A/N: And Chapter 4 is up! I know it's really short, and sorry about the extremely long wait . . . hehehe . . . (This chapter was a few days later than I expected. I had a death in my family, and I've been really busy the last few days.)

Chapter 4

First Night in "Paradise"

Regular POV

Zack sat up with a jolt, his sides heaving and his blonde hair matted with sweat. He took a trembling breath and realized that he was in his enormous bed at the San Francisco Tipton. And that it was 3:13 in the morning.

Sighing, Zack ran a hand through his damp hair and slid out of bed, trying hard to forget his nightmare -whatever it had been about. He glanced at himself briefly in a mirror on the wall and shrugged.

He was wearing a grey t-shirt and had on a pair of black sweat pants. Figuring that would be fine since he was only going outside, he crept over to his red backpack, which was sitting underneath the window that stretched across the entire wall of his room. He unzipped it quietly, so as not to wake Cody or his mom in their rooms.

Pulling his soccer ball out of the bag, Zack grabbed one of the card keys to their room from the counter, thrust it into his pocket, and walked out of the Master Suite they were living in for a while. The front door of their suite opened up to an outdoor stair case that led to the ground, while the back door opened up to a hallway near the elevator.

At the bottom of the staircase, Zack took the gravel path that led to a small field behind the hotel, surrounded by a thin section of trees. The only sound that penetrated the peaceful clearing was the soft swish of the water in the empty pool nearby and the distant rumble of cars in the parking lot and on the streets.

A few lights on the side of the building cast a dim glow over the area, as Zack absent-mindedly began to kick the soccer ball against the side of the building. He ignored the muffled groans, and "Shut up! People are trying to sleep in here!" that came from inside the hotel.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep, he had come out here to think. But an eerie presence, something far deeper and mysterious and darker and subtler than even the Darkness, was drifting over the clearing. Zack grabbed his ball and hurried up the stairs. But at the top as he turned, he glimpsed a dark cloud drifting over the moon in the shape of an outstretched hand.

As he slipped back into his suite unnoticed and crawled back inside his bed, in the far back of his consciousness, he perceived the words, "They're coming . . ." and then everything went black . . .

"ZACK!" Cody woke his twin up the next morning, as he stood at the stove making pancakes for his family.

"Ughhhh . . . What?" Zack groaned as he dragged himself out of bed. Pulling himself up onto a stool at the kitchen counter, he positioned his head on his arms and watched Cody cheerfully zip around the kitchen, an obvious morning person.

"Breakfast?" Cody thrust a plate full of blueberry pancakes under Zack's nose.

Zack inhaled deeply and nodded, sitting up straight as he took a bite, "Thanks. They're good. How do you get up so early?"

"I'm just a morning person," Cody replied, smiling. "So what are you going to do after breakfast? I have something to show you."

"I was going to go to the gym here. I think it's on the 20th floor. Soccer tryouts are three days after we're scheduled to get back to Boston, and I want to kick ass."

"So that's why you were sneaking out last night with your soccer ball," Cody smirked.

"How did you find out?"

"Hmm, considering you were kicking the soccer ball against the building, right underneath my window, it wasn't that hard." Cody laughed.

Zack finished eating and went down to the gym for a couple hours while Cody cleaned up the kitchen and read his new book, titled "The Advanced Macro-invertebrate Studies of 1993." When Zack finally came back into the suite, filthy and exhausted, Cody jumped up from his chair and grinned, "There you are! I've been waiting for you."

"So what is this surprise?" Zack asked, leaning against the wall.

"Come over here," Cody motioned for him to approach the window. When he drew back the heavy curtains, the dim room was filled with light. Zack's jaw dropped and he stared speechlessly out the window at the San Francisco view.

Some of the most colorful, incredible buildings Zack had ever seen stretched across the horizon, the steep hills rolling up and down for as far as could be seen, and the Golden Gate Bridge visible beyond the sheer cliffs of the San Francisco Bay. But one thing stood out above anything he saw.

On the top of one of the buildings near the Tipton, an enormous billboard of Zack, Cody, Rikku, and Rumiku was positioned perfectly for anyone in their room to see. Smaller posters of he four friends were taped up in several store windows below. "We're . . . famous . . ." Zack whispered, unable to believe his own words.

"Yep," Cody replied proud, but his confidence faltered for a moment. "The question is, do we want to be?"

"Hey guys," Sydney's familiar voice announced the presence of the Hiroshima's. Sydney, Patrick, Noah, Rikku, and Rumiku walked into the suite. They stopped short at the window, and Rumiku rolled her eyes, "Oh, you've already seen the pictures of us up all around the city."

"Ye- Wait a second!" Zack exclaimed. "How'd you guys get in here? The door was locked."

Patrick and Noah began whistling innocently and shuffling towards the door. Rikku grinned and replied, "Pat, Noah, and Sydney stole one of the master keys. Turns out the manager here is Mr. Moseby's cousin, Mr. Marcus. Striking resemblance, including the fact that he hates kids. Mr. Moseby warned him about us him."

Zack and Cody laughed. "I guess we'll have to show him just why Mr. Moseby decided to warn him about us!" Zack grinned, and everyone recognized the look on his face.

"You've got a plan!" Rikku's smirk turned into a smile, and she gave him a high-five. "So what is it?"

"Well, I was thinking that if the lobby here is set up like the one at the Boston Tipton-"

"It is," Sydney spoke up, grinning like Zack.

"Good! We figure out how to rig the elevator so it shoots a water balloon straight across the lobby every time it opens. And, if Syd's right, that should be right at Mr. Marcus's desk!"

"Nice!" Cody laughed, and the gang all agreed with Zack.

"So who wants to-" Zack stopped short, looking out the window at the billboard again. "Okay, I am never going to get used to seeing that. I can't believe how we instantly became famous anyway."

"It seems too good to be true . . ." Rumiku remarked slowly.

"We're living the life!" Zack argued, gesturing around at the luxurious suite.

"Yeah, just not our life," Cody pointed out.

"But being famous is what we wanted all along," Rikku said firmly. "Isn't it? . . . "

That was one question that none of them could answer . . .