Wish by Moonstone

by Vanessa Haberkorn

  She managed to summon a burst of wind. She knocked herself and the others clean to the side, just avoiding the ensuing electrical blast. But then she felt that same physically drained feeling again. It was terrible, like going without food for too long. She knew she couldn't keep doing this. She'd faint.

  "Hm. Fast. But like a fly, you're just a pest." Lord Visero held both his hands up, palms to the front. What was the lightning going to do this time?

  But instead, a gust of wind rammed them.

  The six all tumbled back.

  "And again!"

  Another blow sent them back once more. He was driving them to the steep drop just next to the building. They were about to become elemental pancakes.

  "Gather together, everyone!" Isis yelled.

  But with the wind constantly shoving at them, this was easier said than done. Samantha was painfully aware of being the one the farthest out. If she didn't do something soon, it was going to be too late for her.

  Grasping desperately at the ground, she tried blowing a gust in the opposite direction but nothing happened, outside of her usual momentary collapse. The wind scraped her along until Evan took a dive at her.

  "Stop doing that! You're leaving yourself open!" Looking over his shoulder, he struck Lord Visero with a bright burst.

  The wind faltered for a second before resuming.

  "Attack!" Samantha stared back at the others, hoping they'd heard her. But they were all bunched together like ants during a flood. The situation was just as scary as it was frustrating.

  Samantha and Evan slid along, their struggling feet leaving deep marks in the dirt and grass. No matter how much they dug their heels in, jutted their backs out in protest or hunkered down, the cliff drew perilously closer by the second. Samantha was amazed Lord Visero wasn't out of energy by now. In fact, how could he use both wind and lightning? The guy was a freak of nature.

  Suddenly, the wind died down.

  The twins glanced back, as did the others. Was he finally worn out?

  But no. Lord Visero stood alert, staring off to the side.

  Roger Lemmings was up. And in his hand was the dazzling, rainbow burst of a stone. A wish stone.

  The air suddenly grew heavy with tension.

  "Don't be a fool." Lord Visero kept perfectly still. "If you do anything, I'll kill you in a heartbeat. I'll kill them too." His head turned slightly in the direction of the six. "Just throw me the stone and nobody gets hurt."

  Samantha heard Evan take in a sharp breath at this, but he remained silent. She knew exactly what he was thinking, since she was thinking the same thing: Visero was lying. The wish stone was going to be the deciding factor in all this. Handing your gun to your opponent was stupid, after all.

  Professor Lemmings stared down at the wish stone.

  Visero's neck vein was becoming more apparent. "Give it to me! Right this instant!"

  "Don't do it," Isis said.

  "Shut up!" Visero took a step towards the professor. "This is my last time asking."

  Samantha and the others all got to their feet, hardly daring to blink.

  Professor Lemmings let out a sigh. "I wish I could believe you, but I know you'll obliterate the seven of us regardless." He turned to the others. "Since you're here, believe in yourselves and do your best!"

  What does he mean? Samantha glanced around. Isn't he going to use the wish stone?

  "That's it?" Visero snickered. "They come all the way here, risking their lives, and that's it?" Throwing his head back, he let out an almost canine like howl of laughter. "Humans really are something! I'll just have to kill your saviors and claim the wish stone myself."

  "Sir!" Evan took a step toward the professor. "What are you doing! Use it before ―"

  Suddenly the powerful wind returned with a vengeance.

  Caught off-guard, there was no time for them to brace themselves for it. As easily as petals being blown from a flower, the six were knocked clean off the cliff, Beatrice's shriek piercing the air.

  With everything happening so quickly, Samantha could barely think straight. Just the sight of the top level racing away, with everyone seemingly floating all over the place. But the force of the wind reminded her they were falling towards what had to be a ground eventually.

  Any second, and it could be over.

  The wind stone dug painfully into her hand. It was their last chance.

  Pinning her eyes shut, Samantha tried to focus on the wind. Instead of their moving down, the wind needed to charge up and force them up along with it. All six of them needed to be swept off their feet with a powerful wall of wind. It needed to not only hold their weight, but out power their momentum. It needed to hit like a train.

  But could she do it?

  If she didn't, they would all die.

  They couldn't die here. Not without more of a fight than this.

  She'd kill herself before letting this one Tranlude do it.

  They were going to go up.

  The wind continued to whistle in her ears. Everything else was silent. Just the darkness, the wind, and ― somewhere ― the ground.

  After what felt like a lifetime, she heard Joby's voice: "Whoa!"

  Her eyes flew open.

  The nearby wall was racing past them, but in the opposite direction. They were riding an air current! She couldn't believe it.

  "We're flying!" Joby cheered.

  "Air board not needed!" Isis said.

  The wind shot the six of them right back up onto the cliff. Landing, Samantha was amazed by how good she felt. She didn't feel tired at all. In fact, she felt better now than she had all day. Looking down, she realized her wind stone was glowing like a blue headlight.

  "They're all glowing," Oliver said.

  Glancing around, she realized he was right. But what did it mean?

  Lord Visero was staring at them, apparently just as bewildered. Then his eyes shot to Professor Lemmings, who was still patiently waiting off to the side. "You! You wasted my wish stone!"

  "What do you mean?" The professor fiddled with a pocket. "I have no idea wh―"

  "You take me for a fool!" The Tranlude raised a hand.

  "Enough!" Isis struck him in the face with an icy mist. She turned to the others. "We need to finish him quickly!"

  "I got this!" Joby raised a fist.

  A lightning bolt shot down, but Visero used a gust of wind to dodge it. Samantha wondered if he learned this trick from watching her earlier.

  "Try again, Joby!" Beatrice said. Rain began to fall just in Visero's area.

  Joby sent another lightning bolt crashing down, but it was deflected by a counter lightning bolt. The Tranlude was fast...but could he match all of them? He had to have a weakness.

  Oliver created a fiery pillar, but Visero put this out with an icy blast.

  "Let's throw his timing off," Samantha said. She sent a gust his way, Isis following up with an ice burst.

  Visero chose a sharp breeze. It canceled out with Samantha's, causing the frosty mist to also fizzle out.

  "Hey, Sam!" Evan said. "Try a twister."

  "Okay." She focused on bringing the wind into a tight upward twist. It was so much easier to do with all the energy she had now. All she had to do was build up the speed and size.

  Visero began to whip up a windy vortex himself.

  "Not so fast!" With a snap of his finger, Oliver caught the Tranlude's shirt on fire, breaking his concentration and forcing him to put this out.

  "Can we make a tornado?" Beatrice asked, eyeing the spinning wind.

  "That's what I was thinking," Evan said.

  "Oh, we can do better than that!" Joby turned to Oliver. "Let's make it a fire tornado!"

  The others just stared at him, with Samantha almost losing her focus for a minute.

  Finally Isis glanced at Visero. "Shit! He's on the move!" She froze the soggy ground around him, causing him to slip and fall over. "Whatever we're doing, we need to do it fast!" She sent out another icy spray at him.
r />   "A fire tornado?" Oliver repeated, eyeing Joby.

  "Just do it," Samantha mumbled. "I can't hold this thing forever."

  "Gaaaah... Just keep it steady!" Oliver watched the funnel spin around. "Maybe if I..." A flame suddenly appeared at its center, quickly growing and stretching upwards.

  It seemed almost paradoxical: the wind could put fire out, but here, it was powering it up. Samantha didn't know what to do with it, less the whole thing fell apart. The wind was quickly taking on a more smoky look as the fiery vortex sizzled and grew taller.

  She pushed the flaming twister in Visero's direction. The cumbersome thing moved slowly and drunkenly in its quest, like some powerful manmade beast.

  It was beautiful. It was unstoppable. And it was a tad bit scary.

  Lord Visero stared up at it, his eyes finally losing their sharp edges. With a flail of his arm, he shot an icy blast at it.

  The wind broke it down and the flames sent it back as harmless condensation.

  Visero the Vicious, supreme advocate to the Superiorist movement, turned tail and fled for the protection of his facility.

  The fire tornado was reluctant to switch direction, but Samantha managed to get it close enough. It began heading straight towards the building, if off-center a bit. The funnel was now a charcoal-red color. The fire seemed to be taking over.

  "This is the gnarliest thing since ever!" Joby was practically jumping up and down. "Can ya even believe this is happening? A fire tornado! We got him for sure!"

  "Heh, yeah." But watching the giant anomaly tower over the facility, Samantha had a strange sense of unease. Usually she felt the rhythm of her wind, but not this one anymore. She was feeling more and more like just a spectator.

  It collided into the building, simultaneously tearing off chunks of wall and catching parts on fire. A few stray Tranludes scattered from it, one even tumbling out from a window. They all took off into the woods. Visero was not among them.

  Professor Lemmings joined the group. "You all are doing fantastic! I wished for you to have infinite energy so you can defeat him and it looks like it worked! Wish stones really are the real deal!" He eyed the building being torn to pieces. "Combined elements! Nice!"

  But Isis put her hands on her hips, frowning. "Maybe it's time to ease that down a bit. Before it catches half the forest on fire."

  "Yeah," Beatrice added. "If they're retreating, we don't have to kill them. That's just barbaric, Ollie."

  "Right..." Oliver stared hard at the spinning pillar of flames for a minute. Then he looked at Samantha. "You do it."

  Making a face at him, she turned to the fire tornado and tried to get a feel on it. But it was spinning too fast. It was like being thrown into a speeding car on a tight obstacle course and being expected to just smoothly take over and continue the course. The rhythm was too fast. It did not respond to her.

  After a minute, Oliver said, "Well?"

  "The fire's in control. Its heat is controlling the wind."

  "What? No! The wind is moving the fire around!"

  "Just get rid of the fire and the wind will die!"

  "I can't! The stupid wind's keeping the fire lit!"

  Isis clapped her hands sharply. "Hey, hey! Knock it off!"

  "But I can't control it," Samantha said.

  "And neither can I!"

  "Then who is?" Evan asked.

  Bursting right through the facility, the flaming vortex continued at its slightly angled direction. It began heading straight into the woods, demolishing all in its scorching path.

  "It's going to destroy the forest!" Samantha cried.

  "And the town at the other end of it too!" Oliver added.

  "Put it out! Put it out!" Beatrice summoned a heavy downpour. But the rain was whipped up and around. It didn't seem to be even making it to the fire.

  Charging after it, Isis tried a frosty burst. Again, this was easily disintegrated.

  Think, think. Samantha hit her forehead. Maybe if the wind goes in the opposite direction...? She started trying to build up a counter twister. But the wild gusts of the first tugged and shoved at it until it too dissolved into nothing.

  She and Oliver really had created a monster.

  "I'm going to hit it with fire!" Oliver held his hands up, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, right!"

  "Everyone, stop acting stupid!" Evan suddenly yelled. Once he had everyone's attention, he continued. "They're both barely separated. We need to break that wall between them and they both should fizzle out."

  "How?" Isis stared at the tornado. "How can we even hit the inside? That wind's like a fortress. We can't get through it."

  "Think lightning will help?" Joby asked.

  At once, the others all said, "No, no, no, no!"

  Lightning crashing into fire? Sounded like a huge fire.

  Could the wind knock the lightning around? Probably not, but with Joby, it seemed better not to risk it. His aim was unreliable enough as it was.

  "Just let me try," Evan said. He focused on the twister, watching it intently.

  Samantha was equally torn between watching him and watching the fire tornado. His element was still a mystery to her, and probably to Evan himself too. Tossing it in there seemed like a chemistry experiment in its own right. Would it and the fire cause an explosion? Would the wind shred it?

  At the center of the spinning flames and wind, a small golden orb appeared. It too began to rotate and expand in size. At first, it seemed to be the wind doing it, but then Samantha realized it was still retaining its circular shape. No, it must've been Evan's doing.

  The glowing orb was at the center of the swirling mass, the focal point to something almost otherworldly.

  "It's like the sun," Joby said. "The sun and everything else moving around it."

  Hit by her friend's poetic and rather accurate description, Samantha glanced at him for a second. "You're right. There is something almost celestial about it."

  The blinding ball of light finally reached the windy walls. It pushed its way through, at last collapsing the system and allowing the wind to extinguish the flames and ebb off on its own.

  The howl and crackle of the fire tornado was gone.

  Evan sighed. "I need a vacation."

  Chapter 27

  "What's taking him? He said he'd be here ten minutes ago."

  "He probably got sidetracked again. You know how he is."

  Evan and Samantha were waiting out front of the Clark University Center, or CUC as the students often laughingly referred to it. Thick bushes and a few trees filled the space nicely, leaving the metal benches to be a bit lost and crowded. Oftentimes students could be seen out here with their faces planted in a book or smart phone, but sometimes boisterous groups would also choose to hang out here.

  Today, however, it was empty except for the twins. Nearly everyone else was already gone for summer break. In fact, Evan and Samantha would've been too, if it weren't for the fact that Roger Lemmings had wanted to talk to them first. Joby and Oliver were too busy with finishing their packing to tag along.

  But the professor was nowhere in sight, and Evan was growing impatient.

  "You would think the least he could do is show up at twelve like he said he would!" Evan checked the fancy college clock. "I'm starving..."

  "Why don't you practice with your moonstone?"

  "He said not to let anyone see us using them."

  "Who's going to know? Nobody's here and the ones who are are brain-dead from exams. They won't notice a glowing orb shooting around, or a tornado bursting through the chemistry wing of the science building." She giggled. "Oh, those chem majors won't know what hit them! And Dr. Rehls. Would you believe he couldn't give me two more points for a B? Two more points! Asshole."

  "You know what ― fine. Let's just mess with our stones." Anything but yapping about grades some more, Evan thought to himself. For all her crying about failing the class, just missing a B was a bit exasperating.

  "I've been wondering... With your ston
e, how are you focusing? What are you visualizing?" she asked.

  "Well, I guess I just focus on the area and try to get something to happen. I don't know." He shrugged.

  "Are you doing it in a jab-like way? Like here, here, here." She prodded her finger.

  "Yeah, maybe something like that. Why?"

  "Maybe you should try it another way. I've noticed yours appears in a burst then is gone. But wind isn't like that, and I don't think a lot of the others are too. Try to visualize a path. I'm not sure that'll help but..."

  "It's worth a try." He glanced around. "Especially since we're waiting around here anyway."

  He slipped his stone out from his pocket. Besides being gold in the day, he now knew it became silver at night, as did the light bursts. Was it somehow linked to the sun and moons, or was it just coincidence? His element was a bigger mystery than his final grade in that math class ended up being.

  Fixating on a spot, he managed to have the orb appear again. After enlarging it a bit, he tried moving it. It seemed jerky and abrupt, but at least it could indeed be moved.

  "Try bashing it into me," Samantha said, as conversational as if requesting a pencil.

  Evan gave her a look. "Are you serious?"

  "Yeah. We need to know more about it. Not like you can ask an enemy what it feels like and what's working or not."

  He hesitated.

  "Oh, come on! You know if Oliver or Joby asked, you'd do it."

  "Do you like being abused or something?"

  "No, but I don't like being treated like wet paper either. I'm not a baby or an old lady. I doubt your little twinkling star's going to kill me."

  "Alright then. I'll treat you like the man you long to be, Sammy."

  "Gah! Stop calling me that!"

  Focusing on the bright orb, Evan brought it back before mentally tossing it forward. It collided into her, knocking her off her feet. He worried for a second if he'd gone too far, but she stirred soon enough.

  "I felt a force. Something physical, so I guess it's not just light particles..." She got to her feet. "Really hot. Like touching the tip of a hot glue gun."

  "You actually tried that?"

  "It was an accident."