The Elemental Trials

Five

Marcus
Training sucked. I hated it. It'd been almost one and a half weeks since we started working on our powers, and I still hadn't created so much as a spark. Meanwhile, Aurora Luke and Skye were all doing great, they made it look easy to just do what they did. I was jealous, and I didn't try hide it. I had no clue what was so wrong with me that I couldn't do it, and neither did Alex. I didn't blame him, he'd tried extremely hard to help me and had taken all sorts of approaches to it, but no matter what happened I couldn't unlock my powers. I had been training at the base of the volcano, but I'd never been anywhere near the top yet. Turns out I wouldn't be training inside it for a very, very long time, maybe not ever. I was both disappointed and relieved, but now I was genuinely considering climbing up it and throwing myself in. Okay that was a bit of an exaggeration but who knew, maybe that would be what unlocked my powers. It was infuriating, and put an extreme damper on my mood, especially every day when I had to go back to the house and listen while everyone shared the new things they'd learned. The others were pretty sympathetic towards me though, and I was somewhat grateful for that. Aurora kept assuring me that it would just take some time and that I shouldn't give up, but I was quickly losing faith. Luke had given me tips on it, like staying calm and focusing harder, and it still didn't make a difference. Plus, I had heard it all from Alex already. Skye was just Skye, she had a few digs at me occasionally but I could tell she felt pretty sorry for me. She unlocked her powers earliest out of all of us, before she'd even met Alex or knew about them. It seemed so far, the three of them had discovered them in different ways. Skye realised she was special due to her pickpocketing habits, Aurora got tricked by Alex into feeling all upset and that ended up working (she told us all about it the second day of training, when we first sat down and discussed everything as a group), and Luke somehow just managed to meditate or whatever and figure all of it out. Alex seemed to have tried everything with me; making me think he'd kick me off the island if I couldn't do it, trying to make me think of things that calmed me, even hitting me with a stick each time I messed up. None of them worked of course, although the stick one was unnecessary if you ask me. I was out by the volcano again, my usual training spot of course, when I decided to leave and go look around. Alex was off training one of the others, so I doubt he'd notice me leaving anyway. I headed out towards the forest, walking aimlessly until I came across Luke at the edge of the tree line, with the trees opening up onto the beach we first arrived at. Luke was laying on the ground next to a tree, looking out at the beach like he was observing something. I was about to speak but he must've heard me coming, cause he looked behind him and motioned for me to come over and join him. I did so silently, laying down and looking out at the beach curiously "What are you watching?" I knew the beach was Aurora's training area, but I couldn't see her anywhere. "Just wait, look right out there." Luke instructed, pointing out into the vast ocean. I focused on where he was pointing, but still saw no sign of our pretty friend. "Dude, there's nothing there. Spying on someone usually involves the someone actually being there." I commented, but Luke hushed me quickly, engrossed in looking out at the ocean "She's out there. Underwater. It's been way too long, she's got to come up for air soon. And I'm not spying, I'm...observing." I let out a small accusative murmur, but went back to watching the ocean for the most part. After about a minute, Aurora's head surfaced from underwater, her hair soaked and slicked back from the water. She'd been under for a very long time, yet she wasn't breathing any more heavily than normal. It was almost as though she wasn't even holding her breath. It suddenly dawned on me that it must've had something to do with her powers. Although she definitely couldn't do that the day before; it must've been something Alex taught her recently. Of course it was. I suddenly heard a very faint footstep from behind me, but before I could even turn around Skye's fist was against the top of my head and pushing it down in a teasing manner. I could only assume she was doing the same to Luke. "Sup pervs, what we doing? Spying on Aurora?" She asked as she dropped down in between us, more curious than defensive about it. "It's not spying." Luke defended, but he wasn't looking for any sort of argument. "She can breathe underwater by the way. Can you do that?" I tried to crack at her, but I immediately knew I wasn't in the position to poke fun at someone else's powers. "I can do a shit ton more than you can shortie! I forget, what are your powers supposed to be again?" She was instantly trying to have a go at me, and she was somewhat justified too, but I wasn't going to humour her by giving her an answer. "How the hell did you even find us anyway?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. The fact that she managed to find the two of us at this exact spot on the island felt like an oddly strange coincidence. "Alex has started to teach me how to search for people. Using the air. It's weird but...I'm getting the hang of it. Managed to find you two dweebs didn't I?" She grinned a little as she spoke, but I gave her a look of boredom "And how much help did Alex give you?" She paused at this, her smile dropping slightly as she thought about this "He gave me a nudge in the right direction, that's all. Anyway like I said, it's a shit ton more than-" "-than I can do. Yeah, you don't have to repeat it." I stopped looking at her, disinterested now, and instead went back to watching Aurora who had now started simply swimming laps back and forth in the water. "Poor you, Marky." Skye said, her hand coming up to sort of scratch or comb my hair sympathetically "You'll learn to be all flamey at some point." "Yeah, thanks for the pity." I commented, but it was a lot more light hearted now since I couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit cheered up by her action. She was an awfully touchy feely person surprisingly, but there was never much meaning behind it other than the fact she felt like doing it. "Then, we'll be on even ground and I can totally kick your ass fair and squarely." She said, removing her hand now and letting out a laugh. "You have some sort of personality disorder you know that? I still don't know if you like or dislike me." I stated, which was honestly pretty true. "Always assume it's dislike, that way you probably won't be disappointed." She said with a jokingly sweet smile, before looking over at the ocean again "Well look who it is." I glanced over and saw Alex standing on the water beside Aurora. That's right, I said standing on the water. I don't know why it surprised me at this point but it just did, seeing him almost floating there while Aurora was mostly submerged under. They were talking to each other, but none of us could hear what they were saying. Eventually Alex offered Aurora a hand and pulled her up and out of the water, which caused her to now somehow be standing on the surface as well. It must've been him doing it, there was no way she was that advanced yet. Although, it looked like that's what she was about to learn, because Alex stood and began to watch as she took a step forward on her own accord, closing her eyes to clearly try and do it herself, before she suddenly yet out a yelp and fell straight down with a splash, disappearing from view. Skye let out a loud snicker, and I quickly looked at Alex to see if he heard. We were a good distance away though, so it didn't look like he had. "Alright guys I think I'm gonna get back to training. Seeya" Luke said after being silent for so long, pushing himself to his feet before he started heading back into the forest. Me and Skye went back to watching Aurora, who had now gotten back up to Alex's weird solid water platform thing and was continuously trying to walk on the surface by herself. "So" Skye said once Luke was out of earshot, not turning to look at me "You two both like Aurora huh?" I glanced over at her once she said this, trying to judge by her expression what she meant by it. It didn't seem like she was trying to poke fun or even suggest anything, more like she just wanted to make conversation. "I went for a walk out of boredom, Luke was here when I found him." I explained, going back to looking at Aurora yet again. "Ah, so he's the one who likes her. You just tag along cause you've got nothing better to do." She said, this time sounding much more antagonistic, but it was an accurate statement. "Pretty much. Why, you jealous of her or something?" I asked, and without even turning I knew she was glaring daggers at me. "And what exactly does she have that I should be jealous of?" She demanded, but I knew better than to make any sort of comment that could upset her. "Nothing. That's why I was curious." I said, figuring that was probably the response that would make her least mad. It seemed to work, she calmed slightly and let out a small sigh "Sorry Marky, I have a habit of getting defensive easily." I actually let out a small laugh at this, turning to look at her "Yeah, I noticed." She looked at me too, but she couldn't help but let an amused smirk cross her face "You seem like such an easy person to mess with, but every time I do you just...don't care. It's annoying." "Well, you're...not an asshole. There's a difference between teasing and being an outright dick, so I know I shouldn't get pissed at the stuff you say." I stated truthfully, which ended up coming out a lot deeper than I had meant it to. My thoughts drifted to my past experiences with my father and my fist clenched slightly. If anything, though, at least with him in my life I'd gained the ability to make the distinction between jokesters and outright crooks, but I didn't want to let myself get distracted by these types of thoughts, especially in front of Skye. The girl just looked at me for a good few seconds, before her smirk widened into a full on grin "You're sweet you know that. Even if you are a dork with no powers." She punched me in the arm before using my head as leverage to pull herself up, standing up straight and stretching her arms. I looked over at her with a small smile, flashing her a curious eyebrow raise, to which she bounced her own and started walking off "Come on, shortie." I watched her for a second, trying to figure out exactly what she was planning, before I stood up myself and moved to follow her.