The Elements of Rage | ✔

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Love this song!!

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"Why go to school when I could light myself on fire and feel the same way?"

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The sound of the door slamming tells me that they have finally left to go train. Silently, I creep out of my room and into the halls, making sure that the house is empty. I sneak out of the house and race after them. They always train in the exact same place. I run down the dirt road, my ragged skirt flapping as I force myself to go faster. The rocks dig into my bare feet but I only run faster.

I burst through the teeming woods and stop just at the edge of a clearing where they practice. Ivan is yelling out orders and Enrique, Joe, and Rome are sparring with my brothers. They always start with simple hand to hand combat. I study their moves and how they counter each other. After a while, they switch to drills. I position myself the same way that Rome does. He stands in front of the others and displays the moves. I go through each motion, practicing it until it looks exactly like Rome's then I work on making it faster.

My brothers will go over the combat with me later, but I like to get in as much practice as possible. What they don't go over, however, is the powers. I don't have any powers and I might not ever get any, but I like to listen and take notes. I know that they will never train me, even if I do develop powers, but I can't help but hope that I do get powers. And, if I do get powers, I'm going to need as much help as possible.

"Light touches!" Joe roars to Anchor, correcting him.

Anchor nods and adjusts his technique so that he can get the leave to float in the same spot. Anchor has air powers so he can make things float if he is careful enough. All of the powers have hidden talents that you just have to figure out if you can fine-tune your powers enough.

Take Lonica for example. He has water powers. When he first got them, all he could do was cause floods. The water nearly drowned Henry when Lonica lost control. Now, Lonica can cause it to rain, he can clean our water, he can make it so that he only needs a single bucket to take a shower.

Frustrated, Enrique yells, "Lonica! You need to use the water that is already inside of him!"

A look of confusion comes over Lonica's face. Storming over, Enrique whacks him on the back of his head and exasperatedly explains the exact technique of choking and drowning someone with their own water.

I listen intently, imagining exactly how I would do that. I hold myself the same way that Lonica does and mimic his motions as he chokes Phillip.

Rapt, I pay attention as my fathers lead them through the training. After a few hours of hard training, my fathers begin to head back. They leave an exact list of drills for my brothers to work on for hand to hand combat before they make their way back to the house.

They always head back around the same time so that they can eat lunch. But only our fathers. They say that only men get to eat lunch. My brothers are too young to be considered men and don't get lunch until they prove that they are a man. I'm a female so I will never be allowed to eat lunch.

Once our fathers are out of sight, I burst out of the trees and into the clearing. Laughing, Klause lifts me up and I cling to him like a koala.

"What are we working on today?" I ask excitedly.

John recites the list that our fathers left for them.