Page 82 of Elemasters

The only way Dustin could describe it, was completely fucking chaotic.

The calm mists that usually flowed through the windows were now replaced with violent winds and heavy rains, the walls shook from the force of the turbulent gale, while thunder boomed and lightning cracked in the distance.

Dustin and the others were still kneeling in a circle surrounding Chris’s dazed and barely conscious body, but somehow Qin Shi Huang was starting to affect the palace around them. They barely even had a moment to orient themselves before a twisting pillar of fog morphed into Sima Yao hovering before them, a mask of urgency on his face.

“We must get Master Ying into the Lotus Garden at once! I warned you that Qin Shi Huang would be more powerful on this plane, but even Lu Ban’s fortifications are not enough to keep him at bay!”

Dustin didn’t waste a second; he immediately scooped Chris’s withering body in his arms and made a mad dash for the Lotus Garden… but before he could make it across the threshold, an incredible pressure forced him to his knees, along with a splitting pain shooting through his head.

“So, this is how the Sages eluded my reach so long ago? A palace on the spiritual plane? Fusu was nothing if not innovative,” Qin Shi Huang’s voice boomed through the clouds outside, simultaneously rattling through Dustin’s skull “to bring me here, where you know my power outstrips your own is a desperate play. Desperation can lead to incredible valor… but there is a thin line betwixt bravery and stupidity,”

As the emperor spoke, the palace’s moonrock walls began to crack and buckle, and the ground shifted beneath the group’s feet.

“He can control the palace?!” Bailey shouted over the sounds of chaos, her veins shining as she stretched out her arms, attempting to hold the ethereal stone in place. Her efforts clearly weren’t enough, as what looked like human hands made of rock began punching up through the ground and out of the walls. The cracks widened, allowing stone soldiers wearing what looked like ancient Chinese armor to force their way inside.

“Are those… terracotta warriors? Like the ones from Qin Shi Huang’s tomb?!” James shrieked as he ducked under a swing from a heavy stone axe one of the warriors wielded, “we are FUCKED!”

“No, we’re not!” Chloe cut in, blocking a blow from a spear with her metal-covered arm, shattering the rock on impact before punching straight through the warrior’s head in retaliation, “Dustin, get Chris into the garden! The rest of us will deal with these… whatever the fuck they are!”

“What?! I can’t just leave you guys!”

“Now is NOT the time to play the hero Dustin!” Bailey yelled, squealing like a startled mouse when one of the stone swords swung too close to her gut for comfort. She stopped it in midair with her control of earth, clenching her fists and forcing it to crumble, before throwing out her arms and causing the entire warrior who held it to explode, “if we free Chris, maybe it’ll stop all this!”

Dustin steeled his resolve, and pulled himself to his feet, still clutching Chris’s body tight.

Bailey was right. This wasn’t the time to hesitate.

Forcing himself to ignore the sounds of battle raging behind him, Dustin charged forward into the Lotus Garden, his feet sloshing through the shallow pristine water as the wall slid closed…

The first time Dustin and the others came into the Lotus Garden, it took time and concentration for them to enter the illusory realm.

This time though, the transition was so abrupt that Dustin thought he’d ended up in Hell. Like he’d been hit from behind by one of those stone soldiers and now he was in the underworld.

And who could blame him?

The sky overhead was blood red, streaked with cracks like spiderwebs allowing light to leak through from… somewhere. The ground he stood on was little more than a floating rock in the middle of the chaotic void, while disembodied voices echoed from every direction.

The only thing that clued him into this being Chris’s particular mindscape, was the fact that those voices weren’t random.

At first he heard exactly what he expected; roaring applause alongside the squeaks of shoes on a basketball court, breathy moans and desperate feminine whimpers… but beneath that was something different; sounds of childhood laughter, petty arguments over toys or whose half of a sandwich was bigger, bragging about emerging victorious in a 1v1 Mortal Kombat tournament.

The sounds of growing up with Chris.

“Okay, okay,” Dustin breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down, “Chris has to be here somewhere. I just need to find him, and then maybe I can help him break free… not like I have any idea how to do that,”

As if responding to him, a small glowing cinder fluttered down from the sky above, carried on the wind until it landed gingerly on the ground in front of him. A second later, the cinder sparked and ignited into a growing flame that got bigger and bigger until it took the shape of a human child. Another gust of wind extinguished the flames, leaving in their place… none other than Dustin himself. The same child doppelganger that he’d seen during his own Lotus Garden trial, complete with those dorky overalls and sandals.

“You’re here!” the child said, his eyes turning into little crescents with his big grin, “it’s good you came! Can you help me get out of here? I think the way out is through there,”

Dustin’s eyes followed in the direction child-him was pointing, and suddenly there was a pathway made of floating stones, leading into a swirling vortex of flames that looked almost like a portal.

“Yeah, of course little guy. I’ll get you out of here, no problem,” Dustin assured him, ruffling his hair. Maybe his mini-me knew how to navigate this place and lead him to Chris.

The child giggled and immediately jumped on Dustin’s back, spurring him forward like a horse.

“Let’s go, go, go!”

When Dustin stepped through the flame vortex portal, he didn’t really know what to expect… so he was completely bewildered when he ended up outside of Pineridge Elementary School; a place he hadn’t seen or thought about in more than a decade.