Rose awakens from a short rest healed of her wounds to a note and bag of gold on her nightstand. "I healed your wounds, but I can't restore your spent ether. Take it easy for the day. From Helen". The other note reads, "This is your reward for finishing the mission. From Lord Azor."
"What to do... Don't have a whole lot of ether so maybe I should take Helen's advice and take it easy. I guess I should check in on our new friends."
Getting up from her bed, she fixes her hair, changes into her usual clothes, takes her reward and heads out of her room.
She enters into an unusually dirty foyer filled with many small voices. She looks around, past the dirty footprints on the floor to see several children in the halls talking amongst themselves.
"OK kids. Stay here and listen to Ms. Helen. She'll get you all cleaned up while I go get the rest of the gang."
She hears Vuella say this as she walks out from the group of children, heading towards the front door.
"Ah, Rose. You're awake? I thought you'd be out longer than a few hours, but it seems you're doing fine."
"Yeah, Helen healed me but I still wouldn't say I'm at one hundred percent yet. Aside from that, what's happening in here?"
"We're moving the kids into the palace. On that topic, can you help me move a few things?"
"Sure, but I have to do something while we're out first."
.
.
.
"Is this the shop?"
Vuella says while pointing to a middle-aged shopkeep at a fairly large fruit stand in the town market.
"Yep. I kinda owe him something. You don't have to come with me to talk to him, I'll be quick."
Vuella waits around the corner within earshot of the fruit stand, while Rose approaches the stand. Upon seeing her, the man instinctively tries to cover his products with his hands to stop Rose from stealing, but she throws her hands up instead. "Whoa there sir, I'm not going to take anything this time. Hopefully, I don't have to steal anything anymore."
"So then what are you here for? Knowing you, you aren't going to buy anything. Scram!"
"Do you remember the last thing I said to you before I was arrested? I said if I got some money soon, I'd pay you back twice as much. So here it is." She says handing him several gold coins, noteworthily more than the cost of the apples. The man is stunned. When she said it before her arrest, he thought of it as a simple banter from an overly talkative thief, and that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. He could now see he was wrong. He then takes the gold and she turns around to walk back to Vuella. "Thank you young lady. What's your name?"
"My name is Rose A-... Just Rose."
"It's nice to officially meet you Rose. Before you leave, can I ask why you paid me back?"
"Oh it's nothing really. My mom taught me to always pay what I owe whenever possible. I owed you for the apples, but I also owe you more than I could tell you right now."
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She gives him a smile and walks off to meet Vuella. After meeting back up with her, they proceed to the orphanage.
Once they arrive, they overhear what sounds like animal noises coming from inside. Vuella turns to Rose and puts a finger over her mouth, signaling her to be quiet as they enter. As they walk in, all of the children are sitting on the floor with their backs turned to the door while Velajuel is facing them, as well as the door. He sees them and gives them a wink. Rose's confusion shows itself on her face while Vuella gives him a thumbs up. She begins to ready what looks like a ball of fire in her hand and throws it above the children. At the same time, the animal noises that filled the room began to change into howling wind that culminated in the center of room above the children's heads, along with the fireball. At its climax, the ball explodes and disperses itself into small flames that flicker out seconds after the explosion. As dangerous as it might seem to do this indoors, it was a beautiful display for both Rose and the children. As the show concludes Velajul gives an exaggerated bow, followed by him pointing out Vuella and Rose in the back of the room. "Look who's here! Vuella's back and she brought a friend with her."
"Hey guys! Told ya I was coming back soon. Now then, who's ready to see the new house?"
The children erupt in excitement as they scramble to grab their things.
"Before I forget, this is our new friend Rose. Treat her like you would treat anyone of us."
A collective, "Yes ma'am", comes from the crowd of kids.
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"Rose and I are going to go grab a few things from the other room before we go, so make sure you guys have all of your stuff." Vuella says while they walk to the back of the house.
"So um... What was that?" Rose asks.
"Velajul? He's only like that around the children. Any other time, he's the quietest person I know.I personally like him better this way." Vuella says while walking backwards, looking at Rose.
"Yes and no. I wondered about that, but I wanted to ask about the fire and the weird animal noises."
"What you saw was basic fire magic in combination with Velajul's sound ability. Velajul can mimic sounds and slow it down to make it seem like that thing is actually in the room and moving around."
"His ability is more versatile than I thought. What about the magic you did?"
When it comes to magic, I couldn't really explain it to you that well. Well, I could explain to you how to do, but it'd take a while since I'm not that great with it."
"You seemed pretty good with in the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, but I'll just ask Mr. Hiro about it when we get back. What do you need help with?"
Vuella points at a stack of items wrapped in a cloth. "This is the stuff I need you to move. It's just a bunch of gear for our jobs."
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Now lowering her voice, she says, "I would carry it out myself, but the kids are kinda nosey and I would rather not let them find out what we do."
"Got it. You want me to teleport this stuff back to the palace?"
"Yeah, it doesn't matter where you put it as long as the kids don't see it. Thanks, we'll meet you there in a little bit."
Rose walks over to the stack, lifts it up, and teleports back to the palace foyer. She sits everything down in a corner and feels herself slightly drained. In her mind the best course of action is to simply wait in the foyer for Vuella and the kids to come back. She sits on the floor, leaning on the pile of stuff awaiting their return.
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After about an hour of waiting and wondering about magic, Vuella marches into the foyer, with all of the children marching in a similar fashion, yet slightly disorganized, attempting to mimic her. One by one as the kids enter the palace, they are awe stricken, dropping their bags and pouches to break their formation and run around the foyer in amazement. After the children come in, Velajul steps in carrying several bags and other items.
"Oh, you're back. I'll help take this stuff to your rooms." Rose says to Velajul as she jogs over to grab the bags from him.
"Thank you Rose. If someone wasn't up there playing army with the kids, I wouldn't be struggling right now." He says while handing her a few bags.
"Listen up, soldiers!" Says Vuella. Upon hearing her, the children stop running and give her as much attention as they could muster while still gawking at the palace interior.
"Follow me! I'll introduce you to your new commander, Ms Helen, but only after everyone here washes up. Let's go!" She says as she marches off towards the bathroom from earlier, with the children in tow. After they clear out of the foyer, Rose and Velajul start to take trips back and forth carrying the childrens' things to their bedrooms. After everything is said and done, the children are finished moving into the palace in the late afternoon. Afterwards they all eat lunch together and the children are taken out to the courtyard to play.
"Hey Rose, could you do me one more favor?" Says Vuella.
"And what might that be?"
"Could you show me around the palace? I was going to ask you earlier, but I was a bit occupied by all of the eight-year-olds following me around."
"Sure. I think you've seen the important stuff already, but we can go anyway."
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The two girls wander about the palace, pointing out everything from bedrooms and bathrooms to offices and the throne room. Towards the end of their tour, something piques Vuella's interest.
"What about that room? The one with the 'Do not disturb sign'. I think you skipped it earlier."
"Oh that one. That's because it's Vanessa's room. She got injured about a month ago and has been having trouble staying conscious."
"Sooooo... Can I knock on the door?"
"Of course not." Rose says while flicking Vuella's forehead.
"Ow! Why not? Aren't you curious too? The worst case scenario is that she's sleeping and doesn't answer."
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Rose would be lying if she said she wasn't also curious. She had wanted to meet Vanessa for many reasons, and now having Vuella with her made her want to see her even more.
"Okay, sure but we only knock once. No more than that."
Vuella excitedly knocks on the door. To no one's surprise, nobody answers.
"See? She's resting so of cour-"
Rose is cut off by the sound of a door opening. As it opens, a tall, older woman with faded purple hair comes out of the room, looking at Rose and Vuella.
"And who might you two be?" Inquires Vanessa as she looks down the hall towards the foyer.
"My name's Vuella. It's nice to meet you ma'am!"
"Oh um... Good afternoon, or is it evening already? I'm sorry, m-my name is Rose... Rose uh... Azor." Says Rose as she struggles to get her words out.
Vanessa looks intrigued by her name and looks her up and down.
"Azor? Interesting... How about you two girls help me out for a minute?"
"Sure, anything for you ma'am." Vuella says.
"As you two probably know, I've been lying in bed for several weeks. I feel like I could use a bit of exercise. Let's have a sparring match. I should be able to take the two of you even in my old age."
"Wha-"
"We graciously accept! Right Rose?" Interjects Vuella, who seems overly excited about this proposal. At this point, she feels obligated to go along with it.
"Great. Let's do it in the foyer. There's kids in the courtyard, right?" Vanessa says as she walks towards the foyer.
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As she walks away, Rose and Vuella share a look of mutual confusion as to how she knew that, but decide to dismiss it. Once they arrive Vanessa does a few stretches as Vuella goes into her pile wrapped items and digs out a large oval shaped object and runs over to Rose. As she prepares, Rose is reminded of her response when Hiro asked her to spar with Rex with him. This is somewhat of the same situation, but the feeling isn't quite the same. Her reluctance wasn't out of fear or nervousness, but simply because of her ether reserves. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't be against sparring with anyone, be it Rex, Vanessa, or anyone else. Even with this feeling, there was no denying that Rose did feel a bit of excitement at the offer.
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"Ready?" Vuella says as she walks over to Rose while unwrapping the item, unveiling a large white bow with several long, red, swirling engravings along both limbs.
"As ready as I'll ever be. Seems like you are as well."
They both look over at Vanessa from the other side of the now empty foyer and give her a thumbs up. She waves her hand and in it forms a coin. "We'll start when this coin touches the ground." She says as she flips it high into the air, almost touching the ceiling. As it taps the ground, Rose enters Hyper Speed and dashes at Vanessa. But before she can take a full step, a wave of what feels like raw ether stops her in her tracks. She stops for a split second in an attempt to figure out what happened, but in that time frame, Vanessa was able to dash across the entirety of the foyer to get to Rose. Vanessa attempts a roundhouse kick, but is interrupted by an arrow flying toward her neck. She catches it with her hand, but the force from it pushes her back enough to make her attack miss Rose's head by a hair.
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"Get back!" Vuella shouts at Rose from afar. She instinctively teleports back to Vuella and says, "Thanks for the save, but why did we back off?". She is responded to by the sound of an explosion from Vanessa's direction.
"That was pretty good on you, Vuella. Not only did you succeed in attacking me, but you also saved your teammate in the process." Says Vanessa as she dusts herself off. "How about we get a bit more serious, girls?"
"You might want to go all out just in case. She looks like she's willing to hurt us, but I doubt we can actually hurt her." Says Vuella as she knocks two arrows into her bow simultaneously, cloaking them in fire magic.
"I'll rush her, while you focus on covering me. Try not to hit me." Rose says with a smirk.
"Fire arrows explode indiscriminately so it's not on me if it happens."
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Rose Boosts herself to her maximum and dashes towards Vanessa. This time however, she uses ether sight to see when and how she's using her ability to attack. As she approaches, Vanessa readies fire magic in her right hand and wind magic in her left, and engages Rose in hand to hand combat. Rose strikes first, using the boxing stance that Rex taught her, only to realize that Vanessa is using the same stance, but open-handed. Rose throws a couple of jabs that are all met with parries except for the last one, with which Vanessa catches with her right hand, which promptly triggers the fire magic to explode, sending Rose flying across the room. However, before the smoke clears, Vuella shoots two of her fire arrows towards Vanessa and runs over to Rose.
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"This isn't working. Got any ideas?" Vuella says picking Rose up.
"I'm going back in, but switch roles with me. I'll cover you, and you-"
Rose is interrupted by yet another wave of ether from Vanessa's direction. As they look up at her, they see her conjure the shape of a scythe made of pure ether.
"Trust me, you two do not want to get hit by this." Vanessa says as she charges forward with a smile on her face. Rose intercepts a wide swing from the scythe by maneuvering it off course with her arm. On contact, her arm feels numb and she notices some of her ether has been drained from touching the scythe.
"Watch out, it drains ether when you touch it!"
"It does a bit more than that, but we'll just say that's correct for now."
Rose throws a heavy kick straight upwards towards Vanessa's chin, missing, but creating some space between them. Immediately after, Vuella fires multiple arrows at Vanessa and leaps forward to grab Rose and move away. Vanessa leaps away, swatting the arrows away with her scythe.
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"Cover me for a few seconds and I'll give you the best cover you could ask for, provided you don't get hit in the crossfire."
Vuella says while readying a spell. Rose hops up and opts to take a more defensive stance and position compared to her previous exchanges with Vanessa. Vanessa charges in towards them and engages Rose. This time, she makes sure to dodge all of the scythe attacks. "I can't do too much more than dodge. The scythe is so big that it keeps her outside of my range while keeping me inside of hers. I guess i just gotta trust in Vuella's 'cover'." Rose thinks to herself as she dodges and waits for Vuella to finish her attack. Meanwhile, fire begins to circulate around Vuella, culminating in a ball of fire at the knocking point of her bow. She fires it into the air, and just before hitting the ceiling, it stops, hovers for a moment, and then a rain of fire pours out of the orb. In response, Rose goes on the offensive.
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"Impressive, but still not enough." Says Vanessa as she starts to violently wave her scythe around, swatting the incoming tongues of fire. Rose's offense is stunted from the sheer force of Vanessa's swings. After a brief moment of wild swinging, Rose sees her start to spin her scythe rapidly above her head, creating a pseudo shield, blocking the rain of fire. Rose takes this as an opportunity to finally engage her and steps in a fierce straight punch to Vanessa's chest. Vanessa manages to block it by bringing one of her hands down from her scythe. The scythe slows down a bit, causing a few fireballs to drop through and touch both fighters. Rose continues her wave of offense against the one armed Vanessa, having more success than before, being able to graze her with a few of her attacks. They both remain unfazed by the droplets of fire falling through the spinning scythe shield, singeing their clothes and skin. "Rose is in a better position now than before, but it won't stay that way forever. I've got to wrap this up before that happens." Vuella thinks to herself. During their exchange, Vuella dashes to the left of Vanessa and fires three fire arrows at her in rapid succession. She barely manages to swat two of them out the way, while letting one of them fly past her face.
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"Warp."
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As Vuella whispers this, the arrow that missed disappears and reappears in front of Vanessa's chest. She looks both surprised and impressed by Vuella's ability, but still manages to swat it away. Seeing this opening, Rose throws a hard punch to her stomach with as much strength as she could muster at a moment's notice, sending her reeling backwards.
"Excellent work girls!" Vanessa exclaims. "However, I'm afraid I have to... call off our sparring session." After saying this, she lets out a large wave of raw ether that shakes the room and knocks Vuella and Rose off of their feet. She also extends her scythe up to the floating fireball, cutting it in half and ending the spell. She then takes a knee, holding her stomach, eventually sitting down in discomfort.
"Ow! What was that... Oh Ms. Vanessa, is everything alright?"
"Did we hurt you?"
Through a strained smile, She says, "Yes and no. When you hit me, you hit the wound that the mana beast gave me. I knew it hadn't healed fully, but I figured I'd be fine. Guess I was wrong."
She says with a faint laugh while raising up her shirt, revealing a stitched together gash across her stomach. As they inspect her wound, they hear footsteps quickly approaching.
"What's going on in he-? Mom! You're awake!" Says Rex as he sprints over to her with a large, almost childish smile on his face. He stops in front of her, squats down to be eye level with her, then throws a heavy right jab at her face. Vanessa deflects his punch downwards, and points at his forehead. After a brief pause, a beam of fire magic shoots out of her finger and explodes on contact with his forehead, sending him flying across the foyer.
"Ignoring my rowdy son over there, I've had something on my mind throughout our fight. Vuella, are you an assassin?"
"Yeah, or at least I used to be... Kinda? I was, up until early this morning. Mr. Hiro took me and my family in and now we work directly under him, so now we do whatever he wants us to. More importantly, how did you know?" Vuella asks skeptically.
"You have the mindset of an assassin. All of your attacks were aimed at either a lethal area or a place that causes severe pain like the head, neck, and liver. Very impressive for someone your age. Funnily enough, Hiro is the only person I've seen develop it that young."
"I wasn't really thinking about it that much, but thanks for the compliment!"
"You too Rose. You were very flexible in your approaches and showed excellent synergy with your partner. You both did well."
"Oh uh, it was nothing really. Thank you very much." Says Rose, noticeably flattered by Vanessa's praise.
"Also, thank you two for helping me get a good workout in. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see what I missed." Vanessa says as she gets up and starts to walk off towards the courtyard.
"Rose... We just fought a living legend, AND she complimented us." Vuella says excitedly as she gives Rose a hug.
Rose doesn't say anything in response, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't feel a little proud of herself from the compliment. Despite her exhaustion, she still manages to give Vuella a smile. Once they separate from each other, Rose gives Vuella a thumbs up, to which she gives her own thumbs up with a grin.
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