Whistle, Sweat, and a Very Bad Idea
The whistle cuts through the morning air like a blade, sharp enough to make birds scatter from the oak trees ringing the training yard. Flame flinches at the sound, even after three years of hearing it every single day. Some things, apparently, never stop being awful.
"Again!" Coach Marrow bellows, her voice carrying the particular grating quality of someone who has never once, in the history of her existence, been satisfied with anything. She stands at the edge of the obstacle course with her arms crossed, silver whistle gleaming against her chest like a badge of tyranny. "That was pathetic. My grandmother could control her powers better than that, and she's been dead for a decade."
"Comforting mental image," Roxie mutters, wiping dirt-streaked hands on her shorts. A boulder the size of a beach ball crumbles into gravel behind her, the third one she's lost in the last ten minutes.
The course sprawls across the yard in all its sadistic glory: a series of platforms, hoops, and moving targets designed to test precision under duress. Today's variation involves running the length of the field while maintaining elemental control, dodging obstacles that shift and swing without…
