My Femboy System

There are days when you get to feel like a god—dripping power, glistening with confidence, basking in the undivided attention of your enemies and lovers alike.

This was not one of those days. My knees were still wet with blood. My arm had just been regrown by a woman who looked like she wanted to cry and kill me in the same breath. And behind me, the prison was beginning to collapse, as if the Tower itself had finally grown bored of all our posturing and decided to speedrun its apocalypse.

I still didn’t know exactly why the Tower had started fracturing ever since the third floor—the slow rips in reality, the flickering walls, the rumble beneath our feet like something ancient and hungry shifting in its sleep. And yet, I could only suspect that it had something to do with her. The Red Mistress, her name, her influence, lingering like perfume at a crime scene.

There were too many questions. Too many pieces that didn’t fit.

But from here on out? I’d dig them up. One by one. With charm, with steel—hell, with violence if necessary.

I turned back, slowly, savoring the weight of each step like a final bow. The nobles—what a generous term for such simpering meatbags—had begun spilling out of their cells, blinking at me like baby deer unsure of whether I was salvation or damnation in a corset. One woman in a shredded gown looked ready to throw herself at my feet, which, while flattering, was also frankly just very sticky at the moment. She reached out as if to plead.

"No," I said, raising my hand. "Absolutely not. I’m not leading a conga line of aristocratic dead weight up a collapsing tower. You’ve got legs, you’ve got magic, some of you even have working moral compasses. Use them."

There was a sputter of protests—some weak cries about honor, duty, reparations—but I had already turned my back. Let them squabble their way out the opposite side of the chamber in preparation to descend the tower, or at the very least find refuge among Captain Kane’s ship, wherever it may be now.

This was for their own good. The battle we’d just endured had made one thing painfully clear: the Tower wasn’t playing games anymore, and from here on, survival would come at a cost—one I couldn’t afford to let others pay for me. I simply couldn’t risk dragging them into the oncoming war I was about to face.

Without another word, I strode through the doors I’d kicked open moments before, not flinching at the shards of metal curling in my wake. The hallway beyond was silent. My party followed, no questions asked. Behind us, the ceiling groaned like a dying god. Bits of plaster and stone rained down like the Tower itself was coughing up its sins.

We stepped into the elevator. It was a box of brushed steel and tarnished gold, humming with residual magic and the kind of low, anticipatory dread you get before a really good orgy or a really bad execution. The doors hissed shut. I didn’t even look back.

The climb was quiet. Too quiet. I should’ve been celebrating. We’d killed a creature I’m pretty sure had never been born, only imagined into existence by someone who needed trauma given form. I had my arm back. My coat hadn’t even gotten that dirty. But something... shifted. A pressure in my gut. Not fear, exactly. No. Something uglier. A knowing. The kind that creeps into your dreams and makes your teeth ache.