Chapter five

My eyes roamed over the slightly surprised faces of the Elementals. “Well?” Ms Avia urged, “Who’ll be the first to take on an old lady like myself”

I glanced over at her and behind the kind grandmother face she had sharp, calculating eyes that looked as though they didn’t miss much. Her once slouched posture was now tall and straight and I immediately imagined her as a strong fighter when she was younger.

“I’ll go first” Cameron volunteered as he stepped forward. The corner of Ms Avia’s lip twitched but I could see her holding back a smile. She bowed her head and gestured for him to face the wooden practice statue. He faced the statue, standing with his arms down by his sides and began to clench and unclench his fists while rolling his head to loosen his muscles.

“Ready young man?” Ms Avia asked. Cameron’s gaze hardened keeping his eyes on his target and nodded once. “Go!”

Cameron decided to go for the easy kill apparently. He charged forward with a roar and brought his arms up towards the statue. He lunged forward and tried to rip the arms off but the next thing we all saw was him flying sideways in the air as though he weighed nothing less than a ragdoll.

I turned to look back at the statue and saw Ms Avia standing offside and getting back into position. She shook out her limbs and I noticed the statue mimicking her. A deep cough caught my attention on the other side of the room and I saw Cameron stand back up before he huffed and disappeared. His fall had shattered a few desks, leaving dust floating in the air mixing with the dust motes, and without his knowledge also lying across his shoulders and head.

I could somewhat see his silhouette charging at the statue again and he jumped high to land a superman punch to the face. Ms Avia obviously saw this coming and she ducked down then side to side like a professional boxer causing Cameron to swing across the air.

The dust began to fly off, finally leaving him completely invisible, and I saw Ms Avia’s eyes dart around the still room. A creak to her left forced her to shift positions and she began to swipe at the thin air, hoping to catch him unguarded or just purely by accident.

“Come on deary, not much talent in hiding when you’re obviously such a strong young gentleman” she irked him as she shifted from foot to foot and trying to catch the smallest movement.

Suddenly the arms of the statue were ripped off simultaneously, and were sent flying in opposite directions. Cameron’s roar was ear piercingly loud and even before the wooden arms could land on the ground the head of the statue was being torn off from the rest of the wooden body.

In a blink of an eye Cameron stood before the torso, completely visible once again, and smirked at Ms Avia. Not even a drop of sweat was to be seen. “Well, I highly doubt anyone would survive a ripped off head. Good job young man” she turned to us before speaking again, “You may not realise but the material that the statue is made from is scientifically enhance ‘wood’ so to speak. It is not easily broken or even scratched from the outside, so for...”

“Cameron” Cameron offered.

“Yes, thank you. So for Cameron to be able to even break it apart from the rest of the block is truly something unheard of” My eyebrows quirked up at that little bit of information. So Cameron wasn’t just super strong, he had unheard strength and could possibly be the strongest of all the Ableds. Very interesting.

Ms Avia smiled and repositioned her spectacles before swinging her hand towards the arms and head then I watched as the ‘scientifically enhanced wood’ moulded right back to where it was ripped off. It looked like nothing had ever happened it. “Your invisibility is obviously your defence so that’ll do for now. Now, who’s up next?”

Now that the rest of us had seen what Ms Avia and her wooden puppet were capable of, the Elementals knew not to underestimate the older Mary Poppins lookalike. Sophia stepped forward and cracked her neck signalling that she’d be the next one to face the statue. Just as she did with Cameron Ms Avia bowed her head and set herself in defensive position. The statue followed her movements perfectly it looked as though it was alive. “Go!”

Sophia’s body vibrated and she shot up and widened until she had transformed into a Siberian tiger. Her coat was a beautiful sunburnt orange that faded off to white and was patterned with black stripes that covered her furry body. A deep grumbling growl reverberated up her throat and she bent down ready to pounce.

With a feline shriek she ran forward and pounced with her razor sharp claws poking out from her heavy paws and sheer determination was imprinted in her eyes. Ms Avia ducked and whirled her hands around catching Sophia in the gut and throwing her off to the side. As all cats do, she landed on her feet and immediately began to shake. Where a tiger once stood, now a hard-skinned rhino grunted in its place.

“Remarkable” I heard Ms Avia murmur.

Sophia charged. Her heavy footsteps pounding into the ground making the vibrations shake my legs and practically everything else in the room. She lowered her head and her horn pointed dangerously at the centre of the statue. She rammed towards the statue but Ms Avia had clenched her hands in front of her.

The statue copied her movements and caught Sophia by the horn. This didn’t deflect Sophia however, instead she began to push. Using her strong legs she slowly marched forward and the base of the statue creaked, but didn’t break. Sophia snorted and took another step while tossing her head side to side to attempt to break the statues grip.

With lightening fast movements, the statue tossed Sophia down to the side and began to swipe at her. It managed to cut through Sophia’s shoulder and she let out a cry when all of a sudden... she was gone.

“What-where did she go?” I said automatically as my eyes scanned the area. A mumbled mixture of useless replies were murmured and I frowned. I had no idea Sophia could disappear like Cameron? Before we knew what was happening the statue began to shake and tremble and holes burst out from the inside.

We all stepped back and wondered what was going on when I realised there was a swarm of small insects buzzing in and out of the statue.

“No way!” Helena gasped.

“What is it?” I asked completely confused what was happening.

“Sophia transformed into a whole army of termites!” I looked back at the statue and saw that Helena was right.

“I had no idea that she could turn into more than one animal?” I exclaimed. I wondered to when she transformed into the tiger and the rhino and wondered why she didn’t change into several of those instead of just the one and shrugged.

I looked back and saw the termites had started marching down the statue and soon Sophia was back to her normal self. “That wood tastes nasty” she declared spitting to the side.

“That was brilliant Sophia!” Ms Avia declared.”Are you able to morph into several animals all the time?”

Sophia shrugged her shoulders and sighed, “I’ve been working on it. I can only do that with animals the size of rats and smaller. I’m working on the bigger animals though... so who knows?”

Bree went next and although I doubted she would’ve been able to do anything to the statue with her wind abilities she did pretty well. She fought the statue with hurricane fast winds that blew other items and equipment at it and while it did a large amount of damage to the rest of the room, the statue stayed intact.

Blake strolled forward and was amazing as well. He threw icy flame after icy flame at the statue and while Ms Avia was able to deflect the majority of it, he was too fast. I watched when the flames died and ice grew in its place and completely stopped any form of movement in the statue before he rolled a fireball the size of a basketball and shattered the entire wooden statue.

Ms Avia was clapping happily, looking almost like a proud grandmother when her grandchild walks for the first time, and her wrinkles deepened from her wide smiles. “That was splendid Blake! Wonderful effort! Now, last but hopefully not least we have you dear”

She was looking pointedly at Cara and I could practically hear her ragged breathing from the other side of the room. Her eyes widened and she shook her head from side to side violently. “No Ms Avia... I won’t use my abilities. I can’t control them and I... I just-I won’t...!” Unshed tears brimmed in her eyes and Ms Avia’s smiled dropped and strode across the room to wrap her arms around Cara’s petite figure.

“That’s alright sweety. I won’t force you, but just know that it is better to use and learn to control your ability than to be afraid of it” she told her gently. She stroked Cara’s blonde hair and soon she began to relax.

Cameron took over and sat her down while hugging her and murmuring comforting words. I shook my head in awe. Cara was seriously petrified. ‘Afraid’ wasn’t even a strong enough word to use and just the thought of using her abilities sent her into a tailspin.

“Well, this is definitely been an eye opener” Ms Avia exclaimed looking over the five Elementals, “All your abilities are magnificent and very unique. I can work with Bree and Blake with your abilities, teaching you to conjure weapons with your abilities like with the Abled. I will, however, need to think how I can help expand the rest of you... Sophia, I believe we could work with your ability to transform into multiple animals. That can be a start.

“Cameron... I could work on fighting skills with effective, you tend to take the obvious offensive attacks, and Cara... we can work on your confidence so you can learn to not be afraid of your ability before we even start seeing what you can do” Cara was already shaking her head and Ms Avia offered a kind smile. “If you prefer we can work alone so it’s just you and me and no one else can be harmed?”

Cara didn’t move, she thought about for a few passing moments before she sighed and shrugged her shoulders before burying her face in Cameron’s shoulder again. Ms Avia nodded her head and looked around the room. “Well, I suppose you all can help me clean the room now”

Her slouch reappeared and she no longer looked like a veteran fighter but like a frail grandmother again.

***

“So what do you have next?” I asked Blake once we left their Skills class. He looked down at his schedule and quirked his eyebrow.

“Gym? Are they seriously going to make us do gym? Like a high school sports thing?” He replied. I peered down at his schedule and looked at the class number.

“No Blake, it’s literally the gym. For second year Abled, and I guess your first year, we have a time allotted to the gym for strengthening. We have Combat together later and from what I saw last year a lot of people had a hard time with combat because they just didn’t have the physical strength”

Blake was nodding and we all headed down to the gym. “Tadpole... I highly doubt they need us to babysit them while they work out”

I smiled, “I’m sure they don’t Sparky. We’ll just drop them off then have lunch”

Derrek beamed at the fact that we wouldn’t have to follow them and watch them work out and tightened his hold on my hand. “Well, I might just spend some time back in the apartment” Helena added.

We dropped the Elementals to the gym and soon Helena separated to head back upstairs. “She’s been pretty antisocial lately?” Derrek noted as he watched her walk around the corner to the elevators.

“It’s the season. With all the snow and everything covering the grounds and the plants gone she feels a little weak most of the time. She likes to sit in her meadow and just... meditate I suppose” I’d asked her the same thing before and she explained everything to me.

It was surprising because she was the opposite of me. I felt more comfortable and a little stronger in winter and I never even thought of how it affected the other Abled. Derrek and I walked down corridors and I suddenly stopped when we happened to walk into the same hallway where I had my last meeting with Sarah last year.

Memories flashed through my head of when she burnt my face and body, rendering me unconscious, before I was dragged downstairs to be given to Malum. My hand flew to my left cheek and I could almost feel the singed and melted skin that once sat there before I was healed.

“Tadpole? Are you alright?” I looked up and my eyes crashed into Derrek’s golden orbs. I hadn’t noticed we stopped walking and a deep furrow between Derrek’s eyebrows showed how concerned he was for me at the moment. “You kind of just spaced out for a minute there?”

I cleared my throat and stroked my left cheek once more before letting my hand fall back down to my hips. “Yeah,” I whispered, “I was just having flashbacks. This was where I last saw Sarah... alive”

He sighed heavily and scratched the back of his head, “Yeah I know. I was thinking the same thing. We can go around the long way if you want?”

My eyes dragged over to the flight of stairs that curled down towards the basement and I shook my head. “No... I want to go back down to the basement. I just want to see the place where the secret entrance was collapsed. Facing my fear and all, you know?”

I looked back up at Derrek and he was frowning, “Tadpole, I don’t think that’s such a good idea”

“Why not?” Derrek’s demeanour had changed slightly and he wasn’t one to usually be all too cautious.

“... because I just think so” he edged the question. I knew he was lying and I wondered why he would be keeping something from me.

“Sparky... tell me, or I will bury you under a mountain of snow while you sleep!”

Derrek sighed and stared down at the stairwell choosing his words carefully, “What if you go down there and have some sort of relapse, Tadpole? What if something reminds you about being brainwashed or I don’t know! I just don’t think it’s such a good idea because of the memories down there. Even for me it’s painful to think about what you went through, imagine how it could be with you?”

I was surprised at how strongly he felt about this. I closed the space between us and wrapped my arms around his neck holding his head to face mine directly, “I didn’t realise you felt quite like that about it Sparky. It’s fine though, we won’t go down”

The corner of his mouth tilted into a thankful smirk but I could see the anger and pain while he thought about the horror that was seen down there. What he didn’t realise though, was that he didn’t even see half of the horrible sights that I saw while Malum tortured me into a hollow puppet for his bidding.

He had no idea of the horror that Malum was capable of.

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A/N

Sorry for a long wait.

Some of you know why I hadn’t written and updated ANY of my stories and thank you for understanding. Basically it’d been a long and exhausting week! I’ve had good excuses though!!!

1.       I’ve had a problem with a stalker. Yes, a legit stalker. And despite me being scared shytless because it was just me and my daughter at home it’s being taken care of because I’d been to the police, so fingers crossed that’s all it takes =S

2.       My daughter had another appointment with her cardiologist in the hospital an away and needed to be sedated just to have her ECGs done, poor thing. But good news is that we won’t have to see her cardiologist for another 12-18 months! =D

3.       My fiancé had an accident at work and fractured his wrist and elbow and now is off work for at least a week, maybe more, and I’m being the little housewife trying to entertain both my babies as well as cleaning and all that jazz. So by the time I get time myself... I pass out and fall asleep.

So I wrote this all this morning at 5am only to find out the internet is being a loser and had to wait to post it for you all. You all better love me, I swear. Hahaha! Also, don’t expect another upload at LEAST until next week because my parents are getting re-married for their 25th anniversary this weekend and I’ll be busy with that.

Thank you everyone for your patience and I will shut up soon because this is a damn long author’s note lol. Love you all!

Nix <3

PS. This is dedicated to @BenGhostblood =) Hope this makes up for getting into trouble for reading my story during class haha