The Whims of Fate

"Bwahahaha!" Yudi laughed as he watched a crane claw drop to grab a stuffed tiger. "Such a trifling task is a simple matter for-"

The claw slipped.

Yudi froze and then he glared at the machine. "You ingrate! To deny this regal self his rightful prize... We will show you what it means to deny the heavens its dues!" Gritting his teeth, he reached into a small bag of coins and then deftly tossed a line of tokens into the machine.

Titor watched the Jade Emperor do all of that and then shook his head. "Some things never change, huh?"

They were in an arcade. Since it was Tuesday morning, there weren't many people around. But since it was Christmas Eve, the few that *were* around were couples.

And those couples were giving odd looks at the supposed crazy old man shouting at the crane machines.

The staff workers had noticed as well. But instead of giving odd looks, they were gazing at Yudi with pity and left him alone.

Probably because they thought he was an old man who was driven mad with grief from being left alone on Christmas... or something.

Titor didn't know. He wasn't a mind reader.

Well, he didn't go out of his way to read people's minds.

He shook his head and then leaned against a wall to keep an eye on Yudi. As he did, he felt a flurry of buzzes from his phone.

"Hm?" Titor frowned and pulled it out to check, swiping his thumb across it... And then he remembered that he had his old flip phone with him instead of his tablet or smartphone.

He coughed and then flipped it open.

They were alerts. System notifications from the <Incarnation System> diagnostic protocols.

Which meant that something crazy was happening.

At least, it would normally mean that something crazy was happening.

But when Titor opened the message to check the readings, he realized what was causing all the pings.

"John must really be panicking... That, or Yue is screaming her head off in pain from labor."

By this point, Titor's system covered the entire world. A safety net to both prevent any other crazy beings from crossing over since the dimensional gateway around Earth was a bit wibblywobbly.

It wouldn't be a problem considering the stacked forces just chilling. Especially not after Titor figured out a way to make an artificial Holy Grail and summoning system that could turn stories into reality.

But it would cause trouble, and trouble was something Titor would very much like to avoid since he was enjoying his life at the moment.

Anyway, the readings weren't anything serious. Instead, it was just John popping in and out of existence all over the world. First in various places around Japan. Then a few times in America. Once in the middle of the ocean for some weird reason... and then he was back at Myth Inc. HQ.

Titor shook his head and said, "That guy's worrying too much."

It was just a normal pregnancy. Even if things got out of hand, the worst the could happen would be that Yue would get traumatized from having to get a C-section.

Well. That was easy to say, but Titor wasn't the guy in the hot seat having his wife scream bloody murder.

Still, a bit of schadenfreude was nice. And it made up for having to listen to their loveydovey shenanigans 24/7 a while back-

A sudden silver blur in the corner of his eyes.

Titor raised his hand to intercept it, grabbing whatever it was.

"Tch." Amadeus walked over, cracking a Dk Pep soda can. "Thought I could finally get you back."

Titor laughed and then raised what Amadeus threw at him. A Dk Pep- No, the special edition Dk Salt. He cracked it open and said, "Thanks Babe. You didn't have to go win this for me, you know? I would've been fine with a regular soda."

Amadeus rolled her eyes and then leaned against the wall next to Titor. Sipping on her soda, she looked over at Yudi and said, "He's still at it, huh?"

Titor sipped on his soda as well and said, "Yep."

Yudi managed to get the tiger to fall through and then burst out laughing. Quickly grabbing the prize and stuffing it in a bag, he grinned and started the machine up again to get more prizes.

Titor shook his head and then glanced over at Amadeus. "How are you holding up?"

Amadeus blinked and said, "What do you mean?"

Titor nodded towards Yudi and said, "Do you want to let him know? It'll be a bit awkward this late, but..."

Amadeus wasn't Yue. Like how Titor wasn't John, she was her own person. But she also had Yue's memories.

Titor knew that things had gotten rough between Yue and her father when she met John, but before then her father had doted on her a lot. And they had been close too, since it was just the two of them in their family.

Amadeus frowned and then shook her head. "I'm fine."

"You know, when girls say that they're fine-"

Amadeus glared at Titor.

Titor held up his hands. "Okay, okay. It's your call."

"Hmph." Amadeus sipped on her soda and stared at Yudi. "...It is a bit weird though. He was always so serious back then. To see him run around like this and so excited..."

Titor nodded. "Earth tends to have that effect on people. I blame pop culture."

Amadeus snorted. "You'd better not be blaming that for how memey you are." She paused and then muttered, "Memey. Weird. It's still weird how I randomly know all of this stuff."

"That's because you're my Servant, Avenger-"

"I will stab you through the heart."

"Sure. It's already yours anyway."

Amadeus turned a deep red and then kicked Titor's shin.

"Gah! Why do you have to be Tsun now!"

"Because you're being too much of a normie!" Amadeus huffed and then turned her head to the side.

Titor laughed.

At that time, a soft chime echoed. Amadeus's phone. She frowned and then pulled it out.

Titor leaned over to peek at it. "Something important?"

Amadeus shoved him away and said, "Personal space!"

"Fine, fine. Primadonna."

Amadeus rolled her eyes and checked her phone. "Mm... It looks like the streams have been scheduled."

"Oh? Good." Titor nodded. "Less work for me then." He paused. "...Though who's going to help the girls during the stream? Their Senpais are busy, John's running around like a headless chicken, and we're preoccupied with Gramps there."

Amadeus shrugged. "Dunno. But they'll figure something out. And if something goes wrong-"

"Blame John?"

"Blame John."

At that time, a siren went off.

Titor flinched and quickly looked over to the source, wondering if Yudi did something wrong like trying to hop the prize corner.

But it wasn't like that. While the Jade Emperor did do something, instead of wrong...

"Fwahahaha!" Yudi stood up and stuck out his chin. "And so this regal self has replenished his store of currency!"

...It was just him doing something completely right.

That particular machine Yudi played was one where you could put in tokens to try to win more back. The sort where the tokens were constantly moving back and forth on a pan against a wall. You could drop a token in to try and land it just right to push the coins off. And if you dropped enough coins at once, the entire pan would drop.

A jackpot.

...Which Yudi had just won. Meaning he had more tokens to use and wouldn't be running out any time soon.

Titor covered his face and said, "We're going to be here a while, aren't we?"

Amadeus shrugged and said, "Better keep the old man occupied instead of declaring war against the heavens at seeing his daughter screaming in pain, right?"

"True." He paused and then glanced over at Amadeus's belly. "Wait."

She blinked. "What?"

"...Have you been gaining weight?"

Amadeus rolled her eyes and said, "I've been careful, idiot. Don't worry about it."

"...That's a flag, you know?"

Amadeus flinched, looking panicked for a second. But then she calmed down and looked at Titor. "Fine. Then I'll just raise another flag." She pointed at him and said, "If you've done that to me, I'm ripping *those* off."

"Well. Guess I'm screwed."

"WHY ARE YOU RAISING ANOTHER FLAG?!"

Titor laughed and then leaned back on the wall. "Relax. It's not like metaphysical spirits can get preg-"

He paused, suddenly remembering the series of doujins specifically about that phenomenon. And especially one involving another Avenger. And one who was also the 'Alter' of a normally sweet maiden.

"T-Titor? H-Hey! You're joking, right?! Right?!"

-----AI|IA-----

Jenny giggled.

Shu flinched and looked over at her. "D-Did I do something wrong, Miss Jenny?"

Jenny shook her head and said, "No, Shu. I just thought of something funny." She smiled and took a look around.

The other girls were sitting in the middle of the room, watching the scheduled stream on their phones and waiting for the start.

As for Shu, she was standing in the middle of her dojo area with the camera drone floating in the air nearby.

Shu brushed her short black hair and then looked up at the drone. "A-Are you sure that this guy will work properly?"

*beep!*

Jenny giggled and said, "I think you offended Droni, Shu."

"*Sorry*!" Shu quickly bowed to the camera drone and said, "Please help me!"

*...beep.*

Jenny clapped her hands together and said, "Well then. Should we get started?"

Shu gulped and then tugged on her white martial artist robes. "I-I guess we should?"

"Alrighty~! Then in five! Five. Four... Threetwoone go!"

"Wait, what-"

[author]Kuromi Tekken's debut stream next chapter! If you want to be part of the pre-chat or have witty comments you want to add, leave them down below and hit the like button-

Oh wait. Not YouTube here.

Anyway, I'll leave some generic usernames up for grabs later too if you want to do that.

See you tomorrow![/author]