Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:48:24 +0000 From: Guy Cornelius Subject: Chapter 9, The Elemental, Gay Sci-fi Hi guys, I'm sorry, yet again, for the delay in getting this chapter finished, but here it is. I hope you all like it and please note that all the usual disclaimers and copyrights apply. Please let me know what you think at the_elemental909@hotmail.co.uk. Your feedback is the only payment us writers get and I would love to know how its going down (the story I mean!). Anyway, enjoy Chapter 9. Something was wrong. He knew something was wrong, he didn't know how but he knew. There was no way Tommy would take this long to get here. He had a half hour head start and Marcus has been pacing around the little café for about fifteen minutes, earning him curious glances from the other customers and some angry glares from the owner. Romeo, however, didn't seem in the least bit troubled and that pissed Marcus off even more. The guy claimed he wanted their help, but didn't seem to give a damn that Tommy could be being beaten up or kidnapped or anything. When Marcus turned around for the hundredth time, he walked straight into a waitress laden with a huge tray of drinks, sending her and the drinks flying. The diners in the vicinity hurled themselves out of the way in an effort to avoid being drenched and, unlike Marcus or the waitress, they were mostly successful. After profuse apologies and a rather clumsy attempt to help her too her feet, Marcus finally decided it was time to sit down, much to the relief of most of the people in the room. "How can you be so blasé," he hissed at Romeo, super-heating his body in an attempt to dry off his clothes. "Tommy should have been here about forty minutes ago and all you're doing is sitting there reading the bloody newspaper!" "What would you like me to do?" Romeo calmly responded, not even looking up from his page. "Go out and search every building between here and the Waldorf in the hope that we stumble across him?" Marcus blinked twice in quick succession and then sat back, blushing slightly. "Okay, you have a point, but surely there must be something we can do?" He leaned forward, trying to get as close to Romeo as he could, his hands clasped together on the table in front of him as though in prayer. "Aside from the fact that you need our help, this is my boyfriend we're talking about. I would give myself up to the Masters right now if I thought it would save him from even the smallest discomfort. There must be something you can do to help find him. You are a seeker after all!" Romeo appeared not to have heard Marcus' heartfelt plea at first but after a moment he slowly folded his paper in two, placed it down on the table in front of him and then looked directly into Marcus' eyes. "You are right, I am a seeker. But that which I seek is only located in those with magical abilities. Tommy, just like every other non-magical being is a complete blind-spot to me." Romeo gave an exasperated sigh when Marcus looked at him blankly, not understanding what he was being told at all. "Okay, try this: If I look into my mind's eye right now, I can tell you there are four level 5's in a building down the street, there is a level 2 running down the high street about a mile away and..." Here Romeo paused as if unsure whether he should go on or not. He frowned, chewing on his bottom lip, clearly fighting some inner battle that Marcus didn't understand. "And there is a level 1 in this room right now." The words rushed out of Romeo as though he were admitting some terrible crime to his best friend; all at once and very unsure. Marcus' head snapped up, swivelling this way and that as he searched the room, fighting the urge to burst into flames. "Calm down, we're in no danger," growled Romeo. "Do you think I would still be here if we were?" "How can you be so sure?" hissed Marcus, slowly pushing back his chair and making ready to bolt for the door. "Talk fast, or I'm out of here faster than shit off a hot shovel." "We are in no danger," repeated Romeo, leaning forward and clasping Marcus' increasingly warm hand, "because I was talking about you." He squeezed Marcus' hand as though to emphasise the last word, his eyes full of longing and hope as he stared at Marcus. "Wha...what do you mean?" asked Marcus, the wind completely taken out of his sails. Slumping back into his chair, all thoughts of flight were completely forgotten. How could Romeo possibly think he was a level 1? He was a level 7...and a bad one at that. He looked down at the hand clasping his which, in Romeo's moment of desperation, seemed almost frail, despite the strong grip it had on him. He looked, then, up into Romeo's eyes that, regardless of his maturing years could dance like the light on a calm lake at sunrise; eyes that could hold such steely determination that even the most steadfast man would crumble under their gaze. And yet eyes that seemed so old and...desperate! "I'm not a level 1, that's absurd. I'm a level 7!" "You were a 7 at the Guild, but that was only because they were trying to hold you back...trying to make sure you never reached your full potential." The desperation is Romeo's eyes seeped into his voice. Suddenly Marcus realised just how vulnerable this old man was. Clearly whatever he was mixed up in required his help, and he thought that help was slipping from his grasp. "Besides," sniffed Romeo, straightening up and trying to reinstall an appearance of aloof disinterest, "they use a different categorisation system to me." "Oh," said Marcus, realisation finally dawning, "so a level 1 is low then?" "What?" snapped Romeo. "No, don't be an idiot. I'm a level 2; 1 is the highest level there is, as with your Guild levels...only...you are so much more than that. Marcus, there are many things that you still have to find out about yourself. Some of them I can teach you, others you must find out for yourself." "What sort of things?" asked Marcus, still shocked by what he was hearing but also very intrigued. After everything that had happened over the past few days, what with bursting into flames, being kidnapped and, to a lesser extent, discovering his boyfriend was a druid, Marcus knew he was more than just your average Mage. Obviously he had always known he was a little bit special because even when he was back at the Guild he could create fire. Granted it was only a pathetic little flame but he was still the only person in Guild records who was able to do it. Things were so different now. He had so many questions still unanswered; who is The Elemental, if he was so strong why couldn't he produce energy spheres, why were the Masters trying to kill him? Perhaps Romeo was the person to answer these questions. "Well, we don't really have time to go get into it all now, but I can tell you that you are potentially the most powerful magical being ever to grace this planet...well, actually if you want to get really picky you ARE this planet but that concept tends to bugger with peoples minds, so -" "Wait a minute," interrupted Marcus, "what do you mean I am this planet?" Romeo let out a huge sigh and massaged his temples, clearly either regretting what he just said or thinking how best to answer the question. Marcus simply sat and watched him, slowly getting more and more confused about the whole situation, his worry for Tommy's absence temporarily pushed aside. "Okay, this is going to sound...far fetched...but bear with me. Let me finish before you go asking all your questions." Marcus nodded his understanding, leaning back into his chair and crossing his arms, waiting to hear how Romeo would explain this one. "You know how in many ancient Asian cultures they had spirits for everything. Tree spirits, rock spirits, radish spirits...all that jazz? Well...they kinda had the right idea but they were ever so slightly off." Marcus raised an eye-brow in disbelief, but kept his mouth shut like he had promised. He had seen 'Spirited Away' and heard many other stories about various ancient Asian cultures, so he was familiar with this concept. What he couldn't quite work out was what the hell it had to do with him. Romeo caught the movement and sighed again. He caught the attention of another waitress and ordered two Ginger Beers before he continued. "They were right in that many things on this planet have a consciousness that the majority of humans are completely unaware of. Trees, for example, all have their own separate mind...a bit like those adorable 'Ent' creatures from The Lord of the Rings. A great book by the way, have you read them?" Marcus chose not to reply, choosing instead to purse his lips and raise his eyebrow even higher. Romeo took the hint and quickly carried on, leaning forward in his chair and using his arms more and more as his excitement grew. "Well, anyway, some of the more minor things like that do have their own minds, or a close approximation of something similar. But they don't have a specific spirit who governs them all. However, the base Elements, those being Earth, Air, Fire and Water do and, contrary to popular belief, there isn't a separate Spirit for each one. They are all governed by the same Spirit who, over history has had all sorts of names, but the most popular is Gaia." "You mean Mother Earth?" asked Marcus, quickly remembering he wasn't supposed to speak. "Oops, sorry." "No, no, that's okay. You are exactly right, Mother Earth is another name for this particular spirit...although I have always felt it to be a particularly silly one seeing as the Spirit has always been male!" "Well...maybe it's like that thing with cars and trains and things. They always have to be female, apparently." "A plausible explanation. Although the Spirit's physical embodiment is always male. You would have thought a female Spirit would take a female form?" "Does this happen often?" asked Marcus, so thoroughly engrossed in the story that he threw all scepticism to the wind. "No, not especially. Only when he feels it is truly necessary. The last embodiment actually became rather famous...we still tell stories about him to this day, although their meaning has been hijacked by a bunch of greedy zealots to suite their own purposes." Romeo seemed genuinely angered by this, his voice becoming as close to a snarl as Marcus had ever heard it. "They can't be that popular, these stories...I've never heard them," chuckled Marcus, leaning back in his seat. He had decided that Romeo was either pulling his leg, or spouting fairy tales. How could Mother Earth, even in male form, really exist? Being the polite man that he is, he allowed Romeo to carry on without letting any hint of his disbelief show. "Oh but you have," said Romeo, a playful glint back in his eye and a little smirk playing across his mouth. He answered Marcus' quizzical look with just one word...a word that completely floored him and left his mind reeling. "Moses." For a few seconds Marcus didn't know how to react. He tried to understand the implications of what he had just been told but he just couldn't do it. "Moses?" he spluttered. "Come on, think about it. Its obvious really. Parting the Red Sea; pillars of wind and fire in the desert, burning a bush without causing it any damage? All quite simple tasks for this spirit. He appears when he feels the goings on on Earth aren't exactly conducive to a happy environment. Sadly those idiots in the church twisted the story completely." Romeo did not so much say the word church, but rather spat it, true venom and anger clearly evident in his voice. "Hold up, are you telling me that part of the bible is actually based on real happenings?" asked Marcus, completely flabbergasted by the thought. He had never really been a believer in anything remotely religious, but the thought that the Bible had some real basis threw a whole different light on things. "Oh yes," replied Romeo, "most of it is. But none of it had a single jot to do with the creation of the universe by this supposed god or any of that guff. Moses wasn't helping the Jews escape the Israelites because god told him to...he was doing it because, as the spirit, he didn't approve of their slavery. Noah didn't build an arc because god wasn't happy with the goings on on Earth...he did it because the spirit told him to. I could go on and list every single little thing but quite frankly I can't be bothered and we haven't the time. My point is that the Asians had it right...mostly." Marcus, still rather amazed by everything he was being told, struggled to process all the information and all the questions it engendered. There was only one question, however, that he really felt needed to be answered. "What does any of this have to do with me?" Romeo sipped on the Ginger Beer that had just arrived and winked at the waitress, who giggled and returned to the kitchen. He was impressed that, of everything Marcus had just learnt, this was the question he first asked. Few would hear what he had just said and simply accept it. Perhaps Marcus hadn't accepted it, but he had the sense to keep those questions for later. Perhaps he knew more than he was letting on? That was something Romeo would have to explore later. "Marcus my boy, it has everything to do with you. Like I told you, this spirit only takes on a human form when he feels the necessity. Now, I don't know what the necessity is, or how we go about finding it out, but I can say with one hundred percent certainly that the spirit is back." "How do you know?" asked Marcus, taking a sip of his own drink and leaning his elbows in the wobbly table, causing the coffee to spill slightly. "Oh, he has already made his presence perfectly clear to those of us in the know. He had a slight altercation with some men a little while back and happened to tell them his true name." "What men? What name?" Romeo didn't answer straight away, choosing instead to deal with a loose thread he had just found on the sleeve of his jacket. As he attempted to bite it off, he caught Marcus staring daggers at him for the delay and decided to deal with it later. "It was about a week ago. He was up in Glasgow dealing with some undesirable characters who had dealt him a personal slight...something about a kidnapped friend I think..." Romeo could tell he had said too much. The colour drained from Marcus' face, and his body became strangely rigid. It was a lot to put on the boy all at once, and he had hoped that he might avoid it...at least for now. Clearly, this was not to be the case, so, making a snap decision he decided to reveal to Marcus what he could. "Once he had dispatched most of them, he told them his name...but you already know what that name is, don't you Marcus?" "The Elemental," breathed Marcus, his voice a little more than a tiny whisper. "Excuse me, I have to go." As though in a daze, Marcus stood up from the table and walked stiffly toward the door. "I'll be right here," Romeo called after him, "waiting for you to ask the rest of your questions." Marcus nodded, although he hadn't really heard what was said, he was still in shock and his body was moving entirely on its own, as though on auto-pilot but without any set destination. When he walked a bit further down the road he heard a familiar voice drifting from an alleyway just up ahead. He couldn't see anybody, but he could hear this voice; a voice that made his heart rejoice though he couldn't quite place why. "Oh for Christ's sake," it shouted in exasperation, "not again! More of yours, Tatiana?" "No, nothing to do with us," replied a female Russian voice. When Marcus arrived at the end of the alleyway, he saw a man and a woman backed up against a wall surrounded by seven or eight men, all armed with bats or clubs. The man had a knife point pressed against his throat while a big, burly looking chap snarled at him. "Shut the fuck up and give us ya money," the man with the knife pressed it harder against his victim's throat, leaning in and speaking in a voice dripping with menace. "Fuck off," spat the man with the familiar voice. "You might not be so brave if your lovely lady friend here loses what clothes she has left. Who knows what might happen," growled the burly man, nodding his head towards the scantily clad Russian. "You've got about ten seconds to let us go before I make you wish you were never born," hissed the man. Suddenly, as if a blind-fold had been lifted from his eyes, Marcus was able to see the scene for what it really was. He was in such a state of shock that all coherent thought had been completely banished, but quickly recognition dawned and with it came a burning rage. "Make that five," he shouted, catching the attention of all the people on the alley. "Who the fuck are you," called the man with a knife to Tommy's throat. "I'm his boyfriend, and right now I'm the last person you want to witness this little endeavour of yours." "Oh god, it's a couple of fags!" The man with the knife lurched away from Tommy as though he had some contagious disease, wiping his hand on his trousers. "You're running out of time." Marcus' voice was so calm and even that the leader of the little mob looked uncertain for a moment, but, realising that he had greater numbers on his side, he quickly recovered his bravado. "Oh yeah, pussy boy? And what are you going to do if we don't let 'em go?" he laughed and nudging the man next to him as though sharing some great joke. "I'm glad you asked that," said Marcus, slowly walking down the alley toward them, drawing more laughter and nudges from the gang. "First, I'm going to kill your men...I won't go in to detail because I would hate to spoil the surprise." Marcus grinned like a naughty school boy telling his play-ground chums of the mischief he had planned. The calm demeanour, steady advance and lop-sided grin was beginning to unsettle some of the men in the gang, who began looking for escape routes. Marcus watched their faces fall when they realised the only way out of the alley was back past him. "I may well get some help from my friends here...I know for a fact that my boyfriend has one or two tricks up his sleeve, although I'm not so sure about the lady. Anyway, once I have dispatched your men...oh, I forgot to say...any of you who want to leave now without any form of reprisal are more than welcome to. If not, you're gonna die. Seriously, I mean it...if you wanna go, go, but you only get one chance. If you stay, I am going to kill you." Nobody moved, so Marcus carried on. "Suit yourselves, but don't say I didn't warn you. Now, where was I? Oh yes, once I have dealt with your men, I will deal with you. My friends, of course, will leave you to me." Some of the men in the gang were clearly a little shaken by Marcus' words, but the leader saw them as nothing more than an elaborate bluff. He turned his back on Marcus and grinned at his right-hand man, winking. Turning back, he wiped the grin off his face, feigning serious interest. "Now that's quite something. I think my boys and I might have to seriously reconsider our position. I mean, how could the nine of us possibly hope to over-power two fags and a woman?" The mugger, desperately trying to conceal that smirk on his face, was having the time of his life. Not only was he going to mug the first fag and fuck the Russian bitch, but he had some sport to go with it all...and it wasn't even lunch time! "So, just out of interest," he said, slowly strolling around amongst his little gang, "how is it that you intend to kill us...given that you are all unarmed." "Oh you silly man," chuckled Marcus, playing up his gay mannerisms where possible, just to add his own little fun to the proceedings, "with fire of course." He allowed a small ball of fire to form above his outstretched palm, floating in a perfect sphere. "Ooo, look at that...the fag can play with matches!" The gang leader danced up and down on his toes as though the fire were red hot, waving his arms about and affected a high, female voice and was clearly enjoying himself. "Whatever are we going to do?" "Oh, no, I think you misunderstand," replied Marcus, the corner of his mouth twitching up in amusement at the sight before him. "I don't play with fire...I am fire." When he said this, two things happened simultaneously; firstly, his entire body burst into bright blue flames. Secondly, he felt an understanding and realisation hit him like a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold bar. Up until now, he had thought of himself and The Elemental as two separate entities, the one taking control from the other as necessary. However, when he said these words out loud he realised how wrong he had been. He wasn't possessed by The Elemental or sharing a consciousness with it, they were one and the same. If what Romeo had said was true, then The Elemental was the physical embodiment of the elements of nature, just like his name suggested. So by default, was he. While he carried through this thought process, he felt power coursing through his veins just waiting to be unleashed. He didn't know why or how, but he knew that the abilities he had before as The Elemental were child's play compared to what he could do now and would be able to do in the future. He decided to test this theory out and, with a mere thought, his whole body turned into a large orb of fire about twice the size of a beach ball, which hovered some three feet off the ground. Before anybody could even blink, they ball had shot through the air and engulfed the two closest thugs. Their screams lasted only seconds when the shock, coupled with the intense heat, killed them pretty quickly. "You see what I mean?" asked Marcus, instantly changing back into human form with a sweet, angelic smile on his face. Although he was unaware of it at the time, turning back into his human form and speaking with his usual, calm voice had a far more chilling effect on the thugs than what they had just witnessed. Even Tommy shivered a little. There was a strange comfort in being able to see the horrors in front of you. A burning man or a ball of fire are easy to spot, but to the thugs this man...this queer, could be anybody. He could blend in with a crowd of every day humans and then pop out at any second. It was this fear of the unknown that really got them screaming. The men ran toward the entrance to the alley, their faces contorted and their eyes rolling with fear. Unfortunately for them, running towards safety also meant running towards doom, in the form of a kindly young man named Marcus. "I don't think so," cooed Marcus, transforming himself into a wall of fire spanning from wall to wall. The running thugs stopped short, driven to a halt by the intense heat. While they stood, unsure of how to react, three more went down. Two had barbed vines wrapped around their necks and the third was scratching bloody chunks of skin and hair form his head, screaming incoherently. Marcus and Tommy would later find out that he, and the other thug who suffered the same fate, had died because the extreme pain emanating from their brains had caused their hearts to cease functioning. Sadly for them, this pain was completely fictional and had been planted there by Titania. This left two thugs and the ring leader, who was quickly back-tracking and pushing his men in front of him. "Do something!" he yelled, losing all composure. "Like what? Piss on it?" shouted back one of the remaining thugs. "It's worth a try," said the other, a more stoic character who quickly pulled down his fly and released quite a sizeable cock. He started to lose a stream of piss onto the flames, but it had little effect. After a second or two, a hand of flame stretched out from the wall and began to caress the exposed appendage. The thug, who had closed his eyes upon lowering his fly, was not expecting the light caress he felt on his dick and moaned in surprised pleasure. These moans quickly became shrieks of pain when the caress became hotter and hotter, but not in a sexual way. Within seconds, the previously impressive prick was nothing but a burning stump, and the whimpers of its owner were quickly silenced as a spear of flame shot through his chest. The last two men backed up even further, but found their way blocked by Titania and Tommy, the latter of which was waving some vicious looking vines about himself, occasionally swatting an arm or back to prevent further retreat. "Tommy, bring your friend and get behind me," came a voice from the wall. Tommy grabbed Titania by the hand and, having cleared a path through the panicked thugs, stepped towards the wall of fire. Titania quickly pulled back on his hand when she realised what he intended, unaware of the changeable nature of the flames. "What are you doing Tommy? Those flames will burn us alive, just as it did the others!" "Tatiana, trust me...and if you don't trust me, trust Marcus." He could see that she was battling with herself. On the one had, she had just watched three men die by these flames, but on the other hand, she did trust Tommy so she stepped forward, Tommy following behind, and tentatively reached out a hand in the direction of the flames. She felt no heat, though the two would-be muggers were a few metres back, trying to protect their faces from the intense heat that they seemed to be feeling. When she stepped forward again, she felt a slight tickling on her fingers and realised that her whole hand was inside the wall of fire. "He never hurts his friends," whispered Tommy, pulling her though the blue flames and out the other side. "Go to the café, Romeo will be waiting. I will finish here and then join you." Neither Tommy or Tatiana waited to be told twice as they rushed to the end of the alley and ran toward the café that was only a a few hundred metres away. "Please, please don't kill me," begged the leader. "I promise I won't do it again. I'll...I'll even pay you. Please, just don't kill me." "Quiet, pathetic mortal," snapped the now shrinking wall of flame. It returned to the form of a human, although maintained the burning, flickering coating of fire. "I came here to protect your species from a threat you don't even know exists and yet at every turn, you prove just how worthless you really are." His voice took on a slightly wistful tone while he recalled past events, seemingly ignoring the quivering wrecks in front of him. "Throughout history I have done what is required to keep your pathetic species alive and every time I was guaranteed that the problems I had put right would not be repeated. Yet I have spent centuries and centuries watching while you slowly destroy not only yourselves, but this very planet as well...my planet...me!" This last word was thundered so loud that a nearby beer bottle shattered and a stream of blood began to flow from the ears of the last remaining thugs. "Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better off killing you all myself and being done with it." "No, please no...we'll do anything you ask...please," the leader begged, hoping to spare his life by any means possible. Marcus sighed, pulling himself back to reality and the situation at hand. "Then again, what about a second chance. Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this time you really will change and show me why I am looking out for you." The two thugs in front of him visibly relaxed, letting out the breaths they had been holding. They started to thank Marcus profusely, gushing their praises and practically kissing his feet. "What?" asked Marcus, as though he had not been party to the last few minutes of the conversation and then laughed a cold, mirthless laugh. "You thought I was talking about you? Don't be so ridiculous! Never, in all my millennia, have I felt anything closely approximating human love, but now I have. I am in love with the man you had against a wall at knife-point. You really think I am just going to let you walk away from that?" Marcus' hate quickly filled him once again, the smile disappearing from his mouth and his eyes. He advanced on the two men kneeling before him, kicking one of them in the face and leaving him to groan in pain on the filthy ground. "Do you really think," he shouted, his face getting red and spittle flying from the corner of his mouth, "that I would let scum like you survive? It is because of shits like you that I even need to be here." Marcus stood over the two men, once again aflame, venting all his anger and frustration at them, occasionally emphasising a word with a kick or punch. As his anger rose, the colour of the flames darkened, travelling though dark blues, purples and then finally settling on a blood red. Had anybody been paying attention to them, it would have been quite a beautiful display, but Marcus was somewhat distracted and the thugs were too busy fearing for their lives. With a final bellow of anger, Marcus sent out a wave of flame so hot and intense that the bodies of the thugs, both dead and alive, were instantly turned to ash. The two men left alive didn't even have time to scream before their lives were snuffed out with little more than a thought. Marcus stood, panting in the alley for a few moments while his anger cooled. As it did so he sank to his knees and wept. He wept for the monster he had become, for the lives he had destroyed and for the unseen people who had been affected. While he knelt there, tears coursing down his cheeks and cooling ash floating around him, he silently begged for forgiveness from the men he had murdered and from the god he knew didn't exist. Had he not been so caught up in his emotions, he would have taken more notice of the floating ash and realised it was forming a perfect cyclone around him, despite there being not a breath of wind in the alleyway. Well, thats it for now guys. Like I said, I hope you enjoyed it and please email me at the_elemental909@hotmail.co.uk to let me know your thoughts. Great thanks must go to my wonderful editor Linc, who turns my drivel into decent writing! If you would like to join my yahoo group, where you will get access to the chapters faster and can chat with other readers, please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_elemental909 and we would be glad to have you on board.