Three Heroes or Something

by SkyWatcher3

Kris, Susie, and Ralsei embark on a quest to save the Dark World! ...Eventually... as soon as they get some money... and some equipment... and as soon as they stop getting side tracked. But they'll prove themselves as the three heroes of the Dark World... probably.

7. Chapter 6: The Showdown

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 x2, Dark Candy x2, Broken Sword, Empty Disk.

Money: 90400^0020011&0900)01 Kromer, 0 DD (Well well, they're all broke, son)

After defeating Sōsuke Aizen from Bleach in a high stakes four-way game of Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth-Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker, with L from Death Note and Yami Yugi from Yugioh, our three 'heroes' were walking with Lancer through the usual scarlet forests during their adventures. They were on a quest to go to Lancer's house, both to help him get back home but also to seal the fountain threatening the whole dark world. With Lancer's 'house' being visible over the treetops, one might imagine that the four of them were in a heated discussion on the best course of action to get into said 'house'. But no. What they were talking about was slightly more important.

"Look Rals, this is an invention." Susie gave her friend her most serious look she could muster. It was clear to the fluffy boy needed some help, and unfortunately, he had her, but for him Susie would try her best.

"First, it's pronounced intervention." Ralsei, who was stressed to the point of dropping his usual friendly and patient demeanor, interjected with a frown and an upset look, "Second, WE ARE NOT BECOMING VILLAINS!"

"Why not?" Kris shrugged, "You made us be heroes for one mission already. We should change it up this time."

Ralsei palmed himself in the face as ever-growing frustration made his voice rather not so nice, "This isn't a game, guys. We NEED to be heroes and save the dark world, or else we could all DIE."

"Yeah, and this is your problem right there." Susie pointed out, "You just have this big need to be seen as a hero dude, and every time this happens you just freak out, like back at that hotel. You gotta stop dude."

"If we stop, the whole dark world will be DOOMED!" Ralsei shouted out, his frustration finally erupting. In the back of the prince's mind, he could appreciate that Susie was concerned for his mental health, but he wouldn't be stressed if they just took this seriously!

"Nope." Susie countered immediately, "If we don't destroy Lancer's girldad's fountain, the dark world gets wrecked or whatever. Dude, we can still destroy that fountain while we mess around with Lancer at his place as bad guys."

"Villains are a lot better at doing vandalism than heroes." Kris added.

"Plus, bad guys are way cooler than good guys." Lancer chirped with a big, totes nasty grin.

"I– you— …" Ralsei garbled out a few words; however, they weren't technically wrong in theory. As long as the dark fountain around the King and Queen's castle was sealed, the world would be safe no matter who did the deed.

"Plus we kinda suck at being heroes." Kris said.

"N-no, we aren't t-that–" Ralsei tried to argue, but what was cut off by Susie.

"Yeah, Kris is right. They just suck at being a hero, and I'm me." Susie pointed at the prince, "And you Ralsei, I don't mean to be rude, but you ain't that great at being a hero. Remember when you blew up that guy's oven? You just kinda freak out about this hero stuff until it blows up in your face."

Lancer gave a thoughtful expression only a four year old sniffing crayola markers could, "Maybe the reason you guys suck at being good guys, is that you were always meant to be bad guys! So like I was saying, we should all just be in one big bad guy group!"

Kris took up a similar thinking position as Lancer, "If you think about it, maybe we were always bad guys. Our whole goal was to destroy government's property for politics. We're basically terrorists."

Ralsei buried his face into his fluffy hands, seeing this conversation going only further south if he kept talking. "Can we… just move onto something else? I don't want to talk about this…"

"Great!" Lancer cheered like he had solved world peace, "Now that Ralsei swore allegiance to destroying all good guys in the world, we are now finally four bad guys that still don't have a team name!"

"HEY" Susie flipped around to Lancer with a comically loud smack, "If Kris wouldn't keep tying the vote each time, we would have one by now."

Kris shrugged at Susie's accusatory glare.

With the increase in volume, Ralsei tried burying his face further into his hands, perhaps trying to escape his friends' stupidity by going to the mythical 'hand world', but it remained just out of reach from our mortal grasp. However, the prince did find the will to change the topic once more. "So Kris." Ralsei went for the first topic he could think of, "Did you figure out what that cool prize you won back at the market does?" Thankfully, this time the team with a name that had yet to be decided quieted down to hear what Kris had to say. The human flipped out the wrist protector out of their pocket, seemingly staring at it through their dark hair.

"I have no idea." Kris said with a completely disinterested tone of voice. Said item was a watch-like device. It had no obvious chronometry capabilities; however, there was a button where the clock dial should be.

Seeing a chance to help their strangest friend, Ralsei gave the human a big, warm smile "Well, why don't—"

*Click*

Kris pressed the button.

Susie gave a strange stare at the prince, "... Don't?—"

*Click*

Kris tried pressing the button again. Since it didn't seem to do anything, the human just did nothing. Perhaps they were staring at the watch, perhaps they were just thinking, perhaps they had a brain fart. We'll never know.

This time Ralsei gave Susie a weird look. Looking a little uncomfortable, the prince tried Susie to clarify her opposition to his suggestion, "Um. You don't want to test out the item's abilities, Susie?"

The purple dino shook her head, "What? No, why did you just cut off like that?"
Looking very confused,Ralsei cocked his head to the side, "I could say the same thing about you."

Standing between both of them, Lancer was horribly lost in this weird situation. "But both of you stopped talking… This is more confusing than Lesser Dad's talk on helminthology." So the little boy did what all little boys do in this situation: space out. This time, Lancer decided to wonder about the great question: 'what if we all lived upside down?'.

Unlike Lancer, Susie, and Ralsei, one person in the group managed to figure out what was going on. Kris nodded to themselves, before rapidly spamming down the button on the wrist protector.

*Click*

*Click*

"—" Ralsei asked Kris with a concerned expression

*Click*

Since he was ignored, Ralsei tried to be a little more direct, "—"

*Click*

*Click*

"—" Susie narrowed her eyes as a thought occurred to her.

*Click*

"—" Ralsei, starting to realize what was going on, tried asking Kris more nicely.

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

"—" Susie wacked Kris over the head, and ripped the stupid device off Kris. "No more of that… thing." Susie spat, shoving it into her pocket. Kris made a whining sound like a dog as their new toy was stolen. However, they received little sympathy from everyone else.

"Kris…" Ralsei began with a reasonable tone of voice, "I know we let you carry most of our stuff and all, but there are some things you just shouldn't have. That is one of them." The prince just hoped Kris wouldn't start acting all stubborn about this. Thankfully, Kris just looked ahead.

"I still have no idea what is going on." Lancer nodded to himself, before continuing his spacing out jam. One might call it: a space jam.

Despite having their cool new toy taken away, Kris resumed their usual neutral stance, before halting suddenly. "Hey guys?" Kris asked.

"What is it, Kris?" Ralsei turned to Kris, along with everyone else.

"Back when I was shopping, did you guys ever plan for what to do once we get into Lancer's place?" Kris continued.

Ralsei stared at Susie, who shrugged. "I guess not, Kris. Why do you ask?" The prince gave his friend his full undivided attention.

"I think we're here." Kris answered, pointing ahead. Not too far from where the group stood, a large tower(s) stood. Perhaps it might have been one singular tower once, but now the structure was evenly divided down the middle with at least a foot of space between the two halves. One tower was black and white to an unnatural degree. There wasn't a spec of other colors on the castle's black walls. There were four stone murals that represented every suit in a pack of playing cards; however, the castle showed a clear preference towards spades. While there was a mural for each suit, there was a second much larger spade painted over the entrance to that tower on the left, and the card order was vertical with Spades on top of every other suit. The left entrance was strange too, looking almost like a grin with the gate acting as the teeth. Combine that with the giant spade above, the entrance almost resembled Lancer's face. It looked much more sinister somehow. The right tower looked completely different in every way. Instead of the bleak monochrome castle to the left, it was bright, dazzling, and colorful. Literally. Okay, having the entire building being a nice shade of blue wasn't that much more colorful than black and white, but it was easier on the eyes. The red neon sign over the entrance proudly spelling 'Queen's' also gave some much needed color to the building, as well as helpfully said which one was Queen's. Although one could have deduced it was Queen's side building from its entrance as it was just straight up built to resemble Queen's face with the exception of how the face's top ended with five spikey points, which made the face kinda resemble Lancer in a strange way. The entrance also was explicitly through the face's mouth, with a red carpet being rolled all the way to where the group stood like it was a tongue. Apparently Queen was into vore or maybe she just found it funny. It was hard to tell with her.

The final thing to note about the split building(s) was what was behind it. On the right side, there was a bright and bustling city, of tall, brightly lit buildings (none taller than Queen's tower of course), as well as large freeways going between the buildings, two ferris wheels for some reason, and finally a green grid that hung in the sky. On the left, the ground was practically barren in comparison, only having the constant red forests the gang had been traveling through populating the land. Even the path leading up to the castle was interesting, with the red carpet splitting off to meet several different entrances (perhaps the face had a multi-forked tongue?), and even covered up a worn dirt road that led to the left entrance.

The group stared at the tower structure(s) that loomed over them. "Ah, right." Ralsei nodded as he looked on with some mild dread but only slightly wavering determination, "...Yeah, we did not do that. But we're all ears Kris if you got a plan."

Kris's head turned in Ralsei's direction as the prince dumped all the planning responsibility to them once again. Saying nothing, Kris kept their head in Ralsei's direction for an uncomfortable amount of time. After waiting for the prince to uneasily scratch his shadowy cheeks, Kris shifted their attention to the blue boy beside them, "Lancer. Go in front. If we see a guard, just do your thing."

Snapping out of his Space Jam, Lancer gave an evil grin and 'ho ho ho' loudly, "Alright blue person! Let's… go in." Lancer said the last two words in a super serious voice (or at least as serious as a toddler could speak), before dramatically slow walking to Queen's entrance while giving an action movie hero smile.

Susie scooped up the blue boy over her shoulder and started walking at a reasonable pace, nearly leaving Kris and Ralsei to run behind her. "Yeah, no. Don't need to drag this out." She growled impatiently. At Susie speed, the gang quickly made their way through the right front door, being vored by the giant not-Queen head. It led to a long teal hallway, and after going past a statue of a robot with 99 on its body encased in solid ice the trio and their plus one arrived in a blue welcoming hall. There was a large statue of female legs that somewhat resembled the Queen, with two stairways on either side. Not to mention there was a welcoming desk, with a finely dressed birdman attending, even though it looked like the darkner should have been bench pressing steel beams rather than working a simple desk job with its massive arms.

After Susie set the blue ball of joy down, Lancer waddled up to the front desk and stared up at the darkner. "THIS IS A ROBBERY! WE'RE AN EVIL VILLAIN GROUP AND WE'RE HERE TO OVERTHROW MY GIRL DAD!" Lancer screamed at the top of his lungs. He must have been trying to do a Susie impression to seem scarier. With how the Swatchling looked down at him with surprise, it seemed like his journey to being as intimidating as Susie would be a long one. On the other hand, Kris was face-palming themselves as Susie brought out her axe with a vicious grin and Ralsei reluctantly readied his scarf.

"Young master Lancer?! Is that you?!" the 'little' swatchling yelled out in joy and shock. Without waiting for a reply, the darkner slammed a feathery fist down on a button with a AI generated image of Lancer's face that looked horribly photo-realistic. Almost immediately, loud rapid noises echoed throughout the whole building, like a horde of machine guns firing away. After a few heartbeats, Queen sprinted down the stairs like the roadrunner before diving towards Lancer like a mama nyan cat rainbow blasting towards her bouncy kitten.

"Oh, Lancer! You're safe! I was just about to tear down every tree in that forest and atomize that house looking for you! Girl dad is so sorry for leaving you behind; just make sure not to tell your lame dad about today, okay?" Queen held Lancer lovingly in her arms, as her visor showed several different memes to cheer the blue boy up and distract him from how she had accidentally abandoned him in dark scary woods with three violent strangers.

"But Mr. Rules was already with us earlier?" Lancer cocked his little head with confusion.

Three red question marks appeared on the visor for a moment, before Queen let out a hearty laugh. "Oh no, I was dissing your butt hurt father, not your ex babysitter."

"Ooooh." Lancer nodded with understanding, "Okay!"

"I'm so proud of you, navigating your route back home. And you didn't even have your GPS app downloaded yet!" Queen nodded enthusiastically with her visor displaying a gif of clapping hands.

"Nope!" Lancer cheerfully informed his girl dad much to Queen's confusion. "My three new evil teammates brought me home, since I didn't remember how to get back. Now we're going to do something called vandalism, which the blue person whose name I know assured me was really evil!".

Kris nodded, "Can confirm. My Mom always said that vandalism was pretty evil unless no one knows it was you."

Queen slowly swiveled her head around to see Kris, Susie, and Ralsei; three people who fought and embarrassed her earlier that day. Now her circuits were processing that they had apparently safely escorted her son all the way back home, and were now playing 'bad guys' with him. Queen gave them all a confused smile, "Dudes, I thought you said were all feral, not actual babysitters."

"Well, we couldn't leave him all alone in those scary dark woods. So we helped him out of the kindness of our hearts." Ralsei said with a smile, hoping they could perhaps settle all of this peacefully like heroes after all.

"Also for a reward." Kris added.

"And to get one tiny favor." Ralsei nodded, thinking of finally completing their main objective.

"Even after you helped common criminals in my kingdom, resisted my sweet job offer, and destroyed my cool floaty chair, you still went and helped my son?" Queen asked, her voice taking on a softer, more thoughtful tone.

"Er… yeah?" Ralsei nodded, somehow feeling something was off from the way Queen phrased that, "And if you would hear me ou–"

"HA! LOL! LMAO!" Queen sounded off with several laughing and happy sound effects, "You guys are so stupid! I'm not going to reward you!"

'W-why!?" Ralsei cried as everything he knew about side quest logic and basic decency was spat on. Susie readied her axe, surprised by none of this.

"Because I'm a computer and thus SMART, while you are all dumb CHILDREN. You already gave me back my son, so why should I give you anything? I got what I wanted." Queen let out an annoying, elegant laughter. Turns out the Queen that enslaved an entire segment of her populace was a freaking dick. Shocker.

"Oi!" Susie screamed out, point her axe directly at the Queen "We ain't fucking kids! And we ain't dumb, neither!"

"First of all, you're all teenagers and teenagers are just bigger children. Second of all, this very situation is more than enough proof of your stupidity." Queen continued laughing before snapping her fingers. Suddenly, a horde of Werewires and Swatchlings appeared at her beck and call. "Although, coming here without a slave army at your command was pretty foolish too, easily a close second along with not accepting my job offer." The Queen's face lit up with an evil grin, summoning green arrows and her chat followers ready to blast our three 'heroes' away.

"Speaking of, is that job position still open?" Kris asked as their chances of victory quickly disappeared faster than Burgerpant's chances of achieving his dream of becoming an actor.

"Oh! I'm glad you brought that up, slightly less dumb child!" Queen clapped her hands with delight, eager to share the news. "Actually, the job positions have been filled. Lancer, you got new babysitter~!" Holographic confetti fell down around the room, while the different minions did jazz hands. "I just hired two new babysitters that are way better than your three could ever be!"

While Ralsei and Susie had been both preparing to get their butts kicked, they were just a little baffled by Kris who simply put on an expression of serious consideration. "Ehhh. I dunno. I mean, we've already been babysitting Lancer all day. What have those guys been doing? Nothing. Data's pretty clear cut to me." Kris said.

Looking rather 'peeved off', Queen turned on her internal fan to let out a huff of hot air as she crossed her arms. "Ridiculous. My cool new minions are infinitely better than you. I have already assessed their potential as minions, and they've already surpassed anything you could do!"

Kris put their hands together, "Well well wellington well. Looks like we need to have a babysitter showdown to prove who's superior then." As this strange conversation somehow continued, Ralsei and Susie gave each other a look as somehow Kris was managing to worm their way out. Neither of them knew what a 'babysitter showdown' was, but it would sure beat fighting all these guys.

"I guess we must— WAIT A MINUTE!" Queen shook out of her head, "You're just trying to push my buttons, aren't you? Well, I have a bad text message for you, I had them all removed years ago! GOT 'EM!"

Kris cocked their head to the side, "Wow, I didn't know you were such a huge Gallus gallus domesticus. Lmao"

Pausing for a minute, Queen google searched 'what is a Gallus gallus domesticus' before her visor changed to three red exclamation points. "I'LL MAKE YOU EAT THOSE WORDS!" Queen yelled as she pointed a finger directly at Kris, "SWATCH! Bring Noelle and the weird blue guy over here! We got a babysitter showdown to win!" A massive swatchling with a pair of shades with two different colored lenses bowed immediately before leaping up into the literal next floor above.

"Well, I guess that worked out, nice job Kris." Ralsei said as the room descended into silence, with the only sound being Queen tapping her foot incessantly as she rocked Lancer. However, Kris didn't acknowledge the fluffy prince, instead looking unusually attentive as something the Queen said had caught their interest.

"Though, how does this help us?" Susie asked still confused, why they weren't all fighting, but was rolling with it anyway.

"Oh! I know. What if we make it so if we win the showdown, we get to do whatever we want! And if we lose, we also get to do whatever we want! Ho ho ho!" Lancer cheerfully suggested.

"Oh, that is a wonderful idea, Lancer!" Queen nodded at her blue boy enthusiastically, "What do you say children?"

"Nope!" Lancer grinned evilly at his girl dad, "I was talking about my new team of ne'er do wells. The bad guys with no name!"

"Isn't that a name?" Ralsei asked, completely confused.

"No." Lancer answered while staring evilly up at his perplexed girl dad.

A red loading symbol displayed on Queen's visor as she processed the statement. "I see Lancer, you have hired these feral babysitters as playmates, and now wish to cause untold havoc on my castle on your first steps to being an evil dictator just like me?"

"Yep!" Lancer happily popped his 'p', giving a wide, child-like grin.

Queen let out a squee, "Oh I'm so proud of you Lancy-poo! But no, I'm not letting you do anything! For this entire showdown. Because you must judge who is the best babysitters, of course."

Lancer looked kind of down at this, but Kris spoke up for once. "Don't worry. You'll just be our inside man to rig this in our favor." Kris suggested.

Queen turned to Kris, "What?"

"I said Lancer can just make this a sham contest by rigging it from the very beginning." Kris said to Queen's face.

Queen nodded thoughtfully "Oh yeah that's a good idea. I like the way you think, blue person. That'll make it way easier to make you eat those words. Anyway, where the bleep are–"

Before Queen could finish her thought, Swatch landed back down like a graceful meteor, carrying a familiar looking blue bird boy and a scared deer girl under each arm. The giant butler then sat the two down in front of our three 'heroes' and Queen.

Breathing heavily, the poor deer girl collapsed on the ground as she struggled to recover from being suddenly kidnapped from the Queen library (spelled librarby for some Bah humbug reason). However, the blue bird recovered much more quickly (mainly because he had been trying {and failing} to learn how to fly for the past hour two hours and had gotten used to being moved around the palace at violent and sudden speeds.) "Ah, my Queen! Did you need my wonderful assistanc–" Queen didn't let the bird finish as she grabbed the two newcomers and smashed them down in front of the three 'villains'.

"Babysitters, your honor as babysitters and my pride have been challenged! Now, have these noobz get rekt in a babysitter showdown!" Queen angrily pointed at the blue human, purple dinosaur, and fluffy shadow boy. Unbeknownst to Queen, the deer girl took one look at the group of three, and instantly was hit with recognition. Noelle Holiday had been expecting her first mission from Queen as her employed babysitter to be rather strange, bizarre, insane, and quite possibly horrifying. However, she hadn't expected to meet anyone she actually knew in this strange new world. The purple dinosaur was S–S–S-Susie, her big fat school crush, and their school's resident delinquent. However, for Noelle's poor heart, this wasn't just your average heart throbbing S-Susie, but a flashy, punked out S-Susie complete with a bad boy get up and spike bands. Just one look had already fried Noelle's lesbian brain like a Christmas Ham. While her brain dimly felt some familiarity with the other two, her eyes couldn't leave those massive purple biceps, as her face became redder than a Santa's hat.

An annoying bird voice called out from Noelle's horny burnt-out mind, "I should have realized that my first task was dealing with the demons of my past. Kris, you have come here to challenge my spot as the protagonist, even collecting your own little harem of females for yourself before I had a chance to do so. But to think you would recruit that brute Susie just so you could stomp all over me for being the top student in class, truly there's no low to which you wouldn't sink." Berdly had started his own dramatic speech, sending an over-the-top glare at the blue person of the group as he did his own cool pose.

Despite a certain name temporarily causing warning bells to go off in her mind, Noelle still didn't pay much mind to the bird's blabbering, as she had been hooked as S-Susie began talking. "Oi! The fuck you mean Kris 'recruited' me!? If anything, I fucking take care them by stopping them from doing stupid shit!" Again, there was that name that temporarily caused Noelle's mind to panic for some reason; however, the deer girl quickly got lost as S-Susie began confidently standing up to Queen after the robot complained about 'language' or something, though a new voice began talking to her and Berdly.

"Uh, well… it's nice to meet you two, despite the circumstances." The one with the fluffy outline standing next to S-Susie asked the two of them.

"I guess despite the fact we will be 'showing down' in the most epic of first clashes, I feel that perhaps you're just a misled damsel. Perhaps after this fight, you would join my side? There's plenty of room for more female party members." Berdly asked the fluffy outline with a smug certainty to his voice that irritated Noelle despite her best attempts to ignore him and admire S-Susie's angry, rebellious glare.

"I– I'm a guy." The sheer monotone disbelief from the fluffy outline was enough to get through the horny fried brain of Noelle, as she let out a snort of amusement along with the blue person standing next to the fluffy outline.

"Hmm." Berdly must have started stroking his beak as he considered the statement, "Nah, I'm pretty sure you're a girl." He eventually decided, leaving the fluffy one to let out a confused babble at Berdly's sheer… Berdliness.

However before Noelle could put her attention back on S-Susie, a dead monotone voice spoke up, "Stop trying Ralsei. That's Berdly. It's less effort to just leave him to his fantasies." Noelle knew that voice, and the sheer shock of hearing it was enough to jump start her brain back into functioning again as she whipped her head to the source of the voice.

At first, Noelle felt a wave of relief at seeing the figure before her. It was a blue human. A skin color her neighbor Kris didn't have (though she didn't remember humans coming in that color), so there was no way this was Kris. Immediately after that wave of relief came the guilt, as Kris really didn't deserve to be seen in that light. Kris Dreemurr was a pretty nice person as far as Noelle was concerned; however, they were also a mischievous gremlin with a fondness for… pranks. Pranks that had a tendency to be exclusively aimed at her. After a whole childhood of being surprised and shocked out of her own body by Kris's rather zealous pranks, Noelle had developed a bit of an instinctual dread around the human. So much so that one time when their brother coincidentally dropped the human off right in front of her walking path, she may have bolted the other way fearing that she was about to be japed. One could only be pranked so many times with mice, fake blood, and Icee P'e'zza boxes before your mental health started taking a toll… Honestly, this hadn't been a problem usually as Noelle only really saw Kris in socially normal and expected locations like school or study groups. It's just whenever Noelle met Kris somewhere unexpected or where Noelle felt particularly vulnerable did this instinctual fear start to act up. Kinda like right now in this Dark World. Gosh, Angel knows what Kris would come up with to freak her out when they had access to literal magic. Noelle shivered at the thought. Luckily, this blue person was totally not Kris, and just some other quiet, monotone speaking, emo looking, messy haired human.

"Hey Noelle." Kris said with a smile and an almost playful tone.

Oh no.

The human stared down the deer girl with their all too familiar piercing red eyes, pinning her down much like a hungry wolf staring down a meek rabbit. So taken back by the human's appearance, Noelle couldn't even stutter out a reply, causing Kris's smile to widen at her plight. It was like a feedback cycle. The more nervous Noelle was, the more Kris's mischievous smile grew, which worsened the poor deer girl's nerves. This continued until a full genuine, manic grin shone from Kris, while Noelle had been reduced to a wide eyed, jittering, mess as her panicking mind desperately wondered what horrible scheme they had planned for her.

"Oh, Noelle. I just remembered I got a gift for you~" Kris quickly began rummaging through their especially deep, spacious, and comfortable pocket.

Already seeing where this was going, Noelle quickly went behind Berdly to use him as a physical barrier from the zealous prankster, "Nope! Nope! NOPE! Not happening, Kris!" She cried out from behind her monster meat shield.

To her growing horror, two large robot arms quickly scooped her up and set her right in the path of hurricane Kris, "Oh this is wonderful! Go on Noelle, go steal more of their material possessions! This will most certainly secure our win!" Queen unknowingly doomed the girl to her inescapable fate, shoving her directly in front of the grinning human.

"N– I– I–..." The refusal died in Noelle's throat as all eyes of the room were on her. S- Susie, Queen, the Queen's son, and all the other minions had abandoned their previous argument to stare right at her! However Noelle had bigger sugar cookies to bake as Kris approached her with an eager grin. Gosh, they hadn't grinned like that since the time they set up a giant Icee model in her closet during Halloween, or the time they offered a hug while wearing a giant sweater that concealed all the robot mice moving around their body, or the time they tricked her in openly admitting in class that she had used to call herself the great Santa Hunter that would one day capture the mysterious holiday reverse house burglar. Basically, there was nothing good that came from Kris smiling like that.

Fishing out a decently sized loop of string with a sharp piece of bramble attach out of their pocket, Kris, barely able to contain their excitement, presented the gift to their jittering neighbor, "So, I noticed you've been eyeing someone recently–"

Noelle's eyes went wide with shock as she interrupted Kris's little speech, "WAIT! How did you–"

"Noelle, everyone has noticed." Kris interrupted her back, leaving her speechless with mortification. Shifting around awkwardly, Berdly let out a nervous chuckle at the way this conversation was going. After a brief glance at the bird, Kris rolled their red eyes, "At least everyone with a brain knows. Anyway, as your oldest friend, I thought I would give you the perfect gift. Since I know you'd never work up the nerve to actually ask out your crush, I found you the perfect solution!" The sheer amount of dread that hit Noelle from hearing those words locked her body up before she could interrupt Kris again. The human then put on a salesman voice, because of course Kris would, as they showed off their gift, "I present to you: the Thorn Ring. I never tested it out myself, but a very trustworthy salesman and friend of mine assured me that it allows you to control the mind of another person! Just slip this bad boy on one of their fingers, and they'll do your every lewd whim. No more stress of trying to ask them out! No more worrying if they'll be okay with your MASOCHISTIC AND BDSM FETISHES. Just put this sucker on, and they'll be yours forever!" Kris said to Noelle, out loud, in front of everyone, in front of S-Susie!

At this point, Noelle couldn't get any redder, and like a candy cane tea left on the burner for too long she exploded. Before Kris could continue anymore, Noelle's hands latched onto their neighbor's throat and began violently shaking their head back and forth as she screamed "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UPPPPPPPPPPP!"

"Yes, bleep, slay! Show that mother-bleeper why I'm not a cowardly biddy by fighting my battles for me!" Queen gave Noelle three thumbs up in approval (two with her hands and one shown on her visor).

Unfortunately for Noelle, her attempt to shake Kris so hard to rewind time before any of that had happened failed, as S-Susie ripped the human out of her grasp as she gave her the stink eye. "Kris! You good?" The purple dino gave their fallen comrade a worried look. However, Kris had been reduced to a giggling, gleeful mess and couldn't really give a response. "Huh, this is the happiest I've ever seen them. Weird." the dino let out a breath they had been holding before giving a terrifying glare at Noelle, leveling an axe between them. "I don't care what mask you put up at school or if Kris enjoyed it, you're going to pay for trying to kill them!" S-Susie growled right at her! Noelle may have squealed on the inside at that, wincing internally after realizing Kris may have correctly pegged her to be a masochist. Why can they of all people read her like an open book!?

"Well well wellington well." Queen said out loud, "Since Noelle already struck the first blow, I suppose the only way we can do this 'babysitter showdown' is by having my babysitter fight you babysitters in brutal combat to prove who is the best babysitter of them all. What do you think about that, blue bleeping child?" Kris was still giggling manically on the floor next to Ralsei and Susie. "Eh, I'll take that as a yes." Queen shrugged to herself.

"Wait." Ralsei looked justifiably confused, "How does beating the crap out of each other prove that either side are better babysitters? When would babysitters be fighting each other? Wouldn't that be dangerous for the child they're supposed to be sitting?"

"Silly Fluffy boy." Lancer interjected, "Everybody knows that all of my babysitters need to be really strong so they can beat up anyone I tell them to, duh." The little blue bundle said this as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and perhaps it should have been considering how much Lancer's former babysitter in the previous chapters had always been ready to start fights.

With a single clap, all of Queen minions aside from Noelle and Berdly cleared the area of the front hall to give the combatants as much room as possible for the brawl. "If that all clear to you three, then let the babysitter showdown commence! Go Noelle, Go Burghley! GO TEACH THOSE FERAL CHILDREN A LESSON!" Queen screamed out, as she pointed at Kris, Susie, and Ralsei.

A spotlight was shone on the four lightners and one nervous darkner, as high intensity rave music began playing in the background for Lancer to gleefully clap along to. Minions scurried all around them to make the stage set for the climactic battle as one particularly large swatchling with multi-colored glasses took the role of the announcer. Or at least that was what he appeared to be until they knelt down to hold the microphone for Queen and Lancer. Apparently, he was just the mic-stand.

"Now my minions! Welcome to the Babysitter Showdown Throwdown!" Queen's voice boomed out throughout the room (which is what it was doing without the mic anyway, so the effect was really just two-fold now), as she gestured to Noelle and Berdly. "In this corner, we have my two totes rad minions, Noelle and Burghley. Noelle has the coolest power ever and the other one is there, I guess. AND THEY'RE ABOUT TO WRECK THESE NOOBZ!" The crowd of swatchlings let out gentle, tender screams of excitement while the werewires gave braindead claps at the Queen's energy.

Queen passed the mic to Lancer, both sharing a grin. "And in this corner!" Lancer chose to drop his voice three octaves lower (somehow) for his 'serious voice' so he sounded like a toddler with a really deep voice, "We have my evil team of villains!" Ralsei cringed in the background. "And they're going to vandalism all over that chicken nugget man and softcream!" No one cheered for that aside from Lancer giving himself a huge cheer, although Kris did give a good singular clap. At least that was until Queen played her 3 file with a sinister glare, at which point all of her minions gave the little blue boy a confused, huge cheer. After the cheers had died and the high rave music kicked into a higher gear by the swatchlings that had set up a DJ booth (right beside the swatchlings that set up a concessions and merch stand of course), the battlefield was set. Three pairs of eyes stared down two pairs, as the tension slowly built.

At this point, Berdly decided that a dramatic pre-battle speech of his own was necessary and the blue bird began his well thought out and engaging monologue. Thankfully for the author's hands and audience retention, Kris had already foreseen this, and just started talking over it to his fellow 'villains'.

"Okay, guys. What's the plan?" Kris asked.

Ralsei, who had been trying (and failing) to follow Berdly's speech, turned around at Kris's odd question, "Uh, I don't know… usually you come up with those Kris."

Kris gave the darkner a flat stare, "Why?"

Their question left Ralsei speechless, as the fluffy boy didn't really have an answer other than Susie didn't come up with plans and Ralsei never felt super secure about his own plans either. So, Kris, who had some planning skills, just seemed like the natural pick to dump all the planning on.

Susie shrugged, "Eh, you're good at it, I guess. But do we really need to make a plan? These are just two nerds. My mom taught me all the skills for thrashing nerds like them to take their lunch money, so she didn't have to pay for my lunches. I'm pretty sure I can turn that bird brain and that jerk deer into roadkill, easy." It made sense to the bully's mind, bullies beat nerds. Just like how scissor beats paper, cats eat mice, or the big Icee mascot guy wrestles down all the screaming children on 'Fight Icee day.' Ah, good memories, it's a shame that event got forever canceled after she threw the Icee Mascot through a table. At least she got the free pizza for winning though.

Ralsei looked a little concerned and disturbed by what Susie said, "Wait, what was that about your mo—"

"Actually, now that I think about it, I do have a plan." Kris interrupting Ralsei, their head tilted towards Noelle. "I bet if we knock out Berdly, Noelle will probably just give up. She doesn't really like violence anyway."

Susie gave Kris a flat look, "She literally was strangling you a minute ago, dude."

Kris waved off Susie's normally good point, "She already saw me take like 30 hits from her sister using a wiffle bat; she knew I would be fine." Susie didn't look all too convinced from such a stunning argument.

Ralsei's disturbed look switched to Kris, "Kris, what the f—"

"Either way." Kris interrupted Ralsei again, "Noelle's a smart girl; she isn't going to try to fight a three on one. If we just blow Berdly away with a red buster, Noelle is going to give up, and we'll win."

After giving a moment to look at Kris, Susie shrugged indifferently, "Sure whatever, I hated Nerdly's high and mighty attitude anyway. Ready whenever you are Kris." With that, Susie readied her axe, waiting for Kris to initiate their combo move on the blue bird who was still ¼ of the way through his big pre-battle speech.

Before Kris could shine their soul onto Susie, Ralsei looked over to the bird, "I kinda feel bad though. He must have worked really hard on this. As a fellow big monologue writer, myself, I must respect that he could just go up and start giving a speech with little preparation. Couldn't we humor him and let him finish?"

"Nope." Susie said.

"No." Kris concurred.

Ralsei gave a judging stare at his two companions, which at least made Susie sigh. The purple dino rolled her eyes and took the wrist protector from Ralsei before tossing it back.

*Click*

Upon completion of his hour-long, fabulous speech, Berdly stood triumphantly in front of his dastardly opponents. "So, what do you villains have to say to that?"

"What?" Noelle blinked at him confused. Ah, it seemed that his dear doe friend was completely confused by his complex, intellectual vocabulary. A shame, but Berdly smiled at how his great smart powers were now starting to outshine their class's former smartest student. Finally.

"Bro, not that I care, but why the WTF did you just cut off like that?" Queen looked at him with red question mark eyes.

"I-I thought it was good." Ralsei called out, trying to make the bird feel better even if he had misgendered him earlier. "But just to warn you, we're going to blow you up now."

Not quite hearing what the fine enemy damsel had said, Berdly turned around, "Wait, wha—"

"RED BUSTER!" Susie screamed, unleashing a red wave of magic that collided directly into the Sky Knight. In a singular loud bang, the magic detonated and launched Berdly high into the sky… and directly into a wall. Although not without a pained squawk on impact, Berdly leapt off the crater he put in the mansion's wall and glided right back down to the battle arena, much to Susie's fury. "WHAT?! THAT'S BULLSHIT!" The purple dino raged as their ultimate attack failed to crush the birdbrain.

"Oh right, we're indoors." Kris said.

"Not so funny now!" Queen gave a viscous and cathartic smile at the feral children. It appeared that their usual strategy of using their cool combo moves or just launching their opponent out of bounds wouldn't work here.

"OH HOLY NIGHT! Berdly are you okay?!" Noelle looked at her friend in genuine concern after she saw him essentially get blasted so hard that he was nearly thrown through a wall. An impact that should have normally left him a splatter mark on said wall, although he just looked scuffed up now.

"Surprisingly, yes!" Berdly gave his strongest smile to assuage his more nervous companion's fears. "Remember Noelle, we're an anime now. Little flashy hits like that aren't going to put a protagonist like me down! And thanks to my two hours of training, I know all about being violently rocketed towards walls! But don't get cocky my dear, that was only their opening move. They might have far more dangerous blows ready for us than that little thing."

"T-That was our strongest attack!" Ralsei cried out, more out of disbelief at the unfairness of the situation. And to be fair, the fluffy boy wasn't wrong.

"Wait, seriously?" Berdly blinked in borderline shock. He turned to Noelle, "Nevermind, we got this in the bag. I mean it hurt, but I could take like 7 more of those. You can just hang back." Swinging out his Halberd dramatically, the blue bird looked Susie dead in the eyes, "You… dead."

Susie blinked, "What?"

Ignoring his own flub, Berdly charged forward to battle. Noelle took her companion's advice and held back, unsure what to do. While Berdly said he wasn't too hurt, that was still a three on one fight. Then again, she wasn't sure that her pitiful attacks could really help, and there was NO WAY she was using Iceshock again and killing someone. But maybe Berdly did have this…

"Whaaaacha!" Berdly yelled, doing a cool anime single strike that was supposed to do a delay hit on his opponent; however, Susie just jumped back out of the way of the strike (cheater). Then with a vicious grin, the purple bully slammed her axe into Berdly with a loud smack. Although he tensed up at the sight of that blade hitting his body, his faith in anime and video games proved true once again! The blade didn't cut him in half, instead just knocking him like 10 feet away. It certainly looked impressive, yet Berdly knew it in his gizzard that he could take way more damage than that! Unfortunately, not everyone knew that.

"AH! Don't worry, Berdly, I'll heal you!" His nervous, jittery friend called out her move to the whole room. Ah, such a trusted and reliable ally, Berdly smiled at her finding her own niche as the team healer. Surely, she would be very useful getting him back in the fight during the final battle when all hope looked lost. Oh wait, the fight was still happening, Berdly thought as he saw Susie run up to him and throw him back to the middle of the ring.

Unlike Berdly who was stuck in his brain, Ralsei also heard Noelle's cry, and quickly got to work. It looked like it would take a lot of work whittling Berdly's health down, so they couldn't let Noelle make all their efforts useless. Thankfully, Ralsei had a plan. The fluffy boy pulled out the wrist protector once more. "Not on my watch!" Ralsei heroically declared.

*Click*

"Heal–" Noelle cried out her incantation, only for it to be immediately stopped. And without the incantation being complete, its magical effects wouldn't activate! Or so Ralsei thought as he watched the green healing sparkles fly off Berdly, healing his wounds.

Oh come on!

…This is why he didn't make plans.

"Damn it Ralsei!" Susie screamed as she continued to be the only one who was actually fighting their biggest threat, "Stop using that useless item and fucking help me!" Her voice became strained as Berdly started using his actual magic tornadoes which were WAY harder to avoid. After taking a tornado to the face, Susie spat on the ground with growing frustration, "AND KRIS! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?"

"You're doing great Susie, keep distracting him." Kris called out from a little way behind Noelle, leaving their friends to continue to fight the blue bird.

"AHHHH!" It was an easy trigger for her instinctual fear, and the poor deer girl practically jumped out of her skin. "K-Kris, I-I didn't s-see you there." Noelle put her hands out in a defensive posture as she found herself in easily the worst possible scenario this fight could have offered her. She wearily looked at her human neighbor, mindful not to let them get any closer.

Unfortunately, their confrontation didn't go unnoticed. "Oh my circuits, YES!" Queen squealed in delight, directing Lancer and the entire audience right back onto Noelle and Kris. "This is your chance sweetie! Go use your magic and kill that child for disrespecting me!"

Noelle practically jumped in fright from the order, certainly not wanting to think about that spell. However, what was more disturbing was the sudden smile on Kris's face. Kris cocked their head curiously, "What is she talking about? Do you have a cool spell that can kill me?"

"I–I c-can't. Nope. No. I-I can't use it. J-Just stay away from me K-Kris." Noelle shook her head violently back and forth as all of the audience's eyes fell on her.

"Come on now Noelle!" Queen called, "Just kill them already, it's free exp!" Noelle looked nervously back between Kris and Queen, her mind desperately trying to figure out how to deal with this situation. Queen on the other hand, only saw Noelle not doing her cool spell. Thus, she thought the poor deer just needed some good old encouragement to commit murder. That girl really needed to work on her confidence, and what kind of boss would she be if she didn't give her encouragement? "Do it! Do it! Do it!" The robot began chanting, raising her arms up and down with the beat. Soon enough, the whole audience was getting in on it, all crying for her to use her spell to murder her oldest friend.

Feeling the combined peer pressure of her own boss and countless of her coworkers, Noelle's body began to shake from the sheer amount of attention on her, trying to coax her into doing something she knew she would regret. Yet the voices were so LOUD, it made it hard to focus. Noelle flicked her eyes back to Kris, who had… a soft, sympathetic smile. Like they knew exactly what was going inside that head of hers.

"It's okay Noelle." Their voice cut through the crowd. It sounded uncharacteristically gentle, yet firm. "I believe that you can do it. Shoot that spell! Let me see it!" Kris said with a smile, raising their arms invitingly.

Noelle's eyes went wide, "K-Kris?! N-NO! You don't understand! It kills people! I can't cast that!"

"Oh don't be such a doubter Noelle. I know you can cast it!" Kris said with a supportive smile. "Hear, I'll make it easier for you! You don't even have to aim. Just let it go!" They began to walk towards the deer girl, arms open, completely defenseless.

"DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!" the crowd roared in her ears, as Kris flashed her an encouraging grin. Stepping closer and closer, to the point she couldn't possibly miss on purpose if she even tried.

"I– I– I–" Noelle's voice turned into a whimper as she was helpless as Kris walked ever so closer to their doom. She wanted to run away, yet her legs had locked up again, leaving her rooted to the spot. Kris was almost in arm's reach; the crowd's chants were reaching a fevered pitch.

"Go on, Noelle!" Kris said with a large grin, "Kill me! Kill your best friend! I believe you can do it! Just give it a try!" Even now, Susie and Ralsei gave worried glances over to whatever the hell Kris was doing; however, there was a certain blue bird who had been oblivious to this whole fiasco keeping them occupied in a quote unquote epic duel. With a manic grin, Kris was standing right in front of Noelle now, "Come on Noelle! Just think about what your Mom would say. What my mom would say! Think about how proud she would be that you managed to kill her youngest child!"

"DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!" The crowd roared.

"I CAN'T DOOOO IIIITTTTT!" Noelle meekly wailed; tears sprung out of her face. "I don't want to kill you Krrriissssssmaaassss." Kris rested a hand on her shoulder to comfort the crying deer, giving her a soft smile. Teary eyed, Noelle looked back up at their eyes.

"I knew you wouldn't." Kris said, eyes shining bright, "You didn't succumb to peer pressure to kill someone. That's a good thing. You did a good thing Noelle."

"I h-hate you. I h-hate you so m-much." Noelle said through her sniffles.

"And I got you~" Kris said.

Noelle blinked her teary eyes, "Wha— aaaaaatttt!?" Suddenly Kris grabbed and pulled her into a tight bear hug, crushing the deer girl right into themself. Noelle could do nothing but yelp as she was hoisted up and flipped her around for all to see.

"OH, COME ON!" Queen yelled in the background, throwing a wine glass that then exploded a nearby audience bleacher and portapotty.

Kris… Kris was a lot stronger than she had remembered, though this was still a magic world so maybe that had something to do with it. Either way, Noelle was helpless, held up tight in Kris's grasp. And instead of tickling her senselessly or some other Kris prank, the human instead turned both of them around towards the others fighting.

"HEY, BERDLY!" Kris shouted towards the blue bird, whom hadn't been doing too bad against Ralsei and Susie. Well… more like Susie, who was being constantly healed by Ralsei. "NOELLE'S NOW MY HOSTAGE!"

"Huh?!" Berdly's head whipped around at the mention of his name. He had been preparing to try spinning his halberd around to create a vortex to look super cool, but the genius supposed he could wait to see what the C student Kris had to say. Though, why did they have Noelle in their arms? Kris jostled the limp noodle body of Noelle, who was still sniffling a bit. "Oh no! I failed to protect Noelle!" Berdly cried out as his (super smart) brain caught up with the situation. The poor doe sniffled uselessly in the human's arms, unable to look Berdly in the eyes. His poor friend!

"Precisely." Kris said. The human began approaching the bird, though keeping Noelle up between the two. "You might as well give up now; you can't hit me. Any attack you would send would hit Noelle instead." Kris jostled Noelle a bit to prove their point, as the deer was helpless in their grasp. "So, unless you wish your teammate harm, you'll have to give up." Kris laid out their ultimatum plain and simple, even adding a threatening tone to their monotone voice.

Susie and Ralsei stared now that their fight with Berdly was put on pause. Honestly, they needed some time to catch their breath, and Ralsei finished off one last healing spell on the badly roughed up dino. "Could have done that sooner, but nice job Kris." Susie put away her axe, seeing that the battle looked to be over. She would have preferred to get a shot off on that friend-choking doe, but she had already thrown Berdly around like ten times. Her urge for violence had been sorta satisfied, even if it never seemed to phase that bird nerd piece of shit. Ralsei on the other hand was just glad to get this fight over with.

Berdly scrunched his brow at the ultimatum, putting his big, beautiful brain to work thinking of a solution. He had been doing so well, but it looked like the climax of this episode had arrived and now it was time for him to pull out victory for the jaws of defeat. Unfortunately… that was a lot easier said than done… Wait a minute! Berdly put on his heroic grin as he finally had a eureka moment. Team C students' attacks hadn't done anything to him, surely Noelle must be similarly strong as him! He dramatically pointed at Kris "I won't fall for your trick Kris! Noelle is a protagonist like me! She can take way more of my hits than you ever could; you'll be downed by the bleed through damage before she even feels a thing!"

Kris and Noelle blankly stared at Berdly. Neither could quite follow the bird's logic and what exactly he was about to do, as the obvious implication was really, really, really dumb. "Wait, so when you said bleed through damage–" Noelle tried to gain some clarification, as surely Berdly didn't mean–Nope, that is exactly what he meant… Berdly threw a large magic tornado right at Noelle's face.

Kris and Noelle only stood (well one stood and the other remained limp and helpless) there in surprise as the magic tornado sped into and collided with the both of them. As Berdly had said, a little bit of the damage bled through from Noelle and hit Kris, though not nearly as much damage Noelle took.

"OW!?" the deer yelled from both pain and surprise. Kris numbly jerked back a bit from her pained yelp, moving their head to look between Noelle and Berdly.

"Aha, It worked! Once more!" Berdly heroically cried out, before preparing three more tornadoes.

"Should we do something?" Ralsei asked his purple friend in the background.

"Nah bro, this is hilarious." Susie held the fluffy boy back, eager to watch the fireworks.

"BERDLY STO– Ow!" Noelle cried out once more as another attack came, although this time she didn't take the bulk of the damage. Right before the attack landed, Kris instinctively twisted the two around, putting themselves in front to shield Noelle from most of the damage. The human didn't even flinch as they took the barrage of the tornadoes, but they did set Noelle down afterward.

"Yes! My smart plan worked. You're free Noelle!" Berdly cried out triumphantly, completely missing how Queen had been face palming herself repeatedly for the past minute, and Lancer looking rather upset at the whole situation. However, Berdly didn't miss how Noelle didn't flee or even tried to apprehend Kris as she was released. Odd.

"Yeah… I didn't think he would actually attack you… Sorry." Kris said awkwardly rubbing their hair, sounding uncharacteristically guilty, "Can you just forfeit, or something?"

Rubbing her face to wipe away the phantom pains from getting pummeled by her own teammate, Noelle wearily looked at Kris and then at the battle that she frankly didn't care about and didn't even want to be in the first place. "...Yes, Yes! I forfeit! Bah freaking humbug." Noelle said to Kris before stomping off.

"Uh, Noelle? The battle is back here." Berdly tried to call out to his friend, who appeared to be marching up to Queen. Thankfully, she heard his call and turned around. Oddly, she looked a little upset. "I still need your assistance in this fight, Noelle." Berdly called out once again to his loyal teammate–

"YOU HIT ME IN THE FACE WITH A TORNADO! NO!" Noelle cried out in a burst of anger, as that tornado was the last straw. With a huff, she threw up her white cloak's hoodie up over her head and stomped her way over to Queen. Not even speaking a word, she sat down with a grumpy pout, retreating into Hoodie World by covering up her face with her cowl.

"Oh nice! Softcream, you can help commentate on this battle with us now!" Lancer put on a smile to cheer the deer up after what her bad teammate did.

Not even peeking her head out of her hoodie, Noelle turned her head towards the little blue boy's words. "You haven't even said anything about the battle so far…" she muttered from under her cowl.

"Yeah, we're bad at this. I should just get chatgtp to write for us." Queen smiled at the girl, while furious writing a comment on tweeter about how useless that Burghley was.

Berdly was shocked as Noelle had abandoned him, especially after he had just freed her. Sure he felt a little guilty hitting her in the face, but surely she could see that it was all part of his plan to stop Kris? Apparently not, as the deer hid away from the world from within her cloak. "Uh, Noelle? Are you upset? Don't you see that I freed you? It was all part of my smart plan; now you can heal yourself good as new with your healing spell." Berdly tried again to coax Noelle back into the fight.

"Too late. She forfeited." Kris called out to Berdly as the human approached the bird with their Spookysword drawn. Berdly couldn't be breaking the rules of the Babysitter showdown after all.

Berdly froze at the human's callous words. "Y-You're lying! S-She wouldn't just ditch me! You must have forced her to give up with one of those awful pranks or tricks again, didn't you Kris!?" Berdly yelled at Kris, as his mask of confidence began to crack.

"Actually Berdly, I um… I think she was just mad that you hit her instead of doing like literally anything else." Ralsei pointed out, trying to clarify the situation with a calm tone of voice.

The Sky Knight angrily turned on the fluffy, deceptive witch with a furious glare. "Y-You just don't understand how smart my plan truly was!" Berdly doubled and tripled down on his actions, not letting any of these mooks make him look bad any further.

"Bro, your plan sucked! In fact, #YouSuck." Queen called out from the audience, leaving Berdly speechless. With that, all the Queen's minions and Berdly's new coworkers turned away from him.

Seeing how everyone was shitting on Berdly, Susie took her own shot to knock the insufferable nerd down a few pegs. "Ha! Even your own boss thinks you fucking suck." Susie let out a cruel laugh while pointing at the ego bruised bird, "You talked all high and mighty, but in the end you're not some big tough guy but a nerd." Susie brandished her long, yellow teeth, "And you're not in school anymore, little bird."

With a furious gust of wind, Berdly leapt back from Susie, coincidentally avoiding Kris who was sneaking up behind them for a stealth strike for double damage. "T-That doesn't matter!" Berdly yelled at the dino, "I-I'm still the smartest one here. You like to talk tough Susie, but in the end your amoeba-like brain can't keep up with me!"

Susie rolled her eyes at the bird-brain's same old insults, letting them bounce off her like usual. "Whatever, I leave the thinking stuff to Kris anyway." Susie strolled up with the rest of her companions, weapons drawn as the battle had yet to wind down as expected. Looks like they were going to need to teach Berdly why he should have surrendered when he still could. "But now we're all together, we're going to beat you down." Susie said with a smirk.

Although his ego had been reeling, Berdly met Susie's smirk with one of his own. "It's a shame that you haven't realized that I haven't been fighting with 100% of my true power then." Berdly probably quoted some anime, preparing his ultimate attack. The blue bird jumped up high, pulling his halberd back in the air. Then, with a gust of wind magic that allowed him to defy gravity for a few moments, Berdly swung his blade forward, somehow turning the cyber blade into a spear which then shot out a stream of magic bullets towards Susie and her companions.

It wasn't that hard to dodge, as all three managed to get out of the way as the stream of magic went by. "Ha! You call that an att– SHIT!" The stream then exploded out with smaller bullets radially, all slamming into our three 'villains'. Then another stream of bullets came out towards Ralsei, which also exploded. Then another stream went towards Kris… and that one exploded too.

Berdly came down back to the ground with a renewed triumphant expression as he stared down Kris, Ralsei, and Susie's battered forms. "Hah! Don't you see this is a world where the smart reign? You might have been all tough back in school Susie, but you're nothing compared to me! And we're not in school anymore." Berdly snarked back, throwing Susie's own insult back at her.

"Fuckin!" Susie groaned as she had nearly taken each of those attacks head on. Ralsei hadn't fared much better, but with his weaker constitution he was still hurting even worse than her. Even if it was just the human's lack of expression, Kris was the only one who looked unaffected by the attack, but Susie thought they dodged two of the explosions… somehow. "Kris! Combo move thingy! NOW!" Susie roared, impatiently waiting for Kris's red light to shine once more to unleash their ultimate attack once more.

"Hah! You protozoan simpletons, you really think I'll fall for the same attack tw– Ack!" Berdly couldn't finish his insult as the same attack hit him dead on and launched him into the ceiling once more… before he flew back down to the battlefield like before. "I really need to work on my dodging…" Berdly mused to himself, still rather unbothered by the attack. The musing at least gave Ralsei sometime to cast a heal prayer on themselves while Kris took some time to eat their spare dark candy and hand the last one to Susie. The temporary taste of sweet, delicious healing however was not enough to calm Susie's OVERWHELMING RAGE.

"OH COME ON! WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT!? HOW IS HE STILL NOT DEAD YET!?" the purple dino raged at the resilience of the Sky Knight.

"I mean, he has to be low in HP, right?" Ralsei asked hopefully, after all they had been whaling on the bird for a while now and hit him with their most powerful attack twice already.

"Nope, I would say I'm like at above half HP right now." Berdly's smirk widened at Susie's renewed bout of cursing and Ralsei's surprised look. "You simpletons simply are too simple to outsmart me. Now then, time to finish this!" The Sky Knight unleashed a barrage of wind tornadoes at his opponents once more.

At least this time, our three 'villains' managed to dodge most of the attack well enough, much to the shock of Berdly. After all, how could they not fall after such a cool line? However, their continued survival didn't change the fact they were still no closer to winning this battle.

"Arghh! I don't get it!" Susie snarled after having to tank one of the tornadoes, "Why are we losing to fucking Berdly of all people!? We've crushed so many other guys before, why is he so damn tough?!"

"Because, you mitochondria, I'm simply smarter than you." Berdly answered as if it was obvious.

"Literally what have you done with your damn smarts!?" Susie cried out, "You've just been copying anime and fighting like a dweeb this whole time?!"

"Hah! Maybe to a bacteria like you, but my plans are simply too brilliant for you. This battle was over before it began, as I got top tier loot!" Berdly gloated over the purple dino, showing off two pins with Queen's face on them along with his cyber halberd. Two pins were top tier armors in this world, apparently. "Unlike you three who came to this babysitter showdown with dumb low tier equipment. I took the best equipment that the glorious Queen of this land gave me, and now my smart plan has allowed me to clown on you fools!"

"Wait, but what part of that was a plan?" Ralsei asked, still genuinely confused, "That just sounds like Queen did everything to prepare you for the fight."

"W-Well I could have been dumb like you three and chosen to not wear the armor she gave me!" Berdly shot back, stopping from dishing out another attack to defend himself verbally.

"But we never had the choice of getting those armors because we're poor. You were just privileged, not because of anything you actually did." Ralsei pointed out. Kris moved to correct Ralsei on that point, but Susie smacked them over the head, sensing that whatever they were about to say wouldn't have been very helpful.

"Just to let you know, Burghley, the #YouSuck is now trending and breaking all previous records!" Queen called out.

"E-Enough of this! I'll just do my strongest attack again and send you all–" Berdly shouted out in a rage before another shout cut him off.

"Wait!" Kris yelled out uncharacteristically. "I still have a question." They then said in a much calmer tone of voice. Berdly and Ralsei looked at the human curiously, both equally shocked at the normally taciturn human's outburst. "Queen would have given all that armor stuff to Noelle too, right?" Kris asked, and a nod from Berdly answered their question. "So why did she nearly go down from a few of Berdly's tornadoes like the rest of us, but Berdly with the same armor could tank two red busters and a whole Susie beat down? That doesn't add up." Kris finished their thought, slowly edging themselves to be at Susie's side.

Momentarily distracted from the battle by Kris's point, Berdly nodded, "The C+ student does make a good point. I was kinda wondering if that was a plot hole or something?"

Seeing a chance to educate the masses, Ralsei excitedly clapped his paws together, "Oh! Actually, I think I might know the answer!" Kris began whispering to Susie.

"So basically, all lightners gain new powers when they enter the Dark World. Mostly this enhancement is for all their stats and usually will gain magic powers like us Darkners." Ralsei explained happily to the whole room, "However for each lightner, they have one specialty in their stats. Like for Susie, her physical capabilities are her strength, allowing her to throw people into orbit. Or for Kris their insanely high pain resistance–"

"Actually, I've always been like that." Kris interrupted Ralsei. Berdly and Ralsei stared at Kris who was being single handedly carried by one of Susie's arms. She had the human in a football overhand throw aimed right at Berdly. Susie switched between staring back at Berdly awkwardly while shooting angry glares at Kris for speaking up.

"ANYWAY! Berdly's specialty must be a really high HP stat!" Ralsei shouted out to distract Berdly from whatever his teammates were doing. "It would explain why our attacks don't phase him, but Noelle can be hurt much easier despite the two having the same armor."

"Ah, so then Noelle's specialty must be her magical stat then. And her powerful magic doesn't mean she's better than me, but that she's just a glass cannon while I'm a tank build." Berdly, already conditionally trained to give his complete attention to lectures thanks to the horrible brainwashing organization otherwise known as school, nodded sagely at Ralsei, ignoring the other two entirely.

Ralsei was about to compliment Berdly on actually listening to him for once; however, the bird wasn't standing up for much longer as a Susie thrown Kris knocked him down like a 90-mph fastball. Before the nerd knew it, the human had wrapped their limbs around them like a monkey clinging onto a tree trunk. Ralsei could only watch in mild shock as Susie ran towards the two blue combatants before screaming "DOGPILE HIM!". The purple dino made good on her word, leaping into the pile to help Kris restrain the Sky Knight from their sheer weight and gremlin energy. Ralsei didn't have much time to stand around doing nothing as Susie shouted back at him "Ralsei! Do a ten count, now!"

"Uh, 1, 2, 3…" Ralsei started, watching Susie and Kris hold down Berdly no matter how much he thrashed and squawked. In fact, the Sky Knight didn't have enough room to do any of his cool special magic attacks as the pair's weight stopped him from moving his arms. "4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… 10?" Ralsei finished the count uncertainly, unsured how this was helping.

Battle won! The Feral Babysitters won all of Noelle and Berdly's money.

Kris and Susie leapt off Berdly, giving each other a high five. "And we win by takedown by the rules of wrestling. Therefore, we won the showdown." Kris declared in a bored monotone voice, as Susie let out a victorious laughter.

"W-What?!" Berdly squawked indignantly, "No fair! They didn't even take out my HP! That can't be part of the rules, r-right my Queen?"

Queen looked back at Lancer and Noelle, with only Lancer looking back at her since Noelle was still in Hoodie World. "LMAO, IDK. I don't think we ever established any rules for this TBH." Queen shrugged unconcernedly, "What do you think, Lancer? Should we let wrestling rules decide this showdown?"

Lancer, who had not been paying attention to what was going on for a while now, looked back at his girl dad, "If I said yes, would that mean my friends win?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Queen's visor changed to a red thumbs up.

"Then yes." Lancer smiled.

"Alright, cool. I guess that's that for the Babysitter Showdown Throwdown." Queen shrugged indifferently. Berdly–and even Noelle–looked back at Queen, terribly offended, considering she was the one that dragged them away from their devices to go into this fight in the first place.

"So as the winners, that means you'll have to let us do whatever we want then!" Lancer smiled triumphantly. Our three 'villains' perked up at that, as it turned out this fight actually helped them achieved their final goal.

"Ah yes, about that." Queen cocked her head with a sinister smile before snapping her fingers. Three electric cages fell from the ceiling on top of Kris, Susie, and Ralsei, trapping the three in small prisons. "Yeah, I already said I wouldn't do that. Not sure why you thought I would change my mind over the period of one fight, no matter what Kris called me."

Ah yes, Queen was still a dick.

Queen let out a large series of elegant laughter at our 'heroes' expense, bringing their cages over to her with a flick of her hand. With a large smirk, Queen looked down on the imprisoned Kris, Ralsei, and Susie, "Now then, since you defied me and my generous offers, what should I do to punish you feral babysitters? Perhaps a dip in my acid river? Sacrificed to the man-eating-plugs in the basement? The tea cups? Oh, so many possibilities…"

"Awww, all my new friends are going to die by the tea cups…" Lancer deflated in sadness as his cool new villain group was getting destroyed on their first outing.

"Oh, I'll buy you a new set of friends Lancey-poo, and I already got you that new babysitter, remember? Noelle can be your new friend." Queen, while still smiling at all the possibilities of execution, off-handedly tried to appease Lancer.

"W-Wait, d-die? A-Acid!? Plugs!? T-Tea cups!?" Noelle flipped off her hoodie, looking around in shock and horror. "Y-You can't kill them! I d-don't want them to d-die!"

"Alright then Noelle." Queen rolled her eye dots on her visor, "Forever being imprisoned in their own personal rooms never to see another living soul again, it is then." Queen clapped her hands together, "Alright Lancer, say goodbye to these children forever!"

Kris spoke up to say something, only to quickly realize that no one reacted to their statement. It seemed that the electrical prison the human found themselves muted their voice to the outside world. Kris probably should have seen that coming since it looked like Susie was swearing up a storm of profanity in her prison. Even now, Lancer unhappily slid over to their cages, completely ignorant of Susie's screams and Ralsei's cries for reason. In a few moments, after Lancer said his piece, they would all be sent to their own personalized prisons, sealing their doom.

Alright, it's planning time.

Kris didn't have the wrist protector which would obviously solve this whole situation (thanks Ralsei you thief), but they still had one last bit of leverage. As Lancer began his great speech of how he first saw them back in ch 1, Kris tuned it all out, instead focusing solely on Queen. Taking out their ace from their pocket, the human gave a wide grin and waved it right at her for a minute. It took a little bit, but the motion trackers on the Queen eventually noticed their movement, and more importantly what was in their hand.

"STOP EVERYTHING!" Queen cried out, completely cutting off Lancer's heartfelt eulogy for the trio. In a flash, Queen deactivated Kris's prison, allowing herself to grab them up by their blue and pink shawl around their neck. "How did you manage to steal back that cool ring Noelle took from you!?" Queen gestured to the thorn ring in Kris's hands.

"She was too busy choking me to death that she forgot to take the ring." Kris answered.

"Oh, cool Give it back then. Can't miss that cool loot." Queen immediately relaxed, placing Kris in front of Noelle.

Thankfully this time, the passing of the ring didn't come with any kind of pranks or shenanigans, although Noelle grimaced at the sight of the freaky mind control ring. "Uh… T-Thanks, Kris." The deer girl carefully held the ring up by the string to avoid getting pricked by the torture ring, keeping it as far from her body as possible while still holding it. Honestly, the deer girl was tempted to throw it out like bad figgy pudding. It was just plain creepy… it was kinda cool though now that she looked at it… Damn it Kris.

Noelle's blood pressure spiked, not because the ring, but the sight of Kris… Noelle knew that look in their eyes. It wasn't the zeal of a prankster, but instead the tense excitement when Kris was pulling fast one. Normally Noelle when would see this, she would have considered ratting them out immediately before Kris could try anything funny (usually before it would ruin her day). But with all of Queen's talk of killing and eternal imprisonment, Noelle considered doing something strange for her: letting this play out.

Now free to speak and their gift to Noelle delivered, Kris turned to Queen and Lancer. "Actually, before you send me off to forever jail, could us feral babysitters be given one last request? Before we entered this castle, we all promised Lancer we would give him a big villain group hug at the end of this. Could we fulfill this one promise to our little blue, bouncy, beautiful boy?"

"You promised that?" Lancer cocked his head in confusion.

"Yes." Kris lied through their teeth.

Queen let her processors hum as she thought about the request carefully before shrugging. With a snap of her fingers, a swarm of angry comments came down ready to fire and all her minions prepared their own attacks, "Sure, as long as you're all fine group hugging at gunpoint." Queen then released Susie and Ralsei from their cages, allowing them to group up together once more with Lancer.

After a moment of uncertainly staring at each other, Kris brought them all into more of a group huddle than a hug, getting them all close enough to talk with some secrecy. "Wow." Lancer said tearfully, "I never knew how much I wanted something I never knew I was promised… You guys are the best villain group I ever made."

"A-Actually" Susie spoke up uncharacteristically emotionally, "Back at your speech about how cool I was and how you looked up to me, I-I liked hearing that. I think that's the first time someone ever complimented me eating a pinecone. Thanks, you little rascal. I'll miss ya."

Kris glanced at Susie owlishly if not a little confused. Wait, what did they miss?

"Y-Yeah." Ralsei sniffled. "Thanks Lancer. No one has ever called me 'the best hero I know' before. I-I really needed to hear that. I forgive you for beating me up two days ago and stealing all of my money. I'm sorry we couldn't stay with you longer."

Kris then shifted their attention to Ralsei who looked to be crying a bit. Did… did they not realize this was all part of their plan? What the hell did Lancer even say in that speech? Did they talk about them?

Three pairs of eyes then looked at Kris expectantly. Oh no, they wanted them to say something emotional too. Keeping their cool, Kris did what they always did in these situations: they said nothing and only gave a thumbs up to Lancer pretending they knew what was going on. With a big, sad smile, Lancer shot them a thumbs up in return. Oh gosh, they started to feel a little guilty about that, but there was the whole avoiding going to forever jail to be concerned about that now.

"Susie." Kris spoke in a hushed whisper to their strongest companion, "How fast could you sprint out of this room if you carried us all at once?".

Despite not knowing what Kris was getting at, Susie still matched their whisper as best as she could, "Pretty fast, I guess? You're all flipping lightweights… But wouldn't they just shoot us up into smears though?"

Kris gave her a reassuring smile. After all, even if she wasn't fast enough for this plan, it's not like any of this was real anyway, so it didn't matter if they all died. Might even be a fun learning experience. So would forever jail, but that sounded too boring compared to getting into more adventures with Ralsei and Susie so that's why Kris went with this plan instead.

"Pick us all up and run after my distraction." Kris said to them all, giving a devious, small smile. Before anyone else could say anything, Kris broke one arm out of the huddle to point at the entrance, "HEYEVERYONEWHAT'STHATOVERTHERE!" Predictably, Queen and every one of her dumb minions immediately flipped all their attention over to the entrance. All too easy…

Susie didn't need to be told twice, as she hoisted everyone up into her arms, and quickly booked up one of the staircase leading deeper into the Queen's palace while she and her minions were distracted by how empty that entrance was.

"Wait, what? Why did you all look?!" Noelle cried out in confusion as everyone else in the room fell for such a childish trick.

"Damn! They got away!" Berdly cursed to himself, "I shouldn't have underestimated Kris so quickly. Now they have the Queen's son too!" Noelle looked at her school partner like he was an alien, completely flabbergasted at his naivety. Noelle honestly had expected more from the prank master Kris Dreemurr, yet she was beginning to understand that maybe Kris didn't need to go all out for this world's residents.

"Unfortunately Burghley is right. It couldn't be helped; that Kris fellow was just too devious." Queen said, a frowny face appeared on her visor. "Sooooo, did anyone see where they went? We need to go capture them to get Lancy-poo back … No?" Noelle put herself back into her Hoodie World once more, not wanting to be in this Nutcracker anymore. "Ah well. Plan B it is." Queen played 3, "EVERYONE SPREAD OUT AND HUNT THEM DOWN!"

—

Stats

Ranks:

Kris: *Babysitter of Planning: LV1*

Susie: *Babysitter of Violence: LV1*

Ralsei: *Babysitter of Support: 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 (Ralsei), Egg x3, x4, Broken Sword, Empty Disk.

Money: 201340456e23154^2167!& Kromer, 0 DD (Yeah, Noelle and Berdly were broke too.)

---

Author's Note: Thank you for reading Ch 6 of Three Heroes or Something. Wow, this is the longest chapter too date. Wasn't my intention but this just happens when you write all those interactions within a fight scene. But hear me out, I NEEDED to write those bits with Noelle and Kris! I thought of those all the way back in March! I couldn't cut them! And yes, I did write Kris to be pretty stoked to see Noelle, cause after all, now they can prank this Noelle as hard as they like with zero consequences, since none of this is real after all ; )

But yeah, I'm really happy getting this part out, even if it did end off on a cliff hanger (at least as far as how I've been writing these). But there's too much content for the next part to all be under chapter 6, so think of it like a castle mini arc for Ch 6 and the following chapter. Which I hope y'all will enjoy.

And before you ask, yes, I did calculate how many red busters this Berdly could actually take from this version of Susie using the in game damage calculations. And again, thanks for reading THS.