Elementals

Charred and Dangerous - Gale

"Woah," was the first thing out of my mouth when we pulled up in front of Egan's house.
"Yeah, Mira wasn't kidding," Brook said, leaning over me so she could see out the window. My eyes shifted to Terra, her face wore a mix of extreme discomfort and determination. It was an odd combination.
"Alright, everyone out," she said, I heard her mumble something in Italian. It didn't sound pleasant. We stopped walking at the gate.
"What now?" Brook asked.
"I could break the bars but that probably wouldn't end well for anyone," Terra said.
"Or we can just press the call button," I said, motioning to the speaker to the right of the gate.
"Oh, yeah, that works too," Terra said. I walked over and pressed the button.
"Yes?" a male voice asked. I froze. I hadn't thought that far. I looked at Terra for help. She shrugged.
"Say something," Brook whispered.
"Hello," I said. "We're here to see Egan."
"Egan is very busy with school at the moment," the voice said.
"School?" Brook asked confused.
"He is having summer tutors so that he will be ready for the new school year so unless you're his tutors I suggest you leave," the voice responded.
"But we are his new tutors," I said, not thinking.
"Oh really, and what do you teach?" the voice asked.
"Italian!" Terra said, jumping in with the only thing we could actually teach him. I silently thanked the universe for making Terra Italian.
"Dubito fortemente che, i bambini muti cercando di pasticciare con i miei piani," the voice said in a rather snottily manner I guessed from Terra's reaction.
"Mi scusi, mi prendo offesa per questo! Solo perché sono giovane non significa che io non so cosa sto facendo!" she responded angrily. The line went silent. Then a moment later the door unlocked.
"What did you say?" Brook asked.
"Mainly just told him I was offended by his assertion that just because I am young that I couldn't possibly be able to properly teach someone my own language," Terra said.
"All this from a girl who can't read English," I said. Terra glared at me. I shut up.
"How did you know he was taking Italian?" Brook asked.
"I didn't," she responded.
"Ok, but what do we do when his actual tutor shows up?" I asked.
"Wing it," she said.
"Well, you're certainly good at that," Brook said as we approached the front door. I felt like I was missing something. I went to ask Brook but she flashed me a tell-you-later look and I shut up. The door opened a moment later to reveal Egan James. I recognized him from the basketball team. He looked us up and down.
"Ok, you're not really my Italian tutor are you Terra?" he asked.
"No but I'd really like you to pretend like I am so I don't get arrested for entering a home under false pretenses," she said.
"Can you even get arrested for that?" Egan asked.
"I've been arrested for less," she said.
"Yeah, I remember," Egan said rolling his eyes. Then he looked at me and Brook.
"Ok, this is new," he said.
"If you let us in I'll gladly explain," Terra said.
"Alright, I'll bite," he said and moved out of the way so we could come in.
"Also, you may want to get rid of your actual Italian tutor, this will take a while," she said. Ok, Terra knows Egan way better than she led us to believe. We followed her as she walked by Egan who had just pulled out his phone. I heard Brook whisper something to Terra who just shrugged it off.
"All done," he said and shut the door. Immediately after I bumped into Terra who had frozen in the center of the room. When I went to asked her why she stopped I froze too. It was by far the biggest room I had ever seen. I heard Brook gasp behind me. When I looked over at Egan I could see he was hiding a blush.
"Yeah, I get that reaction a lot, and sorry about Jeffry by the way," he said.
"Who?" Terra asked, still staring up at the ceiling.
"He's our butler slash day planner," he said. "He doesn't exactly like it when I take breaks so I'd better learn how to say one thing in Italian today."
"Sei un idiota," Terra said, finally snapping back to reality. "There, you learned something."
"What does that mean?" Brook asked.
"You're an idiot," Terra said.
"Hey! Just because I don't speak- that's what it means isn't it?" Brook asked, making a 180.
"Sì," Terra said.
"Oh, I AM an idiota," Brook said sheepishly.
"Nessun argomento qui," Terra muttered.
"No argument here!" Egan exclaimed like he just won a game show.
"Corretta!" Terra responded. Egan pumped his fist in the air.
"Oh no, not another one," I groaned.
"Relax, I only know a few words, I don't really last learning any language for long, last week it was French," Egan said. "I really only know Italian because Terra likes to be snarky in languages no one can understand and I find it funnier when I know what she says."
"Wait, hold on," Brook said. "So you two are friends and Terra didn't put two and two together until now AND had to look up your address?" Brook asked.
"Well, I mean, not close friends but we run in the same circles yeah," Egan said, then did a double take. "Wait, what do you you mean "put two and two together"?"
"Yeah, maybe we should go somewhere where our every word doesn't echo through the entire house," Terra said. Egan nodded.
"We can go to my room, I've figured out how to muffle most of the sounds in there," Egan said before leading us up the stairs but when he opened the door it was clear that Egan hadn't thought this through because he panicked and shut us out.
"Does anyone else smell smoke?" Brook asked after a moment. Half a second later Terra was knocking on Egan's door screaming "Open up fire boy! We've got water!"
"She means me right?" Brook asked me. I nodded.
"Terra, he's not going to open it up," I said. As soon as the words left my oath the metal hinges on the door ripped off one by one, I barely had a second to tackle Brook out of the way as the door crashed to the ground. From where I lay on the ground I rolled off of Brook and shifted my gaze to Egan's charred bedroom. He was staring at us dumbfounded. Terra stared back with a dangerous level of anger while Brook and I lay on the ground looking really confused.
"I can explain!" Egan said. Terra stomped into the room. Brook and I scrambled to stand up and follow her in if only to stop her from injuring and/or killing Egan.
"What the hell happened in here? Were you trying to start a bonfire!?" she asked.
Brook and I stood back, trying to fix the door. It wasn't cooperating.
"Uh, well," Egan said, "you see what had happened was, uh. Spontaneous combustion?" Terra looked back at us. Beat. We all burst out laughing.
"That. Is by far. The best. Explanation for superpowers. I have ever heard," I said through laughter.
"Superpowers?" Egan asked.
"dude, it's ok, we know," Brook said. "That's why we're here."
"Yeah, and sorry about your door," Terr said. "I'd say I'd fix it but I don't actually know how so I'd have a pretty good lie ready to explain what happened."
"What exactly did happen?" Egan asked.
"I removed the metal hinges with my earth based superpowers in order to gain entrance to your fire charged room," Terra deadpanned.
"It's true, I was there," Brook said. Egan blinked.
"So, you all have superpowers too?" Egan asked, slowly looking at us.
"Yes," we responded.
"Ok, that's, new," he said.
"Yeah," Brook said. "See what had happened was-" She was cut off by Terra's scream. We all turned to her p, she was staring at Egan's burned book case. Egan, on the other hand, looked like he wished he could be anywhere else.
"My books!" Terra exclaimed. Her books?
"Your books?" Brook asked, voicing my curiosity.
"The Italian textbooks that I use for class!" Terra exclaimed. "How did you burn all of them?"
"Sorry," Egan said. "I was practicing and well, things got out of hand."
"Why are you Italian textbooks here?" I asked.
"Because my grandmother can't afford them all at once so Egan buys them for me and I pay him back by the end of the school year," Terra explained.
"I can buy more," Egan said. "You don't have to pay for these, this was my fault."
"Yeah, but there's no way you can get all of the, here before school starts!" Terra exclaimed. "What am I gonna do? Why did you even keep them in your room?"
"Is anyone else finding it odd that we all have superpowers and were worried about some Italian textbook crisps?" I asked.
"Yeah, well, I've learned not to be too surprised by Terra," Egan said. "I've also learned that she scares me."
"Well, we can help you," Brook said, trying to diffuse the situation. "We can like, read the chapters to you and you can write down what we say in Italian, at least until Egan can get you more."
"Really?" Terra asked. We all nodded.
"Thanks," she said.
"No problem," Egan said. "Now, back to these superpowers."
"Right, well I have earth powers, Gale has wind and Brook has water," Terra exclaimed.
"And I suppose I complete the elements with Fire," Egan said, glancing around his room.
"Yeah, next time you want to play with fire make sure Brook is with you," I said.
"I can put out the fires but it's hard, especially if it's big and out of control," he said. "I almost passed out once."
"Like Gale said, Brook," Terra clarified. Egan nodded.
"Uh, that's an awful lot of pressure to put on someone who didn't have superpowers when she woke up this morning," Brook said.
"You just got your powers today?" Egan asked.
"Yeah, I'd like to hear that story myself," I said.
"Uh, well. Short version. Mira. Lake. Fake drowning. Summersaults. Ponytail. Real drowning. Glowing father. Bottlerocket. Magic," she fired off at us.
"That's actually a pretty accurate description," Terra said. We looked at her.
"I was there," she said.
"She was hiding behind a tree," Brook clarified.
"I wasn't hiding," Terra said. "At first."
"Ok then," Egan said.
"So, what now?" Egan asked.
"I don't know, maybe we can come up with a training schedule or something so we can work together to control our powers and we don't accidentally cause world war weather," Terra said.
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Brook said.
"How have you guys been handling it these past few years?" Terra asked.
"Well,I destroyed three houses in three different states with a tornado," Gale said.
"I accidentally burned all the flowers at my estranged uncle's funeral and caused a volcano to erupt on a small village while on vacation along the ring of fire," Egan said. We stared at him. "What? Everyone lived, it was a really small village. My brother and I even went back to help them rebuild."
"Wow, suddenly I feel better about my success," Terra said.
"Penguins," Brook said.
"Cheap shot," Terra responded.
"I don't want to know," I said.
"Good choice," they both responded.
"Wait, how do you two know each other?" Egan asked.
"She saved my best friend's life at a zoo about an hour ago," Brook said.
"You've only know each over for an hour?" I asked.
"Yeah, pretty much," Terra said.
"That's the power of Terra," Egan said.
"And the power of super powers apparently," Brook said.
"Hey, atleast you aren't randomly spouting water," Egan said. "for the first week after I got mine my hair would randomly catch on fire and ruin all of my favorite hats."
"You never wear hats," Terra said.
"And now you know why," Egan responded. Terra tried to his her laughter with a smile.
"Hey bro," came a voice from the doorway. We all looked up. Someone, who I assumed was Egan's older brother Jared, stood in the doorway holding a box in one hand and his phone on the other. He hadn't looked up yet. We all scrambled to position ourselves to block the view of the room but no one knew how to hide the door.
"Do you want this box of old sweatshirts and stuff?" he asked.
"Uh, sure," Egan said. His brother dropped the box and walked off. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"He's actually a pretty good brother but when he's playing a video game he might as well be a zombie," Egan said.
"What's in the box?" I asked.
"My brother likes to give me his old junk, some of it is useful but some of it I'm not even sure how he got it," Egan said. Terra was already digging through the box and pulled out a blank baseball cap. She put it on, pulling her freakishly long ponytail through the back.
"Terra!" Brook said.
"Nah, it's cool," Egan said. "I usually bring what's left to school for my friends to choose from anyway. You guys can take your pick." At this point Terra had also pulled out a pair of sunglasses and a trench coat that had probably belonged to a Halloween costume at some point.
"It's for my grandmother," Terra said, when we looked at her funny. Brook was digging through as well and pulled out another pair of sunglasses and a beret. She followed up with a superhero cape. I think she grabbed that just for e irony.
"Egan, where DOES your brother get this stuff?" I asked.
"I don't ask," he replied. "My brother likes to buy stuff but then forgets why he bought it."
"Ah," I said. I started digging through too. Egan had grabbed a red sweatshirt and a pair of aviators while I ended up with a white zip up rain jacket and a umbrella to match.
"Well, we look ridiculous," I said.
"Oh yeah, totally," Egan said.
"Aren't we too old to play dress up?" Brook asked.
"We're never too old!" Terra exclaimed. I feel that that's her life motto. That and if you're not dead yet then you haven't taken enough risks. Suddenly, "If I Die Young" rang throughout the room.
"Sorry, that's Mira's ringtone," Brook said, tapping on her phone. "Hey Mir, did you get home ok?"
"Oh, hey while you're there can you check out the sale on- Mira!" Brook exclaimed. "Mira! Where are you? Mira!"