Power Revealed (The Elementers) (8 page)

“I’d say the first thing we need to do is to make sure he can’t Wind Talk,” Rex stated.

“Yes, I agree it would be best to know before we make any decisions. Rex, would you attempt to Wind Talk with him?” the Chairperson requested.

“Right now?” Mr. Hamilton swallowed.

“Yes. Now,” the Chairperson responded in a tone that removed any argument.

The room turned their eyes to Rex who leaned back in his chair and focused his eyes on a spot on the far wall. Mr. Hamilton could feel the slight energy vibrations coming from the other side of the table.

Chapter 10

Mr. Hamilton’s substitute teacher turned on a boring film about the structure of atoms leaving Justin plenty of time to catch up on his near non-existent sleep.

“Justin Wilder. Justin Wilder.” A voice woke Justin up and he shot upright in his seat. He quickly looked at the teacher’s desk assuming the substitute had caught him sleeping. But the substitute teacher seemed pretty close to dozing off himself.

“Justin,” the voice called again. He felt the energy buzz through his body when his name was called. He turned to look at Raven who likewise stared at him with wide eyes. The look on her face suggested that she was just as surprised as he was by the incoming energy.

 “Justin, are you there?” the voice called out to him again.

“What?” Justin whispered under his breath. The guy in front of Justin turned around to look at him, but Justin immediately directed his eyes elsewhere and shrank down into his seat.

“Justin. My name is Rex Dryden. I’m a Wind Elementer. I knew your grandfather.”

In response, Justin mumbled “mmm hmm” under his breath.

“Justin. Is that you?”

Justin leaned forward placing his elbows on the desk and propped up his head by cupping one of his hands in front of his mouth. He whispered, “Can’t talk now.”

“Justin. I’m here with the Elementer Council and we need to ask you a few questions.”

“Call later,” Justin mumbled again in frustration.

“This is an important matter and we need to speak to you now.”

The irritating voice clearly wasn’t going to leave so Justin put up his hand. Thankfully, the teacher looked his way and Justin asked if he could go to the bathroom. Quickly exiting the classroom, Justin rounded the corner and looked to make sure no one else was in the hall. “Uh, Mr. —whoever you are, what are you doing in my head?”

The voice responded, “My name is Rex Dryden. I’m here in a meeting with Mr. Hamilton.”

“This really isn’t a good time. I’m in school right now and I look like an idiot talking to the air.”

“Justin. This is very important. I’m here with the Council.” The voice invading his mind wouldn’t shut up.

 “Tell Mr. Hamilton that I’m in the middle of his science class and his substitute teacher is going to wonder where I am if I don’t return soon.” As he spoke, a girl rounded the corner in front of him and looked at Justin like he was a little unbalanced. An idea came to Justin. While quickly walking down the hall and around another corner he pulled out his phone and pressed it against his ear. He’d rather get in trouble for talking on his phone during class hours than have people think he wandered the halls talking to himself.

But as Justin rounded the corner, he swiftly ran into someone. He looked up and realized it was the same guy he bumped into the other day. Great.

“Hey, you’re the loser who mouthed off to me the other day. There are no teachers nearby to stop me from teaching you a lesson,” the guy sneered.

Justin wasn’t afraid of taking a punch. He’d had his share when standing up to bullies. But this guy was huge and Justin had enough sense to avoid pain if he could. He began backing away from the enormous guy trying to think of a tactic to get away from him. But his backward progress was halted by something. He peeked behind himself to notice he had backed up into a drinking fountain. It gave him an idea.

“Justin, we need to talk.” Justin ignored the Elementer speaking to him and tried to connect to the water. He put his phone in his front pocket, placed his arms at his sides and subconsciously stretched out his fingers as if trying to touch the water. Reaching out his fingers likely didn’t make a difference, but it helped him mentally. Despite his efforts, he couldn’t make the connection. Maybe he needed to be touching the water. But that would look suspicious. The bully had a sadistic grin on his face as he closed the gap between them. He seemed to be taking his time, as if he enjoyed seeing the fear he induced in people. Just as the guy reached out to grab Justin’s shirt, Justin took a step to the left leaving the monster standing square in front of the drinking fountain.

With every ounce of desperation Justin truly felt, he urged the energy from his arms into the pipes of the fountain. Suddenly he felt something different. The energy flowed back. Without wasting a moment to think, or be punched, he envisioned or willed the water to burst forth out of the water fountain and toward the bully. The only problem was that it worked better than he expected.

Water first shot up toward the ceiling. Justin redirected it toward the guy, but the extreme water pressure caused the ceramic drinking fountain to begin rattling. Suddenly, it shot off its foundation like a cannon. Launching across the hallway, the large ceramic projectile missed the bully’s midsection by a few inches and smashed into the opposing wall. With the plumbing out of the way, the agitated water shot out like a fire hose directly at the football player. It flung the guy against the wall, landed him on his butt, and continued to pummel him with a steady jet of water preventing him from being able to stand up or even control himself enough to roll out of the way.

“Justin! Did you just channel one of the elements?” The Elementer seemed to yell at him in his head.

Justin backed away from the explosion of water. “How did you know?”

“That doesn’t matter. You need to be trained before you try using the energies. It’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. But it’s also dangerous to be pulverized by an oversized football lineman. Your call caused me to run into, and aggravate, the meat head, so I needed to do something. I told you it wasn’t a good time to talk.”

“You can’t go around flashing your powers.”

“I didn’t flash anyone. There was simply a small malfunction with the drinking fountain and the jerk happened to be near it at the time. He’s not going to think I magically made the drinking fountain break. He’s not that stupid. Well, probably not.”

Teachers and students were beginning to come out of the nearby classrooms to discover the cause of all the noise. “Look. I need to get back to class before I really get in trouble. Bye.” Hurrying down the corridor and around the corner, Justin quietly slipped back into his classroom. As he walked to his desk he could feel Raven’s eyes boring into his head. He didn’t bother looking her way. If the Wind Elementer had sensed his use of energy, he was sure Raven must have also. Great! He couldn’t wait till after class to hear it from her too. But a realization crossed Justin’s mind. Mr. Hamilton’s question had been answered. He was a Wind Elementer. Just like his grandpa. That could be interesting.

Chapter 11

Justin watched Raven’s long black hair swing behind her as he followed her and Mr. Hamilton through the forest Monday after school. A bird swooped down out of a tree and caught his attention. “Are we there yet?”

“Not much farther.” Mr. Hamilton turned his head back toward Justin while climbing over a fallen tree so thick that would take at least two people to wrap their arms around it. “Not many people come to this part of Larrabee State Park, but I want to hike in just a little further off the trail to find a good spot where we don’t have to worry about anyone seeing us practice.”

It wasn’t easy climbing over and around fallen trees, overgrown bushes, branch blockades, and more. But Justin enjoyed the hike, absorbing the rich scents and mosaic of sounds and carrying on casual conversation with Raven. Just when he thought he could do this all day, Raven suddenly stopped in front of him.

“There he is,” Mr. Hamilton said.

Justin noticed a small creek bubbling nearby and meandering through the forest. But he was surprised to see a man with a cowboy hat and huge silver belt buckle standing there in a clearing of the trees.

“Rex, I’m glad you were able to find my coordinates.” Mr. Hamilton walked up and shook the man’s hand. Then he turned to Raven and Justin. “Rex, this is Raven.” Raven waved. “And this is Justin Wilder. Raven and Justin, this is Rex Dryden.”

Justin remembered the name. “Yeah, we talked on Friday.”

“Hardly. You refused to talk,” Rex said.

“Only because you interrupted me in the middle of class. What was I supposed to do? You nearly got me beat up in the hallway.”

Rex stepped toward Justin. “So you went and used your powers right in front of someone. Your impulsiveness is a danger to us all.”

Justin took a few steps forward leaving only a couple feet between them. Despite having to look up at Rex, Justin glared at the man with clenched fists at his side. Mr. Hamilton nearly choked from the tension, but he nervously spoke up to redirect the discussion. “Justin. Rex is going to help you train today. He’s a Wind Elementer, so we’ll focus on Wind training today.”

“Fine.” Justin turned away from Rex and saw Raven smile in encouragement. If he had to be around some pushy wannabe cowboy, at least Raven would be there also.

Rex circled around Justin with an expression that seemed to be a mixture of irritation and anticipation. The way the Texan sauntered while wearing that cowboy hat made Justin think of a Wild West gun fight. Justin couldn’t suppress a chuckle. But from the look on Rex’s face, the Texan didn’t appreciate Justin’s light heartedness. Justin really wanted to tell the guy to ease up, but figured it would just make the guy more uptight.

A sudden gust of wind blew at Justin from behind nearly knocking him off his feet. He regained his balance and looked at Rex who stood there with a satisfied grin on his face. Justin tried to reach out to the wind energy, but he couldn’t seem to connect. It felt like grabbing air with his hands. It didn’t work. He wondered if it was the air’s lack of firm substance that made it hard to connect to it.

Another wind gust rushed him from behind and this time it threw him to his knees. His right knee screamed out in pain as it struck a large, sharp rock which cut through his jeans and into his knee. Justin pressed his lips together to prevent any sounds of pain from escaping his mouth and used his arms to help push him up and hide the fact that he was favoring his leg. There was no way he was going to give Rex the satisfaction of seeing he’d been hurt.

Angrily reaching out, he tried again to connect, but he couldn’t figure out how to grab hold of the air. A buzz of energy seemed to come at him a third time. Justin shot a huge wall of water at the oncoming wind. The liquid and wind collided causing an explosion of water in all directions.

“We’re training with wind, not water,” Rex said.

“Maybe you need to actually bother teaching me how to connect instead of just blowing hot air!”

“You know how to connect to earth, tree, and water. Connect to the air.”

“It’s not the same. You can’t grab hold of air, so how do I reach out to it?”

“You don’t grab hold of wind energy. You open yourself up to it and let it flow into you. Open up.”

What a useless teacher
, Justin thought. Taking a deep breath, he tried to relax. At least as much as he could while waiting for Rex to pelt him with a wind cannon at any moment. He felt the desire to reach out again, but resisted the urge, closed his eyes, and tried to open himself to the wind energy. It wasn’t long before he felt goose bumps spread across his arms. A coolness poured into his chest like thick syrup. It expanded within his rib cage and he waited to feel the pressure build up. Instead, he felt like his body had become part of the world around him and the energy continued to expand within him.

“That’s right,” Rex said.

Justin opened his eyes oblivious to the goofy grin on his own face. Seeing Rex in front of him wasn’t even enough to wipe it off his face. “Wow. That’s cool.” Justin thought he saw Rex’s face soften and almost smile. But he blinked and the stone face had returned. Maybe he just imagined it.