CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Elementals gathered into a large room with high ceilings, their footsteps echoing along the high, painted ceilings, as they went. The air around them was thick, filled with the tension that had been surrounding them since their fight with Mother Nature. As long as they had continued to ignore the things that had happened in the aftermath, there was always that hint of aggression and underlying revulsion that couldn't be ignored.

And while the group had convened to speak about everything that had been following them around, the risk of everything imploding was greater than the risk of them losing their lives in the long run. Zack waited, resting his face in his hands as his friends all gathered around until they were all settled.

"OK." He dropped his hands from around his mouth. "I know this has been long time, coming. And I know we were all planning on putting it off as much as we could, but we can't do that anymore." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm tired of always arguing about the same things and I'd like to finally clear the air around it." He held up his hands, as if trying to grab a basketball that was about to strike him in the face. "Throughout the fight with Mother Nature, we had to make a lot of decisions that we didn't always like."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bailey glance at Cody before lowering her head and looking away. Cody crossed his arms, shifting in his chair. His lower jaw jutted out as he quietly shook his head, radiating his frustration.

"And I know that a lot of us got hurt or worse…but we have to remember that we were doing what we thought was best to save the world and in the end, we did. But it's still something that I knew we all think about and we really need to get off our chest." Zack sat up straight. "I know that going right into battle I didn't have a great plan and that some of us got hurt pretty quickly and I apologize for that. The new power we had, Cody and I…it was hard to control and things got out of control and I really hurt some people and while I do my best to make sure that I don't have it constantly haunt me, is hard."

Zack lowered his head, thinking about the biggest mistake he had made that had caused Blazen—and in turn himself as they shared a physical connection—to get really hurt so soon in the fight.

They had just left the State House and had gone outside to find their wildest nightmares had come true. There was, what they now knew, was a portal that had opened between Earth and the Element world and as the elementals watched, Mother Nature's footmen, the arboris, continued to stream through the portal and into Boston, causing instant chaos as they landed.

The arboris then started to attack everything in sight; cars, buildings, trees, innocent people that tried to get away. The arboris appeared to be human, as Tapeworm had told them, their skin a light green hue, however, as they attacked vines shot out of their hands and fingertips, whipping and choking whatever came their way. The group watched as an arboris snapped his arms, with vines extending out and whipping a man in the back.

The man screamed and writhed with pain as he fell to the ground, a crimson line appearing on his back. And as the group watched, stunned the arbori continued to attack the man until they heard the worst sound coming from him.

Silence.

The arbori had just killed the man that had, just moments before, a life ahead of him. All in a matter of seconds. This was certainly going to be harder and more difficult than any of them had thought. Zack exchanged a glance with Cody and noticed he appeared just as scared as he was.

"Oh boy," Julius breathed.

"My thought's exactly" Maddie agreed.

"That's what Mother Nature used to attack the people in the Element world," Tapeworm explained, licking his lips. His hands were clenched into fists and he took an instinctive step backwards, readying himself for anyone or anything that came his way. "They're called arboris, and as you can see they resemble humans, but they're completely made out of earth, grass, and vines."

The destruction they had managed to place upon Boston in such a short amount of time was devastating. The arboris moved quickly and efficiently, taking on their next target once the one they had originally fixated on had been defeated. And as the elementals watched, the arboris noticed the group of teenagers and leapt to attack.

The teenagers spread out and immediately started to fight back.

"Cascade Crush!" Cody blasted a jet stream of water towards a couple of arboris and watched as it blasted them back away from him. He twisted to the side and punched another one in the stomach then grabbed onto his wrist, flipping it onto the ground.

He let out a cry of pain and a red slash appeared on his arm, and arbori had used a vine to cut him. This is going to be harder than I thought.

"Man, they keep coming in droves!" Reihu cried. He jumped high into the air, did a flip, and transformed into his lion form. When he landed on the ground, he roared loudly and charged forward, slashing at an arbori that had snuck up on Rhuben's blind side.

Zack let out a grunt of pain, red hot fire had slashed across his face. The force of the blow sent him spinning to the ground. He groaned, getting back to his feet, watching as the arbori moved closer to him. For a moment, he briefly wondered about those that were watching all over the world; he could hear the beats of the propellers of helicopters, knowing they were trying to get the news of the battle out the best they could. Zack painfully pushed himself back to his feet and looked around, trying to figure out a plan.

His mind raced a mile a minute, working out different plans of attack and formations in a matter of seconds as he backed away from an arbori that had aimed a vine whip towards his stomach. Taking a step forward, he shoved a flaming fist into the stomach of the arbori, causing it to immediately burst into flames and wither away.

He jumped backwards a few feet then waved his friends over to him. All of a sudden there was a bang and a bright flash and saw Sydney lower his Element gun, a stream of fire coming out of the front of his pistol. That Element gun must really come in handy, he thought. If anyone deserves some sort of prize, it's Syd. He turned back to his friends, licking his lips. Glancing at Sydney, the young boy nodded and summoned his staff, raising it high in the air and producing a protective barrier around the group.

He looked up towards the sky, shielding his face from the sunlight that streamed in. "Ok, what we need to do is see if we can keep these things from coming in," he said. As the group watched continues streams of Mother Nature footmen arrived on Earth. "The more that we can keep from reaching Boston, the better things will be for us and that's not including the fact that we don't know if they're only arriving n Boston. So whoever can go up to the sky should do that, everyone else should stay down here and try to fight off as many of these as we can." Wiping sweat off his forehead, Zack turned towards Maddie. "Maddie, we need you to be around to make sure that we can get healed whenever we need it, so try to stay out of the fight as much as you can."

She nodded.

"Patrick, Noah, Cody, and Sydney you try to stop those that are coming in. The more we can defeat before it gets to us, the better off we'll be. Rhuben, Bailey, and Reihu, you three go see if you can find Mother Nature and hold her off the best you can until the rest of us can get there. Crys, Tapeworm, Riles, and I will stay here and fight those on the ground."

"What do you want me to do?"

Zack turned around to see Diamond standing behind him an arsenal of weapons hanging off of his body. Zack gave him a grim smile. "Whatever you can do to help."

Diamond smiled. Sydney stepped forward and handed the soldier the pistol he had been holding and a colorful array of bullets. Diamond nodded and accepted the items, filling up the chamber in a matter of seconds. Then he dropped the pistol into an empty pocket before retrieving a drawstring bag from his pocket. "I've got something that might help you guys." He opened the drawstring back, a bright light radiated from inside.

"It's the Element stones," Aaron said.

As the group watched, the stones continued to glow a bright color as they lifted out of the bag and into the air, forming a small circle. There was an open spot. Zack took the red element stone out of his pocket and held it up. The stone shone a bright red and completed the circle.

"With the element stones, we'll be able to gain more power to use against Mother Nature," Aaron continued. "I heard Dad talking about it once, they enhance the power of whoever has it, but…I also heard that they're able to unleash a new sense of power if used the right way."

"That's helpful," Riley said. She looked out of the protective shield and noticed that the arbori were backing away from them, as if cowering in fear. "Looks like it's something that we can really use, yeah?"

"You have to try," Bailey encouraged. "You never know what could happen." She closed her eyes and a moment later, Geneva and Gattaca appeared at her sides. She smiled up at them. "These two can help try to close the portal, I'm sure that they can do it if their mother was able to open it."

"We can't guarantee anything, but we'll do our best," Geneva said.

Gattaca nodded.

Zack raised a finger to his mouth and started to chew on his fingernail a habit he had broken years ago. There were so many things to decide; they had the current reprieve of being attacked, they were going to be showing their real identities to the whole world, and then there was the possibility of not being able to control the powers of the element stones as they took it into their possession.

Noah seemed to have noticed his apprehension for he took a step forward and placed a hand on Zack's shoulder. "You have to try it," Noah insisted. "We don't have any other choice."

Zack closed his eyes. "Ok, ok!" He ran a hand through his hair.

"There seems to be a stone for fire, water, darkness, thunder, light, and nature…which I would assume that the stones come for the most common elements," Cody said as he moved towards the light blue stone. He waited as Zack, Rhuben, Patrick, and Tapeworm stepped forward behind the stones that represented their element. "Ready?"

They nodded.

Each of them reached out and took the stone in their hand, letting the light element stone remain. It stopped shinning and started to drop to the ground, but Aaron grabbed onto it and gently cradled it in his hands, his sightless eyes trained on the spectacle in front of him.

The stones glowed even brighter than before, the color reflecting in everyone's eyes. Zack was used to the rush of power, as he had held onto the stone before, but the sense of strength still overwhelmed him. The stones continued to react in a peculiar way; as Zack's and Cody's stones started to diminish in brightness, the other stones continued to glow brighter and brighter. Tapeworm, Rhuben, and Patrick extended their arms and the stones brightness turned into a beam of energy that combined into a wave of purple, green, and yellow. That beam then dispersed into Zack's and Cody's stones, causing the fire and water stones to shine so brightly that everyone had to cover their eyes.

There was a distinct cracking sound as the red and blue light completely engulfed them.

When the light faded, everyone could see that the darkness, nature, and thunder stones were broken; resting in fragments in their respective owners' hands. They had transferred the power from their stones into Zack's and Cody's, giving them as much power as possible.

"Whoa," Cody said, feeling the energy wash over him. His eyes glowed a bright blue. He looked over at Zack and saw that his eyes were glowing a bright red. He took a deep breath and dropped the stone into his pocket, turning to his brother. "You ready?"

"Try and stop me." The determined smile on Zack's face was the first that had been seen in a long while.

Sydney immediately lowered the shield and the group went their separate ways to start fight.

Zack ducked out of the way as an arbori flew towards him and he aimed back kick at it. He turned back to the arbori and sent a stream of fire, the largest one he had ever managed to produce, to it, immediately reducing it to ash. Zack's now red eyes flashed with excitement as he watched his enhanced abilities and turned the other way, his smirk widening. He used his enhanced speed to race through the streets of Boston, attacking arboris left and right, reducing them to ash in the blink of an eye.

All of sudden he felt a heavy weight on his back and he lost his balance, careening into the side of a brick building, side first. He let out a scream of pain, feeling his shoulder get knocked out of its socket almost immediately. He turned around, leaning against the building, breathing heavily through his nose, a sheen of sweat immediately appearing on his forehead. An arbori, the size of an average sized man, but with the arms of a body building, headed towards him, snapping its vines against the ground. As Zack watched, the cracking of the vines against the asphalt sent a shower of sparks with each hit.

Keeping his bad arm at his side, Zack lifted his left as a vine slashed for him. His knocked the vine aside and the arbori came back with a sweeping gesture of his left arm, bringing another vine, the thickness like that of a rope. As it headed towards him, Zack clenched his hand into a fist and concentrated hard, feeling the power move through him and his arm immediately burst into flames. Opening his hand, he caught the vine a second before it could reach him and he sent a twisting line of fire up the vine and towards the arbori.

To his surprise, the arbori pulled back on the vine, pulling Zack closer to him. The arbori grinned, teeth like stones lined up in two, neat rows in its green mouth. The arbori brought up his other vine and whipped Zack across the face. He screamed, feeling the skin flash off of his face in a straight line. "Flash Fire!" Zack brought up his bad arm with extreme effort and sent a shock of a quick moving fireball into the arbori's face.

The arbori stumble back and Zack fell to his knees, the pain from his dislocated shoulder practically blinding him. Gritting his teeth together, he screamed with effort, feeling the rush of his power slide through his body. A wave of fire shot out and crashed into the arbori in front of him, however it didn't appear to fall.

All of a sudden Zack felt pain all over his body and rolled onto his back, letting go of the vine that he had a death grip upon. In the distance he could hear the sounds of battle and his friends' cries of pain and attack. Looking above him, Zack could see multiple arboris had converged around him as he had been fighting the large arbori.

Dammit, he thought, recognizing he had fallen into a trap.

He closed his eyes as he waited for the vines to fall down upon him. It took a few seconds, but then he did feel the pain, but not the sort of paint hat came upon his physical body. But his connected one. Then the screeching cry reached his ears and he looked up, watching as Blazen stood over him, wings spread out as far as they could, wincing as vines whipped along his back. As the fire elemental watched, Blazen writhed with pain, clumps of feathers glued together with blood flying off in different directions.

"Blazen!" He cried.

"Zack…get out of here…" Blazen managed to grind out. "I can hold them off!"

But then Blazen had fallen, on top of the fire elemental, his body blocking the human from the blows that continued to rain down upon him. Zack brought an arm up and grabbed onto Blazen's wing, feeling his fingers slip over the blood that continued to run out of his wounds, and closed his eyes. He concentrated on his speed, getting up quickly and hurrying back over to Maddie, who was doing her best to protect herself from the arbori that converged upon her, Julius and Diamond teaming up to knock the arbori back.

"Zack!" Maddie noticed the fire elemental suddenly come to a stop near her, crouching on the ground with his guardian in his arms. The blonde hurried over and came to a stop by Zack, falling to her knees. She reached out and grabbed his face, causing him to wince and turn his head away. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," he choked out. "Don't worry about me." He flicked his hair out of his face, trying to remove himself from Maddie's grasp, but she held him tightly.

She frowned, glancing at the gash underneath her hand as she healed it, the line slowly disappearing. "This is going to be a nasty scar," she warned him. Then her eyes moved over to his arm. "And that's going to hurt."

"I don't care!" The fury in his voice started Maddie into dropping her hands away from him. "Help him, please." He motioned to Blazen once more, noticing his breathing had slowed down. Now being able to look down at the criss-cross pattern that had been put onto his guardian's back, the pulpy, raw skin stretching and sinking as Blazen breathed painfully.

Maddie placed her hands on Blazen's back and started to heal him. Zack watched, breathing painfully, his anxiety rising as the seconds passed. Looking into Maddie's face, he saw her cheek twitch before her eyes lowered. Leaning down, she lifted a glowing pink hand before replacing it on his back. A few seconds passed and she shook her head, before lifting her hand again.

Zack leaned forward and looked down; feeling his face lose all color as he understood what had Maddie so upset. The gashes weren't getting healed, no matter how long Maddie held her hands over him.

"I…I don't," she started to say. "Zack, I'm sorry, but he's not healing."

Zack's breath caught n his throat. No…not again, he thought. Images of Max and Koto immediately filled his head. He remembered the way they had gotten in the middle of the attack that had been meant for him. He watched the scenes unfold in his head over and over again in quick flashes and turned his head. No! "Maddie…just do what you can to help him, I need to keep going."

"But Zack—"

"Please, just do this for me." Zack gently moved Blazen off his lap and placed him on the ground. He knelt down by his guardian and ran his fingers over his head. "I'm sorry, Buddy. I'm so sorry." He continued to rub his friends' head. "Everything's gonna be alright."

"Zack, you need your arm fixed before you can—"

Zack reached over and grabbed his bad arm. He closed his eyes and grabbed onto his wrist and jerked it forward as hard as he could. There was an audible cracking sound and he was nearly blinded with pain. He waited until the pain subsided to a dull ache before turning on his heel and running back into battle again.

Now sitting back in the castle in the Element World, Zack crossed hi arms over his chest, looking back and forth from Tapeworm to Riley. "I'm sorry about what happened to Max and Koto. If I ever had the choice, I would've given up my own life before I had one of them make that choice for me. I couldn't think of it happening again."

"Then I hope you'd acknowledge that sending some of us up to the portal almost had the same effect," Patrick said evenly, resting his arms on his upraised knee. "No, Cody, Syd, and I were outnumbered so quickly I'm surprised we're still alive." He shrugged. "Then again, that coma I was put into probably had me catch up on the most amount of sleep I've had in a long time." He grinned, laughing to himself before moving a hand up to cover his mouth. "I'm sorry, that wasn't funny."

"Please laugh," Cody said with a wave of his hand. "I haven't had the ability to do so for a while." He sounded subdued.

"I apologize for that as well," Zack said. He was silent for a long moment. "I'll admit that I feel like a lot of this is my fault."

"What?" Crystal cried. She tilted her head back slightly, her long ponytail gently dusting the floor of the chair she was sitting in. "Zack, nothing about what happened was your fault!" She waved a hand. "I understand that you're the leader and everything, but none of us knew what was going to happen when we went to fight them. None of us knew that Syd, Maddie, Patrick, Bailey, Reihu, Aaron, Riles or I were all going to end up in a coma while the rest of us were scarred and critically hurt. We were going up against opponents we didn't know and were stuck with having to make some of the worst decisions we've ever had to make."

She placed her hands on her chest. "Do you think I wanted to kill that guy by freezing his blood? No, but in the end I didn't have a choice."

Bailey made a humming sound, resting her cheek in her palm. Cody glared over at her. "Do you have something to say or are you just going to keep making faces at me whenever this is brought up?"

"This should be interesting," Riley murmured, curling up in her chair.

The redhead teen glared back at Cody. "I'm not the one that killed so many people."

"I DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE!" Cody shouted back at her, eyes flashing dangerously. He leapt to his feet and leaned over Bailey's chair, getting into her face. "And it makes me fucking sick each time I think about…every time I imagine it." He backed away, grabbing onto his long hair. "And it doesn't help that you broke up with me over it and won't let me forget what I did."

"Yeah, like it took you that long to get with someone else afterwards." Bailey's eyes narrowed. "But, hey, if throwing away your morals and everything you believed in, in humanity was all thrown out the window."

"Guys, don't fight about this," Rhuben chided them.

Zack held up a hand, stopping the darkness elemental. "No, this is something they need to talk about," he said. "They've been fighting about it so much…it's better to get it out in the open."

Cody shook his head as he turned away from Bailey. Everything he had said was true, the haunting images of those people that he had sacrificed was always going to be in his head, always going to follow him around. Every time he closed his eyes, had a moment to himself, in the moments before he would fall asleep it would come back to him.

He really had no choice.

"There's too many of them!" Noah called, swinging his hammer as hard as he could from the back of SilverTatsu. With a cry of effort he smashed an arbori in the face, sending it flying back where it came from. However, as he had taken the time to shoot back the one arbori, out twenty more came through.

Cody, who was on Phantom's back, let out a cry of effort as he continued to shoot streams of water towards the arboris that came through the portal. He watched as Patrick and Noah continue to try and fight off the arbori, but he could see there wasn't any way for them to seal up the portal or stop anyone from getting through. He looked around for Sydney, who was hovering closer towards the portal, knocking back more of the arbori in between his tries to cast a shield over the opening of the portal.

Chewing his lower lip, Cody looked back and forth from the portal to the arboris attacking the Earth. He had his orders but still…it was probably not going to help them if they weren't combining their efforts on Mother Nature. I know the decision Zack would make. Brushing his hair out of his face, Cody finally made his decision.

"Fall back!" He called. "There're too many coming through, we're not going to be able to stop them all!" He watched as Sydney hesitated for a moment then turned and used his staff to float back down towards the others. Patrick and Noah followed him until they were close enough to hear Cody. "We have to focus on Mother Nature. Once we get rid of her, then the rest of the arboris won't come through."

"You got it," Patrick agreed.

Cody nodded and directed Phantom back down to the ground. Once his feet reached the ground he held out his hand, running towards the arboris that filled the street in front of him. "Water of the Soul!" His Aqua Staff appeared in his hand and he swung it forward, sending a jet of hard water into the arboris, sending them back into the side of a building. He came to a stop, suddenly hearing the screams that came from inside.

Screeching to a halt, Cody turned back and looked inside the storefront window, noticing the patrons trapped inside. He stared at them, watching as they huddled together and once all eyes turned to him, he could see the pleading expression on their faces and see their mouths move in silent pleas for help.

"Master Cody, look out!"

Cody whirled towards the sound of Phantom's voice and his eyes widened as he watched an arboris head towards him, vines outstretched. Before he could move, the vines wrapped around his neck and squeezed hard. He could feel his skin get cut and could feel blood start to roll down his skin. Choking, Cody stumbled, bringing his free hand up to grab onto the vine. He pulled against it, wincing as his palm was cut open against the roughness of the vine.

He tried calling for help from Phantom, but saw his guardian furiously fighting against the arboris that were surrounding him. What can I do? He closed his eyes as soon as the question entered his head. He knew what he had to do; he knew it as soon as he had seen the arbori flying towards him. He didn't react in the way his body had wanted…only because he knew what would happen, the ramifications he would have to live with.

It had seemed like such an easy decision, but now…

I'm sorry.

Cody knew hesitation was going to get himself killed. He lifted his staff and concentrated on the new power that came from the element stone. This caused a wave of water, larger than he had ever been able to produce before to shoot out of the staff and catch the arbori in the stomach. The vines tightened into Cody's throat amongst the pressure of the water that lifted the arbori off its feet. The force of the water caused Cody to fall into his back and as it continued to shoot out, taking the arbori up and arching it back.

All of a sudden Cody felt the vines slide off his neck and heard the sound of breaking glass, screams, and then silence. Coughing, Cody rolled onto his side, trying to catch his breath. Bringing his hand up, he felt around his neck, feeling a ring wet with blood. Thankfully due to his knowledge of science and anatomy, sighed in relief when he realized that he wasn't hurt too badly. Placing his hand back on the ground his palm landed in a puddle.

A red puddle.

Lifting himself up, Cody looked towards the storefront window, knowing what he was going to see before he saw it. He climbed to his feet and walked forward, looking inside taking in the gaze of the bodies that had just been full of life, now punctured with shards of glass, frozen in positions where they tried to shield themselves from glass.

The arbori had landed on top of the bodies and while it didn't bleed, Cody was sure it was dead as well.

"Cody?" The water elemental slowly turned around and gazed at Bailey, who looked back at him with wide, wet eyes. "What'd you do?"

What'd you do?

Apart from the images those were the words that had always haunted him from that moment in time. But in many ways, he felt better having finally managed to get it off his chest. He knew the others were confused about them breaking up and why they were so angry with each other, and now he didn't care anymore.

"I hope you never have to make a decision like that, Bailey," he said to her in a quiet voice. "And I hope that you don't continue to hold it over my head. But I made my decision and I'm going to stick by it."

"And we have to stick by each other," Zack jumped in. "We can't keep fighting with each other and keeping secrets. It'll just cause us to implode form the inside and we can't have that. Not when we're this close to ending the whole thing." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And I know there are a lot of things that we've each done that probably won't have us seen well in the eyes of those around us, but we can't turn our backs on each other."

Cody nodded at his brother.

Bailey let out a quiet sigh and nodded too.

Zack nodded back. "That's all I had to say, really." His friends all nodded. Tapeworm immediately got up from his seat and, taking Canis by the hand, left the room. This prompted the others to start getting up to leave as well, no one really speaking other to say 'excuse me' or 'sorry' if they got in one another's way.

Zack walked over to Riley, who had waited for Julius, who she had been sharing her chair with, to move out of the way. "I need to talk to you," he said to her.

Riley glanced at him for a moment before brushed her red strands of hair from her face. "I figured you would, mate." She got up from the seat and took Zack's outstretched hand, allowing him to lead her out of the large room. The two walked along, aimlessly, for a moment before Zack started to speak.

"I just wanted to say sorry for—"

Riley only had to hear a few of his words before she rolled her eyes and came to a stop. "Zack, seriously, stop apologizing about Koto." She lowered her chin, letting out a sharp sigh before lifting her head, flicking her hair from her face. "That wasn't your fault. He probably would've done the same thing for anyone else." She raised an eyebrow. "Though, knowing him, he wouldn't ever admit it to anyone else other than the rest of the BlackWolves and even then I don't know if he'd still be in contact with them after the whole thing."

Zack made a humming sound, pressing his lips together. "Then other than that, I don't know what to do, Riles. Because you either aren't talking to me about him and completely avoid the conversation, or just get mad at me whenever I do bring it up."

The teen girl's eyes narrowed for a moment. "OK." She licked her lips, pausing for a second. "Since you're clearly not going to drop the conversation…do you really want to know why, for a long time, I denied the fact that I had feelings for you?" Zack nodded. "Not only because I didn't want you to get hurt, yeah, but because I'm tired of people I care about being taken away from me. First my Mum and Dad because of Uriel—"

Zack grimaced. "You know about that?"

"Yes, boofhead, we all know about it. But that's not my point, not yet anyway. My point is that Mum and Dad are gone, Aunt Kristen is gone, I've had to leave my friends back in Aus because of Robert and because of what I am now, and I've always been aware that there's a great chance of everyone around me dying, which is also why I was hesitant to have you and Cody awaken in general though I really had no choice on that."

Zack nodded.

Riley scratched her forehead, hiding her face. "In the grand scheme of things, as selfish as this sounds, I don't want anyone else to have to die because of this. I'm tired of funerals and mourning and just being pissed about it. So the idea of you being hurt, I can deal with that. The idea of any more of my family or friends or…"—Riley took a deep breath—"you dying isn't something I can easily wrap my head around, especially because I was the one that brought you into this. So, I'm sorry for not wanting to talk about Koto's and Max's death and what happened with that, but I don't even want to think about it anymore."

Zack gave her a funny smile. "If your punches and slaps haven't killed me yet, I don't think anything else will." He squeezed her hand before bringing his up and cupping her face. "I can't promise that I'm not going to die from the things we're doing and neither can you. But I want you to know that I'm going to do everything in my power to come back to you."

"Well that wasn't romantically cheesy." Riley smirked for a moment before a serious expression slid onto her face. "Speaking of…I'm apologizing in advance as there's going to be a point where you give me an order in battle and I probably won't follow it."

"What if I try to stop you?"

She paused for a long moment and Zack wasn't sure if she was going to answer him. "I'd hope you wouldn't."

He nodded and gently ran his fingers through her hair; suddenly remember the time he had first awakened as an Elemental. He had seen it as a means to get away from his boring, normal life and have an adventure. But then everything being an Elemental had shown him proved it was more than a game, more than a fantasy or a dream where they could wake up and go back to the life they had before. It was like Bailey had said, all of their morals and things they had said they would never do or wouldn't dream of doing were thrown out the window as soon as being put in a life or death situation came around.

When it came to Uriel…knowing the sort of destruction he had done too many people's lives, he could understand if there was a time they would face him and she wouldn't be able to hold back her emotions over it. If Uriel had done something to one of his parents, he wouldn't be stopped if he ever had the chance of getting some sort of revenge.

At the moment he still wasn't sure what he'd do if Uriel came back around. If they would go into a straight attack and kill him, or find some way to banish him back to the Element World and imprison him in some way.

"In case I don't get the chance to say it later…" Riley's voice brought Zack out of his thoughts. He looked down at her as she brought her hands up and grabbed onto his. Gently, she laced her fingers between his, pressing her palms against his. "I love you."

Zack smiled. "I love you, too." He leaned in and gave her a kiss before hugging her.

He was surprised to find her shaking as she hugged him back.

A/N: This chapter was long coming and the only reason I had waited so long to do it was because I couldn't decide how I wanted it to be told; it being the entire chapter, it being told in flashback chapters like the ones for Christian, Kristen, Reed, Renee, and Core, or what I decided to do with it. So things jump around a bit for some of the things that happened throughout the battle in this chapter and it will end in the next one.

Repeat, you will see the rest of the battle with Mother Nature in the next chapter.

Also, I know I've kept the guardians at the background for a while, but starting with the next chapter they come in more. As well as having the adventure aspect be the forefront of the story as I revealed some things; especially of the battle with Mother Nature, some of the other genres of the story (friendship, family, and romance) are going to come in more.

Thanks for being so patient on the wait for this chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles