Original Stories Fan Fiction / Fables/Fairytales Fan Fiction ❯ The Elementalists ❯ The Note ( Chapter 1 )

At first glance, it would have seemed to be just another normal day for Kai. She woke up and went through her daily routine, then went off to work at the small pub just on the outskirts of the city. It was never usually busy, but it brought her some money that she could put away for safekeeping. She only worked part-time, so she got home a little before dusk each day.

 

Occasionally, she would travel the country to her accomplices' houses, but not often. All three of them lived in secret places, as she did, and each was quite a distance from the others. Kai contemplated calling a meeting tonight, but the pub was unusually busy with travelers and such, leaving her exhausted at the end of the day.

 

She returned home as usual, cleaning herself up and then sitting on the beach, admiring the beauty of the waves as they ran away from the sunset approaching the horizon. She smiled to herself, though it quickly vanished as a sudden wind picked up and a small, blackened piece of paper appeared at her toes. “Huh?” she wondered aloud to herself. Cautiously, she looked around the beach, then picked the piece of paper up and read it.

 

It is time.

 

That is all the little piece of paper said. `It is time.' This puzzled Kai, as she continued to examine the piece of paper. It was in horrible condition; its edges were somewhat burnt, and there were black blotches of ink every few lines. She assumed whomever wrote this note didn't care much about how it was presented to the person it was meant to find.

 

Scrunching her brows, Kai detected an unusual smell from the paper, so she took a very small whiff of it. Wishing she hadn't, she briskly turned to the side to sneeze—the paper reeked of a strong, rosy scented perfume. `Roses…' she wondered. `Then this must have come from Chi. She must have sent it to me after she received it. I wonder if Candis or Feng know of this as well…'

 

She considered calling a meeting right away, but decided that she would contact the other two and ask them about it the next morning. This night was not safe for anyone, even in the comfort of their homes. Looking back once more at the ocean, she quickly retreated into the house, locking all the doors as a precaution.

 

Finally tired enough to at least attempt sleep, Kai stood up from her chair and pulled her shoulder-length, brown hair into a very short ponytail. She slipped her feet into her slippers and went around the house one more time to make sure it was secure. When she was almost one-hundred percent sure that the house was completely safe, she headed back into her room and went to bed.

 

 

Kai's alert hazel eyes shot open to a loud creaking noise. She rolled over faster than the eye could blink and hopped out of bed in a fighting stance. `This presence is just at the door…' she concluded, focusing hard on the figure at the door.

 

“Calm down, it's just me,” said a familiar voice. Kai blinked a few times and finally, after what seemed like an eternal silence, threw a pillow at the intruder.

 

“You idiot! You should have paged me on the communicator before coming here,” she replied, opening the blinds and then turning to glare angrily at the intruder. “Geez, Candis, you should know better than that.”

 

“Sorry,” Candis replied meekly, giving a nervous smile and subconsciously twirling her short, white-blond hair. “I needed to see if you got the same note as I did. I couldn't wait until later this morning. It seemed too…urgent.” Candis sat down at the desk and closed her curious red eyes. “But damn, 4 A.M. sure is an early time to be going to your house.”

 

“Wait, `the same note?' Mine came from Chi just last night, there's no possible way it could have gone to you as well… Unless there's more than one.” Kai sat on her bed, looking as puzzled as when she first received the note.

 

“I don't know. Where did you put the note you got from Chi?” Candis asked. Kai stood up and beckoned Candis to follow her into the study down the hallway. For a moment she shuffled through papers on the messy desk and then turned around to face Candis, more confused than before.

 

“That's odd… It was here last night. I'm sure of it,” she said, her eyebrows knit in wonder. “I know I put it under these papers specifically, so no one could find it.” Candis hummed to herself, thinking for a brief moment.

 

“Maybe,” she started, “the note traveled on its own. This is the Magic World after all.” Kai shrugged, not sure of what to make of this strange note and how it traveled.

 

“Then it's definitely an evil force at work. We can't waste any more time wondering about how it got to all of us at once.” She looked annoyed, crossing her arms as she looked out the window, admiring the sunrise.

 

“I figured as much. The note had a vague scent of salt water, so I assumed you sent it, but I wasn't sure. That's why I came so early.” She sat in the chair, making a fist and resting her chin upon it.

 

The two simply waited in silence for a few moments, wondering what in the worlds was happening. After sighing, Kai stood up, stretching as she yawned. “Well, I'm going to get dressed. Have some breakfast if you'd like, you know where everything is. When I'm done we'll head over to Chi's place.”

 

Candis nodded and stood up, slowly moving into the kitchen to make herself some hot coffee and a simple bagel.

 

 

Kai emerged from her bedroom, her hair sticking up in several places. Candis snickered, earning her a hard whack on the head.

 

“Don't make fun of my hair,” Kai said, glaring grimly at her companion. Candis laughed again anyway, ignoring the daggers Kai was staring into her back. “Ugh! You're so… So... Immature!”

“Sorry, Savior of the World Who Can't Take 5 Minutes to Comb her Hair,” Candis mocked, sniggering once more. Kai made a face, then proceeded to make some coffee for herself before packing some snacks for the long trip into the woods.

 

“Do you have your restraints?” Kai asked Candis.

 

“Of course,” Candis replied dryly, pointing to the many earrings in her right ear. “Like any of us are dumb enough to go anywhere without them. Well, except you.”

 

“Shut up! That was only once,” Kai replied, subconsciously reaching for the bright pink cuffs around her wrists. Before they left, she chanted a simple barrier spell to keep the house protected while the two were gone, for she assumed they would not return for quite a while.

 

The two girls made their way down the path that lead to Kai's house, which overlooked the beautiful ocean of Astra. The villagers who had once lived on the outskirts of the beach had been the ones to name the ocean. In Greek, Astra means `like a star;' every night, the moon shines on the ocean, making it sparkle beautifully, and in the mornings, the sun would make the ocean glisten in a calm, soothing way. Thus the villagers named the ocean Astra, for it sparkled under the moon and in the sun as brightly as a star.

 

Every so often, Kai would go out onto the beach and meditate silently, listening to the crashing waves and the cool wind rushing past her. It was very relaxing, and recently she found herself meditating more often than previously. She wondered if it had to do with the current problem at hand.

 

“Since this is a two day trip, we should probably stay the night at Florian's place,” Candis said, interrupting Kai's recollection of the beach.

 

“What? Oh… Yeah, sure,” she replied. `Hold it, Florian…' “WHAT?! We can't stay at Florian's! I mean.. Well…” Kai started, stumbling over her words to find an excuse not to stay at the man's house. “What makes you think he'd let us stay there? It's very last minute! He'd say it's absurd to show up unexpectedly.”

 

Candis was taken aback. “Oh, but I thought you liked him,” she said slyly, grinning evilly as she narrowed her eyes. “But instead of staying in a gigantic, warm, safe house, we could always camp out in the cold, damp, eerie forest… With vicious animals that could kill us in our sleep and bugs that will bite us and drink our blood.” She shrugged. “Whatever suits you, but just for your information, I already contacted Florian about it this morning.”

 

Kai frowned, slumping over as she realized she was defeated by Candis yet again. She mumbled darkly, “And you call yourself my best friend.”

 

“Glad you're starting to see it my way. Well, Florian's it is!” Candis said cheerfully, walking ahead into the opening of the forest.

 

 

After a long two hours of walking through the thickening forest, the two girls were already beaten. But neither of them had taken even a single break. Soon, as they were now quite far into the forest, sunlight was almost barely visible, causing the girls to adjust their eyes to see better.

 

“Why does Chi live so far from us?” Kai complained loudly as they sat down on a couple of nearby rocks. They had reached a small clearing, where the sun was once again visible. “I mean really, shouldn't we have a certain limit as to how far we live from each other? It's hard enough not being able to teleport there and back.”

 

Candis sighed heavily, leaning back against the rock and letting her eyes slide shut. “Well since we're technically still able to teleport, there really shouldn't need to be a limit as to how far apart we live from each other. But with the given circumstances,” she replied, “We really shouldn't take any chances.”

 

Kai also sighed, her eyes squinted from the bright sunlight. “Yes, we have to be as cautios as…” Her sentence trailed off as she sat upright, sniffing the air. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated on the irregular energy flow coming from the opposite side of the clearing. “Feel that?”

Candis stood up, putting her pack down onto the rock. “Yeah.” The two stood back-to-back, feeling the number of supernatural beings multiply by the minute, nearly surrounding them. “Though these guys shouldn't take too long to get rid of.”

 

“Well, well, well,” said what seemed to be the leader of the pack, “Aren't you girlies a little too sure of yourselves? After all, you're outnumbered.” The being stood out into the light to reveal a female lizard demon. She had pale green skin and sharp claws and teeth, and to top it off, a long, scaly lizard tail. The rest of her clan stepped out from behind her, all of them the same pale green color, some being slightly lighter or darker.

 

“You think a few hundred of you weaklings can beat just the two of us?” Kai challenged, an arrogant smirk plastered on her face. “But before we take you all out within the next five minutes, let me ask you: what the hell is a clan of lizards doing in the forest?”

 

The leader snorted at the question. “Don't you know? Lizards can live in the water, the desert, or the forest!” she shouted, lunging at the two girls, her claws out and ready to rip them apart. Strangely, neither of them flinched, as if the lizard was coming at them in slow motion.

 

“Learn your place!” Candis shouted, extending her arm towards the leaping lizard, shooting out fire from her hand.

 

“Ahhhhh!!!” The leader screeched as the fire incinerated her, turing her to ashes in less than thirty seconds. The rest of the clan gasped in astonishment, then looked accusingly at the two girls.

 

“Go ahead and come at us all at once,” Kai said, cracking her knuckles threateningly. “It won't make a difference either way.” The lizards hissed and growled, all lunging toward either of the girls, biting, groping, and scratching from all angles. The two girls put no effort in fighting them off; Kai with water and ice, and Candis with fire and lightning. Within minutes, the entire clan was defeated, sprawled out on the grounds of the clearing.

 

“What a pain in the ass!” Candis grumbled. She sighed with disappointment, brushing her hands off on her green vest. “We didn't even have to lift our hands up and try.” She made an odd noise, then caught another whiff of a lizard demon. “Kai!” she shouted, pointing behind her friend.

 

Kai turned around just in time for the lizard to graze her arm with its claws, knocking her down. She barely flinched at the wound, then shouted, “You bastard! Die!” She formed three icicles in her hand and aimed directly at for lizard's heart. He whimpered in pain for less than a fraction of a second before falling to the ground, dead.

 

Candis quickly brought her pack to Kai, taking out ointment and bandages. “As I was saying,” she said, as if the lizard had been a mere interruption in her complaining. “These guys are a right pain in the ass.” Kai grinned at her friend's silly comment.

 

“Ouch!” she hissed, trying to pull away as Candis put the ointment on her wound. The lizard had surprisingly cut very deeply into her forearm.

 

“You'd better hope those claws weren't poisonous, because I'm seeing an unusual purple color in your blood.” Kai groaned, frustrated with herself. `Why didn't I sense that, again?' she thought to herself. `What a stupid mistake.' Glaring at nothing in particular, she waited for Candis to finish bandaging the cut before they set off to Florian's house.