Chapter 3:
Golden Digits
Diamonds or gold? Which do you prefer? Gold is strong. Diamond is sharp. Light shines off of gold. Light shines through diamond. Diamond has glass. Gold has silver. Glass shatters. Silver melts. Diamond shatters, gold melts.
"Miss Gemini, was it?" The Mayor who gave the awkward speech on the tacky stage asked a woman sitting on the opposite end of his wide mahogany desk.
"Yes, it is Gemini" the woman confirmed with a vibrant smile. She wore an equally vibrant dress of bright green, dotted over with large white spots. Her hair was chestnut and straight and it flowed down her neck like a river until it reached her spine to which it then jumped over her shoulders and rained down like a waterfall over her chest. Her eyes were the blue that her river of hair could have adopted, and her face was slim and cute. The woman was a sight for sore eyes.
The Mayor lazed back in his chair and studied Gemini's features. "So what brings you here, Miss?" The Mayor asked.
"A friend of mine told me to come here to make a request of you." she smiled out her reply in an almost-menacing manor "He's kinda "intense" she leaned in to whisper.
"What is this request?" The Mayor asked further, leaning forward onto the desk.
"Just a list of every one of your "protectors". I think you call them Nyk or somethin'" Gemini answered with a coy grin.
"What could you possibly want with something like that?" The Mayor warily asked.
The woman struck him a wolfish smile and glanced over at the picture frame that stood up on his desk. She reached over and picked up the frame to peek at the picture. The woman kept her smile which almost evolved into a chuckle. "This is the statue man" she proclaimed, placing the picture back on the desk facing down.
"Yes it is, but that's not important" The Mayor said pressingly, picking up the photo frame and putting it back on its stand. "Why do you need a full list of all our protectors? You do realise that information is confidential and delicate?" He asked tipping the brim of his black bowler hat down casting a shadow over his eyes.
Gemini lost her happy expression and forced on a sad replacement looking down onto the floor.
"If you're not here for anything else then I'm sorry, but you have to leave." The Mayor pressed.
The woman nodded with a forced smile. She picked herself up off her seat and extended her arm out for a formal handshake, The Mayor of course obliged. The two shook hands quick and firmly. When the Mayor tried to pull his hand from Gemini's she wouldn't let him go. The Mayor looked up to see a smile giggling down to him demonically. He felt Gemini's hand heat up. Soon his hand felt as if it would melt from his arm, his skin ripped from his bones. The room was filled with both screams and giggles, each contesting for the echo of the room. When her hand reached the boiling point, he could see a shimmer form over his hand.
Gemini released his hand and threw it out into the air. The Mayors hand fell to the ground with a loud thud. The Mayor looked at his hand to see it to be completely frozen in solid gold. When he turned his body too look at Gemini with drops of sweat falling from his head, he saw her crouched over him with an immovable smile on her face, it was as if she took pleasure from the torture she just provided.
"List, please." she said with a cheerful and energetic voice.
Once more the trees of the forest covered the landscape in green and brown, mostly green. Harmonia and her brother Oura strode through the forest like less subtle hunters, their objective unknown. There was no destination. Just a lovely stroll through the woods to clear their heads from all the commotion of the civilisation that they left behind for the time being. Upon their walk, they found a small field cut out in the middle of the forest. The grass a lime green and the occasional poppy sprouted throughout. There were also tree stumps dotted around the field, a possible sign of some form of deforestation maybe? In the middle of the field sat on a stump a short girl. She had sweat dripping from her forehead and her hands clenched around the stump in impatience. Standing before the girl, with arms on her hips looking just as impatient, was another slightly taller girl with pink hair that came down to her shoulders and green eyes merged with a minute amount of hazel brown. The voices of the two girls could be heard from where Harmonia and Oura were standing, in the tree line out of view from the girls. The voices were muffled but the tone of them certainly was not. The pink haired girl seemed calmer but deeper and the shorter blonde girl was more high and impatient.
Harmonia's first instinct was to creep up on the two girls to see what they was doing of course, determining whether they were friend or foe was her first goal. Harmonia noticed that the two didn't have any weapons and so their threat was minimal with the possibility of their semblances being their only attack. She still proceeded with caution, until she heard a plea from the smaller girl sitting on the stump.
"I can't do it, I can't concentrate enough!" the girl cried up to the pink haired girl who looked at her like a hawk.
"You're not even trying! Now close your eyes and concentrate." the taller girl said, crouching down to the stump's level fixated on the possibility that this time she might finally activate her aura.
The short girl's eyes lightened up as much as her face "I...I...I can't do it!" she retorted with a defeated and annoyed voice.
The tall girl shrivelled up her face "Then try-"
"Try focusing on your body" Harmonia interrupted the pink haired girl, picking her up from her crouch in surprise "Focus on your body and your soul. Your aura is your shield, it'll protect you and heighten your senses, but you must be willing to deepen your concentration and relax." she added walking up to the two with Oura at her tail.
"Who are you?" The taller girl asked taking a step in front of the smaller girl on the stump.
"Harmonia. This is Oura, I saw that you were doing a little aura practicing and thought I could help" Harmonia replied with a warm smile emerging on her face.
"And what if we attacked you?" The tall girl asked again stepping to the side again.
"Well you have no weapons on you, she can't even activate her aura and..." Harmonia finished off her explanation with a quick gesture down to her belt which sheathed dual silver revolvers, the left revolver with a white handle and the right with a black handle.
"Fair enough..." the taller girl admitted almost chuckling on her words "I'm Celestine and she's Elenora" she finished gesturing down to Elenora sitting on the tree stump.
"Just call me Ele and her Cele for short, though." Elenora added full with ripe energy.
"So. Ele. Do you remember what I said?" Harmonia asked slowly on approach to her.
"Something about my soul and more concentration?" Elenora responded vaguely.
Harmonia crouched down in front of Elenora "Close your eyes and concentrate on your senses." she calmingly instructed.
Eleanora followed the instruction, closing her eyes and relaxing her body in an attempt to concentrate more.
"Now search within yourself for a pulse, follow that pulse towards your soul. When you find it, project it outwards, it's like flicking a switch." Harmonia detailed as much as she could.
Elenora looked within herself and she found that pulse. It was slow, slower than any human pulse that beats to our hearts. As she followed the pulse inside, it seemed to slow down gradually. Once she found her soul, it was like an orb floating within an oblivion slowly merging around and around and around, as if time had completely stopped for it. When she looked closer, she found that switch and without hesitation, she flicked it.
A light blue aura surrounded her body from head to toe leaving only a smile of relief on her face and a smile of joy on Harmonia's and Celestine's.
"Next step is finding out what power you have." Celestine said placing a friendly hand on Elenora's shoulder.
"I wish you the best of luck with that!" Harmonia smiled off and began a walk back to the tree line.
"Wait!" Celestine shouted back to her stopping her within her tracks "Thank you!"
"You're welco-" Harmonia was interrupted by a woman's scream coming from the nearby village, and a smell of smoke drifting between the trees of the forest.
(Next chapter it begins! It'll be a 3000 word chapter, so like your average chapter. But for me that's quite a bit so it could take a little longer than normal to make, and yeah this one took a while, but it was all written out a week ago. The file was deleted.)