After breakfast, the first thing I did was trot over to the bathroom. I needed to wash my face and reflect for a bit. I had originally planned on doing so at the kitchen sink, with the promise of cleaning the dishes as a cover to do so, but Starfire wouldn't even let me have that. She blocked me from doing the dishes just as she did when she prevented me from sitting next to Raven. This didn't bother me too much however, after all the joke was on her based on the fact that she wound up volunteering herself to do the dishes.
Once I got to the bathroom, I closed the door behind me and kicked on the sink. I plugged the drain and let the sink fill all the way to the top, reflecting about the message I just read moments ago.
Why is this happening? Why now? Is it a warning about the return of Doctor Light? Or is it something else? Maybe Rancid? Does my death have anything to do with the others? How will Andre fair with me out of the way? Can the two of them find the others alone? And what about Kendall? How does she know what's to come? Did she have another vision? But if so, why did I sense that dove? Is she involved? And for that matter what about that other woman in the white cloak? Is she involved? Who the Hell even is she? My brain felt like it was running one hundred miles a minute with all of the overwhelming questions being bombarded at me, and all because of a little rhyme on the tiniest piece of paper.
Once the sink had filled to the top, I Changed back into my human form. I then go on to take off my shirt, as well as the white "wife-beater" shirt underneath. Usually, this would be the time where I take a moment to look myself over in disgust, especially since there was a large mirror in front of me. However I had bigger issues to worry about. I then walk over to the sink and look down at the pool of water below. I poke one of my fingers in it, but then quickly yank it away. It was ice cold.
Perfect, I thought to myself as I prepared for the maneuver I was about to do, or at least attempt. At that moment, my mind replayed to earlier that morning when Raven asked me if I had ever meditated before. Just as I told her, there was a time when I was younger when I did it often. Back then, my dark powers weren't nearly as powerful, nor did I have as many additional powers or forms. However, as I got older and obtained more powers, it became more and more difficult to concentrate on meditation. It was like my brain wouldn't shut up. I did however, learned to do other mind tricks, like long-ranged telepathy.
When it came to wolf telepathy, from what I've come to understand, some werewolves within the same Pack had the ability to communicate and converse with one another telepathically. Usually they were wolves with stronger wills, or higher ranks. The drawback was, the wolves in question had to be close range of each other. For instance, with any of my other wolves, I had to be within the boundaries of Pack territory, or no more than a couple miles outside of it to still use telepathy to call to them. The only exceptions to this rule were the other Elementals. Though we were all werewolves ourselves, our Elemental powers allowed us to communicate telepathically on a global scale. If I had really wanted to right at that moment in the bathroom, I could've easily contacted either Ryan or Andre. Hell, I probably could've possibly located Taiyo, Asia, or Adryen for that matter. The only reason I didn't was because despite my body being in a healthy state, my powers were still very much weakened.
It was safe to assume that Ryan and Andre had both tried to telepathically contact the others before telling me that they could no longer find them anywhere, and besides it would've been disastrous if I wound up locating any of them anyhow. My biggest fear was that if I did locate the missing Elementals via telepathy, it would signal their captors where I was. Normally I wouldn't worry about that too much, since they were my friends and I was always willing to risk my life for them. However, back then I was sure that I could take them on. In the state I was currently in, I was not. Although I was, in theory, the strongest of the Elementals, I wasn't so sure that I could take on whoever or whatever managed to capture three Elementals already.
Also, it wasn't so much the fact that they managed to capture three of the Elementals that scared me, because it has happened before, it was the way they were doing it that scared me. Usually if one or more of us happened to be captured, it was either because we lost a battle and they took a few prisoners, in which case all we had to do was regroup and create a new attack plan, or if they did target us individually, we could easily call for backup and stall in the meantime. However, these guys were not only targeting us, but they were somehow managing to break us apart from each other. Based on what Andre told me about Taiyo's distress signal, whoever was pursuing us had found a way to keep us from connecting with one another. This was confirmed when that video from Kenya showed me that Adryen had tried summoning us for help via his aurora, but failed to do so. We Elementals relied on our connections with each other.
As powerful as we were individually, we always knew there would come times when we weren't strong enough to defeat certain enemies on our own, so we leaned on one another. Usually I could always feel the other Elementals were with me, no matter where in the world I was. I could always feel that if I really needed them, they'd always be there, like Taiyo was when Doctor Light appeared in Anchorage. However, since arriving in Jump City, I no longer felt those connections anymore, at least not all of them. In Andre and Ryan's cases, it was because I told them to not seek me out, which based on the fact that I sensed or heard no attempts in trying to contact me, told me that they were honoring my request. With the others, it was like the fell off the face of the Earth. It was like Adryen, Asia, and Taiyo no longer existed. Not only were their connections broken, but they were picked off one by one.
Not only that, but in addition to targeting us one by one, they were targeting our families one by one, and I could tell that they did their homework. As long as we Elementals have been doing what we've been doing, I had never seen anyone target the families of the other five Elementals. As the Elemental of Darkness, and leader of the other Elementals, usually villains targeted my family trying to weaken and shake me up, which is why the others didn't live with much fear for their families. Hell, most people don't even associate Megan, Francesca, or Yea Seul with the Elementals, let alone their children, whom most don't even know exist. So the fact that they, as well as their parents and other relatives were also attacked in attempts to weaken us frightened me as well. That and the fact that they didn't target any of my family, at least not my biological family. It was relatively normal for villains to target my family, both biological and non-biological, however, anyone who knew me would tell you that for years, I have had no real emotional connection with my biological family, so the fact that these people ignored my mother, who was in Anchorage with me when I was attacked, told me that they knew plenty about us already.
Oh no, what if they go after them instead, I asked myself as I worried about the safety of April, Sammie, and all of my other adoptive family. That's it, I need help. We all need help, which brings me here…., I thought as I brought my attention back to the sink of cold water. What I was about to attempt was going to be extremely risky, and dangerous. I was about to attempt long-range wolf telepathy, but that wasn't the risky part, actually there were several parts of my little idea that were risky. The first of which was that I had never done anything like this before. The second of which was that I was basing it off of something April once did on accident.
What made my sister's lycanthropy so legendary, other than her unique fur color, was her backstory on how she became a werewolf. April Fischer was born and raised in South Dakota as a human, but was introduced to the mutant community by yours truly at the age of sixteen. After meeting her, she soon became one of my dearest friends, and soon after that my big sister, thereby also making her a target, a target for someone like Christian. To make a long story short(er), after the ninth grade, I moved to Germany, leaving Box Elder under the sole protection of Sammie. With me gone, Christian saw an opportunity to take over the Pack's Territory. He went on a spree of raping and killing random women, which eventually led him to April. However, since he knew what her relation to me was, he decided simply raping her wasn't good enough for him. He decided to break the code.
You see, mutants, or at least those that the code applied to, live by an unwritten, unofficial code of three unbreakable rules. The first was that we didn't hunt humans or domesticated animals. The second was that we didn't Turn or Change humans or the domesticated. Now obviously those first two rules had exceptions and mistakes do happen, like in the case of how I bit Sammie, but it was the third rule that was our most important rule, and therefore the most sinful to break. Under no circumstances, were we to partake in beastiality, which we defined as either having sex with animals, or having having sex with humans while in animal form, and it was to my disgust and horror that Christian chose to break this rule with April. He didn't want to kill her, he wanted to make an example of her. However, it wasn't the "how" that made April's lycanthropy so unique, it was the "when".
You see, after Christian did what he did to her, April's body should've began to attempt the Change within the following 24 hours, but that wasn't the case. Not only did April's body not undergo the Change, but she quite literally resisted it for about three months before it finally took over her, and it was only because of that that I even found out that she had been raped. April somehow found a way to "fight off" the Change and only lost because of what resulted from Christian's attack. Christian was not only responsible for April's lycanthropy, but he was also Isaac's father. April may have been able to fight off her own lycanthropy, but her being three-months pregnant with an unborn werewolf pup was more than enough to overtake her. She eventually wound up being forced to Change and wound up going on a rampage due ro having no control of her new powers. Sammie did her best to protect the town and did eventually calm her down, at least enough to where I could make the trip back and train her. However, in the heat of her rampage, April did take a few casualties. According to the police reports, she attacked fifteen citizens of Box Elder, three citizens of Rapid City, and three herds worth of cattle. It was a bloodbath to say the least, so much so that only two of her victims survived her onslaught. Those two survivors were two young women named Charlotte Schmidt and Alyssa Nightingale.
As expected, April was found guilty of several charges of murder, but thanks to Adryen's slick lawyer talk (Adryen was the brains behind the Elementals, so he would occasionally represent us in courtrooms despite him not being licensed), she got off by claiming insanity. After a two-month trial, she wound up spending the following four months in a psychiatric ward, as ordered by the courts, which unfortunately is where Isaac was born. I remembered how when she was drugged, April would constantly scream, "why didn't you help me? I called for you! Why didn't you help me?" She was referring to her first Change, and how she was calling out to her little brother for help.
On the day when April Changed for the first time, I was in Germany, Ramstein High School. It was right before winter break of my sophomore year, and I was dying of boredom in a tedious as Hell English class. I remember nearly jumping out of my seat as I heard April's voice screaming in my head. She was scared and in pain. I could hear her loud and clear, as if she was in the very same room with me. Unfortunately, I was at that point in my life where I felt I needed to hide my mutation, so I couldn't explain that I had a family emergency based on a voice in my head. I was forced to go the rest of the class listening to my sister's screams until they just randomly stopped. As soon as the class ended I went straight to my cell phone and called Sammie. When she didn't respond I called Adryen and sent him to investigate for me, though he never made it in time to stop April's wrath.
After it happened, Adryen had come up with a theory for April's voice in my head. He theorized that maybe it was the fact that April had a very strong will (which would also account for how she fought off the Change for so long) and/or the fact that she was in pain and frightened beyond belief. Either way, basically what he was saying was that April had gone under so much stress, that her natural wolf instincts kicked in and she called for help, by calling me. A part of me never forgave myself for not being able to help her, but with the idea I just thought up in that bathroom, I felt I could finally do her right. That was assuming that it would work, however.
There were three catches to my idea. The first was the person I was trying to contact. When April contacted me, she was a werewolf contacting another werewolf, and although she wasn't a member of the Pack back then, she still felt I was family, which might've helped her to do so. The person I was trying to contact was neither a family member nor a werewolf, but I was using the fact that Kendall was also a fellow member of the supernatural as a stretch.
The second catch was that April contacted me on accident. When April called out to me, she did so as a sort of natural reaction. Her body may have instinctively called me, but as far she could tell she was most likely just wishing I was there, like her thoughts were on a megaphone or something. As for me, I was about to duplicate what April did intentionally.
And lastly, April went through a lot of stress, fear, and pain to contact me the way she did. With that said, I was about to recreate a similar situation. For April, her situation was the pain that came with being forced to Change while being three-months pregnant and with no knowledge or control of her own powers. My situation was going to involve drowning.
"Here goes everything", I said as I walked over to the sink. I then leaned forward and placed my hands on both sides of the sink. Before taking one final breath I whispered to myself, "this one's for you, April". And with that, I closed my eyes and submerged my face in the water below. As I held my breath under the water, my mind began racing immediately.
Okay, Fernando, concentrate. Call for Kendall. Call for Kendall. Call for Kendall. Though I knew what I wanted to do, the matter of how to do it was a mystery to me. I don't think this is working. Wait, how would I know? Is it working? How will I know if it's working? Upon asking myself that, I noticed that I was starting to need air. Ah, forget it, this idea was stupid. It was then that I heard that dove again, and once again it was accompanied by Kendall's giggling. Wait a second, I can hear them. Maybe it is working. Well let's see how far I can go. I said I was going to drown, and that's what I'm going to do. I had also decided to kick things up a notch, by opening my eyes under the water. The moment the water made contact with my eyes, I could immediately feel what little breath I had left leaving my lungs. My eyes were burning, and it made things more and more difficult to concentrate. I was tempted to Change my eyes to one of my animal forms, but decided against it right away. I wanted the pain. I wanted the stress. I wanted to be as uncomfortable as possible in the hopes that I could contact Kendall just as April contacted me.
Eventually, my already blurry vision started getting even blurrier. I also started to feel light-headed and dizzy, which was made clear to me by the fact that my legs and arms were now shaking as if they were each having their own little seizure. My heart began punching my ribcage, and it felt like my lungs were about to explode. I had never held my breath for this long, and it was quite literally killing me. Sensing that I probably couldn't take anymore torture, I open my mouth and scream, "Kendall!" As bubbles escaped from my mouth while I screamed at seemingly nothing, I instinctively, yet accidentally, gasp for breath, causing me to inhale a large gulp of water. Once that happened, I immediately began swallowing water uncontrollably, yet somehow I couldn't stop or lift my head out of the water. It was kinda like when I was fighting Johnny Rancid and quite literally couldn't let go of his fists when he started draining my energy. I was trapped, and starting to get a bit scared. It was around this time during my brilliant idea that I saw a white light, and the world seemed to slow down once again.
Oh, shit, did I just die? Not the reaction most people would have when they look death in the eye, but then again I was willingly choosing to drown.
"Not yet, my prince". It took me a moment, but I recognized the voice. It was that woman from before, the one in the white cloak. Suddenly I could see her, along with two other women. The white hooded woman stood on the far left, and Kendall on the far right. And in the middle, for some reason, stood Raven. I knew not if they were all actually there, if I was imagining that, or what, but upon seeing Raven's violet eyes, I found myself catching a second wind of energy. I could also hear her heartbeat staggering mine once again as well. With my final breath I open my mouth wider and scream one more time.
"KENDALL!" When I couldn't take anymore, my eyes began to glow purple, and my aura sort of exploded from my face. I then blacked out, but only for a few seconds. I'm not entirely sure what happened during those few seconds, but when I came to, I was on the bathroom floor, lying on my side, gasping for air, and coughing up water from my wind pipe. After lying on the floor, with my whole body aching in pain for what felt like maybe ten, fifteen minutes, I slowly pick myself up off the ground and make my way back over to the sink. As I leaned over the sink once again, I unplug the drain and look up at the mirror in front of me.
My face and hair were dripping wet, my eyes were damn near bloodshot and irritated, and the muscles in my face were twitching uncontrollably. Exhausted and relieved that I survived probably the dumbest idea I'd ever had, I hang my head for a moment, panting as I tried to catch my breath.
"I, am never, doing that, ever, again", I said as I struggled to both speak and breath.
"You okay", asked Cyborg from out of nowhere as he put his hand on my shoulder. The suddenness of him touching me caused me to jump. He shocked me to the point where I slipped on a puddle of water I spilled on the floor and fell back onto my back. I groaned in pain as Cyborg stood over me. "Whoops."
"Dammit, Cyborg", I groaned, still weak from almost drowning to death. "What is it?"
"Well I heard a "thud" and came to see what was up. You okay?"
"Yeah. I uh, I just fell."
"Here", he said as he offered his hand to me. I grabbed it as he hoisted me onto my feet. "You're sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, Cy", I said a tad defensively.
"Okay. Well anyway, that's not the only reason why I'm here."
"Of course it isn't", I said sarcastically as I began putting my shirts back on. Cyborg then pulls out what looked like a credit card. It was pitch-black and had no writing on either side of it. "What's that?"
"What I came to talk to you about. Come on, let's go set it up."
"Set what up?"
"You'll see", said Cyborg as he walked out of the bathroom.
Ugh. Let's see here, I fought Starfire three times today, learned that I was going to die in less than thirty days, and I almost killed myself trying to phone a friend. Well, whatever this is, guess it's pretty safe to say that the worst is over for today, I thought to myself as I began to walk out of the bathroom after Cyborg.