Mostly Equal

Xandra wiped her brow. The woman had fully devoted herself to the warrior motif and look. She wore light armor with a leather cloak; it had white fur around the neck to contrast her long, dark hair. She wielded a large, two-handed sword. Not the heaviest weapon in the game but it was efficient. From the moment she started O2O, unlike the others, she was intent on simply playing it normally. She had spent the day killing monsters for loot and gold and experience. She was going to return to the small outpost, sell the loot and spend the gold. She had done that every day as a routine around the same area. It was satisfying, like living in a real fantasy world. Xandra figured that was the goal.

She searched her surroundings. The grounds were mostly depleted since she had been there the whole day, but she resolved to search out on last monster to end the session. She wandered through the woods for a few minutes before finally encountering a lone goblin. She smirked and launched her attack. It was caught unaware, of course, as her light armor provided her a good amount of stealth. The problem, she realized, was that the moment her sword was about to cut into the goblin another sword cut it down first from the other direction. She jumped back and exclaimed.

“Dick! Killstealer! What the hell?” Her pale face scrunched up in annoyance as she looked for the culprit.

“Them's the breaks, honey.” She saw the culprit shrug before she could fully take him in. As she stood and stared in disbelief at the rudeness she finally looked him over. He was about her level and at around her gear quality. He was a warrior, like her and used a two-handed sword, like her. He wore light armor, only he wore it far, far worse. The man was large. Not disgustingly large, but enough that if someone asked her what the asshole that stole her kill looked like she would say 'a fat man.' He had short blond hair, a big dumb smile and a round, red nose.

“Didn't know the dickhead convention came to town early.” Xandra remarked.

The man rolled his eyes. “Oh, sorry, didn't know I was dealing with a non-roleplayer.”

Xandra stuck her tongue out at him then said. “What a weird phrase. Role... Player? You're talking strange, traveler.” She thought on her feet to get one up on him.

“Oh and what was the convention and the 'kill steal?'” He smirked.

“Far as I'm concerned, the kill was made when I killed it, so there's no stealing involved.”

“Too true.” She admitted through gritted teeth.

“Watch that you keep your space from me in the future. I wouldn't want my blade to slip.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “If the blade might slip, honey, maybe you should be holding a broom instead?”

She was fuming. “Fair point. Fair point. My blade would never slip.”

“So then I guess there's no issue?” He leaned forward and raised a questioning brow.

* *

She just wanted one more, but the man proceeded to preempt every kill she stubbornly tried to make for the next hour. She never saw him coming and never beat his blade in reaching the monsters, despite apparently being at a similar level. Xandra was sweating and her characters stamina was low.

“What are you doing!? You must be-” She was going to say cheating, but stopped herself and awkwardly finished with.

“-using some kind of magic...”

“No magic.” He bragged.

“Just muscle.”

“So what?” She stuck her sword in the ground and wiped her brow. She was panting lightly but as fat as he was, he still looked fine.

“Same equipment, same weapon, same level.” He gave her a sly look.

“Far as I'm concerned, only thing it could be is that I'm a man and your a woman.”

Xandra was speechless. “Bullshit.”

He reached forward. “Take a look.” She clasped his hand. He was consenting so she looked at his stats, his level, his gear. They were all equal. He made the same swings killing the same mobs and beat her every time. She instantly became self-conscious and released his hand while looking down awkwardly.

“Satisfied?”

“No.” The moment Xandra said that he took her hand again and raised it up. She strengthened her own grip defiantly. It almost seemed equal, just like everything else, only he was gaining. She leaned into it so he leaned into it to match her. Gradually she lost her footing from trying too hard and stumbled forward. Still holding her hand he stepped off to the side and gave her rear a solid smack as she passed. Xandra gasped. It was on the leather, so she barely felt it , but it wasn't about the feeling it was about the smack itself. Worse than that was the thought.

'I'm weaker because I'm a woman?' She had thought the game was relatively balanced but as she thought about it, she guessed that the devs were a bit more into realism than she thought. There was no escape from her female body even in the game. She turned around to see that he had picked up her sword.

“I'll hold onto this for you.”

“What gives you the right?” Xandra blurted out like a child that wasn't getting her way.

“Your stamina's low so you can't carry it, you dumb broad! You overextended and now you need the man to escort you out.” He mocked.

“Waste of MY time. Dunno why they even let women out here.” Xandra did not say anything in response. She just bit the inside of her bottom lip and glanced off to the side.

“Come here, idiot. Seriously, if your tits and ass weren't nice there'd be no point so consider yourself 'blessed' in that respect, at least.” He chuckled, pulling on her belt. She gasped as he took her under his arm and his cloak. Her cheeks flushed deeply.

“Don't sulk. I'll give you something to do. Here.” He plopped his bag down into a wide-eyed Xandra's hands.

“Uhm.” She felt an odd sensation between her legs at the treatment. It was objectively disgusting and he looked as gross as he acted. In real life he was someone she would report to HR, pepper spray and run away from in no particular order, but in the same situation in a fantasy world with a layer of separation between her and her 'character' she felt different.

* *

Dart felt quite satisfied. He had gotten a lot of use out of the specialized blessing he received. Useless and probably detrimental to most; it was a magic tool that allowed higher level players to group with lower level players without having either feel like one is getting carried. He selected Xandra when she wasn't looking and matched his level to hers, but the real benefit was the slight, invisible edge it conferred upon himself for powering down. He was everything she was... Plus one, essentially. Like children having an argument over the higher number. Usually it wouldn't matter if two players were working together. However, in a duel scenario it was patently unfair. But it wasn't perfect. For one thing, it was usually only good for trolling people. Xandra was just something else. She responded as he would have liked at first, but then just kept giving more and more ground without telling him to stop until she was finally walking under his arm like a timid wife. All he could do was keep pushing and see where the line was.

“Now... I know when we get back to town you're probably gonna ask to suck me off.” She looked up in shock. Her brow furrowed. Dart continued, making sure to let it get far worse for her in terms of implications.

“But just so you know, I'm not free. You'll have to be a good girl and pay up or stand in line like all the others.” He bragged.

“H-how much?” She asked awkwardly. Her face was beet red. She was unsure, but Xandra thought she wanted to just try and be a participant in something bad. Something that wasn't good for her. She wasn't sure if it would be fun, or awful or if she would regret it or not but she wanted to try.

Any other man would've faltered at that point, but Dart was a special kind of disgusting that did not know how to stop.

“When we get back to town you're gonna have to pay to fix that resting bitch face. Then we can maybe talk.”

* *

Xandra looked in the mirror. The earrings she got were gold with little pink hearts in the center. Something cute that her character probably would not be caught dead in. The point of them was not the look of them, but the look they provided the wearer. She turned her face from side to side. The muscles around her lips were forcefully strained into a perky smile while her pupils were warped into cute, pink hearts. But that was not the only thing they did.

'Ridiculous.' She thought in the shop.

“What's the hold-up?” He gave her rear a smack. Her eyes widened and she yelped. Xandra saw the last feature. As she let out a sound, a small translucent heart rose from her head like she was a character in a manga.

'H-holy fuck this is gonna break my brain.' She thought as she saw the automatic response. Xandra raised a hand to each ear and tried to unaffix them.

“Oh. I had them curse those. Didn't think you'd wanna take them off.” He mentioned in a frank tone, as though it were something he did not even consider needing to tell her about.

“You didn't-” she became angry.

“Why the hell would you think that!” She shouted. The moment she finished he gave her cheek a light tap. Her jaw fell open in shock. He reached up and pinched her cheeks, getting close before kissing her deeply. His mouth fit over hers easily while her lips were curled into that little **** smile. Dart pushed his tongue into her mouth, which caved easily. Her pink heart eyes rolled back. She made some involuntary sounds which caused little hearts to float up over her head like tiny bubbles before popping as her body shook and her hips wiggled back and forth in a weak effort to move away. She felt herself beginning to grind against him automatically. Before she could go too far she abruptly severed the connection. In her mind that was far too much and the fact that she was going along with it was something else.

“C-can't have that.” She stammered and panted once she was out. Sandra looked in the mirror and sighed with relief.

“God, hope I don't see him again. That was wild.”