The city gurgled as the rain went pouring from its gutters, pouring down upon the buildings, pouring down upon the streets. The vaguest hints of ancient neon glowered in the distance, from the megastructures that were centuries old by now. Most of their neon did not work, having burnt out untold decades ago, but here and there a blaze of brilliant, unnatural light pierced the rain-soaked darkness, a beacon of a future that had come and gone.
Here amid the lower, newer, less sophisticated buildings there was almost no light, save for the flicker of a candle, here and there, amid the windows. The streets were dark, and upon the cracked pavement the Elementals made their way back to the apartment they were squatting in. They’d all been out to eat, a rare treat after scrounging up the money they could find in odd jobs and elsewhere.
“Fuck this rain,” snarled Ardo, flickering the fire on his hands up into the downpour, only for the flames to die out in great puffs of steam and smoke. Ardo snarled, red eyes gone narrow. If he’d wanted, he could have made fire that was stronger than the rain, but it would have lit the entire street and neighborhood for blocks around, and they were trying to keep a low profile.
“It is not so surprising,” Saera said, silver eyes gazing up into the stormy heavens, white hair soaked and plastered to her head. “It looked like rain all evening. Now it’s fin’lly come.”
“Keep that fire down some, Ardo,” Terry said, at the head of their miserable procession. He gathered his linen/silk/cotton/metallic fiber field jacket about himself, huffing unpleasantly at how thoroughly soaked it was. “Someone’s going to see us.”
“It’s almost pitch black, dude, nobody can see us.”
“It won’t be pitch black if you keep making fire.”
“Whatever,” Ardo mumbled, putting his hands behind his back as he walked, red hair soaked.
“I thought the food was good tonight,” said Marin, whose own deep navy blue hair was as wet as anyone’s. Its long tresses were heavy with water, but Marin didn’t mind; Marin, alone among them all, did not mind the wet. “That big rat they served fried, what was it? Cappy… Kappi...”
“Capybara,” said Saera.
“It was tasty! I never thought I’d say that about a rat.”
“I just want to get home and dry off,” said Ardo. “I’m tired of this fucking rain.”
Marin looked up, as the endless drops of rainwater came pouring down on them. “I could just part the rain, you know.”
“No, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves,” said Terry.
“Dude, nobody is looking,” growled Ardo, and his eyes flickered neon red, and all of a sudden a huge burst of steam erupted from him as all the water on him evaporated. There was a lonely candle in a lonely window, up in a tenement several stories above them; its lighter had long since fallen asleep. The candle flared brilliantly, almost white in its bright hot flame, but it returned to normal shortly. Nobody noticed. Ardo’s eyes stopped glowing, but they were no less hot. “Come on, man, we’re all alone out here in the stupid fucking rain. Let Marin dry us off.”
Terry stopped, and turned, deep earthy brown hair plastered against his head from the rain. He saw the three of them gazing at him. Ardo was angry, which wasn’t unusual. Saera was quiet, her expression unreadable; this wasn’t unusual either. Marin was chipper and happy, seemingly unaffected by the rain. Which didn’t surprise him—water was her element, after all. Terry sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Marin, do it.”
“Okay!” said Marin, sapphire blue eyes sparkling with mirth. She raised her arm into the air, fist clenched tightly. Then, slowly, with care and practice, Marin opened her fist. As she spread her fingers, the rain shimmered, and as the fingers spread wider and wider, the rain pulled apart around them. When her palm was fully open, the rain was gone from their midst; there was a dome, a sphere, of space where the rain simply did not go, and it rolled off the edges of the clear space as though there were a ceiling of glass in place.
“Better?” Terry asked.
“I’ll say,” Ardo rumbled, snapping his fingers and conjuring a flame in his hand. “At least you’re good for something, fatass.”
“Here, let me dry you guys off, too,” said Marin, walking to Saera and taking hold of a strand of her white hair. She pulled, and Saera jerked forward slightly as she felt something be ripped off of her entire body. A great splash of water surged off of Saera, and all of a sudden she was completely dry, as if she had never been wet at all. Marin had this surge of water in a firm grip; she flicked her arm and tossed it out into the rain pouring down outside the empty space. She went to Terry, and to Ardo, and did the same to them, drying them off completely in the barest of instants. Then she bent and flexed, almost dancing, and the water flew off of her, oozing off her body and her clothes down onto cracked and wet and ancient asphalt, centuries older than any of them. “That better?” she asked.
“Much,” said Saera. “Much thanks, Marin.”
“Ah, it’s no problem,” said Marin. She stuck her arm out past the empty space, and it was soon drenched again. “It’s honestly not so bad to be wet. Haha!” she laughed, and looked up into the storming sky, and her eyes gleamed neon blue, and suddenly all the rain began to glow, a spreading wave of blue neon that lit up every raindrop and bathed the entire dark street and district in the gleam of ocean-colored light.
“Marin, stop!” snapped Terry. “Someone will see!”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, and her eyes lost their glow, and the rain did as well. “Sorry,” she said, face twisted in worry. “I hope no one saw.”
“I hope so too,” said Terry. “Now come on, we’ve got a while to go before we reach our place.” He started walking, careful not to outpace Marin and the empty space in the rain she had created. So they walked on, all four of them, into the crumbling, squalid districts of the city that glowered, dark and silent, in the pouring rain.