Elemental (Cisco Ramon)

Prolouge

14 Years Ago

I was walking home from school with Iris, trying to find my brother, Barry. He was in class with me today, but I have not seen him since the school day was over. I was lost in my thoughts, not paying attention to the outside world at all. I wonder where he is, there is no... "Cami! Cami!" Iris cuts off my thoughts while shaking my shoulder. I quickly look at her.

"What is it?" I ask suddenly completely aware of my surroundings. She points right in front of me and I gasp. How did I not see him run past. Right before me, Barry is being shoved to the ground and beat up by a bunch of kids that look about a year older than us. I immediately run into the middle of the circle of boys that are beating up my brother, push them away, and pull Barry to his feet. The boys stand behind the leader and give me and my twin hateful glares, which I return. They all step a little closer, so I stand in front of Barry, trying to shield him to the best of my abilities.

The leader starts to laugh. "Wow Allen. You need a girl to stand up for you?" His posse starts to chuckle. Barry just looks at me, telling me with his eyes that I don't need to stand up for him. I don't listen. The leader walks closer. "Come on sweetheart, just move out of the way." I stand my ground and narrow my eyes. He starts to walk a little closer and stands in front of me, looking down slightly since I am a couple inches shorter than he is. He looks me in the eyes, most likely trying to intimidate me. But, I still stand my ground. "Out of my way." He growls harshly.

"No." I snarl with even more venom. I can see the anger in his eyes, he looks really angry. Suddenly his hands are on me and I'm shoved to the ground a couple feet away from Barry. I can hear both him and Iris gasp, but not because of the fact that this dude just shoved me to the ground, but because they know how I get when things like this happen. But clearly these boys do not, since one of them had the smart idea to shove me to the ground. The leader is over by Barry kicking him while his friends just stand by and watch. I glance at Iris, and it looks like she is begging me not beat this kid into a pulp. To bad.

I quickly get up and run towards my brother. "Leave him alone!" I scream. He ignores me. I keep on running until I get to them and I shove him away from my brother, so hard he falls to the ground. He and his friends stand there shocked. I look back at Barry. "You okay?" He quickly nods and I look at his bruised eye. As I inspect it I see them focus on something behind me and go wide. Iris is yelling for me to turn around. As I turn I see that the boy has gotten off his butt and started to walk towards me angrily. His hand is clenched into a ball and it looks like he is about to punch me. My worry for my brother is quickly replaced by rage. I walk up to him and he tries to punch me, but I instantly duck. Was he never taught that its rude for a guy to hit a girl? I spring back up instantly, the anger written all over my face and I punch him as hard as I can. The force of my punch knocked him onto his back and I strode over to stand beside his face. Bending down I whispered into his ear. When I got up again he looked like he was about to pee himself. Good. Iris walks over to me and grabs Barry's hand and we make our way back to our house.

Barry looks over at me. "You know, you didn't have to do that. I could have handled it." Iris bursts into laughter. I send a friendly glare her way, making her stop. I just look at my brother and I can tell that he was worried about me.

"Don't worry about me Bare, I can handle it. Besides, did you see all of their faces when I knocked him down? That was priceless." I start to laugh, remembering how scared of me they were.

"But its my job to take care of you! Your my little sister! You should not be taking care of me." He looks down ashamed. Why can't he understand that I will always be there for him and that I will always take care of him.

"Your older than me by seven minutes. Cool it bro."

"She's right Barry. I'm pretty sure that means that means that it doesn't matter." Iris adds. Barry just sighs and looks at both of us, clearly upset that she took my side. I walk over to him and link my arm in his. Iris looks at where we are at. "Well this is where we gotta split. See you guys tomorrow at school!" She waves to us as she walks away towards her house. I link my arm in Barry's and we continue on our path home.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:

My mom is nursing Barry and making sure that I am not wounded. She isn't really happy about the black eye, but she hides it pretty well. "Tell me what happened." She asks us both.

Barry looks up at her, while I keep my eyes on the ground. She wont be to happy when she hears about what I did to that kid. "Those guys were picking on kids. Just cause they thought they weren't cool. It wasn't right." Barry looks down after his confession. So that's why they were beating him up. My brother stood up for someone else. I felt so proud of him.

"I know." My mother nods. Barry looks up at her shocked, but then his face morphs into sadness.

"I guess I wasn't fast enough." Barry looks down at the ground again and I grab his hand trying to comfort him.

"No. You have such a good heart, Barry. And it's better to have a good heart than fast legs." Barry and I smile, but mine falls when my mom looks over at me. "Please tell me you didn't do what I think you did." She asks. I just smile nervously, Barry squeezes my hand and gives me a small smile. "Well at least you didn't start it this time," mom sighs "Although I would prefer that you didn't go and beat up boys."

"He deserved it mom. Besides, he swung first." My mom just looks at me in shock, she has never heard of a boy at my school trying to hit a girl. The door in the foyer slams shut.

"Hello. I'm home." My dad walks into the room and stops when he sees me and Barry.

"Barry and Cami both got into a fight." She looks at him.

"Oh yeah?" My dad asks extremely interested now.

"And they both won."

Dad walks behind mom. "Ah, way to go slugger.  And I suspect that you stuck up for your brother?  Good job my little Guardian Angel." He smiles. Mom slowly turns around and glares at him, but you can tell she is amused. "Oh, and uh no more fighting." We all smile. "Mh-hmm." he then goes down and pecks mom on the lips while me and Barry look at each other and smile. Mom puts a hand on each of our cheeks and rubs them with her thumb, smiling.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:

I hear a crash come from downstairs and bolt up in bed. The water in the fish tank in my room starts to float. Barry comes into my room and drags me out and we head downstairs. My mom is in the middle of a red and yellow blur screaming dads name. "Mom! Mom!" Barry and I yell. I cant move. Dad runs in and stops, shocked. He just stares at mom. Then he pushes me and Barry behind him and starts yelling moms name.

"Barry, Camden, go!" Mom yells.

"Mom!" We both yell back. We have no idea whats going on, we only know that our mom is in danger. "Mom! Mom!"

Mom and Dad scream each others names again. "Nora! Run, kids, run!" he yells. We just stand there petrified. Suddenly we are whisked out of the house and are left alone on the street. I look over at Barry and he looks over at me, we are both wide eyed.

"Mom? Dad?" Barry and I yell while looking around. We look at each other one last time before running back home as fast as we can.