Chapter 9

The ninth chapter

Mia crossed her arms in front of her and separated them, making a large X in the air.  

“No.  I do not approve,” she said forcefully to Soro.  Both of them were standing to the left of the shrine’s main door, with Soro leaning up against the shrine and Mia in front of him.
            Soro shook his head.  “I didn’t think you would be so against it,” he shrugged, “I mean, it’s not like he’s dangerous or anything.”
            “Indirectly, yes!” she said somewhat angrily.  “His being here is dangerous!  You know just as well as I do what may happen when news of him reaches all corners.  Radicals and spirits, among other things, will be after him; and you know where they will go to find him.” She pointed next to Soro’s head, to the wall he was leaning up against.  “They will come here, for him,” she said even more forcefully.  “It’s not that I hate him, I barely know him!  I just… you know what this may bring to us.”
            Soro held up his right hand to stop, and his loose sleeve fell down to his elbow.  “Come on, no need to yell,” he responded. 
            Mia looked to the ground. “Sorry.  I got angry.”
            “No problem.”  He put his hand down. “Now, that’s all if we go around telling everyone he’s a transfer.  The only ones who know that now told me they’re gonna try their best to keep it quiet, and for their sake I hope they do,” he joked oddly, looking off.  He turned back to Mia and put his right hand on her shoulder, “don’t worry about it, I’m sure there isn’t as much hate we think.”  He removed his hand, “and that’s that.”
            She turned around to walk off, feeling defeated and Soro looked to the sky.  Mia turned back around.  “How?” she asked blankly.
            Soro looked at her and shrugged, at first sarcastic.  “Dunno, maybe we’re just lucky.  Maybe Velia’s right.  It’s odd, but in any case, we have no right to deny him our help.”  He shrugged again.  “Just try and forget about it,” he said happily, “it makes things simpler.”

“How could I just forget about it?” Mia was starting to get an angrier tone in her voice again, but breathed in and out softly to calm herself down.  “I’m here too.”

Soro put up his right hand, signaling to her that he had heard enough.  “Please.  I know you’re against it, but I can’t just dump him onto someone else.  No one else will rightly take him.”  He sighed.  “We’ll be fine, please trust me.”
            Mia remained silent for a moment, and it was apparent that she was still calming herself.  “Ok,” she replied, and then apologized before walking towards the stairway leading from the shrine. 

            “So where are we going?” Jeremy asked Ruoiu, who was walking a few yards ahead of him.
            “Do we need to be going somewhere?” Ruoiu smiled back over her shoulder.  “Just walk,” she commanded jokingly, pointing forward.
            They walked for many more minutes, and the silence continued to create a more and more awkward atmosphere.  Jeremy spoke up to break the tension:  “S-so, what do you do for a living?”
            “Hmm?” Ruoiu responded back, “what do you mean?”
            “I was just wondering what you do,” Jeremy elaborated, “like, do you have a job?”  ‘She looks a little young for that,’ he thought.
            “Well...” she poked at her cheek as she thought, then turned half way around and extended a thumbs-up, grinning widely.  “Nope.”
            Jeremy stopped and asked, “Then what do you do all day?”
            She stopped and seemed to ponder this for a minute.  “Anything really; sure I work sometimes, but most of the time I read or train.” She put up her arms with her hands in fists, like she’s flexing.  “That is, if there isn’t anything fun to do.”

Jeremy looked as her suspiciously.  “Read?  For what?”

“There’s not much else to do around here,” Ruoiu said in a bored manner.

“What do you read?” Jeremy asked.

“Anything interesting; a Magician’s curiosity knows no bounds!”  She exclaimed, as if waiting all day to say it.  “Knowledge is power to us magicians, and I’m soon going to be the strongest magician around.  Ruoiu: The Undefeatable.”  Ruoiu’s voice boomed, and a strong aura of confidence resonated off of her.  “All who challenge me will feel my wrath!”  She laughed out loudly, and then pointed to Jeremy’s face.  “That goes for you too.”
            He put up his hands, “I’m just a beginner, so I don’t think I’ll take you on anytime soon.”
            “Good,” Ruoiu smiled and turned around to continue walking. 
            A bush near them suddenly rustled, and instinctively Ruoiu turned and snapped her finger at it, shooting a bolt of electricity.  A split second before it hit whatever was on the other side, a small figure quickly jumped high into the air with great speed and flew down, slashing at Ruoiu with its nails.  Ruoiu quickly jumped to the side, pushing Jeremy away as well, and shot a quick bolt at the figure, which jumped back, to the side, and then up into a tree.  Ruoiu stumbled from the quick movement.
            She recovered herself, “darn, lost my balance there.”  She chuckled at the figure in the tree, “but no trouble.”  She grinned, bearing her teeth.  Jeremy stepped back a few paces from the tree where the figure was sitting.  They were standing in a perfect triangle from each-other.  “So,” Ruoiu spoke again, “how do you want to get taken down?”  The figure just sat silent in the tree, and a soft, squealing sound can be heard coming closer.  Ruoiu looked around, then suddenly turned to Jeremy franticly, swinging her arm.  “Duck!” she yelled.
            Jeremy ducked down quickly, and a green bolt flew over him and missed Ruiou by a larger margin behind her.  A second, larger figure flew at Ruoiu from behind, and dodged as she threw two electric bolts.  They come in contact, each blocking one punching from the other, then jumping back and shooting various attacks at each-other while dodging the other, jumping around and flying off as they do so. 

As Jeremy watched them fight, he remembered that there is another one, and looked back to see the first, smaller figure jump at him.  He stumbled back, awkwardly dodging the initial blow, and then continued to desperately jump back as the figure slashed from side to side at his chest, stomach, and then face with sharp swipes, barely missing him each time as he moved back each time.  Frightened by the sudden attack, Jeremy tried to keep up and managed to see a fraction of the figure’s appearance.  The main body looked like a flash of red, and the sleeves looked like a white blur, and it was moving too fast to see anything else.
            Explosions, crackles and snaps could be heard as Ruoiu and the other figure jumped around the trees, firing away at one another and hitting the ground and trees.  “Eh, you’re pretty good,” Ruoiu jumped off a tree branch and launched herself at the ground to where the figure stood, “But no match for me!”  The figure dodged her punch, and she hit the ground.  Electricity flew, causing the surrounding area to get dark in comparison to the light created, and the ground cringed and crackled as the sparks pulsed through it.
            “No match,” the larger figure mocked, sounding like a woman.  She slung her arm horizontally in front of her, shooting many bolts at Ruoiu.  She rolled out of the way with an arc of electricity following her across her back and with the ground, pushing her just a bit more.  The bolts hit the ground with force, blasting out small holes in the dirt, by the time Ruoiu was standing again, in a ready position.  She looked up to see long, sandy-blonde hair and a black and white robe, then looked back down and stood up.  When she looked back up, the figure was shadowed in a treetop again, mostly covered by brush around her face.  Ruoiu could feel the larger, black and white clad figure still gazing at her.
            The sound of shuffling feet could be heard from a few yards away as Jeremy scrambled to duck, jump back, and dodge the smaller figure’s quick attacks.  His back hit a tree and the back of his head smacked into it.  He cringed at the shock of the sudden pain, and fell down to his rear end, which conveniently enough caused the figure to miss their horizontal slash and cut four notches into the tree’s truck.  He took the opportunity and lunged his body to hit the ankles of the red and white clad figure, causing them to fall backwards.  Jeremy stood up and scrambled to where Ruoiu was, still holding the back of his head.
            The smaller, red and white figure stood up and jumped onto a branch of the tree they just slashed at.  Jeremy stopped behind Ruoiu and turned around to face the direction of the smaller, red and white figure’s tree, with Ruoiu still looking up at the other one’s tree. The young woman spoke: “you are too far from where you should be, and too close to there you shouldn’t.  I request that you leave before serious action is taken.”  The silence grew, and the leaves rustled as she waited for Ruiou and Jeremy’s response.  As the silence persisted, a large creek or small river could be heard in the distance, but a quick glance yielded nothing of the like. 
            Ruoiu shrugged her shoulders, “I’ll take that as you surrendering and be on my way, then.”
            “Whatever you see it as, please just leave,” the woman said.
            “Whatever you say,” Ruoiu responded, turning and walking away with her right hand wafting in the young woman’s direction.  “C’mon Jay.  Let’s go.”
            “R-right,” Jeremy responded and stepped towards her.  He turned around to get a glance at the young woman in the tree, but she had already left.

 “Just some spirits or something,” Ruoiu said as if responding to his thoughts.  “No one important,” she waves it off.  Looking up, she noticed the sun was going down, and the sky is starting to tint orange.  “Seriously?  How long did we spend wondering around?” she said disappointingly.  “Might as well see if the Rhino’s up yet,” Ruoiu suggested, “let’s go.” 

            “Not too fast!” a voice demanded from behind them.  They both turned around to see a smaller person somewhat floating in the air.  She has short black hair; with scrunches on either side of her head with her hair in short, twin pigtails.  She had on a light-purple dress, but Ruoiu stepped in front of Jeremy before he could notice anything more.
            “And?  What do you want little miss fairy?” Ruoiu asked annoyed.
            “How rude!” the fairy exclaimed, “you don’t even remember me!”
            “I don’t want to and don’t need to,” Ruoiu said blankly.  “Stay here Jay, this’ll be quick.”  She walked towards the fairy.
            “Don’t underestimate me!” The fairy shot a small bolt of electricity and Ruu, and Ruu proceeded to do nothing as it missed and passed by her face.
            “So you like to play around with lightning do you?  So you like to copy me now, do you?” Ruoiu smiled, and the fairy began to back up.

            “Yeah, fairies are all over the place.  I’m actually a little surprised it took us this long to run into one, even if we did stick close to roads,” Ruoiu explained to Jeremy as they walked in the increasingly setting sunlight.  Jeremy looked back at the fairy, which was now steaming on the ground with slightly browned clothes and messy hair.  Definitely hit with electricity, and it even looked a little cartoonish to see.   “That one in particular is a nuisance,” she said.  “Challenging me,” she pouted out a laugh, “queen of the fairies,” she pouted out another laugh.  “She just doesn’t know when to quit, or to stay in her own element.”  Ruoiu hit Jeremy’s back and laughed as they walked towards town.