Later that evening, Nadia knocked twice on her teacher's door and went inside after she told her to come in.

"Miss Campbell, you said I should meet you after closing," Nadia reminded.

"Oh yes!" Miss Campbell - Their earth Elementalist teacher - exclaimed, putting away all the papers on her desk before standing up.

"Follow me," she told Nadia, walking past her and entering a room connected to the office.

The room was neither tiled nor cemented but covered with soil in which plants, flowers, short fruit trees, and shrubs were planted. Colorful birds flew around while some rested on the trees. A clear crystal lake rested in the middle with a stone pathway over it, which led to a boulder erected from the middle of the lake. On the boulder, a crystal orb sat.

The teacher instructed her to walk towards the orb and to place both her hands on it. She did as instructed.

"Ok Alexandra," Miss Campbell started. "I want you to close your eyes and focus hard on your environment, draw energy from the nature around you and transfer that energy to the orb. Understood?"

Nadia nodded her head then closed her eyes and started to draw energy from nature and into the orb. Guess, the lessons with Abhay these past few days paid off.

It was relaxing, and peaceful even until a ringing started in her ear, voices started and pain flooded her head. She tried to let go of the orb but she couldn't, her hands were stuck, and blood flowed from her nose, eyes, and ear. She could hear someone shouting her name but it felt so far away, then the memories started.

"How many times have I warned you, Nadia, to stop picking fights with people?!" Nadia's Mother shouted.

Seven-year-old Nadia sat in the back seat, her arms folded and fuming quietly, her mother scolding her from beside her. Her parent got called by the principal that she had picked a fight with a girl in her class called Stacey. She had a busted lip, and swollen cheek and her hair was messy.

"She started it first, she was making rude comments about my skin color!" Nadia defended herself.

Her mother massaged her temple."You ignore Nadia! I've told you many times to ignore but you won't listen!"

"Give the girl a break, Zoeya," her father gently said.

"A break?!" Her mother screeched. "If we don't do anything about this, very soon we are going to find her on the street picking up a fight with everybody!"

"This is your fault, Michael!" Her mother chided.

"My fault!?" the father exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yes, if you are so strict with her and don't pamper her as you do, she won't be behaving like this!"

The argument started, and the parents were screaming at each other.

Little Nadia covered her eyes whispering stop over and over again.

"Stop,"

"Stop,"

"Please stop,"

"The noise,"

Then she screamed out, "Stop!"

The father had to swerve the car to avoid the tree that fell in front of the car on the road. Unfortunately, the car strayed off the road and went down the hill. Nadia's mother quickly shielded her with her own body, preventing the scattering glass from hurting her. The car tumbled down the hill to the ground.

Nadia managed to crawl out from under her mother's unconscious body and out of the car. Her ears were ringing, her head was pounding and her eyes were blurry. She walked over to her mother.

"Mummy?" She shook her mother but she remained unresponsive, broken glasses in her skin.

She walked over to her father, whose head was on the steering while, laying unconscious with blood flowing from his head. "Daddy?" she shook him but no response.

"You killed them."

"You're the reason, they are dead."

"Why did you kill them, Nadia?"

"How could you lose control of your powers?"

She found herself surrounded by darkness as she frantically looked around for light, an escape.

"You should have died with them, you're so weak," a voice sneered from behind her and she turned around to see her aunt."

"You can't fight Leia, you're going to lose," she whipped around to see Freya and the boy from earlier today.

There are right, I killed them, I killed my parent.

She opened her eyes to see the garden, she could finally remove her hands from the orb. When she stepped back, she found herself swaying dizzily on her feet and she fell into a peaceful abyss.

Nadia woke up to the sound of hushed whispers but kept her eyes closed. She could only pick bits and pieces of what the people were saying.

"...orb shattered?"

"...don't know what happened"

"...strange"

"...could be dangerous"

"Watch her."

Nadia coughed against her will and the whispers stopped. She opened her eyes to see Miss Campbell and principal Victoria, she looked around to see that she was in the clinic.
Miss Campbell walked towards her and the principal followed.

"How are you feeling?" Miss Campbell asked, eyes filled with concern.

"Like I got hit by a truck," she managed to reply, feeling a horrible headache.

Miss Campbell smiled softly. "Mrs. Jha went to get some drugs, she will be back," she then added. "You were bleeding Alexandra, from your eyes, nose, and mouth. You kept saying things as your eyes were closed. what did you see?"

Nadia tried to remember but felt a jolt of pain in her head and groaned. She couldn't remember and she voices that out.

"This is serious," the principal stated. "Do you think the orb did something to her brain?" she asked Miss Campbell.

"Did something to my brain?" Nadia asked, her heart rate picking up speed.

"Don't worry Nadia, nothing happened to your brain," Miss Campbell reassured her then faced the principal. "The orb must have malfunctioned, we need a new one."

Nadia relaxed. "So you don't know my level?" she asked quietly.

The teacher smiled sadly. "For now, when we get a new one, we will check again."

She nodded.

The door was thrown open and her friends rushed in. Mia ran to her and hugged her tightly.

"We were so worried about you, you didn't show up at your training."

"I was with Miss Campbell," Nadia replied, both of them pulling away from the hug.

"Yes, Abhay told us but you were supposed to be back by then," she said, smoothing back Nadia's hair.

The teacher and the principal excused themselves from the room.

Her friends gathered around her. "What happened?" Faryal asked.

"I don't remember," Nadia replied then added. "But Miss Campbell said the orb had malfunctioned and it made me lose consciousness."

"So you don't know your level?"

"No."

Mia wrapped her arms around her. "Well, we're glad you're ok."

Nadia's gaze landed on Ahryan, who was shuffling on his feet and looking around awkwardly. When he caught her eyes, he scowled.

"Why are you looking at me like that? they dragged me here," he claimed.

Abhay scoffed. "He came here by himself, no one dragged him here."

Ahryan rolled his eyes but didn't deny it.

The next day at school, Nadia was going to her class since she was feeling strong enough. When she turned into another corner, she saw the guy from yesterday leaning against the wall. She pretended to not have seen him and walked past him.

"Alexandra!"

She quickened her steps To think this day was going so well.

He matched up with her pace. "Hey, Alexandra.”

Nadia gave him a stern look. "I'm kinda late for class now. I don't have time for this."

“I'm sorry for what I said,” he sincerely apologized, taking her aback.

Nadia finally said with a strained smile, “It's fine.”

He smiled. "Okay, let me escort you to class then.”

Nadia's eyes widened. “No! There's no need.”

“I insist.”

“There's really no need.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned into her personal space. “No matter what you say I'm still going. So the earlier we start walking, the earlier you get to your class.”

She took a step back. “Don't you have class?”

“I can just teleport into it. The teacher won't notice.”

She started at him before facing forward Maybe if I keep quiet, he will go away.

"You never asked for my name,” Jace said. “It's Jace."

No response.

"So are you going to talk or..."

Dead quiet.

“Will you say something?” He pressured.

"Bye," she said then proceeded to enter the class on her right.

"Well, guess I will see you later!" he announced just as she shut the door.

Jace shook his head and chuckled before he shoved his hands in his pocket and continued on his way. As he was walking, his friend appeared beside him.

"So you're still going after the girl, huh?" his friend; Bryan, asked.

Jace didn't respond.

"What even made you go after her in the first place?" he asked again.

"Her courage," Jace replied.

Bryan raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain.

"Nobody wanted to challenge Leia and she did."

"I think that's called stupidity," Bryan calmly said.

"Say what you want to say. The girl has caught my attention and I'm curious about her. I want to know her better."

Bryan scoffed. "I hope this isn't turning into something else."

Jace just smiled before disappearing into thin air leaving a mist of thick black smoke behind.