Just a bloody bet

It all started when Cromwell acquired the ability to improve his presentableness by keeping his clothes free of blood in battle.

Fang inquired about this incredible, not to mention immensely useful, ability. Did it work only for Cromwell's blood? Did it work on other bodily fluids?

Little did Cromwell know, when he challenged Fang to a bet, that his sartorial facetiousness would threaten to rupture the fabric, if not of space-time itself, at least of MMFEC. If he managed to keep his clothes clean for a week she'd have to stop using her Wolfblade on non-living things.

All went well, with only a few reminders that the bet was still on, until the end of the Pacific Rim run, as Fang, Mordecai, Elsie and Cromwell were chilling out in the Puyallup Barrens: Fang was disappointed that Cromwell had won his bet.

He had won, fair and good, unless... unless someone could make him bleed on his clothes before they were all home and the mission was truly over.

That was Mordecai's reasoning when he cast a Force-8, no less, *Powerbolt* on Cromwell. The hapless troll took 7 damage and proceeded to fail his berserk roll. Mordecai didn't fail to understand the extent of his mistake as he uttered what could have been his last words:

> *I did this for you Fang.*
>
>

Cromwell's response, a straight-up punch that caused 19 stun damage, sent Mordecai spinning around and seeing little sharks, cartoon-like. At least, that stun damage would not a) kill him and b) make him berserk as well.

After the first hit, that she thought Mordecai had deserved, Fang pulled up her shield to protect him, saying:

> *That's how he shows love now.*
>
>

She was all keen to test her shield against Cromwell's punches.

Cromwell eventually calmed down, asking:

> *What is wrong with you, Mordecai?*
>
>

To which Mordecai's meek response was:

> *I owed one to Fang.*
>
>

Mordecai was sorry. He tried, to heal Cromwell, but glitched and his spell has no effect. His explanation?

> *I don't know, I'm dizzy for some reason.*
>
>

And, by the way, Cromwell didn't bleed on his clothes.

Mordecai alluded to this incident, during the conversation with Ma1nfram3 that took place right after she returned home from her own run. He felt the need to qualify this statement:

> *I'm practically indestructible,*
>
>

by immediately adding:

> *barring certain trolls[...]*
>
>

Later in the same episode, Cromwell repeated that he had won his bet and Fang would have to use her katanas only on things attacking her, such as living creatures and robots. He explained that they had to get out so that Elsie could study for her GED with wilian\_tw and presented her with surprise tickets for Aztlan, a country where she would easily find a lot of weapons. Cromwell didn't get to kill Fang's Seattle-based brother while there, but met Fang's mother, a \*erm\* sympathetic human female and former runner who couldn't leave Aztechnology HQ as part of a lifetime sentence. She tried to convince herself that she did love Fang and was interested in news from her brothers... any of them.

Fang and Cromwell tried and failed to "prank" Rahmut's office. They did meet him... at Security. Fang got to hug him. Cromwell recalled the good ol' times when Rahmut had got the scar he still had on his face and he himself had his eyes cut out. The bet was mentioned again. Then Cromwell asked Rahmut for his permission to ask Fang to marry him, before criticizing Fang's family for their disrespect toward her. Rahmut treated the two to a dinner after insisting that they should not work with *Grace*.

   As Cromwell needs to actively use finely-tuned fighting techniques to keep his clothes clean, he may still ended up bloodied when punching while berserk.

This was demonstrated in Ep 62, soon after Cromwell had won this bet, with Venus's selfless help.

1. ↑ The cast, however, remained amused, if at times incredulous, during the whole incident.
2. ↑ See Ep 59.
3. ↑ Which could probably apply to the two gentlemen on each side of the shield.
4. ↑ See Ep 61.
5. ↑ See Ep 59.
6. ↑ See Ep 61.
7. ↑ as well as, Fang argued, that jar of pickles that had been thrown at her.
8. ↑ Thanks. Much appreciated.
9. ↑ And, one might add in passing, a country one naturally associates with blood.
10. ↑ Who served them yerba mate (interestingly, Tony's facial expressions changed several times during this short sentence), talked about *how terrible it is to birth a litter of orks* and said that *Fang (her words really?) was the worst*. Cromwell contributed to #VaginaFacts (For context, see this tweet from the same day, among others) with the explanation that dwarves have larger heads than humans and dwarf mothers have as hard a time as other mothers giving birth to dwarf babies.
11. ↑ Lauren's decision, maybe in part because this triggered memories of what started as an innocuous idea and turned into the Lance Pendelton run.
12. ↑ That is, roleplay as CEO & runner, and have sex on his chair.
13. ↑ Which Claudia thus summarized, at the end of the episode: *Cromwell pre-posed.*