Elemental Academy - Mystery Thriller (1/1 romamaro and Bee)

Tellural

Starstruck
“Robyn!” Charlotte waved down the hall when she caught sight of the other girl. Disengaging from the conversation she had been in with two Earth elementals - the pair recognizable not only by the green accent of their uniforms but also by the brightly coloured flowers woven into their hair - with a quick ‘gotta go, bye!’. She gathered up her things and shoved them quickly into her bag before getting up and walking toward Robyn, closing the distance between them.

“Still interested in getting lunch today?” Charlotte asked as she fiddled with a curly strand of hair, the end of which was briefly set alight before she ran over it with her fingers in order to extinguish it. “I told Adrian I’d meet up with him and Kai before next class because he wanted to go over some stuff for the quiz we have, but we’ve got loads of time before that.”
 
Robyn jumped a little at the sound of her name being called, but smiled when she saw it was just Charlotte. "Hey Char," she said, forever soft spoken. She pushed her large circular glasses up her nose with a fingertip as she listened to what her friend had to say. "Of course." She replied with a smile. "I've already checked the cafeteria menu, though. It's not the best." She gave a tiny giggle. For Robyn, 'not the best' meant 'absolutely dreadful'. She tended to downplay things.

"But the Home Economics department has a bake sale going on." She offered with a small smile. She pulled on one of her two violet braids. "I heard they were making fajitas."
 
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Unable to hold back a laugh at that Charlotte grinned, “and I so thought today would be the day that it didn’t disappoint me.” She let out a theatrical sigh, lifting a hand to her forehead in a mimed swoon. “I’ve been let down yet again. Ah well.”

At the mention of fajitas though she stood up straighter, the grin back on her face. “Ooo fajitas. The ones they made a month ago were so good, think they’ll have habanero peppers this time?” She wondered, biting her lip in thought.

“We can shortcut over there through the assembly hall, yeah? Might be able to get there before the lines get too long.”
 
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Robyn giggled. "I wish I was strong enough to go back in time and send them for another year of chef school." She admitted, one hand covering her mouth as she laughed.

She gave a tiny shrug. "I don't know. Probably not, though. Too much on the school budget." She giggled, clasping her hands in front of her.

She looked over her shoulder to the doors to the assembly hall. "Yeah. If we get there and they're out of vegetable mix, I'm not gonna be happy." She declared, though she didn't sound too commanding with such a quiet voice.
 
“You and me both.” Charlotte agreed. “Onward then! Fajitas await us!” She declared as she started walking toward the doors to the assembly hall, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Robyn was following. Holding the door open for Robyn, Charlotte let it close behind her as they started walking through the hall. Technically they weren’t supposed to be in here during lunch break but it really wasn’t a big deal, not to mention that it was too good of a short-cut across the campus to just not take it.

As they made their way through the room Charlotte filled the silence with babble. With a personality as fiery as her element she often found it difficult to keep quiet or sit still for too long. Though all of that came to a sudden halt as she stopped, raising a hand to point at a lone figure. There was something off about them. Something that made her stomach flip-flop. “Hey… there’s someone over there. I think… It looks like there’s something wrong with them?”
 
As soon as they started breaking any rule, commonly ignored or not, Robyn seemed to go on edge, eyes wide and body tensed, ready to run at the slightest sign of danger. Because of this, she was a little irritated by Charlotte's babbling, but didn't try to tell her to stop. She knew that they weren't going to be caught, but she couldn't help but be worried about it.

So when Charlotte pointed to a girl lying in the middle of the hall, she froze up. She started to hyperventilate at the sight of the girl who at first sight seemed to be dead. It felt like the world was spinning around her, but dhe couldn't tear her gaze away, so she eventually picked up the subtle rise and fall of their chest. Her own breathing started to return to normal, but it was still a little unnatural.

No longer panicking so much, she could notice a few details. The girl looked maybe one or two years younger than them, with a fire elementals uniform. Her hair was odd, a bland brown colour that Robyn had never seen before, up in two pigtails.

Carefully, Robyn walked towards the unconscious girl. "H-hello?" She stuttered quietly. As she got closer, there were more details. She had no EII. There were red marks around her wrists and ankles, like she had been tugging to free herself from something. She had a black eye.

"Char, she doesn't look too good." She whispered, one hand over her heart.
 
When she heard Robyn start to hyperventilate a jolt of alarm shot through her and Charlotte glanced at the shorter girl, worry etched into her features even after Robyn had calmed down some. Forcing herself to move forward Charlotte rushed over to the girl. The closer she got the more and more obvious it was that there was something terribly wrong.

“She looks really, really bad.” Charlotte agreed, she had knelt down beside the girl to get a closer look though she hadn’t dared to reach out and touch her yet. There was something about her, something that seemed almost familiar but she couldn’t put her finger on it. The red of her uniform identified her as a fire elemental which in itself was reason for Charlotte to have seen her before but there was something more, something she was missing...

Carefully and with only a slight hesitation Charlotte placed a hand to the girl's forehead, letting it rest there for a few seconds before pulling away. She wasn't cold but at the same time as a fire elemental her body temperature should have been much warmer.

"She's cool, and look at her hair. I've never seen a fire elemental with hair this colour." Charlotte relayed her thoughts. She too had noticed the missing EII as well as the angry red marks on her wrists and ankles, and it only proved to make her more nervous.

Suddenly a realization came to her and Charlotte gasped, looking up at Robyn. "I- I think I know who she is."
 
When Charlotte reached out to touch the mystery girl's head, Robyn's hand instinctively went out to stop her. As she did, she noticed that she couldn't feel the heat that she would normally be feeling off a fire element without an EII. Her mouth went tight as she knelt down on the other side of the girl. "What do you mean, she's cool?" She repeated, reaching out touch the girl. "That's not right, she shouldn't be cool." She whispered, as if it wasn't obvious.

She looked up at Charlotte. "What do you mean?" She mumbled. She pointed to the girl's hair. "She can't actually be a fire elemental. Look at her hair." She shook her head. While she spoke, she looked down at her marks on her wrist, running her finger over them. Without really thinking, she lifted up the girl's wrist. She ran her hand over the mark and it disappeared. "Look, that only could've happened as late as yesterday night. Maybe this morning." She whispered. A couple seconds after showing Charlotte this, the mark reappeared, Robyn's elemental powers not being strong enough to eliminate it entirely.
 
“I know, I know, but I swear I’ve seen her before.” Charlotte replied with a shake of her head.

Carefully she snapped her fingers together and created a small flickering flame in her hand, moving it around as though trying to coax a reaction out of the unconscious girl. Most elementals couldn’t help but respond to abilities that matched their own element, even if the response was as small as their eyes lighting up. There was no response from the girl though and Charlotte let the flame die out, worried that even though she wore the uniform of a fire elemental that it might burn her.

As Robyn lifted the girl’s wrist Charlotte fiddled with her own EII, her speech had gotten slightly babbly again though it was much less sure now than it had been when she and Robyn had entered the assembly hall. “Y’know how sometimes they collapse the elemental classes for lectures, put all of the years together and stuff. I think I remember seeing her last month, she came in late and dropped her books all over the floor, it was kind of embarrassing, I felt bad for her.” She glanced up at Robyn, before returning her gaze to the girl. “She had really bright hair though, more orange than red, brighter than mine even. It wasn’t like this.” She paused, then continued, “I think her name is Jessica? Or Jennifer maybe? Something with a J. How do you think she got here?”
 
Robyn dropped the mystery girl's wrist, letting her arm fall to the ground rather loudly. She nodded slowly, though any time the time elementals had been brought in one place it was a little bit sad to see, with so little of them. They could barely fill a class. "I think I can remember you mentioning that," she mumbled with a nod, looking the girl once over. "I was talking with Cameron the other day," Cameron was her younger cousin, a fire elemental who would have been around the same age as the girl in front of them, "he said that one of the girls in his class had been gone for ages. He assumed she was sick, but..." she sighed and hook her head. "However she got here, it wasn't on good terms."

Just as she said this, the door to the assembly hall creaked open. Before Robyn could stand up to run and hide, someone turned the corner.

It was the school's head janitor, an air elemental who must have been around fifty. She was around five foot seven, had a grey pixie cut and grey eyes. She was friendly enough, but could be fearsome if things went awry. Her name was Winifred Thompson, and everyone was meant to call her 'Miss Thompson', but nobody did. Nearly everyone called her Wyn. Except for Robyn.

"M-Miss Thompson!" Robyn breathed, so glad that it was someone a little more friendly. "Please, Miss, something's happened to this girl," she started to blabber panicked thoughts.
The janitor's wrinkled face creased as she walked over to the girl, broomstick in hand. She looked down at the girl, frowning slightly. "My, my," she said slowly, crouching down beside the girl. "Can you two help me take her to the medical office? I can't carry her myself."
 
When the door opened Charlotte jumped up to see who it was that had opened them, relaxing at the sight of the head janitor. That definitely could have been worse.

"Wyn!" Charlotte called almost at the same time that Robyn spoke, running over to the older woman and walking with her toward where Robyn and the unconscious girl were, urging the janitor to move quicker. "We were just going to cut through here as a shortcut over to Home Economics, honest, we weren't goofing around again." She said, wanting to cover that base even though it was far from the biggest concern at the moment. "She was just lying here on the floor when we came in. Her hair is a weird colour and she's missing her EII."

Charlotte fidgeted as Wyn knelt down beside the girl, fingers threading through her hair and putting out small flames that flickered to and from existence, though she was doing her best to remain externally composed she was still shaken by the fact that she'd recognized the girl. "We can help, right Robyn. C'mon." She said, jumping in to help as the janitor slung one of the unconscious girl's arms over her shoulder and began to lift her up slowly, doing the same with the other side so that her weight was balanced between the two of them. With the difference in height it was a little awkward but it worked.

"Robyn," Wyn spoke, turning to face her as she did so. "Can you run ahead and make sure that either Nurse Lee or Nurse Banks are at the medical office. Tell them to have a bed ready, Charlotte and I will meet you there." She said, turning to Charlotte after and saying, "let me know if she gets too heavy and you need to take a break."

Charlotte nodded her understanding in response, reinforcing it with an; "Okay. Lets go!"
 
Robyn probably wouldn't have been able to help with carrying the girl, with her pathetic muscle mass, but she could rush. She was very good at rushing. "I-I will!" She stuttered, seeming to bounce up in readiness. With that, she spun harshly on her heel and sprinted out of the assembly hall.

The medical office was uncomfortably far away, but Robyn managed to make it there with the help of adrenaline. She fumbled into the medical office, instantly attracting the gaze of the two people present, both of whom knew her quite well due to her common sickliness.

"Feeling unwell again, Bellsworth?" Assistant Nurse Banks asked, voice smug as she stood up from her desk. She wasn't the kindest of women, despite her career and element: earth, the ones that were really meant to be kind.
Under the gaze of the intimidating, yet young woman, Robyn shrunk back the tiniest bit. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, until she finally found the words. "A girl's turned up sick in the assembly hall. Miss Thompson asked for a bed to be made ready." She said quietly.
 
Making slow but steady progress the janitor and Charlotte made their way through the school and toward the nurses' office, having to stop several times along the way so that Charlotte could take small breaks. She wasn't without strength but with the combination of having to help carry a girl that was nearly her size and doing so with a woman several inches taller than her it wasn't easy going.

"- but be more careful next time." Head Nurse Lee walked out of a small adjacent room just after Robyn had relayed her message to Nurse Banks. With him was a young boy, a water elemental with swooping dark blue hair in which a blue cineraria was tucked by his ear. The nurse himself had several flowers tucked into his own hair, all brightly coloured and glossy. Since accepting a job at the school it had become a sort of trademark of his to give out flowers to the kids who visited him.

The white stick of a lollipop stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he smiled up at Nurse Lee. "It was an accident, but I will. Thanks again Nurse Lee." The boy assured, glancing at Robyn and Nurse Banks uninterested before waving to Nurse Lee and making his way out of the room.

From there the nurse walked over to where Robyn and Nurse Banks were, looking between them with a slight confusion that caused his eyebrows to dip. "Robyn, it's good to see you again. Hopefully you're feeling better." He greeted before glancing to Nurse Banks, "is there something that we can help you with?"
 
Robyn nodded tightly. "For once I'm feeling okay, but there's this girl..." she started to blabber about how the girl was. When she got onto how the girl had brown hair, Nurse Banks tittered.
"You sure you're feeling okay?" She asked, planting one hand on the small girl's shoulder.
Robyn looked up at the green haired lady and nodded again. "Yes, and Miss Thompson said that there should be a bed made ready for her." She repeated, tugging on one of her braids.

Nurse Banks raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard of someone with brown hair before," she mumbled, glancing up at who was essentially her boss, Nurse Lee. "I'll go make a bed, however." She decided, though Robyn had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't have done so without Nurse Lee's presence. Robyn turned around to look down the corridor, still not seeing any sign of Winifred or Charlotte. "Miss Thompson and Char are bringing the girl over," she said to Nurse Lee. "I don't know how long they'll be."
 
"Brown hair?" Nurse Lee responded, sounding almost shocked. He had heard tell of cases where when an elemental got very sick their hair and eye colour had dulled, but never had he heard of someone with elemental powers having brown hair. He wondered her eyes shared the same tone. Nurse Lee smiled at Nurse Banks when she offered to make up a bed. "Thank you Sally." He said with a nod, moving out of her way so that she could make her way into one of the adjoining private rooms to do so.

Once she was gone he turned back to Robyn, there was still a small smile on his face but his eyes were filled with worry. "Here, hold on a second." Nurse Lee said, quickly crossing over to his own desk and returning to Robyn with a small clay pot full of dirt. He set the pot down on Nurse Banks' desk and pressed the pads of his fingers into the soil, almost instantly a small green plant broke the surface, growing taller and taller until it eventually sprouted small leaves and soft smelling purple flowers. Gently he plucked the flower from the dirt and held it out for Robyn to take. "It's lavender," he explained, expression soft. "The smell of the flowers helps to calm some people down, or so I'm told. Any sort of nature works for me."

Nurse Lee gestured for Robyn to sit, pulling the chair out from behind Nurse Banks desk so that he could sit next to her. If they were coming from the assembly hall it might be another minute before they arrived. Had Robyn not been there he would have rushed out to meet them half way, but Robyn was here and he wasn't about to leave her alone looking as shaken up as she did. Instead he set about asking a few questions, talking slowly and keeping his voice steady. "Is there anything else you can tell me about the girl? Do you know her name, what sort of elemental she is, how she got into the assembly hall?"
 
Robyn followed Nurse Lee, perching on the same seat that she usually took whenever she ended up feeling unwell enough to go to the office. As she watched the plant grow, she couldn't help but calm down somewhat. She had seen the process often, in the office and in class, but every single time it mystified her even more. She guessed that somewhere, deep down in her heart, she wished that she could do the same thing. The worst part was that she technically could, what with the power to twist time to her will, but she wasn't strong enough. She never really would be.

She took the lavender with a soft smile, like she had done quite a few times before. "Thank you," she said quietly, instinctively lifting it up to her nose. She took a deep breath. Maybe it was placebo, or maybe what the nurse said was true, but she definitely felt better. She rolled the plant between her two hands and stared at her knees as she thought hard about the girl. "She was wearing a fire elemental's uniform, but Char said her body temperature was normal." She said first. "Char said that her name started with a J. Maybe Jennifer, or Jane, or something." She shook her head. "I'd never seen her before. She was younger than us, about the age of my cousin. He said that a girl had been sick in his class for ages, and he's a fire elemental too!" She blurted out, grip on the plant becoming tighter suddenly. She sighed and shook her head. "I don't know how she got there, but she was all bruised up. You'll see when she gets here. It's really not pleasant." As she spoke, her voice got more breathy, and she scratched at her neck nervously.
 
Nurse Lee frowned slightly, making a soft 'hmm' noise in thought. "That is very strange. I'm sure that once they get here we'll get this all sorted out."

Just as he said that Charlotte and Winifred walked into the room, the unconscious girl still slung between them. Charlotte was red faced and huffing slightly, her pale skin doing her no favours in hiding how much or little that she had exerted herself. Nurse Lee immediately rose from his seat and walked over to the pair, nodding politely to the janitor and flashing Charlotte a smile, that smile faded however when he got a better look at the girl between them.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed Robyn when he had said the girl they had found had brown hair, it wasn’t that at all. Seeing it for himself though, it was very wrong.

“Sally!” He called, throwing a glance behind him to where the assistant nurse had vanished into one of the back rooms. “I need your help out here!” With that he knelt slightly so that he could scoop the girl up and into his arms, one under her knees and the other supporting her back as he turned and walked quickly but carefully around the desks and toward the back.

Once she no longer had to worry about holding up the girl’s weight anymore Charlotte slumped, using the back of a hand to wipe her forehead. She glanced first at the janitor them to Robyn, quickly walking over to her friend and plopping down into the chair that Nurse Lee had been sitting in. Charlotte smiled at the sight of the purple flowers that Robyn held, she didn't know the names of them but she recognized them. More often than not when Robyn passed through the nurses office she come out with them. "It's too bad about those fajitas." She joked in an attempt to make her friend smile, though it was somewhat hesitant still the events of the past ten minutes having shook her up.
 
Nurse Banks peered her head around the corner. "Yes?" She began, before her eyes fell on the girl. Her jaw dropped and she stepped aside to let Jason carry the girl, but was thoroughly speechless by what she saw. There had been absolutely nothing about something like that in her courses at university. She shut the door behind her and turned to look at the girl lying on the bed. "What...what are we even meant to do for that?" She whispered, rushing to light some incense that usually woke people from unconsciousness.

Robyn kept on rolling the lavender between her two hands, staring at her trembling hands rather than look up and accidentally look at the mystery girl. She glanced up at Charlotte and managed a small smile, but it quickly failed as she looked back down to the flower. "I...I don't think I could eat anymore," she admitted, stumbling over nearly every word with a dry-mouthed stutter. She looked back up at Charlotte and held out the lavender. "Do...d-do you want to...?" She asked, nodding towards the plant.
 
Nurse Lee quickly walked into the room and set the girl down on the bed. As Robyn had told him she did have brown hair, that much he had seen when Winifred and Charlotte had arrived, but even armed with that knowledge he hadn't been prepared to actually see her. "Fire Elemental uniform, right." He mumbled to himself, checking first her wrists, then her neck and ankles. "No EII but I'm not getting anything from her. And this is... weird." He continued, taking a mental note of the bruising as he noticed it.

"I-" Nurse Lee began cutting off to glance at the door, needing to assure himself that is was closed. "We do everything that we can. Basic first aid until we figure out what's going on." He glanced over to Nurse Banks, taking note of the fact that she had lit incense but otherwise not acknowledging it before turning his full attention back to the girl. It was a good idea and he was glad she had taken the initiative, but this was not the time to be handing out congratulations. Gently he opened the girl's eyes one at a time without eliciting any reaction, though what he found only made him more off set. Her irises, like her hair, were flat and muddy brown. "Look at this," he mumbled. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Honestly, me too." Charlotte agreed, a visible shiver running through her. She could still feel the ghost sensation of the girl pressed to her side, too cool for a Fire Elemental. It was unnerving. She scooted her chair closer to Robyn's, the wheels on it making the action easier. "No it's okay, you keep it. I would wreck it right now." She replied, smoothing her hair down again, putting out a few small flickering flames with the action.

Gripping the sides of the chair Charlotte turned back toward the janitor who hadn't moved since they had entered the room. "She'll be okay though right Wyn? Nurse Lee will know what to do and she'll be all good and back to normal really soon?"
 
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"Weird doesn't even begin to describe it, I don't think," Nurse Banks pointed out as she took the girl's blazer off and hung it up on the door. She turned to look into the girl's eyes and gasped. "Oh my god..." she whispered, looking the girl over. "This is mad!" She exclaimed, entirely baffled and frozen by the shock. "This is worse than that time the whole of Chemistry got knocked out!" She said as she started to elevate the girl's bruised arms and put damp paper towels over the bruises. She was referring to around a month ago, when an experiment with chemicals went awry and produced a gas that knocked out the entire department. While that was a horrifying and stressful experience, it seemed underwhelming compared to what was now presented to them.

Once most of the bruises were being treated, she looked again at the girl as a whole. She showed no signs of waking up, even though most people would wake up with the help of the instance in the space of a minute. "M-maybe we should call the hospital? I really think there's something more wrong with her than we can help here..." she admitted, already walking to the phone on the wall. She picked it up and lifted it to her ear, only to hear no dial tone back. She frowned and pressed the '9' button, but nothing happened. "What the hell?" She hissed, pressing the '9' button another two times to see if it would connect them anyways. It didn't. "Of course the phone breaks now!"

Robyn nodded, pulling the lavender back into her and holding it to her nose again. She looked up at Winifred, who looked to the two girls and sighed.

"I'm not going to lie to you, girls. I don't know." The janitor admitted. This was unusual for her. Such a monotone voice, along with a bitter outlook was very peculiar for her, as she was usually bright, optimistic and expressive. She sighed and ran a hand through her short grey hair, the lines on her face seeming to deepen. "I'm going to go get the headmistress. I'll get you two excused from classes for the rest of the day." She offered.

Robyn gave a tiny smile. "Th-th-thank you, Miss Thomp-Thompson," she stuttered. Parts of the lavender flower kept on falling off from how fast she rolled it between her palms. Winifred smiled, nodded and the two, and left the room. The headmistresses office was only just down the corridor, so she probably wouldn't be too long coming.
 
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