"Oh cool, my dog respawned!" Curstl exclaimed looking at Borknificus standing next to her wide-eyed.
He was in shock.
"Have I finally died?"
"Is this the afterlife?"
These thoughts went through his head.
"So this is where you've been," she said nonchalantly whilst hopping off the boat that dropped her and a small portion of the jGuardians off on this island.
Moments later Borknificus began barking excitedly, the person he wanted to see for so many years was finally here.
"Yes, yes, dog. It's nice to see you, but I'm here on business," Curstl exclaimed before walking up towards the tree-covered island.
The sky was clear and the waves gently bashed on the rocks and sand of the beach.
A few of the jGuardians hopped out of the boat while two stayed to mind the boat, eight followed their leader.
"Hurry up, dog! I don't want to lose you for three years again!" she exclaimed.
Quickly, the dog ran after Curstl.
When they came across a clearing in the forest, a completely dead portion of the island with a small pile of bones.
"Now then, I believe he'll be here sometime soon..." Curstl said looking around impatiently.
Moments later, a wolfman, clad in white left the bush, he was carrying a large sack over his shoulder.
"You finally made it!" Curstl exclaimed.
"Hm, some crazy captain was drifting around the sea at max speed screaming about his cat," Rootin' shrugged.
"Huh, I just found my dog so that's cool," she replied.
Rootin tosed the bag before them.
Curstl walked up to it and opened its top, revealing HaremHarry, tied up and gagged.
"It was a pain keeping him quiet long enough to make it out of Ajuan," Rootin' said cracking his knuckles.
Moments later, both of them found themselves under a shadow, then they felt cold drops of water hit them.
"Rain?" they both thought looking up only to see a ship, it somehow launched up and continued spinning in the air,
"A BOAT?!" they both exclaimed.
JohnWillStab screamed from the deck of the quickly falling boat.
"ARACHNOPHOBIA! WHERE ARE YOU!?" he cried as the ship fell down, landing in the trees and partially breaking.
"MY SHIP!" cried the captain as Alex was clinging into the railing and Jordan was still asleep inside the ship, seemingly undisturbed by the mid-air three-sixties.
"BE CAREFUL!" screeched Alex.
"I NEED TO FIND MY CAT!" John yelled back.
He jumped off the ship which now lay suspended on some palm trees and began running through the leafy forest.
Moments later he heard the meowing of his cat, he spun around and saw Arachnophobia standing beside a small cave.
"Took him long enough..." she thought.
"I'M SO GLAD I FOUND YOU, ARACHNOPHOBIA!"
Meanwhile...
"I'M SO GLAD SHE FOUND ME!" thought Borknificus.
"Took him long enough to respawn..." thought Curstl.
As JohnWillStab celebrated their reunion, he felt an aggressive tap on his shoulder.
"Eh, yes?" he spun around and saw someone in a jGuardian uniform.
"Oh, hey," John said turning back to petting his cat who graciously allowed him to continue the petting.
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"H-how did you know about the meeting place?!" demanded the armoured man.
"Meeting place? Somone on my ship told me where to find my pet so I took over the ship and sailed my way here," John replied casually.
"Fine, if you don't tell me! I'll get it out of you by force!" exclaimed the man, he lifted his blade and readied it to slash into JohnWillStab.
"Aiming Slash," he thought as a visible trail of red light appeared behind his blade, he swung at JohnWillStab who used the manoeuvre ability to appear behind him, only for the blade to guide the man's hands and cut JohnWillStab across the gut.
"He got me!?" exclaimed John with his intestines partially becoming outtestines.
"Crap, I put in too much strength!" thought the man turning to face the disembowelled John standing there scooping his guts back into his body and shaking the dirt and sticks off them.
"Ah, great, now I have a grasshopper in my guts!" exclaimed John looking to the man with a look you'd give a cat that just threw a glass off your table.
"What the hell!?" demanded the man.
"Are you some sort of illusionist!?" demanded the man.
John breathed a long sigh.
"Remember the plan, just be honest! Tell em the truth!" he thought.
"I'm JohnWillStab! And undead," he said looking down at his shirt.
"Ah, great! Now I'm all bloody..." he sighed looking down at his outfit.
Suddenly, he heard a loud voice in his head.
"Greetings, JohnWillStab! We are waiting outside of the spot, are thou far from us?" asked Bonifacius through the friend-message system.
"Yeah, we had to take a detour since I lost my cat, it's all good now, though!" John exclaimed.
"Ah, I see! If thou doesn't mind, perhaps we could wait for thee in Duskshire? Bromy is threatening to stab us all if you do not arrive soon..." Bonifacius explained.
"Yeah, no worries, I'm being attacked by some jGuardian dude now so I should end the call," John replied.
"jGuardian dude?"
"Yeah, he has that little tower and shield pattern," John replied.
"Hold on! We're kind of members of the jGuardian right now... maybe ask him not to kill you?" Bonifacius suggested uncertainly.
"Hey, jGuardian dude, you wanna not kill me?" asked John.
"You said you're JohnWillStab! No way in hell I'm letting you leave!" he exclaimed using another red-trail attack, this one missing JohnWillStab who just side-stepped it.
"KICK HIS ASS!" he heard Bromy scream from across the Bony-to-John connection.
"Wait... is that Bromy?" asked the jGuardian.
"Fair, enough!" John said picking up his daggers and ending the call.
Steeling himself, the jGuardian pulled back his blade and cast another ability, "Charge-Slash" which cut into and across John's body in the blink of an eye.
John looked down at the quick squirt of blood and back up to the man.
"Damn, cutting weapons do way less damage than blunt ones since its the total amount of damaged cells that reduce my 'hp' not blood loss or organ failure," thought John looking at his shredded coat.
"I'm sorry, man!" said John walking up to the jGuardian who was now heavily panting, his stamina was near the zero percent point.
"If you were using a blunt weapon... or even just tried to slice chunks of my body off, I would have probably died by now."
John pulled his blade back and the jGuardian fell to the ground.
He tossed his blades at him, one after the other, the moment the first hit him the other was already teleported back into his hand.
Within a few seconds, the man was dead and riddled with holes.
"What did I miss?" asked Alex as he hopped off the boat and ran up to John.
"Hmm? Oh, nothing really, I got disembowelled." John shrugged his clothes in bits as always.
Alex let out a sigh and reached into his pocket before pulling out a thread and needle.
"I knew picking up this skill would be handy..." Alex said as he began sewing the coat John wore while he was still wearing it.
"You really didn't have to pick up tailoring just for me..." John said looking at Alex stitch his clothes with incredible speed.
"It's not like that, I've been desperate to have some propper clothes myself," he explained.
"Thought, for now, I can only fix clothes." he sighed.
"You are my personal tailor XP-farm." he laughed taking a step back and admired his work.
"Good as new!" he exclaimed.
While the stitching wasn't as good as Steve's, it was still very good.
"Thanks, man!" John said looking at his now intact cloak.
"What about you, what profession will you pick?" asked Alex.
"Hmm... I'm thinking less... normal than tailoring, leatherworking and stuff..." John said.
"Engineering sound kind of fun..." John said scratching his head.
"Oh, or alchemy!" he exclaimed.
"Well, remember, you can only master one! So be careful!" laughed Alex.
Moments later a five jGuardians and Curstl appeared, the other two were bringing Harry to their boat.
"You there! What do you think you're doing damaging our uniforms?!" Curstl demanded pointing to her hole-ridden soldier.
"I'll have you know your underling damaged my coat!" John will stab exclaimed.
"Luckily, Alex here stitched it up for me!" John said patting Alex on the shoulder.
He smiles and blushed a little.
"Finally, my efforts are recognised by my party!" he thought.
"Wait, Alex? Do you by chance mean Alexander?" asked Curstl looking at the duo.
"Yeah...?" John nodded.
"Thee Alexander?" asked Curstl.
"The one who hijacked the game?!" she demanded.
"What, are you still salty about that?" asked Alex.
"Oh my God! It's him! We have to be careful!" Curstl thought.
She clasped her hands.
"N-no... I, I was just wondering if you would maybe be interested in helping out the jGuardian? Maybe? If you had a spare minute?" she asked, her voice getting more hight-pitched as she spoke, her eyes were clenched shut as if she was asking her parents for some expensive birthday gift and was afraid of being rejected.
"Uhmm... I mean... I guess I don't mind..." Alex said uncertainly.
Curstl's eyes shot open.
"Really!? That's great! I-" she was cut off by Alex.
"What do you think, John?" asked Alex.
"Well... I mean... It's your life, man." John shrugged.
Curstl's eyes darted over to John.
"I guess they're friends... I better be nice to this other person too," she thought.
"Oh, hello! I'm Curstl!" she said extending her hand towards John.
"That was a quick shift in personality..." thought John reciprocating her handshake.
"I'm JohnWillStab." he introduced himself.
Her expression froze and her eyes widened.
"You're JohnWillStab?" she asked.
"Yeah, my character changed a little, but Alex can vouch for me," John said gesturing towards Alex.
She took a step back, "The admin account who could hijack the game and the person who single-handily took over the continent of Arlepia..." she thought looking at the two.
"AND I ACCUSED THEM OF DAMAGING OUR UNIFORMS!" she thought.
"Oh, yeah this is Thal!" Alex said taking his blade out and showing it to Curstl.
"...of course a genius like him is a bit eccentric! Naming his weapons..." Curstl thought.
"H-hello Thal!" she said petting the blade uncertainly.
"Sup," Thal replied.
"AH!" she fell to the ground looking at the blade.
"Heh, she thought I was a normal sword..." Thal chuckled.
"Heh..." Alex laughed.
"H-h-h-ello... Thal..." Curstl said standing up and patting her clothes clean,
"So... is he some rare drop or...?" she asked.
Alex shook his head.
"Nah, he one of the ancient ten-" he was cut off by Thal.
"Twelve."
"One of the ancient twelve demon-kings who were placed all placed in these weapons," Alex explained.
"Not all were put in weapons..." Thal reminded him.
"Right, Darby... though he was a bit weird anyway..." Alex shrugged.
"Well, you kicked his ass, so that's that," John remarked.
"Yeah!" Alex laughed.
"Wait, you defeated a demon-king?" asked Curstl.
"Yeah, when we were taking down the Ajuan capital, we came across this really OP dude with a demon-king weapon," John explained.
"I'm sorry... when you were what?" she asked.
"I mean, you know Ajuan?"
"Yeah..."
"You know HaremHarry?"
"Yeah..."
"We took his faction down."
JohnWillStab didn't mention the fact the real leader cut the planet in half and scrambled his brain in essentially a flick of the wrist.
Curstl looked at them and suddenly felt a shiver down her spine as she heard Jordan call out: "Hey, how the hell'd we get here?!"
"Oh damn, he's going to be mad..." John sighed.
Curstl heard John display concern for angering this person and felt her lungs tighten.
"YOU DID SOME STUPID SHIT AGAIN, DIDN'T YOU!?" Jordan demanded.
"Maybe..." John said uncertainly.
Her heart pounded and she sweat buckets.
For the sake of her faction, she took a deep breath and finally mustered the strength to ask.
"Who is that?" she asked hesitantly.
"Oh, that's just Jordan." Alex shrugged.
"Jordan?" she asked,
"Yeah, he's just... Jordan..." John shrugged.
"Yeah, he doesn't really have a reputation..." Alex shrugged.