"You seem like you hit a bus," Luka said. "Or wait, that should be the other way round."
Nessa had slept albeit barely, due to a certain dream repeating itself, many times over. So now she was more than aware of how much of a mess she looked. She had met Luka that morning at the great hall like they had agreed.
"I didn't see you at dinner yesterday." Luka said as they walked to the Cafeteria. "Please tell me you were somewhere secretly making out?"
Nessa's eyes flared and she talked through gritted teeth. "Luka I swear..."
"Or at least a date," Luka interrupted before his sister said something that wouldn't be good for either of them.
Nessa pinched her nose. Her brother was slowly growing up albeit faster than she currently wanted. Nessa's parents were supposed to be dealing with this not her.
Soon, they were in the cafeteria and idly they walked to the seat they had sat on the previous day. Just before Nessa sat down she remembered how that seat had caused her problems. She scanned the hall and immediately found what she was looking for.
The three girls who had tried to bully her and Luka seemed to be having some sort of quarrel at a table as far away as possible from Nessa's. Nessa bit back a smile and slowly sat down on her seat. Luka did the same albeit apprehensively.
Nessa tried to order food. She had discovered the previous day that the tablets on the table were somehow used to get food. She tapped the screen and then like magic her plates were filled with as many un-spicy foods as her plate could hold. She knew she needed to eat as much as possible if she was going to perform at her best today.
"So what's up?" Luka asked after filling his plates too.
"I'm confused," Nessa said honestly. Luka never asked her what was up. He was always straight forward.
"How come you're the only one with an orange cursor?" Luka asked.
Nessa bit her lower lip out of habit. "I honestly don't know," then she tried to change the subject. "But I do know you and Lily seemed to be getting closer..."
Nessa ended the sentence with a furtive wink.
"Me and Lily?" As Luka laughed he continued. "You're kidding right?"
Nessa shrugged. "Maybe,"
"But forget about your orange cursor," Luka said "how are you so good at magic?"
"Me, good at magic?" Nessa sounded surprised.
Luka rolled his eyes. "Typical. Always trying to be humble."
"I'm not trying to be..."
"Umm excuse me," a voice interrupted.
It was the freckled girl from the previous day. She fumbled her thumbs as she casted a furtive glance in the direction of her friends.
"I'm sorry," The girl finally said, "For all the trouble we...no I caused you yesterday."
The girl had rushed her words like she was trying to get something off her chest. That, coupled with the fact that the girl seemed to be flushed and couldn't even meet her eyes, almost made Nessa think the girl was serious.
But Nessa wasn't an idiot. She was certain this was some sort of scheme to get back at her for the previous day's conflict.
"Apology accepted," Nessa said after swallowing a waffle. "Now you can go."
"Whoa sis," Luka said. "Calm down. She just apologized."
"I know, and I said apology accepted."
Luka shook his head like he always did whenever his sister proved to be unsociable. And Nessa pinched her nose like she always did when she thought his brother was being an idiot.
'Open your eyes Luka,' Nessa thought 'she has a hidden agenda. They always do.'
"What's your name," Luka asked the girl.
"Amaya," She said and for some reason she didn't look as ferocious as she did yesterday. She could have almost passed for beautiful.
"Amaya," Luka said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Luka. Did you want to seat?"
Nessa watched as Amaya sat down and talked to Luka about multiple things. Just when Nessa thought she couldn't take it anymore, the bell rang, marking a change of activity.
"I've to go now," Amaya said to Luka mostly, before striding towards her clique of girls.
Nessa watched them for a few seconds before turning to Luka "You know she doesn't mean anything she said right? She obviously wants to get back at us..."
"Not everyone is trying to kill you Nessa." Luka said before leading the way to their first class for the day. It was Elements class, and Professor Hund was already in class when Nessa got there, although she wasn't late.
She slowly remembered how the Professor had been in the office the previous day and how he acted weird as he left.
Moments after Nessa sat on her wooden desk, the class began.
"How many of you can successfully expel Ki now?" Professor Hund asked.
Ten people in the class raised their hands including Luka. When had he been able to do it? Nessa asked herself, barely suppressing a smile.
Professor Hund shook his head as he sighed. "Only ten of you; anyway it doesn't matter. Now I'm going to teach you how to expel a certain element. But before that, there's something you must understand."
Professor Hund paused before asking. "How many of you have watched Avatar?"
More than 50% of the class raised their hands.
"The cartoon," he added and then only few hands remained, Nessa included.
'This is going to be harder than I expected.' Professor Hund thought.
"Ok, forget about Avatar, I'm just going to explain as best as I can. There are six elements, which you already know, and you should also know that each of these elements can be found around us. Fire, air, water, darkness, light, earth, they are all around us but..." a darkness ball appeared on Professor Hund's palm "I summoned darkness, but is the room currently dark?"
Everyone shook their heads then Professor Hund summoned a gust of wind as he said.
"I just used air but is there air around me?"
Nessa nodded, as she tried to understand what the professor was trying to say.
"What I'm trying to say is," the Professor heated, "there are elements that are easier to form with just your Ki, and there are elements that easier to manipulate by manipulating that element around. I manipulated air, I used my Ki, but I didn't produce air from nothing. I used the darkness element, I also used my Ki but I produced it from nothing but my Ki. Do you understand?"
Everyone stared at the professor and it took him quite an effort to stop himself from yelling 'You fools.'
"Alright," he said. "This is the last time I'm going to explain this. If you don't get it after this, I'm afraid you're going to have to figure it out on your own." He breathed deeply. "There are six elements. In order to do magic, you must expel your Ki, but it's up to you, whether you want to produce an element from just your Ki or manipulate the element that already exists around you."
Professor Hund held a ball of earth in his hand. "I just used my Ki to form earth," he said. Then he moved his hand causing a chunk of earth to erupt from the floor. "And I just used my Ki to manipulate the earth in the surroundings."
'Oh,' Nessa said internally, finally understanding. 'Each of the six elements exists in nature, but during the process of doing magic, you could either bend nature itself or create something out of...'
"Of course," Professor Hund said, interrupting her thoughts. "I'm sure you guys think it would be easier to manipulate nature than out rightly forming an element. Well you are right and you are also wrong. To explain better, I'm going to divide the elements into two groups: A and B.
"In group A, we have fire, earth and light. While in group B we have water, air and darkness."
The Professor paused waiting for the students to grasp what he had just said. Moments later he continued.
"Elements in Group A, are easier produced with Ki than manipulating them in nature. While elements in group B are the reverse. Meaning it is significantly easier to manipulate darkness around you, than produce darkness with ki." Professor Hund threw a furtive glance at Nessa. "Unless darkness is your fundamental element, in which case it would be easy to do both."
Nessa now completely understood what the Professor was saying. Some elements are easier formed than manipulated while others are the exact opposite. For elements in Group B, it would be significantly difficult to form them, unless an element in the group is your fundamental element.
Nessa had a question so she raised her hand. "What if someone has a fundamental element in Group A?"
"Excellent question," Professor Hund said smiling. "Then that person would find manipulating the element in nature just as easy as forming it. For instance, my fundamental element is fire. As easy as it is for me to form a fireball, it would also be easy to douse all the candelabras in this room."
Suddenly the room went pitch black and moments later all the candles lit up again.
Professor Hund had a maniacal look in his eyes. "That been said, or done, we move on to our major topic for the day--fire."