Well, I consider this basically right on time! Huh, beautiful.
I'm going to be so sad when this ends, I just know it... I've even given King Knight his own special color on Word now, this cool yellow-orange. Oh well, I've gotten the go-ahead for another story detailing the adventures of a King Knight that people love getting kicked off the throne by Phantom Striker of all people after a boxing match with the rightful king, who then proceeds to terrorize everyone.
And to answer that lovely question asking what Mitzi looks like... Ya know, I had to ask lkcsi for the answer to that one. I stopped and I went 'Fuck, I don't know that!' And why should I, that's her character, and she never bothered to describe that. Bad lksci! *light slap on wrist*
But I have an answer now! She has long, straight hair, and the color was... unspecified, fuck. She wears a frilly maid dress, and she lacks feet and ankles because they sliced that shit off so she would no longer be stuck at the bottom of the ocean where she died. She can feel them still, though. Wait, that was never stated in S-hovel K-night, was it... Whoops!
3
Mona stared, mouth agape, at the third and fourth essence that her partner had procured. "You have got to be the luckiest bird I've ever met," she commented, carefully grabbing onto Specter Knight's essence and staring at it as though trying to figure out if it were a fake.
Plague Knight snickered at her behavior, but didn't blame it in the slightest. He would have been skeptical if she had pulled the same move on him. "Hee, yes, well, unfortunately I'm not sure Shovel Knight's is worth anything."
"Who cares?" Mona said before realizing that wasn't quite what she meant. "Uh, you know what I mean. Even three in one day is absolutely beautiful! I'm sure it's fine, though. He's a powerful warrior, and that should be more than enough."
"I hope so," Plague Knight muttered.
He was unsure of what removing a person's essence did to them, both he and Mona had completely neglected to figure that out, but they was fairly sure it left the person weakened, if not worse. They could be wrong, though. King Knight and Propeller Knight appeared to be more or less fine after he stole theirs, though it could just be a reaction delayed until after he was gone, which only took a minute.
Honestly, he could check, it's not like it would be hard, but he knew that would only make him fearful if the results showed something less than positive. If neither Shovel Knight's nor Black Knight's essences were powerful enough, he would have to use his own. Even if it did come down to that, his horrible self-esteem told him his essence was beyond worthless anyway. That isn't necessarily a problem until you consider that it's best to get the Enchantress' essence last; lest its indescribable level of power obliterate them all before it could be stabilized. Bribing her to give it up did not seem like it would be much an option, and so a fight appeared quite inevitable, something he would not be able to do if weakened. Waiting was not an option for fear he would be zapped before making a recovery. And there was no way in hell he would let Mona go in there alone or with him acting as dead weight.
"Don't sound so down," Mona told him. She crouched and pat his head, to which he smiled and tilted his head away bashfully, making an odd sound that was somewhat reminiscent of a cat's purring. "You haven't even gotten into a single real fight yet! If his doesn't work, we'll just find another. Remember, using your own is an absolute last resort to be avoided at all costs. The way your luck has been, though, it should be fine."
Plague Knight absentmindedly played with Shovel Knight's essence as he replied, "Hehe, right, but… What is I've used up all my luck?"
Mona raised an eyebrow at this. "Plaguey, luck isn't something that you can just store and keep around like money."
"Well, I can't, but the universe can," Plague Knight countered.
Mona paused for a moment before saying, "I don't think it works like that."
"We have no way of testing it, though, so for all we know, it doesn't matter what you think."
"Thanks for making me feel insignificant."
"Uh, n-no, that's not what I meant!"
Mona simply laughed it off. "I know." She carefully pulled Shovel Knight's essence from his grasp. "Go get some sleep, okay? You may have gotten lucky today, but you might not tomorrow. You'll need some rest."
Plague Knight nodded. "Alright. Thanks."
Specter Knight awoke in what he figured was about the middle of the night. He groaned in pain and sat up.
"Master, you're awake!" Mitzi exclaimed joyfully.
"Hush," Specter Knight muttered, raising a finger in her general direction, all the while rubbing his head with his other hand.
"Oops, sorry," Mitzi said, accidently disregarding his request for silence.
"Ugh," Specter Knight groaned. "I hurt… Shovel Knight didn't take a cheap shot or two at me when he left, did he?"
Mitzi shot him a confused look. "What? He's right over there."
Specter Knight glanced in the direction that she helpfully pointed in. True to her word, Shovel Knight was there, still passed out.
"Then why do I ache so much? I didn't suffer that much damage in the fight."
"Maybe it's because Plague Knight took that thing from you."
Specter Knight paused and then slowly turned his gaze to his servant. "He took something from me?" He questioned Mitzi with a monotone voice that clearly indicated she should be running for the hills.
Mitzi gulped, easily recognizing what sort of situation she just put herself in. "Uh, yeah. It was this weird orb thing. He took one from Shovel Knight as well."
"And you let him?!" Specter Knight growled, trying, and more or less failing, to keep his anger in check.
"As it turns out, he scares me about as much as you are right now."
Specter Knight grumbled in annoyance to himself, but somehow managed to take a deep breath and successfully calm down to an extent.
"Did you at least think to tell him my message?"
"Yep, I at least managed that. He was very much unhappy."
"Good." Specter Knight glanced around and realized something important. "Where's the Hoverhaft?"
"Oh, him? He finished his search and left a couple hours ago. He didn't seem particularly happy, though."
"I don't think he knows the meaning of happy. I'm glad he's gone. We would have ended up fighting again otherwise."
"Probably."
"So, what time is it?"
"I haven't checked, but I'd say about three."
Specter Knight sighed. "So much for going to see King Knight. Ah, he can wait." He floated up and grabbed Shovel Knight with his telekinesis. "How far do you think I can throw him?"
"In your weakened state? I'd say… a mile, maybe two. Unless you botch the trajectory."
"That should be enough." Turning to where he guessed was closest to the edge of his territory, he tossed Shovel Knight, wishing him lots of pain upon becoming reacquainted with the ground and hoping he would be out of the ghostly hell hole entirely, and if not, then at least surrounded by creatures that wanted to see him dead, although both happening was preferable.
Mitzi squinted as she watched the poor man fly through the air, trying to not lose him as he quickly turned into a small dot in the sky. "I think I was wrong," she said. "It looks like that's approaching three miles."
Specter Knight smirked.
Albrecht quickly realized that he could not sleep. He drifted in and out of unconsciousness for a couple short hours before giving up. It was still a solid two hours before the time he regularly got up, but the pain in his head was still unfortunately present, and it certainly didn't help that he was incredibly worried for Propeller Knight's wellbeing.
It wasn't that the Frenchman couldn't handle anything himself, far from it; rather it was the fear that he was kidnapped and no longer had any of the things he could use to defend himself with on him. Then he was just a fragile young man who had a pathetically low pain tolerance.
Thusly, the Hoverhaft decided to pull out his map and figure out what places they should look in next. He briefly wondered if it was worth it to look into the Explodatorium. It made sense, as the alchemist living there probably liked having a human test subject every once in a while. But he was tired and pained, and only recalled how creepy Plague Knight had been in the Lich Yard. He didn't want to deal with that again, so he decided to simply avoid the area for a while.
He moved on to the Iron Whale, but quickly disregarded it. Treasure Knight bore no ill will towards the captain, and Propeller Knight had little reason to go there on his own. It was highly doubtful that he was there anyway; he would have certainly drowned trying to simply exist in the place.
Similarly, Tinker Knight had no beef with the missing Frenchman, nor did Mole Knight, and unlike Plague Knight, they didn't have any feasible reason to kidnap him. Polar Knight was the single sane person in the group, and thus was the peacemaker, bringing the likelihood of him doing anything bad to Propeller Knight to the lowest of all of the possible suspects.
This left a mere two people within the order, although just about everywhere else not related to the order still needed to be looked into. Regardless, it was best that he focus on one specific area first, and spread out later when the most dangerous threats were out of the picture.
Thusly, King Knight and Plague Knight. Plague Knight seemed the most likely due to his highly unpredictable nature and the fact that all bets are off with him abandoning the order in a search for power, but it was highly unwise to just disregard King Knight. After all, that man had the most insane relationship with the captain, with him dreaming about the missing man being a bunny, and also managing to mistake him for a woman at least once, although there were probably more similar incidents that occurred which neither of them were willing to speak about.
The last couple hours of the night passed at a decent pace while Albrecht worked, successfully identifying the area that each crew member would be going to when they wake that is best suited for their individual abilities.
After looking the assignments over again, he decided that it was at the very least good enough and posted in on the message board in the kitchen, returning to his room for another short attempt at rest.
"Sir, it's time to get up," said a voice from outside the room.
King Knight grumbled to himself, unhappy he had been awoken at whatever ungodly hour it was. "Go away!"
The voice sounded quite confused as he said, "B-but sir, you said you had to get up at six so you could, and I quote, 'get that unruly French idiot back in his dress and have his makeup put on before it gets so late that I wonder why I even bother like what happened today.' And now it's seven, so stop complaining."
"I don't care anymore!" King Knight shouted. "Shut up or fuck off, ideally both, in either order!" He could almost hear the guard rolling his eyes as he complied and did both, in the sequence stated.
Grumbling to himself, King Knight glanced over the edge of the bed and found Propeller Knight was still there, sound asleep.
"Did I serious kidnap him and let him sleep on the floor?" He questioned himself, realizing that such a move was probably going to end with him dead, impaled on the end of a deadly halberd if it got out to the Flying Machine's crew.
Regardless, he was tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep, and so he decided he'd ignore it for now in favor of doing just that.
Shovel Knight found himself in great pain when he finally awoke. Ignoring momentarily the harsh ache in his skull, he glanced around and realized he was no longer in the Lich Yard. In fact, he was in a peaceful forest.
'How did that happen?' He wondered briefly before deciding to just forget it.
He searched his pack for one of his ichors, and quickly remembered that he had neglected to get an Ichor of Renewal in favor of the ones attracting treasure (which, upon thinking about it, was probably just going to hurt him depending on the speed in which the gold came to him) and giving him the power to bash his head against something for a good 10 seconds with no ill repercussions. He had thought that he wouldn't have need of such an item, at least not at such an early stage, where he could just drag himself back to the town's local Magicist for healing. How wrong he was.
Feeling quite saddened now, Shovel Knight looked around for his trusty weapon, only to find that it was nowhere near him. Feeling slightly panicked, he searched the area and was disappointed to not find it.
'Must still be in the Lich Yard,' he realized.
With a heavy sigh, he picked a direction at random and started marching, hoping to at least find a safe cave to rest in for a while until his head stopped hurting so much.
Albrecht awoke several hours after he managed to fall asleep, much to his surprise.
He exited his room and was unsurprised to find that everyone was gone, still on the hunt. While he ate his breakfast (at which point he realized it was probably stupid to have sent out the cooks as well), he weighed his options. Plague Knight or King Knight?
By the time that he was done, he realized that Plague Knight was a bigger threat. Regardless of the likely chance for King Knight to kidnap Propeller Knight, he was far less likely to kill or seriously wound the missing captain.
His decision made, Albrecht prepared himself and flew off for the Explodatorium.
Specter Knight frowned. "He's still asleep?"
The guard shrugged. "He got a queen… Plague Knight raided his treasury, and stole something from said queen, so I think saying he had a hectic day yesterday is a slight understatement. I blame that."
"Please, his whole existence is one big glob of hectic. Where's his room?"
The guard opened his mouth to protest before thinking better about denying the ghost anything. As such, he meekly pointed to the right. "Down there, first door to your left. Please don't let him kill me."
"No guarantees," Specter Knight informed the man uncaringly as he floated down the hall.
Not feeling particularly concerned about how King Knight would react to being woken, Specter Knight busted down the door with a surprisingly strong kick. Or, at least he would have if the door had been completely closed. He found himself quite glad that he was floating, or else he would have fallen to the ground in a spectacularly pathetic display when the door flew forward with no resistance whatsoever.
Despite this epic fail, the end goal of startling King Knight awake was achieved when the door slammed against the wall with a crash that could be heard a mile away.
King Knight jumped up and started at Specter Knight like he was absolutely crazy. "What was that for?!"
"What kind of king sleeps in so late?" Specter Knight glanced at the body on the floor. "Or allows who I assume is your new queen to sleep on the floor."
King Knight glanced at the lump on the floor. "Yeah, he was kinda pissed about yesterday, so he opted to sleep on the floor."
"Wait, what?!" Specter Knight yelled in a rare display of utter confusion. "Your queen is a he?"
King Knight cocked his head to the side. "Oh, right, forgot you didn't know about that. Yeah, I kidnapped Propeller Knight and am making him pose as my queen for a while."
"And why didn't you inform his crew?" Specter Knight questioned through clenched teeth, angry that he had allowed a German man to utterly destroy his territory for no reason.
King Knight laughed, somehow missing Specter Knight's anger. "Ha, yes, well, Propeller Knight himself was unaware of this until I had him in a nice dress."
Specter Knight wanted to say something in response to this, he really did, but he couldn't come up with anything beyond 'You're kidding me.' After a solid 30 seconds of silence, he managed to move past that and questioned, "Why would you request me over here for planning if you knew you were just going to be preoccupied by forcing him to relearn his role in society?"
King Knight frowned. "Honestly? I can't remember. Bah, I suppose you can go then. Thanks for scaring the living daylights out of me, I suppose."
"Well, aren't you worthless?" Specter Knight commented before turning and floating out, only half-listening to King Knight yelling at him.
It occurred to him that maybe he should be bothered to tell the Hoverhaft looking for Propeller Knight so he wouldn't go around terrorizing the rest of the order. As much as he despised his cohorts, the German man was most likely fully capable of obliterating most opposition, and there was almost no doubt that at least one of them would get into a fight with the guy.
Oh well, it's not like he had anything better to do this morning.
Plague Knight rather unfortunately found himself being woken by a continuous pounding on the door. At first he thought that he could simply ignore it, but after a solid five minutes of trying to block out it and Mona attempting (and failing at that) to stop the noise, he realized that was not an option.
Groaning, he slipped out from under his covers and sleepily fumbled for his mask. After finding it, he secured it to his head and then pulled on the hood of the cloak he had neglected to take off the day before.
He threw open the door with a scowl on his face, and judging from the flinch, the minion who had dared to wake him could tell.
"What?" He snarled through clenched teeth.
"The uh… um…" The minion stuttered for a moment before stopping and taking a deep breath. "Some guy's raiding the Explodatorium."
"And you can't deal with it?"
"When I left about half an hour ago, he had mowed down 20 of us. And he was only there for about five minutes."
Plague Knight sighed. "Fine."
The minion slowly backed away until he was out of sight.
Plague Knight grumbled to himself as he walked back into his room, searching about.
"What are you looking for?" Mona questioned, following him in.
"My bag," he told her.
"You left it with me so I could refill whatever you used, remember?" She held the container up with a mildly amused look on her face.
Plague Knight cocked his head to the side. "I did? Hee, whoa, I like my past self's forethought."
Mona smiled. "Yes, you tend to be quite impressive like that." She handed the bag over to him.
He let out a tired sigh as he attached it to his belt. "Alright, let's get this over with."
Mona didn't particularly like her partner being unhappy, so she told him, "Hey, look on the bright side, your bed in the Explodatorium is much better than the one down here."
In his tired state, Plague Knight responded without thinking, saying, "Yes, but it's no fun if you're not there to greet me when I wake up."
Mona found that she was surprised by this statement. And quite happy at that. "Then how about I come with you?" She suggested.
Plague Knight was taken aback by the idea. Almost too quickly, he responded, "Um, n-no." He realized that sounded bad and added, "Uh, what I mean is that I can't run the risk of you getting hurt. Hee, right, you get it? You heard the minion, that guy took out 20 guys in a good five minutes."
"Oh, so I can't fight one guy, but you can throw yourself at nine of the valley's biggest threats with reckless abandon?"
"I'm not going at any of the members of the order with reckless abandon, you know I research extensively. But this guy is a completely wild factor; he could really fuck us up."
"Which is exactly why I want to go. He has less of a chance if he has to deal with two competent opponents. Unless you're implying I'm not competent."
"What, no! I'm not… oh fine. Just don't get hurt, alright?"
"Right, because I'm totally going to purposely let myself get hurt."
"Ah… Hahaha, dammit, Mona, you're going to make me worry."
Enchantress' log: Entry 713178247192375483294isdhaknclkaenrgnaerh (huh, would you look at that, I keep insisting on this)
So, Specter is in on the whole 'queen' nonsense. Interesting. I can't wait to see how he's going to fuck with people's heads using that. That'll be a sight to behold.
Meanwhile, it appears the Hoverhaft is destroying Plague's lair. Ah, well, the idiot had it coming to him with that betrayal. I'm interested to see the fight that will inevitably ensue, though. One is a long range fighter with way too much luck, but the other makes use of close combat and really probably refuses to believe such a thing exists.
Maybe I should eliminate that woman so there's a proper one on one fight, although I'm sure it would be interesting to see how long a two on one fight would last. I suppose I shouldn't interfere anyway in the interest of watching how long Plague's luck lasts. Bah, I'll decide later.
Shovel Knight had never quite been so happy to see civilization before. Okay, maybe he had been more joyful that one time him and Shield Knight had got their asses handed to them about five times in the same day, but that was years ago, so he really couldn't remember how ecstatic he had been at the time of finally seeing occupied buildings.
Regardless, now he was at… the Armor Outpost?
"Whoa," he muttered upon realizing where he had arrived at.
"Hello, friend, you look lost," greeted the nearby guard. After a moment, he added, "And a little beaten up."
Shovel Knight wanted to play it cool and claim that he wasn't lost and that he had gotten into a fight with Specter Knight, of course he looked a little beaten up! And after that minor ordeal, he had merely wandered off the beaten path in the hopes for finding adventure in the woods and somehow arrived here. However, he lacked his shovel and had a massive headache and came to the conclusion that it simply wasn't worth it to lie, especially to that extent.
"Yeah, I kinda am," he admitted with a small sigh.
And thus there's not going to be more than two more chapters! lkcsi's wishes, see? Ah, well, it's all good, right?
Ah, anyway, next time, a bird man and a Hoverhaft are going to duke it out, Specter Knight may or may not locate the latter before one successfully murders the other, and Shovel Knight may or may not actually get his shovel back. And maybe Propeller Knight will actually have a damn speaking role. Oops, you know you're doing something wrong when the all of the side characters are getting more screentime than the central character... That was unintentional, I swear.
Also, this is odd, but I felt the need to give each of the sections a time... So the first one is... sometime before the main day, second is around three, King's is about seven, Shovel's first is around seven-thirty, Albrecht's is about eight, Specter's second is a little after Albrecht's, maybe even overlapping just a little, Plague's second section is a bit after eight-thirty, I'm not sure when the Enchantress pops in, and the final one... I also didn't bother giving a time. But hot damn was he walking a long time!