Risk It All: High Stakes (ch. 22) (Patreon)

That whole thing about how a man thinks about sex every seven seconds wasn't true. Honestly speaking, with the whole getting shot in the head thing, then becoming a hero, and the drama associated with the team… sex had been the last thing on my mind. It was a distant, far away thing that didn't really have anything to do with my day-to-day. My goal was to be a Hero, capital H.

Most of my attention went to tracking down the Yakuza that were spreading out through Gotham, or preparing for the missions the Team would be going on. Or how to deal with the drama between everyone. Then, after the mission to SantaPrisca, how to be a leader. Then there was my whole family situation -- the point being, I had a lot on my plate. So, the fairer sex and all my concerns about wooing them had been put on the back burner.

But, with a handful of words, Conner ended up putting it back at the forefront of my mind. It made me feel kinda… dumb. Stupid even. I haven't even had my first kiss yet, so it felt really weird to suddenly be thinking about sex all of a sudden again. Or associating sex with Zatanna, just because I heard that she might like me. Even if she was, I admit, pretty good looking. And I kinda felt pathetic that I was stuck in this conundrum just because I heard that she might like me.

"Euuraggahhh…" I groaned, dragging my hands down my face as I shifted in my bed so that I was laying on my back. I couldn't sleep. The angst was eating me alive.  I reached out and grabbed my phone to check and saw that it was two in the morning. I got back at eight in the afternoon. I had been perfectly functional until I went to bed at midnight after uploading another batch of videos, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was just…

Could we even date? I was the team leader, so wasn't that incredibly unprofessional? I didn't want to somehow abuse my position of authority over the team. It was just a bad look, wasn't it? But we were hardly professionals. No one was saying anything about Conner and Megan's one-sided crush… or was that just because they weren't actually dating?

With a sigh, I threw the covers off of me and pushed my hair back out of my face. I was wide awake. Not even sleepy.

I had been so preoccupied thinking about Zatanna, I hadn't got a wink of sleep. I could try to roll over and force myself asleep, or start chugging melatonin, or...

"Guppy, do you think Zatanna likes me?" I asked Guppy as he eyed me from his tank. He blinked slowly, his mouth opening and closing as he breathed, his gills shifting with each breath. "Conner sounded pretty sure about it. Who knows what he picks up with those ears of his. And his powers are the watered-down version… Superman probably knows every secret in the country. Hell, he could be listening in on me right now."

And there was a scary thought -- Superman hearing exactly how lame I was. I think I'd die of shame.

I was overthinking this, but as I thought about the outing today. Or, yesterday. Whatever. It sorta lined up? The smiles, the looks… but did her sitting next to me to watch the movie actually mean anything, or was I wildly out of line and looking for something that wasn't there? I mean, I was good at reading people. If Zatanna liked me, then I feel like I would have picked up on that. I picked up on Megan crushing on Conner pretty quickly. And Wally crushing on Megan, but that was obvious.

"I'm so lame," I muttered to myself, massaging my temples. "Why am I so lame?"

Was getting shown a little interest all it took to get me to like a girl? I mean… I never really thought about Zatanna that way until Conner said that she liked me. I thought she was cute. And I did like that she went after what she wanted and made sure she got her way. That was hot. But, it wasn't like I was crushing on her beforehand. I wasn't crushing on anyone on account of trying to be a capital H hero.

And now I was thinking over the moral conundrum of asking a girl out just because I knew she liked me. Was that taking advantage of her feelings? Was I being a colossal piece of shit right now? I already felt like an idiot for being desperate enough to ask my pet fish for advice.

"You know what?" I decided, standing up. Guppy swam in circles, showing that he wanted to go on a walk, so while I got dressed, I adopted my Water shaping style and let him swim around  in the coil of water I pulled out from his tank and wrapped  around me. None of my clothes really fit now, but they didn't need to. "I need advice."

I had no clue who I was going to ask. Maybe Conner. Or Megan. There was no way I was bringing this to Mom. I would die of humiliation. Or throw myself off a bridge. One of the two.

I wrote out a quick note for Mom or Dad to find in the morning -- that I couldn't sleep, so I was going to the Mountain to burn off some restless energy. Leaving it on my pillow, I made sure there was nothing incriminating in my room, and I had Gluttony coiled around my waist before I headed out. After a quick flash of light from the Zeta Tube beneath my house, I arrived at the Mountain.

Predictably, it was quiet. I expected as much, but I figured that if Conner heard me, he'd probably wake up and see what I was doing here. Same with Megan. That way, I didn't feel like a jerk for waking them up at two in the morning to deal with my mess of hormones. With that thought in mind, my destination was clear -- the gym.

The gym in the Mountain was beyond kitted out -- it was made with the use of people in Conner's weight class in mind. It had it all, including flat plates that weighed a literal metric ton. While I was eager to find the limits of my new and improved body, I wasn't so eager to try lifting those. Instead, I turned my attention to the free weights. My fingers brushed over them, settling on a twenty-five-pounder. I started to lift it, but it felt too light.

So, I went to the fifty. Better… but also too light.

I tried again with a seventy-five, it had a bit of weight to it, but nothing that you wanted when working out.

I settled on a dumbbell that weighted a hundred and fifty pounds and I started curling it like it was a twenty-pounder. That, I thought as I grabbed the second to complete the set and started working the free weights, was kind of surreal. With all the jumps in my stats, it was difficult to tell just what the milestones in them represented.

I puzzled it out as I worked, and eventually figured that around twenty points was baseline normal. Healthy, but not spectacular. Which puts fifty as being incredibly fit. But, after that, I was spitballing. If I had to put labels on it, I would say that seventy-five was Olympic-level fitness. About as close to perfect as you could get. But, all but one of my stats were at a hundred. That, I'm guessing, put me at… peak human. Physically speaking, I was in perfect condition.

Which meant that everything beyond that point was superhuman.

It was only by twenty-five points, but my endurance was superhuman.

Cool.

I needed up buying some clothes from the Market to change into as I explored my new limits. Before the coma, I never would have dreamed about pumping iron like I was. More than that, I could see the road way ahead of me. At one hundred, it cost me twenty-five points per stat point. I had twenty-five thousand in the bank at the moment, plus a little extra with the latest batch of videos.

In theory, I could push every stat up to five hundred. Now that I saw the results of them, I was tempted. So very tempted. It also made me feel kinda stupid for dropping that same number of points into a skill I wasn't sure I would ever use. But, there was something else to take into consideration -- I could grind stats. It was difficult and it took a while, but I could do it.

I wasn't sure what I should be doing. I had a goal to get multiform, and I needed to increase my stats for it to be useful… but I also needed more skills and abilities. Skills and abilities were useful. Stats were more general and they fed into the effectiveness of my skills, while skills were more specific. A multi-tool compared to a toolbox, so to speak.

Setting the weights down, I looked at my options -- I had a free roll left, an item roll, and I could buy about five rolls in total. Twenty-five thousand was my bare minimum, but with a little luck and a little more skill, I could get some Prestige to mess around with.

I clicked on my freeroll and saw a tic-tac-toe board appear before me. "Huh," I muttered, pursing my lips. Tic-tac-toe was one of those games that was so easy that it was next to impossible to actually cheat at. The trick was to get two ways to win without your opponent noticing. But, if you did it fast enough… it was tempting. So very tempting. After mulling it over for a long minute, I made my bet.

Risk it all. All twenty-five thousand points.

I put an X in a corner and was blocked off with an O in the space above. Putting another X in the far corner on the same line threatened three in a row, so an O was placed in the center. With an X in the middle of the board, I had two ways to win. With a satisfied smile on my face, I took my new skill and double the points I had bet -- a total of fifty thousand.

Risk it all's were more scary the more points you had, I reflected as I checked out the new skill.

High Speed Rotating Dislocator

TR

A high-speed counter technique that will dislocate the enemy's joints. The more power put into the technique, the more damage will be done to the enemy, and the stronger the blacklash should the enemy break through it.

I tried it out and was impressed by the results -- circling around my palm was a whirlwind and with a flick of my wrist, it spun rapidly before dying off. I could imagine what it would do if I blocked a punch with it. I lowered the juice I  put into it, and this time the whirlwind only appeared as I used the technique. I was going to have to mess with it a bit, but it was a good technique for Koi since he was the close-range fighter.

Feeling a stroke of good luck, I decided to buy a roll. The game was a maze -- a ball bearing on a maze that was on a grid. I had to tilt the grid in ways to get the ball to move forward while avoiding hole traps. Simple enough, and I could feel the increase in dexterity as I played the game after betting twenty-five thousand, only betting my winnings.

It was free prestige as far as I was concerned. My total points shot up to seventy-five thousand and the skill that I got was pretty good.

Alert

TR

The user can go two weeks without sleep before suffering side effects. Grants immunity to sleep inducing drugs and spells. The timer on this skill every time the user gets eight hours of sleep.

"I should quit while I'm ahead," I told myself, before I resumed my workout. That was a good skill. For the next two weeks, I just had an additional eight hours of the day. In two weeks, that would be more than a hundred hours. I basically just gained an additional four days to my week in practice. Something that I imagine would be incredibly useful given how many lives I was living -- two hero identities, my own, and a dozen accounts on Metube.

I should take my winnings and cash out. I should, one hundred percent, do that.

I didn't though.

"Come on, baby," I said as I picked an item roll and I saw a familiar setup. It was the first time I saw a repeated game, so it stood out -- it was the timing game that I first used in the hospital. The one that I thought was a dream. And because I knew exactly how to game it… I felt bold. Maybe too bold.

Risk it all.

I dumped sixty-two thousand points into a bet that the needle would land on a tile that hadn't been there the last time. A green tile. Just like before, the needle speed up over the window of opportunity, and I let it pass by once, but unlike before, there was a time limit. Just enough time for two full rotations.

Just as the needle started to go over the green tile, I pressed down. And it took everything that I had not to shout in victory. I got it dead center.

Giving me a total of a hundred and twenty-five thousand points and a new item to top it all off. I was so excited that I nearly forgot to grab the item when it materialized.

It was a necklace -- or, a cross specifically. A rough twine necklace that had a slightly misshapen cross on it that was made out of a pair of shaved twigs held together with more twine.

Jeanne d'Arc's Cross

Holy Item

This is the cross given to the Saint Jeanne d'Arc by a peasant girl before being burnt at the stake.

Grants protection against demonic and evil forces.

I held it in my hand for a moment before I looked at Gluttony, expecting some kind of reaction from him, given that he was a gluttony demon. But he seemed rather uncaring about the cross. I'm not sure if it was because I wasn't religious, or if it was because Gluttony was my demon rather than hell's. Regardless, as far as items go, it seemed pretty cool, if situational.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Guppy come to a stop. He had broken off from me, recreating his ball of water before he just started doing laps around the gym. Looking over at him, I almost missed it when the door opened a split second later. Of all the faces that I expected to poke through the door to see who was inside, Zatanna was at the very bottom of that list.

"Zatanna?" I questioned, so caught off guard I nearly dropped one of my dumbbells. She offered me a smile as she stepped inside, "What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you that. I'm here because Megan wanted me to sleepover, but then I heard a noise coming from the gym," Zatanna said, and… I didn't recall that being discussed? I mean, I had seen Zatanna leave through the Zeta Tube before me, but I guess she just went to pick up some stuff. Or… she was lying. It just seemed like an odd thing to lie about, though. "It's two in the morning. Do you always work out this early?"

I headed to the rack and set the weights down, "No, it's a first-time thing. I don't need to sleep anymore."

Zatanna tilted her head, "At all?"

"Nope," I answered, looking back at her while Guppy rolled over to me and rejoined the coil of water I had moved to a bench at some point before my workout since it kept getting in my way during my workout. "I'm also immune to drugs like chloroform."

"Your power is wild," Zatanna decided, sounding impressed. She folded her hands behind her back as she neared, drawing my attention to the white tank top she was wearing, and then down to the tight pair of yoga pants beneath it.  I quickly looked away -- coming here might have been a bad idea, I thought. I hadn't expected anyone else to actually use the gym at this hour. Now I wished I had just gone to wake up Conner or someone else. "So, what do you plan to do with all of your free time?" She asked, much closer than before, and I answered with a shrug.

"No clue, really. I'll talk with Batman in the morning about taking up some extra training. Red Tornado is a robot, so he doesn't need sleep either. I'm sure we'll find some way to fill up the hours," I said, glancing at her. "And, sorry about waking you up."

Zatanna offered a shrug before she moved close enough to reach out and touch, "I was already up. I had fun yesterday, so I'm feeling a little jazzed. It's something that's hard to turn off."

Yeah, I could get that. "Yeah, I understand," I nodded in agreement. "I'm betting everyone else is the same. It was fun to just hang out."

"Even if it was with some people that you'd rather not?" Zatanna asked,  earning a shrug from me.

"They were fine," I dismissed, awkwardly shrugging again for some reason, before I busied myself by feeding Gluttony Jeanne d'Arc's cross. Given how he didn't burst into flames, I'm guessing that we were good on that front. I shot her a look, though, debating on whether I should bring what was bothering me or not. In the end, I decided to throw Robin under the bus to test the waters. It did brush a little too close to breaking the bro code… but, then again, you had to be bros for it to apply. "The worst I got was some sour looks from Robin for sitting next to you."

Zatanna's eyebrows rose at the implication that Robin might be crushing on her, "Really? That's cute, but… well, I have my eyes on someone else." She said, taking a step forward, coming to a stop less than a few inches away from me, her hands still clasped behind her back. I stilled ever so slightly. My breathing became a little shallower.

I think… maybe… she meant me? I'm ninety percent that she meant me. The remaining ten percent uncertainty came from hedging my bets so my hopes didn't get too high in case  it turned out she was talking about Conner. Or worse, Wally.

"Really?" I questioned, "Do I know him?" It was meant to be a rhetorical question, and half a joke, but Zatanna answered anyway, once again reminding me why I liked her.

She stood up on the tips of her toes, giving her just enough height to press her lips against mine in a chaste kiss. It was over just as quickly as it began, and by the time I registered it happening, I was only left with the impression of something soft on my lips. Zatanna lowered back down, looking slightly nervous even as she tried to cover it by projecting confidence. "I'd say so," she said, giving me a hesitant smile as she looked up at me through her eyelashes.

Okay, I'm pretty sure that she liked me.

Like, ninety percent  sure. Enough that I found the courage to lean in to return the kiss. I had to slouch a bit, tilting my head to the side as my lips pressed against hers. Her lips began to move against mine, before she once again showed off that assertiveness I liked so much as she deepened the kiss, one of her hands going up to my jaw. I mimicked the movements she made, putting my dexterity stat to good use, falling into a rhythm as I savored my first kiss. It may not be hers, judging by how good she was at it, but I didn't really care about that.

However, as I kissed her, there was a nagging doubt in the back of my mind. A question I had never even considered before until this very moment now that it was practically too late.

Was I a good kisser? I had absolutely no clue. It wasn't like I could ask anyone and find out. And now I was becoming increasingly self-conscious about it as I kissed Zatanna -- should I be using tongue? Or was that too much? I brushed my teeth earlier, but I had pizza with garlic parmesan on the crust for dinner and I knew that was bad.

A voice in the back of my head piped as my self-concious thoughts began to pile up. If I was really worried about how good I was at kissing, I could always buy a skill...

No.  I shouldn't do it. I absolutely shouldn't. It was a waste of points. I had already been down this rabbit hole once before, and I doubted that Zatanna would even really care, especially if I explained that it was the first time I had ever kissed a girl. Not being a James Bond-tier kisser right out the gate was perfectly acceptable.

But when you could master whatever skill you wanted with the click of a button...

I cracked an open one of my eyes as I kissed Zatanna, and saw that her eyes were closed. I had one hand on her hips, though I don't know how it got there, but with the other, I subtly opened my Market and I made a purchase as sneakily as I could. And then I bought some upgrades. In all likelihood, way  too many, but when I heard Zatanna gasp into my mouth as my new skill took effect, I didn't exactly regret the purchase.

Kissing

TR

A good makeout session is as good as sex. The partner's mouth becomes an erogenous zone that's sensitivity is proportionate to arousal.

That was good right?

Even as I asked the question of myself, I received an answer. With the skill, my clumsy technique vanished, and Zatanna deepened the kiss even further. My tongue darted out, brushing across her bottom lip, and her lips parted to allow me access. Zatanna let out what I could only describe as a whine as my tongue slipped into her mouth. The hand that was caressing my jaw moved to my hair, while the other ran down my back, pulling me closer as she pressed her body to mine.

Both of my hands settled on her hips -- Now the roles were reversed. Before, she took the lead in the kiss, but now she gave me free reign to plunder her mouth. Her breathing came in short pants through her nose, and it tickled my skin.

Time soon lost all meaning, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before her breathing started to quicken. She ground her body against mine while my hands ventured from her hips down to the holy area that was her ass, feeling the firm flesh under my palms.

Then she went suddnely went still before she broke the kiss. Zatanna sucked in a sharp breath and buried her face in my shoulder. She trembled, almost shaking -- I might have thought that I screwed up somehow, but that worry was set at ease when I heard and felt Zatanna moaned into my shoulder. She took a few seconds to recover from what I think might have been an orgasm -- and fuck if that wasn't the hottest thing I had ever seen -- before she looked up at me, her eyes clouded with what I could only describe as desire. "I want you to touch me, Ren," Zatanna breathed, her hands going back to take hold of mine where they rested on her ass, and pulling one up and around the front of her body  so that it cupped her breast.

It was through a tank top and a bra, but my mind still suffered a soft crash as I touched my first tit. I quickly rebooted, though, "We… should go somewhere a little more private then," I said -- I didn't know if there were cameras in the gym, but it seemed like a safe bet that there would be. My gaze slid over to the bathroom, making Zatanna look over at it as well.

"Your power is such bullshit," Zatanna murmured, and I guess it was really obvious that I went from a maybe kinda bad kisser to a great one in about three seconds flat. She walked ahead of me, leading the way, her hips swaying purposefully, and…

"Yeah, it is," I agreed as I quickly made another purchase. My dick was doing my thinking for me. I was aware of that, but at this moment, my dick was having some great ideas, and it only needed fifty thousand Prestige points to see them happen.

Foreplay

TR

Sensual touches with the user's hands and mouth bring heightened pleasure proportional to arousal. Through focused attention, the user can develop any part of their partner's body into an erogenous zone, guaranteeing their pleasure.

Cunnilingus is sold separately.

Sex

TR

The art of copulation and intimacy. The user's partner is guaranteed to experience untold pleasure, making restrictive concepts such as body compatibility a thing of the past. When combined with Kissing, Foreplay, and Cunnilingus, the user's partner is guaranteed to have the greatest sexual encounter of their life.

Yeah, that's what I wanted to see. I was brought back down to fifty thousand points, having spent about seventy thousand on these three skills, and I had exactly zero regrets. My dick was a genius. I especially thought so when Zatanna turned around and gave me a sly smile over her shoulder as we entered the bathroom. I quickly stepped forward, reaching out and gently pinching her chin to bring her lips to mine. As she turned around, my hands slid down over her ass,  and I effortlessly lifted her up.

Carrying her to the long row of sinks lining the wall to the left of the bathroom door, I sat her down on the counter before I allowed my hands to explore her body. I pulled away from her lips to pepper her neck with kisses, letting me hear as Zatanna tried to swallow her moans and failed to do so. She felt it through her clothes as I ran my hands over her thighs, her back, and stomach. I was impressed by what I felt. Zatanna might not be a front-line combatant, but she was fit.

"Ren," Zatanna moaned,  and the sheer need in her voice drove me wild. My heart was hammering at my chest, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. I planned to tease her a bit more and warm her up, but after hearing that, I couldn't wait. A hand slid up her thigh before it settled between her legs, making Zatanna's breathing hitch as I rubbed small circles over her pussy through her yoga pants.

I pressed my forehead against hers, looking into her eyes as I slowly raised my hand, going to the hemline of her yoga pants. Her response was to open her legs wider, granting me permission and access. I slipped my hand beneath her yoga pants and her panties beneath them, and the first thing I discovered was that she was wet. Very wet. I couldn't see anything, but based on my sense of touch and how smooth she felt down there, she had shaved recently.

Cautiously, and filled with wonder, I explored her body. One of Zatanna's hands went up, grabbing my shirt and wrapping it up in her fist. Her mouth parted, breathing hitching as I explored her slit. It was a narrow line that wept arousal, guarded by two puffy outer lips, but I brought my attention to the top of her cleft. With skill that was decidedly unnatural, I used the tips of my fingers to rub circles directly into her clit through its hood.

Zatanna's eyes crossed, her jaw-dropping open while her body arched -- I couldn't be sure, but I'm guessing that Foreplay increased the pleasure that pre-existing erogenous zones offered. A lewd moan escaped her as I felt the wetness between her legs increase to the point that she was beginning to soak through her panties. I kissed her to muffle the sound -- I did not want Conner waking up now and coming to investigate.

She reached up and grabbed my hair, pressing my lips against hers hard as she moaned loudly into my mouth. Every inch of her went tense, her body arching, before like a puppet, her strings were cut and she slumped against the back wall hard enough I worried that she might break the mirror. Zatanna panted heavily, her breathing ragged, her chest rising and falling like she ran a marathon.

"This was so much more than I expected. I thought we'd just kiss a bit, but… woah," Zatanna muttered, licking her lips as she caught her breath. I slowed my ministrations at that, feeling rather proud of myself. She was two orgasms in already. I know I was cheating like a motherfucker, but an orgasm is an orgasm. Her hands started to roam my shoulders, "Are we…?" She asked, her eyes excited.

My dick strained at my pants and I could feel the fabric of my boxers straining the threads. My muscles weren't the only things that had gotten an upgrade from all the points I had poured into my stats. Every instinct I had screamed yes. But, my hormone-soaked brain somehow managed to offer a pointed counterargument.

Was I going to lose my virginity in a bathroom at the Mountain?

Zatanna seemed to catch my hesitation, "I know what it looks like, but I… I'm not, like, a slut, or anything. I'm a virgin-" she started to defend herself, but she just gave the argument another point.

I silenced her worries with a quick kiss as I withdrew my hand from her pants. Breaking it a second later,  I leaned back, "I want to. Really bad," I admitted with all honesty. "But I don't want our first time to be in a bathroom in the Mountain. Plus, Conner is here, and I'm really worried that he could overhear."

To that, Zatanna let out a high-pitched giggle that sounded relieved. "First time?" She questioned as I stepped back, closing her legs, though not before I noticed a wet spot between her legs. Her eyes dipped down to my rather obvious erection before she looked up at me.

Was that a bit too presumptuous? "If I deserve a repeat performance. I'll bring my A-game. It can be a date. If that's what you want," I tacked on as Zatanna slid off of the counter.

Her shakey smile grew into a more genuine one, "I think I'd like that, Ren." She decided, closing the distance between us for a quick kiss to the cheek. "Thank you," she added before she quickly left, not quite running away, clearly but wanting to make a quick exit.

I did the right thing, I told myself as I watched her go. It was the right thing for both of us. As horny as we were, I think we both would have regretted it if we hooked up right now. And here.

I knew that, but… damn. I could totally have just had sex just now.

Blowing out a hot breath, I looked at the sink, then at my glistening hand, before I turned on the tap and started washing my hands. The events replayed in my mind and I doubted I would be able to sleep even if I could. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the door opening again,  my first thought it was Conner or Batman.

Instead, it was Guppy, who looked up at me from inside his ball of water.

I turned off the tap and dried my hands, offering Guppy a smile. "Zatanna likes me," I confirmed to him.

And, I knew I had trouble heading my way because of it.

...

I developed a formula for romance in my stories, and I wanted to break away from it in Risk It All. Normally, there's a grace period where the romance builds up until the relationship is formed that would progress through the story. Here, I wanted to get the genuine teenage romance experience where the foundation for the relationship is pure physical attraction. Ren and Zatanna don't really know each other well, and when they do interact, both of them are trying too hard to be what the other thinks is attractive. So, things will develop a bit differently compared to my other stories.