The Elements

Chapter 14 - The Crossing

The words reflected off her glasses as her hands flew across the keyboard, the commands whizzing from her brain, through her arms, and into the screen on the computer. The lines kept going on and on, its typist never stopping to take a break. Her eyes were glued to the screen as beads of perspiration started forming on her forehead.

"Whoa. Olivia. You alright?" I asked. She hadn't spoken for quite a while.

"Don't distract me," came the curt reply.

The first thing we had seen on the website we had found was a page, asking for the username and password. It was definitely very suspicious. So, we enlisted the hacking talents of the Codemaster. Suddenly, Olivia's fingers stopped. I expected terrible news.

But when she turned around to face us, her face was one of joy. "Yes! I hacked through forty-three layers of encryption! Well done, myself!" she shouted in triumph, then tried to high-five herself. Finally, after several failed attempts, she recognised our presence, and put her arm back down, blushing beetroot red.

"Uhh... So I take it that it worked?" I asked, cocking my head as I looked at the confusing lines of code scattered across the screen.

"Uh, obviously." Pride could practically be seen radiating off from Olivia's face. I peeked at the laptop, just in time to see a green "Login Successful!" text disappearing from the screen. The few seconds it took to fade away seemed like hours. Anxiety was building up in all three of us.

Suddenly, the screen flashed and the page finished loading. We all fought to be the first to see it, but just ended up pushing each other over. In the end, we finally found our way to the screen - and what I saw shocked me to the bone.

The screen looked like the terminal on a computer and it was filled with all sorts of symbols. Cautiously, Olivia scrolled upwards, only to find - a line saying "Element Earth is present." When we scrolled up even higher, I caught lines saying "Element Fire is present" and "Element Art is present".

"Gosh, what is this? A circus show?" I asked, rolling my eyes. "Why do they need elements?" But apparently, Aura and Olivia had both noticed something I had missed out.

"No. It's not that. I think our evidence that this is the right company has just arrived. Somehow, these elements that are present are coincidentally Emerald, Amber, and Alexa's elements, are they not?" Aura's explanation seemed to send my surroundings whirring. It was true. The girls were caught by an organization which seemed to be so much ahead of us. Their chances of escape, even with our help, were definitely pretty low.

"So... Looks like we have to go to the Waves of Marone, huh?" Aura seemed less than excited by that aspect.

"We can try, can't we? I mean, the girls are most likely there. And I feel really bad for leaving them there. Actually, I feel bad for leaving them there except Amber. She... is way too evil."

A small smile appeared on Aura's face. "You haven't seen the other side of her yet." I couldn't believe that yet.

"So, are we going or not?"

"If you wanna die, then, sure. "

"Seriously, Aura! I wanna go! We should help our friends, you know?"

"And I was kidding, you know?" I blushed a deep red. I turned away, clearing my throat.

"I'll try my best to control the water. But... will it really take very long? There's a chance the girls are already there, and something bad is happening to them this moment."

"Well, it might even take three weeks if you're not careful enough. There's still a slim chance we can make it in two or three days if we get the direction of the tide and wind right. And that also means you need to have excellent control over the waters. But..." Aura looked around Emerald's garden, as if trying to find something. She frowned and went out of the room. She led Olivia and I back into Emerald's bedroom.