The sun was shining throughout the grassy plains east of the village, casting golden rays on a makeshift open-field arena just outside the walls. A gathered crowd buzzed with excitement, tension crackling in the air. Wooden bleachers, haphazardly thrown together overnight, creaked under the weight of both curious townsfolk and veteran adventurers looking for a good show.
At the center stood two parties.
On one side, the usual chaos ensemble—Kale looking confused but pumped, Lyra already placing side bets, Seren cracking her knuckles, Ash doing his best to pretend this wasn't a waste of daylight, and Poffin… wearing a headband and a scowl, pacing in a circle like an angry pompom gladiator.
On the other side, their rival party stood smug as ever. And in the middle of them all, the juiced-up rival beast tamer—built like a brick house wearing a fur-lined cloak—stepped forward with an almost theatrical sneer.
"Well, well," he said, cracking his knuckles loud enough to make birds scatter, "Didn't think your little mascot had the guts to actually show."
Poffin, being held back by Ash's grip like an angry toddler, tried to swat at the air while growling.
The rival tamer chuckled and snapped his fingers.
A magic circle flared to life at his feet. The ground trembled.
And from it emerged something that really, really shouldn't have existed outside a god's fever dream—a monstrous beast with more eyes than any living thing had the right to own, jaws that looked like they could disassemble a carriage in one bite, and a howl that made one guy in the crowd faint.
Someone in the back yelled, "Is that even legal?!"
"Barely," the rival tamer smirked. "Had to sign paperwork in blood. Not mine."
The crowd oohed in a mix of admiration and trauma.
Ash glanced down at Poffin, who had stopped squirming. For a moment. Then he puffed up like a tiny volcano of ego.
"Oh no," Ash muttered. "He's doing the strut."
Indeed, Poffin marched up to the invisible boundary line, locked eyes with the abomination, and let out a bark that translated roughly to: 'Hope you stretched, you overgrown nightmare. You're about to catch paws.'
The tension snapped like a whip.
And then… the battle began.
(Music cue: Vaguely Familiar Turn-Based Encounter Theme #3)
A puff of wind blew across the dusty arena. Poffin adjusted his headband with a single paw.
The rival tamer raised his hand. "Let's see how your cottonball handles The Maw of Maelgra."
The beast snarled, causing several birds, a nearby food stand, and a priest to evacuate the area.
Poffin cracked his neck—probably metaphorically, since he didn't have a neck—and charged.
The crowd leaned forward.
Maelgra lunged.
Poffin disappeared.
And reappeared on the abomination's back.
"YOU FOOL," Poffin probably shouted in his language of squeaks, growls, and sassy barks. "I STUDIED THE BLADE."
He unleashed his Fur Dart Missiles technique—now semi-controlled and only mildly reckless—launching off Maelgra's spine.
BOOM.
The impact cracked the beast's shoulder and sent it sliding back a few feet away, plowing furrows into the arena. The crowd erupted into gasps.
The rival tamer's grin twitched. "That's new."
Ash, deadpan: "He improvises. A lot."
Maelgra recovered, roared, and released a flurry of shadowy tendrils like nightmare noodles. They writhed toward Poffin.
Lyra gasped. "Poffin!"
But he was already rolling, ducking, leaping.
"Wait…" Ash murmured.
Poffin shed a cloud of fur mid-air like an explosion of dandelion rage. Each precisely controlled hair—a tiny charged projectile—embedded into the abomination's skin like c4.
And then...
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Chain reaction.
Smoke clouded the field. When it cleared, Maelgra was still standing… but singed, stunned, and visibly pissed.
Poffin landed on all fours, panting.
Garvul'eth began to regenerate. A low rumble escaped its multiple throats.
But Poffin stood his ground.
He wasn't just fighting for pride. Or vengeance.
He was fighting because no one—not a smug tamer, not an eldritch flesh god—was going to outshine him in front of this many people.
Maelgra the walking Law Violation lunged forward and opened his jagged maw for a quick clean bite.
Poffin dodged.
The beast anticipated and in a smug grin of its own flicked its tail and sent Poffin crashing into the soil.
Poffin stood up and spit out dirt.
"Ugh, it got in my mou—"
Before he could complain the beast was charging once again, it's spikes and claws protruding as it braced itself for one final move.
"Okay, This has gone far enough, Ash! cue it"
Ash slowly reached into his coat and tossed Poffin a small glimmering treat midair. It landed in the puffball's mouth like a cinematic final gear-up.
Power surged.
Poffin's body pulsed with glowing light.
The rival tamer's eyes widened. "Oh crap."
The opposing beast snarled. It pawed at the ground, eager to smash, maul, and generally violate several local ordinances as it began getting nearer towards Poffin.
Then came the moment.
Poffin stepped forward. Calm. Poised. Smug. Like a noble about to start a duel… or a cat about to knock something off a table just to watch the consequences.
He stopped mid-field, and without a single word—because no one would've understood him anyway—he sat down.
And began to shed.
Chunks of silvery fluff fell away like a blizzard. Yet, with every swipe, his fur regrew just as fast. A regenerative cycle of absurd proportions, pumping out fluff like a divine cotton mill. It defied logic. It defied science. It probably violated ethical hair production.
The sound of the beast's steps were getting louder.
In seconds, he'd rolled together a perfectly spherical mass—twice his size, humming with volatile static, and faintly glowing.
Ash tilted his head. "...I'm sure this violates at least three magical safety laws."
The others backed away. The rival blinked. "What the hell is he doing? Doesn't matter. Finish this Maelgra! Use Tackle!"
The beast doesn't waste a second and finally leaped and attempted to close the distance between them.
Then Poffin moved.
With the grace of a pro athlete and the dramatics of a theater kid, he struck a pose. Tail raised like a baseball, gaze burning with righteous chaos.
and then—
BOOM!
He sent it flying rapidly mid-air with one single powerful tail swing. Causing a shockwave that reverberated throughout the village, sending leaves, fabrics and someone's toupee in the air.
The hairball launched like a cannonshot, screeching through the air with a war cry only felines could hear. It sparked. It glowed. It ignited somewhere along its arc and came down like a judgment meteor.
BOOM!
The rival beast was flattened from the point-blank range impact of what could only be described as a weapon of war. Steam hissed off its back. It twitched once, then went limp.
A beat of silence passed. The crowd frozen in wide-eyed awe.
Poffin calmly dusted off his paws, not even winded. His fur already restored to its full fluffy glory.
Ash crossed his arms. "Not bad for a mop."
Poffin stood frozen for a moment, staring at the crater where the monstrous beast once stood.
He blinked.
Then blinked again.
"…I really won?" his tiny voice squeaked in disbelief (which to everyone else sounded like a victorious chirp and a smug purr).
And that's when it began.
"Ohhhhhh! Now you all quiet, huh?!" he barked with a triumphant hop. "Where's all that trash talk?! Huh?! WHO'S A MOP NOW?!"
He spun toward the rival tamer with the unhinged glee of someone who'd just discovered their true power—and it was pettiness.
"You flex that hard just to get WASHED by a cotton ball? What even are your muscles for? Huh? For show?! For PETTING?!"
The rival party stared, completely baffled by the symphony of chirps and growls coming from the smug puffball vibrating with righteous fury.
Ash sighed, rubbing his temple. He leaned down, scooping Poffin up with one arm mid-rant.
"Okay. That's enough," he muttered.
Poffin squirmed. "Put me down! I have an entire arsenal of words prepared! There's wordplay! There's sarcasm! There's—"
Ash gently flicked his forehead. "Nope."
And just like that, the fluffball was silenced. Temporarily.
But the smug aura? Still very much present.
The rival beast tamer, still slack-jawed and visibly sweating from the sheer absurdity of what just happened, silently retrieved the unconscious behemoth.
With a snap of his fingers and a shimmer of forbidden arcane symbols that probably broke at least three interdimensional laws, the monstrous beast was swallowed back into some swirling shadow portal that smelled faintly of burnt socks and regret.
He stood there for a moment, arms crossed, jaw clenched. Then—
"Tch. Lucky shot," he muttered, scoffing.
Poffin, still in Ash's arm, attempted to lunge forward. "LUCKY? I CURVED REALITY!"
Ash tightened his grip just slightly. "Nope. We're done here."
The rival tamer turned on his heel with a dramatic swirl of his cloak, the rest of his party following behind, one of them visibly whispering "That hairball glowed."
Another added, "I'm never mocking a furball again."
Poffin beamed like a warlord who'd just conquered a continent with glitter and spite.
He looked up at Ash. "I want that on a banner."
Ash sighed. "I'll stitch it in your fur if you want."
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The next day rolled in with the warm glow of morning sun peeking through the wooden shutters of the inn, casting golden rays over the party's somewhat slumped forms gathered around the breakfast table.
There were no medals. No parades. No bard retelling their tale with excessive dramatics and a suspicious amount of shirtless imagery.
But gods, it felt like a win.
"Did we actually win anything?" Kale asked, stabbing at his eggs like they might answer him.
"Just the sound of silence," Ash replied, calmly sipping his tea. "Theirs, specifically."
Poffin sat on the table, chest puffed out, fur pristine, and still faintly radiating superiority. He tapped his paw to summon the imaginary spotlight he believed he deserved. "And humiliation. Let's not forget the steaming pile of humiliation they left in."
The mood was light. For once, there were no goose-related rampages, no bar brawls, and Poffin wasn't riding anything he shouldn't be.
Just a party basking in the simple, quiet joy of a smug victory and the rare peace that followed.
Of course, that peace wouldn't last long.