Bearer of the mark

"Brian Jefferson, no elemental affinity!" 

The nervous boy exhaled heavily, his shoulders dropped as he removed his hands away from the dull, cold crystal. Although he felt a little disappointed for not awakening any element, he was mostly glad that he wasn't 'the cursed one'. 

He ignored the whispers of mockery and pity from the crowd with a faint smile on his face while descending the stage and returned to his place. Quietly, he said his goodbyes to those who barely noticed him.

'No one will miss me anyway' he thought bitterly just as two men in black enforcer uniforms approached him. Unlike others who resisted, Brian was calm, he had already mentally prepared in case he didn't manage to awaken. Without any complaint, he followed them.

'At least I'll get a new chance in life, where everyone else is like me. A non-bender' he mused sadly.

He disappeared from the ceremony.

---

"Another one with no affinity? how unlucky! I have a feeling this year's awakening ceremony will be the worst yet." Alaric, an elder observing from the balcony of the headmaster's tower said.

"We are seeing fewer awakeners every year now, this is bad. If the other nations discover this, they will surely strike!" Rosetta snapped, slamming her wooden cane against the floor.

"They will strike regardless, don't fool yourselves. And the Jeffersons? This is their tenth generation to awaken, those slimy bastards will use this as an excuse to attack!" Alaric huffed, folding his arms.

"Calm down. You already saved the best for last, let all the Jefferson kids go on to try first." Cobbener interjected, stroking his rough beard. "Most of those children have already gone up, and so far none is 'the cursed one' and perhaps it's just an old myth" 

Rosetta sneered "Tsk, who asked your opinion? We can't rely on a drunk theorist's prediction, this is a matter of national survival." 

"Actually..." Cobbener scratched the back of his head awkwaardly "I'm sober right now and I'm a researcher too… yeah… that"

"Spare me!" Rosetta interrupted, pinching her nose. "I can smell the ale on your breath, brat!"

"Enough!" The headmaster clapped his hands together and a small gust of wind followed, silencing the room.

"Focus, there's a promising candidate approaching the stage"

The room stilled as everyone leaned forward, watching the events unfold below. The hundreds of spectators had become uneasy at the mention of a certain name.

---

A boy in exquisite looking clothes came out of a fancy looking carriage and dusted the imaginary dust off his coat.

He faced the man in the front seat and gave a small bow "I won't disappoint you patriarch"

The patriarch nodded and looked away, his gaze landing on a petite woman dressed in worn-out clothes.

His eyes darkened when he saw a young girl behind her, meeting his unfriendly gaze, Ayasha subconsciously touches the pebbles in her pocket.

"Rana, you still dared to bring her here? Do you want to embarrass our family?"

"Our family has already produced two non-benders, what difference will it make if Ayasha ends up the same?" Rana retorted.

"Rana! After the identity of the 'bearer' is revealed, you can get lost!"

"With pleasure." Rana grabbed onto Ayasha's hand "oh and by the way Osborn, dressing someone in sparkling clothes won't guarantee that they will awaken. Beware, least you end up embarrassing yourself in the end" Rana chuckled and disappeared into the crowd of people, leaving Osborn fuming with anger.

Riko walked to the front with his chest puffed out, swelling with pride and unwavering confidence. When he reached the stage, he quickly placed his hands on the dull cold surface of the crystal and waited for the results as the crystal analyzed his internal energy.

After a few moments, the crystal lit up in three different colors, shocking everyone on the scene.

"That kid…. Is a triple element bender! You stinky men better not bully a lady and take him from me!" Rosetta stood up abruptly, afraid that the others would fight her to death if she didn't say it first.

"Don't flatter yourself Rosy, I'm sure that kid will want to specialize in the fire element and only my Inferno academy can offer that" Alaric confidently patted Rosetta's shoulders.

"Pffft..,. Are you blind? Can't you see his two elements are plant and water? It's obvious that he should be part of my Harmonia institute!" Rosetta spat.

"Be quite! Let the boy choose himself" the headmaster rubbed his temple in annoyance.

Rosetta and Alaric hatefully stared at each other before looking away.

While everyone was admiring and praising him, Riko wasn't so happy. He removed his hands and placed them on the cold crystal again, but the result was the same.

He reluctantly moved down the stage when he saw someone else walking up. Seeing who it was, he snorted and deliberately bumped on her shoulder, making her stagger.

"Why are you so nervous? A pauper like you has zero chances of having the honor to host our ancestor" Riko mocked before walking away as if nothing happened.

The skinny little girl was just like Ayasha, an unfavored child of the Jefferson family. She became less nervous after hearing what Riko said, thinking that he was right. Soon got on stage and placed her hand on the crystal, after a while, the dull crystal dimmed down even more and suddenly a black mist enshrouded it extinguishing any hint of color.

The crowd gasped in shock and the little girl staggered in fear, she already knew what this meant… she had awakened the dark element!

"A demon has appeared!" Someone shouted from the crowd.

"Die you sinner!" Another person threw a fire ball on stage, hoping to burn her to ashes.

Two enforcers quickly appeared and blocked all the attacks before dragging away the skinny little girl.

"No…no please. I didn't even want to awaken any element, please…. Take it away now if you can please…I beg you" Tears rolled down her cheeks but no one stood up to help.

"As captain of the enforcer team, I hereby detain the criminal Lily Jefferson, and she shall be immediately sentenced to death according to the law." Without any more words, the three disappeared from the scene under the hateful and disgusted gazes of the crowd.

"Let's continue the ceremony, next is…. Ayasha Jefferson." The host announced.

Ayasha nervously walked on the stage, placed her shaky hands on the crystal and waited, not many people were paying attention to her due to the sensation that Riko had caused while others were talking about Lily.

While waiting for the result, Ayasha glanced at the family head who had a big scowl on his face, when their eyes locked, Ayasha couldn't help but feel a chill crawl down her spine. There was something disturbing about his eyes, but she didn't know what exactly it was, her gaze moved towards her mother who was dressed so shabbily and looked more nervous than she was.

She was both excited and fearful of what was about to happen, closing her eyes, she made a silent prayer 'just one element, even if it's useless and weak…. Please… for my mother'

At that moment, as if answering to her prayer, a bright flash of light blinded everyone for a moment. When they regained their sight, they could see a myriad of colors shinning on the crystal's surface. Before they could even count the colors or express their amazement, the colors moved out of the crystal together and danced around Ayasha before drilling themselves on her leg and disappearing from sight.

Ayasha stood frozen on stage, she realized what these colors represented and meant, and so did everyone else present. 

The first one to react was the patriarch of the Jeffersons, he stood up from his seat in the carriage and shouted, projecting his voice with his wind magic to make it louder. "Protect the young lady!"

Those words set off a chain of reactions as they brought back people from their shock and thoughts.

People who had been hiding amongst the crowd suddenly jumped towards the stage, their weapons drawn and some were already casting various kinds of magic towards Ayasha.

Under the patriarch's command, a different group consisting of guards along with some of the strong Jefferson members tried to make a formation around Ayasha to protect her.

The headmaster along with the other two principles, simultaneously jumped off the balcony and hurried to the stage the moment the phenomena came to an end. None of them noticed that Cobbener had remained behind.

"Well well well, the bearer of the mark at last! Hahahaha!" He laughed in delight before sitting down on the headmaster's chair, relaxing and drowning himself in a bottle of wine.

Everything was happening so fast that Ayasha had no time to react, not to mention that she was just a newly awakened. Being attacked by one highly ranked awakened was already a death sentence let alone a dozen of them!

When the first attack was fired, the ball of fire burnt everyone in its way indiscriminately, causing panic to erupt. As the other attacks arrived, more people were injured and even killed. Most of the people present were unable to protect themselves as they were either newly awakened or low ranked benders. All they could do was scream and run around chaotically, trampling each other to death.

The first two attacks against Ayasha were deflected but more kept on coming, nearly overwhelming the guards.

The headmaster floated above everyone else and started casting protective barriers around those unable to protect themselves while deflecting stray attacks from hurting them.

"Headmaster Thorne, what are you doing! Help me end the curse!" Alaric yelled when he noticed what the headmaster was doing.

"I will harm no one, my duty is to protect the people"

"Useless!" Alaric turned around only to find Rosetta pointing her wooden cane at him.

"I can't allow you to kill that child, do you even know what the term 'bearer of the mark' means?" The cane turned green and started rapidly branching off and growing into many thorny vines, all of them flying towards Alaric.

"Ha! I didn't know that you were so delusional Rosy, bearer of the mark? That's just your nice way of seeing things!" Alaric stretched out his arms and huge flames of fire spurted forth, consuming and burning the thorny vines completely.

"That child is a curse! And l will get rid of her before she destroys us all! "