Chapter Text
Heading to Castle Town was strange today, though Susie couldn’t place the exact reason. Maybe it was the sullen way Kris stood next to her in the hall while they waited for the rest of the student population to filter out for the day, their expression too… downtrodden to just be their usual lack of general enthusiasm. Maybe it was the way Berdly kept looking at her and Kris suspiciously as he left the classroom.
Or maybe it was how awkward Noelle looked as she left. The way she glanced over at Kris and Susie and almost looked like she wanted to go over to them before thinking better of it. She’d seemed nervous, but in a different way than she normally was. Something about it didn’t map onto Noelle’s usual shyness. Part of Susie was pleased that she knew Noelle well enough by now to recognize the shift in demeanor. The rest of her was just worried about what that shift might suggest.
Still, she did her best to shake the weirdness off, reassuring herself that she was probably just blowing things out of proportion. Shit was stressful for everybody. With more effort than she would have liked, she set the lingering nervousness aside and followed Kris into the closet.
Ralsei wasn’t there to greet them at the gateway, which was simultaneously very good and just a little disappointing. It had been nice that he did, before. Something about someone being so excited to see her that he would wait right by the gateway to greet her. She’d… never had that sort of thing before. Someone whose face lit up when he realized that Susie had walked through the door. Sort of. Metaphorically. Something? That Susie emerged from the gateway. Same difference.
In the end, though, the small part of her that mourned the loss of Ralsei’s eager greeting was far outweighed by the part of her that was eternally proud of him. It meant he was out hanging out with other Darkners. Doing stuff for himself. Making… other friends. Which was good, because Ralsei really needed some. Besides, her and Kris were still his best friends, and that wasn’t going away any time soon!
“Think he’s at that community center thingy?” Susie asked. Kris gave her a thumbs up before continuing to stand around absently. She leaned closer, trying to check their face to see if they were sick before realizing that she had no idea what human sickness looked like. Hell, she barely understood monster sickness. “Uh… we gonna go, dude?” Kris startled before seemingly realizing that she was waiting for them to lead the way and stumbling into an awkward walk, leading her further into Castle Town. Just more weird shit to add onto the pile of weird shit. Everyone was weird and everyone was shit. She didn’t have enough brains for this many weird, shitty people. Hell, the one she did have barely worked anyway.
“Dude, you sure you’re good?” Susie asked, despite knowing the answer she was going to get. Sure enough, Kris shot her a weak, unconvincing smile and a shaky nod. It was about what she’d expected, but Susie was nothing if not stubborn. “You look like shit. Still. Like, you always kind of look like shit, but this is, like… premium shit. High grade stuff.” Kris gave her a slow, baffled blink before a small snicker escaped them, muffled by their gauntlet.
“I’m just saying!” Susie defended, clubbing them affectionately in the shoulder. “Seriously, though.” Kris bit their lip and jerked their head away to examine the cobblestone underneath them instead. “Dude. You know, if, uh…” She trailed off before the thought could reach completion. You can tell me. I’m here if you need to talk. Something stupid and sappy and entirely unhelpful. She’d heard it all before and it was never worth shit. Just words. Nevermind that she wouldn’t exactly… mind listening to Kris’s problems. If they wanted to tell her. Which they wouldn’t, because Susie was the last person you wanted to have a deep, emotional conversation with.
“If someone’s messing with you, you just let me know,” she settled on. “I’ll pummel ‘em so hard they’ll just be a stain on the road!” It was an easy promise to make. After all, if Susie had one thing going for her, it was strength. If there was someone in school bugging Kris, or even someone not in school, she could just clobber them. Boom, done, problem solved. It was nice to pretend the problem was something she could fix for a moment instead of confronting the likely reality that this was something infinitely more complicated.
Kris informed her that they’d keep that in mind, but their resulting smile was weaker than she would have hoped. Something was definitely fucking them up. She almost went to dig further, but was thwarted by the two of them finally reaching the town proper.
Entering the town did not, however, alleviate the strangeness of the day, because Ralsei still wasn’t anywhere to be found. Instead, their half-hearted conversation was interrupted by a vaguely familiar voice, paired loosely to an even more vaguely familiar voice, coming from over by Swatch’s Color Cafe. Looking at it now, Susie could hardly remember what it had looked like before. Swatch had taken it over completely. She took a brief second to wonder if that weird chef guy and his definitely evil and villainous cakes were even still in there or if he’d had to flee to another establishment. The train of thought did not have time to go far, thanks to the aforementioned vaguely familiar person.
“Heroes!” Looking over at the Color Cafe revealed a swatchling, currently colored in a bright, excited yellow. The figure took a second to snap into place in Susie’s memory, already making her way over to them by the time Susie figured it out.
“Hey… you,” Susie said, flashing a smile that could only be described as whatever the opposite of award-winning was. Kris dryly informed her that it was a good save, patting her shoulder patronizingly. “I’M TRYING!” Susie snarled. Kris ignored her in favor of shooting a pair of finger guns at the swatchling.
“Oh!” the swatchling said, feathers darkening just a touch towards orange in embarrassment. “I, um. I didn’t even introduce myself yesterday, did I?” Thinking back to the conversation, Susie actually had no damn clue if the swatchling had said her name. Most of Susie’s mental real estate had been taken up by panicking, different panicking, and a couple prayers to any deity that was both listening and hadn’t abandoned her yet. Still, she wasn’t about to let an out like this slip through her fingers.
“Yeah,” she said, as smoothly as possible. “Yeah, totally.”
“My apologies!” the swatchling said quickly. “My name is Canary. It’s a pleasure to meet you!” She held out her wing for a handshake that Susie took a second too long to accept, causing Kris to beat her to the punch. They shook Canary’s wing, grinning up at Susie smugly the entire time. She was torn between being relieved that some life had returned to their body and wanting to wring their neck. The relief won by a narrow margin and they were spared for the moment. Canary awkwardly removed her wing from Kris’s grasp, glancing over at Susie nervously.
“I just wanted to thank you again for agreeing to help me,” Canary said. “I know it was on very short notice and it was awfully impolite for me to ask something like that of you, so I’m eternally grateful!”
“Oh shit!” Susie said, smacking herself hard enough that it actually stung a bit. “Dude, I totally forgot about the radio!” Kris tilted their head curiously. “It’s fixed, I just left it in my room. I mean, I think it's fixed. Like, it works now, but I dunno, it might just… break again? Stuff does that sometimes.” A spark of indignant static shot across her vision, announcing the presence of the glasses she’d hastily thrown back on that morning.
She could practically hear Spamton in her head. YOU SERIOUSLY THINK MY CRAFTSMANSHIP IS SHIT ENOUGH TO JUST… BREAK? WHO DO YOU THINK I AM? SPAMTON G. SPAMTON DOES NOT DO THINGS HALFWAY. Of course, it would probably be a lot less legible, interspersed with various censor bleeps and inserted ads, but she was pretty sure she got the gist of it, if the irritated crackling still around the edges of the glasses was anything to go by.
“You really fixed it?” Canary asked, cutting off Susie’s train of thought yet again.
“Uh. Yeah. I guess,” Susie said. Kris looked up at her in surprise and she pointedly avoided their gaze, suddenly embarrassed for a plethora of reasons she didn’t have time to fully shape into something coherent right now. “I can, uh…”
“Oh thank you!” Canary cut in, grabbing Susie’s hand and shaking it with enough force that a lesser monster would’ve lost it. The gesture gave off the feeling of someone who desperately wanted to hug the other party hard enough to snap their spine, but was being held back by some combination of respect, politeness, and arbitrary I-used-to-be-a-butler rules. “Thank you so much!”
“YOU’RE WELCOME,” Susie choked out, freeing her hand so she could smack Kris upside the head for laughing at her. Spamton was, unfortunately, out of reach, but she had some guesses about what the current lighting around the edges of her vision indicated and she did not appreciate it. Give him one meal and suddenly the guy becomes the most annoying accessory ever made. She dreaded the idea of what Jevilstail would be like if it had Spamton’s communicative capabilities. “Uh, so, do you, like… want it back…?” This time, she smacked Kris preemptively.
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you any more than I already have,” Canary replied quickly. “You can just leave it with Swatch whenever you have a chance! Or I can come with you now! Whatever is more convenient to you, heroes.”
“Uh…” Kris managed to salvage the situation by informing Canary that they’d leave the radio with Swatch. Or at least, that’s what Susie gathered from the one word reply of ‘Swatch,’ but they could have also just been saying Swatch’s name because it was, in fact, a good word to say.
“Of course! I don’t even know how I can begin to repay you.” Susie could see the tension physically draining out of Canary’s body. Geez, she’d been stressed about that thing.
“Yeah. Cool. Uh, I mean- No problem,” Susie stumbled out. Her performance review for this conversation was going to be terrible. She half expected some kind of ‘Mission Failed’ message to pop up on her glasses, what with her inability to form a single coherent sentence. She wondered if Spamton could do that. Probably not, otherwise her vision would be filled with bullshit every time she put the glasses on. Or maybe he just hadn’t gotten bold enough to start yet. Lulling her into a false sense of security before filling her vision with terrible, terrible ads.
“Please, if you ever need anything,” Canary continued, “don’t hesitate to ask!”
“Willlll dooo,” Susie agreed. That finally seemed to assuage the swatchling, who vanished back into the Color Cafe with another few awkward waves and insistent greetings.
“Geez,” Susie muttered, unsure what she was really complaining about, Canary or her own inability to function or some secret third thing that somehow had to do with Spamton and radios and Noelle all at once. Probably all of the above, but Susie wasn’t in the mood to give that the thought it needed.
Kris, it seemed, was. As soon as Canary was gone, they turned to look at her quizzically, demanding to know what all that was about.
“Oh, uh. She broke her, like, radio… thing?” Susie said. “And ‘cause she heard I helped fix Tenna, she asked if I could fix it. And I wasn’t gonna, but she kept talking so freakin’ fast, man!” Kris glanced over in the direction she had vanished before nodding their agreement. “So, uh. Yeah.” Kris informed her that they hadn’t realized she knew how to do mechanic work. Susie grimaced at the reminder.
“I, uh. Don’t. Really.” She tapped the frame of her glasses, eyes flicking down to Kris. Sure, he didn’t want Tenna knowing, but that’s because he had some kind of weird history with Tenna that he refused to tell her about. This was Kris. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind if she told Kris. Hey, he was the one who kept talking about how they were ‘birds of a feather’ or whatever. He seemed to like Kris. She still gave him a couple seconds to complain before speaking again.
“Your weird dumpster friend helped me,” she informed Kris. “That Spamton guy.” Admitting it felt… weird. It was a relief, though why it was such a big one was lost on her. It was just nice to tell someone else. Kris’s eyes widened, their eyes shifting between looking at her to looking at her glasses instead. They were silent for a moment, just standing there and watching her. Watching Spamton. It went on for long enough that she started to feel a little uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “Uhhh… Kris?”
They asked if Spamton had emerged from the glasses again.
“Yeah. He can come out and stuff. The clown guy too. They, like, fought over my fridge.” It was only upon saying it out loud that she realized how absolutely bonkers the whole situation had been. The sadistic clown that murdered people for fun and the crazy dumpster guy who wanted to be god or something, scrapping like feral cats over cold Darkburgers. How the hell had her life gotten weird enough for that to just be something that happened?
Kris fell silent again, their gaze just as indecipherable as always. If she were to hazard a guess, she’d say they almost looked sad. Or maybe disappointed was the better word. It made sense when she thought about it. After all, Kris was the one who went running around doing Spamton’s spooky errands back in Cyber World. They wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t a reason. Or they could just not care and she was misinterpreting things horribly. Which was also likely. Susie wasn’t well known for her people skills, after all.
“Y’know,” she continued, mostly in an attempt to break the awkward silence that had fallen over them, “they don’t… totally suck when they’re not trying to kill you. I guess.” Kris didn’t respond to that, but the color around the edges of her vision got a bit brighter. “You’re still an asshole, asshole.” Susie informed Spamton, jamming a finger into the bridge of her glasses for emphasis. “He’s an asshole, though,” Susie told Kris, just in case they hadn’t gotten the message.
Kris snorted, and Susie caught sight of their eyes rolling through the veil of their bangs. They were summarily shoved to the ground. They made a valiant attempt to grab Susie by the vest and pull her down with them, but seeing as she probably weighed at least twice as much as they did, the end result was just them awkwardly dangling off of her vest before losing their grip and falling anyway. She pointed and laughed at them for good measure while they stumbled to their feet, not even bothering to brush the dirt off their armor.
With stunning inefficiency, the two of them finally managed to get their shit together and start making their way back over to the community center construction site. Having put their two brilliant minds together, they had concluded that this was the most likely Ralsei location, and, considering Susie’s information from the day before, probably held Lancer as well. Plus, Susie was really curious to see how construction was going. Knowing Lancer, all the holes were probably dug perfectly. Why a building needed holes before it was built, she wasn’t sure, but she was sure he was doing a great job. Maybe it was gonna have a basement.
Arriving at the site immediately answered the question of what they needed Lancer for, because where there’d just been a bunch of vague machinery and random markers thrown up, there was no a massive hole spanning pretty much the entire site. It was deep enough that the plugboys hopping in and out of it vanished entirely over the side. Looking at it, it was definitely Lancer’s handiwork. No one else here was that good at digging holes. And if they were, Susie wouldn’t admit it.
Kris and Susie, being the good, law abiding citizens they were, ignored the tape and fencing put up around the construction site and just went right in, exchanging a couple brief greetings with the Darkners they passed. Kris, Susie noted, still hadn’t gone back to talking to everyone the way they used to. It seemed like they’d finally gotten sick of it, a fact that was only surprising to Susie because it had taken more than a single day to happen. She still didn’t know what the appeal had been before. Just another inexplicable Kris detail. They had a lot of those.
“-15 feet is tall enough?” Susie perked up, catching wind of Ralsei’s voice and turning to look. She found the little Darkner standing to the side of the construction site, hunched over a workbench with the rudinn ranger from the first time they visited the site. Her brain failed to supply their name.
“The higher we go, the more effort it will take to heat the building, and if Castle Town follows the same seasonal patterns as Card Kingdom, that could be a problem during the winter. Not to mention how it would limit our space,” the rudinn ranger replied.
“Yeah…” Ralsei agreed sullenly.
“15 feet should be more than enough to accommodate the Darkners here,” the rudinn ranger assured him. He seemed unconvinced.
“Yo,” Susie greeted, taking the brief silence as her invitation to step in. Ralsei, who really ought to be used to her greetings by now, nearly tripped over air upon hearing her voice.
“S-Susie! Kris! You’re back!” he squeaked out.
“Uh, yeah? Dude, we come here every day.”
“R-right. Sorry, you just startled me.” Kris told him that it was fine, as Susie was very startling.
“HEY!” Susie snapped, before catching up to what they’d said and realizing that it was actually kind of a compliment. It was just that damn smug tone they were using. Made it sound like they were making some kind of joke she didn’t get.
“Don’t worry Susie, I don’t think you’re all that scary!” Ralsei attempted to assure her.
“WHAT?”
“U-um, I mean, you’re really scary?” Ralsei tried again. She glared at him for a minute before deciding to let the insult slide.
“Hmph. Better,” she told him. He let out a relieved sigh. “Hey, what’re you guys doing?” Susie asked.
“We’re just finalizing some last details,” Ralsei informed her. “Lancer’s almost done digging the foundation, so we have to get everything all set before he’s done. Just in case we need to fix something.”
“Kinda difficult to fix a problem once you’ve already started building the thing,” the rudinn ranger confirmed. “While I’m sure the young prince wouldn’t mind returning to do some more digging, I do think we should determine this now, so as not to inconvenience him.”
“I’M NOT INCONVENIENCED!” Lancer’s voice called from somewhere within the massive hole. “A hole well-dug is a time well-spent!”
“Lancer!?” Susie shouted back.
“In the freshly soil-coated flesh!” Lancer informed her. Her snout wrinkled at the descriptor.
“Hey, Lancer?”
“Yeah?”
“Never say those words in that order again,” she told him.
“Okie-dokie!” His head finally popped up over the side of the hole, and loathe as she was to admit it, the descriptor had been apt. He looked less like a person and more like some kind of mole. At least he looked pleased with himself. “Do you like my magnum opus?”
“Magna-what-now?” Susie asked.
“Magnum opus!” Ralsei repeated helpfully. “It’s like… your greatest achievement.
“Greatest achievement so far!” Lancer corrected. “I have big plans, toothpaste boy. Big, big plans! Just you wait!”
“Hell yeah,” Susie agreed.
“Please don’t tunnel into my room again,” Ralsei pleaded meekly. His pleas went unheard and unacknowledged.
It was, shockingly, Kris that brought them all back to the matter at hand, asking Ralsei what he was debating with the rudinn ranger.
“Oh, yeah,” Ralsei said. He turned back to the blueprints, wringing his hands uncertainly. “Me and Rory weren’t sure about ceiling heights.” Susie’s first reaction was to thank the vague concept of god for the fact that Ralsei had said the rudinn’s name before she had to admit she didn’t remember it. This was twice she’d gotten away with it today. Her second reaction was to actually realize what Ralsei had said.
“Ceiling heights?” she echoed incredulously. “Why are you worried about ceilings?”
“Well, it’s a delicate matter,” Rory said, waving a hand over the blueprints. “It affects storage, heating, structure, all sorts of important factors. And that’s before you consider the way it impacts perception.”
“Wow,” Susie said. She glanced over at Kris. “That’s a lot of… words.” Her companion nodded their queasy agreement. Ralsei didn’t look much better.
“Prince Ralsei is concerned that a height of fifteen feet for the standard rooms and hallways won’t be sufficient to accommodate all denizens of Castle Town,” Rory continued. “While I understand the concern, I think anything higher is excessive.” They turned to look at Susie, giving her a quick appraisal. “Though I do appreciate you bringing the concern to our attention. The initial height of nine feet was an oversight on our part.” Susie blinked.
“Uh- What?”
“Yes! Thank you, Susie, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it!” Ralsei added.
“What’re you guys talking about?” Susie asked. Ralsei gave her a confused once-over.
“Remember? Yesterday when you looked at the blueprints?” Susie cast her mind back to the day before, trawling for the event in question like a fisherman casting his line out into a sharknado. Fortunately for her, the memory in question turned out to be a shark, which was pretty easy to snag in her current predicament.
“O-oh! Yeah, that. Good thing you, uh, checked that,” she said, recovering flawlessly. That must’ve been the thing Spamton had been worried about.
“It’s not a huge problem in the bigger places like the auditorium,” Ralsei carried on. “But there’s other parts of the building that are going to have a more… standard layout?” Rory nodded in confirmation. “Standard layout. And I’m worried those parts will be too small.”
“I don’t believe there are any Darkners in town that wouldn’t be accommodated by a fifteen foot ceiling,” Rory said. Susie glanced down at the blueprints, completely lost. She’d never learned what measurements actually meant, at least not in any way she could visualize, and as such she had no goddamn clue what fifteen feet actually looked like. It sounded like a lot. “The tallest Darkner in town currently is Mr. Tenna, and he’s able to alter his height at will.” Susie could’ve rolled her eyes as the realization hit her. Of course that had been why Spamton noticed that the ceiling height was too low. She wondered if he had Tenna’s exact measurements memorized, being his mechanic and all. Did Tenna even have exact measurements? Logic told her that he had to have some kind of ‘resting’ height that served as his default, but maybe not. He was definitely smaller in Castle Town than he’d been in TV World, at least. Though… he did say he got smaller when his mood was worse, so… She decided that she didn’t want to think about that right now.
“I’m just worried that we might run into other Darkners similar to Mr. Tenna’s height,” Ralsei explained.
“I doubt it,” Rory replied. “Though… I suppose the concern is a rational one.” They glanced back over at Susie. “What do you think?”
“Me?” Susie asked incredulously.
“Seeing as you’re the one who noticed the problem in the first place, I would value your input,” Rory continued. Oh shit. The hell was she supposed to say here? She had no idea what Rory had been talking about with all the building… stuff from before. How was she supposed to weigh in on this?
She waited, desperately, for Spamton to make a decision one way or the other, but contrary to his piss-taking from earlier, he’d gone eerily silent. In a moment of desperation, she glanced over her shoulder at the Jevilstail. It gave no indication either way, which gave her enough time to realize that any advice Jevil gave would probably make the building structurally unstable on principle.
Her gaze found its way back to the blueprints, which were just as incomprehensible as always. There was so much stuff going on that made zero sense. Stuff about heating and storage and perception, whatever Rory meant by that. But, if she thought about it purely on principle…
She thought back to Tenna’s room, with its too-small chairs. To the way he’d gotten stuck in the door of the bank. Castle Town was magic, surely whatever consequences there were couldn’t be that bad. And the community center was supposed to be for everyone. No matter who. No matter if they were probably going to be gone before it was even finished. Besides, if nothing else, she trusted Ralsei’s judgement. He’d gotten them this far.
“I’m with Ralsei,” she decided. “You can probably make ‘em a little bigger, right?” Ralsei’s expression brightened, almost as if he hadn’t expected her to agree with him. She punched him for it and he took the blow in stride. Kris gave them a double thumbs up, just in case anyone needed further confirmation.
“Well…” Rory glanced between the three of them, clearly deciding that arguing at this point was above their pay-grade. “If you’re willing to shoulder the extra heating costs and the other adjustments for stability, then I see no reason we can’t raise the ceilings.”
“Of course!” Ralsei said immediately. “I’m on it!” Susie shot him a pleased grin and Rory shrugged.
“Alright. I suppose we should get to work then.”
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It was another hour or so before Susie finally left the excavation site, fully alone. Well, mostly alone.
She and Kris tried to convince Ralsei to take a break from the community center and come play games with them, but he was insistent that he had to sort everything out with Rory that day so actual construction could get started. Why the community center seemed so much more high effort than all the other buildings in Castle Town, which seemed to just spawn in every time she visited, Susie didn’t know. But Ralsei was unshakable, so she and Kris were forced to strike out alone.
They ended up helping Lancer dig for a bit, letting him teach them his ‘expert technique.’ Susie was pretty sure she’d nailed it by the end. Her claws, it turned out, made for some pretty effective excavators. Kris had been surprisingly good at it too, though their digging strategy was distinctly… dog-like. Then again, who was she to judge an effective strategy? It had been a blast, until she remembered that she had a mission today that she really couldn’t afford to keep putting off. So, she bid her farewells and began the long trek to the (still unfortunately) rebranded Love Dojo on the other side of town.
She hoped she’d made the right call by ditching Kris. The conversation would probably be easier with them there, but they always got weird when Tenna was involved, and Susie didn’t want to make their day worse than it already was. Plus, she needed someone to distract Spamton, because she was pretty sure that he’d lose his shit if she went on this mission with him still there, but she didn’t put it past him to follow her if she just left him somewhere.
Of course, if she admitted it, that wasn’t her only motivation for leaving him with them. There was also the way they’d looked at her when she mentioned that she’d been talking to him. The whole mess the two of them had gotten into before she and Ralsei caught up. She figured that maybe Kris wanted to talk to him. Assuming he came out at all, because he was pretty shifty about what he responded to. It didn’t matter either way, because it still meant that she had the chance to ask some questions without getting a strobe light injected directly into her retinas.
The Fun Gang hadn’t visited the Love Dojo in days, not since it first rebranded. Why the others didn’t go, Susie didn’t know, but she, for one, found the rebrand terribly boring. The old dojo used to have fun challenges and cool prizes. The Love Dojo was just fighting Elnina and Lanino again, and Susie hated fighting those two. It wasn’t nearly as fun as any of the other fights they got into in the Dark Worlds. They just kept gushing about how much they loved each other the whole time, and then Lanino would set her on fire or something. Not her idea of a good time.
Unfortunately for Susie, they had been Tenna’s second in commands, which made them her best option for insight into her current issues. They may be weird and lovey-dovey, but at least they weren’t actually trying to kill her anymore. Unlike some people. She still didn’t completely trust the Mikes not to jump her in an alley somewhere.
Entering the Dojo immediately unleashed a wall of sound so potent that she just assumed her entire face got folded back from the force of it like some kind of cartoon character. The music itself wasn’t particularly aggressive, just the same overtly sentimental garbage from before, but the volume was so astronomically high that it was a miracle anyone escaped with their eardrums intact. Maybe they didn’t.
A familiar jigsawry sat in the center of the dojo, slumped over dejectedly as the music played around him. Susie was inclined to share the sentiment. The bloxer and the pippins in the corner seemed happy at least.
“Boss number two!?” the jigsawry yelped, shooting to his feet in surprise as Susie approached him. “Geez. Haven’t seen you in a while,” he informed her. “Not that I… blame ya.”
“Yeeeeeeaaaah,” Susie agreed, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly as she took in the disgustingly heart-heavy decorations around them. “Sorry, dude.”
“No, no, I understand,” the jigsawry said wearily. “This place ain’t what it used to be.” Susie nodded sullenly. “Say, where are the rest of your troupe? Aren’t there usually three of you heroes?”
“Yeah, they’re, uh… busy,” Susie informed him. He sighed wearily.
“No need to spare my feelings. They didn’t want to come here. Come on, you can tell me.”
“Nah, they’re actually busy,” Susie said. “Ralsei’s working on the community center thing and Kris is… talking to somebody.” She really hoped they weren’t going down into any creepy basements this time. Maybe leaving them alone with Spamton was a bad idea. “Anyway, you think I can talk to Elnina and Lanino?” The jigsawry grimaced.
“You can certainly try. They’re…” He broke off with a shudder. “I only ever see them in the back room. They just keep complimenting each other. You’d think they’d run out, but…” He shook his head. “They don’t come out unless someone is willing to fight them. Something about ‘proving their mutual respect.’ Man, I don’t know. I just wanted to make a training dojo, I didn’t ask for this!” Susie awkwardly mimed patting his shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. He seemed to appreciate it. “Anyway, if you want to talk to them, your best bet is probably to… fight them.”
“Greeeat,” Susie drawled. Of course she couldn’t just talk to people. Where’d be the fun in that? The prospect in and of itself made her angry enough to want to fight them. “Can’t I just kick the door down?”
“I’d… advise against it?” the jigsawry said. Susie glanced over at the door that presumably led to the rest of the dojo, thought it through, and decided that he probably had a point. At least if she was fighting them, she’d have their full attention. Plus, it wasn’t an actual fight, so she didn’t need Kris to figure out that ACTing stuff. She could just pummel them. A little. A light pummeling in a purely training context. With any other opponent, the thought would be almost fun.
“Fine,” she conceded.
“So you want to…” The jigsawry sighed in exasperation, pulling a small device out of his… pocket? Where the hell had he been keeping that? “...fight lovers?” Susie grinned, pulling her axe out.
“Bring it on.”
Shifting into a battle without Kris there was always a bizarre experience. Usually when they fought people, she’d get a bit of a warning first as Kris’s soul appeared out of their chest before the darkness of battle magic surrounded them. Without Kris, there was no warning shot. It was just nothing, and then sudden darkness, accompanied by the appearance of her opponents and the dojo’s music finally shifting from that sentimental bullshit into something only slightly more cool. Marginal improvement was still improvement! It made the sight in front of her piss her off only slightly less.
“Finally! An opponent!” Elnina declared, her wand arching out in front of her in a dramatic flourish.
“A worthy foe to face our united front!” Lanino agreed, mirroring her movement.
“Prepare, heroes-” Elnina paused. She took in the scene, analyzing the obvious lack of Kris and Ralsei. “Prepare, hero,” she corrected flawlessly. “To face the wrath of our glorious sun!”
“And our dazzling crystal!” Lanino finished. Vaguely, Susie was reminded of some old show she used to watch. Something about catching animals in balls. All she remembered was that the heroes had a corny catchphrase and reminded her of these two. She doubted they’d appreciate the comparison. Kris would. She was immediately regretting not bringing them along, if only because this would be a lot more fun with them there.
“Let the battle begin!” Elnina and Lanino declared together, followed moments later by the boxing ring springing up around them.
With no Kris to guide her on the matter, and just enough latent irritation at being put into this situation in the first place, Susie didn’t even bother trying to ACT and just fired off a shot at Lanino as soon as she could. The blow hit him in the shoulder, but he hardly stumbled thanks to the dampening effects the dojo had on attack magic. It was one of her favorite things about it, though Kris rarely let her test it out, always insisting on ACTing, even here. She liked that she could actually fight here without worrying about hurting people. As much as she… cared about the Darkners they came across, she did kinda miss beating people up. Just a little.
“Tonight’s weather is…” Lanino and Elnina declared with the rehearsed cadence of, fittingly, weather forecasters.
“...crystal!” Lanino finished.
“...shinerous crystal!” Elnina said. Why she added on the embellishment was beyond Susie. Maybe she was just being egotistical. That was the whole thing that got them broken up in the first place back in TV world. She didn’t really have much time to think about it, because moments later a familiar cloud and moon materialized above her, raining crystallized magic right on her head. She raised her axe, swinging haphazardly in an attempt to knock as many of the attacks aside. She managed to dodge most of them, but felt a couple bite into her arm where she miscalculated. Jerks.
“Hey, so, uh…” she began ineloquently as the attack ended. “Can I like… talk to you guys?” The only indication that they heard was a slight tilting of Elnina’s head, but that could’ve just been a normal thing. She rolled her eyes, firing off another attack, this time at Elnina. It, too, did little damage upon connecting.
“Tonight’s weather is…”
“Like, we can still fight, can we just also talk?”
“Sun!”
“Glorious sun!”
“Great.” The burning suns descended upon her with a fury. Her dodging strategy this time landed her in the corner of the ring, unable to move any further, which landed her a couple nasty blows to the chest. She was starkly reminded of her first time fighting these two, back in Tenna’s game. Silly as they were, they’d definitely given the Fun Gang a bit of an ass-whooping. Not that Susie would ever admit that out loud.
“Guys!?” she asked. Still no reply. She couldn’t even tell if they were actually ignoring her or if they were just so caught up in things that they didn’t even realize she was talking to them. She hit Lanino again, figuring she could just go for an even fifty-fifty split until one of them pissed her off. It probably would be Lanino, actually. His attacks weren’t as solidified as Elnina’s, which made them annoyingly difficult to parry.
Fortunately for her, Elnina commanded the next attack, which allowed Susie a bit of grace. This time, her strategy was to just spin her axe above her head as fast as was physically possible, knocking the projectiles aside by sheer force of probability. She tossed her axe into the air and caught it easily as the attack ended, just to show off a bit. The slight widening of her opponents eyes told her they were either impressed, horrified, or both. Damn she wished Kris and Ralsei were here.
“Heh. Pretty sick, right?” They did not respond, dampening her excitement just a bit. “Man.” She fired off an attack at Elnina, who didn’t even try to sidestep it. “Seriously though, can we please talk about something?” She was quickly realizing that this was not her forte. Ralsei and Kris were the talkers. The guys that chatted with everybody and tried to gather information and shit. Susie was supposed to be the one who beat people up. Trying to have a functional conversation sucked.
Lanino and Elnina prepared their next attack, the ominous figures of their cloud and moon forming above her yet again. At this point, she was pretty sure the little pricks of their muted magic were pissing her off more than if they were doing actual damage. Part of her almost wanted to just bail and go talk to the Mikes, but something told her that would somehow be worse. She was in it now, wasn’t she?
“It’s about Tenna, jackass!” Susie snarled, attempting to knock aside a sun with her axe anyway, despite the fact that they were largely incorporeal. She didn’t really expect that to get a reaction either, but the magic around her seemed to stutter for a moment at the mention of Tenna’s name. The attack wound down, the only casualty currently being the smoldering ends of Susie’s hair.
“Tenna?” Elnina asked, the first time one of them had actually spoken directly to her in… forever, probably. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had an actual conversation with these two. Kris had done all the talking back in TV World, mostly because they weirded her out. They still kind of did, but this was for Tenna. This was… important.
“Yeah,” Susie confirmed.
“Is something wrong?” Lanino asked. “Is he okay?”
“What? Yeah, no he’s…” She hesitated, just for a second. “...fine.” He wasn’t, not really. He was miserable here, out of his depth and on his own. And she was letting him down.
“Hm,” Elnina said, lips pursing uncertainly. She fired off her next attack anyway, which was kind of a dick move in Susie’s opinion.
“It’s about- getting him adopted and stuff,” Susie explained, knocking crystals aside as she did. Elnina and Lanino exchanged a surprised look.
“Adopted?” Lanino asked. “What do you mean?” Susie blinked in surprise.
“Didn’t he tell you guys? We told him we’d find him a new home, y’know? Like, somebody to watch him.” She had forgotten which one she’d attacked last, so she did a mental eeny meeny miney moe and hit Lanino. “Remember?”
“...No,” Elnina said as they mustered their next attack. “I had no idea he was… leaving.” She glanced over at Lanino, who shook his head.
“Yeah, that’s the whole deal,” Susie informed them. “Shit- Geez, man, these stupid fucking suns!” Lanino gave her an odd look, unsure of whether to take her anger as a compliment or an insult. She hoped it came across as the latter. “We’ve been looking for somebody to adopt him, but… I, uh, don’t really know where he’d wanna live. And you guys used to be his second in command, I guess, so I thought maybe you’d know.” She hit Lanino again, just because the suns were pissing her off.
“He’s… really going?” Lanino asked. “Just like that?”
“Yeah, dude,” Susie informed him. She braced her axe and did her little spin trick again, to less success. Must’ve not spun it fast enough that time. “Did he seriously not tell you guys?” Elnina and Lanino exchanged a long look before shaking their heads at her in perfect, unsettling unison.
“We… haven’t seen Tenna since we arrived here,” Elnina admitted. Susie paused right as she was about to fire her attack, tilting her head in confusion.
“Seriously?” Lanino nodded in confirmation.
“Neither have any of the others,” he added. “A couple of them have seen him around town, but he never stops to talk. Just a greeting here and there before he runs off.” Susie blinked, drawing back. “It’s your turn.”
“I KNOW THAT!” Susie snarled, firing off a rude buster right at him. He at least had the common decency to look frightened by the wave of raw aggression radiating towards him. That prick was lucky magic was muted here, or she was pretty sure that much irritation would’ve killed him on the spot. She glanced at his Dojo-HP, disappointed to find that it was only down to 57%.
“We just assumed he was having trouble settling in,” Elnina admitted. “We had no idea he was planning on getting adopted.”
“Really? I kinda figured you were all, like… going with him,” Susie said. “Like, all of TV World and stuff.” They shook their heads.
“We had no idea,” Lanino said. “He… he really said that? That he’s leaving?”
“Well, yeah. We promised we’d find him a new home,” Susie said. Lanino and Elnina shot each other an equally troubled glance.
“You don’t think he’d really… leave without saying goodbye, do you, Sunshine?” Elnina asked.
“I don’t know, Dewdrop,” Lanino replied.
“Eugh,” Susie said, even though no one asked. Lacking a Kris or a Ralsei to turn to, she glanced over her shoulder to hopefully commiserate with Jevil. The tail flicked behind her, which she decided to believe meant he agreed.
“Do you think that’s why he’s been so distant?” Elnina asked.
“I don’t know. It could be,” Lanino said. “But…”
“Oh dear…” Susie tried her best to pay attention while still avoiding the barrage of attacks coming at her. This whole thing was turning out way weirder than she’d expected. His old staff wasn’t going with him? He hadn’t even told them? What the hell was that about?
“I mean… he has kinda been acting weird,” Susie decided aloud as the attack ended.
“Weird?” her opponents asked simultaneously. It was kinda creepy. Like those twins from that old movie, the Gleaming. She assumed. She’d never actually seen it, just the references. Maybe Tenna had it on VHS. It seemed like his thing.
“I dunno. Like, sketchy,” Susie said, which even she could tell was an unhelpful reply. She fired a half-hearted blow in Elnina’s direction, more out of habit than anything else. “I guess he just kinda looks…” Miserable. Pissed. Lonely. Like he hates it here. Like he’s hiding something. “Shitty?” was what she settled on.
Elnina and Lanino looked around nervously, first at each other, then over at her, then back at each other again. The tension in the room was palpable, and not just from the currently still active-battle. The romantic battle music was seeming less and less appropriate by the minute. She almost shouted for someone to turn it off.
“I mean… Tenna’s always been prone to-”
“Yes, but surely he wouldn’t-”
“Maybe not normally, but this was a very difficult time!”
“But we’re all safe now!”
“It’s Tenna. You know how he gets…”
“And it has been so much worse ever since-”
“But he-”
“I just wish we knew what happened-”
“It’s all so-”
“What are you guys talking about!?” Susie wailed. They both jumped at the sudden intrusion into their half-conversation, which Susie acknowledged with a satisfied huff. Jerks. Disturbing jerks, somehow having half of their conversation telepathically somehow. The Jevilstail twitched in what she decided to interpret as annoyance.
Elnina and Lanino looked at each other sheepishly. There was a clear nervousness to their demeanor that hadn’t been there before, but also something that seemed a lot like genuine worry. Susie felt just a small piece of her annoyance with the pair filter away. Sure, they were weird and sappy and kind of irritating, but they certainly seemed like they cared about Tenna at least, and that was what really mattered right now.
“You’re… really trying to find him a new home?” Elnina asked again, her tone carefully steady.
“Yeah,” Susie said. “I just wanna make sure it’s a good one, y’know? One he’ll like. I don’t… really know him.” It hurt to admit, far more than she wanted it to. Why the hell did it hurt that bad if it was true?
“A home he’ll like,” Lanino echoed. He shook his head sadly. “I’m… not sure we can be of much help there.” Elnina nodded her agreement.
“We’ll be the first to admit that Tenna is something of a difficult person,” she said haltingly. “He’s a stormcloud, always moments away from bursting. He’s never been the easiest man to work for.” Lanino grimaced, glancing down at the magic-darkened ground.
“He’s not that bad,” Susie defended, unsure of why she did. “He’s just…” She couldn’t think of something in time.
“Don’t get us wrong, he’s a dear friend of ours,” Lanino cut in quickly. “We love him dearly. But one can love the sun while still realizing that its rays will burn if left unattended.” Susie picked at her bracelets uncertainly, her discomfort now growing strong enough to overpower her annoyance at the needlessly flowery metaphors.
“He just…” Elnina sighed, tracing along the edge of her wand. “He loved the Dreemurr family. We all did, but Tenna’s connection to them was… different. Special. They were everything to him.”
“Yeah…” Susie agreed. That much, she knew. She could see it every time he talked to Kris, every time his screen lit up at the mention of his old family. He loved them so fiercely. So powerfully. A protective older brother or a kind, friendly uncle. A father. A real one. The embodiment of what a loving parent should be. Kris was lucky to have him, even if his attempts to connect were hamhanded at times.
“I… Damn,” Lanino said. “A new home. A new home alone.” He grimaced and Elnina reached out to rest a hand on his arm comfortingly. “Can he really bear it? He’s hardly adjusting to Castle Town. An entirely new place, with no one familiar?”
“Maybe that’s what he needs,” Elnina suggested. “Somewhere where he can start fresh, without any of the baggage that pollutes his rivers. So he can move on from the Dreemurrs.”
“So he can move on from-” Lanino cut himself off as Elnina shot him a sharp look.
“What?” Susie asked. They glanced between each other, offering no reply.
“I’m sorry we can’t help you,” Elnina said instead.
“Truly,” Lanino agreed. “Tenna is a dear friend of ours, but I’m afraid that as the years have gone on, he has drifted further and further away.”
“I don’t understand it…” Elnina murmured. “He’s always been so afraid of change. Why would he want to leave us now?”
“I don’t know, Dewdrop. Surely he knows we would want to help him?” Susie glanced between the two of them uncertainly.
“Uh… Didn’t you guys, like… ditch him back in TV World?” Lanino and Elnina froze, staring at her far too intensely for her liking. “Which was cool! Like, all good, that was… cool of you guys. Cause he was kind of trying to trap us. But…” She shook her head. She had no clue where she was going with this.
“He was making a bad choice,” Lanino said after a moment. “It’s… A good friend has to know when to put their foot down. Tenna is a difficult man, but he’s also our friend. We want to help him.”
“It’s just that sometimes, helping means challenging them a little,” Elnina said. “You can’t grow unless you struggle.”
“Exactly! I mean, look at us! Our love hit a rocky patch and we both did things we’re not proud of,” Lanino said. Elnina nodded sagely.
“But we refused to let the challenge defeat us! We learned from our mistakes and became better for it!”
“And now, our love is the strongest it’s ever been!” They leaned in, nuzzling noses and whispering quiet ‘oh, you’s’ to each other that sounded a lot like how eating straight frosting felt. Susie tried not to look as distressed by the display as she felt. She doubted she succeeded, but fortunately, Elnina and Lanino were too wrapped up in being disgusting to care.
After what felt like forever, they finally stopped, turning back to Susie again.
“Our point is, we…” Lanino trailed off, running a hand through his hair uncertainly.
“We want to help him,” Elnina finished for him. “However we can. And if that means finding him a new home, then… we can try. We’ll put our heads together and see if we can help you.”
“Oh. Sweet,” Susie said. Elnina nodded stiffly.
“But, please tell him to at least say goodbye?” Lanino added. “He’s still our friend. He…” Lanino let out a long sigh, clasping his hands around his wand. “He hurt a lot of us. He can be intense. Prone to outbursts. But he was also going through… a lot.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, leaving Elnina to finish the thought for him.
“We just miss him,” she said.
The fight ended with little fanfare and no clear victor. Elnina and Lanino had promised to do some thinking and try to help her find Tenna a home, but none of that comforted her as much as it should have, not when the rest of the conversation was so utterly bizarre. She felt like she was more at a loss than when she first decided to talk to the two of them. But, she did know one thing at least.
She needed to talk to that godforsaken TV.