Chapter eighteen

All eyes moved to the group of Elementals standing behind Coach Shulk and Mr Obsidian. I could just hear the thoughts running through everyone’s mind.

I wonder what’s so great about them?

I wonder what they can do?

How can we fight against abilities so different than ours?

How do their abilities differ to the Deviants?

How can we be sure we can trust them?

I knew there were some Abled that would still have some trouble trusting the Elementals. Even after learning beside them, living in the same campus and even hearing from the dean and The Control that they weren’t a threat there will be people who will second guess the loyalty of the Elementals. But they would understand the hatred the Elementals hold against Malum – never. They don’t understand that while the Abled are afraid of what Malum can do, the Elementals aren’t; they’re ready and waiting until they can defeat the man who experimented on them and still has one of their dearest friends captured with him.

As I looked over the faces of the Elementals I realised that they no longer looked nervous or anxious about being stared and gawked at by hundreds of Abled students. They looked determined. I could almost see the click in their heads where they realised that they were the key to teaching everyone how to defeat the Deviants and, ultimately, Malum.

“I’ll go first” Cameron spoke up when no one else did. “My name is Cameron and I have two distinct abilities”

Without saying anything further Cameron smirked and vanished into thin air. Since I was already used to seeing Cameron disappear I found it extremely amusing when the majority of the Abled students gasped unanimously.

Where did he go!

Ho-ly crap!

Those gasps were cut off and new ones started, however, when an entire set of metal bleachers were lifted into the air. All the students on the rows of bleachers that were hovering in the air were panicking, yet trying not to move, and I bit my lip as I tried not to laugh. Derrek, on the other hand, chuckled darkly next to me as we watched the students slowly calm down. Cameron suddenly appeared underneath the floating bleachers and had a crooked smile on his lips. Very slowly and carefully he leaned down and dropped the set of metal benches down back in its spot.

He nodded and walked back to the group with loud applause in his wake. One by one, Blake, Bree and Sophia demonstrated their abilities, some of them (like Bree) used their abilities on students to show how strong their ability can be. When it came to Evanesce and Chimera I was curious to see everyone’s reaction considering no one else besides our group and Mr Obsidian knew their abilities.

“My name is Chimera”

“And my name is Evanesce” They introduced themselves as they stepped forward. “We were experimented on together by Malum. We’re not sure if our abilities are an outcome because of how close we are as best friends, and we’re not sure if Malum has experimented on other people to have the same or similar abilities-“

“... but what we can do is a little different to the others. Together our abilities are strong and unique, but only together can we use them. We cannot use our abilities as two separate Elementals, it’s as though we both have our own... yet they only work when mixed together”

Having vaguely explained themselves, the shadow girls swirled around and darkened to turn into the shadow. The shadow cried out a hollow roar and swiftly flew across the gym under the shadows of the bleachers, only to resurface on the other side of the gymnasium. They demonstrated their teleporting skills before quickly cloning themselves over and over and over until shadows were flying around everywhere. There were dozens of them, maybe even close to a hundred, but just as quick as they appeared, all the shadows suddenly disappeared. With one last hollow, airy roar the shadow swirled around like a fog and split down the middle to reveal Chimera and Evanesce once more.

The two shadow girls received the loudest applause so far with loud whispers of excitement and awe. It seemed that with every Elemental that stepped forward to demonstrate their abilities, the more excited and thrilled the students became. As though they thought the abilities were getting better and better.

By the time it came to Michelle and Leah, the students waited animatedly. They stepped forward together and Michelle began to speak. “My name is Michelle, this is Leah. Out of this group of Elementals standing behind us, we were last to be experimented on. We’ve seen how big an army Malum has been creating, and we know for a fact that he is deluded and mental... wanting nothing more than to destroy the lives of Abled society and replace them with a new race that could be under his control.

“However, not all of his experiments work out. Many, many people died in the process – some quite horrifically. At first he experimented by mixing abilities together, but he soon realised there was more he could do. He mixed abilities with animals and soon he was creating half animal species! Leah, is an example of this. Her appearance is clearly human, she understands me and everyone else but she no longer has the ability to speak. The spots and characteristics are all purely like that of a leopard”

Leah sauntered forward and growled lowly; her animal-like eyes darting from face to face. Just like the demonstrated for us earlier in my apartment, she ran and pounced on the bleachers, scaring a few girls so much they fell down a couple of rows. Derrek also found this quite hilarious.

Leah strolled back to the line and Michelle took in a deep, shaky breath before slowly removing her scarf from her hair. “Some of us were only half successful. My abilities, for example...” She pulled the scarf off and showed her natural hair flowing down her back, “... my abilities are unstable. They’re not always controllable, but I think that in time they might be”

Done with explaining now, Michelle closed her eyes and concentrated hard. She rolled her lips in and her hair began to change into metal strands. Starting from the roots, every strand hardened and turned to a metallic grey all the way down to the tips.

She opened her eyes and straightened her posture. As she did, her hair lifted up as though her metal tresses were the snakes of the mythical Medusa. They grew high and spread out like they had a mind of their own, it looked quite otherworldly. She shot her hands forward and her hair followed suite, darting ahead and wrapping them around my waist before lifting me up into the air.

I was barely hanging in the air for five seconds when her hair started to look less solid. It flickered and suddenly I landed on my feet just as Michelle’s hair shrunk back to normal. I smiled at Michelle and she shrugged lightly. “As you can see, my ability is unstable. What you need to realise though, is that while there were many others like me whose abilities weren’t stable... Malum didn’t keep them. He didn’t create an army of faulty Deviants. He either left them to die or killed them, while he kept and continued to create stable, strong and unique Deviants. I happen to know that there is another Deviant that he keeps close who has the same abilities as mine, except that her hair is completely metal and she has full control over it. But Malum has full control over her”

Michelle stepped back with the group and let the gymnasium fall back into a chaos of chatter and gossip. Memories filled my mind with the metal haired Deviant back at the Stinger hideout. Medusa. Yes, that was quite the fitting name Malum called her. I could still feel the thin metal hair strands practically branding me as they dug into my dehydrated skin-

“Tadpole... Tadpole, you okay?” I snapped out of my daydream and looked to the side to see Derrek looking worriedly down at me. “You look a bit... strange. A little bit pale. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m alright. Just had a bit of a flashback when Michelle carried me. The other girl, the Deviant, I saw her a fair bit when I was locked away is all”

Derrek clenched his jaw and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, tugging me flush against his side. “She’ll never touch you again, Tadpole. I’ll melt her hair off before I let that Deviant hurt you again” I couldn’t help but smile.

Mr Obsidian called for quiet once more and looked down to Derrek, Helena and me. He waved his fingers in a ‘come here’ gesture and we all stood up to walk towards him. He turned to face the students, “So now you’ve all seen a few abilities of the Elementals. As you saw, they all differ greatly and each has their own special strengths. But, just like with us and our abilities, their abilities and therefore the abilities of the Deviants, have weaknesses. What Derrek, Helena and Valerie are standing here for is to show us how our skills can be use as against theirs as well. Keep in mind that Malum have Deviants with abilities we don’t even know about!”

“Mr Obsidian is right” I found myself saying out loud. I wasn’t planning on talking too much, but it seemed as though my mouth had other plans. “When Malum captured me, I spent weeks in a dungeon being tortured, not just daily, but almost hourly. Don’t forget that Malum is a Stinger. Our generation have never experienced the abilities that Stingers possessed, but I can tell you right now it is the most horrible experience you could ever imagine. He has an army of Deviants, but he also has his own defence and that defence is a strong and painful attack to your mind. He literally, gets inside your head”

We spent the next few hours showing each of our skills against everyone of the Elementals. It was a long process, and very tiring too. Sometimes we mixed it up and united our abilities together to fight the Elementals. A particularly affective one was when Derrek lit Helena’s vine whips. As she swung them around to defend herself against the icy blue flames of Blake, a thick fog would appear with every hit. She cracked the whips from both hands and the fire whooshed along with the snaps. We taught them to not just attack, but use their abilities as a good defence; use them to cover and hide themselves, not just keep attacking.

“Fantastic job, you three” Mr Obsidian beamed. “You went way beyond what I was expecting from you today”

***

“Val! Wait up!”

The longest ever combat class had finally finished and I was exhausted. After the three of us demonstrated with the Elementals, Mr Obsidian wanted us to instruct the others while they had goes challenging the different Elementals. I turned to see Colin running up to me and I smiled. He was such a quirky character and so outspoken, but not in an egotistical way.

“Hey Colin, is everything okay? You did really good back there” I greeted him.

“Oh yeah, everything’s fine. I just want to see how you were. It’d been ages since I last saw you and after hearing what you said about what you experienced when you were captured...man, I don’t even know. You’re one tough girl, Val”

“Thanks, Colin” I was surprised at his compliment. Was I tough? I didn’t feel like I was, for as long as I could remember I would break down and cry for many situations...  a lot. “But I’m totally fine. I’m just glad to be back here”

Behind me the rest of the group were waiting and throwing Colin curious looks. He looked behind and smiled, waving at them. “That’s good. Hey everyone... great stuff with the demonstrations, I was totally wowed at the abilities to the new Elementals. Crazy stuff! And Bree, when you actually flew around the gym and then made a mini tornado to pick me up and spin me around, that was brilliant!”

His enthusiasm was contagious and soon all the Elementals were grinning at him while Bree laughed. “Well, you seemed pretty keen to be the test dummy for the ride, even when I warned you that I hadn’t practiced doing that safely”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’ve fractured my behind, but it was worth the flying lesson!” He joked. “Well, I’ll let you guys go. I’m going to be late for my next class! Bye!” Colin waved one more time and was soon dashing down the hallways without another glance.

“You don’t think I actually fractured his behind, do you?”

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A/N

This one’s a little shorter, but it’s midnight and flippin’ hot and I have the world’s most consistent headache ever!

I do apologise, I just wrote this all out straight and my head can’t handle editing it right now. So sorry for any mistakes I made!

Also, in case you didn’t know... I’ll be studying nursing this year so *sigh* yes, I shall be busy busy busy! In Australia, the school year starts in January or February (depending on the school) and ends in November (also depends on the school/what you’re studying etc) so I’ll be starting next week!

Wish me luck guys!

Love you all,

Nix <3

PS. You all rock my jocks.