Chapter Seventeen
It only took me a few minutes before I arrived at a long metal ladder that led out of the crawl space, to the outside. My knees were already scraped and sore from crawling, but the arduous ascent made them feel even worse. As I approached the opening at the top, the moonlight shone down onto each rung of the ladder. Seeing that I only had a few left encouraged me to keep going, as did hearing the voices of Niyol and Sefarina. Just as my outstretched arms reached the final bar, I felt Niyol’s big hands grip my arms and pull me up. I groaned as I pushed down, forcing myself out of the dark tunnel and into the gloomy night. I sat on the floor, panting, and Niyol let go of me, allowing me to get my breath back.
“What on earth were you doing?” Sefarina snapped, kneeling down next to me so that we were eye level.
“I couldn’t just leave Malik to get hurt,” I panted steadily.
Sefarina smiled, and then wrapped her arms around me.
“I’m glad that you’re safe, and that you helped Malik. Is he okay?”
“I think so,” I answered truthfully. “I hope so.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Valeska scolded, “You could have been hurt!”
I pulled away from Sefarina and dragged myself from the floor. As I stood upright, my knees burned in agony, and I winced. Sefarina stood up too, and we both turned to stare at Niyol and Valeska, who stood inches behind us.
“I couldn’t leave him to die! And if I hadn’t saved him, he wouldn’t have been able to close the door behind us.”
Valeska frowned, her hair now ruffled and stringy as it fell across her forehead scruffily. Her eyes brightened as she twisted away from my gaze.
“I guess that was sensible. At least they can’t follow us…”
“But where are we going?” Niyol wondered fearfully.
“We have a contingency plan, in case anything like this ever happened,” she answered in a very matter of fact tone. “There’s a base set up a few miles away from here, where several of the Elementus Populas will be to extract us.”
“What does that mean?” I questioned.
Valeska ignored me, and looked down at the gaping hole in the ground which I had just been pulled out of.
“We need to get out of here as quickly as we can…” Her voice was cold and collected.
I turned around, looking behind me at the Abbey a short distance away. There were several large black cars parked around the outside of it, vehicles which did not belong to the Elementus Populas. Niyol followed my gaze, and stared emphatically in alarm.
“You don’t think they can see us, do you?” He asked, his voice trembling.
“Let’s go.” Valeska answered as she began to walk quickly over the green mounds of grass.
“If they hacked into the computers, and stole the floor plans…” Sefarina pondered aloud. My stomach sank.
“That’s why we need to go, now!” Valeska cried out, beginning to jog into the distance.
She was right. We were not safe here, and we had to leave. I looked from Niyol to Sefarina. Both of them were terrified. I didn’t want to leave Sigwald and Malik and everyone else behind, but what else could we do? We had to trust Valeska, and the Elementus Populas. I nodded towards them both, and then spun around, jogging the trail left by Valeska. I heard Sefarina and Niyol following behind me, and pretty soon we had caught up with Valeska. My knees felt like they were on fire, but I kept going, knowing that the consequences of stopping would be far worse than temporary pain.
After a few minutes, I was exhausted. Sweat dripped from my brow and armpits, and my breathing was heavy. For my age, I was fairly fit, but after a long day of training, more exercise was not what my body could handle. I needed a rest. I looked out at the dark hills that surrounded us. The moor was bleak and barren, and I felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. There were no trees, no buildings and no roads as far as I could see, and I grew anxious. I was really tired, and I didn’t know if I could keep going.
Suddenly, I crashed into the back of Valeska. She was as stiff as a board, and stood there firmly in place, staring at something. Sefarina bumped into me and shouted out in shock. Valeska quickly hushed her, and began to creep forward. I followed her. She waved her right hand in the air and began signalling for us to crouch down, which we all did. She stepped forward further, making her way up the tip of a large mound, before throwing herself to the ground and peering over the top. She saw something and then hurried back over to us. We huddled into a group, and she whispered as quietly as she could.
“The other base is just over that hill. But there are Inimicus soldiers waiting for us.”
Sefarina gasped in shock. My eyes pulled back widely, gaping into the black beyond the hill. It made sense. If the Inimicus had hacked into files, they would know where the alternative base was. I thought about it harder and I shook my head, slowly. Something didn’t add up, it just didn’t feel right. Why would they be waiting for us here, if they didn’t want to kidnap us? HE admitted that he didn’t want to take us, so what was the real reason for this attack?
And then it suddenly dawned on me: they didn’t want us, they wanted Valeska. She had come into the room with us when the attack started, and HE must have seen her there. That must be why they were so desperate to break into the dormitory, and why they were still trying to get us now. Niyol had always said that she was a very important member of the Elementus Populas because she was a specialist in the Secondus. Maybe the Inimicus had been able to convince another Elemental to work with them, who was a Secondus, and so would need the help of an expert in using their powers. I suddenly felt incredibly sorry for Valeska. No one would hurt an Elemental, but they might hurt someone else who was not compliant. If she refused to help the Inimicus, would they harm her? Would they torture her? If they didn’t get what they wanted from her, would they kill her? I closed my eyes and was immediately one with the light breeze that fluttered against my hair and face. I felt a sudden pang of guilt for how I had been treating Valeska this whole time. All she had done was try to help us, all of us, and I had been mean to her, just because I thought that I couldn’t trust her.
I leaned forward, and put my hand on Valeska’s now kneeling leg.
“They want you, Valeska, not us.”
She blinked dismissively, as if to throw that idea away with the bat of her eyelids. But after a short moment, her back straightened and her lips clenched tightly together in realisation. Niyol’s mouth hung open in confusion and shock.
“But why?” He asked urgently, “Why would they? That doesn’t make any sense!”
Valeska nodded in disagreement.
“It does. If they take me, then I can’t help you, Niyol. And that means that the Ventus’ powers would not be fully developed. Then you would not be as powerful as you should be, and the Inimicus can use me as a bargaining chip: if you work for them to have access to me, you’ll become complete.”
“But why not just take one of us?” Sefarina asked sensibly.
Valeska shrugged. “Maybe they plan to. Or maybe they plan to take one of you with me. They know you would do anything to get us back.”
“We can’t let that happen!” Niyol shouted, standing to his feet and sending small rippling waves of lightning into his opens palms. He rushed towards the hill, preparing to fight whoever was on the other side. I was dismayed and horrified by his recklessness, and so jumped up and dashed after him to try to stop him. By the time I had caught up to him, at the top of the mound, it was too late. We had been spotted.
Just over the hill was a small cottage. It looked like a normal English country house with a pretty garden and a thatched roof. But now there were about forty or fifty soldiers dressed in black, standing in various positions around the house and garden, waiting to make their move. As soon as one of them saw us, he signalled to the others, and before we knew it, we had a stampede of bulky warriors in black sprinting towards us. I grabbed onto Niyol’s arm to pull him backwards, but he flew forward, es
caping my grip and running into battle. I had a very serious decision to make: would I turn away and flee, leaving my brother to be massacred, or would I stand and fight with him to save all four of us? My legs were stiff and my heart seemed to be thumping faster than a car engine, but I knew what I had to do. And so did Sefarina, as she hurtled over the mound and ran down towards the militia, screaming at the top of her lungs. I exhaled deeply, and decided that I had to join them. This is what we had been training for.
As I began my descent into the crowds of fierce enemies, my mind simultaneously crept up into the heavens, calling clouds to gather above us. I dragged them towards us as quickly as I could, and as I engaged in hand to hand combat with a rather wide and muscular combatant, I called the wind towards the cottage. Somehow I knew that both Niyol and Sefarina were doing the very same thing as almost immediately a very strong breeze began to blow around where we were fighting. I blocked a flanked punch but missed defending against another. As the hard fist smacked into my left side, I too slapped something as hard as I could: a cloud. A torrent of rain spilled out from above, soaking everyone and everything in its path. The man hit me again, sending me sprawling towards the muddy grass, but before I hit the ground I cushioned the blow with a bubble of air, which acted like a car air bag. I looked up, through the pouring rain, seeing that the man was about to grab my legs, so I gathered together a large puddle of water from the falling droplets in mid-air and pressed it against his face. He choked and splattered as the water spilled into his lungs. I kicked his legs as hard as I could, forcing him to fall to the floor. I allowed the pool of water suffocating him to disperse, and then jumped back to my feet, kicking him in the stomach to wind and therefore disable him.
I turned to fight my next enemy, whom I took down with an elbow to the stomach. As I continued to fight, by using the wind around me to sweep people from their feet, I noticed Sefarina. She too was fighting, but she could do it without even laying a finger on an attacker. She had somehow created a large disc shaped shield out of the air, and used it to knock people running towards her to the ground. Those that managed to slip through she literally tossed to one side. It was very odd seeing grown men being picked up by their ankles by an invisible hand and being thrown through the air, as if they were scrunched up pieces of paper being hurled into a rubbish bin. For someone so shy and quiet, Sefarina sure had an angry side.
A hand grabbed my waist and I kicked backwards, into my victim’s stomach. She groaned in pain. My head was pulled back by an enemy grabbing my hair, and a leg smashed into my right thigh. I quickly realised that I was being bombarded by a group of thugs and knew that I couldn’t physically fend them all off. I fell to the floor as people kicked, punched and pulled me. I scanned my brain urgently, trying to think of what I could do. Then I realised that I had to trust my gut, my instincts, and listen to my inner energy which was feeding off the wind whistling past me. I closed my eyes and felt the bodies surrounding me, who were pushing through the water droplets that fell from the sky. I focused in on all of those tiny pieces of rain that were being brushed aside. I grabbed them all. There were thousands of them, but I somehow managed to cling onto them all at once by instinctively knowing which ones I needed to manipulate. I opened my eyes, seeing the frosty breath of several people spiralling in on me. A fist slapped hard against my face, and blood gushed from my lip as it burst open. I concentrated hard, trying not to think about the searing pain that tore through every inch of my body. I felt the rain drops again, the ones that were being moved by my attackers, and I brought them towards me. I gasped in amazement. A sheet of water, consisting of individual droplets of water, was being held in front of me. It was like I was lying underneath a frosted body length stained glass window. I could just about see through it, like a speckled panel of glass. It was beautiful. And deadly. I pushed my hands upwards, so that they hovered just under the water sheet. As people tried to grab them, and thrust them back to the soaking ground, I opened my fingers out. I directed my digits towards my victims, and the water droplets flew like bullets through the air. No one really made a sound as the water pierced their flesh. Some of them grunted, but no one screamed. My water bullets were too fast for them. They probably didn’t even realise what had hit them. Blood splattered out of the holes in their flesh, and the bodies crumpled onto the floor around me. Some of them fell on top of me, burying me in a mountain of corpses. I felt the blood of my victims congregate against my clothes and skin, and I almost retched. A heavy arm fell against my mouth, stopping me from screaming. I began to panic as I lay under a crushing weight in the pitch black. I tried to wriggle my arms and legs, thrusting them around to escape, but I couldn’t move. I was pinned to the moist muddy ground, and I couldn’t breathe. I began to get angry, and frightened, and without even knowing what I was doing, I pushed the air around me as hard as possible, flinging the bodies into the air. I gasped, sucking the air into my lungs, as the bodies landed next to me with sickening splats. I got to my feet, looking around to see the fallen soldiers. All of them had now been defeated, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something that made me gawp in horror. Just behind the cottage, more vans were pulling up, and out of those vans jumped more soldiers. After several seconds, there was another wave of enemies running towards us.
I looked towards Sefarina, who panted heavily, soaked to the bone. I turned towards Niyol. His whole body was enveloped in white crackling light. He looked like a superhero from a Hollywood movie. His eyes caught mine. He seemed to be barely grazed. I noticed his eyes dart from my lip to my forehead, and down to my bent knees. I was quivering, barely able to stand, and he saw this. He was furious. His eyes glared in rage, and his nose and mouth contorted into a terrifying snarl. Bright light began to sizzle around his eyes. I wanted to scream in disgust. He looked like a monster. But I knew that the only reason why his appearance was so frightening was because he was mad. And no one should get a member of my family mad. It just wasn’t worth it.
He thrust his arms into the sky, and lightning bolts snapped down onto them. His arms remained skywards, and the string of lightning stayed attached to him as he roared, bellowing in anger. A beam of lightning flew down, out of the air, striking several of the people advancing toward us at once. Another bolt of lightning exploded downwards, hitting other people. They shouted out in horror, as three more lightning bolts struck members of their group. More bolts rained down, targeting soldiers who were still standing. It was like an amazingly dazzling firework display, except with fatal consequences. The sky and air lit up as lightning descended from the heavens like white fire, taking out people who continued to rush towards us. It began to look like a huge storm of strobe lights, and soon I had to close my eyes because it became so bright I thought I might be permanently blinded. Even with my eyelids scrunched shut, the bright white forced its way into my retinas. The noise was deafening, and I was frozen to the spot in fear.
Within a few seconds, it was all over. The night darkened as the pummelling crashing of lightning stopped. I opened my eyes. No one was left standing, except for Niyol, Sefarina and I. Niyol roared again, and then he stopped glowing, collapsing to his knees in a puddle of muddy water. I told the rain to stop, and it did, and I also made the wind die down too. Everything was still and silent. The cottage stood tall and unfazed. The piles of unconscious or possibly dead bodies lay frozen in the sludge. I looked back towards the hill, seeing Valeska watching us, almost proudly. Her face smirked as she looked happily down towards her protégé. She must have been monitoring us the entire time, seeing if the training had been effective. It clearly had been.
A loud noise filled the quiet vacuum that ensnared us. It was a helicopter, and the sound of its blade thrashing through the night air was quickly getting louder. A yellow beam cut into the dark horizon, immediately followed by blinking red lights. The helicopter’s blades thudded noisily as it descended towards us. It hovered a short distance away, beginning to land in a clear patch of grass near to th
e cottage.
I looked at Niyol. It could be more people coming to attack us. We had to be ready. His eyes flared brightly as the lightning spindled rapidly around his forearms. Sefarina took my right hand in hers, and squeezed it tightly. I felt both her physical and elemental presence falter next to mine. I called to the wind, and felt her do the same. Our energies began to feed off of one another as we tugged the breeze rapidly towards us. My hair blew over my face as the gusts twirled around us frenetically. I clenched air particles being displaced by the helicopter’s blades, realising that if I pulled them tightly against one another, hardening them into a solid chain, it would stop the machine in mid-flight. Together, the three of us could easily raze the helicopter right out of the sky.
I felt Valeska pushing through the wind molecules as she rushed down the hill towards us.
“Stop!” She screamed out. I could barely hear her over the thwacking of the spinning blades. She continued to run, leaping over the bodies and barrelling through the slippery marsh. I sensed her urgency, and squeezed Sefarina’s hand. The wind died down, and I turned to face Valeska.
“Don’t!” she cried out, hardly audible, although the quieting wind helped me to hear her better. “That’s an Elementus Populas chopper! They’re here to evacuate us!”
I twisted my neck around so that I could warn Niyol. His arms and face glowed brightly as he was preparing to strike. I lifted my left arm and aimed it at Niyol. I moved the air so that a stream of it flew through the field, striking Niyol lightly on the back. He looked over to me, realising what was happening. The lightning circling his body flickered out. Sefarina and myself, hand in hand, sprinted towards Niyol, Valeska following closely behind us.
“We have to get on board!” Valeska indicated, as the helicopter finally set down on the ground. A door panel slid open and a woman dressed in an Elemnetus Populas uniform hopped out, and waved us towards her.
“We had better go!” Valeska cried out, as we began hurrying towards the hulking vehicle. As we got closer, the current from the rotors were so intense I thought that I might be blown away. The noise was deafening, and the bellowing gusts made me feel as if I might be sucked into the propellers.
Valeska got to the open door first, and ushered us into the helicopter. Sefarina jumped in first, and I followed. Niyol hopped in next, finally followed by Valeska. The woman with a helmet and goggles on slammed the door shut as we began rising into the air. My body was so tired and my eyes grew fuzzy. I needed to rest. I stared blankly out of the window at the mounds of moors that rushed by beneath us. The haze of dark green patches melted into one smear of brooding emerald. I closed my eyes to cut out the swirling images and thundering sounds. Even though I was terrified of what had just happened, and I was incredibly worried about what would happen next, I had to rest. Almost immediately, I fell asleep.