Monster

Monster

Chapter Three: Forging Bonds

(A/N: This story is not supposed to be dark for at least another ten thousand words, so I decided to lighten it up a bit. This is basically the same chapter as before, just with a different ending and some minor editing. Hope you enjoy, Onimott! (And whoever else might be reading this. (You could leave a bloody comment you know!)))

Sure, Cadance and I bonded, we played with Twi, and I kept up training with Strike, (I wasn’t late again) but the next article of note happened a few days later.

Listener, I speak of the day I started rebuilding my life.

It started with my normal routine, spend some time with Cadence, spend some time with Twi, and get my ass kicked by Strike. But, as I was walking home, I ran into Blade. I could instantly tell from the mischievous glint in his eye that he was up to something.

Before he could say anything, I held up my hand. “I want in,” I told him. He grinned, and told me to follow him.

“Alright, we’re gonna prank my friends, Eagle and Rune.” He detailed the plan, which honestly sounded pretty weak. He wanted to remove the doors from their rooms.

“No, that’s fucking stupid. Let’s do something better.” I told him, kinda disappointed.

He held up a hand. “No, you don’t understand. They each value their privacy above anything else. And their rooms are right across the hall from each other. They’ll immediately blame each other, and think up increasingly ridiculous ways to get each other back. Sometimes you gotta use a lame prank to start a prank war.”

I just rolled my eyes and said, “Whatever.” We walked in silence. It took about ten minutes to get there, and I was quite disappointed when we did. A simple three bedroom apartment. He said that they’d be home in about twenty minutes, so we needed to hurry.

Long story short, the doors ended up at my place. Short story long, we took about three minutes getting the doors out of their frames. One of the doors was painted light blue, and had a big ‘E’ on it, appearing to be written in blood. This door also had... straps, attached to the inside. The other door was scorched black. ‘Magic burns!’ I realized. ‘Yer a wizard, Harry.’ No, brain, shut the fuck up. The door had an ‘R’ carved out of it. I carried Eagle’s door to my place, while Blade carried Rune’s. Call me paranoid, but if you have a Mage called ‘Rune’, and he wants his privacy more than anything else, I want to have as little contact with that Discord-damned thing as possible.

We stashed the doors in my closet, then went back to his place to watch the fallout. We were just chilling in the living room when they got home.

They walked through the door laughing, not realizing what was about to go down. Blade got up, introduced them to me, we shook hands, blah blah blah, I don’t feel like going over the formalities.

Later I would learn more about them, but I feel it would be prudent to tell you about them now, so you can better understand the following events, and why they didn’t react the way Blade expected them to. Fucking numbskull...

Eagle was an Aviate assassin for the Princess, usually seen wearing shades and a leather duster, and carrying about ten knives strapped various places around his body. Also known for being a crack-shot with his dual flintlock pistols.

And Rune was a battle Mage, who was exceptional at combat and strangely healing, usually seen wearing a long black robe, and known for defeating an entire colony of Harpies himself. (Albeit a small one.)

Each of them had very short tempers, which I learned very quickly.

Anyway, Eagle excused himself to go upstairs, claiming that he had work to do. The three of us had barely sat down when we heard yelling coming from upstairs. We looked at each other, before rushing upstairs. Just in time to see Eagle put his fist through a wall. He removed his fist, leaving a sizable hole in the wall. There were a few others just like it. I apologize for not giving you an exact number, but I can’t be expected to remember everything, can I?

Well, Blade was right in one sense, about them blaming each other, but he was wrong about them pranking each other back. Eagle pulled out a fucking gun and demanded his door back, but Rune didn’t like that, and launched Eagle through the wall using magic.

Eagle landed just before a crowd walked by, obscuring our view of him. By the time the crowd was gone, so was Eagle. Rune was slowly going white.

“Uh, Rune?” Blade asked quietly, and Rune turned to face him. “Why would you even do that!?” Blade fucking screamed at him, while also going very white. They seemed to forget that I was even here.

“I’m just gonna, uh, go...” I muttered very quietly. They continued yelling at each other, so I figured I’d just slip away. I then proceeded to calm myself, think clearly about the dignified exit I wanted to make, and booked it right the fuck out of that house. As I was running, I got a peculiar feeling to turn around and look at the house. I did so, just in time to see a very pissed off looking Aviate slam directly through the fucking house, and exit the other side with a very scared looking Rune.

‘I am so very glad I got out of there.’ I thought to myself, shellshocked. ‘Holy hell, that could’ve been bad.’ I just kept running. When I got to the house, I booked it up the stairs, and Cadance peeked out of my room.

“Wha-” Was all she managed to get out, before I hug-tackled her.

“Hide me.” I whimpered, managing to worry her thoroughly.

She tried again. “Shiny, what happe-” This time she was cut off by a polite knock at the door. I started shaking. I looked out my window very quickly, and Eagle waved at me. In his other hand he held a pistol. ‘Well, at least he didn’t use that first.’ I thought, regaining a little hope. I walked downstairs, being constantly bombarded by Cadence with nonstop questions. I took a deep breath, and opened the door.

And immediately stared down the barrel of a flintlock, held in a steady grip.

“I’d prefer if you pointed that at a place that I don’t need to survive.” I told him, with a fake-as-all-hell brave voice.

He scowled at me. “Shining Armor, you have exactly no time to tell me where my door is, before I shove this pistol up your ass and pull the trigger.” I believed him too. I just watched him literally rip apart a house.

I held up my hands in a placating gesture. “Take a right out of this room, go up the stairs, first door to the left, in the closet.” I said, fast enough that I sounded like a rapper. ‘They call me M.C. Shadows.’ My brain said.

BRAIN, WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!

Eagle nodded and went upstairs. When he came back downstairs, he had both doors. He put his door down on the floor, ‘And he walked the dinosaur!’ My brain threw out there. ‘No,’ I scolded my brain. ‘He didn’t walk the fucking dinosaur.’ He put his feet into the straps, and started hovering.

At my questioning look, he explained. “I always figured that Blade would do something really stupid, so I planned for everything.” I nodded. Hey, it made sense to me. I opened the front door wide, and he used his door like a hoverboard. He flew out of the house, and shot down the street like a bullet.

Cadance pursed her lips at me. “And just what was that, Shiny?” I looked at her in fear.

“Uh... non parley anglais.” I stuttered in absolutely horrid french.

“Ah! Parlez’ vous Francois!” She said flawlessly.

I stared at her for a second, before a new plan hatched in my brain. “You know Cadance, you’re like the perfect girl.” I said in an awe-filled voice. She blushed and looked away.

Which made it that much easier to bolt out the door.

“Shining Armor!” I think I turned Cadance into a rage beast.

I turned and looked behind me. Cadance’s hair had taken on the ethereal form of the Archons, and she literally had fire spilling from the corners of her eyes. ‘Nope.’ I thought, and just kept running. ‘I have no blatantly obvious and ill-timed references for this situation.’ My brain told me. ‘Would I call an exorcist for you, or do I need a lobotomy?.’ I snarled at it.

I dove over an ill-placed cabbage cart, and heard Cadance go through it, as well as a horrified, “MY CABBAGES!” ‘Holy shit!’ I thought, before trying to run faster.

Unfortunately, one of my steps hit the ground out of rhythm, making me stumble. As the laws of physics dictate, I slammed down hard onto the cobblestone streets. I rolled for about five feet before stopping.

I woke up to Strike shining a really bright beam of sunlight into my eye, courtesy of a magnifying glass. I pushed his hand away and sat up.

“Why th- you know what? I don’t care. What happened?” I asked him, rubbing my head.

“Well, you learned what happens when you piss of a goddess.” At my questioning look, he smiled. It was a predatory smile, one suited for the battlefield. “In other words,” He continued, “You got all kinds of fucked up.” His smile grew deeper. “And I have been ordered to make your punishment as horrible as possible." At my horrified look he chuckled. "You get to hang out with me and my squad for the next week."