The Keeper of the Dragons Chp 7

The Keeper of the Dragons
Chapter 7
Please Don’t Make Me Explode





Finally! Training begins. Now I can figure out what kind of Muneris I am! This has been the longest week of my life, seriously. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am. It was the only thing on my mind in history so I barely paid attention, and in lunch I got Meggie to tell me all about how the first day works. She only remembered what happened to her, and even just by that I was tingling with anxiety.

I want to learn my power so badly, and then I’m that much closer to getting a dragon.
       
I was specifically put into a class where none of us knew what kind of Muneris we were. Makes sense, right? Teach everyone from step one instead of having some people knowing their powers and maybe even how to use them.  So none of us knew what was going to happen. Well, I mean I kinda do but that ruin’s the effect.
       
My class was a smaller one with only fifteen or so students. We waited a few minutes in one of the training rooms, then our teacher entered. He was a bigger guy, like someone who would be a professional bodybuilder or something. He was way taller than me with short sandy hair and a mustache to go with it. He wore a loose gray workout shirt with the Calvatrace diamond surrounded by olive branches symbol right over his heart and sweatpants to match.
       
And he wasn’t alone. He had other Muneris with him and it freaked me out to know that I knew all of them. There were four Muneris that followed him inside the room. The first person that walked into the room was one of those FireClaw chicks, the blond one to be precise. She wore this overly peppy cheerleader’s smiles as she gazed over the group of new Muneris. The next person was, technically, someone I’ve never seen before, but I kinda know who they are. It was another FireClaw, except this guy didn’t seem like the popular type. He had blond stringy hair that covered his face and his eyes were so blank that it was almost as if he was just staring into space the whole time. Not to mention that he seemed to be whispering as he walked. Whispering to what? I’ve got no idea, but it was creepy. He had a dark blue sweater on with that FireClaws symbol on the right sleeve, so I saw it as he sluggishly walked past me.
       
The other person, believe it or not, was my sister. Jaillie walked in and smiled to the group of Muneris with me, and at the same time made sure that she kept her distance from the two FireClaws, like she making sure that she wasn’t affiliated with them. I even gave her a smile and a little wave, so at least people knows that she’s affiliated with me. And the last person was her friend again, Shadow. He, like the weird whispering guy, didn’t smile at the group like the girls did, but he did look us over. As I watched all of them walk into the room, I even caught his eye for maybe a few seconds before I looked somewhere else.

“Hello,” The teacher greeted us as he made his way into the room, his deep voice resonating through our ears, “This is Training class for beginning Muneris. Is everyone in the right class?”
       
Nods and silent agreements floated through our awkward class. Not many of us knew each other and we weren’t in that class with the popular people to yell out whatever they wanted. The teacher scanned the room to make sure that everyone was settled then he nodded his own head and continued, “Alright, well I’m Mr. Conway. I’ll be here only today. Then when you learn your powers you’ll go into a specific training group, but for now we’re going to unlock your powers.”
       
Seeing how I wasn’t the only one excited, smiles and chatter started to form around the room. Now everyone was starting to loosen up a little as they made a little small talk with the person next to them. Someone even commented to me on how she was a little excited, but I only responded with a small laugh and a smile. Not that conversational towards strangers, ya know?
       
“Now, this is how it’s going to work,” Mr. Conway began, his hands up and ready to start their gestures to his speaking, “The most common way to learn what Muneris you are is to try anything that could stimulate your power. So what’s going to happen is you’re going to stand on one side of the room and one of these Muneris is going to stand on the other side. They will throw a couple of attacks at you with their power, and your job is to dodge their attacks and attack them back without physically hitting them.
       
“Now it might feel a little awkward,” He admitted as he looked at all of us, his hands still moving around like crazy as if he had his own sort of sign language, “But it is a very easy way to see what kind of Muneris you are. If that doesn’t work then we have other ways to figure it out. Now, before you jump right into the ring you have to tell us what level of intensity you want the attacks to be.”
       
That’s when he looked back to his four helpers. The FireClaw guy named Hunter was for the extremely easy attacks, the blond FireClaw chick named Page was for the more intermediate attacks, Jaillie was handling the harder attacks, and Shadow was dealing with the extremely hard attacks.
       
To explain even more how this procedure was going to go down, Mr. Conway chose an unlucky soul as a sort of test dummy to go first. This dude named Joey walked to the left side of the room and said that he’d like the intermediate attacks. Page took her place on the right side of the room, feet shoulder width apart and hands flickering with electricity. I didn’t know she was an, what would it be, Electric Muneris.
       
Page held her hand out and a single stream of lightning towards Joey, and he quickly sidestepped to his left to dodge it. The wall behind him formed some cracks, but almost immediately it hit the wall it began to repair itself. You should have seen the look on my face when I saw that. I probably looked like some kid who just saw Santa for the first time. After a few more attacks, Joey threw a single punch at her and out of nowhere a ball of energy flew out of his fist and towards Page. She easily dodged it, but she grew an excited grin as he figured out his power; an Energy Muneris as Mr. Conway dubbed him.

After that demonstration, people weren’t hesitant to go up as the next volunteer. Just watching some of these people made me both excited and scared. Majority of the beginners with me chose the extremely easy or intermediate stuff. So Hunter would send out these slow and obvious psychic pulses towards a person and Page would keep sending out lightning. I was actually surprised that everyone who went up already figured out what kind of Muneris they were. We got Muneris like Flight Muneris, Speed Muneris, and even one person was something called a Metal Muneris. It was kinda cool to see all of the different powers that people can have and it made me get even more curious on what my power was.

But then again I was also really scared about jumping up to try it out. I didn’t know what level of intensity I wanted. There were maybe two people who were brave enough to try on my sister in the hard level, and man oh man I had no idea my sister was so good at this whole power thing. Her water wave attacks were so fast, so precise that the two people who tried out hard got a little beating from it as well, but they still figured out their powers. Just the thought that I could possibly go up against my own sister made me shiver.
       
And it didn’t make it any better when no one went for the extremely hard.
       
No one fought Shadow, and the whole time this was happening he just stood there with that emotionless, maybe even angry, expression on his face. A nod here and there at some of the better Muneris, but that was about it. No one took the chance to fight him.
       
“Good job, Susan!” Mr. Conway called as the girl Susan accidently called the help of someone’s Moonlight eagle from outside, “I can see you’d be a very good Animal Muneris. Nice work. Okay, who’s next?”
       
I looked around, seeing who’d the next person would be, but of course there was no one left. I was interested in watching everyone else figure out their power that I completely forgot that I was the last Muneris left.
       
Not saying a word. I gave off a shy and nervous smile as I walked to the left side of the training room. Looking forward I stared at the four experienced Muneris. Who was I going to pick? Should I go easy like everyone else? Or should I try to see how good I am right away and go for Jaillie like those other two? Why the heck was choosing someone to fight so difficult?
       
“So, what level of intensity do you want?” Mr. Conway asked, breaking my train of thought.
       
My eyes darted around between the Muneris, the teacher, the group of Muneris waiting, and the walls, “Um…I don’t know, uh. Maybe–”
       
“I’ll do it…”
       
My heart nearly stopped as Hunter, Page, and Jaillie stepped aside and let Shadow take this last fight for himself. No, you can’t be serious. I have to fight him? Why him?! I can’t fight the toughest guy in the room! I barely know how to fight at all! My heart sped up in an instant and panic rose in my whole body. It was probably really obvious that I was freaking the heck out right there, and the worst part is that Mr. Conway said nothing to stop this. Shadow and he just shared a glance and Mr. Conway nodded his head, acknowledging that he was fine with this fight. Well, what about me guys?! I sure as heck ain’t fine with this fight! Not even Jaillie stepped into say that this was a bad idea.

My god I am so screwed…
       
After standing in front of me for a good couple of seconds, Shadow reeled up his arm and punched the air. A dark sphere covered in black and purple shadows formed in front of his fist and flew towards me. Of course, my first instinct was to cry out and duck my head down. That shadow sphere came at me so fast that it wisped through my hair as I tried to get away, and soon after that he threw another one at me. Letting out another distressed cry, I tumbled to the ground and dodged that one. But when that one hit the ground behind me, the shockwave was so powerful that I was lifted a few feet into the air before crashing back down on to the cold training room floor.
       
Without any hesitation, Shadow let out another attack. Snapping both of his arms out, two more of those spheres flew towards me from both my left and my right. Panicking, I tried to scoot back to see if I could get away from them, and I did, but again the shockwave from the explosion made me fly backwards. My back hit the wall hard and knocked the wind out of me as I landed back on the ground.
       
My body ached with pain so much that I was close to tears here. My back was burning from the explosions, my arms and legs were bruised from landing on the ground so much, and my heart was pumping so fast that my lungs couldn’t keep up, so I could barely breathe.

I was terrified out of my mind, I can’t do this, I can’t do this, why did this have to happen? Why me? Why did this have to happen to me?      
       
Peering back up, I’m sure my face held a look of pure fear as I watched Shadow advance towards me. Stomping his foot to the ground, black shadowy mist violently pushed me to my feet. I staggered forward and looked up at him again to meet his eyes.
       
“Fight back…” He muttered as he pulled a roundhouse kick to my right side. I cried out and staggered so far to my left that I ran into the wall. Why was he doing this? He wasn’t supposed to physically hit me. This isn’t supposed to happen. Peeping out of my right eye, I could see Shadow pull back his hand into a fist. His eyes full of anger as he shouted “Fight back. NOW!”
       
And I did…
       
Before his fist could contact with my face I let out a scream. No, it wasn’t even a scream. It was more inhuman than that, it was like a roar. A powerful roar emanated from my mouth that I didn’t even know was possible, and it doesn’t stop there. My whole body seemed to explode in a red fiery mass of fury that completely consumed half of the training room. I heard screams of panic from the group of Muneris and the waves of intense heat that surrounded me.

Opening my eyes, I couldn’t see a thing. My vision was blurred as if I wasn’t wearing my glasses, but clearly they were on my face. I could see orange flames flicker around the room, but they were slowly dying down from the explosion died down. I could see the group of Muneris safely backed up towards the entrance of the room and Shadow a few feet away from me and still standing.  
       
Like heck I wasn’t even close to finishing off this guy.

Curling my fingers inward as if they were claws, I slashed the air and a huge wave of fire flew towards him at an amazing speed. Shadow dodged that attack, but soon after that I slashed my other hand towards him and he got hit with that attack. Then I jumped in the air and pulled off a spinning kick that sent out three large fireballs in his direction; each of them landing a successful it to him.

To finish this whole thing off, once I landed on the ground I ran forward as fast as I could. Leaping into the air, I planted both of my feet on his chest and forcefully pushed back on him. Shadow flew backwards and slammed into the wall behind him as I pulled of a perfect back flip, landing safely on the ground even.

That’s when it all died down. My blurred vision finally corrected itself and I could see everything clearly again and my heavy breathing began to calm down.

What just happened? I thought in my head. Believe it or not, that whole time I attacked him back, I couldn’t control my body. I mean, yeah it sounds crazy, but that was not me out there. It was like I was some video game character and someone else was using the controler. All I did was sat back and watched the show.

After taking a few more deep breaths, my eyes finally drifted upward to see the aftermath. Parts of the room were still ablaze, my class was now pushed all the way back to the walls, the FireClaws were tucked in a corner as well with Jaillie just a little bit in front of them, and Shadow was sitting with his back pressed against the wall; his clothes scorched from my attack with almost a look of pride on his face.

“Excellent!” Mr. Conway called from the other side of the room, “Amazing! That was the best reveal of a power I’ve ever seen. Great work, Cecilia!” Even some of the students agreed with the teacher, smiling and adding in their own comments. I was tempted to explain myself to them that I wasn’t even controlling my body when that whole craziness happened, but Jaillie got to me before I could even try.

She walked to my side and helped me up with a smiling face, “Dude, that was so awesome!”

“Uh, thanks,” I offered to her as I was finally on my feet, even after that whole giant explosion my body still ached. I winced a little at the pain but I was alright, “But, but I didn’t even do that. I couldn’t even–”  

“Mist,” Turning my head, Shadow walked towards us. Even with his clothes all torn up he didn’t seem beat up at all. Strangely enough, that made me a little annoyed. It’s almost like I wanted him to be a little hurt, “Are you going to the cave?”

At first I had no idea who he was talking about, but Jaillie nodded her head and responded next to me, “Yeah, are you going?”

“Nah, I’m meeting Shade out by the flight deck,” He said, “Go ahead and take your sister with you…”

Jaillie’s face lit up with excitement and her mouth stretched out into a wide open smile, “Really? You’re letting me?!” She asked, her shoulders rose as she waited for his answer.

“Yeah, go ahead…”

Jaillie cheered a little bit and thanked Shadow a couple of times while I just stood there confused as ever. Cave? What cave? I mean, I think a while back I remember something about a cave, but I can’t really remember what it is now. After a failed attempt at a hug that Jaillie tried to give to Shadow, she turned to me with that great big grin on her face and said, “Come on! I gotta show you something!”

Walking out of the training room and straight outside, Jaillie took a fast walking pace towards that open field on the south side of the school, “Dude, that was so freakin’ awesome! The way you exploded the place; it was so cool!”

“Yeah,” I said, though I was still having mixed feelings about it, ‘cause of the lack of control. But some of those feeling washed away as finally the excitement poured into my head. A huge grin as big as the one Jaillie just pulled a while ago formed on my face and I couldn’t help but bounce around in excitement, “Oh my gosh! I finally figured out my power! I’m a freakin’ Fire Muneris! That is so cool!”

My sister smiled at my excitement, and she even laughed along with me, “Yeah, but it’s so weird ‘cause we have the exact opposite power.” With a sympathetic sigh, Jaillie draped her arm around my shoulder and said, “Too bad that I’m better than you.”

“What?” I snapped, jerking my shoulder away so her arm got off of me, “No, I’m better than you. Fire totally trumps water!”

“No, water is better than fire!” Jaillie shot back.

This has been an ongoing battle for quite some time now; probably started when Jaillie and I started to get into the dorky things like Pokémon. I am a strong supporter for fire whereas Jaillie is a strong supporter for water. So we would constantly argue on which element is better. Of course, it’s nothin’ serious, sometimes just for the fun of it, but the fact that now I’m a Fire Muneris and that Jaillie’s a Water Muneris makes this battle even more fun.

“Hey dude, can I ask you something?” I asked as we continued to walk. Our pace was my slow walking speed so wherever we were going, this cave or somethin’, we had a lot of time on our hands.

“Sure, what?”

“Is it weird that I couldn’t control my body back there?” I asked, watching as the grass squished under my shoes, “Like, that whole fiery explosion thing, I couldn’t even control my body. Heck, I couldn’t even see. My vision was all fuzzy and it was like someone else was doing all that fighting stuff for me. Is that, like, normal?”

Looking at her reaction, I could tell that this was something she hasn’t really heard before. Shrugging her shoulders and looking around, she said uncertainly, “Uh, I dunno. Maybe you’re just getting used to your powers?” We both walked in silence for a little bit; both thinking on the weird idea. I didn’t have any explanations for it so I was hoping that Jaillie would give me some good ideas but even she was stumped, “Well, maybe if you get to be a Validus Shadow could help you out with that weird thing.”
       
“Wait, what?” I asked, but Jaillie didn’t explain. She just told me to follow her, now walking her faster pace. She walked towards the edge of the forest and began to lead us on a path. I gazed around and looked up at the trees. They were tall and full of leaves and animals; regular and Moonlight. Walking behind Jaillie, I could see a blue and red eagle perched on its nest with a couple normal birds, and in the distance I saw a pack of Moonlight wolves that were walking in the direction of the school.
       
After a little while more of walking aimlessly (at least, that’s what it felt like to me) Jaillie stopped in front of a huge boulder that was resting on a small hill. Even before she said anything, I got that feeling that we finally arrived to that cave they were talking about.
       
Jaillie took a hold of her leaf necklace and wrapped her fingers around the pendent. Then when she let go her hand was covered in a blue mist. She swiped her palm on the face of the rock, and the blue mist transferred from her hand to the boulder. Once the mist touched the huge piece of rock, it flew towards each other like a magnet to form a shape; a backwards “S” shape with six spikes coming out of the bottom end, a shape that I swear I’ve seen before.
       
I flinched when I heard a huge bang come from behind the boulder, as if someone just slammed another huge rock on the other side. Then the rock began to move ever so slowly, revealing the entrance behind it; entrance to what? Well…nothing, actually. Peering into the cave, it was completely empty. Man, that was anticlimactic, “Go ahead,” Jaillie urged me, tapping my shoulder in the process.
       
With an unsure glace back into the cave, I slowly stepped one foot into the room and was completely astonished. Just taking one step into the cave, I saw that it wasn’t empty at all. In fact, it held a sight that just blew my mind. In the center of the small cave was a pool; a pool of red hot boiling lava. It churned and flowed as water spouts, or I should say lava spouts, from each end of the cave poured even more molten lava into the pool.
     
My mouth hung open as I stared at the sight in awe, “Whoa…”
       
“I know right?” Jaillie said with a proud grin, “So, this is the first test on if you want to be a Validus.”
       
I furrowed my brow and turned my head, “Validus? Isn’t that that group of really strong people? Right?”
       
Jaillie nodded her head in confirmation. Her face was aglow from the red lava sitting in front of us, “Yep, and this is the main entrance to the Validus cave. If you can figure out how to get into the cave then you’re just one step closer to becoming a member, and I’m not giving you a choice on this. You’re gonna be a member.”

Smiling at my sister, it made it a lot clearer that she was a member of this Validus place. Made sense too, I mean even just from watching her fight today she was good, and she wasn’t even trying. I’d love to see her fight for real, but for now I guess I’ll just figure out how to get into this cave.
       
Walking a little further into the cave, something caught me off guard. Why wasn’t it hot in here? I mean, we were basically surrounded by lava, shouldn’t I be burning up right about now? I even carefully approached the pool and crouched beside it. Holding my hand above the magma, my eyes widened and my mouth was agape. Nothing! It wasn’t even hot! Not even a spark of warmth. It was like I was trying to find heat from a rock.
       
Weird, I thought as I got up and walked away from the pool and towards one of those lava spouts. The lava was spewing out like a water fountain, which was also really weird. Isn’t lava supposed to be heavy from all the rock it carries? So why did it look so light and weightless? What freaked me out even more was that I accidently got too close and I could watch in slow motion as a single drop of that lava flew away from the main stream and towards me. I didn’t even move, it was like I was petrified or something.

And then, it landed right on my open arm. No, that’s not right. It flew through my arm. With my heart beating a hundred miles a minute, I watched as the little drop of lava flew down to the ground and even went through the ground as well.

“What the heck?” I breathed, still absolutely freaked out at what just happened. Looking back to the stream, I sucked up my terror and placed a finger into the lava, then imminently I pulled it back out. Nothing. Seriously? Nothing?! I did it again, this time placing my whole hand in the magma then pulling it straight back out. Nothing again. I then waved my hand through the red lava, but it was as if I was waving my hand through air, “What the heck?!”

Nothing was there. It was like the lava was like an illusion or something…like, like it was hiding something.

Snapping my head towards the pool, I hurried over to the edge and crouched down to push my hand into that lava, this time without fear that it would burn me. Even this one felt like air. In fact, my fingertips brushed on what seemed to be a ledge. I planted my palm of the firm surface and felt around. I couldn’t see through the thick lava, so touch was my only option. I could feel the surface dip down and then land again, as if this ledge was a stair or something.

Very slowly, I placed a foot into the lava and stepped on that stair. Then I slowly placed my foot on the other stair, and then the other, and then the other. Soon I was smoothly walking down the flight of stairs until my head was completely submerged in the fake lava. Everything underneath the lava was red, but that didn’t stop me. Continuing to walk down the stone stairs, I saw in front of me that there was a large stone door.

The stone door had the texture of the rock that surrounded me, but the doorknobs were carved out of a different material, a gem. A teal gem in the shape of a hexagon glistened in this fiery red glow.

“Nice job, dude,” Jaillie complemented. I didn’t even notice her come down. I was so focused on finding this mystery entrance that I kinda forgot about her for a second.

“So,” I started, gently touching my hand on the knob, “This is main entrance?”

She nodded her head, and then held out her hand, inviting me to open the door. With a little hesitation, I twisted the door knob and pushed the heavy stone door.