CHAPTER SIX

"Dammit!"

Nathan slapped his hands against the desk, his grey eyes moving around the empty office. He should have known something like this was going to happen .They should have moved sooner. But how soon could they have moved? After they had gotten the news that Professor Trethaway was ill and would be out for a few days, thus giving their classes a substitute teacher, Nathan, Reed, Christian, Ruriko, and Kristin knew it was the perfect timing to go into his office and see if there was anything he knew about Elementals.

And when Nathan arrived, as he was the only one that had the time to go look, he came up on the office. The completely cleared out office. No books on the shelves, no papers festooned on the desk, no computer, no binders, no family pictures, nothing that would distinguish his office from any others. It was wide open, as if waiting for someone to occupy that space and make some sort of mark on their own on the university.

Nathan flopped down onto the floor, further exacerbating the fact that he had taken everything as there was nothing to sit on, and slapped his hands against the floor, furiously biting down on his bottom lip so that it started to bleed. "Dammit!" He cried again. Now proving that his being an elemental was gone, along with everything in the office. What were they going to do now?"

"Hey, we got your message," Christian said as he, Reed, Ruriko, and Kirstin entered the room. He stopped short, looking around. "Whoa."

"He turned tail and ran," Reed noted. He shook his head, brown fringe flying over his face, falling into his blue eyes. "Should have seen it coming." He slapped a fist into an open palm. "He must have known we were close to figuring everything out."

"He was the one that had called you out on studying Elementals for a paper, right?" Kristin pointed out. She raised a hand, placing her finger on her chin. When she spoke next, there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone. "Shocker that he thought you were after him."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence," Nathan replied. He pulled himself off the floor, leaning against the desk behind him. He crossed his arms, starting to tap his fingernails. "Maybe we could get into his computer, even if he tried to clean his hardware, I can easily possess the fragments and restore them to the documents we need."

"Where are you going to get his computer?" Christian reminded him.

"The campus internet server," Ruriko spoke up, raising an eyebrow. All eyes turned to her. "Even if his computer was taken, he had to use the school's server to be able to access his school work as well as to post the course outlines and projects that were needed." She shrugged. "He probably uses the same sort of portal that we need to post our homework."

Nathan chewed his lip again, wincing when it sent a stinging pain to his brain. He was going to have to find a new nervous habit. Lifting his fingers to his lips he wiped away the blood and stared at it for a long time. It was reminded him of the night he was attacked. The exhibition of power had shocked him more than he thought it would. He had been studying Elementals and reincarnation for a while, being shocked was something he hadn't anticipated. Even the videos he had managed to secure from hidden government profiles that he had fist stumbled upon, showcasing the different sort of abilities and imperviousness the Elementals had to everyday things that would cripple a man hadn't astounded him.

Seeing it up close, in the flesh, enough to render him with scars was an entirely different matter.

"This is, of course, if you would rather change our flight to Japan," Kristin added.

Nathan slowly nodded. They were going to speak to the girls' grandfather, as he was an open Elemental. He hadn't shied away from his powers and wasn't afraid of showing them to his family. There was a good chance he had some insight into what was going on with Trethaway and Elemental research in general. He could be a good help.

"No," he finally said. "We'll still go. We just need to be sure we have all of our information straight before we talk to your grandfather."

"Shouldn't be a problem, Core," Christian agreed, sliding his hands into his jeans pockets.

That part wasn't going to be a problem. The flight to Japan wasn't going to be a problem. It was the answers to their questions that were the problem.

He hoped they were ready for them.

A/N: This is a direct continuation of the 'look into the past chapters' from Out of Doubt like they had been in Mystic Melody. I knew it had to be brought back up at some point and considering the ending of the last chapter it felt like a good place to put it.

Plus they have an even bigger part in this story so it'll give me a chance to re-work some things that I had done with them in the last stories as well as work on their personalities and flesh out their characters a bit more.

I hope you guys liked it.

Cheers,

-Riles