Chapter 193 A Dance in the Dark

Pain was something she understood. Taking a breath, Aella jumped into action. Teleporting next to Alfred and Josephine, she grabbed them against their wills, and teleported them back to the roof of her castle, before returning to grab Rupert. Her hand that had grabbed Alfred was bleeding, where his blink effect had caused her skin to rip and bleed, but it healed as she arrived to find Rupert in order to teleport him, too.

Spying her dad wrestling with one, she teleported behind him and teleported him to the castle. He was surprised she was able to grab him, but she didn't stop to think about it. Teleporting back to find Rupert, Aella finally found a tower of stone, where the Hero of Earth had protected himself from the creatures as they swarmed him.

"Sorry, Rupert," she whispered, sending a stream of white-hot fire around the three Devourers as they started eating the rock around him. She didn't let up until they had swelled and started to crack their shells from the heat. Knowing there was only a few seconds before the other three that had come through the portal reached them, she sent her wind to cut away at the stone. Rupert wasn't inside it, having burrowed deeper into the earth to escape the heat as it soaked through the stone.

Not wasting time looking for him, she used her wind to raise the three burnt devourers high into the air, and blasted them with even more fire. She didn't let up until they turned to ash and the wind blew them away. Turning to look around, she was hit in the back by one of the devourers and Precious went flying with a scream. He tried to flap his wings to fly back to her, but the wind was too much, so he took shelter down the tube Rupert had made.

Turning in rage, Aella blocked the next blow, sending a stream of fire at the monster. It didn't seem fazed by it, sending another clawed appendage at her. Grunting as it hit her in the chest, she teleported behind it before the claw could impale her. Before she could hit it again, she noticed the portal was still open.

Flying up out of reach, Aella watched in horror as a claw as big as the portal itself tried to push through. Pain unlike anything she had ever felt flooded through her, causing her to fall. Hitting the ground, she was overwhelmed by the storm, and the air was sucked out of her lungs. Gasping as she tried to process through the pain, Aella rolled over, avoiding the attack from one of the remaining three devourers.

"Aella! Zap it with your fire!" came a voice out of the storm that she thought must have been Joseph, but she wasn't sure.

Scrambling across the ground on all fours, she avoided the monsters until she arrived against the crumbled stone pillar. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath and focused on her elements within her. They were both frantic, looking for direction, so she gave it to them. Opening her eyes, Aella turned as she rose into the air. Her lungs didn't burn anymore. Her blurred vision cleared, and the pain she was feeling faded from her focus. Raising an arm, she directed the fire maelstrom that had started spinning around her towards the portal.

All three of the devourers rushed towards her as fast as they could, punching their claws deep into the ground to keep the storm from blowing them away. It wasn't fast enough, as the fire hit the claw and burnt through it, sending a swirling stream of superheated ash blasting back into the other realm. No sooner did she stop directing the stream, then the portal began to close up. Turning towards the three devourers who were eating everything around them, she directed the swirling fire at them.

At first, nothing happened, and she frowned. Fire wanted to get hotter, and Air wanted to swirl faster, so she obliged them both. The swirling storm around her grew and grew, until she couldn't see anything at all, and the devourers stopped moving as they turned into ash and then dust that blew away into nothingness.

The portal was almost shut, and Aella wanted to keep it that way, swirling the fire tornado through it, keeping anything from attempting to prevent its closure. She didn't calm the storm until the portal was completely shut, and the pain the realm was projecting to her lessened drastically.

All of the lizard people around her, had taken shelter from her wrath, now gazed up at her, probably wondering if she was going to kill them next. Thinking about it, she decided they couldn't cause any harm, and ignored them for the moment. Flying down the tunnel Rupert and Precious had disappeared in, Aella fell a long way. How far had Rupert gone?

When she hit water, she stopped, and realized she was in a large cave. Forming a fire torch on the end of her hand, she lifted it up to look around. Stalagmites dripped water into the shallow pool that covered the floor of the cavern she found herself in. Rupert was laying off to the side, where he had collapsed. Precious was sitting on his chest licking his wet fur and glaring at her as if him being wet was her fault.

"Rupert?" asked Aella, rushing to his side.

"It was a glorious fight, wasn't it?" he asked, taking a shallow breath.

Aella reached to heal his wound, but he grabbed her hand and shook his head.

"I've lived long enough. Do you know how old dirt is? That boy Brian is probably my great-great-grandson, or something like it. He's an idiot Aella. Don't let him become the next Earth Hero."

"I won't Rupert," she said softly as she watched him struggle to breath. The wound he had taken to his side wouldn't normally be a life-threatening injury, but he was old, and she didn't think she could heal him. The wound seemed to be contaminated somehow. "I'll need to cremate you, is that alright?"

He struggled to chuckle, and broke out coughing. Precious gave him a look, and jumped to Aella's shoulder.

"Dust to dust," he mumbled finally, in a weak voice.

"Precious," Aella murmured softly as his eyes closed. "I'm going to get really hot here in a minute. You may want to get a little distance from me."

"And get wet again?!" exclaimed Precious in horror.

Aella formed a black dagger and slit Rupert's wrist as his heart began to falter. The blood was thick and black. Precious wrinkled his nose and flapped his wings, hitting her in the face as he flew away from her. Ignoring his attitude, she raised Rupert's wrist to her mouth and sucked the foul blood into her mouth, swallowing it quickly before she could change her mind.

The devourer toxin immediately attempted to attack her, but Aella was ready for that, directing her fire to attack it back. While the two battled, she focused on the earth element that rose up to investigate her. Was she worthy to control earth when she already claimed two other elements?

The smell of fresh dirt between her toes came to mind as she struggled to convince the element she was indeed worthy. It wasn't impressed with just the smell of the dirt, nor the feel of soft dirt. Earth was so much more than that.

Memories of the chill from the hard rock of her stone prisons rose up. The rough unyielding stones that she fell against, the crumbling stones she tried to climb up to escape in her youth, the thick mud after an intense rain in the fighting pits, and then she remembered the beauty of crystals she had found digging in one of the rooms they kept her in.

The earth element was intrigued by her memories, but still remained undecided.

Aella struggled to think of what she could do to convince it. Then she remembered what Rupert had said. How old was dirt? It was patient. Licking her lips, she settled down into the water on the floor and noted that her fire had finished off the invading toxins. Burning the body before her, to prevent the devourer toxin to attempt to reform a new devourer, Aella ignored the heat. Ignoring the cold of the water around her, and the dark of the cave, she settled in to wait. If the earth element could be patient, then so could she.

It was intrigued by her decision, and gave her it's conclusion. It would allow her to become the new hero, instead of going to Brian, but only because Rupert had asked it to go to her. She had far too much to learn, for it to accept her otherwise.

"Are you done sleeping yet? I'm starving!" complained Precious, sticking his nose into her face.