Judge had only been at it for a few hours, and already, he was feeling like a sword-fighting prodigy. He could read his master's attacks with alarming accuracy, almost as if she had become a predictable NPC in a poorly coded game.
Each time she swung with enough force to turn his bones into confetti, he managed to deflect or dodge just in time—by the hair on his skin, mind you, and he did not have hair on his skin since it was full of scales.
Whenever there was no escape route and he found himself staring down the barrel of her wooden sword, he'd redirect the blow with his own, trying to minimize the damage like a discount shield with a zero refund policy.
He still felt the impact, of course, but it was the difference between being mildly uncomfortable and becoming tomorrow's feature in Worst Training Accidents Weekly.
His enhanced cognition was firing on all cylinders, absorbing and analyzing her attack patterns like an overzealous student cramming for finals.
With each exchange, he could sense the pattern, the ebb and flow of the fight—almost like he'd danced this deadly tango before. (Tango is a dance performed by partners)
Was this... muscle memory? No, that didn't make sense. His muscles hadn't had enough time to learn the "Don't Die Horribly" technique. So why did everything feel weirdly... familiar?
'Have I been hit in the head one too many times?' Judge wondered mid-parry as another blow whistled past his ear. 'Or is this some weird side effect of being a dragon? Do dragons get déjà vu? Is there a manual for this?'
But there was something else bugging him—someone else, to be precise. Selena. She was acting differently today, as though she wasn't her usual smug self.
Less of her usual smugness and more of... well, just regular smugness, but there was something off about it. He remembered what Clio had told him about the Scriptwriter and got an idea. Why not talk to her directly— mentally?
'Selena,' he called out telepathically, focusing his voice on her mind like a toddler trying to aim a water pistol for the first time.
"Huh?!" Selena shrieked, mentally, and the delicate fireball she was controlling exploded like an overfilled water balloon, scattering out into harmless embers.
'Smooth,' Judge thought, dodging another swing by stepping sideways just as a wooden sword slid by his nose. "Don't you think we've done this before? This exact thing? Though it's supposedly Day One of training?"
"Uhh... yeah... now that you mention it... I do feel like I am getting a weird... I dunno, déjà vu?" she replied telepathically, her mental voice carrying the tone of someone trying to brush off an awkward encounter. "But, uh, warning next time before you do this mind-talk thing.
Almost incinerated my eyebrows."
Judge rolled his eyes. "Priorities, Selena. Just look at me training and tell me how do I do it."
Ignoring Judge, her concentration was quick to return to her lesson, and he was left wondering about the strange repetition in the air. Something was definitely off. He didn't need to be a master manipulator to sense that.
Before he could delve deeper into the mystery, Seraphis, his ever-vigilant master, came to an abrupt halt, standing there like she'd just realized she left the stove on.
"This isn't working out!" she declared, more to herself than to him, and began marching toward the house. "Come on, Judge. We need to teach you my personal ethercraft principle. I acknowledge your skill, but you're clearly struggling here, and it is just the beginning phase."
Judge blinked. Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. That line—she'd said it before, hadn't she? Like, yesterday... which wasn't actually yesterday.
Or was it? His brain twisted in tangles as he tried to remember the last time he'd been this confused.
But this was not just a feeling. Something was definitely repeating.
Judge snapped awake, lying on that same suspiciously familiar patch of grass he had visited more times than a good napper should. "Oh, come on!" he yelled, looking at the sky. "I knew it! This isn't just a weird dream!"
He quickly transported himself into the Studio, his safe space for sorting out the nonsense of life.
"Clio!" he yelled, his voice echoing through the studio's now-empty walls like an angry boomerang. "I need answers, and you better show up with them! No riddles, no cryptic messages—just plain facts!"
The air shimmered, and with a voice like nails on a chalkboard dipped in honey, Clio appeared. "What? You finally noticed?" she drawled, sounding like she had known this would happen all along and couldn't be bothered to care.
Judge frowned, already annoyed by her very presence. "So something was wrong!" he exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at her. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?!"
Clio flicked a speck of dust (imaginary) off her shoulder, totally unbothered by his outrage. "I figured you'd piece it together eventually. You know, with that fancy enhanced cognition of yours."
She put her hand to the chest "The same Enhanced Cognition that 'I' gave you." Maybe she just wanted to look cooler.
"You mean the same enhanced cognition that was too busy dodging medieval artillery dressed up as sword training to realize I was stuck in a time loop?!" Judge shot back, throwing his hands up in annoyance.
Clio grinned, the kind of grin that made him want to punch a wall and then apologize to it for the emotional rage... And then maybe scream at a pillow until the feather begged for mercy. "Well, you're here now, aren't you?"
Judge groaned, rubbing his temples like someone trying to massage away the sheer silliness of his situation that should have been, in fact, taken very seriously. This was going to be a long day—or, more accurately, another long yesterday. Or maybe it was today again? Whatever, he did not care.
"So tell me, Clio," He accepted his defeat, no matter how much he plotted, there was no getting rid of her. "What in the... What was this world's name again?"
"Aark" She rolled her eyes like a toddler trying to explain how her Lego builds made sense. And Judge wanted to consider taking up therapy just to deal with her.
"Ah yes Aark," He coughed in order to mask his embarrassment, "So, what in the Aark is going on?"
"So," She made herself a throne and sat on it, there is this one guy—"
"Is this the part where you go on a five-minute presentation that explains nothing but makes you sound really important?" Judge interrupted, folding his arms.
"Shhh, I'm doing a monologue," Clio replied with a wave of her hand, as if he were a minor inconvenience in the grand theater of her life. How old was she anyway?
Judge pinched and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This day—or whatever it was—was just getting worse. "You are really annoying you know."
"Did you know that we both have the same habits?"
"I have to disagree... and stop changing the subject." Judge wanted to look menacing, but he just could not. If it was some one else, other than his mother, he could have managed.