Esperance || Paul Lahote

.xxxiv.

"you stand knee-deep in the forest rivers and say, there are no gods here anymore, your voice loud, your mouth full of the taste of salt and iron, but the gnarled oak trees watch you, the gnarled oak trees hear."
w o r d c o u n t : 1,061

Asaiah's words had a bitter aftertaste as Ezra 'watched and learned' as he was instructed. He was instructing them in an odd way. Instead of focusing on different technics for different powers, he generalized every single thing and attempted to apply it to every one of them.

"Ezra," Asaiah's voice shocked him out of his frustration. He didn't want to contradict the man and seem like a huge dick on his first day. "Mind taking your little twin and helping her out?" Ezra cocked a brow. "Ilan. She's Western too."

He concealed his shock as he turned to look at Ilan whos cheeks had turned red at the attention. "Mind if I take a few more too?" Asaiah grinned at Ezra's eagerness.

"Take your pick, splitting up into two groups seems like a better idea. Then they can get some better one on one time. Take a fire extinguisher too." Asaiah winked at Ezra, tossing him the red cylinder before he strolled along to his own group. They had fanned out into a line upon Asaiah's order, giving Ezra good access.

He picked twenty-two out of the forty, taking them to one half of the room while Asaiah took his to the other.

"Magic is in your blood," Ezra instructed like Alice had for him. "It's a part of you, and to utilize it, you need to funnel it. Just imagine it drawing down from your scalp, up from the soles of your feet and into where you want it to project from. If you're a Northern witch with air, fire, or water, a Western witch with lightning, like me, you probably want it from your hands. If you're a Northern witch with earth and sometimes even fire, you want to bring it all down to your feet, draw it from where it originates. Follow it through your body."

Ezra followed his own directions and his fingers crackled with electricity, shooting out and singing one of the training dummies. "You can control its intensity. It all relies on your own intensity. If you're pissed you're probably going to get a bigger reaction than if you're practicing. The goal is to control that reaction to be able to put fifty people out for the count in a fight rather than use all your power and kill fifteen. That's especially better if the odds aren't in your favor. Another thing is to sort of just explode. If you're surrounded and you have no other choice, funnel ninety-nine percent of your power into that one last move and just explode then make your escape. That's your outletting." Ezra explained patiently. "Of course, you'll need to immediately get somewhere safe, sleep, eat, drink, and recuperate."

A young girl raised her hand. "What if we have our outlet like you say and it's still not enough?"

Ezra felt his sympathy going out to the nervous girl. These people weren't warriors like their previous generations. They were sheltered by their own concealment.

Ezra himself was in no way a warrior either. But he had experience and no amount of training can replace it.

"If you have even a sliver of a thought that your outlet won't suffice and there's no one there to help, do not do it. It's more harmful than simple fighting and if an outlet doesn't work you absolutely will be overwhelmed and you will die." At this, they shuddered. "But you really don't need to think about this. This is why you go everywhere in groups, you never let yourself be overrun." Ezra found himself meeting Ilan's nervous eyes. She looked so scared that he felt bad for the intensity of his speech.

"Are we going to get any practical application?" One boy blurted out and Ezra cocked a brow, fighting his amused smirk at the eagerness.

"Not quite yet. Before practical application, I'd like to see what you can do. Everyone get into a single file line starting about five feet from the training dummy." He instructed, watching them scramble to not go first. "All I want to see is one shot at the dummy, the most developed technique you have so you can manage without hurting those around you. Remember what I told you, draw your integral magic from every part of you, and bring it to where you want the magic to come from."

Ilan, he noticed, faded to the back, while the same girl that asked his first question was pushed to the front. "When you get up here I want your name, age, and your class."

The girl fiddled with her shirt. "Samantha, 86, Northern fire." She shuffled forward and her hands began to glow red before shooting out a thin column of flames that lit the dummy on fire.

"Excellent, excellent, Samantha. Rotate to the back of the line." Ezra instructed as he put out the flames. "Next person."

"Cherri, 36, Northern Earth."

"Andre, 29, Northern fire."

They were generally amazing, needing a few pointers here and there like everyone did. But when it came to Ilan he had to admit he was eager to see what she could do.

Ilan closed her fist, her eyes falling shut for just a moment. "Hurry up!"

"Enough." Ezra snapped at the snickering girl as Ilan closed her eyes once more.

Much to his own surprise and the surprise of everyone in the group, a long strand of what could only be described as pure light began to flow from her clenched hand. It wrapped around her palm and began to drift down to the floor. Just before it hit the floor it stopped and Ilan shifted forward, wielding her power like a whip and slamming it at the dummy, immediately slicing it cleanly in half.

The two ends smoked as they fell apart and the light melted back into Ilan's closed first, disappearing as it reached her palm.

Ezra could barely voice his shock and how utterly impressed he was with her power. The way she wielded her magic so expertly was insane, she seemed more like she was a thousand years old rather than sixteen.

"Everyone, uh, everyone can go to lunch. You're dismissed."