The elemental community was made up of seven factions, based around the seven elemental affinities. The seven factions always had a tumultuous relationship, teetering on the edge of war for the past two hundred years, however a strict set of laws universally agreed upon and the looming threat of the Enoi kept the factions in a semi-permanent truce. The main faction on Earth and the ones hosting the awakening centre were the United Allies Army, or the UAA as they were more commonly known. With their main base of operations being Earth, the home world of all elementals, they liked to think themselves the upholders of the seven faction laws.

As so, Wren was untouchable.

One of the laws created by the seven factions was that no action could be taken against a recruit of an opposing faction. As Wren was now a wind elemental and the soldiers surrounding him belonged to the UAA, making them fire elementals, they couldn’t do anything to him.

This did not mean that Wren had full immunity and could do whatever he liked, but because no harm had been done and no damage had taken place, the soldiers encircling Wren had no choice but to lower the handcuffs and escort him to a portal.

~

Colonel Lambert and Wren stood in front of an empty metallic frame, it was big enough to fit three fully grown men. Having asked one of the soldiers to take his place on stage and continue with the rest of the testing ceremony, the Colonel had personally accompanied Wren to the portal rooms, eager to get any answers out of him while he still could.

“You really don’t know what you did?” The Colonel asked.

“Nope.”

“No clue at all?” The Colonel insisted.

“Look, I don’t know any more than you do. Maybe the crystal just malfunctioned, or maybe it was one of you boys in blue. I just did as I was told.”

The Colonel sighed and wiped his face in exasperation.

“People will want to know what happened. My bosses will want to know what happened.”

“That sounds like a really big you problem, sorry to hear that.” Wren said. “Portal please.”

The Colonel looked down at Wren, his face creasing in frustration as he studied the boy. Remembering the laws, he gave a firm nod and walked up to a keyboard embedded into one of the walls. He typed away on the keyboard, his strokes heavy, letting Wren know he wasn’t happy with the answers given.

Finally, when the Colonel stopped typing, the metal frame began to give off a loud hum as a small ball of purple light appeared in its centre. Wren watched as the ball of light grew, his eyes growing wide as it stretched to fill the metal frame, the light swirling about as if made of a deep purple water.

“Through here is the wind planet Ventus. You’ll arrive with the other wind recruits, maintain your position and an official will find you and take you to your campus.” The Colonel said. “A word of advice boy?”

“Sure.”

“Keep your head down, they’ll find out about this soon enough. Recruits that stick out, they don’t survive long. No matter the faction.” He said.

“Oooh, how ominous.” Wren replied, stepping through the portal.

~

Back inside the auditorium, a total of five recruits were left to be tested. The recruits were nervous after the display they had witnessed, Wren had shocked them all and they all looked up to the stage with trepidation, hoping nothing strange would happen to them. After some encouragement from the soldiers littering the room, one after another the children went up on stage and placed their hands on the crystal, being sorted into their factions.

Much to the recruits and the soldiers relief, the rest of the ceremonies went off without a hitch. An earth, then two water, a fire, and finally, much to the shock of all of the soldiers watching, and ice elemental.

The girl with the light blue band around her arm was the first and only recruit to receive an alignment that wasn’t one of the basic four elements. She was congratulated by the soldiers around her and told what a great help she would be in the fight against the Enoi before she was led off to her new planet.

Colonel Lambert had returned from the portal room with Wren just in time to see the girl receive her Ice alignment and was standing with one of his subordinates watching the last of the recruits disappear through the doors to the portal rooms.

“What a strange day.” The Colonel remarked.

“Indeed sir.”

“Whatever that dome was and then an Ice elemental, I doubt any of the other ceremonies were this eventful.”

“We received plenty of fire elementals though sir, that’s good news.” The soldier said.

“That’s true, we’ll need them. More so than usual. Things are a changing, I can feel it.”