Safety in The Form Of a Knight (Madeleine x Espresso)

1: Beginning

Espresso Cookie took another sip of his warm coffee as he jotted various numbers and phrases down on his chalkboard. This was the fourth (or.. was it the fifth..?) day awake, and he was desperately fighting sleep. Espresso had always fought sleep for as long as he could remember, for this was his schedule. He forced himself awake until he physically couldn't anymore. He figured sleep was a waste of time, and that he could be doing so much more. Always putting work over his own health.

He set down the chalk and held out his hand. He took a deep breath and muttered a few words of motivation. Then, like magic, a burst of flames shot from his palm, levitating above his hand. Right in the center of the flames, sat a coffee bean. He smiled to himself as he closed his hand and the fire faded. He wrote another jumble of words on his chalkboard down, and just as he did, a loud and frantic knock on the door rang throughout the silent house.

Espresso jumped and quickly glanced up at the clock. 2:46. "Who the heck would be up at this hour?" He thought to himself. He yawned and looked out the window. It was Gingerbrave. Espresso thought this was strange, because he rarely got any visitors, especially not in the middle of the night. He walked over to the door and opened it.

"Espresso!" Gingerbrave called. "Thank goodness you're awake!" The teenage cookie looked exhausted, as he was breathing heavily.

"Are you alright? Do you need to come in and rest for a moment?" Espresso asked, out of pure pity for the tired cookie.

"There's no time! We need you now!" He grabbed Espresso by his arm and started yanking him away.

Espresso quickly pulled his arm out of Gingerbrave's tight grasp. "What's happening? Why do you need my help in the middle of the night? I'm.." He peered back anxiously into the safety of his house. "I'm kind of in the middle of something important."

"Look, I don't have much time to explain, but there are a huge number of cake monsters, and they're getting dangerously close to our village!"

"But.. Why do you need my assistance?" He asked.

"I was sent to gather all the powerful cookies in our town, and we were planning on attacking the monsters! Now come on!" He grabbed Espresso's arm again.

"Alright, calm down!" Espresso turned and closed his door, locking it of course. He spun back around and ran after Gingerbrave.

After a while of running, for Espresso's house was very excluded from the rest of the cookie's houses, they finally neared the center of the town. Other cookies were there too, talking nervously, some of whom Espresso didn't recognize.

Wizard Cookie turned at the sound of footsteps, "Ah, Gingerbrave! You found him! Do you think we have gathered enough cookies to attack?"

Gingerbrave nodded. "Okay everyone, listen up!" He yelled, immediately getting everyone's attention. "As most of you know, cake monsters are nearing their way to our village, so we have gathered you all to fight! We'll split each other into teams and show those cakes who's boss! We can do it as a team! I believe if we work together, we can truly do something amazing..."

He yawned. "I haven't had enough coffee for this..." Espresso thought to himself. As Gingerbrave was clearly getting lost in his motivational speech, Espresso took this opportunity to glance at the other cookies. There were Gingerbrave's friends, Strawberry and Wizard, then there was Almond, Twizzly Gummy, Mala Spice, and a bunch of other strong-looking cookies. He also noticed his old friend, Latte, who smiled at him as they made eye contact.

He started to turn back around, for he had noticed Gingerbrave starting to wrap up his speech when something gleamed in the moonlight and caught his attention. He looked back in the direction of the light.

Madeleine.

Espresso felt his face fall. Madeleine Cookie always seemed to find a way to get on Espresso's nerves, whether he intended to or not. The worst part was that he was adored by everyone. Which made sense, of course, for he was the fearless knight from the princesses castle who protected the town, so it was no big surprise he was here.

"I'll be assigning you groups to fight the monsters in." Gingerbrave announced, silently counting all the cookies around him, to see if there was going to be an odd number of people in the groups.

"NOW??" Twizzly Gummy groaned, right in Espresso's ear. "IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!! PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING!!!"

He flinched. "It's fine, I didn't need to hear anyway." Espresso thought.

Wizard rolled his eyes. "If you keep yelling at that volume, nobody will be sleeping soon enough."

"Okay, okay! We've got serious work to do! If we mess this up, the whole village could get killed!" He shuddered at the thought. "So we need to focus!" Gingerbrave said.

Everyone grew silent.

Gingerbrave stood straighter, proud to be getting this large a group of cookies under control. "Once you're out in your assigned team, it's very important to remember to stay with your group! We wouldn't want anyone getting hurt or lost."

Espresso began to grow nervous. What if he was put in the same group as Madeleine? He knew he wouldn't be able to stand being in the same team as that wretched cookie.

"...And... Wizard and Espresso, you will be a team."

Espresso let out a quiet sigh of relief and walked over towards his new partner.

"Okay cookies! Each team has been assigned a specific area to fight off the cake monsters." Gingerbrave announced. "Remember to stay with your groups! I believe in us all!" With that, he ran off with his team, and everyone began making their way to the woods outside town.