Alicia Vaugur, human

  With every passing day I feel my chances of surviving this ordeal decreasing. Nobody is going to come for me, I know that already. The fire elemental is a terrorist, and we don't negotiate with terrorists. However, he doesn't seem to realize that.

  “Be a doll and go get something for us to eat.” He orders, shoving a 50 dollar bill into my chest and pulling his hood up. “They don't recognize your face. But if you call for help, your pretty face will kiss ash.”

  I just nod, not caring enough to argue at this point. I take the money and walk into the town.

  We had made our way through Banff national park already, Tory torching the place as he went. He'd stopped burning after exiting the national park, hoping to drop off the radar. That was yesterday. He'd only thought to do so after the air elemental died. Only a few people have died so far, but a small kill count doesn't mean it isn't a kill count. He's a murderer, and God do I hope someone gets rid of him before something goes very wrong. The town of Canmore was just southeast of Banff, and it had its fair share of places to eat. However, I instead turn and enter the closest dollar store I can get to. The walk takes roughly 20 minutes to get to the place, and once I get inside I scan the isles. Tory stands at the door, likely watching me through whatever strange sense he has. His powers defy what logic and understanding of physics I know. Learning that an elemental had died had shaken him. He'd thought himself unkillable, so hearing one of his kind was deceased had an impact on him.

  I began gathering up basic, cheap, easy to eat things to last us the walk to the next town. He intended to stop at the city of Jakobe, then keep making his way down to the United States of America. What he intends to do there, I have no idea. I can only hope that something changes and lets me get away. Then I can pass what I know to my father and his superiors, and hopefully they'll be able to defeat him. Perhaps even kill or study him. It'd serve the monster right.

  I finish gathering everything I assume we will need and use the self checkout, leaving me with 2 dollars. I drop the toonie into the bag and leave the building.

  “Thanks a bunch.” Tory says with a grin, then turns. “Lets get a move on, ey?”

  “Yes… let's.” I nod, beginning to follow. He reaches back and pulls out a bag of uncooked popcorn from the bag I'd bought to put everything in. He places a hand on it and the heat instantly increases. The sound of rapid popping follows, then he opens the bag and grins. The popcorn is fully, perfectly popped. “pretty cool, ey?” He grins widely. He'd enjoyed doing this sort of thing, using his powers in small ways to annoy me or to show off. I do find it impressive, if begrudgingly so. It's still something impossible by human standards, and if childish, it's still somewhat impressive.

  “It's childish is what it is.” I snap, just staring forward with my arms crossed as we walk.

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  “Hey, don't be like that. It's awesome.” He says cheerily, walking a few steps ahead. We pass by people who don't recognize him or me, which isn't new. Any helicopters that got near us were high in the sky. They couldn't get a good read on us through all the smoke and ash. Unfortunate, but not unexpected, I suppose. I just have to keep moving. As long as I have some perceived value he probably won't kill me.

  I don't bother to ask why he's doing what he's doing. Maybe I should ask him. Maybe it'd help me in some way. But I just don't care. This man is a homicidal pyromaniac with a love for murder and burning.

  The clouds darkening above makes me sigh. Rain, I'm guessing. At least Tory seems to hate it, which is a small pleasure. He keeps us dry by turning all the rain to steam before it gets close, but it's obvious he finds it tedious.

  “Ugh, damn drippies.” Tory mutters as he notices the rain building in the sky. “Always putting rain on my parade. Literally.” He then grins and wiggles his eyebrows, clearly enjoying his pun. I consider for a moment whether trying to strangle him is worth dying over. I decide it isn’t. Barely.

  It takes just under an hour to walk all the way through town and back out into the wide wilderness. As we walk, I spend even more time thinking. Thinking is all I can really do at this point. I have to admit though that my situation is feeling quite pointless. So far only one other group has tried to kill the fire elemental. The only problem was they did not see me as a friendly. They were Canadian, I assumed, which was why they wouldn't have been able to recognize me. They saw a person burning the world with his little sidekick and assumed she was a hostile. I'm lucky he killed them so fast, as fucked up as that sounds. I got a bullet to the leg then, but he managed to burn it out and cauterize the wound, resulting in me healing by the end of the month at the last vote. If he'd been slower eliminating them, I'd not have been so lucky as just a glancing bullet going a little in my leg.

  According to him he just removed the bullet so I'd not be slow. It was fair, I suppose. As long as I'm useful to him, he wants me to be truly capable of being useful to him. A cripple who can't walk won't be of use to him.

  eventually the rain starts really pouring, and the sky above us begins to fill with steam as he boils the water to nothing before it can get close. It's then that I notice something in the distance. It's a helicopter with something mounted to its side.

  “Oh, shi-” I cut myself off and jump into a bush as bullets join the water in falling from the sky. Tory vanishes in a bolt of fire, the water constantly melting around him as he runs forward. I have no idea what he's planning as he approaches the helicopter but he knows something. All the fire turns on him as I hide in the bushes, peeking through the leaves but staying behind a tree in case they have heat sensors. It'd make sense considering they're fighting the evil human torch.

  As I watch the mounted gun firing down at Tory, I think back to when he'd first killed off my squad. I'd not been the leader yet, but I was close. Those people had been my friends, or as close to friends as I had. As I watch, I deeply hope they brought a lot of water.

  Unfortunately, as he reaches directly underneath them, it becomes apparent that they didn't. Steam rises up and wraps around the helicopter, blocking their sight. Fire sparks, then a ball of blue flames rockets up and impacts the helicopter. The flying object is set ablaze. It spins about in the air as bullets fly erratically before it begins to go down, and down, and down, until-

  BOOM!

  The sky lights up, momentarily distracting me from my wet clothes as I watch the fire lick the sky, fighting against the water falling below. I- wow. That man is terrifying. Utterly terrifying.