Elven and Bright: Chapter 2

[juniper_sky]

Clara was not entirely sure why she chose to knock on the door of her own home. It was a pretty safe neighborhood, it wasn't as if her parents kept the house locked when they were inside and awake. Maybe it just felt like the path of least resistance. After all that fear, hiding, running for her life, and watching fantasy and reality turn upside down, it would've been stupid to pretend she wasn't exhausted, and not just physically. The whole walk home had just been putting one foot in front of the other while her brain ran itself ragged trying to make sense of it all. She could hardly focus on something as elaborate as opening a door with so many thoughts of otherworldly horror weighing down her brain.

The door swung open, and Clara looked up at her mom. Shana Harrington. A meteorologist from Delaware with graduate degrees from the University of Chicago, who enjoyed nineteenth century poetry and scrabble. An atheist, a guest writer on several blogs, and very much not the sort of woman to change her name after marriage. Upon seeing her daughter, she bent down and pulled her into a hug. If Clara had been any younger, she might well have lifted her off the ground. The sound of heavy footsteps footsteps on the floorboards heralded Clara's dad. Jacob Hartmann, a former truck driver from Indiana and current manager at a construction company, with an odd fixation on early silent films. A devout baptist, the only person on the planet who could actually get a stuffed animal out of a claw machine, and the man who had taught Rebecca what the difference between a bobcat and a mountain lion was.

Her mom spoke softly, sounding like she couldn't manage anything above a whisper. “We were thinking about going out to look for you ourselves...Are you okay? You don't look hurt, but...”

“Yeah...Yeah, I'm fine.”

Her dad let out a long sigh, and spoke in a slow, thoughtful voice of his own, “Come on, let's get some food in you, then we can talk about...what's happening.”

Dinner, as it turned out, was mostly silent, with her parents seeming very determined to give her time and space before asking any questions. In the brief conversation that happened afterward, Clara wasn't sure how much she should say. She admitted that yes, she had seen the hideous monsters attacking their city, and yes, she'd had to run for her life, and been scared out of her mind. But how could she explain to them that the man who she'd always badgered into proofreading her essays was some kind of shapeshifter? How could she explain that the girl who'd spent the night at their house five times was some kind of superhero? When she'd finished eating, she asked if she could be alone in her room for a while, which, naturally, they understood, though they told her to come down and talk to them if she started feeling anxious or scared. They had said it in a tone they hadn't used since she was much younger. Regardless, she was glad to finally have some time to sit down and think.

She had decided, for the sake of keeping things simple, that she wasn't dreaming, and she wasn't going insane. That still left several questions. Well, more than “several.” But she would stick to the basics, or else she would go insane. Why was the city under attack by monsters? Why now of all times? Why was Ari right there to save them when it happened? Why was there a possibly-magical crystal pole on the outskirts of town? And why...why had she understood the words carved into those stones? Ironically, the only things she could be sure of were that monsters were real, and her girlfriend had magical powers. Strangely enough, why her girlfriend had magical powers was a question she hadn't spent too much time on. In that moment, that bright and wondrous moment when Rebecca stood as her protector, nothing else seemed to matter—nothing else, except doing her part, however small it was. She couldn't run. She couldn't make excuses. Not while there was an elven war goddess fighting to protect her. She'd turned to Ari, muttered something about a distraction, and he'd turned his fingers into flint and snapped them. Not without giving her an uneasy look, but she was grateful, all the same.

Almost from the moment they'd become friends, Clara had tried so hard not to think of Rebecca as some kind of perfect, fairy-tale girlfriend. Honestly, their time together so far had made it difficult. Rebecca could always make her smile. Rebecca forgave her stupidest mistakes. Rebecca was always happy to listen, when she was scared, when she was miserable, or when she just felt like going off about something no one else cared about. But still, at the end of the day, she was a high-school crush, and those didn't usually work out in the long-term. In a few years, they could have been on opposite sides of the country and barely thinking of each other. Clara had never been so cynical as to assume they'd go their separate ways during the inevitable transition to college, but it was definitely something she had tried to account for. But how would she account for this? In a weird way, that perfect, magical romance she'd imagined seemed both closer and more distant than ever. Rebecca was an elf superhero. That was awesome. But Clara was a regular human girl who could barely reach her shoulders. That was less awesome. Even at her bravest, the best she could manage was waving a torch around and shouting cliches. It had been the best she could do in that moment, and she was proud of it, in a way, but it was still a reminder of how different they suddenly were.

But then, she gave herself a mental slap. None of that was really important. Monsters, magic shapeshifting TA. Those were the issues on the table. She didn't know much, but as she thought back on it all, there were some things she could reasonably assume. Rebecca had never turned into an elf before the monsters had shown up, which suggested that the elves and monsters were connected somehow. Ari hadn't been all that scared of the monsters or the shapeshifting lady with the bad sense of humor and surprisingly comprehensive knowledge of dinosaurs, which suggested he'd seen them before, and knew what they were. Ari had said he was getting help, which suggested that the crystal tree thing was either a communications device, or maybe some kind of teleporter. The monster had decomposed almost immediately after it died, which suggested that whatever was keeping it alive was also physically holding its body together. Which meant...she still wasn't sure.

Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by a call from her mother downstairs. “Clara, there's someone from school at the door!”

***

Rebecca couldn't sleep. Not with everything that happened, or that was still happening. People were dying. All across the world, people were dying. She couldn't shove that word out of her mind anymore. She was alive, her family was alive, but a lot of people hadn't been so lucky. Because of these things, these monsters which had just shown up out of nowhere, hundreds of people were now dead. Hundreds of little lights, going out forever. And she was the only person she knew who could stop it. That meant she had to stop it. Who else, if not her? That meant she couldn't waste any time, not even a second. Every moment she was lying quietly in bed was a moment she wasn't on the hunt, wasn't fighting, wasn't keeping people alive. Wasn't...fulfilling her oath.

She stood up. She hadn't bothered to change her clothes yet, so she simply walked out of her room and stepped down the stairs as quietly as she could. Her parents had already gone up to bed, so hopefully they wouldn't notice she was gone. She didn't want to answer any awkward questions. Slipping her shoes on, she opened the door and stepped outside. It had started to rain. Between the cloudy skies, the unlit windows, the dim street lights, and the outlines of crumbling homes she could make out in the distance, the city seemed more desolate than ever before. It was almost like looking at it in black and white. She took a few steps forward, breathed in the humid air, and began speaking. She remembered every word as clearly as her own name.

“I reach for the apex, and my hold is firm...” But no. She had already spoken the oath once. She didn't need the whole thing again. She didn't know how she knew that, but then, she didn't know how she knew that “oath” in the first place, either. Still, maybe just one small bit would help her focus.

“Let the flames rise.”

Maybe it was the words, or maybe it was how deeply the danger was weighing on her mind, or maybe it was just easier since she had done it before, but she once again felt fire running through her veins, as her eyes filled with white light. For a moment, she was again weightless and apart from the world, letting the flames surge through her, letting her body reshape itself into something more than human. And when her feet touched the ground again, she was Elven Flame once more. Gleaming silvery armor, fiery red hair, weapon at her side, and ears sharp as knives. Time to go to work.

In a flash, she took off down the road, not feeling the slightest strain no matter how hard she pushed herself. The thing probably wouldn't be too hard to find; the news reports, though scattered, had suggested it was keeping to the center of the city. And there was always the trail of ripped up roads and smashed walls to follow...

She passed the collection of storefronts near the interchange, passed the old synagogue, passed the plaza with the statue of some old guy from 1810. Naturally, everything got taller as she approached the inner city. She really could run faster as Elven Flame than she'd ever been able to before. It was almost automatic. Before long her face and hair were streaming with rain droplets, but she barely gave it any thought. The intense warmth under her skin chased away any chill that might have come from the rain. She wasn't even feeling all that tired. In an astonishingly short time, she found herself within a hundred feet of one of the city's few proper skyscrapers. Though it took a little longer for her to notice the fresh cracks under its main entrance.

The pavement shook under her feet. The feeling was distressingly familiar. All across her line of sight, cracks in the ground widened, asphalt and concrete split and crumbled, and large gashes began to open on both the streets and sides of the tower. In seconds, five massive, rearing, worm-like heads emerged, almost eclipsing the city skyline. Together, they let out a shriek, sounding less like an animal and more like the scraping of metal against metal. Rebecca took in a breath, and fixed her eyes on the massive horror.

"Hey,” she said, with as much courage as she could find. “I think it's time for a rematch.”

***

Clara was both surprised and strangely relieved to see Ari standing in her doorway. As might be expected, he looked entirely human at the moment, and was giving her parents an awkward, but still fairly disarming, smile.

“Hey Clara,” he said evenly, “I wanted to check on as many students as I could, make sure they were home safe after everything that happened today.” Considering the day's events, Clara's was almost certain that “as many students as I could” just meant her and Rebecca.

“You said you knew this guy, Shana?” Clara's dad said.

“Yes, I've met Mr. Niinisto at a few of the parent-teacher meetings. We appreciate your concern, Ari. At the moment, we're thinking we'll stay home and wait to see how the city and the governor decide to handle things.” Her mother's voice was tense, but still surprisingly steady, all things considered. “We've discussed leaving town, but the roads are already very clogged.”

“Understandable,” Ari said, “Do you mind if I come in? I wanted to discuss Clara's options, in the likely event that the school closes for the near future.”

“Of course,” her mom said, “We can sit down right in the dining room.”

What followed was roughly twenty minutes of discussion on remote learning, online quizzes, homework delivery, and early college applications. Clara didn't participate much beyond the occasional “yes,” “no,” “fine,” and “sure, I guess.” Ari, as always, played the part of a model tutor, but she did notice him giving her a few questioning glances when her parents weren't looking. She suspected he wanted to speak with her more privately, but he couldn't be the one to suggest it.

“Hey Mom,” she said, once the conversation started to slow down, “As long as Ari's here, I was thinking I could show him this project I've been working on, maybe get some feedback?”

“What do you think, Ari?” her mom asked. Clara attributed her lack of suspicion about this “project” to the stress she was under; she normally kept careful track of all of Clara's homework.

“I'd be happy to take a look,” Ari said gently, then he followed Clara up the stairs to her room.

After closing the door, Clara sat herself down on the bed and gave Ari an expectant look.

“So, I suppose I owe you an explanation...” he began.

"Uh-huh,” Clara said simply.

“Actually, I suppose the first thing I owe you is an apology. When I whisked the two of you off with me to the signaler, I really did think I was keeping you safe, but instead you almost died...I had no idea she'd be showing up here...”

Clara gave a small shrug, “Well, at least that part worked out well in the end. But can we get to the part about where these monsters are coming from!?”

“Of course,” he said, “Although, you say 'monsters,' but really, there's only one...”


***

Rebecca grabbed her sword-hilt from her hip and put her hand to its...whatever they called the part of the sword where the hilt connects to the blade, and pulled back, again completing her fiery scimitar. As she ran forward, at least three of the monster's heads lunged for her, but she'd been expecting them, and leapt to the side as they slammed themselves into the ground. She struck out with her sword and slashed into one of the necks, leaving a burning wound between its segmented plates. Its body writhed and twisted, bringing its thick spines within inches of her face, but she managed to jump back and land on her feet with just a small stumble. Unfortunately, that small stumble nearly proved deadly as well, as one of the other heads was coming for her right at that moment. In less than a second, she conjured a ball of flame in her free hand, and thrust her arm toward the oncoming maw. The fire tore across its jaw and staggered it just long enough for Rebecca to slip to the side. But she knew, not just from combat instincts, but from common sense, that the other heads would be close behind.

In the hopes of making herself a harder target, she leapt up and somersaulted forward, landing just beside the two heads that had curved themselves down to strike her. She twisted her arm around to the side in the hopes of slashing at one of them, but she only managed to graze it. The heads pulled away in opposite directions, then lunged forward again before she could react. From the sudden rush of air, she could feel the third joining in as well. She tried to step back, and managed to slash into one of them, but all three were coming at her from slightly different angles, and one of the serpentine necks knocked her feet out from under her. In a second, she felt her back slam against the pavement. Without thinking, she held her sword up across her face, which turned out to be the right move, as one head was fast enough and perceptive enough to strike at her unarmored bits. All it got was a scorched mouth.

If she stayed down, Rebecca knew she was dead for sure. Kicking with her feet, she scraped herself back and put a tiny bit more distance between her and the newly-burned monster-head. Then she managed to push herself off the ground with her free hand, and in one fluid motion, guided by some hidden reflex, she lashed out with her sword and threw back the other segments coming for her. She stepped back, keeping her sword forward and her eyes on her attackers, and took in a broader view of the monster as it reared back once more. She hadn't really been keeping track of how many heads and necks had been attacking her at once, but it looked like it had been five – and two more were now visible. She ran to the left, trying to anticipate the next strike. If she wanted to stay alive, she'd have to stay on the move. The heads made a few experimental thrusts, but they pulled back after just a quick singing. Finally, though, they began to twist around as if hoping to encircle her. Rebecca didn't have much time to think, but she noticed a bit of empty space that they couldn't quite cover. As six of the seven visible heads spread and curled and angle towards her from six different directions, she held her breath, and leapt forward with inhuman strength. Managing to clear one of the lower necks and duck under one of the higher ones, she swung her sword overhead and made a satisfying gash in the things armor, but still, all of her attackers could pull back and reorganize with remarkable speed. Despite the damage she'd done, no part of the creature seemed any closer to death.

She tried to hack forward at a tentacle-head that was getting closer than the others, but it reeled back with barely a scratch. At any given moment, all of them seemed just out of reach. She risked looking to the side; she'd ended up closer to a smaller brick building on the edge of the square. It had a fire escape...In a flash, she rushed to the wall, jumped over another part of the monster's body trying to make a sweep at her, then grabbed hold of the bottom rung of the ladder. It was risky, very risky, and she knew it, but if she made it harder for them to maneuver, it could give her a better chance. As she scrambled up and swung herself onto the stairs, she began to hear a distant whirring. Easy enough to recognize—helicopter blades. Two of the heads came at her, but she might have chosen the right spot after all—with her back to the wall, surrounded by tangled grates, there were only a few angles they could attack from. As they struck from left and right, she jammed her sword into the mouth of one, and swung her free hand in an arc of flame to scare off the other. She tried to press her fiery blade further, but the beast pulled itself sharply to the side, ripping a hole in its jaw, but leaving it out of her reach. Forcing her palm against the other head one more time to send it further back, she climbed the nearest set of stairs, hoping to pursue her injured prey.

Looking up, she saw that a traffic helicopter had wandered into the airspace above them—or maybe they had been attracted by the commotion. Thankfully, she was pretty sure they were flying high enough to be out of the monster's reach. The creature tried to lash at her from the side with its now-scarred head, but she was quick enough to deflect it, widening the gash a little. As she steadied herself against the metal railings, she found she couldn't resist.

“Looks like we have an audience, now!” she said, as she forced a smile. “Let's give them a show!” But no sooner had she spoken than a hole smashed open in the wall to her left, sending ceramic dust flying across her face. From the crumbling bricks and torn, rusted steel, another head emerged—the sixth? Seventh? Eighth? Rebecca readied herself as it lunged at her through the attack route of its own making. Then her feet gave way. With scrapes and creaks, the fire escape lurched down at an angle, as Rebecca found herself grabbing the nearest railing and trying to find some kind of footing. As the latest head angled itself down until it was directly in front of her, the creaking grew louder, and her heart skipped a beat as a support snapped and the angle abruptly steepened. Then the monster struck.

***

Clara's brain took a moment to process what she'd heard. “...One?”

Ari nodded, “Somewhere in the very upper reaches of the atmosphere. The beasts on the surface are really just extensions of its body. Its claws, if you like—digging in to the earth to bleed it dry.”

Clara wasn't sure why the idea of a single monster seemed scarier than an army of them—but it did. “So what is it? This one, source, monster, I mean?”

“Essentially, it's a parasite, but on a planetary scale. It latches itself on to planets and drains their life force to keep itself fed. And this is hardly the only one; they exist all over the galaxy. There are many different names for them, but the oldest one I know of is 'Dark Archons.'”

Clara's mind was still trying to cobble together everything she was hearing, but a few words in particular stuck out. Planetary. Planets. Galaxy. To her, at least, there seemed to be only one reasonable conclusion. “Different names... like, from different species?”

Ari nodded again, “Yes, aliens, intelligent aliens, do exist. I wish you could have found out under better circumstances.”

“And you said they drained 'life force?' How? Just by killing things?”

“Actually...the monsters created by the Archon can suck life out of the planet from the moment they set foot on it. Their murderous rampages are...just a side effect.”

Clara took a deep breath, “Does that mean that if they last long enough...?”

“As long as the Archon has a way of connecting itself to the planet, it will draw energy out of everything that depends on the planet to survive.” Ari's voice was clear and steady, but both his tone and expression were very grim. “It won't be noticeable at first—parasites feed slowly—but eventually, it won't just be the monsters that are killing things. First, the more delicate plants will start to wither. Then many of the marine invertebrates, then the terrestrial animals that are more vulnerable to climatic shifts—amphibians, and some insects—they'll wither and die as well.” He paused for a moment, his face beginning to tighten, then continued, “Then some of the fish, some of the terrestrial plants—ferns, mostly. Then the smaller land animals, lizards and rodents. Then the trees, then some of the larger animals. Then the grass will start dying. And then...” He cast his eyes down, letting the implication speak for itself.

Clara's mind was putting more and more of the pieces together. “You've seen it happen before,” she breathed out.

Ari sighed, “A few times. But I'm not about to let it happen here. The people of the Earth don't deserve that. No one does.”

Clara imagined an entire planet. Seven billion people, if it was anything like Earth. Seven billion, seven thousand, thousand, thousand lives, with stories, with families, with hopes and dreams all their own. All dying, and helpless to stop it. All dead, with hardly anyone to remember them. She couldn't focus on it. Not if she wanted to stay sane. In a hard mental lurch, she forced her thoughts back onto the conversation at hand. “So...you're not from here?” she guessed. “You're from another planet? A different species?” It felt strange to be talking about Ari that way – like he was some kind of science fiction character. He may not have been what she thought he was, but he was still a person. A person who had saved her life, for that matter. He didn't seem to mind all that much, though. In fact, his expression almost seemed relieved, as if he finally felt like he could speak freely.

“My people lost our home to the Dark Archons, too,” he admitted. “This was thousands of years ago, mind you, before my time. From what I understand, we fought back harder than a lot of planets.” He grimaced, “I don't know if you've noticed, but we don't follow the same laws of physics that a lot of species do. But at the end of the day, we still had no way of actually killing them. The Archon, and the monsters forming from it. See, they're made of a substance that exists beyond the reach of normal matter. I'd call it 'dark matter,' but there's already something called that...The point is, they follow their own separate set of physical laws, and most weapons, even what you'd call weapons of mass destruction, will barely scratch them. We had some luck with superheated plasma, but even that wasn't too reliable. But, well, some of us made it through. We didn't 'win,' but we survived. And when we left our homeworld behind, we made a contract, a covenant, if you like, to help save other worlds from the same fate we'd suffered.”

“So you came to Earth to protect it,” Clara finished. Frankly, the implication had been obvious the entire time, but Clara felt the need to say it out loud.

“Well, not directly,” Ari admitted. “But you could say part of my job is being a...protector of protectors.”

“Like Rebecca,” Clara said simply. The implication there was obvious, too.

***

Rebecca slammed her boot into the thing's mouth, sending it reeling back, but when she struck forward with her sword, it squirmed out of the way. Her hand was starting to slip from the railing; she needed, somehow, to make some kind of controlled descent. But it turned out the other heads could maneuver around the scaffolding faster than she'd realized, and she felt a sharp slam from somewhere behind her that threw the structure into a violent lurch and set it even further off-balance. It took only a second for her to slip and stumble into empty air. As she fell her mind raced, trying to think of some dramatic way to slow herself down. She hit the ground well before she could've even tried. Parts of her ached all over. Others were strangely numb. Did she have any broken bones? How many broken bones would she definitely have gotten if she didn't have super powers? Didn't matter.

Using every body part she could still feel, she pushed herself up into a kind of crouching position, then noticed her sword lying on the pavement beside her. And for the first time, she realized that its flame hadn't diminished. Even with the rain—which was absolutely pouring at that point—even dropped into wet gravel on the street, it was burning as brightly as ever. And somehow, even more than the gigantic monster, even more than the blinding light and the new body, that just felt magical. The heads were closing in on her again, from above, from the open square, from breaches in the nearby walls. Resolve. She grabbed her sword, swung it over her head and burned yet another fanged maw, then pulled it back, stood up fully, and charged toward the head nearest to the center of her line of sight. Knowing that there would be some kind of attack from behind, even if she didn't know what it would be, she turned her run into a somersault, then stabbed at the serpentine neck from below. And there was no pulling back from that strike—she'd jammed her sword into the bottom of its neck a good ways away from the head. It couldn't get away without either lifting its whole weight straight up, or tearing its wound open wider. Unfortunately, it apparently found another option, managing to angle itself around and strike at her from behind, even as part of it remained pinned by her sword. Rebecca nearly froze with indecision, but she was just smart enough to recognize that any action was better than none. She sliced her sword out the monster's body through the side, then rolled to the side with only a few scrapes on her back armor. She stood, jumped back to avoid another attack—she wasn't sure if it was from the same head—and spun in a full circle, trying to extend the flames of her sword out as far as she could, and catch any further attacks from behind. It worked; another head reeled back after nearly taking a bite out of her shoulder.

Her eyes darted around, trying to keep every part of the beast roughly within her field of vision. Most of them seemed to be pulling back, and she could hear mortar and pavement crumble as they slid and shifted through the tunnels they'd made along the streets. She resisted the urge to wipe the rain out of her eyes, not wanting to restrict what she could see for even a second, but it was still hard to keep track of where every head was at once. Finally, though, they converged near the tower, close to the first few holes they'd burst out of. There were seven heads leering down at her. Some had scorches and scrapes, one or two seemed to have burned mouths, but none had gaping holes in their necks. Then the ground under her feet suddenly felt less steady.

***

“What 'species' is she?” Clara asked hesitantly. “Where do her...powers...come from?” Rebecca couldn't have lied to her. She wouldn't lie to her, ever. But if Rebecca hadn't known what she could really do, she must have either been born with it, or been given it without realizing, somehow.

“That...is a difficult question to answer,” Ari said slowly. “They—that is, people like her, have a lot of names, too.” He actually smiled a little, “But if you'd like to call her an elf, I certainly won't stop you.”

Clara's eyes widened, “How did you--?”

Ari chuckled, “I try to keep my ears at the optimal shape, even when I'm chasing after wayward interstellar conduits. As for the origins of 'elves,' as you might call them, no one really knows, exactly. All I could tell you is that on certain planets, there are certain people who...well, who can fight back.” He paused, and frowned thoughtfully, as though something had just occurred to him. “There was an idea that I heard a long time ago, that people like Rebecca are given power by the planet itself—by some kind of collective unconscious underlining the natural world. I suppose, if the planet has its own life force, a life force that extends to its inhabitants, it might make sense for it to have ways of empowering them. I've never given it much thought, though. Either way, if the Archons are the planets' parasites, you could say Rebecca is part of the planet's immune system. Her weapons, the energy she generates, are made of the same substance as the Archon and its beasts. That means she can destroy them.”

“So why didn't you just tell her that to begin with?” Clara asked.

“Because no...no 'elven' woman has been able to access her powers at such a young age before. It varies between species, but they normally don't metamorphosize...that is, transform into their “elven” forms, until they're the equivalent of fully grown adults. For a human, I've never seen them shape-shift before the age of twenty-two. Rebecca wasn't supposed to be ready to fight, and none of the other girls on Earth had matured enough to transform, either. That's why my plan was to get to the distress beacon—that's what you saw me access in the woods—and get reinforcements from outer space. More powerful, more experienced monster slayers, who could strike at the Archon's heart.”

Clara had to suppress her giddiness at hearing the phrase “reinforcements from outer space” to focus on something he'd said that was even more exciting, “Did you say there were other elf girls on Earth?”

“There are seven, in total,” Ari said. “I've kept tabs on all of them, as best as I could. I wanted to get them out of the danger as well, but in all the chaos, I couldn't be sure of where they were, and I thought I could have expert fighters on the scene in hours, who could kill the Archon and end the threat to the whole planet.”

“But then she showed up,” Clara finished. “Who is she?”

Ari sighed, “I never claimed my species was universally good. Humans have the KKK, the IRA, Al Qaeda, we have...” He gestured vaguely. “Her name is Mab. As you've probably guessed, we have a history. I don't quite know what she's planning this time—she's never been an easy one to understand. But I know it isn't good. And as long she has the beacon's interstellar conduit, I'm afraid the Earth is on its own.”

“But...but Rebecca's not on her own, is she? If we can get her together with the six other people, the ones like her, maybe they can protect the Earth all by themselves! Where are the rest of them?”

“Well,” Ari said with a smile, “One of them is right in front of me.”


***

Maybe seeing the better part of the monster looming over her had thrown off her sense of distance. Maybe the ground had distorted the soundwaves somehow, made them sound closer than they really were. Maybe she was just more exhausted than she was willing to admit. But when Rebecca leapt off the ground and prepared to land a safe distance away from the subterranean attacker, she instead ended up flinging herself almost directly towards its maw. As the ground erupted and loose bits of asphalt sprayed against her still-in-midair body, the remaining head lunged up at her closing its uneven teeth around her legs. They would have been shredded instantly if not for her armor. Her sword arm was still free, by some miracle, and without even thinking, she sliced it down at the dark, hingeless jaw. It let her go—it let her go before the flame even reached its hide. She hit the ground with a harsh clang—looking up at the sky, she happened to notice that a few more news helicopters had arrived. By the time she got to her feet, the appendage that had attacked her had already slithered back into the hole it had emerged from. It had already been wounded—it didn't want to risk anything worse. But her armor was dented, straining and bending in unintended ways. It dug into her skin in a few places.

She turned to face the large cluster of heads, but they were already on the attack. She ducked back to avoid two of them, then tried to fend of another with her sword, only to feel a fourth slam into her from the other side. She managed to turn her fall into a roll, and swung her sword upward as she stood, but she was a second too early. Another head shot directly towards her, mouth wide open, much too fast for her to strike at it. She dodged it with a panicked crouch, only to see yet another coming from yet another angle. They had done it. They had broken her rhythm, thrown her off balance for just long enough that she would stay one step behind them. As she sprinted to the side, rain streaming down her face, elegant elven features marred with grime and sweat, Rebecca finally remembered just how afraid she was.

***

Ari chuckled as he saw Clara's gaping expression. “Oh, forgive me. I can't resist a bit of, uh, a bit of cheek, sometimes.”

“...I have powers? I can transform? I can...I can help save the world?”

“Tell me, when you saw the distress beacon, were there any words on it that you could read?”

“Resolve, passion, truth, fairness, serenity,” she murmured, almost automatically. “How is that possible? I had never seen symbols like that before in my life!”

“That's your native language,” Ari said. “Everyone like you, on every world, knows it by heart. It's ingrained into your genetic code; you instinctively understand it from the moment you're born. Your mother didn't need to teach it to you for the same reason mother deer don't need to teach their fauns to walk.”

“Well,” Clara said with a grin, “I don't think my Mom could've taught me how to speak an alien language, anyway.”

Ari paused, his mind seeming to need a moment to process what she'd said, then he laughed, “Ha! No, I don't suppose she could have. In any case, those five words are considered the five most important virtues for a defender of the world. In this case, they were just carved into the beacon for decoration, but some believe that each virtue is associated with a particular kind of power. It's never been proven, but if it is true, it could be that seeing those words, in that language, at that time, was what triggered Rebecca's transformation. Tell me, was there any word, any symbol, that seemed especially important to you? Any one word that seemed to stick in your mind?”

“Serenity,” Clara said. Again, it was almost automatic. “And not just because I love Firefly...”

“Let's see...” Ari said, “If I'm remembering right, that would be...”

“Clara!” She heard her dad's voice from downstairs. “You, uh, you might want to see this!”

***

Stay on the move, stay alive. That had to be her main goal. Thankfully, the speed that had let her run to the center of the city in less than an hour was serving Rebecca well in that. She tried to keep track of how they were tracking to strike at her at any given moment; if they were all trying to attack at once, she would rush forward in a direction they weren't coming from, and if they were attacking different spots sequentially, she would stay limber and squirm away from each gaping mouth as it came. But there were so many distractions, distractions she was getting too worn down to ignore! The rain, the mud, the helicopter blades whirring overhead, the sharper points of her armor needling at her joints where it pierced her undershirt. She was careless, of course she was careless, she had never fought like that before! But the reflexes that had let her make up for that were starting to get numb! And fighting back in any way, shape, or form was looking more and more impossible. As she ducked and weaved through the mass of beast flesh, she tried to lash out with short, quick blows from her sword, but the heads always shrunk back out her reach. Until, that was, one of them was a little bit slow, and a little bit too exposed.

It had tried to strike at her from a hole it had previously made in a nearby wall, but when she angled herself away, it found itself dragged to the side by another head's neck. Maybe the monster was getting sloppy, too. It still managed to keep out of range, but it hadn't withdrawn back into brick yet, and it was out of step with the others—allowing Rebecca to swoop in through a wide gap in the formation of gnashing heads and drive her sword towards it in the midst of its retreat. It thrashed from side to side as it tried to fit the rest of itself back into its hiding spot, with Rebecca rushing straght for it. But she was still a second too late. Her blade made contact, leaving a few more burn marks along the mouth, but it had disappeared back into the crumbling stones before she could do any real damage. She turned back to the rest of the heads and swore, as they began shifting and circling once more. Whatever insane dance she had forced herself into, it looked like she would have to keep it up until she dropped.

***

Clara stared at the television screen for about thirty seconds. Absorbed the image of a red-haired woman in silver armor battling a monstrosity in the shadow of a shaking tower. Knew exactly what she had to do. She rushed to the door, ignoring the shocked cries of her parents, and shoved her feet into boots. Hearing the raindrops outside, she instinctively snatched her umbrella from where she'd propped it up against the doorway, then threw open the door and sprinted into the night without bothering to close it behind her.

Before long a nighthawk, or what looked like one, came flying by, and matched her speed. “I believe serenity is water!” the bird said. “If you can control water, you can imbue it with your own energy, turn it into a supernatural force as long as it's under your control! It should be able to harm monsters just like Rebecca's sword can!” Clara gave a distracted nod. What was it Rebecca had said before she transformed? Clara hadn't been paying that much attention, but thankfully, adrenaline and fear were working overtime to preserve every memory of that moment. Still running, she bit her lip, then began as best as she could.

“I reach for the apex, and my hold is firm.

I will stand atop the spire, vigilant over land and void.

I will be sword and shield, to those who have none.

I will rise, until rising is a memory, and the world surrounds me.

With this, my oath...” She hesitated. Rebecca had said “let the flames rise,” but that wasn't right. That wasn't her. She was water, if Ari was to be believed...She searched her mind for something better.

“With this, my oath, let the rains darken the skies,

and crash down upon all that is blighted and cruel!”

Her body went numb. Then it was weightless. She was floating in empty space, yet she was surrounded by ripples, swirls, pulses, so small and so intertwined with each other that they could barely be seen with the naked eye. Was she even seeing them? She was definitely aware of them, but she wasn't sure which, if any, of her senses was helping out with that. She could also feel...something running down her skin, building upon her body as it grew. Under other circumstances, it might have felt as if insects were crawling on her, but this was so soft, so methodical, it felt more like a shower without any of the parts that could even be remotely considered unpleasant. She couldn't breathe...but that didn't seem to matter. She stayed there for a while, not knowing in the slightest how long it really was, before waking up again.

She was wearing armor, but it was much more intricate than any she'd ever seen. It was made of overlapping scales, but each individual piece was ornately carved with flowing waves and stylized sea grass, and tinted a light blue. She tugged on a section of her hair, bringing it down closer to eye level. It was still black, but now had streaks of blue as well. And of course, her ears were now pointy; she knew that without even touching them. And then...there was her umbrella. It was still in her hand. It was also shimmering unnaturally with all the colors of the rainbow, as water droplets didn't so much fall on it as gracefully descend and dance upon its surface.

She could feel the umbrella. She could feel the water. Not as a part of her, exactly, but as some malleable toy or clay in her hand, which she could reshape however she liked. She lowered the umbrella while focusing on the water droplets touching it. They remained fixed where they were in the air. She wiggled the fingers on her free hand. The droplets began to dance in a kind of sine wave. For a moment, she stared in sheer awe at the magic she witnessing, at the magic she was creating. But then her real goal reasserted itself. Like a cheetah, she burst into a run, heading for a familiar square near the center of the city.

The rain was all around her. Her rain. Hers to control. As she ran, she ran her hand along the sheets of droplets, gathering them up, clumping them together, building her own miniature torrent that flowed alongside her as she hurried through the streets. When she stepped out onto the epicenter of the torn roads and debris, though, she had to restrain herself from smashing it all against a wall.

Rebecca was there, sure enough. And she was once again facing down a nightmare. She had clearly been fighting for some time; her hair was tangled and stained, her armor dented and scraped, and her legs barely able to stand. For a moment, Clara asked herself what she possibly do to help, but the answer came quickly. Not nothing.

Clara clenched her fists and focused on the monster's closest head. She had seen fire hoses and pressure washers in action before. Maybe if she concentrated...It took only a second—a stream of water crashed into its jaw, sending it reeling back as its long neck flagellated, trying to regain its balance. Of course, one at a type was hardly the most efficient method. She swept her eyes across the square, trying to get a fix on every bit of rain at once, trying to pull all of it to her, form it into something deadlier. A few of the monster's heads turned to her, but for the first time in what was probably a while, they had to keep track of two targets. They seemed to be reacting just a little bit slower. Clara glanced to Rebecca, who looked to be going on the offensive again, though the heads were still managing to squirm out of her reach. Clara had been able to draw in more water, letting it swirl and dance around her, bouncing off her umbrella and clumping into larger forms as she prepared to form them into a weapon. What kind of weapon was a question for later.

Hoping to throw the monster off balance, she dinged a few of its heads with smaller jets of water, then began to shape her reserves into sharper, dagger-like forms. If she was lucky, she could hit every head at once. But she was a bit too slow—the heads were now coming for her, and she probably didn't have the room or the speed to dodge them all at once. She threw a few of her liquid projectiles at two of them to knock them away, then ran forward and to the side, narrowly avoiding a line of teeth scraping past her. Then she realized she was running straight towards Rebecca.

To her immense relief, she didn't actually run into her—her reflexes were a bit better than that. Still, she hardly went unnoticed.

“Clara!?” Rebecca's voice was haggard and gasping.

Clara, on the other hand, couldn't restrain her sheer jubilence. “I'm here, Rebecca! I'm right here! We can win this together! I know we can!” Rebecca couldn't seem to manage a response, but when another head tried to strike at her from behind, she struck back, adding to its already impressive set of burns. Clara pulled some more water close to them, trying encircle them with it like a kind of shield. Rebecca looked across the skyline, clearly taking note of every head's position once again. The monster held back for a moment, but then its destructive instincts got the better of it, and surged forward from five different directions. Clara sent a forceful, head-on blast directly at one of the mouths coming towards her, choking and staggering it. Rebecca jumped forward, sliced one of the heads across the jaw, then jumped back to Clara's side again. Clara pummeled one of them with hits of water from the side, not doing much real damage, but throwing it off balance enough that Rebecca could get a clean hit. Her sword cut a horizontal streak across its mouth, the flames passing through the fence of teeth without slowing down. That did some damage. Real damage. Clara doubted that particular head would be able to eat properly from then on. Rebecca tried to angle her sword around for a killing blow, but the head was already slinking back, withdrawing into one of the holes it had made in the surrounding walls. That...actually gave Clara an idea.

As Rebecca warded off the remaining heads with a few quick slashes, Clara gathered yet more rain around her, but instead of just throwing it at one target or another, she kept hold of it as she pushed it forward, maneuvering it toward one of the ruptures in the pavement. When the stream of water was close enough, she upped the speed and sent it surging into the crude tunnel the beast had made for itself and even drawing in water from nearby puddles to keep the flood going. Sure enough, one of the heads burst out of another of the holes, soaking wet and in no position to actually attack.

Clara glanced at Rebecca, “Is this helping?” Rebecca just grinned.

Then rain was giving Clara plenty of material to work—maybe enough to flood every tunnel. Only one way to find out! Using more focused, controlled streams of water, she clogged another hole in the pavement, then a passage through a wall, then breach on the edge of the sidewalk. The rain was helping all on its own, too. It looked to have already been filling in a few of the tunnels, but combined with Clara's efforts, it was really making a difference. Most of the monstrous heads had broken off their attack, and Clara could see at least a few of them writhing on the street or dangling out of cracks in the walls. Rebecca could go on the offensive now, rushing to the nearest head and hacking into it with abandon. Its jaw was already ragged and torn with burn scars, and it didn't seem to be able to bring its full strength to bear. And with water pouring into its haphazard tunnel network, it couldn't retreat this time. Within moments, it was little more than burning ribbons.

Clara half-expected it to split into two new heads, but no, it simply lay on the damp asphalt, little black bits of it flaking off and rising to the sky. Rebecca moved on to the next one. Clara smiled, and did her best to keep up the water pressure. The monster seemed to be finding it ever more of a struggle to move, most of its heads now pinned in place by the cascade crashing down on them through their own escape routes. Rebecca decapitated one, then another. A few heads were too high to reach, but a little extra force from behind sent them lurching down into range. Another, and another! Clara's muscles were so tight she felt like collapsing, but she stood her ground and kept her focus. Keep the water running. If the water stayed on, nothing else mattered. Another head sliced open, another charred beyond recognition! There only seemed to be two more. One of them lunged forward, not towards Rebecca, but towards Clara, but even this desperate move was sluggish and strained. Clara just stepped back and stared down the maw of teeth with disgust. Before long, Rebecca was back to claim that one, too. The last one was rather anticlimactic—caught in place by bits of rubble it had made itself, it could barely move as Rebecca approached and sliced open a gash she had already made in its jaw. Then, everything was still.

It occurred to Clara that they had never actually seen the main body connecting all the heads, but apparently, they didn't need to. The remnants of the great beast began to crumble into tiny specks of darkness before vanishing into the atmosphere, the flooded ruins of the square serving as its undeserved gravestone. Clara let out a breath, then turned and met Rebecca's eyes.

***

“Clara...” Rebecca breathed out. She was superhuman. They both were. They had won...together.

“Maybe call me 'Elven Rain' when we're on the job?” Clara said with a weary joy of her own.

“'Elven Rain?'”

“Yeah, y'know. You bring the flame, I bring the rain.” At that, Rebecca just smiled and shook her head in mock exasperation.

And then...they kissed. With the streets still slick with rainfall, with the monster's body now nothing but ash in the wind, with sirens blaring in the distance, and with what might have been the whole world's eyes on them, they pulled each other into an embrace and shared a kiss that lasted a brief yet endless moment. What else could they do?

By the time they had scurried off into the back alleys, away from all the helicopters and incoming rescue workers, they were teenage human girls again. Ari, who had also apparently decided to be a human this time, came up to them from who-knew-where as they were catching their breath.

“I've seen a lot of things in my time...” he said slowly, “But I've never seen anything as amazing as that. You two...what you just did shouldn't have been possible. You have what it takes. I know you do.”

“What about the other girls out there?” Clara said. “Could they 'have what it takes' too?”

“I made a list.” Ari handed her a piece of paper with some hastily scrawled names.

“Ashton Ling, Olivia Ortiz, Erika Gray, Angela Cale, Stephanie Carver,” Clara said aloud.

“Well,” Rebecca said, her smile seeming to grow a bit stronger, “I guess it's time to make five new friends.”