Spiritmal, The Deadly Glow

23. Spotlight

Me and Winter squeezed through the crowd, trying to find the seats Richard was telling us about. I scanned the crowd, noticing a hand waving me over. I rushed over quickly, Winter by my heals. The young man had saved four seats, and seemed surprised to only see me and Winter.

"The other two are staying behind. I turned on the telly for them." I explained.

Richard nodded. "You're just in time." He remarked as we sat down beside him. "Look, here he comes."

"Next up, we have contestant number 23, who goes by the name Felix! Apparently, this is the second contest he's ever entered, according to our records." The announcer announced. He seemed to be a plump man in his 40s, and something about him somehow seemed familiar... I shook my thoughts away, focusing on the contest instead. Felix could be seen walking into the middle of the small stadium. Topaz was by his heels, tail and head up in the air as he showed off his bow tie.

"You can start whenever you're ready." One of the three judges at the stand nodded at him. I watched as he nodded back, his head still mostly looking at the floor.

From my point of view, I could see him take a deep breath before he finally lifted his head slightly and called out a move.

"Rain dance."

The lionblitz roared, a ring of clouds appearing around both trainer and spiritmal. Rain fell, surrounding the two in a wall of water. Felix then nodded, giving Topaz a cue. The lionblitz jumped into the rain, becoming one with it.

"Roar."

The water converged, forming the shape of a majestic lion. It swam up into the clouds, jumping from one end of the circle to the other above his trainer below. In the middle, Topaz roared, the sun coming up above him and making his entire body glow, as though pure gold had been encased in his watery form. Rainbow-colored light shone down on the entire stage and audience, the audience gasping in approval at the sight. The lionblitz then touched down on the other side of the ring of clouds, swimming in a spiral motion back down to the front of his trainer where he first was. The timing was perfect, as the sun from earlier parted the ring of clouds, bringing the rain to a stop.

Topaz return back into a solid form, the sunshine shining down on both trainer and spiritmal as they bowed in sync. The audience cheered, and claps resounded around the entire stadium.

"Hm... simple, but extremely stylish at the same time." I heard Richard comment. "For what it is, I'll expect him to get... maybe 25?"

I looked up at the screen as the results came in. Felix had gotten 25 points total.

"Wow... that was accurate..." I commented.

"Well... I mean... I'll have to know a thing or two about these things, seeing that it's literally my livelihood." Richard replied me as Felix and Topaz ran back backstage.

"Let's go see how he's doing, shall we?" Richard commented. Before I could even stand up, both winter and the young man were already making a beeline towards the backstage area. I sighed, immediately jumping onto my feet and running after the hyper trainer and Spiritmal.
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As I opened the waiting room door, the first thing I noticed was that Felix seemed to be lost in thought. Richard was sitting down next to him, strangely silent as well.

"What's up?" I attempted to break the silence.

"Ah, everything's fine. I'm sure Fels here is just resting from some social interaction overload."

Honestly, I was speechless.

"Geez Richard, I literally have to deal with the crowd on a regular basis. I am a racer after all, you know?" Felix finally spoke up.

"And I wasn't actually quiet due to the crowd but thanks for keeping quiet anyways, it's kind of peaceful you know?"

"Huh?" Richard seemed genuinely confused.

"On a more serious note." Felix continued. "I've no idea why but I've a feeling that something bad is going to happen."

"Something bad?" I questioned.

"A-are you sure Fels?" Richard seemed to be genuinely afraid after hearing his cousin's words.

"Quite sure..." Felix still seemed to be slightly lost in thought. "Something doesn't feel right..."

"Hey um... it's just a feeling right?" I questioned Felix.

"Yea." He replied.

"Yea, right, just a feeling. Every time you say that we either get a run in with some hostile spiritmals or I end up falling sick the next day." Richard grumbled. "You know Fels, you've always had surprisingly good intuition."

"Heh." Was all Felix replied.

Now that I think about it, wasn't Felix the first one to sense that we were surrounded by team Alchama about a year ago?

"Hmm..." Star perked up, seeming to be concentrating on her surroundings. "You know Felix, you may be right after all. However, I must say, I'm impressed. I wouldn't have picked up on that without your warning."

"You know what it is?" Felix seemed curious.

"You don't?" Star's face seemed to be confused at the fact that Felix actually didn't know what was going on.

"No, I just get bad feelings, I can't figure out their cause." The blue-haired trainer replied.

"Star, what's up?" I finally questioned the bird.

"To be extremely precise, I could feel a really weird aura coming from somewhere in this building. Judging from the aura readings I'm getting, this weird aura seemed to have entered the building only a few minutes ago, and it's currently at..."

"... we need to go." Felix cut Star off, standing up as he did so.

"Go... where?" I was honestly confused, looking down to see Winter's ears pressed tightly against her head in distress. Even the wolfabeast seemed to realize that something was amiss.

"Follow my lead." Star insisted, gesturing towards the door. I quickly opened it, and all of us followed after the bird as quietly as possible.

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So... here's another prewritten part I guess. I won't be updating this much currently because I'll be focusing on chatting with chat and another project I have going on my Instagram account. Both projects are pretty big and it'll be a while before I'll be free enough to juggle writing this alongside everything else in life... sorry about that.

For now, I hope that you guys have enjoyed this chapter.