Deathstriker was in his natural habitat: standing on rooftops at night.

  If he had a real home, he certainly couldn't remember it at this point.

  He sniffed at the air and could tell there was a problem at once. It was the stench of injustice.

  He unfurled his dark fairy wings and they carried him along the feystream. He gazed down at the crime-committing punks, making sure to properly sneer for emphasis.

  His gloominator wasn't wrong. Some scum was stripping an abandoned house of its copper wiring.

  Deathstriker shook his head... too many victims, this summer. The owners of the house might have been eaten by vampires or some other somesuch monster. Entire families were being wiped clean every day, now. If not for the violet girl and himself, there wouldn't be anything left of E-13. He was sure of it.

  Even if these weren't monsters, he wouldn't stand by and allow vultures to desecrate the belongings of the dead.

  He silently floated to the street, and began to dismantle them with some gentle punches. There were only three of them and they were weak, soft, even, but their white helmets provided enough protection that it took dozens of punches to fully disable one. At least while using punches that were non-lethal to a normal human.

  Deathstriker sighed. Openly showing disdain for his enemies also helped build up his power, and he could use the juice for the rest of the night. He stomped slowly toward the last of the thugs. As he began to throw the first of what was sure to a long, grueling series of punches, they threw their arms in front of their face and shouted "I just wanted to play Dungeons and Headlice!"

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Deathstriker's fist stopped before it made contact.

  Dungeons and Headlice is an RPG explorer management simulation game. It takes place in a typical mish-mosh potato soup medieval type fantasy world. It was the kind of thing made by and for a particular kind of nerd. Specifically, the kind that felt that medieval times would be an awful time to be alive, and was aghast that anyone would want to live inside one for their escapism.

  In-door plumbing, air conditioning, and video games surely are the bare minimum a modern civilized person would consider... civilized.

  Gameplay took place in your typical fantasy country. Each player took control of one kind of guild or church or what have you. Win conditions depended on faction - obviously the author had a pet favorite. The cult of the isekai hygiene guy, who won the game if he was able to spread the concept of hygiene in the country to such a degree that headlice is eliminated as a nationwide threat. (Oh, I forgot to mention headlice are one of the danger factors that reduce the population as it rises.)

  No true player of the game ever played that faction, however. As the game designer's Mary Sue favorite, it was overpowered and besides that, was an unpopular aesthetic. Deathstriker played as the Brotherhood of the Plumbers' Union Confederation. Nerd Boy went with his favorite, the Lodge of the Harem Shit.

  This is the kind of game that Deathstriker and Nerd Boy like to play.

  Don't bother feeling pity for them. They already pity themselves.