After The Shadow Ruler disappears, the shadow tendrils fade away and I drop to the ground, landing on my ankle from the unexpected drop.
“Now what?” Adam asks, walking up to me despondently. He reaches out his arm to me, and I grasp it, letting him lift me up. I land on my feet and a pain sears through my ankle. I limp over with Adam and we all stand around each other.
“He’s coming back. Really soon at that,” Elliot states. “He’s coming for the rest of us.”
“Which means we need to get ready,” Joey says quietly.
We take Max and Felix inside and put them in Aaron’s room. It’s devastating seeing all of them like that.
“The backyard?” I suggest, pointing outside.
“Sure,” Adam agrees, and we head to a specific window in the other room in the
basement. If you open it and roll through, it takes you straight to the backyard. It’s kind of
cool how he has that.
“Alright, training,” Elliot, says, clapping his hands together and rubbing them against each other.
“We haven’t trained in quite a bit, huh?” Adam asks walking to the other end of the yard.
“I guess we might need this,” I agree.
“I have to admit, even I am a bit rusty,” Joey sighs, smirking. I walk to my end and stand in a fighting position.
“No elements, no majorly injuring?” Adam asks, looking to all of us. We went by these rules every time we battled, and I suppose they work well.
“Yeah,” I agree, and Elliot and Joey agree as well. Joey gives us a count down and we all get ready. As he gets to one, we all run at each other, our fists at the ready. I start
out by slamming into Adam with my fist and he swipes my legs out from under me. I roll back in a somersault and land on my knees blocking Adam’s next hit with my arms intersecting over my face. A metal boot hits my arms, and I jump back up to my feet. Then, I hear a loud noise, almost like static on a radio. Adam and I both turn to see what happened. Joey had been slammed back up against the wall of Aaron’s garage, and the static noise had been coming from his armor.
“What did you do this time?” Adam asks, making a dumb face at him.
“I don’t know, I swear, it wasn’t me this time,” Joey states, trying to remain
innocent.
“Calm down, short-stack,” Elliot says, walking up to him. “Wait, listen to it.”
Adam and I walk closer, and it starts to sound more like talking. It sounds like The Shadow Ruler. I lean a little closer and hear what sounds like what you’d hear if you were
listening in on a telephone call. Just one side of a conversation.
“I have to bring the elements in the children?” The Shadow Ruler asks. Silence.
“But wouldn’t it be easier to bring you the elemental orbs instead?” I then heard a distant shout from the speaker. “N-no, sir. Should I return the elements or keep them in the receptacle? Affirmative. Farewell, sir.” And at that, the call ended. We could still hear
though.
“Weird,” I mutter quietly and thoughtfully.
“I know,” Elliot agrees.
“Oh, generals. I do suppose that you are still here to do my bidding. We have to
stop collecting elements through the elemental extractor,” The Shadow Ruler continues on the other side of the speaker. “He has informed me that he wants the elements in the
bodies of their possessor. He has said that we can keep the four that we have collected as
of now, but he wants Fire, Water, Earth, and Lightning in their bodies.” I look up at everyone. We all know that he’s talking about us. I guess on the bright
side, we don’t have to worry about having our soul being taken anymore.
