Chapter eight

“What the hell are you doing?” I mumbled grumpily.

I’d been staring out the window for who knows how long, seething at the fact that I’d made the wrong choice of Stinger hideouts to search in. Out of two hideouts I picked the wrong one and these wasted hours could be the difference between life and death with Val and Cara. I hadn’t noticed that Blake had started lazily steering the car from one lane to the other like it was some sort of joyous bike ride.

“I’m just trying to keep the boredom to a minimal, Matchstick. It’s nothing but straight roads and it’s boring!”

“We’re trying to find out where our friends are! I don’t give a damn if you’re bored, drive straight and we’ll get there faster!”

I was losing my patience. I knew everyone was tired and the long stretch of driving just seemed to wear everyone out. It’d been over a day’s drive already since the ghost town and we’d all tried to get some sleep and taken turns in driving the car out west. I had been so sure that the factory was the right place considering the Elementals we found there... but I was wrong. Now we had driven far enough that the sea of dry grass no longer swayed next to the road, and instead tall trees grew thickly on either side of us.

The dark clouds that had been hovering around lately had turned a dark, gloomy grey in the last few hours and the closer we drove to the next hideout the angrier they seemed to become. It turn, my mood just became surlier and my patience was quick to snap. I hated rain. Not just because I was Fire-abled but because it reminded me of Val and how I was failing her, how I have been failing her. I grumbled and sat lower in my seat leaning my head on the window to try and grab a bit more sleep.

However, sleep was impossible when all of a sudden the shadow zoomed straight towards the car and grew to completely engulf the car in blackness. Blake slammed his foot down on the brakes as we all cried out in shock and the car skidded and zigzagged across the road before finally coming to a halt. It was as though everything outside the car had disappeared and was quite simply, black. No road, no trees or grass, no sky or the angry clouds could be seen.

“Everyone okay?” I called out, I was greeted with breathless nods. “What the hell is going on?!”

“Chimera! Evanesce! What are you doing?” Helena called out a bit calmer than me, but her voice was shaking as she did.

“You remove yourselves from the car before I blow a hole in the middle of you!” I shouted angrily as fire crept up my clenched fists and forearms. I was ready to trap the girls in case they were becoming Malum’s puppets again and losing control over their consciousness. The shadow unravelled itself from the car and suddenly everything could be seen again, just like ripping a blindfold off. The shadow split once more to show the girls, which I learned is because they couldn’t speak while in shadow form, and the two girls stood on either side of the car.

“Malum’s hideout is close” Evanesce whispered next to the passenger side, her red and violet hair blowing with the gushing wind.

I frowned. “What? How do you know?” I demanded, my heart pumping so wildly with excitement and anxiousness it was almost painful.

Evanesce nodded down the road which had curved down a hill so we couldn’t see ahead of us. “Guards” Chimera whispered.

My eyes widened. It seemed as though the shadow girls really had been disappearing to fly ahead and check for potential danger, and I was suddenly thankful they were here because now we at least had some sort of forewarning. Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder soon grumbled afterwards yet no rain fell and it just added to the dangerous atmosphere. Winds picked up all around the car and the tall trees swayed back and forth. “How many are there?” I asked the shadow girls.

“Three just down the hill, and possibly more but we’re not too sure. As soon as we saw the three we flew back to stop you from driving straight into them” Chimera answered.

I turned back to the others in the car and smirked. “We’ll park the car in the trees and sneak down to them to see what these Elemental guards look like. We have no idea what they can do so we need to be cautious” The air around us suddenly seemed electrified and alive. All the dull driving and pangs of failure were forgotten and now we were just minutes away from that psychotic Malum, Val and Cara. The Elemental girls from the ghost town had told us that Malum left with an army of Elementals... so I knew saving our friends wouldn’t be easy. But we would do it, or die trying.

Chimera and Evanesce morphed back into the shadow and flew into the darkness of the trees while we followed after them in the car. Just as we parked the car behind a fallen tree we stepped out and rain had begun to drip down past the tree tops and fell to the ground in fat drops. “I’ll hide the car” Helena decided and everyone stepped back as she lifted her arms and waved one hand down before waving the other over the top as though she was folding a blanket. The surrounding bushes shook heavily before thousands of roots shot up from the moist soil. Roots as thick as my thigh to as tiny as a vein shot out like ropes and coiled over and around the car until it looked like a giant boulder that had been over grown with plants.

“Good job, Helena. Okay Chimera... Evanesce... you lead the way!” The shadow gave a slight bow to its head and flew off while the rest of us jogged behind it. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins and it was the most alive I’d felt in months! Val was practically within reach, and so was death to Malum. We jumped over rocks and fell into ditches full of mud but soon enough the shadow came to a standstill and stared off past the safety of our trees and out into the open. I silently edged closer and was sure to keep hidden as I gazed out in the same direction as the shadow.

True to their word, there were three female ‘guards’ standing motionlessly in the rain. They were, in fact, triplets if I wasn’t mistaken and had an Asian complexion. All three had inky black hair that seemed to have been styled back into a mohawk and hung down sleekly to the middle of their backs. Their eyes were dull and lifeless as they stared at anything that moved and I frowned when I realised that, besides looking like lifeless puppets, they didn’t look dangerous at all.

And that was what seemed so off putting about the situation.

“Okay... so do you have any idea what they could be capable of?” I asked Blake, Cameron and the shadow. They all stared at the triplets with a slight frown before slowly shaking their head.

“They could be able to do anything... Malum doesn’t always make their abilities obvious. I mean look at us” Cameron answered. “But if he’s set them out as guards, we need to be careful. My invisibility isn’t worth much with all this rain, they’d be able to spot me easily with the rain pounding down on me, plus there’s mud everywhere” He looked pained and I could tell that he was thinking his abilities weren’t helpful for this situation.

“We’ll need some sort of diversion or something... something to get them to drop their guard a bit and show us what they can do”

“I can do that” Helena volunteered.

“Me too” Blake quickly added.

“I don’t know...” I said slowly. This rain was a variable, a bad one for me and Cameron. I wasn’t as strong when rain was pounding harshly down on me, and Cameron could only depend on his strength this time. Helena and Blake, on the other hand, were in their element. “I think Evanesce and Chimera should distract them. They have the best defensive abilities with their cloning and teleportation... I just think they’d be best without anyone getting hurt”

Everyone mulled that thought over and quickly agreed. It made the best sense because it seemed as though the majority of abilities wouldn’t be able to touch them and they could distract the guards easily by cloning themselves. The shadow floated closer to me, its blank silhouetted face staring in my direction, I was fairly certain it was anyway. It howled softly and edged closer to the end of the trees. “Just clone yourself first” Helena said. “This way we can see what they can do”

The shadow nodded once and stared back at the triplets. Out of nowhere shadows erupted everywhere and the triplets snapped their heads to look at them all. “Okay... come on show us what you can do” I whispered.

I blinked, and in that nanosecond of lost vision the triplets had grown thick, brown spikes from different parts of their body. The first girl had spikes grow from her shoulders, while the second grew them from her forearms, and the last girl had spikes sticking out from each other her fingers. They moved as quick as lightning, and the guards with spikes on their shoulders and forearms tore them off like a branch and threw them at the shadows while the guard with spikes for her nails was shooting them as though they were bullets and her fingers were guns.  Just as we hoped, the spikes went flying straight through the shadow clones and out the other side yet the triplets continued to shoot spike after spike with a clear intent of bringing these shadow clones down.

“Alright... so these are the spike triplets obviously” Blake murmured with wide eyes. “Easily taken care of... just avoid those spikes and take them out”

Helena’s eyes widened before darting between all of us, “We’re going to kill them?!”

I hesitated before answering. “No... maybe not kill unless we absolutely have to. Just try to knock them out or something... Perhaps these Elementals can be saved? There’s more than enough proof that they’re acting this way because Malum’s control”

“So, no killing?” Cameron asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“No, not unless it’s in self defence” Cameron huffed and I watched him for a moment. He didn’t seem the ‘killer’ type despite his strength and size, and I was assuming he was taking out all his anger on anything tied to Malum. “Let’s go!”

We all ran out from the protection of the trees. Cameron and I ran behind the girl with spikes shooting out of her fingernails while Blake and Helena aimed for the other two spiked guards. The mud was deep and oozed around our ankles as we ran and it was obvious when the spike triplets began to turn their attention away from the shadow clones and onto us because spikes had begun to shower down on us like murderous knives. Cameron was trying to run close enough to reach her but her speed could only be compared to a cheetah’s. I ducked and jumped as more and more mud caked all over me and rain pounded down but I was finding it harder and harder to find it in me to start my flames.

“Come on!” I shouted angrily at myself as I tried focusing my anger into fire. I momentarily took my attention away from the spiked guard and felt several sharp stabs to my thigh. I roared in pain and anger but before I could rip them out I was overcome by a complete numbness. My brain was telling me to move my arms, legs, head... anything, yet I couldn’t make them move. I was paralysed! My eyes darted up to Cameron and his shocked expression before my view tilted as I fell sideways into the thick mud.

Cameron dodged and ducked again and again but she was incredibly quick! From the muddy ground I swivelled my eyes over to Blake and Helena. Helena had grown giant vines from the mud and was using them to whip back and forth like tentacles of a giant squid at the girl with spikes on her forearms. With a twist of her wrist Helena managed to whip the tentacle-like vines up and around the girl, but not fast enough. The guard had sent a spike speeding through the air to jab straight into Helena’s throat and she fell down to her knees as her hands curled around her throat as she struggled to breathe.

Further back, Blake was using the rain to his advantage as he froze sheets of rain into walls of ice. The guard he was fighting tore another spike off her shoulder before throwing it at him, only to have it blocked by another wall of ice. Her rage was only clear through her actions since her eyes stayed dull and lifeless and she tore two more spikes from her shoulders before she launched them down at Blake’s feet where one lodged into his ankle.

I tried to kick, I tried to stand up but I was still paralysed from the spikes and watched as Blake’s spike triplet walked over and aimed a spike directly at his face. Just as she pulled her arm back, the guard Cameron and I were fighting went flying through the air and collided painfully into her sister, before the two of them knocked into the guard trapped by Helena’s giant vine. From out of my line of sight Cameron charged with the intensity of a raging bull as he ran forward and picked the two guards up again by their wrists and threw them to smash into each other once more... successfully knocking them unconscious.

I heard deep gasping and saw a blue faced Helena crouched over the mud as she inhaled air over and over again and I silently thanked God that she didn’t suffocate. I tried struggling again and again and began to feel my paralysis fading away. I jumped up, feeling slightly wobbly, and ran over to everyone else.  “Great job Cameron! And Helena, nice work with the vines. Are you okay?”

Helena was still breathing harshly but stood up and nodded. The rain had soaked everyone and her hair was lying flat over her face. “Yeah, I’m fine... Obviously their spikes are much more than just spikes”

“Yeah, I figured that out for myself” I replied as I flexed my fingers.

“It would seem that the triplets’ spikes contained a type of poison” Evanesce stated as she and Chimera walked forward, “A poison that causes either minor paralysis, asphyxiation or hallucinations”

“Hallucinations?” I asked confusedly.

Chimera cleared her throat and nodded over to the side. “Yes... hallucinations”

Cameron, Helena and I turned and saw Blake lying on the ground spreading his arms and legs up and down as though making a ‘mud angel’ with a wide grin plastered to his face. “I’m an angel! I’m a pretty angel! This snow is sticky and smells, but it feels like it’s making me beautiful!”

I bit the inside of my lip. This was beyond hilarious but the situation was so out of place I couldn’t even laugh. I just stared at Blake as I felt the infinite amount of laughter building up inside me, feeling as though I’d probably implode with laughter any second now. Everyone just stared in shock and amusement while another bolt of lightning cracked the sky in two and thunder rolled overhead.

Blake jumped up, mud covering every inch of him. “I’M THE BOOGIEMAN!!! HEAR ME ROAR!!!”

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A/N

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