Cadivus awoke in a familiar dungeon cell. Fatigue had left his body. Nothing left that a good stretch couldn’t fix. He got up and peed into the corner of the cell.
“By the gods Cadivus,” the guard said. “Couldn’t you use the bucket we put in there for you?”
“Marking my territory Gerald, It would be a shame to waste such pungent piss,” he said as he shook it off. He could hear pacing footsteps in the cell next to him. “Who’s my roomie today?”
“Cadivus is that you?” a voice from the cell over called. “It’s me, Thermia. Something horrible has happened.”
“Yes, indeed. It seems we have been outwitted by a leafer. Our comrades have perished, our most beautiful women executed and–what’s worse–my reputation is now going to be in shambles.” He pushed a brick through the wall so he could see her.
Tears streamed down her face. “Yeah, and I have no idea what happened to my plate. It was the last piece of the set.” She sobbed uncontrollably before looking back at him. “I didn’t know your friends very well, but I’m sorry for your loss. You must be devastated. I can’t imagine the pain you're going through right now.”
“No, I’m fine. The blast didn’t affect me whatsoever, and it appears I am none the worse.” He checked his body for any remaining injuries. “Except it appears that a button is now missing from my jacket. I may become chilly soon.”
“Gerald, why are we in here? We are the victims.” Thermia took a deep breath. “And I freak out in tight spaces! The walls are closing in on me! Let me out!” She ran around the cell with her hands in the air making nonsensical noises.
She had officially lost her shit.
“Yeah Gerald, what gives?” Cadivus asked. “We tried our best out there, but we were bamboozled by an evil man with an even more wicked stache.” He grabbed the cell door. “Open this up, and we can go talk to my brother.” He would've broken down the cells already, but last time he did that, his brother made him pay dearly. These cell bars also appeared twice as thick as the last time he had visited.
“No need for that,” Gerald said. “He is on his way down now.”
As the words left his lips, heavy footsteps that could only belong to one man, echoed toward them. A symbol of fear and terror. The greatest hero the world had ever known. The unformidable, the legendary hero, known simply as: The Hybrid.
The Hybrid entered the room, dressed in dark cloth with dark gray metal greaves. A hood obscured his face. He lowered it, revealing his sharp features, short dark unkempt hair, pale skin, and bright pink eyes. Everything about his demeanor inspired capitulation. He walked toward the center of the room with those heavy footsteps.
“What is going on here mister!” He strolled in front of the cells. “I decide to take a little nappy poo and you have the audacity to sew chaos just outside my city walls!” He folded his arms and tapped his foot, waiting impatiently for any information.
“You tell us, baby!” Thermia shouted from her cell.
“Hey! Brother!” Cadivus called. “Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Funny story…Me and my loyal henchmen were tricked into saving the world once again, and well, things got out of hand.” He got down on one knee “I ask your leave, so I may resume my duties of keeping this land safe once more.”
“This whole thing stinks of doodie! By got out of hand, do you mean you murdered over a hundred people, including Gerald’s only son?!”
Gerald dropped his spear and shield.
“My son…my son has died? Oh my god…”
“Calm down, Gerald!” the Hybrid shrieked, slapping him across the face. “Control your emotions or, I’ll slap the shit out of you some more!”
He picked up his adornments and stood tall once more as he held back his tears.
The Hybrid turned back his brother. “You went to a foreign land–”
“I can literally throw a rock at it from the window,” Cadivus said. “You can see the smoke from here.” He stuck his arm out of the window. “Look. Everybody, wave.” He waved towards the men cleaning up the mess out the window.
One man slowly waved back.
The Hybrid walked through the cell bars, phasing into smoke, and losing the greaves on the other side. He slapped the shit out of Cadivus, knocking his head to the side. “I’ve had enough, mister! A whole bunch of people are now smoldering ash because of you and your inability to control yourself! Not to mention we can smell booze all over your breath. Have you lost what little sense you had? Or should I slap you again?!” He raised his hand once more.
Cadivus turned away and put up his hands.
“No, no, no. Just wait a second here. This isn’t my fault! I didn’t activate my powers. The mustached man forced me to use them. I don’t know how he did it exactly, but I think it has something to do with sticky leaf and a harmonica.”
The Hybrid slapped him once more.
“I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous!” he cried in a high-pitched tone. ”Do you understand what kind of position you’ve put me in as leader here? If I don’t punish you two, this whole city is going to tear itself apart!”
“Wait. What?” Thermia said. “I didn’t do anything! I was busy chasing a kitten! And then I found some incense…And before I knew what happened…my...plate…was...broke!” She sobbed uncontrollably.
“The guard told me you brought him there, which makes you just as responsible missy.” He phased back out of the bars, and into his greaves. “Almost everyone is asking me for a public execution, and others are asking me to find a way to sweep it under the rug.”
“Put me down for the rug thing,” Cadivus said.
“I’m gonna roll you up in one and smoke the shit out of you!” He walked toward the exit, but turned around one last time. “I’m gonna go talk to my advisors and figure out how to not spill any more blood today. Then things are gonna change. Big time! Mister!” He stormed up the stairs muttering to himself along the way.
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“Well, all things considered that went pretty well,” Cadivus said.
Gerald’s gaze concentrated on him, a look he recognized very much: disdain and attraction.
“Now, now, Gerald. Like I explained to Smokey up there, this wasn’t my fault. I didn’t kill your boy. Well, I did physically kill him yes, but it wasn’t actually my choice in the matter. Then again, I have told him on more than one occasion I was going to indeed kill him but that was more of a metaphor than anything. I surely didn’t mean I would leave his smoldering corpse on the ground amongst a bunch of smoke sniffers.”
Gerald grabbed his keys and opened the cell door.
“I’m going to stick my spear straight up your ass, then take my shield and liquify your balls!” Screaming, he charged at Cadivus, smacking his head with his shield and squishing him against the wall.
“Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this? What if I buttered up my palms and…you know…”
Gerald yelled once more, bringing back his spear to thrust it into him. Cadivus pushed on the shield and sent the guard flying back into the opposite wall, knocking him to his back. The spear left his hand and flipped into the air. He screamed as it came falling back–pointing down. He closed his eyes, preparing for the pain of the impact. But when he didn’t feel the sharp agony, he reopened his eyes, and saw Cadivus holding the spear a smidgen over his wedding tackle.
“There. I have saved your jewels.” Cadivus held his hand out and lifted up Gerald. “Are we even?”
Gerald sighed and nodded, rage having surpassed him.
“Good. Now you and your lovely wife can make a new boy! One who doesn’t partake in freaky leafer festivals.”
He screamed once more and Cadivus left the cell, and closed the gate behind him. He went to reach for his keys, but Cadivus twirled them on his finger.
“Sorry old man, but we can’t leave our fates up to the fogies here.” Cadivus turned to the next cell over. “Thermia, we need to get out of here. Now.”
“But, I don’t want to leave…” she muttered. “I love it here. I have servants, food, outfits, and your brother who just really boils my cauldron if you know what I mean.” She raised her eyebrows at him.
“Thankfully I don't. However, if there is one thing he loves more than us, it is definitely this piss-filled shithole. If they decide to execute us, well, we’re fucked. So we need to go. Pronto!”
He opened her cell, grabbed her hand, and led her outside. Luckily, most guards were busy either at the meeting or attending to the corpses in Herbvia. They easily crept through the halls–until a cat meowed.
“Milky!” Thermia yelled. “Who’s a good boy or girl?! It’s Milky!”
Cadivus sighed.
“What the fudge!” The Hybrid called from the conference room not far down the hall.
“Double time, Milky” Cadivus said. He grabbed Thermia and Milky by their scruffs and ran toward the exit. Yet, before he could reach it, a black cloud formed in front of it, blocking him from leaving. He turned around and found himself surrounded by guards.
“What the heck are you doing, mister!?” The Hybrid asked. “Where is Gerald?”
“His balls are entirely intact, I swear it upon my life,” Cadivus said.
“Well yours are about to be made into pudding!”
He dropped Thermia and Milky. The cloud of smoke from the exit formed a circle around them, starting from the ground and lifting over their heads. They coughed and gagged. Thermia threw Milky through the deadly column of smoke, and the cat hissed when it collided with a wall. When the coughing pain became almost unbearable, they found themselves able to take a deep breath. When they rubbed the smoke from their eyes, they saw that they were outside. Not only that, but they were outside of the city walls with no guards in sight.
“I’m going to do you both one last act of kindness and exile both of you!” The Hybrid said. “If either of you show your faces here again, I will be forced to slap you to death!” He raised his hand high into the air.
“Brother, I want to say one thing before we enter a life of exile,” Cadivus said.
He folded his arms and turned away. “It’s too late to apologize now!”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just well, we don’t have any money for this exile–”
The Hybrid slapped him once more, much harder this time.
“I don’t give a hoot!” He pointed toward the woods behind them. “Get lost!”
“Wait a smoke-ticking second here! What if I can prove our innocence?”
“And how do you plan to do that exactly?”
“I’ll find the mustached man and bring him back here. Then I’ll force him to confess to what he has done in front of everyone!” Cadivus said, faking a smile and trying to gauge his brother’s reaction.
The Hybrid considered the proposal and gave a half nod, half shrug which indicated he approved of the idea.
“If you can get a confession from this supposed vagrant, I’ll let you back into the city. If you come back without him though, I’ll carve your tuchus up and feed you to the wolves. Don’t test me on this!” he said, folding his arms.
“Of course, brother. Mother would want us together after all, right?” He got down on one knee and grabbed Cadivus’s cheeks with his hand, and stared into his eyes.
“You wouldn’t know anything about what she wanted, would you?” he said softly. “Because if you did, you would stop all this foolishness and stop forcing my hand.”
Cadivus bowed his head and stared at the ground, speechless.
“Hybie…you didn’t need to…” Thermia said. The Hybrid turned his back to them and faced his city.
“Oh, and Thermia…” He said. “I’m gonna miss that sweet puss of yours. Take care of the deviant.”
“Good-bye, my mist dick…”
With that, he turned into a cloud of smoke and disappeared back over the city walls.
**********
The two exiles wandered through the late afternoon, not entirely sure where they were going. They traveled through the forest that separated their city from neighboring towns and villages. The forest had several paths through it that were created by local wildlife and smugglers. They walked for hours. Hardly speaking to one another as the cold of night settled in.
“Ugh! Walking this much sucks!” Thermia shouted and punched a tree and broke her nail. “Dammit! I hate the woods!”
“Fear not my dear,” Cadivus said. “We have one thing going for us. We are delinquent shut-ins. Nobody knows what we look like! Why, by midday tomorrow, we can enter the town of Motob. I shall seduce an elderly woman, and we can live off her until she has an ‘accidental’ death and leaves me all her earthly possessions.” He nodded along with his own plan. “Then we’ll use those funds to buy as much jerky and lotion as we can carry, and head out to find that leafer.”
“Right…except for the fact that you are a famous vigilante! Everyone is going to recognize you!”
“Well, I don’t think that will be a problem.”
“Why exactly wouldn’t that be a problem?”
Cadivus pursed his lips. “Well, in the past five or so years of me being a vigilante, I’ve only managed to defeat one death cult…”
“What? How is that possible?” she asked. “You’d disappear for days or weeks at a time! What were you doing?” Thermia asked.
“Well, I didn’t have any leads and I didn’t want to look like I was lazy, so I just got drunk in the woods and meditated. And by meditate I mean jacking off to lewd pictures and unusually sexy trees.” He winked at one of those particularly curvy trees and sighed deeply “So anyways, we should be fine.”
As darkness swept over the woods, Cadivus lay under a tree, and Thermia lay against one near him.
“Well could you at least make us a fire so we don’t freeze tonight?” she asked.
“I’d rather I didn’t.”
“Oh my gods. Why not?!”
“Oh, I don’t want to say…It is kind of embarrassing afterall…”
“Whatever! I’ll just make it myself!” She grabbed two nearby sticks and rubbed them together in an odd way. Nothing happened. “I don’t know how to do this! Just poof one!”
“I can’t.”
“Give me one good reason why you can’t!”
With a look of defeat across his face, he took a deep breath.
“I’m terrified of fire…”
Thermia stared at him blankly before giving up and lying back against the tree. Without uttering another word, they stared up at the stars until they fell asleep.