Elementals
Chapter 3

Rosalie, Tyler, and May decided to replace a place to talk without other people listening. They ended up outside, on the second floor’s smoking area. It was basically just part of the first floor’s roof where they didn’t build anything on top of it, so it acted as a sort of balcony-like area.

May held the door and Rosalie helped Tyler to not slip on the wet ground. He said he’d been on crutches before, so it wasn’t that bad. Nevertheless, Rosalie and May were still relentless in helping him get around.

There was a bench that sat under a ledge where it would stay dry, and that’s where the three sat. Tyler was in the middle with Rosalie on his right and May to his left.

“So, are you doing okay?” Rosalie asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he quickly brushed off, “Did you replace that Lillian girl?”

“Yeah,” Rosalie answered hesitantly, “She got hit by lightning, but she’s fine now. She’s here, actually, but she didn’t want to see me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tyler replied.

“It’s fine. How’d things go on your end?” Rosalie asked, changing the subject. Tyler and May exchanged nervous looks and the look of panic flashed across their faces, before they immediately tried and failed to hide it.

“Oh, y-yeah… i-it all went fine,” May quickly answered, stuttering and jittery. Rosalie became suspicious at this strange behavior.

What happened between them? Rosalie wondered. Maybe I should ask. I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable, but I’m curious. Why am I freaking out so much? It’s likely nothing.

“Hey, what’s up with you two? You’re acting a little weird,” Rosalie said, hoping she’d get a simple answer. Tyler and May exchanged panicked looks. Oh no… They’re a couple! I’m happy for them, but this will be so awkward, she worried. Rosalie tried to stay calm, but she was overcome by shock.

“Are you dating?!” Tyler jumped up, nearly fell, but grabbed a hold of Rosalie’s shoulder and she kept him balanced.

“What?! No, we’re not dating! I swear, it’s nothing like that,” Tyler quickly defended.

“Oh, so I’m just undateable, then?” May asked, offended.

“No, but you’re like a sister to me! I love you platonically, like Rosalie, but I just can’t see you romantically,” Tyler explained. May nodded and calmed down, seemingly accepting his answer. Tyler sat back down, and he and Rosalie focused their attention back on their conversation.

Tyler stared at Rosalie for a moment, obviously thinking very hard about something. After a moment, he turned to May, who was sweating bullets. “May…” he began hesitantly.

May looked at him with frantic eyes and his voice trailed off. Tyler closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, straightening his shoulders. He opened his eyes and turned back to May.

“Listen, I’m going to tell her. I’ll only explain what happened with me, if you want. Your secret is yours, but I trust Rosalie with mine,” he told her sternly, “I’m going to tell her and you’re not going to stop me.”

Rosalie’s heart began to race with anxiety over what he was about to tell her. May opened her mouth to speak, to object to what Tyler was about to do, but she couldn’t replace any useful words, so she sat in silent protest. Tyler sighed faintly, then looked Rosalie in the eye, unblinking and sort of creepy.

“Rosalie, please don’t freak out and I swear I’m not making this up, but…” he took in another breath, unlike Rosalie, who forgot to breathe entirely, “I have magic rock powers!”

Rosalie suddenly regained oxygen, and nearly laughed, but she realized he was serious. Is he telling the truth? Am I not the only one who had something weird and supernatural happen? she wondered.

“Are you serious?” Rosalie asked.

“Yes! I am! I promise! I made the football goal hover when it nearly fell on me, and-” he tried to explain. However, he was cut off when Rosalie jumped up and began to shout.

“THE FOOTBALL GOAL NEARLY FELL ON YOU AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?!”

Tyler jumped back and almost fell off the bench in fear at this sudden outburst. “I-I planned to tell you. That’s what I’m doing now,” he said frantically in an attempt to calm Rosalie down.

“You could have died!” Rosalie screamed.

After nearly five minutes of yelling back and forth, Tyler and Rosalie ran out of energy and returned to their former positions on the bench, next to May, who had been holding back laughter the whole time. Now that Rosalie and Tyler had calmed down, May let loose and laughed until she rolled right off the bench and onto the wet ground.

“Why is our arguing that funny to you?” Rosalie asked.

“It-It just is!” May gasped out through laughter. Rosalie shrugged it off and she and Tyler let May laugh until she was content.

“So… ‘rock powers?’” Rosalie asked, turning hers and Tyler’s attention back to the topic at hand.

“Yeah,” Tyler replied, staring at the ground and looking for the right words to explain it. He told Rosalie what happened when he found May, when the tornado hit and the goal fell towards him, and it strangely hovered until he was to safety, then hit the ground.

“Also,” May piped up, having stopped laughing and gotten off the ground, “When you made the goal hover, you… you were glowing. It was a chocolate-like color that surrounded your body like the aura in anime.”

“Guys…” Rosalie began, “I had something weird happen, too.”

“Really?” May asked.

“Yeah, I think it was a force field or something, but I have no idea. It scares me a bit, to be honest,” Rosalie explained.

“Woah, you’re serious, right? You’re not making fun of me?” Tyler asked. Rosalie gave him a slight punch in the shoulder.

“No, I’m not making fun of you! I’m your friend and I wouldn’t do that,” she scolded.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Tyler said quickly so she wouldn’t hit him again.

“So, what happened?” May asked. Rosalie explained everything. She told them about Lillian, the glass, the light, and the lightning.

“Wait, so Lillian saw you?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, she did,” Rosalie answered.

“Does she remember?”

“I don’t know.”

May took a moment to process the information and decide whether or not it was true. She evidently decided Rosalie wasn’t lying, and made a confession of her own. “Well, something weird happened with me, too,” she confessed, “I got sucked up into the tornado, and when I was in it… I don’t know, but I think I stopped it. I just remember feeling like I wasn’t alone, then feeling the wind all around me. I don’t mean I felt it blowing, I mean I could feel every individual gas molecule that made up the air. I knew where each and every one was. Then, I thought about them slowing down and turning still… and they did. I began to fall, but I tried to imagine the wind catching me. Next thing I knew, a strong breeze seemed to catch me and I sailed gently for a few yards before hitting the ground in a way that didn’t kill me, much like a paper airplane.”

May finished and the three of them just sat there in silence, trying to figure out what this meant. After a moment, Tyler spoke up. “So, do we just have magic powers now?” he asked.

“How do we know it wasn’t just a one-time thing?” Rosalie responded.

“There’s only one way to replace out,” May said, getting up and standing in the middle of the area. She faced away from the bench where Tyler and Rosalie sat, closed her eyes, and stood perfectly still. “May, what are you-?” Tyler began, but before he finished she started to glow in a faint, silvery light.

The air around them had been completely still for the entire time they had been outside. Yet, as May began to glow, a strong wind appeared out of nowhere and rushed past their ears so fast it was all they could hear. Rosalie’s hair flapped around and wrapped itself around her face. Tyler’s eyes dried and teared up a bit when hit by the wind. It was strong and fast, not as much as it had been during the storm, but it kept speeding up until it wasn’t far off.

Just as the wind reached around the same speed as it had been earlier that day, May stopped glowing and it’s speed quickly dropped. It slowed back down until the air became still again. May walked back over to the astounded Tyler and Rosalie and sat back down on the bench. “So, I guess we have powers now,” she proudly proclaimed.

“But what does this mean?” Rosalie asked, “This could be dangerous! What if we can’t control them? What if we’re caught using them? What if we get arrested, or even worse, taken by the government?

“We could be experimented on! Why are these powers even here? Is this some sort of dark magic? Are we aliens? Are we about to embark on some sort of array of magical adventures while fighting vampires and warlocks and whatever else?

“Are we chosen ones or demonic creatures? Do we put on masks and capes and become superheroes? What if we’re powerful and some creepy bad guys try to steal our powers and take over the world, or just plain kill us? How am I the only one freaking out about this?!”

Tyler and May were startled by this sudden outburst. Tyler was the first to speak up. “Rosa, calm down. It’s going to be alright. We’ll figure this out together. We’ll be okay. Let’s not start panicking quite yet. Maybe we can do some research and replace something out? That way, we’ll know more about this and we can decide whether or not to panic then,” he said reassuringly.

Rosalie took a deep breath and sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she admitted.

“Hello,” said a man’s voice from the door behind them.

Rosalie, Tyler, and May whipped around, startled, to see someone standing in the doorway. He was tall, lean, and nicely dressed in a plain white shirt, slacks, a tie, and a tan trench coat. He had gray hair, and looked as though he were between forty and fifty years old. “You all aren’t smoking are you? This is a smoking area,” he continued.

“Oh, no, we’re not smoking,” Tyler explained.

“Yeah, we’re not even old enough,” May added.

“Well, then I doubt you should be out here. People may think you all are up to something,” he said warningly.

“What if we are?” Rosalie asked sarcastically? She normally didn’t act like this towards strangers, but for some reason, she felt incredibly hostile towards this man. Something about him showing up - the mere fact that he dared to talk to them, or even look at them - seemed to outrage her.

The man was taken aback by her response. For a moment, his face held a look of confusion. Then, he quickly regained his composure.

“I see,” he replied calmly, “Well, if you three are handling your own private business up here, just be careful.” The more he spoke, the more angry Rosalie became.

Although Rosalie didn’t know why, but something about this guy just made her mad. “Why should we?” she retorted. May and Tyler both gave her desperate looks that were supposed to tell her to stop, but she ignored them.

“Because,” the man answered, now clearly growing frustrated, “The right person or creature can sense the aura you emit while using Elemental powers from miles away, or sometimes even from across the world, so be careful.” Before the three of them could even process what he had said, the man had turned and left the area.

Rosalie, growing even angrier, ran into the building to catch up with this guy. “Do you really think you can just say something like that then walk away?!” she yelled, running inside.

“Wait!” she could here Tyler yelling after her. She ignored him and bolted inside, realizing immediately that she had screwed up.

The man was nowhere in sight, and she had just yelled at a room full of random people who now thought she was insane. Rosalie felt her face go hot with embarrassment as she quickly turned and ran back out onto the balcony. “Alright, I didn’t think that through,” she admitted.