Collide Gamer

An Elemental Party 1 – Grounded [Elemental Girls Side Story]

Gnome was never sure what to think of her home. Since first being contracted to the Gamer, many things had changed for the earth spirit. For a start, the fact that she was a stone elemental now. Back before all of this had started, she had been a mere fragment of the joined consciousness of the plane of earth, too weak to be called an independent entity. She had been a mere cell in a much larger organism.

She still was, to a certain degree, but the stronger she had gotten, the more individual she had become. That had reached a new height when she had evolved into her current form, that of an Asian girl of outstanding cuteness (or at least that was what everyone else told her; she wasn’t quite sure of that), and with individuality came a lot of things. Uncertainty was one of those things. She never knew if what she said was quite the right thing and she got flustered a lot.

If she had to point at the biggest change in her life, it was her new home in John’s head. The maze that was his thoughts shifted daily, maintaining only a rough structure. There were two and a half constants, however.

There was the dungeon of depravity (Sylph’s name for it) where John stored all of his erotic memories. She totally didn’t go there. Ever. Especially not daily in the hours that everyone else was asleep. And Salamander absolutely had never waited outside the entrance, waiting for her to finish, ehem, studying, and then flew by her side with a knowing smile. A scene like that never took place. Ever.

Then there was the half-case, the gaming room. The place of that room never changed, but the look of it had. Where it had once been a simple room with a single desk and PC, it had turned into a large hall, a long meeting desk at the left-hand, and a circle of Arcade machines on the right-hand side. The change had occurred shortly before John had become guild master of Collide. Gnome didn’t like going there, it had an aura of sadness to it.

The other elementals didn’t mind as much; they had never met the now deceased owner of that Arcade, only knew the importance of that place from the memories John had. A second-hand experience, barely more than a tragedy on a cinema screen.

Gnome sighed; her thoughts were always a bit heavy when she was tired. She opened the door to the last constant in this labyrinth of thoughts and emotions: her home, the room of the elementals. A single room, without any other doors. It consisted largely of a giant bed.

Admittedly, bed was a bit of an arbitrary term here. There was no mattress or frame, just a giant pile of pillows of varying sizes. Opposite to it was a flat-screen, which stretched over the entire length of the wall; they used this to check whatever John was doing right now or watch some of his memories. Or watch a movie on Elecflix. Four computers, hooked up to the eleconet (the elemental communications network), stood at another wall. Then there was a corner with a bathtub, where Undine spent most of her time just liquiding around. This room was the cosiest place she knew.

“What’ya sighing about, Gnome?” Sylph blabbered, trying to be as cheery as usual as she flew around, but then she fell down to the floor. “You know what,” she said, not even waiting for Gnome’s answer. “I am too tired to speak. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! I can’t sex, I can’t speak, I can’t…somebody carry me to the bed, please?”

“Fly yourself, you lazy butt,” Salamander, sounding just as tired, mumbled as she passed over her and fell into the cushions. “I am spent,” the blaze elemental lamented.

Gnome bowed down to pick up Sylph. “Thaaaanks,” the air spirit yawned. “You are the best Gnome.”

“I-is that so?” Gnome stuttered and reprimanded herself. ‘Come on, Gnome, you can do it…’ “…you can be confident and say what you want, take the compliment!”

“You are talking to yourself, Gnome,” Salamander commented from the bed.

“Wha-?” Gnome tensed up. “I mean when? I mean why? I mean…hgnh,” she sniffed. She never got control of where her thoughts ended and her words began. She always let out words that nobody should hear.

“Gnoooome, you are holding me too tightly,” Sylph complained, being squished in her eldest sister’s hands.

“Oh! I am so sorry,” Gnome apologized and relaxed her grip before putting Sylph on one of the many cushions. “I hope it wasn’t too painful, I am so sorry,” she blushed; it was just important that people knew that she didn’t mean it that way. Like, how else would they be willing to hang out with her? She wasn’t all that great, she was just Gnome, a stone elemental with a bit of strength. ‘No, no, no,’ she shook her head and pumped her fists. ‘You are GNOME, oldest elemental contracted to John; you are in charge of this!’ “You can do it, you can do it,” she muttered to herself.

“Yeah, sure you can do it,” Sylph cheered her on, eyes falling closed. “And it was fine, a bit tight thooooo,” the tempest elemental's head sank to the side and she fell asleep.

Gnome looked over to Salamander. The fire spirit’s flaming clothes-replacement had been extinguished. Both her and Sylph were now naked on the bed and completely knocked out.

Gnome understood that she was tired as well. The fight against that hand had taken all of her energy. Undine, who had been slightly traumatized earlier, wobbled to her bathtub and went to sleep without another word. ‘Actually, that is just the usual,’ Gnome thought and sighed.

Well, it was time to get into bed. Gnome disrobed and jumped into the sea of pillows. Even with her weight and density of a rock, the pillows made her bounce a little on their softness. This was just about her favourite place on earth. The multitude of pillows enveloped her like an ocean of marshmallows. She wrapped her arms around one of the bigger ones and hugged it with a wide smile, imagining it to be John. Even the thought made her blush, so she buried her face deeper in the pillow to hide it. Then she tried her best to relax and go to sleep. Of course, it didn’t work immediately, since she had made the mistake of getting worked up over nothing again. She raised her head looking at her sleeping sisters.

Salamander, who was always ready to burn stuff, overly passionate, quick to anger and a bully. But she also helped whenever asked, despite all the complaining she did, even when she wasn’t asked she was often amongst the first to solve a problem and the first to apologize when she did something wrong.

Sylph, who was constantly blabbering and a bit annoying at times with just how much energy she had. But she was never sad, and she could turn the mood of the group from the grimmest point to light-hearted, just by chirping around, careless as she always was, and she would never forsake her duty.

Undine. Honestly, Gnome didn’t know the water elemental very well. She didn’t talk a lot, kept her thoughts to herself and preferred to only share emotions and pictures with them to get her point across. She was reliable, and if it came down to it, she would speak her mind, but outside of that, she was the sister that distanced herself the most.

But all of that was fine. Gnome didn’t have to know and understand her sisters perfectly; she loved them as family nonetheless and, even though they teased her too much sometimes, she wouldn’t exchange them for anyone else. However, she would have loved to include Momo into her little family. Currently, they were more like step-sisters. Also, besties.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep like the rest of her close family.

“Gnome, Gnome!” she felt a pair of hands shaking her. A familiar pair of small hands.

“What is it, Sylph?” the stone elemental groaned and slowly opened her eyes. She had just fallen asleep, what could it be that was so important? Gnome was very surprised to see the roof of a medieval farm house above her instead of the simple white of their room.

Gnome needed a moment to adjust, but then she realized what had happened. Their dreams had synced up. This happened sometimes, not often, but often enough for Gnome to know what was going on when she turned to see Sylph in full plate armour at her side.

“We musteth defendeth oursleveth frometh the evileth, squire!” said the tempest elemental in an overly old-fashioned tone that nobody could take seriously. Gnome yawned, even in this dream she was still tired. She swung her legs out of the bed and patted Sylph. Not even a dream could fix the girl's height, or lack thereof.

“Yes, yes,” Gnome sleepily agreed, “we must defend ourselves from evil; lead the way.”

She had long since stopped trying to explain to Sylph that none of this was real, when they ended up in a situation like this. Either the tempest elemental did not realize they were in a dream or was too adamant about roleplaying. Anyhow, there was no convincing her, so Gnome played along. It typically was quite fun, so there was nothing lost doing so.

“Ah, but haveth you forgottenth, squire Gnometh!” Sylph said and stepped to the side to reveal a crowd of Johns. “Our questeth to defeath these Jonnies! We shalleth…!”

“W-w-ww-w-ww-“ A stuttering outcry interrupted the armoured air spirit as Gnome shielded her eyes from the crowd. “Why are they naked?!” Gnome wanted to know.

“What are you talketh about?” Sylph wanted to know, “Of courseth they be naked. As you arethh- aaaaah,” Sylph cried out in pain. “I bith my thongue.”

Gnome barely heard her. She was too occupied with looking down at herself, then at the army of John’s, staring at her naked form. Then she looked down again. “A-a-a-a-a-a-a,” she tried to say something, anything, but she only managed to stammer singular syllables. Her face turned hot from shame, and she tried to hide herself with anything, but she had awoken on a stack of hay, no blanket or clothes in sight.

Everyone was still oogling her, when she looked up. She was still naked. This couldn’t continue. She felt something in her brain fry.

“S-s-s-s-s-STOP STARING!” she finally cried out.

In response, none of the Johns did. Instead, they stepped closer. “You are just so cute, though,” said one. “Th-thanks,” that made Gnome happy but that didn’t solve her conundrum.

“I just want to bully you,” said another and all of them raised their hands.

“Noooooooo,” Gnome shouted, this was exactly what she DIDN’T want to happen, and inched away from the closing mass of Johns, making the entirely unsexy gesture of wiggling their fingers in a ticklish motion.

“We will make you even cuter!” said a third John as their circle around her closed.

The stone elemental was not sure what was supposed to happen next, but she was sure that she did not like it. Her whole body was flushed red at this point; her shy spirit could not handle this much exposure, not to this many Johns who took this much interest in her. One she could handle, barely. A crowd? This was too much.

Something inside her brain just snapped. “G-g-get away from me!” she shouted, and then all of the Johns were thrown back by a wave of dust and dirt. She got her wish and breathed a bit freer when she was no longer besieged on all sides by enclosing tickles. It was enough to calm her down to the point where she remembered that this was a dream. If she had her earth powers in this dream, surely, she could create her clothes as well? The answer was yes, the yellow dress appeared around her. The cover made her feel a little more confident.

“What did you doooooo?” Sylph cried out and walked over to the knocked-out John’s. “You killed them all!”

“I d-d-did what?!” Gnome ran over and checked for herself. Indeed, all of the John’s were without breath and vanished one by one. “No, that’s not…John can take more than that!”

“They were the council of summoners, now no one can stop the evil Overlady!” Sylph ignored her sister.

“Evil Overlady?” Gnome cautiously asked.

“Don’t you remember, squire? The one true evil of this land! The enslaver of dragons, the burning bitch, the one who threatens to burn me whenever I make a harmless joke! Worst of all, though: Melter of Marvin!”

‘Ah, Salamander,’ Gnome thought and sighed. She never quite knew what she should think about her home. It was more chaotic than she would have preferred, and she got in the focus more than she liked. It was also fun though, so maybe everything was okay? “Okay, Sylph, I’ll join you in your quest, but don’t be too harsh with Salamander, alright?”