Chapter 5

"Falling Into Darkness"

Assure me it's ok to use my heart and not my eyes
To navigate the darkness
Will the ending be ever coming suddenly?
Will I ever get to see the ending to my story?
Show me what it's for
Make me understand it
I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answer
Is there something more than what I've been handed?

"Crawing In The Dark" by Hoobastank

The school auditorium was jam packed with emotional parents and their graduating students relieved to finally be done with public school that afternoon. Most of the ceremony was complete now and the grads, dressed in their black gowns and squared off hats, sat with their proud parents as the final part of their graduation ceremony began. Zack was among them with his mother and father who had just flown in the day before to see his sons walk across the stage and now the young man felt intensely happy, soaking up his parents love as he held onto the leather bound framed diploma in amazement. He'd made it, just when it seemed like he was doomed to flunk out of school, his life had turned around when he found out that he was a Child of the Light.

Up on stage the valedictorian and salutatorian, none other that Cody Martin and Barbara Brownstien, looked amazing in their white gowns as they prepared to address their classmates in the closing speech. There were a few groans among the crowd as they remembered Cody's incredibly long speech from their middle school graduation, though Zack only smirked at the memory as he was interested to hear his brother's final words to all of the students.

Of course the day hadn't been without incident, but it wasn't mundane and ordinary problems that had bothered the Martin family. In fact is was more of a welcome incident, no matter how unsettling it was. Zack suppressed a yawn with the back of his hand, still exhausted by his sleep deprivation, and let the memory play quickly in his mind.

He had been backstage with the rest of his class talking to Cody about the mechanical monster that had suddenly appeared in the skate park a few days prior while they waited for all of the parents and families to get seated. In the middle of their conversation, another student came up to them in his black gown. Zack didn't recognize the young man for the longest time until he stopped paying attention to his physical senses and felt the other radiating light energy. The Lord Guardian of Earth stood before the twins, looking so normal that he'd been hard to recognize without his flamboyant red and gold robes or elaborate battle armor.

"Tashcen?" Zack inquired as the Guardian smiled at him.

"I can't stay long gentlemen, but I feel that I must warn you…" Taschen looked around to make sure that no one was trying to eavesdrop on them before continuing, "When your future selves defeated Ashani they released a massive quantity of energy in the process, enough energy that several other light Realm Lords felt it."

"There are other places like Earth?" Cody asked, but Taschen waved him to silence.

"Just a few days ago I felt a great expenditure of negative energy from the Chaos Realm. Zack…Cody…whatever or whoever is the cause of that, I must warn you that the power involved rivals your own and is enough to destroy you."

"Ashani's not alive is he?"

"No my friends, he isn't thankfully. Earth's defenses are of average strength right now and we should be safe for the time being, but all the same be careful and watch your backs. Something strange is happening and I'm still trying to figure out what it is. There's another power at work, an ancient one that so far has moved undetected by me." When he finished, Cody told him about the encounter with the machine but Taschen drew a blank on what it was and promised to investigate. The twins didn't ask him any more questions, they knew their Lord Guardian had told them everything that he knew about the current situation.

"We'll be careful Taschen," Zack had promised as the immortal turned and started to walk away. Taschen paused and then turned back around to face them.

"By the way," He gestured around him at all of the activity and preparations for the graduation ceremony, "Congratulations." The Lord Guardian left and when he was out of sight, the twins saw a flicker of red light announcing his departure.

"If our lives were made up of a series of novels, this moment in time would be the end of the last chapter in the book and when we walk out of here today as the graduating class of 2011 the chapter will end. The book will close forever as we move on to the next novel in the series, the next stage of our lives as we take on the responsibilities of adulthood and pursue higher education, employment and our dreams whatever they may be…" Cody was saying, addressing the gathered people from the podium at the center of the stage. He'd gotten over his phobia of talking to large groups of people he didn't know since unlocking his power.

Carey and Kurt held hands as they watched Cody continue his speech. Zack liked Cody's idea about life being a series of novels, it was quite an interesting way to describe all of the different stages one goes through as they grow up from the infant/toddler years, to being a child, a teenager, an adult, a parent and beyond. His eyelids grew heavy and he breathed deeply and tried to sit up straighter to stay awake. He didn't want to fall asleep and be rude to Cody, especially when his speech was actually interesting for a change and wasn't very long, but it was so hard. He was so warm, comfortable and content with his family and friends around him.

Darkness surrounded him, but it was a weird kind of darkness in that Zack could see himself clear as day. There was nothing around him, no sights, sounds or smells. An icy breeze touched him and he felt goose bumps break out on his arms and the back of his neck. He was no longer in his graduation gown and cap, but standing completely naked. This would have bothered him had there actually been anyone around, but it was just him, the darkness, the icy breeze and the feeling that someone was watching him.

Wait…who was watching him? Zack spun around feeling eyes boring into the back of his head, his white and gold armor bursting into existence over his bare flesh the moment he felt threatened, only to discover there was no one there. No matter which way he turned, he saw nothing but still felt eyes watching him from behind.

"White Knight…" Came the ghostly whisper of something beyond his field of view. If the hairs on his arms and legs hadn't been covered by his armor, he was sure that they would be standing on end. The voice was so creepy…Then Zack woke up inside of his dream and he became aware that he was actually dreaming. It was same dark dream that haunted him every time he went to sleep. He'd fallen asleep. Dammit!

Zack took off running, it seemed like a random direction at first, but he was really following the same thing he always did. He sensed the power of the light distantly in one direction like he always did. If he could get to it, then and only then would he wake up.

He raced through the darkness, feeling the hands come out of the shadows trying to grab him and pull him down. Zack broke free with his super human strength and brought Fortitude into his hand worried that he might need it. It proved to be a good precaution as tentacles sprang out of nowhere and tripped him up. He fell onto his back but maintained control of his magical weapon and hacked himself free.

Zack scrambled onto all fours, feeling that he was close to the light, when bony hands grabbed him through the ground and pulled him down. Caught off guard by this, Fortitude slipped from his hand and remained resting just out of his reach. The bony hands dragged him into the floor which seemed to turn into clear quicksand as they dragged him below the surface. His armor fell away as the air grew colder, the darkness pressed in on him harder than ever before and a sense of hopeless dread filled him.

With no armor, his weapon lost in the shadows above him and the inability to draw upon the distant light Zack was once again naked which only increased his sense of helplessness. He had no weapons to fight with and nothing to protect him from harm. There was no use fighting this time, he couldn't break free of the bony grip or the pull of the darkness that he was falling through. He screamed for help, but his voice sounded small and weak and only traveled a few feet before being swallowed up by the shadows. He didn't want to die like this, he was becoming claimed by terror and even if there was a way to escape, he wasn't in any shape to think of it now.

Glancing below him, Zack saw something taking shape. It was a shadowy grey landscape with what looked like an elaborate fountain below him. In desperation to get away Zack reached out with his right arm trying to claw his way back up. He was surprised when he suddenly felt the presence of the light so powerful and so close to him.

Zack couldn't summon his own light power, he was cut off from the flow of it so deep down, but the light that reached him made the bony hands of the skeletons release him by turning them into dust with its pureness and brightness. The light wrapped around him like a warm blanket and then with a feeling of acceleration pulled him upwards away from the gray landscape and the menacing looking fountain. He felt a deep sense of relief as he emerged onto the surface where Fortitude lay and started thinking clearly. The source of his power was now close enough to draw upon and Zack fully powered up and with his armor once again protecting him, sword and shield in hand, he jumped up off the ground and rocketed through the air towards the point he had been trying to reach earlier.

Even as he raced to escape the dark dream under his own power, he couldn't help but feel the light that had saved him pulling him in the same direction with the urgency that a emergency rescue worker has when they throw a rope out to a victim in the middle of flood waters and reel them back in to safety. The thin crack of light, the doorway back to the real world, lay ahead of him and Zack burst through it at near supersonic speed in his haste to escape. With a start Zachary Martin awoke in the real world.

Zack looked around, feeling wide awake now, and realized that he was looking up at people standing over him. He had fallen out of his seat and now lay in the aisle between rows. There was a lot of worried chatter going on around him, everyone was concerned that something bad had happened to him. He heard a man talking on the phone, presumably to a 911 operator telling them what had happened and where they were at. It was his father Zack realized.

Kneeling on one side of him was his mother, she had one of his hands in both of hers and was pressing it against her tearstained face. On the other side a person in a white robe knelt next to him, his arms outstretched to the hands that were tightly gripping Zack's shoulders. It was Cody he suddenly realized, radiating an extreme amount of light power that only Zack could feel. Looking into his brother's concerned eyes, Zack could see a soft golden glow replacing the blue-green color.

"Zack?" Cody asked, his power now starting to recede feeling that the danger was past.

"I'm alright," Zack croaked, sitting up and feeling the room spin around him as a headache exploded into existence.

"Oh my baby!" Carey cried, wrapping him up tightly in her arms, "You passed out and fell out of your seat and I couldn't wake you up and I didn't know what to do…" She sobbed. Zack returned the affection, but looked over his mother's shoulder at his father.

"There's an ambulance on the way," he said, and Zack saw the fear on his face. Kurt Martin didn't know what his sons really were and the boys had preferred to keep it that way in order to preserve some of the normalcy of their lives. He had no way of knowing that the paramedics could do nothing for him, nor find anything wrong with him. Only Zack knew what had really happened, Cody had his suspicions based on what Zack had told him days ago and Carey only knew that Cody had saved his twin. She drew him into her embrace as well and held onto both of them as best she could, whispering thanks into Cody's ear and loving words into Zack's.

It was later in the afternoon, somewhere around five o'clock Zack observed, when there was finally some peace and quiet. He was presently stretched out on the living room floor with his back to the couch, a sub sandwich wrapper lying beside him along with an empty cup. Following the ordeal at school, he'd been really hungry and thirsty and Carey had readily agreed to get the boys whatever they wanted.

Some graduation Zack though bitterly. After all these years he had always dreamed or expected some big party and going out with a bang. Instead on the very day of his graduation from high school he and his brother had been visited by Earth's immortal demi-god protector who had given them a grave warning that the darkness was still quite powerful and then the boys had lost the opportunity to ask him about their dreams and what they could possibly mean.

Then of course Zack had nodded off during Cody's speech and was once again thrust into his nightmarish dream where he had to fight for survival and was almost dragged down to a dark landscape where the power of the light did not reach. The way his family had told it, Carey thought he was just sleeping and elbowed him to get him to wake up and pay attention. Instead Zack had slid sideways out of his chair and fallen into row on top of other people's legs and feet. This caused a slight commotion that would have taken a little while for everyone to notice if Cody hadn't stopped mid sentence when he felt Zack's presence, the minimal light power radiating from him whenever they boys were powered down, leave the room completely. There were a few shouts for a help and then the room got a little chaotic as everyone tried to figure out what was going on, some called or looked for help and others came over offering help.

Fearing the worst, Cody had leapt off the stage and bulldozed his way through the people in his way, borrowing a little bit of his own light power to enhance his strength. Zack was like ice to him in his mind, but Cody had known that he was still alive and started to draw in more light. By the time Cody had reached Zack's unconscious form Carey was hysterical and gently shaking her son and yelling his name to make him wake up. When the younger twin touched his brother, he felt his light power immediately get drained and had to pull back for a second in confusion.

In his next attempt, Cody pulled in enough power that anyone looking closely would see it and he grabbed a hold of Zack resisting the darkness he felt. Cody couldn't see into Zack's dream, but he could feel his brother's presence so weak and far away cut off from the light and so he reached after him with his mind. There was some resistance, but Cody's other title 'The Reclaimer of the Light' proved what it meant that day when he broke through the darkness and dragged Zack back into the light which immediately caused him to awaken.

Now hours after the graduation ceremony and the paramedics checking him over after he'd regained consciousness, Zack was sitting at home with his mind abuzz. It had been a close call today, this was the first time that he hadn't been strong enough to break free and if not for his brother's help…he was afraid of what might happened. He was afraid simply because he didn't know what would even happen if he couldn't wake up. Would he die? Would he be stripped of his powers by some evil force? What was that fountain thing that he had seen before he'd been rescued?

Then Zack was also bummed that on his special night at the completion of his public education he was stuck at home. Some of it was by personal choice, he was worn out and feared a repeat incident without Cody close by to save him, but it was also by his parents command. They didn't want him over exerting himself for the rest of the night and made him promise to relax. Cody had also managed to get their mother alone for a little while and told her what had happened and she asked Cody to stay with Zack to keep an eye on him.

"Boring…" Zack yawned, watching the movie that his father had flipped to while surfing the channels. Kurt gave him a hurt look.

"But it's a classic!"

"Still boring," Zack muttered, feeling himself grow sleepy again with a full stomach.

"You ok Zack?" Cody asked softly from where he was sitting next to Zack, his eyelids were closed against the soft burn of sleep one felt behind their eyes but he was still half awake. He was tired too, having spent several hours a night trading sleep shifts with Zack to make sure that nothing bad happened and also for the fact that he'd been up since the early hours of the morning fretting about making sure that he was ready to deliver his speech.

"I just need some sleep Codes…"

"Go ahead if you want, I'll watch over you," Cody whispered so that their father didn't hear him. As exhausted as Zack felt, he felt even worse seeing his brother so worn out as well and it wouldn't be fair to him to stand guard for several hours when he was on the edge of falling asleep himself.

"No it's ok. You get some sleep, I'll go take a cold shower or something," Zack said, willing himself to stand up.

"Ok, see you in a few…" Just like that Cody's breathing pattern changed to a deep slow rhythm indicating that he was already out like a light. Zack stepped into the bathroom, stripped off all of his clothes being reminded of standing naked against the darkness in his dream, and then got into the shower.

He turned the water on lukewarm and then stood right under the spray of water letting his head thud against the shower wall as water ran through his short blond hair and down his back. It felt exceptionally good for some reason and he closed his eyes and exhaled deeply in satisfaction. The warm water gently caressing his skin seemed to chase away the lingering cold and darkness from his dream and infuse him with energy. The flow of light was so strong in his home that it felt so good and comforting to be near it.

When Cody had passed out sitting against the couch, he had felt safe in doing so with the quiet buzz of the television reaching his ears and a distant awareness even in his sleep of Zack's light power swelling higher and higher. Then he was suddenly awoken, feeling almost like hours had passed but his head had just hit the pillow. But hours had not passed, just a matter of maybe twenty minutes judging by the movie still playing on the television.

Something was missing, something that had been there when Cody had been lulled to sleep was no longer around and its loss had prompted him to awaken. The television was still on, his dad was still watching it from the couch, nothing seemed out of place until he heard his mother's voice.

"Zack are you ok in there honey?" She asked, knocking on the bathroom door. Ice flooded Cody's veins as realization dawned on him. When Zack had been sitting next to him, he'd been keeping himself powered up by continuously staying tapped into the flow of light around them. Now Cody could no longer sense anything. There was no other light but that of his own. He jumped up from the floor and ran over to the bathroom to join his mother.

"Zack open this door now!" Carey demanded as she jiggled the locked door knob, having not gotten a response from her older twin. She looked wordlessly at Cody as Kurt joined them.

"I'll have to break it mom…"

"Break it!" She commanded and so Cody used his above average strength to slam his fist sideways into the door just next to the handle. There was a loud cracking sound as the door jamb broke and the wood of the door and door frame cracked and broke away. The bathroom door swung up revealing the shower with its curtain drawn open and Zack lying unconscious on the floor with his blue towel wrapped around his waist. It looked like he had just finished drying off and had been getting ready to brush his teeth at the sink when he abruptly fell sideways and ended up rolling over face down onto the linoleum floor.

Cody moved forward even as his mother started crying but she had the presence of mind to stop Kurt from going for the phone. He was confused and really wanted to call for help for his son, but he allowed her to stop him temporarily. They all thought that this was just a repeat incident of earlier.

Just as Cody reached out and touched Zack's shoulders again with both hands, his brother inhaled sharply and he moved his head to look up at him.

"Zack?" Cody inquired as his twin pushed himself up off the floor under his own power.

"I'm alright…" Zack whispered softly, looking at each of his immediate family members in turn.

"What happened? Did you fall into that dream again?" Cody saw the dazed and confused look on his brother's face and his worry increased tenfold. Something bad had happened to him while he was unconscious.

"I…I don't know what happened…"

Zack awoke…somewhere. The first thing that he noticed was that he was underground, but it was the weirdest thing that he had even seen. The roof seemed to be a mile above him and the rock was embedded with some kind of luminous aquamarine crystal that cast everything in a dim bluish grey light around him. There was a light wall of fog surrounding him.

Only then did Zack realize that he was lying on a stone slab which was set at a forty five degree angle and he was held in place by dark metal bands entrapping his wrists and ankles. He struggled against them and they didn't budge. He searched for the flow of light and found none. Looking in front of him he saw the fountain from his earlier dream. He was in the dark place he'd nearly fallen into earlier. He was trapped!

"Hello Zachary," Came a normal sounding voice, so completely unlike the creepy ghostly voice that had spoken to him earlier. What was also different was that the creepy voice had called him by his title, not his name.

"Who are you?" He asked, looking around for the source of the voice. Then a normal looking young man stepped into view from behind him, he was wearing nothing more ominous than black jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. He had platinum blond hair with streaks of black running through it, accented by his sharp blue eyes.

"I am Jarran Noh'Malkiri," He answered simply.

"That's supposed to mean something?" Zack asked, annoyed by being restrained, having never heard a name like that before.

"It should mean something to you. You and your brother killed Ashani Noh'Malkiri." Alarms went off in Zack's head as he locked eyes with a relative of the Demon Lord. He was reminded of something Taschen had told them two years ago, he'd said that all the immortals of Chaos Realm would physically age to twenty five before they became locked in at that age for as long as they lived. Jarran only looked the same age as Zack though. Then it dawned on him…

Zack was in the Chaos Realm staring in open mouthed shock at none other than Ashani's son. The dark place of his dreams…It was the Chaos Realm. The great dark power Taschen had warned him about at his graduation…It was the Demon Lord's son who was too young for Taschen to realize that he existed.

"Now that's better," Jarran smiled in satisfaction. Smoke seemed to shimmer around his arm and then passed to his hand where a sword made out of dark metal appeared. He was going to execute him here and now, Zack was sure of it.

"My brother and I didn't kill your father," Zack blurted out, trying to think of anything he could say to stop Jarran from killing him. He was also trying to buy time to think of a way to escape, but with his limbs locked down and no light power to draw upon it seemed that escape was hopeless.

"Do tell," Jarran replied, seeming to be intrigued by Zack's contradiction to what he believed to be the truth. The Demon Lord's son closed the distance and stood before him now. He raised the sword and then drew the tip gently across Zack's arm, cutting through the skin and drawing a thin line of blood, but cutting no deeper than that. It was nothing more than a scrape and he didn't even wince at the mild pain.

"Ashani had won, Earth was destroyed, but my brother from the future who survived it all came back in time two years with the soul of my future self attached to him, and together they defeated him while Cody and I lay dying on the street," Zack said in a rush, knowing how preposterous and outlandish it sounded. All through the explanation Jarran had been examining the blood on the tip of his sword thoughtfully. When Zack finished, the blade turned to smoke and rejoined the soul of its master.

"Hmm…that explains much," Jarran said in a serious whisper, more to himself than to Zack, "Thank you for explaining."

"Are you going to kill me?" Zack asked, tired of feeling the fear of death infecting his thoughts. He either wanted to be killed, escape from this place or be tortured. Anything was better than just lying here waiting for the unknown. Jarran spread his arms wide and showed him the palms of his hands.

"What is it about me that makes everyone think I'm going to kill them?" He asked in a slightly amused tone. Zack would have thought that it was obvious.

"You're the son of the Demon Lord…" Jarran nodded, conceding the point.

"No Zachary, I won't kill you yet. It would ruin my fun. If you'll excuse me, time grows short. Your family is about to realize something is wrong and Cody will be coming to your rescue again."

"Then this is just another dream?" Zack asked as Jarran walked toward the fountain.

"This is no dream." He answered without turning around. The son of the Demon Lord seemed to ponder the fountain, which towered over him, for a moment before he walked into the water and disappeared for a moment under a deluge of water.

Zack was starting to feel better now. He wouldn't be killed here and now, and Jarran had said that his family was about to wake him from this place. Cody was going to save him again. Maybe now that Jarran had whatever it was that he wanted, he would leave Zack alone so he could finally get some damn sleep and then after that he would find some way to get a hold of Taschen and tell him all that he had learned.

Jarran soon returned from the fountain, his clothes were soggy and his blond hair was plastered to his head dripping water. He walked back towards Zack, his body becoming surrounded by a bright red and pink aura of energy just like Ashani's had been and then he looked directly at him. In a place where no one else but the Demon Lord's son could hear him, Zack screamed in a tone he had never used before.

There was a flash of red light and then everything went dark.

A/N: Woot, Chapter 5 is a biggun! 5000 words, when most of my chapters are around 2500. But it was worth the wait! Forgive any errors I've made, didn't have time to proofread before going to work. I just wanted to get this chapter out for you all!

Zack and Cody have finally graduated high school! Taschen delivers a warning to them, a warning that Zack finds is all too real when he comes face to face with Jarran. Now we know why Jarran is so powerful, he's Ashani's son. What game is Jarran playing, his fun as he called it, brining Zack briefly to the Chaos Realm and not killing him? Cody asks Zack what happened, but he can't remember? Oh boy...

Find out the answers to these questions and watch as the FBI closes in on Zack and Cody when lies and secrets start flying everywhere in Chapter 6: Deception

PS: The battle hasn't even begun yet, we're still traveling to get to the base of Mt. Climax. Don't ignore Cody's dreams, Zack's are only half of the puzzle.