The Many Faces of Tully

I train with Hutsi and Zazu every day, and it is the most exhausting training ever. We train for hours and I always feel like my brain has turned into pudding by the time we are done. But I am getting better at my telekinesis, and that always makes me feel one hundred percent better.

Zazu and Hutsi help me a lot during these training sessions. We always start with meditating. We sit in the garden. Seal the door shut and just sit in a circle and let the calm of the flowing creek wash over us. Hutsi tells us to breathe slowly in and out, and to inhale as deeply as possible. We have to clear our minds, and Hutsi’s voice is always calm and relaxing so he makes it easy for me to do.

After we have meditated for at least half an hour, Zazu starts stretching our minds. He uses his power to form math equations or word problems over his head, and Hutsi and I have to answer him with our own powers. Hutsi would form his answer with fire or earth, and I would have to use the blocks we bring to form an answer. In the beginning I dropped the blocks on my head quite a few times. And my answers were hardly legible, but I slowly was able to control more blocks at a time.

We did that for about fifteen minutes and then we started pitting our powers against each other, testing each other and strengthening each other. The most common challenge we did was to make a structure with the many objects we brought, and then we try to knock the others’ structure over. Generally Zazu and I build something and Hutsi tries to knock it down. He would announce something like “Wind.” And then Zazu and I would have to build something in under a minute before Hutsi tried to blow it apart.

It was a mental strain, trying to keep the objects together and up when earth, wind, water or fire was trying to knock them down and pull them apart. At first I wouldn’t last five seconds. The force of the wind surprised me, and I lost my concentration when my building caught on fire. It was tough, but I got over the initial shock and was finally able to concentrate on my building. I started learning what object to use against certain elements. It got easier and easier until my building never fell apart. When I got to that point, I was forced to make more buildings or to use smaller objects. They were constantly pushing the boundaries of my mind, but that only made me stronger.

Another exercise we did a lot was to keep one of us afloat, and it is the weirdest sensation to be help up by wind alone. My hair was always thoroughly tangled after a lot of these sessions. Or I was wet or bruised and we were all occasionally burned, but Jace fixed us up quickly. He oversaw the majority of my training, always suggesting ideas for us to do. He came up with the game to see how high Zazu and I could make stacks of matches blocks, silverware or books. To win, you had to be the last one to stack something on and not make the tower fall over. It was an intense form of Jenga.

The next game Jace introduced was origami. I had to fold little pieces of paper with my mind, and whoever made the best looking thing, won. Every day Jace brought a harder piece with more and more folds. My room is now littered with cranes, butterflies, flowers and other things that I don’t know what the names are. This game was comforting because Zazu seemed to have as much difficulties as I did. He didn’t have a jump on me at this game, so we were pretty evenly matched. It pushed both of us, which is what Jace wanted I am assuming.

And one of the last games Jace proposed, was tug-o-war. Of course it wasn’t like the traditional tug-o-war, but we did occasionally use a rope, but that wasn’t how it worked. Hutsi, or sometimes Jace, would throw a random object, and Zazu and I would have to fight for control over the object. It was difficult to try to control an object when someone else already was. Sometimes we both went at it with so much force that the object would either simply dropped or went shooting off in a random direction.

At times my powers would cheat and throw up a shield so Zazu can’t even reach the object with his powers. I never did this on purpose, but I would concentrate so hard at beating him that my powers did everything they could to accomplish that. So, I was forced to have handicaps. I had to have my shield up just around me at all times, and then they said I had to close my eyes until they said open, which was right after they threw the object. But still, with those handicaps, I won half the times.

Then, when Jace wasn’t there was when we had the most fun. Hutsi entertained us with displays of water and fire. Zazu and I played dodge ball. Zazu showed us his awesome juggling skills. And Hutsi and Zazu showed endless support and they always had advice for me. They would go over certain things that I was struggling with and helped me get a better understanding of our powers. Even through these training sessions were always strenuous, I couldn’t help but leave happy. Exhausted, but happy.