#babycorns special trick is based on a disgaea special move Rozalins Rose Liberation :)

[hqmillioncorn]

FFXIVWrite Day twenty-two: Fulsome

“Great job today Babycorn!”  Babycorn turned around and smiled at Royse , “T-Thanks…!” She grabbed her hat by the brim and lowered it down to hide her eyes. The stage fright was just hitting her now. She had really gone out there again and performed her heart out again.  Despite everything.  But it was all worth it in the end. Because at the end of all her shows she was finally given her payment.  A big bag of candy!!!!!!!!!!!!

“How’s it looking out there Cherry?” 

Cherry looked left, then he looked right. Making sure that no one was paying attention to him and to an extent, his sister. “All good!” He echoed. Cherrypit had probably heard someone say that phrase before along with giving a thumbs up. 

Though his back was still turned to his sister in order to keep watch for any surprise intruders. 

The siblings were currently in a dark, far off corner of Ul’dah. Babycorn knew that nobody hardly ever came around here. Of all people, she would know, it was one of the places that she and Cherrypit used to hide in whenever they got tired of running and their makeshift home was too far away to walk to. 

Any signs that they had once hid here were long gone but the memories still remained. 

“Great! Just have to figure out how this stupid WoAH-!” There was a crashing sound just behind Cherrypit. 

“Bebe?!” Cherrypit remained facing away. The safety of his sister was top priority, which meant he still had to keep an eye out for anyone that dared sneak up on them. “You kay’?” Of course he could have always turned around and looked to see if Babycorn was okay but Cherrypit was still a little baby, so he didn’t really think about that. 

Babycorn stuck her leg in the air and wiggled it around. “Got it!” She had managed to get one of her boots on! Now she just had to get the other one on too and she had to do it fast because her show would be starting any second now. 

Normally stage fright would be tearing her apart even just thinking about performing in front of so many people looking just at her but there was something about performing specifically in Ul’dah that made her excited. Whatever it was, Babycorn was glad she wasn’t throwing up in a bucket in nervousness right now.

“Okay!” She picked up her hat and placed it on her pom. The mask on her face was just a little too tight. At some point she would have to ask Martyn if there was a bigger mask he could give her or something. 

Babycorn tapped the top of Cherrypit’s head to let him know that he didn’t need to stand guard anymore. 

“Bebe!” Cherrypit raised his arms up and cheered. “Did good?” He asked, pointing at himself.

“Yeah! You did great, Cherry! Thanks!” 

Cherrypit clapped his hands together and laughed. “Great! Great!” 

Babycorn took a few practice steps in her new boots and did a twirl. “How does it look? Does it look okay?” Though she didn’t have any stage fright at the moment she was still nervous that the outfit she had chosen herself wouldn’t look good on her. 

“Okay!” Cherrypit cheered. He was wearing a fancy little suit with matching colors to her. The hats they were both wearing were the same too. They were so much the same that sometimes Babycorn wore his by mistake and only realized the mix-up when the hat started squeezing her head too much. 

“Awesome! We look great!” 

“Great! Great!” 

Babycorn picked up her wand she had left leaning on the wall and pointed it up. “Let’s get going then!” She was bursting with an overconfidence that was more befitting to how she used to act when she was younger and had no idea what horrors awaited her outside the tasks of beating up primals. 

The truth was that nowadays Babycorn was much the opposite. She did not believe in herself one bit, when it should have been the other way around. Surely saving the entire world more than once, twice, should have given her enough confidence to laugh in the face of any threat. 

Not really.

Cherrypit picked up his mask and oversized lollipop from the ground, “Mah!Mah!” He shook his mask over to Babycorn. She grabbed it from him as Cherrypit stuck the lollipop back into his mouth and somewhere a million miles away Lunya yelled in despair. “Okie dokie Cherry, hold still for me okay?” Babycorn asked, gently placing the mask on her brother’s face.

As always, Cherrypit never stayed still for long.“Tickles!” Cherrypit laughed. He wiggled around and the mask ended up a little lopsided on his face. “It’s dark!” He noted. Then he adjusted the mask himself until he could see out of two of his eyes. 

“Ta-da!” Cherrypit struck a pose! He was truly incredible. The most talented totally normal two-year old out there.

Babycorn clapped her hands together. “Wow! Cherry the show hasn’t even started and you’re already killin’ it out there!” She paused, and while she thought to herself Cherrypit took it as his cue to climb on top of his sister’s hat. “...I think. I hope it hasn’t started yet.”

Royse would have her head if she was late to another show again. 

Which she understood now was something called a metaphor and not something to panic about and hide under the bed for. 

At least, she hoped so.

Back then when Babycorn had agreed to perform as a blue mage for a relatively small audience she had not known what the hell a contract was, let alone what signing meant. As such she had no idea what she was signing at the time, but she sure did sign something. 

Terms and services meant nothing for her and neither did being known as her stage name “Azuro the Second.” Was it confusing when they told her that was going to be her stage name from now on? A little. Babycorn assumed that it was her new name for a few hours and eventually asked if it was still okay to go by Babycorn still. 

In hindsight Babycorn was fine not being known by her name in front of strangers watching her. 

As Babycorn walked into the arena with Cherry the audience roared with applause. 

“Hiiiii!” Babycorn waved at the people all around her. While Cherrypit bounced up and down in excitement next to her. 

Sitting in the audience were a few familiar faces to Babycorn. Which didn’t really matter to her since she couldn’t tell who they were from the stage anyway. Most were already Babycorn admirers who had heard that she was now performing in shows in Ul’dah from a magazine or something. 

Had either Martyn or Royse known ahead of time of Babycorn’s weirdly prominent popularity they would have charged more for tickets sooner. 

A short vierafell sat next to his best friend, waving a pair of flags adorned with Babycorn’s face in the air. 

“Dude I think you’re going to break them if you keep waving them that hard.”

“YEAH WOO GO AZURO THE SECOND!!”

A row above the pair was an equally excitable miqo'te wearing a snazzy hat. He had bought the last of the Azuro the Second fans that had been on sale. He was so excited to talk about this show in the special Azuro the Second themed episode on his very popular podcast later. 

Babycorn noticed that her opponent wasn’t in the arena yet which usually meant that they wanted her to hype up the audience a little before the real show started. Babycorn bent down to whisper in Cherrypit’s ears, “You wanna do that trick with the ice this time?” She asked. 

They had a lot of variations of openers like these. Though the fire one was banned until further notice until they got more practice with it. On account of almost burning down the entire colosseum last week.

“Mhhmmm!!” Cherrypit nodded and let Babycorn run ahead and take the stage. 

Babycorn ran to the center of the arena and took the stage. She began to rise in the air, as a pair of wings appeared behind her back. They resemble those of the Fairy King, Titania. The crowd oooh’ed and aaah’ed as Babycorn rose to the highest point she was comfortable with.

From the ground Cherrypit took careful aim and began to cast his ice magic. “Frewee!” He yelled out, making a fairly large piece of ice appear in the air close to his sister. Then another, and another, and even another. 

Once Cherrypit had materialized enough ice, Babycorn made her move.

She began to descend but instead of making her way all the way to the ground, she bounced off one ice crystal, pushing it slightly in a different direction. Then she was off to another, doing the same thing. For one she landed right on top of it and spun in place before jumping to another, making sure to stomp the ice she had been on down. 

Eventually the ice crystals fell down to the ground and from where the audience could see they had all landed in the shapes of flowers. Then as Babycorn finally descended down, she landed on one of them. All at once the ice flowers burst, finally shaping themselves into an even larger flower. 

“Crest Roses!!” 

Thenl with the clap of Cherrypit’s hands-they all disappeared with only a few bright sparkles left behind. 

“Ta-da!” Cherrypit struck a pose alongside his sister. 

The audience erupted in applause. Flowers were already being thrown at Babycorn and the actual show hadn’t even started yet. At this rate Royse was seriously considering if she had to find opponents for Babycorn to fight at all. It would sure save money if she didn’t. 

Babycorn waved and winked at the audience, “Thank you! Thank you! Remember-! I love you all!!” 

Meanwhile, in the coliseums VIP section, Centella and Monita had been put in charge of sorting through Babycorn’s letters of admiration and gifts she had received just today. After seeing the sort of tricks that Babycorn pulled off it didn’t surprise Centella that she and Monita had been hired specifically to do this. 

“Dang.” Was this the same girl she had seen trip over a welcome mat just a few hours ago?

As Babycorn’s retainers it had fallen onto them to perform this most important of duties. That and, nobody else really wanted to do it. Centella didn’t really want to do it either but Babycorn had asked so nicely that she found it hard to say no. And Monita had nothing better to do. 

“Someone’s really gotta tell this girl that she needs to learn to say no to giving her address away. “ Centella mumbled to herself. In Babycorn’s defense most of these letters had been addressed to Azuro the Second’s address, which was the coliseum. 

But there were plenty that had Babycorn’s actual home address. 

All like, four of them.

Centella waved an envelope in front of her to fan herself. “At least we don’t have to read any of these.” All they were being paid to do was gather them and take them to the mansion where Babycorn lived. “I think I would go crazy if we had to do that!” While she did think it would be nice to receive so much attention she did feel sorry for Babycorn for having to deal with so many admirers. 

Centella noticed the lack of a response from Monita. 

“Monita.”

She stood up and noticed the lalafell chewing on a large wheel of cheese that was no doubt a gift for Babycorn. 

Without even a second to lose, Centella leapt at Monita and attempted to wrestle the entire cheese wheel out of Monita’s mouth.

“Spit it out!!! Quit it!!” 

“RAARgh!!”