ALO Short Stories 4: Forgotten Friendship

Forgotten Friendship is the fourth story in the ALO Short Stories series. The cover art was drawn by Chylk. 
It can be read over here and consists of five chapters.
== Summary ==
The story starts with a flashback to One-eye making the vow to only kill Lone Ones without families.
After this, One-eye is stuffed in a cave for a week, and treated terribly, until he finally gets taken out and brought to a place where all future Lone One assassin trainees are, too, plus an instructor, Jera, who explains them a lot. She tells them of how the Clan came to be, and what their jobs will be. They will be put into groups of four pups, who each train with one trainer, and switch to another every few weeks. One-eye gets put with three pups called Maud, Diggs and Arall, to their dismay because he is hideous.
The next day, their group starts training with Divine. They do some practicing, and it goes rather well for One-eye, but no one seems to like him, and they only get madder and madder at him.
In the evening after their first session, the pups decide to flat out bully One-eye, even to a physical degree, where his hump gets scarred. Silkey interrupts this ordeal, however, taking care of One-eye's wounds, to his surprise. She quickly tells him to leave after she's done, though.
Their training continues, and One-eye seems to be a promising fighter, but he gets bullied more and more. This often sends him off on his own, crying to himself. But, sometimes, Silkey comes to his aid again. 
This day, again, it happened, and Silkey seems really nice and helpful. She takes One-eye to "her" tree, a relaxing spot where she often comes by herself. She and he finally decide to be friends, and they also make the decision that Silkey will try to help One-eye be an even better fighter. When they leave the tree, Brad, Silkey's father, encounters them. He is nothing like rough Arrow, however, and is also very friendly towards One-eye.
Some months later, in winter, Arrow is assessing the Lone One assassin's so far. One-eye has the best performance during this, because of what Silkey taught him. However, his great skills still don't impress Maud and Diggs, who keep bullying him. Silkey tries to comfort him, and they decide to eat together on the Main Base. This is where Arrow finds them together.
The mad second-in-command takes her daughter to their cave, where she forces Silkey to be more like her and quit seeing her deformed friend. Silkey still decides to meet up with One-eye when the coast is clear, but will have to see him less nonetheless. When a commotion in the Clan causes Arrow to leave temporarily, Silkey meets up with her friend, comforting him.
Months pass and winter slowly becomes spring. One-eye and Silkey still do meet occasionally, but mostly they're just by themselves, feeling miserable for not being able to be friends. One day when the two friends and Brad are hanging out, though, Brad gets shot in his leg and taken away by humans. This shocks Silkey and One-eye, terribly, especially since the Pang didn't make a noise like they usually do.
They return to the Base and warn everyone, not realizing that they're seen together by Arrow at first. The loss of Brad causes great fear in the Clan, but, after that is all over, Arrow finds the two friends consoling one another over Brad's loss. She separates them and castrates One-eye, telling him that if he ever sets foot near her daughter again, she won't be so nice on him. She takes Silkey with her.
After this all, One-eye is all by himself. He knows he won't see Silkey again, not as a friend at least. She was taken away from him. When Maud and Diggs show up to tease him again, he finally snaps and realizes that he's lost everything except his vow to live for. He kills Maud in pure frustration, instilling fear in Diggs, and then leaves.
Months later, both he and Silkey are almost grown up. He has become a cold-hearted, quick-to-anger killer that is all by himself. She finally started to be more like Arrow and saw One-eye for the deformed monster that everyone thinks he is now. They do meet one another and lock eyes one more time, but their friendship is long gone. The story ends with One-eye finally becoming an assassin.
== Gallery ==
File:Ff2text.png|Early cover art by Skylacine
File:Ff3texr.png|Early cover art for chapter 1 by Skylacine
File:Ff1text.png|Early cover art for chapter 2 by Skylacine
File:Ff4text.png|Early cover art for chapter 4 by Camy-Orca
File:Ff5.png|Early cover art for chapter 5 by Camy-Orca
== Trivia ==
* So far the longest Short Story in the series.
* The story was originally going to be three chapters long, not five.
* The original title of the story was "Inner Silence", but this was later changed as Forgotten Friendship fit much better.
Category:Short stories