Monster Party Side Stories: You know I'll stick by you for the rest of my life.

You're the only man who's ever been inside of me!

Whoa, whoa! I just took out his appendix...

(AN: And now the chapter starts, just want to be clear because I don't normally break up song quotations like that but this time it felt appropriate)

Fenrir was bored. At least he was bored for the moment, he didn't think that he would be bored much longer once the Silver Haired Man awoke from his slumber. For the moment though his bodymate was unconscious and both of his eyes were closed.

Granted, the power of Fenrir's eye was so great that just because the physical eye was closed didn't mean that Fenrir was truly blind to what was happening to his "other body" at the moment. After all he would be a rather pathetic wolf if sight was the sole sense that he could use to track his prey.

Thanks to the powerful bond that the two of them shared, Fenrir was able to hear through the Silver Haired Man's ears, and smell through his nose even when the body's original owner was not making use of such abilities.

He could also feel as well, though of course that was a more limited sense and rarely told him anything truly useful. At the moment for example though he was able to feel his second body's limbs being locked in place by heavy and firm restraints of one type or another.

Fenrir was familiar with restraints of course… and he already knew that he would enjoy breaking these ones the moment he got chance to.

So he waited, and waited, for the Silver Haired Man to awaken from his slumber so that his life could be made interesting again. "Luckily" (for a giving definition of the term), being chained in place with nothing to do until he had met the Silver Haired Man had given Fenrir quite a lot of experience at doing nothing and simply waiting.

Slowly the Silver Haired Man's body began to stir, or at least the version of his body that Fenrir was paying the most attention to at the moment. Though Fenrir could now be said to have two bodies, to be completely truthful he actually had "three bodies" so long as the term was used loosely. He had his own body, he had the Silver Haired Man, and he had the version of himself that resided "here" though defining where exactly "here" was not an easy feat.

To put it as simply as possible "here" was the place where Fenrir's mind rubbed up against the mind of the Silver Haired Man, a place where Fenrir still had two eyes in his own head and he was free to converse with the Silver Haired Man, even though he could still feel the world (worlds?) unfolding around both of his more physical bodies.

Once "here" had been a battlefield, a place lit only by the dim blood red color of a setting sun, and there had been frequent flashes of lighting combined with mist rising from a bog. It hadn't even just been the two of them either, Fenrir with his superior senses (and greater freedom to consider such matters since he rarely was able to gain full control of the Silver Haired Man's body) had sensed that there had been some nebulous third force seeking to influence his new home.

He still wasn't sure what it was or what it had been, but every time he had sensed it drawing near he had challenge it and it had refused, he had chased it and it had fled. Now, now it had been years since Fenrir had last felt that third presence, which as far as the Silver Haired Man would consider things would be quite a long time indeed.

Today "here" simply resembled a green meadow with a noonday sun shining down on it, and as the Silver Haired Man's eyes opened Fenrir couldn't help but smile. Not just because he was glad to see his bodymate awake (so that his boredom wouldn't last much longer) but also because the sight of the Silver Haired Man's eyes cheered Fenrir to no end, because "here" Fenrir, had both of his eyes… and yet the Silver Haired Man had one green eye and one golden orange one.

In return for that particular show of subservience Fenrir had allowed his "third body" to simply be roughly the size the of a fully grown bear rather than something closer to his actual size.

"Did he really ask me if that rag smelt like ether?" Were the first words out of the Silver Haired Man's mouth.

"You're already plotting our retribution I presume?" Fenrir replied.

Retribution was an act near and dear to both of their hearts, and in the wake of such a betrayal neither of them would allow it to be long in coming.

"What exactly did he do to me while I was unconscious?" The Silver Haired Man wondered.

A moment later the air seemed to shimmer between the two of them and though they were looking into open air they were seeing through the eye of the Silver Haired Man's real body that wasn't currently covered by an eye patch as he regained consciousness.

"Out of the fire and into the frying pan..." The Silver Haired Man's physical body muttered to himself.

"You're giving away the game aren't you?" Fenrir pondered.

"I haven't even started playing my game." The Silver Haired Man insisted.

Fenrir being a wolf of unrivaled power could move with a speed that few could match, and not just his body either. His mind could think with a swiftness that belied his bestial appearance, and he had over time become willing to share that mental celerity with the Silver Haired Man. Not only did it mean that Fenrir didn't feel like he was having a conversation with a pup who could barely figure out how to form words, but it also allowed the two of them enough "time" to have a conversation to themselves even as the Silver Haired Man's physical body was having a separate entirely different conversation.

"Ahh you're finally awake Mr. Diamondclaw!" Their captor noted in the real world.

"You can't move your arms or legs at the moment and those restraints are so strong that with only a passive fraction of my power you'll never be able to break them." Fenrir warned the Silver Haired Man.

"Well it is a good thing I know how to draw on more than just a passive fraction of your strength." The Silver Haired Man answered calmly, shaking his head and then laying back in the grass gazing at Fenrir as much as he did at what his physical eye was seeing.

"Is this finally going to be the time you break your pointless vow about not drawing on my true power while you wear that piece of fabric?" Fenrir pressed.

The piece of fabric in question had once been a powerful mystical divide between them, a symbol of the Silver Haired Man's rejection of Fenrir's presence within his mind and body. Now however it held no more meaning than a symbol of the Silver Haired Man's ego, a token of his desire to prove himself, a feeling Fenrir could perfectly understand.

"You're underestimating me again Mac Tíre Cáiliúil, just like our captor is. I can escape from these bonds while still upholding my vow." The Silver Haired Man insisted.

"Hey, you finally got my name right. Well that's something..." The Silver Haired Man's physical body told their captor.

"Let me guess, you're going to start thrashing your head around wildly until you manage to get it to come loose?" Fenrir predicted, wondering just what sort of insane plan the human had concocted this time.

A single black gloved hand rose up into the air, index finger extended, and began to lazily trace a shape that had no name in the air as blunt teeth flashed a smile in Fenrir's direction.

"You're only wasting your time Alexander. I use same straps to hold back both man and beast. Your bindings are strong enough to keep a bear restrained, just the thing for dealing with uncooperative patients wouldn't you agree?" Their captor insisted.

"You know... I'm starting to think you're not really a doctor." The Silver Haired Man's physical body answered.

"That is a possibility, but right now from where I'm sitting, that's a rather clumsy solution and it might not even work. No, right now I think that I'll take a much simpler approach to the matter." The Silver Haired Man insisted and then that extended finger was pointed straight at the man towering over their restrained physical body.

"That man, right there, the one who calls himself Doctor Fran, he's going to take the eye patch off my face of his own free will, then we're going to turn into a gigantic mix of wolf and man, then tear our restraints into tiny pieces." The Silver Haired Man predicted with the lazy confidence of a norn foretelling how many day's left a man had to live.

Fenrir collapsed to the grass and rolled around like a playful puppy the sound of his shrill barking laugh filling the air. He kept on doing it for quite a while because his mighty lungs would allow him to keep going without running short of breath for far longer than any normal wolf or man could have.

He was laughing so hard that it was only his peerless hearing that allowed him to make out the words that their captor was saying at the same time.

"That all depends on how one looks at things. I will admit when it comes to curing disease by the application of potions and tinctures I still have a great deal to learn, but surgery... I am an all but unrivaled expert at surgery. After all, I am Frantisek Markov, ruler of Markovia!" The man who had ohh so foolish sought to bind them announced.

"Oh yes, come into my den little fawn, I promise I won't hurt you..." The silver haired man snickered to himself his teeth growing sharper for the few seconds he spent speaking.

Fenrir finally managed to regain control of himself, stop laughing and focus on the matter at paw.

"So, you think that this man, whoever he is, has gone through all the trouble of lying to you, misleading you, tricking you, imprisoning you… and he's then going to willingly take off your eye patch. I suppose you think that Odin is going to be dropping by to undo the ribbon wrapped around me next?" Fenrir scoffed in ope amusement.

"I do believe I've heard stories of you, the pig butcher who decided that butchery wasn't enough to sate his interests." The Silver Haired Man's physical body admitted.

"Bet you a fistpaw he'll do it." The Silver haired man insisted.

"You're on" Fenrir agreed at once.

"Oh yes." Their captor admitted openly.

"Mac Tíre Cáiliúil I think I already know everything I need to know about this man, and despite the time we've spent together he knows next to noting about me, and NOTHING at all about you." The Silver Haired Man declared proudly.

"He won't know nothing about me for long." Vowed Fenrir.

"You've got that right." The Silver Haired Man agreed with a smirk.

"Butchery, bah! Any dullard with a blade can go about the business of separating head from neck, or limb from body. Surgery on the other hand, surgery with all its nuance and brilliant intricacies is an activity fit for a king! Sadly even a king will run out of patients to treat sooner or later if they insist on dieing halfway through the operation." Their captor boasted to the two of them.

"What… what exactly is he talking about?" Fenrir couldn't help but wonder, there were some humans concepts that even now he did not truly grasp.

"A butcher Mac Tíre Cáiliúil is someone who specializes in killing animals that are not just already wounded by someone else, but already wounded and locked in chains." The silver haired man clarified.

Fenrir promptly collapsed into another laughing fit.

"I should have suspected, a beast with the head of a man, so many creatures neither man nor beast, would have suspected... but the last time I checked an atlas Markovia was a landlocked nation. So what are you doing out here as an island?" The Silver Haired Man's physical body inquired.

"Someone… someone who can't even hunt for himself thinks that he's… he's going to be able to defeat me?" Fenrir came about as close to giggling as a wolf could.

"Yeeuup." Snickered the Silver Haired Man.

"This… this was the greatest foe that you could find for me? Someone who can not even hunt for himself, and was so well known for the fact that no one even expects to him?" The silver furred wolf demanded, his fur bristling in a mix of amusement and irritation.

"I'm sorry my current peril isn't perilous enough for you, I'll try better next time." The Silver Haired Man replied.

"It all comes down to stories you see..." He further insisted.

"That is a mystery even to me Alexander. Sadly I find a man typically has time in his life to study only a single such question." Their captor admitted openly.

"Stories are only useful if you can fool someone into believing them. Not only that, but if you tell too many of them then they become worthless, that was the fate that befell my father." Fenrir scoffed derisively.

"Stories are powerful things Mac Tíre Cáiliúil. I grew up on the stories that my father taught me. I grew wise… for a time, because of them. Now, now I know the story of nearly every Darklord who ever ruled upon the Core, and yet strangely, it seems like only one of them ever bothered to consider my story." The Silver Haired Man's smirk grew wider and wider with each word.

"Our story." Fenrir insisted.

"Our story." The Silver Haired Man apologized.

"By the way Markov, good job, this entire act was much craftier than what I'd been told most Darklords are capable of. You changed your name, grew a beard and mustache, didn't keep the same initials, didn't spell it backwards, didn't use some kind of obscure anagram, you had another 'Darklord' ready to be your scapegoat, you even said you were from Lamordia instead of Barovia and given how long you claimed to be alone on this island no one would raise a fuss about how atrocious your accent was!

Sadly I can't give you top marks because you insisted only changing Frantisek to Francis instead of something completely unrelated like Douglas." The Silver Haired Man's physical body rambled on and on.

"He's going to catch on." Fenrir predicted.

"No he won't, like I said there's only one Darklord who knows anything about my old name." The Silver Haired Man insisted, still blithely confident despite the fact that he was currently bound hand and foot.

"I'll keep in that mind the next I'm fortunate enough to have guests." Their captor noted without emotion.

"See, he thinks that he's in control of this situation, just because I'm tied down to a magical artifact that will allow him to torture me again and again without fear of ever killing me." The Silver Haired Man boasted.

"No one is ever in 'control' of anything, there is a hunt, a hunter, and a prey, and the prey can always kill the hunter if they are foolish enough." Fenrir growled.

"By the way, do you really think you're going to get away with this? My companions, Florence especially, are going to notice that I've vanished before long." The Silver Haired Man's physical body insisted.

"You know that, I know that, but he doesn't know that." The Silver Haired Man agreed with smug contempt.

"Felix will spin a tale from them about how you're too busy helping me in the lab to join them for a meal, in fact that will be the Mist's own truth! It won't have to hold together long, just until they help themselves to breakfast. The mushroom sauce will be given a little extra flavoring, a powerful sedative derived from the mushrooms of this island.

Orson and Felix will handle things from there, though I'll also have a few dozen of the broken ones loyal to me on hand just in case. I could have captured you all in one go of course, but now that the Table of Life is finally within my grasp, I simply could not wait till morning to try it out!

I am certain what I learn in tonight's experiments will be key to helping me break my curse and return to the body of a proper human instead of this bestial mockery I am forced to make do with!" Their captor boasted happily.

"Mac Tíre Cáiliúil, do you have an opinion on people who aren't happy with their bodies?" The Silver Haired man wondered, seeming to be more sincere in his question than any of his comments about their captor had been.

"How could I know of such things? I'm a wolf, and I've always been a wolf, it hardly makes much of a difference if I'm a one eyed wolf now." Fenrir pointed out, wondering why the Silver Haired Man had asked such an inane question.

The Silver Haired Man paused for a moment, and turned to look at a different part of the grassy landscape the two of them were resting on. A section of it shimmered, but rather than turning into a portal into reality it became a calm lake so that he could take a long moment to look down at his own reflection.

"Do you have a plan for how to deal with Mirri? She told me how you already know she's a vampire, even if you could get her to eat something in the first place it it's remarkably difficult to poison someone who is already dead." The Silver Haired Man's physical body even as the man himself wasn't able to pull his attention away from the watery mirror he'd created.

"It has been… years since I had red hair. It has been years since I had two human eyes. I can look like 'myself'. like both of us joined together or I can look like you. At this point… at this point I don't care. At this point I can look at all of them, and I can still see 'myself' looking back me." The Silver Haired Man declared as he returned his attention to Fenrir and the magical portal that they were both looking through.

"Ah yes, dear Miriam. I do not think that any subduing will be required on her account. We are two of a kind you see, power calling to power, the strong were made to rule, the weak to be broken and forced to serve! For too long I have been a King without a Queen, a God without a Goddess for my Pantheon, she is worthy of ruling at my side.

Truly Alexander you have brought so very many gifts to me, and so I will do my utmost to repay the favor. You will make a splendid Broken One, I will see to it that you alone are given a chance to claim Akanga's head!" Their captor ruminated.

"This man, Markov, he is evil for many reasons, but I think the main one is because he doesn't feel comfortable in his own skin, his own body. When you feel like you're walking around in someone else's skin, like you are looking at someone else' reflection in the mirror, if that person isn't you, then who are you? Where are you? If that person looking back at you isn't actually you, what dark corners do you need to look in to find yourself again? That… that is why you've helped me grow so much stronger than Markov." The Silver Haired Man pondered.

"You've mated with the Dryad in all three shapes, though she altered her own for the last of them. I'm fairly certain that had something to do with the matter." Fenrir teased the Silver Haired Man.

Unsurprisingly the wolf's comments caused the man to break into his own fit of laughter.

"That… that did help." He admitted, his cheeks even flushing slightly!

"How do you plan to explain to Delphi what happened to your guests?" The Silver Haired Man's physical body continued to needle their captor.

"After all, if someone else loves you for how you look, or multiple different ways you can look in my case, it helps someone feel much more at home in his own body even if it isn't the one they used to have." The Silver Haired Man admitted.

"I've raised my daughter better than that. Unlike my not so dear but oh so very departed Ludmilla, Delphi knows better than to question what I do behind closed doors." Their captor insisted as he gave the restraints that bound a few testing tugs to make doubly sure that they held firm.

Little did he realize that to someone who had broken Dromi those bindings might as well have not been there at all, and soon enough they wouldn't be.

"You know, I'm not sure if this occurred to you yet or not Markov, but, you could... just stop. You wish to make yourself fully human again? WHY? Aside from a few shipwrecked castaways there aren't any true humans left in all of Markovia!

Haven't you heard the saying about how in the land of the blind a one eyed man can be king? At this point managing to fix your condition would probably jut make you more of an outcast!" The Silver Haired Man's physical body suggested.

"It would be so much easier for both of us if he took a few moments and just thought this through to its rational conclusion, and decided to set me free. I mean I'd still be willing to try and help him be a better person at this point, it isn't like he's done anything to seriously hurt me or mine other than sending us on that semi-pointless quest." The Silver Haired Man insisted.

"If he refuses your offer?" Fenrir questioned.

"Well then let us just say that he won't have to worry about the pain of not feeling at home in his own body much longer." The Silver Haired Man promised.

"Ah if only it were so simple. You fail to grasp the true nature of my goals Alexander. Restoring myself to a human body is only the first step. I have been plagued with all manner of problems as I sought to attain that step, from a dearth of patients to Akanga and his band of rebels, but soon, soon they will be no more.

With the Table of Life to aid me I shall craft the most perfect, most powerful, most obedient broken ones yet and they shall finally crush that leonine nuisance along with his foolish followers! Once I have accomplished that, I will remake my broken ones next! Under my knife their cracks will be mended, I shall find a way call forth brilliance from the base flesh of beasts! I will accomplish with my tools in a few hours what it took the gods millenia!" Their captor bellowed his boast/challenge at the top of his lungs.

A single black gloved hand clenched itself into a fist.

"You heard him Mac Tíre Cáiliúil. If Florence asks, you'll back me up that I did everything in my power to resolve this without resorting to brutal violence." The Silver Haired Man insisted.

"This man would consider himself the equal of a god? Brutal violence against gods just happens to be one of my favorite things..." Fenrir panted, his tail starting to wag back and forth in anticipation of the hunt to come.

"No wonder you claimed to have been from Lamordia... Let me guess, you learned the tongue reading Victor Mordenheim's papers on human anatomy didn't you?" The Silver Haired Man's physical body muttered dourly.

"You weren't really paying attention to Markov's story when we first heard it were you?" The Silver Haired man pondered turning his attention to Fenrir.

"Why should I have? You are so utterly shameless in drawing forth my power, why should I not be able to draw upon your knowledge?" Fenrir countered the Silver Haired Man's question.

So far as the wolf was concerned what was good for Odin was good for him, and he would feel no regret or shame over using the Silver Haired Man as his raven.

"It's a beautiful language and indeed we shared some most insightful correspondence before my unexpected geographic relocation. It was hard enough to find couriers before, and sadly none of my experiments on avians have retained the ability to fly so homing pigeons were out of the question as well, thus we have not exchanged missives in far too long.

Granted, he has some absurd notions on what constitutes 'life', feeling that it can be imbued through the mere manipulations of diodes, switches and the elements. Possibly that might be enough to force some semblance of existence into flesh that has long since past on but it not truly life!

Perhaps a unique few like Miriam are chosen to continue on beyond the normal bounds of mortality but otherwise the departed should be left in peace. Committing acts of surgery upon the dead? Where is the point to it if you can not make records of how the subject reacts? Fie on such foolish notions!

Likewise, he refuses to recognize my own brilliance on the subject of how by manipulating a subject's cerebral tissue it is possible to increase or decrease their mental facilities not to mention alter their personality.

If he was disappointed with the way his 'son' was acting he should have taken him back under the knife, for what piece of art is ever so perfect that it can not be improved by another round of revision? I once had hopes of inviting him to Markovia to personally oversee and comment on my work, but alas he was ever the recluse. Do you know if he has been doing well recently?" Their captor was practically babbling nonsense at this point so far as Fenrir was concerned.

"Here's the part of the story that you'll be able to understand and be interested in. I wasn't going to tell it to you at first, but then he just said all that and I realized… f**k this guy. He first drew the attention of his fellow countrymen when they noticed a strange taste to the meat that he sold them.

When they broke into his house they found that he hadn't just been experimenting on pigs… he'd also made use of his wife. When they found what was left of her, they could barely even tell that her body had once been human." The Silver Haired Man explained.

Fenrir's fur bristled and his teeth were bared in anticipation of the hunt to come.

"A lack of loyalty to one's own family? The time to unleash my power upon him cannot come soon enough." The massive silver wolf growled, his body seeming to grow even larger as he spoke.

"Sorry I haven't been to Lamordia recently, try asking Cal when it's his turn." The Silver Haired Man's physical body informed their captor.

"Yeah, that's not exactly something that is easy to forgive or forget. Keeping in mind that those events took place before he became… this. He was just a normal human back then, but it seems that the Mists cursed him with the body of a beast for his actions." The Silver Haired Man explained further.

"You're saying that someone's horrific crimes preceded the horrific punishment that they received? What a novel concept that is! Imagine if that world was always so logical and reasonable! What a magnificent place it would be then!" Fenrir cried out with feigned joy.

"I shall make a note of it. The question is, what is a man?" Their captor wondered.

"A miserable pile of secrets." Fenrir scoffed thinking of how hard the Silver Haired Man had tried to hide his mind from him after the two had first been bonded together.

"From what I've seen most are nothing but a miserable pile of secrets." The Silver Haired Man's physical body abruptly announced.

"Did you just practically repeat exactly what I said?" Fenrir barked in amazement.

Most of the time the Silver Haired Man made a strenuous effort to keep Fenrir's comments separated from anything that his physical body spoke aloud, so to see them suddenly jump from his lips to the Silver Haired Man's caught the wolf completely off guard.

"Look, I'd totally be willing to follow that comment up with telling him that I only said those things because the magical wolf in my head said them first and I liked how they sounded, but right now my plan to win our bet depends on him thinking that I'm a reasonably rational person who he's managed to capture and he has completely at his mercy. If he realized just how insane I am, he'd be much less interested in my eyes and want to cut up my brain instead." The Silver Haired Man protested.

"I wasn't protesting. I rather like hearing my words from your lips." Fenrir admitted, his fur not so much "bristling" as "puffing up" this time.

"How very droll. Do be serious with me Alexander, you see this is the question that I have dedicated so much of my energy and time to trying to answer. Is it the mind? Is it the hand? The opposable thumb? The upright manner? Perhaps it's the spine, or forward facing predatory eyes. Something as simple as communal nature or mysterious and unknowable as the mythical soul. This one will do. What is a man? That is precisely what we're about to try and find out together..." Their captor continued to speak as he began to reach for various weapons that were all far too pathetic for Fenrir to care about them, none of them would be overcome his regenerative abilities.

To his credit the Silver Haired Man seemed to be as surprised by Fenrir's reaction as Fenrir had been by hearing his voice aloud a second time.

"I'm sorry that you don't feel like you get enough control over what I, we, say Mac Tíre Cáiliúil. Right now nearly every word has to be perfectly chosen to get the desired effect… though I made use of your comments since I don't want my words to be so perfectly chosen that he realizes that I've got a plan." The Silver Haired Man explained.

"You don't need to apologize. We all fight with what weapons we have available to us. I use my teeth and claws, you use your tongue." Fenrir admitted.

The Silver Haired Man's way was not Fenrir's… but that didn't meant that Fenrir hated him because of it. The Silver Haired Man might not be as honorable as Tyr… but only because he had been more honorable to Fenrir than Tyr had been.

"Wait! Frantisek Markov, though I did not know your true name at the time, I served you faithfully! Did I not bring you this very Table of Life I now lay upon? I think it is only fair that this should earn me a boon..." The Silver Haired Man's physical body pleaded, and somehow managed to sound as if he was genuinely afraid of such a pathetically small blade.

"We are all truly pathetic when you get right down to it Fenrir. It is amazing and horrifying how easy it is to manipulate someone into doing whatever it is you want. That is why this is going to work." The Silver Haired Man predicted.

"Maybe you humans are that pathetic..." Fenrir grumbled.

"A boon? A boon you would have of me Alexander? An interesting proposition, have I not come most dramatically into your life?" Their captor boomed as his two minions fell to the floor and pressed their faces into its tiles without hesitation.

"All it takes to manipulate someone is to know their deepest desire, what they want most in the world. If you know that, then simply dangle that desire out in front of them, and they'll chase after it, every, single, time." The Silver Haired Man insisted.

As two talked their captors minion's were busy babbling something foolish.

"Let the judgment proceed! That means you may ask for you boon. But do please spare us the silliness of any further please for your release, humor is rare enough gift in Markovia but fresh fully human beings are even rarer.

I simply must be allowed to practice my craft, practice makes perfect after all. Do not fear, I have improved with tremendous leaps and bounds form the days when I once slaughtered hogs. Now with the Table of Life, I shall bestride the world of surgery like a colossus!" Their captor offered.

"Like I said, I know the story of Frantisek Markov. I know that he desired knowledge of life and the creatures around him so badly that he was willing to tear apart everything and everyone that surrounded him. He wants that anatomical knowledge so badly that neither common sense, or vows he'd made in the past would stop him from pursuing it.

His desire for knowledge is why he's so interested in my body, So tell me Mac Tíre Cáiliúil, do you think that he will be able to resist, when I offer him a chance for even greater knowledge?" The Silver Haired Man asked, even though he did so with the tone one of one who already knew the answer to their own question.

"If you wish to make me into a half man half beast... before you do, do you think you could at least see fit to making me a whole man first? It's my right eye you see..." The Silver Haired Man's physical body pleaded his voice sounding pitiful, weak, and spent.

"It is so easy to get what I want… once I make sure that he wants the same thing." The Silver Haired Man voice was a strange combination of boastful and regretful.

"A pack..." Fenrir's voice was far softer than normal.

"I… I was wrong…. we are all easy to manipulate once someone knows what we want." The great wolf admitted with a heavy sigh.

"Diosamblet is merciful! You shall have your boon Alexander! I shall make a whole man out of you and so much more as well! So let us have a look at the damage to be repaired shall we?" Their captor commanded, before he made one swift slash with his scalpel and the strap holding the eye patch to Alexander's head was severed.

Then their captor foolishly reached out with his free hand and began to push it aside, interested to see just what lay beneath… like an extremely foolish fawn sticking its head into a wolf's maw to try and grab a berry the wolf had caught between its teeth.

"Did… did I hurt you Mac Tíre Cáiliúil?" The Silver Haired Man all but whispered to the point that only Fenrir's amazing hearing allowed him to actually decipher the words.

He sounded concerned and worried… but then his physical body had sounded weak and pathetic a few moments ago and Fenrir knew what an utter lie that was.

"How long… how long can any deception truly last?" Fenrir wondered, finding himself unable to focus on the hunt to come as he normally would even though it was just about to start.

"A deception can last, will only last as long as everyone involved keeps wanting to believe in it, keeps wanting the same thing. Love… love is the deception that there can be anyone in the world that we care about more than ourselves… and it… it is the most powerful most important deception… most powerful most important story in the world, because we don't just tell it to other people, we tell it to ourselves as well." The Silver Haired Man insisted, before tenderly wrapping both of his arm's around Fenrir's neck and embraced him deeply.

Fenrir allowed him to do that.

Time seemed to pass even more slowly for the two of them then it normally did.

"As long as you need my power… you need me to believe I am part of your pack." Fenrir said slowly.

The Silver Haired Man's eyes were glistening slightly as he let go of Fenrir.

"That is why you are such a truly powerful spirit Mac Tíre Cáiliúil, you and you alone are able to see through my deceptions." The Silver Haired Man admitted.

"My sire would be impressed with that deception." The silver furred wolf stated calmly.

There was another long moment of silence between them.

"So, it seems that I got him to remove my eye patch just like I promised he would. Fistpaw?" Declared the Silver Haired Man as he once again curled a single hand into a fist and held it out...

"Fistpaw." Fenrir answered with smile and bumped one of his massive silver paws against the black glove, two great warriors celebrating victory together.

AN: You know what's easier than writing a "bottle episode" of Monster Party? Writing a "meta episode" of chapter 12 in the first book, where we can see Fenrir and Alex effectively MST3King a Darklord.

Of course by this point they've had so many encounters with Darklords that before long they stop talking about Frantisek Markov and started talking about themselves, though as Fenrir points out Markov is far from the most dangerous Darklord the group has come across.

Side note, some of Fenrir's comments to Alexander could be viewed in an insensitive way towards people who have experienced/are experiencing of dysphoria related to their physical bodies for any of countless different reasons. I am aware of that and they're intended only to be Fenrir's brutally simplistic animalistic point of view and not a good standard for a human being to live their life by, having sex is no guarantee of resolving all of a person's stress relating to how you look/feel.