To Spiked Dragon: Ahh, okay. I'll reconsider - I'd have to produce original lyrics, though. Thank you for your suggestions :)
To ProwlerPercy: I'm a mademoiselle, just so you know! And yes, Mona and Plague Knight OTP is the real thing!
To Monkey999Boy: Black Knight technically appeared last chapter. Hint hint: In a flashback. I know this might ruin the fun for what I got planned, but hey, Black Knight's going to make more appearances, along with Shield Knight, on flashback related side-stories. You can expect him to come out more with Shovelry related things, past friendships, and the blooming of not-friendship. Thank you for reading!
To Pipo the Rabbit: Yep, as I progress through more chapters, there are more deep and serious things to tackle! I can't tell for sure which would be my deepest thing to talk about. Each knight has his or her own hidden depths according to my interpretations. As I said above, Black Knight basically appeared in the last chapter. I did already plan on having him appear as a more major person starting K is for Knight.
To Like it: How dark I interpret the game's story? Hmm. Let's say… Shovel Knight at face value is bright and cheery, but when you think a little bit deeper it has some nightmare fuel. Some of what I think are as follows: how many people did Specter Knight murder (the Lich Yard was a former village, the sinking platforms have soulschained,and another name for graveyard is lichyard)? Is Propeller Knight even a willing member of the Order (lack of possible villainous motivation)? How aware is Shield Knight of the Enchantress' actions (she appears to know about the amulet's magic intimately)? And many more!
Guys get ffnet accounts for goodness' sake this is getting too long holy ship :P
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J is for Japanese.
"AO!" The red liquid samurai screamed at the blob of blue lazily swaying on the ceiling, arms akimbo and purple eyes flaring. Its voice was deep and imposing much like the stoic warrior it was. Two pinprick purple eyes appeared on the blue blob and fixated on the angry red warrior on the ground.
"Hrrh?" The blue one, Ao, lazily fell from the ceiling to the ground, and reformed itself into human form in a swirl of blue water, and languidly stretched its arms up. Its indeterminate weapon viscously moved around in its right hand, moving as if alive. The blue shifter's voice was a little extroverted, evidenced by its loud yawn. The red one abruptly grabbed its blue counterpart by its shoulders and rigorously shook the latter. Ao's purple eyes rolled around in the liquid mass of its head, causing it to scream at the other to cease its relentless shaking. Midori, the green archer, briefly let out a gurgle of horror as Aka, the red swordsman, started to shake the mind out of their blue acquaintance. The archer placed its hands on Aka's shoulders and started to try and pull the angry samurai away from their constantly sleeping blue friend.
"Aka, yameru!"Midori pleaded, its voice light and lilting as it tugged on the sleeve of the red one. "Yameru!"
At the cry of the archer, Aka removed his vice-like grip on the shifter, who then immediately fled as fast as he could down the hallway. The swordsman then screamed for the terrified liquid samurai to come back to it and ran after the retreating shifter, closely followed by a deeply concerned green samurai.
As this event transpired, eight dumbfounded ruthless warriors and an unamused sorceress stood shocked at them.
"What… are those?" Mole Knight asked curiously.
"Liquid Samurai, my most capable warriors." The Enchantress answered monotonously.
"What language are they speaking?"
The evil witch glanced down at the anthropologist and replied flatly. "Japanese."
"Japanese? Marvelous! I have never heard the language spoken within these areas! I wonder what the land of Japan is like…"
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J is for judgment.
"We. Are. Still. Lost."The young student, caked in layers of dirt and grime, grumpily said to the professor.
"Don't worry! Mole Knight will watch out for us!"
"What kind of sick judgment do you have?"
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J is for juiced (slang for drunk).
"What's zhat?"Albrecht muttered, hearing the commotion in the dinner hall, decided to enter the area. He swore he could hear lots of cursing and slashing and smashing, as well as furniture being thrown around wantonly.
The Hoverhaft entered, a pang of fear for his captain stabbing his gut instincts. The Frenchman could claim everything, but the halberdier knew fencing and an unsettling mastery in the art of seduction and romance wasn't going to save the guy when faced with a digger, a dead man, and a bomb-happy bird all fighting against him.
Albrecht pushed the large door into the mess hall open, and ducked in time when a platter of sumptuous chicken sailed through the air over his head.
"WAS IST LOS?"He screeched, horrified at the sight before him. It reeked of liquor, and the entire mess hall was, well, a mess, with food, blood, burns, and broken furniture lying around. Polar Knight was sitting in the corner, quietly enjoying his drink and chicken, eyes observing the violent ball of smoke.
"Why don't you come here and savor the moment?" Polar Knight monotonously asked. Albrecht was about to sit and worry alone when an angry shout stopped his train of thought.
"Je vais rire et vous trouverez que vous êtes morts!"Propeller Knight, red in the face and his fashionable clothes somehow untouched, raised his rapier up and charged at the nearest victim. "Juste attendre! Il est pas parce que je suis faible! Je suis fort! Je vais sortir victorieux-"
His rapid French was cut short by a certain blue shovel powerfully smacking him in the head. The blades of his magnificent helmet were snapped off by that shovel swing. He fell to the ground like a ragdoll.
"He is first to fall. Good." Polar Knight flatly murmured as Albrecht screamed in horror.
"Herr Propeller!"The Hoverhaft called out, and swooped in the ball of smoke. He swore he could hear everyone curse and try to kill each other.
"Ack!" A normally husky and quiet voice painfully (if not mockingly) cried.
"Die, you phantom!" A muffled voice answered back, and then an audible slash was heard shortly.
"None challenge my authority!"
A large red missile launched through the air and exploded near an edge of the table.
"Take back what you said about my field of work!"
"NEVER!"
Albrecht grabbed one of the limp Frenchman's hands and dragged him away from the brawl, forcing many a knight away with the power of the propeller blades attached to his back.
"Allons-y!"The hammered Spin Controller sang as his underling pulled his body to the silent corner. Polar Knight looked over at them as Albrecht unhooked the straps connecting the helmet to his torso. He threw the helmet off his head and let him lie comfortably on the cold stone floor.
"I must go and bring order to this chaos." Polar Knight put down his mug and licked his greasy fingers. He picked up his snow shovel and marched to the table.
"Qui es-tu?"Propeller Knight murmured, his entire world spinning and warping into different unnatural shapes.
"Ich bin dein Handlanger. Schlafen Sie, bitte." Albrecht replied, watching the Norse warrior raise his fist up.
"Mmm." Propeller Knight placed his arm under his head and yawned. "Allons à la maison."
"Später.Zhis is interesting."
Polar Knight brought his fist down on the table, nearly cracking it. "EVERYONE BE QUIET!"
This shout penetrated the haze of drunkenness, making everyone stop. The sight before him was indescribable. Shovel Knight and Mole Knight were at each other's throats. Specter Knight was impaled with a spear made of pure silver, not even fazed by the normally undead-killing metal. In fact, the apparition was not drunk at all; just very aggravated by the fact he got skewered. Treasure Knight was behind the phantom, attempting to retrieve the silver he used to stab him. Tinker Knight was on top of his tank, accidentally pressing the 'fire' button, causing a missile to launch to the door, breaking it down. King Knight was in an embarrassing position – he was so drunk he was trying to strangle his own cape. Plague Knight was nowhere to be seen.
"All go home!" Polar Knight ordered loudly.
The knights just wordlessly dispersed.
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J is for janitor fish.
"You're a very odd fish." Treasure Knight murmured to the grayish fish swimming around him. "I owned an aquarium once."
The specked black and white fish with large and impressive fins only swam around, not even caring about the human's muffled speech. The janitor fish only diligently ate the floating food around it.
"I do not like the way you stick your mouths on the aquarium's walls." The pillager mumbled. "The way you have fins that look like arms… you do know you look like human beings trying to make out, for lack of a better term, with a wall?"
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J is for juggle.
If he were a circus performer, he'd be the best juggler to have ever graced the earth.
The Bard was a very busy man, very busy. He was about to go insane if it weren't for his lovely pet of almost a decade dozing around in his house all day.
His life was somehow both a blessing and a curse. The only purposes of his existence were to compose music for everyone and anything that needs badass tunes, to break the fourth wall at times, and to connect the yacht gods to the citizens of the world they lived in. What a loser job, but at least it involved music!
Juggling these responsibilities around, however, was hard to do, and yet the Bard managed. His status as a bridge between beyond and here– holy shit! Badass! – enabled him to persevere. Especially with the clusterfuck of clients he was hired to work with.
His first client, Shovel Knight, had been very polite and amiable. The guy provided so much constructive feedback that the Bard really loved working on his tunes.
The second, Black Knight, was unfortunately quite terrifying. Sure, he exhibited the same politeness, but the guy was annoying. With a squeaky voice, horrible social skills, and a subconscious obsession with rivalry, the Bard barely made it through this second client without pouring his holy wrathupon this inept shovel dude.
The third, Shield Knight, had to be kept secret from literally everyone except the gods. She was alive, but if anyone knew he was writing music for a supposedly dead lady, his existence would be questioned. He had to make an excuse about string quartets, marriages, and funerals! Dark humor did help people through the toughest of times.
The rest of his clients, nine plus one merciless – wait, not really, Propeller Knight was not murderous at all – fighters had him tossed in a sack and brought to the Tower of Fate! Like, really! I'm already juggling thirteen balls and two more, and I don't exactly have the physical ability to do that,he had been calmlythinking when he was calmly dusting off imaginary lint off his orange garb. And things went really downhill after that.
He could write a novel about juggling responsibilities around. With a barely audible sigh, the Bard took his trusty lute, and checked if it was still tuned properly.
"So," the yellow minstrel flatly asked, his eye twitching as he glared at the group, "what am I doing here?"
"You are to compose music for us, musician." The Enchantress replied.
"Yeah, yeah, I already know that, girl, it's my divine duty to make music for y'all." The Bard shrugged and barely held back from grumbling. "Can I go home now?"
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J is for job opening.
"Hey, didn't you hear? The soaked girl chained to an iron ball we found years ago got a job somehow!"A spirit, young-looking with a childish buck-tooth, giddily said. He swung his heavy spiked mace around, something that corporeal scrawny noodle arms could not hope to do.
"Really?"A shorter ghost, wearing a heavy pickelhaube-like helmet and a pair of glasses with broken lenses, spun around.
"You idiot, I was just at the Reaper's village last night! Party's totally cool! An' I saw her there, working as the Reaper's assistant! That's WICKED awesome!"
"How?"
"I don't know, you little idiot, but she somehow got there! Rumor has it that she basically just asked, and the Reaper immediately gave her a job!"The buck-toothed spirit shrugged. "I asked around, and they all said he was going nuts at the time, and bla bla bla."
"What?"The short ghost's jaw hung low, more confused than enlightened.
"I know right! The Apparition's got a soft side to him!"
"What?!"
"I heard she used puppy dog eyes on him and he yielded! I mean, he got a vicious reputation there, with the massive four-digit body count, I think, to prove that. He's the lord of death, and he fell victim to cute things! I'm totally going there! Maybe if I do that too, I'll get a job and be out of this hell of a boring undeath!"
"WHAT?!"
/later that month/
"Servant," Specter Knight sighed as he shook his head at a very large crowd of foreign souls outside of his lair's gates, "what are they doing?"
The ghost lady shrugged. "I know some of them. They were the first ones I met in this life! They're looking for work opportunities, I hear. Unemployed and homeless, every single one of them."
"And they happen to think that the Lich Yard is… 'open for applicants'? With those ridiculous faces they are making, I will reject every single one of them regardless of urgency." He sent a very nasty glower at the crowd. "And to think they dare come to me…"
"Please, my master, don't be so cruel!" The petite assistant begged, hands clasped together. "I was jobless when you hired me, right? You were as kind as to give me one! Even for no pay! And you're frankly terrifying, but that's better than nothing for the rest of eternity!"
His shoulders drooped. Oh, the omnipresent boredom issue every immortal has to overcome. He cast one last glance at the suddenly silent crowd by the gates, looming over the entire mass. He almost ordered for them to be driven away, but an idea struck his mind.
"Well, I have something in store for you." He chuckled as he let the gates open.
/ten minutes later/
"Bad."The short ghost with the broken glasses harshly said to his buck-toothed friend, trying to relieve the pain of his hands chained to the surface of the floor by shaking his incorporeal body. He, along with the entire group of ghosts that went to the infamous reaper's lair for relief from eternal unrest, were bound to the ground and forced down, turning a patch of bloodstained earth into a moving platform that sunk when it became too heavy. Mindless skeletons of the village's former inhabitants and defenders wandered on them so often that it was torture.
"Yeah. Wasn't expectin' this, buddy. Sorry."
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J is for joke.
"I must be ahead of you." Specter Knight muttered, floating to the front of the group of eight. "I am tasked with reconnaissance."
"Go, go." Polar Knight said.
When the apparition got out of earshot, or at least looked to be out of earshot, the seven huddled in a tight ball and waited for the recon report.
"I guess we can say…" King Knight smirked as he whispered, "that Specter Knight is… no longer with us!"
The group snickered, trying to stifle loud laughs. At a drop of a hat, a spinning scythe sailed through the air, closely and dangerously circling around them, effectively shutting all of them up. The weapon's owner made sure for the blade's blunt edge to touch King Knight, making the monarch gasp and faint, but not enough to make him bleed.
"Do not joke about me." Specter Knight's harsh voice echoed in the Order's minds.
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J is for jump.
"Plaguey!" Mona called out to the frozen Plague Knight, running to him. At the sound of her voice, he attempted to snap out of his fearful trance to turn around to face her. Unfortunately he was held in place by his fright of the essences appearing to violently fight off his efforts to stop the final distillation. And they were winning so far.
He felt Mona's warm hand on his shoulder when the multicolored volatile soullike substances broke Plague Knight's alchemical barrier. Everything went pitch black, and suddenly something breathed air onto his shoulder.
He almost bomb jumped away to eliminate the thing behind him, out of fear and shock. He decided against it and stood firmly rooted to the ground, even when the black beingleapt in front of him and threw its own bombs at him. Bombs that looked exactly like what he always used. His heart beat faster. Was it the pulse of his heart for the woman whose warm touch woke him up from death? Was it from fright of himself?
Plague Knight glared at the being, an exact replica of what he always pretended to be, and it looked back with the same crazed look he always used. It jumped up and released a cluster of flaming explosives, one of them going into the direction of the little alchemist. And yet, he somehow decided against avoiding it… for some reason.
The bomb did hit him – Plague Knight felt the searing heat of the purple flame that engulfed him, but when it subsided, he wasn't a pile of ash and bones on the ground. The black beingpromptly ceased its eccentric jumps and attacks, standing just before him.
"You are steadfast in your resolve… maybe there is hope for us yet…"*
Up next: K is for knight.
*Yes, you can defeat the Plague of Shadows by standing still. I still don't know how to digest this information. I just wanted to share.
Translations:
Yameru – stop it
Was ist los – what's happening
Je vais rire et vous trouverez que vous êtes morts! Juste attendre! Il est pas parce que je suis faible! Je suis fort! Je vais sortir victorieux! – (holy ship my French couldn't handle it so I resorted to google please help me) I will laugh and you will find yourselves dead! Just wait! It's because I'm weak! I'm strong! I will emerge victorious!
Allons-y – let's go
Qui es-tu? – Who are you?
Ich bin dein Handlanger. Schlafen Sie, bitte – I'm your underling. Go to sleep please.
Allons à la maison – let's go home
Später - later
The names of the three LS are respectively the Japanese words for their own colors.