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In his experience, he had learned all battlefields were the same in the end. No matter the place, no matter the time. It was always blood. Bodies. Guts. Sorry, I mean Guts the guy. For him, everywhere was a battlefield, and therefore an endless, unsurprising drudge. When Schierke asked him to go to “Bildahbaar” with her, Guts only expected more of the same edgy darkness that had defined his whole life and all the women in his life in order to give him even more trauma oh and also like gave them trauma too I guess. What he found there was much worse. No fight could have prepared him for mall cops.
Guts loomed a full two feet over the two guards denying him, Schierke, and Isidro entry.
“You one of those uhh…cosplayers buddy?” the taller one said, a manlet before Guts’ massive 7 to 9 feet frame.
Schierke tugged on Guts’ cape. Like a continent, Guts moved slowly but powerfully to kneel down at Schierke’s eye level, the creaks and groans of his Berserker armor almost deafeningly loud. “Guts,” she whispered, “these are wannabe cops. Simply offer them the donuts we procured earlier and they shall let us pass.”
Guts nodded. He reached into the dark recesses of the pink fanny pack he had attached to his armor for the trip and pulled out a bag of mini powdered donuts. Surprisingly hesitant, he held them up to the mall cops. Like a pack of ravenous wolves they descended on the package and Guts, Schierke, and Isidro slipped away in the powdery mist.
Guts froze up once they entered the mall. The waves of light and people fucked him up more than any monster ever had. He shielded his eyes with one gauntleted hand, his only defense against the onslaught. Schierke slipped her small hand into Guts’ free one. Guts looked down at her.
“I’ll guide us,” she said. “Don’t get separated,” she added, grasping Isidro by the wrist roughly with her other hand. Isidro let out a quiet tch but didn’t pull away.
Schierke strode forward confidently with Guts and Isidro in her iron grip. Guts stumbled along blindly, still shielding his eyes. He bumped into hundreds of people and left thousands injured in his wake with scratches from all the sharp shit on his stupid armor. Millions of tiny bandaids would be used by the time the group reached the other end of the mall.
“Guts! Guts!” Schierke shouted over the screaming children around them. “We’re here! Come on! Open your eyes! Guts you gotta move! We’re blocking the entrance!”
Guts opened his eyes to a new array of assaults on the senses. Everything was a bright, dizzying yellow, broken up by occasional bright red and blue accents. He could see rows and rows of bears and other assorted animals inside the store, smaller versions of the Guardian Bear flanking the entrance with its fearsome tutu and needle sword. Guts looked up at the sign above. Build-A-Bear Workshop. They were here to build one of these fearsome beasts? Before he could question Schierke she dragged him and Isidro inside in an impressive display of strength. Guts barely fit under the entrance like a semi truck going under a bridge with no clearance and getting the top of their trailer opened up like a can of sardines.
As Guts cleared the entrance he was surrounded by a crowd of kids and parents. Thankfully, due to his shoulders, Guts still has six feet of space between him and the next guy. Schierke and Isidro weren’t so lucky. Before either of them could run off or get lost in the crowd, Guts scooped them up and lifted them onto his shoulders.
“Guts! Over there!” Schierke shouted, pointing at the left wall.
Guts barreled his way through as carefully as he could, only leaving a small trickle of devastation in his wake instead of the usual wave. He was horrified when they reached the left wall. From end to end, all he could see were baskets of corpses, drained of life and stuffing, flat as the flags flying in the wind on a battlefield.
“Guts! Guts! Grab me a frog, I want a frog!” Schierke squealed in his ear. She leaned forward so far she had to hang onto Guts’ armored collar to keep from falling off. She pointed to a basket full of emaciated green frogs and Guts grimaced and he dug his hand in. To his surprise, they were soft, unlike real frogs. He grabbed one frog by its small fuzzy hand and lifted it above the basket. It rotated slightly, its eyes fixed on Guts.
“Sorry for taking you from your brothers,” he told the frog before handing it to Schierke. “Isidro, pick one so we can get out of here.”
“Ew! No! Stuffed animals are for girls!” Isidro pouted, dramatically crossing his arms.
“Grab him a monkey,” Schierke giggled.
“I don’t want a stupid monkey!”
“So you do want one,” Schierke said, grinning widely.
“If it's not stupid!”
“Just pick something,” Guts grumbled. “Or I’ll pick for you.”
“No!” Isidro shouted. “You’ll pick something just as stupid!”
Guts reached for a basket full of teddy bears and Isidro pulled sharply on his hair. Growling, Guts reached for a basket of bunnies and Isidro screamed that those were too girly. About ready to hurl Isidro across the room, Guts reached for a basket of dogs and Isidro scampered down his arm and grabbed a black lab before climbing back up to Guts’ shoulder.
“Alright! Next we need to go to the stuffing station!” Schierke yelled.
Guts didn’t move. He kept looking at the baskets of animals. The little soft fuzzy bunny wunny wabbits were calling to him.
“Guts! Come onnnnnn,” Isidro whined. He clutched his black lab to his chest, eagerly awaiting for it to be stuffed and huggable.
“Guts? Do you want a plushie as well?” Schierke asked.
Guts grunted. He reached into the rabbit basket and pulled out a brown rabbit with ears as long as its body. He gently stroked the ears, feeling an unfamiliar emotion. Perhaps it was peace.
“Now we can do the rest together,” Schierke said, smiling.
Guts grunted again before making his way into the line for the stuffing station. While they waited, Guts continued to pet his rabbit, careful not to shred it on his sharp gauntlets.
The employee craned her neck to look at Guts when they reached the front of the line and gave him a forced smile. “Are you ready to stuff your Build-a-Bears?” she asked. Guts nodded solemnly. “Not yet you’re not!” she said, handing each of them a small red heart.
To be skinned and have your beating heart ripped out of your chest, this truly is a place of evil rivaling the den of an apostle, Guts thought. If only each Build-a-Bear wasn’t 100 bucks, they could rescue them all but that wasn’t going to work with their budget.
Schierke and Isidro hopped off of Guts’ shoulders, cradling the felt hearts in their hands carefully. They gazed at the employee, awestruck and awaiting her next instructions. “Alright, friends,” the employee started, grabbing a heart for herself, “here’s what you need to do. To energize your new friend you need to rub their heart between your hands and jump up and down. That’ll give them all the energy they need to play and cuddle with you. Are you ready, friends?”
“Yeah!” Schierke and Isidro shouted. They started to jump up and down, rubbing their hands together as fast as possible.
“Mine’s gonna be sooo full of energy he could take on an entire army by himself,” Isidro said, sticking his tongue out at Schierke.
“Well mine's gonna be so smart she can do every spell and even make up new spells whenever she wants! And she can take on three armies at once if she wanted! But she wouldn’t because she hates violence so she’ll use her spells to make everyone be nice to each other!” Schierke shouted back, rubbing her hands together even faster.
“That’s stupid!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
Guts stared at the heart in his hands, tuning out the voices of Schierke and Isidro as they continued their childish argument. He folded his hands together and started to rub them together. The ground shook as he started to jump up and down, the polished wood floor cracking beneath him with every jump.
“Okay! Okay! That’s enough energy guys!” the employee said frantically, starting to see smoke coming from between Guts’ hands. “Now very quietly say a wish to your heart, so your new friends can help you reach your dreams.”
Guts stared at the small, only slightly burned heart in his hands and Schierke and Isidro whispered their wishes next to him. There were too many things he could wish for, none of which he thought he could burden something this small with. He glanced at the kids on either side of them, and whispered that he wished their dreams came true.
The three of them put the hearts inside their plushies and lined up at the stuffing station. Isidro went first, slamming his foot on the stuffing pedal like he was at a test your strength machine. Which Wikipedia tells me is also called a strongman game, high striker, or a strength tester or just whatever they call it in your area to cover all linguistic bases. Isidro’s dog looked so full of stuffing it was about to burst when Schierke shoved him off the pedal and put her own plushie on the machine. She checked on the huggablity of her plushie every few seconds until she decided it was at “a spiritually significant amount of fluff.” When it was Guts’ turn he pressed the pedal as gingerly as possible, stopping and starting like he was typing out a message in morse code. It was torturously slow. It was closing time when Guts was finished, the employees staring daggers into his back only outmatched by the burning fury of the kids and parents behind him. When the group turned towards the clothing section the employees wailed in despair. Thankfully, Guts looked at the prices and decided they would have to come back another time to give their plushies some drip.
An exhausted employee led Guts' group to some computer terminals to register their bears. And to pay hundreds of dollars the employees would never reap the benefits of, despite their unplanned, unpaid overtime. The birth certificates for their plushies printed out, only slightly cheaper and less worthless than a bachelor's degree.
The employees put the certificates in a large house shaped box along with the plushies for each of them. Schierke and Isidro wrapped their arms around the boxes, only slightly larger than them. They waddled out of the store with Guts behind them into the tranquility of a now empty mall.
Guts yawned and it echoed around them, the acoustics of the mall no different than a large cavern.
“Long day, huh?” Schierke asked, smiling behind her box.
Guts looked at his own plushie’s little house. He had just put his plushie’s name as Rabbit in the store, but that wasn’t out of a lack of care for her. She was safe in her box. He wanted to feel that safe. Maybe some of that could transfer over to him. Guts understood why Schierke had wanted to go to Build-a-Bear now. But now he wanted nothing more than to go home, get out of his armor, and sleep with his new friend in his arms.
“It was a good day,” Guts answered.