitch of the
Subspace Orchestra’s choral arrangement, the five warriors step up
to the large pool, spewing forth a clear, glowing liquid from the
center.

UDGD pulls out his greataxe, The Tomb
Lord.

SISY withdraws his great sword,
Goutreil.

HT unsheathes his rapier,
Raplynn.

Honks, pulls out that small device,
waiting for the opportune time to use it now that he knows how it
works. He’s starting to like the idea of calling it
“Mega-science-man-afroinatron-1337”.

IMRM is last, and bears his scythe of
which he did not name.

The group stays silent as the orchestra
joins them. There is a short pause, and then the party feels a
rumbling from beneath their feet. The orchestra fires up. Guitars,
violins, drums, and one really-pumped guy singing
“YEAAAAAHEAAAAAHEAH!” on the vocals. It’s all here.

From out of the fountain grasps two
great, beast-man hands, both the size of bears. Pulling himself
out, the great lord of the fountain. His horns, enormous beefy
arms, rise mightily out from the fountain’s pool and quickly raises
both middle fingers in total defiance to all that is not manly. He
raises his head, hairy as a bear and as scarred as a corpse, fully
out, and opens his crimson eyes with pupils shaped like fists. He
looks upon the five with cindery eyes, and frowns. His mighty maw
opens, pushing forth a merciless gust of rotten breath. He begins
laughing, but with the deepest scowl possible. His manly tusks,
also rock-solid beefy arms flipping the bird, wave menacingly with
his jaw, able to devour a panther whole. The foliage of facial hair
worshipping his face dries off due to his intense body heat, and
forms into the shape of a giant fist, holding another giant fist,
that’s holding an angry serpent with a pair of knives in its mouth
which are stabbing into an inferior warrior, who also seems to have
impaled himself out of his incompetence; it’s a large beard, the
Reader must understand.

He pulls out of the fountain completely
and displays his burning muscles, fists and also that other thing
which some men might be proud of for some reason. He takes one step
forward, almost pushing HTO back to the ground with the weight and
strength of his manly aura.

“FUCKING WOW. LOOK AT YOU FAGGOTS. ALL
OF YOU ARE STILL ON YOUR FEET. PERHAPS THIS EXECUTION WILL TAKE
LONGER THAN A SECOND? PROBABLY FUCKING NOT. LOOK AT YOU LITTLE
DICKBUTTS. YOU, EDGY SKULL-FACED BUTTHOLE, DO YOU THINK YOUR
STUPID-ASS EMO AXE IS GOING TO SAVE YOU WHEN I BITE OFF YOUR
HEAD?”

“We’re here for the fountain... you
weak-ass bitch,” UDGD says lightly, almost as if he were
uninterested in the masculine glory of the being before him. The
beast smiles so hard that his tendons tear and a flood of blood and
testosterone geyser out.