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Remus was walking around town, it had been a while since he’d gotten to do so and Janus was too busy to keep babysitting him. So he was currently spending his time trespassing right into the heart of Dark’s territory. Which typically ended with Dark finding him, batting him around with his aura and then dumping him back into Gainesville for Janus to find and deal with later.
But Dark was busy with his new triplet spawnlings, not that Remus knew that or was going to learn that for a while. So Remus was calmly strolling down the street when Anti flung himself out of a telephone pole next to Dark’s warehouses and just bolted.
“Hey, Anti,” Remus smiled at Anti who raced past him as if he was set on fire.
“Come on, let’s go!” Anti shouted. He had a skeletal metal hand in his hands. Remus naturally bolted to follow him.
“Anti!” Google’s voice shouted in an absolute rage as he chased them. Remus took out his mace and with a mad cackle spun on his heels and charged at the android. Google protectively spilt into a cloud and after a couple swings he raced away from Google and in the chase the android lost Anti because he was trying to pursue Remus and Remus eventually slipped into the sewers where he and Anti frequently liked to hide out because most of their opponents had too much pride to follow them in there . . . along with an actual sense of smell.
“Yeh[1] lose him?” Anti asked as Remus frog splashed into the disgusting trash water.
Remus gave him a thumb’s up before picking himself up. He noticed that Anti was holding a skeletal robotic hand.
“Aghhh,” Anti complained. “It was finally gettin[2] fun.”
“Should I go find him?” Remus offered.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Anti huffed out. “Don’t know why e’eryone in this fookin’ town is so borin’ an’ shite all ‘a the sudden.”[3]
Then he bit off one of the fingers of the hand. Remus frowned at him for a bit before smiling again and getting closer to the glitch demon. “Wanna[4] share?”
Anti chuckled and tossed him the pinky finger and Remus accepted it gladly.
Remus summoned his mace and rested his hands and chin on the bottom flat of the mace, pouting. “I’m not bor~ing, am I, Anti?”
The glitch demon frowned and thought about that, “Depends, yer not gonna give chaos up fer Dee, are yeh?”[5]
“I would never,” Remus huffed out in offense. “How dare you think so little of me?”
“Then yer not borin’,”[6] Anti told him.
“Yay!” Remus cheered and threw his hands up, his mace falling into the water.
“Yeah,” Anti wrapped an arm around Remus’s neck and pulled him in. “Cause yer my favorite human, ain’tcha?”[7]
“Awww,” Remus pinched his cheeks. “Is swomeone’s gettin’ swoft, Anti?”[8]
“Shut up,” Anti grumbled and pushed Remus away from him. “Yeh[1] wanna[4] go draw on the police station again?”
“Fuck yes,” Remus said, kicking around in the sewer water for his mace instead of summoning it like a reasonable person. “Will Mare be there?”
And that was the wrong thing to say.
“Fook ‘im!”[9] Anti spat angrily. “Gobshite’s got some new shiny pact mate eatin’ up his time, an’ I can’t find Wil. He’s prolly up Dark’s arse or somethin’.”[10]
“Huh,” Remus said as he began to reach into the water for his mace.
“Lucky fer him I’ve been too busy ta gut him an’ so I got angry ‘cause I couldn’t find some shitesleeve,”[11] Anti scoffed. “Went ta[12] go bother Google, got bored, got hungry.”
Anti gestured with the metal hand he still had and was in the process of eating it.
Remus nodded and touched something but when he pulled it out it wasn’t his mace. It was a human head. A redhead with glasses and green slime oozing out of his head. The water at this point in the sewer wasn’t deep enough to vertically submerge a body.
And Remus should know, he’d tried to hide a body in these sewers more than once.
Confused, Remus stuck the head back into the water, hoping that when he pulled it back out the person would be his mace instead.
It wasn’t.
“The fook[13] is that?” Anti asked.
“Hi, I’m Slime, uhh, I mean I’m Meat, Meat and Bone,” Slime introduced as he stood up out of the sludge water.
“Okay,” Anti smiled, poking the green jelly oozing from his head. “Meat, how do yeh[1] feel about death?”
“Well,” Slime hummed, his throat doing a weird, disgusting gurgling that Remus found absolutely fascinating and wanted to poke at the green viscous gloop that made up the bottom of his neck to see what was making the noise. “Everyone just shambles around until eventually they fall apart and become dust.”
Remus began cackling in laughter and soon Anti was joining him. Slime looked at them in confusion before starting to copy their mad laughter but sounding a lot more forced and crazed which only delighted both Remus and Anti more.
They stopped and Slime was still laughing for a full second before he awkwardly cut himself off.
“Dibs,” Remus proclaimed and grabbed Slime around the waist, lifting him up like an oversized rag doll. “Let’s go.”
“Yes, I have so many ribs,” Slime reassured loudly as Remus and Anti began heading out of the sewers, Remus summoned a couple of his tendrils to climb out without letting go of his new friend, and Anti used the nearest open wire. “And they are all mine.”
Anti immediately recognized that he was right next to the bar Mare liked to crash at when he wasn’t with Nate.
“Give me a sec,” Anti spat and stomped over to the bar and kicked in the door. “Mare! The fook[13] are yeh[1]?”
Mare was talking to the bartender, his new pact mate sitting at the other side of the bar, just feeding off of the aura in the patrons in the bar with Mare.
“Anti?” Mare asked in confusion, getting up.
Anti kicked over the nearest table, uncaring if there were people or drinks at it.
“Hey!” Mare spat and raced over to him, throwing himself at Anti and the two started getting into a fist fight with each other and Mare kicked him out of the bar.
Remus started cheering them on, summoning up some popcorn to enjoy the fight and holding some out for Slime who took some and smashed it to his face instead of eating it.
Mad followed the fight out of the bar and tried to help Mare but was elbowed away by the two demons as they fought it out until both of them were covered in scratches from aura and claws.
“The fuck is wrong with you!” Mate spat in anger as they pulled away. It was a reprieve in the fight, the fight would either stop here or keep going depending on their conversation.
“Fook[13] you!” Anti spat at Mare. “Yeh get some new friend, an’ yeh leave me behind!”[14]
“Hey, should I?” Mad motioned behind himself.
“No, just,” Mare told Mad before turning back to Anti. “I didn’t leave you behind, you had your head up your ass chasing Henrik’s ass. I let you do what you want but when I deal with my shit, you get fucking pissed.”
Anti was quiet, fuming angrily for a bit. “Look I don’t care if yer fookin’ him or whate’er, I just care about havin’ some fookin fun.”[15]
“We’re not,” Mare rolled his eyes and sighed, “I’m not too busy to turn this town upside-down.”
“Promise?” Anti demanded. “ I’m yer[16] favorite demon right? Not him?”
“No, he’s just my pact mate,” Mare told him as Mad just stared at them in confusion.
“Yeh[1] swear?” Anti glared at him .
“Yes, obviously, you fucking asshat,” Mare told him.
“I better be, yeh[1] gobshite[17],” Anti agreed before turning to Mare, “he’s my fookin’ friend, yeh got that?”[18]
“ Uhhh, yeah, whatever,” Mad held up his hands and stared at Anti like he was insane.
“Exactly,” Anti reinforced. “Anyways, yeh[1] two wanna come an’[19] commit some chaos?”
“Hell yeah,” Mare gave him a thumbs up. “Hey Mad, come on, I gotta[20] introduce you to Anti here?”
“Doesn’t he work for Dark?” Mad was watching Anti carefully.
“I don’t do shite fer that arsehole,”[21] Anti spat down at the ground. “We just happen ta agree on a couple things. Dark is a fookin’ shitehead an’ the only good thing about him is the spawnlings he collected an’ the fact he’s datin’ Wil.”[22]
Then he clapped Mare on the back, “Come on, I’ve got a gang leader ta[13] kill.”
“I thought we were committing chaos?” Mare reminded, quirking an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, but some arse[23] attacked Kay an’[19] Lunky,” Anti spat. “So if I can find this arsehole an’ gut him like a fookin’ fish fer touchin’ ‘em.”[24]
Then Anti remembered something, and felt dumb for not remembering it sooner. “Hey, Remus, yer[16] from Gainesville, who are all the gang leaders in yer[16] city?”
Remus shrugged, “Ask Dee.”
“Yeah fook[13],” Anti agreed, “he would know.”
The glitch thought on that, before he shrugged, “Welp, time ta burn shite until he shows up. Or the heroes do an’ I can just ask them.”[25]
“Yeah!” Remus pumped his fists in the air supportively.
And that’s what they did. It didn’t take long for Remus to teach Slime how to become an arsonist, Remus just set a burning Molotov cocktail in his hand and pointed Slime at something and told him to throw it. Slime barely had the second one in his hand and Remus was trying to light it when Janus showed up.
“The devil are you doing?” Janus shouted.
“Burning stuff,” Remus supplied helpfully.
“I’m an Aaronist!” Slime shouted.
“Arsonist,” Mare corrected with a smile.
“Why in our town?” Janus demanded. “Why not do this in Egoton?”
Remus shrugged and Janus groaned in frustration.
Which is exactly when a shrill bird whistle called out. “Hey Meat, what’cha[26] doing?”
Janus startled and turned directly behind him to see a man in a button shirt and suspended, with a black beanie and a thick scar over his left eye.
Slime smiled and walked over to the newcomer, holding out the unlit Molotov. “Quackity, look, I am arsonist now.”
“El Espíritu me directo, porque este chamaco va a ser como Tubbo,” [27] Quackity groaned and rubbed at the bridge of his eye. “Come on, we gotta[20] go before you get us arrested.”
“How long were you following me?” Janus demanded angrily.
“Relax, I just wanted to talk,” Quackity said, moving Slime behind him. “I just didn’t expect our next meeting to be this soon.”
He took out a white business card out of his sleeve and with a soft puff of air he blew it with magic towards Remus, who caught it mostly out of reflex. “For your boss.”
Remus blinked as Janus glared at Quackity. But he brought the card over to the deceitful Side, who ripped up the card and threw it back at Remus. The creative Side ate one of the scraps out of the air like a deranged piranha. “We want nothing to do with you.”
“You sure you can’t tell the big man?” Quackity tried to convince Janus. “Come on.”
“You have me confused with someone who takes orders,” Janus scoffed. “Which I assure you, I do not.”
Quackity had a huge, smug smile on his face. “Right, big guy. Tell you what. You swear off your lies, and I’ll swear off mine. ¿Entiendes? [28] ”
He clicked his tongue and winked his good eye as he pulled out an orb of swirling green aura. Slime broke apart into a swirl of vicious green gloop and swirled around Quackity as the man threw the orb and it sailed a far distance away.
A great eye opened up for a second or two and the two were gone. Leaving Deceit with the other villains.
Janus glared at where they had been before turning back to Remus. “Do not talk to that man again.”
Remus slouched a little and pouted. Janus didn’t reinforce his order, he just stormed off, one of his serpentine familiars slipped away to go find Logan. Remus was left to continue causing trouble with the rest of his friends. If he saw Slime again and caused trouble in Gainesville again, Janus didn’t threaten him to stay away again, knowing that Remus wouldn’t follow the order.