First Encounter

In front of me was a middle-aged woman, with middle-short black hair and amazingly vivid blue eyes. She was wearing a long dark coat, standing there, looking down.

As an instinct, I waved and said "Hello." To be honest, that was a kind of social instinct I never knew I had in my not-so-much-of-an-extrovert self.

She looked up with a quick head movement and swung her arms open, throwing bright red projectiles at an insane speed towards me. They took less than a second to reach me, almost too fast to see. Faster than my mind could sense and process any danger.

At the same millisecond, a transparent blue screen appeared all around, but concentrated about... probably around ten-twenty centimeters in front of me. The moment the projectiles hit the screen, I felt the wand vibrate violently, trying to force itself out of my hand. The red color dispersed over the screen and diminished - so did the vibration on the wand.

Only after all of this happened, I was able to perceive -but not yet fully understand- everything going on. I had finally recognized a fatal danger, a sentient enemy. Our ways of greeting each other was not very similar... I suppose one could notice some minor cultural differences.

I was fearfully waiting for another attack, but knowing what to do. I didn't know how I was shielded the first time, but the wand I was carrying with me was my only hope.

The woman then proceeded to curiously examine me, from afar. Maybe she was waiting for me to do something, but I had no clue. I did not know how I got into this, why I was being threatened and how I have managed to survive the first seconds of the encounter.

"Quite capable the new apprentice is." she said. Her voice confirmed my estimations of her age. "Poor kid, maybe a bit slow in the head, though..."

She was walking left and right in an arc, and I was orienting myself to face her at all times. Suddenly, she created a bolt of lightning, striking the wand. The wand shocked me and flew out of my hand, hit a rock behind me and fell down.

"Please, no!" I shouted.

She just stared at me for a while.

"Who are you?" I had the courage to ask.

"I probably have to take all that praising back." she said. "Who am I? Who AM I?"

While she was talking, I tried taking a few slow steps back to get the wand back. Unfortunately, she noticed it - without even really looking at me! A small red ball of light flew by my shoulder and hit the wand on the ground, breaking it in half. The blue light on the gemstone faded out.

I was cornered and vulnerable in every possible way.

"Hmm... Tell you what, kid." she said as she walked closer. "You are just a bit too valuable to go to waste."

As she tried to approach, I kept walking backwards to get away from her. However, I could only walk in a straight line for so long, and eventually I was physically, literally cornered. I knew my fear could be read easily from my face.

She came very close and held my chin, turning my head around here and there forcefully with her cold hand.

It was an opportunity, she had lowered her guard momentarily. I kicked her away and she fell on her back. Immediately I started running, but I was hit just afterwards. I fell face-first. Before I could even try to get back up, she held me and rolled me around on the ground. Pressing my chest down with her knee, she looked into my eyes.

"You could make a good one."

Everything went green for a moment, and the woman was off my chest before everything turned dark and I could see the stars again.

"Pick on someone on your level, devil!"

"Ms. Saka!" I yelled.

The other woman was struck by Ms. Saka's green ray. She replied while she was getting back on her feet.

"You are not much of a competition either, but it was almost getting too boring."

I got up and ran towards Ms. Saka. Then, I changed my mind and ran towards the two pieces of Mr. Engin's wand. Both Ms. Saka and the other woman ignored me.

The wand had turned black and fused into the rocks nearby. I couldn't get the wooden pieces off. Soon, I gave up and tried to only get the gemstones. Perhaps they were more important.

I initially tended to run away and climb up the mountain to retreat to the enclosure, but I stopped.

The woman in dark colored coat created a bright lightning bolt to shoot Ms. Saka, but Ms. Saka was able to block it with the wooden body of her wand. This was impressive in many ways - being able to create lightning bolts out of thin air was a completely unreal power of course, but blocking it also required an incredible skill. The only difference was, since I had seen a lot of similar things by now, I wasn't questioning the reality of it.

After this first strike, it was Ms. Saka's opportunity to attack. She swung her wand in the air horizontally, creating a shock wave effect - again, colored green. The shock wave travelled quickly, but the other woman dodged it with relative ease. It was her turn to attack again.

And I just had a clever idea. I found a rather large piece of stone on the ground, and threw it at the woman. She noticed it at the last moment and telekinetically redirected it away. It would be okay if this was her only reaction, but she attacked me instead of taking on Ms. Saka this time. This time, everything went blue and I felt a heavy pressure on my chest. The ground slipped and disappeared under my feet, and I hit my back to something before being dropped onto a pile of pebbles.

Ms. Saka took this chance and struck. The very same green ray that saved me hit the enemy again, successfully. As the woman was recovering, Ms. Saka came by, lifted me up and began running away.

"Ms. Saka, watch it!" I said as soon as I saw the danger. I was too late.