(Outdated) The King of Elements

Betrayal

Dre scanned the dark road ahead of them. "We'll go in a similar formation. I'll take the lead. Megumi and Kimmy will stay in the middle and scan the sides. Ian and Rose will continue to take the rear. Any objections?" No one's hand had raised. "Good. Let's get moving."

They continued down the path, and slowly and cautiously walked on a long curve that seemed to go on forever. Everyone was silent, closely watching the dullness and listening to the silence around them for anything out of the ordinary. Besides the footsteps softly thudding on the dirt ground, the only sound they heard were the rustling of tree leaves where Dre had suspected were traveling. What Dre wouldn't give to be safely in a tree right now...

He shook the thought out of his head. If he was up in the trees with Michael and Keiko, then he'd be abandoning his group along with them. Kim was right. If they wanted to get out of this in one piece, then they had to do it as a group. Michael was partially wrong. They may be strangers, but they were also a group. A unit. Whether they liked it or not, they were all in it together, and they had to have each other's back if they wanted to survive whatever future they had in this new life.

If they could survive today.

"...Can't believe we managed to escape those freaks," they heard a young man's voice say at the end of the curve. "Are you ok, Karen, was it?"

"Wait," Dre whispered as he stopped walking. The group stopped behind them. That was someone talking, wasn't it? He strained to hear what the people were saying.

"Katherine. And yeah I'm ok. I think I just sprained my ankle," a female's voice had said with a Hispanic accent.

"We will get that looked at once we get out of here," a gruff voice had said.

"I can't believe you impaled one of them with a stalagmite," a different female's voice had said.

"Can't believe it myself."

"You think this was what that Gladestone person was going on about in the Cafeteria?" another male's voice asked with a slight Hispanic accent.

Dre walked slowly towards the new group. As he drew closer, he saw that there was a very low orange glow ahead of him. He could hear the sounds of fire crackling and smell the burning leaves.

"Who cares what that man said?" a woman's voice said, sounding entirely irritated. "We've been walking for what feels like hours and for what? All because that man said that all Amians had to do it! I just want to go home and take a long bubble bath. Screw that man!"

Dre could literally feel the rage coming off of Megumi as he heard her muffled voice a few feet behind him, probably saying every curse word in the English language as well as Japanese. He peered through the trees on the edge of the curve and saw them. Six bodies were gathered around a small fire. One of the people looked like she was massaging her ankle while another person sat beside her, apparently checking her ankle. He could hear both of them speaking to each other slightly above whispers, but it sounded like Spanish to him.

"If what he said was true, then that would mean that four of us had already unblocked our elemental power; Jacob, Kamatsu, Laisha, and myself," a voice said calmly, sounding as though he was talking to himself. "I think that we will have to fight them in order to leave." He spoke louder this time, catching the attention of his partners.

"We've already gathered that much, Daven," Katherine had said. "Did you have an idea on what to do?"

"Maybe, but I don't think that- what was that?" He whipped his head towards the bushes where Dre was hiding. Dre gulped as he looked down and saw the snapped twigs under his foot.