Patches and Bubbles

by loststone

I Can't Think of a Serious Chapter Name

“AHHHH! AHHHH!!!”

“Oh, gods, my ears! Hexxus, what are you making all that noise for?” Anasta yelled over his screaming as she shot up in the bed she had been lying in… and that is when the throbbing pain kicked in. It felt worse than a cartoon monkey hitting her in the head multiple times with an over-sized wooden mallet. She looked down at the source of her pain, who was face down on the floor kicking at his blankets. “Hexxus, shut UP!” Ow! Bad idea, shouldn't have yelled.

“Mwuhhhh no, stay away from me Georgino, don’t hit me with the stage light.” Anasta felt the bed suddenly lurch away from where he was sleeping. She looked over the edge just in time to see him punch the side of her bed again. “Haha, take that, you damn zompony!”

He never ceases to annoy me, even in his accursed sleep. Anasta picked up her own pillow and lobbed it at him; hitting him in the back of the head. “Darnit Hexxus, stop making so much noise.” He only turned around and faced the other direction, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Uhg, whatever.”

She rubbed her throbbing head, as she groggily slid off of the bed and found her way to the door. She grabbed the handle, and that’s when the true pain overcame her senses. As the door opened, it let out an ear-rending CREEEEEEEEEEEK that made Anasta grind her beak.

“Uhhhg, Anasta, please stop torturing me with that door!” yelled Hexxus who appeared to be suffering from an even worse hangover. ”GAH! My ears. GAH, not again. GAH!”

“Shut up, Hexxus!”

Silence befell the room once again before Anasta started to slowly creak open the door a second time. This time, they endured their unnatural throbbing headaches, and Anasta slipped out of the room and made her way to the spiraling staircase without bothering to close the door behind her. Once on the main level of the house, she pushed her way through the saloon-like doors of the kitchen and was met by a flurry of movement.

“Goooooood morning Anny~!” sang her cheerful companion’s voice followed by the significantly softer voices of her aunt and uncle.

“Hexxus, I thought I told you to shut up.” She paused and did a double take of who was in the kitchen with her. Her Aunt and Uncle were both sipping cups of coffee, nursing their own cases of the brown bottle flu. Bill’s friend Jackson, who had also stayed the night, was smoking a pipe, and Hexxus was at the stove, and his arms were a blur as they prepared some colorful dish. “Wait, weren’t you just upstairs in bed? And what happened to your hangover?”

“Oh Anasta, good morning.” her aunt said in an understandably hushed tone. “Hexxus is such a darling; he helped all of us get up, made us these wonderful cups of coffee, and is now making us... oh, what did you call it again?”

“French toast!”

“But he was just, and I... Oh, forget it.” Anasta just shrugged it off as Hexxus being Hexxus, and sat down at the table. She was in the middle of trying to remember what happened last night, and was halfway through the part where she tried to get the bartender to give her a piggy-back ride, when her thoughts were interrupted by a glass being slammed down in front of her. She looked up at Hexxus, who was grinning like a mad man. Oh, what does he want now?

“Drink up. This should help clear up that hangover of yours faster than you can say ‘I can’t hold my liquor’.” She looked at her relatives who gave her concerned looks, then to Jackson, who was shaking his head, as if he were saying, ‘I wouldn’t do it if I were you,’ and he was probably right.

But the expectant look in Hexxus’s eyes and the hope of curing the blistering headache brought on by her first hangover, gave her the courage to reach out to the tall, ominous glass of liquid. As it neared her mouth, she could see over the brim at the sloshing brown liquid inside. It had a pungent smell to it that rivaled even the worst of jock straps. She closed her eyes, and took one final moment, before bringing it to her beak. The smell alone, even though it was making her gag, had already started to ease the pain of her headache and that was all she needed to know before letting it pour into her mouth.

“Oh. My. God.” she said, bringing the mug away from her to look at the concoction. “This is delicious! What is in it, I’ve got to know!?” Already, her headache had drastically receded, and she quickly started chugging the remainder of the drink. It was like a million mini-miracles of sweet fruit-like flavors exploding in her mouth. How can something so foul smelling taste so good? she thought to herself.

“Oh, it wasn’t anything really,” Hexxus said as he turned back to what was cooking on the stove top, “It was just some almond paste, a raw egg, an aspirin, three sardines, and a few lemon slices that were rubbed in my sweaty arm pits.”

Anasta was in the middle of a gulp when she spat out what was in her mouth over everyone at the table. She grew pale as she looked at what was left of the now vile poison she had just drank. There was silence for a few seconds before someone slammed their fist down against the table.

“Hah!” Everyone turned their attention to Jackson who was wiping his face off with a napkin and had just started to crack up uncontrollably. “Now that was hilarious! Nice joke there, boy, you’ve got one hell of a personality.”

Hexxus turned around with a confused look on his face and a few plates piled high with sugar powdered slices of toast. “What do you mean joke? Every single one of those ingredients are what make my hangover cure so good.”

This time it was Jackson’s turn to go pale. “But, I had one of your cures earlier this morning.” Just then he pushed the plate that had been just put in front of him away. “I think I have lost my appetite.”

~)^_^(~

After the late breakfast, Jackson left to do his own thing, saying to Robin that they all needed to see each other more often. Soon after, they all left the kitchen, until it was just Hexxus who was cleaning the dishes, to attend their own business around the house. Bill went into the basement to make wine; Robin roamed around the house cleaning, and Anasta returned up stairs to fix the beds she and Hexxus had been using.

Once finished, she enjoyed her first proper shower in nearly a week. As the pleasant feeling of steaming hot water cascaded down her back, she scanned the few shelves that held an assortment of differed hair and feather conditioners. She opted for a white bottle that had a picture of a blushing, pink maned mare with printed on its label. Right above were the words Vous Etes Chaud. Anasta popped the lid and inhaled deeply as the rich smell of butterscotch filled the steamy bathroom. Happy with her choice, she grabbed a scrubby off the wall and started to lather up her body.

She let off a soft moan as her stress melted away with each stroke of the scrubby against her body. She let in a sharp breath when it softly caressed an extra sensitive part of her body, right were her shoulder met her wing. With small circles the soapy, foam covered scrubby, slowly made its way down her stomach towar-

And I am stopping right here and now before someone takes this moment the wrong way and starts making it creepy.

Anyway...

One very relaxing shower later, Anasta came downstairs to find that Hexxus had finished in the kitchen and was sitting on a couch with a sewing needle in hand, stitching together two pieces of white latex material. Where he had gotten said pieces of fabric, she hadn’t a clue, but what he was turning them into looked like something you could only get from one of those more shady stores that could only be found downtown… you know the ones I’m talking about.

She grabbed a nearby pillow off of one of the stools, placed it on the floor, and took a seat across from him. “So Hexxus, what chah making?”

He looked up and her and she saw stars in his eyes that went with the devilish grin he had on. ”I’m making us matching outfits!Squee!”

Oh dear Grydon ”And you are doing this now... why?”

“I don’t know, but I think you’d look super in black.” He pulled out an already finished black latex suit that looked as if it were a few sizes too small for her. “Would you like try yours on, Mistress Anny?” He unexpectedly appeared next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “I can envision it now; you in a tight, black latex suit, riding crop in one hand and a leash in the other with-”

"PERVERT!!!” she screamed as she slapped him across the face. “What kind of a girl do you think I am?” Grydon, what is his problem!? Just thinking about it- Oh no, I think I’m going to puke.

She was thankful, at that moment, because someone started knocking at the door, interrupting the repulsive image that had started forming in her head.

“I’ll get it!” Hexxus leaped up in the air, and the next thing Anasta knew he was at the door, leaving a gryphon-shaped dust cloud behind.

He opened the door and found a rather portly gryphon that was just a few inches shorter than he was, looking off to the side as if he were waiting for something. His feathers were alabaster with white tips and the fur that covered his rear was as white as the purest snow. He had a monocle on one eye and was wearing a pressed suit and a top hat. In his left hand was a black cane that had a large piece of jade on its top.

“Hi there!”

Hexxus made a move forward with his arms outstretched, intending to give the gryphon a hug but was stopped suddenly by a thick forearm. A bodyguard, that had previously been standing to the side of the door, revealed himself and let out a low growl. Hexxus considered Bill to be very buff, but this gryphon barring his way undoubtedly put Bill to shame when it came to muscle mass. He stood much taller than Hexxus, and the moss green feathers that covered his face were currently arranged in an intimidating scowl. “No one touches Count Fosco.” Even though the large gryphon’s voice was like rolling thunder, Hexxus didn’t stop trying to walk forwards.

“Hmmhmmpf! Hasan, I do not veesh to leenger een zees… feelthy place any longer zan I haf to.” The Count turned his gaze to look at Hexxus for only a moment before looking off to where he had been before. ”Remove zees uncouth peasant, so I may enter.”

The guard only grunted in response before gripping Hexxus on both of his shoulders. Hexxus’s grin turned into an evil glare.

“Eh Bub, I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” The bodyguard paid no heed to Hexxus’s warning, and simply moved to pick him up and throw him off the edge of the balcony. As he fell, the grin returned to his face and he yelled out, “Of course you realize, this means war.”

With the inconvenience out of his way, the Count blatantly walked inside without bothering to make sure the gryphon he just had ordered to be thrown off the edge was alright.

Anasta saw the entire display, and immediately after she darted downstairs to get her uncle.

“Uncle Bill come qui-!”

WHACK!

Bill had the large leather harness around his torso and was pushing the large stone, mashing hundreds of grapes for their juice. He stopped what he was doing and rushed over to the staircase when her voice suddenly cut off. “Anasta, are you alright?” He found her laying upside down, half way up the stairs, dazed from striking the stray piece of wood that branched out there. He helped her back on her feet before repeating his previous question.

“Don’t worry about me,” Anasta said reassuringly as she rubbed a lump in the middle of her forehead, “But upstairs there’s something going on, a count showed up at your door and-“

Bill cut her off by putting a talon on her beak. “It will be alright Anasta, just stay down here and let me take care of everything.”

Anasta was about to protest when a high pitched voice interrupted her followed by the sound of breaking glass.

~)^_^(~

“Of course you realize, this means war.”

Then came the inevitable fall, four hundred feet, straight downwards. Everything blurred like a canvas of smeared green and brown paint as Hexxus’s speed picked up. But as all things come to an end, so too did his fall as his downward plummet came to an abrupt halt when he slammed into the tiled roof of a shed that was connected to the base of the tree. He took half of it with him as he crashed into the somewhat soft dirt that made up the shed’s floor.

“Whoo, that was a close one.” Hexxus said looking at a short barrel filled with long sharpened, metal poles not two feet away from him. “I need to be a bit more careful the next time I go sky-diving… oh, hey Gumbo!”

The bewildered gryphon standing at the edge of all the rubble gave him a small nod. “Hey.” He was holding a pair of clippers in one hand and had a basket of grapes balanced on his back. “Umm, do you need any help?”

“Nah, I’m okay.” As he got his back gave off a loud pop. Son of a bitch! “Yes… perfectly fine. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a bone to pick.”

“Whoa there, boy!” Gumbo grabbed Hexxus’s tail mid-take off, and even though he was nowhere near as buff as Bill was, he easily made the gryphon disguised fawn slam back down into the rubble.

“Ow.” “You aren’t going nowhere til you explain why you just crashed through my roof. “ He dropped the tail in his grip and turned around. “Now pick yourself up, and come on inside so you can explain to me what’s going on.”

Hexxus reluctantly pushed himself back up and his back gave out another pop. Ow. I need to get back to Anny to make sure she is alright. Wait a minute, if Bill’s there I doubt anything bad will happen, so… Hexxus followed the bushy browed gryphon into his home.

Unlike Bill and Robin’s house, Gumbo’s was a bit more ‘up to date’ when it came to décor, and yet it was at least a fourth of the size. Instead of everything being wood, his furniture looked more like what you might find in the house of someone that went to college. A single lazy-boy sofa sat against a wall directly opposite to a half sized fridge and the carpet floor was littered with stains everywhere Hexxus looked. Similarly there was a circular staircase in the center of the room leading only up to another level. The kitchen and dining area were on the other side of the room, and to say the least, it was in worse condition than the living area.

But none of that mattered to Hexxus as Gumbo lead him to the dining room’s table. No, instead his eyes were transfixed on a truly strange device sitting in the center of the table. It was at least a foot and a half tall, and looked like a small white pyramid with a clear pint-sized glass mug where its top should be. On top of the mug was some sort of a shiny triangular sealing device, and below, on the pyramid, he spied five grey, oval deformities protruding from its surface.

“Wait here and I’ll get us some drinks, then you can tell me what happened.” Gumbo went over to some cabinets, looking for some clean drinking glasses that he could use. ”Oh and sorry about the mess, money is a bit tight lately and I have been working nearly nonstop lately just to keep up with all the new taxes the…”

Hexxus spaced out whatever Gumbo was going on about, too intrigued by the little pyramid, and simply said, “Yeah, okay, you do that.” He took a seat never turning way from the strange contraption. There was a faint magical presence pulsing from its core, reaching out to each of the five ovals. He glared suspiciously at the device, giving its white surface a few experimental taps to see if it would react. Well, it doesn’t look dangerous. What happens if I…

WHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Hexxus reeled back, putting his hands up as if he were about to do Kung Fu. But, after a few seconds of nothing happening, he came back to the table and put his head nearly against the glass. Wow it’s loud! He could barely hear himself think over the racket this small thing was making. Eden it is too loud, how do I turn it off!? He pushed the next button over. Oh no, that only made it louder! Upon closer inspection there was a grey blur from the inside of the glass mug and Hexxus guessed that that was where all the noise was coming from.

Hexxus made a brash move, and ripped off its top to grab what he thought was the source of this mini-monster’s voice, But just as his fingers were about to dive-bomb the grey blur at its base, something caught his hand when it was just inches from the rotary blades.

“What the ‘ell do you think you’re doing?! Are you trying to kill yourself, boy?” Gumbo ripped Hexxus’s arm away from the blender’s insides.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

Gumbo turned off the blender before removing it from Hexxus’s sight. “I said, what the ‘ell are you doing, do you want to die?” He glared angrily at Hexxus, like a parent would their own hatchling.

“What, I was just trying to get it to be quiet, and that spinning thing in its center seemed to be making all the noise.” Hexxus had as honest of a look on his face as he could muster. “Sorry if I broke it, it’s just I’ve never seen one of those things before, and well, curiosity gets the better of all of us.”

Gumbo continued to glare at Hexxus before letting out a long breath. “Well, as hard as it is to believe that you have never seen a blender before, I see no lies in your eyes.”

Hahaha! He rhymed.

Hexxus watched as the elderly gryphon sat across from him and start rubbing his neck as if it were sore. “So, putting aside that recent act of stupidity, why did you come crashing down through the roof of my shed? Oh, and I will need you to repay me for that, by the way.”

“Err… well, I don’t exactly have much money to my name at the moment, but I could fix it up in no time I bet.”

“Hmm, I guess that will suffice for now, but I can’t help but to wonder how you fell though it in the first place.” Hexxus felt a bit uneasy as Gumbo looked at his sides. “And your wings don’t look as if they are damaged, so either there must have been some crazy wind that prevented you from correcting your flight, or you just simply let yourself fall.” Hexxus tried suppressing a chuckle of guilt. ”I doubt it would be the latter, but having lived here for over fifteen years, I know that no such winds can exists in this area of the forest. So tell me what happened, and know this, I hate liars.”

“Well, I was thrown off of Bill’s porch.” Hexxus said with a large grin.

Gumbo raised an eye brow, which really looked peculiar considering how bushy they really were. “By who? Bill or your little girlfriend?”

Hexxus cracked up for a moment before Gumbo’s cold, hard stare set him straight. “Umm, no sir. It was a pair of large gryphons, and by large, I mean one was really fat and the other was at least as large as Bill, if not bigger.” Gumbo had a feeling he knew where this was going. “So, I did the only logical thing to do in this situation. I tried to hug the pudgy one to see if he had any candy on him, because my friend Saint D. Clops told me ‘fat guys always have goodies on them, especially the ones in suits.’”

Gumbo simply face-palmed. “So, you are telling me that you tried to hug a random guy just to see if he had candy?” Hexxus pridefully nodded his head. “Ugh… Did you happen to catch the names of these large gryphons?”

Hexxus reached up to tug at his goatee like he would when he would think, but found that it wasn’t there thanks to his transformation into a gryphon. Instead he opted for just scratching his chin while he tried to remember their names. Meanwhile, Gumbo started tensing up from the anticipation of finding out who they were, hoping that they weren’t the Count and his bodyguard. He knew that Bill had major issues with how Count Fosco ran things, and if the two were in the same room, well, he couldn’t imagine things going over smoothly.

“Hmm... I think the fat one was called Moscow and the really buff one, Horton.”

“Oh, thank Grydon.” Gumbo said under his breath as the concern abated from his features.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing important, just forget about it.” Now that his worries had been eased for the moment he turned his mind to a more pressing matter. “Now that that’s out of the way, I think it’s time we talk about what you are going to do to compensate for breaking my shed.”

~)^_^(~

Bill left Anasta where she was and stomped up the stairs with an immeasurable amount of fury on his face. He arrived on the floor of the house to find his wife lying unconscious against a wall with a large gryphon standing over her. The Count stood not too far away.

“Fosco,” he roared, “what is the meaning of this!?”

The fat gryphon gave him a bemused look. “Oh, eet vas jost nuzzing really, ve vere jost talking veeth your dear vife.”

“You dare break into my house and harm my Robin, and you say that it is nothing!” He took a few steps towards Fosco but stopped when the bodyguard walked in front.

“Now, now Hasan, eet ees eemportant for me to talk to zees eenfedel, even eef hees feelthy ears don’t deserfe to hear my foice.” The bodyguard backed off a few steps, watching Bill in case he tried to harm his master. “Now, eef you veell calm down, I vould like to haf a vord veeth you.”

“State your business Count, then get out.”

“Fery vell, I am here about your last few payments zat you skeepped out on.” Fosco inspected one of his talons as he rubbed them together.

“What do you mean, I have already given you the required amount of money for this and every other month.”

“Hmmhmph eendeed, no, I am talking about ze veekly tax that I just set een place last month.”

“Weekly tax! You have got to be kidding me, you know as well as I that during the off season tha-“

“I could care less about your petty problems. Now, pay up my forty beets, and I veell be on my vay.”

“No.”

“Vat did you say?” Count Fosco raised an eyebrow.

“I said no.” Bill stomped his foreleg down for extra emphasis. “It’s already bad enough that you make the town pay such a high monthly tax, but adding on an extra weekly tax, the people just won’t stand for it.”

“So, you’re saying you von’t pay?”

“That’s exactly what I am saying, Count!”

“Eef you refuse to pay, zen I guess I weell have to take compensation for your eensolence.” The noble looked around the room before his eye caught the only thing that could be of use to him. “Hasan, retriefe my new maid for me.”

The bodyguard only grunted in response before slowly walking over to where Robin was lying. Bill’s eyes widened as far as they would go when he realized what he was talking about and in a blind fury he rushed the large gryphon with a fist raised, but the gryphon saw it coming and easily ducked under it.

In a quick movement he returned Bill’s punch, hitting him square in the chest with enough force to push a cow over. Bill staggered back clutching at his chest, sputtering as he tried to regain his breath, but Hasan was quick to not allow him to recover. The second punch was to Bill’s face, sending him flying backwards onto a coffee table which collapsed under the sudden impact. Hasan jumped on top of Bill, and started pounding his fists into his stomach and face. Bill was unable to lift his arms to defend himself because they were trapped under the bodyguard’s hind legs. While this went on,
Fosco went off to check something out over by the staircase. He could have sworn that he heard a gasp, but when he arrived there was nothing there. But he quickly lost interest in whatever it was that made the sound, and turned back to Hasan and the elderly gryphon he sicked him on.

“Mmmhmph Hasan, zat veell do.” Fosco said when Bill’s face looked as if were a cherry that had been stepped on. The large gryphon delivered one final punch across Bill’s blood-covered face before stepping off. Count Fosco walked up to the scene. “Now Hasan, eef you would do as you vere told and retriefe my new maid... I hate haffing to be kept vaiting.”

Bill could see the bodyguard hastily move to where Robin was through his fading vision and made an attempt to get up, only to be pushed back down by a sharp pressure on his throat. The Count dug the but of the cane into Bill’s windpipe, applying just enough pressure to turn his breathing into wheezing gasps for air.

“You know, I nefer vanted to come all zee vay down here, but you pheasants need to know your place een zees vorld.”

“Damn you.”Bill managed to sputter out, but the blood and cane made it sound like an incomprehensible croaking.

Fosco ignored him and merely watched as his body guard picked up Robin and threw her on his back.

The last words that Bill heard before blacking out were, “Vell, meester Beell, it has been a pleasure.”

~)^_^(~

Anasta heard the yelling and commotion up stairs, and ever so slowly she crept up to see what was going on. As she neared the top, she stopped when there was a large CRASH. She quickly traversed the remaining stairs, and arrived just in time to see the large green gryphon that had thrown Hexxus off the porch, tackle her uncle. She let out a gasp of shock when he started to mercilessly wail on the older gryphon.

The other gryphon heard this and turned his head sharply, only to find an empty staircase. Anasta had barely managed to silently climb back down before he saw her. She held her beak closed, not even allowing herself to breathe, as she waited for him to leave. She could barely hear the thumping of the cane over her own frantic heart, as the Count lost interest and moved away from the stairs.

Her body trembled in fear as her head tried to comprehend what she saw up there. She stood down in the cellar, staying still as a statue to reduce the chance of making any form of noise. She even tried to force her heart to calm down, out of fear that they might hear its loud pounding. But when she did manage to get some control over it, the resounding beating in her ears was replaced by a soft continuous thumping from up above. She let out a sob when she realized what was causing it.

She waited with tears running down her cheeks for nearly five minutes before the thumping came to a stop. Slowly, she crept back up and arrived in time to see the Count walking out the front door. His bodyguard was following close behind, with her aunt on his back. She stifled another gasp as they took flight with their captive, not even bothering to look back. Once Anasta was sure that they were gone, she rushed out from where she was hiding to her uncle’s side. I

Immediately after seeing his state, she was forced to turn away or risk vomiting all over his chest. After her brief lapse in bodily control, she turned back to her uncle fearing he might not be alive. But that was soon dis-proven, as he started to cough up blood in his unconscious state.

Panic was quick to attack her mind, but she wasn’t about to get the better of her. Getting up she made her way to the kitchen in search of a first aid kit or anything that could be used to help patch up her uncle. As she search many questions plagued her mind; Who where they? What did they want? Why did they take Aunt Robin? Why did they do the things that they did?

But the most important one that came to mind was:

Hexxus, where are you?

Well everyone, yet another chapter has been posted. Sorry it took so long to come out but I do have college and a shit load of other things to deal with. The next few chapters will also take a bit of a while to come out for the same reasons and the fact that I have just come down with a very nasty fever and strep throat.

As usual BIG thanks to you guys who are still following this story, and an even bigger thanks to my three proofreaders Meeester, Mally, and Ex-Nihilos.

Comments

[loststone]

Well I'm Happy with this story so far. Sure I may not have any where near as many views as I had hoped, and no one but my proofreaders seem to be commenting on it any more, but this was a bit of an experiment story like my other two; My first was just me trying out the writing scene and an attempt at an adventure story, and my second was an attempt at a Horror.

All I can say is at least I get 1 new person who is following it each time i post a new chapter which means more peeps are reading it.