Orange Eyes, Red Glow (Underfell Sans x OC)

Zero - "That One Idiot With The Sword"

Everything around us is in the process of blatantly going to hell.

Even Rhiott is uneasy, pressing at my grip on the body.

Rounding the bend in our speeding car seems to take eons, my hands gripping the wheel impatiently. Roaring engines behind us spur me on. Bandits aren't to be fucked with.

I always read books to pass time as a kid, old ones about knights and dragons, and the old times, before monsters. No one tracks the year anymore, at least no one willing to share, so I'll likely never know how long it's been since those books took place. Their interpretations of bandits, though? Almost always horribly off the mark.

See, for one? Bandits don't wear anything piratelike, and they don't always, or even usually, look any different than anyone else. That's the point. To con someone, you have to do it under the radar, right? Hence the blending.

They also don't scrap as much, or scalp people. Usually. With real bandits, it's lead and crowbars, engines and baseball bats covered in barbed wire, gore caught in the inner workings. I haven't met one yet willing to make an evil speech, or even a dying one. Well, there's a first time for everything, even that, waiting for me out there, I'm sure.

I can't spare the time to look for my lucky bandit today, though. My cargo rattles against the worn, rickety floorboards of the car, and I hope vaguely that it doesn't break open, ruining the purpose of my risk.

Medicine is expensive. I am sick. The two, combined? Well, basically they suck. So, instead of buying things like salve or pills, I loot them from abandoned... or maybe not entiiirely abandoned, camps. This one happened to house bandits, which brings me back to our current dillema. Rhiott's aching to take hold, but I shove her out of the way for now. I can't afford the chaos.. Not yet.

I take a sharp turn once I hit town off the back roads, a desperate right in an attempt to lose my pursuers. Old buildings, residential purposes, I'd guess, litter the growth on ether side of each road, and the air smells like burnt leaves, blood, and gas, telltale signs. My attackers likely wrecked, which is very good for me, save for them being directly in my line of travel, which is fine if they're on foot with no guns. Otherwise? I'll burn that bridge when I get there.

Gunning it like this got me there pretty fast. Immediate gunshots. Bang-Bang!!ing and pops ring out in a booming chorus around me, overwhelming my senses in a flurry of noise and commotion the moment I zip out of the old residential buildings. I blank for a moment, and forget to keep my foot gassed up, which is really what does it. My door is shot through, barely missing me with the bullet, and I draw a ragged and indignant breath, grasping at the door. The nearest bandit calls his buddies over the help him, and they all heave on the door, sealing its fate, and mine. My grip will only last so long, and they know it.

After what seems like an eternity, my will snaps along with the hinges.

RHIOTT - "That One Idiot With The Sword"

The door swings wildly open, and instantaneaously I feel unsafe. I trust that. I'm good at this, it's my thing. Chaos. My wonderful, beautiful partner in crime.

I hurl myself to my left, dodging swings from the bandits. My chest hurts from the pounding inside, and I can feel the adrenaline, like lava, scalding me. I never feel so alive as I do when I'm like this.

I can't revel in it for too long, because I'm still being attacked. Now these assholes have me surrounded. One of the uglier ones, wearing kakis and a smirk, fires a warning shot at the ground somewhere to his right, my left, where it makes a clanging sound on whatever it hits. I cringe, then laugh.

"Such pageantry, boys! Can't we all just learn to get along?" I hope my show distracts them from the car. Zero and I both need what's in there, and I think these idiots think its on me, rather than still in the box.

"I doubt you seriously think we would consider that. Tell us where you're keeping what you stole, and maybe I won't paint the ground a pretty new shade of brain," the ringleader with the gun sneers at me, waving it around.

"Hey, boss! No need to reason with the bitch, I found it all! The dumb whore kept it all in the box, riiight in front," one of the others, apparently a lackey, just fucked my whole plan in its ass. Well, time for no holds barred!

"Well, that saves us all some time, doesn't it!" I draw out my blade from its sheith, a long silver piece gifted to me long ago. My smile matches the glint of the metal as I throw myself at the leader, swiftly getting behind and under him. He doesn't even know what I've done until his legs collapse, tendons fully severed, and my blade tips his chin up to meet my gaze with his own.

"Poor bandit. Give me what I've taken, and I'll spare you and yours," my saccharine grin and tone don't match the malice in my eyes, I'm sure, but since when have I ever cared?

Rhiott. No. This isn't how we handle things. This puts us at risk for gaurdian involvement. Give him his freedom, and life. Leave. Pray they don't report us.

Zero always knows how to kill the mood.

I have this covered, Z! Butt the fuck out.

That ought to do it.

Rumbling cuts through my resolve and focus, and a sudden CLANG of metal to my left draws everyone's gaze, including my own.

Skeletal hands grasp the edges of a circular metal rim, outlining a hole in the ground. Discarded, a matching metal disk lays a few feet away, sticking out from the soil, where it appears to have been thrown really fucking aggressively.

The hands pull a form out of the hole, and sure enough, they appear to be attached to an entire living skeleton. I've never seen this type of monster before.

"Seems like ya got yourself in a bit of a bind there, dollface. This must be what made that noise up here, a gunshot from your, er- friend there," The skeleton, who I definitely can tell based on his voice, now, is a boy, gestures to the discarded firearm on the ground. I can't believe I haven't grabbed that yet.

This guy is making me look like an idiot.

"Listen, if you aren't here to help, then get lost. I have enough issues here to deal with, thank you!" My hair brushes into my eyes as I nod emphatically towards my captive. The newcomer just chuckles a bit.

"Oh, those? Here," reaching into his leather vest, the skeleton suddenly flicks out 7 knives in quick succession, not giving the bandits any time to process, or even run. One by one, all but the one at the tip of my blade falls in a pool of his own blood. The stench of it reeks. I watch the skeleton, who I now know to be deadly, as he looks to me, then my captive, and arches his browbone. His eyes burn red at me, and I look away, unsure of why.

My gaze hardens at the sight of my captor, then captive, and now victim. We could never let him leave here. It would be asking for trouble.

He doesn't even have time to recover from the shock long enough to snivel a begging plea before he joins his brothers, dead in the grass.

"So, who might ya be, besides 'That one idiot with the sword'? I mean really, honey, what're ya doin, taking on all of them with just a toothpick like that? Alone?" He smirks at me, picking his exposed teeth with one of his throwing knives.

"Couldn't I say the same of you? All I see on you is a smug bastard smirk and tiny knives," I retort, but take a breath afterwards. He did save our collective ass.

"All the same, the names are Rhiott and Zero. Rhiott's who you're talking to. Thanks for sticking these assclowns, it would've been a real royal pain otherwise."

"No problem sweetheart. And, just in case ya wondered, the name's Red. And, you're welcome. You're still gonna be idiot sword girl in my mind though, for a good while there, dollface."

And just like that, me and Zero finally agree on something. This guy is one smug asshole. We also disagree on something else. I, personally? I think he's a bit sexy. But you didn't hear that from me.