Penny's Lucky Day

Protecting Flame

Damien watches the Doom Dimension get replaced with roiling flames as he stands face-to-face with Apollonir.

He glances at Tanner before everything fades away, hoping he'll be ok. Apollonir gives a rather dismissive sigh to that.

"Oh, don't worry. Oberus is the gentlest out of us six."

"...still, I..."

"Why must you worry so much for him, I wonder? What of the others?"

Damien gives a somewhat confused shrug to that.

The flames then fade away. Damien finds himself in what looks like his school's front entrance.

"...wait. Why are we here?"

"I decided to conjure up an environment you are familiar with."

It seems to be the end of the school day, but, before Damien can get too comfortable, a student passes directly through him. He stumbles back, disoriented by what just happened.

"...w-woah. Um... ok then. Uh... where do I go? What am I supposed to do?"

"I intend on teaching you the merits of working as a team. As the leader of the Legendary Six... having members who are committed to helping the team as a whole is necessary for success."

Damien narrows his eyes confusedly at what Apollonir says, but, oh well. He begins drifting through the school hallways before inevitably ending up by the staircase near the cafeteria. He notices his fiery companion hovering into the lunch room, so, he follows after.

Eventually, he sees a familiar sight, albeit, from a third-person view: himself, sitting next to Penny, Cyan, and Tanner at the lunch table. Jill is absent, though.

He looks quite bored in this vision, for some reason. In it, Penny talks with the other three brawlers, as determined as ever.

"...so, Cyan and I are thinking of joining that tournament being held by those rich people."

Cyan nods happily at that.

"Do you guys want to join, too?"

Tanner immediately gives her a quick nod in return.

"Y-Yeah. Damien...?"

Damien sees his past self shrug nonchalantly. Yeah, he was reluctant, but, well...

Cyan crosses her arms, affixing past Damien with a serious stare.

"Damien, we might need help if Masquerade shows up again. We barely know anything about him, and could use the firepower."

Damien remembers ignoring Cyan. He knows what happens next, too, as Tanner speaks up.

"I m-mean, I'm... in. W-Why don't you, u-uh... join too?"

Past Damien thinks for a little, and then looks to Tanner.

"Ok. Sure."

Damien sighs quietly and looks away, starting to slowly walk back through the cafeteria and towards the stairwell. He then passes by Jill and himself, chatting, for some reason.

"Damien, cmon, we gotta get to that meeting. It's important, Cyan's gone missing."

"...Cyan...?"

"You didn't hear?"

Damien feels a pang of guilt at this. He just thought Cyan was skipping class or something, even though she'd never do that. He's not even really apologized to Cyan for this, even though it's not even directly hurting her.

He grits his teeth and hurries past.

"Apollonir... um... can you not make me feel bad...?"

"Damien, I am here to prove a point. Dan is far easier to deal with, but you..."