The Zodiac Chronicles : Aquarius

Chapter 7

Aqua swims up to the front desk and puts the two books in the return shelf, she thought it might be better if she checked those out in the main city.  Her best friend was a no show, which was surprising because she always shows up to their meetings and hangouts. 

Aqua throws her diving suit off herself and passes it back to Cancer, while Crowlere waits impatiently at the door. "Thanks for the useful advice." Although his advice was not useful in her situation underwater, she still felt grateful for it. Cancer taps the countertop unusually. He never acts impatient or is he nervous. Aqua stops in the doorway, she cautiously turns around. Cancer strokes his stubble, "I..I am going to close up the shop early today and it will be closed tomorrow...I will place a key underneath the coral flowerpot out front for you Aqua." Aqua frowns, why is he acting so weird? "Goodnight." She walks out the door to her home. Crowlere rubs against her legs as they walk down the empty streets of Atlantis. The streets are never this empty. Suddenly if it was all a blur the bakery bursts into flames as if in her nightmare. The two fire wraiths come flying out "those bakery goons won't be using us as a heat source anymore!" They high five "yeah Pyre they won't." The flyaway laughing. Aqua shakes her head noticing nobody running to the rescue right away.
"I gotta do something!" Aqua grabs a nearby vase filling it with water. She drags it over struggling to get it to the burning shop. this was just like in her dream, falling into place almost exactly like before.  Crowlere follows her, she waves a hand at him, "stay here." Suddenly several large vines pick Aqua up along with her vase while a couple of other vases stoop overhead to drench the shop fire. Aqua looks under her arm to see her mother behind her. "Mom? What are you doing here?" Her mom walks up the vines, "I was heading home and saw a fire...so I came to help." She yells in her semi-commanding voice. Aqua guides herself to push the vase into the water, but the flames only engulf the vase. Her mom pushes her away from the shop fire, "Aquarius, I'll manage to take over from here, including your vines! Go get help!" as Aqua begins to run off to find some help, Libra senior shows up. Aquarius notices that he sports a sleeveless red and brown tunic with black pants, all the while having long blonde locks in a ponytail complementing his bare feet. "Ah, I see your mother is trying to put out a shop fire."

 Aqua smiles feeling a little relief, " Yeah I actually was going to get help." 

Libra senior smirks, "let's have the pyrotechnician help." He cracks his knuckles and runs towards the danger. He jumps into the vines and grabs the fire as if it was a whip. Aqua's mother nods her head underneath her mask at Libra senior as he tames the wildfire with his bare hands and feet. He commands the flames to shape into a pride of lions to make it leave the shop. Libra looks back at her and smiles. Aqua stands up in awe never really seeing something like that before. Libra senior walks away with the pride of fire commanding them to walk into the ocean. He snaps his flame whip pushing his pride into the seawater. As they walk in a huge cloud of steam comes up off the ocean engulfing Libra senior within the steam.  
Her mom staggers off the vines coughing from the smoke. "Mom! Are you okay?" She sees her mom's outfit tattered and burnt from the fire licking her clothes. Her mom pulls off her mask to reveal the faded but nasty scar across her once flawless face.  "Well that is all taken care of, lets go back to the house Aquarius."