Memory in the End

Chapter 5: Blown Away

Over at the crop fields, there was a wide clearing. Michael traced the ground with the tip of his blade, making a large circular outline. He motions for us to stand far back, Aru stands in front, bow and arrow at the ready.

Michael stands in the center of the outline. He raises his sword up in the air, focusing his power. Then, he brings the blade down onto the earth, letting out a mighty yell as he does. Lightning surrounds his blade as it impacts the ground, and the ground around him explodes, dust and dirt flying everywhere. Aru quickly shoots two arrows; one flies towards the cloud of dust coming towards us, and blows it back. The other arrow is shot of higher, and slices through the air faster than the first one. A strong wind comes, and the sky becomes cloudy. The explosion from Michael's lightning creates a deep crater in the Earth, and Aru's wind brings rain clouds. The hole slowly starts to fill up with the rainwater, creating a small lake.

The townspeople were told to stay inside their cabins for safety, but when they heard the pitter patter of the rain, they slowly started to come outside. The farmers that lived closest to the crop fields saw the lake first and were awestruck at the sight. The townspeople start to cheer, dancing around in the rain. When the lake was only about a quarter full, some of the folks started to go down and play in the water.

It was an incredibly joyous occasion, and this was just with the power of two with the Five. These are people that have that ability to change the world.

"Oh? Where's Michael?" I look around. Aru suddenly jumps in surprise.

"Whoops. I think I was supposed to wait for him to get out of the hole..." he laughs nervously.

At the far side of the lake, I spot Michael climbing up the side of the crater. We run over to him. There are a couple of marks on him from being in the center of the explosion, but more importantly, he was completely soaked and did not look pleased. He falls onto his knees, panting and coughing up some water. He shoots an angry glare at Aru.

"You idiot!" He exclaims, standing up and pushing back his wet hair from his face.

"Sorry, sorry," Aru steps back and puts his hands up in defense, "but the lake takes some time to fill up, you could have gotten out before then.".

"I had to concentrate a lot of my power into one point to create such an explosion, not to mention the ground beneath me broke. It took me a bit to recover," Michael wrings out his cloak, "Which is why I told you to wait.".

"Again I'm sorry.".

"Come now Michael," I say, pulling him back towards the town, "You can continue scolding Aru later. Let's go dry your clothes.". He grumbles but goes along, with Aru following after us.

Aru takes us to the cabin he'd been staying in. I leave for a moment to get a towel for Michael. The cabin seemed to have none, as Aru says he uses the wind to dry himself. Even if they are members of the Five, they'll only feel cold and sick behaving like that. Luckily, a woman in the next cabin over was happy to lend us towels. After thanking her for the towels, I made my way back into the cabin, only to be greeted by a pleasantly appealing, if not awkward sight. Michael had proceeded to take off the soaking wet shirt and threw it over the chair closest to the fireplace.

I'm not sure who was more embarrassed, Michael or me. Michael turned a bright red, frantically looking around for something to cover his naked chest with. I stood there at the door, mesmerised at the sight of him. I figured that he had a nice body under all those clothes, but I wasn't expecting it to look this nice. His chest was broad and built nicely; his abs seemed to be sculpted from marble. His arms, which looked strong with the shirt on, seemed even bigger with the shirt off.