Hey guys, heads up, I updated this as chapter 20 last time and changed it back immediately after I realised, but some of you might still have read it and not seen my message/status, so go back and read 20 if you have read this before!

I realised that some of my plot are a bit permature so I might edit this majorly, but I will keep uploading what I have got. Your votes and comments means a lot to me ;D

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‘Don’t be ridiculous, you two can’t hold all of us up in the air!’ Holly exclaimed, then quickly lowered her voice back down. ‘It will be the joke of the century if we fall down in the middle of their base!’

Casey and Nate muttered in agreement, however, the others had stayed silence.

‘You guys are not seriously considering it are you?’ Casey asked, wide-eyed. Diego scratched his chin thoughtfully.

‘It might be feasible.’ He said, looking at me questioningly. ‘If we do it one at a time, I am sure Gail and me can hold one person up to the window without fail.’

I nodded. ‘As long as Nate and Casey are still able to hold up the barrier.’ I said, looking at the pair, who gave me doubtful glances.

‘It’s the only way.’ I said, ‘It’s a little too late to turn back now, don’t you think?’

Everyone fell silence and I pursed my lips at them. I knew I could hold everyone up there one at a time even without Diego’s help, but I wasn’t going to tell them. Who knows who is listening to us? I had a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Andrewson is watching us right now.

‘I will go first.’ Keith said, surprising everyone. I gave him a thankful smile and he nodded at me. That was as good as it gets from Keith. I cast a questioning glance at Casey and Nate, who both sighed and walked over.

‘Only because it’s you Abby.’ Nate said, creating a force field that enveloped Keith completely. ‘I wouldn’t do it for any other girl.’

I rolled my eyes at him; only he can flirt in a situation like this. Casey was rather disgusted too, since she gave him a glare and muttered something under her breath before she closed her eyes.

‘Remembered, we can’t physically move you, only your shoes.’ Diego said to Keith. ‘Keep your posture stiff and tried not to move around at all.’

Keith began to disappear right before us. Diego nodded at me and we began to lift Keith up by his shoes before we lose sight of him completely. Higher and higher and higher, we lift him a good five meter off the ground.

‘Do you think that’s enough?’ I asked, keeping a steady grip on his shoes. Whilst I was sure that I could lift him across without problem, wobbling is not easy on one’s stomach.

Diego nodded, concentrating hard on not dropping Keith. Thankfully we can still feel his whereabouts because of the connection to the shoe with our minds before Casey finish invisiblising him.

As previously planned, we set him on the second floor window of the Elemental base, which for our convenience was left wide open by some idiot. Slowly releasing my mental grip on his shoes (haha, mental grip) I drew back my mind and turned to the others.

‘Who’s next?’ I asked, probably a little too happily because they all gave me an evil look. Holly sighed and came over, and off she went too. We dropped her safely on the same place where Casey and Nate can just put up one field instead of two.

After her went Evanna, I began to noticed the strained looks of Nate and Casey. It must not be easy for them to keep up three force fields and cover three groups of people at the same time in such distance. Diego and I actually had it easy, but we were already nearly half way through. Hopefully they can hold on until then.

‘I can’t hold it anymore.’ Casey said, sweats beading down her face. It was half-way through Owen’s turn, me and Diego turned and looked at her in horror, but she was concentrating too hard to even spear us a glance.

‘I don’t think I can hold it for much longer either.’ Nate said, his face pale. I could feel their mind filtering and turned to see the alarmed look on Diego’s face. We immediately halted Owen to decrease the mental exertion on Nate and Casey.

‘We need to get them over now.’ I said, sounding a lot more authoritive than I thought I could. ‘If we can decrease the distance and numbers of fields they have to sustain, we still have a chance. Otherwise the others will all be disqualified.’

Diego frowned at me. ‘I am not sure we can handle five people at once.’ He said, I mentally estimated the weight of everyone and the distance to the elemental base. I might just be able to swing it. Now I only have to convince the others before Owen get exposed.

‘We either take the plunge and have a chance of succeeding, or leave the others to get disqualify.’ I told Diego, who was now having an internal battle in his mind. He knew that if we don’t do something soon it’s a fail, but was it worth risking the rest of us for a chance of success? Even if that chance of success was slim.

‘Alright, let’s do it.’ Diego said, sucking a deep breath. ‘Come on, before I change my mind.’

Smiling I extended my hand to Nate and Casey, whilst Diego did the same.

‘I will move Owen, you focus on getting all these two and yourself up.’ I said to Diego, who looked like he was about to protest but I had already started lifting my shoes up.

I moved Owen towards us first, who looked rather alarmed the moment he joined us. Diego was doing a good job keeping the three of them up but I could feel that he wasn’t going to last long.

‘What’s going on?’ Owen whispered shout, looking extremely confuse. I quickly sshed him and nodded my head towards Casey and Nate.

Owen’s expression told me that he understood perfectly when he saw their faces. I took his hand whilst he took Nate’s and I began to help moving both Casey and Nate.

I could immediately felt the relieve in Diego’s mind, and whilst he was wondering why it has suddenly became easier, he just got on with it without a break. Casey and Nate were doing better too, now that they only had to hold up two barriers and the distance between them was decreasing rapidly.

No one underneath us seemed to notice a thing, which, although a good thing, seemed a little surprising to me. But it was actually harder to hold up the lot of us then I thought and I had to push everything out of my mind to concentrate on not dropping all of us and becoming the laughing stoke for the rest of my years in POE Academy.

‘What took you guys so long?’ Holly asked worriedly as soon as we arrived. The coast was cleared so I assumed however many guards there was Holly took care of them quickly without trouble.

‘Oh my god, you guys came together?’ Evanna said a little too loudly, causing all of us to ssh at her. The other’s eyes widened as realization dawn on them.

‘We had to, Casey and Nate couldn’t hold all three barriers. It was either that or leave you guys to get disqualified.’ Diego said, Casey gave the others a sheepish look while Nate scratched his head.

‘You guys could have dropped.’ Keith said, I was going to reply but Diego quickly cut in.

‘Guys, we can discuss this later. Right now we need to move quickly before they realized they were missing some guards.’

Satisfied to see everyone nodding Diego turned to Keith. ‘Where is Tom?’

‘He is downstairs in the main room.’ Keith said, and everyone grimaced. That’s probably where most of them congregate. Which meant a lot of people.

‘What do we do now?’ Nate asked. He looked slightly better, but only marginally.

‘We need a plan.’ Casey stated, looking at Diego. ‘We can’t march in there. They will overpower us in no time.’

Everyone nodded in agreement but no one spoke up. Wracking my brain I tried to think of anything that could help in this situation. We need the element of surprise, for sure. But that still doesn’t really put the odds in our side facing a dozen Elementalist.

‘Why don’t we just collapse the whole building on them?’ suggested Nate, earning himself a glare from both Holly and Casey. ‘What? That way half the people will be dead.’

‘Which part of your stupid brain forgot that there are Earth Elementalists?’ Holly said, smacking him on the shoulder. Nate winced and rubbed the spot Holly hit him on.

‘Wait, that just gave me an idea.’ I said, a light bulb turning on inside my head. ‘What if we just dropped through the floor and right onto Tom? That way we have half a chance of killing him on spot, even if not, we can probably still get him before we get disqualify ourselves.’

Diego’s expression immediately brightened and everyone nodded at the plan. I smiled victoriously at myself. Go me!

‘Oh Abby, we make such a good team!’ Nate exclaimed, trying to throw his arms at me but I quickly fended him off. That guy seriously does not stop at anything to flirt with a girl.

‘Get off me, and be serious!’ I whispered at him, pushing him away by holding out my hand on his chest. He tried to pout at me but quickly sobered up after earning himself a glare from Diego as well.

‘Tom is directly below that room.’ Keith said, point to the third room across from us, near the end of the corridor.

‘Alright, we need to make our way there quietly.’ Diego said. ‘Owen and Holly, lookout for anyone coming and make sure to drop them as soon as possible.

After he was satisfied that all of us understood exactly what we were going to do, we made out way to the room carefully. Everyone was keeping an eye out, with the exception of Evanna, who was trying hard to see into the near future.

‘Two guards in coming.’ Owen said, and almost at the same time Evanna opened her eyes.

‘They knew something is wrong. It won’t be long till they are here.’ Evanna said, alarmed. Diego grabbed hold of Holly and me before breaking out into a quick run towards the room.

We just made it before we heard the voices of two Elementalists outside the room. They were talking causally but their tone quickly changed when they saw the empty corridor. Their footsteps echoed loudly on the floor as the rushed back out, presumably to report back.

‘We need to hurry!’ Owen said, ‘They are moving quickly back to the main room.’

‘Gail, on the count of three, we need to drop this entire floorboard. Make sure to hold a section of it so we don’t fall to our death as well.’ Diego said, I nodded, quickly surveying around the room.

‘Wait, there is a rug here.’ I said, spotting the ancient rug underneath our feet. ‘We can hold on to this instead and give the floor enough momentum to smash everyone.’

Diego nodded and gestured for everyone to get on the ancient furniture. I closed my eyes and started to tear off the connection between the wall and the floorboards while Diego did the same in the opposite side. Luckily the base they decide to give us are old, abandoned houses so the structure was weakened already. I wondered briefly if it was on purpose.

The entire room began to shake violently and I put a portion of my concentration on the rug, holding us steady. We began to hear shouts and I increased the intensity of my mind and within seconds the whole thing came off and we were in free fall.

Pulling back my mind I focused on steading the carpet. I felt Diego’s mind join me and we managed to pull the carpet into a halt just as the floorboard hit the ground.

Dust, Screams and bits of concretes of all sizes filled the entire room. I accidently inhaled a large amount of dust and immediately started coughing. Squinting around I couldn’t make out a single object around us and decided that it would be wise to pull the rug higher off the ground.

After a few minutes the dust started to settle and I was slowly beginning to see when Owen suddenly shouted.

‘Watch out!’

 The concrete floorboard below us suddenly launched into the air, I took a sharp breath and tried to steer us out of the way. But it was too late. I was only able to move us off a few meters.

The concrete hit us hard. I could feel the force field that Nate and Casey put up shattered in contact and the grunts they made. The next thing I knew, we were all flung into the air and all I had time to do was wrap a mind wall around myself as my body careered straight down on the ground enveloped by dust.

I hit the floor on my side, my mind wall cushioning my fall and I ended up rolling on the rabble filled ground. My head felt like lead after the impact and there was more than a few scratches along the right side of my body. But I knew those would disappear as soon as the stimulation end. My headache, on the other hand, will probably stay with me for a few days. Dammit.

Groaning I got hoisted myself up and quickly looked around me. I must had fall about three meter off, since the momentum of the collision had thrown me up before I fell back down again. I wondered if the others were still in the game, three meters wasn’t deadly but considering the amount of angular fragments on the ground it wasn’t hard to get speared to death.

Figuring Diego would probably still be in the game I scan around the minds to see if I come across his. There were still seven people left in the room that I could feel, including myself. But if someone is knocked unconscious then I wouldn’t be able to feel their mind since it’s on shut down.

Of the seven people, I only recognized three. They were Diego’s, Owen’s and Tom’s.

Oh great, so a collapsed ceiling still can’t kill that guy.

I was pleasantly surprised that Owen was still in the game. But if he was here then we will have the advantage of knowing our surrounding. Although now that I thought about it, there must be an Earth Elementalist in order for Tom to survive that. Which meant they would be able to feel our whereabouts too.

I stood where I was, since I knew that Owen will come and find me. The dust was beginning to thin out and I could make out a bulk of ceiling/floor somewhere behind me, and a few limp bodies on the ground.

Feeling Owen’s mind wash through me I moved quietly towards the place where it came from, but slow enough to make them think that I was merely trying to get out of the way.

‘Gail, over here!’ I heard Owen’s whispered and turn towards my left. He had already collected Diego and they were both waving at me frantically. I quickly moved towards them and saw Holly lying beside them.

I crouched down beside them, the dust screen was dissipating rapidly and without Nate or Casey, we were doomed to be seen any moments now.

‘Owen, take care of Holly and tell us which directions they are coming from.’ Diego said, then turning to me. ‘Gail, we will try and hold them back as long as we can. We have semi-destroyed their base, but we are outnumbered particularly with Tom still alive. Our chances depends on if Holly will wake up.’

I nodded, which was just in time as Owen turned towards the direction behind me and said. ‘They are surrounding us.’