No one knew why Erik was the way he was. He had never really fit in at his

school. Although the few who really knew him saw his gentle personality in his bright

green eyes, others saw a cold gaze. Erik was quiet. He did well, but his teachers didn't

question him much. He sat in the back of class, alone. He wasn't considered part of

school, he was just another kid. It was easy not to miss him.

His parents had never understood him. They realized that he was different from

others, and were, truthfully, a little afraid of him themselves. As soon as he could walk,

he couldn't be kept from the backyard. He spent a good deal of his time there. It was

only an acre or so, but no one could ever find him. No one knew what he did out there,

but he had the uncanny ability to completely disappear into any woods he came across.

Maybe that's what set him apart from his other peers.

When he was gone, it was sad how only his few friends missed him. Not even his

parents missed him much. They were sad, and mourned over him, but had never actually

felt that parental connection. Even sadder, his friends got over it. As simple as that. But

even if they didn't miss him, no one would ever forget Erik.

What happened to Erik that day may sound like an unbelievable story. Perhaps it

is. But it happened.

As soon as Erik got home, he finished his homework. No hard task. He was soon

finished, and went outside. He heard his parents enter the house, and quickly harnessed

the powers only he knew about. For as long as he could remember, he had been able to

cover himself up from being found, at least in nature. At first he had thought it was just

his parents playing with him. Then he had thought he just had a knack for staying

hidden. Then there was the day when his father was looking straight at him, but didn't

see anything.

Erik called upon the powers, what he liked to call, "Elemental Powers" because of

how they only seemed to work when he was outside, in nature. Like, an element, Nature.

Or Water. He liked the sound of it because it sounded like something the Greeks would

have thought up. He liked the Greeks.

Today, he didn't feel like being found. He walked, which was normal for him.

He walked off his family's property and onto some mountainous land. After several

minutes, he came to a small pool.

The Pool was his favorite part of this wild and untamed land. Sometimes he spent

hours just enjoying it. He was actually a good artist, but he showed no one his drawings

of the Pool. Today, though, it looked strange. It was different shades of green, all

swirling like a plug had been pulled, yet no water drained. Erik knew it was strange.

Because he had long ago learned to dry himself using his elemental powers, he didn't

bother to undress. He dove straight in, expecting to enter the water and find the problem.

Instead, he dove through a thin sheet of water, then fell through several feet of air.

He fell, but managed to call some nearby vines to cushion his fall. They didn't

work very well. He landed on something blue and green. It moved and shoved him off.

Erik got his first good look at it. It looked almost like dog, and was about the same size,

except it had blue skin, a wider face, and dark blue spots on it's skin. It's claws, three to a

foot, looked sharp, while it had a strange looking green bulb on it's back.

"Bulb…" it growled in a warning tone.

Erik scrambled back and grabbed blindly behind him. He grabbed hold of a

baseball size thing.

"G-Get away!" He yelled as he threw whatever it was in his hand at the creature.

The ball was strange also. It was red on one half, and white on the other, separated by a

thin black line. As it spun from his throw, Erik saw that the black line held some sort of

circle, thicker, that completely surrounded a small, raised circle. The ball struck the

creature, and Erik was hoping that it would scare the creature away.

To his complete and total surprise, The ball split open like it was hinged, the thick

black circle connected to the white part. The creature glowed bright red, and then started

to change. The redness formed and swirled into a sphere inside the ball, where the ball

promptly closed.

Erik watched all this with a sort of fascination, and noticed every detail in the few

seconds. The raised circle on the ball suddenly became red. The ball actually shook

several times before the raised circle became white again. Erik was still for several

minutes, but he picked the ball up after a shaky period of relief. As he closed a nervous

hand around it, it suddenly shrunk to the size of a marble, making him jump back several

feet. After another few minutes, he grabbed it. It seemed to stick to his hand. He didn't

want anybody to see it, but he didn't want it in his pocket either, in case the creature came

back out. He quickly slipped it under his short sleeved green plaid shirt, and held it

against his belt. Before he could stick it there, it jumped from his hand and stuck to the

belt.

Erik checked himself over, and started walking.