Chapter 91: Emotional Damage
Nobody stood in the wrestling ring with both crowbars resting on his shoulders. The crowd continued chanting.
BOB!
BOB!
BOB!
BOB!
Nobody pointed one crowbar toward the kangaroo. "I already have one coach."
Muscle Bob blinked.
Nobody continued. "And his name is Ren."
The audience gasped dramatically. "OHHHHHHHH!"
Nobody pointed again. "I’m not here to learn things from a lunatic like you."
The effect was immediate.
Muscle Bob froze. The goofy smile disappeared. His ears slowly drooped downward. The kangaroo looked... hurt.
Even Ren blinked. "...Damn."
Blossom looked surprised. "Atta?"
Nobody immediately realized something. "...Wait. Did I actually hurt his feelings?"
The system appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Opponent Emotional State:
Offended
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody pointed. "THAT’S A THING?!"
The system ignored him. Instead, another warning appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Muscle Bob preparing:
LAUGHING KICK
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked toward Bob.
The kangaroo slowly lifted his head. A grin appeared. Not a normal grin but a dangerous grin. The kind of grin that usually came before suffering. "Friendooooo..."
Nobody immediately became nervous. "What?"
"Me gonna use Laughing Kick."
Nobody pointed at the exit. "Is ’No thanks’ on the menu?"
Bob shook his head. "Nope friendo."
Nobody sighed. "Of course."
The kangaroo suddenly crouched.
Then....
BOOOOOOM!
The wrestling ring cracked. Bob launched forward very fast.
Nobody’s eyes widened. "You gotta be kidding my hell!"
The kangaroo rushed toward him while laughing. "HA HA HA HA HA HA!" The sound echoed across the arena.
Nobody immediately prepared his crowbars.
Then Bob arrived.
WHAM!
A kick landed. A giant comic cloud appeared.
POW!
Nobody flew backward.
Before he could recover....
WHAM!
Another kick.
BAM!
Another cloud exploded.
WHAM!
POW!
WHAM!
BAM!
WHAM!
POW!
The entire wrestling ring transformed into a comic book. Every attack created ridiculous visual effects.
BAM!
POW!
WHACK!
SMACK!
BOOF!
Nobody stumbled around like a pinball. "THIS GUY IS LITERALLY BEATING ME WITH COMIC BOOK IMPACTS!"
The audience loved it.
BOB!
BOB!
BOB!
BOB!
Even Ren looked entertained. The rabbit coach held his stomach. "Oh my god. I can’t breathe."
Nobody immediately pointed while being kicked. "YOU ARE THE WORST COACH EVER!"
WHAM!
Another kick.
POW!
Nobody crashed through one of the ropes. Then bounced back because apparently physics had left the stage.
Bob continued laughing. "HA HA HA HA HA!"
The kangaroo looked unstoppable. Every kick became stronger. Every strike became crazier. The crowd cheered louder.
Nobody finally regained his footing. His eye twitched. Then another. "Okay." "That’s enough."
Bob stopped. The crowd became quiet.
Nobody slowly raised both crowbars.
CLANG.
CLANG.
The kangaroo tilted his head. "Friendo?"
Nobody disappeared.
FLASH!
Zigzag Teleportation activated.
FLASH!
He appeared behind Bob. Then swung.
WHAM!
Both crowbars smashed directly into the kangaroo. A giant comic cloud appeared.
KABOOM!
Bob flew across the wrestling ring. The audience gasped. The kangaroo bounced. Then bounced again. Then bounced a third time.
BOING.
BOING.
BOING.
Eventually he stopped. The arena became silent.
Nobody exhaled. "Finally."
Then Bob stood up. The kangaroo gave a thumbs-up. "Friendo. I’m okay."
"..." Nobody’s jaw dropped. "...What."
The kangaroo nodded proudly. "Very nice hit."
Nobody wanted to cry. "WHY ARE YOU COMPLIMENTING ME?!"
Bob laughed. "Because friendo strong!"
Nobody slowly turned toward the system. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YES?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Is there any way to defeat this lunatic?"
The system remained silent. For several seconds.
Then surprisingly it answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SUGGESTION]
Though I was enjoying this battle...
Emotional damage may be effective.
Reduce opponent confidence.
Reduce opponent morale.
Potentially reduce strength.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody froze. "...Emotional damage?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly looked toward Bob.
The kangaroo smiled. Then waved. "Hi friendo!"
Nobody looked back toward the system. "You want me to hurt his feelings?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ren nearly choked on his popcorn. "Oh no."
Nobody smiled. A very dangerous smile. The same smile he used before doing something stupid.
Ren immediately pointed. "Wait No Don’t."
Nobody ignored him.
The rabbit coach stood up. "Seriously...I know that smile. Don’t do it."
Nobody pointed at Bob. The dangerous smile widened.
The kangaroo happily waved again. "Friendo!"
Ren grabbed his head. "Oh this is going to end horribly."
Meanwhile Bob remained completely unaware. The kangaroo smiled innocently.
Completely defenseless and completely vulnerable.
Nobody cracked his neck.
CRACK.
Nobody slowly lowered his crowbars.
Across the wrestling ring, Muscle Bob stood with drooping ears. The cheerful energy that had filled the arena moments ago was fading. Even the invisible audience had become quieter.
Nobody scratched the back of his head. "Man...I kinda feel bad."
Then suddenly an idea appeared. A terrible idea. Which naturally meant it belonged to Nobody.
He turned toward the audience and pointed dramatically. "ARE YOU LISTENING KIDS?!"
The crowd immediately responded. "BOOOOOOOOO!"
Nobody blinked. "...What?"
The crowd booed again. "BOOOOOOOOO!"
Nobody laughed. "Of course not." Then a grin slowly spread across his face. Nobody pointed toward the ring. "WHO CAN DEFEAT BOB?!"
The audience suddenly exploded.
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
The chant echoed throughout the arena.
Muscle Bob froze. The kangaroo blinked.
The audience continued.
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
Ren slowly covered his face. "Oh boy."
Blossom tilted its head. "Atta?"
Ren sighed. "This guy is seriously using his weird name as a weapon."
The chanting grew louder.
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
"NOBODY!"
Bob’s ears drooped even lower. His confident smile weakened. The kangaroo looked around. Then at Nobody. Then back at the audience. For the first time since the battle began Muscle Bob looked unsure of himself.
The system appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Opponent Motivation Decreasing
Opponent Confidence Lowering
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another message followed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Muscle Bob is losing motivation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody immediately felt guilty. "Aww...Damn."
The kangaroo looked genuinely sad. His gloves lowered slightly.
Nobody sighed. "I kinda feel bad now."
The system appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[OBJECTIVE SUCCESSFUL]
(｡ᵕ ◞ _◟)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Yeah but still. He was actually kinda nice."
Bob slowly pointed toward Nobody. "...Friendo?"
Nobody looked away. "Stop making me feel guilty."
The kangaroo’s ears drooped even more.
Ren immediately pointed. "Finish the fight before you adopt him."
"Good point." Nobody looked toward the system. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YES?]
(ᵕ—_—)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Any way I can knock him out without making him even sadder?"
The system processed the request.
Then answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SUGGESTION]
Use Fusion Crowbars
Strike opponent directly
High probability of knockout
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "Good."
CLANG.
CLANG.
The twin crowbars appeared. Then merged together. Metal twisted. Locked and connected. A single massive fusion crowbar formed. The weapon looked like a giant metal bat.
The audience gasped. "OHHHHHHHHHH!"
Bob slowly raised his gloves. The kangaroo still looked sad. But he wasn’t giving up. "Friendo..."
Nobody smiled sadly. "Yeah."
Bob threw a punch. A weak punch. It was much weaker than before.
The loss of confidence had clearly affected him.
Nobody tightened his grip. Then sprinted forward.
Everything slowed. Bob’s punch approached.
Nobody jumped.
Spun.
Then shouted, "SORRY MY FRIENDO!"
Muscle Bob froze. His eyes widened. "...Friendo?"
Nobody smiled. "Yep." Then he swung.
WHOOOOOOOSH!
The fusion crowbar struck perfectly.
CRAAAAAACK!
A giant comic impact appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BONK!!!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The entire arena shook. Muscle Bob flew upward.
Higher.
Higher.
Higher.
The audience followed him with their eyes. The kangaroo continued flying into the sky.
Eventually a tiny white flag appeared in his hand. Bob waved it happily. "Bye friendoooo!"
Nobody laughed. Then waved back. "See ya, buddy."
The kangaroo became smaller and smaller.
And smaller. Until he disappeared among the clouds. A shooting-star effect followed.
FWOOOOOOOSH!
The crowd became silent.
Nobody stared upward. Then smiled. "Well...I’m gonna miss that guy."
Ren looked surprised. "Seriously?"
Nobody shrugged. "He wasn’t that bad. He just beat me with cartoon physics."
"Fair."
The system suddenly appeared.
Golden notifications filled the arena.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STAGE 7 CLEARED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Boss Defeated
___Muscle Bob___
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reward Granted
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mental Resistance Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adaptability Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
User Defeated Muscle Bob
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the messages. Then suddenly raised both hands. "YEAAAAAAAAAAAH! I FINALLY DEFEATED THE BOB TOON!"
The audience erupted.
CHEEEEEEEEER!
Confetti exploded everywhere. Fireworks appeared.
Nobody wasn’t even sure where they came from. Ren walked down from the audience section. The rabbit coach looked between the disappearing sky and Nobody.
Then shook his head. "...Dang."
Nobody grinned. "What?"
Ren pointed at him. "If Lunacy versus Lunacy had a face..." He pointed toward the sky where Bob vanished. "...this battle would be the most realistic example."
Nobody laughed. "You’re not wrong."
Ren nodded. "I’m absolutely not wrong."
Blossom jumped onto Nobody’s shoulder. "Atta!"
Nobody smiled. The stage around them slowly began dissolving into pixels.
The wrestling arena faded, the audience vanished and the cheers disappeared.
And somewhere high above the clouds Muscle Bob was probably still flying away while waving a white flag and shouting "Yahoo."
For the first time in Stage battles Nobody genuinely smiled.
Because somehow...
He had made a friend while beating a boss monster.
