Don Thousand stared down at the slop the human lunch-lady referred to as "food". He was almost considering, when he got back his powers, to use these school lunches as biological warfare. Or torture devices. He could make the people he hated, Eliphas and Yuma primarily, eat them and-

"HEY! DON!" Don Thousand had to resist the temptation to facepalm into his excuse for food. Don Thousand turned with a deadly glare to Lyle, about to make a cutting remark when he found himself with Lyle's arm around his shoulder. Don froze, unaccustomed to really ANYONE touching him at all.

"What the f*ck do you think you're doing?!" Don sputtered out.

"Being your new friend!" Lyle grinned.

Don blinked a few times as he slowly processed that Lyle had actually said what he thought he had said, then scowled and asked, "And why the hell do you even begin to think I WANT a friend?!"

"Because you're new and haven't made any friends here yet!"

Don rolled his eyes, "For your information, I didn't have any friends where I came from either nor did I want any."

"Then I get to be your first friend!" Lyle cheered.

Don Thousand gave him the fiercest death glare he had ever given anyone this century, and that includes the ones he gave to Eliphas, Yuma, and Astral. "Let's get some things straight. Even if by some incredible miracle I could possibly consider you remotely my," Don almost gagged before continuing, "friend, you would not be my first. I have had friends before you, but I haven't talked to the one living being I once called a friend who hasn't betrayed me like my other close friend did in a very very very long time. Thanks for stirring up those memories, by the way. Second of all, you are in no way my 'friend'. So just do both of us a favor and piss off!"

Lyle, somehow not getting that Don Thousand was five seconds away from murdering him but understanding that he had breached a sensitive topic, smiled and said, "Then I'll be your new best friend! And I won't betray you or whatever happened with your other friends."

Don glared at him again, "Yeah, sure. Still doesn't change the fact that I want you to get the f*ck away from me!"

Lyle just laughed, "You know, whenever you glare at me with those multicolored eyes of yours, you look really scary!"

Don Thousand just gave up and facepalmed. "Again, the term is heterochromic. And most living creatures get the idea into their thick minds that when I give them a death glare that threatens that I will kill them for breathing too hard, I mean it."

Lyle laughed, "That's kinda cool!"

Don Thousand groaned, "It's not supposed to be 'cool'," he spoke the word like some disgusting swear word.

"Maybe not, but it still is!" Lyle grinned.

Don sighed, "Just, leave me the hell alone."

"Aw, come on! You can sit with me!" Lyle dragged Don Thousand over to a table with a bunch of people who were obviously on the basketball team, judging from their jerseys and athletic build. As soon as Lyle and Don sat down though, they all quickly got up and left to find another table.

Don looked at Lyle with a raised eyebrow, "Star of the basketball team? Really?" he said scathingly.

Lyle looked comically abashed, "Hey! I am a really really good player! I can make a hoop from half-court with my eyes closed, I'm an expert at dribbling, and I'm really fast too! Just... my teammates and coach don't like me."

Don Thousand rolled his eyes, "Have you considered it might be because of, oh I don't know, sticking around and touching people when they tell you to PISS OFF?!"

Lyle grinned and rubbed the back of his neck, "I guess I might be a little too friendly at times but it's just how I am. Plus there's nothing wrong with being friendly!"

"I beg to differ," Don Thousand muttered. He poked his food a couple of times with his plastic spork.

"Playing with your meatloaf? Most people do that before they actually decide to either eat it or throw it away," Lyle commented.

Don's eyes widened and darted from the meatloaf to Lyle and back again, "You mean to tell me this atrocity is MEATLOAF?!"

Lyle laughed, "Yep! It's hard to tell, but if you go here long enough you can start to tell the difference. Speaking of which, why did you move here anyway?"

Don Thousand scowled, "It wasn't willingly," seeing Lyle's blank expression, Don Thousand knew he was going to have to elaborate if he didn't want a barrage of stupid questions from the human. Don Thousand thought for a bit, trying to figure out how to put what happened in human terms without giving anything away. Finally, he said, "I was forced to go here as a punishment."

"Punishment?" Lyle asked, cocking his head.

Don sighed, "It was either this or prison. Personally, I would've preferred jail but I didn't have a choice in the matter."

"Why would they make you go here?"

"Basically, they think if I'm here for six months I'll be 'reformed'. Believe me, when these six months are over and I'm out of this stupid place, I'm never coming back." Don Thousand snorted. Mentally, he patted himself on the back for the brilliant lie. It explained the gist of what happened but didn't reveal anything.

"Whoa... what did you do?" Lyle asked.

"You don't want to know," Don Thousand said simply. "Now that I've placated your curiosity, get the hell away from me and piss off."

Lyle just laughed, "Well, it couldn't have been that bad. So, what hobbies do you have?"

"None, now LEAVE!" Don Thousand snapped.

Lyle looked surprised, "None? Hey! Why don't you take up basketball? I could teach you the rules, coach you... Oh! And you could come over to my place after school and shoot some baskets with me!"

"No way in hell," Don snarled.

"Come on! It'll be so much fun! Now see, every basket counts as two points and..."

And that was how Don Thousand found himself having to listen to nothing but basketball rules and statistics for the remainder of the lunch period. That was also how he found himself rushed to the nurses office for a possible concussion because one of the lunch ladies noticed how he was banging his head on a brick wall. Hard.

Don Thousand held an icepack to his head with a scowl on his face. The school nurse had threatened to hot-glue it to his head if he didn't hold it there.

The sound of footsteps made Don look up. The nurse had come in accompanied by a girl with long light green hair and dark blue eyes. The unknown girl looked very annoyed and was limping. The nurse forced her down on one of the couches in the infirmary and shoved an icepack on her ankle.

"Now, just keep that on there until it feels better. You can move it, right? Good, good, you probably just sprained it really bad then. Let me know when the swelling goes down, alright? Until then, you can chat with Mr. Thousand who's still keeping that icepack on his head, right? Good," And with that, the nurse left, leaving Don and the girl alone.

With a scoff, the girl said, "So you're the new student? How did you get hurt so fast on your first day?"

Don Thousand glared at her, "Does the name Lyle Eisen ring a bell with you?"

The girl nodded, "Yes, he's incredibly annoying. What does that have to do with anything?"

"He had a death grip on my arm and was blabbering about basketball. The lunch ladies made me come down here when they saw how hard I was banging my head on the wall. I swear, I hate this stupid f*cking place."

The girl wrinkled her nose, "No swearing, it's a school rule."

Don Thousand snarled, "Like I care."

The girl huffed and held out her hand for a handshake, her expression saying she hoped he wouldn't take it, "I'm Aida Ormswell. President of the Art Club and cheerleader."

Don Thousand shook her hand just to try and piss her off even though he didn't like to have physical contact with anyone. "I am Don Thousand," he said. They glared at each other and it was Aida who looked away first. Don smirked. So his death glare wasn't failing him after all.

After a few minutes of silence, Don Thousand eventually asked, "Why are you in here?"

Aida scowled, "Some morons were playing with toy cars on the top of some stairs. I stepped on one of the cars and fell down the stairs," she said simply. They descended into silence again until Aida asked, "What class are you missing?"

Don pulled his schedule out of his pocket,, "Apparently gym. Not a huge loss."

Aida nodded in agreement, "Me too. It's really a worthless subject. You do nothing more than run around and play games."

"Is it even considered a subject?" Don Thousand asked. He had a limited knowledge of earth nowadays, only what he had gleaned from Vector's mind, and was not above requesting knowledge. Even from a human.

"Amazingly, yes. And it's required," Aida huffed. She cast a glance at his schedule and her eyes widened before she managed to catch herself, "You're taking THOSE classes?"

"What do you mean by that?" Don Thousand asked.

"Those are all very advanced classes."

"So what?"

Aida groaned, "Meaning I'll be seeing you in most of them. We have math, chemistry, Swahili, physics, and literacy together."

Don Thousand scowled, "Oh great. More people I'm forced to interact with."

"It's highschool. Get used to it," Aida sneered. They spent the rest of the time pointedly not looking at each other until the nurse allowed Don to leave to go to his next class.

…...

After school, Don Thousand broke into a run but he wasn't quite fast enough. "HEY! DONNY!" an overly cheery voice called. The patron of Barian World found himself caught in a hug by a certain dirty blond teenager.

Don Thousand froze at the nickname. There were only two people who had ever called him Donny before. One was Vector, the other one was Eliphas. Needless to say, Don did not like being called it. Too many bad memories.

"Never. Call. Me. Donny." Don Thousand snarled.

Lyle looked unnerved and his grip loosened. "Um... Heh, heh, sorry! So you don't like that nickname? No prob! I have a lot of nicknames I absolutely hate to be called too. Like Ly-ly, Loserle, Loudmouth Lyle, Dipstick, Loser-boy, Sir Limps-a-lot, Dopey..."

And as Lyle droned on, Don Thousand began to realize just how hated this kid really was. At this point, he wanted to go up to the person who had made most of these up and high-five him right before he slapped that person for making him listen to Lyle chatter on about all the names he had been called.

Suddenly, Lyle stopped and hid behind Don. After giving Lyle another death glare, Don Thousand took a quick look around to see what had freaked out, and effectively shut up, Lyle. As he caught sight of a fairly familiar pair of dark blue eyes and wave of light green hair, Don smirked. Seemed like Lyle definitely knew Aida.

Don Thousand quickly stepped out of the way and pushed Lyle forward. The grey-eyed teen stumbled forward before squeaking and running behind Don again. Aida wrinkled her nose up and looked down at Lyle, then up at Don Thousand. "So he's tagging along with you then? Even after your little concussion fiasco?" she asked in her cold voice.

Lyle started trembling behind Don as he squeaked out, "I apologized for that! How was I supposed to know you were getting annoyed? And I definitely didn't expect you to hit your head hard enough to give yourself a mild concussion!"

"I think me screaming for you to shut the hell up and go away might've tipped you off," Don Thousand said sarcastically.

"So why is he tagging along?" Aida asked, addressing Don as she pointedly refused to make eye-contact with Lyle.

"No idea," Don replied honestly. He looked over his shoulder at Lyle, "Why are you following me?"

"Because we're new best friends!" Lyle cheered before cowering again.

"I am in no universe your friend. And would you two mind explaining why he is hiding behind me?!" Don Thousand growled.

"I don't know. I don't like him, but no one does so it's nothing new," Aida scoffed, "Excuse me, I have to get going." and with that, she stalked off.

Lyle straightened up and started breathing easy again. Turning to Don Thousand, he said, "She's just scary. Prowling around, glaring at everyone, snapping at people, and her voice is so cold and terrifying..."

Don Thousand blinked then his eyes narrowed, "WHAT?! So you're scared of her because she glares at you, snaps at you, and her voice sounds 'scary'?! If you haven't notice, that's how I am too!"

"Yeah, but you're different!" Lyle protested.

"How exactly am I less intimidating than her?!"

Lyle thought for a moment, then shrugged, "I guess it must be because we're friends!"

"WE ARE NOT FRIENDS!" Don Thousand shouted.

Lyle laughed, "Of course we are!"

"No we are not!"

"Yes we are!"

"We are so f*cking not!"

"We are best buddies!"

"Forget it!"

"So you admit we're friends?"

"NO!"

"Want to come over to my house, buddy?" Lyle asked.

Don Thousand glared at him, "NO! I'm going home!" Don stalked off ignoring Lyle's cries of, "See you tomorrow!" After he had walked a few blocks, Don Thousand realized he didn't exactly have a home. Don stopped and thought for a moment. Yuma would probably be happy to let him stay at his place, but that was not an option. He would not live with that kattobingu freak under any circumstances. His other option was at the BARian with the emperors. That was also out of the question. He would never crawl over there and beg for them to let him stay with them. Ever.

But that left no options. He had almost no money and had no intention of getting a job at some fast-food place to get enough money to rent an apartment. If he did that, he risked getting seen there by Yuma or one of his friends. Or even worse, the emperors. His pride wouldn't be able to recover if THAT came to pass. So any form of housing wasn't an option, sadly. In the end, he settled on staying in the forest near the outskirts of Heartland. Nice enough place, almost zero chance of running into humans, and some peace, quiet, and time to think.

…...

Don leaned back onto the trunk of the pine tree he was perched in and sighed. He had found a quiet place in the woods for his 'home' with plenty of trees to sleep in. It wasn't a place befitting of the patron of Barian World, but then again, at this moment in time, he wasn't exactly able to act as the patron of Barian World, was he?

Then Don Thousand thought of something that had never before even crossed his mind. How the hell was a patron of a world supposed to act?! He had been the patron of Barian World for many, many millenniums but hadn't ever knew what he was really supposed to do as a patron. He didn't exactly get a How to be a Patron of a World for Dummies guidebook. In fact, the whole patron thing had been literally thrust on him.

Don frowned as he thought about it. Eventually, he decided it was a conundrum for another day. With a small sigh, he closed his eyes and his last thought before he dozed off was how much his life had changed in less than 24 hours.