Seekers of Fire

Chapter 9 - Compassion

How did I end up being the bait again? Amelia thought as she ran for her life through the carnival. She risked a glance behind and saw the two hooded men marching through the crowd towards her. Crap. They're getting a lot closer... Ky better know what he's doing!

Amelia adjusted her baseball cap and continued running through the oblivious crowd. After she and Ky had arrived at the carnival, they had followed the corrupt elementals and found out that they had dragged her father into a large, abandoned tent somewhere in the outskirts of the festival. Ky had come up with a plan for her to lure them away whilst he sneaks inside to free her father.

Now though, she was not even sure if she was going to survive this. As she ran deeper into Crimson Carnival where there were fewer people, a fireball flew over her head and into one of the abandoned popcorn stalls. With a gasp, she turned around and saw that the two had already changed into their true forms. The few people around them screamed and ran off in a panic. She was sure the police would be called at this rate.

She kept running as fireballs sped past her. They sure can't aim very well. That was when she saw Drake and a girl standing beside him in the distance. Her eyes lit up and she ran towards them with a grin.

"A-Amelia? What's going on?" Drake asked in surprise.

Amelia wrapped him in a quick hug without hesitation. "Oh Drake, it's so good to see you!" She noticed that there was a slim, attractive girl standing awkwardly behind them. She recognised her as the girl Drake had been hanging out with at school straight away. "Is that Rachel? What's she doing here?"

"It's a long story," Drake said sheepishly.

That was when the corrupt fire elementals made their appearance and even with her back turned to them, she could feel their presence in the atmosphere. Rachel gasped, and Drake moved in front of her protectively. Amelia's heart sank but she knew that now was not the time to let her emotions get in the way.

She quickly unzipped her schoolbag and brought out her father's mysterious sword. The ancient designs on the hilt seem to glow a little in the dark when she picked it up. Amelia wasted no time in chucking her bag to the side and turned to face her opponents. "Fight us, you cowards!" she challenged.

The pair of elementals seemed to like this idea and began hovering towards her with arms raised. Drake stood by her side and sighed. He clenched his left fist and a flame engulfed his hand.

"Drake? What in the world is going on?" Rachel gasped and took a step back.

Amelia noticed the poor girl's pale and frightened facial expression and trembling body. With the strange sight that lay before them, she honestly thought Rachel would have run off screaming or fainted from shock by now. However, Drake's friend seemed to be handling all of this pretty well.

"Um... I promise I'll explain all of this later. Just stay back," Drake managed as he charged forward a few steps and threw one of his explosive fireballs towards the elementals. It smacked one of them in the chest and exploded, shoving the monster back a few metres.

The other one roared and shot two fireballs towards them. One of the fireballs landed half a metre away from them but the other was heading straight for Rachel. The girl screamed, shut her eyes and vanished in a puff of dark smoke just as the fireball shot into where she last stood.

"Rachel!" Drake yelled in desperation and ran towards where she was last seen. But all that was left was the scorched ground. He turned around in a fury and yelled obscenities at the elementals, throwing a frenzy of explosive fireballs at them as he did. "You killed her! You monsters!"

Amelia could not believe what she had just witnessed. Rachel had vanished in plain sight and even if she had been struck, her body would have still been there. She shook her head and wondered if she was just seeing things. Maybe she had already run for cover?

Drake's fireballs were exploding rapidly around the two elementals with most of them missing as his distraught seemed to be affecting his aim. One of the monsters threw a fireball that hit Drake in the chest and he collapsed to the ground in defeat. His resistance to heat would mean he would not be burned but the force at which the fireball was thrown was enough to knock her best friend unconscious.

It was up to her to finish the job. By now, the two elementals had approached her and stood metres apart, making it difficult for her to target them both at once. She gritted her teeth and raised her sword.

"Give up seeker, you cannot win," one of them said with a booming voice that echoed all around her. Then with lightning-fast speed, it swiped at her and grazed her side with fiery claws.

"Ah!" she yelled as she took a step back in pain. She swung wildly in retaliation but was shoved to the ground with a fiery fist by her other opponent.

Amelia collapsed to the ground beside an unconscious Drake. Her side still stung from the first elemental's attack and she had to close her eyes and bite her lip to stop herself from screaming out in pain.

"Any last words, seeker?" one of them taunted. "Our new master grows stronger each day and with your deaths, nothing will be able to stop him."

New master? Was there someone controlling these freaks to attack our world? Her mind raced with images of the world in utter chaos, ruined and overrun by hundreds of corrupt fire elementals. Then she pictured her father, and who knows how many other people the monsters had taken away and possibly killed.

Amelia then felt something awaken within her, something that had been there all along. Power. Courage. Compassion. She felt compassion for her friends and family but most importantly, she felt compassion for the people who were in this carnival. It was her duty to keep them all safe. She could feel it in her inner being.

Using her new profound strength, she stood to her feet and raised her sword once again but this time to the sky. Immediately, the sword lit up and a bright red fire seemed to surround the blade. Amelia could then feel immense power take over her body and she flew up towards the sky on fiery wings.

Her eyes looked down towards the two shocked corrupt fire elementals and she pointed her sword at them. "I think your time in my world is up," she sneered before swooping down towards them with her blade aimed at their hearts.