"You don't have to do this with me." I repeated again, facing Tom, Viktor, Diego, Chung and Charmain. Casey had volunteered as well, but if we have to go, I needed to make sure that there is only one voice in the team, and Diego was enough of a variable to risk bringing.

"Are you kidding me? Without us, your whole plan doesn't work." Viktor teased; out of all the companions I was going with, he was the only one who seemed to retain a sense of humour, or even have one to begin with. Diego was brooding in a corner, and you won't expect Tom or Chung to say much about anything most of the time. Charmain was living up to her impression as the shy girl aside from the occasional glance at Viktor, whom was still oblivious.

"Charmain, are you sure you are up for this?" I asked; if our entire plan was hinging on anyone, it would be on her, not me. There was no way for us to get inside the base the conventional way, with the entrances and exits being closely monitored by both the UGE and the Apocalypse themselves. The only thing that might work would be focusing on someone on the inside and teleport there – and we would have to teleport back out. While it sounded plain and simple when I put it that way, Charmain would be under a lot of stress if we had to transport mass amount of people out in short notices.

"I have the power bars." She answered, patting the messenger bag she was carrying. I took a deep breath and mentally checked to make sure that our surroundings were empty save for Joelle Spencer hovering behind us; she was to stay here and act as both anchor and an emergency first aid point.

"Please be careful." She pleaded, looking around the place nervously. "Sebastian would be close by keeping watch. Just get back as soon as possible."

Despite the fact that we tried to arrange a time where we can sneak off to the base undetected, the General kept us busy for the past two days. We had a meeting yesterday as to whether or not the bombing was necessary, as it could potentially erase the entire Egypt Citybase. However, in the end almost everyone was in favour of eliminating the Apocalypse as it posed an unknown threat in the world.

This meant that we only have today to pull everything together before they launch. They had decided not to tell us the exact time, just that it would either be later today or tomorrow. The others had protested against rushing in with the risk of death, however. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving without trying to save my friends and uncovering the truth.

"Who?" Tom asked, holding his hand out to me and I took Charmain's in my right hand.

"Mr. Andrewson." I answered. Diego gave me a knowing look while Tom nodded understandingly. Viktor and Charmain looked questioningly at me.

"I would need you to focus on him really hard." Charmin's soft voice instructed; "You have to think of him and only him, otherwise I would have no idea where we would end up."

I squeezed her hand harder to let her know that I understood. I fully understand the risk of teleportation and that's why I would be forever in debt to her for helping me with this mission impossible. If we all made it out alive, I am going to spare no effort to help her with Viktor.

"There is a possibility that Mr. Andrewson won't be kept in the base." I acknowledged, "But it's highly unlikely. Whatever the case is, I will temporarily shield us from sight. Tom and Diego, you two are our defence line, so keep your eyes peel for any trouble. Viktor, Chung, we are counting on you for all technical problems."

Everyone nodded to reaffirm their rolls and I squeezed my eyes closed, not looking forward to being teleported again.

"On the count of three." Charmain announced, "Three, two, one."

Once again, the nauseating sensation rushed right in along with feeling like I was being compressed. This time, however, I could felt an iciness creeping up my hand linked to Charmain; she must be trying to triangulate with my thoughts. I held on tighter to Charmain and Tom as well, grounding myself at our contact and the fact that I wasn't in this alone and focused on thinking of Mr. Andrewson. I briefly wondered if Charmain felt the same way when she was teleporting, although I couldn't imagine that it would be the same for her if she was willing to use it so liberally.

As soon as the discomfort began to ease, I started getting ready to project a mind distortion around us. It wasn't something that I had a lot of practice with, since Casey usually deal with this. However, it turned out that I could do it and I wasn't going to let an extra person risk their life for a task that I could pull off.

The moment my feet touched solid ground, I got a sense that something was wrong when everyone titled sideways and collapsed all over the place. I landed on Tom, who huffed as my elbow collided with his stomach and I was thankful when I didn't feel anyone land on me.

Without wasting time, I wrapped an imitation field around us and tried to detect the place we crash landed in. We appeared to be in some kind of corridor that, by a stroke of luck, were just outside of the security camera's angle of vision. Quickly, I short circuited one. While I was able to hide us from passing humans, I wouldn't be able to do the same with digital devices.

"Charmain, are you okay?" Viktor's voice dragged me back to the present and I saw that he was cradling Charmain, who looked like she was about to pass out.

"Something was wrong, I couldn't get to this Mr. Andrewson person and we got extruded here." She answered, and I mentally noted that I needed to work on her choice of words later.

"Blocked?" Viktor asked, frowning as he helped her up. I realized I was still sprawled over Tom, our legs twisted together and I blushed. Tom groaned as I tried to get up, elbowing him harder on the soft flesh of his midriff and put a hand on the small of my back to push me up.

"This has never happened before." Charmain looked slightly better already, but her face was still deathly pale. "For a moment I thought we would crash land in the rock layers."

"Hey, it's alright, we are all safe." Viktor comforted her, rubbing her arms up and down and I stifled my smirk, now was not the time to get excited about this. Turning around, Chung had reached up to the CCTV camera that I short circuited and sparks of electricity flew from his fingers.

"I have set all the cameras in this corridor on a loop of their previous footage, but we need to hurry before they find out." He said, and I gave him a grateful nod. I was a little hesitant about how well he would fit in as a group, but it seemed that I was concerned over nothing.

Giving Diego a surreptitious look, he shrugged at me before tilting his head to his right and my left. The others had questioned why I brought Diego along, but in the end his protest of finding Iago and Megan had won out. I was the only one who knew he was here because he knew the way. He was forbidden to talk about the base, but he wasn't forbidden to walk around it.

"Let's keep moving." I said, gesturing for everyone to stick around me so I could decrease the size of the camouflage to a manageable scale. No one questioned my choice of direction, since it wasn't like we knew where to go.

Breaking into a slow jog, I scanned the area to see if there were any clues as to where we were and looked out for anyone approaching. But the walls seemed to be resisting my mind; there were some sort of pulsating signal there that inferred with me and it reminded me of the anti-POE technology. It seemed that the more I learned about the Apocalypse, the more prepared they seemed. And yet here we were, inside their headquarters with no one pursuing us. Their ego might just be their downfall.

"Oh my, who do we have here?" A strange voice drawled and I stopped abruptly. A man who appeared to be in his mid-forties stood in front of us, his pepper and salt hair sticking up from his head and lines etched across his once handsome face. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and I couldn't sense him at all.

"Who are you?" I demanded, knowing that the easiest way out of a situation was to pretend that you are in charge.

"Who I am is not of your concern." He answered, tilting his head and looking at us with interest. He was dressed in a long, white robe that looked expensive with a pair of matching trousers and leather sandals. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked like he was out for a walk and not loitering around a secret lair. "And you fine ladies and gents shouldn't be here."

"I know who you are." Diego suddenly said, stepping forward and jabbing an accusing finger towards the man. "You are the one that put the curse on the Apocalypse members."

Instead of looking alarmed or scared at being caught, he shrugged and raised his hands up. "Guilty as charged."

"How, how do you do it?" I asked, remembering how Lorenzo almost died because we figured out where the base was. He didn't even utter a word and yet his brain just decided it was a good time to fry itself.

"Why are you helping them?" Diego asked before I could finish speaking, taking another step forward and I looked at him, alarmed. His face was becoming redder by the minute and he seemed to be losing control.

"They paid me, I help them, it's a business transaction." The man answered; completely unfazed at the way Diego was looking at him. "Although if I were you I would be more worried about your own safety; after all you are not meant to be here."

"They are evil." To my surprise, Chung was the one who said that, and his contribution only seemed to make the mystery guy more amused.

"There is no evil, younglings." He said, a smile appearing on his face and I dragged Diego back a step. There was something different about him, other than the fact that he didn't show up on my radar at all. He seemed to be shrouded in a cloud of mystery and I wasn't sure what to make of him. And the way he addressed us sent a chill down my spine.

"I would say helping an organization that plan to destroy the world is helping evil." Tom spoke up, and the man actually laughed.

"Your comprehension of the world is marred." He started, seeming to be in a good mood despite all the accusations that was thrown his way. "There is no evil or good in this world, only the balance between order and chaos, destruction and peace. You might think that they are doing a great injustice, but in truth they think they are helping the world. It is a matter of prospective. I would have thought you of all people would understand, given that you have powers given to you at birth without even having to earn it."

Eyes wide, I recounted over his words and picked out several points that suggested something. The way that he said we have powers at birth without earning – could he have acquired powers? And the term younglings... the way he looked at us, it was the way Katerina looked at me.

"And to answer your question, young lady." He said just as I thought he was going to ignore me, "There are powers in this world that you can gain, if you know where to look and what to do."

His words sent a chill down my spine, and it didn't take a genius for me to figure out that this guy must be part of the mystic community that has been even more secretive than the POEs and the Apocalypse combined.

"Would you tell us where our friends might be?" I asked, knowing that there was no use asking any more questions if all I could get were riddles.

"Now here is a smart lass." He said, winking at me and losing some of his more serious demeanour. "I am assuming you are looking for other mutants?"

Uncomfortable with the use of that word, after all the Mutated were beasts that we would rather not associated with, I decided to just nod.

"You are close." He said, gesturing to the way we were headed. "The door marked with an X."

Despite the fact that I couldn't sense whether or not he was telling the truth, for some reason I knew that he wasn't lying.

"Why are you helping us?" I asked; he smiled at me in a slightly unnerving way.

"You have an inkling about the kind of power I process." He answered, crocking his head to the side as he studied us. "And I belong to no side. You are here to bring the balance between destruction and peace again, and since I have helped one side I offer you my meager assistance to balance my act. The last cycle came about three hundred years ago; it's time the cycle turns around again. This time, our roles would be different because the world has you now. But your time here is limited, so hurry."

With that, he raised his hand and vanished into thin air. The last thing I caught was the silver mist that came out of the ring on his left hand.

"What... what was that?" Viktor asked; his expression dumb folded as we stared at the once again empty corridor.

"That, is a secret that I have been trying to find out. But I guess I never will." I sighed. "Let's go." I said, knowing that someone would ask Diego how he knew that mystic guy was the one who put the curse in place if I didn't push forward. Besides, if that guy was warning me about the shortage of time, it meant that the bombs must be ready.

Within a few minutes, we found the door that was indeed marked by a huge X, although it looked like someone had scribbled over it rather than by design.

Without a word, Chung and Viktor stepped forward and both started frowning over the digital lock that was next to the door. There was no window to see inside, and the only thing I could do was to tap my feet.

"It's a biometric lock, I can bypass it." Chung said, always to the point. He grabbed Viktor's hand and pressed the back of it on the biometric detector, which flashed green at the pressure.

Frozen by the momentary fear that engulfed me at what would greet our sight, I let the others rushed in before me. Chung continued to press some more buttons on the lock, presumably to make sure everything was safe.

"Mr. Andrewson!" Diego's shouted, and my heart skipped a beat. I rushed in and scanned the room and gasped. It was a space filled with tens of what resembled coffins, and there was a quite a consistent beeping sound in the background.

Taking a closer look, I could see that his head was wrapped by some kind of metallic crown that emitted a soft, blue light, and a monitor beeped periodically beside the case. I started tracing the cable that ran off from the glass coffin and found it leading off to the giant machines set against the wall emitting more blue lights that had wires leading off into the walls.

"Viktor." I called, but he was already checking the monitor. Chung had walked over towards the massive machines instead, placing a hand on them with an intense look.

"This machine is mapping his brain pattern!" Viktor exclaimed, pressing various buttons on screen, "It is prepping to suppress the memories and install a code."

Sharing a look with Tom, I hurried to Viktor side as Tom spoke to Charmain quickly in French. "Can you stop the procedure?" I asked, a little nervous.

"I need a password." Viktor's face fell as he navigated the system, then looking towards Chung. "Any bright ideas?"

Chung ignored us, seemingly still engrossed with whatever he was doing; Sue had originally volunteered, since the Zhou family would be invaluable as they are technopaths. Bu her brother convinced her that he should go instead.

"I can override the system momentarily, but they would know immediately." Chung replied, taking his hands off the casing. "These are some of the most advanced technologies I had ever seen. Incredible."

Resisting the urge to tell him to shove that incredibility somewhere else, I debated on what to do. I wanted to rescue Mr. Andrewson, but doing so in expense of all the others didn't seem right.

"Can you find out where there are more of these machines and override them as well?" I asked, knowing that there should be more elsewhere. This couldn't be all of the mind washing machine.

Chung nodded and closed his eyes, putting a hand back on the machines. I nodded at Diego, and Tom, who both started looking around to see if these were all the people we knew.

"We are only missing a few people. Most of the children are here." Diego said, since Tom wasn't there, he didn't know who was taken and who wasn't at the POE Academy. "But the children are all here."

"I found another place, it's not too far." Chung answered, "Not a lot of pods are active there."

Gripping the glass coffins harder, I knew that there was no way I could find out where my friends who were taken from the tests were, and it was likely that they were not in the base but out in the world. I had to believe that.

"Do it. Now."

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So, I am guessing you figured out that this isn't the last chapter - we got one more to go!

Originally (no pun intended) I wanted to end with them meeting with the mysterious guy, however, I realised the ending would be quite unsatisfying and the Apocalypse would become the second most random villain of all times after the Voltori. So I am going to let them do a bit of explaining on their side.

And sorry for the late update, I really wanted to get the conversation between the mystery dude and Gail perfect, because his words are the backbone of the Dark Ages, and something that would be touched on in the Time Guardians as well.

I am hoping to finish everything in a writing spree so I can start again. I am still not sure if I should go straight ahead and start on Dark Ages, or give myself some breathing room while I edit the POE chronicles. I am leaning more on the later and upload the sequel to Forgetting Us meanwhile - what do you all think?

As always - thanks for  your support and don't forget to vote and comment!