Round 1.

"Terra, help us! We can’t-" The next few words are garbled, and I drop my communicator and go for direct mind-to-mind contact. Ayria! I think at my water elemental. Hang on, I’m trying to strengthen the elements. It’s going to take me a minute!

We don’t HAVE a minute! Rikt, the air elemental, growls. Get these people off us, Terra! Like, now! I am suddenly up and racing through the tunnels of my vast headquarters in FiveCorner. The hallways are red with fire, but the heat and flame do not trouble me. I am going to the Center, the spot in the fortress where all the elements combine, the spot where the FiveHolder was set into the floor. How could this have gone wrong? I am not new at this game, but I feel as young and stupid as I did on my first visit to FiveCorner, the newest recruit in the Solar Council, the new ElementMaster for planet Earth, the most recent person to adopt the name "Terra" as my own. I have all but forgotten my true name by now, but it is not important.

I am an old hand at element control, and I should have been able to stop this. The whole sequence of events was wrong. How had someone like Mars, even more experienced than me, lost a battle to his elementals? It was something the Solar Council had never before had reason to dread. But their hands are tied now, they can do nothing as I fight for the lives of my elementals, for the life of my planet. I must have the five crystals from the FiveHolder. Only then can I give my elementals the strength they need to defeat the Mars elementals who would kill them.

With a cry of horror, I drop to my knees before the FiveHolder. Gone! The crystals are gone! But how-

--Foolish little Terra.-- the voice sneers mockingly. --Thought you could win, did you?--

--Efra!-- I exclaim mentally. It’s the stinking Mars aether elemental, by far the most powerful of the five. --You cannot take the crystals! It is not permitted!--

--It is not permitted.-- he mocks as I burn with rage and terror. --Well that is too bad, Terra. Because I’ve taken them. Now what are you going to do about it?-- And he turns the crystals against me, forcing me to my knees with tears of pain in my eyes.

Defeated by my own elements! How mortifying! But Efra suddenly focuses his now enhanced powers on someone else. My elementals. It’s like watching the people on my planet die, only a thousand times worse, because I can hear them screaming, begging me to help them as Efra uses the mighty power of the crystals to fuel his soul-tear spell. And I can only watch and listen in horror as Efra tears the souls from their bodies and devours them. Ayria. Rikt. Cherit. Kistanya. Kli. Five beings who have become my chosen ones, my children. How proud I was, watching them first conquer their trials, then go on to operate in Earth, controlling and mastering their elements. And now, to watch all that disappear--it’s more than I can bear.

With a final scream of fury, I summon what little of my power remains to me. Help me, I beg my elementals, and they throw their support behind me, their waning strength backing me up, though they know even as they do it that the effort is killing them. With their dying breaths, I power my blow. It is through the astral plane, not the physical one, and cannot harm Efra physically, for he has no physical body. But it IS enough to send the five crystals flying out of his grasp. He howls in outrage, grasping at the crystals and failing to recover them. They spin out of control, gone from his sight. I grin as he snarls at me, rapidly recovering without the crystals holding their grip on me, He starts to fade out.

--Damn you, Terra, you bitch! Don’t worry, I’ll return. A minor setback, a minor setback. Mars elementals, come!--

And I know that they are gone, back to whatever hole they crawled out of. But it is only a brief reprieve I’ve been granted. The Mars elementals will rest from their fight, find the unguarded crystals, and return to finish me off, replace the crystals in the FiveHolder, and claim Earth as their own. I grind my teeth, trying to shut out my sorrow with a screen of anger. My elementals are dead, and it is a hard loss to bear. But I must be practical. New elementals must be found, and quickly. I hate the idea of sending young, untried, untrained elementals into battle, but I don’t see that I have much of a choice. It’s either that, or the entire Earth will fall to Efra and his four power-hungry friends.

I return to my Viewing Pool on the top level of the fortress and sit cross-legged beside it, considering. Who to choose? Who can I send to battle against the Mars elementals? The choices must be careful and good ones, else we all perish. Normally, the current elementals would help choose their successors. I would have the whole Earth to choose from; every parallel dimension, every possible variation of the world would be mine to search. But now I must be definite. The crystals are scattered. They must be found without delay, and they must be placed in the FiveHolder. I feel so bloody helpless! I have so much power, and yet I cannot do this task! Only the elementals can return the crystals to their proper places. Of course, the elemental candidates usually have to undergo a trial before they recover the crystals and traverse the halls of FiveCorner, make it to the Center, and place the crystals within the FiveHolder, making the powers of the elements truly theirs.

But it cannot be that way. There is no time for trials. The chosen must be near the crystals of their elements. They must be given the powers immediately, and they must find the crystals and make their way to FiveCorner as rapidly as possible. The fate of Earth depends on it.

The air crystal.... I can home in on the crystal to some degree, but only the elemental can track it. Aha! I have the dimension: it is Weyrkinen. I have often visited the peace-loving, fireless Dragons of that realm. Now, a Dragon it will be....I remember the specific requirements for the selection of candidates. There are few, but they must be observed, or the crystals will reject my choice and I must start anew. Each candidate must be sentient, of course. And the candidate for air elemental must be a telepath. Easy enough in a world like Weyrkinen, where the language is almost entirely comprised of telepathy. A young one it must be, who will live for a long period of time, and who is strongly tied to the element he or she must represent....