Information

Aheri has a minion!

Alura the Espergile Plushie

Aheri
Legacy Name: Aheri

The

Nostalgic Clawsion
Owner:

Alkuna

Age: 11 years, 10 months, 3 weeks

Born: May 22nd, 2012

Adopted: 11 years, 3 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: December 31st, 2012

Statistics

Level: 10
Strength: 25
Defense: 25
Speed: 25
Health: 25
HP: 25/25
Intelligence: 64
Books Read: 64
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Unemployed

Stats

Pronounced: ah-here-ee
Eyes: dark green/glowing bright green
Marking(s): purple diamonds, dark purple ears, chest, tail fringe and palms of his paws, light blue body

Minion Pronounced: ah-lure-ah
Gender: Female
Description: A soft, squishy companion for Aheri the plushie. However, she transforms into a muscular, loyal minion who jumps right in when there's fighting to be done. She is also swift of wing and can carry messages to the king when an emergency strikes.

Story

The house was silent save for the soft tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway. In a bedroom, the six year old redheaded girl slept, with one arm draped across her Nostalgic Clawsion Plushie, Aheri.

Grandma had said that this plushie was special... but could not, or would not say exactly how special...

Ka-chk.

A sound, oddly soft and stealthy in the depths of the night, and the soft hush sound of a door opening; sliding across the carpet. A line of darkness appeared across the room from the bed, slowly easing wider as the door to the bedroom closet eased open.

Rebecca Chance made a faint sound of complaint and rolled over, releasing her plushie from her grasp and sinking immediately into the depths of her dreams.

A whispered voice babbled softly to itself; "Must get the girl. Yes. Yes. Is what master wants. Get the girl. Tasty. Yes, tasty tasty girl."

A pair of malignant red eyes peered out from the back of the closet.

On the bed, the plushie's eyes suddenly glowed bright green and the stitched mouth parted in a low, angry growl...

SLAM!

Rebecca sat up sharply with a gasp, not entirely sure what the noise had been or why somebody was making a racket in the middle of the night.

Her sleep blurred gaze roved around her room and settled on her plushie, which was sitting across the room; in front of her closed closet door.

"Muh... Aheri? How'd you get over there?"

Half stumbling, Rebecca climbed out of bed and picked her wayward plushie off the floor. It must have been a trick of the moonlight, or maybe it just went to show how sleepy she was, but the green glass eyes seemed to be glaring back at her closet. Gently tucking him in next to her, Rebecca nestled back under the covers and quickly fell back to sleep.

-------------------------

The next night was much less restful; Aheri was missing! She had spent most of the day searching for her stuffed companion, growing more alarmed by the hour. In desperation, she had even checked her closet and under the bed... twice! But even though sunlight made these spots less scary, it didn't shed any light on where Aheri had gone.

Grandma had tried to be reassuring, smiling and winking as though she knew a secret. "It's all right Rebecca," she had promised the little girl, absently running her wrinkled hand over the broad head of a big white bear plushie with a crown on his head, "Aheri is just fine. He can't be right there at your side every minute, but I promise you he's always keeping you safe."

Grandma was really smart, and she never lied about these things, but it was hard not to worry as the sky went black and her big bedroom seemed lonely in the dark.

The little girl sighed and hugged her knees to her chest at the head of her bed. Crawling under the covers seemed pointless, and sleep was really slow to come without him being right there.

"Get out of the way Companion! Master wants girl. Yes. Yes he does."

Rebecca snapped alert. That creepy, babbling voice sounded vaguely familiar, though she could have sworn she had never met anyone who talked like that.

The second voice was much deeper, and though angry, didn't give Rebecca the creeps like the first voice did. "Beat it Babbler! Rebecca is under my protection, and I don't plan on letting you lay a single grubby finger on her!"

A strange light was coming from under the bed, and Rebecca grabbed the nearest thing she could find; a toy scepter Grandma had bought not long ago. Hefting it warily, the little girl climbed out of bed and peered at the light.

What she saw made her jaw drop. There was a hole in the floor, rimmed by orange light. And through the hole...

Rebecca blinked and shook her head, but the vision didn't go away. She was looking down at a sunlit clearing from high above. A big Clawsion was squaring off against something ugly, hairy, and red. Babber, Rebecca presumed.

"What Master wants, Master gets!" Insisted the hairy thing, and it darted around the Clawsion and raced toward a tree at the edge of the clearing. Rebecca had to squint a little, since she didn't dare lean any closer to the edge of the hole, but she realized there was a door set in the trunk of the tree.

The Clawsion snarled angrily and charged after it. "Get back here, stupid Beastie!"

The ugly creature grabbed the knob on the door just as the Clawsion made a tremendous leap and...

WHAM!

Rebecca spun around in shock as something huge crashed into her closet door and bashed it open. The door swung wide and slammed into the far wall, allowing the huge Clawsion and the ugly thing to tumble into her room in a ball of wrestling fury.

Despite the bedroom being only lit by moonlight, the little girl got a very clear view of the Beastie the Clawsion was now pummeling at the foot of her bed.

She had read stories about yetis; big hairy things that were a cross between a gorilla and a man and hid in forests far away from people. But she was pretty sure yetis didn't have a huge overbite, oversized hillbilly teeth, or evil, beady red eyes. A heavy brow threw the tiny eyes into shadow below the low, sloped forehead. It also had large hands and thick fingers that it used, trying to fend off the Clawsion's snapping teeth.

The Clawsion, on the other hand, was as big as a medium sized horse, which made the bedroom feel much smaller than it had been a moment ago. Muscles flexed under thick blue fur, and dinner plate sized paws were doing quite a good job of smacking the ugly Beastie around. It looked, she had to admit to herself, a lot like Aheri. But instead of dull, plastic fangs hanging down from his upper lip, he had big saber teeth hanging down from his upper jaw. The wings, which had been solid white fabric with feathers outlined with stitches, were now huge white feathered things that flapped, stirring the air around and setting the curtains rustling. And there wasn't a stitch to be seen anywhere. But the thing that caught her attention the longest were the eyes. Instead of green glass eyes, the Clawsion had brilliantly glowing green eyes. There was no pupil, nor did he have the whites of his eyes.

And yet, even as she took in the details in the time it took for them to tumble to the foot of her bed, she knew that it was much safer to root for the Clawsion. Sure he was big and intimidating looking, but he wasn't still babbling out loud about how tasty each part of a child was. Making her decision, Rebecca leaped onto her bed and brought the scepter down on Babbler's head.

Whack!

The blow the spot on and the Beastie slumped, stunned.

"Great shot Rebecca!" The Clawsion praised her. "Now Babbler... for the last time... Go... Away!" He gave the Beastie a hard shove and sent it crashing into the side of her bed.

With a heady sliding sound, the bed moved and the red beast tumbled through the hole waiting there. A long, hairy arm flailed, and knocked Rebecca off balance. There was, of course, only one place to fall.

"No!" The Clawsion yowled, diving for the girl.

Wind whistled around the Rebecca as she tried to get enough air into her lungs to scream.

"I gotcha!"

Big paws scooped under Rebecca and massive white wings spread wide and flapped vigorously to slow their fall. By the time her mind caught up with her terror, she had been gently set on the ground and screaming just seemed kind of silly by then. So instead, she simply hunched over and tried to catch her breath.

Babbler didn't have such a happy landing. With a noisy "crunch," the ugly Beastie found a nice, prickly bush to flatten. Instead of being grateful, the Beastie howled and cursed and fled, trying to yank several pinecone-sized burrs out of the stringy hair that covered his chest and belly.

"Humph. Serves him right. Rebecca, are you okay?" The Clawsion looked down at her.

"Y-yeah.... are you... Aheri?" She brushed her hair out of her face and blinked up at him.

"In the flesh!" He grinned proudly, then grew serious, "I'm sorry for worrying you today, Rebecca. I would never abandon you, I promise. Babbler tried getting in last night, and I needed to tell King Marco about it. It was a long flight and I only just got back in time to protect you tonight."

Slowly she nodded. "I think I get it, but who is King Marco? And how can you be my plushie at the same time?"

"Well, we can't." He rubbed the back of his neck with a big paw thoughtfully. "To be honest, we don't really question how we can transform any more than you question your ability to heal a scraped knee. As for King Marco, he's... well... our king! King of the Stuffed Animal Kingdom!"

"Is that where we are?" Rebecca looked around. Her home had been in the suburbs of Centropolis, capital of Subeta. This place looked like the wilds of Riverside.

"Yes." Aheri looked perplexed, "And we need to go see King Marco right away. Human children rarely end up in our kingdom, and we can't send you back yet."

Rebecca stiffened, "What? Why not?"

"Because Beasties haven't been able to get to children for years and years. Last night, Babbler was able to get through the portal in your closet. That means that the magic that keeps you safe in your own home is broken. Even if I took you through the tree, Babbler could get you whenever he wanted." Aheri's glowing green eyes looked worried.

Rebecca thought hard, "So... if we can fix the magic, I can go home, and the Beasties can't get me?"

"That's right!"

Rebecca took a deep breath and let it out. "Then let's go!"

"That's the spirit." Aheri crouched down and allowed the girl to climb on. "Hang on to my fur. We have a long way to go, and we need to go fast."

The forest flashed by beneath them as his wings lent speed to his bounding leaps.