Ship In A Bottle (A Monkie Kid Reader Insert)

Chapter 37: Black Pawns

"What are you doing?! This is the only way we can fend ourselves against the bone demon!"

The Rhino King didn't think he'd see the day he'd point his bronze spear at his dear friend. Stubborn as ever was the snow leopard in front of him, completely misguided by that bone demon's promise.

"That girl has misled you, Leopard! The girl working for the spider sister is the bone demon!" He explained, trying to force some sense back to the leopard's head. "Puppeteering a child to remain undetected!"

"How would she even know about the shards, then?!" Leopard argued back, tail flicking in irritation at the utter nonsense his friend seemed to be spouting. "She was imprisoned before they were even created!"

"You severely underestimate her ability to gather crucial information by means of manipulating others." Warned the king, watching his volume at any chance of being eavesdropped in this dark forest, an entrance to a Vulpes evacuation center right behind him. "Much like what she's doing to you right now!"

"You're not making any sense here!" The leopard on the other hand had no such need of subtlety. Loud enough to be heard by one of the spider servants sent to keep an eye on him at the dead of night.

Goliath was never one to eavesdrop, not being one to listen to Syntax and Huntsman's arguments, nor the Queen when privately talking with the girl. But with what he was hearing right now...

Maybe he didn't know as much as Syntax. Maybe he didn't have the detective skills Huntsman had. Maybe he didn't know a lot, not even his own past. And certainly nothing about the girl.

The girl...

He shook his head. No, she only wanted what's best for the queen.

...Right?

"Leopard, I am warning you because you're my friend!" The Rhino King pleaded him to listen, blocking the leopard from the shard inside of the evacuation center. "This bone demon is many things! Dangerous things! And if there's one thing she is most infamous for..."

"It's her tendency to discard those she considers to be no longer of use."

The rest of the argument was a blur for Goliath. A ring in his ears that grew louder as that one sentence kept repeating in his head. He wanted to doubt. He wanted to swat it off. The air was cold, like the underground he was used to. But the more he thought, the more that chill felt unnatural...unwelcoming...

"That won't happen once I get that shard!"

Times like these is where he'd usually find himself trying not to think too deeply about it. It spared him the countless times of falling into a spiral of overthinking. It made him easily mistakable for the all-brawn, no-brain stereotype, but it was either that or being stuck a worrywart all of the time.

"That shard isn't going anywhere!"

No book will be enough to make him forget his worries this time.

The passiveness he accumulated from watching Syntax and Huntsman argued, bled into the situation he found himself. Stuck in a place where he wanted to intervene, but unable to move and stop the rhino and the leopard.

"Well if you don't want to use the shard, what else do you have in mind that could keep us safe from her?!"

"I...I made a blood oath with one of the heroes." The Rhino King mentioned hesitantly. "The one you fought earlier."

"Hah...hahahah...You're joking, right?" Leopard looked at him in disbelief, the spots on his fur glowing a bright white . "You made a blood oath with the blue cub, and I'm the one being used?!"