A strange antique shop selling mysterious trinkets and totally-not-magic-books-wink-wink, which appears out of nowhere and disappears the following day, when someone came to ask for a refund or complain that they should have been more specific about what happens when you feed them after midnight. Put a warning label on it! Typically, none of the neighbors will claim to have ever heard of the shop, which makes you think they may have been on the scheme.

Shops like these were part of many stories, and in many times the start of them. If they sell books which take you on a journey of self-discovery or a board game which makes boys grow hair in places only Nobby Nobbs has hair, its mostly a question of taste. Ankh-Morpork itself had once been at the mercy of a cursed guitar bought in one such shop, and which had caused Death quite a skullache, as it would not allow the musician playing it to ever die.

It may seem strange, then, that Death was searching for the store right now. For any normal person, that would mean years of cutting journal clippings from tabloids of the kind that claim a man had married a magical creature of some sort and going mad trying to find a pattern, all the while the things which he has fed after midnight keep doing slapstick comedy routines around the house. But Death had the advantage of being everywhere at once, so all he needed was to do the metaphysical equivalent of turning your head around(1).

He found it floating in space a few lightyears east from Ankh-Morpork.

And then he was inside it, as if he had never been anywhere else.

Even though Death had never actually walked through the door to get inside, the bell above it rung to announce there was a costumer by itself.

From the door behind the balcony there was an annoyed grunt, then it opened to reveal a cranky old lady with a perpetual frown and a pair of glasses that, though not being shades, managed to conceal her eyes somehow. She took one look at Death and seemed unimpressed.

"We're closed." She snorted. It made sense; the neighborhood around here wouldn't buy much.

I AM ATTEMPTING TO CREATE A STORY

The lady adjusted the glasses then grumbled some more.

"Well we don't do charity here."

Death nodded.

JUST A SECOND

There was a temple dedicated to the Crocodile God, Offler, in the middle of a jungle somewhere in the Disk, where only a handful of priests lived. In its middle there was a giant statue, with one eye carved out of a giant diamond, while the other one currently sported giant eye patch made out of bed sheets ever since a thief had infiltrated the temple and stole the God's left eye. The priests did the best they could and re-wrote the holy scriptures to detail how Offler had lost one eye while battling against the Grimmimidums, which sounded like an ancient enough name that nobody would question it.

Arrumba Mumu, the higher ranking priest, was currently walking the path in front of the statue while drinking a mug of coffee and reading a newspaper (2). As such, he completely failed to notice the figure shrouded in black standing over Offler's snout and using a scythe as a lever to pop out the other diamond eye he had.

In Cori Celesti, the Gods watching the game, including the newcomer, all turned their heads when they heard an "Ah! Sonuva-".

The God Offler was holding his non-eyepatched eye, which now was just a hollow eyesocket. He could still see, since Gods aren't limited by pesky things like senses, but the priests would soon be busy at work rewriting a few texts to make up for this new change.

The store bell rang again, a mere instant after he had disappeared, holding a diamond the size of a small child.

I TRUST THIS IS ENOUGH TO COVER TRAVEL EXPENSES

He put the diamond on the counter. The vendor took a thicker pair of glasses and switched it with her current one so fast Death couldn't get a glimpse of her eyes. But of course, he already knew what they looked like, so there is no loss there.

"Its cursed." She put bluntly.

Death looked at it, then tapped the top of the diamond with the tip of the blade of his scythe, and slowly brought it up.

The scythe pulled out a small dark shadow made ouT oFf ialAlLwiLLDIEKkIlLMURdERfilthyTHiEiVESyoURSEEDshALLwiTHERaNDDiEDIEDIeDIE

Death cut the thing with his scythe.

IT ISN'T ANYMORE

Sergeant Colon was currently on patrol through the streets of Ankh Morpork. More specifically, he was patrolling the safest areas of the commercial district on the basis that the unsafe areas were a lost cause already, so why risk going there? Besides here and there he could taste a few free samples from the food vendors who knew to always reserve some extras for good ole Fred Colon, especially if good ole Fred Colon remembered not to bring that imp of a friend he had this time around.

He walked past an empty lot, then a second later there was absolutely nothing wrong or different all. He quickly spun around and there was, now, a store there, and it wasn't wrong or different. He knew that store, it had always been there, every day he could remember patrolling these streets, it was normal and not wrong. Nobody around him looked at it twice, because it was such an old and familiar sight and normal. It was normal. The thought was being hammered in his head, the more he stared at it. THIS store IS NORMAL. STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.

"Aww crud." He muttered, before hastly turning around and doing a retreat. "Not again."

Lord Vetinari, the Patrician, was currently filling the paper works that would ensure Minato would be normal and not wrong as well, provided everybody stopped thinking about it. The teen had left with the Commander and the guards a few minutes ago, after Vetinari and the Commander positively did not have an argument at all.

The figure that had been hiding in the shadows who Minato had spotted stepped out to the light. It wasn't… nearly as menacing on the sunlight. In fact it looked like a clerk. Which he was. The trick, however, is knowing that most clerks employed by the palace also double up as high ranking members of the Assassin's Guild.

The clerk didn't say anything, because he had learned long ago not to question the Patrician. Not because the man was vindictive or disliked being questioned, but because there was no point.

That is why Vetinari was the first to speak.

"Yes, Drumknott?"

"You think that was a wise decision, sir?"

"Tell me Drumknott, what did you think about his story?"

"He spotted me, sir. He looks at the shadows."

"People look but don't see..." the memory came to Vetinari, from so many years ago "But I think Keel would have seen me... He stares at the shadows." Ha. What would Vimes say about that? Probably nothing, but it would bother him.

"Did you do that trick where you take out your knife and let it gleam in the dark against all odds?"

"No sir, he didn't seem like he needed to be threatened."

"Indeed?" the Patrician looked up, "And why so, Drumknott?"

The clerk would have shrugged, but that was unprofessional, so he didn't.

"He didn't look dangerous."

"Ah yes, I agree." The Patrician went back to writing the paperwork. "He was pretty good and not looking dangerous."

They were now back at the Watch house. The travel back had been full of an awkward and tense silence where Minato did his best to stare out of the window, Cheery stared worriedly at the Commander, and the Commander glared at the teen as if it was all his fault. Detritus the troll stared vacantly at nothing.

The Commander was on the process of explaining the watchmen around the person they had arrested before was now a watchman himself. Or at least, he passing this torch around. It went something like this;

"Carrot, he's a guard now, blame Vetinari, spread the word around, I'm going home before I pop a vessel." And, as he was leaving, not quite under his breath, he added "…and if the kid ever as much as dreams of having another Gonne, you know what to do."(3) Before he slammed the door.

True enough, Minato thought the Commander seemed like a man who hadn't slept properly in the past week. Or year.

That left Captain Carrot with the task of announcing the arrival of a the new recruit to everyone, which honestly went much better than Minato had expected. Apparently, despite Commander Vimes's protests, being forced to accept new recruits against his will was something that happened once every month, thought very few times he had a real motive to distrust them like he did with the teen.

Minato was quickly introduced to more people than he could be bothered to remember the name of, many of whom showed the same amount of interest on him in return, with barely nodding when Carrot said he was the new guy, or even not looking up at all and mumbling something over piles of paperwork. The exceptions of the rule were Cheery the Dwarf, who was apparently both the head of, and the only member in, the forensics team, as well as the Commander's secretary, since he refused to hire someone to fill the spot, Detritus the Troll, who was apparently one of the smartest trolls in the city, capable of counting up to past four, even!(6) Then there was Sargeant Colon and Corporal 'Nobby' Nobbs, the respectively fat one and… more than merely 'ugly' one who watched over him in the prison. Minato noticed Colon was a little pale and muttering to himself, but, being Minato, didn't comment.

"And this is Angua."

Minato looked down to see a huge white wolf staring up at him, with a collar that held a police badge. It reminded him quite a lot of Koromaru, even though this wolf was about twice the shiba inu's size. The thing that made them alike is that Minato could bet this one would be able to have a Persona as well. Most animals lack the intelligence to have a sense of 'self', acting purely on instinct. Koromaru and Angua both seemed to be smart enough to know what concepts like 'myself' and 'thyself' are. He crouched absentmindedly to try and pet the animal, who didn't resist or bark.

"He's calm." The teen commented. The wolf barked as if to correct him.

"She's a she." Carrot said automatically.

Minato could swear he heard Nobby comment "You would know." From the other side of the room, but the Captain either didn't hear the comment or decided to ignore it. After another round of presenting Minato with some more people he didn't think would be important on his life (and upon thinking this he couldn't help but picture his shadow going 'See? See?' from inside him), Carrot turned back to face him, pointing at a door to their right with his thumb.

"...and I think Sally on the basement with Igor."

Wait what.

"You know Igor?" The teen asked in a reflex.

Carrot looked at him blankly. Then realization dawned.

"Oooh, no, I don't mean she's with someone named Igor, I mean she's with an Igor."

1 Only to 13 different sides at once

2 He subscribed to the idea that just because you were in the middle of a jungle cut from the rest of the world, you didn't have to be cut out from the rest of the world. The newspapers arrived 3 months late, but at least the crossword puzzles didn't have an expiration date.

3 Captain Carrot didn't, actually. He was a watchman who learned to do things by the book (4) and the book never mentioned anything about people dreaming of prohibited weapons. It did mention 567 things that constituted a 'threat to a watchman' (5) however, and he knew what to if Minato presented himself as one.

4 Literally so, pardon the pun, he had been the owner of one of the only copies detailing all the things expected from Ankh-Morpork's Finest, and had all 4000 pages memorized on his head.

5 It started with "1 – looking at me at a funny way, pal." And ended with "567 – Was totally asking for it." The pages on 'police brutality' listed 3 things, one of which is about hiding the bodies. It should be noted that the book was written by watchmen during a dictatorship, was hundreds of years old, and Commander Vimes had personally prohibited anyone but Carrot from reading it because at least the ginger had common sense.

6 He usually didn't though, because it caused his head to hurt. It should be noted trolls were just dumb during the summer; the snowy winter makes their brain unable to overheat and they become thinking powerhouses. It should be noted there was a troll smarter than Detritus. A troll so smart, he could count to numbers so high humans had yet to invent a name for them. But nobody knew where he was.

A/N

I just noticed I have been misspelling Cheery's name all the time up until now. It is read as Cherry, but spelled as Cheery, as in 'feeling happy', referencing names like "Grumpy" and "Sleepy" of the 7 Dwarves. Mr. Pratchett, I failed you, and my only option now is to disembowel myself honorably.

Also I can't help but feel Minato is far too silent in this one. But what can I do, he's stoic. I can't wait until I can start adding propper Social Links so that I can force him to open his goddamned mouth

DemonRaily It isn't really that they know they are in a story, it is just that it is heavily implied on the Disc that stories happen all the time because of the magical element Narrativium, which holds reality together, and gives the stories a force of their own. It's like, you can change the stories, or break the stories, but they fight back to stay on course, and it takes magic, intelligence or lots of willpower to break free from one, so the best bet is to play along and attempt to become a minor character, so that the story doesn't try to manipulate you too much. One Discworld book called Witches Abroad was all about this; in it a witch who has gone mad starts creating fairytale stories left and right because she knows those stories always end with "happily ever after"... but it did so against people's free will. So the princess who kissed a frog and it turned into a prince, for example, was happy ever after, but only because the story would not allow her to believe she was unhappy, even though she would be. This is the most extreme case, though, stories in the Disc rarely ever become powerful enough to brainwash people unless there is massive ammounts of magic backing it up, but they still keep nudging people into following it. Other characters also try to make stories so that they have better chances at something. In "Guards! Guards!", for example, Colon, Nobby, and Carrot, all become aware that whenever a story says that "it was a chance of one in a million", it always works, because its a story. So, they figured when they were about to lose a battle with odds of, say, 1 to 900000, they should start giving handicaps to the opponents (like throwing away weapons and fighting with their eyes closed) to make it so that the odds of them winning was exactly 1 on a million. It didn't work, but it was heavily implied it didn't work because they went a few units above a million so the odds became 1 on a million and four, or something.

Also, I cannot recommend this book series enough. I mean just look at me gushing, I could go on and on and on and on about this series.