As he looked down upon the fallen wannabe Hero, Vaile felt something he rarely ever felt for members of the Races these days; pity. OK, he felt another emotion besides that, which was a disappointment, but the fact that he felt pity for this smooth-brained fool was something that somewhat shocked him.

Perhaps it was in human nature to feel some kind of positive emotion for the ‘underdog’, even when that very underdog was against you and what you stood for. Even though he rarely, if ever, felt anything positive for those not aligned with his Tamed Beings and their descendants, he could not help but see the teen whose face was still on the dirt with anything but embarrassment and pity.

However, this emotion of pity faded just as quickly as it manifested, and left Vaile with a deep desire to mock the person in front of him. He never liked fools anyway, especially fools who had a choice about being so or not, but his disdain for Axis was offset by his understanding that Axis was made this way, likely via a multi-generation breeding program and a heaping dose of the Deus ex Machina that was magic.

Axis had no choice in the matter, and Vaile knew that, but he still could not help but feel annoyed and embarrassed at Axis’ behavior. And, to be brutally honest, he had no enjoyment entering his being from watching the teen collect more dirt and mud on himself as he kept ‘kneeling’.

“Just get up.” Vaile said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “We’ve got places to be, things to do, and people to annoy, and I’d really prefer if we were out of here before-.” Vaile stopped and clicked his tongue in annoyance, as it was already too late.

While not a rumbling akin to a stampede, the sound of hundreds, no, thousands of feet could be heard coming from multiple directions. Vaile needed to get this moron and himself out of here before the crowd reformed around him, as he was sure that they would more than likely try and pull Axis away from him and out beyond them out of a misguided sense of duty.

“Get up!” Vaile yelled, but Axis remained ‘kneeling’. “Fine! Don’t blame me if you lose something on the trip!” yelled Vaile as he grabbed the overly dense and dumb teenage and let his busted beyond max-level stats do their job.

With a series of full-power jumps, Vaile and Axis took off into the sky and eventually made it outside of the town. Setting the grimy, filthy teen covered head-to-toe in literal junk armor down on the ground, Vaile looked back and sighed half out of relief and half out of aggravation.

Axis remained in the same position he was in mere moments prior, having once again ‘knelt’ in deference to the man who had mockingly used fake noble/ royal titles against the self-proclaimed ‘hero’. After dealing with that display of idiocy for longer than he liked, Vaile reached the end of his limits for patience and gave the teen a kick to the gut, and ordered the teen to get up and start moving towards his next destination.

This time Axis actually did get up and began to walk down the cobblestone road, not even glancing towards or acknowledging Vaile despite the events that had just occurred. This just ticked Vaile off even more, and he moved in front of Axis to bar his path.

It was one thing to act so foolishly, but it was another to not even acknowledge his existence. And, once Axis (literally) bumped into him, the teen’s brain seemed to finally notice that Vaile was there and, remarkably, seemed to be under the assumption that Axis had never seen Vaile before in his whole life.

“Hi!” the dopey teenager said with an equally dopey smile on his face. “I’m Axis Wode, the Hero! Who are you, and do you have any clams?”

“I’m-…” Vaile almost said his name before the last part of what Axis had said struck him. “Why do you ask if I have any clams?”

“Hi, Whydoyouaskifihavanyclams! I’m Axis Wode! Do you have any clams?”

Vaile was now the one with the gears in his head churning.

“You are dumb, aren’t you?” Vaile grumbled.

“No, I’m Axis Wode! My name isn’t Dum!”

At this, Vaile facepalmed so hard that the sound of a crack rang out as his palm slammed into his mask. Sure, the mask didn’t break, but Vaile had impacted it hard enough to make the clapping sound that came from the impact much louder than it would normally have been.

“Huuuuuuurrrgh….” Vaile half sighed and half groaned before dragging his hand down his masked face. “Why do you want clams?”

Axis stared at Vaile for about fifty straight seconds after Vaile asked that question before finally speaking up again.

“Hi, I’m Axis Wode, the Hero! What’s your name, and do you have any clams?”

Vaile looked on in amazement as the sheer denseness and idiocy on display caused him to have an even deeper dislike for the members of the Races and an even deeper admiration for the wonders that Monarkea was capable of pulling off.

This wasn’t some early-onset dementia or Alzheimer’s, nor was this any normal mental or psychological condition. This was, at its core, just the purest, more undiluted, and yet utterly refined form of absolute idiocy that Vaile had ever had the displeasure of bearing witness to.

“You dense motherfucker…..” Vaile groaned as the same terrible sketch repeated itself again, with Axis not understanding that Vaile wasn’t speaking his actual name, only for him to once again eventually forget everything that occurred in the past few minutes.

As the loop began again, Vaile could only smack himself internally as he realized that he would need to, against his own desires, play the game that this absolute moron was playing, regardless of how logical, or in this case, illogical, it was.

“My name is Vaile. And while I do have clams, they are not for you.”

Axis paused for what seemed to be an eternity before he began to talk again.

“Hi! I’m Axis Wode, the Hero! Do you have any clams?”

To which Vaile could only respond by attempting to fix the issue the same way he had managed to fix the issue regarding Axis’ attempts at kneeling.

Percussive Maintenance.