But I know I'd miss you baby, if I left right now.

Chapter 3

Tomorrow came too quick, school moved too slow, and the aches were all gone. Aster stood outside the abandoned warehouse factory Balthazar and his giant metal eagle drop him off at. Balthazar was inside, checking for squatters. They had no other place to train, and they needed a wide spread area to fully express their magical properties.

Balthazar came back, tilting his head. "We're clear. Start with ground manipulation. If you break the concrete, grow a vine. As thick as my forearm." He moved past Aster, who was slipping on his catalyst. He knelt down, pressing the pads of his ten fingers against the cool concrete. Balthazar blocks the door so no-one could break in. He watches from the doorway as Aster kneels on one knee, head down, eyes focused on the scratched and scuffed ground.

The factory itself use to house crates that came in from overseas back in the 50s, but was shut down during the height of the Cold War.

The ghost of a once popular warehouse factory was evident in it's silence. It's wide open halls and dusty crates, empty and void of usage. Metal shelves lay on the ground, tilted over by Balthazar beforehand. The concrete rolls like water before it cracks, then splinters into littler winding threads. Like a spider web. Aster focuses harder, gritting his teeth until it hurt. The concrete spreads, and dirt rushes up like oil from a drill.

Aster tumbles back and the spray recedes. He lands on his ass, breathing hard. Balthazar slaps his back. "Good job. Now the vine."

Aster groans but lundges forward, hands pressed flat. The dirt rolls up like ants crawling over food, tumbling out of the crack and forming a large pile to the left. Aster uses the grass inside the factory to bring forth a vine about the length of a ruler. It winds up and dips to the side, in a tapered point. It's not thick, but it's something. Balthazar tips it over with his boot. It flips over before it rips from it's tendrils, weak.

"Try again. Bigger."

After several failed attempts, Aster finally pushed hard enough to grow a vine about half the size of Balthazar, and as thick as his arm. The ground under the factory sunk in slightly, the concrete cracked in paces that allowed it to dip. They'd probably sink this place if they did anything else.

"There. I did it." Sweat rolled down Aster's brow. Balthazar looked it over.

"Looks good. Now create two barriers with the dirt, and crush it."

Aster this time buries his hands in the dirt pile, watched with glee at how easy it was move it without the concrete inhibiting it. Two pillars rose, about two feet thick and five feet long. Aster smashed them against the vine but the dirt crumbled, with minimal damage to the vine. With a groan, he tries again, and solidified the pillars a bit better. This time the vine was slightly crushed together, but still standing and otherwise unhurt in terms of bleeding grass juice.

Balthazar looked at Aster expectantly. Aster looked up at Balthazar. Aster turned back to the vine. He tried again, lunging himself forward as if it'd help. His fingers rake across the harsh ground under the dirt, shredding the skin just slightly. But it was enough. The blood mixed with the dirty finally, somehow, kicked the spell into overdrive and the pillars slammed into the vine, crushing the whole thing. When the dirt fell away, the vine was severed from it's tendrils and laying in a heap of grass juice and dirt. Aster pulls his hands out of the dirty, hissing at the feeling of grime in his cuts. It was like scraping your knee and getting those little pebbles in the cuts.

Balthazar whistled, spreading the vine around, smearing the vine juice into the dirt. "Earth magic is odd. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's unpredictable like Mother Nature herself. But with blood magic, you'll get results nonetheless. Blood magic, mixed with earth magic. A powerful combination."