Where Geno gets to start knowing the priest, a little bit of his past and how he ended up with the pirate crew Reapers.

No one's POV:
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"I come from a village named Arbesva. As I mentioned, for centuries it used to be homing both humans and monsters until 30 years ago when it became exlusively for monsters, with the humans moving mainly to Monsanto, the closest village. Arbesva was a big village, but all monster villagers were familiar with each other, keeping friendly and peaceful relationships."

"Was? Did it get destroyed?" Geno asked. The priest exhaled quietly from his nose and his expression got clouded by sadness.

"Alas, eventually it did..." That sadness didn't last for long however as he soon adopted a neutral expression. "... But it used to be beautiful and lovely. A simple life, where I spend a good childhood. Even if the village was still living under the rules of the humans. Arbesva was allowed to thrive and stayed safe as long as the monsters were followin' the human religion. When they left, we were more free. Not completely. Every now and then, we had humans, mainly of the army comin' to check up on us and make sure we weren't plannin' anything against 'em. It wasn't difficult to adapt when they were comin' and pretend we were obedient humble monsters who still followed the human religion teachings, as it was demanded. Though we ended up liking these teachings. The church the humans built in the village, we kept it and performed rituals. The monsters who knew the teachings better, were passing them onto the kids. But to become monster priests, who knew both the human and monster teachings, they pass through special training. Up high on a mountain humans call Serra de São Mamede, there had been built monster monasteries for the ones who wanted to learn further the religious teachings and wanted to find peace. A few of them were returning to Arbesva to pass the teachings down to the villagers. And I'm one of them."

"How didja come to like... generally the church religious stuff?"

"Randomly it all began. 'Sides my mother would take me to the church and explain to me what was said patiently, quenching my thirst for answers."

"So ya got send away to these monster monasteries, were taught further the teachings and returned to your village becoming one of Arbesva's priests?"

"Originally, I wanted to stay in the monasteries. But reasons... led me return to the village and become a priest." Another cloud of sadness and melancholy passed upon Alter's face but it soon left. "I willingly wanted to follow the teachings and learn the messages. With my parents' blessing I went and found one of the monster monasteries and for a few years stayed with the monks. When I returned, I became priest, teacher of the monsters and negotiator when the humans were comin' to check up on us. For 10 years. Then..." The tall skeleton exhaled from his nose. "There was some misunderstanding and the humans came to destroy the village. They had set it on fire and killed in cold blood most of the monster villagers. Very few of us, including me, managed to get away. We scattered. I walked for almost 4 days with little to no sleep until I arrived in the village humans call Nazaré. They didn't allow me to stay, but they gave me instructions on how to get to another nearby village, made exlcusively for monsters. I had no other choice and I went there. I couldn't find any house or residence in there and I had to sleep on the streets. But I stayed temporarily safe."

"If your village got destroyed from some misunderstanding, because the humans considered ya did somethin' wrong, wouldn't that make ya and all survivors..." Geno stopped for a moment to think carefully his next words. Alter waited patiently. "... wanted? Like, if the humans that attacked discovered that ya escaped alive, wouldn't they still hunt ya down?"

"Very good question and observation. If there's one thing I learned from the monasteries, is that if Arbesva was ever to be destroyed by the humans and we had to escape, alas if we were recognised that we were from there. Nowhere we would be safe after that, the monster villages that were gettin' destroyed were considered stigmatised and its inhabitants criminals."

"So ya lied 'bout where ya came from when you arrived at Nazaré?"

"Exactly. I spoke 'bout another village far away from Arbesva and that I had come to visit. Luckily for me then, humans didn't ask many questions and they simply wanted to get rid of me fast."

"From the moment they send ya on the right path and not anywhere completely else, I'm surprised."

"Eh. Monsters searchin' for somewhere to stay are always useful for when humans want some benefit or easy access to products. 'Cause where they wanted to send me was a village that was staying intact as long as the monsters were workin' and selling whatever they were producing. I was to them just a pair of workin' arms and just lettin' me get lost would mean less products."

"Jeez, ain't there one human who just doesn't exploit monsters?!"

"A rare sight."

"Ok ok. I had the patience and on the way gained enough interest to listen to your backstory. Ya kept it short, but understandable, to the most necessary. Now, how on earth didja end up on the Reapers and WHY didja join 'em?" Geno hurried the taller, who laughed gracefully.

"Oh the youth." He said cheerfully. He crammed his right hand in the pocket of his trousers and pulled out his prayer rope. He held it in his hands and started passing the beads from one hand to another. "When it comes to pirates... and when they wanna take whatever they want, ya don't have much of a choice most of the time." He started talking again after 10 beads. "While I was forced to come along with 'em, at the end I ended up acceptin' become member of the crew. After all the Captain gave me the choice."

"Didja choose to join piracy out of fear? That you might die?"

"No. Not really..." Alter stopped clacking the beads and raised head to look at the smaller. "But I gotta take it from where I left of my narration. As I said, I was send to that nearby monster village by the humans of Nazaré. That one had as its main outcome fishing on coasts. It wasn't next to the sea, quite far away enough, almost hidden. Every morning I would see a few monsters waking up early, holdin' nets, rods and other stuff to go towards the sea and catch fish. I was helpin' around with anything the other monsters had need. Mainly, since there was a church there too, I would help there. Every month the human soldiers were comin' to collect some of our products. By 'some', I mean about more than half of the production. Aside that, the monsters there could sustain themselves fine. It wasn't so bad. That routine lasted three months for me, as then the human soldiers came at us again, but not to collect. That time they were bringin' somethin' to us. They were escorting big carriages with horses. Followin' closely there were other human villagers, most of them women and kids, very few men. I was startled to say the least, but I knew what was goin' on. Or so I was told by another monster who had residence in that village way longer than me. The humans were bringing at us their women and kids from Nazaré to protect 'em from pirate attacks."

"What?!" Geno yelped.

"It was some kind of strategy. A trick to disorientate the pirates. The monster village had a special trapdoor made for situations like these. In there we were bringin' the women and kids, alongside whatever valuable they had. By emptying Nazaré, the village that was obvious to the eye was most likely first to be attacked. But the pirates would enter it and waste time searchin' for slaves or anythin' valuable. By stayin' around too long, more soldiers and more backup would come until then and defeat the pirates, or at least make them retreat."

"Was that succesful?"

"As I've been told, in the past it had always been succesful. The pirates couldn't find out that there was a nearby monster village that was hidin' what they were lookin' for. And even if they tried to search, I'd say they had no success to understand that." The priest sighed. "Until that day." His expression was filled with more melancholy. "Welp ya see, in the past, all pirates that had ever attacked Nazaré were human. The pirates who came were not. They were monsters. And the Captains of these pirate crews still are from the biggest threats all over the Seas."

"The Reapers? And Destino Oscuro?!"

"You guessed right."

"But since when these 2 are cooperating?!"

"Don'tcha know? Captain Reaper and Captain Nightmare used to be close friends and partners in piracy."

"WHAT?!" Geno yelped and hit his hands on top of his thighs. "Keep talkin'!" Alter rolled his eyesockets, but while smiling calmly and cheerfully, holding back his laughter.

"As a matter of fact, these 2 knew each other long before they become pirates. But that's another story for another day. Anyways, we prevented to hide the villagers and the treasures in the trapdoor, then waited in agony. I had climbed up high on a hill to have a better view of what would happen. If it all went well, it would be expected that the pirates would go towards Nazaré and fall for the trick. However, much to my terror, I saw both ships stirring and sailing towards the direction of the monster village."

"How did they know?!"

"Captain Reaper is a Necromancer. He has the ability to sense from afar the presence and condition of beings with soul. As for Captain Nightmare, he has a hold on Negativity. That means he can feel the sources of negativity in any being. The slightest negative emotion anyone feels, he can sense it and locate it. Now imagine all fear and agony the human villagers brought to us were feelin' and the big amount of souls gathered in one place."

"Hidin' was useless."

"Yup. While soldiers were waitin' back at Nazaré to surprise the pirates, the pirate ships were simply comin' at us. I climbed down the hill and ran back to the village to warn them that the pirates were comin' at us. We had only but minutes to run and hide, but the humans wouldn't let us. They wanted us to fight off the pirates."

"¡Cobardes sucios!" Geno yelped in indignation.

"Honestly, they did act cowardly then." Alter commented. Geno looked at him surprised.

"You understand Spanish!"

"Slightly. After all in Portuguese, what ya said sounds similar. Covardes sujos."

"Oooh!" Geno did. But then he shook head left and right. "Keep narratin' now."

"Mhm. Ya see, us monsters had no choice and we waited for a certain death, hoping that it would at least be quick. We expected a big attack, a large wave of pirates. Instead we saw just 10 monsters coming towards us. 6 of 'em were small skeletons, with only one of them bein'just half head shorter than me."

"Man! How tall do skeletons get?!"

"Some of 'em, very tall. Us monster villagers didn't move. But some of the human soldiers did. There were about 30 of 'em, yet the pirates killed them all easily. Any other human soldier immediately hid behind us. Then the pirates started talking calmly and cheerfully. Surprisingly they were in the mood to negotiate, even if they still wanted slaves and whatever riches there were. They told us monsters that we could do this the easy way or the hard way. If we didn't move or fight, none of us would get hurt and the houses would stay intact. If we did as much as to walk towards 'em, they would call the others pirates to come and turn the village to ashes. Immediately the soldiers started complainin', threatening us if we dared not to fight. And there the pirates spoke again and said that if we fought back, the first ones to die would be the soldiers. What happened next literally made my magic blood start boiling."

"Oh no..."

"The humans didn't just drop their weapons, they offered to show the pirates where were they hidin' the villagers."

"Those shameless cowards!" Geno exclaimed feeling his whole skull burning with anger.

"Sadly many humans do not value lives, except theirs. When their lives come in danger first, they'll do anythin' to save their skins. And then they don't care whether it's human or monster."

"Man. And then they call us monsters worse in any way!"

"The ignorance. Though us monsters didn't act any better then. We just stood and did nothin', allowing women and kids to be in danger. *sigh* So. Do I keep goin'?"

"Yes, I'm kinda invested in this." Alter hummed.

"Alright. We opened way for the pirates to follow the humans. Sayin' that for such 'kindness' they would take 10 captives, return to their crews and call them come too and pick more. No one had to get killed, or end up like the first fools who attacked 'em. Honestly I was scared. I was still recoverin' from the destruction of Arbesva and I just couldn't face another desctruction. I obeyed like the others and stayed quiet, even though my consciousness was screaming to fight the unfairness. After minutes, the pirates were seen comin' back with women who were crying, screaming and showering in insults the human soldiers for givin' them away like that. I wanted to fight, but still didn't move. Until..." Alter paused as he was now staring at the wall on the other side of the room. Seeing things no one else could see.

"Well? What happened?" Geno asked, who had completely forgotten at this point his distrust towards Alter and was listening like a child hearing its grandparents telling stories about when they were younger.

"While the voices of the women didn't move me from my position, amongst them I heard the voice of a kid. I had my head lowered all that time, but raised it hearing a kid crying. A lil' human girl, no more than 10 years old. I stared at her and my soul had almost convinced me to step up. But then suddenly she managed to escape temporarily the grip of the pirate who was holdin' her and tried to run back calling for her mother. The very next moment the pirate, who was one of the short skeletons and he had something like black tears running down his empty hollow eyesockets, stopped her with telekinesis and grabbed her not by the hand but her leg, violently dragging her. There I lost it. The fear gave place to anger. Before I could even realise myself what I was doin' I had pushed away the other monsters, ran up to the skeleton, summoned a long bone in my hands and smacked him with it so hard it broke in 2."

"WOAH!" Geno did.

"The pirate fell on the ground with a large crack on the back of his skull and I quickly helped the girl stand up as the other pirates had realised what had happen. Go back to your mother. Now! I just told her. She didn't say anythin', just turned around and dissapeared amongst the monsters. The other pirates had turned at me with weapons at hands and staring at me, while smiling madly. However, 2 of the skeletons told to the rest of the pirates take the other women, warn the crews and that they would personally make me regret my actions."

"One against three?! Not fair!" Geno protested again. "Do ya even know how to fight at least?!" He asked. Alter chuckled and crawled back a little more on the bed until his back was against the wall. He placed hands behind his nape.

"I might not look like it, but lemme remind ya that I ain't human priest. Monsters have different perspective 'bout what's allowed and what's not to do. No matter what we end up to become when we grow up, we are taught to fight, whether for offense, whether for simple defence. Even the women. In the monasteries I practiced to become monk, I was taught combat that mainly focused on waiting and using the opponent's strength against 'em."

"For real?" Geno asked slightly interested. The other nodded.

"And I went up against those 3 skeleton pirates. The other monster villagers had ran to take cover after I told 'em so. The one I hit on the back of his skull had stood up and instead of lookin' like he was in pain, he was laughin' it off. As he attacked me with knives tryin' to stab me, he was constantly laughin'. Unsettlin' but I wasn't gonna loose my focus, as I had 2 more pirates attackin' me. The second short skeleton, havin' mismatched pupils in his eyesockets and a hood above his head, was mainly using magic against me. The taller was at times usin' magic, but mostly attackin' me physically. Y'know, with his fists. I kept up with all 3 pirates for quite enough time, even when I had received injuries from 'em. Of course I had hit 'em back enough times, I even knocked out the 2 short ones. But as we stood for a moment, me facing the tall one who was still standin', feeling barely able to stand up from fatique and collapse, a circle of light lit up beneath me and next thing I knew, I was tied from my wrists and ankles with magical chains. They felt the very next moment as if they had lowered because I was forced to fall on my knees. When I was down, another chain wrapped around my neck, barely putting pressure to choke me, but on the slightest move of my head, it hurt me. I looked in front and froze. There were many more monsters and a few humans standing behind my 3 opponents with wild faces. Both crews had arrived. And their Captains."

"Oh no. Did they do somethin' to ya?!"

"Aside gettin' chained up, apparently not. Though Captain Nightmare seemed ready to do somethin' cause he was mad. I had beat 2 of his best pirates, the 2 short skeletons, almost 3 since the tall one was part of Destino Oscuro too."

"Hah! Skill issue!" Geno exclaimed.

"I believed that it was over for me and that I would finally face death. And ya know what, I did. Literally."

"Whadaya-?! Oh!" The small skeleton rolled his eyesocket and facepalmed. "Captain Plaga (Plague) approached ya, didn't he?" He asked, causing Alter to chuckle.

"Welp that's an interestin' nickname. But yeah, Captain Reaper stopped the other. I dunno what they discussed, they were talkin' quietly, but as I was told later, Captain Reaper was negotiating. After he stopped discussin' with Captain Nightmare, he then walked towards me and stopped. He looked at me from top to bottom silent and thoughtful for many seconds. At the end he turned again to look at Captain Nightmare. He told him to take whatever captives he wanted, he didn't care. But I was comin' with him. Then he called up Markus to carry me back to the ship. Informatively, he's one of the humans of this crew, whom you will not have to worry 'bout when ya interact, he's a chill guy with most people and monsters."

"I don't care 'bout meetin' and interactin' with any other pirate, mind you!" Geno growled crossing  his arms. "Though, what the heck? The Captain just wanted to take you? He had all those monsters, all these human women and children at his mercy to choose and he just took you?!" Alter looked up, still with hands behind his nape.

"Like you, I was confused by that decision then. I had no time to think anymore however, as I suddenly felt sleepy, little by little loosing my senses. The chains had stopped binding me, but I had no strength to stand up. I simply fell on my side. Seconds later all sounds faded away and my vision darkened."

"And then?! What happened?!"

"I woke up... in this room." Alter waved his hand to just show the hermitage. "I was layed on this bed, these books on the table were here too. Not much had changed, I keep this room pretty much the same. I woke up confused and surprised I was still alive..." He looked at Geno smiling gently. "... Kinda like you I assume."

"Confused and surprised I'm still alive? Certainly. Plus angry? Pretty much." Alter huffed. "How were the pirates treatin' ya?"

"Not bad. But either way I was not havin' much interactions with them at first. Only Markus would enter the hermitage 3 times a day and offer me some food. He wasn't talkin' to me and just nodding his head at me before exitin' the room. That routine lasted for a week and eventually my patience ran out. All I was doin' was praying, thinking, barely sleeping and eating. When Markus came in the morning to give me breakfast again, before he could exit I stopped him and asked what would happen with me. He finally broke his silence and told me that if I felt ready, he would take me to the Captain and talk."

"Bruh. Why didn't the hoity toity Captain come himself to talk with ya?!"

"He's the Captain, he has other responsibilites. Not like I was this bothered by that, I kind of needed that time to relax from all that had happen to me. Havin' finally enough curiosity to ask what would my fate be, felt for me as indication that I was ready to move on and start adapting to the new situation I was in. I told Markus that I wanted to see the Captain. He nodded and told me to follow him."

Alter paused and seemed to get lost in his thoughts and what had happen next, with Geno next to him waiting to hear, unexpectedly interested.

3750 words. bye byeee *pat pat pat pat pat pat pat*