After the playdate with Su, Chloe was feeling a bit tired. It was getting a bit late as well, with the sun setting and overall she was ready to lie down in Penny’s lap and snooze the night away after a bit of playing. Landing near the main area of the resort, Chloe stretched sighing lightly. So far, today had been a rousing success. Pissed off beacon? Check. Play with Penny? Check. Earn Su’s trust? Likely. A new and unexpected alliance? Also check...even as temporary as it would be. Perhaps once they had dealt with the Mint, she could afford to trust Veronica more with her more...ambitious project.

Grabbing a large slice of ice cream cookie cake from the nearby store, Chloe quickly texted Penny, asking if she was busy or doing anything.

Penny reply text would return almost instantly

Not doing anything that can’t be put on hold. Where are you at? I’ll come pick you up

“Near the main area. Have cake, will share <3”

Pick her up? What that meant Chloe wasn't sure, but she sat near the beach.

Shortly after Chloe sent her reply Earthbastion would fade into view as it sailed on to the beach nearest to her as another text from penny would ping

You’re carrier has arrived

She was definitely not prepared for the Earth Bastion to seemingly show up out of nowhere. Chloe stared as it sailed onto the beach, almost dropping her cake in the process before smiling and sending her a text back.

“Aw, you got me a personal cruise? You spoil me. Where ya at?”

She boarded the bastion, a small spring in her step.

In lieu of a text response a bright light would start to shine on the floor before it raced off into the ship. A moment later it would happen again and again. Giving Chloe a bright path to follow. At the same time the massive ship silently withdrew from the shore it’s course plotted for open waters before it once again faded from view.

Following the light Chloe would find herself being led to the command cabin, thought when she got there, it would be immediately obvious that it had been altered as other then Penny, who was hunched over working on what looked to be a swimsuit, the room was completely barren of any consoles. Giving an unimpeded view of the ocean on all sides save for a small steel wall where the cloaking artifact was hung up directly behind where Chloe came in.

“Hey Chloe” Penny would greet as she turned to smile at her friend. She wouldn’t stand and it was glaringly obvious that her right leg was melded into the massive ship. Likely how she was controlling it since all of the normal control interfaces were missing.

“Heyyyyy, Penny.” Chloe walked into the control room, taking a moment to take in the view. This was her first time inside the ship, and needless to say, she was impressed. She walked towards Penny slowly, taking a moment to twirl slowly to get a nice, good, panoramic view of the control room. The cloaking artifact was a nice touch. “You know, most people don't work during vacation.” She teased with a light giggle as she walked up beside Penny.

“Cake?” She offered a forkful of the ice cream cake to the monster girl.

“Well, wouldn’t constitute this as work persay” Penny would reply holding up the Quick Change she had bought earlier. It didn’t look like Penny had done anything to it really until she folded it inside out and revealed what looked like half a dozen needles had been sewing into it. “I was getting really tired of suppressing a flinch every time someone bumped into me, and not lashing out was getting harder and harder.” She explained with a shrug as she leaned over and took the offer forkful of cake.

“So I figured I could add an interface to these suits so that I could toggle the touch sensitivity” She would finish, her voice emitting from the corners of the room so as not to be rude and speak with her mouth full.

“Ah, I see.” Chloe used the fork to take another bite of the cake. “Dunno why you'd wanna turn it down.” Sensitivity...controls? An impish smile formed on Chloe's lips as she considered the implications of such a system...or more correctly, of how one would actually test that.

“...buuuut, do you need some help?~”

“Because I don’t like most people touching me” Penny would deadpan as she finished sewing the last needle into the suit, before holding it up for inspection.

From the outside it was near impossible to notice the alterations due to black thread on black cloth, and the needles chosen were only a couple inches long. For anyone else wearing this modded suit would be nothing but painful, but Penny was unique since she could meld with her element.

“Yeah, I’ll likely need some help fine tuning it” Penny would reply to Chloe overlooking the mischievous tone the smaller girl had asked due to her focus on verifying her work was done. With a final nod to herself she stood her her leg unfusing as she rose, no reason to get the EarthBastion caught up in the swimsuit madness as well.

She would take a moment to focus on what she was wanting before picking up the new suit. Once she did her entire body would start to shimmer as the new swimsuit started to reform the illusion over her.
“Oooh that feels weird”

Penny would take a moment after the light show faded away to twist and stretch a bit as she got accustomed to the new sensory input she was receiving, as it was an odd mix. A sorta patchwork feeling of being both transformed and untransformed.

“Well I dunno about how it feels, but you look fantastic.” Chloe smiled. Ah, Penny really was adorable. The Dark Magical Girl took a slow walk around the other....only to give her side a quick poke as she passed by.

Penny would squeak in surprise at the unexpected poke, mostly out of surprise but not entirely “That tickled” She would explain as she rubbed the spot she had been poked absently.

Tilting her head to the side she would close her left eye letting her system diagnostics boot up under her closed eyelid. “Good feedback for a possible baseline though” She would murmur as she reviewed the data.

Stifling a laugh, Chloe considered this for a last time. Morally questionable, might make Penny mad, was hilarious...personally she couldn't find any downside to this.

“Heh, that's good.” Chloe walked up behind Penny, using her wings to lightly lift herself off the ground. She enveloped Penny in a tight hug, her head resting on her shoulder, making sure that the mechanical girl could definitely feel her chest pressing into her back.

“How's this?”

Penny’s breath caught in her throat at the surprise hug, as the sensation was so utterly unique. Due to the scattered sensitivities there were some points of contact that Penny couldn’t really feel anything, effectively dead zones for the sense of touch. Some points of contact had the inverse issue, however, and were hypersensitive, blaring beacons of touch that were near impossible to ignore and Yet others still were simply normal and what Penny would normally expect from contact.

It was a bizarre sensation, and it took the robotic girl a moment or two to regain her barings “It’s.. really weird.” she would reply shaking her head softly to try and keep her thoughts on task. “Pretty sure I’ve gotten enough data to work with though”

“Eeeeh, really? Just from two little love-taps?” Chloe innocently replied. “I think you need more data. I have scientist friends, and they tell me the more data, the better.” Chloe's hands moved down to Penny's sides, quickly brushing her fingers across the other girls skin, as she began violently tickling the other girl.

Penny’s reaction was immediate, as she started squirming and laughing due to the ticklish assault. “Ch.. Chloe! St.. Sto... Stop!” She’d call out in between bouts of laughter as she worked to pull the smaller girl off her back without hurting her.

“I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the laughter.” Chloe giggled, not relenting in the tickles. She wasn't letting Penny get away so easily now that she had her all by herself....and watching someone squirm like this was something Chloe didn't get to see very often. Up until it seemed like Penny had enough, she wasn't gonna let her go.

Eventually Penny would reach the limit of her patience of trying nicely and would just grab Chloe’s writs before twisting and falling, forcibly ending the tickling and pinning Chloe. “I told you to stop” Penny would say as she tried to fight down her smile, her face flushed from all the laughing.

“Wah!~” Chloe gave a small squeal of surprise as Penny laid on top of her. “Did you now?~” She asked innocently, glancing off to the side. “Hmm...not that I mind you being assertive and being the top, here.”

Penny’s flushed features quickly darkened as a blush came forth at Chloe’s statement. But before she could get completely flustered an idea came to her causing her to smirk. “Is that so?” She would ask as she angeled herself so she could look Chloe in the eye. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I...” she would say as one of her hands slowly moved down the pinned girls side “Did this!” Penny would exclaim as she returned the favor from earlier and started up her own assault of tickles.

Rather than keeping the smaller girl pinned, which she knew she could do if she wanted, Penny would allow Chloe to break free, after she had delivered a suitable amount of retaliation.

“H-huh?! HEY!?” Chloe had not anticipated her adorable little Penny would even attempt retaliation like this. In fact, this was very much not okay. Nope. She was the tickler, not the one to be tickled!

“Hahaha, h-hey come oooon!” Despite Penny not wanting to keep her pinned, Chloe had about as much physical strength as a drunk kitten compared to Penny. The dark magical girl squirmed under Penny's relentless assault. “That's not-no-you st-ooo-op!” Finally, Chloe managed to break free from the stronger girls grip, scooting a bit away from Penny and giving her a small pout and a glare. Chloe had mixed feelings on what just happened. On one hand...Penny. On the other, she wasn't supposed to be the one who wasn't in control. Not ever.

“Since when did you learn to be so assertive, hmm?” She sighed, before reaching a hand out and for the briefest of instants, the thought to put Penny in her place crossed her mind. After all, how dare she try and humiliate her like that?

“...fuuuu, not that I really mind, heh.” She ended up giving Penny a playful poke on the cheek. Standing up, Chloe stretched, rubbing her sides softly. “But if you do that again, I might get a liiiiitle tiny bit upset. So don't.”

“I won’t” Penny would promise as she nodded her understanding “Not unless you tell me otherwise” she understood that she crossed a line, of sorts, when she took control away from Chloe and It made her feel special to know that her action was being taken so well.

Leaning back Penny’s left eye would start glowing as she started working on evening out her sense of touch. “I’ve always known how to be assertive” Penny would state easily “It was waking up with the ability to crush cars with nothing but my hands that had me learning to become more passive” She would explain with a shrug before grinning slightly “Though my sense for retaliation I picked up from you”

It wasn’t long until she was done with the recalibrations, something that had been significantly sped up by all of Chloe’s ‘extra data gathering’ if Penny were to be honest, and she was reviewing the last bit of code involved with settings when a thought occurred to her. Earthbastion was designed to act as a mobile fortress, and in that capacity there was a section of designated for crew quarters. The robotic girl had already been planning on sleeping in one of the bunks there, as she still didn’t fully trust the Island or the dolphin, but why waste such a fantastic view?

With that question in mind Penny partly reintegrated with her ship and started moving mattress, blankets, and pillows, out of the crew deck and into the command room. “You want to crash here for the night?” She would ask as the first of the bedding supplies started to pile into one of the corners of the room.

“Heh, my little Penny's all growing up.” Chloe smiled softly. A bitter statement to make for her, considering what it might imply, but she made every effort to swallow her negative thoughts.
“Crash here for the night...is that allowed?” Chloe asked curiously. “Trust me, that Dolphin is super annoying.” She exhaled, folding her arms. “Ran into Sally and Sylvia earlier, and he made me of all people have to apologize to them. Not gonna go into detail about what happened, but needless to say, it was really, really, annoying. Except for the part where he made them apologize to me. That was hilarious.” She giggled, walking over to Penny. “...buuuut well if your insisting, I'm not gonna say no.”
“No idea, if I’m being honest, but that’s not going to stop me from doing it.” Penny would answer as she set about making her preferred nest of pillows and blankets “And I’m not surprised about the Dolphin, this entire thing still makes me think of the Lotus Eaters.” She would add with a grimace.

“Anyway, I hear that…” Penny would trail off as her left eye emitted a few quick flickers of light and a moment later she would drop her head into one of her hands to hide the forming blush.“Really? Another one?” she would mutter somewhat embarrassed, as she had just received Chloe’s solo no hands drink challenge pic. One that was much easier for Penny to get distracted by.

“Hm? What's the matter?” Chloe turned to Penny, noticing the fact she was very obviously trying to hide something. “Imagining us doing something tonight?” She smirked. “...oooor are you getting embarrassing pictures from someone?~”

“What?” Penny’s head popped up in startled surprise at Chloe’s initial insinuation a denial on the tip of her tongue, said denial never got spoken as the mischievous girl got it right on her next guess, causing Penny to sputter out as she blush grew more pronounced “It... It’s not my fault there is a service delay here!” She said in the vain hope it would work as an explanation.

“A service delay, huh?” Chloe mused. “Are you sure? My service seems to work fine.” She idly placed a hand on her hip. “And you seemed to have got my text asking where you were was fast enough. Lying is no good, Penny~”

Penny flinched slightly at being caught in a lie, though in her defense she had forgotten about the picture message. She had originally received it during the Volleyball match she had participated in early but, knowing Chloe as she did, had set it off to the side after setting an alarm as a reminder so she wouldn’t get distracted mid game.

“Ah…” Penny stalled, sheepishly scratching her cheek as she tried to work out how to un-mess her situation. Something that was made much harder by the fact that not only did she have Chloe smirking at her, which was slowing becoming Penny’s favorite look, but the picture was still open taking up a good part of her view.

“Well, you see…” Penny tried starting despite having no idea where she was going to go with her own defense. “It’s…” Something that was readily apparent by her rambling attempts “There’s…” Eventually she just ducked her head and hoped for the best “Sorry?”

“Heh,” Chloe chuckled softly. “My dear little Penny lied to me. How hurtful.” Her amusement seemed to vanish with a hurt sigh. “I've been so very, very nice to you. I shower you in so much affection it's starting to wear thin. And what do I get in return? Lies.” Chloe forlornly looked towards the ground. “How will you make it up to me, I wonder...?” It was extremely difficult to tell if she was just messing with Penny, or she did in fact, feel hurt. But as some say, there is always some truth in a lie.

Penny for her part simply assumed that Chloe was messing with her, as it was something she expected from the other girl, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t reply with an honest truth in return.

“Just one lie so far” Penny would correct as she picked up one of the blankets she had set aside “But I do apologize for it, and as for making it up to you” She turned back to Chloe and slowly walked over to her, the blanket draped over her arms “At the store, not sure how much you’ve browsed it, but I stumbled across something kinda interesting. Someone has made plushies of some of the more prominent Girls in Penrose, and they got one of me in my prior form. These plushies are 5 Gold normally, but I cut a deal with the shopkeeper, and I’ll be able to pick the Plushie of me for just a Gold when we get back to Penrose.”

Penny took the blanket and wrapped it around Chloe like it was a cloak giving the smaller girl a soft hug as she did “I was planning on giving it to you as a surprise gift.” she would explain leaning back a bit, so she could smile at Chloe “but let me know if that’s not enough, and I’ll keep working on making it up to you”

This was not the answer Chloe had been expecting. She had been expecting more furious blushing. More teasing on her part. More adorable stuttering from her robotic friend. And now here she was, being wrapped in a blanket and snuggled and being offered a doll. Not just any doll. A doll of her Penny. A doll of her precious little Penny. This time, it was Chloe's turn to be incoherent. She hadn't seen the doll herself, but a doll of Penny? How could she not simply die from something likely to be so adorable!

“Eh?” She began, trying unsuccessfully to form words. “But-that's...well-?!” A shade of red slowly began creeping its way through her cheeks. Her breathing became heavier. It was difficult to remain calm.

“...Ahahahahahahah.” Chloe gave a mildly erratic seeming laugh as she held a hand to the side of her face. “A doll? Of you? Penny, I don't even-ahaha, uhm, hold on I uh, my heart isn't ready for something that adorable, ahah....” It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep her hands off Penny. In fact, she was pretty sure - Before she could even finish that thought, she practically tackled Penny, wrapping her in a tight hug, giggling in a manic manner. “Make it up to me? Pennnnny you adorable thing! Ahhh, a doll of you? It'll be so cute -well not as cute as the real thing, but eeeee!~”

Penny had underestimated the impact that her choices would have on Chloe, thus she was a bit caught off guard when Chloe chose to glomp her. She returned the hug, barely noticing the room shifting, as they pitched backwards and fell into the nest of blankets that Penny had set up earlier.

“It’s not that Impressive…” Penny tried to mumble, blushing furiously all the while. She was a bit overwhelmed by the display of affection that Chloe was showing her. Penny had never really doubted it when the petite spirit mage said she loved her, but it was getting easier and easier to simply accept it, and reciprocate. Which made it harder not to notice the situation they were in, or to forget the teasing words from earlier.

“I just wanted to give you something back” She said meekly, trying not to blush harder at the manic, possessive look in her friend’s eyes. “But I’m glad you’ll lo-” The word got stuck in her throat and she swallowed before moving on “Like. Glad you’ll like it” she finished as she averted her gaze.

“Of course I do!” Chloe replied happily. “Really, really, really like it.” She didn't seem like she was going to let Penny go anytime soon.

“I’m glad” Penny repeated, smiling as she pulled another of the blankets over both of them, seeing as Chloe wasn’t going to be going anywhere. The love wasn’t both ways yet, but it was close. There was just one thing Penny wanted to get closure on first, but she would worry about that later.

For now it was time for sleep, curled up with someone special, a good way to end the first vacation day.

Samantha Howard had arrived at the table early on as well, and had remained mostly quiet as she chowed down on the standard, but quite tasty, breakfast. She would have preferred coffee to go along with it, but OJ would suffice.

Though her expression lacked in the whole 'lively' department, she was still feeling embarrassed by the outfit she was made to wear, but a certain dilemma had overtaken her attention.

Why is everyone acting like it's normal to eat breakfast with a dolphin?

There were countless oddities in the strange magical world they inhabited. Things like world-ending elder gods, sentient trains, dragons, and Alexander. She could deal with all of these things, but for some reason it was different with the dolphin. He was just there, existing, talking, being sentient... menacingly.

She glanced his way, her eyes narrowed. She had the swimsuit to deal with, she did not need this dolphin making her feel even more uncomfortable, or these other girls attempting to gaslight her.

Just then, the girl sitting beside her spoke up. "Is something wrong, Sil-y?" she asked. Naturally, the girl was Sil's shadow taking the form of an idol known as Shade. She sat with a plate full of breakfast in front of her, but there was only a single bite taken out of it even after all this time.

"...nothing." Silhouette turned, noticing the plate. "Why aren't you eating?"

Shade looked dejected as she spoke. "Ah, see about that... well, after taking a bite, I noticed I wasn't feeling hungry. Then I realized that that should have been obvious. Why would I need to eat?"

Silhouette merely shrugged in response. "Oh, that's true. I suppose I am guilty of overlooking that too."

The time Shade spent feeling down about this fact was rather short, as Dan loudly announced the Keijo tournament. Her eyes lit up in response. "Oh, we have to do that!" she exclaimed, earning an unpleasant look from her 'sister'.

"Hey, do Idols have slang, or what?" Sil inquired.

Albeit a bit confused, Shade answered her question regardless. "Um... I don't think so? I mostly just use positive, cute-sounding words when I speak, at least. Why do you ask?"

Sil sighed. "Sorry." she said. "Just wanted to see if there was a more creative way to say 'no' to you, is all."

Shade did not seem put down by this. She almost seemed to have expected it. "Looking forward to the future and being open minded are part of our core values. There's no need for such a word."

"How lovely." Sam took a sip of her OJ.

Uninterested in continuing the discussion, Silhouette attempted to continue eating her breakfast. Unfortunately, she was dealing with a rather stubborn idol.

"Come on, you shut-in! How are you going to turn down an opportunity to make fun memories and maybe even friends?"

Sil blankly stared at Shade for a moment. She soon slowly looked down at her food, making sure Shade followed her gaze. But there was nothing wrong with her plate, aside from the fact Sam was mostly done eating it. It wasn't something interesting, at least. But while Shade tried to figure out what Sil was doing, the magical girl continued. Stabbing what remained of her egg, Sil raised the fork to her mouth and took a bite in what was perhaps the most drawn out action she could physically muster. Finishing the bite, eventually, she looked back up to Shade. "Like this."

It wasn't long before Shade smacked the plate with enough force to send it flying. There was an oddly comedic sound coming from the plate as it zoomed out into the horizon, never to be seen again. Samantha stared longingly at the spot where her plate of food had once resided, before turning a sharp glare towards Shade. "What do you hope to accomplish by robbing me of one of the few things that keeps me anchored to this world willingly?"

Shade scoffed. "Really? Eating is that important to you? You DESPERATELY need friends if that is the case. You don't even eat enough for it to be a quirk, either. Do you realize just how embarrassing it is to tell people you're related to me?"

Perhaps to Dan's benefit, Sil's narrowed gaze was now upon Shade. "What? How does that justify denying me what was rightfully mine? And when have you ever even had the chance to have that conversation?" Sil was obviously irritated, but maybe not as obvious as it should have been, as she'd immediately stolen Shade's plate after speaking, finishing what Shade had started earlier.

"Uh, well, I haven't yet! But if I did, then it'd be very sad. I can imagine it now: 'Oh, that's just my sister!' 'What does she like? Oh, I dunno, coffee, I guess?' Pah, what kind of nonsense is that? If you weren't so cute, I'm sure people would take more interest in watching paint dry, you stick in the mud!"

The assassin finished chewing before she spoke. "I don't see what's wrong with coffee, but I assure you that's not the only thing I like. I also enjoy flawlessly completing a mission and strawberries." she explained.

"That's what I'm talking about! Who is going to want to talk about coffee and completing missio--- wait, you like strawberries?" Shade suddenly stopped to ask.

"Yes, what of it? You should know this already."

"There's not exactly anything wrong with it, and I did... it's just that it's so unfitting of your character that hearing it made me realize how strange it was." she explained.

This apparently did not sit right with Silhouette, whose tone began to betray her agitation. "What does that mean?"

"Ah, uh, I just mean you give off a rather bland impression. Were it not for your proficiency for stabbing things, then I wouldn't think twice if someone told me you were once an background, NPC-like office worker. Ya know the sort? Like you woke up at like 7am and worked for 8 or so hours, then came home and drank some milk right before bed and never really proved to be good enough to promote but wasn't exactly bad at their job either so your career stagnated. Had acquaintances you'd sometimes drink with but no 'true' friends, and never married or had children. No serious health issues as confirmed by your last check-up. Sorta like you existed, but your existence in the world had so little impact that removing you from it would have no substantial consequences." she had spoken this all in one breath, so Shade needed a second to inhale. She did so, then went ahead and added one more thing, "So basically, you seem like someone whose favorite food is a ham sandwich."

"...Are you trying to confuse me or irritate me with that extremely specific example you gave just then?" Sil set her utensil down and then looked at Shade directly. "Because you're doing both. And I still don't know what you're getting at, either. What does ANY of that have to do with my liking strawberries?" the assassin demanded.

"Isn't it obvious? Strawberries are, like, cute and appealing! They're vibrant, tasty, and full of life. Definitely not boring. So it just felt odd hearing you liked them, is all." she innocently answered. Or so it appeared, but it was more likely she was trying to rouse some sort of reaction from Sil.

Not to let her efforts go to waste, there was no pleasantness in Sil's voice or her expression. "Do you find pleasure in this? Does telling me how boring I am give you some sort of satisfaction? I'm beginning to wonder if you're even mine at this point." ignoring her food, the assassin was staring at her disobedient shadow, obviously contemplating whether or not she'd keep it around. Perhaps sensing this, Shade's playful expression turned somewhat sour.

"I'm not going to say I don't find it enjoyable to mess with you, but I think it's for the best." she said. "If I say you're boring enough, I'm hoping you might try to do something about it. It's no good, you know! Do you want your funeral to be attended exclusively by people who come out of obligation?" Shade asked.

Silhouette shook her head, her eyes and tone a bit less intense than before. She answered the question seriously. "Never bothered to think about what would happen after I die, honestly. Is there any point? That sounds like time better spent avoiding the need for a funeral."

The idol girl let out a frustrated sigh, the conversation now getting to her instead. "You're not exactly wrong, but you're missing the point. The moment before you die, when your life's directer tells you 'exit stage left' and you've passed on, will you be alright with the life you see flash before your eyes? Would you have no regrets?" she asked.

Samantha couldn't answer immediately. She wondered why the shadow clone she'd made to help her through a rather embarrassing time was now pressing her hard for subjects she never once bothered to think too hard about. Honestly, it baffled her. She had gotten frustrated with Shade on more than one occasion, but as far as she was concerned, Shade was an object, not a person. A tool to be used and nothing more. So it was worrying that it was showing this level of sentience. Having made up a persona on the spot, it was only meant to be a surface-level personality imbued with tropes she had picked up... for reasons. But now it was acting out in a way she could have never predicted.

"I," Sam begun. Despite her confusion at being asked such a question by her schatten, of all things, she couldn't help but think about what her answer should be. If her hourglass emptied, would she be content with the life she had lived as a magical girl? She... couldn't say she would be, thinking on it. Were she able to say she was, she wouldn't be terrified of the thought of losing herself to the creeping darkness, the insanity that lay within. "...no." she admitted.

Shade beamed a smile. It was probably relieving for her to see Silhouette at least give her an answer, instead of ignoring her or trying to change subjects. "Good, you can at least admit it~" the earlier tension was displaying had seemingly vanished in an instant. "So then I take it you want to change that?"

"I suppose so." Shade had once again turned to the plate and began pecking at what remained of the breakfast.

"Excellent~! Then the easiest way to do so would be to get your butt out there and clap your cheeks with some of those cuties~! Simple as that!" she exclaimed.

Silhouette didn't seem convinced. "How is that going to help me be less boring or with anything, really?"

"It's a perfect bonding experience, and it'll let people know you're not just some mopey, potentially-dangerous stick in the mud~! Maybe you'll make friends~ Perhaps even find someone who you can perform your life's duet with~~~"

"...right."

"You don't want that? Someone to hold you~ Someone who cares about you~ Someone who'll listen to you talk for hours on end about...uh, what a 'real' cup of coffee consists of?"

"I don't wan-..." Silhouette cut herself off for whatever reason. "...That sort of stuff is... just plain silly." Samantha finished the plate after saying such, not making any more eye contact with her schatten.

Shade was wearing a smug grin. "No, you're silly, Sil-ly~! And it seems that you DO want that, don't you? Don't be so bashful. Or, well, you can. It's pretty cute. But I hear your plea~! Someone kindly lent us a stage for however long, and you have ample chances to shine while we're here. What better place to start than this beautiful sport where you can get intimate with some people~? None, I dare say. Now, lets go~" the schatten stood up.

Reluctantly, so too did Silhouette. "...There's a gold coin involved, so that's why I'm going to go. Just that." Sam said.

"Whatever you say~" Shade skipped ahead.

Keijo awaited them.



Shade: "Sil, you're basically Yoshikage Kira but without the hand fetish."

Sil: "So, like, a productive member of society?"

Shade: "No. You're an NPC and your funeral will suck"

Sil: "Well, you may be right about that, but you're going on the hit list, right after Dan."

Shade: "Aight well lets go touch butts first."

Sil: "K"

Who on earth made such an announcement at 7 AM in the morning? A sadist, that was who, especially when Amaryllis had been looking forward to her first day of legitimately good sleep in a long time. Midnight escapades in Penrose on a daily basis, followed by sleeping on a futon too small for her to stretch out on, hadn't done wonders for her body, and with the fluffy queen-sized beds provided in this beach resort, the statuesque girl had been looking forward to catching a few lazy hours of sleep, even if she couldn't change out of her rather uncomfortable outfit.

As it stood, a dolphin screeching through a megaphone was a surefire way of ending that particular fantasy, and with a soft moan, Amaryllis rolled out of her sheets, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She never even had to catch the bus this early, but the terror of tropical settings was that the sun was already out, burning away her last hopes for a pleasant rest. Her body, of couse, told her that she already had six hours of sleep, which should be more than enough for anyone in this world, but her mind definitely wanted another two more. But Dan's announcement pulled her up anyways, one hand repositioning the fake ears on her head while the other one bunched up her hair into a loose ponytail. Two Gold Coins was basically more than she ever had, what with her Sword having no pockets, and she never forgot how she basically totally avoided Tetrad for the remainder of the day before after promising a Keijo game with the weird girl.

Yeah, Amaryllis certainly felt a bit guilty about that.

She sighed, tossed a couple $100 grapes in her mouth, and headed off. It'd be so nice if she could just give zero fucks some time, wouldn't it? But without her Sword constantly reminding her that she could just kill off anything that she didn't like, Amaryllis was still just a rug to be walked over. An exceptionally voluminous one, but still one.

Ah well.

Think about the Gold Coin. Maybe even the two Gold Coins. Surely most of the edgier magical girls wouldn't actually participate in it.

Sylvia was not feeling the vacation any more, or at least, as much as when they were informed their situation would be one. Though she knew it was petty, if not even immature, of her to let a third party spoil it, the unfortunate incident reminded her of the responsibility she had; not only to her local Beacon cell in Penrose, but the magical world at large. No matter how many tasty drinks she sipped, she couldn’t forget that sinking feeling in her heart. And the more she looked out into the sparkling sea, the more images of the city being invaded by vile forces popped up, and her being powerless to prevent it from this tropical paradise. Of course, Sally and Tabitha did not need to be burdened by such worries, so she simply engaged in light chatter with them as she lounged next to a pool, slightly covered by a couple of palm trees with umbrella-like leaf shading.

But then, something unexpected happened. A mature woman, one whom Sylvia did not recognize but did happen to spot at the initial gathering in the main island but who carried an ominous aura about her, appeared in a swarm of rose petals that  seemed to rain from the sky. Sylvia turned with an apathetic look at first, reflexively moving her cup away. “I’m not in the mood for-Huh?” When she saw her, she was surprised; she had seen her a couple of times, and every single time she had changed her wardrobe. Unlike the mysterious, borderline hostile demeanor she had displayed before, she now looked like your typical celebrity, with flower-themed hair accessories, cute bows, and a general style designed to catch the eye. Unlike the majority of Beacon’s forces, Sylvia did not care much for female beauty, at least  not to the degree more impressionable members like Tabitha would, as she noticed the bright blush forming on the shy girl’s cheeks. However, she appreciated the effort on the mysterious stranger’s part to assume a more approachable appearance. At least it meant she wasn’t there to attempt to irritate her with narcissism.



“Hello Sylvia. Would you like to play Twister with me?” 

Sylvia wondered about the magical effect the woman had produced, and decided to give her a quick, cursory glance with her Third Eye. Though her face didn’t twitch a single muscle, in her mind she let out a curse. It’s...Darkness? But it’s not exactly...It’s something more powerful. Who is she? And why haven’t I heard about someone this magically talented in Penrose before? She had no reason to be afraid of the woman attempting anything dangerous: Dan made it extremely clear that no attempt at malevolent violence would be tolerated on the islands, and he had the capability to enforce that order. And so, she stilled her emotions faster than she realized. Still, she was now very curious, and was willing to engage in a simple physical game. “Oh, well, this is sudden, but it is fine. It is as good of an opportunity to perform some organized exercise that I can get without seeming forced, heh. Also, the last time I played Twister was as a wee child, so this should be refreshing.” She stood up from her seat, and offered a handshake to Veronica. “I believe we have not been properly introduced. My name is Sylvia Starlight. It is nice to meet someone who doesn’t attempt to steal your drink.”

“I did not realize that was a problem people struggled with.” She took Sylvia’s hand and gave it a firm shake. She didn’t let go of her hand. Sylvia made the first blink when the grip on her hand had stayed, but resisted the urge to give her a look about it; you meet all kinds of eccentric people in the magical community, so she decided to ignore the faux pas.” I’m Vermillion Veronica. I’m glad you’re not concerned about me stealing your drink. I consider my own cocktails to be among the best, so I have little reason to take them from others.”

Upon hearing her name, she blinked again, and forcibly removed her hand from hers. “Well isn’t that...Nice.” In the years she had served in Penrose, she remembered a single report mentioning that name as a suspect in a local ring of Balck Coin trafficking, and other magical crimes. Of course, the person who gave it disappeared from the face of the earth mere hours after it was delivered to his office, with no other leads. Frankly, it might have even been a miracle that such a leak happened, considering that she later learned the coverup to have been done by the Ebon Mint, an organization the Beacon is sworn to stamp out. Now I get how she knows my name, and why she is so ridiculously strong; she’s a Beacon-damned Mint Broker! Well, this just got a whole lot more interesting. She gave a polite smile. “So, have you prepared the mat somewhere? Or will we make our own in the sand?” She asked, now a bit more cautious in her behavior, but not to an alarming degree. With luck she might be able to learn more of the Mint’s inner workings.

”I don’t see any reason why we can’t play here. Why don’t we do something like this.” Veronica reached behind her back and pulled out a twister mat. The walkway around the pool was a firm surface that would be good for playing twister. ”Since you haven’t played in a while, here’s a refresher on the rules. We each step on the edge of the mat, and then a designated referee spins a spinner.” In a cloud of black smoke, the aforementioned spinner appeared in Veronica’s hand. ”The spinner has four quadrants, which are each divided into four sections. Each quadrant represents a hand or a foot, and each segment represents a color. The referee will spin the spinner and call out the color and body part that needs to be moved to a circle. After that, the players have fifteen seconds to get into position before the next action is called.” Veronica tossed the spinner to Tabitha, who happened to be standing nearby.

When Tabitha was handed the spinner, she made a cute little yelp, and held the spinner close to her chest, as if she had received a bouquet of roses. “I-I can work as the referee, no problem,” she quickly stated. Sylvia could tell that Tabitha has been swayed by the femme fatale’s feminine wiles, but there was little she could do before Veronica continued to explain the rules.

”Each circle can only be occupied by a single body part, so two players can’t share a single circle. If a player touches the mat with anything but the specified body part, or otherwise falls down, they lose. Pretty simple.” Veronica stepped to the edge of the mat and waited for the first color to get called out.

Sylvia nodded, glad to see they didn’t have to relocate far to play this game. And with the bit of privacy that the shading provided, it hopefully helped lull the Mint official into a feeling of security, and divulge some valuable intelligence. She of course knew the rules, but did realize she forgot about the timer rule. “So each player has to complete their move in fifteen seconds? Sounds reasonable.”

Veronica brushed a rose peddle off of her face. ”So Sylvia, you’re a Seraph right? Three years if I recall? You were promoted after a display of leadership wasn’t it?” Veronica placed her hands on her hips so that she could stretch her back.

“How do you...Well, I suppose some P.I article has spoken about it,” she quickly corrected herself, not wanting to seem at the very least vulnerable before the dangerous lady. “Yes, I am the commanding officer for the troops present,” she would state with a straight back and confident cross of her arms; it looked quite ridiculous considering their current state. “I must say, you are quite well read when it comes to these things, miss Vermillion.”

”Information is my specialty, yes.” Tabitha called out left foot blue, and Veronica took a step forward. ”Though it is harder to come by nowadays. They aren’t happy with some of the things I’ve done, and now they hunt me..”

Sylvia was shocked, but hid it by nodding to the call of red right hand on the mat, right next to Veronica. Was she in bad blood with the Mint? She hadn’t considered the possibility, and wondered how she had come to earn their ire. She crouched down at the edge of the mat, and placed her hand down while craning her hand up to look at her. “If you don’t mind me asking, who is hunting you? The Beacon is sworn to protect those who need protection.” 

Tabitha called out another action, and Veronica was on all fours. Sylvia and her looked a bit like two cats circling each other. ”The Mint has turned on me.” The rounds seemed to be speeding up, but it just didn’t take them long to get into position. Veronica had to cross her arms to get her right hand over her left one, giving the appearance that she was creeping closer.

“I figured as much. I would have heard of someone as attuned to the arcane arts as you if you wouldn’t have been hiding in the employ of the Ebon devils.”

”You’re perceptive, but I’m not sure how I feel about your proposal. Beacon has sworn to kill dark magical girls and mint agents alike, and I was both until a few weeks ago. Not that I even need protection, as you can likely see.”

Sylvia sighed, not because of the revelation as she called it right, but because of Veronica throwing her words back at her. “So you admit you have been a coin broker.” she simply stated back, having decided to make an attempt to not repeat the argument from yesterday. The next call was a green leg, and with little time to decide, placed it sliding under Veronica, looking like she was performing a low kick. There was a slight change in the atmosphere, as the two magical girls were but inches from each other, yet without a trace of embarrassment or hesitation. It had turned into an actual competition of who could keep their composure the longest, even in such compromising positions. “But this is strange; it seems you were too much even for the coin crooks. What did you do to piss them off, make a wish at a well?”

”I would say it’s what they did to me, but if you were to ask them, they would tell you I created my own faction and directed their resources into it.”

Sylvia did not expect that answer. She assumed that while the Mint’s base agents were controlled by debt and blackmail, their brokers were happy as can be spreading around Black Coins and raking in the cash. “A faction?”

Veronica threw one of her legs over Sylvia’s, as if to dodge the incoming kick. ”I was forced to. You see the Mint does not have have an oath, they have contracts. Contracts have conditions when they are broken. It’s not quite like Beacon where they change their outlook on corrupted magical girls at the drop of a hat. But if we’re being honest, Beacon has worked with monsters plenty of times before that. Penny, the portal witch, there must be more.” The next call had Veronica half sliding under Sylvia. Their faces couldn’t have been more than a few inches away from each other.

She grit her teeth at the Beacon-bashing. “It was not my choice to make. If the Beckoners have deemed for change to better serve this world, then that’s how it will be.” When it was time for her to place a hand right under Veronica, she purposefully pressed her elbow up against her hanging chest; Tabitha struggled with reading the next result on the spinner, as the poor girl witnessed the heightened levels of tension between the two.

”I do not feel that is a bad thing, mind you. If I’m being honest, Sylvia, that’s why I think it might be possible for us to work together. Or at the very least, stay out of each others way.”

Sylvia subsequently lowered her elbow so it only lightly swept on her skin as Veronica gave her a surprising offer. “Are you suggesting cooperation?” She asked. “Do you want to use the Beacon as a tool in your revenge against the Mint? If so, that’s not happening.”

Veronica swung her outside leg over Sylvia’s, trapping it in place. ”I doubt we could just start working together. All I want is some transparency.” With a groan, Veronica moved her hands behind her back. This propped up her torso a bit higher than it was before. ”I am no longer affiliated with the Mint. I only control a small force of magical girls, of which I’d rather not spread too thin. I just wish to know where we stand, and if there can be a truce now that I am no longer affiliated with the Mint, and Beacon has changed its stance on corrupted magical girls.”

Sylvia seemed to concentrate more on the discussion than the actual game, and made the mistake of placing her other foot in an awkward spot, causing her to wobble a bit. “It is true we are more tolerant of those with signs of corruption than before,” she admitted, and arched her back, causing Tabitha to fan her face. “But we won’t tolerate any force in Penrose who intend to harm the city or its inhabitants.” She grit her teeth, and made a heavy sigh. “What is your organization’s name, and how do you operate?” She asked, showing some flexibility in her limbs as she adjusted her position. “Do you still use Black Coins to control your members?”

”Black coins are not very good tools for controlling people. Not strong girls anyway, which is what the entirety of my organization is made of.” Just a few rounds later, and Veronica was able to get out from under Sylvia. ”When I founded Crimson Cradle, I had transparency in mind. If I became disgusted with the Mint, others eventually would too. My girls are bound by contract. One that they can fully read and understand. We don’t pretend to be Beacon, but we are unified. As for harming the city or its people, I can safely say my girls have yet to blow up any hospitals or bases of other magical girls.” Veronica was practically draping herself over Sylvia’s back. Her stomach was resting in Sylvia’s arch, and the two could make eye contact by looking over their shoulder. ”Well, maybe one base. But that was when we wore the Mints colors.”

Sylvia turned her head the best she could, grunting from slight pain. “So you’re basically offering an employed shelter. That makes sense-hrk!” She could no longer hold her balance as Veronica’s weight pushed her down, and she finally fell down on the mat. “Um, miss Veronica won,” Tabitha spoke in a low voice, but Sylvia simply stood up. “Not only do you possess magical prowess, you are no slouch in athleticism as well,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And you are a charismatic person, I admit. I can see why those forsaken by all others would flock to you.” She stretched her arm, and bent her neck, causing an audible cracking sound. “Very well then; as long as you only keep to hunting monsters and don’t disrupt the public order of the normies then we can agree to a non-hostility agreement.” She offered her hand. “And as long as our common goal of eliminating the Mint exists, I suppose we can tolerate communications with your agents. But we will not be openly working with the Cradle on the field. And, the moment you break that promise, we won’t differentiate between you and the mobsters.”

Veronica did not move much at first. She also seemed more enthralled with the conversation than the game of twister. Once Sylvia was done speaking she replied, ”I thought for sure you would need to speak with the Beaconers before getting back to me.”

“The Beckoners are not omnipotent, even if they want to give that image of themselves,” Sylvia stated, looking up with her arms crossed. “I’m tired of having to waste my time trying to get approval for every little thing our local cell can and can’t do in Penrose, which results in us often arriving too late at the scene of the crime to save people, let alone prevent atrocities from being committed in the first place. Note that I don’t trust you, miss Vermillion,” She said as she glanced back. “After all, you’ve already betrayed once, and it is likely you might do so again. But...Your words are honest; I’m no Light girl, I just have a knack for telling that. That’s why I’m giving you a chance.”

”I see. Well, this works for me.” Veronica stood up and dusted herself off. ”The non-hostility agreement was the most I expected. I can arrange for some form of communications between us, I’m sure it would be useful.” She stepped over to Sylvia. Veronica was slightly taller, but Sylvia wasn’t about to get intimidated so easily. That was when Veronica leaned in and whispered in Sylvia’s ear. ”You’re not so bad yourself, by the way. You almost had me. If the changes at Beacon ever become too much for you, I would consider taking you on. Provided you learned to trust me of course.” Sylvia did not respond, instead choosing to watch Veronica approach Tabitha and extended her hand. ”I’ll take that back now, unless you wanted to play?”

Tabitha nearly fainted from the busty woman approaching her, her face like a ripe tomato. “N-No, I’m not...I would lose immediately. My legs seem to s-shake too much for this game.”

Sally giggled and lifted her hand. “I could play if you’re still up to it.”

”Hmmm.” Veronica stepped back towards the mat. ”Very well. One more game.”

It was early into the second day of the Vacation and Penny was bored. The mood of the island was mostly excited, most of the others seemed to have gotten caught up in the hype for Keijo, but even with the success of her new outfit Penny wasn’t really interested.

Instead she was browsing the shop again, looking at the non-magical things while she contemplated how to spend the day. Currently she was eyeing one of the surfboards, wondering if it would be worth the effort of trying if she was just going to sink when she fell off.

It was there when she noticed Kimble also browsing the wares; she seemed to walk along the borders of the shop, passing by the doll shelf more than once or twice. Penny noticed that even if she tried to hide it, Kimble’s attention was focused on the Alicia doll. “Nnyeh...” She whimpered quietly, and opened her palm; she had a single Gold Coin, and not much else.
“It’s so expensive...”

At first Penny didn’t pay too much attention to the wandering cat girl. But as she noticed Kimble lap the shop, yet again, she stopped to watch, curious as to what it could be that was on the other girls mind. Learning that it was the doll of Alicia that had the normally chipper monster girl down was confusing, at least until she heard the quiet complaint Kimble had.

Penny just stayed back and processed what that meant, but after a bit she would give a small shrug and short shake of her head before she start walking over to the other Monstergirl “You’ve got it bad, don’t ya” she’d say as she came up next to Kimble an understanding smile on her face.

Kimble looked a bit surprised upon hearing Penny speak to her, having not immediately recognized her due to her change in bikinis, and tried to quickly hide her hands behind her. “N-Nyah? I was just...browsing...” She averted her eyes, her cheeks puffed like a child who made a weak attempt at lying. “Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll never get the Mistress doll.” She pointed towards the item, a pair of puppy dog eyes, or in this case, kitten eyes, on her face.
“It’s so many Gold Coins. I usually stay at home, so I don’t get many opportunities to earn money, nyah.”

“Well…” Penny would start as she turned her attention to the small plush of Alicia. “Can’t fault you for taste.” She continued as an idea popped into her head. “And I might be able to help you get closer to the five gold you need for it.” Penny would offer turning back to Kimble as she did.

“The dolphin mentioned that Gold Coins were a participation prize for Keijo,” Penny would explain. “I honestly don’t see the appeal playing it, but If you want however we could set up an exhibition match between us.” And if along the way to the arena, the two of them talked about their mutual friend all the better.

Kimble’s mouth opened as she briefly processed the suggestion Penny gave to her, followed by a gasp. “Thank you so much, Penny!” She hugged the busty girl, causing one of her fluffy ears to tickle the crevice of her chest. “I was hesitant to participate because nobody else didn’t seem to want to try it, but this is perfect! Let’s go, nyah!” She removed herself from her, and waggled her tails as a sign of utter joy, taking her hand and pulling her towards the domed building like a kid in Disneyland. “So you are Mistress’ friend, right? How long have you known her?” She asked numerous questions about Alicia, including what kind of person she was, her hobbies, and even the type of food she likes. “Also also, is she allergic to anything? I am allergic to catnip, nyeh.”

Penny was caught off guard by the sudden affection, but other than a small cry of surprise didn’t really react other than to tentatively return the hug, during which Kimble might have noticed that Penny was notably colder than yesterday. Internally she let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding, glad that her modification to the swimsuit was working.

“Yeah, Alicia was one of the first people I met in Penrose in fact,” she would explain as she allowed herself to be pulled along by the joyous catgirl. “And while that was only a few months ago feel like it has been a lot longer.” Penny did her best to answer every question thrown at her, something she guessed at, which she was up front about, but having spent a fair bit of time hanging with Alicia felt she had reasonable answers.

“No allergies that I am aware of. Yours sounds like it come up a lot unfortunately,” she sympathized with Kimble, being allergic to catnip while being a cat girl likely ended up poorly. “And before you ask her favorite color is Orange” Penny would preempt the other girl, shaking her head at the enthusiasm Kimble had towards learning more about Alicia. “Reminds her of the fall season.”

“I don’t mind it,” Kimble answered. “Catnip isn’t that common, and I can smell it from far away.” Kimble kept nodding at the various answers, skipping on the yellow brick road like Dorothy in the land of Oz. “Orange, nya! Thanks for letting me know, Penny. You’re a good friend!”

“I take it you’ve had a thing for her since she helped you out?” Penny slipped in the gap of questions being tossed her way. “And is calling her Mistress a holdover or just a personal thing?” she would add on, honestly curious about that particular verbal tic.

They were now at the gates of the arena when Penny gave her a set of questions. Kimble hopped on top of one of the statues’ heads, crouching on it and resembling a cat about to pounce.
“Mistress is Mistress,” she answered, as if that was obvious. “She means a lot to me, nyah!”

She hopped off the statue, and continued her way to the counter, where Dan was accepting applications to the tournament. “Welcome, welcome! Will you two participate in the competition?” He asked, and Kimble nodded enthusiastically. “Nyes! I want my first round to be against Penny, too!” Dan hesitantly nodded. “O-Ok, but are you sure? Penny here would be more suited for fighting someone like Amaryllis or Ronja...” Kimble reached her arms down the desk, pouting. “No, I want to fight her. It is fine, nhh.” Dan sighed. “Sure kid, but, don’t push yourself too much,” he warned, giving a look at Penny especially.

Oddly enough Kimble’s assessment of Alicia did make sense to Penny, or at least she thought she understood it. Some people were just important, and defied normal explanations. Idly she wondered if that situation was a monster girl thing.

Her musings were interrupted by Dan, and she returned his look with one of her own, one that was thoroughly unimpressed. “Shouldn’t judge by looks alone” Penny would say as she filled out the registration information “Kimble’s more than capable of surprising you otherwise.”

Handing over the paper Penny would ask “Any other rules we should know about, other than what you said the other day?

Dan took the paper with two fins, and sent it fluttering away in the shape of a butterfly. “Nothing much, really. The match has a time limit of five minutes, and if neither side has won before the end, the match is considered a defeat for both sides. Other than that, what I’ve stated applies.” Dan next clapped his fins together, and a portal began glowing. “Now, off you go. I’ll announce the fight to begin, and then you can start!” He then hovered up into the air, and flew right through a portal. “I’m so excited, nya!” Kimble enthusiastically meowed, and leapt through the portal.

With a sigh Penny followed after “Here goes nothing” She’s mutter to herself as she did.

When Penny followed her through the misty archway, she found herself in a coliseum, the middle of it sunk into a water-filled pool. She was standing on one corner of a circular platform that floated slightly above the surface of the water; it was made of stainless steel on the bottom and sturdy but pleasant polystyrene on the top, and resembled a gigantic coin with Dan’s face on the bottom side. Kimble was crouched down on the opposite side, peering down at the water-filled pool and the ring of seats; she waved at somebody in the audience.
“Mistress! Look, I’m gonna do Keijo, nya!”

Dan popped up in the center, dressed like a wrestling referee. “And now, the moment you’ve waited for; a match of the century, right here at Isla Paradiso!” A spotlight appeared over him as he pointed towards Kimble. “Here in the west corner, we have the Dust Devil, the Fanged Speedster, a genuine animal of a contender who can land a slam faster than the blink of an eye! It’s KIIIII-MBLEEEE!” He shouted, adding a rumble to his voice. Kimble bounced around to the noise of clapping that could be heard in the audience, happy as can be for the attention.

“And in the east, we have the heaviest of heavyweights with kilograms in the triple digits, may I present to you the Titaness, the Juggernaut with power to crack diamonds with her buttcheeks, PEEEEE-NYYY” Once again clapping could be heard, including Kimble who smiled as she hopped in place, immersed in the hype. “Woo, Penny!”

Dan waited for the noise to settle down, and continued. “These two good friends are now about to butt heads, and settle things in a showdown for the ages. Contestants, at the count of ten! One, tw-TEN!” He shot up in a blast of sparkling water, and Kimble’s cute cat-smile turned feral, with fangs bared on her lips. “Nya-ha! Prepare yourself!” She launched forward, carried by green winds as she aimed to slam her butt right at Penny’s collarbone. “I’ll prove myself to Mistress, and earn her love! And then, we’ll be together at last, nyah!”

Almost from the moment she had stepped out onto the arena Penny had her head in her hands. Yes, it had been her idea, and yes she was here willingly, but did it have to be so cringy? Her own introduction doing nothing to diminish that belief. Shaking her head she focused on her opposition, after all she had an idea of what was coming next and even with the skipped countdown Kimble’s feral assault was what Penny had been expecting. Having already seen the normally docile cat girl very quickly turn savage during the volleyball match.

Penny dropped to the floor to avoid the incoming attack, but just as quickly as she was out of danger launched herself back up ready to hip check Kimble out of the air if her repost landed. “That’s a nice dream and all” She’d remark mid-counter “But without talking to her are you sure it’ll lead anywhere?”

Kimble bit her lip, and managed to make just enough of a curve in her trajectory to only take a glancing hit from Penny’s hip check that nonetheless created distance between the two. “Nyah! I have!” She answered, and the green winds intensified around her, forming small whirlpools of wind around her limbs. “Last night, I confessed my love to Mistress!”
She dove down to the middle of the platform facing away from Penny; having landed with all four of her limbs. “She is going through a lot, but she was still so kind and understanding! That is why I will win, nya! I’ll show Mistress I’m dependable!”
She then launched much like a leaping feline but in reverse, aiming to strike at Penny’s lower body; now she moved even faster than before, as she had eliminated some of the air resistance slowing her down.
“Cat Pounce Special!”

Penny had to hand it to Kimble, she knew how to go after what she wanted. Granted a lot of these heartfelt declarations lost their impact due to the ridiculous nature of Keijo, but hey credit where credit is due.

Diving over Kimble’s attack, Penny rolled to a stop a few feet from the edge. She had learned what she wanted to, said what she wanted to, it was time to end this. “That sounds like her alright, but you are going to need more than what you’ve shown so far.” Penny taunted lightly as she opened her arms showing that she was both wide open and untouched “Give me your best shot.”

Kimble hissed as her high-speed slam was once again dodged with a jump. She flew in a circle around, causing a miniature storm wind to pick up. “I’ll give it my everything! Because Mistress...She told me she wants to do lots of fun things with me, nyah! She even brought me to her cottage when I fell asleep!” Her hair was now flowing behind her, picked up by magical winds. “But enough is enough! Even if it’s impossible, as long as Mistress is there to cheer me onnyah, I won’t give up!”

She charged forward, her sharp teeth grit and pupils turned slitted like a cat’s. And then, she and quickly spun around and began performing attacking faster than the eye can follow, dealing out a rapid onslaught of bullet-speed slams.



“BUTT GATLING!”

To those in the crowd it likely looked as if Penny was being overwhelmed by the ferocious attack, as her body jerked this way and that due to the rapid fire rush, a look of shock on her features as she was pushed closer and closer to the edge of the arena. Near a fitting end for a Heel that seemed to look down upon the feisty feline.

But the truth of it was that Penny hardly noticed the assault raining down on her.

She was stuck on what Kimble had said, and about what it meant. Kimble had confessed, Alicia had been kind and understanding, and now Alicia wanted to spend time with Kimble.

Her quiet realization would be lost under Kimble’s battle cry. “Oh...”

Between one hit and the next Penny did what she had been planning since the start, and subtlety hopped backwards, allowing Kimble’s attack to knock her off the platform and into the water with a mighty splash. No one would notice the look of heartbreak that would cross her face as she quickly sank to the bottom.

Kimble grimaced as her rear clanged against Penny’s metallic frame; much like repeatedly punching an iron sheet would lead to bruised knuckles, so did her attack quickly leave her pained in the behind. Deep inside, she knew it was hopeless; Penny was the strongest and sturdiest fighter she ever knew, and would likely brush off her slams. However, she did seem to slightly move, so Kimble did not let up, and eventually she tipped over, causing a wave of water to erupt from the pool under the platform. The catgirl fell to her knees and elbows, panting heavily from the strain; she pushed herself to the very limit with the last attack. “Nhh...Nhh...I...wonhh...”
Dan’s eyes widened in cartoony fashion, and he floated down to the stage. “I...I can’t believe it. Against all odds, Kimble has scored a miraculous victory!” He lifted Kimble’s arm up. “Congratulations! You are now one step closer to becoming the Keijo champion, and may proceed to the next round.” Kimble nodded, making a low purring sound, and slowly crawled over to peer over the edge. “Pennyah...Are you okay?”

…

At the bottom of the pool Penny would let out a tired sigh, yet no bubbles came out. The action was ingrained, most of her mannerisms were, but the act of breathing had long since stopped being a requirement for the robotic girl.

‘I should have expected something like this’

She was very, very tempted to just stay down here for a while. She couldn’t do that though, not only was there going to be other matches, but it wouldn’t surprise her if there were cameras in the water, and she didn’t want someone watching as she came to terms this latest surprise.

With another breathless sigh, she pushed herself to stand, hardly noticing the added pressure from being at the bottom of the pool, and began climbing up a ladder built to the side of the pool that reached the bottom. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to swim, and more to do with that she couldn’t. Too heavy, too dense, for her human frame to support itself in water.

Kimble’s lips wavered as she waited for a short moment for a response, and then saw what looked like Penny moving in the bottom. “Pennyah! You’re safe! Oh, thank Beacon! I was worried!” Dan smiled. “She’s all right folks! Because she is a robot, even if she can’t swim, she is in no risk of drowning. By now she has reached the ladder, and will soon join us.” Even if Kimble had no obligation to wait for Penny to come back, she still waited, her tails waggling erratically to show her worried state. Finally, as the beautiful girl surfaced, the crowd clapped, and Kimble went over to help her get back up. “Penny! I was really worried, you know!” Kimble hugged her, even as a towel was given for her to dry up; she flicked her ears in reflex upon having cold water on her, but nonetheless she kept to her familiar antics. “Looks like I caught you by surprise, right?” She asked, a cute cat-smile on her face, only to turn into lip-biting one as she crouched down and placed her hand behind her. “I practiced that move a lot, nya, and I succeeded in making my butt move super fast. But it hurts to use, nyeh.. Maybe I’ll need to get a stronger butt too.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m fine. Learned yesterday that I sink like a stone” Penny apologised as she half returned the hug before accepting the towel that was offered to her “Didn’t mean to worry you. You definitely caught me by surprise at the end though” She would agree with a sheepish smile. Though her smile was just a touch brittle and she was referring to something rather different than what Kimble was. “I don’t really have any advice for using that technique in Keijo, though I think I might have been one of the worst matchups for it, so you should be good for the rest of the tournament” came her explanation before giving a tired shrug.

“Anyway congrats on your win, but I think I’m going to take a break from all of Keijo and head to the juice bar” Penny would say, giving a small wave with her fingers before turning towards the exit. “I’ll try and swing by later to spectate some of your matches though” she say over her shoulder as she walked away, carefully measuring her step so it didn’t seem like she was running away.

Because Penny wanted to break something, anything almost, just render whatever she could get her hands on into rubble due to the hurt, but it wasn’t Kimble’s fault. Penny knew that cat girl hadn’t meant anything hurtful by what she said, likely didn’t even know that Penny had confessed her own feelings to Alicia once before as well, so she was going to step away as quickly as was polite.

“Thanks for cheering me on, Penny! I promise to make you and Mistress both proud of me, nyah.” Kimble spoke with a purr-like sound to it, and nodded as Penny turned to leave. “Okay then! See you later, Penny!” She waved at her, ignorant of the events that she had put in motion with her innocent, yet painful revelation.

(I’ll get around to Su and helga’s banner later, maybe, if I feel like it.)

EDIT: Fuck that, this ship ain't worth it lol.

---

Even though it was a new day, Su found her thoughts drift to her time with Chloe. There was a lot more to her than met the eye, but it was probably for the best if she limited her interactions with her going forward. Otherwise, it was just a matter of time before Chloe got hurt. She hoped that kiss on the cheek would make her not feel like she wasted her time. That wasn’t the type of thing Su did too often.

”When was the last time I kissed someone like that? Twenty years ago?”

It was probably not worth worrying too much about. Right now, Su had to figure out this game she was going to play.

Su did not fully understand the appeal of minigolf. She knew it had something to do with the crazy obstacles that normal golfers never get to face. If you had become accustomed to putting balls over green hills and around sand traps, then putting around windmills, jumping dolphins, and other exotic obstacles probably had an appeal. But it all felt superficial to Su. A gimmick to trick the player into thinking they were playing a more exciting version of golf. But it was the same for the most part.

 At least, that was what she thought looking at the game. She hadn’t played it yet, instead choosing to examine all of the equipment before playing a round. Su was looking at one of the golf clubs, which was noticeably smaller than a normal one. ”I guess that’s why it’s called minigolf.” She got on her hands and knees and looked inside a windmill. ”Looks like a tough shot.” Maybe she would have to play this game to fully understand it. Fortunately, she had the foresight to invite someone to play with her.

Helga came over and crouched down to look at the hole Su was peering into. “Are there mini people in the windmill?” She asked jokingly, and giggled as she stood back up. “So we swing these clubs at balls, huh? Why do so many sports revolve around balls anyway? That’s super weird.”

This was going to be a long game. 

Su placed the ball on the turf. ”I suppose the reason why you see balls so much is because it’s a perfectly uniform shape. It has the same effect regardless of which side you hit it on, and it rolls the best.” 

“That makes sense,” Helga nodded. She patted Davish’ head as the dolphin came over and spoke the same spiel it had done to earlier players. “Yeah yeah, balls in holes, get points. This ain’t boogie board science. Anyway let’s start.” She placed the golf club on the field, lifted it up...And slammed the golf ball so hard it got stuck in the blade of a windmill.

”Um.” Su stared on, wide-eyed.

“Oh, whoops! I got a bit too excited,” she smiled awkwardly, handing a new ball to Su before watching her putt.

”R-right, my turn.” She felt awkward being hunched over in a swimsuit, but this was probably to limit the power of your swing. Not that it weakened Helga’s shot much. Su gave the ball a gentle putt and rolled the ball up to the windmill. She had great hand eye coordination, but she was unfamiliar with the club and managed to bump into the windmill instead of passing under it. ”I don’t think you can play your last ball where it is.” She passed the club back to Helga. 

“I guess so. Let’s see if I can control it better this time.” She made a new swing, and this time it rolled fast on the ground, passing by the windmill blades in one go. “I think I’m getting the idea; it’s about accuracy. This is actually pretty cool.” 

Su nodded. But as interesting as the game was, she had a reason for meeting up with Helga. ”How did things go with Penny? Were you able to confirm Mika’s story?”

Helga’s face turned a bit softer. “Yeah. It’s just like Mika said, really.” She held her arm as she reminisced about the encounter. “She did have Amber’s ship.” Expecting Su to get mad, she immediately followed up: “But she didn’t steal it on purpose. It’s more like, she happened to inherit it, I think. She didn’t go into details, but she has obviously taken good care of it. She really didn’t seem like a bad person. Now that I think about it, she might have been the robot girl who joined us on the Justine gig...But like a lot cuter,” she happened to add, smiling about it a little bit.

This was not good news to Su. Regardless of how Penny got the ship, it wasn’t hers, and Helga had returned without it. Had she even bothered to ask for it back? Su let go of a deep sigh. ”I’ll have to talk to her myself.” She took the club back and eyed her ball. She was pretty close to the windmill, but just beyond was a straight path with moving shark fins that threatened to block any incoming shots. ”I was going to apologize for taking Chloe away from you, but it sounds like you’ve hooked yourself up with another girl already. I’m glad.” Of course, Su didn’t look glad. Not that Su was one to smile very much in the first place.

Helga blushed a bit at Su’s words, and chuckled. “No no, it’s not like that. She just took me on a cruise around the islands, that’s all,” she said, basically admitting to have gone on a date of sorts with Penny. “Are you worried about me finding a new girlfriend here, Su?”

Su lower lip quivered until she pursed her lips. ”I think you should do what makes you happy.” She didn’t like where this conversation was going. Romance was a sour topic for Su, especially when it was one of her own friends mocking her. Which wasn’t to say Helga wasn’t partially correct. She did her best not to let her irritation show. 
She swung her club, and the ball flew past the windmill and most of the sharks before clipping one of the fins. She did manage to roll to the other side of the obstacle, but her ball had lost all of its momentum by that point. ”There.” she handed over the club again.

Helga swung the club again, watching as it nearly passed by every shark fin except the last one. “Almost had it, bummer.” When Su went to take her swing, Helga moved to stand right next to her, her eyes following down the club. “Hmm...” She pondered audibly.

Su stood up and placed a hand on her hip. ”What is it, Helga?” There was a hint of irritation in her voice.

Helga’s eyes slowly drifted to Su, a playful smile on her lips. “I think your swing could use a bit of improvement. Here, let me help.” She went behind Su, and took hold of her hands, directing her arms to grip the golf club. “See, you hold it like this...” She calmly explained; Su would notice their cheeks were nearly touching from their close proximity. “And then, you bend your waist like this.”

Su groaned, and she could feel her face changing colors. This was happening a lot over this vacation. She hated how weak it made her feel. ”Thank you. B-but I’m still ahead!” She averted her eyes from Helga and muttered under her breath. ”Just trying to disturb my concentration.” The obstacle ahead held the final hole in this particular game. A statue of Dan’s head emerging from a giant wave. His nose was a narrow ramp that lead up to the blow hole on the top of his head. What made this shot tricky was that the hole was on top of the crest of his head. Too little power and you couldn’t climb the ramp, too much and you’d fly over the hole. The wave behind the statue was steep and would punish any ill-prepared shot by rolling away from the goal. Unlucky golfers would find their balls thrown back into the shark obstacle. Since Su had the lead, she decided that it would be best to just get herself into position with this next shot. She followed Helga’s instructions and managed to get the ball to what she felt was a good spot. She was lined up with the ramp, and didn’t need to hit the ball too hard. She passed the club back over to Helga, who had been standing beside her the entire time. ”Helga.” She sighed. ”I’m sorry about the volleyball thing. I wanted to have you on my team.”

Helga smiled as Su swiftly shoved her, taking the club with a twirl of her arm. The smile faded a bit as Su apologized, and she sighed. “It’s fine, Su. We already spend every day together, so it’s only a good thing we see other people. I was also being a little obnoxious, I admit.” She made a swing, and the ball nearly made the entire ramp, before it slid down from the very top. “Oh man, that’s tough. Dan’s a slippery fella. Well, he’s a dolphin, so it makes sense.” She held the club behind her, balancing it on her hands.

Su looked away from Helga”I’ve been trying to enjoy this vacation, but it’s given me too much time to think.” She stood upright. ”I heard Lily, I saw how excited she is about her date with Alexander.” She looked at the floor. ”I don’t think I was always this petty.”

Helga listened to Su’s confession; at the end of it, her eyes seemed to widen a bit. She blinked, and then went over and placed her hand around her shoulder. “ Are you jealous of how happy they are together, Su?” She asked, tapping the floor with her club. “Well, we gotta fix that.” She grinned widely. “Let’s begin operation: Get Su A Boyfriend Slash Girlfriend Slash Something To Make Her Happy! Wouldn’t that be fun? I bet we could find us some cuties at this tropical island, eh?” She playfully nudged her with her shoulder.

Su chuckled. ”Y-yea, you’re probably right.” When she went to make her put, her club didn’t stop shaking. Perhaps it would be best to just inch a bit closer with this next one too. Her next shot got her closer to the ramp, but it was anyone’s game. Su handed the club over to Helga and took a step back. It wasn’t until Helga was ready to swing again that Su worked up the courage to speak. ”I love you, Helga.”

“Great, I also love-WHAAAT?” Su lifted her club, ready to swing, when Su suddenly said something very shocking to her; as a result, her eyes shot wide open alongside her jaw. As she audibly reacted with a rumbling exclamation, she accidentally infused a large charge of Sound magic to her club and ball at the point of impact, destroying the entire Dan head with a sonic boom. Still holding the mangled golf club in her hand, she looked at Su with a big blush in her face, and then down at the club. “...U-Uh huh,” she managed to audibly react with wavering lips, the sound echoing inside her. She dropped the club, and turned around, biting her lip with her hands clasped together. “...Whoah, I...Think I destroyed the hole. I mean, Dan’s head!” She became flustered as she saw the real Dan pop in with an angry look, and turned back to take Su’s hands. “Let’s go to some shade.”

”S-sure.”

---

She took Su to a nearby gazebo after escaping the sounds of disgruntled dolphin squeaking, and the two sat down. Helga took a deep sigh, still shaking. “I think you won that competition by me getting disqualified. So, uh...congratulations, Su. You’re the better golfer after all, hah. So, umm…” She looked like she wasn’t sure what to say, and she fiddled her thumbs. “...You really love me? That wasn’t a joke to make me destroy the mini golf course, right? Cuz that would be outright devious.”

”It wasn’t.” Su made sure to look into Helga’s eyes when she spoke, even if the temptation was to look away. ”I’ve loved you for a while Helga. It’s just-” she sighed. ”I’m cursed. If I try to get romantically involved with someone, bad things happen to the people I want to be with. Amber, Deni, and so many others.” She put her other hand over Helga’s. ”I thought that maybe if I could distance myself from you a bit, it wouldn’t be so bad. Chloe was sort of an experiment in that regard. But I’ll just end up hurting her too, I fear.” She closed her eyes. ”I don’t think it’s possible for me to have a relationship like that with someone. Not without it having a painful end. ”

Helga listened patiently, only sounding the faintest of hums to acknowledge Su’s words. “Su...” She spoke, and sighed. “You’re not cursed. Bad things just tend to happen when you’re living the magical life. I’ve lost good friends too, in my past.” Helga looked at the sun as it was setting. “It’s easy to think it’s your fault when you’re the one who survives, that something’s wrong with you for having lived. But that’s wrong.” She turned back to look at Su, and inched closer to her. “Besides, I already died once. So, in that sense, I overcame the curse.” She took her hand, which was laying on the bench between them, and interlocked their fingers together. “I...I’ve been blind. I kept teasing you all this time, thinking it was just friendly banter between sisters, that, ugh...You’d get yourself a boyfriend and leave me, so it would be okay to do that. But...I guess I wanted to see your cute embarrassed face a little too much to leave it at that.” She looked away while still holding her hand. “Geez, I’m like a bully thinking that way.”

Su grinned. ”I understand the appeal. It was fun to watch you destroy the golf course when I only said four words.” She used her other hand to turn Helga’s face back towards her. ”But you’re right. You don’t seem to be afraid of what might come next, and I’m not having much luck distancing myself from you anyway.”

“Yeah...You’re everything I could ever wish for,” Helga spoke.

Her smile broadened.”We’re a family. It’s not just us. Boteg, Mika, and Lupa are part of that family too. But we need to decide.” She leaned closer to Helga. ”Are we sisters or a couple in this family?”

Helga allowed Su to close the distance, her breath a bit uneven from nervousness. “Oh Su, always trying to make me think...” She cupped Su’s cheeks, and suddenly, closed her eye. In the next, brief moment, she gave her a kiss on the lips. Afterwards, she opened her eyes again. Su averted her eyes, but she was still smiling. “Why not both? If trashy novels can do it, what’s stopping us?” She hugged Su. “Nothing, that’s what. We’re free to do anything we want, sail anywhere we go. Face the storms, reach ashore, and bury our gold. And out of all the treasures in the world, you’re the only one I want.”

Su laughed. ”Stop it! You’re not going to make me blush again!” She gave Helga a light shove before standing up. ”We should do something together though. Something special. I’m going to need some time to think about that. But for now.” She extended her hand to Helga. ”I think I can enjoy this vacation a lot more now. There are a lot of people I’ve fallen out of touch with and others I’d like to meet.”

Helga also stood up, and took Su’s hand. “You betcha, Su.” She smiled as the last rays of the sun could be seen peeking out, as night drew over the islands. “This is like something out of a movie. It’s so unreal.” Her eyes turned wet, like she was resisting the urge to shed tears. “Thank you, Su. I don’t think I would have had the courage to do what you did.”

Su was not sure what she did was all that brave. Facing the possibility of rejection was always a hard thing to do, sure. She’d respect herself a lot more if that was the sole reason why she was holding Helga’s hand right now. But Su had been motivated by envy as well. She did love Helga, but it was that desire to match Lily that finally gave her the will to say it. But in the end, this was fine. Amber had always said she wanted Su to be happy, and she hadn’t been this happy for months. This couldn’t be a bad thing.

”Yea. Lets go for a walk.”

It was going to be a good day.

“...Alright, everything seems to be in order.” Dan was reading through the application Amaryllis had written in the arena’s lobby, a pair of goofy spectacles precariously fitted over his bottlenose. “You are now signed in to the Keijo tournament. Now, for the first round, I will matchmake you with a randomized oppo-”

Suddenly, the front doors were slammed open, and a certain girl, one whom Amaryllis recognized, stormed in.

"Wait just a second!" Lily pointed right towards the taller girl, her other hand on her hip. She looked down her figure, and took a step back, as if intimidated by the sight. Nonetheless, she took a deep breath, and continued.
"Amaryllis Evenings! I’m not letting you show off any more! You may be sexy and strong, but that doesn’t give you the right to boast about it!" She walked right up to her, looking up at her with a scowl, her hands fisted and pushing against her sides, her chest puffed up...And biting the corner of her lip.
"As my sworn rival, I must defeat you, and prove myself to all that I’m better than you!" Dan was shocked, his flippers having dropped the application.
"That’s why...I challenge you to a Keijo match!"

Dan shook his head. “I’m sorry, but Amaryllis has signed in to a team match. She is partnered with Tetrad.”

Lily’s cheeks puffed, and she turned away. "Aww, dangit! And I thought I finally had a chance settling this!"

“Giving up that soon? And I thought the girl who killed me would be more determined than that.”

Lily gasped upon hearing the voice, and watched as a pair of girls entered the lobby; Su, and Helga, who were holding hands. “But that gave me an idea!” She nudged Su’s shoulder. “Hey Su, I think I’ll join up with Lily for the tourney. After all, we can’t team up anyway, and I think she would make a decent fighting partner considering her track record of doing me in, hah.”

Su nodded. ”I figured you’d want to join this at some point..” She let go of Helga’s hand. ”Well, I’ll be watching from the grandstands then.” She gave a bow to everyone present before departing.

Lily was a bit taken aback by the nonchalant way the sharp-toothed girl went about the team up. "Helga? Wait, are you sure about this? I mean, you don’t carry a grudge or anything, since...I..."

Helga slapped Lily hard on her back, causing her to yelp. “Forgettaboutit!” She retorted with a fake Brooklyn accent. “They were different times, when I was going down a bad path. But thanks to that intervention, I got to turn a new leaf, and now I couldn’t be happier.” She took her hand, and gave it a frisky handshake, causing Lily to stumble a bit. “I’d be glad to be your fightin’ buddy!” Lily on the other hand still looked unsure.

"Well..."

“Uh…” Amaryllis was at a loss for words during that entire display, less afraid and more confused about what had just occurred before her. Where had all this animosity come from? She turned her head slightly, tilting it. Hadn’t Lily and herself gotten along during the whole ghost attack incident? What brought this on? Heck, all things considered…

“Aren’t you like, uh...already better than me? You got more friends and all…” There was nothing particularly bitter about the statement. To Amaryllis, it simply made sense that Lily had a better life than herself. Heck, the lightning girl probably didn’t even have a Patron that communicated via stabbings.

Lily’s earlier confidence seemed to gradually melt away, and she held her arm, looking aside.
"Well, I guess I do have some friends, more than usual...But..."
Helga observed from the side, her lips curled in a non-impressed duck face as she realized Lily would be swayed by the buxom beauty’s social pressuring. So, she decided to do something about it. “Really, Lily? Are you going to let her walk all over you?” Lily froze, and glanced back at Helga, who now smirked devilishly. “If you back down now, can you live with that fact? What would the angry bo-I mean, Alex think?”

Lily breathed heavily, as her thoughts went to Alex. With a trembling body she lifted a fist up.
"You’re right, Helga! I can’t stop now! Prepare for trouble!" She pulled out a paper, quickly scribbled her information on it, and threw it at Dan so hard the dolphin flew around in circles while hanging on to the paper. “And make it double~” Helga added afterwards, having made her application into a paper plane that she casually threw, before walking right up to Amaryllis. “Now where’s your partner? Tetrad, was it? She was also pretty stacked, huh? I bet Dan’s gonna have a field day about this when announcing the match, hah.”

”I’m, like, right here dude.” Tetrad was leaning up against a pillar, smacking her lips as she ate from a can of beans. She was drawing circles in the air with her spoon as she finished chewing. ”Anyway, I do see why Lily is kinda upset with you.” She pointed at Amaryllis with her spoon. ”I mean you look good, but so do ninety-nine percent of magical girls. But unlike most of them, you willingly choose to be solitary and standoffish.” Tetrad took another mouthful of beans before going on. ”Like *chew* even when I *chew* invited you to come to this contest with me, *munch* You avoided me for the rest of the day.” She swallowed. ”I don’t really care, but Lily has crippling body image issues and low self esteem. I bet she’s one of those people who has a huge hole in her heart that love will never fill, so she instead fills it with collectible anime figurines. Ignoring someone like that can be downright cold!” Tetrad walked away from the pillar and stood next to Amaryllis. She dropped her spoon in the bean can and reached an arm around her, like they were posing for a photo. ”Well, don’t worry about it. After the tournament, I’m going to host a beach party. You can make up with Lily then. Also, I’m hoping some of the guys show up. I’m pretty sure Alexander will be there.” Tetrad giggled.

Standoffish? Solitary, Amaryllis could understand, because she was wholly self-aware of her own wallflower tendencies, but to be standoffish, didn’t that mean she had to standoff? And all things considered...what did she even do with Lily? It was still bizarre, even now, and she more or less had no idea what even inspired the lightning girl’s jealousy and anger. Maybe it was just a case of mistaken identity. Not like a buxom, raven-haired girl was all THAT uncommon in Penrose. Whatever. She’ll just...not think about it. This was why she didn’t do social stuff, huh?

What was she even supposed to apologize for, honestly? Amaryllis narrowed her eyes. She hardly knew Lily.

Hm.

It was making her a little more mad than she thought.

Hrmm...yeah.

“I’m not going to worry about it,” Amaryllis replied, sucking in a deep breath. “I don’t have anything to apologize for. Let’s just...go, Tetrad. God, Horrors are one thing, but who knew other girls could be just as alien.”

”That’s the spirit!” Tetrad gave Amaryllis a light squeeze before departing for the arena.

Lily was upset with the insult Tetrad gave her. "It’s not a collection! My mom just happened to buy me a Sailor Moon action figure!" She shouted after her, and sighed as the other girl had already left. Helga patted her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Li’l Li. She’s the real nerd for trying so hard to act cool. I mean, did you see those tacky shades? How ridiculous!”
After Amaryllis also left with scathing words, Lily stuck her tongue out at her.
"I knew it, those two are after Alex," she mumbled to herself as she walked towards the portal. Then she stopped.
"They’re just like those bullies in high school..." She began talking, causing Helga to blink in surprise. “Huh?”
"The ones who wrote a fake invitation to one of their parties. I thought it was from this boy I had a crush on, but when I went there..." She shivered.
"It’s fine. I just gotta beat them. That’s all that matters. Let’s go Helga."
Helga shrugged. “Oookay then, Li’l Li, but I think you’re projecting too much.”
And with that, the two also traversed through the portal.

---

In familiar fashion, the contestants appeared on two separate platforms that floated slight, one for each team. Between the platforms was a walkway thin enough to only fit one person to cross over it, spanning about 10 meters in its length. Lily looked around her, and looked shy; she realized their match was spectated by familiar faces, including Kimble, Alex and Su. Lily put up a brave face, and waved to her boyfriend with a smile, while Helga blew a flying kiss to Su.
“I’ll get right over there after I’ve won to smooch ya!” She yelled.

Dan, now wearing an Elvis outfit for some reason, made his familiar bombastic entry.
“Ladies and gentleman,it’s time for twice the knockouts, and twice the Keijo; it’s a quadruple-bypass-beatdown! And now, introducing our brave contestants who have entered the ring of glory.” She pointed towards Lily and Helga. “In the southwest, there is the Slim team; a duo of dainty-looking dames who can nonetheless dish out some serious dirt!” A spotlight appeared on them.
“First, we have a bright young girl who will leave you the most shocked and awed in The World! With an amazing two Specializations, this speedster can outpace even Kimble in pure agility, and leave her opponents to Bite The Dust! It’s the one, the only, LIIGHTNIIING LILYYY!”
Lily made a single hop and made a pose with her V-sign fingers, causing Helga right next to her to stumble and grimace.

“Next up, we have the former elite of Justine von Visceral, brutal in strength, loud in temper, and vicious in her attacks! She claws out scratches that leave you in stitches! She is the DJ of Dread, the Bass Cannon, HEEEL-GAAA!”
Helga extended her claws out, and made a beckoning gesture with both of them at the audience, causing Kimble in particular to scream loudly in hype.

“Opposing them is the Bounce team, two beautiful badasses who can bring in the pain!” Now the spotlight shone on the other two. “Starting off, we have a real gambler scrambling the deck! She knows how to play the game, and plays it like a Killer Queen! It’s the Girl of Gambits, the Ace of Spades, TEET-RAAAD!” Crimson Cradle cheered for her, while a certain girl in the audience booed at her, causing Dan to roll his eyes and continue.
“And working as her partner in crime, we have the Flowering Swordswoman who mystifies minds with her enthralling looks, and cuts the rest into fine, flowing ribbons. She is a true mistress of the blade, her true might impossible to ignore! It’s the Midsummer Flower, AAA-MARYLLIS!”

Dan waited for the noise to settle down, and lifted his tiny mic. “Now, I am not one to tell you which side is superior. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. But today, these four girls will clash, to see who is the best! Now, on your marks,” he called first. “Get set...COME ON AND SLAM!” He launched up, as was now tradition, and the match began.

“Jump on my palms, Lily!” Helga called out for Lily before she ran off, and the green-haired girl blinked.
"But why?"

“Just trust me on this! Hurry, they’re already coming!”

A breath. That was all Amaryllis needed to recalibrate herself. Was this a game? Was this a fight? No matter what it was, it certainly wasn’t a social situation. Clear objectives, no feelings to consider. “Tetrad, I’m launching you forward. Pick up speed and run them down while they’re busy.”

Ten meters was an impossible distance for a human being, but for a magical girl, it was nothing.

”I think-” Dropping her hips low, the Midsummer Flower rotated once, before slamming her butt into the Ace of Spades, a boom that sounded suspiciously like a broken sound barrier roaring out at the impact, before the twintailed girl was sent flying towards Helga.

While Amaryllis was one of the stronger girls in the arena, Tetrad was not gifted with that kind of power. Keijo was a sport that favored the physically strong and those who had a defensive kit for their magic. Tetrad had neither of those things. While this was not a problem when it came to fighting monsters or other magical girls, it didn’t make her very good for Keijo. Maybe she had a trick or three up her sleeve, but it wasn’t becoming a human projectile on short notice. On the up side, she didn’t have to worry about running because her feet weren’t going to touch the floor.

Just as Tetrad was launched, and flew over the thin platform, Lily had jumped on Helga’s opened palms.
"Ready for launch!"
Helga smiled widely, her sharp teeth gleaming menacingly. “Here we go! Hi-Flying Raver!” She pointed her palms forwards, and just as Lily kicked off, she was blasted by a localized burst of high-frequency sound, launching her at high speed towards Tetrad.

"This is for trying to steal Alex! Ha-YAH!" She swerved over Tetrad mid-flight, and in that fraction of a second, accelerated her reflexes to perform a twirl of her body, hitting her butt down in a rotating fashion on Tetrad before continuing on her way.

Helga was too far away to contribute, but instead clapped her hands together and extended her claws out, snarling. “I may not be able to use these...But they get me in the mood for some proper ass-kicking!”

Lily dropped down in a roll on the opposite platform, and took a high-knee fighting pose.
"You’re my real opponent! Now, don’t hold back!" Her green hair crackled with lightning as she let energy course through her limbs, enhancing her speed and agility. She then charged forwards with gymnastic jumps, intending on landing a rolling butt slam right on top of Amaryllis’ head.

Dan was right after all; Lily was a speed buffer, the lightning coursing through her veins a sign of just how monstrously fast she was. But midair combat put that all to waste, and at the final sequence of the lightning girl’s acrobatics, Amaryllis jumped up, absorbing the blow. The air around them rippled at the impact, Lily’s bony butt blocked by Amaryllis’s buxom boobs, the impact wholly nullified.

But how? With nothing to brace her feet against, how could she withstand such a lightning fast blow?

It was her chains. Silvered ivies stretched down from her feet to the land below, anchoring her like a ship in a storm. With that momentum stopped, the two of them fell, Amaryllis landing first, Lily landing...never. Constrained with her feet off the ground, Lily felt two firm objects pressed on either side of her buttocks, pinning her like a vice and raising her beyond what her feet could reach. No fanciful movements, no extraneous flips. Only brute force grappling, taking advantage of Amaryllis’s natural strength.

And, holding Lily, Amaryllis began to walk towards the edge of the platform, fully intent on just dunking the girl into the waters below.

“Coming in live, it’s Dan the Dolphin and Dolly!”
Dan spoke, floating over the match in what looked like a round red stage. It was set with two chairs, a wide desk, and two microphones. “The match has just started and Lily’s already in trouble, eh Dolly?”
Dolly, meanwhile, observed the battle commencing before her with a calm air, her posture perfect as she watched the proceedings. “Trouble follows those who advance recklessly, after all,” was her judgment. “Despite its classification as a combat sport, Keijo, with its intense limitations on viable contact areas, is one of the most intellectually tasking sports. It comes to no surprise to me that Lily found herself in such trouble this early. The Double Arm Boob Lock was a technique designed specifically to counter such thoughtless butt thrusts.”

For some reason, the gothic girl pushed two fingers up the bridge of her nose, almost as if she were adjusting a pair of glasses that were not there. “It’ll certainly take some extra effort to get out of a sticky situation, but luckily for Lily and Helga, it seems as if there’s no cohesiveness at all between Amaryllis and Tetrad.”

“Still, both teams quickly overcame the limitations of the arena via some high-impact assistance! Say, I wonder if Helga’s palm cannons are also able to broadcast music? I’m always up for some technobeat rave, myself!”

Getting smacked around by people’s behinds was not something Tetrad found very pleasant. That was something evident to anyone who noticed the color of Tetrad’s face change colors. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t eaten moments before entering the ring, but that was not the case. She was thrown into the walkway, only to bounce back into the air behind Lily. She still had enough forward momentum to continue flying towards Helga. She held her fingers over her lips, and her eyes rolled back into her head. ”Nnnnggggghhhh!” She soared directly over Hega’s head and landed in the water. She was out of the match.

Helga smiled, ready for a real fight. “Alright, this is going to be awesome! I got so many cool moves invented for this dumb sport, and I’m totally going to-NO, WAIT!” She was nonplussed as Tetrad took a splash. “Ah crap, just my luck...” She sighed, her shoulders sagging and her smile having turned into a disappointed frown.

Lily was also not having a good time, but for the opposite reasons. She could not believe her own attack had proven futile before Amaryllis’ ironclad defenses, their power difference clear as day. Not only that, but she was trapped by her incredibly strong boobs. Normally, she would be able to discharge a burst of electricity and stun her grappler, but the rules forbade her from direct magical attacks.
"Oh no! This is bad! I gotta get out! Think, Lily...Aha!"
Then, Lily began moving her hips, gradually turning faster and faster.

“Oh wow, look at that, Dolly! I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” The dolphin created a magical screen that zoomed in on Lily and Amaryllis. “It looks like Lily is attempting to create enough friction with super-speed rubbing to set fire to Amaryllis’ clothes!”

“Hm, an interesting choice, but far too late,” Dolly responded, silver eyes flashing bright for a moment. “The magical girl Burning Caldera Magica Eliaz utilized this technique as well in the Semi Finals of the North American Keijo Round of Queens to great effect, but she had both the advantage of a specially made swimsuit as well as being able to employ the rotational force of her entire body. In this particular case, rather than use the Hundred Demon Wildtwist, Lily would stand a better of freeing herself by…” Dolly continued, with Dan nodding and adding in some trivia of his own.

Lily could only manage a small sizzle of steam before the edge of the water was near.
Lily grimaced, knowing she was making a hopeless struggle...But just as Amaryllis was about to throw Lily out, Helga performed a palm cannon-propelled hip swing at her shoulder, dislocating it and causing her to release Lily right at the very edge of the pool. The green-haired girl gasped, but then expended a large charge of magic to flash step away from the edge. However, this left Helga in an awkward position, right next to the powerhouse.
"Helga!"
Helga smiled, and straightened her back, ready to defend herself in vain from the coming knockout. “Fight, Lily. I believe in ya!”

It came as a whipping blow. Stinging like a bee with the sharpest point of her bosom, Amaryllis crouched low and struck Helga in the liver, sending the redhead into a watery grave before immediately whipping back towards Lily. “Alright Tetrad,” she called, “2v1, let’s fin-”

Wait, where was Tetrad?

…

Oh no. Oh god, why? Amaryllis’s expression twisted just as she realized what she had done. Of course she shouldn’t have done that! Why did she just randomly expect that Tetrad was also massively physically fit? First, she dodged the girl for an entire day, and now when they do play together, she kicks it off by instantly smacking her into the waters as if her plan had been to backstab her all along? Ugh, stupid, stupid, stupid! While Amaryllis mentally berated herself, her facial features growing darker and darker by the second, Lily was granted at least some time to catch her breath.

A precious few seconds, if nothing else.

Lily breathed heavily as she was one knee down, consciously trying to settle the state of panic she was in moments ago now that she was given time to recollect her thoughts. Electricity crackled out of her fingertips as she stretched them to the side.
Helga knew she couldn’t escape on time...I gotta finish this, for her sake too!
She then saw Amaryllis’ eyes focus on her, and she squinted back, now back to standing. She knew that if she tried to go in for another attack, she could counter her again.
"That’s right, you’re pretty, talented, intelligent...But I’m not going to let you gloat over beating me!" She shouted in an attempt to taunt her, ready to perform evasive actions; she needed to figure out her fighting style, and any weaknesses in it.

Oh boy, here we go again. Lily’s provocations pulled Amaryllis out of her thoughts, once again making the (swords)woman wonder who she was even talking about. It wasn’t talent if all she had to flaunt was given to her when she became a magical girl. It wasn’t intelligent, that she straight up just dunked her own ally into the water. And like Tetrad said, her prettiness was only average, maybe even below average in the grand circle of magical girls.

Amaryllis clicked her tongue. “You...don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Whatever. Her mind was made. She’ll win this game, then every other game, and apologize to Tetrad for her blunder by placing first in this whole tournament! Lifting her foot up high into the air, Amaryllis slammed it down onto the edge of the platform with meteoric force. The land was never all that light, after all, and the nature of the buoyancy made it so…

"NO! What is this!?"

“This? Ah yes, the Vajrasavana of the West Indies employed this tactical maneuver back during the Amazoness Butt Slam Jam in the opening stages of the Round of Flats to…

...The whole thing rose up onto its side, peaking high into the air.

Lily’s body swayed as she focused on keeping her footing, followed by her accelerating her speed and running up the vertical wall of the platform, skidding so much that water sprayed from her heels.

Immediately, she leapt upwards, landing gracefully up onto the upraised side of the platform. Would Lily match her? Or would the girl tumble down into the waters below, her balance insufficient to meet such a challenge?

"YAAAH!"

Lily managed to reach the top of the platform, now on the other side, and gritted her teeth in anger.
"I’m talking about the way you act! You’re just waiting to humiliate me and other lesser magical girls! You’re nothing but a big bully! You and your gang of bitches!" It seemed that Lily was beginning to lose control of rational thought, as deep resentment and grief began welling out of her, taking the form of equine characteristics to her body.
"You mock and laugh all over me, and blame me for everything!" A jagged horn extended from her forehead, as electricity began intensifying around her body, extending into a mane-like shape on her back.
"AND YOU RUINED EVERYTHING WITH CHAD! EVERYTHING!" Like a boom of thunder, Lily screamed, and disappeared in a flash. The next second, she dashed behind Amaryllis and delivered a low sweep of her butt aimed at her ankles, followed by flash-stepping again and hip-swinging from above her, intentionally avoiding her chest as she turned to face her. The attacks were now coming at the same speed as Kimble’s Butt Gatling, except she was fast enough to perform the slams in a sphere around Amaryllis.

Amaryllis kept moving as well, her steps gaining a dance-like rhythm as she absorbed the endless onslaught of Lily’s strikes while keeping the platform balanced on its side. It wobbled back and forth, waves pushing out after each step, each furious blow, and soon, the waters beneath frothed white like a stormy sea. But the Midsummer Rose held on. Was it tenacity, spawning from the steel within her body? Was it responsibility, anchoring her to the platform? Was it ambition, driving her to defeat a metamorphosed girl without shifting herself?

No. It was anger. Hot and furious, stoked by unjust accusations and boiling at the irrationality of all this. It was personal for Lily. But for Amaryllis, it was insulting.

“Well this took an extreme turn!” Dan interjected, having decided to take some distance from the battle and focus on the magical screen. “It seems that Amaryllis’ words have seemed to trigger some kind of trauma within Lily that caused her to metamorphose! What are your thoughts, Dolly?”

“Monstrous metamorphosis indeed,” Dolly replied, her black locks bouncing back and forth as she nodded. “She seems to be in control of her attacks still though, certainly impressive when lesser magical girls will be driven to rampant madness and unrestrained brutality upon such a shift. It reminds me almost of the Advance that Tokita utilized in the Finals of the Keijo Asura Annihilation Tournament, where, by only utilizing a percentage of the transformation, they were able to boost their physical abilities while still retaining enough rationality to utilize their techniques.”

Dan nodded. “A great observation, Dolly! And worry not, ladies and gentlemen: I am prepared to intervene in case Lily completely loses control. Just stay tuned for more!”

Gradually, Amaryllis began to meet the horned girl head on, their weapons of choice clashing more and more often. The speed of movement changed, but the speed of thought didn’t, simple patterns employed to maintain the hurricane of pain delivered unto the one in the center. Could she finish this? No, she was going to drag it out.

“Who are you even talking to?!” Amaryllis roared out, midnight blue eyes blazing as she locked breasts with Lily, finally clashing with her face to face. “Look me in the eyes! I haven’t even seen you in school! The only times we met was to save lives! Where the hell have I done you wrong?”

The lock tightened, their faces millimeters apart.

“Are you even having fun?”

Lily’s blows were easily deterred despite her increased aggressiveness, and she managed to avoid counter attacks that would knock her flying, seemingly moving on instinct more than tactical acumen. Upon seeing a chest job coming at her, she was left with no choice but to stand and take it with her own; there were sparks flying out of the mane as she kept pushing her body to its very limits. She made an electronic whinny as she heard Amaryllis demand answers, her eyes seemingly blank as they gazed upon a different scene; one from her past.
"Heather...HEATHERHNGHHH!"

At that moment, Lily began glowing, and Amaryllis alone saw that their surroundings began to flicker, and electricity began arcing in a cage around the two. She saw that certain images began to form between the arcs, mere glimpses at a time; they showed Lily in her previous life. She barely resembled her current self, with brown hair, pimples on her face, and heavy bags over her eyes. The images showed her life in high school, her struggles with the popular girls, the ways they had mistreated her, and the times she spent eating alone in the cafeteria.
Most shockingly, Amaryllis noticed that the leading bully, Heather, had an uncanny resemblance to Amaryllis; while younger than her, she had the same style of hair, the same piercing look in her eyes, and even carried herself in a similarly standoffish manner. However, her personality was cruel, snapping shots of a tripped Lily on her smartphone, and laughing with her gang.
The next scene was about to show Lily entering a party at a rich person’s backyard; she was looking at a boy with his back to her, talking with Heather. However, as the boy was about to turn, the images then stopped; the electric tendrils disappeared as Lily seemingly lost her strength, and fell on her butt, her head hanging low. The horn on her head turned into pure electrical energy that flowed down her cheeks as blue, jagged streaks.
"No...That wasn’t fun, Heather...You ruined my life..." Amaryllis could hear her sob; she no longer had the will to fight. Amaryllis now had the chance to grasp victory from the grief-stricken girl.

Amaryllis did not move.

The platform swayed, rocked, yet remained impeccably balanced.

Who was she, to deny the tears of a girl? Who was she, to look down upon the trauma of another? Who was she, to not reach a hand out to those lost and broken? There was a long, deep sigh, as Amaryllis released the vestiges of her frustrations towards Lily. It was weak of her, wasn’t it, to so easily swap her enmity for empathy, to show mercy and forgiveness merely because the lightning girl was crying. But if that was weakness, so what? They were magical warriors, not soldiers puppeteered by an unfeeling nation, not insurgents following an unknown deity.

The Knight of Rose knelt down, searching for Lily’s eyes. Her countenance was still severe, her gaze as piercing as always, but where Heather’s shone with a cruel glimmer, hers was filled with just light, the radiance of jewel-steel.

“The love of the moon, the grace of the petals. Underneath the glory of the heavens, I gather them all and present myself. Amaryllis Evenings, Knight of the Rose. The flower of your heart has been reflected in my Silverlight, and found just as beautiful as any other.”

Rusted petals fell from the sky, drifting softly into the tranquil waters below.

“Take heart, Lily Hanson, Child Beloved by the Storm, for what you have now shines with a radiance that Heather can not hope to stifle. True comrades stand behind you, and a kind God watches over you. Shed the chains of your past. No bottle exists that can capture lightning, except for one of your mind’s making.”

Lily’s tears were stifled as she heard a voice that differed from those that haunted her memories. She looked up, expecting to see a countenance of malice; instead, it was one of a magical girl who had seen into her heart through her chronomancy, and offered solace. Like a stormy grey cloud that shifted back to pure white, her countenance returned, free from metamorphosis. With a wobbly step, she stood up slowly, her breath uneven and hitched from the outburst of emotion.
"Amaryllis...Thank you."
She sighed, and looked up towards the floating announcer podium. She bit her lip, and then lifted a hand.
"I..forfeit the match."

Dan gasped in sheer surprise. “What? Well then, the match is over. The winners are Amaryllis Evenings and Tetrad of the Beauty team! Congratulations! You are qualified to enter the next round!”

Lily hopped off the vertical platform, having landed on hard ground, and waited for Amaryllis. As the audience began to scatter, Lily held her hands together, and meekly spoke:
"I’m sorry for acting...Well, like a mega bitch. The resemblance was so bad, and with how we were forced to live together like this, it made me lose it. And without Ixion guiding me, I took it all out on you. But I hope...You won’t hate me for quitting."

“Fight me for real next time,” Amaryllis replied, landing in front of Lily. “A knight without her sword is just a woman, and an archer without her bow is much the same. Let’s have some fun, neh?”

Lily noticed how Dan seemed to wave at them to return back to the entrance hall.
"Looks like the others are waiting. We’d better head back."

“Ah, yeah...I’ll need to bolt too, huh…” Amaryllis trailed off, her eyes searching for Tetrad as well. In the background, one of the commentators were noting how she had ‘technically’ 1v3’d a 2v2 match, and the buxom girl basically wanted to die all over again. With a step like the wind, she shot off in search of her partner, ready to kowtow if she must for her massive ineptitude as a partner.

At the far edge of the Pool, Tetrad crawled out of the water. Her hair had come loose and fell over her face, which she promptly pushed out of the way. With a groan, she rolled her head and got a crick out of her neck, and spit a few beans out of her mouth. ”cool, we won.” Tetrad didn’t turn around, and marched away. ”Gonna take a break.” was all she said before departing the arena.

---

Helga was waiting for the others back at the entrance hall, a towel draped around her shoulders; she offered a spare to Lily. “Geez, Li’l you dropped the ball there,” she spoke with a patronizing tone, holding her shoulder. “I told ya not to project too much, and keep focused.” Lily nodded, frowning. But then, Helga lifted her chin up. “But hey, looks like you settled your grudge for now. Also, those moves you made up there? Legit cool. Keep working on them, and I think you could even reach nationals.”
Lily smiled faintly, glad that Helga didn’t carry further resentment.
"Thanks, Helga. You were a good teammate." She then bit her lip, and waved to Amaryllis before beginning to walk away.
"Anyway, good luck on your next match. I need to see someone." She then left in the same vein as Tetrad, a pit in her stomach as she realized she had some explaining to do.

After person-watching for a few days, Mac plopped down to watch the Keijo tournament. The concept was silly, but she refrained from passing judgment on it too soon. At the very least, it was a sport that could only really be played by magical girls as anyone else would get a sore backside and chest to boot. It was kind of amusing, in that “so bad it’s good” kind of ways.

This was when Veronica decided to show up next to her. It was hard not to notice the woman emerging from her shadow.

“Well? Learn anything interesting?” Veronica was using some kind of shadow magic to obscure them.

”Nothing pertaining to our kidnapper, no.”

“You seemed to know a lot about them before they showed up.”

”I...” Mac ran her hand down her face. She should have known this was going to happen, but it was the only way she could ensure that she entered Dan’s dimension without detection. All the same, she wasn’t sure if it was safe to tell Veronica about herself yet. Veronica was on the hunt for more magical girls, and she didn’t want word getting out that she could see the future. Though she needed to tell Veronica something. ”My patron is quite knowledgeable on matters of the future. ”

“Then I am glad to be on their side.” At the moment, the Keijo arena was empty. It looked like it would be an hour or so before the next set. “Do you believe that you can get to know someone by fighting them?”

Mac tipped her head side to side. ”I think you can learn a different side of someone by seeing how they fight, yes. ”

“A far more real side to them than what they pretend to be, I’d say.” Veronica held her hands over her chest. “You can learn things about someone that can’t be faked. Things their own family members will never know. You’ll never know everything about someone until you fight them at least once.” She grabbed Mac by the hand. “Let’s get a round in before the tournament resumes.”

”H-hey! Hold on a second!” But Veronica didn’t. There were still a few magical girls around, but it looked like Dan was prepping for the rest of the tourney matches. Once they got onto the center island, Mac jerked her hand out of Veronica’s. ”I’m trying to stay hidden!”

“And you are. No one has any idea we’re playing.” The coin broker chuckled.. ”I know better than to force answers out of a potential ally, but you must be a little interested in participating in a match if you’re watching.”

She wasn’t wrong. One of the reasons why Mac watched people so closely was because they lived lives that she could not. While it wasn’t every day a dolphin locked you up in a special dimension to have a vacation, the joys of mundane life were no longer ones she could enjoy. Even simple things like hanging out with a group of friends that didn’t spend 100% of their time scheming and talking about kid shit was near impossible to find. But Playing Keijo was something that she very much wanted to try.”Alright, let’s-”

And then in the blink of an eye, Veronica’s ass smashed into her face. Mac hurdled backwards and landed in the water.

”Oh? Did I go too fast? I thought you were ready.” Veronica placed her hands on her hips. ”We can try as many times as you’d like.”

Mac’s head floated out of the water, looking wet and miserable. If there was one good thing about her and Veronica’s hidden nature, it was that nobody got to see her lose so quickly. All the same… ”Yea, let’s try that again.”

---

Moments after Tetrad began to leave, a certain fire-spec magical girl approached her. “Oh, that was a great watch! Did you have fun, Tetrad?” the girl asked. She had been enjoying the competition so far, but wasn’t sure she herself would join. Emily felt she would probably not be too good at the game, and she wasn’t dissatisfied with being a spectator for this particular sport.

With a sigh, Tetrad curled the corners of her lips into a smile. ”I think Keijo is the type of thing that’s better for spectating.” Tetrad patted Emily on the back. ”Do you plan on watching anymore, or have you had enough?”

“Oh, is that so?”

Emily concluded that if Tetrad thought such, then maybe she shouldn’t join. And though she certainly enjoyed watching, she wouldn’t mind doing something else, too. Plus, hanging out with Tetrad sounded really fun, and she felt she should do so since they were going to be partners, however brief, once they could reach the nefarious villain of that ghoul plot from earlier. “I’ve seen enough to sate my curiosity.” she answered, smiling. “What did you plan on doing? There’s so much stuff to do on this island that I can’t really figure out what I should start with.”

”Hmmm.” Tetrad held her chin. ”I wouldn’t mind a change of pace.” She placed a hand on her stomach and took another deep breath. ”Why don’t we go fishing?”

“Fishing?” Emily tilted her head to the side. That was something she had never really had the chance to do. It looked rather involved and slow, but each activity was a chance to grow. Besides, maybe it’d turn out to be fun? “I never fished before but I’d love to try!” she smiled. “Are you good at it?”

Tetrad chuckled. ”Oh yea, I’m what people in the know call a pro.”

---

It didn’t take Tetrad and Emily long to prepare to go fishing. Emily got the boat, and Tetrad got the fishing lines and a cooler. In no time at all they were out on the water.

”Alright. So before we do anything, we need to make sure the cooler is emptied of everything but the ice.” She flipped open the cooler, only to reveal a dozen or so drinks. Every kind of soda you could want was inside. ”Whoa! We’ve got our work cut out for us!” Tetrad reached into the ice chest and picked up a glass bottle. ”It’s okay, we’ve got time. We should probably drink these so that we don’t go over the boat’s weight limit with our haul of fish.” She sat down on the edge of the boat and started drinking.

Emily wondered if it was healthy to drink this much soda in such a small amount of time, but she was not one to waste things. “Then I’ll take... “ she glanced into the chest. Unsurprisingly, it contained exactly the soda she wanted. “...this one first.” she produced a bottle of M.D Spice from the chest. Sitting across from Tetrad, she opened the bottle and took a quick chug, nearly burping in the process. Thankfully, she did not embarrass herself in front of Tetrad, but would probably be keeping the pace on the slow side from now on.

The flame girl simply took in the atmosphere for a few moments, remaining silent as she worked on her soda. She was eager to experience all kinds of things with her many sisters on the island, but something simple and relaxed was very nice too. From what she knew of it, a lot of fishing was just waiting to get a bite. It probably wouldn’t be too different from right now. And that was perfectly fine for her.

“Hmm~” Emily seemed rather content. Being able to relax, to not have to worry about fighting. Emily couldn’t ask for anything better. “Hey, Tetrad… do you have any specific dreams or wishes?”

”Nah.” Tetrad said right away. ”I think my earliest dream was to become an astronaut or some shit like that. Then my parents started nagging me about getting a-” She made air quotes while holding her can. ”Real job.” She took another sip. ”Once I got my own place, I was kind of occupied with just surviving. I dunno, does that count as a dream? Surviving?”

“It’s not exactly the same, but my parents had a similar reaction when my sis told them she wanted to be a police officer.” she gave a soft laugh as she recalled the memory. “Anyways, I think ‘surviving’ is a dream everyone has, so it’s not exactly what I was talking about. My idea is something that’s a bit more personal. A goal you’ll try to achieve, no matter what, even if it might not be possible.” she clarified, swirling what little remained of her M.D Spice in the bottle. She quickly finished with a swig. “In a way, this island is the dream I’m reaching for.”

”Heh, this whole situation does have ‘Emily’ written all over it.” Tetrad reached for a second drink, and froze. She curled her lips into her mouth before bringing the drink to her side. ”Emily, that’s a german name, isn’t it?” She popped the can open. ”I’m not sure how good your history is, but you probably know a bit about Nazi Germany. They used painful torture tequniques. Unless your name happened to be Hanns Scharff. His methods used no form of physical torture.He was kind to his prisoners, and was known for taking them on walks through the woods, and made sure they got any medical care they needed. They even ate better food most of the time. Essentially, he acted like a good friend.” Tetrad turned her body sideways to face the bow of the boat. ”He was so successful with his interrogation techniques that he was asked to assist other interrogators frequently. After the war, the americans had him teach them his techniques, which they still use today. He was given immigrant status and did some shit with mosaics.” she held her can to her lips. ”Short version is, we’re all prisoners here. We’re just choosing not to leave because Dan’s treating us right and flexing on the people who don’t cooperate. Even Hanns threatened to turn prisoners over to the Gestapo if they didn’t cooperate.”

It was likely for the best Emily did not mention her ineptitude when it came to history class, which may or may not have been caused by her fascination with comics and manga when she was younger. “Ahaha, is that the case? I’m not sure if that’s more brilliant than it is manipulative.” she commented, but remained silent throughout the rest of Tetrad’s lecture, a strong familiarity with where the conversation was headed. Seemed Tetrad had the same idea about this place and their situation.

“Yes, you’re absolutely right.” she agreed, setting her bottle down and retrieving another, opening it with a quick ‘pop’. Emily was going to get around to that very same point, too. Part of the reason why she added, ‘in a way’ to her statement was because as great as it seemed, the truth was that they weren’t really being given much of a choice to be here. And the dream Emily was reaching for was one where people consented to the peace, rather than being threatened into it. “I understand what situation we’re in… or well, at least as much as I can right now, but regardless, this sort of atmosphere is part of what I seek to make reality.” she set her bottle to the side for the time being. “A peaceful world where nobody is worried about when the next tragedy will occur.” she smiled. “A very ignorant, idealistic wish, but the one I have been working towards for a while now. The futility of such a dream certainly never escaped me, but I’ve always persevere anyways. But.. having been introduced to this particular… environment, I’m beginning to think that might not be true.”

Emily’s gaze turned to Tetrad, an innocent look in her eyes. “I think Dan may be onto something here.”

”Nah, Dan didn’t do anything special.” Tetrad set down her can and picked up a fishing line. ”All Dan did was separate us all from the stuff we were fighting about. I’m sure all of that crap is still going on.” Tetrad pulled a can of gummie worms out from her shirt-thing and proceeded to bait her hook. ”Like the necromancer we were hunting. Do you think he’s on vacation too? Because if all the magical girls are here...”

"Geh..."

Emily grimaced and almost knocked her drink over, having forgotten about it momentarily. But that was something she desperately wanted to not have to think about. In an ideal scenario, they were all locked in some alternate dimension where time flowed at a different pace than normal, so that even if they stayed her for months on end, when they left it'd only be like an hour or so. But perhaps she had watched more than her share of anime. "...That is going to make it hard for me to sit down and relax." she sighed. "I'll have to question that dolphin on this subject soon... but that might be pointless since I wouldn't be able to tell if he were lying."

...maybe it was best to trick herself into forgetting about the outside world until they were able to secure a way back. Otherwise she would die of worry.

"A-aah, well, anyways... that's some strange-looking bait you are using, isn't it?" she'd been carefully observing Tetrad's actions since she had no clue what she was doing herself and decided against potentially screwing things up. She wasn’t confident at all about any of this fishing stuff… but she could swear that you were supposed to use worms for bait.

Wait, now that I think about it.

The image of placing a worm on the hook and throwing it out to sea came to her mind. It was... not pleasant.

Eww

Tetrad grinned. ”You would think so, but isn’t it strange that fish eat worms in the first place? It’s certainly nothing they normally come in contact with.” The gambler pulled the worm over the hook until about half of it was on. Then she pinched off the rest and tossed it into her mouth. ”Real worms do have the advantage of wiggling on the hook, but fish aren’t just interested in moving prey. The big mouthed bass back home absolutely hate rainbow eels. They eat bass eggs and destroy their nests. The mere sight of one is enough to drive a Bass into a frenzy.” She pointed at the hook. ”So the red and yellow ones kind of look like rainbow eels to a bass. I don’t know how well it’s going to work on saltwater fish, but I thought it might be fun to try.” She cast out her line. ”Some people use yarn, marshmallows, instant noodles, anything can be a bait if it works.”

“A-ah, that’s nice to know…”

It was very brief, but for a moment Emily had forgotten the nature of the worm Tetrad had just devoured so she found her stomach feeling uneasy. Thankfully, this was not the case and Emily found her cheeks reddening slightly in embarrassment at herself. She retrieved her unfinished drink and began sipping on that to occupy herself for the time being.

“So then fish just eat whatever looks tasty?” she asked Tetrad. “Though I guess that goes for any animal. That does remind me though… I don’t think I’ve eaten much fish.” Emily could only distinctly remember cheap fish sticks her mother would buy her at the store, and maybe salmon once or twice. Otherwise, her family had a preference for chicken or beef.

Emily decided to look into the sea, and suddenly seemed to become really focused at the task, though only for a short while. Done with whatever she was doing, she gave a slight pout. “Mmm, water sucks.”

”What do you mean ‘water sucks?’”

Emily tore her eyes away from the water, looking to Tetrad. “Oh. I was hoping I could see where the fish were, but the water kinda messes with my vision, so I couldn’t.” she smiled. “I suppose that makes sense though. Water isn’t the same as air.” Emily appreciated she had found this out during a fishing trip and not when it could potentially harm her. She wasn’t exactly sure what kind of situation would require her to try to look through water, but now if she was in such a place, she would know how it’d turn out.

”Well, no biggie.I’m not sure we want to eat these fish. Skinning them is kind of a chore anyway. I just like catching and releasing them.” Tetrad placed a hand on her hip, still holding the rod.

“Catch and release?” she frowned. “Isn’t that a bit cruel though?”

”If done correctly, the fish won’t suffer much. The hooks I’m using are rounded to prevent them from puncturing their gut or gills, and they don’t have any barbs on them. It also helps if you keep them underwater for as long as possible. And if we do hook one really good, then maybe we will eat it.” Tetrad watched her line rest in the water. Nothing had bitten yet. ”You lived a pretty sheltered life growing up, huh? Bet you follow PETA pretty closely.” She chuckled.

Emily fervently shook her head in denial of the accusation. “I most certainly am not!” her expression betrayed a genuine feeling of offense to the statement, in the form of another cute pout. “Hmph, I’ve been called many things, you know. But likening me to them is a whole different thing.”

She didn’t stop there.

“Do I come off as someone who is out of touch and spiteful to anything and everything human? I assure you I would absolutely never publicly try to disparage someone so kind, cool, and loving as Steve Erwin! Nor could I see myself ruining a man’s life because he took a selfie with Naruto! A bunch of hypocrites they are, too! Stealing pets and then putting them to sleep, acting like they’re saving animals ...! Gawsh!”

Emily took a few seconds to breathe, then finally realized how heated she’d gotten, a dash of red staining her cheeks. “O-oh, um, no. Anyway, I just don’t like seeing any--- um, I don’t like seeing innocent things in pain, is all.”

Tetrad, very slowly, drew back the fishing rod. ”Riiiiight.” She placed the pole in the boat and folded her arms. ”I guess that Keijo match where I was butt thrown, butt slammed, and subsequently had to REDACTED underwater doesn’t count as innocent things getting hurt. You seemed to enjoy that.”

“Butt!” Emily raised her finger in protest. “Those were the risks associated when you become a challenger! Fair’s fair!” she smiled. “Like it or not, that is what you signed up for! A lifeguard should never complain about getting wet, after all.”

Tetrad rolled her eyes before shoving her hand into the bag of gummie worms. ” Whatever, guess we’ll just eat since the salt water fish don’t seem to like them.” She shoved a wad of worms in her mouth, probably too many to chew. But that didn’t stop her from trying.

Emily wasn’t interested in having any of the gummies Tetrad was eating, the thought of a real worm still on her mind when she looked at them. It’d be impossible for her to stomach those things currently. Though she did intently watch Tetrad’s battle with the gummies in her mouth, hopeful that the magical girl won out in the end. Thankfully, however, were that not the case, Emily was here if the heimlich maneuver was necessary, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Instead, she looked for the unfinished bottle of soda she had and returned to sipping. Ah, she could honestly live off of M.D Spice if she were given the opportunity to, but alas, the world was cruel. With no immediate stimulus to occupy her unless Tetrad suddenly started to choke, Emily’s mind started to drift to a recent subject.

She found her gaze sliding down to her rear end. “It’s probably for the best I don’t participate in that event.” she sighed, finding herself rather lacking in a certain department.

Tetrad’s lower jaw quivered, before snapping shut like the maw of some nightmarish creature. Gummy head and worm tails fell to the ground as Tetrad finished swallowing what was left in her mouth. It seemed that she could not be beaten so easily.

”If it was all about the size of your body, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been defeated so easily.. I mean, just check me out. I know at least three girls who are jealous of this bod and I didn’t meet any of them before today. Everybody’s hiding their boyfriends from me.” She chuckled darkly. ”Honestly, I think you would be pretty good at it. Fire magic has a lot of utility uses, and if you’re sadistic enough to enjoy watching the sport, you should probably try playing it.” Tetrad threw her hands behind herself. ”I’d join you, but I’m already in a team.”

Tetrad had got Emily to begin thinking about joining a keijo match even if she had earlier given her the impression it wasn’t too fun. Of course Emily was more self conscious about her looks compared to others, like Tetrad, but it was true that those weren't exactly important in the game. She'd still love the confidence that came with such a sexy bod, however. "I wonder if there's anyone left I could group with or if I'd have to go solo? I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try, in any case." Plus, she thought, maybe it would be enjoyable to meet Tetrad in a match.

”Really? Well, you can do whatever.” Tetrad stood up and walked towards the back of the boat. ”The tournament has already started, so you don’t have a lot of time to find a partner.” She pushed a button on the electric start motor before sitting down next to it. ”Since we’re not fishing, there’s no reason to stay out here any longer anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

It wasn’t long before the two once again reached the shore, with Emily hopping off the small boat. She turned around and bowed to Tetrad. “Even if the fish didn’t seem to like us, I really enjoyed getting to spend some time with you, Tetrad. Thanks.” she glanced behind her. “I guess I should go see if there’s anyone left I can pair with, so I’ll be going on ahead. I’ll see you when we clash!” Emily then darted off in search of her partner.

Summer had spent her time since getting to the main island searching for a certain girl to no avail. Since this was apparently a beach episode, she'd decided to avoid using her magic to find her, and had been scouring the island by foot instead. Finally, she overheard that there had been a problem with the girl getting to the main island herself, so Summer sat near where the rescue team left until they got back, hiding behind a tree when she saw them arrive. She began her stalking in earnest when they returned to the island.

---

Being the only member of the PI to wake up so far, Shion had taken it upon herself to send clones out to learn of who else was on the island and what they were doing. So far they'd snagged a few pictures, but only a few were noteworthy, a couple different pictures of a certain luck-based magical girl. Though things like importance were more for the other PI members to decide, and she paid little notice to them. Then again, maybe she could sell that last one for a couple coins sometime? She'd think about it later. Finally, on the second day, there was an announcement that was music to her ears. A free gold coin and a shot at another? She quickly ran to where the Keijo tournament would be taking place, eager to participate.

Magical sports sounded interesting to Alexander. Normal sports always seemed so mundane, but with addition of magic, it would add some much needed excitement. Granted, that wasn't enough to get him to watch it...but after he heard that Lily was going to play that changed "I wonder what this is all about"

---

"What...the...hell?" Alexander wasn't thrown off by the sport itself. To him, it just seemed like an extreme form of wrestling with limited contact (which was an actually interesting concept). No, what had him baffled was Lily. She was pissed at this other girl "And what was that about 'stealing' me? Was there a kidnapping attempt that I didn't notice!? Dammit Lily, you need to tell me about those kind of things!" He groaned in frustration. Then Lily started changing and things got weird "What!? Why is she using her berserk mode? Just what's-...wait, who's Chad?" Not only was he starting to panic, but Alexander was also now thoroughly confused "...I feel like I'm missing a lot of context here" Things started getting even more crazy when Lily made a cage of lightning to trap them, with images that he couldn't quite make out between the bars "...The fuck is going on!?" And then Lily seemed to burn herself out, and the fight ended

"Fuck..." Alexander turned to walk out of the stadium "What did I just watch!? I mean, the sport seemed okay, but Lily just went nuts. I think she's going to need some time to calm down, I know I would after a fit like that. In the meantime...maybe I should look into playing that sport. I mean hey, free gold coin just for playing, so why not?" His mind made up, Alexander went in search of a place to sign up for a match.

Why befriend monsters?

It didn’t make sense to Abigail. Monsters and magical girls were polar opposites of each other. Monsters caused chaos and it was up to Magical girls to restore order. Monster girls and dark magical girls might look like humans, but they seldom acted that way. They were prone to mental mutations and serving horrors. Even if a few of them weren’t, they were fighting a losing battle with their own inner demons that would inevitably end with their loss. Even if they could hold out for centuries, they would succumb to their desires at one point or another. If they didn’t want to convert, they were inherently evil. Anyone who chose to hang onto power, to be a danger to others, did not deserve mercy.

It was during this inner monologue that she was approached by a cat girl. For a second she thought it was Kimble, but then realized it was someone else.

”Whoa, you’re super pretty!” Mika walked around the girl, observing her from various angles. ”You’re really floaty too!”

”Oh really?” Abigail placed her hands on her hip. ”You like what you see huh?” When Mika nodded, Abigail just rolled her eyes. ”You’re not my type, in more ways than one.”

Mika tipped her head. ”I don’t know what you mean by that, but I just want to play some Keijo!” She threw her arms into the air. ”I need an opponent!”

Abigail groaned before stroking her chin. She did plan on participating, but that was only because she thought Aurelio was going to be involved. Though he never accepted the impostor’s proposal, and he seemed pretty content with that bimbo Shamrock Sally. ”Yea, well, find someone else.”

”I already decided on you though!”

”We can’t always have what we want.”

”Sometimes we can!”

”But not this time.”

Mika hugged Abigail’s arm. ”Pleeeeeeease?”

With a grunt, Abigail shook Mika off and floated out of her reach. ”Stop nagging you pest!” Mika was looking up at her with the saddest puppy dog eyes she had ever seen. The sight of such sorrow caused her to reel back. Was she being unreasonable here? This was some disgusting cat monster that somehow had lower brain functions than Kimble. While the cat girl was a bit eager for this game of Keijo, she seemed to be on the verge of admitting defeat. Most monster girls would force her to play with them, or get angry at her refusal.

”O-okay.” Mika hung her head. ”I’m sorry. I won’t pester you anymore.” the cat girl turned around and dragged her feet and tail behind herself.

”Wait!” Abigail floated up beside Mika and placed a hand on her shoulder. ”I didn’t realize how badly you wanted this.” She placed a hand on her chest. ”I’m not so cruel that I won’t play a game with you. I just think we should maybe get some teams set up for it?”

Everything on Mika perked way up. ”Really?” Abigail nodded. Mika wrapped her hands around Abigail and hugged her. ”You’re the best, pretty lady!”

”Abigail is fine.” She stroked Mika’s head. ”And your name?”

”Mika!”

”Alright, good. Now Mika.” Abigail continued to stroke her head. ”I think that we should go look for a partner and return here as soon as we can.”

Mika took a step back and nodded. ”Alright, let’s meet back here!”

The two departed, both already had an ally in mind.

---

Having had a pretty full day yesterday, it seemed that this day would be just as busy. That was why Alicia had chosen to take some time out to actually go to the beach while she had the opportunity. The last time she had been down here was for that ‘don’t get wet’ challenge, so being able to do so now without worrying about it was a whole different experience.

Waves swept against her legs as she walked the shoreline, gaze firmly fixed downwards. The water was so crisp and clear that it was easy to see what laid on the ocean floor below. That was what interested her so much now.

Actually, it had been a while since she had gone to the beach. Swimming would happen sooner or later, but right now she was busier collecting seashells. A few were already held in one hand as she scoured to find the best ones she could. They would probably come back to Penrose with her, right? That seemed like something Dan would allow, if he had a say in it.

Well, even if it didn’t work out it was still relaxing. Everyone needed a bit of time to do that, especially on vacation.

”That one looks good,” she said to herself, leaning down to grab her newest finding. It had an interesting speckled pattern on it, and she’d hold on to it until she found something better. Just another relaxing day in a tropical paradise.

”Hey, hey!” Abigail hovered over the trees and descended in front of Alicia. ”So get this, some wimpy monster girl challenged me to a Keijo match. So I figure we’ll cream the twerp good if-” Abigail looked between the sea shell and Alicia. ”Uh.” She folded her arms. ”You collecting sea shells or something?”

Alicia straightened up as someone spoke to her, turning slightly to find Abigail descending into the water. ”Hello,” she replied with a small nod of her head as she greeted her fellow Beacon member. ”As a matter of fact, yes.”

Having said that, she offered her hands so Abigail could see what she had found thus far. A small sized conch shell, some flat sells, and one shaped almost like a tusk. ”Anyway, I appreciate the offer but I’m not sure Keijo is really my thing.” Like she had told Kimble before, though in this case she wasn’t sure if the team rule applied here. But she wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea, at least right now.

Abigail huffed. ”Right, right. I don’t think it’s anyone’s ‘thing’ to throw their bodaciousness around.” She looked at the shell without moving her arms. ”Having said that, I pegged shell collecting as a hobby for kids.” She looked away. ”Or for people who don’t know how to swim, or for people who are antisocial. I mean, surely there are more interesting things to do than collect the shells of dead sea creatures.” She floated up to Alicia. ”B-but I must have been wrong, since you’re doing it!” She picked up the shell and turned it over in her hand. ”Anyway, um.” Abigail reclined in the air and slid one of her hands under her chin. ”I’ve wanted to do something with you for a while now. You seem like someone Aurelio respects. And while we don’t have to do Keijo it seems silly not to. I doubt you’ll ever get a chance to play it again once we get to Penrose, and you’ll get a gold just for participating!” She grinned. ”Besides, Beacon needs some representation in the arena. Since we both started on different islands, we could be on the same team.”

”Well I was going to go swimming later. I figured this would be something to take up some time between events,” Alicia explained, not offended in any real way at the implication that she was antisocial, or something like that.

The mention of Aurelio was odd, but she moved past it as Abigail laid out her reasoning. Not necessarily the representation part, but a gold coin was a gold coin, and this was the sort of thing that would only happen here. If so many other magical girls were doing it too, then hopefully it wouldn’t be something that stuck to her once they got home if it went badly. After a moment she sighed. ”I suppose you make a good argument,” she agreed. ”So, what do we have to do to register for the event?”

”I, um, uh.” Abigail scratched her head. ”I don’t know.” She latched onto Alicia’s arm. ”But I’m glad you’re coming along! This is going to be super special awesome!” She was holding onto Alicia’s arm as she floated in the direction of the Arena. ”I’m sure we just have to show up and decimate our foes, so don’t worry too much about it, gheahahahahahahaha!”

---

This new swimsuit was surprisingly comfortable. Breathed easily, was easy to move in and was vastly more aerodynamic. Not that she'd ever tell anyone, not even under threat of contempt or perjury. After stretching, going for a relaxing dive off the coast, Rina had decided to get to work on her jet ski practice. Hopping onto the vehicle, Rina slammed on the gas, pulling away from the pier it had been docked at, accidentally soaking anyone who would have been on it in a wave of water.

And the people on the dock would have gotten off easy. Unfortunately, Mika was not on the dock. She thought it would be funny to hide on the bow of the boat and pop up unexpectedly. But she didn’t anticipate Rina’s eagerness, and was now struggling to hold onto the boat with all of her might. The wind beat against her, and Mika was having difficulty getting her claws to cooperate. ”Mmmmmm!” She was able to fight the wind currents and get her claws up on top of the boat. It was just enough for Mika to get her eyes above the bow of the boat so that she could see Rina. ”Hiiii Rina!” Her ears were pinned back, but she sounded happy.

“Mika?!” Rina was wholly unprepared for a surprise catgirl on her jet ski. How the heck was she even holding onto that? Same way she climbed that building earlier, she supposed. Not important. She was gonna get hurt if she was clinging to the front of it like that. Pulling off the gas, the jet ski slowed to a halt, almost throwing her footing off from the rather sudden deceleration.
“What the heck-” She shook her head, questioning Mika probably was not going to be good for her sanity. “You know what, don't care. Come on.” She motioned for Mika to get on the back of the Jetski with her.
Mika did not need to be told to climb aboard. She scampered up while the words were coming out of Rina’s mouth. ”Thanks for stopping!” She had been soaked from head to toe, and was dripping all. Mika took her hair and rung it out as well as she could. ”So, whatcha doing, are you busy?” she put her hands behind her back.

“Well I was doing some jet ski practice.” Rina replied, turning around on the seat so she was facing Mika. “So no, not really busy.” The poor girl looked completely soaked. If she still had her jacket, she'd have offered it. That'd be the cool thing to do, right? Yea, of course. Damn. “A-anyways. Why ya ask?” She leaned back slightly, resting her arms on the handlebars of the ski.

”I was invited to a Keijo match!” Mika leaned over Rina. ”The rules say we can’t join up with people whose island we started on, or something, so I can’t grab my usual folks.” Her smile grew with every word she spoke. ”You and I didn’t start on the same island, so we can team up!” Mika placed her hands on Rina’s shoulders. ”It’ll be really cool! You’ll play with me right? We can do boat stuff later.”

Of all the -

Of course Mika wanted to do Keijo. The one thing she really, really, didn't want too. Rina had to resist physically groaning and just telling Mika to get lost. It was difficult to do that in the face of this infectiously happy cat girl. Rubbing her forehead and sighing lightly, Rina gave Mika a small smile.

“Ahhh, fine fine. Why not, got nothing better to do.” She replied finally.

Mika took a step forward and slid her hands down Rina’s back so that she could bear hug her. ”Thanks Rina! You’re the best!” She let go and hopped backwards. ”Alrighty! Take us in and we’ll start the match!”

---

The arena was a bit different from the one Su and Chloe used the day prior. Instead of a single large platform, there were five smaller platforms. They were arranged like the dots on the five side of a dice, only there were floating bridges connecting the outside floats together in a square, and another set of bridges joining the center float in an X.

The four girls had joined up on the center float. A countdown would start once everyone moved to a corner.

”You look familiar.” Mika was staring at Alicia. ”Yea! I think I saw you in the gift shop!”

”Probably because-” Abigail pointed at Mika. ”You’re about to get, um, re-gifted!” She held up her hand for a high five. ”Don’t leave me hanging, Alicia. Gheahahaha!”

“You got dragged into this too, huh, Alicia?” Rina exhaled, reaching over and giving Mika a pat on the head before walking off to her own corner. “Well lets get this over with. I wanna get back to anything but this.”

Glancing around at the others, Alicia barely managed to avoid smacking her face at the attempted joke. She did return the high five, though it wasn’t the most enthusiastic thing. Well, at least she was friends with most of the people here. ”Yeah,” she confirmed with a nod. ”To both of those comments. I have no idea how this is going to go but hopefully it isn’t too anticlimactic.”

With that she turned and moved to her corner, mentally bracing herself for whatever happened next.

”Ready to do this, squirt?” Before Abigail could move to her corner, Mika ran up to her and yanked on her arm, pulling her down from the lofty height she was floating at. The cat girl cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered into Abigail’s ear. It wasn’t possible for most to hear what she was saying, but Abigail seemed to be insisting intently. When Mika was done, she stepped back and looked at the floating magical girl with a broad smile. But Abigail just shrugged her shoulders, and, after a moment of consideration, nodded. The two girls bumped their fists together before going to their respective corners.

Once everyone was situated, Dan the dolphin appeared on a large jumbo tron. Well, this might have been one of his lookalikes but who really knew.

“Alright ladies and gents, it looks like it’s going to be a match to remember, a dazzling 2-v-2 spectacular!. On one side we have…” Dan looked at a slip of paper. “…Right! Not everyone from Beacon was on the same island. I’m willing to roll with it. And here are the contestants! In the north corner, we have the pride of Beacon, the Archangel herself, SHINIIING SHERRIIIIF ALIII-CIAAA!” He bombastically shouted, to the applause of the crowd watching, including Sylvia who clapped her hands in an amused, eye-rolling fashion.
“And as her partner to the west, we have no other than the meteor-mashing, gravity-defying, heavyweight hitter, DOUBLE-DYNAMITE AAA-BIGAIIIIL!” Once again, Sylvia clapped, this time a bit louder; she gradually started to get into the hype. “I’m just going to call them the AA team and hope they don’t give me any flack over it, hah. These girls might show us some real teamwork skills, and light up any contender!”

He rubbed his bill before going on. “Opposing them to the south, in her new and sleek swimsuit, is the Queen of Steel, the Blade Dancer who’s too cool for school! KAAA-TAAA-RIII-NAAA!” Lily clapped, waving a flag with Rina and Mika scribbled on it as she cheered them on.
Dan then announced the final contestant. “And to the east is The Beast, now released, the tag-team terror, MII-KAAA!” Now Helga clapped, whistling and hollering like a true fangirl.
“Go get e’m, Mika!” Dan now hopped around the middle of the stage, an inexplicable spotlight now aimed at him. “I think we can call them SS, for stylish swimwear. But don’t be fooled; with their love for physical activities and will to win, I think this is going to be an interesting match!” He gestured towards the crowd with both fins. “Contestants, are you ready to butt heads! At the count of ten. One, two…TEN!” He suddenly announced, and launched up like a rocket, with sparkling water shooting him up and away.

”Yoink!” Abigail folded her arms and soared towards Rina’s position. ”Don’t get knocked off too quickly, I wanna try some things before I move onto the cat.” Rather than flying directly into Rina, Abigail orbited around her. After making three full rotations, she flew straight up in the air and attempted to dive bomb Rina with her chest.

Mika was galloping towards Alicia, like a cat in full sprint might run. ”Here I go!” Mika took her tail and splashed some water up on the bridge she was running on. She then attempted to stop by extending the claws on one of her fingers. This caused her to go into a drift. Once she swung completely around, she retracted her claw and continued to slide backwards. She kept her shoulders low and her hips high.

“They opened with orbital chest battery and the assertive slide?” Dan chuckled. “This is going to be one game to watch folks!”

“Or a short one,” Dolly countered, still fixing her mic to the collar of her coat. “Like Kanagawa’s Spectral Tornado, they may just as easily be trying to finish things as quickly as possible in order to end the match before it can be prolonged. This is an especially potent strategy in Keijo, with its concepts of ring-out. Sustaining injuries in a drawn-out slugfest will only jeopardize your chances in the next round.”

“Heh, well don't worry about that since you're not gonna beat me.” Flight, huh? Being able to fly would make her job a lot easier, but she wasn't gonna let herself be outdone so easily. Abigail went for the dive bomb, and Rina did what she did best. Evade then counter. As soon as Abigail went for the dive, Rina leaped gracefully into the air, before spinning so her back was to the other girl, before letting gravity to the work and slam her butt into Abigails back.

Alicia wasn’t sure if she appreciated the running commentary that was likely to come, but she put that out of mind, needing to focus on the battle. Important, as Mika came in with a quick moving slide. Thinking fast, like would imitate like as Alicia ducked low and turned so their butts met. Mimicking how Mika was poised, she didn’t get pushed as far by the energy of the blow as she might have otherwise. ”I hope that wasn’t your best shot,” Alicia called back, taking a step forward before springing in reverse to deliver her own modest blow as she got used to how this worked.

“Rina isn’t even breaking a sweat with this. You can see how she just effortlessly glides out of the way to counterattack!”

It didn’t look like there was much Abigail could do. She missed, and nearly collided with the floor in the process. But she managed to catch the floor before slamming into it. Once she did that, she locked her arms and torso upright facing her rear to Rina. The impact was solid, and could be heard throughout the coliseum.

“Rina has the edge in speed, but what are Abigail’s arms made out of? I don’t think steel beams could have taken a shot like that.” Dan squinted his eyes. “Wait.” They flew open. “I see what she did now folks! She used gravity magic to increase her density!”

“An astute observation, and a clear indication of the advantage that energy-based magical girls have over those who utilize more concrete substances in their magic. With gravity magic especially, a ring out is made much more difficult. Indeed, the plan of action here may be to destroy the platform underneath, rather than trying to knock out someone so physically secure. The question then, however, is whether or not Katarina and Mika can do so, when both are lightweight strikers.”

Sure enough, anyone looking on from the distance could see the platform Abigail was holding onto was further below the water line.

”I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation!” Abigail shoved herself off the platform, and allowed herself to fall back onto it. Once the platform was pressed deep enough into the water, Abigail dramatically reduced her weight to maximize the acceleration off the rising platform.

Mika had a firm grip on the mat. Her claws wouldn’t let her move very far, but she also wasn’t making a lot of headway fighting Alicia. ”That’s okay! I’m having a lot of fun, even if I’m not doing great.” Mika blushed as Alicia repeatedly bumped into Mika. ”You’ve got a firm butt Alicia, but it’s like my dad used to say: Nothing’s tighter than a crab’s butt in high tide!” Mika’s tail and backside swiftly changed into something akin to lacquer armor. Her tail in particular was much wider, red, and had a fin at the very end. ”Oops! That’s a lobster.” It didn’t stop Mika from trying her attack again.

The platform sunk low into the water. As soon as it started rising, the Archer braced herself for the sudden acceleration as the platform launched itself upwards, even clearing the waters surface. Rina let herself be launched into the air, but in true athletic and acrobatic fashion, she did it with as much grace as one would expect of her.

“You're kinda annoying, you know that?” Rina grunted, landing near the edge of the platform. “I don't got as fancy tricks as you do, but don't expect me to be easy.”

If she were facing towards her, Mika would have been met with a very confused expression from the Seraph. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” It wasn’t any sort of saying she had heard before, though there was a good chance it was all made up anyway. She seemed like the type to do that.

Still, if she had not glanced back she probably would have missed the appearance of the lobster tail, and the disadvantages posed by it. Without the running lead up she was better equipped to handle it, and Alicia chose to take advantage of that as she spun, darting to the side and then launching herself forward to pounce upon the catgirl chest first.

“Alicia’s no slouch for mobility either!” Dan pointed. “Look at that reversal!”

“A classic Gale Twist transitioning into a Mantora Snap,” Dolly detailed, two fingers pressed against the temple of her head. “Impeccably performed!”

Mika turned just in time to see Alicia’s attack coming. But she didn’t have time to do much more than take it directly in the face. ”Mmmph!” The blow sent Mika’s head reeling backwards, but she was prepared to counterattack. She was able to pass her tail between Alicia’s legs and press the tip against the small of her back. In doing this, Mika just had to curl her tail to pull Alicia and her together. This prevented Mika from falling off the edge, and made pulling away from Mika for a second attack difficult. Mika’s shorter stature kept her head level with Alicia’s breasts. ”I see why Kimble likes you so much now. ”

“A tail?” Dan scratched the side of his head with a flipper. “The tail bone is part of your backside, I’ll allow it. It looks like Mika’s trying to play an endurance game. We’ll see how Alicia responds.”

“Dangerous ruling, Dan,” was Dolly’s response. “Before official rulings were made fifty years ago, the North Pacific Keijo Association was dominated by Beast Girls who took advantage of the ‘tail-ok’ rule to manifest all manners of limbs from their backside, giving them an insurmountable advantage versus their tailless opponents. Truly, a dark age.”

”I don’t care how easy you are, I don’t date girls! Gheahahaha” Once Abigail was in the sky, she flew away from Katarina and towards Mika and Alicia.

“Wait, I think I know this play” Dan leaned in. “With Abigail’s gravity magic, she might be going for-” Once Abigail was over Alicia and Mika’s platform, she increased her density again and plummeted to the platform. “It is! It’s the flying butterfly, falling rhino!” Abigail slammed into the edge of the platform with her backside. Because Alicia and Mika were at the opposite end… “She whiffed it and catapulted friend and foe into the air! They’re flying over the center of the arena! They look like they’re headed straight for Katarina!”

“No!” Dolly squinted, leaning forward from her desk. “It could be intentional! A teammate sacrificing play was what earned the Queens of Music their stunning first place victory in the Cross-Dimensional Keijo Extravaganza! With one ally in the mix to mess up the recovery attempts of their foes, it could certainly spell an end to Team SS!”

Despite her best intentions, Alicia couldn’t help but blush a bit as Mika brought up Kimble and her interests, though such taunts were to be expected given the nature of what they were doing. There was enough distraction anyway with the lobster tail wrapping through her legs. ”Bold talk for a lobster,” she huffed.

Then their conversation fell short in an explosive manner, the magical girl kicking through the air as they found themselves hurtling through the sky and starting to spin in the process. Unaware of their destination, Alicia’s wings shot out from her back and with a handful of flaps pulled her away from Mika and back towards Abigail. She didn’t want to be taken out by her own team!

”I think we may need a new strategy,” she observed, wings vanishing once she had landed near Abigail. At the very least coordination would minimize the chance of them taking each other out.

Rina watched Abigail take off after Mika and Alicia. Only to use her gravity magic to once more slam into their platform, sending the two of them flying towards her direction. Alicia was able to stop herself, but Mika seemed a bit less fortunate. Leaping into the air, Rina intercepted Mika, holding out her chest so it would hit the now lobster girl first, hopefully slowing her momentum so she wouldn't be knocked off the platform.

Mika’s face made a wet slapping sound when she came in contact with Rina. A jellyfish-looking appendage popped out of her back to act as an air break, which slowed her down the way. ”Thanks Rina!” Mika turned around. ”I almost had her too!”

”Having trouble with Mika?” Abigail puffed out her chest. ”You might have better luck with Katarina, she’s too fast for me to pin down.” She swung her head around to get a crick out of her neck. ”Guess we’ll switch. Let’s just keep an eye out for an opening. We’re not fighting two seperate duels here.”

”Rina, I could really use some armor!” Mika turned her back to Rina and rubbed her shoulder against her. ”Gimmie a chainmail bikini!”

“Chainmail Bikini?!” Rina stared dumbfounded at Mika for a moment before simply accepting the request. “Fine, fine...uh, lets see.” How could she do this? She might have been metal spec, but aside from making big giant swords with her bow, or turning metal into sword shaped objects, she didn't have much magical affinity for metal making. “...ah, maybe...?” Getting to work quickly, Rina finished Mika's request. A simple chainmail bikini...made up of tiny, blunt swords.

”Let’s keep an eye out and back up the other if we see an opening!” Abigail zoomed towards Mika, flying over the bridge headed towards the center platform.

”Alright, take two! I’m off to face Alicia!” Mika charged down the bridge opposing Abigail. Would they meet in the center?

Alicia shrugged, swinging her arms a bit in an impromptu stretch or two. ”That shapeshifting magic gives her a lot of tricks up her sleeve,” she admitted. Not impossible, just annoying to have to deal with.

”Besides, like you said we aren’t fighting alone. Teamwork is one of Beacon’s greatest advantages, so we should use it. I’ll keep an eye out for openings if they show up.” With that said she turned back to the fight at head, ready for the next clash to begin.

With a nod to her partner she broke into a sprint, moving to meet with Mika at the center of the bridge. This move would be tricky, but with Abigail airborne she felt it would be for the best. So as she drew near she hit the deck in a slide of her own that would take her under Mika. At which point she turned and let her wings toss her upwards, butt slamming into the catgirl to send her skywards as well for her partner to hit.

Admittedly if it didn’t work they would probably end up as a tangle of limbs on the bridge, but that was a risk she was willing to take.

Right, well, no time to sit around. Rina moved after Mika and Alicia, deciding to stay a healthy distance back for now. Her best play here would be to support Mika here. Run interference and help make sure the other girl didn't get knocked out, and take a shot if she thought she had an opening.
”Wha? Alicia?” Abigail was visibly confused. She had just suggested switching opponents, but Alicia had decided to lead an attack directly on Mika. The gravity girl fret her brow and flew forward even faster.

Mika on the other hand was fully prepared for her run-in with Alicia. When she prepared to slide under Mika, she hopped into the air. But Mika did not stay in her current shape. While in flight, her body stretched and morphed into an elephant seal. Mika weighed nearly a ton and was about three meters in length. A far cry from what a male would weigh in at, as they can be up to eight times as large as the females. Elephant seals were among the largest animals in the world after all. But this was little reassurance to Alicia, who was under the most intimidating looking grey blob she had ever seen. She likely had no time to appreciate the tiny chainmail bikini on it’s neck and tail. There was little Alicia’s wings could do before the shear size of this lad Mika’s form.

”Gunna seal you away!” Abigail wasn’t too far behind. While she was a potent spellcaster, not being able to directly effect her opponents did hamstring her capabilities a bit. She was still able to increase her density mid flight before slamming her butt into Mika’s flabby form. Mika flew back just far enough to miss Alicia, but the impact caused the entire bridge to briefly sink underwater. ”You otter watch out! That won’t work twice!”

“Whoa!” Was all Dan had to say about the play.

“Hrmm.” Was Dolly’s own response, her brow knitting at the full-body transformation of Mika. 3/4ths of Keijo was meant to celebrate the beauty of a nubile magical youth’s form. Turning into an elephant seal? Not very celebratory.

Abigail landed beside Alicia. After such a close call, one might expect the gravity expert to look a bit frazzled. But she still wore a confident smile. ”How about you go flank someone. I don’t think Mika can stay like that forever.” Abigail probably couldn’t keep herself so dense for long either. Even the strongest gravity girls had notoriously mana hungry spells. The seal and gravity girl lunged at each other again, and again. The entire arena was shaking from having its weight limit exceeded.

For a moment, Alicia could swear she saw her life flashing before her eyes. Never would she have expected that her end would come in such a ridiculous fashion, but it seemed that she had been a bit too clever for her own good. All she could hope was that Abigail would claim she had died doing something heroic, rather than leaving her as a cautionary tale about trusting magic dolphins.

Her wings were forced to redirect, pulling her ‘upwards’, yet even that might not have been enough had Abigail dived in with the clutch save. Coming in to land, the Seraph was left gasping for breath before flashing her partner a weak smile. ”Thanks, I owe you one.”

At the suggested strategy, she nodded. ”Sounds good”. Remaining on the ground, she looked to slip past the titanic confrontation and get around to where Katarina was for a sneak attack. And while she might not have any offensive magic, the glare off the water would brighten suspiciously if anyone looked at where she was.

Rina had no words. If she had been asked about what her day was going to be like, it was not 'teaming up with a seal in a game of keijo.' How was she even supposed to react to this? She hadn't a clue, so she was just going to decide not to think about it. Instead, she needed to focus on winning. She needed to make sure Mika had enough support and she could reasonably try taking one of the other girls out while they were dealing with...the seal.

Remaining vigilant, Rina prepared herself for being attacked, constantly checking her blind spots. Lo and behold, it wasn't long until she noticed the glare in the water brighten. Aicia, huh? Rina braced herself, intent on meeting Alicia's blow with one of her own.

The elephant seal did turn to face Alicia, as it was interested in keeping up it’s attack. The light served to blind Mika in one eye, which caused her to wince. It gave Abigail the opening she needed to land another attack. When her buttocks collided with Mika’s head, it forced it inside of her blubbery body. this caused Mika to downgrade into a smaller seal.

”You’ve got a bony tush!”

Mika and Abigail continued to ram their bodies into each other. Each time Mika’s shape got a little smaller, and Abigail’s breathing becoming more labored.

The hard part, Alicia found, was not just to brighten the light. It was to keep it that way without shifting even when she herself had moved slightly to the side. A minor deception, but not worth thinking too much about as she did so before darting in. Were someone to expect her to come directly from the center of the glare, they would be disappointed as she came in from the left, body check delivered via her chest with a hopefully not-entirely-prepared target.

They wouldn’t want Katarina feeling left out, after all.

Mika was losing stamina with each traded blow, so she needed to act fast. Obviously, she couldn't trust the bright light. Hitting it dead on was silly, even if that's where Alicia was hiding. So Rina flanked it, leaping chest forward from the right side intent on hitting Alicia with her chest.

It seemed both of them were a bit too clever for their own good. In her attempt to outflank, Katarina had done the same. Which meant they just ended up missing each other and landing where the other had been standing before.

Turning, Alicia cut down on the light show now that it was no longer helpful. ”I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t have to worry about swords,” she noted, taking a few steps back for greater speed as she went for the hit. With a spring upwards at the last second to get a bit of height on her in the process of doing so. Simple, but fancy tricks had been getting her in trouble lately. Maybe this would work better.

Well, that was somewhat amusing how they easily missed each other. Well, whatever. As Alicia made her move for a direct charge, Rina made a charge of her own. At the last second before they hit however, Rina spun, digging her feet into the platform and directed her butt towards Alicia, hopefully catching the other girl off guard, with her momentum sending her off balance so she could follow it up with another attack.

”Nnnnnngghhh!”

”Grrrrrrrrrrr!”

Abigail and Mika were pressing their chests against each other in an attempt to get past the other one. Mika looked a little more beat up, but Abigail’s feet being on the floor was an indication that she finally ran out of magic. They were breathing hard, and looked like they could be knocked over by a feather.

”You broke your promise!”

”You were a fool to trust me!”

”You seemed reliable!”

”You are- Really? I do?”

”Well you did!!” Mika huffed. ”Why did you do it?”

Abigail looked away. ”I was jealous. I’m sorry.”

Mika groaned. ”I forgive you.”

Abigail fell backwards into the depths, with Mika too tired to realize she was following after her.

“Ohhhhhh! It seems like we have a double ring out!” Dan folded his fins. “At least they are going to stay hydrated! It’s up to their allies to snag victory.”

“Indeed! Keep your eyes wide open, everyone! Only the fastest of both teams are up now, and a game-ending strike could happen in an instance of inattention!”

Not expecting Katarina to spin and redirect as she did, the modest jump worked in Alicia’s favor as she was able to use her wings to stabilize herself. Gracefully landing, a splashing sound drew a look out of the corner of her eye before Dan announced what had happened. ”Sounds like it’s just us now.” Odd, she wouldn’t have expected a mutual KO out of that fight. It was something to ask about later.

Flashing a smile at her opponent, she took the defensive for the moment, letting her have the initiative. ”Not much point in drawing this out. Definitely didn’t expect to come out of this before them.” Her hands began to glow, slowly rotating beams of light flaring into existence to make things more difficult for Katarina when it came to coordinating her attack,

Just because she was placing herself on the receiving end didn’t mean she had to sit there and take it after all.

Hmph, this light was making it hard to see. Rina frowned. Well, fine then. If this was going to be their final clash, might as well take it head on. She was out of ideas here, anyways and definitely didn't mind not being the winner...did that make her a bad teammate here? She quickly brushed the thought aside. Wasn't like she could really do anything else anyways.

So without delay, she sprinted towards Alicia.

There was a really strong urge to kick here, an impulse that Alicia had to quash as Katarina moved in. Instead she took a few steps back, waiting patiently as Rina drew closer. In the last moments she acted, wings extending and rocketing her up into the sky in an intended vertical dodge.

Ideally Rina would find herself unable to stop before toppling off the platform by her own momentum, but Alicia didn’t quite trust that her reflexes weren’t good enough to avoid that. So she would wait to see how it turned out before doing anything.

Rina narrowed her eyes, leaping into the air in a front flip the moment Alicia began her ascent. With a flip she placed one hand on the ground before pushing off the platform and launching herself butt-first towards Alicia.

It seemed Alicia’s preparations had been wise, with Katarina having quick reflexes to dodge the gambit. But she didn’t expect her to go airborne instead. They collided, Alicia sent tumbling off balance and barely managing to arrest her fall before she hit the water.But it was a close run thing, and she could practically feel the moisture kicked up by her wings as she skimmed the surface.

But she used this, sweeping across the arena and building up speed. Faster and faster she went, until she banked in and swept in at Katarina, with her chest thrust forwards . Not the most elegant of strikes, but there was only so much you could do with the available combat options.

Well, since this had apparently been turned into a contest of athleticism now, Rina was fairly more confident in her abilities. Her strike hit, her butt smacking Alicia right in the face it felt like, before being smacked off to the ground. Angling her body so she landed feet first near the edge of the pool, Rina only took a moment to observe her opponent circling the water before positioning herself back near the center.
Wanting to go ahead and finish this, she met Alicia's blow, jumping towards her chest-first.

Compared to the other side of the match, Alicia and Katarina were really building up to a climactic finish. How else to describe it as the latter jumped to meet the oncoming blow head on?

With the speed at which she was moving, there wasn’t much Alicia could do to react that would make a difference. All except one thing, and she braced herself as her flight shifted. Not in direction, but in form instead as she spun herself like a corkscrew with the propulsion of her wings to aid her. A small edge, but hopefully a useful one that kept her skyborne instead of faceplanting into the water.

A grunt escaped at the impact, their bodies colliding in one match up of power and speed and smarts. For a brief moment there was nothing to do, vision spinning and body carried by momentum or lack thereof. Then it was over, she was still flying. Making sure she was not about to hit the water, Alicia looked for any sign of Katarina. Was it over?

Rina was pretty sure Alicia was bigger than she was, that was the only reason she won this little bout, yep. The Archer couldn't stop herself from being flung off the side after the impact, and Alicia could hear a splash of water as her opponent hit the water. A few seconds later, Rina surfaced, knocking some water out of her ears.

“And it’s over!” Dan clapped his fins together. “Alicia and Abigail progress to the next round! Good match everyone, but things are only going to get more exciting moving forward”

Hearing the splash of water, Alicia came in for a landing on the platform as the match concluded. ”Good match,” she called, offering a hand to help Katarina out of the water.

Accepting the hand, Rina allowed herself to be pulled out of the water and back onto the platform.

“Well, glad this is over with.” She exhaled. She felt exhausted. Was it normal to feel this exhausted after something like this? It felt like mental fatigue more than anything.

”Rina!” Mika pranced over to the girl and gave her a bear hug. Her arms even turned into bear arms for the occasion. ”That was a close game! We got one of them, even after she lied!” She jumped up and down. ”I’m glad you came along. This wouldn’t have been as much fun with someone else. Wanna get an ice cream?”

Abigail had also pulled herself out of the water. ”Heh...” She walked over to Alicia. ”I guess we’ve got a break until our next match starts. We should probably make use of it.”

Alicia wasn’t sure how she felt about the notion of round two, but she kept that to herself as she waved to the crowd. She nodded to Abigail, the team temporarily reunited for now. ”Yeah,” she agreed. ”I was going to stick around here a bit, see how some of the other teams play. But I’ll be here for the next stage.”

“Gah-! Mika!” Being crushed by bear-cat-magical girl was only a mildly uncomfortable experience..and It did give her a rare opportunity to return the hug. Returning the hug, Rina wrapped her arms around Mika, reaching up between her head as she started patting and petting the other girl's head, slowly increasing in aggressiveness as she replied.
“Ice cream sounds good. I think I'll pass on any more Keijo.” Truthfully, she didn't really enjoy any of this, but as long as Mika had fun, she guessed that was okay.

Watching Keijo was an...interesting experience. Very different from being in the ring itself, as Alicia had found. It was hard to tell if there was any real strategy to it, though Dan seemed to insist that there was. But she had stuck around to watch a few matches, and get the full experience before their time on the island came to an end.

That was why she was still around when Lily had her match. She was only an outside observer, but it seemed like things had gotten a little out of hand during the course of the match, and while she didn’t really know any of the combatants that well, the way Lily left was very different from how she had entered.

Rising from her seat, the Seraph moved to exit the stands and link up near where the contestants exited. Partially out of concern, and partially out of curiosity. After everything that had happened in Penrose, as well as their previous meeting, she wanted to get to know Lily a bit better. This was a decent opportunity for that.

Nearing the exit, she began looking around for Lily. Hopefully she had managed to get here before she could leave, or dash off with those speed powers of hers. Well, if not then she would just try to catch up to her later. It didn’t seem like they were going anywhere soon, after all.

Alicia saw Lily leaning against one of the statues at the entrance, looking sad. She had someone she needed to meet with, but right now she couldn’t find the heart in her to see them. She dreaded the outcome. So she had stopped, trying to sort her feelings out.
“Ugh, everyone saw that...” She whined, and hit the statue.
“What will they think? Probably that I’m a loser. I guess I am....”

Spotting Lily, it did not take an empath to figure out the thoughts inside of her head. Seemed that fight had been pretty rough for her after all. And definitely more in the mental than the physical sense.

She might not be an Aurelio, but Alicia decided to take the plunge anyway. It wasn’t like she could make the situation much worse than it was already. Waiting until she was closer, Alicia waved as she called out to the other girl. ”Hey Lily. Do you have a moment or two?”

Lily was startled, and turned towards Alicia; there were still remnants of her crying in the arena on her face.
“Alicia? Y-Yeah, I guess...I’d like to talk.” She looked around.
“Maybe we could go to the beach and collect shells?” She then bit her lip. “Or wait, maybe not. I guess you wouldn’t like that.”

There was an inward sigh of relief as Lily agreed to chat rather than fleeing the conversation, as that had been a doubt clouding her mind. ”It’d be more likely than you think,” she assured Lily, mind flashing back to when she had been doing just that before her own match. ”But actually I was thinking we could relax a bit, cool off and lose some of the steam from our matches. Maybe ice cream? I hear there’s even a restaurant on a cliff that rotates to give you a continually changing view somewhere around here.” She wasn’t sure on that part, it was just what she had heard. But it couldn’t hurt to look either, right?

“It is?” Lil happened to passingly ask, and smiled a bit; Alicia really did come at just the right time. “A restaurant? You mean that place, right?” She pointed up, and sure enough, there was a strange structure floating over the cliff face; it resembled a UFO, with a circular design and high windows.
“Let’s go check it out.” She began walking, looking a bit happier than before. “By the way, I only saw the end of your match, but it was super cool. You’re really talented,” she complimented her while they were on their way up towards the restaurant.

Glancing up, Alicia resisted the urge to facepalm as she caught sight of the UFO styled restaurant above their heads. ”Yeah, actually,” she confirmed. How fortuitous for it to be there at the moment they needed it. More of the islands magic, one would assume.

So they began walking, the Seraph keeping pace with Lily as they took the winding path up to the cliff. The praise earned a warm smile, though she did not let it simply pass by. ”Ah, I see you missed the part where I nearly got crushed by a shapeshifter then,” she observed, before shrugging. ”But thank you. Just an unintentional benefit of the training we do.”

Lily put a hand to her mouth in surprise.
“Oh wow, sounds intense. Shapeshifters are really broken in Keijo now that I think about it: they could make spikes on their butt and stuff. I guess Dan would rule that as attacking, but armor butts would still be bad...” She gradually began opening up to Alicia as they went on, her talkative nature coming apparent.

They reached the cliff just under the restaurant, but realized there were no stairs or even a ladder up to the floating building.
“Does Dan expect us to fly up there?” Lily mused, and yelped as a strange sound could be heard from the UFO-shape; a round, futuristic hatch opened up on the bottom, and an orange beam of light shot down over Lily; she began to float upwards, with her flailing around.
“Ahh! I was right! I’m being abducted!”

“That’s right!” A strange, modulated voice came from above, and Alicia was also beamed upwards. “I am Nad the Neptunian, and I will abduct you on a journey of tastes!” By the time they reached the restaurant, the two realized who the speaker was; it was Dan, except he was wearing a spacesuit and a goofy rubber mask resembling an alien. “Now, what experimental dish shall I test out with my new guinea pigs?” He asked, and guided them to a table by one of the tall windows. “Perhaps ‘Martian Brains’, or ‘Venusian Guts with Eyes’, hahaa!” Of course, the dishes he referred to were a bowl of strawberry icecream with cream on top, and spaghetti served with meatballs. The restaurant slowly turned in an axis, giving out a scenic view of the entire island.

It was good to see Lily opening up, now that she had something to distract her from what had happened during her own Keijo match. There were worse things to talk about. “Also tails,” she added with a nod as they just about reached their destination.

With no immediately apparent way up, the Seraph was prepared to act in a manner that was utmost in its practicality. “I could probably fly us up there,” she noted whilst looking at the UFO.Not that it was necessary, for in the end they were pulled up like they were being abducted by a beam of orange light. The culprit was soon revealed as well, and with it came the urge to facepalm again as she realized that it was just Dan spelling his name backwards.

Arriving in the slightly futuristic looking restaurant itself, Alicia let herself be guided to one of the tables by a window, giving them a gorgeous view of the island. At least that part was worth the trip. ”Ice cream would be good, if you have some kind of menu for that,” she confirmed. Best not to let the continued weirdness of their host distract from the reason for their visit.

“Coming right up!” Nad replied, and floated upstairs. Lily was flabbergasted.
“Whoah...He abandoned the bit fast.” But now that they could enjoy some peace and quiet, Lily looked outside the window, her eyes wide at the sight.
“I can see the entire island from here!” She exclaimed, and smiled at Alicia. “Thanks for bringing me here. I already feel so much better now after the fiasco at the arena, ha.” She averted her eyes.
“Anyway, what’s up? I heard you Beacon girls were making some kind of new coin. Is that true?”

With Nad quickly departing to carry out her request, Alicia shifted to look out the window as well. “That’s one of the nice things about being able to fly now. I can see a view like this back home whenever I want.”

Though Lily might have averted her gaze, the Seraph did no such thing as she relaxed in her seat. “Not much. I just wanted to get to know you a bit better, without Mister Grumpy around to spoil things.” Perhaps it was unfair to Alexander, but he really did himself no favors from what she had seen. “And yes, we are. It removes corruption, makes us much more resistant to mental control, and it’s a lot more practical than the old process.” It had been in the news, but with how the media was these days she couldn’t blame Lily for wanting to have it confirmed in person.

Lily pouted as Alicia badmouthed her boyfriend, gripping her knees with her hands.
“That’s mean, Alicia. Alex has gone through a lot, that’s why he’s grumpy. I’m sure if you got to know him better-I mean, uhh, forget it.” She sighed, and turned to see Nad arrive with the bowls of ice cream.
“Oh, thanks Dan!” Lily immediately scooped up a chunk, and devoured it, nodding at the Beacon girl’s words.
“Thht’ths ahmznhg!” She spoke with her mouth full, only to swallow and return back to speaking normally.
“All that with just one coin? You must have a lot of smart people in Beacon to come up with miracle inventions like that.”

The arrival of ice cream was enough to swing the conversation on to a different topic, which Alicia was grateful for. A hum escaped as she joined in sampling what they had been given, a light sigh escaping as it cooled her down from her recent exercise.

She did her best to maintain their chat even as she ate. ”We got a couple lucky breaks, but yeah. It’s pretty impressive. Though after the stuff that happened with Justine and the Bates, simply holding peace wasn’t going to work anymore. So something like this would have happened sooner or later.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” Lily took another spoonful, savoring the frosty treat.
“But I wonder; what would have happened if there were White Coins before Justine began causing trouble in Penrose?” She curled her lips.
“I wouldn't have met you, gotten to know Alex...Or anyone really. Wouldn’t that have been super weird?”

”I suppose,” Alicia admitted in between small bites of ice cream. ”Though I’m not really sure how the two of you met so I can’t say one way or another. But considering all the trouble she caused and the people she hurt in her plot, I’m not sure that would have necessarily been entirely a bad thing.”

Holding back a sigh, she instead settled for a shrug. ”Then again, I missed the entirety of that confrontation so I guess I’m not the best to say one way or another either.”

Lily nodded, and looked down towards the resort.
“Yeah...It was a confusing time for me too, since I woke up to the entire room we were in shifting back to our world. Alex was there, and Sue, Samantha...Oh, Eliza too.” She reminisced about the encounter.
“And of course, Justine had Janet under control.” She paused for a bit, and took a small bite of her ice cream.
“As for Justine herself, she was...Complicated. She talked a bunch about making the world pure while I was captured, but at the time...I could tell she was hesitating. She tried to, but she couldn’t fully commit to rejecting her love for her sister.” She sighed.
“She was crazy, I don’t deny that. But in the end, she was just another victim of a Horror.”

”You hate to see it happen,” Alicia agreed, nodding as Lily reached the end of her deduction. Just another result of the twisted machinations of some Horror? It was too commonplace to not be a very reasonable answer to what had inspired everything that had taken place at her hands.

Another bite of her ice cream followed, the magical girl using the opportunity to muse and think about what had happened back then. ”But you should have seen it. Practically the moment after the Penrose fight ends, Alexander starts whipping together a coalition to go and rescue you. I think it’s not unreasonable to say that if you hadn’t been here that whole Justine business would have turned out a lot differently.”

“Alex did?” Lily sounded surprised. She put a hand to her mouth.
“I knew he was part of the rescue team, but he actually got everyone together to save me? That’s...” She looked out towards the clouds in the sky.
“He’s grumpy, but underneath, he’s a sweetheart.” She took Alicia’s hand. “Thank you for helping. I bet it was difficult to get through all of Justine’s forces.”

Making no effort to stop Lily from taking her hand, the Seraph could only shrug. “We’re Beacon. That’s kind of what we do,” she noted aloud. Fighting villains, saving the world, that sort of thing. Despite what their detractors may say.

At least she was able to hold back the sigh that would have followed. “Truth be told we were planning on going after her anyway, but it would have been a lot more difficult if it had just been us. People weren’t exactly lining up to lend a hand after she blew up our branch in Penrose. So a lot more people were probably saved this way.”

“I’m glad nonetheless,” Lily replied, a bit taken aback by hearing about a bomb attack.
“Ever since I’ve moved in to Penrose, it’s been nutty; like a Sailor Moon manga.” She then bit on her spoon, once again letting her nerdiness slip.
“Anyway, I’m really glad we could talk like this, Alicia. If you ever want to hang out, just give me a call, and I-oh right.” She looked in her pocket, and sighed.
“I usually keep spare notes where I’ve written my number, but it looks like those didn’t transfer over.” She finished eating her ice cream, and dropped a coin to Nad as payment.

Alicia nodded at Lily’s comparison. Yeah, she could kind of see it. ”I am too. At the very least, someone who managed to bring the city together even for a little bit is probably worth knowing.”

That just left the issue of getting in contact again, with Lily explaining her dilemma. The Seraph nodded, rubbing her chin in thought. ”Well, either we find someone who can take a note for us, or we just choose somewhere to meet once we’re back in Penrose so we can exchange numbers. If the city is still standing when we get back, anyway.”

“Well, I usually patrol the fire station’s rooftop at 7 on Thursdays. You can find me there then.” Lily smiled, taking one more look out of the restaurant.
“Yeah, I hope so too.” She replied before the two left the restaurant; the two returned back to the surface, after Nad conveniently switched the tractor beam to slow-descent mode. As they reached the resort, Lily hugged Alicia.
“This was a lot of fun, Alicia. Until next time!” She then waved, and walked away, glad to have found a new friend on the island.

Rising to her feet, Alicia nodded as Lily provided a possible option. ”That sounds good to me.” The descent back to the surface was slow, and would have been a tad more unsettling than it was were she not used to flying. At the very least they landed gracefully, just in time for her to be hugged.

”Yeah, it was,” she agreed, returning the embrace and waving goodbye as Lily departed. She then turned and walked off as well. There were still plenty to see and do on the island, so why sit and dawdle here by her lonesome?

Tetrad was making her way back toward the arena, but slowly. Really taking her time that one. She was quick to take Emily out on the water, but was getting distracted by everything on the way back to the Keijo pool. She was taking the scenic route along the beach, and was still trying to swallow more of those gummy worms. It was no easy task. Her stomach was still upset, and eating a giant wad of them hadn’t helped settle things at all. Eventually she stopped walking and just sat on the beach, worms in hand. There were a few crabs crawling around, but they mostly kept to themselves.

Ugh, this was super awkward now. Though she had spotted Tetrad from a distance, the monochrome girl pretty easy to find out on the beach, Amaryllis now had the problem of wondering just how to approach her. She totally seemed depressed, didn’t she? Just sitting at the beach, doing nothing but vacantly stare at the sand. Oh god, if Tetrad actually turned out to be one of those ‘tough on the outside but literally flour on the inside’ girls, what the hell was she even going to do?

Be like, casual and just pretend to have stumbled upon her? Go rush at her and just be super business-like about it? Do a diving hug-tackle and shower affection upon her? Be super hot-blooded about it and just scream incomprehensible words? Cry tears of regret and prostrate before her?

Naw, Amaryllis was just going to awkwardly walk up and awkwardly say she’s sorry.

Her strides shortened as she approached the sitting girl until she was more or less tip-toeing towards her, Amaryllis’s body rejecting what she was going to do while her mind made up excuses over and over again. But in the end, where body and mind failed, spirit remained, and soon, the animal-bikini girl stood behind Tetrad, sucking in a deep breath.

“So, uh, yeah...sorry, Tetrad, for like, what happened at the whole...thing...like, I honestly should have discussed our whole roles and stuff before we went into the game itself, but, like, yeah...it was really dumb on my part, so I apologize for it. I don’t really think I deserve any sort of forgiveness from this, but as recompense, I was thinking that I could, uh, get us first place in the tournament?”

She looked off to the side, embarrassed at how bold a proclamation that was.

“Like, yeah, that’s it.”

Tetrad hadn’t turned around yet. She finished chewing on a worm before standing up. When she turned around, she didn’t look depressed, angry, or anything like that. If anything she looked bored. Half of a gummie worm rocked up and down before being pulled behind her lips.

”Well yea.” She ran her fingers along the top of the bag. It had a zip-lock style seal on it that kept everything fresh. ”I mean, isn’t it obvious? I wouldn’t have partnered up with you if I thought you were weak.” She placed her hands on her hips. ”I’m not going to make excuses for myself, but I would have done a bit better if I had the chance to draw one of my cards… Maybe.” With a snap of her fingers, a fan of cards appeared in her hand. She shifted her eyes towards it. ”Anyway, no need to apologize. That might have a parable of the horse situation.” After running her finger through her cards, Tetrad locked her eyes on Amaryllis. ”Are you familiar with that story?”

"Don't draw conclusions? I mean, I guess I could stop doing that, but humans have an imagination for a reason, so I don't think it's really a good story or lesson to learn, you know?" Amaryllis scrunched her face together, the words flowing so easily, now that Tetrad seemed ok after all. "I mean, viewing everything with a sense of detachment is just boring."

”Is that what you’re supposed to get out of it?” The parable in particular that Tetrad was talking about was one that starts with a horse approaching an old man. The horse’s arrival starts a long chain of events, with the old man’s neighbor commenting on everything that happens. In the end, the old man’s son breaks his leg trying to tame the horse, but isn’t drafted for the war the following day.

Amaryllis made a face. "Isn't it? The old man basically tells everyone else to just say what happened rather than whether or not the event was a curse or a blessing, so like, yeah…"

”I choose to believe that it means that not everything is what it seems. How strong the ace is depends entirely on the card game being played.” With a snap, her cards vanished. ”If your card game even has aces, that is.” Tetrad stepped past Amaryllis and dropped the bag of worms in her hands. ”We should see what our competition is doing.” She stopped and turned around. ”Oh, and talk tactics a bit.”

It sounded like Tetrad was just paraphrasing it in a different manner, so maybe they were just confusing each other now. Receiving the bag of worms, Amaryllis awkwardly held onto it, not certain if this was a present or just something to…hold onto. Tactics talk was easy though.

"We should get to that, yeah, so like, what do you do anyways? I'm just a pretty normal physical power girl without my sword myself…"

---

Binky had been rescued the day before, but was a bit leery about heading out and joining everyone during the festivities. There were too many people who wanted her dead and too many more that wanted her for her unique talents. After nearly passing out from heat exhaustion, Binky was fine laying on top of her bed with the AC on. It was nice to just not make anything for a while.

She swung her legs off the edge of her bed and stood up. She wasn't so exhausted that she had to lay in bed all day. Betty would likely be over to visit her soon, so all the more reason to be up and about. But as good as things were going, Binky also felt like she was being watched. It was a feeling she got ever since she was moved to Beacon, and now she was getting it on this island. She walked over to the window of her room and peered out. It looked like an empty landscape. Just a view of the ocean, with only the beach and a palm tree to separate them. But Binky couldn't help but shake the feeling there was something amiss...

---

Not too long after breakfast, and even less so than the end of the conversation she had with her own shadow, Silhouette still hadn't found stable footing. That is to say, her mind could be a little bit more organized in the thought department. Emotionally, she felt lost. Despite what she said earlier to Shade, she wasn't entirely sure she really did want to get close to anyone. She wanted to rationalize it as just saying that to placate her own shadow, but then the realization that if it was her own shadow encouraging her to do this, then she must have subconsciously wanted to reach out.

So was she really being pressured, then?

Discarding a lifetime and a half of cold indifference was a process that one could not call 'simple'. Strong feelings and emotional attachment had never been necessary to her before. They would have been detrimental to her job, if anything. And if she were to be honest, since her purpose now was to ensure Veronica's will was carried out, they'd still be such.

Even still, it was clear that somewhere in her desired change from this life of monotony. And she would not just settle for any old change, either. Were that the case, she'd have long since let go and allowed her edgy dark side corruption to claim her. Given that she feared that sort of outcome, it was quite obvious that was not what she wanted. To her, that could only mean she wanted to try being more human, less machine. Even if that left the potential to be betrayed.

Although, to her, these matters were of significant importance, as was usual, she was snapped out of deep thought by external factors. Namely, Shade getting her to join this 'keijo' tournament. This was somehow supposed to be the start of her 'new self' or what have you, in that it was supposed to help her... 'form bonds' or something? Silhouette still wasn't sure how Shade came to such a conclusion, but nevertheless, her Shadow did indeed seem to think this would be the case. Besides, there was at least a gold coin in it for her, so there was that.

The assassin curiously watched the butt-tle between Penny and Kimble unfold, a spectator along with Shade. She took great interest in the unfolding events, taking note of each and every detail of the skirmish in an attempt to translate that to a better chance of her succeeding when it came her turn to step on to the stage. Though she did not exactly get many chances to betray this, Sil was definitely the competitive sort. As far as she was concerned, second place was the same as last place, no matter what. Not winning meant you lost, and if you lost, then you certainly could have done better.

So Samantha Howard watched this fight as close as a weeaboo inspects each episode of the anime adaption of his favorite obscure light novel or eroge. She monitored every aspect of the battle and its participants, every little detail there was. Not even a single follicle on their rear ends escaped her observation. Silhouette found herself enthralled by the display, and eager to see who would claim victory. Would it be Penny, or Kimble? The outcome seemed somewhat obvious, butt it was always possible for the cat to claw their self out from behind. Each second was thrilling. Sil was excited, all the way up until the end, where something abhorrent had taken place.

WHAT IS THIS BULLCRAP!?

She witnessed Kimble winning the battle. Because she had been so keen on details, Silhouette saw the end for what it was. The small but intentional movement Penny made to throw the fight did not go entirely unnoticed by Sil. It was not one she cared for. She even felt frustrated. How could someone just abandon victory like that? She wasn't sure. "I'll be back." Sil told Shade. "Get me when it's my turn." She left towards the juice bar for a drink right afterward.

Silhouette had begun sipping her drink by the time Penny appeared. As the girl sat down, Silhouette glanced at her direction. "How much are you getting paid to take a dive like that?" she asked plainly. She was curious and that was it. The disappointment and frustration were minimal, and didn't affect Silhouette too badly. Besides there wasn't too much reason to get too invested. She couldn't fathom any other reason than money, so that meant there probably wasn't any significant meaning or importance to it. Just money being made is all.

The measured walk here had done its job for Penny and the volatile mix of hurt, sorrow, and anger had been, for the most part, set aside in favor of resignation. She had been hoping to incite a reaction from Kimble, and she got one, just hadn’t expected the revelations that came with it.

“I’ll take a pitcher of ice” She ordered running a hand down her face before sitting down, yet before she could start to settle in a question had been sent her way. Turning she regarded the other girl at the counter with her “Greetings to you too Silhouette” Penny would reply dryly before shrugging and looking back to the television set in the wall behind the counter “One Gold for competing, and I get to maintain some dignity while helping out a friend” Came her equally dry answer, not bothering to try and hide the fact that she had thrown the match.

It didn’t surprise her that all that much that someone noticed, less that the one who did notice was someone who had tried to kill her once before. It did surprise Penny that they bothered to confront her about it though, regardless she was a bit drained emotionally at the moment. Shoving down heartbreak was never easy.

Silhouette didn't speak right away. She glanced over the mechanical shoujo with a mostly blank gaze, before turning back to her drink and taking another sip. Dry though in delivery, that answer was more than enough to placate Sil, who wasn't normally a very curious person when it came to personal matters. In fact, she was just about to get up and leave without another word, but she found her body not going through with the action, merely sitting there.

Hmm?

“Aren’t people supposed to look a lot happier when they help a friend?” she asked. The words left her mouth of their own volition. It was almost like she was possessed, but she was still actually in full control of her body. Perhaps it was just hard to accept she intentionally asked this.

Well, it was of no particular consequence, she swiftly concluded. There wasn’t exactly any sort of risk in doing so. She imagined the worst-case scenario being Penny ignoring or brushing her off, so it wasn’t really any skin off her bones. Still, even bothering with this was far beyond what was the norm for her.

“You know what they say” Penny would respond with a sigh as her pitcher of ice was placed down in front of her. “No good deed goes unpunished” She snagged one of the top pieces of ice and simply squeezed it between her fingers the frozen cube shattering near instantly.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have helped her out” She explained as she went on, glad to have a willing ear for the moment “Just learned something that I wasn’t expecting, and that’s what has me down” She picked up another ice cube, and crushed it much the same way she had the first one.

“Have to say I’m surprised that you confronted me about it. Any particular reason why?”

Given the apparent effect it had on Penny, it seemed as though Silhouette wasn't paying attention to the most important part of the battle. Who could blame her for focusing entirely on the physical aspect of the battle, though? Naturally, she was entirely ignorant of the discussion.

"..." Silhouette looked down at her half-full glass, but did not end up doing anything with it. "Can't say I blame you. I imagine I come off as someone who normally wouldn't confront people about things like this. And that's certainly true -- I wouldn't." she began, gaze unmoving. "But I had taken an interest in that contest, strangely, and felt a bit disappointed by how your fight ended. Not enough so that I'd go out of my way to find you, but since you wound up here with me, I figured I'd see what that was all about." finally, she took another drink from her glass. "I will admit that you gave me a rather odd answer, though. Mood-altering revelations aren't what I'd expect in the middle of a keijo battle."

“Wouldn’t have pegged you as a Warrior” Penny gave the mahou next to her a long look before turning her attention back to her pitcher of ice as she pulled out another cube “Good to know, but you were never going to get an interesting show from me when it came to Keijo, hell yesterday I nearly swore it off entirely. The upcoming water gun fight is a different story though”

“As for the revelation, well that's one of the dangers of competing against allies” she would quip, slowly grinding the ice down rather than outright crushing it. “Though I doubt Kimble knows that she has given me one” She sighed “Only one other might know, but I have my doubts that they care” A shrug followed, along with Penny picking out another piece of ice to grind away.

"You don't get that sort of impression from me? How strange." Sil wondered what Penny thought she was in that case. Well, it was true she didn't exactly bring up the stereotypical image of a warrior. But she wasn't too keen on ditching her top, gaining bulk, and wielding an axe, so she obviously wasn't too concerned. "I guess our definitions of that word differ."

The fact she seemed rather unenthusiastic about partaking of the sport was somewhat disappointing, but if anyone, Silhouette could relate. Were it not for the gold coin(s) promised and an incredibly pushy shadow, she would have been unlikely to give the game a second glance. That water gun fight, on the other hand. "Guess we'll see each other at the water gun fight, then." she downed what was left of her drink before the conversation moved on to the more personal matter.

"Oh?" sounded to Sil like her situation was relatively complicated. Or maybe it wasn't? Sil's lack of experience in this regard made it hard to really deduce the severity, so she couldn't properly empathize. But at least she knew there was something of moderate importance going on behind the scenes of that match. "So this unintentional revelation involves a third party? Sounds rather rough, whatever it is." she mulled over what it might truly be, but all she could think of was a love triangle like you might find on a movie catered towards women. Sil doubted it was something like that, but it was a rather entertaining thought. "Do tell me if I'm getting too nosey, but did you intend on confronting the other person, whomever they were?"

“You just seemed more like a Collector or a Builder to me” Penny replied with a shrug as Sil mulled over the answers she had given, taking a moment to ponder over her own willingness to actually talk to Silhouette. Eventually deciding that in the end it was likely similar to the reason she had tracked Veronia down, she would be seeing more of the Assassin in the future. No reason not to be amicable to her.

The next question posed to her took a bit longer for Penny to reply, and she was careful to only grab the ice as she rolled the thoughts in her head around, as most of the ice she picked up was crushed instantly “No” Came the answer “I.. I’m not too surprised really. Plus bringing it up would just make things uncomfortable between us” She would explain a bit before shrugging “It’s nothing that I can’t get over either, more just a shock to the system than anything else” She half lied. She could get over it, but it was a fair bit more painful than just a simple shock to the system.

“I see.”

Silhouette wasn’t sure what to make of that. She was playing it off as something relatively minor, but there was a feeling it might have been more than that. But it was not Sil’s place or in her interest to bother too much with that. The fact Penny said anything at all to Sil was definitely more than she could really say she expected, what with the fact they’d swapped limbs a while back. Most people hold a grudge after a life-or-death fight. “Well, I will not pry any further.” she told Penny, leaning back into her chair. “I will say something, however. Despite your ongoing relationship with Veronica, it surprises me to see that you did not immediately turn me down. I’m not one to sing my own praises, but up until our encounter, there was only ever one person to engage me in battle and not perish. I always imagined that if it did happen again, that the next person would be a fair amount more hostile in the next encounter than you are being at the moment.”

Sil spoke with feigned indifference in her tone. Most of her words landed how she desired them to, but, perhaps ironically, a bit of arrogance laced her words when she spoke about not singing her own praises. She certainly had a bit of pride, even if she otherwise pretended not to. “Well, I do understand your ongoing relationship with Veronica influences this.”

“Veronica does have a bit to do with it” Penny would agree as she rested her elbows on the counter top, still absently picking away at her supply of ice cubes “But I don’t really hate people anymore. Regardless if they are the ones I’ve killed or if they have tried to kill me, hate doesn’t appear.” She went on to explain her gaze reflecting somewhere in her past “Almost certain it has something to do with my prolonged lack of humanity, or perhaps something with how I was drafted in to the community, but hate and a few other emotions just don’t stick for me anymore. Only person I’ve hated in the last while was Elroy, and my hate for him stopped with his death.” She gave a simple shrug, it was something Penny had just grown to accept about herself. Still she knew what her own triggers were when it came to developing a black hate for someone, and she knew better then to advertise what they were.

“Anymore? So then this apathy was not always there? Interesting.” Sil mused. It made sense when she thought about it. Not everyone was as… detached from their emotions from the get-go like Silhouette had been. Drastic changes in personality from their human lives to their lives as a superior being should be a given.

“I take it you don’t harbor any hard feelings yourself, considering I’m pretty sure I destroyed your shoulder when we fought”

“You would be correct. It would be disingenuous to claim I did not experience fu--” Sil caught herself, and immediately cleared her throat. “--er, frustration when dealing with an unexpected obstacle. I also do not enjoy losing limbs, either. But what’s done is done, and judging by your attitude, you did not appear before me back then with the specific intention of fighting me, so we simply had a conflict of interests at the time. So long as you see things roughly the same, then I don’t see any reason to act in a harsh way towards you, so long as we have no particular need for conflict.”

Penny let out a snort at Silhouette's verbal stumble, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, knowing easily what it was the other girl had been about to say, but regardless, would nod her agreement to the description of their current standing. ”Works for me”

“Also, I wouldn’t call it apathy” The mechanical girl would move on picking out a few more ice cubes to crush “I‘m not distanced from my emotions, they just work differently most of the time.” She would try to explain “I do have an apathy setting though, leads to something much worse when it gets flipped however.” She would shrug afterwards, not really caring if Sil understood or not.

Silhouette thought that that was a weird thing to say, but then remembered who she was speaking to. Having been present at the Graveyard, she understood that that wasn’t the worst of it. “Is that so?” she eyed the empty drink she had. “Sounds troublesome.”

“It is what it is.” Penny would comment with a shrug “Considering your... Competitive nature I take it your going to be participating in a match?” She asked gesturing towards the screen that was displaying the current Keijo match.

The assassin’s red eyes darted back to Penny. “Things turned out that way.” she sighed. “Though I wouldn’t say it’s because of my ‘competitive nature’ as much as I’d say it’s because a certain idol somehow managed to convince me it’d be a bigger pain not participating.” She explained to Penny, pretending there wasn’t a different reason for her participation. “Still, the reward is well above what I’d expect out of something like this, so I suppose I’ll do what I can. Though I don’t believe I can buy coffee with it, two gold coins is still nothing to scoff at.”

“Somehow I doubt you’re the only one whose gotten roped into participating.” The mechanical girl would say picking out another pair of ice cubes, wondering which Idol it was that could push Sil into Keijo. “But I agree the rewards is rather a good incentive. The second gold just required more than I’m feeling like giving. Still, depending on who your up against, I’ll try and root for you.”

“And is there a reason you like coffee so much?”

Because my FC is Joker who lives in a cafe that is known for its good blend so lmao

“You learn to love it if your life depended on it like mine did.” Sil responded, her lips slightly turning upwards into a smile, presumably because she was thinking about that which she held dear. “I was never allowed to have my internal clock settle because my schedule, back when I was just a normal person, was never consistent. Early mornings, late nights, all-nighters. To try to do so in a mortal body like that was suicide, so it fell upon coffee to accompany me through that hell.” she did speak as though she was reminiscing about an old war buddy, or something of that nature. “Helps that it’s a rather mundane and nondescript thing to favor. All sorts of people enjoy coffee, after all. Businessmen, athletes, teachers, police officers. Kept me from standing out, which is something I tend to prefer.”

Sil, perhaps realizing she speaking a lot more than was typical, cleared her throat. “I suppose I enjoy the taste quite a bit, as well.” she said, pretending that she did not need to intentionally stop herself from going on about it.

Penny couldn’t stop a small smirk from forming at Sil’s explanation, more so because it was perhaps the most emotive she’d seen the rather stoic girl. “You’ll have to show me where to get a good cup in Penrose sometime” She’d say offhandedly “Used to drink it back before, but it just doesn’t taste the same anymore”

Samantha nodded. "Assuming circumstances allow us, I wouldn't be averse to doing so." she agreed. With them having spoken for a good few minutes, Silhouette imagined it was nearing the time when Shade would come retrieve her. She did not bother to order another drink as she waited.

“...and I think that’s everything.” Alexander handed the paper to the dolphin to check.

Dan took the offered papers and looked through them “Yep, these look fine to me. I got to say, I’m not surprised to see a guy like you signing up for Keijo” Dan said with a smugly raised eyebrow.

Alexander sighed “You’re actually going to give me crap about this? Come on, it’s an entire gold coin, and all I have to do is play a round of this sport, why wouldn’t I sign up for that? Do I really look like that much of a greedy asshole?”

Dan just looked at him for a few seconds before responding with “You...you’re serious? Wow, okay, I have no idea how to respond to that.” He shook his head “Anyway, it might take awhile, since I think that most of our guests have already played an exhibition match, so there might not be anyone else willing to play, just as a heads up.”

“And I don’t suppose I still get the coin if no one else signs up?”

“Nope”

“Fuck!”

Shion finally reached the sign-up location for Keijo. “This is the place where we sign up for that gold coin game, right?”

“Looks like you lucked out.”

Alexander sighed in relief “That’s a relief. Yeah, this is the place. I’m just waiting for someone else to sign up for a 1v1 so I can play.”

Dan then held out a signup sheet to Shion.

”That’s perfect then.” Shion took the sheet and filled it out. ”So when do you want to do this?”

“As soon as possible” Alexander answered

“The arena can be ready in about a minute.” Dan supplied

”Sounds good.” Shion sat down to wait.

---

Not long after that, both contestants found themselves in the arena, staring each other down as they waited for Dan to signal for the match to begin. Surprisingly, a fair amount of people were here already. ‘Wow, they work fast. How did all these people find out about it anyway, were they just already here? It’s a shame that Lily’s in a bad mood, I feel like it would be nice to have her here.’

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a very special match; the battle of the sexes!” Dan began. “In this corner, we have the Bitter Bodyguard, the Salty Savior, the Knight in Sour Armor himself; Alexander Shields!!!”

“Why do you sound like you want to eat me!?” Alexander yelled at Dan

“And in the other corner, we have… Who are you again?” Dan asked.

”That’s about the response I expected, yeah. Anyway, you ready to bash butts, Alexander?”

Alexander cracked his knuckles “Oh, I’m going to do far more than bash butts” After saying that, he felt a sudden wave of killing intent from the audience

“Don’t worry folks, he’s not thinking about what you are, trust me” At Dan’s words, the KI quickly vanished

“What!? What did I do!?” After a few seconds of not getting an answer, he just signed and mumbled “Girls...they make no fucking sense.” he cleared his throat and said “Alright yeah, let’s get this started.”

“You heard them folks, it’s time to SLAM JAM!!!” Dan cried

With the word given, began pumping Beast and Reinforcement Magic through his body, making his fluffy ears appear “This is going to feel so weird” he said before rushing at Shion”

“And Alexander is starting strong with a Rush Down! Despite his defensive skill set, he’s shown in the past to have a more aggressive fighting style. Let’s see how he applies it to Keijo!” Dan commented.

Shion stared down the rushing boy, standing still with her arms crossed until the last moment before using her Magnetism magic to launch herself into the air, flipping over his head and attacking with her butt when she landed.

“A counter!”

Alexander fell to his knees, but managed to keep from falling “I knew it; this just feels so awkward. What I want to do is just make a huge wall and use it to push you off, but I don’t think that’s going to work. It’s like I’ve got to unlearn how to fight.” Taking a deep breath, he stared at her for a few seconds, trying to come up with some kind of plan.

“Poor Alexander, I can feel his tart frustrations from here”

Alexander tuned him out as he got to work. He quickly applied a large half circle barrier around the ring behind him, and then began to slowly walk to Shion

”Unlearn how to fight? You’re totally wrong there. You need to use your whole body in a fight, especially controlling your movement and weight, which is all this is really.” With that, Shion ran toward Alexander and jumped to the side right before colliding with him, running along the wall with her Magic to get behind him before jumping off towards him butt-first for an attack. ”He who hesitates is lost!”

Acting on instinct, Alexander threw up a quick barrier. Because he didn’t have enough time, Shion was able to break through it, but at the cost of her momentum. Acting quickly, Alexander rushed at her chest first, while also taking down the barrier wall

“And a spicy combo from Alexander. Despite his rather underwhelming start, he’s putting up a tough fight. Things are starting to heat up in here!”

Shion flew backwards and found herself barely still standing on the platform when she landed. Hmm… Is it worth it to keep this up? This isn’t the tournament yet, so… With that thought in mind, she ran towards Alexander and slid as if to go under his legs, but used her magic to propel herself upwards at a right angle from her feet, slamming her chest into Alexander’s like a hammer.

“What an impact! What a crunchy attack from Alexande-”

“ARE YOU PLANING ON EATING ME YOU-” Alexander’s rant at Dan was cut short when Shion crashed into him, sending him off the ring and into the water.

“...uh. We have a winner! And...maybe I should be more careful with my commentary in the future”

Alexander reached the edge of the pool “Fucking dolphan.” He mumbled “I swear, if I wake up at night to see you above me with a knife and fork, I will stab your brains out!”

“Epp! Understood”

”Whoa. Wasn’t expecting that to work. Oh well, not important.” She jumped off into the water and swam to the exit, shouting as she got there. ”Good match, dude!”

Alexander held up a lazy hand in response “Yeah, same!” He got out of the water and shook himself off “At least I’m getting paid for this.”

Cindy had watched the recent match of Penny versus Kimble on a television fitted to the cafe, and thus knew of the outcome by the time it was time for the next match. She spent some time talking with Sylvia, and happened to notice that Penny was looking at her after her previous conversation. “Ah, hello there Penny. Would you care to join us for a drink or two?” She offered with a friendly smile while sitting by the counter. “I can pay for you if you don’t have enough magical coins.” Sylvia nodded. “Oh, this is excellent timing; I need to go talk with Kimble, so Penny here can keep you company. Until we meet again.” And with that, the silver-haired girl left the bar, leaving the two in a cozy corner of the establishment. “So, what would you like to have?”

Penny pondered over the invite for a moment, she had been looking at the two of them out of surprise more than anything, not expecting anyone from Beacon to have a chat with Cindy. Regardless she shrugged before moving to to join Cindy in her corner.

Penny had no reason to turn down the offer, and she had been wanting a chance to apologize to the lightning based monster girl for how rude she had been when they first meet. Still the day was proving itself to be an interesting one for the robotic monster girl, as she had just spent a fair bit of time chatting with an Assassin and now it seemed she was going to be doing the same with a Queen.

Quite the turn of events so far.

“I’m just taking ice” Penny would reply, holding up her pitcher of mostly crushed, and mostly melted, ice for emphasis. “So don’t worry paying for mine” After turning down the offer for a drink she’d reach in and grab up one of the larger pieces of ice that still remained and start to grind it down slowly with her fingers.

“Before we move on I wanted to say sorry. I was kinda short with you last time we met, it had been a rough morning but that’s no excuse.” Penny said with sincerity, as she did feel bad about it, but one could tell her heart wasn’t fully in it as she was still drained from forcing her emotions down earlier.

Cindy nodded, and gestured for Valerie, a couple of coins extending between her fingers.. “She will be having a pitcher of ice.” Valerie sighed, rolling her eyes in mild irritation, but then conjured a bright smile. “Coming right up! Whatever our customer wants...even if it’s ice...” she muttered to herself as she went to the back. Cindy turned back to listen to Penny’s apology, and lifted an eyebrow in slight doubt. “Your apology...Is accepted. I admit, I understand how such feelings, as passionate as they can be, can lead one to act rashly.” She circled her index finger around the ring of her cup. “But it seems you have moved on, so we will leave it at that.” She smiled courteously. “So, have you considered my offer?” She would ask as she sipped on a straw. “We could use a strong fighter like you among our people.”

Penny let out a slight chuckle. It seems that no matter the time or place politics was always going to be just around the corner for her. “I’ll admit; not really, but to be fair it’s not because I’m uninterested. I just think it’s rude to accept help from someone just to bail right afterwards. Beacon helped me get out from under my prior Patron, bastard that he was, and membership with them was one of the conditions, something that I wasn’t opposed to.” Absently she picked out another cube of ice to crush as she spoke “I’m more than willing if it comes to helping you and yours out, but I can’t say I know you well enough that I would be willing to just abandon Beacon after they helped me out like they have” To say nothing about the ever growing tangle of deal’s, affiliations, and groups Penny was wrapped up in.

Cindy nodded, and took a sip of her drink. “So it is a matter of trust,” she stated, and happened to glance at Valerie who returned, a big bowl full of small ice cubes in one hand, and a glass of juice in the other. “Here you go; ice, and a free drink on the house. Please give it a try,” she added, before bowing courteously and heading back to work. Cindy made an amused giggle. “That poor girl thinks the problem is with the selection, when clearly you just want something to sublimate with your bare hands.” Her smile seemed to be genuine, though it changed to a frown as she looked at the cup before her.

“From what I have gathered, the Beacon has changed it’s stance on hunting corrupted girls, but have not eliminated the activity completely. They have a history of committing genocide on innocent people, and will do so as soon as they run out of scapegoats to blame. However, unlike the Puchuu who would cower behind their slaves, I am willing to take action against injustice, and ensure peace within Penrose. That is my duty, as leader of Penrose. Penny, are you truly happy with those people?” She then asked, having place a hand on the table. “Do they respect you, and treat you as an equal? Or do they actually see anything else but an abomination or freak, sent to die first on the frontlines so that proper magical girls have a better chance of survival?”

Penny was quiet as she considered Cindy’s word and despite her face remaining calm a red glow would start to emanate from her eyes until she let out a sigh and dropped her head into her hands. “It’s not just wanting to break something, but also the fact that I just don't trust the Dolphin” She would stall before lifting her head to look at Cindy as she spoke.

“Happy?” She would echo before bobbing her head side to side “With the work, mostly. With the people? A few are good people and some are good friends, their tech department even helped me improve my legs” She added with a small smile, which hardly lasted before she had a frown of her own “But respect and equal? Something tells me you already know the answer to that one. The really sad thing is that I’ve been on the receiving end of a pitch like this one before” She let out a sigh as she grabbed a handful of ice crushing it easily “It still rings just as true now, as it did then. Back then I made a stupid mistake and I’m not feeling up to doing so again” The Black Coin deal was still the most idiotic thing Penny had felt she had done.

“So” She would add before Cindy could reply “Rather then jump head first in to it, I’m kinda curious as to what exactly you’d be having me do.”

Cindy clasped her fingers together, and leaned back on her seat. “As a matter of fact, I do have a job that would require your help. However, as you have stated, I would first like for us to get to know each other better. Not just in social terms, but also in how we operate.” She took a sip. “There are many monster girls in Penrose who are, by all intents, homeless. They are afraid of settling in to any single spot due to the threat of Beacon looming over the populated districts. One of my first imperatives has been in the building of safe and comfortable shelters. Unfortunately we don’t have many Metal specialists in our forces.” She then smiled. “But you are a Metal specialist, yes? I hear you have even constructed a walking fortress.”

At this revelation Penny couldn’t help but shake her head and laugh softly. “Yeah I’m a Metal girl, also have Lightning Spec.” She would confirm “But I haven't built a walking fortress, but I did earn a rolling one. Earth Bastion, it’s the titanic battle ship you might have seen off the shore. It’s mine, and I mean mine. Not sure how but it’s bonded to me, not loaned out through a patron.” She would say as she leaned back into her chair a smile starting to form for the first time since she entered the bar “And if you want to set up shelters you’re going to want to start near the abandoned factory district on the west side. Most full monsters have learned to avoid the area, and it’s far outside of Beacon’s normal patrol paths. Plus a lot of the building there share piping between them, old oil pipes I think, so some of them have built in bolt holes if needed or an easy way to move around between the buildings”

“I know all of this” She would continue her smile just widening even as she snagged a few more cubes of ice to grind away at absently “Because it’s where my Lair is. Which I just so happened to have spent the last week and a half renovating to turn it into a Sanctuary for destitute Dark Magical girls and Monster girls.” Penny's smile was nearly smug as she explained, but the earnest look in her spoke to her joy at this turn of events “So as I said, I might not be up to joining you just yet. But I am more than willing to work alongside you, especially for this.”

Cindy clapped her palms together; a radiant smile was on her lip, and a warm, crackling glow colored her cheeks. “Oh, that was yours? I assumed it was a battleship Dan had made to prevent escape over the seas. I any case, this news is most excellent.” She leaned towards Penny, having offered her a hand. “I look forward to you working for us, but…” She seemed to be in thought.”Do you accept a Red Coin as payment?” She happened to ask, and took one of the ice cubes from her bowl and put it in her drink. “I would like to show my appreciation for what would be a contracting job in the human world.”

Penny accepted the offered hand still smiling “I haven't bothered trying escaping with it, something tells me all I’d find is endless water or would just wrap around back to the other side” She’d explain before sitting back to ponder the payment. It wouldn’t take long before she shrugged “Sure, I’ve seen the results of a Red before sounds like a decent payment.” It was something that Penny had wanted to get a hold of before her encounter with the White Coin. At the moment there was still something that the Red Coin might be able to help her with but all together it wasn’t something that Penny wanted as strongly as before. Still never know when one might need an Ace up their sleeve.

Cindy stood up, and offered a hand to Penny. “Wonderful. Then we are in agreement. Once we are back in Penrose, I will send workers to the location you have specified and begin working. Now, I must be off; the next Keijo match is about to begin, and I must admit, I am intrigued to see more of this ludicrous sport.” She then left the cafe, having paid for their drinks to Valerie on her way out.

“See ya round” Penny would call out as Cindy left before settling in. Letting out a quiet sigh as she let her thoughts drift back to why she had wanted to come here in the first place. Unsure for how long she would have her solitude she started to try and work through her internal issues.

But first “Could I get some more Ice please?”

Lily watched as Alex had his Keijo match with Shion, and waited for Alex to leave the building before she approached him with a wave of her arm.
“Hey Alex. That was a great match,” she complimented her, sounding more reserved than her usual spastic mannerisms.
“I was worried there for a moment when you fell into the water. Looks like we both lost...Not that it’s a good thing, heh.” She glanced away while biting her lip, and then took his hand.
“Could we go somewhere? I know of this one beach that’s not that popular. I’d like to talk...Just the two of us.” She looked nervous, and fidgeted a bit as she looked around to ensure nobody was eavesdropping on them.

Alexander raised an eyebrow, a little worried at how...low energy Lily seemed to be “Sure, that’s fine. Are you alright, because you seem...off. Does this have anything to do with...whatever that thing in your match was? You got upset enough to go into your berserk mode, and the last time that happened was when the stomach shanker got me, so I was kind of worried about you.”

Lily simply nodded, and without further ado, began leading Alex away. After some time, the two reached their destination: a lone strand of sand tucked away at an untouched corner of the islands. Lily took a deep breath, savoring the salty breeze that drifted from the sea, and turned to look at Alex, her hands clasped together.
“Alex...The reason I lost control again...It’s because of something that happened a long, long time ago.” She averted her eyes.
“Before I was a magical girl. It was...six or seven years ago...maybe. I was in high school back then, and...bullied.” She looked down at a lone hermit crab scuttling away.
“Sounds really cliche, I know, but these girls were mean. I think it’s because I refused to do their homework one time that they wanted to torment me. Well, I wasn’t super smart or anything, I just happened to get an A one time because I worked hard for it...” She realized she was rambling, and put a hand to her mouth.
“Sorry, I’m throwing a lot of stuff at you when it’s only my problem.”

Alexander shrugged “Eh, I don’t really mind. I’m pretty sure lending an ear when you need to vent is kind of my job as your boyfriend...at least I think I’m your boyfriend. Not sure how long you have to be dating to be boyfriend and girlfriend-and I’m getting off topic” He shook his head “The point is; I don’t mind if you need to vent, so go ahead and talk my ear off.” The idea of Lily having been bullied both enraged and bewildered Alexander ‘I just can’t see Lily letting people push her around. But man does the thought of it make me want to punch people.’

Lily managed a small smile when she listened to him.
“That’s sweet Alex, thanks..” The two walked along the shoreline as Lily continued relating her bad experiences, until the topic shifted to something that caught Alex’ attention.
“And then, there was Chad. He was a boy I had a crush on...And Heather learned about it. One time, I received an invitation to a party, with his signature.” She stopped walking, and sat down on the beach, holding her knees.
“It was a trap. Chad never sent me an invitation; it was a fake one Heather planted to humiliate me. And there, as Chad was watching, the girls confronted me, saying horrible things and then pushing me into the pool.” A couple of tears formed in her eyes as she shook, struggling with her trauma.
“I ran away from home that night. I couldn’t go back home; I couldn’t see the shamed look on my parents’ faces.” She paused for a moment, recollecting her feelings.
“I remember just wandering, looking as people passed by. Then, I wished, for more than anything else, to move on with my life, to be free and pursue my dreams. That’s when I heard Ixion’s voice.” She wiped her tears.
“He offered me a chance to let go of my old life and become the heroine I always wanted to be. So...Not as glamorous a beginning as comic books have, huh?” She asked, looking in Alex’ direction.

Alexander sat down beside her “I’m an orphan who got cornered in an ally by some cannon fodder monsters and needed Sol to lend me some power to not die. I mean, you remember how hopeless I was at actually fighting back then, and even so once I got my magic I was easily able to kill the monsters that had almost killed me before. At least you had some traumatic incident first, I almost got wasted by bottom of the barrel mooks. Although if I were you, I probably wouldn’t have left without breaking at least one of their noses. In my experience, anger and rage are great for dealing with depression. Just channel all those sad thoughts into frustration, and you can let it all out much faster and without any of the lingering resentment that depression comes with. Kind of like what you did in the match; now that I understand that shakespeare girl was someone who bullied you, your response makes so much more sense. ” He took a deep breath and let it out “It feels so good to get all of that out at once, doesn’t it. All that stuff weighing you down gone, just like that. There’s nothing else quite like it.”

Lily nodded occasionally as she listened to Alex’ tale, looking sad upon hearing how rough his life has been as well.
“I’m sorry to hear that...” She mumbled at some point. Gradually, as he gave her advice on how to resolve her emotions, she smiled...Until her Keijo opponent was mentioned. She shook her head, looking upset.
“No, she wasn’t! I just...She just happened to look like Heather, and...I got anxiety issues again. I was afraid she might attack me. But she’s actually a nice person. I made an assumption based on first impressions...I’m terrible.” She put her hands to her face, and made deep breaths as she resisted the urge to cry. She lowered them, and looked at the little fish swimming near the surface of the water.
“But you’re right, it did feel a lot better than when I kept that stuff bottled in. Maybe went a bit overboard with it.” She drew a circle in the sand.
“But talking about it...It’s a big help.”

“...Maybe try limiting your physical venting to appropriate or willing targets in the future.” Alexander suggested “But that does explain why you always seemed to have some kind of beef with her. I mean sure, her speaking in shakespearean english is unnerving, but thinking back, you seemed to have some kind of personal grudge against her. Speaking of her;-” Alexander turned to face Lily “-What’s this about ‘stealing me’ and why did I just hear about it in the match? Attempted kidnappings aren’t the kind of thing you keep secret. Granted, with everything I know now, It probably was a misunderstanding or something. But still, I need to know these kinds of things.”

Lily drew a star inside the circle.
“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” She blushed a bit as Alex brought up a new topic, and blinked.
“It’s...Not a kidnapping thing. At least, not usually.” She turned her eyes to look at Alex.
“At first, I just went from town to town, fighting off monsters, saving people, but ever since I met you, it all changed. You gave me a reason to stay in Penrose. You’ve saved me from villains, tolerated my dumb stuff...” She slowly reached for Alex’ hand.
“So I was afraid...another girl might try to turn you against me, and then you’d leave me.” She inched a bit closer to her.
“But now I know that you’d never do that. You’re a kind person, Alex. Thank you for staying with me.” And then, she kissed Alex in the cheek, before blushing and going back to drawing shapes in the sand.

When Lily’s lips touched his cheek, it felt like that part of his body had just been sprayed with fire, yet was somehow pleasant. It took him a little while to get his mind back in working order “I should be thanking you; you’re the first person I had any kind of emotional connection to. The closest thing I had before was unspoken agreements with other kids in the orphanage to beat each other up as a way of venting our shared frustrations. Not even my parents made me feel anything like the way you do. I’m...grateful that you were able to put up with me. I know I’m not easy to be around, and that I’m kind of an asshole, so...thanks.” Not sure what to do next and acting on pure instinct, Alexander extended an arm out and pulled Lily into a side hug ‘She just kissed me, so this is alright...right?’

Lily froze when Alex got close, surprised, but not rejecting the closeness. “Oh!” She smiled, and leaned her head against his shoulder, taking in a breath of relief.
“You can be a bit grumpy at times...But that’s because you actually care.” She stayed still, listening as the waves swooshed upon the sand, as happy as can be.

After some time passed, Lily stood up, a wide smile on her face.
“Would you like to go and spectate some of the other matches? I’d like to cheer my friends on, so they can all do their best~”

Alexander, not really caring one way or the other, just shrugged and said “Sure. It really is a weird sport. I know my match felt awkward, consider how much I had to alter my approach to fighting.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot more strategy to it than you’d think,” Lily replied in a ditzy fashion, having missed the point. “I bet if Amaryllis fought against Alicia, she would find a way to counter the light magic...” She continued babbling on about Keijo as the two went off.
“Oh, but maybe Alicia is matched against Kimble! Wouldn’t that be really exciting!”

As Lily babbled on, A thought occurred to Alexander, one that surprisingly bothered him ‘I…don’t know any of these names. Why does that suddenly make me feel...cold?’ As he was lost in his own thoughts and Lily’s ramblings, his hand subconsciously grabbed Lily’s and held it tightly.

‘Today has been an interesting day’ Penny would muse to herself as she continued to work through the ice in her bowl, the free drink she had received still sitting innocently off to the side. She was still at the Juice bar, sitting in the same corner that she had had her conversation with Cindy. The TV set in to the far wall broadcasting the various Keijo matches had also been interesting, though Penny’s attention had hardly been captured by the absurd sport.

Still it had been curious to see Lily Redline and interesting to watch Alicia’s match, if only for all the ridiculous commentary and they had provided a good distraction at times for when Penny’s thoughts had gotten tangled up with her internal emotional issues. Especially Alex’s match.

Finding Penny had taken a bit of work. With everything that had happened on the island and all of the people, it was understandable that the two friends would not necessarily spend the entire time together. Nonetheless Alicia wanted to touch base and see how she was doing. Because that was what friends did for each other.

The confusion and slight nagging guilt over what had happened with Kimble last night was only a small part of it.

Fortunately Sylvia had been able to point her in the right direction, and she brightened up a bit as she entered the juice bar to find Penny with a bowl and a drink off to the side. ”Hey,” she said, waving as she took a seat next to her friend. ”I hope you haven’t been in here drowning your sorrows all day.”

“Hardly” Came Penny’s reply and accompanying eye roll “Keijo was interesting, but do you really think I care about it that much?” She asked dryly, picking out a cube of ice to slowly crush in between her fingers as she did. “Only been here as long as I have due to some of the conversations I’ve had the chance at” she would explain, which was true, after a fashion. She had originally planned on grabbing her pitcher of ice and then leaving after all.

Internally the disguised monster girl was uncertain about how she felt to see Alicia. Part happy due to being friends, part hurt due to Kimble’s words, part sad due to her own actions that likely caused such. But it was old hat at this point for her to simply act as if nothing had changed, so her conflict didn’t show.

”Ah, I see. Makes sense. I half expected you to be at the beach making and then destroying sand castles,” Alicia observed as Penny crushed an ice cube with her fist. So that worked instead of hard candy? Good to know. Wel, it was best to focus on the conversation, and not the small details.

Glancing over at the tv, she nodded in agreement. ’I can definitely agree about it being interesting. At least, moreso than I thought it would be”It said something, especially if she ended up coming back for another round. ”But hey, at least you’re getting out there. Meet anyone interesting the past couple days?”

“Nah, I did the sand castle thing yesterday” Penny would reply as she considered the question “No one that I didn’t know of before.” She would start “But I did have the opportunity to talk with Helga, she was one of the girls that helped out with the Castle assault, we talked a bit about Earth Bastion.”

She bobbed her side to side for a moment as she considered who else, absently grabbing another cube of ice as she did “Ran in to Mariette as well, she got dragged into the volleyball game I was in. Apparently she and Amaryllis know each other, got no idea how that one happened. Also learned that outside of magic she’s not got much going for her ”

Penny hesitated for a moment, as she contemplated mentioning Chloe but instead went with someone else “And just barely had a conversation with Cindy, seems she using the opportunity to network and head hunt. She offered me a place in her group, flattering, but I turned her down.”

”Oh no, how tragic. My heart bleeds for her, it really does,” Alicia replied, rolling her eyes as Penny described her encounter with Mariette. She supposed that it made sense they would be on the island, but some small part of her had hoped that she had been killed by another Horror or something.

Still, as long as she stayed out of sight it would be good enough. Otherwise she would go for a fight, Dan’s rules be damned.

Now, the mention of Cindy was more interesting, and it got her to perk up as she leaned forward with her hands clasped together. ”Oh, you did? What’s she like?” She couldn’t help her curiosity, not when it came to someone who had decided that they were just going to sweep in and claim dominion over the entire town.

“Confident” Penny would sum up “Which isn’t all the surprising really, one would have to be to pull what she did. Very to the point as well, didn’t stick around long after her sales pitch to me.” She would go on to say as she thought over just how little she actually knew about Cindy frowning slightly as she realized it was effectively nothing. “And I get the feeling she’s a bit antiquated” She would add recalling a bit from the Volleyball game yesterday before shrugging “Slyvia might be able to tell you more, She had her own chat with Cindy”

”Huh, maybe I will,” Alicia agreed. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Until they had to interact with her more it would be nothing besides passing curiosity anyways. ”Still, it’s good to hear. I’ve been meeting people as well, doing some of the many activities. I can’t say this island will bring any notions of universal magical girl sisterhood or whatever, but there are worse places to be stuck.

“I hear that. Still the chance to have a neutral ground to talk with some of the people here hopefully will make things easier over all” Penny would say as yet another cube met a crushing fate “That being said I’m about two, maybe three, days away from finding out how to leave. It is a nice place and all, but I just don’t trust the Dolphin.”

At that point Alicia had finally managed to get a drink for herself, something with mangoes though she wasn’t familiar on the specifics. But she would absentmindedly sip away at that while chatting, for as long as the drink lasted. ”I don’t think I’ve met anyone who is comfortable with him,” she observed aloud. ”I mean he’s probably not a Horror in disguise but someone is involved that has a lot of power at their disposal. And people like that usually have more than one agenda.”

“And that’s honestly why I don’t trust him” Penny would reply “As I keep telling people this place reminds me far too much of the Lotus Eaters to be comfortable.” Honestly there was a lot about this whole thing that set her on edge, but all of it had to do with her perspective on mythologies.

“Disregarding all of that” She’d start after shrugging off her paranoia “What other plans you have for the vacation?”

Alicia was only vaguely familiar on Lotus Eaters specifically, but there were plenty of stories in Beacon of monsters they had fought in the past who relied on deception to win the day. So she got the general gist of things. Still, worrying wouldn’t do them much good, at least right now.

She gave a small shrug when asked about her plans. ”Oh, nothing major in mind. Was planning to be in that water gun fight later, but beyond that? Maybe some surfing, making some s’mores around a fire, catching lightning bugs, that sort of thing.” She was willing to be flexible about it.

“Oooh s'mores sound good. You’ll have to let me know when you are planning on getting that set up” Penny nabbed a few more cubes from her nearly depleted bowl of them as she smiled at the prospect of a campfire get together. “I’m also looking forward to the Squirt gun fight, also sad that the ones offered at the shop arn't going to be allowed in the actual match.” She added with a pout, she really wanted to be able to use the Orbital water laser. Simply because it sounded so absurd.

“All together seems like we’ve got similar ideas for the days ahead, the only difference is I might be part of a stage show.”

Pleased to find that her idea was gaining a bit of traction, Alicia nodded in agreement.”I’ll be sure to do that. And yeah. I can imagine a few people who’d deserve that. But I guess this way it’s more about skill than anything else.” She was still confident in her chances of course. She might only have a bow but the principle of the thing was still the same.

Nonetheless, Penny was able to surprise her once again. ”A stage show?” Consider her interest piqued. ”What are you going to do?”

“Might” Penny would emphasize “Might be part of a stage show. As for what it would be I think it might be some sort of song and dance routine.” She’d answer before shrugging “Not really sure as it’s not my idea. One of the other girls asked if I would be willing to help them out and I had no reason to say no, plus I didn’t have any ideas for one so it’s an easy Silver.”

”Huh.” That was interesting, though Alicia supposed it made sense that it was her helping someone else out with their idea. Even if she didn’t know what she was going to be doing yet. ”Well, at least you’re not Sound spec. Otherwise I would assume they planned on having you be the world’s most efficient bass system.”

”That would have been interesting. Wonder if there is a way for me to pick up a sound Spec as well.” Penny would muse “Would be able to be a pretty effective one man band if I could.” She’d spend a few moments pondering over that particular fantasy, absently taking a handful of ice, before shrugging it off. “More likely I’m going to be a backup dancer or something” She’d offer now somewhat more curious as to what it was that Chloe was planning for her show.

Alicia shrugged, unsure as to whether that was possible. Someone with three Specs? She couldn’t say she had ever heard of such a thing. But they were magical girls, who was to say what was impossible?

She fell silent, slowly nodding as Penny answered. Her mind was beginning to drift from things besides Keijo and sports and this vacation, to other concerns. What had happened with Kimble remained, and now that she was here in this moment it brought some guilt swelling back up out of her. It took her effort to marshal her nerve, to prepare for what she had to say. Yet she had to bite the bullet for both their sakes.

“Hey,” she said at last. ”Being here and all of this, it reminded me of what you said before. We got distracted by the whole ‘my boss is actually a backstabbing jerk’’ thing, so I never actually answered you. So….I’m sorry about that.”

This time it was Penny’s turn to be surprised. “It was something of a hectic conversation” She would allow once she got past her surprise “Plus a lot happened right after as well.” She would continue on grabbing a few more ice cubes, these ones being shattered shortly after being picked up. “All things considered not that surprising, so don’t worry about it” She’d finish, not really sure if she was deflecting the need for an apology or accepting it.

In fact a large part of her was wondering if she wanted to actually go through with how this conversation was starting to turn. She had come to terms with Kimble’s revelation,
for the most part, somewhat, kinda, sorta, not at all
but the wound was still fresh and Penny wasn’t sure if she wanted to prodding it so soon.

Still Penny had stayed for the entirety of her own reveal of treachery, she’d stay for this.

”I know. I just felt bad once I realized,” Alicia explained. God, so busy dealing with monsters and saving the world and all that stuff, you really never saw the more mundane drama coming until it was smacking you right in the face.

She took a sip of her drink, about halfway done with it at this point. Penny said she was over it, but that kind of confession….you didn’t just walk that sort of thing off and pretend like it never happened. ”It’s weird, right? Awesome magical powers, battles to save the world, manipulating time and alternate dimensions and stuff like that, Makes you kinda forget that we’re all basically teenagers now and we can still go on dates and do romance stuff if we really want to. I know I did”

“It really is” Penny would agree as she reached for more ice only to learn that she had none left. She was very tempted to start breaking the bowl itself, but restrained herself and instead sat back and folded her arms. “Thought to be fair it's only been recently that the possibility has kinda been there.” She’d say in her own defense, as if she had still been with Laat she’d have to start thinking about packing up and moving again soon.

“Still trying to schedule out time to go on a date is something of a nightmare when you factor in everything that could go wrong” She’d say after a moment of thinking about it “Along with the other half dozen things that being part of the community makes harder to deal with”

This wasn’t the sort of conversation she figured she would be having with Penny of all people, yet here they were. She wasn’t sure how to directly broach the subject of Kimble and her confession, so this would have to do for now. ”Yeah, that’s the truth,” she agreed with a nod. Their experiences in the past few months had proven that often enough.

”Still, if you’re not worried about it then alright. I didn’t want to leave that thread dangling there, especially since I was in college before I became a magical girl. You know, endless possibilities and all that.” More of her drink vanished, the soothing coolness keeping her from finding herself overwhelmed by the situation at hand.

“I’m alright” Penny would say with an understanding smile “But I appreciate the thought” And she did. She just wished that it had occurred earlier. That it hadn't was likely her fault, she felt, after all she didn’t do anything either after her confession. Other then throw herself into work, but she could have done something right? Or was it that Ali-

“So what plans do you have today?” Penny would ask, forcing her thoughts away from the downward spiral they almost went on. Hoping that her white knuckled grip on her arms wasn’t obvious “Other then the next round of Keijo”

She didn’t feel the best about leaving it behind, but if Penny insisted that it was alright then there was no reason to doubt her, at least not right now. ”Other than that....I think there was something about a mini golf competition? I played a bit with Sylvia yesterday, and I’d like the opportunity to avenge my honor. But I might be off about the timing.” Which wouldn’t really work if Sylvia wasn’t playing, but it would make her feel better.

After a few moments she shrugged. ”Beyond that nothing in particular.”

A fair part of Penny was surprised at the fact that she had gotten away with lying flat out to Alicia’s face. She wondered if it was luck, or perhaps that Alicia didn’t have her sense active at the moment, and a small part wondered if Alicia did notice but just didn’-

“Mini golf?” She would say with a modicum of wonder “Haven't done that in years, didn’t realize they had a course here.” She’d tilt her head to the side in contemplation about how she had overlooked such a thing “Sounds intriguing, might check it out. Was planning on either surfing or jet skiing myself”

”Well, I can’t say I have many helpful tips, but it was definitely fun,” Alicia confirmed, oblivious to what she had let go unnoticed and unaddressed. She trusted Penny enough to not use her powers, for better or worse. ”Ah, I did a bit of that with Katarina yesterday. Turns out it gets a lot easier when you have wings to stabilize with.”

“Don’t think I’ll have many issues” Penny would be quick to reply with a smirk “Me and machines get along very well”

And thus they spent their time was spent chatting, joking, and making other vacation plans. But the topic of Kimble was left untouched thus the first crack in their bond unseen by Alicia and studiously ignored by Penny.

Only time would tell what this would lead too.

Kimble was moving along the beach on all fours, her face close to the sand; she had learned from stalking Alicia that she liked to collect seashells, and came up with a new idea to impress her.. “I’m going to find the prettiest seashell ever and give it to Mistress, nyah!” She spoke to herself enthusiastically, and kept combing the sand. Eventually, she found what looked like a small hole. “Maybe there’s one here...” Distracted by the scent of sunblock, she hardly noticed how she ended up peering into the keyhole of Hilaria’s swimsuit until she had placed a hand on her, causing her to jump in surprise. “Nyah! Sorry! I wasn’t watching where I was moving.”

“Ooo, watch those pointy bits.”

Hilaria did not display any embarrassment or signs of being upset, instead offering a kind smile to Kimble as she picked up a bottle of sunscreen that had dropped out of its hiding place. When she was finished, Hilaria smiled at Kimble. “Oh, that’s very alright.” she said, easily dismissing the accident. “These kinds of things happen sometimes.” the big... hearted magical girl patted Kimble on the back with perhaps a little more force than was comfortable. “You seem distracted. Hilaria wonders if something is troubling you. Do you need help?”

Kimble made a distressed meow when she was patted with slapping force, a little fang showing from her biting her lip. “Oh, Kimble was just looking around,” she answered with a smile as she looked up at the taller girl, taking the girl’s eccentric mannerisms in stride. “Kimble is glad that you don’t mind. You’re very soft!” She then blinked at the realization. Then, as if a light bulb was switched on, her eyes turned wide and ears popped from getting an idea. “Hey! Can you join Kimble in the next round of the Keijo tournament?” She took Hilaria’s hand, her tails waving behind her. “Kimble heard that most opponents work in teams, and Kimble is afraid she might lose and drop into the water by fighting alone, nyeh. But maybe if you’re there to save Kimble, Kimble can win and buy Mistress-Doll!”

“Keijo~?” the busty altruist raised a finger to her lips as she pondered what her answer would be, either oblivious to her copycat (heh) or simply not caring. This action, naturally, took all of 3 seconds before she came to a rather predictable conclusion. Clasping her other hand around Kimble’s, she beamed a smile to her newly acquired feline ally. “Of course! Hilaria would love to join you if you think she can help~!” she gleefully exclaimed, shaking Kimble’s hand. “In that case, Hilaria thinks introductions are in or--...” pausing, the girl’s expression slowly soured. “Oh, I suppose we don’t really need to do that, do we?”

Kimble nodded, causing her fluffy ears to flop. “Nyeah! I’m so happy to hear that!” She then giggled as Hilaria realized both have already introduced themselves. “Now come Hilaria, let’s go sign up!”

However, Kimble’s dreams would be shattered as she went to the arena.

“WHAT? Why nyot?” Kimble frowned before the arena’s reception desk as she looked a Dan’s shaking head. “Sorry, but Hilaria is not qualified to play as your partner, as she hasn’t played a first round match.” For a moment, Kimble’s eyes turned slitted, and she let a slight hiss, before she turned away. “F-Fine...” She then walked away, her ears drooping and tails dangling low.

Once outside, she sighed. “Nyeh...Sorry to have dragged you in like that, Hilaria. I didn’t really think about this.”

Hilaria was frowning, but shook her head. “Hilaria really wanted to save you from being pushed into the water during your matches.” she sighed. “If anyone should be sorry, it should be Hilaria, for not being qualified to be your partner.” the silver-haired girl spoke. There was little she could do about the situation, since she couldn’t participate. “What will you do, Kimble? Hilaria can’t join you, but perhaps we can find someone who can?”

Kimble gave a sad little smile, and nodded. “Nyeh...Maybe. I just hope it’s not too late. Well, maybe we should go to the cafe, and see if I can find someone else.” With that, Kimble began slowly walking with Hilaria. “Hilaria...” At one point she spoke up. “Have you ever liked someone a lot? I mean, so much that you would do anything for them?”

“Mmm~? Why do you ask?” Hilaria was confused by Kimble’s sudden question, and the topic was one she’d rather avoid. Yet she had no reason to lie to Kimble, either.. “Hilaria has lived a long time, so she's definitely felt that way before.” she answered, feeling a bit uneasy about the direction the conversation was headed.

Kimble nodded, looking surprisingly thoughtful for a catgirl traipsing around. “Can nyou keep a secret, Hilaria?” Kimble asked as she hopped on a few cobblestones.

There was a short pause as Hilaria entertained the idea of cutting Kimble off. She was confident she knew what was going to happen next, and for Hilaria, it was not a pleasant topic in the least. But the same could be said about any talk about relationships, and she had yet to help Kimble, so perhaps it was the least she could do. “Speak in confidence. It will remain between Hilaria and Kimble.” she said.

Kimble lifted up to her tippytoes, beckoned for Hilaria to lower her head, and she whispered to her ear: “I love Mistress.” Afterwards she blushed, and turned away. “She saved my life. And she has given me a nyanderful home. I was afraid she would reject me, but she instead wanted to get to know me! She has so many responsibilities, but she spared some of her time with me!”
She then stopped, seeing the cafe up ahead. “And that’s why I need to show Mistress I’m more than a pet! I can fight, and save others. I’ll be super reliable. That’s what she likes...I hope.”

Hilaria seemed somewhat troubled, but she had agreed to listen knowing that would be the case. “You must feel so elated, Hilaria thinks.” she spied the cafe as well. If they were lucky, someone who was able to compete would be free. “Reliability is a very good trait to have. Hilaria hopes you the best in your romantic endeavor…” she trailed off, but she was clearly about to say something else. Suddenly, she offered a smile. “But for now, let's get you a partner that can watch your back~”

“Thanks, Hilaria!” Kimble answered with a happy purr, and proceeded to enter the cafe with a swing of her tails. Valerie was leaning against the counter with her arms, watching the broadcast of a Keijo match between Lily and Amaryllis. However, she quickly turned to greet the two with a smile. “Welcome! What would you like to have? We have a sale on mango smoothies~”

Kimble nodded, placing a couple of coins on the counter. “Nyeah, that sounds good. But, umm...Miss Valerie, do you know about about the Keijo tournament?” She asked, to which Valerie shouted from the backroom: “Sure do!” Kimble smiled a bit.
“Did any of the winners come here recently?”
Valerie came back with a couple of glasses, and handed them over to the girls. “Winners, huh? Well, I do know that Sally won a match against a ghost girl. She’s right over there.”

She pointed with her thumb to the back, where Sally was sitting and watching the other TV display. “Oh, is something the matter?” Sally asked. “Hi Sally!” Kimble greeted her. “Could you join me in the next Keijo match? I’d need a partner since all the other winners have one...”
Sally shrugged. “Sorry, can’t help. Remember the island rule? It applies to the whole thing.”
“Nyehh...” Kimble’s ears drooped, and she sighed. “What will I do now? It’s hopeless,” she mumbled, and left the cafe, leaving her drink on the counter.

Hilaria couldn't stand to see someone she promised to help be so down. She left the bar along with Kimble, matching the girl's pace. "Hilaria is sad to see things turn out this way, but don't lose heart, Kimble~!" she gave the girl a soft pat on the shoulder. "This chance slipped out of your hands, sure, but it wasn't like you didn't try."

As they continued to walk towards a destination currently unknown, Hilaria thought back a very short while ago to when Kimble confided in her, and revealed her feelings. More importantly, the adorable expression of a lovestruck girl as she thought about the person with her heart resided. It definitely seemed genuine. It was also cute.

More importantly, though, was that in Hilaria's opinion, it was an expression only an ignorant person could make. A person who knew not of the risks that were associated with lending someone your heart. But even if it was something painful, it was definitely not her place to deny Kimble the ability to grow as a person because of it. And most people were adamant about not learning from other's experience. Hilaria thought to cheer the girl up, however she might be able.

"So," Hilaria spoke, having taken on a faster pace now, and was a few steps ahead of Kimble. "Kimble, you wanted to prove you could be reliable for the one you like, didn't you?" having made a decent lead against the feline, Hilaria turned to face her. "Then you should be happy, because this is a chance! At least in Hilaria's opinion, a person who can accomplish a goal in spite of hardship is a very reliable one~! Hilaria is sad that Keijo did not work out for you, but if that was the only way to prove someone could be reliable, then we'd be in trouble. We just gotta think of another way, is all~! Wouldn't you agree?" Cliche, perhaps, but most things were, to Hilaria. That did not mean the message she was trying to get across was any less true.

Kimble looked unsure at first, pouting at Hilaria. “Nhh...I guess you’re right.” She slowed down as the other girl moved before her, and then managed to smile at the pep talk. “You’re right, Hilaria.” Her ears sprung up. There’s always another way! That’s what Mistress taught me! But, what to do...”

It was at that point that the two heard an announcement from the arena’s loudspeakers: Alicia had been chosen as a finalist for the tournament. At first, Kimble couldn’t believe her ears, having realized she was not picked. “What! A secret rule? Dan’s not fair! But, huh? Mistress is going to the finals?”
Then, as if a flash of inspiration hit her, her eyes gleamed. “I knyow! I’ll make the biggest and prettiest flag ever, and wave it really hard! I’ll cheer harder than anyone else!” She took Hilaria’s hand, looking up at her with a serious expression. “Hilaria, can you teach me how to sew? I don’t know how, nyah.”

Hilaria was elated to see Kimble’s mood lightened, and the cat girl’s newfound goal was something she was confident she could help with. If there was anything the ancient magical girl could do, it was… well, a lot of things. She had the time. She was just happy that she could use her knowledge to help someone. “Hilaria would love to! She’s pretty good, you know~! She won't let you down again!” but then she remembered something. “But Hilaria didn’t bring any sewing supplies with her…” Hilaria’s smile dropped. “Do you think the store would have any?” she asked.

“Let’s go and ask, nyah!” Kimble responded with a happy cat smile, and began leading her once again.

”Fun Fun Fun!” Mika was bouncing up and down on the beach. Just a few feet away from her was a table with a half eaten sunday, with Rina sitting opposite of it. ”Hey Rina!” She ran up behind the girl and placed her hands on her shoulders. ”What did you wanna do next?”

She honestly didn't know what she expected, letting Mika have this much sugar. A few thoughts of 'adorable' and 'how the hell does she have this much energy.' came to mind. She herself, had opted for a fancy milkshake loaded with enough chocolate, whipped cream, and cherries to kill a small animal.

“Mmm...” She pulled the straw out of her mouth. She should think of something they could do together again, right? Something with a little less, uh, keijo. Mika was a sporty sort, right? She should be fine with physical activity, but then at the same time that seemed selfish to do something that only she'd have fun with. She was thinking to hard, wasn't she? “Probably just go back to my surfing or the jet-ski.”

”We should do that!” Mika was about to lean away when she froze. ”Wait, it sound like you’ve already done that a bit.” She snorted. ”Well alright, but if we’re going to do that, then how about we make it more interesting?” Mika slid her arms around Rina’s shoulders and hugged her. ”Surfing… With water guns!”

“Water guns?” Rina nodded, trying to ignore the cat hugging her. That wasn't actually a bad idea. “Huh...you know, that don't sound like a bad idea.” Surfing normally required a bit of finesse and paying attention to the water. Trying to balance that with a water gun contest of some sort would be interesting, to say the least.

“Alright!” Hopping up from her seat and stretching. ”So, we need water guns, and you need a surfboard.”

”I think I can get most of that stuff from the shop.” Mika released Rina and sprinted off towards the boutique. ”I’ll be back sooooooooooooon!” Her voice trailed off as she vanished from sight.

Rina watched Mika run off, slightly worried about what the cat might do, but ultimately decided worrying about it was gonna be bad for her health. So she got back in her seat, kicked back and finished her Milkshake.

---

When Mika returned, she was covered in shopping bags, and was carrying a surf board under each arm. There was also a plush of Dan the Dolphin emerging from the key hole in her swimsuit. ”Sorry I took so long! There was a lot of stuff!” Mika let the bags slide off of her arms and began pulling out the squirt guns one at a time.

The first item was a squirt gun. It didn’t look particularly special, but this was a magical island with a talking dolphin on it, so who knew what it was capable of. It did look like it had an impressive caliber for its size. Then there was a pump-action rifle, which was bigger still. Next one looked like a shotgun, only it was clearly made out of plastic and had bright, neon colors. The next one looked like a sniper rifle, complete with a long barrel and scope. The next two guns were so big Mika had to carry them on her back. It was a Gatling gun and a water balloon launcher. Both of which looked much more like their real world counterparts than the other water guns.

”Take what you want to fight with, and then we’ll par-lay!” Mika pulled the Dan plush out of her swimsuit and looked at it. ”And you can watch us from the beach!” She flattened out one of the gift bags and placed Dan on top of it, careful to point him towards the ocean.

Rina, by now, hadn't expected her to come back with anything less than this. In fact, if she did, she'd have thought the cat was sick or something. The weapons seemed all pretty nice. In fact, a few already caught her attention. The sniper looking one and the gatling gun.

“Well, I'll take these,” Rina swiped the Gatling gun, the Sniper, and Squirt gun. Seemed like a decent loadout, yea? Gatling gun for well...awesome points. Gatling guns were cool, yea? The Sniper rifle, her specialty, and a squirt gun for backup. “Right then...” She turned to Mika with a smirk. “I'll try to go easy on ya so I won't beat ya too bad.”

Rina took three guns, which left three for Mika. She slung the water balloon launcher over her shoulder before taking the assault rifle with her hands and the shotgun with her tail. ”I feel pretty good about my chances, actually!” She looked out at the ocean. ”Now we just need a wave. I heard there are some pretty large ones beyond the islands.” She took a few steps towards the water before stopping. ”And rules, uh….” Mika looked at Rina. ”I’m fine as long as you aren’t shooting anything at me aside from water. Beyond that, whoever stays on their board the longest wins!” She hopped. ”Anything else you want to add?”

All the conditions sounded good, fairly standard stuff. Only thing in quest was how good Mika's surfing abilities were. Oh, and one last thing. A small bet always made things more interest.

“Hmm...how about the winner treats the other to dinner?”

Mika tipped her head back in thought, but shook her head. “The guns were pretty expensive. I don’t think I could afford dinner after all of that.” waded waded into the water. ”You look like you could eat a lot if you wanted to. Too risky.”

Rina let out a mildly disappointed sigh. Wasn't like she could complain too much when she already bought all the water gun stuff. Hm.

“Alright.” Rina shrugged. “Guess I'll just-hey! I don't eat a lot!” But Mika had already sped off to meet the waves, and the archer was quick to follow Mika out. Splashing into the water atop her board, Rina swam out after her, and soon a wave was quickly picking up.

”Alright! We’re about to start!” Mika held onto her surf board as the wave came in. Once the water was moving them along, the feline magical girl rose to her feet. ”Oh, this is nice! I’ve never done this before!” Mika attempted to weave side to side on the giant wave, and seemed to have good stability. ”This is really cool!”

Mika had never done this before, huh?

“Having fun then?” Rina lowered her body slightly, surfing alongside Mika. “Remember this is a competition though!” As she sped past Mika, Rina moved up the wave, reaching the crest of it and almost getting a bit of air before pulling out the squirt gun, aiming a few blasts at Mika.

Rina was a true marksman. Even if her standard loadout didn’t include a pistol, she was a former police officer. It might have been difficult to steady herself on her surfboard, but Mika had just as much difficulty outmaneuvering her shots. Each pull of the trigger fired a “high caliber squirt” that zoomed towards her target. Each hit caused Mika to cry ”Ouch!” and duck a little lower on her board. While the water pistol was a magical water pistol, it was still a light firearm for a squirt gun fight.

Mika tried to take aim with her tail, but the shotgun proved to be too far away to do much. She got a single shot off which was quickly lost in the waves. She was unable to reload with just her tail. With a grumble, Mika pumped up her assault rifle before firing on Rina’s position. The bullets were similar in size to the water pistol, but the rifle allowed Mika to fire more of them just by holding down the trigger.

She hit her mark, but Mika wasn't so easily done. It'd be boring if she was! Grinning, Rina turned her focus back to the board as she prepared for a counter attack. She rode the wave upwards, her board cresting the crown of the large wave as she reached for her sniper rifle launching herself into the air above the wave, getting pelted with only a few blasts of water, but remained mostly undeterred as she quickly found her target and fired a round from the sniper towards Mika mid air before landing.

Even if it was just a squirt gun, the sniper rifle fired a high caliber, high speed projectile that few could hope to avoid. Certainly not Mika with her limited surfing experience. Her only recourse was to cover her head in a massive conch, courtesy of her beast magic. The shell helped diflect the water away from her head, but it still rocked the surfboard Mika was clinging to. ”Gotta get offensive!” The shell fell away from her head as mika stood up on the board. She took hold of the water balloon launcher and fired it directly into the wave. The seemingly growing wave would carry the balloons to Rina’s position, and detonate with incredible force. But would it be enough to take Rina down?

Quickly realizing what Mika was doing, Rina unfortunately could not do much except brace herself. The balloon exploded under water, exploding outwards and causing the wave to almost collapse. Rina sped right through it, the blast launching her unsteadily into the air – and sending her surfboard careening off into the ocean, out of reach! Thinking fast, Rina used her magic to compensate. In her hands she formed an almost comically large 'sword' in the rough shape of a surfboard, and light enough to float easily atop the water.

It hit the water, seemingly working for the most part, but it had knocked her down the wave a bit, causing Mika to have the high ground on the wave, and Rina could only take a few potshots towards Mika with her squirt gun in retaliation.

The shots might not have been much by themselves, but the splash caused by her landing was enough to throw the inexperienced feline off balance.She held onto her surf board with both hands as it tipped over and dumped her into the wave. By this point, the wave was starting to crash, and it was only Rina left on top of her surf board. She had won.

Once the waters had calmed down, Mika thrust her hand out of the ocean. In her outstretched hand was a remote with an antenna and a cartoonishly large button. Her thumb swiftly moved over it and gave the button a press before retreating into the depths. Once Mika had done this, it started to get darker. It was impossible to resist the urge to look up. It was easy to suspect something like an incoming storm, but that was not the case. The sky had opened up to a massive waterfall that was about to touchdown on top of Rina’s position.

Rina began confidently riding the rest of the wave down, and couldn't help but laughing from her victory. She wasn't one to really gloat over winning or something, but winning sure did feel nice...unfortunately victory was only sweet for a moment. She narrowed her eyes at the device Mika was holding, and took a few seconds to puzzle over it before the large shadow appeared overhead. Rina cautiously looked up.

“That's cheatin-” Before she could finish, the waterfall of water fell on her position, completely drenching her in water. The force of it sent her new surfboard flying off in the direction of the shoreline, launching both her and it into the water.

Then all was quiet. The orbital waterfall drop was massive, but in the end it was just water being added to a very large puddle. The waves continued to move about, as if the squirt gun fight had never transpired at all. Then two dolphins surfaced with Mika and Rina on their backs. Mika had a flute in her mouth. She wasn’t playing it very well, but the dolphins seemed to enjoy it. Before long, they were both carried to the sore line.

”That was really fun!” Mika hopped off of her dolphin and ran over to Rina. ”You’re not hurt right? I was told it wouldn’t be strong enough to hurt anyone.”

“Haaaah...” Rina placed her hands on her knees, coughing up some water. “I'm good, thanks.” She replied to Mika, before straightening up and stretching. “In fact, that was pretty great.” Rina grinned, placing a hand on her hip. “Dirty, but I guess there were no rules against dropping a waterfall on someone.”

Mika looked at the remote. ”I mean, you won and everything. I just wanted to try it out.” She shoved it back into her swimsuit, where it bulged out quite noticeably. ”But there was a lot of cool stuff! I even got this flute that lets you control dolphins! That’s how I got us back to shore!” She held out the flute for Rina to observe. ”So what were you going to do next?”

“Next, huh.” What was she gonna do next, indeed. “Dunno, think I'll just take It easy for a bit.” She reached out, patting Mika on the head. “I'm about tired of this vacation already honestly.”

Mika rolled the flute in her hand. ”Honestly, I kind of am too.” She lowered her head. ”I thought it would be fun to be friends with everyone. I think I found a few people I would be interested in getting closer to. But I dunno.” She shrugged. ”Even with all the rules in place, it seems like everyone’s held up on stuff that’s already happened.” With a sigh, she sat down in the sand. ”It’s like one of those beach episodes you see in anime a lot. Everyone’s in swimsuits and people seem to be forming relationships, but it’s the same relationships everyone went into the episode with. And then once the episode ends, any progress that was being made gets reversed anyway.” Mika groaned and hugged her knees. ”I hate filler episodes!”

“Pfft, ahahaha.” Rina began laughing, taking a seat next to Mika. “Well, I can understand. I think I made one or two new friends here though, but...I dunno I just wanna get back to Penrose and away from that dolphin.” Rina leaned lightly on the other girl. “Forcing people to get along is never going to end well.” She sighed, glancing at her empty hand. “Maybe its cynical of me to say it, but as much as I'd like otherwise, as soon as they get their freedom, they'd go right back to doing what they always do because both side refuses to accept change, or back down.”

Rina was now becoming very aware of how close she was to Mika. Ah boy she hadn't been this close to anyone in a looong time. This probably wasn't the time for that kind of talk.

“Ahem...uh, n-not that uh, well, not that it was a total waste or anything.” Rina replied mildly nervously, face turning a bit red. “In fact uh, if you weren't here I'd probably have had a lot less fun.”

Mika’s ears perked up, and she smiled. ”Oh! I’m glad to hear that! I guess I did have a lot of fun with some of the activities.“ She let go of her knees and turned to face Rina. ”But those friends you made, who are they?“

“A girl by the name of Regina. She's a member of beacon.” Rina saw no need to mention anything else about her. No need to do something like that and potentially muddy the waters. “Had a pretty fun volleyball match with Penny, and a girl name Mariette. And uh, there was a cat girl by the name of Kimble.”

Mika nodded along to Rina as she rattled off the names. Penny’s name caused her ears to flicker, but it wasn’t until she rattled off Kimble’s name that Mika chose to open her mouth. ”Oh, do you like her?“ Mika scratched the side of her head. ”I liked her, but she’s only interested in Alicia. I don’t really understand it.“ A pause, Mika smiled. ”I mean, Alicia has soft skin I guess.“ She shrugged. ”I think I was going to buy that Alicia plush so that Kimble would spend more time with me, but it seems kind of pointless now.“ She shrugged. ”We're both cat girls, so I thought we’d have more in common. Well, I guess she’s actually a nekomata. You know? The evil cat demons, which kind of makes sense.“ For just a moment, Mika seemed to grimace before smiling again. ”But Penny seems nice. You said you liked her?“ Mika leaned her head into Rina’s shoulder.

“Kimbles nice, but...” Rina shook her head. “I thiiink she's a bit much for me, heh. To be honest, I'm still kind of shocked Beacon lets monster girls in their ranks now, even if its only a few special ones.” She frowned a bit, not really noticing Mika leaning on her. “Penny's nice, and I definitely don't wanna end up on the end of one of her canons.” She grinned, laughing lightly. “But other than that, I think she's a good sort. A little...uncertain about what she's doing, but I think she'll do well in beacon.” Unconsciously, she leaned her own head on top of Mika's.

...wait a minute. Oh god. This was. This was a romance scene wasn't it? Rina's mouth clammed up as she realized the situation she found herself in. Uh, uh, what the heck. How did this happen. Not that she minded but, uh, she did like Mika but, uh...ah uh.

“...so uh, your ears are really soft.”

”Thank you!“ Mika nuzzled a bit closer. ”Your ears are kind of soft too.“ Her eyes closed to half mast. ”But yea, you really can’t beat cat ears.“ She picked her head up. ”Which is why I’m so conflicted about Kimble!“ With a huff, she stood up. ”I need some time to think.“ she walked over to the edge of the beach, where the dolphins had gathered with everything that had falling into the water. After seeing how large the pile of squirt guns were, Mika just shrugged and picked up her Dan plush. ”Thanks for playing with me Rina. I’ll see you later.“ without looking back, she made her way off the beach.

Rina watched Mika leave. Part of her wanted to say something, but in the end she just flopped back onto the sand and sighed before shaking her head and rolling over in the sand a few times.

“You're ears are soft?! Is that the best I got?! Letting out another sigh, Rina simply stared up at the sky for a few minutes, grumbling to herself. “Aaah, I'm an idiot...” Eventually, she'd stand up and dust herself off, before heading back to the main area.