Elementals

Chapter 3

About halfway to the city one of the wheels to the wagon jerked loose causing the wagon to nearly tip over. Jerome gets the horses to stop as Ro and Alisa check out what happened to the wheel. "How did that happen?" Ro asked as he observes the large dent in the wheel. "I don't think we ran over anything." Jerome says letting go of the reins and walking over to inspect the detached wheel with the others. "Do you hear something?" Alisa asks as the boys both pause and hear a faint rustling noise. "Bandits!" Jerome yells as he runs for the horses but he's too late as he finds himself blown back into Alisa and Ro knocking them both to the ground. Two skinny silhouettes suddenly fly out of the trees and onto the gang's wagon and snap the reins. As the horses take off Alisa jumps to her feet before kneeling.

. "That was my dad's wagon." She mumbles to herself. "I won't let them have it." Her face hardens as she takes off into a full sprint followed by Ro and Jerome after the wagon. "Before it leaves our sight we have to stop it." Jerome says frantically. Ro looks at Alisa. "Can I?" She nods. "Gotcha." Ro shoots a black ray of darkness at the second wheel and knocks it off slowing the cart considerably allowing them to catch up on foot.

One of the bandits just onto the roof to defend the wagon as the other one tries to free the horses for a quick escape. Alisa speeds up as she nears her target. "Now it's my time to show my power." she says as she fires herself into the air and is met by the second bandit midflight. "You must not be very smart to challenge an air elemental to an air battle huh?" He yells during his approach. "It doesn't matter." She says with a smile as she brings her foot around and kicks in a wide arc full of flames. "Darkness type!" The bandit yells in surprise as he's yanked to the ground by a dark hand and slammed into the ground.

"We're here too you know." Ro says standing a ways back as Alisa lands on the bandit's chest and begins her pursuit of the first bandit who by now has freed the horses and left the wagon for scrap. "Jeez, he could've left at least one horse" Ro says as Alisa stops running and sits on the ground next to her discarded cart. Jerome drags the leftover bandit's body over to where Alisa sits and unmasks him. "Well at least we got one of them." he says. "Now we have no food" Ro points out. "I vote we take this guy's clothes and sell them like in the RPG games." Alisa looks to Ro and Jerome. "But what about my father's cart?" "We have to leave it." Jerome says. "Luckily there's nothing valuable in there that we have to carry but memories." Alisa looks at the unconscious bandit and burns his face with her magic and stands up. "Fine, but when we get the money we'll come back here and repair it." "Cool with me." Ro says as he and Jerome strip and search the bandit. "Let's go."

They arrive on the outskirts of the city at dusk when the last of the sun's rays disappear below the horizon. "So where are we gonna sleep?" Ro asks. "All we got for that guys stuff was ten silver coins." "Well there's an inn for five that Alisa can stay in. We can just sleep outside." Jerome offers. "No, I'll get the room and you guys sneak up." Alisa decides. "I'll signal when I'm in." Alisa walks into the inn as Ro and Jerome walk around the hotels surrounding area awaiting her signal. Ro spots a poster on the wall and shows it to Jerome. "Dude this is perfect for getting to the capital. We gotta show her."

A quick flash of light is seen from one of the inn's windows. "Looks like that's the one." Jerome says leading the way as Alisa opens the window gesturing for them to hurry up. Ro shoots Jerome up to the second floor window with his magic and follows himself. "I only got us one night because we need the other five coins for food." Alisa says. "That's fine." Ro says retrieving the poster. "Cuz we got this." "Kings Elemental Tournament." She reads. "Winning team joins the kings army in the capital as an elite squad. You want to join the king's army?" "Why not? It's the easiest way to get to the capital and we get free food." "Well what makes you think we're going to win? The best elementals will want to enter this." Jerome asks. Ro smiles. "Ever since I got to this world it's been like I have plot armor or something. We'll be fine." "You guys are forgetting the most important thing." Alisa points out. "We need five members to enter. There are only three of us and the tournament is in two days." "Oh...right. Well worse comes to worse we could pull some random two people and use our power to make up for them. It'll be perfect training for our final battle."