Coming Home

Coming Home ~ Chapter 1

It has been almost a year since the Guild fought with the city. Bad had turned to worse, and fighting broke out. In the end, we won, and had only lost one Guild member, an annoying Air member named Blake, and for the first six months, everything was great.

Eventually, the others started icing me out again. It wouldn't have hurt so much, except Lynn iced me out as well. Over the last few months, signs and hints of my old self, the person I was before I met Lynn started peeking out, like light slipping through the cracks in a wall.

Now, the wall has crumbled, and old me was back in full force. I never talked. I sat quietly in the new training center and practiced, hoping to improve my powers to the point when I could absorb the water from the picture of my family. It was the only thing that kept me here. I just needed to train more.

I've been keeping track of the days in my room. Tally marks, one for each day, covered the walls. Marking today, I notice it has been exactly one year since our old building was blown up.

Maybe today will be my lucky day. I think mirthlessly. I jog down the stairs to the training center, ignoring everyone. Lynn isn't there, like usual. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her train at all. Weird.

I shake the thought out of my head and lay the picture down on the table. Warm ups first. I think. I go through the movements to create a tsunami. It's my usual warm up, and considering when I did it last year to end the the war it completely sapped my energy, I've made it really far. Now, it's like picking up a feather. I have gotten so much stronger these past few months, I could probably cause an actual tsunami on the other side of the planet.

My movements slow down as I lose myself in thought. I think back to my first few years as an Elemental when the situations with the City Guard were the most tense. They saw us as freaks, freaks who needed to be eliminated. So, the members at the time hid. A much better place than our old building, and that was my home for years. Then, they died. Old age, mostly, but few were caught in a battle, and they were too tired to fight back. I idolized those people, and was so surprised when their children turned on me. Just because of my powers.

Fast-forward to when Ena joined the Guild. She was the first Fire I had met that hadn't completely ignored me, and trying to be friends with her didn't end well. I would try to talk to her, and she would try to set me on fire. It went in a vicious cycle until I figured it wouldn't work out. To this day, I'm not sure why she would torch me. Ena didn't really explain herself then, and she still doesn't. I always assumed it was the natural hatred that Opposites had, but there was always a doubt in the back of my mind.

I straighten out, breaking free of the trance I was in. I do this every once in a while, where I just get trapped in my own thoughts and memories. Refocusing myself, I lay a finger on the picture and concentrate, closing my eyes. When I open them, I expect to feel the same damp paper with the warped and blurry image under my fingertips I had felt for the last six months.

But I don't.