Page 27 of Elemasters

“It’s Leo Chang… I, well… Chris, can you please come and pick me up? I know it’s a hassle but…”

“I’m already in the car bro. The others are here too; we all ditched class as soon as word started spreading” Chris cut him off, “we’ll be there in 30,”

Dustin breathed a sigh of relief, and the tears came again.

“O-okay, I’ll see you guys soon,”

As soon as Dustin hung up the phone, he immediately started spiraling again, staring down at the pavement and watching the lights from the sirens flash against it. He was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t know how much time was passing, and he didn’t even notice Nathan Parker walking over to him until he took a seat on the end of the stretcher.

“Hey I uh… they’re saying you saw it happen,” he said, his throat raw. Dustin’s eyes snapped over to him with a glare hot enough to incinerate titanium.

“Fuck off Nathan. I’m not in the mood,”

“Chill, I’m not here to give you shit man,” Nathan rose his hands in surrender, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Even seeing his body under that sheet was fucked… I can’t imagine what you saw. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye…”

“If by that you mean that you’ve tormented me for being gay for the past three years, you’re exactly right,”

“Y-yeah… I guess that is what I mean. But my point is that you’re one of us. Part of the team. If you need anything, let me know alright?”

Dustin continued glaring at Nathan, waiting for a joke to undercut the sincerity or for the other shoe to drop… but it never came. Nathan looked nothing but sincere, and while Dustin certainly wasn’t ready to just bury the hatchet after so many years of abuse, he at least appreciated the sentiment.

Before either one of them could speak again, Dustin heard the sounds of people yelling at the end of the parking lot. He looked up and saw the crimson Cadillac he and Chris shared stopped on the other side of the police partition. All he could see was Chris’s blonde hair as he stuck his head out the window yelling at the officers.

“MY FUCKING BROTHER’S ON THE TEAM DICKHEAD. LET US THROUGH!”

Dustin immediately ran to the partition, putting himself between the angry cops and the front of the car. The officers had one hand on their belts, the other waving him back like he was little more than an annoying fly.

“I’m so sorry, he’s emotional. He’s my twin brother here to pick me up,”

The officers exchanged annoyed looks, but ultimately allowed Dustin to slip into the passenger’s seat without incident.

“Fucking pigs,” Chris spat, giving them the finger before shifting into reverse and peeling out of the parking lot with righteous fury.

“Damn it Christian,” Bailey spoke up from the backseat, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, “can you ever just be calm?”

“Not when it comes to him,” Chris fired back, inclining his head to Dustin, “tell us what actually happened,”

Dustin sank down in the seat, tears welling up in his eyes again as he stared at the road ahead of them. That image of Leo’s body flashed before him, and the tears came back in force.

The moment Chris saw him crying, he pulled the car over in front of some random restaurant, and got out, practically forcing Dustin to do the same. He pulled Dustin into the tightest hug of their lives as the others gathered around them.

“It was me,” Dustin babbled through his tears, “he attacked me, and I lost control of my powers and it just… it was over so fast,”

“Wait, he attacked you?” James asked, rubbing slow circles on Dustin’s back as Chris still held him close, “everything I’ve ever heard about Leo makes him seem like a total sweetheart,”

“He was at first, but then something shifted. He seemed like a totally different person outta nowhere,” Dustin explained, “Sima Yao said something in my head right before he came at me though. Something about this ‘no longer being the one I knew’. What the fuck does that even mean?”

“This is why that metrosexual ghost needs a cell phone,” Chloe groaned, “we can’t just go back to the palace whenever we need to ask him questions,”

While Sima Yao definitely didn’t have a cell, it did seem like he could hear them somehow, because no sooner than those words left Chloe’s lips, a thick fog started to rise around the group, completely whiting out their surroundings like someone had just dropped a smoke bomb on them.

After a few disorienting moments, the fog cleared and the group found themselves standing in the Palace of Radiant Clouds once more, in front of Sima Yao, who looked over them with a mixture of grief and resolution on his porcelain face.

“I offer my deepest apologies young masters. I regret not informing you of the true dangers you faced before it came to such a grisly confrontation,” Sima Yao slowly dropped to his knees, before pressing his nose to the floor in a complete kowtow before the group. Dustin knew enough about Ancient Chinese social etiquette to know what that meant; complete and total humility and surrender, “I only hoped to allow you to grow into your power in a more neutral environment before pressing upon you the full weight of your obligation,”

“Enough,” Dustin practically growled through clenched teeth, “enough riddles, enough apologies. We deserve answers, now. Leo… or whatever the fuck was speaking through him, said something about a Water Sage, and someone named Fusu. You need to tell us the whole story,”

Sima Yao rose to his feet once more, and nodded solemnly, drifting aside to reveal the mural etched into the wall that Dustin’s eyes had been drawn to on both visits to the palace; those five warriors, standing against the strange figure in antlered armor.