Elements #3

Bathed in the glow of an alien meteor, Urania Blackwell’s unconscious body twisted and changed, decayed and rebuilt, shifting between solid and liquid and gas, as her car, KAT, watched on.

“They’ve forecast you’ve got a ten percent chance of surviving,” KAT said. “Which is kind of encouraging, especially since you’re the tenth spy they’ve tried this on... Yeah, I realize you’re still sleeping, and probably haven’t been listening to me for the past few hours, but maybe your subconscious is taking it all in. If so, I really hope it helps.”

But Urania could not hear – she had no eyes, she had no ears - her facial features having split into their constituent elements long ago. She could hardly think, as she now woke up and tried to push herself up on an arm that disintegrated beneath her.

“Ah, awake at last,” KAT said, as Urania’s body, or at least what used to be Urania’s body, flopped and splashed about before her, occasionally becoming a gas and rising into the air only to just as suddenly become solid and fall to the ground. “Pull yourself together, girl. You’ve been through worse than this – well, obviously you haven’t. Just concentrate, grow some ears so you can listen to this pep talk.”

Urania just continued to thrash about blindly, senses muffled if there at all, as KAT continued to look on. But then, slowly, ever so slowly, the thrashing stopped, to be replaced by convulsing, as Urania started to reform. But despite KAT’s words, it was not Urania’s ears that returned first, or her eyes. No, it was her mouth, opening wide as it emitted an inhuman scream that echoed throughout the pyramid.

“There. Now, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”



Meanwhile, a continent away, Sapphire Stagg woke up feeling worse than she could ever imagine anyone ever feeling; her brain feeling like it had been exposed to white dwarf matter. Opening her eyes to the oh-so-bright light, she saw an almost-empty champagne bottle lying next to her.

In the old days, she wouldn’t have remembered anything from the night before, but what had happened the previous night was something she just couldn’t forget; her love was leaving her on the eve of their wedding, and, even worse, she’d let him go.

Still, maybe it was all a drunken dream, she hoped, as she shambled over to the nearest security console and asked it to replay the events of last night.

Standing there, though, she saw what she knew she’d see, as the events of the previous evening unfolded once again before her – with Metamorpho telling her he had to go to Egypt to help his new friend Element, to help restore himself to humanity. Sinking to her knees, she suddenly found herself heckling the Sapphire Stagg on the screen. Why was she being so reasonable? Why was she letting him go without a fight?

And then, she looked at her screen self, now alone, and could tell from her face that she was thinking exactly the same thoughts. She continued to watch, commiserating with her on-screen self, as that Sapphire then started to drink the champagne.

“Cheers,” said the girl on the screen, raising the bottle to her.

Sapphire saw the champagne bottle lying near her on the floor, and leaned over to pick it up, then raised it. “Cheers,” she said, as she drank the final drops of champagne from it, and looked at the hurt in Sapphire’s eyes on the screen, and watched as this kindred spirit drank nearly the whole bottle and then fell asleep on the floor, to the sound of her own sobbing.

“Now, you’ve started me off,” Sapphire said to the screen, wiping her eyes, and then she noticed the image on the screen going slightly hazy, the air shimmering. She couldn’t see him, but she knew that it was Rex, checking up on her.

It made her miss him even more.



Metamorpho was also missing Sapphire, worried about the state she’d been in when he’d crept back in to check up on her the previous night, but he was trying not to think about it, as he sat back in his luxury seat on one of Simon Stagg’s private jets. Maybe some music would help him take his mind off things; he plugged in his earphones, laid back, and found himself listening to Leaving On A Jet Plane.

Finding his thoughts suddenly going back to Sapphire, he pulled the earphones out, and tried to find something else to take his mind off her. That task would have been a lot easier if his new traveling companion had been more of a conversationalist. As it was, his new friend, and potential cure, Yu, just sat next to him, staring out of the window.

“Don’t say much, do you?” Rex said finally, desperate for any conversation that would take his mind off his beloved.

Yu turned towards Rex. “No,” he replied, and then turned his attention back to the window.

“Nice tattoos,” Rex said, looking at the markings on Yu’s arm. “Where’d you have those done?”

“My master put the first of them there many years ago. I need them; they help me control my power,” Yu said, still staring out of the window, and then he fell back into the silence he was comfortable with.

“What’s so interesting out there, anyway?” Rex asked. If there was one thing Rex wasn’t, it was a quitter.

“Air,” Yu said. “Lots of it. I miss it. It misses me.”

“Maybe I could throw you out...”

“That would be good,” Yu said, still looking out.

“I was kidding,” Rex explained.

“Oh,” Yu said, the disappointment evident in his voice. “I don’t like it in here, separated from the world. I’m sorry, this is the first time I’ve flown... unaided, that is.”

“Don’t tell me you flew over here from... wherever it is you come from.”

“I had no money. It seemed the easiest way.”

“So, you’ve got no passport? Lucky Simon was so keen to let me use one of his jets.”

“I do not need a passport,” Yu explained, interrupting Rex’s thoughts that had been about to return to Sapphire.

“What? Just because you control the elements, you think you can go wherever you please?”

“No, I know I can go wherever I please. But that’s not what I meant; the Titans sorted out all my paperwork for me. With them I could travel the whole world... even went further once.”

“Outer space?” Rex said, clearly impressed.

“No, just another universe… So, will we be at Egypt soon?”



“That’s it. Go, girl,” KAT yelled, although she could barely be heard above Urania’s screams and groans, echoing throughout the pyramid’s chambers, as her mistress struggled once again to stand up, but her limbs once again crumbled beneath her.

“You can do it,” KAT continued. “Just keep saying ‘I think I can, I know I can’.”“

“Don’t you ever shut up?” Urania screamed at her, her voice now almost recognizable as Urania’s.

“Terrific, your ears are working. And we’re talking again. Now, get your legs sorted out. Think of Bambi.”

Urania glares at KAT through her recently-formed eyes. “I’m thinking of Kill Bill,” she said, as she finally found her feet, only to have her legs dissolve beneath her. “After this, it’s revenge,” she said, gritting what now passed for her teeth, as she struggled to push herself up once again. “And you’re first on my revenge list.”

“Cute. You know I’m indestructible,” KAT said, as she saw her mistress finally standing up, the car’s headlights illuminating the cloud of dust that surrounded Urania. Slowly her mistress concentrated and the dust began to settle on her, once more becoming part of her body. Slowly, uncertainly, Urania walked over to KAT, towards the driver’s door.

“So, where are we going?” asked a chirpy KAT, as Urania rested her hand against the door and leaned forward, looking at herself in the wing mirror, before recoiling back as she saw a face she didn’t recognize staring back at her.

“Hey, one bad day. You’ll get over it,” KAT said to the silent figure, who began to walk away from her.

“Hey, Rainie, wait for me,” KAT shouted, but Rainie wasn’t listening anymore, as she walked down passages too thin for her car to follow, occasionally stumbling, but then walking on, not thinking about where she was going.

And then she encountered a soldier standing there, his gun pointed towards her, saying words in Egyptian, and she saw the horror and fear on his face as he looked at her.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” she explained, as the soldier continued to stammer out words, but there was no point in her translating, for no matter what he said, after what she’d just been through, her response would always be the same; her body turned to sharp shards of iron, and she ripped straight through him, reconstituting on the other side and continuing on her journey.

As she made her way out of the pyramid, she looked back over her shoulder at the punctured remains of the soldier, lying there, at peace.

She envied him.



Sapphire Stagg sat there in the empty room, wondering what to do next, as the champagne bottle spun on the floor in front of her. As it came to rest, pointing away from her, she spun it again; she wasn’t altogether sure why, just to pass the time, take her mind off things - but there’d be a lot of time to pass before her love returned, and even a full bottle couldn’t distract her from Metamorpho’s absence.

As the bottle suddenly came to rest again, she noticed it was pointing towards her. ‘Truth or dare?’ that was what Kathy used to say, and usually Sapphire would do both, but that seemed a lifetime ago. Now, she couldn’t handle the truth and so, goaded by the empty bottle, she realized that her only alternative was a dare. She needed to go after him, find him – she’d tried the staying at home approach before and that sucked; no, this time, she was going along – she just hoped it wasn’t too late.

Looking down at the bottle, pleased by its sage advice, she then saw a darkness fall over it, a shadow, and turned around to see who was there.

“Father!?”

“Sapphire.”

“I need your help,” she said, turning around on the floor. “It’s Rex, I think he’s in danger. I’ve got to go after him.”

“You’re right, my child. He is in danger.”

“And so am I,” she added, as an afterthought.

“I’m sorry? How?”

“This room’s locked,” she said, as her hand reached behind her, her fingers wrapping around the neck of the champagne bottle. “Only unlocks from the inside, though, and these are the best locks money can buy. There’s no way my father could have got in, which I guess means you’re not really my daddy.”

“Guess not,” said the man looming over her, just before the champagne bottle shattered against his face. And then he started laughing, as his bloodied face wrapped around the glass shards sticking out from his skin and absorbed them, and then his features changed before her. “Still, I might not be your father, but that doesn’t mean I can’t punish you.”



The Stagg Industries jet taxied into the airport at Cairo, and slowed to a halt. Yu was the first to exit, almost knocked back by the heat outside, a shock to his system after the hours of air-conditioning he’d previously had to endure. As he summoned a breeze around himself, Metamorpho followed him out, but if he noticed the change in temperature, he didn’t show it.

“So, Simon’s booked us a hotel here,” Metamorpho began.

“Hotel? We’re not sightseeing, we’re on a mission.”

“Doesn’t hurt to plan ahead,” he said, and looked at Yu’s face. “No, I’m not much for planning ahead either – let’s go kick some pyramid.” He saw Yu’s puzzled expression. “Just a figure of speech, kid.”

“No, I wasn’t puzzled by that. It’s just that...”

“What?”

“Well, it’s the way that you talk, just saying whatever comes in to your head. You remind me of how I used to speak, when I was young.”

“Really? But now you hardly say anything.”

“Yes. Listening to you, I suddenly realize my master’s advice was right.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Rex said, as the wind carried Yu off. “Oh, I get it. You were kidding, right?”

The hovering Yu looked back and down at him, his face totally inscrutable, and then the slightest of smiles almost emerged.

“So, which way do we go?” he asked Rex, circling around him.

“This way,” Rex said, leaping into the air, and becoming a mist. “Follow me.”




As she trudged her way away from the pyramid, through the hidden canyon, her legs occasionally crumbling into the sand, Urania Blackwell wasn’t happy. She was beyond not happy, she was beyond suicidal, she’d even started singing Radiohead.

“I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo,” she began, in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own. “What the hell am I doing here?”

She knew what’s she was doing there. It was all Anton’s fault. She wished that she’d managed to obtain the meteorite from Stagg’s mansion the night before, maybe that would have made a difference, but that freak Metamorpho had stopped her.

For a second she remembered the picture on the front of that newspaper she’d been reading, showing Sapphire Stagg next to the Element Man, with his discolored skin, his white chalky face - a freak, no longer human. Just like her.

Treat yourself to a make-over - that’s what it had said on another page; that was as woefully near as her horoscope had got to predicting the scope of her horror.

She looked down again at her feet, as once again they gave way beneath her, and then, on the sand, she saw the shadows of two people being cast from above. Gazing up she saw two faces she’d never wanted to see again - Metamorpho and the equally hairless teenager she’d seen the previous night at the mansion.

Suddenly all her hurt and despair and shock had a new place to be channeled, as with a new sense of purpose she pulled her feet back together and prepared to attack the duo.

It was going to be a fight to the death, and it wasn’t as if she could lose either way.



Simon Stagg should have been happy. Rex Mason, one of the many people he deemed not worthy of his daughter, had flown away on the eve of their intended wedding day, but Simon realized the impact that would have on his daughter. It should have been an acceptable loss, but when it came to Sapphire his normal logic didn’t apply. He needed to be there for his poor little princess and so he’d cancelled all of his meetings for the next hour.

Looking at his watch, calculating how his time was no longer translating into money, he strided into Sapphire’s spacious living quarters, his lackey Java following close behind. Seeing the room empty, his hand went to open the door to the next room, but he discovered the door was locked. He should have known.

“Sapphire, it’s your father,” he began, realizing some tact was required to unwind his highly-strung, nay, spirited, daughter.

“Daddy,” she replied, but not in her normal voice. She screamed the word.

“Sapphire!” Simon shouted back, banging his fists on the door, wishing he’d not bought the most secure doors money could buy.

“Sapphire!” Java echoed near enough simultaneously as he threw himself at the door with all his might and ricocheted straight off.

Simon didn’t look back at the unconscious Java, but looked and listened helplessly as he heard his daughter’s screams, and then a body was being smashed against the door, and then there was an almighty explosion, and finally the worst sound of all, silence.

“Door must die!” were the words that finally shattered the silence as Java, staggering to his feet, attacked the door once more.

“You’ll never-” began Simon, and then heard the heavy door being pulled off its hinges by Java’s irresistible force. But his surprise at Java’s feat was as nothing to his surprise at what he saw before him. The room was now empty, a massive hole smashed into the wall.

“Sapphire?” Java said, but his master didn’t answer; for the first time that Java could remember, Simon Stagg was lost for words.




Yu and his new friend, Metamorpho, continued their flight, in the direction of the hidden pyramid, when suddenly they both heard an inhuman cry coming from below.

“This is your fault!” were the words Metamorpho heard, as he looked down to see what seemed to be a female version of himself rising up towards him.

“What do you-” he started to say, before an iron fist smashed straight into his face.

“There is no need for violence. We should talk,” Yu said, but the woman paid him no heed as she climbed onto Metamorpho and continued to pound him with her giant metal fist.

“Words can’t help,” she said, as Metamorpho started to lose altitude, and she then turned her attention back to the Element Man. “Aren’t you going to fight back?”

“You’re angry,” he replied, his body transforming to gas. “Angry that you’re an Element Girl.”

“Element Girl? I’m even more angry now that you’ve given me that stupid name,” she said, as her body also transformed into a gas. “You don’t recognize me, do you? I’m the girl from last night; if you’d let me steal that little piece of meteor then I wouldn’t have had to go searching for the real thing, wouldn’t have had my body twisted like this. Then you’d be able to recognize me.”

His face fell. “I’m... sorry. I know what you’re going through. I remember what it was like. Let me help... Please. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Your mistake,” she said, as she spun her gaseous form round and round, faster and faster, dispersing him outwards, and then she headed towards each of his disparate parts in turn, spinning further, until he was spread so thin she could no longer see any traces of him. “It’s not fair,” she said, looking up at Yu. “I really wanted him to kill me, but I guess killing him will do for now. You realize you’re next?”

But Yu didn’t say anything, he had his head bowed in concentration.

“Come on, pull yourself together,” she said as she floated in front of him, a cloud behind her casting darkness over him.

“No, it’s not me I’m pulling together,” he said, as the shadow of the cloud suddenly sharpened into the shape of a man, and she suddenly realized that it wasn’t a cloud behind her at all.

“Next time I fight back,” Metamorpho warned as the Element Girl turned to see him standing there behind her, towering over her.

“Suits me,” she said, as she leaped at him, but she stopped in mid-air and suddenly she found herself being carried along by an invisible force.

“We’re going to talk,” Yu said, as he brought her to a halt.

“You think you can stop me?” she said.

“No,” Yu replied, “I know I can. Normally I couldn’t, but your element composition, it’s so basic.”

He watched her struggle, but he held her still.

“So, now what, kid?” Metamorpho said. “We can’t just leave her here. How’d she find the pyramid anyhow; it took Simon’s team years of research to locate it.”

“Never heard of googleEarth?” the Element Girl said, amid her continued strugging. “Times change, technology improves,” she said, and then stopped her struggling. “Speaking of technology, good job I didn’t come alone.”

“She’s bluffing, kid,” Metamorpho said.

“Bluffing am I?” she said, and then yelled, “Help!”

For a second there was silence.

“Yeah, bluffing,” Metamorpho said.

“I wasn’t bluffing,” she said. “Must be my voice... it’s changed. Help! Help!”

“You know what we’ve got to do, kid,” Metamorpho said over her continued shouts.

Yu nodded.

And then her shouts were suddenly drowned out by the noise of an engine, and they looked down to see a cloud of sand, as something sped through it towards them.

“Looks like I finally found my voice,” the Element Girl said, as she saw a silver car skid to a halt in front of her.

“Heard you the first time actually,” the car said. “Just ratcheting up the tension. You want me to kill these guys?” the car added, as guns and missile launchers started to sprout from its metalwork.

“Yeah, they were going to just leave me here.”

“No,” Yu said, “we were going to make you human again.”

She looked at them stunned.

Metamorpho nodded. “You’re right, I guess it’s our fault. He can fix things. The pyramid can wait.”

“You can fix this? Really? That would be-”

“My directive was to have that meteor transform you,” the car interrupted. “I’m also programmed to maintain you in that state,” she added, as a nuclear missile started to emerge from her roof. “Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War.”

“No, please, KAT, no,” the girl pleaded, as Metamorpho adopted a defensive stance and Yu hovered there calmly.

“Don’t worry, Rainie,” the car said, its tone suddenly as lighthearted as its AI would allow. “Just yanking your chain.” Her doors all sprang open. “Now leap in and I’ll take you all wherever you need to go.”



It had been an hour since Urania Blackwell had come across them, wanting to kill them, but now she found herself in a hotel room with the two of them, sitting on a bed, the younger one’s hands running over her body. At first she’d been slightly dubious - being a spy made her naturally question things - but as she looked over at the mirror and saw her head, once again with flesh and hair and eyes and teeth, all her doubt was gone.

The younger one. who called himself Yu, now had his hands hovering over her chest, concentration in his eyes.

“Not sure if this is right,” he said, as her flesh was once more restored.

She noticed Metamorpho was looking away, but she wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was embarrassed, his current lack of blood vessels meant any blushing was hidden; maybe he felt guilty looking at her naked body when he’d abandoned his girlfriend back in America.

“They look good,” she admitted to Yu. “Better than they used to. What do you think, Rex?”

“Maybe I better go and get you some clothes,” he said, still looking away.

“Yeah, KAT should have something in the trunk,” she said. “Nice job, Yu. You’re quite the artist.”

“My friend Adam used to study the female form,” Yu replied. “He used to acquire tomes from an... an... ancient library, I think it was called.”

“Adult bookstore,” she said, venturing a guess, as Metamorpho departed.

Yu nodded. “Yes, that might have been it. They called him The Woodchucker.”

“I bet they did. You okay?”

“It requires lots of concentration,” he said, sweat pouring from his face. “Some parts are unfamiliar.”

“You’re doing great, kid. Just take your time.”

“This is just the start,” Yu explained. “First I must create the surface. Be careful, as until I am finished changing you inside, any transformation may undo the process.”

“I’ll take it easy,” she said. “Hope I’m not making you nervous.” She looked at Yu, but he just looked back at her so inscrutably she had no clue what thoughts lurked beneath his surface.

There was a knock on the door, and Metamorpho’s voice, “Are you decent?”

“I’m mighty fine if I say so myself,” Urania said, watching herself in the mirror. “You going to bring some clothes in?”

“These are all I could find,” he said, tossing some blue lingerie her way. “Not sure if they’ll make much difference.”

“Yeah, KAT likes me in these,” Urania said, looking at the flimsy garments. “Don’t think I wear these normally. They were from when I was working with Angela St. Grace on The Exploding Lap Dancer Affair. You should see what she was weari-” Suddenly her words stuck in her throat, as she realized that Yu was now taking his hands away from her feet; feet she immediately leapt to as she rushed to the mirror, and found tears, real tears, rolling down her cheeks.

“Did I make a mistake?” Yu asked, seeing her reaction.

“No, no mistake,” she said, a smile on her face. “I’m back... I’m back.”



Simon Stagg had more money than could ever be printed, and his mansion was filled with priceless treasures and works of art, but nothing was more precious to him than his daughter. He’d wanted to call her Donna, because she’d been born on a Thursday, but when he’d seen his baby daughter for the first time, looked into her large sparkling blue eyes, he’d had to agree with his late wife’s choice of Sapphire. His child meant everything to him, and he’d pay any price to get her back.

He pulled out his PDA and searched for the folder titled soldiers of fortune; such soldiers would soon have a fortune too big for their bank account. As for whoever had taken his daughter, they’d live to rue the day they’d crossed swords with Simon Stagg, but they wouldn’t live to rue it for long.



Sapphire Stagg was woken up by water splashing on her face. She groggily opened her eyes to see a hand of water was caressing her, and attached to that hand was the man who’d been pretending to be her father earlier.

She recoiled, her head hitting the stone wall behind her, and then she looked around. She was chained to an old wall, the air was dry, the ground was sandy, and there in front of her, still having the audacity to be wearing her father’s white suit, was the man whose face she remembered seeing just before things went black, and behind him a big wall of dull metal.

“Why?” she said. Of course she knew why - it’d be someone kidnapping her, hoping that her father would pay a magnificent ransom, or some supervillain with a grudge against Rex. She’d done this enough times to know that the best thing to do was delay them, letting them talk about their masterplan.

“Well, my dear Sapphire, I heard you were getting married to Metamorpho, so I figured it only fair you should meet his father, see if he approves.”

“But Rex’s father is-” Suddenly a hand of water slapped her across the face.

“I said Metamorpho’s father!” the man said. “Not Rex’s”. The grey metal wall behind him came down, wrapping itself around him, merging with his body. “Changes are on the way,” he said, and laughed as he walked away.

But Sapphire wasn’t really listening to him anymore, as she realized she was trapped in a pyramid, that pyramid, and struggled against her bonds as the meteor in front of her glowed brighter ever brighter.

To Be Concluded!


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