The Great

I woke up and found myself back inside my sleeping quarters. The Professor was at my side and he was sitting on a chair with a slight scratch on his left cheek. He saw me wake up and sighed with relief. “Well that was one way to do it,” he gave me a glass of water—which I drank quickly.

“Did I win?” He gave me a laugh and told me the news.

“Well I teleported away at the last millisecond, but not before a small part of my face reached the ground. So no, but considering how I probably would have lost if you had just cut it closer….I’ll give it to you.” I sat back in my bed and nodded.

“That’s not really a win but I guess it’s better than a loss,” he got up and stared out of the window.

“When I was very young, I had two siblings–a brother and a sister. You saw my pictures right,” my heart dropped. He chuckled slightly, “Don’t worry, I don’t mind. Me and my siblings always fought. Since I was the oldest child, they always did everything in their power to annoy me. I bossed them around and we always competed in various different things. My siblings could never beat me at anything they tried but that never stopped them from well…trying. What I’m trying to tell you is that there will always be someone that has lost more than you, fought more than you, and therefore knows more than you. You must learn from your failures, Evay, that I require of you.” I nodded. He turned around and spoke in a lighter tone.

“Well good news. You’re going home. Classes will start again tomorrow,” I looked at him and had to process what he had just said for a second. I jumped up off the bed and my face lit up with joy. “Really! Nice, thanks for the news Professor and thanks for uh….everything,” he gave me a small smile and motioned me to the door.

“It’s dinner time so go out and eat something. You’ve improved a lot in your sparring sessions. Probably since we spared six hours a day for ten days straight but that’s besides my point. I think you’re ready to actually try some of this in class. Your secret about your blueprint will stay safe with me—unless of course you wish to tell somebody.”

I looked at him with gratitude and he seemed to get the message. We walked out the doors and I was issued out of the hospital. The campus grounds looked the same as they had a month ago but it all looked so much more vibrant. I hadn’t seen any of this in a month and it was nice to see other students wandering around me.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t forget your homework for your other classes is due next week”, the Professor winked at me and teleported away.

Let’s go home.

Geon Leventen: “Hey was this class always this hard or is it just me? Just me, fu—,” Deven mumbled to himself as I pulled him away from the blast of molten magma that arose from the floor. Professor Vylen’s class didn’t just involve sparring now, so it was technically harder.

We were in a ravine type environment with major obstacles and traps that were being fired at us from every angle. The rough stone walls seemed to look like an impending symbolism of doom as its cold color amplified the ravine’s massive scale.

We looked up and the walls of the ravine seemed to go up forever. I wasn’t even paying attention when I looked up and had to stomp my feet to create several large earth-spikes. They jutted out of the earth and shattered another boulder that was thrown at us. “Geon, give me something to stand on!” I heard Aurora yell before her hair turned a violent blue color and marking laced her arms.

I willed the metals inside the rock to bend to my wishes as a platform came out of the side of the wall. “Hop on!” Deven and Nila stepped onto a platform that I had summoned out of the ground. I closed my eyes and willed the air around me to lift our mini-space ship upwards. We arose and began to race towards Aurora. I had to fully concentrate on the battle at hand. Controlling two elements to do different things at the same time was a little harder than just controlling one but it wasn’t too difficult. I closed my eyes and took a breath. Balance the two before you take control.

I concentrated and began to pull the two elements further into my control. It was like reeling in a large catch of fish—except there were two catches of fish, and you had to use both arms, and two fishing rods, and you were catching some big ass fish. The forces of the elements began to slip away before coming right into my hands again.

Push, pull, push, pull….Aurora was clearing a path with her lighting. She ran along my pathway while sending volts to vaporize any debris flying into our faces. She gracefully stepped off the platform and began to run along the vertical walls themselves. A large log was shot out of a waterfall—like a giant, high speed, very long, all natural cannonball. Aurora kicked off the wall and blasted towards the log. I heard the sound barrier break as a sonic boom echoed from her leap. The wall behind her practically shattered as she dove through the log like a human torpedo. She landed again on the other side of the ravine, and I summoned another platform for her to run on. She began to get back to work, diving, dodging, and preventing any debris from hitting us.

I made us go a little faster. We were almost out of the ravine and I didn’t want to miss our chance. Aurora was slowing down slightly and I knew Deven was trying his hardest to add momentum to the ship. Our other partner Nila, wasn’t looking too good at the moment…Nila’s powers were connected to her emotions. Whatever she was feeling, she could harness the power of it. The ability was frightening, but she couldn’t use it very often. When she did use them, she would usually fall asleep for a while–which was why she was slumped on the back of our platform.

“Aurora get on,” I hollered over the sound of rushing wind and explosions. We were nearly to the exit point and Aurora needed to come with us. She kicked off the wall and landed next to me.

“How are we going to get this thing past the finish line? We can’t just keep going at this speed to break through the liquor screen.”

“That’s why I’m gonna add a blast at the last second. Combined with your electric firepower and Deven’s last bit of strength we can make it,” she looked at me for a second then nodded. I looked ahead and steeled my nerves. I increased the flight speed and we kept getting faster, and faster, and faster.

My heart pumped as the rush of wind reminded me of my flights through the high night sky. The roaring wind shattered my ears and the world turned into a blur. I heard a sonic boom and my classmates were holding on for dear life.

“Here goes nothing.”

I grit my teeth and push through. Not yet, not yet, not yet….

Now.

I turned around and held out my hands–releasing a giant blast of smoke and fire behind us.The explosion gave us another large boost, and the platform went crashing through the shimmering transparent screen. We zoomed into our normal stadium and were immediately caught by a golden net—which had an impossibly soft touch. It canceled out all our momentum and we landed with a loud thud. The stone slab which served as our flying platform crashed onto the floor behind us. Our classmates cheered and we saw Professor Vylen give us a thumbs up. I saw Aurora crash onto her back and breathe a sigh of relief. Deven and Nila high fived each other while I felt ready to take a long nap on the ground.

The liquor screen which we had come out of was more like a portal. Its frame was hexagon shaped and the screen’s red color gave it an ominous look. These infamous portals could generate very intensive battle courses with the right people working on them. They were often used for official warriors only but since we had a tournament coming up, we were given special access. We had gone through the course last, and had got the fastest time. Lila was on the team that got third and me and Aurora went to go tease her about it. “Deven, I hope you can look after Nila and also—good work today.” Aurora gave him a slight pat on the back before meeting up with me. I saw him blush a little and he turned away to scoop up the still sleeping Nila.

Nila was quite small but she didn’t really need to have any physical ability for her skills anyway—so it didn’t really matter. She had big brown eyes and extremely long light-brown hair that went all the way down her back. She was thin from top to bottom and always had a big smile on her face. I had always thought that if Evay ever had a sister, she would look just like Nila.

Speaking of Evay…I wondered how he would think about Deven getting a crush on his girlfri—I mean…his also, kind of, not really, very close crush and or friend. Evay had been gone for a month now and he was staying at rehab a lot longer than they said he was supposed to be.

You're about to get your girl stolen….come back man.

I couldn’t really tell what Aurora thought of him, but personally I never felt that way about her. Even if we were spending more time together as the premier students in our classes, I never really saw her as a love interest. When I first met her I remembered her face and visuals pretty quickly. She had auburn hair which was mixed with some gold and she was pretty tall. She looked more irritated than angry a lot of the time and she seemed fierce. I never thought that I would be spending a lot of time with her but once I got to know her, she wasn’t so scary and cold, “Thanks for the save by the way. And no problem for the platform I know, I’m the best, stop praising me! You’re too kind,” she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but I recommend trying not choose the smoothest part of the canyon wall possible for our ride. Flying is pretty hard as it is, at least for us,” she smiled slightly and spoke in her usual calm voice.

“Oh yeah I forgot you guys can’t fly,” Aurora laughed but this time it wasn’t a joke. I genuinely forgot people didn’t usually fly. We finally saw Lila’s hair stick out in the crowd and we went to get her. She was laughing with her teammates before she said goodbye and joined us. We didn’t have any more classes for the week so we were free–at least for the evening.

“Oh well look. As if it isn’t Ms.Third-place,” Aurora sarcastically rubbed our victory in and got a small punch from Lila because of it.

“Hey any news on Evay? Professor Vylen sent me a letter that said he should be getting out this week.” Me and Aurora both shook our heads.

“Wait, you get mail? From the Professor?” I looked at her with confusion.

Lila laughed, “Yeah. You do too, it’s just that you don’t ever check it,” huh, she does have a point.

We walked back to the dorm rooms and enjoyed the nice evening skyline,“You guys want to take a walk tonight. We have nothing else to do.” Both Aurora and Lila nodded as we opened the door to our living quarters.

Aurora and Lila suddenly both stopped in their tracks and I ran into them because of the sudden stop. “Guys, tell me when you're going to try and make me body slam myself into your shoulders beca—” I stopped in my tracks too. My eyes slowly drifted to the figure on the couch and his cheerful eyes.

Evay was sitting on the couch, eating the last container of strawberries that we had left.

“So, miss me?”