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Chapter Theme: Death of a Bachelor by Panic! At the Disco
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"Do I Look Lonely…?
(I See the Shadows on my Face)
People have Told Me
I Don't Look the Same…"
.
.
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Hunter had no idea where the Ground Boy was leading him, nor what they were going to do, and so far, Edric hadn't given him any hints other than saying that they were going to meet up with his sister. Which wasn't exactly informative since, from what he'd heard about the Blights, the two of them were practically always together anyway.
With Hunter still regretting his decision to have not just left when he had the chance, the two of them eventually spotted Emira leaning against one of the back walls of the school.
"Oh, you actually managed to drag Mr. Frownie with you," the girl observed. "How'd you manage that, Ed?"
"With my dashing good looks and charm!" Edric declared, striking a dramatic pose.
Hunter stared at him blankly.
"… Is leaving still an option?"
"What?! You can't leave! We haven't even done anything yet!" Edric exclaimed.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Hunter let out a long sigh.
"You know, you still haven't explained what we're actually doing."
"Oh. Right."
"We're gonna pull some wicked pranks," Emira told him with a wide grin. "We've been planning some really good ones recently, and you showed up just in time to check 'em out!"
"… Pranks…?"
Hunter didn't like the sound of that. Sure, he'd pulled pranks on Lilith and Kikimora before, but he hadn't ever done them with anybody else, and it wasn't like he pulled them that often (after all, he couldn't let his uncle find out about what he was up to). He didn't know if he could trust these two to not get them all into trouble. What was he supposed to do if they decided to prank a teacher, or, Titan-forbid, the principal? He couldn't get in trouble on his first day. Sure, Eda would be proud, but he didn't want to get on the principal's bad side.
Who knew what the man would do to him if he got angry enough.
"Please tell me we aren't going to prank the principal," Hunter voiced one of his worries aloud.
"Oh, no, not today," Edric told him, waving a hand. "We pranked him last week, and we need to leave some cool-off time between pranking him so we don't get expelled."
He crossed his arms, thinking. He still didn't like the idea of pulling pranks with these two, but at least they weren't going to mess with the principal.
"… Who are we pranking, then?"
Edric grinned, even wider than his sister had when she explained what they were doing.
"So, you're in?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Nope! Welcome to the dark side!"
Silently, Hunter mused that he was already on 'the dark side'. After all, he'd betrayed the emperor and his entire coven. He was a traitor, an outlaw, a criminal. He had to be on the dark side after all that.
Though, he was still accepting that maybe the dark side wasn't so bad.
"Will you just stop being mysterious and tell me what we're doing already?" Hunter snapped.
"Chill, dude," Emira responded. "Follow me, and you'll see."
With that, the girl turned and started walking away from the school. Okay, so they weren't messing with the school at all, then. That was good.
Even still, Hunter muttered about how the two of them were still being mysterious as he followed them.
And it turned out that he had to follow them for a while. They'd already been walking for fifteen minutes, still without any named destination, and Hunter was really regretting his decisions. Edric and Emira were chattering about something, and Hunter didn't really understand half of it, so he had started tuning them out. But of course, they eventually tried to catch his attention.
"So, what do you think?"
Hunter blinked as he realized they were addressing him.
"What?"
"Who do you think would win in a fight? Principal Bump's hair, or Kikimora's hair?"
He stared at them for a long while as his brain tried to understand what they'd just asked him.
"What."
"Well, Kikimora's hair is like, a claw-hand-thing, so it could probably grab people and stab them or something," Edric explained. "But, like, have you seen Bump's hair?"
Hunter frowned harder, more about Kikimora than about the ridiculous conversation they were having.
"… No?" Hunter replied eventually. "I didn't know he even had hair."
"Oh boy, does he."
He… had no idea what he was supposed to say to that.
"Okay, but what if we added in Eda's hair?" Emira suggested. "I mean, who knows what's in there."
"True, true."
Hunter tilted his head.
"How is hair supposed to fight, anyway?"
"Eh, that's not important," Edric waved him off. "But whose hair do you think would win?"
Hunter sighed deeply, very deeply, as he forced himself to come up with a stupid answer to a stupid question.
"I've never seen Principal Bump's hair, so I have no idea what it's strengths and weaknesses in battle would be," he began. "As for Kikimora, her hair looks intimidating, but she never really uses it to fight, and she's a short little bi- um. Anyway, even if her hair could fight, it would lack experience. I'm pretty sure Eda's hair would win because it… has the most battle experience? I mean, she hides things in there that she can use, so it has actually participated before, and it would have the advantage of tools and weapons. So."
After his ridiculous analysis, the twins burst out into raucous laughter, forcing them to stop in the middle of the path.
"Oh my Titan, you actually came up with a real answer!" Emira laughed.
"You should write an essay on the relative 'battle experiences' of hair!" Edric added.
Hunter felt his cheeks redden.
"Shut up! You asked me for an answer, so I gave you one!"
"I was just going to pick Bump's hair 'Cuz it's pretty," Edric continued chuckling.
"Ed, he's so old."
"I never said he was pretty; just his hair… geez…"
The two of them continued laughing and teasing each other for a few more minutes while Hunter just awkwardly watched them, not knowing what else to do. He had already learned that a lot of people seemed weird to him because he wasn't used to interacting with people outside of the Emperor's Coven, but he was pretty sure these two were just weird.
Finally, the two of them calmed down enough for them to continue their walk.
"So, are we almost wherever it is that we're going?" Hunter asked.
"Just a feeeew more minutes."
And so they walked a while longer, until the twins suddenly stopped and, without warning, grabbed Hunter and pulled him behind a large tree.
"Okay, so, here we are."
"… At a random tree, in a forest full of random trees…"
"Well, yeah, but honestly, the exact location wasn't important," Emira explained. "We mostly needed to kill time until it was a little later."
"Wait, wh-"
"So! Here's the plan: In a few minutes, some local coven guards are going to come by on their patrol," the girl continued. "Once they're in range, Ed and I are going to make an illusion of a gryphon to attack them, and while they're distracted, we're going to throw these paint balloons at them."
She flipped her bag open to reveal a pile of miniature, presumably paint-filled balloons rather than textbooks.
Again, Hunter needed a few moments to wrap his head around what he just heard. And once it finally sunk in, his heart rate sky-rocketed, creating a roar in his ears.
"Your plan is to attack the Emperor's Coven?!" he hissed.
"Well, attack is a strong word…"
"And they're threatening our family to make abomatons. We wouldn't usually mind 'cus our parents suck, but they're probably not using them for anything good, so."
Hunter could only barely hear them, their voices being drowned out by the roaring and the screaming in his own mind.
He couldn't do this. They were going to get caught, and the guards might recognize him, and then they'd drag him back to his uncle. And even if they didn't recognize him, they would still arrest him, and they'd figure out who he was eventually. And then he'd get dragged back to his uncle, and who knew what his uncle would do to him? He still wasn't sure if Belos wanted to kill him, still wasn't sure how much of what happened was a lie and how much was him jumping to conclusions. He still didn't know if his uncle wanted him dead or if he wanted him back to fulfill whatever purpose he'd been created for.
But he did know that, even being as conflicted as he still was over the whole thing, he couldn't go back to Belos, and he definitely couldn't let himself get captured. If he did, Rascal was as good as dead, even assuming they weren't both as good as dead.
Through his racing thoughts, Hunter barely noticed his breathing start to pick up. Rascal, however, had noticed, apparently, since he climbed out of the bag to fly onto his shoulder and chirp comfortingly at him.
The twins, apparently, also noticed.
"Woah, hey, are you okay, dude?"
He forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. He wasn't going to let himself freak out here, especially not in front of these two while coven guards were nearby. Reaching up, he scooped Rascal into his hand and began to pet the small bird.
"We are not pranking the coven guards," Hunter insisted, shaking his head vehemently. "I just- just no."
Both twins frowned at him, their eyebrows pinched slightly. Then, they glanced at each other as if they were having a silent conversation.
"Oh. Well, okay," Edric agreed, all amusement gone from his face. "Look, I know we were being kinda pushy, but if you really don't want to do this, we aren't going to force you. We just figured you'd be cool with it since you live with Eda. Sorry."
"I'm not going to do something that stupid just because I live with her!"
"Hey, is there a problem over there?"
A fourth voice broke through their now-tense conversation, and Hunter peeked the slightest bit out from behind the trees. There was a group of three coven guards standing on the trail right by where they were standing, all three of them looking their way. One of them had stepped closer than the others, probably the one who called out, and it looked like they were about to take another step closer.
No.
Oh no.
They could see him. Not much of him, but they'd easily be able to see him fully if they took another few steps.
No, no, no.
Hunter's breath hitched, and he was half a second away from bolting out of there.
But then Edric and Emira stepped out from behind the tree.
"Sorry, we were just having a dumb argument!" Edric called back. "Nothing important. We didn't mean to disturb you!"
The expressionless masks of the coven guards regarded them for a few more seconds before the one in front shrugged.
"Well, alright, then," they said. "Try not to cause any trouble."
And as simply as that, the small group of guards continued their way down the path, leaving them alone. They must not have heard the twins' plan. Actually, they probably only noticed them because of Hunter's shouting.
Why was he so stupid-
Hunter slowly lowered himself on the ground to sit and pet Rascal. The twins sat down with him, and the three of them remained silent until the guards were long out of earshot and sight. By then, Hunter had calmed down.
"You okay?"
"…"
He couldn't respond at first, the words staying glued to his tongue, but he eventually got a sentence out.
"You two are insane."
"Well, it's not like they ever catch us, so we usually don't worry about it."
Hunter glared at them.
"You should worry about it!" he exclaimed. "The emperor is not a merciful man, and you… do you want to get arrested? The best you'd get is getting thrown in the conformatorium! And the worst… Just. I am not helping you guys mess with the Emperor's Coven. Ever."
"Alright," Emira accepted. "We really aren't going to push you. If we knew it was going to freak you out, we wouldn't have suggested it. Just thought it'd be fun."
"I can't believe that somehow I'm the one whose idea of fun isn't going to get us killed…," Hunter muttered, barely loud enough for anyone to hear.
"But really, are you okay?" Edric asked. "Like, you looked like you were panicking for a bit there."
"I'm fine," Hunter huffed.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Okay," Edric accepted. "Well, do you wanna do something else? We don't have to prank anybody if you don't want to."
Rascal gave him a chirp that told him the little bird wanted him to stay and make friends, but Hunter shook his head anyway.
"No. No, I… I think I should head back."
He received a pair of frowns in response, but neither twin objected.
"Alright. See you tomorrow?"
He just shrugged before stepping over to the path, beginning his walk home.
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