<Fantasia Battle Pet League, Finals Round>

<Amethyst/Fey E’lan vs Ravager/Virginia Darkmoon>

<5>

<4>

<3>

<2>

<1>

<Match start>

 

Amethyst’s opponent – a classical unicorn with cloven hooves, a silvery coat, and a pearlescent horn nearly half its length – lowered its head and charged. (Yes, the author really did name a unicorn “Ravager” and its owner “Virginia”. An evil voice told her to do it.)

Compared to some of Amethyst’s previous opponents, the unicorn seemed less threatening, but its unique abilities included instant purification of poisons; magical attacks, buffing, and healing spells; and a horn attack that could bypass armour[i]. (The author is trying really hard to come up with a pet that can beat Amethyst but so far it hasn’t been working.) Fey was not confident that the slime could win the match, and she looked visibly more nervous than before as she watched the battle.

Amethyst rolled to the side to avoid the charge and the unicorn pivoted on its hind legs to try a trample attack instead. Unlike its horn, its hooves could not bypass armour defence, and Amethyst chose to let the attack land so she could counterattack with Whip.

With a loud crack, Amethyst’s bubble-arm collided with the unicorn’s front shoulder, leaving a deep dent in the bone. The unicorn’s vocalizations sounded as if normal horse sounds had been run through a filter to make them sound more like wind chimes, and it made an oddly musical cry of pain. Immediately, its horn glowed as it cast a healing spell on itself, and the fight resumed.

 

When it came to direct combat, Amethyst was distinctly disadvantaged in mobility and size. She could compensate for her lack of mass with the adhesion magic on her armour, but during that time, she was stuck to the same spot on the ground. In the exchange of attacks, she landed far fewer than the unicorn, though each one would have been crippling without healing magic. At first, Amethyst was able to ignore non-horn attacks, but the unicorn quickly realized this and cast an attack buff that made its hooves glow with dangerous sparkles. (The author has no idea as to how sparkles would look particularly dangerous but punts the issue to whichever hapless artist gets tasked with adapting this story to a visual format in the hypothetical future.) Even with the magic, its kicks were not able to fully bypass armour defence like horn attacks, but Amethyst had to make a decision between taking damage to counterattack or dodging.

Not optional was dodging the horn attacks, which would likely lead to a one-hit defeat. The unicorn was surprisingly adept at both stabbing and slashing attacks, maneuvering its head and neck in ways that a horse could not manage. Amethyst rolled, hopped, and flew short distances with wind-assisted jumps, spreading her bubble in a large, flattened fan shape to push air behind her. Her trajectory through the air was extremely chaotic, a Whip with the fan sending her spinning violently, the drag of the fan attached to the flexible arm causing unpredictable variations in her path through the air, which saved her from the unicorn’s horn many times.

 

Overall, the match seemed to be in the unicorn’s favour, with Amethyst always a single strike away from defeat while her attacks were inadequate to win as long as the unicorn had magic left for healing. She dripped potion residue everywhere she went, pulling on all of the buffs and special abilities she could think of to help the situation. Unfortunately, creating potion used more MP than casting a spell of the same effect, so if it came to a drawn-out battle, Amethyst was likely to run out first.

Fey wincingly watched the battle, not calling out any commands for fear of breaking Amethyst’s concentration. The only time she interfered was when Amethyst did run out of MP and she threw a ruinously expensive mana potion capable of restoring the slime’s considerable reserves.

Across the arena, the unicorn’s owner smirked. A human dressed in leather riding gear, she looked confident that none of Amethyst’s previous tricks would work on her pet.

 

Amethyst gradually jumped farther and farther from her opponent when she dodged attacks, learning that her chances of successfully counterattacking were higher if the unicorn charged in from a distance, its momentum hindering its ability to change direction. She landed several more hits, but each one was healed by a wave of its glowing horn.

Amethyst was clearly giving ground while the unicorn chased her all over the arena, the psychological advantage given to her opponent. Sensing victory, it pressed its attack, keeping as close to the slime as possible despite all her aerial acrobatics.

 

<Ravager has gone out of bounds>

<Ravager is disqualified>

<Winner: Amethyst>

 

“What!?” the unicorn’s owner yelled as the unicorn looked to where it was standing, confused.

Fey breathed a sigh of relief. “Ohmygod that was too scary, let’s never do this one again.”

“Ravager is in bounds!” the woman yelled, pointing at the line marked in the ground beyond the unicorn’s hooves.

 

The situation called for a dramatic reveal, but Amethyst was unable to reverse the effects of her potions at will, unlike spells that could be dispelled before they wore off. Fey settled for explaining as Amethyst hopped over to be picked up. “Uh, that line is an illusion. The actual boundary is a metre in.”

Amethyst had in fact been splashing an illusion potion liberally over the arena as she hopped and flew around, its only effect to move the line marking the edge of the fighting area. Doing so while avoiding being stabbed to death had been no mean feat, and she was understandably proud of herself. She squeaked. (“I did it!”)

“Good job, Amethyst,” Fey cooed, picking up her slime and patting it enthusiastically. “You’re the best slime.”

“This is cow manure!” the other player yelled. (Well, a version of that with more swearing.)

 

Fey did not disagree, as her underhanded trick would not have worked in standard combat. She shrugged, perfectly happy to exploit game rules for profit. (Well, listen to Mimi when the sniper came up with ways to exploit game rules for profit; our heroine is typically too straightforward for this kind of thinking.) Activating her stealth abilities, she snuck out of the arena to collect her prizes.

 

◊◊◊

 

Arwyn looked at herself in the mirror, dressed in the flowing skirt Leah had made her buy for the mysterious date that her friend had told Leander to take her on.

She thought she looked pretty cute, but she was never going to be the more attractive one in the relationship.

She looked at the small pouch of makeup that she owned. She used makeup so infrequently that her application skills were still at the level of an average preteen, and there was a significant chance that she would come out of an attempt at makeup looking worse than before.

She ultimately decided against it, settling for a tinted moisturizer that evened out her complexion and required no skill to apply. He knows what my face looks like.

She left her hair loose but wore a hair tie on her wrist in case whatever activity Leander had planned needed it out of the way.

 

Preparations done, she was left to occupy herself until Leander came to pick her up, having started getting ready an hour early just in case she did something disastrous to her appearance that had to be reversed.

She wandered aimlessly around her house, enjoying the unusual feeling of the long skirt flowing dramatically around her legs – the last time she had worn a skirt must have been a few years earlier.

She tried to settle in her comfortable reading chair, then remembered why she avoided skirts. She had never really figured out how one gracefully sat without having it bunch up or have its hem get caught on something, let alone be able to curl up the way she usually did.

Okay, wandering aimlessly it is. She returned to pacing around her house, the movement helping to distract her from her pre-date nerves.

Oh god, this is a real date. She took a deep, slow breath and paced faster.

 

Thankfully for her nerves, Leander arrived fifteen minutes early. She ran for the front at the sound of the doorbell. “Coming!”

Opening the door, she was met with a vision.

 

Generally speaking, Leander’s attire was a mix of high-tech athletic wear and gamer swag, sleek, form-fitting outfits or more relaxed hoodies and jeans. With his long, lean build and excellent posture, he managed to make both looks appear somewhat formal and turned heads just walking down the street.

 

Today, he was dressed in a simple white dress shirt and black dress pants.

Arwyn suddenly realized that the scenes in manga where characters threw up their arms to shield themselves from someone’s blinding beauty were not completely implausible.

She tried really, really hard to act normal, but she must have failed because Leander’s usual smile at seeing her took on a quizzical edge, as did his habitual, “Hello…?”

She completely ignored the implied question, as there was simply no way to explain without sounding weird. (It would be extremely out of character for Arwyn to just say, “You’re so hot.”) “Hi,” she answered instead.

Leander chuckled, Arwyn’s attempts at deflections so clearly obvious that they always felt like just another form of clear communication. Accepting the non-answer, he reached for her hand. “You look wonderful tonight.”

Arwyn narrowed her eyes at him. Him having the temerity to compliment someone else on their appearance while being oblivious to his own just struck her as wrong.

 

 

Leander chuckled again at Arwyn’s expression. She tended to have the strangest reaction to compliments. It was not that she disliked them – he would have long stopped making comments about her appearance if she did – but she sometimes discounted them, and at other times, had very loud thoughts that she declined to share with him except by how they registered in her expression.

He countered her narrowed eyes with an open look, inviting her to share what she was thinking, grinning with amusement as she silently withdrew her objection to the compliment rather than have to explain.

He loved being able to tease her like this, starting to know her reactions well enough to have these non-verbal exchanges.

“Shall we?”

He held onto her hand while she put on her shoes, supporting her balance as she stood on one foot and then the other, then led the way to the waiting car. Their destination already programmed in, it accelerated smoothly onto the road.

“So where are we going?” Arwyn asked.

 

He thought it would be best to tell her now rather than have it be a true surprise. “Leah suggested you would enjoy taking ballroom dancing classes.”

Her eyes widened before curving into happy half moons, the pleasure and excitement on her face ample reward for the little effort it had taken to register them for the classes.

She leaned against his shoulder and he took the opportunity to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her even closer.

“I’ve always wanted to take ballroom dancing,” she murmured. “Never had a partner.”

“Anything else?”

“Anything else what?”

“That you always wanted to do.” If it was within his power, he would make sure she was able to do them.

“Mmm… Can’t think of anything. You?”

“Just this.” Just being with her made him content in a way that he could not adequately describe.

 

She leaned back to look him in the face, a suppressed smile in her eyes as she put a hand on his cheek and tried to sound serious. “The way you pull off corny lines like that is just… remarkable.”

He grinned and leaned into her touch. “I say everything with the utmost sincerity.”

She sighed. “I know. It’s bad for my heart.”

 

He and Arwyn were by far the youngest in the class, the other participants couples in their fifties and sixties.

They lined up along the studio’s hardwood floors, getting into the basic ballroom hold, her right hand on his shoulder and his left arm under, their opposite hands clasping. Leander paid enough attention to the instructors to ensure that they did not fall behind the class but otherwise took advantage of the chance to observe Arwyn from close up.

 

She was entirely focused on learning the steps, her eyes on her feet most of the time, sometimes counting under her breath as they embarked on the basics of the waltz. She even seemed to forget him somewhat, trusting that his hands would guide her in the right direction.

 

Leander found most physical tasks came naturally to him, both fine motor skills involved in arts and crafts as well as the gross motor skills in sports and combat. Dance, however, somewhat stymied him. There was not an end goal to accomplish; it was movement for the sake of movement. He could copy choreography that he saw fairly accurately, but it had a robotic quality when he performed it, no intent behind the action.

He found that, dancing with Arwyn, he did have a purpose. He was a frame to her picture, a support to help her glide and spin across the floor.

 

When they finally tried the steps to music and saw Arwyn’s bright smile, he felt the urge to deviate from the set steps for the first time in his life, to perform more advanced steps that would show her off even more.

He restrained himself, not wanting to confuse Arwyn with moves she had not yet learned, but he found himself looking forward to their lessons in the weeks to come.

 

They slowed to a stop as the music ended, Arwyn beaming with excitement. “This is so fun!”

“Yes,” he agreed, his own smile softer but no less sincere.

One of the two instructors came by, an older woman with the toned body of a lifelong dancer. “Very good,” she said approvingly. “Learning for a wedding? You and your fiancé are more than ready.”

Arwyn looked to him to speak but he found he had no desire to correct the misconception and remained silent until the instructor moved on, Arwyn’s eyes growing wider and wider with each second until they seemed to take up half her face.

He tried to meet her gaze with a serious expression but he could not help the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Leander!” she hissed under her breath.

He watched her attentively but did not answer, pulling the silent look out of her playbook of usual habits.

Then it was time to learn the next step and he watched her fall back into a state of total concentration, her strength of focus fascinating to watch.

 

 

Arwyn walked out of the dance studio at the end of the lesson, nearly floating with elation. The sense of poised grace she had always envied while watching professional dancers on television… For brief moments in time, it had been hers.

Or theirs, she acknowledged, Leander accompanying her with such a steadfast presence that she never hesitated to rely on him when they were together. Of course, he was always graceful, so today was nothing out of the ordinary for him.

 

Her conscious caught up with her idle thoughts and she whirled on him. “You already know how to dance!” she accused.

He chuckled and nodded. “I had to take basic lessons in high school,” he acknowledged.

“What kind of weird school – No, I don’t even know why I’m surprised. It was silly of me to not assume you could waltz. What other styles do you know?”

“Viennese waltz and a little bit of tango.”

Some excitement must have shown on her face because he added, “You like the Viennese waltz?”

“It’s my favourite.”

He smiled as he opened the car door for her. “I will sign us up once this set of lessons is over.”

 

The satisfaction he seemed to derive by making her happy melted her heart. Tugging him closer when he moved to walk to the other side of the car, she kissed him on the lips.

He stilled, not moving when she pulled breathlessly back, self-consciousness starting to creep in.

She made a small sound of surprise when he abandoned his plan to go to the opposite door and instead, lifted her effortlessly and slid into her spot, seating her on his lap, captured in his arms.

She had no desire to be anywhere else.

 

As the car took them back to her house, she could not help but mutter, “Figures.”

“What is it?”

“You can manage this stupid skirt better than I can,” she complained, poking at a perfectly draped fold where it lay over the car seat.

He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “Any time.”

---

[i] One of the lesser known uses for semicolons is to separate clauses in which one or more of the clauses contain commas.