COMPANION (A Smile Dog Story)

Chapter 18

Ticci Toby

   I walked through the woods, occasionally talking to myself.
   "What is she?" A voice said from behind me. I turned around to face the voice.
   It was Ben, with a stack of Pringle's.
   "Uh, a human girl?" I suggest.
   "No, no she is defiantly not just a 'human girl'". Ben insisted. He stuffed his hand into the jar, sighed when he couldn't fit it in, and tipped the jar over and poured a couple chips into his hand.
   "Well, she certainly seems one. No special properties, doesn't look special, the only thing I find truly extraordinary about her is how much ice cream she can eat." I said, snatching a chip from Ben and popping it into my mouth. It was the French onion flavor.
   "No, no, no, she can do weird, scary shit man. When I first met her, she Astro projected into my worst nightmare and threatened me."
   "oh? What was the nightmare."
   "..."
   "Come on, Ben, you can tell me, I'll keep it a secret." I said.
   "... a really, REALLY tall person made of water." He said, shaking his head.
   "Sound more surreal and fantasy like than nightmarish."
   "No, she was maybe 14 ft tall, taller than Slender, and lots of murky water floated around like a dress. It was really intimidating, not only that, but she gave off the same aura my uncle did." He spat out the word 'uncle' as if it where a curse.
   "So big scary water lady that scared the living hell outta you?" I said through Pringle's.
   "Yea- WAIT how did you get my Pringle's...!" He said.
   "While you where taking a trip down memory lane."
   "Ugh... don't tell the others." Ben huffed, then he floated away, "meet you at the house, I'll be in my roooooom." He said, bored.
    "Sure thing."

Awhile later...

   "So... your telling me Y/N can manifest into beings of worst fears using Astro projections?"
   "Yessir." I told Slenderman.
   He hummed a response, and continued doing paperwork.
   ...
   "Don't you think shes worth a li—title more than a body disposer? I think we can all dispose bodies pretty well."
   "Yes."
   ...
   "And?" I asked impatiently.
    "And what do you want to do about it?"
   "Well maybe she could be of use to us-
   "No, she doesn't trust us yet, and in this community, trust is everything. She has had no physical training, no stealth lessons, and no capabilities outside the realm of sleep, and what do you want to do? Send her off to fight Zalgo's army and watch while she's teared to bloody little shreds? I will not allow it."
   ...
   "You have a point. I'm sorry sir." I sighed.
   "Now, don't be so depressed. She doesn't have any training yet, so I'm assigning her proxies as coaches and mentors."
   "Really? Who?"
   "Jeff will be teaching offense and defense, Ben will teach her infiltration and stalking, you will be stealth and preying, and Clockwork will be teaching speed and endurance."
   "Jeff? A teacher?"
   "Yes, he has more knowledge about hand to hand combat than any of us here, and though he has a short fuse, that will push y/n to learn faster."
   "And why me? I can hardly pay attention in EJs dissection courses."
   "Your best at picking and choosing the correct enemy or victim to go after, your plenty quiet to finish the job, and your patient, you'll be a stupendous mentor." he said. I was a little, scratch that, very proud to be praised like that by the boss.
   "And what if she fails at this?" I asked.
   "I doubt she will."
   "But what if she does?"
    ....
   "Well?"
    ....
   Slenderman put his pen down and moved the paper he was working on to face me properly.
   I took it, lifted my goggles, and looked at it.
   "Well, if the stats are too low, kill her, though I'de rather that not happen." He said, getting up. I looked back down at the paper this back up to see slender gone. I turn around and he was opening the door to his office, and before he slipped out, he seemed to look directly at me, even without eyes, "She's quite a young lady, no?"
   And with that he shut the door.
   The paper was a status report, meant to be filled out by each of the coaches and mentors by the end of two months.
   ...
   ...
   "Well I'm sorta fucked." An overly familiar voice grumbled.
   Jeff strutted into view from the doorway, Clockwork and Ben following on his heels.
   "But it will be fun to blow a whistle and scream 50 pushups if she does something wrong."
   "No, I do that, your offense and defense, I'm endurance and speed." Clockwork said, jabbing her thumb at her chest.
   "I've never taught anyone something like this, I've only really done basic video game walkthroughs."
   "I mean, its not like we're low on time. Slenderman promised us a two month break after that last crazy ass mission we went on." Clockwork said.
    "Yeah, sifting through those government files were a lot harder than I thought it would be." Ben said, staring at his phone, "those anti-virus programs, firewalls, and libraries and libraries worth of information made it hard to find what we where lookin for."
    "But at least it's a break. And hey, this time, it's us teaching, not Slenderman. I wonder why Slender won't teach her himself." Jeff yawned.
   "He's always got all that paperwork, negotiating, and breaking up fights with his brothers to do that kind of stuff." Clockwork said staring at the ceiling.
   There was a couple seconds of an awkward silence.
   We all found ourselves grinning, "This'll be fun." We all said.
   "But, we have to play by one rule; no direct harm will come to her, but if it's a practice, Sure, but if it's out of rage, we can tattle on each other, agreed?" I said, pulling my mask and goggles on my face.
   "Sure."
   "Ok."
   "No shit, Slenderman would have my head on a pole for the vultures, and I'm a ghost."
   "Then it's final, no torture or any sadistic stuff. Lets go kill something. Just for a little fun before we have to coach all day." Ben said, floating through the doorway.
   "I'm coming to." Clockwork said.
   "Why not, I'll sleep tomorrow." Jeff said, taking Jennifer out of his pocket.
   I followed them, and we found ourselves walking into the night air with a little thirst for blood.

A/N
Sorry I haven't posted anything for awhile #-#
*blasts Northern Downpour and cries.*