CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

At the crack of dawn, Zack awoke and silently moved out of bed. Pulling back the covers, she swung his legs to the floor and leaned forward, resting the heels of his palms over his eyes. He sat there for a long moment, not thinking, not allowing anything to enter his brain, just existing.

There was so much to think about and so little time; it was a good practice of aversion that he had taught himself long ago. Whenever he was in school and was being yelled at or constantly getting reprimanded, he allowed his mind to go elsewhere. Nowhere, really. And as much as he wanted to continue to sit in an area where he could pretend that nothing was going on around him; life didn't work that way.

He had a lot of responsibility and knowing that in some way, shape, or form he had to acknowledge it day after day…after what happened…it was starting to take even more of a toll on him. He didn't want anyone else to know, not when they looked up to him to be some sort of a leader.

Blonde hair hanging over his face, tickling his forehead and nose, Zack let out a warm, quiet breath that was filled with his anxieties. His muscles immediately loosened and he relaxed, allowing his head to hang even further forward.

Blazen, who had been sleeping on the pillow next to him, immediately woke from the sound of his ward's sigh and hopped over to his side. Gazing up at him, he tucked his wings into his sides and sat down next to him not saying anything.

Reaching out, Zack gently, gracefully moved his fingers over the light feathers that covered the eagle's body before standing up and grabbing his discarded jeans from the floor. He jumped into them, sliding them up over his thin hips, only stopping when his fingers grazed the skin. He could still see and feel some of the bones poking out further than it should. Thankfully they had gotten regular meals again when staying in the government compound. It had made him sick at first, being able to eat as much as he pleased when he was accustomed to going days without his next meal.

Zack finished pulling his jeans up over his hips, deftly zipping up the fly and buttoning it. Bending down, he grabbed his sweatshirt up off the floor before holding out his arm. Blazen immediately opened his wings and flew up to land on his guardian's arm. Smiling at him, Zack slipped out of the bedroom, being sure that Cody was still asleep.

As he closed the door behind him, he heard the sound of a loud snore and nearly jumped out of his skin, whipping around, heart hammering against his ribcage so hard it actually hurt.

"Relax," Blazen scolded him. He flew off of his perch and over to the couch, motioning down to it with a quick bob of his head. "It's just your Mom and Dad." He looked up at Zack once more, cocking his head to the side. "I didn't know that they still slept with each other. I thought you said they got divorced."

"Neither did I," Zack murmured. His eyes moved over the sleeping form of his parents lying on the pull-out bed. It was still kind of strange that they were back, but he was glad. Moreso than he could ever let on, just in case they would become targeted. He felt a little bad, really, that they were the ones sleeping on the couch still, when he was fine sleeping on the ground or—as one time showed—in a tree.

With a slight smile, Zack reached over and picked up the blanket that had fallen down their shoulders, pulling it back over them. After them having protected him so much over the years—as parents always did—he knew nothing was more important than keeping them protected now, just in case something else were to happen.

Zack nudged his guardian by the wing and the two left the suite, went down to the lobby and out the front door. Stretching his arms over his head for a moment, Zack waited for Blazen to turn into his beast form and climbed up onto his back. He gripped Blazen's wings, where they connected at the shoulder, and flattened himself against his back.

Blazen lifted his wings and took off high into the air. Wind whistling in his ears, eyes watering, Zack lowered himself on Blazen's back, allowing the two of them to become more aero-dynamic as the further up they went. Zack could feel the muscles rippling through his guardian's back and gripped Blazen's right wing. He could feel the spot where he had taken a massive hit, his wing nearly becoming disconnected.

It was bad enough seeing his friends in pain, hearing them scream and writhe around. But having to hear his guardian do it, whether in human form or in their beat form the animalistic cries that came out of a guardian's mouth was enough to send shivers down the spine and become horrified. It was the mixture of a human screaming and the sound of an eagle screaming, let alone his own guardian that had caused Zack to slam his hands over his ears and hope he never had to hear it again.

The worst part was that he was the one that had put Blazen in that situation.

/You seriously need to stop beating yourself up over that/ Blazen said to Zack, slowing down, hovering in the air. /I'm fine now. You're fine. None of us are dead, everything's' OK. /

"Yeah, but…what's to say that what happened to Max and Canis wouldn't have happened to you?" Zack pointed out. "If you died, then you're dead and I lose my guardian. But if I died…you'd die too." He rubbed his shoulder. "Our bodies are intertwined, you know that—"

"Zack, seriously, stop." Blazen twisted his head to the side and regarded his ward with a critical eye. "The point of being made a guardian, of taking on that responsibility, is so you'll take on the task of guarding the human you're assigned to with any means necessary. I will allow myself to be killed to be sure you're OK. Please don't question the job I've willingly taken on."

Zack nodded.

He turned at the sound of a low cry and watched as ThunderTatsu and SilverTatsu floated towards him, with Patrick and Noah on their backs. Zack nodded as the approached and slowed to a stop beside them.

"Have you seen anything so far?" Noah asked, flicking his hair out of his face. His eyes shifted up towards the sky for a brief moment before focusing on the blonde teenage boy once more.

"Not yet," Zack said. "We just got here."

"Do you really think the portal is going to open up again?" Patrick asked.

He crossed his arms, scratching the area around his Element Watch. Zack twisted his mouth to the side, suddenly feeling guilty. He probably should've gotten the rest of the group and told them what was going on. But he had a hunch and he didn't want to risk having everyone freak out over nothing, especially not when they had Uriel to think about.

Was he watching them at that exact moment?

Or was he lying in wait?

Scratching his jaw, Zack shrugged. "I have no idea," he admitted. "But…it's not like there's anything else that we're doing right now, other than watching the city get rebuilt and are wondering what's going to happen within the next few minutes."

"With what we know about Uriel, though, it gives us a tiny bit of an advantage," Noah reminded him. "Not only do we know that he can control the shadow hunters as well as the power of life, but we have to wonder whether or not it's something we can beat, yeah?"

Zack's eyes narrowed. It was the first time he had ever heard Noah be so…negative about anything. Then again, he knew Noah not to be the one that would speak so freely if it weren't something important that he had to say. At least not in situations like this, he was usually taking everything that he learned in, mulled over it for a while, and then revealed what he thought or what he knew from that information.

The only other times he became outgoing and loud was when he was in a completely relaxed state, much like Zack had seen when they were in Australia.

Patrick, on the other hand, was always open with all of his thoughts and feelings, however, this time; he was the one that was silent as Noah did all the talking.

"You think we can't beat him?" Zack asked, licking his lips.

"He didn't say that," Patrick said calmly. "He's just bringing up a good point. This guy was able to take the life of a scientist, basically, just by touching him, yeah?" He gently pulled at his lip. "What's to say that he won't send a bolt of lightning out of the sky and do the same? Is he able to make the whole city drop dead at the snap of his fingers?"

Zack shook his head. "That's why we need to check the portal," he said. "At least, that's what I think will be one way of making sure we're protected." He turned and looked up at the sky. It was a bright blue, the same sort of color that he wanted to see on a Friday afternoon, looking out the window while at school. It was a sign for a good weekend.

Now…it was unnerving.

Who knew what would be waiting for them on the other side.

"The power of the stones were able to make sure the portal closed back up," Patrick reminded Zack, who nodded. "And while you and Cody both share that ability, don't you think it would be better if he were here too?"

"No." Zack was firm on that decision. He wanted to be sure that everyone was OK and if there was anyone that needed the rest more than he did, it was Cody. He spent too much of his time trying to figure out what was going on with their powers, with the compound, the components of the portal…it had become a bit of his obsession. And like I want to protect Mom and Dad, I want to protect Cody, too. "We can take care of things if something goes wrong. And even then, it's like you said, now that we have the Element Stones, it's a power that we can use as well."

"If you say so," Patrick agreed.

Zack nodded. He nudged Blazen on the back and the three headed up into the sky once more. The shift in the atmosphere made it harder for them to breathe as time went on, however being elementals; it made it so that they weren't as susceptible as normal humans were. The thought was still worrying. The higher they climbed, they still hadn't seen anything.

What they had learned over the years—nearly five years at that time (for Zack)—was that they couldn't ever take silence and nothing happening at face value. There was usually something lying in wait for them, until it was the perfect time to strike.

"ThunderTatsu, can you sense anything?" Patrick asked, his hand tightly gripping the scaly back of his guardian. His nose wrinkled. "I don't feel an electric current up here at all, not like we had when the portal first opened." He frowned, suddenly realizing that he couldn't feel the energy from anything around them.

Not even the birds that passed below.

Nor his twin brother and friend that were hovering nearby him.

During his break back home in Australia, Patrick had practiced hard to increase the usage of his powers. Now that Zack and Cody had the power from the Element Stones, they were an even bigger target than before and everyone else had to be stronger to make sure they could defend them.

Other than being able to handle any sort of electrical problem that may have come up, he had expanded his powers enough so that he could, in essence, control the weather, as well as turn into a form of electricity himself and travel faster than he could just by running. Noah had been the same, being able to use the currents of the wind around him to change the weather as well as to use it to move at high speeds. Having managed to manifest those abilities made it so that they were more in tune with the earth, so they could sense the energies of any living thing around them.

If they were headed to where the portal had been, there should've been left over energies that would've been able to be detected.

"No," he called over to his brother. "Do you feel anything?"

Noah shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Zack asked. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stand on end. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

"I don't sense anything around here," Patrick said. "Neither does, Noah. If the portal had been here, we would've been able to sense the leftover energies from it, especially if the two worlds are collapsing on top of each other."

"Good point," Zack murmured. He motioned for Blazen to slow his movements, just in case something was about to go crashing into him. And in the next moment, he found himself struck across the face with something. Zack reeled back, holding his nose as it started to bleed. "What the?"

It was like he had just run straight into a brick wall. But there was something there. His vision swam and he felt his grip starting to loosen on Blazen and he started to fall backwards.

"Zack!" Blazen cried, but his voice was weak. Or was his hearing going too? His whole body was numb.

"Thunder Crash!" He heard Patrick shout. There was a brilliant bolt of lightning that illuminated the sky in front of him and he heard the greatest sound of an explosion. The sound was so loud it managed to break through the haze that continued to take him over.

"Thorned Affection!" Noah summoned his weapon, a large hammer, into his hands and brought his arms back over his head and threw it forward. "Megaton Drive!" The hammer flew through the air, circling a few times, and then smashed into thin air. But as Zack had seen before his vision went dark, as the hammer collided with the air, there was a brilliant flash of light and a loud explosion, just like what happened when Patrick sent out a lightning bolt.

ThunderTatsu and SilverTatus had pulled back just a few inches short of running into whatever it was, but Zack and Blazen had immediately crashed into it, not being able to stop. Zack felt his lower body slip away from Blazen and he was suddenly falling through the air, the wind ripping at his clothes and hair as he fell.

The thought of falling out of the sky to his death had never bothered Zack before, he didn't plan on ever going sky-diving so that completely reduced the risk of it happening. And yet, as he was falling he felt nothing but peace, a drowsy sense of peace.

"Zack!" Patrick cried. He turned ThunderTatsu around and started to fly back towards his friend with Noah and SilverTatsu behind them. Before Zack's vision went away he could see the sky erupt in a brilliant flash and he a rush of energy had blown through them.

He saw Patrick and Noah suddenly go limp and slide off the backs of their guardians, falling to the ground as well.

Then Zack's vision went dark, in a limbo of consciousness and unconsciousness. He could still feel the wind rushing by him and he, before having lost all of his senses, that despite having fallen for a long time, he didn't feel his body hit the ground.

A/N: With the next chapter, the first arc is over. And with the end of that art, the chapters will branch out from the rotation of Zack's, Cody's, and Bailey's POVs and encompass the other characters more so the other story plots I have planned will come into fruition (apart from the main one of course). As this arc finishes with the next chapter and the next arc starts, chapters will get longer.

It might've been really subtle—in fact, I'm sure it was, but I do have a reason as to why it was Patrick and Noah that had been the ones that went along with Zack and their story plots are based on it.

Also, the last couple of chapters (minus the 'look into the past one') have been happening in the

same time frame; so Zack, Cody, and Maddie at the Tipton, Bailey's having gone back to school, Reihu meeting up with Core, and this one have all happened in the span of a day.

Review Reply for Guest from chapter 17: We deleted our old stories. Looking back on them, they hadn't made a lot of sense and were very poorly written. However, one of the old ones that we wrote is now being re-written under the names 'Save Me from Myself' and 'Help Me, Save Me'. Our old elemental ones that started out from when Zack and Cody first got their powers and all that may be re-written as well.

Cheers,

-Riles