Chapter 3
					Training Begins

"Jade? Jade come on it's time to get up." Emerald's voice came from somewhere above Jade. "What? I'm up." Jade said in a groggy voice as she rolled over onto her side. Emerald got up off the bed where she had been sitting and walked over to the window, and opened the closed curtains. "Owww....Why would you do that?" Jade asked in a pained voice as the light from the sun outside flooded the room. "It's time to get up. Come on breakfast is almost ready." Emerald said in a very cheery voice. "Why are you so happy?" Jade asked lowering the pillow she had held over her face and looking at Emerald with a confused look. "Because, after breakfast we get to start our training and I can't wait to do that." Emerald said as she jumped up onto the bed next to Jade. "I'll be out in a minute, you go ahead and I'll catch up to you." Jade said as she got up out of bed and walked over to the dresser, on the wall next to the door. "Okay, I'll be waiting outside in the hall." Emerald said as she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. Jade opened the drawers of the dress and found, to her suprise, that they were full of her clothes. She pulled out a pair of baggy blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt with an airbrushed butterfly on the front. She quickly got dressed and pulled her long hair back into a pony tail. She walked over to the window sill to find the rose was still sitting where she had left it. She looked at it for a moment before putting it in her pocket in such a way that you could still see the flower but the steem was all the way in her pocket. She then walked over to the door and out into the hall, where she found Emerald pacing back and forth. "Took you long enough." Emerald said as she came to a stop in front of Jade's door. "Follow me." Emerald lead the way down the hall and back out into the large room they had been in the night before. She lead the way straight across the room and to a door on the other side. This door also lead to a hall this one was much shorter then the other. "Does every door in this place lead to another hallway?" Jade asked mockingly. Emerald just kept walking and opened the door at the end of the hall. It opened to a large stone room, with a counter along the far wall and a table in the corner. Everyone eles was already here, there was even a new comer that had not been there the night before. "Nice of you to join us." Sky said in a mocking voice. "Oh and this is Meka, she's the earth elemental." "Nice to meet you." Jade said in a distracted voice as she looked around the bright room. "Okay everyone take your seats the food is almost ready." Hydria said from in front of the stove. Jade and the others made there way over to the table in the corner of the room. Soon after everyone found a seat Hydria started bringing the food down to the table. Meka helped her get the last of the food to the table before taking her seat in the corner of the room. "Okay now hurry up and finish your breakfast, we've got a lot of work ahead of us." Hydria said as she took the seat next to Emerald. They all sat in silence and ate thier food. It was only about five minutes before everyone was done eating. "Pheonix, you clean up the mess, everyone else follow me." Hydria said as she stood up and headed for the door, with everyone else following suit. Pheonix sighed and started clearing the table. While Hydria and the others left the kitchen and headed back down the hall, through the large room and outside, to a clearing in the forest just to the right of the temple. Jade looked around the clearing and noticed it was the one from the painting in the temple. She looked around and saw that many of the trees surrounding the clearing were damaged, some were bent others broken, some looked as though they had been burned. "Okay, so I thought we could start our training outside today. The weathers so nice, it would be a shame to keep you all locked up indoors all day." Hydria said as she walked to the center of the clearing. "Now then, I need you all to pair up with your teacher." Sky walked over and stood in front of Jade on the left side of the clearing while Seth stood in front of Meka in the center, and Hydria found her place in front of Emerald on the right of the clearing. "Okay now today I think we should all cover the basic defencive manouvers. Now of course it's up to your teachers what you will be studying today." Hydria said as she looked at Emerald and got into a fighting stance. "I think we'll start off with some offence." Sky said looking at Jade as she too got into a fighting stance. "Now then we'll start off with the most basic of attacks, this will simply push your opponent away from you, it will inflict no real damage. It is however very useful for getting your opponents into the positon you want them in." Jade got herself into a fighting stance and faced Sky. "The first thing you want to do is get the hand movment down before you try to add the power to it." Sky said. "Okay, so here's what I want you to do. Take your arms and hold them at your sides with your hands out in front of you, then I need you to push your hands out in front of you. Like this." Sky added as she pushed her hands out in front of her toward the trees, Jade was astonished to see a powerful burst of air come from her hands and blow through the trees. "Now you try, and remember your not trying to make anything happen your just learning the movement right now." Jade stood as she had seen Sky a moment before and looked out at the trees, she brought her arms to her side with her hands out in front of her and pushed out toward the trees. She stood there in shock for a moment as a rush of air flew out in front of her. "Very good." Sky said with a smile on her face. "Your a natural at this, that should make my job a lot easier. Now there are a few things that you could do better with. Your stance for one could use some work, we'll go into that more later, for now I think we can move on and teach you something new." Meanwhile on the other side of the clearing Hydria was trying to teach Emerald a basic water shield. "Okay, now the first thing you need to learn is the stance. Now just follow my lead." Hydria said as she began to get in her stance. Hydria spread her legs about hip lenghth apart, she bent her knees and planted her feet. She held her arms out to her side and brought them up over her head. Then brought one of them down in front of her and one down behind her back, resting them at her sides again. Around her a dome of water had apeared. "Now you try it." Hydria said as she stood up and the dome around her disapeared. Emerald mimiced the movment she had just seen Hydria do. She brought her hands back to her side and saw that nothing had happened. "Why didn't anything happen?" Emerald asked looking at Hydria. "Why didn't the dome appear, like it did for you?" "Because you haven't had the training I've had, you don't know how to control your powers yet." Hydria replied with a reasuring look. "Just keep trying that, and try to focus on making the dome appear." Emerald tried a couple more times before she finaly got a weak dome to appear. "I did it!" Emerald said in a very excited voice, she looked over at Hydria with a smile as she made the dome disappear. "Very good." Hydria replied. "Now then, let's try something new." Hydria got back into her original stance. "Okay, now I'm going to show you something a little more advanced. Don't feel bad if you don't get this one right away." Hydria bent her knees and spread her legs, she then held her hands out in front of her and moved in such a way that they made an orb in the air, which slowly filled with water. The orb started to grow and soon surounded the entire clearing with a shield of water. "Now this will effective keep everything, except a fire elemental, out." Hydria said as she lowered the shield. "Now lets see if you can do it." Emerald spread her legs and bent her knees down to try and see if she could create a shield like Hydria had just done. Meanwhile, back on the other side of the clearing Jade was atempting to make a barrier of wind. "Okay, let me show you again." Sky said as she looked out at the trees. Sky put her hands up over her head and lowered them slowly in front of her and rested them at her sides again. As she lowered them what looked like clear wall appeared in front of her. "Now remember this will only protect you from frontal attacks." Sky said as she waved her hand through the wall and made it dissapear. After a few more hours of practicing in the clearing, the sun began to set. "Okay, I think that's enough for today. We'll get back to it again tomarrow." Hydria said to everyone. "Let's go inside and get something to eat before bed." Everyone followed Hydria back into the castle, talking amongst themselves about what they had acomplished. They made thier way back to the kitchen to find Pheonix already there. "Dinner is almost ready. If you'll all just take a seat I'll bring it down." He said, as they all made there was into the room. After an uneventful dinner they all made thier way to thier seperate bedrooms. "Jade! Hold up." Pheonix called after her as she closed her door. "What?" Jade asked opening her door again. "I just wanted you to know that Nova didn't tell you two about all this because he was trying to protect you." Pheonix said. "I just thought you should know that. Good-night." Jade closed her door, put on her pajamas, and laid down in her bed. She stared up at the ceiling, thinking about everything that had happend over the past couple days. She thought about what Pheonix had told her, and how she was going to find Nova, untill she drifted into a restless sleep.