XCII ||| Up & Up & Up

"So, when are we going up?" Felix grinned.

"Up where?" I blinked, suddenly confused.

"To Emerald Sky City? Hello?" He exclaimed excitedly.

"And how would you do that?" I mocked.

He put his hands on his hip, "You will invite me, obviously!"

"You will invite us," Rio corrected.

"You can't order a Queen around, you know that, right?" I glared at them. "And you aren't going anywhere. I'm not taking anyone up there. Did you forget what your ancestors did?"

"Except me," Oliver gave me a look.

A nod, "Except you."

"Will you use that against us forever?" Rio gasped. "Bringing up what our ancestors did. You said kids aren't to blame for the family's past."

I clicked my tongue, "It feels good to guilt trip you, though."

"Hel!" Felix cried. "I'm your best friend, I'm going with you."

"I think I'm her best friend," Oliver glared at him.

He scoffed, "No. I am. You're the mate. You can only be one, you greedy bastard. I'm the best friend, I know of this before you did, and I'm going," Felix turned to me. "Right, Hel? Aren't I coming?" Then he gave me that big smile that screams I-will-be-heartbroken-with-a-no.

"Aye, fine."

"Hell no!" Rio gasped annoyed. "Where Oliver goes the Circle also goes. If he's going, the six of us are too." He turned to Oliver, giving him the same damn eyes Felix gave me. Fucker. "Right, brother?"

["I really like this blue haired kid,"] Jack chuckled.

Ugh, he's bloody annoying.

Oliver me gave me a look, a pleading look, and I sighed. "Fine," I growled. "The Circle and Felix is coming."

"And me," Henrihk added, "right? You won't separate boyfriends."

"Us too!" Yuliana gasped. "I date Dimitry. You have to take the ones who date with the kids of the Circle!"

"Hell no!" Yumi and Savannah gasped.

"If you take Yuliana and Dorothy, you take us too!" Elsa added.

"And me!" Noah held her waist.

"Me too!" Agatta exclaimed.

["You are doomed,"] Jack mocked me and I gave him the finger.

"Why don't we take… all of them?" Oliver asked.

I glared at him, "The way you wanted to?"

He suppressed a grin, "Is that a yes?"

"No," I narrowed my eyes.

"No?" He pouted.

"Nope. I'm older, I decide."

Grinning, I ignored them and took Felix to the clean side of the arena, with my wings, of course, give his effect on magic. Though he is doing an awesome job controlling it not to fuck with the time magic I set around here. "What is it?"

"Your training, come on. I won't beat you anymore, but you need the training and I promised I would give it to you! Ignore them, come on, let's train," I summoned one of my emerald daggers and another random one of obsidian for him. "If you get your attacks wrong again, I'll kick your arse."

This time, his smile was more confident, "Yes, Captain!"

Finally, as I attacked him, he held on hard for the first time.

✵ 𖣔 ✵

Maybe it was because his two boyfriends were present, or because Oliver's here and they have this rivalry of ten years, but Lix definitely did a lot better this time. Way better than all the previous days.

"Did having these kids here give you more strength to fight, Lix?"

He blushed, "What?"

I tilted my head, "Did you want to impress them?"

"More like I wanted to impress you in front of them. Did it work?"

That made me laugh, "Good job, kid. You're a lot better," I messed with his brown hair. Then I used my normal water magic on him, and then the normal wind to dry him up. "You're clean again," I winked.

Beaming, he handed me the dagger and I took into the tattoo. "You are too strong, Hel. And I mean, physically strong. You look slim, but you don't have any fat."

I looked down at my breasts, "Breasts are all fat, are they not? And according to Abellona, I have quite a bit," but before I could put my hands over it, over the corset, Oliver faded and covered me from anyone's eyes. "Hi," I chuckled. "What is it?"

He gasped, "Don't do that," he gave me that jealous look. "I know that your breasts are amazing, beautiful. I know that better than anyone. But let's keep it like that. If you talk about it, they will look. If they look, I'll get jealous and mad."

Chuckling, I got on my toes, and circled my arms around his neck, pressing my chest on his, "I like when you're jealous," I whispered, freezing everyone else. "They won't look, I just froze them. So, what do you want to do, Oli?"

His eyes turned ruby red, "You are impossible," then he bend down a bit and held my thighs up, making me jump on him with my legs around his waist. "Don't tempt me so much, we can't do what I want to, in here."

I licked my lips sensually and slow, looking at his, "Yeah?"

"Hel, you will make me teleport us to our tower again."

His words made me blush, "Our?" Naughty.

"What's mine is yours, so, yes, our," he whispered against my lips. "Do you want to go, babe? We can skip breakfast. It's an entire hour, and with your magic…" his nose nuzzled mine. "We can make it a lot longer than that. Please?"

I sucked on a breath, "Oli…"

"I'm really jealous of you with them, can I have you just for me for an hour?" He asked softly. "You are mine, aren't you? Please, babe. I'm all hard and heavy for you."

This bastard. "You are a bloody devil, you know that?" I gasped, eyes dilating with pleasure. "Believe me, I'm all ready for you, Oli."

"Yeah?" He whispered and kissed me deep. "I hate you, Hel."

I felt my heart skip a beat, "No, I hate you," I countered.

"I know you do," he grinned and put me down. "Let's get over with this, then we'll go to our tower."

He's doing some nasty things with my mind, "Fine." Biting my bottom lip, I unfroze the others.

Rio feigned a gag, "Hell no, tell me you didn't do anything nasty."

I glared at him, "We are not savages, blue fangs."

"You kind are," he mocked.

Then, out of nowhere, we all got wary as we felt a strong power near the right side doors of the arena, as I undid the magic around it, I found Mia standing there with a grin on. "Glad to see you're making good use of our facilities, Hel."

"Of course," I winked when she walked towards us. "It's here to be used, is it not? And I mean, I did live only for my training for sometime. It's hard to break old habits."

"I know that very well," she smiled softly and looked at the others. "So, it was decided that all the 31 advanced students of your class and all the others who are going to be part of the Eclipseball Tournament in a week, will be allowed to skip all classes this week, to train. The professors will all be in standby and wait until the Lunar Starfall Festival ends too, so none of you will lose anything. And as I had a feeling 26 of you would be in here, I came to where I knew I would find Hel."

"Oh? That gives us a lot more time to train," I smiled wickedly and when I turned to the players of my group, they all flinched and avoided my eyes. "You ain't running from it."

Mia giggled, "I love your enthusiasm, sweetheart. But I was going to suggest you all something else."

Both me and Oliver turned to her, "What?" We asked.

"Hel has never seen a game, neither has she played one. I take that she understands how it works, but you have a costume of playing against each other. Agatta added, as she used to always be part of Felix's group," oh? "Why don't your two teams train together? Hel can put up her time magic and her team can train against Oli's. That way you also can train the same amount of time and the match will be totally fair."

Why did she had to use that word? "Would that be good, Mia?"

She turned to me and nodded, "I believe so. But it's on you."

I turned to Oliver and he gave an all-knowing look, probably also asking himself if that was a Mia advice or a Crone's.

Are they even different?