And thus the insanity continues! And I am so goddamn close to finally finishing this fucking monster of a series that should not have been a monster anyway! Like, I'm on the chapter that I believe will finally finish it! Happy happy joy joy!

Short 27

Mona sighed as she stared at the Magicist, who was sound asleep. "You've got to be kidding me," she muttered before kicking the older woman in the shin, successfully startling her awake.

"Ow, what was that for?" She whined as she inspected the wounded area for damage.

"Oh, get over it. I got the adventurers."

The Magicist looked up and smiled sheepishly at the two, who were relatively unconcerned by the exchange. She stood, with Mona taking her spot within seconds, and said, "So, which of you want to be first?"

The travelers looked to each other and then back before shrugging.

"Then you're first," the Magicist decided, pulling Shovel Knight forward and forcing him to lie down on the floor.

"Okay, what do I do?" He asked.

"Just don't slap me. Or punch, or kick, or otherwise bring harm unto me. Really, that's all you can do."

Shovel Knight very clearly raised an eyebrow despite the fact that his face was hidden. "What could cause me to do that?"

"Oh, you'll find out. Now, just relax for a moment."

Mona cringed as Shovel Knight's pained cries filled the room. "Maybe we should have thought about gluing his mouth shut," she commented before jumping forward and grabbing Shield Knight's wrist as she tried to stop her partner's pain. "He'll be fine. Sadly, I believe this is normal."

Shield Knight stared at Mona like she was crazy, but nevertheless stood down. Still, she watched her partner flail with a tortured look. Mona removed her hand and covered Plague Knight's right ear when he grumbled about the noise and pressed his left against her chest.

A solid four minutes passed, and suddenly the Magicist held a bottle half full of liquid magic. Shovel Knight, meanwhile, was either passed out or dead.

"Whatever happened to that being a two minute process?" Mona questioned as Shield Knight ran to check on her friend. "And how in hell did no one hear that and come to check on who got murdered?"

"I soundproofed the walls while you were gone."

"And you still had the time to fall asleep afterwards?"

"Yep! You were struggling with that ladder way longer than you thought. And to answer your other question, apparently the process time varies from creature to creature. Good to know."

"You didn't already know that?"

"This is a largely untouched field, you know."

"I'm aware, but I still feel you should have known that…"

"I don't think you realize how little this is done on humans."

Shield Knight looked up at the two unconcerned women. "When will he wake up?"

The Magicist shrugged. "Fuck if I know. I've never worked on a human before, so I was probably a little rougher than I needed to be. He should be up by noon or so tomorrow."

Mona raised an eyebrow. "Today tomorrow, or tomorrow tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow tomorrow. Now then, Shield Knight, are you ready?"

Shield Knight's expression indicated that she wasn't. In fact, it appeared that she was so unprepared that she probably wanted to simply leave, dragging her partner back to the inn with her. Nevertheless, she seemed to realize that they were halfway into this and that she should just get it over with, and thus nodded.

The Magicist nodded back and started her preparations.

"So I have to ask, what the death rate during these?" Shield Knight questioned.

The Magicist shrugged. "For animals, it's a hundred percent because no one really gives a shit."

"Except for me and him, apparently," Mona piped up.

"Yes, turns out they're animal lovers. Strange, isn't it? As for humans… that largely depends on the skill of the magician, but the other major factor is the strength of the person's soul. There's no real viable way to calculate a death rate because everyone's got something different to factor in."

Shield Knight nodded slowly, seemingly becoming all the more unsure of this the more time passed.

"On the bright side," the Magicist continued, "you two have inherently strong souls from all the crap you've had to put up with on your adventures, so the likely chance you're going to die is probably the lowest it's ever going to be."

"Why do I still feel you're going to kill me?" Shield Knight asked.

"Hey, your partner isn't dead, right?"

"I think he had a pulse."

"Well, there you go."

"I don't feel very reassured."

"I can't say I'm shocked. Now then, lie still for me."

Plague Knight grumbled unhappily when the screaming started. "Shut her up!" He whined.

"You know I can't do that," Mona replied, placing her hand back over his ear.

"Yes you can. You can fuckin'…" he paused for a moment as he tried to figure out what to say. "Gag her with a sock or something."

Mona snickered quietly to herself. Unsure as to why he would suggest such a thing, she questioned, "Just how awake are you?"

"That's irrelevant," he informed her. "But to answer, far too much."

"Oh really? I doubt you'd suggest such a thing if you were fully awake. It kinda sounds like you only just woke up."

"I did. The screaming acts as a great motivation to start functioning, believe it or not." He groaned. "Can we leave? I hate this sound."

Mona laughed lightly as she watched him lift his hand and place it over hers and applied some force to try and get her to do something about the noise that was getting through the pathetic barrier. "Really? I thought you loved the sounds of dying people."

"She isn't dying, and I'm not the one causing it. Therefore, it's merely painfully obnoxious. By the way, you are worthless when it comes to blocking out the screaming."

"Well, excuse me for not being soundproof."

Surprisingly, the rest of the four minute long process involved significantly less complaining than what Mona had expected to put up with. Maybe it was because, despite the screaming, she almost fell asleep, and Plague Knight decided against annoying her. Or it could be that she just didn't hear it whenever he talked. The shouting did drown out a lot of noise, after all.

Mona groaned tiredly when the screaming, which had become nothing more than white noise to her ears, finally disappeared. She tried to force herself to pay attention, but ultimately failed for the most part, and couldn't get her eyes to stay open for more than a couple seconds and so she gave up in short order. There was clicking of shoes upon the floor as the Magicist approached. A moment of silence passed when she stopped, and Mona just knew that she was raising an eyebrow.

Nothing happened for a short while, and then the older woman turned and walked over to something else. Mona didn't particularly want to try to figure out what it was that she was doing, and thus didn't bother her.

"Here." Mona heard this word, yes, but didn't quite register it, and therefore failed to understand the significance of it, ultimately deciding to not pay it any mind. That is until a hand started lightly slapping her cheek while the owner said, "Come on, up!"

Grumbling, she peeled her eyelids apart. Standing in front of her was unsurprisingly the Magicist, who had a significantly less amused look on her face than the other times in which she had to deal with the tired alchemist. In her hand was a small bottle.

"What's that?" Mona questioned.

"The magic," the Magicist answered simply, acting as though speaking to a child.

"Lovely," Mona replied uncaringly, still not quite grasping the significance of what was in front of her. Her eyes closed and her head rolled to the side as she allowed herself to return to nigh-unconsciousness.

The Magicist rolled her eyes and moved on, poking Plague Knight. "Yo, Plague, get up."

In response, Plague Knight grumbled and turned his head away.

"You two are both worthless, I hope you realize."

"If that's the case, then why would you dare work with us?" Plague Knight muttered. "And by the way, I've been bitten by a highly poisonous snake. Leave me be."

"No, I won't leave you be. And as for the question: because you have some brilliant minds trapped behind all that laziness."

Plague Knight snickered. "You have clearly never seen us when the drunken assholes are having a wild time partying above us. We spend upwards to half the night trying to figure out how to get them to shut the hell up, and then we start working, because we certainly aren't going to get any sleep. Next thing we know, it's suddenly morning, and either we've done jack shit with our night, or we've practically created the cure for cancer, completely on accident too, mind you."

The Magicist stared at him blankly for a moment before patting him on the head. "Good for you, dear. Now drink this."

"Don't we have some other kind of procedure we should go through first?"

"Probably, but you two are pretty much asleep, and I don't want to risk getting your help with that. So, straight magic it is."

"That… can't possibly end well."

"Yes, but do you want to get up?"

"No."

The Magicist nodded smugly and poked Mona, repeating the question when her attention had successfully been grabbed.

"No, go away," she grumbled, giving Plague Knight a small, loving squeezing before returning to sleep.

"Well, there you go. Come on now, drink up."

Plague Knight lifted his head and stared at the bottle as though he didn't trust it. After a moment, he sighed and snatched it out of her hand, downing it. His face twisted in dislike.

"It tastes like ass," he muttered, sticking his tongue out.

"Dare I ask why you know what that tastes like?" The Magicist questioned.

Plague Knight groaned and corrected himself. "Not literal ass. At least, I don't think so. I certainly hope not."

"Hey," Mona interjected. "Did anyone remember to bring the wheel of misfortune so we can determine what stupid effect the magic will have this time?"

Plague Knight frowned. "Damn, I think I might have left it in your room."

"You have no faith in me, do you?" The Magicist asked, her face on the verge of a scowl.

"You're giving me straight liquid magic when the times whereas we were careful to alter so it would do exactly as we desired fucked up. Of course I have no faith."

"I hate you both."

Simultaneously, the two alchemists replied, "Same to you."

"You do realize that if I hate you, I have every right to simply turn you in."

Mona looked at the Magicist with a frightening glare. "You wouldn't dare."

"What makes you think I wouldn't?"

"Oh please. How else would you freely dabble in alchemy?"

The Magicist paused and conceded, "Fair enough."

"Uh, guys?" Plague Knight asked, catching the attention of the two women. "How am I supposed to know if it worked?"

"What do you mean?" Mona questioned, somewhat confused.

"Well, you gave me magical liquid for poison. How am I supposed to know if it did that or gave me an extra lung?"

"I feel like you would know if you suddenly had an extra lung," the Magicist said. "And to answer, not a clue."

Plague Knight grumbled. "Well then, what good are you?"

Mona felt him tense up. "Plaguey?" She questioned, not receiving an answer. She looked up to the Magicist. "This isn't good, is it?"

The Magicist raised an eyebrow, not seeing the problem. "I'm not sure, what's he doing?"

"I don't know! He's frozen up." She shook him, trying to get some type of response from him.

And then something finally happened. And it made Mona want to laugh hysterically, or cry in frustration while banging her head against the wall. Or maybe a little bit of both.

He grew. Yes, today's magic mishap has caused Plague Knight to revert back to his original age. Funny, right? Well, not to Mona.

"You have got to be kidding me!"

The Magicist, taking this far better than her, merely muttered, "Well, can't say I expected that…"

Plague Knight, shaking himself out of his frozen state, looked down at his body. "Uh, that wasn't what you were going for, was it?"

"Not at all."

"That didn't neutralize the poison, did it?" Mona asked.

"Most likely not."

Mona growled, twitching a little. "Then what do we do now?"

The Magicist tried to say something, but couldn't think of anything, and thus she just opened and closed her mouth like a fish.

"I have a brilliant idea!" Plague Knight suddenly announced.

Mona looked quite relieved as she said, "Good, at least someone has an idea of what they're doing. What is it?"

"Well, remember that one time I poisoned myself?"

"The time you got stabbed with a poisoned dagger and were completely out of it for several weeks, therefore ultimately causing the Shnazlehocker incident, or the one that was so deadly you should have keeled over within two minutes and it took you a week to recover, and we had no health potions by the end- Oh, I get where you're going with this."

"What?" The Magicist asked. "I'm lost."

"You were there, weren't you?" Plague Knight questioned, confused. He shrugged and decided he might as well explain. "Well, you see, some time ago, some poison I was working with dripped into an open wound I'd forgotten about. Naturally, that's not good, and within an hour I was sitting on my bed chugging health potions every couple minutes to keep my body from shutting down on me."

"Oh, I vaguely remember that now," the Magicist realized. "Wasn't Mona running around the whole time trying to figure out how to neutralize it?"

Mona nodded. She could feel herself growing more tired than she already was just thinking about it. "That I was. I don't think I got any sleep that week. The funny thing is that he ultimately healed himself. I thought with the constant use of health potions, his body wouldn't try to do anything to help itself, but apparently it did. Of course, we only found that out after he used every one of our potions, but give us a break, that was an incredibly stressful week, I wasn't sure what I was doing at all."

Mona briefly wondered if she lost her coworker somewhere in her inane rambling. Surprising, however, the older woman nodded in understanding, albeit with a hint of confusion. "I can't help but feel you should have come up with that idea before trying the magic that you refuse to trust."

"Shut up, I was panicking!"

The Magicist snickered.

Mona sighed. "Back down to the lab, I guess. Plaguey, you're walking on your own, I'm not carrying you."

"That's fair," Plague Knight replied, hopping off her lap. The blanket was tossed in his face a second later as Mona forced herself to stand.

"I know you're dying from poison, but I think your first order of business should be to change," the Magicist advised.

"Yeah, I noticed," Plague Knight said, playing absentmindedly with the ripped shirt that no longer fit him.

Sorry, a lot of this was nothing but pointless banter. But I'm actually really happy with all this.

Also, from now on, I think Plaguey's going to seem more... natural. I seem to write him way better as an adult than a child. Which is sad, since they're pretty much the same person. I'm starting to think it's because I was unconsciously fighting myself on the fact that he was a child and thus should be more child-like, but still incredibly more mature than pretty much everyone else and it just turned into a bit of a clusterfuck.