CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Patrick cracked his knuckles before rolling his wrists, loosening them up. He glanced across the room at Cody, frowning before turning his attention up to Mother Nature, Father Time, Geneva, and Gattaca, who all stared back at him. He had thought they were supposed to go against those that they were the weakest against; which made sense for Tapeworm and Sydney as Tapeworm held the element of Earth and Sydney had the element of spirits that gave him many advantages and disadvantages in its own merit.

But he thought he would've been going against Noah if anything, simply because their elements were of the same merit, weather related and had their own strengths and weaknesses against each other. Sure, water and electricity gave a bit of an advantage on his own right, but that wasn't what worried him. What filled his mind was the wonderings of what Mother Nature was truly after. If she had been watching Earth for so long, she could've easily watched as they sparred with each other, practiced to see what levels their abilities were at.

And yet, she sat calmly in her seat, legs crossed at the knee, hands resting in her lap with an air of regal that was palpable around the room. Due to his love of history, he knew on Earth much of the dynasties and rulings that went along were where the King was the highest in order, it appeared to be the other way around when in the Element World.

"Please get started when you're ready," Mother Nature called.

Patrick nodded and looked back at Cody, starting to bounce back and forth on the balls of his feet as he let out repetitive long breaths. It was a way to get him centered and focused. Because while he stood across from Cody, who appeared ill at ease, he didn't see one of his close friends and confidants. No, instead he saw Uriel and envisioned what he wanted to do to the Elemental of Life when he managed to get his hands on him. That was what he was fighting for at the moment, all of the time he had spent to get stronger and better, was all to be able to kill Uriel. Ever since finding out that they had been murdered rather than died in an accident, he had wanted nothing more than to find out who had done it.

Now that he knew…

Patrick was knocked out his thoughts by a wave of hard water hitting him in the chest. He was knocked off his feet and crashed against the ground. At first he was a bit annoyed that his spikes, that meticulous took at least an hour of time to style in the morning, had fallen down into his face, then after a quick shake of his head knocking his dripping fringe back, he set his eyes back on Cody and watched as he rapidly approached Patrick with jet propulsion.

There were many things that Patrick had a jokingly egotistical point of view with, but he considered himself to be a very strong fighter, choosing to think with his fists rather than an actual strategy, and wasn't going to go down that easily.

"Nice try," he murmured under his breath before pressing his palms together. He started to rub them together as quickly as he could when Cody continued to fly towards him. He continued to rub as hard as he could, and when Cody was almost directly in front of him, he rolled out of the way.

"Whoa!" Cody dropped his hands and the water stopped him, seconds from crashing face first into the wall behind him.

Patrick rolled onto his knee and sprang back towards the blond elemental. As he flashed by, he held out a hand and slapped it against Cody's back. "Static Shock!" It worked exactly as he had expected it to. The friction of him rubbing his hands together at the heightened pace increased the voltage and heat of the electrical power he had been storing up and conducted against the water elemental nicely.

Cody let out a cry of pain as he was blasted to the side and landed hard on the ground. He flipped himself back to his feet and rolled his neck. His eyes shifted around Patrick to the area directly above, below, and to the sides of him.

You have to be less obvious than that, Patrick though before sprinting towards Cody. The older teen reacted quickly and leapt overhead before spinning around and striking Patrick in the back with a swift kick. When the thunder elemental turned around, he received a punch to the face. Spoke too soon.

"Something as simple as that, you should've seen it coming," Cody commented as he allowed Patrick to at least get back to his feet. "That was just a mere moment of studying the area around you." He took a step back as Patrick slowly grinned.

He brought his hands back and rapidly thrust them forward over and over again, sending out bolts of electricity. Cody rolled leaned backwards out of the way before continuously moving from side to side as Patrick continued to send bolts of electricity at him, advancing with each step. When Patrick got close enough, he shifted his body weight onto the balls of his feet and lashed out in quick high and low kicks and punches that revealed his strength in kickboxing training. And proved just how much he had improved over the years.

Cody reacted quickly, despite receiving critical and hard blows from the electric elemental. One he got a small reprieve from his opponent, when Patrick had to spin back around to lower his foot to the ground; Cody took in a deep breath, allowing his tai-chi training to take over. That gave him the chance to be a bit stronger than he had been before, enough so that he fended off Patrick's attacks pretty well, despite having had been blindsided by the original attack.

"And I thought the fight between Tapeworm and Syd was bad," Zack murmured, mouth covered by his hands. "I mean, I don't want to go against him, honestly, but it's still kind of hard to watch."

"Why?" Tapeworm looked over at him. "Because of Patrick's advantage with his power set?"

"No, because if Cody has the power of the element stone, he's obviously holding back."

"You're forgetting one thing though, Zack," Rhuben said from his other side. She had a small smile on her face and when she turned her head to face the fire elemental, it widened. "That we taught you everything you know when it came to awakening. But not everything we know."

You got that right. Patrick sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes, concentrating not he power inside him. It continued to grow in strength and size until he was bathed in a warm yellow glow. Opening his eyes, he found that Cody was bathed in the same amount of light, though his was a more brilliant blue, taking on the power of the Element stone still in his possession. "Cursed Dragon!"

Patrick's scythe appeared in his hands and he held it high over his head as he raced towards Cody. /Master Patrick, don't do this/.

I have to strike him first, or else his use of the Element Stone will be too great, Patrick replied. He leapt high into the air, bringing his scythe even further above him. "Lightning Storm!" With an arcing sweep of his scythe, bolts of electricity shot through the air in rapid succession over towards Cody. He then turned his scythe around and cut back the other way, this time as he completed his arc, falling back to the ground, he slammed the side of it onto the dusty floor. The force of the slam emitted a loud sound wave that raced towards Cody as well. "Thunder Blitz!"

He then followed it up by tapping into the power of the dragon she shared with ThunderTatsu and sprouted wings from his back, claws for hands, and his canines elongated. He let out a loud roar that shook the building before launching straight up into the air. He flipped backward as his wings did a powerful stroke downwards, sending energy Cody's way. "Golden Wing Strike!"

Attack after attack blew towards Cody, using every ounce of strength Patrick could muster. And yet, each attack bounced off of Cody and the water bubble he had formed around himself. And the lightning elemental continued to scream with effort with each attack he sent out, until the yellow glow around him started to dark on a darker color, slowly sliding into a black hue.

Finally, Cody's eyes snapped open, revealing the completed power he had taken in from the element stone. The bubble popped around him sending bolts of hard water towards Patrick. The jets of water crashed into Patrick and caused him to jerk back every now and then, but he continued to launch attacks—though weaker—at Cody at a faster succession.

"Water of the Soul!" Cody held out his hands and his staff appeared. After having taken on the Element stone the water capsule at the top of his staff had changed. It held his element mark in gold on the face while the insides swirled with differing hues of blue. "Water Release! Hydro Launcher! Leviathan!"

Erupting from the gem atop Cody's staff, a looming wave of water launched towards Patrick, followed by an energy blast. The blast crashed into the electric elemental and knocked him into the wall behind him. And the water kept going and going and going, continuing to strike against Patrick.

He held his breath as long as he could. Due to being a surfing enthusiast he could hold it much longer than normal people, being able to stay underwater for up to four minutes at the most, but this was different. This wasn't just a water attack, it was a fraction of the energy coming from the element stone and that was nothing he had ever gone against before.

He couldn't handle it.

The added energy from the stone was too overwhelming and he knew he couldn't handle it. Cody lowered his staff and his eyes faded back to the normal color, allowing Patrick to drop to the floor, head dropping.

"Alright!" Mother Nature called. "It's finished."

Cody immediately waved away his staff and hurried over to Patrick. As the Australian teen looked up towards his friend, he could see the flash of amazement in his eyes. Despite having just lost, Patrick managed his famous lopsided smile up towards the blond, one that was genuine.

"Man, if I knew that the Element Stones were going to give us that much power, I wouldn't have given mine to you, yeah?" He said with a light laugh.

Cody chuckled and reached out, grabbing onto his hand, pulling him to his feet in one hard tug. "I'm glad you think so. Because that stuff is scary." He looked over his shoulder at his friends as they got up from their places and the Jacksons hurried over to their brother. "You put up a great fight, though."

Now Cody's smile faded as he looked over the Australian teen. His friendly demeanor was something he had noticed about the boy as soon as they met. Now it was gone, covered by an intense frown that seemed to be coming from deep within him.

"No, I didn't," he murmured seconds before Riley careened into his side, giving him a hug.

"Pat, are you okay?" She asked him, eyes filled with anxiety.

Cody shot her an annoyed look. "Well, geez, Riles, I'm not exactly a picture of perfection over here," he remarked sarcastically, causing her to roll her eyes as well. Still, he couldn't help but notice that when she turned back to her brother she appeared afraid, more so than usual. Glancing over at Rhuben, Noah, an Sydney, he saw they had similar expressions on their faces as well. Maybe there was something he missed.

"No one cares about you Cody," Zack replied, slapping his brother on the shoulder with a teasing smile. "Are you just figuring that out?" Cody flashed him the middle finger in response.

"No." Patrick took a deep breath, turning back to Cody. "Because this wasn't just a fight against you and me."

"What do you mean, Pat?" Maddie asked him. She exchanged a glance with Julius before going to the electric elemental's side and looking over his skin for any cuts or bruises she needed to heal. "This was just practice."

"Exactly!" He snapped. "What happens when we come up against the real thing? Against Uriel? If the powers of the Element Stone in Zack and Cody couldn't defeat Mother, what makes you think it would defeat him. If I couldn't put up a better fight against Cody in this, what makes you think any of the rest of us will be able to stand up against him when the time comes?"

Crystal cocked her head to the side and let out a quiet breath as she regarded her cousin. "That's what the point of this is."

"Is it? Really?" He let out a loud bark of laughter. "See, because I thought all of this was being done for Mother Nature to see how well we fight. If this is an indicator of anything, none of us are ready to face him and that's a bloody harsh reality we're going to have to face. Thing are going to get really aggro. And if we don't come to terms with that, we're all going to die sooner than we think."

There was a long moment of silence that followed his words, causing Patrick shake his head lightly.

They didn't get it. None of them did. He always had a smile on his face that gave him friends quicker than anyone could imagine. All he wanted out of life was truly to be happy and through that wish he had managed to find a way to smile and see the bright side of life through everything he had gone through. However, that didn't mean there weren't times where he found himself thinking realistically and allowed himself to think of the things that drove him forward. His mother and father.

He wanted Uriel dead. Even worse than dead, completely obliterated. Disintegrated. Anything that will cease his existence of being. It was the worst he had ever felt about anything in his life.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore," he said.

Noah raised an eyebrow as he turned towards Crystal and gave a half smile. "Great way to start you birthday, eh, Crys?" Crystal gave him a warning look and he ducked his head, his smile widening ever so slightly. "Kidding."

"I bet you were."

Patrick lifted his head, his bright smile back on his face. "If that fight was hard, I can't wait to see what the other ones are like." That's what he said, but what he was thinking was What's the outcome of all of these fights? What does Mother Nature want? And more importantly. How much longer can we stay here?

A/N: If my planning works out well, Chapter 40 will start out the rest of the story. I don't have an idea of what the ending chapter goal will be, just that the story will end when the story ends. As I had said on twitter I had come up with an idea for one last story after this one, though I haven't ultimately decided if I'll do that.

Otherwise, you may have thought that Patrick was defeated too easily, but it was means to show the power of those that holds the Element Stone compared to those that don't. I haven't been able to do a longish chapter for this story in a while, but I getting back in the swing of things, especially as this story moves at a moderately fast pace.

Cheers,

-Riles