Flaw of The Storm

It was obvious.

This entire ordeal was a premeditated ambush assisted by someone from the inside.

"Look! I think that is Tigon!" Jonah exclaimed softly while staring into the wasteland of dead bodies — including Niko's clone.

"If you think this is the time to show ourselves, then think again. For all we know, Tigon could be on their side. If he had another professor with him, then maybe…"

"Oh, you are much smarter than you look…"

"…"

Tigon seemed oddly suspicious as he looked closely around the children's bodies. Either he was looking for a sign of life, or was looking for a target to mark off his list.

Furthermore, he went to every dead body and gathered their equipment in a pile. Although, the nature of the way he did this was confusing to Niko and Jonah. Anytime he would grab an object, it would shortly be thrown at a constant speed without even moving a muscle.

The two stooges quickly thought of this being Tigon's power, but with such a broad example, they were unable to make any notable guesses besides the obvious fact related to movement.

Soon after, they both watched as Tigon dispatched many enemies by throwing them into oblivion. All the forest echoed was a voice of anguish that slowly faded while passing into the sky.

It seemed the chaos had begun to wane, and because of another professor and assistant joining into the fray of the thunderstorm, Niko and Jonah revealed themselves.

Eddena Grant, the Wildlands Survival professor praised the children that took it upon themselves to run and hide. "Oh! Thank the gods there are more survivors!!"

Shortly after, this followed with many more people revealing themselves from either the trees, or thick bushes in the surrounding area.

While being escorted back to the barracks — where it seemed more fighting took place, Niko noticed the storm disappear within seconds.

"Someone must have the power of weather manipulation…" Eddena explained while showing her hand to the children's building's.

"If that's true, then they must have just retreated…" Niko added, only to receive a calm stare from Eddena.

An announcement came upon the barracks.

"… For anyone that has lost their lives, their bodies will be sent to their family. Please, get as much rest as you can as we will be cancelling this examination immediately. In a couple of hours, assistants will be coming to your room to lead you to a carriage — taking you back to the Northern Sefrah Education Hall. As we speak, your families are being notified through a chain of communication that will only take six hours. Again… Please get some sleep, as I do not want you to relish in the scenes that you have just witnessed…" Borus concluded his statement with his fist slamming against a wooden desk.

Bam!

In his right hand was an oval runic device meant for distributing sound, next to his head was a dimly lit candle that gave light to the letter he was about to write.

Never in his lifetime had he experienced something like this.

"If only our kingdom wasn't riddled with spies! We wouldn't have this problem! Damn you Gale for attempting Peace!! No surprise you died early…"

An unbridled feeling of fear, but also determination grew inside Borus' brown eyes — glimmering in the glow of the simple candle.

His hand graciously palmed a book that he held dear to him, of which he never went anywhere without taking such a book.

…

Niko walked inside his room, closed the wooden door, and stared into the empty bed below Declan — somehow asleep after likely losing his twin brother.

So many people had died, and for what?

As Niko threw off all his clothes and turned on the metal shower that drained outside the building, he couldn't help but feel numb to the coldness of the water.

These feelings going through his head only affected him now, but not while walking past the piles of dead bodies being picked up by small and mobile carriages…

"Elijah… I hope you don't do anything stupid…"

Niko began to pack everything within his closet, including Elijah's items that he doubted he would come back for. This included boring garments he had roughly stuffed into his dresser, and a simple pair of black shoes that looked practically brand new.

Afterwards, Niko passed out like a scared lamb, only to wake up with a knock on his door.

A blonde-haired lady no older than 25 with a few dry blood stains on her left ear was seen in front of the door. Clearly, she was ill-prepared for such an event, and reflected that in her hesitant manner of speech. "Good evening… your carriage will be ready in half an hour, b-but I wanted to come here to get tallies on the people who were missing or… deceased. Is every, uhm… Everyone was accounted for in this room?"

…

After witnessing Niko's death, Elijah couldn't help but take out his anger on the intruders whom he smashed into pieces.

One thing was for certain. Someone had created this storm… As unnatural as the mana-amplified environments are, this much took it too far.

WHOOSH!

The higher Elijah ascended into the sky the harder the rain would pelt against his face, which indicated that he was constantly increasing his speed or the storm was increasing in intensity.

In a symphony of vibrations and earth shattering sounds, white lightning blanketed the vicinity — creating a deadly environment that would put Elijah out within a single second.

Just as he forced his way into the dark nimbus cloud, he saw everything become calm as can be.

However, within the calm of the storm was a tall and levitating lady whose eyes were closed as if one with the storm. Long black hair that rustled in the wind, and arms that laid calmly to her side painted her as someone important, and someone with a fatal flaw.

BANG! BANG!

Suddenly, the lightning strikes that blanketed the ground shifted their trajectory to Elijah. 

Despite the fact of lightning being something he would never be able to outrun, the arc's of lightning that showed themselves from the depths of the cloud moved oddly from the lack of a notable target.

The conductivity of the world was a necessary factor as to why lightning instantly struck the ground. Without such a medium, the tendrils warped and twisted in wild ways while brief speedy attempts were made.

Knowing his goal, Elijah sped forward through the sky while dodging and preemptively weaving through where he assumed the arc's of lightning would appear. 

Every single time one had neared his body, Elijah felt the hairs on his head and arms stand straight up — even under the pressure of his soaked garments.

Slowly, his right arm grew an ethereal glow, and attempted to send a punch through the trapped soul's body.

"Ah shit!"

WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

The wind suddenly picked up in an effort to send Elijah tumbling through the murky skies.

Over and over again, his body summer-saluted in the air, unable to stabilize himself. The feeling of vomiting has never been so profound before…

"THINK ELIJAH!!! THINK!!!"

Quickly, Elijah grew tired of the gut-wrenching feeling, and increased his flight speed as fast as possible in a random direction. His body quickly shot out of the eye of the storm to the west, and began preparing for an attack she wouldn't see coming.

Elijah's body grew a dense ethereal glow, and even grew tense with Elijah's will to make this a one and done effort.

WHOOSH!

Elijah sped up towards the eye, quickly found the lady's body, and smashed it to pieces without a moment's notice.

BAM!

While Elijah kept on flying into the sky, far above the clouds, the broken storm manipulator had begun to fall aimlessly to the ground, while the child she created began to quickly lose its power.

Inside the mind of Elijah were mixed emotions of sadness, regret, and a lack of will to live.

Without even realizing his mana storage was practically empty, he shot himself further into the sky, until his breath ran dry.

The moon was obvious, yet dim, standing as a beacon in the empty space. However, the closer Elijah came to what he thought was the atmosphere, the more he realized there was an ethereal energy sitting in place.

Out of nowhere, just before he had lost all of the remaining oxygen in his body, he saw a bright and condensed light reach out to him, as if a lightning strike that came from space.

Zzzzz!