A/N: I want to thank WoundedHeart's for betaing as always and Renny for the inspiration for this story and allowing me to use her as a character here.

Chapter 4: Flashes of Lightning

"Good night Bailey," Cody said as he gently kissed her cheek. After their perfect night in Paris, they barely made their way back to the ship in time. Now they stood in front of Bailey's cabin counting the seconds they had left until curfew would separate them and end the most incredible night of their lives.

"Tomorrow at six, right?" she said confirming their dinner plans in the town where they were docked.

"Of course, I look forward to seeing you there," he said sweetly.

"Night Cody," she said closing the door behind her.

As the younger twin walked back to his room, he knew there was one other person he had to see before resting after such an exciting day, Zack. There were times when his brother annoyed him to no end. But then there were other times such as this one, where he was truly grateful for having Zack as his brother and best friend.

Once he reached his twin's room, he knocked, hoping he hadn't already fallen asleep.

"So how was your night?" the older twin asked as he opened the door, knowing the answer as soon as he saw the smile cross Cody's face.

"Zack you're awesome! I love you so much I could kiss you!"

"Thanks, but I think you should save the kissing for Bailey."

"You know what I mean," Cody said as he embraced his brother in a hug. "So how did you pull it off?"

"Well, it first involved talking to London to see if she knew how Bailey felt about you. It turns out she was just as crazy about you, and just as scared to say anything and ruin your friendship. I was able to convince London to help pay for everything when I told her that if you two were going out, she'd have the room to herself more often. Then there was the matter of making sure the top of the tower was empty which was managed with some complaints to the health inspector and a short term stink bomb made sure no one else would try to get up there. You'll have to thank Woody for that part of the plan."

"So it wasn't just you," the younger twin said finally pulling away from his brother.

"Cody, I wasn't going to let you blow it with Bailey due to me not planning everything right. I figured I'd let your own dorkiness take care of that."

"Thanks, I think…"

"Well, it's getting late and that big history paper is due tomorrow so you should probably be getting back to your room."

"I finished several days ago."

"Well that makes one of us, so get out of my room so I can get to writing.

"Okay, see you tomorrow Zack."

After class that day, Zack went to his job at the ship's smoothie bar. He looked around the deck for his brother the towel boy, but he was nowhere to be found. It was then that he remembered Cody had the day off. "Probably off with his new girlfriend discussing calculus or something boring like that," he said to himself while throwing various fruits into the blender. If there was one thing he loved about the job other than flirting with all the girls, it was the free drinks he could make for himself whenever Moseby wasn't around.

"Hey Zack!"

"Oh hi Addiso-"

"Did you know that Cody and Bailey are going out now wow talk about a surprise who would have thought that he would be the first one of you to actually get a girlfriend on bored especially with you flirting with everyone on-"

"Addison, what can I get you?" Zack said, breaking through her very hyper rant.

"Um, give me a smoothie with strawberry, orange, mango, grape, watermelon, banana, blueberry, raspberry, and apple."

"Got it, one of everything," Zack said tossing everything but the kitchen sink into the blender. He wondered how something this odd would turn out, so he made a note to make one for himself later. "Okay next," Zack said turning to Kirby who was next in line. "No Kirby, we don't have bacon smoothies."

"I still say you should add it, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here for the five dollars you owe me."

"Oh hang on a sec," Zack said putting a hand in his pocket to grab his wallet. "Uh-oh."

"You don't have it?" The security guard asked.

"My wallet's missing."

"Well where is it?"

"I'm pretty sure when I said it was missing that meant I didn't know." Zack tried thinking back to the last couple days to see when he could have lost it. If he had it last night, he would have put it in his shoe along with his phone when he went to bed, which meant he had to have lost it sometime during the previous day. He had it when he tried to impress Stacy by buying her that snow globe. Then after that he went to Moseby's office to hack the computer system to make sure all the pairs were set up for the field trip along with changing a couple of his grades. He remembered having to hide under the desk when Moseby came in to check something, which meant it probably fell out of his pocket then. "I got it!"

"The money?"

"No but I'll have it for you tomorrow." Zack knew he had to get the wallet out of Moseby's office before he found it or the manager would send him to military school for sure. Even so, he couldn't leave the smoothie bar with all the customers coming. He'd need some help to pull this off.

He pulled out his phone to call his friends. "Hey Woodchip, can you do me a favor?"

"Not now Zack. It was a bad idea to eat 28 scrambled eggs for breakfast."

Zack quickly hung up the phone not wanting any more details of his friend's ordeal. He decided Cody would be his next best bet, especially after what he did for his brother last night, Cody couldn't say no. "Zack, I thought you were working?" he answered.

"Yeah, but I kind of need your help with something."

"What is it?"

"Can you sneak into Moseby's office and get my wallet?"

"I'm supposed to meet Bailey in town for dinner soon."

"Don't worry, it won't take long. Just when you see him leave the office, run in and get it from under his desk them bring it to me."

"How do you know he is going to leave?"

"Don't worry about it, I know people."

He quickly hung up his phone before his brother could say no and dialed the next number on it. "Reney, it's time for operation S-M-O-D."

"Do you have what I want?"

"Don't worry; you'll be close enough to feel his opponent's blood."

"Awesome, I'll get my sombrero and be up there soon."

"Moseby, we've got a problem on the sky deck," a frantic Kirby said bursting into the manager's office.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Well a teenage guest is singing very loudly on top of the hot tub while dancing with a sombrero, and she is scaring the guests away."

"And why didn't you stop her?" he said, annoyed that his security officer couldn't handle something as simple as this.

"She scares me too," Kirby honestly replied, "And I figure you're the scariest person on the ship, so you could probably handle it."

Moseby looked down at the pile of papers, knowing he wouldn't be able to finish them with all the interruptions, but he also knew the only way to get Kirby to leave him alone was to fix this mess himself. "Fine, I'll take care of it," he said exiting the room with Kirby following behind him.

"I don't want to know what Zack has going on up there," Cody said to himself as he watched the two leave the office. He knew Zack had found some way to get Moseby to leave his office, but he didn't know how, and frankly he didn't want to know.

Once he was sure that the two were gone, he ran to the office door and tried opening it, but to no avail. He then pulled Zack's master key out of his pocket and opened the door with it wondering how Zack managed to acquire all these strange things. He was glad that he got it from his brother earlier though after that cell phone incident.

After quickly checking under Moseby's desk, he found Zack's signature duct tape wallet. Cody was a little surprised at how well Zack's plan worked, but wasn't complaining. He left the room, careful not to disturb anything else and made his way back to the sky deck.

'I remember black skies, the lightning all around me

I remember each flash as time began to blur

Like a startling sign fate had finally found me

And you're voice was all I heard, that I get what I deserve'

Reney's singing of Linkin Park's New Divide filled the sky deck, overpowering the sound of any conversations. Small children hid behind their parents and the squeamish fled for cover.

"Ma'am you need to calm down and stop scaring away the other guests," Moseby said trying to appease the possibly mentally unstable teen.

"SHHUUTTTT UUUPPP!" she yelled before finding a metal chair and demonstrating a new way to use it, while at the same time giving the manager a severe headache.

"Kirby, restrain her!" Moseby ordered.

"Are you ready?" she said with a smirk before sprinting away with the security guard chasing after her and Moseby threatening various means of illegal punishments.

"Was that your doing?" Cody asked only catching the end of Reney's strange actions.

"Well I traded her front row seats to wrestle mania in exchange for helping get Moseby out of his office."

"Yep, nothing like a crazed teenage girl with a weird obsession for grown men beating the crap out of each other, to come and save the day." Reney said stopping temporarily in front of the smoothie bar. "Anyway, send the tickets to my room, where I'm sure I'll be for the rest of this cruise."

"You have some strange friends," Cody said.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way," Zack responded, "Anyway, don't you have a date with Bailey tonight?"

"Yeah, I'm supposed to meet her at 6 for dinner in town."

"You realize it's already 5:58," the older twin said looking down at his watch.

"Crap, I can't believe I'm going to be late for my first date with her."

"Well all you need to do is get some flowers and tell her that you were trying hard to find ones perfect enough to match her beauty." Zack suggested. "Since you're late do to helping me, I'll even buy them for you."

"Oh, thanks Zack. Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?"

"Does there have to be a hidden motive, can't I just help my twin brother out of the goodness of my heart?"

"Zack, what did you do?" Cody eyed him with suspicion while fear filled his body.

"Um, let's go get those flowers," Zack said dragging his twin with him to the elevator, hoping to distract him from any further interrogation. "I remember seeing a nice flower shop near where the boat is docked."

"Great then I can give them to her outside the birthplace of Gabriel Monod the famous historian before we head to one of their famous authentic French cafés," Cody said as he and his brother headed down toward the exit of the boat.

"Only you would turn a date into studying."

"Come on, what's taking so long?" Zack asked as his brother carefully examined each flower in the store's cooler. "Just get her a dozen roses and she'll be happy."

"I'm trying to find the perfect Lily since it is the national flower of France."

"Such a dork," he mumbled to himself. "What about these?" Zack picked up a bundle of flowers, hoping his brother would be satisfied with them.

"Zack, those are carnations."

"Close enough, right? Besides we don't want to keep your lovely lady waiting any longer."

"You're right," Cody said before grabbing the flowers he was examining and heading for the door.

"Good, I just want to get out of this cold room."

"Uh, Zack, the door won't open," Cody said as he tried turning the knob but it was stuck.

"You just have to put some muscle into it," Zack said as he too tried fiddling with the handle, but to no avail.

"You think Bailey will believe that we were stuck in a cooler of a flower shop. So that's why I missed our date?" Cody asked sitting on the floor trying to think of a way out of this.

"All we have to do is break out of here and you won't have to worry about that. Now help me ram the door."

Cody nodded and he and his brother backed up against the far side of the room and ran at the door as fast as they could, slamming into it with enough force to throw them onto their backs. However, the door remained shut.

"Any ideas that don't involve hurting myself?" Cody asked as he got back to his feet while rubbing his bruised shoulder.

"Just one." Zack said. He walked to the door and began pounding on it as hard as he could while screaming, "Help, help, it's cold, my brother will kill me if he's late for his date, so get me out of here!"

For once, Cody had to agree with Zack and began screaming too, hoping that someone would hear them. "Well, what do we have here?" a man said from the other side of the door.

"Thanks goodness, can you let us out of here?" Zack said with relief filling both twins.

"Don't worry, you will be out of there soon enough," the stranger said.

However, unlike the door opening like they thought, the room began to shake, throwing both twins to the ground. "What was that?" Cody asked. A burst of thunder filled their ears, and the lights in the room went out. "This could be bad," the younger twin said trying to figure out what was going on.

"Cody, look," Zack said pointing up at the ceiling.

"Is that light?"

"I think that's actually fire," Zack said running to the door and trying to force it open but still to no avail. The fire was small, only burning in the upper corner of the room, but it seemed to be growing.

"There's one there too!" Cody exclaimed while pointing to the opposite corner.

"This could be bad," Zack said as fear and worry began consuming him.

The younger twin looked around for something to put it out, deciding that the water the flowers were resting in would work. He tossed the flowers on the floor and threw the water onto the fire, but to his surprise, the flame only grew. "Uh-oh." he nervously backed away from the fire and closer to Zack, who still couldn't get the door open.

"Let us out!" Zack screamed. The twins were blown away from the door when it too became engulfed in flames. "Dang that hurts," he said sticking his burnt hand into a nearby watering can to quell the raging pain.

"What's going on Zack?" Cody asked, fear filling every syllable.

"I…I don't know." With the door in front of them enflamed along with the wall behind them, they saw no way out. "Is there an air vent or something we can get to, so we can crawl out of here?" Zack asked, frantically searching the room for any means of escape. The fire was growing at an alarming rate, spreading to all four walls. What was once a cold room now was sweltering hot, causing sweat to pour down both twins' bodies.

"Up there!" Cody screamed pointing to the vent.

"Cody, get on my shoulders and get up there," Zack ordered.

"What about you?"

"Just get out to the lobby and find a fire extinguisher or call the fire department or something then we can both get out of here."

"Okay," Cody said, not wanting to leave his brother but knew they didn't have a choice. Zack crouched down, allowing Cody to climb on top of him before carefully standing up. Between the raging heat all around them and the weight on his shoulders, he was far from comfortable, but if he could get Cody away safely, it would all be worth it. Nothing else mattered.

The younger twin began pulling the vent cover off, but once he finally got it off, he fell backwards knocking both him and Zack to the ground. They landed on their heads, causing the room to spin. Combined with the heat, they felt their vision start to fade. "I'm scared Zack."

"Me too buddy."

To be continued…

A/N: Now do you believe I'd write something like this?