Weather Control

Chapter 18

The commander told us to grab new weapons this time, so I picked up knives and went to the targets. I didn't mind a break from such a complicated weapon. 

Sunshine came to stand next to me and he had a bow in his hand. 

"I thought you were supposed to change weapons," I muttered to him. 

He laughed. "You act like I could actually use a weapon that requires me to have good legs."

I cringed slightly at his comment. "Can you even use a bow?" I countered.

"When I have arrows, a bow works very well, thank you," Sunshine said, grinning.

I gritted my teeth at his flippant attitude. I gripped a knife and threw it at the target. It was no where near the center. I swore under my breath. I threw another and another, but still they were slightly off the middle. 

A snicker made me turn around. It was Trevor. He was holding a sword in one hand, but he clearly was not doing anything productive. He flicked his hand and a breeze gently moved my hair.

"Greenie," I growled to myself. 

I flung another knife, and it was a great throw. It landed in the same spot as the ones before it: not even close to the eye of the target. My final knife traveled not to the target, but to his face. To my annoyance, he deflected that one too. Trevor laughed at me. 

Sunshine was watching with great interest.

"Thorne, if you would stop acting like a child and just  keep practicing, he will stop eventually," he told me.

I spun to face him. "What would you know?" 

He simply shrugged with a neutral expression on his face. "I would know," were the only words he gave me.

I walked to the target and gathered up the knives. When I returned to the proper distance, I flipped the first knife so I was holding it by its point. The butt of the knife hit the target, of point, and bounced off with a loud thud. 

I gripped the next one the same way and watched as it bounced off the target. The next one bounced off the perfect center of the circle.

I went to pick up the knives. Before I could throw more, Sunshine stopped me. 

"Why are you doing that?" he asked.

I placed a hand on my hip. "Doing what?"

He made a broad gesture. "Why do you let the knives bounce off?"

I shrugged. "Many reasons, and it's good practice."

He was surprised by my answer. "Good practice for what?"

I flashed him a evil grin. "How would you feel if the hilt of a knife collided with your head?"

"I see what you mean," he laughed.

I continued to throw knives backwards, even after Trevor stopped messing with my throws. Like I said, it was good practice. 

Sunshine was getting very good with his bow, and most of the arrows he shot found their mark fairly close to the center. I was impressed.

Just as my arms were starting to tire, Han came in to the room.

"Put your weapons back. We'll go outside and practicer a while. I want you all to focus and not let it get out of control," he said. He was glaring at me as he said the last part. 

The sight outside made me groan. I wasn't sure exactly what I had been expecting, but it was not neat targets driven into the tops of the clouds in a neat row. They were quite small for what they were.

I didn't want to think about the cloudlings that were there as well. More likely than not, they had been practicing their skills some with parents or siblings. 

Han directed everyone on what target to shoot at. Apparently, he cared about the lives of many people.

"Clouds, water, ice, go to your right, fire, shoot at the middle. Lightening, shoot on the left. And guys, we need to try not to kill anyone. This is a serious thing and a privilege that we can take away. Do you understand?"

We mumbled our "yes" and he motioned for us to get into place faster. I noticed he put the most dangerous and hardest to control the the far left away from everyone else. It was probably. 

"Thorne," Han called as he strode to me. "Stand on the very end."

Yes, he was a very smart man.

I took a long look at the target before me and grimaced at the task I was assigned to do. Han came to stand behind me with great curiosity. 

I summoned lightening to my fingertips and willed it to slowly move to the target.

Nothing about lightening, it appears, is slow. It cracked out from my palm and missed the target by more than three meters. I shook my head in annoyance at the result, but I didn't expect myself to be any better.

"Good," Han said from behind me.

I turned to him in surprise, but he was already walking away. I noticed a small scar on his forearm that I hadn't before. Something about it was vaguely familiar. 

I stared after him until he glanced behind him and looked straight at me. I dropped my eyes and shuddered. I knew Han from somewhere. I just didn't know how.

I attempted to strike the target once more and missed.

The boy next to me hit the target over five times before I hit mine.

When the lightening cracked on my target, I almost missed it. It had been at least twenty minutes of practice and I was hardly focused. I assumed it was one of the others striking the wrong target. 

"Good work," Han said.

My mouth opened to ask him what he meant until it finally clicked. "Oh," I said. He chuckled.

"We'll take five more minutes before we stop, finish up with something good, guys," Hans called out to everyone.

I took another shot at the target and once again missed. With five minutes left, I was shocked to realize that I hadn't been watching people this whole time. I looked over at Sunshine. He was hitting the target with a thick stream of water like a javelin almost every time. He was good.

Lohan, the boy with the swords, was also hitting the target fairly well with a pin-wheeling ball of fire. 

Maybe this was supposed to be easy. It seemed to be a coordination thing, but even with all of my skill I was still horrible. And I really didn't want to ask for help.

We made our way back to kitchen after Han promised our time with him would get more interesting after we got better and more accurate. It didn't matter. I was leaving tonight.