23 Vol 1. pt. 23 Patch 5.0: All Your Ship Are Belong To Us (1/2)

A large, slow fish with pointy whiskers and a thick body rests on the bottom of the stream. It reminds Fenrir of a catfish in reality, but it has two extremely long ”whiskers” that reach out farther than the fish is long. They seem to be feeling around for any potential food along the bottom of the stream. Each time they find something promising, the fish swims over to the location and floats over it.

Cassiel stands by ready to mock Fenrir for what she assumes is going to be a complete fail. Instead, Fenrir's spear manages to… yeah, it's a fail.

His spear thrusts into the muddy bed of the stream, only managing to cut the fish's side.

”Such a great teacher you are,” Cassiel is the one to start the teasing.

”At least I still have my spear,” Fenrir replies and wins seeing as how she has no comeback to that.

Serra has carried Rock to a better spot so that they can watch the two's competition. She sits on her ground with her back to a tree and Rock in her lap, rolling over onto her back so that Serra can rub her belly. The rock on the underside of its belly may not be softer, but it is smoother.

”Fine, so I just have to thrust instead of throw. I didn't know that! You should have told me sooner,” Cassiel says.

”I thought that if cavemen could do it, so could you?” Fenrir asks.

”Shut up!”

Fenrir worries that she's going to grind her teeth down to tiny stubs if she keeps on gritting them so much.

”That one's mine! I call it!” she shouts as soon as the next fish comes into view. Alas, rather than try to track the fish and predict where it might move, she simply thrusts as soon as it's in range. Another miss.

”You can't just wildly thrust your pole around the place. You have to properly grip it, aim it, and thrust in the perfect angl—”

”Shut! Up!” Cassiel's face is pure red and the most pissed off that he's seen it.

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Serra has to use her hand that isn't petting Rock to hide her smile and giggles.

Another fish. ”You want to call this one too?” Fenrir asks, looking over at Cassiel. She's glaring at him. Her eyes tell him that if he says one more thing, her spear is going to be going through his chest.

It's another one of those catfish-like fish, but this one is smaller and moving around more frequently. It'll be more of a challenge than the first one he missed. With his spear readied and held in each of his hands, his eyes never leave the fish and try to predict its movements. He's able to predict where it's going to move next more often than not. The biggest giveaway is its whiskers. Each time they stay in a spot for more than a few seconds, the fish moves over to them. He peeks over at Cassiel. Looks like she's noticed the pattern as well.

Fenrir thrusts his spear and impales the fish! He lifts it up out of the water and almost loses it when it tries flopping away to freedom. Unfortunately for the fish, the only freedom it gets is the freedom of death after Fenrir grabs its tail and smacks it against a rock.

He looks over to Cassiel to smugly show off his catch, but she has the same idea. They both look at one another with a fish in hand.

The game is on.

The two split up to cover more ground along the stream and so that they don't have to compete for fish. They bring every fish they catch back to a pile in front of Serra and Rock so that she can keep track of who's in the lead.

Each of the competitors is heavily breathing and practically tripping over themselves in an attempt to hurry back and forth between the stream and their respective piles.

Serra doesn't know who she wants to root for more. Sure, she might have a crush on Fenrir and want to see him win to see him happy, but at the same time, Cassiel is clearly putting in a serious amount of effort to try and win. Cassiel also has the underdog factor going on for her… but Fenrir has the literal dog factor going on. Whether to root for the inspiring underdog or the romantically-interested-in-dog is a tough choice. She also thinks it would be really cute to see Fenrir's surprised face if he loses.

The stream is devoid of fish before long. Any survivors from the onslaught of a competition have fled into faraway waters, leaving the two monsters terrorizing fish-kind without any further victims.

Fenrir and Cassiel both stand hunched over in front of Serra. They look like they're about to fall over at any moment.

Serra had no idea that fishing could be so intense.

”Who won?” Fenrir asks. Even his tail and ears look tired.

”Tell us!” Cassiel somehow still has enough energy to shout despite being out of breath.

Serra looks at each pile again and then points at Cassiel. ”She won by one,” Serra says.

Fenrir doesn't dare look over at Cassiel. He can already feel her smug sense of satisfaction staring at him. The last thing he needs to see is—

Wait.

When he looks down at the piles of fish, one of the very first fish that he caught is sitting in her pile instead of his. Sure, she could have caught an identical fish, but then what happened to the one in his pile?

He stares at the fish and then looks up at Cassiel.

She looks away.

He looks at Serra.