Chapter 4: An Aurian's Arsenal

Mew was caught between a pyramid and Auris' pissed off daughter. "Not something you get to say every day..." He joked to himself as he looked around and saw a large audience gathering near them. There must have been more than a hundred of them that formed a perimeter behind the girl.

With a sure smile Mew wagged his hand out to the girl and asked "Fans of yours?" politely.

The girl's eyes shifted a tiny bit only to lock back onto Mew firmer than before. Mew slacks his jaw to sigh. Then he cracks a canned laugh as he says "Come on, I'm trying to strike up a conversation here. Don't leave me hanging."

"Hmph!" The girl murmured with her nostrils flared, "The only thing hanging is your tongue you slobbering pig!"

"Ah come on," Mew's eyes bulged as he forced himself to smile, "I'm telling you, its not what it-"

"Do you think I care, Pervert Overlord?!" The girl proclaimed with eyes flared up worse than her nostrils and her fist squeezing until the knuckles crack.

Mew blinks once then rubs his chin and stares skyward with a hearty chuckle, "Is Pervert a better or worse label than Fraud?"

He shrugs it off then flicks one thumb over shoulder and keeps his attitude chipper as he says, "As much as I'd love to stay and chat princess, I gotta go play Pyramid Raider."

The moment Mew starts to turn, the girl began huffing in exasperation. She stomped her foot forward, swings her fists by her hips, and declared, "W-Where do you think you're going?!"

Mew looked over his shoulder and said cheekily "Playing Pyramid Raider!" then turns to walk backwards, as he remarked, "Oh! You probably never played a game called Tomb Raider. See its like this-"

The girl drew her hand back, opened it up, and before Mew could blinked she's called a bo-staff into her hand. She stamped the golden orb at the end down like a gavel, successfully bringing Mew to a stop.

Mew blinked a little faster and looked at her weapon of choice. The staff was as tall as her, and has a red finish with a bunch of golden animals painted onto it. It looks like a solid piece of work but she wasn't holding it with any sense of pride. But a weapon ain't called a weapon unless its used for one purpose...

"Oh I get it now..." Mew gave a deep hearty chuckle. His eyes slanted, and his mouth turned up with a grin, "You're looking for a fight."

Mew almost had one foot through the door but quickly hopped back to where he started this confrontation. His landing kicked up a little wind towards the girl for some of that needed dramatic flair.

"You heard who I am, and still want a fight?" Mew asked firmly, his hands in his pockets. The girl stood her ground, but her lips looked decently unnerved.

"Alright, what the heck?" Mew shrugged, "I accept your challenge!"

The girl's whole face rose with an unmistakable air of smugness to it. She closed her eyes and fluttered her hand at him, as if trying to shoo away an annoying pest. "Quit bluffing!" She shot back at him. "There's no way a guy like you would seriously fight a girl."

But then her smugness breaks to the mere sound of Mew stretching and cracking his knuckles before his face. He bent down and flexed his knees one leg at a time, as he said cheerfully, "Haven't worked up a sweat in a while. This is exciting!"

The girl flutters her eyes then starts hearing the audience giggling. She gets a little upset over it and unfortunately, Mew's the sole target of said rage.

"You're seriously going to fight a girl?!" She says with her pointer finger lashed out like a flail.

As Mew moves onto pivoting his shoulders he nonchalantly remarks, "Of course! You're a warrior, so I'll treat you like one. Our hearts speaking louder than our genders on the battlefield, y'know?"

"Ugh...whatever!" The girl bit her tongue and squeezed her left fist and eyes shut together. Then she held her staff in both hands, brandishing it forward.

Mew then spins his arms around in circles and asks, "Soooo what's your name anyways?"

The girl held her ground and growled, prompting Mew to whistle "Ooookay then" before smiling and laying a hand on his chest, "My name is-"

"I. Don't. CARE." She makes herself clear. She then takes in a deep breath and declares, "My name's Kairi Aurora! Remember it as you crawl out of Sancturia utterly humiliated."

"Kairi? That's a cute name ya got there princess." Mew's careless sincerity turned Kairi's face red as she struggled to gasp out even the tiniest of swear words.

Mew closes his eyes and chuckles, "If only your mother knew you'd turn out like-"

The air pushes towards Mew's face, guided by blunt force. He widens his eyes open and ducks under Kairi's beheading attempt in a second. He takes a moment to glance up and see how furious her eyes look then ponders in amusement, "Oh we're starting now?"

Kairi's eyes widen and she swings her staff back down for round two. Mew floats back with a leap and lands standing upright and smiling. He dances around a little on his tip-toes and remarks, "It was a good try and all but I totally saw it coming!"

Kairi staggers over a little from the weight of her swing but quickly squeezes her staff and charges forth. With the weapon thrust forth she yells, "See this!"

Mew swings his head left out of the way then right when the staff's thrust again. He barely looks like he's moving dodging Kairi's fevered thrusts. His eyes look onto the finer details of the weapon, such as the worn-in scuff marks, and pique his interest.

"Did you make this yourself?" He tries to strike up a conversation as the staff plagues him no worse than a breeze. With perked eyes he compliments, "It looks pretty good! Shame you're treating it like a bat."

Kairi growls some more then with a boisterous roar thrusts her staff straight for Mew's face. He catches it on his right thumb millimeters from the tip of his nose and leaves it trembling in Kairi's grasp.

He then closes his eyes and chuckles, "What'd my face do to deserve being a pinata?"

Kairi pulls back, spins around, and draws out a rebuttal of "It was BORN!" as she goes to smash Mew overhead.

He slides back a few inches and whistles as the staff smashes the ground. "That might've hurt a little..." He keeps in his head as he looks up and sees Kairi already huffing and puffing for air.

Mew pinches his fingers together before his chest and raises and lowers them in tune with his breathing.

"Breathe in...breathe out..."

Kairi swings her head up and yells "Do you EVER shut up?!"

Mew smirks during his rather cheeky answer of, "Only once I die princess."

She stands up and her growling starts to sound like an engine revving. Mew then wags a hand around while tilting his head, "Y'know I was kinda hoping for little more...pizzazz?"

He raises a brow and remarks, "You're an Aurian yeah? Why not show me a little more of that aura stuff?"

He then stands fully upright and tucks his hands in his pockets. Still as a statue he says, "Hit me with your best shot. I won't budge, promise!"

"Asshole..." Kairi mumbled, feeling like she was being made fun of. She holds her staff adjacent to her hip and with one reaffirming squeeze something begins to form around the staff. A solid layer of green energy looking clear like glass and firm as steel enveloped the staff an inch thick.

The energy seemed to come from nowhere. "Like magic..." Mew whispered with a grin.

After taking a stand Kairi rushed him and lowered her empowered staff level with her knees. Mew's eyes slowly enlarged as he murmured "W-Wait a second" only to be too late to react.

Kairi rammed the tip of her staff into the man's forbidden zone between his legs, eliciting a teeth-gritting his from Mew. She then swings her staff up and smashes it over his head, shattering the energy around it.

The whole audience goes "Ooooh..." with one or two of them saying "Yep, its over."

Kairi steps back, nudges her head up with a grin and "Hmph!" and smugly asks Mew "How's that?"

Mew rises up slowly and rubs the back of his head. His smile is adamantly optimistic as he remarks firmly, "Not bad! So that's the power of aura eh?"

"Ow ow ow! First I'm cock teased then I'm almost ball busted! ...Why did I even get up this morning?"

After a sigh that better reflected his troubled thoughts he lowers his hands to his hips. He gives his hands a couple squeezes then cheerfully remarks, "Now its my turn."

"Huh?" Kairi's confusion would be answered by Mew swiftly throwing a jab into her gut.

She's pushed back a few inches where she puts up a meek defense against Mew's second jab using her staff.

Mew holds his knuckles against her staff and remarks, "Come on, I wanna see what else aura can do!"

To help motivate Kairi he turns up the heat by punching with slightly more force. Each punch barely put a smudge of red on his knuckles but kept pushing Kairi back. She held her staff upright and wiggled it around as her defense.

After a punch square in the center of the staff Mew raises his brows and looks at Kairi's face. Her eyes are trembling with a volatile cocktail of anger and panic, an expression unbecoming of the marks of battle she wore.

Mew's observation basically opened the door for Kairi to take a swing at him with all her might. But he slides out of the way and then flicks his right hand down to set it on fire.

This gives Kairi pause as Mew swipes the air to fling a fireball at her head. It misses completely, so Kairi sticks her tongue out at him. Mew kicks her in the gut with a light thrust while flicking another fireball in the middle of his leg's retreat.

The fireball he missed with floats in the path Kairi's kicked towards. It explodes lightly and knocks her right into the other fireball, which explodes a little bigger and throws her onto her back.

The smoke on her body burns faintly, but she doesn't look up to getting up. Mew claps his hands to dust off the soot and lifts his head a bit to see Kairi's expression. She's scowling, as usual, which meant it was no surprise when she punched the ground and rushed to her feet.

Mew chuckled and said with no offense meant, "Yo you holding back on me? Cause you seemed pr-etty confident you'd send me packing!"

The crowd starts murmuring and gossiping. Kairi's eyes and ears were all on them in seconds. Her scowl began to melt until she looked back at Mew, raised her bracelet to her face, and yelled "I've had enough of your...your crap!"

She slammed her other hand down on a small stone on the bracelet engraved with something unknown. On her body nothing appeared to change, but the energy Mew saw before now rose around her frame like a wave of heat.

She then took her staff and lasted it at the ground. It split into different sections connected by an energy rope, effectively making it a whip. Mew holds his hands together and with a grin narrows his gaze to take notes.

"Her power increased after she touched that stone. Ho ho ho, now this is more like it!"

He advances one foot at a time and waves his hands towards him while prodding Kairi along, "Show me a good time princess!"

Kairi smacks the whip at Mew's feet to draw the boundary between them. She then holds her left hand up. With some mild concentration she summons a lion made of aura. Its spectacular in its accuracy. From its size to its fuzzy mane, to its pupils ripe with primal fury. Even with a unified color palette, the king of beasts stood tall.

"Two on one..." Mew quietly giggles his excitement free.

"Got get 'em Killmane!" Kairi yells. The lion's pupils thin out and it lunges straight for Mew.

Mew hops to the right and dances on his toes until he has to leap left instead. He keeps his eyes on the lion and claps at it playfully.

"C'mere kitty-kitty!" He says with a higher pitch. After another flighty dodge he holds his arms out in a circle to make a ring of fire for the lion to jump through.

The lion holds its head close to the ground and readies another pounce. Mew exchanges growls with it, their respective fangs grinning from cheek-to-cheek. When Mew starts to retreat the lion sees its chance to strike at last.

Mew lifts and taps down the toes of his shoes while wiggling his shoulder. A fist of solid bedrock rockets out of the ground and smashes into the lion's chin.

As it gets blown back Mew kicks up his feet and runs. He lightly snaps his fingers and leaps at the king of beasts without fear. With arms and legs both wrapped around the lion's stomach he holds back its limbs. The two of them barrel towards a large spotted mushroom that popped out of the ground from Mew's snap.

They land more towards the front than the back and after some bit of pressure they spring back and high into the air. Mew guides the lion upside-down and starts spinning them both around and around.

The lion's head is pile-drived into the ground first, kicking up a plume of dirt towards Kairi. Mew pushes off no worse for the wear and after some flips for flair he lands with legs down and arms up like a gymnast, the lion collapsing flat in defeat.

Quietly growling Kairi snaps her whip to dispel the lion. She then holds her hand out to summon a second ferocious feline – a tiger.

Its snarl is less rumbly but just as angry, the resonation of Kairi's soul. Mew snickers a little and remarks, "Send all the kitties ya want, it ain't gonna give me paw-se for concern."

The veins in Kairi's forehead throb as she stretches her whip out. She leans back and then whips her tiger not once but twice. With each whip the tiger's size grows until its roughly as big as a full-grown hippo. Its growls now shook the air, making the prince take its place on the throne as the true king of beasts.

Mew was too busy feeling...something from watching Kairi whip the tiger. His face reddened a little and he had to blink himself back into reality before he actually noticing the huge tiger staring him down.

"I sure am learning a lot about myself today..." Mew laughed dryly to himself and then went "Hoo boy!" as he had to make an emergency dive away from the clawing tiger.

"Get em Slaughtiger!" Kairi urges the tiger on with the raise and shake of her fist.

Mew once again hops around but does so at a more frequent pace due to the tiger's meaty claws covering a lot of ground. Mew tucks his hands into his pockets and chuckles hastily, "Killmane? Slaughtiger? You didn't strike me as a 'name your toys' kind of gal!"

Mew lands atop one of the tiger's claws on one foot and balances back with a cautious lean. When the tiger narrows its eyes and exudes pure, aggressive energy Mew says, "Oh do you want to play too?"

The tiger drops its paw to put Mew in biting range only for him to hop back twice and swing his right hand up out of pocket. He pinches his thumb and pointer then flick them down to create a red cloth with gold embroidery on top.

"Ole!" Mew declares. Kairi's jaw drops and she murmurs, "Is this some kind of joke?"

Alas, the tiger fell for this culturally inaccurate display of Mew's and lunged right for the cloth. Mew's grin shifted upward as he pulled the cloth up and revealed a large orb of water that the tiger ran right through.

Once the feline had been drenched with little reaction from it, Mew flicks the cloth back down and wiggles it around enticingly. The tiger slowly turns and circles Mew clockwise with its lips purring ferociously.

The tiger eventually made its move with another straightforward, predictable lunge. Mew kind of rolled his eyes with a canned laughed as he pulled the cloth up and revealed a mine pulsing with electricity.

"What?!" Kairi is taken aback and loses a bit of color in her skin watching the tiger ram into the mine and get electrocuted all over. Even the audience has to cover their eyes from how flashy the display gets.

Mew just burns the cloth and whistles until the tiger's one-hundred percent roasted. Smoked black instead of minty green is a rather undignified look for the prince who would be king, but Kairi snapped the tiger away to avoid any further humiliation for it.

Mew took a second to tap into his strange sense of curiosity by sniffing the cinders left by the tiger. He crosses his arms and murmurs to himself, "Huh, burnt aura smells a lot like flowers..."

He then looks up and sees Kairi glaring at him with a completely lifeless look in her eyes. He wags a hand off from his arms and asks, "Do you got any other animals to show off ooor can I go on the attack again?"

The audience is all in a tizzle. Some are laughing, some are chatting. Mew looks them audience and isn't exactly getting positive vibes from all their words.

"Look at her..."

"What did she expect?

"Idiot. Dumbass."

"Hrrmmm..." Mew turns his smile into a little frown then is interrupted by a sudden growl of steaming fury from Kairi's end. She cranks her anger dial up to an explosive twelve and screams "That's it! I've HAD IT!"

She throws her left hand up and constructs one of the largest of all ursines, the grizzly bear, out of pure aura. Not even a second after summoning it Kairi's whipping at the creature's back as it rises on its hind legs.

Mew staggers a little as the bear starts casting a towering shadow over him. The shadow stretches out towards the front of the pyramid and consumes the whole entrance by the time Kairi's had finished whipping it. She staggers over, panting heavily for air behind a now thirty-foot tall standing grizzly bear.

The bear opens its mouth and lets out a blood-curling roar that shifts some of the looser bricks on the pyramid out of place and leaves Mew's hair standing upright for a moment. Mew flutters his eyes, wags a finger at the ursine and murmurs, "This...could pose a problem."

Kairi stands up and exclaims at the top of her lungs, "Ursa Maimer! Crush him until he's dust!"

The bear starts to drop its meaty right claw upon Mew's head as the boy snaps his fingers and chuckles, "Ursa Maimer? That's adorable!"

The bear's claws smashes down full force and a hefty cloud of dust and dirt goes flying in all directions. All of the bear's body save the head is covered up, with its girth providing Kairi's eyes protection. Once the wind dies down Kairi leaves her whip limp towards the ground and starts grinning.

"You got what you deserved, asshole..." She gloats.

"Hey!" Mew's ear-grating voice once more brings Kairi to silence. As the dust settles down too Mew's silhouette can be seen holding something beefy over his back.

Kairi gets a clear view, for the first time, of Mew's own weapon. He wields a broadsword that is five feet long, two feet wide and made of crusty silver. The sword's hilt is shaped like a riveted golden cross that extends to the handle and a little bit up the blade itself.

The sword effortlessly holds the bear's claw at bay, where Mew then coats the blade in permafrost to keep the claw stuck. He glances over his shoulder with his cheeky smile and says in a sing-song manner, "You know how the saying goes..."

He firms his eyes with determination and exclaims, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!"

He casts a powerful gust of wind at the ursine that sweeps up past his body and howls like the winter storms that tend to plague the arctic. Within seconds the bear freezes up from head-to-toe and Mew swings his blade off its claw. The force of him doing so knocks the blizzard bear statue off its feet and lumbering down towards Kairi.

The girl widens her eyes and lets out a pale "Eep!" right as the bear crashes down upon her and shatters into a bunch of ice cubes. Mew glances over his shoulder again, lets out a sigh, then waits for the frost and stuff to subside.

With Kairi flat on her back and her whip reverted to a staff, Mew walks over and brandishes the tip of his blade at her nose, giving her a brief fright. He shows no hard feelings by smiling and immediately laying the blade over his shoulder.

"Looks like I win, princess." He remarks as the blade fades into fire.

Kairi's fast, heavy breathing goes only through her nostrils. Her mouth is too busy scowling and growling, as has been the two's only interaction so far. With no show of good faith to make up for the trouble, Mew shrugs and starts to turn while waving at Kairi from his side.

"See ya around then!" He tries to keep things on relatively good terms and makes his way back to where he had originally intended to go – the pyramid.

"Haha! Shows what you know!"

"Huh?" Mew hears a voice bellowing out from the forefront of the audience and turns around, finding one of the people poking out and tossing pebbles of aura at Kairi's head.

A couple other people join in, hurtling both insults and rocks at her. They hurt equally, as her body began to tremble and her legs looked to be curling up.

"Arrogant hot-head!"

"Witch!"

"She-devil!"

Mew picked out the worst insults from the crowd and ignored anything that got more obscene then that. What was starting didn't look like it would ever stop. Mew arches his brows down, turns his body around, and starts to squeeze his fists by his hips.

Kairi bites her teeth tongue and closes her eyes, only for the last voice she wanted to hear forcing them back open.

"Hey hey hey, what's going on here?" Mew asks as he stands between the crowd and Kairi and waves his hands around in a casual, friendly manner.

Kairi unfurls herself a bit and stares up at Mew as he focuses entirely on the crowd, who stay their hands for a moment and turn their venomous words upon him instead.

"Dude, this is none of your business. Scram." One teenager bravely proclaimed.

"Yeah! Scram!" A child, who couldn't have been more than seven years old, added.

"Children too? What the hell..." Mew's exasperated mental state remained wholly separate from his smiling face.

He closes his eyes, wags his hand around a bit and says with some sarcasm, "So sorry, I thought this was an audience, not a lynch mob."

The audience raises their hands prepared to throw more of their self-made stones. Mew sighs for a good few seconds then says, "Oooookay, maaaaaybe I wasn't getting my point across..."

Before the first stone can be thrown Mew thrusts his eyes wide open with his pupils shrunken. The air starts rippling out across the entire breadth of the audience, freezing them in place and making those closest to Mew clam up and tremble slightly.

"Party's over. Beat it." His voice was stone cold serious, and the most persuasive argument he needed to make the lynch happy mob close their hands and turn away. There were some stragglers mumbling in annoyance, but they soon made themselves scarce.

Mew let out a "Wheeeew..." then turned around to Kairi and knelt down with a chipper smile. She blinks at him in utter confusion as, after everything that happened, he asks her "Need a hand?"

When her only response is to keep blinking at him Mew just shrugs and goes "Well hey take your time! At least you don't have to worry about falling boulders, hehe..."

He rises up then starts to walk past her without another word. Kairi widens her eyes then bites her lower lip, gives the ground a quick punch, then is suddenly on her feet and running to get in Mew's way.

"H-Hold it!" She exclaims with her arms swung out. Mew takes pause and flicks his right hand up beside his head with a mild smile of amusement.

"Ah come on, gimme a break princess. I got things to do."

"I'm NOT letting you go!" She declares with her feet firmly planted on the ground. Mew stands still then tries to nudge to the right, where she shifts to block him. He tries going left, she keeps blocking him.

"Sheesh, how's she still standing?" Mew cracks a snicker then leans in a bit and says, "Ok I guess I haven't tried this yet..."

He presses his hands together and looks a little younger as he requests in a somewhat squeaky voice, "Pleeeeease let me pass?"

Kairi keeps staring straight at him. Her lips are puckered and her eyes a little red, insinuating to Mew that she might've been crying a moment ago. After a bit more of this riveting silence Mew reels back a bit and says, "Look, your mom asked me personally to go check out this Pyramid."

"Because of Gravitus?" Was the first non-aggressive thing Kairi had said to her the whole half an hour Mew's known her.

Mew nods and Kairi bits her teeth down, looks Mew in the eyes and yells at him, "That's none of your business! You're just an outsider!"

"Yeah but I'm not just some cream-of-the-crop human," Mew boasts a little bit, "I'm the Elemental Overlord. I don't got a resume to show for it, but my world-saving credentials are pr-etty tight."

"You are not an Elemental Overlord! Its just not possible!" Kairi declares with the most bold declaration of denial Mew has ever witnessed.

"And I've watched Judge Judy..." Mew snickers slightly, to Kairi's annoyance.

He then wags his head around and comments, "You're not going to budge unless I walk the other way, are you?"

Kairi presses her lips together and grunts really loud. Mew gets into a staring contest with her and keeps his expression emotionless up until Kairi's efforts to beat him out causes her to puff her cheeks.

Mew then cracks up and turns around to slap his right knee. Kairi gasps out all her hot air and stammers, "W-What's so funny?!"

Mew flicks a hand back in the same direction he looks over his shoulder and says, "You're kind of cute when you're angry princess."

"Ooh!" Kairi whimpers and winds up lowering her arms a bit to curl her hands into fists. The moment she lets her guard down Mew speeds on by her and is now halfway to the entrance. He looks back at her exasperated face and swings a couple fingers out from his forehead.

"Ok, this time its for real! Later!"

Tragically he's gotten the full attention of this bitter little mite, and with a sprint across the glass she winds up blocking his way in the same manner as before. This time she bars up the tunnel into the pyramid to ensure he can't walk around her.

"Ah come on..." Mew found his patience being tested. He gave Kairi another look in the eyes and saw things from a somewhat different perspective than before.

She was holding on strongly to a sense of determination that Mew felt mirrored his own. Why she couldn't show this level of resolve during battle was a question for another day but this wasn't something Mew would feel right ignoring.

"Haaaaaaaa..." Mew closes his eyes and waves his hand out a bit in a lackadaisical fashion, "Alright, lets make a compromise."

He opens his eyes to show he's taking her seriously when he says this, "You let me in, and I'll let you tag along."

Kairi still holds out, so Mew points out, "Caaause you know, I can think of about like a hundred different ways to get past you."

Kairi narrows her eyes, slowly lowers one hand, then plants a finger firmly on Mew's chest and tells him off bitterly, "I got my eyes on you. If you try the same funny business you pulled on my mom I'll finish the job on those dried up sacks you call balls!"

Mew lets out a veeeeery long sigh and says, "Will you PLEASE let me-"

"Can it," Kairi crosses her arms under her chest and reluctantly steps away from the tunnel. She doesn't make eye contact with Mew as she pouts and mumbles, "Just get a move on, pervert."

Mew takes the first steps towards the entrance at long last, stopping only to glance at Kairi and tell her, "For future reference, the name's Mew."

Kairi's pout rises up as she taps her fingers on her arms impatiently. Mew enters the tunnel rubbing the back of his head and commenting, "Not much of a people person are ya princess?"

Kairi perks her eyes up, follows after Mew close behind and exclaims, "Stop calling me princess!"

Yep, truly this was the start of a wonderful "friendship"...

Next Time: Warriors of the Nine Planets