My Plunderer System

When waking up the next morning, Milo went through his usual routine, he brushed his teeth, went to the weapons hall to practice his chain sickle techniques and finally took a shower. Once he returned home for the summer he'd have to find a new place to practice with his weapon. He was currently attempting to learn the master level tutorial and was close but would still need more time to practice the techniques even more. The simple way of describing the techniques would involve grabbing the chain at different lengths to change the way the blade would swing.

After showering and returning to his room, Milo was welcomed back by Chris and Mark, the two had grown accustomed to Milo leaving to go train in the morning. They even went with him a couple times, but were still happier getting the extra sleeping time, especially Chris. After they were all up, the group met up with Zach and went down to get breakfast. Waki was pooped from all the attention yesterday so he decided to allow him to sleep a little longer. Once the group had gotten their food and sat down, the girls also got food and sat down at their table. Eventually they were all talking about the festival and failed to notice a new face making their way over to the table.

The group was interrupted when Maria sat her tray down next to Milo where she took a seat. This was the first time that Chris, Mark, Krista and Allana were meeting Maria and it caught them off guard to see a stranger take a seat at their table. Seeing who had joined them, Milo introduced her to the group. Chris was especially taken aback due to her beauty and for once seemed flustered when talking to a girl which was unusual as he was usually quite brash and confident in nature.

Maria went on to introduce herself and told everyone how she knew Milo and Zach. She also mentioned the date that she and Milo had gone on, giving him a wink, and shot away any hopes Chris may have been harboring. Milo's face went as red as the cherry snow cones they sold the day before, as he had only mentioned it to Mark and Chris, he also never told the two who exactly the mystery girl who took him on the date was, and here she as right in front of them.

Hearing about the date, Krista and Allana nearly did a spit take with their milk.

"Are you sure he knew it was a date?" Allana said, chuckling to herself.

Krista had moved past her crush on Milo at this point but didn't know why he never mentioned Maria. Although hearing Allana's remark made her realize that this was Milo they were talking about, he wouldn't know a date if it hit him in the face.

"Honestly I'm not too sure," Maria said, "I never cleared up whether it really was a date or not, but I had a good time with him," she said, giving Milo a smile.

Milo immediately tried to steer the subject away from his and Maria's "date" but knew that he'd have countless conversations about it later, even Zach wanted to have a talk about it. Eventually the talk moved towards the festival and the group learned that a few years ago, Maria's older brother had won the combat tournament. This ended up with them inquiring about her family, and when learning her last name they were shocked, she was a Van Orten after all. It was at that moment, that Milo saw something he had never seen from Maria, and that was her attempting to cover the shame she felt involving her family. He could tell she wasn't comfortable talking about it and moved the talking back to the festival, which got him a thankful look.

After eating their breakfast, the girls asked Maria if she'd like to join them that day at the festival which she gladly accepted. Eventually the group left the cafeteria and stopped at their dorms to pick up Waki before they made their way out to where on campus the festival was taking place. When opening the door, they found him with his face buried in a pile of seeds that was spilled out of the side of the bag. When seeing he had guests, he tried to hide the evidence, but his puffed up cheeks and the seeds stuck in the feathers around his beak gave him away, which got a laugh from the group.

After a short scolding and cleanup Waki was sitting on Zach's shoulder and the group made their way out to the festival. Instead of being stuck in their booth all day the group was able to finally enjoy all the different vendors and activities that were going on around campus. Vendors of all different kinds lined the square; food, equipment, drinks, there was even a stall for beast tamer supplies where Zach spent almost all of his cut of their earnings from the day before at.

All the while, the group continued to have fun, Maria seemed to be warming up to the members of the groups as well, and chose to stick closer to Krista and Allana. Seeing this made Milo nervous that she'd spill about their day out on the town, but he chose to deal with it when the time came, rather than get into it in the middle of the street.

While the girls were ahead of the guys, Chris finally saw the chance to pull Milo aside and get some answers from him.

"That hottie is the one you weren't sure if you were on a date with or not?" he asked.

"Yeah, so what?" Milo said in response.

"So what?! Bro she is gorgeous. What did you do to make her ask you out?" Chris said in response.

Milo then went on to explain the whole in-field experience from meeting her when she was a more cold and domineering person, all the way up to where her cold outer shell finally thawed after he saved her. It ended with him telling him about her suddenly showing up at his dorm and asking to hang out, which at the time he thought was a simple hangout between friends.

"So you saved her life huh?" Chris said as if lost in thought, "I stand no chance then, good on you man, I'd put a lock on her before she changes her mind about liking you," he said.

Milo went on to think about Maria more after hearing Chris's thoughts, he wasn't sure if he liked her yet, but he definitely thought she was pretty, there was no doubt about that. He'd have to think about it some more before acting, not to mention summer vacation was about to start and her family was from England, and he was from New York meaning they wouldn't be able to see each other until they returned to school. This would give him plenty of time to think things over before just jumping into anything.

He glanced at her while walking and she caught his line of sight and smiled at him. It was nice seeing her being so warm after their first encounter. If she still acted how she did back then, then he knew there was no way there could be anything between them. After returning her smile the group continued on towards their destination. Eventually the group arrived at a ferris wheel, where Krista and Milo ended up on the same bucket, which meant the conversation he wanted to wait to have would be coming sooner rather than later.

Once the ride started he heard her say, "So Maria huh? Why didn't you tell me about the date you went on with her?"

"I was planning on telling you eventually," Milo said, "but that was when you confessed to me and things got awkward and yeah…"

Hearing Milo trail off, Krista felt she should say something to keep things from getting weird again, "It's all good, to be honest I've kind of moved on from my crush I had on you, I've started to like someone else now, or at least I think I do, I'm not sure yet." When adding the last part, Zach's smiling face popped into her mind which made her blush.

"That's good, who's the lucky guy?" he said with a cheeky smile.

Seeing this, made Krista relieved, she was nervous it'd get things awkward again but Milo reacted exactly how he would've in the past. "Promise you won't make fun of me?" she asked.

"If you say Chris I might," Milo answered back laughing.

Krista laughed a bit with Milo, and once the laughter subsided she said, "No not Chris, he's too much." She paused for a second as if to gather the courage to admit who she liked before finally saying Zach's name.

Hearing this, Milo paused for a second, "wait really?" he said.

Krista was worried he'd get mad and prepared for the worst.

"That's awesome!" he exclaimed.

"Wait what? It's awesome?" She asked. This wasn't the response she was expecting, but hearing him say it made her want to make sure she heard him right.

"Yeah, my girl best friend likes my guy best friend, and he's much better than the jerks you liked back in New York," he said laughing out loud.

Hearing Milo say this, Krista heaved out a sigh of relief, "So you aren't mad?" she asked, making sure once again she didn't hear him wrong.

"No, why would that make me mad?" Milo said, "I think you two would be good for each other," after answering her final question their ride of the ferris wheel was coming to an end, and the rest of the group were waiting for them, Chris seemed to be talking Maria's ear off which led to desperate looks to Milo, as if she was saying "please help me."

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