Fall: Remembrance That Begets; Slothfulness... PT. 3/5

[Some time Second Grade]

"Today class we have a new student! Introduce yourself if you don't mind," The teacher said, smiling at the student next to her.

She gently pushed the student forward, revealing it was a boy with blondish-pink hair styled in a weird way, and he stiffened as he spoke.

"I-I'm E-Eros! Ple-pleased to meet you a-all!"

"He's a little shy, so treat him nicely, okay? Let's see, ah yes, you can sit next to Major and Erebus at the back." She pointed Eros to us two in back, who weren't paying any attention, pouring over "Coolest Notebook: The Second."

"Hmm, it's becoming hard to come up with combo moves with just the two of us," I muttered, and Erebus nodded.

"We need someone else to join us, but who?"

"And what might you two boys be doing?" The teacher had walked behind us, and she crossed her arms as she looked down at our notebook.

I was the first to respond. "Um, homework! We were doing homework!"

She grabbed the notebook from us despite our complaints and gave it a cursory glance. "This doesn't look like homework to me. And as punishment for not paying attention and lying, you can show Eros around the school during recess today, and I'll be confiscating this for the time being," she said, closing the notebook.

"No fair! We worked hard on that!" Erebus complained, glaring at the now confiscated notebook.

"Yeah, it's not like you were doing anything important!" I said, and she looked at me, a smile on her lips but not on her face.

"I see, so you want more punishment?"

That shut the both of us up, and after lunch, we showed Eros around the school building.

"What should we do Slayer? Without the notebook, we can't come up with any more combo moves!" I said, walking next to Erebus.

"Hmm, maybe we can take it when she's not looking?"

"Um…"

"But if we get caught, she'll give us detention!"

"I can use Shadow Step to sneak past the teacher, so we need someone to distract her," Erebus said, and I groaned.

"Oh, I'm bad at distracting things! You remember the last time we tried that!"

"Um!"

We both stopped as we heard the voice, and we turned to see Eros calling out to us.

"Oh, what is it?" I asked, curious.

"I-I can g-get it b-back," he stuttered out, and Erebus and I looked at each other before turning back to him.

"Okay, how?" Erebus asked, a skeptical look on his face.

He looked around before motioning us to come closer, and when we did, he continued. "L-look o-over there," he said, and he pointed towards where two teachers, a male and female, were eating lunch together inside an empty classroom.

Suddenly, the two teachers became very odd, and they both looked at one another before the man walked towards the door and glanced outside. Seeing no one there, he locked the door and closed the blinds so we couldn't see anything anymore.

"Huh?" I asked as we turned back to Eros. "What just happened?"

"I made them do that," he said quietly, looking down at the floor.

"Whoa, that's amazing!" I exclaimed. "So, you can make people do whatever you want?"

"Um, not exactly…" He said as we continued to walk, and as we passed by the classroom, I could hear a weird noise coming from within. "Whenever I use it, stuff like that happens."

I glanced over at the classroom and shrugged. "Adults are weird. But, if you can use that on the teacher, we can get our notebook back! Isn't this great Slayer!?"

Eros immediately shook his head. "Oh no, I-I'm not allowed to use it on people. My parents told me I shouldn't because it causes problems…"

"Oh, it should be fine! You already did it just now, right? So long as you do as we say, it should be fine!"

Erebus nodded. "Yep, and if you do a good job, you can become a part of our team! We fight demons!"

I nodded, starting to get excited. "Oh yeah! I can do this!" A poster vanished near Eros, and he looked amazed.

"Whoa…"

"And Erebus is super strong! He's been teaching me how to fight, and we've come up with a whole buncha new combos together!"

His eyes started to light up as we continued to talk all about our cool moves and nicknames we came up together, and we eventually reached our classroom, where our teacher was eating lunch alone today.

"Okay, you know the plan, right Eros?" I said, and he nodded nervously.

"I'll try my best!" he said, and he walked up to the teacher.

"Do you think he'll be able to do it King?" Erebus asked from behind me.

"His powers cool, so of course it'll be fine! Oh look, it's working!"

We watched as Eros talked, and the teacher started to swirl her hair, anxiously looking between the clock and Eros, before she shot up, excusing herself from his presence. She walked by without even noticing us, and from what I could see, her face was flushed red as she was breathing hard, and we watched her walk towards the classroom where the two teachers were locked into.

"Whoa, it worked even better than I thought," I said.

"I didn't even need to use my Shadow Step," Erebus agreed, and we walked in, where Eros was waiting for us.

"Is this it?" He asked, holding a notebook.

"It sure is! Aw man, this is amazing! Why would your parents want you to hide that!?" I exclaimed.

He tapped his index fingers together, his caramel eyes looking downcast. "W-well, th-they say they'll 'punish' me if I use it…"

"Punish? Like grounded?" I asked, frowning, and Eros shook his head.

"N-no. Not like that…" He trailed off, looking away from us.

"Hmm, I guess it's a problem if they punish you every time you use it," I said, trying to come up with a solution. "Oh, why don't you use it on your parents!?"

"Eh!?" Eros exclaimed, his eyes darting back towards my own. "I-I could never do that!"

"Oh, just use it whenever they're about to punish you! That way you can use it here at school whenever you want!" Yep, that was my genius plan with no flaws!

"Oh, that could work King! It seems to incapacitate adults, so it'll work perfectly!" Erebus exclaimed.

"What's in-cap-is-tate? I never heard of that word before."

"Oh, it's in-ca-pac-i-tate! It means someone can't fight back anymore!" Erebus explained cheerfully.

"Incapacitate… Oh, we can incorporate that in a new combo!"

"Such a cool word will make an epic combo King!"

"U-um, are you sure it'll work?" Eros asked, part of his bottom lip in his mouth, cutting us off in the middle of us "cooling" out.

"It should, I think. If it doesn't, Erebus and I will help you out, no problem," I said. "We're friends now after all!"

"Friends…" Eros murmured, and he looked between the two of us before nodding. "Right, you two are my friends!" And for the first time since we saw him, he gave off a warm smile, sending sparkles flying.

"Whoa, since when can you do that!?" Erebus and I exclaimed, and Eros started to laugh, sending off more sparkles.

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"Did you get a new friend Major?"

We were eating at lunch the following day, and Lachesis was sitting next to me, while Eros and Erebus were sitting across from us.

I nodded, stuffing my face with spaghetti. "Hep! Phis yame is Gross!"

"He said his name is Eros," Erebus explained, and I gulped down my food.

"Yeah, that!"

"U-um, pleased to meet you," Eros said to Lachesis.

"Oh, you're him! The boy with the cool hair! How did you do that?" Lachesis asked, looking at his strangely styled blondish-pink hair.

"Oh, I did this myself…" Eros said, leaning slightly back from Lachesis.

"Hey, why are you leaning away?" Lachesis asked.

"Don't you know? Girls have cooties!" Eros explained, and I tilted my head in confusion.

"Cooties…?" I asked. "What is that?"

"It's something dangerous! All girls have it, and if a guy gets it, they'll have to hang out with girls!"

"Eh!?" Lachesis looked down at herself in shock. "I have cooties?"

"Get away from her!" I yelled, and us guys scooted away from her, all the while Lachesis was inspecting her body.

"Have I always had them? Oh, I don't want them!" Lachesis pouted as she watched us scoot our chairs to the end of the table.

"Anyway, now that we made sure we can't get cooties, let's think of an eh-pee-tet for Eros," I said, going to the newly dedicated pages for Eros.

"Oh, I got one," Erebus said excitedly. "I read in one of my mentors' books about a demon that charms people! It's called an Incubus!"

"Whoa, so I have demon powers!?" Eros said, sparkles starting to fly off from him again.

"Oh, we can call him Eros, Charmer of Incubus'!" I declared, writing it down. "His charms are so strong, they affect the ultimate charmers!" I looked back up at Eros. "Is that okay?"

More sparkles flew off him as his caramel eyes grew big with excitement. "That's so cool," he whispered to himself.

"Yep, King is the master of cool," Erebus said proudly. "You should tell him your eh-pee-tet King!"

"Oh yeah, I should!" I said before clearing my throat. "I am King, Master of the Mystic Arts!"

"And I'm Erebus, Slayer of Demons, Ruler of all those in the Dark!"

We finished our introductions, and Eros started to clap. "Whoa, I can't wait to start!"

And during recess, we began our training with our new friend Eros, which made things a lot easier for us in the long run. Eros would charm the demon, I would use my Mystic Arts to disarm the enemy, and Erebus would slay the enemy.

A couple days after training together, Eros ran up to Erebus and me, tears streaming down his face.

"Huh? What happened to you? Did someone try beating you up?" Erebus asked, and Eros shook his head, his normally styled hair now down.

"No, that's not that. My parents found out about how I was using my charms," he said, and I frowned.

"Aw man, so the plan didn't work then!?" I said, messing up my hair. "Oh man, how badly did you get in trouble!?"

"Oh no, it worked!"

"Huh!? Then why are you crying!?" I exclaimed. "Are you not happy?"

He shook his head. "I am happy, so happy…" He started to cry even more after saying that, and I looked at Erebus, who also looked as if he was about to cry.

"Hey, if you start crying too Slayer, I'm gonna start…" I trailed off as I sniffled, trying to stop the tears before they came. "It's okay, I'm just glad it worked!"

We gave each other a group hug, and Eros' crying became even louder. Eventually a teacher found us sobbing our eyes off and took us to the bathroom so we could calm down.

After that, Eros was always smiling while with the two of us, and the sparkles that flew off him were constantly darting about.