DAKOTA'S POV!

Once again, this chapter is shorter than others but I feel like I got my point across. So, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

-November 5th-

"Dakota!" The unexpected mystery noise behind me startled me into completely losing my footing, resulting in me slipping down the mud ridding slope we were already trekking down. I tried grabbing at anything that could stop or at least slow my descent but all my hands grasped were mud and rocks that easily came out of the soft ground. To my knowledge, this slope ended in a sharp drop off into who knows what. That's why we were taking our time even if it allowed Tig to catch up.

This is going to hurt, I thought to myself.

But the fall I was awaiting for never came. Instead, a hand had grabbed my wrist stopping my descent, my whole body suspending off the side of the cliff. With my eyes, I followed the arm to find Isaac's blue eyes staring at me with fear clearly written on his face. He dug his heels farther into the mud and pulled me back onto the muddy grounds but did not let go of my hand. His other hand slid around my back holding me in place against his chest. If my face wasn't already bright red, I had no doubt it would be with those intimate gestures.

I could his heart beating fast as we stayed like this for a few minutes trying to calm down after I nearly became a pancake or a shish kabob; neither one sounding good.

"Are you okay?" Isaac finally spoke, voice shaky from the incident.

He pulled back a bit but kept his hand on my hip, his thumb rubbing in circles. I had subconsciously curled my fingers into his black tee and still had them like that even when he had pulled back.

I nodded my head, not trusting my voice.

"C'mon."

He grabbed the hand that was holding his shirt, lacing our fingers together and leading me carefully along the edge of the slope until we got to solid ground. I was too preoccupied by Isaac holding my hand that I forgotten to ask about the noise that startled me and continued to forget about it as we found a small cave to spend the night in.

The next morning, we woke to an explosion nearby. It shook the ground, knocking off some small rocks from the cave's wall, raining dust down on us. Isaac was up first, peeking out of the mouth.

"Shit!"

"What's wrong?"

I got up to see what was happening but Isaac whipped around, grabbing me around my stomach and pushed me to the ground, clawing over top of me to cover me with his body. Another explosion erupted, this time right outside the cave mouth mere feet from where we were laying, sending larger chunks of rock dropping down on us. The blast had deafened us, making every noise sound muffled and distant.

I felt Isaac shift before he presence was completely gone. My ears were ringing as I blinked the cave back into focus to see Tig holding Isaac by the collar of his shirt while pointing a gun at me, forcing Isaac to behave and not try anything reckless. He waited a few minutes till he knew my hearing was restored enough.

"Hello there, dear Water Guardian," Tig smiled, tipping his head forward as a greeting.

"How did you find us?" I questioned with my hands raised in the air, hoping to not provoke him into shooting me or Isaac. "And where are we?"

Both questions have been on my mind since we found yourselves in this dimension after the fight at homecoming. With how far we've traveled in this dimension, we thought we would come across any form of life but all this dimension seemed to be is mountains of rocks and mud. No humans. No plant life. Just rocks.

"We are in the dimension I call Alpha 14," Tig said. "A testing location for my experiments and weapons. It's a dimension with no life forms so I did not need to waste my time ridding it of said lower lifeforms. I, as well, thought it was a perfect setting to finally end this foolish feud once and for all."

What came next was the sound of Tig's gun cocking and Isaac fighting against his captor's hold, yelling at me to move. The stream of light discharging from the gun soared right at my head as I squeezed my eyes shut, too frightened to move or even think. The moment the blast was supposed to hit me felt like my head was gliding through water, expect the water was going through me instead of being pushed around my body.

"Interesting."

"Dakota!"

I slowly opened my eyes, looking around for were the blast hit. Tig had motioned behind me with the hand that was holding the gun when he saw what I was looking for. There was a hole about the size of my head, where my head would have been if I was completely against the cave wall.

"Seems like it is true," Tig said, an intrigued look on his face. "The Guardians do gain other kinds of power as time goes on."

I knew the statement was true, Mrs. Lin and Queen Cornelia told us it would happen but I didn't think it would be for any year, at least. He must have read the confusion on my face since he continued.

"The blast went right through you, my dear."

Isaac nodded his head, confirming Tig's words.

My head and emotions were spinning. I wanted to be fascinated in discovering my new ability, like Tig, but at the same time I know I should be worried about Isaac, who was still being held by Tig but was now the one at gun point, the barrel of the gun rested against his temple. Then, Tig started mumbling under his breath, something about adding my new found power to one of his experiments which would add a whole new predator like aspect to it. I did not want to think what kind of thing his experiment was as it sounded terrifying.

I caught Isaac's eyes right as a familiar feeling washed over me. A portal. Wynter! A purple hue behind Tig and Isaac, right outside the cave, illuminated the entrance and somehow going unnoticed by the mad scientist. Wynter and the girls were on the other end of the portal, waving at us. Ideas were running through my head as I was trying to form some kind of plan; ideas I was getting from my new powers and things I've seen on TV shows and movies. All of which, needed me to be more confident and skilled with my powers but we did not have time for that. Without thinking, I charged forward, reaching my hand out for Isaac's and the moment I grasped it, I focused all my energy on phasing Isaac's body part that was in Tig's grip. It must have worked since I looked back to see the man staring, confused, at his hand as Isaac and I ran towards the portal.

Wynter yelled for us to hurry, pointing behind us. Hearing an all too familiar sound of a gun cocking, we picked up our paces right as Tig fired a shot again. A searing pain made its way across my shoulder blade, sending me though the portal and into the arms of Wynter, who held up the Heart and closed the portal in Tig's face.

I groaned as Wynter helped me to stand, everyone crowding around Isaac and I to see if we were okay. My limps felt like jelly and my head was pounding like crazy. I needed to sit down before the ground found me.

"Lets get you all to the infirmary," Queen Cornelia said, once she came up to examine my injury, already pushing all of us in that direction.

Dakota is still getting used to her powers and now she has another power to get used to.

Have you figured out who the remaining Order of Shadow's human counterparts are? Also, I do not think I will be able to get another chapter up today so I'll just have to post two chapter next month.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for reading!