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Stepping back to eye his work, Joel can’t help but feel proud about his completed shopfront. He’d recently rented an empty building to start his business and spent the whole week tirelessly transforming it into a wondrous cottage. There’s even a magic rainbow arching at the side of it! With his own powers, of course. Not with any sort of extra ingredient— no, why would you possibly think that?
The inside of his shop is what you’d probably expect from a mage’s shop— magical tomes crowding his bookshelves, storage of typical magical ingredients and various other materials cluttering the walls, and a cozy workspace for him to interact with customers and see what ails them. Absolutely nothing happens with the right combination of books in a specific bookcase, definitely doesn't trigger a hidden switch, of course not!
The point is— he’s very pleased with his fantastically cheerful and pink shop, and it’s all sunshine and rainbows here. Since he wants his shop to be the happiest place in Hermittown. Everything’s fine! EVerythIng’s n0rmal! If something’s bad, Joel’s the one you’d go to, to make it fine and normal!
Still wearing a smile on his face, he goes out the door, rainbow hat on his head, to assure everyone that everything’s fine and everything’s normal!
There’s another mage in the ‘forest’ part of town, Gem thinks, as she peers up at the very… colourful… shop. There’s certainly an air of whimsy about it.
She pushes the door open, greeted with the sight of a slightly manic-looking man dressed head to toe in some sort of rainbow showman garb. Eh, not like she can judge, with her gothic choice of clothing— she gets the commitment to the theme.
The man in question perks up, looking slightly surprised (again, probably the goth clothes), but puts on a smile anyways.
“Hi, how can I help you? Are you looking for any magic-related fixes?” he asks brightly, and Gem shakes her head lightly.
“Actually, I’m the other mage in town. I came to say hi! I’m Gem, and I’ve only been around for a while myself,” she says, and sticks her hand out for the other to shake. The rainbow man does so, if a bit hesitantly, still smiling.
Apparently, the man’s name is Joel. There’s something almost certainly off about him, voice just a bit too loud, eyes darting when he thinks she isn’t looking, being just a bit too deflective in his manner of speech. He’s got a great sense of humour, though.
She’s sure they’ll be great friends!
Well, Joel thinks, there’s another mage in town. Well, of course he expected that, with more and more people being interested in studying magic— himself included— so everything’s fine, everything’s fine. Gem seems friendly enough, and not the kind of person to go digging— which he’s not worried about! Why would he be? He isn’t hiding anything, everything’s fine! Everything is normal.
He’s on a very fine and normal grocery shopping trip when he spots Gem next. He’s on a small hill, gathering flowers with magical properties to restock his shop, when a loud crash resounds around the grassy terrain.
“Wha-” he squeaks, turning to see Gem being chased by a blue and black creature with three heads. A dragon?! So close to town?!
Well, this is what i’ve— as a fairy-type mage— been trained to do, right? he reasons, standing from his crouched position. After all, fairy-type spells work wonders against dragons and dark-types, of which the dragon is probably both.
Gem’s running for her life from a wild Hydreigon— honest, she wasn’t even purposely trying to seek it out this time! She’d stumbled onto its territory while mapping out foliage-crowded wild zones near town, and hadn’t noticed until it was right behind her. Very unfortunately for her, it’s resistant to both her fire and dark spells, so she’ll just have to outrun it.
The plan was going fairly well, to her credit. Then Joel— quite literally— blasts his way into the chase. With a somewhat incoherent battle cry, Joel runs over, firing a pink and blue orb of energy.
> Joel used Moonblast!
> It’s extremely effective!
With an inhuman cry, the Hydreigon retreats, clearly not wanting to pick a fight so far away from its territory.
Joel sighs, then spins around to face her, probably about to yell something, but Gem gets there first.
“You’re a fairy type?! Help me fight dragons!” With her sudden insist, she sees as Joel processes the statement.
“Wait- hold up, how’d you not know I’m a fairy-type mage??” Joel demands, “isn’t my house literally sunshine and rainbows?”
“Eh… you could’ve been a plant or psychic mage?” At Joel’s unimpressed look, she laughs, head tilting back with the motion. “Hey, it’s not good to assume!”
“Well, I can tell that you’re a dark mage instantly, with your emo and sad outfit,” Joel jabs, and Gem gasps in mock offense.
“I’ll have you know that I use both dark and fire spells!” she smirks, Joel sticking out his tongue in jest. The two bicker all the way back to town.
Okay, to be fair, Gem’s not a bad neighbour, despite all his talk about her being dark and gloomy. If only she could just stop pestering him to go dragon-taming with her.
He doesn’t get it! What kind of idiot person do you have to be to have a hobby out of taming dragons? Most people ignore them, if they get violent then they ask mages to stop them, but taming them? For fun?
Sure, he did agree to go with her one time, but since it ended with them both getting absolutely defeated by an angry Miraidon, he now knows the sheer ludicrousness of Gem willingly fighting dragons as a hobby.
Gosh, he sure hopes Gem doesn’t bring any of that craziness into his small section of town across the river. Not that he has any experience with being crazy or manic or whatever. Everything is normal on his side of the river.
Which is why, four days later, he has no clue why he’s standing before a cave, Gem by his side. Honestly, the cave’s quite pretty, magic crystals scattered against the walls, but that’s beside the point. Gem’s saying something about taming a dragon— Eternatus? Wha-? and summoning it from a crystal.
“Joel! Come on,” Gem hollers, already wandering into the cave. He fumbles with his words for a bit (no he didn’t, everything’s fine, everything’s normal) before just deciding to follow her in. The duo of mages stop at a particularly large pink crystal, Gem’s footsteps pausing and Joel’s following after her.
“You ready, Joel?” Gem asks, excitement clear in her eyes and an upturn in her lips.
“I’ve come all the way here, might as well…” Joel huffs. He can write this off as a very normal dragon taming, right? Sunshine and rainbows helping a mage friend?
Gem nods, approving, and that’s all the warning he gets. Joel squints against the light from her cloak of flames, Gem shattering the crystal with a Fiery Dance spell.
> A roar can be heard from the crystal!
> Gem used Night Daze!
Gem moves quickly, striking it with a pitch-black shockwave. A tick passes. Joel snaps to concentration, throwing up a light screen to reduce the hit from magic attacks. Surely this Eternatus dragon uses magic attacks, not physical ones. Surely. Speaking of said dragon…
“Gem, why does it look like fish bones?!” Joel yells, and an affronted look passes over Gem’s face. “It’s not a fish!!” she yells back, which is totally untrue, it looks exactly like fish. A pink-glowing, highly dangerous fish. The moment of distraction earns her a sludge bomb to the arm, which, sympathetic ow, and earns Joel a targeted glare. Jeez, okay. He’d better start attacking as well.
> Joel used Spirit Break!
What the heck. Wait, why isn't it super effective?
“Isn’t this thing a dragon?! Shouldn’t it be weak to fairy-type spells?” Joel shouts, baffled and possibly blindsided.
“Eternatus is both a dragon and poison type!” Gem responds, and oh. Right. Poison is resistant to fairy. Look, Joel’s not the one who decided what the different types of magic in the world should be weak to! He doesn’t understand it either! Whatever, it's fine… wait.
“Why'd you, a fire-type mage, decide to fight dragons?! They're resistant for goodness’ sakes! And why me,” he yells, blasting Eternatus with a moonblast, “a fairy-type, when this dragon specifically’s a poison type?!”
“I thought it would be fun!” Gem protests, with the follow up of “it is fun!” to which Joel grumbles under his breath about. He can kind of see what she means. It’s been a while since he’s been able to use his magic like this, actually having to try hard. But gosh, did the activity she chose have to be so dramatic and dangerous? Everything’s fine, everything’s normal, they’re just going to fight this dragon until Gem can tame it, or something, it’ll be fine.
After about an hour or so, they’re both pretty sure it’s low on health. This is their chance— one last attack and it’ll be weak enough for her to tame!
> Joel used Fleur Cannon!
“Gem! Now!” Joel yells, a bright pink beam of light emitting from his palm. On cue, she blasts the weakened dragon, and it flops to the ground, defeated. The last of its excess dangerous energy spent, probably.
Joel mumbles something incoherent, having fallen to the floor in the brief time that she’d had her scuffle, drawing her attention.
“Oh my goodness,” Gem gasps, rushing over. Signs of magic loss plague Joel’s now ashen face, definitely due to Fleur Cannon’s recoil. She grasps at his satchel, blindly grabbing his White Herb and shoving it in his face. Almost instantly, he springs up from the floor nearly comically, magic stats returned back to normal.
“We won!” Gem cheers, the two of them sharing a high-five. “Since we exhausted all of Eternatus’ excess dark energy, it’s friendly now!”
“Don’t tell me you’re gonna keep that as a pet,” Joel jokes, and pauses when she laughs and looks away, not answering. “You are?!”
“Look, Joel, it’ll be a great help! And it looks cool!” She defends, as they walk out of the cave, Eternatus in tow.
“Well, it’s your problem…” Joel mutters, squinting at the now-docile dragon, clearly untrusting.
“It’ll be fine!” She says, persuasive, “I can handle it. Imagine it like a pet horse or something.”
He and Gem traverse their way back to town, cheerful banter between them as they walk.
There’s a figure on Gem’s bridge.
Which is honestly quite unfair, like, he’s the one supposed to be staring creepily normally at people. But anyway, he digresses. The guy honestly looks pretty plain, but to be fair, maybe that’s just because him and Gem are constantly dressed up like cosplayers. Their only distinguishable feature is an oversized purple cloak, with dirty blond hair and a red sweater peeking out from underneath.
“Sorry, Gem… I was sorting my rock collection alphebatically backwards.” The person says, too mischievous to be genuinely sheepish.
“Grian?!”