(Outdated) The King of Elements (part 2)

Chapter 77

Frick, frick, frick!

Dre looked around frantically. There was someone heading his way, but no matter where he looked, there was no one around. He took a breath before he looked at his mini-map. There was a red dot closing in on him, with a bar above it. The bar had to mean something, right? From all the times watching his brothers and Megumi play first-person shooters, the bar often meant someone was either above or below him. He looked up, seeing nothing but the gridded sky. That only meant one thing.

He ignited fira in his hands. "Below!" He slammed his hands against the ground, forcing his flames through the earth. A person jumped from the cement like a fish in a lake, landing directly in front of him.

"That could've ended badly," Jacob said before running his hair through his mohawk. "Didn't think I'd run into a fire elemental."

"You didn't? You do realize that there are two of us out here, right? I mean, chances of you not running into a fire elemental were pretty slim to begin with."

"Man, you must really be bad at math," Jacob said. He reached into his pocket; Dre flared the fireballs in his hands, waiting for a sneak attack. Instead, Jacob's right arm was coated in metal as he removed it from his pocket. "If there are five you in here," he continued, "that would mean that the chances of me running into a fire elemental would have been two-to-five. Still pretty good odds."

"And yet, you ran into me."

"Indeed, I did." Jacob reached for him. Dre was caught off guard as the metallic arm stretched to reach him. His hand snapped on his neck, using almost inhuman strength to toss him into one of the buildings.

His back slammed into a concrete wall, knocking the wind out of him. Dre cursed at himself as he crashed on the ground, landing on his hands and knees. Even after preparing for a sneak attack, Dre was still caught off-guard by an extendable arm. He really needed to pay attention in his Amian history class.

Dre gave a short yell as he noticed Jacob's fist rushing towards him. He spun out of the way just in time for Jacob's fist to crush the wall where Dre had been. "Were you surprised, Dre? I don't know if anyone's told you about this, but when I fuse any part of my body with any type of nature element, I can stretch it at will. And, before you ask, yes. Yes it can."

With his hands still ignited, he threw a large fireball towards Jacob. His arm slithered back to him faster than the fire before it extended large enough to block it. He placed his uncoated arm on the makeshift shield, infusing the metal to both arms before he extended an arm towards him with bone-shattering speed. He barely moved out of the way before he saw Jacob's other fist rushing towards him.

The only thing he could do was dodge and wait for some kind of opportunity to attack. That would be next to impossible, however, since with each swing from one hand, the second hand would slither back towards Jacob before Dre even had a chance to think about launching a fireball. He had to try and deflect one of his arms. If he could, then maybe he'd have the opening he needed.

So he unsheathed his sword from his back and swung with both hands at one of the rushing fists. With all of his power, the swing knocked Jacob's hand away, but it felt as if the muscles in Dre's hands were vibrating under his skin. The sword slipped from his weakened grip, though he could barely tell since his hands had already gone numb. The fire surrounding his hands were extinguished. In other words, it was an extremely bad idea.

Both of Jacob's arms slunk back to him before he crossed them over his chest. "Ooh. That sounded like it hurt. Did that hurt?" he asked in a mused voice.

"Shut up," Dre retorted as he tried to massage the feeling back into his hands, which was harder than Dre'd hoped since the leather gauntlets were in the way. So, deflecting the arms were definitely out of the question. There had to be a way to separate both arms, or at least have there be a way for him to get inside Jacob's defenses. With those metal arms, it would be next to impossible for him to get close enough to attack.