After another letter made of newspaper clippings, Hex, Din and Owen went to meet up with Elaine, though not in a friendly way. They went to the park, where there was a large murder of crows. Hex could spot Kalan from a mile away, since he was so big. He saw Kalan on top of the Gothic metal fencing in the back. Elaine was next to the large pine tree in the park, the tree was absolutely jammed with about fifty to seventy five crows.

“Ready to test your power?” she asked.

“I’m ready to defeat you.” He summoned his sword and took out his wings and claws.

“If I cannot be your friend, at the very least we should be rivals.” She smiled.

“I’m still pissed about what you did, and probably won’t ever not be pissed about it.” He brandished his sword.

Their swords clashed, and she summoned her wings and flew up into the air. He followed her, and they fought. She seemed to be getting the upper hand, since he was still only slightly trained in swordplay. She knocked away his sword with a swing, but instead of swinging at him again, she stopped.

“What’s this? You have locks on your core.” She pointed to him.

“What? I have locks on my what now?” he asked.

“Let me fix that for you.” She flew to him and touched the middle of his abdomen.

Sigils sprang from where she touched, they weren’t red, they were dark purple, he could barely see them against his black shirt. He felt a pulse in the center of his body, and it felt like he just got punched in the gut. The pulse knocked the air out of him. He fell back, but she grabbed his arm so he wouldn’t fall too far. She flew him to the ground, and he gasped for air. He rolled over, coughing and gasping for breath.

“What did you do to him?” Din snapped angrily.

“I unlocked his power for him.” Elaine flew back up into the air.

“What the… fuck?” he managed to ask in between coughing and gasping.

“Why would you do that? Don’t you want to win?” Owen asked.

“Winning isn’t what I want to do, I want to test my power.” She smiled.

Hex’s wings started to change from black to a deep purple.

“What’s going on?” Din ran up to him.

“His newly unlocked powers are changing his form, that’s natural. Magic can change what a person looks like,” Elaine said.

“Are you okay?” Din asked him.

“I’m fine now, I just feel weird I guess.” He slowly got up and brushed himself off.

“Let’s see what new powers you have.” Elaine threw her sword at him.

He recoiled and prepared to get stabbed, but a few seconds went by and nothing happened. He opened his eyes to see a dark purple portal in front of himself.

“Ah, void powers, useful.” She put her hands on her hips.

He focused on the portal and imagined it shrinking into nothing in his mind, and it did the same thing. Another portal opened up next to her, and her sword dropped out of it.

“Wait, I didn’t want to give you back your weapon, shit.” He frowned, he wanted to keep her from attacking him.

“That was unexpectedly nice of you to do.” She smiled and picked up her sword.

“I can’t really control it, so don’t think of it as intentional.” He folded his arms and pouted.

“I know it wasn’t intentional.” She laughed.

“How did you know my powers were locked away?” he asked.

“I noticed the locks on your core because of my special vision. Only a true master of magics can have vision like mine.” She folded her arms proudly.

“Why did it have to hurt like that though?” he questioned further.

“Your core is the very center of your being, and is also what makes you exist in this realm,” she said.

“I never heard anything about that from even spiritualist people,” he said.

“It is actually connected to your chakras, but I forget which one it is, the center one.” She shrugged.

“At least now you can’t hit me.” He raised his hand and a portal showed up in front of himself.

“Yes, that’s right, I suppose we should call it for today.” She turned around and started to walk away.

“Hey! Get back here! I’m not done with you yet!” he angrily shouted, but before he could use his powers to suck her back in, all of the crows around her jumped from where they were and flew to her, covering her in them. The crows dissipated, and she was gone.

“How does she keep doing that?” Owen asked.

“I don’t know, she’s real slippery, I’ll try to make sure she doesn’t get away next time,” he said, and turned around and started to walk away. He de-summoned his sword, his wings and his claws.