CHESHIRE GETS KILLED

I took a long, deep, wonderful drink of my personal drug of choice… coffee. I was currently sitting in a coffee shop, feeling like my life finally had meaning. For you see, I had just got my first paycheck from the guild. I could scarcely believe just how much it was. Apparently if you risk your life for money, and don’t die a horrible and painful death, that risk pays off, with an emphasis on pays. Although this is with one small caveat: Erianna. She isn’t in the hospital or anything, benefits of healing magic I guess, but at the same time, I still feel bad. I mean, it was my ineptitude that ended up getting her hurt. I haven’t been in Toad Eaters for long and even so, I’ve already gained a reputation as the ghost-member who’s usually never around unless it’s for work. Although to be fair, I barely know any of them and with my overall introversion, it makes me not particularly inclined to talk to people I don’t know. Stranger danger and all that, If only there was a way to fix that. Downing the rest of my coffee (Which had unfortunately gotten cold) I decided to step up. I was going to call Nathaniel, get Erianna’s number, and tell her that I was sorry for how me not doing my job got her hurt. I grabbed my phone and called. Before I could inevitably reconsider my actions, Nathaniel answered on the first ring. “Hey, Cheshire. Wasn’t expecting to get a call from you, how’s it been?” His friendly demeanor was evident even through my phone speaker. “It’s been good, I got my first paycheck from the guild and I’m planning to enjoy it,” I said. “Nice, nice.” There was a small lull in the conversation, in which I took my chance to ask after Erianna. “Hey, is there any way I can get in contact with Erianna? I wanted to apologize for our last mission,” I said. “Yeah, I can send you her number, but what happened that you wanted to apologize for?” I frowned. He didn’t know. “Uh… I kinda froze up when she got hurt, and Goose had to heal her.” “Oh right, that did happen, didn’t it? Y’know, I didn’t even think it was strange. Before you came along, Goose was the one who kept us alive out there, and not just by filleting anything in a 15-meter radius.” I chuckled lightly. “I guess you’re right, I still want to say something to her though.” “Sure, sure. I’ll send you her number, one sec.” I heard a ping a second later as Nathaniel texted me. The conversation petered out quickly after that and I called Erianna.

Unlike Nathaniel, Erianna didn’t answer immediately, in fact she answered just before the end of the fourth ring. “Hello, I don’t recognize this number, who is this?” Erianna said, her voice set in her particular manner that made it impossible to tell if she was being nice or rude. My nerves suddenly prickled as I heard her voice, but I kept my wits about me. “H-hi, this is Cheshire, your teammate. I got your number from Nathaniel.” “Oh, I see. You know all our numbers are in the team information form, right?” “Team information form?” “You got it when you signed up. It had the name of the team and all the members and our contact information and all that,” She said. Now that I think about it, I did have a small stack of papers from when I was assigned to the team with the name on it… apparently, I should have read it. That also explains where Nathanial got my number. Ignorant to my musings, Erianna continued. “If you lost yours just go the reception and ask for a new one, just show them your badge and they’ll print one up for you. I think there’s also an online version, but the guild’s website is garbage. You’d probably need a PhD in getting needles out of haystacks to even find the fucking hours of operation on there.” “Okay, thanks… I guess. But anyways, I need to talk to you about something, is there anywhere we can meet up?” “I don’t know is it important? I’m kinda busy.” She said, again with her patented mix of maybe polite, maybe rude. Was this important? Maybe not, she didn’t seem to be holding any sort of grudge, although I had a suspicion that if she didn’t like me, I wouldn’t know about it for certain until I woke up to a blade caught in my windpipe, her standing over me in time to graciously help me with removing it. “I’m not sure… maybe? Depends on if you’re the type to murder someone in their sleep over a hidden vendetta.” “What? Uh… not really, but now I’m curious. Where can we meet?” I hadn’t really though too much into this part of my plan. Although I guessed the coffee shop, I was in, was a good a place as any. I gave her the address and she said she’d be here in half an hour.

Twenty-three minutes, A cup and a half of coffee, and an absolutely divine blueberry muffin later; I saw Erianna walk through the door and look around. She was dressed in her usual Intricate pastels though this time she was dressed in blue and pink. Spotting me, she walked to the counter and made an order before coming over. “Do me a favor and make this a little quick, Formantus Rattingtal the rat emperor won’t terminate himself,” Erianna said. “What?” “It’s a boss… in a video game. A boss you made me postpone with your weird question,” Erianna said. Flipping the little I knew about her on its head. “You play videogames?” “Religiously; you don’t?” “Nope.” Erianna sat back in her chair. “Huh… you just seem like the type. Never mind that, what was the whole thing about me murdering someone in their sleep about?” “Well…” I paused, not really sure how to phrase this. “I’m sorry about what happened last mission, I was the one who was supposed to keep the potions and make sure everyone made it out alive, but when you got hurt, I sort of froze and Goose….” Erianna cut me off, frowning. “Oh, so that’s it. Yeah, I don’t care,” She said, stunning me. “What?” Erianna just shrugged. “Everyone does it at least once. At least no one got killed. James’ story is a lot worse, but that isn’t really for me to tell,” she said. “Wait really? I’ve been beating myself up over this for the past week and… that’s it?” “What were you expecting? Shit happens, not everyone’s used to seeing someone bleeding out with an arrow through their back and to suddenly be hit with that is pretty overwhelming so… you freeze. Trust me, I’ve been working in the guild for four years now, and I’ve seen some shit,” Suddenly I was a lot more certain on Erianna’s overall disposition. She kinda came off as a bitch, but she seemed to actually be pretty nice. “Although I’m pretty sure Goose has never frozen. Although she’s been in the guild the longest of anyone in the party, I think this is her… ninth year? I don’t know, but somewhere around then. She’s been killing monsters even longer than that though. Almost as if joining the guild was an afterthought.”

A woman walks alone through the jungle outside of Hope’s Grave. The twin blades in her hands rest with the familiarity of a smith with their hammer, a writer with their pen or a veteran soldier with their service rifle. A deep ingrained familiarity, born through uncountable hours of direct contact. Her ability to deliver precision strikes born through a deeply ingrained familiarity with how each twitch of a finger adjusts the blade, and how to pull the absolute most amount of damage out of each swing. Her name was Jackie Chan, she was moderately annoyed at how proud of that name her parents were. If only they could see her now. It was actually a major reason she didn’t mind her teammates calling her Goose. Well, it wasn’t like the analogy wasn’t accurate. Her ears pricked as she heard a certain pattern in the sounds around her. The way the birds stopped singing in an area up ahead told her there was something big there. She crouched lower, the first sparks of a smile beginning to dance across her face. She began moving quickly and silently through the brush, not so much as a dry twig snapping under her boots. Suddenly a scream rang out into the forest. Goose frowned; someone was in danger. She resigned herself to the perpetuation of the rumors and moved. Her heel digging into the nearest tree root, leaving it bark-less in her wake. She accelerated to the top speed of a typical motorcycle in the time it would take an observer to realize humans don’t normally run at 110 kph. She ran in a crouch, cutting down on wind resistance as she approached. The sounds of a loosing battle in her ears as she suddenly she burst into a clearing.

Goose took in the battlefield in an instant. An adventuring party, probably C rank, attempting to fend off a scaled monstrosity the approximate size of a gas station. It was a brown bellied drake. A bronze-rank monster mostly known for being a pain in the ass. They were big, mean, extremely durable, and had a mouth large enough to swallow a sedan. Goose came out behind the drake; she saw it striking forward at someone she couldn’t see through the monster. Goose leapt into the air, blades winding up as she came down on the back of the creature’s neck. It let out a roar of fury and pain as her blades carved a bloody trail deep into the flesh of the monster. But she didn’t stop. She pushed through the torn meat, cutting it away as she shoved deeper into it. She emerged into the drake’s esophagus, before she bolted, sprinting up the tonsils, over the tongue and leaping through the teeth the length of a sword. Goose plowed into the man the monster was attempting to devour, sending them both clear just as the jaws slammed shut behind them. Goose’s heel dug into the ground as she swung back towards the monster. “Run!” Goose shouted to the people behind her, before removing them from her consideration. She Darted back towards the titanic creature. It swung a massive, clawed paw towards her. She whipped her blades in front of her while sliding under the blow, sending steel deep into the webbing between its toes. It shrieked, jerking back. Goose Twisted her blades, lodging them in its bones. She clenched her hands around the hilts of her blades and was whipped into the air with the movement of the paw. Goose twirled as she balanced her ascent to the canopy and above. She slowed, as the tremendous energy from the monster abated to gravity, and for a moment she floated; fixed high above the ground looking out over the treetops, she could see the titanic stone wall surrounding the city, as well as the taller old-growth of the deeper woods. It was beautiful. The sunlight streaming through her black hair. She let a soft smile grace fer lips and exhaled. Then… she fell.

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She began accelerating towards the ground, the monster looking around for the small human who had hurt it. She was in a full dive. Picking up tremendous speed as she fell like a meteor towards the unsuspecting monster. The smile on her face morphed. This was what she lived for, this moment, this feeling. It was why she had left the city time and time again, all alone, before she was old enough to join the guild, the reason she killed more monsters a month than some of the highest ranked parties did in a year. Goose hurled her swords downwards, and angled her arms, manipulating the wind resistance to make herself spin faster and faster until the world was reduced to a kaleidoscope blur. Until suddenly, with seemingly no prompting, she flipped. Pulling out of her dive, making her body parallel with the ground, still spinning, she grabbed her free-falling blades, and with the momentum, she swung.

Lisa Couldn’t believe her eyes when the figure dressed in black came out of the drake’s mouth in a spray of blood, tackling Joel out of danger right before the monster snapped down on him. But that was nothing in comparison to what she was seeing now, The figure had been flung high up into the air by the drake, Lisa had thought she was a goner, as she fell spinning wildly through the air. But for some reason, she couldn’t turn away. It was a good thing too, since she was about to witness something, she would be telling her grandchildren about years later. As the figure came down on the drake like the hammer of God. The sound was titanic, the figure carved into the creature, directly into its back, the two, now separated halves of the massive monster fell apart as the creature was cut perpendicular to the spine. A massive bloody cross-section of the creature now visible as the two halves fell in opposing sides. Lisa watched as the dark figure stepped out casually from the titanic corpse, coated in blood and viscera. They idly whipped their blades through the air with such force, that she could hear the air whistle as the blood on them was sent into the bushes. They… no, she. Lisa could now see the woman’s long black hair, her hood having been displaced by the fall, glanced towards her and her party, before speeding off into the forest. Lisa would spend a large portion of the rest of the day looking for signs of the dark woman in the guild. She would soon hear of the guild’s Dark Angel, a figure who would come from the bushes at a tremendous speed, effortlessly kill some massive monster singlehandedly, then vanish from whence she came. People knew who she was of course, but she was almost never seen in the guild.

Jackie pushed the glass doors of the café open; She’d showered since the fight with the drake, but she still smelled of blood. She wouldn’t be able to remove the smell for a while now. Or at least not until she got home. She was somewhat of an expert on removing scents. Jackie walked up to the counter, the barista on duty recognizing her spoke up, “Hey Jackie, the usual?” she asked. Jackie just nodded before beginning her wait. After a minute she grabbed her order, an iced chai latte, and moved to leave before someone called her name. “Goose!” It was Erianna. Jackie turned to her; she was sitting at a table with the new girl. It took Jackie a second to recall her name. Cheshire. Jackie wasn’t particularly good with names. She waved at Erianna, who began waving her over. Jackie considered; she wasn’t really doing anything and while she didn’t want to talk to her teammates, she had no reason to refuse. Jackie approached the table, pulled out a chair, swung it around, and stood on the seat in a crouch to be eye level with the others at the table. “Cheshire wanted to ask if you were angry at her.” Erianna asked. Why would she be angry at Cheshire? Jackie just shook her head. “Feel better now?” Erianna asked, turning to face the other woman. “Yeah, I guess.” Jackie drank her drink before sitting and staring at her teammates to discern if there was anything else they wanted from her.

I was actually quite relieved with how everything had turned out, knowing that the people I would be depending on to keep me alive weren’t on bad terms with me was something that brought about a certain lightness for incomprehensible reasons. I was on my way back to my apartment, my plans included doing exercise, throwing out the chocolate milk and eating healthier, and definitely not watching an unhealthy amount of YouTube and ordering a pizza. No, I would be making changes to my… routine. Thankfully there was no one to hear me promising myself the impossible but the crickets hopping around my brain. But hey, I was in a good mood. Maybe I deserved that pizza, perhaps I would even mix it up and not get the same type of pizza I get every single time. But to be fair it was really, really good. Ah… I can already hear the crickets chirping in disappointment. I hung a left into the alley that would bring me to my street. Contrary to media depictions, alleys weren’t trash-congested forgotten arteries of modern society, but just the sidewalk proceeding between two buildings, the buildings weren’t even tall so the noonday sun illuminated me, the alley, and the old lady exiting a small storefront. Maybe I would get some cheesy breadsticks with….

Pain burst through me, as something plunged into my back, something large, heavy, and cold. I tried to scream, but blood caught in my throat. I felt the heavy thing remove itself from me, with a jerk. The few people in the alley began screaming. I looked down at my stomach to see rapidly spreading red as well as a titanic hole. I tried to run, but my legs felt rubbery, and I tripped, falling to the paving. Panic seized me as I clutched at the wound in my gut as a hard boot kicked me over. I looked up at the person, as pain ran laps in my neurons. The woman wasn’t just tall, she was titanic, her hair was red, her legs digitigrade, she had hooves. She held a massive sword, dripping with blood… my blood. Oh… that was a lot of blood. “You’ll do,” the woman said. I started choking, and coughing, blood spattering the pavement. That probably wasn’t good, I was finding it hard to think, even my panic starting to seem distant as the blood flowed between my fingers. She stepped closer. Her sword held over my neck, I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain. And suddenly I felt something. Warm light suffusing me, not just light, but power, the power of a deific might. “Lumina,” I mumbled into the blood in my mouth, I opened my eyes… and froze. The woman before me, was glowing. The light of the Goddess I had worshipped my entire life suffused her as she prepared to strike me down. I… I… a dark rage ignited within me. Sure, I wasn’t the perfect devout worshipper, but why the fuck was a servant of Lumina murdering me in the streets? I tried to stand, rage burning in my eyes, as my goddess… betrayed me. but before I could, cold steel entered my neck, and with a swipe, the contents of my skull painted the walls of the alley. But somehow, in the last sparks of my doomed neurons, a thought passed through my mind. I was going to kill this bitch. I don’t care what it takes. I will kill her. It was the sort of futile thing you throw at the wall in fury, the idle thought of a dying brain, low on oxygen, blood, and logic. But even so, something noticed. Something heard the futile promise uttered by my dying brain.

And accepted.

“You know… when you’ve lost everything, been taken from ‘till there’s nothing left to take. When you’ve been ground up, until there’s nothing left but dust. when you’ve been crushed until there’s no more give. When you’ve been broken until there’s nothing left to break. In that darkest moment, the only thing left…

Is invincible…” - Rachel