CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Bailey paced back and forth, stepping over the textbooks, notebooks, and papers that littered the floor of her dorm room. She used to be so organized and neat, but that was before everything had started to fall apart around her. She thought things would've come back to normal when he was at school in Yale, but even that had been hard.

The friends she had made had been stared at her in awe when they realized they were friend with the Bailey Pickett.

The one that had helped saved the world.

She had sort of become a campus celebrity and had interviews with the newspaper and media outlets as well as having been asked question after question by those around her. The times that she had spent before class reading and making sure all of her homework was correct was suddenly filled with questions and being treated as if she was some sort of a hero. Lunches with her friends had become times where she would try to eat as fast as she could before the large crowds of people went up to talk to her or to thank her about what she had done. Then there were the pictures; people snapped photo after photo of her as she went to class, the clubs she was part of, or even in class. After having brought it up to the administration they allowed her to do some of her work online if she preferred but she didn't want that. They were already giving her special treatment with her work and how much time she took when she left the campus as it it was.

It was a nice gesture, but getting really annoying.

She wanted to be normal.

But normality was never going to come to her again and the sooner she realized it, the better off she'd be.

Now she understood how Zack and Cody must've felt as the years had gone on after they awakened. It was exhilarating at first, then exhausting, knowing how much about her life she had to keep a secret as well as to keep her personal life hidden. It was one of the reasons why she had decided to change her hair color. Not only had she wanted a change, but it made her so unrecognizable to the ones around her that would have her blend in as much as possible.

Now here she was, after having gotten back to Boston she bid goodbye to Tapeworm and his family and decided to go back to school. If there was anything that would take her mind off things a little bit, it was going back to her normal routine. But as soon as she found herself in her empty dorm room, her roommate having gone somewhere, she couldn't keep her mind off of everything that had happened. Besides, she needed to be on her toes in case Shadow Hunters or Uriel himself decided to attack her at a moment's notice.

She couldn't be too careful.

"Don't worry, Bailey, we'll figure something out," Geneva said as she and Gattaca appeared in the room, sitting on her bed. Bailey stopped pacing and turned back to face them. "There hasn't been anything we've encountered in this world or ours that we haven't been able to defeat."

Bailey made a humming sound. "What sort of things happen in the Element World?" She asked.

"Invasions are the most troubling," Gattaca replied. "Those that had gone rogue against the kingdom would come and try to take it over. The Mystic Melody would be signaled and those that were sent out to apprehend those trying to invade would be banished from the kingdom and the surrounding areas."

"Uriel was the only one that had managed to get into the castle, where Mother Nature, Father Time, Gattaca and myself resided," Geneva said. She brushed her long brown hair behind her ears with a simple motion. "He has always been the one that had the people of our world feared when it came to the destruction of our lives and the way we lived."

"Otherwise everyone in the Element World tended to live in harmony," Gattaca said.

Bailey nodded then thought about something they had mentioned. He managed to get into their castle? "What did Uriel want?" She asked them. "Other than, potentially, taking over the world? What use could there have been to get into your home?"

"Mother Nature and Father Time are the ones that hold together the existence of the Element World," Gattaca explained. "Not only when they eventually pass away, as while we can live long we still have the potential of death, the powers that they had to keep the world in balance will fall down to us. That's what we had been studying ever since we were old enough to be able to start reading the Book of Esme."

Bailey blinked rapidly, trying to figure out the historical connection. "Wasn't Esme an angel?"

Geneva nodded patiently. "Esme means Gracious Protector," she said. "The Book of Esme holds different incantations and ways to unlock supreme power. Whoever is the ruler of the Element World needs to be able to use every incantation in the book to rule and restore the kingdom in case something goes wrong. Though, admittedly, there are parts of the world that are out of our control, which is also what the Mystic Melody is for."

"Uriel knows if he can get the Book of Esme that he'll have supreme power and may be able to banish Mother Nature, Father Time, and the two of us with ease."

"We had begun learning the spells from the Book when Uriel attacked the kingdom. Mother Nature had given us the book and had hidden us from his sight before Uriel had been sent through the portal to the human world."

And that's where Zack and Tapeworm's stories come into play, Bailey realized. She mentally whisked through Uriel's being able to be the boogeyman that plagued Zack for as long as he could remember as well as being the one who had spoken to Tapeworm when he had, in a dream, been brought to the Element world and had seen his deceased girlfriend once more. Had he ever done anything to her? She wasn't an Elemental so she didn't think he would've thought her to be interesting enough back then.

Now she was just as big a target.

"Do you think if we retrieved the book it'll give us some sort of way to defeat Uriel?" Bailey asked. "To get rid of him completely?"

"It is possible," Gattaca remarked. "But none of us know for sure. Not only have the two of us not completely read the book, but Mother Nature now has it guarded as much as possible. She and Father Time are the only ones who are able to get to it without the offender touching it being decimated or severely disfigured."

Darn. Bailey sat down on the end of her bed. There goes that idea.

All of a sudden there was a loud scream that echoed from the hallway and Bailey immediately sprang to her feet, running across her room towards the door. She felt Geneva and Gattaca instill themselves into her once more, the strength and power filling her, as she reached the door. She flung it open and spotted some female students huddling down the hall.

"What happened?" Bailey demanded.

But they continued to stare behind her. One of the students finally managed to reach out a shaking hand and point behind her. Bailey whipped around the other way and spotted a male student hovering off the floor, eyes wide with unbridled terror. As Bailey watched, a tear slid down the cheek of the student as he continued to hover. Immediately falling into action, Bailey focused on the power of light that Geneva controlled and held out her hand. A white glow encased her fingers like a glove and a bolt of light shot out towards the student.

Right when it would've hit him, the bolt smacked against a sold force and shot back towards Bailey, causing her to quickly dive to the ground. Pushing herself up, holding herself in a push-up position, her eyes moved down as she noticed something. Had her shadow moved? Bailey's eyes widened when the two large, yellow eyes appeared from the ground and a face slowly pushed its way out of the ground towards her. The creature's mouth dropped open and large, sharp teeth gleamed as a hiss came from its mouth.

With a startled cry, Bailey shot out her hand directly into the face of the creature with her glowing white hand and it imploded upon impact. Scrambling backwards, Bailey got to her feet and held her hands up by her face, the way Crystal had instructed her to do.

"Uriel is holding that human, these are his Shadow Hunters," Gattaca explained. "He has so much power that a force field is put around the human, keeping all of the blasts at bay."

"How am I supposed to defeat him then?" Bailey whispered eyes on the boy. She could see the terror turn to pain, a slight wheeze escaping his mouth. She realized it must've hurt to have Uriel take over a body like that. It' must've been what happened to Zhane two years before when he had started Halo Syndicate to capture them. Maybe Halo Syndicate was completely run by Uriel, she realized. Maybe he had put himself into all of those kids to try and defeat us before we even knew about him.

"I believe you are right, child," Geneva agreed.

Suddenly, the student was knocked into the wall and fell limp; whatever had kept him rigid disappeared, causing him to slump. Bailey moved forward to help him, and then stopped when more Shadow Hunters appeared before her. With the help of Geneva's powers, she made quick work of the creepy creatures and hurried over to the student's side.

The girls that had been watching down the hallway hurried over as well, once the coast was clear. Bailey reached out and pressed her fingers against the boy's neck and waited as she tried to count his post. The girl on her left had been crying silent tears and continued to weep as she kneeled by her friend.

"Is he going to be OK?" She asked.

Her friend, the girl on Bailey's right, shushed her, watching as Bailey went through all of the medical training she could remember from her first aid classes. She checked his pulse, put her finger under his nose to be sure he was breathing, even pinched his Achilles tendon, which caused the boy to jerk slightly and let out a slight groan.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Bailey sat back on her heels. "He'll be OK," she reasoned. "He's just…unconscious; I don't think there's any permanent damage on him." She looked at the girl to her right. "What happened to him?"

"I don't know," she said slowly. "The hall had gone down to the ice cream social and we came back so we could get some soda to make floats and we say him floating there." She brushed her hair behind her ears. "We wanted to go over and help, but…it was like we were frozen. Then the floor turned all black and…and you came out."

Bailey nodded silently. So the black floor made it that the Shadow Hunters were able to get around. That made sense; it was much like the power that Rhuben was able to control. And then Uriel was holding onto the student. He could've done anything to him, take the life out of him like he had done with that scientist. Who knows what else he's capable of doing if he holds the power of life? The next fire drill could be something that he orchestrates.

What else was he going to do?

Better question, why did he do it?

Bailey answered her own question before she even had to contemplate it. To prove that he was always around them and that he could strike at any time. And if that were the case, they were in even more danger than they originally thought.

Reihu was suddenly awoken out of a deep sleep.

His eyes shifted around, taking in the shadows that flittered across the walls, over the floors, as well as himself. The blanket that covered his curled up form fell down his shoulders and he twisted to the side to pull it back up. As he reached his hands out, the feeling that had launched him out of his sleep had woken him up slid through his body one more. A low growl escaping his lips, his eyes moved across the living room.

Staying in the Manning's living room while he looked for a place to live himself wasn't that strange, after it had been rebuilt from the attack on the house a few years before, it was as normal as ever. And yet, he still could fell that he was being watched or that something was calling him. Could it be Uriel?

No. He would've sensed that as soon as the being of life had come around.

Reihu rolled to the floor and stretched out his back, hearing and feeling each of the vertebrae in his back cracking as he did so. He treaded forward on his hands and feet, listening hard as he tried to figure out what the feeling was. He hadn't felt that way in a long time.

No way…Reihu instantly recognized the feeling.

Pushing off wish his hands, he moved to his feet, he quickly turned around and grabbed onto his shoes before going over to the front door and sliding outside. After putting on his shoes, he stretched his arms and legs before quickly walking down the front steps of the house. Turning, he glanced up at the front of the house to be sure no one had heard him leaving, lest Rhuben. She always seemed to know what he was doing before he did it, probably due to the time they had spent together while in the Dark Lions. No matter how many times he had to fight her or try to capture her under the orders of Core, there was something between them that would follow them forever.

Such as Patrick and Noah with the Dragon Gang, Sydney with Spirit-X, and Riley with the BlackWolves. As such, he was surprised that Riley hadn't gone into a full blown rage after she had learned for Koto's death. In fact, he was even more surprised that Rhuben had been the one to convince the Dark Lions to leave before things got too dangerous around the city. It proved that no matter what sort of things they had all gone through that their work in WingzCorp was stronger than anything else they had done.

He wondered if the Jacksons were feeling what he was feeling at the moment, but doubted it at the same time. They hadn't spent as much time with WingzCorp as he did. Another growl escaped Reihu's throat as he started down the sidewalk, away from the house. He had barely known his parents when he was taken and while Core had managed to brainwash him in a sense, he was still incredibly angry about it. He had become family with those that were in the Dark Lions; though they made it a point not to have their emotions get in the way—though that didn't always work for him—and having known that each of them had been taken from their families just to be worked on…

Every now and then they would wonder if their families missed them or if there had been any sort of notice that they were gone.

Now wasn't the time to think about it, Reihu reasoned. He had to figure out who was calling him. Reihu started to walk faster and faster until he was at a light jog, then a run, then a sprint, before he leaned forward and started to run on his hands and feet, slowly morphing into a lion as he went. He tore through the streets of Boston and out towards the outskirts of the city, making great time. He could hear startled gasps and shrieks of surprise as he passed the Bostonians that were out late. Tires squealed and cars shrieked as he bounded into the street and weaved back and forth through traffic, even going as far as to run over the top of a car when they were directly in his path.

Finally, he reached the area he felt the energy was coming from; a hill that looked over the city of Boston. From his vantage point, Reihu could see the shimmery reflection of the moon over the Boston harbor, illuminating some of the ships that bobbed in the water, casting shadows over the others. Lights reflected from some of the taller buildings and he could see the State House from where he was; a giant hole still in the side. It had been covered, but there was still a long way to go for fixing it.

As he came up the hill, Reihu could see a lone figure standing at the top of the hill, looking over the city as well. The figure's back was facing him, keeping him from seeing the face. He didn't need to look directly at the figure; he knew exactly who it was.

Reihu came to a screeching stop as he stood up, turning back to a human. He snarled for a moment, canines gleaming before staring hard at the figure in front of him. "I thought it was you," he remarked.

Core turned at the sound of Reihu's voice and looked back at Reihu with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you'd come." He tilted his head and Reihu walked up next to him, looking over the city. "You're the only one I thought would be the one that would come, though I contacted the others."

"How'd you do it?" Reihu scratched the back of his neck, his green eyes contracting into cat-like slits as he looked down over the city. As far as he could tell, the city was silent for the first time in a while, most having gone to sleep. "We don't have any of those kinds of powers like the Elementals do."

"It's something I had been working on when I had first started my work."

Reihu snorted. "You mean when you started to kidnap a bunch of kids from their families?"

"Even before then," Core rsaid. He cleared his throat, turning to face the seventeen year old boy. "I had always thought it was interesting to note how the Elementals were able to communicate with each other as well as with their guardians. What sort of mental wavelengths had they been able to tap into that we're not sure of. How are they able to feel it whenever their guardian was calling to them?"

Reihu slowly nodded. He could understand that. It had always been interesting to him as well. How were they always able to tell whenever he and the rest of WingzCorp were about to attack them. He could come upon them as stealthy as possible and come flying out of a tree with blinding speed and a punch aimed at their head that would break their neck the moment it would connect, and somehow they had always turned and managed to block him last minute.

"When I had started my experiments on you all, to try and figure out what was it that made some people Elementals and not others, I had created this sort of chip that I implanted in each of you. It took its power from your own body's life force that enhanced your senses, mental capability, and your perceptiveness to those around you." Core paused. "That's not to say that those that had ended up working for me as WingzCorp were the first ones I experimented on, you were the first that had become a success."

Reihu made a humming sound but didn't reply.

Core turned back to the city, looking out over the city one more. A hint of a smile graced his features. Reihu watched the older man, suddenly realizing that he knew absolutely nothing about him though he had spent many years of his life blindly following what he wanted to be done. Not only had he found the man to be some sort of a God at one point, one that he would blindly follow with no questions asked, but it had been all thrown apart when he found that the only reason he and the others had been trying so hard to get Zack, Cody, and the others wasn't to steal their powers as they were their enemies, but to protect them.

Why would he want to protect them and not the ones that had worked alongside him for years? Reihu had wondered as everything was revealed to him. He wondered it now, but realized he didn't care for the answer.

"Where were you?" Reihu decided to ask instead.

"I went on a mission that I wasn't sure I'd come back from. In fact, I wasn't sure if I did want to come back. Not after everything that I've caused." He turned to face Reihu one more. "I went out to DC on a suicide mission; I had known it would be hard for me to get anywhere near what I had been looking for but found some interesting things while I was there."

"Suicide mission?"

"With all of the work I had been doing over the years, things can get pretty depressing. I could never get the feeling of something heavy off my chest…I felt too much guilt, having brought my friends into everything and then what happened to them…" Core shook his head. "Otherwise, I had found some information that the government had been hiding that can be of real use to us."

How ironic, Reihu thought. They had just been in DC to get some training done and now Core had come back after almost a year of his disappearance. The human-lion hybrid was conflicted with how he felt about Core's reappearance. On one hand, he still felt a sense of loyalty to him but on the other…he had done so many unspeakable things he still couldn't wrap his head around that made him angrier than he could ever imagine.

"What'd you find?" He finally questioned.

"That the portal opening between the human world and the Element world…it had happened before, on the same scale that Mother Nature had done," Core said. Reihu's eyes widened as he regarded what Core had said to him. "And from further findings…due to the existence between both worlds, the balance between the two is collapsing and unless something can be done, one of the worlds is going to be destroyed. And by any means, the powers that come from the Element World bring a really good chance that Earth is going to be the one to fall."

"So there's going to be a war between both worlds?"

"Exactly."

A/N: I've been severely under using Reihu as the story went on and I realized it was because I had been so used to him only being around when WingzCorp was attacking and now I'm working on that. Plus, Core had to come back at some point. ;)

Cheers,

-Riles