The Ancient Guardians

The Ancient Guardians (Chapter 21)

THE ANCIENT GUARDIANS

Chapter 21

Will and I rejoined Clint and Marla when our Iron Maiden joust ended in a tie between Number of the Beast and The Trooper. It had been about 20 minutes since we had tried to kill each other. The afternoon sun was shining with heat, but personally I felt rather chilly, making a shiver run through me. Marla looked at me questioningly, probably wondering how my talk with William went. I made a thumbs-up sign to assure her it was all fine now, changing her expression to one of relief. We couldn’t talk about it because Clint was already starting the next step in our training.

He stepped in front of us and clapped his hand together. “Right, we shall begin with a simple exercise.” He tapped his foot on the ground and three pillars of stone sprung out, each one 6 feet in front of each of us. “Think of this as…target practice. Destroy the pillar in any way you can. William, why don’t you start?”

“Easily.” He answered. He raised his hand, conjured a slash of wind and shot it right at the pillar, cutting it in half.

Clint was unfazed and continued. “Good, now Marla’s turn.”

Marla nodded and began to concentrate. A great ball of water formed between her and the pillar. She closed her hand into a fist and the ball changed to match it. The fist of water followed her movement as she swung a blow into thin air, but the water hit the pillar instead and smashed it to bits.

Clint remained unfazed. “Also good. Now you can try, Alex, but seeing as there’s no way your element can destroy stone it is futile. I’ll applaud you if you manage it though.”

He was right; flames have no friction at all so it can't really break or cut it. Rocks don't burn easily either and I bet Clint's stone is even more resilient. I do have one trick up my sleeve though; just don't know if it'll work. I imagined the flames I was now used to seeing and opened my hands to summon them. I sent them flying towards the pillar and when they were upon it I made a circular movement with my right hand, making them turn around the stone. I continued the movement and closed my eyes. I could feel the flames... licking the rock's sides. I felt every aspect of the stone, as if my own fingers were running across it... searching.  Then, I found what I thought I wouldn't find: a crack. A tiny opening. I stopped the circling and pushed the flames through the crack and into the stone.

As I was letting the fire spread through the interior I heard Clint's voice. "What are you doing?"

I didn't answer him because I was busy concentrating on my next command. I suddenly slammed my fist in my hand and screamed in my mind: "Expand!" The rock burst from the inside-out with a loud bang, sending pieces of it flying out in all directions... Oops, guess expand means explode in fire language. I turned to Clint even as small pieces of his pillar were still falling to the ground. "Well? I don't hear any applauding."

He slowly clapped his hands, barely making any sound and still staring at the shambled pillar. "Well... done. I did not think it was possible, but it seems it is. How DID you do it exactly?"

I wasn't sure myself. "I don't know, I just followed my instinct."

"Ah, that is excellent then." He responded.

"Are we done with the exercise already?" William asked.               

"Not yet," Clint continued, "you will have to do the same thing once more, but with a small complication." He tapped his foot on the ground for the second time and the three stone pillars sprouted right back out of the ground, but a mile farther away. "Try again in the same order."

"Alright." Will said. He raised his hand just like before and sent another slash of violent wind towards the pillar, but something went wrong. The wind seemed to shake from instability and it swerved to the left passed the pillar. "Ah! Come back!" Will made a desperate movement imitating a U-turn. The slash came back but missed on the other side. It then did a whole turn around the pillar and weakly crashed into the ground beside it. Will was stunned. "... How?"