Confusing Feelings
The second the door opened, both Frosta and Spidra sprinted in and started smashing robots and defeating holograms. Spidra using her spiderlegs as weapons and Frosta using her ice fists. When the floor tiles gave way Spidra jumped and stuck to the wall, and then crawled along it as quickly and easily as she could run on the ground. Frosta simply used her ice powers to propel herself to a safer area when the time called for it. When they made it to the next area, Frosta looked around for threats but couldn't find any, and then a hologram descended on her from above.
She easily dodged it, and then pierced it with an ice shard, dispersing it as others appeared to take its place. It was clear the holograms used to be princesses, but they had been reprogrammed to appear featureless, so as not to reinforce the former Horde's anti-princess agenda. With a single ice blast Frosta took out all the holograms before her, only for robots to appear and start shooting at them with lasers. In awe of how easily Frosta dispatched the holograms, Spidra realized that if she had any hope of winning she had to kick it up a notch.
Spitting a line of webbing from her mouth to the wall behind the robots, Spidra propelled herself towards them, destroying any she passed by with one hit of her spiderlegs. Spidra spit another web, this time hitting a robot, which she then used as a wrecking ball to destroy the rest of the area's targets. This time it was Frosta who was in awe, only she was more open about it as she exclaimed, "That's so gross and cool!" causing Spidra to blush momentarily before moving on to other targets.
Not wanting to fall behind, each girl gave it their all as more and more robots and holograms came at them, and not a single one was able to hit either of them. Finally, the timer ran out, the simulations disappeared, and the robots stopped attacking them, the training session was over. As they looked at the scoreboard to see who had won, they were both shocked at what they saw on the screen, or rather what they DIDN'T see.
"Where are MY points!?" Frosta yelled, prompting Spidra to confusingly ask her, "Didn't you activate the scorekeeper in your glasses?" Frosta's answer was an indignant, "You have to ACTIVATE them!?" after which each girl stood there in silence. Suddenly, Spidra started laughing, it wasn't a big laugh, but it was still the most emotion Frosta had seen her express since meeting her. Normally if someone laughed at Frosta they'd get a snowball in their face, but the sight of Spidra giggling softly into her fist seemed to erase any distress she had, so she joined her in laughing at their predicament.
They decided to call their match a tie, and as they walked out of the training hall Spidra said, "No one has ever been able to keep up with me in training before. I can see how you princesses won the war." Frosta smiled and said, "Yeah well, I can see how you guys gave us such a hard time. That was a real workout, but honestly… it was fun. In fact, I think it was the most fun I've had in a while." Leaning against a railing outside the training hall, Spidra paused for a moment before saying, "I'm going to be honest with you, I invited you to train with me because, well, I wanted to size you up, see what you princesses are REALLY like." Looking at Frosta, she continued, "If the other princesses are like you, then they're NOTHING like I thought they were, and that's a compliment."
For some reason, Spidra complimenting her brought heat to Frosta's face, but then she thought about what she said, about being like the other princesses. Realizing something she said had bothered her, Spidra asked her what was wrong, and Frosta said, "It's nothing, just, I'm NOT like the other princesses. They're my friends and I like them and everything, but still… they treat me like I'm just a kid. I'm a princess just like them, I rule my own kingdom, I have my own magic, I can fight just as good as ANY of them, but they still don't take me seriously just because I'm younger than them! It drives me crazy!" Although she was shocked by Frosta's angry outburst, a downcast Spidra said to her, "I'm… I'm sorry. I know how much that hurts."
Meeting Spidra's gaze, Frosta asked, "You… do?" and she nodded and said, "The only reason I'm a Skiff Courier is because… they rejected me when I tried to join the kingdom's new army. I trained for years as a cadet, I outshined my peers AND my instructors. When Prime came, and everyone else ran away or got chipped, I hid in the vents, and stole what I needed to survive without anyone catching me. I even cleared out the clones from the training hall after I saw the broadcast telling us all to fight. Still, it wasn't enough to join, they told me I was too young and sent me on my way. It's so frustrating, being too young to be an adult, when you've been through too much to be a kid."
All Frosta could do was stare at her, not knowing what to say or how to feel. Spidra understood her, NO ONE had ever understood her before. Frosta thought she should be feeling sad right now, everything she just said was sad, but what she felt was something new, new and confusing. Things had gotten a little too "emotional" for Spidra's liking, so she excused herself by saying, "I-It's getting late, I should go. I usually go to the training hall after work, if you ever want to do this again." Frosta was watching her walk away, when she turned around and said, "By the way… I had fun too," and then she was gone.
Frosta stood there, stunned and silent, when all of a sudden a familiar form wrapped her up in a big hug. "Little buddy, I finally found you!" Scorpia said, "I'm so sorry I got called away, I know we had plans." Scorpia promised to have their meetings at Plumeria from now on, so they wouldn't be interrupted by her advisors anymore. Frosta agreed, but had a feeling that she'd be spending A LOT more time here regardless.