To Void Knight: Welp. I'd love for a more efficient method of communication! Were the puns okay enough for you? I think I wasn't completely sane. I'm happy I made at least one guy chuckle. IfBanana- Specter Knight's DLC campaign would involve at least some insight on his life story, I'll be so dang happy I'll fall to the ground with a foaming mouth, unless it's a romance-centric campaign like Plague Knight's.
Also, I decided to decrease the words to less than 10 because I'd really like E is for eggs benedict to be a more serious chapter. If it doesn't entertain much, I'll be making up for F and onwards.
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E is for exams.
The students all looked at their small bird-masked teacher with wide eyes, twitching and trembling a bit. Some students had their hands clasped together and raised in the teacher's direction, muttering quiet pleas. Plague Knight looked back, rolled his eyes once, and then cleared his throat.
"Your final exams will be tomorrow." The little alchemist announced callously. His announcement had interesting effects; a lot of his students started to break down and weep, and others banged their heads on the table. One even lamented loudly about his procrastination and failing grades.
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E is for earth.
Shovel Knight swung his dirt-caked shovel blade at the flying Frenchman almost blindly with all the panic in the world in his pounding heart. The wind had pushed him near the edge of the deck and one more hit from the Flying Machine's very lively captain would earn him one more loss. He had no idea how that thin rapier could even hurt his completely armored body, but Propeller Knight managed somehow!
The sharp shovel hit the very delicate point between the Frenchman's head and his propeller blades. Both knights gasped, one from the sheer and unexpected luck of hitting that weak point, and the other in complete surprise.
The propellers were severed from the helmet itself. Propeller Knight screamed dramatically as a rose suddenly flew out of his garb for some reason. Shovel Knight shouted multiple profanities when he saw the Frenchman fall off the deck, without anything to bring him back up. It also attracted the attention of several Hoverhafts. A panicked cacophony of mes dieux and one meine Götterimmediately ensued, followed by all of them diving down to their frightened and screeching captain. Halberds were dropped, a shovel was raised, propellers were turned, and a horde of Frenchmen and one German had to disembark their ship in such a bad time.
Air lost against earth in a battle of elements, but not in the way Shovel Knightintended.
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E is for eggs benedict.
The tiny plaguemaster cracked his eyes open, his lungs and insides twisting and aching. He turned to his side, curled up into a ball, and coughed, small clouds of green gas coming out from his mouth each time he breathed. His poison got to him worse than he thought. Plague Knight, the vector of pestilence, the maker of poison, was nearly killed by the own weapons he created. What evil fortune.
It was good he was still alive and safe from an ironic death. Still alive, but he felt much weaker than he ever felt in his entire life. Plague Knight made some effort to sit up and then examined the room he was in despite the world spinning all around him. The sores and wounds on his skin caused by his recklessness were cleaned and bandaged properly, and they only stung with minimal pain. He was squeaky clean from top to bottom, unlike his usual sweaty and grimy self. The bed he was lying on was clean and neat, the blanket draped over him nicely. Red tapestries hung on the wooden walls, and the torches burned only enough to dimly illuminate the room.
He turned his head to the bedside table, where a whole glass of a glowing red potion stood. It was still bubbling, fresh out of whatever cauldron the potion was concocted in. A note in graceful and feminine handwriting was under the glass. Plague Knight took it and read its contents.
Good day, Plague Knight. It's a health potion I made. If you wake up without me by your bedside, you may drink the potion.
Signed, Mona.
Plague Knight sighed, thinking of how reckless he was to result in him getting poisoned. He then gulped down the potion. Wow,he marveled, that was a fine brew.He stared at the health potion, made in better conditions by a better alchemist. It was leagues better than his best health potion - the feeling of rest and rejuvenation washing over him. He didn't notice a tall woman holding a tray of food enter his room until the food's scent wafted through the air and to him. Plague Knight perked up, his mouth watering at the smell of his favorite food.
"Are those…?" He glanced to the direction of the smell, and saw the beautiful young woman, her hair short, her height twice his own, and her face lovely as a jovial and pretty flower under the bright sunlight. His heart thumped quite ferociously somewhere in his ribcage.
"Eggs benedict, Plague Knight." She replied. "It's one of the only foods I can make down here with whatever's in the shelf."
"Eggs benedict… I already like it, hee."
She paused, and then smiled. "Your sense of smell is still intact. That's good. Here, Plague Knight. Eat up."
Mona placed the tray of eggs benedict on the bedside table and watched Plague Knight hungrily wolf down on the food she made. Plague Knight would look up at her briefly to watch her with some kind of curiosity, and she would grin at his egg-covered face. He smiled a crooked and awkward smile at her.
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E is for entrance.
The ominous green clouds were overcast in the sky of the Tower, rain falling down in torrents. The rainwater made the stone floor of the Tower's entrance slippery and dangerous to navigate on. The Mobile Gear would perform very poorly on the wet surface and the Propeller Dagger would eventually stop turning if rain made it in the mechanisms inside, Shovel Knight thought, as he readied his other relics. He tread carefully through the cursed Tower's outside, swinging his shovel blade as hard as he could at all enemies he encountered.
For a moment he remembered how Shield Knight and he had arrived before.
She had bashed her trusty shield, handcrafted by her father, against the more dangerous samurai and archers and samurai-archers, even protecting both him and herself from the slashes and arrows. One time, she had gleefully egged him onwards for the adventure the Tower offered, completely unaware of the evil that lurked in that one room at the top.
When they had entered, they knew it was a grave mistake. Swarms of liquid men attacked at once. Shovel Knight could not forget the last thing she did.
Shield Knight did not hesitate to push him off and send him tumbling downwards in the spiral stairs. Initially he didn't know that it was she who had pushed him off, and when he looked up, he realized. She desperately tried to push away the liquid enemies, but they only seemed to multiply in number. He remembered calling out her name, her realname, before she was gone in the flood of the enemy. He had tried to climb back up to offer his offense-oriented help, but one samurai, a blue one, emerged out of nowhere and pushed him to a window and throw him out.
That was the last he saw of her.
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E is for the Enchantress.
"When will I be able to do as I please?"
The Enchantress glared down at the knight below. He was no longer kneeling, no longer speaking in the respect she had enforced on him. His voice changed from soft and dry to harsh and emotional, something she did not entirely expect. His glare was sharp and deadly, and his shriveled fists were trembling, almost glowing.
"What I can only do is to imprison myself in my own land." Specter Knight said. "I cannot do what I should have done a long time ago, Enchantress. Even before I died."
"You are ungrateful. You are soulless, and you can never attain what you desire. I gave you undeath, and you will follow me to the end of time. That is your purpose." The Enchantress bellowed. The purple flames lighting the hall burst in greater intensity. She pushed herself off the window and floated downward, her black and violet dress flaring like fire. She halted when the recognizable red cloak of the apparition vanished into the air in swirls of red, and then recollected into a human shape. Its red form had more luster than the tattered cloak it was previously guised.
A woman, beautiful and known for tenacity, looked back at the Enchantress with disdainful light brown eyes.
You're very cruel, you know?
"I thought I killed you." The Enchantress scoffed. "What are you doing?"
You revive a man and torture him afterwards. You allow an archaeologist to excavate and then prevent discovery. You lie to a seeker of love and thrill and lead him to a world of sadness. Villagers live in constant fear of you, except for the minstrel, I think. You're an unnecessary evil in this world, and deserve to be erased from existence!
"I will do as I please, Shield Knight. You cannot influence me." She smirked. "You know, when your beloved comes here, I will make sure he loses, and you will no longer pester me."
I don't think so.
Shield Knight only gave her a veiled smile of contempt before fading away into thin air.
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E is for enemy.
"Yameru!" A garbled voice barked.
Shovel Knight spun around and brandished his shovel. A red variant of the samurai enemies ran at him, his katana already raised. He stepped to the side, avoiding the cut of the sharp sword, and growled. He glowered at the samurai, recalling her, how they swarmed upon her when she was alone at the top of the cursed Tower, and how he was locked out of the Tower because of one of its kin throwing him out.
It advanced on him again, sword raised. Shovel Knight blocked its next attack by parrying the enemy's sword and stepped away. He got to its back fast and then he immediately slashed at the abomination's head.
The samurai only reverted back to its small blob form and slowly melted on the floor. He scowled at the splatter of red and black viscous liquid, languidly crawling through cracks in the stone and gradually disappearing from sight.
The thing would just come back again after a short moment.
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E is for eternity.
There was a big problem that came with immortality, something that can never be solved by any kind of magic nor willpower.
It was eternity.
His aide had brought it up before, that eternity seemed to be a very frightening entity, that they would spend unending life in a desolate land. Both of them would be confined to the Yard because they'd be regarded as unholy and monstrous creatures that gave up their humanity anyway. No one could possibly love the undead whatever they try to do - whether they dominate the world in tyrannical rule or act as benevolent spirits never mattered and will never earn the respect of mortal men, for atrocities can never be forgotten. He had no plans for the first one, nor did he think the second was possible.
The more he ruminated, the more he felt tired.
Is it worth it to live forever?
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E is for endgame.
Purple orbs flew out of the sorceress' palms, launched towards the enemy blue knight. Shovel Knight grunted as he jumped and landed on a safe floating platform. He glanced back and watched the other blocks of dirt get obliterated by the magic of his final obstacle.
A formless red shape, glimmering even in little light, manifested shortly into the form of Shield Knight. She cast a glance at the Enchantress and smirked. She was floating by the side of the blue burrower, her posture unchanging even as Shovel Knight frantically jumped on any platform undestroyed by the sorceress. The Enchantress just chuckled to herself, summoned a large inferno of fire, and willed it to rise up to her enemy.
Shovel Knight tried to run away, only to see the flames follow him with each step. He readied his Propeller Dagger and prepared to fly to a small floating piece of rock still within his reach, his last piece of salvation. He tried to avert his eyes from the unholy fires that swelled up to him.
A powerful gust of wind blew through the Tower lair, extinguishing the flames, and leaving behind more floating rocks for the blue knight to stand on. The Enchantress reeled back a bit, shocked that the wind came from her own power. Shovel Knight also looked at the new rocks in wonder, before gripping his shovel tighter, his resolve stronger, his heart beating, trusting the presence of his beloved. The eerie form of Shield Knight laughed defiantly at the Enchantress.
When she saw the fiery and utterly determined eyes of the little blue knight, she knew it was her end.
Up next: F is for French.