The Systems Challenge

Elmo felt at a loss for what to do. First, Sonya was unresponsive even since she crashed into the trees. Then when she landed, she turned sideways and threw Heather and Elin. Elmo had barely held onto the spike in front of him, so he'd escaped rather unscathed in comparison. Though, if Sonya had come to since then, he couldn't say. He'd left Elin to care for Heather and Sonya, even though he had no idea if he shouldn't have insisted on Elin accompanying him in case Kim needed help.

Second, the plan for what to do if Kim entering the bear's mouth proved effective, had been hazy at best. It hadn't been clear to Elmo what any of them were supposed to do, although he did admit that none of them really knew what the situation would be like or what to expect from the bear afterwards. Though, Elmo figured that it would have been helpful to have at least had someone officially in charge, despite the fact that he wouldn't be surprised at most everyone pushing to be the one in charge.

Third, when he returned to where he knew the bear was, what he found was something that still boggled his mind. The bear looked like a regular bear, aside from being so massive. While he suspected that most of whatever had protected the bear was gone, he was pretty sure that it still had some magical qualities of its own, since he was pretty sure the air was too thin for it to be able to get in enough oxygen to survive at the moment. At least without any magical assistance that is.

And fourth, while he'd seen Jonas and Patrick climbing the bear's fur, he wasn't sure what he should do himself. Even as Elwin and Thomas did the same, or at least where they could reach the bear's fur, while Owen, Frank, and Stanley shot arrows at it, Elmo felt like all he could do right then was just watch. Though, when Patricia started to send ice blasts at the bear, Elmo wasn't sure if the bear even noticed. Yet, it still made him feel that he needed to at least try something. Even if it wasn't anything that was effective. He didn't know where Kim was, but that was beside the point since he couldn't imagine he'd be able to do anything to help her in this situation anyway.

However, when he first launched his brimstone fire spell at the bear's face, that's when things went south for him. He hadn't expected to see the bear react in such a way where it turned to the south of them and started running.

By the time he'd recovered from the surprise, he could see that the bear was well out of his range for most of his spells and the rest ran the risk of hitting one of those who were likely still climbing up the bear's fur. Aside from Thomas, that is, and Elmo noticed him getting thrown off when the bear had started running in the first place.

Elmo wasn't sure if it was the fact that the spell he'd used had a fire attribute to it, if the bear didn't like the brimstone smell, or if there was something else that had scared it. All he could be sure of was that it had run off and he couldn't do anything about it now.

His mind felt like it had either crashed and needed to reboot or was still processing what had happened. In a way, it felt more like a video game cut scene. Where he would be able to watch events go by and didn't have any control over anything. Not even the characters until the video playback was over.

Yet, while he was pretty sure that it was 'over' at this point, he hadn't a clue as to what there was to do. Naturally, they'd need to head towards the bear, but at the same time, he wasn't sure how long that would take. It might still be early in the morning now, but with everything that had happened, he was ready to take a nap.

The only ones he was pretty sure were still raring to go were those who hadn't had to endure the crash. Or at least not while still on Sonya's back. Since he'd seen Jonas pull Patrick and Patricia into the shadow world, or whatever it was called, when Sonya started to go down.

When Patricia came up to him, he saw her, but couldn't bring himself to react to her. Not even to look at her as she walked up and stopped right next to him.

"You okay?" she asked. "You're kinda looking a little out of it."

Elmo felt himself nod more than did it consciously. He wasn't sure if it was more of a rote response or if he really felt like he was okay. He only aware of his own movement.

"Well, if you need to talk, just let me know. You look like you probably could use a drink. It's a shame we don't have anything to get drunk with here," Patricia remarked, clapping a hand on Elmo's shoulder.

Elmo wanted to say something, but it felt like his mouth had gotten disconnected or something because he couldn't seem to get it to even move in the slightest. It was starting to make him feel a little concerned.

While he tried to figure out what was wrong, he suddenly felt a surge of pain in his face, right after a fist-looking object suddenly filled his vision. After the pain came a brief sense of weightlessness as he flew maybe a foot through the air before landing painfully on the ground.

He wasn't sure who hit him, but for some reason, he felt like his brain was working again. Why that was true, he didn't understand, but he couldn't deny the effects of having gotten knocked down like that.

"You know, if you're going to just stand there, you could make yourself more useful as a punching bag," Patricia remarked, as if he'd done something wrong. Though, Elmo suspected that she was trying for a 'playful' tone. Or 'playful' in her own way. "But it's not going to work if you don't stay standing when I hit you."

"I'll try to do better next time," Elmo replied, feeling a little better. Though, he wasn't sure if he really should be saying that. He didn't want there to be a 'next time' when it came to getting hit.

"You better," Patricia said as she threw her arm around Elmo's neck, putting him in a headlock, and started walking towards where Stanley, Frank, and Bart were. Which also was where Thomas was walking towards, Elmo absently noted as he was forced along with her.

"I can walk on my own," Elmo protested.

"Yeah, but you might have slowed me down," Patricia replied, a bit of amusement in her voice. "I'm not going to let you do that at this time."

Elmo couldn't help but sigh. He really didn't want to deal with this. Not when he hadn't a clue as to what he should be doing. He didn't care to 'strategize' with the others, since mostly it felt like if he tried to contribute something that it'd either get ridiculed or wouldn't fit anyone else's fighting style. Especially since, as far as he could tell, Elin, Heather, and himself were the only mages in the combined group. Maybe Patricia and Patrick were, but he hadn't been able to figure that out yet. Though, it still made things more than a little difficult trying to figure out how to contribute when he really didn't understand their way of thinking.

"So, what do you think?" Patricia called out when they were about fifty feet away. "Should we try to follow the bear or wait and see if any of them return?"

"How long do you think it'd take to catch up with it?" Stanley asked, his expression and tone sounding like he was agreeable, but Elmo thought that there was a bit of an undercurrent of anger present.

"Who knows?" Patricia retorted. "I was thinking that we should try to get Blinky to help us out. I mean, it's clearly not the same kind of bear as before, so maybe Blinky would be willing to help us out with this."

Stanley opened his mouth to respond, but then he stopped. Elmo wasn't sure why, just that he looked like he was having second thoughts on whatever it was that he'd wanted to say.

"See?" Patricia asked. "I'm not just a 'dumb broad who only needs someone filling her up.'" Elmo felt a little surprised at Patricia's statement as well as Stanley's surprised reaction. "Yeah, just because you think I might be asleep doesn't mean that I can't hear your crass remarks."

If Elmo still wasn't in a headlock and being forced to move forward, he might have applauded Patricia's statement, but as it was, he was still spending most of his energy to get out of that headlock. Not that he was aware of any progress that we was making on that point.

"Couldn't we just have the dragon fly us?" Frank retorted.

"Uh, Elmo?" Patricia said before Elmo even had a chance to respond himself, as she looked at him in her headlock. "You should probably answer that one."

"Ugh, why?" Elmo asked, he wasn't opposed to answering that question, though he wished he would have been allowed a little more dignity than having to answer it while in a headlock.

"Why not? You were with Sonya when she landed, so you should be able to let them know exactly what kind of condition she's in."

And you can't let me out of the headlock? Elmo demanded silently. What he said out loud was, "Only if you let me go. This is uncomfortable enough like this. I'll be able to focus better on responding if I can stand on my own."

"You're no fun," Patricia pouted as she released Elmo.

Ignoring her, Elmo straightened up. "While I'd like to tell you everything about Sonya, I think it'd be better if you saw for yourselves," Elmo said, ignoring the look of astonished outrage Patricia was giving him. "That way you'll understand what I mean when I'd explain why she's not going to be available to do that."

Stanley, however, merely glared at him. "Why should we? It'll take ups that much longer to start after the bear if we go to wherever the dragon landed."

Elmo merely shrugged. "Hey, if we use Blinky to go after the bear, then it shouldn't matter how much farther it'd have to make us travel, right? Or is there a limit on how far he can transport people with him?"

"Oh, it's not that," Thomas said, interrupting Stanley before he could actually say anything. "Blinky can sometimes be temperamental. That's all."

Elmo sighed. He had a feeling this was going to be a bigger headache than he'd have liked. "Whatever. I'm still not going to say anything about Sonya until you see what kind of condition she's in."

Stanly looked like he didn't like having to give in, but it was clear he'd deuced that he really didn't have an option at the moment. "Fine. Whatever. Just get this over with, then."

Elmo nodded as he turned and started to lead them to where Sonya had crashed after Kim jumped.