Hero's Return 28 Meeting The Competition

M: "Take these"

Michael threw them all 3 bracelets. All of them caught and looked at them for a bit before putting them on.

S: "What are these for?"

M: "Those will allow you to pa.s.s through the barrier, can't have just anyone running in after all, oh, and one more thing"

Michael threw a little collar to Sora. After catching it he turned it around and saw that it had the name 'Rin' engraved on it.

S: "Is this..."

M: "Basically the bracelet except for your pet. Alright, as soon as you get in there just walk around for a bit, the test will start soon - someone will appear above the fountain in the middle and call for everyone to be silent, after that everyone will be teleported to a field and the test will start"

Behind the barrier was a giant crater with a giant building shaped like a sword, the colour of this sword seemed to resemble the night sky, there were three of these buildings separate from eachother all linked by two white bridges. The bridges were all that linked the buildings, below was absolutely nothing, the bottom of the buildings seemingly disappeared into clouds beneath the school. The three buildings were all ma.s.sive, each one towering into the sky. The blade of these swords were extremely wide and hollow, the insides were filled with s.p.a.ces for the students of the school to live in whilst the upper 'hilts' were where the buildings for being taught were located. The inside of these were so ma.s.sive that they could fit thousands of students at a time. There were also multiple floating platforms of different sizes with buildings, fields, and students sparring. Where the three swords plunged into the fog, there was a giant circle made of marble that surrounded it, this circle was hollow in the middle to allow the swords to go through the middle but covered a wide expanse of land for miles on end. This land had multiple small buildings and houses, there were shops selling food and commodities, clothes and many other general items, there were even weapon shops. This circle surrounding the bottom of the school had been where all the students went to buy things that they wanted. From the gate, there was a huge stairway that seemed to expand as it went down and linked with the outer circle, the place that the staircase ended was a ma.s.sive circular area with a big fountain in the middle. From here, there were multiple entrances into the town. The town expanded all the way around the outer circle. The circle ended close to the edge of the crater, but one could still see the fog that covered the entire lower area of the school present at the edges.

From where they were, Sora, Del and Rez could hear a ma.s.sive crowd, Sora ran forward to see what he was hearing and what he saw shocked him. There was over 15000 people here already, all waiting in the fountain area, whilst there were alot of people here, the amount of s.p.a.ce they actually filled on the outer circle was very small, the outer circle was just that big.

S: "This... is a school??"

Del and Rez were shocked too.

D: "Even with the exclusion of the school, it's still bigger than our village!"

R: "Yeah! Why is there a town at the bottom? Is that part of the school?"

M: "Well, technically everything here belongs to the Sta.r.s.eeker School, so anything and everything you see here is indeed part of the school. It is owned by the people in charged and is free to use by students"

D: "This is unbelievable..."

R: "Yeah... we're gonna live here?"

M: "Hey, you're not in yet..."

R: "Haha... yeah, I guess so..."

D: "Hm?"

Del began to look around.

R: "What's wrong Del?"

D: "Um... where's Sora"

R: "Huh?"

Rez looked around too.

M: "That guy..."

D: "Wait, these bracelets you gave us..."

M: "Yeah?"

D: "Do all 15000 of those people have them?"

M: "Yeah they do, but they probably weren't personally given them like you guys"

D: "What do you mean?"

M: "The school basically gives these out to anyone that wants one, there are many of these in the bigger cities whenever a test is set to begin"

R: "What? So just anyone can get in?"

M: "Well you can take the test, but I've already told you about that, it wouldn't be a good idea for some random guy to just join"

R: "So not everyone is strong like we expected?"

M: "Well, no, but the people who get through the first test will probably be, and that's all you care about right?"

D: "He's right"

R: "Well, as long as we get what we want"

M: "Now..."

Michael looked towards the gate.

Sora had already walked through the gate. Sora and Rin had split up from Michael, Del and Rez. Sen seemingly jumped into Michael's shadow and told Del and Rez to walk around, he disappeared shortly after, Del and Rez entered aswell. Sora got lost instantly, the amount of people here were insane, many people had been talking to eachother but their relations.h.i.+ps were unknown, some people seemed to be arguing with eachother, others seemed to be bragging about their strength and how they would not lose against anyone here, some were friends and walked around together happily chatting between themselves and others seemed to be alone, sitting in their own corners. Sora could read that some people here were aura users, he knew that there were bound to be some but the amount shocked him, there was at least over 1000 people who could use aura here, and some of the individuals here had aura's much more powerful than his own.

S: "This place is amazing... so many powerful people here... what do you think Rin?"

Rin let out a purr of excitement. She, too, enjoyed fighting and knew that this was an oppurtunity for her to get stronger with Sora - but she wasn't blind. She could feel that the aura coming from some people were extremely dangerous, whether it was the sheer amount someone possessed or the specific types. The way one's aura felt to another would show what that person was like, if it felt warm and comfortable, they would most likely be a good person, it would be the complete opposite for others, and there were many cold aura's here.

S: "Who knows what some of the people here have done to gain power..."

Sora looked around him as he walked through the crowd.

S: "We need to be careful around here"

Sora looked around this area, there were people sitting by the fountain, alot of people walking around, seemingly lost like him. There were many people sitting on the stairs that he walked down too.

S: "Jeez, it's so easy to get lost in here..."

Sora walked towards the fountain, it was the only real recognisable landmark that he could see and he just wanted to see what it looked like up close, the amount of people here limited his vision to just the top of the fountain. He could also feel something calling him.

"The h.e.l.l?"

"Watch your step man"

"Sorry"

"Kitty?"

"What's the rush?"

"Excuse me"

"Soz dude"

"Is that a cat?"

"Yo it's a cat"

Sora pushed through alot of people, the amount of people only increased as he got closer to the fountain. He finally pushed through and arrived at the fountain, finding a place to sit on the edges of the fountain, the amount of people also sitting down were all aurusers, it seems this was the gathering place for powerful people, one could sense how powerful another was if they were powerful enough, some people here could sense it, some couldn't.

S: "Are these powerful aura's the thing that was calling me?"

Rin jumped down onto Sora's lap, and he began to play with her.

?: "Is that a cat?"

S: "Huh?"

Sora turned around to where the voice was coming from, it belonged to a guy that looked about his age. He had black hair and blue eyes, he wore a purple s.h.i.+rt and leather pants with purple linings.

S: "Yeah?"

?: "You seem to be pretty powerful huh?"

S: "Um... I guess?"

Sora could feel that this guy was an aura user. His aura wasn't cold, it was nearing more towards the warmer side, so Sora guessed that he could at least trust this guy enough to talk to him comfortably.

?: "The name's Joe, how hard do you think the test will be?"

S: "Well..."

Sora remembered what Michael told him.

S: "I guess that the first one will be pretty easy if you know what you're doing, it's the one where we have to fight that I'm scared of, adapting to new people is pretty hard to do"

J: "Hm? I'm more excited for the people to be honest, first test is just boring. At least in the arena we can actually do what we came here for"

S: "Well, I guess"

Sora talked with Joe for a little bit more before Joe left.

J: "Well, good luck on the test"

S: "You too"

Joe walked into the crowd and disappeared.

S: "Hm, he was pretty nice I guess..."

Sora stood up and walked back into the crowd too, looking for something to do. There were some people with cold aura's at the fountain and he didn't want to stay around to be greeted by them.

[Somewhere In The Crowd, Further Away From The Fountain]

Del and Rez were walking around together, talking about how much people were here and visiting some of the general areas, they couldn't wander too far away from the crowd as they didn't want to get lost in the city but they still pushed the limits a bit, they felt more confident to do this kind of stuff when they were together.

R: "This place is huge"

D: "Yeah, I can't believe a school would be this big"

?: "That's the way schools are, you guys not do your research?"

R: "Huh?"

Del and Rez turned around and saw a tall guy, he had black hair and wore a dark blue suit, his trousers were also dark blue.

?: "Well?"

D: "Well, I did do research but this is the first time I've actually come to a school"

?: "Eh? How? These things are the best places to go in Elia, can't have fun without going to one of these"

R: "You make it sound like you've been to one before"

D: "Have you?"

?: "Nah, I just visit alot of them, they're fun"

D: "Oh, then you're like us?"

?: "In what way?"

R: "Is this your first time actually joining one?"

?: "Yeah"

The tall figure walked towards Del and Rez.

?: "Name's Indy, nice to meet ya"

D: "You too"

R: "Hope you get in"

I: "Yo that's pretty direct"

R: "Well, it's the truth, alotta people with cold aura's around here"

I: "I know right... you two were the ones with warm one's, that's why I came here, it's so boring just hearing someone talk about how they're so much better than anyone else in there"

D: "Agreed"

I: "Well, wanna walk around? I don't really have anyone else to walk around with"

R: "Sure"

They all began to walk together.

I: "Did ya hear? There's some teachers in the crowd apparently, I wanna meet one, see how powerful they are"

R: "Really?"

D: "I want to meet some too"

Del, Rez and Indy talked alot as they walked through the crowd.

"Hey! There's a fight going on!"

"Really?!"

"Yo let's go check it out! It's been boring just walking around"

"Someone call one of the teachers!"

"No don't! Let em have it!"

I: "What?"

Indy looked at Del and Rez.

I: "Wanna go check it out?"

Del and Rez weren't really one's to get excited by something like this but now was different, a fight between two people who were possibly as strong or even stronger than they were? Of course they would be curious. Indy just wanted to fan the flame, he lived for this kind of thing.

D: "Sure"

R: "Let's go"

They all pushed through the crowd to get to the front.

"It's multiple fights!"

"There's like 3!"

I: "3?"

D: "What's going on?"

R: "That much people?"

Del, Rez and Indy finally pushed through to the front of the crowd and saw who was fighting.

D: "Thats..."

R: "How..."

Three duo's were currently fighting.

One was a fight between a blue haired boy and Joe. The other was one between Rin and a dog which had a plume of orange fire at the end of it's tail and the other was a fight between a white haired boy and Sora.

D: "How did he..."

R: "This guy... we can never keep up with him..."

I: "This looks fun"

Sora found himself surrounded by the crowd and saw Del and Rez, he let out a hesitant smile as he dodged the white haired boy's attacks of fire. His smile signalled that he didn't start this and really didn't understand how it started himself.

D: "Even he looks confused... Rez?"

Rez had stopped watching Sora and was looking at the other fight going on.

I: "Hmm... that Joe guy is interesting... that power..."

Del looked towards the other fight and was surprised by what she saw.

D: "What kind of magic is that..."