Chapter 30:
The Plot Twists

"First of all," Sunny whispered, shutting door behind her and locking it, "I don't know who you really are, or why you've been pretending to be a student here, but I do trust you." She smiled weakly. "I guess that's my whole personality now, I just trust everyone. Anyway, I think you're the only dragon who can help us now."

OC shrunk back, relatably confused, frightened, and offended. "I am a student here!" she protested.

"Sure." Sunny's eyes narrowed a little. Then why did you show up out of nowhere with a backstory that makes no sense? wondered the SandWing, a hint of her actual personality returning. "Whoever you are, OC, I need your help. We all need your help." She gulped. "I... I think the prophecy was about you."

"The prophecy?!" OC gasped.

Sunny nodded. "A long time ago, all the way back in the prologue, my friends and I received a very mysterious prophecy -"

Excitement, fear, and something completely strange (could this be character development?) coursed through OC. "How?" she cut in. Was Moonwatcher finally going to make a cameo?

"No time to explain that," Sunny said, meekly shrugging. "Basically, this prophecy says that a 'special hero' must come to save us, or..." She paused for dramatic effect. "...or Jade Mountain Academy will fall. Also, there was something foreshadowy about a 'sun', which seriously freaks me out."

As a prophet herself, OC should have known to ask for the exact words of the prophecy, since it was pretty much inevitable that there was going to be some sort of ironic twist on them. Instead, her heroic instincts overwhelmed her and she let out a relatable cry, "No!"

Sunny's gaze became pained, as if she was fighting against something, willing herself to not become out-of-character and incompetent again. "I can't stay here. My friends need me in their pointless love triangles again." She gave OC a vague, mysterious glance. "Don't let anyone know about this, please." Then, her face suddenly brightening up into a stupid, cheerful smile, she said, "Have a great night, new best friend!"

With that, she was gone.

That night, OC was far too heroically tormented to sleep. Also, Muddy's snoring kept her up. She lay awake, relatably sad and confused, her rainbow eyes staring into the darkness. Then, when she couldn't hold it back any longer, she finally faced her vision...

Darkness everywhere. Thick, plot-relevant darkness that conveniently shrouded most of the important clues.

Somewhere, deep in her relatable heart, OC knew that this was it. The breaking point. The plot twist. This was where the real quest began.

OC descended into the darkness, every step taking her closer to the magnetic pull of some vague, unimaginable Evil.

Then things got... weird.

She could feel the world coming undone around her: everyone's OTPs breaking up, every fan-favorite character disappearing, every series arc going unresolved or (even worse) ending with some stupid, rushed climax that made no sense. Pyrrhia was going mad. Soon it would fall apart completely.

Using her powers, OC desperately searched for some way to stop it. But every single future ended with the same thing: a pit of darkness swallowing Pyrrhia whole. There was no hope. This was the end of the world.

Then the scene changed, and she was flying through a sea of shadows. It was frightening, but familiar. Horrible, but welcoming.

Laughter echoed through the darkness. Somehow she knew that it was mocking her.

Suddenly, she wasn't flying, but falling. Her wings and scales and character development disappeared. OC was fading, vanishing into the chaos. Her whole story unravelled, falling to clichéd pieces, as the shadows deepened and danced around her.

The last thing she heard was a whisper: "Oceancurse... your destiny..."

The next day, OC, Muddy, Hotness, and Expendable headed to the dining hall to help set up for the party. Even though the party was supposed to be celebrating them, all the other students were either too busy with their own side plots or too ridiculously prejudiced against hybrids to help.

The dragonets of destiny didn't want to offend any tribe by decorating with their symbols and colors, but they were also too cheap to buy decorations for every tribe, so the party ended up with the most boring decor ever. OC and Muddy unpacked a box of plain white streamers (which seemed awfully flammable for a dance that was full of fire-breathing dragons). Hotness and Expendable started hanging up a hastily-made banner that said "CONGRATS ON SURVIVING ANOTHER PLOT TWIST".

"This is... great," OC said, swallowing the sudden, out-of-character urge to say something like, Wow, this is what we get for saving the whole stupid school?

She knew that she should be happy to relax with her love interest and friends. Her heart just wasn't in it. She couldn't bring herself to tell the others about her fight with Subzero, and Sunny's mysterious warnings kept ringing in her head. A prophecy. A vision. What does it all MEAN? One thing was for certain. This wasn't her happy ending. She was no hero. Not yet. It made her feel relatably guilty to know she was keeping all of this from her friends.

"Hey, OC," Expendable nervously said as they hung up streamers together, "I was wondering... maybe... uh..."

As he struggled to get out his question, Hotness realized what was going on and cut in, "Wait, wait, OC... may I, uh, have the honor..."

OC could tell from both of their thoughts that they were going to ask to bring her to the dance. Not now! she thought, relatably flustered. "Sorry, guys," she burst out, "but I need some fresh air right now. Like, right now! Sorry!"

She fled as quickly as she could, jumping out of an open window and just flying away. Her angst was so great that she probably would have gone on flying all the way to some random secret continent, but the sight of something bright fuchsia below stopped her. Allure?! For some convenient reason, OC became intrigued and landed on the grass near the RainWing.

Allure knew about the party, but as both a RainWing and an antagonist, she was obviously too lazy to help out. There was also some sort of conflict stirring in her mean little heart, but the moment she saw OC, all her thoughts quickly turned to being cruel.

"I just went on my unethical date with your boyfriend," Allure taunted tauntingly. She creepily pulled Hotness's blanket out from under her wing, just to rub OC's face in her creepy victory. Ha ha, I'm such a great bully! Maybe if I bully her more, I'll stop feeling so sad.

OC glared back at her, ready to either burst into tears or to finally get mad and relatably beat Allure up. Then something stopped her. She could sense deep sadness and frustration coming off of the RainWing bully. Definitely not the emotions she expected from an antagonist who had just triumphed over her victim.

"Allure..." OC started hesitantly. "Allure, are you okay?"

Allure sniffed haughtily. "Yeah, I'm way more okay than you, loser!"

"Oh." OC cringed, relatably steeling herself for more bullying. "Well, uh, actually... I'm not okay right now. Not really."

Allure glared back at her, still clutching Hotness's blanket, but then, after staring into OC's beautiful, entrancing eyes, she seemed to break down.

"It's Plottwister," Allure murmured. "I... I thought she was just my loser sidekick, but now I miss her. It's just not the same without her. She was the only one who laughed at my mean jokes and rooted for Allureness to happen. That was the ship name, right? Allureness? Or was it Hoture?" She sighed, her eyes shining with mean tears. "Whatever. I don't even want Hotness anymore! He's one-dimensional and boring!" she cried. "I just want my friend back."

"I'm going to save everyone," OC swore heroically. Then she remembered how, just yesterday, she had said the exact opposite, and felt relatably guilty.

Allure shoved the blanket into OC's talons. "Hotness is yours," she said miserably. "I don't care." She pulled Plottwister's locket (the same one that everyone had forgotten about after chapter nineteen) out from somewhere convenient and gave it to OC. "Here, this is the only clue I have."

OC carefully took the locket and hoped it was unlocked. To her relatable relief, it popped open easily in her talons. There were two pieces of paper folded up inside.

"Wait a second," said Allure, "that was locked."

OC unfolded the papers. One was yet another membership for the Queen Glory Fan Club. The other looked like a map: a mysterious sketch of the Rainforest with a menacing black blob in the middle. OC gasped. What a twist! she thought. A Plottwister plot twist!

"Allure," she asked, "could you show me where this is in the Rainforest? I think this will help me find Webs and Plottwister. And whoever those other random dragons are."

"Ewww, is this like a quest?" Allure sniffed. "You want me to guide your loser tail on some weird heroic quest?"

OC nodded, relatably regretting the whole idea.

The RainWing regarded OC, her mean thoughts rushing as she considered this crazy idea. It'll save my best friend's life, but I have to hang out with a dweeb for like a day... Aaaargh, such a hard decision! she thought. "All right," she finally agreed, nodding, "I'll do it. But I'm totally gonna make fun of your new character arc."