Whoa, it's been a bit, hasn't it been? OK, maybe not. It just feels like it since I haven't been on my laptop very much. I normally used it in the mornings before school, but I just got into summer break, so there isn't any school to do so with. Oh well, I'll make it work somehow.
Short 8
(Day 2)
Plague Knight was rudely awakened by something stepping on his face. Grumbling, he forced his eyes open and found that it was just Xenon, who had awakened and was stretching… on his face. Plague Knight groaned and nudged the cat, who removed her paws from where they had been. Content, the alchemist attempted to return to sleep.
Xenon decided that more sleep was a good idea, too. She curled up on his chest, purring. Despite not weighing very much, Plague Knight found that it was uncomfortable for her to be lying almost directly on top of one of his lungs, so he once again nudged her. Xenon meowed, annoyed, but nevertheless got up and repositioned herself, finally settling on his hip. While Plague Knight couldn't imagine that it was particularly comfortable, Xenon seemed happy enough, so he didn't do anything about it.
Plague Knight heard the door open, and he had to bite back a groan as he realized this meant he likely would have to get up soon. He heard soft chuckling and heaved a sigh. "What are you laughing at this time?"
"I don't laugh at you that much," Mona told him.
"No, but you've been doing it a lot lately. Answer the question."
"Xenon's curled up on your hip. It's adorable."
"Shouldn't your reaction be 'aww' then, instead of 'ha ha'?"
He managed to catch the sound of her shrugging, somehow. "Probably."
"Why are you here?"
"The Magicist has gathered up what she needs to get the magic so we can return you to normal."
Plague Knight's eyes, which before he had kept closed, popped up and he sat up, rudely waking Xenon and causing her to jump off him with an annoyed meow. Plague Knight let out a soft apology to his companion and rubbed her head. She seemed to accept this request for forgiveness well enough. "Really?"
"Yes, and you won't believe what she has outside." Mona left it at that, taking her leave so Plague Knight could get dressed.
Plague Knight jumped off his bed, and looked expectantly at his kitten companion, who glanced at the floor, worried. Chuckling, he asked, "What are you scared of?" Xenon responded with a meow that he decided to interpret as 'What if I need to get back up?'
The night before, similar to her new caretaker, Xenon had plenty of difficulty getting onto the bed since they had completely forgotten to get a stepladder and she was too young and small to be able to get up. Mona had helped Plague Knight, but when they looked to Xenon, who had at one point or another decided to walk on her own, they found that she just couldn't reach, so the female alchemist had to help her as well.
Plague Knight spent a minute trying to coax the kitten off the bed, but she had decided to stay, and she was firm in that decision, so he eventually just left her. After getting dressed, he gave her one last look, which she returned. Shrugging, he turned to leave, but stopped when he heard a pitiful cry. He looked back to the kitten, who gave him a look that whined 'don't leave.'
Rolling his eyes, he returned to the bed, offering the kitten his hands to climb onto, which she happily did. "You're a nuisance, you know that?" Xenon meowed at this, but it didn't sound particularly annoyed.
Once out of his room, Plague Knight followed Mona to wherever they happened to be going. They walked out of the lab… out of town… into a forest…
A whole mile away from the town later, they entered a small clearing. There was fencing around the entirety of it, and on the inside was the Magicist and… chickens.
"Why are there chickens?" Plague Knight asked as Xenon spotted one and jumped out of his arms, darting through the fence with ease.
"Well, do you remember yesterday's idiocy when we were talking to her, and she mentioned chickens?" The kitten playfully swatted at a chicken.
"Yeah, I questioned about it, but didn't get an answer. So… we're actually going to be killing chickens?" The chicken squawked and ran away.
"Not directly. We'll be sucking the magic out of them," the Magicist answered, apparently having been listening to the conversation. Xenon gave chase.
"Isn't there an easier way to get magic?" The chased chicken let out a cry to the other chickens.
"Ah… Likely," the Magicist replied sheepishly. "But we're too afraid that'd we'd kill any humans trying, and other animals just don't store as much magic as anything else that we can actually catch." The other chickens converged on Xenon.
"Fair enough," Plague Knight replied. He looked inside the pen, spotting Xenon's predicament. "Xenon!"
The Magicist turned and saw what was happening, running forwards and scaring the chickens away. She returned with the kitten in her arms, who she handed back to Plague Knight. He cuddled the shaking creature.
"Maybe next time you'll think before messing with a crowd of chickens," he told her playfully.
"I believe the term is actually a 'flock of chickens,'" Mona corrected.
"Yes, that," Plague Knight replied dryly.
Clapping her hands together, the Magicist said, "Alright, let's kill some chickens!"
The small group was let inside the pen. Plague Knight set Xenon down, who immediately cowered by his legs.
"All I need you two to do is to catch the chickens. The first two or three should be easy, since they're calm right now, but the rest will likely not be all that happy with you once they hear the cries of the one I'm extracting the magic from."
"I know I don't really care about being mean, but this just sounds cruel," Plague Knight commented.
"Oh, yeah, it's beyond cruel. It's been proven that it makes them feel like they're being ripped in half throughout the whole two minute process," the Magicist said casually.
"It may just be that child side speaking, but suddenly, not being able to revert to an adult doesn't seem all that bad."
"Trust me, you want it," the Magicist said. "Wouldn't it be horrible to outlive everyone you care about?"
Plague Knight paused for a moment before sighing. "Fair enough. Let's kill some chickens."
All three people grabbed a chicken. The Magicist started to use some sort of magical incarnation to extract the magic from the chicken, which squawked in pain and attempted to run away, but the Magicist, in a moment of pure cruelty, grabbed a hold of the base of its tail and held on tight.
The two alchemists watched with something akin to horror. They were used to death, hell, they killed their own minions all the time, but there was something about the slow, drawn-out torture that was occurring in front of them that just made their skin crawl.
"Is it too late to back out?" Plague Knight whimpered, struggling to keep a good grip on the now frightened poultry in his arms.
Mona was just about to answer when the chicken the Magicist had been extracting the magic from died, releasing a small, almost pitiful, amount of liquid magic from what seemed to be its detached soul, which was quickly caught in a small vial. Finally, the female alchemist answered, "Not anymore."
Plague Knight wanted to whimper and hug the chicken he clutched in his hands as the Magicist reached for the poor creature, which seemed to sense its inevitable doom and struggled to get away from the approaching hands. Once the poultry was no longer in his grip, he wandered off to try and catch another one. They had all cowered into a corner as far away from their companion's cry as all possible. With a small sigh, he muttered a soft apology for killing them and dashed forward, quickly snatching one up.
A similar process occurred for the next 20 or so minutes, even though it felt like a couple hours to Plague Knight, who was left feeling like he was just scarred from the experience.
"Let me make this clear now," Plague Knight said as the Magicist caught the last bit of liquid magic and corked it to avoid spilling it. "I will never do that again. Period."
"Even if this doesn't work, and you're still a kid?" The Magicist asked.
"Even if it doesn't work, and I'm still a kid," Plague Knight confirmed.
"Fair enough. Let's go back to the lab and get this done, then."
Plague Knight merely nodded numbly and followed the two women back to the village after making sure Xenon was following.
Yep. Chickens. You probably half expected this from last chapter, didn't you? I was just thinking about how they could get magic, and the thought process was (not kidding) something akin to Shovel Knight popping up out of nowhere and smashing the vial holding the magic, to which Plague Knight yells, "You idiot, we just killed 12 chickens for that!" And so I settled on there being 12 chickens, and everything just flowed from there.
I hope it didn't seem too OOC for the alchemists to be frightened of the chicken cruelty. But think about it, if one of the seemingly most innocent people you know suddenly starts doing that, wouldn't you be just the least bit frightened?
Next time: Plague Knight returns to normal?