Flame Touch

Chapter 14-Knox

Apparently Air Semba was a giant tornado complete with sofas, a TV, and a snack bar full of fig newtons and pretzels.

Once we were all safely inside the tornado, which sounds crazy no matter how many times you say it, Sunny made it a point to grill both Taris and Semba. Sunny and I sat on the same couch, Melody was on the one person chair, and Taris and Semba sat opposite of us on another sofa.

“Ok!” Sunny said, and got up to start pacing in the tornado, detective style, but immediately sat down because the wind almost ripped her legs off, “What the heck!” she screamed as she sat back in the chair, “I had that planned out and everything like the investigation scene in Terminator Two!” she pouted. I rolled my eyes and looked at the two across from us, “Well, why don’t you start explaining what the heck happened, and you can start with the tornado.” I said. My mind was worried about what my parents would think if they saw me getting into a moving vehicle with strangers, let alone a tornado with two guys, but they would probably disapprove of me almost getting killed too. I could hear them now, “Knox! I will not tolerate my child having a death-by-bug experience!” I looked down to the bow in my hand. I don’t really remember how it got there. One moment there was a big blackish thing in my face, the next I was slamming arrows as naturally as a spider spins a web.

Taris cleared his throat, “Um, I suppose we haven’t been entirely clear with you about-”

“Anything.” I said, nodding my head. He rolled his eyes at me for a second, and then continued, “And I apologize for that, but time is of the essence and so I’ll make this as short as possible. For first, these chairs are sealed with charms so that the tornado doesn’t affect them, bottom line: don’t stand up. On a more important note, there’s a war going on between these things called constellation colonies, more specifically the fire and water colonies against the air and earth ones. The stereotypical war story about bad against good, and we’re short on people to help, so desperate that” he glanced at Melody “We’re even willing to let fish join our ranks.” he finished with distaste. I glared at him, “What do you mean by war? Like, the one in Iraq or a different one? And what do you mean by fire and water or about constellations or about anything? I’m sorry, but you really do need to be more specific.”

 It was at that point that Semba decided to step in.

 “Okay alright, let’s stop for a second now. Even though its fun watching Taris in the spotlight, I think I’ll take it from here. You three,” he pointed at us, “Are part of what we call star colonies. Each colony has a head figure that the Chinese zodiac is based off of, and usually the head figure is the most powerful.” He looked at Taris, “Usually, anyway. Each colony has a proclaimed element like Vent for air, Terra for earth, Luminosity for fire and Aquatic for water, everyone except for Libra chose an element, they decided not to choose amongst the four and people from that colony have…other talents.” Sunny looked down and I had a feeling she knew what he was talking about.

“In recent years the Vent and Terra colonies formed a truce against the Luminosity and Aquatic ones, who never got along anyway, because they felt they weren’t doing a good job with humanity, and so here we are!” he said with a smile then leaned in and placed his elbows on his knees, “You see, it’s the constellation star colonies job to keep order amongst the human race. Vent and Terra want to create a world with no humans, with just colonists and no one else. They feel humans are… corrupt.”

“Kind of like a Hitler and Nazi scene, they want a purebred world.” Melody gasped and Taris nodded his head reluctantly, as if it hurt to agree with Melody, “The marks you have are signs that you are from a colony, they give you your power, and in my colony’s case, your bow.” He nodded to me and the silvery bow in my hand, “Don’t lose it, it can’t break, but it’s one of a kind and can’t be remade.”