The Trials of Ascension ~ Chapter ⅪⅤ

Instructions

this chapter is long--sorry for not posting :{ The draganets were woken again at the crack of dawn by Avalanche again, except this time she was banging a large bronze gong, and clearly enjoying it. More of the ‘helping hands’ came into the room and led the pack of dragans to a hallway with 13 different doors. The draganets were separated by tribe and each group was led into the rooms, except for Sunrise, Dreamcatcher, Pacific, Aloisia, and Citrus. They were led into the 13th door, where a few of the ladie’s attendants were waiting to prepare them for the Sponsor Ceremony. They retrieved dripping chains of ruby, sapphire, emerald, obsidian, and black diamond for each of the draganets, and placed the circlet that Sun got on her head. Each of the other draganets had a similar one, except with their tribe’s jewels. The attendants then retrieved spools of velvet and soft fabric and draped them like capes over the draganet’s wings, after clamping gold chest plates on. Sun was led over to a side of the room, where the attendants rolled aside the wall to reveal a magnificent store of jewelry with jewels of every color. She picked out some pieces, though she kept her medallion. She fashioned, with the help of the attendants, a delicate silver filigree around her tail, and let it dangle down towards the ground, where small stars and moons were carved out of opals. She put a thin,black, ruby-embedded choker around her neck and slipped on some other rose gold bracelets. Lastly, she put on some dangling silver sun earrings. They emerged from the room and began a long trek to the backside of the palace, where they were supposed to wait in a courtyard, each of the 60 draganets standing on a pedestal. The 5 special draganets, were, of course, in front. Before long, adult dragans of all the tribes began to fly in from the direction of the main continent, coming in their dragon forms and shifting into their humanoid forms. Soon, no more dragans could be seen in the distance, and there was a crowd of dragans around the pedestals, dripping jewels and unadorned, serious and smiling. The ladies walked out into the courtyard, accompanied by their guards. All of the dragans bowed at one, SeaWings and SwarmWings alike. The ladies all smiled kindly and they all took their places, as they each clipped on a strange stone device on their ears. High Queen Altaria wasn’t present, for whatever reason. Lady Valor announced in a strong voice, “Welcome to the Sponsor Ceremony! You are the most influential and richest dragans in your tribes, and we have invited you here for the chance of a lifetime: To sponsor one of the Trial Candidates!” Her obsidian circlet glinted as the dragans in the audience clapped and blew small flames of fire. The next thing she did was unexpected in every way. She clicked the stone, which had been amplifying her voice, and a holographic screen came out of one of the StrikeWing’s pedestals, displaying a live 3-D picture of what she was doing, plus her name and a list of abilities, strengths and weaknesses. The draganet, Drea, spread out her wings and the hologram did the same. The dragans in the audience murmured about her ‘powerful wings’ and about her ‘good eye’ as she whipped out some throwing daggers and nailed a target in the dead center. She was the one throwing daggers in the training room! Sun realized. The dragans in the audience all had a screen, and they could write down the draganets they were sponsoring. It wasn’t something to take lightly, because they could rise in power and become more influential if they sponsored the winning draganet. Lady Valor clicked her stone again, and Drea’s hologram shut off and the next StrikeWing’s hologram clicked on. Her name was Valeriea, and she was fast. She spread her gold-veined black wings, and with a beat of them, she flew quickly to the other side of the courtyard, with the help of the StrikeWing ability to save energy for tasks. The hologram showed a slow version of her flying, making the unique way she held her wings noticeable. She then did something unexpected: she flew at one of the guards, who had barely any armor on, and hit some very specific spots on his body with 2 fingers. He collapsed, to gasps and murmuring from the crowd, and didn’t get up until Valeriea hit the base nerve on his tail, and even then he was stiff. Many dragans could be seen writing her name down. This process continued through all of the draganets. Some of the most popular dragans were Cove, who could control water and froze a guard’s feet to the ground, a SongWing, Harmoni, who could do perfect mimicking and nearly made the crowd’s ears fall off with her sonic scream, and a SnowWing, Tundra, who pinned a fly to a leaf with one of her tail spikes. (scratch thinks there's something wrong with the second bit, so its in the project)