Ash

After Crom leaves I start doing my nightly rituals to get ready for bed, sitting on my bed I begin to feel the prefight jitters, mumbling to myself as I sit on my bed as I haven't felt like this for years, I think back to the advice I gave my troops when they would feel this way, I move to the centre of my bed in sit in the lotus position and begin to meditate and channel my magic though out my body.

Closing my eyes I enter my mindscape and I'm greeted by the new but familiar surroundings since I met with my true self, looking around I see not much has changed the sea of blood is still there but now a platform is floating on the surface of the blood on which stands my other half, smiling I hop on to the platform and move over and generate myself a seat next to her so we are both staring out over the nothingness glancing to my side I see her smiling and looking at her own hands, a sigh gusts from her lips as she speaks

"as much as I like being separate from you I long to be one once more"

I nod and look back to the sea of blood again as I reply.

"what would that do to us?"

She looks over to me and chuckles slightly before she speaks.

"it would begin our transformation properly and start awakening our gifts"

I shrug and scratch my chin, I look over and stifle a laugh as I see her doing the same thing, bringing myself back under control I ask.

"I thought it would cause us problems and what gifts might that be?"

She stands and so do I we turn to each other; she smiles as she steps closer and speaks.

"you have an outlet or two now and I'm not sure, it could be anything from shapeshift to power assimilation, I'm just not sure, but all we need to do Is touch each other to merge our self's together"

She holds out her hand as if to shake and I look down at it, I lift my gaze from her outstretched hand and look in to her storm grey eyes with the odd blood red tendril flickering in and out and what I now see as lightning bolts dance along the tendrils of blood, I smile and grasp her forearm, she smiles and with a flash of red I'm back in my room and a guard is banging on the door to my room, grumbling I stand from my bed and head over to the door, I open the door I scowl at the guard, the guard begins blushing and stuttering.

"y-your f-fight is supposed to start in an hour"

I nod and shut the door in his face and stomp further in to my room before I freeze as I look down at myself, all I am wearing is a soft white cotton tank top that is quite tights so It leaves noting to the imagination and the pair of panties that Hallar and Crom gave me the day before, I feel my face begin to burn and I look around for my clothes in a fluster, grabbing my clothes off the floor I rush in to the bathroom and quickly wash up and put on my armour before I put on my boots I look at the fishnet tights, after a second I decide not to go for a normal kind of tights but after looking around I can't find any except for some thigh high holdups that don't even make it up to the hem of my combat skirt, I look at them in the mirror and turn my body from side to side with a nod I put on the boots and head to my rooms door where the guard is still standing there like a startled rabbit, supressing the blush that tries to crawl over my cheeks I snap my fingers in his face and gesture for him to lead the way.

The guard leads me to the waiting room and I can already hear the roar of the crowd and feel the vibrations from the crowd stomping their feet looking around as we walk through the place I normally pick my weapons for the fight to come I see that the weapon racks are completely empty, frowning I go to ask the guard but my voice is drowned out as we walk in to the arena, the guard stops just after the door and gestures for me to keep moving as I do I the noise of the crowd drops to s whisper.

Taking this opportunity I look around the arena but what I see confuses me, in the centre of the arena is a ten foot tall portal and in front of it is racks of weapons, moving my gaze I see large crystal walls that are angled so they tilt towards me so that there is a flat side pointing towards the crowd, focusing on the walls I see that they are showing the crowd what is going on in the arena I nod to myself and walk to the weapon racks as the announcer begins to speak to me.

"welcome Arura todays fight is different as you have noticed, this fight will take place in a pocket realm and with in which you will need to escape, the exit portal is located on top of the landmark, and you will need to fight your way there as the flora and fauna are unfriendly"

I nod as he speaks and begin grabbing weapons, I see that there are scabbards and sheaths so I know I can take more than one or two weapons, shifting my gaze over all the tools of war arrayed in front of me and I begin to choose what I will take with me, moving to the racks I grab two gladius style swords and the gear to go with them, I move to the daggers next and I grab three placing two of them in an cross behind my back with the hilts pointing down I place the last one in a sheath in my boot, looking around a the weapons still around a war hammer catches my attention nodding to myself I walk over and pick it up and move to the portal as I get there the announcer calls out just before I enter.

"good luck Arura Storm Angel"

As I exit the portal two things hit me, first is the stifling heat and the second cloud of ash which makes my eye water and me to curse out load.

"fucking ash"