"SLENDY!" Ashley screamed in the street, "Get your tall, tentacled ass over here! I want some answers, and goddamn it all, I'm gonna get some!"

She was about to scream some more, until a snowball hit her in the back of her head. She exhaled, trying to be patient but kind of failing, and glared over at the not-so-innocent looking boy. He grinned and gave a little wave. "Hey there. Now that I have your attention, I have something to say."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. She really didn't care what he had to say, but against her better judgement, she bit. "Okay, fine... What?!"

"You're supposed to be dead," He told her as he strolled closer, "No one found your body, not even me. According to Zach, you were really messed up. But you're walking fine. I can see that you got really hurt on your face, which matches the description Zach gave me, but it looks completely healed over..." He finally stopped right in front of her and raised an eyebrow. "You should be dead. But you're not."

"Yeah, I know," She said hurriedly as she looked around for any sign of her slenderman, "I'm still trying to work out everything and I will," she said before screaming as loud as she could, "If Slendy ever gets his WHITE ASS OVER HERE!"

"I am here. What troubles you, young one?"

Jack jumped back, startled, holding the stick out like she would with her trident, "Woah! What in the heck are you?!"

Slendy glanced over to the cautious boy and nodded his head once in greeting. "Jack Frost." Slendy turned back to Ashley and leaned down lower. "Is there something you need?"

Ashley spun her trident in her hand as she gave a smile. Not the friendly kind of smile, either. The 'I'm about to fuck your shit up' kind. "Yeah," She slashed through him, only to have his body turn to mist as the trident went through, as though she were just stabbing fog. "You son of a bitch! You never told me that no one would be able to see me! Do you know how much that messed up my brain, not being able to touch Zach?! Not being able to apologize, or hug him, or at the very least- let him know I'm not dead?!"

Slendy's voice turned stern. "Calm yourself, young one. I know you have a temper, but you must learn to control it, or it shall control you. I am sympathetic of your situation, but nonetheless, I will not stand idly by while you attempt to attack me."

"Oh yeah?!" She challenged angrily, "What are you gonna do if I don't stop?! Kill me?! Please do! What do I have worth living for?! My baby is depressed because of me. He doesn't have a leg, now, because of me. He can't see me, hear me-I can't even touch him! And you know- now that I think about it -no one else can, either, can they?"

Slendy hesitated. "No... No other mortals can see you. Not yet..."

She groaned and tangled her fingers in her hair. "What does that even mean?! You either tell me nothing, or you tell me all this riddle mumbo-jumbo crap, and I don't get it! I was never good at riddles, or puzzles!" She growled under her breath. "And what am I supposed to do, then, if no one can see me?!"

Jack piped up. "I can see you."

She glanced at the white-haired boy before turning back to Slendy and correcting herself. "What am I supposed to do if no one can see me but that teenage delinquent?!"

"Hey!" Jack protested from behind her, "I heard that!"

Ashley turned back to him. "You were supposed to!" She turned back to Slendy, who was chuckling at them.

"You can do much more than you believe," Slendy told her, "I can assure you that. Have you not noticed anything yet?"

She sighed impatiently. "I... I noticed that I've been getting migraines a lot."

"Not like that, young one, come on... think." Slendy urged, "There was a man, remember? The first person you spoke to."

She raised an eyebrow. "The drunk...?"

"Yes. Do you not recall...?" He asked slowly, like he was talking to a baby. "You spoke to him, yes?"

"Yeah..." She nodded slowly, still not seeing the point in what he was trying to say. "I asked him the time, and he... He must have not been able to see or hear me, like Zach couldn't."

"Yes, you asked him for the time... Before you left, you said one more thing... Do you remember...?"

"Yeah. I thought that he should know that drinking wouldn't solve anything, but he still didn't hear..." She trailed off slowly, as a thought hit her. Had she... influenced that guy...?

Nah, she thought, that would be impossible...

"You are still thinking like a mortal," Slendy told her, "Mortals are very... short-minded. Their minds usually cannot comprehend the possibilities. Your kind used to, long ago, but very few do in this time and age."

Ashley frowned. This whole thing was just so damned confusing... Would she ever catch up and learn everything...?

"No, young one, you will never know everything, because no one truly knows everything, even if they say otherwise. Even Vergil, your predecessor, was still finding new things that he could do during this age. After thousands of years of existence, there were still things he did not know."

She cocked her head to the side. Slendy sure seemed to like this Vergil guy, and she still had yet to meet him... She was supposed to be mad, but her curiosity beat the anger down. "Am I ever gonna meet this Vergil? You talk about him like he's the shit, but you never actually told me about him. Just what he used to be."

Slendy hummed and nodded. "Yes, I do apologize. I have much business all around the world, I'm afraid, and they all demand my attention. Something is coming, I believe."

"Like... free donuts...?" She asked hopefully, ignoring the snicker behind her. She knew that it wasn't, as lovely as that would be, but she didn't want to be told that something bad was coming when she just got on the job.

"I am afraid not, young one."

"Damn it..." Ashley muttered under her breath.

Slendy nodded. "Indeed. Something bad is coming."

She cocked her head to the side. "If you're so busy with all this bad stuff, then why do you bother showing up when I call you? I mean, I appreciate it, don't get me wrong, but..." She trailed off. If he was doing all this important stuff, the he should be doing it, instead of helping out a noob to the game...

He nodded once again and lightly patted the top of her head with one of his tentacles. "I understand what it is you are trying to say. I am helping you... I normally do not do this, but this bad thing is coming, and I am afraid that you are going to play a large part of it, young one. I do not want you so unprepared..."

Ashley's shoulders fell as her eye twitched. "So, no one can see me, I just started doing whatever this is, and I'm gonna have to take part in a magical war with fairies and unicorns and junk. Great..."

"I did not say that it would be a war..."

"You also didn't say it wasn't." She fired back.

Slendy's head jerked back. He stared at her for a few seconds before straightening. "You... You may just fit the bill for this. You have a very short temper, you don't think before you act, and you take unnecessary risks. But you may be able to do this."

"May be able to?" Ashley scoffed with a smirk, "Slendy, it's as good as done. I got this in the bag..." One might think that she wouldn't say something like that to an ancient, and incredibly powerful entity, but confidence was in her nature.

Ashley started to say something else, but she stopped suddenly, holding up a hand for silence. Something felt... not right. Something bad... something that shouldn't have been there...

For a few long seconds, she couldn't put her finger on it. But then it hit her.

Zach.

If you were to ask anyone else, it would seem like Ashley had disappeared, she was moving so fast. But if you were to ask her, it couldn't have taken longer. She hopped the fence, climbed up the tree and jumped in the window in what felt like years.

She crashed through the window, only to find an enormous creature looming over Zach. She only got to really look at it for a few moments. It's eyes glowed orange, it's whole body was pitch black, and that it kind of looked like a horse or dragon or something.

Another thing that she noticed, was that Zach was squirming on his bed with tears leaking out of his eyes, and his face twisted in fear, horror, and just plain heartbreak. She was no genius, but she could tell that whatever that thing was, was doing that to Zach.

Ashley stormed over like a stampeding bull, and grabbed the creature by it's neck. She didn't care that it was a hell of a lot bigger than her, this thing was going down. She threw it across the room and into the wall with a slam! It tried to scramble up, but Ashley was already there, and she thrust her trident into it's eyes.

Light seemed to explode from where her trident stabbed in, and the white light engulfed the creature until there was little more than a few specks of black sand.

It was over, but she was still furious. "SON OF A BITCH." She roared, "Hurting my baby?! I'll fucking tear you to shreds! You come back and put yourself back together so I can fuck your shit up some more!" She paced around the room, nostrils flaring, looking over at the still silently-crying boy. Gods, that killed her. She wanted so badly to wake Zach up and hug him, tell him that she was there and that she would do everything she could to get to the bottom of it-but she couldn't.

She looked over at the window and saw Jack Frost, who was wondering what had just partook in the room. She stomped over and gestured to Zach. "Wake him up and hug him."

Mr. Frosty looked over, and his eyebrows drew together in concern. She didn't need to tell him twice. He walked over hurriedly and shook the young boy's shoulder. "Hey, c'mon, buddy, wake up!"

Zach shot up, eyes wide with terror as he panted for breath. He took one look at Jack before jumping at him, trying to stifle sobs. A blind man could tell that this Jack guy cared about her brother. She may not like him, but she could trust him, if just a little... To make sure that Zach would be okay, at the very least.

However, it still felt like her heart was being ripped to shreds, and she watched the younger boy's shoulders shake. She had never felt so helpless before, and she could not stand it. She wanted to scream in frustration and punch holes in the wall, but she held herself back.

"Calm yourself, young one." Slendy's calming voice said from behind her.

Ashley scowled as she shot back, "I do what I want! And I'm not calming down until someone tells me just what the hell that was!"

"That was a fearling."

Jack's head shot up. "What?! How?! We got rid of those things two years ago!" When Zach asked who he was talking to, he shushed him gently and told him that it was 'Guardian stuff,' whatever that meant...

"Fear is something that always returns," Slendy told the teen grimly.

"Why?!" Ashley shot back, "Why? A better question would be- why is it targeting my brother?!"

"Because of you." He answered, unsaid apologies in his voice.

She frowned and tangled one hand in her hair as she shifted the trident in her other. After a few tense seconds, she turned to him.. "Then... Then just put me out of commission!"

"Wait, wait, wait..." Jack said, waving a hand for her to stop. "Are you saying you want us to kill you...?"

Once Ashley nodded, distant thunder rumbled. "NO." Slendy told her, anger lacing his voice, "That would do nothing but make things a thousand times worse. Do not be hasty. You are not thinking clearly in your desperation to help your sibling."

"Shoot yeah, I'm not thinking clearly!" She exclaimed angrily, "There was a giant horse-thing messing with my boy's head! I'll do whatever it takes to fix that! I don't even really want to do this!"

"But you must!"

She gave a humorless laugh as she flexed the fingers in her free hand. How could she do this?! She didn't know how, and Slendy wasn't gonna help her! Yeah, she had thought that this would be easy, but she didn't know that Zach would be involved! That changed everything! What was she supposed to do?!

"Get help."

She sighed and turned to ask how, but stopped short. Slendy was gone, and she was left with a sobbing boy and a delinquent teen that she only just barely trusted.

She gritted her teeth before shouting to the empty air, "I would-but my help sucks balls!" She starting pacing as the white-haired teen watched her.

She didn't know why this Vergil person chose her to do his job. She wasn't particularly clever, or smart. There were loads of people that were stronger, faster, with better endurance. She wasn't important-she worked at a Game Stop for god's sake!

"I think," Jack Frost spoke up, "I think I know some other people that could help you. We've fought this guy before, and beat him. We can do it again."

Ashley stopped mid step and looked over. "Really...?"

He nodded.

She blinked a few times, weighing out her options. Wander around and hope to get lucky, or get some help from people that actually know what they're doing...?

"What are we waiting for?! Sing that boy a Spanish lullaby and let's get going!"

Jack Frost gave her a bewildered look as he stuttered. "Bu-wh-I-you... Do what now?!"

She sighed impatiently. "Sing him a Spanish lullaby so he'll fall back to sleep! I'm not speaking French!"

He looked at her, then down at Zach, then back to her again. "Uh..."

Ashley sighed and slapped her hand to her forehead. This had to be the longest night/morning in history...

Author's note~

Now things are gettin' up to speed! I'm in my element, now, guys. Things'll be gettin' good. Or better, anyways.

Thanks to all you guys who favorite, follow, review, and read my story. I really do appreciate it, and coming home to read my email is one of the highlights of my day, now. I'm glad people like this as much as I like writing it :)

As always, tell me if I made any mistakes. I tried not to, but I was in such a hurry to get this done so I can get to the next part, I'm pretty sure I made some mistakes in here somewhere.

As always, I hope you get a few laughs out of reading this! Except, you probably won't this time, because it's not all that funny... But I hope you like it anyways! Well, I hope you don't hate it, I guess I should say...

Get ready for some flying phobias, yo!

,BlueAsh666