She groggily craned her neck atop her pillow to glance over at the hourglass she set on her nightstand. She had not built up the courage to open her eyes yet. The warm light poured through the window of her room and gently caressed her body, a series of heavy blankets cocooned her into the bed. Her head was sinking into a massive and soft pillow practically folding it around her head. It was a perfect entrapment of warmth and comfort that she never wanted to escape from. It took a great effort to force her eyes open into a faint squint to see how much time she had left. The sand was all piled on the bottom half of the hourglass.

Her body immediately shot up causing her mountain of blankets to fly across her bed. Any semblance of her tiredness disappeared without a trace. As a seasoned tardiness veteran, she lunged out of her pajamas in a single practiced motion and just as quickly put on her clothes. She sprinted out of her bedroom to hurriedly tackle the day.

She sprinted back into her room, this skirt had no place being matched with the blouse she was wearing, and she HAD to wear this blouse, it was so cute! She should wear the green skirt; NO, the blue skirt with pretty spirals! Now she was ready to tackle the day and she sprinted out of the room.

She sprinted back into her room, almost forgot the little bow to tie her hair up. Now she was ready to tackle the day.

She bounded down the stairs four steps at a time finally landing at the bottom with a loud thump. She pivoted on the ball of her foot and bolted down the hall and into the kitchen where a woman was casually eating some scrambled eggs. The woman made an effort to swallow the food in her mouth before speaking to the girl. “What are you still doing here Sanguine? I thought you said you were going to spend the day with Malady?”

Sanguine did not dare stop her momentum for the woman vaulting over a chair that was haphazardly left pulled out “un hun”. That was the longest response Sanguine was willing to dedicate to the conversation. She quickly opened the cabinet in front of her and began franticly searching.

The woman gave a soft chuckle to seeing the panicked actions unfolding before her. “Oh the advantages of being young, you know one day you’ll have to fix that sleeping habit of yours.” The woman commanded while pointing at Sanguine.

Sanguine luckily managed to find a piece of bread that had already been sliced and instantly bit down on it before turning to leave. As she turned around and caught the eyes of the woman she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave without some kind of response so she merely repeated what she said before, this time with her voice slightly muffled by the bread locked between her lips “Mum hum”.

“Where’s my parting gift?” the woman asked Sanguine while tapping her cheek.

Sanguine pulled the bread out of her mouth and kissed the woman at the designated location. “Love you.” And with such she burst out of the house and ran down the street as quickly as she could using her meagre control over elemental fire to toast the bread while in her mouth.

Despite the impressive purity of her cinder blood she had never been particularly good with controlling fire. In the past few years Scoria was nice enough to show her a few training techniques the few times they met in person so she could improve a bit. She was never a very focused person and definitely not a fan of training or studying so she was still only at the level of internal temperature adjustment.

Although her fire control was subpar, her athleticism was anything but, which was evidently shown with the pace she was keeping as she blurred downtown occasionally waving to some of the friendly neighbors that she zoomed by. She rapidly turned a corner to get to that secret shortcut she always used when she suddenly bumped into a hard object and fell to the ground. The surprised yelp she let out caused her to drop her toast on the damp dirt road. She could not stop herself from giving out a soft whimper “My toast.”

“I’m sorry, are you okay?” the familiar sound of a partially deep pubescent voice drew Sanguine’s attention up from her spilled breakfast to the boy she had bumped into.

Her face instantaneously turned to a beet red when she noticed who it was. She jumped up to her feet and her arms began waving in large eccentric motions as she tried to reply. “A-A-Amore hi, how are you? I mean no I am so sorry! It was totally my fault I wasn’t looking, and was running, I’m late to see Malady but that’s not an excuse I know I should really pay more attention when I’m walking well I mean in this case I was running I should definitely pay attention when running but that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention when I walk I’m not saying that you’re not worth paying attention to.” Her face reddened even more as she clasped her hands over her mouth.

Amore opened his mouth about to speak when Sanguine quickly interrupted him “Not that I AM paying attention to you, I mean you’re cool I guess not that I’d know since we don’t really hang out often and I don’t stare or anything so I’m just guessing or whatever or something it doesn’t really matter. Did I ruin your clothes? Are you hurt? I’m not calling you weak or saying that a girl could hurt you I-“

“Sanguine.” Amore interrupted putting his arms out to calm her.

“Yes?”

“I’m fine. It’s okay, happens to the best of us. I don’t want to make you late with your meeting with Malady though”

Sanguine’s eyes seemed to grow three sizes in surprise “Oh my gosh I’m going to be soooooo late! Sorry I got to go.”

“Of course, no problem.”

“Great, love you.” She said waving goodbye.

“You said what to him?!” Malady was laughing hysterically on her bed after Sanguine had recounted the events of why she was late.

Sanguine did not think the situation was as funny as Malady thought it was. “I just accidentally said it out of habit since that what I always say to mom before leaving the house. Do you think he hates me now?”

Malady’s uncontrollable burst of laughter ruptured into an even greater cacophony upon hearing Sanguine’s concern, but her laughter soon turned to a dangerous coughing fit. Sanguine quickly grabbed a nearby cloth and pressed it against Malady’s mouth who let out a few guttural shouts filled with phlegm before gesturing to Sanguine that she was finished. Sanguine pulled the cloth away and looked at it noticing the faint spots of blood among the spit and mucus. She placed the cloth on the table next to them and gave her friend a concerned look.

“I’m fine, the healers actually said that I had improved slightly since they started the new treatment. If I keep with this trend, I might even have a full decade.” Sanguine’s face contorted into a deep sadness from the jovially dismissive tone of her friend. Before she could say anything, her friend continued. “He’s not going to hate you just because you said you loved him. He probably knows it was just a slip of the tongue.” Malady paused as she noticed Sanguine was still focusing on what she had previously said. “Or maybe that was the small nudge he needed to realize how much he loves you back and he’ll propose by the end of the day.”

That definitely snapped Sanguine’s attention back to the real concern at hand and also made her face light up in a bright red.

Malady took Sanguine’s stunned state as an opportunity to continue her teasing. “Yep, I could see it now, the moon brightly shining down on Amore knelt down on one knee holding your hand against his lips as he-“

Sanguine’s embarrassment had nearly piqued and she could feel an overwhelming influence from within her. She could feel the pull and desire of the soul sea, a great entity tugging at her bond and rising from within herself. She could feel it sprouting and her body began to glow a faint purplish red.

Malady waved her arms in front of herself in panic “Woah! Woah! I was just teasing, no need to transform over it!”

Sanguine was able to shake off her daze and relinquished the faint glow. “Sorry, I’ve been struggling to control it lately.”

Malady seemed quite concerned by Sanguine’s revelation “Isn’t that bad?”.

Sanguine snapped out a hearty laugh “Yeah, it really is.”. Sanguine placed a hand over Malady’s to comfort her. As her hand cupped over Malady’s she realized how thin they had become, she was beginning to doubt the truth of her statement about her bettering condition. Malady wouldn’t have lied to her, but Malady was smart enough to know if the healers were understating her condition. Maybe she was just choosing not to believe. She may have lied but it wasn’t purposeful, they told each other everything; Malady even knew about Sanguine’s ability, she was the only one who knew, well her and Scoria but he didn’t really count.

The two girl’s silent comfort was interrupted by a loud explosion outside which shook the windows of the room. Sanguine bolted upright and turned to look at Malady.

Malady gave Sanguine and understanding smile and placed her fist in front of her “It’s okay, you can go.”

Sanguine pounded Malady’s fist with her own which caused an overwhelming influence to flow from within her. She could feel the pull and desire of the soul sea, a great entity tugging at her bond and rising from within herself. She could feel it sprouting and her body burst in a blinding yellow glow. Her bones began to contort and grow, her skin and muscles followed suit giving her body an almost flowing appearance. Her clothes burst into an uncountable number of pieces that merged into a small cloth bracelet that hooked around her wrist. Coalescing out of thin air was a new set of yellow garments, a short skirt, tight shirt, knee high socks and elbow long gloves all appeared over her new body.

A character that was taller, slimmer, and had long bright yellow hair tightened up into pig tails filled the space where Sanguine once was as the glowing light dissipated leaving no sign that the young thirteen year old girl was ever there. It took a little time for her to get used to the sudden change in her form, but she was used to this entity, she had been intimately familiar and frequently adopted this shape many times before. She had long since memorized the name of this entity, the name of this power: friendship.

Friendship looked over to Malady and spoke with a much deeper voice that matched her more adult body. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.”. Friendship briskly moved over to the window and opened it enough for her to fit through and without the least bit of hesitation, jumped out flying in the direction of the explosion.

The speed of Friendship’s flight put Sanguine’s running to shame and she arrived at her destination in less than a minute. She scanned the scene before attempting to understand the unfolding catastrophe. A towering inferno completely enveloped a small house that was rapidly crumbling apart from the incredible heat. Many bystanders stood at what they assumed was a safe distance and gawked at the baffling height of the flames created. There were other houses nearby, but the fire seemed to consciously avoid them and spread upwards rather than outwards.

Someone must have had a bad transfusion. Friendship coated her body with a protective yellow that gave her skin a renewed sheen and flew into the raging fire. She could feel the suffocating heat bear down on her within the building and she had to use the protective barrier covering her to filter the toxic fumes before they flowed into her mouth and nostrils. She rapidly made her way from room to room searching for any trapped people.

In one room a pair of panicked individuals were huddled together in the corner of a small cage set to one side of the room, their high class clothing torn and burnt beyond recognition. An older man was hunched over a young girl burying her face in his clothes as a feeble attempt to protect her from the venomous air. The man himself seemed barely keeping consciousness and Friendship could see dried streaks running down from his eyes, perhaps vestiges of an accepted fate. She quickly flew over to the group and despite the man’s significant bulk being over a full head taller than her and certainly weighing much more she easily lifted the two people and quickly retraced her path. She could easily barrel through the weak walls to escape the building with the most expedience, but the buildings integrity was already quite suspect, and she wasn’t positive these were the only people inside.

Once she returned outside, she dropped off the two people on the street and returned to the flames again. On her fourth trip back into the building she came across a heavy steel door glowing red from the heat. She pointed a finger to the door and a yellow beam of light promptly dissolved the door revealing within what she had feared.

The room was fairly large the center of which was someone’s body completely charred black and strapped to a large metal bed. Massive waves of fire licked out of a large gash on the corpse’s arm. This was the origin of the terrible firestorm. A concerningly large syringe laid on the floor next to the gash, a long tube led from the back of the syringe across the room and connected to another syringe which was pierced into a severed arm laying on the floor; this limb was also charred black and creating its own smaller pillar of flame.

Finally, not too far from the severed arm was the culprit who caused the incident cowering in the corner barricaded behind a series of collapsed brick walls. The man wore a long white coat, a large tear had ripped at the bottom of the coat. The missing piece of clothing was wrapped around the man’s stump of an arm which he incessantly dumped into a vat of water next to him. The man lifted his stump out of the water but the second he did it burst into flame and he shoved it back into the water vat.

Friendship slowly made her way over to the man; she recognized the face as one of her frequent opponents. The insane scientist obsessed with acquiring even a fraction of the phoenix flame. He had grown to hate Friendship, the usual form Sanguine took to thwart his plans, oh how livid he would be if he knew that the person behind Friendship, Sanguine, had that very phoenix flame flowing through her cinder blood.

Usually her encounters with the madman would lead to a climactic battle that she would promptly dominate and she would hand him to the authorities; she expected this time to be different as he clearly was not in a position to fight.

Sanguine shook her head in tired disapproval “You really outdid yourself this time Crave.”. Crave was too focused on managing his stump to even register the woman speaking to him. Friendship leant over him and grabbed onto his stump. She poured her yellow energy into him and ripped the foreign blood out of his body and dropped it into the water. The water immediately boiled away into a thick plume of steam. Sanguine spun around to see the charred corpse in the center of the room with a sudden terror and then turned to Crave with great concern. “How potent is this blood? Who did you take? This won’t be as easily overlooked as your other escapades.”

Sanguine returned to the charred corpse and dragged her hands over the bodies empty eye sockets as if closing some imaginary eyelids. “I’m sorry you had to go through this.”. She allowed her yellow barrier to encompass the open gash on the corpse and it quickly began to close up. Once the injury was fully healed the corpse stopped producing fire and the preexisting flames quickly started to shrink away into nothingness. She flew back over to Crave and roughly grabbed the scruff of his coat leading him out of the building.

The authorities were already there treating and questioning the other rescued civilians when Friendship dumped the perpetrator by the sheriff’s feet. Friendship locked eyes with the sheriff, he was practically the closest friend that this Friendship form had. Friendship began to feel her influence over the corporeal world slowly fading so she quickly spoke to the sheriff “There is one deceased still left in the building, probably a high noble. I must leave now.” Before the sheriff could even respond she launched into the air and flew away.

She scanned the town below her finding an isolated alley without any people nearby and hurriedly descended. In the blink of an eye Friendship popped out of existence and the cloth bracelet unfurled into a set of familiar clothes that rebound itself around Sanguine’s body. Unfortunately, she transformed back before Friendship had managed to fully land, so she let out a panicked scream as she fell an uncomfortable distance splaying uncomfortably against the stone floor. “Ow.” Sanguine rubbed her reddened forehead when she heard the sudden chime of a bell. A cacophony of terrifying scenarios swirled in her mind at the thought that her ability had been discovered. She turned around to find the source of the sound and saw what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Sanguine holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Ardent