Andrea the Alp, Part 1

Note: this is a reupload of an older story, a story that turned into something completely different at a later point (Vertex). Although there were originally 8 chapters and some other fluff, I've split it into three parts here.


		Chapter 0, Boy meets… boy?

- Wherein much spaghetti is spilled in a game of basketball, slight homoeroticism is experienced due to a misunderstanding, and very little of note happens, so if you feel like it, you can pretty much just skip it without losing anything important plot-wise

Saying that Anon hated sports would have been a bit of a stretch, but he was no jock, and definitely not a team player. The first gym class of high school brought him in to a smelly changing room with a group of people he barely knew, with no real knowledge of what to expect. He wasn’t shy about changing in front of others, and neither were most of the others, save for one. Anon couldn’t bring himself to remember his name, but he was a total wimp, that much was plain to see. The kid had always spoken in a voice that made Anon doubt he had actually hit puberty yet, and there wasn’t an ounce of masculinity to his bearing. As Anon’s gaze wandered around the locker room awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with everyone, his eyes fell upon the wimp. He looked even more uncomfortable here than Anon did. Some of the guys were at least talking shit in anticipation of gym class, something easy and familiar for them. The wimpy kid, on the other hand, was just staring at the ground and fidgeting. A man after my own heart, Anon thought to himself, feeling slightly intrigued, and tried to discern more of his fellow contrarian.
He had a lot hair, thought it wasn’t all that long, if that makes any sense. A head full of auburn hair, reaching only halfway down his neck, but it covered his ears and, to an extent, his eyes. While Anon stared, the wimp shifted his head a little, and for the briefest moment, Anon’s eyes were met by a pair of big, green saucers, the eyes of a doe caught in the headlights of a truck. It was at that moment the gym side door opened and the teacher told everyone to get up, causing Anon to jump a little.
Nobody noticed, did they?
Anon was not clear whether it was him jumping or staring at the wimpy kid that he worried people had noticed, but of course nobody had noticed either. The wimpy kid WAS girly, though, impossibly so.

The teacher was a man nearing fifty, balding and with a disproportionate stomach, something most unbecoming of a gym teacher. He had a perma-stubble, as far as Anon could tell. The teacher put them in a row before he started.
“Good day to you all! As you have guessed, I’m your gym teacher, and I expect we’ll get more familiar with each other as time passes, but for the time being, I’d prefer you call me Coach instead of ‘teacher’. We’ll be starting off your time under my wing with some fitness tests, on Thursday we’ll go to the stadium for some running and such, on, and next week we’ll go hit the pool. But today we’ll do some simple stuff, push-ups, sit-ups, the standing long jump, and we’ll shoot some hoops to see how your coordination is. As you can see” he gestured at a bunch of cones “we’ve got an agility-course here. We’ll warm up with some follow the leader, and I’m the leader, so follow” he finished, and touched his fingers to his toes. The class was caught off-guard by this, but then they began to reach out for their toes. Anon only managed to graze his toes with his middle fingers. The teacher then began to stretch out his calves, and the class followed suit. Having limbered up, he set out at a light jog, counter clockwise around the gym.
The row turned into a line, and everybody began to jog after the teacher who liked to be called Coach. The cones which he had previously pointed out ran along the entire length of the gym, and they had to zigzag through them. The coach did some sideways running as well, and reached his hand to the ground every now and again, and the class followed suit. They jogged at a steady, slow pace, but all the extra moves did manage to work up a sweat, and Anon was beginning to pant a little after the fifth lap. They did ten laps before Coach stopped.

Fuck me, I need to jog more, Anon thought to himself. Coach had the class stretch out again.
“All right, now that we’re all warmed up” he said, smiling warmly “partner up and get a mat for every pair!”
Shit!
Anon did not like the idea of partnering up. He was too awkward to just ask someone to be his partner when he barely knew anyone, and not knowing them also meant he couldn’t just expect someone to partner up with him naturally, like back in his old school. He’d just have to wait up until everybody else had done so, and take whoever was left. But that was pathetic, and he really didn’t want to stand out as a reject, that could affect his social standing…
Then Anon spied the wimpy kid, fidgeting, trying to turn invisible. He’s below me, at least, Anon thought, and saw his chance. Walking up to the wimp, he let out an awkward attempt at a smile and said “Wanna partner up with me”. It wasn’t a question, regardless of the wording. The wimp looked at him dumbstruck, but nodded, mumbling what Anon took to be “Sure, whatever”.
Having taken the mat from the pile, they found a spot for themselves. Anon noticed there were still a few people who hadn’t managed to split up in pairs, and were actually arguing.
“So what was your name again?” Anon asked.
“Andrea”
Isn’t that a girl’s name?
“Anon” he replied, offering his hand for a shake, thinking a jest like that would ease up the tension. To his surprise, Andrea took up his hand, gripped it harder than he had expected and said “Enchanté”
Andrea seemed to rejoice in his ability to take part in the joke. Before they could share in any more camaraderie, though, Coach blew his whistle.
“All right, we’ll start with the sit-ups. I’ll clock one minute, and your partner holds down your feet while counting. I want clean moves, keep your hands behind your head, touch your elbows to your knees, and don’t rest your weight on the ground while you’re down. I’ll come ask you for your partner’s scores after the minute is done. Understood? Good!”

As it happened, Anon was the first to go. Andrea sat down bringing his knees on Anon’s feet as well as grabbing his ankles.
“I’m not too heavy, am I?” he asked.
“It’s fine; it’s just a minute anyway”
Coach had been waiting for everyone to get ready, and seeing all pairs were in position, he blew his whistle to signify the beginning of the minute.
Anon had a six-pack. It didn’t show, since his muscles were hidden under skin and fat, but there it was. Just like with every single human being. That being said, he wasn’t very fit, and he knew it. He lifted himself up the first time easily enough, and while up, was greeted by Andrea’s smile. Feeling like showing off, he began to pump up and down at a brisk pace, breathing in through his nose. It wasn’t something he could have afforded, though, as he couldn’t get the oxygen he needed through his nostrils, and had to give up on his bravado when the corners of his field of vision began to blur. Strength left his body, and he fell on his back, unable to get up.
“Come on, you can do it Anon! Work through the burn!”
Andrea wasn’t being at all shy when he said that, and the encouragement helped Anon sit up one more time, though it pained him to do so, and he grunted and groaned, falling down uncontrollably at the end. The whistle made him feel great relief.
What the hell was I thinking anyway? Anon wondered, it’s not like he had any illusions about his own abilities.
Andrea stood up and leaned towards him, reaching out his hand. “Can you get up?”
Anon took Andrea’s hand, and struggled up. “H-how many was that?” he asked, fearfully. Andrea frowned a little. “Twenty-three, that’s uhh, a below average score” he said, apologetically. “But I’m sure you could have done better if you just, uhh, had breathed properly, I mean, it’s a really basic thing, but a lot of people…” Andrea stopped. “Sorry” he mumbled. Anon shook his head. “It’s fine, it was my mistake. Think you can do better?” he asked. “I’m going for forty!”

Anon was taken aback by Andrea’s response, he didn’t look like he was very athletic. Then again, his oversized shirt covered up a lot, so it wasn’t like Anon could actually tell.
“Seriously?”
Andrea lied down, smiling. “I’m dead serious, Anon. Just you wait!”
Andrea had lied down before Coach showed up with his spreadsheet to ask for the score, and when he got to them, Andrea answered from the ground. Coach shook his head at Anon’s score. After he made his rounds, Coach blew his whistle again, and Andrea began doing his sit-ups. He breathed through his mouth from the very beginning and moved about as fast as Anon had in the beginning, but he didn’t break down. Andrea’s face turned red, but he didn’t slow down at all. By the time the whistle blew, Anon had counted no less than 42 sit-ups. Damn this kid!
At the time the whistle blew, Andrea had been on the up-portion, and now stayed sitting up. When Anon let go of his ankles, he almost jumped up.
“How’s that?” he asked, panting.
“That’s 42” Anon replied. “You like, in a sports team or something?”
“Ehehe, no, I just like to, um, move it, you know…”
What the hell is he saying?
“What?”
“What-what?”
“You like to move what?”
Andrea looked a little confused. “I like to move it, move it…” he said, pausing as if expecting Anon to realize something. Which he did. “Oh”
Spaghetti spilled, nice.
Coach was very much satisfied with Andrea’s results.
“Seriously though, do you like, have some hobby or…?”
“Not really, I just like to keep fit”
Coach blew his whistle, and everybody turned towards him.
“Next is push-ups, and I’m not talking about girlie-push-ups, I mean the real deal. Your partner makes a fist, puts it to the ground, and you touch your chest to the fist every time. Understood? Good!”

Andrea was on his stomach as quickly as he had previously gotten up. Anon felt he should take things more seriously now, he didn’t want to leave the teacher a bad impression of himself. He had plenty of time to redeem himself. He positioned himself and waited for the whistle. Hurry up, asshole, I don’t want my arms to get tired!
“Good luck” Andrea whispered, and the whistle was blown.
Anon started off easily enough like before, and having learned from his mistake, did not breath through his nose. Thinking himself clever, he breathed in while descending, and out when ascending. It did not take long for him to realize that his efforts were in vain; after the seventh he felt a great deal of strain and had to slow down. Oh fuck me, I’m this bad?
“Through the burn, Anon, push through the burn!” Andrea cheered him on, and Anon realized for the first time how close he was. Andrea had a pretty determined look on his face, as if he were the one doing the push-ups.
Anon moved slowly, panting and groaning, but he kept going, he pushed through the burn! His arms went numb, the only thing he felt was a tingling, stinging sensation around his elbows. Feeling blood rushing to his head, he let out a dry and fell down before the whistle was blown. Andrea slid his arm from under him.
“You really went all out, man!” he said, patting his shoulder and helping him up.
“So I did good, yeah?”
Andrea stiffened up. “N-not that it really matters; it’s not a competition or anything…”
“How many?”
“Uhm, s-seventeen. That’s…”
That’s shitty as all fuck!
Coach said nothing, but his body language indicated he agreed with this sentiment.
“I bet you’re going for something like forty again, eh?”
Andrea squirmed. “It’s not like I’m super-fit or anything…”
“Don’t talk like that; you’re just trampling on my ego”
“Oh, sorry…”
Anon lied down and made a fist. Andrea seemed a little hesitant as he got in position.

When the whistle blew, Andrea began to move with determination, but his chest very barely touched Anon’s hand, and he was compelled to say “Lower”, which for some reason made Andrea’s face burn red.
He can’t be that worn down already!?
Andrea seemed to be hesitating. “Come on, man, move it, move it!” Anon said, and though he had not intended it to be a joke, Andrea let out a giggle and got moving. He came all the way down, and did the rest of the push-ups as if they were nothing. When the whistle blew, Anon had counted up to 39, and without the interruption in the beginning, it would have been easily over forty. “Goddamn, you’re like fucking Son Goku…” Anon said, regretting what he said as soon as he did. Nonono… never reveal your powerlevel…
But instead of all the usual “what are you talking about” or “eww, fuck off nerd” stuff, the words Andrea uttered were “More like Vegeta… eheh…”
Whew!
There was a small twitch in the corner of Coach’s right eye when he heard the figure 39, but all in all he seemed satisfied.
“Alright, return the mats, we don’t need those anymore. Next is the standing long jump, I’ll set it up while you return the mats”
Anon carried off the mat, and was about to walk back to where Andrea was standing, when he realized there was no more need to; there was no need for partners anymore. He had conflicted feelings; not having to put up with a partner was nice, of course, but Andrea seemed like a surprisingly tolerable person, and Anon had always felt it was nicer to fail in front of someone he knew than a group of strangers. He expected the standing long jump would not go any better than the previous two exercises.
Coach had the students get into a line, where Anon found himself several spots behind Andrea, which meant he could this time see his performance first.

“Alright, the standing long jump is simple enough, you stand behind this line, and then jump as far as you can, like so…”
Coach showed them how it was done. “You all will do two jumps, the better of which will be your final result. Understood? Good!”
He always says that, but he never actually waits for us to reply…
Waiting his turn Anon was thinking about what to do during lunch, he had no idea if he’d run into Lance at the cafeteria or not. Sitting alone was a pain in the ass, it made people look down on you, or maybe someone sitting alone was too pathetic to notice? Anon disliked the idea. He had decided to change his life in this new school, and even though it was only his second day, he feared he hadn’t taken that many steps in the right direction.
He noticed it was Andrea’s turn. Andrea squatted really low, and when he jumped, he almost flew, like a frog.
“That’s two forty-six, great!” Coach exclaimed, and there were murmurs of approval from the line. He’s totally a jock, has to be…
Anon returned to his thoughts. Maybe he could drag Andrea to sit with him? With him and maybe Lance, if they managed to spot each other, there’d be three of them, and three’s a crowd…
It was his turn, now. He wasn’t really paying attention, and the guy behind him had to shove him. Fucking cool, Anon…
He wasn’t mentally prepared, and so he screwed up his jump, losing his balance coming down, falling on his ass and causing a great deal of laughter.
The disapproving tone in Coach’s voice was not even subtle anymore. “That’s a hundred and sixty, actually try next time, and don’t fall!”
Oh yeah? Fucking asshole! Think I did that on purpose? Huh? Fuck you!

Anon returned to the back of the line. He was properly pissed, having embarrassed himself like that. Spaghetti, spaghetti, that’s all I’m good for, he thought to himself, as a few of the people he passed patted his back and exclaimed what a cool guy he was. I hate you, you fucking… argh!
He pouted at the back of the line and was largely indifferent to what happened next. There was actual applause at some point, and the Coach could be heard crying out “Two and fifty-three!”
That later turned out to be the class record. Anon found some resolve in this. If he wanted to be taken seriously instead of becoming the class clown, he had to show everyone he could… what? Do a standing long jump?
First impressions, Anon, they’re everything…
True enough. If he could redeem himself here, maybe they would, everybody makes mistakes and all…
He was shoved again. What? It’s my turn already? Fuck!
Anon could hear jeering, people wishing him luck. There wasn’t as much of it as he thought there would be, though. Of course not; it’s not like anyone cared how he did. Coach was looking at him with no expectations. That’s what it’s come down to? You don’t think I can do better?
Anon was anxious. He squatted down like Andrea had. If someone as skinny and effeminate as Andrea could do it, why couldn’t he? He was a man, a man!
Anon made his jump, and kept his balance. There was some cheering, but it wasn’t as malicious as he had anticipated.
“That’s one and eighty, that’s passable. I guess you did have it in you after all” Coach said and told him to move along.
Anon was disappointed. That’s the best he could do? At least it was over…
The last of the jumps was finished, and Coach blew his whistle. “Next we throw some hoops!”
Oh, fuck me with a…

The gymnasium had four hoops, so they would be split into four groups. This was easily accomplished, and Anon found himself in a group different from Andrea. Why do I even care about that?
Coach introduced the idea behind this exercise. “You go from this line here, and make the shot around here… you have to keep bouncing the ball all the time, of course, and then you get pass the ball to the guy whose next in line, and get to the back of it. I’ll walk around checking how you’re doing, alright? We’ll get you mobile, after a while we’ll start playing basketball for real. Understood? Good!”
No, it wasn’t good at all, Anon was greatly displeased. He positioned himself last in the line, hoping to prolong the inevitable. He wished he’d be playing baseball with his class back in middle school, against their eternal rivals from the other class… this sucked. Why did he have to humiliate himself before his new classmates so soon? If he’d gotten an opportunity to impress them in some other class first… though he wasn’t as smart as all that, and he doubted that would have helped much anyway.
It was his turn, and he barely caught the ball that was thrown his way. As he began bouncing it, he could barely keep his control. It was the socks. He should have taken some sneakers to school, but oh no, he was wearing socks. That’s why he fell during his first jump, he slipped! How couldn’t he have noticed this before? That’s why everything had gone so badly, because he was wearing socks!
Anon fumbled with the ball, lost control of it and had to chase it a little, almost tripping over his feet as he reached for it, but managed to stop himself, and right where he was supposed to, as well. The hoop eluded him, though, the ball bounced of the board and again he had to chase it. By the time he had managed to throw it in the general vicinity of the next person in the line, he had used up more time than anyone else on such a simple task.

This is not my day, this is not my day!
Anon thought to himself at the back of the line. At least Coach hadn’t been there to witness it. He would end up seeing him fumble anyway, though. As long as Coach wasn’t there to see him, though… maybe he could just forego his turn? It’s not like anyone would care if he did, right? Except for myself. That’s loser-talk, Anon, and you know it!
He realized his hands were getting clammy. It hadn’t always been this hard, had it? He remembered the games of baseball from last spring. Gym class didn’t suck back then. No, maybe it was he who had begun to suck… or was it the people around him?
Soon enough his turn came again, the others didn’t fumble nearly enough to make the time between his turns as long as he would’ve been comfortable with. He caught the ball this time, at least, and as he began to bounce it, noticed from the corner of his eye that Coach had come to see his group. Not fucking now!
Sure enough, the ball got away from him, and as he reached out for it, he slipped – fucking socks – and fumbled to catch the ball again. He pretty much doubled over as he caught the ball, and slid a little, but stayed on his feet, and only had to take two steps while bouncing the ball before he was close enough to make the shot. The shot, naturally, missed, and the ball again bounced off the board. As he turned to give chase, he saw Coach grab the ball midair and toss it to the person who was next in line without even looking. Anon felt a twitch in the corner of his eye.
Asshole.
For a moment Anon stared at the man he had come to hate in a very short time. Coach stared back at him, almost frowning, and said “Move it, kid”. This caused Anon to snap back into reality and return to the end of the line. Once there, Coach walked up to him. “Get it together, kid” he said, and kept walking to the next group.

Anon had his turn five more times, and failed every time, though a little less with each consecutive attempt. When the Coach blew his whistle, he felt once more relieved, though only for a moment. When they had arranged themselves in a row, Coach had produced a bunch of jerseys, which he passed around, telling every other to take one. Anon got one, and as he pulled it over his head, was struck by the aroma of several years’, maybe even decades’, worth of dried up sweat.
“I’ve seen what I wanted to, so for the rest of the time, we’ll be playing basketball, take it easy and have fun, yeah?”
The two teams went on the opposite sides, and people began to decide who started out playing and who went to sit on the bench first. Anon noticed Andrea was on the opposite side. Not that it mattered. Anon volunteered to sit out at first, and there was no argument against it. Anon sighed as he fell on the bench, and decided to close his eyes for a while. He had no watch, so he didn’t know how much longer it would be until he’d get to go eat lunch and forget his troubles while talking shit with Lance.
Just like back in the old school…
The idea no longer seemed all that appealing to him. He’d never turn his life around if he didn’t start doing things differently. And he’d never start doing things differently if he kept putting it off, if he was going to do something, he would have to do so now. Now…
Anon opened his eyes. The game hadn’t yet progressed to the point where anybody had scored. To Anon’s surprise, Andrea was the one with the ball, and he was making his way through the gym floor like an ace. One of Anon’s team mates wanted to switch, and he felt a sudden urge to get out there and change his life. Anon jumped up and ran to where the game was.

Anon ran to the crowd around Andrea, and then realized he had no plan of action. He had taken the initiative, at least, but what good was that? He ran along with the group, watching Andrea bounce the ball, lunging here and there, never giving a chance for the others to grab the ball from him.
Is he a basketball player? Is that it?
That certainly would explain a lot. But he said, well, just something stupid to avoid the issue. Anon ran backwards a little, the others were starting to bump into him, and he didn’t like that, at all. What he really should have been doing, was looking for a spot where he could receive a pass when one of the other players in his team got the ball from Andrea… if they did…
Turned out they did, and sure enough, he was free when it happened. They passed the ball to him, and he – against all odds – caught it. Hah! Take that!
Alas, he was not a team player, nor was he the lone wolf of an ace who could have dealt with the situation on his own. As the enemy players began to make their way towards him, Anon realized he would not be able to get anywhere with the ball, not with his lack of skill and those accursed socks of he was wearing. This, of course, left Anon with two possibilities; he could either pass the ball to one of his team-mates, or blue-screening. Anon chose the first of these, and picked one who he thought looked free enough. The ball didn’t fly exactly as planned, but the other player caught it, making a new attack against the enemy. Anon felt ecstatic.
I did it! I’m fucking doing it now!
Anon was a part of the team, and he was making his way along the gym floor, chasing after the one carrying the ball. He knew nothing of proper tactics in such a game, and so he didn’t try to find a spot where he could receive a pass, all he thought to do was run along with the crowd, keeping instinctively out of the way if others, meaning he didn’t even try to block the other team’s players. Long story short, Anon was about as useful as empty space in his place would have been.

The enemy took the ball, and the direction of the players changed again. Somehow Anon, who had been at the tail-end of the moving bunch and by all means should have been at the head of them now, found himself again lagging behind. Coach yelled at him, telling him to “find a spot” or something like that, Anon wasn’t sure what he was saying. He broke away from the group and ran to his team’s end of the gym. There he stood like and idiot, stepping to the left and to the right as the people with the ball were moving to-and-fro. Anon was feeling less and less psyched; instead of participating, he was just standing around. Not that he had done anything while running, but…
Then the golden opportunity presented itself. The player with the ball had nowhere to go, and as such had to pass the ball to someone. Andrea had positioned himself in such a way that he would, given the ball, have a clear shot. Anon saw the situation, and realized that he alone would make it in time to block the pass. Anon hesitated for a brief moment, and then ran.
Hell yes! I knew it!
Anon had been right, he saw the ball fly towards Andrea, and experienced a rush of adrenaline in response to his unexpected savvy. As Anon ran, he noticed all eyes were on him, since he was the one moving towards the ball. Everything was up to him now.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Just look at me now, you assholes!
Anon saw the ball was going to reach Andrea before he could make it, and tried to run faster. Faster he did run, but unfortunately, it was both too slow AND too fast. He was too slow, for Andrea caught the ball; he was too fast, for he did not manage to stop.
Anon cursed his socks yet again as he tried to come to stop, seeing Andrea grab the ball with arms reaching up, he tried to come to a stop as he saw Andrea bring the ball to his chest and notice Anon sliding towards him, he tried to come to a stop as Andrea bent over and tried to cover himself, bracing for impact, and in the end, Anon did come to a stop

Anon came to a stop by colliding with Andrea, and as a matter of fact, toppling over him, falling to the ground face first, barely able to bring up his arms to protect his face. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Andrea toppled under him, and Coach whistled the game to a halt.
Fuckingfuckfuckfucketyfuck…
Andrea had fallen on top of the ball, and now crawled out from under Anon, jumping upright with it. Anon could hear him apologizing to the teacher, apparently the ball had suffered some deflation. Blood was rushing to Anon’s head, and he got up slowly, keeping his eyes fixed to the ground. When he was up, he turned to face the teacher, who looked down on him, gritting his teeth.
“That’s foul play” he said.
That was a fucking… argh! I fucking slipped!
“I slipped” Anon mumbled.
Coach shook his head. “Go cool off for a while, two minutes” he said, nodding his head toward the benches, and Anon went, listening for the jeers of his classmates, though none really came. A new ball was produced, and the game went on. After Anon’s two-minute penalty ended, he didn’t really feel like going back to play, and just stayed on the bench. This meant that his team had one player less, since he didn’t enter the field anymore, but there was not enough time left anyway for it to make much of a difference. While sitting on that bench Anon occupied himself with more pleasant thoughts, such as how it would feel like to tear the teacher apart with his bare hands. Anon sat there until Coach blew his whistle to signal the end of the game. Anon hadn’t paid enough attention to be able to tell who had won.
The class was arranged into a row again, and Coach made some speech Anon didn’t bother listening to, he just wanted out of there. When the people around him began to scatter off, Anon turned on his heels as well.
“Hey, that meant you!” came the teacher’s voice from behind him.
What?
Anon turned around, and wished he had listened. As it turned out, Anon and another miscreant had been told to stay behind. The other person was a skinny, nerdy looking kid with glasses and a greasy ponytail.

Coach had the two of them stand in a “row” and crossed his arms. “Nowadays” he began “kids aren’t as active as back in the day. You’ve got your video games and computers, and don’t get outside like you should, mhmh, but there are serious health concerns if you just stay cooped up inside all day, doing nothing and eating potato chips and whatnot. The two of you are, according to the test today, in worse than average shape. Starting from Friday next week, when all the new classes have undergone their tests, I’ll be supervising some extra-curricular activities, meant for people like you. They’re not mandatory, but you do get extra credit for them, and to be frank, it’ll be just what you need. I will only have time to arrange those until about halfway through next month, but by then e have put together the kind of training regiment that the whole lot can do on their own at home. As I said, I won’t force you, but you need to consider this. Understood? Good!”
Without waiting for their reply, he then told the glasses kid to hit the showers.
We’re not done yet?
Coach pointed at the pile of mats from before. “Unlike him, you didn’t fail because of your physical condition, but because you didn’t even try. I know you probably think you’re the funny guy in this group, but I don’t put up with jokers, and neither does life. Making a fool of yourself is not going to get you ahead in life. I want you to reconsider the path you’ve decided to take, so get those in the storage room. Return the keys to the teacher’s lounge when you’re done” he finished and threw the keys to Anon, who didn’t expect it, and didn’t catch them. As Anon kneeled to pick them up, he saw Coach shake his head and heard him sigh heavily as he walked out of the gymnasium.
You fucking thought I did that on purpose, didn’t you? Go eat shit you fucking asshole, I’m doing my fucking best here!

There weren’t that many mats, so Anon was able to pick them all up at once and carry them without a problem. Lazy asshole, couldn’t even do this by himself?
After he got the mats into the storage room,	Anon locked the door and made his way into the locker room.
It was already mostly empty, which meant there’d been no showering. Not that I was going to do it either, but maybe now that there’s nobody here?
But Anon was not alone, as the locker room was only mostly empty. Andrea was there, his hair wet, and a towel wrapped around his waist. He had his back towards Anon, and was sliding another oversized t-shirt on himself. The thing was big enough to reach halfway down his thighs. With the shirt on, he wiggled his hips and the towel fell. Anon waited for him to put his underwear and pants on before he broke the silence.
“So uhh, you okay?” Anon asked out of the blue.
Andrea jumped and looked rather startled. “Huh?”
“Um, about that, earlier when I ran into you, I’m just… sorry”
“Oh. For a second I thought you were, uhh, no, its fine, really, I’m fine, don’t worry about it…”
Wait, what?
“You thought what?”
“What?”
“What did you think I was, I mean, you said you thought I was something, what did you think…?”
Andrea shifted around like he had ants in his pants.
“Umm, that you were going to ask me about… you know” he mumbled, barely audibly.
“You’re confusing me even more right now” Anon said, emotionlessly. Is this nigga tripping? was the only thought his brain managed to produce.
Andrea looked at him, face slightly red, but his lips were forming a smile.
“Eheh… haven’t you noticed, or are you just teasing me?”
“Noticed what? Dude, seriously, what?”
“I’m… an alp” Andrea said, moving back the hair covering his ears, revealing them to be long and pointy.


	Chapter 1, A Bad Day

- Wherein Anon puts together his gallant party of four adventurers, spills some more spaghetti while trying to befriend his new acquaintances and gender confusion takes place with annoying frequency in the narration. A heinous conspiracy is revealed and a story is told, but not in that order.

Anon was dumbstruck, his brain had some difficulty in processing the revelation he had just received.
An Alp? Like the mountains… no, a monster? I can’t just throw a word like that around!
“As in… you’re not a guy?”
Andrea didn’t look at him.
“Not… physically, no. I’m female down to, uh, my chromosomes” he said, embarrassed.
“Oh thank God!”
“W-what?”
“I was seriously thinking I might be turning gay”
Wait, why the fuck did I say that out loud?!
“Oh? OH! Damn… I was worried this might happen…”
Andrea started fidgeting again and leaned against the wall, as if trying to phase through it.
“Augh! Look, I… I’m flattered, but I, ooh, why is this so hard… I just don’t swing that way, okay? I don’t, ahh, I mean… I’m… I’m ME, not, not a monster, okay? My body is just… can we not talk about this?”
Andrea was not only uncomfortable, his face was glowing red.
“Uhh, this is kinda weird for me too, so…”
Andrea said nothing.
“So you wanna have lunch with me?”
Andrea jumped.
“Huh?”
Why did it come out so wrong?
“I mean, do you want to sit with me, at lunch, in the cafeteria? Ahahah, s-see we’re both new here and, well we don’t really know anyone else, that is, if you have other people you’d rather sit with I don’t mind, but…”
This is all going to hell in a hand basket!
Andrea looked at him, tipping his – her – head. “Sure” he – she – replied.
“S-sure?”
“Sure. It’s fine”
Anon stood still for a moment. Now what?
“So what did the teacher want?”
Yes! A new subject!
“He just complained about	me not trying hard enough, nothing important. Didn’t that other guy say anything?”
“Actually, everybody just changed and left, so I though I’d take a shower, and he probably went through here when I wasn’t looking. It’s kinda funny that everybody cleared out so fast. Heh, you’d think they were the ones with something to hide…”
Andrea’s voice trailed off here.
“Uhh, about that…”
“Please don’t”
“But… shouldn’t you have, like, horns? Wings? A tail?”
“I do…”
“Uhh…”
“No, I’m not going to show you. I’ve pulled them in”
“Pulled them in?”
“Yeah. I don’t want them to show. It’s embarrassing. That’s all I have to say about that”
There was a moment of awkward silence as Anon changed out of his gym clothes. Andrea broke it.
“You’re not going to take a shower either?”
“Nah, my sweat’s all dried up already”
“Uh-huh…”
Andrea looked both sceptical and disappointed at the same time. Oh don’t you start!
“So yeah” Anon said, now all dressed up.
“Let’s bounce”
Oh Anon, that was nowhere near as cool as you thought it was…

The two of them left the locker room and headed silently to where they believed the cafeteria was. The school building was still new and exotic to them, but their odyssey did not last long. Anon felt like he had forgotten something, but the nagging feeling at the back of his head didn’t get through anymore when they entered the noisy cafeteria.
The two of them entered the shorter one of the two lines, this being to the left from the entrance, with Anon taking the lead.
“So what are we having?” Andrea asked. Anon checked the menu.
“Looks like macaroni and cheese” Anon said, trying to come up with something clever. Macaroni and cheese didn’t have much comedic potential, though.
“And grated carrots!” Andrea exclaimed.
“You seem enthusiastic about that”
“I like grated carrots”
“That doesn’t even taste like anything…”
“Sure it does. I love it”
“Suit yourself…” Anon was going the pass the grated carrots by completely, but Andrea grabbed his sleeve.
“What? We’re going to hold up the line…” Anon protested, though there was nobody in line behind them.
“Anon, this is for your own good” Andrea said, making an exaggeratedly stern face, and picking up a pile of the stuff and dropping it on Anon’s plate. His plate was now half-covered in grated carrots. Oh joy.
Andrea put a similar amount on his… her own plate, ruining Anon’s initial plan of simply switching plates with him… her.
The macaroni and cheese looked rather unappetizing, but Anon ended up filling his plate anyway. As he was about to fill his glass with water, Andrea pulled on his sleeve again.
“That’s no good either”
“What is it this time?”
“Milk. You need to drink milk”
Anon sighed heavily, turning to the dispenser with milk in it. That is, the plethora of dispensers. There was one for regular milk, one for people with some kind of problems that Anon wasn’t quite sure about, and two marked “Hol”. He hadn’t paid any attention to these before, but now he was dumbstruck.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me” he said.
“I’m not, milk is seriously good for you, at our age we…”
“No, not that, I mean, look, does ‘Hol’ mean what I think it means?”
Andrea tilted his… goddamit, her, head.
“Holstaurus milk is actually the best kind of milk there is” Andrea said, as if lecturing him. Seriously?
“So that stuff came out of a…”
“Well duh!”
I love the way you say that, but I hate the fact you said it, never say it again!
Andrea decided to lead by example and filled his… her… it’s… no, fuck that, definetly not “it’s”… Andrea’s glass with milk from one of the dispensers marked Hol.
“Don’t be like that, it tastes great!” Andrea said, taking a sip. Said sip left a little milk-moustache on Andrea’s upper lip, though this went unnoticed by the drinker.
“Mmh. Delicious” Andrea said, licking her – got that right this time! – lips, wiping the milk away as well.
“Eheh, uhh… it’s good. Really”
Did you do that on purpose? Are you actually TRYING to seduce me?
Anon took the Holstaurus milk without further argument.
While Andrea started buttering some bread, Anon looked for a familiar face. Lance was nowhere to be seen, so he simply chose an empty-ish table and the two navigated towards it.
The table was long and had room for maybe nine people on both sides – not that Anon actually counted – and only three of those seats were taken. Anon and Andrea claimed the seats in the opposite end of these three, and sat down.
They both tensed up a little, as there was no natural conversation outside the brief mention of macaroni and cheese tasting about as appetizing as it looked.
I hate awkward silences…
Now that he had all the time he needed to stare at his plate – there was a white wall to one side, a bunch of strangers on one side and Andrea directly before him, staring down at the plate seemed to be the only choice – he realized he hadn’t tried the milk yet. Supposedly, Holstaurus milk tasted better than the cow milk. Anon took a cautious sip. Then he emptied the glass in one go.
“Ahh!” he cried out, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He used to think nobody actually drank milk like that, but this stuff really warranted it.
Andrea was trying to hide the fact that he was – ergh – that she was giggling.
“First time, is it?” Andrea inquired.
“You could tell?” Anon replied, perfectly aware of the innuendo. “But seriously, this is good stuff. I mean…” Anon wasn’t sure what to say. The stuff tasted full, somehow, as if the flavour was packed more densely. There was a small hint of… was it blueberry? It was delicious, that could not be denied.
“I told you it was the best kind of milk” Andrea said, smiling triumphantly.
“Yes, you were totally right. How come they even bother to serve ordinary cow milk when there’s stuff like this available?”
“W-well… you didn’t want it at first either, did you?”
“No… I thought, well, no, you know…”
“It does come out of what pretty much looks like human boobs, right?”
“Yeah… that’s a little…”
“And then there’s the fundies”
“Fundies?”
Andrea shook her head.
“Yeah. Religious fundies. They think it’s going to turn people immoral if they drink that stuff”
“That’s kinda dumb”
“They’re religious fundamentalists, they’re not ‘kinda dumb’; they’re fucking assholes!”
Andrea was actually upset, and there was a slight red tint spreading to his face.
You do look kinda cute when you’re angry… I didn’t think that…
“That sounds like there’s a story behind it”
Andrea bit his – I swear, I’m going to stop this – that is, her lip.
“I don’t really want to talk about that either”
There was silence. Briefly.
“Tally ho, lad!” came a sudden shot, and a tray fell next to Anon’s. Next thing he knew, a hand smacked his back, and Lance sat down next to him. He’d gotten a stupid haircut, Anon noticed. The right side of his head had been trimmed quite short, while the left side still had the remains of his dyed lion’s mane. The asymmetry might have looked cool on someone Anon didn’t know to be… well, Lance.
“I see you have made a new friend” Lance said, extending his hand to Andrea. As the two shook hands, a fourth person joined them, sitting down next to Andrea. Now this one Anon did not know.
She was a blonde as well, but rather than a human, she was a… was Lizardman the correct term? Her nose was bandaged and apparently had been broken recently. She said nothing as she sat down, only throwing a glance into both Anon and Andrea, nodding slightly.
“But I haven’t lost to you, sir, for so have I! This charming reptile is Vivienne. Or BB, as I’ve come to call her! OW!”
Lance had apparently received a kick under the table.
“Oh come on, it IS funny!” Lance whined.
“What’s funny?” Andrea inquired.
“The reason I call her BB – OW! Stop that! You’re being a total tsundere right now!”
OhfuckpleasenoGodalmightypleasemakeitsohedidnotsaythawordtoutloud!
Vivienne glared at Lance with open hostility, bringing food to her mouth while maintaining eye contact. This was a scene straight out of a spaghetti western.
“Tsundere, eh?” Andrea butted in.
Oh right. Another geek.
“Indeed, B… uhh, Vivienne and I were brought together by fate, or dumb luck, as the case may be, but regardless, we are now bound together with an unbreakable bond, and…”
Vivienne’s stare made Lance pipe down.
“That is, we’re partners. In a totally platonic sense, I might add! Hahah, ahh yes, we were partnered up for a report you see, for history class. We’ll be hitting the library later today, for some research, if you know what I me-AUGH!”
There was another kick under the table, apparently.
 “Well, enough about us, let’s hear about your day!”
Anon frowned.
“Gym. Nothing worth mentioning” he said.
“Ah, you totally blew the tests, didn’t you?”
You sure do know me, asswipe…
“So how about you? Break any records?” Lance turned to Andrea, who lighted up and proudly told him about his… her success.
Anon brooded over his lunch, as did Vivienne, while Lance and Andrea were living it up. There wasn’t a hint of shyness in Andrea.
How is it that this asshole can charm anything with a cunt, and still be a kissless virgin?
Anon didn’t want this to go on, and decided to stir things up.
“S-so what happened to your nose?” he asked Vivienne, who froze. She threw a glance at Lance, and then resumed eating.
“Vivienne got into a fight” Lance explained. “Her nose is broken, as you can see. Now, usually this would be one of those ‘you should see the other guy’ things, but there was no guy, and our poor BB got her finely shaped, tight buttock handed to her… you’re going to stab me with that fork aren’t you?”
Lance shut his trap and lifted his hands up, showing he surrendered. Vivienne stared at him with a murderous glare.
“So why isn’t she talking?” Anon asked.
Lance looked at Vivienne, who frowned, then nodded.
“Well, with her nose broken, her voice sounds a little… uhh, that’s where BB comes from. ‘Bibienne’, hehe… please don’t kill me”
Vivienne shook her head and kept eating. Lance lowered his arms and sighed in relief, relaxing visibly. At that moment, when his guard was down, Vivienne delivered a swift, strong kick. “AUGH! That’s cheap!”
Anon stole a glance at Vivienne’s body. She looked really, really fit. Her muscles were visible, she probably had abs you could break a baseball bat on. Well, maybe not, but she sure as hell didn’t look like a pushover. So who was it that broke her nose?
The four of them kept eating in silence.
“So what’s your report on?” Andrea asked.
“The uhh, siege of… I can’t remember the towns name, it was a city state somewhere down south, had a huge library…”
“What, Alexandria?” Anon interjected.
“Uhh, no I don’t think so. Anyway, there’s this story… umm, can I have the notes?”
Vivienne took a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. Lance cleared his throat and started reading out loud:

Having heard of the great “wealth” of the library, the dragoness Ria set out to claim the treasure for herself. The city was besieged by the armies of who would later be known as Saint Claudio, and none stood in opposition of her. Arriving at the library, she scared off all the scholars with her mere presence. Only the curator’s assistant remained, confronting her, stiff with fear (I don’t know if that meant he had a stiff in his pants – ow, sorry, sorry). The dragoness demanded that the treasures be presented before her, and the curator’s assistant produced the index, which befuddled Ria greatly.
“What mockery is this? I was told that the greatest treasure in the world was within these walls, and you give me scrolls? I’ll burn your useless scrolls!”
The curator’s assistant fell to his knees and pleaded with her to sooner burn his flesh. The dragoness was confused, why would a man die for papyrus?
So he told her of the accumulated knowledge of past generations, of the efforts of fighting the darkness of ignorance with the light of wisdom, of how humans were too weak to alone and needed the help of one another. The value of the scrolls in the library, according to the curator’s assistant, is greater than that of all the gold and jewels in the world, for they contain the work of all mankind in them. To lose them would be to lose centuries, even millennia, of work, and waste the lives of all who had lived and died to make this wealth of knowledge possible.
Ria, still sceptical, asks for details, which the curator’s assistant then promptly gives, taking up half a day, during which he explains to her of medicine, engineering and other such things, as well as their worth and value to all the world.
Finally convinced, the dragoness agrees to spare the library, in return for the single most valuable treasure therein. The curator’s assistant is confused, and asks what she means.
“You, of course! It is your words that have spared this library, and it is to you and you alone that the future generations will owe all that they may learn here” she replied, taking flight with the young scholar in her arms.

Lance finished reading what was written, and handed the paper back to Vivienne.
“Alas, the raunchy sex scenes are not on this note. But I’m sure we’ll be able to find them and get in the mo- ow! Quit it!”
Vivienne had a slight blush, as did Andrea.
That was romantic to them?
For a brief moment they went silent again. And again, it was Andrea who broke the silence.
“Hey Anon” she said.
“Yeah?”
“When our class does the history report thingie that Lance was talking about, will you partner up with me?”
You’re asking that like it’s a matter of life and death…
“Sure” he answered nonchalantly.
“Yay” Andrea replied, but not with enthusiasm.
“What’s with you two? Trouble in boy’s love paradise?”
“What?” exclaimed the accused, in perfect synch.
Lance laughed out loud, and even Vivienne chuckled.
“Aww, you two are totally on into each other. I’m shipping you now. I know, I know, its forbidden love, but who cares? I always knew Anon was into guys, I’m probably to blame, stealing all the girls since we were little… OW!”
Anon had stomped on Lance’s foot.
“What is it with everybody being so violent today? I was kidding!”
“That wasn’t funny. Besides, Andrea’s not a guy” Anon said, realizing too late he blurted out something that he maybe shouldn’t have.
Lance made what could only be described as a horrible imitation of an “Enelface”.
“EEH?” he yelled, throwing his arms up in the air.
Stop making a scene you fucking goofball! This is showing your powerlevel! We agreed not to do that here!
Andrea was squirming in her seat. Vivienne turned her reptilian eyes to her.
“Alb?” she said, in a voice that quite clearly was affected by the damage her nose had endured.
“Y-yes. Uhm, can we not make a big deal out of it?”
Vivienne nodded, Anon began to stare at the conspicuously white wall and Lance switched gears.
“M’lady, I beg your pardon. Let us start over…”
“No, we’re going to class” Anon interrupted him and got up. Andrea followed like a puppy, and once they had returned their trays, they headed to class.
“Sorry” Anon mumbled when no-one else was close enough to hear.
“It’s fine, Anon. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything…”

While waiting in the hallway for their next class to start, Anon once again had that nagging feeling about having forgotten something, but nothing sprang to his mind. It couldn’t have been anything important.
“So you and Lance have been friends for a while?” Andrea asked.
“How come?”
Anon didn’t really want to talk about this for some reason. Why did Andrea even care about Lance?
“Uhh, no reason. Just making conversation. He said he’d always stolen all the girls from you, I though there might be a story behind that”
Anon grimaced.
“He never stole any girls from anybody; he’s a kissless virgin and will probably stay that way. He acts like a fucking a Casanova, but he’s all talk”
Andrea smiled.
“You sound jealous”
“I AM NOT JEALOUS!”
A few people noticed him raising his voice and turned to look.
Argh, fuck. What am I doing?
“Are you sure? You seem upset. I didn’t mean to offend or anything…”
Oh stop that, you’re making me feel like I just kicked a puppy!
“Look, he’s really a fun guy to be around, I guess, we’ve been friends since kindergarten, umm, no before even that, and he’s always been a little… goofy” Anon said.
“You’re jealous of a guy for being goofy?”
“Are you trying to make me mad?”
“Maybe just a little. You’re so cute when you’re flustered…”
No, YOU’RE cute when you’re flustered!
“Seriously though…” Andrea’s tone changed. “Did you notice Vivienne’s tail?”
What’s this all of a sudden?
“No” Anon said, he sure hadn’t.
“Exactly. She didn’t have one”
“So?”
“Well think about it dummy. She’s a lizard girl. That means she should have a tail. When a lizard girl’s tail is cut off, it grows back. I checked, and she didn’t even have a proper stump, meaning she’d lost it recently. And what do we know about what’s happened to her recently?”
“Uhh… she was in a fight and got her nose broken? What were you checking her ass for anyway?”
Andrea blushed.
“She had a nice rump… you’d have done the same. A-anyway, the point is, she lost her tail and got her nose broken, and most likely in that same fight, yeah? So here I’m thinking, who was she fighting? Lance said it was another girl, yeah? And that the other girl totally won, it was a one sided fight, and I’m totally believing it, since Vivi didn’t look like she’d taken any damage anywhere else, meaning it was like, a total curbstomp, yeah?”
I thought you had been turned into a girl? This is man talk!
“I get your point. You’re getting pretty fired up here” Anon said.
“You bet your ass I’m getting fired up! A mysterious new enemy shows up so soon after school starts! This is everything a man can dream of!”
“But is this your story, of Vivienne’s?”
“Mine, of course! I’m the hero, and you’ll be my comic relief sidekick!”
“Oh? So you can fight, then?”
“Of course I can fight, man! I’ve been practicing karate since the third grade!”
Well that explains something…
“But you said earlier that you don’t have any hobbies…”
Andrea looked like he – and at this moment, it was most definitely he – had been caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
“Weell~”
“Well what?”
“I didn’t really know you back then. And it’s better to hide your powerlevel amongst strangers… lest you invite judgement…” Andrea explained.
 “Seriously speaking, that would’ve been a sight to see. A real catfight” Anon said.
Andrea nodded enthusiastically.
“Hey, wanna bet on what she fought?”
“Eeh, bet what?”
“I dunno. You still got any of your Pokémon cards saved?”
“No”
“Rats. Well, me neither, really. Uuh, how about this? We both say a monster, if one of us gets it right, the loser buys the winner a strawberry sundae”
“And if we’re both wrong?”
“Then we both buy one for each other!”
“Does it have to be a strawberry sundae?”
“Yes!”
And now it’s all female again.
“I don’t really like strawberry sundaes…”
“Well serves you right for losing!”
“But what if I win?”
“Then it’s my revenge on you for beating me! The comic relief sidekick doesn’t outwit the hero!”
Then the two of them laughed heartily.
Then disaster struck.
Coach showed up at the end of the hallway, with a stiff face and eyes peering into the faces of every student he passed by. The nagging feeling returned to Anon’s head. Uh-oh.
Coach strode up to Anon the moment they noticed one another.
“What did I tell you to do?” Coach asked.
Anon remembered perfectly well, but there was still a slight chance that the teacher didn’t.
“You told me to… put the uhh, mats in the storage…” he said.
“And?”
Fuck.
“To uhh, lock up… and return the keys to you…”
“Well did you?”
“I put up the mats, yeah…”
“No you didn’t. I waited for you all through my lunch hour, in the teacher’s lounge. I went to investigate. Nothing was locked up. Hell, half the mats were gone. Do you understand?”
Gone? What the fuck?
Anon just stared at the teacher dumbstruck.
“Well do you?”
“Uhh… what?”
“Oh for the love of…” Coach grabbed Anon’s shoulders.
“Where are they keys I gave you?”
Anon had to think about this. He had shoved the keys in his pocket, and…
He dropped his bag to the ground and began rummaging through it. Picking up his gym clothes, he checked their pockets and discovered them to be empty. Anon started to panic and went through the contents of his bag, throwing stuff around as he emptied it, perfectly aware of the curious stares of the students in the hallway. Anon had now become the centre of attention, all that was missing was a spotlight and a narrator to explain what he was doing in meticulous detail.
What he looked for was not in his bag.
“…not in here…” he mumbled.
“Pick up your things. Do you have any idea where the keys could be?”
“Uhh, probably dropped them in the locker room…”
Coach nodded.
“I thought as much” he said. “That’s where I found them” he added.
Wait, what?
“What?”
“I needed to see your reaction. Now I know you just dropped them by accident, you’re acting sincere – for the first time in my presence. You’re innocent, then” Coach said.
Innocent? I… what?
Coach nodded his head again and was about to walk away. “I’m going to expect to see you Friday next week” he added.
Anon started to pick up his things with Andrea’s help. There were a few jeers thrown his way. He ignored them though. Neither Anon nor Andrea said anything until the class started.

After this incident, Anon was downright depressed. He had screwed up yet again, and certainly he would hear from this for a long time to come. He hid in a toiler stall during the breaks. Andrea may have tried to talk to him at some point, but Anon was brooding and didn’t acknowledge it. When school finally came to an end, he decided to take an alternate route home, to avoid seeing or being seen by anyone. This route, completely untested and unknown to him, wasn’t something he had planned in advance. Anon snuck behind the school and rushed through a hole in the chain link fence that marked the end of school grounds. This took him into a shaded area with some trees, on the other side of which was a sidewalk, a road, and then a fast-food restaurant and some wasteland. It was here that Anon made his way. While the restaurant was close enough to the school to probably be popular with the students, the wasteland behind it didn’t look like it would attract anyone. In this, Anon was wrong.
While walking briskly along the piles of old trash bags and other junk, Anon passed what had once been a car. From there, a ferocious enemy appeared.
“Gitouttamyhouse!” a sudden cry erupted, and before Anon jumped a dwarf, with a fearsome, unkempt beard, and a tinfoil hat. A tinfoil hat, as sure as the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
The dwarf was armed with a wooden baseball bat, which he held as if it were a warhammer.
“Elves… elves sent ya, didn’t they? Think ya can drive ol’ Rehn outta his land, eh? No! I know what yer up to… elves everywhere… elves running the country, the banks, not ol’ Rehn though… hehe… GITOUT! He swung the bat, and Anon jumped aside to avoid it. Unfortunately, he tripped over something and fell down. He rolled to dodge the next blow, but his bag stopped him from rolling around fluently, so he didn’t make it very far. The third blow he blocked by curling up like a turtle, leaving his bag to take the hit.
“Elves! Elves! Elves!” the dwarf shouted, hitting him, seemingly unaware of the fact he was not doing any damage. Well, physical damage, mentally Anon had been torn apart, he felt like puking and shitting himself. He’d never been in a situation like this, and the pure shock of it had left him helpless.
Am I going to die?
Of course, he didn’t.
“Elves trying to take all that us dwarves worked so hard for… and all ya humans just going along… ol’ Rehn knows what yer up to! Mind control! In the pills, ooh, human doctors tried to give Rehn pills, make me sterile and docile… well it won’t work! It won’t! Rehn knows!”
Whack, whack, whack.
“Rehn is off the grid… used to be elves lived off the grid… that’s why we didn’t git them all!”
Whack, whack, whack. Anon was about ready to piss his pants.
The dwarf had started to breathe rather heavily. He must have exhausted himself.
“Heeh… ol’ Rehn got another spy...”
“Hey, dwarf. Drop your weapon if you know what’s good for you” a deep, yet feminine voice spoke out. Anon felt deep relief, though he had no idea who it was.
“Eh? You… you’re a big one… gitoff! Ol’ Rehn got it first!”
“I told you to drop your weapon. I’m going to hurt you. Bad” the voice said, and whoever it was, there wasn’t a hint of nervousness. Anon lifted his head from the ground and turned to look. What he saw was the final straw. He lost control of his bladder.
The woman who had spoken was roughly three metres tall from the soles of her feet to the tips of her horns. She was an Ogre, apparently, and dressed in jeans, leather boots and a leather jacket. Her hair was dyed a bright pink and cut in a Mohawk. She had fangs.
“Last warning, dwarf. Drop the bat and step away from the kid, or you’re getting the bat up your ass sideways” she said.
Behind the ogre there were two vehicles, a huge motorcycle that Anon assumed was hers, and a limo. A limo? What?
“Ol’ Rehn’s been fighting for decades! One Ogre won’t stop me!”
Anon saw the Ogre crack her knuckles and sigh.
“Your choice, tough guy…” she said, but before she got any closer, the door of the limo opened, and out stepped another exotic sight.
The girl was without a doubt the most beautiful thing Anon had ever laid eyes upon, she had silvery hair arranged in neat drill on her slender shoulders, one of those sailor suit-looking school uniforms, and her skin was smooth, so smooth it looked edible. Its colour didn’t help much, being the most delicious chocolaty hue. Her pointy ears revealed her to be an Elf. A Dark Elf.
“Mara, dear, do calm down” she said, in a voice so soothing Anon forgot his fears. “Just the other day I punished you for getting into a fight with that Lizardgirl, and now you’re doing it again! What am I going to do with you?”
“He started it! He’s beaten up that kid! I’m just defending an innocent victim!” the Ogre protested, having clearly lost her nerve.
Okay… this Ogre is the one who beat up Vivienne, and she’s downright scared of the Elf. I shouldn’t have strayed from the path. Here there be monsters…



 		Chapter 2, Sacred and Profane

- Wherein Andrea and her sister are visited by door-to-door evangelists, who bite off more than they can chew, resulting in hilarity and lewdness. Anon has flashbacks of his wild childhood. Andrea is even more confused of Andrea’s gender than the narration, and the narration is very confused indeed.

Andrea had mixed feelings of how the day had gone. On one hand she had made new friends who didn’t seem to have a problem with him being a her, or whatever, but on the other hand Anon had had a very bad day. Andrea had wanted to comfort him, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Andrea’s empathetic depression ended when he entered the reached his home floor, however. Sister was going to be happy that he’d made friends today. Maybe they could take a bath together?
“Tadaima!” he yelled at the door, as was her habit. There was no response.
“Sis? I’m home!” Andrea yelled out. Still no response. Then she saw the note that his sister had stuck to the mirror.
“Gone grocery shopping. Brb. Want to bathe with my sibling when I come back! - Rox” was what the note said. As soon as he’d read it, Andrea ran into his room and took off all her clothes. Naked, he released her wings, horns and tail, stretching out and moaning with relief. It was pretty straining to hold those in.
Wagging her tail and flapping her wings Andrea strolled into the bathroom to prepare a bath. Bathing salts, check. Scented candles, check. Rubber duck? Check!
Andrea knew it was kind of childish to have that duck in the bath, but something had to remind the two of them not to get too excited. Yes, as long as Ducky was there, they were just two siblings bathing together. Too bad Ducky wasn’t around for the… accident. And all the subsequent accidents, that just kept happening until Andrea turned out like she now was. He sighed as once again she had to sit down to pee. It sure was nice to be able to aim properly while peeing…
Humming Andrea strutted around the apartment, and knowing nobody could see him, wiggled his buttocks and hips in the most feminine gait imaginable, enjoying every step. Stopping before a mirror, she ran her hands up and down the slender figure that had the potential for all the curves of a woman. The slit between his legs was still somehow foreign. Andrea Junior was no longer there. Filled with a deep longing Andrea brought his hands to her chest. The only way for his breasts to grow was for a man to grope them, that’s what Roxxy had told him. Andrea groped herself. That wouldn’t work. He sighed.
The front door opened.
“Honey I’m home!” Roxxy sang out, and Andrea ran to meet her.
“Oh my! You missed me!” she said, seeing the naked and smiling sibling.
“I got the bath ready, Sis! I wanna tell you all about my day!” she told her, grabbing the two bags of groceries Roxxy had set down.
“I get it, I get it, now let me get myself as comfy as you…”

The two of them lowered themselves into the bath and Roxxy proceeded to wash Andrea’s hair.
“Soo? Did you find a boyfriend today?”
“No! I just made friends is all…”
“With boys?”
“W-well, yeah…”
“Ooh, plural! You got yourself several boyfriends? That’s my slutty little sister!”
“Argh! No boyfriends! Just friends, who are boys. And one girl”
“My, my, you’re not very picky! Good to know you can still appreciate the charms of a woman…”
Roxxy bit his ear. Andrea squeezed Duckie.
“Oh yeah, right. *ahem* So tell me about your platonic fuck-buddies”
“Rox…”
“Sorry. Tell me about your friends”
“Well, first of all there’s Anon…”
“Does he have a big dick?”
“Roxxy, seriously, I’m gonna beat you up”
“My buttwings are stronger than your buttwings, kiddo”
“You don’t know that”
“Sure I do! I’m your older sister, no way are you gonna win!”
“Well I know karate…”
“Karate won’t help you when there are no buttwing techniques. Keep talking about your friends”
“Well, then there’s Lance and Vivienne…”
“Are they a couple?”
“They’re oral report partners in a history class…”
“Oral partners, huh…”
“I’m going to ignore that. Anyway, Vivienne is a Lizardgirl… and guess what? She had a broken nose, and it made her voice sound funny, so Lance called her BB, since her name sounded like Bibienne, and she didn’t have a tail, Lance said she’d been in a fight…”
Andrea blabbered on and on for a while, talking about the events of the day. Roxxy listened much more politely than at first, until Andrea finished.
“Hmm, this Anon had a really shitty day. You should’ve invited him over!”
“I’m not going to bring my friends over so you can gobble them up, Rox!”
“Aww, don’t be a cheapskate! Anyway, don’t you want to hear about MY day?”
“You masturbated for seven hours straight?”
Roxxy pinched his sensitive ears.
“No, you silly. Well, yes, but when I went to the grocery store, I got a date!”
This wasn’t exactly good news. Andrea knew from experience that Roxxy didn’t bother keeping quiet when she had company, and he really wanted to get proper sleep during school nights.
“Hey, where’s your enthusiasm?” she demanded, this time pinching her nipples.
“L-let’s switch…”

Once the two had washed one another properly, Andrea left the bathroom wearing a bathrobe, while Roxxy remained in the tub for some happy time. Andrea sighed. Having a Succubus for a sister was the reason he had ended up as an Alp in the first place. He wasn’t really mad at her, since he was just as much to blame, but… she didn’t want to end up like her, preoccupied with sex at all times. Maybe she was just pretending. Hopefully.
The doorbell rang.
Probably another shipment of sextoys…
Heading to the door, Andrea pulled his horns, wings and tail in again.
It turned out Andrea had been wrong. When she opened the door, what greeted him was a pair of men in suits.
“Good afternoon, brother” said the taller one, clearly much older, and with a receding hairline. “We are representatives of the…”
“WHO IS IT?” shouted Roxxy, interrupting him.
“I don’t know, you stopped them from saying it!” Andrea yelled back.
“Sorry, my sister is kinda…”
“WELL SORRY, CAN YOU TELL THEM TO KEEP TALKING!”
“…yeah. I’m trying!”
“GREAT!”
Andrea turned to the two of them again. “So care to try again?” she said apologetically.
The men gazed at one another.
“We are representatives of the Church of Purification; we understand there lives someone here who has become possessed?”
Not this shit again…
“Look, there’re two people living here who…”
“ANDY? DID YOU FIND OUT WHAT THEY WANT?”
“They’re just paladins, here to purge us!” Andrea shouted back and was about to close the door.
“WELL INVITE THEM IN!”
Yes, this shit again…
Andrea sighed and stepped aside.
“If you have something to talk about, you can do it inside” she said, and turned his back on them.
He led the two intruders into the kitchen, where her sister had already dressed up in her own bathrobe. Apparently, tea and cakes would be served.
“Hello! I’m Roxanne, and this is my baby brother Andy. You came here to ravage us? We just got out of the bath and we’re completely helpless against two, burly paladins like you…” she said, in a voice so upbeat her words couldn’t possibly be taken seriously. Not that the balding man and the fat kid were in any way burly paladins themselves.
“As I told your brother” the taller man spoke out, “we are from the Church of Purification. We’ve come here to help you. You have moved into the geographical area that is within our jurisdiction, and therefore we are downright obligated to help you for free”.
Roxxy twirled her hair around her finger.
“That’s nice of you… but how are you going to help us? I mean, I thought you churchies didn’t put your thick, fat cocks into Succubae?” she said, innocently.
“Dear woman, we are going to help exorcise the demon possessing you…”
“Demon? Exorcism? Ooh, scary!” she said, with a wavering voice and a quivering lower lip.
“Won’t you hold me in your strong arms, sir paladin…” she cried out.
You are quite the troll, my sweet sister…
The fat paladin was visibly uncomfortable and probably aroused, but the taller one was unfazed. “Miss Roxanne… I’m aware of your situation. You are not the first Succubus I’ve encountered. An exorcism has a very high success rate. You CAN be freed from your curse. Of course, your co-operation is required…”
“Hmm! Paladin, sir, there’s a problem right there! You call it a curse, but I’m OK with it” she said.
“You may believe so, but the fact of the matter is that deep down, every demon possessed person desires to be freed. Of course, all men are sinners, and…”
“Hey, I’m not a man, paladin sir! I though that was obvious!”
The tall paladin was still unfazed.
“The male is the standard, our Lord created woman afterwards”
Roxxy made as pouty a face as was possible, even crossing her arms.
“That’s chauvinistic! And biology disagrees! Right, Andy?”
Andrea was a little surprised, but she was still able to speak up.
“Yeah, biologically speaking, the female is the standard, males are really, uhh, just there for reproduction”
“And recreation, am I right?”
The tall paladin shook his head.
“A demonic lie. The truth will set you free, one day, but for now, this is irrelevant. Your sin is undeniable, but not irredeemable. First, you must accept your sin”
“Hmm, there’s another problem here, sir, I don’t think I’m doing anything bad…”
“Your opinion is not only unimportant, it is also a lie. You are perfectly aware of your sins, even if the demon possessing you has locked away your conscience. This is one of their basic tricks. The first step is admitting that you are a sinner”
Roxxy pretended to squirm uncomfortably in her seat.
“But you know, paladin sir, I know prudes would say I’m a naughty girl, but if I’m possessed, then how do I know what’s right and wrong? And isn’t that just up to opinions anyway?”
The tall paladin shook his head, a gesture Andrea was getting sick of.
“Good and evil are absolute and objective, they are not subject to opinion” he said.
“Well how do we know what’s good and evil?” she asked with all the innocence of a child.
“Our Lord has informed us of this in the sacred scriptures” the tall paladin answered.
Roxxy made an impish grin as she asked her next question.
“So is what your God wills good because He wills it, or does your God will it because it is good?”
The tall paladin flinched, ever so slightly.
“Weell~?”
He cleared his throat. “I do not understand where you’re going with this” he said, wanting to change the subject but lacking the imagination to do so.
“It’s really very simple, paladin sir! You see, if it’s good because your God wills it, then it’s totally subjective to His opinion, and if He wanted to, He could make having sex with a Succubus a good thing like that” she snapped her fingers to emphasize. While she was saying this, the fat paladin had started to gobble up a large number of cakes, and even the tall one tried to hide his nervousness by drinking his tea. Andrea knew that they had lost already.
“On the other hand, if your God wills it because it is good, then the standard is outside your God’s powers, and if that is the case, what’s this standard that your “all powerful” God is beholden to, eh?”
The fat paladin was squirming, and he emptied a cupful of hot tea like it was just water. Andrea knew his discomfort was the result of more than just the unexpected theological debate. He sighed. Today was not going to be a good day for these two.
“A trick question, invented by a particularly clever demon” the tall paladin said, taking another sip of tea.
“Eeh~? You can’t answer the Euthyphro Dilemma? That’s lame, paladin sir!”
The fat paladin looked to his elder.
“Hey, Brother Valentine? I need to go…”
“Quiet! She just cast a spell!”
Roxxy leaned forwards, letting the paladins get a better view of her cleavage.
“Spell? You’ve never heard of Euthyphro? Geez, you paladin’s are really something else! Tsk, tsk!”
Roxxy stood up.
“I guess reasoning just won’t do with someone so dogmatic and ignorant” she sighed and made a hand gesture, her eyes glowing for a brief moment. Both paladins gasped, squirmed in their seats, and then calmed down.
“Now THAT was a spell. Now then, shall we go to the bedroom?” she said suggestively, and the two paladins stood up to obey.
That’s right. The two of them made too many mistakes to be able to walk out of here. Their first mistake – first, if you ignore the fact that they even bothered coming here – had been stepping inside the apartment. The second had been accepting the cakes and tea offered. Of course they had aphrodisiacs in them, and a lot, at that. The fat one got it worse, being such a greedy pig. Their third mistake had been letting Roxanne get under their skin. She’d debated a lot of these religious people, there really wasn’t anything they could do or say to avoid her traps. These two obviously weren’t well versed in theology, though. Andrea had sometimes seen Roxxy go on and on with someone with a university degree in the stuff. She trolled him into submission as well.
The aphrodisiacs would have made anyone incredibly horny, and being horny is not very good for a person’s willpower. Getting driven into a corner in a theological debate would shake a person pretty badly too. Put them together, and even a lowly mind control spell would work just fine. If the fat one had showed up alone, there would have been no need for either, though.
Once in the bedroom, the two stood there like idiots, both with a bulge in their pants. Andrea leaned against a wall. He wasn’t going to touch either of them, but it wouldn’t hurt her to watch.
Roxxy had already undressed herself, and her tail was making loops as she looked at her two victims.
“Valentine, was it?” she asked, looking at the tall paladin.
“Yes” he answered, monotonously.
“Aww, that sounds creepy!” Roxxy said and snapped fingers, removing the spell. At this point, there was no more need for it. Valentine, even with his free will returned, was not going to run away.
“So tell me Mr. Valentine” Roxxy asked, caressing herself, “can you smell me all the way to where you’re standing?”
Andrea cringed. Sure, she was a Succubus, but she was still way too corny.
“I… I think I can…”
No you can’t you stupid asshole!
“Mmhm… the smell of a woman, it’s nice, isn’t it? Tell me, Mr. Valentine, which do you prefer? My tits…” Roxxy pushed her breasts together, “…or my ass?” Roxxy turned around and bent over to give the man a good view of her behind.
“Ass…” he said, laughing like a retard.
Roxxy shook her behind for him.
“You want to stick in my butt, Mr. Valentine?”
“Y-yes!”
“Oh my! What would your God think of that, Mr. Valentine? Are you sure you can do it without feeling bad?” she asked, in as innocent a voice as was possible in the situation.
Valentine didn’t say anything, he just stood there blinking.
Come on, you’re overloading his brains, Sis!
“Not answering? I guess that really is a hard question, you’re so preoccupied with that” Roxxy turned her eyes to his crotch, licking her lips.
“Come here, I’m going to help you out…”
Mechanically, as if still under mind control, Valentine walked to her.
“Now unzip your pants for me, Mr. Valentine” she ordered. “My, my, you’re better equipped than I imagined…” Roxxy purred as the veiny member popped out to greet her. “Chastity is such a waste, you know… thing like this could make lots of girls happy!” she continued to whisper to him in between light licks. “Mmmh, you’re twitching… how long has it been?”
“Th-three…rs…”
“Three years? Oh you poor man! I must remedy this at once!” Roxxy stopped playing with him and took a firm grip on his cock, moving her hand in a blur, causing an almost immediate ejaculation, which she caught deftly with her other hand. Valentine toppled, having lost all strength.
“Aww, jeez, you’re really weak!” Roxxy complained, licking his discharge from her hand. She made her way on top of him and sat on his face.
“Hmm… hey fatty, what’s your name?” she asked the other paladin.
“I-it’s S-sa…”
“Never mind, you look like a little piggy, you don’t need a name. Off with your clothes!”
The fat paladin started taking off his clothes clumsily while Roxxy continued grinding her hips on the other one’s face.
“Now then Mr. Valentine… I’m going to sit down properly, do you know what that means?”
“Hmph?”
“That’s right! It means no air for you~! Now, you don’t want to suffocate, right?”
There was some panicky moaning.
“Didn’t think so! My big butt was just in a bath, you know? So it’s not dirty at all… put your tongue in it! I want a nice, whole-hearted rimjob, so earn your breath, OK?”
Andrea was getting uncomfortable. She enjoyed watching Roxanne have sex, ever since the transformation Andrea had come to think sex was the most natural thing after breathing, but there was something off here. She opened up her own robe and slid one hand inside herself. The robe fell off when his horns, wings and tail shot out.
Oh hell yes, that’s better!
“H-hey… what about me?”
The fat paladin had managed to strip naked now, and the sight caused Roxxy to roar in laughter.
“THAT’S your erect dick? Poor bastard…”
The fat paladin’s lower lip began to quiver, he was going to cry.
Serves you right, coming here to intrude on people!
Andrea wanted him to suffer. Andrea wanted the other one to suffer, too. But how?
“Hey, Rox…”
“Uh-huh?”
“Tie up that guy…”
Roxxy jumped off of Valentine’s face and dove under her bed, producing some handcuffs. “Hmm, should I use the soft ones?”
“No!”
What’s gotten into me now?
Roxxy handcuffed the fat paladin to the bed… that is, Andrea’s bed.
What? Why? Get that off of there! Eww!
“There, you can have the fat one, he’s a virgin, you know” Roxxy said, hitting the fat paladin’s exposed stomach with her tail, leaving a red mark and making him cry out.
“I can smell it. This guy, on the other hand…”
Roxxy pulled off Valentine’s pants.
“…he knows what this thing is for!” she grabbed his cock again. Andrea knew he’d end up mesmerized again, turned to look away.
I have to get out of here! What do I do? What do I…
Andrea’s gaze fell on the fat paladin.
Eww…Wait, that’s it!
“But I don’t want to have sex with that… thing!” Andrea protested, pointing at the tub of lard with a small cock. Roxxy smiled at this, nodding to him while removing Valentine’s shirt.
“I guess its tease and deny for you, little piggy!” she said, throwing a blanket over him, leaving him to wallow in his misery.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have them both out of here by the time you come back” she promised.
“Huh? Come back from where?”
“Your ‘my-sister-is-having-sex-and-I-can’t-stand-it-jog’, duh!”
“Oh, right. Cool, I guess” Andrea agreed. In record time he had changed into her tracksuit, but before leaving went back to the bedroom. No, not into the bedroom, just to the closed door, lest she be tempted.
“Roxanne?” he said.
“Y-ee-aahhhngh?”
“Can you change my sheets? I don’t want to sleep in the same sheets that thing’s been in naked…”
“G-g-gootchaa-AAH!”
She’s doing that noise just to mess with me, isn’t she?
“Thanks” he shouted back, and left the apartment. As he ran along at a brisk pace, she started to think about his new friends.
I wonder if Anon’s afternoon is turning out better than mine…


			***

Anon wasn’t sure whether he should still be afraid or not. The crazy dwarf-hobo wasn’t attacking him anymore, but would the Ogre and the Dark Elf be worse? Anon didn’t want to be raped. He knew that it wasn’t really as common as it had been a few decades ago, but still…
“Now then, Mr. Dwarf…” the Elf started, “…I’ve called the police. If you run now, you may elude them. Of course, that would mean Mara here would have to chase you down, and she won’t be gentle with you. You obviously need help, and I am going to see to it that you get it. Now, step away from the boy and drop the bat!”
The dwarf did no such thing. Rather, he spat on the ground.
“Elf… Ooh, ol’ Rehn will fix you… fix you good…”
“Oh dear. Mara, I do believe I am in danger. If at all possible, could you restrain him? Don’t hurt him. He needs help, not a beating!”
“Yes ma’am!” the Ogre called Mara said, walking towards the dwarf, determined.
The dwarf ran at her, swinging his bat. The Ogre caught the bat with one hand, yanking it off of his hands and throwing it away. The dwarf seemed confused, not quite understanding where his weapon had gone.
Mara grabbed the dwarf and lifted him in the air, lied him down on the ground and sat on his chest.
“He’s unharmed, ma’am” she said. The Dark Elf nodded with approval.
“Good girl, Mara. There’s hope for you after all!” she said, walking all the while towards Anon, who was now slowly raising himself up.
“Are you alright?” she asked, offering her hand to help Anon up.
“Y-yeah” he mumbled, lifting himself up, “thanks”.
The Elf looked him over from head to toe.
“You look unhurt, but you seem to have had an accident” she said, as if it were the most natural thing to bring up. There was not a hint of judgement or disgust in her tone.
“Uhh…” Anon had absolutely nothing to say.
“Now, I can’t leave you here by yourself. Would you like me to give you a ride home?” she asked.
Anon looked at the limo, with its darkened windows.
“I know, I know, never get in a car with a stranger, right?” she smiled and beamed like the Sun itself.
“But I’m no stranger, you know…” she said, catching Anon completely off-guard.
“Huh? Am I supposed to know you?”
“You fiend!” the Elf exclaimed, throwing back her head dramatically and covering her eyes. “Have you truly forgotten our childhood promise of marriage?”
Our what? Uh-oh… no way…

			***

It was just another lazy summer afternoon. The three friends, Anon, Lance and Samuel, were on the run. On the run from Goblins.
The triplets consisted of two Goblins and one Hobgoblin. The six of them were the only children n that neighbourhood at the time, as everyone else had gone elsewhere for one reason or another. Outside adult supervision they were in a state of nature, and in a state of nature three young boys were very vulnerable in the presence of a Goblin pack. Of course, the goblins were still too young to be sexually active, but they had their natural instincts of wanting to do certain things to boys, and the boys had an aversion to these things, at least at this age.
The Goblins had raided their mother’s supply of make up, and had put on some lipstick. Not on their lips, this seemed silly to them. They had painted tribal patterns on their faces, and believing themselves properly ferocious looking, now gave chase to their prey, with the intent of hugging, kissing and confessing their love, as they had seen mom do to dad time and again.
Anon, Lance and Samuel were, as mentioned, on the run. They couldn’t go inside, since their parents had ordered them to stay outside until sunset, for whatever reason, and the doors had been locked. They were running as fast as they could, but they had no idea if it would be enough. It probably wouldn’t. They wouldn’t be able to stay away from the triplets forever by just running around, they couldn’t go inside, and the area they were allowed to dwell in was surrounded by roads with cars driving along, and a river too wide to jump over.
“What are we going to do?” Samuel asked. He was the fat one, and would have to stop running first. Anon had no idea what to do, he was content with just running. Not like he was the one with ideas, after all. No, Lance was, once again, the man with the plan.
“Let’s climb a tree!” he shouted all of a sudden, changing his route for the small group of trees within their allowed area. Anon and Samuel ran with him without hesitation, until they realized something.
“How are we going to climb a tree?” Anon asked, glancing over at Samuel, who didn’t stand a chance of doing it.
“Don’t worry, I prepared I advance!” Lance said, grinning. That was the reason Anon and Samuel had agreed to make him their Boss, because he was the man with the plan.
When they arrived at the grove, they realized what Lance had prepared. A single rope, tied around the trunk of the tree really high. They would use that to climb it, and then pull the rope up with them. Then they’d be safe. Ingenious!
Lance reached the rope first. Grabbing it he stuck his feet to the tree and began to climb up. As soon as Anon had room, he followed, and Samuel came in last. The tree’s lowest branches weren’t strong enough to support anyone’s weight, and the lowest branch capable of bearing such a load was much higher than any of the Goblins could reach. There was a problem, however. The triplets would reach them before Samuel could make it all the way up to the thick branches Lance had intended for them. If the Goblins reached the rope, they could climb up the tree after them, and that would be no good.
Anon asked Lance what they should do.
“Samuel! Stay there, no, a little, yeah, there! Pull the rope up, pull it up, hurry!”
Samuel did as he was bid, sticking to trunk and putting his feet on a couple of branches, pulling up the rope before the Goblins could reach it.
“We did it! Hah!” Anon was insanely relieved. But Lance knew it was not over yet.
“Nah, we need to get Samuel up here, he’ll fall if he stays there!” Lance said, and sure enough, he was right. Samuel couldn’t properly rest there; he had to keep supporting his own weight all the time.
“Can’t he just climb up the rope?” Anon asked.
“No, if he does that, the rope might fall down from his hands and the Goblins will get it… Samuel!”
“Yeah?”
“Tie the rope around the trunk, another round, keep going until it’s taut!”
“What’s taut?”
“Tight!”
“Okay!” Samuel followed instructions, though somewhat clumsily. The knot was a complete mess, but maybe it would hold.
“Alright, come on, climb up!”
Samuel started to make his way higher, while Lance started to look for their next goal.
“We’re not staying here?” Anon asked.
“Of course not, look there, that tree has way wider branches, we can get comfy there!”
“That’s a different tree!”
“I know, and it’s even on the other side of the river!”
That was true, it was. The Goblins could never reach them there. But… they’d have to jump between two other trees to get to it.
“No way… we can’t do it!”
Lance put his hand on Anon’s shoulder. “Yes. We. Can!”
They began to scuttle along the thicker branches, going towards the first of the trees they would have to reach.
“Guys?” Samuel cried out.
Anon and Lance turned around, and to their horror saw, that the triplets had reached the rope through jolly co-operation; they had climbed on top of one another to form a ladder.
There was no time to think, they had to move.
Lance led the way, jumping to the next tree like a squirrel. Anon followed, yelling out loud as he jumped. Even Samuel made it, but by the time he did, the Goblins were already climbing on the branch he had jumped off. The jump to the next tree was easier, but the Goblins were closing the gap between them. The last jump looked a little dangerous, the branches were both above the river. A miscalculation would send the jumper in for a swim. Lance turned to his friends.
“Do you know how to swim?”
“Of course!” Anon replied.
“No!” said Samuel.
“Well do you want to get kissed?”
“No!”
“That’s what I thought!”
Lance made the jump. Anon made the jump. Samuel did not make the jump. The resulting splash was pretty big. The moment Samuel surfaced he started to scream for help. Anon and Lance stared at him dumbstruck for a while, but then the Goblins jumped in after him. This made Samuel scream out even louder, saying he didn’t want to be kissed and splash around. The three girl grabbed him despite his struggling, and brought him to the shore, dragging him up the slope kicking and screaming. Once on dry land he just lied down sobbing.
“Hey!” the Hobgoblin shouted to Anon and Lance, “we won’t chase you anymore. We need to go tell our parents, right?”
“You’re right!” Lance shouted. “We’re coming down!”

			***

Wait a minute… that flashback was totally irrelevant! He couldn’t remember what had happened afterwards, though. Samuel at least got grounded… but who was this Elf?
“S-sorry, I don’t remember…” he said, apologetically.
“Ohohohohoo!” the Elf erupted in laughter, the ojousama kind. It made Anon stiff for some reason. In more ways than one.
“I kid, I kid. I’m a total stranger. Let’s remedy that, shall we?” she said, offering her hand. “Iise” she said.
“Anon”
The two shook hands. Her hand was smooth and warm. And a little shaky.
Am I that disgusting to the touch?
“You brute. You were supposed to kiss it” she said.
“S-sorry…” Anon mumbled.
“I kid yet again, sorry. I’m just trying to lighten the mood, I’m really rather nervous here…” she said.
Nervous? You?
“I have a hard time believing that…”
“But it’s true! How could I not be afraid? Look at that thing! It probably has rabies… oh no! MARA! Whatever you do, don’t let it bite you!”
She had quite obviously lost her composure and was actually panicking.
“I’ll be fine, ma’am, his teeth can’t reach me” Mara replied.
Iise leaned towards Anon.
“To tell you the truth… if she hadn’t been with me… I might have just ignored this… I mean, it’s not like I could, by myself, I mean I would’ve still called the police, but…” she said, on the verge of tears.
That was quick… even I’m calmed down already.
“The important thing is you did it, yeah?” Anon said, trying to comfort her. She smelled really, really nice.
“Well, thank you for that” she said, taking a deep breath and regaining her composure. “Now then, how about that ride home? The worst that could happen is I kidnap you and lock you up in my rape dungeon for the rest of your life!” she renewed her offer, smiling again the sunniest smile imaginable.
“You still nervous?”
“Not as much as before. And I’m perfectly serious, you don’t want to walk home with those pants, do you?” she said, nodding towards his crotch.
“Uhh, true…”
I just can’t get a read on her…
The police siren could be heard then, and a patrol car pulled up near them. The dwarf was cuffed and escorted into the car, then took statements from all three of them. After the police left, Iise nodded towards the limo again.
“All jokes aside, it would be for the best. I won’t make you, of course”
Mara sat on her bike. “I could give him a ride” she said. “Riding on a bike, people can see him. No need to worry about getting kidnapped” she explained.
“This is agreeable” Iise said. “Well, Anon?”
“Uhh, I guess the bike would… yeah, thanks. Uhh, sorry, miss…”
Can’t I do anything right?
“Well then Anon, it has been a pleasure!” Iise exclaimed and turned to Mara. “Drive sensibly and come to my place ASAP, you’ve earned yourself a treat!”
Mara’s smile reached practically from ear to ear when she heard this.
Anon’s trip home went rather smoothly, Mara drove sensibly as per orders. Anon was a little intimidated while holding onto her waist, realizing just how big she was.
And she’s all muscle, too… and she… beat up Vivienne.
Anon gave her directions as they drove along, and at his house she pulled to a stop. “You gonna be okay? Was pretty rough, what happened to you…” she said, sounding actually worried.
“I’m fine, really. Uhh, can I ask you something?”
What am I doing? Curiosity killed the cat, you fucking dumbass!
“Uh-huh?”
“Well, umm, Iise mentioned something about a Lizardgirl you fought…” Anon asked, cautiously.
Mara frowned. With her fangs, it looked rather terrifying.
“Don’t remind me. My ass hurts just thinking about the beating I got for that…”
“Uhh…”
“Yeah, I’m Iise’s bitch, so what? We’re not gay, it’s just a dom-sub relationship, you know?”
I didn’t ask about this, I didn’t ask about this at all!
“It’s just that… about the Lizard?”
Mara lighted a cigarette. It didn’t look like she was in a hurry anymore.
“It was just two warriors bumping into each other. An honest challenge, honourable duel, you know? I won. Totally”
She made short work of the cigarette.
“You know her?”
Anon nodded.
“She’s uhh… not too, um, beaten up, is she?”
“A broken nose and a missing tail, but shouldn’t you know that?” Anon answered, a little surprised she’d ask.
Mara shook her head. “I went berserk, no idea what happened. Tell her I’m sorry, yeah?”
Anon agreed to do so. Mara drove off like the wind, most likely anxious for whatever treat Iise was going to give her.
So. I make friends with an Alp and a Lizardgirl, get attacked by a crazy dwarf and get saved by a Dark Elf and her masochistic pet-Ogre. Yeah, I’m going to go jerk off in the shower…


		Interlude 1, An Unfortunate Incident

- Wherein shit seriously hits the fan, with unforeseen consequences.

There was something special going down that night. Usually the area had one patrol in it during the night, changing shifts with another at midnight, and a third patrol that came to check up on the courtyards and of two of the buildings once during the night, usually between one and four.
Not so this time.
There were five patrols at all times in the area, with three others making irregular checks, and once every hour there would be a radio check. These were the instructions up until midnight. Then it would get even weirder.
Ronnie had been working for the company for about two years now, and he was rather happy when he heard he’d be taking part in an important operation, with extra pay.
Ronnie was perhaps not the wisest of men, and so he had eaten a pizza with extra chilli before his shift. This had reduced his stomach to a gurgling mess, and his partner was not amused.
“You know how much shit we’ll get if they find out you’re on the can all the time?”
Ronnie had some idea, but he was in too much pain to care. The stuff burned just as bad coming out as it did going in. Maybe even more.
“Keep talking man, anything to keep my mind off the pain” he said.
“Fuck you, man”
“So did they say anything on the radio about what happens at 1:30?”
“Yeah”
“What happens at o-oaagh!”
“Damn! I can smell you out here!”
“There wasn’t even anything solid that time… ooh, I think that… yeah, I’m coming out!”

Getting out of the port-a-potty Ronnie saw that his partner was greatly displeased.
“I’m never working with you again” he said.
“Come on, I promise I won’t order another one of those pizzas ever again!”
“Tsk”
“So anyway, what’s happening?”
They started walking along their designated patrol route. There was a gentle breeze coming from the sea, and waves were slowly breaking into the piers.
“Let’s hurry up and get cover from this fucking wind, I might be getting a cold”
“Really? We haven’t been out that long…”
“You haven’t, you’ve been taking a shit. I’ve been out here all the time”
“Oh, right. Sorry. So what did they say happens at 1:30?”
This seemed to slightly cheer up Ronnie’s partner.
“Guess who owns warehouses 41 and 43?”
“Who?”
“The fucking Church”
Ronnie pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to his partner.
“Bullshit”
“Nah, man, it’s true! I mean, at least there’s going to be paladins coming here”
They lighted their cigarettes.
“Paladins? For real? Shit gonna go down? I mean, terrorists or something?”
The partner blew out a puff of smoke.
“I dunno. I don’t wanna know. Paladins mean trouble. Here’s hoping it’ll just be an exercise”
“Hoping what’ll be an exercise? You’re not holding out one me, are you?”
“Ship coming in. 1:45, and for the next ten minutes, nobody goes in, nobody goes out, and total radio silence”
“Well what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Military doesn’t make any sense with its exercises, you know that”
“I do, but… isn’t our company putting in a lot of effort here? That means the Church is paying us good, right? Would they put all this money for a ten minute exercise?”
“You got any idea how expensive paladin training is? Shit takes like seven years, no expenses spared”
Ronnie had heard of that. Seven years of constant training in the military? He’d had nine months and only got through that by drinking away every weekend.
“I wonder what they’ll be doing…” he thought out loud.
“Well we got twenty minutes till we find out”
What?
Ronnie checked his watch. It was true. His partner was amused.
“You sat on the can for a while, man”
No shit!
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Excuse me? I kept telling you to hurry up and get out, that we were going to get in trouble, but oh no, you had to keep shitting blood or whatever”
“Aah, guess what?”
“What?”
“I’m going back in, like right the fuck now, so hold the fort!”
“Wait, what?”
Ronnie was already running at this point. He didn’t know if his partner followed him or not.
A combination of nervousness and unfinished business had compelled him to return to the shitter, and so he did. Immense relief was experienced, and Ronnie came out sooner than he had expected. He still had a good five minutes left.
“We’re fine, man!” he said, before realizing there was nobody there.
“Uhh…”
Nothing but the wind. He was about to call out to his partner, until he realized something crucial.
“What the hell was that guy called?”
Ronnie started to rack his brain. It’s not like he didn’t know him… it had been one of those names black people usually have, right?
No, that’s racist! That’s even worse than being specieist! Oh wait, there he is!
Ronnie’s partner was walking along the pier, with determined steps.
“Hey man!” Ronnie shouted, walking towards him. His partner jumped a little.
“So did I miss anything on the radio?” he asked.
His partner looked confused.
“You weren’t listening?” he asked, awkwardly.
Huh? You sound kinda funny… did something go down?
“No man, I mean, I turned my radio down ages ago, we agreed on that, yeah?”
His partner looked sceptical.
“Yyeeaahh, sure. Uhh…”
Ronnie laughed.
“What? We’re not fired, right?”
“Huh? No, no we’re not…”
Then his radio came to life.
“428, 420”
There was a brief silence.
“So are you going to answer that?” Ronnie asked.
His partner picked up the radio.
“428”
“Things alright on your end?”
“A-OK”
“Good, good. And Ronnie? Try not to shit your pants when the paladins come, we don’t need that kind of publicity. Good to hear you’re not leaving all the work to Paul, though”
“Duly noted”
“Alright, get in position, 420 out”
Ronnie cringed when he heard what was said. But at least I know his name now! Paul, huh? But why’d they act like they were talking to me when it was Paul on the radio?
“So uhh, shall we get in position, then?”
Paul looked at him funny.
“Do you even know what that means?”
Ronnie laughed a fake laugh.
“No, not really. Like I said, I wasn’t listening, my radio’s off”
Paul was doing something with his radio.
Is he changing the frequency? Why?
“We got the go-ahead” he said.
What?
“Who are you talking to?” Ronnie asked, confused. Paul took out the pepper-spray he had on his belt.
“You might want to do as you’re told; I don’t want to hurt you more than necessary”
Ronnie was now laughing sincerely.
“Oh man, that is rich!”
Paul looked dead serious.
“Back up, into the port-a-potty” he said, holding the spray out like he meant to use it if Ronnie didn’t comply. Then he noticed another thing.
“You’re talking really white all of a sudden” he said, backing away slowly.
“Look, Paul, shut up; you really don’t want shit to get any more serious”
Paul? Did he just call me by his own name?
“Okay, seriously Paul, you’re starting to creep me out…”
Paul blinked a couple of times in rapid succession, and then frowned.
“Look, uhh, Bonnie, you’re trying my patience now”
“Ronnie, the name’s Ronnie, and you’re off your rocker” Ronnie said, taking a few steps forwards. Paul wasn’t in any position to pull out his baton; if Ronnie rushed him and avoided the spray, he could take him to the ground.
“Aaauugghhh~! Just do as you’re toold~” Paul whined, sounding even less like himself. His voice was getting high-pitched.
That was the last straw. Seeing his chance, Ronnie rushed Paul, keeping his head down. He heard the spray being used, but only suffered minor irritation, and as he swung around, he was able grab both of Paul’s hands, and take him down.
They both fell to the ground, with Ronnie on top and both of Paul’s arms locked. He was surprised, a man Paul’s size shouldn’t have fallen that easily.
“Oww! Quit it, jerk!” said the voice obviously belonging to a girl, but coming out of the mouth of a manly mountain of muscle.
“What the hell is going on!?” Ronnie shouted out, more as an exclamation than as a question.
“You’re hurting my arms! Stop twisting! Stopitstopitstopit!” the mismatched voice screamed, and as it did, Paul’s body mass began to shrink away.
“The fuck?”
There was no Paul in Ronnie’s grip anymore. His clothes were still there, but they were baggily on a young woman, rather than him. She had tears in her eyes, and Ronnie couldn’t help but loosen his grip. Ronnie, in the grip of some temporary madness, got off of her and helped her up. She was beautiful, and he had made her cry. That was not something a man should do.
Ronnie helped her up and just stood there, staring. She seemed rather harmless, no way she could have hurt Paul, right? The girl cleared her throat before speaking.
“Were you expecting your partner? Too bad! It’s just A KICK TO THE CROTCH!” she yelled, kicking Ronnie in the crotch, as you would expect. Or at least she tried; Ronnie was not concentrating as much as the situation would have warranted, but he was still on guard, and jumped away.
Pulling out his baton Ronnie took a wider stance.
“You don’t want to do this, lady” he said.
The Doppelganger wasn’t taking a stance herself. She probably had no experience with hand-to-hand combat.
“What did you do to Paul?” he asked, inching closer.
“I didn’t do anything, alright?” she said, raising her hands and backing away.
“You’re wearing his clothes. What happened?” Ronnie insisted.
“Ooh, I keep telling you, I didn’t do anything to him!”
“Then how did you get his clothes?”
“I took them off of him…”
“So how did that happen, eh?”
“Like I said, I didn’t do anything…” she said, turning her gaze past Ronnie’s shoulder, then nodding with a grin.
“THEY did!”
Ronnie felt a shiver run through his spine, but before he could turn around, he felt an impact in his left shoulder blade.
“Uuuhh…” he complained, feeling a warm, soft feeling spread all over his body from the point of impact.
It’s all good, man… all good…
He took a few groggy steps before collapsing, falling on his face, feeling really comfy. And tired. Better sleep it off…
“Hey, don’t be afraid. That stuff comes out of your system pretty quickly, you might wake up before sunrise” the Doppelganger said in a sing-song voice, and this was the last thing he heard.

Ronnie woke up to an agonizing sensation in his rear; the chilli was burning its way out of him again.
Oh no, I’m still wearing my pants!
It was too late for that, though. His trouser seat had been properly soiled.
“Fuck!”
He noticed he was lying down in a fetal position, on the floor of the port-a-potty.
Shitting my pants in the shitter? Lame!
Ronnie struggled to get up and pulled down his pants to avoid further damage. He had a lot of trouble getting up, though. He kind of wanted to go back to sleep, he had the same feeling you get during cold, snowy mornings as a kid, when Mom comes and says “It’s snowing so much that the school is closed, here’s cocoa with marshmallows, stay under the covers!”… that never had actually happened to Ronnie, but he was pretty sure that that was the feeling that most made you want to stay in bed. Unless you had a Lamia, that might be better. A hibernating Lamia under the covers, trying to cling to you and take up as little space as possible so Mom wouldn’t notice her, yeah, like that. Not that he ever had experienced that either.
Where’s my vest and belt?
Ronnie wondered while using large amounts of toilet paper to clean his soiled pants and underwear. He looked at his watch. It was 1:52.
Wasn’t something supposed to happen around now?
Ronnie tried to remember what it was that his partner had said.
Paul! That was his name!
And Paul had said that at 1:45, they were supposed to have everything locked down.
Am I going to get fired for this?
Then it hit him. Why had he been asleep here?
Then he remembered the Doppelganger. And the hit he felt.
What was I hit by?
Ronnie reached for his shoulder. No wound, at least. No pain, either.
This is bad; this is really, really bad!
So what was he supposed to do now? He was unarmed, had no radio… no, wait, there was radio silence in place now, so it wouldn’t matter if he did… who was attacking?
Ronnie rubbed his shoulder blade again. It felt completely unharmed, but he was pretty certain that the… whatever had pierced into him. His clothes weren’t damaged at all, though.
As far as he knew, only one thing could have done this; an Elven arrow.
Ronnie had never seen one outside a museum, and he’d never been into a museum, so he’d never seen one at all. He knew, though, from his days in the army, that an Elven arrow would go through the target’s flesh without harming it. How that worked, he didn’t know. They did explain that to him once or twice, but it was all gibberish to him. Probably magic too.
So Elves and a Doppelganger. And paladins, supposedly.
It might be better to just stay in here.
But then again he was supposed to be a security guard.
But if I stay in here, I can tell everybody I was knocked out by the Elven arrow, that’s true!
But then again, he wasn’t knocked out anymore.
Why is that? Was that stuff really this weak?
A faint recollection from before he fell asleep came to mind. The Doppelganger had said it would be out of his system soon… maybe… no way.
I woke up because of the chilli?
Ronnie laughed at the absurdity of this thought. He was still no closer to reaching a decision, though.
It’s not like they hurt me…
With this in mind, Ronnie pulled his pants back up and stepped out. As long as they didn’t get the drop on him, he would be able to beat them up. Hopefully. Maybe the Elves or whoever was using the Elven arrows was actually combat trained…
Is this just an exercise after all? Paladin training?
He looked around. It was dark everywhere not illuminated by lampposts, and he would have to avoid those, so as not to be seen. But where was he supposed to go?
According to the schedule, it was now… two more minutes until the end of the lock-down. If he could find a radio…
Then he looked to the sea, and saw the boat was there. A rather large ship, actually, not too big for this harbour, but a little unusual, still. It looked like a tanker. Ronnie was no expert on ships.
Whatever it is that’s happening here, that’s the centre of attention.
Ronnie headed for the ship.
What exactly am I going to be doing? I’m unarmed, outnumbered, and…
He was now next to warehouse 41. It had a door wide open.
Well that’s not supposed to be open!
Ronnie was a little torn up. Should he go in? It seemed like a really stupid idea. But it was dark inside. He scooped up towards the door.
Yes, dark inside, he couldn’t see anything. But if someone was inside, they would be able to see him just fine if he stepped into the doorframe.
Not falling for that, stupid, obvious trap! Idiots!
Actually he was just afraid. But he couldn’t pass through here without being seen from the inside, right? So he should just go back and find another way around. Yeah, that sounded nice. He’d go back, and…
As he turned around, he saw movement. Ducking as quickly as he could, he scooped up against the wall of warehouse 42 and almost held his breath. Figures emerged, figures carrying bows. As they came closer, Ronnie was able to discern their curves, and as they got even closer, it became clear that they were, in fact, Elves. They had pointy ears, their hair was tied up neatly and they wore scarves over their faces.
Pleasedon’tseemepleasedon’tseeme!
They didn’t.
Stupid bitches!
The Elves, four of them, went inside through the open door, without hesitation.
So they had someone watching it! Hah! I knew it!
They closed the door behind them.
I’m not following them, then.
Ronnie continued heading towards the ship, but saw that the gates leading inside warehouse 43 were wide open. And the lights were on.
Okay, confusing. I have a feeling I’m not going to go inside there, either.
Ronnie hid behind some empty plastic containers that had been strewn about a few weeks back. They weren’t big enough to fit in, though. For a moment he had imagines hiding inside one of them and rolling through the danger zone. He was obviously not in a sound state of mind.
Wait, if the light is coming from the inside, I’ll be the one hiding in the darkness!
Ronnie swallowed. Could he make it?
I’m thirsty. I need to drink something.
“Put your hands up” whispered an almost mechanical voice.
JESUSCHRISTMONKEYBALLS!
He obeyed.
“You look human”
Oh gee, thanks!
“Stand still, don’t try anything”
He obeyed again.
“Scanner says you’re human. Good. Do you have any weapons?”
Ronnie shook his head.
“Then you can have my pistol”
Huh? Well isn’t this the best thing ever!
He turned around.
Behind him was standing a figure clothed in black army gear, face hidden behind night vision goggles and a scarf, holding the grip of a rifle with one hand, while the other picked up a pistol from a holster tied around his thigh. This he gave to Ronnie. It was a 9 millimetre, with no safety.
This brings me back…
“Thanks”
“You know how to use that thing?”
“I do, hell; I go to the shooting range for both business AND pleasure…”
“Shut up. Look!” the man who Ronnie assumed was a paladin pointed at the pier, to the ship. Three lights had appeared there. Flames.
“The fuck is it this time?”
“I said shut up”
Ronnie stared at the ship. He couldn’t really see anything of note. Then again, he didn’t have those fancy infra-red goggles the paladin had.
So how’s my ammo?
The gun had a full clip in it.
“Hey…”
“What part of ‘shut up’ don’t you understand?”
“Extra clips”
The paladin said nothing, simply pulling out two extra clips from his numerous pockets.
Now that I think about it… isn’t the gear modern day paladins wear HEAVIER than the full suit of traditional armor? He looks like he’s wearing at least…
“Get down”
What?
“What?”
The paladin ducked down, flat.
Ronnie had no idea why he did it, but followed suit, him being the professional with years of experience and proper equipment. To shield himself better from whatever prying eyes there might have been, Ronnie crawled between two of the plastic containers. He wasn’t exactly perfectly hidden, but probably better than the paladin.
Hah! All those years of training, and you can’t even hide properly? The Secular military beats the Church 6-0!
Ronnie waited with bated breath for anything to happen.
“Shoot to wound, not to kill. We need prisoners” the paladin whispered.
Shoot who? I can’t see anything or anyone, you stupid asshole!
“IN HEAVENS NAME!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, firing no less than five consecutive shots.
Oh you crazy motherfucker!
Ronnie waited for a while. Despite the pain in his ears, he could still hear the wind, and even the waves splashing, but there was nothing to signify the paladin was doing anything anymore.
Should I ask if it’s safe now?
Better not, better stay quiet for now. Yes, the paladin probably knew what he was doing.
But wouldn’t the shooting have revealed our position? Not just the noise, but the flashes… but it’s not like anyone can see me, right? I’m hidden. I’m safe. Everything is fine…
“So there WAS another one sneaking about!” the voice of a woman spoke out.
OHGODNO!
The Elf wasn’t talking about him, though.
“Tsk. Paladin managed to fire his gun. If any of them is still awake, they’ll be on us soon enough”
“Don’t worry, it’s not like any of them can contact their HQ for reinforcements…”
“But what if they can?”
“Relax, worry-wart. Let’s keep going, we need to get the barrel out of here before… wait”
“W-what?”
“Is that… oh no”
“What? What?”
“It’s leaking”
“KYAAH~!”
“CALM DOWN! WE CAN STILL… OH NO! RUN!”
Then there was running. Ronnie knew nothing of what was happening, and so he didn’t move and inch for a while. He probably should soon, though.
They took out the paladin, at least. But they didn’t see me, right? Or are they trying to lure me out? Why would they do that? They have nothing to gain with this act. That’s it, I’m moving out!
Ronnie squirmed out from his hideout, and tried to peer into the darkness. Seeing no trace of the Elves, he crawled to the unconscious paladin and tried to shake him awake. It was no use, though.
I woke up easily enough, why doesn’t he?
Ronnie noticed that the paladin’s rifle was gone. After some digging, he noticed there was no radio on him either. Great. But he did have those handy goggles. Picking them up and putting them on made him feel a little bit safer. Unfortunately, they also allowed him to see what the Elves had run away from.
There was a trolley, and one the trolley was a barrel. This barrel had no less than five holes in it, all of the paladin’s bullets had hit it. Black goo, which Ronnie assumed was oil, was pouring out of it. And it wasn’t spreading like gravity would expect.
A puddle had formed around the trolley, and small, suppose you could refer to them as tentacles, were spreading into a number of directions, one of them being where he was.
Now how the hell does that work?
Ronnie took a few steps back.
Should I run? I mean, it’s just oil…
But then again, the Elves ran away as well.
But what if it’s a trick?
But why would it be?
Should I try shooting at it?
Ronnie shook his head and laughed a little. He was not going to shoot at it. If it was oil, it was a small miracle there had been no explosion when the paladin shot at the barrel. Or should it even have exploded? In a movie or a video game it would have. But should it in real life? Why not?
Science is not my strong suite. But I’m not going to start shooting randomly, what the hell am I thinking?
Of course he didn’t shoot at it. He would reveal his position for absolutely no gain at all. But he probably should leave, if the Elves ran away because of the barrel, they must have had a good reason. Maybe the goo was toxic.
No, wait a minute…
Ronnie laughed again. Of course, they thought the barrel was going to explode, why didn’t he realize that sooner? Must have been the sleeping drug, making him slow-witted, still. Hell, he could have sworn the goo tentacles were moving back towards the puddle, well some of them at any rate. Only three were still moving outwards, one was trickling down into the sea, another one was going towards the warehouse and one towards him…
Fuck me, that’s not an illusion!
Ronnie tripped over the unconscious paladin when he started backing up. He got up quickly enough, but then he was faced with a dilemma.
Do I just leave him here? What if…?
Ronnie didn’t have room for hesitation. He put the pistol in his pants – backside, of course, it had no safety – and picked up the paladin on his shoulder.
Now where do we run?
The answer was obvious. The only place he felt was safe was the port-a-potty. If he could make it there, it was unlikely the Elves would come in to check it. And he could leave the paladin there, safe and sound, and get on the move himself.
On the move? That’s a laugh, like I can do anything…
Although he did have his gun, three full clips and the advantage of having night-vision, which the Elves seemed to lack, not having noticed him before.
Sounds like a plan!
With a grunt Ronnie took a step, and then he didn’t take another, because his foot wouldn’t move.
The fuck?
“Slime beneath youuuu~” came a high-pitched voice from nowhere, making Ronnie pull out his gun and point it around fruitlessly.
“Slime up abooveee~” the singing continued, and this time Ronnie looked upwards. What he saw made him fire his gun in to the wall of warehouse 42, regardless of anyone noticing.
The black goo had climbed up the wall next to him, and had gathered up into a lump. In this lump was a hole, and from this hole came the voice. Ronnie shot at the lump, and his bulled sank into it, spreading oil – this was clearly oil, a liquid rather than a jelly – all over the place. Ronnie dropped the paladin, he had to save himself. But he couldn’t take a single step; both of his feet were stuck to the goo.
The solution is obvious, you dumbass!
Ronnie undid his shoelaces in record time and jumped out of his shoes, carefully avoiding the goo and running away, ignoring any and all threats.
He could see the side door to warehouse 41 open, and so he ducked, leaning against the wall. The Elves ran past him. One of them was holding a staff instead of a bow. Ronnie was holding his gun, but didn’t shoot. Following the Elves and their tight rumps, he saw what was happening. The black goo had now covered the paladin completely. The paladin then stood up, wearing a coat of goo, and started to walk with uneasy steps.
“I found myself a new toy~!” the voice sang out, seemingly satisfied with itself.
“This is really bad” one of the Elves with a bow cried out. “Can you do something?”
The one with the staff lifted it, and cried out “In Undine’s name, be pure!”
Ronnie was completely dumbstruck by what he now witnessed. From the staff spat forth a stream of what Ronnie could only assume was water. He’d heard the name Undine before, it was some pagan god, a water spirit, so it made sense that its name would evoke water.
Made sense? None of this makes any goddamned sense! Now it’s magic?
The stream of water clashed with the goo-covered paladin, and for a while there was some struggling between the two forces. The struggle ended with the water blowing past the paladin, taking all the black goo with it.
“Quick! We need to find a new barrel for it!”
“Are these good?” one of the Elves had found the plastic containers.
“No, they’re no good, they can’t be sealed properly… weren’t there some back in the warehouse?”
Two of the Elves ran at full speed into warehouse 43, and soon enough returned, rolling a large barrel with the biohazard label.
“Like this?”
“YES! Good!”
What happened next was as unreal as everything else; the water had formed and orb around the goo, and now floated in the air, taking it to the barrel. Coming into contact with the open container, the bottom of the orb opened up, allowing the blackness inside to fall inside the barrel. Once it was all gone, the Elves quickly placed the lid on it, and the water orb dissipated.
“Is that good enough?”
“It better be…”
Before the Elves had finished sealing the goo, the original barrel burst open, with oil spilling out of it in a torrent. There was far more of it than was actually possible. The Elves all ran away from this, seeking cover from the raging storm that had been born.
“We need to get it in the car!”
But before they had the opportunity to do so, the paladin got up and started screaming bloody murder, running away aimlessly.
Ronnie took this as his cue and ran himself.
“Stop him! We can’t let him get away!”
Is that me or the other guy? Please let it be the other guy!
The only place that was out of sight was warehouse 41. Whether or not there was still someone inside, Ronnie didn’t have any options, and so he ducked inside. With his goggles he was able to naviagate well enough, and seeing that the warehouse was full of empty and rotten shipping crates, he found a hiding spot behind some. Since nobody had ambushed him, he was now the one with the advantage, he could see perfectly, while anyone coming inside would be blinded by the darkness. Perfect.
The first thing that came through the door was the paladin, who seemed to have enough sense in his head to try hiding from the Elves. Unfortunately, the paladin DIDN’T have the senses to actually go hide, he simply got inside the warehouse and then leaned against the first sturdy crate. He was exhausted, and probably scared shitless.
The Elves snuck around the doorway, and all of them had their arrows ready. Ronnie could have shot at them, but given the speed of their previous reactions, there’s no way he could have gotten all of them. So if he kept quiet, they would probably not notice him. And if that happened, the paladin would become their victim, there was no doubt about it. Could anything be done for him?
Ronnie though about it. If he shouted out suddenly, the enemy would find him. Unable to do anything to warn him, Ronnie simply watched as the Elf readied her arrow and shot it into the paladin.
Unexpectedly, the paladin did not begin to slowly fall over and go to sleep; instead he began to pant heavily and shake all over. The paladin took off his helmet and threw it away before falling down and flailing around as if having a seizure. The Elf who had shot him came to retrieve her arrow, and stood next to him for a while.
“Sorry. My arrow was coated in Manticore venom. If I leave you like this, you might not live to see the Sun rise” she said, dispassionately, while the paladin squirmed and moaned on the floor.
“We don’t have time for this, leave him!” another voice said, from somewhere in the darkness.
“We didn’t come here to kill anyone” the first Elf argued.
“Yet you coated your arrows with Manticore venom. You did so fully knowing we didn’t have the time for raping anyone!” she was rebuked.
“Sorry, paladin. You’ll have to deal with this by yourself”
“P-please! I don’t want to die! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” the paladin screamed. One of the Elves kicked him.
“Stop being a baby! You won’t die, Manticore venom is not fatal. Just jerk off a lot and it stops hurting” she said.
A new voice also spoke out.
“Isn’t it funny? A brave warrior of the Church, crying like a little bitch from a harmless aphrodisiac, hahahahah!” her laughter was malicious rather than humorous.
“If they had always been like this, our homelands would all still be ours” the first one continued, kicking him again.
“I said leave him! We got what we came for!”
There was one more kick before the Elves left.
Ronnie gulped with relief. They hadn’t found him. The paladin had squirmed enough to be able to jerk off, and was now doing so furiously, still crying. Nothing Ronnie could do to help him. Keeping low and sticking to the shadows, he began to follow after the Elves. They moved rather quickly, so he had to run to keep up with them, which made staying quiet and unnoticed a little difficult, but he made it outside without them noticing him.
The Elves had loaded up the barrel inside a black van with no register plates. Ronnie thought on his chances. He had a gun, but he was alone. No, he was not going to play the hero here. Especially knowing what was in that barrel. He waited for the van to leave, and then headed straight for the familiar and safe port-a-potty. He was going to stay there until the cavalry arrived. While doing so, he happened to look to the sea, and at the mysterious ship. The water was covered in oil, or whatever the goo was, and the stuff appeared to be spreading.
That’s just oil, right? Haha, that thing isn’t in there anymore… it isn’t…
To avoid seeing any more of the nightmarish stuff, he dropped the night-vision goggles on the ground. Now less burdened with fear, he hurried to his sanctuary, where he remained until around 4:12, when someone tried to open the door, discovering it locked.
“Open the door slowly, or I will shoot!” a voice ordered.
“Alright, alright!” he replied, slowly opening the door. There was a paladin pointing a rifle at him.
“I’m with the security team” Ronnie said.
“I’m sure you are” the paladin said, slowly backing away. “Come on out, with your hands up!”
Ronnie obeyed; he didn’t want to start anything.
Soon enough Ronnie was in handcuffs, being escorted to an area in the pier that was now full of trucks, some unmarked and inconspicuous, others marked with the biohazard sign.
“We found this one awake” one of his escorts said to a man Ronnie recognized.
“Hey chief!” he said, smiling like an idiot. This was still properly absurd.
One of the paladins pulled out a device that emanated a purplish light and ran it over Ronnie.
“He’s a human”
“Good. Take his cuffs off, he is my employee”
Ronnie was released, and walked with his chief to where a coffeemaker had been set up. Ronnie still didn’t think his stomach could handle it, but took a cup anyway.
“I need to talk to you about something” the chief said.
“I bet. What the hell was going on here?”
“Ronnie, I want to make this clear to you, alright? We weren’t here, as a matter of fact, our company has never been here. Whoever has been working as security here, they’re in deep shit. WE are not that someone, alright? And while I’m at it, the Church was never here, either. The Church doesn’t own any of these buildings, they’re all abandoned. Are we clear?”
He was holding Ronnie by both shoulders, and looked rather panicky.
“If you say so, chief”
“Good. Now, the paladins told me to ask around. Did you see anything other than Elves or a Doppelganger last night?”
Ronnie was about to say no, but then decided to tell the truth, it’s not like there was any harm in it if they didn’t believe him.
“Yeah, I saw a…”
“Don’t tell me, I don’t care. Come with me!”
The chief led him to where a group of paladins were having a smoke.
“This one says he saw something” the chief said, hesitantly.
One of them probably of a higher rank, turned to Ronnie.
“Is this true?”
“Yeah”
“Then come with me”
“Where to?”
“It’ll be fine” the paladin said, in a soothing tone. “We’re just going to ask you a few questions, standard procedure, nothing to fret about”
Ronnie nodded and followed the man, having finished his coffee. The paladin led him to one of the trucks parked on the pier, and opened up the backdoor.
“Hey what’s up with this shit?” Ronnie shouted at him when he saw the insides of the truck. There were cages lined up on both sides, leaving a narrow aisle in between.
“In you go” the paladin said, poking his back with his cudgel.
“Nah, fuck that shit” Ronnie replied, and was about to turn, when he went limp. The paladin’s cudgel was also electrified, it seemed.
“Eurgh” Ronnie protested as he was dragged into one of the cages and locked inside. Soon enough he was able to get up and try bending the bars. They didn’t budge.
“What the fuck is going on?” Ronnie asked from the man in the cage next to his.
“They’re taking us to White Bay” he said, and Ronnie recognized his voice as being that of the paladin that had been injected with Manticore venom. Well, his voice and the fact that he was still going at it.
“The fuck’s White Bay?” he asked.
The paladin shook his head.
Ronnie though about it. He remembered a movie, one “based on a true story”. It had been pretty controversial, too, gruesome and graphic. That had been called ‘Black Bay’, though.
“Uhh, that’s one of those movies about a prison break?” he said, it being the only thing that came to mind.
The paladin let out a noise that was somewhere between crying and laughing, a lot closer to crying, though.
“Six years… It’s been six years since I last… aaauughh! Why won’t it stop?!”
Ronnie was certain he had fallen asleep at some point. Seriously, it’s not like stuff like this actually happened in real life…