Stats
Ranks:
Kris: *Junior Bed Inspector: LV1*
Susie: *Hip Helper: LV1*
Ralsei: *Unhelpful Helper: LV1*
Equipment:
Kris: Makeshift scalpel, Frayed Boetie x2
Susie: Mane Axe
Ralsei: Red Scarf, Frayed Boetie
Items: Cell Phone, Thorn Ring, Egg x2, x4, Broken Sword -1, Empty Disk.
Money: 2#57048148$864!442 Kromer, 1190 DD (They spent a little bit)
After their victory over Queen and then, of course, their victory over Muzan from Demon Slayer, our three 'heroes' reluctantly agreed to allow their former enemy Lancer to accompany them on their journey. The decision had vexed Susie, however, the purple dino had been outvoted by her two other friends/companions. The lost child Lancer had managed to (unintentionally) sway Ralsei and Kris to his side (since Ralsei thought that helping a lost child sounded sufficiently heroic, while Kris thought having the Queen and King's son would undoubtedly let them back into the market they were kicked out of back in chapter 1). Susie didn't trust the little guy, even after he had given her some of the 'Dirt food' he had dug up for them during their battle with his girl-dad or whatever. The little dude had always been with Rouxls and Queen who had attacked the trio every single time they had met, and Susie wasn't going to forget about that. However, she had still allowed the weird kid to follow them around, since Kris had at least made a good point that the kid could help them get more stuff.
After walking around aimlessly for a while, the trio plus one finally reached the location where they had first met. The market was quite different from how it was back in Ch 1. Almost everyone was gone, with empty stalls and signs littering everywhere around the open area inside the woods. It practically would have been a ghost market if it was not for the sparse number of opened shops scattered around the clearing. Ralsei had mentioned that the market must have been closed today, leaving only those who had set up permanently here or shadier shops that took advantage of the lack of competition.
In the present, the trio and their plus one was at one of those shops: a gambling game that sort of resembled pachinko that was run by a Pippin. Now there were other gambling games in the market, but Lancer had excitedly pointed at this one for its grand prize as becoming the best friend of a truly massive, fuzzy, purple ape darkner that apparently worked with the Pippin. There were other prizes one could get depending on whether the player could shoot the ball into one of the game's many special holes. Most of them were mostly different basic items as rewards, but there was also one that gave out a secret special prize. Since the little blue boy wasn't tall enough, Kris had agreed to play as Lancer's champion, being the slightly larger blue person. After going to check on something before playing, the human was now lining up their ball's shot to be launched on the board. The blue human seemed strangely focused on the task, being wearily zoned out to the rest of the world. Finally, the ball was launched into the board, clinking down, and missing the grand prize entirely. Instead, the ball just barely fell into the secret prize hole.
"Aww." Lancer said, looking crestfallen, "You missed…"
However, Kris didn't seem to hear the little guy, instead staring at the board for a moment before springing to life. Swinging their hands down in the air, Kris uncharacteristically yelled in a mixture of frustration and satisfaction, "Finally!" Then they tightly pulled on their hair in some sort of exasperation, blotting out the view of their entire face. "That took way too long. This prize better be worth it." Kris groaned seemingly to themselves.
"Uh, Kris?" Ralsei stared at his companion oddly, "What are you talking about? That was your first attempt." Giving a brief flash of their menacing red eyes, Kris glared through their hair bangs at the prince, saying several choice words without saying anything at all. For his part, Ralsei decided to let the issue go.
Kris turned back to the Pippin and stuck out their hand for the secret prize; the human's mood didn't seem to improve despite getting a reward. The Pippin didn't hand it over immediately, still understandably skeptical about how a customer had managed to win the second best prize on their first try. The Pippin's suspicions of Kris cheating were only further aroused by the human's strange bad mood, as if Kris was trying to gaslight the Pippin that they had played for hours. Yet with no evidence of any actual cheating, the Pippin gave the secret signal to his large purple ape friend to not break the blue one's legs before reluctantly handing over the secret prize: The Wrist Protector. To Ralsei's surprise, it was actually a really rare item that he had only heard about in passing though the prince didn't know what it did, which he conveyed to the others. With a frown on his diamond face, the Pippin then put up a new sign for this shop, reading 'One prize per player'.
Not in the mood to play around with their new toy, Kris pocketed the item, before waving their party to follow. "But–" Lancer looked around in confusion, "What about getting the grand prize? I wanted to hug the big gorilla."
"Trust me, it wasn't worth it." Kris replied. Their voice was sharp, bitter, and oddly more expressive than the human normal was, despite the voice still technically being monotone.
As the human continued towards the middle of the empty market, Susie finally had enough and stopped Kris dead in their tracks with her powerful grip. "Okay dude, you can pull the tree out of your ass." Susie told Kris, spinning the human around to face her. Kris said nothing in reply, only giving a snort for a response. Susie bristled, feeling like her concern was being made fun of.
However, Kris was quick to elaborate this time, "Sorry, just in a mood. Don't worry about it." Then with a smirk, Kris continued, "Might need to add tweezers in our shopping list for the tree up my butt though." The humor seemed to pacify Susie a bit, though Ralsei only looked more concerned for Kris's wellbeing.
"Kris, d-did you want a hug to make you feel better?" Ralsei offered, seeing a chance to help out his often silent and unexpressive friend. The prince didn't know exactly what had been bothering them, especially since the human had seemed in much better spirits only a few minutes ago. However, the prince still wanted to make them feel better, no matter what was getting them down.
"Nope." Kris replied.
"O-oh. Ok." Ralsei anxiously scrunched up, immediately unsure how to proceed from here.
"Did you want to poke me and hear a noise?" Lancer asked with a big toothy grin. Kris paused to look at Lancer, before giving a shrug. The human stuck their finger into Lancer's baby cheeks and pushed in. Ralsei and Susie looked mildly disturbed at how a cartoon splat noise slowly sounded out as Kris pushed their finger in, and then reversed as they pulled their finger out. As this happened, Lancer kept grinning, barely holding himself together as his prank (?) went off without a hitch. By the end of it, Kris was giving a smile half as wide as Lancer's, which was practically unheard of for the human as far as Susie and Ralsei knew.
"You want to try it with me?" Kris then asked Lancer, leaning down so the little boy could reach their cheeks. Grinning even more now, Lancer poked Kris's stomach. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kris let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain from having a broken hand back in the previous chapter. Lancer unpoked Kris, and the screaming stopped immediately like Kris was a toy that was designed to give children nightmares. The human returned the smile Lancer gave them, before leaving the group entirely. "Okay, I'll go buy us equipment." Kris said.
"Get some food for us too!" Susie shouted, taking a break from her suspicious glares at Lancer's rapport with Kris for her stomachs needs. Kris didn't turn around but raised a thumbs up for the others to see as they left. With Kris's departure, it left Susie, Ralsei, and Lancer all alone for the time being.
Although the three managed to find a bench to sit on, they sat in silence. After several awkward minutes of Susie distrustfully glaring at an oblivious Lancer, Ralsei decided his much more aggressive friend needed a distraction.
"Soooo, Susie." Ralsei got the purple dino's attention, "Was Kris always so… inexplicable?" It was the first thing the prince could really think of. Kris's Kris-like behavior had just always been just one of human's defining qualities, though one had to wonder if they always acted so strangely.
Resting her large head on her hand which in turn was supported by her knee, Susie flicked her eyes over to Ralsei. "I guess? I dunno, they were more just the weird quiet kid back in school. They never talked at all back then. Most of the time they just slumped over their desk and didn't interact with anyone." Susie said nonchalantly. Then, a thought occurred to Susie, making her eyes narrow. "Waaaiiiiiit! Were they just sleeping all through class this whole time!?" She scowled, yet had a note of respect in her voice, "Why the hell did they never get caught, and how were they third best in the class?!"
Lancer tilted his little head in confusion, "Wait, I thought you guys were one big group. Did you and the blue person whose name I know come from somewhere else?"
While Susie stared at Lancer suspiciously, Ralsei gave a nice smile and an explanation, "That's because Kris and Susie are Lightners. They're from a different world. I recruited them so we could fulfill our roles as heroes to save the dark world." The prince paused for a moment as they remembered something.
"Oh." Lancer said, looking somewhat surprised. "I just thought they lived in your basement, and you guys are only out now because now you're all homeless."
"A-nyway!" Ralsei interrupted to take back control of the conversation, "That reminds me. Susie, Kris mentioned that you guys didn't actually know the legend, despite that Kris said you both knew back at the castle… So I thought I should explain the whole reason why we're doing this quest, because it's important and Lancer is here–"
"Dude." Susie interrupted Ralsei with a flat look, having little patience for Ralsei's ramblings, "Just get to the point."
"R-right." Ralsei nodded. He was going to need to keep this simple. "So the first part you need to understand is just some simple rules of magical-space-time structure and the superposition effects of disruptions on our universe from magical-space-time disturbances, simple stuff."
Ralsei then went on a ten-minute rant full of gobbly gook, gizzmo babble, and something about the effective prevention of side fumbling, at least to Susie and Lancer's ears (or not ears considering neither of them had visible ears). Perhaps a nerd like Kris could have understood it, but Susie's brain short circuited at the tsunami sized flood of information. Much like in class, Susie stared off into space, ignoring it all. Idly, she wondered if Kris was having any more fun than she was.
—
Without a fluffy boy, mean girl, or whatever Lancer was to accompany them, Kris walked inside the first open shop they found. It was… strange, even for the dark world. It was like a poorly stitched blanket had protruded itself out of a hole in reality. There was a hole that clearly led into some kind of patchwork area, yet the actual back of the store was completely flat. If it weren't for the sign out front, Kris wouldn't have even guessed it was a shop. Going inside, the human found themselves not in a magical patchwork/blanket land full of pillow people, blanket bovines, and cushion crocodiles, but instead a small area stacked with random items and a large stuffed animal man behind a counter. Bummer.
"Hee hee… welcome traveler." The stuffed animal man said with a toothless smile. His species of stuffed animal was that of a purple cat, though the color was a little vague with all the patchwork done to fix his skin. In fact, he was in a state of disrepair, missing a button eye and several stitched-up tears in his face. His deep, calm voice spoke of his age that was collaborated by his tears and stitches. A light brown coat was draped over his main body, or perhaps it was his body. It wasn't clear to make the distinction. "What is your business in my shop?" he asked with an odd, amused tone, "I certainly hope an outlaw such as yourself doesn't have any malicious intentions… heh heh." Despite his words, his crooked smile showed no fear, only amusement and mild interest in Kris's presence.
With the mention of their outlawed status, Kris paused for a moment to consider their options. However, the human had expected something like this was bound to happen and already had a response ready to go. "We're not outlaws anymore. The Queen's son had us pardoned. He's outside your shop if you want to ask him." Kris countered immediately, "I'm just here for business." The blue knight took out their plastic bag of money and shook the DD inside to emphasize their point. The shopkeeper gave another chuckle at that but didn't grill the human any further.
Unexpectedly, a second laugh joined the shopkeeper's. It was much lighter in tone and yet energetically mad. Kris checked their surroundings but couldn't see any other employees or customers. The shopkeeper didn't comment on it either. With no other clues to the owner of the mad laughter, Kris just started browsing the store's wares instead. There were all sorts of things to look at, though a certain Halloween themed sword caught Kris's eye. However, it was also 200 DD, and Kris had yet to procure any other equipment that their team desperately needed. Even throughout their adventures and visits to many shops of considerably less quality than this establishment, Ralsei still had only one armor out of two and Susie had yet to wear a single piece of armor. If Kris used their dragon blazer's experience here, they desperately needed to get all of the healing and status curing items for when they inevitably would need to kill some god. Not to mention, getting some actual food would be nice too. With this in mind, Kris bought 3 Amber Cards for 300 DD and five Darkburgers for 350 DD, getting one for themselves, Lancer, Ralsei, and two for Susie. Kris had a hunch that Susie might try to eat Lancer if she didn't eat some real food, since she had only eaten the odd Dark Candy they'd found in the woods. Now with 540 DD left, Kris eyed the 200 DD Spooky Sword; however, the shopkeeper spoke up once more.
"If you were planning on feeding those two burgers to your angry, purple friend, perhaps you should see the smith Malius. He has the power to forge those Darkburgers together to make Double Darkburgers. He's at the edge of the market today." the old stuffed animal spoke with a sly smile, his one eye wrinkling with an air of elderly trickery.
"Do the Double Darkburgers heal or taste better?" Kris asked.
"No, they do not." the shopkeeper replied, "But they do save on space and are easier to carry. Not to mention the service is free. That man always cared more about the challenge and the experience of his craft rather than finances. There are very few broken things he won't try to fix."
Kris might have narrowed their eyes at this, though their hair still obscured them from view, so it was hard to tell. However, their next monotone question had an ounce of intrigue in it, "What kind of things will they fix?"
His grinning widening, the shopkeeper answered, "Lots of things. Those Amber Cards you bought are one. Malius can forge together to make Silver Cards that are twice as strong. If you were to buy another set, you could have some good armor for your friends, traveler." The shopkeeper's ancient grin turned rather smug, as his trap was set and sprung on the inexperienced youster.
"Huh." Kris replied, "So you want me to buy double then, just for the chance of using this guy's service."
"He's there." The shopkeeper rested his cotton filled head on one of his purple paws, "And you have the money, so why not?" Not even reluctantly, Kris set down another 300 DD, frankly, impressed at this old salesman. He truly must have been a master at his craft. The human wondered briefly if he was willing to take one to four interns. "Much appreciated." The stuffed animal took the cash and passed Kris three more Amber Cards, "It'll take a bit of time to grill up the burgers. So feel free to make yourself comfortable till they're done, or not if you want to go to Malius, I suppose. Not that it matters." With that the stuffed cat retreated out of sight, going deeper into the shop, leaving Kris to themselves.
"Vee hee hee." Or not, as there was still that strange voice that echoed around the shop. It took Kris a moment to find the source of the manic chuckling in a small bird cage, though the cage oddly had no door to speak of and was totally dark inside, despite the rest of store being well lit up. Suddenly, a pair of pinprick yellow glowing eyes appeared from within the cage's void. "Oh, oh? And what does our little visitor want with me, me?" Yep, this was definitely the owner of the mysterious voice, though not much could be discerned about their appearance besides their eyes. However, the width between said eyes implied a head if not a body much bigger than what could be contained in such a small cage.
Addressing the eyes' question, Kris shrugged in response.
The voice let out another dramatic but short laugh. " Nu-ha! Can't say? Or uninterested? However, I am interested. In you. You were clever, clever. Cheating that Pippin's game. It's been a long time since I've seen something new like that. You must be rather lucky, lucky to have a power like that. Vee hee hee."
"Alright." Kris made a motion to leave the strange cage man to his laughter, but the strange cage man called out.
"Hold, hold! Don't you know not to leave before the show's over? I want to give you something… Vee hee hee." the voice called out, sounding a little more offended by Kris's indifference.
Acutely aware of how the shopkeeper had hooked him into spending more than he had intended to, Kris cautiously asked, "What's the cost?"
From the dark little cage, a row of sharp knife-like teeth appeared with a wide grin. "Vee hee hee, vee hee hee. You must be thinking I'm like my friend or even that pitiful puppet salesman. But I'm different, different! Where they ask for money or favors, I ask nothing in return. All my items are just like me: free, free!"
If it wasn't for their mop of hair blocking their face, Kris might have given a scrutinizing stare at the cage man, "...Are your items death?"
"No." the pinprick eyes answered, "What I offer are some… tricks. They can allow you to exploit some of this world's hidden secrets and even some its… faults. Vee hee hee hee hee. It'll be such fun, fun to watch the chaos you can bring with these."
"That does sound neat." Kris reasoned. The yellow teeth's smile grew wider. "But." Kris held their chin in a thinking pose, "Who even are you?"
"NU-HA!" the caged man barked out a laugh, retreating into the shadows once more so only his eyes could be seen, "Yes, yes. We skipped introductions, haven't we? I am called Jevil, and that shopkeeper you bought from is my friend Seam."
"Wait, so it's pronounced like Sean, but it's a pun?" Kris asked.
"Exactly." Jevil's eyes nodded.
"And you're like a devil… but with a J." Kris concluded. The human stepped back a bit from the cage.
"Vee hee hee. Perhaps, perhaps. But you have nothing to fear from me. I'm only doing this because I pity you."
"Understandable." Kris nodded.
"I am free. I can do anything, and I have everything that I would want. But you, you are trapped in this small cage with everyone else. You are all willful prisoners. Locked in a cage over your entire world, while I alone am free."
"But aren't you in a cage?" Kris asked.
"NU-HA HA. You and the whole dark world are trapped behind these little bars." Jevil answered.
"Makes sense." Kris nodded.
"I pity you, so this is why I'll give you this small charity. It might help you gain your freedom someday… and it will make this world a little more chaotic too." Jevil continued from where he left off. Then without warning, two blue hands grasped the bars from within the cage (or as Jevil would say from outside), and a mischievous blue face slowly crept out of the shadows with a large manic grin. "Vee hee hee. So, so will you accept my gift?"
—
"What do you mean you don't understand?" Ralsei asked, feeling exacerbated. "I already dumbed this down for you twice already."
"Yeah, no Rals." Susie replied, thoroughly uninterested and burnt out by his nerd drivel.
"Yeah, I don't get a thing you're trying to say, toothpaste boy. All this math and science stuff is too complicated for our dumb brains." Lancer nodded in agreement.
"Yeah?" Susie agreed despite feeling like somehow Lancer was insulting the both of them, though she couldn't tell if it was intentional or not.
"Toothpaste boy?" Ralsei whispered to himself before shaking his head. "Whatever. Look, this is really important. The fountain at King's and Queen's castle is endangering the whole world! We need to seal it to bring the world back into balance!" Ralsei said, lightly hammering his fist into his other hand to emphasize his point.
Susie blinked, "Wait, we just got to seal some stupid fountain at Lancer's place? Why the hell didn't you say that in the first place?!"
Lancer gasped, "Oh! Oooh!" The little blue boy was silent for a moment, "I still don't get it."
Susie rolled her eyes at Lancer's slowness, "Your parent's fountain equals bad. So we got to go wreck it, ya bonehead." She then turned her gaze back to Ralsei, "Anyway, so if we go wreck that fountain, will ya finally get over trying to be a hero and whatnot?"
"Yes! I mean no!" Ralsei slapped his face behind the shadows of his hat, "What I'm trying to say is that once we seal this last fountain, our heroic destiny will finally be complete. So you and Kris will be able to return home to the light world if you wish. I should be able to handle everything here… unless another fountain is created…" Ralsei then clapped his hands together to distract anyone who heard that last point. "So anyways! Lancer." Ralsei faced the young blue boy, "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Lancer tilted his head, "Oooh. You guys aren't babysitters… you're a wrecking crew."
"No!" Ralsei palmed himself in exasperation.
"I mean… Yeah? If you think about it?" Susie halfheartedly agreed.
"No, that's not what I was talking about." Ralsei said more firmly, "What I meant was that you should join us, Lancer. With your help, we could get into your parent's castle and get to the fountain easily."
Slapping his baby hands on his baby cheeks, Lancer let out a gasp of excitement. His little baby grin stretched all across his face. "Really?!" he cried out in joy.
"REALLY?!" Susie's head whipped back to Ralsei with a look of anger and shock, unprepared for Rals to invite THE ENEMY to their team.
"Y-yes?" Ralsei meekly replied, shrinking back from the excitement from the both of them.
Lancer was so happy; he completely missed Susie's look of fury directed towards him and the toothpaste boy. "I've always wanted to be as cool and rad as you bad guys!"
"Bad guys?!"/ "Cool?" Ralsei and Susie chorused incredulously.
"Yeah!" Lancer nodded his whittle head ecstatically, "I mean, you guys are so awesome! You constantly fight Lesser Dad, you break the rules, and you even made my Girl Dad run away. Not even my Dad can do that! I want to be just like you guys!"
Both of the two 'heroes' were speechless, only able to blink at the little jack's excitement at the prospect of helping the guys who wanted to break and enter into his home to vandalize it. Susie, however, yet to ease her distrust for the small darkner, quickly crossed her arms and put on a glare. "Why the HELL should we even trust you!" She accused Lancer, "How do we know you aren't trying to trick us?"
Hearing the cool purple one's accusation, Lancer stopped, genuinely stumped to think of an answer. The little blue boy stuck his tongue out, thoughtfully staring into space until he finally came upon an answer. "Because bad guys only betray the good guys! And since we'll all be bad guys, we can hang out and wear monogrammed jackets!" Ralsei and Susie blankly stared at Lancer, dumbfounded by his flawless logic.
"Yeah… you're basically harmless." Susie concluded, finally realizing that the bright baby blue boy was in fact a child. "Fine, you can join us." the purple dino relented, "Just remember, we can and will crush you if you try to shank us in the back." To emphasize her point, Susie gave a great wide smile full of her razor-sharp teeth, while slamming one of her fists into her other palm with an audible smack.
"Wow!" Lancer squealed with glee, "Two seconds into being part of your group, I'm already learning such cool bad guys poses! This is the best day of my life!"
Susie deflated a little from her intimidation failing, shuffling around awkwardly. "Uh, ok?" having one of her former enemies idolizing her was apparently confusing the poor mean girl.
Despite recruiting Lancer to their side, Ralsei was starting to feel uncomfortable about Lancer's insistence that they were 'bad guys'. The dark prince felt a need to correct such a story before it got out of control, "Now, Lancer. We're not the bad guys here–"
"Anyway! I have a question." Lancer unintentionally bulldozed over Ralsei with his unbridled curiosity. "What's our group's name?"
"What?" Ralsei and Susie asked in union.
"You know, every bad guy group has a name! I don't remember you guys ever saying it in some dramatic entrance monologue, or maybe I just missed it…"
Lancer looked to Susie and Ralsei, Susie looked to Ralsei, and Ralsei looked around very awkwardly. "Umm…" Ralsei eloquently started, "We don't have one…"
Lancer gasped in horror at the poor state of the bad guy group he was in, but then gasped with excitement at the opportunities it brought. Susie started wondering if he had breathing problems from all that gasping. "That means we can come up with one right now! Like, we could be the Lancer Fan Club!" Lancer gleefully threw out the first idea that came to him.
"How can you be in your own Fan club?" Ralsei asked, perplexed at the suggestion.
"Nope." Susie said, "Needs to be more threatening. Like… Murder Explosion Gang."
"B-but, I don't think I'm allowed to say those words." Lancer looked rather dejected at not being able to shout out such a cool name, especially in front of his parents.
Saying nothing, Ralsei let out a sigh, though he personally agreed with Lancer's opposition with Susie's name. He had wanted to discuss other things, but it seemed like they would be stuck on this for a while (though as he thought about it, having a good name could really help people think they were heroes). Ralsei could only hope Kris was at least doing something productive.
—
"What." Kris said. Not asked, said. They somehow spoke sharply, while still speaking with a monotone voice. It was the kind of voice that just screamed: 'Explain what you just said to me before I hurt you.'
"As I already told you, it can't be fixed." Malius the blacksmith answered again. He was a pink darkner with yellow eyes, wearing a green and purple coat. His head was a hammer, literally. He made good use of it, smashing it into all of the items Kris brought to fuse them together, causing his head to squeak each time. Well, every item except Kris's broken sword: the shattered sword the human had bought from Spamton back in chapter two.
"You said you can fix anything." Kris responded. The words were spoken so intensely monotone that they somehow came out threatening.
"There are some things I cannot fix." the hammer man replied, sounding genuinely sorry.
Kris stood still for a while in silence, perhaps glaring at the blacksmith despite their hair always being in the way before speaking again. Kris crossed their arms, "It's broken. You fix broken stuff. How can you not fix it?"
Perhap having his temper run short, Malius grabbed a few of the sword shards and showed them to the 'Karen' badgering him. "This shard glitched to be too big for the rest. This one is missing its textures. This one has anti-gravity. These two are no-clipping through each other, need I go on? I can fix things that are broken, but I cannot fix these horrible, cursed glitches. I promise you; I will strive to better my skills so I can fix even this. But I cannot do this now."
"I'm going to go buy some more stuff. After that, I'm going to have Lancer shut you down for false advertising." Kris said. Malius sighed.
—
After doing pretty much all their shopping, Kris headed back to the group with the goods. The sight the human beheld wasn't exactly what they had expected to see. "Oh! Oooh!" Ralsei excitedly sat up with inspiration, "How about the Delta Warriors!"
Huddled with Ralsei in a triangle at the table bench, Lancer and Susie looked more skeptical at the suggestion. "I like this one better than the 'The legend heroes of harold fun and friends' or whatever. This one's better; I like the warriors stuff." Susie gave some positives to make Ralsei before breaking it down, "But… What the hell is a delta?" Lancer nodded along, since he agreed with Susie but mainly because nodding felt nice.
Ralsei shrunk down at the mild criticism, "Uh, you know. It's delta from Deltarune, like from the prophecy? Also the symbol plastered all over my house… Also, it's a formation in a river as well as a Greek letter…"
"I have no idea what any of the things you said are." Lancer said as he nodded his head ceaselessly.
"Yep, Nope to all that." Susie said with slightly more tact than she usually had, "We ain't naming ourselves after rivers, and making our team's name about your house makes just as much sense as the Lancer Fan Club." Ralsei hung his head low, as another of his names was rejected. At least, he wasn't the only one who wasn't having much luck.
"Ho ho HO! How about the Elite Four! There's four of us, and Lesser Dad said the other word once." Lancer suggested, but Ralsei shook his head.
"I think we might get sued over that one. It's already taken." the dark prince regretfully informed Lancer, who squished down a bit. The prince looked over to Susie, whose turn was next.
Slamming down her fist on the table (incidentally shattering one of its planks), Susie delivered her next one quickly, "I got the perfect one! The $!$? Squad!" The purple dino gave a viciously excited grin at her hard thought up name, which unfortunately had to be censored into a bunch of symbols since Toby never told us what it actually says.
"Wow." Lancer said, "That's a tier two swear word. I don't think I can ever say that."
Ralsei looked equally concerned, "Susie, can we just have our name that doesn't have swears?"
"I don't know. Sounds cool to me." Kris said. The three others nearly jumped out of their seats, as Kris had taken the time to sit down with them as they were distracted coming up with names.
"Oh! Kris!" Ralsei composed himself quickly, "You should have said something. We were just brainstorming team names. It's surprisingly a lotta fun! Do you have any ideas?"
Kris took a moment of resting their chin on his palm before speaking again. "Since we've been guarding Lancer, why not the Lancer Fan Club?" Susie and Ralsei threw their hands up in the air, as the Lancer's Fan Club name made its return.
"Sorry Blue person! I've already joined your party, so that name won't work anymore as Toothpaste boy and Susie told me!" Lancer helpfully informed the human.
Kris tilted their head like a confused dog, "Weren't you always in our group after your mom ditched you?"
After hearing Kris's assertion, the three others looked at each other. Neither one was sure where Kris got that idea. "Well." Ralsei tried to redirect the conversation to something more productive, "It doesn't really matter since he's officially a part of the group. Anyway! How was your trip, Kris? Did you manage to get us more armor and items?"
"Hmm. Aside from lunch, I only got 1 dark candy for our adventure, three new armors, and a cool new sword." Kris casually informed the rest of the gang, "Bad news is that I spent every last DD buying this stuff. But at least, we got actual food. Catch." The human tossed over two very large burgers to Susie and Ralsei, pulling out a much smaller burger for themself.
"Do I not get a burger?" Lancer asked, looking a little confused at the lack of food being tossed at their face.
"And why is mine so big? I don't think I can eat all of this…" Ralsei uneasily held his monstrous burger.
"THIS IS AWESOME!" Susie delightfully began digging in.
"It's simple Ralsei." Kris said in between bites, "I forged yours and Lancer's burgers together. So just share it with him."
"Why?" Ralsei asked, "Why didn't you combine them if you wanted us to split it up later?"
"It saved on inventory space for the minute I had to carry them." Kris answered, as if that justified everything.
"Oh boy! That means we can just eat it together! I can take one side and you can eat the other, and nothing else will happen as we eat it at the same time!" Lancer joyfully suggested.
For a variety of health and sanitary concerns, Ralsei declined the offer, "How about we just split the burger apart?" Without another word, Kris got up from where they sat, and swung their newly bought spooky sword to bisect the burger in two. An accompanying 'Oooo' followed the two Dark burger's divorce to add to the spookiness.
Ralsei stared blankly as the big burger was split in half, though one of the pieces fell on the ground as the prince had his hands on only one of the pieces. Lancer still picked it up and began eating it anyway. Ralsei just decided to avert his eyes from the obvious health concern and tried to get the conversation back on topic. "So about those team names, I think I got another one: The Fun Gang! What do you guys, think?"
"Oh! I love it, I always wanted to be in a gang!" Lancer delightfully clapped.
Susie looked less enthused, "I don't know… I like the punchiness of it I guess, but I wish it was more… badass." Everyone else turned to Kris, awaiting their reaction.
Kris was silent for a while, not giving any indication of what they were thinking, before suddenly announcing, "Nah."
Ralsei blinked, "Any reason why?" Kris shrugged.
Putting a hand over her eyes, Susie groaned, "And that's a tie, so I don't know what that means... Whatever. Kris, you got anything?"
"Actually, there was one more thing about the shopping trip." Kris mentioned, diverting from the naming topic suddenly "There was this weird guy in the shop I went to. He offered this free thing to me, but I didn't take it since you guys got mad about the whole Spa–"
Slamming her hand on the bench, Susie looked at Kris incredulously, "You passed up free stuff!? First rule of shopping trips Kris, always take all the free stuff. You never know when you're going to get banned from it, so you got to take as much stuff as possible!" The purple dino clearly didn't care about listening to whatever concerns Kris may or may not have had, as it was free stuff.
Kris shrugged, "Alright. We can head back there and get it, and head back on the road to do whatever we were doing."
—
After eating their lunch and then getting Jevil's gift, the four of them had gotten caught up in a card game with Jevil and Seam, which had certainly been rather chaotic. However, the group had finally started heading over to Lancer's castle or something. Kris had missed some details, after staring out in space when Ralsei had tried to explain it all in the most brain death boring way possible. Susie had said something about wrecking a fountain, which was… certainly something. Kris was kind of expecting to fight a dragon or something before moving on to kill god, but vandalism was fine. It wasn't like any of this mattered anyway.
None of this was real after all.
Kris wasn't exactly sure whether this experience was some kind of dream, hallucination, purgatory, or hell. Whatever it was, it certainly felt real on the surface. Kris could breathe, feel their limbs, and even pain from when they got hit. But all this: Having their skin be blue, Dark Worlds, magic, inanimate objects being alive, darkners, quests, resetting time, healing items, armor, etc… all of this belonged in a video game or story, not real life.
Not that this experience wasn't nice. On the contrary, Kris had been having a lot of fun. They were in a world without consequences, where they could act however they wanted. They didn't need to worry about keeping up appearances, going to school, eating consistently, sleeping, or even having to continue living their sad excuse of a life! It was liberating.
It still sucked that Asriel wasn't here, but Kris was used to that feeling ever since he had to go to college and make his future. At least, Kris had Susie to keep them company. Sure, she probably wasn't real either, but it was still fun being wild delinquents with a fake her. Now if only Noelle could see this place, she would probably love this place with its adventures and no rules, kinda like how it was when they were kids. Kris knew it wouldn't happen, but the little wish didn't really matter either way. The thought did make Kris wonder what Noelle was up to right now though. With how she lived her life now, probably being just fine without them.
—
Despite what a certain blue human thought, Noelle was NOT fine. She was quite the OPPOSITE of fine. She was so far from fine she didn't even know what she was anymore. A fitting feeling, considering how she had NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON!
"Noelle, sweetie pie. If you keep gawking like that, you'll won't make it to my sick training ground." The female humanoid looking robot who introduced herself as Queen said, "I know I kidnapped you and that other guy from your friends and family, but I took your blinking as a sign of consent for my minion form so that means you must do whatever I tell you as your new master~. So come along deer, I need to show off how cool my new minions are to the whole Dark World~." Red letters saying 'POG' flashed on her facial visor, as she let out a laugh.
The girl was a deer in headlights, literally. She was frozen, as she stood in a brand crazy, magical world, separated from the boring, consistent world she once knew. Apparently now she was some robot's slave.
Noelle was the absolute farthest thing from fine.
Stats
Ranks:
Kris: *Karen: LV1*
Susie: *Lancer Accepter: LV1*
Ralsei: *Worst Explainer: LV1*
Equipment:
Kris: Spooky Sword, Frayed Boetie x2
Susie: Mane Axe, Silver Card x2
Ralsei: Red Scarf, Frayed Boetie, Silver Card
Items: Cell Phone, Wrist Protector, Thorn Ring, Egg, x4, Egg, Dark Candy, Broken Sword, Empty Disk.
Money: 120534&2^0112* 01997 Kromer, 0 DD (And they're perfectly broke again, damn it)
Author's Note: Thanks for reading Ch 5 of THS. This was a bit of different chapter with the characters going back to an old location, not fight anyone, and the story line with split between Susie and Ralsei hanging out with Lancer and Kris shopping. It was more of a chapter that set up some stuff up. We also got to see more of Kris's perspective on this whole story, which I'm sure is very healthy and totally not going to cause problems down the line.
As for the new characters, I've been waiting to introduce the three in this chapter for a long time, and I'm excited for what I can do with them in the future. But for those Jevil and Seam stans who wished for more scenes with them, fear not! I wrote a short side story about them interacting with the trio plus one in a children's card game. Enjoy.
And most of all, thanks for reading my little story.
Card Game Special Chapter
Susie stared at her recently dealt cards, not exactly sure how this game of 'Uno' was meant to go, considering the fact she'd never played it before. Ralsei had mentioned it was a game about getting rid of all your cards to win. Susie didn't understand why she couldn't just throw all the cards away, but there was a lot she didn't understand about this situation. They were in a weird fabric shop–not a shop that sells fabric but a shop made of fabric–with the shopkeeper and his friend, who was kept in a cage for some reason, playing them in a card game.
"Uh, are you sure you guys shuffled this deck correctly?" Ralsei asked, looking completely flabbergasted at his cards.
"Positive." Seam nodded, giving the dark prince a sly smile. "Having trouble with your cards, young man?" The stuffed cat asked cheekily.
"Maybe?" Ralsei said/asked before frowning. Flipping one of his cards over to show everyone, "Like, why do I have a Basic Bulbasaur with 60 HP? How am I even supposed to use this? I thought we were playing Uno." Indeed, it was as the fluffy prince had said, but Lancer quickly shot out a spade bullet to force the prince to hide his card again.
"You can't do that toothpaste boy!" Lancer admonished the prince, "You can't show everyone else your cards; you're giving them a big advantage!" True to his words, Seam, the man in the cage, and Kris had been scrutinizing Ralsei's exposed card.
"Vee hee hee, with that card, the little prince prince will win unless we all have a Pokémon to counter it!" The yellow pin prick eyes laughed sinisterly, "Too bad it's already too late! On my first draw, I have all five pieces of Exodia! I win win!" The eyes laughed maniacally, with a blue hand showing five cards that were apparently the piece of Exodia. Ralsei still had no idea what the hell it was, or why you won when you had all five.
"Not so fast, old friend." Seam countered before showing five of his cards, "I thought you might try this, so I too drew the five pieces of Exodia. It's a tie between us."
"Why did you say it like that?" Susie asked skeptically, feeling like their two hosts had pulled a fast one over the four of them.
"Well, well!" Seam's friend continued his manic giggling, "Did anyone else draw Exodia the Forbidden one, or something to counter it? If not, I'm afraid you all lose!" Kris, Susie, and Ralsei looked uneasily at their cards, but Lancer did not.
"Nope." the little blue boy said, smacking down a card that said the same name.
"I see, you used one of your nope cards. Not a bad move. Seems you take more after the Queen than the King in cleverness…" Seam stroked his worn fluff, "So which Exodia win do you 'nope'? Keep in mind, this will only mean the other will win. Choose wisely."
"I'll play with you more if you nope Seam's!" The man in the cage tried to sway Lancer to his side, "Don't be a big grump like your various dads!"
"Nope." Lancer said, slapping down another nope card, thus canceling out both Exodias and forcing both players to discard the cards to their graveyards. Both of them didn't seem all that bothered by the play, as both chuckled with various degrees of insanity.
Now having another chance to win, Susie gave the Jack a satisfied grin, "Nice! That'll teach their cheating asses!" Lancer returned the smile with the nastiest smile he could; Susie snorted as the little boy started scrunching his face weirdly.
"I'll take my first turn then." Seam said, drawing a card. The old stuffed cat carefully stared at his card, before setting it down again. Surprisingly, it was an actual Uno card: the skip card. "I'll play this card to skip the prince's turn. Not much else I can do. Heh heh." Ralsei let out a sigh of relief. He had no idea what he was even going on anymore, even if he strategically lost a turn. At least, he couldn't be embarrassing himself.
"Well then, I'll draw the first green card." Kris stated, drawing a green apple card from the pile, "The first word is Spooky: scary, weird, ghostly." The human said, before repeating the word with its synonyms again for clarity.
"What?" Ralsei, as he had been for the last few plays, was completely lost at what was going on anymore.
"You need to give one card to Kris that best represents something Spooky, along with everyone else. Then they'll choose one of the cards, and reward the player with one of the seven green apple cards you need to win." Seam dutifully explained, "Unfortunately for my friend and I, we'll have no cards to give, so I suppose we can't participate, but you'll get to draw again if you give a card. So there isn't much lost for you."
"O-o- okay?" Ralsei said, still completely lost as Lancer in most places that aren't a straight path. However, the prince still handed one of the scarier Pokémon he had in his hand to Kris, as Susie and Lancer passed one card as well. Ralsei had hoped that his next draw would give him a card from Uno, but no. It was another Pokémon card. Ralsei didn't know what to even do with these, nor that these cards even had a game associated with them. He had just assumed they were like baseball cards, and people kept them to remind themselves of their favorites. Ralsei personally liked Wooloo and had its card back at his castle; they were really nice to pet.
While Ralsei was distracted from the game, Kris diligently considered each of the three cards they had been given: A red nine, A basic Darkrai card with 110 HP, and a Tacocat. Kris stared up at their friends, "Guys, these cards suck."
"B- but, it's a ghost Pokémon! It's literally ghostly!" Ralsei protested, snapping back to the game. Kris made another hum of consideration as they stared at Ralsei's card for a bit.
"Nope, it's too cute." Kris eventually decided, tossing the card to the discard pile. Ralsei let his mouth gape at this lack of logic from his unreadable friend. Kris looked at the last remaining cards, unsure what to choose. The red nine wasn't spooky, but Tacocat was even less so. In fact, it was really bad. Kris showed the card to Lancer, "Really? This was the spookiest card you had?"
Lancer gave Kris a wide grin, "Nope, it isn't. But if you think about it, isn't it kind of funny how not spooky it is?" Kris paused and considered the argument.
"Heh." Kris let out a sound of humor, before tossing the coveted green apple card to Lancer, much to Ralsei's eternal confusion.
Despite losing the green card, Susie shrugged with indifference, "Welp. At least I lost a card. Now I just need to get rid of all the rest!" The purple dino grinned at her uno cards, as her 'plan' came together.
"Susie, you should have the same number of cards, since you had to draw another card." Ralsei pointed out. After some pointed looks from everyone else, Susie reluctantly drew another card. Her attempt to cheat had failed spectacularly.
With Lancer having one of the seven green cards to win, the game continued on, with the man in the cage going next. He didn't have a hand, only able to use one card that he drew now. Yet the imprisoned man began madly chuckling after looking at his first card. "I play Graceful Charity!" Seam's friend loudly declared, "This allows me to draw three more cards but I'll have to discard two of the cards I draw!" The man did so, but his grin and laughter didn't cease, "Vee hee hee. Now I discard two Broww, Huntsman of the Dark World, thus activating their effects so I can draw two more cards, cards! And what did I draw here, but two Pot of Greeds! THUS ALLOWING ME TO DRAW FOUR MORE CARDS! NU-HA!"
Seam gave a skeptical look to his friend, "Wait, ain't some of those cards banned? You can't use them anymore."
"I can do anything!" his friend shot back, causing Seam's button eye to roll with mild annoyance.
"OH! So that fucker is just cheating!" Susie snarled, giving the caged man a mean glare.
"I'm not doing anything Yugi Muto wouldn't do!" the imprisoned man laughed, "Anyway, I drew all five pieces of Exodia, again again! Nu-HA!" The little man chortled as he showed yet another set of the five pieces of the forbidden one. Susie almost flipped their table in frustration, while Kris leaned back in their chair in defeat.
"Nope." Lancer happily said, slapping down a third nope card. The table was silent as all of them stared at the little blue boy in shock. The imprisoned man broke the silence first, breaking out in the loudest bout of insane laughter yet as he had to discard his hand once more.
Susie slapped Lancer on the back with a wild grin, "Awesome man! We're back in the game." Lancer brightened at the praise, and Susie ruffled his little pointy head. "By the by, how many of those 'nope' cards do you have left anyway?" Susie followed up her praise with a reasonable question, considering the chance another Exodia could show up.
"Zero, my scary friend who is a girl." Lancer said with what he hoped was a cool smile.
Instead of being upset, Susie gave him a determined grin, "Well I better get you some more cards, with my WILD DRAW 4 card!" Susie slapped the card down, making the next player, Lancer, draw four more random cards. Lancer let out an evil laugh, which strangely sounded like a baby Santa Claus. Then the Jack drew out his first card, and then paused with a worried look.
"What's up?" Susie asked.
"I drew an exploding kitten." Lancer gulped.
"A what?" Ralsei looked positively horrified at the name.
"If the King's son doesn't defuse the kitten, he'll automatically lose." Seam explained to Ralsei.
"Which means we'll all have a better chance of winning, since he has that green card." Kris nodded.
"No!" Susie looked actually distressed at the little boy's plight, "You can defuse it, right?!"
To the dino's relief, Lancer gave a thumbs up, "Yep, I still have one defuse card. So I can discard it to defeat that no good kitty!" The Jack threw the two cards in the discard pile. With the danger averted, Lancer went to draw his next four cards. His face fell, "Uh oh."
They were all exploding kittens.
"Ah good, I can't have that little kid ruining my turn." Seam said rather deviously.
"LANCER! NO!" Susie cried out, as the little boy discarded all his cards in defeat. The three exploding kittens cards making little explosions as they hit the discard pile. The poor little blue boy was forced to watch the rest of the game in shame of being the first one out.
"Now then, I believe that means it's my turn again." Seam said with a wizen smile, "And lucky me. My first card is Cup of Ace, meaning if I get heads in a coin flip, I get two more cards." And of course, when the old cat flipped the coin it was indeed heads, earning him two more cards. "The next card I'll play is Pot of Avarice, allowing me to put all my five pieces of Exodia back into my deck, so I can draw two more cards." Now with three cards in his hand, Seam continued his chain, "Next, I'll play Magical Stone Excavation, which means I must discard my Silva, Warlord of the Dark World, and Goldd Wu-lord of the Dark World to the graveyard, which activates both of their effects, special summoning them to my field in attack position."
"Are you done already?!" Susie gave a snarky tint to her question as the old man somehow summoned a bunch of monsters in one turn.
The old shopkeeper ignored the comment, continuing his one turn combo, "Then from Magical Stone Excavation's effect, I can get one spell card back from the graveyard, and I choose Cup of Ace, and play it again." The old cat tossed his coin back up in the air again, but before he could do anything as Susie snatched it out of the air.
"Yeah, no. I'm onto you two." Susie glared at the shop keeper and his friend, "You guys have been cheating this whole time so you can do these stupid long combos. I bet you even rigged the last coin flip. Kris, you flip it." With a smug smile, the dino handed the human the coin, who promptly flipped it.
"It's heads." Kris said.
Susie's smug smile faded into a scowl, shooting a harsh look at the two cheaters.
"Actually, that one was a fair flip." The imprisoned man admitted, "Sometimes they just land heads." Returning Susie's previous smile with a smug smile of his own, Seam drew his two cards as the dino growled.
"Anyway, I play Card Destruction, so everyone must discard all our cards, and redraw the same number of cards." Seam continued on, sending his last card to the graveyard.
"Wait, since I lost all my cards for a moment, doesn't that mean that I won?" Susie asked, still hoping for a chance to win this before the cheating old man finished his turn.
"No, you didn't say Uno." Seam and Jevil replied simultaneously, which made Susie grumble and growl at how unfair this all was.
When everyone was done redrawing all their cards, Seam kept his chain going, "Anyway, since I discarded Beiige, Vanguard of the Dark World, he gets special summoned to the field thanks to his effect, and I normal summon my last monster Gene-Warped WarWolf who is not of the Dark World, but it was hard to keep that theme running anyway. All together they all have exactly 8000 worth of attack points, more than enough to wipe a player out of this game." Seam eyed each and everyone of them with a mischievous smile, as he had the power to take any one of them out. "Eni, mini, mani, YOU." The old man locked eyes on his supposed friend, taking out all of his life points before anyone else. The friend didn't seem all that bothered, as a manic smile of yellow teeth came into view as it gave a dark chuckle.
"S-so, is it my turn, or are you gonna keep going?" Ralsei asked the stuffed cat.
"It's your turn my boy. You can draw, and set down a Pokémon to battle if you have any." Seam answered with a knowing smile on his face.
"Oh, ok!" Ralsei nodded, setting down a different basic Bulbasaur card that had 70 HP, "Good thing I still had one left. Now what?"
Seemingly having a hard time believing the Bulbasaur existed, Seam blinked at the card, "What?!" For the first time, the old cat seemed genuinely surprised at this turn of events.
"It means you, naïve prince, win win!" the caged man crowed with delight.
"I do?!" Ralsei blinked in shock at having one so easily.
"WHAT!?" Susie was as shocked as the prince for similar reasons, but also that this game of Uno had ended before she could play another one of her cards.
Seam groaned into his hand, "Since no one else has any Pokémon to play, it means we all have run out of Pokémon to battle with; therefore, the prince wins by default." The old cat gave a petty side eye toward his friend, "Though I assume you had something to do with why the prince actually drew another Pokémon after I can make all his previous hand get discarded, didn't you old friend?"
"If I can't win, then you won't either! Nu-ha!" said the old friend was laughing himself into stitches.
"Well, I'm glad this game's all over. I had no idea what we were even playing, like I'm pretty sure Seam should have won by getting rid of his last uno card, but..." Ralsei said standing up from the table, "... Thanks I guess for letting us play together anyway. It was fun."
Susie was much less polite, "Get out of here, you cheating jerks."
Kris said nothing.
The shop keeper, perhaps still bitter about his loss, grumpily grunted, taking the cage that contained his friend and retreating further into the strange shop.
Once the two had left the room, Susie crossed her arms, "Who even were those guys anyway? How did they even do all that cheating?"
"Ooh, I know this one!" Lancer happily said as he remembered something.
"Really? Could you inform us?" Ralsei asked, his interest piqued.
"Oh, I remembered my Dad told me about them. They used to serve him as his Magician and Joker. But the jokey guy got real cray cray one day, then did some really really bad stuff. So my Dad ordered the other guy to lock him up."
"What did he do?" Kris asked.
"My Dad said he'll tell me when I'm older." Lancer replied looking a little uncomfortable, "He said it was a topic for big, brave kids. But I think Dad mentioned something about him cursing the castle to be permanently monochrome."
While this explanation seemed to satisfy Kris, Ralsei still looked a little concerned, "You said Seam used to work for your Dad, should we have to worry about him… reporting back to him?"
"Well, you're being a silly Toothpaste boy." Lancer brushed the fluffy boy's concern off, "Everybody knows he's retired."
Susie looked skeptical, "Really? He used to order him around, but now the guy's just free?"
Lancer nodded his little head, "Yep! My Dad said he retired after locking up the other guy. He said something like 'I'm retiring', and my Dad was like 'No you don't!', and he was like 'Then I'll let him out.' So now my Dad pays for his retirement and it's illegal for anyone to mess with him."
Kris, Susie, and Ralsei stared at Lancer, as a very uncomfortable silence filled the room. "We should get back on the road." Ralsei suddenly decided, no one else disagreed.
Yes, I do play Yugioh, and I loved writing every single word of this.
