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Chapter Twenty; The Beginning of the End

The trio had announced that they had decided to stay for a while, if it was okay with the group. Everybody was except for White Knight, who still was against the idea of taking on three more teenagers. After, look what trouble one has caused, why take on more? But after promising to help out against Providence and any EVO threats. Knight still wasn't happy about it but stopped voicing his opinion.

Some of that might have been that they really hadn't caused any problems, if you excluded Oliver's absence and Amyna's waffle incident. But they had settled into routine at the base, one of training, cleaning, sometimes a school lesson from Holiday and then usually goofing off with Rex. There had even been a small EVO outbreak on the fourth day that Onier and Oliver got to tag along for, though Amyna had opted to stay back and assist the Doc.

All in all, everything had been relatively quiet. And with the amount of people in residence, the teens began to get restless. So Rex had suggested a pizza partly at one of the parlor's in town to break the monotony. A request which was promptly denied by Knight.

Yet they still found their way to the place, thanks to a certain chimp lifting Holiday's wallet and providing a 'distraction.' Both of which he did with a slightly. . . concerning smile. Luckily they were gone before he began whatever plan he had hatched was far behind them by the time they had found their way to a small pizzas parlor and got a booth.

"What's your guess on Bobo's distraction?" Amyna took a big bite of the pizza slice that she had taken from large one sitting in the middle of the table.

"Probably something with explosives. Or sewage." Rex shuddered at the thought of the repercussions of letting Bobo go nuts with his job. "Or both."

"I swear, if its anything like the after affects of Myna's waffles, then I'm not sure I want to head back." Onier swiped the last piece of pepperoni from her plate.

"Hey, they weren't that bad! And stop calling me that." Amyna huffed as she tried to retrieve her pizza slice from where Onier held it just out of her reach, taunting her. "Help, you two! He took my pizza!"

"Nah, it's too entertaining. For the record, my money's on Onier." Oliver laughed as he and Rex split up the remaining cheese slices, utilizing the other twos distraction. "And I doubt we'll ever get all the batter down from the ceiling."

"You're making it sound worse than it was!" The culprit defended, sticking her tongue out Oliver and subsequently not watching Onier who began to eat the unguarded disputed pizza.

"I think even Doc's cake looks appetizing after that display of cooking. . .skills." Rex chipped in with a laugh. With a side wards glance to Oliver, he quickly took one slice as the white haired teen took the other.

"It wasn't that bad! They were still edible. Mostly. . .hey! You guys finished off the pizza!" Realization dawned on the techy as she looked around the the table at the others with a betrayed look on her face. "Jerks."

"Well, we might have enough money to get another pizza," Rex looked into the pilfered wallet. "Who's for it?"

Everybody threw their hands up in the air, displaying their approval of the plan. Or at least until Rex's com went off. He quickly snatched it up 'just in case' prior to sneaking out and now it appeared that had payed off, since they were using the emergency frequency.

Rex answered with a sigh, "Que pasa, Holiday?. . . Yeah. . . ah, crap. . . this thing has a speaker phone mode on it?! Seriously? . . . Yeah, yeah, I'm doing it."

The Hispanic teen took out his ear big, as the rest hadn't received one yet, and placed it on the table. As he did so Holidays voice came over the speakers. "Alright, breaks over, sorry. We've got EVO readings popping up all over the city. Four sites in total. Bobo and Six are already en route to the first one. A small Providence squad is handling another. I need you four to get the last two. The first is on Main Street in the industrial district. The other is also on the other side of town, by an old abandoned StarMart."

"Divide and conquer?" Oliver suggested, quickly working out the best groups. Amyna and Onier both work together extremely well and could subdue the E.V.O.s until Rex could cure them. That left Rex and himself for the other one. "Two teams. Rex and I for one, Amyna and Onier for the other?"

"Sounds good to me," The purple hair E.V.O agreed, "Onier and I will take Providence cycles and check out the StarMart."

Onier shrugged and followed her before Rex or Oliver could get a word in edgewise. The former formed his Rex ride and turned to the latter. "Guess we're stuck with Main. You need a lift?"

"Guess so. But actually, I've been meaning to try something." Oliver closes his eyes and outstretched his hand, focusing intently. Eventually, a slab of earth just large for the teen to stand on rosé up and he hopped on, still keeping sharp focus so it wouldn't drop. "I got my own lift."

"Just keep up, hermano!" Rex smirked as he had sped off, leaving Oliver struggling to follow with his newly created 'transportation'.

"No fair, bro," Oliver yelled, trying to keep up as his flying bit of earth swerved quite a bit more than was desirable. But he managed to catch up and keep with Rex.

That is until the duo heard an explosion back from the direction they had come from. They both swung around in a U-turn to face smoke curling up from the top of one of the buildings.

"Rex you keep on Main, I'll take care of this," Oliver stated, flying back to the building.

"But shouldn't we-"

"I'll be fine, Rex. It's just one little E.V.O." The elemental teen shot back with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Though it might not be an E.V.O, he thought grimly, remembering his encounter Nightwrath, one of his hands going up instinctively to the flash drive that hung by his neck. No, he was just paranoid.

Gritting his teeth, Oliver ascended the derelict building that the explosion had originated from. He quickly reached the roof and discarded his makeshift surfboard, the chunk of stone and dirt crumbling as soon as he stopped controlling it. Quickly lighting both fists on fire, he scanned the rooftop until a figure stepped out of the smoke, red sword in hand, and torn cloak billowing,

"Nightwrath."

Author's Note; Look at that, an update almost in reasonable time. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as the story gets closer to the climax and thanks for all your support. Until next update, Baldore out!