Eleventh Element

Chapter 3

Joel and the others had made it to the border of Gilbert Grammar, just in time. There was a large presence of local students and civilians all gathered around the gates leading onto the main oval. Joel tried to see past the gathering crowd but couldn't get a proper glimpse of the action. He signalled to Flint and Kelly to push through the crowd, and they followed him. Joel could hear the sounds of fire cracking and the clanging of metal. Joel managed to push his medium sized frame to the front of the crowd and immediately recognised one of the parties in the fight.

It was Marcus Sneil, the snarky, fire elementalist from the milk bar. His blonde hair was uncharacteristically messy and dirty due to his tense battle with the boy opposite him. It was a shorter Grammar boy with platinum coloured hair, for what he lacked in height he made up for in muscle mass. He had a slight smile on his face which only served to anger Marcus further.

"You having another one of your episodes, hey Marcus!" Shouted the platinum haired boy as he guarded against a fireball sent his way with a shield of metal he conjured from thin air. Marcus was getting increasingly heated, "Shut your mouth Noah. You know nothing about me." Marcus retaliated as he sent two more fireballs at Noah, which he skilfully blocked again. "Of course I do Marcus. You're the runt of the Sneil family. You're nothing like your brother Killian. Now he is what I'd call real elementalist," Noah was clearly toying with Marcus. This became clear to the crowd who let out a shared chuckle which only worsened the situation.

Fran pushed to intervene, "Boy's stop it now or you'll have to answer to the elemental bureau for this unsupervised and dangerous misuse of your elements!" Noah looked to Fran and nodded as if to show he was stepping down. However, Marcus was far too irate to calm down so easily. He began to charge up an extra-large fireball which he quickly lost control of as it ballooned in size.

Fran realised the danger that everyone was in as cases of elemental misfires can be potentially lethal. She drew out her water element and began to fire water bullets at the growing flame, but it had no effect as it expanded before being released from his hand. Marcus passed out from the shock and burst of power he had just unleashed, he hit the ground, hard.

The fireball shot straight upwards as small spurts of fire began to rain down from above. Fran immediately shifted into fight or flight mode and made attempts to shoot out as many of the wisps as she could, but there were too many. The crowd shot into motion with many running as fast as they could. The braver amongst them stood their ground and unleashed their elements to protect themselves.

Joel was stuck to the spot; his life had never been in danger like this before. His legs were glued to the concrete. His heart stopped as he felt the same feeling he had felt earlier and the day prior. As he was about to be struck by a fireball, it was suddenly engulfed by a shadow which emanated from his hand. Which was a result of Joel using his hand to instinctively try to block the ball of fire flying towards him. Joel was stunned. He looked around to see if anyone noticed but everyone's eyes were drawn elsewhere.

All the small fireballs had been extinguished by large water droplets that seemed to appear from nowhere. Even the large uncontrollable fireball had been swallowed by a large water bubble which quenched the fire in an instant. Everyone was stunned including Joel who span around in an attempt to see who had stopped the attack, and to pry if anyone seen what he had done. His eyes were drawn to a slender, tanned man with slicked back, black hair. He wore a pristine, navy suit that displayed the crest of the Australian Elemental Bureau, the Australian branch of the International Elemental Bureau. "Mark! What are you doing here," Fran's voice quivered with a slight hint of fear.

"Hello Fran," he divulged coldly. "I'm here to meet with principal Leonis. I'm saddened to see you could not contain two teenage boys. I'm quite disappointed. We will talk later," he snapped at her which made Fran recoil and bow her head as an apology.