Elemental: Fire

Chapter 1

Scarlett woke up in the apartment that her family shared: a mother and two older brothers. The depressed chunks of sunlight fell through the window, clouds scattering the sky.

"Scarlett, mom said to get up," one of her brother's voices, Laos, came from the hallway. Scarlett swung her feet over her bed and embraced the cool wood below her feet. Looking at her vanity mirror, she could use some wakening up.

"Ugh," she groaned slowly, exercising her voice. 

Sporting red hair, she tried to tame it with her hands. From her drawers, she grabbed a white tee with jeans. From her closet, Scarlett wore a leather jacket. Her hair was calmed but the slight frizz was still there on her curls. On her fingers, she had a few rings.

"Hurry up, Scarlett," the other sibling, James scolded. 

Scarlett rolled her eyes and exited her room. The hallway led to the kitchen, where her mother was in her lazy clothes sipping coffee and James grabbing the keys for the vehicle.

"Please don't argue this morning," their mother spoke. It was finally her day off from work, and the last thing she needed was Laos' and Scarlett's morning arguments to diminish her day.

"Alright," Scarlett replied. She walked over to her and said, "Goodbye, mom."

"Bye," she trailed off.

The siblings walked out the door and to the vehicle. Scarlett got in the back seat of the pickup truck and fastened her seatbelt. Laos and James were usually wasting time talking about last night's game of Kutomun. Scarlett had watched it, too, but the game was the Almagi Airs against vs. the Fixen Fires, and Scarlett obviously supported her element.

"I'm telling you, it was a foul! She forced Pierce down to get the Rej! I even saw it and I wasn't even there," Laos complained.

"That's not true. Pierce had been clinging on to Yavalon to do the exact same thing, but when Pierce had fallen everyone thought it was Yavalon's fault. She didn't do anything," Scarlett protested.

In every game a Fire team plays, they find something that the Dergun missed. Kutomun is a sport played with 5 people a team in a circular field. It is a team of males and females, and two people are Blockers: they defend the ball as one of their team members is carrying it to the Justle, a transparent 3D nonagon that when the ball is kicked into (because it is hovering in the air), the ball disintegrates and a new Rej (ball) drops into the field in a random place. The process then repeats itself until the timer goes off, so the Justle and the losing team disappears into another room, and the winning team is left with the crowd and a pass to next Level.

The other two people in the team are called Termon, and they protect the Justle by using their element. The fifth person on the team is called the Pitter, the person who drives the ball to the Justle. A Dergun is someone who analyzes the game for any illegal moves or intended physical violence not related to the game.

"Sure, and what would you know about Kutomun," Laos sarcastically replied.

He really is an idiot, Scarlett thought.

She was on the Fire Kutomun team for their academy, Draconic Institute for the Advanced, or DIA for short. She was a Termon, and every once in a while when the Pitter was gone she played that.

"You have got to be kidding me," Scarlett said aloud, "I'm on the academy's Fire team."

Laos mumbled a few colorful words after that, and by now they were already driving, or James was. Scarlett leaned back and fiddled with her fingers, emitting small wisps of fire to pass the time. She was concentrating on forming shapes with her fire, and right now she was attempting a ring.

I can do this, I can do this. Ring, form a ring, she focused. The shape was starting to form, her anticipation rising. If she could achieve this, she'd have a new skill to show her friends.

Almost, almost, she thought, when all of a sudden a light fizz-like sound entered through the car. The once almost ring of fire from her palm had disintegrated into smoke. Angry, she looked up and saw Laos acting awkwardly calm, as though he had nothing to do with.

"What the heck, Laos!"

"I didn't do it," Laos calmly said.

"If you didn't do it how'd you know there was a problem in the first place," Scarlett smirked.

"Whatever," Laos scoffed. James rolled his eyes and held in small laughter. Scarlett kept attempting at the ring afterward, coming close to the shape but not quite.

"Hey, could you stop doing that, it smells like smoke," James complained.

"Wait," she replied.

"Scarlett, stop it."

"Just wait a sec."

"Scarlett-"

"I said wait!"

With that, her annoyance came alive, and a bright ring of fire appeared in her hand. The flames danced as though her power was music. It disappeared after a few seconds, but the realization of what Scarlett did linger.

"Sorry," the girl mumbled, even though she was glad to have achieved the goal of the ring.

The car was already pulling into DIA, but Scarlett got out as soon as they entered the parking lot. As she entered the building, Scarlett attempted the ring again. Now it came to her easily.

Maybe my annoying brothers aren't so bad, she thought.