8: Elements

The creatures flew across the rooftop at the girls who all took on a different reaction: Emma decided to spread out her arm wings as she crouched down a little to try and intimidate, Ami took up a aggressive stance ready to punch leading with her right fist, Rachel prepared for an impact while aiming her hands at the floor to the side, Terri also braced for a hit by holding her arms crossed before her while using her ability to make her skin/scaled harder. Finally Holly couched down onto her hands and feet keeping her tail low preparing to leap at them, for while she was more capable of fighting while she is feral, the natural knowledge of how to fight she had.

The creatures all ignored Holly and went for the other girls, and while she looked round to see what was going on Demal shot the ground under her with his black lightning knocking her back a little. She gave a little growl as she changed forwards at him on all 4's.

Emma found her intimidation method didn't work as 1 came straight at her, ramming into her and knocking her backwards onto the floor. It hovered over her as she tried to kick it with her talons, but each just passed through it. She panicked as its arms rose above its head and started to swing down towards her head, she folded back her arm wings as she then let out her sonic scream that stunned it, but not harm it.

Amy swung her right fist at the one that came at her, and like Emma's kicks it just passed straight through it followed by her completely pass through it. Behind her it turned around and swing it's left arm at her, hitting her in the back causing her to fall to the floor. As it went for her again she rolled to the right to dodge, then flicking herself onto her feet, she then used her ability to make it seem like it was surrounded by her. It responded by whacking each one.

Rachel raised her shield at the last moment, forming a dome around her, causing the creature that came at her to fly straight into it and break apart into little clouds scattered around her shield. She lowered the shield giving a sigh of relief as suddenly the clouds then flew back together and re-formed before her, she looked up and barely started to scream in panic as it gave her a hard whack knocking her back a bit, hitting the ground with a thud and landing on her back. The creature flew up to her and started to try punching her. She covered her face with her arms and closed her eyes as she placed her shield back over herself. The creature hit the new shield with the punch, and then started trying to punch it constantly.

Terri took a punch from the creature that came at her without injury thanks to her ability, but the force of the hit knocked her a few steps back. She then kept the hardening on as she swing her right hand to scratch it, with the tops of her claws just harmlessly passing across it. It stood there as she then flipped round to her left, placing her hands on the ground as she did, using her tail to slam into it. She prepared herself for an impact that never happened, instead she felt her tail go through it and be caught. She looked up and saw it had wrapped its arms around her tail. It then pulled her off the ground and spun around tossing her into the ground back where it lifter her from it.

Holly charged at Demal jumping sideways at times to dodge his energy bolts as she ran across the roof. When she was close enough she let out a little roar as she leaped up at him, only for him to sidestep and grab her right arm with both hands. He forced her straight into the ground on her front, before blasting her in the back with his lightning. She smiled as he then pulled his cloak off, tossing it away revealing her wore a black jacket and trousers with dark brown combat boots. Holly flicked her tail up at him, only for him to grab the tip of it in his right hand, stopping it right in its tracks. Her eyes went wide in shock as she looked up seeing him do that, she then tried to move away only for him to pull on her tail, tossing her back towards the direction she came from a couple of feet. She immediately stood right up and charged forwards activating her intangibility, only for him to blast her with his lighting again, knocking her back the same distance again and for her ability to stop.

Will watched on from where she was standing, seeing all the girls trying attacks only for none of them to work. She was also confused as to why they weren't using there elemental powers, or what these powers they were displaying came from, in her time she had never seen any guardian display any abilities like that. She watched for a few more moments, seeing them try something only for it not to work and them be hit, thrown or shot by some form of attack, knocking them to the ground. Despite their constant bashing around she had to admire their resolve to keep going, either because of instincts, fear, enjoyment of the fight (which in Amy's case was clearly true as she was smiling despite being beaten) or desire to protect they all kept trying. She thought back to when she originally encountered Demal, remembering before they did a final confrontation he summoned these creatures., spending a couple of moments trying to remember how they got rid of them she remembered and then yelled to them "You need to use your elemental powers!"

"What elemental powers? We are using what we have" Emma called back having been thrown hard onto her back.

This struck concern into Will, she had sensed their powers awaken, but the fact they developed their secondary abilities first rather than the elemental powers. 'What has happened, they should have their elemental abilities come forth, so if they don't know how to use them, they are in trouble' she thought. Watching for a few more moments she then decided to get them to try and use the elemental powers so she called back at them "You each have power over an element, you just need to focus on it!"

"Anyone understand what she means?" Amy asked as she got up again and swung another punch at the creature she was dealing with.

"Well someone think of something fast!" Rachel called, clearly struggling to keep her shield up from the sustained attack from her attacker.

"The symbols!" Terri yelled, remembering what she told them back at the house as she kept trying to avoid attacks. "Each of us was drawn to a particular symbol we saw in our minds that was linked to an element, try focusing on what that element was!." She immediately took her own advice, turning around holding her arms straight out to her side, palms facing the creature as it flew towards her. "Please be right" she muttered to herself as she closed her eyes. The wave symbol, water, that was the one that she had seen in her dreams, she focused on summoning water.

The creature closed in on her, and as it was about to ram into her, her tail twitched, she felt something wet in the air around her, she opened her eyes and then swung her hands before her, keeping the palms forwards. Suddenly around them a vortex of water formed from the water vapour in the air and then from them a large stream of water fired into the creature, forcing it back across the roof. "It worked.." She muttered in surprise before calling out to the others again. "It works! Focus and let the feeling of the power take you"

"You better be right about this because if not I will haunt you in the afterlife!" Emma yelled across at Terri as she stumbled back to her feet as she got up avoiding having both fists of the creature hit her. It then shot a small black orb at her. As she ran she focused on what she saw, the more curved version of the wave that stood upwards, the symbol for air. The orb hit the ground right behind her feet, as she was thrown into the air by it exploding she closed her eyes. Suddenly she felt the winds gathering around her. She opened her eyes twisted herself to face the creature (not noticing that the wings on her back were flapping away holding her in the air), then she unfolded her arm wings, spreading them wide and flapping them together. From them came a tornado that flew back across the roof, blowing up dust from the roof and hitting the creature blowing it back to the far side of the roof.

Amy had seen both of Terri and Emma use their powers she smirked as she tried a roundhouse kick from her right foot, tho it passed through the creature like all her other attacks. As she caught her balance from after the kick she focused on what she remembered, a circle with a dot in it, the symbol for earth. It was then a thought crossed her mind and she called out "Earth, how do I use that? We are 26 or so floors above the ground!" She then had to jump out of the way of the creature.

"Earth covers any material from the ground and plants!" Will yelled back.

"They will notice if I do anything with the building" She muttered to herself as she threw yet another punch from her right side that went straight through the creatures head. As she pulled her arm back she clanked around looking for plants. "Where is there a plant when you want one, they are around when you don't want it and when you do it not there" she kept muttering as she then took a blow knocking her back a few steps, causing a bit of her vines and leaves to cross her face. That blow reminded her of something that she muttered to herself as she brushed them out of her face "Of course, my Zambalen side, you idiot Amy, I am effectively half plant, so hope this works." She then focused on summoning her Zambalen side while focusing on the power of earth. She also stared at the creature as it came towards her. Just as it started to try and punch her in the face there was a green glow around her vines and they suddenly grew rapidly and shot towards it, the glow preventing them from just passing through. The creature was tangled up in her vines as she lifted it a couple of meters above the roof and tightened their grip on it, before tossing it away back in the direction it came from, and once released her vines returned back to normal length.

Rachel was unable to watch the others due to she was lying on the her back holding her left hand before her as she struggled to keep her shield up. She needed to keep focus for it to remain so she struggled to try and focus on her element, the triangle with a missing corner that marked fire. Eventually she ended up lowering her shield by accident as she tried to focus on the element. The creature lent down to grab her. She held both of her hands up as she tried to shuffle along the ground away from it. Its armed passed over her hands, she closed her eyes (how it is viewed for her, everyone else is the glow stop), as the creatures arms engulfed her arms she felt them go cold. Focusing everything on fire as she started letting out quick screams. As the creature got past her elbows suddenly a new burst of heat shot through her. The red markings across her glowed brighter as suddenly from the shoulders of the creature 2 small gets of fire shot out of it causing it to roar out in pain and release her. She opened her eyes (the marks for them glowing again) seeing the creature release her and back off a little, she looked at her hands, they were covered in fire. "Now you will get it" she muttered as she got herself up to be on her left knee as she held both hands together before her and launched a stream of fire from them that knocked the creature away.

While the others were dealing with the cloud-like creatures Holly was leaping around on all 4's to dodge Demal's lightning attacks. She also occasionally went intangible to dive through the roof and come up somewhere around him, only for each of her attacks to be either blocked or for her to be hit by an attack from him first. After a few of these he then slammed the back-side of his left arm against her causing her to land front first on the ground next to him. HE then placed his right foot on her back between a pair of her spikes and pressed down, so she couldn't move round to get him with her tail nor get up, hoping the panic for not moving meant she wouldn't go intangible. He then spoke to her softly "Surrender the heart to me or at least give me the key contained in it and I will spare you."

She struggled to move, trying to push herself up as she replied "I just got that heart thing, so for a key contained in it, I wouldn't know how to get it out, and even if I did, why should you have it?"

He grunted at her and he pressed down harder on her, he then looked across seeing his 4 creatures being sent back to the edge of the roof they started on. Seeing the others then start to come towards him he they called to them as he held his right hand over Holly and created a ball of black lightning in it. "One more step and your friend here is fried!"

The 4 of them then stopped where they were, about 14 feet away watching on concerned as to whether he would follow through on his threat that looked like he would. This whole time Emma hadn't spotted she was flying (abet just above the ground). They all watched him closely as he kept watch on them and Will who had remained standing at the back of the roof watching. While he was keeping his attention on the other girls Holly has managed to calm her breathing and was focusing on her symbol, the curved equals one that signified quintessence. As her breathing entered a slow deep pattern some pale blue sparks started jumping between her spikes. After only a few moments it could be seen that full bolts of lightning were jumping around on her spikes. She then focused on channelling them at 1 spot, then suddenly the 2 spikes that Demal had his foot between fired the pale blue lightning bolts into his foot causing his entire body to have lightning bolts jump over him causing him to let out a little moan of pain as he stepped off her and tumbled back a little letting Holly then stand up completely.

As he recovered from the shot seeing the other girls run up alongside Holly he had his cloak fly off the floor from where he left it and cover him again (with the hood down). He looked back behind him seeing his creatures still out of action. Turning back towards the girls he then saw Holly pulling back her right hand as lightning jumped between her claws. She then thrust that hand forwards launching a large bolt at him. He gave off a quick smirk as he was hit, his entire body ended up with bolts jumping over him. He gritted his teeth as the bolt caused his entire body to go in pain, but this was something he didn't mind happening as inside his cloak, he reached into a pocket on his trousers and pulled out a small green container and opened it, allowing some of the bolts to go inside it he then closed it as the shot stopped, he then fell down onto his knees and slid the container back into his pocket.

"I will be back for what is mine" He told them in a menacing voice as he tried to catch his breath. There was then the green and white flash of a teleport as he and his creatures disappeared, leaving the girls standing in the middle of the roof.

There was a moments silence before any of them spoke, and it was Amy who spoke first. "Did we win? Because I was just getting started."

"Yea I think we did" Terri replied as she looked at them all, and then noticing Emma flying just above the ground with the wings on her back. "Emma, you are flying!"

"I what?!" she then replied startled. She looked down and saw she was only a few inches off the ground, she couldn't believe she was actually flying. But it was in that moment her fears kicked in and her wings then stopped flapping and she then fell onto her feet. "Well I was" she disappointedly said.

"Think we all could then?" Rachel asked in her shy voice as both her and Holly were trying to get theirs to work, but only manages some twitches from them.

"You most certainly can with those wings" Will spoke out walking up behind them. "But for now you all did a good job."

"You owe us answers" Terri spoke up as she walked right up to Will with a serious look on her face.

Will looked across all their faces before letting out a little smile. "Yes you do need answers, but I am not the best one for that, nor is this the place." She turned around and waved her right hand opening a fold before all of them.

"No-way" Exclaimed Amy as she saw it. "A fold without a generator."

"Indeed it is, a true fold." Will softly told them. "Your fold generators work on techno-magic, artificially creating the magic needed to make a fold, this is the real thing, now of you would please, through there is where we can discuss things." She then stood to one side and giving them a smile holding her right hand out towards the fold.

They all looked at each other for a moment before Terri stepped forwards to the fold and went through it, followed by Holly, Emma, Amy and after hesitated a moment and looking at Will, Rachel followed behind them. After she entered Will then walked through it having it close behind her.

The fold led them out into the middle of the main chamber of Kandrakar, they all stood in the centre of the mark on the floor, looking around amazed by what they saw. After the fold closed behind Will she had a while glow softly pass over her changing her back to her robes. She smiled at them as the voice of the Oracle was herd "Welcome young guardians to Kandrakar, centre of the dimensions."

They all looked around to see who spoke to them as Will calmly walked past and went up to a raised area alongside 2 others, doing so she spoke "Girls, meet Luba, keeper of the aurameres, and Yan Lin the Oracle of Kandrakar."

Luba and Yan Lin both gave a nod as they were introduced. Before Luba then spoke. "Yes welcome guardians. You have met Will, the overseer."

"Pleasure to meet you all then I guess" Emma slowly spoke out foe them all as they stood there. Both Holly and Terri had their tail's moving around slowly for keeping balance.

"You have many questions, then let me try and answer some of them" Yan Lin spoke clearly as she looked over them, reading there expressions. She then spoke about where they were, the history of the origin guardians which included the tale of the nymph Xin Jing and the 4 dragons. How guardians were chosen to defend the infinite dimensions from any darkness that would threaten them, the aurameres that provided their powers, and then the legacy of previous guardians that included herself and Will both being former guardians, also explaining why only humans had been chosen in the past due to the ability of humans being the only species to be capable of taking the link with an auramere and because of this as to why it has remained a secret on earth, to allow them a life away from being guardians. In this time Yan Lin, Will and Luba came down and stood right in front of the guardians

"That is incredible" Terri spoke amazed at the entire thing.

"So you mentioned that you are the Oracle that is the leader here and that miss Luba is the keeper of those auramere things, but I don't follow Will's role as overseer" Amy curiously asked.

"My task is to make sure that the needs of Kandrakar are dealt with, such as bringing the heart and your powers to you. Something we normally do in a different way but the nature of the situation meant we needed to take a different approach" Will told them.

"And what about this human thing, I mean we all aren't exactly what you would call completely human" Holly raised the point that they all had thought of when the mentions of human was the only species capable of bonding with an auramere for the powers.

"A key point indeed" Yan Lin smiled at this question, clearly been waiting for it to be asked. "As Oracle I am gifted with visions of the future, and I have foreseen a dark time approaching, and that time is upon us now, normal guardians won't be enough for this and we are in need of a breed not just able to take the powers, but who will be physical abilities to withstand this as well. So for this reason I chose to try half humans and you 5 were the ones the heart selected."

"And it seems in choosing 4 of you were chosen because of you closeness to the powers you have been given" Luba added.

"This darkness approaching, does that have anything to do with who we faced?" Rachel nervously asked.

"I am afraid she may be right Oracle" Will sighed as she spoke. "Demal has defiantly returned, I wasn't 100% after he confronted me at the beginning of the week, but I am certain now."

"You did mention you thought it was him, but going by the fact we have the girls all here he didn't catch on to your task" Luba spoke across to Will.

"I assume he know I was there to find new ones, but as this was the first time with half humans he did seem to be caught off with that." Will replied to Luba before turning to Yan Lin. "There was a little complication in the awakening of them however."

She looked to Will and then the girls who just stood there listening a little surprised "What sort of complication?"

"They didn't display their elemental powers to start with, instead they developed their secondary powers, and different ones to what they should normally have" Will spoke what she knew.

"What do you mean by that?" Terri curiously asked.

"In the past all guardians developed there elemental powers when chosen" Yan Lin explained. "And then they get their secondary powers. Animal empathy for quintessence, telepathic for fire, telekinesis for earth, invisibility for air and mental influence for water."

"We defiantly don't have those" Ami told them as she then pointed at each of them in turns as she mentioned what powers they did have "I got being able to create illusions oh and I am Amy. Rachel there can create shields, Emma is able to release a supersonic scream. Holly goes intangible and finally Terri makes herself impervious to harm."

"Thant is an interesting development to make note of, but now you know of your true powers of the elements, you will be able to use them, even when you are not in guardian form, abet in a weaker state" Yan Lin informed them.

They all talked for a little longer about their powers, then another fold opened in the chamber and out walked a 6 foot tall female shaped humanoid with dark red metallic skin and dark silver armour plates over their body except for the head which had shiny black dreadlocks that came below the shoulders. The chest and shoulder armour also had a orange symbol on it that none of them could make out what it was. Her eyes were green and her arms had cyan lines over them, even on the armour. After she had stepped out of the fold it closed. She walked past the girls taking a couple of steps towards where Yan Lin stood. She then knelt down on her right knee and lowered her head before speaking in a soft female mechanical voice. "Oracle I am Undia, the new toa of fire, I have come to report on the request you sent the Mechanax."

"I see the fire plate has chosen a new partner, rise toa" Yan Lin told the new visitor who stood immediately. "Seems that we all are gaining new members currently. Guardians meat one of the toa of Mechanax, a species that are a long-time ally of Kandrakar and who pledged themselves to aid us. Undia it seems you came at a good time to take news back after, meet the new guardians of the infinite dimensions."

Undia turned to the girls and bowed to them "It is an honour to meet you."

"Pleasure" Holly said before turning to the others who waved when introduced. "these are Terri, Amy, Rachel, Emma and I'm Holly."

Undia then turned back to Yan Lin before speaking. "Could the matter be discussed in private Oracle?"

"I believe there isn't much else I will be needed for here that Will can't handle" Yan Lin said as she ran through her head to make sure she hadn't missed something important. When she was certain she and Undia walked off out of the chamber through the large door in it.

"I will return to the aurameres then, be well guardians" Luba spoke as she left the room.

"So who exactly was that?" Rachel asked in her normal shy voice.

"Mechanax, they are a minority techno-organic species of Meridian, as for this toa thing or their service to this place, I don't know, not something I have come across" Terri said, clearly puzzled.

"While they live on Meridian, that is not where they originally are from" Will mentioned. "Their world suffered destruction and the survivors ended up on Meridian. As for them serving Kandrakar, that is just their way of thanking us for helping them. The toa are similar to you, members of the species with powers from the past, but that is a tale for another time."

"What about you, you can't have been a guardian that long ago, so why did you give it up?" Ami asked Will.

"I am a lot older then you think" she laughed a little. "I am 522 years old, stood down from being a guardian when I was in my 50's. And in my late 70's was offered a place to serve here, and in doing so I am now able to live as long as I keep my oath of binding to Kandrakar directly. Both the Oracle, Luba and a few others here also took a oath of binding too. When done we can choose to take the appearance of any point of our adult lives."

They chatted some more about Will's time as a guardian before Holly remembered something from on the roof. "That Demal guy said something about a key in the heart, what did he mean by that?"

Will sighed a little before she replied. "Demal is someone who me and my team defeated back in 2010. He found deep beneath Meridian a doorway that would allow him to access the raw dark magic that exists. The doorway was built when a tyrant named Phobos ruled Meridian, but even he feared the power that came from there so he had it sealed with a key. Demal was about to use the key on the door when we stopped him, he retreated and we never saw or heard from him again, which considering he took a fancy to me meant I couldn't care less. As for that key he seems to think we put it in the heart, which to be fair we did place a lot of magical relics in there."

"Is that why he asked me to give him the heart then?" Holly added.

"Mostly, you see every world had a magical heart, the source of their magic. And each is always held by someone, and can only be held by that person. For another to take it can only be done in two ways, for the holder to die or for them to give it to someone. If taken by force the taker cant access it. So that is why he needed you to willingly give it to him or perish, so he could try and get his key." Will replied, looking calm.

"But it isn't in there is it?" Terri asked, sensing something was missed out.

"You are a smart one, Taranee would have liked you" Will replied to her with a smile. "And yes the key isn't in it. We knew anyone would assume we did put it in there, so instead we broke it into 5 pieces and hid them. Only when my teammates passed away we knew where they were hidden wouldn't be safe, so before they died they absorbed there part of the key and after they had died, their bodies were transported out of the coffins and each was hidden on a different world. My part is kept here in Kandrakar in my room."

"Out of curiosity, why did Holly get the heart, and how is it decided who has what power?" Amy spoke in a clearly curious voice.

"The reason as to who gets what power is never really known" Will spoke back. "But sometimes you can see a link, like for my team Cornelia had the power of earth and her sister was the keeper of the heart of earth, and the Oracle Yan Lin who was on the previous team from me had the power of air, her granddaughter was on my team had the same power. But looking at 4 of you your powers seem to be based on your non human side. Amy as a Zambalen you are closely linked to the earth because of them being plants, Emma your Verlinger a creature of the skies. Terri as a Aqualan you are part of the waters. Rachel, when you were selected I did try to find what you are and sadly I can't provide the answer, but clearly you are a child of a species that was to do with fire. As for Holly, Quintessence is often mistaken for lighting, a very wild thing, and maybe because you suppress a wild nature it why you were chosen. Know I don't know the real answer, that is just my guess. As for the holder of the heart, whenever a new team is chosen the heart is automatically bound to whoever has Quintessence, but they can pass the heart onto another which has happened in the past for different reasons, also the bearer of the heart is treated as leader of the team."

They all stood there listening to what had to be said, also discussing a bit more about what their powers are capable of, while teaching Holly how to summon the heart that while they are in guardian form is stored within her (as an energy not physical object) and then how to teletransport, summon astral drops (with a warning not to miss-use them or use her powers on them, something Will knew spent disaster from experience) and open folds. It was after this she decided it would be best to send them home. She had Holly then change them back to their normal selves before she opened a fold in front each of them that would take them outside where they lived. Each said their goodbyes and all agreed to use the weekend to do some practice, with Will telling them they will be summoned when a plan of action against Demal was decided.

Each of them went through their fold and returned home, going in quietly (and for Rachel signing back into the orphanage), going back to their rooms noticing it was 2AM, luckily it was the weekend now, so none of them had to be up early in the morning. They all changed for bed and went to sleep.

Next Time: Training and planning.

Writers Note: For future reference when writing for the eyes on Rachel who has the glowing marks for them, assume when I say open they are glowing and closed being they not glowing. As when they are glowing is the equivalent for open eyes and not glowing being the same as closed.