Instability (Mario)

Chapter 12

Daisy was back in the arena.

While it had been about a month since she last battled, it had felt like much longer. So many things had happened that she never wanted to repeat...

She found herself excited for the battle, which was strange to her. Was she developing... some sort of bloodlust?

A flashback to Satsuki rushed to Daisy's head, and Daisy shook her head quickly to clear the image. Daisy never expected herself to have anything remotely close to bloodlust, but she had a strong urge to get in and show off what she could do.

"Welcome Tomboy Trouble!!! She's here today to show off her skills to the world!"

Daisy waved to the crowd unenthusiastically. This wasn't about showing off, this was about making sure that she still had her skills to fight off others. While she didn't want to admit it, she needed to get stronger as she was definitely weaker than her other friends.
This wasn't a book, or a game where she would get some sort of magical super power. She was on her own here- with just her manipulation of plants that she didn't really understand, and her rapier. Daisy felt like she was letting the team down. She shouldn't be the one making the plans and leading... well, then again, Rosalina was the one making plans for the most part. And Kaira and Saiko were probably going to take over her role of leading pretty soon, leaving Daisy to just sink back into the shadows. She was okay with that, though. Genuinely.

A giant turtle on top of a huge cloud appeared, and Daisy stared up into the sky as it began to fly around.

It's... cute.

Well, until it began dropping spiky red shells down. Daisy yelped, rolling out of the way. It laughed maniacally and continued doing so, making Daisy dodge and abandon any attempts at offense.

How am I supposed to attack that!??

Daisy didn't know what to do. She was limited with ranged attacks because of her rapier, so she had no choice but to use her power. She hadn't used it in so long, that when vines shot out of her hands, they didn't even reach the deranged turtle. It sneered down at her, and Daisy tried again, and when the vines flew up, they missed it. However, they were now long enough to reach the turtle if it stayed at that range...

Daisy yelled in pain as the red shell pierced through her leg. It was... walking? Daisy began to carefully weave her way through the shells around her, wincing whenever she moved her leg. One more time, she shot her vines up, and this time they collided. They wrapped around the turtle, dragging it to the ground.

It snarled as it hit the ground, and it threw one of the spiky red shells at her. She dodged nimbly, and lunged towards the creature, striking it. It retreated into its shell, and her rapier collided with the hard shell. Her shock was turned into her disadvantage as the creature had time to recover and fly away in its cloud again.

"Lakitu manages to slip away from Daisy Sarasa!"

The process repeated of her dodging the shells. She grit her teeth as the wound on her leg stung. Her hands outstretched, the vines curling out of her palms and she closed her fists as her vines wrapped around the Lakitu.
It crashed to the ground as she pulled her hands down, and this time, she lunged again. When it hid in it's shell, she merely pushed him off his cloud, making the Lakitu shriek in disbelief. It popped out of its shell to try and crawl away when Daisy chopped its head cleanly off. It's shrieks echoed in her head as the head fell to the ground.

A loud shout was heard from the crowd before the cheering, and Daisy looked in the general direction to see who was causing such a fuss.

"P-peach?"

Hey everyone! This chapter is a lil shorter.. sorry.

I added a picture to the last chapter during the Kaira and Saiko scene. In case you missed it, it's just this.

Question of the chapter: What's peach doing there?

Thanks for reading!