The Elementals Book 1: The Abyss

Chapter 7

When Shadow woke up it was dawn and the sun was setting in the distance. He was in a stone valley near the highway. Thousands of stone trees and bushes lay beside him like statues. Having glimpsed the faintest part of the small creatures saving him, he checked in his backpack to make sure they were okay. It is weird how they got there. Shadow thought to himself. Probably snuck in. Shadow laughed bitterly to himself as he recalled that this was yet another scenario in which the group had almost died. When the others were raised from their slumber the group agreed they'd continue searching for the fire gem. So they journeyed to the nearby heat radiation tower, instead of electricity fire beings use heat radiation. They found themselves at the foot of the tower within a matter of minutes. A large fireproof fence stood in their way. Fauna upended it so they could enter. Bet they didn't see that coming. Shadow thought, smiling to himself. A valley, or a stone valley, are both weird places to put an energy tower. But for this particular tower, every fire being in the city knew why it was here, because of what happened to the other one. A couple of teenagers decided it would be fun to graffiti the place. The chemicals interacted with the energy wrong and there was a minor explosion. Nobody was hurt except the Fire-fi and internet. Now, there'd be much more hurt than that. The heat radiation tower was quite small, it consisted of only a spiral staircase leading up to a thin circular platform that led out onto the roof. And as the Quadro climbed the stairs there was suddenly an eerie screeching noise. Shadow looked up to see the walls compressing, collapsing slowly.

"Guys, watch out!" he said, rushing them back down the stairs. A second after they escaped, the whole place came tumbling down as though a giant toddler got mad at his sister and smashed down her block tower.

"I see you've escaped your destiny once again," said the cloaked figure hovering just above the ground in front of them.

"You," Hazel said accusingly, shaking her finger at the figure.

"Is that all you have to say? Tssk tssk disappointing. Execute was definitely wrong about you," she snapped at them, grinning.

"Take this!" Fauna yelled, levitating a rock and throwing it at the figure, squaring her right in her jaw. Unfortunately for her, this tore her mask right off her face and gave her a nasty scar. This revealed a young girl no older than themselves. Her mask fell to the ground which Shadow picked up. Aria, it read on the back in permanent ink.

"Ugh! I hate you all, you'll be sorry oh you'll be sorry!" the figure screeched before she flew away leaving nothing other than a broken energy tower.

The squadron reached their "house" even more tired than the night before. Though they had only been here for three nights it felt like a month. Tomorrow, Shadow's conscience mumbled, tomorrow we will get the fire gem.

"I don't get it," said Fauna. "Where else in this forsaken place could the gem be!" They slumped against the side of a restaurant called the Fiery Ninja. As they lay defeated (for they had attempted to retrieve the fire gem from a mysterious tunnel which turned out to be an inferno bat's lair.) Shadow saw one of the Gnawques slide out of his backpack and onto the cement.

"Ivemass waveheat si ingcom omfrrr erov rethe," it exclaimed pointing to the left of him.

"What's it saying?" Lumia asked.

"Ivemass waveheat si ingcom omfrrr erov rethe," the other one repeated impatiently. Shadow was puzzled. Ivemass...hmm that sounds kind of familiar, maybe it's an English word backwards? No, that's ssamevi, he pondered. They waited there for a few moments while Shadow tried to solve the jigsaw of Gnawque tongue. Suddenly his eyes lit up.

"I've got it!" Shadow exclaimed. "Every syllable is switched! Which translates to: "Massive heatwave coming from over there," he breathed.

"And it pointed to the left which means-" the group dashed to the left of the restaurant as fast as they could. The Gnawques then abruptly pointed down. The Quadro paused as all of them felt a huge heatwave pass over them.

"How did nobody notice this before?" questioned Fauna.

"Maybe it's because everyone here is made of heat, so they were probably too used to the massive amounts of heat here to notice anything this specific," Hazel answered as Fauna cleared the rocks aside to reveal a long drop. They made their way down, down, down to the bottom of the pit, where a long twisting passageway would lead them deeper into the cave. It was just like any other cave really, with the exception of the tons and tons of lava being produced every day and all the ten thousand little holes that heatworms could hide in. It was also extremely large, about as big as an apartment building in area size and a gymnasium in height

"I could scout ahead for guards, Hazel offered." The others agreed this would be a good idea and soon she was flying away, transformed into a phoenix. The rest of the group waited for what seemed like hours before they saw Hazel gliding back towards them. "I count ten guards and a whole lot of phoenixes," she said. Then she told them which room the most guards were positioned outside of, which would most likely have the gem hidden inside. She made a circle with the rest of the group and Shadow swiftly teleported them inside.

Soon they were inside a small cramped room with no gem in sight.

"Where is it?" asked Fauna. "It's gotta be here somewhere."

But where exactly? Shadow's mind questioned. Then he realized there was a tremendous amount of heat coming from below him. Fauna must have realized this too because she excavated the ground from beside them revealing yet another hole down. The group got down to the bottom fairly quickly and when they arrived Shadow's mind flickered. What's happening? His mind suddenly recognized this feeling of fear, the feeling that you can only get when you've been anticipating it for so long. Execute was in the room.