Chapter 6
THE THINGS WE NEED
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 Looking for something I've never seen
Alone and I'm in between
The place that I'm from and
The place that I'm in
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Things haven't been right for a long time. Vida sat behind her usual spot for DJing in the Rock Porium as she stared at the ground with a blank expression.

She didn't know why she felt like something was wrong every time she saw her sister glance over at her with eyes that grieved. For the longest time Vida wrote that off as Maddie just being paranoid and worried about The Master. We'll deal with him. We always win. Vida thought confidentially.

In the last couple of days, Nick and Xander have been acting strange as well.

Vida hated this, she hated seeing her friends hurt for reasons she wasn't even sure of.

It was almost time to close up, it was a busy Saturday night, but finally the last customer was out the door. Vida looked up at her friends and slammed down her last record on the table.

"This is enough!" She yelped as she ripped off her headphones.

The others looked over at Vida with surprise. Nick put his broom down and walked over to Vida.

"Enough of what?"

Vida was standing by the cash register now with both hands on the counters. Her head was down as she let out a big sigh.

"I tired to let it go and hope you guys would just snap out of it. This mopping around is driving me crazy." She looked up now, her eyes dazzling with her usual high energy.

"You guys are acting like we've already lost." Vida felt like she was gonna pull her hair out at this point. Everything she'd wanted to say for weeks now was just rambling out of her mouth. "Why can't you guys have a little more faith in yourselves? I don't get it. Is there something I'm missing?"

Xander dropped his head for a second, lost for words it seemed. Nick and Madison just glanced at each other very quickly with dejected eyes. Vida turned to Chip and a hint of a smile tugged at her lips.

Same ol' Chip. She suddenly felt the need to hug him. "If you started to act all funny I swear I think I'm gonna lose it." Vida whispered near his ear as she hugged him very tightly.

Chip broke out laughing and hugged her back, "You wanna see the make-shift fort I built in the kitchen? Let's see The Master get through THAT." He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the kitchen at once. Vida quickly glanced back at the others and her smile faded.

She rolled her eyes, tired of the bad energy coming from those three and just focused on Chip. She needed his optimism because she didn't want to fall into the same hole the others seem to be stuck in, no matter what happened. Hopefully when Udonna gets back, we'll finally finish The Master off and get things back to normal.

Normal; Vida tried to remember how that felt...

She failed miserably.

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Chip was sitting in his back yard looking at the stars that pricked the black sky above. He always used to sit out here looking for constellations, something he always did with his dad. A cool breeze hit him and Chip wrapped his new yellow cape around himself to stay warm. Any minute now his mom would call him in for dinner.

He suddenly pulled out his morpher and stared at it. Every night he did that, disbelieving his luck of actually living his dreams every single day. Even though it brought his mortality into question every time he pulled this out and used it. Every time he did, he felt alive. Strong. Everything he thought he could never be.

Suddenly a memory came to him, something Vida had said earlier that evening.

"You guys are acting like we've already lost…"

Chip noticed that but didn't know how to bring it up. Trust Vida to say and do something he wasn't sure he knew how to. She was wrong though, he was scared out of his mind. The night when he saw the Dragons, the exhilaration and novelty of the moment soon wore off and finally it hit him --The true danger they were in and the deadly promise he saw in the eyes of those Dragons.

His hand held his morpher more tightly, his mouth pursed together in a straight line. The thought of fighting this battle and losing was being forced out of his mind.

"What ever it takes…"He told himself, trying his hardest to keep his resolve and stay brave. It was all he could to not fall to pieces and run away.

"We win this."

It was a promise he would do anything to keep.

He shut his eyes for a moment and thought about what that 'anything' meant.

Whatever it takes…

We're only taking turns
Holding this world up
It's how it's always been

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The room was dark, as per usual, only the dim glow coming from the light in the hallway shone into his room. Xander was laying on his back, staring at the ceiling. His fingers tapping a quiet rhythm on his chest as he concentrated on nothing in particular.

He was waiting.

Every night was the same. His morpher sat on the small table beside his bed, waiting to go off.

Every time he tried to close his eyes, his saw his own future, which mostly involved watching his friends slowly fall and lay motionless around him. His hand shook helpless as he whirled around trying to think of something to do to make things better. "GET UP!" he heard himself yelling to his friends, but they remained still on the ground as more attacks were being thrown around him. Smoke from all the blasts were coming at him in every direction, he could barely see his hand in front of his face, and then suddenly he fell forwards with a force he couldn't even imagine. He was hit and he couldn't even feel it...

Xander opened his eyes quickly and sat up trying to catch his breath.

He looked out his window when he thought he saw something move outside. He shook his head, he was getting delirious, and quickly his mind shut down again as he laid back.

He was waiting.

For the end.

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Nick sat outside his house, beside his bike, pretending he was fixing it so his sister would leave him alone. She's been getting overly protective for some reason, an attitude change that seemed to come around the same time The Master was freed. Maybe he was doing a poor job hiding his frustration and she noticed something was wrong.

Whatever it was, he needed time alone to think.

We need to find the other Chosen One and protect that person until we can find a way to destroy The Master. Waiting for Udonna to return with any news was all he was biding his hope on now because there was nothing he could think of that would remedy the trouble they were in.

Answers were few and far in between and that was something that needed to change. Nick didn't want to let The Master just send out his minions of Dragons out in the world doing his bidding. How were they suppose to fight Dragons? He wondered. They're powerful enough to free The Master… he continued to think, hopelessly.

He leaned his head back and sighed, realizing his mind was just drawing a blank at every question he tried to find answers for. How were they gonna save Vida? Blank.

This was killing Madison and he hated seeing her so distraught every time she looked at her sister. It was even harder not telling Vida the truth.

Nick's head straightened as he looked to his right, down the street he saw a figure walking towards him. He thought about moving his bike so it wouldn't obscure the path of the stranger coming, but he couldn't be bothered to get up. For the first time in weeks he finally realized how tired he was. Never sleeping that well and always over stressing out at the slightest thing was taking its toll. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the time, it was almost 10pm and he thought it was time to start heading in.

"I couldn't sleep…" a quiet, familiar voice came from his right as he looked up at the stranger and saw Madison force a weak smile

"So you seek me out?" He asked, a little amused as he pushed his tool box to the side to give her some space to sit.

Madison wrapped her arms around across her chest as she sat down on the edge of the curb. It was a quiet night, no dogs barking or car engines roaring. Silent darkness wrapped then in a cool little bubble for a moment. That was all they really had, a few peaceful moments, that just blended in with the constant dangers and problems, and were lost in the mix.

It was a constant struggle to think back and retrieve those times when Nick didn't feel so isolated, burdened with the responsibility to makes things all right and lately, consistently failing at it.

"When it comes to sleeping, I think you're as bad as me." Nick could hear the faint smile as she spoke.

"Is it those nightmares again?" He asked with a thoughtful stare, trying to find the answer in her silence. It was obvious. Her eyes were tinted red, she must have been crying earlier, Nick noted.

Madison rubbed her cheeks quickly, warming them up from the cold breeze that was suddenly starting to pick up. Her face was flushed, and it looked like she was about to break out into more tears but was doing her best to keep it together.

"You wanna come inside and warm up?" Nick didn't know what else to say, just anything to get her mind off of whatever she was thinking that made her sad, which seemed like an impossible task.

Nick helped Madison up, placing a firm grip around her shoulders and walked with her to the door.

"You know…" Madison's voice broke, she really was on the verge of tears. Nick wanted to comfort her but he didn't know what to say or do. He wasn't used to being around someone like this, it was all new to him.

"What?" He prompted when she looked down and tried to clear her voice.

"You should try and talk to Xander tomorrow. He's really a mess right now." She said this quickly, in a low shakey voice. Nick had to strain his ears to hear it all properly and then he had an odd feeling that wasn't what she was originally going to say, before her voice broke.

"I noticed." Nick simply said, remembering how quiet Xander had become lately.

"How's Vida?" He asked, without thinking. Madison stiffened and rubbed her eyes quickly.

"Uh, she's okay. A little annoyed with me, but okay all the same." There was nothing else to say because Nick didn't want to push it and upset her even more.

He opened the door and lead her in, wondering silently when all of this was going to be over.

Suddenly his mind whipped up an image of someone he'd forgot about, but could possibly help in some way.

Koragg…

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It's coming down to
nothing more than apathy
I'd rather run the other way
than stay and see
The smoke and who's still standing
when it clears
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