Home: Time to practice

"FINALLY! The new year!" Asher shouted and his voice could be heard through the entire farm land, "it only took it.. well.. a year.."

"You are seriously really bright aren't you, Asher?" Emilia commented on her younger brother's intelligent statement.

"Can we please end this year without your bickering," their mother, Amelia, interrupted. Though the two were just having a common sibling rivalry in their household, she couldn't tell that it was all in good fun.

The two turned away from each other and got back to their chores. Asher was instructed to clean the house for the family gathering tonight while Emilia had to finish working on the decorations, and for some reason also clean her room albeit nobody was allowed in there apart from her. Asher refers it to as her 'nest' because of her feral behaviour when someone tries to go inside. Once she had almost drowned him for trying to enter which taught him that curiosity killed the cat.

From behind a bland umber wooden door, another teen with disheveled dark walnut hair emerged. Although it was almost midday he was still in his, as some would say, peculiar pajamas. The trousers had a wide array of random drawings sewn into them while the shirt was just plain white, disregarding the hole above his right shoulder. It was a sight that caused a fright to his siblings.

"Oh my god, you... look as if you've fought through the seven rings of hell to get here," snickered Emilia.

"It's my last sleep here before the tourney takes me away for a while so I will make the most of it," Karlyle replied, "and I won't take any of your negativity today."

"You're acting as if you'll be gone for over a year, it's only like a week... sadly," Emilia had muttered the 'sadly' bit but not quietly enough as it seemed.

"That's it," Karlyle jumped at his younger sister, dragging her down to the floor and causing the duster in her hands to be thrown across the room. The two brawled on the floor with Asher cheering them on to continue before their mother pulled them apart with her telekinesis.

"Just ONE day of calm, PLEASE!" She shouted, having enough of her children who continue to cause chaos on a daily basis.

"Ok ok" the two replied in sync. The whole room went quiet until Asher's sigh broke the silence.

"Now get back to your chores, and Lyle pack your bags," commanded Amelia.

Emilia picked up the abandoned duster and got back to dusting the shelves. Karlyle went back into his room to pack his bags.

"What am I even meant to pack? They will supply me with everything I need.." He said to himself, looking around his room.

"I guess some clothes, the ones they give are itchy."

Karlyle packed a few pairs of trousers, some for common wear and some for training. For shirts, he just packed all of his t-shirts that he had stuffed into his closet. Alongside the trousers and t-shirts, he also stuffed in a thin fleece and a baggy hoodie into his bag. Since, by kinetic usage, the city's weather was under control, Karlyle didn't have to focus on packing anything to wear against rain or snow.

"I'm actually going to have to try now," he muttered, "might as well practice a bit."

After changing out of his pajamas into old grey sweatpants and a white tank top, Karlyle opened his bedroom window and jumped out into the back garden of the house. In it there was a large log of wood position upright. Its sides were quite burnt from previous rounds of practice. The other training logs of wood after a while could only be used for the living room fire and so they were.

Karlyle stretched his arms by stretching one arm to the side, holding it horizontally straight, and using the other to pull it towards his chest lightly. He held that position for a quick ten seconds which he counted in his head and then switched the hands. Once he finished that, he grabbed his right foot and brought it up to his butt, holding it there for another twenty seconds then doing the same with his left foot.

Finishing his stretches with a few jumping jacks it was now time to do the actual practice. Karlyle punched the air with his left hand, releasing a large ball of fire out of his knuckles to fly at the defenseless log. He wanted this log to last longer than the previous so he made sure to put out each fire before it could do too much damage. Karlyle released another fiery punch at the log, this time with his right hand. Immediately after, he jumped into the air and spun with a kick, releasing a wave of fire at the log. Karlyle repeated this sequence while changing the rotation of the kick each time.

After a while of battering the defenseless log, a bolt of water dug into Karlyle's back interrupting his rhythm.

"Hey!" Karlyle shouted after he turned around to see Emilia looking at him from her bedroom window.

"You won't improve doing that you know?"

"What else am I meant to do? Fight the chickens?"

"You need to fight a target that'll fight back," Emilia jumped out of her bedroom window gracefully, using a stream of water to slowly descend.

"If mother sees our fighting it won't end well for us," Karlyle replied, turning back to the log and starting his attacking sequence once again.

"Well it won't end well for you if you lose your kinetic."

"That's only if I don't win."

"From what I've seen that is a significant if."

"Fine then," he stopped fighting the log and walked up to it, "then let's fight. If mother sees us YOU'RE taking all the blame," once he reached the log, he punched its side causing it to fly, with a small boost from his kinetic, into the pile of other burnt logs.

"Ok, one rule however is if you burn my hair I will make sure you don't come out alive. It took me forever to grow it out since the last time you burnt half of it off."

Karlyle softly chuckled after remembering that incident, "alright alright, tie it up at least then."

Emilia slicked her black wavy hair back into a low ponytail using the scrunchy she was gifted by her crush. It was made entirely of velvet so it felt nice on her skin and the colours matched her kinetic; light blue and specks of white.

"Three," she counted.

"Two," Karlyle continued, squeezing his hands into fists that he set aflame.

"One," without hesitation Emilia waved her hand through the air causing a surge of water to rise from the ground and move towards Karlyle at a quick pace.

Karlyle swiped the air with his left hand, starting from the right to the left. A flame followed his movement, hitting into the surge of water. It pushed it to the side and out of Emilia's control, also vaporising a bit of it. Using this as cover, Karlyle boosted himself towards Emilia.

The quick movement of air pushed the vapor apart, revealing Karlyle. Emilia quickly raised a wall of water between them. Karlyle didn't have enough time to stop and flew right into it. Emilia's hands moved in a spherical manner, causing the wall to wrap around Karlyle and into a large ball of water. Panicking, Karlyle tried to shoot fireballs at Emilia but they were just put out instantly as they left his body.

Emilia slowly raised the ball of water into the air while her older brother's senses faded away. Feeling his breath slip away, Karlyle reached out pushing his hand through the water without Emilia noticing. Using the now free hand, he released a stream of fire that pulled him out and onto the ground. With a few quick breaths, he managed to stand back up and face Emilia.

"Are you trying to kill me?!" He shouted in between breaths.

"Not yet, but your opponents will be."

The ball of water separated into a swarm of tiny droplets with a wave of Emilia's left hand. She dropped her hand down, causing the droplets to shoot at the breathless Karlyle. As a defense, Karlyle put his forearms together infront of himself creating the shape of a cross. A curved blazing wall appeared in front of him that evaporated the droplets before they could ever reach Karlyle.

"I seriously wish you luck with this..." Emilia said, walking back into her house and untying her hair.

Karlyle's hands dropped down to his sides, and the fiery wall disappeared into thin air.

"I wish myself luck as well," he whispered under his breath and followed Emilia into the house.

The doorbell rang and Asher opened the door.

"Excuse me young sir, does Karlyle Montgomery live here?" Asked the soldier. Their face covered by a veil of darkness, their voice distorted, and they were covered in war robes.

"Karlyle! Someone's here for you!"

Karlyle walked up behind Asher, pushing him back into the house.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"I am a solider of Enchark. I'm here to collect you for the tourney."

"When did the uniform change occur?"

"There was no uniform change. I am a member of the elite corps as you are now 18 and well, most show resistance since me being here means you lost the other 2 tourneys and you're close to losing your kinetic."

"Well alright, let me get my bag and we can head to the town arena."

"That won't be possible sir."

"What do you mean?"

"The tourney for 18 year olds happens in the capital arena, under the supervision of two councilmen. One being Councilman Kyanar and the other Councilman Afin."

"Alright then, still let me get my bags and we can go."

"You have 10 minutes to grab them and say your goodbyes to your family, otherwise I'm permitted to take you there by force."

"Calm down I won't resist."