The Fifth Element

Chapter 14

I stared at my second tattoo in horror. The black triangular design was embedded into my flesh, mocking me, leaving me totally lost. When I had received my Elemental tattoo, a violet brush of wind, I was intrigued, excited even. But this new mark...I knew exactly what it meant but I truly didn't want to know. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

Nathan crouched down next to me, lightly touching the mark on my ankle and blowing air out of his mouth as he pushed his raven-colored hair out of his eyes. He cursed and bit his lip. That had to be at least four nervous habits that he had demonstrated in the past minute.

"What do we do?" I asked, attempting to contain my anxiety.

"Peri would know more about this..." Nathan breathed, trying to give me hope. "I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for this." Oh no...Nathan was sounding like an intellectual...which meant I was screwed. And to put the icing on the cake, Britney Spears' 'Piece of Me' started playing in the dressing room and the two men from the stage had returned. Ugh, I thought Nathan and I had already taken care of these guys but I guess two teenagers can only do so much damage to two beefy 250-pounders. Ok that just made them sound like burgers, but you get my point.

Okay so the music had been played by the...girls... in the dressing room and hadn't been set up by the guards, but it was still pretty intimidating. Not to mention, I suddenly noticed the black triangular tattoos on the identical-looking guards's necks. Wait! They were Nightmorphs too!

"I've got an idea!" I shouted to Nathan and Paris. "Follow my lead this time," I whispered to Nathan.

"King of Hearts?" He inquired.

"King of Hearts," I affirmed.

I sprang into action-literally- and took a great leap toward one of the guards. He grabbed my waist to fling me away. Perfect. I felt myself begin to transform. My silver dress, pale skin, violet eyes, and blonde hair disappeared and my body became more muscular, bigger. I was the triplet to match the twin guards. The two men looked at one another in utter confusion. They were stupified. I took the opportunity to fake a punch at Nathan, pretending to be one of the two original guards to throw them off. Nathan ducked.

I hoped that these too weren't clever enough to figure out my ruse. So far, they were still looking as dumb as doorposts. Nathan and Paris tag-teamed, Nathan jumping on one of the gaurds and Paris leaping onto my back, pretending to throw a blow at me. The remaining guard looked lost in the heat of it all and the one who had Nathan attached to his back believed that this must mean the guard that wasn't being attacked was the phony one. He shook Nathan off of his back and launched his fist into the real guard's face, knocking him out instantly. I mentally counted to ten and rang the boxing bell. Ding ding ding! We have one more Nightmorph left!

I grinned menacingly at the remaining guard and let Paris drop off of my back. Nathan got up and the three of us surrounded the last guard. "Hasta la vista, baby," I grunted, hitting him square in the jaw the way he had the other guard. He went straight down, slightly conscious and the three of us got to work tying the two villains up. We were about to bust the joint but the last gaurd groaned a few words. Nathan and Paris were making their way out of the establishment but I couldn't help but catch the words that the guard said. I had morphed back into my normal self, ankle tat and all. I got nearer to him, keeping enough room for a safe distance, just in case he wasn't as hurt as I had thought.

"You..." he groaned. "The chosen..." And with that last phrase, he became unconscious.

I held my breath. The chosen?? What? Oh my gosh, popularity was really not cool in this case. I absorbed his words, letting them spin in my brain as if they were clothes in a drier. I really hoped that Peri could decipher all of this. Looking back once more, I decided to take on his form again, in case we were caught on our way out of this...establishment, as we will call it to put it in nicer terms. I walked quickly, catching up with the other two. As I ran into another bouncer, I grabbed both of my comrades' arms, demonstrating them to him. They faked a few squirms and disgruntled looks.

"Kickin' these two troublemakers out of here," I grumbled.

"Good work," the bouncer replied. "Leave 'em out with the others." Oh jeez, I had forgotten about our group. I nodded in response and sauntered out of the double doors, slowly letting go of Nathan and Paris. We found our friends waiting in the front. Poor Talia and Lex screamed bloody murder when they saw me and I realized I still looked like a pro wrestler. I shifted back into my normal form and a few of the boys laughed. I shrugged my shoulders apologetically.

"Sorry guys, didn't mean to freak you out," I giggled.

"Oh no, Sky, the show was great," Lex nudged me and I glared back at her.

"So where do we go from here?" Jem asked, returning the conversation to serious mode.

"Jem's got a point," Sam nodded. "Santiago, Winnie, Aisha, Tanner, and Farron are still out there..."

"And I spy another problem..." Peri stiffened, her gaze trailing down to my ankle. "What in God's name is that?"

"We hit the tattoo parlor before we left," I answered snidely.

"We were hoping that you would know something about it..." Paris said carefully.

Peri squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I don't."

Sam glanced at her. "That's a lie, Peri." Thank goodness for mind readers.

"Than why don't you explain it," Peri shot back.

Sam appeared shocked. "Alright," he replied, looking a bit defeated. "Uh..." he gave me a pained expression. "Sky...you're a very unique type of Elemental. You see, you're a shapeshifter, right? And Nightmorphs are shapeshifters...You're the only known shapeshifting Elemental. So...in short, the Nightmorphs are derived from...you."

"...what..." Nathan said more than asked.

"What he means..." Peri interrupted. "Is that your DNA was taken to create the Nightmorphs. No shapeshifter has ever been capable of taking on the form of a Nightmorph. But you were able to, without any challenge no less. You're the only one who can do this."

"What kind of bull is this?!" I shouted. "You're saying that the Nightmorphs exist...because of me?"

"To put it simply...yes." Peri admitted. "As long as you exist...your DNA can be taken to infuse any normal human with Nightmorph abilities. Humans aren't supposed to be created to have powers. You can only be born that way. Human bodies can't handle the change. That's why Nightmorphs die so quickly."

"No!" Lex protested. "There's no way my Sky could be the mother of all of these psycho experiments!" Lex never did let me down. But heck, Peri was making me sound like Queen of the Nightmorphs, which would be cool if it didn't involve, I dunno, the monsters that were out to destroy the world.

Nathan put an arm around me but I felt numb. "I'm a monster..." I whispered.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Woahh! Bet you didn't see that one coming. This chapter was a bit serious but the next ones should be a bit more light-hearted! There's gonna be lots of drama too though, so stay tuned! Thank you for the 100 comments and all the votes and almost 10,000 reads! I am beyond excited and honored!