“We have the strike now!” Dustin said as he slammed his fist on the table. Around him, inside of the living area of the base, the rest of the Guardians, including Danielle, sat and discussed their next move.
“I could be dangerous,” Ryan reminded him. “Landon won’t let his guard down now that your back. He knows we know where he’s located.”
“Landon has more power then you can imagine.” Vin said. “Running head strong at him might not be the wisest of ideas.”
“I’m on Dustin’s side.” Zach interjected. “If we can take down Landon, we should. He’s a parasite on the world, and if we get rid of him, it would be a huge leap towards peace. If we can secure that today, why not?” Zach’s thought made the others ponder for a long moment.
After a week of relaxing and resting, they had come back together to discuss what to do next. With Saki locked up, there focus was now on Landon, with Danielle knowing his location from saving Dustin before.
“Are we really prepared to fight Landon?” Nate asked. “Yes we have Zayn, and the Mystic Arts, but after all is said and done, will we stand victorious? We have no idea what Landon is capable of.”
“What if we get back up?” Tyler suggested. “Sean and Darkrai. Find Chris and Alex. Even get the Tribunal to help. With all the power we should be able to have the upper hand on Landon.”
The room feel silent in the thought of a all out attack with their allies.
“We’ve already waited a week; I’m not going to wait any longer for this.” Dustin said standing up.
“Dustin,” Danielle said as she grabbed his arm. Dustin didn’t look back.
“I need all of your help please. We need to stop Landon.” The Guardians looked at each other slowly.
“Dustin,” Zach began Dustin looked over his shoulder. “We will follow your lead. Let’s go take out Landon.” Dustin shook his head as they headed for their cars.
In Dustin’s car, Dustin, Danielle and Tyler sat in the darkness. It was close to the middle of the night, and behind them in Zach’s car, the others followed.
“Are you sure you know where this warehouse is at?” Tyler asked from the back seat.
“Yes. Darkrai and Carrie gave me the location. It should be in the forested area.” Danielle pointed as the road forked in two directions, one was towards a clear road, and the other was over run with overgrowth, and it was only partly clear that a path was once there. Dustin hit the high beams on his car and continued on the path. Zach’s car followed.
“How far is it?” Dustin asked.
“Well we should see a clearing soon on a hill. We need to stop there.” Danielle said.
“Why?” Dustin asked.
“Well two cars with high beams coming at the warehouse might alert him.” Danielle said. Dustin just shook his head as he saw the clearing to his left. He turned and stopped the car at the foot of a hill. He opened his door and even though it was night, the full moon provided plenty of light. Zach’s card parked next to him and they began to get out.
“So where is the warehouse?” Zach asked sarcastically. Danielle was already walking up the hill.
“I guess we follow on foot.” Dustin said as they followed.
As the approached the top, they could see the top of the warehouse. It was the length of two football fields and had to be a least 15 stories high. The building had to be another mile away from there. A few lights were on in a few windows in the giant building, but it looked deserted.
“Jesus what is that place?” Ryan asked. “Who would build something like this in the middle of no where?”
“Good question.” Dustin said. “We might find out.” He turned to Nate. “I need your help.”
“With what?” Nate asked.
“Were going down there first and see what we can find.” Dustin turned to the others. “We will signal you when were ready.”
“Why Nate?” Zach asked.
“His Sharingan will keep us alerted for a sneak attack. I don’t sense his energy, but he could be suppressing it.”
“Alright we will wait here.” Ryan said as Dustin grabbed Nate’s arm and placed his two index fingers on his forehead, and they both disappeared.
Dustin and Nate reappeared in front of the front door of the warehouse. It was nothing special, no locks or anything. Dustin looked to Nate.
“Alright, I need you too keep an eye on my back.” Dustin said as Nate shook his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them back up, his Sharingan was active. Dustin placed his hand on the door handle and opened the door. He looked back as Nate as he then ran into the building. Dustin lifted himself off the ground and flew in behind him.
On the hill, the others waiting, discussing their next step.
“The waiting is killing me.” Zach said, itching to fight.
“We don’t know what is in there. Nate couldn’t look over all of us.” Danielle reminded them.
“Well how did you get in there?” Tyler asked.
“I told you, Darkrai used the portal thing and we were right next to Dustin’s stasis tube. We disabled it, smashed it opened, and left Dustin out on this hill. Time was not on our side. You guy’s were already battling The Shredder. We knew when he awoke he would sense your guy’s power levels and come to see what was going on.”
“Well we can blame Kyle for that one.” Ryan said as he turned to Zach. “Speaking of, where is he? Didn’t we make him a Guardian?”
“Nate said he took him to his home after the battle. Apparently been resting sense. I wouldn’t know. The kid gives off a weird vibe if you ask me.” Zach answered as he continued to watch the warehouse, searching for any sign. Danielle’s phone began to ring. She answered and put it on speaker for everyone to hear.
“Alright, it’s clear, no one’s in here, and most of the place has nothing, except for some underground area, I assume the lab.” Dustin said over the phone.
“Were on our way.” Vin said as they began to travel.
The others arrived shortly and Dustin led them to the underground lab. The place was huge, spanning at least double the size of the warehouse itself. This was where Landon was doing his work. There were dozens of rows of empty status tubes. A huge panel hosted to a giant keyboard with many different prompts on it was on one of the walls. The walls were bricked and the floor some sort of tile. Half a dozen work stations were set up around the entire place. The Guardians were walking around, amazed at what they were looking at. In a remote corner, a single status tube sat, away from the others. The glass was broken and the liquid was emptied. Dustin stared at it, ignoring the chatter the others were in. Danielle walked up behind him.
“This was where I was?” Dustin asked, not ever looking back at her.
“Yes.” Danielle said. Dustin shook his head as he didn’t remember being in the tube at all. He only remembered waking up on the field and senses his friend’s power levels. Suddenly the darkened room lit up from the light of the giant monitor. Dustin and Danielle looked back to see Ryan on a chair typing on the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” Zach asked.
“Well were not in any danger, so why not look through their system, see if we can’t find something out.” Ryan said as the screen showed rows of folders, all titled different in a mix up of letters and numbers.
“You know in movies, when someone say’s that, they die in the preceding five minutes.” Tyler said as everyone slowly moved their heads to look at him. “What?” Ryan sighed as he went back to work on the computer.
“At the very least we can find out why Landon made the clone in the first place.” Ryan said typing and clicking. Suddenly they all heard a familiar dark laughed.
“I told you!” Tyler said as every one turned around, and prepared themselves to attack.
“Look at the heroes. Preparing to attack.” Landon’s voice echoed inside the laboratory. Everyone looked around, trying to find him.
“I can’t sense him.” Tyler said.
“Me ether. He’s not here.” Dustin said the giant screen flicked and it showed Landon smiling.
“Look behind you.” Landon said. They looked on and say Landon, smirking right back at them. “I was wondering when you all would come around.”
“Landon! Tell me why you cloned me!” Dustin demanded.
“If you haven’t figure it out by now, this is just a recording. I guessed you would look around before.” Landon laughed.
“Are we that predictable?” Zach asked.
“Your all wondering what exactly my plan was with kidnapping Dustin and cloning him, and apparently your came here to stop me. Well you’re a little too late there. We left here the moment I knew Dustin has escaped. I knew you would all come here sooner or later.” Landon smirked.
“Let me see if I can find someone on this computer. I’m sick of hearing him gloat.” Ryan said annoyed.
“Now you may think I am a James Bond villain by doing this, but tht facility will set up to exploded in sixty seconds.”
“EXPLODED!” Everyone said at the same time.
“Yes exploded! I do hope you all yelled it at the same time. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Anyway, to set myself apart from being a James Bond villain, the explosives go off in five seconds. Ta-ta!” Landon laughed as the screen chanced to the number five. Everyone looked at each other wide eyed.
“We can’t get out of here in five seconds.” Zach yelled. The five became a four.
“Four seconds.” Tyler said. The Screen jumped to three.
“Counting down is not helping!” Nate yelled as the screen jumped to two. Dustin lifted himself off the ground, grabbing Danielle.
“Grab on!” Dustin yelled as he approached the others. The screen jumped to one. Danielle reached out and grabbed Nate’s arm, as Nate grabbed Ryan’s. Ryan reached out for Vin as he did for Zach, and Zach reached for Tyler, who was no in his reach. The clock jumped to 0 as a strand of stand quickly flowed out and wrapped around Tyler’s arm. Dustin put his two index fingers on his head.
Outside, the warehouse was quickly engulfed in a huge explosion the illuminated the night sky, almost making it feel as it was light out. Suddenly, from the hill from before, the Guardians appeared and feel to the ground. The all groaned as they watched the warehouse exploded. Dustin punched the ground, leaving and imprint of his fist.
“We were so close! We should of come sooner.” Dustin said.
“Dustin, don’t beat yourself up about it. Landon said he left when you escaped.” Tyler reminded him as he brushed off sand from himself.
“I say we leave before people see this.” Ryan said.
“I think people in Russia can see this explosion.” Zach said as the explosion continued to grow.
“I guess we won’t know Landon’s next move.” Vin said. The Guardian’s sat back as they watched the explosion silently.
In a dark room light only by candles as two shadows looked over a large scroll with 32 different names on it, most notable, Dustin Snyder, Zach Taraentelli, Nate Taraentelli, Tyler Hockman, Ryan Erichsen, Brandon Grocki and Kyle Witmyer.
“Does this list look correct?” One of the shadows asked. The other shadow walked into the candle light and had a mask on. The mask was red and was crafted to look like a demon.
“Everything is set. Send out the invitations.” The masked one laughed.
