Abby looked towards the two, a guy in a blue wolf fursuit and a girl in tights and bikini top, printed with the spots of some big cat, with matching tail and earband. The transformations those promised were... kind of intimidating, but she felt a bit of sympathy for the two, and she wasn't really interested in watching the testosterone-fueled fight fest.
So she nodded to Kacey. "I'll stay with them."
"Thank you." The unicorn inclined her head in return. Then, last to leave, she closed the door behind her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Rosa led the little parade out onto the back porch. She was finally getting some of the attention she craved, though she was still sharing the spotlight with James. How could she not, with her arm draped over him? And they did make quite the photogenic couple, she admitted -- the big strong dragon and the voluptuous vixen. Even their colours contrasted nicely in the flickering light of her tails.
But Rosa wasn't much for clichés. She did find James' body appealing for its own sake. His confidence -- well, that was something else. She used to like it, but her kitsune mind was starting to see it as a thing to be played with. "Pride goeth before a fall," right? And nothing was more delicious than bringing low someone whose pride was founded on their strength.
On the other hand, she wasn't really all that interested in Martin. A tanuki could be fun in a tavern, or in bed, but in the long run she saw no future with a member of the laid-back species. But for right now, it was amusing to pit him against James' ego. If Martin won, she'd see that ego bruised and have another trickster to hang with. If James won... well, she'd have to find her own way to enlighten the dragon that kitsune were not to be taken for granted.
Honestly, it didn't really matter who won -- this was just a moment's diversion and when it was done, she'd do her own thing regardless.
While these thoughts ran through her head, she was busy setting up the "ring." She'd ushered the two combatants to face each other across the grassy yard, then pulled the cover off a barbecue and lit it for extra light (no need to ask where the fuel came from).
Finally she brushed a tail over a tall pile of leaves. A little gust of air blew several around her, and she plucked them out of the air. All but one she tucked into her cleavage to use for later.
"O-kay ladies and gentlemen!" she announced, taking her place between the two boys, as the other guests huddled on the porch across the lawn from her. With the barbecue behind her -- flames flicking above the grill like an over-sized brazier -- she was a dark silhouette to them. Only the white of her tails was visible beneath their own flames -- and the glow of her foxy eyes.
Kacey, observing her theatrics, frowned deeply. The others had to be suspicious. The unicorn glanced left and right. Most of them wore masks, so she could only see the cat-girl's expression, which looked thoughtful; but she felt no great fear, just anticipation. Something to be thankful for, but she could not help but feel uneasy herself.
"We only need one last thing before we can get this fight started!" Rosa continued. "A lady's favour!" She held up the leaf, now transmuted into a lace handkerchief. She turned to James, but before presenting it to him she took her claws and pulled it apart, leaving her with two handkerchiefs. She handed the first to her erstwhile boyfriend.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" he growled, frowning at the bit of lace.
"Tie it to the end of your lance," she instructed cheekily. "If you have one, that is." She turned her back, a tail rubbing over his ventral slit. He started back, rattled by both her forwardness and her jibe. Then he grabbed at the offending appendage.
"What's gotten into you, Rosa?"
"Kitsune spirit," she said. She shot him a look over her shoulder. A look that would have frozen most people with fear -- and even gave the dragon pause. "Now let go of my tail, and I won't curse you for a thousand years."
James scoffed at the threat. But he let go; even though he fumed as Rosa handed the duplicate handkerchief to Martin. Was she trying to rile him up? If so, it was working. The dragon cracked his knuckles. He was going to beat that upstart raccoon to a pulp -- then he'd see if anyone else dared approach his girl!
The tanuki just accepted the handkerchief with a grin and tucked it into his apron.
Rosa returned to her position. "Who will prove worthy to wear it?" She swept an arm to her right. "The powerful dragon, James?" Then to her left. "Or the tricky tanuki, Martin?" She lifted her hand, raising one finger at a time. "Some rules! No hitting below the belt! The goal is to put your opponent on the ground -- down for ten, and you've lost! Finally -- give it all you've got!" She lifted her arm above her head. "And --" She dropped her arm, the flames in the barbecue and above her tails flaring brighter.
"FIGHT!"
Martin made a great show of bowing deeply, hands pressed together. James snarled, and tossed the handkerchief away. This disregard to her "favour" did not go unnoticed by Rosa. "Tsk tsk tsk. Is that all you think of me?"
"DAMN IT!" James shot her a glare as the tanuki bounced back from a swing gone wild. "Don't distract me --" He staggered a bit as Martin's plump tail hit him in the stomach with way more weight than it should have contained.
"Tch. Don't make excuses," teased Rosa, but she refrained from further commentary.
Kacey's hoof hands clenched. What in the name of all creation?? That James showed no restraint in the use of his fire came as no surprise to her. But as the fight progressed, Martin was becoming more and more bold in the use of his powers. Objects "appeared" and "disappeared" as he had need of them, transformed form leaves and other bits of rubbish. He would vanish and reappear in another place, taunting the "slow" dragon for not keeping up with his illusions. The costumed humans were murmuring.
"How is he doing that?"
"...He's really fast?"
"Seriously? -- No, seriously, how is he doing that!?"
And Kacey had the suspicion that when Rosa had said to "give it all you've got," this is exactly what she had meant.
"Hey!"
Brad's sharp cry snapped everyone's attention to him for a moment. But then they saw where he was pointing -- to several places where James' breath had set the grass alight. Kacey's own breath hissed in through her teeth, and she almost facepalmed. How could she have not seen this more immediate threat? But before she could respond, she heard Rosa's confident voice.
"I'm on it!"
The kitsune lifted her arms, and the flames lifted from the scorched grass and flew towards her. They spiralled around her, joined by the orbs from her tails and even the fire from the grill. All drew out into long streamers of light, whirling through the air as Rosa directed them with graceful movements of arms and tails. The audience caught their breath, too awed for the moment to question the display.
Rosa herself almost lost track of the fight, loving the attention and lost in the
beauty of her own display. Weaving figure-eights, shooting up streamers like rockets to end in firework bursts -- as her feel for controlling her foxfire grew, so did the beauty and extravagance she created.
Maybe we can pass it off as a prepared light show, Kacey thought. Still, the unhappy unicorn leaped down from the porch, determined to reprimand the other mythics for their carelessness.
Meanwhile, James was increasingly frustrated -- and tired. He certainly didn't care that their cover was as cracked as a mirror after a fall down the stairs. But he did care that, if the tanuki hadn't landed any seriously damaging hits, he hadn't landed any at all. This was proving way more difficult than he had expected. And now Rosa was literally stealing HIS fire in order to upstage him while he fought for her!?
"Damn you!" he swore, taking his frustration out on the elusive tanuki. "Stand and fight, coward!"
"If you say so!" Martin appeared inches in front of him, leering grin plastered across his heavy muzzle. James reared back for a haymaker, then froze, eyes goggling. The form of the tanuki puffed into smoke, to be replaced by the form of the dragon himself!
"You --" James choked on his own rage, then drove his fist forward with a roar. The image shattered into a hundred pieces of plaster, which quickly dissolved into nothing. The dragon staggered, overbalanced, and before he could regain his footing he was shoved in the back. He tripped and planted his muzzle in the grass.
He struggled to hands and knees, but made no further progress. A very heavy weight -- two of them, bound in a sack -- slammed into his back, smashing him flat into the earth. His pupils drew together as a very different roar escape his lips, drowning out the crack of bone to the ears of most of the onlookers.
"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10!" The numbers spat out of Rosa's mouth in less than three seconds. But the kitsune was not trying to cheat for her favourite. She had been unexpectedly impressed by Martin's creativity and boldness in the use of his powers, and she found the sight now presented to her to be hilarious. But she had heard the bone snap, and she knew when James was in pain, even with his voice changed.
What everyone saw -- quite clearly as Rosa turned her light show into four pillars of heatless white flame to stand at the corners of the "arena" -- was Martin kneeling above James, the dragon almost invisible underneath the tanuki's titanic ballsack. For his final trick, the tanuki had leaped atop his opponent, growing his nuts and increasing their density.
Enough to break the dragon's wings.
His rounded ears hadn't separated crack from roar, but he had felt the wing twist beneath his gonads. And while he had no personal relationship to James, he hadn't really meant to seriously hurt the jerk. He stood up, his balls shrinking back to more manageable size and his apron reappearing to cover them. Rosa helped him off of James, who groaned. Although she held up Martin's arm in token of victory, she looked down at the dragon, her muzzle twisting in a mix of sympathy and disgust.
"Oh James... maybe this will teach you not to claim what isn't yours." Then, for the benefit of the audience -- who had not realised that anything was seriously wrong -- she yelled "The winner! Martin the Tanuki!"
As cheers, laughter and confused babble consumed the porch, Kacey reached them. "What on earth are you playing at!?" she hissed in a loud whisper. "Do you want the whole town to see us!?"
"You have more important things to do," replied Rosa, her subdued down catching the irate unicorn off guard. The kitsune nodded at the prone dragon. "Martin broke one of James' wings."
"What --!?" That did nothing to soothe Kacey's anger, but it was pushed aside. As Rosa's words pierced her preoccupation with maintaining the illusion of normality, she could sense her brother's pain. Immediately she was on her haunches. "Oh no. James! Are you okay?"
"Would you -- be okay with a broken wing?" he grunted.
"Right." She reached out, touching him. She immediately felt where the injury was -- a simple fracture of his right wing. She stood up again, and stepped over him, to get closer to the wound.
"While you fix him up," said the kitsune. "I'll make sure the others don't riot." Kacey shot her a look, obviously not trusting her.
"Will you? You've done a fine job so far."
"Your brother only has himself to blame," the kitsune shot back. "Nobody made him act like an over-bearing, possessive brute. As for the guests, what are you so god-damned worried about? They're all going to join us soon." She sighed. "I am sorry you got hurt James, but seriously..." She let the words hang, and tugged on Martin's arm. "Come on, champ. Let's get back inside and celebrate."
Up on the porch, the conversation had turned to speculation about the nature of the show. Some were starting to openly voice the possibility that maybe magic was at work here. The girl with the painted whiskers was complaining about the lewd display of giant balls, while the lioness pretended to agree while stifling her chuckles.
"Seems like you made quite an impression," Rosa whispered, her sharp ears catching everything. She put James' injury from her mind -- he'd be okay. And she needed to reassure the guests that everything was fine. Which, to her, it pretty much was. And it would be better once they were all liberated of their humanity and fawning on her.
"So long as I impressed you, babe." Martin went to put on arm over her shoulders, and she checked him with a tail, giving him an impish grin.
"With your big balls? No. Buuut I did like your tricks. I think you've earned a peek under my tails later. Mmmm, I can't wait to drop this pretense." The girls, bare-breasted and with a rather different slit between their legs than the unobtrusive ones of Brad and James, had used their magic to shield themselves, creating a glamour of family-friendly suit. Rosa considered dropping it now, but decided to wait just a little longer.
"Good enough for me, foxy." He let his arm drop. If Rosa wanted to keep this casual, he was fine with that. "I can't wait either. This apron is really cramping my style."
He too dismissed James from his mind, other than to savour the memory of the dragon helpless beneath his balls. Balls that weren't full just from magic. Glamour or not, though, the tanuki did have a nose, and he could smell the dew collecting on the kitsune's petals, and it was starting to make him feel a little crazy.
Then they were climbing the steps to the porch. Rosa fended off all the questions with an upraised hand and a laugh. "Glad you liked the show! All staged, of course -- we arranged with Brad beforehand. Right, bird boy?"
"R-right," the phoenix stammered in reply to her wink.
"Whaddaya say we discuss it inside out of the cold?" she continued, herding the crowd towards the door with her tails, not quite touching any of them -- yet. "With some punch."
The pillars of fire winked out as the door closed behind the kitsune, leaving Kacey to tend to her brother by her own illumination.