Whelp, my life has taken a deep dive into a hole from which it can never return, it seems. Honestly, I'm posting this to have a short break from freaking out about bullshitting an English rational. And so, even though I'm pacing around like a crazy guy who's presumably a drug addict with no drugs, that doesn't mean I shouldn't post things. Even if no one has talked to me in forever ('cept you, lkcsi, I know you at least tolerate me enough to talk to me.)

Short 22

Both alchemists were rudely awakened by Percy bursting into the room for the second time within a couple of hours to loudly announce, "They're back!"

Mona grumbled in annoyance and opened her eyes. She found that luckily, Plague Knight had not been awakened by the call, so she gently placed a hand over his ear in an attempt to keep it that way. Turning her head, she whispered, "What do you want?"

"Did you not hear me?!" Percy shouted, causing Mona to cringe and glance back to Plague Knight, finding that he had not stirred still. Xenon, on the other hand, had, and was glaring at the horse. If looks could kill, Percy would be so dead that he would be nothing but a bloody smear on the ground.

"Quiet down," Mona growled, "lest I cut out your tongue. What has you so riled up?"

"The Magicist sent me to inform you those kidnappers are back!"

Mona's eyes widened and she sat up. "Great, just what I need," she hissed.

"What's goin' on?" Plague Knight questioned tiredly.

"Nothing dear," Mona lied. "It's nothing. Go back to sleep."

"It's not 'nothing' if you're getting up. They've arrived, huh?"

"Wow, you're smart when you're sick," Mona commented.

Plague Knight sat up. "It's mostly gone by now. The headache still stinks, but I think I could at least get up now if I wanted." As if to show it, he stood, ignoring Xenon when she meowed unhappily, as she had been lying on his foot. He made his way to the edge of the bed and was about to jump off when Mona grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. Accidentally, this made him loose his balance and he fell on his ass, very nearly smashing his head on the wall for a third time that day.

"Oh no, you're not leaving."

"I'm coming with you," he said with a determined tone, crossing his arms.

Mona shook her head and said with an equally resolute voice, "No way. Not a chance."

"Why not?" Plague Knight asked. If he had been standing, he surely would have stomped his foot. Instead, he briefly uncrossed his arms, curled his hand into a fist and smacked it on the bed.

"It's too dangerous for you," Mona replied.

"And what about you?!" Plague Knight growled, raising his voice. "They beat the stuffing out of you when I was present! Even if the whole village is there, they won't be able to beat those guys!"

"I'll be fine," Mona insisted, about to simply stand and walk away. Plague Knight stopped this by grabbing her bad shoulder, causing her to freeze up.

"Even if I have to hurt you, I will not let you leave this room," he promised, giving the wound a squeeze. Luckily, it did not start to bleed, though Mona feared that it would if he were to not let go of her.

Mona scowled and looked to Percy. "Tell the Magicist I'll be a bit," she told him through clenched teeth.

Percy nodded and left the room with a particularly infuriating slowness.

When the door was shut, Mona's gaze snapped back to Plague Knight. She grabbed his wrist. "Let go," she growled.

"No!" Plague Knight yelled defiantly.

"Plague Knight, we will never solve our little kidnapper issue if you do not let go," Mona informed him, her grip tightening on his arm.

"I don't care!" Plague Knight announced, his hold tightening in return. "I don't care about those assholes. They can run around the surface looking for me until the end of their days! If there is even the slightest possibility that you will be harmed up there, then I will not allow you to leave!"

"There is the slightest possibility that I will die for the sole reason of 'I exist'. Face it, Plague Knight, I will die. You will die. We will all die one day. And I don't want my death to be completely meaningless."

"What do you mean?" Plague Knight asked, looking at her with worry. It was only natural, considering she was talking of death.

"I'm saying that if fate wants me to die today, I want it be because I was standing up to those idiots; not because I stayed in this room like a coward until they tore the town inside out and found the Potionarium. Think! If they start searching, they'll find us. And then we'll all be killed. You might be spared because they think you're a child. But the rest of us? We won't be so lucky. All of us will be executed."

Plague Knight stared at her, shocked by her bluntness. "B-but…!" He grasped for words, but found nothing that would help him. His eyes started filling with tears as he came to the horrible (though luckily incorrect) conclusion that no matter what he did, she would die today. His grip on her shoulder loosened as his hand started to tremble uncontrollably. Within a couple seconds, it simply slipped off.

Mona found that she felt bad for making the one she cared so much for cry. She pulled him into a hug, whispering, "I'm sorry, but it's true. I can't stay and do nothing if it means that it will kill us all."

"I can't accept that," Plague Knight whined. "I don't want you to die." Suddenly, he had an idea. "Let's leave!"

"What?" Mona asked.

"We can leave. If anyone asks, it'll just be because we were moved to another location for safety reasons!" Plague Knight gazed up at her with hopeful eyes, silently begging for her to just go along with it, regardless of any flaws that may be present.

Mona sighed. "You should have suggested that earlier. Then we could have actually pulled that off. As it stands now, though, there aren't enough people in on it. No matter how stupid they may be, they would figure out that we just fled. They would catch us."

Plague Knight frowned. He wrapped his arms around her, ignoring her slight flinch when he touched a sensitive spot. "I'm coming with you," he stated firmly.

"I've already told you," Mona sighed. She took a deep breath and leaned forward, staring at him straight in the eyes, before roaring, "NO!"

Plague Knight flinched at the volume, but didn't back down. In fact, he brought himself closer to her, to the point where their foreheads collided. "If you're going to die, then I'm going to as well!"

"And you think I'll allow that behavior?" Mona snarled, pushing her head forward, forcing Plague Knight back.

Plague Knight tried and failed to push her back. "I don't care if it's allowed or not! What I do give a shit about is that my life is really fucking empty without you! I nearly go stir-crazy every time you happen to be asleep when I'm not. I think it's safe to say I would go mad if I knew you died because you were trying to protect me when I could have been there to help!"

"You'd survive."

"No, I wouldn't. I'd blow myself up if I was told that you were killed."

"Then I'll be sure to discard all explosive material before I leave." Mona stood and turned.

Plague Knight was still unable to accept the idea that she could die out there, and launched himself at her. He regretted the action when he hit her back and she let out a pained cry and tumbled to the floor.

Plague Knight gasped as he realized he likely hurt her far more than he would have ever intended. He watched her writhe in pain for a moment before breathing, "I'm sorry, Mona. I-I didn't want to… I didn't mean to hurt you."

There was a brief pause before an idea came to him. Whispering another 'I'm sorry,' he turned and started to walk to the door.

He stopped just before exiting and told her, "I couldn't bear to see you hurt. Or at least, more than you already are. I'll come back, and then we won't ever have to have such a silly discussion about the fact that we might be killed again, alright?"

Mona didn't respond, still trying to fight back tears.

Plague Knight emerged with a fiery look in his eyes that let everyone know he meant business.

The Magicist had an understandably confused look on her face upon spying him. "Uh, Pl-er… Adam. Where's Mona?" She sighed and muttered under her breath, "I think I should have realized sending Percy was the wrong thing to do."

"Mona has been… incapacitated," Plague Knight answered truthfully, a hint of regret in his voice, making the Magicist all the more curious as to what exactly happened to her.

"Percy didn't accidentally clobber her, did he?"

Plague Knight shook his head. "No, it was something else. Let's deal with this later. Where are Peter and Thomas?"

The Magicist pointed to the herb shop. "It appears they're harassing the old man."

Plague Knight's face contorted in bewilderment. "I… I can't tell if I should be surprised or not."

"Why?"

"They met him and me because he was being an annoying bastard and not letting me have the herbs Mona requested."

"Then I say that you shouldn't be too surprised."

Plague Knight nodded as he accepted this as the wise thing to do. Walking forward and ignoring the Magicist hiss that it was stupid of him to just walk up to them, he yelled, "Yo, assholes!"

There was a brief pause as everyone in the general vicinity that heard the call registered who exactly had yelled, and then wondered who taught him such language. Slowly, Peter and Thomas turned around.

"I thought you would have gotten the message after I left! Why in hell are you back?!"

Peter decided to completely ignore this and instead asked, "Where's the alchemist woman? Why would you return if she's dead?"

"Mona is very much alive, I'll have you know! And she is just having some minor difficulties at the moment, of which you should not be worried about. What you should be concerned about is that I'm going to send you to hell for what you've done."

"And how are you going to do that?" Thomas asked.

Plague Knight smirked. "Oh, you'll find out."

"Found him!" Called out a random voice.

For the second time within that minute, everyone stopped. This time, they were simply wondering who yelled.

Plague Knight turned his head in the direction of the person who interrupted. He recognized the face, albeit barely. It took a couple seconds, but he eventually realized that it was one of his minions. One of the newer ones if the fact that the face was familiar was any indication.

Standing just behind his worker was a young boy, looking like he knew that he had just walked into something that he shouldn't have. His clothes were a dirty mess and it looked like the poor kid hadn't had a bath in weeks. His face looked oddly familiar for some reason…

"Who's this?" Plague Knight asked, gesturing to the child.

The minion smiled and said, "It's Adam!"

"The one they were actually looking for?" Plague Knight asked, an incredulous look on his face. He stole a glance at his enemies and found they had similar expressions on their faces.

"You mean we've been chasing the wrong guy all this time?" Thomas asked.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Plague Knight informed them with an annoyed sigh.

"…" was the response he got.

Shrugging, Plague Knight turned around, yelling to the men as they stepped towards the real Adam, "I won't kill you for the kid's sake, but you'd better believe that if you come near me or Mona again, I won't hesitate to sever your heads from your bodies." As he started moving, he thought, 'That was shockingly anticlimactic.' About halfway back to the Magicist, Plague Knight noticed something and froze, fearful. Mona had made her way up, and was now staring at him, clearly ticked off despite her attempts to hide it.

"Whatever happened to your promise of never coming up here without me?" She asked, walking forward after realizing that he wasn't going to move anymore.

Plague Knight had been expecting to be chewed out or harmed in some way as punishment for ramming her. As a result, he was caught completely off guard and had to take a good long time to realize what she had actually asked. Mona raised an eyebrow at his hesitation and felt obligated to give him a bop on the head to fill his expectations.

"Ow. Uh, I, um…" was his lackluster answer. Ultimately, he decided to change the subject to something that he could actually understand. "One of the minions brought in the real Adam they were looking for. Strange, huh? I honestly thought I would have to kill them. I'm almost disappointed at the lack of action."

Mona sighed and decided to let her anger go, seeing as they were all fine. She glanced at the minion, who was chatting with the real Adam. "How do you know that's one of your workers?"

Plague Knight shrugged. "He's new enough that I recognize his face. Besides, who else would go looking for the real one?"

Mona seemed to accept this, although she did look slightly skeptical at the idea that Plague Knight had managed to remember one of his worker's faces (not that he blamed her, of course). She turned her gaze back to Peter and Thomas as though she expected them to attack her.

"They're not going to hurt you now," Plague Knight said in an attempt to get the uneasy look off her face.

"You don't know that," Mona replied. "Let's… Let's just go back inside, alright?"

Plague Knight nodded. "Fine by me." As they started walking, he said, "Sorry about tackling you earlier."

"Yeah, I got that. You apologized twice before leaving. A third time is hardly necessary."

"Wait, what?" The Magicist questioned.

Plague Knight and Mona then proceeded to perform a rendition of what happened once Percy was gone, although with far less shouting. Every once in a while, the Magicist would gaze at them with a look that asked, 'And you didn't kiss? Not once? Not even when you were literally butting heads? The fuck is wrong with you two?'

Plague Knight was oblivious to the looks initially, but once he saw Mona with a light blush on her face, alongside a slightly bashful expression, he looked for what caused such an effect on the person he knew would never dare show any such emotion in public. Eventually, he found the reason why, and though it took him a moment to decipher what she was silently questioning, soon enough he too had a similar such reaction.

The Magicist, grinning, shook her head.

Plague Knight wanted to tell her to shut up, but he was truly afraid of what she would reply with. No doubt it would be a comment on how she never said anything, and then a question or two on why he would say that. The one thing he knew for sure was that it would only end in him being embarrassed. How did he know? Honestly, he had no clue, but he could feel it.

As a result, he let a low, annoyed groan slip out, but otherwise did not make a sound.

The Magicist's grin turned into a smirk.

And thus, those people will probably never appear again. And if they do, it will almost definitely be an inside joke within a completely unrelated story that will likely not even be under the Shovel Knight category.

Geez, Magicist, at least wait until you're inside to embarrass the shit out of them. Though there's pretty much no doubt that she would run around the village at least twice shouting at the top of her lungs that Mona managed to secure herself a boyfriend if they had kissed and she found out.

So, yeah. Next chapter... more of nothing in particular as I ran about like a chicken with my head cut off trying to figure out how to not just drop the story into my 'I will never finish this' list.