Take Hold of Your Destiny


Abigail quickly awoke, the world around her seemingly replaced by a dark void, nothing visible for miles with the exception of a mysterious hooded figure, his face completely obscured. “H-hello..? Wh.. what’s going on? Where am I?” she said, carefully walking towards the man, feeling as though her body was floating freely through space. “Abigail,” he said towards her, his arms lifting up. The red panda froze, her tail curled around her body as she held it tight “H.. how did you..”
“What is it you desire most in this world? Do you wish to love and to be cherished by others?” the man’s fingers on his left hand uncurl, which revealed a bright red heart, a warm glow emanated off of it. “Or do you wish for fame and wealth beyond your wildest dreams?” his opposite hand opened up, revealing a shimmering gold coin. “I.. don’t.. Understand? What do you mean?” she said as she relaxed slightly, moving towards the figure. “Money or love? Which do you desire?” he said, holding his hands out as if gesturing her to take one of the items. “L.. love I supposed… wealth can only go so far.. as far as I’m aware anyways..”
The man brought the coin back slightly as the heart glowed brighter “Then take hold of your destiny and let it blossom with your control.” She gulped softly as she reached out, gently taking the heart from his hand. The heart opened almost immediately in her grasp, stalks of lavender sprouting out around an odd disk…


The red panda gasped loudly as she jolts awake again, this time in her own room “A.. dream..?” she said as she felt herself, looking around her room “Okay.. I think this is real this time..” she sighed as she sat on the edge of her bed. Her room was like any ordinary bed room, a few shelves lining the walls, full of pictures of friends and family, alongside a few knick-knacks she’s collected throughout the years. Along the foot of her bed sat a dresser and next to her bed sat a nightstand with an alarm and lap. An odd letter rested beneath the lamp, a wax seal stamped with an intricate floral detail sealed it shut, as well as an odd disk roughly the size of her palm resting atop it almost like a paper weight. “Odd… where’d that come from…” she took the letter and disk as she slid from her bed, making her way from her room, everything seeming to be perfectly intact, with no signs of any kind of break in. She pondered for a moment before she looked over the disk, it’s face engraved with intricate stalks of lavender in full bloom, a warm energy radiating off of it. “That.. was a dream.. Right..?” she uttered softly, setting the disk down as she opened the letter.
        
The letter went on to formally invite her to an event known as the Flowering Games, explaining the winning team will receive a mysterious prize. It went on to direct her to the center of Blossom Town in the coliseum they used as a landmark. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to at least look..” she hummed to herself “Doesn’t tell me about this.. thing though… maybe someone there knows.” She folded the letter up before she slipped it back into the envelope, stowing it along with the disk in her pocket, heading back into her room to get dressed before leaving the house, headed for the nearest bus from Grounde City to Blossom town.


She stepped out of the bus as it stopped in front of the coliseum, a large stage set up in the front with speakers on either side, four tapestries draping down from the top. A crowd already gathered in front of the stage “Huh.. guess I’m not the only one with an invitation..” she said as an announcer came on over the speakers.
“Welcome to the annual Flowering Games!” he boomed out, Abigail practically leaped from her fur “W-wait! That’s the voice from my dream!” she stammered as she ran towards the crowd “What’s going on?”
“We’ve had a great run of the events in prior years so let’s keep things up! Now let’s introduce you to our current team! First up, we have our star child! The Bloomed with the rogue disk and leader of Team Rose, Roze!” a black cat covered from head to toe with flowers and leaves, dressed in a cropped tank top and shorts stepped up onto the stage, waving out to the crowd as she stood under the first tapestry, decorated with a bright red rose surrounded by thorny vines set atop of a deep green background. 
“Next up, our muscle head! The Bloomed favoring pure, raw strength with the power to greatly overwhelm anyone, leader of the Dandelions, we have Leone!” A pale yellow fox with blueish highlighting stepped up on stage soon after, dressed in a casual T-shirt and jeans, flexing to the crowd as if showing off her muscles, though her general body type didn’t seem very muscular. She stood next to the cat beneath a white tapestry, a roaring lion taking up the center, bordered by dandelions. 
“Next we have our mystery fighter oooo~! The fast as lightning Wilted and winner of the games all those years ago, the lone member of Team Sakura, we have Sakure!” a pale white cat with faint purple and pink splotches made her way on stage, her face seemingly devoid of any and all emotion as she stared off into the crowd, taking her place under a black tapestry with a dying cherry tree in the center, pale pink cherry blossom petals lining it’s border.
“And finally we have our hotshot! The blazing Wilted burning her way through any obstacle, leader of the Snapdragons, we have Dragoon!” A spindly insect girl flew out from inside the coliseum, her blue shell glistening as she glided around the posts, landing under a singed black tapestry by the pale cat, a fire breathing dragon decorating the center “WHOOO! How are all you TONIGHT!” the wasp’s voice boomed out over the speakers. The fox chuckled to herself as she spoke up “Dragoon, it’s a little after one. We’re still in the afternoon.”


The announcer chuckled to himself as his voice came back on over the speakers “Now settle down, Dragoon, I know you’re just as excited as everyone else to meet everyone out here! As for our future contestants, all of our teams-” the pale cat cut him off, her voice rather flat and emotionless “I will not be accepting new members” “Alright, everyone except Sakure will be accepting applications to join their team! Now head on inside and follow the banners to your desired choice or come up to me on the third floor if you wish to form a team of your own, there will be a door marked with ‘announcer’ on your right if you take a left at the top of the stair! Now take hold of your destiny and let it blossom with your control!”
“That is him!” Abigail shouted, running into the coliseum and charging up the stairs towards his door, banging on it “H-hey! I need answers!” “Oh~ Abigail! I’ve been expecting you~! Did you get my little gift?” his voice said from the other side, a strange golden glow emanated from around the door. She stepped back a bit, pulling the disk from her pocket “I.. yes.. But how..?” “Oh that’s not important right now, dear. Now are you here to form a team or-” “I need answers! What is this thing? How do you know who I am? What’s with that dream I had?” she stammered, trying to open the door to no avail. “That thing I gave you holds immense power” the announcer said, the sound of a rolling chair sliding across the floor echoed from behind the door.
“You’re a Bloomed if I remember right. I recommend talking with Roze or Leone about all this. I’m far too busy to answer all your questions right now” he said as he slid away from the door. "Hang on..!" Abigail stammered before sighing softly, walking away from the door. "Roze or Leone…" she said, the pale cat from before brushing past her shoulder, her ears perking up "O-oh.. sorry.. I- wait, you're.. Sakure if I remember right. What's-" Sakure quickly cut her off "I'm not taking autographs, kid.." without the harsh volume and reverb from the speakers, her voice seemed much softer and quieter, more blunt than before.
"But... right.. sorry.. I'll.. be on my way.." the red panda stammered, walking back off down the hall as she eyed the banners "If I remember right.. that green one was to Roze.. I wonder if she'll tell me anything.."


Abigail made her way down the stairs, following the banners to a greenhouse door built into the wall, tapping on it a few times. A slightly smaller panda opened the door for her "Are you here to join? Come in, you're late" the panda said as she moved aside for Abigail. "I.. thanks.. but I just want to speak with Roze.." she said, stepping in. The room was hot and humid, the adjacent wall and part of the roof was made from a similar plastic sheeting using for greenhouses, a large window leading out into the main coliseum grounds was propped open, helping to air out the room to at least be habitable for a much longer period of time. Various desks stood in rows with various people dotted throughout them. The black cat from before was idley walking about, tending to the various plants dotted throughout the room. She looked over to the red panda, setting down her watering can “Oh, I wasn’t expecting anybody else. I thought everyone had made up their minds by now” she chuckled to herself softly “Have a seat somewhere, Yang will fill you in on everything” she gestured to the panda as she went back to caring for her plants. 
“Hang on.. I have this weird disk thing the announcer-”, Roze quickly turned around, looking back at Abigail once more “Disk?” she said, cutting her off as she reaches into her pocket, pulling out a similar disk to the red panda’s, only with an intricate engraving of a rose in full bloom on its face “You mean like this?” Abigail nodded and pulled out her own disk, showing it off to Roze “Y-yes! Exactly!” she stammered “What is it, why do I have it?” The cat stepped towards her, looking over the face “Another Bloomed! Give me a second. Kayda? Would you mind watching over everyone?” she said, gesturing to a bright blue and red draconic being, oversized almost shell like scales covering her body. The girl, who Abigail assumed was Kayda, nodded as Roze led the red panda out of the room.


“I don’t know how or why,” Roze said as she led Abigail into the main yard of the coliseum “But we were all chosen by a dream we had to take part in these events.” The main yard seemed to be a rather large, open field, with a door leading in from the inside of the coliseum, as well as five gates being positioned around the walls, each bearing a tapestry of one of the four team, though one was left completely blank. Rose, dandelions, and snapdragons formed paths to their associated gates, though trees that have long since withered away stood by the Sakura gate, which had appeared to have been rusted shut at some point, striking Abigail to be slightly odd given the rather pristine nature of the coliseum around them, as well as odd pale purple mushroom growing around the unmarked gate, a vibrant green growing under their caps. “Was it about a guy in a robe with a heart and a coin?” Abigail asked, taking in her surroundings as she stood by the cat’s side as she gave a nod in response “I think so if I remember what the others said. I didn’t have the dream. I joined these games along with Sakure, but where she formed a team, I joined Team Rose and ended up inheriting the team as well as the old captain’s disk.” She sighed softly as Abigail spoke up “But why do I have one? What does it do?” “I don’t know why you have one” Roze responded, taking her disk back out “But I can show you what it does. It’s kinda neat in all honesty.” She stepped back from the red panda a bit as she placed her disk against her waist, thorny vines similar to a rose bush sprouted out from the disk, wrapping snugly around her waist, the cat not seeming to notice the thorns. “First you just need to press it to your waist, then when you’re ready, just push it like a button like this.” She pressed in on the disk, causing the disk to open up, a large rose quickly sprouted out of it in full bloom as large leaves rose out of the ground, wapping completely around her body and taking the form of a rosebud. A female voice unfamiliar to the red panda echoed around the coliseum “BLOOM! Bloom on you Rozebud!” The rosebud suddenly bursts open, vines and leaves completely encapsulating her body with various roses in full bloom dotted around her body, a few large leaves forming a helmet with a pair of large, semi-translucent roses for eyes. A set of leaves formed a sort of keyhole sweater over her bust, the tops of large roses poking out from the top as if they replaced her original chest. Finally, a pair of large shoulder pads take form, the word “Roze” being written in a rather stylized 80’s era font on her right shoulder, and the numbers “01” being written the same way on her left. The flower she stood in retreated back into the ground, leaving Roze standing in her organic suit in front of Abigail. “Whoa…” the red panda said in mild shock “That must have been the power he was talking about..” Roze nodded as she watched Abigail place her own disk against her waist “Like this.. Right?” she said, stalks of lavender sprouting out from the sides of her disk, wrapping snugly around her waist “Whoa..” Roze giggled to herself as she watched Abigail inspecting her belt, the red panda resting her fingers against it “So I just.. push on it?” She pressed in on the disk which caused it to open into a large lavender flower, stalks of lavender shot out from the ground, wrapping around her body. “BLOOM! Blissful serenity!” The female announcer from before echoed around the two as lavender stalks wrapped and tangled snuggly around Abigail’s body, forming an organic suit similar to Roze’s before she’s revealed once again atop a massive lavender flower. Large stalks of lavender stuck up from her shoulders like spiked pauldrons, the lines from the lavender stalks along her suit followed the contours of her body closely, flowers covering her feet and fingers, a pair of stalks grew from her head like antenna, formed into the a v shaped above a pair of semi translucent flower eyes, “Dula 10” was written in a much more fanciful font along the side of her left shoulder spike, written from top to bottom instead of the typical right to left.


Abigail inspected her new suit, stretching lightly as she got accustomed to her suit. “So that suit must be called Dula” Roze said, looking over the red panda’s new form. “Dula? How do you know?” Abigail responded, feeling her shoulder pauldrons as she adjusted her balance to their weight. Roze pointed to her left shoulder “It’s written there. All of our names are written on our suits, along with our power” she said, pointing at the 01 on her shoulder. “Power..? I thought that was like a jersey number..” Abigail said as she tilted her head a bit. Roze shook her head slightly “I guess it can be sorta seen that way since we all have a different number, but according to the announcer it has to do with our powers.”  She held out her palm, thorned tendrils sprouting out from it “He calls mine Vines, but really I have control over plant life”
“So what’s mine?” Abigail asked as she mimicked Roze’s actions, though nothing came out from her hand. “I don’t know. Must be good though, first person here in the double digits, number 10” Roze said, giggling to herself as the tendrils retracted back “A lot of the time we activate our powers by accident the first time so we won’t know what you can do until that happens, but once it does, it’ll be hard to forget.”


Suddenly, the sound of the speakers being turned on echoed through the coliseum, the sound of the announcer tapping his microphone following suit “Testing, testing, one two.. Excellent.” A set of four score boards set up around the coliseum flashes on, monitors showing a live feed of the two within the central field. “Ladies and gentleman at home, do we have an event for you!” The announcer's voice echoed around them. “Event?! No no no, I’m not ready!” Abigail stammered, stepping back towards Roze, Sakure catching her eye as she took a seat in the stands. “Now, I was going to save this for later in the games but! We have confirmation that a new Bloomed joined the ranks of Team Rose!” the announcer boomed, Abigail shifting her focus back towards the various speakers “H-hang on! I don’t even know if I want to participate let alone who’s-” she’d manage to get out before she was cut off “Introducing Dula! Our blissful little lavender sprout we have joining us this year!” The cameras shifted to focus on Abigail as she turned to Roze “What’s going on, you didn’t tell me about this!” “I think this was Yang’s doing. She gets jealous whenever I take a newcomer out on solo training” Roze chuckled a bit, turning her attention to the mushroom gate “Besides, we can’t quite leave until the event is over. The door we went through locks from the inside to prevent Spores from escaping.” As she spoke, the fungal gate slowly started to lift open, the announcer booming once more “So I was thinking, since she’s teamed up with a veteran, how about we teach her the ropes in a sorta trial by fire!” he said, laughing to himself “Don’t worry, we won’t pair her with any Snapdragons yet, no no, I had something else in mind~!”


An odd, humanoid being shambled out from the gate, it’s body seemingly made of a spongy material taking the shape as well as similar coloring to the mushrooms outside of the gate, the cameras shifting their focus to it “Now some of you know what this is, Sakure” he snickered to himself as the cameras focused on the pale cat in the stands “I see you out there trying to snag a teammate for yourself, we all know this solo thing can last too long~” The cat tisked softly as she ignored the announcer. “Wow, real party pooper, ain’t she~ Anyhow!” the cameras focused on the being once again “For those who can’t remember, and for those who don’t know, this here is a Spore. Little mushroom monster demon thing we made for our games to jazz things up a bit ya know? Don’t worry, PETA, they’re not technically alive. Think of ‘em as a living plant!” he chuckles to himself as Abigail hid herself behind Roze, the flowers on both their bodies glowing slightly as Abigail spoke up “Th-that thing.. He won’t let it kill us.. R-right?” “Hey, relax” Roze said in response, ripping off the side of her belt “They can’t harm you. They're used as more stage obstacles." The vines in her hands grew out, forming into a long blade as the hole in her belt sealed itself shut. Abigail pondered for a moment, watching as Roze stepped towards the Spore "Can I do that..?" she said quietly, grabbing one of the lavender stalks along her belt and picking it off. The stalk quickly swelled to the size of a spear, the flowers along the top forming into a sharp point as the floral spear solidified in her hand. She twirled it a bit, feeling the weight being balanced more towards the tip "A spear..? I suppose it makes sense.." she'd say, making her way to Roze. "Rules are simple!" The announcer boomed over the speakers "Three minutes to take out as many Spores each of you can! Of course you two 'll compete for different scores, but this is just a friendly event! No harm done to anyone's standings in the games, merely a test to see how Dula here can hold up! That also means no specials yet, don't want to make her too jealous of you, Roze!" Roze gave a slight nod as a couple more Spores shambled out from the gate, readying her blade for the fight. Abigail pointed her spear towards them, her stance rather poor from her lack of any real training. "And the clock starts in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. Begin!" the announcer shouted, Roze took a moment to inspect the beasts from a distance before she charged towards them, quickly slashing her blade across one of their chests. The beast lets out a loud screech, falling to the ground as its body disintegrated and tiny spores, fungus sprouting around where it fell. Another Spore shambled  out from the gate, Abigail gripping her spear tightly as Roze quickly took out another one of the beasts, a second shambling out shortly after “Come on Abigail… sooner this is over, the sooner you can get some answers…” Abigail uttered to herself “It’s like squishing a bug anyways.. A really big bug.. You gotta stab to kill..” The red panda took a deep breath as she started walking towards the fight, gradually breaking into a sprint as she lunged at one of the Spore, the head of the spear piercing it’s chest, causing it to fall to the ground and dissolve like the rest. “I.. I did it.. That’s one.. How much time is left?” she said, looking up to one of the scoreboards, the timer ticking down to one minute and thirty seconds. “It’s okay.. This game isn’t important anyways.. I can use it to get used to my suit” she sighed to herself, turning only to watch as Roze made quick work of a line of three of the beasts, the Spores starting to come out in exponentially higher numbers, leaving the gates in sets of two, then four, then eight. Roze took a step away from the growing hoard “How does he expect me not to use my whips, there’s too many…” she’d say as the beasts turned towards the sky, gradually shambling back through their gate. “And that’s the game!” the announcer booms over the speakers “Roze got a total of 8, Dula only managed to down one, not looking good on the newbie but we did pit her against one of our veterans! Gotta say though, I’ve seen better out of you, Roze! Anyhow, I hope those who tuned in enjoyed the little taste of what’s to come, be sure to catch us once the games fully kick into high gear!" Roze tilted her head in confusion as the scoreboards flickered off, her sword unraveling, wrapping around her arm "I wasn't given any notice ahead of time" she said, folding the flower her belt closed as her suit retracted into the disk, popping off her with ease “Besides, matches are normally longer? Why three minutes?”
“Dula’s still a sprout!” The announcer boomed in response “Wouldn’t want to give her too much right now! Besides, the rest of your Rosebuds aren’t here! Consider it a test for her!” Abigail tilted her head, certain Roze’s voice was only loud enough for her to hear “He heard you?” Roze nodded “Yeah, we think he has microphones hidden all over the main arena.” Abigail shrugged as she looked down at her belt, folding the flower shut as her suit retracted into her disk, falling into her hand “Whoa…. A-and I suppose that makes sense.. Seemed like it was televised..” Roze nodded slightly, heading back to the door they came through “The announcer streams it online. You can tune into your preferred team to watch them specifically and hear them if they’re in a game. Snapdragons was caught for cheating once because of it.” The black cat giggled softly “My real name is Beatrice by the way, though the rest of Team Rose calls me Bea.” The red panda sighed softly as she walked with her “Abigail.. But friends call me Abby.” Beatrice nodded as she held out her hand, Abigail reaching out to shake it for a moment before she noticed a thorned vine wrapping over the cat’s palm “I-it’s nice to meet you.. But it might be best to avoid handshakes.. No offence..” Beatrice looked puzzled for a moment before looking down at her palm “O-oh! Sorry! I tend to forget about that sometimes.” The cat gave a slightly embarrassed smile as she started to make her way up the stairs “Come on, let me introduce you to my Rosebuds and the Dandelions. We share a dormitory.” Abigail nodded as she jogged to catch up with the cat.