Ortho was looking for some relaxed clubs that he could convince Gasper into joining. He already had his eyes on the Film Research club, but hadn't really settled on it. He really wanted to check out the Board Game club, but he had gotten caught up with trying to solve that issue with his internet connection and helping Yuuka.

The poor girl was so incredibly relieved to be able to contact her parents, and a bit of fast talking had settled her into Night Raven alongside her new familiar. She did have some magic...but not enough to properly cast spells. It was more of a latent thing.

Ortho had ended up giving her his spare phone and importing all the information on her older phone to the new one. It wasn't like he needed it anyway.

He stepped into the Pop Music Club, which by all accounts was a pretty chill club to be in.

And nearly had a heart attack when he saw who was in there. It was an older fae, he could tell that at a glance, but it was the face and eyes that caught him off guard.

"Hello! Come to join our club?" he asked cheerfully.

A few minutes later...

Whatever Cater was expecting, coming into the club room and seeing a first year absolutely gushing over Lilia was not it.

"I can't believe the great general of the Briar Valley is attending Night Raven at the same time I am!"

Lilia laughed it off.

"I gave up that title years ago."

"I've read your legend so many times! You spent centuries trying to hatch the egg of the princess out of loyalty! I'm a huge fan!" said Ortho, delightedly.

"He's the current housewarden of Diasomnia," said Lilia amused.

Ortho visibly brightened at that. He was absolutely dragging IDIA with him to meet the dragon that hatched from the egg.

"Uh, Lilia? Is everything alright here?"

"Oh man, I can't wait to tell Gasper that you're here. I'm sure Lilac is going to be thrilled too, considering who he's based off of," said Ortho excitedly.

"Gasper?" said Lilia. "Is he that little damphir child that's been holed up in his room?"

"Yeah. It was a major task convincing him to come with me after he got the invitation. Poor kid has the worst social anxiety, for good reason," said Ortho tiredly. "I took me and his King to convince him to leave his little hideout in Kuoh."

"Yeesh. Sounds like the Ignihyde housewarden," said Cater.

"To be fair, he's still traumatized over what happened to him before he was picked up by Rias," said Ortho.

"How bad?" asked Cater seriously.

"He was on the wrong end of a literal lynch mob bad, all because he had no control over his special gift. I only got the headmage to approve him live-streaming after I explained what he could do," said Ortho.

Lilia winced.

"Ah. Bad."

"Hey guys, what did I miss?" asked Kalim.

"Well apparently Lilia has an actual fan boy," said Cater grinning.

"I was actually looking for calm clubs for Gasper to try and join. We're trying to help him overcome his severe social anxiety," said Ortho.

"Well this is a pretty calm club. At most we mess around with the instruments and chat while eating snacks. Maybe put on a show every once in a while," said Cater.

"What about the Board Game Club?" asked Kalim. "That's pretty calm."

"I was going to suggest that one, because I know Gasper is a gamer. Not that he's ever beaten me at Mario Kart," said Ortho grinning.

"Oh? What's your handle?" asked Lilia.

"L3TH3," said Ortho. "My little brother is T0NB3RRY, and Gasper's is CHR0N0S."

Lilia grinned.

"I had no idea that Lethe was attending this year. I go by Muscle Red myself," said Lilia.

"We so need to have a game night," said Ortho. Lilia nodded in agreement to that.

"What's Lethe?" asked Kalim.

"It's a river in the realm of Hades, said to have the power to erase the memories of any who drank or bathed from it," said Ortho. "My adopted dad thought it was a pretty fitting handle considering I had amnesia when he found me."

Ortho left the club with Lilia, feeling good about that particular club. From what he could tell the three who ran the club were pretty chill, which was what Gasper needed right now. He had already nixed any sports clubs, mostly because of the Coach.

Lilia lead Ortho to where Gasper's room was, and he quietly knocked.

"Go away!" said Gasper.

"Gasper, you have ten seconds to open the door, or I'm hacking your computer," said Ortho. "One..."

Gasper was quick to open the door, as he knew damn well that was no idle threat.

"Gasper, we talked about this. You can't keep hiding in your room the entire time. You have to make baby steps too," said Ortho exasperated.

Gasper's eyes welled with tears.

"But..."

"Such insolence! How dare you continue to hide from our liege's presence like a coward!" barked a voice.

Ortho slowly turned to the interloper. He had a sneaking suspicion what was going on now, and missed Lilia's exasperated sigh.

The green haired youth found himself pinned to the wall in the span of a mere breath. His only attempt to shout again was cut off by Ortho applying the bare minimum of pressure to his diaphragm.

"That is quite enough. It was hard enough to get Gasper to come here and away from his friends and family without someone harassing him for his social anxiety," growled Ortho.

"Could you put him down please?" asked Lilia politely. "Sebek is a bit...overzealous...but he means well."

Ortho slowly put the other teen down.

"Let me make this perfectly clear to you, Sebek was it? I will not tolerate you harassing Gasper into coming out. We've been trying to work on him about that for months now, and you forcing him would set back his progress greatly. Besides, Gasper serves a different king, so he has no need to impress yours," said Ortho calmly.

Sebek glared at him, but wisely remained silent.

Ortho looked to the door.

"Gasper, Lilac, it's safe to come out now."

Gasper timidly left his room, with Lilac on his shoulder.

"Thank you, nii-san," he said with relief.

"Let me guess...every time you tried leaving he started shouting and scaring you?" asked Ortho.

"His voice is really loud. Even with the noise canceling headphones I could hear it," said Gasper with a wince.

Ortho sighed. A voice like that was the worst combination, especially with Gasper's timid personality and Sacred Gear.

Which was why he whipped out his hoodie and put it on Gasper. Being able to hide under the hood calmed the poor damphir greatly.

"Is there a problem here?" asked a voice. It was another teen, this one a bit older with silver hair. Behind him was an older fae with large black horns, sharp green eyes and inhuman beauty.

Ortho's eyes widened at the horns, before he looked to Lilia for confirmation. Lilia grinned, knowing that this would throw Malleus for an absolute loop.

"Hey Gasper, I got something to take your mind off all this," said Ortho with a grin.

"What?"

"Remember that story I told you about the faerie knight who traveled the realms to hatch the egg of his princess out of loyalty to her?"

Lilac perked up, already sensing where this was going.

"Um, yeah?" said Gasper.

"Well, it turns out your vice-housewarden is that same knight, and your housewarden is the egg he was trying to hatch," said Ortho.

Gasper's jaw dropped.

"What? No way!"

Any timidness dropped in an instant in favor of meeting the knight his brother idolized from how loyal he was.

"Lilac, meet the general you were named after," said Ortho.

Lilac flew off Gasper's shoulder and came eye level with Lilia.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," he said formally. Lilia just laughed.

"Well I wasn't expecting to meet actual fans of mine," he admitted.

Whatever ill will Sebek might have had towards Gasper disappeared once he realized the sheer respect that the smaller boy had towards Lilia.

"Fa...Lilia-senpai, what's going on?" asked the other teen.

"Well it turns out that the story of your father's attempts to hatch the dragon's egg made it to the Moonlit World. My adopted dad introduced me to the story and I became hooked on finding out what path he took. It was a pain to track down the travel logs and other mentions of him, but it was worth it!" said Ortho.

"I was unaware the Moonlit World cared," said Lilia.

"Yeah, well when you have a bored ten year old that can hack your computers faster than you can block him, you tend to find something to distract them very quickly. Especially when you're the leader of the Grigori," said Ortho snickering.

Azazel had learned the perils of having a bored Ortho on his hands the one time he overdid it in training and had to be bed-bound for three weeks. Introducing him to the knight and suggesting he track down the route he took to hatch the egg had been the only method he could find to keep Ortho entertained.

On an unrelated note, Ortho and Gasper learned very quickly never to eat anything Lilia cooked. How he thought such random ingredients would taste good when prepared like that was a mystery.

At least Malleus now had a second member to his rather odd Gargoyle Studies club. Gasper found it oddly relaxing to wander the school with the older fae and look at the statues. Then again, Malleus did most of his wanderings at night, when he would be undisturbed.

Ortho couldn't wait to see what the Board Game Club had to offer.

~*~*~*~

Gasper was rather eager for the Board Game Club. Meeting Lilia had been an unexpected surprise, but a welcome one. He couldn't wait to tell Rias and the others about it.

He very nearly walked into a wall when he saw the much older teen already playing a game with a silver-haired one with a shifty look.

"Careful there," said the shifty one. "We wouldn't want to clean up any messes."

"Sorry!" said Gasper, fidgeting in the oversized hoodie Ortho had given him. "Nii-san said this was where the game club was."

"Yeah, you're in the right room," said the older teen who had shocked him so badly.

As if his day couldn't get more surreal, a cyborg hovered over near him.

"Hi! I'm ORTHO, what's your name?"

Gasper did his very best not to stare, but then again he knew Lilac was just as shocked as he was.

"G...Gasper," he said quietly. "This is Lilac."

"Is that a bat?" said the shifty one. "He looks surprisingly tame."

Lilac huffed at that.

"If you don't need me, I'll go into sleep mode," he informed Gasper.

"Uh yeah. I think I'll be fine for the moment."

"Hold up. Did it just talk?" said the taller, pale teen.

"Yeah. He's a gift from my Nii-san. He's a special defense device, designated Lilac after a story Nii-san loved as a kid."

Gasper could feel the heavily interested stare from the taller teen. It was only making things weirder, because he only ever saw that on Ortho when he was deep into some new toy he was making.

"Hehe...bet that thing isn't as advanced as ORTHO," said the older teen. "It looks like something only a complete noob would make."

Lilac glared at him.

"I'll be sure to inform T0NB3RRY you said that about L3TH3," said Lilac.

"Hold up. Did you just say Lethe made you?" said the teen interested.

"That's nii-san's online handle," said Gasper. "He got sorted into Ignihyde, so he's pretty happy about it."

"Really now..." smirked the pale teen.

This had to be the most surreal day of Gasper's life.

On the plus side, he did find the Board Game club a lot of fun...even if being in the presence of ORTHO and the pale teen (who's name was Idia, making things even weirder) kept throwing him off.

When Gasper left, Azul turned to Idia.

"That was odd," he commented.

"He looked very startled seeing you," commented ORTHO.

"Almost like he was looking at a ghost for the first time," said Azul.

"I know," said Idia. That had confused him too, but he knew the kid was like him. A socially awkward introvert who avoided people at all costs. It had made it easy to get along with the shy kid, even if he kept giving Idia and ORTHO weird looks.

Even his toy had been watching them strangely.

On the plus side, he now had a sneaking suspicion who had hacked his router a week into the semester. He was going to teach Lethe a lesson about messing with his gaming.