Chapter 52: CHPT 52: Torment
Ursula stood quietly under the midday sun in her Aura/Elements class next to an auburn haired boy that was a couple inches taller than her. Her and about 8 other students stood paired up in the grass surrounded by the odd structures that represented studying areas for students and their respected elements.
Now that they were all fairly well adjusted to their elements, they participated in challenges and games to further increase their familiarity. Fire and Ice users often found themselves pitted against each other due to the two elements obvious polarity.
The task given to Ursula and her fellow Ice element user was a simple but exciting one given by their Ice element Instructor, Prof. Demetria. They paired up with the students who used fire and engaged in a sort of competition, in their first round the fire users had to conjure a flame in their hand strong enough to overpower the ice that shrouded the Ice users hand. The second round was a reversal of roles with Ice users tasked with freezing the water vapor in the air around them and dropping the temperature enough to extinguish the flame surrounding their opponents hand.
A tall and lean woman stood in front of the grouped up students. Her pale skin reflected the sun like snow itself, and her athletic and graceful frame made her equally as beautiful as she was imposing. Her cool dark brown eyes zero'd in on random students like a hawk as she spoke in her aggressive Slavic accent.
"Ok everyone! Round one is about to begin. Ice users place your hand a foot above your assigned fire user and get ready to use your element like your life depends on it." Prof. Demetria said.
Prof. Brennan stood next to her in his dark cloak nodding his head in agreement with his fellow professor. After a few seconds he brought his hand up revealing thick and veiny arms and began to count down.
"3....."
"2....."
Before he got to one, Ursula could feel her partner harnessing the intense heat of fire under her palm, steam erupted from the center of his palm and he looked at her with a smile of arrogance.
"Ursula clenched her jaw in irritation and began to imagine the cool and lively feeling of her ice cover her hand.
"1.....Begin!"
Woo!....CRKCRKC
Woo!....CRKCRKCR
Woo!.....CRKCRKCR
The burst of flames and crackle of ice erupted all across the fueled as the students engaged in their battle of raw elemental power.
"Ah!"
One girls hand was completely submerged in the bright red flames of her opponent who seemed to completely overpower her as his flame rose up past her head. Soon after, other ice users all over began to lose hope and focus and erupted in pained yells from their hands being burned.
"Great work everyone! That's it, burn the hope in your opponents hearts to ashes!" Prof. Brennan said, sounding excited for the first time as his students obliterated the Ice users.
One student wielded his Ice with an unnatural expertise and comfort for his age. His long black hair blew in the wind as he continued to strengthen and coat the ice that covered his hand under the pressure of his partners flames. His partner was sweating and grunting as she continuously poured more of her mana into her flames to try and break the ice around her opponents hand. He didn't even look amused, his cool grey eyes looked her over with disappointment.
"That's it Conroy, Students! This is the power of an Elemental Mage...this is the power of Ice!" Prof. Demetria said in an attempt to raise the moral of the Ice users that were still competing. She leaned over to Prof. Brennan and whispered something that caused him to chuckle lightly.
Cool droplets of sweat traveled down the side of Ursula's face giving her evenly sun tanned skin a shiny glint under the light of the sun. She could feel the drain of her mana, tic by tic, she focused intently on reinforcing her hand with ice. Faintly, she could hear the crackle of ice beneath the great windy noise of her opponents flame— that was beginning to resemble a campfire in his hand.
"You've done good compared to the other Ice users in your class, but I'm just getting warmed up, so why don't you quit before I fry your hand, yea? At this point the fight is useless." The auburn haired boy said with a knowing grin.
"There you go James, keep it up!" Prof. Brennan said to the auburn haired boy as his flames grew around Ursula's hand.
The heat around her continued to climb in temperature as James' flame grew in size and intensity. Slowly students began to watch once Ursula and James became the last students competing.
"Come on James, stop playing with her and end it."
Students began to speak and support their fellow fire user.
"He's holding back??" Ursula thought incredulously. That realization brought sadness with it as she realized how weak she seemed to be. But suddenly, a storm began to brew inside of her— her sadness turned to anger and that storm turned wild and chaotic like a raging beast.
"Useless...."
"Useless...."
"Useless....."
Ursula suddenly heard all the students around her calling her the what she feared she truly was. She panicked and blinked repeatedly while looking around in fear. In her panic, she lost focus and the flames broke through her ice cold defense. She bit her lip to hold her shouts in so nobody knew she was being burned.
She closed her eyes and regained focus, the jumbled voices of students calling her useless increased in noise causing her anger to increase in intensity like a chain reaction. She held her eyes shut trying to force herself to concentrate, the heat of James' flames caused sweat to soak her whole body like she was in a sauna on full blast.
"The hell is she doing?..."
"Is she going insane?"
"Prof. Demetria look at her, I think it's over."
Students began to ask questions in regard to Ursula's mental state as she held her eyes shut and twitched randomly.
Prof. Demetria leaned in and focused intently on her like she was a never before seen species, "hold on, she's still got some fight in her." She said to the students.
Ursula flicked her head in multiple directions as a familiar atrocious voice plagued her mind and her ears. From seemingly all around her she thought she could faintly hear him speaking under the roar of students spewing negativity at her. His voice crept closer and scratched its way up her spine like a white hot blade.
"No...no!" She faintly began to respond to the voice until it was right behind her.
She suddenly saw herself laying against the tree in the Deviant, broken and helpless as her friend was being massacred...alone.
Her anger returned 10 fold and she bared her teeth wildly, the eyes of her father appeared in front of her— behind her closed eyes, she snapped them open and found herself looking into the overconfident eyes of James, everything went silent and lost focus. In that moment, James spoke one word in the unbearable voice of her father....
"You are absolutely useless, Ursula."
Ursula's eyes changed from their usual honey brown color and turned a pale and cold icy blue as she responded to her father.
"Go to HELL!"
VWOOOSH!
The temperature around everyone dropped immediately and the wind began to blow chaotically as hot and cold air fought for dominance. The weak sheet of ice that surrounded Ursula's hand grew and hardened into a giant clawed hand of ice while cold air and mist shot from her entire arm. The explosion of ice and cold temperatures knocked James off his feet and into the frosted ground.
His impressively conjured flame was snuffed out by her arctic blast of rage before anyone even noticed.
Ursula snapped out of her hallucination and saw James on the floor looking at her like she was a maniac. "F-frost?" She whispered as she looked around at the floor, the grass for about 10ft around was covered in white like they just had a light snowstorm.
Her icy blue eyes looked from student to student as they faded to brown, the clawed hand of ice that surrounded her own melted and dripped down her hand.
Soon enough, the silence was broken by her Professor.
"Beautiful work, Ursula."
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_Avatar0FFury_ Hey thanks for reading!!! Sorry for not uploading yesterday, I got caught up with school stuff. Anyway let me know what you think! Also thanks for the powerstones subastion and Quinton_Clark
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