The Elementalists

Slowly I began to open my eyes. I saw Blaze, Jasmine and Sapphire stood above me, looking quite worried. Shaking off the dizziness I felt, I sat up in my bed. It seems that they had brought me to the inn. I felt sick to my stomach and, worse off in my head.
 "Dark? Are you okay?" This came from Jasmine, who had a few bruises that I could see.
 "Yeah, I-I think so. Are you okay? All of you?" I asked, my eyes scanning the others for any signs of injury.
 Blaze was the one to answer me, "Yeah, we're good. We heal quickly, remember."
 I let out a sigh of relief and as I began to lay back down, I suddenly jolted back up.
 "Wait, what about Ethan?!"
 They all shuffled awkwardly and Sapphire nodded her head at the bed next to me. I looked over and saw him.
 Ethan laid there, motionless and hardly breathing. Black and blue bruises covered his body, and he had cuts on his face and his arms. It looked like his leg was broken and also his right arm.
 I looked on in horror. "Did-did I do that?"
 "Yeah, you did. Because he's not an Elementalist his body will recover normally, if at all." Sapphire stated.
 "You can't blame yourself though. It wasn't really you." Jasmine piped up.
 But I could blame myself. I'm the one who accepted the darkness and let it take over. I couldn't control myself and I almost killed Ethan. I hurt them all, and I even let Seth get away.
 I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up at Blaze.
 "You let the darkness in, not knowing it would take you over. All you want to do is save people and protect your friends. Even now, you're more worried about us than you are about yourself. You can't blame yourself for something that you couldn't control, so stop it and just think of a way to keep moving forwards and get stronger."
 I stared at him, then nodded. I still felt blame, but I couldn't let that stop me. I had to learn to tame the darkness inside me, if not it would swallow me whole. I hopped out of bed, my new armor making a clunk sort of sound. I looked at everyone and realized that they wore the same type of armor as me, with Blaze's being orange, Jasmine's a dark purple and Sapphire's bright blue.
 "When did you...?" I pointed at their new attire.
 "Oh, we noticed yours and thought to get ourselves some as well. Although it seems like that man lacks any helmets." Sapphire joked.
 "Haha, yeah it seems so. Now, though, what are we supposed to do? With Ethan bedridden we can't really leave town."
 Tom took this moment to walk into the room, pulling at a loose thread on his shirt. He looked at all of us and, seeing me his eyes widened.
 "Ah, glad to see you're up. Three days is a long time to keep us waiting." He came over and patted me on the back.
 I stuttered, "D-did you say three days?!"
 "Yes. Nobody told you? You took a little bit to recover and we couldn't exactly carry you and Ethan to our next destination. You're alright now though, correct?"
 "Yeah I think I'm good. I'm just worried about Ethan."
 "Don't worry, he will be alright I guarantee it. Now there's something else I want to talk to you about." Tom looked at me with a deadly serious gaze. "What happened to make you lose control?"
 Sighing, I plopped down on my bed once more while he grabbed a chair. This was going to be a bit of a long story.
 "... And the last thing I knew, I blacked out." I finished.
 Tom stroked his chin. "I see. You faced one of Death's minions. You are lucky to be alive. What did you say he used again?"
 "He could control chaos and it seemed like he had an infinite amount of kunai."
 "Mhm. This is a problem indeed. A dangerous Elementalist running around is not good."
 "Well, what do you think we should do? Go after him?" Asked a frustrated Blaze. I couldn't blame him. With Ethan injured it's not like we could really go anywhere, much less look for Seth.
 Tom motioned for him to settle down. "No, no we can't do that. He sounds strong and, as capable as you all are, I'm not sure if you can beat him. No doubt Death has informed him of all your strengths and weaknesses, plus he's had much longer time to train than all of you, or so I assume."
 "So then what do we do Tom?" I questioned.
 "I... I don't know. Just go check on the town, make sure it's okay. I'll think of something and look after Ethan."
 We all nodded, leaving Tom alone with his thoughts.

 "I didn't realize that I caused all of this destruction." I said as I watched a child cry into his mothers arms.
 "Yeah, well be glad that they don't know it was you, or you wouldn't be alive to feel bad." Jasmine commented as she extinguished a burning house.
 She was right on that part. The darkness covered me so that people couldn't see that it was, well me. If they did, well I shuddered at the thought. Although it's not like I couldn't kill them all. With a few flicks of my hands they'd all be ripped in half by my power.
 I shook my head, trying get those thoughts to go away. That wasn't me thinking, it was the darkness. I decided to try and change the subject.
 "So, uh, how'd you find the person who sold me the armor?"
 Sapphire shrugged. "He came to us, actually. After he saw us all fighting, he wanted to hmm thank s for our efforts. So we decided to get the armor free of charge. Ethan got a set too, but his is all shiny gold."
 "Oh, good." I was relieved that he wasn't forgotten. Then I reached into my bag of gold and pulled out the black rose I had gotten from the forest earlier.
 "This is for you," I held it out to Jasmine. "It's my way of saying sorry."
 "Aw Dark it's beautiful," Jasmine took it and sniffed. "And it smells wonderful. Thank you."
 I blushed as she rubbed my head messing up my hair. Then I noticed something in the distance.
 "What's that?" I ran towards the rubble of a house.
 The four of us rushed to go check it out. Buried underneath wooden pillar was a young child crying and screaming for someone to help them. We tried lifting it but it was no use. It was too heavy.
 "Dark, why don't you try using your powers to get it off?" Blaze suggested.
 I looked down at my hands, remembering that I was the one who caused this. If I tried to summon the darkness who's to say it won't just take me over again. What if I lost control?
 "Hello?" Blaze's voice snapped me back to reality.
 "I can't. i'm afraid that I'll lose control again." I looked down at the ground in shame.
 Blaze narrowed his eyes at me, then sighed. He raised his arm, making a stone spire come up out of the ground and lift the wooden pillar off the child. I watched as they thanked him and ran off to go find their parents.
 "You could have done it yourself?" I asked.
 The fiery boy glared at me. "Any one of us could, idiot. I wanted to see if you would go back to the scared boy who was to afraid to use his powers, and look at that I was right."
 "Hey I just hurt everyone I cared about and was taken over. Cut me some slack."
 "Cut you some slack?! The reason you even got taken over was because you're scared and weak. You gave into it and to be honest got what you deserved. Does this mean you won't use your powers anymore? Even to save people?"
 "Of course I will!" I objected.
 Blaze snorted. "Really? If you were the only one here and didn't use the darkness to save that kid they would have died. Now tel me again, can you really control your powers?"
 I opened my mouth to argue, but then closed it. Could I, or would I be too scared?
 "That's what I thought, weakling." Blaze said coldly and started to walk away. "If you really want to protect people, you're going to have to learn to man up and accept who and what you are now."
 "Where are you going?" I called after him.
 "Me? I'm going to go save people. You should try it sometime."
 Jasmine gave me a sorry look and Sapphire shrugged her shoulders before they went to run after him. I stood there, alone and angry but mostly sad. Once again I was of no use to the team. They'd be better off without me. In fact, why not just leave them and search for Death myself. Then I couldn't drag them down. Well, maybe I wouldn't leave on my own. That's when I had a thought. Running back to the inn, I thought of a way to leave without anyone knowing. It would be hard but once I did it then I could come back for Ethan once he is healed up and convince him to come with me.
 I had finally arrived back at the inn and ran upstairs, bursting into our room. Then I paused, quickly glancing around the room. The window was open, making the curtains flap in the wind and there was no sign of Ethan. A note fluttered into my hands, and as I read it my eyes widened. I did the only thing I could think of.
 "Tom!" I shouted, every fiber of my being screaming for our mentor. I couldn't lose my best friend. Not now, not ever.

*Well, Blaze is back to being cold again, and now Dark is scared of using his powers. He is growing unsure of himself, which could be a burden to him and the team. Sorry for the small chapter again guys, I don't know why it's like that I swear it seemed longer. Oh well I hope you like it.*