Twisted-Wonderland: Heart of the Night

Episode 2-29: The Exhibition Rally!

"Hey, Headmage! We caught your guy! You know what that means... Time to cough up the reward you promised!", Grim approached Crowley before he would leave.

"What? Ohhh... I did promise you that, didn't I? But it's far too late. The tournament brackets have already been announced. What to do...?", Crowley.

"WHAAAAAAAT?! You wretched, backstabbin' swindler! I am gonna make it rain fire, you liar! MYAAAAAAAH!", Grim went to pounce on Crowley. That is before I grabbed a hold of him from his scruff, except with more of a tighter grip.

"I could of told you that from the beginning...", Kalin. Grim is just too angry to listen to my "I told you so".

"Stop, please! Restrain yourself for a moment! I will... come up with something. Uh... Ah! I've got it! What would you say to playing in a special exhibition match? If it were held before the tournament itself, it wouldn't interfere with anything. And the eyes of the world would be squarely on you!", Crowley.

"On me?!", Grim. I don't think he realizes he's still in a grip hold by me when he heard of having all the attention.

"B-but of course.", Crowley.

"Well, so long as I'm the center of attention, I guess that will do. This'll be great! After the scouts see me kickin' tail on TV, they'll be swarmin' all over me!", Grim with all of his excitement decides to jump off from my grip, and I just let go without restraint since he seemed calm enough.

"But Magift teams need seven players...", I pointed out to see if Crowley could come up with a solution to that.

"The other players... Ah, right. And we'll need an opposing team as well. Perhaps we could cobble one together out of faculty members...", Crowley.

"Myah?! You haven't given this any thought at all!", Grim. I knew it, he just made up stuff on the spot and didn't think of all the details.

"Hey, so, couldn't help overhearing...", Ace. "If you need some teammates, we could help you out.", Deuce. They both conveniently showed up behind me announcing themselves as candidates.

"What are you doing? You're members of Heartslabyul!", Riddle. "There's no tournament rule that says we can't play for another dorm's team.", Ace.

"Ha! He's right! I guess no one thought that would ever happen, so no one ever wrote it down.", Trey. "Ooh, now this sounds like fun! I wanna be on Kalin's team too!", Cater. "B-but you're an actual member of our team!", Riddle. "Tch.", Cater.

"I didn't go through all that just to sit back 'n cheer for you guys. If I'm getting the chance, I wanna play!", Ace. "I'm not like him, okay?! I just want to have my friends' backs.", Deuce.

"If you need someone to play against, Savanaclaw will be happy to help.", Jack.

"Myah?! You will?!", Grim. Even I was surprised by his suggestion.

"Of course. Playing against the faculty would be no fun. We'll give you a proper match.", Jack.

"Sweet! Guess you ain't such a jerk after all.", Ace. "Don't get the wrong idea-- this is just payback! I don't want that debt hanging over my head. You don't got a problem with it, right?", Jack. I grin to his denial to being nice and helping out.

"*Siiigh*... Yeah, sure, what's one more game when we're already at the brink of exhaustion? You're a monster, Jack.", Ruggie. "Pfft. I don't even care anymore. Come and take your best shot, herbivores. It may be an exhibition match, but we ain't gonna be playin' footsies here. You better be ready for us.", Leona.

"Count us in, too.", a familiar voice spoke out.

We all saw that Taika and Seth behind him coming into our discussion about the exhibition match. Leona just gave a scowl look to Taika's approach.