The following article is a /tg/ related story or fanfic. Should you continue, expect to find tl;dr and an occasional amount of awesome.

The awesome story of a guy playing an anime inspired RP and how it turns into an actual anime story, tropes included. Scores a 2.0 on The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment.

Hey /tg/, you guys up for some story time? Of course you are! This is just my experience with a freeform RP a while back, and I think it’s about time I share it. It’s been a long time, so sorry if some details are a bit hazy, but I remember the important bits. Behold, the Ballad of Edgardo!

> Get a hankering for some RP, cruise a couple forums

> Something catches my eye

> Some kind of weird combination of stuff from Dragon Ball Z, Gurren Lagann, Avatar the Last Airbender, and a few other themes from different shows

> Basically animu: the game

> Honestly kind of a cool setting after reading through it. Super-powered dudes wander around doing their own thing, having adventures, and trying to stop evil “shadows” from consuming the world.

> Looks cool, sign up and start making a character.

> Characters had attributes (strength, speed, the usual shit), Traits/Powers chosen from a big list, and Spirit, which you used for doing cool shit.

> Had a certain number of points to spend on Attributes, maxed strength and put some into speed, endurance, and a couple in charm.

> Wanted to try a brawler type guy. I’ll get to why that idea was a bad one later.

> Look at Spirit rules before picking powers, because I want to do as much cool shit as possible.

> Spend spirit to activate powers. Different Powers modified how spirit worked and gave it an elemental alignment, which modified damage and other crap.

> Basically let you spend 1 point of Spirit to get 5 points of fire damage. Neat.

> There was also “Raw Spirit” which had no modifier, but also no elemental alignment and couldn’t be resisted. Less bang for your buck, but could be useful.

> Raw Spirit could also be used to raise a stat temporarily, but the higher the stat the more Spirit you had to spend.

> Spirit had a cap depending on your attributes. At lower levels it was pretty low, like 10 or 20 if you got lucky.

> With my stat layout, I had 5. Awesome.

> Look through the powers list to see if I can unscrew my character.

> Browse through list, pretty basic stuff.

> Throw fire, control shadows, frost breath, whatever.

> Also mundane “powers”, like sword fighting and free-running.

> Choose unarmed combat right off the bat, cuz I wanna punch people. Still a bad idea.

> Keep looking, see something interesting tucked away in the list.

> “Overflowing Spirit” Pretty expensive points wise for a simple power, but my eyes lit up at what it did.

> “Removes the spirit cap” (Plus some other crap which I glanced over at the time, but more on that in a bit)

> Oh fuck, now that’s pretty abuse-able!

> Figure everyone takes it, so I take it too.

> Take Battle Cry for a spirit buff and to blow the last of my power points.

> Character pretty much done, name him Edgardo because it sounded cool at the time.

> Ready to go, Edgardo the Brawler sets out on his quest to…do whatever.

> Start in the central town where everyone else hangs out. Introduce myself

> Describe him as “Hot-blooded, hot-tempered, courageous, and always itching for adventure!”

> Honestly pretty flat character, but whatever, I thought he was okay.

> Promptly get laughed at for making such a “naïve and low brow character”

> Apparently everyone has made brooding anti-heroes who sit in dark corners and don’t really do much of anything.

> I swear the tavern had to be some kind of 8th dimensional shape, because EVERYONE was in their own fucking corner away from everyone else.

> But the last straw came from some asshole drinking his wine at the bar

> “Edgardo is such a stupid name anyway”

> Motherfucker! Edgardo did NOT walk in here to be mocked by a bunch of trenchcoat wearing pricks that are trying to be edgier than a goddamn razor blade factory!

> Take a swing, and quickly discover that I am well and truly buttfucked.

> Apparently unarmed combat was hosed from the start, as fists don’t do shit against even the lightest armor, and don’t get damage multipliers.

> Fantastic

> Blow a Spirit point, just to get past his armor, do single digit damage.

> Fucker laughs and stands up “Care to try again, you pathetic wretch?”

> Use Battle Cry, can’t thick of anything so I go with “BANZAI!” and use the rest of my spirit points.

> Nothing. He dodges, draws his sword, and gives an eye-rolling “Disappear!” before he blasts me out of the tavern with sword-lighting-whatever-the-fuck.

> He spends one Spirit for that, and I nearly get one shot, even with a good amount of endurance.

> Fuckin’ what?

> So, while I’m bleeding out on the side of the road, I take the time to browse some other characters.

> First up is sword lightning asshole. Basically the same level as me, but better in every way.

> Powers are better, higher spirit, good stats.

> More my fault really, cuz I fucked up character creation.

> Browse more characters, notice something.

> No one has Overflowing Spirit. No one.

> Ask why. Turns out that if you make a decent character, you have more than enough Spirit to do whatever the fuck you want. Even the highest level characters only have about 100 cap, and it’s rare to get halfway down in a normal fight.

> And then there was the part I skipped over.

> Overflowing Spirit prevented you from taking elemental powers.

> You were basically stuck using Raw Spirit, which was shit.

> Elemental Spirit had damage modifiers so high that, even if you resisted it, you still took a good amount of damage.

> Neato burrito. Edgardo was basically useless against everything.

> Since I was screwed, I PMed a mod to see if I could make a new character that wasn’t crippled beyond belief.

> “lol, deal with it! u made it, you play it”

> So, recap. Everyone’s a pretentious fuckwad, the mods don’t give a shit, and Edgardo is beyond worthless. Great start.

> Pick myself out of the dirt and limp away to get myself healed.

> Nope. I was broke, so I couldn’t get shit. I’d have to sit my ass down and wait to heal naturally, which would take days.

> Fuck that, I’m already tired of this shit, so I make an attempt to steal a potion

> Ahahahahaha no.

> Enter Miltant Xer0

> Yes, that was his name. I cringed too.

> Omnipotent character #4782, could do anything he wanted because he had been with the RP the longest.

> I also suspect that he sucked the Admin’s dick, but whatever.

> Teleports to me instantly, I can’t do shit cuz I’m basically dead on my feet.

> Lifts me into the air with magic psychic bullshit, so I can’t even run

> He starts going on a long speech about crime and how evildoers should be punished and how he’s the best and blah blah blah

> Then he gives me an ultimatum

> “Beg me for mercy, and I might just let you stay in this town! Otherwise I’ll throw you to the shadows!”

> Fuck no! Edgardo does not beg!

> Struggle, swear, spit, and basically do everything I can to do ANYTHING to get out of this.

> Nope. I get thrown through the roof of the building I was in and soar all the way out into the wilderness.

> Well, I’m dead. Fortunately, newbies get one free revive. I cash mine in.

> Xer0 gets super fucking buttmad about it, says I’m dead for good because he says so and WAAAAH.

> Call him out on his bullshit, immediately get shot down by everyone in the community.

> Suddenly I’m the bad guy for trying to steal and picking a fight. Yeah, okay.

> Mods calm everyone down, say I’m alive with one health in the wilderness.

> Last bit of charity I’m getting. I won’t even survive the night.

> But then I met A Guy Called Squid

> Beastfolk were a thing, so people could have cat-girls and wolf men and shit like that.

> A Guy Called Squid was, well, part squid.

> Literally just a big muscley dude with a squid for a head

> And yes, his full name was A Guy Called Squid, and he insisted that everyone called him that.

> Pretty cool dude, ran into the same troubles I did. Was a punchy guy like myself, but he punched people with fire.

> Helped me out, shared a potion, and was generally a bro.

> We both decided to stick together and train out here, because we both needed to get a lot stronger before we headed back into town.

> It wasn’t going to be nearly that easy

> Got to night time, me and Squid set up camp in a cave.

> Suddenly shadows because mod bullshit and Xer0 whined enough that I was still alive.

> I was still pretty fucked up, but I could hold my own, and Squid was in perfect shape.

> Still, we barely survived, mainly because Squid’s fire damage was beastly.

> We both agreed that we wouldn’t survive another fight like that, so we high tailed it out of there and back to town.

> Yeah, no. Invisible force shield prevented us from going back in. I wasn’t surprised.

> Looked on the map, found a nearby town to hole up.

> It’d take a couple of days to get there though, and we were both out of supplies.

> Neither of us saw any other way, so we got to walking.

> Edgardo and A Guy Called Squid, just two guys on the road to adventure!

> Or the road to not dying horribly and somehow getting petty revenge, but whatever.

> Normally when people traveled, there were random events that could be either good or bad for you.

> It was up to how much the mods liked you really.

> The mods didn’t like Squid or Edgardo. If we got something good they’d find some way to take it away from us.

> We saved a lady from bandits on the first day.

> And by that, I mean we kicked the bandits in the nuts, grabbed the lady, and ran like hell.

> That night she prison shanked Squid, took what little shit we had gathered and bailed. When I tried to chase her, she poofed. Gone.

> Neato burrito

> I really don’t know why we kept going after that. It was obvious we were unwanted, so we really should’ve just quit.

> I think we were both waiting on the other one to give in first. I didn’t want to admit defeat, and I knew Squid didn’t want to either.

> We just had to press on, no matter what.

> Even when we met sword-lightning guy again.

> It had been a few days on the road, and we kept getting shit on.

> Wolves, rain, another shadow attack.

> Still don’t know how we lived, but we scraped by, either by running the fuck away or through sheer luck and winning a fight.

> One more day of traveling and we’d be at the village. We were so close that we could taste it!

> But then the dick from the tavern showed up, blocking the road.

> Nevermind how he got ahead of us, but he was and we had to take it.

> “Well well, if it isn’t the wretch from the tavern! And he picked himself up a side dish too! Mufufufufufu!”

> Squid tells him to take a hike and let us through.

> “But this is a toll road, you’ll have to pay me to pass. Let’s say…1000 gold!”

> Fuckin’ what? Tell him that he’s full of shit and that nobody has that much money.

> “Oh, what a shame! Then you’ll have to pay…with your lives!”

> He pulls his sword and blasts Squid, who somehow powers through it. This gives me a chance to get up close and…

> Well, we’ve established I can do fuck all against this guy. I’m banged up pretty good, and fists don’t do shit. Only thing I have left is Spirit.

> A metric ass ton of Spirit.

> See, as we were traveling, I was hoarding points.

> Well, not intentionally. I gained some every day like everyone else, and every time Squid and I killed something, we got a little bit more.

> Squid was spending his Spirit left and right, I wasn’t.

> And since I had Overflowing Spirit, I had a lot more points than I had any right to have at my level.

> Even if Raw Spirit was crap, a lot of crap could still wreck someone’s day.

> Edgardo had a chance! A slim chance, but it was better than nothing.

> “BANZAI!” Battle Cry, use ALL of that spirit, crouch for an uppercut.

> Sword-Guy doesn’t give a shit, actually laughs in my face and doesn’t even make an attempt to dodge.

> You’re kidding right?! We’ve been through this, you can’t hurt me! Mufufufufufufu!”

> You’re the only one laughing asshole.

> My fist connects with his chin, and so does all of that Raw Spirit

> Didn’t do nearly as much damage as an elemental attack would, but it was still enough to knock him on his ass.

> Which gave Squid the perfect setup. He jumped on Sword-Guy, and blew all of his Spirit too.

> Where once there had been a face, there was now a smoking crater.

> Sword-Guy died, and to two underdogs to boot.

> Predictably, he pitched a bitch fit, and so did the rest of the players. We were murderers and outlaws and generally horrible, horrible people for deciding not to deal with this bullshit anymore.

> Me and Squid didn’t give a single fuck. We had earned our first actual victory! Sure, we were nearly dead, defenseless, and still had to make it to the village, but we won!

> Things were looking up, at least for a little while.

> And we still had to worry about Xer0 and his crap.

> Xer0 was some kind of king or tyrant overlord or whatever, and this village was still in his little “authority zone”

> So, when we finally arrive at the village, guess what special surprise is waiting for us!

> If you guessed invisible immune-to-everything force shield, congratulations! Give yourself a gold star.

> And for good measure, he teleports in and taunts us, saying he’ll follow us until we’re broken and mad and shut the fuck up already!

> He cackles and ports away, Squid falls to his knees.

> He’s had enough. We came all this way, all for nothing. Sure we beat someone, but he’d be rezzed and in perfect health the next day.

> “So what do we do now?” Squid was ready to quit. Edgardo wouldn’t have it.

> “We train Squid. We train.”

> We hiked up a nice, grassy hill near the village. And then proceeded to beat the ever-loving crap out of each other.

> Whenever you got into a fight, you got a couple of points towards leveling, win or lose.

> The only problem is that most characters couldn’t spar against one another, as they’d kill each other pretty quickly. Elemental attacks and weapons combined had huge damage multipliers, so sparring would quickly end up with people dead.

> We didn’t have any weapons, and unarmed combat would take DAYS of wailing on someone to actually kill them. The only reason Squid was alright was because of his fire power.

> So, as long as we didn’t use any Spirit, we could beat each other silly, pass out, wait a while to heal, and do it all over again.

> It was stupid, it was cheesy, and it pissed everyone off, but it fucking worked.

> Some said that the shadows would attack us, but we were just close enough to the village that they couldn’t.

> I’m still not sure why Xer0 or even the mods let us get away with this shit. I guess they didn’t see it as anything to actually be worried about.

> Eventually we leveled up though. It was a slow process, and there were better ways of levelling, but this was all we had.

> Plus, it gave me another fuck ton of Spirit points.

> Edgardo pumped up strength first and evenly distributed the rest. Got a power to double the rate at which he gained Spirit per day. I had a plan.

> Squid just buffed his fire fists. It was a good way to go.

> Now we just had to find somewhere to rest up properly. Somewhere to regroup.

> We couldn’t just stay and wail on each other for another level. We had gotten lucky the first time, but now there was talk of a few other players jumping us. We had to move.

> Neither of us knew where the hell we were going or what we were doing. We just hit the road and tried to get as far away from Xer0 and everyone else as we could.

> The mods fucked with us for the first few days, but eventually they just got bored and left us alone.

> Sometimes they’d throw a few shadows our way, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Random events just stopped happening for us.

> I think it was mainly due to us not really bugging anyone anymore. We were doing our own thing, so everyone just sort of forgot about us.

> Except Xer0.

> He was still mighty pissy about me living this long. I have no idea what his deal was. Maybe it was just the challenge to his authority that I represented.

> Or maybe he was just a colossal prick.

> Either way, once we left his “authority zone” or whatever, he sent one of his lackeys after us.

> A quick look at his character sheet, and I knew just how much Xer0 hated us.

> His name was Goldnharl, and the dude was basically invincible.

> Magic armor let him resist all elements massively, plus it was super light so he could fly around and do his ninja-flippy shit.

> He could heal himself completely by spending a couple of Spirit, and his Spirit refreshed basically whenever he wanted it to.

> It was official, the mods just didn’t give a shit.

> Oh, and we were screwed too.

> All we could do was keep going forward and hope he didn’t catch up to us.

> He did, and damn quick too.

> He met us while we were traveling along a gorge, and promptly tried to knock me over the side.

> Goldnharl wasn’t fucking around. No words, only pain. He meant business.

> I barely managed to dodge him (which was, of course, met with public outcry) but I was dangerously close to the edge.

> Squid tried a fire punch with a couple of Spirit behind it. No sell, and Goldnharl got a free counter attack because fuck you he’s Goldnharl.

> Squid is knocked down, but it gave me an opening. I grabbed Goldnharl by his waist and gave him a suplex. My high strength let me get in a few points of damage, and it put me in a better position.

> It didn’t really matter though, as he was back up and fully healed a second later. I helped Squid up, but we were pretty much already dead.

> Goldnharl finally spoke up. “Any last words?”

> “Banzai.”

> The fucker was wide open, and his back was at the edge of the cliff too.

> A quick PM to Squid was all it took, and the quick plan went off like clockwork.

> Squid ran diversion, going high for a fire punch to the face. Goldnharl didn’t bother to dodge. He was invincible after all. He forgot one thing

> Raw Spirit can’t be resisted.

> Edgardo went in for a gut punch, with all that built up Spirit from the training and the road. It wasn’t enough to kill Goldnharl, not by a long shot

> But it was enough to knock him backwards. And that last step was a doozy.

> Goldnharl fell down into the canyon, and we only stayed long enough to hear the dull thud of him hitting the ground.

> I could practically hear Xer0 grinding his teeth to powder as he tattled to the mods, who really didn’t care enough to do anything.

> Surprisingly, I barely heard anything from Goldnharl’s player. Just a simple PM saying “well played.”

> I almost felt sorry that he had to meet his end like that.

> After that, we were pretty much free to keep going until we hit another village.

> Xer0 couldn’t get to us here, so no shield and no bullshit. We could finally rest!

> Well, maybe. We were still broke.

> And there was a small army of players after us. Apparently Goldnharl was a pretty popular character, and by killing him we were now at the top of everyone’s hit list.

> Fantastic.

> Squid slept in an alley, and I kept watch, trying to get a plan together.

> We basically had come to a sort of unspoken agreement. Squid was tired of Xer0’s shit, and so was I. We wanted him dead and broken

> The problem was that two low level characters could do fuck all against the guy. His level was literally listed as an infinity sign.

> When Squid took watch, I read over the fluff of the setting, looking for something, anything that could help us.

> I found it in the city of Haven.

> Haven was the second biggest city in the setting, just barely smaller than Xer0’s place. It was kind of a big deal though.

> See, it was home to the Spirit Well. It was a font of power that everyone flocked to. As long as you were in Haven, your Spirit points recharged instantly, up to your cap.

> I didn’t have a cap.

> I still wonder how anybody in their right mind missed this little detail of Overflowing Spirit. It was just set up so perfectly. Maybe I was being a massive That Guy for exploiting this like I did, but I don’t really care. Everyone but a few people were complete assholes, and I wanted their little club destroyed.

> It was petty, it was stupid, and it was probably hurtful to a few people. But Edgardo had a mission, and A Guy Called Squid was gonna help him see it through!

> If they ever got to Haven in one piece.

> I swear we were the only two people following the traveling rules, because the horde of players chasing us caught up to us a lot quicker than they should’ve.

> We had half a day to rest up before we had to hit the road again. I was useless without a build up of Spirit, and Squid could only fend off so many before he’d die.

> The only route to Haven was a long, winding road through the mountains, and we’d be ambushed if we tried to set up camp anywhere.

> It’d take to long, and time wasn’t on their side.

> So Edgardo had a crazy idea. What if they climbed over the mountains?

> It was basically suicide, as the random events were especially harsh in that terrain. No one would follow us. Aftter all, something might happen to their super speshul characters.

> Squid was on board, and he brought up an interesting point. The mods were ignoring us.

> Everyone was so pissed off at us, but in the grand scheme of things, we hadn’t really done anything major. We killed a grand total of 2 characters through sheer luck and broken mechanics, and I had basically given their idol Xer0 a giant middle finger for simply surviving as long as I had.

> And Xer0 could only suck so much cock.

> So we started climbing, making rolls and getting through by the skin of our teeth. Every once in a while a mod would glance over and make shit hard for us, but overall we didn’t have that much trouble.

> That’s because trouble was waiting for us on the other side of the mountain.

> From our perch, we got a view of the players coming for us. There was no way we could take them all, and I we waited they’d just get to Haven and wait for us there.

> And then there was the guy waiting just underneath us.

> Goldnharl, back from the dead. They must’ve fished him out of the canyon and had him rezzed. Or maybe he survived the fall and healed. Who knows.

> We know he saw us, but he didn’t move. He could have just jumped up any time he wanted and murdered us right then and there. But he didn’t.

> After a while, Squid got tired of waiting. He climbed down, and Edgardo followed to have his back in case things went south.

> Squid asked him what he wanted. Goldnharl just wanted to talk. Turns out that he had more to his story than we knew about.

> Goldnharl was in this RP just as long as Xer0 was. And frankly, he was tired of Xer0’s shit. Goldnharl earned everything he had, and didn’t need to resort to whining to the mods to get what he wanted.

> When we asked why he tried to kill us, he said that it was either follow Xer0’s orders, or get his shit shoved in. In a one on one fight, Goldnharl just couldn’t compete, mainly because Xer0 could do whatever the fuck he wanted and no one batted an eye.

> After we killed him, he was basically done. He was satisfied with the ending he got, but instead Xer0 revived him and sent him to kill us again. Goldnharl had other plans though.

> Squid was suspicious, but I believed him. I’m still not sure why, maybe I was desperate, but I told him our plan.

> Technically I told everyone our plan, as it was in one of the public threads. I’m an idiot, sue me.

> Goldnharl said he could get us to Haven. His story was over, and he ceased giving a single fuck about what anyone else would say about this. He only had one condition.

> We had to promise we’d kill Xer0 and end this once and for all.

> Edgardo and Squid agreed. This was our only shot, and we weren’t about to throw it away.

> A massive shitstorm erupted from the player base as we joined up with Goldnharl. Xer0 called him a traitor to everything the RP stood for, and everyone made such a fuss that the mods nearly banned the guy.

> Goldnharl had a bit of sway with the mods too, and he got lucky as shit when they took his side when he pointed out that he had done nothing wrong.

> With the mods appeased, that just left the army of players gunning for us. The second we hit the road, they were on us. There was no fucking around anymore, and the travel rules were basically out of the picture.

> A horde of super-powered loners and misfits charged towards us, flinging fire and lighting and all manner of weapons. All of them driven by their singular hatred of Edgardo, A Guy Called Squid, and the traitor Goldnharl.

> Goldnharl weathered the tide, taking kunai and fireballs and shadow spears without so much as flinching.

> Because fuck you

> He’s Goldnharl

> Me and Squid ran behind Goldnharl as he cleared a path, getting us to the other side of the army.

> As we kept going down the path, Goldnharl stayed behind, covering our escape.

> To this day, I do not know if he survived or not. I will never forget his bravery.

> Since everyone else was doing it, we ignored the travel rules ourselves, arriving in Haven near instantly.

> Xer0 bitched, nobody heard him.

> There was one last obstacle though. One last player.

> Khaine, the “shadowmancer”

> This fucking guy. He had a power letting him control shadow. His interpretation of what this actual did was very, VERY loose.

> And since he was in Haven, he could abuse this like nobody’s business.

> As soon as we set foot in the city, Squid and me instantly get paralyzed. We call him on his bullshit. Not sure why.

> “I control the darkness in people’s hearts, the darkness in everyone’s soul! You are mine!”

> Oh eat a bag of dicks. Squid tells him that’s not how it works. Khaine isn’t listening cuz it’s his power and he says that’s how it works and WAAAAAH.

> Meanwhile I just sit back and ask myself a question

> Why can’t I hold all this Spirit?

> Spend infinite Spirit, break Khaine’s hold. Brace for whining.

> “How?! You can’t resist me! The darkness is in everyone’s heart!”

> Okay, it’s Edgardo’s turn to be cheesy.

> “You are wrong! My soul is a shining beacon, filled with a light and a burning hope that no shadow can touch! It is a pinpoint of justice, a shining star that will deliver freedom to the universe! I will root out the darkness, the evil of this land! No shadow will be spared my light!”

> Khaine just can’t comprehend how he’s about to lose. He tries the shadow paralysis thing again.

> No sell, infinite Spirit.

> “Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with?! BANZAAAAI!!”

> Swift uppercut, Battle Cry, unlimited Raw Spirit punch.

> Khaine gets punched into the sun. Cue shit being lost by absolutely everyone again.

> Squid is okay, we rest up, and figure out our next move.

> My ultra power only works if I’m in Haven. That doesn’t do us a lot of good.

> Squid finds out that Haven’s unlimited Spirit effect lingers for a day after we leave. Xer0 is weeks away in his city.

> More players are on their way to Haven, and even though I have infinite Spirit, I can only use it to punch people. I’ll get killed eventually.

> We’re basically stuck. Until I notice that we’ve leveled up.

> I don’t really give a fuck about my stats at this point, but there’s a power that really catches my eye.

> Teleportation. I have exactly enough points to purchase it. Normally I wouldn’t have enough Spirit to use it, but Haven so it works.

> Squid upgraded his fire punch. It was a good way to go.

> I tell Squid that he can stay behind. This is going to be dangerous, and we might not come back.

> He tells me that he’s with me to the end, that he intends to see this thing through, and that he’s got my back no matter what.

> In the middle of town square, Edgardo and A Guy Called Squid shared a sweaty, shirtless, muscley, manly hug for all the world to see. It was super homo.

> Actually we just had to be touching so I could teleport us both but shut up.

> We arrived outside of the city, and the shield was still up.

> Xer0 mocked us, saying that he was invincible behind his wall and that we couldn’t do anything.

> “This shield can withstand 1000 times the force of anything you could possible throw at it!”

> People just keep forgetting

> Raw Spirit can’t be resisted

> By anything

> “I’ll just have to hit it a thousand and one times harder! BANZAI!”

> I still flinch whenever I remember typing that. So damn cheesy.

> One more Battle Cry, blow infinite Spirit, and…

> Nothing. Not a damn thing.

> Xer0 refused to post in actual RP after that. I think he had a stroke or something.

> He posted plenty in the discussion threads though. Everyone did.

> The entire community spammed the forums, declaring that I should be banned, flayed, and hung for my shenanigans.

> The next day when I tried to login, I found that the forums had been shut down due to “popular opinion.”

> I never saw Squid after that. We had never exchanged E-mails or anything.

> I liked to think that Edgardo is still frozen in that moment in time, his fist crashing through the shield and connecting with Xer0’s big stupid face.

> And Edgardo is smiling. He won. He, and Squid and Goldnharl.

> They won.