Curem POV
We take some time to create our outfits. I choose a navy blue tuxedo pants, white undershirt, dress shoes, and a bowtie. Before leaving, I grab a typical gala mask, one white with gold accents. I walk out of the dressing room, waiting for Ava, who's taking much longer than I did. Ava walks out of the girls' dressing room, and…
Ava POV
I take my time constructing my outfit. While I'm often called a tomboy, I do know how to look pretty. I begin with a goldenrod dress, using magic to create intricate thread designs in blood red. White leggings for decency, and silver dress shoes are next. Evening gloves of the same goldenrod with blood red accents. I grab a silver necklace embedded with emerald, placing the cool metal around my neck. I tie my hair into a bun, different from my usual ponytail style, leaving a few strands untucked. With my outfit complete, I walk out of the changing room, but not before grabbing a gala mask, black with silver accents.
As I'm walking out, I see Curem, looking… Quite handsome in his suit… I feel my face flush a little bit, hidden by the mask, but walk back over to him. "So, you ready to amaze the judges?" I ask him. "Heck yeah I am! Let's blow them away!" he responds.
The announcer begins listing the matches. Curem and I are pitted against Hunter and Willow. "This might be harder than we thought… They have really good teamwork too…" I state, nervous. Curem, however, responds enthusiastically, "Yeah, we'll have to try even harder to win, but that just means it'll be even more fun!"
His enthusiasm puts a smile back on my face. "Let's blow Hunter and Willow away, too!" I state confidently, Curem's smile getting even bigger. He puts his hand out for a fist bump, and I'm not one to leave someone hanging. We head to our stage, and see Willow and Hunter on their stage. Hunter seemed to be in a suit of armor resembling tree bark (It might be made of it, I can't tell from here…) and Willow was in a simple white dress with gold accents and a few flowers in her hair, looking almost like some goddess of nature.
We all wish each other good luck and prepare ourselves. The announcer suddenly shouts "Begin!" and the performances start. Curem flies up and does his part, making Ice designs and sort of dancing in the air. I do my part, just dancing with a bit of my fire magic. He does flips and spins above me while I dance as extravagantly as I can.
As I keep dancing, I begin to notice that I started feeling a little different about Curem, watching him fly and perform with that big smile on his face. My heart flutters slightly as he looks towards me while I dance, his smile making my face flush. I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling, but I push it to the back of my head and continue the dance.
As the 10 second mark passes on the timer, we both dance back to the center of the stage as quickly as we could. I cast a pillar of Pyro energy to appear around me, and he does the same with his Cryo. We begin spinning the pillars, turning them into more of a vortex. The pillars successfully combine into a single spire of magic. A beautiful spiral of Icy blues and Fiery oranges. We get into position, Curem suspending himself in the air, reaching out towards me. I raise my hand to do the same, and we create a small display object between us. A core of fire with rings of ice orbiting it.
In position, we allow the vortex to dissipate, releasing a burst of harmless energy towards the crowd. The aftermath is flames in a circle around my feet, while Curem is surrounded by suspended ice crystals, both of us still posed, reaching out to each other and staring into each other's eyes. I feel my face turn a darker shade of red than before, but regain my composure.
[Refer to link for art of Dance]
We see the flashes and hear lots of cheers from the audience as the buzzer sounds. Both for us and for Hunter and Willow. Curem and I didn't really have a chance to see their performance, but we did end up tied. 50 points for both teams, meaning it's up to the audience to break the tie.
"ALLLLRIGHT FOLKS BEAUTIFUL PERFORMANCES BY BOTH TEAMS. AS YOU CAN SEE, WE HAVE A TIE! THAT MEANS THE TIE BREAKING VOTE IS GIVEN FROM THE AUDIENCE! YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES TO DECIDE YOUR VOTE!." The announcer yells what we were just thinking. Curem, Hunter, Willow and I all nervously stay on our stages, waiting for all audience members to decide their votes.
"Ok, folks! Time is up! Now, you will take your penlights, and choose the color for your chosen team! Yellow for the Nature Goddess and her devoted guardian, or Purple for the Firefrost Lovers!" The announcer yells, clearly having fun making names for the teams. Curem and I both blush from the comment, embarrassed.
The audience begins holding up their penlights, orbs of energy from both colors floating to the bar between us. The colors struggle for dominance, eventually stopping as the last orb enters. "Drumroll please!" the announcer shouts as percentages appear above the ends of the bar. Cycling through random numbers for suspense, we learn the winner.
"Having around 2,000 people in the audience, 2 to 3 people made the difference between winning and losing! With just about 0.1% more votes than the other team…" All 4 of us are practically shaking with suspense. "The winner is… THE FIREFROST LOVERS!" The percentages stop cycling, revealing the votes.
[Insert image of Splatoon-like win screen here.] (49.9%/50.1%)
Curem and I, still blushing from that team nickname, cheer, hugging and jumping from excitement. After we finish that up, we walk over to Hunter and Willow. Curem's the first one to speak, "Hey, I know you guys lost, but congrats for making it this far!" He says with a smile. Willow responds, "It's alright, look at how close it was! And hey, if we lost to anyone, I'm glad it was you two. Even if we won here, there's a high chance that Luz and Amity would beat us in the final round." I pause for a moment, before stating, "That's a nice way to think about it, thanks!" As we continue talking a bit, Hunter stops us before we walk away. "Hey, good luck in the finals!" He says. We thank him before heading to the lobby. We have a difficult event ahead of us.
