This Isn't Your World

Chapter 12

Air stared in utter disbelief that she stared at an entire island's worth of rock collapse into the ocean, sending mental shockwaves to the elementals that were related to the incident. From a distance, it was a small tap inside her skull, but staring at it actually occurring was like someone pounding sheets of metal in her head.

What was going on?

The cliff seemed shaky under her feet. The waves crashed against the rocky walls, the violent breakers resonating in her ears. She could feel the frustration of the ocean as it attempted to accommodate the abrupt pieces of foreign substance. To the naked eye, the island was invisible and so was the aftermath it caused. But to specific elementals such as Air? They were like Api and Angin crashing into her room blowing airhorns at three a.m..

Should she investigate? She was originally taking a stroll, but then she noticed some abnormal elemental activity around this area. Angin and Daun were out somewhere and Api was buried in hundreds of unsigned paperwork. Tanah had went incognito after that robot attack, and she decided to take her chance.

Head craning, she studied the area to ensure that there were no witnesses. Just because she had the element of ice isn't the equivalent of the term "put the corpse on ice 'till I get there". She would never harm anyone. It was more of Api's thing.

Yeah. Whatever she's about to do might get her dragged into whatever situation she would rather not be included, but it may be their only chance to find Tanah and Petir. She could sleep it off, but she knew if Api never got an answer, he'll never live it down.

She stepped back from the cliff. Intaking a deep breath, her legs broke out into a sprint towards the ocean, and her feet left the solid ground as she dived into the sapphire blue below. As if she was phasing through a portal, her body morphed into her elemental form head-to-toe as she entered the water.

Propelling herself using the water, she sped off towards the destination of the fallen island-like debris. She shot forwards like a dart, dodging the occasional school of fish and garbage.

As she was halfway through, her eyes fell on a moving figure by the rocks. It was too large to be a fish, but too small for any aquamarine carnivores. Instead, the being resembled a human.

Eyebrow arching and her hair hovering by her face, she summoned her signature bow and approached the stone warily, the crystallization of an arrow forming in her bowstring in the water.

She pulled the bowstring back, careful to level the weapon below her chest, but sufficiently agile to attack any incoming hostile behaviour. Expecting it to attack her as she confronts it, her expectations were taken on a trip down the roller coaster people deem as plot twists as Thorn bounces out instead, clusters of seaweed tucked under her crimson cap as if she'd been camping here for decades.

After recovering from a heart attack, Ais realized that Thorn was also underwater, and not drowning. It was either this was Thorn's ghost or they were all dead.

"You're breathing underwater?" Ais quizzed. "But your element—"

Thorn nodded. "Yeah. I can tie my systems with another plant temporarily. If it doesn't die for some random reason, I can survive just fine in any environment." She paused. "Oh, yeah. Angin's here too. He's down there somewhere strangling an eel that snatched his cap."

* * *

Cue the angry teenager launching himself everywhere with the power of anime. Cue the eel that just wants a shiny thing to play with, which in this case, a white cap.

Ais and Thorn hovered over to his rampage, with the ice elemental holding a familiar white cap in her hand. She handed the accessory to Thorn and nocked her bow, aiming at the runaway eel. As she fired her ice arrow, the eel was shot indefinitely, encasing its tail in a cluster of ice that would melt eventually. Taufan propelled forward and snatched the cap, cheering in victory.