The Mind Element

Author's note. All characters are over 18, as established in earlier Chapters or in "Master of Elements" to which this is a sequel.

The Mind Element Chapter 10

"Now, I will teach knowledge for the liberation of those people who have conquered their passion. The element earth is first, water second, fire third, air fourth, ether fifth and mind (manastattva) is said to be the sixth" Amanaska Yoga treatise

When Randall Ness and Christopher Ward touched the Theia Stone and triggered the release from captivity of the spirit of that being known only as the Creature, it had taken the form of a silvery mist and this, once united, had passed at speed into the body of Colonel Baker. This happened had so fast it had been over before anyone could counter it.

Baker, however, had merely human reactions, albeit highly trained ones, so when he rose to his feet and made for the stone, others had time to respond. It was Sergeant Kelly who saved the day. Despite the local gun control laws, and the pledges given by Ness to Chris, Kelly was carrying a concealed automatic pistol. Realising that there was something very wrong with his leader, he drew it out and pointed it at Baker and challenged him: "Stop there Colonel. Hands above your head and don't move."

With almost super-human speed, Baker's trained reflexes being augmented by the Creature now inhabiting him, the Colonel spun round and knocked the gun aside. Closing with his opponent, Baker seized him by the throat. Kelly was strong and fit, but Baker had not been a Special Forces officer for nothing and he knew how to kill a man quickly and efficiently and he did so now.

And yet Kelly's unintended sacrifice had bought enough time. When Baker turned toward the Theia Stone it was to find the five Mistresses of Elements surrounding it. The Creature who was controlling the Colonel realised that it was going to have to fight them. Until they were dead it could not escape the pocket dimension to which Athena had taken them. In such a contest it was at a disadvantage in this cramped space; it needed more room to fight to full effect.

So Baker turned away from the stone and with a wave of his hand the Creature through him unleashed its own powers. The window and wall facing him disintegrated and Colonel Baker, together with the mental parasite he now carried, fled through it. The Mistresses of Elements were not dismayed by this. To fight in this place would have resulted in the certain deaths of all the ordinary people here, many of them their friends. It was far better for that struggle to occur at a safer difference.

Four of them at once followed the Creature, but Brigit lingered for a moment to pick Chris off the floor. "You ok?" she asked. "We're going to need your help."

"Yes," said Chris, a little unsteadily. "It looks liked I've fucked up again."

"Forget it," said Brigit, "Somehow I knew it was always going to come to this. While that thing lived it was inevitable we were going to have to fight it again; it's what we were born to do. But let's make this the last time. This time it dies."

"To do that we'll have to kill the Colonel as well," Chris realised.

"If it helps, he really isn't a very nice man," said Ness from the floor, where he was just sitting up. "I'll tell you later why he was thrown out of the army."

"Come on Master, there's no time for this. My sisters need us," said Brigit urgently. Chris merely nodded and then the pair hurried out through the gaping hole in the wall.

*****

With the battle moved outside, the others emerged from wherever they had taken shelter, except for Daniel Robinson who was still under the table and had curled up into a ball. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this and he had retreated into denial. The rest left him there since he was in no more immediate danger than they were.

Carter and Marco moved the body of Kelly over against a wall and Sammy found a tablecloth in one of the bureau against a surviving wall, which they used to cover the corpse. Before doing so, Carter checked his pockets and found a wallet. He also took the dead man's pistol.

"Joseph Patrick Kelly", he said looking at the contents of the wallet. "If we survive this, I'll try and find his relatives and tell them he died honourably."

"Yes," agreed Marco. "By distracting Baker from the stone, he may just have saved the world, but no one will ever know."

Carter looked down at the now covered body. "Whatever bad things he did in the past, he was still a soldier. He would have understood sacrifice without reward."

The shock of events had broken previous allegiances. For the people trapped in this situation not knowing whether they would live or die, it ceased to matter to most whether they were employed by Randall Ness or were friends of Christopher Ward. So they mixed and mingled and did their best to cope with the situation in accordance with their personalities.

Marco had just explained, in outline, his theory of dimensional transference of matter to a scientifically interested Dr Gupta and Lucia Torres. When he was done, Lucia had a question that had not occurred to Marco.

"If you are correct," she said, "why are we still alive? The kind of place you describe should be wholly hostile to life - no breathable atmosphere, close to absolute zero temperature, no gravity. By rights we should all be dead a dozen times over."

Fay, hearing his, replied, "It must be the Mistresses of Elements. I expect Queen Kitaka is responsible for the gravity, Queen Brigit for the warmth and Queens Freya and Matsu for the fact we can breathe."

"You mean," said Marco wonderingly, "that they are locked in a life and death struggle out there with that thing and they still have time to think of keeping us alive?"

"Of course they have, that's what heroes do," said Fay, her faith absolute.

"In that case we'd better hope that none of them get killed," said Dr Gupta grimly. "Even one and it could be the end for us."

Carter Jackson and Sammy Meyer stood by a gaping hole in the side of the building where once a large and elegant window had looked out over the gardens of the mansion. The window was so much shattered glass and wood lying outside the room, along with a considerable amount of brickwork. The garden had been replaced by a dimly lit and featureless plain of grey sand or dust.

Far out on that plain, at least a mile or two away Carter estimated, they could see vivid flashes of multi-coloured lightning as the five Mistresses of Elements, supported by their Master, did what they were destined to do and fought their great enemy. Carter and Sammy, warriors at heart, longed to be with them doing something to help, Carter the more so since Freya was out there facing deadly danger. He drew out the automatic and looked at the gun in his hand.

"Don't even think of it," said Fay from behind him. "You would never survive that battle. No normal human could." Carter said nothing, but also made no move. He knew she was right.

"But there is one thing I can do," Sammy said grimly. "It's time to fix that bastard, Randall Ness."

*****

Ness had been stunned after touching the Theia Stone and, while not actually unconscious, had been in no state to take in the immediate aftermath. The first thing he was really conscious of was his wife bending over him, concern showing on her face.

"Are you ok, Randall?" she asked gently, but with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Yes, yes, I'm ok, I think," he said, slowly easily himself up so he was sitting on the floor. "That was quite a shock I got."

She looked at him carefully for a moment and concluded that he was indeed uninjured. "There's something you ought to know," she said. "Whatever it was you did to me before - and I guess to the others - it's gone. You no longer control me."

Randall Ness stared at her in horror. Then something struck him as odd. "You don't sound angry with me. Why aren't you furious if you know what I did?"

Sarah Ness looked thoughtful as if she was surprised herself. Finally she said: "You had ignored me for years and our sex-life after the kids were born was practically non-existent. Suddenly, you were taking notice of me and including me in important things - like this meeting for example - and the sex was amazing. I liked getting all that attention a lot and I thought that the fact our marriage was so crap perhaps wasn't completely your fault after all. Maybe I could have been a better wife. If you're interested, I wouldn't mind trying again?"

Randall Ness was surprised, not just by the offer but by his reaction. While the mind-controlled Sarah had been essentially a slave, he had still been reminded why he had married her in the first place. He had always found her physically attractive, but their relationship had been poor. This new, post-mind control, version of his wife seemed as if she might be more to his liking. There was also the thought that if she had been angry, as might have been expected, the subsequent divorce could have been spectacularly expensive for him.

So Randall smiled at his wife and said, "Yes, I'd like that too."

He was about to discover that not everyone was so forgiving. Sarah had just helped Randall to his feet when a tall, strong and furious woman came across the room at speed. Sammy wrenched the businessman from his wife's grasp and pinned him against a wall.

"You bastard, I know what you did to me and I'm gonna fucking kill you for it, here and now." She looked like she meant it.

"I... I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean you any harm!" Ness gasped desperately. Sarah was pulling at Sammy's arm but the former soldier was far stronger and just ignored her.

Then, to Randall's surprise, Sammy relaxed her grip a little and said in a calmer voice, "Yes, I can see you didn't mean me harm. But it was still wrong."

Randall, taking advantage of this unexpected change hastily went on. "Yes, it was wrong. Look, how about I pay you some compensation and then we forget it? What do you want - $50,000, $100,000?" Ness always favoured using money to make his problems go away; the sums involved were trivial to him. He was just surprised it was an option this time.

Sammy let go of him. "Hmm, yeah, that sounds fair. If we get out of this pay me what you owe and we're good." She turned round and wandered back toward the others, passing Fay and Marco heading for Ness on the way.

"What the hell happened there?" Randall asked Sarah, who was looking as surprised as he was.

"That's what we were asking," said Marco as he and Fay arrived. "I want Fay to use her ability to read your mind."

"What!" exclaimed Ness, "That girl can see people's thoughts?" Fay nodded. "No wonder Ward took her to all the meetings. My god, what an advantage that would be in making deals! You wouldn't like to come and work for me would you young lady? I'd pay any salary you asked."

"Absolutely not," said Fay. "Be quiet and let me concentrate." A few moments passed. Fay stopped looking at Randall and glanced quizzically at Sarah Ness. Then she sighed and said, "It's as I thought. When you touched the Theia Stone and the Overlord was able to escape, you became linked to the stone. It's given you powers."

"Powers? What do you mean?" Randall asked.

"For one thing, you seem to have gained an ability to influence people. You can't order them around like you did with mind control, but people will take anything you say with great seriousness and will find it very persuasive. That's what just happened with your ex-bodyguard lady. I should warn you though, it won't work on me. My mind is not human."

"This is wonderful!" exulted Randall Ness. "Think of the advantages in business dealings! And why stop there - I could run for President!"

"There's more," added Fay. "I think the stone did other things as well, but I don't know what. The Master and Mistresses of Elements might be able to tell perhaps. And Mrs Ness - you were holding your husband when he touched the stone. I think it did something to you as well. You may have powers too."

"What powers?" Sarah asked, shocked. "I don't feel any different."

"Again I have no idea. From what I've heard of the history of the Mistresses of Elements, Queen Matsu knew she was different and special from a very young age, and Queen Athena felt something too although she didn't understand it, but most of them knew nothing until they were contacted by someone who could help them find their true nature. It seems to be different for each person. I would suggest talking to Master and Mistresses."

*****

Out on the plain, it seemed unlikely that any of what was happening to the others would matter. The Master and Mistresses of Elements were fighting hard, but little by little they were losing the battle.

One reason was that, as Fay had realised, they were using part of their strength to keep this pocket of reality Athena had created habitable. The Creature in contrast had no need to concern itself with that at present. Then there was the problem that their enemy had fought this fight many times down the centuries and had learnt from each defeat until now it had the upper hand.

The women and Chris were taking physical damage. Matsu had suffered the most, with a leg injury that had left her sitting, unable to move much, but all of them were covered in cuts, bruises and small bleeding wounds. Worse than that was the slow draining of their psychic strength. The ability to use their powers depended on determination and will to resist and attack and it was ebbing as the exertion took its toll.

Matsu's injury made this worse. She was still gamely trying to help but her immobility left her vulnerable to the Creature's attacks. Chris, who lacked the raw power of the Mistresses, had played his proper role of supporting each in turn as the need demanded, but with Matsu down, he was forced to use all his own powers to try to protect her, so depriving the others of his support.

Unless something changed, they would, one by one, be killed and their friends, allies and erstwhile enemies in the transported house would swiftly follow. The Creature would be free to return to Earth, the Aether World or anywhere else in the multiverse it chose.

Then, in that hour of need, all six of them heard in their thoughts a message sent by Fay. It simply said: "Dan Baker is human."

*****

Back in the house - or at least that part of the house that Athena had brought here - Fay let go of the Theia Stone. Borrowing its power had been the only way to get her message through. She knew that was dangerous - the stone was particularly active at present and had wrought changes to Randall and Sarah Ness through contact - but she had thought the risk was worth it. If the Creature won, they were all dead anyway.

"Are you all right?" Marco asked worriedly. "You don't look any different."

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said to reassure him. She didn't tell Marco that she thought something that changed. She felt different somehow, although it was not a bad feeling. Better to find out for sure what had happened before she troubled Marco with it.

"What did you tell them?" Marco asked. Fay had previously said she was sending a message but not what it was.

"Something that is so natural and obvious to all of you that you take it for granted and so overlook it. Only an outsider like me would think of it," she answered somewhat mysteriously.

Everyone else, except for the unfortunate lawyer still curled up under the table, had gathered near the hole in the wall and was looking out at the distant battle, discernible only as flashes of light. Randall Ness had already settled with his other past victims, exploiting his new power of persuasion to the full.

Lucia had felt she needed to leave his employment, but Ness hadn't even needed to offer her the sort of compensation he was giving Sammy. The scientist has settled for a glowing reference and a good word from Ness to an alternative employer. Dr Gupta had been even easier to deal with. Following Ness' suggestions, he was happy to agree that his employer's behaviour had been entirely reasonable. Offered a pay rise, Gupta was quick to agree to continue to work for Ness.

The case of Haley Wood proved even more straightforward. It seemed that while she was couldn't condone what Randall had done, her sudden promotion from brand new probationary intern to personal assistant to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world was very much to her liking and she didn't want to lose it.

"Hmm," said Sarah Ness, considering the 21 year-old blonde. "I don't think with your new powers you will have much difficulty charming this young lady into your bed, Randall. You'd be pushing at an open door I reckon." Haley flushed red with embarrassment as Sarah continued. "I must admit she is cute though. Given you're bound to have some mistress or other, it might as well be her. I think I'll let you keep her, but to make sure you don't pay young Ms Wood too much attention compared to me, I will take her on as my personal secretary."

"Really? I like that idea," said her husband, surprised and pleased his wife was open to such a thing. "But why do you need a secretary?"

"Because from now on ours is going to be a more equal partnership; you can take a bit more interest in your kids and I plan to understand your business better."

Randall Ness was far from sure he liked that idea, but things were going so well for him today he decided not to question it. Then he reminded himself that if things were going well, that still depended on them all not dying in the next half hour.

Meanwhile the now unemployed Lucia Torres, with some trepidation, approached where Sammy Meyer was standing. The lesbian ex-soldier was a good nine inches taller than the petite scientist and it took Lucia a moment to get her attention.

"Hi Lucia," Sammy said when she did notice the Latina woman. Lucia thought she sounded friendly enough.

"Umm, I was wondering..." Lucia began nervously. "You see, what Mr Ness did to us was horrible and wrong but at the same time some of it made sense of things that had worried me for a long time...." Lucia paused, realising she was gabbling.

"Go on," said Sammy encouragingly.

"Umm, when I was a college... well I went out with a few guys, but it never felt right, so I just forgot about things like that and threw myself into my studies and I guess that worked, because I ended up with a first class degree in bio-engineering. But then when Ness did what he did and made us - umm - well, you know, have sex with each other, then that felt right - especially with you. So I was just wondering - if we survive this -would you like to go on a date? I mean, with me?"

Sammy was staring in surprise at the small, slightly nerdy, but very attractive girl. Lucia for a moment took this as rejection and started to apologise but Sammy interrupted her: "Are you kidding me babe! Of course I'd love to go on a date with you! You're one of the hottest women I've ever met."

Then, being essentially a woman of action, Sammy stooped slightly, literally picked Lucia up and kissed her with some passion, a kiss the Latina girl was more than happy to return.

*****

There had been twenty Mistresses of Elements from the first in Ancient Greece to those who did battle now, supported by four each of Masters, Stewards and Hierophants. Those thirty-two had fought the long fight against their joint enemy and succeeded in no more than containing it. All were dead, save the six who stood in this place, battered but unbowed. But they would have been glad to know their sacrifices were not in vain.

It was Freya Nordlander, the current Mistress of Air, who finally fulfilled that long destiny. She, like the rest, had heard Fay's message. The Creature's reunited spirit was as strong as ever, but the body it inhabited was merely human, and humans need many things to live, and, Freya realised, the thing they need most urgently is air to breath.