Heyyyy! We've reached a beginning to the Fractured but Whole stuff! Hooray!


Brooke jolted awake to the sound of Lucy yelling across the hall, which caused Sniper to leap from the bed and start barking, "Fight! Fight!"

"Fight?" Brooke got up and opened the door. She went across to Riley and Jake's room to find Lucy standing there and yelling at the two boys. They were under the covers, both in Jake's bed, with Riley looking quite startled and Jake trying not to laugh.

"What in the world are you two thinking!? Jacob is ILL! He's not well enough for that!"

"Uh," Brooke exchanged a look with her dog. "Wha- What's going on?"

She turned on her. "What's going on!? They are in the same bed, NUDE!"

Brooke's eyes widened a bit. "Oh! Uh, I'm just gonna…continue on my way to the bathroom." She quickly shuffled out of the room, snorting as she tried to hold back a laugh.

"THIS IS NOT FUNNY!"

"What is she yelling about?" Trent asked as Brooke joined him after in the kitchen.

"Uh, I think Riley and Jake did some sexy stuff and now she's fussing them because Jake is still sick and weak."

He blinked at her. "…Great. I have to watch him today while knowing that."

She shrugged. "You asked."

"And I regret it…"

Not long after the others had left for school, Riley refusing to make eye contact with a leering Lucy, Charles and Lamar had decided to go meet the new human living with the Princess. Jake was just finishing his soup when he heard a weird noise that made him pause. Suddenly, a large skeleton creature had leapt onto the bed.

"Heeyyyyyy!"

"AHHGH!"

"AHHH!" Charles shouted. "Why are we screaming?!"

Trent kicked open the door, relaxing a bit once he realized there was no threat. "Oh, it's you fuckers. What the hell are you doing?"

"There's another one!" Jake jumped as Lamar crawled out from under the bed.

"We came to meet the new member of the family!" Lamar smiled.

"Well, what are you tryin' to give him a fucking heart attack for!? I'm in charge of looking after him while everyone else is at school and if he'd have had a heart attack or something then I would've snapped your spines!"

The banshees flinched and exchanged startled looks.

"Oh," Jake settled down a bit. "You – You guys are the weird skeleton pets?"

"Pets?" Lamar tilted his head.

"We were made as living dolls," Charles told him. "The Queen made us especially for her daughter!"

"I guess we're kind of like pets…"

"Uh," Jake looked a bit concerned. "How long have you guys been under my bed?"

"Well," Lamar said. "We showed up there last night."

"Yeah. We were going to introduce ourselves then, buuuut…"

"We, uh, didn't want to interrupt."

Charles chuckled. "Lucy sure gave you guys an earful."

"Eheh," Jake scratched his head. "Y-Yeah. So, you guys were just…there?"

"Yup!" Charles smiled.

"We took a nap, but Lucy woke us up with all her angry mom sounds. We didn't want to come out while she was mad…"

"So, anyways! Your name's Jake, right? I'm Charles, and this is my brother, Lamar! We're banshees!"

Lamar tilted his head. "We thought Riley was in a relationship with that kid called Butters. Did they break up?"

"No," Jake said. "Uh, the three of us are all…well, we're all together."

The banshees looked confused. "More than one soulmate?" Lamar looked at his brother.

"That's weird!"

"Humans are weird!"

They shrugged. "Eh," Charles said. "If you three are happy like that, then it ain't our business."

Lamar nodded. "As Joey would say, 'you gotta do what makes you happy, you know?'"

"Haha! He'd totally say that!"

"You guys are weird," Jake smiled. "I like you."

"We like you, too, weirdo!" Charles smiled.

"You know," Lamar leaned forward. "We were waiting to snatch up your soul back in the hospital."

"Yeah, but then you decided you wanted to live."

"The Princess wants you to, too!"

"So, we want you to live and get better, too," Charles smiled. "We don't know what cancer is, but we're pretty sure Lucy can crush it!"

"Oh," Jake was a bit surprised. He smiled. "Well, thanks then."

.

"Oh, hey babe," Jake smiled as Riley walked in later that afternoon. "How was school?"

"Fine, except that I'm in the same class as Lucy and she kept glaring at me the whole time."

He laughed. "Ah, well, I got two visitors today. Charles and Lamar?"

"Oh, yeah. You never met them…"

"They sure gave me a start. Uh, anyways, turns out they were hiding under my bed all night."

Riley froze in the middle of taking his homework out of his bag, dropping the notebook and looking over at him with a disturbed expression. "Oh god! They were there the whole time!?" He yelped as Lucy suddenly threw the door open.

"You two better restrain yourselves! Pillow talk and foreplay are one thing, but actual intercourse is too much!" She glared at Jake. "You are not healthy enough for that!"

He smiled. "I like that your concern is my health and not my age."

She huffed. "That's right, I forgot… Humans typically don't do those things at this age. Monsters stop aging when they reach their twenties, so ten years is typically when most monsters become sexually mature." She winced and shot him another glare. "But that's not the point!"

"Yes, ma'am," Jake said.

She huffed again and briskly left the room, muttering darkly.

"Well, I'm not staying long," Riley told Jake. "After I finish up my homework, I have to go to Butters' house and explain our relationship to his parents. Apparently, he told them he has two boyfriends and they grounded him for cheating on me."

Jake laughed. "What if they don't like our relationship, though?"

"Then, maybe Brooke will let me borrow a Royal Guard…"

"Heh, what?"

.

"So, what do you want to do now?" Lamar asked.

The two banshee brothers had lingered around town all day, and as night fell, they had perched themselves like gargoyles atop Brooke's house. They weren't bothering to hide since it was still very dark out after the new moon.

Charles thought for a minute. "Hm… Hey! Let's go bug Kenny!"

"Aw, yeah! I like Kenny!"

With a few flaps of their web-less wings, they took to the air and flew all the way over to the sodosopa ruins where the dilapidated one-story house sat beneath looking as sad as ever. They perched silently atop one of the unfinished structure's protruding metal beams and peered down at the strange figure in front of the house. Being able to see just as clearly in the dark as they could in the light, they noticed that the figure, which was the same height as most of the other kids, was wearing a dark purple cloak and hood. The figure's face was half-covered by a black mask around the eyes and they were wearing underwear on the outside of their pants, and there was a green 'M' on their chest along with a little green question mark sticking up from their hood. Charles and Lamar exchanged a look then watched for a few minutes as the figure seemed to be training and practicing fighting moves on an old dummy.

"Who the heck is that?" Charles asked.

"Hmm," Lamar narrowed his green orb-like eyes as he looked at the soul inside of the figure. "Oh, that's Kenny."

"Whaaat? No way! Kenny's not that cool."

"I'm telling you it is! Read his soul."

"You just don't know how to rea- Oh my Sol, it's Kenny."

"Told you!"

"What are you two doing?" A gruff voice asked. The figure was suddenly perched right between them on the beam.

The two banshees screamed and fell from the beam onto the roof of the house. They took a moment to catch their breath. "Woo," Lamar breathed. "I'm glad we can't shit ourselves…"

Charles looked up at the figure. "Jeez, Kenny, how'd you do that?"

"Yeah, no one's ever snuck up on US before! We're usually the ones sneaking up on YOU."

"Consider it payback." He leapt down from the beam, onto the roof, and then down to the ground below.

"Why's he talking like that?" Lamar asked. The boy was talking in a deep, gruff voice.

"I don't know, but he's SO coooool."

"And I'm not Kenny," he told them.

"You're not?" They hopped down with him.

He turned to face them, holding his cape around himself and up to his face. "No," he said and tossed his cape. "I am…Mysterion."

Their heads slowly tilted sideways, almost like what Joey's head would often do. "Neat!" Lamar perked up. "Whatever that means…"

"SO coooool," Charles sighed.

"So, what are you doing, Mysterion?"

"Training," he replied. "Crime has picked back up again, big time in this town. It's up to me to stop it!"

"Why?"

"I can't die. I started using my curse as a power, and I, Mysterion, use it to my advantage to fight the crime in this town!"

"Coooool."

"Oh," Lamar said. "I think I get it. You wanted to make something good outta that shitty curse, so you've decided to become some kind of vigilante so you can use it for the good of others. …Either that, or you're just playing."

"No, I'm very serious about this." Mysterion told him and turned back to the dummy.

"Yeah, we can tell. We didn't know you knew how to fight, Ken- uh, Mysterion. I guess you'd have to train really hard, though, considering the only power you have is coming back after death…and sneaking up on monsters. Well, we'll leave you to it! Come on, Charles."

"Man, he's so cool," Charles said as they flew away. "Hey, what if he DID have other powers?"

"But he doesn't."

"He COULD, though."

Lamar tapped a claw to his temple. "Ahh, I see."

"Yeahhh."

They flew back over to Brooke's house, dove beneath the ground, then popped out from the floor in her room. Brooke was asleep with Sniper laying at her feet. The dog's ears perked and he raised his head to look at them, tilting it as Lamar raised a finger to his mouth to tell the dog to remain silent. Sniper curiously watched him go into Brooke's closet then glanced over at Charles who was still halfway in the floor.

Lamar looked around the closet, skimming over the shelves of odd ingredients and jars of mysterious substances. He paused a moment to look at Claudia in her cage as she raised her first set of legs up threateningly. Rolling his eyes, he turned away from the tarantula to look at the shelves behind him. These looked more promising, as they were lined with completed, labeled potions and elixirs. He quickly looked around for the familiar purple liquid labeled 'Shadow Potion' and snatched it in his claws.

Sniper narrowed his eyes at them as they exchanged a silent conversation of hand gestures and charades. He was debating on barking at them when they had suddenly disappeared below the floor. The dog stared at the spot they had just been in then snorted and laid his head back down to go to sleep.

The next morning, the two banshees had appeared back at Kenny's house, popping up beside him while he was sitting at the table eating cereal. "Fuck!" he shouted. He was only wearing his underwear and a white muscle shirt.

"Oh, hey," Lamar said. "You guys got cereal for once!"

"With milk!" Charles was surprised. "Neat!"

"Yeah," Kenny looked down at the mess of milk on his shirt. "Now I gotta go change…" He hopped down from the chair and left the kitchen.

"Cereal with milk, huh?" Lamar said after he had gone.

"Convenient for us, no?"

"Yes!" Lamar popped the cork out of the little bottle, relishing the cinnamon scent, then poured its contents into the cereal, stirring it until the purple color had faded and soaked into the cereal.

Lamar tossed the bottle up, catching it in his mouth and swallowing, where it went, only they knew. They exchanged mischievous grins then waited for the boy to return.

Kenny came back, this time with his pants on and a different, very similar shirt, and sat back at the table. "What are you guys doing here, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" Lamar asked, watching him scoop up a spoonful of the cereal. "We like you, Kenny!"

"Yeah," Charles added. "All of the Nether monsters like you. Er, well, except Cassidy."

"But she's a bitch!"

"Oh, uh…I guess I like you guys too. Even though you're always trying to mess with me."

"Aw, don't take it to heart," Lamar told him. "We mess with everybody!"

"Except Lucy! She scares us…"

"Hm." He took a bite of cereal, tasting it and making a mildly confused face. "Since when did Cocoa Pebbles start adding cinnamon to their stuff?"

"I don't know," Lamar said. "When's the last time you ate it?"

"Well, I guess it's been a while…"

"We LOVE cinnamon," Charles sighed. "The Princess always hides it from us because we eat it all."

"She mentioned that," Kenny said, taking another bite. "You guys said that all the Nether monsters like me?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Why?"

"What do you mean?" Charles cocked his head, looking genuinely confused.

"Oh, I get it. It's because I die all the time, right?"

"What? No. It's because you're connected to the destiny of the Princess."

He stopped in the middle of taking another bite. "What?"

"Make sure you eat all of your cereal," Lamar said. "Er, you'll be hungry at school if you don't."

Charles continued, "Yeah, you used the Oracle Stones and saw Sol fight her brother, right? You saw her fuse with your soul to kick his butt, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! So, you also heard Crystal talking about how you'd have a connection to Angel, right? Er, I mean Brooke."

"Y-Yes?"

"Welllll, we all know about that prediction. Except for the Princess."

"Why doesn't she know?"

"Well, we didn't know WHY or WHEN, so it was just kind of kept on the lay low."

"Okay," he took another bite of cereal at Lamar's request. "Do you know why, now?"

"Nope!"

"We just assume it's because you two love each other," Lamar said, and Kenny choked. "Hey! Don't do that! You gotta eat it all!"

"Either way," Charles said. "It makes you important to the Princess and, therefore, important to the Nether."

He cleared his throat, blushing a little. "Oh… Does that mean – never mind."

The banshees tilted their heads. "Are you worried about something?" Lamar asked. "We know that you and the Princess haven't actually officially expressed your full feelings."

His face darkened a shade or two. "I'm fine."

The brothers looked sad. "But you're hurt…" Charles said.

"What?" he glanced up at him.

"You're hurt because you think you're not good enough, and because she won't talk to you about it, right?"

Kenny clutched his spoon and looked down.

"She really loves you," Lamar told him. "She's just afraid of losing you. You say you can't die, which is true, but neither could her mom or brother. But…they did."

"Yeah…" Charles perked up a bit. "You just need to do what we do!"

"What's that?"

"Never let her have a moment's peace! Always love her and hang around her no matter what and always be there for her! She doesn't act like it, but she loves attention from people she cares about, so she won't tell you no if you try to get all cuddly or close with her. Heck, if you start flirting more, she'll probably flirt back eventually!"

"And she REALLY cares about you," Lamar added. "She talks about you a lot when we go to visit her."

"Really?"

"Yeah! Trust us, we know how she is. We grew up with her!"

"Yeah…wait. You guys are the same age as us?"

"Yup!"

"We were created as adults though," Charles told him. "Lucy says that's why we still act like children. She's probably right."

"Anyways," Lamar said. "You're gonna be late for school! Hurry up and eat your cereal!"

"Agh!" Kenny jumped and quickly finished off his breakfast, lifting the bowl to drink the milk after. He placed the empty bowl back down then hurried off to find his parka and schoolbag.

"I just remembered something," Charles said as he peered down at the empty bowl.

"What?"

"Don't humans melt from the inside-out after consuming pure Shadow Potion?"

"Ohhhh…"

To be continued…


I told you the Shadow Potion would be important later... Anyways, you ever played the Fractured but Whole? Kenny has these weird shadow powers and I decided to explain that happening via the Shadow Potion. Btw, I recently received two Christmas Cacti that I named Charles and Lamar. Lol