Distant Elemental

The laughter had stopped.

Nayru looked over at the men, who were pointing and gasping in general amazement towards her. Andromeda lifted her head from the ground, shaking, and also looked at Nayru. It took a few seconds for Nayru herself to look down and realise all she was was a pile of ripples. Realising what this could mean, she froze.

Nayru all but disappeared. No-one could see anything of her now that she hardly moved. She breathed slowly and deeply, hoping the slight movement wouldn’t create more ripples, and it didn’t. She was all but invisible, and she smiled in glee. That was before everything went wrong.

Ashleigh groaned and rubbed her forehead. She could feel a horrible throbbing in her head that wouldn’t stop, but she herself did, and suddenly. The terrible stinging of a strong antiseptic smell caused her to choke and gag, tears coming to her eyes. It wasn’t the smell making her gag; it was the incomprehensible fear now spreading through her whole body. She couldn’t be back here... she couldn’t.
Cold metal touched the flesh of Ashleigh’s arm and she leapt back, instantly. She hissed as she felt another cold bar behind her, and she curled into a ball as she realised she was back in another cage. Tears rolled down her face as her worst nightmare returned to her. The darkness around her seemed to enclose her, and only the cold and the smell reminded her of where she was and what might be to come. The screeching of a rusty door opening caused her flesh to crawl in a horrible feeling as though of trying to tear itself from her bones and run away. She wanted to be anywhere but here, and she knew what was coming. Some indescribable torture- the shrieking of the rusty metal gate always announced her doom. The slow clacking of heels walked down towards her cage and Bianca stopped in front of her, smiling a wicked smile. Ash had the courage to spit back in her face, turning the smile to a thin-lipped snarl. One other accompanied Bianca- a young male who pulled out a key and opened the door to the cage, letting Ashleigh out. Ash came out slowly, stretching to her full height, but staying well back from the other two.
“Had a good sleep, traitor?”

“Alright, c’mon, let’s move!”
Autumn darted forward along the wall, followed by Blaise and Fulgora. They reached the corner and Fulgora snuck past Autumn to quickly peek out and pull her head back before she was noticed.
“Okay, I saw a guard...”
“Okay, there are two guards and they’re both armed...”
“There isn’t anyone else around except for those at the gate to our right and I don’t see any walkie talkies or anything, so I don’t think they’re in communication. If we get past these guards, we should be okay. I guess we could wipe out all four...”
“Wait, slow down. We don’t have to knock them out.”
Fulgora turned to Autumn. “We don’t?”
“Of course not, I mean, doesn’t Bianca work with this organisation? How do you think she gets past? She might have some sort of code or something, but we can make something up on the spot- say we’re new, something along those lines. If we can’t get past that way, we can knock them out then. Let’s just try this first. Now act really confident, and follow me.”
Before the other two had time to do anything, Autumn was walking down towards the guards who spotted her immediately. It was time for Plan A, which currently stood for Plan Autumn.

“Do you know what we do to traitors who turn against us?”
“If I’m a traitor, don’t I already...”
“Shut up!” Bianca screamed. They were standing in a room Ashleigh remembered faintly from a long time ago, and she didn’t like it. This was the torture room. White ceiling, white walls, white everything, as always. A table stood against the right hand wall, and at the back of the room were a pair of shackles. Ashleigh was chained to these. Bianca struck out suddenly at Ashleigh, slapping her across the face with a long tendril of darkness. Ashleigh cried out, swinging where she stood, and fell limp, letting the chains cut into her flesh. She wanted to be out of here, away from it all. Fear fed into her bloodstream, pumping her adrenaline and screaming at her mind to do something- but the chains fed around her wrists, pulling her in to the wall. She could do nothing but hang, limp, and wait for whatever was about to start.

“You could have just said you were learning more about them.”
Ashleigh looked up, hearing an oddly familiar voice that wasn’t Bianca’s. There stood Lily, her short black hair framing her face. Ashleigh noticed the tears in her eyes.
“If you tell us now that you were helping us, this doesn’t have to continue. You’ll be praised.”
“Shut up!” growled Bianca in Lily’s direction. She was ignored.
“Come on, Ash! That’s all you were doing, right? You were just trying to find out more about the elementals so we could capture them. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Look at her, Lily! She’s not wearing her black necklace.”
Ashleigh looked down at her exposed neck- it was true. A black necklace adorned both Bianca and Lily’s necks, but Ashleigh’s one wasn’t there.
“It was torn off. I was trying to escape them, and it was torn from my neck when I went into a dive. I didn’t realise it until the next morning, and by then it was too late.”
Even as they spoke, both necklaces suddenly glowed a silvery-blue colour. This distracted the two girls for a moment, who looked at them in surprise, before shrugging and looking back at Ashleigh.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well you should. It’s the truth.” At this she extended her wings behind her that brushed against the cold white wall and slid underneath the chains shackling Ashleigh. Bianca and Lily both could see where feathers had been torn out in various places.

As Autumn strolled confidently towards the guards, she bent over and picked something from the ground and kept walking. Fulgora frowned- it looked like a common garden weed.
“Hi there!” she said to the guards, bounding on the balls of her feet and flashing a wide smile.
“We’re new here; is this the entrance? It’s cold out here!” She shivered and hugged herself, smiling the whole time to the bemused guards. They looked at one another before one of them stepped forward.
“Now- I know what you’re going to say!” said Autumn, waggling a finger in his face before he could so much as pronounce a syllable, “you’re going to tell us to come inside and get warm! Don’t mind if we do!” She smiled back at Blaise and Fulgora, both of which quickly hitched fake smiles to their faces and nodded as though this was the most sensible thing in the world.
“Ah- err...”
“Thanks!” and with that, the three of them marched straight past the guards and on into the building complex.

All the elementals at once felt the same strange, gurgling sensation in the pit of them stomachs and hesitancy in their limbs as though something had been disrupted. At this moment, Nayru transformed to her element as fully as was possible. Skye was wincing as she limped closer to the building, hovering when the pain became too much. Autumn, Fulgora and Blaise strolled into the building and walked up to a reception desk where a woman sat, smiling like a robot. Andromeda lifted her head, panting, and looked at Nayru in wonder. Ash gritted her teeth as she spread her wings, feeling the muscles twinge where they had been torn, stretched beyond limit or damaged in any other way. Nova leaned against a tree, contemplating the brooding complex before him. Something pulled him forward, but much more than that kept him back. Autumn walked forward with a vivacious smile across her face, reading her wit for anything.

Blaise, Fulgora and Autumn entered a warm reception room with a golden hue, welcoming and homely. An oak panelled desk sat at their right, and a lady who looked as though it were her job to sit there, smiling permanently, greeted them.
“Hello, are you back from your latest scout?” she enquired.
“Yes,” said Autumn automatically, “just got back. Didn’t get anything though.”
“Of course,” replied the steeled woman. “Names and identification numbers, please?”
“I am Mrs Olag” drawled a voice. The three elementals froze in their tracks, turning towards the voice coming from the door they had just entered from. “I have come here for an appointment. You must let me through.”
“Shit in the bed, that’s out principal!” choked Blaise. They each gave one another a horrified look before turning to the receptionist.
“Gotta run, she can’t see us!” called Autumn.
“Wait- what?” asked the receptionist, but too late. The three of them bolted down the nearest corridor, burst through a set of white, swinging doors and came to a long corridor with numerous doors branching from either side.
“I don’t think that was such a good idea, what if she calls guards?” asked Fulgora.
“I’m more interested in what our principal is doing here. We should go back and listen-”
“No, come on, we’ve gotta go,” said Blaise.
The three jogged silently down the corridor, scanning the windows in the doors of each room they passed. White room after white rooms, desks in some, strange equipment in others, scientists walking around in a few. As they continued, a lab-coated man burst from a room and came strolling down the corridor towards them. He stopped as they approached.
“What are you doing out here? You should be in the wards.”
“We got lost,” Autumn said straight away, in a normal voice.
“Lost? Lost? How’d you get lost? Everyone knows this is the...” he looked at them shrewdly. “What are your identification numbers?”
“We haven’t memorised them yet, we’re new here. Please can you take us to the ward rooms?” she asked, putting on a simpering attitude and a smile. The scientist still looked twice at them, but must have decided she wasn’t lying.
“Just this way,” he said, and walked them back the way they had come.

The guards didn’t look surprised as they saw Skye half limp, half hover towards them. As she reached them, she opened her mouth to say something, but they opened the gate and let her pass. Recovering a neutral look on her face as quickly as possible, she walked on into the complex. Their emotions seemed bored and relaxed- they weren’t at all suspicious of her. This caused her to calm down slightly, but not for long. Another set of guards barred her way up ahead.
Skye reached the guards, and could feel their suspicions immediately. They looked at her leg, tied with the sleeve of her jacket, and she felt them move their weapons before she saw them. The air vibrated with their dire intent, and before they had the chance to make any other moves, Skye whipped her hands up and used them like fans. Massive gusts of wind tore from her, and the guards were blown backwards, hitting their unprotected heads against the wall of the building and slumping to the ground. Skye did a slight, one-legged jig on the spot, prancing about in merriment before hopping to the door which buzzed back automatically for her. She walked in to a strange sight.

Mrs Olag stood leaning against a panelled oak desk on her right. She was complaining loudly about something, and the receptionist at the desk had one hand over her ear, the other at the end of a telephone.
“Aren’t you listening to me?” stammered Mrs Olag.
“Yes, three people walked in... I don’t know... They ran off before I could-”
“I have an appointment!” screeched Mrs Olag.
Skye could feel the irritation growing in the receptionist, but this was unrivalled by the outrage from her principal. Skye blinked in confusion- what on earth was her principal doing here? But she had a job to do, she couldn’t stand around watching. She limped forward, wincing as she placed her foot down, and walked straight past the desk, through a set of doors, and down the golden-hued corridor, different to the one the other three elementals had passed through.

“I keep having these weird visions,” muttered Blaise to the other two as they followed the scientist down a long hallway, through a door, across an empty room and down another corridor.
“What of?”
“I think I can see some sort of white room with scientists running around and some sort of glass thing, as though I’m the one in a glass cage or something. It’s really weird. It only started a few minutes ago when I got this weird queasy feeling in my stomach.”
“I got that too!” said Fulgora and Autumn at the same time. The scientist looked back at them with a frown on his face.
“Keep up please.”

Nayru stifled a yell and clapped a hand to her forehead. A sudden, vivid image of a reception desk floated into her head. She saw the outline of Autumn walking towards it, with Fulgora some distance closer to her view point. The image bobbed up and down as though it was from the eyes of a person walking towards the desk.
Nayru shook her head, removing the image from her mind, and focused on what was happening now. She felt suddenly light and fluid. She looked down and saw only the smallest ripple before this disappeared and only the ground appeared beneath her. It was the strangest experience. She felt slightly nauseous, but ignored the queasy feeling and concentrated on getting out of this cage. Andromeda needed help.
The three men muttered quickly to one another before a slow grin spread across one of the men’s faces. He shrugged at the other two, pointed towards where Nayru stood, and said something she could almost hear. The grins appearing on the others faces were enough to tell her they were concocting something bad. Nayru looked over at Andromeda who looked scared and was frantically waving her arms. She pointed up towards the top of her cell, where some sort of device connected to the top, pointed to Nayru, then started shaking about. Nayru knew automatically what she meant. She was about to get electrocuted.
Nayru made a sudden decision. She knew, of course, than water is conductive. She didn’t really want to stand around, being water herself, and find out what it was like to have 2,000 volts course through her body. So, quick as lightning itself, she solidified.
The lightning came down, crackling around the human figure now turned to ice. Nayru winced, unable to move properly, feeling the heat scorching across the ice. It was only the heat that bothered her, threatening to melt her and electrocute her, but Nayru was better than that. She kept her cold form and waited till the energy stopped, which it did eventually.
Another image attacked her brain then. She was floating down a corridor, led by some sort of scientist in those stupid white coats, and came suddenly to a section of the building that split off into two sections, named “Sub-Elemental Ward” and “Various Other Powers Ward”.

Nayru had to shake her head again to get rid of the image. She could not now be distracted; she had a job to do. She pointed up towards the ceiling where the device shooting the electricity jutted out from, cracking slightly as she moved, and shot a large amount up onto the device that stuck there, looking like a gleaming crystal chandelier. Instantly she heard the crackling noise, and even as she watched, the ice started to melt, dripping down on her.
Nayru converted to a form which was mostly chilling water with a slight ice casing that cracked and split apart as she moved. She could hardly imagine what she must look like now, but didn’t look down, nor at Andromeda, not wanting to see her shock and pain. She spread her arms out, concentrating as best she could, and then shot water out at the glass. Even as it flew through the air, it solidified instantly to sharp, faceted points of ice that struck the glass. Nayru smiled, hearing the sound of shattering glass tinkling to the floor. Those bastards weren’t going to get away from her now.

Even as she rushed towards them, she heard one of the older men cry- “get the lightning subs!” Nayru reached the men, and pulled back her icy hand. She turned this into water and struck out at the men. What she didn’t expect was to be knocked back by some invisible barrier. She turned to look at the younger man out of the three.
“So that’s what you are, huh? A shield. I knew they were using you.”
The man shrugged, smiling. The two older men were also smiling.
“You wait, little elemental. The lightning subs are coming. You know very well what lightning does. So while you’re pondering just how much pain you’re about to go through, why don’t we show you?”
Nayru heard the shriek, and whirled on the spot. “Andromeda!” she screamed.