The Fifth Element

“What the hell!?” I growled as I pulled the rest of my shirt up to expose the remaining portion of my stomach. Spiraling out from my belly button and across my entire stomach was and intricate spiral tattoo. I licked my finger with my tongue and began desperately rubbing it against the ugly thing, but to no avail.

“Please don’t tell me this is permanent,” I said more to myself than Henry.

Henry let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s not like people are going to see it.”

“Well, what about me? I’m going to see it every day when I get dressed in the morning, or when I take a shower. Oh, and I guess I could just kiss bikinis goodbye altogether, thanks a lot of jerk!”

“It’s not like it was my decision to do this to you, it’s the school board’s decision, as well as the the magic counsel.” Henry pressed his fingers to his temple for a second, before removing them. “It’s a way to ensure that we don’t have another crazed necromancer on our hands.”

“How does this tattoo ensure that?”

Henry was silent. His gaze that had been lingering on my tattoo dropped to his wrist, and to an ancient looking gold watch. He swore under his breath.

“Trolls, I wasn’t paying attention to the time, we’re late for your first class.”

“Hey don’t change the subject! Tell me why you guys felt the need to put a giant tattoo on my stomach!”

But instead of answering me Henry ignored me and grabbed my hand. He tugged me along behind him as if I was six and not sixteen, but what other choice did I have? It was either keep up with him or eat dirt.

Out of breath wasn’t a good word for how tired I was when we finally reached our destination. Henry, on the other hand, didn’t look like he had broken a single drop of sweat, just another reason to hate him that much more.

Something clicked in my head as we slowed to a stop. I felt like I had been running not too long ago, but I didn’t mean a couple of days ago, I meant like fifteen minutes ago. I felt a memory begin rising to the surface of my mind.

“Hey, are you listening to me?”

I felt the memory slip back into my subconscious and out of reach at least for now.

He frowned at me. “You know this annoying habit of yours, zoning out when other people are trying to talk to you? You’re never going to get a boyfriend at this rate.”

“It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it,” I chanted in my mind. “You really should have been listening to him, instead of zoning.” I took a deep breath in. I forced a smile on my face. “I’m really sorry, can you please say that again.”

Henry looked at me like I had just grown another head. He reached out towards me and placed the back of his hand on my forehead.

“Wh-What are you doing?” I took a step back from him, surprised at the sudden physical contact.

Henry retracted his outstretched hand and cocked his head slightly to the side. “I was checking to see if you had a fever you’re acting weird.”

“What do you mean by acting weird?”

“Nothing rude has come out of your mouth in the last five minutes.”

I scowled at him, “Because you make me say rude things by being a jerk.”

“You’re late,” A voice boomed from behind us. I jumped at least two inches out of my skin.

I turned to see a tall, slender, and very athletic looking woman with dirty blonde hair pulled up into a tight bun. She was dressed in tan leather baggy pants, worn looking boots, and a white tank top. She stood on a stone platform in the middle of an...arena? Between trying to call up my forgotten memory and arguing with Henry, I hadn’t noticed we were in a vast arena.

The arena was so big that it dwarfed the element teller’s office and the main entrance of the school.

“Who’s the amazon?” I asked and quickly clapped my hand over my mouth.

The woman gave me a dirty look, before lowering the stone platform with just the wave of her hand. Once the platform was ground level, she gingerly hopped off it and stalked over to us.

She stopped right in front of us, and I had to crane my neck, yes crane my neck to look at her face. She towered over me by a good foot, and I wasn’t a short girl. I noticed that she had several freckles dotting the bridge of her nose.

“What is the first law of elemental magic ?” she asked suddenly.

“Wait....I’m....no.”

“Come on, spit it out. If you weren’t late, you would have more time to answer.”

“Umm... Wait I remember! Even though each magic user has and affinity with an element, it doesn’t mean that the other elements are dead to you, they’re just harder to reach.”

Her face broke out into a wide grin. “Thatagirl.” The giant dirty blonde slapped my back, hard. So hard, that it left me gasping like a fish out of the water. “Oh sorry, did I knock the breath out of you?” she said noticing my distress. I nodded my head. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength,” she laughed. “I’m Miss Bat, but you can just call me Miss B.”

I returned her smile. “You can just call me Violet.”

“Vivian? What are you doing here?” Henry asked the woman, and the woman glanced over at him and frowned.

I looked at Henry and back at the woman. Had he been expecting someone else? I looked back and forth between the two. Was she not supposed to be the one we were scheduled to be meeting with?

“I decided to come by and observe our little necromancer, and come see my fiancé,” she replied.

“Whatever,” he said and stalked away towards the entrance we had come in through.

“Nice to see you too, Henry,” she called before she turned back towards me,” Now that introductions are over,” she grabbed a pair of goggles that had been resting on top of her head; she pulled them over her eyes, “Let’s do some earth element training!

.........................................................................................................................................................

Sweat trickled down my back as I focused all my attention on a single section of earth. I donned a similar pair of goggles to the ones that Miss B was wearing. My wavy black hair was pulled into a high ponytail to keep it out of my face.

“Remember body like a rock,” Miss B repeated in my ear. She corrected my stance for what seemed like the hundredth time “Earth magic is all about the art of vibration control. These vibrations are what split the earth and cause it to rise and fall. You create these vibrations, and spells are simply giving them a direction.” She turned and walked a few feet away from me. “Okay, I want you to try one more time.”

I took a deep breath in and sent a wave of energy down into the ground. “Rocus!” I yelled and imagined a square section of earth rising and separating from the rest of the ground. That, of course, didn’t happen, and all I managed to do was make the earth under my feet rumble a little. I fell to my knees in a mix of exhaustion and frustration.

I heard Miss B’s approaching steps as she came to a stop right behind me. “Tell me, did they ever work with you on different elements at your other school?”

I shook my head. “They didn’t do a lot of magic work with us until we know our elements, and they only focus on teaching us how to use it.”

Miss B shook her head in disapproval. “Where is good education going these days?”

“Well I’ll give you a hint, it focuses more on the educational part then the magic part,” I traced small circles in the dust with my finger. “I’ve never seen anyone be successful in using more than two types of magic, and they could barely use the second element.

“Hey, Violet.”

I lifted my face to look up at her “Yeah,” I answered.

“Do me a favor and sit over there, and take a little break.”

“Okay?” I got up and followed the direction of where her finger was pointing. I kicked up clouds of dust as I went. When I got to the curved cement wall, I leaned against it, before sinking to the ground for a much-needed rest.

“Hey!” Miss B shouted from the center of the arena, where she still stood. “You better be watching, cause I’m only going to do this once.”

I perked up at the sound of her voice. “I’m watching,” I assured her.

“I want you to listen because I’m going to tell you a little story too.” She crouched down on the ground, and then with the grace of a tigress she sprang into the air and landed on a pillar of earth she had created in midair. “First, there was nothing but cold, hard, barren earth, so the great creator sent fire to warm it.” Flames began to lick at the base of the stone pillar. “Fire was a greedy child that always hungered, so the great creator sent wind to feed it.” A tiny tornado formed around the stone pillar and the flames sprang to life. They grew until they were so tall, that I was afraid that they were going to cook Miss B alive. “Soon the world was consumed in flames, so the great creator sent water to sooth the burning earth.” I watched as a sphere of water began forming above her outstretched arms. She brought her hands down, and the water extinguished the flames. She was engulfed by a cloud of steam. “The water drove the fire from the earth, and into the sky, where it still warms the earth today.” As the steam cleared, I saw the ball of flames hovering above her head.

I stood up and clapped; she bowed and jumped off the stone pillar.

“Do you still doubt that it’s possible to master all of the four elements. Well, I guess five in your case?” She asked me, once I had joined her in the center of the arena again.

“Umm well about that...” I twirled a piece of hair that had escaped my ponytail around my finger. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it’s impossible for any old elemental magic user to learn all four elements but...”

“But.... “Miss B repeated back to me, “Look any regular element user can master all four element powers.”

“I’m not any old magic user if you know what I mean.”

“I hear yah, but that isn’t going to stop us from trying right?”

I gave her a weak smile because I knew she was probably going to kill me trying.

“Right.”