THE MIRACULOUS MIRAGE
"I.. don't want to." Her voice was meek and quiet, bordering on impossible to hear. The palm of her right hand faced upwards, and she stared at it. On it were seventeen scars, each perfectly straight. The voice in her earpiece replied. "But you must, my dear. You wouldn't want to disappoint your mother and father again, yes?" For that was the reason for Isra al-Azm's very birth. Her parents had married solely to produce an ability that could make the al-Azm family rich once more. She tightly shut her eyes as she moved the palm of her right hand along the blade on her collar once more.
Isra winced, and all light in her vicinity seemed to flicker for a moment, despite being natural light. An ornate brown ceramic ball appeared, surrounded by flames. With her gloved left hand, Isra picked the ball up. The inferno reflected in her reddish-brown eyes as she stared at it. It spoke to her, in a way, but she knew that sharing that with anybody would get her labelled insane. Simple directions, at first, until she entered the heat of the battle.
She felt a tingling, like tiny needles stabbing the area of her right scapula. Her pupils narrowed, and she threw the orb up in the air. Then, she threw herself up and backwards, using her left foot to kick the ceramic ball in the direction she'd felt just now - in a streak of flame, it shot forward, destroying the first target dummy's torso. Isra landed on her feet, and the sphere bounced back towards her. "How many more?"
Seven targets later, Isra's demeanour had visibly changed. Her eyes were now wide open and bloodshot. Her tongue hung out of her mouth. It was a grotesque sight, and one most unflattering. In a one-metre radius around her, all light had dimmed, as if seen through darkened glass. She was in a sort of hunched-over squatting position, leaning forward with her left hand on the ground.
Rather than tingling, every last cell in her body screamed. The ceramic sphere had bounced back, and was now right above her head. Isra shot up into the air legs-first, using her hands to launch herself. She captured the sphere in between her right foot and shin to stop its momentum. Then, she fell downwards and planted her hands onto the ground, spinning her body around and then using her left leg to send the sphere flying in the next target's direction. With the wisp in control - as Isra described it - her body was capable of any manoeuvre.
Naturally, that came at a cost. Isra had been reduced to sheer instinct, needing no time to decide her next move but also being incapable of looking ahead. She'd ran to the dummy she just hit, immediately receiving the ceramic ball that bounced back with her torso. She couldn't form a coherent thought - all she could do was move. As her left leg shot out, she could hear and feel it produce cracking sounds. It didn't matter. The ceramic ball flew ahead with such power that it passed through the solid wooden dummy as if it were paper.
The intercom buzzed to life. "Isra al-Azm, alias Mirage. With a score of 94 out of 100, you have passed phase three of the entrance exam." With relief, she sighed. Isra couldn't tell whether she was glad she passed or not. Enrolling in Stonehearthe University had not been her choice, but her parents'. On the other hand... when she fought, she could feel the adrenaline pumping. Her heart danced - she felt alive. Isra had never felt better in her life. Still panting, and faintly, very faintly, smiling, Isra stepped through the white door, into elevator towards the university's entrance hall.