Little Mac appeared and looked around for someone to fight.
Sand, sand, sand, cactus, sand
Nope. No opponents. Kevin must've summoned him to practice. That was what he was summoned to do most of the time. Without Kevin, himself, or Boo around, there were only a few options...
Little Mac started shadow-boxing.
Left jab, duck, right jab, weave, bob, UPPERCUT!
Right jab, left jab, sway, left jab, left jab, left jab, UPPERCUT!
Left jab, right jab, left hook, right hook, left body blow, right body blow, UPPERCUT!
Over and over Little Mac punched the air while envisioning opponents. There were a nearly infinite number of punch combinations, and he would go through them all.
...Or at least all of them that ended in an uppercut. You always had to end in an uppercut!
...
The sun had set and risen, and Little Mac decided it was time to change things up. He could punch all day, but shadow-boxing was only one of his training routines. With no one else around, he couldn't spar, so he was left with one more option: road work.
Little Mac began to run, while occasionally throwing a punch.
He didn't know as much about running as he did about punching, but he did know that running on sand was harder than running on a road. Thus, it was better. Besides, he might come across a sparring partner.
Kevin had told him it was okay to do road work infrequently, and it usually ended with Kevin summoning him away. Why crowds started to gather when he ran... he had no idea. A few people challenged him to a spar though, so it was a good thing.
Little Mac ran and ran. He stopped and shadow-boxed. He ran some more. He shadow-boxed some more.
The sun set and rose over and over.
Little Mac was starting to get worried. Kevin didn't usually leave him to train on his own for this long.
...
"Hey!"
"Argh!"
"Circle around!"
"Protect the horses!"
"Where are the spears!"
"It got Kennie!"
"You stupid bug!"
Little Mac heard the commotion as he jogged. You had to pace yourself when exercising. The sounds of combat were faint, but distinctive. Little Mac picked up the pace and dashed towards it!
He crested a sand dune and saw a bunch of people in metal armor with weapons bullying a poor, defenseless scorpion!
The scorpion's tail lashed out and stabbed one of the men. He screamed, fell to the ground, and writhed for a few seconds before falling still and quiet.
Hmmm...
It might be the scorpion that was doing the bullying.
Little Mac didn't bother fighting or sparring with things that couldn't fight back. That wasn't how things were done. However, the gigantic scorpion clearly didn't fall into that category. In fact, this didn't look like a sparring situation at all!
No. The more Little Mac watched, the surer he was that it was a real fight!
That made him pause. Kevin had been very specific about when he could and couldn't fight for real. His creator wasn't around to give him instructions, so the only other time was to protect innocents. Or, at least, non-combatants. It wasn't like Little Mac could identify who was and wasn't innocent.
The men were losing, but they might have started the confrontation in the first place. Besides, it wasn't like they weren't combatants. They clearly had weapons, armor, and some training. Little Mac decided to keep watching until he understood the situation better.
One of the men got picked up in the scorpion's claws, and was then bisected.
That seemed to be the breaking point for the rest of them, as they turned and ran. One of them got stung in the back, but the rest made it. The scorpion then advanced on the wagons, horses, and other people. The armed men had been between the two groups, but with their abandoning of their positions, the scorpion was free to advance.
Now that it was attacking innocents, or at least non-combatants, Little Mac charged!
He appeared in the blink of an eye in front of the scorpion and jabbed it in its head. Even if this was a real fight and not a spar, he needed to pull his punches. Kevin had told him to only go all-out when Kevin explicitly said to.
The scorpion seemed un-fazed. It snapped its right claw forward.
Little Mac knew its pattern already, and swayed to the left. He then followed behind the retreating appendage and threw a left jab, then a right, then a left! Each punch was a little stronger than the last, with the final one causing the scorpion's legs to buckle slightly.
There. That was the sweet spot. The amount of power that would hurt, and knockout, but hopefully not kill. Little Mac knew a LOT about how to strike people precisely. He was normally able to knock someone out without any permanent injuries.
Well, aside from losing consciousness. That was always dangerous in its own way, but better than having one's head literally knocked off.
The scorpion retaliated by stinging him with its tail. Or at least trying to. Little Mac dashed forward and low, which both avoided the (relatively) deadly appendage, and put him in position for his favorite attack!
UPPERCUT!
He caught his opponent right in the center of its mass and flipped it into the air! The scorpion seemed to float for a moment before it fell with a muted thud onto the sand. It laid on its back, and its legs curled inward.
K.O.
...Or it might be dead. Little Mac hadn't hit it THAT hard, but he also didn't know how much damage gigantic scorpions could take. Either way...
Little Mac raised his hands above his head and bounced on the balls of his feet. He pumped his arms up and down as he celebrated his win.
One of the armored men approached with his sword drawn, and Little Mac dropped down into a fighting stance again.
"Stop you fool!" A voice cried out from the wagons. "Don't approach it. You might trigger its combat routine!"
"What?" The man stopped and started backing away. Once he was far enough back, he lowered his sword, and Little Mac resumed his celebration.
"That's clearly a golem, its owner must be around here somewhere, and we don't want to offend whomever it is!"
"There's no one around, not for hundreds of miles. Not unless there's a caravan coming from the other direction."
"It doesn't look or act like a natural golem. I suppose it might be a rogue golem, those do happen on occasion. Still, we might be able to sell it for a good price in Illivere."
"Illivere? We aren't going to Illivere!"
"Yes, but I might if the price is right."
...
Little Mac ran beside the wagons. The men had argued with one another, then waited, then argued some more. Eventually the non-armored one had come up to him and told him to follow them. Little Mac didn't have anything better to do, apart from training, so he did.
Besides, road work was road work.
The group pressed on for days, and when they stopped for the night, Little Mac switched up his exercises. It would've been nice if some of the group had sparred with him, but no one had approached him. Did they not think he couldn't adjust his strength or something?
If he could communicate with them like he did with Kevin, then he could've asked. But he couldn't. So, he simply trained.
The situation changed as they started to encounter other people on the 'road'. The group spoke with them as they passed, and the general mood seemed to increase. Soon, they came to a city.
The man who'd told Little Mac to come with them, and to come inside a building.
"And what's this?" A fat man sat behind a desk.
"A rogue golem we found."
"Hmmm." The man glared at Little Mac. "[Appraisal]. That's odd. Guess there's no real market for it here."
"Yes, but it wasn't included on the initial forms, since we found it on the way, so I need an amendment."
"You planning on selling it here?"
"No." He placed a small bag on the desk that made a slight clinking sound.
"Fine." The fat man plucked the bag up and slipped it inside of his robe. "Standard fee for transporting magical items. If you do sell it, you'll have to pay an additional tax. Make sure to keep this form for when you leave Nerrhavia Fallen." He spoke with the bored tone of someone reciting the same thing for the hundredth time. Little Mac might not be skilled at anything other than fighting, but even he could notice something like that.
The caravan leader led Little Mac to another building, spoke with someone, and then headed upstairs. The pair entered a living area that had a bed, desk, lamp, and other things that Little Mac recognized.
"Stay here."
Little Mac watched the man leave. He had no reason to obey him, but he also had no reason not to. So, he began shadow-boxing again.
Night fell, and the man came back. He was swaying on his feet and slurring his speech. "I'm gonna make so mush money offa yooou!" He hiccuped. "Illivere will pay well, even if you are a rogue. They like golems up in Illivere!"
Was he punch drunk? Little Mac smelled the odor that was wafting off of the man. Nope. Not punch drunk, just regular drunk.
The man collapsed on top of his bed and started snoring loudly. Little Mac went back to his shadow-boxing.
...
It was the middle of the night when the door to the room was kicked open.
Little Mac ceased his routine and watched. Was this something he should stop? Help? He knew, in a general sense, that violence was frowned upon. Just like Kevin had told him to not kill people (or to try and not kill people), he'd also told him about stopping crime.
Little Mac found that confusing. 'Crime' was so... difficult to categorize. What was a crime? Some things were easy to identify - like when he'd run across men beating someone up. Some were hard - like when he'd run across men beating someone up, but the men were wearing a specific outfit.
"Taylo Rrawford! In the name of [Queen] Yisame, you are under arrest!" The man who was shouting was one of the armored guards from the caravan. He wasn't wearing armor now, but Little Mac had learned to distinguish different faces.
"Wha?" The caravan leader, who's name was apparently Taylo, groggily raised his head.
The guard was on him in a second. He flipped him over and applied a passable arm-lock.
"Good job in subduing the criminal." The fat man from the previous day walked into the room.
"You?" Taylo craned his neck to the side to look at the speaker. If the arm-bar had been better done, he wouldn't have been able to do that. "What's going on, is this about the golem mph-"
The guard slapped his other hand over the man's mouth. "I think he just tried to have his golem kill us!"
"I think you're right." The fat man smirked. "Do it."
"With pleasure." The guard leaned forward and whispered. "This is for getting my friends killed because you wouldn't hire more guards. And because you're a miserable bastard who nearly got us lost with your 'secret route'!"
"No! Wait!" Taylo shouted as the hand came away from his mouth. His cries died as a dagger was rammed into the underside of his jaw and into his brain.
Little Mac watched. What was a golem? How had Taylo used one to attack them from his position? Was killing him warranted?
No... it probably wasn't. Little Mac decided he should do something.
"A [Murderer]!" The fat man pointed. "[The Queen's Justice]!"
The guard spun around. His eyes were wide and surprised.
He raised his hands to his neck and opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. There seemed to be an indentation around his throat. He fell to his knees, while clawing at the invisible rope that was choking him. The invisible rope, that didn't seem to actually be there. His eyes bulged more and more as his face turned purple...
Then he collapsed.
Little Mac didn't know what was going on.
The fat man came up to him. "Well, well, well. I guess that makes you legally seized goods." His smile caused Little Mac to suspect that he was a supervillain. "Before his... untimely turn towards murder, Shizba told me that you do whatever someone asks, so... follow me!"
Little Mac felt that something was off... but he wasn't sure what. Still, he had nothing better to do. So, he followed the fat man.