Young Writers Society

"That's right!" Elias said, pleased at himself for helping Aen figure it out. He felt so smart right now; he didn't think he ever had to actually explain to a non-native that they were underground since, uh, well, they came from the above-ground. But no matter!

In fact, Aen looked so wondered by this thought, he seemed to shiver from excitement.

Elias pressed on. "So you might be wondering why you can't see the underground walls, right?" he said as he bent down to pick up some rocks by their feet. The rocks bounced in his hand. "Wanna test this out yourself?" The excited grin turned smug.

Maahes want to shake his head again, but the invitation to run a test was just too strong. Ignoring the way his essence was swirling even more frantically than normally, he leaned down and picked up a handful of rocks.

"I'm ready to test!" he agreed, grinning. He glanced back between Elias and the rest of the world around them. When he couldn't figure out what Elias was going to show him, he tilted his head to the side. "But what are we testing, Elee-as?"

Elias paused to peer at Aen. "El-i-us," he said, enunciating each syllable of his name. He could have said a joke about Aen's name, but there wasn't a whole lot he could mess up with one syllable. He was sure he'd come up with a delightful pun later on, though.

"Anyways, rocks!" Elias said, shifting his attention back to the stones he was holding. He held out one hand for Aen to take them. "We're testing the sky," he said proudly. "Take a rock and throw it as far as you can. We can do it together." The giant smile on his face returned. "Ready?"

"El-i-us," Maahes slowly repeated. The name still sounded funny and felt weird as it rolled off of his guise's tongue, but he was more distracted by what Elias was showing him.

He grabbed the rocks from Elias's hand. Holding them in his own fist, he readied his hand for the throw. "Ready!"

"Alright," Elias said, pitching his hand back while watching Aen. "Ready, set, go!"

He propelled the rock forward as far as he could until it was a little dot in the sky. Clearly, he had done this a million other times before. However, the rock didn't fly through the air only to have gravity weigh it down to fall; instead, there was a quiet scraping sound before the sky erupted into waves of color where the rock was aimed.

Swirls of blue, orange, pink, and black appeared and lingered, spinning like it was a galaxy, before fading back into the mid-afternoon sky.

Elias turned to Aen excitedly. "Betcha you weren't expecting that," he said smugly.

His eyes widened at the sight.

Entranced by the sky, he chucked his own rock right at it. Maahes couldn't help but give an excited giggle when the colors appeared in waves. It almost reminded him of where Odris always summoned him from! It wasn't as chaotic and this was definitely more defined, but it felt just like the Other Place.

"That's really cool!" he said, spinning and facing Elias.

"It is, isn't?" Elias said with a grin in his face. He glanced back at Aen, and for the first time, began to realize something was... off about him. He couldn't help but let out a little squint, quickly scanning him—until it clicked.

He was acted just like the kids at daycare! He knew there was something familiar about him.

Elias turned to face him, amused at the thought before already forgetting about it. "Hey, wanna push me on the swing?" he asked, already running towards it.

His eyes had already been bright and eager after seeing how much the sky reminded him of the Other Place, but he became even more excited at the thought of using the swings. He barely got to use those! He saw the Alteran children using them all the time, but he was always going to meetings and labs. Elias had no way of knowing how badly he had wanted to play with those kids - and how this was like a dream come true.

This was the best runaway attempt ever!

"I do!" Maahes replied. He raced after Elias. He couldn't help it. Even though Elias had the head start and Maahes wasn't used to having a smaller guise, he still had the bonus of not being Alteran like Elias was. He wasn't super fast, but he was faster - and was able to just barely beat Elias over to the swing set.

Elias was grinning while dashing to the lone swing on the tree, but somehow, Aen flew past him and reached it a split second before he did. He blinked, not expecting this at all, but then shrugged it off.

"Okay then," he said, repressing a laugh. "I'll push you instead."

He stepped behind the swing and looked at him unexpectedly, a wild glint in his eye. Ohoho, Aen will get to experience Elias's swing pushing abilities...

His eyes widened at the change of plans.

He had always wanted to go on swings more!

Not wanting to give Elias a chance to change his mind, Maahes quickly plopped himself down on the swing. He was completely unaware of the wild glint to Elias's eyes - and even more unaware of how swing sets were really supposed to work.

"Ready?" Elias asked after Aen sat on the swing, although he didn't really give him much time to respond.

"Hold on!" he said as he gave him a big push. Since he started with no speed, the push didn't give him much height, but Elias pushed him again when he swung back towards him, then again, and again, with one final big push that is bound to cause Aen to panic a bit and feel like he couldn't stay steady on the swing.

Elias let out an impish grin, feeling proud of himself. All his friends, with the exception of Alistair, would refuse to let him push them. It was fun to do this prank again with someone who had no idea what to expect.

If Maahes had adrenaline, he would have felt it rushing through his veins as Elias kept pushing the swing. He knew he was deep underground, but he felt alive when Elias pushed him higher and higher. He didn't know that Elias was trying to make him panic; he thought the going higher and higher was just part of the swinging experience.

But when he got really high up in the air, Maahes couldn't help it! He was made up of air and fire. He popped off the swing when it was still in the air out of habit, letting a gust of air cushion his fall as he perfectly landed on the ground. Even though he didn't always swing, he liked jumping from really high heights - even though Odris always said it was too dangerous.

He paused after his feet touched the ground.

Horror flickered across his face. Oh no! He had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be hiding! Elias was going to realize that he wasn't an Alteran, and then he was going to report him to Odris. And then Maahes would have to go back to stuffy labs and meeting rooms, and he didn't want to go back there!

He stood really still, preparing for the inevitable.

In a span of mere seconds, Elias went through a bundle of emotions.

At first, Elias was grinning ear-to-ear as Aen seemed to reach the Ultimate High Experience™ on the swing, but then his grin faded into a look of horrified alarm as he flew off the swing and projected dangerously close to the fake cliffside that was actually the underground wall disguised as the sky. But then his expression changed again to one of confusion and wonder as Aen seemed to... slow the impact?

A few moments passed as they stared at each other, with Aen looking back at him in horror and Elias looking back at him with his head tilted and an unreadable expression.

And then—

The grin was back.

"You can control air!" he said excitedly. "I've never met anyone that can control air! Is it like, molecules and stuff? Oh whatever, I don't really care about that—show me what other stuff you can do!"

He was practically bouncing in excitement, but then he looked at him suspiciously. "How are you able to use your powers already?" he mused out loud, but decided to answer the train of thought himself. "Hm, I guess the teacher is right that there are early bloomers out there. Anyways, I'm totally not jealous or anything."

He was totally jealous.

"But yeah, show me, show me, show me!"

Maahes blinked.

He gaped.

And he stared.

Elias didn't know who he was.

Maahes was sure that only people like him could do what he did, but Elias didn't think he was acting funny! It sounded like there were other people with powers here, too. Maybe he was on another world. Maahes's expert opinion and experience was making him think so. Alterans didn't have powers; that was why Odris was always sighing when he used his too much. When he checked Elias on the other planes, he looked just like he did on the very first one. He wasn't like Maahes.

Maahes grinned.

He wasn't going to have to go back!

He only had a really vague idea of what molecules were. Odris had mentioned them before under his breath when taking notes on what Maahes could do. But if Elias didn't care how he did it, Maahes didn't need to remember what Odris had said! Even better - he could do different things.

Maahes puffed out his chest a little.

"I can do a lot of things," he informed Elias. He made it sound like he was an expert on everything different he could do; he really did think he was. It completely slipped his mind that literally everything he was able to do had been discovered by accident.

He made some wind pop up underneath him so he could hover in the air a little, and then made a flame show up in his hand because he liked how warm it felt. He could do other things, too - the detonations, the silence, and the guise changing - but the elemental things were the most natural. It was what first came to mind.

"Wait wait wait!" Elias said as he pointed at the fire appearing on Aen's hand, the look of complete shock once again returning to his face. "How can you do that? You can control air and fire?"

And once again, suspicion returned as he squinted at him, examining the air under his feet and the flame flicking on his palm. This was some funny business. It was impossible to have two very different powers. Elias wasn't that smart, but he went through enough boring classes to understand that an air power probably has something to do with air molecules, and a fire power has to do with... actually, he forgot, but it wasn't air molecules.

Unless.. Unless?!

"You're an energy converter too!" he blurted out, the excitement glinting in his eyes again. "Cool! I mean, I'm not energy converter. But my friends are! Or, uh, will be. Or so they say."