The Judgement Continues

--AZOUF--

The shifted are much stiller than normal animals. Which is to be expected. What unsettles me is just how still they stand. No one seems to even twitch as mother stares down, arms spread wide in a grand gesture. She pulls the lever and the platform descends again.

In unison my siblings and I fan out on either side of mother and gaze back steadily at the gathered contestants. The neat rows of 10 are ordered by colour. The white collars gleam in the sunlight and there don't seem to be very many.

A nudge from my side has me glancing towards Zev. He raises his eyebrows and juts his chin out slightly. My eyes track his movement and land upon 3 practically identical birds.

They huddled together, color scheme immaculate, but then one looks away and the slight difference between the three shows. Two, absolutely identical down to the sudden splash of white atop their heads whereas, the third lacked all traces of it.

I glance back at Zev.

He looks back towards the back wall.

Ah.

One of them has to be the recurve from before. A quick tip of my head gives my brother all he needs to focus back on what mother has been spouting for the past 5 minutes.

He was smart, I should have at least looked at their magical signature before coming back up.

Oh well. I'll figure it out.

The sudden applause drags me from my thoughts. I focus on the entire arena floor again and watch as the other rows back up, leaving the first 10. I hear, rather than see mother gesture at them to start.

And start they did.

The lion leaped at the training dummy and its right forearm morphed into a scythe, decapitating the dummy with ease. The rabbit was in front of us and then they were at the other end of the stadium. Quick that one. The rest displayed varying skills from stealth to partial transformations.

Quite an impressive first group.

The, what I assume are twin birds, flew up in a beautiful arc, weaving and diving with perfect coordination. But suddenly, they weren't birds anymore. Feathery wings gave way to leathery ones and quick as a flash, two bats took their place.

"Manipulators." Ylfa breathed. Her composure broke just a tad and she clapped a little in excitement.

Xey were right.

The bats swooped low to the ground and then the wings were gone. A fennec fox and porcupine bounded around in front of the other bird before coming to a halt underneath their perch. With a flash of feathers they were birds again and settled alongside the other.

The one that didn't move.

They hadn't even tried to show anything.

Odd.

They had to be a manipulator though. It generally ran in specific bloodlines. Assuming that the trio were related.

The crowd began to applaud again and mother took it for the signal it was. She clapped and turned towards us.

"Well children? Which are we keeping?"

Quite a ridiculous question wasn't it? They were the first batch, with better control, of course they all would make it. What happened next just proved it.

My siblings took one look at each other before announcing in unison.

"All 10 pass."

The crowd roared its approval and the 10 made their way towards the door on my left.

"These 10 will now proceed to the waiting room where they will receive sustenance and await the rest of their fellow candidates before heading to their rooms for the night. Tomorrow will be exciting!"

Sure it will.