Chapter 630: Try Me

Mensah had barely stopped bouncing before Amunet was on him again.

He rolled onto one shoulder and came up with his fists already raised, the shift from ridiculous womanizing idiot to trained fighter happening so smoothly that Grey’s amusement dimmed into genuine interest.

Mensah’s feet settled beneath him in a compact stance, his shoulders loosened, and when Amunet’s rapier stabbed toward his throat, he slipped outside the line by such a narrow margin that the blade shaved past his cheek without drawing blood.

’Okay, he’s actually good.’

Grey had noticed it during the recap, but seeing Mensah fight in person made the difference much clearer. His fists were his weapons, yet the foundation underneath them was unmistakably boxing, his head constantly shifting off center as he stepped, rolled, and returned punches from angles that made every defensive movement part of his next attack.

Amunet thrust twice, and Mensah slipped the first before parrying the second against his forearm, immediately answering with a right hand that snapped toward her jaw. She avoided it, but Grey could tell she had read the punch late, and the left hook following behind it forced her to retreat several steps instead of countering.

In terms of pure battle instinct, Mensah was probably better.

Grey pursed his lips as he watched another exchange, eventually placing Mensah only a step or two beneath himself when it came to raw hand-to-hand skill. He was comfortably ahead of Amunet in that regard, his reactions having been carved into muscle memory through what had to be years of training, but unfortunately for him, Amunet had recently found a rather disgusting way to cheat.

A huge translucent hand formed above her.

Mensah’s expression changed when thin threads descended from its fingers and connected to Amunet’s shoulders, elbows, spine, hips, and knees, recreating the puppeteering construct she had developed during the final battle of the First Arc. Her body jerked once as the connections settled, and when Mensah stepped in again, Amunet moved with an explosiveness her physical structure should never have been capable of producing naturally.

Her torso bent backward far enough that Grey almost expected her spine to snap, allowing Mensah’s fist to pass over her nose before the enormous hand yanked three separate points of her body in opposing directions. Amunet twisted around the punch, planted one foot, and accelerated her rapier forward with her arm, shoulder, waist, and legs all pulled into perfect alignment by the construct above her.

Mensah barely escaped.

The blade tore a line across his ribs instead of piercing through them, and his counter arrived immediately afterward, a compact punch driving toward Amunet’s liver with enough force that the air popped around his fist. The puppeteering hand reacted before her own instincts could, lifting her hip and dragging her torso aside in a movement too abrupt for ordinary muscles to perform safely, then snapping her back into position quickly enough for the pommel of her rapier to crash into Mensah’s mouth.

Grey’s grin widened.

That was where Ma Famille had changed everything.

A Recursive Frame was complicated even before someone tried controlling hundreds of overlapping loops at once, each movement feeding information backward, correcting itself, then repeating through a slightly improved pathway.

Understanding how to build those loops was one problem, but actually having the mental capacity to manage them in combat was another entirely, and Amunet had gained an unfair advantage there after the Rebirth Waters rebuilt far more than just her body.

Now Ma Famille was flooding that improved foundation with everyone else’s comprehension.

Amunet couldn’t suddenly gain Mensah’s years of boxing instinct, but she didn’t need to. Every time her body made the wrong choice, her Recursive Frame fed the failure backward while the puppeteering hand corrected the physical movement from above, allowing her to manufacture reactions that her own muscle memory hadn’t earned yet.

Mensah realized it too.

His rhythm changed, combinations becoming shorter and less predictable as he stopped giving Amunet repeated patterns to refine against. For several exchanges it worked beautifully, his jab forcing her head aside before an uppercut slipped beneath the rapier, but Amunet’s raw physical superiority meant that even his clean hits struggled to produce the damage he needed while every mistake he made cost him far more.

Then he stepped too deeply into range.

Amunet’s rapier flicked toward his eyes and forced his guard high, while the giant hand above her violently pulled her entire body forward from the hips. Her knee buried itself in his stomach with enough force to lift him from the ground, and before he landed, the threads snapped her leg around in a vicious arc that sent him skidding across the courtyard again.

Mensah tried to rise, only for the tip of Amunet’s rapier to stop beneath his chin.

His eyes narrowed.

Amunet smiled without warmth and kicked one of his legs aside, sending him flat onto his back before planting the heel of her boot directly between his thighs.

Mensah’s entire body stiffened.

Grey and Brad both physically winced when Amunet began applying pressure.

To Mensah’s credit, he didn’t scream, though tears immediately gathered at the corners of his eyes while his expression remained so stubbornly indifferent that the contrast nearly made Grey laugh again. His jaw flexed once, nostrils flaring as Amunet leaned a little more weight onto her heel.

"Look at that," she said. "You finally look a little bit like a real man. Too bad it might take losing your balls to manage it."

Mensah said nothing, but nobody moved to save him either.

Grey’s chat, on the other hand, had completely lost its mind.

—

[GreyDominion: TEAM AMUNET. I HAVE NEVER DOUBTED HER FOR A SECOND.]

[FinchTheDiddler: You have doubted her approximately nine thousand times.]

[GreyDominion: PROPAGANDA.]

[RedButton: Amara stocks still rising. I’m not selling.]

[EpicPelvis: Elowen remains the safest investment. First mover advantage.]

[SpellSeeker: Why have you people turned interpersonal relationships into a betting market?]

[FinchTheDiddler: Everything is a betting market if you’re mentally ill enough.]

[PressingAlarm: This is an inappropriate discussion.]

[GreyDominion: TEAM AMUNET IS GONNA CRUSH THE BOT’S BALLS NEXT]

—

Most of the chat seemed to have fallen firmly onto Amunet’s side, though Grey suspected timing had a lot to do with that. The majority of his current viewers hadn’t been around for her betrayal, and while plenty had witnessed the massive argument after everything finally came spilling out, hearing about an old wound was very different from living through it alongside him. ℯℯ𝑙.

It was always easier to forgive something when the pain belonged to somebody else. Though, Grey had chosen to forgive it a while ago.

Amunet finally looked away from Mensah and toward Grey, perhaps checking whether he planned to stop her before she went too far. Grey was still standing exactly where she had left him, a quiet chuckle lingering on his lips while the chains behind him occasionally rattled against the restrained Elementals.

That seemed to be enough for her.

Amunet removed her heel and Mensah released one carefully controlled breath, though he wisely made no attempt to stand while she remained above him.

"Next time you harass me, regardless of the excuse, I’m crushing them into meat paste," Amunet growled, lowering the rapier until its tip hovered directly above the source of his current suffering. "I’ll be there to make sure you have a squeaky voice for the rest of your life. Fucking try me."