Elements

Chapter 10

Iodine P.O.V.

Thump.

My body was knocked across the room, and I hit the ground with a thud. Cesium, Nickel, and Copper and I were fighting the robots called T.A.N.K. bots. That stood for Titanium's Automatic Neutral Killers. Titanium designed them to be automatic shutoff, but could kill you while they were on. Speaking of that, they had no loyalty, even to each other, that is where the neutral comes from.

Titanium said he designed them himself without any help, which isn't that surprising honestly. He was always doing things like that. A voice broke my train of thought when I realized that I was just laying there.

"Iodine, come on, we need to keep fighting." Cesium yelled back at me, still fighting the bot and doing fairly well. I jumped to my feet and grabbed my lance, holding a hand against my head to stabilize my balance again.

Once I could look around without having the room spin, I ran at the bot and had my lance meet the shield it was holding. I roughly yanked it out and cursed under my breath. Why couldn't I scratch this thing? All the others are doing damage to it.... 

I was beyond furious that I couldn't hurt this bot. I mean, I was probably the only person in the entire school who couldn't make a scratch on it. Try as I may, it always was too fast for me to land a hit, either dodging my jabs or blocking them with a shield. Titanium programmed these things not to hurt us during training, right?

I ran at it without thinking that I would get hurt, having a vague recollection that he programmed these not to hurt us. I had my lance facing the bot, only to get a slice on the arm. I yelped and jumped back, dropping my lance and clutching my arm, warm blood running down my hands.

"Fucking bot!" I yelled at it with a glare. My attention turned back to my arm which was bleeding heavily. No way this would be healed before we got to the front lines. I heard footsteps and saw Nickel walking over to me, Cesium and Copper still fighting their bots. 

"You okay? That looked really bad." Nickel asked with a concerned look. I looked up from my bloody arm to meet his eyes.

"Yeah, just a flesh wound. Not too bad." I said, the pain obvious on my face. I knew he could tell I was lying, but I needed to stay strong for all of our sake's. We couldn't get replacement teammates until one of us died. 

Nickel stared at me with a look of disbelief. He shook his head. "You can't possibly expect me to believe you are okay when you are practically bleeding out." He said, pointing to my arm that I was clutching so hard that my hand was white.

He reached out and gently removed my hand from my arm, only to have blood surge out and a wave of pain to come over me. I instantly clutched my arm again, only to have it removed again.

"You're going to get it infected if you do that." He said, a genuine look of concern on his face. He turned to my arm and stared at it. He seemed to be thinking about something. 

"Hey, what are you doing?" I asked, suspicious of what he might do. He didn't even look up, much less respond. moving his head around to get different angles to look at it from.

About a minute passed before he finally stopped staring and spoke up. 

"Well you were right about it just being a flesh wound, but it still is pretty deep." Nickel walked over to the table with the bandages and I followed him, now only gently holding my arm.  When I reached the table I watched him unravel the roll of bandages and jumped back at a voice in my head. No, not in my head. It felt like it was speaking straight to my heart. It sent a warm feeling racing through me, and made me feel like I was floating. It was soft and warm, it made all my fear and stress melt away, just like snow in the early spring.

 "You'll be okay, we'll be here to protect you and I-we'll make sure you don't get hurt...."  

It took me a moment to recognize the voice as Nickel's. I looked at him wrapping my arm with the bandages and had a moment of realization. That was his power. Telepathy to the heart.

When he finished he looked at me with a straight face.

"You heard me didn't you? I couldn't tell...."

I nodded. What if he could hear my thoughts?

"I never know if it does go through because it only goes one way. Only other people can hear me. I can't hear other people. God, I don't even know what it sounds like....."

"It's okay, by the way what did you mean by-"

"Nickel! Iodine! We've got training to do! Come on already!" Cesium yelled again, she seemed to do a lot of that. I walked back over to pick up my lance, and take another go at the bot. But just when I picked it up and was about to start running, the voice spoke to me again.

"Hey.... Let's meet up after training.... We can make sure your arm is okay. And we can get some food, maybe?"