"I should have gone too…"

"Uh-huh…"

"I mean this is bullshit."

"Sure is…"

"Why didn't I get to go dammit?!"

Argus yawned as he listened to Gadfly ramble on. He had been like this for nearly an hour. Just hovering back and forth and complaining about how unfair it was about being left behind. Most people would think this was odd since Gadfly was a bit of a wildcard and was quite used to being left out of these types of assignments. But Argus knew why this case irritated him so much.

Scylla had been asked to intercept an attack from the Waterfolk kingdom. They had hoped to circle around by way of the ocean while the mewman armies on land marched from the front. They would rise up and surprise them from behind in a pincer attack. It was a foolish plan for a number of reasons.

The first of which being that even if their plan went flawlessly, they would still be crushed. The fact of the matter was that the assembled monster tribes greatly outmatched the mewmans. There was no strategy or tactic that could make up for that difference.

The second reason was that Argus saw it coming from a mile away. They still didn't seem to realize that there was nothing that was beyond his vision. Any plan they came up with was exposed to him the moment it was said out loud in their war room. Typhon had been tempted to let them carry out their plan just to make an example of them, but his brother had talked him into cutting them off and crushing their forces before they could cross the borders.

Scylla was the most adept in the water, and she had a well known hatred for the Waterfolk kingdom. So she was an obvious pick for carrying out this mission. She took a handful of their best water versed warriors and took off, leaving her usual partner in crime behind.

Gadfly hadn't been happy about it of course, but Typhon had told him to stay. And however disobedient the boy was to the others, he always listened to Typhon.

"Gah! Python was the one always bitching about how there should always be two of us! So why the hell is she going by herself?! She gets to hog all the fun and I get stuck here just waiting on some dumb guard duty!"

Argus sighed. "Gadfly… you can't breath underwater. You can barely swim. So what exactly would be the point in you going?" he asked.

"For backup obviously!" Gadfly said, scowling towards him. "I mean what if they have something up their sleeve? Who's gonna bail her out?"

He chuckled in amusement. Scylla was more likely to bail him out of a situation than the other way around. "She has others with her. Kamon and some of our finest. If anything happens then-"

"Kamon and the others are strong, but they ain't titans! She should have another one of us watching her back!" he fumed. "I could hover over the water and pick them off or something. I know how to fucking fish. Bullshit."

"Look, I know you're afraid something might happen to her-"

He glared. "I'm NOT afraid. Of anything."

Argus smirked at him. "Even Titan feel fear Gadfly. Maybe not in the same way as others, but we do. Anyway, you don't need to worry. We both know that nothing they throw at Scylla will be able to do a thing. In the water she's almost as strong as Matrona."

"Yeah, but still-"

The old monster cut him off. "Listen, I know it's hard not being able to go everywhere with her, but she's a big girl. She can take care of herself. You can't hover over her every time she had to leave the castle walls. No matter how much you want to," he said. Gadfly just scowled in response. He couldn't help but be reminded of how Python acted whenever Kyu was out and about without him. "Young love can be so complicated."

Gadfly's eyes widened. "Whoa, time the hell out. I do not love her."

"Yes you do."

"I don't!"

"Yes. You. Do," Argus said with finality in his voice. "Even if it wasn't obvious to anyone who caught sight of you two, I'd have picked up on it. I'm all too familiar with the signs of being in love. I've seen both of my boys go through it. Hell, I've been through it."

Gadfly's expression switched from anger to shocked. "Hold on, back it up for a second… are you trying to tell me that you were in love? With a woman?"

Argus tilted his head. "I'm sorry, have I not made my sexuel preferences clear?"

"I'm just saying… it's sort of hard to believe."

Argus narrowed his eyes. "You can somehow imagine the waterfolk actually managing to bring harm to Scylla, but somehow the idea that I would be willing to commit to a woman outrageous?" he asked.

"Fuck yeah! One of those things is unlikely, and the other one is freaking impossible!"

"Well fuck you too!"

Gadfly held his hands up. "Alright, alright, calm down. I was just… surprised is all. Who the hell was the lady who actually made you want to settle down?"

Argus looked up and stroked his beard. "Her name was Mab. She was a supreme deity, and quite a fine one at that. Before the dimensions were all split and the cosmos stretched out, we would spend time going at it like-"

"Hey man! I didn't ask about that!" Gadfly said quickly. He did not need that image in his head. "I just wanted to know who she was and what happened."

"Oh… well, she started an empire over that dinky little mudball earth. I decided to come here and… well, long distance just didn't work for us. Plus she was out of her damn mind so I figured it was just time to jump ship. Never stick your dick in crazy Gadfly. It'll be the best you've ever had, but it's not worth what you have to deal with."

Gadfly narrowed his eyes. He was really starting to regret asking about this. The others always said they didn't know or want to know much about Argus, and now he knew why. "Anyway last I heard she had a kid or something, and he overthrew her and sealed her away, and then now he's running Earth. So yeah."

Gadfly shook his head. "Wait… was it your kid?"

Argus laughed. "What, no! Of course not!" He then slowly stopped, and looked up in thought. "At least… I don't think so anyway. Wouldn't matter at this point anyway. I wouldn't have wanted to get involved in any of that."

"Okay gramps, is there a lesson here or…?"

"What do you mean? I told you the lesson earlier. Don't stick your dick in crazy… oh, and I guess hang on to love or something like that," he said.

Gadfly got up and began hovering off. "Good talk gramps…" It was pretty clear the real lesson to him was don't end up like Argus…

Argus sat back and hummed in thought. He had never really followed up on Mab after they had split, so the possibility of the child's father never really crossed his mind until now. Maybe he should go check and… no, it was far too late for that. Besides, he heard Oberon was a dick, so the apple really didn't fall far from the tree on that one.

A/N: Argus might be a deadbeat...

Lol, I thought it'd be cool to do a couple more one-shots about the Ten. Just to expand on their characters a bit more before the Titanic Ten arc. Gadfly was a lot more protective of Scylla than he like to let on. Not that he at all hid it well. And Argus was like that dirty old grandpa people sometimes found entertaining, or something found annoying. Gadfly usually found him hilarious but sometimes he just came out the mouth with something and he was like "What the hell?"

Don't think too hard on the Argus and Oberon connection. That was just for comedy's sake. Even if it was something I decided to do later it wouldn't effect the plot in any meaningful way.