Chris was oddly excited for lunch, more so than normal. He was anxious to meet the new kids and especially felt drawn to the new girl, Elle. Paul was nearly bowled over when Chris passed him.

  “Damn, dude! What’s up with you? Gotta go?” He ughs.Chris takes a deep breath, then exhales. “Just hungry is all.” He rubbed his stomach hoping his poor lying went over Paul's head.

  “Yeah, gotta date with the new girl, huh?” Paul says as Ivy comes up next to them.“Chris? You do?”She sounded kind of happy. That made him feel weird. He had forgotten about asking her out the other day. “No!” But thinking about it, would it really be that bad? Ugh, Chris’ mind was a jumble of emotions right now. He just wanted to meet the new kids officially and be done with it.

  They walk to lunch and see the new kids standing by their usual table. Elle waves them over.“Hey guys!” She greets them as Chris and the twins make it over.“Hi.” Chris looks down. “How’s your ankle?” He notices a wrap around it.“It’s not as bad as we thought. Just a mild sprain.” She says as she sits down. “But I won’t be doing anything in gym today.” She doesn’t sound to disappointed at having to sit out gym.

  Chris ends up sitting across the table from her, Jerry across from Paul and Ivy across from Jackson.“So where you guys from?” Ivy asks.“Sacramento, California. We moved here st week.” Jerry tells them.“Yeah, I’ll miss the sun and surf, but we can always return for a visit, our dad told us when we were moving.” Elle tells them. “And yes…Jerry’s still adopted.”

  Chris and Paul bust up ughing.“Yeah, well so are you.” Jerry comes back.“Yeah, well…so is Jackson.” Elle responds.Chris sees Jackson put his hand to his face and shake his head.

  “You’ll have to forgive these two. They’re always joking around with each other. And I get stuck in the middle sometimes.” He then smacks Jerry. “Anyway, yes, we’re all adopted. Our parents are Simon and Melissa Prowman. They adopted us when we were around six and seven.”

  Chris listens, but can’t help but giggle watching Elle and Jerry make faces at each other.Jackson continues. “We’re not to sure about our real parents. But we’ve come to the conclusion that the parents we have now are just too awesome to worry about our real ones.”

  Elle giggles. “Our parents are the best.”Chris couldn’t help but smile. She was just so happy and full of life. Just being near her made him feel better about everything.“So why’d you guys move to this town.” Paul asks.

  “Our father is a financial pnner and had a job offer here in town for some new company.”“Dude.” Paul says to Chris. “Maybe that’s your dad’s company. What was the name of company?”“Uh…I think it was TalCorp or something?” Jackson says.

  Chris’ eyes go wide.“That is your dad’s company. What a coincidence.” Paul says, sounding amazed.Chris was amazed himself. “My dad did mention having a new business partner coming to town soon.”“Wow, what luck meeting then, huh?” Elle says sounding even more chipper. “We should asks our parents if we can have dinner sometime.” She asks Chris and her brothers.

  “That’d be cool, you wouldn’t happen to have a pool would you?” Jerry asks Chris.Paul and Ivy snicker.“Yeah, we do actually. Heated too.” Chris says then notices Elle light up and squeal.“Uh oh, now you did it Chris.” Jerry says. “Happy overload.” He leans slowly away from her.

  She blindly backhands him, making an audible smacking sound, while still staring at Chris. Smiling her amazing smile. Chris couldn't help but feel good when around her. If fact he could say, that he’s heading from liking her to possibly…something more. Though he wanted to take it slow.

  “That would be great. I’ll ask my parents tonight.” Chris says.After lunch Elle asks if Chris and Paul could walk with her to gym css. Her ankle was still sore and she wanted to have someone to fall into if she steps wrong. They happily oblige.“Hope Rex isn’t here.” She says, weary.

  Chris suddenly starts feeling his anger rise. “I haven’t seen him today. Maybe he did get suspended.”“We can only hope.” Paul agrees.Elle sits on the bleachers while Chris and Paul go change. In the locker room, they don’t spot Rex anywhere. So the coast must be clear. Thankfully.

  Today was volleyball. Nothing fancy, but Chris would occasionally look over to Elle between pys. She would beam him a smile when she would catch him looking. That smile would turn into determination for the game. Which his team did end up winning. Thank you Elle’s smile.

  After css Mr. Granger stops Chris and Paul. Elle waits in the hallway. “Boys, I need you two to stop by my office ter, after school. The principal suspended Rex.”It was all Chris could do to not cheer out loud.“They need us to sign a few papers and such, confirming what happened. Just stop by and sign your names and you can be off. Okay?”

  “All right, we’ll be here.” Chris says cheerfully.He lets them go and they rejoin Elle. They tell her the good news.“Well, he shouldn’t have been such a butthead.” She says confidently.“Kinda hard for Rex, he’s just one big butt. Hard to know what to use for thinking.” Paul jokes.

  The new friends ugh and joke some more on their way to their next css. Chris and Paul say their goodbye’s to Elle then split for their own csses. Chris was feeling good. Things tely have been kind of dull. Even after leaving his old world. But meeting his new friends, as well as Rex's suspension made things a lot brighter.

  * * * * *

  Chris and Paul return after their st css and run to the gym, and into Mr. Granger’s office. He hands them the paper, “Just so you two know, Rex’s dad may try to retaliate for this. He’s done it before. This states exactly what happened, and since I saw everything you did I just wrote out your parts here.” He shows them ‘their’ section.

  It states that Chris Talvert attempted to confront Rex about what he had done but was knocked down for his effort. Rex shoved Chris down then was ordered to vacate the gym for the office.Chris likes that. No mention of the almost fist fight. Or anything else, he thinks. Mr. Granger was one of the nicer teachers in the school.

  “And this is where you, Paul, got in the middle to stop a potential fight.” Mr. Granger points out. “Now I did abridge this a bit, which I’m sure you can tell.” Mr. Granger looks behind them at the door. “Just between you guys. I wanted to see that little…you know what, suspended.”Chris and Paul let out a snicker.

  “Now don’t think that I’m showing favoritism here. I’m just doing what is right. You two are bright young men, I just don’t wanna see you two fall to the same level as Rex.” He smile, then points to the second page. “Now just sign there and you two can go.” He hands Chris a pen.Chris signs first then hands the pen to Paul, who then signs his. With a thank you from Mr. Granger, the two are off. They meet Ivy in the hallway.

  “Guys! Hurry up! The buses are leaving!”The trio run to the entrance of the school just in time to see the st bus pull out onto the street.“Crap!” Paul says.

  “Looks like we’re walking.” Chris says, not entirely disheartened. It was a nice day out. Warm and the sun was shining bright. He looks longingly into the sky, wanting to just lift off and soar. “It’s a nice day out anyway.”Ivy snickers. “You just wanna fly and fly high.”

  “You have no idea.” Chris smiles. “Come on.”He had told Ivy and Paul about his elemental abilities during summer break. He had them over to his pce in te June for a barbecue, his parents helped out. They started out asking them about things in the news that couldn’t be expined. Like in nature that shouldn’t be. Like Stonehenge, Easter Isnd statues, sudden changes in air pressure. The twins were a little confused with that. So Chris’ dad came up with, superheroes. They could understand that. They described the whole spectrum of attunements. Spirit; a basic power user. Elementals; those who controlled one of the four elements. Earth, air, fire, and water. The Dark; por opposites of Spirit. A corrupted version of sorts. Shade; can use and manipute shadows. Ninja level stuff. There were a few others that even Chris' dad wasn't sure. Those didn't even have wide spread names. One had to do with mental stuff.

  It was a long shot, the twins could have easily notified someone. But not everyone would have believed them.Then they showed them a little. The two of them were like kids watching a cool new superhero movie. They loved it and couldn’t get enough of it. Once the show was over they were told to promise them to keep it a secret. Neither objected. Saying it was like a top secret thing. Cssified information. Which made the whole situation even better. Chris and his family didn’t want to bother them with the fact that they came from a different Earth…yet anyway. In due time.

  The three friends begin their trek home, which was only a couple miles. They chat and joke around. The trio round the corner of a brick building and come face to face with Rex and two of his friends.

  “Where you going Talvert?” Rex cracks his knuckles. “And where’s your little girlfriend? She off crying somewhere?” Him and his buddies mock crying then ugh.

  Chris takes a step back. Paul stays by his side while Ivy backs off. He was not wanting to have to deal with Rex now.“Not today, Rex. Just leave us alone.”Rex steps forward. “Oh, no. I’m afraid I can’t do that. You little shits got me in trouble yesterday. And I demand a little compensation.”

  Chris couldn't help himself. “Compensation?” Chris smiles a little. “Wow. That’s a big word for you. Did it hurt your brain to say it.” He hears Ivy snicker behind him.“Whoa, dude!” Paul says, shocked.

  Chris was shocked too. Did he really say that? Guess he had some pent up aggression to get out. Though he wanted to do something else…but not here.“You little shit! Your dead, meat!”Chris and the twins turn and run. Chris moves ahead and tells them to follow him. He needed to let loose. An elemental needs to use their power once in a while or they get agitated and irritable. And Rex was seriously making him irritable.

  He knew of an alleyway with a dead end he could use. He leads them all there. Rex following yelling obscenities.“Chris, this is a dead end!” Paul cries.“I know. No one will see us.” He smiles.“Uh, oh! Chris, you’re not gonna do what I think you’re gonna do?” Paul responds.

  ”Who's gonna believe him?” As they stop by the wall were the alley ends. The alley was a bit littered and the dumpster sitting to the left of the alley stunk of rotten garbage. Hmm?“You guys are idiots. You must be begging me to beat the crap out of you.” Rex smiles as he cracks his knuckles.“Uh, Chris? If your gonna do something…” Paul asks, wearily.

  Chris quickly raises his power. He gathers air from all around and builds it up around the three thugs. He focuses the air down and beneath them, the resulting air force sweeps them up off their feet.“What the hell?!” Rex cries. His two buddies crying no less then Rex.

  They continue to cry as Chris uses his power to suspend them in the air in a small vortex. The air around him and the twins was being sucked toward the vortex.“Dude!” Paul yells. “That is so cool!”Ivy shouts her approval.

  Debris from the alley was giving the vortex a nice shape, and pelting the three bullies constantly with garbage. He can’t tell for sure but he thinks he spots a dark patch in Rex’s jeans by his crotch.Chris then sees the dumpster. With a little thrust of power the air inside the dumpster pops the lids open. With a minor adjustment to the air current, he deposits each one into the dumpster. Which was really ripe, thanks to the little tornado. Leaving Rex for st, who was crying by this time.

  Once all have been disposed of Chris lets the air return to normal.“Woo! Man, remind me not to ruin your day.” Paul ughs.Chris walks over to the dumpster and shuts the lids with a little air power. “He’s not worth recycling.” He jokes.Paul and Ivy cheer for their new hero. Chris feels good now, he needed to let loose.“Come on, let’s get outta here.” Chris tells them.

  They race home, reaching the Thomas’ home first. Chris quickly tell them he’ll call them ter as he continues on running to his house up the street. Damn, he felt really good. Even running all this way didn’t bother him.He arrives home and stops in front of the front door to catch his breath. Once he does he heads inside and spots his dad at the dinner table working on some paper work.

  “Hey Chris, welcome home.” He says.“Hey.” Chris says still a little out of breath.“What happened? I notice you didn’t come home on the bus.”

  Chris takes a quick breath. “Me and Paul had to sign some paper for Mr. Granger about Rex’s suspension.”“He got suspended? Well, serves him right. So what, you ran home?”Chris went with that. “Yeah, me and the Thomas’ had a little race is all.” He spots his mom coming up the hallway.“Hi Chris. Larry, you tell Chris about tomorrow?”

  “Oh, yeah. My new business partner is coming over with his family tomorrow. Kind of a celebration in honor of the new venture. All we have to do is sign a few papers for the city and it’s a done deal.”“I think you know their kids?” Mom says smiling.Chris couldn’t believe it. He was gonna ask tonight, but now he didn’t have to. Tomorrow is gonna rock.