The Elementals: The Dawn of New Abilities

Chapter 17

Chapter seventeen

Airy howling reverberated from the shadows surrounding us and in the next second Derrek was engulfed in furious red flames as he transformed himself into a Fire-being. Red flames highlighted with streaks of orange covered his entire molten lava body and yet his eyes swirled with a deep thick gold as they darted from shadow to shadow.

He knew we were depending on him and the pressure and stress of it were all on his shoulders. I scuttled a little further away from him when I felt his own heat evaporating all the water molecules around me, not that I was even sure I could do anything, and for a moment no one moved. The birds had stopped singing and not even the wind dared to disturb us, though that could have something to do with Bree.

Despite knowing that his abilities had no effect on the shadows Blake clenched his muscles and icy blue-white flames shot up from every pore in his body. His appearance remained the same except for the flames and he lowered himself into a defensive position as he glared at every shadow. Cameron cracked his knuckles and smirked. He may not be able to physically touch this shadow (we were all assuming) but I smiled faintly at his eagerness to try anyway.

Sophia’s body shook and her image blurred before she fell forward to all fours. From the top of her head and down her spine black fur sprouted out and grew to form a tail. As the fur travelled down her body the colour lightened from a dark to pale grey. Soft padded paws bent low so her furry stomach crouched close to the ground and her snout wrinkled as she bared her sharp white teeth in a growl. Sophia had morphed into a ferocious grey wolf and looked every part of the dangerous canine.

Bree stood beside me and her delicate hands clenched and unclenched ready to try to use her ability, even though we already found out it was also useless against the shadow. I collected the moist molecules hanging around in the air and pushed them together, forcing them into liquid form before freezing it almost instantly into a katana.

The hard handle was laced with intricate frosted designs and the slightly curved blade was thin but sharp even to the eye. I sliced it through the air, hearing the faint ringing it caused, and held it across my body as the point of the katana glistened in the sunlight. In no time at all everyone had fallen into their positions, whether defensive or offensive, and we waited while the seconds slowly ticked past to see who would make the first move.

Us or the shadows.

To my surprise, Helena made the first move when she swung her arm around above her head with a grunt and swerved her body along with the movement. As she swirled her arm the trees around us bent and bowed forcing them to bend against each other in a ring.

The wood of the trunks groaned with the heavy movements and the branches crashed against the other while their leaves rustled heavily like cymbals clashing together. The birds and other animals sheltering in those closest trees flew and scrambled out and quickly disappeared to have no part in this soon-to-be fight.

As the trees folded away the sunlight beamed down brightly leaving no hiding places for the shadows to sink into. The midday sun had become our ally and it surprised me to see there were about 20 or so shadows lurking around. When the sun made contact with them they out an airy growl and surged forward, several heading towards each person.

I watched as we all stepped forward to attempt to use our abilities, yet stayed close enough to protect Cara. Three shadows flew towards me and I noticed how their bodies didn’t seem quite... stable. They looked solid yet in the sunlight their bodies flickered as though they were a hologram. The middle shadow raised its hand and reached out for me but I spun and ducked then turned to swing my arm, slicing it through the back of the shadow and noticed how the slice had taken part of its back away.