~Following Elora~
Elora runs her thumb over the mark on her forearm, trying to soothe the light tingle coming from it.
"Elora, can you please pay attention for once in your life" Mr Coffins snaps at the young teen scowling at her from his desk. Elora turns her attention away from the tingling mark on her arm to focus on the grouchy teacher.
"Sorry sir, it won't happen again" Elora responds, a timid energy noticeable in her voice.
Marelyn snorts from the seat next to her, turning her face into her book. Elora ignores this, focusing back onto her doodle filled workbook. Mr Coffins sighs heavily.
"Not only did I get another Truce sibling in my core class, but also her equally as absentminded best friend. Oh Klotsia what did I do to offend you?" Mr Coffins mutters to himself as he massages the bridge of his nose.
Marelyn puts all her energy into stifling her hyena esc chuckles. Pulling her pencil away from the rough overly round sketch of herself and Lauren, Elora spares Marelyn a droopy glance
"Quit looking at me like that, you make Matt's puppy dog eyes look like one of Laurens glares" Marelyn groans, all enjoyment gone from her face.
Whatever Elora was going to respond with gets immediately forgotten as a loud barrage of knocks echo through the core class room. Mr Coffins rolls his eyes so hard you'd think they did a full loop. The older teacher creaks as he exits his chair, stopping to stretch just before making his way to the door.
Elora flinches as she sees two figures standing at the now open door. Two scarily similar gingers standing side by side with near matching expressions look to Mr Coffins with impatience.
Mr Coffins' eyes widen in slight fear as he takes in the two standing in front of him. "Oh, hello Lauren. Axe-"
"Call me that and I freeze your lungs" Axel scowls, his eyes flashing dangerously. Lauren walks past the palling man and moves to stand over an equally scared Elora.
"You've got a catch up lesson. I've got help. We're going now" Lauren says, leaving no room for protest as she grabs Elora by her wrist and drags her out of the classroom.
"Alright, you've had your fun, now put away your hate boner. We've gots to go now" Lauren snarks as she walks by her cousin and out the door. Axel snorts lightly but comply's, following along after his little cousin.
As soon as they're alone in the hallway Elora tries to speak.
"Lauren, I'm so so-"
"Save it, we're not friends and I made the mistake of neglecting my assignment. Let's move on" Lauren cuts off the stammering Elora, letting go of her wrist as they exit the back of the building and begin to cross the grass field towards the gym.
Elora stays quiet, occasionally glancing at the older ginger who she recognises as the man she bumped into yesterday. She takes in the new sight of the gym as they enter through the reinforced doors.
Elora sticks behind the two older magic users, shying away as they approach the receptionist desk. Axel gives the bell two rings and waits a couple seconds.
Not even ten seconds later, the wall behind the empty chair cracks and stretches, forming a jagged person sized hole. A young woman with ashy blonde hair takes a hurried step through the hole just before it snaps closed again.
"Tanya? They've got you working as a receptionist in the gym as well?" Lauren questions, looking only slightly shocked to see the older woman. Axel's eyes widen in understanding and slight surprise at the name.
"Tanya, as in the school cynic Tanya? No way you're the Tanya that's been taking care of my baby cousin" Axel smirks, a slight chuckle to his voice as he looks at the two women. Lauren raises a questioning eyebrow as Tanya flinches away slightly.
"Oh, you know about that" Tanya mutters, taking a careful step back to sit on the creaky office chair. Lauren looks back and forth between her cousin and unofficial big sister. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops.
"Oh. My. Fuck… You two went to school together" Lauren states what should be a question as apparent fact. Her face splits into a grin, pure mirth present on her features. Elora snickers at the receptionists' embarrassment.
"As lovely as this reunion is, we've got business to attend too." Axel says, his smirk tightening slightly.
"Of course, I'm assuming you reserved an elemental room?" Tanya responds, sitting on the chair and swiping through files.
"T1E395 my old usual" Axel says, starting to get antsy. Tanya shivers slightly as she rumedges through a collection of keys sitting in an open container on the desk. A solid minute passes as three of the magic users watch the scatter-brained receptionist mutilate her hand in a hurried search for their room key.
Tanya finally grabs a key and pegs it at the group.
"There, you know where to find it" Tanya says hurriedly, getting up from the chair and drawing a rune on the wall behind her. The wall opens up again, showing the front office on the other side as she hurries through.
Elora blinks in confusion.
"So… what was that about?" she says, aiming the question at Axel. He just shrugs and begins walking at a brisk pace through the near empty gym. Elora and Lauren follow after the eldest of the group.
Two flights of stairs and two dying teenage girls later and they're finally at the entrance to a room with barely any equipment present.
"Are you sure-" Elora cuts herself off with a gasp for air. "-That we really need to do any more exercise then we just did?" Elora almost whimpers when Axel shrugs, he unlocks the door and drags them through.
"Why'd we have to go all the way here just for a makeup lesson?" This time it's Lauren who's whining, glaring at her cousin with pure contempt.
"This room is designed to handle Elemental magic, preventing damage being done to the rest of the school. You're in year 9 Lauren, you should already know about this" The older relative says, mock disappointment painting his tone.
Lauren thinks back to the Juno and Alexandrea incident from the previous week. "Yea, that makes sense" She nods in understanding.
Her older cousin smirks at the small victory.
"Lauren, I recommend you stand with your back to the wall if you don't want to die" He snarks, only slightly demanding. Elora flinches and backs up slightly, not liking the implication in those words.
Lauren takes a couple long strides and presses her back against the wall.
"I'm not taking any chances today" She says, a dark part of her somewhat revelling in Elora's fear.
Elora shakes her left arm, the slight tingling from earlier having worsened into a light burning. Axel glances at the shaking appendage for a second before turning his attention back to the task at hand.
"From what I know about you so far, you suck at controlling your magic. You seem to constantly cause destruction to your surroundings on a regular basis. At this point I could find a toddler with more control than you." Axel says, his sarcastic drawl indicating the lack of seriousness in his insults.
Elora identifies this, letting out a sigh of relief. Axel raises his hand and his eyes begin to glow, a cool breeze picks up and begins to dance between his fingers.
"Wait, you're an air elemental as well?" Elora says, confusion creasing her face.
Axel chuckles lightly. "Nope, I'm an ice elemental. But I'm of the Temperature category, meaning I can only generate and manipulate my element through lowering temperature. Because of this I've learned a few tricks to blur the lines between what I can and can't manipulate" Axel explains to the confused girl as the frosty air continues to dance between his fingers.
Suddenly the air condenses in his hand and he juts it forward, the frosty air shoots forward at breakneck speeds directly at a now shrieking Elora. The younger elemental ducks her head and crosses her arms in front of her face, just as she braces for the impact, she notices it never comes.
Confused, Elora peaks from behind her arms and notices two air currents violently blowing as a protective barrier in front of her. She sighs in relief as Lauren groans from the wall.
"Why'd you do that!?" the younger redhead shrieks at the older.
"You're one to talk little miss 'throws year 7 students through portals halfway across the school'" Axel snarks, paying his cousin little to no mind. He turns back to Elora.
"See, you only know how to react on instinct. Untrained abilities like yours could get someone killed when treated like that" Axel says to Elora, his tone indicating a kind seriousness.
"The main way we can circumvent this problem is by teaching you how to effectively perform the spell variants, this will remove the risk of accidents while giving you more control" Axel explains, allowing the temperature of the room to rise as he deactivates his magic.
"Hey Lauren, do you know any that Elora could use?" Axel directs his attention to his little cousin, trusting her to have read about this.
"I'm not an Elemental… but there is this one spell, it's defensive so the likelihood of any harm being dealt is quite low" Lauren says, sliding down the wall into a crossed legged position on the floor.
"Try Aerofrágma, It's fairly simple" Lauren shrugs, leaning her head back in boredom.
Elora nods, determination alighting her eyes. She places her hands in front of herself and takes a small breath. As she does this, a breeze starts to flow in front of her. Elora feels the mark burn against her forearm as she readies herself.
"Aerofrágma" Elora says, pronunciation slightly off. Her iris shines a dark forest green as the burning in her arm cools to a warmth that spreads throughout her body. The breeze in front of Elora begins to glow the same deep green as her eyes, the movement becomes less erratic and changes to move with purpose. The now visible green air in front of Elora begins to swirl around itself, forming a makeshift barrier of wind.
Lauren slowly claps from her place on the floor.
"Congratulations, you performed your first spell" Lauren sounds mildly impressed underneath her usual sarcasm. Elora's face flushes with embarrassment.
"I agree, now let's see how well it holds up" Axel interrupts, also sounding mildly impressed. The temperature of the room suddenly plummets, the moisture in the air begins to crystallise. Axel holds his hand out at his side, mimicking the same position from earlier. Similarly, frosty wind collects in his palm and forms an unstable sphere of frost.
"Wait!-" Elora exclaims, worried for her safety once again.
Axel throws his hand forward, shooting the frosty air at the now panicking Elora. The attack flies towards Elora, leaving a trail of snow dropping to the floor behind it. The frost makes contact with the glowing air in front of Elora and bounces off harmlessly.
It ricochets in Laurens direction, Lauren barely tenses before her own eyes glow grey. She swipes her hand at the quickly approaching attack and wraps it in smokey grey energy, it then gets thrown to the floor where it dissipates into a pile of frost.
"For the love of all that is caffeinated, can you please be more careful" Lauren groans, her magic dissipating as she sags from the effort.
Axel and Elora give each other a look as Lauren begins to doze off.
"Welp, she's out I guess" Elora says matter of factly, her face blank. Axel shrugs.
"Wanna try some offensive incantations?" Axel asks, a devious edge gracing itself upon his face.
"Lauren told us a defencive thingy so we wouldn't cause any damage?and how would I even know one?" Elora questions, slightly worried. Axel shrugs again letting out a noncommittal sound.
"Well, I do know some offensive magic that could work. Plus, Lauren's asleep, she won't worry because she won't know" Axel says, his features smoothing out to his usual expression.
"Okay?" Elora agrees, readying herself for another trial to overcome. Axel goes back to the space he was occupying initially and the temperature starts to drop again.
"The incantation is 'Dynamikoí ánemoi'" Axel says, his eyes glowing dangerously.
Elora takes a deep breath and ready's herself.
"Dynamikoí ánemoi"
Wind collects in front of Elora's outstretched hands, once again glowing that dark forest green. Instead of forming a protective barrier, this time it condenses into a near perfect sphere, only a few strays whipping out.
The projectile shoots off from Elora's grasp towards the older Elemental, no longer maintaining the appearance of a perfect sphere as it bends from the force. Axel is unfazed as the projectile approaches at incredible speeds, merely blinking as it hurdles towards him. Suddenly, Axel makes a light gesture with his hands. Ice begins to form and stack at speeds faster then the attack can approach.
The crystalline ice finishes forming a wall spanning from one end of the room to the other just as the projectile collides with it. The wall barely cracks from the attack before the wind dissipates.
"Congrats, you didn't kill me" Axel says, lacing his words with false pep.
Elora's eyes widen and she drops to the ground.
"That was a possibility!?" She screeches, re-thinking her choice to go against Lauren's advice.
Axel shrugs in response, his eyes turning to their natural hue as he wanders over to where Lauren is snoozing against the wall. He lightly kicks the sleeping witch, sending her tumbling to the ground.
Lauren's eyes snap open and she swiftly rolls to her feet. Her grey energy already dancing at her fingertips, poised to attack. Axel backs away with his hands raised in surrender.
"Calm down will ya, our allotted time in this room is already up and because I don't go to this school anymore, I have to pay outta pocket." Axel says, snarking at his younger cousin.
"And why would I care about draining your funds?" Lauren asks, tilting her head slightly.
"You shouldn't. But you do care about your education, and from what I can see." Axel checks his watch and feins concerned surprise. "You only have three minutes to get to your next class".
Lauren pales slightly then rushes out of the room, Elora trailing after her with equal panic. Axel strolls along after them. He drops the room keys in the bowl as they pass the front desk and head out the door.
He exits just in time to see Lauren drawing runes and infusing them with her magic, forming one of her swirling grey portals. She shoves Elora through then dives in, the portal dissipates shortly after their disappearance.
Axel takes a leisurely stroll towards the front gates, being permitted to stay for limited time, Axel has to leave. Just as he exits the gate he freezes and his gaze darkens.
"What are you doing here?" Axel asks, voice as cold as the very ice he generates. Standing in front of Axel, ready to enter the front gate, is a man in a plain black suit.
The man pushes a hand through his chin length undercutted black hair as he turns his sharp glare towards Axel. The black haired man's face contorts into a spiteful smirk, his eyes pinching slightly with the expression.
"Axel, funny seeing you here, I see you're just as frigid as I remember." The dark haired man says leaning forward slightly as he snarks at the ginger. He then switches to fake worry. "Oh sorry, is it Alex now? I forget." he continues as he stands back up straight, posture relaxed and amused.
"Quit fucking around and cut to the chase, What are you doing here, Luka?" Axel says, not an ounce of even feigned politeness present in his words.
"Oh Axel, you used to be so much more observant than that. It's that time of year again." Luka walks past the fuming Axel and into the school, stopping to slightly turn his head back to look at Axel one last time as he says.
"It's the annual inspection"