Marigold and Gareth, vs Burgandy and Carl featuring Blue on the sidelines.
Current Match Score 2?-0
Gareth POV chapter.
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*Part of me really wants to say no and take the point… but I'm going to be teamed up with them both after this. Dammit Marigold, now I'll look like the bad guy even if I agree with you. I've got no choice though, because I'll look much worse if I take the point.* "Yeah, we can lose that point. I don't really mind," said Gareth with a sigh.
Marigold nodded and looked over at the Thyme with the scoreboard, who nodded and flipped the counter back to 1-0. "Hey Marigold, how strong are you?" asked Gareth as Thyme was doing that.
"Really strong. I'm using a secret regenerator technique to make it seem like I've got almost no muscle, but I probably work out more than you. I'd say that I could beat you in an arm-wrestling contest. Well, not if you know secret arm strengthening techniques, we already established your girlfriend was too sleepy to attend to your needs, so perhaps you've got some practice in," said Marigold.
Gareth sighed and walked over to Marigold. Part of him wanted to smack her into the ground, part of him wanted to let the ground swallow her. *But she'd probably enjoy the abuse.* Gareth ignored his more violent impulses to whisper to Marigold. "I can summon and reinforce a large stone paddle. If you can hold it over the net and keep them from scoring we might be able to win that way. I've only got the mana to keep it solid for maybe… ten minutes maximum though. After that it'll probably be too weak and they could punch through it,"
Marigold considered the suggestion for a few seconds. "Can't they just smack the ball back into the stone over and over to reset their two-hit counter?" asked Marigold.
Gareth nodded, "Yeah but they might not figure that out straight away. Additionally, they'll be playing against themselves. If we can just hold strong, then we don't have to worry about messing up unlike them,"
Marigold frowned, "That's not true though. If they hit the ball in such a way it rebounds out of bounds, then aren't we the ones that lose points for that?"
*Shit. She's right. Hmm… I could curve it perhaps? No, no it's just a bad idea. Well… no maybe a smaller one would be good? Trust Marigold to smack the ball back to the correct area while I deal with anything that's too far back.* "Yeah I see the problem… but would a smaller one work?" asked Gareth.
Marigold nodded, "It can… but are you sure it'll be strong enough? You'll have to be on watch too. I can't just casually drop something like that on the ground. So if it sneaks by me, I won't be able to use my hands,"
"It should be fine? Probably?" said Gareth.
"Ok let's try it then," said Marigold, ignoring Gareth's uncertainty. Gareth nodded and got to work. It took some effort to form up what was essentially a giant fly-swatter but the real issue was keeping his mana connected to the thing once he pulled it out of the ground. Gareth frowned at the mental toll it was taking, but didn't let that stop him. Gareth just breathed in deeply and handed the pole off before getting ready to serve.
"Can you do something like that?" asked Carl seeing the signpost like structure.
"Yeah, but it'll be too fragile. Waste of mana. Just smack the ball hard enough and the whole thing will crumble," said Burnice quietly. Still perfectly audible to Marigold, and Gareth could hear parts, but Burnice did try.
Marigold looked to Gareth but he just gave a sharp nod in return. Confident it wouldn't be a problem till he ran out of mana. Gareth threw the ball up and then served smacking it as quickly as he could to the other side of the court.
Carl knocked it up in the air, as Gareth hadn't aimed it properly to the sides. It was a simple adjustment to hit the ball dead on. Burgandy ran up behind Carl and smashed the ball as hard as she could towards Marigold.
Marigold's eyes flashed, she was ready to try this out. She jumped forward, intercepting the ball before it could fly past the net and smacking the ball down and off to the side. The paddle held and the ball drilled into the ground before launching off to the side. "2-0 to Gareth and Marigold," said Thyme.
"Wasn't that supposed to break?" asked Carl with a raised eyebrow, but casual tone. Not overly mad at the misinformation, but still interested in the answer.
"It should've shattered! The stone is nowhere near thick enough to hold back the force I used on that hit. It should've broken to pieces. I've smacked through walls stronger then it!" insisted Burgandy.
"Well, it's clearly still standing. So… is there anything we can do about it?" asked Carl.
"Look… I don't know how. Why don't you do something? There should be enchantments on your clothes. They might be useful," said Burgandy.
"I doubt it," said Carl, waving off Burgandy's demand.
Burgandy however, didn't like that. Even as Thyme threw the ball over for her serve she caught it and glared at Carl. "Hey, I'm keeping this half of the field stable for us all. Surely you can at least do SOMETHING useful?" grumbled Burgandy.
Carl sighed, not really liking where this was going. "Right, of course not. I'll just use my fire affinity to do something useful like burning the net, or setting myself on fire. I'm sure that you'll figure some way for that to be useful,"
"Look, do you want to win or not?" asked Burgandy.
"Obviously I do, but I'm not seeing the way to do that. Especially not by arguing," said Carl.
*This is actually working. I'm losing mana constantly as you argue and I'd really rather not be.* Gareth tried to catch Marigold's eyes and get her to temporarily put down the paddle so that he could stop reinforcing it… but her eyes were locked on the drama and didn't see him.
"At least I've been trying them out!" insisted Burgandy.
"Ah yes. Your first and only attempt that cost us a point. I'm sure that was very well thought out," said Carl, not quite able to stop himself. He did wince as soon as the words left his mouth. Despite his calm demeanour, he had no desire to be a doormat… but this probably wasn't the right move. Trying to calm things down, Carl continued, "Look, it's not like I can just ask Thyme what they all do. It's too dangerous to use an untested enchantment,"
"I can totally tell you what they all do," said Thyme from the sidelines.
"What?" asked Carl whipping his head around.
"Yeah, everyone's outfits all do essentially the same thing with slight variations. Except Marigold's. That one does nothing because that's actually her own clothing, it wasn't supplied by me," explained Thyme.
Everyone turned to Marigold and looked at the bikini she was wearing. Marigold fit in perfectly with everyone else here. Heck, Romilda had a smaller version of the outfit in a slightly different style. Nobody quite believed Thyme… but Marigold was nodding along, and Thyme wasn't going to just lie to everyone.
"Fuck it, whatever," said Carl trying to drive that bit of information from his mind. "What do they do?"
Thyme nodded and explained. "So, the shoes shoot a pillar of your element from somewhere. You can sort of control it by moving your front foot relative to your back, though the version actually comes from the bottom of the shoe in front so you can use it in kicks. Then there's the sphere of your element on the shirt. It's the same for all elements, and of differing usefulness. Then there's the pants, and they summon up a wall of the element directly in front of you,"
*Ah yes. I'm so glad I'm not wearing a shirt. I'm only missing out on A MAJOR ENCHATMENT. Dammit Green. I get you wanted your eye candy but couldn't you have just convinced me to have my buttons open or something? I wasn't really mad before but hearing that I missing out on an… admittedly average effect is annoying. I mean, it would give me more options! Though seriously why does Marigold have a swimsuit… and wait is Vanya's enchanted or not? Considering how skimpy it is… I'm betting no…*
"Does the wall have to stay on the ground?" asked Burgandy.
"No it doesn't, but it takes extra mana and you have to be in the air for it to also be in the air. It works by showing up a certain distance in front of you and isn't all that configurable. I wanted to keep the enchantments simple after all," answered Thyme. Burgandy did of course grumble a bit at that answer, but she didn't complain further.
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