William Trey, Water Elemental

  I take a moment to consider my actions carefully. Two individuals I do not know, one of which is powerful and has committed war-crime levels of arson, and the other likely some sort of secret operative. I don't yet speak, opting to keep my face blank as I watch Tory approach, his hands in his pockets and his face split into a smug grin that immediately shoves me the wrong way. He radiates arrogance just as much as he does head, and God does he radiate heat. Not actual heat, no, he hasn't used his powers yet at all.

  Something I've noticed is that me and Lily both have an… aura, is the best way to put it. I have a damp, slippery aura, while Lily has a solid, earthy aura. I'd never really noticed my aura, or the way it made water almost lean towards me, if only a miniscule amount, until I'd met Lily and we'd noticed each other's auras. Tory’s aura is stronger than mine and Lily's. Our auras grew the more we used our powers, which I assumed was an outward expression of an Elemental's powers growth. Honestly, calling it an aura feels so cringe. I'll call it… element bleed.

  …

  Dammit, that sounds cringier. You know what? It fits really well and I can't be bothered to think more on it while this madman with fire powers waltzes towards me like we're old friends meeting at a Denny's for a Tuesday brunch.

  “So there's another one in Canada, huh? Not only that, but the same province. What luck I have.” Tory grins. “But you're not the only one, are you? I smell dirt.”

  “Yeah, I'd say you're unlucky like that.” I shoot back, deciding on nonchalance being the best course of action. No showing weakness. Weakness can be exploited.

  “Let me guess, kid, fresh out of a halloween party? Did mommy bring some snacks down to the basement for you and your buddies?” Tory sneers, resting a hand on a tree as he looks into my eyes through the costume. A slight mist wafts out of my costume. I had a water bottle in my pocket(yes, in my pocket, it fit so I left it there) and had converted it into moist air, filling the inside of my costume with it. If I could see through clothes and disguises using my liquid sense, he likely could as well using whatever sense he has. Fire seems too limited, so I'm imagining heat. That's why I made the mist cold.

  “Oh yeah, definitely.” I say sarcastically. “We watched Nightmare before Christmas and everything. You should've been there.” As I talk I feel through the forest. No nearby large sources of water. This man seems to be able to either make fire from nothing, or at the very least make fire bigger. That will need a lot of water. There's a water tower less than a kilometer off, so if it ends in a fight, which I assume it will, then I'll need to lead him there.

  “Maybe I will, after I burn your face off.” He says, raising a hand. I duck. Fire explodes out of his hand in a stream, just above my head. I can feel the flames singing the false metal of my armor. I raise a hand and condense a tiny ball of moisture in my hand from the air, no larger than a marble. I condense it further into the size of a needle, then fire it. A teeny sonic boom sounds as it shoots clean through his chest. He coughs and wheezes for a moment as he clutches his chest.

  “You fucking bitch.” He growls as fire rises ups to the wound. The flames seem to knit together the wound, reminding me somewhat of a phoenix. I frown and leap up into a tree, looking down at him. I then start to move at the same time he does, running at me at full speed as fire expands to engulf his entire body. Perhaps antagonizing this man was a bad idea. Oh well.

  I glance back to notice the woman who was with him hiding behind a bush, clearly shocked to see me injure the fire elemental. Feeling around Tory as he flings bolts and balls of white-hot flames at me (actually they're blue and red, but you get the picture), I notice that the moisture in the air seems to evaporate around him, leaving dry air all around him. I swear to myself as I leap to a new tree to dodge another fireball. It's then that Tory just starts to torch everything. The trees, leaves, bushes, everything, all in an attempt to get at me. Did hitting him actually piss the pyromaniac off this much?

  Unfortunately, as much as I'd assumed water would triumph over fire, his reserves of mental energy seemed limitless with all the fire he was spewing out. That concerned me. How was he making fire? I don't feel him pulling heat in and igniting it somehow. It's just… coming into existence.

  Deciding that the forest was the least safe place to be with him chasing me, I make a bold choice. I leap off a tree and onto the road. No cars are coming yet, and the fire beside the road is a beacon of “don't go this way”, so I feel slightly more comfortable staring in the highway. I reach for the trees on the other side of the road. Going in the forest isn’t a good idea, but there's something I need from it.

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  Trees behind the woman start to dry and shrivel up as liquid pours out of the trees in a tidal wave. Just in time too, as I create a wall of water in front of me. More fire bursts out of Tory's arms, reaching temperatures I hadn't thought possible normally. Yet I'm not sweating, or even really overheating. It’s like I have an internal water cooling system. Sweet, though I still don't want to test my luck against the raging superheated fire.

  Over 300 gallons of water wither away into steam in seconds. Not that I can't control steam, it's just harder. I push all the steam right into his face. The steam obviously doesn't do much to hurt him, but it does annoy him, if the increase in volume and… colorfulness of swear words means anything. I then clench a fist. If steam doesn't do much? What if that steam instantly freezes around him?

  His swear words are instantly cut off as he's frozen solid in a solid thousand kilograms of solid ice. For a moment, he's silent. Then the ice starts melting. I estimate it'll take him 20 seconds to get out.

  “Hey, lady. You on his side?” I ask the woman, who is still a ways behind me. She pauses for a moment before shaking her head.

  “No.” She says cautiously. “I'm not really here of my own free will.”

  “Yeah, I guessed as much.” I say. “You want him dead?”

  “Fuck yeah I do.” She growls out, a little more viciousness than she intended in her voice judging by her surprise at her tone.

  “Good enough for me. I need you to run into town and find a fire hydrant. The first you can see.”

  “Alright…” She nods after a second. “You need water?”

  “Yeah. I can't spontaneously generate the shit like icicle over there can.” I turn back to the sculpture, which is melting like an ice cream cone, the figure within obscured by a solid red glow. “Get moving now, as fast as you can!” I say. She nods, then books it at top speed for the town, a branch catching on her pants and leaving a small hole in her pocket she barely even notices. Down the road I can see a car approaching. The car comes to a skidding halt as a blast of raw, now uncontained energy bursts out from Tory, slamming into me and the car, knocking both away. The car does a double summersault before landing upside down on the road with a crash and the sound of a car horn mixed with Taylor Swift's “Paper rings” song. I slam into the tree I'd drained, which explodes in a shower of bark and splinters in all directions. My costume does a surprising job sheltering me from the splinters, and the rest fail to breach my somewhat tougher skin.

  I slam into the dirt, but quickly push myself off, shaking off all the disorientation I can ,as quickly as I can. I rest my hand on another tree and drain it of liquid too. Sorry mother nature, but I gotta borrow this.

  “I'LL KILL YOU!” Tory roars, his body a living bonfire as he rages, then holds out a hand. I roll. This time the fire that bursts out is in a solid beam, almost like a superheated light ray, slamming into the spot I'd been half a second earlier. I shoot up and pull the water around me in a bubble. I condense as much water as I can spare into my own beam. This one will donut him if I hit right.

  However, despite his seeming mindless rage, he saw the beam coming and dodged to the side. The result? He lost an arm rather than all his internal organs. The other result? I put out half the fire on his body. The third result? He's fucking pissed.

  He runs forward at me, re-coating his body in fire. I have less than a second to think. My eyes land on his feet, which are also covered in fire. But… not as much as his torso and upper body. I grin. Then I shunt half my remaining water into the ground below out feet, instantly crystalizing it into a thick sheen of ice.

  He slips and falls on his face, the ice rapidly melting under him as I raise a hand and create a spear of ice with the rest of my water, which I lob at him. He raises an arm he doesn't have to create more fire. He seems to notice his lack of an arm, yet even without the limb, he can still make the fire. Seems the guy never realized you don’t need to move your body to move your element.

  The fire that impacts the spear melts it down, but doesn't destroy it before lodging itself right in his chest, creating another new wound. He screams in pain yet again, and a thick barrier of fire envelops him. I grit my teeth in annoyance. He's likely healing himself in there. I'd never tested if water could heal me, and seeing what he's doing, I imagine it will.

  I glance from left to right. I reach with my mind for the water in the nearby trees. I feel my mental energy, which was at about 70% from pulling the liquid out of the trees, plummet as I pull all the liquid out of another 5 trees, then send the thousands of gallons crashing down on the barrier of fire. That put my mental energy below half, but it wiped out the barrier, and revealed him… but he isn’t there.

  I let out a choked gasp as a fire-wreathed first slams into my back, sending me rolling across the street. I cough, stumbling up, as I turn to see Tory standing there, his severed arm half regenerated and the hole in his chest gone. I grit my teeth. a few of my ribs broke from that punch, and I think my spine was damaged in some way, judging from the lack of feeling in my legs. When I try, they don't move.

  I raise a hand and the water that'd fallen from the ground rises back up. Tory blasts the incoming liquid with as much fire as he can. though that distracts him long enough for me to at least pull a little water over to myself and press it to my back.

  I can feel the liquid seep into my skin and immediately beeline for my spine, knitting together what is broken and attempting to fix it. But it won't be fast enough. I slam more and more water into Tory as much as I can, but he isn't stopped. He gets closer, and closer, raising a hand up and sending a blast of fire right at my face. I raise a hand up to block the fire… which never hits me. It's blocked by a wall of solid earth.