Author's Notes: Alright, so technically I was planning on taking the week off from writing fanfics to prepare for NaNoWriMo, but then I got the itch to write and it just wouldn't go away so this is what you get.

Disclaimer: Although the severely warped and twisted imagination is my own, Shaman King and its characters are the property of Hiroyuki Takei. All original characters are also the property of their respective creators.

Side Story 5 -- Game Plan

It was fairly early in the day. Some might argue that it was a little too early for being awake, let alone training. Something as trivial as the time of day wasn't about to stop Crystal and Tyriel from making a rather good show of sparring on the outskirts of the Patch Village. This amounted to Crystal perching on the shoulder of the transparent blue dragon that had become the standard shape for her Oversoul standing at roughly 15 feet in height. It would certainly be a long way down if she were to fall off, but not nearly as much as being dropped from the Patch Jumbo Jet or when she had accompanied Hao briefly on Spirit of Fire. This was a perfectly safe distance from the ground as far as she was concerned.

Tyriel, for his part, had conjured up an Oversoul in the form of a massive canine face suspended in the air in front of him. He was waiting for Crystal to make her move. This came in the form of Crystal causing the array of spikes along the dragon's spine to launch off in the form of small projectiles that resembled actual missiles before they planted themselves into the ground around Tyriel and promptly exploded covering the sand in a thin layer of ice. Clearly someone had been watching a little too much anime or something.

"Your aim is terrible this morning," Tyriel called up to her jovially. He was curious to see what she would do next.

"That's because I'm still warming up," Crystal responded from her perch. Her next statement wasn't meant to sound at all reassuring, "Besides, I wasn't aiming for you."

The dragon extended a clawed hand toward the sky summoning a radiant ball of blue fire into existence which it then hurled down at the newly frozen ground. What followed was an eruption of steam as the temperature differentials clashed. Crystal seemed to be rather pleased by the result. Where she was watching from the sidelines Cat just thought they were both insane. It was bad enough that they saw fit to be conscious before noon, but the fact they were in the middle of the desert meant that it was already getting hot and that just made it worse.

“How the hell can you two stand to move around in the sun like that?” she shouted at them indignantly. She refused to join in the training on principle. She didn’t even want to be awake at that hour. Exerting herself was out of the question.

“We grew up in this,” Crystal answered like it explained everything. Technically it was true. Growing up in certain parts of California meant that one had to develop a certain amount of tolerance for high temperatures. Crystal had a theory that during the summer the best places to be were in air conditioned places like the mall or movie theater. The alternative was to go to the beach or never get out of the swimming pool. By comparison, the early morning temperature just outside of Patch Village was actually rather nice.

A double-bladed sword materialized in the hand of the dragon opposite the shoulder Crystal was perching on. Taking the newly formed weapon in both hands the dragon lunged into the fog that had come to shroud Tyriel from view. Crystal knew she was on her mark when one of the blades struck something that refused to yield. It had been caught between the fearsome jaws of Tyriel’s Oversoul.

“You do realize that if you don’t let go I’m going to be forced to make you, right?” Crystal called down from her perch.

“I’d like to see you try,” Tyriel challenged.

“Alright then,” Crystal responded. “You asked for it.”

Electricity coursed down the dragon’s arm into the weapon. Tyriel’s Oversoul was dislodged by the jolt. As the fog began to dissipate he unleashed a sound-based projectile attack using a high pitched rendition of the coyote spirit’s howling. It was completely invisible, but Crystal could still hear it coming. The dragon began twirling its double-bladed sword rapidly until it produced a shockwave of its own to disrupt the frequency of the sound to make it harmless. To further emphasize this point Crystal also caused the letters forming the word Miss to materialize in front of her afterward.

Tyriel snorted, “Oh yes, that’s real clever.”

Crystal grinned from her perch on the dragon’s shoulder, “I thought so.”

“You guys are attracting an audience!” Cat called out to both of them.

“Huh?” Crystal sounded rather puzzled until she looked over to see that Hao, along with his entire entourage, had apparently come out to investigate. “I guess we were kind of loud. Oh well, time for a break.” She shrugged it off and slid down the outstretched arm of the dragon until she was standing in its palm to lower herself onto the ground. She quickly disengaged her Oversoul and allowed Taki to reform sitting on her shoulder. Tyriel hesitated before following her example. Even without paying attention Crystal could already tell the inevitable argument was starting.

“Are you guys stalking us or something?” Cat started ranting at Macchi.

“Do they have to do this every time they see each other?” Crystal brought a palm to her forehead.

“Well if you would just join us, then Hao-sama wouldn’t have to keep trying to recruit you,” Macchi stated matter-of-factly.

Crystal shrugged, “I don’t think Hao really cares one way or another what we decide to do. He just likes watching us fight.”

“Maybe you should stop showing off so much,” Tyriel suggested.

“Unfortunately we still need to practice,” Crystal reminded him.

“Hear that?” Cat was still getting in Macchi’s face about all this. “You guys are interrupting our training session.”

“You weren’t even doing anything,” Macchi wasn’t about to go down quietly.

“I was watching,” Cat countered just as loudly.

“So was Hao-sama!”

Everyone else made the smart decision to just ignore them as the argument continued to escalate in the background.

“I don’t get it,” Crystal turned to Tyriel. “Is my fighting style really that entertaining? I thought I was getting kind of carried away toward the end there.”

“That’s probably why Hao-sama finds it interesting.” Much to Crystal’s surprise, it was actually Kanna who suggested this rather startling new perspective.

Tyriel voiced his agreement, “She has a point.”

“Whatever,” Crystal didn’t want to think about it anymore. By that point something else had stolen her attention anyway. It was a suspiciously familiar smell coming from the Patch Village. “I smell coffee and that means there must be a cafe not far from here. I think it’s time for some hot chocolate.”

With that she and Tyriel, accompanied by their respective spirits, wandered off in search of the cafe that Crystal had set her sights on. By that point the argument between Cat and Macchi had deteriorated into a contest of superiority. There was a vague dispute about who had the larger breast size that culminated in Cat suggesting that maybe they should just grope each other to find out. Mari got the distinct impression that Hao-sama was enjoying this. However, once Cat noticed that Crystal and Tyriel had left her behind, she also decided it was time to leave and wandered off in her own direction forgetting about the argument entirely.

Crystal sighed as she settled into a chair at the cafe with a mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of her. Tyriel sat across from her although he certainly didn’t share in her dismay.

“At this rate we’re not going to get any training done without drawing attention to ourselves,” Crystal sighed again.

Tyriel shrugged, “It isn’t like you really need much training anyway. It’s me and Cat you’ve been worrying about.”

“Well yeah,” Crystal relaxed a little at that reminder. She wasn’t the only one who would have to be able to defend themselves in the future. “We already know I have more Furyoku than both of you. Of course the application is just as important as the amount so that isn’t really an issue. I just want to be sure you guys can handle yourselves without me if things start to go wrong on the road ahead.”

Tyriel eyed her somewhat incredulously, “I can handle myself just fine. You’re the one who hesitates and creates handicaps out of thin air.”

“Fair enough,” Crystal finally paused long enough to take a sip of hot chocolate. “At some point I’m going to have to stop holding myself back, but that time hasn’t arrived yet.”

“In the meantime,” Tyriel’s tone softened, “there is something else that you want to look into.”

Crystal shrugged, “There’s always something else.”

“So what is it?” Tyriel sounded genuinely curious.

“I’ve been thinking about one of the other groups in this tournament. You’ve probably seen them too,” Crystal explained. “I’m curious to know why one of them looks so much like Hao.”

“Ah,” Tyriel’s voice contained a hint of recognition. “You mean the one that was traveling with that bunch with all the unusual hairstyles.”

“I only noticed them because Cat kept staring at the one with blue hair,” Crystal respond hurriedly. “Anyway, the one that looks a lot like Hao... I think they called him Yoh. Do you think they might be related?”

Tyriel shrugged, “You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Well,” Crystal continued. “If we go strictly based on appearance and relative age, then I’m guessing they might even be twins.”

“Alright,” Tyriel started, “I’ll bite. Why does that matter to you?”

“Because,” Crystal went on. “Even if he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on it might be a good idea for us to meet him anyway.”

“I’m still not sure I follow,” Tyriel still didn’t seem convinced.

“Look,” Crystal started again. “If I found out that my long lost brother was plotting world domination, then I’d want all the friends I can get.”

Tyriel snorted, “I don’t think your brother could pull it off.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Crystal couldn’t help laughing at that.

“Of course after that we realized that all the Shaman Fight participants were going to be busy training in whatever way suited them so finding anyone in particular wasn’t going to be an easy task. I got the idea that we could practice stealth operations while we were looking, but then you snuck up on us again.” Crystal leered meaningful at Hao from across the river. A gentle autumn breeze blew over the surface of the water although truthfully it was one of the warmer days that week.

“You certainly jumped quite a bit when you noticed I was behind you,” Hao chuckled and did his best to look innocent.

Crystal rolled her eyes at him, “I know. You and Tyriel both thought it was hilarious.”

“You don’t scare easily,” Hao reminded her. “It was a little surprising that something that wasn’t meant to be threatening at all could make you shriek like that.”

“It’s a conditioned response,” Crystal grumbled. Unfortunately since Hao was clearly enjoying himself it was kind of hard for her to stay mad at him. He was definitely lucky to be blessed with such a cute smile.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Once Tyriel and I managed to regroup with Cat we were eventually able to determine the location of Team Funbari Onsen. If I remember correctly that was when Anna first mentioned that there was something wrong with my sense of self preservation. We didn’t really stick around after we introduced ourselves. There wasn’t much point. I had been thinking about prodding Cat toward Horohoro, but by that point Team The Ren was training separately so that would have just made the day more complicated.”

“You went back to training as I recall,” Hao seemed amused. “Of course we both know for you it was really more of a game.”

“So,” Crystal eyed him. “Does that mean you just wanted the chance to play with us?”

“That’s not what I said,” Hao looked away trying to feign indignation. This lasted only as long as it took for him to start smiling again. “It’s not like I could help it. You have a way of coming up with rather good ideas.”

Crystal grinned, “So about how long do you think it’ll take for Cat to figure out that I keep ditching her with Horohoro on purpose?”

“I’m fairly certain she already caught on to that,” Hao informed her.

“Oh well,” Crystal wasn’t about to let that spoil her fun. “She’ll just have to torture me for it later.”

Obviously it was just that much more important to continue lounging by the river for the moment.

Side Story 5 -- End