The Elementals

Everything is black, like a thick, inky fog. Out of the darkness, Breeze emerges. She looks wispy and frail. It seems like the weight of the sheer absence of light is almost too much to hold. Her mouth is moving, but she’s not making a sound.

“What?” I ask, but my voice is swallowed by the infinite blackness. “Where are you? Where is Terra?”

Breeze looks pained, but she keeps mouthing the same words. She fades and I try to chase after her. Right before she disappears I understand what she is saying.

Help. Help us. Please.

I wake up, gasping; clutching something like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. Someone pries my fingers off and I realize I’m grabbing Coal’s arm so tightly it’s leaving a mark. I drop my hand and it falls limply to the ground.

“Sorry,” I mumble, face hot.

He shrugs, handing me a candy bar and some water. I devour them both quickly. We’re hidden away from sight under some branches. The soft patter of rain comes from above. The moon is high in the sky, filtering through the leaves. Coal is sitting, leaning against the tree trunk calmly.

“We have to go after them,” I say, getting unsteadily to my feet.

“What?”

“Breeze and Terra,” I reply.

“You don’t want to go where they’re going,” Coal says, his face darkening, shutting down.

“You know where they are?”

“Look,” Coal stands up. “I’ve been there. It’s bad. Imagine your worst nightmare, and then triple it.”

“That’s why I can’t let Terra and Breeze stay there.” I don’t mention that my nightmares are about burning buildings and the screams of tortured people. “Where is it?”

Coal is silent, glaring at me, but that’s only the top. I see fear, and pain, there too.

“You don’t have to come,” I tell him, “But I swear, if you don’t tell me where they are, I will drown you.”

The truth is, I don’t even feel like I can walk very far right now, much less use my powers.

I have the distinct feeling that Coal sees through my bluff, but instead of calling it out, he says grudgingly, “In Maine.”

“Thank you,” I say curtly, then after pausing awkwardly, I turn and start walking away. “Bye.”

I’ll just find a town, get a map, and go from there. Easy. The air feels empty next to me without having someone to constantly be throwing jabs at me. Even though I feel exhausted, I push on harder. The rain collects on the leaves, and then dumps large droplets on me. I’m too upset and tired to do anything about my cold condition.

I’m headed off to a place that I know is in Maine. Coal is afraid of this place, so it won’t be a cake walk. I also know the people there have taken Breeze and Terra, and obviously encountered Elementals before. These people are now aware of my existence, and we probably didn’t get off to a good start when I froze off their toes. Also, I have no idea where I’m going.

Wonderful. It appears that I have a death wish.

The leaves are wet and slippery. The ground makes a squelching noise with every step. With a blinding flash of lightning and a deafening crack of thunder, I lose my footing. I fall into something— a tree, maybe— and it stops my fall.

Trees aren’t warm.

I stumble backward, blinking away the spots in my eyes. Trees don’t send a wave of heat through your body, instantly drying you off.

“Coal?” I ask incredulously, trying not to sound relieved.

“The one and only, Flippers.” He doesn’t sound particularly happy about it.

“You’re coming?”

“Guess so.” He shrugs and shakes the rain off his head. “I’m probably insane.”

“Yes, yes you are,” I say, then serious, “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t let you wander off just to get lost,” Coal says, smiling slightly.

“I’m not lost!” I protest, though I know very well that I am. “I should go to Maine.”

“Yeah, it’s not like Maine is an entire state and you’re looking for a facility that won’t show up in on any map or anything.”

“Shut up,” is all I can come up with.

I start to walk forward and then realize how extremely drained I am and I slip again on the wet earth. I fall backward, flailing my arms out uselessly for balance but Coal catches me.

“Do you have, like, a condition with collapsing or something?”

“Maybe it’s a side effect of your stupidity.” I stand up shakily.

“Ha, ha,” Coal says drily. “There’s a rock overhang to the right. You need to rest and then we can go on your suicide rescue mission.”

I hate having to admit to needing a break, but I have no choice. I follow him. We walk-actually, Coal walks, I kind of stumble around like a demented seal- to a teepee style rock formation. The top of a ridge had fallen off to make a leaning rock “roof” against a slight carved out part of the bottom. I crawl under it, grateful to be sitting.

Coal piles together a collection of sticks and leaves he had gathered along the way. He slowly lets his glowing red hand dry them off, and then ignites them into a small fire. I lean against the wall, letting the dampness seep out of me.

“You have a burn mark on your arm.”

I look at Coal. He’s staring straight ahead. I stay silent, hoping he might get hit in the head by something and forget about it.

“I didn’t do that, did I?” He glances at me anxiously.

“No!” I give a strained laugh because he’s so concerned. “No, it was there way before I met you.”

“What happened?” He sees my pained look and says quickly, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” I figure I owe him at least this for staying. “Before I got moved to Westerville, I went to Sunnydale. It… it burned down.”

Coal nods, expecting this.

“I was the only survivor. Out of 22 people.”

“Do you remember anything?”

“Flashes. Chunks of things, really,” I reply, letting the memories come back from the hole in my mind that I had shoved them into. “I remember waking up to people screaming and crying. Then smoke. Lots of it, suffocating. I remember trying to get out of bed— I had the bottom part of the bunk— and then it collapsed. One of the ladder rungs must have hit my arm or something. I remember the heat. It hurt, a lot. Burning, like it was melting through my skin. The firemen were amazed that anyone survived, much less a kid who got trapped under a bunk bed.”

Coal stays silent through the whole story. “And I totally made you fine with fire by attacking you with it, didn’t I?”

I snicker. “No, that wasn’t really the most fun thing I’ve ever done. But it did actually help, in a way.”

Coal looks at me questioningly.

“I don’t like being afraid of things. It’s a waste of time, running away. Now I’m traveling with a person who could literally burst into flames at any second. And I’m going to have to deal with it. And besides,” I say, “I can just freeze you in hurricane.”

Coal laughs, shaking his head. “About that,” he starts.

“About what?”

“The fight, you didn’t tire until that last move.”

“Oh, you mean that time when I saved you?” I snicker at his face. “That was no big deal. You’re welcome.”

“I’m serious. Breeze and Terra were drained by that first little use of their powers. You kept up with me the whole time. And how did you learn to fight like that?”

“Well, it sure wasn’t because I had a good teacher.”

“You need to learn to take a compliment when it’s given.”

“That was a compliment?”

Coal sighs and hands me another candy bar. “I forgot how annoying you are.”

“Me?” I say incredulously, through a mouthful of chocolate. “You’re the one who has extreme people issues.”

“What do you mean? I’m perfect.”

“Are you kidding me? As soon as Breeze and Terra showed up, you went from ‘normal obnoxious Coal’ to ‘get on my bad side and I’ll roast you Coal.’”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah right,” I snort.

“Anyway, stop changing the subject!” he says, “You just stood there for a second, then came up with a plan to eliminate all the guys in one swipe!”

“I honestly don’t know. It just made sense, you know?” I say, shrugging.

This seems to annoy him more. “And then you just started fighting like you had for your entire life!” he stops, “You haven’t, have you?”

“No!” I laugh at the ridiculousness of it. “I just watched you, and then filled in the spots that you were missing.”

“What spots?”

“Promise you won’t roast me?”

“I won’t roast you, Flippers.”

“Well you’re more of an offensive fighter, striking more and guarding less. These guys obviously knew that and had multiple attackers surround you. You held them off pretty well but eventually one of them had an open hit when you did that jumping side kick to the guy on your right who had just punched. This left your left side completely open.”

It just… seems apparent to me. Coal is staring at me intently. I continue.

“If you had blocked the punch, ducked under the guy to your left, and gotten out of the circle, you could have blasted all of them at once. Once you started getting tired, you couldn’t attack as fast, but you don’t know how to defend well enough to go on that approach, so you kept trying to strike more, leaving more spots open. These guys know this and realize they just have to tire you out by letting you attack, and then only start really fighting when you’re done.”

Coal’s mouth is open. I shrug. “At least, that’s what it looked like to me.”

“What the— how do— where did you learn this?” He’s so flustered, I have to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s just that I have absolutely no idea how I know this stuff. I just looked at the situation, and that’s what popped into my head. It just makes sense to me.”

Coal leans back against the rock. He looks like he might start tearing his hair out.

“You’re a good fighter, honest, you need to strengthen your defense though. If you had, then I think you would have held them off and I wouldn’t have had to come over.”

“And that! How did you get keep fighting and still have enough energy to do your hurricane thing?”

“I don’t know!” I say truthfully. “I was really worked up, I guess. And I fainted!” I remember I’m supposed to be beat. “I’m going to sleep now, DON’T bother me.”

Coal accepts that he won’t get anywhere with me. He turns over, putting out the fire. I have a feeling he won’t go to sleep for a while though. I’m too tired to care all that much.