Aqua

by Jonathan Dakin

  Chapter Twelve

  “No! Please don’t do it!” Madzimoyo screamed in Spanish, “Please Shasa, don’t let him do it!”

  “SHUT UP!” I howled at him, slapping him across the face with the back of my hand. He dropped to the floor and landed in a crumpled heap.

  I looked over at the three murderers in front of me. They all looked terrified.

  “What’s going on…?” Niyol pleaded. He shook with fear, like the wimp that he was.

  “Why is it so hot in here…?” Sefarina asked aloud to herself.

  I placed my arms by my side, and felt the sweat float away from my flesh and evaporate into steam. Niyol gawped at me defencelessly. He would be easy to beat.

  I allowed the mist to drift in front of me, and then aimed it at the villainous boy across the table. As my arm shot up from my side, the steam flew directly at him.

  “Get down!” Aura screamed, throwing Niyol to the floor and taking his place. Just as the scolding vapour was about to hit her, it stopped mid-air. She threw her hand up in front of it, and the steam began to transform back into larger water droplets. She glared at me with a look of intense hatred, and then fired the balls of water back at me.

  I flung myself to the floor, and heard thousands of tiny explosions as the water bullets dug into my chair, and the wall directly behind me. Diane had warned Shasa that they were powerful, but she hadn’t told her that they could use our own powers against us.

  I looked across the floor, and saw Niyol cowering under the desk.

  “We don’t want to fight you!” He shouted at me, “Can’t we at least explain what happened?”

  “Explain this!” Visola shrieked as the aquarium next to Niyol exploded and the water from it spilled out over the entire floor. Some of the water began to move towards Niyol, and began to envelope him. Visola was controlling the water, forcing it to entangle him and then lock him in place.

  “No!” he cried out as he stood up, the water running up his body like an upward-cascading waterfall. I jumped back to my feet and watched as his sisters stared at him in shock and revulsion.

  “Stop it!” Aura screamed as she tried desperately to pull the water away from Niyol’s body with her powers. Small drops floated out of the mass of water, but not enough to stop my sister.

  “She said stop it!” Sefarina screamed, her eyes growing dark. The small girl turned towards Visola and within seconds of looking at her, Visola flew across the room and smashed against the wall heavily. She cried out as she stayed in place, half way up the wall, floating there as if she had been nailed up like a picture frame.

  “What are you doing?” Shasa cried out, staring at Visola in horror. Sefarina began to scream out as Shasa gaped at her hatefully, the water from the floor hardening around her feet. Sefarina couldn’t move her legs, but that didn’t stop her from retaliating against my other sister. Shasa suddenly choked loudly, and froze in place as if she were an ice sculpture.

  I looked back to Aura and noticed that she had collected millions more droplets that hung in the air like floating beads, and was directing them towards me. I stayed put as they sped towards my body, and just as they were about to puncture me, I instinctively roared out, and my body felt like it was on fire. All of the water droplets evaporated, and a large cloud of steam was all that hit against me.

  Aura looked angry that I had thwarted her attack. Her brother and sister continued to squirm, as my brother sat on the floor with his hands over his head, quivering in terror. Madzimoyo was pathetic. He should be defending his family, not cowering on the ground like a scared child.

  Aura began to walk to her right, down towards the end of the room, and I followed her, keen to know who out of us was the strongest.

  Sefarina began to scream even louder as the thick water continued to climb up her body, now covering her entire legs up to her waist. Niyol continued to fight against the water as it engulfed him, and both of my sisters remained frozen in place.

  “Come on then, big boy,” Aura mocked me, “let’s see what you got.”

  I felt around the room for a water source, and immediately knew that there were several pipes running across the walls and under the floor. There was one close to where Aura was standing, so I reached into it with my mind and made the water boil, then directed it up in to the room. The geyser of water exploded next to Aura and she screamed in shock as the scolding droplets fell onto her. She ran back towards her brother and sister, but as she did she redirected the water flow towards me, and within seconds I was feeling the sting of my own success as the boiling fluid burnt my hands, which I threw up in defence.

  It was my turn to run, but as I did so I felt an even stronger pain as the floor began to crackle and fizz. I looked over to Niyol and caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were now glowing white with fury. I stopped in my tracks as my jaw dropped. Electrical currents rippled across his flesh and discharged along the surface of the water. Looking down at the flooded floor, which was now up to my ankles, I realised the futility of all of our hard work, as well as how much pain we would all soon be in.

  “ARGH!” Niyol wailed as bright burning streaks of lightning poured out of his hands, sending shockwaves through the entire room. My body felt as though it was on fire and I screamed out in pain, as did everyone else in the room. I dropped to the floor, unable to control any of my bodily functions as the unflinching pain surged through every single molecule of my flesh. My teeth gritted together and my hands clenched into fists as the electric current ripped through me from my feet to my head.

  “STOP IT!” Madzimoyo screamed out, and suddenly a large aquatic plant vine shot out of the bubbling hole I had made in the floor, and wrapped itself around Niyol. Madzimoyo used the rubbery green rope to squeeze his enemy as hard as he could, but the harder he tightened his botanical grip, the stronger the electrical currents became. The shocks tearing through my body made me feel like I was about to die.

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Niyol screamed. The searing pain quickly ended, and I fell face down into the water, my body convulsing in shock. “ALL OF YOU STOP!”

  I looked up to see Madzimoyo’s plant dropping lifelessly to the floor, and Visola’s water plunge from Niyol’s body with a splash. Sefarina let Visola and Shasa free, both of whom collapsed into the water, and Aura jumped down from the table she had been standing on, hiding from her brother’s attack. She may be annoying, but she was certainly intelligent.

  Sefarina cried out in happiness when Shasa unlocked the water encasing the lower half of her body. Madzimoyo still clutched his head in his hands, and shook violently in fear.

  It took us all several minutes to recover, and I was surprised that no one outside of the room had heard or felt the commotion. To try to make it up to us, Sefarina rushed over to help Visola to her feet, and Niyol did the same to Shasa and Madzimoyo. Aura stared at me with her hateful glower, which I mirrored back to her.

  “That was crazy!” Visola exclaimed as she put her hand on the top of her hair, which looked as if she was checking to make sure her dreadlocks hadn’t fallen out.

  “I’m not finished yet!” I screamed out, jumping up onto the desk and lunging at Aura.

  “Neither am I!” she responded, leaping towards me.

  “STOP IT!” Sefarina yelled out. My body suddenly locked into place, and I couldn’t move a muscle. I stared into Aura’s eyes, floating in mid-air, and noticed that she too was frozen. Sefarina moved my body across the room and pressed me against the wall, next to Aura, who was also pinned up. I tried with all my might to struggle against Sefarina’s grip, but I was completely helpless. I closed my eyes and began to move the water particles beneath me rapidly, heating them up so that I could create some steam.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Niyol warned me, and I opened my eyes to see him pointing an electrified finger in my direction. “This has gone far enough.”

  “But you killed Valeska!” Shasa cried.

  “Yes we did, but we didn�
�t tell you why.”

  “She was our friend,” Madzimoyo sobbed bitterly. He was such a baby.

  “She was my friend too,” Niyol continued, “but she was also a traitor. She worked for the Inimicus.”

  “No!” Visola called out, shaking her head in denial and walking towards Niyol and his sister, who were now at the end of the room standing in front of the broken aquarium. The fishes’ lifeless corpses floated to the surface of the water, clearly caught up in the electrical battle that had raged.

  Sefarina whispered something to Niyol and he turned and looked over at myself and Aura.

  “Sefarina wants to put you down, but only if you both promise not to use your powers. Do you?”

  I didn’t like being strung up like this, unable to move. It was a fate worse than death. I wiggled my eyes around furiously, and then dropped into the water below.

  I inhaled sharply and then wiggled my fingers and toes, testing to make sure that I now had power over my own body movements. Aura splashed down next to me and screamed in shock as she hit the water.

  “Sefarina, I can’t believe you did that to me!” She cried out, jumping to her feet. I stood up next to her, but wanted to be as far away from her as physically possible.

  “Why don’t you two kiss and make up?” Visola joked.

  I shouted Spanish profanities at her and then marched around the table so that I stood next to my siblings, opposite our enemies.

  “Valeska couldn’t be the Inimicus,” Shasa continued, “When she was here, all she did was help Madz… She never tried to recruit us!”

  “We don’t know exactly when she became our enemy, but she was almost certainly working for the Inimicus when she was with you,” Niyol confirmed.

  “And how do you know that?” I probed him.

  “Valeska was an eco-terrorist, working for the Inimicus. Not only did she want to destroy those she saw as responsible for polluting the ocean, she also planned to murder us too. While she worked at the Ventus Cohors she studied our powers closely and then used that information to build suits that would protect her and her soldiers from our wind based attacks. She was probably monitoring you too…”

  Madzimoyo shook his head in disbelief. “No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t…”

  Niyol walked over to him, and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but she betrayed us all.”

  “Show him what she did to you,” Aura ordered.

  Niyol sighed, and then lifted up his t-shirt. The middle of his flat stomach was heavily bandaged.

  “She stabbed me, right here.” He pointed at the cotton bundled centre, and then pulled his t-shirt down. He gazed sadly at my brother.

  “She tried to kill me, and she would have done if Sefarina hadn’t stopped her.”

  “He’s right. She tried to kill all three of us, and countless other innocent people whom she saw as her enemies,” Sefarina confirmed.

  “The Inimicus have attacked us constantly since we started training,” Aura educated us. “First they attacked and almost destroyed our base, then they accused Sigwald of being a traitor, then Valeska attacked us when we were in hiding, and finally when we confronted her at the docks.”

  “We had no choice but to fight back,” Niyol added sadly.

  “Is that why you have those overgrown gorillas with you?” I enquired rudely.

  “Just what is your problem?” Aura barked at me.

  “What’s yours?” I snapped back.

  “Captain Harris and Malik are here to protect us, yes. Assistant Director Ayres insisted on it…” Niyol replied, rolling his eyes in frustration.

  “Well they didn’t do a very good job.” I smirked, staring at the red skin now glowing like a beacon across Aura’s face.

  “You’ve met A.D. Ayres?” Shasa asked, wide eyed, completely ignoring my comment. “What’s she like?”

  “She’s pretty cool,” Sefarina admired.

  “You definitely wouldn’t like her,” Aura told me, and I squinted at her in exasperation.

  “Please just leave me alone,” I told her. She laughed loudly.

  “You’re the one who kept attacking me!”

  “Whatever!” I dismissed her. I had had enough of her for one day. The thought of spending any more time with her made my blood boil. Literally.

  “So let me get this straight,” Shasa began. “Valeska was actually working for the Inimicus the entire time she was with you, and she framed Sigwald and then tried to kill you all?”

  The three siblings nodded. “She framed Sigwald so that she could get us alone with her,” Niyol answered, “and she tried to convince me to join her. I turned her down.”

  “Just about,” Aura added sarcastically. Niyol scowled at her and then turned back to my sister.

  “But why?” Madzimoyo pondered thoughtfully.

  “What do you mean?” Niyol enquired.

  “Why you three? Sure, you are the least experienced, but Valeska could have easily tried to destroy us when she was here, but she didn’t. Even if she was monitoring our powers, she never tried to attack us. Why was she hell bent on killing you?”

  Niyol’s bottom lip stuck out and he turned to his sisters. The three of them looked to one another for an answer, but in the end they all shrugged. I rolled my eyes. They were truly pathetic.

  Madzimoyo moved closer to Niyol, and put his hand on his stomach pensively.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened.”

  The mood in the room had completely changed. I knew that my siblings had fallen for the Ventus’ charms. They believed them. I was disappointed in them, but I kept a stern composure. I was a warrior. I was here to protect my family. I wasn’t going to let my guard down now. I still didn’t believe a word they said.

  “I’m sorry too,” Visola agreed.

  “I’m sorry about… this!” Shasa bit her bottom lip and looked down at the floor in embarrassment. I wasn’t.

  “Here: I’ve got a remedy for you…” Madzimoyo pulled up Niyol’s t-shirt to reveal his injury. Niyol looked slightly shocked and confused at my brother’s physical manhandling of him, but it was something he would quickly get used to. My brother was a very strange person.

  Madzimoyo placed his right hand on Niyol’s stomach and bent down to scoop up some of the water from the floor.

  “Some people believe that salt water has healing properties.” My brother splashed the water onto Niyol’s stomach. He flinched from the cold. Madzimoyo then rubbed his palm around the wound in a circle. He looked up at Niyol.

  “Does that feel better?”

  Niyol beamed with excitement. “Yes! That’s amazing! It feels as if my wound has completely healed!”

  Madzimoyo stood up straight, and stopped touching the foreigner. He pointed at the hole I had made in the floor, which was still bubbling water slowly into the room.

  “We have salt water pumping through the entire building. It keeps us happy to wash and swim in it. It also has various physiological and psychological benefits…”

  “That’s rubbish!” I interrupted. “You’re just making things up!”

  Madzimoyo dropped his arms in defeat, and his back bent slightly as he walked away from Niyol and stooped by himself in the corner. Someone needed to tell him to stop his ramblings. They made us all look stupid.

  There was an awkward silence. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. Prepared to strike out at whoever was about to attack, I quickly realised that some of the tropical fish in the ankle high water were swimming around. In fact, all of them were.

  I bent down for a closer look. I could have sworn they were all dead…

  “So do you believe us now?” Sefarina asked, her expression just like a little child looking for validation. I stood back up again and crossed my arms.

  “I guess…” Shasa shrugged.

  “How do we know that this isn’t all a trick?” I was sure that they were still our enemy.

  “You don’
t,” Niyol replied honestly, “But considering the fact that we just stopped fighting with you, when we could have continued…”

  “Are you suggesting that you would have won?” I strutted over to Niyol, and even though he was taller than me, puffed my chest out and pushed it into his.

  “Please don’t do that,” Niyol said to me, his face close to mine. “My stomach is still sore.”

  I didn’t move. I wanted to shove him harder, but I didn’t. I had nothing to prove to him. I knew that in a fight, I could beat him. He was just lucky that we weren’t in our natural surroundings, in the ocean, or else it would have been an annihilation.

  “You’re Inimicus,” I told him, pushing my finger into his shoulder. “You’re trying to make us think that you’re our friends, that you had a reason to kill Valeska, when really you’re just trying to make us drop our guard so you can kill us.”

  “Why would we want to kill you?” He moved his head closer to mine, so that we were almost touching foreheads. But he didn’t intimidate me. Not in the slightest.

  “If we really were Inimicus, then we would try to make you turn against the Elementus Populas and join our side.”

  “That’s what you’re doing right now!”

  “And how exactly are we doing that?”

  “You’re trying to confuse us…”

  I felt hands grab both of my shoulders and pull me away from Niyol. I knew it was Shasa.

  “Stop it, Gamba, please! Stop with this alpha male act and just listen! What they’re saying makes sense!”

  “Aren’t you forgetting what Diane told you?”

  Shasa stopped in her tracks. “You’re right!” She beamed with pride. “Little brother, you’re right! How could we have forgotten?”

  “Who’s Diane?” Aura asked.

  “Diane is Valeska’s friend. She moved to the island just after Valeska did. She’s the one who told me that Valeska was dead. She’s the one who told me that you were working for the Inimicus.”

  The Ventus Trio looked to one another in fear.

  “We’re all in danger,” Aura said solemnly. “The Inimicus have already infiltrated the island.”