Homecoming Test (Kiri-Mello)

(OoC: I hope this is good enough.)

BiC:

After the evening of filling her father in on what happened, Azura left her home on the outskirts of Iron Leaf and headed towards town. Her blue, long-sleeved shirt still had three gashes on her left hip, but she didn’t mind them. The teens blue jeans were normal, but still threading around her sneakers, which lightly thudded upon the stone pavers of the main street.

Waterfall’s Guidance, as she called it (and Waterfall Elder agreed), swayed on her back slightly, matching her walking gait. Various people still looked at her, mostly at the natural color of her shoulder-length hair, sky blue that faded into a cerulean towards the tips. The charms in it clinked together, but was lost in the various chatter of the crowds, which stopped as she walked past them.

“Hey! Blue girl! You lost?” one swordsman called out with a snicker, while his friend elbowed him to stop. They were standing in front of a white plastered building, with many windows facing the street, most likely one of the many small inns that Iron Leaf has.

“She’s a local, so stop…ok?” The swordsman grunted, before looking over at his comrade and disappeared into the crowds.

The Aura Master just ignored the comment, having heard many others before. A gray-white orb, Waterfall Elder, floated around her head, invisible to everyone else, but her. Azura, I think we should try to find somewhere to practice your skills, it's voice echoed in her head, even though no one would hear if the tree spirit chose to speak aloud.

She looked at the spirit, her two-toned blue eyes glinted in the noon sunlight. Ok, but where…? The town square is big enough, but everyone‘s here… even though most won‘t react, unless it's a fight. That‘s when the crowds swarm around them. The blue haired girl kept walking during this, but managed to evades other people as a crowd swallowed her for the moment.

The female warrior made it out if the clusters of wanderers and various other fighters, and ended up in an open patch within the town square, cutting the main street in half. That’s better. Not much room, but it‘s better than being crushed in the crowds

The town square itself was list a massive opening among the various plastered and wooden buildings. Some wooden stands were scattered around the sandy, tiled area, which looked like a mini-town within the town itself. The stands were clustered around the inns mostly, however, to take advantage of the visitors.

Mercutio,

In these late days that have come to pass, I realize that I have a bit of a quandary that needs some dealing with. Mayhap you could help?

Well, you see, a student of mine, Azura, a kind little girl, has assumed my former mantle as the last living Aura Master. She is an unwilling combatant normally and Zachary and Monroe are not the likeliest of folks to be able to help her. I need your help to train her a bit and test her. Make sure she's keeping up with her training.

In the coming era, I fear that they will return to hunt us down. Please, keep her safe from the dangers of the world outside until she is ready.

Your friend, amigo and countless other epic things,

Zorlo.

“They?” Mercutio thought. They? Who are they? Whatever. That ambiguous piece of info wasn’t important. What was important was that a good friend had sent him this request shortly before his death. He was pretty much obligated to do his dead friend this last favor.

The Unformed One neatly folded the letter and stuffed it into his pocket. He took the envelope and tipped it over, allowing another sheet of paper to fall out. This sheet had a picture of Azura, as well as description of what were believed to be her current whereabouts. Rosaline memorized this sheet before sticking it into the same pocket as the letter.

The town of Iron Leaf wasn’t very far away from his current position. He judged that he could probably get to Iron Leaf within two hours…

~

An hour and forty-five minutes later, Mercutio Rosaline was sitting in one of Iron Leaf’s bars. Zorlo’s note specified that he wanted him to test Azura. Simply attacking her wouldn’t be much of a test, would it? He’d need to warm her up a bit by causing several other confrontations.

Mercutio looked about the bar with a smirk on his face. From his seat at the counter he could see, hear, and smell more drunken buffoons than he could count. He stood up and headed to the bathroom to make his move.

“Nothing quite like a few drunk idiots,” he thought, pulling Azura’s picture out of his pocket. He casually glanced into the bathroom’s grimy mirror, and then looked at the picture. When he looked at the mirror again a few seconds later, he was looking at a perfect imitation of the blue-haired girl. “They’re always so easy to anger, so quick to fight…”

The blue-haired girl made her way out of the bathroom and towards the nearest table. Three burly men, none of which looked sober enough to even remember his own name, looked at her. She gave them an impish smile and a slight wave before overturning their table and rushing out the door.

Once outside, she switched back to her usual appearance and stood beside the door. Just as Mercutio expected, the three drunks ran out in search of the girl who’d ruined their drinks. He suggested that they check the town square, and then left in search of a good vantage point to view the proceedings.

(OoC:Sorry for the wait... ^.^' )

Azura heard people cry out due to being shoved by three men, looking straight at her. The three were glaring at her as they tried to run towards her but one tripped over another’s foot. They look…drunk. That’s never good… She also noticed that everyone in the square backed away from the area, like normally, since Iron Leaf’s streets were known to have random fights on them.

Waterfall Elder chimed up in her head, This could be a good time to test yourself, but I wouldn’t suggest hurting them too much. They can’t feel much pain with how they are, but you could seriously hurt them if you became serious…

I understand, but I’m going to have to fight eventually, I’m not out of the Dome yet…even though I’m not there right now, the Aura Master mentally replied, as she slid her right foot back and took her stance. I’ll only stop them from moving without hurting them too much…even though I might have to break a bone to get the point across…

The men looked like body builders in a way, with muscular arms showing out of their shirt sleeves. Definitely not the type of people you want to anger, even worse when drunk, but the female warrior would have to fight them anyway. She never drew her knife in her pocket, nor the staff on her back, the teen would fight with her bare hands, and legs. She had learned most of her fighting from watching other brawls on these streets, time to put them to work, once more.

Invisible to everyone, Waterfall Elder floated away from her, and stayed above the empty area the crowd had made. Most people were various fighters as well, they always watched the brawls, since they could cause the next one, and to learn of what other people could do. The brute to her left drunkenly charged first, with the only other standing one following his lead.

Two on one, but it‘s actually three still…fine with me. The man in the lead and attempted a punch to her face, but she jumped over the two, and smacked the back of his right knee with a hard kick as she landed. The attack caused him to stumble even more than the missed punch caused and he fell to the ground, which created a mini quake almost.

The second man tried to tackle her as blue haired girl turned towards him, but a swift right punch to his head stopped him, surprisingly. His eyes rolled into his head, and he fell back, but the female warrior didn’t even need to call her aura up before the ground softened and rose up to catch him then put the man on the ground. The crowd around her gave out a slight gasp at that, while some people cheered.

The man that originally tripped finally got up and charged at Azura, not as wobbly as the other two. She jumped out of the way, before she suddenly raised a small earth pillar to strike him, without even moving. It caught him in his left side and made him fall to the ground. He looked shocked at the sudden attack, watching the earth pillar go back into the ground and reforming the stone cobblestone it broke perfectly.

The man chose to stay down though, while some people cautiously approached the men to either help them up or drag them into a nearby hotel. Most others just gawked slightly, before the crowd went back to normal slowly. That was strange…

Waterfall Elder floated down to her, still a white and gray orb, You didn’t hurt them too bad, from what I could tell. That was good, even though I don’t know why they came after you.

Mercutio hadn’t bothered to watch the entire fight. As soon as he was sure that the drunkards were attacking Azura, he moved on to the next task. The Destruction Incarnate slipped into a nearby inn and decided that the aura user’s next task wouldn’t involve knocking out drunks.

“If I know Cabbage-Head, and I think I do,” he thought, looking through the inn’s main room to make sure there weren’t too many people. He headed up the stairs to check the rooms. “He probably intended for her to help people, not just beat people up. This should be a nice exercise, then.”

He tried to open the first door, and found it locked. Mercutio started to count in his head as he tried door after door. By the time he reached the end of the hallway, he’d counted three locked doors. That meant that there were three people up here that would require saving. Not too few, not too many.

Mercutio Rosaline returned to the first floor and yelled, “Fire!”

Just as he’d expected, everybody on the first floor fled immediately. If a person wanted to clear a room, “Fire” was definitely the magic word. Coincidentally, it was also the right word to describe the situation. When he was sure that everybody was gone from the first floor, the Unformed One pulled a lighter out of his pocket and set the counter ablaze.

He watched the fire for a moment, and he began to change his appearance after it reached the stairs. Within a blink of an eye the handsome bespectacled man was replaced by a short, wrinkled old woman. Mercutio stumbled out of the inn, coughing because of the smoke, and out into the town square.

“There’s a fire in the inn!” she shouted, pointing a gnarled finger at the establishment. Sure enough, smoke was pouring out of the windows, and people trapped on the second floor could be heard screaming.

“There’s people still in there! Somebody help!” Mercutio cried out, seemingly to nobody in particular, though she hoped that Azura heard. How would Azura solve this problem, if at all? She couldn’t wait to see.

“There’s people still in there! Somebody help!”

What...? Azura turned towards the voice, and heard the screams, even over the sudden ruckus made by the crowd near her. Flames were already coming out of some windows on the second floor. She instantly ran over, moving past an old woman that some people in the crowd help get away from the burning building. The cobblestones around the entrance to the inn broke apart and turned into sand, before forming a hollow tunnel that she ran straight into.

The Aura Master followed the screams, even over the roar of the fire, most of the stairs crumbled, but the tunnel formed to the stairs on the inside of the still moving tunnel, with only a slight focus from her. The tunnel itself was following her at first, until she got up to the second floor, then it moved along the hallway on it's own.

The right wall of sand shrank back to expose the room doors, smothering any fire the clung to the wood. The screaming echoed in the tunnel, but she realized that it was coming from three rooms. “Get away from the door,” the teen yelled, hoping the trapped people would listen to her.

-------

Meanwhile, the crowd had started to bring water to the burning in buckets and dumped them onto the fire, while some mages used water spells to assist them, and reach the second floor.

-------

The female warrior made some of the sand from the tunnel into a solid pillar, and broke the lock on the door, before moving to the other two that were shut. After all three were broken, the people trapped inside; four total, came out quickly and just looked at her. “Follow the tunnel, it'll lead you outside, hurry!” They nodded quickly and left her, before she moved the sand into the rooms and smothered the fires within, and then made the sand rejoin the rest in the tunnel once more.

The tunnel had already gotten rid of the flames on the second floor, before the blue hair girl went back down stairs, but stopped when she heard another scream. “Help me, someone!” The sand wall responded by spreading apart from where she heard the voice, off to her right. A wall of fire greeted her after the sand moved away, which froze her to the spot.

A nightmare of her being caught in the center of a forest fire sprang up in her mind, but Azura forced it away, and then did something she would never actually think of doing. She leapt through the fire, her aura instantly came up, it's sapphire blue leaves formed a shield around her, a moment before the flames touched. Some sand had followed her through, which was good, since the teen spotted the person who screamed, a maid of sorts, and formed a pillar near her to support the collapsing roof above her.

Leaping over another lower band of flames, the Aura Master reached her, and the tunnel of sand and earth formed around them, but closed off behind the woman. “Follow the tunnel, it'll lead you outside ma'am.” The woman quickly nodded and ran down the tunnel, while the blue hair girl walked halfway to the entrance, and stopped in her tracks. This is getting tiring, but I can't give up yet...

After sensing through the sand that the woman had made it out, she closed her eyes to focus, then stretched her arms outwards. The sand in the tunnel responded to the female warrior's movement and rushed outwards, smothering any fire it came across, while some formed solid pillars to support the crumbling roof and second floor above.

The sand then formed the same tunnel again, as Azura walked outside, coughing slightly. The sand went back into the earth around the entrance, and formed the cobblestones again. Waterfall Elder spoke again, First, the fight, now a fire. Do you think they're related, little sapling?

The teen slowly walked away from the once burning inn, as some of the crowd still threw water on some spots where she didn't have the sand move to. Maybe, but I'm not entirely sure.

“Very well done, Azura,” Mercutio thought, hiding in an alleyway. The Avatar of Destruction shifted forms again. She was once again a complete copy of Azura’s physical appearance, albeit now wearing a dark-grey t-shirt and a pair of black jeans.

“Heh, I’m a doppelganger now,” she mused. Mercutio always loved episodes of television shows that introduced evil doppelgangers of the main characters. Those always got a kick out of her, and now hse had the chance to be just such a villain.

With a cheerful smile on her face, the Azura clone began to concentrate. If she wanted to keep the real Azura on her toes, Mercutio would need to use a little power. Her normal form was only as strong as the average human, after all.

“Fifteen percent should be more than enough,” she figured, slowly tapping into more of her powers. A few random attacks, maybe a chase or two, all good fun. She’d already tested Azura’s ability to handle battle situations with drunkards, a surprising regularity in the world, as well as testing her ability to handle dangerous non-combat situations.

Now Mercutio was going to test whether or not Azura could keep light on her toes or not.

(OoC: I'm really sorry for the wait. I couldn't come up with anything else at the end though...)

Azura began to calm herself down after taking care of most of the fire, hearing the sounds of the crowd behind her as they continued to douse what was left of the blaze, while the owner quarreled with one of his partners about fixing the place. Waterfall Elder continued to stay above the young Aura Master, still as an orb above her head, This feels as if they are connected together, little sapling… but I’m not certain on the fact. She nodded in agreement, and stayed alert for anything else that could jump out at her.

…And jump out, something did.

For a brief moment, Azura saw what looked like to be herself right in front of her, before this copy tried to clock her in the head. The blue haired girl sprang back, just barely dodging the attack and seeing the other her vanish away. What was… that? The leaves of her aura, invisible to everyone else, sprang up slightly and spun around her. One, though, seemed to stay below her line of sight, and acted like a sort of radar, due to a glowing blue dot in the center of it.

The female warrior continued to walk about, looking around for her ‘twin’. Waterfall Elder was doing the same, but it looked like a satellite orbiting over her in the crowd. As the crowd thinned out again, she saw a slight dot appear on the now changed leaf, but couldn’t get out of the way, before she fell to the ground hard from a kick to her side.

The copy of her appeared in front of her as she got up and spoke just like she would, “What’s wrong, Azura? Can’t beat yourself?” She chuckled and vanished before the teen could do anything, and heard the copy’s voice from behind her, “Come on. Try and catch me-or rather you…” The doppelganger ran off through the crowd, as Azura tailed her from behind. They both seemed to be heading to the outskirts of Iron Leaf, according to how Waterfall Elder saw it, and it took the lead and stayed with the copycat.

“Just a bit further,” Mercutio thought. She jumped over a fruit stand and kept running. From what she could tell, Azura wasn’t too far behind. The real deal would catch up with her doppelganger by the time she reached the edge of town.

“That’s when the real test begins,” Mercutio mused, smirking and darting through a crowd. Several people raised their voices at her, but she didn’t catch any specific words. The Avatar of Destruction could now see the edge of the town. Azura’s final test was coming up.

She passed a few merchants’ wagons on her way out and tipped them over. More obstacles for the young Aura Master, Rosaline figured. She ran until she passed the edge of the town. By this point there were no more buildings, and no pedestrians milling about.

It was just what Mercutio wanted. She stopped by a tree and sat down to wait for Azura to catch up.