CHAPTER TWENTY

"Tapeworm. Tape, wake up!"

Shifting, Tapeworm was subtly aware that he was lying on the ground. Not as if he was on the floor of a bedroom or a basement, but on the literal ground. He could feel grass, maybe hay ticking his stomach, arms, and face, a spider scuttling up his arm.

Normally he would've immediately jumped to his feet and freaked out over the idea of one of the most common of scary insects crawling on him, but he couldn't get up. His body ached all over, that energy wave that had blasted through them was really taking its toll.

"C'mon, you have to see this!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him firmly before he was rolled onto his side. A watery stream of sunlight washed over his face and his closed his eyes tighter together. With a groan, he brought a hand up to cover his face and slowly sat up. Shaking the drowsiness out of his head he opened his eyes and gave a start, looking around his surroundings.

"Did we go to Kettlecorn and no one tell me?" He managed to say despite his dry mouth. His eyes shifted over the high walls and ceilings of the barn he was lying in. He had been lying on the corner of a hay stack, in what appeared to be a stable for a horse. Turning around, he spotted Sydney and Aaron standing over him, arms crossed over their chests.

"No, Tape, we're somewhere else," Sydney said gently.

Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. "The thing is, though, that you've been here before…the rest of us haven't." He reached out and grabbed onto the teenager's arm and with Sydney's help, lifted him to his feet. "You need to see this," he repeated. "The others are outside."

Tapeworm allowed himself to be pushed forward by the eleven year old boys, shielding his face from the sunlight as he went. Zack, Cody, Bailey, Maddie, Julius, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Crystal were all standing just outside of the barn, all looking off in one direction. For the first time since the group had been together, they were all silent. Once Tapeworm's eyes adjusted he noticed his friends standing around, looking at the area around them. It was then that Tapeworm finally focused and his jaw dropped.

Looming in the distance was a large castle, the higher buttresses covered by the clouds that passed by. Just underneath it were the tops of the taller trees, providing shelter for the castle. As Tapeworm watched, large birds flew through the air. He squinted and closer, realizing that they were humans with wings protruding from their backs, arcing across the sky.

"You know where we are," Sydney insisted from Tapeworm's side, looking up at the taller teen.

Tapeworm swallowed thickly before nodding. "We're in the Element World."

His friends reacted in different degrees of shock but it was Cody that was the first to turn to Tapeworm and directly address him. "Are you sure?" He licked his lips, eyes moving around the trees that covered the barn they had been resting in. Tapeworm gave him a look and Cody held up a hand. "I don't mean to slight you; I'm just making sure of some things."

"Yes, Cody, we're in the Element World," Tapeworm said. He brought his hands up and rubbed them over his head. "Remember that dream I was telling you about…where I saw Max? I popped up in the middle of a farming community, this may be the outskirts of it, but this is the place, I know it."

The guardians appeared out of their masters and mistresses in different colored flashes of light. Standing in their human forms, they looked around as they took in their home. "Yeah, this is it," DeathLiger said in his low voice. He turned to face Rhuben. "We're back in the Element World. This is our home."

"But how'd we get here?" Bailey shook her head. "I don't understand." She turned to Geneva and Gattaca. "Do you know?"

Geneva, now dressed in a white tunic that resembled what Romans would've warn, smiled gently at the teenager that didn't have any powers on her own. She reached out and cupped her hand around her face before turning towards her brother. "We need to take them to the castle right now. Or else they're going to be in danger."

Nodding, Gattaca dusted his hands off. He placed them on his hips before looking around for a moment. "The direct path from the farm land into the kingdom will be the best way to get there. Once those around see that these children mean no harm it'll be a safe passage inside. Then we can speak with our mother."

He turned on his heel and he and Geneva started to make their way through the trees. Exchanging glances, the elementals started to follow them. Tapeworm fell into step with the middle of the path, holding out his arms as Ursa turned into his small form and climbed up into his arms. Tapeworm looked around the farms as they stepped out of the clearing and started to walk through fields of wheat, corn, and rice.

As the group watched those that tended to the area they noticed that some had powers, their hands glowing different shades of yellow, green, and brown, digging up the earth with their movements. Others dug the holes out of the ground with their hands or other tools they had on them, little kids coming up behind them and dropping seeds in the holes. Most of the men were whacking down stalks of corn or wheat with sharp, curved hooks.

"This looks like it'd be the earth area of the kingdom," Riley remarked. She smiled a little as a kid that appeared to be a toddler stumbled and fell over, his mother quickly coming back to his side and righting him again. "Seems very systematic, too."

"It runs a lot like the way things are done on Earth," Geneva agreed. "But they're a bit different too. Social order isn't a problem as those here are all on a level field except those that are in the castle. They hold a slightly higher guard as we're the ones that are doing their best to protect the whole world."

Zack made a humming sound as Blazen sat perched on his shoulder. Tapeworm glanced over at him. After his fall he didn't appear to have been seriously injured though there was a bruise on his collarbone, peeking out from underneath his shirt. "So Mother Nature and Father Time rule the Element world," he said. "Does that mean that they're invincible as Mother Nature claimed they are? You, too?"

"Invincible probably isn't the word you're looking for," Crystal spoke up. Her face screwed up slightly as she thought. "Because everything has a weakness, we just haven't been able to find it. Mother Nature…she stopped attacking us, we didn't kill her."

"She's got a point," Cody agreed.

"Be that as it may, it's not what we're focusing on right now," Julius pointed out. He tilted his head back and looked up at the castle as they inched closer and closer to it. Tapeworm followed his lead and tilted his head back as he looked at it. It was a magnificent structure, he could admit that. Still, nothing he ever thought he would see, especially considering he wasn't even sure if the last time he had been there was real.

But you're so adamant that you saw Max, he thought before being able to stop himself. The images flashed in his head seconds later. He was sure it had been real. So real that he had mentioned it to Zack and Cody, believing that Uriel was the voice that had haunted him in the cave that led to the door that brought them there. Maybe the door is what connects both of the worlds. But if that were the case, how come we didn't use to the cave to get there now?

With a frustrated grunt, Tapeworm shook his head. No matter how smart he as, he always found it to be more than infuriating than having more questions than answers. And for the past four—maybe five at this point—years of having dealt with Elementals and the Element World, there were nothing but questions only because no one knew what caused the Elemental World to come into existence in the first place.

The group continued through the farmlands and soon found themselves in what looked like a little village. Tapeworm immediately recognized it as the one he had been in his dream. The people he passed seemed to recognize him, giving warm smiles and nods. That or they were preconditioned to be as helpful to the group as they could be.

"This place is really peaceful," Patrick commented. His hands twitched at his sides. "Does it usually stay that way?"

"Don't question it," Noah warned. "The last time you said something like that we ran into an invisible wall." Bringing a hand up to his forehead, he gently pressed at a knot that was half-hidden by his hairline and winced.

Patrick shrugged. "I was right, though, wasn't I?"

"Please be calm," Geneva reassured the teenagers. "We'll answer as many questions as we can, as soon as we get into the castle and ensure all of our safety." She faced forward again, this time waving her hands and a light glow emanated from them. It covered them in a dome shape and disappeared from sight. "I have now placed a protective shield over all of us; there is no reason to fear unless you hear the sounds of the Mystic Melody."

"Mystic Melody?" Crystal repeated.

"The warning drums that tell of an attack on our kingdom," Dricer explained, dutifully walking at her side. "Kind of like…those air siren things that Bailey told us about back in Popcorn."

"Kettlecorn," Bailey corrected him. "It's Kettlecorn."

"What's the difference?" Reihu joked. "Both sound good to me. In fact, I'm starving. I wonder what they have to eat around here." Tilting his head back, he stuck his nose in the air and started to sniff. His eyes dilated as he looked off towards the right, at the dense trees that lined the outskirts of the village. "I smell fish…and salt water. Are we near the ocean?"

"There's a great fishing community nearby that the water bearers usually work; some choose to live out over there, but ones with powers and ones without can choose to live in any section of the kingdom as they want," Phantom explained from where he was perched on Cody's shoulder. "Just as long as they're close enough to help out when the Mystic Melody sounds."

"The humans here," Blazen took up the explanation. "They help in their own ways. It really depends on whether or not they decide to take on the power when it is time for them to have their ceremony."

"Wait a minute." Sydney frowned, appearing as if he had just been lied to. Carrying SpiritSaru in his arms, he turned him around so that his guardian faced him. "I thought you said that specific kids were chosen to have the ceremony. Not that they had a choice of whether or not they wanted to take in the power."

"I did," SpiritSaru agreed calmly. "But they do have a choice. When you're chosen to take on the power as children, it can be a pretty scary thing. So you have the option of postponing it until you're older so that you can make the choice when you really want to. The age that you take on the power of your element and animal spirit determines the rate of which you will age. This is why humans that don't take on the power age at a normal rate of those on Earth, while those that do age a lot slower."

"Is population control a problem in this world?" Maddie asked. She continued to look around at the village, it was so desolate and bare compared to what Boston was. And yet, the people there appeared happier than anyone had ever seen them. "If there are some that age a lot slower."

"Not when faced in battle," Gattaca said grimly. "As there is still death there. There is sickness…famine if the weather isn't going well, at the time that the powers of those on the island lessen to get some rest. When the world started to collapse with earth, the barriers weakening, some of what has caused…pollution in your world has hurt ours."

"That makes sense," Aaron agreed. "We've only thought about the collapse and how it's affected our world. How people there have become Elementals, probably the way they have here. How we awaken, how we function with the existence of Elementals. But this entire world,"—he stretched his arms out to the side and then up towards the sky—"we don't know a lot about it. Not even Dad, Uncle Reed, Aunt Renee, or Core knows what was going on here. They only got information on what they could get from the government and their own findings. This place is virtually…a blank slate for us and we never really bothered to ask the guardians about it."

"Are we the first ones from Earth to come here?" Zack finally spoke up, having been silent most of the way. All eyes turned to him and he regarded Geneva and Gattaca with a hard stare. "You're the ones that are going to take over the ruling of the world once Mother Nature and Father Time pass…and as they seem to be completely invincible it seems that you've been alive for a while as well." He cleared his throat. "Have there been any instances of people from Earth being able to get here before."

Gattaca shook his head.

"So why us?" Zack questioned. "Why were we taken from our home…our family and friends when we're needed the most?" His voice started to rise as the questions continued to fall out of his mouth, each one quicker than the last. "What is it that made us become Elementals in the first place? Was there something special about us that we don't know? Other than being exposed to it at certain times? It's said that every one in five people are Elementals and if that's the case, there'd be a lot of them, why don't we see any more of them?" He clenched his hands into fists, waiting for the answer, lower jaw clenched so hard that a vein in his neck started to twitch.

"Zack, calm down." Cody placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and squeezed it tightly. "I'm just as frustrated as you are, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to get this thing finally finished."

"And what happens then?" Tapeworm broke in. "Do we all go back to normal? Do we lose our guardians? Will it—" he broke off, hearing childlike laughter. The group watched as a group of little kids raced along the path as fast as their legs could take them in what appeared to be a game of tag. As they got closer, Tapeworm's eyes shifted to the smallest girl in the middle of the pack. She seemed to notice him too and slowed, walking over to him as she brought a hand up to cover her mouth.

The group slowed to a walk and they watched as the girl and Tapeworm continued to watch each other, her friends forgotten. Kneeling down to her level, Tapeworm continued to watch the girl as she did to him. She looks really familiar, he thought. All of a sudden a flurry of images slid through his mind's eye of himself and Max as they grew up over the years. Then they shifted to ones of when she was still alive and helping the others with her powers combining along with the others. She had been just as dutiful as the rest had been, using her power to the best of her abilities but knowing when to back off and wait for the best time to try and fight again. His mind's eye focused on one of the last images of Max as she and Canis tried to fight off Zhane.

"Canis?" He asked her.

The little girl's brown eyes lit up for a moment and she nodded, moving her hand from her mouth and she smiled at him, showing off spaces in her mouth where her new teeth were growing in. "Tapeworm," she said to him, her smile widening. She opened her arms and walked into Tapeworm, giving him a hug.

Tapeworm smiled and hugged her back then wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up to his side, holding her against his waist. She smiled and hugged him again, frowning when she got a good look at his hair. "No hair," she murmured, patting his shaved head.

"Yeah, I cut it all off."

"Wait a minute, you're telling me that this is Canis?" Maddie asked Tapeworm. "Max's guardian?" She shifted her feet, exchanging a glance with Julius. "I…I don't understand…I thought she…"

"Died?" Tapeworm broke in. "She did."

"The death of a guardian is different to that of a death of a human," Geneva said. She glided over to Tapeworm and Canis, gently running her fingers down the little girl's cheek, causing her to giggle and turned her face away. She rested her head on Tapeworm's shoulder, shyly looking at the group in front of her. "When an Elemental dies then the guardian dies as well, being transported back to the Element World to be reincarnated. However, if a guardian dies, then the Elemental's power is significantly weakened though they're still able to possess their powers." She continued to stroke Canis's cheek, the guardian's eyes fluttered in her drowsiness. "This little one had been reborn…she'll have the choice of becoming a guardian again or going on to be a human."

"But—"Julius was cut off by Gattaca, who seemed to anticipate what his question was going to be.

"A death on Earth works different than a death in the Element World," he said dismissively. "There's a better chance of being reborn if they're born there rather than here." His eyebrows twitched for a moment. "Please bring her with us."

"What about her mother?" Rhuben asked him. "Wouldn't we be taking her from her mother?"

"She resides in the nursery, she won't have contact with her mother until later tonight as her mother is a hunter and it would too dangerous for her to go along. Now, please hurry. We need to get into the castle before something happens and around here, you never know what it will be." Gattaca turned on his heel and he and Geneva continued walking once more.

Tapeworm shifted Canis up his arm once more; Ursa moving to his ward's left shoulder so that she had enough space. Leaning over, Ursa quietly sniffed her, causing Canis to giggle and push his head away. Ursa leaned back and turned towards Tapeworm. "It's really her," he murmured. "She really did get reborn."

"Yeah…" Tapeworm agreed.

"What's wrong, Master?"

Tapeworm was silent for a long moment. Should he go ahead and ask the question that had been haunting him ever since he heard about Uriel's powers? Or was it too selfish? On one hand it would help the group immensely, but on the other hand he only wanted to have his happiness back, knowing it would be revenge for Uriel and what he had done. Tapeworm's hands tightened around Canis and he consciously did his best not to hurt her.

This happened…all of this happened because of Uriel. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have gone through so much pain and suffering. We wouldn't constantly be running around thinking we're going to die within a moment's notice, wondering what will be the next thing that'll tear our lives apart. The friends we've made…the ones we've lost…

"Master?" Ursa pressed.

"If it's possible for Canis to have been reborn, do you think there's a way that we can do the same for Max?"

Ursa's eyes widened for a moment before his shoulders slumped and he lowered his head.

Tapeworm let out a long breath. "That's what I thought." He looked down at Canis who had fallen asleep, lulled by the rhythmic footsteps as they walked along. He managed to give a small smile, but his heart still hurt.

Uriel was going to pay.

Julius let out a gasp of surprise as he and his friends stepped inside the castle that resided in the center of the Element Kingdom. It was almost like it was straight out of medieval times, with stain glass windows, high ceilings, and the most regal architecture he had ever seen. Without a doubt it was where Geneva and Gattaca had grown up.

There was no other place that would be for the kids to have grown and learned how to harness their powers. It was in the center of their kingdom, protected on all sides by reinforced walls and patrols that went around every hour. The images in the stain glass appeared to show Mother Nature and father time over the years as the kingdom was built, maybe even reinforcing the story of the battles they had fought. It was hard to figure out exactly, but the fact of the matter was that it was a place that was held in high regard compared to the area around them.

Looking out one of the windows that didn't have stain glass, Julius could see a volcano in the distance with the crashing waves on the shores right behind that. It was strange to see, the kingdom holding different climates that lived in harmony with each other. If he looked out the other side of the kingdom he was sure he'd probably see a frozen tundra along with a dense jungle. What was it that allowed them all to live in harmony and was the Element Kingdom the only part of the Element World or just the light part?

"Please make yourselves at home," Geneva said as the group filed in through the lobby. "There are resting quarters through that archway. I'll go fetch my mother and father."

"There's no need." Mother Nature's regal voice sounded above them and everyone looked up to see Mother Nature and Father Time both standing at a balcony that overlooked the foyer. "We're right here." The two descended the stairwell that wrapped around a marble banister and walked over to the group.

Julius and the others instinctively shrank back as Mother Nature moved in front of them. The fight…it hadn't been so long ago, the mental scars were still fresh enough so that while they had been given a reprieve, it still hurt. She had been very ruthless when it came to her attack and while she had explained it to the means that she was trying to protect her world, Julius wasn't quite sure whether or not to believe her.

Then again, her name held true. A mother was willing to do whatever it took to take care of her children. And to Mother Nature, the entire Element World may as well have been her children.

"I understand that all of this is confusing," Mother Nature said. "And I don't blame you if you think that I should be the one that is telling you that you're going to be safe here, but I did what I believed I had to do to protect my world." She ran her hands over her flowing brown hair, adjusting the crown that sat on her head. "I hope you will take my apology."

"You nearly killed everyone in Boston," Zack pointed out. "Your arbori…they hurt a lot of people. We were…a lot of us were in comas for a long time." He hadn't lost the harsh glare that had been on his face since speaking to Geneva and Gattaca with as much malice as he could muster.

"I understand."

And that was all Mother Nature said before Father Time stepped forward to speak to Zack. "You were the one that I had contact with, aren't you boy?" He asked. Before Zack could answer, he smiled warmly, nodding. "Yes, the Elementals of Fire. I can feel that it courses through your veins, you were the one that had been speaking to me." He then turned to Sydney, whose eyebrows rose and he seemed to shrink in on himself. "And you're the one that got me into contact with him. You are very remarkable, indeed. Your spirit capability is very strong, though it doesn't seem strong enough for you to get in touch with all of the spirits around you."

"The spirits around me?" Sydney repeated. He shifted SpiritSaru towards Father Time. "Do you mean like SpiritSaru and Kazuki and Kazuaki?"

Father Time smiled at the young boy. "You don't understand the worth of the spirits, boy. But you have plenty of time. Time is of the essence as it is." He spread his arms. "All of you are stronger than you believe yourselves to be. These two,"—he motioned over to Zack and Cody—"they may be the strongest, but you all can do more than you think. Especially now that you're in the possession of the Element Stones. You're the ones that can take Uriel down, restore everything we know…but as the case is…mystery shrouds Uriel."

"You got that right," Riley commented, crossing her arms. "This guy is the one that…that caused basically everything and we can barely get a fucking scratch on him! His power is life, how are we going to be able to get the upper hand on that!" Her eyes flashed. "When he's able to take a life that easily, what'll we do if we get a hand on one of us?"

"Please, child, don't stress yourself," Mother Nature warned her. "There is plenty of time to answer the question we all have, but right now, you all need to get to get some rest, it was a tough journey bringing you all here."

"We have a reason for it," Father Time added. "But now's not the time to worry about it. Please, you need your rest. Food will be brought in soon." He waved an arm towards the sleeping quarters that Geneva had pointed them to before. "Gattaca will show you the way, Mother Nature and I need to have a conversation with Geneva."

Geneva nodded towards her parents and moved over to their side as Gattaca led the group into the sleeping quarters. There was one large room that served as a sitting area, filled with inflections of gold, silver, and ivory amongst the furniture and walls. There were other rooms that drew off of the main sitting room that held beds and a bathroom completely made from marble that overlooked the kingdom. Gattaca separated the group into their rooms and Julius found himself in a room with Tapeworm.

He watched as Tapeworm walked Canis over to his bed and gently placed her down inside it, pulling the covers up over her shoulder. The eldest of the Jacksons smiled to himself as he thought of the many times he had done that himself; to help out his mother and father to take care of their children. His smile faded at the memory of the fire that had killed his parents. One minute he was holding onto baby Sydney's hands as he helped him try to walk, next thing he knew he was surrounded by flames as his life crumbled around him.

Granted, he hadn't had as much of a bad life as his brothers and sisters, but in many ways he felt that he and Sydney were the worse off with what had happened. He had known his parents for eleven years and they were suddenly ripped away from him, Sydney hadn't known them at all when they were ripped away. The job of being a big brother was to protect his younger siblings and he couldn't even do that.

"Don't beat yourself up, Julius," Rudin said as he stretched out onto the floor beside his master's bed. "It wasn't something you could control as you hadn't awakened yet. Things happened the way they did and being stuck in the past won't help you."

"Won't it?" Julius asked. He realized he and Tapeworm had spoken in unison and he turned back to the younger teenage boy, who was looking at Rudin with an expression he couldn't quite place.

"Living in the past…what if that's what'll help us figure everything out," Tapeworm said. "That's the point of history. The past is what helps us figure out what to do in the future. To make things better."

"Working with the past and being stuck there are two different things," Rudin pointed out patiently. "The former being the lesser of two evils."

"So you want us to sit around and do nothing?" Tapeworm demanded. "Even when we were able to get into Father Time, someone that could probably help us get through everything."

"He didn't say that!" Julius snapped back, suddenly showing off his anger. He had done his best to keep it dormant for long, always being as level-headed as possible. "And don't think I don't know what you're thinking or feeling!" Tapeworm glared at him. "I can tell by the way you bloody look at Canis! She reminds you of Max and you're afraid that if you let that go, if you let something happen to her, you won't get her back!" Julius clenched his hand into a fist. "You're not the only one that wants to take Uriel's power and try to bring back something that was lost," Julius remarked. "Since he has the power of life and is able to take something, maybe he can give it back. I've thought of it!" Tapeworm's gaze lowered. "If I could bring back my parents…my aunt…" he took a deep breath. "If I could do that for my brothers, my sisters, and my cousin…I'd do anything." He held up a finger before pointing at Tapeworm. "But don't go running off into something that you don't know you can do yet."

"So what do you expect me to do?" Tapeworm snapped. "Sit here and wait?"

"No." Julius crossed his arms. "Sitting around and waiting for the inevitable isn't something I work well with and it's not something that I think will help us in the long run. When we get the chance…to figure things out more…then that's when we'll strike. But for the time being you need to remember that you're not the only one that lost someone you loved because of Uriel."

With that, Julius turned on his heel and headed out of the room at a steady walking pace.

With each and every step he took it left behind the feeling that he was running away from something and propelled him towards something.

Something he had been looking for, for a long time.