Distant Elemental

Skye floated gently upwards, setting in her comfortable pouch of dense air. The wind picked up, raging with a vicious howl as it tore against itself. Two forces, equally combined, faced one another in the sky. The fitful wind engaged itself in pushing past one another, until like a pirouetting dancer the twirling motion of a tornado began. Skye sat in the centre smiling with glee.

“Skye, what the hell are you doing!?” Blaise roared at her as his feet left the ground. He started twirling upwards as the others left the ground until they were borne back down again by strong gravitational forces.
“Thanks, Meda.”
“Meda?”
They were interrupted by a low growl.
“I swear, if that thing makes one more bloody noise...” said an angry Blaise.
The beast shifted suddenly, the thick shadow covering the large form, and in an odd motion one of the sets of arms disappeared. Everyone watched as the arms dissolved to the gas form, shifted around to the back, and reformed. Out stretched a long pair of drooping black wings.
“Oh you want to play, do you? I know how to play this game!” Flaring up suddenly, Blaise rose golden against the darkening sky. A silent flap followed this, and another, and a third. The beast gained height from the ground slowly but surely, now settled in a solid form. Its cruel eyes flickered from Blaise to Skye and back again. Skye swivelled, bringing the tornado up into the air and passing over the ground completely. Blaise followed.
“Hey, wait up!” Andromeda kicked off from the ground and flowed upwards smoothly. Blaise and Skye changed direction, following her ascent as she rose upwards, drawing the beast away. The creature flapped its wings and followed them up, once again letting out a longing roar.
“Hey! What the hell are we supposed to do?” Autumn screamed up at them, her voice not heard over the howling of wind and fire, and the roaring of the beast.

“Oh, this is pathetic. They can’t fight that thing without us.” Nayru was adamant.
“How do you suggest we follow?” asked Fulgora, slightly indifferent.
“Well... I do have one idea.”
Another sweeping motion from Nayru later, and Autumn, Nova and Fulgora stood, staring.
A giant staircase made of ice led into the sky- cool enough to be completely dry. Nayru was already off, leaping from stair to stair, Fulgora just behind, Nova following soon after. Autumn took her first step onto it and straight away felt the chill cover her leg. The moisture on her boots solidified even as she looked down.

“Yum, frost.”
“Did you seriously just say-” Fulgora spotted Nayru looking at her with a guilty expression, half-way through licking the frost from her arm.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t see that.”

Wind battered at the wings of the brute, tearing at the wings which reshaped themselves even as the thing advanced. It lunged towards Skye with sharpened claws and she twirled away, neatly ducking under the swipe. Next the beast lunged for Andromeda who had been rising steadily. She stopped as she saw the swing coming and merely watched at the claws whistled high above her head, the angle all wrong. Blaise rushed straight at the creature, ducking under the two arms and striking hard in the newly formed carapace. The beast twisted and changed, strengthening itself even as they fought. The strike knocked the beast backwards, but the fire couldn’t damage the new exterior it had created, like a coat of armour, to protect its hide.
“Blaise, watch out!”
He ducked just in time as a vortex of swirling colour blasted past him. Andromeda’s aim was true- she hit the thing full in the face. It writhed in the air, clutching whatever was there, and just like that a horn snapped from it and fell to the ground.

“Watch it!” Nayru was knocked over just in time. A black, twisted horn smashed into the staircase of ice right where she had been standing. Fulgora pulled her up.
“Are you alright?”
“Of course. Let’s keep going. Where on Earth did they go?”
“Hopefully not much farther,” was the solemn reply.
Autumn prised the horn from the slowly melting ice and held it in one hand, continuing to climb.

“I have an idea!” called Blaise, “If we can keep snapping parts off it while it’s still in a solid form and they fall to the ground before it can collect them again, maybe we can strip it slowly until it’s small enough to destroy with one goof bout!” at this, he sent a whirling flamethrower at it, which the beast had enough sense to dodge.
“Hey, what the hell is that?” called Andromeda, pointing.
The three of them looked over, seeing a crystal blue staircase form in front of their eyes, just a little way away. Rushing up this staircase, most of them panting heavily were the other four who had remained on the ground. From this far away, they still heard Autumn call; “you can’t get rid of us that easily!”
Skye chuckled while absently ducking beneath the whistling claws.

“Quick, give me that, I have an idea!” Fulgora made a grab at the horn and snatched it from Autumn. As they ran, now over flat, ice, Fulgora sped up, running along where the newly formed ice was still being created. As she reached towards where the beast was she leapt up, rising farther due to the speed she had picked up, and hurled the horn straight at the beast. The point struck in the middle of the carapace and a high-pitched scream ensued. The shining black case shattered, and the fragments and horn fell back down to the ground. Writhing, the beast held two paws to its chest, and in its agony it stabbed itself with claws straight through the chest. It screamed again, black blood oozing from the wound.

“Eat this!” Whirling leaves that flew by suddenly changed trajectory and sped straight at the beast. They stabbed into the fresh wound and bloomed suddenly, crawling into the chest of the thing and spreading roots of black, their veins throbbing with the blood of the deformity.
“That’s parasitic nature for you,” Autumn grinned.
“I’ll open things up a bit more!” called Andromeda, and another swirling burst of light blasted through the hole, tearing it open more. The thing now screamed in agony, no longer able to hold itself up in the air but being stuck up there in zero gravity. It thought no more, only screamed.
“I’ll take out the eyes!”
Two darts of ice, fashioned like spearheads, struck straight into the gleams of red. More shrieks, more oozing black, no more eyes. They filled with black and sight was lost forever.
“This is horrible!” Skye cried, literally bawling.
“Get a grip!” called Autumn, “this is reality! You want this thing to kill us?”
“It’s my turn!” called Blaise, zooming in with his vicious grin. He flew towards the beast and let out a massive jet of flame that struck at the expose flesh which withered before it. The roots growing in the beast did not burst into flame, but as the heat increased, they slowly dried out.
“Okay Blaise, I’m up next!”
Blaise moved aside as Fulgora walked forward. She aimed precisely for the trail of roots now sticking from awkward angles out of the beast. Hitting each directly, the current hit the ends and caused them to light up. Now directing the current into the wounds itself, the surge of energy pulsated through the body, literally paralysing the beast. It burned within, and Blaise directed the fire slowly towards the centre of the thing.
“Okay, someone finish it off! It can’t move!” called Fulgora.
“I’ll do it!” screamed three or four people at once.

Instead of talking, Andromeda had started powering up. She grabbed the attention of everyone around her as rings of energy pulsed around her interlocking wrists. The lights glowed brighter and brighter as more and more time passed and the energy burned brighter.
“Okay I can’t hold it any more, watch out everyone!” she called, turning her eyes away from the brilliance.
The beam shot out, directly at the brute, straight into the middle of the chest where the raw wound was opened. The pink, green, red, golden hue seemed to blast through the beast, straight under the skin and all through the body. With a last, shrieking cry, it was blasted into oblivion. All that remained were sparkling flecks of black that faded slowly into the greying sky.

“Whoa,” said an awed voice.
Everyone whirled to see Ashleigh flapping in the sky not far away, eyes wide with awe.
“Hey! What are you doing here?”
“Oh shit!” she cried, and whirled around, flapping hard to get away.
“Come back here, you!”