Paige watched in awe as a white dragon appeared from the golden light. She knew she should have been freaked out by it but she wasn't. The little creature actually intrigued her. Part of her was frightened, she'll admit, of the dangers that stood ahead, but flashes of her home life kept popping into her head. There were so many things she had missed out on, friends, high school, boyfriends, everything normal girls went through. While she wasn't planning on dating anyone soon, it was clear she wasn't your typical girl.

The whole reason she moved to the big city was to find the truth behind her abilities. Now she had. Who was she to run away from it? In fact, it seemed a little exciting. This was her chance to experience the world and give a reason for her existence.

She looked around again and raised her hand, waiting for everyone to finish speaking.

"If I could put it in a word, please. I get why most of you just want to run away and leave this to someone else to fix. But if what Phil and Toran said is true, we may the only ones who can help. Haven't you ever wondered why you had these magical abilities? I certainly have. I always wanted to know why me out of billions of people was born with this power. I don't want to live my life only using my gift for myself. If I think about it more, I feel like I've been selfish. There's so many ways all of us can help this world, why don't we start now? If we don't, there might not be a world to wake up in tomorrow. I'll admit I'm terrified for my life and for all of yours, but I don't want to live the rest of my life knowing I could have done something to help," Serena said and turned to Phil "I'll do whatever you need to help defeat these Vygorns, you can count on me."

Gwen's jaw dropped as she saw the dragon. It was pretty damn cool and she started to wonder if she could get one of those. "Well, I can't get showed up by the girl who totally face planted earlier today," she decided aloud, slightly teasing Paige. "I guess I'm in too."

"The girl is a bit too preachy, but she's got a point." she began then turned to Jason. "You may not go outside much, but I'm sure if you can take on zombies in video games, you can learn how to handle some Vygoms in real life. And if you can't, well I'll just freaking heal your sorry, lazy ass with my powers."

She said the next part to everyone. "This really isn't my scene, and maybe you all are probably just as confused as I am. But it'd be kind of cool trying to play hero. I know you all feel that this is the right thing to do anyhow."

She started to feel a bit embarrassed at her 'outburst'. God, why was she acting so weird today? But she meant what she said, somewhere deep down she knew that she had a role in this.

"Exactly" Phil said in reply to the elemental's outburst, "You, the shadow... Elemental, your past self doesn't change your element and it will never shape your future. Only your ambition and devotion will". Phil paused for a second, convincing them may take forever, So it's probably best if...

"I'll tell you guys what..." Phil started to suggest "Why don't you spend today here, training with me? I'll teach you how to use your element and I'll tell you what I can about you, the Vygorn and their plan, as well as why you haven't seen or heard about them."

Phil's gaze focused on the two female elementals. "I'm guessing your both with me?" He said with a hopeful look on his face "now, how about the rest of you? Will you give me a Chance?"

Huh. Okay. They were Hygorns and said masked guy was corrupt so they, er, Phil and dragon needed to stop him. A sigh escaped from Sunny's lips as she took a closer look at the others. There was a guy who controlled earth and another who could control metal. Hmm. Oh, and the teenager was totally freaking out right now. However, the girl who had fallen earlier seemed invigorated by new-found courage, offering her help to Phil and Toran. The other girl also agreed, mentioning something about 'healing'. Cool.

Phil began to talk to the teenager, calling him 'the shadow'. Earth, metal, maybe light, and shadow. Phil even offered to teach them how to use their element and about the Vygorns and their plan, asking the others to join him. Sunny rubbed her forehead, shifting into a more relaxed stance. Despite the nagging feeling Sunny felt in her stomach, she nodded.

"Sure. 'bout time someone stood up against the Vygorns. The name's Sunny," she said. "I've got control over lightning."

Jason needed a bit to calm his mind. Pulling himself up from the wall and holding it to keep himself standing straight. They looked around the room. Everyone was older than him, which is bad. It means he'd probably end up as little more than a load. On the other hand, three were on board right now. And Gwen's words, while they kind of stung, did ring true. "I'm so going to regret all of this shit..." They mumbled, inhaling deeply.

"Fuck it. I'm in. I'll see what happens. If something happens and we need to leave though, I at least want to say goodbye to my mom alright? She may be a b- Nag sometimes, but she's still my mom. Now uh... Excuse me for a bit. If you don't mind I'm going outside to get some fresh air. Come and get me when everyone's answer's been set." Whew... What a mouthful. The now-shadow classified elemental walked back up the stairs, wanting nothing more than just a few breaths to calm himself.

Ethan knew that once he had time to let everything he had seen and heard so far sink in, it would hit him hard. At the moment though he was forcing himself to at least appear calm. The seemingly youngest Elemental Jason or something had made clear he didn't feel like he was up to the task.

Ethan didn't blame him it was a huge responsibility and no doubt dangerous, luckily the two girls managed to convince to at least try for now. Something he respected all three of them for. "I'm not gonna lie part of me just wants to leave,but I'm in.""I just hope I don't regret this later."

Having nothing more to say at the moment he waited to see what the others would do hoping they would join as well. There was after all strength in numbers even though there apparently were only eight of them at most.

John watched as the others conversed. Two of the girls gave pretty good points as to why they should stay. To be honest it was a lot for him to take in. Hygorns, and Vygorns. He was supposed to be a part of some magical rebellion. He sighed, looking down at his black Converse before looking back up at Phil and the rest of the group. He stepped forward, smiling. "Whelp. You convinced me. John Kingston. Water."

John thought about why he was doing this, risking his life. He wasn't a selfish person but he remembered the last time he'd tried to help someone. He shivered, remembering the night that had lead to him fleeing to New York. I wonder if I'm still wanted back home. I'm sure. Frankly I'm pretty surprised that they haven't found me yet. John thought to himself.

"Thank you, all of you, for at least giving me a chance. Please follow me." Phil said in a cheery tone while guiding the elementals to a door opposite the corridor where Phil first emerged.

Opening it reveals a giant, spacious hall. The room was at least 10m wide, 20m long and 18ft high. From some left over marks on the floor and a stage at the back of the room, it is obvious that this place used to be some sort of stage, likely used for meetings or speeches. Phil walked to the center of the room and spun around to confront the elementals.

"Before I can teach you anything, I need to see what you have already learnt. Prepare yourself!" Phil exclaimed as he waved his hand. Suddenly, the room seemed to dim very slightly as humanoid light beings spawned behind Phil, matching the numbers of the new elementals. "Start!!" Phil said with another simple hand gesture. Then, the light-form humanoids started to make their way towards the group of elementals.

*For this fight, you'll need to puppet the humanoid creations. All you need to know is that they can only do simple punches and kicks and will disintegrate when beaten up enough. Now, have fun*

"So what do we..." Gwen started but was interrupted by a punch in the face by one of the humanoids. The sudden attack made Gwen's blood boil and she immediately began to fight back. She quickly started to throw punches and kicks at the poor humanoid who angered her. However, the attacks were not enough to beat it down. She realized this and began to use her powers. She summoned light energy into her palms and used it to amplify her attacks. After a few more hits, the humanoid began to disintegrate right in front of her. "Ha! That's what you get, you..." she stopped herself from saying anything too inappropriate. She was excited now, ready to take on more of those things if she had to but all of the others were already preoccupied with the other Elementals. She took a few deep breaths and tried to return to her more 'cool' nature, and waited for the others to finish their respective fights.

Outside of the building Jason was gathering his thoughts, or better said, he just finished with that. The teen leans against the door, muttering "Why did I even accept?" and the like to himself. The brief moment outside did them good, though, as when Jason returned he seemed a lot more calm and collected. Good timing, too, as Phil was just leading everyone to the next room. Phil then- Oh fuckin' shit they have to fight. The youngest elemental was NOT expecting this at all, stumbling back a bit. Luckily his figurine wasn't too fast, it seemingly walking over to the boy. The first punch came from the humanoid which Jason barely managed to duck from, when a kick to the face sent him straight to the floor. His eyes widened as the lightspawn tried to stomp it's foot onto him, only for the shadow elemental to quickly roll away and get up.

Okay, these guys seem to be brawlers. Unfortunatly the boy didn't have a lot of time to process that thought before another punch came out, aimed for his stomach. Jason's reflexes kicked in, one hand blocking the fist coming out and then giving a forceful shove to it's body to knock it farther away. He can't fight this thing 1x1 fairly, it's got too much muscle compared to himself... Jason quickly thought of a way to utilize his element, Dark, to manipulate the fight to be more favorable however. When the spawn tried another attack, Jason did something stupid and tried to got THROUGH it, miraculously, it worked. Great, he was on the other side, now to turn around and-

The light body had already kicked the boy back to the ground, from behind. Goddamnit, it was fast! Jason also felt that one pretty rough, as he bumped his head on the pavement. They managed to get up again, barely, and started formulating a plan. If he can't use his powers defensively, he'll just have to use it in some other way... Dodging most of the kicks and punches, Jason thought of a... Really stupid plan. In RPGs shadows could sometimes be used to create a temporary object, like a blade! Going on this knowledge the boy, amazingly, was able to latch onto his own shadow and mold it into his hand. Creating a spike of some sort, Jason forcefully rammed it down the spawn's chest, giving it a good right hook and then kicking it to the ground. Once on there the assault didn't let up, grabbing the spike before it fell alongside the little opponent and using it to pierce the other's... Non-existant skull. This blow seemed to made it vanish, the boy letting a-out a huge sight of relief...

His relief also quickly got replaced by a headache, the aftermath of that cranium blow he got TWICE now manifesting itself. "Uuuugh... Dude, what's the big Idea?! I nearly got a concussion with what y-" Then something, not literally this time, hit the boy. "...Holy shit I just used my shadow as a weapon."

Serena hesitated as a human-droid creation started for her. Was she really supposed to attack it? Serena's gift was meant for giving life, not destroying it. Who even gave her the right to take the life of someone? She'd never gotten into a fight her entire life either, not even with her parents. She might of been making a big deal out of nothing, but it was important to her. The idea of saving the world had seemed heroic, romantic, and something she was meant to do. But could she really get used to fighting? Did she even have a choice though?

While contemplating her thoughts, the humanoid sucker punched her in the stomach, sending her flying into a wall. Ouch... She moaned. Feeling pain was also something she'd never experienced before, and well, it hurt A LOT. Rising to her knees, Tori still couldn't decide if she wanted to use her gift for harm. With all this talk of Mother Nature, would she really want this? The humanoid obviously couldn't care less about what Serena was thinking for it came and kicked her in the side. The agony from a simple kick would probably leave bruises on Serena's fragile body for weeks. The only thing Serena could do was stare at the humanoid, crumbled on the ground and covering her face, as it continued to smack her with punches and kicks.

John was shocked by the construct's speed. He'd barely gotten ready before it had launched itself at him, swinging furiously. He rolled away unscathed before launching his own attack. He swung a punch into the construct's jaw, knocking it around, then sent a kick straight to the center of it's back. He then brought up his hand. Water began swirling around, hovering above his palm. The water swirled into a large sphere before John leveled his hand at the construct which had just gotten back up. His hand twitched and the sphere became a jet of water that shot at the construct, slamming it into a wall. The construct slumped to the ground and disintegrated. John ran a hand through his hair and smiled, happy to see that he was one of the first to finish.

Since Ethan was distracted by watching some of the others fight, his opponent got the first hit in. Despite seemingly being made from light the creature's fist felt real when it hit him in the stomach. He tried to fight back by kneeing it where it's crotch should be but it didn't show a reaction. "Guess they weren't made anatomically correct."

While Ethan was lost in thought the Light creature attacked again, this time imitating his own attack. As he doubled down in pain he got an idea. His opponent however wasn't going to let this change go to waste and slammed both it's hand in the back of the hygorn's neck sending him down to the floor.

Ethan realizing he wouldn't win in a fair fight decided to use his advantages. He got up on hands and knees. While keeping one hand on the floor he used his other arm to pull the creature's legs out under it. At the same time he was busy reshaping the concrete into a very pointy stalagmite. End result the creature got impaled and disintegrated.

Phil quickly dissipated the remaining humanoid attacking Serena and walked up to her. "I'm Sorry, but I needed to know your combat ability. Come on... To your feet" He said in an apologetic voice as he helped the flora elemental to her feet.

"Gather up" Phil said to the remaining Elementals. After they were present in front of him, He stated encouragingly "Well done, all of you. Now I know how well most of you can fight. But do know that, even if your not a fighter, I will teach you how to use your element for support. For example..." He turned to Jason before continuing "Your element can be used for many of things; Hiding, Blinding, forging weapons and, with a little practice, you could eventually assassinate enemies who pose a higher threat in fair combat."

Phil looked each elemental in the eye as he finished his speech "What I'm getting at is, Combat is only one of the possible things your Elements can be good for. But to get the upper hand over the Vygorns, we need to learn how to use our position and abilities to our advantage." Phil looked over the slightly injured hygorns and he raised his hand. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room became alot more... Calmer. Also, all of they Elemental's wounds healed quickly.

Phil lowered his hand and said in realisation "... Do any of you know each other? I mean, more than name and element? Okay, maybe we should do some sharing... This should build a little trust that can go along way. I'd like to know about which backgrounds everyone came from."

"You just have the best ideas Phil... Glad we can count on you" Toran said to Phil mentally, which Phil reacted to with an irritated look.

Gary was a white male in his 20s, he wore a red bandana over his face, a white vest and baggy cargo pants, held by a belt adorned with gun magazines and upon his back was a sheathed katana. Holding a 9mm pistol in his hand, he overlooked the entrance of Cloud 9. A black swirl exited the building, and was nearly missed. Gary put a handheld radio to his mouth. "This is Gary, I saw a Vygorn exit Cloud 9 nightclub." He said. "Right, move your team in and check it out, that place has been abandoned for years why would they be there now?" A crackly voice replied. Gary clicked the button on the side again. "We're moving in, we'll find out what's going on. Gary, out." He said before putting the radio on his belt. He turned around to four other Renegade members. A woman, holding an Uzi, with long, black, silky hair who covered her face in a black gas mask looked to him. "What's going on?" She asked. "We're checking out Cloud 9." Gary said, flatly. A big muscle-y man in a hoodie stood up, holding an iron pipe in his hand. "There's Vygorns down there?" He asked, in a gruff voice. "Might be, one just left the building." Gary replied. "C'mon guys let's move!" He ordered. The members geared up and headed down an access ladder one by one. They stacked up at the entrance of Cloud 9, but the door was left open. After sweeping the room, they found the staircase that lead to the base. Gary lead the group of five and spotted the Elementals. "HANDS UP!!!!!!!" He yelled, pointing his pistol at them. The rest pointed their weapons at them two after fanning out.

Gwen did not want to have a heart to heart talk with everyone. Sure, working together and fighting Vygorns was one thing, but getting all buddy-budddy and sharing their life story was a completely different thing. She was about to refuse when a bunch of random people stormed the building. Then this guy pointed a gun at them.

Gwen sighed and thought to herself, "Really? Really? What a day. I'm expecting to wake up any minute now and find out that this is just some twisted nightmare."

Obediently, she put her hands up like the annoying, loud guy yelled at them to do.

Serena sighed as Phil helped her to her feet and felt a dark blush rush across her face. How embarrassing. Yet Serena still wasn't disappointed in her actions. There had to be a different solution beside violence. Maybe during her time here she would figure out to resolve the conflict between Earth and Vygorns.

"... Do any of you know each other? I mean, more than name and element? Okay, maybe we should do some sharing... This should build a little trust that can go along way. I'd like to know about which backgrounds everyone came from." Phil said. Serena thought the idea was a bit silly but she appreciated his effort to bring them together.

"HANDS UP!!!" An unknown voice screamed at them. Serena jumped, completely taken back by the incoming invaders. One look at the black metal weapon in the man's hand made Serena's heart stop. She had never seen a gun before, but she assumed that was what they looked like. Without thinking, Serena willed thorn vines to grow from the ground in front of the men surrounding them. The vines wrapped around the guns positioned in the men's hands, and returned to the ground. Serena's eyes widened in shock as she realized what she'd done.

"Please, can we discuss this civilly?" She quietly mumbled, hoping the men didn't have any more weapons.

John was just about to step forward to take charge of the heart-to-heart session when the people with guns barged in. His hands quickly found their way into the air. He wasn't necessarily scared of guns, but he knew that he'd get shot to ribbons if he tried anything. Luckily, one of the girls, Serena, used her powers to get the guns away from whoever these people were.

"Like Flower Power said. You're trespassing I do believe, so really, the guns are kind of rude. I suggest that if you want to chat about something, you use your words because, and this may come as a surprise, every one of us could kill every one of you and we've had a very stressful day," John said, stepping forward with a renewed confidence due to Serena's use of her powers.

Looking from an alleyway across from the odd run-down building that withheld the signs of fresh flora, Eric was really skeptical on whether or not going in would be a good idea. After seeing some 'thing' fly out of there... yeah, I'm definitely not receiving any good vibes right now. So he decided to wait it out just in case it was some kind of ambush or something playing with his mind. After waiting patiently for a good while, remaining hidden in the shadows behind the confines of a dumpster, he saw someone come out. He couldn't make out the face of him from were he was looking, but he could tell he was a bit flustered as he ruffled through his hair with the addition of low mumbling, then after a few seconds of coming up, he went back down.

Ok... Maybe just a few more minutes of waiting wouldn't hurt, hell he looked he could use it too. Eric thought.

While he waited, he thought back to a few hours ago, back to were he was helping out in a local housing area center for the homeless. He enjoyed helping out those in need by trying to keep them plenty feed, safely sheltered, and comfortably warm. He used his power only when needed since it sometimes still had a mind of its own. Then as he was heating up a pot of water to cook with, his vision blurred into a thick blackness as a soft voice spoke into his mind. “You possess a power like no other…” After hearing the voice with a command and the last words of "Fire, fire, fire... Eric snapped back into reality with his hands on the pot. He looked around to see the other kitchen workers around him gasp with wide gawking eyes, the pot no longer contained water as only evaporated water rose into the air. The handles of the pot were now burning hot with a small hue of orangish-red emitting through.

Eric quickly took the pot the sink, ran it under the faucet under cold water. He quickly changed out of the white apron, took off the palm burnt rubber gloves, grabbed his green one-strap bag and was out of the building, to avoid being questioned about the event.

Maybe telling them probably wouldn't have been so bad... Just maybe. Eric was so caught up in thinking on how current events got him here, that he barely noticed five figures moving down the set of stairs that the other guy who was there previously for a brief moment, had went down into as well.

Ok... go now or don't go at all... as he watch the last of them enter he sighed in defeat. Better late then never. Eric thought as he made a quick jog out of the alley way and over towards the building. The sign reading 'Cloud 9' was now in front of him. Please... don't make me regret coming here. He said to himself as he himself made off down the descending steps.

Ethan agreed that knowing more about the others could be useful but he had no intention of going first. The whole thing became moot though when some guys with weapons stormed in. Serena once again impressed him by quickly and effectively taking away their guns without harming them. However since they might have either reinforcements outside or other weapons he still put his hands in the air.

Just then the water Elemental did something potentially stupid, apparently not having thought of the same possibilities he had. "Don't make them mad John. We don't know if their entire group is here or if Serena took away all their weapons." Ethan did understand how he felt but John was still taking a large and unnecessary risk in his opinion.