The Uprisen

Chapter 17

The ceremony was quiet and dreary. It rains as each member of The Group picks a blue rose that the Earth elementals grew. One-by-one, people set a rose on the water stream by Lacy's body, then say goodbye. Willow is the last one to set a rose on the water, and to say goodbye.

"I am so sorry, Lacy," she mutters quietly so no one can hear. "I should've come faster. What they did...they'll pay for it. Whatever you told them, don't worry. Rest easy."

She suppresses a tear as she steps back to give the Fire elementals room. Waverly, Joseph, Kate, Mikey, Felicity, Nathan, and Bailey surround Lacy and carefully burn her remains to dust. The process is fast, and traditional for an elemental funeral. Next, the Air elementals-Cameron, Jake, Zach, Miles, JJ, Amy, Daniel, and Emma-use the wind to gather her remains and sprinkle them over water, which is the stream in this case. Next, Alexa, Willow, Spencer, Leslie, Iza, Oliver, Quinn, and Tyler create small waves in the water to send the roses downstream as the final goodbye. Because Lacy was a Water elemental, she gets the traditional funeral for a Water elemental.

The Group watches the stream flow through the woods behind the Toher Mansion-their home. The very home that Lacy was taken from. The first group of people walk back to their rooms in small increments, until finally all who's left is Willow and Waverly.

Waverly watches her sister stare at the water; she looks empty. She knows there's nothing she say to help her, not now anyway, so instead she rests her hand on Willow's shoulder.

Willow barely notices. "We can't let this happen again."

Waverly watches the wind blow through the trees, making the rain shift direction. "We won't, Willow."

She shakes her head. "They were after us, you know. They wanted to take us down."

"Willow-"

She looks at her sister with watery eyes full of determination. For the first time in her life, Waverly sees a side of her sister that isn't just hurt and broken: she's angry too.

"Preparing the others, it won't be enough. We have to do something...something drastic."

"Drastic?" Waverly asks. "You have a plan?"

Willow searches her sister's face. "You're not going to like it."

A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Isn't that how these things normally go?"

"Waverly, I'm serious. It's going to seem impossible, but I think we can make it work. It's just going to be one of the hardest things we've ever done."

Waverly's eyebrows arch. In any other setting, she would make some silly remark of how they've gone through too much to not be able to handle anything, but Willow seems convinced of the difficulty of her plan.

For a second, Waverly tries to guess what the plan is, wondering just how bad it could be. Maybe she'd figure out to which lengths she's willing to go to before she rejects the plan, but she realizes that there are none. There is nothing that she wouldn't do to protect The Group.

"Okay. What's the plan, Willow?"

---

Simultaneously, the three of them says, "Absolutely not."

Waverly rolls her eyes. "Okay, well we weren't really asking for your blessing here guys."

"You really don't have a voice in the matter," Willow supports.

Cameron glances between the girls a few times, then shakes his head. "It wouldn't work, you guys are too different."

Alexa laughs. "Too different? Try polar opposites. Literally. Earth is the land of the North, and Fire is the South. If you could get more opposite, you'd be black and white."