The Elementals: The Dawn of New Abilities

Chapter 6

Chapter six

The satisfying sound of knuckles cracking filled the air as Helena, Derrek and I walked down to Combat. I was actually quite excited to see how everyone had improved this year and apparently so was Derrek. He cracked the knuckles on his other hand and shook both hands out while a smirk crept onto his firm lips.

“I am so ready to get back at Blake for freezing my coffee this morning” I heard him murmur. I chuckled and rolled my eyes. Will those two ever give up? They could possibly be best friends if it wasn’t for the 24 hour need to kill each other!

I saw the Elementals down the hallway, reaching the doorway to the gym arena, and I wondered how they would go when it came down to facing the rest of the Abled in combat. They stopped just outside the door and by the time we reached them I could see the flicker of uncertainty in all their eyes.

“Don’t worry guys... it’ll be fine. Usually we just have partners and practice what we learnt in Skills or have some sort of ‘last man standing’ version of hide-n-seek, I suppose” I looked at them, my eyes filled with certainty, “It’ll be fine”

I nodded my head towards the door and allowed them to walk through first before following afterwards. “You’re babying them” Derrek pointed out and I rolled my eyes, bumping my shoulder against his, feeling the heat from his body surge through from him to me.

“Better than saying, ‘get the hell in there you whiney babies!’” I joked.

I turned my head forward and was surprised to see the arena had changed since last year. Where there once had been a clear separation between the four different sections of desert, forest, lake and infirmary there was now stadium-like benches all around the circular arena. Dead centre was a large box that was probably two thirds the size of the whole gym arena and reached up to the ceiling. It was made of foggy glass and the edges were held together with studded metal while one side was devoted to a control panel.

“What the...?” I heard Derrek say. That pretty much took the pathetic words out of my mouth.

Slowly we made our way to where the rest of the students were sitting and sat a little off to the side. I could see the eyes of the Elementals dart from face to face of the Abled and back to the giant glass box, taking in everything from their surroundings. I quirked an eyebrow when I noticed a few of the girls eyeing Blake and Cameron before I shook my head in amusement.

I really didn’t see that coming.

Who would’ve thought that over the span of a holiday the girls could go from treating the Elementals like lepers to seeing them as ‘like, oh my God total hotties’. I could feel my eye twitch at even thinking of talking like that and an involuntary shiver made its way up my spine. Our biggest problem would be trying to keep them away from Cameron.

Cameron was too nice of a guy. He was tall and very muscular, even his ability proved him supernaturally strong, but he seemed to lack in the department for saying ‘no’ to the girls. Even if he didn’t want their attention.

Thinking of Cameron made my mind drift to Cara. From what I was able to see, her ability was incredible! Her ability was unbelievably tough and unlike anything I’d ever seen before, but her personality seemed as though she had been sucked dry of self-esteem and confidence. She was quiet as a mouse in a crazy cat lady’s house and was absolutely adamant about not using her abilities at all.

My thoughts were cut short when Coach Shulk stomped into the gym arena blowing her whistle loudly making it echo off the dome ceiling. She was as burly as ever and I wouldn’t be surprised if she spent her Christmas holiday weight lifting trucks. She spat out the silver whistle and it dangled on its string around her neck before she began to yell loudly.