Collecting panties really shouldn't be a dangerous quest.

Normally, from where John was heading, the athletics field was a trek across half the campus grounds: a brief walk across an breezeway, a cut through the hallway that separated the locker rooms and the indoor pool, and finally across the outdoor basketball courts to get to the track by the football field. John found that he had no one he wanted to meet right now on the way, and he had plenty of reasons to be nowhere near the girl's locker room after so many undergarments had gone missing. Looking around to make sure no one was paying him any mind, John walked between the pillars of the breezeway and then into the narrow alley along the sports building's length, formed by a massive stone wall and the building itself to hide all the pipework and maintenance rooms that would otherwise be unsightly. With a bit of luck, this would let John cut straight to the field and meet Fairy without having to get too close to football or cheerleader range... at least, not until his pet could be safely stowed away or dismissed.

With his head in the (June Summers' breasts-shaped) clouds, he was halfway along the length of the building, carefully stepping along the concrete path and pipes behind the showers, when-

Fairy? Is something-

What- I'm behind the locker rooms, outside, in this kind of narrow... wait, what's wrong-

Fairy blasted into view in a sweeping arc that nearly smashed her body against the wall, and then almost again against the pipeworks. She leveled her flight out, flying straight at her summoner... and her tiny, terrified expression was impossible to make out before her cries echoed in John's head.

She was close enough now to talk aloud, but her words had him looking down the path behind her before tucking into the pipeworks. She neared and did the same, perching on his shoulder on her hands and knees as she struggled to catch her breath. "What the Hell's going on?" John hissed in a whisper. "Who's coming?"

The world... shifted. The pipes flanking them became more hyper-detailed, brighter-lit and even beautiful in their corroded, pitted surfaces... right up until they reached into the new invisible wall right behind John, after which they became blurred. John elbowed behind him and confirmed it, and looked around to see how large this new "barrier" or "dungeon" space was. The concrete wall was still perfectly visible, but the leaves of a tree right behind it were blurred. In sum, some length of the alleyway, and nothing else? "Must be a pretty pissed off monster who lives in such a shithole... but how did it, or she, find you?"

"You fucking idiot," Fairy hissed, "who said anything about monsters?!"

"In the name of the Lady!"

John yelped in terrified surprise as the pipes next to him exploded into shards right by Fairy (and his shoulder). He stumbled back and fell on his ass, reeling from the shock, and Fairy straddled his neck as his eyes followed the warhammer that just made paper mache out of steel pipes up to the dainty hand that held it, up the lithe-looking arm covered by chainmail, and to an angry (and surprised) girl from his school, her casual clothes almost visible under the chainmail hauberk that went down to her thighs. On the opposite arm was a steel shield with a heraldry upon it featuring a woman rising out of a simple body of water with a claymore in her hand raised above her head. But unlike that confident cartoon of a woman, the armored warrior before him was nothing less than miserably surprised.

Lady Moira Brighton
Lvl17 paladin
<Warden of the Golden Rose>
700/700hp
70/100mp
Relationship: -10 (-20)
Status Effects: Slime-Poisoned (27 hours remaining)

The two blinked at one another for very, very different reasons.

"What are you doing in here?!"

"What the Hell are you?!"

"No one should be here!"

"What the Hell are you?!"

The two yelled at one another in shock, John from the attack from a Renaissance Fair reject and Moira from the administrative nightmare she just made for herself. The latter, being the more graceful and composed one here, finally regains enough poise to take on a commanding voice. "I will help you... understand... what is happening afterwards... um, bystander. For now, I'm afraid there's a small... creature," she continued slowly, rather insultingly so, "on your neck, and I need you to pull it off."

"Go eat a dick!" Fairy wasn't helping.

John finally recovered enough of his own senses to respond to what he assumed must be another Gamer. "I... I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding. You see, she's my... uh..." Moira raised an eyebrow as John tried to think of something less awful-sounding than ****; he never did think he'd have to explain this to anyone. "... she's my good friend."

"Oh you can go-"

"Isn't that right, Fairy?" John whispered between clenched teeth. "That is right, Fairy."

Venom dripped from her words as she played along. "... yeah. He's my real, super fucking bestie..."

Moira sighed, her brow furrowing as she considered what she saw before her. In a motion that John didn't quite understand, she raised her defensive arm to face them, keeping her warhammer high above her in a style more akin to the lady on the heater shield. "You poor soul... regardless of what I've heard about you, even you don't deserve to be enslaved by so pathetic a demon."

"... Wait, what do people say-"

"By the light of the Lady!" Moira's warhammer taps the top of her heater... and the world becomes a blast of symphony music and white light. John falls back to the concrete, reeling from the sensory overload so much that he can't even feel the sensation of a stunned Fairy flying off of his neck. His eyes are the first thing to adjust, and he looks around in confusion at the scene: at some point, he was thrown back and away from his hiding place, and now he watched the chainmailed back of the paladin as she walked over to Fairy. Her hammer glowed with a golden light... just as it did when it shattered steel. Though John couldn't hear anything but the ringing of violins now silenced, he could see Fairy was still blinded and feeling around, holding her head as if she had accidentally flown into a wall or pipe. Her tiny face was twisted in fear... and Moira looked ready to deliver a reason. Fairy's... going to get killed... I have to... John was the Gamer. He knew that summons probably didn't actually die, per se, but perhaps just needed to be revived, or get a good night's rest or, Hell, even if they were permanently dead, Fairy was probably just one of any number of mobs that looked, acted, and talked just like her...

But none of that is in John's mind right now. Fairy was a bitch, but she was his bitch, and though the had less than twenty-four hours together, he couldn't stand the idea of her being squashed. She was... an individual, and irreplaceable to some degree. What can I do? Moira's level 17... no, please, not Fairy... He had more HP than his summon, and his manashield besides. He just had to get there, somehow... and a new skill popped-up in response. He didn't even truly read it; he knew it would save her, and so slammed his hand on the concrete to cast it.

In the name of the Lady, or so her mouth seemed to say just as she brought the hammer down on Fairy-

John looked up, and watched the hammer's glow shatter through all his remaining mana and crush his ribcage with merciless ****.

New skill: Transpose lvl1, 20mp
Transpose: switch spatial locations between you and a summon. You may change the physical orientation of either one upon teleporting.

-146hp

Manashield takes 10 damage!

You've taken 136 damage! You're at -11 health! You are dying!