The Elementals - 5. Blast from the Past

Before we get into the chapter, let’s just refresh who has what elements (For the purposes of the chapter) and the arena setup:

· Blake White – Water and Fire

· Janie Phillips – Earth

· Raymond Edwards – Earth and Water

· Thomas Oakley – Water, Fire, Earth and Air.

The other characters in the chapter will only have their elements revealed as the story progresses.
The ARENA is a 100M x 100M place with each essential element present. Water, in the form of a river, runs through this place and there is an equivalent amount of earth. This allows for limits to be placed on these elements. Fire and air also have their own disadvantages as the air isn’t easy to manipulate and fire is a little harder to combust.

Note: Manipulation of elements uses mental capabilities and thus places strain on the mind. Over exertion may lead to permanent brain damage or death.

“Alright. The match is a team ‘deathmatch’ where if you force one of the opponents out of the ring or if you knock them out, then it is a point for your team. Basically, first team with 2 points wins, meaning you need to knock both parties out of force them out the ring to win. Good luck and begin,” Ms Elkins said to start the match.

“Shit! There isn’t any time to come up with a strategy!” Tom thought to himself as Janie began to attack him. Blake had decided to go for Ray just so he could test out his strength against him.

“I’ll let Janie observe Tom so we can get some kind of advantage over him,” Blake thought as he went on the offensive against Ray. Knowing that they both use water put both fighters at a disadvantage. Sure, they had another element, but both were weak to water and the water was weak to them.

While Ray and Blake began sparring without the use of their elements, Janie was attacking Tom full force. She’d weaken the ground he stood on, making it into a quicksand so he’d sink in it. Tom, nit really in the mood to fight earth with earth, decided to have a bit of fun with Janie. He started using fire, an element which has little to no effect on earthbenders and even less of an effect on Janie.

“Take this fight seriously, you piece of shit!” Janie screamed as each fireball Tom hurled did more damage to her ego than on her physical appearance.

“Now, now Janie, I don’t want my first fight to end too soon,” Tom replied with a smirk on his face. His bait had worked as Janie let out one really loud battle cry-like scream and started attacking Tom with relentless amount of earth that she effortlessly lifted and flung at him with no real thought.

“She’s still as easy to piss of as always,” Tom mused as he decided to take the fight seriously and go on the offensive. He began to annoy her once again with fireballs, while preparing a large mass of water to wipe her out of the arena with.

“The timing has to be perfect,” He thought to himself as he kept annoying her. Blake was too engrossed in his own battle to notice Tom’s plan. Besides, his hands were full trying to handle the rather calm and calculating Ray. He seemed to be a black belt as well and showed no opening when they were sparring.

“I guess it’s time to get offensive,” Blake thought to himself as he launched himself away from Ray. Ray realised that this meant that it was time to begin using their elements in the fight. They both decided to play it safe and use water from the river for now, until the one could find a flaw in the other and overwhelm them.

Unbeknown to everyone in the arena, 4 strangers arrived just outside of Elematrix.

“Uh, Ms Oakley mam, we have 4 unidentified people on the premises. They just suddenly appeared out of nowhere and their energy readings are off the chart,” one of the lead scientists said to Ms Oakley. She looked rather unfazed by the appearance of these figures. In fact, it was as though she had been expecting them to come.

“So, they have finally come to check things out huh,” she said, confusing the people she worked with as they had no idea who or what these people are. “Let them in. I need to hear what brings them here so unexpectedly.”

First to enter the building was Prince Jordan of the Earth Kingdom. He is the son of King Tyron and the first in line to the throne as he has a 12-year-old brother, Prince Martin. They are like two peas in a pod with them looking exactly like one another, except that one is obviously physically older than the other. He is 16-years-old and stands at a height of 1.80m. He has jet black hair and oddly he possesses blue eyes. His brother shares the exact same features which is why they are usually referred to as twins.

Next to enter was Prince Alec of the Air Kingdom. He is the son of King Aidan and the only one in line to the throne as he has no siblings. His mother passed away after his birth, so he never knew her, and his father has been rather cold towards him. Alec has wavy, silver hair and rather dull grey eyes. He is also 16 and stands at a height of 1.84m.

Following him was Prince Ryan of the Water Kingdom. He is son of King Arthur and another sole heir to the throne. He is already engaged to the princess of one of the major cities in his Kingdom. His mother left his family when he was 5 and he has been raised mainly by the maids. He is now 18 and stands at a height of 1.90m. He has fiery red hair and baby blue eyes. He is also the eldest of the princes.

Last, but not least, is the youngest of the group; Prince Drake of the Fire Kingdom. He is the interesting one of the group as he was taken in by the ruling king of the Fire kingdom when he saw great potential in him after finding in the poor sector of his kingdom. Not able to have kids of his own, he adopted this boy and raised him to take over the kingdom. He is 1.77m and has warm, orange hair and brown eyes with golden specks in them. He is 14-years old.

Jordan was the first to arrive to the room Ms Oakley was in. “Well, well. Long time, no see Ms Oakley,” Jordan said as he looked around the room. “I see not much has changed from my last, not so social visit to your place of ‘work’.”.

“Ah, Jordan. Always eager to kiss ass,” Ms Oakley replied with a smug grin on her face. “So, what brings you to my planet?”

“Well, if you must know, we are here to not propose, but essentially give you a message. You really have no choice but to comply with this. In 6 months, you are to gather your 10 best fighters for a tournament hosted on our planet. Since you guys have tampered with our DNA, we saw it fit to run over here and test out the results. I mean, we are merely curious to see how half-breeds match up to the real deal.” Alec stated coolly while staring into Ms Oakley’s dark and unwavering glare.

“And what if we were to refuse such a ‘message’?” Ms Oakley asked.

“Simple,” Drake began. “We’ll destroy your planet and everyone on it before you can notify your fighters.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ve always wanted to see if we made a breed better than yours, so I accept your challenge. 6 months from now, we’ll head to your planet and we’ll partake in your little ‘experiment’ provided that you also partake.”

“Fine. We accept that, and we will comply with it. Well it was nice seeing you and all, but I think it’s time to head out. There is still one more thing I’d like to check out though.” Jordan said as he looked at Ms Oakley who’d finally figured out he was talking about seeing Tom.

“Don’t you dare!” she hissed in a threatening tone. “Leave Tom alone!”

“Now, now Ms Oakley. I don’t want to hurt Thomas, I merely wish to see him. Unless you have motive for me not to see my friend,” Jordan stated as he inched closer to Ms Oakley. “What have you done to Tom?”

“We erased his memories of you and did some tests on him and erased those memories as well. The mind is a very weird thing as his memories are more suppressed than erased so he can regain them. I fear that you may trigger something we don’t need at this point, so stay away from my boy.”

“You’re such a cold-hearted bitch. Experimenting on your own son and then suppressing the memory of having done such? You’re not fit to be called a moth…”

The sound of Ms Oakley slapping Jordan caused the other 3 princes to jump into action, but Jordan indicated he required no assistance. “It’s alright guys. We were just having a mother-in-law and son-in-law moment, right Ms Oakley?” Jordan spat questioningly at Ms Oakley.

“Yeah, we had a ‘moment’. Now Jordan, if you don’t mind, I have some work to do. Take your friends and go pollute someone else’s airspace.” Ms Oakley said, essentially dismissing the princes as she turned her back to them. They turned and walked out with Jordan leading them.

“Time to go pay an old friend a visit,” Jordan said to the other guys. They all looked at him as to where they were headed, and Jordan punched in the co-ordinates and the teleportation devices took them to their next destination, Elemental High.

Tom was still trying to get the upper hand on Janie and it seemed he was about to get his chance when suddenly he sensed energy readings that had not been present in the arena. It seemed he wasn’t the only one to notice them because even Janie stopped and turned to face the new arrivals. Blake and Ray stopped their fight to investigate this ominous presence and turned to find the 4 princes facing them with rather blank expressions on their face.

Jordan’s eyes scanned the faces until his eyes landed on Tom and they didn’t move off him. Everyone present noticed this and were rather curious to see what would happen next. Blake, ever impatient, spoke up, “Uh, hello. You guys are currently interrupting our sparring session so if you’d be so kind as to get your asses out of here, I’d be happy.”.

“What a large mouth you have there, boy,” Alec said looking Blake once over. “Why don’t you come say that to my face?”

Janie, sensing how dangerous this person was, intercepted Blake and stopping him before he did something that could get him hurt. “No, Blake. Don’t do that. Something about these 4 doesn’t feel right.” Janie stated as she cautiously eyed each of the 4. Tom and Jordan hadn’t broken their staring contest and Ray was getting quite jealous of the attention this new guy was receiving.

“What do you guys want here?” Ray asked Jordan in particular.

“I’m just here to see an old friend,” Jordan replied, his eyes not leaving Tom’s. “Hello Thomas Riley Oakley.”

“How do you know my name? Why do you look familiar? Have we met before?” Tom asked as his memories slowly started rising to the surface.

Then, suddenly, a name formed in his head. It was a name he felt hadn’t graced his tongue in years and a name he’d enjoyed saying.

“Jordan?” he asked before collapsing to the ground. This would ultimately be the first step in Thomas Riley Oakley remembering what had occurred the days following his 14^th birthday.