Ọya sends to Njuko as he collapses sparks sputtering from his fingertips. Covered in dozens of scratches. 'Why am I doing this?' Njuko thinks to himself dejected and tired of struggling.
The rooms don't end he has over nine hundred teeth and still nothing but more rooms with more Gnomes and more useless teeth. 'What is the point of all this struggling?' Stressed to his limit, the number of close calls in the rooms growing with each successful attack. The amount of focus required to function as a storm is extraordinary. He winces as the dirt gets into his fresh wounds.
The sending is a memory that came through clear as a calling. Ọya or rather a piece of her is standing in front of a mountain that used to be her fourth born child, a corrupted form of red lightning, spewing lava consuming the remains of the mountain.
Njuko understands it as her saying 'this is what drives me,' he could feel her pain and anger. In the depths of her despair, she wants revenge for the death of her children. More than she wants to stop the force from doing that to anything else. The force has destroyed everything she holds dear.
Njuko has no such motivation, Seed Worlds are meant to be fun and exciting. This thou is just painful and confusing. He feels like fish inside a pond that is surrounded by an ocean and the seawater is sipping into the pond poisoning it.
He has no idea why this is happening nor does he know why he is suffering in the poisoned water. Worst of all not only is he unaware of the pond he is unaware of the sea beyond. It's all very overwhelming.
Thinking back on his few days inside the Seed World, he is yet to understand why he, Njuko wants to get out of this. Of course, he can use shallow excuses like it's for his friends, however, his feelings over Bilat make that difficult. Back home there is something going on but he is not involved. His father has kept him out of politics.
The storm within fading, the over eighty Gnome's remaining nervous that he might go off again and kill over fifty in a few seconds. Ọya sends again bringing him to his own memory with his father inside his childhood bedroom.
"Njuko do you know why we send our people to risk their lives inside Seed Worlds?" Njuko is sitting on a father's lap with his head against the man's chest.
"No papa."
"Seed Worlds are the key to saving our world my boy." His father puts a liquid metal ball on his forearm. It melts turning into small drops that move into Njuko's forearm.
"Thank you, papa! A real breaker artifact." Njuko trying to find the holes in his skin where the metal-filled into.
"Yes my boy, the breakers left us many things inside the Seed worlds alongside artifacts. If you ever find yourself inside a fully functionally Seed World. Try to learn as much as you can they are key to restoring the Fractured Lands. The Seed Worlds have the power within them beyond imagination... Ọya then sends again changing the power into an image of her, her true self huge swirling storm. Then interlaces Njuko in slowly change his winds into a storm even greater than herself.
"You mean you are such a power?" Njuko asks Ọya. She sends again a torrent of emotion. He grabs his head spraying a bit of soil onto his face. "Fine! I get it. It's is we now right no longer just you or me. You want to teach me to storm to defeat the coming red force a corrupting storm." Njuko is assailed by her emotions this goes much deeper than he first thought, she has been doing this longer than some stars have existed. The rush of emotion turning his storm, his extremities tingling in response. The swell inside his body starts his storm anew. Small cracklings expelled without him even moving.
The memory continues with a sentence he had forgotten, it has sat at the bottom of his memory for such a long time. A flash of an even younger Njuko, his grandfather a man darker than dark built like a temple and bleeding the red lightning of the force.
Ọya speaks for the first time, it sounds weird she doesn't have an accent, the words can't sound natural because she is doing something unnatural to her. Using the runes in his bones to create a sound similar to speech.
"She is real and you have to stop her because she wants to consume all the worlds."
Njuko thinks about that time. When his grandfather was dying is also the time when an entire people vanished from the Fractured Lands. He tries to remember clearly the words that were used. A voice like cold rain in midsummer after cutting sweet grass, says "It's gone down to the smallest pebble as if it never existed." His grandfather's last words before Njuko was taken away from the room. A week after that his grandfather died his body vapourised by the Red Lightning.
Njuko wants to thank Ọya, she is trying to motivate him. Njuko is not driven by such things he has too much control over his emotions. The thing is thou he can feel his brains juices working processing the memories creating for himself a reason that Njuko can believe in. He holds it close inside his heart it is tiny. Smaller than his hope to get together with Bilat currently is.
Njuko sits up, rubbing away the soil. 'Ugh! I wish I was that simple, revenge would be a wonderful driver. Fuck! It even killed my grandfather, but I have never been like that. I want power like everyone else.'
Ọya sends understanding and encouragement which is a gale-force knocking down a country. 'The power to control the Fractured Lands, yes exactly. Saving the Fractured Lands' people takes real power. I want to be able to control it to make it a unified country like the old stories.'
The tingle grows within him, the cause being a vague ambition at least it is purely his alone. A prime motivator, then it hits him. 'I want the power to make Bilat love me.' A deeply selfish thought he knows she attracted to power, but it makes sense there is nothing he has pursued as long as Bilat. He used to mould his life around her desires. He still wants her with all he has.
He bursts power as confusion is expelled from his mind, rising he steps forwards once more into the fry, lightning shooting at Gnomes. Beginning the cascade of the conquest of this room. The Gnomes no longer matter it is just Njuko and his storm raging. He is learning his body anew. Being an adult he has a huge advantage. A newborn elemental takes about five years to start storming off. Njuko can supplement his own movement as a storm's movement. Storm movement is better known as channelling. In Elementals channelling is breathing as walking is running.
Njuko cups his balls a gnome had managed to die in the direction of the boys. He fills his lungs. He rubs his balls. He can feel his field. It makes him able to move in the darkness he created. The cave is dry. The Gnomes are hard and their teeth are in his pocket. He has just collected one thousand teeth.
Njuko comes upon a room wider than ever room before. The sound of water a welcomed relief. The soft spikey grass underfoot crumbling with each step. He runs the wind stinging his wounds. Njuko makes into the river. The water is clear even in the dead of night. The light is created by several plants in the water that are luminous. He enjoys soaking his wounds as small creatures feast on his blood. The river is too shallow for any big predators so Njuko is not so worried about eaten by the river monsters.
Njuko knows now what he is doing is halfway throw the cave, he can feel that by the time he is done he will have control over his storm. The lightning in his body has to be grown. His primary element needs to mastered and he will have to do it without any weapons. Soon he moves what follows is the destruction of every room. He moves methodically through the rooms picking up the teeth as he goes along. He has hit his stride his fledging power finally power his own to wield as he chooses.
When he walks out everyone is waiting for he is the last to arrive. He rushes to Grid and grabs some change of clothes from the man. Lucky for him the others are sleeping recouping unlike him it looks they suffered as much. In the last rooms, he found his healing factor which had been growing with his power. Grid laughs tapping on the shoulder being a proper elemental now they can properly chase after the enemies that attacked the city.