Arthur studied for the day, then went to bed at night.
…
"Sooo? How'd it go? Spill the tea, sis!" She asked him. Currently, they were on a yacht, in a jacuzzi sipping apple juice like it was alcohol. Arthur laughed a bit, as the "sickness" he felt had faded over the drive back home, and he was now in quite a good mood.
There was a problem with Arthur. Well, there were many, but one of them was his idiocy.
Despite being cynical about romance for himself, now that he genuinely felt it again, he was a complete idiot. He thought that even if she was a dragon, there was a chance that he could turn her to his side.
He was like a weak city protected by giant walls. If something could bypass those walls, it would be easy pickings from then on.
"Well, it went kinda well. She yapped a whole lot, and it was really weird, but I think I'm in love. I do hate that, but it feels… nice. I'm pretty sure she's a dragon, though," he answered, looking up at the wonderful sunshine.
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah, she talked about military stuff and war… a lot. So I'm like 90% sure she's a dragon," he added. She seemed surprised and looked a little disheartened. "Oh, well… What was her name?"
"Melissa. It could be a fake name, though, obviously," Arthur said.
"Well… okay, let's look at it from their perspective," Lucy proposed. "What's their plan? Reality was warped to get you a date that couldn't be planned for; it's almost, by definition, unable to be planned. If there exists a monster who could plan for reality being warped, then you need to tell Chad to go kill them immediately."
It was a fair assumption. If reality itself had to be manipulated to get Arthur a date, then what was the thought process? For "Melissa," she would have to have a human stalker, one that Arthur could fight easily, get kidnapped, then either be rescued by Arthur directly or have him get the cops involved. Then, she'd meet up with him in a McDonalds, explicitly talk a lot about war and the military, which would be genuinely stupid if your goal was to not get caught as a member of the Oppen family. To make things even more difficult, the reality warping that needed to be planned was one that would set up events that would make her want to go on a date with him. If she wanted to go on a date with him from the getgo, she wouldn't have had to have been kidnapped and "saved" by him in order for her to be willing to go on a date with him. Unless the reality manipulation wasn't to set up events in which she would want to date him, but rather set up an event where Arthur himself would feel okay going on a date. But that didn't make much sense, since even if Arthur rejected romance, he was still a hetero male, a woman giving him romantic interest should have been more than enough. But did the enemy really plan for Arthur to have a cold heart? How much did they know about him? The only one that knew Arthur was afraid of women was Lucy. Was Lucy leaking information to the enemy? She's a dream dragon, and they should be on good terms with the moon dragon. Moon has four letters, war has three. 4 minus 3 is 1, and that's exactly the amount of heads that Arthur has, excluding his penis.
Was this a secret message that Lucy was allied with the war family, and that they were metaphorically – and also literally – "after his head?"
Maybe! Did it make Arthur's head hurt trying to think about it? Absolutely.
So, Arthur resigned himself, finishing his drink and putting it down, his brain feeling fried.
"I can't imagine she's actually part of the Oppen family. In my opinion, it would be needlessly convoluted if she was, and frankly, I don't care if she is," Arthur said, ending things with that.
"Yeah, honestly, I don't wanna think too hard about it either," she said. "I had a test on Friday and I bombed the fuck out of it, so thinking as an activity isn't really what I wanna do," she told him.
"Really? What was the test on?" He asked. "Chemistry stuff," she answered.
"...Oh, okay."
"But I think it was, like, total bullshit. The teacher is clearly a bitch, and she taught it poorly. The education system is corrupt, that's why I failed," she pitifully complained, kicking her feet on the edge of the boat.
"I can see that. Did you study?"
"No, why would I study?" She asked as a genuine question.
Arthur, who's only highlight was his academics, let out a small "Yeah…" before he ended the dream early.
…
It was Monday morning. Arthur himself yawned and got up, getting ready for the day.
He went to class, and saw Sally a bit bummed out.
"What's wrong?" He asked, and she sighed, saying, "We didn't do anything fun this weekend…"
That was true, as he'd spent all weekend flying from the manor, or sleeping, or whatever else he was doing.
"Well, we can do something fun this weekend instead. Is there anything you wanna do?" He promised. Sally took a moment to decide, before settling on "I wanna go to the mall."
"Alrighty, then," he said.
…
The day passed without interruption, and Arthur wondered when he was going to go on another mission with the Graves family.
'No, that's a bit unfair. After all, I'm sure Mrs Graves isn't my biggest fan. I wonder if I'll be kicked out of the family?'
Arthur sat down on his bed, watching TV with Tyler. He laughed to himself at the thought of being kicked out of the family.
'If such a thing were to happen, how awful would that be?'
Arthur received a phone call. Answering it, he was immediately greeted by an annoying, grating voice.
"Yo! Broski, I got something really cool to show ya. Come to the address I'm sending ya, it's gonna get lit!" The voice yelled. That voice was undeniably—
'Chad… well, I guess I can trust him, a tiny bit.'
And on the line, there was some yelling that Arthur couldn't make out. He sighed and agreed, hanging up and checking his texts, seeing Chad had sent him a location that wasn't too far from his college.
Arthur got up, going over to the door and opening it. He stepped through, and immediately found himself outside. The scene was that of a construction site with no one present, and Arthur was completely blown away.
He closed the door quickly, feeling a fear of attack. However, a voice popped up, silencing that fear.
"Yo! Sorry about the grand entrance, but I reeaaally wanted to get this ready, so I enlisted this guy's help," Chad said. Two people were beneath him, one boy who seemed to be quite young, maybe around 14 or 15 years of age, and a man with both arms broken.
About that man in particular, his face was blue and purple, bleeding all over and swollen in a disgusting manner.
"Alrighty, you can go now! Thanks for your help, and see, it wasn't so bad, now was it?" Chad asked him, as the man healed his wounds and a door appeared from nowhere, the man immediately fleeing.
The other boy, a youngster with red hair and an outfit consisting of a white tank top along with black shorts finally woke up. He looked around, sniffing and making a "blegh" sound, looking at Arthur and seeing him with his own two eyes.
"No way! It's the Traitor!" The young boy said, getting up, before turning around and seeing Chad. "And that's the strong fucker!"
Immediately, fire sprouted from the boy's hand and he went to smack Chad with the blaze, but Chad weaved, taking a small leap back.
"No no nononono, I'm not your opponent! You're gonna fight my bro!" He said, pointing at Arthur. The boy looked back and saw him, clicking his tongue.
"Motherfucker, what a fucking day I've had. Nah, this makes a fuckton of sense, don't it? What kinda fucking story has a protagonist that beats the main bad guy at the start of his fucking journey? No fucking one, naturally," he said.
The youth smirked a devilish grin and pointed at Arthur, yelling, "You! You're the fuckin' traitor, and the main fight of the beginnin' of my story!"
Then, he pointed back at himself, exclaiming, "Call me Pyro! I'm a fuckin' newbie to this, but I'm gonna beat your fucking ass to a shitty smithereen, y'got that?!"
"Pyro," obviously was a fake name, but Arthur made up his mind.
'Okay, "Pyro." Gosh, he yells so much, the echo in this place makes it even more annoying…'
"Yeah, yeah, I guess," Arthur said, swallowing his spit and taking a deep exhale.
If he truly was a newbie, and a teenager at that, it might not be too difficult to win. Though, Arthur did feel bad about beating up a child.
'And he has flames. I'd assume he's part of the Fire Dragon family, the ones that attacked me on that terrible night… Maybe he's like me, and he just found out he was a dragon?'
"Hey dude, do we really have to fight? Like, I'd rather avoid—"
"Shut your fucking mouth! I'm gonna be the king of the Dragons! I'll become the strongest!" Pyro screamed, flames emanating from his body as he took a squat and clenched his fists, flexing all his muscles in absolute hype.
Chad laughed and clapped his hands, going over to the kid and patting him on the back.
"Damn right! Fuck yeah, dude, this shit's getting even me pumped up like crazy! Honestly, I don't even know if I'm rooting for my bro… ah, whatever! Alright Pyro-bro, what song you wanna play? I brought a boombox just for this!"
"The fuck's a boombox? Play some real hard shit, somethin' y'ed see out of a fucking AMV!" Pyro roared, his flames burning even hotter. Chad roared as well, being sucked up in the hypetrain.
Chad pulled out a boombox, and played Nightcore AMV songs, much to Pyro's enjoyment.
"FUCK YEAAAAHHH!!!!"
'...This is so annoying.'
Doing his best to put on a nonchalant face, Arthur kept his hands in his pockets. Looking around at the abandoned construction sight, he took a deep breath, immersing himself in the songs and the cold air. It was quite a beautiful scene—
"Alrighty, fight! I won't intervene unless there's a third party! Kill or don't kill, there's no rules in this deathmatch! No rounds either! FIIIIIGHTTT!!"
Arthur's eyes widened as the fight started without any safety net.