spirit synergy

"How's the hunt for the mystery fairy going?" Garfield asks, seeing Bloom and Aisha stand at some graduate's photos.

"No luck so far. I mean if I squint my eyes this Farah Fawcett is a dead-on match, hard to say when I only have an older face to go on and the students are all photographed when they're young." Bloom says.

"Maybe they weren't students at all?" Garfield suggests.

"Yeah, but first I want to explore this source." Bloom tells him.

"Fair enough." He replies shrugging his shoulder.

"Your foot's all better I see." Bloom says cheering up a bit, continuing to head to class with him and Aisha, interlocking her arm around Garfield's.

"Yeah. A bit sore but I can at least walk again." He says.

"What is this between you two?" Aisha asks them, pushing past the two on the stairs.

"Nothing. We just enjoy each other's company." Garfield replies, knowing that Bloom doesn't like to talk about the subject.

"Fine, don't tell me." Aisha says knowingly.

"Let's just get to class alright?" He sighs, the three of them heading to Mrs. Dowling's class.

"So, how's training the specialists going?" Bloom questions, sitting down on a table with him, the magic glassballs already on the tables.

"Fine. They are slowly making progress, though your friend Sky is slacking probably because of Silva. He has been poisoned for little under 5 days now." Garfield replies.

"Let's start everyone. As you can see we're doing the same trainig as the last 2 days." Mrs. Dowling says entering the classroom and walking to the front.

Most of the students then start to channel their magic into their respective balls with a few slackers, only pretending to while shooting each other texts under the table, not really fooling anybody.

"Look Gar. It's bigger right?" Bloom asks his excited, concentrating on pouring as much magic as possible into her ball, where a swirling orb of fire, about the size of a handball is floating in the orb.

"A bit maybe." He says, observing the fire.

"Hmmm, can I try something?" He asks.

"What is it?" She asks, letting go of the orb.

"No, no. Keep that up. I want to see what would happen if I put a little bit of my spirit magic in the ball with your fire magic." He tells her.

"I don't see why not." She agrees, scooting over slightly and placing her hands on the right side of the ball, creating a ball of fire like before.

Garfield then touches his hand on her ball, pushing his magic into it with the headmistress seeing this in a mixture of worry and interest, since combination magic is very strong, but dangerous to control and not to be underestimated.

"Well, that's unexpected." He says, the fireball changing form into a flaming lion, standing in the ball.

"Wow." Beatrix says, seeing the result from behind them and draws the attention of many students on the pair.

"Well, I see we have some curious ones in our midst. As you can see, magic is combinable. Though in most cases you want to use pure energy and not energy with elemental attributes, since that can lead to dangerous results and catastrophic failures." Dowling explains.

"Then why does it work for them?" A student asks, pointing at Bloom and Garfield.

"My guess is that Garfield's magic doesn't clash against other elements because his has none." The headmistress tells the students.

"Wonder why a lion though." Garfield says, ignoring the students' eyes for the most part, focusing on Bloom and he puts his other hand on the globe as well, focusing his thoughts on a snake, a white spirit snake circling around his finger and jumping into the globe, fusing with the lion, making it even bigger without changing its form.

"Weird." He says.

"Still pretty cool." Bloom says with a bright smile, observing the lion which, fills the ball to 80 percent.

"Guess that's true." He smiles, rubbing her shoulder, before removing his hand to not give people any ideas.

"Let me try this with another element." He says, getting up from his seat and turning around to Aisha, who's sitting directly behind Bloom.

"May I try?" He asks, reaching for her orb.

"No thanks." The girl says, focusing on keeping a droplet of water active in the orb.

"You can try with me." Musa volunteers from the front, having the seat in front of his.

"Thanks." He says, moving over to her, standing in front of hers and Terra's table with her moving her hands to the sides of the ball, the inside being completely filled with her magic.

"What's the matter?" She asks seeing him consider something.

"Use less magic." He says, confusing everyone but Musa herself and the headmistress.

"Good catch." The older woman compliments, watching their experiment with a few students also coming over to observe.

"Just a bit less." He tells her seeing her focus on decreasing her magic.

"Stop. This amount should be fine." He instructs her, placing his hands on the ball, imagining his spirit hawk, but in the orb forms a wolf about the same size as his earlier lion. The wolf glows in a white and purple swirl of magic.

"I don't get it. Can I borrow yours for a moment Terra?" He asks the cheerful girl beside them who stares at their experiment interested.

"Sure." She says, placing her orb in front of him with Garfield taking one hand of Musa's orb and placing it on the empty orb from Terra, thinking of a hawk again and seconds later a large white hawk is sitting in the orb.

"Are you using thr same magical energy?" Farah asks intrigued.

"Yeah. I don't know why it turns into other animals. This never happened." He answers.

"May I?" Farah asks, moving to Terra's orb.

"Sure." He says, his hawk decreasing in size to make room for her magical energies.

"Let's see then. First, water." She says, a scorpion made from water forming out of the hawk.

"Earth." She says, the animal turning into a green, brown bear.

"Air." She says, the energies turning back into an eagle which is see through this time however.

"And lightning." She says, the animal turning to a snake crackling with lightning.

"So you mean an element has a certain animal as preset." He says, letting go of both orbs, nodding at Musa thankful with a smile.

"Apparently, or you need more control when using combination magic and it takes on the form most easy to form." The headmistress explains.

"I see." He says and moves back to his seat with Farah saying "alright class. Time to focus back on your studies."

"That's pretty amazing what you can do, wonder how it'd turn out outside of the orb." Bloom says.

"You know what, that's a fair question. And I know just who to ask for help to find out. You in for some extra training?" He asks, while nodding his head at the empath in front of him.

"What?" Musa asks, turning around to him upon feeling a wave of amazement and affection coming at her from the green haired teen.

"Do you want to join us for some after class training?" He asks her.

"Yeah." She agrees, hoping it'll be training with the specialists.

She doesn't notice Garfield making a tiny purple, white wolf in his own orb, using the bit of mind magic he has learned to use.

After class Garfield, Bloom, Musa and Terra leave the school building.

"Terra, why are you coming too?" Bloom asks the earth fairy.

"Oh come on, this is exciting stuff." Terra tells them.

"Anyways, before we test this out, I'll need to give my students something to do." Garfield says, leading the group over to the specialists, seeing Musa's change in attitude he tries using his mind magic and gets a sense of jealousy from the empath.

"What's up with the lady squad?" Riven asks when Garfield and the three female fairies arrive at the specialist training ground.

"Sorry, I don't have time to train you today. But I'll leave you with some instructions." Garfield says and then orders them to switch around their weapons and spar.

"What is this crap? First you don't have time to teach us and on top of that you're making us switch weapons?" Riven complains pissed off.

"Riven, don't. I'm sure he has a good reason for this." Sky says, having gotten the feeling that he improved, even though he can barely focus on anything other than his near-death father figure most of the day.

"Listen to your friend." Garfield says.

"Ah fuck that. I bet I can beat you if I really tried." Riven curses, calling out Garfield.

"Alright, let's see you try." He tells the rebellious teen, hopping on stage while the others stand at the sidelines, Silva and his group also coming over to watch.

"Pick your weapon. Real or fake it won't make a difference." Garfield says, standing arms crossed in front of riven, who chooses two real one-handed swords.

"Are you sure about this?" Bloom asks Garfield concerned.

"Listen to the chick." Riven says cockily, only to be forced to block a kick aimed at his head, sending him skidding back a few centimeters from the force.

"Shut up and try not to die alright?" Garfield says.

"Mr. Silva will you really let them do this?" Terra asks the teacher concerned about the two boy's safety.

"Yes. I see that Garfield's leg is pretty much back to normal, which means Riven doesn't stand a chance." The teacher says.

Back on stage Garfield drops to all fours, sliding his right leg in a sweeping motion and a large circle at the dual sword wielder who jumps up to dodge the leg sweep, but is caught off guard when Garfield releases one hand and jumps up with his other leg instead, drawing the sweeping leg close and delivers a kick to the unsuspecting specialist's side as he lands, sending him tumbling off stage.

Garfield waits for Riven to come back and a few seconds later the angry teen attacks, slashing at Garfield with quick strikes. Garfield however dodges the attacks, before catching one of his wrists after a failed swipe by the specialist. Garfield steps into his opponent, headbutting him and twists his wrist, making him drop one of his swords.

Garfield takes the blade and walks back to his starting position.

Riven shakes his head, focusing on his opponent again and tries to stab him in quick succession but Garfield deflects the blade with his one every time with minimal effort.

"Ahh, why won't you just drop." Riven groans angrily, throwing his sword. Garfield dodges the blade, but sees it heading right at Musa. He quickly throws his own sword while drawing strength of his bear spirit, piercing through the blade and sending it the two blades flying against a tree.

"I got you." Riven says victoriously, wrapping his arm around his green-haired opponent's throat from behind.

Garfield jumps up, letting himself fall backwards and onto the specialist who releases him at impact.

"Final lesson for you, never choke a stronger opponent, never piss me off again and get yourself a new teacher." Garfield says, grabbing Riven by his collar and turns his arm, other than his hand into that of a bear, throwing the teen into the pool next to the stage harshly.

"Someone may want to fish him out soon." Garfield says hopping off the stage and going to Musa.

"You OK?" He asks worried.

"Yeah." She replies.

"Alright, let's go." He says walking away with his three classmates.

"Sorry you almost got dragged into this." He apologizes to Musa when they've put enough distance between them and the specialists.

"It's not your fault. Plus, thankfully you stopped it in time." She says, feeling his guilt and worry.

"So, where are we going anyways?" Terra asks, trying to cheer up the mood, while Bloom observes Garfield and Musa's interaction.

"Somewhere private and far away from buildings." He says, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, I know a good spot." Terra says, taking the lead.

"Here we are. Away from prying eyes and any buildings." Terra says stopping at an wide open field near the stone circle.

"Alright. Let's try this out then. I think my magic as base would be best." He says holding out his palms and a white wolf appears, going towards Musa.

"Now, try to fuse your magic into it." Garfield says, but when the empath touches the wolf it travels up her arm in a stream, until she is covered in a white, purplish shell with wolf features, like claws and a wolfs head.

"What's going on?" Musa asks.

"I... don't know." He says, moving towards her.

"Are you feeling OK?" He asks.

"Yeah. Just a bit unsettled." She answers, looking at her arms and hands.

"Wow. Amazing, this even has a physical shape. I can't reach through it." Terra says, trying to touch the girl's arm, but only feeling something similar to the forcefield around the school.

"Can you stop it?" Musa asks Garfield worried.

He stops using his magic, but she stays transformed. He takes her hand, being able to reach through the forcefield around her and pulls back his magic, the purple, white armor disappearing.

"Are you feeling OK?" He asks, rubbing Musa's arm concerned.

"Yeah. It was weird. Not bad, just I don't know, like I was wearing armor." She says wondering about what happened.

"Let me try next." Bloom says decisively, grabbing his hand and nodding to him.

Garfield then uses his magic, sending it over to Bloom through their hand contact, but instead of another shield around her a lion made out of fire steps out of Bloom's leg.

"Hmm, why is it different for me?" Bloom asks, reaching her hand for the lion, not burned by the element.

Garfield tries to touch it as well but has to withdraw his hand when he gets close, due to its heat.

"How do we turn it off?" Bloom asks.

"Maybe same as with Musa?" He guesses, holding out his hand which she takes. The lion then splits off from the fire and jumps into Garfield in its white spirit form.

"Can I try?" Terra asks.

"Sure." Garfield agrees and she puts a hand on his shoulder, a wooden bear with stone paws then climbing out of the ground in front of Terra, its large form towering over all of them.

"Well. He's big." Garfield says, looking up at the bear who then stands up on its hindlegs.

"I think we better shut him down before he crushes us." Garfield says, still having contact to Terra and dismisses the creature, the bear spirit jumping back into him while the wooden body collapses, leaving a patch of turf.

"I for one have more questions than answers now. Sorry Bloom." He says, apologizing when he realizes that the comment was insensitive.

"It's fine. I understand your confusion." She chuckles.

"Oh, lunch already started. Come on guys." Terra says, looking at her watch and heads back with Bloom while Garfield and Musa lag behind.

"You OK?" He asks Musa again.

"Yeah." She says.

"Come on then. I know you don't like the cafeteria, but I am hungry and I bet so are you." He says with a smirk.

"Yeah." She agrees.

"Say, what is it with you and specialists?" He asks.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"Well, I don't know. You're the natural mind fairy, but I sensed that you're angry at them? Or jealous?" He says.

"Sensed?" She asks curious.

"I've been practicing mind magic. I'm a noob no doubt but you were basically broadcasting your feelings." He says.

"Why would you practice mind magic?" Musa questions.

"Well after you told me about your problem I became curious. The other magics I can generally understand. But feeling someone else's emotions. I don't know what that's like." He explains.

"Why would you want to know what that's like? Me having slept in your room more than mine should've warned you enough ai imagine." She chuckles.

"I'm trying to understand you." He replies with a shrug, making her look at him in surprise but stay silent.

"So, the specialists?" He inquires again.

"Honestly I was hoping you'd teach me in weapons skills as well when you asked me to join your training." She explains.

"Huh. Now that I didn't expect. Why would you want to do that?" He asks.

"I want to be able to fight too when a burned one attacks. I've felt my mother in the moment she passed away. I don't want to feel like that again if I can change it." She says sorrowfully.

"Alright. I will teach you." He says.

"Really?" She asks surprised.

"Yeah. You can join while I'm training the other specialists. Though you'll probably spar against me for the time being." He says.

"Why?" She asks.

"I don't know how hard or easy they'll go on you. They already aren't happy with one fairy joining the training." He tells her.

"I'm fine with that. I want to get stronger." She says.

"Alright, I'll tell Silva to expect you. Maybe he's willing to teach you a few weapon techniques." Garfield says.

"Whatever you think will help." She says with a smile, before speeding up, seeing Terra wave them over, waiting at the building already with Bloom.