"All right pal. This is it," Angie spoke in a low, ominous voice with a blanket over her head. Illuminated by the static of the TV screen, her face had a pale, almost ghoulish appearance as her lips parted into a grin. "The choice that will forever change the rest of your life. Its consequences will cascade down into history and the rest of eternity. It's the biggest, most monumental choice in the history of our lives, Critias, and humanity itself! Now, behold!"

She theatrically presented two rectangular objects, clad in colourful covers that were hard to see in the dim light of the TV.

"Look upon them! Witness the strange and alien markings upon these sacred objects, but not for long, for it is said those who would try to decipher their meaning would be lost forever, and become outcasts, unable to fit into society anymore! Such is the power of these sigils! Now, choose, but choose wisely!" She paused for a long breath and then slowly, very slowly, raised the first box. "Martial arts." Then another beat later, she presented the other. "Or kaiju?"

Josh didn't wait for for the dramatic silence to settle and he casually flicked the light switch on.

"Stop playing with the tapes, you goofball."

"Ah, not the light!" Angie hissed in mock horror and completely hid herself under the blanket already draped over her head.

Her boyfriend rolled his eyes and walked over to her side, popcorn in hand, and took a seat next to her on the couch.

"Didn't we already agree that we would watch one of those dubbed martial arts movies today?"

"Yeah, but look!" Angie kicked off the blanket, revealing that she was already in her pyjamas. She wrapped her lower body up again and then presented one of the items, aka the worn cardboard case of an old VHS tape. The title was in Japanese, I presumed, and it featured a rubber suit monster on the top with huge grey claws and big yellow eyes. "Did you even know that 'The Dragon from Saturn Six' had a sequel?"

"I didn't, but we can hardly learn anything new from kaiju fights," the guy pointed out, and her childhood friend responded as expected, by puffing up her cheeks.

"Of course we can! I mean, martial arts movies aren't going to teach you how to shoot magic blasts from your palms, right?"

"Yeah, I'm planning to stop doing that," the guy noted absently, his hand already in the popcorn bucket. "I never hit anyone with those, and it seems like Leo wants me to focus on my defense for now."

"Well, if you put it that way…" She grumbled and put the kaiju movie away before producing the other tape from under her blanket. "This one is 'The Legend of the Turtle Warrior'."

She wasn't reading the original title off the cover, but the blurb printed on a note glued to its back. And no, based on the illustration on the front of the cassette case, this wasn't a movie about mutated post-pubescent turtles of the ninja variety, but some middle-aged Asian guy with a giant metal wok on his back. As in, the cooking vessel.

"It might be insightful," Josh noted absently, and it was hard to tell if he was serious or just teasing his girlfriend. The guy's poker-face was borderline scary at times.

"Yeah, sure, buddy." Angie cautiously poked her bare feet out of under the blanket. Once she decided it wasn't too cold, she slipped out of her cocoon, off the couch, and then shuffled over to the big, boxy VHS player. Despite Josh having access to his tournament winnings, they opted not to upgrade their 'home theatre', probably because of their already existing VHS collection. "It needs to rewind," she said after popping in the cassette, and while the machine did its job, she shuffled back and slipped under the blanket again.

For a while, the only sounds in the living room were the high-pitched whining of the gears inside the VCR and Josh casually munching on his popcorn. That wasn't exactly riveting to watch, and I was just about to move on and leave them to their movie night when Angie couldn't hold herself back anymore and poked her boyfriend with her feet under the blanket.

"Hey, Josh?"

"Hm?"

"What do you think Leo's planning for spring break?"

The guy swallowed the popcorn in his mouth and turned a contemplative eye at the girl by his side.

"You mean, for the training camp?"

"Of course! I bet he's planning something big again."

"What makes you think that?"

The Celestial girl gave her boyfriend a sideways glance, as if he just asked something monumentally silly.

"It's Leo we're talking about here, you know?"

"Ah, right."

Josh acted as if her response was a completely valid and acceptable explanation. It didn't stop her from insisting though.

"Right indeed! Like, I'm sure I told you about that time? You know, that one time when he told me he just wanted everyone to get along, and look! It only took him a few months, and now the Draconians are united, they are allied to the Knights, and we're having peace talks with the Assembly!"

"He sure is amazing."

In stark contrast to his words, Josh sounded rather morose, almost sour, and he impatiently glared at the VCR under the TV as if that would make it reel the tape faster.

"He is!" Angie's grin was bright. The kind of smile you'd see on a little kid who was bragging about how her dad could beat up everyone else's dads at the playground. "He even took all of those Research Society nerds and made them do something useful! Like… the soul-mapping machine, and… um… those living meatballs? Pudding-something, I think?" The longer she spoke, the more uncertain she sounded, but then she abruptly shook her head, as if trying to chase away a cloud of doubt. "I'm sure they're doing other things too! I'm sure of it! He even hired the nurse and Ammy to work on some super-duper-secret project, so they must be doing something awesome!"

"If you say so."

Missing how disinterested the guy sounded, she barrelled on with unbridled enthusiasm.

"I tell you, it's only a question of time before he'll get the Abyssals on our side as well, and then everything will be hunky-dory!"

"I can't wait."

"It's gonna be so weird! I mean, it's already weird, getting along with the Magi and everything, but the Abyssals are a different thing altogether! We never got along with them… except for the beginning… and I guess we're getting along with Neige and the Fauns just fine… Oh, and her friend from the Abyss who's living at Leo's place also seems nice, so maybe it isn't so weird after all?" Her brows scrunched up as if she was dealing with a hard math problem, and she apparently couldn't solve it in the end. "What's up with that, anyway? I mean, the woman from the Abyss living at Leo's place?"

"Beats me."

"Ah, whatever. It must have a good reason. Leo wouldn't do something meaningless, so it has to be part of a ploy, or a scheme, or a gambit even!"

"Sure."

Completely unaware of how detached Josh was from the conversation, Angie kept on talking about all of my other 'achievements' with sparkly eyes, and I'm not going to lie, I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about it. She was giving me way too much credit, and if anything, it was making me feel self-conscious about how much of the things she was praising me for were either the results of cascading coincidences or completely out of my control.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Soon her one-sided conversation circled all the way back to the beginning, and she once again poked her boyfriend with her toes under the blanket to get his full attention.

"Hey, buddy? You never answered the question."

"What question?"

"The first one!" She fumed and poked him harder. "About what Leo's planning for spring break! It must be something, right?"

In the meantime the VCR finished rewinding the cassette, but for the moment Josh didn’t touch the remote and was instead considering the question with undue soberness.

"He said we're going to train. He also said we're going to go to a place where we won't have to worry about the ceiling caving in on us, so it's somewhere outside. Considering all this, my money's on a mountain trip." Angie didn't look convinced, so he argued, "Isn't that where people usually go to receive special training? Somewhere remote, with lots of rugged terrain for building stamina and stuff."

"Does the terrain matter when we can just fly over it?"

"Doesn't change my point," he huffed and turned a critical eye her way. "Now it's your turn. What do you think he's planning?"

"I bet we're going to the Abyss!" She threw that preposterous idea out there like it was self-evident, but it was just the beginning. "It's going to be like in the movies when the master leaves the apprentice in enemy territory and they have to survive on their own to learn a lesson! Then, just when things are dire, he will swoop in and rescue us at the very last second, and then say 'So? What did you learn from this experience?', like it was all part of the plan from the very beginning!"

First off, that was a terrible impression of me. Secondly, that was a terrible idea. Thirdly…

"So he would throw us in the deep water and then save our skin again, huh? That doesn't sound too different from usual."

Josh was also operating under some weird misunderstanding, and based on his tone, he wasn't too keen on the idea. Whether that was because he also thought it was absurd, or because he mistakenly thought I would even consider something like that as 'training', it was hard to tell. If it was the latter though, it meant he could've been gravely mistaken about my character. One of these days, I really had to sit down with him and clear everything up, didn't I?

"That's right! It makes it all the more likely!"

No, it didn't, but I wasn't present to argue with her. In any case, since the tape had already been rewound and the well of the conversation dried up, Josh turned off the lights and picked up the remote, and the two of them finally stopped discussing whatever harebrained theory they had about our upcoming training camp. With Angie nestled up against his shoulder and the two of them sharing the popcorn bucket, the movie started playing, and it was… a fairly standard East Asian martial arts movie, all things considered.

"Why is he using a stepladder to beat the bad guys?" Angie asked absently, and the guy made an ambivalent noise.

"Erm… I dunno. Probably because it looks interesting." He squinted at the screen and added, "It does feel like it would be an unwieldy weapon."

"Well, duh. It's a stepladder." She snuggled closer to the guy, resting her head on his shoulder. "So? Did you learn anything about martial arts so far?"

"Not much, but… I guess it shows that improvised weapons can be useful under certain circumstances. I should ask Sir Roland about this the next time we train."

"Hehe. You're so diligent."

"I have to be," Josh noted, once again sounding unexpectedly sour.

"Oh, look! Now he's using a folding stool."

"Is that better or worse than a nunchuck?"

"I honestly can't tell."

The commentary and banter continued for a while, and while the occasional action on the screen was good, it turned out the majority of the movie was a slow-moving drama about the main character's loyalties to his clan and family and whatnot. Not only that, he didn't even use the giant frying pan from the cover in the first half of the movie. Did that count as false advertising?

I only kept one eye on the situation here, cycling through my other marks as well, but not much was happening, either in the Bernstein living room or in the wider world. At this point the only reason I kept checking in on them because I was curious when the protagonist of the movie would use the cooking pot from the cover as a weapon, but so far, no cigar. It was just more shot/reverse-shot scenes with characters ranting about honour and legacy and such.

Angie must've shared my impression of the movie. Either that, or she was more tired than she showed on the surface, because her eyelids grew heavy during the drama sections, and before long she dozed off on Josh's shoulder. I kind of wanted to see how the movie would end though, so I stayed around a bit longer, which let me catch the moment when she suddenly lurched up and rolled her shoulders.

"This girl needs to fix her sleeping habits," she grumbled, startling Josh into pausing the playback.

"Deus?"

"Indeed," she answered, then raised a finger while stifling a yawn. "I'll go and take her to bed. It's not healthy to sleep like this."

"Were you listening?"

"Hm? Not quite. She asked me to give you some privacy, but we are one, and so when her neck hurts from her bad posture, so does mine." For emphasis, she rolled her head around and rubbed the nape of her neck. At last, she locked eyes with Josh, and asked, "Does my presence make you uncomfortable?"

"A little," he admitted, and she let out an uncanny, elderly chuckle that sounded borderline creepy coming from her mouth.

"I imagined as much. Don't worry, I'm not planning to interfere in your relationship with the girl. As I said, we are one, yet I'm but a shade of my former self. I should be thankful I can retain my ego at all."

"We can agree on that." Angie/Deus raised an intrigued brow at him, so Josh clarified, "If the two of you didn't remain separate, it would be all kinds of awkward."

"You are putting it mildly," she responded with a soft chuckle. "Fortunately, Polemos and his men have reassured me that such a possibility is vanishingly unlikely."

"He did, huh?"

Unlike Angie, Deus was quick to pick up on the bitter undertone in Josh's voice and directed a scrutinizing stare at him.

"Are you perchance dissatisfied with Polemos?"

"No."

His denial was quick. Too quick, like a nervous reflex, and didn't sound entirely convincing.

"Is it jealousy then?" she continued to drill the guy, and when Josh didn't respond right away, she let out another chuckle. "I see, I see. So that's the case. Don't feel ashamed, boy. It is perfectly normal to feel inadequate when you compare yourself to the likes of him."

What? No, that's not what you're supposed to say in this situation!

Of course, my unspoken words fell on similarly unhearing ears, and Deus continued to speak in an almost jolly tone.

"Why, you cannot imagine how many times Polemos made me feel conflicted in the past. His competence can be uncanny at times, and it breeds and ferments a sense of inferiority in those around him. Such excellence can easily alienate others, yet he was, and still is, the most trustworthy of men I ever knew."

Oh, god. I kind of already knew from the fragments of Polemos that Deus wasn't the best judge of character, but this was… This was something else altogether.

"I'm not jealous," Josh suddenly blurted out, as if only just managing to respond to her earlier question, and Angie/Deus's lips bent into a knowing smile.

"And there's no reason for you to be. I hold Polemos in high regard, and as we are one, so does the girl, but she only has eyes for you." A moment later, her smile withered and she awkwardly added, "Nevertheless, while we may be one soul, I'm personally not attracted to men, so we aren't sharing everything in common. I just wanted to make this clear. Do you understand?"

"I get it."

"Good. I wouldn't want to cause a misunderstanding." This was followed by a few seconds of silence and a quiet, "Make sure you take good care of the girl though."

"I was always going to do that," Josh replied earnestly, and her lips bent into a smile, seemingly satisfied with the answer.

…

"So, the thing about Polemos is…"

Oh, goddamit, Deus! You had a good thing going on there! That was a perfectly fine final note on which to end the conversation! Why are you bringing me up again!?

"… To be honest with you, he had always been competent. Maybe too competent even, setting goals that would've been the lifetime aspirations of lesser men as short-term tasks for himself. It was one of the reasons why he was always isolated from his peers, so seeing his current incarnation being surrounded by so many friends and allies always fills me with relief." She had a somewhat wistful look on her face, and then she closed her eyes for a second before facing Josh again. "Even if you can't be his equal, I hope you'll continue to support him."

Aaargh! No, that's the worst thing to say to a protagonist in a situation like this! What the shit, Deus!? You're supposed to be old and wise and…

Ah, wait.

This is the guy who flew off the handle, took over Angie's body, and nearly blew up an apartment complex. Looking for fruits of wisdom on this old gnarled tree was probably as productive as trying to start an air conditioner business in the Arctic.

In any case, since she said her piece, Angie/Deus slipped out of under the blankets and let out a hiss as her foot touched the floor.

"Ow! Cold!" That sounded so much like Angie, for a moment I thought she woke up and reasserted control, but then she quickly pattered over to the side of the couch and slipped into a pair of bunny slippers. "I'll take her to bed before she catches a cold. Sleep well, boy."

And with that, she headed upstairs to Josh's room, leaving the guy all alone in the living room, staring at the frozen TV screen with a complicated expression.

"A sense of inferiority, huh…?"

Well, damn. I was already planning to sit down with the guy one of these days, but Deus's intervention just made it all the more urgent. It was best to resolve this brewing situation as soon as possible before Josh ended up developing some stupid complex that would take even more effort to dislodge. Adding it to my mental checklist, I let out a sigh and would've moved on if not for Josh picking up the remote and resuming the movie, just as another fight scene was about to start.

…

Eh, since I had nothing better to do, I figured I might as well watch it as well.

…

By the way, it was only during the finale that the protagonist used the giant wok from the cover to defend himself against multiple sword-wielding opponents. For a grand total of about a minute before discarding it and picking up a pair of ladles. Yep, that settled it. It was definitely false advertising.