Twenty Years Earlier
"Ember?" a voice rang out through the darkened lush forest. A man with red, orange, and yellow hair in his late 40s stepped through the brush, followed by a woman with green hair around the same age.
"Where could that little rascal have gone?" the woman said, shivering. Her words turned to frosty smoke as she spoke in the freezing forest. "It's freezing, almost midnight, and he's six and a half. He couldn't have gone far, right?"
"Don't worry my love," The man said, pulling his coat off and wrapping it around his wife. "I don't need the coat anyway."
The woman shoved it off and said, "Ew, Phoenix. Your coat always smells like charcoal and smoke. It reeks."
Phoenix shrugged and called out his son's name again. "Ember!"
"Hold on," his wife said, hushing him before he could call again. She sank to the ground, digging her fingers into the mulch and leaves and dirt. Green lines of lightning flashed through the ground as she "spoke" to the trees. In a creepy, grainy, otherworldly voice, she said, "Fire and fox are one. The grove is in danger. We will bring him to you for us to be safe."
Noticing his wife's shudder as she rose, Phoenix said, "Are you shaking because you're tired and you had to use your magic or because you're cold?"
"Can it be both?" she said, cracking a smile.
"Rose," Phoenix sighed. "This is serious. He doesn't know what he can do, even if he is only six."
He'd been married to her for 10 years and had two children, Ember and Flama, Ember being much better with Fire Magic and Flama with Earth Magic. They had been training them with the ways of magic almost immediately after they could talk and walk.
"Hold on," Rose said, putting a hand up. They listened for a minute. Silence. Then a rustle of leaves and brush echoed through the dense trees. "It's him," Rose confirmed, nodding to Phoenix. She threw herself to the ground, her clothes disappearing as she morphed into her Element Form, a sleek black panther with stunning lime green eyes and curved claws like crescent moons. She growled at Phoenix once her transformation was complete. "Change now you idiot!"
Phoenix collapsed onto his hands and knees as he felt his clothes fold into his skin and he shrank while a large, bushy tail emerged from the bottom of his spine. His skin which was commonly sparsely covered with nearly invisible hair began sprouting a beige fur. Adorned atop his head were two extremely large ears and his eyes were hollowed out almost completely black other than bright orange bursts of color that looked like fireworks exploding in the night sky. When he shook himself, he was utterly transformed into a fennec fox, his Element form, when the rustling of leaves got closer.
He and Rose leaped into hiding spots, her in a bush and him in a tree. Phoenix watched as a trail of smoke rose from the brush as it burst into flames, and then a stark orange fox burst out from the flames, a trail of smoke emitting from his tail.
The small fox looked around, and Phoenix realized there was a sweet aroma in the air, like sugar-coated sweet berries being cut in half to let out the smell. The young fox sniffed the air expectantly until he trotted over to the bush that Rose was hiding in, and she leaped out at him, pinning him to the ground as he squeaked in fear and anger.
"Do you understand how much trouble you are in, young man?" Rose said, shifting back into her human form at the speed of light, holding the small fox by the back of his neck. "Wandering away from home in the middle of the night, burning plants with no remorse, oh for Vegenance's sake, Phoenix! Come down here!"
Phoenix leaped out of the tree and shifted back to his human form in midair, hitting the ground on his feet. "Ember, you're grounded."
The little fox crossed its arms and shifted into a young boy wearing jeans and a red and orange polo shirt. He had green hair like his mother but had orange eyes like his father. Rose set him down on the ground gently.
Phoenix nodded to her, and she used her Creation Magic to open a wormhole to their house, a modern-ish house with fireproof walls and hanging plants and moss everywhere. When they got home, Phoenix sent Ember back to bed.
"You're grounded," Rose judged. "All you could say is you're grounded? That was the best you could come up with?"
"Don't blame me!" Phoenix said, throwing his hands up. "You know I don't think on the fly!"
"You need to be able to think on the fly!" Rose said, sighing. "Your parents were always telling you that, no?"
"What have I said about talking about my parents!" Phoenix yelled, drawing the attention of Ember, who was halfway up the stairs.
Ember watched as his parents bickered, and then the lights flickered once, twice, and then went out. He heard his mother scream his name, and his father scream his name, and then the lights came back on, and they were gone. No blood, no footprints, no nothing.
Just gone.
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"Ember!" A voice rang as he replayed that memory from 11 years ago, permanently embedded in his mind. "Ember!"
"Ember!" Flicker said, shaking him. She slapped him across the face. "Focus! Who are the current living children of the elements? Current elementals and non."
"Uh," Ember said, blinking furiously, bringing himself back to reality as he rubbed his sore face. He was sitting in a brightly lit library, his girlfriend Flicker sitting beside him.
She was wearing her usual maroon sweatpants that were just on the edge of being too small for her and her light gray sweatshirt with elastic at the sleeves and a purple and yellow circular gemstone necklace swaying around her neck. She brushed her red hair (a new trend for the Fire City) out of her face and behind her ears. Ember noticed that she stared at him until she realized he was watching. She blushed and turned away.
"Sorry, just remembering something," Ember said, apologetically.
Flicker shrugged and smiled, turning back to him. "Eh, it's nothing. Just make sure you don't start remembering things that aren't on your notes during the History Exam." she said, making air quotes around "remembering".
Ember laughed. "Don't you think it's kinda unfair to make me take the test after-"
"After all you've been through," she sighed. "You've been saying that every day. Morning, afternoon, and night."
Ember rolled his eyes but glanced back at her and met her.
"You miss them," Flicker said, staring deep into the depths of his soul.
"How could I not?" Ember said, turning his eyes back to his notes. In a voice similar to the creaky old history teacher of the school, he said, "In Fire Ring, I, Ember Firefox, am technically the current Element of Fire, born of the elements of Fire and Earth. In Earth Ring, my sister, Flama Firefox, is technically the current Element of Earth, born of Fire and Earth. In the Air Ring, the child of Air and another strong Elemental, Cirrus is the Element of Air. In the Water Ring, Riptide, the child of Water and another strong Elemental named Conch, is the Element of Water." He paused, taking a breath.
Flicker waited as he took a drink of water. "Okay," she said, glancing at her notes. "Who is the Element of Creation? Who was the Council?"
Ember took a minute to remember and brushed his bright orange hair out of his eyes. It was getting too long, and he never had the money for a haircut, but he couldn't do it himself, and Flicker's mom would never touch a hair on his head. Literally. She was scared of him, just like everyone else who knew him, just like Flicker was before she met him and found out how nice he was despite all of the rumors about-
"Ember," Flicker said. "You were drifting off again."
"Sorry," Ember said, blinking furiously. "What was the question again?"
Flicker took a deep breath and restated the question. "Who is the current Element of Creation? Who was the Council?"
Diving into the treasure trove of memories buried in his head, he remembered going to a Council meeting with his parents and Flama in Creation City a couple of weeks before the Elementals disappeared. He met the other Elements and their children, and the minor Elementals, whom Creation elected. Technology, Healing, Demonics, Construction, Secrecy, Power, Time, Chaos, and Agriculture are each a smaller element within the city. Each of the Council members lived in the Great Elemental Castle at the center of Creation City, and the Elementals of Fire, Earth, Water, and Air lived there for a couple of months out of the year, Earth during Spring and Fall, Fire during the Spring and Summer, Water during the Winter and Summer, and Air during the Summer and Fall. When the Elementals disappeared, the minor elements did not. They brought Ember, Flama, Cirrus, and Riptide to meet the Overseer's son, Corruption. They all decided to keep the truth under wraps and tell the public a version of the truth, that the Elements had been ill and were too sick to take charge, and that the children would be trained to take over until the Elementals were well enough to retake charge.
That story had stood for almost 10 years before people started to wonder what was going on. There were groups of people protesting against Corruption and Newspapers telling him to tell the truth, and just a couple of months ago, he finally cracked. He did a full conference with minor leaders of each of the cities. The leaders then did a broadcast to their cities to tell the people what was going on, and then Chaos erupted.
Not the elemental, the physical thing. Chaos the Elemental, of course, was thrilled with what was happening. The people were scared, and Corruption couldn't say anything to them without more Chaos. They started to get too dangerous, causing Corruption to have to move out to one of the small cities outside of the domes they lived in, one where an Elemental could practice any type of Element Magic. It was almost as dangerous as staying in Creation City. Almost. Using a digital (a phrase coined by Technology) message relay, Corruption contacted the other minor and Major Elementals.
Ember felt himself being shaken and reeled himself back in from his memories. Flicker was shaking him again and yelling too. There was so much noise elsewhere that he had to tune his ears to her voice to only hear her voice.
"Ember!" Flicker said, yelling. Ember winced at the sudden noise. "The bell rang, and we need to get to the Gym!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the hallway, which was now flooded with other students heading to their next class.
He and Flicker wove their way through the school toward the main hall, which connected the other grade-level hallways to the hallways that led to the gym, art rooms, music rooms, cafeteria (which weekly had an all-out brawl), and the library, as well as several staircases leading to the other floors which contained another library per floor, more classrooms, and the computer labs, as well as stress rooms for anyone who needed one. Ember, Flicker, and a couple of other students had their own personal computers and stress rooms upstairs, being that they were the most gifted and the strongest students at the school.
Flicker continued to yank on his arm until it was almost coming out of its socket, and Ember started walking again. They made it to the Gym hall just in time as Coach Timber (a strict teacher from Earth City) opened the locker room doors.
Flicker let go of his hand and they both went to their locker rooms and held hands once again when they met up in the gym.
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"Alright, you maggots," Coach Timber said as the last couple of students sat down in their spots in the bleachers. "After the fighting class yesterday followed by the fight between Ember and Firestarter," he said, glaring at the two of them, who were only a few seats away from each other. "Mostly started by Firestarter," He said just loud enough for Ember to hear, due to his highly advanced hearing. "We're going to be playing Kickball!"
The entire class other than Ember, Flicker, and Ember's best friend, Blister, erupted into cheers.
Blister looked over to Ember and tried to whisper but ended up saying at normal volume, "You do realize that everyone is going to want to be on your team, no matter who the other team Captain is, right?"
Ember nodded and whisper-shouted, "When I joined the Track team, y'know the previously least popular sports team of our entire school, other people who were fast but didn't want to run, knew I would keep us up at the top of the rankings and joined so that they could get credit for doing absolutely nothing to help the team."
Blister let out a raspy laugh. He had a breathing problem due to a science fair project that he and Ember tried a few years ago. "No kidding. My sisters, Blaze and Burn, both wanted to join, and my brother Smolder did too!"
Ember laughed just as Coach tried to get them to calm down.
"Alright, settle down," Coach said with a grin. He loved Chaos as much as Chaos himself. "Of course, our first team captain is Mister Ember Firefox."
Again, the crowd erupted into cheers as Ember stood and walked down to the polished wooden floor that was nearly fire-proof (other than Ember's fire, of course) and stood beside the Coach, who offered a fist bump. Ember gladly accepted the fist bump. He wasn't a jerk, like Firestarter, who Coach then called down almost right after as the second team captain.
Everyone fell silent as Firestarter trotted down the aisle to the floor. He stood beside Ember and gave him a yellow toothy grin. Ember returned the smile from his near-perfect, white, polished set of teeth.
"Ember, you will pick first," Coach said, nodding to Ember. He knelt next to Ember's ear and whispered, "Try not to cause too much damage, okay?"
Ember nodded and began to pick his team.
After a long team-picking montage, Ember, who had ended up with the more powerful team other than a few people, was up to pitch first.
Coach relayed a few rules to make sure they were clear.
"Rule One, the ball cannot be tampered with to make it hurt more if someone touches it."
"Rule Two, the ball cannot be tampered with to make it go in a different direction."
"Rule Three, any severe injuries will result in ten free points for the opposing team. Injuries such as a scrape or small cut do not count. Concussions are five points, and being sucked through a wormhole to an alternate dimension is two points, three if we can't get you back."
Ember snickered and imagined sucking the entire enemy team into a big wormhole. Sure, it would give the other team a huge load of points, especially since Ember makes the best wormholes, and he makes them untraceable.
Coach kept spouting out various rules to keep property damage low and to ensure nobody died. At least to make sure that not too many people die.
Ember, on the other hand, was delving deep into his bag of memories to cover up this dull situation.
He remembered his first visit to the Elemental Palace in Creation City when his sister, Flama, hadn't left yet. Before their parents disappeared, and before he became the Elemental of Fire.
He had just turned three the week before and was already talking in sentences. Whenever someone asked why he was talking so well at such a young age, his parents would explain something about Elemental Genetics from a large experiment that had made his great-great-great-great (Ember lost track of how many greats) -grandparents into Elementals, just before the first apocalypse. The Experiment gave the test subjects strength, control over one (or more) elements, increased learning capabilities, and more.
He had met the other Children of the Elements, their parents, and the other minor Elementals at his third birthday party. His sister was only two years older than him, Cirrus was a couple of months younger than him, and Riptide was a year older than him. Corruption was the oldest out of the five of the children, due to him being three years older than Ember. Ember always looked up to Corruption after that day.
During his visit to the Elemental Palace, Ember had stayed in a separate room from his parents, but just a few rooms over in case. His parents took another precaution and had the Elemental of Technology (ironically named Cyber) create a camera and monitor so that they could watch him and make sure he was okay while he slept. Ember had noticed that during the first day of their visit, and, being the smart kid he was, he taped an image of him sleeping peacefully to the camera lens.
During his visit, the minor Elementals taught their magic to Ember, Flama, Cirrus, Riptide, and Corruption, all while the Major Elementals talked business.
Ember particularly liked the Agriculture, Time, Demonics, and Healing magic, though Flama liked the Construction and Chaos magic.
The next few days they had flown by in the blink of an eye. He had almost mastered the Healing magic for deep cuts and broken bones, and he could grow an entire field of corn in a split second with Agriculture and Time Elements. His parents were astounded by his success, and on the day they left, they told him a secret.
They were planning to bring a new law to order prohibiting Elemental use other than defense, and even then, only for an assigned Element. They explained that whenever someone finished their schooling, they decided where to live for the rest of their life and either lived outside of the cities as what was called the "Wild" people, or they would live inside the cities and be given a tattoo on their dominant hand that would make sure they didn't leave. At that point, the tattoos were just for security, but Ember's parents had bigger plans.
They had made prototypes of special ink that, when applied to the wrist of the dominant hand of the Elemental, would limit their Element magic use other than with that Element. They said there was a way to remove the tattoo to switch cities if needed, but it would be a process with forms and legal documents. It was dangerous, but Creation passed the law.
Ember brought himself to reality just as Coach finished yelling the rules.
"Alright," Coach said, spitting out the words as though they tasted unpleasant. "Team Firefox is pitching first, Team Firestarter is kicking first. Get to your stations."
Ember and his entire humongous team headed toward the center of the glossy wooden floor, with Ember at the epicenter of the mass of people in their gym uniforms. The crowd wasn't enough to fill the giant space, and not even half of the floor was covered in the shadows of the people standing atop it. His team split down the middle to create room for Ember to roll the ball.
Naturally, Firestarter was first up to kick. Ember rolled the ball down the aisle at the speed of sound. Firestarter reared to kick it, and Ember slowed time down to cast his spell.
He had perfected his spell over the last couple of years that he had been playing kickball. It was a spell that made the bottoms of people's shoes slippery when they came in contact with the ball, and only then and only where the shoe was touching the ball.
Ember placed the spell on all of Firestarters' teams' shoes and sped time back up when he finished.
When Firestarter's foot made contact with the ball, a shimmering glaze went over the ball at such a speed that only Ember and possibly Flicker could see it. Firestarter's foot slipped off of the ball, making him fly. He flopped into a pathetic heap on the ground. He stood up shaking, anger glinting in his eyes.
"Strike one!" The coach said, fixing the cracks in the floor from Firestarter landing there.
Firestarter threw the ball back to Ember and got ready to kick again. He was still shuddering in pain when he slipped off the ball again and crashed to the ground. He got up and revealed a large crater, which Ember filled in quickly.
"Strike two!" the Coach said, snickering as Firestarter limped back to home plate in pain.
Firestarter wasn't the kind of person to hold grudges for long, given his lack of intelligence and low attention span, but he looked as though he might rip someone's head off if he didn't get a single point for his team on this run.
Ember grinned as he launched the ball down the alley towards Firestarter, having it roll perfectly over the center of the base.
Firestarter kicked again, and missed completely, sending himself flying two feet into the air.
Ember noticed this and then came up with the perfect little prank for Firestarter. Once again, he slowed down the time to create a highly dense clear shimmering layer, the layer being denser than osmium, and sped time back upright as Firestarter hit the floor. A sickening cracking noise split the air as bones snapped throughout his entire body.
Firestarter groaned in agony as someone went to help him up. He was helped back to the bleachers,
Ember quickly dissolved the layer into the rest of the floorboards before anyone could tell what he did.
Then, the color drained from Ember's face as the next kicker stepped up to the plate.
It was Ember's old nemesis from elementary school, Inferno. He was physically stronger than everyone else. But mentally, Ember has him beat. He smiled at Ember with his crooked, yellow teeth.
Ember was about to pitch the ball when an announcement went over the intercom and the whole gym went silent and froze.
"Attention staff and students," the principal's voice rang through the speakers. "I have an announcement. Staff, I need you to check your digital mail. There are instructions to be completed immediately."
Ember glanced at the gym teacher, who was running over to his desk and had already flipped open his computer. He frantically typed at the keyboard, smashing the keys hard enough that cracks began spreading across the fragile piece of technology.
He finally got up and all the students stared at him as he walked over to the door, and left.
There was a brief silence that nobody knew what was to happen. They all looked at each other, questioning in disbelief the absence of their teacher.
The doors creaked open as a cloaked figure stepped through the door. A hand as dark as midnight reached out toward the stands, toward a single person.
Ember.
The cloaked figure's head swiveled toward the direction of his colorless appendage, and two blood-red eyes appeared from the depths of the hood.
The lights began to flicker, just like they had the night before his parents disappeared.
Flicker once.
Twice.
Then off.
And when the lights returned, Ember could not see either way.