The Ballad of Alix and Astralfiend

CHAPTER 1

The sun was shining bright on another beautiful day at the beach, which unlike all of the others, was packed with loads of beach-going visitors. On the sands had people from building sand castles to relaxing and getting a good tan; while in the ocean it ranges to people getting a good swim in from just finding a place to get cool in the hot weather. This beach, however, is well known in the surfing scene for a spot with it's very big waves making it perfect for surfers of all skill levels if you know where to look.

And it seemed like today, two surfers were putting on a show for the people at that surf spot who wanted to ride some waves or just wanna watch some locals: Juniper, a purple jellyfish who has been surfing for years and is an adept at the sport, and Rae, who despite being a snowboarder at heart, got into surfing as a side thing and is getting a bit better thanks to being friends with Juniper and Alix. All day the two have been riding big waves, doing some doubles routines, pulling off some tricks, and among other things that kept the crowds interested and on their feet. When they both got done with surfing for the time being, they got to the surface, dddd their boards into the sands and layed down as they took some time to relax.

"Man, Rae!" said a happy Juniper with a big grin on her face. "I can't believe you did rode that good today! I remember that last time you surfed you probably didn't ride waves that huge!"

"Ahh, c'mon June," Rae said with a bit of a chuckle. "those lessons from you and Alix have been paying off and and I guess that session today is proof of that."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Rae...oh, honestly, imagine if Alix were here and saw how we were doing, that'd be pretty cool, don't ya think?"

"I'd agree with...wait," Rae became confused on Juniper's previously said sentence. "you mean Alix isn't here right now?"

"Mmhmm. She's been not been at the beach hanging out with us as much in the past...maybe I should give her a call to see what's up." Juniper then pulled out her phone from her beach bag to give Alix a call, and luckily for Juniper, she picked on the other end as she just got a break from her training.

"Yo, June! What's up!" said Alix, somewhat exhausted from her training so far.

Juniper got excited hearing Alix picking up the phone and calling back. "Hey, Alix! Me and Rae are at the beach right now and we just had a killer surf session, you've should've been there to see it!"

"Woah, man, you and Rae surfed your hearts out today? That sounded like one of the best things ever and I gotta hear how you ! Well, right now I'm at the gym again."

"...oh yeah, I have realized that you have visiting the gym a lot recently. How come?"

"Well, uh, my training schedule has been getting super hectic with what's coming up; basically I'm training for the-" as Alix was going to finish her sentence, she realized that her break from training was almost over. "-actually, I gotta get back into the swing of things, or my trainer is gonna kill me.; I promise we'll countinue this conversation later on, June!"

"Wait, what was the-" Juniper paused their reply for a second, and then they thought about how much time Alix had left in their break. "...actually, never mind. I'll see ya later, Alix!"

"Alright, see ya!" Alix then hung up the call between her and Juniper, and got right back into training. Juniper then put her phone in back to her back and then got straight back to relaxing.

"So, Alix has got her hands tied with gym time again?" said Rae, while drinking some water.

"Nah, I'd say she's going down to gym swinging again." jokingly said Juniper, with a little chuckle.

"Oh, good grief," Rae replied, "it seems Alix kind of taught you how to crack jokes too."

"Yeah, she taught a lot and I thought her a couple things too, heh heh heh."

"...so, June, what do you wanna do now? Relax some more? Get back out and surf? Maybe grab a bite to eat?"

Juniper looked at Rae with a big smile on her face. "I've got a better idea: How about we go to gym and surprise Alix?"

"Yeah sur-wait, why?" Rae suddenly had gotten worried about Juniper's idea to give Alix a surprise meet-up. "Isn't she busy at the gym training and all that?"

"Of course, but it'd be pretty fun to show up without Alix knowing we'd be there. Are you in?"

"I don't think it'd be a good idea since we'd interrupt her, June..." Rae thought it over a bit, but eventually she would agreed with Juniper. "...but honestly, it'd be fun to see the look on her face. Let's do it." Rae then shook Juniper's hand in agreement.

"Perfect! Now c'mon, let's get changed and start heading out to the gym!"

Just like that, the two started grabbing their all of their stuff and headed over to Juniper's camper van to start heading out to the gym, on their way to see what Alix is up to (with Alix unknownst of their arrival).
~~~~~~
After some time of driving from the beach, the two finally reach Megapunch Gym and Dojo, the big gym area where most of the gym-goers, boxers, and sumo wrestlers head to due to facility's large size being able to house some exercise areas, a boxing area with ring and punching bags galore, and a whole training area for sumo amongst other things. Rae has never seen the place up close, which comes from her shock to seeing how big the place is as the two step out of the van.

"This is the place Alix goes to get her workouts in, huh? This place was much bigger than I imagined it would be from the way you described it on the way here."

"Really?" said Juniper, in response to Rae. "I told you everything about this place and . Well anyways, since we're here, we've got one thing left to do: Go inside and meet Alix. Since I kinda know where everything is, we should probably talk to the guy at the front desk first."

The two went to the front doors entering gym and immediately went to the front desk to ask about the info and where Alix is. They got greeted by a cactus man working behind the desk, wearing a work outfit that consisted of a yellow tanktop containing the gym's logo and black shorts also having the logo.

"Hey there, and welcome to Megapunch Gym and Dojo! My name's Donovan, but you can Donny if you want. Are you two interested in our 'New Year's Resolution' trial gym membership?"

"Um...no, we're good." Juniper replied. "Me and my friend Rae here are to see a friend of ours, Alix?"

Rae added on with Juniper. "She's an axolotl, has golden-colored skin, freckles, a tail, somewhat muscular, and-"

Before Rae could finish, Donovan interrupted since he knew what the two girls were talking about. "Oh! You mean Alix Reyes?"

Juniper and Rae nodded in agreement.

"Cool! Alright, lemme look...she's currently at the boxing area, busy with training at the moment. I hope that helped you out since I know you're visiting her."

"Thanks! We're gonna head over there right now." said Juniper. They then proceeded to the boxing side of the workout complex, ready to meet the axolotl.
~~~~~~
When they got to the boxing area, they found Alix fully focused during training with her practicing her fast punches with a speed bag. Somewhat behind them were Juniper and Rae, hiding behind the gym's personal boxing ring, outside of Alix's view.

"Man," says Rae. "does Alix usually work out this hard?"

"Well, not really." Juniper replied. "If she's working out this hard, it must be for something important; I'm guessing she's preparing for a boxing match against someone."

"Really? Who do you think it's gonna be against? One of the biggest, baddest boxers that ever existed?"

"Well, I think Alix told me this once but she told me she's going up against-"

Before Juniper could even finish, she got interrupted by someone, startling the two. "HEY! What's the reason of you two girls doing here at a place like this?" The man was a crocodile standing at five-foot five-inches, somewhat muscular and having somewhat of a gut, donning their boxing gear, and looking pretty tough as well. Juniper and Rae were afraid of asking the man anything of fear of anything bad happening to them (like the two getting kicked out of the gym), so Juniper mustered up some courage and asked the man of why there we here.

"Hey there...uh, I'm sorry if you think we just wandered into here, but we're here to see our friend Alix who's training over there, and even told the guy at the front desk that we're visiting too. It's that...we didn't know someone like you would pop up, you know?" Juniper said nervously with a bit of laughter at the end.

After hearing the reasoning from Juniper on why the two, the boxing crocodile grew a bit more friendly towards the duo. "...well, of course I'd let you visit a friend of yours! It's not like I wouldn't do that!...well, except that Alix isn't working out over at the speed ball anymore, or that you probably need your vision checked, l'il jellyfish."

"Wha!?" exclaimed Juniper. "The last time I saw her she was-" When she looked back at the speed ball, the crocodile was right and Alix is nowhere to be seen! "I guess you're right, she's probably on break or something. Do you know she could be, Rae?"

Rae only gave a shrug, only continuing the discussion further with Juniper of where Alix could've been. However, when the two weren't in her vision, Alix snuck up behind them, gave a wink to the crocodile indicating her presence, and gave a big "GOTCHA!" to the girls, startling them instantly. Alix, dressed in some workout gear and some hand and foot wraps, was laughing with her successful prank along with the alligator man, knowing that Juniper and Rae would possibly show up when she was training. "I got you two good, huh?" said Alix, with one of her hands over Juniper's shoulder.

"C'mon, Alix, you scared us for a second!" Juniper replied in a somewhat angry tone.

"Well, if I knew you and Rae were gonna show up here instead of meeting you guys when we got home, me and Raymond here decided to set up a small prank on you guys to keep you on your toes a bit! So anyways, how've you been doing, June? Good?"

"Yeah, everything's been doing pretty alright, except for that scare in the past...so who's Raymond?"

"Oh yeah!" said Alix. "I don't think you two, eh, properly met Raymond yet, heh heh...Raymond's my boxing trainer and a good friend mine."

"Pleasure meetin' you two," said Raymond as he shook the hands of the two. "the name's Raymond. And what are your names?"

"Juniper."
"Rae."

"Ahh, those are some nice names you two got, just like my student Alix here! I don't wanna get more into names, but I do wanna get more into myself if any of you don't mind."

After some discussion, the two decided it would be nice to hear about Raymond's story. "That's perfect," Rae replied. "go right ahead."

"Great; so, just like your friend Alix, I too was in the boxing circuit, joining out of curiousity and because I had good strength for the sport. Then I started climbing the ranks, beating most of the people I came across, but when I got to the world championship match, somehow, victory always seemed to slip through my fingers, or in this case, my gloves."

Juniper interrupted Raymond's story to ask a question. "Did you ever get bummed out that you never became the world champ?"

"Oh, of course not! Even though I never got towards my true goal, I had some fun meeting some new people and of course, going toe-to-toe against them too! Eventually, I retired from the sport because of age, and then I decided to become a trainer, but didn't know who find as my first pupil; that's where Alix came in!"

"Yeah," Alix joined in on the conversation on Raymond's story on how he became her boxing trainer. "what I did was post an ad somewhere saying: 'LOOKING FOR BOXING TRAINER FOR SOMEONE WITH LOTS OF SKILL, CONTACT ME AT xxx-xxx-xxxx -ALIX REYES', Raymond called me about the ad and that he'd be the perfect trainer for me, we met up, and the rest was history, I guess."

Rae then remembered something: the reason why Alix was training somewhat non-stop. "...hey, Alix?"

"Yeah, Rae?"

"Did you ever tell us what you were training for?"

Alix suddenly realized the topic of 'whatever all of her training was for' only was brought up during the phone call and Juniper and Rae still didn't know the reason of her extensive exercise "Oh yeah! The world championship match for me is coming up in a couple days, I'm fighting Ash, this somewhat tall blue sapphire guy. Because we've heard he's a all-around powerhouse, me and Raymond have been training a lot to make sure I get into tip-top shape."

"Yep, I'm making sure Alix makes sure she possibly nabs the title with all the extensive training we've been doing! In fact, besides of all of the boxing drills and such, I've been also doing some sparring matches with her to make sure she's prepared for anything thrown at her."

"Yeah, like I've been tellin' you guys, it's been pretty hectic stuff going on, but thankfully I do have a reason for all of this stuff, heh heh." Alix replied to Raymond. "...but, speaking of, we're about to get back into the swing of things, and Raymond doesn't wanna feel all bummed out here talking to you guys about things and such as a distraction from training, so do you wanna continue this later on when I'm wrapped up?"

Juniper and Rae agreed. "Sure thing." Juniper said. "See ya when you get done with training, Alix!"

"Sweet, I'll see you two when I get done!" As Alix wrapped up with that, she got back into training while Juniper and Rae started heading out of the gym and headed home in the van.

(END OF CHAPTER ONE)