CHAPTER FOURTY-NINE
"Bailey…wake up my child,"
Bailey's eyes slowly opened and she yawned, stretching a bit as she looked around the suite she was lying in. Once again, she felt a sense of loneliness; she had been able to constantly visit her family even when she was on the SS Tipton. But now that she was at the Tipton hotel, and not able to go see her family due to the large risk of them being targeted by the others, it just made it hard for her to see Zack and Cody be with each other as well as the Jacksons and their cousin. And even Crystal had the chance to go back to her father's house and see what was going on there. (Although Tapeworm advised against it, sure that Zhane had a lock on it, in case they tried to go back, so she and her father, Aaron, and Core corresponded through a video chat).
Mom and Dad and Grammy Pickett and you sisters, they all have to stay safe, Bailey, you can't go home yet. Bailey reminded herself as she hugged her pillow tightly against her chest. You have to stay strong for them.
"Bailey, wake up."
Bailey rolled over onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. She blinked for a few seconds when she saw Geneva hovering over her, and then let out a loud shriek, rolling over and falling onto the floor.
"I didn't mean to scare you," Geneva gently glided down to the floor to where she was standing over Bailey."
"That's alright," Bailey held a hand over her heat as it thudded against her ribcage. "I needed to sharpen my reflexes."
Geneva gave a kind smile as her hands glowed white. Bailey felt herself being lifted off the floor and back onto her bed. "Is that better?"
"Yes, thanks." Bailey studied Geneva, if it was possible; she was even more beautiful in person. And for some reason, it seemed to Bailey that she could feel Geneva's power fill the room. It felt like a blanket had been wrapped around Bailey, giving her protection. "Why did you wake me up?"
"I know that you and your friends have figured out about Gattaca," Geneva replied calmly. "I can give you the powers to help stop him but unfortunately, I'm not, and with my powers, you're not the ones that are supposed to stop him."
"It's Zack and Cody isn't it?" Bailey guessed.
Geneva nodded. "They've been destined for this ever since Blazen and Phantom were born, I knew that there was something special about them, but I didn't think that they would be the ones that were going to help me stop my brother." She folded her hands patiently. "But I want to show you what happened to make me banish Gattaca."
"And you can't tell us how to defeat him because the world doesn't work that way," Bailey gave a wry smile as she nodded. "I'd really like to know what happened…maybe it can help us…I'm very smart, if I was able to help them earlier with WingzCorp before Halo Syndicate came around, maybe I can help them now."
"Bailey," Geneva reached out a hand and gently caressed Bailey's cheek, much like her mother would. "You're very smart, and you're going to help your friends in unimaginable ways, without powers. You just have to believe in yourself."
Bailey nodded slowly.
"Alright," Geneva took in a deep breath. "I want to show you what happened."
Bailey nodded again and Geneva closed her eyes and the room started to glow white. Bailey watched as the white light got brighter and brighter, but it didn't hurt her eyes. If anything, it made her feel safer. When the light faded, Bailey wasn't sitting in the Tipton hotel anymore; she was sitting in a large room, probably in a palace.
It was so big, every move she made on the small couch echoed throughout the room, coming back to her so loudly she had to clap her hands over her ears. She only pulled her hands away when she heard clacking footsteps heading towards the room.
"Gattaca, you're getting upset over nothing," Geneva said patiently as she and her brother walked into the room. Geneva still looked the same as she did when she first presented herself to Bailey, and Gattaca definitely looked like her brother, probably her older brother. Like Geneva, he was tall and had blond hair, and piercing blue eyes, he was wearing a white tunic with a dark gray boots. He had a scowl on his face and an air of frustration that Bailey could feel from across the room.
"Am I really?" Gattaca spat as he halted his momentum, watching as Geneva walked across the room to a large fireplace.
"Yes, really," Geneva replied calmly. She moved her dresses out of the way and kneeled down on the floor, holding her hands out. A fireball shot out of them and quickly ignited the flame in the hearth. "It's not me or you that decides who becomes what kind of elemental when." She raised herself to her feet and slowly turned to face her brother. "It's life."
Oh, Bailey slowly nodded to herself. This is when they started to fight about it…then she'll also show me when he tried to take over…
At Bailey's movements, Gattaca snapped his head over at her and seemed to glare right at her. Bailey held her breath, unsure of what to do. Did she have her powers while she was in Geneva's memory? Was he able to see her? Or was only Geneva able to do something?
Bailey continued to hold her breath for a few more minutes, as Gattaca continued to look in her direction. But he just made a face and turned back to Geneva, now placing his hands on his hips.
"If that's the case, then why haven't there been any more elemental of darkness and psychic and all of those?" He spat, moving closer to his sister. "There is more to this world than all of the elements that revolve around light. The world can't work without-"
"The world can't work without a balance of light and dark," Geneva interrupted him, not giving him a hard look in return. "I know that," she then walked over to a large podium on the other side of the room, sitting underneath large bay windows. "But I'm not the one that's choosing what they come with, when they're born, it's assigned, and when they reach a certain age, we give them their message to go to the ceremony and meet them there and explain to them what's going on and what's expected of them."
"Do you really believe that, Geneva?" Gattaca asked after a minute of being silent. "Do you really believe that the world works that way? That life is the one choosing their destiny and not us?"
"You don't?" Geneva replied evenly. "We were taught that-"
"We were taught it, yes, but that doesn't mean that I have to believe it." Gattaca replied calmly. Even from where Bailey was sitting, she could feel the cold malice in his tone. "It doesn't mean that we can't challenge it and make sure that the balance is fair, even more so than it is now."
"We just lost a lot in the war and-"
"And we're trying to make up for it, but it's not being made up evenly."
"We can't help that, if there's a flux in one direction, the other one will be long coming." Geneva sounded impatient now. She picked up a large book. "Now if you'll excuse me," she turned and shot a look at her brother. "I have to decide which animal spirits are going to be the ones that these new guardians will take as well as whom they were be guarding over!"
With that, she turned on her heel and started to walk out of the room, the back of her dress flowing behind her.
"That's what you think," Gattaca murmured before slowly following her out of the room.
Bailey blinked rapidly as the room started to fill with white light once more. But this time, when it faded away, she was in a new room and it was pitch black. She reached up and felt the wall, recoiling when her fingertips touched smooth stone. So smooth it felt wet.
Then voices echoed towards her.
Oh, I'm in a dungeon or something…not a bedroom. Bailey slowly continued to walk forward until she heard the voices getting clearer. There was Gattaca, whose words were slurred a little bit, like he had been hit in the mouth, there was Geneva, and then some other voices she didn't recognize. Probably some guards. Every voice in Bailey's head told her to somehow get Geneva's attention and to send her back to the real world, but a stronger part of her had to know what had happened all those years ago before the elemental world started to collapse.
"-why you wanted to kill female light? She's your sister and one of the rulers of the element world!" A guard barked.
Bailey peeked around the corner and gasped lightly, her eyes widening. Gattaca was sitting on the floor of a cell, his arms chain linked above his head. He looked bruised and battered, his lip split, but he still had a manic grin on his face.
Geneva, on the other hand, was standing in front of him with two guards; her arms crossed over her chest and looked at her brother with more contempt than Bailey had ever seen in her life. But, at the same time, she didn't look surprised.
Gattaca just smiled back at Geneva and her two guards. "You should know," he replied in a low mumble, his split lip obviously giving him some pain as his tongue frequently flicked over it. "You can't be that much of a tightwad, you know everything that's said or done in the palace."
"Careful Male Darkness, you're treading in rough waters," the smaller guard said as he pointed a sword to Gattaca's neck. "You know the penalty of attempted murder," he snorted. "I never thought I'd see the day that you would have the guts to try and murder one of your own."
Gattaca looked interested, but didn't say anything.
Geneva took in a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly before glaring the brother. "No," she murmured. Gattaca and the guards turned to her. "No, we won't send him to death," she said out loud. "That will cause a horrible imbalance of the element world, we'd need to find a replacement for him, somewhere down the line, if we were to sentence him to death and we simply don't have the time."
"Then what do you propose, my lady?" The larger guard asked, eyeing Gattaca warily.
Geneva flipped her hair over her shoulder, bringing herself up to her full 6'1" height. "We will banish him, to where the last bit of light in this world touches. He will have no power over the guardian ceremonies as well as presenting that guardian to he or she, whom they will be guarding." Her eyes slowly narrowed. "You will not be allowed back into the kingdom, and you will not be allowed to-"
"This kingdom won't last without me!" Gattaca snarled. "Weren't you the one that just said that? The balance will be thrown out of whack; you wouldn't be able to handle it. But I'm stronger than you, I've been studying it, if you were gone, I could take much better care of this place."
Geneva stared hard at her brother. No, it wasn't her brother anymore; it was a shell of what he used to be. He let his powers and his greed take him over and at this point, there was no way for him to return to the way he used to be.
Bailey frowned as she watched the exchange. In most ways, she hated him; she hated what he tried to do to his sister, his family. But also, in many ways, she sympathized with him. It must have been hard; having to listen to your younger sister, to not be recognized as much as she was for running the element world. And to have an element that was seen, mostly, as a bad thing, while when it was in balance with light, it could be a good thing. Gattaca obviously wasn't happy, maybe if Geneva had seen it before, this wouldn't have happened.
Geneva then turned and walked over to Bailey, the hard look still on her face. Bailey looked up at her as Geneva moved her hands out and gently pushed Bailey's hair out of her face. She then wrapped her arms around the girl in a hug, and after a few moments Bailey hugged her back. It felt like hugging air, Bailey knew that she was holding onto Geneva, that she was actually hugging her, but it felt like she was holding onto something.
"Bailey," Geneva whispered in her ear. "It's time to wake up again," she pulled away to an arm's length and smiled down at the blonde-brunette teenage girl. "Do you understand what I have been trying to say?"
"Yes," Bailey smiled and nodded back. "Yes, I do."
"Good." Geneva smiled.
Bailey smiled back and closed her eyes.
…
..
.
When Bailey opened her eyes again, she was back in her suite at the Tipton hotel, curled up in a ball on her bed. As she woke up again, everything that had happened came flooding back to her and she hurried out of bed and over to the desk that was tucked in the corner of the room. Flipping on the lamp, she grabbed a notebook and pen and flopped down in the chair.
Pulling back the cover of the book so hard that she almost ripped it, Bailey got to work on her plan…
A/N: Woo! Chapter 50 (well, technically 49, but 50). My longest SLOD story as well as my longest story to date! Thanks for all of the reviews guys; they keep me going, seriously. Looking it over, there's a lot that I have to go back and edit of my recent chapters and I'll probably get to that soon. Anyway, this chapter was about Geneva and Gattaca, the next one is for Reed, Christian, and Nathan/Core and what happened to them with elementals that were their most important moments.
Because this chapter had to do with Geneva, I figured it would make sense if it had to do with Bailey as well. You're one step closer to figuring out who the traitor is…, only two chapters away. I hope you can wait for it.
Sorry for the long wait for this, it's the holidays, you know how it is.
Cheers and Happy Holidays,
-Riles
