Chapter Two

"Forging Ahead"

"The second stage of a Child's power is attained when the threat of the darkness grows beyond that which the light weapons and physical skills of the Children can handle alone. With the increase in the amount of light that they can channel through their bodies, the Children are able to shape the light into destructive energies which they can launch at their foes with devastating results." – White Knight Ryen Almora

They had spent several hours walking through the dark underground subway tunnels. Lily would be startled by the occasional creepy sound heard in the distance and once she had been scared enough to grab a hold of Cody. He too was afraid of what the sounds they heard might mean, but he didn't dare show it as he knew that he needed to be strong for Lily.

Ahead of them was a patch of light, coming from a source just outside of his line of sight since the tunnel section that they were in was curving to the left. It was another platform, one of many that they had passed. When they were between stations, Lily would strike up a conversation by asking Cody about normal things such as where he was from, what some of his favorite things to do were and stuff like that. Now as they approached the station Cody and Lily fell into their improvised routine where both fell silent and crept forward without making a sound as they listened for any sign of the Demons.

Unlike all of the previous times that they had passed a station, there was noise coming from up ahead. The sounds were pretty low, it sounded like deep breathing, low growling and something shuffling across the concrete floor. It didn't take long for the pair to reach the station, making sure to hug the same side of the tunnel that the station was on in order to stay out of sight as long as possible. Cody signaled Lily to stay put in the dim light reaching their hiding place and then he crossed the remaining distance to the platform alone.

Cody hugged the wall as he peered around the corner, careful not to make any sudden movements that would attract attention. His first priority was to make sure that he wasn't spotted, and once he was sure of his concealment he took in the situation. There were several Orcs walking around the station, picking through abandoned briefcases, laptop bags and backpacks. He couldn't get an accurate count because there were several Orcs looking around inside of the various rooms connected to the platform, such as the janitors closet, and milling around the escalator. He wondered what they were doing.

Creeping back the way he had come, Cody found Lily waiting for him with questioning eyes. He whispered that there were Demons ahead into her ear and then motioned her to follow and stay low. Slowly and carefully they crept past the platform, hunched over to keep themselves out of sight of the Demons. They were almost past the platform when a voice spoke, making Cody freeze on the spot so fast that Lily accidentally bumped into him.

"He's close," the familiar voice of a man said, "Are you certain you checked everywhere?" There was an answering growl from the Demons, "Very well, double check the streets above." The man walked over to the edge of the platform and stared down the tunnel Cody and Lily had just come out of. He was wearing some kind of armor, as black as night, which covered him from neck to toe. Together the pair pressed themselves as close and as low to the tracks that ran along the tunnel floor to avoid being seen as the man looked in their direction. They were hidden in shadow, but Cody sensed that this man wasn't entirely relying on his eyes to find them. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was nothing. There was nothing that gave him away, nothing to see, hear or feel. Cody and Lily weren't hiding in the subway tunnels. There was nothing to be seen.

"You can't hide forever Child! We will find you!" The man yelled suddenly, his voice echoing in the confined space. Cody felt relief flood through him as the man turned and left. Then anger started to boil up inside of him. He thought the voice sounded familiar…and now when he thought about it he realized that this man had been there in the hotel when Zack was slaughtered, directing the Demons to 'get the other one'. He was the one responsible for his brother's death and now the man was hunting Cody. How had he come so close to finding him? Better yet, why was he after Cody?

Lily nudged him after a moment and Cody got up slowly and started moving again. The gears of his mind were grinding as they tried to piece together everything that had happened and where he fit in all of it. That man had shown up with several Demons to kill his mother and brother, but somehow his mother didn't seem to fit into the scenario his mind was building. The man had said 'There's two of them fools' to his Demons just after they'd killed Zack and the next thing Cody knew was that they were trying to pull him out of the vent he'd escaped into and then blowing it up behind him.

Nothing happened for several days, but then the Demons invaded on the tenth and then that dragon had found where Cody was and nearly succeeded in killing him. If he hadn't lost his father in the mass of people and stopped to look around, Cody would have shared Kurt's fate. Now, several hours later and miles away from where he had gone underground the same man from the hotel shows up and nearly finds him. 'We will find you!' he had said, but the question was why? With all the people on the planet being slaughtered by the Demons, why was Cody receiving such 'special' treatment from the enemy? He briefly wondered if this all had something to do with the sword he'd somehow summoned to his aid earlier or the lone Orc that he had killed with it.

Cody stifled his anger and decided to put all of his unanswered questions off to the side. He had more important things to think of, like getting out of the city alive for starters. Lily and Cody quietly covered the remaining distance to the end of the platform and disappeared into the tunnel where they stopped to breath a sigh of relief once they were a good deal away and out of sight.

"Who is that man looking for?" Lily whispered from behind him as they picked their way through the darkness slowly, being careful not to trip over the main rails.

"I think he's looking for me," Cody replied, slowing down as he momentarily got disoriented by the curvature of the tunnel. They were turning to the right and he held out his arm so that his fingertips brushed against the concrete helping to guide him.

"Why?" Why indeed Cody mused silently.

"I don't know…" They continued silently for awhile, following the curve of the tunnel as it eventually straightened out. Further ahead was the unmistakable light coming from another platform. He hoped that there were no Demons waiting for him there.

"I'm getting a little hungry," Lily whispered after a moment. Cody had stopped to listen hard for anything that might signal trouble, but there was nothing to be heard. With any luck they could stop at this platform and scrounge around for supplies as he too was hungry and thirsty. They needed to maintain their strength if they were going to make it out of the city and it wasn't wise to go long without provisions.

"We'll stop here if it's safe," He replied.

Moments later Cody pulled himself up onto the platform once he was fairly certain that it was safe. There were no Demons to be seen, but the entire place was a mess and it made him feel uneasy. Lily wasn't happy with him at the moment, he had forbade her to come with him and for good reason. The platform looked like it had played host to a slaughter. She didn't need to see this…

Scattered everywhere were abandoned briefcases, laptop bags, jackets and all manner of things people carried with them on their lunch hour. Every last bag or article of clothing was either ripped to shreds or covered in blood. Whatever had happened here, it had happened some time ago. The blood was dark and congealed, even dry in some spots. Still, the stench was pretty bad and Cody covered his nose with his hand as he looked around for anything useful.

Along the opposite wall he spotted several vending machines, many conveniently turned over or busted open. Cody looked around for a few minutes and found a reasonably intact laptop bag, dumped out the notebook computer and brought it over to the vending machines. He hurriedly scrounged around and filled it with bottles of water, bags of chips, fruit bars and anything else that he deemed to be half way decent food. Scarfing down nothing but soda and chocolate wouldn't do them any good in the long run.

Cody rejoined Lily who had been worried about him as he'd taken awhile to return. He slung the laptop bag full of food over his shoulder and pulled the subway map he'd picked up at the station where they'd met out of his pocket and consulted it briefly. They still had a way to go, probably half a day's travel at least, until they were as far south as they could go in the subway system which would take them to the very edge of downtown Boston.

He relayed this to Lily who grimly accepted it without protest. After all the time they had spent underground, Cody knew that she could endure another day in the darkened tunnels if it meant that they would soon be back above ground. That and he knew that she was too tired to protest. Cody promised that they would stop soon and he suggested that they try to find an unlocked maintenance room just off the tunnel. They had passed several of them already.

Cody let his fingertips glide along the wall until they slipped into thin air. He felt the outline of a doorway and groped around for the handle which gave way when he finally found it, the maintenance room was unlocked. Pushing the door inward, he reached inside where a light switch should logically be placed and found it. He whispered instructions to Lily, walked into the room and closed the door behind him and turned on the lights for a couple of seconds in the same motion. He switched them off and opened the door again.

"I didn't see anything," Lily said. Cody had wanted to see if the lights inside worked and whether or not the door blocked the light from shining into the tunnel. They had gotten really lucky. He quickly guided her inside and closed the door behind them. This time Cody flicked the lights on and got a good look around the room.

It was nothing more than a glorified closet really. There were circuit breakers along one wall, electrical piping running overhead, a toolbox in the far corner, a table with several parts, a flashlight and sheets of paper on it and a lone chair. The flashlight might come in handy and Cody snagged it off the table and ensured that it worked. There was enough room in the middle where two people could lie down comfortably though. Making sure the door was now properly locked Cody sat down in the middle of the floor and began unpacking the bag of food.

"What are you Cody?" Lily asked after they had both consumed a fair amount of food and water. The question came out of left field and caught him completely by surprise that he inhaled a bit of the water he was drinking and had to endure a fit of coughing to clear out his lungs.

"What???"

"I saw an adult hit one of those things and nothing happened. You hit that one Orc and it fell backwards and then there was a flash of light and you had a sword…" Lily said in a rush of excitement as she no doubt relived the moment Cody stepped between her and the monster, becoming her protector. So he wasn't imagining things then, Lily had seen everything too.

"I don't know."

"You don't seem to know a lot of things Cody," she replied with a verbal jab, pointing out how he had said the same thing about why that one man was looking for him.

"I was just a normal guy a few days ago, and then while I was having breakfast those Demons busted down the front door and killed my mom and Zack. They almost killed me too, but I just barely escaped" Her eyes widened in sadness and she pulled him closer for a comforting hug.

"I'm so sorry Cody… Your mother and… Zack?" she inquired softly. An image of his brother's face appeared briefly, he was just lounging at the dinner table waiting for Cody to finish and then all of a sudden his head jerked towards the door as the Demons crashed into it.

"My twin brother."

"Oh Cody…" Tears welled up in his eyes and he tried to will himself to not cry in front of her. He had to be strong for Lily.

"I lost my dad a few hours before I found you. I have no idea why they're after me or how I did what I did back there…" Cody finished explaining, biting his lip to keep from crying. The physical pain succeeded in chasing away his grief for the time being. Lily was speechless, she just held onto him and cried quietly for him.

"I'm all alone too," Lily started to say after awhile, gauging his reaction before continuing. "I don't think I'll ever see my parents or sisters again. You're my guardian angel Cody, you found me when I needed help and when I needed a friend."

How did you respond to something like that? Cody was overwhelmed by the trust she had invested in him. For the first time in his life, Cody felt responsible for the safety and well being of another human. It was a strange feeling and he could feel the weight of it on his shoulders, but it was also something that he didn't mind either. He liked being needed.

"We should get some rest," Cody finally said, grabbing the empty laptop bag and folding it in half, "Not the greatest pillow, but it'll do." He handed it to Lily who accepted it and lay down. Cody got up to turn the light off and used the flashlight he'd found earlier to find a spot next to her and lie down himself. Cody finally got as comfortable as he was going to get on the concrete floor lying on his side with his back to Lily. She snuggled up against him and together they fell asleep in the darkness of a maintenance room just off a subway tunnel several dozen feet underneath a dying city.

Zack looked at his frightened brother through the vent cover, knowing that he could do nothing more to protect him now except by giving his life to buy Cody time to get away. There was no other way…it had to be like this.

"Remember me…" Zack bade farewell to his twin as he glanced to his side where one of the monsters he had downed was recovering and rushing towards him. Something snapped inside of him in that moment and power rushed into his body, filling him from head to toe with an intoxicating energy. Zack caught the creature and crashed to the floor, wrestling with it surprised at how he was able to push its arms back. He couldn't get enough space or leverage to punch it while lying on his back so he tried kicking the other monsters in the room to distract the one on top of him. It worked and Zack broke free of the monsters grip, rolling away from it. He'd succeeded in drawing all the attention onto himself.

Before he could get to his feet something extremely hard slammed into his chest, knocking him backwards into the wall by the door. Zack was partially sitting up against the wall, struggling to pull air into his lungs as his breath had been knocked out of him. His hands started to glow and then in a flash of light he suddenly found himself holding a sword that glowed in such a way that it seemed to pull the light in the room into it, rather than radiating its brilliance, leaving everything else looking dull and dark. He glared at the Demons looking down upon him in stunned silence, knowing that he could destroy them easily with this weapon.

"We can't have that now can we?" a man's voice whispered from the doorway as he entered the room and spun around to face Zack. He got a brief glimpse of the owner of the voice, primarily noticing the black as night medieval style armor that covered his body before pain exploded outward from his own chest. The agony was nothing like he'd ever felt before and Zack screamed.

He looked down saw the blade of a black sword sticking out of his chest in disbelief. Reddish pink light surged across the surface of the perfectly smooth surface like static electricity into his body. Pain exploded across his entire body, it felt like he was being burned alive, and Zack screamed again.

When the pain let up, Zack glanced at vent where Cody had crawled into the air ducts, strangely relieved that his little brother couldn't see any of this. Zack felt his body grow cold and the sword that he limply held in his right hand flickered before it vanished.

"Don't just stand around!" The man's voice suddenly said from what sounded like a long way off, "There's two of them fools!"

"Run Cody…run…" Zack whispered with his last breath before he felt something leave his body. Then he knew nothing more as the world around him went dark.

Cody awoke normally as the dream faded to black. It had all seemed so real, had it really happened? Had he really seen Zack's last minute alive through his older brother's eyes? How though? How could that be possible?

If the dream was real though, it gave him a lot of things to think about. Chiefly among them was the man that he had heard while hiding in the duct and then again back at the subway platform had personally murdered his brother. The other thing that he picked up on was that in his final moments Zack had been thinking about protecting Cody from the Demons and he'd somehow summoned a sword made of bright white light just before he'd been killed. Cody had felt the same power that had rushed through him while defending Lily in the dream inside of Zack.

So they both had special powers? It sounded ludicrous to his scientific mind, but after everything that had happened Cody was beginning to think that there were some things going on that defied science. Zack had had a sword just like Cody's, made of white light rather than golden light like his own. What did that minor difference mean? Heck, what did it all mean?

Reaching into the darkness Cody felt the familiar shape of the flashlight he'd found earlier and clicked it on. Lily was still resting against him and he moved away from her gently to stand up. He would have stayed there next to her, trying to get back to sleep, but he had a full bladder that demanded to be emptied.

"Cody…? Are we leaving?" Lily asked sleepily, looking up at him in the dim light.

"No, I just have to use the restroom. Go back to sleep." Just like that she fell back asleep and he quietly let himself out of the room. He was awake enough to have the presence of mind to look for one of the drains set into the tunnel where he could relieve himself. Cody had no idea how good the Demon's sense of smell was, and having run into them a few stations back he was taking no chances when it came to doing anything that might lure them to him. When he was finished, Cody wiped his hands on his jeans wishing that he could wash them. Hygiene was going to be a problem he realized and they would have to maintain an acceptable level of it in order to keep from getting sick, just like how they would have to ensure they found more food to keep up their strength, if they wanted to make it out alive.

He hesitated before going back into the maintenance room, his thoughts turning to the dream he'd just had. If what he'd seen was real, both he and Zack were special in some way and both of them had summoned swords made of light when they wanted to protect someone else from the Demons. Maybe this strange power was the key to everything. Maybe it was this power that the Demons and that man were so interested in. It didn't look like they wanted to try and use him though Cody thought, given their track record, and so naturally they must be viewing him as a threat, but why? Why was he a threat? He was just a sixteen year old boy…what could he do against an army of Demons?

In the end Cody put the questions and speculation on hold, realizing that his body was still worn out and that he needed sleep. He laid back down next to Lily and closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep. His mind buzzed with activity for awhile, making it impossible to fall asleep for the longest time, but eventually Cody slipped into unconsciousness where he dreamed of happier days. It was perhaps one of the last times that he slept peacefully for days to come.

A/N: Well what do we have here? Several interesting developments!!! Cody gets a glimpse of the man behind the voice that he heard in his room at the Tipton. Then he has a dream where he sees Zack's death through his own brother's eyes. Now we know without a doubt that someone is pursuing Cody and means to do him harm, but why? Could his strange power have something to do with it?

Also, what does the dream about Zack mean? My longtime readers should know what the deal is if they've read Chaos Demons, but don't worry it'll all be explained more or less by the conclusion of this story. Oh, and I meant to put more about the whole 'dealing with dark confined spaces' phobia's that some people have due to being in the subway, but I left it out since Zack and Cody are well known for crawling around through the duct work at the hotel and getting into all kinds of crazy mayhem in the dark.

Well that's all for now. Just moved to a new FOB now that my class is over with and I don't have much time to work on the story with 12 hour shifts, but I'll do my best. I'm up to Chapter 8 so far and the whole story is starting to heat up so I'm constantly thinking about it!

Thanks for reading and reviewing! Till next time! =)