Elements : Book One

Chapter Twenty Two

I smile as I stretch, feeling every bone in my body crack. I look around, taking in the faces of my new classmates. Currently, we are in the middle of the garden, by the fountain of two sisters. The Dark Ones left only this fountain unharmed in the whole school. The flowers are dead and burnt, some even have blood dried up on them. Half of the forest is burnt down to the ashes, while there is a large crater in the middle of the forest, where my transformation happened.

I shudder at the memory, coldness seeping inside my bones. I remember that day, as if it all happened yesterday. I remember the fear of my own slipping inside my mind, covering everything else around me, mixing with rage and guilt, creating a whole new mixture of emotions inside of me. Emotions that I could not control. Power that fought inside of me to break free, to burn down everything around me. But another part of me wanted to keep peace, wanted to heal the people, who tried to kill me. That part wanted to save people, who did not deserve to be saved.

No one is talking. We are all standing alone, slowly studying one another. Our eyes are often clashing with one another, quick to avoid the gaze. Some of them smirk, when our gaze meet, as if I am supposed to be awed by them.  The girl with aqua blue hair, Rea, is one of them. Her posture holds pride and attitude. She looks down at most of us.

But everyone looks at Luke and Jacob with respect. The boys notice it, but pay no attention to it, as if they were born for this, for power and respect.

"So, hello class." An old man, who should be in his early sixties approaches us. He has deep black eyes, that are far away from one another. His thinning gray hair is falling on his joined thick eyebrows. He has dark oak colored rectangular glasses on his wise nose. "My name is Nikolas Sanders and you can call my Mr. Sanders." His voice is cold, laconic and strict. "I am going to teach you Element Use." He sighs and starts pacing up and down, his hands behind him. "My element is Earth." He states and looks over us. "I know all of your elements and what you qualify in. But today, I want to check each of your powers and see how good you can handle them." He states again. We all nod, indicating that we understand what he means.

He stops in front of us, his eyes darting from one of us into another, slowly, studying us carefully and evaluating us while doing so. His gaze stops on Jacob, small smirk appearing on his lips.

"Ah, young Mr. Morrow." His smirk becomes wider. Everyone's eyes switch to Jacob, who only grunts in response. "I have heard a lot about you. Let's see, what you are made of." He smiles at Jacob and motions for him to step forward.

Mr. Sanders looks around once more his gaze on all of us.

"As I have already mentioned, my element is terra." I look at Luke, who murmurs 'earth' in a low voice and looks at Mr. Sanders. "And as I am qualified enough, I do not need to mention the names of the attacks in order to perform them." We all nod once again. "But as you are only the beginners, I am going to list the list of techniques, I am going to use, while Jacob here and later all of you, will be able to use any techniques you can master." We all nod once again, while Jacob grunts again. His gaze holds anger towards our new teacher. "I am going to use Geokinesis, Terraportation, Golem Creation, Koniokinesis and Terrakinesis." He finishes the list and looks at us expectedly, believing that we know all of them.

In reality, we only learn the names of the attacks which are about our element. We don't learn the names of the all the attacks up until the Third Year. In our first year, we usually don't spar, but only learn, in Second Year, we mostly have to spar with representatives of our own element and later join other elements.

"Um, Mr. Sanders..." Marlee raises her hand a little, gaining teacher's attention. She looks at him a bit uncomfortable. "I, we, don't know what these techniques are." She says a bit timidly, as if ashamed not to know what these names contain.