The sun glared fiercely above the dune-strewn wasteland, each grain of sand shimmering like tiny embers scattered across the dry earth. The party trudged through the desert at a cautious pace, their shadows stretching long behind them. Every step released a crunch or a soft puff of sand, the sound muffled in the oppressive heat.
"This again reminds me of the Sahara," Yuuna muttered, shielding her eyes beneath her hood.
"You said that already," Kyle groaned, dragging his boots through the sand.
"Still hot," Sinryo added, dramatically flopping backward until Yetsan kicked sand on his face. "HEY!"
"Focus," Fuhiken ordered from the front, his shield held high. "We need to scout ahead. That mushroom's still somewhere out here."
It had started earlier that day, just before lunch, ironically, when the party encountered a rare Fire Mushroom hopping between the dunes. Unlike normal monsters, this one was a menace of agility. It danced, spun, and twirled past attacks like it had trained in a ballet school under the gods of dodge themselves.
Yuuna narrowed her eyes behind her book. "It moves… like it knows. It's intelligent."
"I think it flipped me off," Kyle muttered.
"I think it pirouetted at me mockingly," Sakura said, grinding her teeth.
"It did," Yuuna confirmed. "Multiple pirouettes."
Jessica sighed. "Why do I feel this is going to be like the golden Cluckatrice again?"
At that, Fahleena's eyes sparkled. "Oho~? Poultry Executioner Jessica has a rival!"
"Stop calling me that!" Jessica hissed, ears twitching furiously.
With a battle cry resembling a deflated balloon, Sinryo lobbed another coin at the mushroom. TING! It ricocheted in a perfect arc, off a rock, then Kyle's forehead.
"GAH! My eye!" Kyle clutched his face. "Why is your aim always so bad?!"
"It's not my aim, it's fate!" Sinryo argued.
"That's not how aim works!" Kyle shouted.
The mushroom twirled, spun, and struck a pose like a desert ballerina, then made a show of shaking its tiny cap at them, defiance incarnate.
"I SWEAR it just said 'you missed me' in mushroom language!" Sakura shouted.
Orchid stepped forward, drawing her sword. "I shall show it the dance of justice!"
"No, no, wait!" Gabyola began, but it was too late.
Orchid launched herself, attempting a thrust. The mushroom hopped, not just away, but up, and with impressive acrobatics, stomped Orchid's head, leaving her stuck face-first in sand.
"Gnnnnnrrgh, CHOCOLATE POWER!!"
Gabyola facepalmed the moment she saw Orchid reach into her pouch with that all-too-familiar gleam in her eyes. It could only mean one thing.
"No. Don't you dare," Gaby muttered under her breath.
But it was too late.
With an overly dramatic flourish, Orchid unveiled her so-called secret weapon: a perfectly wrapped chocolate bar, still pristine despite the desert heat. The golden foil shimmered in the sun as if it, too, were infused with divine purpose. She tore the wrapper with flair, revealing the glossy surface of rich, dark chocolate, and, to Gabyola's horror, proceeded to smear it directly onto her longsword.
She did it slowly, deliberately, like a pastry chef icing a cake, except instead of a cake, it was a sacred weapon of battle, and instead of sanity, it was madness incarnate.
"WHY is this happening again?" Gaby whispered, watching in muted agony.
The chocolate oozed into the grooves of the blade, sizzling slightly as it mixed with the heat of the metal. The sword began to hum with an unholy aura. A cloud of unnatural energy radiated outward, shimmering with swirling dark hues and the scent of cocoa gone wrong.
The atmosphere shifted.
Birds that weren't even there flew away.
The wind itself retreated.
Somewhere, a distant bell tolled for no apparent reason.
"BLACK CHEF: DOOMFUL DESSERT EDITION!!" Orchid cried, holding her sword aloft like an ancient warlock performing a forbidden rite.
The sword screeched in response, yes, it actually screeched, as foul magic enveloped the blade in dark mist flecked with sugar sparkles. The chocolate-infused weapon now radiated every debuff imaginable: poison, paralysis, curse, sleep, doom, indigestion, and possibly existential dread.
Even the Fire Mushroom stopped for a second.
Kyle squinted. "Wait… did that mushroom just flinch?"
"No," Yuuna said. "It was recoiling in fear."
Gabyola sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I was supposed to raise these girls to be elegant forest maidens. Instead… I have this."
Orchid grinned brightly. "For chocolate is justice!"
"No. No, it's not," Gaby muttered.
The mushroom paused, considering Orchid's cursed confection. Then, in the most theatrical dodge yet, it leapt over her blade in slow motion, midair somersaulting as if skating across invisible ice.
"That was an axel spin!" Sinryo cried. "Why is it good at this?!"
"It's showing off," Yuuna muttered, flipping a page. "It's evolved from fleeing to taunting."
"IT'S MOCKING US," Jessica snapped. "I can't take this anymore!"
Sakura's next attempt with Light Beam I was a beam of precision, curving beautifully mid-air, only to find nothing but dust, as the mushroom twirled mid-jump and landed flawlessly on a stone, giving what looked like a bow.
"It's mocking us with form," Fuhiken muttered, sweating behind his shield.
"IT DABBED AT ME," Sinryo cried.
Gigih, at the edge of frustration, prepared a fully overcharged Ice spell.
"No, Gigih, wait, !" Yuuna warned, but the spell launched.
A blast of frigid mana erupted like a glacier had just exploded in the sky. The mushroom flipped again, skating on the icy surface like a professional. It pirouetted in slow motion, twirling past the spell with divine grace.
"...That mushroom just did a triple salchow," Yuuna said flatly.
"Who trained this thing? The spirit of showbiz?!" Kyle screamed.
At last, it was Sakura who cracked. "I'M DONE."
She gripped her staff like a bat, turned on the spot, and slugged the mushroom mid-spin. It soared in a perfect arc, flailing like a flaming comet, spiraling into the air as everyone watched in stunned silence.
"...Did Sakura just play baseball with a mushroom?" Jessica asked.
"Yup," said Adiw.
"Nice form," nodded Kyle.
But the mushroom wasn't down yet. Mid-spin, it recovered, bounced once, and began hopping toward escape.
Fahleena, eyes blazing with a mix of determination and chaotic luck, readied her Keyblade. "KEYBLADE BOOMERANG!"
She hurled it, graceful spin, arcing beautifully. Miss.
But the Keyblade bounced off Fuhiken's shield with a clonk! and deflected like a divine cue ball, crashing square into the mushroom's head with a solid THUNK.
"Oh," said Fuhiken, blinking. "That's lucky."
"Lady Luck still favors me!!" Fahleena shouted.
The mushroom staggered, legs wobbly, before attempting one last desperate leap.
Yetsan stepped forward. No theatrics. No flashy charge.
Just a clean, perfect lance thrust.
Schlick.
The mushroom collapsed with a poof of spores and a musical squeak.
There was silence, one of those rare, thick silences that settled over the party like an invisible blanket, where even the wind seemed to hold its breath and the desert heat paused in reverence. No one moved. No one spoke. The still-spinning Keyblade slowly stopped its gentle wobble in the sand, and the faint echo of the mushroom's final squeaky poof hung in the air like a question mark. Each elf stood frozen, processing what had just unfolded, a battle of grace, chaos, and chocolate-induced sorcery, unable to decide whether they had just witnessed a triumph or a fever dream.
Then Fahleena stepped forward, her twin pink tails fluttering dramatically as she raised her Keyblade overhead.
"It is time."
"Oh no," Jessica whispered.
"In recognition of thy valor…" Fahleena began, summoning all her chuunibyou might, "...and for slaying the Dancer of Fire and Spores, I, Lady Fahleena of the Twintail Kingdom, hereby bestow upon thee, brave Sir Yetsan, the eternal, unquestionable, canon title of, SHROOMSLAYER!"
She waved her hand with regal flourish, as though conjuring unseen celestial sparkles from the very fabric of fate itself, her fingers tracing the air with the exaggerated elegance of a sovereign bestowing divine honor. Her stance shifted to a theatrical pose, one leg bent with intentional drama, her twintails fluttering as if summoned by an ethereal wind that existed only in her imagination. In her eyes burned the conviction of a monarch from a forgotten kingdom of stars, her every motion steeped in the sacred rites of fantasy nobility. It wasn't just a gesture, it was a ritual, a cosmic anointing, a ceremony woven from dreams and delusions, where the line between reality and roleplay blurred into glittering absurdity.
Yetsan blinked inside his helmet. "Please… no."
"It's already canon!" Fahleena declared with glee. "The realm hath spoken!"
"Not canon," Yetsan muttered, looking away. "I refuse it."
"You cannot refuse destiny!" she continued, dramatically posing with her Keyblade.
Jessica struggled. Her lips twitched. Her shoulders shook.
"Don't… laugh…" she whispered to herself. "Don't give her the satisfaction…"
A snort escaped. Then a giggle.
"Pfft, Shroomslayer!" she cracked, falling into laughter. "I can't, HAHAHAHA, "
Kyle joined in, falling on his side. "Did you see its ballet moves?! That thing trained in drama school!"
"It stomped Orchid's head and curtsied!" Sinryo wheezed.
Sakura sighed. "At least it's over."
Orchid pulled her face from the sand. "My chocolate technique was effective."
"No, it wasn't," Gabyola said flatly.
Fuhiken shook his head, rubbing his temples. "We're never getting a normal day, are we?"
Gigih scribbled into his spellbook. "Note: mushroom had superior footwork. Possibly trained by ancient ballerina spirits."
Yuuna turned a page in her book. "Next time, we run. No honor in battling interpretive dancers."
As the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the sand, the party moved on, laughing, groaning, some embarrassed, but all victorious.
In the distance, the wind carried the sound of twintailed declarations.
"Sir Shroomslayer, we ride!"
"No, we walk! Stop calling me that!"
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