The Elements

Chapter 21 - The Final Battle

"Wait, Em! Don't touch!" Aura screamed, running over to her, with me right behind her. I took a peek at the greenish-liquid sloshing around in the bottle, with a label on it, "ELEMENT - FIRE. WORKS ON CONTACT WITH SKIN. WARNING: WORK IN PROGRESS. MAY OR MAY NOT WORK."

"Why not?" Em looked at us questioningly, withdrawing her outstretched hand.

"Because it sets off an alarm!" I beat Aura to the answer. "I touched one of the vials before you came, and we nearly got discovered."

"Uhh... Then how are we gonna get this back to Amber if we can't touch it?"

"Wait - how about I lift it up in the air with my element?" Aura suggested - but I immediately realised something.

"That won't work," I interrupted. "It doesn't set off the alarm upon contact with the bottle, so if I hold it like this" - I wrapped my hand around it - "nothing will happen. But the alarm will set off when I lift the bottle up - when it detects the bottle lifting up from the table. I know because it happened to me just now."

"Oh, umm... Can Olivia turn off the alarm or something?" Emerald asked.

"I don't think so. Apparently it went out of control or something just now," I shrugged.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Nobody had the answer to that question.

"Ugh, why are we always this close to the answer, but never actually get it in everything we do?" Everyone ignored my complaint.

"Wait!" An idea suddenly popped into my head out of nowhere - but I have to admit, these kinds of ideas are usually terrible. "I was thinking... How about we just take the bottle and flee back to Amber and Alexa?"

"Uhh, I thought that was the last thing we should do. People will come in, and they will get us - or worse, follow us to the rooms until all of us are found out," Emerald protested.

"It might be the last thing we should do, but all the other options are ruled out, so now it becomes the first thing we should do, right?" I joked, earning no smiles. "No, I mean, there won't be a lot of people - the last time it was just one guy and Aura could handle him, no problem. And even if there are more people this time - which I don't see the reason for - we can just run back to Amber and Alexa, then escape. I mean, we were planning that in the first place, right?"

"There are a lot of holes in your logic. For example, there are definitely gonna be more people this time, since I'm sure they know there's something wrong going on here - the guy they sent mysteriously disappeared and they can't find him, right? And, we can't handle all of them, because there's no more Element Removers in this room. So it's three of us against a ton of other people, with elements as well," Emerald pointed out, with a sigh. "But that's really our only choice, isn't it?"

"Wait, wait, wait - we're following Pear's spontaneous plan just because it's our only option?" Aura raised an eyebrow. "If we can't even survive this, then it's not an option at all!"

"Then, you give a better plan," I challenged.

"No, I just meant that we should make your plan a bit more advanced. Like, say we flee back to the girls, give Amber this vial, and she gets her element back, then what? We'll have an entire team of people chasing after us!" Aura explained.

"Uhh... I mean, it's not guaranteed there's a lot of people. Come on, let's just do this impromptu, okay? We can't waste time arguing here when the girls could very well be discovered right now - and a team of people may be making their way here," I finished.

"Okay, fine. Who runs the fastest here?" Aura asked.

"Pretty sure we have to go at the same pace, or else people at the back will get caught," I argued.