Upon arriving back in his room after meeting with his moody mentor, West had shoved the chest under his bed and hadn't thought about it for another month and a half. To be fair, the boil had several other things to do that, while of no greater importance than his assignment was, were much more insistent in their need to be taken care of.
He finally recalled his trick-or-treaterly duty in the middle of true October, when he came back after class to find Master scratching at the box Rage had given him and trying to butt it open with her forehead. Birdnip was not catnip, but the strange chest had remained closed for so long that the scareon's curiosity regarding its contents had eventually grown too great to ignore. West nudged at the box with his toe once he noticed it. He had promised he would get evidence of his bird-bombing as soon as was demonly possible. At this rate, Rage had probably written him off as a waste of time. Oh well. Better late than never.
Over the next twenty-four hours, West formulated a plan that found him at the reaper dorms the next morning. He had hoped to find some unsuspecting ghouly ghoul oblivious enough not to notice him tailing her. It was easier than he had imagined it would be.
A petite ghoul, a mage by the looks of her, was trotting around the outside of the building, a yappy toy poodle following closely behind. She was perfect. His plan had originally been to scope out a couple of victims before birding them, but this opportunity appeared too good to pass up. West reached into the deep pockets of his coat and pulled out one of the bird bombs he'd brought along, tossing it lightly from hand to hand. Almost immediately, he attracted a winged menace of his very own.
"Need any help?"
"Y-yes!" she yelped. "Can you get these things off of me?" Her mascara had somehow managed to run over the bird crap on her face.
West wasn't the best at feigning sympathy, which was probably why he felt her rage spike when he tried to look like he was feeling some.
"Nope. Sorry." He held up his phone and took a quick picture, wiggling his fingers at her as he walked away. She tried to follow, but the birds pushed her and the dog back as they moved. The girl kept shouting at his back, but he couldn't really tell the difference between her voice and her poodle's.
Victim #1: Success.
With his first picture safely backed up in his room, West set out again, a couple of birdnip bombs in his pocket and her camera in hand. He wouldn't be venturing back near the reaper dorms to find his next victim for fear of getting caught, but there were four more dorms to choose from, and he had all day to find himself another crap target.
His lips twitched with distaste as he passed the building that housed the undead, not due to any of the creatures who called the place home, but because of the unpleasant memories associated with the place that he usually had no reason to face. He didn't think he would bother targeting anyone there either. Not today.
After giving the ghost dorms a moment of thought, he decided against them as well. The species on the whole had an annoying tendency to phase through messes, an ability that would make them less than satisfying targets in this particular instance. Demons? Nah, they'd probably recognize him, and he really didn't want to deal with the aftermath if they did. Monsters it was, then! He hoped he didn't accidentally targets his ghoulfriend.
West began his assessment of the area by sneaking around the back of the building, pausing at the corner and peeking toward the swamp. There was someone... in there. Whoever it was seemed content to bathe in the stenchy, stagnant water. West shrugged mentally. None of his business, really.
Without further ado, West chucked another bird crap ball, then hurried to a bush a ways away, one that was at an angle entirely opposite to the one he had flung it from. He waited. Nothing happened.
After a minute or two with no flares of rage or other discernible reactions from his victim, the boil leaned out of his hiding spot and squinted at the swamp.
The monster remained as motionless as it had been all along, except instead of having a relatively clean back, it was now decorated with a plethora of pale crap splatters. The creature sank low in the murky water with a sigh so loud and contented that West could hear it from where he stood. What in the hell? Where was the anger?
He stayed where he was, at a complete loss as to how to proceed. The thought that the people he chose to attack would not get angry when he did so hadn't even crossed his mind.
The demon frowned. He pulled out another crap ball and stomped away from the foliage, disrupting the remaining birds. When he was quite close, he pelted the second ball at the monster's back, retreating from the ensuing shitstorm. From this distance, he could finally tell that his target was male, and as the other boil slowly turned to face him, West began to understand why he hadn't reacted to getting s**t on. He was quite literally oozing with mud, and not only was he not reacting to the heaps of bird crap caking his skin, but that very bird crap was going so far as to sink into it, incorporating itself both disturbingly and flawlessly.
"Yer pretty ********' disgusting," West muttered.
"Thank you!" the monster enthused.
"Hmph." This was not right. It was not how this assignment was supposed to go at all. It was not how the world was supposed to go. When you dropped a metric ton of s**t on someone's head, they were supposed to get angry. West went from placid to seething in the space of a human heartbeat. He reached out. He smacked the kid on the shoulder and the rage drained away like a plug had been pulled in his brain. He was speechless.
His victim, for a change, was not.
The bog monster's face twisted in unnatural rage, and West stumbled back, unsure as to what had happened at first. No matter how hard he strained to feel it now, he couldn't detect any of the creature's anger. It was an oddly familiar feeling, though it took him a good number of precious seconds to figure out in what context he had felt it before. With Levi. He had touched her wrist and gave her his sin. As strange as it was to feel nothing, he could still sense that this was something he was meant to do, given what he was.
The monster was almost on his feet now. It was time to go.
West held up his phone, snapping another picture. "Thanks, kid. Gotta run." And then, he was gone.
Victim #2: Eventual Success.
