Plan of Attack

The next time we met at the meeting place, nearly a week had passed.

“So, what’re we planning to do?” Emmett asked to start us off.

“We’re going to continue as planned.” I said firmly.

“You said that before, but why?” He continued. “You heard what Selphine said, about the world being unbalanced as a reaction to The Masked Order.”

“How else am I supposed to get back home, dumbass? Or are you suggesting I sacrifice my entire life for you lot?”

“I agree with Jack.” Louise chimed in. “He was dragged into this situation through no fault of his own, it wouldn’t be fair of us to ask him to do anything of the sort.”

“Seriously, Louise?” Emmett exclaimed. “You realize we’d be dooming the entire planet, right?”

“What other choice do we have, Emmett?” Louise fired back. “Please explain this brilliant plan of yours that’ll allow Jack to return home while simultaneously keeping everyone here safe.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Exactly, because it’s impossible!”

“Then why are you siding with Jack instead of the entire planet? That doesn’t make any sense! Why would you choose to save one person instead of billions? It’s not like that person is Arthur or something, it’s a fucking random who got teleported here from who knows where!”

Louise instantly slapped Emmett.

“Ow! What the hell was that for!” He clutched his cheek which had turned red.

“Apologize to Jack.”

“No it’s fine, really.” I finally managed to speak up after having been silent for a while and observing their exchange. “You didn’t have to slap him, you know?”

“Exactly, thank you! You should be the one apologizing to me, Louise!”

“No, that’s too far, she shouldn’t have to apologize to a moron like you, in my honest and humble opinion.”

“That may have been honest, but no way in hell was that even remotely close to humble! If that was humble then my name is actually Paul!”

“Hi Paul.” I greeted him, as apparently he’d suddenly changed names.

“My name’s not Paul, idiot!”

“But you said it was.”

“No, I was using it as a figure of speech to show just how un-humble you are!”

“And you’re un-un-humble.” I retorted.

“No I’m not-wait a second, doesn’t that just mean I’m humble?”

“Actually I changed my mind, your abilities are too low for you to even remotely possess the capacity of being humble.”

“Alright, alright, stop joking around!” Louise finally stopped us, thankfully, or we’d have probably gone on with our two man act for the rest of the day. “We need to start actually considering a plan of attack.”

“We have a plan, attack.” Emmett said.

“Don’t ever say that again!” I instantly jumped away from him due to the massive amount of cringe that sentence had just created. “That might possibly, potentially, probably, surely have been a top 2 cringiest quote of all time.”

“Wait, if that’s second, then what’s first?” He asked.

“Yours, I just said it. Top 2 includes first, as well.”

“Then just say first, idiot! Why say top 2 in the first place?”

“Because I felt like it.”

“Guys, seriously, knock it off.” Louise stepped in again. “We need to focus.”

“You’re right, my bad, my bad, my bad.”

I really wanted to say something like “yeah, it is your bad” but I just knew that would end up delaying the entire thing once again and royally piss off Louise if she had to stop us for a record third time, so I sadly forced myself to hold my tongue, easily the greatest sacrifice that has ever been made in the history of anything, ever, and it’s not even remotely close, in my book.

“We need to go on the offensive.” Emmett suggested. “We need to locate Selphine and quickly take her out.

“Yes, Emmett, we know, that’s the entire basis of our planning, thank you very much for stating the obvious.” Louise rolled her eyes. “We need to figure out how exactly we do that: How do we find Selphine? More importantly, how do we deal with her? She had us completely in the palm of her hand last time, and even the time before that, when Arthur had to step in and save us.”

“Wait, in that case, why don’t we just use Arthur’s help again?”

“No, that’s not an option.” I quickly dismissed the idea.

“Why not, though, is he simply not going to agree?” Emmett pondered.

“No, it’s not about that, it’s a matter of principle, I just don’t want to rely on him.”

“What the-you idiot!” Louise jumped in. “What do you mean, a matter of principle? This is seriously not a good time for you to be protecting your ego.”

“No, it’s not about ego!”

“What is it about, then?”

“Uh….fine, it’s about ego, alright?” I blushed.

“We can’t deal with it, so just set your pride aside and work out a deal with Arthur, unless you’d rather be stuck here forever?”

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay, now that we’re done with that, how do we even find her in the first place?” Louise continued. “I mean, both times she just randomly appeared out of thin air, didn’t she?”

“Right, and she didn’t leave any trace for us to follow.” Emmett added. “So trying to track her down’ll be tough, we have no clue where to even start.”

“I think I might have an idea.” I told them.

“Really? What is it?” Louise asked.

“I’m not sure it’ll work, give me some time. Maybe a few days, and then I’ll get back to you during our next meeting.”

“Alright, that’s it, then?” Emmett started to make his way out.

“Wait, one more thing.” I said.

“What is it?” He turned back.

“Are you guys free to hang out tomorrow?”

Emmett and Louise stared at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Louise struggled to calm herself. “It’s just the way you said it so randomly. But yeah, I’m free.”

“So am I.”

“Cool, that’s it, then.”