(Outdated) The King of Elements

The Hall of Legends

Dre put his senses on overdrive as the large group of twenty-two students, being led by McManus, walked down the opal path towards the gates. There was a new person in the guard shack, a young woman with a wavy, dark blue ponytail, who was too focused on her laptop to guard anything. She wore a black tank-top with a dark green pair of cargo pants. The light of the laptop reflected off of her thick glasses, shielding her eyes. "How can she guard the gates if she isn't paying attention to it?" Dre quietly asked McManus.

McManus put a finger over his lips before he pried a round stone from the path. He inclined his head towards the shack, and hurled the stone, full speed, directly at her head. She caught it before any of the students had a chance to cry out to her, not taking her attention off of the computer. "Getting real tired of your bull, Demetrius," she sighed in a low voice as she released the stone. She closed the laptop as the class walked towards the gate.

"What's up with your hair, Brianna?"

"It's called fashion, something you're too much of a square to understand," she said as she raised her head. She had a beauty mark under her bottom lip, with a large scar over her right eye and cheek, which looked like it was in danger of taking her eye out. "Look at my hand. It stings now."

"Well, maybe if you had caught it with a glove and not your bare hands-"

"Demetrius, where can I get a glove at a school like this?"

McManus shrugged as the gates slowly swung open. "You're the psychic, you tell me."

"Don't you have to be a McManus somewhere else? Like, somewhere away from here?" she sighed.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go students. Don't want to bother the techie in her natural habitat of wires and circuits, I hear they can get violent." He gestured the students forward, winking at Brianna. "See you later, Bri-Bri," he stated before following the students.

"Whatever," she simply said as she opened up her laptop.

"How did she know that we were here?" Kim had asked as the group made their way into the city.

"Bri-Bri uses her spirit element in a different way than others. She always has two layers of energy surrounding her at all times. If anyone or anything goes into either of the energy fields, she is instantly alerted and is able to react faster than normal people, depending on how fast it enters her energy fields."

"Can anyone who uses spirit elemancer do this?" a random student asked from inside of the group.

"Spirit and fire," McManus began. "It wouldn't be easy, though. Spirit elemental are the strongest of the five elementals. Yet, they have the most difficult element to use. See, each element has its own requirements to be able to use it. Spirit requires a calm and centered mind at all times, otherwise they won't be able to use their element. Not to mention the constant strain her body goes through in order to keep up a force field for so long. That amount of elemental manipulation takes years of practice."

"Wow. She must be really good then," Kim said to Dre, who was looking around the city for any sign of the Edge Walkers. "Hm? Are you okay, Ke'Undre? You seem a bit paranoid."

"We're in trouble out here, Kimmy. Big trouble," he whispered back. "Megumi and I came down here to get a bottle of Marathon Nectar, and while we were there, we were attacked by a pack of Edge Walkers. We would have been killed, if it wasn't for Loyalty, Sakura, and Mr. Kimachi."

"Oh dear. But we're out here with Mr. McManus. He should be able to protect us from them. Try not to worry too much about it, okay?" she asked with a smile.

"Okay," he lied, returning the smile. It would be near impossible to enjoy the trip with the knowledge of an invasion going on right under everyone's noses. He could tell Mr. McManus what happened, but the knowledge of possibly being expelled stopped him in his tracks. Instead, he tried to focus on the lecture, while searching for the Edge Walkers.

The group voyaged deeper into the city, turning at the same street Dre and Megumi took to go to the Wayward Marketplace, and the place where the Edge Walkers attacked. He looked around for the damages done on the buildings, the indent on a wall where Megumi had been swatted against, or the remains of the Edge Walkers or the water from Ichi's ice. Everything had been erased. It was as if there hadn't been a battle here at all.

"So, since I'm your future favorite teacher, I guess I should actually do some teaching. Each group of elemancer has pros and cons about their group. With fire elemancers, they have the highest storage of magic, but their weakness is their hand-to-hand combat. On the other side of the spectrum, water elemancers packs the strongest punch when it comes to hand-to-hand fighting, mainly to compensate for the fact that their element is mostly used for healing purposes. Then you have nature elementals, the best element that there is."

"Are you saying that because you're a part of it, McManus?" Kim asked.

"Damn right. Nature elemancers are, as you'd assume, tanks. We can take really shrug off a beating. The downside? Most of us are slower because of our bulkiness. I say most because I'm one of the few that is an exception to such a rule."

"You're slow, McManus. Just somewhere else," Dre chided.

"That's a detention," McManus said without looking back. "Air elemancers have it easy. Their element comes with a low cost. The downside to that is that they have the lowest defenses. Like, it's laughably bad. No offense to all of you air elemancers." Dre didn't have to look around to feel the anger fuming from the air elemancers in the class. "Finally, there's spirit elemancers, who is known to be natural born leaders. They are the strongest of the five elemancers, but such strength comes with a price. In order to even be able to use their element, they must have a neutral mind."

"What does that mean?" an Apprentice asked.

"Hell if I know."

The group made it to the intersection and turned left. "Okay, young'uns. The museum is at the end of this road. Remember to not touch anything while you're in there. They won't even let me touch anything, and I'm basically a part of the history. Sad, isn't it?"

Dre looked around as the group walked down the road. The townspeople didn't even seem worried about the Edge Walkers, and they had experienced it firsthand. The many shops were not only open, but Amians were even shopping, completely oblivious to the fact that they all could have died an hour earlier.

There was a dead end at the end of the street. Directly in front of them was a large brick wall with pictures scattered over it. Some of the pictures looked to have been from ancient times, while others looked to have been from different cultures. The windows had been covered by a red curtain. All except for two at the second floor, where Dre saw two people looking out at him. The person on the left was dressed in silver knight's armor, who looked like Kamatsu, only with long, blonde hair. The person on the left was an Asian man with a dark-red ponytail and a black samurai yukata. They both looked at him with a hardened expression before turning around and disappearing into the darkness.

"K-Kimmy? Did you see that? Those people vanished up there!" he whispered.

"Hm? Up where?"

"There! On the second floor! Where the windows aren't covered by the curtains!"

She looked up at the building, shielding her eyes from the sun. "I don't see anything."

"That's because they left, vanished even!"

"I think you're just seeing things, Ke'Undre. Come on, the group is going in."

Oh, great. We get to go into a haunted museum. Just what I've always dreamed of.