The Elemental Warriors: Chapter 10

## Chapter 10- Coral

The
day after the whole Warriors-meet-Guardians thing, the Sky Siblings had a
surprise for us.  Mind you, it wasn’t a
very fun surprise, but still pretty cool.

At practice that night, Sola
announced, “Today two of you are going to be going on your first quest.  Quests are missions to defeat monsters.  Some are easy and some are harder, but they
always have rewards.

“The first two quests you do,
you will be granted permission to shapeshift into an animal, but not of your
choice.  Elemental Warriors, it will be
somewhat based on your element.  Natural
Guardians, your two animals will be somewhat related to your powers.

“The third quest you complete,
you can choose any animal you like to also be able to shapeshift into.  After that quest, no more species will be
added on.

“So when you complete three
quests, all of you can shapeshift into different animals.  Two are not your choice, but one is.”

Luna coughed.  Sola said, “Yes, enough about the
rewards.  Usually a month or so after you
would become Warriors and Guardians, you would endure your first quest, but you
are progressing quickly.  The partnership
that will defeat the monster that is on the loose right now is…”

I could feel the tension in the
air.  I was almost sure the partnership
would be Sage and Paul.  They had impressed
Sola with whatever the heck they had done last night.

“…Coral and Ethan!” Sola
announced.

Wait, what?  We had done nothing  last night.
Ethan looked shell-shocked too.

Luna smiled. “This should not be
too shocking to you.  We are unable to
determine the special ability-or perhaps abilities-of the monster, only that he
is causing havoc around… oh, what do you humans call it?”

“Power & Light,” Intu
volunteered.

“Ah, yes, that,” Luna
continued.  “Your versatility in your
partnership makes you the most likely to defeat the monster in the Kansas City
Power and Light district.”  I
frowned.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the
city, and the bright neon lights in that part of town only made it worse.

“Wait,” Ethan said.  “Surely the other people will notice us
fighting a monster and teleporting all over the place...?”

Intu replied, “Well, haven’t you
noticed that no one besides you notices all the weird things going on?  Don’t you remember the first day…?”

Ethan and I said at the exact
same time, “The teacher thought it was a Gatorade bottle…”

“I call it the Smoke,” Sky
volunteered.  “What does that mean?” Jake
asked.  Sky answered, “It’s like the Mist
from Percy Jackson, but cooler.”  She and
Ember high-fived.

Intu smiled. “Yes, exactly.  Now, Ethan, I want you to teleport to
somewhere around that Price Chopper in the Power and Light District.  You will find the monster in that Price
Chopper, probably in aisle nine.”  Ethan
nodded, grabbed my hand, and the world faded into the city.

We
appeared on a sidewalk, facing a brightly lit sign reading COSENTINO’S PRICE
CHOPPER.  I was breathless.  “So this is what teleporting is like,” I said
in awe.  I sucked in a breath, and we
walked straight towards the automatic sliding doors…

And straight into them.  They must have been locked.

Ethan rubbed his forehead.  A goose egg was appearing out of
nowhere.  “Okay, that definitely did not
work,” he grumbled.  “We can just teleport
through them,” I suggested.  “I dunno…”
Ethan mumbled. “I need to save my energy…”

His eyes widened. Something was
behind me.  I turned around, and a man
was sneering down at us.  “Frick.  He’s a teleporter,” Ethan whispered.  “Great,” I whispered back.  “Yes, I am,” the man said, hearing our quiet
conversation.  “And I am going to take
you far from home,” he promised.

Our eyes widened.  He grabbed us, and the world flashed before
our eyes.  We were in Paris.  London.
Somewhere really cold.  And the
monster finally let go of us on some paved trail.  A giant deep blue lake was right next to
us.  It was pretty cold, even though it
was only early fall.  This made no sense
until I realized where we were.

“Crater Lake,” I said.  Ethan was confused. “What?” he asked, a
quizzical look on his face.  “We’re right
next to Crater Lake.  That’s what that
is.”  I pointed to the blue water next to
us.  That’s when I noticed the monster,
running towards us as fast as possible, maybe a hundred yards away.  “I have a plan,” I whispered to Ethan.  I didn’t tell him what it was, because my
‘plan’ was more like a stupid motion.
All I told him was, “Don’t follow me.
Teleport back without me.”  He
nodded and shimmered away, hopefully going back to the forest.

I eyed the man running towards
me.  “You wanna get me?”  I yelled.
“Come and get me!”

Then I jumped into the lake.

Yeah, this is why I called it a
stupid motion.  I thought I was going to
drown.  Instead, I noticed that there was
some sort of air bubble around me, but I could still swim.  I swam down further, and saw the monster dive
in after me in an explosion of bubbles.
He was obviously having a hard time swimming down to catch me.  He looked like he was running out of air
quickly.  I looked away before the
depressing stuff happened, and kept swimming to the bottom.  *Coral*,
you may be thinking, *why would you do*
something stupid like that?*Well, I*
can sense stuff in water, and I sensed something that was pretty powerful.  There was no other explanation.

Sure enough, when I got to the
bottom (it took a long time-don’t ask), there was a set of elevator doors.  There was a pair of up-down buttons floating
next to it.  *Weird,* I thought.  Not
knowing what else to do, I pressed the down button.  Waited.
Waited some more.  Finally, the
doors opened, and I walked into the (dry!) elevator.

After a lot of testing which button went
where, I finally decided to press button 4.
I felt the (unfortunately familiar) sensation of being squished as I
went up.  I arrived a few steps away from
the clearing.

After I recounted my experience,
Luna said, “Well done, Coral.  While you
were talking, I granted you your first shapeshifting animal. Just think about
it and you will shapeshift into it.”

At first I was confused.  Then I just squeezed my eyes shut and thought
to myself, *Okay, just shapeshift into…*
whatever you can shapeshift into now. *I opened them and looked down.*

*Flip.*