“Do something.” Emily shouted next to me in a hush tone as I tried to concentrate. Didn’t this girl know that telekinesis do not work directly on living things?
“Sssh.” I signaled for Emily to be quiet and she glared at me. This girl really was insufferable. We were deeper into the mountains now, and to train us better they began to rotate each group for hunt duty. It was our turn today and we were trying to round up a herd of deer. They appeared to be non-mutated so far but we weren’t a hundred percent sure.
Unmutated animals were not exactly rare these days, but deer was one of the animals that had mostly mutated into Legres (others include wolfs, which was dominated by Lupas and hawks, which was dominated by Griffins with
I somehow ended up with Emily when we decided to close in on them from different directions. Jeremy and Kailey had set up a net with ropes to capture them as soon as we had them under control. Easier said than done.
I contemplated about how to stop them from getting past me; I could potentially lift off a few trees horizontally as barriers, but that would draw too much attention.
“Gwen, they are coming!” Emily started shaking me. I tried to get her hands off me but to no avail.
“Can’t you like, grow a tree net or something?” I whispered to her in a panic tone, since about two third of the herd somehow decided to head towards us. Emily’s eyes were large as saucer and started shaking me even more ferociously, ignoring my question.
Fearful of being tramped over by a herd of angry deer, I whacked my brain to think of something. Anything. Suddenly a memory of Mr. Andrewson’s notebook popped up in my head. If this worked, I wouldn’t have to worry about exposing myself too much.
Squeezing my eyes shut I tried to visualize a POE army in place of Emily and me. Then I projected it from my mind, wrapping it around us like what the illusionist did that day in Yunan Citybase. I tred to make it as pronounced as possible and hoped that no one glance in our way.
To be honest, I didn’t know if I was keeping it strong, I really was just trying to will it that way while squeezing my eyes shut which made my brain hurt. I wrapped this illusion around a ten meter radius of us and prayed that it worked.
I read in Mr. Andrewson’s notebook that there was another way to implant illusion straight into a specific person’s, if not more’s mind. However I couldn’t remember the exact instructions and dared not try something as complicated as inserting a different image into a herd of animal’s mind.
“They are running away.” Emily stopped shaking me and I squeezed one eye open, breathing out a sigh of relieve as the deer reared in panic and started to gallop back. They then managed to tangle around each other and fell as a bundle of intertwined limbs.
“Wooohooo.” I could hear the scream of victory from John’s side, where he held the deer off by increasing the gravity. Jeremy and Kailey quickly swept in and tied each one separately, no need to use the big net at all.
“Wow, how did you guys make them turn around?” Jeremy asked as we string the animals together and led them back to camp. I shrugged whilst Emily looked pensive.
“They just sort of ran back.” I said and Emily didn’t contradict me for once. We managed to get a total of twenty deer, which was pretty impressive considering we usually only end up with two chickens every day; a whole deer for dinner… my mouth watered thinking about it. It’s a little sad to kill cute animals, but hey, we got to eat.
“If we can keep them alive, they will fetch such a good price.” John said, licking his lip as he led his line of deer back towards camp. We chuckled at his expression; he looked like such a pervert instead.
“We will see if the higher ups have a plan.” Kailey said; we were hunting a good deal away from camp where all the ruckus had scared off the game. Ho assured us that in a week’s time we would attract game instead – fearless Legres who will attack us for food instead. Then we will be on full patrol.
Apparently so far all the night watch we went on wasn’t a full patrol. Great.
Half an hour later we arrived at the outskirt of camp where two people were on guard. When they saw us their eyes widened and one of them jaw dropped. John did a pose that he deemed to be handsome and smiled at the female.
“We are back with the day’s game.” He said in a flirty voice; Kailey and I struggled not to laugh, even Jeremy was having a hard time keeping his fits under control. John was a nice guy, but he was a major show off to girls. He tried this trick with all three of us in the beginning too, but later gave up on it.
Before he could extract any reactions Steve appeared, his face devoid of any expression as always. “You should all head to see Trevor.” He said, before turning around. He hadn’t spoken more than five sentences per day, and when he did, it would be under ten words. He was a bit scary but between him and Ho, I had a feeling that he would be the nicer one.
We attracted a lot of attention as we passed through different parts of the camp; John and Emily were thriving on it and I tried to keep my face hidden behind my hair.
The Hunters had brought with them a large tent, sort of like a marquee actually. Ho was outside already waiting for us with a big smile on his face.
“Well done guys.” He said clasping John on the shoulder beaming at us; at the deer more correctly. Moments later Trevor came out of the tent with Mariah and the illusionist from before behind him. I gulped nervously hoping they wouldn’t recognize me.
“Wow.” Mariah’s eyes brightened immediately when she saw the game. The illusionist threw our group an impressed look as well.
“This is a great catch.” Trevor said, nodding at each of us in turns. I breathed a sigh of relieve when his eyes glanced over my face impassively. “I am going to send a team to put half of the game to the nearest Citybase to sell, the other half we can have tonight.”
The next thing I knew a group of people appeared out of nowhere and half of the herd was split in half and whizzed away. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen now but everyone in my group just started walking away heading towards our campsite.
“I kind of wanted to see them skin it.” Jeremy murmured as we walked back. Kailey laughed next to him.
“Then you should go and learn from the gatherer.” She teased him and Jeremy stuttered. I stifled a laugh beside them and wondered what on earth are gatherer.
“Gatherers don’t have it easy.” Vladimir suddenly spoke up; Kaliey gawked at him, surprised that he spoke and even more intimidated by the fact that he was talking in respond to her.
“Well, if you have to skin things and pick things up all the time, you wouldn’t either would you?” Emily said. Huh, so gatherers were those responsible for dealing with the spoils. I shuddered at the thoughts of skinning the deer. Hunting and killing is one thing, but skinning…
That night we had a huge stew brewing on our campfire. The look on Jeremy and John’s face as they stared intently at the pot was quite entertaining. Everyone was impressed by our catch and we even saw a glimpse of the departing group as they set off to some Citybase on the other side of the mountain that’s a three weeks trek at best. They were one of the experienced groups that came with us and now would be stopping there.
I watched them disappeared into the wood. A part of me wanted to go with them; to reach civilization again. There was a forbidding feeling in my gut that something would go wrong and this was just the peace before storm.
I genuinely hoped that I was just overthinking things. After all Evanna was the seer, not me.
“I can’t believe our luck.” Jeremy said, his words slurred by the bite his just tear a huge piece of meat from the juicy leg. My back stiffened and I hoped no one would link it to me.
“I know right, one minute they were going everywhere, the next they started stumbling around each other.” Emily mused, giving me a sideway glance. I silently cursed her under my breath.
“It was like they were confused.” Kailey put in and I told myself I had to stay calm otherwise Emily would sense it.
“Who cares? We got a lucky break.” John said to my relieve and everyone chuckled and dug in. I breathed a sigh of relief behind my bowl. I needed to be more careful, I might not be so lucky next time.
That night I snuck back out of the tent with Mr. Andrewson’s notebook tucked under my arm. I needed to practice my illusion skill. I had to perfect it. this would have been invaluable if I had discovered it sooner. It made me wonder… could I really be as Mr. Andrewson said and be able to master all the Mental’s power?
Flipping to the section mention the Illusionist’s power, I settled down next to the orange cap fire.
The mutation that enabled mentalists to create an illusion in other people’s mind are slightly different to that of telepathy, some believe that if you can do one you can do another, but there are only a few cases of such a possibility.
There are two approaches in creating an illusion:
1) Create a field of illusion around the object you want to change completely changing it. This will be a global illusion affecting everyone who sees it. Which is both its selling point and its weak point
2) Creating a version that you want to be seen in your head and insert it in the selected person’s mind. This required more skill and precision but it allows you to target specific people. To do this you must insert the image or series of images in the frequency of that target’s brain.
Most prefer the first method, finding it easier and less likely to go wrong. During the study of second method it was clear that those with a mental related mutation will resist the illusion automatically and some might even be aware of it. It is imperative that the image is sent in the same frequency and be done as subtly as possible.
Absorbing the words, I found the instruction a little vague and frowned at the notebook. Mr. Andrewson wasn’t an illusionist so he must have gotten the information from his students. I had seen the first method first hand, but I had no idea how the second would work.
Compressing an image from my mind sounded impossible. I toyed with the idea of waiting for the illusionist to try it but dismissed it almost immediately. God knows how long that would take. I could ask Casey, but we were not meant to talk to each other and I could hardly do it without seeming suspicious.
“Pssst.” I looked around the campsite in surprised, was someone here? I squinted following the sound and saw Tom gesturing for me to come over, hiding amongst the thicket of bushes. The sight of him squatting behind some vegetation and waving at me made me want to laugh. But I knew better than to aggravate him.
Tucking the notebook into my jacket pocket I made my way towards Tom, making sure no one was around. As I neared Tom scouted back to make space for me.
Feeling absurdly stupid I couched down and joined him in the bushes. He gave me an impatient look as if reading my thoughts and I gave me a meekly smile.
“What is this about?” I asked him in a hushed tone. It was quite since everyone was sleeping.
“Is it true that Evanna and Owen are going to stay?” He asked; news travel fast didn’t they? I only told Fred and now even Tom knew. Nodding I noticed Tom was peering at me warily and I gave him a questioning look.
“What is that look for?” I asked, frowning at him. He breathed out a sigh of relief but didn’t answer my question. He had a frustrated look on his face as he ran a hand through his hair and I inwardly gulped at how good looking he was. Then I realized his hair was back to its normal state.
“Tom, your hair!” I whispered furiously at him and he gave me an impatient look which I returned.
“You should be referring to me as Henrie, Gwen.” He retort, making me wince at the sound of my name.
Suddenly I realized what was going on. “Tom.” I exclaimed, clasping my hand on his back. “You should have told me if you like Evanna, I would have totally rooted for you. I mean Owen and her are perfect together, but that didn’t mean you don’t have a chance.”
Tom proceeded to look at me incredulously, as if I had just announced to him that we should go and build a CItybase in the middle of nowhere.
“You are so stupid.” Tom said after a moment of silence, his face unreadable as he just upped and left. I blinked, confused as I watched his disappearing profile. Did I get it wrong? Would it be that he liked Owen?
Shaking my head I decided to call it a day and went back to my tent.
I am not stupid. I thought to myself, before rolling over and drifting to sleep.
A/N
hey so a little bit of romance ;) been brain washed by romance novel lately so this just kinda happened (whoops).
I am seriously doubting if I could finish Slelection in time for Wattys :S with all the work I have got left to do for uni >W<
but I am going to try my best and get more done - but to be honest I am barely half way through the story....haha