Chapter 4
Our own personal Wind Mill
I nodded to Jack and grabbed Nico’s arm to bring him to the center of our little circle as well. He hesitated and looked at Garret before coming with me. He didn’t seem to trust me that much, that, or he didn’t want to leave Garret.
Jennifer was still in the air and I couldn’t do anything to bring her down, and frankly I didn’t want to. She would be safer up there anyway.
As soon as we were out of the way Jack set all the men on fire. I stared in awe at the site; it was somehow beautiful, in that strange life threatening way. For a second I actually thought I wouldn’t need to help. Then I realized that the men were almost unaffected by it.
After the initial shock of being on fire, they just continued to come closer. How they did it I don’t know but they were fireproof. Then the ground beneath them started shaking and large portions of the cement gave way to huge boulders coming out of the ground and crashing into the men. I looked over at Garret and saw him concentrating on the earth. His gift must be earth, I got the hunch that Nico’s gift was also earth. So far, Jennifer and I had each gotten a protector with the same gift, so maybe Nico’s was the same too.
In the few seconds it took to figure this out, I also figured out that no matter how much Jack says he can handle this, he can’t. Kayla had started using the air to blow men to great heights and drop them. But even the 3 of them combined couldn’t take care of all of them. Jack was still only relying on his hand-to-hand combat because his gift is useless against them, and Garret was visibly worn down. It seems using your gift takes some of your energy.
“Alec, we’ve got to help them!” Nico whispered in my ear.
“I agree with Nico,” Jennifer said suddenly appearing on my other side.
“I think so too, but we need a plan, we can’t just march in there and start fighting up against 20 guys, twice our size.” I countered.
They thought about this for a moment and then Jennifer said, “Can any of you fight?”
Nico and I shook our heads and I almost thought I saw Jennifer role her eyes, “Well, I don’t see what you can do Alec, these guys are fireproof, but I can help Kayla and Nico can help Garret,”
I didn’t like this plan, mostly because I didn’t get to do anything, but at least it was something, “Ok if you think it will work,”
She nodded and then lifted off the ground saying, “Good luck to both of you,” then she turned and started hurling men in black into the air.
I turned to Nico, about to wish him good luck, when I saw the nervous look on his face, that’s when I realized he had never used his gift before. I couldn’t help him because I hadn’t used mine either, well voluntarily. I didn’t know what to do so I just encouraged him, “Nico you can do this, I’m sure as soon as you figure it out, it will be like second nature.”
He looked at me and almost smiled at my poor attempt to help, “I know, I just don’t know if I can hurt these people, I mean I know their trying to hurt us, but they are just doing their job.”
I hadn’t thought of it from that angle, I frowned in concentration. I hadn’t thought of Nico as that type, he looked almost goth to anyone just meeting him, the way his black hair swooped down over his eyes. I pushed the thought away and concentrated, looking up at the fight and noticed something shining under a pile of rubble. Looking closer I found it was a piece of metal, then realizing what it was attached to, got an idea.
“They’re all robots!” I said aloud. Nico looked at me then at the men, and recognition spread across his face.
“Thanks, I think I can do this now,” he was about to join the fight when I grabbed his arm, “No that’s not what I meant, I meant they are made out of metal, they’re brains are little computers, if we used an energy source we could somehow make them all overheat!”
This time he got what I meant, “What about wind energy? They use it all the time to power stuff. Do you think Jennifer could do that?” He called Jennifer over and she reluctantly left Kayla’s side to join us.
“What’s going on?” She asked as she landed. We explained our theory and she thought for a while before answering us.
“I’m not sure, I have no idea how to use the wind as energy. I’m still learning how to simply control it. But I guess I could try.”
I grinned and she turned around, this time staying on the ground. She held out her hand and made air swirl around it, extremely fast. Her other hand tightening into a fist and her eyes closed in concentration; the ball of air began to grow. In a matter of seconds it was the size of a car tire. Then she whispered, “duck,” and as Nico and I scrambled to lay down fast enough, her eyes flew open and her hand went stiff. A huge burst of power flew from her and sent an electric current through the air. I swear they could probably here the sonic boom in Minnesota right now. All the robots overpowered and fell to the ground, but so did Jennifer, Jack, and Garret.
The only people still conscious were Nico, Kayla and I, Nico and I were only awake because we ducked, and Kayla must have been awake because her gift was also air, but she was still extremely worn out from using her gift. She lowered to the ground and staggered towards us. She almost collapsed on top of us, but we steadied her. She knelt next to Jennifer and put one hand on her head, and the other on her heart.
She left her hands there for a few seconds then let out a breath I was unaware she was holding. She looked up at us and said, “She’s still alive, but she won’t wake up for at least a few more hours. Her body needs time to recuperate after that.”
Nico and I both instantly understood, that Kayla was not happy with our decision to use wind energy, but she couldn’t say anything against it because we had just saved her life.
She looked back at us and said, “Alec go set Jack on fire, Nico cover Garret in earth.”
I stared at her, mortified that she would even think about such a thing. She seemed to read my expression and said, “It will regenerate them enough to wake up so we can find out what to do, don’t worry they won’t get hurt,”
Finally understanding I went over and sat by Jack. I placed one hand on his head, and one on his heart like I had seen Kayla do and envisioned his heart and brain burning. I felt warmth under my fingertips, but when I looked down nothing had happened, then I remembered something that Jack had said, “I didn’t burn up because I’m like you Alec, I have the gift of fire, I’m fireproof,”
I kept concentrating on fire and soon enough his eyelids fluttered open and he looked up at me with bewildered eyes.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Jennifer sent an electric charge through the air and it knocked you out,” I said hoping he wouldn’t be mad.
He chuckled then said, “Go Jenny! Where is she now?”
I looked down not wanting to answer this question, feeling like it was my fault, “She fell unconscious like the rest of you, I guess she used to much energy,”
Jack frowned, “Then I guess she’ll be out for a while,”
