The Committee Pt. 2

The pale kid in front of them looked concentrated. He stood up as he was being called and grabbed a scroll from a pot of scroll next to the judges table. He unfurled it, made sure it was the right scroll, took a deep breath, and uttered the spell. The scroll started to dissolve, and the boy's eyes glowed a bright green. He walked forward to a potted rose on the floor and cupped the pot with both his hands. The green glow travelled from his eyes, down his neck, into his arms, and out into the pot. The rose blossomed and grew taller. Its branches also rapidly grew out, creating buds that soon blossomed too. In the end, the lonely rose had grown into a tangle of stems and roses the size of a beach ball.

The judges noted down the result. They had the judges' attention, but they're faces told Huko that they had seen better.

"Next I will demonstrate my healing spell," the boy said as he dragged a table with a caged rat.

"Remember Huko, our whole future depends on this.” His brother had moved into the front row of seats in the waiting area, just behind the metal benches where Huko was sitting. “But don’t panic, you’ll be fine. But please don’t mess up.”

Huko could not keep his feet from tapping the wooden floor. As the boy in front of him finished each of his tricks, his heart jumped, thinking it was finally his turn. He breathed a sigh of relief every time the boy pulled another scroll from the pot or another object from the side.

Kenta was sitting next to the boy's mother. The pale boy in front of him was good, Kenta thought. He was well dressed and had good manners. He carried himself through every trick with elegance. His hair was combed neatly, and his face spotless. After each trick, his mother beside Kenta would jump up with excitement and clap.

Huko sat on the cold metal bench next to the boy's neatly folded coat. An attendant had come by minutes ago asking him if he had brought along any props. When he said no, the attendant gave him a confused look.

"Are you sure?" he asked again. Huko could only nod.

"Okay..." the attendant replied as he walked away.

For his final trick, the boy opened two scrolls at once. They both dissolved like before, but this time each of his eyes glowed a different color. His eyes were orange on the right and red on the other. From a distance away, he pointed his fingers at a piece of paper. It started to float upright, and once he uttered another spell, an amber colored barrier encased the paper mid-air. The boy's hand started to tremble, and beads of sweat collected on his forehead. At the center of the booth was a candle that stood on a table. The boy shakily moved the paper above the candle. His mother some distance away had also begun to sweat. Her hands clutched her handbag tightly, and her eyes were wide open. The paper with an amber colored barrier lowered itself to the flames, but did not catch fire. The amber barrier was doing its job. The boy rotated the paper around. Sweat continued to build up on the boy’s face until it was streaming down his face, and the trembling on his arms worsened. After enough time, the boy moved the paper back to the table it started on, and gently lowered it back. Once the paper had touched the table, the amber barrier instantly dissolved, and the boy collapsed into the floor. His mother jumped over the rope barrier and into the booth to help her son. All the while, the sparse crowd looked at them.

"How did he do?" the mother asked, laying her limp son on her thighs.

"Impressive," the blubbery judge in the middle said with a sour face, "party tricks that is."

The mother was surprised. She quickly looked at the other judges. The judge on the left, the one with the kind smile, took off his glasses.

"I'm sorry, your son's stamina is quite lacking," he said solemnly.

The judge on the left merely nodded, her head held high.

The mother pleaded with the judges, her son still lifeless in her lap.

“But that was no easy spell he did,” she said.

“And look what it did to your son,” the judge on the right said.

“Please-”

"Enough," the judge in the middle said. He gestured for the guards which came swiftly. They picked her up from the ground by her arms, carried her boy by his waist, and escorted them out the exit and back into the waiting area.

"Next candidate," the judge on the right said, still focused on writing her evaluation form.

Huko got up. His knees were weak and his arms shook a little. All noises from the booth next to him and the gymnasium itself faded into silence. He felt his wrist for the mechanism and the lighter. He felt the string, and the cold flint on the lighter. He could feel the cool canister of gas taped to his lower back. The metal rings that supported the tubes felt heavy on his arms and chest. He glanced back at his brother who gave him a confident smile.

"Think of the hill," he whispered to himself, "where the moonlight feels warm."

He approached the booth in front of him. The kind judge on the left gave Huko a warm smile. The one on the right merely gave him a passing look and pulled out her golden pocket watch.

"State your name, age, and specialty if you have one," the fat judge said flatly.

Huko took a deep breath.

"Huko Kobayashi. 16. Fire Magic."

Their heads went to the forms on the table again. They began to write, and from where he was standing, Huko could see them writing his name, age, and specialty on a provided field. Then, at the bottom of the paper, starkly empty, was a large empty field, followed by three boxes. The boxes had a small label that said: "Participant Level”, and in those three boxes: “High, Medium, Low.”

The lady looked up to him again, followed by the other two. Her wrinkled thumb hovering over the button to start the stopwatch.

"Are you not going to take out anything or use anything, son?" the kind judge asked. The judge's head turned to him and then to Huko, expecting an answer.

"No," Huko answered.

"We have scrolls here and you're allowed to use a personal tome or other tools you find helpful," the kind judge said again, almost worried for Huko.

Huko shook his head.

"Now this is interesting," the blubbery judge said as crossed his sagging forearms and let out a wicked smile.

The old lady on the left raised her eyebrows slightly, but overall she still seemed uninterested.

"Your ten minutes begin now," she said unexcitedly.

Huko took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. He felt the spring of the trigger on the heels of his shoe. He felt the string held up by the metal rings on his legs twitch as he did. With his index finger he felt the striker for the match ready. "In sequence now," he reminded himself.

"3…2…1…"

With a hard stomp, he pressed the plate inside his shoe with his heels, which tugged at the string running up his legs. He felt something flicking on his lower back, and the cool flow of gas on the tubes. He tensed his arms, and brought them to his chest. He opened his eyes, and with one swift motion, spread out his arms. The lighter flicked on.

Nothing happened.

He could feel the slight stinging of the sparks hitting his wrist, but there was no stream of gas coming out. The room began to grow cold. Huko's shaking leg worsened, and his breath got shorter. He repeated the motion again, still there was nothing. In the distance, his brother looked on, horrified. He was leaning far over the rope barriers, before a guard shouted at him to go back into his seat.

"No," he whispered, "not again."

Huko stomped his feet harder, and straightened his arm out. Still nothing.

"Having trouble, boy?" the judge in the middle said, his vicious smile growing.

The kind judge felt sorry for him, and turned his head away. The old lady's face was unchanged, her eyes occasionally glancing at the stopwatch.

"Well?" the judge in the middle asked.

Huko could hear his own heartbeat now. His head became light, and he could feel his back getting wetter. The judge in the middle began to laugh. The one on his left looked remorsed, and the one on his right looked bored.

Clock ticking away, Huko let go of the trigger on his shoe, he curled up his arms to his chest again, and closed his eyes.

"On a hill," he said quietly, "where the moonlight feels warm."

He gritted his teeth. He tensed his arms so that the metal rings were now pressing against it hard. His eyes sharpened. With all his might, he opened his arms wide as fast as he could. At the same time, he stomped with all his strength on the metal plate.

"Fire!" he screamed.

Deep inside the tangled web of tubes, a bend on the tubes on both his elbows had collapsed the tube, blocking any meaningful amount of gas from going forwards through his wrist. With the force that Huko straightened his arms, the tube got pulled and the collapsed bend straightened itself out. What’s more, he had broken the trigger when he stomped hard on it and as a result the valve was stuck fully open, letting an enormous amount of gas out. All the built up gas on the now clear tubing only had one place to go:

Out the wrist and into the small lighter flame.

From both his arms, an immense fireball erupted. It spewed the fire high into the air. The gym was immediately thrown under the dark orange glow of the fire. All the judges and crowd's eyes, from this booth and beyond, had no choice but to look at it in awe.

Seeing the massive fireball, Huko could do nothing but stand in dumbfounded silence. It was a furious beautiful monster that danced with destruction. He turned his head to the judges. All three of them were astonished by the fire. Having been satisfied with the judge's reaction, Huko let go of the plate on his shoe. To his horror, the plate was not springing back up. It was only then that he could feel the violent stream of gas streaming out the tubes.

The thin plastic border between the booths slowly darkened from the soot, and not long after caught fire. Huko swung his right arm to avoid it, and carelessly aimed it behind him. The crowd jumped out of the way as the fire blackened the plastic chairs. Huko corrected himself again by aiming both his arms to the left before realising that there were two guards there. The fire headed straight for them and it was too late for them to avoid it. The flames hit them as they screamed.

Slowly, the gas on the canisters began to run out, and the stream of fire got smaller and smaller. After that the flames died down completely. The guards had collapsed on the floor, shocked, but ultimately untouched. An amber barrier, like the one the pale boy used on the piece of paper but much thicker and rigid, had got in the way between the flames and them. Huko breathed a sigh of relief. He turned around to see all the crowd, the other candidates from the other two booths, and the judges all peering at him. He then looked at his brothers who were also equally as speechless. Then, he looked at the judges in front of him. The old lady for once was impressed. The kind judge had his mouth wide open. And the fat one was standing up, his eyes glowing orange and his hand pointed at the amber barrier. His smile was now genuine, almost like a proud father.

"Impressive," the old lady said, stopping her stopwatch.