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.

10. Interlude Chapter: The Second Interlude

Second Interlude Chapter

Stats

Ranks:

Noelle: Frostmancer

Berdly: Disgraced Knight

Noelle maybe was panicking right now. The deer was fairly sure she was panicking, but it was a little hard to tell whether the reason her heart was hammering in her chest was due to her running for her life from that evil fat white and blue grinch, the fact that she saw Queen have her brain literally fried, or that she had just watched Kris and S-Susie get sent to some prison where they would rot forever… Oh wait, those were all reasons to be PANICKING!

Letting out a high-pitched scream that could shatter Christmas ornaments, Noelle made good use of her track experience to run as far as she could to find the first door out of here! Granted, the first purple door she burst out of didn't lead out of the mansion, but it did lead her to people that could help. Swatchlings, or so she had heard Queen refer to them, were sitting on the ground nearby. Noelle ran up to them and started waving her arms around frantically. Perhaps she was trying to brute force her message of 'Queen's down, my neighbor and crush are going to die, we're under attack! HELP MEEEEEEEEE!' to be transmitted directly to their noggins by sheer willpower alone. Alas, it didn't work.

Thankfully, her mind eventually caught up to her actions, and the doe stopped her flailing to try communicating like a normal, rational person. Judging from what happened when she tried speaking to King, it would be an uphill battle to not stutter all over herself, but for everyone's sake she would have to try. With a big deep breath just like how her dad had taught her, Noelle went to face her most difficult challenge yet: try to talk coherently to another person. "Q-Q-Q-Queen, s-she s-she s-she…" The deer meekly tried to explain her predicament, yet couldn't get her voice loud enough. Noelle took another deep breath and tried speaking a little slower though with not much better volume, "Queen. She. Had. A. Fire. Queen needs help. A big blue guy attacked, and now we need to help Queen." Her words grew stronger and more confident as she spoke, going from the strength of a wet spaghetti noodle to now a dry and brittle spaghetti noodle as her mental state calmed down just a tad. Finally succeeding in that difficult task, Noelle waited hopefully for the swatchling's reply.

The swatchling cried out like a mourning baby bald eagle chick, crying a river of tears. In fact, the entire room of swatchlings did so all at the same time. Jumping back with fright, Noelle blinked and looked around the room with all the swatchlings. They were sitting down in fetal positions; eyes glued to their phones. They all looked sadly and fearfully at their screens. It oddly reminded Noelle of that picture Kris had taken of her (after they had stolen his mother's camera) during their first day of school; the swatchlings' faces look exactly like she did when she realized her parents weren't coming with her to school (unlike Kris's. Like that was fair.). Some of the swatchlings were whispering about how "Queen hasn't replied to my post yet." and "Why has she stopped posting her random thoughts blog every five minutes?" only further strengthened those parallels in Noelle's mind. The poor little– err… big guys were like sad puppies missing their owner. It was really sweet… in a strange way for giant bodybuilder bird butlers.

Still with her mission in mind but also wanting to get Queen up and running again for these guys' sake, Noelle tried tapping the one she had attempted to speak to. However, it was a fruitless task. Without Queen, the swatchlings seemed to be completely inconsolable and weren't going to do anything. Oh dear, what could she do to make them snap out of it? Usually Noelle was the one being consoled, usually after one of Kris's 'pranks'. The doe had no idea on where to begin on the other end of this.

What would Dad do?

Well, Noelle doubted she could really pick one of these guys up and lay them in her lap, and she didn't really know any good jokes or stories to tell them.

What would Toriel do?

Noelle didn't have any ingredients to make a pie, and she didn't even think she knew where the kitchen was in the mansion if there was one at all. The doe supposed she could try to give them a big hug, but the swatchlings were kinda too big to wrap around with her arms.

What would Dess do?

Damn, she didn't have a guitar, nor knew how to play. Not to mention, she didn't have Dess's jacket, or any jacket for the matter either.

What would Catti do?

When Noelle went to get her smartphone to pull up a Iceberg video about the Icee Creepypasta, she grimaced as she realized her white robe lacked any pockets. Her phone, wherever it was, definitely wasn't on her anymore. Either way, that option was out.

What would Kris do?

Nope. Just nope.

What would… Mom do?

Noelle didn't even remember her mom ever trying to comfort her, usually leaving that to Dad. Though, she did remember one time when that politics bear had broken down in Mom's office after he had heard someone had graffitied the school. Something about the town's social order collapsing. What did mom do to get him normal again?

Noelle gave the swatchling a slap across the face. "P-Pull y-yourself together!" Noelle cried out fearfully, "W-We got work to do!" The swatchling stared at her with a shocked expression; then the darkner started crying harder. Oh dear, this was going nowhere. She couldn't do this alone! If only she could get someone else to help, all she really needed was someone to help her drag Queen to someone who knew what they were doing! If only there was somebody that could swoop in and save her from this nightmare.

—

Sitting outside the trash shoot that had rudely ejected him outside the mansion, Berdly sat stunned at what had happened. He had done everything he could to prove his worth, hunting down his fated adversaries and serving Queen's commands. Yet, he had been cast out of his new found destiny and purpose by Queen herself! He had been… fired. Oh angel, he couldn't let this show up on his permanent record, else he would never obtain a job anywhere with his perfect streak ruined. His life was practically over!

Of course, Berdly then caught himself, as he had been isekai-ed. This wasn't the end! Not for a protagonist like himself. This was only just his 'darkest hour' for his hero's journey! Not a sign that nobody cared for him, and definitely not a sign that his life was falling apart, or he wasn't smart! No… this was just the first step towards his great comeback! Kris, that dastardly fiend, had indeed got lucky in defeating him, but now it was Berdly's time to shine!

Although, how was he going to do that? Berdly's first instinct was to rush back into Queen's mansion to save Noelle and Queen from that dastardly C+ student, but a revelation quickly struck him. Protagonists in anime (or games for that matter) never heroically rush back in after their 'darkest hour'! He needed to mope and brood for several hours about his loss, then he would have the opportunity to finally get back at his belligerent rival! Oh ho ho ho. Kris, you may think yourself victorious, but this was a mere fluke! Soon, Berdly will prevail over them, to finish season 1's finale!

—

"Brood. Brood. Brood. Brood…" Berdly brooded to himself, while he leaned on the store's walls. It was a quaint little music shop he had found when he wandered into Queen's backyard city. It played several groovy chip tunes that were perfect for Berdly's brooding session.

One of the shop's three owners, the short, gray one with a speaker for a head, sounded off some commentary, "So are you just going to do that instead of buying anything?"

"Nah, man. Let him cook. I was going to start using his 'brood's for a baseline for some ten second jazz improv." said the blue one with a backwards baseball cap and appeared to have a cd player for a head, "This 'brooding' jazz might help me catch the eyes of a few ladies."

"Why brooding?" The green one with the boombox head sounded off a question with the innocence of a newborn kitten.

Giving out a heroic smirk, Berdly pounced at the opportunity he had been waiting for a chance to explain his spectacular plan! "Well you see, my less witted audience. I have devised the perfect method of dealing with my foes! Kris may have hired the brute Susie to impede my progress and literally run me over, but I will soon have my revenge as I found out how to 'speed run' my brooding arc!"

"Okay, we didn't ask for–"/ "Who's Kris–" The little one and the blue one both said something, but Berdly wasn't concerning himself with their primitive thoughts as he continued on.

"Most protagonists in these shows take several episodes to get over their brooding after not succeeding. However, I realized I could speed up the process by releasing all my brooding all at once. Therefore, I can get back to the good part of winning!" Berdly proudly declared his epiphany to the whole world.

"Then what?" The tall green one asked, despite the other robot stork clerks looking completely uninterested.

"Aha! Then? Then I'll be able to rechallenge Kris, confident in my power to defeat them and their harem of girls." Berdly declared with a wide grin, already feeling rejuvenated. Yes, his brooding session must be over! Wow, he speedran that faster than he thought he would. Truly, he really was amazing and not a total failure!

"Wait, wait, wait!" The blue one with the backwards baseball cap spoke out when Berdly was finished. Ah yes, clearly this robot dude was amazed by Berdly's fantastic speech and explanation, and just had to ask to follow up questions. "Are you saying this Kris person is stealing all these girls for their own harem?!" The blue music robot indignantly demanded.

"Uh, yeah?" Berdly answered, "Kris already collected two girls now, and who knows how many they'll have next time we meet."

"This menace must be stopped! If this continues, there won't be any girls left for any of us!" The blue one blared out his speakers, slamming his fist on the shop's table.

"Really?" The little gray one asked skeptically, "This one person is going to steal all the world's girls?"

"Why do we need girls? To play uno?" The green one tilted its head in confusion as it asked another question.

"You guys don't understand! Earlier today, Queen showed off a picture of this cute new babysitter she hired! I wanted to make a move, but I can't do that if this Kris person puts a ring on her first!" The blue one cried. He then turned to Berdly, "You get it, man! Here, on the house. You go kick that person's ass!" The CD player robot tossed Berdly two CD bagels, which he caught easily, of course.

"Thank you, my fellow gentleman." Berdly smiled at how his heroic exploits were already rewarding him, "I may have lost the first four times, but this time I can feel that I'll be victorious over my rival for sure!"

"HEY, don't just give this guy our stuff! That was 200 DD of bagels there Cap'n!" The little guy shrieked with his speaker face, "And also, if you failed like four times already, what exactly changed between then and now?"

At hearing the little one's point, Berdly blinked, "Um, huh…" Feeling the expecting gazes of the three shopkeepers on him, Berdly desperately tried to think of anything to save face, "W-Well, I… um. I need to do an anime training arc! That's it! I'll train and do good deeds to improve my stats and get new equipment that'll help me defeat Kris and Susie!"

"Right! Here, we also sell weapons and items! Take this mechasaber and Glowrist for defense and go beat them to the beat of Darude Sandstorm!" The blue one offered more stuff to Berdly, even as the little one tried his best to stop him.

"Ah yes! Thank you, my friend. Though are these items any better than my cyber halberd and royal pins?" Berdly asked, double checking to make sure that he was actually getting something good.

"Eh?!" As two of the three of the music robots stared at him in shock. In fact, a few sparks came out of the short gray one, although they remained functional. The green one just continued to vibe to the shop's music.

"Dude, you're frickin loaded!" The blue one said in surprise, "What did you do to get loot that good? Who's your sugar mama?"

"... huh, that's unfortunate." Berdly summarized, "So you three can't help me."

"Get out of our store! And stop trying to give away all our stuff!" The little gray one screeched, finishing dragging the blue one away with the timely aid of the much larger and taller green one who seemed to just go with the flow.

"Keep going man, find stuff and kick Kris's ass!" Screeched the blue one as he was dragged back by his two comrades. Berdly gave a solemn nod to the fine gentleman, slow walking out of the store with his purpose clear. He needed to train, to do all the side quests, and max out his level. This was an isekai after all, and all nerds know that isekai worlds just have RPG elements baked into the setting for no explainable reason. Therefore, Berdly went out into the rest of the city, looking for crimes to solve, fetch quests to do for random people, and any and all possible new items to find to complete his quest. To look super cool and beat Kris and co while he's at it. Don't worry Noelle, he thought to himself, I'll come back so much stronger and be the hero you can rely on.

—

Noelle really wished she had someone else strong that she could rely on now, yet it seemed that everyone she had met was completely unhelpful. All the swatchlings were simply too sad about Queen's deactivation to do anything, all the werewires were all braindead, and the few guests she did find were all too snooty to help her! So that left Noelle with no other choice; she went back to Queen and started trying to push the robot lady out to go get her repaired herself.

While her time with the swatchlings hadn't earned her any helpers, she had managed to, very reluctantly, steal one of their phones to find a map of the mansion, located somewhere called the maintenance room on the map. Noelle hoped a place called 'maintenance room' would have something to help her put Queen back online, but if it didn't… Noelle didn't want to think about what would happen if she couldn't find a way to get Queen back online. Frankly, she had no idea what to do then, and that thought scared her so bad she refused to spare it any thought less she might go into another panic attack. Granted, Queen was a little crazy and not all that helpful (When she was looking through the swatchling's phone, Noelle saw some of Queen's last posts were about firing Berdly and seeing King, yet she still chose not to send any more messages for help her after the first one went inexplicably unnoticed. Apparently sending firing emojis and #divorcemood was more important than getting backup.), but Queen still had the power Noelle needed. Queen had the power to help save Kris and S-Susie (and that other guy; she didn't remember if he ever introduced himself), and she had the potential power that could even help save her father from cancer with this strange world's magic. Noelle needed Queen.

Or at least, that's what Noelle kept telling herself, as she struggled to push Queen across the floor of the room with the acid river flowing next to her. Since she ran cross country, Noelle always thought that she was in good shape, but Queen was heavy. Whatever super strength S-Susie, Berdly, and presumably Kris got from coming into this world had decided to go on holiday break for Noelle. The weak deer girl just had to knock the robot queen over, and do her best pushing the body down the hall and all the way to the maintenance room… While a solid plan, it was taking a while, and Noelle's motivation was starting to wane. When Noelle saw someone coming down the hallway that wasn't a werewire and a sobbing swatchling, she stopped pushing, and nearly collapsed in relief.

"Oh thank the Christmas Spirit. I don't have to keep pushing her anymore…" Noelle whispered to herself. The person coming towards her stopped in front of Noelle, looking rather surprised at what she saw. She must be a darkner, but Noelle wasn't sure if she was a cat-woman with robot parts or a robot built to look like a cat-woman. "Umm, hello. I–" Noelle meekly tried to introduce herself and explain the situation at hand, but the newcomer interrupted her.

"What have you done and are currently doing to my mistress?" The robocat narrowed her glowing yellow eyes dangerously, brandishing her flail menacingly. "In fact, who are you? How did you get inside the building?" The darkner demanded with a harsh tone.

"I-I'm Noelle, and Queen made me a babysitter for Lancer—" Noelle did her best to answer the question, but her voice was squeaking now with fear and anxiety against the newcomer's hostility.

"Cease your lies!" The darkner growled, "You claim to be Noelle? Ridiculous, you must think me a newborn kitten. I already gave Noelle her obedience training an hour ago, along with that burghley fellow and the fluffy one that was with them for some reason. My facial recognition systems say you don't look anything like her. Now, identify yourself and explain why you deactivated Queen and why you're now grinding her face visor across the floor!"

"B-B-B-But I-I a-am– I-I a-a-am N-N-N– N-Noelle. I-I-I— I w-was j-just t-t-trying—" Noelle's blubbering was borderline incomprehensible if it was even audible, but even that was silenced by a wave of the increasingly furious darkner's hand.

"Fine. Keep squeaking you little maus. If you're not going to answer me, then my pets and I will just have to claw the answers out of you! Come here girls, Dinner time!" The darkner opened two window portals to bring in two large, snarling Tasques. It was at this moment that Noelle ditched Queen and started running for her life.

Yep, she could have really used someone to help her right now…

—

"Oh, thanks for the help, weird blue guy." The shop owner gave Berdly his much deserved gratitude. The brilliant blue bird had gone and completed a rather frustratingly long side quest to help the darkner load all his newly acquired wares into his storefront, and considering this was a furniture store those wares were rather heavy. Still, Berdly could just feel his strength stat increasing alone from this! Well… actually his wings just felt kinda tired, but hopefully this strange, unorthodox training would obviously give him a completely broken skill or ability that would utterly destroy the game balance of this world and would skyrocket him from his lowly beginner tier to the god tier he deserved! Even if just about anyone could do this simple task, only he would get this exploit because everyone knows that every single great warrior in isekai worlds are dumb and don't think of unorthodox training and investing into odd skills for their training arcs until a isekai protagonist comes along! Although, since it didn't seem like after this he could punt boxes into space, perhaps this wasn't the unorthodox training he needed… No matter! Berdly just had to figure out what specific task would grant him such great power, whether it was pointing all his skills in one stat, eating his opponents, or just coming up with one smart strategy that no one in this entire world has ever thought up before because they're dumb.

It was a lot harder than he initially thought. Still, at least he was getting material rewards from this work as well.

"Uh, are you going to say anything?" The shopowner stared at Berdly with a weird expression. Given the darkner looked like a tall bar stool with googly eyes, the expression was more of some eyes that quite literally narrowed into a baffled look; however, it conveyed the message well enough.

"Apologies my good stool, I was merely monologuing to myself. Of course, I'll take any great mighty weapons you may have to offer to me." Berdly eloquently accepted the stool's generosity.

"What? I thought you were helping me carry these wares for free!" The stool darkner backed up cautiously, "Besides, I don't have any legendary weapons lying around. What, did you think if you just did what I asked I would just grant you a wish? What do I look like? A lamp darkner?"

Drat. Empty handed once again. Berdly had already acquired several funds, cheese wheels, and other odds and ends that he had stuffed down his pants from all the side quests he had taken on (which was way easier in video games than here. His pants had already filled up after two cheese wheels, so eventually he just started storing most of his stash by Queen's mansion). However, much like this one, it had all failed to get him any gear more rad than what he'd acquired already. Although, he wasn't hungry anymore despite some serious physical labor for the day.

"Very well then. I suppose I shall just look elsewhere to find the right side quest to get me the tools I need." Berdly sighed before staring at the shop keeper with hopeful eyes, "...Unless?"

"No!" The stool darkner rejected Berdly's subtle hint with angry eyebrows, "I ain't paying you nothing. If you wanted something, you should have said so beforehand in a business contract! No way I'm letting you use the excuse of 'helping me carry some stuff' as an excuse to take my house and home!"

Berdly stared at the stool, "I mean, I was only going to ask for the appropriate amount of wages for the work done—"

"I'm a small-time business owner, I don't got the funds to pay for wage workers! Do you know how much it costs to build furniture that can withstand explosive fights with robots and heroes chucking it around for extra damage!? I barely have enough to make ends meet!" The stool cried angrily, "Now go to a weapon store if you want a cool weapon so badly, instead of harassing me for handouts!"

Huh, now there was an idea. Yes, Berdly could see the mental locks breaking and all the paths of logic coming together into one clear picture. Clearly, he was going on generic side quests. He needed to get on a side quest specific for granting him a legendary weapon for his smartness! Originally, Berdly had thought it might be more innocuous like starting a long and aggravating series of trades of seemingly useless items that would eventually grant him the legendary weapon he desired. However, there were plenty of these quests starting by talking to a weapon's smith!

"Are– Are you dead? Did you die standing up?" The stool shop owner said, "...Say something if you don't want me to repurpose your body into a lamp stand."

"Ah, apologies. I was just monologuing again. I'm afraid a genius like me will have more advantageous positions to be in, thus I must make my leave. Farewell my good sir!" Berdly waved goodbye, leaving the stool who now watched him strangely with a large jar of formaldehyde nearby. Odd, but probably nothing to be concerned about.

Berdly had a legendary weapon to acquire.

—

When faced against a crazy cat woman and her two ferocious beasts, Noelle had immediately ditched Queen and bolted in the opposite direction. How she managed to lose the scary cat lady and her beasts was beyond the deer. Perhaps the crazy cat lady didn't expect her to flee away like Santa Claus into the night, instead thinking that she would just stay there and fight a three on one battle. If so, the darkner didn't know Noelle that well. What kind of idiot would accept a fight like that?

…Besides Berdly.

Either way, Noelle had managed to outrun the scary darkner, even if that left her completely lost. She still had the map on that phone she'd 'borrowed' from that swatchling, so she knew where she was but that still didn't change the fact she had no idea what to do. Queen was down and likely being guarded by one of those horrifying blue and white animal monstrosities, Noelle couldn't head to the 'maintenance room' without Queen, and everyone she could rely on were either kicked out of the mansion or crying uselessly because Queen was offline.

So, Noelle gave up. It was the easier thing to do. It wasn't like she abandoned all hope to fix Queen and continue her quest; obviously that cat-lady was one of Queen's minions. She would probably know what to do to fix the monarch, meaning that there wasn't a point in trying. As long as she didn't cross paths with that angry darkner again, Noelle could just wait until Queen came back online to clear everything up. Using the map on the borrowed phone, Noelle made her way up to what was labeled as 'Noelle darling's room' up on the highest floor of the mansion. It was certainly a long walk (how did the computer monarch obsessed with technology not have an elevator installed to her multistoried building?), but with the aid of several large signs that said 'Best minion's room THIS WAY~' pointing the way it wasn't too hard to navigate. Eventually, she found her new room, or she thought she did? Despite all the build up to it, the door looked just like any other purple door in the mansion's teal halls. However, it was the only door on this floor, so… there weren't a lot of other options.

There was also a large darkner lying on the floor in a fetal position, shivering. At first, Noelle assumed it was another despairing swatchling, but on closer inspection Noelle recognized him. It was Swatch, the leader of the swatchlings.

"Swatch? Is that you?" The deer asked quietly, barely able to muster up a normal speaking tone. Noelle hesitantly looked over the big guy. He didn't say anything, although she hadn't really expected a response. Initially Noelle assumed he was incapacitated by his own grief much like the other swatchlings; however, he wasn't crying or wailing. He was shivering, clearly traumatized by something. A chill went down Noelle's spine as she looked at the now ominous door right in front of the downed Darkner. Instantly realizing something was up, Noelle began worriedly looking at the darkner, hoping he would get up and explain what was going on.

Something. Something terrible was just beyond this door. What else could explain Swatch's state; he seemed like the only sane person in this place and now he was a jittering mess! What could have possibly done this to him!?

"Swatch." Noelle tried again to get his attention a tiny bit louder. She apprehensively poked the bird darkner, hoping it would get him up, "W-What happened?". The big darkner made some sounds, but his voice was too quiet and too shaky to understand. It didn't even seem like he was staring at anything in particular; his mind lost and adrift in a world no one could reach. Just as Noelle was about to back away and find literally anywhere else to be; she heard a sound. It was like a creaking sound. Being a jumpy little girl who had shrieked and cried at almost everything even remotely unfriendly or scary, Noelle knew the sound very well. It was of a door ever so slowly opening, like a little young doe would do to peek out at what was just beyond the door, hoping that it wasn't something scary like Santa Claus or Icee. Noelle's eyes reacted immediately, pinpointing the source of the sound and saw that her instincts weren't wrong. The door indeed had opened by a crack. It was just enough where she could see what was poking out its head from the door frame.

It was a small, gray and purple mouse.

It was a small mouse!

IT WAS A MOUSE!

Noelle jumped a good five feet into the air in fright as one of her childhood fears came back to haunt her. Ever since little Noelle had woken up early to eat Christmas cookies only to find that a gigantic mouse that was as big as her hand at the time had broken into their house and begun eating the sugary sweets, she had been terrified of the little things. It wasn't weird! Mice were creepy and disgusting with their little scurrying feet and dirty bodies! They could chew through walls to make tunnels and hide in almost anything! NOWHERE WAS SAFE FROM THEM. Of course, Kris loved them, and loved even more putting mice and mice-like objects around to scare her out of her wits in what they called 'exposure therapy', ensuring her fear lasted well into the present day. However, as soon as she landed, Noelle knew in her heart that she needed to be strong like Dad always told her. She couldn't keep letting her fears control her. It was just one mouse—

The mouse squeaked.

Noelle gave a smaller jump but shrieked just as loudly.

…

She was really bad at this. This mouse was extra creepy; it had a purple head and ears. That wasn't even natural! The deer girl wanted to run away, yet her legs had frozen stiff with fear. She had little choice but to have a staring contest with the disgusting little rodent like it was a ghost of Christmas haunting her. Yet as it watched her, the mouse began to jump up and down excitedly. Then.

The door swung open fully.

Noelle's eyes went wider than the moon.

The entire room.

Every corner and surface.

It was all covered in a horde of mice. They crawled over every surface and some even formed into groups of three that all spun around in the air in a strange orbit around nothing. Noelle couldn't even find the voice to scream as all the mice looked at her and began excitedly squeaking.

Then like waves on Hometown's lake shore, all the mice surged forwards and picked up Noelle and the body of Swatch like driftwood before dragging them back into the room. "NOT AGAIN!" Swatch screeched out, coming back to his senses only to see his impending doom occur.

The door to Noelle's room shut with a thud, and all kinds of jumpscares from loud screams to pop up jack-n-the-boxes all went off at the same time. Unsurprisingly, Noelle screamed. She screamed so loud that the whole mansion could probably hear it. However, what she screamed didn't make sense to even her. After all, she had no evidence that Kris Dreemurr had anything to do with this, yet she screamed their name out all the same. Maybe it was just years of getting scared from their pranks that she just did it on reflex. Maybe she thought she saw Kris grinning their 'evil' grin in the room. Or maybe she was just psychic. No one knows for sure. What is known for sure was that Rouxls Kaard only a few minutes before had just decided to celebrate his betrayal of our heroes with some drinks and even got out his most expensive and delicate wine glass set.

This is what we call a classic example of karmic retribution.

—

Berdly let out a great exhale as he finally set down the cobalt statue of Tenna that the weapon smith had asked his heroic self to fetch on the counter. It had taken quite a bit of sweat, labor, ignoring that weird scream that rang out in the city, and trading back a series of miscellaneous items from bananas to moss to acquire. However, Berdly had done it. The great weapon smith darkner's gray eyes on his hammerhead went wide at the item, "Oh wow! Is th—"

"Looking for this cobalt statue?" Berdly spouted out his cool one liner that he had planned for his inevitable victory with the suaveness he always knew his brave and smart self had. The darkner blinked in silence. Berdly eagerly awaited at the shopkeeper's flabbergasted and amazed reaction at Berdly completing this impossible feat with ease thanks to his very very smart brain.

"Um… oh wow." The darkner paused and looked at Berdly before continuing, "Is that the cobalt paper weight with tungsten highlights I've been keeping my eye on for the last five months?" The old darkner said with a less enthused tone than Berdly had been hoping for, but the dim-witted smith probably was having a hard time comprehending what was going on before him.

"Yes, it is!" Berdly declared, pointing one feather-finger to the sky. "After eavesdropping on you and figuring out your greatest desires, I have gotten you this rare and treasured item."

"Wow, that sounds like stalking!" The old smith said rather jovially, "But I'm not complaining if you're giving me free stuff!" The hammerhead darkner bobbed its head happily, extending out one of its sleeves of its green cloak to snatch up the statue. For a brief moment, Berdly felt a twinge of worry that he might have done this good deed for nothing once again, until a twinkle came on the old darkner's googly eyes. "However, I get the feeling you're a strong adventurer. You probably hoping you might get some of my sickest wares in return for this task, don't you?"

Berdly's grin stretched across his face as everything fell into place, "You have a good eye, honorable smith. I am in dire need of the best weapon around to defeat my archnemesis, Kris. I came to you because I heard you were the best."

"Hehe." The darkner giggled, "You've got good instincts. I don't sell off my greatest pieces to just anybody with enough money. Only special people who've proven themselves worthy can wield my most powerful weapons. And you sir bluebird, have passed my test." The smith set aside their newly gained paper weight, before opening a trap door in the small shop he had. "Now just hold still, I'll show you my strongest and most powerful weapon!" With that, the darkner jumped down to fetch this legendary weapon.

Berdly was speechless. It was happening. It was finally happening! All his hard work and knowledge of video games and anime was actually paying off! N-Not that he had any doubts of course! It was just very gratifying to see that his power up arc was finally complete! Even though he had yet to find the correct trick to boost his stats all day, the disgraced knight was getting a legendary weapon that would do the same! The game balance would be broken! Berdly was flying free! Soon, he could make his grand return to Queen's castle, regain his old position, and finally be the one to defeat Kris and his harem of girls! All with this weapon! This legendary halberd of boundless power!

"Here it is! The Z Scarf. My ultimate masterpiece." The smith proudly popped out of the trap door, displaying off a green scarf with an emblazoned golden Z on it.

"Ah." Berdly said, blinking in surprise at the unexpected piece of equipment. "...Very nice?"

"It is, isn't it?" the darkner said proudly, "It increases both your attack and magic by forty! There ain't a single foe you can't conquer with this baby. Not to mention all the extra abilities I slapped on to this thing. It's the greatest scarf in all the dark world!".

Recomposing himself quickly, Berdly gave a big, smart grin, "Well, I will gratefully accept this piece of armor–"

"What!" The darkner whipped his hammer head around in anger, "This ain't no armor! It's a weapon! One of the best weapons in the whole Dark World!" Winding up, the weaponsmith spat at the ground Berdly stood on, "And here I thought you might have been worthy of wielding such a refined piece!"

"Um…" Berdly stuttered, "W-Well, that's the thing. How exactly do you wield a scarf as a weapon? Don't you just wear them around your neck for warmth?" Though now that Berdly thought about it, he did think that he saw that fluffy girl in the witch's hat that Kris had tricked into following them using a scarf in combat, or was that a third limb? Getting tossed around so much had jumbled up the bird's memory.

"'How do you wield a scarf'? Hmph! Do you even know how to use real weapons?!" the weaponsmith shot back sarcastically, "Don't tell me, you don't even know how to use dual socks as weapons? Slippers? Even Top hats?" Berdly shook his head, getting more confused about how fighting worked in this world. Groaning, the darkner shook his head in disappointment, "Kids these days, not appreciating the classics. Let me guess, you use a sword like a filthy casual, don't you?"

"O-Of course not! Only my archrival would sink to such a low!" Berdly shook his head, desperate to gain back this random person's approval. Taking out his trusty cyber halberd, Berdly showed off his weapon to prove his point, "I use only a truly honorable weapon! A hal-bird!" The smith didn't look all that approving at the weapon, spiking Berdly's anxiety. However, the darkner didn't trash talk it either.

"Well, I suppose there's that." the smith finally said, although he then took a good look at the weapon. "Though, for a halberd, that is a decently good make. I don't think I have any halberds of better quality in my shop, and I doubt you could find a better one any time soon. Unfortunately, Halberds aren't all that popular, so it'll be harder to find a stronger one than what you already got. But why are you looking for something better?" The shopkeeper looked inquiringly at the teen; however, Berdly didn't answer. He didn't even really hear anything the darkner said after the 'I doubt you could find a better one'. The blue bird fell to his knees, causing the weaponsmith to back up in surprise.

"N-No! Damn it!" Berdly, with tears in his eyes, punched the ground angrily, "I-I need to be stronger. I haven't been able to increase my strength stat with my training; I-I can't get a weapon! H-How am I supposed to beat Kris and regain my former glory now!?"

"Whoa, whoa. Easy there kid. What are you talking about?" The shopkeeper's voice took a note of concern, "Is this really that important? What happened?"

"You don't understand! I got fired from my first job under Queen! After Kris beat me four times, the Queen FIRED me! This was my one shot at redemption, to finally beat Kris and Susie and salvage my permanent record!" Berdly cried out in frustration, repeatedly punching the ground with his wing-fist until some feathers shook loose. "It's not fair!" The teenager yelled, "Why does Kris get to succeed, when I put in all the effort?!"

The weaponsmith sat down on the floor and motioned for Berdly to sit down next to him. "Son, what exactly happened? How did this Kris fellow beat you; what weapons did they use? If they got a stronger weapon than your halberd, you could always use one-time weapons like magic stones, bombs, or throwing furniture to even the odds."

Seeing the adult was trying to give him advice, Berdly did his best to hold back his angry tears and sniffles and properly recount what happened, "W-Well. It all started earlier today. I had been tasked to fight Kris and his two followers: a brute named Susie and a misguided damsel. I only had myself and my trusted ally Noelle at my back, but since she was taking the role of healer, I was tasked to fight all of them myself."

The weaponsmith winced sympathetically, "Ah yeah, that must have been rough. Not much you can do with odds that bad. So, they ganged up and beat you down I take it?".

"No, actually." Berdly said, clearly surprising the darkner, "I was kicking their butts! None of their attacks could scratch me while I nearly took them all down with my superior weapons and might."

"So, how did you lose?" The weaponsmith looked genuinely dumbfounded. Most fights in the dark world were either settled by fighting power or becoming friends, although some mages could pacify their enemies to end the battle. However, all methods still required some level of toughness, else the opponent could just knock them out. It seemed rather inconceivable that the lad could have lost such a one-sided fight if he hadn't wanted to become friends.

"Well first Kris tricked my friend into quitting the fight; then they dog-piled me and declared victory through wrestling rules, and that worked!"

The weaponsmith stared at Berdly, "So they cheated."

Berdly's eyes snapped open wide with indignation, "Yes. YES! They cheated! Queen said we were supposed to beat each other up, but then Kris just switched the rules! They cheated just like in Super smashing fighters with their wave dashing!"

"So how about the other three times?" the weaponsmith asked the lad, "What happened there?"

"Kris cheated there too!" Berdly snapped to the conclusion now that it was in his head, "First they ran away from me when I challenged them, then when I cornered them, they tricked my allies to attack me so they could run away again, and then finally Susie threw me into some poor gentleman's mouth and they ran away again while I was making sure that poor darkner was okay!"

"Oh, that's totally cheating!" The weaponsmith grumbled, "Everyone knows that you must stop whatever you're doing if you're ever challenged to a fight. The only reason for running away is if the enemy hurt you so badly that you accept defeat; then you gotta pay them money. Did they even do that?"

"No!" Berdly answered angrily, "So now Kris owes me money too! Oh, this is so getting added to their family's debt! And this time their mom can't distract me by using smoke bombs!"

Standing back up, the weaponsmith offered a hand to pull the young adventurer up, "Sounds to me that you don't need to stress out so much about getting stronger. You already have the power to beat your cheating foe. That's probably why they kept running from you in the first place."

Taking the hand to stand up, Berdly's eyes went wide with sparkles as he processed this great and smart sage's words. "So, you're saying the power I needed was inside me all along? I just had to believe in myself?" This was just like that TV show Berdly watched as a kid!

Feeling like they were missing some context, the smith scratched their hammer face awkwardly, "Uh, sure? I mean, what you really need isn't some new weapon, but a strategy—"

"Oh, thank you!" Berdly cut the darkner off, "I see now! I don't need to change myself, as I'm already better and smarter than Kris. I just need to fight them in a fair duel to show it to the world! This time it will certainly work!"

"Uh, actually–" The weaponsmith tried to get a word in, but the bird was talking too fast.

"There's no time to waste, I must head right back to the mansion and save the Queen and Noelle from my archnemesis! But I assure you, I'll repay you some day!" With that, Berdly was off, launching himself into the air with gusts of wind to speed himself up as he raced through the city. Really, the gusts of wind just ended up launching him into wall after wall, but he was too excited to really notice some head trauma. A big grin was on his face as he ping-ponged himself off every wall in the city like an inelegant spider-man as he made his way back to Queen's mansion.

The weaponsmith could only stare at the sight. They had meant to inform the lad about where he could get some smoke bombs and traps he could use to get the drop on his foes and even a magic cage that could force an uninterrupted duel if he was willing to spend a lot of dark dollars. However, it seemed like the Berdly already had an idea what to do. He had certainly claimed to be smart, maybe he just thought up a new strategy to force a fair duel or a way to out cheat the cheater like getting the drop on them. Well, the darkner didn't see any need to intervene if the lad was that confident in his prospects, just as long as the bird didn't try to do the same thing again, he would probably be fine.

—

Mice. Mice everywhere. EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME. Her vision was flooded with the furry creatures skittering around; she could feel them crawling up and down and around her body.

Noelle didn't even try to scream anymore; she was too afraid of having a mouse climb into her mouth. Instead, she thrashed and writhed to finally find the door and escape. In all honesty, all she had wanted to do was curl up in a ball and accept her furry fate once she had been dragged into this rodent hell. For a while, that's what she had done. Yet as she felt their little legs run around her for what felt like hours, something strange happened. She felt cold, numb. Like how even the sight of a mouse would send her whole body shivering in fright, now it was simply reality for her.

It was kinda boring in a weird way. Her fear and disgust had been replaced with numbness and annoyance. It certainly wasn't pleasant in any terms to feel so many little creatures running all over her body, but Noelle's brain had enough time to process that if she didn't get out of this room that sensation would only continue for eternity. So, Noelle decided to try and do something about it. Hence the trashing and writhing, Noelle desperately tried to just get the mice off her enough to get her bearings of the cursed room and figure out where the door was.

The results were… rather like her attempts at getting Kris to knock off from pranking her, unsuccessful. The little demons kept running around her body so much for her to see, and her flailing did little to help the holiday girl's problem. Ugh, this was starting to seem like a Christmas disaster in a cheesy holiday movie, only there didn't seem to be any chance of some unlikely hero to come in and save the wonderful holiday. It would just be sad like her past few Christmases.

Then a dark, cold thought entered Noelle's mind; chills went down her spine at the very idea. Her breath seemed to bring the room's temperature down a degree, as for a moment her body almost instinctively began channeling the coldness from her mind, body, and soul.

Then Noelle shook her head so violently that she was pretty sure a mouse was forced to take flight like Rudolph albeit without any of the magic. She couldn't use Iceshock! She couldn't kill these mice, not even a single mouse! Yet Noelle found herself tired of this whole situation. She was tired of everything in this dark world scaring her. She was tired of having to rely on others to save her. No one was coming to save her from this room of mice. She could still hear Swatch whimpering, Queen was down, Susie and Kris were imprisoned, and Berdly was banished. There was no one but herself, and she was tired of her inability to save herself. Even if she didn't want to kill these mice, that didn't mean she couldn't make them get off her.

Channeling her mother's permafrost voice, Noelle spoke with as much confidence and authority she could muster, (which would have been considered soft for a normal person's indoor voice) "G-Get o-off." The mice kept going about their business of getting all up in her business. Raising a single hand to the ceiling where there weren't any mice (Noelle hoped), Noelle whispered again more firmly, "Iceshock."

The numbness she had been feeling swelled and spread over her whole body like she was standing out in the freezing snow. Memories of being all alone in the freezing cold consumed her mind. Her breath came out as a chilled, visible fog. Then all that coldness rushed into her fingertips and leapt out to the ceiling and a buildup of frosty magic. Even without being able to see, Noelle heard the ice crack and spread across the ceiling clear as a Christmas Carol. The whole room had gone silent, as the mice went very still.

"G-Get off me." Noelle said louder this time. Like a light switch, the weight of what must have been thirty mice leapt off her, and for once Noelle could see clearly. After standing up, the deer got a good look around the room. The room Queen prepared for her looked more like a haunted house with a mouse infestation than an actual room. The only good point was a very nice large statue of a familiar looking dinosaur with a large axe in hand.

Oh, she was keeping that.

Admittedly, it was hard to get a good look at everything with the hundreds of mice sitting still and watching Noelle, but at the very least she could see the exit door. She could leave. Swatch certainly took the chance to, immediately jumping up and racing through the door as soon as the mice stopped squirming all over him. However, Noelle didn't leave. She just stared at the mice that looked fearfully back, and before she knew it something welled up inside of her.

"G-Get out." Noelle said quietly, yet the mice stayed still as if frozen to the floor. This only made Noelle angrier. "Get out!" Noelle firmly demanded in a chilling voice, sending tiny freezing sparks down at the ground.

The mice scattered.

Noelle was alone in the room. Letting out a sigh, Noelle went to close the door.

To her surprise, Swatch bursted through right before she could close it, which wasn't all that surprising considering all of the mice were now outside the room instead of inside of it. Wasting no time, the elegant bird butler scrambled to fearfully hide under Noelle's bed, ripping out the Icee monster animatronic that had been stored under there for some bah humbug reason.

"Better than Kris being under there I guess." Noelle said out loud to no one in particular as she stared at the shivering butler still kicking the sparking animatronic until it was fully out from under the bed.

"GIASfclf—" The animatronic tried to screech out Icee's horrifying catchphrase, although it just came out as a wheezed whimper before cutting off as more sparks came out from the robot. It still made the doe jump. She really didn't like that ice cubed mascot. Noelle decided to do Swatch and herself a favor by extending out her hand and used Iceshock once more. After all, it was just a robot; it wouldn't die from the ice even if it was actually alive. The ice magic coalesced around it before suddenly springing forth and freezing the horribly cheezy robot solid.

*Noelle grew stronger. *

The deer girl shuddered for a moment as she felt different. Colder. But with all the excitement today, Noelle now felt all the adrenaline leave her body. She just wanted to go to bed and hope this all was some horrible dream. Yet, her door flew open. Noelle let out a massive groan as she turned around to see who was the grinch that was barging in.

"You!" that crazy cat-lady darkner from before was pointing at Noelle with an accusatory floating hand, "How dare you run from a battle without paying me money. And now you drove out all the maice I collected for Noelle's room! I'll flay your hide for these transgressions!"

"You did this?" Noelle flatly asked with a deadpan expression. The harshness in the deer's voice actually made the darkner freeze a bit, before taking on a more combative stance. Her glowing yellow eyes warily looked at the frozen animatronic and frozen mound on the ceiling.

"It was a direct request from Noelle's friend. The blue one. They told me pretty explicitly to fill the room with mice, which I assumed they meant maice, the plural for maus." The darkner answered even as she prepared her flail. The answer left Noelle a little confused, as she had been with Berdly for the majority of her time here and knew he didn't say that or even met this lady. Not to mention, the darkner got his pronouns wrong, and usually everyone in the dark world got those right for some inexplicable reason. Her confusion didn't last very long as Swatch came up from his hiding place under her bed.

"Actually, that wasn't Burghley, Tasque Manager." Swatch spoke elegantly as if he hadn't just been shivering and cowering under Noelle's bed, "That's what I was shouting at you before, "Those three were intruders that had invaded the mansion and stolen Lancer from our marvelous Queen."

Tasque Manager blinked and slowly dropped her fighting stance, "S-So you mean that I?"

"Aided the enemy, failed to stop them from taking Lancer, and set up Noelle's room into a horrible trap at the behest of our enemies? Yes." Swatch summarized.

"N-No!" Tasque Manager fell to her knees in despair, "How could I have been so disorganized with my intuition?! How can I ever redeem myself!?" She mewled like a sad kitten.

"You can start with the thousands of dark dollars for my therapy bills." Swatch offered, "Also apologize to Miss Noelle, who you falsely accused of being an intruder." The butler gestured to the tired doe. The cat-lady darkner hesitated only a moment, before going to grovel at Noelle's feet for forgiveness. It was… a new experience for the deer girl. She silently nodded a thanks to the head butler for clearing up the whole affair for her, which he nodded back. Still, there was one nagging question in Noelle's mind.

"Wait." Noelle looked down towards the groveling Tasque Manager, "You said something about a blue person? The one who told you to put all those maice in my room. If that wasn't Berdly, who was it?" Noelle felt she almost had come to the answer herself, but she was exhausted and for once she wanted the answers to just be said flat out instead having her figure out this wacky world. Besides, she had some choice words for whoever was responsible for this.

Shifting uncomfortably, Tasque Manager looked to Swatch for help, which he graciously gave. "Ah, that must have been that Kris fellow, as you called him."

Noelle stared blankly at the two darkners.

Kris.

…

Kris had done this.

…

"Heh." The sound escaped Noelle's lips before she knew it.

"Miss?" Swatch looked at her with no small amount of concern as her expression shifted.

"Heh heh heh… he he he he." Noelle giggled to herself.

Kris had found all these mice and put them in her room.

It was like the robot mice incident but a thousand times worse.

They had really out done themself.

"He heh he he heh." Noelle began to wheeze with unhinged laughter, "Fwaha hahahaha hah hahhahaha haha."

"M-Miss?" Swatch asked.

"HA HA HA HA HA!" Noelle began laughing maniacally, "FWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FALALAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA FALALAWAHAHAHAHAH FWALALALAHAHHAHAHHHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAH! FALALALAHAHAAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"HA HA HA!" Noelle let her arms go limp, hanging like unhooked Christmas lights on a roof. She was sick of all of this; she just wanted this to all have been one bad dream.

"M-Madam?" Swatch asked with beads of sweat coming down his forehead, "Are you alright?" He and Tasque Manager looked warily down at her feet where a patch of ice was forming at her hooves.

Noelle looked up, and firmly point right at Tasque Manager, "You. Go fix up Queen. I need her in working order."

Only taking one look at her face, the cat-lady shot up with a salute, "O-Of course my lady. I'll do this immediately!"

Noelle then pointed at Swatch, "You. Go get the Swatchlings off their butts and back to work and go bring back Berdly. I also require his help."

"A-At once my lady." Swatch gave her a deep bow, following Tasque Manager's lead.

Still, neither moved as Noelle kept her eyes on them. For a moment, it almost felt like they were her servants instead of Queen's. But that was ridiculous… Although, she had scared off those maice. Maybe she was getting more confident like her mom?

…

Nah, she must be imagining it. Her mom was terrifying, and Noelle Holiday was the farthest thing from that.

Either way, Noelle was tired, both of this dark world and in a literal sense. "I'm taking nappies now." she said, looking at the darkners before giving them a nod. Giving each other a look for only a moment, the two darkners gave their respective respectful poses to the deer.

"Of course, rest well my merciful lady." Tasque Manager said with a curtsy.

"Sweet dreams, powerful mage. We'll see to that these tasks are done." Swatch replied with a deeper bow.

Noelle thought little of their subservient attitudes, instead flopping down on the bed to slumberland. She dreamed of how she was going to get back at Kris for this. Probably making them watch as the maice ate all their chocolate, or something that ended with their chocolate getting thrown away. That would show them.

—

Like the inevitable rise of the sun over a weary land, Berdly strode back to Queen's mansion with the spoils of his quest and his massively improved confidence in himself. Already, he knew great and smart things were about to happen, as his grand return to the mansion had finally started. Berdly graciously walked down the long red carpet that had been laid out just for him with a heroic and grand smile on his face. He gave little waves to his adoring fans who had eagerly waited in anticipation for his return. After all, who else could have laid out a red carpet for him? It was odd that no one had actually come to cheer him on. Still, the fact they had all laid the red carpet out was more than enough, so Berdly pretended they were all there in the empty field. He couldn't blame them for not showing up; it wasn't like he'd had time to set up a proper tweeter account so his loyal fans could see what he was doing at all times.

At least not yet!

However, Berdly did get an odd feeling once he actually entered the main hall of the mansion. Something was amiss. Berdly wasn't sure exactly what it was, but things were far too quiet. His previous battlefield arena with Kris and their gang was only half cleaned up, looking not much better than when he had last seen it back when he had first intercepted Kris's C+ crew during the chase. The fine, dignified Swatchlings had been very efficient cleaning up this area before; what had happened? The whole room was empty but for the half taken down stands, rest areas, and the scars of their last battle. It was as if all the workers had vanished. Berdly's face morphed into a scowl.

Kris. Of course, it must have been their doing. When Berdly had been ejected from the mansion, Kris and their compatriots were still been at large. Surely, without his help, Queen and Noelle would have been helpless to stop that villain's scheme of messing up the whole mansion. The blue bird hated to think of what might have befallen Queen's poor scion. He was still missing thanks to the dastardly human. It would be his first mission back at the mansion then; Berdly would go find and put a stop to Kris's schemes at once!

Berdly marched forth into the center hall right to the base of the giant Queen statue in the room. He might not have known where Kris and their dim-witted minions were, but he could start by launching himself up to the upper floors and look for some–

"Heyheyhey! You wouldn't have happened to see a [Missing] [store up to 90% now] disk lying around [in your local area], would you?" Berdly blinked as a strange voice broke him out of his mental palace. The blue bird turned around at the source of the voice only to not see anything; however, once he looked down a bit, he saw there was a short white man with black hair wearing a pair of glasses with mismatched lenses. He was dressed in a dirty black suit that looked like it hadn't been washed or fixed up in ages. The short little darkner stared up at Berdly with a permanent smile that was just plain unsettling. His whole appearance reminded the blue bird of those old creepy hand puppets his grandparents had kept at their house. Berdly scrunched up the nostrils on his beak instinctively as the guy also smelled like he had just crawled out of a garbage can.

"I'm sorry… fine citizen." Berdly addressed the little guy, careful to not offend the small man. He looked like a dirty hobo, but the considerate knight didn't want to bring attention to it. Berdly hadn't expected to see a new side quest here at the end of his quest, but it wasn't unappreciated. After all, the end game side quests were always the most rewarding. So even if this guy seemed questionable, helping this new NPC would surely only aid in Berdly's main quest. Besides, Berdly had already helped tons of questionable people back during his training arc. What was the harm in helping one more weirdo? "What can I help you with?" Berdly eloquently and graciously asked.

"I saw you [breaking and entering] back there. Not that I "

" [condemn] you. Everybody needs to ignore [laws and regulations] sometimes, am I right? HAHAhAHAHA. "

" I was just busy becoming [BBBBIIIIIIIIGGGGG] back down in "

" [A place you don't want to be alone at night], but then realized"

"I dropped [MY KEYS!]! And I [NEED IT] [call now]!" The little darkner twitched as he told his story, yet he never dropped his salesman smile even as he switched from speaking urgently to yelling. "You want help [everybody's favorite] [wanted in five countries], don't you?" The little darkner looked at Berdly with an almost hungry look, as if he really expected the bird to already have the keys on him.

"I-I don't believe I have seen any keys on the ground." Berdly informed the darkner regretfully.

Despite the news and his repeated insistence of how important this key was, the darkner didn't looked that bothered by the answer, "Don't sweat it [boy of unspecified of age] and [unemployment status], I—"

"However!" Berdly interrupted, "I won't stop—"

"DON'T INTERRUPT MEEEEEEEEEE!" the darkner jumped and grabbed onto Berdly's shoulders, sticking his big pointy nose into the blue bird's face.

Berdly froze at the sudden invasion of his personal space. "S-Sorry sir?" He barely managed to get out the words, before the erratic darkner jumped back down to continue talking as if nothing had happened.

"–have [Idea!] This is a "

" [limited time fire sale] right before us. With the Queen [down for the count] and all her [little guys] [screaming for God]. [Wild Prizes] are up for [Buy Now]." The little darkner pointed up at Queen's statue, "It's no [Power of Neo] but it'll [get the job better than anything else or your money back]. With no [schmucks] around, all I have to do is [grasp] it in my [little] hands!"

"Queen's statue?" Berdly asked in confusion, just trying to follow what the little guy was saying.

"A [Michelangelo] statue? Hell no! I mean the [awesome Gundam] [40% off], you [bird brain]." The darkner yelled out before latching onto the Queen's statue like a cockroach, "Spamton's "

" got [sweet hot sales] to be stealing!"

"Oh, okay—" Berdly tried backing up to let this freaky man get to his business, yet his last words caught up to the disgraced Knight. "Wait, stealing!?" Berdly's head flipped towards the small darkner as it started scrambling up the statue's leg like a bug, "I see now! You're no citizen of Queen, but a home intruder! Well, your luck ran out the moment you met me, Queen's knight in the glow in the dark!" Berdly summoned wind below his wing tips, before launching himself into the air.

"What [tipping 20% please] you off, kid? I just a [guilty as charged] man trying to hit it [Big]." The little guy swiveled his white face around like a doll. His ever-present grin that seemed almost painted on his mannequin face suddenly turned to shock as Berdly unleashed his first attack, "Holy [cungadero]! The weather forecast didn't say there would be any [hurricane Catrina] winds!"

"Let's see if you can take this! The Zephyr of Punishment! Go now, blow him off my Queen's glorious leg!" Berdly yelled valiantly as he sent four tornados to do just that. However, it wasn't to be. Rather horrifically, the little guy's head expanded to larger than his own body before biting down on the statue's metal frame. Steel bent in with a screech and as the attacks landed, the intruder's body flailed about in the wind like one of those noodle men outside a car dealership but didn't budge. However, that wasn't to say the attacks had no effect, the creepy darkner's body looked pretty scuffed up with one of his arms looking a little bent out of place. Still, he was far from defeated. "Drat! You're more than just some random mook. You must be some kind of secret boss." Berdly said his realization out loud for the audience, "Then I'll just use my Holy Halberd of just–" It was only then that Berdly remembered he had yet to master flight, and he was already falling back to the ground for a hard landing. "MY HOLY HALBERD OF JUSTICE!" Berdly screamed to finish his declaration, recklessly shooting off some bullets with his weapon to complete his announced attack before he hit the ground.

THUD.

On the ground, Berdly could see his attacks missed their marks by a wide margin. "HAHAHAhAHHAHHAAHaHA. YOU CALL THAT [slashing prices]? YOU COULDN'T HIT THE MARK; NOW WILL TAKE THIS [cash cow] FOR HIMSELF! IT'S TIME "

"TIME"

"TIME"

" TIME "

" TIME "

" TIIIIIIIIME "

" TIME FOR SPAMTON TO HAVE HIS [Comeback!] [Special]!" Berdly's new foe began to mock him from on high after unlatching himself. Yet instead of trying to attack the downed bird, the darkner just chose to keep climbing up and away from Berdly. He was just running away! And he wasn't even throwing Berdly any money! That was cheating!

The blue bird could only watch as the intruder scrambled higher and higher up the statue, getting at least past the first floor with no signs of slowing down. However, Berdly wasn't going to let his opponent escape from him this time. Concentrating, Berdly focused on where this criminal was trying to go. While he had no idea what the little guy was saying with his peculiar speech patterns, the blue bird could clearly see the guy was scrambling up the statue, which meant whatever he was after was up there. Channeling his magic and battle power with a mighty roar (Just like they did in anime), Berdly created a great wind aura around him, before throwing it all downwards. In another massive leap, he slammed himself into the statue, yet he landed feet and wings first. All his training to learn how to fly, his practice getting thrown into walls by Susie's attacks, and when he had launched himself around to navigate the city for his training arc, it had all helped Berdly master the art of crash landing-movement. Now Berdly used the fruits of his hard work to launch himself from the statue to the first floor like a ping pong ball, and with one more gust of air Berdly launched himself right towards the dirty trash goblin on the statue at breakneck speeds.

"What the [presses?]" The trash goblin barely had time to squeak out before Berdly was upon him. With a mighty battle cry, Berdly took out his last new improvement: A FUCKING UNBREAKABLE CHAIR. After hearing the smith recommend breakable throwing furniture, Berdly had assumed the unbreakable stuff at that shop would be a good investment, and thus bought one before he left for Queen's mansion.

"Cha chow!" Berdly yelled before smashing the darkner with the chair for extra damage, making good use of his new purchase. It also had the side effect of knocking the dirty darkner all the way to the second floor. With Berdly's own momentum carrying him into a wall, it was a simply a matter of ping-ponging himself one more time to chase down his prey. Although once Berdly did get up there, he could see he didn't have to worry about the darkner fleeing.

The vile scum's limbs were bent out of shape from his impact on the ground. It was as if this creature wasn't even made of flesh, but wood that was now cracking and splintering yet through sheer stubbornness kept itself somewhat together. Even still, the darkner couldn't even stand now. His body was mangled with limbs bent in painful directions The chase was over. Setting down his chair, Berdly strode over to confront the villain. "Oo0oowie! Th4t sure hurts like [THE PAIN THE PAIN IT BURNS IT BURNS!]. I have to hand it to "

"[tweeter] [knock off]; you can r3ally [assault charges pending] me." The darkner said with a smile, as he began twisting and snapping his limbs back into place, "Though, why do you g0tta [rip my nose off], throw me [down the stairs], and spank me [silly]? You [itsy bitsy] $!*! ? I'm just everybody's [favorite salesman 1997]. Ev3rybody [wants] me, everybody [adores] me, everybody [hyperlink blocked] me. Why "

" you got 2 [party pooper~, party pooper~]?"

"Heh." Berdly pushed up his smart scouter with a smirk, "Because I plan on serving the Queen faithfully, and become this Kingdom's hero and savior. That means a good guy like me can't stand by and watch a bad guy like you do… whatever you were doing." Berdly then struck a cool hero pose that could be easily reproduced for his merchandise, just like in an anime.

Then the self-proclaimed salesman gave Berdly an odd stare. It seemed… oddly human compared to the creepy schtick the darkner had been spouting off up until now. "But "

"that isn't true anym0re, is it?" The darkner said in a dark tone, making Berdly flinch. "Ev3r since that [garbage can] spat me out the [back door], I've been watching. "

" Watching her [socials], watching your [termination of employment], watching [You]. She threw you out and left you 2 [live in a god damn garbage can?!] too, didn't she?" Yellow and purple lenses stared into Berdly's soul, sending a shiver down his spine. "Just. Like. She. Did. To. Me." he said each word slowly, as if he was struggling to get it out.

"Huh?" Berdly blinked.

The mannequin let out a manic chuckle as it straightened its mangled body out, "Take it from me kid, I used 2 be the [Big] guy around here, so [Big] I got to sit out and laugh 4t the small [folk]s fr0m my fancy [Windows operating software]. I was that [commodore 64] broad's best [favorite salesman 1997], yet she sto0d in my [way to the top!]. She was [green with envy] at my [feminine charms], so sh3 took all [my furniture], all [Pepis]"

", all my [hyperlink block], and kicked me down that [fire escape] too. N0w don't you see the [limited time offer] before us?" The darkner leaned forward towards Berdly with a sinister grin, "We. Can. Get. Revenge." His voice literally dropped into a lower, darker pitched tone. "We c4n turn her [silicon] dreams into [silicon] screams! [A total rip off] her head and crush her circuits [into a fine, nice powder before putting it into the oven]. Together, we c0uld be [Bigger and Better than ever]! What do you say, will you take the final deal?!"

"Oh ho ho ho. I see what you're doing." Berdly snapped his feather fingers, "You're doing a 'We're not so different' speech."

…

"Wh4t?" The darkner said seemingly dumbfounded for the first time in the conversation.

"You think by pointing out some vague similarities in our backstories that would mean I would just abandon all my previously established goals and morals. But it won't work! I've watched more anime than you can imagine, I know all your bad guy tricks, so I won't fall for them! You might have some sympathetic traits baked into your character, but as long as I stay the course of being a main character I'll always prevail with my smartness!" Berdly declared with an outstretched feather and triumphant grin.

The darkner flatly stared at Berdly. "You'r3 an [idiot], aren't you?" the villain said, "Do you even "

"what's really g0ing "

"[in your local area]? I and my "

"[boys] have [BIG] plans for this place. [BIG] plans. Far [BIG] than your little [$4.99] 4$$. If you're going to [rip off] [foreign cartoons] against me, I'll have to introduce y0u to my "

"[little friend]s." The salesman opened up his mouth, and little tiny versions of himself began to scuttle out and around his body like a growing swarm of ants.

Upon seeing this new ability, Berdly felt a pang of fear as every anime fan knew how powerful never before seen abilities could be in turning a fight around. Especially at the end! However, that fear soon faded as Berdly saw what was right behind his foe. With his trademark smirk, Berdly spoke out heroically, "I already know how to deal with turds like you." Berdly set up his cool one liner that would surely be too cool to allow this next attack to fail. Before the darkner could react, Berdly dashed forward to the villain, and prepping his wind magic and halberd, struck him like swinging a gulf club, sending the evil salesman and all his little hims up in the air with a gust of wind.

"[Number 2]? I'll have you know [special child] that I live in a [trash taken out tuesdays], not the [home of the teenage mutant ninja turtles!]." The villain screamed out in indignation, "Why did y0u—" However, whatever he was going to say was interrupted as he splashed into a pool of battery acid. But the villain wasn't launched into any ordinary old pool, but a giant massive toilet taking up a whole hallway in the castle.

"I flush 'em away!" Berdly finished the one liner, as he launched himself once more onto the giant toilet of the gods' handle to activate it. "Take that!" Berdly declared.

"AHHHHHHHH! IT BURNS!? IT BURNS! WHY TH3 $!? IS THIS NOT [refreshing aqua fresh]!? WHY IS THIS [Porta Potty] EV3N H3RE!? AHHHhHHHHHHhHHH!" The darkner screamed in agony as its body started slowly melting in the acid. While his large body was holding out against the acid, especially compared to the small versions of himself that just instantly disappeared, he was still flushed down the toilet. Even as his little body disappeared from sight, his screams still could be heard echoing from down below.

It was kinda horrifying.

Dusting himself off, Berdly jumped off and got far away from that toilet, making a mental note in his mental palace to not fall into any of those acid rivers. Picking up his chair to store on his back, Berdly allowed himself a satisfied smile as he successfully won his first fight in the Dark world. He had actually beaten a bad guy and stopped him from doing… doing something evil no doubt, whatever that was.

Battle Won! Berdly gained -23 Neo Kromer!

With that tangent out of the way, Berdly could get back to finding out where his arch nemesis Kris went. While it may have looked like Berdly had no idea where to head to next, it was merely a ruse to any would-be foes spying on him. Of course, the great anime/video game protagonist like himself was just consulting the minimap in his large brain, as he took a grand pose. Fortunately, although not unexpectedly to a wise anime watcher like himself, Berdly saw that one excellently dressed head butler was running toward him, surely to deliver some much needed exposition. "Ah, you came back." The head butler Swatch said with what some might have considered a disappointed and enthusiastic tone, but Berdly knew better. Surely without his great help and the dire state of the mansion, the mansion's staff would have been hard pressed and exhausted. So Berdly could forgive their lack of energy, truly understandable.

"Yes! After my (unfortunate early) departure, I chose to train and better myself so I could prove myself worthy for my Queen." Berdly declared with a grin, giving Swatch a good flex to show off his bulging, radiant muscles.

Swatched looked at Berdly's noodle wings, not impressed in the slightest. "An admirable goal I suppose." The refined butler conceded before adding on, "I wish you well on that journey of self-improvement." While the blue bird's efforts in the art of swole so far were rather laughable, it was important to encourage self-improvement especially for ones in such a… dire need of it.

"Now I've come back from my training! Because a wise sage revealed to me that what I lacked wasn't stronger stats or better equipment, but belief in myself! I didn't need to change at all!" Berdly puffed up his chest proudly, as if he was showing another A+ assignment to his parents. Swatch put one of his wings over his face and groaned. He must have been so impressed with Berdly's achievement that he couldn't keep eye contact without being in pain at Berdly's awesomeness! That must be it! "But of course, even though I didn't need to, I also sought to gain new items and weapons. Like this Unbreakable chair I bought for 200 DD! I can smite my enemies with this for extra damage!" Berdly showed off his new prized weapon with a smile.

"Don't you only get extra damage when you throw breakable items and objects?" Swatch asked in exasperation. After all, it was the fact the items broke that caused the extra damage.

"Right, you are good sir, which is why I chose to get an unbreakable one, so I can throw and smack people for that extra damage as much as I want!" Berdly gave his classic 'smart' smirk, completely misunderstanding the butler's question. "I also acquired and shoved two cheese wheels down my pants along with some other items." Berdly added, as if that would make Swatch any more pleased.

"PUT THOSE AWAY BEFORE THE MAICE COME BACK." Swatch got up into Berdly's face as his PTSD from the last hour came to haunt him.

"W-What?" the blue bird sputtered. Obviously a little shocked at Swatch's change in demeanor.

Looking a little guilty, Swatch coughed into his wing, and backed up, "A-Apologies. I meant to say, try not to bring in such smelly food. We find it distasteful here, and it can attract… pests. Try bringing in CD bagels next time."

"I see?" Berdly said, still a little put off. However, he quickly shrugged it off with his usual forced self-confidence, "No matter. Just know that I have come back to the mansion; just as good as I always was! No changes needed!" Berdly said this with the confidence of a man betting his life savings on a coin flip. Swatch did not even bother to give that one a comment, instead wishing he could start bashing his head into a wall. "I even proved it by beating up some trash hobo only a few minutes ago!" Berdly added, as if random assault was something to be proud of.

"You beat up… a trash hobo. Why?" The butler decided to ask, already feeling like he was going to hate the answer. Yet much like you can't look away from a train crash, he just couldn't drop the topic.

"Because he came to rob the mansion of its statue I think." Berdly answered.

"You think?" Swatch pressed, already feeling a migraine incoming.

"To be honest, he was far too stupid for me to understand with my smart brain. However, he definitely did say the word 'Stealing' at least once and kept climbing over the statue in the front. So I resoundingly defeated him with my strength and smartness." Berdly explained proudly, just awaiting the incoming praise for his heroic deeds.

Swatch just sighed. A part of him actually hoped the so called 'trash hobo' had actually taken that frozen solid 99 robot Queen had placed in the entryway as a statue. The butler didn't want to be reminded of the other lightner's bone chilling power every time he entered the building; however, given his luck today, it was most probable that the incompetent blue bird had put the statue back where it was. Well, the boy hadn't specified it was that statue, but it was the only statue in the entryway. Unless the idiot had mistaken the Queen's giant metal mech for a stone statue, Swatch didn't think the bird was that dumb. It was made of metal, and obviously a giant fighting mech. Anyone in the Dark World would know that just from a glance. Though not that it would have mattered if the hobo had tried to steal the mech since the controls were protected through the strongest encryption. Only Queen could drive it, although Swatch supposed a very least truly powerful hacker/glitch darkner could theoretically hack into it. Swatch could only think of two individuals, and one wasn't homeless and the other couldn't have been so easily bested by this disgraced knight. That psychopath had survived far greater threats to be taken out by the blue bird. In all likelihood, the blue bird had just beaten up on some defenseless hobo, and done nothing of note. After all, the Queen had ordered all the werewires to beat up the homeless population every Friday.

Back on topic of the arrival of the blue bird, Swatch had a dilemma. Last he had heard, Queen had fired the lightner, and thus he wasn't welcome in the mansion anymore. However, Swatch couldn't throw the annoying, unemployed child out, even though he wanted to. Madam Noelle had requested his presence specifically. Although he technically out ranked her, Swatch wasn't going to dare go against Madam Noelle after she had dominated against his greatest fear. The butler had to let the blue bird stay and find some place for him. At least until Queen finally got out of repairs and give the order to dispose of him.

"Good." Swatch lied with a twitching eye, not that the blue bird noticed.

"So that must mean I have regained my former position?!" Berdly said with excited sparkling eyes.

"No." Swatch quickly got a word in before the boy could go into a large, unneeded tangent, "Y-You're a… intern now." The muscle bird fumbled a bit with an excuse, "You will have to work your way back up to babysitter."

"Oh…" Berdly deflated a bit, "So Noelle and I are just interns now."

"No, just you." Swatch quickly corrected, "Madam Noelle is a…" Swatch paused, feeling unsure what exactly to describe the girl who had just given the whole mansion's its orders, and thus running the place. For all intents and purposes, Noelle was acting as stand-in Queen while Q5U4EX7YY2E9N was undergoing repairs. However, Swatch was loyal to his mistress, and it felt wrong calling Noelle that. "She's currently the top minion now." Swatch compromised.

"Oh… she surpassed me again." Berdly said with an uncharacteristic forlorn look on his face. However, it soon went away, "W-Well, I guess I just have to work even harder then! Stagnation doesn't benefit an anime protagonist after all! Now come on then, what quest and task do you have me, the greatest intern ever, to do? Find a gold mug for you to drink coffee; file papers while taming a mighty paper dragon?"

"First things first, we can have you meet Tasque Manager so you can start with your obedience training." Swatch said with a smirk, motioning the blue bird to follow him, "Madam Noelle said she wanted her 'nappies' before acquiring you, so you can do this until she wakes."

"Aha! Yes, I'll do whatever that is with ease." Berdly said jovially, "I'll have you know that my great nemesis Kris said I was Gallus gallus, which I'm told means gallant. So even my nemesis that attack this whole mansion fears and respects me! By the way, is that still a problem? Shouldn't I go fix that?"

"No, no. I believe that situation resolved itself, probably. For now, just follow me." Swatch said as he tuned out the chatter, instead considering whether it would be wrong that if after getting his Swatchlings back to work he could pull up a chair and watch Tasque Manager whip the blue bird into shape. It certainly would be cathartic after the terrible day he had been having with those three ruffians, happened to Queen, and the maice. Few people appreciate the hard work of the butler.

—

Stats

Ranks:

Noelle: Stand-in Queen

Berdly: Unappreciated Intern

---

Author's Note: Thank you for reading this chapter of Three Heroes or Something. Oh boy. It's been a while. Not sure if anyone actually keeps up with this story on this site, but the reason I haven't updated this story in so long was because I started a new story after the release of Undertale Yellow. I really didn't like that game's pacifist ending, and thus went to write something better. I didn't post that story to because I genuinely don't like writing on this site (and doing this chapter reminded me of why). The UTY fic was suppose to be a quick and fast to dish out fanfiction, but alas I kept writing more and more as the story got bigger and bigger. A part of me really wishes UTY never came out or was better so I could have spent the last few months updating this fic. I might have been able to get this story almost done too. But that just isn't happening now. That's life. Either way, I'm glad to post this story again as I like the world of these three knuckle heads, and it is just fun writing a more carefully crafted story filled with jokes.

But about this chapter. I had a lot of fun writing this in the background of everything else. Berdly and Noelle were fun characters to explore jokes I had set up in the previous chapter, as well as write up new situations for them to be in. Berdly's expectations of anime vs reality always made me chuckle when writing him, and he's just a lovable dork. Noelle was fun bringing misfortune upon, until she eventually snapped. Don't worry, she's still Noelle. Just a little more done with this dark world, and a lot less afraid of mice. There was going to be more with Queen waking back up again, but I decided that I liked where their character arcs ended, so I left it at that. Next time, we get to go back to see what happened to our Three somethings or other. So it'll be a little bit before we see how Queen is doing, and what will happen next up here.

Now, I'm going to spend more time here complaining about . Truly, I much prefer A03, as it isn't nearly as restrictive as this site. I found out today that I can't use at symbols in writing, which of course happened when putting in Spamton's dialogue for the chapter. Cause it is always Spamton's dialogue that gets butchered by this site. So instead, I had to use '4's instead as it kinda looks like a captial A but missing a piece. Just the quickest solution I could get. Worst still is the problem with not being able to make more than one space, which I made more use of in this chapter. Though poor Noelle, all her dialogue gets butchered because I can't have different sized text (I like making her text a little smaller to show how loud she's speaking, and to make it more impactful when I finally made her speak normally to another character in this chapter). But what I can do? Not even A03 allows me to change text size.

Anyway that's about it for me. Again, thank you so much for reading this dumb fic I made. I put a lot of work into it, so it makes my day that people can read my dumb jokes.