If Vertiya or anyone else had thought that they'd get a break from after the next stage, they were sorely mistaken. It couldn't have been later than seven in the morning the day after the forest stage when a loud alarm burst into everyone's eardrums, unwanted as a Grimm attack or knitted underwear, which got everyone awake – even Yimesz, who had somehow ended up in some random girl's sleeping bag and looked like he got not nearly enough sleep was woken up by it. Seeing him and shaking her head, Vertiya slipped out of her own sleeping bag in the main hall, getting ready for the day in rapid time.
"Now I know that you only completed the last stage yesterday, and some of you are still exhausted by it. However, term starts in three days, and I decided that considering this stage is less physically demanding than any of the others, I would do this stage today, and give you all a rest or time to train together before the team fights in two days. After all, the conclusion of today will determine what groups of four you will be in, so this stage is rather important," Ironwood said before them, on the podium where the first announcement was when the initiates first joined. "This stage is based primarily on Aura, which I'm sure you're all familiar with by this point, you'll have learned about it in your respective combat schools. As a huntsman or huntress, you'll all have to be able to both sense aura in an ally or enemy – or sometimes more importantly, lack of aura – as well as apply it for both defensive and offensive Auras. Note that I'm not talking about semblances here, as although semblances are technically speaking the projection of aura, I and the rest of the staff here at Atlas want to be able to see hunstmen and huntresses use their aura in all the ways they can, and therefore you need to prove to us that you already have some knowledge of how to use it."
Vertiya grinned when she heard this. As someone who never was much of a weapon user, Vertiya often had to rely on her aura in order to hold her own, at least until she had the cards, and was experienced in using it. Plus, thanks to the Hylae buff, her aura was particularly potent. Yimesz was a little concerned about this trial – he won fights through fighting more than careful aura usage – but Vertiya was fairly certain she could carry him through this one.
"This trial will start when the room goes pitch black. You will have to sense your way to another pair using your aura and theirs, and you'll know who to look for because they will flow the brightest in the darkness, because they and you will be the most compatible. Once you're in your groups, or after a few minutes, there will be an 'attack of darkness' as my teachers call it – an attack more on the mind than on the body, and you as a group will have to combine your aura together to fight it off. If we have either more or less than eight groups of four by the end, then we will just go into the final round with however many progress through, but historically speaking, that has only happened two times in the entire time the trial has been implemented. If there are no questions, I guess we can begin," Ironwood said, as the lights went out, and Vertiya, Yimesz and the rest of the initiates were consumed by darkness.
Vertiya, however, was unfazed. Immediately using the lack of sight as a chance to not have one of her senses send unneeded information to her brain, she took the opportunity to concentrate, and soon enough found the faint, green glow of Yimesz fairly close to her, and moved over to him. "Yimesz, it's me," she whispered up to him.
"Thank the lords, I was gonna be screwed in this trial otherwise," Yimesz responded, a clear tone of relief present. "Do you have any idea how you're gonna find anyone else though?"
"Working on it," Vertiya replied, shutting her eyes. She always knew how to sense out Yimesz because she was familiar with the aura he produced, no matter how faint it was. But in a room with thirty-eight other individual auras, none of which she recognised, she didn't know how to pinpoint someone. In a perfect world, she'd look out for Fen, but Vertiya had no idea what colour her aura was, as she'd never seen Fen use anything related to it, and so had no idea what to search for.
"Hate to break it to you, but we're kinda running out of time here," Yimesz whispered to Vertiya, quite clearly pointing out the obvious.
"You know, that really isn't helping," Vertiya muttered back in an agitated tone, before pinpointing two auras that felt rather strong, and were calling out to her. "Thankfully, I've found a pair, so quit your yammering and come with me," she added, dragging Yimesz to a pair on the other side of the hall. The pair consisted of a male and female figure with the male being far taller than the female; the male having a warm, chocolatey brown glow to him, whereas the girl had a light, rosy pink to her aura.
"Felt you two coming a mile off," the male voice said to them, his voice rough and weathered, and not one that either Vertiya or Yimesz recognised. "I guess that means that, what was it Ironwood said, we're compatible or something?" he added, scratching his head. His facial features, and clothing were indistinguishable, all that could be made out was a male figure from the brown human-shaped glow, so Vertiya had no luck working out who it was.
"Well, here's hoping. I don't intend to get knocked out by the trials," Vertiya said, tying her hair up into a messy ponytail. There was an eerie silence that blocked out everything other than the three people around her, and Vertiya wanted to properly concentrate in case something happened out of nowhere.
"Same. My parents would not be happy if I didn't even make it into the school," the girl of the pair said, still a voice that Vertiya did not recognise, but the wording of what she said broke Vertiya's concentration momentarily as her train of thought started rolling. There was one initiate she could think of instantly who had well known parents, was female, and was rather short. Her train of thought also led her to the forest of the last stage, where she did spot a young girl, who had a pink-ish look to her, get carried off by a big guy who had fairly brown clothing, and it was at this point that Vertiya's mind clicked, and she realised who she was with.
"Ruzovi?" Vertiya asked, but she didn't get a response. Instead, what she got was what sounded almost like a high-pitched screech, like nails running down a blackboard. Cringing in discomfort, Vertiya covered her ears with her hands, but it did nothing, and she quickly realised this was the 'mental attack' that they were meant to be able to fight off. Dropping her hands, and screwing her eyes shut in concentration, Vertiya's glow started getting brighter, and as she focused her aura onto the attack, it dissipated almost instantly. "What was that?" Vertiya asked, looking to the other three in her group.
"What was what?" Yimesz asked, scratching his head. Vertiya couldn't make out facial expressions, but she soon realised that both who she assumed were Ruzovi and the pirate-like guy were hadn't made any obvious body movements of discomfort, so she must have been the only one who had been affected.
"That… Well, the details of what happened aren't massively important, but be on your guard, this stage has started," Vertiya explained, her voice a little drained. She had a tiny bit of a headache building up on her, but she couldn't afford to be bothered by it. That was only the start.
"So you're the strongest one, then?"
Vertiya's expression went from concentrated to confused off that. She quite clearly heard the voice, but she couldn't direct it at all. It was almost as though it came from directly within her own mind. 'What is this?' she thought, which proved her earlier suspicion, because following off that she could hear cold laughter following up from it.
"Me? I'm little more than a voice in your head," the voice replied. Vertiya could make out that the voice was female, but it was deep in pitch, and somewhat distorted. "But if you really must know, I am the voice that speaks to the Grimm, and controls their movements. I am the one who creates fear, and the one who makes worlds out of darkness."
Vertiya almost laughed. 'Pull the other one,' she thought, a smirk on her lips. In order to be something like that, this entity would have to be ridiculously powerful, and wouldn't be something that General Ironwood would use in something to test initiates.
"You know I'm in your head, right? Just because you don't deliberately think things, doesn't mean that what's in your thoughts is hidden from me," the voice replied, which froze Vertiya. She hadn't thought of that. "And although, you're right, perhaps James didn't want something as omnipotent as me to test his new students, I am based off what I told you. And if I'm not as powerful as you assume, would I be able to do this to your brother at the flick of a switch?" she asked, and suddenly Vertiya could hear a cry of pain come from Yimesz, and could see him grab his head and clench hard. Vertiya, reacting quickly, grabbed hold of Yimesz by the shoulder and expelled some of her own aura into him, and fairly soon his grip on his head started to loosen up. After all, Yimesz wasn't an aura user to the extent that Vertiya was, and she knew full well he'd need help here.
"Is that what you were talking about?" Yimesz asked, his tone clearly displaying his discomfort at the mental attack that just happened to him. He sounded a little weak, but Vertiya knew he'd perk up again soon enough.
"More or less, yeah," Vertiya explained to him, but she didn't have much time to follow up with her explanation, because soon enough, that voice was back in her head.
"Cute, how you used your own abilities to save your brother," the voice said, her voice smooth and dripping with sarcasm. "But what about the other two, Plutonine and Ruzovi? You don't have such a strong relationship with them yet, do you? Can you save them as well?"
Vertiya turned to the brown and pink glows of Plutonine and Ruzovi respectively, and just like Yimesz, they were making visible signs of pain. Vertiya lunged out for them, but rather than have to expel her aura to help them, the three of them almost shared their auras between them, and the attack was dissolved soon enough.
"Smart move there," Plutonine said to Vertiya, rubbing his head. Vertiya smiled in the darkness at Plutonine's compliment, as he went on to ask, "I take it you two are the Hylae twins?"
"Yeah, that's us," Yimesz replied, Vertiya nodding alongside his response. To give him some credit, Plutonine seemed a lot more likeable than the drunk he seemed to be on the first day, and both Vertiya and Yimesz could see a good friendship possibility for differing reasons.
"Look, I've made you friends already! And you people think the Grimm are all bad," the voice said in Vertiya's head, false encouragement obvious. "But, I've let you help out your new team without many problems coming to yourself. I wonder how you'll cope if I go for all of you at the same time?"
The same screeching came back to Vertiya, however this time she was ready for it and seemed almost unaffected. The other three all creased again, but Vertiya took Ruzovi's and Yimesz's hands in hers, before trying to speak over the screeching. "Trust me on this. Link up, if we can combine all of our auras together, we can get rid of this."
The other three nodded, forming a ring and connecting with their hands, and Vertiya focused her energy into her aura. The other three did the same – Yimesz attempted to, at least – and between them, they stopped glowing the colours of their own individual auras, and instead all started glowing white. "Hmph. Very good. Don't think this is the last of me," the voice said, before it left, and with it so did the attack. Almost immediately after, the lights came on, and Vertiya could see the faces of Ruzovi, Plutonine and Yimesz all looking at each other, with faint smiles showing. Vertiya let go of the others, looking around at the rest of the hall to see how they had all done, and it had seemed that most of the others had had similar ideas. Most of the others. A few people were on the floor, clutching their heads in agony or otherwise shaking, and Vertiya realised quickly enough that they had not quite the aptitude for aura to fend off that attack.
Soon after, however, Ironwood came back into the room, looking around before speaking out and drawing attention to himself. "Well, to those of you who are still standing, congratulations, you have passed this stage and I will see you again in a couple of days for the final stage. Those who are not… Unfortunately, you are no longer in the running, and good luck with your future endeavours," he explained, leaving the room again.
Vertiya turned from him back to the three standing around her. Sure, they may not have been the sort of team she had anticipated having – her brother, a girl who was far younger than everyone else in there, and a drunk who seemed to have an affinity for pirates. But, she was more than ready to work with it.