CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Has anyone found anything yet?" Cindy asked glumly, pushing her hair out of her face with both of her hands. She then used her hands to push herself backwards, away from the computer that she was looking at and rubbed her eyes. "How is any of this going to help us, anyway?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, how is this going to help them?"

"If we knew that, then we would probably be looking harder than we already are." Caos pointed out. He turned his eyes to Reihu as he sat close to a computer screen, looking frustrated. "You might want to back up or your eyes are going to be completely ruined."

"I'm a lion; my eyesight can never be ruined." Reihu replied with a slow smile. He pushed himself backwards all the same. "But it probably is a good idea that we take a break." He added and then got up from his seat, rubbing his eyes. "Is everyone else around?"

"Somewhere watching TV or in their rooms." Cindy concurred. "And last I saw, Kuroko and Kagenui were in the gym."

Reihu nodded quietly.

He raised his arms over his head, stretching from his head all the way down to his feet in one fluid motion. His jaws opened wide and he let out a slightly animalistic growl as his tongue lolled out of his mouth. When he finished stretching his twisted his body from the sides and scratched his back.

"Take a break guys, we'll come back to it later." He said with a wave of his hand.

"Since when are you in charge?" Cindy asked in annoyance as she and Caos got up from the computers that they were sitting behind. She shook out her hair before training her eyes on him, bags evident under them. "If case you're forgetting you're not even the leader of the DarkLions, so you shouldn't be telling me or Caos what to do."

"Yeah, well, when Core gives you a job you usually do it." Reihu said with a shrug as the three started to leave the computer room.

"Only thing is, we don't take orders from Core anymore, he doesn't care enough about what we do that we should take orders from him." Caos said patiently. "But, at the same time, I'm interested to see what the Element Stone does to the others, so it may be a good thing that we are doing this." He said the last part, turning to Cindy. "But we won't know for sure unless we see it for ourselves."

"And that's why we need to get it first."

Reihu, Caos, and Cindy turned around to see Core striding into the room with a determined look on his face. Zack, Cody, and the others followed after him, looking confused, but there was no mistaking the determination coming from them as well.

"What are you doing here?" Caos asked as they group approached the three of them.

"Getting work done." Core replied simply. "If you will, you can spread this to everyone else later." He added as he grabbed a computer chair and wheeled himself over to a computer.

Cindy snorted. "And why should we listen to you? You used us and abandoned us, remember?" The hurt was evident in her voice. It wasn't that she even particularly liked Core when she was part of WingzCorp, before it disbanded. But he was the only authority figure that she knew and could look up to, so she did everything he asked. But when the truth came out that he was just using them for whatever he needed, she and the rest of WingzCorp wondered what they were going to do with their lives. They had been taking from their homes and experimented on, and then dropped like a hot potato.

Who would trust someone like that?

Reihu walked over to Rhuben and gave her a hug. She held her arms to her side as he rubbed his cheek on her head, a purring sound coming from deep in his chest. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop doing that?" Rhuben asked as she blushed lightly, giving him a quick hug before backing away.

"Sorry, can't help it," Reihu shrugged and pointed over to Core. "Blame him." He then turned to the rest of the group. "How…how are you guys?" He asked.

He wasn't that good of friends with them, but after the last battle when he had helped them significantly, he knew that they accepted him. Zack and Cody were the first ones to do so, though Reihu would think that for Zack it was out of guilt, knowing that Koto was Reihu's best friend (not that any of them said it out loud) and he had given up his life to make sure that Zack survived the fight that he was in against Ashley. Reihu refused to think or talk about it; it just made things too hard. So after getting his assignment from Core to go and look for clues as to where the Element Stone was, he immediately went to it, hardly sleeping just to get things done.

"We're doing as well as could be expected, Reihu," Bailey replied with a nod and a small smile. "Thanks for asking."

"And no one answered my question," Caos pointed out. "What are you all doing here?"

"I'm sure you've heard at this point that the government is, like, taking over the city." Sydney spoke up, wringing his hands together. "Well, that and the fact that we're starting to get out powers back very slowly, it's getting to the point that we can't really stay in Boston anymore."

Beside him, Reihu felt Rhuben stiffen. He looked over at her and she kept her face blank, although her hands were clenched into fists. She then slowly reached out and grabbed onto Reihu's hand, tilting her head to look at him. He recognized that look; there was something that she needed to tell him. And from the fact that she hadn't spoken up, it had to be something really important.

Reihu kept his mouth shut as he turned back and nodded at Sydney.

"It's at the pint that some agents from the government had tracked Zack, Rhuben, and Patrick down at a grocery store and attacked them." Christian added. "And some footage has been on the news about us, so if they know about us, they're going to know about you, too." He said to them, giving fair warning. "You probably won't be able to go out as much as you did before."

Caos snorted. "You think we actually leave this place?" He gave a wry smile. "But we just loved it so much."

"Caos knock it off," Riley said patiently, her arms over her chest. "We know that this is the last place that you guys would want to be, and we know that Core is the last person that you would want to help. But if you help him, you're not only helping us, you're helping yourselves as well. If we can figure everything out with this prophecy and this thing that you guys are dealing with, and figuring out what exactly is taking over our guardians from the Element world, then things can relatively go back to normal for us. And you can live like normal people."

That shut Caos up; he merely looked away from her.

Silence fell over the room, though Core's fingers flying over the keys of the computer that he was sitting at cut through the silence. There were so many questions, from both sides, that needed to be asked; but what they wanted to know the most is what was Core looking for and how was it going to help them. Crystal looked over at her father, who stood behind Core, his face illuminated in the glow of the computer screen. She had never seen him look so tired and so distraught before. It was really kind of scary, but it put everything into perspective.

It was all on the line now.

"This," Core dramatically turned his screen around to show a gem that seemed to shine in all colors of the rainbow. "Is an Element Stone."

"An Element Stone?" Zack repeated. "Like, a fancy gem that you can use to pay with?" He shrugged. "Is it the kind of currency that they use in the Element world?" He asked.

"That's a good guess," Core managed a tiny smile. "But no, it holds a lot of power for an Elemental if they get a hand on it. And there are many of them, there's one for Fire, Water, Thunder, etc. etc." He cleared his throat. "This is the one that we're looking for," he nodded his head over to Reihu. "And it's what he's been doing this whole time.

Reihu nodded as Sydney turned and looked at him curiously.

"You said that it has a lot of power," Noah said with a frown. "If there's more than one, does it go to a specific elemental? And does it significantly increase their power?"

"If you have an Element Stone, you're almost invincible." Christian replied.

"So what are we waiting for?" Zack cried, leaping to his feet, his blue-green eyes shining with excitement. "Let's go find that sucker and win."

"Against whom?" Cody asked his brother patiently. "We don't know who the prophecy is talking about, who is keeping our guardians from coming back to us, who is taking them over when they do come back to us." He shook his head, frustrated. "You got shot in your knee just yesterday; I don't think we should be rushing into anything right now." He added.

Zack scowled and looked away, crossing his arms over his chest as he let out a breath through his nose. He set his jaw, clearly not sued to not having the final say in a situation.

"That's the thing," Core laced his fingers together. "No one knows where they are," the side of his jaw twitched before he continued. "And if they fall into the wrong hands, it can be trouble."

"The worst part is-"

"How can it get worse?" Patrick asked, interrupting his uncle with a dry laugh. "I think we're already on the worse side of our situation."

"If," Core held up a finger, making sure that he had everyone's attention. "Someone who had good intentions of the Element Stone finds it and acquires it," he paused once more. "They can easily go drunk with power and create chaos and destruction without realizing the limit to their power."

"So we're trying to find it, but we have to be careful of who gets it to use it?" Crystal asked. She rolled her eyes. "You know, because nothing can be easy for us."

"I was about to say." Rhuben agreed. Her eyes narrowed for a moment. "And you haven't found anything yet?" She asked. Core, Christian, Reihu, Caos, and Cindy all shook their heads. "So that's what we were looking for when we were at home, too." She rubbed her chin. "I think we should give Julius a call, he might be able to get back into Dad's office and find something that we couldn't find before."

"But you're going to have to make sure that he knows to send anything he finds directly to us." Core replied, motioning between himself and Christian, who nodded as well. Core looked at his watch. "Anyway, I'm sure that you're all tired of the journey to get through, so you may want to get some sleep."

"You want us to sleep at a time like this?!" Zack demanded.

"Trust us," Christian replied firmly. "It's better that you get used to sleep now, you may not get a lot of it later."

"Kitchen, kitchen, where is that kitchen?" Bailey muttered to herself as she wandered the halls of WingzCorp. She let out a sigh of disappointment when she turned a corner and found herself wandering down another set of hallways. It seemed that no matter which way she turned, she wasn't any closer to finding what she was looking for. How can anyone actually live here?

"You looking for the kitchen too?" Bailey turned around and smiled as Tapeworm walked up to her. She nodded and he laughed. "Yeah, I was looking for that and the weight room, too." He gave a sheepish smile. "I haven't been working as much as I should and since everything is starting to fall to shit around here…"

"I hear ya." Bailey agreed, flushing slightly as the two started to walk together.

She didn't know why, but she seemed to blush anytime someone cursed, a physical and obvious way of her body showing her discomfort about it. She never got the point of people cursing, but in times like this, his statement did make sense. Everything was going to shit; it was like they couldn't catch a break.

"It's really ironic that this is the second time that we came here when we needed help." Tapeworm continued. "Especially because of everything that had happened to us in the past couple of years." He cracked his knuckles. "Now there's this business with the Element Stones and the fact that you could let the power corrupt you, it's like-"

"Are you sure?"

Bailey stopped walking and held out her arm, causing Tapeworm to crash into it, back peddling a few spaces. He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but Bailey moved her finger to her lips and crouched over slightly, moving towards the room where the door was cracked open.

"This is Core's office," Tapeworm whispered to her. "We shouldn't be-"

He stopped when he heard Core speak up. "Yes, Christian, I'm sure. The Element Stone…the government has it."

"Fuck." Christian cursed and then a loud sound accompanied it, causing Bailey and Tapeworm to jump. "How did they get it?"

"We can't worry about that now; we have to worry about getting it back before they figure out the power that it holds. I don't think they have any idea of that so far, but that may not be the case for that much longer." There was a lengthy pause. Bailey held her breath, hoping that the two grown men didn't hear them outside.

"Element Stone?" Tapeworm repeated from beside her. Bailey looked at him and shrugged. He leaned even closer to the door, listening hard.

"At least it's only one of them," Christian said, probably trying to reassure Core. But Bailey and Tapeworm could hear the anxiety in his voice. Then there was the sound of footsteps, he had to have been pacing back and forth as Core sat in the chair behind his desk. "If they got all of them, then that would be catastrophic. Hell, no one knows where the other ones are even in existence at this point."

"I know we need that one Element Stone." Core agreed.

There was another lengthy pause. Christian's footsteps had stopped and then there was the sound of a sharp intake of breath.

"We can't send any of them in there," Christian suddenly said. "That's complete suicide!"

"I know," Core said patiently. "That's why I'm going."

Bailey heard Tapeworm sigh from beside her. She turned to look at him, her lips pressed firmly together. Tapeworm studied her face and then slowly shook his head. "We're going to follow him, aren't we?" He asked.

"Yep."

A/N: In my head this chapter was longer, but such is I finally got the back-story things that I wanted done, and now the story goes back to focus on Bailey. And because Tapeworm has a big part to this story as well (besides Zack and Cody of course) you're going to see a lot more of him. Hopefully I can maintain good face-time for everyone as there's a lot of people to include as the story goes on.

I hope you guys liked this chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles