CHAPTER THIRTY

Uriel crossed his arms, tapping his fingers against the inside skin. Looking down, he rubbed his hand against the upraised skin, the bumps and lumps that had come from one of the few attacks that had managed to catch him off guard. The burns that would never go away, despite how many times he had tried to heal himself. But, he supposed, that was the price to pay for placing that curse on the man after that little guardian fox had dome so much damage. He should've seen it coming; honestly, it was the only time had been caught off guard.

Until now.

Now, as he looked down at the figures that lay before him, he could barely contain his anger. He was so close o taking over the world and now, there was a wrench in his plan right in front of him. In those insignificant bodies that lay on the ground in front of him, protected by some sort of barrier he couldn't get through. He had seen it only once before and it had been one of the few times he had been nearly defeated, the only time he had to take so many souls, the only time he had to go into hiding and to split himself into so many different people as he gathered his strength back.

Not that it had been a total waste; he had been able to watch Zack, Cody and all of the others for so long he knew them perfectly. He knew their fight patterns, their hopes and dreams, even the insignificant things their best friends didn't know about each other. He knew the best ways to stop them in their tracks and to do the most damage to them, but it wasn't the right time. No, he had to wait until they got back on Earth, until then he could continue to expand his reach as far as he could, taking down as many Elementals as he could along the way, eliminating others that hadn't awakened yet, leaving the ones behind that had no connection to the powers that some exhibited in any way, shape or form.

"Sir."

Uriel turned just as the shadows on the wall moved and a shadow elemental appeared at his side. True to his power, the skin of the man was gray, hair dark, and eyes dull. There was an upside down crescent moon with arrows behind it on his forehead; his element mark. He was one of the few he could trust from the Element World, his power making him very easy to work alongside with. He had been Uriel's top supporter as soon as the seal between the Element World and Earth had fallen apart.

"We've cleared out many of the areas that you've told us to, however, I regret to inform you that there is an uprising being planned. We don't know where it's coming from, but we know that it's bound to be coming soon." The Shadow Elemental paused. "Do you think they'll return from the Element World in enough time?"

"I'm not going to allow myself to think of it," Uriel replied. He clenched his hand into a fist. "Knowing Mother Nature, Father Time…they're being trained up there so they can beat me. And with their Element Stones…it's possible they may succeed. But they've been gone for months, once they return they'll see that things have really changed around here, they may not be able to handle the fallout." He turned back to the bodies on the floor, looking over London, Kurt, Carey, Mr. Moseby, and Esteban.

"What do you want us to do with these prisoners?" The Shadow Elemental continued. "They have done nothing to help us."

"Oh but they have, in more ways than you could ever imagine." He cast a disapproving glance at London. "This girl didn't give us much information, I don't know if she truly is that blind or if she was just trying to protect them. In all, she'll only be usefully as the others would, as collateral damage when we need them." He then walked over to Carey and hovered over her. "Now, she's different. We need her," Uriel said, gazing at Carey. "She's the key."

"Key to what?" The Shadow Elemental questions.

"You know as well as I do that the Elemental bloodline comes through originated through the mother's bloodline. If there's anything that'll give us a means to defeat Zack and Cody and to destroy all of the others…it'll be through her."

Uriel slowly closed his eyes and kept them closed for a while. "We don't have much time."

Lifting his hands, he started to use his powers to chip away at the barrier that was covering them. Strong blasts that slowly started to chip away at their last hope.

"Could the spirit bearer and earth bearer please step forward?" Mother Nature called from the highest balcony of the expansive, empty room. Beside her sat Father Time and her children, all watching the ground below them with a critical eye.

Down below, in an area that was much like a baseball dugout sat the Elementals of Earth. As Sydney and Tapeworm were called, they glanced at each other in confusion before climbing out of the dugout and walking out into the middle of the room.

"When you get back to Earth, there are going to be many followers under Uriel that you have to fight," Father Time called, his voice regal as it wafted around the room. "Many will be with his powers, many will have powers you've never come up against before, and there are those that are going to be stronger than you without powers at all. We need for you to be sure that you can control everything that comes your way."

"The match-ups have been randomly chosen," Mother Nature spoke up once more. "However they're also what we believe will bring you to your full potential as an Elemental as we feel that many of you are holding back for your own reasons or another. Uriel will not hold back in his fight until each and every one of you are dead. Even after that he will not stop until he is completely defeated. I will not risk your lives if I didn't believe…if I didn't know you were able to defeat him. I hope you can exhibit that, if so, and then you will prove that you are indeed the ones the prophecy has determined to save us."

Sydney stretched his arms out in front of him before taking a step forward, and then looked over at his friends. Was he confident? The arrogant part of him was sure there were many ways that he could defeat Tapeworm, especially with the different forms of spirit that he could use to battle against the Earth Elemental. However, he was also aware there were many ways Tapeworm could overpower him, especially when his heart and head were in the right place.

As a matter of fact, depending on all of the match-ups that were going to be showcased, everyone had an equal chance of winning or losing against whomever they were pitted. This was going to be interesting, he determined. Especially in the eyes of Mother Nature, Father Time, Geneva, and Gattaca as they were the ones that held the most rule along the Element World. If they were the ones that had a hand in determining who was able to turn into an Elemental and have their special ceremony to get their animal spirit.

/Don't worry, Syd/ SpiritSaru's voice came into his head. /They won't let us go to the point where we would nearly kill each other. This is just for practice./

I know that, I just didn't think that we'd be fighting each other, Sydney replied. I thought we would be fighting their guards or people that work for Mother Nature and Father Time. Or maybe people like Magnus.

/We'll figure it out, don't worry. I'll protect you like I promised when I had first taken upon the role in my animal spirit ceremony./

Thank you.

Tapeworm took a deep breath as he gazed across the clearing at his youngest friend, who appeared just as concerned as he looked back at him. What was the point of this? The balance between those that were fighting, judging by how many of them were around, was going to be unbalanced, simply because of the years of experience. He, Zack, Cody, Maddie, and Aaron hadn't had their powers as long as the Jacksons and Crystal did. They had awakened to their powers years before Tapeworm had even become aware of it, having awakened himself shortly after Zack and Cody had.

He still remembered that day as clearly as he could a lot of things he had learned in school. He and Max had left the school and were going back to their house when they had seen Zack and Cody go racing by on the other side of the street. It being their new friends, Tapeworm and Max were immediately concerned and raced after them, stopping in an alley way and watching as Zack and Cody fended off a wolf and a lion that leapt their way, with blasts of fire and water.

Tapeworm remembered how his mouth had dropped open and he turned to see Max with the same expression on her face. But he wasn't afraid. For some reason he felt as if it were meant to happen, they were meant to watch the fight that was going on. And as they watched, all of a sudden, the edges of his vision started to turn dark. That's when Tapeworm became scared. Had he been knocked down by a wolf and not noticed it? Had someone come up behind him and attacked him as well? He struggled to keep his vision, but it continued to grow darker and darker until all of the scenery around him disappeared and he was standing in darkness.

"Hello?"

His voice echoed around the darkness, reverberating back to him and bouncing away over and over again. It grew louder and softer as it passed by him, swirling around and around. All of a sudden there was a bright green flash of light that appeared in front of him. It continued to increase in brightness until it slowly faded away, revealing the form of a bear cub curled up in a ball in front of him. The cub slowly uncurled itself and smiled at Tapeworm.

"Hi, Chris," he greeted the young teen, using the first name he seldom went by.

"You…you know my name?"

"I'm your guardian, I know everything about you. I was waiting for you to awaken, to take me on as your guardian and tap into your potential power as an Earth Elemental."

"Elemental?" The repetition of the word struck a chord with him. "You mean like what Zack and Cody are? The fire and water that they're able to shoot out…"

"Yes." The bear moved closer to Tapeworm, his smile widening. "I'm Ursa. Your guardian." He stretched out a paw. "If you take upon this power, you'll become an Elemental. Hurry, you have to decide quickly. I may have been assigned to you but if you don't take it…"

Tapeworm studied Ursa for a long moment before slowly, tentatively, reaching out his hand and touched it against Ursa's paw. The green light increased in illumination once more and Tapeworm had to shield his eyes from it. When he pulled his arm away, he found that he was lying on his back on the ground, staring at the sky. Looking up, he saw Zack, Cody, and Max kneeling over him, then noticed a hand pressed against his forehead. Shifting his eyes up even further, he twisted around and spotted Patrick Jackson, whom he had just met recently, with his hand placed against his forehead.

It wasn't until Tapeworm sat up and twisted around that he realized Noah was there as well, and had done the same to Max. Zack and Cody immediately grabbed their friends and hurried them back to the Tipton hotel, where they met up with Riley, Rhuben, and Sydney and had everything Elemental explained to them.

And things had gone on in a whirlwind since then. If he ever thought they would end up in the Element World back that day, he would've thought he would have gone crazy at the mere thought.

"I want you to fight as hard as you can," Mother Nature insisted. "Until one falls."

/We can do this, Tape/ Ursa reassured his ward. /Just fight hard and don't worry about the outcome. Fight as long and hard as you can. You're not going to hurt him, everything will be okay./

You got it, Tapeworm replied.

He took another deep breath, calming his nerves.

"Please commence when you're ready."

The two Elementals nodded and Sydney quickly started off the fight. "Water Spirits! Tidal wave!" Sydney's hands glowed blue and he pressed his palms together. The ground underneath them started to shake and Tapeworm struggled to keep his balance against the tremors. A magic circle appeared under Sydney's feet that increased in luminosity as a glowing blue line appeared on the ground. The line widened until a large tidal wave slowly rose out of the ground and towered over Sydney before slowly moving forward once more, heading towards Tapeworm.

The Earth Elemental took a step back, giving himself more space to think about what he was going to do. The wave drew nearer and nearer as Tapeworm's thoughts raced.

"Ice Spirits! Icy wind!"

Sydney followed up the attack with a quick shot of a cold gust of air following it. Tapeworm quickly realized what the boy was trying to do. He was going to soak him with water and then freeze him with the blast of air after him. A quick way to end a fight without having to do much damage.

Well, if he was going to try and make it that easy, Tapeworm wasn't going to allow him to do so. With a grunt of effort, Tapeworm placed his hands, which started to glow, on the ground and they pulsed with bursts of green light. The ripples of light moving outwards like miniature waves after a drop of water fell into a flat water-like surface. Lifting his hands, Tapeworm summoned a large rock wall up into the air, big enough to block out the wave that came towards him.

He then stomped his foot on the ground and large rocks flew up into the air and he sent them flying forward with a punch of his foot in the air, hand continuously glowing as he worked. The rocks flew overhead and headed towards the spirit elemental that worked on the other side.

Sydney twisted his mouth to the side and dove out of the way of the falling rocks. Skidding on the ground, Sydney quickly shot out his own boulders from his spirit powers and shot them back at the boulders, cracking them in mid-air.

"You're going to have to do better than that!" He called as the wave finally crashed to the ground, blocked off by a wall of rock that Tapeworm created to shield himself.

"I intend to!" Tapeworm called back.

He raced towards the spirit elemental, who ran back towards him. "Ursa!""SpiritSaru!" The elementals called out their guardians at the same time and the bear and monkey started to clash as the elementals continued to charge towards each other. Once they came together, they started to send bolts of energy at each other that quickly crashed into and negated each other every now and then a few bolts would hit each other, knocking them back.

"This is going on a lot longer than I thought it would," Maddie said honestly, her voice low as she watched the fight in front of her with rapt attention. "I figured that, because of how long he's had his powers, Syd would be able to beat him easily."

Julius shook his head. "No," he said simply. "Despite basically having them since he was born, he's still young and still has a lot of time to tap into his full potential. He's strong, very strong, but there are still moments where he's not strong enough."

Back on the battlefield, Tapeworm and Sydney stared to fight in hand to hand combat with parts of their powers thrown in when the opportunity arose. Tapeworm shot vines out of his hands and they wrapped around Sydney, pinning his arms to his sides. "Razor blade!" Tapeworm leapt high into the air and sent a stream of razor sharp leaves to the young elemental, causing him to squirm and react with pain as the leaves hit him. One even slashed by Sydney's face and cut him across the cheek where a thin red line appeared, a bead of blood sliding down his cheek.

Hunching over slightly, arms bent slightly as he readied himself to break out of the vines. "Nice try! Berserk!" Sydney crouched even lower and with a burst of air underneath him, shot himself up into the air, spinning in a tight circle. As he continued to spin, he broke out of the vines and started to gather energy together in his cupped hands. "SpiritSaru!"

Hearing Sydney called for his guardian; Tapeworm immediately drew his own guardian back to his side and waited to see what would happen. The bright light continued to glow and the ball of energy increased in size. And continue to increase and increase and increase as the seconds passed.

"Ursa! Go!" Tapeworm commanded.

Ursa roared loudly and leapt high into the air, crashing into SpiritSaru. As soon as he hit the spirit guardian, he was knocked back onto the ground. Tapeworm winced as he felt pain wrench at his shoulder and socket, the exact place that Ursa had hit when he fell to the ground. Tapeworm shot out another set of vines that wrapped around Sydney's ankle, holding him still despite the continuously growing ball of spirit energy. He did the same with Sydney's other foot them backed up, looking over at Ursa.

/This attack is going to be big,/ Ursa warned him. /It'll be hard to stop it once it gets going. You're going to have to do something drastic./

I guess this is what Mother Nature meant, Tapeworm thought as he glanced over at the standings. Each of his friends was watching in stunned silence, never having seen either of the elementals fight so hard before. It was astounding to see how hard they were working and how easily they were fighting back against each other.

Which brought up an important question: who was going to be fighting next? How were those fights going to go? What was going to happen if someone won and someone lost?

Tapeworm immediately focused his attention on all of the strength and power within him. He placed a hand on his chest and tapped into the power, taking the power from Ursa as well. The ground beneath him started to shake and large spires shot out of the ground, crossing against each other and covering Tapeworm, enclosing him in a tomb. The spires continued to shoot out of the ground, higher and higher as the seconds passed, enclosing him in even further.

Finally, with a scream of effort, Sydney stopped spinning and brought his arms up above his head. The spirit energy ball followed his movements and he threw it down towards Tapeworm as hard as he could. At the same time, Tapeworm let out a scream of an effort and the outer shell of the spires rocketed outwards and shot towards Sydney as well. The two attacks shot by each other and crashed into the elementals in an impressive light that filled the entire room. Then there was a low implosion and smoke and dust filled the room.

Sydney gasped as he was hit the by the blast before he felt himself rocketing to the other side of the room and crashing into the wall behind him. He slid to the floor and fell to his knees, trying to catch his breath. He felt like he had just ran a marathon two hundred times. There was not an ounce of energy left in him. It was the first time he had ever tried to use his Spirit Bomb attack, knowing what sort of energy it took from him and the living beings around him to do so. But that was the point, he wasn't to hold back.

But maybe he had used it too soon.

Lifting his head, the young boy looked across the battle field and spotted Tapeworm struggling to keep himself up as well. That caused Sydney to smile a little, now all he had to do was get the last blast in. Turning his head to the side, he watched as SpiritSaru disappeared in a flash of blue light, coming to a rest inside his ward until he gathered his strength once more. That had been one of the things he hadn't anticipated much either, that he had to use a lot of the power that his guardian held to move forward.

Sydney's vision slanted to the side and he fell to his knees. Looking over at the other side of the battlefield, he watched as Tapeworm struggled to stay up before the two pitched to the side and fell onto the ground.

It was a tie.

A/N: To figure out who would be going against whom, I used a random generator to see who would be paired up. I'm glad with the way they came out. There's advantages and disadvantages to both and I think the elementals that fought/are going to fight each other are the best matched.

It was random, I swear.

Cheers,

-Riles