Will’s shout of surprise quickly turned into a scream as he lost his momentum, and felt himself beginning to pitch down. He’d been thrown from the fourteenth floor, nearly the very top of the hotel building. As he began to drop, the wind tore the sound of his voice away from his ears, though the people who were on the ground below heard it plenty well. Bizarrely, Will thought of Charlisa. She’d wake in the morning to hear of his death. They’d probably blame Hitori for it.

Mere seconds away from impact, Will felt something hard hit him in the back. He thought it was the ground. But if it was the ground, why was he still falling? He wriggled around, looking a bit like a landed fish. Below him, face contorted in concentration was Kevin Williams. He was releasing a constant blast of air from his hands. It wrapped around Will’s body, supporting his weight, mere inches from the ground. It had been a hard hit, but not nearly as hard as the ground would have been.

Suddenly, a switch flipped in Will’s brain, and the paralyzing shock vanished from his body in an instant. With a quick jet of flames from his hands and feet, he righted himself, breaking free of the Alpha’s cone of wind. He hit the ground on his feet, staggering slightly, barely avoiding stumbling into the flow of traffic around the hotel. Nearby citizens were scattering, clearly expecting some kind of fight to take place.

“My dear boy!” Kevin exclaimed, his eyes wide with alarm. “What was that about? Don’t tell me you tried to jump!”

“Of course not!” Will snapped. “I was thrown!”

He didn’t offer any other explanation but rushed into the hotel lobby. After a second of startled silence, Kevin tore after him. He could hear the man’s footsteps, oddly quiet even in the muted lobby. Then he paused. “I’ll go in from above!”

Will cast a fleeting glance back outside to see the Air Nexus Alpha shooting up into the air, propelled by a solid column of air. He would have given it more thought, except that he ran into someone at the bottom of the stairwell. He was knocked back onto his behind, and glanced up, surprised to see Edward standing there. The Alpha looked startled at his sudden appearance, surprise wiping away his previously thoughtful expression.

“Will!” He barked. “Watch where you’re going!”

“The stranger!” Will shouted, nearly drowning Edward out. “In my room!”

In that small moment, he also registered the presence of Noratuk and Emmet, who had been standing beside the Alpha. Their faces registered nothing but shock at the shouting, but Edward’s face instantly hardened, and he turned on his heel, racing up the staircase. A second later, seeing her Alpha move, Noratuk followed. Will shot to his feet as well, racing after the other two, leaving a confused Emmet to stand there, thrown by the pace of events.

Edward and Noratuk took the stairs much faster than him, quickly whipping out of sight. A second later, the sound of their footsteps faded. They were already on the fourteenth floor! Will redoubled his pace, trying to catch up, wondering how they could be so fast. He pushed himself without mercy, skipping four or five steps with each step, and finally crashed through the door onto the fourteenth floor. That was when an explosion ripped through the air, coming from down the hall to where his room had been.

“Hold him there, miss!” A voice shouted. It sounded like Kevin. Was he talking to Noratuk? Will threw himself down the hall, ignoring the blast of fire that rushed out of his room. When he rounded the corner, he realized that it wasn’t Noratuk. It was Charlisa. Her face was angry, angrier than he’d ever seen it. She had both hands up, conjuring a small whirling pillar of flame in the middle of his room, trapping something in place. Or someone.

“Is that him?” He shouted. Charlisa nodded, too focused on her task to speak. In any event, Will didn’t need her to say more. He ran right for the small tornado of flames, igniting his fist. At the last second, Charlisa dropped it, revealing the man who had thrown him from his room. He hadn’t had a chance to escape, then. Will let out a yell of rage as he swung, his flaming fist smashing into the man’s face before he could recover. There was enough force behind that punch with just the firepower, but Will had loads of anger and revenge to back it up.

The stranger went flying, right into the wall. He hit it hard and slumped down to the ground. But he was up in a heartbeat, his eyes flashing dangerously. The next thing Will knew, he was thrown back by a solid wave of water the stranger had conjured from thin air. It smashed him into the opposite wall, and he felt his head smack against the surface hard enough to set it spinning. Still, with a mix of rage and determination, he dove across the bed once more, charging forward again.

Before he made it more than two or three steps past the bed, wind tore into the room from outside. Kevin was still flying out there and had sent what felt like a hurricane into the room. It knocked Will flat, but also the stranger. Only Charlisa, at the very entrance to the room, was spared from its force. Will hit his bed, the soft mattress taking most of the force of his fall, and he was already crawling across the bed. The torrent of air ended, leaving a ringing silence in its absence. 

“Damn!” The stranger exclaimed. Even in his haste and frustration, his voice was still smooth and toneless. Will dove for him once more, but the second blast of wind knocked him back. “Not today, young Will!”

The stranger turned on his heel and dove out of the window. There was the sound of a surprised grunt, and a shout, then silence. Horrified, Will ran to the window, just in time to see Kevin Williams falling. He hit the ground hard, bouncing for a foot or two into traffic. Will looked up to see the stranger where he’d been, supported by a column of win of his own. Will gaped for a moment. Had he just used two different Nexuses powers?

“Right,” the stranger said, looking calm now. “This was fun, but I should make my farewells. Until the next time, young Will.”

He turned to leave but turned back as a yell broke through the night. Fire appeared out of nowhere, a focused jet that slammed right into him. Will knew that voice. It was Edward! Somehow, he’d gotten onto the roof of the building, and his jet shot the stranger right out of the sky with enough force to knock him off his pillar of air. He dropped down to the ground, right to where Kevin had landed. But, amazingly, he continued to move after he struck the surface, jumping to his feet.

He would have made it further, had it not been for Kevin. The Air Nexus Alpha had survived the fall, of course, and sent a powerful blast of air that knocked the stranger flat. He hit the ground and got to his feet again, but much more slowly this time. He was tired! Will knew this was their chance. They could capture him now, and learn more about what he wanted. He glanced back at Charlisa, who was leaning against the wall, her chest heaving.

“Will!” She gasped, looking almost too tired to stand. “What the… Wait!”

Her last, shouted word was drowned out by the rush of wind as Will dove, headfirst, out of the window. He wasn’t sure what had made him do it, but something deep inside assured him he’d be fine. He dropped like a rock towards the pavement, controlling his descent with bursts of flame from his hands and feet. He still hit the ground hard enough to sprain an ankle, but at least he was safely down. He was also mere feet from the stranger.

“Don’t you fucking move!” He shouted. “You’re not going anywhere, you bastard!”

He met the stranger with as hot a blast of fire as he could, shoving the man back. He crashed into a nearby parked car, shattering its window and setting its alarm off. The chirping alarm rang through the now deserted parking lot and sidewalk, not quite managing to drown out the groan from the stranger as he forced himself to his feet. Another gust of wind, avoiding Will this time, slammed into him, throwing him to the side. Will moved after him, ready to strike.

As he loosed his jet of flame, considerably smaller than Edward’s, he thought the fight might be finished there. He’d stun him with the flames, then knock him out. But suddenly, something as hard as stone slammed into his stomach, knocking him back a pace or two and doubling him over, knocking all the air out of his body. The stranger was standing again, his hands coated in bits of pavement. Of course, Will thought, backing away. He also had powers of the Earth Nexus.

And fire, it seemed, as the stranger lifted a hand, releasing a stream of fire that shoved Will back another ten or fifteen feet. He turned to run once again then, shooting a jet of flames at Kevin to suppress his next attack. Will tried to get up to follow him, but he was too weakened. He couldn’t move his body quick enough to do anything. He cursed loudly, realizing that the man was about to get away. But then his field of vision was once again flooded by flames, that screaming, roiling field of fire that only Edward could conjure.

Just barely visible in the mass of heat and light, Will saw the shadow of a man drop from above. Like Kevin and Will, it seemed that Edward had chosen to simply drop down. Unlike either, he made no attempt to slow his descent. He crashed down with devastating force, putting a hole in the paved parking lot. He took no damage from the fall, and even as his flames evaporated into thin air, he was already taking a step back. Will’s eyes widened as he looked at his Alpha, realizing that he’d landed right on the stranger.

“Now,” Edward said, his voice remarkably cold as he stooped to grab the stranger’s shirt and throw him into the wall of the hotel. “You could only survive that if you had the power of an Alpha. Who are you?”

Emboldened by his Alpha’s triumph, Will hurried forward, limping on his injured ankle, to stand beside Edward. They were directly under the light of the building, and he could see the stranger’s face in clear detail. The wide, thin lips were still just as unnerving as before, but his face was covered in blood. Despite his state, he was smiling as he looked up at the Fire Alpha, his eyes still glinting.

“Surely you recognize me, Edward,” the stranger said, his toneless voice mocking. “We shared a special bond, after all.”

Will glanced at Edward, which was a mistake. The instant he took his eyes off the stranger, he saw Edward stagger, as though he were wounded. But that was a ridiculous notion. The Will saw the blood and the hole in his stomach. Suddenly, nothing else mattered. Edward gave a surprised sort of grunt as he turned slowly to glance at Will. Then, even more slowly, he dropped to his knees.

“Dad!” Charlisa’s tortured voice crashed against Will’s ears. He didn’t know where she’d come from, but she was suddenly there, her hands burning as she clutched at her father. “I’ll heal you!”

“There’s no point, dear,” the stranger said. His smile was gone, and he was staring down at the man he’d felled. “His own Condition betrayed him. He’ll survive if he’s lucky. But you don’t know enough about your power to know why this happened. In time, you will learn.”

Will rounded on the man, his fists igniting. In one instant, two things happened. He felt that sharp pang in the back of his mind, his own Condition breaking. Then the stranger, stepping forward quickly, coated his hand in earth once more and struck Will across the face. He crashed to the ground, defeated.

“Now, I must really begone,” the stranger said, his voice already fading. “Don’t forget what I said, young Will. I’m expecting great things from you.”

It was the last thing he heard, apart from Charlisa’s sobs of anguish, and the sound of her shouting, screaming for her father. Then, everything faded.