Huh, would you look at that, I remembered this in something vaguely akin to a swift and timely manner. Go me?

Anyway, finally this is the final! Gods that took forever. Oh well, I'm happy. More chapters than S-hovel K-night and a better word count than what The Love of Shield Knight currently has is perfectly fine by me.

Short 29

"Ugh, I need a break," Mona complained.

Plague Knight glanced at her. "Fair," he replied simply, following her as she made her way to a nearby chair and sat down. She groaned.

"How hard is it to find a fucking reptile?"

"Apparently very." Plague Knight lightly pat her back in a vague attempt at making her feel better, frowning when she flinched. "You're hurting," he realized. "Why are you trying to hide it?"

Mona tried to wave it off. "It's just still a sensitive spot, Plaguey. Don't read too much into it."

Plague Knight crossed his arms. "I will read too much into it. Now go back to your room and rest."

Mona shook her head. "I'm fine; my feet are the only part of me that's hurting right now."

"Bullshit!" Plague Knight accused with such a stern voice that it actually made his partner cringe. "I didn't look too closely at those wounds when I was allowed a glance at them, but I know that they're pretty bad, and I will not stand by and watch while you run around like an idiot hurting yourself!" He let out a sigh and shook his head. "Can't you see I'm only demanding this from you because I care?"

Mona stared at him for a second before smiling and patting him on the head. Plague Knight had to consciously not react in a negative manner, as was what he almost did out of instinct. Instead, he received the pat with no movement that indicated whether or not he actually got any pleasure from it. With that done, she stood. Plague Knight followed her the whole way back to her room, watching her carefully while listening intently for the slithering noise of the slimy bastard that bit him.

He almost had a heart attack when he actually heard it. He looked to Mona and realized that she had missed it. "Stop," he ordered.

She dutifully paused and glanced back at him. "What?"

"Listen," he hissed.

Several moments passed, and there was not another sound.

Plague Knight let out a low sigh. "Just when I thought we had it, too…"

"What was it?" Mona asked.

"The snake. I heard it."

"It probably ran away."

"Yeah, most likely." He let out another sigh. "And I was hoping to finally stab it and be done with this."

"Just post a notice to the workers to keep an eye out for it." Mona suddenly realized something and lowered her head into her hands with a groan. "We could have just waited for the workers to get here and had them search for it instead."

Plague Knight's eyes widened in realization before he twitched in slight anger. "Excuse me while I go find a suitable place to bang my head against the wall."

Mona laughed. "Yeah, right? Hey, look at it like this, now you will have quite the interesting grand reappearance."

"Interesting as in I have to admit that I got bit, yeah."

"Oh, just make a big scene and no one will care. How about this? I'll go take a nap, and you go prepare the most vulgar speech you can."

Plague Knight raised an eyebrow at the latter half of the suggestion, but nevertheless nodded. "Sure."

(Many a minute later…)

Plague Knight carefully opened the door and poked his head in. Mona glanced at him from her position on the floor and smiled, giving him a small one fingered wave that had to take the cake for the laziest action he had ever seen her perform, impressive considering some of the things he had seen her do.

"The workers are here?" She guessed.

Plague Knight nodded slowly. "Yeah. Why the fuck are you on the floor?"

"You got my bed all bloody."

Plague Knight frowned. "Oops. Sorry, you know I didn't mean to do that." Mona make a small motion with her hand that he took as a 'don't worry about it' and thusly moved on. "I plan to put on quite the show. Wanna watch?"

Mona nodded and pulled herself to her feet, stretching for a brief moment before following her partner out to the room where all of their underlings had been gathered for reasons that they did not know.

"Bye," Plague Knight told her before jumping away.

With an overdramatic puff of smoke, Plague Knight appeared on the rock where he usually paced about when speaking to his workers.

"Good day, assholes!" He called out. Contrary to what one might expect considering his rather small body, his voice resonated loudly throughout the chamber.

The minions were ecstatic despite the rather rude greeting and there was happy shouting for several moments. Plague Knight made a motion for them to calm themselves, and, very slowly, they did.

Starting to pace almost immediately, Plague Knight announced, "Well, I'm glad you're happy, dumbfucks! I hope that should mean you're not when I announce that one of you fuckheads have tried to kill me!"

Murmuring began immediately, and Plague Knight had to motion for them to go silent again.

"I'm sure the twat in question is quite pissed to know that I'm still alive. Well, if you don't like it, then I dare you come over here and try to kick my ass, ya little prick." He waited for a couple seconds, but no one stepped forward. "As I thought, fucking cretin. Trust me; I'll root you out asshat. As the other important bit of business here, no you are not allowed to leave yet, dunces, the thing that was used in the attempt to take my life was a goddamn snake! Week's paid vacation for whichever one of you numbnuts manages to bring it to me, dead or alive."

There was a brief moment where no one moved. Then it clicked for one guy and he started to dash off. A couple more minions got the idea and followed.

Fearing that Mona might get caught in the ensuing stampede, Plague Knight made a gesture to her, and she swiftly joined him on the rock as everyone else figured out what was going on.

"When was the last time you allowed any of them time off?"

"Honestly?" Plague Knight shrugged. "I can't remember."

"What an amazing boss."

"Hey, they seem to like me."

"True enough. Amazing word choice, by the way. That has to your most insulting speech yet."

Plague Knight gave a small mock bow and started a fake acceptance speech. "Thank you, thank you. The person I have to thank the most for this great achievement is my dear partner Mona, whom has guided me along the path of being a jackass for many a year now."

Mona tried to suppress her laughter in response to this and barely succeeded. "You went a little overboard, I have to say. Was it necessary to call them something rude in literally every sentence?"

Plague Knight shrugged. "I was feeling inspired and came up with all kinds of mean nasty ugly things to call them, and I wasn't prepared to just not use them."

Mona rolled her eyes. "Whatever floats your boat."

Plague Knight nodded. "How long do you figure it will take for them to find the damn thing?"

"Too," was Mona simple response.

Once again, the male alchemist nodded. "Yeah, probably. Just this once, though, I hope you are incorrect."

"Oh, so you want it to take way too?"

"Not in the slightest. I want it dead and the idiot who set it loose in massive pain." He paused and suddenly something came to him. "Oh gods, I know who it is."

Mona cocked her head to the side. "What? Who?"

Plague Knight jumped off the rock. "That moron who realized I was Adam! He wanted to get rid of me while I was still a child, and therefore weaker!"

Mona thought for a second and then shrugged. "Makes sense, I guess. Man, what a dumbass, giving you reason to suspect him."

"Clearly he thought I would be dead."

"But why approach you and confirm your identity? And why not use something more deadly?"

"Maybe he was afraid of hurting an actual child? And maybe he wanted me to suffer a slow and painful death?"

"You didn't seem particularly pained."

"Yeah, it was just slow and obnoxious."

"Well, there's a reason you call them dumbasses."

"That is very much true. Now then, are you going to go back to your room to sleep on the cold hard floor, or are you going to come with me to accuse a potential assailant?"

Mona frowned. "Can't I take the third option?"

Plague Knight had a confused expression on his face as he asked, "There was a third option?"

"Yeah. Sleep in your room, where the bed isn't ruined," Mona informed him with a grin.

Plague Knight's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Oh, uh, sure, I guess. Only fair since I was sleeping in yours for a couple days."

"Damn straight. Don't get yourself killed now!"

Plague Knight waved his hand in an uncaring motion. "Yeah, yeah, I got it. Go rest now. I should be by in around 20 minutes."

He waited until she was gone before turning and calling for another meeting.

Plague Knight stared at the wriggling mass of workers and growled. He couldn't find the guy if he were wearing a neon flashing sign on his face.

Sighing, he called out, "I don't care if vertical or horizontal, but I want you idiots to form lines, now!"

There was a couple seconds while the command registered in everyone's minds, and then the crowd attempted to act out the demand. Some of the minions thought they should form vertical lines while others thought horizontal lines were best, and in the end the only thing that they achieved was that they majorly ticked off their boss.

"Just make some goddamn lines, is that so much to ask?!" Plague Knight shrieked.

One guy, thinking it wouldn't hurt him to be a smartass, said, "Actually, you didn't ask it, you demanded it."

Plague Knight growled and tossed a couple bombs in the man's general direction. There were a couple horror filled cries of shock and he guessed at least two guys were dead.

"Anyone else want to test my patience?" No one said a word. "Good. Lines, now!"

The remaining minions jumped into action, frantically trying to organize themselves. The end result of five minutes of this was a compromise between the two groups, that being a grid.

"You've got to be kidding me," Plague Knight sighed. "Can't even decide when I give them only two options."

He started to stroll down a lane, staring at the hoods covering their faces before pausing and realizing that this plan wasn't going to work in the slightest.

Returning to his rock, he announced, "I need to speak to the guy I was chatting with yesterday. You know who you are. No, you are not in trouble. Maybe. Depends."

No one spoke up.

Plague Knight looked to one of the minions. "Are there any absences today?"

"Uh, no sir, I don't believe so," the man replied.

"Good. Then where is he?"

"Um, sir, you weren't even here yesterday…"

"It was outside of work hours."

"O-okay sir."

"Alright asshole! Where art thou?"

The response to this was a lot of suppressed chuckling from the mass of workers.

Plague Knight sighed. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Thou art here," came a voice from behind.

Plague Knight jumped in shock and whirled around, finding no one there.

"Boss!" One of his workers cried.

Plague Knight spun around in time to receive an incoming knife headed for the back of his head. Instead of it embedding itself into his skull, it instead lodged itself into his mask. He fell over and didn't dare move. He could feel the tip of the knife brushing against skin.

A minion came over and crouched beside him. "You're still breathing," he observed. Plague Knight recognized the voice as the guy he had thought was the one wanting his head on a platter. Reaching forward and grabbing the knife, he muttered, "You got lucky that time. I didn't think that mask of yours was quite so thick." He pulled out his weapon. "So, I trust you are ready to die?"

"Not a chance," Plague Knight growled, grabbing onto the weapon before it could be used against him. The steel cut into his hand, but he ignored it because he knew he could simply heal it later.

He pushed himself up and headbutted the man in the face. His assailant reeled back and relinquished his grip on the knife. Plague Knight quickly proceeded to toss the blade behind him. Judging from the cry of shock and pain, it probably landed on someone's foot.

The alchemy based knight curled his hand into a tight fist as he stomped over to where the man was trying to shake off his new headache. He glanced up in time to receive a punch right to the side of the head.

"You have no idea how much shit I have got through the past three weeks, and you'd better believe I am not going to take this lying down!"

For the next couple minutes, Plague Knight beat on the man, never quite giving him enough time to recover, but also being sure to not knock him out, which was not particularly difficult considering his lack of strength. The reason was no longer because the asshole had attempted to kill his boss, but rather because the short alchemist desperately needed some stress relief, and this was proving to be the perfect outlet.

He only stopped when someone called out, "I got it!"

After his latest punch connected, Plague Knight glanced back and found someone was holding up a dead snake. Why the guy had been searching instead of heeding the call of his boss was beyond him, but nevertheless, he said, "Week's paid vacation, starting tomorrow. Hold me to it." The man nodded, overjoyed, as he continued. "Put it in the storeroom. You didn't happen to get bitten, by the way, right?" The man shook his head. "Good. You have nothing to worry about. Go on now."

Plague Knight turned back to find that the rest of his workers finally started to do something useful and were now detaining the man who had wished harm upon him.

"Hm, what should I do with you…?" He wondered along as he crouched in front of the man, who growled. "Oh, don't be like that, you've brought this one on yourself. Now then, how do you want to die?"

"I would prefer it if I didn't die, thank you very little," the man spat.

"Then why would you dare attack me?"

"Because I hate you."

"But why? I'm paying you."

"You never give us time off!"

"That's because there's always work to be done. How often do you see me or Mona slacking off besides when we're passed out from exhaustion?"

The man did not respond.

"Exactly. We're doing far more work than you, 24/7 at that. You're allowed to go home every day at 6. Hell, you wouldn't even be here if you didn't find some joy from alchemy, right?"

"I started hating it working here."

"Then why didn't you just give me your two week notice a good long time ago?"

"Because, believe it or not, there's a bounty on your head, and if I kill you I can collect that."

Plague Knight frowned. "And I'm done with you." He then proceeded to shove a bomb in the man's face. Looking up to the men who had held his opponent down, he said, "Let this be a reminder why you don't fuck with me."

The men nodded hastily and made to remove the body from the area.

Pushing himself back into a standing position, Plague Knight turned to the rest of the crowd. "Don't cross me," he snarled to them, earning a couple frightened squeaks in response. "Now then, I'm going to disappear for a couple hours. If you need me, it better be fucking good."

Swiftly, Plague Knight retreated to his room. Along the way, he found Xenon, waiting outside his room with an expectant look on her face.

"Why are you out here?" He questioned as he opened the door. He imagined she would have shrugged if she had actually understood him and was physically capable of such. Instead, incapable of either, she wandered in without any particular sort of reply.

He almost crawled into bed before pausing and looking down at his bloodied hand and groaning, searching through his drawers in the hopes that he actually had a health potion squirreled away somewhere. Eventually, he located one and looked at it with disgust when he found that there was somehow a thin layer of mold on it.

"Ew," he muttered to himself, leaving the room and making his way to the storeroom. After discarding the old potion, healing his hand and washing the blood off, he returned to his room. He lifted Xenon onto the bed and threw his mask and belt to the side before crawling under the covers, snuggling up next to the sleeping Mona.

"Sleep well, my dear," he said, fully aware she likely couldn't hear him. He yawned and closed his eyes, feeling himself drifting off to sleep. Still, he provided his sleeping companion with a final message. "Soon enough, it will almost be like this shit never happened. Except for the cat. She will remain. See you when I wake up, and try not to die until then."

And the lamest fucking ending that has ever existed! Yes, I'm seriously that lazy as to not figure out a proper ending.

I was going through this for errors just a bit ago and was shocked by how... well, odd Plague Knight is. I've been trying to write him closer to his canon crazy self for Queen Propeller and was honestly perturbed by the lack of his constant laugh, but also just his overall characterization. I liked the way he interacts with his minions because it feels more in line with how he would honestly speak to him, but... *shrug*
In terms of characterization this story was a complete and utter failure on just about every level. As with just the story in general, but I liked making it. It was interesting.

If anyone actually gives a shit about seeing me attempt to write him correctly, I direct you to Queen Propeller. I know that sounds like it's blatantly trying to advertise another one of my stories, and it kinda is. It needs more love, people! It's good for a laugh if nothing else, mostly to me because I keep on trying to not make Plaguey a major character, but he's kinda wormed his way in there anyway. Oops. Dammit, Plague Knight.