'The townspeople won't be able to defeat Arlong on their own,' said Sara.
They, along with Zolo, Sanji, Usopp and other assorted hangers-on, were sitting in a glade, waiting for thier time to strike Arlong's pirates.
'It just occurred to me,' said Em, 'that we never asked to be in this dispute.'
Sara shrugged her shoulders.
Em cocked her head and started to leaf through The Tome of Unreachability. 'Meh. Oh, hey! We could try the spell to control the elements!'
'Cool!' said Sara and she turned to the men around them. 'D'you guys have any feathers? We need six.'
The crew shook their heads and so Sara and Em searched for feathers. They found what they needed in the lining of a thrush's nest.
'I don't think there's any point in asking anybody for a candle,' said Em.
'We could hold burning torches,' suggested Sara.
'We can try,' said Em.
The girls could only find one torch so they decided to share it. They arranged two feathers at each of the four points of the compass and sat knee to knee in the centre of the feathers. They put their items of sentimental value in the bowl that they still carried and balanced it between them.
As Em lit the torch with a flint given to her by Usopp, the rest of the gathering became curious and made a ring around the feathers.
'What are you doing?' asked Zolo.
'We're calling on the elementals,' said Sara.
'Yeah, so shut your hole,' said Em, who was tired of the filthy looks Zolo was giving her and Sara. It was obvious that he didn't trust them. 'We need to concentrate.'
Zolo grumbled.
Sara reached out and grabbed a hold of the torch so that both she and Em were holding it and they both chanted form The Tome:
'Element of North, enter my right Element of East, join my fightElement of South, wash away
Element of West, forever stay'
The pause following the spell was filled only with the expectant and fearful breaths of the crew.
POOF!
Blue, green, red and white coloured cloud twined together as they whooshed from the bowl.
Sara and Em hardly dared breathe as the cyclone of brightness gushed around them, whipping up their hair and clothes.
Abruptly, the cloud split into its separate colours once more. The white cloud broke away first and wrapped itself around Sara's right arm. The blue followed the white's course but it coiled round Sara's left arm.
Em gasped as the red stream twisted itself up her right arm.
The last cloud, the green, swirled around the girls alone for a moment before meandering up Em's left arm.
The coloured streams glowed vividly for a few more seconds then sank into Sara's and Em's skin.
'Mad...' whispered Em faintly.
Sara nodded her agreement.
Em let go of the torch, which had been blown out by the vortex of cloud, and looked over her right arm. 'Whoa, check it out!' she cried as she looked at the bottom of her wrist.
Sara chucked the torch away and leant over to look and there, stark against the white skin of Em's underarm, was a livid black tattoo. It resembled flames licking at their surroundings.
On Em's left hand was another small tattoo in the shape of a rose and on both of Sara's wrists were tattoos also.
'Wicked! The right one is a cloud and the left one is a wave!' said Sara.
Sara and Em stood up and looked for the Straw Hat Pirates whom had not made a noise since the beginning of the spell.
They had backed away from the girls and were keeping their distances.
'What's wrong with you guys?' Sara asked.
'Yeah, what's u- Oh my God!' cried Em as a flying fireball forced the crew to duck as it shot towards their heads. She had waved her hand while she spoke and had accidentally triggered a flame to burst from her right hand. 'Sorry!'
'That's fine,' said Usopp. 'Just blow us up!'
I said I was sorry!' said Em prissily. 'Besides, it's a great new story for you to tell that sick chick.'
'The one who lives in the mansion in his home town?' asked Sara.
'Yeah.'
Sara looked thoughtfully at the smouldering bushes that the crew were edging away from. She put her left hand out in front of her and though Water.
Nothing happened.
'It's not working!' she cried.
'Oh, don't worry, it's- hah!' exclaimed Em as she poked Sara in the ribs.
Sara shrieked and waved her hand. Water suddenly cascaded from her fingertips- all over Em.
Em blinked the water out of her eyes and blew some out of her mouth. 'You were thinking too much.'
Sara giggled, then laughed.
Em sighed and squeezed her sopping school skirt over the burning bushes and realised that most of the crew were laughing at her. She glared angrily and a ball of fire appeared in her right palm.
The crew stopped laughing. So did Sara.
Then the fire puffed out into smoke, neutralised by the water all over Em. She shook her hand a little and laughed.
It was contagious.
When Luffy came back to get his crew, this was how he found them.
'What're you laughing at?' he asked.
Everyone pointed to Em, who shrugged.
'Well, we need to go fight Arlong,' said Luffy.
The crew immediately snapped to attention.
Sara snorted. 'Way to stamp out the fun.'
Luffy rubbed his nose. 'The townspeople are already fighting and when they lose we'll step in.'
The crew shouted their wordless approval and punched the air.
'We can help,' said Sara.
'No you can't,' said Zolo. 'You aren't pirates.'
Em stamped her foot childishly. 'I hate being fifteen and a girl! Nobody takes me seriously!'
'And we have powers!' said Sara.
'But you can't use them,' scoffed Usopp.
Sara and Em grumbled angrily.
'You're not coming and that's final,' said Zolo.
'Sorry girls,' said Sanji and the Straw Hat crew left the two girls alone in the clearing.
'He's the one who'll be sorry when he gets thrown through that stone wall,' said Em scathingly.
'Let's follow them to Alrong Park,' said Sara rebelliously.
Em brushed her wet hair back. 'Well it's not like we can get home?'
'What do you mean?' asked Sara.
'No candles.'
0o0o0o0
'Gyaar!' cried Kurobi as he punched Sanji through the wall of Arlong Park.
'Told you he'd be sorry,' hissed Em. She and Sara were crouched in the bushes with The Tome of Unreachabilityand the lolly dish.
'Will we go in yet?' asked Sara.
'Wait for Sanji to distract them,' said Em. 'Then we can go for Arlong.'
A few savvy remarks later and Sanji was back inside the compund. Sara and Em crept through the hole in the wall that Sanji had made and slowly edged toward Arlong.
'Arlong! Look! Some pumans are creeping up on you!' cried Hatchi, the Merman with huge lips and more than enough arms who was duelling Zolo.
The girls froze in place.
'Eeep,' squeaked Em fearfully.
Arlong grinned down at them and a pirate with a dorsal fin sticking out of his forehead grabbed them from behind.
Sara screamed and flailed and suddenly the only thing holding her and Em was a block of ice.
Em yanked herself free of the Merman's frozen webbed fingers. 'Cool, literally. Wind plus water equals ice.'
Sara looked at her hands. They were still expelling a miniscule amount of chilled air. She tapped the glassy surface of the newly created iceberg. 'Fishsicle, anyone?'
Sara and Em looked at Arlong and twin evil smiles appeared on their faces.
'Oh, swordfish suprise, please,' said Em.
'Stop the pumans!' shouted Arlong.
Five more Mermen ran up to the girls.
Sara stood stock-still.
Em backed up a step but tripped upon the uneven ground. She scrabbled amongst the rubble with her fingers for a smooth place to push herself up from when a shadow fell over her. She looked up to see a grey Merman reaching for her plait and her right arm shot up to block him...
The Merman screeched as he was borne into the air. He was caught between the branches of a giant redwood tree, which was growing taller by tens of metres per second.
Em's left hand was glowing. She sprang to her feet and addressed the four remaining Mermen as they gazed in awe and fear up at their comrade:
'You want some? You want some of me?'
The Mermen glanced at each other and ran away, thrashing their arms and screaming like children.
Sara slapped Em high five. 'Cool, earth.'
'Let's go get Ar- hey! Where'd he go?' exclaimed Em.
Arlong had sneaked down by the pool to make his escape whilst his Mermen were busy either running away from the two female teens that suddenly seemed dangerous or being filleted by the Straw Hat crew.
'Ow!' cried Sara abruptly.
'What?' asked Em. 'Ow!' She rubbed the back of her head where something had impacted.
'It's that fin-face!' said Sara, pointing to the top of Em's tree.
The Merman trapped up in the tree branches was pelting pinecones at the girls.
Sara gestured at him with her right hand and from it a gust of wind twisted around the unfortunate pirate and blew him out of the tree. He landed, face first, on Arlong.
Sara and Em cracked up laughing.
'Hey, dude, your hand's glowing!' said Sara, pointing to the hand Em had on her head.
'Dude!' said Em in awe. 'My head doesn't hurt anymore!'
Sara felt the place where Em had been hit with the pinecone. There wasn't even a bump. 'You healed yourself!'
'Cool! I'll do you!' said Em and she placed her hand on Sara's scalp.
Arlong shoved his underling off him. 'Gerroff me, you loafing imbecile!'
Em couldn't control her bubbling mirth and by the time she could once again breathe normally, Sara's head was better than new.
Genzo, the sheriff of Coco village, strode up to Arlong, having successfully rescued Luffy, and handcuffed him.
'This isn't how it went, is it?' asked Sara.
Em shook her head.
'We should go home,' said Sara.
There was a loud, pained groan from behind them and they spun around. Sanji was supporting Zolo, whose face was contorted in agony.
'Someone help!' shouted Sanji.
'You can help, Em,' said Sara.
The blood drained from Em's face. 'No, I can't. Healing a bump on the noggin is one thing, but healing katana wounds? I don't think so! We don't even know how I can heal things!'
'You probably do it by fixing the living stuff, since you control earth, but that isn't the point,' said Sara. 'The point is, he could die!'
'Someone else heals him!'
'Maybe they're not here this time!'
Em's lip quivered. 'But what if it doesn't work? I don't want Zolo's blood on my hands,' she said softly.
Sara hugged her. 'It will work, but I'm not sure about the bloody hands part- you may need to have contact with what you're healing.'
Sara and Em pushed through the crowd that had congregated around Zolo's form.
'What are you doin' here?' asked Sanji, who was looking a bit worse for the wear himself.
'We think I can help,' said Em.
Sara knelt and propped Zolo's head on her lap.
Em sat next to him and took off his tattered shirt. 'I think i need to have contact with the injury,' she said and she carefully stripped off Zolo's bandages.
With Zolo's every moan of pain, Em gave an empathic wince.
And then his wounds were laid bare. The slashes were cavenous rents marring Zolo's tanned chest. Fresh, thick blood coated him like a vest and still more bubbled forth.
Em whimpered, her eyes shining with silver tears and placed her shaking hands, palms flat, on Zolo's bloody chest.
He hissed in pain at the contact while Em tried to figure out how to heal him.
I can't do it. It was her despairing thought as one of her tears fell into one of the rents in Zolo's skin.