Made before episode 4... Gosh am I excited for it, though I'm also scared of what it might retroactively do to this story...
sequel to the previous chapter "Adjusting"
"Jax was kidnapped?" Gangle asked as the three circus members that stayed in the camp were told of what happened by Ragatha and Pomni, it was a shocking news to receive
"Yeah, we were out hunting and we got separated, next thing we heard a scream and when we went to see what it was, there was Jax on the floor surrounded by some men that dragged him away" Pomni explained the events they watched unravel, if Pomni would have to guess she would say Jax was the one to initiate and aggravate the assault, the dead boar she saw the men carry was probably the reason, most likely Jax attacked them in pro of stealing the meal they hunted and they retaliated as a response. She would sympathize with them and understand their actions if it wasn't for some odd things she noticed, the way they talked and were dressed... She didn't want to make assumptions but they weren't looking like the most honest folk, and they didn't seem like hunters/gatherers of food for a village considering their base was at a cave pretty far off from any settlement... This just made her worried a bit more for Jax
"We followed them to their hideout, a base built into a small cavern. We came back to tell you guys and prepare a rescue operation" Ragatha finished as it still bothered her that they hadn't done anything to stop it, but that was the logical choice to find their hiding spot and regroup for a assault, she couldn't guess what would happen if they had jumped in, her shield was only good for defense and Pomni might struggle against three people at once since Jax was clearly incapacitated
"... But, should we? This is Jax we are talking about, he wouldn't do the same if it was one of us" Zooble argued as that made everyone pause for a second, that brought up a crucial point for this whole discussion about saving Jax.
Was it worth it? To risk themselves to save the lilac rabbit who made his personal mission to torture them for entrainment back at the circus? Was a person like that really worth saving at the end of the day? That made them think if they even should bother feeling bad for him. They got rid of him now, no longer would they have to worry about his nuance pranks or mean behavior, they could concentrate better at surviving now without a extra mouth to feed and maybe even find a way to live peacefully in a village by talking with its inhabitants without him escalating or ruining things
It was a easy choice, with many up sides to it if they could be honest, but something on the back of their minds made them think it over instead of just taking it. Jax was a asshole, and they all disliked him in some way, but they had all spend so much time together that it was hard to say were they stood, there was also the fact that his crude behavior and misdeeds were all in the circus, and everyone knew at this point that you do what you had to do to stay marginally sane enough to not abstract, so determining if Jax was the way he was because of the environment they were locked in or if he was just naturally a asshole was a bit hard to determine, especially because the only one who would have seen how Jax was in the beginning, when he first got into the circus, Kinger, was currently in a state of mind were such memories were not feasible to remember
"... I mean, we should probably save him, it's the right thing to do" Kinger said since at least to him, he saw no good reason as to why not help Jax, sure he was bad but at the end of the day they had all spent so much time together that it was like abandoning a roommate, a annoying one but a roommate none the less
"I don't like him, I really don't but I would not be able to sleep at night if we were to just abandon him" Pomni said as guilt would consume her if she just did nothing, she already worries so much about stuff that something like this would make her never recover, disliking Jax didn't mean she couldn't feel worry for him, especially now since this was not the circus were consequences weren't a thing besides the psychological ones
"... Ugh, fine. If only so his ghost doesn't haunt my ass" Zooble said as they were really mixed on this whole conundrum, on one hand they hated Jax, on the other hand was that they didn't feel like letting the guy die, if he was going to kick the bucket then it would be at their hands at the very least
"What do you say Gangle?" Kinger asked as everyone looked at the ribbon girl, she was the constant victim of Jax's mean pranks, if any of them wanted the rabbit gone it would be her, and if she didn't want to join in the rescue operation then they would have to respect her choice and leave her be, Gangle's face was not with a sad expression, mostly a bland and neutral one as she pondered what to say
"Kinger, comedy mask" Gangle said very unenthused but not really sad as she reached out a hand to the chess piece, who scrabbled through his status magic to take out a brand new comedy mask for the ribbon girl, she took it and slowly placed it on her face, lifting her head up to stare back at the group as the mask's painted on eyes and mouth seemed statically unmoving before the eyes blinked and the mouth closed, before a big happy grin appeared in it
"Let's fucking save that mother ducking asshole!" Gangle said as her comedy mask was on full effect, seemed like it was unanimous the decision of rescuing Jax, now they just needed a plan
"So... What is this?" A large man and leader of a small group of hooligans named Bourus observed what his companions had brought into their hideout, a hideous purple rabbit demi-human with a ridiculous hammer bloodied and beaten, now tied up against a wooden pole
"Some weird fucked up Demi that attacked us, must have wanted to steal our hunt, he got a few sneaky hits on us but we got his ass" one of the men said as they retold the encounter, he had to give credit to the rabbit for hitting hard and sneaky like that but acknowledging that credit was a different story
"And why is he still armed?" The leader asked as he saw that even though they had thoroughly tied his arms, he still had a hammer in his hands, one of the first things they should have done would be to disarm him if he had a weapon, not leave him with one
"Well... The problem is that the hammer doesn't come off, we tried pulling it but nothing worked, it's glued on with magic of some type!" Another of the guys said as the mysterious hammer seemed truly bound to the rabbit's skin, no amount of shaking and pulling had worked
"Just cut his hands off idiots" the leader of the group said dismissively as that finally caught Jax's ears to perk up at the notion of being dismembered
"I wouldn't do that if I were you..." Jax spoke up, lifting his head to stare at the chief of this group of what he assumed were bandits, god did everything hurt and though the sweet release of death could end this pain, he didn't want to die, this place hurt in a way a game couldn't so he might actually not be in a game anymore and if that was the case... He could die for real, he didn't want to figure out if there was a heaven or hell, so he got to make sure these guys didn't kill him and cutting off his hands would probably kill him from blood loss, so he got to come with a good reason as to why they wouldn't want him dead "... Else you wanna get cursed like me?"
"What are you talking about?" One of the guys asked, the others also seemed intrigued, that was good, his bait had worked now he just got to play his cards right to luckily get out of this alive
"See, I used to be a simple human boy, living in a farm with my folks, until I killed the previous sucker that had this stupid hammer when he was eating our livestock, so if you want to get furry and have a stupid rock hammer permanently stuck to you, be my guest" Jax lied but this people didn't know that, he was sure this little story he cooked up would be enough to make them wary of killing him, which should give him enough time to come up with some plan to escape, though the wound is his waist was too much, the guys didn't even tried to patch it up, only wrapping a single string of bandage in it to prevent more blood from getting on the floor
"And how do we know you're just lying off your butt?" The chief of the group was a bit more skeptical of the rabbit's story, not that he doubted that there was some sort of curse to turn people into demi-humans or to make someone get a weapon stuck to them but this seemed too convenient in this situation, it could easily be that the rabbit was trying to save his own behind
"Please try it, though I would be sad I don't get to see your guys reactions when I'm right!" Jax said while smiling back at the chief with his typical maniacal grin, something about the twisted expression, the lunatic eyes and the mere aura of madness that exuded from the rabbit as he did that made the larger man flinch back a bit, there was something wrong with this guy, he might as well have some kind of curse from the spiritual pressure he was releasing from himself
"... Whatever, shut him up, we can probably sell him for good money in the slave market, for being exotic and all" the bandit chief waved away half dismissively, for as much as he believed that the rabbit was lying, he wasn't going to risk himself getting cursed, plus there was more money to be made from the lilac rabbit being alive than dead for the moment, so Jax could enjoy his temporary "freedom"
While Jax was happy his bluff worked, but what had caught his attention was the almost casual way the guy said that he was going to be sold to slavery, this was truly not the same child friendly environment of Caine's circus, first the pain now this? Jax could only hide his worried sweating thanks to his fur but he could only pray for whatever force was out there that some sort of salvation would come and-
"Ouch! What the heck?!" One of the guys said as he was struck in the back of the head by something, he turned back to see nothing only to look down on the ground to see a rock, he picked it up as he looked at it only to be hit again by another in the shoulder. The group of hooligans soon saw more rocks and peebles being thrown at them like rain as they looked at where it was coming from, a hill close to the forest, with a small white dot being vaguely visible
"Ugh, fuck get whoever or whatever is doing this!" The leader said as three of the them nodded as they went to the hill, atop that said hill was Gangle spinning her arms in a wheel like fashion as she threw her projectiles, now in the shape of rocks at the camp below, being made of ribbons came with the advantage of being able to perfectly spin her thin silky limbs at high speeds without much fatigue, helping increase her throwing distance
"They are getting closer!" Gangle said smiling through her comedy mask, she was enjoying this more than she should. Zooble nodded as they looked down on the hill as they saw the group of three approaching, idly waiting as they softly rolled their foot atop of a wooden log they had cut
"Wait for it..." Zooble narrowed their vision as they looked, waiting for the perfect moment as the hooligan ran up the hill while Gangle continued firing rocks, just when they were in the steeper area of the climb was when they struck "...And now!
Zooble went and pushed down the log as it began rolling down hill as the three thugs saw the thing and tried to avoid it, two avoided it by going sideways but because of how steep the area they were climbing, they lost footing and rolled down a bit while one of them who was in direct course with the log tried running back and escape it that way, he wasn't able to out run a rolling log as it hit him and the legs and made him fall back and tumble down the hill until the bottom
"We got one, now the other two..." Zooble said as they picked up their axe, one of the guys was down but the other two were recovering and were making their way up with angered vigor. They had hoped the log trick would have incapacitated the three but things had a habit of not going the way they wanted it to go, Zooble changed their chest into a wooden log form while making their head a rock for better defense and in case they needed to headbutt someone
"Hope Ragatha and the others get their part done soon" Gangle said as they joined Zooble's side while changing their weapon into throwing daggers that could be used both close and long range as they prepared themselves for a brawl.
Meanwhile, sneaking into the camp was Ragatha, Pomni and Kinger as they had used the raining rocks distraction to approach without being seen as they went around the sides of the cave base, Pomni looked out to see that there was still the large supposedly leader of the group and another guy still there
"Okay, how do we deal with those two?" Pomni asked as jumping one of them could work but the problem was dealing with a second one, there was also the fact that the largest one clearly was strong if his muscle definition was anything to go by
"... Oh! I think I have an idea" Kinger said as he looked as he leaned his head out of their hiding spot and sent out his detached hands out as they slowly floated upwards, while the two men in camp were busy observing where their companions went, Kinger's hands hover above the one closest to Jax, going behind him as they lightly tapped his shoulder
"Huh?" The guy turned back and saw nothing, he looked around for a bit only to be touched from behind again as he turned to see once again nothing, he was starting to worry until he received another tap, quickly turning backwards to this time see two floating hands waving at him before they closed into fists and hit him square in the face as he stumbled backwards from the hit
"Agh! My nose!" The hooligan said as he held his bloody and broken nose, being hit by hard wooden hands covered in a metal gauntlet would do that to a person as both the leader of the group and Jax turned to look at the scream
"Wait, those gloves..." Jax mumbled quietly as he stared at the floating appendages, those were Kinger's hands so he was here but then why would he be here? It couldn't be for the reason he was thinking
"What the heck is this?" the leader shouted before getting a slap on his face, the floating hands made a taunt as the larger man's face became slightly crimson as he tried to grab one as the hands moved out of the way before starting to move away as he gave pursuit
"Wait boss, should we really leave--" the smaller thug got struck hard on the head by Ragatha's shield in its normal form, sure it didn't damage him greatly but a knock on the head with a hard piece of metal was sure to knock him out, specially after she did a few additional bonks
"Sorry for that, I'm sure you will recover..." The ragdoll apologized as she passed a hand to where she struck. Jax looked at Ragatha surprised for her sudden appearance out of the blue before he felt the rope around his hands be tugged and slightly loosen as he looks to see Pomni trying to undo the knot while also trying to cut it with her claws with Kinger by her side
"What... What are you guys doing here?" Jax asked a bit flabbergasted by the group's sudden appearance, he didn't expect them to come, he didn't expect anyone to come after him, much less attempt a rescue, so why were they here when they hated his entire being? Did they just want to take this bandit's hideout and didn't know he was here?
"Saving your furry butt, obviously" Pomni replied as she was finally able to rip the rope off, as Jax's arms fell in front of him as did his hammer, he quickly flinched in pain as he placed a gloved hand to his waist, Ragatha came and observed the wound, it looked really bad and it would probably get infected if not treated soon, she had a hand hover it, hesitant to touch it to see what she could do
"So the freak has friends?" A voice called out as they turned to see the leader holding Kinger's hands on his own, he would have crushed them but the hard wood they were made of and the metallic gauntlets made that impossible, it did make Kinger feel a little bothered though. The man looked at the scene in revolting anger, that rabbit was truly cursed for he had brought misfortune to him and his companions, three of them had gone out and didn't return yet, one was on the floor and now here he was staring down at the lilac rabbit and some other freakish monsters that shouldn't probably exist, seems like a rabbit's good luck could also mean the opposite "Forget selling it alive, your corpses might sell for some dough!"
"We are going to be fighting, right? Otherwise I don't see what dough has to do with this situation" Kinger commented as he took the term literally as he wandered off into thinking on what type of dough each of them would be, Ragatha would definitely be sweet dough, Pomni maybe something between sweet and salty, Jax would--
The leader of the group of bandits, threw Kinger's hands to the ground as he unsheathed his sword from its handle and let out a scream as he ran at them, her body moving on her own, Ragatha placed herself in front as she blocked his strike with her shield as she was pushed back. Pomni went to join to help as Kinger's hands returned to his side, as he used them to help pick Jax up and move him out as the larger man continued to strike Ragatha's shield as she more and more lost footing due to stumbling back from each blow, she finally fell to the ground as she landed on her butt, the man prepared to cut off her head before being poked at the back, he looked to see Pomni there with her claws sank into his leather armor and the tips just barely touching his undershirt
"Uhm... Hey?" Pomni said half worried as the man tried to shake her off his back but she stayed clinged on him, before he finally went and grabbed her by the head, squishing it hard only for it to squash way more than he thought of as her face was pressed like a squeeze toy, it honestly disturbed him a bit as she walled her arms around frantically as she made muffled screams, eventually she did scratch his face, particularly his left eye and that made him drop her
"Aaarhg! My eye!" The man said while holding a hand to his face, Pomni was taking deep breaths as her face was blue from lack of air, the man shot a death glare at her as he began an over head strike that was interrupted by Ragatha blocking the blow as Pomni got up again, the jester and doll stepped back as they tried to prepare for what was coming next, they didn't really know how to fight well, the closest thing was Ragatha's experience in the Super Sumo Smack Slam adventure Caine did a while ago before Pomni's arrival, and she got totally washed on that one
The larger man continued his assault more so focusing on Pomni for scratching his face as Ragatha tried her best to protect the jester with her shield, having it in the Pebbles shield form for it to at least cause some damage with its counter ability but the small rock pellets it shot out did too little damage to the point of being null. The leader of the pack of hooligans finally decided he had enough of the doll blocking his blows, he baited her into believing he was about to do an overhead strike, only to switch halfway into a horizontal slash downwards as Ragatha didn't have the reflexes to react before she felt a strange sensation
She fell to the ground as two thuds were made, she perked her head up to see herself split in half, separated from her legs as stuffing came out of both ends of the wound, and she felt alarmed and disgusted as she saw a reddish pink cloth like substance resembling guts spill out from her, specially because they seemed wet with some substance she would rather not know what it was made of
"Ragatha!" Pomni cries out the doll's name in worry as she just narrowly avoided a sword cut to her chest, refocusing to try her best to avoid the full attention and assault of the leader.
Jax was just observing from the sidelines as Kinger was trying to take him out of the camp, seeing Pomni and Ragatha fighting against that guy to save him, some undeserving of such kindness from victims of his senseless fun as he could just run away, it felt... Disgusting, he shouldn't have to run away like a coward as though he doesn't mind running from a situation he knows he can't win but it just felt weirdly difficult now, specially since dollface was now in the ground split in half and walking panic attack was barely dodging attacks by the bells of her jester cap without even retaliating with her accursed claws, if someone didn't do something both would certainly be killed or capture... Well, that asshole was the reason he got this nasty wound, and clearly Kinger wasn't going to help because he was looney so there was only one course of action to take that he could accept and unfortunately he felt like he was going to regret it as he pushed himself away from Kinger and turned back to camp
The man prepared another strike but before he could perform it, he was struck hard in the head as he fell to the ground, he got up to his knees and turned to see Jax, standing up and panting as he had a hand outstretched, the man looked to see the hammer by his side only for it to disappear and reappear in Jax's hand in a white glow
"Hey asshole, remember me?" Jax said with a cocky grin, but he was far from ready to fight against as he held a hand to the wound in his waist that still had some blood dripping out. He could only question god on why that didn't knock the man down for being stuck in the head with a hammer but he had to keep up his bravado "Why don't you stop picking up on little pathetic projects of women and instead fight a real manly man! Or are you just a little teeny chicken?"
"Argh, when I'm done with you lot I'm going to--" the man didn't get to respond as Jax once again threw his hammer at him, and once again mentally cursed that it didn't knock out the guy after a clear hit to the head. The man looked at him with blood shot eyes in rage as he prepared to run at the rabbit and slice him into tiny little pieces only for him to fall to the ground as something hit his knee caps, Jax seeing that Pomni had gone ahead and slashed the guy's knee while he was distracted, leaving a nasty cut as she walked back as the man was rolling in the ground holding his knee
"Good going Pomni!" Ragatha cheered from the floor with a raised fist as she tried to reconnect herself to her legs. The blue and red jester quickly came to her side to aid the doll
"Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! Ragatha are you alright?" Pomni asked as she picked up a piece of stuffing coming out from Ragatha and tried to place it back inside of her as she tried to think of a way to glue the doll back together
"This is but a flesh wound, I'm fine... I hope" Ragatha said as she really hoped she could just fix herself with a simple thread and needle as she wasn't ready to be missing half of her body like this, especially since she doubted she could get a wheelchair in a medieval setting
"Honestly think it's an upgrade for you dollface... You're half of the... Annoyance..." Jax tried to make one of his snarky remarks but his vision became blurry and his head dizzy as he unceremoniously fell to the ground, startling the others there
"Oh no, I think he lost too much blood, if we don't patch the wound soon he might--" Pomni was interrupted from going towards the rabbit by a hand grabbing her leg as she fell to the ground from her own momentum, turning back to see the bandit chief holding her as he raised his sword while still on the floor
"I'm going to kill every single one of you pests! You hear me?!" The man said as he tried to swing down his sword only to have his hand grabbed and disarmed quickly by Kinger as he tossed aside the man's sword before quickly going to his neck as he began choking him. The man let go of his grip on Pomni as be tried to free himself from the chess piece's clutches so he could breath, Kinger stayed close by watching with his big ole eyes, the man tried to get the floating appendages away from him but the effort was futile as the fingers coated in metal sank into his neck, his face turning a blue shade but much less saturated than Pomni's as he was foaming at the mouth until eventually he stopped resting and had gone limp
[Foe defeated! Plus 1012 experience gained!]
[Feat completed: The first good deed - performed a selfless action with the intention of helping, plus 85 experience]
[Zooble: level 1 to 5!]
[Ragatha: level 1 to 5!]
[Pomni: level 1 to 5!]
[Jax: level 1 to 6!]
[Kinger: level 3 to 8!]
[Gangle: level 2 to 7!]
"... Holy fuck I think you killed him Kinger" Pomni said as she looked at the motionless body on the floor, so far the only experience they gained from was from slaying a opponent and through feats as those were the only methods told in the status system. And as much as she wanted to believe that they didn't commit a crime and were accomplices in a murder, the status magic made it very clear
"He's just sleeping" Kinger said innocently, unaware of what he did as he just thought he had put the guy down to rest forcefully, but that he would wake up eventually
"But the notification, we only get exp from kills and-"
"I think we should focus on other things, can you and Kinger check in on Zooble and Gangle?" Ragatha commented as she had dragged herself across the floor closer to Jax to check on him, the wound looked pretty bad, much worse than her being split in half as she didn't feel it much except for the horrible sensation of her guts dragging along the floor, but that was more of a minor annoyance than real pain as it wasn't like her guts were actually flesh but rather some type of cloth
"No need" a voice called out as they turned to see Gangle and Zooble entering the area, they looked a bit rough up and Gangle was in her tragedy mask instead of her comedy one so it most likely broke during the fight
"I'll admit these guys were bothersome but we managed, though Gangle needs more practice" Zooble commented as though Gangle was good support in the fight, they really needed to improve their aim as they missed three out of five shots they took which wasn't a good average when in a fight for life or death
"What happened to the guys you were fighting?" Pomni asked slightly worried that the amalgam and masked ribbons had accidentally killed those other men as well, they couldn't start off this place with a body count for goodness sake, gosh if they ended up in trouble for this she would personally drag Jax down to hell since this was all his fault
"We beat them to unconsciousness, seems like you guys did the same, though what was that exp notification? I thought we only got that from..." Zooble stopped as they tilted their head to the side to look and see Ragatha lacking her legs to the side of Jax that had a nasty amount of blood spilled around him "Shit is that Jax? He looks worse than I imagined..."
"I know I look bad but Jax is the priority here! These guys probably have medical supplies in case one gets injured, go look for some bandages or a magic potion... And a sewing set while you're at it" Ragatha asked as the rest nodded and went to look for something to help out, as Ragatha stood there in the ground close to Jax, looking at him worriedly. She couldn't help but feel this was her fault as well, if she was a bit stronger or a bit tougher so she didn't get split in half, Jax wouldn't have to distract the guy by throwing his hammer as she could have given Pomni better assistance in the fight, she looked at the shield then at the spilled blood on the ground and rabbit's body, she needed to get stronger
[Author's Notes]
Hey I have a question, especially to the user zzz3, is this strange obsession with homunculi that mages and alchemists have in the shield hero world... Canon? Because I don't remember any moment in the series where they mentioned homunculus besides maybe when Kyo was creating that artificial body using the spirit turtle's energy, but other than that I can't recall ever seeing a mention to this