"I ain't gonna dye my hayah, no way. It's this white all naturally and that's the way I loik it. You evah met a twenty-somethin' with naturally white hayah? It's not common." Dan thought a moment about his false identity. Radito Danito really, REALLY stood out to him, but... "I'm an Episcopalian from Boston. Theyah ain't much about me that's "cultural", less you want me ta pretend ta be Mahk Wahlberg. You can be my funky bunch." He laughed at his own poorly-executed joke. Then he heard the bit about witches.

"Waaait. What kinda witch ah we talkin'? If you mean a "Harry Pottah" type thing, I can handle that. But if you'ah talkin' moah along the lines a' "Hocus Pocus", that's not somethin' I think I can deal with. Hearin' Sarah Jessica Parkah sing "I Put a Spell on You" was enough trauma relatin' to witches foah my lifetime."

"She's kind of like a Harry Potter witch. She does natural healing and divination....she's never wrong. She's the one who supposedly had some kind of premonition prior to my father's death....and she contacted me two hours before my mother died."

Jaden remembered that moment. Maria was never wrong, and if she could help them then that meant someone could give them an upper hand in a time frame where they really didn't have one. He looked to the others and sighed before giving a partial shrug as he contemplated Dan's earlier statement.

"As for the dye - I say you dye your hair very pale blonde, speak a little clearer and put in blue contacts. You could pass as a German maybe? Chloe....perhaps you can pass as someone from Ireland? Aura and Aria...I'm not sure about you two and myself I'm still unsure. I can fool people into thinking I'm British...I can act fairly well....so any suggestions our ethnicity and appearances will have to change."

"That's exactly why you need to dye it, Dan!" Aura snapped. "It's conspicuous!" Hearing his comment about Mark Wahlberg she facepalmed.
"Well. My dad's a Roman history geek. I'm American pretty much through-and-through... I think my ancestors have lived there since the 1700s." Aria said. "Our last name is pretty common, so we don't need to change that. How about Anna and Rose as our first names? I'll have to do something about my hair... I won't cut it short, however. Maybe I can dye it, like dark brown, and get brown contacts? If I braid it it shouldn't go flying all the time. And... ick. Spray-tan." Her skin, pale white and only barely freckled, would be conspicuous at the best of times.
"I'll cut my hair short." Aura said. "And dye it a darker brown. I think my eyes are okay, though I might get gray contacts or something so they're not quite so bright." She giggled. "This is going to be quite fun." Then she sat bolt upright. "Ooh, a psychic witch! How fun!" she said, not at all sarcastically.

"Right, yes she is psychic....by the way...she lives on the outter edges of Venice. And I think your ideas are pretty good. My problem is my eye color - it bleeds through most contacts...I can dye my hair black...and maybe use brown contacts? Or blue? My eye color would turn hazel toned then...I think it'll be okay though...now as for names...My mother considered having another child and she liked the name Allen so I'll use that...my last name isn't very common so...any suggestions?"

He really didn't want to ask for any ideas from the others - they were coming up with their own fake names, but as that crossed his mind he looked at Dan and frowned a bit.

"And by the way Radito Danito IS SO OBVIOUS YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE WEARING A NEON SIGN THAT SAYS ELEMENTAL USER HERE! COME GET ME! you seriously need to reconsider what your doing otherwise we are going to die!"

And then it got quiet.

Great

"Look, Jordo, oah whatevah yoah name is, I don't think you undahstand what we'ah gonna hafta do heah. Chances ah, if this guy is half as smaht as we give 'im credit foah, he's probably already tracked down yoah aunt, and is holdin' her at gunpoint until we arrive. Probably gonna give some big long speech about morals oah some shit when we get theyah, then offah some kinda ultimatum oah somethin' about joinin' him. We got two options: Option one, we go in actin' all serious business and get confronted with an offah we can't refuse. Option two, we have ouahselves some fuckin' fun foah once, then get confronted with an offah we can't refuse. Eithah way, we'ah probably gonna get Godfathah'd." Dan nodded sagely.

"No, I think he's going to do something to us...you know...sorry about blowing up....we're....not getting anywhere like this are we?"

Jaden looked at the other four and then took a deep breath.

"I think we've had enough of the insanity....I think we can...try to be comrades so we survive? I just want all of us to get out of here alive. So can we just put all this aside and do something as a team? I don't want to get the others killed because I let my temper and emotions get the better of me. So....um..."

He looked at the other and took a moment to think of what to say next. He looked directly at Dan and sighed.

"Let's start over...I'm Jaden Thurston...nice to meet you." he held out his hand.

"Just don't poison me okay Dan?"

Dan took Jordan's hand and gave it a firm shake. "I'm, uh, I'm Dan Radkowski. Rad Dan's just a, er, pseudonym I use ta feel bettah about myself. It woiks miracles, I tell ya. Look, I'm sorry foah goin' off atcha befoah. I ain't used ta havin' friends. Oah acquaintances. Oah people I vaguely know. I'm not populah." he bowed his head. To be honest, this was probably the longest he'd ever interacted with a specific group of people that hadn't been a robbery of some sort. "And, you'ah roit. We, er uh, 'Elementos' gotta stick togethah ta survoive, huh? Loik that? I just came up with it now. I think it's pretty clevah." Dan did, in fact, think it was pretty clever.

Aria resisted the urge to face-palm. "Elementos? Like, the mint thingies except with ele in front of them?" She asked Aura. Aura shushed her, but she was grinning too.
"Light brown contacts, and if you put two layers in you should be okay, Jaden." Aura, having worn contacts for drama programs, knew a thing or two about matching the colors. "Hair is okay, um... Oh. Once our hair is dyed we'll look enough like relatives that we can fool anyone, and that'll be a good coverup, because they'll be looking for two sisters and three friends, not two sisters and a brother and two friends."
"I think Dan should dye his hair black and wear black contacts. He'll scare everyone."
"But the dye would just make it a bizarre gray, it doesn't stick very well in white hair."
"Hmm. Blond, then, with bright highlights. He could be Emo Dan." Aria said, then burst out laughing.
"This is serious, Aria!" but Aura was laughing too.

"Alright, mister Oberschmidt, the camera's rolling. When I say 'go', I want you to turn that bone into something else. Ready? Go!"
Fargus pointed and waggled his fingers at the bone in his hands. The store-bought cow ankle twisted, bubbled, and shifted. A layer of broth that had solidified over the bone peeled off like a strip of sunburnt skin. Pieces of the bone sunk while others rose, until at last they settled.

What Fargus now held in his hands was a small figurine shaped like a human, made entirely out of bone. Fargus presented it to the camera, and manipulated the figurine into waving its arms.
"Good work, Mister Oberschmidt! We'll send this in to the studio and have a story out by noon! I can tell this is going to be national news! Something special, not like those riots in Detroit! Now, if you would be so kind as to follow me to the studio for an interview, we can keep moving forward with this."


"And we're back! Shocking news today as America has found its first confirmed instance of superpowers! The lucky guy, Mister Fargus Oberschmidt, is here with us in the studio! So, Mister Oberschmidt, how's being Superman?"
"I, uh... I honestly don't have any superpowers like Superman or whatever, I can just... control bones."
"Really! Well, Mister Oberschmidt, I think we've got a clip of you doing just that! Roll it!"

The anchorman who had just been speaking leaned back a bit. Evidently, the camera wasn't focused on either of them, anymore. Fargus looked around the room carefully. Nobody seemed to be in awe of him, or at all interested. No, rather, these were regular people going through their life as they always did. The thought ran a ways through his head, and settled down, classified as "not important". After all, it is human nature to look out for one's self. Spite simply didn't enter the equation until it was profitable.
The anchorman whispered to Fargus in a quiet hiss "When the red light on the camera comes back, you're on again. There's a femur strapped underneath the table. We're going to have you transform. Look sharp, it's coming back on!"
The camera the anchorman had motioned to did indeed light up, causing the anchorman to bolt upright and speak in clear, concise tones once again. "Interesting stuff! Say, Mister Oberschmidt, we might have some skeptics in the audience. Do you have anything you can do to prove them wrong?"

Fargus was getting into the spirit of things! With a grin on his face, he spoke with a chipper tone and quite a bit of flair in his motions. "Why, of course! I just so happen to have a bone right here!" He ripped the femur from its loose straps, and held it up to the camera. He closed his eyes, and focused on the bone.

The bone burst into a cloud of meal and dust with a fantastic booming sound. The dust hung in the air, before spontaneously rising up into a cloud just above Fargus's head. The cloud shrunk in size until it was a single sphere just about the size of a ball bearing. Then, the sphere grew and grew. As it grew, it gained features. Where once was curves now became flat edges. A bleached-white cube of bone dropped into Fargus's hand. Fargus presented the bone cube to the camera with a flourish, and set it on the desk in front of him.

The anchorman didn't miss a beat. "Well, there you have it! Thank you, Mister Oberschmidt! We'll be back after these messages!" Once again the red light on the camera in front of them blinked off. Once again the anchorman turned to Fargus.

"Pretty good, sir! I think you've got quite a career ahead of you! I can tell this video's going to go global. Well, I'd say this is about it for your segment. Why don't you head back to the room we gave you, I'm sure your friends would be happy to see you!"

The video did indeed go global. Within hours, websites across the world had posted the interview. Across the world, people were discussing the possible causes of Fargus's powers.

A scant three hours after that, evidence that Fargus's blood contained unusual amounts of strontium scrounged from Leo Oberschmidt's experiments on his own brother surfaced. At the same time, so did evidence of Herschel's miraculous arsenic-laced life. Knowledge of the Elementals was spreading fast, but was still hazy. Speculation and blind fantasy ran wild, but eventually the truth would be revealed.

The day was nearing its end, the hazzy red glow of sunset begining to fill the air. Alessa wiped the sweat from her face, simultanously spreading dust across her face as well. The site had not yet uncovered much more than trilobites and some Shark Teeth. However, the later was hopeful, North Carolina being home to the massive teeth of Megalodon, the largest shark ever to live. If teeth could be found, or possibly more, it would be wonderful.

Not that Alessa was too interested in the Paleontologists gushing over shark teeth; she was only on this paleotological dig to learn how to do field work, as an Archeologist pottery shards or human artifacts were more her thing. Alessa dusted off one of her Trilobites and set it next to the tunnel. A full days work had uncovered two for her team.

She approached Jason again, "So, are we going?"

"Yeah, just give me a second to take count of the tools and double check the electical ones. Jason was no paleontologist, he was simply an electical engineering student looking for volunteer work; he wasn't even from New York, his school was located in nearby Virginia.

After the two got ready, they traveled up to the resort, where Alessandra spoke up to the staff.

"Hello there, we were invited here by a man named Tecumseh. We were told to ask for him specifically."

After the truce between himself and Dan - Jaden had decided on what needed to be done. If they didn't gain more trust about each other then they would never honestly trust one another and if they wanted to live - they needed trust. He looked to Aria, Aura, Chloe, and Dan prior to taking a deep breath and looking at the window as they slowly made their way from Oxford and further into London where they could board another train that would take them to a boat that would lead them towards Italy.

"So....any interesting stories about yourselves or family you wanna talk about to pass the time?" He asked and there was more silence.

Sometimes, he questioned why he had decided to talk to those three girls yesterday in the Midnight Pub & Cafe instead of insisting that he had to work the late shift and close up. He could have said that he couldn't speaking with them, but then what would that have done? Possibly left them all alone and in the open to be picked off one by one? He didn't think he could stand that happening and then mentally saying to himself what if?No, he didn't think he could bare to have heard that any of them had been abducted, or found dead. He looked at them again and took a second to consider his options. Should he start? Could he even really begin? Where would he begin? Jaden growled a bit in frustration and felt Aria flinch a bit. He took a moment to consider and then looked out the window.

"My dad was a Historian....and we lived in Salem where your from Dan. My old home was full of old large tomes that talked about anything from the Ancient Civilizations to the magical works and beliefs of the old days. One of his favorite subjects was Alchemy....he knew every detail about it and even did an experiment with me when I was little in an attempt to turn basic metals into gold. They never seemed to work, but it was fun and interesting to learn so much...I was twelve when they found him dead on a sidewalk, singed and looking like he'd been put through pure hell before being killed....."

He paused, not completely sure that any of them were listening - but if they were maybe they'd open up a bit as well. Like Dan said - they each had a death to their names, they were all Elementals, they were different and yet so very much the same.

"My thirteenth birthday was oddly disinteresting to me that year - I had looked forward to it because we were going to England...but after that my mom started to get distant, I guess I looked to much like my dad for her tastes or something....maybe she knew I wasn't like other people....when I was fourteen and my powers surfaced for the first time I shocked the people at my school...and terrified my mother....she never looked at me the same and when I tried to protect Rissa....I was told that I was a monster and I agreed....but....what happened next...when I killed that person - I realized I couldn't stay in America anymore and I left."

More silence, maybe they were listening? Were they potentially listening to what he had to say? He looked at them slightly, unsure of what to make of any of their expressions.

"I came to England and moved to Oxford and remained there until now. I guess why I suggested Italy wasn't fully just to see Maria....I'm scared to go back....my aunt and uncle after my mom supposedly died in a drive by shooting...said it was because of the damn freak that existed in our family....I guess you can see where my mentality comes from....I apologize ahead of time because I was being selfish in not wanting to go back...I don't want to run into them....they know what I am."

And the silence continued.

"Wow. That's, uh, that's some tough shit theyah, man. Musta been tough, havin' ta cope with... All that. I, on the othah hand, am one lucky son of a bitch. I nevah knew my fathah!Left me, my foah brothahs, and my mothah all by ouahselves. Best thing that evah happened ta me, I tell ya. Nevah had ta waste time with playin' catch, oah showin' him my repoaht cahd. I got ta skip straight ta bein' my own man!" Dan puffed out his chest, completely oblivious to the connotation of what he had just said.

It was clear Dan was either willfully ignorant or else completely oblivious to just how terrible his life had been. "In fact, I've been livin' worry free foah pretty much my whole life. Straight C student, teachahs nevah believed in me, so I nevah had expectations to live up to. Mothah drank herself ta death when I was twelve, so me and my brothahs got to move into a sweet fostah home. All I had ta do in retoin was get the shit beaten' outta me twice weekly. Sweet deal, if ya ask me. Then, aftah my fostah parents got busted foah sellin' crack, my brothahs and I got separated. Didn't have ta get picked on by 'em no moah, so that was a plus. It all toined out swell foah Rad Dan, ya know." Dan smiled a wide, toothy smile.

"I highly doubt that what your saying is really how you feel Dan. But, regardless....I've wondered something considering Aria and Aura...is being what we are genetic?"

It had popped up in his head a few times, but the previous hours for them hadn't been the right time to ask a question. What if it was genetic? What if they could pass this on? What if others in their families - mothers, fathers, cousins, sisters, brothers, and others were capable of having this because of their connection to them? He frowned and looked to the two sisters before looking down a bit.

"Do you think its possible? For it to be something that we can pass down? Or that others in our family are also like us?" something about that chilled him. Did the others feel that way? Did they care? He kept his eyes downward suddenly feeling ill.

"God I hope I'm not getting sick."

Chloe had to cover her mouth to suppress a very quiet giggle at the mention of being "Godfathah'd." Other than that, though, she listened attentively and in near-total silence. Wow. Seemed like there were some sad stories here. She couldn't be help being relieved, though, that Jaden and Dan had finally seemed to reach some common ground. Quietly she crossed her fingers and hoped it would last. Yelling was fun for no one, and she hated it especially.

At least she now knew the probable cause behind Dan's...weirdness, although Chloe guessed that it was good he had such a positive take on his childhood. She continued to listen politely; she didn't know much about biology but she had her doubts that it was genetic. It was much too sudden to be genetic. But then again, if it wasn't, than what could it be?

"I was a really average kid until I found out I could breathe out chlorine."

Aria and Aura exchanged glances, deciding not to mention their own rather pleasant by comparison backstories.
Aria, not knowing what to do or say, said nothing, folding her hands lightly in her lap. She leaned against Jaden’s side, watching as Aura’s eyes went cold and a drop of liquid helium dripped off of her finger, and resisted the urge to laugh outright at how protective her older sister had become. But she said nothing, instead trying to offer comfort without outright saying it.
Aura sighed, once the silence had gotten overwhelming. “I owe you an apology, Dan, for trying to freeze you. I was scared, and you talking about rape so casually kind of absolutely panicked me. But that’s no excuse, I still shouldn’t have splashed you with superfluid helium. That was just uncouth no matter how you slice it. So… Will you accept my apology?” She extended her hand to Dan, saw the glittering drops of helium on it, and thought better of it. “Um on second thought, maybe no handshake.”
Hearing what Jaden said, Aria flinched. But it would make sense, in a twisted way, and… “Yvette! Oh my god.”
Aura’s eyes went wide. “Yvette? What about Yvette?” She seemed quite concerned, probably scared that Aria would be having an emotional breakdown like she was when she’d found Yvette’s body.
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it. And it would explain her eyes. Silver-colored, like yours, Jaden, except paler and shinier. Our cousin.” She had been older, the role model to both Aria and Aura. “She… Well… I found her, in the woods, we’d gone on a camping trip and she’d vanished after dinner and hadn’t returned by morning. I went looking and I found her. It looked like she’d cut herself up... Thirty-five slashes on each wrist. I counted. Trying to figure out. You know, what had happened to her. But I don’t know if she’d hurt herself. Her eyes were wide-open like she’d been scared and there was a number seventy carved into her chest. There was a silvery metal all over her legs and her shoulders like she’d tried to build armor over herself. And there wasn’t a knife anywhere around her.” Aria was trembling as she said it, terrified. “I think she must have been one of us. It would have made sense… What element is seventy?”
“It’s… Ytterbium. Oh my god. Yvette.” Aura said. She went to wrap her arms around Aria, saw the helium beading up, decided not to. “God damn it I’m so scared I can’t even hug my little sister.”

"Are you telling me....you two....had another family member that had an Elemental power?" Jaden went rigid.

There were a hundred and eighteen elements on the periodic table - they really didn't need proof of whether or not it was where the powers came from - but if Yvette and who knows who else had been killed off there was just one single question: how many of them were left? He looked at them and momentarily wondered if he was being foolish for thinking that there were none like himself, now he'd met six of them and heard of many more. He took a deep breath and looked at the others.

"Dan do you think its possible your brothers could be like us? If so then....what are we really? Are we human? Or something else?"

He didn't want to be right, he didn't want to believe that they were monsters - demons. Jaden hated being called evil, being looked at like a freak. He couldn't stand it and he didn't want people to look down on the others with him. He looked down, his fingers knotting in his hair as he rested his elbows on his calves.

"Are we really devils?"

Dan shrugged. "Foahgive and foahget. Ya know, I feel closah to yous than I've evah felt ta anybody. 'Specially you, Chloe." he flashed her another grin. "I feel we could get to, ah, know each othah real well. If you'd jes give me a chance, I'm shoah we'd get on real well. Maybe even bettah than real well." He gave her a thumbs up. "Know what I'm sayin'?"

He turned back to Jogger. "I dunno. They coulda been. I figya Don mighta been, he was always a bit gassy. Heh. Get it? Gassy? I'm hi-larious! But seriously, he'd lock himself in his room foah days at a time an' it always smelled loik death up theyah."

"I know I ain't a demon. No way a demon would have such great taste in... Well, everything. Cahs, food, women..."

"KUSO-WA!NAZE, SONOYONI MIENAI WATASHITACHI NI ARU?!" Saya shouted as she drop-kicked a wooden coffee table - effectively busting it.

Thus far she had made it all the way to Oxford, England - wonderful city, she would have quite enjoyed it - if she wasn't hunting down five run-away Elementals! She hissed as she turned her attention to the room she was in - a curvy blonde cowering in her presence beside a ginger haired young man. She was currently at The Midnight Pub & Cafe. Just mere hours ago she had heard about the owner dying, and now the shop was closed, the two workers awaiting to hear from the man's family so they could know whether or not they still had jobs when she had come in. Now Saya was watching them with a glare on her face.

"WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR OTHER CO-WORKER?!" the two flinched.

"Jaden?" Saya whirled on them.

"That's his name? Then yes! I am looking for him and four others!" the ginger narrowed his eyes.

"What do you want with Jaden and the three girls?" she narrowed her eyes.

"Because he and those three girls are not human beings! We're a Race of what some would call evolved humans. I represent an element on the periodic table. I am Bismuth, the eighty-third element. I am a race of human called an Elemental. And your friend Jaden? He's just like me, and from what my eyes and ears have told me he's the Iron Elemental and is with the Hydrogen Elemental, Helium Elemental, a Chlorine Elemental, and one other that remains unnamed...."

"What are you talking about?! Jaden is human! he's not some sort of evolved human! He's just a person! He's fifteen! How dare you just outright call him some kind of monster! Your one crazy bitch if you think for one minute that he..." Saya looked at them with tears shining in her gold eyes.

"If I don't find them someone else will, and he'll break them and make them obey him or worse....if one of them or all of them appear to have a shot at overthrowing him....then....he can and will kill them. Iron, Hydrogen, Helium, and Chlorine are strong and potentially threatening Elements...so is that other person if he's anything like the other four then that man will kill them off or use them to lure out other Elementals. If he does that then he'll kill us or use us....please I know you care for your friend...so please.....I'm begging you! Tell me where they went! I can follow them if I get a good direction!"

"Down the street towards the Ink Well Coffee Shop...." Mason stated.

"Thank you..." Saya turned to leave and then she heard someone move.

"Please...." she looked to the blonde and stared.

The girl was crying, tears streaming down her face. She remembered her little sister Kamiki looking at her like that when she left. This young woman cared for her co-worker like family and she found herself touched - something she hadn't felt in years met her as warmth spread through her chest. Saya waited for her to speak and Kelsie sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"Please...keep him safe! He doesn't have anyone and I kind of think of him as a little brother...please keep him and those he's trying to protect safe...okay?" Saya gave her a soft smile.

"Alright, I swear on my honor as a Samurai, as a member of the noble house of Byakko that I will keep them all safe - even if it takes my own life."

With that she left, praying and hoping that she could reach them and assist them in getting away.

"To Italy I go -A prestissimo"

The story of Yvette was making Chloe feel a little queasy, and the tiniest hint of chlorine could be smelled at this point. She made herself stop and close her eyes and think of puppies and rainbows, anything to get that horrible image out of her head. It was a good thing she was an only child and kept her power on the down low.

"We're not devils, so you can just forget that right now. We're just weird is--"

Her face flushed.

"...We're just weird is all," she finished in a mumble, then tried and failed not to laugh at the thought of 'Rad Don'.

"But....what does it make us if we're not normal humans? Elementals? That sounds to much like something out of a comic book for my tastes....so if we're....I hate saying it...something akin to super-humans or things like that where do we stand on the scale? Are we above other humans? Or below them? How much of ourselves is us and how much is our element?"

God he hated it when he became like this - his father had instilled it in him at a young age - but that didn't mean he liked it. He always tended to over think things, and it always came back to bite him.

"Remember what I said? In Alchemy, my element is presented as Fe- The Guardian....what have I been doing? Even subconciously towards all of you since we started being chased? I hate to consider it but...are we....some kind of new race of human? Or something like that? If any of you have some ideas I'd love to hear them right about now because I'm starting to freak myself out..." he went stiff at the statement.

Damn himself for over thinking these things and then blurting that out. Damn the entire situation.