#guest egg

through the zb au all things are possible. i can force all of my ocs to converge at a festival.

wow yukata designers these days get really wild and wacky with it. i bet i could even find options for getti to wear (they would have to be ladies' yukatas though, the men's are as boring as ever)

look how nice and leafy this is. idt it's right for any of my ocs but i just really like it

maybe something like this for anise? with or without the bow attachment. i'm also thinking about the idea i had way early on into anise's existence, of them paying to have men's clothing made using pretty textiles, so they would look like women's garments but be worn like men's

(from http://www.unknown529.com/fs/un529/unk80054 for my own reference)

omg.......dick and arren in their yukatas, watching egg run around in a jinbei while FURIOUSLY bouncing a yoyo balloon around

this whole project is just an excuse to draw egg

i have everything through “i want him to” planned out, but from “dawn don’t you think” through “he could be less than kind” is a blur. and then “or even worse” til the end of the song is planned out

im just trying to do everything from beginning to end without skipping around bc if i do that once i draw the parts i have planned i’ll never do the rest

cuz once egg is gone, it’ll basically be like……empty nest syndrome, and every parent eventually experiences that right? so no big deal. (obviously he is wrong and as the battle progresses he starts to realize just how horribly he’s going to miss egg one day.)

but he does mention it offhandedly once, like “i feel so bad for those kids. young love is already so weird and hard….”

and egg, 100% innocently, is like “yeah, i guess so! but isn’t that kind of the same as you and arren? once the mamodo battle is done you might stop hanging ou—”

and mel is like (slaps a hand over their mouth) “don’t listen to them del, i’m sure that’s not true!!! arren’s made it very clear he values your friendship a lot!!!!!” but it’s too late, dick is fully spiraling (he’s very メンタルが弱い lol)

this is obviously after dickegg burn jerry’s book. mel is really happy dick has good friends but she does occasionally give arren unblinking “If You Hurt My Brother I Will Wrap My Hands Around Your Throat And End Your Life” stares which he does not actually know the meaning of or reason for because he is completely clueless about dick’s crush on him, but he does take it seriously as a general threat, since he helped dick save her in the first place and knows firsthand how scary she can actually be.

each kid is given at least one hereditary power (like bao but nowhere near as powerful or unique) in line with their assigned role, as a failsafe to make them useful. they’re also taught to never consider themselves serious contenders for the throne, and to abandon all emotions, desires, ambitions, etc that might get in the way of them providing impeccable service. they’re raised as living tools for the current and future ruler, essentially.

in the context of the battle on earth, that means they’re expected to attach themselves to other mamodo and help THEM succeed, so that if any of those mamodo become king, they’ll almost certainly be chosen to serve them. this is well-known by other mamodo so if one of the kids from that house gets chosen to participate, there’s an unspoken additional race on earth among all the other mamodo of a certain character to find them, bc they’re guaranteed to be a very valuable ally as long as they have their human partner and their hereditary spells unlocked.

anise’s innate magic allows them to transform in ways that increase their agility, defense, and strength, but each transformation weakens when stacked with another one. so for example, their strongest agility transformation on its own makes them blindingly fast, while their strongest defensive transformation is basically gr33d’s ultimate shield (lol). but if they use both, their speed and armor integrity both decrease by at least an order. use all three and they’re only about as fast/hardy/strong as a moderately trained mamodo without enhancements, since none of their training centered around combat.

furthermore, their offensive transformations require a lot of energy and are really only meant to be a worst case scenario solution if they can’t escape a bad situation. they’re built for survival, not fighting. that means they’re not especially powerful as a fighter, and under ordinary circumstances wouldn’t be a very useful ally bc their spells do nothing for anyone else.

HOWEVER. they were assigned the role of healer, so on top of being taught medicine and healing, they received 1 or 2 spells that can restore anyone’s heart energy and health very quickly. plenty of other mamodo can heal, but anise’s healing spells and their learned inclination to act as a tool for other more powerful mamodo makes them like catnip for Unsavory Types looking to get ahead in the fight.

(they do have two other abilities. one is that they can sense mamodo’s general locations, their power, and their humans’ heart energy levels. that last bit is the only unusual part. the other is a spell where they spit venom. very mild damage with a fast-fading paralytic effect.)

i’m honestly reluctant to think too hard abt what gr33d’s backstory would be in this au bc my ocs are so personal it feels weird to be doing it for a character that’s not my own (or willingly bequeathed just for the purposes of the au, like egg). but he’s got the same overall personality and motivations as og gr33d, he’s just younger (17-18) and a bit more foolhardy and excitable. i also can’t imagine he’s not still a way better fighter than anise so i guess he’s got combat experience/training for whatever reason. again if i think too much abt it i’ll cringe way too hard to continue. ANYWAY.

the battle begins and anise shows up on earth, and being a pragmatist (with no tact) i think they honestly just spend a good bit of time walking right up to humans with high heart energy potential and asking them if they can read their book. nobody treats them especially well, and since they’re not useful yet without their spells, whenever they sense other mamodo nearby they steer clear of them, bc they don’t want to be attacked or taken in while they’re still more of a burden than an asset.

one day they pick up on a human with VERY high heart energy, so they start heading toward it. they follow after the person for a while before abruptly losing track of them, and then someone speaks up from behind them and asks “so. you wanna tell me why you’ve been following me around like a lost dog?” so they have a similar first encounter to the fmab campaign :^)

anise, having no reason to lie, says, “i’m a mamodo searching for my human partner. can you please tell me if you can read this book?”

honestly i think a lot of ppl’s first reaction would be like oh this ‘mamodo’ shit must be a cult, they’re just like a really determined jehovah’s witness guy LOL. so i imagine gr33d is absolutely skeptical and asks “yeah, why don’t we back up a little. why were you chasing after me specifically?”

“you have a rare abundance of heart energy, which would make you a very powerful partner. it might make up for my own shortcomings, if you are mine.”

“…right. let’s pretend i understood any of that. why should i believe you?”

and anise is like (thoughtfully) “oh. i don’t know. perhaps because i don’t have any reason to lie, but i suppose that wouldn’t matter or be knowable to anyone besides myself.”

and gr33d laughs and says “alright. you’re funny. i’ll take a look.” so he opens the book, and sure enough, he can somehow understand one line of this weirdass ancient text and when he reads it aloud and looks up, anise has transformed slightly, the most immediately noticeable difference being their eyes changing color. and they look down at their similarly faintly discolored hands and go “ah, so it really is you. that’s very fortunate.”

then they look up and say “my name is anise. i am a nominal participant in the current battle to decide the king of the mamodo world. you are my partner. may i ask you your name?” and that’s how granise meet and gain their first spell, a low-level agility transformation.

the initial crux of their relationship is that gr33d, being gr33d, is very pleased with the fact that he’s the only one who can read anise’s book, which means their powers can really only be used by him. anise explains everything they know about the mamodo world and the battle, as well as their particular circumstances and expected role.

to which gr33d is like “fuck that, i’m not helping anyone else. i’m going to be the king of this world AND the other world.” and anise is like “i wasn’t aware the human world also had a king.” and gr33d just grins and says “maybe not that anyone knows of yet. but this whole world is mine, and since you’re mine, your world is too.” and anise is like (blinks) “oh. alright.”

so in a strange turn of events, they decide to help their human partner somehow become king of the mamodo world.

kinda important to note that in this au, they aren’t unable to feel things/care about anything like they were in the fm*b campaign. they were just taught their whole life to abandon or at least strictly control their emotions in the name of efficiency and efficacy. so they CAN feel things, they’re just conditioned not to let themself do so. (if they couldn’t feel things at all im pretty sure it would be impossible for them to unlock more spells in the human world.)

they and the other students of their house were also denied the opportunity to form actual personal relationships with anyone. so anise spent all their free time studying anything and everything. if they could fill every inch of space inside of themself with knowledge, they wouldn’t have room for emotions so they wouldn’t ever become obsolete thru inefficiency, and maybe they’d also stop feeling so empty all the time.

once other mamodo start finding them, a lot of them, especially shitty small fry who were hoping to use anise to get much farther than they’d be able to on their own, obviously take issue with the fact that anise won’t be their tool when they were under the impression that they were only in the battle to serve other mamodo.

and the first time one of them is like “so that human is the one putting stupid ideas in your head. i’ll just get rid of him. there must be plenty of others who can get you to work just fine,” anise gets their second spell, which gr33d reads just as the enemy mamodo attacks him—but in true zb fashion, anise takes the hit themself instead with their new defensive transformation >:^)

anyway after the fight anise tries to check gr33d for injuries and he’s like “don’t be stupid, you were the one who took the hit. are you okay?”

and anise says “i’m fine. my armor protected me, and even if i get hurt, i will heal much faster than a human. my job is to protect you whenever i am able.”

and gr33d is like “no, i’m not hearing it. you’re MINE, so i expect you to take care of yourself, do you understand?”

and anise is like (experiencing a flicker of an emotion) “……..yes.”

this is also when they get their third spell, for minor healing, and anise asks gr33d to read it so they can touch his face and heal a little cut on his cheek. after which they go “there. now we’re both satisfied”

and gr33d laughs and helps them up and says “c’mon. let’s head back.”

from there their relationship turns more relaxed and understanding, and also anise is less tense bc now that they have one of their healing spells they can officially call themself somewhat useful. also now that they’re on better terms, gr33d picks up on anise’s curiosity about the human world and starts making sure they get to experience as much of it as possible, cuz it’s his world, who better to show them around?

so with his help anise finds out a lot about humans, earth, and themself, like their favorite foods and activities, all stuff they didn’t let themself think about before bc it wasn’t important to their purpose. and they learn what it’s like to have an actual friend (and more), like when gr33d tells them to lie down next to him on a grassy hill and relax for once and they unexpectedly doze off, and when they wake up gr33d has draped his jacket over them like a blanket.

or when they’re looking curiously at some flowers at a street stand, so greed yoinks one and hands it to them, and while they’re studying it up close he puts another one in their hair and says “there. that one’s for you to look at, and this one’s for me.” and each time anise is increasingly like (failing to suppress an emotion) “…….thank you.”

also as their relationship evolves, gr33d’s attitude abt the mamodo battle shifts from “i’m gonna be the king of your world” to the much less ridiculous “you’re gonna be the king of your world, bc who would be a better king than My mamodo?”

basically, consciously or not, anise begins to respect themself and their own feelings because gr33d is important to them, and they’re important to gr33d.

they’re at this point in their relationship when they meet dickegg for the first time, and they immediately start fighting bc that’s just what both pairs expect. but gr33d starts doing his usual peacocking abt how anise is His and His alone to try and distract the enemy with the idea of how useful anise is, and dickegg are like “how can you talk about them that way! they’re a person, not a tool!” and gr33d is like “oh hold up i didn’t know you were chill like that lol. anise, do you want to fight these guys?” and anise shakes their head and says, “no, i don’t think so.” and dickegg are like Huh.

so they call off the fight and just talk, and dick learns what a fucked up, bigheaded weirdo this teenager who’s literally named after a cardinal sin is, but also that he’s a good person who cares intensely about his friends. and when they talk to anise and learn about their whole deal it just further drives home to dickegg how fucked up so many parts of the mamodo world are.

so while egg is trying to make friends with a somewhat uncomfortable looking anise, gr33d explains to dick that he wants to make anise king so they can stick it to every shitstain who had a hand in raising them and those other kids, and every scumbag who turned the other way and let it keep happening for generations.

and dick is like “does anise want to be king?” and gr33d says “they said they don’t know. if they decide they really don’t want to become king, i’m not gonna force them. they’ve had enough of ppl doing that. but i don’t want them to lose the opportunity to make a choice before they figure out what they want, you know?” and dick is like……what is with these weirdly emotionally mature teenagers i keep running into.

anyway like i said when i first started thinking about this au, during anise’s final battle on earth, gr33d gets severely injured instinctively trying to protect anise, to the point where he’s incapacitated and can’t read spells. and the enemy mamodo, a real shit-eating type anise actually encountered much earlier before either of them had found their humans, mocks anise, saying how they should have just tagged along quietly like they were meant to the first time they met and how “it’s not too late, you know. you and that human can still agree to be my servant, and when i become king, maybe i’ll keep you.”

meanwhile anise is hunched over gr33d’s bloody, unconscious form, their mind flooding with memories of all the times he scolded them while bandaging up their injuries, even though they said it wasn’t necessary, and all the times he grinned and grabbed their hand before pulling them toward what ended up being a very fun, happy experience, and the first time he called them precious, which was also the first time anyone had ever called them something like that

and they reply to the mamodo, “perhaps, in another life, i would have taken your offer and agreed to be your tool. i’m sure my house would love it if someone like you became king. but here and now…you’ve just hurt the most precious person in the world to me.” and they look up, absolutely snarling with rage, and say “forget burning your book. i’m going to rip you limb from limb.”

and in their attack transformation (when they’re strongest, but also physically the most vulnerable, which was why gr33d tried to protect them in the first place), they start just recklessly running at the enemy and ripping chunks out of them with their claws, ignoring every hit they take until they’re covered in as much of their own blood as the enemy’s.

and when gr33d comes to and sees that they’re still fighting despite being so grievously injured that their book is starting to burn, he panics and shouts at anise to stop, which makes them turn to look at him. so the enemy tries to land a killing blow—which egg blocks, of course, in a zb-style dramatically late entrance

and the enemy mamodo laughs all crazy and is like “ohhh, i see. you ARE serving another mamodo after all! you could have just said so, instead of pretending to be something you’re not!” and egg is like “anise is my FRIEND you…..motherfucker!!!!!” and the enemy mamodo is like Huh and dick is like (head in hands) i slipped up and said it One Time. anyway the important thing is that with their help, anise defeats the enemy.

immediately after which they go limping back to gr33d where he’s freaking out and trying to stop the book from burning and anise says “if you read a healing spell, perhaps it’ll undo the damage to the book.”

and gr33d’s like “bullshit. you’re terrible at lying.”

and anise smiles and says “yes, i apologize. i just want to heal you, because you’re still very close to dying.”

and gr33d is like you little shit. you’re in even worse shape than me. but he reads their strongest healing spell, so the both of them are back up to full.

and gr33d is still a bit frantic, lamenting the fact that there’s still so much of the world he wants to show anise and how he wanted to make sure they learned to be really happy before they left, and they just squint fondly at him and say “that’s silly. you made me happy every day, every time you smiled at me. you’re the kindest person i’ve ever met.”

so he grabs their hand and says “when you get back there, no more letting other mamodo tell you what to do. you do whatever you want, whenever you want, and if anyone gives you shit for it, you tell them to fuck off. you better take good care of yourself, you understand?”

and anise holds his hand up to their face and says “of course i’ll take care of myself. i’m precious to someone i love very, very much.”

and gr33d just manages to give them a kiss and touch their foreheads together before anise disappears.

cut to the extreme wide or environmental detail panel (featuring the sky) that’s always used in ZB when a friendly character undergoes a sad but ultimately hopeful moment of growth.

i don’t know if they would necessarily be dick and egg’s final opponents, i just mean they’d be strictly situational allies to them like brago, rather than (pretty much) unquestioned allies like tia/kanchome/umagon.

getti is around 16 or 17 and considered incredibly dangerous by other mamodo, not just as an opponent but in general as a person. those who know of him know he’s a very skilled performer but doesn’t hesitate to gleefully use violence when given the slightest excuse, so it’s a good thing he’s also known to keep to himself. BUT he also has zero interest in being king and no reason to want the king’s privilege, since he has a pretty laissez-faire attitude about, like, the state of the world. he loves causing chaos, but he knows that having the power to shape the entire world according to his vision would be satisfying for about 5 seconds before becoming incredibly boring.

on the other hand, he’s not one to waste an opportunity to wreak havoc in a new environment, and he’s definitely not interested in getting sent back too soon and being stuck as a disembodied soul, so he is taking the fight “seriously” in his own way. he’s really just out to have a little fun, cause a little chaos, inflict a little pain, and break a few egos, and if burning the books of whoever is unlucky or stupid enough to run into him is what it takes for him to do that, then he’ll do so with relish.

luki, on the other hand, is a calm, easygoing, and overall pretty decent guy. he has a VERY keen intuition and is well-liked by most people who meet him. i think his backstory can stay pretty much untouched, bc it’s still important that he and getti are foils where possible, even if they don’t have the tiefling thing going.

right now he’s a traveling musician, which i think might be how he and getti meet. maybe he’s playing in an empty theater after a performance, just enjoying how the sound carries, and a voice from the rafters says “you sound so restrained. how disappointing.” and luki just smiles and replies, “every artist needs inspiration. perhaps you could lend me some.”

so a masked clown flips down to the stage and cocks his head at luki, and in eerily perfect sync, the two of them begin a joint performance for no audience but each other, luki playing to getti’s acro/contortion and getti moving to luki’s music. and when it comes to an end, getti gets close and says “you’re interesting for a human. i’ll keep you.”

and he produces a violet-red book seemingly out of nowhere and hands it out, open to the first page. luki glances down at it, sees he can read three phrases written in a language clearly not of earth, and takes the book with a smile, saying, “yes, it looks as though i’m yours.”

and that’s how luki and getti meet and get their first three spells at once, a pretty rare level of immediate compatibility. they eventually gain a reputation for almost seeming to read each other’s minds during combat, which is especially jarring bc they seem so different.

i think in this au they turn codependent QUICK bc getti has much less reason to resent luki or want him dead. but they do still clash. getti is straight up a bad person and luki is a mostly good one (not an angel by any means, but still mostly good) so he has to take it upon himself to stop getti from causing excess harm/destruction. he doesn’t much give a shit about property or businesses, but he does care about common folks’ lives and livelihoods, so some lines have to be drawn.

luckily for him, although getti will happily maim anyone who comes after him, what he most enjoys is showing people who think they’re better than others by virtue of being more powerful that they are (1) not as powerful as they think, and (2) scum like everyone else.

like regular getti, he doesn’t care about “proving” his OWN power. he knows that in the grand scheme of things he’s more powerful than many and less powerful than many more, and his ways of defining “power” are often slightly different than others’, so it doesn’t matter to him if other ppl think of him as powerful. he just finds it most FUN to humiliate ppl who think of themselves as especially powerful bc they have so far to fall and usually very little to cushion them.

tearing down ppl who are too idealistic can also be fun, but it can also be more irritating to deal with morally driven ppl than fun to break them.

for that reason, lukigetti and dickegg often encounter each other with technically unified goals, bc luki likes to entertain getti’s whims when possible which often puts them on the tail of power-hungry evil types and their big, begging-to-be-ruined plans, whereas dick and egg keep getting wrapped up in trying to stop said plans bc they’re not gonna just let the world end and their friends die or whatever, they’re the protagonists.

none of that’s to say those are the only kinds of mamodo (or humans) that lukigetti ever battle.

i think at some point luki and dick actually have a conversation about it, where dick asks “do you really want to make spaghetti king of the mamodo world?”

and luki laughs and says, “oh no, not at all. i think we can both agree that getti becoming king would spell trouble worse than we can imagine for those poor mamodo.”

“then why are you fighting at all?”

“hmm. would you accept self-defense as an answer? i can’t very well be blamed if other groups come seeking us out, can i?”

“…i kinda meant more like…uh…”

“i know, it’s alright. you’re wondering why i don’t just burn his book myself. simply put, i don’t want to. i’m quite a selfish creature at heart, you know. i may not think he should be king, but that doesn’t mean i intend to let anyone take him away from me, least of all myself. and if anyone insists on trying, i’ll do whatever it takes to stop them.”

then he turns to dick and says, “so should the day ever come when getti and i must fight you, i suppose i’ll just have to hope you and egg will be strong enough to defeat us.” and his voice and smile are friendly but his eyes are sharp, so dick is like oh he’s not fucking around.

then luki is like “ah, we ought to hit the road if we want to make it to our next destination before dark. getti, darling, shall we get going?” and getti, who has been subtly trying to manipulate egg into dislocating his own joints, silently slinks over. then luki stands and says “until next time, my friend. i’ll be rooting for you” to dick and gives egg an affectionate pat on the head before he and getti head off for wherever they’re going.

and that’s how luki and getti get officially cemented as late-game/possibly endgame opponents for dick and egg :^)

by the time they actually have to fight, getti would have developed a reason to want the king’s privilege—namely, so he can find some way to stay on earth.

he doesn’t intend for a single second to actually RULE the mamodo world. it’s not like it ever felt like home or even has anything he misses. his strange, foolish human bard is one of the only reliably interesting and tolerable things/people he’s ever met.

but of course he does eventually get defeated in his inevitable fight with egg, and as his book is burning, luki smiles sadly and holds getti’s face (mask partially cracked off for dramatic effect during the fight) and says “well, darling, looks like you’re leaving me at last.”

and getti just says, “fool. i thought i told you not to get attached.”

“you know quite well i don’t like to follow directions.”

“ugh. how pathetic. all that work, just to return to a boring world full of boring people.”

“you thought the same of earth when you arrived.”

i still do. but here i’ve got a maddening musician who can force stillness itself to dance.”

“my, that’s high praise. if i didn’t know any better, i would almost think you sounded affectionate.”

“but you do know better. i wouldn’t have kept you for so long if you didn’t.”

and as luki laughs, getti removes his mask and kisses him, catching him by surprise, before murmuring, “i’ll be back. play a new song for me when i return, o strange and foolish bard mine.”

and luki smiles and says “i’ll await your next performance with bated breath, my love.”

then spaghetti disappears and in true zatch bell fashion the immediate aftermath isn’t seen, even in my brain. there’s like a shot of the sky or something LOL.

i imagine that sometime after the end of the main story, there’s a timeskip and we see luki, a bit older, playing his fiddle, and a voice from behind him says, “tisk tisk. so restrained. fallen back into old habits, bard?” and luki pauses before smiling and saying, “you’ll have to forgive me. i’ve been lacking inspiration, you see.” and he turns to look at the speaker, who we never see.

those are most of my big zb au lukigetti thoughts so i’ll put them aside for now too.

dick lives alone, either in a shitty little apartment or a tiny cottage somewhere, and he leads a comfortable but lonely life, with no real friends or any contact with family. he feeds and names strays and rehabs baby birds and shit. he’s great with plants and animals. he tells himself that being alone is the ultimate freedom.

egg is an orphaned mamodo who was an outcast and a street urchin in the mamodo world. he’s also younger in this au, so maybe in the general age range of zatch?

i was thinking about their first meeting and at first i thought it could just be a kolulu situation, but dick would NOT just take in a kid off the street willy nilly. ofc he’d be worried to death and try to help, but he’d probably just take said kid to a police station or hospital or something. so i think egg has to be the one that takes interest and somehow gets into dick’s home.

i think maybe egg has coincidentally been living with (or in competition with?) the same strays that dick leaves food out for and calls by name as though they’re his pets. and one day dick juuuuust catches sight of egg’s tail disappearing into the bushes and, thinking he’s a cat, says “so youre the one who’s been taking so much food. you must be starving, huh? i leave my window open in the evenings, come on up and i’ll give you a bit extra for the road. our secret.” it’s mostly just aimless baby talk but with zatch bell logic he probably can legit communicate with animals a little LOL.

anyway egg is like….well an invitation is an invitation >:^) so that evening dick is making dinner and he hears a THUMP in his bedroom, and he goes holding a frying pan and sees the tip of a tail sticking up from behind his bed so he’s like oh phew it’s just a kitty. but then ANTLERS pop up so he’s like ?????? and then finally a kid’s face pops up and is like “hi!!! i’m here for food!!” and that’s how dick meets egg

the kid’s already in his home and looks dirty and his stomach is growling like crazy so he DOES feed him, but afterwards he goes “look, kid, i’m too tired to lecture you about something this insane so i’m gonna just….ignore the fact that you broke into my home. for now. anyway, your family must be worried sick about you. i’ll drive you back, ok? where do you live?”

and egg goes (munching loudly) “i don’t have a family. i live at the park!” and dick is like (head in hands) God Dammit. and while he’s having a crisis over who/what to contact, egg pulls out a big ol book and puts it on the table and asks “hey, can you read this?” and dick, whose defenses were just dealt an extraordinarily heavy blow by the revelation that egg is a homeless orphan, looks at it and goes “hmm, sorry kiddo. i don’t even know what language this is. actually, hold on, this says….[spell name]?” and when he looks up egg has disappeared.

and he stands up like ?!?! “kid???uh, egg???????” and then he hears egg’s voice going “wow, i can’t believe it!! it really worked!!!!” and a few seconds later egg reappears somewhere looking super excited and dick is like (collapses back in his chair) im gonna pass out.

and that’s how egg and dick gain their first spell, which makes egg invisible!!! based on what hana told me, i think his magic is probably similar to kanchome’s, so illusions and transformations. i will talk more about them later but they are the main characters in this au :^)

confirmed with hana that egg would have a gold book (that’s what i thought but i wanted to make sure hehe). not actually metallic gold i think, probably like yellow ochre

back to this. at first dick is entirely against the idea of joining a huge magical fight to decide the king of another world because he’s a risk-averse young adult, AND the idea of taking care of a child, so he gives egg a flat out no and considers bringing him to some appropriate facility/organization and leaving him, but (1) egg is slippery and hard to catch or trick, and (2) he has the sudden horrible thought that if the wrong person sees egg’s antlers and tail, he might end up being dissected/experimented on, and it makes him so worried he ditches the idea.

and after that egg is like “you don’t have to take care of me, i’ll keep living at the park and we can just meet up to fight other mamodo!” and dick is like “i’m not gonna let you keep living on the STREET.” so that’s how he begrudgingly takes egg into his home

but dick does refuse to join the mamodo battle, full stop. otherworldly politics are none of his business and he’s not gonna put himself or a child in danger just bc said child has delusions of grandeur. esp bc hana confirmed egg would only be childishly excited about the idea of being king, no real consideration for the actual implications, either for himself or the world he would be theoretically ruling—not that dick actually expects him to know better.

which is another thing, who the hell decided the best way to choose a king was to make a bunch of kids duke it out?? KING of an ENTIRE WORLD is a troubling enough concept on its own.

so dick just resolves to somehow incorporate this (increasingly annoying, now that he’s his responsibility) child into his life and ignores egg’s demands to go looking for fights.

obviously things do not actually go that simply. it’s a shonen battle manga so i’m just gonna pretend the money magically isn’t an issue for dick (even though realistically he def wouldn’t be able to afford caring for a child, esp not one with a mamodo appetite), but, like with kiyo and djem, he’s dragged into the battle against his will when OTHER mamodo come looking to burn egg’s book.