Flame Touch

Chapter 25-Knox

I breathed in deeply as I shot another blazing arrow into the wall of ice in front of us.

About half an hour since we had split up, a giant ice wall had appeared in front of us. One moment we were walking in the dark the next we all bumped our noses on a wall of ice that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Two more steps and we might have been a part of that ice wall. As a result, we spent the last half an hour trying to break through it. It should have been easy as pie since we had two Luminosity people. I mean, c’mon, fire beats ice every time right? That’s what I thought, but the problem was that Semba, though from Luminosity, worked with wind. And there is no wind in a cave of snow.

“Can’t you use my breath as wind?” I complained as I shot arrow after blazing arrow into the wall of ice. A small hole finally got through it, but I was a lot bigger than a small hole. I looked at Semba hopefully, but he just shook his head. I sighed and turned my gaze to Sunny, “What about that thing you did with your spoon in your dorm?” I asked. In the time that we were walking Sunny had told me all about her freak-out in the Libra dormitory, but she shook her head too. She had also explained that she had no idea how she did the thing with the spoon, so I was left to melt down the ice wall.

“Surely you can do something besides shoot arrows right?” yawned Semba. I turned on my heels.

“No! Why would you think that?” I snapped back.

Semba seemed surprised at my outburst and didn’t say anything. I turned back to the ice wall as I felt my face get warm. The truth was that I probably could have melted the ice wall down with those weird blue flames, but I felt like I should keep it a secret. Five minutes past and that feeling evaporated. Why should I keep it a secret? I asked myself We’re not going to be better off anyway. Nevertheless, I called out to Semba and Sunny, “Looks like we’re going to be here for a while, why don’t you two try to find some other way around the ice wall?” They agreed surprisingly quickly, and as soon as I was sure that their footsteps were far enough away, I took a deep breath, “Ok flames, now or never.” I closed my eyes and focused on them and the mark on my arm.

The result was almost immediate.

Blue flames surrounded me, and this time I noticed that they were on the palms of my hands too. I reached out and touched the ice wall, hoping for it to start shrinking.

It started growing.

No no no. Not cold, hot. Get hot flames. Hot hot hot. I thought frantically, trying to imagine another half an hour of arrow shooting. Amazingly, the fire responded to me and I felt myself melting into the ice block as a cold puddle grew around me. After about five minutes, I was done.

“And thank goodness for that.” I said extinguishing the flames and gazing at my work happily. Another ten minutes (or so) passed and Semba and Sunny came plodding towards me again.

“There’s no ruddy exit, I can’t even see a thing in the darkness. There’s no glowing path to show me an exit. At this rate we’ll be stuck here until-,” Sunny finally looked up from her grumbling to see the massive hole in the ice, “Whoa! You sure got busy fast!” she exclaimed and went through the hole, “And on the other side is -*gasp*-more snow!” she said with fake enthusiasm and continued along the path without a question. Unfortunately, Sunny wasn’t the only one I was with.

“Care to explain, Knox?” Semba asked as he eyed the melted ice suspiciously, “This couldn’t possibly have been your arrows, right?”

“You were right. I can do more than shoot arrows.” I replied icily.

“Oh really? Then you’ve gained some new powers! Let’s see them!”

“I was angry at the time; they only come when I’m angry.”

“What only comes?” Sunny asked, annoyed that we hadn’t followed her.

“The thing I used to melt the-” But I couldn’t finish my sentence, “Oh my gosh.” I muttered, beckoning for Sunny to come closer to me. Semba gave me an exasperated look, like I had intentionally meant to change the subject, but I didn’t pay attention to him. I was looking in the ice.

A pale boy, about sixteen or seventeen, with snow white hair and cold green eyes (well, I’m pretty sure they were green judging from the miniscule amount of light provided from my bow), was trapped a tense position in the ice. His eyes were wide opened and his hands were guarding his face as if to fend off an attack. I heard a sharp intake of breath as Sunny whispered, “Can you get him out Knox?” and I sighed regrettably. So much for trying to keep a secret. Semba finally got his proud butt over to where we were gawking at and his mouth hung open.

“Knox, if there’s a time for you to get angry. I think now is the time.” He whispered and after he tried to provoke me a couple times, I finally gave in and told them about the blue flames and the eye-burning thing and all that good stuff. After I told my tale, Sunny nodded like it all made sense now (so that’s why your eyes were glowing) and Semba looked slightly annoyed that I hadn’t told them earlier.

“Why on earth would you keep that a secret?” he asked furiously and I just shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. The blue flames I had used to melt the ice made sucked the energy out of me, and that was just trying to blow a hole through something. Trying to get a person out of ice without burning them? Not fun. I sighed as Semba continued to berate me and I put my palms on the ice.

“You guys had better stand back.” I said and I placed my hands on the ice and concentrated, which was quite hard when I could hear Semba still muttering a few yards back. This time, the flames came a little slower, but were still as powerful as they were the first time. I grinned in satisfaction when I heard Semba’s cry of shock when the flames erupted under me, causing the whole cave to illuminate with an eerie blue colour. I carefully tried to work my way around the boy’s body and was afraid that I was too late and that he was dead already. It was tedious work. Imagine trying to reorder a picture by selecting all the pixels one at a time. It took about half an hour for me to finally work him out and melt off all the ice on his body. He finally laid in front of us without a speck of snow on him and I was relieved to hear breathing. I heard Sunny’s voice catch in her throat and I turned towards her, “Why? What’s the matter?” Sunny shook her head wildly and poked a finger towards the boy.

“His aura is black!” she squeaked, “That’s bad. Like, really bad.”

“I think he looks familiar.” Semba said scrunching up his eyebrows in confusion. The boy finally started to come through and life sprang into his glassy eyes.

“Ugh,” he started, “Where the hell am I? Oh man, that ice wall was so bloody pure. I feel like I’ve been hit with a ton of bricks.”

“Uh, hello. Who are you?” I asked timidly and he looked up as if noticing us for the first time. He squinted through now darkish cave. “Uh. We come in peace?” I added, feeling a bit foolish. The boy grinned and got to his feet.

“Oh, you must be the one who saved me. Thanks for that by the way, that ice was awful. You must be the people I’m looking for!”

“Uhhh….”

“Well,” he continued, “Since you’re the one who freed me from the ice, you must be Knox. And your friends are Sunny and Semba right?”

“Uhhhh…”

“Wonderful! I’m Caprin,” he smiled jovially, “And don’t try anything funny, you’re surrounded.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Why didn’t you tell me he was Capricorn?” I groaned as we were marched through the darkness by a couple of those invisible bug things that had attacked us at the cafeteria.

“Well I wasn’t able to react very quickly seeing as you started melting him right away.” Semba growled.

“It took me thirty minutes and you couldn’t say anything at that time?”

“Excuse me for not wanting to get singed by your blue flames that, by the way, I just learned

about!”

“Well then excuse me for trying to save someone I thought was innocent!”

“What innocent guy ends up in a block of ice in MOUNT EVEREST?!”

KREEETTT!! Screeched the bug marching us along and both Semba and I yelled at it to shut up.