Okay, Linda's probably gonna be as bouncy and cute as ever, Stan's still gonna be an egotistical ass (sorta), Rosalyn will still be... herself, Kisling's still gonna be a nut, Ari will continue to be overshadowed to the point of non-existence (although he's my favorite character ), Marleene will be... herself, as far as I know of her, but the way Epros talks will be OOC. I can't rhyme all the time to save my life. Every now and again, yeah, but not all the time.
As with the game (and the anime I KNOW exists somewhere) I'm gonna try my best to make this a little... smart-assed.
THIS IS A STANLEY/ARI WITH A LOT OF DEPRESSING... THOUGHT/MOMENTS. IF YOU DON"T LIKE FLUFFY, CUDDLY, GAY PAIRINGS, OR THIS PARTICULAR PAIRING, OR GAY PAIRINGS PERIOD, LEAVE NOW AND GIVE ME NO HELL. THIS IS MY FIRST OKAGE FANFIC, SO PLEASE, I WANT NO HELL.
Everything in italics is a thought.
Enjoy your Stanley/Ari. Even if you don't know who they are, you might still find it enjoyable. Know what? If you don't know who they are, go play Okage: Shadow King.
Okage: Shadow King and everything related to it – Uhm... Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., I think. Correct me if you know better.
Oh, and the electric-shock-induced-mind-reading-thingy, I got that idea from 'What Women Want'. Really funny movie.
(sigh) Despite what I said about no hell, as usual all comments are welcome. hides under her hammock-bed, with a bag of teriyaki beef jerky in hand Though I really don't want any hell. begins to slowly eat the jerky
They were staying at the Rashelo Inn. Stan could work alone, but of course he didn't want to. He wanted someone else to do it all for him. So, the Evil King had gotten the old party together again, in order to "help" him in his quest to conquer the world. Stan had even managed to get the Hero Rosalyn to come along for the ride (because he hadn't kept his promise, she was still pissed, but she came anyway; probably just to badger him about being a "Failure Evil King"). Marleene the Princess had come, following the boy she had fallen in love with. She didn't seem , however, to get that the Ordinary Boy Ari (who had leapt at the idea of coming with Stan on another adventure the instant he asked; Stan was a little confused about that) didn't love her back at all. Gutten Kisling the Scholar had come in order to continue pursuing the pink hero (and her parasol, Stan still hadn't fixed her shadow). Big Bull, Linda the Teen Pop Idol, and the Phantom Magician Epros had all come simply to get away from Block's circus (it had gotten boring after a while).
Stan had found something new that interested him. It was a kind of electric radio; Kisling had invented it. He was being stupid, hanging around the water, playing with it. Rosalyn came up behind him and shoved him into the water. She hadn't meant to do anything but get him wet and piss him off; she hadn't meant to hurt him. But, as Kisling had told Stan, water conducts electricity. Therefore, when he fell into the pool (by the time he was actually in the water, Rosalyn had run away, not wanting to be called "Pork Thighs") he got shocked. After seizing in the water for about a minute he blacked out, and the radio came unplugged as he sank.
A long while later he woke up in one of the Inn's beds. Kisling was sitting next to the bed, shaking his head. "I told you to stay away from the water, but do you ever listen? No, not to me, unless I say something that opposes what the hero thinks. You're lucky I found you, you would have drowned." And saved Rosalyn the trouble of killing you... Stan sat up, grabbed the front of Kisling's shirt, and snarled. "What did you say?!" Kisling jumped a little and blinked, confused. "You would have drowned?" Stan growled again. "No, AFTER that." Kisling's mouth opened a little. "I didn't say anything else." What, is he crazy now too? Stan had been watching. That "crazy" comment; Kisling's mouth hadn't moved. He let go of Kisling's shirt and stood up. "Are you done with me?" Kisling nodded, slowly. "Yes... your clothes have been washed and dried, they're folded over there, in that chair; Ari did all that." Stan's gone insane... Stanley strode over to his clothes, dressed himself, melted into his shadow form, and slid out of the room, going under the door.
"To think he thinks that pig could ever even hurt me, let alone kill me. I am the Great Evil King Stanley Hihat Trinidad the Sixteenth; that fat, stupid, hideous boar of a woman could never even SCRATCH me." He had been sitting alone in a dark inn room thinking about it all, and he had figured it out. He had heard Kisling's thoughts earlier in that room. He had been thinking about it a lot, and had decided to keep it a secret for as long as he could.
He walked out into the hall, and went to a better room. An empty one. It was the seventh time since they had gotten back together (it had been a week now) that he had the option to sleep in the same room as Ari and didn't. He thought no more and went to sleep.
Ari had been waiting up for him, again, and had fallen asleep with his light on. He was having a nightmare. He had had nightmares ever since Stan had left the day he had gotten his solid form back, and he had practically vanished from existence. When Stan came back, Ari had jumped at the opportunity to go with him, because around Stan, he actually had a meaning; a purpose. But even here and now, with Stan, he was still way far back in the shadows. Stan had even stopped sleeping with him. Rather, he had never resumed it. Ari had been thinking too much lately, about how horribly, terribly alone he felt...
It was the tenth day, and they were still in Rashelo. Stan had confined himself to a dark room after the shock-in-the-water incident. Ari had begun to simply disappear during the day. No one paid any mind to that (except Epros, who carefully watched him), they were all wondering what Stan was doing.
Stan finally came out of his room on the thirteenth day of re-gathering the party. He ran into Linda first. She looked up at him and giggled. "Hi, coach! I haven't seen you in about a week! Where've ya been? I missed you!" La-la-lala-la-lala-la-la-la-la-lala-laah... I like that tune! I'll make it into a song! I'll sing about coach, and all his power! Stan grinned deviously. He could hear her thoughts, too. "Oh, I've just been thinking, that's all." Linda bounced up and down on her heels. "Cool! Uh, coach, sorry, but I have to go write something. Bye-bye!" With that said, Linda ran off humming, her heels clicking on the wooden floor of the inn.
Next he ran into Rosalyn, and her pink parasol. She looked at him for a moment, then antagonized, as she always did. "Idiot." Stan frowned. "Cow." "Egotistically bloated prick." "Pork thighs." "Failure Evil King." Stan grinned. That was a low blow. Which meant he could make a lower one. "Pink-shadowed comic-relief hero." Rosalyn's mouth fell open. "How DARE you?!" He's such a fucking PRICK! He's a liar and a promise-breaker and a failure at what he's supposed to be best at! He's such an ASS! "I will kill you, Stan. Not now, I have to find the princess, but I WILL kill you." That said, she walked quickly past him with her nose in the air. He grinned. He had won that match. He decided to go find Marleene before Rosalyn could.
Stan had the misfortune of running right into Epros, who had been floating near the beach-end of the wooden pier that led to Rashelo, reading from some book he had gotten from Kisling. Stan fell over backwards, and Epros, startled, fell out of the air and onto the sandy beach. Epros looked up and began to put a curse on him, but stopped, seeing it was Stan. He smiled softly, and floated back up into the air. "My friend and ally, where is it that thou were going to in such a hurry? Please do tell, 'lest it be private business. Such as that of locating young Ari and talking him into being your "slave" once more, as I know you wish to do." Stan scowled. "Actually, I was looking for Marleene. And I hate the way you talk, by the way." Epros smiled wider, his crimson eyes glittering. "Why would thou seek the fair maiden thou compete with? Dost thou wish to, perhaps, get her to leave? I remember that she came, only to follow Ari, the boy over whom you two so often quarrel. And what dost' thou find wrong with the way I speak?" Stan smacked him out of the air on purpose this time. "I just don't like it , okay? And I wanna find Marleene so I can piss the hero off even more than I already have. And... do you know where Ari is? I haven't seen him in a while." Epros nodded, spoke, and thought all at the same time. Of course you haven't seen him, you've been locked away in a shadowy chamber for a week's duration. "Yes." He pointed toward the curled cliff that hung way out over the water. "He has been going to the Rashelo Cliff as dawn spreads new day's rosy blanket over the land every morning since you confined yourself. I am the only one who sees him go. There, he stays. He comes back to watery Rashelo when dusk's sweet darkness falls across the land and gives invitation to sleep. I am also the only one who sees him come. He speaks no more. I have not heard his voice since the day he rejoined the rest of us." Stan scowled and processed what the phantom had said. "What you mean to say is, at sunrise, he leaves Rashelo, goes to the cliff, and stays there all day. Then, at sunset, he comes back to Rashelo?" The magician nodded, his gold curls bouncing. "And you also said he's stopped talking?" Epros nodded again. "That is correct. Dearest friend, I do believe I will now part with you; we each have a task at hand." With that Epros flew a little to the left and as he flew, he vanished as a phantom would: by simply fading until he was just gone. Stan shook his head. "I really hate him sometimes... just for the way he talks... and sometimes the way he acts..." Stan looked over at Rashelo Cliff. He could barely see from here, but he could see Ari's shadowy silhouette against the bright light blue of the clear, sunny sky.