Work Text:
It was an incredibly mild day. In what way? A mild way. The kind that makes you certain you won’t be filing this 24 hours into your long-term memory; not because it was bad, simply because it was comfortable and unordinary.
Amelia was quite certain of this as she sipped her tea. Beside her, Calli downed her own drink, which was not tea, even though it was only 11 in the morning. Kiara was cooing at Gura, who was deflating against the table, and Ina smiled happily at the lot. She’d brought them together to try a new batch of cookies she’d made and was very pleased to see the others loved them. It was so popular that the whole batch was gone within the hour. Almost.
“So… who gets the last one?”
Everyone’s attention was drawn to the middle of the table, where a lone circle of cauterised dough sat on a much larger plate.
Ame burped. “I did. Then I rewound time because you guys got mad, but because of Armando's law of relativity I can still remember the sweet gluten-free goodness of it crumbling against my tongue, even though that never happened technically which brings to mind the question of how many of my memories are basically hallucinations because no one else experienced them.”
She received four blank states from across the table.
“… That means I'm good. So one of you guys can have it this time.”
Electricity sparked through the air, as each eyed the others down. In each pair of eyes was a sugar-heightened resolve fit to disturb the Council themselves. There would be no other forfeits.
--
They were quick to find themselves in a vast pocket dimension, courtesy of one of Calli's spacial abilities. Already cookie-filled, Amelia elected to referee from the safe distance of 673 metres in the air. The girls were positioned 100 metres from each other, poised to strike. In the centre, the cookie sat serenely on its ceramic plate.
Ame held up her watch in lieu of a stopwatch. “Aaaand go!”
A flare of phoenix fire closed the distance in a second, and Kiara poised her hand over the cookie—
Thwack!
A tentacle threw her aside but she was quick to recover, drawing sword and shield to battle her opponent. Across from her, Ina readied a dozen-limbed arsenal.
They shot towards her, but a spiral of slashes severed their tips and left Ina wide open. Kiara lept forwards, her shield ready to barrel her over, but as she approached she could see the priestess had a terribly smug look on her face.
Oh shi— There were more tentacles.
On the other side of the cookie, the shark and reaper tussled as they ran.
“Outta my way, bone-for-brains!”
“I’ll have you know I’ve had grey matter for the last 300 years!” Calli shadow-stepped to avoid various trident swipes, letting out a ‘guh!’ when one sharply missed her nose.
She growled and drew her scythe, using it to ground to a halt in front of Gura. The shark vaulted from her own weapon, coming down upon Calli with a hail of seawater. She blocked the blow (but not the water, which was just to annoy her) and retaliated with a sodden slash. Her next one went for Gura’s chest, and it definitely would have hit her if she wasn’t so hydrodynamic.
“WOoaAh you trying to kill me, Mori?!”
“If your soul gets reaped—” She grunted— “I can always put it back!”
Gura giggled nervously. “I’ll pass.”
The shark managed to flick her tail right into Calli’s face, making a sound uncannily like a dolphin as she did.
Amelia laughed at the display. She shifted her attention to find that Kiara… wasn’t doing well.
Ina now had closer to fifty tentacles present, two of which were politely holding Kiara’s weapons for her while the other 47 fought to restrain her. The phoenix wriggled and burned them, but remained tangled despite her efforts.
“Surely it's cheating that you have an infinite tentacle void!” Kiara whined.
“My void might be infinite, but my tentacles aren’t!”
“Prove it!”
The priestess's eyes sparkled. “With pleasure!”
In an instant, the entire space was smothered by tentacles like some foul parody of a clown car, demolishing the cookie and competitors alike.
Amelia rewound that.
--
Kiara grunted. “Fine! I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this but—”
She tore through several tentacles and grasped the seal on her belt. “—for a cookie… I MUST!”
The chamber doubled in illumination and temperature as all eyes turned to behold a phoenix in her true form. Even Ina’s tentacles couldn’t grasp a being of pure righteous flame, and Kiara shot into the air with a reverberating screech. Ame put on sunglasses.
“Truce??” Gura cried, and Calli nodded just before a hail of flame was upon them.
Her distraction successful, Kiara was about to dive for her prize when a dark shape tore through the fire. Calli’s scythe swung wide, cleaving the air in a great arc that nipped at flaming feathers. For any other weapon, any other being, this would be folly. But this was Calli—the reaper who had been tasked with taking the infinite soul of a phoenix, over and over, for millennia. Even when it broke her heart.
A blazing pupil eyed her. Calli. You wouldn’t…
“Sorry, Kusotori. But for a cookie…”
… I understand.
Kiara shrieked and the flames flared, but Calli’s next strike flew true. It rended eternal soul from infernal body with a merciful grace that could only come from love. In the moments that followed, quiet fell upon the battlefield. Feathers drifted down, and Calli solemnly caught one in her hand, watching as it dissolved into embers. Her choice had been made.
Yeah……. Amelia rewound that.
--
With their newly calcified alliance, the bone bros hurried to take on Ina, who was closest to the cookie. Kiara’s fire rained from above, but Gura raised her trident and a flurry of waves shielded them. It also wetted them, but beggars can’t be choosers.
This left Calli free to rush ahead, her meticulous slashes dicing tentacles into calamari. Ina quickly replaced them, but she could see Calli making steady progress. She frowned and felt AO-chan bump her shoulder.
It is time, Priestess.
“Yes… I mustn’t hold back any longer.”
The priestess closed her eyes, and the ground at her feet appeared to ripple. When she opened them, each one was filled with endless nothingness. Not like black—like pure absence, like the place in the mind where forgotten days are not. The wings at her hips spread and expanded to a size that rivalled Kiara’s, throwing everyone else back in a gale of wind. The priestess hovered in the air, smiling serenely.
Kiara breathed a stream of fire at her, but it was swallowed into a pit of nothingness. Calli hurled her entire scythe through the air, and it was poised to hit Ina right in the chest when it blinked out of existence. Gura—
Well, she wasn’t dumb enough to repeat what they just did.
Instead she summoned water and dove . The liquid continued to coalesce before her, creating a tunnel through which she swam at neck-braking speeds—right towards the cookie.
Shadow strikes, eldritch abominations, and fire were quick to intercept her, but a shark in her native element cannot be stopped. She breached over bouts of heat and slipped between strikes, quickly gaining ground on her target with every twist, bite, and tear… But it wouldn’t be that easy. In moments, a great mass of tentacles walled off her path. They loomed overhead, they swerved from below, she hardly saw them before they tore in from every side—
Gura saw red.
And the next thing she knew, there were shreds of tentacle between her teeth and her hand was closing over the white ceramic plate.
“… H-hold on.” Gura paused. “Where’s the cookie?”
Calli froze mid-strike.
Kiara’s flames faltered.
Ina’s void-filled eyes blinked.
Up above, Ame frowned and glanced rapidly around the pocket dimension. What? She couldn’t see it anywhere. Only the four girls, endless void, and the empty white plate in Gura’s hand. She was reaching for her watch when, ever so sluggishly… a takodachi drifted past her face. The others also spotted it, but they couldn’t yet see what she was beholding.
In its two-toothed jaws, it was chewing a gluten-free cookie.
Ame bit her lip to suppress a cackle.
She would not be rewinding this.