Page 26 of Elemasters

“W-what? What does my last name have to do with…”

“Be. Silent,” Leo demanded, raising his hand, “one does not speak with cattle. One slaughters it,”

Before Dustin could even process the insane shit that Leo just said, the familiar voice of Sima Yao echoed in his mind.

“This… is no longer the one you knew. Second Master Ying, prepare to defend yourself at once!”

Chapter 10

Suffocate

Before Dustin even realized what was happening, Leo was already on him, slamming him into the tile wall of the locker room with enough force to knock the breath out of his lungs. His iron grip clamped around Dustin’s neck with one clear goal; to wring the very life out of him.

Dustin’s mind went blank as his eyes widened and darted around the room. He grasped fruitlessly at the air, like he was trying to force a weapon or something to materialize out of nowhere. As darkness pricked at the corners of his vision, he caught a glimpse of the ring clasped around his pinky and he was instantly reminded of the fact that he had literal magic powers; a fact that had managed to slip from his consciousness the second his life was put in danger.

He knew that he only had a few moments before he’d black out completely, so he needed to act fast if he was going to save himself. He grit his teeth and focused on the heavy amounts of water vapor in the air around them, feeling each droplet as an extension of his own consciousness. With a burst of willpower, he commanded the vapor nearest to Leo’s head to solidify, forming jagged, frosted crystals that crawled like claws across his face. Ice webbed over his mouth and sealed his lashes shut, crackling as it took shape. It wasn’t enough to keep him busy for long, but it served its purpose of forcing him to drop Dustin as he clawed at his face.

The sudden rush of air back into Dustin’s lungs made him cough, and he gently rubbed his bruised throat as he tried to steady his breathing again.

“This is the best the modern Water Sage can muster?” Leo spoke, finally managing to brush the last few ice crystals out of his eyes, “this is the best talent Sima Yao could find? You are a far cry from the skill of Fusu, that is clear,”

Fusu… Dustin had heard that name before, somewhere. He couldn’t place it right now though, not with everything else racing through his head.

“Water Sage? Fusu? What the fuck are you even talking about right now?!” Dustin scrambled to his feet, preparing himself for Leo’s next move.

“Questions you won’t live long enough to have answered, I fear,” Leo smirked; a truly wicked grin like he was a cat playing with a bird carcass. And then, he lunged again.

This time Dustin saw it coming, sidestepping just as Leo’s fist collided with the wall… and punched through it like wet tissue paper. Sure, Leo had definitely been hitting the gym, but no one was strong enough to just punch through tile and concrete like it was nothing. Whatever had come over him had clearly boosted his strength to an insane degree.

Dustin knew that one punch like that, and it would be over for him; he had to take drastic action if he wanted to stop Leo and save himself…

As Leo struggled to pull his arm free from the wall, Dustin closed his eyes and felt the water in the pipes, just on the other side of the tile that Leo had so brutally smashed through. If he focused just right, he could use it to freeze Leo in place and maybe talk some sense into him…

But much to Dustin’s dismay, Leo broke free far faster than expected, rushing at Dustin with a guttural growl that sounded almost too intense to be fully human. Dustin’s eyes snapped open with such a panic that it caused him to completely lose control of the water he’d been so intentionally guiding… forcing it to erupt from the pipes in a torrent so intense that it blasted through the wall with the force of a fireman’s hose. It sounded like a crack of thunder as it shot forward, colliding with Leo and sending him hurtling into the opposite wall with a crunch so sickening Dustin felt it in his chest.

A scream tore from Dustin’s throat, ragged and involuntary; the way Leo’s neck and spine bent at unnatural angles before his body limply collapsed to the floor… the image would be burned in his mind for the rest of his life.

Before he could do anything, the locker room door burst open and a burly man rushed inside; Coach Carter. His jaw went slack as he examined the scene; the holes in the wall, the busted pipe still gushing water across the floor… Leo’s motionless, twisted body.

He didn’t say a word; he just slapped his hands over Dustin’s eyes, as if to shield him from the horrors he’d already witnessed, and pulled him out of the room.

The flash of sirens in his periphery was the only thing keeping Dustin tethered to reality.

He was sitting in the parking lot on a stretcher; the entire building had been evacuated, and since he was at the scene of Leo’s death, he’d been thoroughly examined and questioned. He barely remembered the EMT checking his vitals, didn’t recall the specifics of the police’s questioning… all he could hear was the crack of Leo hitting the wall. Over and over. Like it was echoing around his skull.

The police were patient enough as he stammered through a lie about the pipes bursting and killing Leo. The story was incoherent and waylaid by his incessant sobs, but eventually they chalked it up to a freak accident and faulty piping…

But Dustin knew the truth.

It was no accident, no fault of outdated plumbing… it was his fault. Sure Leo had been attacking him, but clearly he wasn’t himself. He’d wanted to simply subdue him. He’d tried.

But now he was fucking dead. All because he couldn’t control himself. And that was a cross Dustin would forever have to bear.

Coach Carter was in the process of calling everyone’s parents, and the rest of the team were either crying quietly into their hands, holding each other, or sitting tight-lipped and staring off into space. Tears steadily streamed down Dustin’s cheeks, and he knew he was seconds away from spiraling again… until his phone started ringing from his gym bag; the Star Wars main theme cutting through the heavy atmosphere in a way that would’ve been tasteless if anyone had enough mental energy left to give a fuck.

“Hello?” his voice was brittle and thin… like the icicles he’d forced onto Leo’s face.

“Oh thank fuck, you’re alive,” Chris’s voice crackled on the line, “everyone’s talking about what happened on Myspace, but the story keeps changing. What actually went down?”