Get in Loser, We're Going to Kick Butt

You ever heard of the loser who found himself alone somewhere without anyone to help him and without anyone who cared? No. Well this loser was just abroad a strange mind flayer ship, abducted straight out of the worst place in his life. Or well now the fourth one.

It may have just been a stroke of complete utter luck to be taken away from his judgement at the hands of the soon to be upcoming Lord Enver Gortash. A man with a face not even Reggie could really think of as handsome, he was a man with an oddly scruffy wolf like quality.

The man who was to be the second one to judge him for a crime he accidently committed.

And he broke down.

Ever judged for a crime he may have done.

Sitting in wait on the hope he'd be freed, but that what was already judged.

And they left him.

And he broke down.

Reggie lay along a wet, torn beach feeling the numbness wash over his chest and the grapple pull of tears lying in wait to come. His rough, calloused fingers barely scraped at his arms which were half of the only way he knew he was even still breathing and alive.

The only words that came though, were why?

Maybe it was all just dumb luck.

But after everything, especially after being roughly abducted out of his judgement by a passing Nautiloid ship of all things. He could barely even sum up what in all the heavens just happened to him.

It was not due to dumb luck though. Not at all, even as two rough hands grasped at the wet sands beneath him. Even the taste of the salty sea air, the feeling and light breath of the rush of lost adrenaline back when he was still abroad that ship full of horrors and poor stolen people. He bowed down, even as the now broken oath from a god that long away left him failed to hear the graces of his small prayer. It fell on ever-silent ears.

"Fuck me".

He took one nimble step away from the crash site, barely able to recognize any land marker around him. He was probably far, far away from any kind of civilization, but he could hear what sounded like a faint voice up along the beach.

The mess of sand sprayed out as his feet did all the work, and he hurried across the stretch to come across a tall, unconscious half-elf woman. Her face splattered with bits of dried crimson blood, and small flecks of leftover wounds half open near her left arm. She didn't move, but he could tell that she was alive, as she softly whispered in her unconscious state.

He neared her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder, calling on a healing spell that didn't come. Instead of any cool blue glow at his fingertips, the loss of sensation there was all he was met with. So he softly called out to her, remembering that she had been one of the few that he saw and saved from the ship.

It was then that he noticed a black and red item clenched in her left hand, and it looked like it was a relic meaning it was worth a good sum. Old habits die hard and all, so without even thinking his fingers dug close to her hand, trying to tug the object from her reach. And as old habits go, he did not notice even as her light green eyes opened flashing with anger.

"What in all blazing hells do you think you're doing? That's mine!" She quickly snatched up the relic and tossed it out of his reach before booting him in the head with her booted foot.

"Fuck lady if you didn't want that to be taken, don't leave it out then!"

"Nice, so you save me from the ship and then you rob me? Really ever the gentleman I see!".

"Less gentleman, more in how do I survive and not end up some tentacle-faced, brain-eating, ugly-toed monster ya know?" Yeah he was the one in the right here…really.

"Point taken I guess. Though I thought better of someone with Tyr's symbol displayed on his clothes. Or maybe you forget your order?" This half-elf was getting out of line, especially with knife-like words hitting him for his last hit points.

"Kay, how about we say bygones be bygones and instead say no robbing from each other" It probably did not help that she caught him causally looking at where she stashed her trinket for now.

"Fine! You have a terrible way with people though" She stood up and flinched as her left hand pressed against the wounds along her right arm, eyeing him up and down and then stepping back as he himself got up, "Could have healed me".

"What was that?!"

"Nothing, nothing. I think we spent enough time gawking about, why don't I tag along with you. After all..at least I can heal people". She displayed a small prayer and with a simple gesture, and keeping close personal eye contact with him she simply healed the small wounds and gracefully bowed.

"Geez, kay I'm sorry alright! If it helps my name's Reggie!" he struggled to not curse her under his breath as most elves he knew had the ears of bats though with a worse deposition, "Look it's been a long…like three days so cut the crap about healing and let's start over with this. I'm not able to heal, I'm more able to just try and not die right now!"

Reggie gave his best to try and keep his now shrinking confidence, even as she again looked him over up and down. What she saw was mostly a Lightfoot Halfling, smaller than her waist and roughly trying to hide behind his now loose, messy strawberry-blond hair. She did not really look as impressed as she was back when he first saved her. It was due to actually having spoken with him, hearing the high-pitched fear beyond the once contained and calm voice.

"Shadowheart" the elf said with little more than a nod in his direction as she went off without so much as looking back. The spray of seafoam leaving behind the small, caked footprints as Reggie too dashed after her, his bare feet barely able to keep up.

Shadowheart, yes that was her name, as weird as it was. A name that fit oddly with the dark-haired elf who from before was scared and locked behind a pod that would have been her death. He would have shared in that same fate but something beyond him had saved them both at the last moment.

It did not feel earned.

Of course it didn't after everything I did.

"So Shadows, you and I haven't really gotten off well here, but we should.. Hey!" Shadowheart without any fuss kicked him in the leg, and used her head to point towards a brain devourer that was close to them. The devourer a slimy, though to him damaged creature with four pink legs and oddly halting when they both got close.

An almost puppy-like whimper escaping from the folds of telepathic waves it was sending out. Which meant it unlike the friendly one he had saved on the ship, a small devourer named Us saw them both as enemies. Crying out it sent a shock of high-pitched screams in their direction as two others crawled as fast as they could towards Reggie.

"Don't call me Shadows!" She shouted back, "Please see to taking out a few while I prepare to cast"

He gave her his best, 'are you fucking kidding me' face that he could give the insane half-elf, and got met with a head-butt. He was getting awfully tired of being kicked, bit, pushed and treated like a piece of garbage by now.

As soon as his butt met sand, his hand went up and grabbed the intellect-eating brain and ducked it back down into the fire that was closest to him. He barely felt the pressure of the weight as he tossed it through the flames, feeling the small flicker of burning and eased his way back to that annoying elf.

These brains were half his size, and quick on their feet. Even as he analyzed the two that were running quietly behind him, he took up a broken shaft and hurled it dead long into the one making way for Shadowheart.

She again did not even so much as move, until he heard the cry of, 'Ignis' as her whole hand burst into a fireball and soon launched at the now unmoving target.

It missed.

"Shit", she hissed as she rolled away from the foot of the brain as it guided it's friend into her face, both of them jumping far to eagerly onto their captured prey.

"You fucking missed, seriously!"

"Shut up chew toy!"

"Nice rebuttal there!" Reggie screamed, right as he made off for the one that was trying to dig itself closer to Shadowheart's mind, "But it won't get a very large meal".

She slammed her hands deep into the one attached to her, groaning as the feel of cold, wet and oddly pork smelling innards splashed everywhere on her. The devourer let out a powerful wave of unease, stopping the other as Reggie took the shaft and drove it deep into its leg, making it drop to the ground hard.

He made a decent show of it by making sure to give this woman his smuggest grin, a sharp twinkle in his light green and hazelnut paired eyes and got jumped by the one that was recently watching from Shadowheart's leg.

He took damage, a major source from these little things as it descended onto his face, almost close enough to suck some of his mind out right there.

"Ignis"

This time it landed perfectly and dropped the devourer right there dead.

"Nice shot" he said as she pulled him up and healed him once she healed herself, not really saying much in the aftermath.

Shadowheart was it seemed closed off and distant, he could respect that. After all she had been recently freed and released from the strangest abduction he had ever heard of. It might have helped if he had not tried to show boat.

"You might want to stop trying to be a twit and use what little brains you have to actually think of a way to say sorry".

"Sorry then!" Reggie barely acknowledged her as he went on deeper into the ship. Circling back he caught an odd sound flitting through the air.

Shadowheart was about to spit off something when she heard the cry too, though it did not sound like those smaller devourers.

It was the sound of a mind flayer.

He quickly scampered to pick up the shaft; even as it was blooded if he hurled it hard enough at that monster it would be enough to kill the thing. Shadowheart seemed a bit..off though, as if her..

Oh no! He did not have time for her to be enchanted by the mind flayer's 'charm' and as she moved slowly towards the hurt mind flayer she almost broke off. Her hands went to her head, holding tightly, the thing screamed and he tossed the shaft deep into its brain and stuck it further. Reggie was not going to just let her become a snack for the world's worst customer.

Shadowheart barely moments away from the flayer fell head first into the sand and collapsed there. Her face twitching fast, a hard and uneven grin spread onto her face, forced there by the creature.

"Heal… Need to heal him…"

"No, you need to let yourself try and just rest now. Don't think about what happened, just breath" He knelt down and places his knees where her head was and placed helped her turn over. Inspecting her for any type of damage, but ruined it by speaking, "After you're all healed up, you owe me, kay".

A hand came up to smack him right into the sand, mouth first. She was chanting again, this time a cone of silence fell onto him, and he tried to talk.

Nothing came out.

"That mouth you have there is trouble, so I decided to help quiet it. Might keep you out of trouble". Shadowheart finished her statement with a twirl of her hair as she passed him and took up the shaft for herself.

Reggie throw himself off the cold littered ground of the wrecked ship, as the refressing view of green and grass met his view along the sides of the beach. The problem was the lasting impression of each other, though it was broken by the image of a pale elf standing in the midst of said grass.

The pale elf stood stalk still, even as Shadowheart dropped the shaft and surveyed the elf from where she stood hiding behind a tree out of his view. She was silent, but tossed a side-long gaze at Reggie, and then back towards the elf.

He gestured to his very unable to speak or answer silent covered mouth.

"Just fucking walk out of the cone you idiot"

Well that was enough to get the other elven figure's attention, but on her instead of Reggie. He picked himself out of her placed cone and decided that she could handle herself.

I mean she is able to hold her own. She'll be fine.

That was met with the hurried screaming of her annoying shrill voice, and the metallic sounds of a knife being pulled out of a hidden pocket.

Really she can handle herself here. See who the idiot is!

He could hear the further sounds of a tussle of bodies, a sharp and deadly heated fireball being casted and the howl of a voice that was shouting, "Gods that hurt! I was only asking for help you bloody bitch!"

Yeah she can handle herself.

He ended up in the middle of her sitting on the pale elven male who now had his white locks of hair dusted over and coated with ash and soot. His face and odd reddish tinged eyes took to Reggie and darted back towards the half-elf sitting on him.

"Well maybe you shouldn't just attack anyone at random then. I mean I have already had one person do that on that bloody ship we crashed landed off of".

The pale elf seemed to be assessing what he was just told, even as he tried to push Shadowheart off of himself, but barely able to do so.

"Well then, maybe I should be the one to say I'm impressed. I didn't think anyone else made it off of that scrap heap" He stated with a fluent Baldurian accent and an off-putting smile.

"Impressed or just looking to loot a body?" Shadowheart chirped as she got up and dusted herself off.

"Why darlings, it's not every day you run into a..uh, Mistress and her escort".

They both looked at each other, horrified as Reggie looked honestly ready to vomit just as Shadowheart jumped back, pale in the face.

"No, no! I am not her escort, bodyguard, playboy or anything else here, kay! I am not 'that' kind of person".

"With him?! Ugh, bear the thought!"

'Well, honestly what was I supposed to think with a lady of your fine tastes and a..honestly what are you so surprised at?"

The high elven man doubled into a slight bow, though the blood flecked across half of his face, and the fact that his nose was definitely broken didn't reflect his sudden polite behavior. If anything Reggie and Shadowheart both looked about as unimpressed as anyone who had just been ambushed would have been.

"Well now you sure can punch, now if you could be a dear and heal me?" The high elf again smiled, though Reggie noted the quick touch of spite beneath it.

"Sure, but if you try anything like that again, I'll end you're entire existence!" Shadowheart said, her lips managing in stay in a perfected grimace. She started chanting, though the elf was stalking close to her, tapping his feet impatiently. He struggled from a full grinning toothy smile to a sudden flash of malice.

She placed her hand on the top of his nose and in a few quiet minutes his nose perfected itself and went back into the place it was supposed to be.

"Well then, I think you two owe me for all my troubles! I know I saw you especially on the ship, right?" His slightly off smile again faltered, as he strode up close to Reggie, giving just enough space between himself and his prey to stare directly downwards.

"Yeah we were both on the ship; I mean in all of that confusion it was hard to even manage getting here, alive. Now besides your odd manners..what is your name?" Reggie did his best to dip underneath as the elf made a quick back step movement.

"It's Astarion darlings! Do not forget it!"

"Well Astarion, my companion and I are full up so please make yourself scarce and don't even think of coming after us" Shadowheart made sure she was holding her mace strongly in her left hand.

"Haaaah and what? Rid myself of such entertainment by letting the both of you two go on without me? Never in a thousand years!"

Reggie and Shadowheart both looked at one another and gave a dulled grimace, with both of them shaking their heads in a, 'no' fashion.

Then a sudden intense itching caused both Reggie and Astarion to kneel down in pure agony as their heads squirmed under a wretched feeling of pain. The pain itself slowly connected, masking an odd link between a fleeting of cold and another of pure darkness.

"By the Gods, what in all the Hells was that!" Astarion shouted quickly raking his head back and forth, brushing his white locks out of hands,

As Reggie swayed, oddly holding onto a single glimpse of a younger elven man struggling to get up from the bottom of what looked to be a large dug out pit. While Astarion caught a moment from a memory he didn't even hold of a young Halfling being thrown to a pit of wild, hungering wargs. Both of these memories lingered for a second, leaving sweat and a shaking hand placed onto a shoulder before they faded away into nothingness.

Astarion closed his lips, tracing his hands over his face, even as those few seconds left. Reggie snapped one miss-colored eye open, as his hair was matted by sweat and stress.

"What in the world just happened?!" Astarion asked, simply giving one hand to try and hold onto the nearest thing, which was Reggie's shoulder. Even if he had to lean further down.

"I think we all should talk and make camp! It seems like whatever is in our heads is in your own as well" Reggie said with a faint voice, "Welcome to the party, just remember no more stabbing!"