The Writers' Circle

Gabamia soared through the clear sky with her large black wings effortlessly carrying her around the battlefield; each pass striking fear into her enemies. The sight of her in the sky above a battlefield caused any army to halt their march to prepare for what was coming next. However, fear alone would not win this battle; she would have to do more than just flap her wings around making a scene in the sky to stop this army's march. She pulled her large black feathered wings in close and began her attack dive. 

The wind ripped around her body as she gathered more speed on the descent. She aimed for the largest section of the Cathetel army and increased her speed. She leveled off when she was almost within range of archers and unleashed her other gift upon the warriors below. The oily secretion spewed from her pores. The force of her dive caused the secretion to hurl down like rain, but unlike any rain that a farmer would pray for. The oily secretion ignited instantly when it was in the open air causing a rain of fire droplets. The ground troops were trained to avoid her fire strikes if possible, but even so, many were left trying to put out the fires on every dive.

Gabamia's ability to win battles single handedly was not a secret. She was well known throughout the land as the Night Phoenix. Once, she destroyed an army under the cover of night. That night, the sky had been streaked with falling fire. Her country had been out numbered four to one, but after her night strike, the odds had been reversed. The survivors from that battle called her the Night Phoenix from that day forward. The Cathetel army could not make a plan for invading Omniel Isda without thinking about her.

Gabamia made for the relative safety of the higher skies after each dive. She checked the status of her personal protector, com-mander, and lover each time. Gusion was holding off two fliers in aerial combat. His rare gift was the ability to shift wings as well. His golden-feathered wings are visible from any vantage point during a battle, which helped him direct the military easier. Currently, he had the situation with the other two fliers well under control. He had just isolated one of the fliers and was about to make a fatal strike. The other would follow shortly and the skies would be open for complete aerial safety.

This moment of distraction allowed someone to fire an arrow with enough accuracy to land in Gabamia's torso. She began bleeding instantly from both the entry and exit of the arrow. The arrow was not fatal or even close to it. The wound was only shallow. She scanned the skies knowing no one could shoot an arrow this high from the ground. 

Gabamia caught only a glimpse of another flier diving to retreat into the cover of the trees. Her wings were made of a dark fleshy membrane. Her hair was twisted and knotted, but that was all Ga-bamia could make out before she hid herself in the trees. Gabamia was angry, but not foolish. She could not let herself be lured into a chase. She needed to stay in the protected sky around Gusion. She put the idea of a chase out of her mind and started another dive.

Diving again, just as before, Gabamia swept over the battlefield creating another strip of burning soldiers. During her attack, she was stuck with another arrow. The arrow was deep in her back this time. It was the same flying archer as before and again she retreated into the forest. It made no difference now; she had to retreat.

This arrow was too deep and Gabamia was already feeling the effects of internal bleeding and blood loss. The feeling of weakness was growing extremely fast and she would lose consciousness soon. She realized too late both arrows were poisoned. The world was vanishing quickly into darkness and she would plummet to her death in a moment. The last thing she remembered was letting out a scream of defeat before beginning the fall.

[ above text is italics to indicate it as a flashback ]

"Gabamia, Gabamia," a fellow instructor interrupted her flashback. "You're going to be late for your own lecture."
"Yes, thank you." She chirped and jumped up immediately heading for her classroom slightly embarrassed she had slipped away in front of other teachers. She was getting the feeling she was not going to become a good teacher. 

She stepped into her classroom just as the last few students gradually made their way to their seats. This was her first day as a substitute teacher and this was, coincidentally, the first day her students would learn about the history of Jacintians. Most students looked at the ancient building and ruins as just another place to live. Most people never understand that Jacintians are actually the same people as the ancient humans who built these great cities.

"My name is Gabamia and I'll be your substitute teacher today," she said her name softly hoping that no one connected her as the Night Phoenix, not yet at least. She quickly glanced around the room to see if anyone made the connection. They did not seem to notice who she was yet. 

"I'm new to teaching, so be nice. I've been instructed to introduce the topic of the ancient human civilizations. What does anyone here know about the ancients?

Gabamia scanned the room for anyone brave enough to start the discussion. A blonde shorthaired girl wearing an open shouldered white shirt had her hand up in the back. She had a big grin on her face with a million dollar response just waiting to come out. 

"Yes," Gabamia paused indicating she wanted the student to fill in the break with her name. 

"Symi," the girl replied.

"Yes, Symi, what can you tell us about the ancients," Gabamia asked. 

"I learned from reading our lecture notes that the ancients didn't just disappear like most people think. Some of them are walking among us," Symi said happily and smiled with confidence.

"That's just crazy talk" one of the other students near the back blurted out. "Don't you think that we would have noticed some hu-man walking around with us?"

"No, she's right, but not completely. Does anyone know what she missed?" Gabamia asked hoping another would continue the discussion. After a moment, she realized that Symi was probably the only one that read the lecture notes before class. Most of the students barely seemed interested or awake. A couple students had their heads down.

"What she missed was not that some of them are walking among us, but all of us are them. Every one of you here is a descendent from that great ancient human civilization that spanned the world. Our ancestors build the giant cities. Our ancestors destroyed the health of our planet. Our ancestors changed themselves into us." Gabamia said really getting into it. She seemed to get a few heads to look up interested in the discussion. That is good, she thought.

"What do you mean destroyed the health of the planet?" A young boy in the front row asked.

"What do you mean changed themselves into us?" The happy student who got the discussion started asked. 

"Let's start with the first point, but don't worry; I'll get to both those questions shortly. First, did our ancestors really build all these ruins? The answer is yes. Our ancestors could build many things. They even built a ship that could travel to the moon! Who knew that?" Gabamia teased them with the idea of such a feat.

That statement seemed to shock the rest of the sleepy heads. Gabamia looked around the room to see that every face was wideawake and listening to her. Now she had their attention.

"How did they do it?" An eager boy asked. 

"I don't know. Most of their knowledge was lost when tech-nology faded from the world. We don't have the knowledge or understanding that the ancients had. We wouldn't even know where to start.

"Why did the technology break down if it was so advanced?" Symi astutely asked.

"Good question Symi. That leads into our next major question. How did our ancestors destroy the health of the planet? Technology was not cheap. Our ancestors mined, stripped, planted, harvested every valuable resource they could to sustain their massive, and ever growing population and technological needs. Eventually, these resources were used up and civilization crumbled. The ancients turned against each other and a war broke out over the remaining resources and food.

Every student was staring right at Gabamia; each student hanging on every word she said, like story time when he or she was younger. She could tell that most, if not all of them, had never heard this story before. 

"We don't know when it happened, but during the war our ancestors began conducting experiments on each other, making modifications to their bodies trying to improve upon nature's design. It's believed that some of our ancestors were trying to make superior warriors and others were looking for ways to survive the new world in its highly deprived state. We don't know how the technology worked, but this experimentation lead to what we Jacintians are today.

"We must come from the warrior batch," a boy said while standing and flexing his muscles. He got a few giggles from some ditzy girls near him.

"More likely, we are a combination of various experiments breeding with each other over the generations spanning the gap from our ancestor's age to ours." 

Symi said is a quite matter of fact tone. Gabamia could tell Symi took her learning serious. 

"Good assumption, Symi, which happens to agree with popular believe among the scholars. It explains the randomness in which abilities people will develop," Gabamia said quite happy to see a student actually care about these things.

"That makes us offspring of mutated humans," the muscle-flexing boy said.

"Do you feel like a mutant?"

"No"

"Then you're not a mutant, but I bet a few people here probably think you're a mutant with those big arms." Gabamia teased Mr. Muscles. The whole class laughed, including the boy.

"We are not mutants. The changes our ancestors made were engineered. The ability to shift in our sleep, heal rapidly, fight off diseases, and our internal biochemical alchemy comes directly from our ancestors modifying themselves. 

"I'm a lucky one, if you want to call it that. I have a rare gene which allows me to shape these wings." Gabamia expanded her wings from one edge of the class to the other. Until she unfolded her wings, it was hard to tell just how big they were. Her class was impressed. A few looked on with envious eyes. The odds of getting the gene to grow wings that can support your body's weight were rare. Only a handful of the population would ever be able to fly.

Gabamia decided that she had already gone this far and no one recognized her yet, so the next trick would catch them off guard. She started creating the fire secretion under the tips of her fingers. This would surprise them sure enough. She was the only known Jacintian who could produce the combustible secretion from her skin. 

"I was also gifted with a unique ability." Gabamia then put her hand above her head and allowed the fluids to seep through her fingertips. Instantly upon contacting the air the fluids began to burn and run down her hand at the same time.

The burning sensation followed the fire, but Gabamia had little worry about fire damage. Her body seemed to resist fire damage, but getting used to the heat had taken her years.

"You're the Night Phoenix!" Symi, the cute girl, said and jumped up with excitement. Many of the other students began to get excited. Some students just stared at the fire in wonder, as if it was magic. 

"I heard you were injured. You don't look hurt."

"I knew it was you the whole time."

"My brother told me stories about you in combat."

"You're fearless."

Gabamia regretted showing off now, but it made her feel good to have people care about her. She had been in hiding for a month ashamed of her failure. She quickly shook her head to remove the memories that were about to surface. 

"Okay, okay, everyone sit back down." Gabamia pleaded with the onslaught of questions and praises to regain order in her classroom. A few minutes later, she was able to continue with the lecture.

?????

Symi watched the class depart. Gabamia had turned out to be one of the most exciting substitute teachers Symi ever remembered having. Over the past weak Gabamia really got the class excited about learning about our ancestors the ancients.

The most exciting part, Symi thought, was how interested Ga-bamia got over her unique ability when she told her about it. Symi did not agree with Gabamia about how great her ability was, but Gabamia insisted that it was very special. She at one point briefly mentioned how extremely useful it would be in some military situations.

When it was just the two of them left in the classroom, Gabamia smiled at Symi expectantly. The two of them had become quite fond of each other's company over the past week. They continued to chat after class was over every day now. Symi could see how excited Gabamia was about today's plans.

"You ready to fight off the effects of my sweet gas?" Symi taunted mischievously as she approached Gabamia. She began to release the gas in large quantities as fast as she could.

"Oh yeah" Gabamia could not contain her smile when she responded. "It's so fun to see unique abilities. Well, I guess in your case I won't see it. Oh, wait! I smell it! How-"

Symi started laughing because Gabamia fell asleep mid sentence from the sweet gas. She quickly made her way over to Gabamia and slipped on a twine bracelet she had just finished weaving. After she completed the final knot and cut off the excess threads, she stopped releasing the sweet gas. 

Symi fanned the air away from Gabamia and then shook her a little. It did not take much to wake her up. She opened her eyes and started laughing. She was not in the least bit disoriented from the sweet gas. 

"Mid sentence, Symi, that was amazing! I was just about to ask how long it takes," Gabamia said excitedly.

"You are the first person I have put to sleep."

"Well, aren't you a kind person. You could be causing so much mischief with an ability like that. Tell me you haven't thought about it?" 

"Yeah, I thought about it," Symi said and winked. "What makes you think I didn't do something mischievous already?"

Gabamia looked around scanning for anything that has changed. She checked her desk for anything that was missing, but everything seemed in order. She looked at Symi, but she was not giving any hints. 

"I give up, what did you take?" Gabamia asked.

Symi smiled and pointed to Gabamia's wrist. "I made you a bracelet today in class. Of course it will burn up when you go into battle and turn into a big fireball, but I still wanted to make you a bracelet anyway."

Gabamia smiled while examining her gift. Symi had created a very complicated pattern of red and gold colored threads and tied it on her wrist. The bracelet had golden diamond shapes with a red background. 

"See, it matches this lock of hair," Symi stated excitedly. She showed Gabamia a lock of hair that had read threads entwined into it. The only difference was Symi's diamonds were made from her blonde hair, not gold thread.

"I'll try my best not to burn it up." Gabamia said a little ashamed. She knew she would never be glorious in battle again. She was barely able to produce enough of her fire secretion to play show and tell with her students. She knew she would probably never be the Night Phoe-nix again. How could she protect Omniel Isda now, she thought.

Symi noticed the change in Gabamia's mood and quickly responded by placing her hand on Gabamia's shoulder. "Gabamia, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just-" Gabamia said, but cut herself short. A knot started to build up in their throat as she remembered how crippled she had become because of her poisoned blood. The arrow had done more than just take away her ability's power. It also drastically affected her ability to heal properly. "I need some time alone."

"Okay, but can we talk about this tomorrow after class?" Symi asked. She could tell that Gabamia really needed some time alone. Symi was not sure what had destroyed the happy cheerful mood, but it was something Gabamia wanted to deal with alone. "We are friends now, so you can tell me what's wrong."

Symi could see that Gabamia was near tears now. Whatever Gabamia was going through was too much for her to handle on her own. She needed someone to help take on her burden. "Please, Gabamia, can we talk about this tomorrow? You should let this pain, whatever is causing it, out."

"Symi, you are a friend. I-" Gabamia tried, but did not get it all out. "I will tell you tomorrow, I promise; we'll talk after class."

"Good, I'll let you have some alone time then." Symi said and leaned in to give Gabamia a quick hug before leaving the room. Symi gave Gabamia one last look before exiting the classroom. Gabamia wiped some tears away and then gently fingered the bracelet.



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Originally, I was going to target adults and have this story darker and more detailed when it comes to combat, sex, and other adult stuff. I have decided to tone it down quite a bit and target teens. No more sex scenes, even though those are fun to write. 

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. My friends are all interested to know what happens next. I hope that you get that same feeling. Since I jump around from character to character, I want the reader hanging at the end of every chapter. I want them dying to know what happens when we come back to that character.