Lords got attacked easily in Cosmos.

Sure, it was rare that anyone could actually beat them, but it was worth a shot to most demons (as well as, you know, the risk of getting murdered by said lord, since lords were like war machines and it was nearly impossible to kill one), since lords were worth a lot in terms of ransom. Not to mention, if you got away with it, you actually could gloat about it to people.

Not that that meant Mevia appreciated getting attacked on the road, but she tried to keep that in mind when it happened.

It only partially worked.

Isa darted out of the way of one bandit, mumbling something under her breath that Mevia would've been willing to bet three diamonds was a rather unladylike swear. "Of course. Of course we get attacked in the first three hours. Why was I surprised." She brought her sword down, the blade elongating midair, and cleaved a bandit across the chest with it.

She let out what sounded like a female version of the Wilhelm scream and crumpled to the floor, blood soaking the dirt around her. Isa spun, dancing lightly on the balls of her feet, and dove back into the fray without a problem, blade shrinking and growing in the span of seconds to accommodate for her opponent's reach and size.

Harper grunted quietly in agreement as she easily dodged one attack, before something caught her eye and her head snapped up. "Lukas!" she barked, usually mild voice spiking sharply-

Lukas ducked, pivoted, and shot his clawed hand straight into a demon's eyes without skipping a beat.

They screamed, scrabbling at Lukas's hand frantically, trying to wrench his claws out of their eyes-

A small redstone device winged out of nowhere as Lukas hauled his hand out and back, blood splattering over the ground, and attached to the demon, beeping frantically, before it exploded and sent a spray of blood everywhere.

Harper made a somewhat satisfied sound and spun to defend against a different attack.

Aiden dodged an attack, grunting. "Damn. Did we have to get attacked?"

"Nah, but you know travel in Cosmos, it's basically required at this point," Petra replied slightly breathlessly, diving under one demon's axe blade and then swinging her sword up with a flick.

The axe blade thudded solidly into the ground, blood soaking the ground around it as a severed hand proceeded to topple next to it, the attacked demon letting out a scream of agony as, ah, yes, the fact that their hand had just gotten cut off caught up to them.

Jesse shrank behind Mevia, who was currently swinging her axe with wild abandon, covered in blood and, yeah, that might've been someone's guts splattered on her dress there.

(She couldn't help noticing that they kept glancing around, as if looking for something, but they didn't really voice the concern of whatever it was. Just let their eyes wander and shift as they tried to avoid the bloodshed with their eyes, Reuben snuffling, wariness sparking as they looked about.)

Mevia had never babysat before, so when Maya ordered (ordered, forgetting her role in her panic to fumble out her staff and thwack some random bandit to the floor, but Mevia didn't care, none of them cared in that moment) Mevia to watch Jesse, that was what immediately popped to mind.

She was babysitting.

(She wasn't exactly sure whether to be pleased that of all people, she wasn't babysitting a brat, or offended that she was babysitting.)

Unfortunately, it did mean that Mevia had to spend a lot of her attention diverting it to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them; speaking of there actually was someone coming up behind them, but she had her hands a bit full with the demon with the sword in front of her and oh, damn, she'd better handle that quickly...

"Hm. Jesse?"

Jesse blinked up at Mevia from where they were waiting with her, her axe out but mostly slashing at anyone who got a wee bit too close to Jesse. "Mm?"

"You did martial arts or something, right?"

At their bewildered look at her random announcing of the fact, she added, "Harper mentioned it in passing."

(More like she actually theorized and mused about it a lot for the past few days since she wasn't in front of other people and just Isa and Mevia, when they were even in the same room, but she wasn't going to say this in front of Harper.)

"Oh. Yeah, sort of... it wasn't official, though, I don't have a belt or anything," Jesse said thoughtfully, clinging to the back of her dress-robe while also trying not to trip her up, and also probably not trying to throw up due to all the blood and gore and death, which resulted in them barely pinching the back of her dress between their fingers while simultaneously looking like they were trying to push her away as much as possible and also stick to her like glue.

Basically, it looked hilarious.

"Well, do you think you could do something about the guy sneaking up on you?" Mevia grunted, swiping her axe through the air and managing to deflect a particularly large blade.

"I could maybe- wait- OH!" Jesse, abruptly getting why she was saying this, spun around and automatically kicked upwards.

They managed to (in an incredible display of luck) nail the demon right in the nuts.

He squeaked, automatically bending and grabbing the area in pain, and Jesse punched him in the face hastily.

This knocked him out for the count, which was good because there were about five other demons trying to come after Jesse.

(Mevia supposed that if she wanted to make them less of a target she shouldn't be guarding them, but with such a big group of bandits, she wasn't about to risk anyone's ire about Jesse ending up in a life-threatening situation because she was the best at combat and she hadn't been watching them.

Or Jesse getting killed. That would also be rather bad.)

"Alright, then. Jesse?"

Jesse looked up at Mevia, although they really just glanced at her- she was behind them now, and they were trying to keep an eye on the other demons, who were circling the two of them a bit more cautiously- they evidently did not also want to get kicked in the balls by the tiny human in a fuzzy black jacket who apparently seemed to be an expert at nailing someone in the balls.

Which was understandable. She wouldn't have wanted to get kicked, either.

"Mm?"

"Can you knock people out without kicking them in the nuts? I mean, it's effective, but-"

She swiped and managed to nail one demon in the side of the head rapidly, blood smearing on her axe blade as she twirled it out of the corpse that fell to the ground and hastily adjusted it, poised for another attack, another defense, another movement.

"People might not exactly find it the most efficient way to knock someone out."

Jesse's lips twisted in thought as their brow furrowed, trying to think of some move that didn't involve knocking someone out by kicking them in the balls. "Mm... maybe?"

One demon shot at Jesse like a bullet, darting across the ground, covering a lot of ground as he was upon them-

Jesse's foot flew up into his chest and knocked every ounce of air out of his lungs- Mevia could hear the wheeze and the 'oof!' as he had the wind knocked out of him- then across his face, their heel cracking into his skull.

He crumpled like he'd been shot.

Jesse looked up at Mevia hopefully, green eyes big and hopeful. "Did I do okay?"

Truthfully, had any human come in, done that to a random demon, then looked up and hopefully asked if they'd done alright with the biggest eyes she'd ever seen, Mevia's reply would've been to recruit them right then and there, but since Romeo had somewhat claimed them and they didn't voice their wish (their claims of it being too stupid to voice aloud did make her a bit concerned but she was hardly going to bully them into telling her), she could hardly do that.

She cleared her throat, still trying to keep her eyes on the battle. "Um. Yes. You did fine."

Jesse looked so ridiculously happy that Mevia was tempted to grin at them.

She scowled instead.

"Don't just stand there, do more! We've got to beat the bandits if we're gonna keep going," she snapped, perhaps a bit more harshly than intended. "Duck."

Jesse did as she asked, and Mevia proceeded to slash open the throat of another bandit who was behind Jesse, Jesse popping up like a daisy in winter once she'd finished this... rather bloody task.

To be honest, despite the fact that they kept quaking, they were handling this remarkably well.

"Oh- yes, ma'am!" Jesse said this, puffing up quickly and giving her some kind of bizarre salute (Reuben grinned at that) and hastily went back to somehow kicking a bunch of demon's asses without a problem.

Mevia watched them, aware of this weird prickling feeling at the back of her head, that said they were all being watched right now. Scrutinized.

She ignored it. Of course she was being watched, she was in the middle of a fight and- ah, there-

Mevia swung her axe and nearly gutted this bandit; as it was she left a small gash in their abdomen and backed away a step, watching. Eyes narrowed as she surveyed their movements, watched the bandit circling her slightly more warily.

Absently noticed Jesse diving under a sword blade and sweeping their leg out, knocking someone to the floor and scrambling away to jab a punch into a different demon's nose.

The demon proceeded to yelp, swear, and clutch at his nose like they'd broken it, blood pouring from his nostril.

Can we adopt Jesse? was the thought that went through all three lords' heads a moment later.

Harper already did, Isa replied.

Hush.


A/N: Can't get mad for telling the truth xD

If this chapter seems a bit out of context, they left to start going to Enchantra, but got ambushed on the way. I just didn't want to detail them leaving.

I am a plant. Reviews are my water. I have received water but I am a thorsty plant, would love more xD

LegendEmpress: True that! / He's just not fond of spending yet more time away from his plants xD / Puns aren't too hard; if you just stare at words and think of sentences you can come up with some xD / Ivor is the oldest currently. There used to be more that were older, but, uh, well, they died xD / Honestly, as long as you already had the episodes before it was delisted, you're still good. Which is what I had, so xD

ThinMintE: Most probably xD / I wasn't talking about the quote; I was talking about October Children. The original source was a lot more lighthearted and didn't have as dark of a backstory for the protagonist that I came up with xD The quote does fit, though.

Guest: Hehe xD I think a bunch of the characters in the fic sympathize with you.

Guest: Yes, but in the case of it being a separate guest due to them not having a unique username, I'd prefer to err on the side of caution and just treat them as separate reviews.

TheAmberShadow: I sea. Algae-st (i'll just) have to up my game, then, and not clam up. / Mevia is a part of Himira and Himira was more awkward; thus while she's still very fond of her puns and she's still more abrasive than the others, she's an awkward bean. / Heeeee :3 / To be honest, Aiden's not happy to leave his plants alone with Romeo for an extended period of time, so it's understandable. / Things already kinda went wrong xD / It's great! Just... jet lag. And hot. xD

Toni42: It's nice xD / Yeah, that'll be nice when we hit it xD / I love going into Mevia's head, she's great xD / Oh noes xD / All the loves and cuddles. / He's just gonna be sitting there for a while going "tiny hooman gone. will wait." Pretty much xD

That's all! See ya, so long, and g'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x