It was about 8 at night when the blue lionblitz walked into the room I was occupying at the Spiritmal hostel, barging in on a session of exploding kittens between myself and my two spiritmals.

"Topaz?" I greeted the lionblitz. "What are you doing here?"

The small blue lion lifted its head, its yellow eyes shining brightly. "Actually... there's something I would like to tell you... but you mustn't tell Felix, ok?"

"Sure." I replied, confused by the spiritmal's words. "Star, Winter, could you two carry on the game without me?"

"Sure!" The yellow bird replied, the white wolf on the other end of the table giving me a tiny nod. The two then brought their focus back to the game, Winter drawing a card from the deck and giving Star her turn.

"You did get your meal right? I'm pretty sure you were eating something during dinner." I directed my attention back towards Topaz.

"This isn't about my meals, Ms Emily."

"Sure..." I looked around. "where's Felix by the way? I don't think he's the kind to allow you to just barge into other peoples' rooms like that."

"Oh... that..." Topaz grinned a little. "I got some help from Jacky to convince Richard to bring Felix shopping and to leave the two of us behind. Somehow... that plan worked despite the many flaws in it..."

I just sighed, wondering how bad Felix's mood would be after he returned from his shopping trip. He didn't seem to be the kind to enjoy social interaction in general.

"Yea he's probably going to be moody later but I should be able to handle it." Topaz himself sighed after seeing my expression.

"With someone as noisy as his cousin, I'm not too surprised..." Star responded as she placed a Nope card in the discard pile.

"So... what is this about, Topaz? Also... I do happen to have a couple of questions for you as well."

"Is this about my behavior this evening?" Topaz flinched, detaching his gaze from mine for a while.

"Well... I guess it's ok if you won't tell me. However, I must admit. I am slightly curious." I replied truthfully.

"It's ok. Actually, I came over to talk about that." The lionblitz admitted, sighing a bit.

"Oh?"

"Yea. To be honest, Felix... he's having a bit of an existential crisis currently." The blue lion rubbed the back of his head.

"An... an existential crisis?" Out of all the things I had expected to hear, that was definitely not what I had expected. Still, it kind of made sense, especially due to that recent battle he had with Richard...

"A what?!" Star exclaimed, pushing her cards aside. "I think that game would have to wait."

"I agree." Winter pushed aside her cards as well.

"Go on." Star pushed.

"Well Felix... he..." Topaz stopped for a bit, his gaze lingering on the two excited spiritmals for a second. "Whenever he gets stressed out, he either does some extremely intensive training to cope with it, or does anything he can in his power to resolve the situation. I play along and train as hard as I could during these moments, as I want to help him keep his mind off things. In ways, I'm training out of concern for him and for the sake of his sanity. He never tells anyone how he's feeling, but I've been by him for quite a bit so I figure it out near instantly. Mostly, he lets his bad mood show by just being cold to everyone. In ways, he's just trying to protect himself. He shows slightly more emotion around those he knows better though." Topaz explained.

"I see..." I replied slowly, not really surprised with what Topaz was saying. It made sense, and I knew that I would do the same for Star.

"Same here Em." Star replied in my head, and I realized that she was reading my thoughts again.

"What's causing Felix to be this stressed though?" I asked aloud before thinking up a potential reason. "Is this about that upcoming contest?"

The lionblitz nods. "The contest is in five days. Four, if we consider today to be over. Felix usually doesn't stay in a town when a contest is on the horizon, mainly due to that event from a few years ago."

"Does this happen to have something to do with a phone slam..." Star questioned.

"How did you know about that?"

"Let's just say that Star had a long talk with Felix's parents the other day." I explained. "Still, all we know about the event is that he slammed down a phone."

"Oh... that..." Topaz looked down at the floor. "Oh boy... Felix may kill me if he were to find out that that I had told you this..." the lionblitz took a deep breath.

"Your secret's safe with us." I promised, Star and Winter nodding in agreement.

"Heh... in a way, I'll rather you ask him about it soon actually. That's the reason I'm telling you all this to begin with, after all."

"Wouldn't you get into trouble?" Star questioned, tilting her head once more.

"Oh I will, but you guys would feed me right?" The lionblitz grinned a little before dropping the act. "Besides, it's for his own good anyways..."

"You would do anything for Felix, wouldn't you?" I commented.

"Of course! The two of us go way back. I've been with Felix since I was six months old... and now I'm about seven!"

"That's... quite a while... I'm only about two..." Star replied.

Topaz smiled a wistful smile. "A few years ago, Felix and I were just setting out on our journey. His parents want him to be a racer of course, but he had a different passion. He wanted to be a performer, a coordinator. He wanted to prove himself to his family and make them proud of him. To uphold his family name via contests instead of races. As you can probably guess, it didn't turn out so well."

"What happened?" I pressed further.

"We attended a contest, and actually won one on our first try." Topaz eyes glowed, a flicker of pride seeming to reside within them.

"You two won your first contest?!"

"Sure did! It... didn't exactly end well though. You see, Felix called his parents that night thinking that they may finally agree to letting him attend contests. However... they scolded him instead, threatening to take me away from him if he were to attend another contest."

"They could do that?" Me, Star and Winter exclaimed simultaneously.

"It's... possible. To say the least." The lionblitz lowered his head. "He never dared to attend another contest after that, diverting his attention to anything else he could to distract himself from thinking about them. He trained hard, trying to fulfill his family's wishes due to how hopeless he feels trying to accomplish his dream. Still, the passion never truly left him. Even though he's mellowed down a bit since then, even though he has come to accept what he does, he still thinks about contests from time to time." Topaz finished. "With the current contest around the corner alongside the pressure from Richard and your bucket list, its kind of obvious why he's feeling some pressure." The lionblitz's eyes narrowed slightly at Star.

"Hey! Not my fault that I didn't know!" Star attempted to defend herself. "Besides, it'll still remain on my bucket list either way... just that I may not have told him about it if I had known..."

"I just hope that he'll be alright." Topaz sighed.

"Hey Topaz, we actually got clearance from Felix's family for him to attend a contest." Star continued.

"Really?" Topaz seemed amused.

"Sure we did!" Star insisted.

The lionblitz turned to me, clearly not believing the glowstaride's words.

"Star's not joking." I confirmed.

"No way..." the lionblitz muttered. "So that's what all that screaming downstairs was about..."

"Topaz, could you help us convince Felix to attend a contest?" Star requested. "I think he needs it."

"I agree with you Star. However, it's not going to be easy, and I would need you guys to help out if we want to succeed in doing so."

"Sure." The yellow bird agreed instantly. "What's the plan?"
———————
Author's note:
This chapter is canon, because I'm too tired to prank people this time round. They'll be no April Fools day joke this year!