The Others

Chapter 3: Prelims

Elizabeth was officially scared. They were just brought to a crazy girl who was supposed to be teaching them how to protect themselves in a war with no one around to save them. What had they gotten themselves into? Desiree must have realized how freaked out they were and so she said, "Oh, don't worry. You actually will have a pretty cool time. You see all these people flying, and controlling the elements, and centaurs, and shape-shifters? You will be one of those people. You will be granted powers that you never thought existed. That's why I'm so excited." They all breathed a sigh of relief and started to get excited too. She continued, "You will be chosen to be an Elemental, Metamorph, Animalia, or an Angel. The Elementals are the group that I am in. We experience little to no physical change, but we are able to control one of the elements; fire, water, wind, and earth. I control fire." Immediately, fire sparked to life in her hand, warming Elizabeth, even from a distance. Andy mouthed a silent, "Whoa." Desiree extinguished the flame and spoke on. "The Metamorphs are the shape-shifters you've seen, but they can only turn into one animal. Swan, deer, or cat, they can only be one. Some don't like it that way, but some prefer it. The Animalias are just a nice way to say half-breed. They are half human and half animal, but they always half the upper half of a human. Centaurs and mermaids are some of them, but you won't see any Minotaur's. The Animalias can only be half of one animal, but it can be any animal, just like the Metamorphs. The Angels are special because they're rare. They're more of a team than a group. Their advantage is that all of them can fly. Think of it like this: Elementals are like infantry, Metamorphs and Animalias are like cavalry, and the Angels are the air raid. It's pretty cool when it's all planned out in battle formation. I'm jabbering on way too much about wars and formations and what you people will look like. So, who wants to be a half-human half-something-or-other who's being recruited for an army against your school? C'mon, no volunteers?

Michelle was secretly wishing to go first, but then Desiree slightly discouraged her by saying, "But of course you all have to go through preliminary training first!" Wonderful. Prelims. We have to pass to get the fun stuff. Michelle thought to herself. They headed to the armory first. There was every kind of weapon you could think of besides guns. Battle axes, bows, swords, javelins; they had them all. "I bet you my next purchase at The Trading Post that Elizabeth can't lift that warhammer over there," Andy said, directing the bet towards Elizabeth. "I'll take that bet," she said. The warhammer was huge; just the handle had to weigh around twenty pounds. Elizabeth walked confidently over to the warhammer with Andy at her tail. She waited until Andy had his head pressed against the ground next to the warhammer until she grabbed the leather coated handle close to the base and slowly, carefully as to not to crush Andy's nose, lifted the warhammer at least an inch and a half off the ground. Andy, true to his word, laughed and promised her a shopping day. Everyone was carefully handling at least one weapon when Desiree finally said, "Okay, everyone. The first part of preliminary training is finding your weapon of choice. You will go out the door on your right to a small field with a target dummy, one at a time with one weapon at a time, unless, of course, you're dual wielding. Once you have found the type of weapon you like best, you will head out the door on your left to the forge. If you have a weapon that uses some sort of wood, still go to the forge. You didn't think we would just give you free weapons, did you? Get to work, now, go!" They all scattered among the weapons to find one sort of appealing. Andy was up first with a long hand and a half sword. As he brought it over his head for a downward swing, his arms buckled and the sword fell promptly to his feet. He slugged off with the sword dragging behind him. Up next was Michelle with a bow. She breathed in deeply, and drew the string with an arrow tightly nocked. The draw weight was more than she expected, and she released awkwardly. The arrow soared through the air and over the bush that divided their field from another. Soon after, they heard a squeal, which was followed by a, "Watch it!" from across the hedge. Michelle yelled back a small, "Sorry!" She walked back to the armory thinking, This is going to take a while.