Concord desperately threw a slab of earth up in front of him. He shot down into the ground a few meters.

Concord saw the fast-moving football slam into the wall and stop just before he got buried in the ground. Then he heard the second ball slam into the wall on the other side. He gave a sigh of relief. He had only seen the ball in front of him coming, so he had thrown up the wall so that it would give him time to get into the ground in case there was a second ball coming that he hadn't seen. He heard the other boys laughing.

"Concord? More like 'Coward'."

Concord's bright green eyes lowered. You needed to stand strong. Show them that you're not a coward. Why would you escape?

But he stayed calm as he put one hand to the earth wall directly in front of him. You can show them your strength next time.

Concord sighed. That's what you say every time. Then he stared straight ahead, unblinkingly, with his eyes never wavering from their point, and stamped on the ground lightly. At the same time, he made a small beckoning gesture upwards. Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet shot up, taking him with it.

As Concord arrived back at the surface, he lowered the earth wall that he had created. Though a more accurate description would have been "dropped", for the earth wall had simply fallen back into its place with a crash.

I suppose I still need to work on that a little more. Concord grimaced.

The bell rang for the start of class.

Seventy meters. Seventy meters from here to the Small Hall, where the classes are.

Concord looked towards the Small Hall and shook his head. There were boys at the edge of the field, taunting Concord, and slowly inching towards the small hall to show that even if Concord ran as fast as he could, he wouldn't beat them to the small hall.

Just run. Run as fast as you can. You can make it.

But Concord knew if he started to run, they would speed up.

Just do what you normally do. Just focus on getting to class on time. You can easily make it.

"They never learn, do they?" Concord sighed. He put his left foot forward and bent slightly. The other boys laughed, but he didn't hear them. His focus was razor-sharp, and nothing could break it. The green eyes stared forward once more, unblinkingly and unwaveringly. Concord flicked his wrists forward and immediately he shot off across the field. Concord moved across the field, almost faster than the eye could follow, the ground propelling him forward. A cloud of dust formed behind him as he went.

Concord made it to the small hall in thirty-five seconds.

Well, I definitely beat those boys to the Small Hall. Oh, no. Not again.

Concord couldn't slow down fast enough. The Small Hall was right in front of him. The people next to the door of the small opened it just in time before Concord slammed straight into it.

Concord shot into the room at full speed, just before the teacher announced that the class was going to start. There was a rope in the middle of the room, strung between two of the walls in the room. Concord sighed.

Every time he came shooting into the room, there was a rope there, for his classmates and teachers knew about his tendency to do so, and always prepared a rope to stop Concord. Concord did not enjoy stopping in this fashion.

Concord hit the rope. He flew up a meter and a half into the air, did a somersault, and attempted to make the ground into a marshmallow, so that he might land softly. But it was to no avail. As much as he tried, it was not something he was skilled at yet, so, as a result, he often failed at succeeding.

Concord slammed into the hard stone ground. He groaned as he looked around, the world spinning. He sat up and rubbed his head. Ow.

Concord stood. He swayed slightly, and put a hand on a nearby desk to steady himself. He blinked a few times.

The teacher cleared his throat. "Shall we start now?" He sounded somewhat annoyed.

Concord realized he had been standing there, staring into space, standing stock-still for a few minutes. "Oh!" He walked over to his desk. As he sat down, he absentmindedly rubbed his head. The teacher continued speaking. Concord yawned, as he had not slept well, and already he was tired from what had happened that day. Suddenly, a piece of stone came out of the wall. It was large and oval shaped. It slid out from behind the teacher and knocked him flat to the ground. Everybody gasped and immediately looked towards Concord.

Concord sat there, confused, for a few seconds. He hadn't done anything, just yawned. "What did I do?"

One of his classmates scoffed. "What do you mean 'what did I do'? You whacked the teacher over with a huge chunk of the wall!"

Concord slumped in his chair. "I did? How?"

"What do you mean 'how'?"

Concord sighed. I really didn't do anything.

Now a new voice spoke. "Concord, I think when you yawned, it caused that piece of stone to come out of the wall."

Oh. "I didn't mean to." Concord shook his head.

"Well, do something!!"

Concord didn't reply. He didn't have anything to say. He simply moved the stone off of the teacher and ran out of the room, full speed.

As Concord sped through the yard, he didn't dare to use his earthbending to move faster. But as he ran, he definitely noticed the earthquakes that his footsteps were making across the orphanage, always parallel to his position. Concord's footsteps were very light, lighter than most, but they still caused the earthquakes. Concord's boots were made soft to try to prevent the earthquakes, but in this case, it wasn't working.

Calm down. The only reason you're making earthquakes is because you're letting your emotions get the best of you. You need to stop using your powers as much and become strong.

People yelled and shouted, pointing to Concord as the earthquakes shook the ground, and mounds of earth shot out of the ground in random places.

Concord hoped that his boots would hold out against his run. His boots were tattered and colored light brown.They had probably originally been a deep, dark brown, but had faded over time. The boots went up to his knees. They were tied at the top with some gray string to stop the boot from collapsing. The very tops of the boots folded over the gray string.

As Concord ran haphazardly across the field, he felt himself being pulled to the east. He followed it. He thought he could see sand dunes in the distance. He shook his head. There weren't any sand dunes in this part of Zenaria. And there appeared to be writing on the dunes. Well, that definitely wasn't normal. But every time he tried to focus on it, it went away.

Nevertheless, I'm in Armain, which isn't close to any deserts. We're a more grassy, forested area.

Concord could see the teachers and students closing in on him on three sides. Concord's thick black hair was flying slightly in the wind. He also wore a small ponytail to contain some of his wavy hair. Anytime Concord attempted to cut it, it rebelled, and often broke the scissors after a certain period of time. Hence, the uneven-cut hairstyle, messy and wacky.

Concord sped into the east tower and slammed the door. He threw up an earth slab against it so that nobody else would be able to enter. Then he shot up, going up floor after floor until he reached the very top. He stepped onto the wooden platform and ran to the balcony. He looked over the railing. He was looking for the dunes. But he couldn't see them anymore.

Concord looked around once more. Then he sighed and turned away. Walking back into the tower, he spotted an old, worn-down couch. It was almost nighttime. He needed to go to sleep. The couch was a last resort. He looked out the window, only to see a crowd of angry people waiting at the entrance with nets, ropes, large sticks, and other inanimate objects that they could use to attack him with. Concord's eyes glowed in fear. The couch it'll be.

Concord immediately dropped to the ground and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes and put his hands on his knees. Then he meditated, trying to slow his breathing and heart rate from racing at top speed to something a little more reasonable.

Concord stayed in this position for a few minutes, until he was calm once more. Then he got up and moved to the couch. He dusted it off, thwacked it a few times to get as much dust out as he could, and looked around for a blanket. He couldn't find one, so he simply lay down on the couch, his arms wrapped around himself, and went to sleep. 

Concord woke up. He was freezing and his teeth were chattering as the cold breeze came in through the cracks in the walls. It was still very early in the morning.

His stomach growled. He shivered.

Dropping to the wooden floor, he picked up a few sticks that lay there and tried to make a fire. It didn't work. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make a fire.

Concord walked over to the window. Good. The horde of angry people aren't waiting for me anymore.

Concord hurled himself over the edge of the balcony, raising an earth pillar up into the air. He then stepped on it, proceeding to leap off the edge, into the air.

He summoned another pillar, this one a bit lower than the first. He stepped onto it, then leapt off.

He continued raising pillars, each one a bit lower than the last, into the air in front of him, until he reached the ground. He landed and took off towards the small hall once more.

However, there wasn't anybody around. This puzzled him. What's going on? Why is there nobody outside? Why can't I see anyone? Class certainly hasn't started in these small hours of the morning.

Suddenly, Concord heard shouting voices, followed by a shout for them to be quiet.

I wonder what they're discussing that's so secret, they have to whisper. I can't think of many things they would have to whisper about.

Suddenly, someone stuck their head out a window. A net flew through the air and covered Concord, pinning him to the ground. Concord heard a small shout of victory from the man in the window. He sighed. They'll never learn, will they?

He shoved his hands towards the ground. He shot into the ground, the net still on the surface. Then, pushing his hands forward, a tunnel opened in front of him, leading forward.

Concord sped through the tunnel, closing it up behind him as he ran. He continued running, gradually sloping the tunnel uphill, until he could hear the voices whispering. He stopped. But the voices were too faint to make out.

Concord placed his hands to the earth ceiling to check how deep he still was in the ground. He could afford to go a little higher. So he made a steep incline in front of him and climbed up. But the voices were still faint. He traveled forward a bit. Now they were clear.

"What should we do? The boy is dangerous. He will kill us all."

"More likely he'll get rid of all the teachers and have the students take over the school."

"We should kick him out." A new, higher voice spoke now.

"We should kill him. He has been recruited by an evil god to take over Zenaria. Now he is training on the teachers."

"That's a crazy, overblown theory. But I do agree that he could cause problems. We should kick him out, tell him to never come back again."

"Well, what are we going to do, throw him off a cliff?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should let the students decide. Either way, the boy with the crazy earth-moving, shifty powers has to go."

Concord decided he had heard enough. He dug back a little deeper into the ground and shot forward once more, to the dormitory he stayed in. He rose upward and burst through the ground of the dorm.

Concord grabbed a few things that he would need. Clothes, some water, and a small bag to put it all in. Then he dug back into the ground and sped to the kitchen using the tunnels. He took some food, leaving a note that read "Sorry" on the counter, because to him, stealing the food just didn't feel right.

Concord looked back at the orphanage as he stood next to the two tall trees that marked the entrance to the property. Goodbye. He mouthed the words, but no sound came out. He sighed.

Concord turned around, closed his eyes, and focused on the blackness far away. The dunes appeared in his vision again. He tried not to focus on them. He could just barely make out the words. It read "Denecay dunes." Concord opened his eyes and knelt by the tree. He felt the ground and searched for the location. He couldn't pinpoint the exact location, but he knew that it was somewhere in Moraindia. How he knew, he couldn't say. The ground had told him.

Concord stood once more and gave one final, sad look back at the orphanage. He then turned and ran as fast as he could across the thin wooden bridge which spanned the gorge that separated the orphanage from the rest of Armain.

Once Concord reached the bank, he steadied himself on the slab of ground on which he stood, pushed his hands forward, and shot forward.

Some time later, Concord encountered a large boulder sitting by a tree.

"How convenient." Concord smiled. His legs had been getting tired from standing against the full force of the wind as he sped along through the forest, weaving between and dodging trees.

Concord sat on the boulder, propelling it forward. To anybody watching, it would have been a strange sight. But Concord had been careful to stay in the forest, so that no one could see him. Unfortunately, this meant that there were quite a few trees to dodge along the way.

Right as he neared the edge of the forest, Concord's attention was diverted. He saw a trijalopy coming towards him. He gasped and shifted the boulder to the left. Too late, he noticed the huge tree which stood there.

Concord desperately leapt off the boulder, just before it smashed into the tree. The boulder shattered, its shards flying through the air.

Suddenly, one of the shards from the rock hit Concord in the head, having come from outside of his line of sight. "Ow-" Concord didn't get to finish. He slammed into the hard ground, unconscious.

Lynda saw Concord lying on the ground. She pointed, and the trijalopy stopped.

"Is he okay?" Lynda jumped out and dropped to her knees beside Concord. "He looks... dead." A worried expression crossed her face.

Her brother groaned. "He's not dead. He's still breathing. He's unconscious." He reached out to grab Lynda's hand, which was prodding and poking Concord to see if he would wake. "Obviously." He added.

"How was that obvious? Maybe people still breathe when they're dead. You don't know they stop breathing."

"Yes, I do..." the boy started to reply, "Never mind." He gave up his case. Then he knelt down and picked up Concord. He walked back to the trijalopy and placed Concord in the back seat. There.

The pair got back in and drove off towards a doctors office, Concord in the seat behind them.