The Emerging Part I: Dream

The next day, the Pentad is ready to attempt a flawless crossfire. They walk towards the crossfire area of the Injhihato where they discover they must wipe sweat off of their faces constantly. They look into the sky to see the sun burning its rays down upon them in a most uncharacteristic infernal heat.

“Do you ever remember it being so hot in autumn?” Hawk asks rhetorically.

Desert scoffs, “If you think this is hot, you should never visit the desert,” he says as he wipes his forehead of more sweat.

When they arrive at the crossfire, Hawk is the first to volunteer, but after the practice session of the night before and the infernal heat that bears upon them all, he performs far from extraordinary.

Hawk is drenched from behind, smacked with numerous pebbles from his left, nearly blown over by a head wind, and feels slight burns on his exposed right forearm. He glances down where he sees red marks disfiguring his skin. He looks down to see burn marks have scorched his leather armor.

After another head wind has nearly blown Hawk over, Vaiqon deems, “Hawk, you have had enough!”

Desert then steps onto the crossfire where he fares no better than Hawk. Desert constantly reminds himself, ‘I am from the desert. There is no way I should be feeling like this,’ he thinks as he wipes his forehead just before a head wind blows him to his back.

Desert sits up, dazed, when Vaiqon’s voice yells, “Desert, switch with Santhemum!”

Desert rises slowly, but eventually crawls away from the crossfire to be replaced by Santhemum.

With sigo energy, Santhemum is somewhat accustomed to heat, but even then, the uncharacteristic heat weighs upon her to where she cannot block even a single pebble.

Vaiqon curses inwardly at the Pentad’s poor performance but primarily because of the infernal heat that has seemed to trapped them all in a dazed fog.

He shakes his head, using ire to control the air currents around him to prevent much of the heat from actually burning his skin, but wipes his forehead nonetheless as he yells, “Pentad, I know this heat is beyond unbearable, but we must train the best we can. You will not always have perfect opportunities to attack your enemies. You must be prepared for anything! Santhemum, switch with Fox!”

Santhemum walks away where she collapses to her knees just as she reaches Hawk, Desert, and Pork sitting on the fence of the ring. Fox steps onto the crossfire with slight optimism from the trick he learned the previous night.

Fox is struck with pebbles from the left unexpectedly. He scratches his head.

‘But, how?’ Fox thinks to himself. ‘I should be able... oh wait, with this maddening heat, I can’t sense any sort of water in the air,’ he thinks just before he is struck by an ember from his right.

Before Vaiqon can yell to him to be replaced with Pork, Fox turns on his heel and leaves the crossfire where he dunks his head in the barrel of water at the edge of the ring. He pulls his head out with a groan as even the water is warm.

Pork steps into the crossfire determined to perform better than any of his fellow Pentad. Despite the heat, Pork is able to search through the cracked earth to sense some of the attacks, but reacts far too slowly to block any of them as his mind is hallucinating from dehydration.

Vaiqon curses to himself as he blows Pork over with a minor air stream. He looks to see his Pentad doubled over on the fence trying to coax the water in the barrels to be cooler. He sees Pork twitching involuntarily. He sees Firose, Oukton, and Jtoon even shaking their heads trying to rid themselves of the black spots that he knows must be on the edge of their vision.

Vaiqon then yells, “Everyone! All of you, retreat inside! It seems this demonic heat has gotten the best of us today! Firose, Oukton, Jtoon, even you!” Vaiqon exclaims as he connects to everyone’s aura.

Using the energy from his Qigid, his Mentor, Vaiqon feels a surge of strength he has not felt in an age. He feels the necessity of flashing all of his pupils inside and closes his eyes where he feels a tear in his mind.

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself inside the Gallery. He smiles when he sees the Pentad, Firose, Oukton, and Jtoon safely inside as well. He nods to them as they break away to find something cool to quench their cottonmouths.

Sitting in their bed chambers, Fox creates ice from buckets of water strewn about the chamber. Hawk creates wind currents to blow the icy coolness around the room in the stuffy chamber.

“Hawk, your practice session last night wore us out,” Desert complains. “I knew it was a bad idea.”

Hawk rebukes, “Desert, you know that was just the heat. If it were not so blistering hot out, we would have done exceptionally well and be on our next exercise.”

“I think that if we had gone to bed instead of practicing, we could have been rested enough to take the heat and be able to perform just as we did yesterday,” Desert retorts.

“So you are okay with performing mediocre and not progressing at all?”

“Just because you feel you are mediocre and have to always look to outdo everyone,” Desert says with a nearly imperceptible glance at Pork, “does not mean we all feel the same way, Hawky.”

Hawk steams at the underhanded insult. He ceases his wind currents and stands up from the floor. He and Desert begin to glare at one another. The others realize a fight is soon to break between the two. Pork jumps away to prepare to watch the expected verbal lashings. Fox groans loudly in protest. Santhemum steps in between the two and looks to Hawk. She subtly shakes her head in Hawk’s direction. Hawk shrugs, turns on his heel to sit back down and recreates his wind currents.

Desert chuckles, “Ah, I forgot. You cannot do anything when your handler pulls her leash on you,” Desert insults deeply.

Hawk immediately jumps up and directs his wind currents directly at Desert. Desert flies out of the window of their bed chamber and falls from the tenth story.

Halfway through his fall, Desert thinks to himself, ’I cannot believe Hawk actually did that.”

As the wind flies past his ears, Desert realizes he must act swiftly. He reaches for the incoming ground with his okit. Just before he smacks solidly into the ground, he raises his hands and the earth beneath him turns to sand as soft as cotton and as thick as wool. He hits the ground with little more than a soft thud.

Desert snarls as he rises from the sand. He feels a presence above him. When he looks up he sees a figure zooming towards him. He realizes the figure is Hawk soaring through the air on an air current ready to bring an attack crashing upon his head.