AN: Hello people, this is NorthSouthGorem. Although I will not be done with chapter 17 of COG: NOT for a while, I have decided to give you a little one-shot that I wrote. Actually, I wrote this for an English homework assignment and I liked it so much that I decided to upload it. It's very short, but I hope you like it.
Gray storm-clouds crawled across the sky, with the occasional bolt of lightning. The landscape was almost equally gray, with craggy rock stretching out in all directions. This lonely plane was inhabited by a large variety of monsters. Yes, I know that's a vague term, but there's really no other way of collectively referring to them. They are very...varied. Insects, mammals, fish, birds, you name it, it will probably try to kill you.
Two people walked across the dull plains, a man and a woman. The man had dusty blond hair down to his jaw and cheerful expression that reached his gray eyes. He wore a tan trench coat and a pair of sandals. In his hand he twirled the chain of a rather large pocket-watch as he whistled. His name was Len Ferro.
"Stop that," Snapped the woman irritably, "Something will hear us." She had brown hair streaked with white down to her shoulder blades, her icy blue eyes narrowed distrustfully. She wore a pair of gray pants and boots, as well as what looked like a pale blue, fur-lined jacket. If one were to take a closer look, one would see that the jacket and tufts of fur were actually made of tiny crystals of ice. Her left sleeve flapped limply in the wind. Her name was Grace Ghiaccio.
"As you command, oh queen of winter," Len replied easily, not bothering to hide the mocking tone at the nickname, "Though whether or not I let forth my musical inspiration will not change the fact that the monsters will be upon us regardless. Why not go out whistling?"
"Because I find it annoying?"
Len only scoffed and started humming. All the while, though, his current companion cursed the foul luck that had gotten her saddled with this...this idiot on this Backdrop-forsaken bit of rock! If I just freeze him, I can claim it was an accident, she thought sourly, at least until he comes back. Or maybe I can call down an avalanche. That would work if there were any mountains around here! So absorbed was she in her frustrated thoughts of murder that Grace almost missed it when Len spoke. "What?" She asked.
"I said," The large man said conversationally, twirling his watch faster, "'Incoming.'" Indeed, several large, raptor-like creatures were swooping toward them with a cry. Ignoring the drop in temperature behind him, he said cheerfully, "Stay right there, Miss Ghiaccio, I'll take care of them."
Grace bristled, the heat around her dropping further. "I don't need protection," She barked at him. Ice crackled at her feet and about the surface of her jacket. Within her empty sleeve, a spear-like arm of ice grew. She wheeled about to face the monsters that had snuck up behind them. "Have at you!" She cried, charging toward them, snow swirling at her heels.
"Never said you did," Len replied evenly, his pocket-watch a coppery blur of a circle. There was a small *snick,* and two sets of three curved, whirling blades sprang from the device's edge. "Pendolo!" He cried, swinging the chain in an arc. Impossibly, it lengthened in his grasp, sending the suddenly lethal timekeeper into an orbital path that led through the nearest flier. Said flier found itself in two minds about what to do. Or was that two halves of a mind? Makes sense, seeing as its head had just been sliced in two.
Len began a deadly dance, his weapon flying around him in great swerves as he swung the chain back and forth. Again and again the spinning blades found the flesh of monsters and shredded through. "We'll be eating well tonight!" He yelled.
Behind him, Grace hopped about, stabbing here and there with her icy spear-arm and swinging with a frosty hammer that she'd formed on her remaining hand. Any earthbound monster that missed her either got run through and frozen or smashed in the skull. "You're disgusting!" She shouted back, turning to glower at him as the final body hit the ground.
In the momentary lapse of attackers, Len just shrugged. "Well, unless you thought to bring some rations with you when Sophie dropped us here, we're gonna have to-" Without warning, his hand flicked and Pendolo streaked out again. It shot right past Grace's head, causing her to stiffen, only to bury itself in the face of the...thing sneaking up behind her. Jerkily, she turned to watch its body as it fell. With a tug, the bladed pocket-watch jumped back to its owner's hand, whereupon he pocketed it.
"Oh..." Was all she could say. She was torn. On the one hand, Len irritated her beyond belief and she desperately wanted to shut him up via an ice brick to the jaw. On the other, he'd just saved her from getting mauled by something that probably would have killed her. She knew that Len disliked her almost as much as she did him, but still he'd helped her. What should she do? She blinked. An enormous, owl-like monster was swooping toward her savior, silent as the death it would probably give him if it finished its dive. With a cry, she launched her spear towards Len's head. The tall man yelped and ducked, causing the long weapon to plunge into the chest of the giant bird, freezing its innards and killing it instantly.
As Len turned to survey the monster that had almost done him in, Grace punched him lightly on the arm as she walked past. "There," She muttered mutinously, "We're even."
He stared at her retreating back, his face inscrutable. Then he burst out laughing. "Even, eh?" He called after her as he too began walking, "On the contrary, I think I am still in your debt, oh queen of winter." There was no mocking to that voice now. "I believe I shall have to pay you back as many times as necessary."
The woman stiffened and picked up her pace, trying not to run from the laughing man behind her. Angrily, she grabbed the sleeve of her missing left arm and pressed it to her face, trying to hide the blush growing on her cheeks. "Idiot," She muttered. "Who owes whom?"
AN: Well, that's the end of my first story. Looks like Grace is a bit of a Tsundere for Len. Unlike most manga protagonists, however, Len is not too much of an idiot to realize it. Anyway, if I ever post another story on this, you'll know were to look.
