Gus stepped to the side of the table that sat his contestants. Today, they would determine the fates of love, life, the universe, and perhaps of the Boiling Isles itself. Thus was the power that Eda had entrusted in him when she had passed down this knowledge. As such, his duty was one that could not be taken lightly. He would do this right. He would make this the event it was always supposed to be!

He then turned around, opened his mouth, and promptly got cut off by Amity saying, “You can’t be serious.”

Gus frowned at the serious girl, who now put the rules pamphlet that he’d given her to the side, before thumping his chest with one of his fists. He then spent another second recovering from his enthusiasm having made a rather pronounced bruise now on his sternum, but such were the risks when you dealt with such great forces! “I couldn’t be more serious! As Eda informed me, this is a noble human tradition. One that brings countries together. One that has been done for perhaps thousands of years. Some may even consider it to be the first human game. And, as Luz can’t go home now, we should strive to give her everything she may miss.”

Luz giggled as Gus tugged at the collar of his uniform. She didn’t have the heart to tell him how much Eda was playing him for a fool, not when he was this excited. Besides, he was mostly right about what they were doing, even if the gravity of it all was maybe a little less extreme than he thought. “Come on, Amity, it’ll be fun.”

The serious girl turned her head away for a moment before the sound of cloth rubbing against wood caught her attention. Her eyes betrayed her and almost yanked her head back as she looked to check that Luz was in fact going to go along with all of this. After all, if she did, then they… I mean, it wouldn’t be for long, and it was for a game, so it was nothing. Nothing! Nothing.

Amity took one more look at Luz’s outstretched hand, that she now rested on the table between them, before sighing and trying to act cool as she put her own arm on the table. “Let’s just get this over w-Ee-Ow! Gus!”

Gus held no mercy for the poor girl. She might not be comfortable holding hands with Luz but that was no excuse for attempting to break the rules. He was just doing his part as the referee after all. “Elbows stay on the table, Miss Blight.”

Amity glared at Gus before she felt Luz’s thumb trace over hers. A strangled squeak escaped Amity’s throat as she looked at her hand and how tightly Luz grasped it. It was just a part of this dumb game. That’s all. She was just trying to psyche her out. She wasn’t caressing her or anything. No, she was tickling her. “W-Will you stop?”

Luz blinked a few times. She’d been lost for a moment just staring at how well Amity kept her nails while Luz’s were cut so short and jaggedly. It definitely wasn’t because she bit them when she was nervous. What did she have to be nervous about after all? Her life was gre-

Luz paused for a second as she looked at her free hand, which was suspiciously close to her face, before glaring it back down to her side. She then looked at Amity and asked, “Stop what?”

The serious girl blinked for a second before her own thumb gently slid along the side of Luz’s. The human looked down and turned pale as she realized what she’d been doing before her face suddenly got very, very warm. The two then glanced at each other, glanced away, and moved in unison to leave.

It was one second too late though as it was right then that Gus grabbed their wrists. “Alright, contestants, are you ready?”

Amity let out another strangled, high pitch whine while Luz waved a hand to the side and said, “Totally. Totes. Totarino. Tota… Ronomy?”

The other students turned slowly to Luz before the energetic girl nervously giggled and scratched the back of her head. “Sorry. I’m a fan of,” she then paused and gave the two of them an evil grin. “Well, you should know.” Luz then winked at Amity, swiped playfully at the air, and said, “Cyats!”

Amity. Amity, you can’t lose it. Luz is holding your ha- Luz is holding your hand! No! That’s not good! She’ll feel it if you get too warm so don’t lose it. Don’t give in to how cu-stup-cu- Amity opened her mouth to scream before purple sludge enveloped her. She stayed there for about a solid ten seconds before being released from her gel prison. “Th-Thank you, abomination.”

The abomination groaned happily as it moved its hands to its mother’s shoulders to rub them so she could relax. They were just happy to have been able to be here for such exciting events after all. Gus narrowed his eyes at the beast though. “They won’t interrupt things, right?”

Amity swiped some of the creature’s remnants from her face before locking eyes with Luz and smirking. “Come on, you think I’d need to cheat to beat Luz at something at something like this?”

Luz raised an eye at that before saying, “I warn you, Blight. It would be unwise to underestimate the power of the Noceda.”

‘All the more reason to become o-’ Amity’s brain fried for a half second from the thought before she tried crushing Luz’s hand and hissing out, “Let’s get this over with.”

Luz merely giggled before leaning in and settling down. Gus looked between the two for a moment before leaning down himself to better keep an eye on things. “Alright. Then, if everyone is ready, you may begin.”

Amity rolled her eyes before raising her thumb. For a second, she’d forgotten she was doing the dumbest thing she’d ever heard of as she began reciting what the stupid pamphlet said. “One, two, three, four, I declare thumb-o-war.”

Of course, just because something was dumb didn’t mean that Amity wasn’t going to try as she snapped her thumb back the second she was done with the weird greeting. It helped that Luz was too busy giggling to try anything at first. Unfortunately, while Amity might have a fast set of grabbers, she still had to deal with the fact that the whole objective of the game was to, effectively, hold hands with the girl she liked more.

So while the two girls mostly just twitched because they had to focus on the fact that they were holding hands and their faces were maybe a foot apart from one another, Willow walked in. “Uh, what’s going on?”

Gus didn’t even glance up before saying, “Shhh. We’re performing the ancient love game of Thumb War.”

Willow tilted her head before beginning to ask, “Love ga-” before Amity drowned her out by screaming, “Love game!?”

Gus jumped at the sudden shriek before holding his hands in front of him. “O-Of course! Eda told me that it is a test of hearts as much as thumbs, and the one who won,” he said as he looked into the distance and his voice got a little wispy, “was the one who’s heart held such force it pulled their partner’s thumb down so it could be embraced.”

Luz turned her head to the boy while her hand stayed locked with Amity’s. The serious girl was now surprisingly quiet as her eyes slowly turned back to their thumbs. That wasn’t where anyone else’s focus was though as Luz yelled, “That’s not what Thumb War is! It’s a kids game, that’s it. I-I wouldn’t have agreed if, or, um, well, I mean, I would have corrected- Yes! Yes. I would have corrected you if you had told me fir…”

Luz let her sentence hang as she slowly turned to her thumb. Amity’s was still up but hers was down. Pinned even. She then looked up the arm of goo that had done it before getting a big smile from the abomination Amity had brought to school that day. The monster then looked over to Amity and made a noise that sounded close to “Moooo woooo.”

Luz blinked a few times before laughing. “Oh, did you win the game for your mommy?”

The abomination didn’t get a chance to respond before it glowed and began to move back towards the pot that it normally resided in. Amity, having finally let go of Luz, was right behind it as she just kept yelling, “No. No no no no no no no-” and not stopping until she’d dragged her creation out of the room. The other three students waited for her to come back but the slowly quieting ‘No’s gave them a pretty clear idea that Amity didn’t have any plan to return.

Luz looked out the doorway after her competition before finally turning around. “So… Either of you want to Thumb War? Platonically, of course.”

Willow held her hands up and walked out of the room herself as she said, “I’m staying out of this.”

Gus was not so smart and said yes. The next day, when he told Amity that he’d beat Luz at it, he suddenly disappeared for two hours before being found in abomination goo with his head stuffed firmly into a toilet.