It takes less than ten minutes for us to arrive in the town, and about five more minutes for us to arrive at the entrance to the tunnels. I have to kick down the door that leads into the small shack, which only takes about a minute, and then I step away from the entrance and hold my hand out towards it.
"Who's first?" I ask, motioning towards the stairs that lead down from the floor of the shack into the abandoned tunnels underneath the town.
"We need light," Robin says, "so I suppose I'll go first and—"
"No," Mark interrupts, "I'll go first. I'm the Fire Elementalist, after all." He snaps his fingers, and a small flame appears for a few seconds before it sputters and dies out. Robin laughs, and Mark argues, "No, wait, I've got this!" He creates another small flame, and this time it doesn't die out. "See, I did it!" he yells, punching the air with his fist. The sudden movement causes the flame to go out, and Robin laughs even harder.
"Mark, just let me do it," she says. Mark huffs and crosses his arms, mumbling, "Fine," while Robin creates a small blue flame in the palm of her hand.
I nod in the direction of the stairs, and Robin walks into the shack and begins to descend into the darkness of the tunnels. I look over at Mark and Jamal; they both hesitate before following her, with Mark in front of Jamal. I take a last glance behind us before following behind them.
I almost trip over Jamal, who has stopped on the stairs to wait for me. He mumbles sorry as I curse him, and we begin to descend the stairs once more. Robin changes the flame's color from blue to an almost-white yellow, so that we can see better.
"How far down does this staircase go?" Jamal asks without turning around to look at me. I thank him silently for that since I don't want to trip over him again.
"I think this would be considered a stairwell," I reply. "Also, it goes pretty far down; it leads all the way down into the abandoned tunnels under the city. Not many people know that these tunnels exist; they were created as a place for Elementalists to hide a long time ago, but, unlike the tree house, anybody can come down here."
"Agh!" I hear Robin cry out.
I push Jamal out of the way, almost falling down in the process. "What?!" I ask, panicking. "Robin what happened?!"
I think of all of the things that could go wrong—Robin falling down the stairs and breaking her neck, Time jumping out of nowhere with a knife, Mark trying to create a fire in the palm of his hand and accidently catching Robin on fire...
I realize Robin's talking and snap out of my thoughts. "...to push my bangs out of my face and forgot that I had fire in my hand," I manage to catch. "If Mark hadn't grabbed my arm I probably would've set my hair on fire... I should really trim my bangs."
I sigh in relief and at her stupidity. I notice that her bangs hang over her eyes, and I ask, "Robin, how long has it been since the government men came to your school?"
Robin stops walking and thinks it over. "I don't know," she admits. "I think about a week and half. Maybe two weeks, maybe one. So somewhere between one and two weeks, I guess."
Jamal looks at her and asks, "How can you even see?"
Robin shrugs. "It's just hair," she replies. She points at Mark with her free hand and adds, "It's a surprise you and Mark can see, too. You both have hair that would be covering your eyes, but it's covering your glasses instead."
"That's why I don't have bangs," I say, giving Jamal and Mark a nudge on the shoulder to get them walking again. "They grow out too fast, and have to be cut too much."
"Why are we even talking about hair right before what could be a life-or-death battle?" Jamal asks.
"Because Robin almost burned hers off," Mark replies. "Maybe I should light the way instead...we don't want a charred Robin on our hands."
"Shut up," Robin snaps, but she's laughing.
The remaining few minutes of the walk is silent until we reach the last step and Robin says, "We're here."
I move up to stand next to Jamal, who stands next to Mark. Robin stands in front of us; we all stand at an intersection of the tunnels—there's a tunnel ahead of us, an-other to the right, and a third to the left. Robin turns around to face me and asks, "Which way do we go?" but before I can answer, Mark gasps and starts to fall over.
I run over and manage to catch him right before he hits the ground, and notice that his eyes are glowing. He remains like that for a few seconds before the glow fades away; I set him down on the ground, and he blinks. He slowly begins to sit up, and Robin and Jamal each grab one of his hands and help pull him to his feet.
"Are you alright?!" Jamal and Robin ask almost simultaneously. Marks nods and wipes his hands on his jeans, as if that will rid of the uncomfortable feeling he must be experiencing. Angel always did the same thing after he had a vision.
"So," I say, looking over at Mark, "I'm assuming you know the way?"
Mark looks up at me, a surprised expression on his face. "How did you know?" he asks. "I mean how'd you know that I just...what I just saw?"
"Angel had visions, too, you know," I reply. I notice Mark and Robin wince at the boy's name, and I feel a little guilty for bringing up pain that they're trying to bury. "They always involved what was about to happen that we needed to stop, or things that needed to be done, and once or twice, the Prophecy."
"Oh," is all Mark says before pointing straight and adding, "it's that way."
We all follow Mark as he leads us through the tunnel—first straight, then left, then continue straight, and so on. When he points to the right and says, "There's a room through here. That's the last thing I saw," I tell everyone to wait before entering.
"Why? We don't have time for this!" I hear someone say, but I ignore them.
"Listen," I tell them, "when we go in there, no matter what, don't let your guard down. She may look like an innocent girl, but she's out to kill," I look at Mark as I say this, "and she can make anyone of you disappear in an instant. As if you were never born. It takes up a lot of her power, but if she makes one of you disappear, we won't even remember you. She erased the time you spent with us. There's always a loophole in these things, but I've yet to find the loophole in that one, and I don't want to risk it. She can't hurt you if she doesn't touch you. She has to be touching you to control the time involving you. So don't let her touch you, got it?"
Mark, Jamal, and Robin all nod. I take a deep breath and exhale before asking, "Are you all ready?"
"Yeah...," I hear Mark and Jamal mumble, as if they're unsure if they're ready to go or not. Robin just stands there, her hands clasped together, and her face full of worry.
She's scared she'd going to lose one of us, I realize. She knows that Time's main target is Mark because of the Prophecy, and she's scared as to what Time will do to hurt him.
She's scared for us.
I walk up to her and put my hand on her shoulder. "Everything will be alright," I promise her.
And Robin, the ever-optimistic Robin, replies, "You don't know that," before walking away and down the tunnel that leads to where Time is supposedly waiting.
I watch her walk away, trying to grasp what she just said, and then run off after her. Mark and Jamal follow behind me, running alongside each other. I glance back at them, remembering my plan of what to do if anything happens to either of them. Robin would be upset, of course, about my plan, so I didn't tell her. But I won't let those two die on her.
"Liz!" I hear Robin cry, and I break into a sprint. As soon as I arrive in the room, I see Robin leaning over an unconscious Liz, and I yell out for her to get away, but I'm too late.
Time suddenly appears behind Robin, and I realize what I forgot to tell them. I want to hit myself for forgetting to tell them something so important, and I turn around to face Mark and Jamal.
"She can teleport!" I yell. "Control the time around her to take her to places she's been in the past, so be careful! It appears as if it's teleportation, but she'll begin to fade away first, and when she does, stay behind me! She can control the pace at which she fades away too, so be careful!"
I turn back to Robin and realize that she was thinking, after all, and not just acting on impulse—she has a force field around her. She's leaning in front of Liz, and I realize that she's trying to pick the girl up. Somehow, she manages to, and she walks, wob-bling, towards us. When she stands in the entrance to the room, she sets Liz down and looks at Time.
"Don't bring her into this," she says, her voice full of anger. "She's not an Element-alist, she's just a kid, so leave her out of this."
Time laughs. "I wonder," she says, "who the weakest of you all is, then? Certainly not the little child who has no elemental powers whatsoever?"
"Leave her out of this!" Robin yells, and I notice Time flinch. I wonder if anybody besides me has ever yelled at her like that before, and I realize that nobody probably has in a long time.
"So," Time says, looking over at me, "I see you've chosen your side, Daemon?"
"There never was another choice," I snap. "You're a freaking psychopath!"
Time narrows her eyes, and I notice she's beginning to fade away. I turn around and pull Jamal behind me, and he grabs Mark's arm and pulls the boy next to himself. Robin stands protectively in front of Liz, and Time suddenly appears in front of her. Robin still has the force field up, but Time pushes her face as close as she can to the girls and says, "I won't touch the little girl. But you have to fight without this force field."
Robin hesitates, and then says, "You have to leave them out of this, too."
Time thinks this over, and then says, "The Fire Boy, he has to fight. It's part of the Prophecy. But I will leave the girl and one of the others out of this."
Robin opens her mouth to argue, but Mark, Jamal, and I all interrupt her with, "I'm staying."
"No!" Robin says, her voice frantic. "I can't let you guys get hurt! Daemon can take care of himself, but—"
"Robin," Mark says, "I have to fight. It's a part of the Prophecy."
"And if you can't use your force field, then you'll need the most defensive element instead," Jamal explains.
"I'm staying," is all I say before I hear Angel's voice in my head.
Xander's gift, it says, give it to Robin. It's time now, Daemon.
I pull the knife out of my pocket and hold my hand out to Robin. She looks up at me with a confused expression, and then she takes it out of my hand. When she reads the name carved into it, I notice some of the worry disappear from her face.
"Angel's brother," she mutters, more to herself than to me. "Xander..."
Time stands a few feet away and asks, "Well, you're all prepared to die, then?" He expression changes to one of malice and she adds, "Actually, the only one who needs to die is the Fire Elementalist and Robin." Mark takes a step back. "After all, the Prophecy says that they're the ones who will ruin everything. And then, after they're gone, I can kill the little girl. She seems to be the weakest of you all, after all."
I notice that Robin has her fists clenched, and she's glaring daggers at Time. "If you even touch them," she hisses through clenched teeth, "I'll kill you!"
"Touch them?" Time asks, tilting her head as if to tease Robin. Suddenly, she disappears and reappears behind me. Before I realize what's happening, she's asking, "Like this?" and has Mark by the arm.
Robin's eyes widen, and she reaches out towards Mark and tries to run to save him, but there's nothing she, Jamal, or I can do. Right as Time grabs Mark's arm, she adds, "Oops," and Mark begins to fade away.
It only takes a few seconds before he's gone. But in those few seconds I see Robin pull out the knife and begin to cut letters in her shirt.
And then he's gone.