Chapter Thirty-Two

Sereia broke away from her pinball imitation and stood next to Elysia, also with her arms crossed and glaring. The pairs stared at one another for several seconds in silence, neither side willing to break the silence.

Finally, after almost a minute, the male elemental glanced at the earth elemental before releasing a sigh. “This isn’t going anywhere. I’m not sure why my wife took the hostile route. We mean no harm.” He flicked his hand, emphasizing the room. “In fact, we are willing to offer much.”

The twins’ eyes narrowed with Sereia asking the question both of them wondered. “Why? What do you want?”

A few moments passed as they worked out what to say, only growing the twins’ suspicion. “You aren’t the only one with an adversarial relationship with the Elemental Council. They don’t take kindly to elementals who don’t fall under their rule.”

“Again, what do you want? Your wife proved quite thoroughly you don’t need our help to defend your territory, so what is it?”

He sent a sharp look at his wife before returning his attention to the twins. “Like I said, it wasn’t our intention to antagonize you. The original plan was to rescue you from the Lightning Elemental Council blockade, but you evaded it. Of course, that brought other complications, forcing us to move up some of our plans.”

Refusing to let go, Sereia continued her attack, with Elysia nodding along. “Still, why go through that farce? A healthy relationship doesn’t start with a beat down.”

After several seconds of glaring at his wife, she finally relented through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry my elemental essence got the better of me.”

Upon seeing the confusion, he explained. “Pure born elementals like my wife struggle with their elemental nature, especially when around those of opposing elements, which both of you have. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem for elementals of our age, but your divine essence is quite potent.”

The twins nodded, but didn’t speak more on the subject. Instead, Elysia took over on the questioning. “You still didn’t say what you want from us. A paradise like this couldn’t come cheap.”

Unable to speak without her nature creating problems, her husband continued to be the spokesperson. “You are right about one thing. As you are, you cannot help us, but there is a reason the councils want both of you so bad. This same reason is why we want to bring you to our side.”

Lightning sparked in Elysia’s eyes as she glared at the man. “Look, we have been through a lot. Could you please just spit it out?”

The man’s friendly smile vanished for a moment. Overwhelming power smothered the twins, forcing their divine essence to jump to attention just to keep them standing. The power vanished as quickly as it came. “Sorry about that. I’m not used to others speaking to me like that. Like you two, I’m not a born elemental, but when one reaches my strength, one’s essence can take over.”

Despite the reinforced threat, the twins’ own nature refused to bow down to the much stronger elementals. Instead, they continued to glare at the couple, willing them to spit out what they wanted.

Ignoring their glares, he continued. “You may not understand what your divine nature means, but to those old enough to remember the formation of the elemental councils, you are something to both fear and strive to acquire for the same reasons. Your divine essence opens a lot of doors better left closed, which were sealed during a time forgotten by most when elementals ruled everyone. There is a reason elementals naturally feel superior to pretty much everyone. At one point in history, we actually were. Of course, that time passed long ago, but that doesn’t stop the councils from trying to exert their will as if they still had the divinity backing their rule.”

Unmoved as he didn’t reveal anything that directly affected them, they continued to glare in silence, waiting for him to get to the point.

His expression turned grave as he drilled his unique starry eyes into the twins. “Soon the full force of all elemental councils will gather, though we aren’t sure if they will try to acquire you or destroy you. Things would’ve been much easier if you didn’t reveal your divine nature. A few fleets would be no problem, but despite our strength, we can’t stand against such a force. That’s where you two and your fascinating elemental feline come in.”

A shiver ran through Elysia, imagining thousands of elemental ships surrounding them with no escape. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to send this off? If you don’t want to destroy us and protecting us would bring destruction, it seems better to kick us out.”

A smile returned as he sent a glance at his wife. “That is where you are wrong. The elemental councils will descend on us no matter what just for existing. Even if we aren’t the primary target, they will wipe us out as they chase after you. To avoid that, we must harness your divine potential.”

The divine essence within Elysia sung in agreement, but she pushed it down in favor of finding out more. These elementals sure had a way of speaking without revealing anything that she didn’t already know. It was obvious anything with divine magic had to be special, even to her, with her limited experience with fantasy stories. She refused to be some chosen one, but she wouldn’t pass up being special as long as her family and her were the ones in control of their fates.

Sereia cut in. “Will you quit dancing around the subject? If you want us to do something, tell us what it is.”

Both elementals flashed annoyance but schooled her features so fast the twins nearly missed it even though they were watching. “First, we must train you to harness your gifts. As you are now, you are barely stronger than a talented pure born elemental of similar age. In fact, if you fought the heirs of your elements, you would lose handily. Your divine gifts bleed into your magic, giving you an advantage on par with an untrained blessed elemental. It takes more than blindly flinging around magic to face who want to capture or destroy you.”

The twins clenched their hands but had to admit defeat. At least for now. The far stronger elementals wouldn’t tell them more without them forcing the issue, which they couldn’t.

With a theatrical snap of his fingers, their surroundings vanished, replaced with a panoramic view of the massive city below.

Ione also appeared right next to them mid pounce. She corrected her trajectory, landing on all four with an annoyed hiss. Her fur instantly puffed when her eyes landed on the elementals responsible for their situation.

Before she could attack, both Elysia and Sereia sent images informing her of the recent developments though the twins gave the elementals suspicious looks as they scanned their new surroundings.

A teasing smile formed as the male elemental created a portal between them, displaying the paradise. “If you want to keep our creation, you must work hard to reach your potential.”

The twins cross their arms as Ione hissed. Elysia voicing all of their annoyance. “Will you quit treating us like children? We don’t need a carrot dangled in front of us to work hard. It’s our life on the line we know we need to improve ourselves.”

Unfortunately, all she received was a smile from both elementals as he waved his hand, emphasizing the expansive city below. “What do you think of the city? The human cities in what we learned is called California proved incapable of surviving the merged world, so we gathered them together.”

Despite her curiosity, Elysia pushed it down as she stared at the elementals waiting for them to get to the point, which he did after a momentary pause. “If the Elemental Council succeeds, they will slaughter them all. The councils have little love for the humans, especially with their tendency to turn into elementally infused, which, as I’m sure you know, causes an instinctual feeling of disgust from us. And before you ask no, we don’t know why this is.”

Shock hit Elysia, not because of their casual disregard of millions of lives but her own lack of reaction. Was she so far from being human that she didn’t care about a genocide? No, she did care. It just wasn’t as visceral as it should have been. More like a desire to save them but not a suicidal desire, as she wasn’t one of them any longer.

To cover up her own inner turmoil, she sent a glare at the couple. “So you went through all the work to gather up likely millions of humans and other races just to put them to death? That isn’t on us. That’s on you for creating a massive target when you knew something like this could happen.”

The air suddenly turned heavy as the couple’s presence filled the room. This time it was the earth elemental who spoke in a soft but deadly tone, sending chills through Elysia and her family. “Do not question our actions. We are doing all we can to save the sentient races of our territory. Including training three infant elementals with more power than they deserve.”

Said trio stood their ground, refusing to bow down despite the pressure pushing down on them. Before everything blew, the trio’s surroundings changed once more. This time, they found themselves in a massive arena with a handful of people standing a few meters away from them.

Still filled with divine essence, their combined aura crushed the elementals, sending them to their knees, eyes wide in terror.

When Elysia and her family sensed the elementals finding them around on par with their strength without divine essence, they stopped cycling their divinity, though it took several seconds before the pressure dissipated enough for the elementals to recover.

Even when they did, they remained on their knees, heads bowed in reverence, soon turning the situation awkward.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the male elemental who had to be some sort of space elemental appeared with ruffled clothes. Though said clothes corrected themselves before any of the kneeling elementals could notice.

He chuckled as he took in the scene. “Rise, we can’t have our trainers too subservient.”

As one, the handful of elementals sprang to their feet, though they kept their head bowed to him and refused to look at the trio as if terrified of them.

The strongest among them was a lithe man with bluish tinted white hair and electric blue eyes reminding Elysia of Alex. He lifted his head and spoke in a respectful tone. “Greetings, master elemental. What do you need from us?”

“I brought you three trainees. Please train them to the best of your abilities. They are about as raw as one can get. The councils never got their hands on them and if we have any say, they never will. Treat them as you would any novice elemental.”

He turned to the trio, giving them a smile. “Have fun and good luck. You will need it.” Then he vanished, leaving the trio in front of the elementals, who appeared scared of even looking their way.

After what felt like an eternity, the strongest of the elementals seemed to bolster himself and make eye contact with the twins, though he didn’t exclude Ione, who he nodded in respect to. “Greetings, honored young elementals. We will be your trainers for the foreseeable future.”

His greeting seemed to break the ice as the other four elementals stood and bowed toward them before taking their places behind the lead trainer.

Elysia scanned the elementals, finding three lightning elementals and two water in total. Though the tie-breaking lightning elemental was the lead trainer who might just supervise the other four.

At least she hoped they trained them. Going by their demeanors, it might take a while before any meaningful training happened.