When life calls, will you listen? Or perhaps you're too wound up in your own world to notice. What if you're too late? You may not get a second chance, it's all up to

Fickle Destiny.

It was a bright sunny day, perhaps a little overcast but nothing to growl about. There was a market going on downtown, it happened for a full week every spring. The biggest market in the area with everything and anything you can imagine to sell. One of those few times were you still get to see the odd street performer who isn't just a homeless man-although there were always those types around as well.

A man looking to be in his early twenties dropped a few coins in one of the hobo's hats as he strolled along the sidewalk. His fingers ran through the grey hair that stuck out just slightly too long on his head, causing it to overshadow his icy blue eyes. There really wasn't anything particularly special about his appearance. Just some hunched over young man, still clinging to his teenager years with the black cargo pants and a simple red shirt, stylishly torn in places.

On the other side of town, under the shade of a truly massive maple tree, a young woman, barely into her early twenties, sat. Delia's foot tapped in time to the random song playing on her iPod, and she tapped her fingers against her leg as she listened and looked around. It was a quiet, balmy day, comfortable enough to sit outside for a while without needing a jacket but not so warm as to make a person sweat. Absently, she brushed her brown hair out of her murky green eyes. While not the stereotypical 'Harry Potter' green, her eyes were a unique enough blend of brown and green that they were the one thing she liked about herself.

She happened to glance over at the small pond as she looked around the neatly-kept park, and she blinked when something caught her eye. Something was sparkling in the grasses near the shores of the pond. Delia got up, curious. The park was kept neat enough that it was very rare that litter made it so far from any of the trash cans, so she had to wonder what it was that was catching the light.

She crept closer to the pond, wary for any dips or holes in the ground that could catch the heels of her boots. One broken pair was enough, thank you. Reaching out, she held the grasses off to one side so she could see what was on the ground. It seemed to be some sort of rock, or crystal. It was natural, in any case, but she couldn't see very much of it. There was mud all over the thing, obscuring most of it. Only a few spots here and there were visible, and it had been one of those spots that had caught her eye from afar. Reaching down, she picked it up and plunged it into the lake to clean it off. She wanted a better look at the thing.

Once the crystal was free of mud and grit, she held it up. It was rather pretty, actually. There were quite a few facets to it, and they were uneven enough that she was pretty sure it was naturally formed. It shimmered slightly in the light with a faint iridescence, turning first blue, then purple, then green as she turned it side to side.

Without warning, the crystal suddenly lit up in her hand with a blinding flash and seemed to push outwards from itself with an almost physical force. Delia let go of it with a cry, and it flew towards her. She wasn't quite sure what happened next, because when it hit her chest, exactly over her heart, she blacked out.

Suddenly the man stopped, his blue eyes turned sharply to look off towards something beyond his line of sight and a small grinned played across his face before he strolled down an alley that mysterious lead him straight to the park. He stepped onto the grass and strolled over to the fallen girl, kneeling down he searched her over.

Seeming puzzled he nudged her over, "... where is... hm." he eyed her, then gently dipped his hand into the nearby water and flicked some of the water on her face, "Hey girl" his voice suddenly softened to a gentle tone, "Wake up. Are you okay?"

Delia groaned when the water woke her up. Good god, she ached... What had happened...? She sat up, bracing herself with one hand when a sharp ache jolted through her chest. Her other hand went to her chest out of reflex, but she jerked it away just as quickly with a gasp when she felt a hard lump under her shirt. It seemed almost flush with her skin, and she wouldn't have noticed it at all if it hadn't had such a radically different firmness and texture from her flesh. The area around the hard spot ached as if it was inflamed, and indeed, the flesh there felt hot and tender.

"I... I think I'm okay," she said, regardless. Her voice shook, both from shock and a bit of fear. Whatever had happened, it hadn't been normal, and she got the distinct feeling that she shouldn't tell anyone that anything was wrong. Carefully, she got to her feet. "Really, I'm okay now. I should-- I should go home."

"Are you sure?" he asked, offering to help her up, "My name's Zasz, I've got nothing really going on today so I could walk you home if you'd like. Usually when people faint like that it's quite possible they'll do it again if they over exert themselves too soon. I'd hate for you to collapse again on your way home." he seemed friendly enough and he had a rather honest smile.

"i'm... I'm sure," Delia replied, still a little breathless. Still, she took the offered help and got to her feet. She stumbled slightly, but got her feet under her quickly enough. Briefly, she considered letting him walk her home. It would be nice to have someone walk with her... That thought got interrupted by such a strong wave of revulsion that she had to hold back a flinch. No, she shouldn't let him walk her home, she would be able to get home on her own. "Thank you... for helping me, and for offering to walk me home," she said awkwardly. "I'll be okay."

It was a bit rude, but she turned around then and began to walk towards home. She wanted to get to her own room and see what was going on. She got the sinking feeling that something was off, and something was definitely up with the rock that seemed to be lodged in her chest. She needed to figure out what was happening.

"Alright, well if you're sure..." Zasz replied, letting her leave. As her back turned to him his kind-hearted smile turned to a frown. She was cautious, he'd have to be careful.

He turned as though to head in another direction, walking down another alley-way and finding himself coming out in another completely. First thing was first, he had to find out where she lived, so he let himself be lost among the common crowd as he watched her walk home from afar.

Delia found herself being nigh on paranoid as she walked home. Her mind was buzzing with thoughts, not the least of which was the strange stone she felt on her chest through the fabric of her shirt. Her fingers kept trying to trace the edges of the stone, with some success: It definitely seemed to be the same stone that she'd found near the pond. She had no idea what it was or how it got there, only that it was now seemingly embedded in her flesh for no apparent reason.

It took her a little while to get home, since she took the long way rather than a few shortcuts through the system of alleyways. The longer walk gave her time to think and get her head about her, so she wasn't panicking anymore. Still, she was grateful when she walked through the front door of her apartment complex and closed it behind her.

Zasz watched her head into the apartment complex. He smirked and stepped into a side street, walking out into the hallway of her apartment. He waited for her to enter the elevator before checking the floor and again pursuing until he knew which one was her house. Now he just had to wait.

As soon as Delia was inside her apartment, she locked the door and closed the shades on the windows. She didn't want to take any chances at the moment. Hurrying into her room, she closed the door and windows there, too, before stripping off her shirt and taking a good, long look at herself.

Her skin was still as pale as it had ever been, but now, directly over her heart, the pretty crystal from before was nestled into her skin as if it had always been there. It sparkled faintly, even in the dimmer light of her room, and it seemed to pulse slightly in time to her heartbeat. Her hands shook as she reached up to touch it. It was warm, the same temperature as her skin, but it was still hard and inflexible. She pulled at the skin around it for a moment, but everything seemed to be stuck firm with no intention of letting go. With her hands still shaking, she pulled her shirt back on.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, aside from the obvious, but she got the distinct feeling that it wouldn't be the case forever. Taking a few moments to gather her thoughts again, she went and turned on her computer. It was a well-known fact that there were sometimes people born with 'gifts,' unnatural abilities that let them do superhuman things. Maybe she would be able to find something online that would explain what was going on.

((Oooo, okay. Ummm... should we skip until later?))

((sure, go ahead.))

((As soon as I figure out where to... sorry >_< Starting is so hard.))

Delia's research had turned up nothing, but it didn't surprise her much. It wasn't every day that someone got a magical rock embedded in their flesh, after all. After a day or so to get herself used to the fact that she did have a magical stone in her chest, she started to experiment. In all of the stories she'd ever read, magical stones did something, so she just had to figure out what this one did.

She thought that, since the crystal always had its own faint glow, that it might have something to do with light, and she was right, in a sense. If she concentrated, she could get it to light up, although it had the relatively disturbing side-effect of making the surrounding flesh glow red, as if she had a flashlight shining through from the inside. She learned not to look at it after that. What she had figured out, though, after quite a few failed and misfired attempts, was that the crystal somehow granted her some power over the four elements--albeit only one at a time.

Still... It was something, and it seemed wonderful.

Zasz waited, he found himself an apartment nearby where the original owners suddenly decided they didn't want it anymore. And he waited for something strange to begin to happen, but she spent so much damned time in her apartment it was difficult to know what was going on.

Still, the girl must have figured something out by now. Time to draw her out and see just what kind of person she was going to be with her new abilities. Perhaps she was just what he needed?

Stepping into the lobby of the building across the street, he found a few empty rooms and began a few strategic fires up, mostly on the lower floors. It would be a matter of minutes before the place was a fire trap, and-there went the fire alarm just as he stepped back out and headed away from the blaze.

Delia was in her room, trying to figure out how to move the air around just so to get it to move only the wind chimes hanging in the window. It was the open window, however, that alerted her that something was wrong. Faintly, but getting more and more insistent, the fire alarm from across the street was shrieking. Rising up with the blaring alarm were cries and shouts from other people. Delia jumped off of her bed and scrambled over to her window to get a closer look.

The building was already burning quite a bit, and people seemed to be pouring out of it in a churning mass. She could hear the roar and crackle of the flames over everything else, and it twisted something in her heart. If ever there was a time to see if she could put her new abilities to use, this was it. Hell, it was practically handed to her on a silver platter.

Luckily, she only lived on the second floor, and was able to get outside quickly. Even with how fast she moved, the building was burning still brighter and stronger by the time she reached the other side of the street. Even as she moved, she was running over everything she knew about fire in her mind, which was unfortunately very little. What she did know, however, was that she could only really use earth or water against it. A fire this big would only be fed by air, and more fire would be counterproductive. She glanced around wildly until she saw a fire hydrant. Her mind was working overtime, and she quickly came up with a feasible, insane idea.

Her grip on her elements was tenuous at best, but she still managed enough control that was able to grab the water flowing through and past the hydrant and make it explode into the sky, raining down on everything in the immediate area.

Zasz leaned back against the building opposite the fire, he kept himself out of view as he watched with curiosity to see just what she was capable of. So far, so very interesting. No one else really seemed to be paying her attention though, thanks to the pandemonium of the fire and everyone running away.

People on the higher floors of the building were screaming out the windows, they were too high to jump and had no way down. Sirens could be heard in the distance but the firefighters were still minutes away and seeing how fast this fire spread, not everyone had minutes to spare.

For a moment, Delia didn't know what to do. Every logical part of her told her it was a bad idea to get involved in a raging fire, but she still knew that she had to do something. What good was she if she couldn't even use her mysterious new powers to help people? She still didn't know what to do, and she looked around wildly for some sort of inspiration. It came to her in a a sort of flash of insight: couldn't she exert some sort of control over fire?

Well, it was worth a shot. Using what little knowledge she had about her abilities, she used that control to try to move the fire away from the people, so they would be able to get out of the building, or at least to keep them safe enough until the fire department could arrive. If she could have, she would have used a bit of air to keep the smoke out, too, but she could only work with one element at a time, and the fire was fighting her hold.

Zasz continued to watch, She was doing a surprisingly decent job. Time to crank up the pressure.
He lifted his hand, a strange darkness dancing around his fingers. He had control over shadows and the dark and could do some rather interesting things with it. He could shape it to his bidding, have it transport him from one shadow to another and even create illusions of light and shadow.

His smiled a little to himself and sent the shadows forward, they swirled around Delia and suddenly rose as a circle of deadly looking flames.

Delia lost her focus with a shriek when the flames seemed to jump up around her. She might have been doing alright up until that point, but there was an instinct in every human that screamed that fire was bad and to get away from it. Her concentration broke, and she couldn't even gather it enough again to think rationally. Blindly, she reached out with her new powers to try to suppress the fire, and she started to panic more when it didn't work. She didn't even think that maybe it was something wrong with the fire that caused the failure; she just reached for whatever element would answer.

Air answered the fastest, and wind started to whip around her in an effort to put the flames out.

He smirked to himself, she was still new and that was a bit of a nasty trick to pull but all the same it was entertaining to watch her panic.
Something caught his eye upon on the building. Someone's balcony was breaking lose above where Delia stood and with her concentration broken he doubted she'd be able to do anything about it-if she even noticed. That wouldn't be any good at all, this whole thing had only just begun.

The Balcony creaked and shifted again before completely giving way. Bolting from the side-lines, Zasz ran straight through his illusion to tackle Delia away from the falling debris.

Delia didn't even get the chance to scream as she was suddenly tackled to the side. Before she could do more than try to catch her breath again, part of the building came crashing down right where she'd been standing a moment before. The falling debris kicked up a cloud of dust that made her start coughing, and she tried to feebly scramble away from it. She'd been doing so well before, and now everything was such a mess and she was so, so tired... She hadn't realized just how much her new powers drained her when she used them. She made a mental note to be more careful about it from now on, and try to build up some endurance.

When the coughing fit subsided, she looked around to try to find the person who had gotten her out of the way of the falling concrete. She blinked when she recognized the guy from the park. Where had he come from?

Coughing a bit of dust, Zasz staggered to his feet. Something felt strangely off balance but he shook his head and smiled at Delia, offering her a hand up, "Hey" he spoke-or at least that's what he thought he said. His ears were ringing a bit, odd. He glanced down at himself, brushing some dust off. His hand came across something at his side and that's when the pain hit.
His voice caught in his throat and he dropped to one knee, staring at the chunk of debris that had lodged into his body.
Well... that wasn't part of the plan...

He opened his mouth as though to scream but it caught in his throat and came out merely as a whimper, "ow..."

((I'm so sorry if this post isn't up to par, but I wanted to at least give you something.))

Delia wasn't sure what was happening for a moment. One second she was about to be crushed, the next she's watching as the guy who saved her was falling to his knees with a chunk of wood that could have doubled as a vampire-hunting stake sticking out of his side. As soon as that registered in her head, she panicked. She had no idea what to do.

Then, as if it was as natural as breathing, the crystal in her chest lit up with a soft glow and her hands seemed to move on their own towards Zasz. She didn't touch the debris, instead gently probing the area around it with her fingers. As her fingertips ghosted across his skin, his flesh seemed to try to knit itself back together, pushing the debris out as it did. Inwardly, Delia was still panicking. She had no idea what was going on, and her body seemed to be moving on its own and doing things she had no idea how to control. Soon enough, Zasz's skin was whole, albeit delicate and pink rather than strong and tan, but it would improve with time. When the impromptu healing was finished, Delia somehow regained control of her body as the glowing faded from the crystal, and she scrambled backwards.

Zasz groaned, closing his eyes as the pain began to subside. He wasn't terribly certain what was happening but decided it was best not to question it; at least, not until it was finished.
Breathing deeply he sat up, touching his side in confusion. This was a new development, she could heal. He turned his gaze to stare at her a moment before glancing around at the pandemonium. Standing he offered her his hand, "We need to get out of here."