(Outdated) The King of Elements

The Former King

"Well, we weren't really sure what to do with you two, since you aren't full blooded Amian," Zero said as he pressed some buttons on the keypad to an underground room. Keiko hid behind Michael as the door slid open with a hiss. "Are you guys any good with guns?"

Both he and Keiko walked in. Michael's eyes flashed as Zero flipped on the lights; a mile long target range stood behind eight shooting booths divided by bullet-proof glass. Keiko gasped as she looked at the cupboard stacked with rifles, hand guns, and submachine guns. "If we weren't before, we will be now," Michael said, scoping out the large shooting gallery.

Zero chuckled as he pulled a cigarette from his back pocket. "Try not to have too much fun in here. Getting shot doesn't tickle." Exhaling the smoke, he walked to the keypad perched on the glass wall. "This is used to alter the speed that the targets move. It's measured from one to ten, with ten being the most difficult. The enemy targets-" he pressed a button, making a wide wooden plank fall from the roof, "are indicated by planks with Edge Walkers painted on them. Friendly target are indicated by these." He pressed another button, making a different target fall from the sky. This had a silhouette of a man with both hands raised in surrender. "Shooting these will deduct points."

A phone rang. Zero slid his from his pocket and answered. After a moment, Zero said, "I'm showing some Apprentices the target range-" he was cut off by a woman's voice on the other end. Swearing under his breath, he said, "Fine then. I'm on my way. You guys think that you can operate this on your own?" Zero asked Michael and Keiko as he hung up.

"I think we got it covered," Michael said as he grabbed a sniper rifle from the cupboard. "Duty calls, after all."

"Don't remind me, kid," Zero sighed before leaving the target range.

"Well, no need to waste this opportunity. Let's get to work."

Keiko grinned, a handgun in each hand.

~~~~~

The students all filed in; the room was brightly lit with a soft piano music playing from the speakers. Glass cases protected the ancient armors and weapons of warriors past. A thick book had set on a pedestal beside the entrance, its pages were yellowed with age.

"Welcome to the Hall of Legends museum. This museum has kept the armor and weapons of our past King of Elements, as well as any diaries we could recover. This book you see here-" McManus began, tapping on the glass case of the book with his fingernails, "is the diary of Reiax de Amita. It was recovered about have a century ago in the basement of the academy. Nobody knows exactly how it got there, nor can they tell what it says. As you can see, it's written in some kind of weird symbols that not even our greatest minds can decipher it."

The students all gathered around the book, some having to stand on the tips of their toes just to get a good look of it. The shutters on their cell phones snapped as they took pictures from any conceivable angle. Dre, however, simply stared at the book, reading its pages:

Some creatures accumulated in a forest close to my family's castle. They've dark, inky skin, elongated heads and arms, and blood-red claws. I heard someone give them the name "Edge Walker," as they prowl the edges of the forest for any victims unfortunate enough to get too close. I've decided to turn this castle into a school to help my people control their powers after my father was slain in the Slave Rebellion. We are, however, having much difficulty in the actual reconstruction of my family's castle. The creatures attack those who I have hired for this dangerous task, and I fear that they will all abandon the task to spare their lives. I will show no ill will if they do, in fact I can't blame them. In order to ensure my people get the education they truly need, I will devote any time I have to protect those who wish to help in the reconstruction.

Did Dre's eyes deceive him? Reiax's diary was there, written in complete English, even though McManus had just said it was in a completely different language, one that even the greatest minds couldn't read. He wanted so badly to tell him that he could read it, but considering that he had seen two people vanish in thin air in the building, he figured that he was just seeing things.

"I wonder what this all says," he heard Kimmy say beside him.

"You mean you can't read it?" Dre had said, slapping his hand over his mouth as soon as he did. Now she going to think that I'm crazy.

"What do you mean?"

Dre gave a quick breath of relief as he expected her to say something about him going crazy and never wanting to talk to him again. He thought of how he could fix this situation.

"I mean, well, it looks like you could see something in the... random squiggles," he lied, trying to imagine how these words looked.

McManus gestured the group onward. "I suppose so," Kimmy said. "Did you see anything in it?"

Crap. That was a question Dre definitely hadn't intending on getting. "Well, no," he lied again, "but then again, I don't have much of an imagination."

My God, I've lied so much in so little time.

McManus led the class to a black samurai clothing with a black chest plate. Sitting under the samurai hakama was a book of its own. The book was made of a ragged leather, worn out by time. The pages were slightly yellowed, paling in comparison to the first diary they had seen. "This belonged to our last King of Elements, as well as one of my best friends, Hiro Yagami. He fought valiantly against a resurrected Aggaron the Dark, but was killed in action. In order save us from certain destruction, our headmaster risked his life to absorb the power and finish Aggaron, making him the living legend of Amity. Question?"

"This book looks pretty old. If Hiro was actually your friend, exactly how old are you?"

"Ah, excellent question. You won't believe it, but I'm actually fifty-three years old." The students stared droll at him. "What? I told you that you wouldn't believe me. Amians can live to be up to about a thousand years old. Because of that, Amians can only have two children, three if you're living on Earth-"

"Ke'Undre Wolf," a disembodied voice whispered in Dre's ear. He felt a chill run up his spine.

His hand shot up. "Mr. McManus? Is the museum haunted?" he blurted.

"Hell no, boy- Uh, I mean, excellent question. Excellent." McManus cleared his throat before saying, "When an Amian die, they become part of the planet. We actually have a place on Amity for that called the "Sleeping Forest."

That totally didn't answer my question.

"Ke'Undre Wolf," the voice whispered again, this time coming from his left side. He looked to his left and saw the red-haired samurai standing in front of the staircase door. Upon closer inspection, Dre saw that he had green eyes, a rounded face and a scar on his chin in the shape of an X. What frightened Dre the most was the fact that he could see straight through the samurai.

My foot, this museum isn't haunted. There was definitely something waiting for him upstairs. The question was, when would he be able to go up there and check it out?

McManus guided the class all around the first floor of the museum, telling them about all of the artifacts that was there, from the various articles of clothing worn by the former Kings, to the diaries that were left behind by them, though Dre couldn't focus on it. His mind was too concerned with what was guiding him to the second floor. Whatever it was, Dre was certain that it was for him.