Chapter 16: A Beautiful Friendship
Cid was tempted to keep his eyes shut, but it felt as though the light poking through the curtains was physically jabbing into them, and eventually he could take it no longer. He dragged himself up his pillows and took in the absolute state of his bed. The covers were sprawled as if an animal had been trapped under them and tried to dig up to freedom, the bottom of the bedsheet was stained red from spilled wine and there there was some sort of dark blue string like object sprawled across the floor just past the corner of the bed.
As he positioned himself higher and looked down he could see the object was actually Gamma's hair, and given the position she was in, it looked like she'd fallen off his bed. Panic beginning to rise in him, Cid pulled up the covers and peeked down to his underwear (the only thing he'd done to get ready for bed the night before had been taking off his pants).
Oh thank god.
He was still on that sigma grindset. His throat was so dry he was tempted to swallow the rest of the half-drained wine glass on the night-stand, but practicing self control, he spent the next minute filtering the alcohol out of his system and resetting his body back to it's default state.
He got up and put his pants back on before heading downstairs to assess the damage the others had caused. Epsilon was lying on her back, fully dressed and draped over the piano, while Alpha and Beta were nestled into couches, Eta was nowhere to be seen. A couple of pillows were ripped open and an armchair was missing a leg, but everything else was fine. After a quick peek in the lower bedrooms he saw Delta and Zeta cuddled up together.
He heard light footsteps behind him and saw Epsilon had woken up and was walking over to him. She almost started talking before he heald two fingers up to his mouth to shush her. Delta twitched slightly.
We can't waste this opportunity.
He pointed to the disposable camera on the table, then to Epsilon, then held his hands as if ready to catch a ball. Getting the message she tiptoed over to the table, collected the camera and then tossed it to him.
The flash woke both beastkin girls, but it was already mission accomplished at that point.
They're never going to live this down.
Last night had been a once in a lifetime event. Beta had lamented that most groups of friends had gotten drunk together at least once, but they never had. Eta had pointed out he couldn't get drunk due to his poison resistance skill while looking at him mournfully.
"I guess I could drop it for one night, if Eta promises not to drug or poison me".
Eta expression had actually grown more regretful "Fine. Wouldn't have worked anyway...too many witnesses".
After a brief lecture from Alpha about how Eta shouldn't try to drug/poison any of her allies, they'd had a few drinks and everything went fine initially. Things only really got out of hand after he spent an hour telling Beta about telephones, then lectured Eta on the plot of to kill a mocking bird and the Pokemon anime, he was pretty sure he mixed some elements of both of those stories in the retelling (he was pretty sure the main character of Pokemon wasn't called Scout, and that the lawyer in to kill a mocking bird didn't shoot a rabid Suicune, but who really cared, a rose by any other name right?)
Then uhh, Alpha got into an argument with her chair because it was being too loud, Delta and Zeta holed up in Delta's bedroom to plot world domination (he could have sworn Zeta shouted that Delta was a genius at one point) while Beta was trying to move...something (he couldn't remember exactly what) across the room. She didn't seem to realize she could carry it and kept tossing it a few feet, picking it up, then tossing it again.
He couldn't remember how he'd gotten upstairs, or how everyone else ended up in their current positions, but it wasn't exactly a mystery.
"Wagh. BOSS-MAN". Delta cried out "You're being mean, Delta's head hurts and the light hurts more". She shouted at him before remembering the full implications of who she was talking too and shrinking back "I mean…"
"Woofy, please, I'm begging you, stop being so loud" Zeta croaked as she tried to enclose herself more completely with her pillow and covers. "Apologies, Master. Can I have a couple of minutes?"
Cid, feeling more empathetic than usual moved into a position he could easily reach both girls and set his hands on them to begin the healing.
He stepped out to give them a little privacy to get ready and saw Epsilon and Alpha had fully recovered themselves and were not tending to Beta and Eta (she'd curled up under the piano, it seemed). Deciding there was nothing better to do, he climbed back up the stairs and started tending to Gamma.
"L,Lord Shadow, what...what happened".
"We...maybe took things a little to far last night. You alright now?"
"Yes, I'm fine now, thanks to you" she said as he pulled her back to her feet.
Sad to say, this wasn't the first (or even the fifth) time he'd pulled Gamma up off the floor this vacation.
While most of the vacation had been spent either with the whole group or a subset of them, he had gotten a little one-on-one time with each of his friends: walking along a nature trail with Alpha, helping Beta with her new story (she wanted to know all the things that annoyed him about Alexia and Rose for inspiration), working on a couple of new (really cool) new slime-suit applications with Epsilon, hunting with Delta, fishing with Zeta and napping on the beach beds with Eta (she said if she couldn't experiment, it was the best use of her time).
Gamma's request had been slightly more involved.
"I've been invited to a ball at the royal palace and I'm unable to refuse, it could be seen as a slight to the crown and Mitsugoshi isn't powerful enough to get away with that just yet. If I do go I'll be expected to dance, and I'm not confident I'll be able to properly represent Mitsugoshi without getting some more practice"
Gamma accidentality injuring/killing the king or one of his ministers on the dance floor was such a serious threat to Mitsugoshi's finances, he was able to work up some motivation to try and teach Gamma a physical skill again and took her to the ballroom that afternoon to rehearse.
"Before we begin, there's one thing you have to do first. Take those off" he had said, pointing to her high-heeled feet. "Why do you even wear those things?"
"They're fashionable, and as the head of Mitsugoshi I feel I should use the products we're selling to the public. Besides, I'll never get used to them if I stop wearing them" Gamma said calmly.
He appreciated her commitment to aesthetics, but if she wanted to improve quickly she needed to use every tool she had on hand. "It'll hurt a lot less if we step on each others feet without shoes on, and if you want to keep your balance, I'd recommend sticking to flats the night of". Gamma reluctantly undid the straps of her heels and set them aside while Cid kicked off his own shoes and socks "It's not like you need the extra height". She was the tallest of the shades, if you didn't count Zeta's ears. Either way, she was almost exactly eye level with him without her heels on.
Gamma nodded, then moved to the centre of the hall while Cid set the needle to the record. He took his own place in front of her and set one hand to her shoulder and the other on her hip.
"I've taught you most of this before with the others, so it's not like you're starting from scratch". Admittedly, the experience of those lessons was probably why Gamma was nervous about the upcoming public outing. "I think there are a couple of new dances in style now we didn't go over, but it still shouldn't take too much time". Gamma gave him a nervous nod and they starting gliding across the dark-wood floor.
It took much longer than he thought it would. Many...interesting things happened whenever he relaxed his grip, the most common being Gamma either spinning onto the floor or when in combination with taking his eye off her for a second, her ending up out of position halfway across the room. One particular spin resulted in her footprint being left on the ceiling. As always, he wasn't quite sure how she was managing most of it.
He was a big enough man to admit it would have been really funny if it wasn't his job to solve the problem.
After a particularly theatrical fall that thankfully didn't leave her nose bleeding he took her off to the side for a moment. He was seriously tempted to just tell her to wrap her foot in a cast and claim she broke it, but shadowy mentor figures weren't meant to take easy outs.
"Okay, I'm not entirely sure what's happening. What do you think the problem is?" Asking Gamma to solve her own problem wasn't exactly his proudest shadow-sensei moment, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
"I don't know. It's just...sometimes I'm looking at you, or planning out my next steps, or trying to use the music to figure out where I should be, and then I'm taking the wrong step, or I've already made a mistake".
"Okay, you might be overthinking this, but I have one idea that might work".
Gamma essentially had no instinct, which crippled her as a fighter. Dancing used a certain amount of natural instinct or grace, but since dancing was essentially a routine that could be memorized exactly, he could use Gamma's intelligence to compensate and just have her memorize every step in order along with the exact timings.
It was similar to the "SWISH, SWISH, SWISH" school of swordsmanship he'd taught her. He got her to say that out loud to keep her timing consistent; one swing, one step, one "SWISH". Alpha said that had reduced her trip chance by almost 70%. Thinking back to that failure still inflicted significant emotional and spiritual damage on him, but giving her anything like a fighting style had been a Helen Keller-esque bit of miracle work, in retrospect.
And so, the "STEP, STEP, STEP" school of dance was formed. One that relied purely on completing a routine by rote, with no consideration paid to her own instincts, the music or her dance partner. It still took a while, but when she was able to get through five songs without a single stumble he figured it was time to call it a day.
"Alright I think we're done here, if you need any more practice you can ask one of the numbers. Oh, and remember this only works if your partner follows along exactly, so avoid anyone with two left feet".
"So soon, don't we have time for one more?"
"Gamma, it's been almost five hours, it's dark outside right now" he pointed to the pitch-black window to prove his point.
"Oh" she blurted out "I was having so much fun I didn't notice".
Is she secretly a masochist or something, I mean she's had to clean blood off her nose three times this afternoon. I'm pretty sure it broke after that headstand looking move she pulled off.
"I'm gonna grab dinner. If there's any dance you think you need help with we could maybe practice for a quick half hour tomorrow".
She had dragged him back the next day, and got through the whole mini-session with only one tumble onto her backside, which had been triggered by a shrieking noise from outside.
Eta had dissected some local sea monster Delta had dragged to shore, and after finishing her work she had dumped what was left of the carcass in the nearest spot out of sight. This had lead to a somewhat traumatic experience for Epsilon and Beta who had reached up to a high shelf without looking to pull down a guide map (planning on a trip to the small village a few miles down the coast and meeting the locals), only to pull their hands back to find them covered in day old entrails.
They'd ran to Alpha, who then set Eta to cleaning the shelf with a toothbrush. Eta had tried appealing to Zeta to use her special privileges, but Zeta had refused and left Alpha to manage the situation.
Once his final lesson with Gamma was over she thanked him, almost exactly as she was doing now.
"Thank you m-Cid. I don't think there will be any problems at the ball, thanks to you".
"The money Mitsugoshi makes is essential to me-us. I appreciate your dedication, working on this in the middle of your vacation".
"I could hardly call it work, learning this with you has been very enjoyable. I just wish the ball itself would be half as satisfying as the last couple of days have been"
That was just yesterday afternoon. Gamma seemed no more unsteady than usual as they headed downstairs to meet back up with the others. While looking a little worse for wear they were all dressed and at attention when he stepped to the centre of the room.
"Everyone okay?"
They all said some variation of yes (Eta just nodded).
"Then you've got an hour to get ready, report to the lobby when preparations are complete".
He'd decided their last day should be spent on training together, since it was what they used to do whenever they were together in the past.
I should also have some idea of how strong everyone else is now.
Cid headed back upstairs to his own bathroom to take a shower and get changed. Then he most of the next hour flicking through magazines he'd picked up in the lobby. He got a real kick out of the fact that Mitsugoshi was apparently being contracted to rebuild part of the capital he'd IAA'd.
Partly because it was cooler that way and partly because he lost track of time, everyone else was already waiting in their slime suits by the time he got to the lobby.
"Okay, I think we should start with a game of spotter through the hotel to practice evasion and detection, then move onto the beach for combat practice".
"That seems wise. Sparring will be the most physically demanding task, so it's best left until the end" Alpha reasoned.
'Spotter' was a game he'd made up years ago trying to modify hide-and-seek into a training exercise. Two players were hunters and the rest were prey. The hunters counted at a starting position (the objective), and then had to find the prey players. Once spotted, the prey was considered caught once the hunter got back to the objective and said their name (which was basically having the bell rung by the guards in a stealth mission). The prey were considered safe if they got past the hunters and touched the objective (which trained slipping past guards to reach objective stealthily). If the prey realized they'd been spotted, both parties would mad dash for the objective and it was just a race to see who got there first (which usually favoured the hunter as they were almost always closer).
To make it interesting, he decided to set scores (each objective and capture counted as one point each), and they would play four times to let everyone have a shot of being the hunter. He decided to pair up with Gamma since it was only fair to give himself a handicap and he was for some reason in a Gamma mood. They managed to catch everyone except Zeta. Between his physical skills and Gamma's knowledge of the complex (and ability to determine the optimal search pattern) they swept the first round despite her clumsiness.
Alpha and Delta were next, and they caught everyone except him. He rushed down to the sea and took a quick dip before hiding in an attempt to hide his scent right at the beginning, but it was pointless (her nose was too strong and located everyone's hiding spots without issue). He managed to overtake her on the stairs by climbing over the rail and letting go, then quickly grabbing on three floors down and pulling himself up just ahead of her.
Beta and Zeta let him, Alpha and Epsilon pass, while capturing Delta, Gamma and Eta. Neither of them had talents especially useful to the game excepting Zeta's heightened senses, and experience was making the prey better while the hunters were always new. Zeta might have also been a little salty about Delta's 'enthusiastic' capture of her in the round before, and her resulting tunnel vision might have aided rest of the players.
Finally Epsilon and Eta had the most prey make it to safety, but distinguished themselves as the only team that managed to catch him specifically (along with Gamma). They had prepared a small blockade behind one of the doors he was counting on using to get ahead of them, so they ended up being able to out him. It was a clever use of the environment to win, but he probably shouldn't have allowed them to mess up the furniture.
That left the score screen looking like:
Cid-7
Alpha-7
Beta-4
Gamma-5
Delta-6
Epsilon-3
Zeta-6
Eta-3
Cid and Alpha being the two winners didn't surprise anyone, and Eta couldn't have cared less about losing the game but Epsilon seemed disappointed in herself as they walked down to the beach. Not that she was acting moody, but her good cheer seemed forced as they went. Alpha took charge and started assigning Epsilon to partner with Beta when she spoke up in protest.
"Come on Alpha, I must have fought Beta at least fifty times in these things. Shouldn't we mix things up a bit. I mean, we'll get into bad habits if we don't have practice fighting more than one kind of opponent".
Alpha seemed mildly amused by Epsilon's comment "Okay, how would you assign the teams then?"
"You against Zeta and Gamma, Eta against Beta and me against Delta".
"Epsilon" Alpha warned.
"Why do you want to fight Delta? Is Epsilon still mad?" Delta asked worriedly.
"No, not at all". Epsilon replied serenely.
Alpha looked to Cid and he shrugged, he was pretty sure she was being legit.
"Very well, since you're so eager you can go first".
---
I'm not afraid. I can fail as long as I can try again. I'm not afraid.
Those thoughts kept circling Epsilon's mind as she walked to the cross that marked her starting position for this practice bout. A large circle had been dug into the sand to mark the bounds of an arena, and the fight would be over when one of them surrendered, got knocked out of the ring, or physically couldn't continue any longer. Forcing Delta over the line was realistically 90% of her chance to win.
"Why'd you want to fight Delta? You know Delta's stronger than you right?" Delta called out from her own starting point.
"I know. Believe me. I wouldn't have wanted to fight you if you weren't". Epsilon's advantages against the stronger, faster, more aggressive and more magically powerful (in terms of capacity, she was the worst in terms of control) were few and she knew it.
"Is this another thing about Epsilon being the stupid one?" Delta asked the insulting question with what she knew was sincere innocence.
"No, it's because…" She was cut off by Eta's air-horn blasting into the ring, signalling the start of their battle.
Delta rushed forward, not yet drawing that slab she called a sword and relying instead on her slime coated claws.
Couldn't just make it easy for me could you.
Delta was holding back. As counter intuitive as it seemed, the best way she could see to win was to have the other girl thoughtlessly charge at her in a blind rage. Which meant her objective at this point was to piss her off.
Hurray for strategy.
She fired off small bursts of concentrated magical energy and started to move back. She retreated in an almost circular motion, following the line of the arena from a few paces away. The first of her advantages was the fact that Delta had no long range attack to counter her barrage.
Delta advanced and steadily drew closer. Even if Epsilon wasn't back-pedalling she wouldn't have been able to outrun her opponent. Most of her shots were deflected or dodged but a couple hit their mark and Delta growled in frustration as the projectiles pounded into her.
Inevitably, the point where retreating failed to work was reached, and she had to draw her sword to defend herself. Her next advantage was her greater control over the slime suit.
She tried to throw Delta off balance by quickly changing directions and rushing forwards immediately after her long retreat, but Delta's instincts were sharp and she swatted the thrust away easily before beginning her own attack.
Epsilon tried to sidestep the blows as much as possible, but the slashing claws came on so fast she had no option but to block a few of the swipes. If she hadn't been ready for the sheer force used her blade would have flown out of her hands without a doubt. As it was her fingers ached from the strain of keeping a grip on the sword, and it was hard not to wince every time she had to put it between her and Delta. She needed to wait, to let Delta get into a rhythm before attempting the next step.
Almost time.
When Delta next swiped she dropped the sword mid-swing and put her hand onto Delta's knee. There was a brief flash of light and then she grabbed onto the falling hilt of her blade and prepared for impact. Delta's strike sent her flying, but she'd positioned herself to not be knocked out of bounds before she'd picked this moment to strike.
Epsilon rolled gracefully to her feet and started firing again. Delta tried to charge, then fell over. Epsilon charged the next shot for when Delta inevitably looked down at her leg and fired. Delta looked down at her knee, which had been locked straight by her own slime suit, then was blasted back by Epsilon's shot. She'd stumbled, but had not been tossed into the air as Epsilon had a few moments earlier. She was still in the ring.
Not like I really expected that to work, but a quick and easy win would have been nice.
She charged another show and launched it when Delta stopped to rip the rigid slime coating her knee with her teeth. The shot hit, but it was mostly mitigated as Delta held out an arm between her body and the magical bolt. It probably hurt, but didn't do any critical damage.
When Delta rose to her feet she was snarling furiously, meaning that phase one was finally over.
As Delta charged her this time, instead of trying to dodge any of the shots Epsilon sent her way she just ignored the pain, in too much of a battle frenzy to notice the hits or too frustrated to delay reaching Epsilon for the fractions of seconds it would have taken to evade.
I'm not afraid.
The slab was out now and she was sending viscous two handed blows her way. They wouldn't be fatal but any one of them would either blast her out of the ring or hurt her too badly to continue.
Probably both, honestly.
Blocking directly was out of the question, so she was either had to evade the strikes or in the worst cases, attempt to parry. She could shift the direction of a blow by a few degrees without stopping the motion of the brutal weapon.
It was hard, but easier than Epsilon had imagined it would be. While Delta was faster and stronger, her wild swings and heavy weapon meant she was partly wasting both qualities. The wasted motion allowed Epsilon's inferior speed to keep up with the beastkin girl.
If she'd stuck with the claws, I'd be done already.
That being said, Delta also had more stamina and Epsilon was starting to tire already. She'd seen enough of Delta fighting to know she could keep it up for hours, even injured, until the work was done. Even though she would crash and spend the whole next day sleeping and licking her wounds to recover her energy, that particular weakness wouldn't be any help.
It was time to use her final trick, the one she and Cid had worked on this vacation. She attempted another parry, then pretended to retract her slime sword while wrapping the light around it. While Delta thought she was safe and wound up a heavy overhead smash, Epsilon jabbed forward with the now invisible slime sword as swiftly as a striking snake, right at Delta's face.
Even if the sword hadn't been blunted it wouldn't have been a fatal injury for the other girl, but for perhaps the first time in Epsilon's life, Delta staggered from one of her sword strikes. Her nose was bleeding, she wasn't sure if she'd broken it or not.
Epsilon ran back and started firing again, this was the moment and she wouldn't get a better one. As she reached the edge of the ring she saw Delta had launched herself at her, then Epsilon purposefully fell over to the side. Using the slime suit to make herself invisible as she threw herself to the ground. Delta's face was flying over her own.
I did it, I…
Something tightened around her translucent forearm and she went spinning in a heap with Delta over the line of the ring, the two knocking against each other again and again as they rolled over and over through the sand, Delta refusing to let go of her opponent.
She was still visibly angry when she came to a stop looming over Epsilon, but when she held up her free hand to indicate surrender Delta calmed down shockingly quickly. She put a hand on Delta's face and started magically repairing her damaged nose.
I suppose Gamma and Delta should be happy healing this sets it back to it's normal position.
"Yay, Delta won".
"Actually, I'd say that was more of a tie. You both went out of the ring at pretty much the same time". Cid and Alpha had moved over to bring them back to the rest of the group.
"Aww" Delta pouted.
"I think Delta's right, Lord Shadow. In a real fight she would've won" It was regrettable, but not untrue.
"You both would have done things differently in a real fight. Take your draw Epsilon, you earned it." Alpha settled the matter decisively before continuing "How did you do all of that with the slime suit?"
"It's my specialty" She tried to respond indifferently, but it was hard as she was panting from exertion and had suddenly become very conscious of the fact she was a sand covered mess. "I thought I'd save trying to teach everyone for later. It would have ruined the trip if I turned it into a slime tutorial".
Alpha was not happy with that answer, she could be a real killjoy "See that you do. These techniques could be very useful to us in the future. Head back to the seats and have a rest, I'll be fighting Gamma and Zeta in a minute." and with that she walked over to the (now barely visible) starting mark.
Cid walked ahead and Delta moved to catch up with him, but Epsilon reached out and pulled her back by her wrist "About what you asked before, I wanted to fight you because I'm not afraid of you".
Delta smiled at that, then seemed a little concerned "You maybe should be a little...nervous about fighting Delta though. Delta's still stronger than you".
"Whatever" she said casually. She was pretty sure she could reach over and slap the other girl right now and not get hurt.
---
Rose was as apprehensive sitting opposite Claire in the small cafe she'd picked for this conversation as she had been standing opposite her in the stadium. It was only natural, Cid and her future with him had become essential things to Rose, so it was unavoidable she'd care deeply about being able to work things out with his sister.
"Thank you for coming. Have you been enjoying your vacation?"
"It's been alright" Claire responded brusquely. Before the tournament she'd been polite on the few occasions they'd talked but ever since she'd been ill-tempered, and after the attack on the academy she'd become openly combative. She would still try to solve the issue diplomatically.
"I have the impression that you don't care for me very much, it may just be my own…"
"No, you're absolutely right about that." Claire interrupted casually.
"W,Well" The honesty (savagery) of the statement took her back somewhat, but she proceeded regardless, "I know I defeated you in the tournament, but that was a fair duel so I don't think you should be…"
"It's not about that. You hurt Cid in the tournament, then he almost died during the terrorist attack saving you, and now you just hold his hand and skip through the corridors with him, like none of that ever happened."
Don't get distracted by the thought of skipping through the halls with Cid. You can daydream about that later.
"I know that. I didn't understand his feelings back then and he was hurt because of it. I feel terrible whenever I think about that, but...that's why I have to return his feelings. Because he's such a brave and caring man, he deserves to be happy. I don't think it's wrong for me to try and make him happy, and I never will!".
She hadn't meant to become so heated. Claire gave her an incredulous look before shaking her head in annoyance "Either way, your father isn't going to let things stand like this for too long is he? Have you even told him about Cid?"
"No, that's why I wanted to talk to you. I know Cid is an incredible person, and I want the rest of the world, and my father, to see that so I can be with him forever, but I need your help to do that. Please help me Claire".
Rose bowed her head to the girl sitting across from her, though it was the etiquette equivalent of blasphemy given the differences in their stations.
Claire froze for a second upon hearing that, then she reached across the table and clasped Rose's hand in both of hers before asking in a tremulous voice.
"What are your five favourite things about Cid?"
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.