CAROM-EL

Choose me, Max.  Choose me, for God’s sake, dude. That's what I think as I try to comfort myself, for not to fill the air by shouting an extended ah and run out before the right time to the middle of the field. My hands squeeze into the Chocolate bearing that hangs from my necklace, the only one who remains from the first skateboard I bought with my own money, full of pride. I miss those days.

Focus, Carom.

As usual, in every selection, Max walks quietly through the space we will soon battle and makes every second an affliction. He smiles to someone, then turns around and smiles for me. Soon I, who envied his teeth aligned, not like mine, where I got one who had been born back. Max is the leader here in the League of Street Magicians, his blond hair goes down to the shoulders and shake as he raises rosy arms of those who spent too much time bathing in the afternoon sun, and smiles for the audience that gathered in the concrete bleachers of that old shed.

Max approaches the front row, where I'm with other, who hold their breath for that chance, and reaches out to me. The magicians around me to sigh in dismay.

“Marcelo” He smiles and my heart decides to miss some beats.

Smooth as the prince would say to... 

Oh, no. Not here, Blue.

Let me complete the line of reasoning once, Carom.

Get out of here with your diabetic sugar and your princely projections on blonde dudes.

You like them too.

I love blondes and Max has a girlfriend. Leave me.

Focus. I’ll not pay attention to my other self. Not now.

I hold Max's hand, the folks around pulls away when I get up, and he takes me to the center of the soccer field. The place where we train or are selected to be vigilantes and go around city taking care of minor crimes committed by normal people or other magicians from another league that I'm going to kick ass as soon as I get promoted to a vigilante.

I wait a few minutes. Max walks again, until it stops and chooses Eduardo.

Max is a gentleman, right?

Blue, leave me.

A king, in fact, so polite.

Oh my… Blue. I have one chance and you keep distracting me. Do me a favor and go back to sleep.

I spin the bearing on my left hand and take a deep breath as sweat goes down the porpores and I dry with my free hand. My heart is a drum banging in the chest, speeding up as I face my opponent of my age, with her hair trapped in a bun on the back, wearing a green shirt that holds a white earth badge: a circle with a plus inside and the word in large letters just below.

I push my hair back, with both hands, and take a deep breath once more. I put my hands on my white t-shirt, to clean the accumulated sweat and face the dark triangle that has a horizontal line almost at the top, the symbol of the air.

That's how we're distinguished, we use t-shirts with colors and symbols that represent our elements. This for those who control elements. There are other magicians there who have exceptional talents and who do not move a grain of earth with their minds.

I have a chance and I can't be distracted by the tensioned muscles of Max's arms when he stretches and turns his face to me, or when he scratches his beard that grows or fixes his hair or yawns.

Guys, he should stop working out.

Eduardo will destroy the ground before I have a chance to move if I remain distracted. I've seen it happen. I've seen boys get hit in the groin, crying and rolling in fetal position as they fought guys who controlled the earth. The rest of us can only hold the pants and be scared for that pain together.

I instinctively move my hand to my pants, which makes Eduardo smile and I scratch the area just to distract him. He doesn't deserve to have my uncertainties before the fight starts, because I need to get an advantage. I carry two years of training on the path of air and I have to think of something, but nothing helps. I have practice with my legs, but I'll have to get closer for my arm strike really damage him. He will easily dodge from long distance.

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My body should cross space as soon as Max gives the signal to start. I will use the air to propel my feet into a jump and to break the fall. It's the best way I know to do it, with a bow over my opponent, before he pulls me out of the fight with a column between my legs.

“Don't get too hard.” Max smiles, arms open, and the audience laugh  “Our new vigilante needs to be prepared and not so destroyed, of course, we have our healing guys, but we might not have a day to rest if a new trouble comes in the city and our new chosen one is still recovering in our healing rooms.”

Just cross space, Marcelo, cross in a second. Surprise Eduardo and hit him before he knows it, Without brutal force. Without let him with a lot of body injuries. Without leaving him in our healing rooms alone.

 “Start!” Max lowers his arms..

I feel my soul heat up, my mind threatens to short out, doubling the scenery around me as I take the first step towards Eduardo and the ground starts to shake.

Focus.

— Path of air  — I visualize and feel the air currents swirling around my legs — Impulse.

When the ground moves under my feet I jump. The air pushes me up, away from the first column that would have hit my groin. The choked screams from the audience make me excited.

“Get down, dude,” Eduardo yells and I wave at him.

I realize too late that I'm not falling, the air supports my feet like pillows, moving both up and down in a gentle rhythm, and the audience remains silent, watching my lucky moment, the semiconscious desire to need something to keep me going away from the ground.

“If that's how it's going to be” Eduardo smiles and I run toward him.

The floor of the field explodes. Earth pillars rises, hitting the space right and left of where I find myself, a few steps below. One of them stops at the height of my left foot and I don't have time to dodge. My body somersaults in the air, my back hits another pillar of earth and I fall, rolling between pillars that descend until the terrain levels out and I hit the floor.

I sit breathing hard because of the inhaled dust as I rolled before stop. When I was younger, I used to roll in the grass of a hill in the Botanical Garden with my brother, but that didn't come close and didn't even cause the pain that rolling over uneven earth pillars leave on my exposed arms and calves.

“Don't you want to surrender, Elo?” Eduardo asks, from a distance, and I don’t like the sound of my nickname in his mouth.

My mind has a wall of fog hampering me, the dust around it still settles, and Eduardo speak as he hasn't shed a drop of sweat.

I get up with legs shaking. I won't give to him what he wants.

I’m an Esperança, coming from a family of powerful magicians. I can’t easily surrender.

That thought makes my heart speed up. My skin heats up when I think of my family. I see myself behind Eduardo, my eyes try to take in that doubling of space around me as I take the first step. I'll get dizzy if I don't hurry up. I take the second step and my body heats up. My legs burn and the heat rises to my head, bringing a strange comfort, and down again to my legs. In the third step, Eduardo disappears from my field of vision as my body is completely filled with heat.

Some magicians in the audience cover their mouths when my fourth step hits the ground, others widen their eyes.

Heat spreads across my face and my vision returns to normal. It takes a moment for the dizziness to pass and I realize I've crossed the field space and stopped behind Eduardo.

“How I...?” I'll find out later.

I turn around quickly. I can't waste my chance. A second was what I needed. A second was what I won.

“Path of air.”

Eduardo turns around, the floor starts shaking. I move my arms toward him twice. The currents of air churn, circulate from my forearms towards the wrists and break free as I smile for my opponent.

“Double punch.”