“Heeeeeey, you?” Eliza turned around when she heard them approach and blinked at Rave’s new hairdo. “Did you want to look like your fucking mother?”

Rave crossed her arms, “Thanks, ya ruined it. We had fun for… geez, when did 2 hours pass?” It was always the same with them, time just flew by when they were talking.

“In my personal opinion, it looks good,” Aclysia said. “It gives you a more adult look while also adding to the wild factor. It does remove some punk-factor, however.”

Metra tipped the back of her head, where the metal ring was holding her own unruly mane in place. “I hope you got yourself one of these,” she said in a schooling tone, “or that hair will get in the way during fights all the time.”

“Nah, it won’t,” Rave just waved off, “never did, never will.” She reached behind her neck and fanned her hair through a quick outwards motion. Basically, she was just showing off. But it was really voluminous, running in flows that no hair should, not even the curliest of it. Rave had officially eclipsed her tie with Gaia on the ‘most anime hair’ list and planted herself firmly on the number 1 seat.

Acting like a bit of a creep, he approached her from behind and started feeling up her hair. “It’s softer than cashmere, people, it’s addicting!” he defended himself against whatever weird looks that got him. A few minutes of people wanting to test that claim ensued. At the end everyone admitted that he was right.

“Ya can stop now,” Rave told the last person who was still patting her.

“I can stop at any point,” Nia blankly answered. “I have made my choice not to.”

The funky lightbearer didn’t take offense to that, instead just laughing at the pariah who then followed her around, keeping her hand in place.

“Let’s see who goes next,” John pulled a new name from the bowl. At this point only Gnome, Salamander, Sylph and Metra were left. “Uhm, Metra, just a quick question,” he said and pointed at the extra comments she had scribbled under her name. “It says here you want to fight, do I understand correctly that…”

“Yeah, I am going to beat you up,” the berserker babe answered with a wide smile. Her hand landed heavily on John’s shoulder and gripped tight. “Don’t worry, it will be a learning experience.”

John resigned himself to his fate with a click on the ‘Accept’ button.

______________________________________________________________________

“So, you didn’t even want to date!” John shouted as he barely ducked away under her punch. They hadn’t started more than 10 minutes ago but he was already out of breath. Didn’t help that they were having this fight in the shallow end of the pool.

Metra tried to kick him in the side before answering. The water slowed that movement enough for him to see it coming and react in time. Her kick missed and went up into the air. “This is what passes as a date for me,” she screamed in an entertained fashion, her foot slamming back down under the surface and creating a fountain that temporarily ended sight. “Useful mayhem of words and violence!”

John threw himself to the side in anticipation of some sort of jump attack. A faulty cause of action, as it turned out, as Metra was just standing there even when he was back on his feet. She was just watching him.

“I have to say that I am impressed,” she gave a rare compliment. “Not with your melee skill exactly, the only thing you can even do mediocrely is boxing, but at least your mindset is the correct one. For a mage you are remarkably well-gathered in close-quarters.” She pointed over her shoulder, “If I went this close up against peeping-tom over there, he would panic and do some silly mistakes.”

“I would have less to peep if you kept your clothes on, woman!” Maximillian shouted back, “Although I am just enjoying seeing John get slapped about for the moment.”

The naked berserker babe ignored those comments and concentrated back on John, who was taking the opportunity to catch his breath. By the way she looked at him like a hungry lion waiting for an opportunity to pounce, he was pretty sure that that was the idea behind talking anyway. “That’s it?” he asked. “No great tips?”

“I originally wanted to give you some, but you really don’t need them,” Metra answered, slowly walking towards him. Having nowhere to really back away to, as their agreed ring was this part of the pool and nowhere else, John soon had no other choice but to stand still. “Your problem…” she jumped out of the water and slammed back in where John had stood, once again the Gamer got away, “…isn’t in how you fight…,” fists flew in his direction. Pulled punches connected to his shoulder and crossed forearms as he protected his face. He could handle that amount of damage no problem, so Metra gave him a bit of a beating as she continued to talk. “…You have the right idea for a guy of your power. You stay on the defensive until you know what course of action you have to TAKE!” She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him right into a raised knee. The pointy bones into his stomach hurt despite the somewhat easy-going nature of the fight.

The next moment she tossed him out of the pool like a wet bag of sand. He crashed into some furniture formation at the edge of the pool. “I honestly thought you would just behave like the standard mage,” Metra rolled her neck as she followed him out of the pool; apparently there was a change of plan. “But you don’t; I obviously underestimated how much fighting experience you have,” she nodded her head respectfully in a way that could almost be interpreted as a little bow. “My apologies, Master.”

John rubbed his jawline as he got up, keeping a keen eye on his contracted weapon. “Sounds like you actually wanted to beat some of it into me,” he said.

“Hey, I am an easily predictable kind of girl,” Metra shrugged, “I am totally shallow. When I want to give someone a good beating, I do it; if I want to argue, I do it; if I want to have sex, I do it, and if I want to see if my new master isn’t up to my standards, I whip him into shape.”

“Okay, and now that you know all of that, what are we doing? I still have the quest!” John wanted to know while glancing over to the falling drone. He would solve this problem another time. When his eyes darted back. Metra was already back in his face and grinning from ear to ear.

“We just have to find something you are bad at.” The aggressive look on her face plus the twitching in her fingers gave John a pretty good idea what she wanted to do, but she reigned herself in before abusing him anymore. “Obviously beating you up won’t get us anywhere. Sadly, that’s the thing I am best at… Actually, that’s a better idea. You find something I am bad at!”

This whole situation was now completely flipped on its head, which also failed his quest annoyingly enough. Seemed like Gaia wasn’t getting the show she had been looking for. “You really don’t have any idea what to train me in?” he asked.

“I have lots of ideas, but most of them won’t work because your ability works on repetition, not actual training,” Metra said. “So if you already have the combat experience to make the correct decisions, us training in something that a skill covers is completely useless. You might as well get a sand sack to punch.”

That was a fair point. “Well… I have one suggestion…”

__________________________________________________________________________________

“WHAT THE SHIT DO YOU MEAN IT SPAWNED A 0/7 THAT WIPED MY BOARD?!” Metra shouted at her new mobile phone as she was playing Hearthstone against John. They were on their own in the home cinema.

“Yup, that was quite the lucky shredder drop,” he had to admit, looking up from his own. “You fine?”

Metra’s hand was shaking and her teeth were clenched to a degree where he could hear the metal they were made from screeching. “I am calm… I am calm,” she said to herself in the tone of someone desperately trying not to scream. This was what this had turned out to become instead. “I should have gone with the plan of chasing you over the whole ship. I am calm.”

At least she understood the idea behind this exercise. Metra had her anger under okay management, but with how she literally had no ceiling on how pissed she could get, ‘okay’ sometimes just didn’t cut it. So John had thought of the most infuriating thing he could think off.

Then he had decided that playing League of Legends against her was too evil, so instead he went with Hearthstone. The idea was to trigger her aggressions just that little bit. Sadly, Hearthstone had thought that spawning a game winning card randomly was a good idea, so now she was seething. To her credit, she actually calmed herself.

“I hate this game,” she groaned and made her own turn.

“Everyone does,” John answered and then completely destroyed her in the next two turns. “And now, as per our agreement, we meditate,” he said in a mockingly calm voice.

“I hate YOU,” Metra amended her earlier statement. “Dumbass sitting still and being quiet bullshit,” she mumbled as she crossed her toned legs into the stereotypical monk sitting position. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and they spent about a minute in total silence before she grabbed her phone again. “I am beating you at this,” she told him in the voice of the competitive.

“Eventually, if you pray to RNGezus long enough,” he told her. “But why didn’t you chase me around?”

“Because it wouldn’t be fun,” she answered, checking her initial draw with a sour expression. “Or, rather, it wouldn’t be the kind of fun that I want to have with you. Wipe that smirk of your face, I don’t mean that in a perverse or loving way,” she warned as John gave her an eyebrow wiggling grin.

“Sorry, it’s just that I don’t know you all that well yet and thought there was an innuendo coming,” he apologized.

“Serious talk,” Metra stated, “I am super shallow. I don’t have a past I consider tragic, there is no hidden depth, there is just me and my little aggression problem. I am not boring, but what you see is what you get. I personally don’t think you are particularly deep yourself.” That was a ringing endorsement. “And I really don’t give a fuck. The reason why I won’t humiliate you in front of everyone by telling you that you suck at fleeing is because I don’t dislike you enough to make that much fun of you. I genuinely wanted to give you some lessons, you didn’t need them, the whole chasing thing may be a good experience, if you weren’t already good at improvising. So if there was nothing to teach you and nothing you could learn, the only real value would have been to teach you some humility. Don’t think you need that lesson again.”

“So, you didn’t find anything wrong with me?” John had a hard time believing that.

“No, I just didn’t find anything I could fix,” the ancient weapon clarified, “which is good for you; if you were full of flaws, I might murder you to get out of this contract.”

“You can’t do that,” John laughed and was met with completely serious green eyes. “Can you?”

Suddenly she grinned again, revenge on her face, “I don’t know, can I?”

“This is not a laughing matter!” he declared.

“Relax, I totally can,” she gave him the answer.

That was actually not what he wanted to hear. “I thought you were bound to me or something.”

“Oh, I totally am,” Metra explained. “I am bound, but you don’t own me. If I thought I was better off without you and you refused to let me go,” she had her thumb travel over her throat, “I haven’t had to go there yet, in four millennia of contract work, but I could.”

“This isn’t really in-line with the cute theme of today,” John complained.

“Oh, you want to hear something cute from the ancient war machine that happened to take a very fuckable form for you?” Metra asked, tossed her phone to the side and got up. She mounted the chair John was sitting in, caging him between her outstretched arms. She took a deep breath and said, “I got nothing.”

John blinked, “Nothing? Really, you can’t think of anything remotely adorable to say?”

“Nope,” she backed off. “I told you twice now, I am pretty shallow. I don’t behave adorably because I am brash, and I don’t have anything cute on my mind because I always say what is on my mind.” She scratched her head, “I guess I could tell you that I like you, but that’s more of a friendship sort of deal. Guess I am like Salamander in the regard that I just don’t think you have achieved that much already. Call me a gold digger if you want to, but I am generally not that attracted to guys who haven’t even build a small kingdom.”

“Okay, stop,” John raised his hand, “for several reasons. For a start, I don’t care if you don’t fall for me immediately.” That was a bit of a lie and he knew it, but with Metra he was way less hurt than he was with Nia. It just was a totally different situation. “Then I won’t condemn ‘gold digging’ while I am building a harem of exclusively ultra-hot girls with above average libidos.” That would just have been hypocritical. “And lastly, you are just making things worse. This was supposed to be the cute day!”

“Too bad that I don’t play by your rules,” Metra crossed her arms, “but good to know you can wait. I am mostly certain you will get there eventually. Just use your resources correctly,” she winked, “and feel free to see me as one of those.”

“Serious talk,” John’s voice dipped into a lower frequency as he looked at her with all the earnesty he could muster. Which was quite a lot. “I care for you, Metra. I easily fall in love with crazies, so chances are I will fall for you in the next month or two. I just know me, that’s how it goes. If the way to get you to answer those feelings is to be an awesome ruler, I will build a nation unlike any the Abyss has ever seen.” He stood up and pulled her to his chest. She actually looked surprised for a moment, as if she hadn’t thought he actually had it in him to behave manlier than she did. “And I won’t ever use any of you as a simple resource.”

“I do like the sound of that,” Metra said and thus ended their ‘date’.