A Tale of Tales

Chapter 4: Reader's Revelations

"Hey, what're you doing here?" John called out.

"Wha- huh? John?" Purple frowned, seeing the red and black clad boy heading over. Despite the weather being warm, he was still wearing a scarf, but then again, people seemed to dress strangely all the time in these lands. "You go here too?"
"Not really," John shrugged. "I've gone to school, like, over a thousand times. It gets boring. A lot of things do. But hey! There's always new things to try, so don't worry about it."

"I- a thousand- what?" Purple stammered.

"Don't worry about it!" John repeated cheerfully. "Anyways, what's up? What're you doing here? You seem kinda lost."

"Well, I've been tracking those dog things down," Purple explained. "I seem to attract them, kind of, so I thought I'd find out who's making them. No luck so far," he sighed.

"Find the maker, huh..." John said, rubbing his chin.

[If we capture a dog, do you think you can use [Soul Siphon] to track down the source?]

[Maybe.]

The two were communicating silently using their messaging system, a built in function to the system John had used to pick up Purple's call earlier.

[Maybe? What's that supposed to mean?]

[Depends.]

John shrugged. If that was all Prota could say, then it really did depend on the situation. Even in text form, she remained silent. It was a habit from when they'd first met, and despite all John had done to try to bring her out of her shell, this was apparently the most he'd ever get. He smiled as he thought back to when they'd first met. Back then, she'd been so afraid of personal touch, afraid to get close to anyone or anything... at least the improvement since then was significant.

"Do you know where they're coming from, maybe?" Purple said.

"No," John shook his head. "If I knew, that would make things a lot easier..."

He thought. Mechanical usually meant Luna, but... why were these dogs so deadly in design? Most of Luna's bots weren't exactly overly lethal due to the nature of Gwain Saga, or perhaps the characters were just that strong, but if John and Prota were struggling against these things then Geo and his friends would too.

The other factor to consider was that the dogs were targeting John specifically. That meant they were after him, or more importantly, his memories. The creator of the dogs knew who he was. There was no other reason to target him.

That meant that there was one other person in this world that was aware of his true identity.

"How'd you get here?" Purple said after a brief silence.

"Oh, I just followed the princess," John said casually. That was a lie. Prota had picked John up and they'd flown around until they'd located the school, but Ami had recognized them and invited them in. However, because the two had left at noon, it was close to lunch time, and so the students were all still in class, leaving John and Prota to explore.

"The- you mean princess Ami? The daughter of our Queen Gwain?"
"Uh... yeah? Is that a big deal?"
"She's the princess, man!" Purple exclaimed in a whisper. "Of course that's a big deal!"
"I... right," John said with a small smile. "By the way, did you think about what I said about being a bodyguard?"

Purple was confused by the sudden change in topic, but nodded. "I mean, I've been looking for a job. Would it pay well? Who would I be protecting?"

John's small smile widened into a large grin. "So you know how we were talking about the princess?"

~~~

The lunch bell rang, and John got up from his spot on the roof, Prota standing beside him. She looked like a doll, with her sleeves extended past her hands, her overly large hood overshadowing her face, but she was a deadly doll. She got up from her spot on the floor and joined John in overseeing the courtyard.