The following few days Nezani spent all of her time training with Henri. After synching with the source Nezani learned how to slowly release her mana around her body so that she always had a barrier of mana around her. She trained to increase the amount of time she was able to keep her mana stable and flowing calmly around her.

Mastering the ability to let her mana flow steadily from the time the sun rose to the time the moon rose set took days, but she was finally able to do it. Today she was very excitedly headed to learn a new skill. After the last few days of redundantly holding and releasing mana Henri had promised to move on to the next step in her training, materializing.

Before she could head to training Madame requested to see her in her quarters. Nezani rose earlier than usual that morning, dressed and ate and then headed to the elevators. She didn’t have exact instructions on how to find Madame. She remembered from her first time at the hotel, when she was walking around Madame’s space, it seemed to be on a high floor. She figured she’d just take the elevator all the way to the top and go from there.

She pressed the call button for the elevator and it came right away. Stepping on the elevator Nezani turned to look at the button panel to find only a single button. She stared at the button perplexed for a moment before deciding to just ‘See where it goes’. It was about time she explored a little. She had spent so much of her time in this realm being shuffled around, here and there.

What’s the worst that can happen?

The elevator whirred to life taking Nezani this way and that before coming to a stop. The doors opened and Nezani stepped out into the familiar all white living room she walked through when she had first arrived in Katria.

“You’re here! Thanks for meeting me here! I wanted to show you around my lab a bit and speak to you about something” Madame said.

“Great, I kind of wanted to speak with you as well.” Nezani said returning a half smile.

The pair began walking down the long corridor to Madame’s lab.

Madam walked over to a space on the wall and walked through “Are you coming” she asked slightly impatiently.

Nezani walked over to the wall and touched it. Her finger sent ripples through the mass. It felt like a really cold wet jello.

She slowly pushed one finger through, and out. She inspected her finger closely, wiggled it and even put it to her cheek to confirm that her finger was in fact still attached to her hand.

She decided she would try her whole hand this time. She put her hand on the wall and watched the ripples move in the opposite direction. She slowly pushed her whole hand through the wall.

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“Omg! I did it!” She exclaimed “My whole h—”

Before she could finish her sentence something grabbed her hand from the other side, and pulled with such an intense force Nezani’s feet left the ground.

Her body crashed down to the ground as she landed in the hallway on the other side. “You think I have mana to waste keeping this door open while you play around?” Nezani looked up to see Madam irritated standing in front of the now solid wall. Nezani got up and brushed herself off “Sorry” she said “I got a little excited there”

“I know you’ve never seen anything like it” Madam said with a small smile, “But it really eats up my mana”

“Behind this wall I keep all of the most dangerous and most important lab specimens and experiments” Madam said.

They walked down a long hallway before reaching a dark room at the end.

Madam touched the way and room lit up. On a table was a small canister that was covered with a velvet clothe.

Madam pulled the clothe back to reveal a black mass inclosed in the canister.

Nezani watch the mass vacillate in the container before asking Madam “What is that?”

“This is a very small piece of chaos” Madam said.

“ I took it from the site of your parents car crash, I have been to analyze its make up as a way to try to figure out how to stop it.”

”What is chaos?” Nezani asked throwing up air quotes.

Madame took a deep breathe and a sigh before turning to answer Nezani.

“We aren’t sure, who or what it is. Only that it desires to control our realm and all the mana in it. 20 years ago this very being attacked Katria. It tried to wipe out your families arboretum but your family was able to fight it off long enough for your mother to protect and lock the arboretum. We lost a lot of people that day, and had it not been for your dad, we would have lost a lot more.”

“They told me that they fled from Katria for protection, but they never told me what it was they needed protection from.”

Madames eyes narrowed “They told you? The last time I saw them they said they hadn’t told you or your brother yet, and that they were waiting until after your graduation. So how?”

Nezani paused for a moment unsure of how to respond, “That’s a bit of a long story”.

Deciding not to probe Madame turned her attention back to the sample of chaos in front of them.

“To be very clear we drove it away but it will return to try to finish its plan. So I have been studying this sample to find its weakness, unsuccessfully”.

”It is my hope that with enough training you can join us in fighting and defeating chaos.” Madame said.

”You want me to fight? And you want me to fight that?!” Nezani said stunned by Madams words.

Nezani continued to stare at the mass, before she could think she began to reach out to touch the glass.

Vibrations passed through Nezani’s hand into her entire body as her finger touched the outside of the glass.

She stood frozen in time, mouth open bones cold and frigid. Nezani felt as though all the light within her was being sucked into this strange black mass.

What did you do to my family?! What are you?!

Then, as to answer her question, Nezani began to see flashes of her family happily driving the route to her graduation.

A black mass thousands of times larger than what is trapped in front of her, took form of a fist and smashed the car her family was in. She watched in her mind in horror as the giant fist mangled her family car.

“Noooooooo” she screamed into a void.

“Nezani!”

Nezani’s limbs began to soften and warm and she slowly began to blink her eyes and take in her surroundings feeling the cold floor beneath her.

“What happened?” She asked.

“Well we were standing here talking about chaos and like a pickle you touched the chaos and passed out” Madam answered.

Previously when Madame mentioned fighting chaos Nezani hadn’t thought much about how powerful Chaos was. After witnessing the death of her family, all the confidence she had built through training was evaporating from her body.

Panic began to fill in her chest and she stepped back away from Madam and the sample.

“Nezani, you’re fine, this small piece of Chaos won’t harm you.”

Madams words missed Nezani as she hurriedly rushed out of the room.

I can’t do this! Beat that?! If she is telling the truth about my parents they were strong! I’m not strong.

Nezani moved quickly back to the elevator, and out of the hotel. She practically ran down the towns brick road to her family arboretum. She entered the space and took a sigh of relief closing and locking the door behind her.