Reunited and it Feels So Good

Author's Notes: Yeah, I've been playing Brawl recently, so I haven't had a lot of time to write. Anyways, it's good to see my fans are reviewing. Tell everyone you know about this story.

And, by the way, you will address Leopold by his formal name: Dean Leopold Snagaplakdangletripper.

Akaci Wildpoison sat on the leather saddle placed on his giant, armored spider. He and an army of Night Elves raced through the dark tunnels of the Undercity, preparing for Zixoc's attack on the kingdom of Delphi.

Most of the Night Elves wore full, iron armor that covered their entire bodies and helmets with two slits that they could see through. Akaci, however, wore no helmet. His long, black hair flowed behind him as he rode. He had the typical pale skin and red eyes of the Night Elves.

"Zixoc wants us to fill up ten Blood Barrels, soldiers!" Akaci yelled to the men and women behind him. The army raised their spears in a mighty battle cry as Akaci whispered something to his spider.

"Remember; keep me as far away from any filth as possible." He ordered. "If I get any dirt on my armor then pull out immediately." The spider hissed in agreement with its master's familiar order.

"Milord!" One soldier yelled to Wildpoison. Akaci turned towards her as his spider continued riding forward. "We've been riding for a whole week straight! Ten men are dead! Perhaps we should take a break?"

Akaci took his spear and wordlessly thrust it through the Elf's armor and into her heart. The spider she had been riding stopped and several other spiders crashed into it. Akaci pulled his spear towards him and violently shoved the soldier off of his spear.

Taking a cloth from his spider's saddle, Akaci began cleaning the blood off of his spear. "Anyone who questions me will be killed."

RED RIVER:

In a large, lavish throne room a man in a red robe and gold crown sat alone on a solid-silver throne. He had a black beard and little tufts of hair stuck out from under his crown. Guards wearing the chainmail of the Delphi Royal Guard stood in attention before him.

"As I said, men, I invented spines." The king explained to his soldiers. None of them believed him, but not-believing the mighty King Lawrence was a crime punishable by death. "Saved the entire planet from a life of not standing up, I did. If it wasn't for me you'd probably be crumpled masses on the floor."

Then, one of the guards made one of the biggest mistakes possible. He asked a question. "But wouldn't we have died out a long time ago?"

The other guards' eyes widened in fear behind their helmets. The new guy had screwed-up again! King Lawrence looked at the guard for a few seconds thoughtfully. "Yes." He answered simply. "You wouldn't have been born at all. You know, I invented birth."

The guards all gave an inner groan at the king's terrible attempts to sound intelligent. They felt a sudden relief as a messenger in the green and brown clothes of the elves entered the room with a scroll.

"King Lawrence, I have a message from the Druid Prince." The elf said as he shoved several guards aside and handed the scroll to King Lawrence. "We have received very disturbing news."

King Lawrence opened the scroll. His chubby little eyes widened in horror and his mouth fell open. "By the Gods!" He exclaimed fearfully. "This letter is written in Dark-Runes!"

The messenger took the scroll from King Lawrence and turned it right-side-up. He handed it back to the king who began reading it.

"I see…" King Lawrence mused after he finished reading the note. "So a horde of Night Elves approach this city? Those fiends! I built this city, you know." "Sir, this city is over 1,000 years old!" "Yes. That's how I designed it."

The king tossed the scroll aside and looked the Elvin messenger square in the eye. "My pointy-eared friend, because you have given me this bad news, you must be killed by Raff."

One of the guards excitedly unsheathed his sword and brutally sliced off the elf's head. With a heavy thump, the elf's head and body fell to the floor and blood began to cover the place he had stood.

"Oh, you shouldn't have done that." King Lawrence sighed. "I was joking."

TWO MONTHS LATER:

Double D stepped out the front doors of the Mage College and into Red River's streets. He began moving with the crowd, following several vaguely arrow-like signs to the bazaar in the center of the city.

Edd had spent two months at the Mage College. He wore a bright-orange robe similar to Dean Snagaplakdangletripper's and carried a simple, gnarled, wooden staff in his hand. Several leather pouches were held to his waist by a belt.

"Two months and I still have no idea where my friends are." Double D lamented to himself as he entered a stone building that claimed to sell the best spell components in Red River. "Meanwhile, Leopold has me out purchasing items so he and his students can cast spells…"

The bearded shopkeeper was reading a scroll when Double D approached the counter. There weren't many Mages in Red River, so there weren't that many people in the store. The only other person Double D saw was someone in a leather tunic, cape, and cowl perusing the shelves.

The shopkeeper noticed Double D and put down his scroll. "King Lawrence is behind in the elections." He said, trying to make small talk. "Seems everyone's voting for a bear named Bosco."

Double D looked at the scroll before staring at the shopkeeper in confusion. "Isn't this a monarchy? I thought people were born into power."

"Yeah, they are." The shopkeeper confirmed with a nod. "Just goes to prove that power by birth is a stupid way to decide who rules, don't it?"

The hat-wearing Ed nodded in agreement. In the two months he had been here he had heard people complain and subsequently deny complaining about King Lawrence and his extremely loose grasp on reality.

He had also heard that the best prostitutes lived near a tavern called the Blind Fox.

Double D was about to ask for half-a-pound of hollow Lamadian Seeds (Whatever those were), when the man in the cape and cowl suddenly grabbed one of the pouches on his belt and bolted out the door.

It took a few seconds for Double D to realize what happened. He chased after the thief and found that he had lost him in a crowd of people.

Double D opened one of the pouches still on his belt and gave a sigh of relief. The thief hadn't stolen his gold; probably just some spell components that Leopold made all of the apprentices carry around.

Still, the fact that he had been stolen from upset him. Whoever that person was had planned on stealing from him, judging by how they had dressed. Double D went back into the shop, purchased the components, and walked back out. He began making his way to the college when he noticed someone was following him.

Edd turned and saw the cloaked person who had stolen from him, as well as a man dressed in perfectly ordinary street clothes with a small knife strapped to his belt. The man had long, black hair that covered his ears and narrow, almond-eyes.

"I'd like to thank you for helping in my apprentice's little exercise." The man thanked with a mocking smile as people walked past them without even noticing. "Of course, his mission was to steal your gold, but you mages carry so many valuable things that really anything will do. Am I right?"

Double D looked at the man scrutinously. There was something extremely… different about him. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, but the man carried with him an air of mystery.

The person who had stolen from Double D reached into a pocket inside of his cloak and pulled out the pouch he had taken. He tossed it at Double D's feet while the man chuckled. "This was simply a test, of course." The man explained. Double D picked up the pouch and tied it back onto his belt.

"I should report you for this." The young man said threateningly.

The black-haired man merely laughed at this. "The Red River Guard has been looking for me for twenty years and has failed to capture me despite every tip-off from every eye-witness available." He mocked. "Honestly, if you think you can single-handedly turn in the Lost Crow then, by all means, just try and remember what I even look like."

"Hey, boss, can I say some—?"

The man slapped his apprentice's forehead, knocking back his hood. "Kid, you're an apprentice; you're not allowed to talk yet." He reminded the young man who Double D was shocked and yet unsurprised to see.

"Eddy?"

JUST OUTSIDE RED RIVER:

Akaci and his now-smaller army of Night Elves stopped in a forest just outside of Red River. "I believe it's time we took a break, gentlemen." He ordered as he stared forward. The city was just visible on a green hill. Tall walls surrounded the formidable town and a castle rose up in the far back.

"It's about time, too." One Night Elf made the mistake of saying loud enough for the general to hear. "We were riding for two months straight; there are only twelve of us left."

Akaci gritted his teeth and, taking his spear, stabbed through the soldier's helmet ruthlessly. "If we had taken a break any farther away than the trip would have taken longer." Akaci hissed as he shoved the soldier's dead body off of his spear.

"Sir, the trip would have taken the same amount of time regardless of where we'd stopped." Another solider pointed out. This earned Akaci's spear getting shoved through both her and her solider. The blood splattered onto Akaci's armor and the warrior gave an angry groan.

"I have to go back to out kingdom and polish my armor." He told the remaining solider. He tossed his blood-coated spear aside. "There will be absolutely no food or water until I return."

"Why?" One solider asked. Akaci instinctively reached for his spear but decided against it. "Because if anyone eats, they'll throw all of the food they didn't eat away." He answered. Why was he even explaining it? It was so obvious!

In a puff of strange, black smoke, he and his spider both teleported back home to the Night Elf Capital. "Why did Zixoc put Akaci in charge again?" One solider asked almost as soon as the paranoid neat-freak was gone. "They've been friends since they were younglings." Another answered. Hunger and thirst were setting in heavily.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in Zixoc's elite Web-Walkers." The soldier admitted as he got off his spider and sat against a tree. His head was shaved bald revealing the pointy ears typical of elves. A sword hung at his side.

"You won't get in, Idovi; you're not in a clan." A female Night Elf pointed out. "If you slept with the right people then maybe you'd be able to polish the spiders' armor."

"I tried that; turns out I was sleeping with a Doppelganger disguised as a Night Elf." Idovi responded. "I kinda miss her. Once you get past her lying and being a horrible non-Elvin, she wasn't that bad."

There was a very awkward silence.

BACK AT RED RIVER:

"Eddy?" Double D asked in shock at seeing Eddy's face. The man gave a groan. "How many rules are you going to break today, kid? No stealing from people you know outside the guild!" He reminded the greedy Ed.

Eddy himself seemed in shock. "Double D?" He asked. "I couldn't see you with my hood in my face!" "I keep telling the others we should get eye-holes put in." The man muttered.

"Do you have any idea where Ed is?" Double D asked. He wasn't sure exactly what else he could say. They had been away from home for two months.

"Are you kidding me?" Eddy asked. "How the hell would I know that! One minute I'm in the library; next thing I know I'm in the sewers underneath this city!"

"So we wound up in different places…" Double D thought. "Are the others in this city, too, or are they somewhere else in this strange, new world?"

"Yeah, I hate to interrupt this love-fest, but you should really leave." The man said. He grabbed Eddy's hood and forced it back up over his head. "Sorry for the mix-up, Doubledee. Won't happen again." The man grabbed the back of Eddy's collar and began dragging him away.

Double D tried to chase after them but found his mind too fogged up for some reason. Eddy seemed surprisingly calm about the man dragging him off and merely gave Double D as helpless shrug as they rounded a corner.

"Was he one of the kids you told me about?" The man asked Eddy as they walked down an alley between two shops. When Eddy didn't answer, the man sighed. "It's okay, kid; you can talk when I ask you something."

"He's one of those friends of mine who helped me with my scams." Eddy said, almost bragging. The two reached a large, vault-like door in the ground that led to the sewers.

"Is he the stupid one or the weak one?" The man asked as he bent down and opened the door.

"The weak one; but he's real smart. Those were uh… mage's clothes, right?"

"He's an apprentice, at least." The man answered. He dropped down into the sewers and Eddy followed after. They landed boot-deep in thick, questionable goo. The man reached up and closed the door to the sewer after him. "I really hate their robes, you know that?"

Eddy looked at the walls of the sewers. They were already sort of homely to him. People like him had sprawled graffiti on the walls in chalk. On small roads on the sides of the sewer, there were signs that many people had been there. To Eddy's surprise, he even saw a gold piece, which he reached down towards and picked up.

"It's kinda weird; you wind up with the Thieves Guild and that Doubledee guy's a mage." The man said as he stepped onto a road. Eddy followed after him as the man began following the road through the sewer's tunnels. "Of course, you got the street-smart, devilish good-looks end of the deal. Your buddy got the cloak-wearing bastard end."

After a long walk, Eddy and the man reached a door that one would normally find in the sewers. The man knocked on the door five times, taking a pause before the second and fifth knock.

"Whose hands of gold can steal anything from anyone?"

Eddy knew what the answer to the guard behind the door's question was before they even asked it. The man, instead of giving the name of some ancient thief god, gave a more specific answer.

"Yeah, that'd be me." He said.

The guard sighed in his serpentine voice. "Hopaol, you Half-Elf bastard, you're supposed to say the Naja Thief God's name."

Hopaol, the man with Eddy, pretended to think about this for a few seconds. "Yeah, like I said; that's me." He repeated. "At least, your sister kept calling me a god when we were together."

The guard grumbled something that Eddy could only assume was insulting and opened the door. The guard was a snake-human creature with a human's body and a snake-like head. He was covered in yellow scales, had narrow, red eyes, and wore clothes like Eddy's.

"Nice to see you, Dy." Hopaol greeted with a friendly nod. The snake-creature returned the favor by spitting on Hopaol's boots.

"Love you, too, buddy." Hopaol grinned as Dy walked away. "Can't believe he's still mad that I slept with all four of his sisters. I was doing the ugly one a favor. And it's not like it was all at the same time… well, you know… not all four of them at the same time."

Eddy had grown used to his mentor's stories about his personal life. Most of them were good, anyways.

"Okay, we're going to take a little break, then we'll head back up and you can try to steal from someone else." Hopaol said as he and Eddy entered through the door. "Hopefully it won't be that big-headed crazy kid you told me about."

Meanwhile, back above ground, puffs of black smoke appeared all over the city. The Night Elves, all riding their armored spiders, had teleported within the city walls. Akaci, now wearing brightly-cleaned armor, grinned as a confused public began running in fear. He opened his mouth and yelled out his first order to the other Night Elves.

"ATTACK WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT! IF YOU DIE I'M KICKING YOU OUT OF MY ARMY!"

Next Time: How To Kill Spiders