Through the Fire and the Flames (The Ember Chronicles Book 1)

Chapter 29- Elliot

Elliot’s pov.

The guy throws his steaming hot water at me and I let it hit its mark. I fall to the ground a scream out. He jumps up in victory and does a little dance.

"I took down a real hero!" He exclaims.

Time to bust his bubble.

"Argh!" I scream.

"I'm wet! Do you have any idea how long leather takes to dry?"

I stand up and glare at him, a playful glint in my eyes.

"B-but... How?" He stutters.

"Let me walk you through this. I fire man. You water man. You use hot water of fire man to burn him. BURN him. Fire man uses fire. Fire is hot. Fire man no get burned. To fire man, you just use water. No hot. Got it?" I say as if talking to a stupid person.

Realization passes over his face as it dawns in him that he just can't win.

"Now," I start. You can let me go... Or I can burn you down. Your choice. He steps aside making a surrendering gesture with his hands. I remake the fire wall and run the rest of the way to the research lab.

While I am looking for Soal, I get the message from Tate saying he found her.

So much for being her hero. Oh well.

Okay. Apparently I missed something in the plan that said bring someone back with you.

Noah now has Soal in his arms and a black haired boy and a brown haired boy stand off to the side.

"Come on guys. We got some research to do." Alex says as he closes the file Noah had recently given him.

We run the way back to the exit, blocking of all other hallways so we can't be followed. 

We finally make it out and pile into the car bringing the two boys with us.

Once we are a safe distance away, I turn to start questioning them.

"So, first question. Who the heck are you and what are you doing here?"

The brown haired boy is the first to answer.

"I'm Brandon. Alex brought me."

"I'm Rain" the black haired boy is much quieter and I have to lean in to hear him.

"Noah brought me."

"Okay. What can you do?"

"I'm a sorcerer."

"I'm not sure what I can do."

I stare at Rain in shock.

"What do you mean? You don't know?"

He shrugs.

"I dunno. I just do whatever people around me can do." He mumbles and looks at the floor.

"Just like Soal." I say more to myself than anyone else. A boy shows up looking just like Soal and had the same power as her? What could it mean?

"We're here." Announces Alex from the front, breaking me out of my trance.

We climb out of the overly cramped car and walk to Noah's front door. Once inside we plop onto the sofas and resume our questionings.

"So, Brandon. How did you end up in that place?" Asks Alex.

"I was taken." He replies, taking a shaky breath.

"They took me from my home and experimented on me. I woke up one day and they took me to this place where they trained me to use my powers. I didn't even know I had powers."

"How old we're you when this happened?"

"Twelve."

"Had you had any prior events happen that would lead you to believe you were a wizard?"

He shook his head.

"Well that's weird." Says Alex.

"What is," asks Brandon, panic setting in on his face.

"Well, normally you know you are a wizard before your seventh birthday. I've never heard of a case like this."

"What did they experiment on you for?" Asks Noah.

He shrugs again.

"All I know is that I woke up being able to do things I couldn't do before."

"I wonder....." Starts Elliot. 

"What if they, like, programmed the power into you? Like, they changed you genes or something."

Alex looks thoughtful.

"That makes sense, though I didn't know you could do that. All these powers are is a mutation in your DNA. I guess it might be possible to alter it. It wouldn't be easy, though."

"But why would they want Soal?" Asks Noah.

"Umm..." Rain interjects quietly, still looking at the floor.

At that exact moment, Soal shoots up and starts looking around frantically. She finally relaxes when she sees us.

"Oh, thank god. You guys found me." She breaths heavily as and runs over to hug Noah. 

"Of course we did, sis. Tate found you, to be exact." He smiles.

"Thanks Tate." She turns to give each of us a hug, stopping dead when she notices Brandon and Rain.

"Who are you?" She asks.

"Uh...... Hi. I'm Brandon. And this is..."

"Rain." 

"Does someone care to explain to me what's going on."

Alex gives her a quick recap of what happened.

"So," Noah starts. "If we're all back up to speed, I'd still like to know why they wanted Soal."

"Well," mumbles Rain. He takes a shaky breath and continues.

"When I was there, I overheard things. There was probably a guy with super hearing around or something. Anyway, they're planning on making an army of super kids. But something's holding them back. They are trying to make the kids able to do everything, but genes aren't meant to change that many times to transplant each individual power into them. So they need three people, me being one of them. They said they need a sample of our DNA to see how we are able to copy others. If what you say about her powers is true, then I think Soal is another of the three they need." He looks back at the ground, his face turning red. 

As everyone is taking time to process this information, I'm already way past that point. There's only one thing on my mind. 

That's the most I've ever heard him say at one time.