Crystal smirked. “Yeah, but the problem is that Usurpers only seem interested in draining souls from people. Not drinking their blood! They’re not vampires, hahaha!” Natalie started to think about the situation. “Ugh, well… Maybe if we were able to somehow bait them into drinking Plasmatic blood, we could get rid of them.” I asked Crystal. “But that’s insane! Is there ANYTHING else that can be used to kill them? It would be really hard to use blood, I mean, we did shoot them when we visited Colderes, right? How about that?”

Arthur turned around to look at me. “No Matt, that won’t work.”

“Huh?” I looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I know this planet more than you’d think… Meex doesn't have the resources for enough weapons to deal with this. We only produced firearms for law enforcement given how small and peaceful it is.” Arthur put his hand on his forehead and sighed, again, visibly frustrated. “When I submerged myself into that emptiness to explore more of Colderes, I saw a lot of eggs. Those things… They reproduce too much. We could get rid of some of them with guns, but we’ll eventually need to use the blood as a poison. A naturally regenerating resource.”

…“So... That’s it then? I’m not sure how people would react if we suddenly started asking for Plasmatic blood...” Arthur in an almost annoyed tone replied to me, clearly trying to keep his composure from all this madness and perhaps trying to stand both me and Crystal. “Well I don’t know either, but that’s all we can do for now. Speaking of: Thank you for your efforts, Crystal, Nitro, Matilda, MX-6. You’ve done well for our people.”

Matilda chuckled nervously. “Ah, well, you’re welcome.”

Nitro smiled. “Yeah, thank you for the complement. ‘Specially Crystal, she deserves it…”

MX-6 remained silent, for some reason.

Crystal smiled and approached us. “So now, the operation ‘ask every Plasmatic for blood 1337-X’ begins, right?” She looked soooo inappropriately enthusiastic as she made that joke to us.

“Right… Well, I guess since this is all we can do, we should leave.” I rolled my eyes and got going, stretching a hand to the side.

Stopping me though, Natalie looked at her phone. “Hm… Maybe we should check out what that Pred Squad is up to, it’s been a while now. I wonder if they had any luck dealing with those Usurpers…”

“Right, we should go see them then. But what about Dennis?” I looked at Dennis as he was passed out on the floor. Crystal giggled. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it!” And picked up Dennis and carried him in her arms extremely easily.

“Geez. Sometimes I forget how strong you are, Crystal.”

Natalie chuckled. “Well, yeah, she’s a dragon. That’s a pretty powerful monster species.” Arthur nodded and began to leave the laboratory ahead of us. “Oh, hold on Arthur.” Natalie, Crystal and I followed Arthur out of here. We took the elevator to the lobby, fortunately, it fit all of us pretty well, then we just left Silver T. Big. Again. “So how exactly do we find out what those ‘Preds’ are up to?”

“Funnily enough, those guys are livestreaming their activities as we speak. I’m not sure if it’s because of their ego or because they were ordered to show everyone how they’re handling the Usurpers.” Natalie answered confidently with a bit of sass. “Well what do we know, if you guys want we could go to my house and watch it together. It doesn’t look like we have any more to do.”

“Yeah sure. What about you Arthur? Crystal?” Arthur thought for a bit before replying. “Eh, sure, I guess it won’t hurt.” Crystal giggled once again. “Are you kidding? I’d love to come!”. “Then it’s decided, we’ll be watching it together as co-workers and friends.” After making the decision to hang out together, we took a bus to my house, as I opened the door and let everyone in. No annoying taxi driver, no awkwardness with Michael… Oh yeah. It’s all coming together.

Arthur and Dennis looked around. Dennis looked at me and said: “Wow Matt! This is a pretty cool house! And you live alone? I don’t see anybody in here, not even a single pet.”, “Well yeah, I like living alone, I wouldn’t want to have a pet since that’s more stuff to do and it’d disturb the nice silence in my house.”. “Aww….” Dennis looked a bit sad for some reason. But anyway. “Alright, take a seat, the TV is over here.” Showing my co-workers and friends where the TV is, I sat down and pulled the remote in my hands much better than my last attempts with this magic. Crystal chuckled. Like a crazy little kid. “You’re getting better at this!”

“Yeah I know, thanks.” Natalie sat down next to me, while Arthur sat down next to her, Dennis sat down on my other side and for some reason, Crystal sat down on the floor.”... “Uhhh… Crystal?” I looked at her, confused why she was doing that, while Natalie just shrugged visibly not caring about this. “Eh it doesn’t matter, let’s just watch what’s going on.”... “Right…” I turned the tv on and put on the livestream in question.

On the TV screen, we saw the perspective of a cameraman recording from a safe distance, the… uh, ‘Pred Squad’ was there fighting the Usurpers. Either shooting with their weaponry, or using their natural monster predatory instincts to attack the Usurpers the old fashioned way. This was in space, though. Since Colderes was consumed by Emptiness, this was the best they could do. The same reporter from last time narrated the events of this situation. “While we keep watching the Pred Squad cleaning the Usurpers from our land, it seems like they don’t know how to stop! They keep coming and coming, how would that go for our heroes?!”

“What’s this? Are we seriously watching a bunch of furries shoot some alien spiders in space?” Those words escaped my mouth out of confusion and frustration, before I quickly put my palm on my mouth upon realizing what I just said. Dennis turned his head to me. “W-what’s that supposed to mean?” He replied as his voice cracked slightly. “Don’t you think it’s cool to see this? It’s like some sort of anime! Plus the word furry… Would you enjoy it if I called you skinny?!”

“Ah, sorry I guess… It’s just that this seems so… [ahem], peculiar.” Not that that word works anyway, mind you. Arthur let out a few spaced chuckles. “Well, I’ve seen stranger things in my days for sure. Let’s just keep watching to see if this goes anywhere.” Crystal looked through her phone. “Well, I’m looking through people discussing this online, and this is pretty much what they have been doing ever since the stream began. No news of vulnerabilities, discoveries, or anything exciting to share. It’s just odd violence! Isn’t that silly? I would LOVE if we discovered something new regarding Usurpers or Emptiness!”

“...I…” I didn’t know what to say or answer, and just looked at Crystal then back at the TV in disbelief, before putting my palm on my face and sighing out loud. I swear at some point I’m gonna run out of oxygen and be known as Mr. Sighing Man. “In that case, how about we order some food to pass the time? We’ll be watching this for a while, apparently.” “Yeah sure, what can we order?” Replied Crystal while smiling.

“Uhh… You guys want some pizza?” Arthur nodded in silence, while Natalie replied before the others, “Yeah sure, I haven’t eaten junk food in a while.” Dennis and Crystal looked very happy with the idea, though. Dennis answered my question “I LOVE pizza, man! Sure thing! I’ll take any kind of pizza, don’t you worry!” Afterwards, Crystal finished with her answer.  “Yeah sure Matty-boy! I enjoy eating! A lot! It’s one of my favorite things to do in life!”

“I don’t think we needed to know that, Crystal.” I raised my eyebrow in confusion trying to give her the look over the fact she would have the need to share with us how she enjoys doing something so simple.

“Oh really? Sorry about that then, heheh!” She blushed a bit, then hid her face embarrassed. “Alright then...While I order the pizza, you guys watch and tell me if I miss anything.” I checked through my phone and just ordered a large sized pizza for the five of us. Not only two seconds later, I heard a knock on the door. Going to answer, I went to open the door to be greeted by the same dragon that was delivering mail that other time. The dragon handed me the pizza box. “Here you go sir, thank you for choosing us!”

Huh. That was fast, and they even have multiple jobs? Well anyway… must come with the training, then. “Oh my- That’s a pretty big tip! Ah sorry, I just wasn’t expecting it… T-thank you so much!”. “You’re welcome, spend it on something nice for yourself if you want.”. “Sure thing. Thanks.” And he flew away. Returning to my colleagues with the pizza, I sat down back in my spot. “Alright, here it is… Everyone gets to pick a piece, but make sure to not cover the furniture in grease or crumbs, please.”

“Alright!” Said Dennis in excitement as everyone reached to grab some pizza, and we continued to watch the livestream. We watched and watched, but nothing came out of it, just repetitive parasite slaughtering to no end… “Man, are we sure we’re gonna watch this forever? Couldn’t we just watch something else?” Said Dennis starting to get understandably tired. Perhaps he’d enjoy some stupid meme compilation instead. “I… have no idea. At this point, I think we should just finish our food and watch, then move on to our own stuff.”

“Well, alright then.” Replied Natalie just going with the flow, after we ate our remaining slices, Crystal, Arthur and Dennis left, but for some reason, Natalie stood with me. “Aren’t you going home, Nats?” I asked as I went to put the pizza box in the trash. “Heh, you see this spot on the floor, where Crystal was? It’s full of crumbs.”. “W-what? Augh damn it…” I went to take a look, and that mess was really there. Even after I told them to not mess it up!

“Alright, I’ll clean it. Thanks for telling me.” I went to get a broom and dustpan to clean it. Natalie laughed, mocking my suffering. “You know, if you threw a party and the house became messier, I could help you clean it if you want.”... “Eh, nah, thank you Nats but I’m pretty good at cleaning and I feel like I should take care of my own matters myself.”, “Even if I’m willingly offering to help you out? Because I would have no problem with it.”

“I… don’t know, it just seems nicer to me to do things myself unless I need help. It keeps me from being lazy and dependent, and it’s what I’m used to after living alone for so long.” Plus, I don’t think I’d ever throw a party, anyway…

“Alright, fair enough!”

“It’s a bit late, and everyone already left.” I then cleaned the filth left from that creepy dragon.

Natalie fiddled with her hair a bit. “Well… I wanted to talk to you some more, actually. There’s something we need to talk about…” …“Alright, what is it?” I looked at her curiously after doing my annoying cleaning duty from the mess a certain eccentric, unobedient dragon had made. “It’s about The Emptiness again, I’m sure we’re all tired from hearing it over and over, but this whole ‘World Ending Soon’ plot really has me thinking. There’s a chance we won’t make it, you know.”

“Right, I thought we all agreed that it’d be over sometime though? We’d deal with it?”

“Sure…” Natalie looked a bit more nervous. “But in this case it didn’t, since we both now know about our… feelings, after all this time… We should do something big together before it’s too late, just to make sure we can do something in the worst case scenario. Better safe than sorry.”

“Ah, right… I uhhh… like… that idea. It’s a good thing you had the initiative to say it, because I was too focused on Emptiness and my job to think about it.”

“I’m glad you like my idea, plus, you’re blushing!”... “Again?”

We smiled at each other, happy despite the circumstances. “Alright then Natalie, I’m terrible at making plans so… Do you have anything in mind? Anything we can do together?”

“I know perfectly what we can do!” Natalie smiled with an excitement I was waiting so long to see.  “Hold my hand and follow me.”. “Oh… Haha. Alright.”

I held hands with Natalie again and followed her outside of my own home, unsure where she was leading me to. “So, where are you taking me to Natalie?” I asked with no clue what place she was thinking of. It was nice to see her acting like this, though. “You’ll see.” She said with a smile on her face. With no further questions at her, I simply waited until we arrived at where she wanted to take me. That’s when I noticed where she was taking me to. Far from every house and business in our land, there stood a big academy mixed with green life and technology in a beautiful manner. The Academy Of Justice, in all its glory.

“Why… did you take me here, Natalie? We can’t get in like that, we don’t study here anymore.”. “I didn’t take you here to enter the academy, I brought you because there’s something we used to do together everytime we got out, remember what that is?”