Disclaimer: I. Do. Not. Own.

Chapter 4: The Second Meeting

"Where is she, Brant?" a man asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, she won't come home," Brant answered.

The man sighed and rubbed his temples. "Don't call me sir. We've been friends for far too long."

"Of course." Brant bowed his head. "Your daughter has given me a message for you. She says she's not done and she won't be done or return home until she finds them. She doesn't want you to send anyone or anything after her. She doesn't want you to worry, that she can handle herself. She'll be home soon, she promises. She also says that Destiny was right, she is the chosen one. Nature wants everyone to know that she was right. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go see her team."
The man sighed. "Alright. Thanks you old friend. You may go."

Brant nodded and scurried out of the dimly lit room. Down the stone hallway, turn right at the statue, down another hallway and a flight of stairs, left at the flag, a quick right, push the loose stone, and walk through the wall where he met a wolf. "Calm down, Kenya," he said.

"Brrrrrrrant!" the wolf howled.

"Nice to see you too," Brant said once to the wolf who morphed back into a human. A girl with black hair and purple eyes stood before him.

"Where's Nature? I thought you were going to bring her back?" Brant ignored her and walked into a room which was unoriginally called The Room.

Three guys were sitting doing various things. One with blonde hair and blue eyes was at something that looked similar to a computer looking up something, most likely old records. Another with brown hair and green eyes looked like he could pass as Ben's older brother. He was sitting and watching or concentrating on the moving objects in front of him. The last had dirty blonde hair and gold eyes. He was flipping through a heavy, old book and looked like he did not want to be disturbed. Brant had other things in mind.

"Tsiyone! Jarlath! Artaxiad! Gather 'round! I've got news." Two came over but the last one, the one with the gold eyes, decided otherwise. "Artaxiad!" Brant called again. The boy called Artaxiad shot a stream of bright yellow at Brant. Jarlath, the Ben look-a-like, stopped the stream using nothing and Tsiyone, the blonde with blue eyes, smashed it into tiny pieces. Kenya came bounding in seconds later.

"No spell book is gonna bring her back, dude," Tsiyone said. "You can't force her by using some stupid spell. Besides, I believe Destiny: I think Nature is one of Them.

"I don't know why she would just leave and do this by herself," Artaxiad admitted sadly. "What if she needs our help or something? No one's going to save her if she gets caught! No one will know!"

Kenya spoke, "She can take care of herself. Plus, she'll have the other three to help her out if she does get caught."

"We know you're worried about her, man," Jarlath said comfortingly. "We are too. We all wish we could help her out but she doesn't want us to. We're her friends. The best we can do is support her and let her come home when she wants to. If she needs our help she'll let us know, I know she will."

"Plus, Nature believes she has found the others," added Brant. "She should be returning with them soon."
"Hold up," Kenya stopped. "She thinks she already found them? When is she gonna bring them?"

"Once she knows," Brant assured. "They can fight, but will need training."

"Why can't three of us be the others?" Artaxiad argued. "Maybe we really can save the universe. Maybe even all five of us."

"That's not the way it goes," Jarlath said.

"Yeah," agreed Tsiyone, "and I totally dig the whole I-miss-her moment you're giving us without even realizing it.

"What are you talking about?" Artaxiad asked.

"You totally like her," Tsiyone said.
Artaxiad shook his head. "Yeah you do," Kenya added. Jarlath nodded his head.

Artaxiad scoffed at his friends. "I do not! We're friends like you three."
Brant stepped in before they started fighting. "Let's not discuss this now. You have training and we need to work on some new attacks since Nature isn't here." Artaxiad started to walk to the opposite door of the training room but Brant stopped him. "Turn around and walk," he warned, his red eyes getting redder by the minute.

Artaxiad turned to the rest of the team who were smart and were heading to train. "You guys go ahead. I'll be back in a couple of days." He pushed past Brant and walked away.

"Where are you going?" Kenya asked.

"To go find Nature. She's somewhere on Earth and I have to tell her something."

"Don't you dare put a spell on her or something to make her feel guilty to make her come back," Jarlath warned.

"And if she did find the others, don't beat the crap out of them either," Tsiyone yelled.

Artaxiad raised his hand and waved away all of their worries. He would be fine. He knew that, they knew that, everyone knew that.

The parking lot was crawling with students that had just gotten let out. The last bell of the day had rung and already Kevin's car was surrounded by girls. Gwen clenched and unclenched her hands trying to calm down. "You so like him," Nature said. Gwen glared at her. "Alright, calm down. Let me just get them out of your way." She raised her arms to summon wind but Gwen stopped her.

"You can't let everyone know what you can do. It's dangerous."

"Fine." Nature crossed her arms over her chest in defeat.

"Good. Now just follow my lead," Gwen instructed. Nature nodded her head and followed Gwen to Kevin's car. She climbed into the back while Gwen did the same in the front. The girls had backed away and glared at the two girls. Nature shrugged and Gwen looked ahead. Kevin pulled out of the lot when Gwen finally relaxed.

"Yeah, you so like him," Nature said with a smirk.

"I do not!" Gwen fought. "And can we please not talk about this now?"

"Fine," she said, " but remember, I'm right."

It was quiet the rest of the way to Ben's school. When he got in, they drove to Mr. Smoothies. Despite the battle earlier in the week with Brant, everything looked the same as it always had.

"Man, they fix up fast," commented Kevin.

"What else do you think they do with all the money I spend here?" Ben asked his friend.

"He's got a point," Gwen said. Ben got the smoothies and a soda for Kevin and came back. While the teens were talking, two guys walked up to them.

"Ben, Gwen, Kevin, pretty girl I've never seen before," Cash said.

"Cash, J.T.," Ben said coolly.

"What do you want?" Kevin said in a dangerously low voice.

"I was just wondering if the pretty girl who's wasting her time with you losers wanted to hang out with someone cool," Cash said.

"Look," Gwen said, "great that you think my cousin—"

"Cousin?" Ben asked. Kevin hit him in the arm telling him to shut up. "Right, cousin," he recovered.

"Is pretty," continued Gwen, "but she's really not interested in you."
"Don't you think she can speak for herself?" J.T. said, defending his friend.
"I can, but Gwen is right," Nature said for the first time. "I'm not interested."

"I can make you interested," he said, trying to be seductive but in fact sounding really creepy. Cash put his arm around her waits and Nature tried to push him away. His grip tightened when she struggled. She remembered what Gwen told her about not using her powers.

"I thought she told you already. She's. Not. Interested." Cash opened his mouth to say something but let out a scream instead. He almost hit the wall had it not been for a large vine which stopped him. A gold streak had blasted him.

"Morningstar!" Kevin yelled out at the same time as Nature called, "Artaxiad!"

"Who?" Ben said with a dazed look on his face from what had just happened.
"Nature!" A tall man with dirty blonde hair and gold eyes yelled back in an excited voice.

"Oh my god!" Nature ran over to him but was stopped by a wall of pink. She broke it using fire and continued to run.

"Nature! You don't know—" But she didn't hear. Artaxiad was here and Nature was happy.

"I can't believe I found you," he whispered into her ear after spinning her around in a circle and grabbing her in a hug.

"I can't believe you're here," she whispered back.

"There is so much to tell you," he said.

"I know." Nature pulled back and looked into his eyes. "But you shouldn't be here. I told you I need to do this by myself."

"I know. Everyone tried telling me that before I left."

"Everyone? Even Brant?" She was silent when realization hit her. "You left?"

Artaxiad shrugged. "Everyone, even Brant. He may not be happy that I skipped out on training but," he trailed off.

"You are going to have your ass kicked from here to halfway across the galaxy, you know that?" Nature warned.

"Yeah, but I got to see you and right now that's all that matters." He pulled her back into a hug and stood there until Ben cleared his throat quite loudly.

"Sorry," Nature said while pulling away again. Ben felt pleased with the action. He didn't like Artaxiad, something was wrong with him.

"Guys, this is my friend and teammate, Artaxiad. He's not a Plumber but comes from Heart, like me. He can control, generate, and absorb light. Artaxiad, this is Ben, Gwen, his cousin, and Kevin." She pointed to the three as she said their names.

"Let me guess, these are the others?"

Nature nodded. "I hope."

"Yeah, me too." He wrapped his arm around her waist an Ben narrowed his eyes. HE definitely didn't like this guy.

Turning to the group, Nature told them, "Can you guys go? Me and Artaxiad need to talk. I'll find my way back. No need to wait. I know Gwen has a ton of homework, anyways."

"Alright. Be careful," Gwen said.

Nature nodded. "I always am."

They walked away and she led Artaxiad to a table.

"Okay, so why did you come even when I asked you not to?"

Hey guys! This chapter is up! Finally! I'm working on Chapter 5 so hopefully it won't take so long this time. Yeah, sorry about that. Anyways, it's time for COMMENTS ANSWERED!!! Basically, the part of the story where I respond to everyone's comments. Here we go!

A.t-- Thanks for reading!

lykeomgsrsly-- I understand. But I'm not quite sure what you mean by more. Like, write longer chapters or update faster? Thanks for the compliments. I've never written battle scenes until now so I'm glad it was good enough that you liked it.

Sweet Nightmare's Good Byes-- Thanks!

Well, that's it for now. Comment and review/rate below. I wanna know what you think! Any ideas? Let me know. Any concerns about anything, let me know. I'm also taking request so if you want me to write something, I'll do it. Just PM me and I'll respond back as fast as I can. Thanks!

Until next time,
Writingaddict169