The door was pushed open as Luis sluggishly walked to his bed and crashed there.
"Why do you look like that?" Ace asked, referring to the twigs and leaves on Luis' head.
He was on his bed relaxing after a long day when Luis entered the room looking like someone who had been sleeping in the forest.
"If only you knew," Luis said, shaking his head.
Ace's curiosity grew even more as he saw Dylan walk into the room looking even worse than Luis.
Apart from having twigs and leaves on his head, his face and uniform were stained with mud and he wasn't smelling nice at all.
"Holy shit! What the hell happened to you?" Ace said, sitting up on his bed."
Dylan didn't say anything until he got to a corner of the room and crouched down.
"What did you guys do to provoke some third-year students?"
Ace had concluded that someone above them might have given them a beating and Luis, being the more agile of the two, was able to escape before anything serious happened to him.
"Relax Ace, we didn't provoke anyone and nobody gave us a beating," Luis said.
"Then what happened?"
"This happened to us during our combat class training."
"Combat class?" Ace asked, giving him a confused look." Aren't you guys supposed to be in the martial arts class?"
"I thought so but somehow we ended up in the military training class."
"Military training."
As Ace said that word he burst into laughter, now he understood why they were looking so unkempt, but he still needed to know how everything happened.
"It's not funny," Dylan said, feeling irritated by Ace's amusement at their predicament.
"I know I'm sorry." Ace said forcing in the rest of his laughter.
"So how was the elemental class?" Luis asked.
"It was pretty nice and guess who our instructor was."
"Who?"
"Miss Nicole." Ace said his voice sounded a little bit girly.
The boys in the class saw their teacher as stunning and having her as an instructor where they would be even closer was something most of them would describe as good luck.
'Miss Nicole has an elemental ability.' Luis thought.
Well, he never found out what her ability was because when he used his aura vision on her it only brought out basic information like her name and race, her family ability and main ability were all blurred.
"You guys are lucky." Dylan pouted.
He would have joined the elemental class if he knew beforehand what the martial arts class was going to be like and more especially if he knew that Miss Nicole was going to be the instructor of the elemental class.
Through their little time in class, the students had come to know Miss Nicole as a nice person, who never raised his voice on any of them and the students always felt free around her, unlike a certain Jim.
"Yeah." Ace said. "That reminds me, you guys still haven't told me what happened to you.
******
Everyone was left in confusion as Michael declared that there was going to be another lesson.
They just couldn't imagine what he was going to tell them to do next.
'What is your problem?'
[ Mind read blocked ]
Luis tried to use his skill on him again but it was met with the same result as yesterday.
"Now follow me, everybody," Michael said as he started walking into the forest area around the school.
"This wasn't what I expected on joining the martial arts class," Henry said.
He was walking alongside Monica as they followed Michael to wherever he was taking them.
"Yeah, this is not related to martial arts." Monica said."I'm not too bothered about whatever he's going to tell us to do, but I don't know if that guy can handle another thing like the last one." She glanced towards Dylan, who was now walking by himself.
"Didn't you see his watch? He's just a level two higher." Henry said, with a little mockery in his voice.
"I know," Monica said and increased her pace.
"Hey, slow down."
Ella on the other hand was having a little chat with Jasmine while walking alongside Silvia.
'I didn't know the council was now sending young Angels to work as guardian Angels.'
'You mean Luis?'
Ella turned back to look at Luis who was walking at the back to keep up with Dylan.
'He's a guardian Angel?' Ella asked.
'He has to be since they are the only Angels that are allowed to take human form while on Earth.'
'But Luis said, he wasn't an Angel from the start.'
Ella was trying to keep this part of her thoughts private but that wouldn't be possible with Jasmine's access to her mind.
Jasmine sighed." Humans, always trying to keep secrets, just so you know, if you want to keep a secret from me just don't think about it.'
Ella knew Jasmine was just trying to taunt her because there was no way she wouldn't think about something, that was the way the human mind worked, and thinking about keeping a secret would help her keep it more.
'You seem to know many things about Angels. Are you an Angel?' Ella asked, ignoring Jasmine's previous words.
'No, but I know a lot of Angels.'
This was Jasmine's reply, once again Ella had failed to get her to say who she truly was.
"Alright everyone rest a bit before we start the next lesson," Michael said.
They had all arrived at a part of the forest where there were six uprooted large tree stumps and then there was a large puddle of mud which they had to pass before getting to the other side.
Luis had a rough idea of what they were going to do next, but he was more worried about Dylan who had quickly taken a seat on one of the stumps immediately after Michael declared that they should rest.
After a while, Michael pulled out six thick and very long black ropes from his backpack, and now Luis' guess was coming to reality.
He threw a rope to all of them who were sitting on the stump, which they caught and stared at it in confusion.
"Now tie that rope on the stump you are sitting on and make sure it is strong."
Without complaining they got to work and started tying the ropes around the stumps.
"Good now tie the ropes on your waists."
"Our waists?"
This time around Silvia was the first to complain.
"Yes, I said waist," Michael said.
"But that's not going to make our movement any easier."
"Exactly," Michael said, snapping his fingers.
His words just irritated Luis more and more, he expected some martial arts today, not military training.
"Now your goal is to walk across that mud puddle over there with that stump attached to your waist.
The mud wasn't as far as running to and fro from the field but the mud wasn't going to make their movement any easier.
Aware that talking much wasn't going to get them anywhere everybody got into it at the same time.
Stepping into the mud everyone knew that it was going to be hard to keep their balance while pulling the heavy stump along.
With proper movements, they were all able to make it to the other side, all except Dylan whose movement was slow because of what happened earlier.
'Come on Dylan.' Luis silently prayed in his heart.
Dylan was doing okay so far although his movements were slow, that was until he got to the middle and made a wrong step which caused him to slip and go down with his face hitting the mud.
Luis began to untie his rope when he saw this happen, he had been watching Dylan so closely since getting to the other side that he had forgotten to untie his rope.
But before he could finish untying his rope he could see that someone was already helping Dylan and it was someone he never expected it to be.
Immediately Dylan fell Monica had used her ability to quickly get there.
"Metal path."
A little bridge made of metals appeared and quickly took her to where Dylan was.
If Henry knew that was what she was planning to do he would have stopped her because he now felt a stab in his heart watching Monica help Dylan up.
"Thank you Lu…." He wanted to say but was now startled by the face he was seeing.
"It's Monica and you are welcome," Monica said.
If her hair was still loose and flowing it would have been messed up by the mud but she knew best to tie it immediately Michael told them what they were going to do.
"Let me help you with that." Monica tried to grab the rope on his waist, but Dylan stopped her.
"I only fell because of a slip, I can pull through myself." He said.
Monica stared at his mud face for a while before shrugging.
"If you say so." She said and returned to the others with her metal path.
"I love your determination," Michael said, stroking his chin from the other side.
'That's a cool ability.' Luis thought looking at how fast Monica was able to return with her metal ability.
Dylan wasn't just trying to look tough like the others and managed to pull through.
He was greeted with 'Congrats' from Monica, 'Nice job' from Luis, and 'You did great' from Ella.
Silvia just acted like she didn't see him and Henry kept shooting daggers at him with his eyes.
"I think that's enough for today."
Everyone turned to see Michael standing behind them with his arms crossed behind his back.
They all turned to the other side of the mud puddle just to make sure they weren't seeing things, but they weren't, he was no longer there.