Stats
Ranks:
Kris: *Double Captain: LV1*
Susie: *Invasive Sea Monster: LV1*
Ralsei: *Legendary Heartbreaker: LV1*
Equipment:
Kris: *No Weapon*, Double Captain Hat(s), Frayed bowtie
Susie: Mane Axe
Ralsei: Red Scarf, Frayed bowtie x2
Items: Cell Phone, Thorn Ring, x5, Egg x2, Broken Sword, Empty Disk.
Money: 47385(1134!962 Kromer, 0 DD (Back to being poor)
After defeating Saitama from One Punchman, better known as 'The Caped Baldy', our three 'heroes' were wandering around one of the many bright red forests of the Dark World on their quest to find someone 'normal'. Many of their previous adventures had been filled with 'civilized' sailors, insane fast-food workers, and "Everyone's favorite salesman 1997", so you could say the group was rather tired of encountering these quirky maniacs that had been plaguing them on their journey. However, their quest to find some place normal was taking– "Okay, that's it." Susie suddenly declared, halting the whole party "It feels like we've been walking around for hours." Susie glared up at the dark sky, "Not that I can really tell with this place being night all the time." – quite a long time.
Ralsei gave a soft smile at his companion's ignorance on how the dark world's time cycles worked, but the prince chose to spare Susie the astronomy lecture. "Yeah, you're right. I think we could all take a nap after all the adventures we had today. How about you Kris?" Kris blankly stared at Ralsei for a moment, as if considering the question before shrugging. Whether it was him getting used to his quieter companion or the prince was just that tired, Ralsei returned the shrug, "I'll take that as a yes… I guess. Anyway, we should settle down and get comfortable. I can even make some fluff as bedding if you want-" Before Ralsei finished his offer, Kris had already given a thumbs up and then proceeded to fall over like a plank of wood, face planting into the forest floor. Kris's body lay perfectly still on the ground, and with how their mop of hair covered their face it was hard to tell if they were conscious, sleeping, or dead.
"Yeah, I'll just take some bedding." Susie approached the prince with an outreached hand. Ralsei gave a tired little laugh, and quickly used Fluffy Guard to produce some nice fluff for their little mattress in the forest. Soon enough they were just two companions lying down in the middle of the forest with what appeared to be the dead body of Kris next to them. All that was left to do was get some sleep… any moment now.
"At least those two 'heroes' could make things better. All ye have done is make things worse." The memory of the ex-captain's scathing words that had haunted the back of the prince's mind sprung to the forefront as soon as Ralsei closed his eyes. So Ralsei did what any kid would do and just stared wide eyed up at the sky like a normal person who wasn't having a crisis of confidence.
…
"Rals, you awake?" Susie called from the fluffy prince's side.
"Yeah Susie. I'm still awake." Ralsei shifted their body to see the purple dino's yellow eyes staring back at him through the darkness, "What's wrong?".
"It's the bedding..." Susie mumbled awkwardly, "It's too… soft, so I can't get comfortable?"
All too happy to focus on Susie's problems, Ralsei gave them a gentle smile, "Sorry. My Fluffy Guard is meant more for defending than being bed material, so its softness takes some getting used to I suppose. But sorry."
Susie broke eye contact, "Don't apologize. There's nothing else we can do about it, and it sure as hell beats sleeping on the ground."
Silence continued for a bit as the two stared at the sky of darkness before Ralsei had an idea. "If you want, I could sing you a lullaby."
Susie practically leapt from her bedding from Ralsei's offer, "What!? No! I'm not some baby that needs to be… babied!". She looked like a cat that had just been surprised by a bucket of water.
Ralsei winced at making Susie feel worse, but the fluffy boi pressed on despite the setback. "W-well, I wouldn't call it babying… it's more like a friend helping another friend out." Ralsei tried rephasing Susie's words, and surprisingly her attitude shifted.
Looking warily at the prince, Susie stiffened up slightly, her previous aggression all but evaporating into a tentative uncertainty. "Friends? We're friends?" Susie tentatively asked after a moment of hesitation.
Seeking to ease her worries, Ralsei gave a nice big, tired smile, "Of course we are. I think all of us are friends after all the adventures we had. Honestly, I wouldn't have made it this far without you looking out for me. And we've had some fun times, right?". Ralsei struggled to give any specific examples where he had fun with both Susie and Kris, but he still thought the two of them jived pretty well with each other.
"Oh…" Susie stared off the distance, the trees, and really everything but Ralsei before settling back in her bedding. "Well… you can sing your song, I guess." she eventually relented, "But make sure it's a badass song, okay!" With a smile, Ralsei started singing the first few notes of his favorite songs–
Wham!
Susie's head hit the ground so hard that it nearly made Ralsei wonder if she had hurt something if it wasn't for how loudly she began snoring. After a moment of hearing this, the prince tried relaxing again, waiting for a sleep that won't come just yet. "Wow, those two really are amazing sometimes. I wish I could be strong as they are." Ralsei muttered to himself out loud, "Or at least I would settle with falling asleep on a dime like Kris did."
"I didn't." Kris said.
Ralsei startled from his thoughts, looked over to Kris's still, facedown form. The human might as well have been a corpse, as they wouldn't respond no matter how much Ralsei whispered to them. Giving up on trying to see if Kris was indeed awake, Ralsei returned to himself, still not sure if what he heard wasn't just in his head. All around the prince were the sounds of the dark world forest that was all being covered up by Susie's incredibly loud snores. Funnily enough, the snoring was enough to distract the prince while he let his mind slip away.
"At least those two 'heroes' could make things better. All ye have done is make things worse."
Ralsei frowned at the recurring memory, forcibly throwing it out of his mind. After all, he was a hero, and he would prove it tomorrow by doing something heroic. No matter what.
—
After some time when the group got up, they began heading out, a little more refreshed than before as they continued their quest to find some place normal. It… hadn't started off well. Already, Susie had made good on her promise to 'launch the next jerk that got too close' from the last chapter, launching three Jigsawry troops for constantly bawling, a weird chef that was constantly spinning while baking a cake alone in middle of the woods, and a Susie-sized worm after it tried to eat Ralsei's clothes for nutrients. Ralsei had tried to object to Susie's new series of assaults on moral grounds, but Susie had been dead set on ensuring no more 'freaks' went after the prince again which was a little hard to argue after the worm had nearly stripped him with its mouth. Besides, Kris picked up the slack for once and objected to Susie's actions. Granted, it was only because Susie's rude buster's power kept sending the targets flying away, which meant the party didn't get any reward money for their victory. However, the tired prince still appreciated the very very small, indirect help that Ralsei liked to think was intentional from the human. It was because of this that Ralsei chose to ignore how Kris started rating each rude buster explosion out of ten based on how cool they looked.
After some time had passed walking through the forest, the three heroes had stumbled onto a new locale: a hotel. One could tell it was a hotel based on how the ideal looking house had a large but crude sign built up on the second story of the building saying so. And if the sign said so, it was probably best to ignore how strange the house was with its pink plastic walls, no first-floor windows, and strange hinges on one of the outside walls.
"Really!?" Susie growled at the sight, "We were sleeping out in the woods while there was a hotel in the area?!"
Ralsei tried to brush away Susie's frustration with a laugh, "I mean, you still slept pretty well, didn't you?"
Looking a little off balance, Susie immediately broke eye contact, "Y-yeah. I guess." It made Ralsei's smile grow twice as big. "Hey!" Susie retorted at the prince's positivity, "I just like sleeping outside, a- alright!"
Giving Susie some space from his friendship vibes, Ralsei turned his attention to Kris, "How about you Kris? How did you sleep?"
"I didn't." Kris said, and for a moment their normal monotone voice was replaced by the voice of a college student that did an all nighter right before finals with a face that perfectly matched. It was a rather impressive feat considering Kris had only experienced college vicariously. Ralsei and Susie stared at Kris, who resumed their normal emotionless expression. Doing this the Kris way, Susie and Ralsei grabbed Kris wordlessly and without warning, and dragged them to the hotel door as Kris began whining like a dog in protest.
Using his scarf to knock on the door like some freaky third appendage as his other hands were preoccupied, Ralsei patiently waited for the door to open by whoever owned this place, which Ralsei was sure was a nice normal person. The door creaked open by a centimeter, "S- sorry, but our hotel is closed due to unforeseen dangers and preparing for tonight's reservation." A meek voice answered, before immediately politely shutting the door.
"Oh." Ralsei blinked in surprise at the immediate yet somehow polite rejection.
"Well, that's boring." Kris stated. The other two let the human go as he'd immediately stopped resisting after the hotel owner had left. With nothing else to do, Susie started to leave the area, with Kris quickly following behind.
"Wait guys!" Ralsei called out to them as a flash of inspiration hit the fluffy boi as quickly as a sad puppy seeing a big, juicy treat dangling right in front of them. "The owner said that they were closed due to some danger! This is a great chance for us to act like real heroes and help someone!" Susie and Kris gave Ralsei blank stares, which was only unsurprising for one of them.
"So, we're pretending to be heroes now?" Kris asked, as if that was a genuine question and not something that Ralsei had explicitly explained to them at his castle.
Susie grimaced, "To be honest, that sounds lame, Rals. Why should we help someone we don't own nothin to? I say we blow this joint and go somewhere cooler."
Ralsei was shocked, confused, and perhaps even flummoxed at his friends' response to his call to action. "But, we– we always have been heroes, an–"
Interrupting the stuttering prince, Susie turned to Kris, "Wait, we have been? Since when?!" Kris shrugged.
"Guys!?" Ralsei cried as his patience finally snapped, "I thought you understood this! I mean–Kris didn't you say you heard the legend already back at my castle?! You knew we were supposed to be heroes that'll save the world, right?!"
"I lied." Kris answered. Ralsei was speechless, only able to gape at the human's response. "TLDR. I didn't care for the exposition; I just wanted to go do stuff." the human continued, "But we can go do hero stuff now if you want." Ralsei took a breath, and then let it go. Raising a shaking thumbs up, the dark world prince nodded, saying nothing as he had some choice words for the blue human that were better left unspoken. Kris was apparently on board with his idea, so that was enough for the prince. The prince's purpliest companion was a different case.
Crossing her arms, Susie gave a deep frown towards the idea, "Seriously Kris? You guys are still on about being heroes? Give me one good reason why we should care about some jerk that slammed a door in our faces?".
"Umm, because it's the right thing to do?" Ralsei answered honestly.
"Nope." Susie immediately shot that reason down, as if swatting a fly. Ralsei tensed up, unsure how to get the purple dino on board, but Kris stepped forward giving Ralsei a look that said something like 'I got this'.
"Susie" Kris started.
Susie turned her frown down upon Kris skeptically, "Yeah?".
"If we help this guy…" Kris paused for dramatic effect, "they'll give us stuff."
Susie narrowed her eyes, "What kind of stuff?".
"Like money." Kris answered.
Susie stared at Kris for a moment before giving out a sigh, "Well, I did say give me one good reason. Alright, let's do this." She didn't seem too enthused, but Ralsei was relieved as things seemed to be turning around for the fluffy prince. Maybe now, they could really start to be the heroes Ralsei just knew they could be.
"HEY DUMBASS! OPEN UP!" Susie screamed as she 'knocked' on the door, incidentally, causing the whole hotel to shake and groan as if an earthquake was happening. Miraculously, the door stayed on its non-existent hinges, being made of some sturdy plastic. After the sounds of a panicking homeowner desperately trying to get to the door before their house fell apart came from the hotel's door, the door creaked open by an centimeter once more.
"H-h-h-hello?" the meek voice of the hotel returned with maximum quivering and fear, "W-w-w-what are your demands?".
Thankfully for Ralsei's poor heart, Kris jumped into the conversation before Susie could leave any worse of an impression. Also, for some reason the human had gone back to doing strange voices, this time the voice sounded vaguely like one of those superheroes that appear after cartoons to give important life lessons like sharing, be cautious of strangers, and don't do crack cocaine. "Hello good citizen! We are a couple of heroes wandering this area and we just heard you were talking about something dangerous troubling you?" Kris then gave a wide grin, one that was probably meant to look like it said: 'There's nothing to fear for I am here' but on Kris's face made it say: 'I definitely didn't eat all of the cookies in the cookie jar'.
Although the door didn't open any further, the hotel owner's voice grew a little more hopeful, "Really? Heroes? T-then you should know there's some really dangerous people in this area! They've been attacking my friends and other locals."
Ralsei brightened up at the bad news, "Oh! We're pretty strong, so we could definitely help bring those villains in. Could you give us a description to help us identify them?".
"O-oh, of course" The owner answered behind the door, though now the party could see a black hole of an eye glimpsing through the crack in the door. "W-well, I never saw them myself, but my friend Barry saw his three other brothers get launched while they were looking for the Top Chef. You see, he was another friend of mine that went out to bake a cake for the event later. Anyway, three of the Barry brothers were launched away by a group of three individuals." Ralsei froze as a horrible thought occurred in his noggin. The owner continued, "They were blown away by a big purple explosion that was sent by a big axe, kind of like the one your purple friend has." At this point, Susie also stopped as the dots started to connect. "Then there was another one wearing two captain hats… j-just like the one you have…" At that point, it seemed the owner had come to the same conclusion that Ralsei, Susie, and presumably Kris had.
"Ah, you noticed." Kris didn't drop the heroic voice, "Yes, it is true. We were in fact the one that had already defeated those three villains and claimed their gear as a reward. So, you're welcome." Kris said, lying with completely unshakable confidence, before gesturing to Susie and Ralsei who began awkwardly nodding their heads with wildly varying degrees of guilt.
"Oh, okay." the owner of the hotel said with an audible sigh of relief, seemingly believing them immediately. "I'll open up the hotel so I can give a proper thank you." They then closed the door, retreating further into the hotel.
After a few moments, Susie threw her hands up in the air, "WHAT-" However she was interrupted as the whole building started to… swing open like a door, splitting it in two with only a set of hinges connecting the two pieces. From the position, the 'heroes' could see the entirety of the hotel's two-story interior opened to them. Its plastic flooring and walls were mostly bare with the exception of a few miscellaneous pieces of furniture randomly placed within it and were now scattering about as half of the building swung out until the moving half shifted 180 degrees. "-THE FUCK?!" Susie finished, jaw fully gapped.
From the now split open house came a small, pink plugboy, they had a little top hat that had the words 'Hotel Intermediate Professional' crudely written on it. "Hello." the little plugboy meekly said, "My name's Hip, and I'm the owner of this wonderful hotel." One of the more precariously positioned furniture fell down with a slam. The three 'heroes' stared at Hip. "Anyway! So, you guys are the heroes that stopped those three weirdos that kept exploding my friends? Thank you so much!".
Ralsei began laughing awkwardly, "Y-yeah. Please, don't mention it."
"Although…" Hip stared at them with semi-hopeful slit holes for eyes, "I don't suppose you three heroes have a way to rescue my friends from wherever they were launched off to in a few hours, do you?"
"Nope." Kris 'heroically' answered, taking all the wind out of Hip's sails. "However, we can help you with whatever problems you're having, for a price."
"Would you great and kind heroes want to do some charity?" Hip again asked with a mix of hope and desperation.
"As much as I would love to do this work for free, we're heroes on a budget." Ralsei answered before Kris or Susie's facade could crack at the suggestion.
"Yeah, that's fair." Hip let out a diminutive sigh.
"Anyway, what do you need us three heroes to do?" Kris asked again in their comic superhero voice, proudly putting their fists on their hips as they stared at Hip.
"Ummm, welllllll…" Hip looked thoughtful for a moment as they considered their options, "You see, I'm trying to get out of the draft."
Ralsei blinked, "Like- like the military draft?".
Hip bobbed their little socket head, "Yeah. You see one of the rulers of this land sent out an order that all Plugboys must become soldiers in her 'new super totes rad army that's way bigger than Kingy's'. And all that didn't immediately comply are being mind controlled, so they're forced into service!"
"How come you just didn't immediately comply?" Kris asked.
"All those that immediately complied also got mind controlled. Not to mention, I would just rather run my hotel." Hip dutifully answered, putting their hands on their hips proudly as another piece of furniture that had been for some reason hanging on one of the unmoving plastic ceiling fans fell down with a thud.
"Wait,so this lady's brainwashing people 'n shit? Ain't that, like, actually evil?" Susie asked, surprised at how heroic this cause was starting to sound.
"Yes!" Ralsei pumped his arm in excitement at getting to do something actually heroic for once. Noticing the gesture, Hip gave the prince an odd look for his enthusiasm towards the prospect of their free will being taken away. It only took one look towards the hotel owner for Ralsei to catch his mistake, which he then quickly overcorrected. "NO! I m-mean, I was saying yes to Susie!" Ralsei frantically gestured to the purple dino, "N-not that I was happy to hear that or a-anything."
Ignoring Ralsei making a fool of himself, Susie put the conversation back on course, "So what, ya want us to beat her up or something?"
Hip shook their plug-face wildly, "N-no, not at all! I was going to impress her with my hotel. So, once she sees how awesome my hotel is, she'll agree to let me skip the draft! Then I can keep my hotel and not be a mind slave in her death army!" As Hip said this, a third piece of furniture was defeated by gravity, announcing its departure off the top of an empty, tilted bookshelf with a thud.
Susie narrowed her eyes skeptically at Hip's plan, "Ok, you do you, man. So, what are we supposed to do?" The dino started tapping one of her claws impatiently. Thankfully, Hip was quick to answer.
"Simple, we just need to prepare my hotel for the visit today by doing some chores. We only have a few hours, but I know we can get this place ready!". Hip paused for a moment as a thought occurred to them, "Wait… what can you three heroes even do?"
Two of the three 'heroes' froze up at the question, caught off guard by the sudden inquiry into their web of lies. However, Kris was familiar with this kind of mental warfare, and their answer was already prepared. "Fear not citizen, for I am a certified bed inspector!" They proudly declared in their cartoon hero voice that they were apparently doing this for the entire conversation. "Now! Take me to your hotel's beds, and I'll make sure there's nothing wrong with them!"
"Oh! I didn't think there was anything wrong with them, but if you say so." Hip chirped back, as they led the party up to the second floor on a strangely unsupported plastic staircase. The second floor was notably better organized than the first, with all the furniture glued to the floor to stop the beds from being thrown around when the hotel 'opened'. Why the furniture on the first floor hadn't been glued down as well wasn't clear, but perhaps the owner didn't consider glue shipping costs when establishing their hotel in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, since the hotel had been physically opened up, the group had to go through two open windows, now conveniently forming a hole, to get to the other side with the beds. Unlike most of the plastic house, furniture, and occasional plastic posters on the wall, and the wooden beds were secured and look decent for a hotel. The beds specifically were dressed in fluffy cloth bedding aside from some with electric wire covers for more electric type darkners. There was also one bed that was 9 feet long filled with battery acid for any particularly tall computers. Hip proudly gestured out to the odd assortment of glued-down beds, "Here's the pride and joy of this hotel, our dark world class beds! I spent most of my dark dollars on these babies." Hip suddenly became a lot more nervous, "S-so there's nothing wrong with them, r-right?"
"Hmmmm" Kris carefully gave a glance to each bed, before pacing around the half room as the three others watched the human with bated breath. Suddenly, without much warning, the human swiftly turned around and announced their diagnosis: "In my expert opinion as a certified bed inspector, these beds have cancer."
To say Hip blew a fuse at the announcement would have been an overstatement, they merely only had their circuit breakers activate from the sheer shock of hearing the diagnosis. The shock must have spread to Ralsei and Susie, as they were speechless at the announcement. However, Ralsei was the first to break this silence, "Oh no! We have to do something!".
It was Kris's turn to look surprised, as Ralsei went right next to one of the first beds with his arm stretched out. "Wait, Ral–" Kris tried to say something, but it was quickly and unintentionally interrupted by Ralsei's new bold attempt at heroism.
"Cancer is just some disease, right? That just means I'll have to heal it with my 'Heal Spell'!" Ralsei deduced, finally mentioning his signature spell for the first time after three installments in this series. "HEAL!" the dark prince cried out at a green light flashed out onto the bed, which did nothing, unsurprisingly. However, this result didn't dissuade the prince in the slightest, as he proceeded to continuously cast the spell over and over again. "Heal! HEAL! HEAL!" Each spell cast more green light onto the bed, and slowly the wood began to transform. Kris, Susie, and Hip stared out in a mixture of shock and surprise as the wood started turning a nasty black and started growing out of the bed. Soon, the black tendrils started reaching out for the other beds to infect other beds. At this point, even Ralsei began noticing that something was amiss, "-Heal?". With another green light on the bed, the first bed turned another shade darker with more and larger black tendrils growing out of the bed and attaching themselves to other wooden objects.
"Crap baskets, that might actually be cancer." Kris somehow remarked completely nonchalantly despite being genuinely surprised.
Ralsei turned around to Kris, "Didn't you say it was cancer from the beginning?".
With a brief glance to the owner who was right there, Kris switched back to their overly heroic voice, "What I meant was that the cancer has revealed its vile self! Now quickly! We must destroy it before it does any more damage! Susie! Do your thing on that bed!" Kris gestured to the black mass that once was the bed Ralsei tried to heal.
"W-wait, you guys are gonna save my bed, right?" Hip asked desperately.
Susie gave a thumbs up before bringing her axe down on the black mass. Repeatedly. "DIE DIE DIE DIE" Susie screamed out with far too much enthusiasm for most normal people to feel comfortable. Kris nodded approvingly while Ralsei and Hip took a few steps back.
Kris looked over to Ralsei and Hip, "Anyway, since Susie has a handle on that, all that's left to do is amputate the cancerous infections on the bed next to the cancer mass. So, citizen, would you happen to have any scalpels or blades of decent quality?".
"Nope." Hip answered, "Blades are for skating."
Ralsei tilted his head. "Kris, why can't you use your sword for it?" Ralsei asked since he clearly hadn't read the inventory section of this chapter.
Not even bothering to give that an answer, Kris just continued as if nothing had happened, "Got an idea." The human went over to the only bed that had been infected, carefully going down on one knee to examine the black marks of where the tendrils connected before Susie went on her rampage against the source. Then with all the caution and precision that reflected how many years they put into the art of bed inspecting, Kris went for a cut that would remove the cancerous lumps forming with their improvised scalpel.
CRACK!
Kris stared at their right hand that had previously been in a karate chop position, although now all of their fingers were painfully broken after hitting the non-cancerous wood uselessly. "That didn't work." Kris remarked.
"I-I– you–" Ralsei steadied himself after witnessing his friend do grievous bodily harm to themself for no reason, "... Are you in pain?".
"Yes." Kris said with a calm tone that didn't reflect their answer.
"You're not screaming… or even grimacing." Hip observed in awe at this hero's power.
"I'll do it later." Kris answered, while sticking their hand out to Ralsei for healing. Overcoming his shock, Ralsei quickly cast another healing spell that actually did something helpful for once. With their hand healed, Kris reluctantly moved on to plan B. Taking off their double captain hat and the blade part of the broken sword, Kris sacrificed their two cool hats to form a glove to hold the small blade without ruining their fingers a second time today. With this newly made makeshift scalpel in hand, Kris carefully started scraping out all the infected parts of the bed, before chucking them towards the dust cloud of death and destruction that was Susie killing cancer.
Hip stared at the heroes well at work at the problem they didn't even know needed to be solved, even if they wished the first bed could have been saved. However, there was a whole chore list Hip had wanted their friends and now these heroes to do, but with these guys busy it was up to Hip to make a start on it. So, Hip left the heroes to it, simply jumping off the second floor of the opened house, so they could start the long list of tasks needed to be done downstairs. Aside from Ralsei, the three 'heroes' didn't seem to notice the owner's departure. They were far too engrossed in their work.
"Nurse Ralsei, hand me the hacksaw." Kris ordered in their most doctor sounding voice, which sounded strangely deep and rough as if the human had this large, monstrous mouth.
"We don't have one of those." Ralsei replied lamely as he watched Kris make careful cuts in the wood to remove the black cancerous lumps. To Ralsei relief, Kris was making good progress, but for some reason had gone into a 'doctor' persona. The human made each cut as if they were a professional surgeon, and they kept asking Ralsei for random medical related things as if he was a nurse.
"Hmm. Hmm." Kris nodded as they did another slice, "Nurse, give the patient anesthetic."
"Kris, I don't think we have that either." Ralsei replied, unsure what the hell anesthetic was (which was very understandable considering he lived in a world of instant cure-all magic). He honestly wished he did know, since he was the only one not doing anything at the moment. However, the prince still found some comfort that they were finally doing some good, even if Ralsei preferred that he had never seen this cancer stuff in the first place with how revolting it looked.
"Hmm. Hmm." Kris nodded again after doing a few more cuts, "While unfortunate, at least that was the bit of cancer out of this bed." The human turned to the bed and got down on one knee to get eye level with the headboard, "Don't worry patient. Your employer better be willing to fork up the cash for your treatment." Kris then got up and turned to the confused Ralsei, "Don't tell the patient this, but I'm surprised the operation was even a success. Perhaps I really am a true Bed Inspector, or at least a junior one."
Ralsei flinched back as if he had been hit by an enemy bullet, "... Kris, what are you saying? I thought you said you were a certified Bed Inspector."
"I lied." Kris answered.
"You mean you weren't a Bed Inspector?!" Ralsei cried out in shock, "B-but, y-you agreed to be heroes with me? What happened?".
Kris shook their head, "I meant that I've never been certified. I have claimed the title a couple times before so I could inspect the underside of Noelle's bed during the night, but I never went to school for it. As for the hero stuff, I was just making all that stuff up, 'cause I didn't really want to do any chores. So, I guess the lesson here is to never meet your heroes." After giving that devastating news to Ralsei, Kris paused for a moment as a thought struck them, "Though I suppose I wasn't that bad at being a Bed Inspector, so maybe do meet your heroes?".
Even though this wasn't the first time Kris had lied or done a scam, Ralsei still felt shocked and flabbergasted. "B-b-but the cancer, you diagnosed the cancer?!" Ralsei desperately clung onto any logic that would deny the reality he found himself in. Unfortunately, this was the only reality.
"I lied." Kris answered again, "I'm pretty sure cancer doesn't act like black sentient tentacles, Ralsei. Cancer is just when a group of cells start replicating themselves out of control." Putting their hand on their chin, Kris assumed a thoughtful pose, "Although maybe all of those healing spells you did on the bed did something similar? Or maybe you just shouldn't use healing spells on inanimate objects."
Ralsei made a few more strangled, panic sounds at Kris's train of thought, as he began wondering if this whole mess was in fact his fault all along. "KRIS!" Susie shouted as she smashed the black monstrosity into a ugly, black paste on the plastic floor. Kris turned around. "Stop making Ralsei sad." Susie said as she began the arduous process of double tapping what had been the first bed, "The only one who gets to do that is me, so go do whatever the nerd is asking already!".
"I-I just want us to be heroes and help people." Ralsei practically whispered to himself, perhaps not even listening to what was going on around him. There was a good chance that today's events had put him into shock.
Without any other instructions to go by, Kris simply shrugged in compliance. "Okay. I'll go find somebody to help." With that said, Kris beelined to where Susie was smashing the black paste and threw a S. Poison bottle at the stain along with all the infected bed part they'd cut off, dissolving it all. With her target getting neutralized so abruptly, Susie could only watch in mild surprise as the human then back flipped off the second floor. Given the thud she heard later, it seemed the flipped turned into more of a flop on the landing, though Kris was probably fine since fall damage was only in video games. However, a far more troublesome question hit Susie after Kris left and Ralsei was muttering to himself, what the hell are they supposed to do now?!
"Heroes?" A meek voice called out from the window portal and thankfully solved Susie's dilemma, "Are you finished fixing those beds?".
At the sound of Hip's voice, Ralsei bolted to the plugboy that had just climbed through the two connected windows, "Help! We'll help you! Tell us how to help!" The prince got real close to the plugboy, practically shaking the owner with his sheer need to be helpful. It was rather overwhelming for the poor plug.
"W-well, the downstairs—" Hip could only stutter out the beginnings of an answer before Ralsei metaphorically flipped a switch and went to 'helping mode' before they could finish. Grabbing up the plugboy in his surprisingly strong scarf arm, Ralsei sprinted off the second floor of the hotel, making a rather impressive three-point landing in the process.
This hijinks had left Susie alone on the second floor, still wondering what the hell she should be doing. And in one moment, Susie came to a horrifying realization: she was going to have to figure out how to help all by herself.
"Shiiiit." Susie groaned out loud, as she glanced around the room with uncertainty. Could she just leave? There was also no one saying she had to be here. Hell, she could goof off and no one would know. The Susie of yesterday probably would have done just that; however, Ralsei's sad face after learning of Kris's lies kept popping into her mind.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to replace that bed…" Susie mumbled to herself, scratching her cheek as she looked around the room. There weren't any closets in the plastic house with signs saying, "BED STORAGE", but there were a few wardrobes glued around the room. Thinking back to Ralsei's fluff beds, Susie started searching the wardrobes for any spare bedding that she could pile up on the remains of where that cancer shit used to exist. To be fair, what would anyone else expect from her? She wasn't a bed inspector or bed doctor or whatever. She was just the local bully, so really this was the best she could do. Besides, if the owner wanted to chew her out for not getting the right bed like Kris or Ralsei could, then she could chuck them to somebody that gave a shit.
"Let's see here…" Susie muttered to herself as she threw open the doors to wardrobe number one. What fell out was a strange collection of treasures, priceless gems, and other shit like it. "Wha–?" Susie flinched back in surprise at the admittedly strange assortment of things to fall out of a wardrobe, "Was this supposed to be their bank?" Susie was half tempted to take them for herself, yet on closer examination these jewels had a certain plastic look to them much like the rest of the house. Could they be fakes? Although Susie was completely at a loss for why they were in a wardrobe unless they were bedding? Doing something she wasn't that used to doing that often, Susie thought about it. After all, dragons slept on treasure, so maybe Hip had been thinking along those lines? And this hotel was already serving beds for robots or whatever, so it made sense for what Susie knew about this strange world. They had already met a big sea serpent that tried to marry Ralsei, so why couldn't a dragon take a stop at a plastic hotel?
Coming to a decision after her critical thinking time, Susie took a huge scoopful of gems and tossed them haphazardly onto where the first bed was with a loud thud. A few more scoops and a few more tosses made her work complete. The purple monster took some satisfaction in seeing her handy work of a big spread-out pile of rocks covering the stained section of the floor. It kinda felt good to be a hero, who knew? "Welp, that seems good enough." Susie concluded to herself, "Should probably go tell Ralsei so he can finally stop freaking out about this hero stuff." And since everyone else had been doing it, Susie took a huge leap off the second story and landed on all fours, which was the coolest way to do it.
Now all that was left to do was–
"Kris! ! !"
...
"I got to hand it to you, [little sponge]. My new [EvilBaseOfOperations] is [selling out like hot cakes!] My"
...
"has never felt [so perfectly fit] in such a [pile of garbage]! I can feel all the [screaming]. But don't hang up the phone yet, Kris, we still [got sweet hot deals] to do! When that royal [blue broad] comes "
", she won't know what [killed] "
"when [I and you] are done with her! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!" an unforgettable, horrible voice could be heard from the back side of the hotel.
"OH HEEEEELLLL NO!" Susie snarled, and in a flash, she was racing 'round the building. The scene that she saw wasn't as surprising as it should have been. Apparently, Hip put out the trash behind the hotel. Now one of the weirdos they had encountered in a previous chapter was sitting in one of the cans with a trash lid on top of him, and Kris was of course just standing there. "KRIS! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!" Susie yelled out to them, angry that their original objective of avoiding these wackos had already failed.
Kris put on a smile once they saw Susie sprint up to them, "Doing what you said: Helping people." Kris gestured to the small mannequin salesman that was now hissing from the protection of his trash can like any respectable rabid alley cat would, "I found Spamton out back, so I helped him find a new home after we destroyed his last one… Still had to chase down the trash can once it started crying though."
Holding the trash lid like some kind of army helmet, Spamton butted into the conversation, "Hey! Hey! Hey! [Don't forget] all the deals I offered. [Hot topic] [wannabe], you too can [jump on the hot new trend]! All your [friends], all your [family], all your [loved ones] are doing it, so [order now] so you too can [end] this [4.99] [life]."
Susie considered Kris's words and nodded her head. "You're right Kris, I guess Ralsei did want us to 'help someone'. But you forgot something very important, Kris."
Kris tilted their head like a confused dog.
"You [loss] all your"
"[hyperlink blocked]"
"too, and you're [scrambling] for all these [sweet hot deals]?" Spamton guessed, despite not being a part of the conversation.
"I'M NOT DEALING WITH MORE WEIRDOS TODAY!" Susie roared, running up to Spamton's trash can and kicking it far over the horizon like a football. The trash can spilled out a gross rainbow of browns, grays, blues, and greens across the sky as Spamton and his new house sailed off to another chapter. The two 'heroes' on the other hand watched it all go by as it happened. Susie glared at Kris, "You better have not sold all our stuff–"
"No, I didn't. I just gave him a trash can, then he told me to go commit violence." Kris replied. Susie aimed a long, judgemental stare at Kris for a while. However, before she could really comment on it, an explosion happened at the 'opened' side of the hotel.
Immediately, Kris raised their arms expectantly. With a snarl, but not much time to waste, Susie tucked the human under one arm and sprinted back towards the front of the hotel to see what had happened. The two of them didn't know for sure, but it seemed like Ralsei and Hip were in grave danger.
—
What Susie and Kris found at the front of the opened building were three newcomers to the hotel, violent ones from the look of it. Ralsei and Hip were inside the kitchen of the hotel, looking blackened from some kind of attack. The three onlookers were mostly familiar. With Kris going from being carried to suddenly lurching forward out of Susie's arms with bloodlust, Susie didn't even have to look to know that Rules card guy and the little baby named Lancer had shown up again. However, there was a third member of this crew. Assuming it was a she from her more womanly shaped body, she had a degree of resemblance to Lancer, having the same color scheme of black, blue, and white. Where Lancer was rather round, she was quite the beanpole, although it wasn't clear how tall she was since she was lounging in a floating royal, hover chair. The newcomer had a visor on, or her eyes… were a visor? It wasn't really clear. The last strange oddity about her form was her elongated head that was not unlike a xenomorph. Stranger still was how the visor displayed red LED lights that spelled out 'IDK'.
"ALRIGHT!" Susie roared, "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" In one motion, she ripped her axe out of nowhere, and bared it at the three newcomers.
"Like bro, I don't even know. We just got here, then the house exploded." The one on the hover chair spoke up with a strangely robotic yet elegant voice. The voice sounded like a noble lady who decided to become a social media fed neet and was then roboticized.
"Yeaaaaaaah…" Ralsei drawled out an answer looking more dejected than ever, "That might have been… my 'B'. Turns out plastic oven cooking is more complicated than cauldron cooking…"
Hip gave the prince a comforting pat on the back, "I-it's alright. You did your best. And we still have a few hours before Queen shows up, so we can still fix this–"
"Actually, I came early." the chair-lounging one which was apparently 'Queen' butted into the conversation, as she took a gentle sip of battery acid in a wine glass.
Hip flipped around to look at the Queen, then flipped back to Ralsei, then flipped to Susie and Kris, and then flipped around a couple more times as the grim reality set in for the little plug boy. "B-but we haven't– I didn't get to–... Oh no…" Hip went as quiet as a dead battery before jump-starting to life, "M-my Queen Q5U4EX7YY2E9N (also known as Queen)! I'm so… glad you agreed to come see the hotel. I'm sure after one visit, you'll see how necessary it is for me to manage such a great resort."
"Hold that thought." The Queen suddenly interrupted, "Could you perhaps step outside of the hotel real quick. The chat is having trouble hearing you with that roof over your head." Red words blinked onto her visor once more, now spelling 'Lying'.
"Wait! Hip–" Ralsei cried to call out a warning, but it was too late.
"Oh, okay." Hip happily replied, before walking out of the safety of the hotel. "Is this good enou–" the plugboy stated as their naivete was immediately and predictably exploited as a wire fell down from the sky and attached itself to Hip's head. As if powering on whatever device Hip was, the former hotel owner's body grew out into a tall, gangly creature at an alarming speed. The now multicolored wire from the sky was attached to and covered the face and two pink horns with yellow stripes adorned the head, along with some kind of neck fur that spiked outwards. The chest and torso became mostly light blue, while the hands became bright yellow with scattering of blue and green along the arms. Only one of the legs remained pink with the other turning a light purple. The creature that had once been Hip, quite frankly, had a horrible fashion sense.
Queen smirked as she clapped her hands, "We got 'em boys. Minion, pour battery acid on Lancer."
Before Rouxls could look up from the book he was reading: 'Ye old speaking 'n thou' Ralsei had already struck a dramatic hero pose. "Don't worry Hip! We'll save you!" With that, Susie let go of Kris so they could maul one of them. Kris immediately ran up and pulled out a . They were about to throw it before Ralsei's scarf arm desperately lashed out to restrain the manic human. "NO! No, Kris! We're stopping them, not murdering them!" Ralsei commanded as the fluffy prince struggled to hold Kris back. Centimeter by Centimeter, the human slowly dragged the prince towards Rouxls.
"Minion." Queen addressed Rouxls as three red question marks flashed on her visor, "What's their deal?"
Rouxls shot up with excitement at the request, but first he carefully reviewed what he had learned before constructing his elegant response. "Thou'st fools art outlaws of thine country mineth Queene!"
The question marks flicked into exclamation points on the Queen's visor, "Oh my circuits–" Then her visor showed a single question mark as the Queen turned to Rouxls, "Wait, outlaws as designated by me or was it done by my ex?"
Averting his eyes, Rouxls shifted uncomfortably at the question "Uh… well. The Kinge, my Queene."
Queen regained her composure quickly, elegantly laughing at her previous distress as if it were a mere joke. "Cool. For a sec, I thought they were actually dangerous like that email guy. Sooo, what did they do?"
Before Rouxls could respond, Lancer butted into the conversation, "Well, there's the toothpaste boy that I mugged and then he gave me a hug. There's Susie who also gave me a hug. Then there's the blue person whose name I don't know. They played pirates with me and lesser dad, I think." Lancer chirped, giving a nice goofy smile.
Queen flipped to Rouxls with a comedic smack (somehow), "So they're babysitters? You angered the babysitters?"
"He didn't pay us our 400 DD." Kris growled menacingly. At this point, they were getting dangerously close to the three newcomers. Their hands struggled to reach the duke of puzzles. The human probably could have thrown the ; however, they just kept creepily reaching for the duke.
"And you didn't even pay them?" Queen scoffed in disappointment as Rouxls blubbered at the accusations, "Bro, you're so 'hash tagged' fired." Then with the flick of a finger, she snapped a picture of the shocked Rouxls with her visor, "Hold on chat, I'mma post this on Instacram."
After consulting his book for a minute, Rouxls angrily replied, "Alas my Queene, you art mistakeneth. They art fu– they art scammereths. They tried to scammeth thine bouncy, blue baby." Said 'bouncy, blue baby' gave a wide grin while somehow sticking his tongue out through his teeth, neither confirming or denying the testimony. After all, he had yet to graduate Rouxls's class of 'scammereths and thou'.
Queen let out a computerized hum as she considered the rivalry between the two parties as Kris was nearly upon them. "Welllllll…" She considered her options as carefully as she normally did, and then she immediately threw a fat stack of 400 DD at Kris. "Initiating bribe." She called out, as the money knocked Kris (and Ralsei) over. Still on the floor, Kris gave a thumbs up as they took the money. The Queen clapped her hands, "Bribe successful. Alright, let's head home, Hip. I'm sure you'll be very pogchamp to join your other werewires." Queen extended out her hand, before stopping in surprise.
With a cut wire retreating up into the sky, Susie stood tall with a wide, mischievous smirk, holding up a normal plugboy Hip, "Hey guys. While you were talking, I found out that you can free them by just cutting the wires."
Hip let out a whimper, "I have had things in holes that should never be filled."
Seeing a chance to redeem himself, Rouxls Kaard butted into the conversation with a malicious grin, "Seeth my Queene! These rabble rousers art scummeth!" Then with a glowing light charging into his body, the Duke of Puzzle snapped an accusing finger out at the trio, "I, Rouxls Kaard, willest show you mine ulitmateth pow'r." His piece said, Rouxls released the light, causing a large beam to strike the ground around the Duke and Queen, "Summoningeth mineth Queene's minions!" As the Duke said, more werewires appeared as the pillars of lights disappeared; however, it seemed that the entirety of the wires that normally extended from their faces up to the sky didn't come with them. The dimensionally cut wires fell limply onto the ground as all eight werewires summoned immediately transformed back into plugboys.
"Lmao, you really suck at this." Queen laughed as she watched the Duke sputter as his whole plan broke apart pretty much immediately.
The three 'heroes' were less surprised at this result, as they had plenty of firsthand experience with Rouxls's 'competence'. "Aha!" Ralsei cried triumphantly, "Wow, we freed even more people from your mind enslavement Queen!"
Giving a small frown at Ralsei's point, Queen waved up a holographic screen on her hoverchair, "Hmm… looks like you freed all of the criminals I had initially 'plugged-in' to my newly expanded army."
"What?" Ralsei blinked, as Susie finally got around to draggin Kris upright.
"'Ello mate!" one of the new plugboys went way too close to Ralsei, sensing weakness. "I'm the Super Hot Illegal Troublemaker, but you can call me–"
"Nope." Queen shut down that conversation with a flick of her wrist, sending out new wires from her network in the sky above them that stuck on the heads of every plugboy in the area, except for Hip. It only took a single swing from Susie to ward one off from Hip's face. However, the rest of the plugboys were transformed back into werewires and now loomed menacingly over the three heroes.
"Aww." Lancer bemoaned, clearly missing the rising tension that had filled the area. "I really wanted to know what that guy's name was…"
"Lancer, baby, darling." Queen stifled a laugh at her little boy's antics, "Why don't you go play out in the scary, dark woods? I'm gonna to do some business with these…" Queen took a moment to think of all she had learned of our three 'heroes' up until now, "Feral babysitters."
"Oi!" Susie rebuked Queen's summary, "We're not babysitters!"
"Lmao, so you're just feral?" Queen asked.
"Yes!" Susie roared in agreement, giving a nice showing of her dagger-like yellow teeth. It was comforting for the purple dino to see Kris giving a thumbs up. Ralsei, on the other hand, was slowly retreating into his dark witch clothes, but Susie just figured the prince just needed more confidence building before he could truly be cool like she was.
"Yeah!" Lancer cheered, "Well, have fun you guys. I'm going to go dig to find some healing items to patch you up after my girl dad is done wrecking you!" On that note, Lancer wandered into the woods, making a still motion stride that somehow made him levitate over to the nearby trees.
"Heh." Susie gave a sinister, toothy grin, "We won't go down that easily. We're a couple of sharks, ya know?! So, your girl… dad? Wait what the–" She stopped to consider the words, before Ralsei finished it for her.
"What Susie is trying to say is that we won't let you enslave Hip, and there's nothing you can do to stop us!" Ralsei ran to the side of Susie, proudly trying to be a hero for once.
"Okay bro, but what about electricity?" Queen asked.
Ralsei seemed a little confused by that response, "Huh? What do you mean–" However, the small platoon of werewires raising their arms together to create large electrical balls soon clarified the situation, with the blasting of said electricity at the trio punctuating Queen's point.
After the electricity dissipated and the three heroes plus Hip were on the ground, Queen took another sip of her battery acid drink, "Lol. Now are you all ready to submit to the warm bosom of my hellish demands, or would you rather perish?"
"Perish!" Kris cried from his position on the ground, looking oddly enthusiastic at the offer. Their other two companions and even Rouxls Kaard gave them a strange look.
"WTF. Sure thing bro." Queen evilly and elegantly laughed, "You three can't stand up to all my soldiers anyway."
"And me-eth, mineth Queene." Rouxls Kaard shouted a way behind the action. He had been preoccupied, spending the last few minutes desperately flipping through his book for more ye oldy words to impress Queen so that he wouldn't get fired. However much like Kris's dreams of being tall like his brother, he had come up short.
"Yeah, sure." Queen lazily blew him off, as her visor flashed the red words: 'Lying'. "Anyway, there's nothing you three can do, so give me back my new slave soldier so I can continue to get all 69 legions of these guys." the monarch let out a long evil laugh befitting of her station, "Ooh ho ho ho ho!"
"Not yet Queen!" Ralsei heroically declared despite being burnt up from the previous barrage, "We still have one trick up our sleeves!" With that the prince dashed back into the hotel, leaving his companions behind. LOL was displayed with neon red letters on the Queen's visor.
"RALSEI YOU RAT BASTARD! GET BACK HERE!" Susie screamed in shock and anger at her friend's apparent cowardness. If it weren't for Kris standing with her (even though all they had was a makeshift scalpel), Susie wasn't sure if she wouldn't have turned and aggressively charged back for the prince.
"Oh wow." even Queen seemed a little taken aback by Ralsei's sudden flight, "Soooo, ya'll going to hit the escape key too, or?"
"Hardly!" Susie snapped back at the Queen before privately whispering to Kris, "DUDE. WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO!?"
"Surrender under the bosom of my hellish reign?" Queen offered again since Susie was terrible at whispering.
"Jump." Kris answered.
Now, Susie hadn't known Kris all that long, and for the time she did, she couldn't say they had the best relationship. However, after you had fought off a giant trashcan and were sea monsters together, you learn that when they say jump: you jump. As soon as Kris and Susie's boots left the ground, a floor swooshed in beneath them with a snap as the house closed itself once more. Of course, this meant that the ceiling and roof had snapped shut as well, cutting the werewires' wires like a pair of scissors. It would have been pretty cool if not for all the furniture that wasn't glued down hadn't all started flying around from the force of the hotel closing. Susie was pretty sure a chair or two had smacked her over the head, and a full table had slammed into Queen which sent her and her hover chair bouncing around the walls for a bit. Despite getting hit by that electric barrage from earlier, Susie still found enough strength to stand, though she had the sinking feeling that she was on her last legs. One look at her companions only showed them to be in mildly better shape.
"Yeeeaaahhh…" Ralsei moaned out from under a pink, plastic filing cabinet, "I diiiiid it."
Queen, looking almost unaffected, gave a sly, evil grin, "Ah yes. You cut the wires of my minions. I don't know how I'll fix that." The red words 'sarcasm' flashed on her visor as she snapped her fingers once more to resummon all eight of the werewires. Eight clunks sounded throughout the plastic house as they hit the roof of the hotel. With her visor flashing the phase 'WTF', Queen paused for a moment before snapping her fingers again, and again eight more clunks sound off from the roof. All of the plugboys still remained as their cute, pink selves.
Seeing an opening, Kris was fast to lift the filing cabinet off their team healer, with a red light shining from their very soul onto the prince. "Oh, r-right." Ralsei shook some shock away before casting his and Kris's team move, "Dual Heal!" The apparent 'dual heal' somehow sent healing green sparkles to all three of the teammates, restoring all of their HP. With that, Ralsei felt sure that the tide of battle was shifting. The criminal plugboys must have been of the same mind, as the criminals quickly scattered like rats away from the battle, although not before stealing everything they could carry.
"Oh dear." Queen blinked in genuine surprise, "You made all my minions flee."
"Don't thoust worrieth mine Queene!" shouted Rouxls Kaard from outside the hotel, "I'm stilleth hereth!" The plastic door to the hotel slammed as Rouxls had tried and failed horribly to break in, instead sounding like the door broke him. "Oooooooooo… eth" Rouxls groaned.
"Since I have no one to rely on, I'll have to beat up these children myself." Queen gave a sinister grin, raising her wine glass high towards the ceiling to create her acid shield. Then she awkwardly held it there for a moment as nothing happened. On a related note, battery acid could be heard hitting the roof and sliding off uselessly.
"Nah." Susie dusted herself off as she came back at full strength thanks to Ralsei's magic, "I think us teenagers are gonna beat you, come on guys!" Summoning her axe once more, she sliced a rude buster into the air, which collided with Queen and her hover chair. Ralsei joined in, showing off his scarfu. His strange scarf lashed out like a whip, adding additional force to Susie's attack. Kris threw a chair. With all their powers combined, Queen bounced around the plastic hotel like a ping pong ball, though eventually its anti-laws of physics tech slowed the chair down back to a stop despite the lack of any friction or force applied to it. "How did ya like that?" Susie gave a savage grin, happy to finally have the upper hand.
"Honestly?" Queen said with a smile, "Pretty fun actually. Never realized how fun getting hit on this hover chair is." Susie didn't like that answer, but Queen continued. "But now's the time for what some might call a 'pro gamer move'." Queen flashed her empty wine glass forward to do her beam attack to hit the angry purple one, only for nothing to happen. "Oh right, the acid." Queen had already drunk her previous glass before the hotel 'closed', so she raised her glass to the sky for a refill. Only then did she remember what happened before, as her glass remained empty while the said acid useless hit and then slid off the roof, AGAIN. Queen, however, did not allow the building frustration that was buzzing inside her circuitry to become the system administrator, as she was the cool parent and a logical computer. Instead, she just chose another attack that didn't directly need to fall on its target from straight above. "Alright chat, let's try this. You destroy them!" she announced her super cool and totes rad attack with a wave of her hand. All at once many squares representing all her loyal followers on tweeter came down from the network in the sky (that she had spent the whole start of the day stretching to get here) surrounded the hotel. Then, with the exact coordination that the internet could provide, they began launching attack after attack. The chat spewed out hateful comments, 0/13 star reviews, and plenty of them saying 'E', all of which… harmlessly bounced off the plastic walls of the hotel (there weren't any windows on the first floor). Well, almost harmlessly, as Rouxls was still out there. However, judging from the soft moaning coming from the door, he was probably fine. Queen covered her face in her hands and let out a mechanical whir. "I hate this f***ing hotel." she whispered quietly to herself.
The three heroes, completely ignorant of the hail of death and bullets outside the hotel's walls, had their own problems of logistical nature to deal with: Susie didn't have enough tension points to cast another rude buster. Instead, the purple dino kept swinging her axe uselessly in the air with increasing frustration. "Why isn't this working?!" Susie screamed as she continued to show the traditional definition of insanity, at least until Kris stopped her.
The human placed a hand on their rampaging friend. "Susie." Kris calmly stated, "Let's throw the furniture at her." With their piece said, Kris began lobbing another chair right at Queen's face. With a berserk smile, Susie was quick to follow, throwing one of the many tables as Ralsei joined them by awkwardly throwing a pillow. Hip twitched on the ground (dropped by Susie once it was clear Queen couldn't use her wires) every single time more of their property was destroyed. The combined attacks bounced Queen around the room once more, doing devastating damage to the hover chair.
Wisps of smoke began coming out of the chair, though it didn't seem Queen cared too much as she laughed joyfully from the ride. "Oh man." She wiped away a non-existent tear, "I need to add some theme park rides like this to my castle when I get back."
"OH COME ON!" Susie threw her hands up angrily in the air, "JUST DIE ALREADY!"
WTF briefly flashed on Queen's visor before she resumed her delighted grin, "Yeah, no. But I got to say 'GG' to you guys. You nearly depleted the HP of my hover chair. For a bunch of children, that's pretty epic. And while I still could totally kick your asses, I think I've found something I want to destroy more. So how about we end this peacefully?"
"As if!" Susie mocked the peace offering with an eye roll, "Like we would give you mercy when we got you by the balls!"
"Actually…" Ralsei butted in much to Susie's shock, "I would honestly prefer to settle this peacefully if possible, and if she's willing to surrender to us…"
"Could be interesting." Kris shrugged.
"I personally would like any route that does the least damage to my property and my freedom." Hip concurred from the floor. Susie, for her part, shut up and let Queen say her piece, albeit with much arm crossing and grumbling.
"That's POG." Queen said with the words LOL flashing on her visor, "So how about instead of us fighting or me surrendering, you all just work for me? We have a new vacancy for Lancer's babysitter after all." Her offer didn't seem to please Susie and Ralsei, who resumed their combat stances.
"Hell no, why'd we do that?!" Susie glared at the Queen, offended by the mere suggestion.
"What's in it for us?" Kris added.
"Well." Queen gave a sly grin, as she showed the ace up her metaphorical sleeve, "As my minions, you get all the normal benefits like free food, housing, health care, unlimited/mandatory internet access, and as Lancer's babysitters I'll even throw in fair wages and new butler suits for you all." All three 'heroes' froze at the offer, plagued by a bout of sudden hesitation, or at least in Kris's case remained still.
After a notable amount of hesitation, Ralsei was the first to try to laugh off the deal, "Ha… ha ha. I won't throw away my destiny for a nice pair of secondary clothes! I have my current clothes that I haven't been able to wash since my cleaning pot broke down."
"Y-yeah!" Susie nodded in agreement, "I might not have eaten anything for a while, but that doesn't mean I'll bow to you!"
Kris turned to their comrades, "I dunno. Sounds like a good deal to me. We should take it." Queen clapped her hands together, looking pleased at their crumbling resistance against her work benefits.
"No Kris!" Ralsei summoned up his willpower to fight against his desire for clean, snazzy clothes, "Queen and King are our destined enemies! We need to stop them from causing the end of the world! Not until after we convinced them or sealed the fountain can we accept their jobs!"
"I am?" Queen asked with literal question marks in her eyes, looking rather lost at Ralsei's point on 'destined enemies' and 'destroying the world'.
"We could still do that while working for her." Kris argued in their usual monotone voice, "We can just be bad employees." Kris, of course, said this in front of Queen, who had LOL flash across her visor at their statement of intended treachery and didn't seem to care either way.
"Nope." Susie flatly rejected the idea when Ralsei seemed to be at a loss for how to convince their human companion, "I'm never gonna be below her, so we ain't doing it." Caving immediately, Kris shrugged, and faced Queen once again with Susie and Ralsei.
With her smile finally turning upside down at her offer being resisted, Queen leaned back in her chair with disappointment, "So. You don't want to become my cool minions for Lancer… I suppose I just have to find someone else with cool powers to take care of my bouncy baby boy…" Then in a slash, Queen slammed her hand on a holographic button that said, 'cages' with an evil grin, "NOT!"
After a moment, three bangs could be heard off the roof as three cages crashed uselessly into it, leaving Queen to awkwardly stare at the trio in a moment of silence. "I'm going to burn this house down." Queen whispered to herself.
Susie picked up the downed filing cabinet, "Yeah, I'm gonna smash her face in." Kris and a reluctant Ralsei picked up their own furniture as it appeared negotiations had broken down.
Queen, seeing the imminent danger in front of her, fell back on the most clever plan she had ever computed for dire situations such as this one, "HEY,WHAT'STHATOVERTHERE!" She pointed to behind the trio, and predictably every single one of them turned around to look. With her plan succeeding flawlessly, Queen threw her empty wine glass at the hotel's door, at which point the glass inexplicably exploded. Now, the pink entrance door was incredibly sturdy along with the rest of the house, so much so that it barely even opened by a crack. However, with all the abuse from Susie's 'knocking', Rouxls's body slamming, and Queen's attacks, it was beginning to weaken, and that exploding glass was the straw that broke the door's back. Quite literally. The door was blown off its non-existent hinges and Queen quickly made her escape towards the prone body of Rouxls Kaard. Grabbing him up in one hand and slapping him awake, Queen was quick to get to the point, "We need to G2G ASAP! This has been a CWOT and we're GTFO of here so I can get some cooler minions so we can BRB!" Still recovering from Queen's mighty barrage, Rouxls Kaard groggily nodded his head before snapping his fingers, calling down a beam of light that sent the two away.
The battle was won for the lightners as Queen fled and the eight other werewires had been freed, rewarding the heroes with 800 DD. They also managed to save Hip from being turned into a mind slave for another day, and with today's adventure complete all of the trio had gained new ranks.
Ralsei was the first to pump his fluffy paws in the air in celebration of such a satisfying victory, "We actually did it! We were real heroes! We actually saved someone for once! We beat back Queen!" Throwing her axe away to desummon it, Susie allowed a small smirk to crawl its way across her face at the prince's joy. Kris reacted in their usual way: not reacting at all. In his excitement, Ralsei completely missed Hip shaking themselves off the floor and despondently looked around their hotel.
It was in far greater disarray than it had been before, and now the front door lay in smithereens. The fiends that had originally blasted away all Hip's friends earlier could waltz right in. Not to mention Queen, who was still at large and could come back anytime with an army to capture them. Faced with the increasingly bleak future, the robed self-proclaimed hero's celebration for their heroics was starting to really get on the plugboy's nerves as they stood in the rubble of all the furniture the 'heroes' had broken. "So now what?" Hip asked. Ralsei and his other two friends stared over at the plugboy, seemingly having forgotten that the plugboy was even there. This did not make Hip feel any better. "So, you heroes are just going to protect my hotel from when Queen attacks again?" Hip asked, something bitter in his circuits already knew the answer the 'heroes' had from them.
"Umm, as much as I want to do that… we do have to leave eventually." Ralsei reluctantly answered, "We still have to go save the world…" The joy of their team's accomplishment vanished from the prince.
"S-so what am I supposed to do then?" Hip asked, desperately hoping that they had some kind of answer.
Unfortunately, it was Kris that gave it in their usual level of tact for strangers, "You go on the run obviously."
Hip snapped, "OH! So, when you guys, WHO WERE SUPPOSE TO HELP ME IMPRESS QUEEN SO WE DIDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT, messed up your jobs, you'll just leave me here because YOU GUYS LET QUEEN GET AWAY BECAUSE YOU FELL FOR LITERALLY THE OLDEST TRICK IN QUEEN'S E-BOOK OF TRICKS!" The little plugboy shook with rage, as every little thing from the day came back to them at once. "SERIOUSLY! You guys are the WORST! First, you nearly shook my hotel down, then you couldn't even save one of my beds from that cancer thing, next you BLOW UP my kitchen oven, and finally you COULDN'T even do the one job you said you could DO! ARE YOU GUYS EVEN REALLY HEROES!?" With that, the plugboy spat out their mounting anger and stress from the day, making Ralsei retreat into his dark cloak out of shame and guilt.
The other two 'heroes' were less affected by Hip's words. After slugging down Kris before the human could even admit to them lying about being heroes, Susie walked up and loomed over the ungrateful hotel owner and stared down at them. "Hey." Susie said with a nasty smile, grabbing Hip suddenly with a strong hand. "Remember back when Queen first arrived?" Susie asked with a large mouth of long, dagger-like teeth aimed at the plugboy, "Remember how before we even had a chance to impress Queen so you could have a chance to live in your shitty-ass hotel someone decided to run out away from the rest of us and got wired? Who was that exactly? Ya know, the person that my friend Rals warned to not go out, but did anyway? The person who we had to stick our necks out for to stop them from being a mindslave? Who was that exactly?" Susie leaned in real close, where Hip could have touched Susie's fangs with their little arm numbs.
Shaking with a bit of guilt and fear, Hip nodded their head, "You're right, I'm sorry. Thank you for your help. I've had a really bad day, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you guys. In fact, I think I'll just go upstairs to cry." As soon as Susie let go, the little plugboy raced up the stairs and out of sight. Ralsei had pulled himself together, though a small shoulder pat from Susie had put a small smile on his face.
"So, what do you guys want to do now?" Kris asked after they had pulled themselves up from the floor, "We all got our 400 DD from Rouxls plus a lot more. We could go buy stuff now we finally got some dough, but I'm open to anything."
"Ooh!" Lancer smiled from the blown out front door, "I could eat some nice dough right about now." However, the blue boy quickly frowned with the concern of a child lost in the supermarket, "But do you know where my girl dad and lesser dad went?"
—
Stats
Ranks:
Kris: *Junior Bed Inspector: LV1*
Susie: *Hip Helper: LV1*
Ralsei: *Unhelpful Helper: LV1*
Equipment:
Kris: Makeshift scalpel, Frayed Boetie
Susie: Mane Axe
Ralsei: Red Scarf, Frayed Boetie x2
Items: Cell Phone, Thorn Ring, Egg, x4, Broken Sword -1, Egg, Empty Disk.
Money: 92580^85986834 402 Kromer, 1200 DD (Money!)
Author's Note: Thanks for reading chapter 4 of Three Heroes or Something. This chapter officially beat chapter 3 as the biggest chapter, so sorry. I don't mean to be writing these chapters bigger and bigger with each installment, they just keep on happening. I was going to split the chapter up (I did actually in A03), but the format of made this just much less of a pain. And editing these works so they work on is already kinda a pain with how it butchers my Spamton dialogue, whenever I want to use small text, or my use of repeated punctuation, so I decided to do the easier route here.
But yeah, I hope you enjoy this chapter with Ralsei having a mid-life crisis, Queen's introduction, and Kris being the biggest gremlin. But hey, let's give a round of applause for our titular main characters for finally completing their original goal of getting more money back in chapter 1. Let's hope they don't spend it all in one place. I don't know when I'll get chapter 5 out, but I hope it won't be as long as this one so it won't take as long. But who knows, chaos chaos is often unpredictable.