. . .
Inside of her room, Hazel was sleeping soundly as if healing from a grave injury and when she woke up, it was as if nothing happened at all, like all memory of the event happening was deleted. She got up from her bed and clumsily made her way towards the living room.
"Ma~, Ma where are you~" She wooed. "I'm hungry Ma".
Faintly hearing the small shouts from above her, Mary ran up the stairs and happily scooped Hazel's small frame up and into her arms. "Hazel my baby! Your all back to normal!".
Hazel looked at her mother curiously before her stomach let out a roar of protest from being picked up. "Ma~ I'm hungry".
"Yes yes, lets go make you some food darling" Mary smiled, happy that everything was as it should again. With Hazel still in her arms, Mary trotted happily to the kitchen and whipped up a dish that consisted of roasted potatoes and peas that were finely mashed into a pulpous mush. Mary poured the mush onto a smoothened and cleaned earthen plate and gave Hazel a spoon to feed her.
Like a starved animal, Hazel hungrily scooped up large portions of the mush that seemed impossible to fit inside her mouth and stuffed it down her throat. "mmm~ thank you ma!".
After a couple of swift scoops, the 4 year old had made the mash disappear like a trained magician. Letting out a loud burp, the 2 of them began to giggle. "So Hazel, do you remember what happened to you?" Mary inquired.
Hazel waited for a second to think and pondered herself why she couldn't remember.
She remembered being in the lounge room and getting really deep into her play. The continent destroyer Turbooboo, had fatally wounded the knight in shining armor and was about to kidnap the princess, then the princess did a prayer to the Goddess of Mashed Potatoes to vanquish her foe.
Hazel had begun charging a strong attack at the tip of her finger but before she could fire it, she felt a stabbing pain start from the finger, quickly making it's way up and into her body, the next second she was on the ground and a blur of images popped by.
When she was in the hospital, suddenly everything went black and not in her memories, in her mind. She was back in the dark space and the large curtains had formed to drape around her. From behind the curtains, a small silhouette had formed and pushed the curtains aside. It had looked exactly the same as Hazel but had different colored eyes. Where Hazel's eyes were brown, these ones were a striking yellow. "Take a breather for now" The figure said as she booped Hazel on the nose.
"Hazel? Are you okay?" Mary asked worryingly. "Do we need to go back to Dr Bill?"
Lifting her head from her sudden daze, Hazel looked deep into her mother's eyes and smiled brightly. "No thanks mother, I'm fine, promise".
A bit shocked from the sudden upheaval from her daughter, Mary let out a sight and grabbed Hazel's plate to wash it. "Well, I'm just glad that your okay Hazel. If you wanna talk about it then come to me".
'Hazel' nodded quickly and dashed to her room where she her eyes started to dim and go down to the hazy brown that they usually were. "Huh? What?" Hazel said as she examined her room, not quite knowing what happened. "Hmm..." Tossing it to her just having a wild dream, she jumped onto her bed and started dozing off.
Deep in her mind, a figure stood, eyes glowing a piercing yellow, dimly lit by the dark pinkish lights that came from above. The figure extended their arm, examining it.
'I've returned...'
. . .
The crowds cheered wildly as the ground started to shake. Looking around the crowd, Matthew quickly made his way to his designated spot and stared into the center of the dome.
In the center of the dome were 2 gruff men, arms glowing from the use of mana, both of different color. The smaller one wearing yellow boxers had his arm's glow a ferocious red while the other one whore tight spandexes and had his arms glowed a dull blue. The one in yellow boxers ran straight ahead towards the spandex wearing fighter and threw a mean right hook. The spandex fighter dodged back but even though he perfectly dodged the attack, his cheek was cut. "OH, LOOKS LIKE YELLOW VERTIGO HAS LANDED A HIT! WHAT WILL BLUESTERIOSO (Like Mysterioso but blue) DO?" The announcer shouted in excitement .
The crowd flared to life after the sudden excitement and drowned out the shuffling of a small boy making his way to the small hut off to the side. Occasionally, Matthew would get a mean glare and a shove but he eventually made his way to the hut and went inside. "Hello? Is this the registration area?".
A man behind a crude desk peeked his head up for a moment to check if he was hearing things correctly, had he just heard a young kid ask to fight? "You? Fight? Haha, alright, come out the rest of you" The man said, expecting a gang of kids to come out from behind the door, but to his surprise, none did. "You can't be serious kid, no way I'm registering some snot nosed brat to fight fully grown men".
"I can prove myself worthy" Matthew said coldly as he stomped the ground and a small earth mountain quickly built up and encased his arm, forming a make shift gauntlet on both of his arms. "I am a prodigy! Please, I can even pretend to just be a short adult man, just put a mask over my face".
Staring in awe at the sight before him the man grunted and spat on the ground. "You think I'd hire an earth user like you? Your nothing but blights on this earth" The man said begrudgingly, he didn't like bullying a younger kid but he did what he needed to get him to buzz off, he would be responsible if this kid would die today.
"Besides, what sort of person would actually buy it, a 4'10 adult that had milky white skin and no muscles was a fully grown adult. What are you even trying to get out of this anyways?" The man said, staring curiously at Matthew.
"...Today...a special guest will arrive here to pick out talented fighters and give them an opportunity, if I show him that I am capable I might be able to get into a good school!" Matthew explained. "Please, just this one opportunity! I won't come back ever again!".
The man stared at the young boy and a small smile had begun to form on his cheeks. "You are just one weird kid you know that, but your in luck, it seems your informant didn't explain to you what this special guest looked like, well, look in awe" The man smiled haughtily. "No kid let alone earth mage has ever been seen make earth structures as quickly as you could kid, your a one in a million!".
Matthew stared suspiciously at the man behind the vendor and shot a sharp earth lance at him with insane speeds, testing out if he was the real deal or not. As if he was swatting away a fly, the man flicked his wrist and a wall of wind encapsulated him, destroying the lance in return. "Haha, clever boy. Never trust strangers!" The man smiled with glee. "So now you know, I am the real deal".
Smiling widely, Matthew could only let out splutters of happiness as he realized he was face to face with Harold Kiertzche, the Principal of Kiertzche Academy. "What are the chances..." He muttered.
"Your in luck actually, I was about to shut down this little fiasco going on outside. I am a lover of the martial arts but this isn't very legal is it?" He said. "You better be grateful that you came to this hut at the time that you did, or you might be in a cell right now".
Nodding solemnly, Matthew did a bow and addressed Harold as sir. "So...what will happen to me sir?".
"Well, it would be a waste if a prodigy such as yourself were to stay in such a dump of a place...let's go talk to your mother and inform her that you will be attending the Academy" He answered. "I reckon she's gonna have quite the shock".
Smiling even more widely, Matthew had slight tears forming around the ridges of his eyes. "I'm sure she will!".