“Let’s see how you did,” Jelly_Jim stood in front of the Dirge and Dread, the sun glistened through his green translucent body. Once the girls returned from their first task he took them to the derby track for a quick test. “Let’s see your beast,” he asked Dread. The tall white-haired girl nodded and stepped forward. She took a deep breath and summoned Thunder without using her menu. A golden tiger leapt out of the yin-yang symbol on the back of her leather jacket and padded around to the stand between her and Jelly_Jim. The slime man nodded at her.
“Nice. How ‘bout you?” He looked at Dirge. The shorter girl with raven curls nodded and held her hand out. A silver bell with a black strap materialized in her hand. He gave her an approving nod, then looked at both girls.
“Now I can train you. A million Cubes each,” he said with a smile.
“What?” Dread asked.
“You didn’t mention that!” Dirge added as she stamped her foot in anger. Jelly_Jim’s viscous shoulders flowed upward in a shrug.
“It didn’t matter because you weren’t ready. I gave you some advice, but I didn’t think you’d survive from the Schoolyard,” he said. “I’ll admit it, you’re better than I thought.” Dirge and Dread high fived each other, but the gelatinous man shook his head. His body wobbled. “But, still not good enough to train for free.” Dirge smirked. She brought her hand up to show Jelly-Jim a red and white poker chip, then she flipped it at him with her thumb. Jelly-Jim snatched the token out of the air and inspected it. His eyes widened.
“How’d you get this?” His hand swallowed the token into his translucent body and it flowed up his arm, then it disappeared when it reached his torso.
“You just agreed to train us, right?” Dread asked. His head wobbled when he shook it back and forth.
“I agreed to take a closer look at you. Maybe you’ll be worth training for free. Where’d you get the chip?” He asked again.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dirge chirped with a smile.Jelly_Jim gave a lopsided grin.
“That’s fair. Okay, no hustles this time. You two against me in a straight knockdown contest. Sound good?” Both girls nodded in agreement.
“Excellent, don’t hold back.” A translucent square menu coalesced in the air in front of them to present the game invite.
“Challenge from Jelly_Jim: Knockdown Contest.”
[Yeah. -Dread] She replied. Dread clenched her fists. Dirge still held the bell in her right hand, and she reached out to accept the invite with her left. She touched the display to accept the invite, and it began to disintegrate into nanos. Before it completely disappeared Dirge shouted at Jelly_Jim to distract him.
“HEY!” A small, flat silver blade shot from her mouth and embedded itself inside Jelly_Jim’s see-through body. Dirge rang her bell and the silver spike began to glow inside him with golden light.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Dread yelled the blade with her Tiger’s Roar ability. Jelly_Jim doubled over to hold his stomach. He groaned for a split second before he exploded.
“Winners: Dirge and Dread,” A deep voice announced from the scoreboard. Dirge and Dread gave each other another high five while green slime rained down on them. Green slugs crawled their way back to the the bottom half of his slime body lay. They melded into one mass and formed Jelly_Jim again. He smiled at them.
“I really underestimated you, that was brilliant,” he said.
“So you’ll teach us?” Dirge asked. Jelly_Jim shook his head again.
“I specialize in teaching Uniques to use their powers in the game. You’ve got that down. Looks to me like you just don’t know how to play the game,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to teach you.”
“You could teach us to play?” Dread asked.
“The game is too complicated. The best way to learn is practice, go play some games,” he said. “I’ll let you use this track any time you want,” he held his hand up and produced the red and white poker chip again. “Consider this a rental fee.” It disappeared into his hand again. “But playing against other Uniques is the only way you’re going to get better.” Dirge looked at Dread.
“Try-outs?” she asked. She pulled the flyer out to remind Dread. The taller girl nodded.
“Yeah, Sounds fun,” Dread smiled. She glanced around the smooth white track. “And we’ve got a home track to practice on.”
