She turned towards the tree now, squinting at the bright lights, and moved towards the tree. As she got closer, and the plasma began to grow hot around her, it shifted before her magic. The tree-shaped plasma began to deform at her command and she stepped in the middle of something that was beginning to take shape. The walls closed around her and she was trapped within the tower of plasma, although she still manipulated it from inside. The branches retraced and the leaves disappeared and the whole thing began to turn into a straight, tall cylinder.

Once it was there, the edges began to appear, as she remembered them, as she envisioned. As she molded the plasma with magic, the judges would see the tower of plasma begin to take the shape of the Spire. It wasn't quite right, there were many facets missing and the top was questionable, as Wilder had never seen the top of the Spire, but it was as close as she could do.

She needed to work fast now. She would not last long within a Spire of plasma and it was beginning to grow very hot on her skin, despite the fact that she had given herself plenty of space within it. She had her eyes closed now - it was far too bright for her to see anything at all. She knew where she needed to cast her spell, she just had to do it. In different spots along the plasma-Spire's form, she lit small blue, heatless flames. No need for more heat in here. They were bright blue and embedded within the plasma. The two magics combined and the color of the wisps melted into the plasma, making the whole thing shine a bright blue color.

The plasma-Spire was now complete - glowing bright blue and looking remarkably like the real thing. Wilder felt herself grow a little calmer, despite the intense heat. She was cut off, trapped within her own spell, and the Spire seemed quite far away now. She thought of an interesting idea that would probably scare the judges or at least make them freak out for a moment, although it wouldn't work on anyone that would see her.

She kept up the spell, despite how difficult it was to keep the three up at the same time, but managed to open herself a small passageway on the side of the plasma that was facing away from the judges. She darted through it, breathing relief at the cool air of Polaris, and exited the arena. Just as she left, she turned, peeked around the corner, and lifted the plasma, moving it into the corner of the stadium so that it wouldn't disturb the last contenders. She, meanwhile, was gone, and it was like she had never been there.

Except for, of course, the now colorless plasma piled to the side of the stadium.

It had been a long time since Huckleberry had been this excited about something. It had been a while since he'd last shown off his magical abilities for no other reason then to show them off. It was the one and only thing about himself that he was truly proud of, so when it was his turn to play with magic, he darted onto the field.

He skidded to a halt, though, as he was faced with glowing fire in one corner of the stadium. His eyes widened with fear and, a second later, he was thrown back in time. He was standing among trees and trampled flower, the screams of battle were everywhere. Pride was glaring at his mother with hatred and he knew what was about to happen. With a screech, he threw himself forward, but his jump was short and, as he landed, hot, burning pain blazed through his underside. He screamed horribly as Pride's plasma ate away at his skin, burned him to the bone...

Huckle-friend...they're waiting. Shiny was standing in the audience, watching him and her voice snapped him back to reality. With a fearful glance at the plasma, he shuffled away from it and tried to gain his confidence back. "H-hi I'm Huckleberry! I'm going to make it stormy!"

He started to flap his wings to kick up a tornado, but the distraction the plasma had caused on him was strong. His magic did not appear and no tornado raged through the stadium. Embarrassed, he stopped, and hastily tried to think of something else to do.

Not really sure what else to do, Huckleberry looked up towards the ceiling where storm clouds were beginning to collect. He pleaded both with himself and with his magic to do something cool and, a moment later, a single bolt of lightning shot from the sky and hit Huckleberry directly.

He screamed as lightning coarsed through his body and he fell back, his whole body consumed by sparks and his body convulsed with pain as the electricity caused his muscles to spasm. The storm clouds dissipated a moment later, leaving Huckleberry shivering on the ground.

Huckleberry trembled on the ground, tears streaming from his face and he feebly tried to do something. Anything to impress the judges. But even this futile attempt at magic backfired terribly. The magic, instead of dissipating in the air and creating a loud, ringing thunderclap sound, instead bounced right into his head, a booming, clapping noise pounding on his ears, so loud and sudden, banging so hard against his head, that it knocked him right out cold.

can i please have a medic

The spectacles before him were mostly impressive --- even Wilder's (so much so that he literally couldn't even look at it without feeling his eyes burn out of their sockets) --- and Aure wasn't sure just how easily he could match up.

Here goes nothing, he encouraged himself as he awaited one poor competitor's removal from the arena. The wyvern fluttered forwards, placing himself at the center, quite a distance from the judges panel --- for good reason, he hoped; he had practiced this routine many times over, and his subsequent speech: "I am Auré, son of the old Bone King of Canis, Aza'zel!

He raised his wings with a flourish, working his magic and stirring his feathers as he continued, "like him, I carry the wind beneath my wings and bend it to my will." He squatted low, then leapt into the air. As he did, a powerful gale blew from his wings, colliding with the cooler air of Polaris and mustering up a mighty dust devil that stayed consistently at the center of the arena.

Aure climbed higher into the air, circling the tornado at just the right distance as not to get sucked in. Everything was going according to plan, thus far, and the hardest part of it was over. Stopping a dust devil had its difficulties, but conjuring was a whole 'nother level. Bright eyes glinted in the light as he focused, again, on his magic. In the blink of an eye, two blue wisps began to fly beneath the wyvern's wings. Much like fireworks, they left a bright cyan trail wherever they flew.

With the slightest tilt of his head, they careened right into the tornado. Flying at just the right speed, perfectly matching up with the whirling and whipping winds, they first formed many blue streaks up and down the dust devil. In a magnificent show, they flew at such a pace that the storm began to glow bright cyan and white, carrying arcane sparks as it spun.

The show carried on for about thirty seconds, before the dust devil began to lose speed. Aure flapped his wings once, twice, then careened right into the eye of the storm. In the calm, floaty part of the winds, the wyvern climbed again. Will 'o wisps spinning around him began to return, moving in a manner best described as similar to electrons around their nucleus. Outside, it would appear as if the tornado's lights had simply coalesced into one spot, into some core of the storm.

Now, for the big finish---!

A shriek, powerful and sharp against the ears rang out from the dust devil. The sound would seem to cut out abruptly, replaced by a powerful boom. The lit-up core suddenly went dark as the walls of the tornado bulged with the resulting sonic boom. In a spray of arcane fire and dust, Aure was left hovering where the storm-heart had been. Carefully, with a slight migraine, he alighted to bow to the judges. "Thank you."

Full of adrenaline, he hurried off and out of the way.

So, get this: Eve couldn't give less of a shit about the 'olympics,' or what-the-fuck-ever.

Then why is she here? A simple question, but a not-so-simple answer. Eve had just flown in from Cetus and seen some absurd commotion below in Polaris, close to the spire. When she went to ask what it was about, she was told, very simply, that it was the olympics.

'What the fuck?' Eve had asked, and the very nice white creature explained to her the basics: that there were three competitions held to see who was the best at... whatever. Eve was too small for wrestling, and it's not like she could do much other than peck rapidly. She couldn't fly in the obstacle course, and her gemstone held her down. So Eve, for shits and giggles, signed up for the one thing she was good at. Magic.

Also, to represent the Children of Rot. Or some shit like that. Who cares.

Like the Shadow of Cetus, the little crow watched perched away in an alcove above the performance, waiting for her name to be called. She liked Pride's story, and Elspet setting herself on fire. She liked the tree exploding, though the white-hot plasma was too hard to look at. She had no idea if the cat even did anything further.

And, finally, she fell in love with the final performance by Auré. Eve watched him chase the lights into the tornado and spent a long time grinding her beak together contentedly, amusedly-- that she almost didn't hear her own name being called.

Almost.

The little crow went fluttering in front of the judges-- out of the line of sight of the plasma-tree, for their sakes --but said absolutely nothing. Instead, the crow took a deep breath...

... and nothing happened.

But she didn't let that deter her-- Eve still had a chance to prove herself on this one.

The crow ruffled her feathers out-- so far this was the only notable action she did --and took another long breath, focusing quietly.

She felt the magicka bubble up inside her and with another ruffle of feathers, the crow opened her beak, but the booming voice that echoed out of her mouth wasn't hers at all...

... instead, it was a voice that might be horribly familiar to some older gembounds in the crowd; gembounds who'd stood in Polaris and fought Raheerah many, many cycles ago.

"WHAT A FANTASTIC SHOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"