Jacob Nimbus and The Guards of Elementum

Chapter 2

'So we're in Cave Obsidian?' I asked, pointing at their t-shirts.

'Yeah' Natalie answered.

'Why is it called that?' I ventured.

'Well the first thing you need to know is that Cave Obsidian is for kids like us, who have the powers of a certain element bonded with them.' She answered.

'Ha, ha, ha I don't have any special powers or whatever, I think you're mistaken. This isn't a fantasy book.'

'Oh, but you do.' Omar smirked mischievously. 'You don't know about them now, but in just a couple weeks you'll already have learned to master a ton of cool tricks, I mean watch this! It's from my first test.'

He turned around and waved his hand over the air, it shimmered for a moment but then it showed a play button on a video. I reached out and tapped the air, and the magical video screen came to life. The video first showed Omar, standing in a long hall. At the end of it, there was a testing dummy, like the ones you'd see on Myth Busters. Omar turned towards it and turned up his palms. From the angle it was filmed from you couldn't see anything in his them, but he raised his hands above his head, and in between them was a churning, swirling, smoking, ball of gas, ready to burn through anything. Fire.

He turned towards the dummy and threw the fireball like you'd do with a baseball. In a matter of seconds, the dummy at the end of the hall was a charred stick, arms and legs burned away. Real-time Omar waved his hand through the air again and the video disappeared. 'How'd you do the magic video thingy?!' I stuttered.

He smirked at me and said simply 'I've got skills, duh, I can do anythi-'

'Shut up Omar,' Natalie cut in. He snickered. 'This cave, Cave Obsidian has been around since the times of the original Element Guard. It has been the home of loads of powerful beings since then. It has grown more and more powerful with every generation and it creates its own tunnels and passages, it has a mind of its own.' Natalie told me.

'OK... I think I get it, lots of powerful guys, they use epic powers like the one Omar showed us, cave absorbs some, gets bigger, but what's the Element Guard?' I asked them.

Omar replied, 'So basically every element has its own area of the cave prescribed to it. And there's a power crystal that keeps the world in check in each element room. A blue water crystal, red fire crystal, green earth crystal, and white air crystal. The members of The Element Guard each have their element's crystal to keep out of the hands of evil-doers. And so there's an entrance to each room somewhere on the earth. The Air Entrance is in Seattle, at the top of the Space Needle. The Fire Entrance is in Tacoma, Washington, inside Mount Saint Helens. Those two entrances are both in Washington because that's the place where the main entrance to the cave is. The Earth Entrance to the cave is in Mexico, in the Cave of Swallows.'

'Cool name, what is that place?' I asked them.

Natalie chimed in, 'It's the deepest cave in the world, so deep that people parachute down into it. The portal is at the bottom, if you jump in without a parachute you get sucked straight through to Cave Obsidian.'

'That sounds awesome! Can we try it?' I asked giddily.

'Maybe after your training soldier, but right now we've got to whip you into shape.' Omar said in a commanding voice.

Yeah, I was definitely warming up to this kid.

'Air, fire, earth,' I said counting them on my fingers, 'I thought there were four!'

'There are,' Natalie told us 'The Water Entrance is in Lake Berryessa in Napa County, in California.'

'Oh, I've heard of that place, that's the hole in the middle of the lake with the circular waterfall!' I told her. 'Wait a second, so obviously Omar has those cool fire powers, but what powers do you have?' I asked Natalie.

'I am the Element Guard of water. I guard this crystal around my neck.' She showed off her necklace,

I hadn't noticed it before, it was a simple piece of obsidian but her's had a blue crystal shard embedded in the stone. Omar showed me his and it had a red crystal shard embedded in it. Then they handed me my own, but it didn't have any crystal in it. 'That necklace will hide the vision of mortals when you're in public.' They explained, 'If you're fighting another pyloik in the middle of Madrid, to the mortals it might just look like you're crushing a worm under your foot.'

'That's pretty nifty,' I decided, lowering it around my neck.

'About that fight you had with the pyloik the other day-.' Natalie started.

'Wait a second hold up, how long have I been out of it?!' I demanded. 'About a week, counting the day you rolled in here.' Omar said calmly.

'What! My mom probably already called the police and she's gotta be worried like crazy, I just disappeared!'

'Don't worry Jacob, I assure you we told your mom all about your situation and she understands what is going on.' Natalie said.

My shoulders relaxed, at least my mother wasn't running around the streets looking for me.

'So back to your fight with the pyloik,' Natalie chided again.

I answered, 'Is that what that snake thing was called?'

That reminded me about the punctured hole that would be in my thigh. I checked my leg under the blanket and there were purple and black bruises all around the bite mark, it was definitely a hole, with oozing yellow pus covering it. 'Ugh, gross.' Omar said, looking over.

'Back to the point,' Natalie said. 'Most people wouldn't be able to take on a fully grown pyloik, and come out with only a minor scrape like that, plus, without any training. So I was wondering if anyone else was with you during the fight.'

I asked, 'So this is only minor? Looks pretty major to me. I'd hate to see what the bad ones are like.'

'Well come on, get up all ready!' Omar yelled, looking excited.

He snapped his fingers and a wheelchair zoomed into the room. My bed flung me out of it and into the wheelchair. I whacked my newly injured leg into the foot of the bed on the way there. 'Owww!' I whined.

'Sorry about that, I still need some work on that one.' He shrugged. 'And Natalie, yeah I was on my own.' I told her.

'Alright then,' She said looking stern. But still unsure, 'Time for your grand tour of Cave Obsidian.'