Overlap [IC/PG-16/Accepting]

[radio414 776]

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
-1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV)

---

After bidding Rei farewell, Melissa returned to the group. Nobody really noticed her coming back, but she didn’t mind. It gave her more time with her own thoughts for a bit more elaboration on what exactly it was she wanted. She didn’t want to just figure out her limits while in the middle of a fight. There were ways she could find some of them without being in a life-threatening situation (or a simulation of one). Smaller things, sure, but, like, now that she was more used to her sphere of influence, did she need to see where she was spawning an angel or could it be behind a wall? Could she learn to stand in a way that she didn’t fall over when going under? And movement, how long was that going to take to get used to? She could start that right away, but that would mean drawing attention to herself.

Well, everyone was moving out, saying goodbye to Aduain and Grigoriy who were splitting off and going their separate ways, but they were still talking amongst themselves. If she was going to do anything, she had to do it now. It was such a childish thing, though. Like, yeah, even if she wasn’t the youngest member of their squad (though in fairness, had anyone even asked?) she certainly felt like it, but that didn’t mean she had the demeanor for it. It was practical, but nobody would be able to understand why.

She took one step, then another. It felt normal to walk. It felt normal to just walk alongside everyone else to the nearest ice cream place just a couple blocks away from the arena. But that wasn’t going to get her home, was it? Really, normalcy was just going to shift her perception of home to Prana, and that was another can of worms Melissa didn’t want to open. She didn’t want “Ambrosia” to become just a nebulous goal with an ironically divine name. She didn’t want to forget Gabby or Jun or Elizabeth or anyone else, even if she had somehow managed to make new friends in the meantime.

So Melissa stopped walking. It was one more bit of tension added to the pile of all the other things she was trying to manage on Prana, but no matter how she looked at it, she had to do the best with what she had. It meant being more the person everyone expected her to be, but parts of those fictional Melissas weren’t so bad, were they? Melissa the conscript, Melissa the summoner, Melissa the celebrity… The weight on her shoulders was still there, but the realization lightened her load just a little bit, and she turned her next steps into a purposeful skip.

Edited February 22 by radio414

[Skaia 482]

The girl froze up a bit as her premonition about asking Grigory came true, the man glaring at her. Then, as he softened his gaze and told them to go without him and to get something else, the girl smiled saying, "oh uh, I'll make sure of it!" Giving a wave goodbye to the man as she rejoined the rest of the group, she couldn't help but giggle a bit at Kelsey's comment about their squad's name. But with their business done, Fiona joining, and Fen getting Kelsey's number the group were all ready to leave to get ice cream.

With the group now on their way to getting ice cream, Fen continued trying to think of name for her own group. After all, in the face of another group's and as the leader of her own she felt obligated to put in the effort. She wasn't exactly sure where Grand came from to begin with, but at the very least the joke had something to do with their own squad. Though, naming the group after herself felt a little too self serving. And she couldn't really think of any commonality between the group. Even between the three of her, Melissa and Trevor. She was some kind of ice weapon mage, Melissa summoned angels and Trevor fought with a book and magic. The only thing that she could think of was "Team Magic" and that wasn't particularly creative or original.

Once more she went back to what she knew for names, somehow coming up with Orange Brain which hardly seemed appropriate. Come to think of it, Fen hadn't any idea where the naming scheme for the guilds in her world had come from to begin with. It never struck her as odd until this point, all of them being fruit, and it wasn't like she could ask the founder now so perhaps it was a mystery that would remained forever unsolved. So, instead going to the "taking after the group members" angle, the girl thought about it coming up with another name: Cherry Angel Zombie Fish Book...That was far, far worse then Orange Brain. Thinking on it, Fen also realized that she had nothing to do with Cherry's at a glance either. Perhaps this was indeed something to wait for the moment to strike. 

The girl had thought all of this to herself, making quite the pensive expression while they walking. However, with her stream of thoughts finally broken the girl looked to the others and say, "Oh I think one of the ice cream places we saw earlier was probably just around here." Looking to Kelsey and Fiona the girl said, "you know...I think all I've really done here so far is well, fight and shop. And I don't even really know all that many shops. So uh, I guess I'm asking, when you guys aren't doing the whole...job thing, what uh, what else do you do?"

[Chaos Sonic 415]

"How exactly do you want me to train you? If you want someone to help you work out I'm sure one of your own squad mates can do that with you."

This perplexed Trevor as Grigoriy answered him initially, but he shook off the confused look he had before shaking his head. "N-No sir, not working out. That part I'm capable of handling on my own accord..." he explained, clearing his throat. "What I was asking was for you to train me to fight. It's obvious that you've had plenty of experience in combat...your applications of the magic you used proves this."

"Tis the truth...these are applications that I have not seen before in all the millennia I've been under the care and guard of sorcerers. It's truly remarkable." the grimoire wrote upon it's blank pages for the older gentleman to read.

"Correct...and this is coming from the grimoire of greatest sorcerer and wizard of my world...Merlin." Trevor explained, taking the book and closing it. "That said, I would be honored if you could teach me and train me up. It's...obvious that while I'm alive and no longer in the Ever...and no longer in my own universe and world anymore, the rules and laws that I've grown accustom to need not apply anymore." He bowed his head again. "So please...I would be forever in your debt if you would grant me this chance, Grigoriy sir."

 

[LordCowCow 775]

"you know...I think all I've really done here so far is well, fight and shop. And I don't even really know all that many shops. So uh, I guess I'm asking, when you guys aren't doing the whole...job thing, what uh, what else do you do?"

At the question Kelsey, who had been at the front, and Fiona, who had been trailing behind almost as though trying to slip away from the group, both paused to consider their answer.

"Well, really, the fighting is pretty fun on its own isn't it?" Kelsey said. "Oh but I do boxing too." she mimed the action, punching the air a few times. "It's pretty fun to hit someone that's not trying to kill you."

Fiona's response came a bit later, after it seemed she might not answer. "I like trying on clothes I guess...Not much looks good on me though." she added the last hastily, dropping her gaze to the side, and seemed to be falling deeper into a timid demeanor. Her eye twitched as she heard Kelsey laugh at her reply.

The two of them looked at each other and at the same time realized that they had essentially answered with "fight and shop".

Fiona didn't look to be moved to say more at the moment but Kelsey added on to her previous statement. "Oh but there's lots to do honestly. There's music events, an amusement park, the arcade is pretty cool, there's movies though the action ones don't really compare to back home...Ah right there's that card game too that's been getting more popular. Yougee something?"

Fiona let out a deep sigh and muttered. "Yu-Gi-Oh"

"Yeah Yugiyo." Kelsey nodded. "So yeah if you're wanting to do something fun there's a buncha stuff uh...Guess asking a knucklehead like me wasn't the best idea huh?" she laughed at herself, then pointed at a nearby store. "Oh there we go, that where you were looking for right?"

The shop in question had a rather simple look except for the large banana split plastered above the entrance. The title was an equally obvious "That Ice Cream Place".

---

"What I was asking was for you to train me to fight. It's obvious that you've had plenty of experience in combat...your applications of the magic you used proves this."

Grigoriy seemed to be only growing grumpier as Trevor followed him out of the door. "You seem to be mistaking something, I don't do magic. I don't know anything about that....wizard business this is just something I do. There's only a few people in this...organization that probably does. As far as training goes...I've got my handful trying to make sure those kids are in condition to fight."

He turned to face Trevor directly, with a stony gaze and mouth in a severe frown. "I don't even want to train those three, I stopped training people for a reason, so if you want help you'll have to go elsewhere." He turned away again and waved a hand dismissively. "Everyone here in their own way could help you, even your own squad, but don't come to me for this. I only agreed to these matches because Mauvache asked for it herself. I'm no teacher." He began to walk away and then paused. "And don't call me sir. I'm just another soldier here just like you."

[radio414 776]

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”
-1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV)

---

Skipping, it turned out, was really hard. There was the expected mental effort of ignoring the absurdity of someone her age doing such a thing and hoping other people did the same, but Melissa hadn’t really put together before she started that it was basically jogging pace while everyone else was just walking. She had to slow herself back down and ended up at more of a “spring in her step” sort of gait. It was the sort of thing she still had to devote mental effort to, though, since if she forgot about it, she ended up just walking again.

Still, the conversation surrounding Melissa did interest her. Any opportunity to learn more about Prana was a good one, even if it was a little disappointing that Fiona and Kelsey didn’t have much new knowledge to impart. There was one thing, though, a peculiar commonality between Melissa’s Ambrosia and Prana that she didn’t expect. “There was a popular card game back home on my world too,” Melissa said. “Actually, now that I think about it, the whole world was kind of set around Duel Monsters. The biggest reason most people had a deck was so if you got in a fight you could settle it over the table. Not to mention the arenas, the nationally-broadcast competitions, the fragments of artificial intelligence jammed into a select few of them that granted control over the world, uh…”

She wondered if that made any sense at all to people it wasn’t the norm for. “I had a deck full of these fallen angels called Darklords. Monsters, spells, traps, fusing them together, redeeming them to power them up. I don’t know.” She realized she was walking again and pepped her step back up.

Kelsey said, “Kinda sounds familiar, but I don’t know much about it.”

Melissa shrunk back in on herself again. “I didn’t really expect you to, just reminded me of home is all. Sorry.” It was false hope. It had to be. She didn’t even like the game that much anyway. Maybe it was so much the better that “yoogeeoh” or however Fiona pronounced it was different. It could be fun to learn something new, something with significantly lower stakes than the Duel Monsters back home.

Thankfully, before she could completely isolate herself from the conversation, they arrived a That Ice Cream Place, and, as the little tagline in the shop’s logo said, “It’s impossible to be in a bad mood at That Ice Cream Place®!” Melissa was a bit paralyzed by choice, so she just got a vanilla sundae with chocolate sauce. That, at least, was familiar to her, and it tasted even better than it looked. “What’d you get?” she asked everyone else.

---

“[…]including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
-C.S. Lewis, expanding on 1 Corinthians, On Three Ways of Writing for Children

[Chaos Sonic 415]

"You seem to be mistaking something, I don't do magic. I don't know anything about that....wizard business this is just something I do. There's only a few people in this...organization that probably does. As far as training goes...I've got my handful trying to make sure those kids are in condition to fight. I don't even want to train those three, I stopped training people for a reason, so if you want help you'll have to go elsewhere. Everyone here in their own way could help you, even your own squad, but don't come to me for this. I only agreed to these matches because Mauvache asked for it herself. I'm no teacher. And don't call me sir. I'm just another soldier here just like you."

Trevor stood there once more in disbelief as Grigoriy spoke...he could feel his fist slowly clench at his side, hearing him say this. The frown he wore was practically piercing his soul...and the young sorcerer wasn't too thrilled about any of this. As the old man walked past him, telling him not to call him 'sir' and that they were nothing but soldiers, he was about to turn around quickly to tell him why that wasn't the case...

...but he didn't. Why? Simple...he felt the tugging by the Cabanomicon, seeming to bring him back to the present moment. It lifted itself and opened it's pages... Mayhaps it's in the best interest to forget him. It's fairly certain that he must be in a position and mindset to where he cannot and will not allow himself to undertake any students. I believe your time may be better suited elsewhere, Masters.

"...we aren't soldiers..." Trevor simply muttered to himself, taking hold of the grimoire. "Then...what was the point to point out my apparent short-comings if he was simply doing this because Mauvache asked for this? If he's not a teacher, then why even...?" he muttered to only himself and the grimoire, leaving the area and attempting to catch up to the others. This world had a hodgepodge of various individuals from all corners of the massive multiverse that surrounded this planet...each with their own rules...their own methods of practice. Perhaps he was still in the mindset of his own world and universe...this would be something he'd have to attempt to get over and change...least, he hoped he could.

---

It was a few minutes before he finally caught up to the others...though he was still lost in thought and almost walked past the most obvious ice cream shop..."That Ice Cream Place". Truly an ingenious name for such a simple shop...then again, not everything here had to be grandiose, he thought.

He walked in, seeing everyone already being congregated...so Trevor ordered him a simple cookies 'n cream ice cream. He thought about trying that sea-salt ice cream they had plastered on another nearby poster, but he figured he'd save that for later... With his ice cream in tow, Trevor walked over with a half-hearted smile. "Hey...sorry about that...and for bringing up the rear. Seems like my plan of trying to get the old man to train me and teach me was for naught. Perhaps it's for the best."

[Skaia 482]

Fen listened to the answers the two girls gave her, thinking about it. That Kelsey preferred to do some kind of special kind of fighting on her free time didn't come as much of a surprise to the girl, that there was a place to partake in a hobby shouldn't have been much of a surprise to Fen either and the young chef did wonder where Kelsey went to partake in boxing, though figured if nothing else this city was filled to the brim with amenities and locations. The girl then gave a nod acknowledging Fiona's woes in shopping, thinking back and noting that she wasn't particularly good at shopping for clothes either. "I see, I see," the girl said along as Kelsey continued to say more options of things to do. She could more or less guess what an amusement park was by the name though she hadn't the faintest idea of what a "movie" involved, and so figured that'd be a good place to go check out. 

Melissa then talked about her own home world and the interesting dynamic it had with a set of trading cards. "Oh, that sounds like a fascinating world you come from Melissa. Or, hm I suppose peaceful is the uh, better word for it? Since most conflicts, and the like, from where I come from usually resulted in some form of brawling with weapons...or magic...or both." The girl sighed at this, thinking of all the different conflicts that brewed and how easily it was for any amount of combat to get out of control. The more power the individual held the easier it was for destruction to become widespread and injuries to happen, as just a matter of collateral and to say nothing of the individuals actually fighting. "Ahh, I think...I'd really like to learn more about this card game," the girl spoke aloud though to no one in particular. 

Once they got into the store proper Fen went to the counter analyzing each of the flavors. Some of them seemed to be recognizable to her like the standard, "mint," "chocolate," and "vanilla." Then there were some others like "birthday cake batter," or "candied fish," that she wasn't quite sure what to make of. After a bit more of pondering she eventually got her order and walked back to the rest of the group. Showing the pink ice cream on a cone to Melissa, she said, "I got some kind of Strawberry and Apple mix. And uh some of these um, worms." Turning the cone around, a series of colorful gummy worms could be seen mixed into the ice cream. "I've had bugs before but, well, I've never had with them with cream of any kind." Seeming genuinely curious about the gummies and their strange shape, the girl then looked up to see Trevor joining in. 

Giving a wave to him, she gave a nervous laugh at the thought brought on by his comment. "Ah, um, yeah. That sounds like it might uh, be rough to deal with."

[LordCowCow 775]

Fiona had been silently watching Melissa ever since the conversation prior. Whenever Melissa looked her way she'd pretend to be engrossed in some spot on the wall. It wasn't until Melissa asked a question that she broke her silence. She lifted her own ice cream, which was chocolate, with chunks of fudge, and chocolate drizzle, and muttered "It's called Choco Choco Fudge." After this she became very engrossed in her ice cream, looking like she didn't want to be there.

That is until Fen said something that startled her. "I've had bugs before but, well, I've never had with them with cream of any kind."

"You've eaten bugs?" She said, her tone disturbed and disbelieving. Then, when Fen looked at her, she quickly looked away, "I mean, what a unique palette you have."

Kelsey laughed at this. "Well don't think we got any places to eat bugs around here. Least I've never seen any." She looked down at her ice cream and gave an oddly wistful smile at it, as if remembering something, "got mint chocolate chip."

"Hey...sorry about that...and for bringing up the rear. Seems like my plan of trying to get the old man to train me and teach me was for naught. Perhaps it's for the best."

Fiona snorted, which she tried to cover with a clearing of her throat.

Kelsey only laughed even louder than before. "You serious? You WANTED that old goat to train you? He's a real demon you know, even compared to the teachers back home. At least they actually wanted to be there." She pointed at Trevor with her ice cream and grinned, "oh hey maybe he'll teach you if he's on your squad, wanna trade leaders?"

[radio414 776]

If you find honey, eat just enough—
    too much of it, and you will vomit.
-Proverbs 25:16 (NIV)

---

That girl is watching you the computers said of Fiona. Melissa tried not to notice, or rather, she tried to act like she hadn’t noticed. It was a game she was familiar with, of surreptitious glances and pretending not to care you were under observation even though you absolutely did. It was a bit of a shameful game, especially how if someone broke serve and confronted the other, the match result was more of a mumbled draw than anything meaningful, but they were at least disciplined players, and she could respect that at least.

Still, the game was a little easy given the circumstances. With ice cream and active conversation happening around them, there were enough distractions to allow going full minutes between looks. When Fen brought up her weird palate -- weird for a cook, even -- Fiona couldn’t help but even be engaged with everyone else, and Melissa couldn’t blame her. She couldn’t help but associate eating bugs with that one kid in elementary who would do it to gross everyone out. From listening to conversations at youth group, it seemed like every school had that kid.

But she also didn’t know Fen’s circumstances, just as her group leader didn’t entirely know hers. Fen had made the comment that using Duel Monsters to resolve conflicts was inherently a more peaceful endeavor than the mortal peril they were experiencing now, but Melissa wasn’t so sure about that. There were a whole bunch of ways the technology could fail, for a safety subroutine in the dueling matrix to not trip when it needed to and someone end up seriously hurt. Melissa had neglected to mention how just over two weeks ago now her time a malfunctioning duel disk had caused her whole campus to fall into chaos, or how a week or two before that she’d had some chips she was carrying split open by a squealing cartoon pig wielding a butcher’s cleaver. You could argue these things were exceptions, but there was no way Melissa was the most exceptional person in the world.

She was lucky enough to still be alive and with ice cream in her hands. That was something, at least. She finished her sundae in measured bites, carefully avoiding a brain freeze (though she was ready to advise anyone else at the table on cures if they needed them) and washed it all down with some complimentary water.

“Tell you what, Fen,” she said as everyone else finished up as well. “The next time we’re out and about we can get some Yu-Gi-Oh!” -- was that how you pronounce it? -- “cards and we can learn this new game together… if that’s okay with you.”