This might seem like it takes place in the same coninuity as 'Out Of The Shadows', but it's not really, as I don't think even Tenya is really this insane. It's a little bit silly.
All characters are copyright of Bioware (apart from Mumu).
Teenage Kicks
There are some clichés that are born out of people's prejudice and ignorance, and are therefore complete and utter nonsense. Some clichés however are clichés because there is some element of truth to them. It's true, for example, that were you to attend a bare knuckle boxing event at one of the many underground venues across the world, most of the humans in the audience would be of the squat, pot bellied, beer boobed, masculine variety.
It's also true that often when someone is about to die their life flashes before their eyes; they say it's the brain searching through all your experiences in a last desperate attempt to find something, anything, that might help you escape the current crisis. Unfortunately for Jean, nothing in his life gave him any clue about how he might reattach his stomach after a troll had pulled it out of his belly. Even if he could put it back in, it probably wasn't much good after the monster had chewed on it and spat it out. And so all he could do was look back and think about all the events in his life that led him to be here, dying in a cave, alone.
Believe it or not, he'd started out well. He'd been a bright kid, even got special schooling so that he learnt how to read and not just how to till a field and milk a goat. Books opened up worlds of opportunity, showed him that there was far more to life than fields and goats, and one day he started out walking from his home and he never looked back. He came to the city, met a girl, fell in love, had a daughter… it seemed like a thousand years ago, but in fact it had only been about fourteen.
He'd never planned to be tied down, either in the physical sense that he was now as the trolls still circled around him, or in the sense of having a wife and child to provide for. He struggled at it for a little while, growing ever more worried and restless, but then one day he started out walking from his home and never looked back. There was too much shame.
Maybe if he had stayed and tried harder to make it work, he wouldn't have met those mercenaries and ended up as a hors d'oeuvre. Maybe he wouldn't be dying alone… well, apart from the trolls who were licking their lips and starting to look hungry again. He supposed it was a bit too late for regrets now.
"I hate you!" Tenya, the teenage priestess spat. "I hate you I hate you I hate you! And you and you and you," her dark eyes swivelled through the room to Aerie, Jaheira, and Minsc. "May you all die while taking a bath and ferment in your own juice."
"I only said 'good morning'," Imoen shrugged helplessly.
"Do you know what I hate the most about you, Imoen?" Tenya glared again at the redhead.
"Is it a very long list, 'cos we've all got things we've really got to be getting on with…"
"It's your grinning. Your stupid, gormless, gerbil-faced grinning… even when I'm insulting you're just sat there grinning. It makes me want to rip off your face and force you to have to look at it."
"I have a fantastic face; don't you remember last week when I learnt to cast simulacrum?"
"Ah, yes… that was another thing I hated. Watching you spend an entire morning flirting with a copy of yourself. I was just thankful the magic wore off before you could pick out a ring."
In a corner of the room, Aerie's hand covered her mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to stifle her giggle. Imoen turned her head and looked cross at the blonde elf.
"Just because you've got no pride in yourself whatsoever, Aerie," the red haired thief said, "doesn't mean that I shouldn't. I'm telling ya'; the only reason my face isn't insured is that no one in the world could afford the premium." The little elf raised her palms, indicating that she wanted to stay out of it. They all did; even Jaheira had decided to let Imoen handle Tenya on her own, although it was no doubt quite a strain on her having to keep her mouth shut for so long.
"I hope you all die!" Tenya spat angrily once more and stormed out of what Imoen now called her office; it had big pink, fluffy armchairs and a portrait of herself sticking her tongue out at people whenever they entered the room.
"I really don't get her," Imoen sank into the fluffiness of her chair, sighing.
"She is a very troubled young lady," Jaheira noted.
"Hey, thanks Jae… where would I be without you around to tell me the obvious?"
"With your head stuck again between two banisters, I suspect. I had to pull you out twice yesterday."
"What I mean is, I was never like that when I was a teen. I was always a good girl, me."
"Y-you were?" Aerie arched an eyebrow in astonishment.
"Sure. There may have been a few pranks, like telling the Guards there was a strange smell coming from the cellar and I thought it might be a monster… they all charged down there and all they found was a pair of Winthrop's old underpants. But it was just for fun. There was never any malice; I was never angry."
"I see. So, t-teenage Imoen wasn't much different to grown up Imoen, then?"
"I use phrases like 'that's so unfair' and 'none of you people get me', slightly less often now."
"Only slightly," Jaheira nodded in agreement.
"I just don't get what Tenya wants from me though; she follows me all the way from Baldur's Gate. I've let her stay in my guild since the Umberlants are never going to take her back… but then all she does is hurl abuse at me."
"I-I think she's upset because she knows you're going back to the Suldanessellar," Aerie speculated, "a-and you'll be leaving her here."
"This is the best place for her. They'll need a healer while you and Jae are gone, and she can hang out with people her own age."
"Hm… with a-all due respect, the last time she did that she broke two of their arms and the other one is still in a coma..."
"Why me, Aerrers?" Imoen sagged, "why do weird folk always want to hang around me?" She glanced up at the wingless winged elf, the mighty berserker warrior talking softly to his hamster, and the stone faced, overbearing druid, and then shook her head. "Why am I bothering to ask any of you that question?"
"In Tenya's case," Aerie grinned, "I-I think she's trapped in a sort of catch twenty two; she's afraid of being abandoned, like she thinks her father and her mother did, b-but she's also afraid to be close to anyone in case they abandon her."
"What's a 'catch twenty two'?"
"Oh, i-it's from a book I read," Aerie blinked and smiled chirpily, clearly overjoyed to be asked about her self-education, "about a knight who tries to get out of fighting a dragon by telling people he's mad. O-only they all think he must be sane enough to fight the dragon because he's trying to get out of it and of being baked alive in his armour. H-he says the word 'bollocks' a lot," the blue eyed elf put her little finger at the side of her mouth thoughtfully, "I-I don't really know what that means, but otherwise it was a very good book."
"Testicles, Aerie. It means testicles."
"I… see," the elf said, although clearly she was just even more confused about that word now. "But, p-people say that when they find something disagreeable. B-but when they say 'dog's boll…'"
"They mean 'excellent'," Imoen cut her off, "it's confusing, I know. I can't explain it. It's just the way it is some places, okay?"
"Yes, well, fascinating as all that was," Jaheira said, "we still have not touched upon the reason for having this meeting in the first place; Bloodscalp has sent us some new recruits."
"Oh… just don't work them too hard this time Jae," Imoen sighed, "you acted like you were trying to kill the last lot."
"I am not here to hold their hands," the druid said, folding her arms, "I am here to prepare them for the horrors of actual battle. Do you not think enemies they will face out there will try to kill them?"
"Y-yes," Aerie agreed, "but… y-you'll have already done half their work for them," the Elf winced from the memory of her own training.
"Right," Imoen nodded, then turned to Jaheira, trying her best to look like she was in charge. Hard enough to do with someone half a foot taller than her, but even harder now that half of the redhead had vanished into a pink cushion. "No more tying bricks to their feet and making them climb a cliff, okay?" She said, waggling her finger. She then pulled herself free and wandered out of the room with Aerie and Minsc to inspect the 'newbies'. The tawny haired druid watched them go, arms still folded, eyebrow cocked.
"You never let me have any fun," she muttered bitterly.
Tenya had decided she was going to stomp back to her room. She shouldn't have had to; Imoen should have told her to stomp back to her room. But Imoen was a worthless idiot. If Tenya had been in Imoen's place, she would have given herself a good thrashing for talking to herself like that, but Imoen didn't even get angry. How was she supposed to learn if that was the kind of discipline she could expect? Stupid, stupid, Imoen… Tenya slammed the door and let herself fall back on the bed.
She told herself it didn't matter. None of it mattered… let Imoen and her dumb friends go and leave her the same way everyone else did. She hated them anyway. Aerie and her… her blonde hair. Minsc and his no hair. Jaheira and her… whatever colour that was; sort of golden brown… it didn't matter because they were all dumb. Tenya did wonder briefly if people would be less of a hurry to get away from her if she was a little less… evil. But she shook such thoughts from her head; she was mean and cruel because the world deserved it, didn't it? Yes of course it did. And everyone in it was dumb. Everyone except…
"Mumu?" The teenager propped herself up on her elbows, her dark eyes narrowing in worry as she noticed the box she'd found in the basement wide open, and empty. "Mumu?" She called out plaintively. Silence for a moment, and then…
"Moo… mu?" Something squawked. Tenya leant across and looked over the side of the bed.
"Oh… there you are!" She sighed in relief and with an uncharacteristically sweet smile. "You mustn't worry me like that!"
The teenager scooped the little creature up into her arms, holding it tight like a teddy bear. It did look a bit like one, with its body covered in fur, but it had large triangular eats and a scaly face with a mouth that was far too wide for its head, really… it kept trying to snap at her fingers with its rows of sharp, serrated teeth, but she held its head firmly in place.
"You silly thing… you ate a whole horse just this morning. Do you never get full up?" Tenya sighed in the manner of someone saying 'ah, kids, eh?', just after their toddler has said a rude word in front of all their elderly relatives.
"Mumu?" It said. She guessed 'mumu' must mean food or feed me in whatever language the creature spoke, if it was any language. If it was a language, it was a pretty rubbish one since that seemed to be the only word in it.
"You can't keep eating things… we've already cleared out all the cows and horses in this neighbourhood. Sooner or later someone's going to notice."
"Mu?" It squawked.
"Yes… mu indeed. But I've been thinking; we could get on a ship and go to an island somewhere, maybe bring a few pigs and stuff to breed. We'll be safe then," the girl sighed softly and contentedly, closing her eyes as she gave the little monster another squeeze. "It's going to be so perfect and wonderful… you and I, my little Mumu, together forever…"
But later that night, after Tenya had fallen fast asleep, her head filled with dreams about her little island paradise (although it was interrupted at one point by a dream about anything, and anyone, she touched turning into mud. It was absolutely disgusting. She loved it,) little Mumu crept out of his box again, and out of her room…
Downstairs, Gerrard, one of the new recruits, was up late practicing his knife. Not because anyone had asked him to, or because he needed it in battle, really, but because Alice, a really cute blonde who had joined recently as well, had smiled at him when she saw him doing it earlier so he was hoping she would come back to see him do it again. She never did… see him throw any more knives that is. For moments later he heard a strange chattering sound coming from the laundry chute and went to investigate. He heard a squawk, and then himself screaming, and then the screaming stopped because his mouth and vocal chords were no longer connected to his lungs.
Imoen came running as soon as she heard screaming, but arrived only in time to see the headless corpse of the young thief slump to the floor. At first she thought there must have been a terrible accident; that he'd stuck his head in the chute and the rope snapped bringing the box inside crashing down… but then another scream. Female this time. She went running to that and this time there was no doubt as to the cause of death… the little scaly faced monster had the recruit's leg half way down it's throat when the redhead arrived on the scene.
"What the hell are you?" She gasped. The little creature didn't answer, just impossibly forced the remainder of the leg, which was twice the height of it's entire body, down it's throat and then turned and snarled at her… Imoen got the feeling it's appetite was far from satiated.
Aerie arrived beside her then, and before it could choose which of them would be its next course, both women had whipped out wands and launched a barrage of magic missiles in it's direction. The bolts of white hot energy didn't cause as damage to the monster as they would have hoped in the circumstances, although they did hurt or at least irritate that it leapt onto the wall and scurried away… unfortunately it scurried back inside the laundry chute.
"Now… n-now it could be anywhere in the building," the little blonde elf cried, folding her arms and kicking herself in frustration. "Bollocks."
"Aerie?" Imoen panted, tucking her wand back into her belt.
"Yes?"
"I'll kill you if I ever hear you say that word again."
It was only a short time later when almost everyone inside the guild was awake and warned that there may be a small, gremlin like creature with an appetite the size of three grand dukes hanging around. Still, no need to panic, right? Unfortunately that's what some of them were doing, especially the young ones Renal had sent them.
Imoen was on her way back to her 'office' when a couple of them ran up to her, panting, faces red… she sure at least one of them had been crying.
"What's wrong?" She asked, "have you seen it?"
"That crazy druid and the elf have sealed all the doors and windows!" They wailed. "Now none of us can get out!"
"It had to be done," Jaheira explained, coming from the other direction with Aerie padding just behind her, "we cannot risk that thing getting out into the city. It would cause havoc."
"Hate to say it, but she's right," Imoen sighed, "we gotta find some way of dealing with that thing ourselves. It would help if we knew where it came from…"
"I m-might have found a clue about that," Aerie said, "I started looking through all the inventories and logs left by Mae'Var, and, well… I-I came across this," she handed Imoen a piece of parchment.
"Aerie," Imoen said, trying to steady herself by taking deep breaths, "how… how old would you say a human has to be before they're considered not a child anymore and therefore held responsible for their own actions?"
"I… don't know. Why?"
"Because I'm trying to figure out how bad a sin it is I'm about to commit."
"Right!" Imoen snapped after having Minsc smash the door down. There was no need to, the door had been open, but she wanted to make an impression. Preferably an impression of her fist in Tenya's face, but the others had convinced her that might not be necessary. She'd tried explaining that she didn't care if it was necessary or not, she just wanted to do it, but they said to wait. "Where is it?" She demanded.
"Where is what?" Tenya gawped; she'd never known Imoen to ever be this bold before. "H-how dare you burst in here, you…"
"Shut – up," Imoen glared and said slowly, "I am speaking." Tenya gawped again, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she managed to regain some composure.
"Well, if you want me to shut up, then I can't answer your questions then, can I? Even if I knew what you were on about, which I don't."
"That is so childish. That's the kind of thing I might say… but you're not getting away with it. You see Ten, there are two things that really disappoint me," Imoen said, unwrapping the parchment Aerie had given her earlier, "firstly, that you're dumb enough to release a nanodemon in here, and secondly that you then draw a picture of yourself with your arms around the demon and ask the folk in my art department to frame it for ya'. Now where is it?"
"Mumu?" Tenya arched a curious eyebrow.
"Mu…? You know what, I don't care; just tell me where it is."
"What are going to do to my lit… to Mumu?"
"Oh, y'know, we're just going to chat for a bit, ask him if he's got any relatives, what do they do, that sort of thing…"
"Really?"
"No, of course not really. We're going to kill it."
"Um… a-actually, we can't kill it," Aerie corrected, "w-we just have to get it back into this box and lock it inside." The Elf explained, having examined and identified the container in Tenya's room.
"Right… and then we'll find a nice volcano and toss it in."
"I don't know where he is," Tenya turned her nose up at them, "even if I did, I'm not going to help you do that to Mumu. We've got plans."
"Y'know I always thought you had a screw loose, but now I see you don't have a single screw done up tight, do ya? Come and see what's happening out here…"
The guild was in chaos. Little Mumu had claimed two more victims and the survivors were running everywhere, tripping over each other and fighting over what they considered to be the best hiding places. Very few of them had caught a glimpse of the thing they running from, but most them had seen the odd hand or foot left lying around the place by the creature.
"That thing is killing off my entire guild!" Imoen yelled at Tenya.
"Pfft," Tenya turned her nose up again, "he's only killing the slow ones. Weeding out the weak… he's so wonderful."
"Right, that's it bufflehead… I told myself I was never, ever going to say these words to anyone but you leave me no choice. You, young lady, are grounded," Imoen said with all the air of a responsible adult.
"Like you could ground me…"
"Oh no? Not only are you grounded, missy, but you're not allowed to go bowling with the skulls of your enemies for an entire month."
"You're… you're serious, aren't you?" Tenya gasped.
"I know… I find it hard to believe too. My legs have gone all wobbly, but you… you've driven me to it."
"That's… that's so unfair!" The teenager stamped her foot, just as they heard another anguished scream.
"It's killed at least five people, now… I think most people would say that's pretty damn lenient."
"Whatever," the young priestess said disgustedly. "Fine," she shook her head sadly, and then called out, "Mumu! Come here Mumu… I've got a little treat for you!"
"Mumu?" The monster squawked, it's little head peeping around the corner.
"That's right," Tenya knelt down, smiling sweetly. She was actually quite a pretty girl on the very rare occasion Imoen had seen her smile; she wished she could teach her to be sweet more of the time, but that didn't seem like a realistic goal very often. "Come here, Mumu, so I can show it to you…"
"Mumu!" The demon chirped, grinning as it scurried up the hall towards her… then everything went black.
Minsc and Jaheira and everyone else jumped on top of the box to try and hold it shut, while Imoen locked it. They could hear it screaming and scratching inside, but this container had been made specifically to contain this demon and so its efforts were futile.
"Poor Mumu," Tenya sniffed, "he… he trusted me, and I betrayed him."
"We don't care," everyone else said at once.
"Everyone is going to hate me for this, aren't they?"
"Yup. Probably," Imoen nodded, "now go to your room. You're grounded, remember?"
"Yes… yes ma'am."