Goraldia: The Element Wielders

4: Confrontation

It's midnight when we reached him. Icarus knew there was something wrong when a second aetherial transfer had occurred in the same day. There was evil at work. Or at least chaos. We followed the direction of the lights in the sky, clearly visible as the sun had gone down. But when the lights faded away, we had no way to track whoever it was, at least until we started hearing noise. The awful sound led us directly to a darkness temple. We would have never found it without the noise. 

Inside the darkness temple, much like the lightning temple but with more black and terribly broken, another teen lay on the ground, writhing around. We dared not get close to him, for shadowy spikes were appearing around him sporadically, and the screech was already unbearable from this far away. But a few seconds later, everything goes quiet, and he is stationary. As he lays there, I get to look at him. It was hard to remember, but I knew this person. 

With great realization, I stutter, "E... Eric?"

Eric gets up with the help of the shadows. He lifts his head to me and opens his eyes. "There is no Eric here. I am Airic. And you will regret meeting me," he states, a second, dark voice repeating what he says. At that moment I realize in horror that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had control over the darkness, and it was pitch black.

Airic launches out, anger in his face. A giant shadow fist punches Icarus in the torso and sends him flying. "ICARUS!" I shout. Airic sends three shadow spears at me. That moment, the power of lightning fills me and I move hundreds of times faster than I should have. My body gives off occasional sparks as I dodge the shadows. Even at the speed of lightning, The shadows traveled absurdly fast. I guess it's true: nothing is faster than light. Had it not been for my speed, I would have been skewered by literally nothing.

Once past the third spear, I got pushed back by a wave of sound. It hurt my ears by how loud it was, but the effect was more of a distraction. Once the wave blew past me, I look back only to find an empty temple. Eric - no, Airic had escaped.

"ICARUS!" I yell. "ICARUS WHERE ARE YOU?!" I charge back in the direction he was flung.

"I'm over here," I hear him grunt. I run over to him. 

"No real damage, right?" I ask panicky. 

"Don't worry, I'm fine," he assures me. "But where did Airic go?"

"I lost him. But I don't think I could do anything anyways," I say. "He was seriously powerful."

"Ohhhhh no," Icarus says. "Ohhhhhhh noooooo. Oh man. We just let a powerful and very evil enemy out of our reach. Oh god, he could do anything. We need a resistance force. We can't let him harm anyone." Icarus seems very troubled.

"We can't do anything about it right now. Right now, I need a place to stay. After the extra energy I used today, I need to sleep," I plead.

"R...Right.... Uh, there's an empty lodge a little ways past the village," Icarus tells me. "You can use your speed to run past the village, while I take the lake. The lodge is hard to miss. I can meet you there."

"Ok. That will work," I think out loud. 

"Just watch out for the hunting party. They should be out searching right now."

"Thank you, I'll be careful."

And so, Icarus and I part for a little time until we meet again at the cabin. It is one room, with a broken door and dirty walls, but there are beds there. "Hey Ic," I say, " do you have any food around here? I haven't eaten since I got here in the morning."

Icarus responds, "I normally just get fish from the lake. Would that be ok?"

"Yeah. I can start a fire," I tell him.

"Then I'll be back in a short while. Be careful."

"I'll be on the lookout."

Icarus hikes off to the lake. Just me, again, I think as I watch him trudge off. Better set up that fire. I head into the forest to find tinder, because the cabin was stocked about half full of firewood before it was abandoned. 

Back with plenty of supplies, I set the sticks in a crossing pattern, and add tinder to the bottom. Don't go too crazy with the lightshow, I think as i bend down to light the fire.  I put my two index fingers in the middle from either side. Here goes, I think. I send a few jolts between my fingers. Sure enough, the tinder catch the sparks, and a fire is soon lit.

By the time Icarus comes back with a few fish, the fire was roaring. "Wow, nice fire," Icarus tells me. I nod appreciatively. Icarus roasts the fish on stakes, and we eat a decent meal. "Ok now I definitely need sleep," I inform Icarus as I stumble inside the cabin.

I lie down on the bed. Not too comfortable, but I guess it works, I think. I fall asleep easily and have wild dreams that night.