The Real Ram

Chapter 13

 Beast barely dodges the fire ball thrown at him. He skids on the floor away from the charcoal mess of floor and smokey air.

"That was real fire!" Beast shouts between coughs. 

Trish and Shawn help him up as Flame says, "You dodged it, so calm down. You need to start learning that the real fights outside of this compound are going to hurt." Flame ignites his entire left arm, "They'll want to burn you."

"What if he didn't dodge it?" Trish asks.

Flame pauses before saying, "I don't know, he dodged it."

Trish scoffs and Beast sits beside me on the floor away from the center of the training room. His elbow is bleeding so I lift his arm to get a better look. "You skinned your elbow pretty badly."

"I'd take that rather than burns."

"Point taken," I let go of his arm. He rubs his head, an irritated tick he has.

"Trish! You're up!" Flame shouts.

"You're going to use the same fire?"

"Yep, let's go." Shawn sits on the other side of Beast and we wait to watch their fight.

Flame shouts go, and they stay frozen. No, Flame's doing something, but I can't tell. Suddenly my senses erupt and I feel heat in the air. It burns and I try rubbing my arms.

"Did it just get hotter in here?" Beast asks.

I turn my eyes to see thermal and I flinch when I see nearly the entire room is bright red. "Flame's making it hot and dry." I say.

Trish waves her hands and I turn my eyes back to normal. She's franticly waving them, and no water is appearing. Flame laughs a little and says, "You, my student, need to learn to not trust the air for your water."

"There's always water in the air," she waves her hands again but nothing shows.

"True, but you are used to higher concentrations. What I've just done is burn up the water in the air until there's little. You can't pull it from the air." He smirks, "Care to call a quits?"

Trish stops moving and stands slouched, "At least you didn't use fire." Flame stops the heat and the air slowly goes back to normal. It's still dry though.

Flame walks to the edge of the little area, "If you guys can't handle a little harder fighting, then how are you expecting to pass and go out on actual missions?"

We look down and Shawn says, "I want to face you."

"You sure? I really don't like disappointment and I've received a lot of that today."

"I'll do better, I promise," Shawn's fight to impress is undeniable. Flame sighs and motions for him to come up. Shawn jumps up right away and they take their positions.

Flame signals for it to start and Shawn turns slightly translucent. Flame still sees him though. He's got this heat radar, Shawn needs to hide from that.

And he does.

I see Flame frown, and he looks around. Shawn sneaks around to his right and gets about a foot away from Flame. Suddenly Flame's left hand erupts in fire and he shoots to his right. Shawn doesn't get caught, but the fire scares him enough and he shout out of surprise.

Flame acts quickly, turns and grabbing Shawn's shoulder with his left hand. Shawn yelps and becomes visible. Flame pushes him lightly and says, "I'm impressed, I didn't think you knew how to mask anything other than your physical body."

"I've been practicing," Shawn's face lights up. 

"Good, but not good enough. I still got you." Shawn's smile fades and he walks back to us.