Return of the Elementals

Chapter Twelve

Chibita leveled the hunk of rock to the empty deck of the ship. "I believe this is our stop, keke!" he snickered, provoking a long sigh from Todomatsu. We all hopped on deck, our feet barely making any noise when connected with the darkening wood. Chibita carefully let his grip free of the rock and jumped aboard with us, letting the chunk of road plummet. "Alright, let's make one more note to our plan. Meet back here once we've gotten everybody, okay?" Choromatsu recapped, each of us nodding.

"Now, to find the armor we need to sneak in," I heard Hatabou faintly whisper, and we each headed our separate ways. I could feel fear radiating from Osomatsu, and I could taste slight irritation on my tongue. He slowly swung open a steel door, and we snuck inside, our backs pressed to the cold metal. Thankfully, stacks of boxes shielded us from the right, where we stood in silence. 

Me and Osomatsu slowly inched up, the only sounds hitting our ears was our own faint breathing. A sudden loud bang echoed throughout, and I felt my heart stop. I could hear Osomatsu suck in a lungful of air, holding in his breath as to not be heard. "We got reports of one of those damn elementals that boss wants us to kill spotted on deck! Don't let him wriggle away!" I heard, and my heart sank into my stomach. 

"What do we do now?" I heard Osomatsu whisper into my ear, and then we heard footsteps cease. One of the boxes was cast away, and the stack hiding us crumbled, revealing two soldiers sneering at us. Both wore helmets that hid their eyes, and one had a pistol secured into his belt. "Well, well, well! Lookie what we got here, Mist!" the leftmost soldier sneered, his arms folded across his chest.

"You two must be suicidal, or insane if ya wanted to be caught this badly!" the one named Mist cackled, reaching for his gun. Before I could even react, Osomatsu lashed out, landing a blow on Mist before his fingers could brush the handle. Mist stumbled back in shock before barking "Get'im, Lava!" at his cohort, who nodded and made a mad dash towards me.

I leapt to my right, my body colliding with the boxes, crumbling some to just wood and splinters. Lava was on me almost immediately, his hands squeezing my shoulders and whirling me around before I could comprehend what was going on. I threw a fist at him, only for him to catch it and send me spinning. I hit the wall, barely keeping my balance. I felt cold traversing my fingertips, activating my powers. I raised a hand, very faint trails of snow surrounding. "Ya think turning me int' a snowman's gonna keep me from finishing you off for the boss?" Lava sneered, and suddenly, was falling to the ground with a loud bang.

Blood pooled around his head, and I could make out a small hole in the back of his head. Osomatsu was standing some-odd feet away, a gun pointed directly at me now that Lava was down for the count. He turned the barrel to face Mist, his face contorted into what appeared to be a mix between shock and anger. "Alright, listen. I won't shoot you on two conditions, no wait, three. You let us go, tell nobody you saw us and let us have your armor. If you don't follow these directions, you'll end up like your buddy here," he demanded, nodding towards the bloody body of Lava.

Mist's eyes widened and he nodded, beginning to strip. Osomatsu lowered the gun as Mist dumped his armor to the side, and began to strip his dead cohort. "You'll pay for this," I heard the demon hiss under his breath. When the armor was piled, he hoisted the dead body of Lava onto his shoulders and pressed his palm against a wall, revealing a hidden door that he slipped into, leaving me and Osomatsu alone once again.

"Osomatsu-niisan! Are you okay?" I asked, rushing over to where my brother stood. He was breathing heavily, his eyes focused on the gun he held pointed to the floor. He was faintly shaking. I placed a hand on his shoulder. "I shot someone..." he murmured softly, and I could taste his aura of fear and shock.

He turned to me, horror draping in his emerald eyes. "Ichimatsu, I fucking SHOT someone," he repeated, his voice trembling. "You shot in defense, it was an enemy," I attempted to reassure, but I didn't seem to get anywhere. "No. I could have shot YOU," he almost seemed to.. be sobbing? "But you didn't. C'mon, let's sneak in and rescue someone," I said, turning my attention to the armor laying in a pile on the floor.

I watched Osomatsu slowly place the gun on the floor and begun to dress into the armor. My stomach churned. We had to be incredibly careful. The armor felt a bit tight on me, being slightly smaller than the armor we'd donned in disguise back in the headquarters. "Oh hey, there's keys!" Osomatsu exclaimed, the jingle of keys echoing throughout. "Do you think those are to unlock the cells everyone's in?" he asked me, his eyes shining in hope. "Plausible," I uttered, leaning down to secure the pistol to my belt.

We began to stride down the shimmering metal hall, our boots thumping against the concrete floor. Alarms seemed to echo throughout, resonating even within my own skull. I wondered for a minute where Mist had vanished to, but it didn't matter at the moment. What mattered was this rescue mission we'd been thrown into.

The corridor seemed to stretch on impossibly long for an airship, dipping down into a slope that seemed to go on for at least a mile. "God, if we find a cell and it isn't Mom and Dad, the professor and Dayon, Iyami, OR Totoko-chan, I'm gonna go apeshit," I heard Osomatsu seethe through gritted teeth. My stomach clenched. What if there wasn't even a cell down here?  Suddenly, after what felt like ages of aimless wandering, a door appeared at the end of the darkened tunnel, illuminating the way ahead. It was closed but golden light slithered from under the gap.

I felt my heart start racing. Osomatsu began to run ahead, almost unprompted. "Oi!" I shouted, running after him towards the door. It seemed to be made of a dark wood, a metal brace hugging around it. A little window with bars peered into the room behind. "It needs a key," Osomatsu puffed when we arrived breathless to the looming door. "No shit," I replied sarcastically, but he didn't seem to notice, and if he did, he surely didn't care.

He pulled the keyring from the belt and began to fiddle with it, the jingling metal clinking throughout the deserted hall. I snuck a glance over my shoulder, panicked. "Aha!" Osomatsu exclaimed, shoving a silver key into the lock. It clicked as he turned it, and the door swung open with a sickening creak. We exchanged a slightly frightened glare and went inside.

It was a basic room, painted a sandy yellow with a brick-red floor. The cell was most of the room, bars stopping about halfway in. The barred window inside was a glance to the darkened sky just outside. Within the cell were my parents. My mother was sitting with her back to the rightmost wall, just looking sad and lonely. My father however was just pacing, and jumped when we entered.

"Honey! Soldiers!" he cried, throwing up his fists as if to intimidate the, unbeknownst to them, non-existent threat. "What do you want from us!" he cried again before my mother rolled her eyes and let out  a disappointed sigh. "Is there a reason you kidnapped us from our home? To do sickening experiments on us?" she snapped, standing up, the familiar angered glare in her eyes sending a bit of a chill up my spine. 

"What? No! Why would we do that?" Osomatsu asked, breaking character. "Because you're soldiers! You told us your boss wanted us as bait! What do you want!" my mother screamed, grasping at the bars separating her and my father from us.  "Relax, we're not here to do any of that," I blurted out, trying to make my voice sound deeper than usual, elbowing Osomatsu in the process.

"But. Why kidnap us if you don't intend to hurt us?" my father tilted his head, puzzled.

"Because..." I said, slowly lifting my helmet in unison with my brother.

"We're not soldiers,"