Gaster made a show of stretching and shaking himself off, doing a really good job of looking like there was nothing in this world worth a care. Grillby of course felt the exact opposite, but the good thing about lacking facial features was no one could really tell how tense he was. Well, aside from the way his fire kept changing color, but that was something Grillby knew most monsters didn't read into. Or at the very least couldn't figure out when they did. Except for Gaster, who by some strange miracle had already been able to figure out when the elemental was more nervous than normal.

"You ready to get this thing started?" Gaster laughed, rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a fight. Of course, the sleeves were so baggy over his slender bones that they just dragged back down again, but Grillby did catch the glint of chainmail underneath them. When had he equipped that?

"I'm not ready at all."

Gaster chuckled at this, eyes glittering with excitement, "Aw c'mon Grillby, this is gonna be fun. And I promise I won't shatter into a thousand pieces. Not even a hundred!"

Grillby shook his head, doing his best to stifle a crackle of laughter.

"What, still not convinced?" He stuck out a his smallest finger, "Not even if I pinky promise?"

Grillby let out a flurry of sparks, laughing at the absurd, childish glee in Gaster's voice, "Would you take this seriously?"

Gaster barred his teeth in a grin, making a nonsensical and exaggerated shrug with his arms and shoulders, "Oh live a little firef-"

Grillby had enough time to gasp, blue suddenly clenching around his soul, before he went flying to the side. He let out a muffled screech when he landed, slamming face-first into a soupy mess of mud several feet away from where he'd been standing. It stung, oh! It stung! He wiped it off furiously, his core flaring and drying the mud before the moisture could do more than pester away a few hit points. And then he was swept off his feet again, dragged across the ground and into a hedge of bones that slammed through his torso with enough intent to make his soul shiver. It didn't hurt of course - he took no damage from it - and as he stumbled to his feet he realized that Gaster had dropped the blue magic finally. Thank heavens for that. But it was eye opening, and a little terrifying. If Grillby were any other monster, that kind of attack would've done some serious damage. Dust-worthy damage, even.

Gaster piped up a happy laugh, grinning and signing excitedly, "You can't be serious! That puddle only took off three of your hitpoints? Man, and that didn't even scratch the surface, did it?"

Grillby brushed a last bit of drying mud off his arms, "So much for no cheap shots."

The skeleton shrugged, that grin of his starting to look a little less carefree and a little more dangerous the longer Grillby looked at it.

"I prefer to call it using my environment," he moved his hands as he spoke, and Grillby gave a jolt when he realized the movements didn't match his words.

The ground around the elemental's feet suddenly exploded into life as bone attacks of all shapes and sizes ripped up the earth, slamming into him over and over and threatening to knock him off his feet again. Grillby gave an exasperated huff, a white flame roaring to life around him and crashing down on the attacks, burning them into nothingness in seconds. He kept the flame spinning around him, chewing up all the new attacks Gaster summoned before they could overwhelm him again. And as it worked he sent a jet of flame surging towards the pestering skeleton.

Gaster dodged it deftly, making a show of yawning as he danced out of the way, "Wow you're slow."

He spun out of the way of another, "Heh, you're slower than Ammy. I didn't even think that was possible."

At the third Gaster was laughing again, "Oh lordy, you're killing me here firefly."

A fourth, "Figure of speech of course. You're not even close yet."

Grillby stifled an annoyed groan. He had never ever fought someone so fast to dodge before. And no matter how much Grillby tried to speed up his attacks, Gaster just danced out of the way. A few if the shaves got closer… Maybe… If you squinted your eyes at the skeleton and really paid attention. And for every snide comment Gaster threw, the crowd gathered around them laughed a little bit harder and sneered a little louder in unison with him. It was infuriating. Humiliating even.

"Hey tinderbox!"

Both Gaster and Grillby paused, looking towards the mentor still waiting on the sidelines. Amathea grinned.

"You're trying to hit a mouse with a bear-sized mallet," the fish monster quipped, "You need to think smaller."

"Awww Ammy!" Gaster groaned, "Don't coach the new guy!"

"And you bonehead!" Amathea snapped, giving Gaster a surprised start, "I see you signing your attacks over there! You are not some far-east monster on the Silk Road! You do not shout your attacks before you make them!"

Gaster let out another long, whining, childish groan, earning him another round of laughter from the steadily growing audience.

"Yes mom!"

Meanwhile Grillby was trying to 'think smaller'. How in the world had Amathea gained the upper hand against such a fast moving target?! It did help that she had that immobilizing magic, but Grillby had no such thing. All he had was his fire. Well… He supposed he could speed up his attacks a bit more by making them smaller. Think small… Think... small…

The ring of fire Grillby was standing amidst flared to a heightened life, yanking Gaster's attention back to the elemental in a heartbeat. Bits and pieces of the core ring broke apart, elongating into wicked looking, white-hot and plasma-like 'spears'. Of course, they weren't actually spears. They lacked the form that Amathea's did - really they were just sticks of flame that bristled quite angrily in Gaster's direction. They felt weightless to Grillby, and maybe if he put just the right power behind them…

The first spear went rocketing off faster than any attack Grillby had conjured so far, exploding against the ground with a shower of searing sparks and debris where Gaster had been standing a second before - so the skeleton could still dodge them. That was annoying. But Grillby did notice he looked a lot less carefree than he had a moment ago.

Armed with this newfound arsenal, Grillby launched forward with his attacks en masse, forming quick volleys of the dangerous things and throwing then at Gaster by the dozen. Suddenly the skeleton was scrambling to keep out the line of fire, his lackadaisical dance of defense turning into a haphazard mix of dives, rolls and staggers towards safety. Of course, some of his work was needless - Grillby's aim wasn't nearly as good as Amathea's was and he would've missed on his own quite often. But the flares and debris caused when the molten projectiles hit the cool ground could leach away hit points just as well as any direct hit could, and Gaster took no chances. He didn't know yet how strong Grillby's attack was or how powerful his intent.

At some point during one of the volleys, Gaster managed to regain some of his previous composure, adapting to these new attacks and figuring out how to counter. He gave a flourish of his hands - which dragged a condescending shout from Amathea about tying his hands together so he'd stop - and with precision Grillby was both amazed and annoyed with he began meeting the spears in mid-air with spinning bone attacks. The spiraling discs of bone met the spears with small explosions, bursts of fire and bone colliding into a shower of magical debris.

With another flurry of Gaster's hands he threw forwards three waves of bones, the interlocking and weaving attacks slamming into Grillby with staggering force. Each wave that slammed into him threatened to knock him off his feet, but Grillby somehow managed to stay standing. And then he was bracing himself against the final wave and answering it, sending a wall of fire as wide as their arena hurtling towards the quick-footed skeleton. It banished the impending bone attacks into shatters of residual magic. Threatened to devour the skeleton as well.

Gaster mimicked the attack he'd used during his last fight then, throwing himself into the air and over the wall of flame. A second attack from Grillby met him in the air, one of those angry spears smashing hard into Gaster's shoulder and sending him tumbling with a surprised shout. He hit the ground rolling, only stopping when he tumbled into Amathea's unyielding wall of spears. There was a second of horrified silence when Grillby realized he'd actually hit someone oh heavens he hadn't actually expected to do that. Or at least not that hard! He took a pensive step forward, only to stop when Gaster threw a hand up in the air, fisted into a thumbs-up. The skeleton got to his feet, wincing as he rolled his injured shoulder.

"I'm good!" He called breathlessly as he signed, wincing again when he moved his hands a bit too enthusiastically and jerked his shoulder, "We're good. Keep going."

The two of them swung back into motion again, Grillby a bit reluctantly but quickly gaining again in speed and power the more Gaster smirked and jeered at him when he missed - which he did quite often. They were a dance of fire and bone, power matched against speed with ingenuity being the only possible thing to bridge the gap between them. Gaster was fearless and quick on his feet, fully aware of how capable he was of staying well out of Grillby's way. He stayed smart and refused to close the distance between them - he'd seen how the elemental had torn through Amathea's attacks with that sword of his, he knew getting close to that thing was a bad idea. And meanwhile Grillby was trying to box the skeleton in, force him into a corner, force his feet to still a little bit.

The elemental threw up another wall of flame, one that stretched across their battlefield and forced Gaster to leap over it to dodge. And when he did Grillby threw forth a small volley of those spears, watching in mild amazement as the skeleton met them with spinning attacks of his own, letting them take the damage for him. As he fell Grillby dashed to meet him, that sword Gaster had been avoiding so well yanking from its scabbard in a fluid motion as he closed the distance between them. Gaster met the first sweeping blow with a bone club he summoned into his hand, staggering back as the sword cleaved effortlessly through it and nearly took his arm with it. The skeleton struggled to remain a step ahead of the sweeping blade, dodging around Grillby in a circle of ducks and pitches.

There was once when the elemental nearly hit him, the tip of his sword coming dreadfully close to Gaster's collar bone. Grillby prepared to jerk back before it hit, but was cut off when Gaster yanked his soul blue and threw him back. He managed to stay on his feet, stumbling back several steps to regain his balance while Gaster backpedaled in similar fashion. Though Grillby noticed, the skeleton's was more from the shock of the near miss than a lack of balance. He had a haggard expression on his face, a mix of surprise and something else a little more guarded. And then his hands were moving, signing something that Grillby couldn't really recognize. The elemental braced himself, ready for more bone attacks to rip up the ground at his feet and throw him off balance again.

Instead, he was met with heavy smell of magic bristling to life, the crackling of inert energy as it amalgamated into something useful and gigantic. A pair of angry jaws opened wide above Gaster's shoulder, forming together like wet ashes slow and crumbling and cracking. There was the start of a spine, vertebrae linking into place and held loosely by a dull, purplish and sickly magic that seemed to bruise the colors in the air. The eye sockets of the skeletal, half-formed beast blinked into bright life, fixing a deadened stare on the elemental and hissing as the magic inside it began bubbling and building, condensing into something powerful and deadly. Just as it began forming shoulder blades and forearms, just as the ribs started to define themselves amongst the ashen magic they were made of, the skull began to cave and crumble and crack. It was then that it whined and fired a long, white blast.

Grillby took the hit head-on, the magic enveloping him from head to toe. It took his breath away, and his vision. Surrounding him in harsh and void-like white. He could have stopped existing, or maybe existed a little less. And all around him he could feel. That uncomfortable feeling of whatever was behind the magic, and it roared around him in that pulsing white in some mess of anguish and bitter and distraught it roared why?! It screamed why like this?! Why forever like this?! I'm so tired just let me sleep. I hate it let me sleep. I don't want. I don't. I hate it. I hate it all. I just want to sleep! I j..us.t w.a...n..t t.o sl.e..e...p….!...!

The beam blinked out of existence just as the last of the summoned monster crumbled away again, dusting the ground around Gaster with its ashen remains. When it left it found Grillby still standing and unscathed, though his flame was pitched in the washed out white of the blast that had barreled over him. He shook his head, regaining some of his composure and his normal color along with it. Across from him, Gaster seemed to relax a bit with relief and after a pause their attacks resumed.

Now that Gaster knew Grillby wouldn't… well… he hadn't really been sure what would happen if he caught Grillby up in that beam. But now that he knew it had the same effect on the elemental as just about every other attack he'd used before, he summoned the beastly things to help him more and more as they danced through their battle. Sometimes he would fire one at a time, others he would throw together two, three, four at once. Grillby took some of the hits and avoided others. They didn't hurt him; but with each hit he took and each glimpse into the magic he saw, the more the elemental dreaded getting hit again. There was a seething in his soul that twisted against the beastly stuff of it. They unsettled him, and he took great pains to dodge them wherever he could. When another blaster fired in between sweeping bone attacks, Grillby finally hazarded to meet it. It was, on some level, a fire based attack after all. Shouldn't he be able to…?

He threw forward his own jet of flame, the two attacks colliding in angry roars of fire and magic. They fanned upwards, their forward momentum leaving them no other choice than to splay outwards in a shower of sparks and dying magic. The display brought a few impressed oo's and ah's from the on looking monsters, and then renewed cheering for the fight to finish.

When a second beam fired Grillby met it as well, and as the waves of fire magic cascaded apart he jolted through them, leaping through the walls of flame before they had died down completely. Gaster had enough time to blink and frown in surprise as Grillby seemed to magically materialize in the air in front of him. And then they were both on the ground in a tangle of limbs and armor and tunics. Grillby managed to pin the lanky skeleton's arms to the ground, and in an instant the spar was over. Gaster grinned up at him, laughing quietly to himself at how it had all ended up. Grillby was just glad the skeleton hadn't managed to dodge.

"Well, isn't that interesting?" Gaster said past his grin.

"What's interesting?"

Gaster laughed, "All of that and I'm still not dust."

Grillby rolled his eyes, moving so the skeleton could get to his feet. Gaster brushed himself off, still chuckling to himself, "You really worry too much."

"I knocked you out of the sky," Grillby reminded him as the two of them walked to the edge of their little arena - Amathea was already dropping the spears to let them through.

Gaster waved his hands dismissively, "Oh please. I've taken harder hits from a whimsun."

"Sure you have," Grillby crackled a laugh and shoved Gaster playfully in the shoulder. The skeleton laughed back, though he rubbed at the shoulder a bit painfully as they walked. Huh… whimsuns must hit pretty hard then.

"Well done, both of you," Amathea said with a gracious smile as the pair stopped before her, "I'll make decent fighters out of you yet. And Grillby, that was quite some adapting you did there. I was worried for a minute that Gaster might exasperate you into quitting."

"I would've worn him out eventually either way," Grillby said, stubbornly pretending that there weren't a few times he'd been ready to wring the little skeleton's neck during all the dodging and jeering he was doing. Gaster beamed, throwing Grillby a mischievous sideways glance but somehow remaining wisely silent.

"You though," Amathea poked a finger at Gaster's chest, "What have I told you about signing your attacks?!"

"Ammy…"

"Don't you 'Ammy' me!" The fish monster cut him off with a vicious glare, "If I can figure out what that hand language of yours is, so can anyone else! Not to mention it's gotta be your most defining feature."

Amathea made a show of signing out something as best she could with only one hand to work with, something Grillby couldn't understand. He would've guessed it was gibberish if it weren't for the way Gaster's eye sockets widened a bit when she signed it.

"The one who speaks in hands, remember bonehead?" She asked as her arm worked, her voice lowering into something that hinted at a warning, "I'll break you of that habit if it kills me - for fighting at least."

Gaster scowled and crossed his arms. He twitched as he said it but he managed to mutter a defeated "yes ma'am" without signing a single syllable. Amathea nodded her approval, gave a short sigh and then let a smile work its way across her face again.

"Oh don't pout, Gaster, you know I'm just trying to look out for you."

"Yeah yeah."

She chuckled at this before shooing the two of them off, "Alright good spar and all that. I'll give you the evening to rest up while I figure out what we'll start training with tomorrow."

Her smile split into a vicious, snarl of a grin, "That's when the real fun starts."

With that, Amathea left them, wandering off in the direction of the mess tent and vanishing out of sight. During their talk, most of the crowd of monsters that had been watching the spar had dispersed - much to Grillby's relief. Those that lingered seemed more intent on collecting bets and whispering to each other than actually approaching the elemental. That was the beginnings of a good evening already. Grillby glanced over at Gaster.

"So…"

The skeleton blinked at him.

"The one who speaks in hands?"

Gaster gave a sigh, one very much lacking in his normal overdramatism. Suddenly he looked very tired, as tired and bitter as the magic in those monsters he'd fired. Grillby did the best to hide his discomfort at that.

"The man who speaks in hands, to be more precise. And I'm fixing that," he said finally, scowling to himself as he signed out his sentence out of habit, "It's nothing you need to worry about."

"Really?" Grillby wished he could raise an eyebrow at the skeleton, but settled on rippling blue instead, "You know, I've only been here a year? And yet every time I'm told something like that, I end up having to worry about it eventually."

"Yeah but you worry about everything," Gaster laughed dismissively.

"Reasonable paranoia never hurt anyone," Grillby said with a matter-of-fact cross of his arms.

"Yeah sure whatever," the skeleton shrugged, "Stop mothering me, it's not a problem. Now, I'm going to go eat what's left of that lovely breakfast you made us and take a well-earned nap. And maybe teach you some more of my weird language, if you decide not to be a nag."

Grillby suppressed the need to roll his eyes, but followed obediently when Gaster moved to walk back to their campsite. They ate and talked sparingly, mostly about Gaster's hand-speak and what general motions meant. The skeleton begrudgingly admitted yes he'd been saying every attack as he'd thought them, and yes if Grillby paid close enough attention he'd probably know what was coming and be able to compensate for it - assuming he was fast enough on the uptake and got way better at dodging. Oh yes that's right, he never really needed to dodge attacks did he? I bet you're a menace on the actual battlefield huh? Must be pretty cool to be able to absorb attacks like they're nothing.

By the time Amathea returned, Gaster had fallen asleep in the tent and Grillby was a few sentences more knowledgeable in the skeleton's language. He signed a hello to Amathea when she approached, and she beamed and gave her best imitation back. It was weird, but Grillby felt a strange sense of camaraderie knowing the three of them might share a language that no one else would know. It seemed childish and sneaky, like a secret code that small monsters would giggle about as they sent messages back and forth to each other, hiding their contents from parents and other prying eyes. It was fun.

"I see Gaster's learning you a thing or two about his weirdness," the fish monster laughed, grabbing a seat beside Grillby with a weary sigh. There was a stiffness in her movements, and Grillby rippled a bit with concern.

"You alright?"

Amathea punched him gently in the shoulder, chuckling, "Oh don't take that worried tone of voice with me. It's been awhile since I've used so much magic in one day is all. I'm tired, but I'm far from being dust."

Grillby nodded slowly, "Right."

"You know, you surprised me today, tinderbox," Amathea smirked, "You took one look at that blaster of Gaster's and you kept going like it was nothing. I thought it might scare you off."

"What would give you that idea?"

"Oh please," the fish monster grinned, "I don't need any fancy magic to know when someone's scared out of their own skin. It is so interesting to me that someone so powerful can be so terrified. But then again, I was never scared of much of anything."

She gave a rueful chuckle, rubbing her bad shoulder, "Which is why I'm Amathea the Brave, not Amathea the Wise."

There was a pause between them where Amathea closed her eyes and rested a moment and Grillby tried his best not to ask any awkward questions about how she lost her arm. There was a squirming moment in his core where he remembered the feeling in Gaster's magic, and he cast a gaze back at the tent to make sure the skeleton hadn't stirred.

"I… did have a question for you," Grillby said slowly, hushing his voice a bit and dragging a look of tired concern from Amathea, "If you don't mind my asking."

"Shoot."

"Well…"

Grillby explained in a quiet voice about being able to feel things in other monsters' magic. The scattered impressions and emotions behind the intent that made it. He recounted what he'd felt in Amathea's spears, and the fish monster raised her eyebrows in surprise at it. Then he told her what he'd felt in Gaster's magic. About how uncomfortable it felt, how consuming it was. How bitter, how cold. And she wasn't surprised at all. The fish monster rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably for a moment before sighing.

"Gaster… is a much bitterer person than he'd like people to believe," she said finally, "And the more you get to know him, the more you're going to realize he's very dark and very resigned to how he thinks his life is going to go. Now as to why that is, well that's up to him to tell you. But, I can give you a forewarning."

Grillby nodded slowly, "...okay."

"Gaster gets really quiet and really withdrawn when something's bothering him. Like fullbody distracted quiet. He doesn't fidget; he doesn't think out loud with his hands, he just quiets. And he's going to start having nightmares. Well, more than he normally does."

"Nightmares?"

The fish monster shrugged, "Yeah, I've never really been able to keep him snapped out of those. They just happen. He doesn't make a fuss. The most I've ever seen him do is wake up a little out of breath. He might wake you up leaving the tent at night. It's normal, and unless he looks really disturbed it's best not to bother him about it. Most of the time he avoids them by only sleeping a couple hours at a time. Keeps him a bit more tired than I'd like him to be, but if it helps him cope then it's for the better."

"So that's why he naps so much then," Grillby mused quietly, and Amathea nodded.

"Now you're catching on," she flashed him a warm smile, "Don't worry about him too much. He's not made of glass and he's been doing this since long before you were even summoned. But if it will make you more comfortable, I'll tell him to keep the blasters to a minimum when you guys spar."

The elemental nodded to her, giving her a quiet 'thanks' as she stood and stretched. She patted him reassuringly on the shoulder as she walked away, laughing about a letter she should be getting to writing. Grillby sighed to himself as she left. What a weird trio they were turning out to be, and they'd only been together for a day and a half. Maybe playing the 'mysterious stranger card' so early in the game really was a bad idea. Well, one thing he knew for sure: whenever Gaster spilled his guts about every weird thing he had going on, it was sure to make life that much more interesting.