Tomboy Island

They went west, spending some time in the shade of boulders. The breeze from the ocean was nice and cool when they once more hit the beach. Following along the shore, Alex kept a careful view of his environment. He did not want a repeat of the glass situation.

The leader of the party strut confidently. Alex had always been a heavy fellow, in the sense that he had been tall and made from a lot of muscle. Now that he was well north of two metres, he could feel the satisfying reverberations from his footfalls. The massive blade he continued to carry over his shoulder only added to that.

‘This is pretty great,’ Alex thought to himself and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Walking down the shore of a tropical beach, massive sword over my shoulder, naked, three haremettes behind me.’ He turned halfway to smirk at them. They smiled back. ‘This is the fantasy protagonist life.’

“Isn’t that heavy as hell?” Charlotte asked and pointed at the stone.

“Amusingly, it's barely heavier than this,” Alex answered and gestured with the stone rod he carried in his other hand. As a weapon, it was beyond outclassed, but there was no reason to leave behind something that could serve as construction material or the weapon of another woman. “It’s always as heavy as I need it to be, I think. So it would be heavier during combat.”

“Don’t you want it to be even lighter during combat?” Tess asked.

“No, you want it to be heavy,” Alex answered. “Light is only good if something has a keen edge that does all the work. Most of the time, you want something with a heavy end, like a hammer, and a relatively small area of impact. That way you have a lot of force. If you hit someone with something light, it does barely anything.”

Charlotte looked at him with even greater interest, if that was even possible. “So you have experience fighting?”

“Depends on what you mean by that. I had to fight off a cougar once.”

“I didn’t ask about your sexual histo- wait, you’re serious?” Tess started to joke, only to realize he wasn’t giving her the jovial kind of smile. “How did that happen?”

“During one of my survivalist trips, I stayed out in the Appalachians for a week. ‘Fighting a cougar’ makes it sound cooler than it was. I was sitting by the campfire, wisely looked around and caught the reflection of the eyes in a bush. Then I grabbed a big stick and threw it at the cat. I don’t even know if it wanted to attack me or if it was just curious. Either way, it bolted off afterwards.” Alex rolled his neck. “Beyond that, I did have to take some self-defence classes as part of my pilot’s license. You know, post-9/11 precautions. Not a whole lot of experience with a massive sword, but I’ll figure it out.”

As his eyes drifted back forwards, they briefly got stuck on something. Alex halted in his steps and directed his eyes back. Something brown and white of difficult-to-measure size was floating one to two hundred metres out from the shore. He pointed at it, posing a non-verbal question.

“Yeah, I see that too,” Charlotte said. “Some kind of… buoy, maybe? Want me to check it out?”

“You and me, Charlotte. Selana, Tess, stay here for a moment.” Alex said and put down the stone sword and rod.

The swim out to the floating thing was simple, very simple. Charlotte got a little playful with it by getting ahead. As a man (especially of his size) he could probably swim faster than her if he really tried, but her technique did trump his by a mile.

“Now that’s not something I expected to find here,” Alex said out loud.

The brown-white object was, in reality, just white. Wrapped in some kind of algae, the container floated exactly as it was supposed to, the coating keeping its waterproof walls from rusting. Painted on the side in black was the name of the company that had made the container and the words ‘Property of the SOW’.

Alex remembered when the box had been installed on the plane. It had been supposed to say ‘Property of the S.o.O.W.’ to avoid the awkward acronym. Because boxes like this were quite expensive, they had only slapped a literal bandaid on it and then put that side against the wall. The bandaid had come off and the wall no longer existed.

“What is it?” Charlotte asked. “Obviously it’s from our plane, I get that much.”

“It’s a box with survival gear,” Alex told her. “Let’s keep talking after we get it to land.”

A nod was all that was required. The box was a rectangle two metres wide, one deep and one high. The corners had been rounded. It looked entirely out of place in the tropics. After carefully tearing the aquatic plants off of it, Charlotte and Alex got onto one narrow side and then, together, pushed it along.

The occasional wave gave them trouble. Beyond that, courtesy of the floatage of the item, it was pretty easy to push along. Difficulty arose once they were out of the water. Alex had to drag on one side and the three women pushed from the other. That way, they managed to get it all the way to the beach.

The handle was almost flat against the lid, a necessity to make sure water movement couldn’t turn it. While Alex tried to get a good handle on the wet, smooth metal, he explained what they were looking at. “The box was installed in case we did a controlled crash landing in the ocean,” he explained. “There should be stuff in here that was supposed to help us survive if we had to squat in the plane or a nearby island until help arrived.”

Alex finally got a good grip and turned the handle with one powerful motion. The seal hissed, an intricately constructed seal of rubber, plastic and metal breaking. The lid had no hinges, only hooks that gripped into the frame that had now come loose. It was thick but mostly hollow. Directly underneath it was a layer of plastic that would keep out little trickles of water that somehow made it past the first seal.

“Do not damage anything,” Alex cautioned. Even a plastic blanket like that was worth its mass in gold on this island. In fact, it was better than gold. It was a rectangular strip of waterproof material, capable of withstanding quite a bit of strain. Always good to have in pocket. “Let’s see what we have here…”

The inside of the box was smaller than one would have thought. The walls were as thick as the lid, likely to prevent people from overloading the box to the point that it would threaten buoyancy. Inside the storage room was nothing exciting but also not so little that Alex was disappointed. That was a massive win, all things considered.

A medical kit was the first and greatest win. It was fully stocked with disinfectant, bandaids (large, small, and pressured), and field surgery equipment. Another box next to it contained a gracious number of nutrient bars. Lastly notable was a box with liquid fire starter alongside a larger version of a camping cook kit. Importantly, that included a decently sharp knife and whetstone.

Besides all of that, the box itself was worth a fortune. If they left it empty and the lid on, it could make for an impromptu raft.

Alex raised an eyebrow and lifted everything up twice. Against reason, he wanted to make sure nothing was hidden under the boxes he saw. “Looking for something?” Tess asked.

“Usually there should be at least one inflatable boat and an emergency radio in here,” he told them. “Looks like someone decided to skim off some money… or was there a second box..?” Alex tried to remember. Those things had been installed when he had just started his apprenticeship, so Marvin had been the one checking things. ‘Would he… let’s not follow that thought.’

“We leave it here?” Selana asked. “Or do we try to swim back with it?”

“We definitely leave it here,” Alex said. “We can decide if we carry it back to the tree or let the tree come to it once it made it to the shore. Until then, let’s put the lid back on and push it a bit further inland.”

They did that and then Alex could decide where to go next.

Further down the shore, towards the direction of the tree, the party went. “That’s our base, ain’t it?” Charlotte asked and pointed at the bit of red over the horizon. Alex strained his eyes, then slowly nodded. It was way out there in the strait, but they could see it already. “And is that a coral reef?”

The rest of the party turned to where Charlotte was pointing. Sure enough, right by the shore was some kind of miniature coral reef, nested between a variety of porous rocks. Little fish, crabs, and eels were moving around between the colourful marine structures. The constant movement of the waves made looking at it a little difficult.

“Want to touch that too?” Tess asked.

“I would try if I saw something that just shouts ‘I am an important landmark’.” Alex was scanning for something of the like. “Can’t see that. Pretty though.”

“That it is,” Selana agreed. “Pretty doesn’t really do it for me. I prefer dangerous.”

“I have noticed,” Alex gave her a wicked grin. She grinned back the same way. Then they exchanged fistbumps. There was no reason for it, they just felt like it. “I very much like pretty though.”

“I thought you liked udders.” Selana pushed up her tits with her left forearm.

“I like breasts at all sizes and they are all beautiful,” Alex said and leered at the deep cleavage.

Selana laughed freely, a wonderful sound of tomboy supremacy. “Bro, if you want to shove your face in there, you know they’re yours, right?”

“Love to hear that.” Selana bounced on her heels, introducing gorgeous ripples to that overabundant chest. Barely, Alex managed to look away before his cock shot up to full mast. “Not right now though.”

“Yeah, be a good girl and wait until he gets horny!” Charlotte threw herself at Alex. Arms wrapped around his neck, she pressed her breasts against his upper abs. The gesture of affection showed the Titans’ descent just how tall he was now. The 1,69 metres tall woman had to stand on her toes for the top of her head to reach his collar. “Whoever would make Master horny on purpose?”

“Yeah, whoever would do that?” Alex asked and tilted his head down. “Only little brats, right?”

“Totally,” Charlotte whispered.

They kissed. A deep and aroused affair, quickly growing more heated. It stopped when Charlotte reached for his cock. Holding her by the wrist, he halted her advances, then pulled back. “Not yet.”

“Wha- You can’t have self-control, you’re a guy!” Charlotte complained.

“And yet I have it,” he answered and gently pushed her back. “Let’s keep going.”

“Impossibru!”

Tess chuckled at the scene, then followed along with the rest.

Another hour down the shore, the group spotted wooden planks sticking out of the shore.

“Is that a rowing boat?” Alex wondered.

The group approached with quick steps. Even from a distance, it was apparent that it had not been used in a long time. Less than half of the boat was visible and there were no oars in sight, but the overall shape was familiar.

“Looks a little small for a rowing boat, doesn’t it?” Tess remarked when they got closer.

Alex looked at the tip of the ship and tried to expand it inside his mind to a full boat. If his mental map was accurate, it couldn’t have been broader than 80 centimetres. That was less a rowing boat and more of a canoe. The shape, however, was clearly that of a rowing boat. “Ye-” 

Before Alex finished that thought, the ground began to tremble. Stretching his arms out protectively, he took three large steps backwards. The women retreated in equal measure, all of them watching as the rowing boat rose from the sands.

What had looked like wood was really a strange, wood-like growth extending from the top of the shell of a giant crab. Yellowish white, the shell of the creature shared the colour of the tropical sands. Pincers the size of a grown man’s torso clacked with chitinous sharpness. Eight pointed legs stretched, then the entirety of the creature began to skitter sideways - and diagonally towards the group.

Alex grinned.

The grip on his sword tightened. His heart pumped. Although he had never thought himself a violent man, he could not deny himself the urge to use this newfound power. Was it that being surrounded by his personal harem made his testosterone run wild? Was it all the magic pumping through his blood? Was it just a base male desire that finally managed to run rampant?

The crab suddenly took a jagged turn. Using its sideways motion, it tried to avoid the massive male with the sword and instead went for the three women at the back. Tess, Selana and Charlotte followed with large eyes. Cowards they were not, but only fools would have stood fearlessly when a crab the size of a horse barrelled towards them.

The crab raised a pincer for a sweeping grab.

Alex stormed into the gap between the monster and his women.

In the black, beady eyes of the monster, Alex saw his reflection. Fast, so much faster than the grab, he raised his sword over his head. A single outstretched arm was enough to hold onto the massive blade, despite its sudden increase in weight.

CRACK!

BOOM!

A single cataclysmic swipe of Alex’ weapon cracked the facsimile of the rowboat, the shell it grew from, sliced through the pale meat and guts within, bifurcated the whole creature, broke the pincer as it was starting to move, and then slammed into the sand with enough force to create a short-lived cloud of scattering particles.

“Jesus…” “...fucking…” “...Christ!” The three women spoke one after another, while watching Alexander, their Master, lift the weapon effortlessly. A sideways swing caused the sticking guts and translucent lifeblood of the vanquished creature to splatter into the nearby sand.

Alex deliberately held the pose and stared at the crab. He tried to play it off cool, but he could not keep himself from boasting. Hand trembling, he buried the tip of his weapon in the ground. “Holy shit,” he said out loud and turned to his women. “Did I just do that?”

“Uhhhh… Yeah,” Tess answered. “Yeah, you… just split a giant crab in half with one swing, Master.”

“I hereby declare you honourary Guts!” Selana shouted.

“Phew… big shoes to fill…” Alex rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and gave the corpse another glance. He had really split the whole width of it. Not a clean cut, especially not around where he had cracked the carapace, but one cut through all the same. “Hopefully I won’t be made miserable by all of the world though.”

“I don’t get the reference, but whatever is going to happen, I am pretty sure you can solve it,” Tess was quick to assure. “Holy… I am actually shaking.”

That made for all of them, although Alex was mostly back in control of himself. ‘It’s probably easier when you’re the one with the big sword.’ Once his hand was steady, he lifted the massive weapon on his shoulder again. “That will make for a good story to tell later.”

“Uhm, what is your sword doing by the way?” Charlotte asked.

Alex glanced back at his weapon. Faint red trails were rising from the corpse of the monster and seeping into the weapon. The red veins on its spine pulsed with growing intensity, only to diminish back down to the usual, still impressive, levels. “It’s gathering power to keep awakening my blood,” he told them. “No, I do not know exactly what that means, I just know that it’s what it is doing.” He smirked. “See, this is why I touch everything.”

The joke diffused the last bit of tension in the air.