Water Shaper (World Aflame)

by Messenger, Jon

  Wilkes looked at the oddly structured building beside them. The dark glass, triangular building was framed in an odd, metal cage. Though some of the windows had been smashed, the cage had done a good job of protecting the building from the gratuitous destruction many of the other buildings had suffered.

  “We can go this way and sweep back around,” the officer said, pointing to the sidewalk that ran along the triangular building. “We’ll just have to put some distance between us and them.”

  “Then let’s stop standing around talking about it,” Sean said.

  They hurried onto the sidewalk and into the shadow of the building. Xander took a step forward but his knees buckled as an incredibly sharp pain stabbed through his gut. He dropped to his knees in the frigid water and groaned.

  “Stop,” Jessica told the others, and she rushed back to his side. “What’s wrong?”

  “Pain,” Xander said. “Like before. When we were at the store.”

  Wilkes turned and looked upward in a panic, knowing what he faced when Xander had felt that pain before. The burning wings appeared as General Abraxas swooped down, landing heavily in front of the group. His burning wings illuminated the shaven head and dark tattoos. His eyes smoldered with sadistic glee as he looked upon Xander.

  Xander looked up and stared in disbelief at the demented Fire Warrior. His face was one that was burned forever into his memory; the man had slaughtered his entire family.

  “That’s impossible,” Xander said, forcing his legs underneath him so he could stand again. “You’re dead. We killed you.”

  “You did nothing other than anger me,” Abraxas snarled through his pointed teeth. “You tried to kill me once before. I’ve been waiting so long to return the favor.”

  Xander let the white overcome his eyes as he summoned the power of the Wind Elemental. He could feel his anger and disgust feeding his power until he was no longer in control; he was little more than a conduit for the full wrath of the elemental might.

  Abraxas turned casually to the side and let loose a stream of blindingly bright white flames. Xander’s skin smoldered and smoked from the heat, despite the fact that the flames weren’t directed at the four friends. Instead, the fire struck the triangular building beside them. It melted through the white, metal cage without any resistance. As the fire struck the building itself, the structure exploded from the heat and pressure. Metal, glass, and concrete flew into the air. Without its corner support, a crack split through the center of the building. The top shifted under its own weight and slid forward, spilling toward Xander and the group.

  Xander looked up in time to see concrete and glass spilling toward them, led by jagged and shattered white, metal poles. He immediately forgot his thoughts of revenge as he realized they were about to be crushed by the collapsing building. He threw up his arms defensively in his panic, and the wind power fled from him.

  The Fire Elemental swooped low, blasting the street below in a swath of flames. Sammy could see the people below scattering in the dragon’s wake but too few of them escaped its destruction. She sobbed internally, knowing she had no control over the actual creature. The tears she shed were hers alone; she doubted the Elemental even recognized her pain. She could feel its overwhelming sense of morbid glee as it breathed fire again and again, wiping out the human defenses within the city.

  As it turned for another pass, Sammy tried futilely once again to stop its attack. She struggled against its intake of breath, hoping to seize its throat closed. When that failed, she tried to stop the brewing of flames within its gullet. The pain lanced through her head as she tried to keep it from breathing its fire.

  As the flames struck the side of the wide home below them, the house erupted in fire. The roof melted and fell inward, trapping those inside.

  Sammy tried to retreat into herself. When she realized she was still alive and hadn’t been destroyed by being taken as a host, she had such high hopes. She assumed she’d be able to control her body, taking it back from the Elemental. Even if it meant purging the Elemental only to have it turn and kill her body in retribution, she was willing to accept that fate. She just wanted it gone and to limit its ability to move freely among the humans.

  Nothing was working out how she had hoped. While she was technically still alive, she was watching the world unfold through her own eyes with no hope of control. The few brief moments where she was able to exert herself were so taxing that she had been forced to watch impotently as the dragon continued its destruction of Los Angeles.

  She was quickly learning that her times to control the Fire Elemental were going to be few and far between. If nothing else, she was going to have to choose her battles more wisely. With only a few seconds at a time—and far too long of a recovery time before she’d be able to control the body again—she couldn’t fight every battle. She’d find a way to win the war between her and the Fire Elemental but to do it, she’d have to be a lot smarter.

  As the Elemental turned upward, climbing toward the sky, Sammy was pulled back to the present. The dragon tilted its wings and arced back toward the taller buildings in the center of the city. Sammy watched through the creature’s peripheral vision and saw similar flares of heat surrounding them. The resistance wasn’t gone, not yet at least, though Sammy doubted it would survive much longer. Something else had drawn the Elemental’s attention away from its business.

  They swooped low once again, and Sammy feared they were going to attack another human stronghold. Instead, the dragon used the dive to pick up speed before arching upward. It climbed higher until it was able to alight on the protruding rooftop balcony of a taller apartment building in the area. The roof groaned under the Elemental’s weight, and its rear claws dug into the rooftop.

  Sammy searched the dragon’s mind, trying to figure out why they had stopped. She could sense the Elemental’s urge to return to the fight—the urge to get back to killing the last vestiges of humanity within the city. Something had drawn it away, and it seemed ready to sit here and wait for whatever it was.

  Then Sammy sensed it as well. It was faint, a tickling in the back of their respective minds. It was little more than a whisper that slowly grew in intensity until it was practically a scream echoing in their head. Sammy’s stomach fell as she recognized the voice demanding an audience. General Abraxas’ requested the Elemental’s attention, as though he had something important to report.

  She wanted to stop the Fire Elemental from responding to his call. She knew that if Abraxas was excited, it couldn’t possibly be good news for either her or Xander. She didn’t have the energy or even the ability to stop the Elemental’s projection to its strongest minion, but neither would she be left alone in the draconic body. If Abraxas had something to report on his mission to kill Xander, Sammy would be right there beside the Elemental, receiving the news.

  Slowly, the world around them hazed and blurred, and she felt a tug in her gut as their consciousness sped across the planet.

  It was inky blackness underneath the tons of debris from the collapsed building. Xander coughed into the dust-filled air. He held his hands up but couldn’t see his them directly in front of his face. It was completely black.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked.

  “Good,” Wilkes said, though his voice sounded rough.

  “I’m here,” Sean said.

  “Living the dream,” Jessica said.

  Xander tried to reach up, but he immediately touched something sharp just over his head.

  “Is anyone else cold?” Jessica asked.

  “Yeah,” Sean said. “It’s freezing in here. Where are we?”

  The narrow space they were in felt arctic cold, like it was radiating from all around them. Despite his general ambivalence to extreme temperature changes since gaining the Wind Elemental’s power, even he could feel the cold.

  “Wilkes,” he said, “do you think you can get to the flashlight?”

  He heard the Brit’s camping pack strike the floor with a clatt
er. Wilkes rustled around in its interior until he let out a small cry of victory. He turned on the flashlight, and its bright light filled the small chamber they were in.

  The light reflected off the white bubble around the four friends. It was nearly smooth, aside from small air bubbles trapped within its shell. Sean reached up and touched the wall gingerly but quickly withdrew his fingers.

  “It’s ice,” he said, turning toward Xander with a confused look. “Did you do this?”

  Xander shrugged. “I must have but if I did, it was completely reflexive.”

  Jessica stood and ran her hand along the smooth wall of the ice cavern. “I didn’t know you could do this with the water power.”

  “I didn’t either. Now that I know I can, though, it opens a lot of new options.”

  Jessica turned toward him with a smile but immediately blanched when she saw where he stood. Xander furrowed his brow but followed her gaze upward. Through the top of the bubble, one of the white, metal poles from the bizarre cage protruded through the ice. It hovered, frozen in place, inches above his head, with a wicked point angled down at him. Xander politely cleared his throat before casually stepping out of the way of the deadly spear.

  Sean shivered and looked around the full circumference of the bubble. It wasn’t wide, barely larger than the space between the four friends. Beyond the semi-transparent ice, he could see debris surrounding them. He stood up and walked to the far side, realizing that the area closest to Xander was actually a wall.

  “Who was that guy?” Jessica asked.

  “He’s the bloke I fought when I ran out of Selfridges,” Wilkes said.

  She looked from the Brit back to Xander. The fierce look on his face told her there was more to it than that. “Xander?”

  “His name is General Abraxas.”

  Sean furrowed his brow, feeling like he’d heard the name before.

  “He’s the one that killed my parents and my grandfather,” Xander explained.

  Jessica crossed her arms over her chest as she watched Xander.

  “Wait,” Sean said, walking over to his friend’s side. “I thought you said Sammy killed him.”

  Xander shook his head. “I thought she had. Last time I saw him, he was on fire and running off into the woods. I figured he would have burned to death.”

  “I got to see him up close earlier,” Wilkes said. “He doesn’t look like he has a one scar one him.”

  “I know. I saw. He’s not only still alive—he’s stronger than he was before. I don’t know how he survived, but it had to have been the Fire Elemental.”

  “That’s great,” Sean said. “Now we have to worry about the Fire Elemental, too.”

  Now that Xander was past his surprise at seeing Abraxas alive, he was completely consumed with rage. Abraxas had personally ruined his life, going after his parents as a means to lure the Wind Warriors out of hiding. The injuries his grandfather had sustained during the battle had eventually led to his death.

  Xander was beginning to rethink everything else that had occurred since Abraxas supposedly died, wondering how much his hand was involved. The attack on the Wind Warrior island could have easily been coordinated by the Fire Warrior. Even Sammy’s kidnapping could have been his doing. If so, General Abraxas had literally been directly responsible for every hardship he and his loved ones had endured since he first realized he had these elemental powers.

  “You want him dead,” Wilkes said. It wasn’t a question.

  Xander nodded, but his mind was elsewhere.

  Wilkes grabbed his shoulders and turned him toward him. “Xander, I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer.”

  Xander nodded again, confusedly.

  “You say your bird tried to kill him the first time, right? I’ve watched you out there. You’re tough. You have good control over your powers. You toss these Fire Warriors aside like they’re nothing.”

  He stopped talking, and Xander awaited the question. Instead, Wilkes just stared at him.

  “Xander, have you ever actually killed a Fire Warrior?”

  Xander paled at the question. He remembered the nauseated feeling he had when he first saw Wilkes shoot one of the warriors, the pool of blood spreading from beneath her body.

  Wilkes shook his head. “When we met, you told me this was a war. People die in war. The best you can hope is that it isn’t you. And the way you make sure it isn’t you is to kill them before they have a chance to kill you. You’ve tossed these blokes about, and I’m sure you’ve hurt them, but every one you haven’t killed is someone willing and able to come back later and kill you, Sean, and Jessica.

  “I know you’re a kid. If it weren’t for this insanity, you’d probably be happily sitting at university, drinking a beer and shagging your girlfriend. But the world’s changed, and it’s time for you to stop being a kid and become a soldier. If you want to win—” he paused, making sure Xander looked him in the eyes. “If you want to win, you’re going to have to be willing to kill.”

  “I haven’t killed any of them,” Xander said, realizing just how similar this conversation sounded to the one he recently had with Jessica. He thought of losing his parents, his grandfather, Bart, Robert, and maybe even Sammy. It burned in his heart like a bonfire. “But I’ll do what I have to. I won’t lose anyone else I care about.”

  “Good. Use it,” Wilkes said. “Take all that anger and use it against him. But first things first, can you get us out of here?”

  The Brit’s smooth voice did more to cool Xander’s anger than the ice surrounding them. Xander bit his lip until he tasted the coppery taste of blood in his mouth.

  “I might be able to get us out of here but not without letting him know we’re still alive.”

  “One problem at a time, Yank. Get us out of here, and then we’ll worry about Mister Crazy. I’ve already seen he’s not bulletproof, so I’ll deal with him if it comes to that.”

  Xander closed his eyes and wondered how he could use his wind power to pry aside the debris covering their icy prison. He strained to feel the wind beyond the collapsed building, but another voice was far louder and refused to be silenced.

  “Your wind won’t save you now,” the Water Elemental whispered to him through the moisture around him. “It’s time for you to embrace what you can become.”

  The ice around him whispered, describing the area beyond the frozen cavern. Just beyond the ice, he could feel trickles of water running along the sidewalk. It seeped through the cracks in the wall lying against the bubble. He could see through the droplets as they poured through the far side of the wall and dropped into an open chasm on the far side. Through the stream, he could see a way out of the rubble once they got past the wall.

  He opened his eyes and met his friends’ inquisitive stares. Wordlessly, he turned around and faced the side of the bubble against which the wall rested. With a wave of his hand, the ice unfroze along the wall, dripping down and pooling on the floor at his feet.

  With the ice aside, he could see the cracked, concrete wall standing vertical, albeit canted slightly.

  “Got a way through there?” Wilkes asked.

  Xander felt the water’s eagerness to help. “I will shortly.”

  The water at his feet rolled forward, sliding up and over the ice and seeping into the cracks of the wall. It whispered instructions to him, as though it yearned to set him free of his self-imposed prison. He doubted this was a normal power of a Water Warrior. He could practically feel the Water Elemental’s guiding hand along with her impertinent voice.

  The water flowed vertically up the wall, defying gravity as droplets slid into the cracks. They marched into position until the water filled all the individual fissures.

  Xander focused and a rich blue color—the deep blue of ocean depths—consumed his eyes. Within the cracks on the wall, the water froze and expanded.

  At first, only a single piece of concrete calved from the wall. Quickly, though, the friends heard cracks and pops from wit
hin it. It sounded like popcorn popping within a microwave. Another piece of concrete broke free and fell to the ground at Xander’s feet.

  After the piece fell, the area fell silent. Xander stood stoically still, his arms held firmly against his side. The friends crowded against the back of the bubble, anticipating the wall’s collapse that seemed not to come.

  “Xander?” Sean asked. He dared to step toward his friend.

  At once, the wall gave one final groan before falling to pieces along the prescribed cracks. It fell with a thunderous roar and a blast of dust. The friends covered their faces with their arms and coughed as the dust filled their narrow chamber.

  A gust of wind flushed through the ice bubble, blowing the dust free from the room and replacing it with satisfying fresh air. The group lowered their arms and stared at Xander. He turned toward them with a smile, the bright light already fading from his eyes.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked.

  They nodded. Over Xander’s shoulder, they could see London’s dim light filtering through the rest of the debris.

  Wilkes stepped toward the hole. He peered out, examining the narrow passage that led toward the surface.

  “If they can sense when you use your power, they certainly would have noticed that.”

  Xander nodded. “You’re right.”

  “They’ll be waiting for us when we emerge. We’ll be coming out right into a fight.”

  Xander cracked his knuckles. “They haven’t seen a fight yet. I’ll give them more than they can handle.”

  Xander led the group into the tunnel. It was a tight squeeze, and the rubble pulled at their clothes as they slid past the debris. As he approached the glow of the surface, he took a deep breath and let the wind power surge within him.

  He stepped out of the hole and turned quickly, searching for the telltale glow of Fire Warriors.

  The area around him was quiet and empty.

  He didn’t even feel the churning in his gut when they used their power.