First Demonic Dragon-Chapter 948: Friends? Besties? Homies?

"So let me get this straight..." Fiona began. "In the time that I've been gone, you lost your virginity to the scary dinosaur lady that you told me about."

*Sniff* "Yea... It was amazing."

"Gross. Anyway, after you guys had sex a couple of times, you realized that she didn't have the fancy birthmark people get after they boink one of your family members for the first time."

"T-They're not birthmarks!"

"Not the point."

"O-Okay, well... Yea."

"And that birthmark basically means that the two of you will be together forever and be super in love and gushy and have lots of happy memories."

*Sniff* "WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN!!"

Thrudd devolved into another drunken crying fit, and Fiona did her duty of consoling her. Her coat was supposed to be waterproof, but evidently they had never tested the material against the tears of a broken-hearted dragon girl.

While Fiona was struggling to stay dry, Thrudd suddenly sat up and shook her while sobbing.

"She can't love me, Fiona! Our relationship was doomed from the start! I suck at love! I'm terrible at it! This is so embarrassing! Love is my actual mother, damn it! Why the fuck won't she be kind to me!?"

Fiona tried to spit out a response, but with all the shaking, she was sure she must've sounded like she was on a rollercoaster with ice cubes between her teeth.

Eventually, Thrudd realized that maybe her behavior wasn't conducive to conversation, so she stopped shaking the young woman.

But by then, it was too late. Fiona was so dizzy she was practically drunk and incoherent. Her only words were some form of nonsensical muttering.

"Aw, damn it..."

Thrudd gently leaned Fiona back into her seat. Then, she reclined back into her chair and stared hopelessly at the ceiling.

She wasn't sure how long it had by before she saw a familiar face pop into view.

"This pity party just for two?"

Thrudd sat up and rubbed her face quickly so that no evidence of her emotional state could be seen.

"W-What are you talking about, you bastard..? The only thing pitiful over here is your face."

"Ouch."

Apophis pretended that his older sister's jab had mortally wounded him as he slid into the seat beside her. Belloc leaned over the back of his seat to reveal he was here as well.

"She's being mean. This is a lot more serious than what we thought." He whistled.

Belloc leaned over and sniffed his sister before crinkling his nose. "She stinks, too. Don't we have enough drunks in our family already?"

Thrudd threw out her fist and punched her brother square in the nose. She wasn't so drunk that she couldn't throw a punch properly.

Belloc hit the floor holding his nose. Apophis was torn between feeling like he should've broken it up sooner and simultaneously wishing that he had gotten it on video.

"If you two want the room, just say that. Don't come here and bother me just for the sake of it...." Thrudd stood up and lifted Fiona's limp body over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Before she could leave, Apophis stood in her way and smiled at her apologetically.

"We're not trying to pick on you or anything, sis. If anything, we just want to talk. Offer our help if you need it, you know?"

"I don't need your help with anything." Thrudd lied far too quickly for it to be convincing. "I'm perfectly fine, and you two should mind your business."

"Didn't seem fine the past ten minutes..."

Thrudd's irises temporarily glowed. "You were spying on me?"

Apophis swallowed as he shook his head in denial. "It's not even like that. Straga just said that you were having a bad day and that we should look for..."

The more Apophis spoke, the more that his sister's face turned the same shade as her hair.

He wisely decided that maybe it would be better for him to stop talking before he ended up like their brother.

"Look..."

Thrudd placed a muscular hand on her brother's shoulder and applied just enough force to remind him of who was the older of the two.

"I don't need you, or anyone else here getting in my business. If I said I'm fine, then that should be all there is. Drop it."

Apophis brushed her hand away with his own strength and got right back into his sister's face.

"So you're lying to me now? Like you weren't just spilling your guts to that girl who you barely even know!?"

"She's my best friend! And whether I choose to open up to her or not is none of your business, and it isn't something for you or depression-dragon over there to eavesdrop on!"

"Hey!" Belloc snapped.

"Aww!"

The dragons in the room froze and glanced at Fiona, who had finally recovered.

"I'm your best friend?? That's so sweet!"

Fiona had never had a best friend before.

She didn't think her first one would be a woman whom she'd only met a handful of times before, or one who was over 8,000 years old, but it was still a pretty nice gesture!

Fiona climbed down from Thrudd's pillar-like body and gave the large dragon a surprise hug. The dragon, despite being a little flustered, promptly returned it.

"Well, as your new best friend, I should probably tell you... I don't think that it would be all that bad of you to open up to your brothers." Fiona suddenly said.

Thrudd stiffened. "W-What..?"

"They clearly care about you. And maybe if you open up to them a bit, then they can-"

Thrudd suddenly pulled away from Fiona. Her body was shaking like a leaf.

Her eyes were hidden behind a curtain of red hair.

Fiona almost wished she could take her words back, but quickly dismissed the thought. She knew that Thrudd needed to hear them.

"Thrudd... they're just-"

"None of you get it... You don't know what it's like."

Thrud's body vanished in a current of purple lightning and left the group behind.

-

"My boy. Let me get a good look at you."

Shin Nagumo held his arms out for his adoptive son so that he could take his face in his hands.

He looked Aj over once or twice and whistled at what he found.

"You seem healthier. Handsome even."

Aj smiled bashfully as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I think it's just the food and stuff. Mrs. Tatiana cooks with a lot of fresh ingredients and stuff. Helps a lot, I guess."

In the corner of the room, Tatiana smiled bashfully.

She stood beside the part of her husband that had gone out to act as guardian over the members of the order while they repaired a collapsing universe.

Suddenly, he evaporated into a red mist and headed towards the door.

Unified Abaddon was walking through the door with Lisa and Izanami at just that moment.

The red mist hit him square in the chest to fuse into it's rightful place once again.

Other than a slight shiver, Abaddon didn't seem to find the experience uncomfortable at all.

"...That was fucking weird." Shin murmured.

Abaddon naturally heard this and rolled his eyes in response. "As weird as it was watching you oil yourself, robot boy."

"That is not what I was doing, and you know it!"

It was a surprise to no one in the room that all of Abaddon and Shin's time together hadn't exactly made them better friends.

Shin did, however, take a hard look at unified Abaddon and immediately noticed that he was more than a little bit different.

"You look like something a hog rolled in... Guess life over here with all your other heads had it's fair share of tribulations."

"And none of them greater than you, standing here in my living room. My pets will think I've brought them a great silver fire hydrant."

One could literally hear the sound of Shin's processors working overtime to inhibit his natural reaction to slug Abaddon in the face.

"Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about that. We're leaving as soon as-"

"'Nooo!""

Shin paused and looked at Kayla and Aj, who appeared to be on the verge of tears. "...What?"

Kayla sighed in exasperation. "L-Look, I know you and Mr. Abaddon don't get along real great, Dad, but this place is really amazing. I have a room as big as a house!"

"They don't have taxes here!" Aj added.

"I don't know if it's the water or the air, but my skin has never looked this good before, and I spend three hundred bucks on cleaning products a month."

"Most of the people here have never even heard of the word 'late fee'!"

"Plus, Aj and Courtney literally just made things official yesterday, so it would be a shame to separate them now, right...?"

"Do you know you can go shopping here and everything is free?? And not 'five-finger-discount' free, I mean 'free-free'!"

Aj and Kayla got down on their knees and stared up at their father with comically large eyes. They held out their hands and prayed to him like he was some kind of Buddha.

""In conclusion: PLEASE LET US STAY HERE!!""