Not so UnOrdinary

Ch 7 Barbaric

No POV

Arlo was walking down the halls of Wellston private high school. He had just gotten back from a surprise vacation with his family. All around him he heard whispers about the previous weekends turf war. From what he gathered Trinity's new roster was fairly powerful, but they didn't stand a chance against Wellston. Also John apparently kicked ass. Arlo was deep in thought. How was it that John, the kid who could beat Seraphina, and participate in turf wars without getting so much as a scratch on him, wasn't trying to take the throne? 

It was only when the bell rang for his first class that he was broken out of his thoughts and was forced to endure a painfuly slow class lesson on the distributive properties of zero. 

After the class was over the golden haired king went off in search of the boy everyone was talking about. He eventually found John by his locker changing out his textbooks.

"Hey" John whipped his head around very quickly to face Arlo.

"What's up Arlo?"

"Listen, I've been thinking—"

"That's dangerous." Arlo glared at him but continued.

"I've been thinking. You're probably the strongest in this school, by far. Why haven't you challenged for the throne?" John looked surprised for a bit, then his face darkened, but not enough for Arlo to notice.

"I'm just not interested." 

"And why is that?"

"Too much responsibility, too much stress, I could never handle it. Not to mention turf wars, we may have been victorious, but it was hard for me, it was hard to hurt those people the way I did. They may have challenged us but they didn't really do anything to hurt us, they didn't deserve to be hurt they way they were. The game is barbaric, I could never be a royal." Arlo was taken back by this response, but he didn't push the subject any farther. "Anyway, Arlo, how was your vacation?" 

"Not bad, it was nice to get away but I'm glad I'm back." John smiled.

"That's good. Listen I'd love to talk more but if I'm late to History class one more time Mr Helgerson will put my head on a stake." John started walking down the hall, he said over his shoulder "Catch ya later Ass-lo!"

"What did you just call me?!" Alro yelled at him, but John just kept walking.

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Two months later

Arlo, Remi, Seraphina, and Elaine were on a train heading twords turf wars. This was the first one since John had substituted as king. This was on Arlo's mind as he gazed out the window, John had said he found it hard, not because he wasn't strong enough but because he had to hurt people; people who, in his eyes didn't deserve it. John certainly was strange. Arlo decided to voice his thoughts to Seraphina.

"Hey Seraphina." Seraphina tore her gaze away from the train's window to face Arlo.

"Yeah?"

"You know, your friend John is pretty weird." Seraphina looked puzzled.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"After last turf war when he subbed for me I asked him why he didn't want to be a royal since he's plainly stronger than all of us. His response was interesting, turf wars got brought up as a reason, he said he found it hard not because he wasn't strong enough but because he had to hurt people who he didn't think deserved it. He said they didn't do anything to hurt us, he said the game was barbaric." Seraphina stared at Arlo for a bit.