Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 09:58:29 +0000 From: Guy Cornelius Subject: The Elemental Ch 15 - sci-fi/fantasy Hello all, once again I have left a truly dreadful delay between posts, for which I am deeply sorry -- life is still hectic busy, but I'm slowly getting on top of things. So here is chapter 15 in our little saga. I hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think at the_elemental909@hotmail.co.uk. Also, I am now a hosted author at The Story Closet (www.thestorycloset.org) where new chapters are posted piece by piece as I create them, as well as a number of other great authors stories too. There is also a very active forum set up there so that you can chat to the authors and other readers. It's 100% free and it only takes 2 minutes to sign up, so come on over :-) As always, this work is the sole property of the author and may not be duplicated without his express permission. "What have you got to report?" asked the hooded form of Nathaniel, fingers arched in front of his face failing to hide the look of boredom and disappointment evident therein. The young lady trembled as the image floated in front of her. It may only have been something akin to an astral projection, but it still managed to scare the crap out of her. She kept her eyes downcast when she knelt before him to give her report. "They have taken refuge in a hotel for the moment. Tommy, the Druid, appears to be knocked out but I think he is coming into some extra powers already, alongside his not inconsiderable druidic abilities." She paused, waiting to see if he would make comment on anything she had said thus far, but he remained silent so she continued. "The Elemental appears to have mastered the use of fire, but I've seen no evidence of him using anything else as yet. The old man has also told them all he knows regarding who they actually are." Nathaniel sighed in exasperation and leant back in his chair. This was all information that he was already aware of. He had spies out all over the city however, as yet, none of them had been able to get him anything new. He had considered moving on the hotel as soon as they checked in, but his forces were nowhere near ready to take on two of the Aspect Lords just yet, even if they were completely untrained. He zoned back in on his agent's report when she said something that caught his attention. "Wait, stop. Go back. You just said something about an old man...what old man?" The young female agent froze. Could this be her chance to gain favour? Was she about to report something new that the Master was not yet aware of? The thought alone sent a shiver down her spine. "A few days ago," she said, deciding to put more detail into the report than she might usually have done, "before I picked up their trail, the rogues met with an old man. He has been with them ever since. He has taken the Elemental to a complex he runs. From what I could gather, I think it is some kind of facility for rogue mages, perhaps even a training camp. I believe he wants these mages to join forces with the Elemental." Nathaniel's eyes were round as saucers while he listened to this report. This was important news and he would have to act upon it quickly. "You have done very well, child. I want you to..." "I beg your pardon, Master," interrupted the agent, elated from hearing such high praise, "but there is more." Usually Nathaniel would have been outraged by the interruption, but he was too excited by the news he had received to pay it any heed. "The Elemental has succeeded in capturing Draeden, leader of the House of Druids. I can't yet fathom what they intend to do with him though." Nathaniel remained silent for a moment, mulling over what all of this could mean. What did Marcus hope to gain by capturing the one man who could have become his closest ally? "You have done very well Tatiana. Continue as you are and I will send new instruction soon." That said, Nathaniel broke his connection with her and rushed from his office to find the other Masters. He needed to make plans, and to do that he needed to know exactly where they were with everything. When the image of Nathaniel disappeared, Tatiana sighed with relief. She always hated giving her reports to him as nothing ever seemed good enough. Usually it would result in a lot of shouting and her crying. This time, however, her Master seemed extremely happy with her work. "Thank you, father," she whispered, before going back out into the lounge area to check on Tommy. "So," demanded Benny, rounding on Richard as soon as they made it to his room, "what the FUCK is going on?" Richard flinched at the harsh tone of voice, surprising Benny enormously. Up until recently, Benny and Richard had been casual acquaintances, never exchanging more than a brief hello in the corridors or canteen every now and then. In the last few weeks though, since Richard had basically taken over the facility, he had become openly hostile towards Benny, and the boy just couldn't fathom out why. He had expected, once out of the presence of hunky fire-man, that Richard would drop the meek and innocent act, but so far he hadn't. Richard walked over to his bed and sat down, though it looked a little more to Benny like he just collapsed, like all the air let out of an inflatable. Richard turned his head toward the wall as another tear wound its way past the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry Benny," he murmured. "What was that?" snapped Benny, striding over to the other bed and sitting down with a huff. "I said I'm sorry," replied Richard, a little louder, while sitting up to face him, the tears still evident on his face. "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for the past couple of months, I'm sorry for how I've been acting, and I'm sorry for what I was going to do to you today in front of everybody." "Why?" growled Benny, his temper softening. He already knew he had forgiven Richard, but he wanted for find out what had been going on. He needed to know what had caused this virtual stranger to start hounding him so much. "Because everyone knows you're gay," mumbled Richard. "WHY YOU HOMOPHOBIC SON OF A..." yelled Benny, getting ready to smack him in the face with a powerful orb. "No, no! That's not what I meant!" Richard jumped up off the bed and dashed across the room to sit beside Benny, placing his hands on Benny's shoulders to try and calm him. "I mean that everyone already knows that you're gay and they don't care. You get to be who you are, who you were born to be. You don't have to hide behind a facade in the hopes that people won't look too hard and see the cracks." Benny literally deflated as Richard blurted all this out. All the anger that had so suddenly built up in him disappeared in a great big sigh. When Benny thought back over the last couple of months, things started to make a little bit more sense. Richard, nor anybody for that matter, had ever given him any grief for being openly gay. He even dated one of the other recruits for a little while, completely without incident. Then all of a sudden, Richard turns into a complete gay-basher out of nowhere. "Richard, are you trying to tell me that you're..." "Since I was about fourteen. I made the mistake of telling my brother. Let's just say that things didn't go so well for me and if Romeo hadn't taken me in I would be living a very different life right now. I learned to hide who I really am and keep it locked away where nobody would be able to find it. I acted tough, dated girls and did everything I could to appear straight, but then you came along. You're openly gay, you're good looking, you're fun and nobody gave a crap." "Do you...I mean, you don't..." Benny stumbled over his words, pointing back and forth between the two of them. "What? Oh, no," chuckled Richard. "You're a great guy, but I don't fancy you, so don't worry. You're not really my type." "So what is your type?" asked Benny, learning forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees. "You know that guy who does canteen duty on Tuesdays and Thursdays -" "The ginger guy?" cut in Benny. "Yeah, that's him." Richard blushed a furious shade of red, not used to revealing such personal details about himself. "Interesting," mused Benny. "I thought you'd go for the more muscular, chiselled fella like our new guest Marcus. "Oh don't get me wrong, he's hot...like, literally!" Both men giggled at Richards lame attempt at a joke. "But no, I've always preferred the skinnier, emo-type guys, you know?" "I can't say I agree, but I know what you mean. I, however, would rip the clothes of that Marcus in a heart beat!" Benny was pleased to see his comment draw a genuine laugh out of Richard and both were somewhat surprised to discover the ease with which they had fallen into a companionable conversation. "So," hedged Richard, "pub?" ************************************************************************ "What?" asked Mary, looking around the room at all the faces staring back at her. "I might be a pretty rubbish Mage, but I used to be a world classed gymnast." "You're just full of surprises, aren't you my dear," said Marcus, heading over towards her with a huge smile splitting his face. "Now, what are we going to do with this one?" Marcus walked over to where Quentin was lying on the floor whimpering and clutching his crotch. Mary walked over to join him, standing a pace behind him and to the left. "If he stays here, they'll kill him," she murmured, her voice lowered so only Marcus could hear. "I thought as much," he responded, his voice equally low. He stood musing for a moment, before squatting down and grasping Quentin's chin. "Look at me," he growled, eliciting no response from Quentin. "LOOK AT ME." The voice of the Elemental boomed around the room, grabbing the attention of everyone present, including Quentin. "I'd quite like to kill you, but that would be wrong. I can't let you stay either, otherwise someone else will undoubtedly do it and I can't allow that. My only other choice is to just throw you out. If I EVER see your face again, you best pray that I'm in a good mood." Quentin's eyes widened in shock, but softened slightly when he realised he was being allowed to leave. Without even waiting to hear any more, he scrambled to his feet and shot out of the room, not even bothering to look behind him and see if he was being pursued. "Right," called out Marcus, addressing the whole room. "Now that we've dealt with the riff-raff, we should get back to business. I've told you all that I can of the situation thus far. What I'm asking is dangerous, but important. If we don't fight this fight, there is no telling what could happen. You do still have a choice though. I will be leaving shortly, and when I come back in a couple of days, I will call another meeting. All those who wish to join me should come to that meeting. Those who would rather be left out of it should remain absent at that time." Looking around the crowd, Marcus saw an array of different emotions; fear, conviction, uncertainty, anger, they were all there and many, many more. He hid his guilt at calling these people to what was likely to be an early death, but without them, he didn't stand a chance against Nathaniel's army. "All those who do not wish to fight, just know that you have my blessing and I pray you live long and happy lives. Now, I have no idea what normal routine is here, but it is to be suspended until I return. Just...go relax or something." The crowd cheered at this, some chuckling at the young man, so powerful and commanding and yet somehow filled with uncertainty too. While they were streaming out of the hall, Marcus beckoned Mary and Romeo over to the stage area. He sat down on the edge of the stage, his two friends now standing in front of him, waiting for him to speak. "I need to go back to the hotel to check on Tommy and then hopefully bring him and Tatiana back here. I guess we'll have to figure out a plan of action for Draeden as well, but I'll deal with that later." His brow furrowed slightly as he stared blankly at the floor, pondering what to do. A slight cough from Mary bought him out of his thoughts and back to the conversation. "Anyway, while I'm gone, I need you to find and catalogue anyone in the complex who has some kind of unique skill. I don't care how mundane and useless it might seem, I want to know about it." "I already have a partial list to that effect," offered Mary, already formulating a plan in her mind on how to get the task done. "Most of the mages here are your standard Battle types, though we do have one or two healers as well." "That's fantastic," enthused Marcus, "I never thought about the fact we might have any of them here! Oh, and do make sure that you only get details for the people that want to join me. This is not a conscription, it's a request for assistance." "We'll make sure nobody is forced into anything they don't want to be," Romeo assured him, proud at how well his new charge was taking to leadership. Already he had won over the hearts of almost everyone at the complex as well as putting down its biggest bully - something he had never been able to achieve himself. "Do you need any help getting back to the hotel? You can take one of the cars if you like." "That would be lovely, thanks. I was going to just take a taxi, but driving over would be much nicer. I've not been behind the wheel in far too long." "Okay, the keys are all kept in a cupboard in my office, go have a look. I'm sure you'll find something you like." As Marcus left to find Romeo's office, he heard Mary and the old man talking about their task and how best to achieve it and he knew that he had made a good decision appointing Mary his second in command. When he reached the office, he found the key cupboard, picked out a fob with the Mercedes logo on it and then headed back up to the driveway. ******************************************************************************** Pulling up outside the hotel, he left the car with the valet and then hurried up to their suite, desperate to find out what sort of state Tommy was in. Bounding up the last flight of stairs, he rushed into the room to find Tommy sitting up, nursing a hot cup of tea. "Tommy, baby, are you alright?" he asked, sitting down next to him and stroking a stray hair behind his ear. "Yeah, I'm okay. I just feel really drained, like all the energy has been sucked out of me." "You had me really worried there, you had us all worried!" "I'm fine, I just used up too much energy like Romeo said. Where is he by the way?" he asked, leaning into Marcus and enjoying having his hair played with. "He's at his complex, I was just there with him. I've set some wheels in motion that will hopefully give us a little bit of help when it comes to the fight with the Guild, but it's not going to be enough. Even if every single one of his people joins us, we're still going to be hugely out-numbered." "It's a start though, Marcus," he murmured . "Are we going to head over there now? I'm bored of this hotel, and I'll bet Tatiana is too!" "Too right," came a yell from the kitchen, causing them both to chuckle. "Yeah we are, though I've no clue what we're going to do with our other guest." Once again, Marcus' brow furrowed when he remembered about yet another obstacle. "Lets go get the car and then I'll deal with him," said Tommy. "Okay, I'll go grab our...wait...how did you know I brought a car?" queried Marcus, turning to look him directly in the face. Tommy smiled, though didn't open his eyes. "The keys in your pocket have been stabbing me in the thigh for the past five minutes." Marcus chuckled while swatting Tommy with a cushion from the sofa and then stood up to go and fetch the few belongings they had with them. Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were climbing into the Mercedes, having settled their bill. Tommy had Marcus pull over to a side street next to the hotel and then exited from the car. He stood for a moment, looking up at the side of the building and then Marcus and Tatiana were both very surprised to see Draeden, still bound, being lowered down to the ground by the same tree that held him. When the old Druid's feet touched the ground, Tommy waved his hand and the bindings all but disappeared, though Draedens hands were forced behind his back and secured by a tightly wound branch. That done, the tree lifted him again and carried him over to the car, where Tommy opened a rear door and and watched dispassionately while the Druid was deposited inside. Marcus' jaw hung agape when the tree then seemed to shrink into nothingness and disappear back into the ground, no evidence of its arrival left aside from a slight disturbance in the soil of a flowerbed. "You still amaze me," said Marcus when Tommy got back into the front seat. "You aren't the only one with a few party tricks up his sleeve," Tommy turned to him with a wink and a cheeky grin. "Now lets go, I want to see this complex of Romeo's. "Yes, you and me both," muttered Tatiana. So, that was chapter 15 guys and gals. I hope you all found it worth the wait? Apologies again about all that...I really am quite shit, I know! Anyway, I'd really love to hear from you whether you love the story or hate it, so please feel free to email any and all comments to the_elemental909@hotmail.co.uk. Also, like I said up top, I'm hosted on a site called The Story Closet where new chapters are posted piece by piece as I create them, so if you want to get your little Elemental fixes much more often than you do here, check it out over there. There are a lot of other great authors who post there too :-)