Shadow, however, had approved of Gracie long before his master did. After the first time Marlene had complained to him about her, he took to spying on her in secret to see what she was really like outside of their school. What he had found out pleased him but there was something... odd about Gracie and her family that he couldn't quite figure out. He didn't sense any danger towards Marlene because of it so he choose to ignore it and pushed her towards letting Gracie in.
Gracie, herself, had a good personality and a good heart that meshed well with Marlene's. In spite of her attraction to dark things and being a self-proclaimed Goth, she was normally bright and chipper. She liked making the people around her smile and her antics often amused Shadow. She also had a stubborn, rebellious streak in her which would often get her into trouble, like it did just now. She was loyal and protective though, with a strong sense of sense of justice, and she would often stand up for Marlene at the school even before they had become friends. This set Shadow's heart at ease as most of the time he was unable to be very active during the day and thus could not protect Marlene from abuse when she was there.
And this...this human had the nerve to hurt them. Nay to threaten them even! The very thought enraged Shadow even more and he tightened his grip on the boy even further to the point where he could feel the bones in the arm distort slightly in his hand. It wasn't quite enough pressure to break them, but it did cause the boy a lot of pain. He cried out and stopped struggling with a whimper. Shadow took some small measure of pity on him and eased his grip slightly to relieve the pressure and most of the pain with it. But it was only enough to let the bones go back to normal and no more. Now certain that the boy wouldn't be causing any more trouble for the moment, he looked to see how the two girls were fairing.
He first turned his eyes downward to where Gracie had been thrown only to find Marlene had already helped her friend to her feet and had gotten her out of the way beforehand. Gracie now stood frozen in fear a small distance away with a look of absolute terror plastered on her face. Marlene stood at her side and was currently trying desperately to get her friend to respond to her.
"Gracie! Gracie! Come on now, talk to me! Please!" She pleaded. "It's going to be alright! It's just Shadow. You know him, he's the guardian creature that I've been telling you about! He would never hurt us! Please Gracie, speak to me! Say something!"
Shadow felt a pang of guilt and sorrow as he watched his master. He knew something like this would happened if she ever saw him. It was why he hadn't revealed himself to her earlier because he was afraid his presence would scare her away from Marlene. He didn't have much of a choice now as he couldn't remain invisible and intangible and still be able to effectively deal with the drunk teens.
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