[cerastes]

So yesterday we talked about how Robin Hood made friends with John “Little John” Little, and maybe you are craving some more Real Deal Robin Hood, but there’s also the distinct possibility that you are hoping today’s story of the day also involves more of those riverside fights to the death between psychopaths. If you want more of both, BOY, HAVE I GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU, because today, we are going to talk about how Robin Hood made friends with his other famous ally: Friar Tuck. And YES, it also involves riverside violence, because Robin Hood is a psychopath and that is his only way of making meaningful bonds with others.

RIGHT, so this happens a while after Robin and John have become even bigger threats to society by combining their savagery. There’s like three hundred odd bandits in the Murderous Mass of Merry Men now, their mansion has received some expansions, courtesy of all that money they were totally giving to the poor SNRK and Robin was pretty famous by now. So Robin and the lads were shooting arrows at animals just for kicks, because killing shit is the only consistent hobby a psychopath has, and he decided “YO BUT LET’S KILL COOLER”, so they started aiming at farther and farther away animals, until the only two that could land their shots were Robin and John. 

Now, Robin is kinda really into John, so he’s like “MAN, YOU AND I, WE’RE SO– THERE’S NO ONE BETTER THAN US AT HIGH PRECISION SENSELESS KILLING IN THIS BARBARIC LAND OF THE 1400′s ENGLAND ” because Robin is really proud of their murderous bromance.

But before Robin could get down on one knee and present a ring of engagement to John “Steroids” Little, a resounding “WAIT!” echoed in the forest. “You two are good at high precision senseless killing. Pretty good. But I know someone better than you at high precision senseless killing. He kills things with more precision and less sense than you.”

“NANI” yelled Robin Hood, drawn in chalk in the style of 1980′s anime. “Who the HELL are you talking about, Will Scarlet!”

OK QUICK INTRO: Will Scarlet is another one of Robin Hood’s lads. The youngest one and a passionate youth, he was the finest, best swordsman in the Merry Men, while Robin Hood was the best archer, and John “Hercules’ Bigger Cousin” Little was the best staff wielder (also a really good archer). He was famous for not sucking Robin’s dick despite being loyal to him.

“Well, see, over yonder by The River” elaborated the swordsman “there’s this friar that is even more of an uncouth savage that you two put together”.

“WELL THIS WON’T DO, NO ONE IS A LOWER LIFE THAN ME” and with his arse chaffed by jealousy and his eyes full of Studio Ghibli tears, our man Hoodie grabbed his utensils of murder and went to meet this friar, stomping his feet like the psychopathic manchild he was.

Now, finding a friar in a forest shouldn’t be too hard by itself, because friars are not usually alone in the middle of a forest by a river, but in case there was any doubt, Robin Hood, astute fox, immediately realized that that particular friar by the river was the one he was looking for. Not because he is, like, intelligent and wily or anything, but because, see, when I say “friar”, you imagine this

but what stood in front of Robin was more like

In his usual eloquent and poetic demeanor, Robin Hood let out a “holy fucking shit what” and reconsidered his life choices that led to this moment. That sure was a friar, alright, but he was packing. Weapons, cool armor, the hundred yard stare of someone who was Seen Some Shit, this guy had it all. Are you familiar with the souhei (warrior monk) Musashibo Benkei? The guy that camped out in a bridge and beat people who passed by and stole their weapons? And who ended up with 999 weapons he stole from people he defeated? Ok so this friar was the western equivalent of Benkei, in that you did not fuck with this friar.

Robin Hood, however, is not an intelligent lifeform, so as soon as he got over his initial, visceral fight-or-flight reaction, he was like “EH” and went to face him, anyways.

And by “went to face him” I obviously mean that Hoodie went and told him “hey dude, carry me across this river”. And the heavily armed friar, as you do, SILENTLY picked Robin up and, uh, carried him. At this point, Robin’s brigand mind was a string of 0s and 1s because he could not fucking compute this dude didn’t attack him for disrespecting him like that and instead just silently complied. Well, whatever, free piggyback, Robin is happy.

But as soon as they get to the other side of the river, the friar says “hey, do me a solid and carry me across the river, mang”. OH, SO THAT WAS HIS GAME. Robin picks him up and returns the favor, because piggybacks are awesome. As soon as they get back to the other side, Robin immediately says “hey HEY carry me across this river”, and the friar is like yeah alright it’s not like this is a huge waste of time, so he lifts Robin and starts carrying him again, but in the middle of crossing the river, PSYCHE the friar legit powerbombs Robin against the river. PRAAANKED.

Robin gets up, screams “KISAMA!!! and boss fight music begins to play as he gets his longbow out and starts shooting arrows at the friar, who deflects every single one of them with his shield. “K-kisama…” silently screamed Robin in a very tiny voice when he saw that his signature move had been completely invalidated and was forced to draw his sword to engage Mega Ultra Friar in melee combat. Robin really oughta stay away from rivers because he only ever almost dies near them.

But Robin was a pretty good swordsman in his own right, so they go left and right, swish and swoosh, until they both get tired. The friar has the upper hand on principle of his superior equipment, and also because he’s a Dark Souls boss. Seeing this, Robin remembers he is an outlaw and shouldn’t be playing by the rules, so he grabs his horn and blows it three times, which is the “HELP ME, I SOILED MY DIAPERS, LADS” signal. Almost immediately, Robin’s whole gang of happy killmen turn up and surround the Raid Boss Friar. The friar, however, looked nowhere as terrified as he should look for a tired man outnumbered 300-to-1. He simple put his fingers on his mouth and whistled three times.

“HEY YOU DUMBO” Robin yelled “I’m the one with the bandit gang, so whistling three times is not going to–” but before Robin could finish his tantrum, a rumbling noise surrounded the battlefield. One of the Merry Men looked to the source of the sound and yelled “DOGS…!”, which would usually be a great thing, except these were very angry, very murderous hounds that began attacking the Merry Men. 

Things Robin Hood Didn’t Account For: The friar having a personal army of dogs.
Things The Friar Had: A personal army of dogs.

Around 300 dogs appeared, matching each Merry Man head by head, and all out bandit-versus-dogs war was unleashed. Bandits using swords to defend themselves, dogs dodging skillfully and catching arrows with they mouth (LITERALLY, THAT IS WHAT THE BALLAD SAYS), fucking John “Hulkmania” Little fighting for his life as a dog wanted to french kiss his jugular, it was PANDEMONIUM. The fight goes on and Robin tells John to PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, so John activates the Kaio Ken times 10 and kills like two dozens of dogs with staff blows and arrows because he is kind of a big deal, and the friar is like “dude no don’t kill my dogs, can we reach a compromise?”, and of course, Robin, the sensible guy, says “yeah, if you join our band of murderous and dangerous criminals, we can all be happy together and ransack Nottingham and her roads”. Of course, the friar, a man of the cloth, a servant of our lord Jesus Christ, passionately answered “YOU DON’T HAVE TO ASK TWICE” because he sure as hell loves senseless violence as much as these psychopaths, and he finally found a band of men dangerous and vile enough for him to feel comfortable with, for him to call “his brethren”.

And that’s the story of how Robin Hood recruited a boss fight into his party. And all of his dogs. They christened him “Friar Tuck” because his real name, “Ultra Friar Arnold Schwarzenegger On Steroids” wasn’t as catchy.