Book The End Between Us, Chapter 4: A Deal Been Made

Chapters 1, 2, and 3 are right there. Go ahead and click on their numbers. Enjoy!

Chapter 4
[P.O.V. Monkey]​

"You don't have the book?!" I asked once more as Graff unpacked all of his, and recently Oracle's, items.​

He sighed deeply and turned to me.

"You know if I had it I would tell you." Graff said, sounding defeated. I huffed quietly. It would've been nice​

to have had that book... We were in the chest room alone and I was helping Graff sort through the newly acquired supplies from the previous raid. And of course, by helping I meant "supervising". SillyPickles had made it a new team rule to not let Graff or Speedcell, our two worst fighters, travel alone. Therefore, I was Graff's buddy and Obelisk was Speedcell's. Wherever Graff went, I went. He had moved to packing the items into their respective chests, so he was wandering around checking labels. I trotted over and matched him step for step.

"But you said you remember it, right?" I asked expectantly, "Like, all of it?" Graff continued to sort and pack,​

choosing not to look at me.

"You were there when I told SillyPickles that." He mumbled. I started to ask another question, but I was interrupted​

by Graff suddenly standing up. "We need more enderpearls. Let's head to spawn. I know a guy there that can hook us up." He withdrew his teleporting crystal and immediately began his spell, causing me to quickly flounder around in my pockets for mine. The spell engulfed me immediately in a burst of light and I felt the normal pulling sensation of the TP as the world shifted around me. I closed my eyes and waited for the rushing to top. When it did, I opened my eyes and allowed them to fully adjust to the new surroundings. Above me was a tall ceiling of intricate wood design. Around were swaths of banners, lights, and murals, but the entirety of the structure was extremely open. A light breeze drifted through the rafters and carried some autumn leaves with it. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Spawn was always a beautiful location, and as summer drew to an end and autumn rolled around, the colorful leaves blended with the wood to create an impression of being in a forest. It was a beautiful sight and I took a moment to drink it all in. However, soon the voices of people chatting, yelling, and laughing awoke me from my daydream and I opened my eyes again with a slight panic, looking around to see where Graff had gone. He was a distance away, headed down the Southern stairs, and I rushed to catch up. When I reached him, I shivered slightly. The air was brisk. Graff sighed and kept walking.

"I'm just headed to a deal, you know." he grumbled. I paused for a moment, wondering if I should be hurt by​

his obvious frustration with me, but decided to ignore it and caught back up with him.

"I'm just following orders, Graff. You know how SillyPickles is." Graff mumbled something incoherent,​

but kept his gaze forward. As we entered the inner workings of spawn, I was reminded of my first memories here. I remember trying to survive on my own, of finding just enough food to sustain myself, and of eventually meeting Speedcell. He had helped me when I had nothing, was there for me when I had no one, and, in turn, had earned my undying loyalty. Everyone on my team had. We had been through a lot of bad situations together and had stuck all of them through, no matter what. I don't know how my teammates felt, but for me, I knew I would die for any of them. So even if SillyPickles had not ordered the new rule, I would have done it anyway. I could never live with myself if something were to happen to any of them. As I looked up, Graff had gotten away from me again, so I rushed to catch up to his side. Ahead, in the dim light of a wall torch, stood a shadowy figure. I gritted my teeth. Doing business with outsiders wasn't my specialty, but Graff took to it like a duck to water. He looked around nonchalantly while walking towards the man, and when he was sure no one was looking, he slunk into the shadows to stand near the man without looking at him. I stood around helplessly, wondering what I should do, when Graff signaled me over with a small flick of his head. Attempting to be inconspicuous, I tiptoed towards them. Graff brought his hand up to his forehead and said in a voice barely above a whisper,

"He's new at this." The man gave a small chuckle and I could feel my face flushing from embarrassment.​

I thought of giving a snarky remark, but bit my tongue. Graff was already making the transaction with the cloaked figure. There was a small flick of the wrist, a muffled jingle of coins, and the deal was done. I wandered off to take a look at some other wares until Graff returned from more black market dealings. Both him and the man in black walked up together and I jumped up and down gleefully when I saw he was carrying a bag of enderpearls.

"Do we have enough for the mission? The book said at least 16, right?" Graff stopped short and gave me a panicked​

look, trying to shush me. I was too excited to notice. "So next up is blaze powder and from that we get the eyes of ender! This is so exciting! We're going to be rich!" Graff hit me in the back of my head and I yelped a little. It was them that I noticed our dealer standing close by. He didn't say anything; just moved away off into the distance. I shied away from Graff's stern gaze.

"Monkey, you're stupid sometimes." I hung my head.
"I know." Graff huffed and pulled out his teleportation crystal. Slowly, he made his way back down towards the​

underground tunnels.

"Come on." He said, motioning for me to follow him, "I know a spot where we can warp." I nodded and walked​

behind him, still ashamed that I had released classified information. SillyPickles was going to kill me. As soon as we had descended below the surface, Graff led me to a secluded tunnel. I began to walk down it past Graff, but it felt like I was stepping onto air. There was a moment of pause and then I was falling. My arms flailed wildly and I could faintly hear my screams through the rushing wind around me. My arm caught something and I was stopped mid-air. I glanced up to see Graff holding onto my arm. He was straining to keep his balance and was slowly sliding towards the edge.

"You know. Some help would be greatly appreciated right now." He grunted. My mind raced to comprehend​

what he was saying, but looking down at the ground brought me back to my senses. I struggled to find a handhold to use as leverage, but couldn't find anything. As Graff slid closer towards the cliff I looked around for anything I could possibly latch onto. I noticed that Graff was slightly hanging over the ledge now and I braced myself for what I was about to do.

"Graff, this is stupid. We don't need you falling too." I said quietly, looking up at him. He gave a tug to stop​

his foot from going over the edge and said through clenched teeth,

"Shut up, Monkey. Just help me help you." I laughed slightly as I hung there. This was going to hurt a lot.
"I'll be right back, Graff. Grab my stuff if you can." He started to complain, but I shook free from his grasp and​

went into free-fall. I looked up and saw Graff look away. I knew I was going to die. In order to warp, you needed to not have spawn protection and I had felt the all-too familiar chill as we had passed over the invisible boundary. I had enough time to tense for the impact before the ground rushed up to meet me. For a split second it felt like every bone in my body was breaking, then everything went dark. I awoke with a gasp back on spawn's top floor. Clutching my racing heart, I struggled to my feet and limped down the steps to head back to Graff. He was waiting for me near the entrance to that hallway and I waved slowly. He frowned and shook his head. When I was standing in front of him, he dropped my stuff on the floor without a word. I took it silently and he turned to head back down towards the cliff.

"I won't mention any of this to SillyPickles if you won't." He said from in front of me.
"Deal." I said grimly. Graff nodded and jumped over the cliff to land on a floating platform, much to my​

complaining.

"We need to parkour to get there. Are you good to jump?" He asked. I nodded and Graff continued his jumping.​

I followed closely behind. The pain in my body was ebbing and I was making the jumps just fine. The last stretch was a narrow path of fencing we needed to run across. I looked down at the ground and shuddered at the thought of falling again. Graff and I made it across and we both quickly pulled out our teleportation crystals. A couple of seconds later, we were back in base. Most of the others were already there and were getting ready for the next stage of the mission. SillyPickles wandered over and smiled at us both.

"Took you guys long enough. What happened?" Graff and I looked at each other. Graff chuckled and I tried​

to contain mine. Soon we both burst out laughing, grabbing our sides and trying not to fall over from the giddiness.

"It's nothing. Just some bonding." Graff said between laughs. SillyPickles and the others glanced from him to​

me and back. SillyPickles finally just shrugged.

"Alright then. Go get ready. We move out soon. We need to be ahead of Apex." Both of us nodded and went to​

prepare, but as we packed, my thoughts went back to that shadowy dealer walking off into the distance.

Tags!!!!!! ^-^
@0racle
@Eil
@LozzeZ
@AnonymousGalaxy
@Speedcell
@SillyPickles
@PingWoo
@Colonel_Graff
@LegitMonkeyftw
@DemonicObelisk
@343weapon

​

 

Already in the making. It's based around Brawl's universe.