Chapter Text
It doesn’t take long before they find Susie and Lancer, despite having been waylaid by multiple Rabbicks in the process of their walk through the crimson forest. The walk was silent, Noelle too awkward to mention that kiss right now. But when she sees Susie stood by a tree stump, she smiles and waves excitedly at her, “S-Susie! You didn’t run very, um...” She looks down at the tree stump, “... What are you doing?”
Susie chuckles, “Heh, want to see for yourself?”
Lancer explains instead, “She was down like a dump truck, so I showed her my secret orifice!”
Noelle stares at him, “... You mean down in the dum—” then the second part hits her “WHAT!?”
“He means the stump.” Susie corrects.
“Oh. What’s, inside? Exactly???” Despite that explanation, she’s still quivering in agitation.
“Dunno. Lancer, what is this?”
“I don’t know either!” he cheerfully replies.
“Oh.” everyone says in unison.
Noelle asks Susie, “Well, do you feel... better?”
“Little bit.” she grumbles.
“That’s good.” Noelle says. The gang waits for a minute, for anyone to say anything. All that happens is that Kris reaches into the stump and pulls out a handful of Salsa, then devours it messily. Ralsei visibly cringes. Noelle pushes them out of the way like a sliding block puzzle as she asks, “Are you, um, going to come back?”
“Nah. Better this way. Lancer’s pretty cool anyways.” Susie answers bluntly, taking no pleasure in it.
“Oh...” Noelle looks absolutely dejected. “Well, if you change your mind, we’ll—” Kris reaches into the stump again and pulls out more salsa, then slowly pries Noelle’s mouth open while she’s trying to talk and attempts to shove the salsa into her mouth. She shouts, “Aaaa, AAAAA!” and pulls away, shaking her head, “KRIS! NO! BAD!”
Kris just chuckles in tune with Susie, though hers is more subdued.
“SIT!” Noelle commands. Unexpectedly, Kris obeys and crouches, still holding a handful of salsa, tongue sticking out and making fake panting sounds. Everyone stares at them, except for Lancer (too busy eating). Noelle shakes her head, “Wait, what? What are you, a dog? Kris, put the salsa down!”
Kris eats the salsa and starts licking their hand.
Noelle facepalms shamefully, “Kris, let’s just...” But as she looks back up and through her hand, she sees Susie actually grinning at their antics and whispering something to herself, evidently nothing negative. Noelle decides there to dismiss this bizarre act and just let Kris do whatever. “Alright, let’s go. Bye, Susie!”
Susie waves wordlessly as they pass. As they walk by, dodging the weird spinning traps and eventually finding themselves in an alcove, Noelle starts some small talk, “Since when were you the Susie whisperer, Kris?” They shrug. “And what on earth was that kiss? I thought you hated that kind of thing!” Kris blushes a bit, but shrugs it off too. “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t even let me hug you!”
“Do you want one?” they ask bluntly.
Noelle stops, having briefly thought about something more. “(Oh no. Nononononononono—)”
Kiss
❤︎ Yes No
Noelle breathes a sigh of relief that the presence didn’t act upon her more embarrassing thoughts. A simple yes, nothing suspect! “Um, actually... Yeah. That would be nice.”
Kris looks off to the side, as if they didn’t expect her to respond in the affirmative. Contemplating if they should really do it, studying her expression like some kind of interrogator. But eventually, they just shrug that off too and approach her. She even freezes up slightly, having never gotten anything like this from them. They open up their arms robotically, as if inviting her to try. She comes a bit closer too, only for their arms to snap on her like a bear trap.
“K-Kris! Tight!” she protests. Despite their tiny stature compared to her, they still have an insane amount of strength. “(Cheezus! If they hugged any harder I might just dust!)” she ponders in awe. But just as she thinks that, they let up a little with a smile that she can barely see. It ends up being kind of nice, even. She hugs back, but that’s when they suddenly pull away like they were always uncomfortable with it.
Noelle stares at their odd, flip-floppy behavior, “...Kris?” she smiles “You really ARE like a cactus! Or, what was it Berdly called it? Tsundere?”
Kris almost immediately frowns in such an exaggerated manner as to be unnatural for them. Even the weird thing controlling her, she can feel it trying to express some VERY negative emotions right now. Somehow. She can tell pretty easily by the fact that it’s making her body jostle back and forth repeatedly. This only makes Kris frown even harder. They even re-approach her and hold her still for a moment.
And in that tiny moment where they’re holding her still, she can feel their eyes, those pretty little red eyes, glaring at her with what feels like murderous intent. An overbearing, ominous aura only complimented by their color. It throws her off.
“Kris?” she asks, voice a trembling arpeggio, “Um... Is... everything okay?”
It’s then that they seem to notice what they’re doing and let go, hiding their eyes again. “Yeah.” they lie. “Just caught me off-guard.”
“I’m the one who should be saying that...” Noelle sighs. “Well, I guess that’s enough messing around. Let’s find the right way out of here!” But before she leaves, she grabs the item in the chest they’ve been lingering around for the whole conversation, conveniently ignoring the darkners around it. A ragged scarf. Noelle takes one look at it and tosses it back in the chest. “We’ll find you a better scarf, Ralsei.” she comments. “(Yeesh, talk about cactuses!)”
One more dodging session later, they end up on the other side of the obstacle course and find another one of those card suit puzzles, this time with the solution conveniently written on top of it. And Susie and Lancer beside it with a white board. Noelle, of course, gravitates to her again, “O-Oh, Susie! Again! Didn’t think we’d see you so soon!”
“Oh, hey.” Susie says calmly, though she looks at least mildly better than before.
“So what’re you doing there?” Noelle asks.
“Heh.” Susie chuckles, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Noelle waits for a punchline that doesn’t come. “...Yes? That’s... why I asked.”
“Oh.” Susie says. “Well, too bad! This is our, uh, EVIL PLAN! Yeah.”
Lancer tunes in, “Yeah! Way too scary for you, milkshake girl! You’ll DIE if we show it to you!”
Noelle can’t help but laugh at that, “Oh, come on, it can’t be scarier than a wendigo!”
Lancer asks, “What’s a wendigo? It sure sounds bad!”
“Oh, it’s really scary!” Noelle starts. “It’s like this big deer cryptid, kind of like me? But its antlers are HUGE! Like those tree branches!” She points at a nearby tree with some scary looking branches. “And it’s really big too! And it’s got a skull for a head, but without the skin! And teeth just like Susie’s!” She points at Susie, who smiles a bit to show off her teeth proudly. “And oh, it EATS people! Just chases them down, goes invisible, and rips them apart and EATS them!”
Susie chuckles, “Heh, that’s pretty cool actually!”
Noelle agrees, “It’s like, so metal!”
“Yeah...” Susie also agrees, slightly more nervously, “Real metal.”
“Wow!” Lancer shouts “That’s absolutely terrifying! I literally can’t move! Those...” his smile dissipates rather quickly “... Those aren’t real, are they?”
Everyone shifts attention to him, and it takes a second for Noelle to get it, “O-Oh! It’s—”
But before she can even start to explain, Susie picks lancer up, “Alright, enough scary stories for you! Time to skip this puzzle!” She runs over to the spiked floor and tosses him over them to the other side. He bounces down the dirt(?) road and rolls away. She tosses the white board too, turning to Noelle, “Don’t, uh... tell him about that crap.”
“O-Okay...” Noelle looks downcast.
Susie nods and proceeds towards the spikes, as if she’s about to walk through them, but Noelle stops her, “Wait! WAIT! Don’t just, walk through them! I’ll do the puzzle! Just hold on!”
Susie waits a second for her to do the puzzle, which is like second nature to her. No possession necessary. Susie runs right through as soon as it’s done. But just as they’re about to leave, Ralsei asks, “...They aren’t real, right?”
Kris and Noelle look at each other, a tiny smile on their lips, but Noelle reassures him, “Probably not. I’ve never seen one, anyways. Dess would’ve believed in them, though...”
Kris’s slight smile disappears. They stare at Noelle, expression unreadable as hers aches of a hint of melancholic nostalgia, what with her rubbing her hands together and looking down with a fond smile of her own. But they don’t bring anything up. Only tap her shoulder to get her moving. The next room is about as easy pickings, the presence taking her over once again to solve the puzzle at hand without even needing a hint to the solution. Inside the chest ahead, finding the Dice Brace, she gives it to Kris along with an Amber Card, then gives Ralsei one.
The enemies in the following room are fairly easy to avoid, and the presence takes over once again for the one after, where the solution has been scratched out. Entered correctly like it already did this before. But just as they’re about to leave, they get jumped by Clover complaining about them not even saying hello when it’s her birthday. And then entering a battle. As usual.
But with nothing to go off of as far as ACTing goes, Noelle hits a bit of a wall in terms of what to do. Until the presence takes over once again, and forces Ralsei to read from the manual he made twice in a row, which actually seems to work and put the three-headed beast in a state of bliss. Even if only two of the three heads seemed to really be satisfied.
Then, ahead, they run into...a bake sale. With Susie and Lancer behind one counter. Noelle eyes the stands up and down, and though she herself doesn’t feel like eating anything, she recognizes, “Kris, do you want any of those chocolates? I know how much you like them!”
Kris looks down, murmuring, “Not that much...”
“Oh really?” Noelle starts to tease “Then I guess you won’t mind if I give them to Susie?”
They perk up suddenly with a quiet grunt.
“Fahaha! See? I knew you wanted some!” Noelle marches up to the stand and gets a couple for them. Kris immediately eats one whole while Noelle pets them like a puppy. Something she’d normally think they would hate, but for some reason they put up with it. Then, of course, she waltzes up to Susie and Lancer’s stand just to see them. She rests the chin of her long-ass head on the counter, “Hiiiii, Susie!”
“Hey.” Susie replies.
She’s about to say more but gets cut off by Lancer, “Greetings, gentleclowns! May we interest you in a Lancer Cookie?”
She shifts what she planned to say, “Yeah, that. Evil plans aren’t cheap.”
“Evil plans, huh?” Noelle asks rhetorically. “So, um... What exactly is a Lancer Cookie?”
“It’s a cookie!” Lancer non-answers.
“...Okay.” Noelle accepts it. “How much?”
“A mere 40G!” he answers.
But that throws Noelle for a loop, “...Wait, G? Like, Gold? Like an RPG?”
“Yup!” Lancer confirms.
They all stare at him for second until Ralsei interjects, “Lancer... We use Dark Dollars here. Nobody has ‘G’.”
“Oh.” Lancer says, slightly disappointed.
Noelle asks Ralsei, “What’s the conversion rate on that, anyways?”
Ralsei stutters to answer, “I, well, um... I don’t... know. There isn’t really... Wait, Noelle, don’t! We can’t pay them to do evil, we’re trying to make them come back to our side!”
But Noelle dismisses his concerns, “Oh, it’s fine! I kinda want to see what they do with it, anyways.”
“But—” Ralsei tries to protest, but is cut off.
“Lancer, how much?” Noelle asks again.
“Hmmm... Well, Violent Axe Susie,” he calls her by her completely unprompted villain name “what should we charge them?”
Susie thinks for a moment, then smirks, “Gold is pretty valuable, right? Let’s say $80 a piece!”
“(That’s kind of a ripoff, actually...)” Noelle thinks to herself.
“But Noelle’s pretty cool, so let’s give her a discount.” Susie smiles.
Noelle finds herself blushing and giggling at that. Lancer comments on the idea, “Ooh, discrimination! That’s SUPER evil!”
“Yeah.” Susie agrees, “We’re discriminating against you, Ralsei!” Then she turns back to Lancer, “Charge him extra.”
Lancer does as told, “$60 for the milkshake girl and $100 for the toothpaste boy! I can feel the lawsuits ripping my hoard apart!”
Shrugging off Ralsei’s pleas, Noelle decides to do it, “Alright, I’ll get two!” She slaps a 100 and a 20 on the counter and gets two oddly shaped cookies in exchange, deciding to not ask where they came from.
“Heh. Thanks. I knew you were cool.” Susie tells her, causing Noelle to blush furiously at the compliment. “Let’s go, Lancer.”
Lancer follows her as the two leave, “Now we can fund our evil plans! Thanks, milkshake girl!”
Except that all they do is walk over to the heart donut stand and get two donuts. The party stares at them while they do so, and Noelle re-approaches them as they rip their donuts apart, “Um...”
“Yuh?” Susie asks with her mouth full.
“Susie, if you just wanted something to eat, I could just... give you something. You don’t need to come up with an elaborate plan.”
Susie just... stares at her, slackjawed for a moment, then swallows, “...What?”
What?
Never mind ❤︎ Ask out
Stammer Uselessly
Noelle is forced to swallow her fears and do what the presence commands. Although this time, a certain power fills her with its help that she doesn’t actually mind. “Well, um...” she starts “I just mean that if I don’t mind feeding you. Maybe after we get out of here, we can, you know...”
She hesitates a bit on the last part, but then Kris nudges her. She finally finishes, “...Go out to QC’s? For... dinner? If you want? Or, you know, if you don’t want to, it’s perfectly fine I just—!”
“Sure.” Susie accepts nonchalantly.
Noelle looks up at her, shocked as can be, “Wait, really?”
“If you wanna waste your money on me, I’m not gonna complain.” Susie grins, eating the rest of her donut.
Noelle’s tail wags and a smile a mile wide etches across her face as she skips away from them, positively prancing in the grass and giggling to herself while Ralsei and Kris watch with opposing gazes of confusion and pride. “Sh-She said yes! Oh my gosh!” she giddily talks to herself. “(Maybe... Maybe this thing isn’t so bad after all? I mean, it got me a date! With SUSIE! Has it... just been trying to help this entire time?)” She giggles again, swaying back and forth, then falls into the grass, arms outspread like she’s making a snow angel.
Kris approaches her, crouching down beside her, a barely visible smile. She tells them, “Kris! She said yes!” They nod. “Faha! She said yes!” She suddenly sits up and grabs them by the shoulders, looking them in the eye deadly serious, “Kris. You have to help! This has to be perfect! What do I do!?”
They slowly pull her hands off of their shoulders and answer with a shrug, “I dunno. Just be yourself.”
Noelle looks downcast with a sigh, “Ugh... Kris... You sound like—”
“I know.” they interrupt. “Just go with it.”
“Okay, okay. This is fine! It’ll be fine!” Noelle rationalizes to herself, “(As long as I have my little helper here and they don’t make me do something STUPID again, it should be fine!)”
Speak of the devil, it returns. She finds her body suddenly being puppeteered again and exclaims, “Oh! Well, I guess we’re done here! Time to go...” it makes her run towards Malius “THIS waaaaay!”
Kris growls almost inaudibly and begrudgingly follows along, with Ralsei not far behind. There at Malius’ service, they repair the broken cake into the Top Cake and... not much else. But when they leave, they find that Susie and Lancer have left again. Before they give chase, the weird eldritch thing controlling Noelle takes her towards a seemingly random point in the area and makes her reach out towards it. For just a brief moment, a weird sensation of noise runs through her body and makes her shiver. All the stamina she expended, and every injury she received along with Kris and Ralsei’s, all heal instantly.
She decides to subsequently shrug this off as “yet more magical nonsense” and file it under “things to not think about”. The next couple of areas they run through go by easily, with the being from beyond guiding her legs with expert precision through enemies and deadly crowds of dancing scissors alike. It even manages to find a hidden path that takes them to...a mint. Just a mint. By the time they find Lancer again, Noelle is left out of breath and with her heart about to explode out of her chest from sheer anxiety. You know, given the near death experience that dozens of flying giant scissors give.
But she can relax now! It’s just Lancer. She approaches him with a greeting, “Heeey, Lancer! Where’s Susie?”
But Lancer doesn’t turn around. “Who is this Lancer you speak of?” he feigns ignorance.
“Um... What?” Noelle asks.
“I’m just a sweet little boy, in need of help from three heroes such as yourselves!” he lies badly. As it turns out, he’s wearing a fake mustache.
Ralsei points this out, “Why does a sweet little boy have a mustache?”
“As a disguise!” he says, then laughs.
After a brief silence and a few shrugs between the heroes, Noelle asks, “So what do you need?”
“See, I have this EVIL PLAN I need to make...” Not-Lancer explains.
“And why does a ‘sweet boy’ need an evil plan?” Ralsei argues.
“To impress his cool friend Susie!” Totally-Not-Lancer answers.
Noelle and Ralsei look at each other, both finding a smile creep up, and they silently agree. She tells Probably-Lancer, “We’ll help, then! What do we do?”
Definitely-Lancer brings down the same exact board they were using earlier, “It’s all on the paper, you sweet little sugarplum! Just fill it in with the most evil thing you can imagine! Ho ho ho! Let the clown-generated-content begin!”
The three inspect the board:
“Create a Machine to Thrash Your Own Ass”
Below it is a large selection of parts for a machine of some sort, probably something that could potentially thrash an ass or two. Noelle raises her brow at it, but starts going through all of the pieces with Kris. Ralsei decides to abstain. But just as she’s about to start putting something together, the presence influences her decisions. It gives the machine a flamethrower head, a tank body, and a pair of “attractive” wheels. The result creation is so hot that Kris has to wipe the sweat off of their forehead with their ascot. Noelle decides to draw a flowing mane of hair on the flamethrower head and color the entire thing purple afterwards, but she thinks, “(I wanted to put more guns on it, but... oh well.)”
Kris, as if reading her mind, draws more guns on it. She silently thanks them. With that, their design is finalized. Totally-Lancer comments, “Wow!! Looks nasty! Are you sure you aren’t evil!?”
Ralsei is the only one who declines after the others fail to, “We aren’t evil.”
Then Susie bursts out from the bushes and runs up to them, “Ha! Got you! It was actually us the entire time! You just did all the work for us!” She takes a look at it and comments, “Heheh, this thing’s, like...” But she goes quiet for a moment as she examines it with an increasingly skeptical expression. “Uhhh, hey, why did you draw something, like, it looks like you guys wanna kiss?” She takes another look at it, “... And why does it kinda look like me?”
Noelle giggles uncontrollably, “(Hihihihi! Susie liked my machine! Aaah!)” She sways back and forth while the others watch uncomfortably.
Susie watches her for just a second before turning back to Lancer, “Uh, anyways. Good job, Lancer! Let’s go!”
“Haha, yes!” Lancer laughs “Thrash-you-later, clowns!” And he and Susie drag the board away.
“Okay.” Ralsei says. “Well, at least she’s found a new friend! If only it was one of us instead of... him.”
Noelle brushes it off, “Oh, it’s not that bad! Besides, we’ll get her back soon. Just like Kris said!”
Kris nods, and they march onwards.
In the next room, they’re assaulted by strange flying star things, and the presence possesses her to backtrack immediately after ringing the dismissal bell to find a weird star-shaped darkner that Noelle cannot make heads or tails on. Then, upon walking to the next zone, it stops her in place and starts rapidly walking back and forth along some kind of arbitrary line for what feels like the next ten minutes. By the time it’s done, Noelle very nearly keels over, “O-Oh angel, what in the world is it doing...???”
Ralsei helps her straighten back up, “Noelle? What are you talking about?”
Noelle jumps up, “Oh! Nothing! Ralsei! It’s...” but when she looks around, she notices Kris is gone. “... Where is Kris? They were just here.”
Ralsei also looks around, “... I don’t know. Perhaps they—”
Kris appears behind Noelle, “Hey.”
She leaps the entire height of her body into the air with a powerful shriek, “KRIS! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!” Kris shrugs. Noelle sighs, “Okay, whatever! Let’s get going!”
Once again, she is possessed. It takes her up to the north side of the area and pushes an invisible, very well-hidden button that opens the exit. Ralsei and Kris both stare at her, him asking, “Noelle, how did you know that switch was there?” with a bit of a suspicious tone to it.
Noelle turns to him and answers hesitantly, “Oh, um... I just... saw it?”
Absolutely nobody present is buying that, but she decides to just move on without addressing it. Kris turns to Ralsei and whispers something to him. They both nod and follow her regardless. Upon entering the next area, the darkners inside beg the party for help, “Please, help, we don’t want to fan this girl forever!” in reference to Susie and Lancer having sat down in a pair of chairs and made the Rudinns around them into makeshift fans.
Noelle approaches Susie...
Please stop ❤︎ I can fan you
She puts her finger up, “Don’t worry, Susie, I can fan you! No need to use those guys!”
Ralsei quickly pulls her back, “Noelle, no, we’re trying to get her on our side, not join hers!”
Noelle covers her mouth when she realizes what she just said, “Oh, right. Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
Then Ralsei comes forward to ask Susie, “So, how is that... evil plan of yours coming long?”
Susie, sat in her seat, shrugs, “Takin’ a break.”
“Didn’t you just take a break?”
“Hey, setting a business up is hard work.”
“You only sold one item...”
“And?”
Ralsei sighs exasperatedly, “Susie, you’re going to run out of time, we’re almost at the castle.”
“It’s fine,” she insists “We’ll do it at the last second.”
Ralsei comes closer, only for Noelle to pull him back and shake her head, “Let’s just... let them do their own thing! She’ll come around when she’s ready. Besides, I have a plan!”
“A... plan?” Ralsei asks carefully.
“Yep! Let’s go.” Noelle skips away, leaving Kris and Ralsei in the back again. Kris nods to Ralsei, perhaps an act of reassurance, before both of them follow along.
Lancer then warns them just before they leave, “By the way, beware yourselves of the forest maze!”
Susie adds, “You’ll probably get COMPLETELY lost... without someone who knows the way through, that is.”
“Yeah! I know the forest like the back of my head!”
But Noelle, understanding the situation a bit better now, confidently tells them, “Oh, don’t worry, I think I’ll find the way! Faha!”
Her confidence is well-placed. The second she enters the forest, the eldritch entity takes control of her again and speeds through the entire thing easily. When they come across Susie again, she asks, “Hey, any of you seen Lancer?”
Ralsei answers, “Err, well, he wasn’t going the right way, so...”
“You let him wander off BY HIMSELF!?” Susie yells. “You KNOW he’s bad at mazes, right!? He’s probably lost and confused right now!”
“Ho ho ho! I’m lost and confused!” Lancer yells from the distance completely by coincidence.
Noelle apologizes, quickly making an offer, “Sorry, Susie! We didn’t really get the chance to catch up with him. But I think I know the way out, so maybe you can follow us?”
Susie grumbles, “...Alright, fine. But only ‘till we find Lancer and get out!”
Noelle just smiles at her. Susie doesn’t join the party, but she follows them from a distance. Noelle’s little helper guides them through the forest further, eventually finding and picking up Lancer as well before it beelines right to the end without getting lost once. Some could call it pure luck, others might call it sus. Kris knows which team they’re on, and it’s not the imposters.
“(Nice.)” Noelle thinks to herself, though she isn’t sure why.
Finally, they manage to get out of the forest. But when they do and look back, Susie and Lancer are nowhere to be found. The three look at each other, shrugging, and Noelle once again finds herself reaching out for an invisible power that heals the non-existent damage they took. By now, though, Noelle decides to lay down in the grass and ask, “That was... a little exhausting. This whole adventure kind of has been, if I’m honest. Can we like... take a break?”
Kris sits down without hesitation. Ralsei agrees after a moment of silence, “Okay, but don’t take too long. They might get into more trouble.”
Noelle nods, “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be okay. Susie’s tough.”
“And if they’re not?” Ralsei dares to ask.
I have healing magic
They will be ❤︎ I’ll kill myself
We’ll save them
She says it as if it’s totally natural and normal, “I guess I’d just kill myself.”
Kris shoots up and stares at her, not saying anything, but the sheer speed they get up at makes their panic apparent to her. Ralsei follows, “N-Noelle, what!?”
It takes a second for her to process what the thing just made her say. Sure, she was thinking it, but she never intended to actually say it. Then again, this thing has a knack for making her do that... She tries to blow it off, “A— I mean, fahahaha! Just kidding! Just, you know, a little dark humor!”
They don’t buy it, clear as day on their face. Kris draws closer to her, their body stiff as a board.
Noelle scoots back a little, “Um... Sorry, I guess that wasn’t very funny.” ‘Not funny’ being the understatement of the day, as Kris grabs her hand and holds it tightly to her shock. But she doesn’t move, or say anything about it. Just squeezes back.
Ralsei has to think about what to reply with, “You... Must really care about Susie a lot.”
Noelle blushes, looking away to hide it, “O-Oh! Yeah...”
We’re friends
You could say that ❤︎ I love her so much it hurts
She’s a good person
Her body stiffens up at the command, and she’s almost unable to stop herself from saying it, though her voice trembles, “I-I, um, I lo-love her... so much, that it... hurts... If anything happened to her, I’d... I don’t know...”
“I understand.” Ralsei assures her. “Love must be a powerful emotion if it would make you think something like that. I don’t really know how it feels, but...”
... ❤︎ Do you want to?
It comes out automatically, as usual. She’s still bad at suppressing the commands. Ralsei is taken aback, “I-I’m sorry?”
Not sure how to backtrack from here, she just digs further, “W-Well, maybe you could feel that way about someone too?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that... I think, maybe, that sort of thing just isn’t for me.” he looks away, both internally and externally dismissing the idea outright.
❤︎ What about Kris? Drop the subject
He looks back just as quickly, “What!? Kris!? I don’t, I mean...”
Kris takes their hand away from Noelle’s too, scooting back a bit, though their expression is still utterly unreadable. Noelle can only make out a faint blush.
She tells Ralsei, “I mean, they did... give you that kiss. Maybe they like you?”
Kris looks down to further hide their face, and Ralsei looks at them, pleadingly. They share a quiet look to each other, when Noelle giggles, “Fahaha! I just think it would be really cute! I mean, just look at his hat!”
“My... hat?” Ralsei asks.
“Isn’t it cute?” Noelle asks Kris in particular, who doesn’t answer. So she sneaks up behind Ralsei and pushes his cheeks together. He bleats adorably; she asks again, “Seeee? Cute!”
Kris visibly blushes and looks away again, as if trying to resist it for some reason. So as a backup plan, Noelle pushes the two of them together in a group hug. “Come on, I see you smiling, Kris!” she teases.
Kris grumbles, hesitantly returning the hug but ONLY because they personally feel like it, and nothing else. Noelle backs away from them to get a better look, “See! Cute! Fahaha!”
But Kris doesn’t seem to agree, or is at least dying from embarrassment, because they quickly separate from Ralsei and faceplant with their arms outspread on the grass, then groan loudly.
Noelle giggles again, walking over to them, “Kriiiis, what are you doing?”
They make a noise, but it isn’t anything intelligible. She rolls her eyes.
❤︎ Show compassion Do not
The presence possesses her to also faceplant on the grass right beside them, but she doesn’t exactly mind. She even invites Ralsei, “Mmm, Ralsei, you should join us!”
“Oh, okay.” Ralsei acquiesces, doing the same motion on the other side of Kris. “Like this?” he says, then puffs an “oof” out when he hits the ground.
“Yup!” Noelle confirms. “It’s kinda nice, isn’t it?”
Neither of them answer, and the group falls silent. Eventually, the exhaustion from everything catches up with her, and she ends up falling asleep for an unknown amount of time. She eventually gets woken up by Ralsei, who already got Kris up, “Um, we should probably check on Susie and Lancer. It’s been a while.”
She yawns and stands up with a stretch, “Yeah...! That sounds nice. I wonder if they finished that machine...”
She leads them over just a bit, where they see a giant...thing set up before them, a shadow cast on it. All three of them know what to expect, and just allow it to reveal itself: An extremely obvious cardboard cutout somewhat resembling the thrash machine.
“Oh, that’s... not good, actually.” Ralsei comments.
Susie and Lancer enter from behind, and she starts, “Heh, yeah, we uh... don’t... actually know how to make a robot.”
Lancer adds, “My degree is in culinary arts!”
Silence.
The cardboard cutout falls over. Noelle tries to console them, “You... did your best!”
Susie doesn’t take the compliment, “You can just say it sucks.”
“I’m not saying that, Susie. I’m happy you tried.”
Susie scoffs, “Yeah, right.”
Before she can get any deeper in that particular weed, Ralsei cuts in, “So! What is um... your plan, now? Are you ready to come back with us?”
She shakes her head, “You still haven’t learned your lesson, huh? I already told you, it’s better like this. You don’t want me on your team.”
Noelle argues, “Yes we do!”
But Susie yells back, “No you don’t! You just don’t get it! YOU’RE pacifists, I hurt people!! Got that!? And if you have me on your team, I’ll hurt you too!”
You’re better than this
No you won’t What if I like it?
❤︎ We can be bad together
Noelle shoots back, “Well then let me join your team! We can be bad together!”
Ralsei and Susie are both shocked by her sheer insistence on that stance. Susie shakes her head in confusion and retorts, “Wh.... No! I told you I’m just gonna hurt you! I don’t...!”
That’s when Noelle activates her trap card, “Because you don’t want to hurt me!”
Susie flinches, grabbing her arm in absolute intellectual defeat, “Tch...”
“I know you’re a good person deep down!” Noelle appeals.
Susie growls, “No! You don’t get it! This is all I’m good at, it doesn’t matter if...!”
Noelle uncharacteristically cuts her off with intense bravado, “It does matter! I’m never going to give up on you, Susie!” Even Kris is shocked by how hard she’s trying, but they can see what’s coming. They draw their sword.
Susie draws her axe at the same time, going quiet for a moment before she says, “Fine. I guess you’re just gonna have to learn the hard way that there’s some people you just can’t fix!”
Lancer summons his bike, “Ooh, a battle! I’ve been waiting three chapters for this!”
“That’s right,” Susie agrees “a battle. If we win, you have to go seal the damn fountain without me!”
Noelle steps forward, “And if we win... You have to join us again! And be good!”
“Fine. Whatever. We won’t lose anyways, right Lancer?” Susie agrees nonchalantly.
Lancer also agrees, revving his bike up, “Ho ho ho! We’ll roast them like tiny little chestnuts!”
As the battle begins, Ralsei has to ask Noelle, “So... what was this plan you were talking about? It would be really good to know it right now.”
Noelle nods to him, “Right. I have just the idea. (Normally, I wouldn’t be able to do something like this. But I know if I just let the... thing... handle it, I can win! I just need to not resist, and let it do its thing. It... should be on my side, right? I hope so. If you can hear me, please, give me your strength!)”
After finishing her internal monologue while playing an anime opening theme song in her head, she breathes in deeply and issues the command.
❤︎ X-Flirt