Page 64 of Elemasters

“What the fuck just happened?!” she asked frantically, shaking Chris in an attempt to rouse him.

“It was him, the emperor,” Dustin panted, “he almost… he tried to…”

His words were cut off by Chris’s eyes snapping open, no longer glowing fiery red, but no less intense than before.

“Are you okay?” Dustin asked, preparing to help his brother stand. But he wasn’t met with words… instead, a vicious gust of wind blew him and Bailey back, forcing Dustin against the wall of the house with incredible force.

He struggled to focus his vision through the dense gale, but what he could make out was Chris standing up and cracking his neck, before smirking like a predator.

“We will teach you the lesson that countless before your time failed to learn. That we do not make empty threats. We cannot be refused. As we warned you, boy, if you will not bow, you shall break,”

Chapter 24

The Pros and Cons of Breathing

Dustin tried to scream, but the wind was literally taking his breath away. He wasn’t even entirely sure what words he was even trying to get out, he was just fucking yelling; desperate to get through to his brother in spite of everything that happened between them.

Chris, or rather, Qin Shi Huang wearing his skin, simply glared at Dustin and Bailey while he continued to batter them with a tempest. They still couldn’t move; the force of the wind too strong to do anything but submit. The best-case scenario was that they’d lose consciousness soon, so they at least wouldn’t be aware of the suffocation that was clearly coming for them.

But… the wind suddenly ceased.

Bailey and Dustin fell to the ground, gasping for air as Chris still loomed over them, his body seeming to twitch involuntarily. Dustin’s eyes darted up at him, waiting for him to incinerate them in their vulnerable state, but every time Chris raised his hands like he was planning to attack, they’d drop back at his sides, limp and useless.

“This one’s resolve is not to be understated,” the voice coming out of Chris’s mouth reminded Dustin so much of when Leo was taken over. Such a familiar voice speaking in a way that was just wrong, “he was so eager to embrace my power. So willing to erase you from existence, as though you were little more to him than a persistent stain. But now, he resists? And is powerful enough to withstand my will? Fascinating,”

“Of course he’s strong enough, you son of a bitch,” Bailey spat, pulling herself off the ground and staring Chris down, “No one’s ever been able to force Christian fucking Ying of all people to do anything he doesn’t wanna do. Now let him go!”

“Chris” barked out a scoff.

“All things break. Some simply require more focused effort,” he turned his back, walking across the yard as Dustin helplessly watched, unable to form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence, “make the most of the time left to you. When we next meet, it shall be at an end,”

With that, another monstrous surge of wind forced Bailey backwards, and sent Dustin rolling a few feet away as Chris blasted himself into the sky, disappearing completely in a matter of seconds.

Only once he was gone, did Dustin find his voice again.

“CHRISTIAN!” the scream was mostly involuntary. More a pained shriek than anything else. So powerful and raw that it burned his throat as it echoed fruitlessly into the air.

He scrambled to his feet, running ahead as if it was possible to catch up to his brother on foot. He was so single-minded in his reckless determination, that he hadn’t even remembered the fact that Bailey’s house was on a cliffside until he was almost falling, with Bailey’s well-timed pull on his hoodie the only thing stopping him from going over the edge.

“Dustin, hey, listen to me okay?” she said, turning him to face her and cupping his face in her hands, “it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna find him, but right now we need to…”

“HE’S GONE!” Dustin cut her off, his voice somewhere between a whine and a snarl. The veins around his eyes blackened as his emotions churned, and he could faintly hear the water from the harbor below stirring with them, “how the fuck can you tell me it’s gonna be okay?!”

“Because I have to believe it just as much as you do!” Bailey shouted, grabbing onto Dustin’s collar in an attempt to stabilize herself as much as shake some sense into him, “if you think I’m not fucking gutted right now, you’re wrong! But I can’t let you kill yourself chasing after him, because if I lose you too then I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do! So please Dustin, please calm down. For my sake,”

Dustin looked into Bailey’s eyes, seeing how the yellow light of her powers pulsed within them as they trembled…

And he completely broke down.

The next thing he knew he was on his knees in the mud, sobbing, coughing, and babbling as Bailey just held him close.

“I… I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Chris is gone. Bailey he’s really gone! God what do I do?!”

“I, d-don’t know,” Bailey admitted, her voice barely registering, “I’m so sorry Dustin,”

“Woah… what’s going on here?”

Dustin’s attention snapped to the source of the sudden intruding voice, only to see Chloe stepping out of her Mercedes that she’d parked right next to his dad’s Escalade.