Aura 101...

Circe explains the events leading up to meeting the cat.

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“Oh, I see… well there are three possibilities, first is that Damian is dead, second he is imprisoned, and third he is on the way to find you right now.”

“So, what can we do?”

“It doesn’t matter which possibility ends up being true, the plan I had in mind stays the same.”

“What plan—“

“He’s not dead.”

Corban blurted out.

“He can’t be…”

Corban then started crying.

“Hey, don’t worry, you saw how he took down those minotaurs, its gonna take a lot more than a couple of wolves to get him… right?”

I put my arms around him and he nodded.

“Here we are!”

I look up to see a normal looking cottage, it was a bit beat up, but nothing that was revolting to look at.

And for some reason I expected a cat sized home, I guess they wouldn’t make

Those here… which is exactly what that cat would say… wait…

“We told us our names, what’s yours?”

“Utta.”

We opened the door to the cottage, and it was surprising clean, and had nothing cat related at all! I wonder if—

“No, I do not use a litter box.”

I snap my fingers.

Yup! I knew it… she can read minds.

Utta jumps up on the kitchen counter on a small bed, then gestured for us to sit down at the dinning table.

“Okay… where do I begin… Your parents and I were in the same guild together, and in fact we were part of the same team, so was your uncle.”

“Uncle Hyru!?”

Corban and I yelled.

“Yup! Wait, so you know him but not me!?”

“Yeah… well he came to visit sometimes.”

“WHAT, HOW!? HE NEVER TOLD ME”

Uttas hair was now sticking up, I giggled a bit.

“We will discus that later... Now, our guild was a monster slaying guild, we would travel all over the country killing monsters that are or will attack towns and cites. Well, until your brother was born, then I was the one baby-sitting while they went off and did whatever, no wonder why I hate kids so much. Anyway, one day another guild attacked us, killing off almost every member and still are tracking down descendants of the guild, which is you.”

“That’s why we keep moving houses? Why the hell didn’t Damian tell us?!”

“He probably didn’t want you to feel constantly in danger. The feeling that someone might stab you while you sleep doesn’t go away, trust me, I would know…”

I still didn’t like the idea of lying to us for all these years…

“So why? Why did they attack?”

“Well, we don’t know… They knew something we didn’t which made them scared. Our team escaped and decided to go our separate ways, and agreed not to tell each others’ locations in case that guild could search our memories, but HYRU SOMEHOW GOT TO VIST, wait speaking of, where are your parents?”

I looked over to Corban, but his head was down.

“…They died… I don’t remember much…”

Utta trembled when she spoke.

“…what? How?! But… they were strong… we were the strongest in our guild…”

Utta looked down, and eyes watering, but quickly sat up and looked outside.

“They told me this was going to happen… Alright! Forget the other plan!”

Both Corban and I both thought.

You never told us the plan…

“I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself, with magic—”

“Wait! Shouldn’t we go looking for Damian?” I interrupted.

“…no, if he is alive he will be looking for you and if we start looking for him we might end up going opposite directions.”

“What if he’s waiting for us at the house?”

“I don’t think so, if he saw the mess inside the house, he definitely thinks you got kidnapped or at least attacked. And if he’s smart, he would go to a witch to locate you using mana.”

“What’s mana?”

“Like how I WAS SAYING, you can defend yourself by using magic. Magic has two forms, aura and mana, aura is something that all living things have, think of it as a suit of armor, it creates a layer around your body protecting it. Its other purpose is to control and block out mana, but I’ll get to that later… maybe.”

Utta closes her eyes, then an orange glow surrounded her into a solid tear drop shape.

“This is my aura, the colour is based on your personality, but the shape is heavily influenced by emotion. When I fought that guy, you felt bloodlust right? That’s because his aura took on a shape that was erratic and reflected his emotions. He also spread out his aura to surround you, then he was trying to intimidate you, while I could do the same, true emotions are always stronger. Depending on your intent you can shape your aura to either defend, attack, intimidate or hide…”

We looked at her with a blank stare.

“Even though you might not know how to control it, your aura is always active, it’s invisible to the everyday person unless you choose to reveal it. I can also see it, since I’m using my mana to allow me to see it. Now normally you would go through training to gain more aura, but I’ll just have to give you some of mine.”

Utta jumped off the counter and onto Corbans shoulder.

“You can’t keep this amount of aura forever, just because your body cannot contain this much aura right now, but with training your body can produce this amount yourselves.”

A bright orange light shined for a second then nothing.

Corban’s body then started to glow orange, like Utta’s aura, after Utta was done whatever, she was doing, the orange glow turned light blue.

Jumping over to my shoulder, Utta gave me a shock, but then I felt warm. I looked at my hands and they were glowing a golden colour, then it went away.

Utta leaped off my shoulder and back on the counter.

“Since we’re staying here for a bit, that guy might find us and you might need to run, so I need to know you can defend yourself… Alright! I learn best with experience, so first expel your aura so I can see it, aura is directly linked to your emotions, so think of a memory that made you angry or happy.”

Hmm, lets see, well I got kidnapped by a crazy guy with wolves that made me pretty angry, almost dying to that Minotaur was pretty scary, Damian…

But before I could think of anything else, I felt warm suddenly, like when you walk into the sunlight from the shade.

I look over to Corban, his aura was a light blue, and the shape was like fire.

I thought of almost dying and Utta saving us.

Then a golden blobby aura appeared.

“Yeah! I did it!”

“Great work, now when I said aura was like a suit of armor, I lied, it’s more like water. Aura can be like a suit of armor; however, it moves more like water, like how that man spread out his aura and gave chills up our spines, he made his aura like a mist, not as concentrated but covers a large area. On the other hand, I can bring my aura close to my body to make it like powerful waterfall which is harder to penetrate.”

Utta’s teardrop aura started to get smaller and smaller until her body had an outline of an orange glow.

“You can also condense it into a small portion of your body and shoot out your aura like a geyser to push someone away or to propel yourself forward. I would show you, but I don’t want to make a mess.”

“Soooo, how do we do that?”

“Let me break it down a bit more, aura can be used in five different categories:”

1. Offensive – Focusing aura to a small area on your body to expel a concentrated blast to push or exert extra force to damage something or someone.

2. Defensive – Compressing aura around the body or in a specific spot to block outside forces from reaching the body.

3. Mobility - Focusing aura to a small area on the body to expel a concentrated blast for propulsion in a certain direction.

4. Stealth – Reducing the amount of aura being released so it cannot be detected.

5. Intimidation – Expand aura to a large area around the body to influence others’ emotions.

Corban and I looked at her with a blank stare… again…

“Alright follow me outside, we will only be focusing on offense and defense, once you know those two the others come fairly easily.”

Utta hops off the counter and goes through a little trap door in the actual full-sized door.

We follow her outside into a small backyard with a couple of broken wooden training dummies.

“Now, activate your aura again… good! This time I want you to imagine your aura being pulled towards your body.”

Pulling my aura closer? How could I imagine that… Oh! The Mimosa pudica! When you touch its leaves, it curls up—

“Great work Circe!”

I look at my hands, and the orange colour of my aura got more saturated, that’s pretty cool, I just thought of the plant and my aura did it by itself.

Corban on the other hand is having some troubles; he was clenching his hands into a fist and his aura was kinda getting bigger.

Utta looked worried and got closer to him

“Corban…?”

His eyes were closed, and he started to clench his hands harder, which grew is aura.

“Corban!” I yelled.

He ignored me, I look to Utta

“Utta, what’s happening?!”

Utta also ignored me, and Corbans aura got bigger and bigger.

Utta jumped back and activated her aura, all of a sudden, a sarcophagus formed from a orange glow behind Corban, it slowly approached him while opening. Once it was completely around him, it shut, and then there was silence.

Utta must of thought Corban was going to explode or something.

A orange light shot out from the outline of the person on the front, it looked like a old god of some sort. After a few seconds the light disappeared and the sarcophagus shortly after.

Corban dropped down to his knees, out of breath, I ran over to comfort him.

“I’m, sorry… I realised that I rushed into this too fast you already went through a lot today, lets eat and we can start early in the morning, how’s that?”

Corban looks up,

“yeah… that would be good…”

I helped Corban up and walked him into the house, Utta had a spare bed, which was a rectangle squishy sponge thing, Corban took the sponge, and I took the couch, Utta slept on a small bed in the closet.

What a day… I hope Corbans okay… Damian needs to hurry his ass up, since he’s not dead, right, Yeah! No way he would let that ugly guy kill him…

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I don’t know what happened yesterday, Utta told us to activate our aura, which I did, but I felt angry, I’m usually never angry.

Maybe angry isn’t the right word, I felt regret.

We all got up pretty late in the day, Utta was first one up, I was second, and Circe was still sleeping of course, but she needed that rest. Getting blown up and breaking through a wall must of hurt.

Utta called me outside and made me stand inside a circle drawn with white chalk.

“What were you thinking about when we were out here yesterday?”

How can I explain it? Hmm.

“I felt angry”

“About what?”

“At myself…”

“I see… I think you already know that anger is a very strong emotion, and I’m sure it’s going hard to think about something else right now SO, instead of masking your aura completely, I want you to lower it to the point where its within the circle, got it?”

“Yeah… I think so”

Looking down, the circle was around twenty centimetres from my feet, and they were together as well. Closing my eyes, I tried thinking about Circe, Damian and I all eating at the dinning table again, but it disappeared. Memories from when that man attacked filled my head again.

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He needs to at least fit his aura in the circle; I have a feeling that we won’t have much time together…

“Corban! Think about a time where you could have used your aura to defend yourself!”

His fiery light blue aura spread at least half a metre pass the circle.

Heh, he reminds me of his father, he was always the quiet one but could pack a punch on the battlefield.

Oh, OH!

“Great job Corban! Its working!”

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I started thinking about the time when Circe was being attacked by the minotaur, I can still feel where Damian punched me…

I needed that, I needed to realize that if I ever hesitated again, Circe or someone else will end up dying, I don’t want that to happen…

I heard Utta yelling, I have no idea what she said.

Opening my eyes slightly, I saw… My aura getting smaller! It was so close to the circle, I need to think of defending myself from that minotaur…

I look down once more and it was inside the circle, I released my aura and fell to the ground.

I was so tired.

“There we go! I knew you could do it!”

I rolled onto my back and gave her a thumbs up.

Circe came out rubbing her eyes.

“Can you guys be anymore loud?”

I chuckled a bit I started to stand up—

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, the air got denser, I couldn’t breathe.

Circe looked like she got the same feeling, I looked up to Utta, her hair was standing up.

Utta started muttering under her breath.

“How?! That was too fast, no way was he able to find us, even if he could sense Corban’s aura…”

Utta stared off into the distance for a while, she then shook her head and looked towards us.

“Listen I’m going to keep him busy; I should be able to defeat him but his aura, its different. Follow the trail out the back, you should see a small town, keep your head down and wait for me at the Inn.”

“Okay” Circe agreed.

I nodded and followed Circe, I hope Utta will be okay…