The Power Stones

(6) Fire (where the story gets interesting)

Alex's life had been so perfect, now she stood at the rubble of her house. Her family was dead, her friends were gone, she had nothing left. How did it come to this you might ask, well it all started three weeks ago when the event was still going strong.

Alex was getting tired of it. It had been three weeks since the event had started and there were still five players left. The number had been slowly dropping over the past two weeks until the third week where there was a spike in deaths due to AJ's new gang.

Carl stumbled across Steven and Alex in the woods and almost lost his life. After that incident he had his younger brother AJ join the event. At first the admins were against it but evenly they got bored and decided that adding a new player might get the event to run faster, plus they were feeling a little bit munificent. Carl also recruited a girl named Meg. AJ and Carl were exploring the woods when they found Meg getting double teamed.

They were going to try and help her but to their surprise she decimated the players. After this act of strength they decided to recruit her. With the three best players on one team nowhere safe, Steven and Alex learned this the hard way. After completing a starter base they went off to the mines to gather supplies only to come back to the burnt down ruins of their old home. From then on they had just been wandering.

This is how they discovered AJs castle. Before we go on, I'm going to make this simpler to follow. Carl is using AJ's account so his name is AJ. AJ is using his alt account so his name is Master. Meg's name is just meg. So when I say AJ I mean Carl from now on. Alex and Steven were just exploring when they found a large castle in the middle of the woods. Wondering who dwelt there they cautiously made their way in.

They went through a large entryway up a narrow flight of stairs into yet another corridor that emptied them out into a large room. There were three large pillars on each side of the room and a small throne in the middle. On the throne sat AJ. he appeared to be sleeping so as quietly as they possibly could, they snuck up to him. They planned to kill him in his sleep but when they were within eight meters of him he suddenly opened his eyes, drew out his sword and walked toward them.

Steven and Alex thought they could take him but from behind the throne came out Meg and Master. Steven took AJ while Alex pulled out a second sword and fought both Master and Meg. What they didn't know was that their arrival was anticipated. Alex was forced into a hallway that had a dead end while Stephen was lured into what could very well end him.

Alex was now cornered, plus she had a headache from all that screen time. It looked like this was the end of the line until she realized the wall behind her was a window. She calculated that it was a thirty food drop from the window to the ground which she should be able to survive. With all the energy she had left she lept.

Meanwhile the fight was going well for Steven. He had finally cornered the elusive AJ into a corner and he thought that he could get him to be subservient. Right as Stevenn kept at him AJ pulled down on a concealed lever on the wall releasing Stevenn into a deep pit. It was a miracle that he survived.

Alex was still recovering from the fall when she saw a large intimidating blimp emerge from the castle grounds. It flew away to the east and Alex immediately pursued it.

One of the event's admens saw all that transpired decided the fasted way to end the event was to get Alex on that blimp because if they fought then the event would finally be over and they could get on with the rest of the season, so he teleported to Alex and gave her a set of wings also known as a elitra.

Ajs team never saw it coming, first thing they knew they were on top of the world, next they were crashing to the ground. Alex had snuck onboard and freed Steven and together they had pushed Master of the blimp where he fell to his death, then Alex jumped off and Meg followed using her own set of wings that she paid extra to have. Alex juiced Meg out, smashing her into the blimp punching a hole in it and killing meg. The confused AJ came out of the cockpit only to see Alex holding Steven jumping off the blimp that was now spirling down toward the world below.

At some point a fuel valve exploded causing the blimp to light on fire. AJ saw that he had lost and slowly walked back to his throne(He made it on the blimp) and sat down to ponder what had transpired for this was all very profound. His face was very ingenious, for he was dumbfounded as to what went wrong. He decided that if he could have had a do over he would have tried to be nicer to Alex instead of sending her threats. BOOM went the blimp as it crashed into the ground, and from a safe distance away sat Alex and Steven.

Steven knew this was his chance to finally be noticed, all he had to do was kill Alex. Instead though he remembered all the adventures they had had together in this game and if it was really worth it for a title. It turned out his plans were for nothing because Alex let him win because she knew he had it tougher than her and he could use some joy. It was her gift to him.

After all this they could finally get back to practice and soon after they had their first game. Alex's parents weren't able to come because they had some unintended business to attend to. bSteven made sure to put Alex in, but midway through the game it was when it all started. "Fire!" someone shouted followed by screams from people in the crowd. Sure enough a huge dark black pillar of smoke rose up into the sky.

"That's near my house" yelled Alex. "Where are you going?" said Steven. "Home" said Alex glibly. Alex ran all the way home only to find her house in flames with six fire trucks trying to put out the raging inferno. As Alex gazed with horror at the burning house two suspicious looking men walked over to her "You live here?" said one of them brusquely. What a funny accent Alex thought when she heard him, for it sounded like a mix of German and russian.

"No, no I don't live here" she reciprocated sharply, not any more thought Alex. "Very well" said the other, and with that he walked away from the scene. Alex was glad the conversation had ended quickly for the men were not very affable. After the fire was put out and everyone had left, Alex decided to inspect the debris. All she could find was a large red trench coat along with a hat. "How funny that everything here is burnt to a crisp while mothers old coat is hardly touched" explained Alex.

She dusted it off and wrapped it around herself. She then looked up and down the streets as if expecting to see her family come around the corner but no one came. With a tear filled face she walked away.

The game was curtailed because of the danger of fire which allowed Steven to break away from the game to follow Alex but by the time he reached her house she was already long gone and some officers had arrived. "What happened here" questioned Steven ''It's a strange case, that it is' 'replied one of the officers ''It doesn't seem natural, almost as if someone did this on purpose. "Any bodies" asked Steven worriedly, "I'm afraid so, we found all members of the family but the teenaged girl." said a second officer that had just come back from surveying the scene. It was at that moment that Steven devoted his life to make an eclectic report on what happened using every source he could get and to discover the truth behind this murder.