Three years.
It's strange how time stretches and bends, depending on how it's lived. For the villagers, three years passed like any other—seasons of sowing and harvest, festivals marked by fire and song, children growing taller and leaner in the cycle of daily survival. For Kael and me, those same years were forged in sweat, bruises, and relentless pursuit of strength.
We had carved our own rhythm into the wilderness—far from the village, deep in the groves where the trees bent against storms and shadows whispered secrets of the land. It was there we bled, failed, and rebuilt ourselves piece by piece.
And after three years, we were no longer Hollows.
Kael was the first to bloom.
Her wind had matured from whispers and playful gusts into sharp, deadly precision. I watched her one morning as she stood at the river's edge, her body coiled with purpose. She raised her hand, and the air shimmered. A blade of wind, translucent yet deadly, sliced the water's surface in a clean line, splitting the flow for several heartbeats before it rushed together again.
She grinned at me, wiping sweat from her brow. "Wind Sword," she declared. "Not perfect yet, but sharp enough."
Her experiments didn't stop there. She shaped currents into ropes that lashed around tree trunks, bending them until the bark cracked. With focus, she wove gusts into blades so fine they cut through reeds like a farmer's sickle. When her frustration burned hot enough, she whipped the air into wild arcs that struck like invisible claws.
Kael's training became a dance of storms—graceful, fierce, and alive. She was movement incarnate, her every step flowing with rhythm, her strikes carried by the weight of air itself. Where once she had been the shadow of a Hollow girl, now she was a tempest.
My path was slower, harder—more internal.
Telekinesis was a fickle thing. Stones slipped from my grasp. Logs spun out of control. The strain left me bleeding from the nose, wracked with migraines. But I kept at it. Day after day, until the resistance gave way to flow.
By the end of the first year, I could lift boulders half my size and hold them steady as though the earth itself obeyed me. By the second, I was no longer limited to weight—I could shape their movement with precision. Spears of stone hurled through trees. A wall of logs held midair as Kael's wind whirled around them, weaving defense into offense.
But my real breakthrough came not from strength, but from stillness.
Through endless nights of meditation, I began to feel patterns in battle before they happened. The twitch of a hand before a strike, the shift of weight in a stance, the faintest ripple of intent pressing into the air. It wasn't sight. It wasn't hearing. It was something deeper—a resonance between my mind and the world around me.
With practice, I could predict an opponent's move the moment they thought of it.
And then there was the pressure.
It began as an accident. I had been training alone, frustrated, rage boiling in my chest. I released it—and Kael, standing ten paces away, staggered as if struck by a wave. She clutched her head, her breath ragged.
"What did you—do?" she gasped.
I hadn't moved a muscle. But I had felt something leave me—a pressure, not physical, but mental, pressing into her very thoughts.
It became my third weapon. I honed it carefully, cautiously. A release of intent so sharp it cut into the minds of those around me, paralyzing them with fear, hesitation, or doubt. It wasn't constant—I couldn't hold it long without draining myself—but even moments of pressure were enough to shift the flow of a fight.
By the third year, I could release it in bursts—waves that cracked lesser wills like clay pots.
Kael called it "the Weight."
Together, our training became a symphony.
Kael's winds slashed through targets while I pinned them in place with invisible force. I hurled boulders midair, and she split them into dust with blades of air. She lashed enemies with ropes of wind, dragging them into my telekinetic grasp, where I crushed or redirected them.
We sparred against each other too, testing limits. Kael darted like lightning, her wind pushing her faster than feet should allow, her blades slicing at impossible angles. I countered with foresight, reading her movements, blocking her with barriers of stone or bursts of mental Weight that staggered her just long enough to seize control.
She learned to slip past my pressure, to let the wind carry her free. I learned to anchor myself in the ground, unyielding, until her gusts broke like waves on rock.
Every fight left us bruised, battered, laughing and cursing. But every fight made us sharper.
And then came the test.
It wasn't planned. No duel, no declaration. Just a chance encounter.
A group of young Naturals from the village had strayed into our hidden grove one afternoon, their wooden training weapons slung over their shoulders, their voices loud with arrogance. They spotted us and smirked.
"Outcasts," one sneered. "What are you doing here? Pretending to be warriors?"
Kael's eyes flicked to mine. I shook my head. Not yet. But the Naturals pressed. They shoved, laughed, demanded we spar "for their amusement."
Something in me snapped.
The fight was fast, brutal.
They came at us with the arrogance of the gifted—predictable, overconfident. I read their strikes before their muscles moved, deflecting blows with invisible barriers, hurling them back with bursts of force. Kael's wind danced around them, ropes binding their arms, blades slicing their wooden weapons to splinters.
When one of them lunged at her, I released the Weight. He froze midstride, eyes wide with terror, his mind crushed beneath the pressure of my will. Kael's wind knocked him flat.
Within minutes, the grove was silent except for their groans.
We had won.
Against Naturals.
Not barely. Not by chance. We had dominated.
Kael stood beside me, chest heaving, eyes blazing. "Equal," she whispered. "We're their equals now."
I looked at the broken weapons scattered around us, the Naturals sprawled in the dirt.
"No," I said quietly. "Not equals."
I could feel it—the echo in my chest, the storm in Kael's breath.
"We're something else."
For three years we had been shadows. Forgotten, discarded, Hollow.
Now we were storms. Now we were weight. Now we were Echoes.
And when the world finally turned its eyes toward us, it would no longer see weakness.
It would see inevitability.