Hi~hi! Thanks for 55k on Mad Hatter and 17k on Black Feathers! I honestly didn't think that my stories would pick up that much! Thank you again!
(The picture above is the renowned 'White Prince' a.k.a Sir Alec Clover)
Who is speaking?
"MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!!! = When a
'normal' person is speaking.
"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!!!" = When the flowers are speaking.
"Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru..." =When Cheshire is speaking.
"Brains..."
Mr. Rabbit blinked.
Raising up his paw, he disintegrated the walking corpse with a blank expression.
"Evil begone!" Reo yelled, creating a ball of 'sound' in his palm then 'spiked' it (lol, haikyuu trash, did ya see what I did there?) towards one of the corpses beside Mr. Rabbit.
"Where's the White Prince?!" Noelle asked frantically, holding her wand near her chest.
Asta slashed at the remaining 'living' dead dudes on his area, "I don't know! Where's Mady?!" He asked instead.
Mr. Rabbit frowned. "Did the stupid cat and the insect disappear too?!" He yelled over the noise Reo was making to send the intruders to the wall behind them.
"I don't see them anywhere!" Noelle answered for Asta because he clearly can't answer with the amount of zombies trailing after him.
"I need to find Mady! Stay safe!" Mr. Rabbit said before hopping away.
A zombie tried to crawl over to Mr. Rabbit but Asta kicked the corpse away and said, "Get a life, you dead people!"
"Mr. Rabbit! Stay safe!"
"Find Mady-chan please!"
"Shut up, Trash!"
"You sound just like Iwa-chan!"
Crack
"Holy Moly! The wall just cracked!" Asta said, pointing to the wall that is barricading one of the houses beside them.
Meanwhile...
"Cheshire, where are we going?"
The group stopped in the middle of the hallway. They can hear shouts outside but Mady was told to ignore it.
Cheshire gave her a large grin then placed his paw over his front teeth. "Shh."
In a split second, Mady's grimoire flew up without her consent and opened to Cheshire's page.
Cheshire disappeared then reappeared sitting on Mady's tall top hat as he looked at the page with the ancient writing.
He opened his mouth and childishly chanted,
"Helan Magikos!"
Helan Magikos - Magic Hole
The ground below the three suddenly opened, and they fell down.
Darkness engulfed them and by the time Mady opened her eyes, she's already standing in front of a large clearing with thick dark oak trees surrounding the area.
There was a lone Willow Tree in the middle of the piece of land, a small lake surrounding it.
The area before them was breathtaking. It almost felt like it all came out of a Fairy Tale book. And the Willow Tree is the main setting.
But something is extremely weird with this scenery...
There is no sun, yet the room is illuminated. As if there's some sort of invisible light source in the area.
There's no sky either. Only a high roof of mossy cobblestone. Everything around them is green. Full of life. Plants, grass, trees.
This scene reminded Mady of the underground dungeon she went to when she encountered the eccentric blue cat.
"Woah." Mady breathed out.
Cheshire grinned. "Hehe."
Caterpillar removed the tobacco from his mouth. "Shouldn't we be doing what we're supposed to be doing? She needs to go back and help the others in the town, Cheshire. Have you forgotten that we're miles away from the Clover Kingdom?" He asked, exasperated.
Cheshire, who is now floating in the air in front of the two, rolled over his back and said in his deep voice, "Relax, Absolem. I was about to do it. Let's go."
Mady looked back and forth between the two talking animals. Not saying a word and just kept quiet in hidden confusion.
The two animals lead Mady to the center on the edge of the circular lake where the Willow Tree resides.
Cheshire teleported to the side of the Willow, tapping the front part of the largest root three times.
A small hole opened up in the middle part of the wood of the Tree as Cheshire reached his paw and pulls out some kind of object.
He teleported back to Mady's side, the hole on the Tree immediately closing back as if the hole wasn't there in the first place.
Cheshire grinned excitedly, "Hey Mady~ Absolem and I wanna give ya some treat! Eat this!" He reached out his paw in front of Mady's face, revealing a small evening-primrose with spikes of pinkish-purple flowers.
"What's that?" Mady asked, tilting her head to the side while still staring at the flower on Cheshire's paw.
Caterpillar let out a puff of smoke, "That's a fireweed. It was once called Epilobium angustifolium by the tribes of Kurotori at the foot of the Bald Mountain."
Mady raised her head, "Epilobium angustifolium? A Willow Herb?" She asked.
Cheshire widened his grin, if that was even possible, "Ho, Ho! Mady is really smart!"
Mady tilted her head again, "But why does Mady have to eat the Willow Herb?"
Cheshire teleported on Mady's top hat, swaying his tail in front of the girl's face and tickling her nose, a paw still holding out the Willow Herb from above her hat.
"Just trust us, Mady." Caterpillar said, pulling out another tobacco and putting the other end in his mouth.
"..."
"It tastes like honey~"
"Okay!"
chomp
Back to Asta and the others...
"ASTAAAAAA!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THAAAAAATT?!?!?" Reo shouted, running over to the ash-haired boy who is slashing his sword around the corpses that is starting to gain on him, only for the zombies to get knocked down by a running Reo.
"REO! STOP!! BOTHERING!!! ME!!!!" Asta yelled, slapping the 'crying' brown-haired boy in the face left to right with every word.
Noelle sweatdropped at the sight. "Oi! Quit playing around and fight, idiots!"
Reo tugged Asta's collar, "Asta! Miss Noelle! You have to look at that thing! That thing!" He started pointing at the direction he just came from.
All three of them looked at where he was pointing.
Noelle blinked. "Is that...?"
Asta blinked. "...a rabbit...?"
Reo shrunk behind Asta, "T-t-that's a c-c-c-c---"
"A what? Spit it out!"
"Carrot?"
"Cake?"
"Caramel?"
Reo continued stuttering, "..c-c-c-co--"
"Co?"
"Cotton candy?"
"Ah! Cookies!"
*sigh* This is worse than playing Charades.
Reo's eyes widened. "C-c-corpse! A rabbit corpse!"
"..."
The said rabbit corpse looked up at them with crazy brown eyes.
Then, with a surprisingly loud voice, he frantically asked, "Rabbit corpse?! Where?! Where?! Is it dangerous?! Hide me!!"
He hugged his own figure while shaking rapidly, snapping his head around.
The rabbit has a disheveled dark brown fur with a small dirty white mini shirt and small blue jacket that has holes in them. Dark brown eyes that held a lot of emotion. Surprise, fright, excitement.... and thirst for blood.
Using the group's confusion, he jumped up and fished out a silver dagger behind him with a sinister grin.
Although he's fast, Asta and Reo were faster as the two dragged Noelle with them to the side. Yet the rabbit managed to leave a small gash on Asta's cheek.
"Why you--?!" Asta grabbed his own sword and started to charge to the rabbit but he stopped when he saw the brown rabbit's eyes turning scared as he trembled with fright. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It was an accident! Forgive--"
In a split second, he returned to his thirsty for blood attitude, "---me!!" And dashed towards Asta, stabbing him in the leg this time.
"...?!" Asta grunted in pain and grabbed the dagger from his leg but the silver dagger already removed itself from Asta's leg and flew towards the rabbit's outstretched hand.
"WHAT?!"
"Asta!"
Noelle and Reo rushed to Asta's side.
Their animal assailant snickered as he points the sharp end of his dagger towards their direction. "The name's Mad Hare. Not Rabbit Corpse. Not Brown Rabbit. But Mad Hare." He threw his dagger towards them and Noelle deflected it with her water barrier.
However, to their surprise, the dagger started to float back to Mad Hare's hand.
"And my ability is..." The dagger finally returned to his hand.
"Steal."
.
.
.
"Steal, You say~?"
Reo, Noelle, Asta and Mad Hare turned to look at the direction of the voice.
They were faced by a red-eyed Mady, a darkly grinning Cheshire, and a smoking Caterpillar. Half of Mady's face is once again covered by dark brown roots.
Mad Hare stepped back in shock. 'Isn't that...?!'
Mady's grimoire flew up then opened from the other side.
"No. Let Mady attack first." Cheshire said with a deep voice, the unsettling grin still presenting on his face.
The red-eyed 'Mady' huffed then rolled her eyes. When it turned back, her eyes were back to purple as her grimoire turned to the front side, opening to a blank page.
"A new spell?" Asta muttered beside Noelle and Reo.
'Plant Magic: Epilobium Angustifolium'
'Phase Omega'
The earth started to rumble.
Shaking violently.
Each shake started to echo in rhythm as it reaches the outskirts of the whole territory of the Kingdom.
Cheshire looked around, a normal grin placing itself on his face, "So this is Phase Omega."
Caterpillar held up a hand to silence him.
The ground opens up in front of their group. It was so sudden that Noelle, Asta and Reo had to jump away.
The Mad Hare started to run away from them, sweat dropping off of his face.
"I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead--"
"You're dead."
Red-eyed Mady was back, standing in front of the Mad Hare's way, the ground still shaking violently.
Her grimoire flew and opened to the back part as she raised her hand up, the Mad Hare closed his eyes.
'Mind Control: Fr--?!'
"--- No!"
"Urgh! Stop interrupting me, Hatter--!"
"--Don't hurt him!"
"---I don't care! I've never had any fun yet--"
"---No! Please stop!"
Mady's eyes started to flash back and forth between both colors of purple and red answering her own sentences with another sentence, as if opposing herself, clutching her head tightly as her body glitched around and started to reveal another person from her body.
Cheshire frowned. Disappearing and reappearing in front of Mady. "§ţřąęĦ. Stand back."
Asta, Noelle and Reo strained their ears to listen but Cheshire's first word seemed to become distorted, yet they still can hear the rest of his words.
Purple-eyed Mady was back, the roots from her face disappearing as Cheshire calmly looked at her, Caterpillar still smoking beside them.
At that same moment, the ground stopped shaking violently, preventing the houses around them from collapsing. Should the shaking had continued, then Clover Town will be destroyed.
Cheshire slowly turned his head towards the other three Black Bulls, the unsettling grin now back to his face.
"You three..." He purred.
'Earth Spirit: Memory root.'
'Evanescere'
A bright flash resonated from their area, making the other fighting mages look up at the sudden flash.
"What was that?"
"Ignore it and just fight!"
A few moments later, Asta woke up and saw Noelle's tired face hovering above him.
A groan escaped Reo's lips who is sitting beside them.
"What just happened?" He asked.
Asta blinked for a few times, a blank expression on his face.
"I..."
"...don't remember."
(A/N: Owo! What do you think will happen?! What in the world is a Willow Herb?! Why is Caterpillar and Cheshire acting strange?! Do you think Mad Hare will be Mady's friend?! I'm sorry I was out for too long!!)