CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The group as woken up the next day by dawn and had been seated at a table beautifully festooned with an assortment of foods they wouldn't have ever seen at home. Every piece of food imaginable sat on the table, surrounded with gold plates, goblets, and silverware for them to eat off of as well.
Geneva, Gattaca, Mother Nature, and Father Time had already been sitting at the table and they all sat up as the group approached. Zack, who had been angry at Geneva before, stared in surprise and a bit of envy. It was even larger than anything they would've ever had, even at the Tipton hotel.
No matter would they have ordered room service, it wouldn't have been that extravagant. Curiously, he sat down in the seat closest for the four that ruled over the Element Kingdom. Not only was it the best strategic move, so that he was prepared in case they had some sort of move they were about to make, but it was the best placement for him in case he felt that he needed to make the first move. Besides, what better way was it to check that there was some sort of poison or something in the food if he didn't watch to see if they ate it first?
He didn't think that Geneva and Gattaca would do anything; they had been protecting Bailey so well the past couple of years. Still, he wasn't going to let his guard down. So as he pulled back the chair, he watched to see if they were moments away from making a move. But the four continued to stand until the entire group was sitting before relinquishing their positions as well.
"I hope the food is to your liking," Father Time said calmly. "As well as that you all got a good night's sleep."
"Probably the best night's sleep I've ever had," Patrick admitted. "Considering the past couple of years that we've been running around. I didn't think that I'd ever get more than three or four hours of sleep ever again."
"Yes, we've noted that you have all had problems with sleeping as of late so we decided that we would put a sort of a sleeping spell on you," Mother Nature explained. "To be sure that you all got the rest that you deserved." She motioned to the table. "We thought the same for your breakfast. As we are well aware that your eating habit are not up to par as well."
"But giving us all of this food after we're used to not eating so much isn't good for our health," Aaron pointed out. "It's like with prisoners of war. Once they've been released again, they want to eat as much as they can because they've been starved for years, but that could just make their stomachs explode."
Riley, who had been about to put a piece of honeydew melon into her mouth, dropped it back to her late, wiping off her fingers. "I really didn't need to hear that," she remarked. Wiping off her fingers she pushed back away from the table and stared down at her plate, a slight frown on her face.
"Please, we're not forcing you all to eat," Gattaca pointed out. "Just have what you're comfortable with, as it stands there is a lot that we need to talk about and we figured it'd be better if we had a chance to do it when you have a full stomach."
Mother Nature stood up and clapped her hands together. "For those of you that preside in the Element World, I grant you the opportunity to visit with your families as I know you have not seen them since you left this world." As soon as the words were out of her mouths the guardians, who had been sitting by their Masters and Mistresses in their small forms, quickly bounded their way out of the rooms, in a miniature stampeded.
"Whoa!" Noah laughed. "Now I know how Simba felt with the wildebeest stampede."
Reihu glared over at him. "Is that some sort of a lion joke?"
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, mate," the silver wind elemental shot back with a half smile. "You should see it when Rhu's running for food. She and Patrick are good at knocking the rest of us out of the way." He chuckled to himself as Rhuben reached out and knocked her brother on the arm, laughing as well. She then leaned over and gave her boyfriend a kiss on the cheek.
Reihu rolled his eyes but he couldn't help but smile as well. He reached out his hand under the table and took Rhuben's hand, gently squeezing it. It was a mixture of warm and cold, the way it always had been. He was pretty sure it had to do with her element being darkness. Not only did the darkness affect her in her sleeping pattern as well as keeping from being taken over by it, but it had different ways of taking on the words that described it—cold, being one of them. He sighed, thinking about his conversation with Core before having been transported to the Element World. He really needed to talk to her about it.
To get some insight before he told everyone else. They were in the same boat, in many ways; even though Core hadn't treated them that well, he was sort of a father to him and the rest of WingzCorp for the years they had been working for him and in the past he had been her father's best friend.
Figuring out the truth had really thrown him for a loop. That he had been relentlessly chasing these people, thinking they were the enemy, just to protect them. From what? Now they knew it was Uriel and how the whole story was coming together, it was really starting to make him worry more than he usually did.
Rhuben, seeming to sense his anxiety, squeezed his hand before looking at him seriously. "You OK?"
"Fine," he said simply.
She continued to study him. "No, you're not," she insisted. "I can tell."
"I'll tell you later."
Looking around the table he saw that all of the Elementals were smiling. Maybe it was because for the first time they actually felt safe. Even knowing how much Mother Nature had worked them all over while they were back on Earth—which was still hard to wrap his head around—there was an aura of safety.
Maybe because Mother Nature and Father Time were held in such high esteem out there.
And as she had said, she had been doing what she thought was best to keep her world safe. And while it was clear there was still a big sense of hesitation on the part of the Elementals, they could at least let their guard down a little bit.
"You can eat as much as you'd like," Geneva said, sitting down. It must've been the cue for breakfast to actually start, for Geneva and Gattaca both bowed their heads before they dug into the food. "We only gave you all of these options are we are very aware that there are allergies as well as likes and dislikes to work with as well.
"Well thank you," Bailey said politely. "It all looks very good."
Cody picked up his fork and immediately dug into the eggs that had been placed on his plate. He took a quick bite and nodded his approval. It was light and fluffy, much like the eggs they had back home…when they weren't burnt or had too much of one ingredient over the other. In fact, it was some of the best eggs he had ever had. And while it was a comfort he still couldn't help but wonder why it as that they were brought there.
Why now? He thought, continuing to eat. Why not before? Zack had obviously felt the same way, from his intense question that was thrown Mother Nature's way the moment she had appeared. What was it, really, that had caused her to start attacking Earth? Did she sense Uriel long before we did? His eyes suddenly narrowed. The better question was what was Uriel doing now that they were gone?
Was he lying in wait or was he going to attack them while they were gone. Did he even know they were gone? The questions continued to circle through his head over and over and he couldn't ignore them. He was glad when, after breakfast had been served that Mother Nature asked to speak with Zack, Cody, Bailey, Sydney and Aaron.
But he found it strange that Father Time had wanted to speak to Tapeworm, Julius, and Maddie. And while the groups were split apart, the Jacksons, Crystal, and Reihu went back to the bed chambers. He followed his brother and friends to a large room that overlooked the kingdom. He looked over at a podium that was in the middle of the room and walked over to it.
It was empty but looked like it was supposed to hold something of the utmost importance. Bailey moved up to his side and he noticed the hard expression on her face. He recognized it as the look she had whenever she was concentrating, trying to pull something out of her memory. Or it being eth same look she gave him when the two of them were about to get into some sort of a fight, trying to prove who was the smarter one of the two.
This time, though, she wasn't giving him any attention at all as she brought hand up to her chin. Lifting her gaze, she glanced at Cody for a moment before turning to address those that had been assigned to protect her. "Is this where the Book of Esme usually sits?"
Mother Nature, who had been standing on the balcony, looking down at the kingdom that she and Father Time shared, gently twisted around; the pleats of her royal attire gently drifted around her as she did so. "That's where it normally resides, yes." She glanced over at her children, who stood nearby. "I see you've told the child about some things."
"Wait a minute." Zack held up a hand, eyebrows lowered. That seemed to be his default facial expression now. He had gotten so used to being relaxed and having fun while in Australia, but now that all of this was starting to come back again, he fell back into his old habits. "What's the Book of Esme and how do you know about it?" He pointed over at Bailey, the accusatory tone in his voice not lost on the teenage girl for she lowered her gaze to the ground.
"The Book of Esme is a book of spells, fire child," Geneva explained to him. "Not only does Mother Nature have the ability to control nature in general, presiding over the Element World, but the spells are what she uses to be able to do that. Especially in an element she's not familiar in."
Gattaca added, "The Book of Esme is what Uriel was after when he attacked our castle when we were young."
Blue eyes shifting back and forth over the bearers of light and darkness, Cody had the acute feeling that there was something really wrong. "What's so special about it?" Cody asked. He looked over at Sydney, who had made a humming sound, eyebrows furrowing together. He looked like he had an idea. "Something to share, Syd?"
"A theory," he remarked slowly. "Something tells me that the prophecy has come from that Book, yeah?"
If Mother Nature was surprised, she didn't show it. "That's correct." She walked over to a blank wall and pressed her palm on a spot about five feet from the floor. The wall glowed brightly in a rectangle shape and when the glow faded the portion of the wall had disappeared too, covered with strands of ivy. Waving her hand, Mother Nature moved the tendrils of ivy apart and reached into the space in the wall.
Reaching inside, she pulled out a thick book. Flipping it open, she placed it onto the pedestal. "The prophecy came to the book some time ago. Father Time projected it down to you all so you could fulfill it."
"We thought we had done it before, but Zack and I couldn't do anything about it," Cody pointed out. "When we were fighting against Zhane, who we now know as him being a part of Uriel, we thought the prophecy had come true. We used the sword from the Luminescence attack that Patrick, Noah, and Sydney worked up—"
"Yes, but how do we know that it was an attack that was supposed to come from the three of them?" Aaron pointed out. All eyes turned to him and despite the fact he couldn't see, he managed to turn his head, speaking to each person in the room. "How do we know that it wasn't supposed to come from Bailey? I mean, when we projected Father Time into you, Zack, and Sydney spoke with him, we figured we were wrong about the eighteen years thing, how do we know we're not wrong about this, too?"
"Because I don't have any powers, remember," Bailey pointed out. She motioned to Geneva and Gattaca. "I get my powers from them."
"But do we know that for sure?" Aaron pressed.
There was a long silence that littered the room. It was a good question. How did they know for sure? Apart from the fact that she hadn't awakened despite having been exposed to Elementals for the past two years, maybe it was one, it's hard to keep time straight when they were constantly at a high-speed case.
"No," Cody admitted. "We don't."
Bailey scratched the back of her head. "But shouldn't I have awakened by now?"
"This is ridiculous!" Zack broke in. "If Bailey were able to get powers, it would've happened by now. It's impossible for—"
"Impossible isn't particularly a word that's in my vocabulary, mate," Sydney interrupted. "If it was, I wouldn't have been able to make that Element gun. And the plans for the energy canon wouldn't currently be in the works or I wouldn't be working with all of those professors back in Aus." He lowered his voice. "None of this would've happened."
Zack bobbed his head back and forth. He had a point. Before, his thought of having Riley as his girlfriend would've been synonymous with impossible. Not that his life revolved around her, yes he had a crush on her but he didn't trick himself into thinking she was the only one out there for him, which was also why he had dated so much. Then again, he had also been afraid of what some the girls would've said if they found out about his powers, but he digressed from that point.
Impossible shouldn't have been in their vocabulary, not after everything they had managed to fight off and had seen. If anyone had told him that he would've been able to accumulate the sort of powers that only superheroes had when he was thirteen, he would've said that was impossible.
"Ok, so say Bailey is the one that can help us finally defeat Uriel," he relinquished.
"She is," Geneva pressed. "And I believe you've all known that for a long time."
Zack ignored the statement. "What does that mean for the prophecy? It says the one with the eyes as red as fire, the one as shocking as the sea, the one whose inheritance the white pure blade. To voyage eighteen years from since they'd come, or the world in their hands would cease to become."
"We figured out the eighteen years part," Cody said. "Not it being the eighteen years since we were born, but the eighteen years since Core's, Christian's, Reed's, Kristen's, and Renee's first encounter with Uriel. Which would put it around the same age that we had awakened the first time." He blinked rapidly. "The red and blue eyes thing easily refer to me and Zack, since we're the ones that'll fulfill the prophecy. And now Bailey is part of the prophecy, too."
And that's where things got confusing for the Elementals once more. There was something they were missing, something that wasn't quite within their grasp and they were, pushing it away each time they got too close.
"Think long and hard, children," Geneva gently pressed.
"If you continue to think, you'll stumble upon it," Gattaca added. "You're really close to figuring it out."
Running his hands over his face, Zack let out a slight growl of frustration. He then placed his hands on his hips and stated to pace back and forth. It wasn't until he had nearly knocked into his brother that he realized Cody had done the same thing. Glancing at each other, the two started to smile, realizing they were doing the same thing at the same time.
They hadn't done that in a while.
"We have to go back in time," Bailey gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth. Even Sydney and Aaron, the boys that were the smartest she had ever known, the ones that, being the youngest had always had a wide-eyed innocent view towards the world, looked at her as if she were crazy. "When you were fourteen years old, there may have been something that happened, someone you met, something you did, that caused all of this to happen. What if we could go back in time to stop it?"
"I know I said that 'impossible' isn't in my vocabulary—"
"There are a lot of things that aren't in mine," Zack interrupted. "And time travel is one of them."
"Two of them," Cody corrected. "It's two words."
"Whatever!" Aaron threw his hands into the air.
"If you boofheads are done," Sydney snapped, eyes flashing. "Traveling back into time isn't just impossible, it defies the laws of physics, and science, and—"
"And so does everything being an Elemental is," Bailey insisted. She crossed her arms over her chest, flicking her auburn hair out of her face. "All of this defies the laws of physics and science and common sense but its here! And time traveling isn't impossible if we have someone here whose power is dealing with time."
Cody shook his head. "Even if that's the case….what do you propose will happen if we manage to make it back? Things are going to be…different. Changed. I don't think we would be able to handle the fall out."
"And, I don't remember anything happening back then," Zack admitted. His face screwed up in thought. "All I know is that WingzCorp had done nothing but chased us around and we did our best to fight them off as our powers grew each day."
"We don't have a choice, we have to try," Aaron insisted.
"And do what?" Cody snapped. "What do you expect us to do when we get there? Or get back. If that's even possible. There are too many risks at stake."
Bailey's eyes flashed as she turned towards her ex-boyfriend. She hadn't been so angry with him before. Not even before she knew about his powers, not after she found out, not when she was dragged along with them. Nothing could've prepared her for the intense irritation that had surrounded her at that exact moment.
"You didn't seem to have that problem when we were fighting Mother Nature!" She spat.
Cody growled. "I can't believe that you're bringing that up again." He jabbed himself in the chest. "I made the best decision I thought I could make. You knew what the risks were when we dug deeper and deeper into the prophecy and when that portal opened."
"You—"
"ENOUGH!" Zack shouted.
He shouted with so much ferocity that when he brought his hands up, he had accidentally shot out a stream of fire towards the wall, scorching it. Mother Nature flipped a few pages in the book and uttered an incantation in a language they couldn't understand. The burn mark on the wall immediately disappeared.
"I'm so sick and tired of having this argument all the time. What could we have done to have changed things? What could we have done to have kept it so that half of us didn't end up in comas or completely disfigured?" He motioned to the scars that were on his and Cody's faces. "I'm sick and tired of pussyfooting around and acting like nothing happened. Avoiding each other and conversations that we wish we could have but are afraid of what the initial fallout is going to be. We can't live like this anymore!
He finally lowered his voice. "I can't…I can't keep acting like I wasn't responsible for Max and Koto sacrificing themselves and I don't think I can live with that much longer without being able to talk about it. I hate having to know that Uriel is more than likely the one that killed the Jacksons' and Crystal's parents and not being able to tell them. I'm just tired. And we're going to do something about it. Now."
"What?" Cody blinked at his brother in surprise. "Why now?"
Not only did he not know the amount of emotion and pain his brother was carrying, but his outburst about it all. He didn't know he blamed himself for Max's and Koto's death, he didn't know that he was blaming himself for the decisions they made in their massive battle. He didn't know any of it.
The pressures of being the one that everyone looked up to had taken its toll and he was finally breaking.
"Because we can't wait anymore," Zack insisted. "We can't continue to keep things from each other and we can't continue to act like what happened with Mother Nature didn't happen." He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes flashing. "I'm calling a meeting. We need to talk about what happened and we need to do it now."
"I'm sure you're wondering why it was that I needed to talk to you," Father Time said as he brought Tapeworm, Julius, and Maddie into an enclosed room.
It resembled a dungeon, but it hadn't had the eerie feeling that all dungeons did. Not even the basement area under the State House had been as inviting as the room felt. Tapeworm, who was holding tightly onto Canis, gently lowered her to the floor. She, nevertheless, stuck close to his side, a hand pressed against his thigh, as if making sure he was still there.
"I couldn't help but overhear the conversation you had the night before," Father Time continued. "How you would like to be able to bring back those that you've lost." He looked the three in the eye. "What if I told you it was possible."
"At this point, I'd believe anything," Maddie said. She exchanged a look with Julius, who looked shell-shocked. She reached out and grabbed onto his hand. "I know it's…something he's thought about for a long time, but wouldn't talk about."
"Y-you can do that?" Tapeworm asked.
"No." Father Time took a step towards the three. "You can. But only by achieving something that no one has done before." He cleared his throat. "You need to harness some of Uriel's energy and use it to bring back the life that you've lost. However, that will prove to be difficult more than anything else you've ever done. Not only because Uriel is powerful, but because his power of life is also balanced by his power of death. But combined, it adds to the balance of the worlds."
"So what does that mean for Uriel?" Julius asked. He scratched the back of his head, frowning. "We know that Nature can't work without time, the passage of time can't work without nature. Just like light can't work without darkness and darkness without light." He swallowed thickly.
His mind moved at a mile a minute, flashing past images of him when he was growing up; images of the births of his siblings, of his birthdays, of Christmases and holidays past, of the time where he had been nothing but blessed, scrolled by. Now he was thinking logically, putting on the façade he always held. The one where he pushed aside the thoughts that kept him up at night, forcing him to feel the pain he hadn't really dealt with over the years.
No, now it focused on Uriel and everything that was sitting in front of him. He wasn't as smart as Sydney; the car accident from years ago had messed up his memory to the point where his short term memory was in a constant flux, grasping to remember things that had happened only moments before, and yet he was still very much focused when he put his mind to it. It all made sense, the opposite that attracted, the way things lived in balance, Uriel being able to control life and death when they had only thought about him controlling 'life', it made nothing but sense for him to…
"Does that mean that Uriel used to…" he trailed off.
"Yes," Father Time admitted. "Uriel presided over the Element World as well. The five of them were the forces that came together to keep everything in balance."
"So what happened?"
"Nothing of importance at the moment," Father Time waved off the question. "What you need to know is that Uriel can be stopped and you can have everything go back the way you wanted it too. But not without this." He spread his hands and the floor opened up to reveal another pedestal. As it rose out of the floor, there was a gem inside that resembled the Element stones. "This is the gem that the element stones had been carved out of many centuries ago. It holds immense power that can be used for the purpose of whoever holds possession of it. I believe that within your possession, you'll be able to return the loved ones you've lost and aid in the battle to restore everything there was about the Element World."
"What's the catch?" Maddie asked. She tightened her grip around Julius' hand, finding it shaking. There was a slight squeaking sound and Maddie looked over to find Tapeworm had a tight grip around Canis's shoulder and was pushing hard against her skin.
Canis made a sound of protest and pushed against his thigh. The movement caused Tapeworm to look down at the little girl and released his grasp, moving his hand to her hair, gently mussing it. He felt a need to protect her the way Canis had done for Max all those times before. Maybe it was his way to hold onto what was left of his girlfriend.
Until now.
Now that there was a way to get her back.
"We can't prove it'll work or that it'll be able to turn everything in the Element World back to the way it had before as we don't know if all of the five elements can live in harmony once more, but it'll be something we have to try. That we only have one shot at trying."
Tapeworm clenched his jaw. There was so much at stake and yet…this could help with having everything end once and for all. Once they had some of Uriel's power, he'd be weaker and things would finally be over.
They'd have everyone back. But how different would they be? Would it be like everything about their existence as Elementals would be erased? Or would they still have the conscious knowledge of what happened? There were so many questions that needed to be answered and yet…he was willing to do it.
Julius took a deep breath. "And this'll make it easier to defeat him?"
"Uriel can't continue to split parts of himself into others. Just like he can't continue to go back and forth between the two worlds, using the portal, or else it makes him weaker each time. Which is when he goes on to kill the innocent, taking the life out of people so that he can renew his energy." Father Time motioned to the gem. "This will aid that process."
"Got it," Maddie agreed.
Tapeworm, Julius, and Maddie all looked at each other once more. This wasn't a decision to be made lightly, but at the same time, it wasn't something they could wait for. Not when it would ultimately, finally save the worlds.
"We'll do it," Tapeworm said firmly.
Crystal, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Reihu, and Noah all sat in a semi-circle around the floor of the bed chambers. They all wore identical expressions of malice and anger on their faces.
"And then Core said that there's going to be a war between both worlds if things aren't stopped soon," Reihu said. He curled his fingers into his palms, eyes shifting back and forth as if he were watching his prey across the room. "That may have been what Uriel was after this whole time."
"How come you didn't say anything before?" Rhuben asked him.
Reihu's eyebrow arched. "I was a bit too preoccupied, wondering how we managed to get here," he said. Sighing, he brought a hand up to his mouth and licked the back of it before smoothing it over his hair. "Not to mention Core isn't the most credible person on the planet. What he wanted us to do as the DarkLions—"
"I'd rather not talk about that, thanks." Rhuben's eyes narrowed.
The thunder elemental stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. "When it all comes down to it, this is the best way to go," Patrick said under his breath. He leaned forward and glanced at the opening to the bed chambers, hoping no one would overhear them. "Once Uriel is out of the way…"
"Do you think it's what'll make us happy though?" Crystal pointed out. "That he would be dead?"
"Uh, yeah," Reihu said. "Why wouldn't it?"
Rhuben gave her cousin a sharp glance. "He killed your mother. Tried to kill you, considering you were in the car with her, and is probably planning something against Uncle Christian as we speak."
Crystal gave her a sharp look as well. "That's not what I meant," she insisted. "What I mean is would killing Uriel, rather than defeating him, reducing him to nothing, be the better option." She laced her hands together, clasping them around her upraised leg. "If we could weaken him, and banish him back to the Element world, that may be the better option."
Riley ran her hand through her hair, brushing it back over her shoulder. "What if he's the one that's cursed us?" She asked. Her eyes moved along her siblings and cousins. "Not only with the curse that you, me, and Rhu have to deal with, but the darkness too." She started to stab at the ground with her index finger. "He's the reason why so much has gone wrong in our lives. Why we had to go through so much fucking pain. And the only way to get rid of that constant pain is to get rid of him." Her eyes were wild with fury. "He needs to fucking die, there's no other way around it!"
"How do you plan on going about that, realistically?" Noah asked her.
"We haven't shown anyone, not even Zack and Cody and Tapeworm, everything we can do with our powers," Riley insisted. "We taught them everything they know, but not everything that we know." She thumped herself on the chest. "The motivation is there."
Crystal lolled her head back, looking at the ceiling. She felt the familiar grasp of pain around her heart. Her mother was gone. She wasn't coming back and it was all thanks to the…thing. She had watched her father fall into depression and she had stepped up to take care of him. He had slowly started to come back, to return to his normal self and he had really gotten there when he got the job offer to be a professor at UMass. The move had been easy, her cousins were there, they had found and adopted Aaron, then her cousins moved in and everything was great. Their lives had changed for the better…then it all started to fall apart again.
The grip on her heart turned into a cold, icy shield of protection. He was the one that started it all again. We were so happy and now…"You're right," she murmured. "This is the only way."
"So what's the plan?" Patrick asked. "It's going to be hard to come up with what's going to defeat him, especially if he's that powerful."
"We'll think of something," Rhuben said firmly. "We have to."
"And we will," Noah agreed.
"We will," Riley repeated in a harsh whisper.
A/N: And now you see the three main plots for the story.
Cheers,
-Riles