CHAPTER TWENTY

The Decision

"You traitor!" Reihu spat. "You betrayed us again!" In a flash, he turned into a half-lion. "You're working with them!" he snarled, flicking his gaze back over to Big Time Rush. "You're dead meat!" He ran forward and jumped up into the air, aiming for Big Time Rush.

As he came back own, his claws extended, Sydney rushed forward, swinging his staff in a wide arc. "Spirit Shield!" he called as he did so. He and his staff glowed a light blue and as the staff swung through the air, a shield of energy formed around him and Big Time Rush. Reihu collided against it and held himself there, scratching at the barrier.

Sydney turned to face Big Time Rush, holding onto his staff tightly, blue energy running around his hands. "I won't hold this up much longer," he stated. "You have to make a choice, save your friend or be guilty."

"What should we do?" James questioned, panicking a little. "Either way, it doesn't seem like it's going to help us."

"Well there's got to be an easy answer to this," Logan stated in an unrecognizable tone. "Let her die or we die, I think the answer is very simple here."

"Hurry up." Sydney warned, gritting his teeth as Reihu continued to viciously attack the barrier that he had created. "I don't know how much longer I can hold this."

"Fine," Kendall quickly made a decision. "Sydney, lower the barrier," he cracked his knuckles. "Let's take these guys down!" Carlos quickly shouted his approval and James and Logan hesitated a little bit, looking at each other as if asking if they were crazy for doing this, and then nodded as well.

"Alright," Sydney nodded back and waved his staff aside, the barrier disappearing. "I'll get Jo and take her out of here; they're not going to want to get me." He ducked as Reihu went flying towards him and ran towards Jo, who was still struggling in Tori's and Tora's grasp. "Spirit Staff, Earth Spirits!" He shoved his staff forward and the ground rose up in a column of rock and shot forward, hitting Tori straight in the side and knocked her away from Jo.

Tora instinctively let go when she saw her sister go flying to the ground. That gave Sydney enough time to grab Jo into his arms and to get onto his staff and fly back towards the Palm Woods before she could see any of what was going on.

"You better be ready for this, because you're going to die!" Reihu declared as he landed behind the four boys and turned around. His eyes landed on Logan and in the blink of an eye he darted forward, raking a claw across Logan's chest.

Kendall, James, and Carlos turned and charged towards Tori, Tora, and Koto as Logan cried out in pain and stumbled back a few steps. He pulled his hand away from his chest and noticed the blood, suddenly becoming very angry. All of a sudden he felt a surge of power in him and he ran forward and punched Reihu across the chest before kicking him in the stomach, sending him flying back across the asphalt ground. Logan waved off the pain that was radiating from his hand and glared at Reihu, who looked back at him in shock.

'He's gotten stronger' Reihu thought to himself, eyes growing wide as he got to his feet, shaking his head. 'There must be something I can do to stop him before he taps into his real power.' Reihu's eyes narrowed into slits and as Logan watched he turned into a full lion, roared loudly, and charged towards Logan again.

That was exactly what he wanted.

Logan smirked as he crouched down and placed his hands on the ground, his hands glowing green. Reihu continued to charge forward as the ground started to glow green as well. He brought his arms up the ground under Reihu rose quickly. Reihu skidded to a stop and turned back into a human. He jumped off of the rock pillow and aimed towards Logan again. When another pillar of rock appeared in front of him, Reihu jumped punched through it and kept going. Logan continued to make pillar after pillar of rock appear in front of him, to shield him from Reihu until he was close enough.

Finally, when Reihu was less than ten feet away, Logan rose his arms in the air and two solid pillars of rock appeared at Reihu's sides and slammed together, crushing him. Logan dropped his arms and Reihu fell to the ground, unconscious.

Carlos dodged back and forth as Koto tried to rake his claws across his face. He bent backwards as Koto charged towards his face. Carlos pivoted on his back foot and punched a hand towards Koto. "Flamethrower!" he called and rush of flame erupted from his fist and shot towards Koto.

Koto jumped over the flames easily and head butted Carlos in the stomach with so much force that Carlos was thrown off of his feet and into the air. He landed on his back with a hard thud, his head connecting with the ground shortly after.

"Ah, it's a good thing I'm wearing my helmet." Carlos muttered to himself. He screamed in shock when he saw Koto, who was now a wolf, flying towards him, his teeth aimed for his neck. Carlos closed his eyes and all of a sudden felt heat all around his body accompanied by the sound of a wolf whimpering in pain. Carlos opened his eyes to see that he was entirely covered in flames, but nothing was being burnt.

Koto had hit Carlos as soon as he had burst into flames and was badly burnt. He lay on the ground a few meters away from Carlos, on his side, breathing heavily as he licked at his burns.

James and Kendall were fighting Tori and Tora side by side. At first Kendall looked at the twin girls and felt that he was fighting his sister, but when he realized that they were ruthless and wouldn't stop attacking them until they were killed, he knew that he had to do what he had to do, even if that included killing the two girls.

Tori and Tora were stronger than the two boys thought as they easily had the upper hand. Kendall's water attacks didn't help because all they would do was fly into the air and send them back to him by flapping their dragon wings really hard. The feeling of being hit with his own attack was just as bad as knowing that it was hard water hitting him. It was the worst pain that he had ever felt in his entire life. He felt like he was drowning. And unlike before where he enjoyed the feeling of water on his skin, he was practically crawling out of himself every time the water hit him. He vaguely remembered Sydney mentioning that whatever animal your guardian is you take some of its attributes. And because Kadin was a cheetah, a cat, it explained why he hated the feeling of water.

James did his best to try and save his friend, he blew every attack he knew at the twin girls, but they were able to easily maneuver themselves away from it. "Kendall," James hurried over to his friend after he was hit by his attack once more. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." Kendall replied, spitting out a stream of water. "I just don't understand why we can't hit them. They're always sending out attack back two-fold." He grabbed onto James' arm and allowed himself to get pulled to his feet. "I don't know what to do."

"That's a shock," James stated, joking a little. "You always think of everything."

"Well, right now I can't even-"Kendall stopped speaking and his eyes widened as he got an idea. His eyes darted around quickly and then he smiled. "I have an idea."

"Let me know and I'll follow your lead." James replied with a nod, watching as Tori and Tora circled overhead. Kendall quickly whispered the plan to him and he nodded. "Got it." He turned and cupped his hands together. "Razor Wind!" he called and thrush his arms forward.

A gust of wind with blasts of energy shot towards Tori and Tora. "You're going to try that again?" Tori shook her head in scorn as Tora narrowed her eyes, obviously feeling that something was wrong. "When will you ever learn?" Tori flapped her wings really hard and flew in a tight circle, a cyclone filling the air.

James' attack collided with her twister and was sent back towards him. James smiled as his attack came back towards him and he ducked at the last second, causing his attack to hit the fire hydrant behind him. The fire hydrant immediately imploded under the force of the attack and shot a geyser of water into the air.

That was exactly what Kendall had been hoping for. The geyser shot the water into the air and it cascaded over Tori and Tora as it fell back to the ground. Kendall's hands flowed blue and he waved his arms in an arc, causing the water in the fire hydrant to blow out even harder, as well as water come shooting out of the manhole cover that was nearby. He moved his hands together and the two geysers of water came together.

"Hurricane Gale!" James called and waved his arms around.

An even bigger gust of wind blew and combined forced with Kendall's geyser and it shot towards Tori and Tora and it hit them hard. Hard enough that it knocked them right out of the air and back to the ground. Kendall lowered his arms and the water fell harmlessly back to the ground.

"Harden!" He stated calmly and the droplets of water on Tori and Tora hardened into ice.

Koto growled and turned back into a human, grabbing onto his side, his clothes were steaming and he had a burn on his side. "Retreat!" He barked. Reihu, Tori, and Tora hesitated a second before doing as they were told and disappearing from sight as quick as a blink. Koto turned and glared at the boys before disappearing as well.

The boys stared in silence.

"We won?" Carlos asked, blinking rapidly. "I mean, we won!" He threw his hands into the air. "WHOO!" He shouted and he, James, and Kendall started to jump around, cheering.

"That was too easy." Logan was the only one that wasn't celebrating. He looked at the spot that the WingzCorp members were just standing and shook his head. "It's not over yet," Logan sighed, rubbing sweat off of his forehead. He took a deep breath. "I don't know why, but something tells me that this isn't over."

Three weeks has passed since Big Time Rush had fought against WingzCorp and won. Things had quieted down significantly and they seemed to have gone back to normal. They went to the recording studio and got yelled at almost every day (like usual) they hung out at the apartment so Mrs. Knight wouldn't think that anything was wrong. But she still had her suspicions about everything that was going on with them. But what they should have known was that things weren't going to stay normal for long.

"Hey guys, I'm back!" Kendall called as he walked into the apartment and took off his shoes, kicking them into the corner. James, Carlos, Logan, and Katie looked up from their game of cards as he walked into the room and waited for him to say something about his meeting with Jo.

When he didn't say anything, Katie cleared her throat and tossed her cards onto the table, not caring where they landed. "I'll bite, did you tell her or not, big bro?" she demanded.

Kendall gave her a sheepish smile and then shook his head. "No, I couldn't tell her what was going on." He ran his hands through his hair. "I really wanted to, just to explain what had happened to her, but I knew that she would look at me differently if I did and I couldn't stand the thought of her rejecting me or not being able to look me in the eye…" he trailed off. "I think right now it's a good idea if we just keep it between the five of us."

"You can't forget us either." Rhuben stated as she and her siblings walked into the room.

"So why is it that this time you didn't fly through the window or something?" James questioned as he raised an eyebrow.

"I know," Carlos placed his chin in his hand and shook his head. "That is so much cooler."

"Yeah, well, we didn't want to break anything like we did last time, Patrick" Riley stated sharply, turning to her brother.

"Meh," Patrick shrugged his shoulders. "The shattering sound was pretty cool."

"What are you guys doing here?" Logan asked, speaking up finally. "I figured that after the last battle you would be out of here."

"Did you not hear anything that Sydney told you?" Noah questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Just because they ran off like that doesn't mean that that's the end of WingzCorp." He shook his head. "It just means that they're going to wait for the perfect time to strike."

"Yeah," Riley nodded in agreement. "And since Syd has grown so attached to helping you guys," she looked over at Sydney who smiled so dimples appeared in his cheeks. "The rest of us knew that it was a good idea to help you as well."

"Besides, without us you would probably have burned down the Palm Woods by now." Sydney added with a sweet smile.

"You don't know how right you are about that one." Logan muttered as he looked over at Carlos with narrowed eyes. Carlos just smiled widely and waved at his friend. Logan had to laugh at that, even if he was being made fun of, Carlos was always going to have a smile on his face.

"But we don't want you think to think that this is over," Patrick warned. As he said that, a cold feeling washed over the boys. Patrick put his hand out and in a flash of yellow light; a spear appeared in his hands. "You may have won the battle," Patrick smiled a little as he turned his spear around and pointed it at the guys, his blue eyes slowing turning gold. "But you haven't won the war."

Katie looked around and smiled a little as the Jackson's hair and eye color started to change. Riley's black hair streaked red before it changed completely, along with her eyes turning a fiery red, Rhuben's hair lightened and turned purple as her blue eyes darkened, Noah's hair lightened to a silver color as his eyes turned silver as well, Sydney's hair turned to a medium shade of blue as his eyes shifted to a darker color. Katie turned to her brother and his friends and saw that their hair and eye colors were changing as well.

"Are you ready?" Sydney questioned.

To Be Continued…

A/N: So I decided to make chapter 22 (which is actually chapter 20) the final chapter of this story. But don't worry there is a sequel as you can guess from the final sentence of the story. It goes more into how the guys are elementals and it explains more of the back-story with the elementals and how the guys' powers evolve as well as them changing themselves. Next story is called Big Time Adventure II: Cryptic Words. Be on the lookout for it guys.

While you're waiting on it, check out our website for the DarkElements: http:/ thedarkelements . webs . com/ and our twitter for our profile so you can get updates and ask questions: http:/ twitter . com / DarkElements10 (except without the spaces, or just follow the links on our profile.)

Thanks

-Riley