Chapter Text
Sloth is, as she oftens finds herself to be these days, lying in a low branch of a tree. With the other sins caught up with whatever responsibilities causing them to leave her on her own, and Diligence off doing… some sort of work, Sloth doesn't have much to do. It's great, honestly.
Wolvendom has a lot of trees with thick branches, and even if they aren't quite as nice as Eucalyptus trees, they're not bad for lazing around. She can perch on the branches, or even just lie on the grass, snacking on the berries if she ever gets hungry.
It's… peaceful, and even the wolves don't attack her; they understand that she means them no harm, even if she does seem strange to them. They leave her alone most of the time. It's nice. Sloth often ends up sleeping half of the day away without realizing.
That's what she plans to do again today, as she adjusts on her branch to sit more comfortably. Video games haven't been invented yet here, so the batteries of her PSP would be hard to keep charged if she hadn't lucked out and gotten an electro vision.
The quiet sound effects and background music of the game are drowned out, however, by the sound of a loud scream.
It's not my problem, Sloth thinks instinctively. Whoever screamed isn't her responsibility. They aren't even her sinner or anything, based on what she can sense of their aura. I don’t have to do anything.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flaming… person? Looks like some guy, probably the same age as her human form. He has white hair, and is both on fire and getting chased by multiple pyro slimes- three small ones, and one large.
He’s also coming closer to where she’s sitting on what she imagines to be a highly flammable tree, and although she’s continued playing through more than just fire, the guy looks like he could use some help.
And so, with a heavy sigh, Sloth pockets her PSP and drops back down to the ground. She waits patiently -one second, two seconds, three- and takes out her beloved Vehurn. The boy is running her direction, 10 meters away, 9, 8, 7-
“Get out of the way!” The boy screams, gesturing wildly at her to run. Sloth ignores him, because she’s fine, and there’s no reason for her to run.
The slimes are just a meter away from her now, the boy leaning on his knees trying to catch his breath behind her, so she raises Verhurn, her catalyst, and a blob of electro energy catches them all. Usually, this skill would only slow the enemy down as they struggled to move against the electrifying ordeal, but since they were pyro slimes, dangerous sparks popped around. Overloaded explosions pushed the slimes away, and one of the small slimes popped out of the slowing aura.
Damn it, how inconvenient. Gladarius Aura was a great skill, since it slowed down the enemy and let Sloth deal with them without much effort, but enemies affected by pyro were unfortunately likely to escape due to overload explosions. Plus, since she couldn’t use Gladarius Aura and any of her other skills at the same time, fighting pyro enemies was incredibly inconvenient.
She gets ready to stop her skill, but a determined shout and the flash of a sword running past stop her. It's the boy from earlier, headed right back into the fray.
"Stop," Sloth tries to say, because if he couldn't handle the slimes earlier, why should he be able to now?
This time, it seems that it's Sloth's turn to be ignored. The boy slashes at runaway slime with his sword. He's fast on his feet, even if Sloth can tell his style of fighting is reckless.
It's fine. She's friends with Gluttony, who's willingly eaten bombs and was probably tempted to go back for seconds, and she's fought next to Wrath, who takes more risks than she can count, though his are usually very well planned. Even Diligence has thrown caution to the wind a little more than necessary before. She can handle recklessness.
Besides, the boy seems to be taking care of the slime pretty well with his sword anyway.
Sloth focuses on her own batch of slimes. Taking a deep breath, she cancels Gladarius Aura. The slimes jump around erratically, and she takes a couple shots of regular Electro energy at them. One of the small ones, already weakened by Gladarius Aura, dissolves into nothing.
The boy's slime is dead as well, and he turns to her. There's a red Pyro vision glinting faintly at his belt. No wonder he hadn't been able to fight the slimes alone; Pyro against Pyro was more than just ineffective, it was completely useless.
At least she could still trust him to use physical attacks, then.
Together, the two of them defeat the last small slime and a large one too. The boy is left panting in the ground, and Sloth sits down under a tree, in a spot where the grass hasn’t been burnt to a crisp.
“Whoa,” The boy says after he’s caught his breath. “That was awesome, ”
He sits up, turning to look at her. “You have an Electro vision don’t you? I have a Pyro one! Pretty bad luck for me to run into Pyro slimes, huh? The one kind I can’t fight off on my own. Thanks for helping me out back there,”
Sloth nods slightly. “No problem,”
“My name’s Bennett,” He says, taking her response as an invitation to keep talking. That’s fine by her. She’s tired, but she doesn’t mind listening. “We made a pretty good team back there, you know?”
They weren’t bad, but then again, they hadn’t really been able to show off whatever teamwork they could’ve really had against Pyro slimes. It had mostly just shown them that they could kind of work together. Sloth doesn’t bother reacting to this one.
The boy, Bennett, keeps talking anyway. “Anyway, that was a good fight, but I should probably keep going if I wanna actually try finding some treasure before sundown,” He hesitates. “You… you wanna come with? Please?”
Ugh, I really don’t want to, Sloth’s already fought off a few slimes, which is more than what she usually does in a day. She’s tired, and she’s not in the mood for gallivanting off on adventures or whatever. She never is.
You should really stop lazing around all day, though, says a voice in her head that sounds annoyingly similar to Diligence. Come on, this guy’s super hyped up! Do it! Do it! Do it!
I’m going to kick DIligence’s ass at Item Crasher when he gets back, Sloth decides. With a sigh, she stands up. “Fine,” She says. “I’ll come with you,”
Bennett beams at her. “In that case, let’s go find some treasure!”
And that was how Sloth reluctantly become an unofficial member of Benny's Adventure Team.