The Elemental Four
A team of students working for a Dr Aeculapius Scott on a dig in central Turkey uncovered a concealed temple to the four elements. Separated by an ancient trap, Ariel Frazier found herself falling, only to hover suspended in a circular chamber by buffeting winds that seemed to tear the air out of her very lungs. She found a blue-white crystal floating there in the midst of the winds and clung to it for safety, only to feel her own body seemingly ripped to shreds, to become the howling winds around her. It took hours of drifting in a dreamlike state before she found her way to the others, and witnessed their horrific fates, and it took days of practice and encouragement from Dr Scott before she could pull herself together into human form. Her older brother Kenneth slid down an oil-slicked ramp to find himself in a chamber of flaming oils and resins. He burned alive, beating his burning flesh against the red-hot walls of his prison and howling in agony, until he finally fell back onto the pulsing red jewel in the center of the room. When he awoke, he was the fire, and his mortal form had burned away. His reconstitution was such agony, the feeling of his entire body un-burning from ash into flesh again over excruciating minutes, that he was unconscious for hours, and had to be carried on a makeshift stretcher by his companions. Their surly Italian guide, Marco Ghibretti, found the floor collapsing beneath him, and when he seemed just about to pull himself to safety, the ceiling also collapsed, crushing him beneath tons of unforgiving stone. But in the depths of the pit, his hand closed on a jagged piece of onyx that pulsed with a golden-green fire, and he found his flesh drying out and stiffening, petrifying into solid stone. Soon he was strong enough to force his way free from the imprisoning stone, and was the only one of the four to remain recognizably humanoid, albeit as an ambulatory stone effigy of himself. Dr Scott found the chamber he was trapped in filling with water, and a metal grate closed down on him from above, forcing him down to the floor, even as the water rose. As he felt his lungs give way, a ball of what felt like ice found it’s way into his desperately clutching fingers, and he turned to see it pulsing with an azure light that seemed to illuminate the water around him. Sure that he was hallucinating from the lack of oxygen, he dreamed of strange forces and alien symbols, of powerful elemental angels and demons, working together to build the earth, and to tear it down. The room opened, and the water flowed out to drain away into holes in the nearby floor, and Dr Scott awoke from his vision in the center of the central pool, oddly unable to move or even breathe, until he saw the now-stone figure of their guide lumbering through the corridor to him, and realized that he had somehow become the water that Marco was now splashing on his arms, trying to ‘wash the rock off.’ With focus and concentration, he caused himself to revert, first to a humanoid figure of ice, then finally into his human form. Ariel found them a few moments later, and they set off in search for her brother, whom she described as having burned to death, but whom Dr Scott now realized was most likely embodied within the very fire that she had seen consume her brother.
Marco never learned to transform back from his rocky state, but the others quickly mastered their transformations (none so completely as the iron-willed Dr. Scott), and decided to become a team of heroes, using their newfound abilities for fame and glory.
The Elemental Four really tried to be super-heroes, under the names Tsunami, Ariel, Flashfire and Gibraltar, but a series of horrific blunders, excessive property damage and injury to hostages left them subject to reckless endangerment suits. An investigation turned up improprieties in their personal lives, particularly in the case of Gibraltar, whose mob connections were uncovered, and Tsunami, who was found to have falsified some financial data during his research days. (Pyre’s youthful indiscretions had been sealed away under a gag order during his army days.)
The team gave up on the ‘hero’ schtick, since they were clearly not cut out for it. Their popularity at an all-time low, they took the easy way out and just became criminals instead, changing their names to Undertow, Miasma, Pyre and Gravestone. (Miasma was called Carrion Wind for a while, but changed it to Miasma recently.)