Chapter 5: Clouds

There are many things that went through my head when Jayden said he was my nephew. I wondered where I was, who his parents were. I also wondered if Patrick tried cooking and gave me food poisoning again. A hallucination would make sense, but there weren't any barking monkeys or spoons dancing on the moon this time.

So maybe this is real. It certainly wouldn't be the strangest things to ever happen to us. But that doesn't answer the question of why.

"I'm guessing you have a few questions."

I nod of course. I have no idea where to even begin with this.

Jayden takes a seat beside me, stares at me with a look showing both hope and dread across his face. I just look at up him silence, wanting to let start explain so I know where to start asking my questions.

He sighs and begins slowly. "I'm sure you can see I'm about your age. In fact I'm sixteen years old. And if you're as smart as the Noah I knew, then you must be pretty sure this is your future."

So…time travel. So, it really is possible. I remember a while back Sydney was working with some professor about the way that Large Hayden Collider could either create another big bang or invent time travel. Or maybe just not work at all.

I never thought it could be possible though. That was the part of science where it was mostly just guesses based on things we couldn't understand. For some people, it was something that fascinated them. As for me, I'd rather wrap my mind around things I could clearly understand. And what about all those paradoxes and ways that it could blow up the world? It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

"How?" I finally ask, figuring it's as good of a place to start as any. This is just so far out of my grasp.

"Sydney and your older self had been working on it for a while. I never understood the details of it, just picked up what I could when I was hanging out with you two. But you, or should I say, the future version of you found a way to expand your power of silver wind to build time. It was just a matter of combining that with the technology we still had from Christian and Core."

"Wait, they were doing research on time-travel?"

"Only exploring the possibility among their many other studies. They figured if the elementals could break other laws of nature, than perhaps the laws of time could be bent as well."

I guess that made sense. We really didn't know how our powers existed. Only that we had them and that we were connected to the elemental world. There are a lot of times where we can only accept what we see in front of us, even if it goes against all the logic we've held all along. "More importantly, I'm sure you're wondering why you're here."

Of course, it wouldn't make any sense to go through whatever means they did to bring me here if it weren't for a good reason.

"Follow me." Jayden begins to walk out of the room, and I get up to follow him. My legs still hurt, and I briefly remember how I was feeling before I came here, where everything was blurry and I was hurting all around. Maybe this was the reason for it though. I push the weariness away and head outside with him, and I see how bad it really is here.

This is just like what I saw when I fainted at the burger stand. Darkness, destruction, spreading out as far as the eye can see. I see a grey outline of the sun in the sky, but it's covered with dark clouds. The land is barren, not a sign of any life. Not a single plant, nor person. I look back to where we came out from, and see it was buried underground for the most part.

The ground is hard, not even sand like the desert. It's almost like those pictures of the moon, with the grey ground spreading out in every direction. This can't be.

"What happened?" I ask though my voice is nearly gone. Seeing this all around, it's like it's tugging at my heart, telling me it's hopeless. I raise my hand to my chest, recognizing this feeling. All of us have darkness within us, something we learned not soon after discovering out powers. It's drawn out by our fear, our hatred and pain. The negative emotions we keep buried away from the world. We've learned to control it, but even so it's there. And sometimes it gets out with horrible consequences.

"You guys thought that the darkness had been banished with Gattaca's death," Jayden says with a deep sigh. "However, his death only disrupted the balance between light and darkness. It tore the elemental world apart. Light ruled for a few years, but soon chaos descended. And this is the overflow of it."

So that wasn't the final battle after all. We thought that after our powers left us when our guardians returned to their world that we were done being elementals. It wasn't until several months later that Sydney and Core found a way to give us a piece of ours back. He didn't say anything, but I had a feeling he thought we might need them again. It wasn't like they were before, but Crystal and my siblings unlocked our powers again. Over time, and with quite a bit of practice, we became proficient in them. We contemplated sharing the news with Zack and Cody and their friends, but after all that they had been through, we wanted them to live normal lives.

Maybe that was a mistake.

"Is there any hope? This darkness seems to fill everything."

"Light is a funny thing. It shines only as brightly as people will let it. It's not that the darkness is so strong, but the light of men is so weak. It's shattered by a few deaths, scared away by a bit of pain. I'm not gonna lie, its hell out there. But we still have light on our side. And as long as our light isn't claimed, we have hope."

I notice several flashes of red in the distance, what appears to be fire shooting out from the ground. "Oh no," Jayden says as he starts running toward the fire.

I want to ask him what's going on, but I only try to catch up with him. I see fire start growing along his body. So, I was right. He's an elemental too. A fire one it looks like. The fire seems almost familiar, kind of like Riley's but instead of the black tint around hers, his has a shade of white to it. It's as if it's pushing back the darkness that seems to permeate the air.

'Noah'

I stop in my tracks at hearing my name. I look around quickly, trying to see if anyone else is here. But Jayden is the only one here, and he continues to speed ahead of me.

"Who was that?" I ask quietly, wanting to make sure I don't make Jayden think I'm going crazy. Sure, maybe that's a perfectly natural reaction to being yanked through time, but I'd like to think I'm still sane.

'It's so good to see you again.'

I feel her…I can tell from the voice that it's a girl. But the sound seems to be coming from everyone, but mostly from within my own head. It's soft, just louder than a whisper. I feel her presence growing closer, wrapping around me, and the very essence of darkness.

'Come on; just feel who you are meant to be.'

The grip grows tighter, and I see the world around me shift. Instead of the grey, the world grows black. I hear the distance cries of pain, of suffering. I see before me the abandoning of hope, of faceless figures fading into nothing.

I feel myself wondering, doubting.

What is it we fight for?

What is it we can accomplish?

Are we so foolish as to think we can stand?

Would it not be better to give up, to save us the pain and struggle?

No!

I won't!

This isn't over.

I bring my hand to my chest, and demand that the darkness leave me. This isn't a battle merely against the darkness of the world. It's a battle against the darkness of my heart. It wants to win, wants to break me. I won't let it. I'm not alone. Jayden is here, even if no one else is. I may be in over my head and scared as hell, but that hasn't stopped me before.

"Get away!" I yell and the dark figure leaves me, her presence now gone. I see the sun still shining, waiting to break this dark night. I then let the power of wind flow through me, and use it to catch up to Jayden. I just hope we aren't too late to whatever it is we're running toward.

…

I see him coming into view in the distance. He's a man with black hair, shooting fire from his hands at some sort of creatures that are descending from the clouds. I run faster, letting the power of wind flow along me to help me to run faster. I can sense a stronger concentration of darkness ahead of us.

As I get closer, I see what terrible creatures they are. They're scorpion like, but flying on wings like metal. They let loose an inhuman roar from all around us. There have to be a hundred here.

"What are they?"

"Xyscons. They a corruption formed in the heart of the elemental realm."

Jayden prepares if fire as we get closer to the other elemental. Some of them land in front of us, blocking our way. They stand about two feet high, and the stinger on their tail is pointed at us. One of them bears its teeth, which also appear metal like. Whatever these creatures are, they're obviously here to kill and destroy.

"Let's get rid of these so we can go help Julius."

…

A/N: Well, after losing the first version of the chapter do to my laptop overheating, I rewrote it, and it turned out even better. That tends to happen a lot. Some of you might recognize the Xyscons from my other storeis. They're a fun scary/generic fantasy creature and thought they'd fit well here. As always, thanks to Dark-Elements10 for letting me use her characters and for betaing. See you soon.