The four arena teammates got the chance to talk further once the lunch bell rang. By that time, someone had finally noticed the sizable holes that were mysteriously punched through the concrete walkway in the courtyard. The staff sealed off the entirety of the courtyard to investigate, inconveniencing many students who had to take the long way around the school to get to lunch.

All the senior students eventually congregated to the noisy cafeteria, where the strong midday sunlight poured in through the glass ceiling. Arcanus, Caleo, Zeratron, and Fenrick sat together at their usual round table in the cafeteria’s center, where they would casually go over arena tactics for their next battle. In the days leading up to an arena bout, many of the students passing by with their lunch trays would drop by quick messages to the squad, such as “good luck this ten-end!” and “Go Team Hardires!” Caleo would half-heartedly wave to them or quickly say thanks despite preferring not to be bothered while eating his lunch.

“Alright, now we just need to make sure you can get through tomorrow with no trouble,” Caleo told Fenrick, who had just sat down with a trayful of veggies.

“Right,” Fenrick slowly nodded, thinking about the tough challenge that laid ahead of him. “Maybe I can just stay home tomorrow; say that I’m sick. My parents are rarely home anyway so they would never notice.”

“I would not recommend that,” Arcanus said while sipping on soup from a plastic bowl. “Not only is it lying, but you’ll be missing out on some much-needed education.”

“Ugh, that’s so freaking lame though,” Fenrick stabbed a piece of broccoli with his fork. “Something’s bound to piss me off, and it’ll probably be you again Archie. Maybe if I eat some drowsing herbs before school I can just sleep through the whole day.”

“Or you can maybe just, I don’t know, try your best not to flip out on everything, just for one day?” Caleo suggested.

Fenrick took a second to think it over. “Yeah, I guess I can give that a shot. Hey, as a way to celebrate me not getting suspended, you all want to hit up the arcade tomorrow night?”

“Sure, that should be fun,” Caleo nodded, “but don’t go thinking you’ll be beating my high score in Orc Wars 9!”

“Oh, I know I’ll be beating it,” Fenrick rubbed his hands in anticipation. “I got a shitload of copper coins saved up that I’m gonna pour nonstop into that motherfucker; that score is going down!”

“I shall be there as well,” Arcanus said, “they got a new basketball machine installed that I’ve been eager to try.”

“Cool. What about you Z-Tron? You going?” Caleo asked Zeratron, but he didn’t answer. Zeratron’s mind seemed to be elsewhere, completely closed off from the outside world.

“Hmm,” Caleo stared at his distracted teammate. “Anyways, since we know that Fen won’t be suspended, we should probably talk strategy for Donday,” he addressed the rest of his team and they huddled around the table.

Before they could get too into it, they heard a voice calling for Caleo. They turned around and saw a tall, slender girl with deep silver hair approach their table.

It was Ophelia Warmack: the undisputed top female fighter at Hardires High. She was also Caleo’s girlfriend, who in turn was viewed as the best male fighter in the school (though there were some who believed Zeratron may have been a bit more powerful). The two were widely regarded as the ultimate power couple, and many of the students at Hardires High and even other schools envied them greatly for both their combat skills and attractiveness.

Ophelia was already school royalty before her first year, being the daughter of Ivy Silvestry: the two-time solo high school world champion who eventually went on to have a prestigious collegiate career as well as fight professionally. She was considered a pioneer in women’s gladiatorial combat, and everybody had high hopes for her daughter to follow in her footsteps. In Ophelia’s first year, she was a solo gladiator like her mother. In her second year however—after coming up short in the semi-finals of the solo world championships—she decided to join the duos team with her childhood friend and had achieved success ever since.

Ophelia entered her fourth and final year of high school under a lot of pressure. In her first three years, she had won the world duos championship once. There had been gossip among the school saying that if she did not win two trophies like her mother, then she would be viewed as a disappointment to both her and the school. Some had said things that had really got under her skin, the worst one came from a newspaper that said, “She may have inherited her mother’s silver hair, but maybe not so much her impeccable combat skills.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Even with being captain of the four-man team, who had won it all twice, Caleo often told her to not let the background noise get to her head. Ophelia always appreciated his support, and was very fond of him. She scooted a chair right up next to Caleo and sat down, leaning on his arm.

“Hey boop-boop,” Caleo greeted with the pet name he had given her.

“You didn’t forget our plans for tonight, did you?” She immediately asked once she sat down.

“Uh, no,” Caleo said with subtle uncertainty, “it’s definitely still on, yeah.”

Ophelia looked at him doubtfully. She took a bite of the shiny red apple she held and chewed with suspicion.

“We were just talking strategy for Donday,” Caleo announced before Ophelia had a chance to press further. “What do we know about this Gungannon team we’re facing, Archie?”

“I know the names of three of them; Hyata, Urk, and Cadaroc. All of them had just transferred to Gungannon primary this year, so not much is really known about them.”

“Well, that’s sure a lot to go on,” Caleo said sardonically. “What about the fourth member?”

“The fourth one is also a recent transfer that replaced a former member, who was removed for unknown reasons. I know absolutely nothing about the replacement since they haven’t updated their website’s roster page.” Arcanus explained.

“Oh, I think I actually met that one this morning,” Fenrick commented casually while munching on a carrot. Caleo and Arcanus looked at him quizzically.

“What? Why the hell didn’t you mention that before?” Caleo asked.

Fenrick shrugged, “I don’t know he was kinda weird. Went on about how he was my biggest fan after he tried attacking me with giant vines or robotic dildos or whatever the hell they were. Then after talking about how much he wanted to beat me off ‘til I respected him or something like that, he walked into a tree and disappeared.”

“Oh, now I know why. Cause you made it up.”

“Huh? No, I didn’t.”

“I refuse to believe a conversation that stupid ever took place.”

“It’s true!”

“What was his name then?”

“I can’t remember… Piggy Sack or something.”

Arcanus chortled at the name given. “Oh right, and I bet he said that he’s friends with Ziggy Ratt of all people.”

Upon hearing the name, Fenrick snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that was his name! Ziggy Ratt.”

Caleo and Arcanus laughed at Fenrick, but when they saw the earnestness in his expression, their smiles dropped.

“You aren’t serious, right? You met Ziggy Ratt—the Ziggy Ratt?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“The same Ziggy Ratt from Bob and Ziggy?”

“The fuck’s Bob and Ziggy?”

“Oh, I love Bob and Ziggy!” Ophelia said gleefully.

“Wonderful to know. Still doesn’t tell me anything…” Fenrick impatiently drummed his fingers on the lunch table.

“It’s a television show currently in its first season,” Arcanus explained. “It stars Ziggy Ratt the druid and Bobongo the frog dragon as they go on numerous comedic adventures.”

“It’s been a massive hit since its premiere,” Caleo added. “I’m surprise you’ve never heard of it.”

“I’m a druid, I don’t own a TV,” Fenrick said like it should’ve been common knowledge.

“Well, this druid is on TV, and you need to see an episode so you can confirm if it was really him you saw.” Caleo said.

“There’s a new episode coming on this afternoon, actually,” Arcanus informed them. “Maybe we can all go watch it after school.”

“Yeah, that’d probably be best,” Caleo agreed. “Hey Z-Tron, you’ve said your place is pretty close to the school, right? Can we watch it at your place?”

Zeratron didn’t answer. Since the start of lunch, all he did was stare down at his tray of uneaten food. It was obvious that he hadn’t paid attention to anything that had been said.

“Zeratron!” Caleo raised his voice. Zeratron seemed to finally snap out of whatever spell he was under and looked at his captain blankly.

“Mind if we go to your place to watch The Bob and Ziggy Show?” Caleo asked again.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Zeratron nodded lightly.

“Nice. You wanna come along and check out Zer’s pad, boop-boop?” Caleo asked Ophelia.

“I’d like to, but I got tutoring to do after school,” she gave a sly look towards Fenrick eating his lunch. “You know Fenny, I heard you had some trouble in history class earlier. There’s still a spot available after school today, I can help you with some of your homework.”

“The hell you just call me?” Fenrick said before taking a big bite of lettuce. He chewed slowly while pointing his fork at Ophelia. “Never call me that again. Besides, I can’t, got this huge intel mission to do after school, remember?”

“We’re only watching TV,” Arcanus said. “If you would rather stay in school and improve your grades, we would understand completely.”

At that, Fenrick slammed his fork on the table.

“Can. You. Please. Stop?” He seethed at Arcanus.

“I’m serious. One of us can record the episode for you on videotape. Why don’t you take this afternoon to better your grades?”

“Why don’t you go FUCK YOURSELF!” He yelled so loud that it echoed throughout the cafeteria. He grabbed a carrot off his plate and threw it at Arcanus, then got up and stomped away from the table. Many eyes stared at him as he kicked open the doors to the outdoor section of the cafeteria and disappeared into the bright daylight.

“Wow. That guy has some major issues,” Ophelia commented once Fenrick was out of sight.

“Yes,” Arcanus said while wiping carrot residue from his uniform jacket. “But I must say, he is quite the fighter.”

Fenrick’s fateful meeting with Ziggy Ratt proved to be more meaningful than he had originally thought. Him and his teammates have decided to walk to Zeratron’s house after school to show him an episode of Ziggy’s television show… but they may not get there without first running into some trouble. What kind of trouble would that be, you say? Find out next time on Clubs and Stubs!