CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Run! Run!"

"Where are we running to, exactly?"

Bailey slowed down before skidding around a corner, knowing that if she didn't slow down her momentum, she would have crashed right into the wall. Tapeworm raced after her, looking over his shoulder to be sure if they were still being followed. He could hear the footsteps frantically running after them.

"Anywhere but here," Bailey replied, slowing down a little as they passed by a couple more rooms. Tapeworm, using his enhanced speed, checked each room, finding them locked, before he was running at Bailey's side again. "Something tells me that these people weren't happy that they found us in that room."

"Gee, I wonder why," Tapeworm replied sarcastically. "I mean we only broke into the place and have no clue where we're going. That and these people obviously want us for something, though I'm not sure what."

"When are we ever sure?" Bailey questioned.

"That's true," Tapeworm replied.

Bailey slowed down, trying to think of what to do. Her heart was thudding against her chest, sweat was pouring down her forehead, and for once in her life she didn't know what to do. They were being chased around the State House, which was bigger than she thought. If life was back to normal, she would have been so excited to be in there, looking at the structure and the architecture of the place. Now she was getting a grand tour at warp speed, not being able to stop or else they would be stuck.

Think Bailey, think. You can't help your friends if you get caught.

"What are they even chasing us for?" Tapeworm asked. "I didn't know that anyone knew that we were in here."

"That's the point," Bailey replied, putting her hands on her knees. "They probably have hidden security cameras or just have people that are constantly scouting this place to see if we were in here." Her eyes suddenly widened. "They probably have the others too!" She started to lift her watch to her mouth, but then stopped, remembering that they didn't have their powers. "Shoot, we can't contact them."

"Maybe not, but it's probably not a good idea to-"

"Freeze!"

Tapeworm sighed, clearly annoyed. He turned back to the men that had their guns out, pointed towards the two of them. "I seriously should just do something rather than suggest it." He studied the two men in front of him and then made a face as he lowered his arms. "What am I doing?"

"Uh," Bailey looked at Tapeworm out of the corner of her eye, her arms up above her head. "Saving your own life?" She whispered out of the side of her mouth as the two men slowly walked towards them. "Put your hands back up!"

"Bullets can't hurt us," Tapeworm replied. "At least, not as badly as they would want. If anything, because of our enhanced powers, it'll probably just feel like a bug bite."

"Do you really want to test that theory?" Bailey asked, lowering her arms slightly.

"I said freeze!" The man on the left said, holding his gun tightly in his hands. He moved it back and forth from Bailey to Tapeworm. "Don't move and you won't get hurt." He looked at his partner before slowly moving towards the two teenagers. "We know why you're here."

Doubt it. Bailey kept her hands up above her head. How much could they possibly know? She and Tapeworm had gotten there a couple of days ago. For the most part, they had been staying in an empty room of the State House with no problems; they hadn't made enough noise for anyone to think that they were there.

"We're not going to hurt you as long as you decide to come with us," The man continued to speak, slowly taking a step towards them. "We know that you want the stone." Bailey and Tapeworm exchanges glances. "This is what you want," the man reached into his pocket and when he pulled his hand out, his hand was glowing a bright right. He turned his wrist over and opened his hand, revealing a red stone that glowed in his palm. His partner continued to watch and Bailey and Tapeworm. "We'll give it to you as long as you help us."

Bailey's eyes narrowed. This has to be some sort of a trick.

"It doesn't seem like a trick," Geneva's voice said in Bailey's head.

"This man seems sincere," Gattaca added.

Why would he just give us the stone then? Bailey looked at Tapeworm again and he gave her a confused look in reply, which probably mimicked the expression that was on her own face. She was curious, but she was on edge as well.

"Why do you want us to help you?" Bailey asked, trying to call the man's bluff.

"Because we know what you are and we know that you can help save the world," the man continued. "You all don't know this, we aren't even supposed to tell you, but we're running out of time." He licked is lips and looked over at his partner, whose eyes were still on Bailey and Tapeworm. "We're not keeping you hostage to hurt you, we're keeping you hostage to help us. We know that the Earth is being attacked, we've seen it coming for years."

"Years?" Tapeworm took a step back. He stood up straight. "Tell us everything you know!"

"We can't tell you everything; we just need you to tell us that you'll help us," the man continued. "That's all that we can tell you so far. We can't say anything else, it's not the time. But we only have weeks at best before we don't have any time left and the world will be destroyed. Please!"

"All right," Tapeworm nodded over at Bailey and she lowered her arms. "What do you want us to do?"

Before the man could answer, his partner reacted, pointing his gun towards Bailey. It was more like the side of her head, but from her vantage point, he was pointing directly at her. Fearing that it was a trap, Bailey pulled the Element gun from her pocket and fired, not risking a chance to look at the bullets that were inside. Bailey and Tapeworm were thrown off of their feet as a rush of fire erupted from the gun and shot down the hall, enveloping the two men in seconds. A roar of hot wind blew back at the two of them, causing them to cover their faces with their arms.

All of a sudden, Bailey felt a bubble form around her head and she was pulled backwards by her arms. When the bubble disappeared, she looked up to see Cody standing above her, helping her to her feet. Crystal had grabbed onto Tapeworm and was doing the same.

"C'mon, we have to get out of here!" Zack called over the roar of the flames. His eyes were squinted against the bright glare of the flames.

"No!" Bailey cried, remembering that the men had a stone. "You have got back there," she said to Zack. "You have to get the stone!"

"What stone?" Zack shouted back.

"The dude, he had a gem," Tapeworm explained. "A stone or something. He was saying that it was one of the Element Stones. He said that they're trying to help us, not hurt us." At Zack's hesitation and Cody's incredulous look, Tapeworm shook his head. "It doesn't matter now what they said, we need to be sure that that stone is the real deal."

Zack turned to Cody, who thought quickly, biting his lower lip. Finally, he turned back to his older brother and nodded. "All right, go, quickly."

"Wait," Crystal reached out and grabbed onto Zack's arm. "Cody and I can try and put out the flames to be sure that you don't get hurt." She ignored Tapeworm's and Bailey's confused glances. "But you're still going to need to cover your mouth and node. It's not fire that kills people, its smoke." Zack nodded and pulled off his shirt, trying it around his mouth. "If you get too much smoke, your lungs will swell up, they'll fill with fluid."

"How much is too much?" he asked, his voice muffled by the cloth.

Crystal shrugged. "I don't know everything."

"Besides, your power makes it that, for the most part, you're able to whist and fire," Patrick reminded him. "So if you go in and out, you'll get the stone," he looked over at Bailey and Tapeworm. "Or whatever it really is and we can go before we bring more attention to ourselves." As soon as he finished, the sprinklers went off. Cody raised his hands and the water move around them as if there was an umbrella over their heads. "Spoke too soon."

"You always do," Zack replied, making sure that he had his shirt tied tightly around his mouth before disappearing.

"Wait," Tapeworm turned back to the others. "When did you guys get your powers back? Where your guardians taken over?"

"We don't know why we got them back," Cody said honestly. "All we know is what our guardians said. Apparently there are these things back in the Element world, called Arboris that are really strong that are attacking everyone there." He flicked his wet hair out of his face, looking troubled. "They tried to stop our guardian when they came back to us. So there really is something out there that we have to stop."

"But stop from what?" Bailey asked, nearly in a whisper.

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it?" Cody said, raising an eyebrow. He nodded towards the flames. "What was going on with them?"

"Apparently," Bailey paused for a moment, knowing how crazy what she was about to say was. "The government didn't take us to be tested on or anything. They want us to help them. My guess is that if what you said is correct, they probably know about the thing in the Element World and they want us to help get rid of it."

"But why?" Aaron piped up from next to Crystal. His eyes were trained on Bailey, Cody, and Tapeworm. "Why wouldn't they have come and try to help us before? What's so important about doing it now?"

"They said that time is running out now and if we don't do something soon, it'll be too late." Bailey said.

She looked down and noticed that she still had the Element gun in her hands. She stretched her arm out, her hand starting to shake. It wasn't an actual gun, not the ones that she was used to seeing on TV or in movies, but it still scared her. There was so much power in the gun that she had fired; she had probably just incinerated the two men that were just begging them for help. Who knew what kind of power the other bullets had.

Patrick must have noticed her discomfort because he reached out and took the gun, tucking it into the back of his pants.

"They might be talking about the balance between the two worlds," Cody said.

"Mm-mm," Crystal shook her head, her hand on her chin. "I don't think that's it. If it was the balance between the two worlds, then they wouldn't have jumped us and took us from WingzCorp." She placed her hands on her hips. "There had to be something else that they want us to help them with."

"But can we trust them?" Zack suddenly appeared at their sides. He coughed lightly, untying his shirt from his mouth, they were smoldering at the edges. "The guys' are dead. Smoke inhalation and I think being so close with so much heat…" he made a gesture with his hands and then shook his head. "But I did manage to get this," he reached into his pocket and opened his palm, holding out the gem that Bailey and Tapeworm had been shown.

The others moved in closer to see the gem up close. The stone neatly fit in the palm of Zack's hand and it twinkled, even in the dim lighting. The stone shone in every color of the rainbow, though it mostly showed a crimson red color. As Zack held onto it, the light seemed to get brighter and brighter, though it stayed the same intensity as Zack held onto it.

"Ok, so we have something." Tapeworm reached out and closed Zack's hand, causing the light to fade. He put Zack's hand back to his side. "We don't know for sure that it's an Element Stone and we won't be able to find out if these people keep attacking us." He turned to look back behind him as the fire started to burn itself out. "Someone's going to be here if the alarms went off and they were sent out here."

"We need to find a place to hide," Patrick agreed.

"Follow us," Bailey nudged Tapeworm on the shoulder. "We know a place that we can go. This place is big, but its big enough it'll take time for them to find us. And in that time, we might, finally, be able to get some answers".

Christian rolled onto his back on the bed that he was lying in. After being taken out of the room, when he was finished dissecting the little gem, he had been brought to that bedroom and locked in. At that moment he could care less that he was essentially a captive, the bed brought him sleep and after a long time of sleeping, he wore up to clarity. Christian knew exactly what the gem that he had dissected was, but he couldn't let them know it. It was just as he and Core had feared all those years ago. Reed hadn't put a lot of thought into it, thinking that it was just a bunch of people who were trying to capitalize on getting their things sold. Christian and Core had gone along with it after a while; it was preposterous what people were thinking.

But now, it looked like it was actually going to come soon. And if the kids didn't figure it out soon, no one would be able to stop what was coming.

A/N: Alright, the rest of the story starts here on out. And the chapters get longer as I've finally figured out how to get everything to come together, so the story is gonna end soon (not, like, in the next five chapters though) because it's not going to be as long as Mystic Melody.

I hope you guys liked it and I'll update again soon.

Cheers,

-Riles