Dust flew into Nathan's eyes but he knew what he'd done.

The forest ground in front of him lay wasted. Only debris was seen from what had initially been a patch of oak trees. Nathan could feel the heat in his eyes, and hear the rush of blood in his ears. For a moment, he lost sight of the darkness and allowed himself to hope for the best.

Obviously the next thing his eyes landed on was the beginnings of formation of those familiar tendrils, at a distance. His explosion had merely fazed the thing, if that could even be said of it. But he didn't wait around to see more of what had come.

He saw the Darkness begin to take form again, and got up from the crouched position he held. His head throbbed and his legs felt like jelly, but any option was better than standing around here.

He turned around and promptly started sprinting back the way they had come.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, ignoring the pain that shot through them. He forced himself to look ahead, putting all his focus into navigating back to the truck. He somehow knew he couldn't look back. He didn't want to know what would happen if he tried.

He could see the faint outline of their jeep, and started running faster.

He made the mistake of only looking ahead, because the next moment, his foot caught on a tree and he fell face-first onto the forest ground. If his legs had felt terrible before, they now felt detached from his body. He had hit his head on a root, and could feel his nose bleeding. His forehead stung, and he knew there was some amount of blood dripping down his face too. Then he made his second mistake of finally looking back.

There the Darkness was, in all its glory, advancing on him at tremendous speed.

Somewhere, someone, Nathan was sure, was laughing at him and flipping him the bird.

He set his jaw. Not when he was this close, would he give up. He wouldn't be the stupid hero who sacrificed himself in the beginning for nothing. He fixed his eyes on the jeep, as the voices once again began to fill his head as the Darkness got closer.

He pushed himself up using his arms. Every movement set his muscles on fire. He could feel the water in his eyes. By some miracle, he stood up on his feet and started clambering towards the vehicle.

"HELP!" he managed a plea. His voice felt raw and scratchy, but he knew he couldn't make it on his own.

To his utter joy, almost immediately two figures started running towards him. He could tell from their tall lanky frames that they were the Gallagher twins.

"Nathan," Finch's voice resonated inside his mind as each twin caught one of his arms, "come on we need to leave!"

Nathan wasn't about to argue with that. He knew he couldn't ask them to carry him back, the danger was too close. He leaned as much of his weight on them as he could without completely collapsing, as the three of them made their way back to their seats. The jeep was revving, ready to bounce.

Fletcher climbed in first, then somehow managed to drag Nathan's numb self inside, as Finch took up the rear. As soon as he's stepped inside, he yelled out to Roy who slammed the accelerator.

Nathan slumped against the wall of the jeep, trying to keep the spots from his eyes. Now that the rush of the adrenaline was gone, he truly felt the exhaustion take over.

Ignoring how much his body hurt, he was surprised at how absolutely tired he felt. He wanted to melt into the seats, as every single muscle in him gave away from being tense until now. He hastily wiped the blood from his face, and tried to see if anything was broken. Nothing seemed to be, but that didn't make him feel any better.

None of the others looked any better. He could barely make out Fletcher's features underneath all the dirt on her face, and her clothes were burnt in various places, despite the fact that she was dripping wet. Her eyes were wide, as though just now realizing what had happened.

Finch, who sat next to him, wasn't any better. He groaned in pain as he massaged his arms. He was missing a show, and his shirt was torn almost completely off, and his undershirt was barely white anymore. His face had multiple bruises, but Nathan could figure that escorting a horde of kids while defending them from a supernatural entity couldn't have been an easy task.

Next to Fletcher, Rai groaned as she came about. There was a giant gash on her forehead from where the tree had hit her, and her hair was sticking up everywhere. She had more scratches on her face and arms, but didn't seem to notice, as she took in what was going on.

"What... what the hell happened?"

"DUDE," Fletcher look at Nathan with her big eyes, "that was FREAKIN' AWESOME!"

Finch clapped him on his back, earning yet another groan.

"Sorry dude, but I gotta agree with Fletch. That was some seriously cool stuff man."

"I mean, right!? I had no idea your powers were that awesome? So like, did you just like, will the forest to blow up and then kablammo, everything's dust?" Fletcher rattled off her questions. Nathan managed a weak smile.

"Yeah, pretty much," he tried to sit up a bit straighter cupping his head, "But its not like your abilities were any less. You can manipulate fire and water?"

Fletcher grinned like a madman, which, given the amount of grime and dirt on her face, made her look a little insane.

"Yep. Of course, dude could've given me all four elements but naaaah," she shrugged, "so I'm stuck with only fire and water."

"And yours I'm assuming is light manipulation?" Nathan looked at Finch, who nodded and grinned. Again it struck him just how similar the twins looked.

"But come on man, what can you even do? Manipulate everything!?" the boy asked. Nathan shrugged, which took more effort than it should've.

"I think it's called telekinesis. I can control all solid objects. Liquids take time and a lot of effort, but sometimes it works. Gases are impossible," he answered. He looked over at Rai, who was staring at everyone awestruck, absorbing in the information.

"I'm guessing yours is electrokinesis?" he asked. Her face snapped towards him, as she nodded. She seemed to gather her wits as she went back to her signature glare.

"Could someone please describe to me what the hell actually happened?"

Fletcher bounced in and started recounting the events after Rai passed out, animatedly motioning with her hands, Finch putting in a few words here and there. Nathan couldn't help but blush a little, the twins were making him out to be a lot more heroic than he actually had been. After their fantastic retelling, Rai raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly impressed.

"Dang, silent boy, I didn't know you could go all mega master on that thing."

He looked down.

"It's not gone. You guys saw it. Even after all that, we just managed to faze it," he said solemnly. Fletcher's look suddenly turned serious.

"I think I know why," she stated, leaning forward.

"Well, the Darkness feeds off of fear, right? That's what Roy told us. Naturally, when something feeds, even if it's a supernatural evil black goop, it grows stronger," she pointed to the hastily retreating forest in the background, " Now out there, we were all pretty freakin' terrified, so I mean..."

Her voice trailed off, but everyone knew what she meant.

"Every second we spent there being scared by the hallucinations, it grew stronger and stronger," Nathan summarized. He looked at the forest, and all the memories started flooding back. Everything the Darkness had made him see. He couldn't have felt gladder to leave the place.

"Hold on," Rai raised a hand, "We couldn't even be near this thing without having terrifying hallucinations. And the whole bend-reality thing also seemed to have a radius of effect. So we're bound to be scared if we go near this thing."

"Except if we do, we make it stronger by the second," Finch concluded.

An awkward and solemn silence hung over the four teens. Fletcher sighed.

"So... this sucks."

And somehow those words managed to summarize their whole situation perfectly.

Suddenly, the jeep lurched to a stop and Nathan saw they'd ended up in some completely different area of town, far away from the police station. They'd pulled up near a large house, which seemed to have been abandoned ages ago. In the front, he heard Roy and Dahle climb out of their cars and slam the doors so hard, he was a little afraid they'd fall off the hinges.

The door to the back flew open, revealing a dirt covered duo. Neither looked happy, but while Dahle had on his usual look of business, Roy looked absolutely furious. He glared pointedly at Nathan.

"Out. All of you."

The teens didn't find it in themselves to ask any questions. Once outside, Nathan swayed on his feet. It took all his energy just to be able to stand, so he wasn't really too thrilled about the glare he received from Roy.

"Are you out of your MIND!?" The officer asked, fuming, "I told you to NOT try to defeat that thing. What do you think of yourselves, you wanna be superheroes or something cause now, you've messed it all up!"

"Well, sorry we didn't have time to be careful, we were a little busy trying to hold onto our sanities," Fletcher sniggered. Roy ignored her and kept his eyes on Nathan, who at this point was actively seeing spots. He couldn't even fid the energy to be scared or annoyed by Roy.

"Do you have ANY idea what the repercussions of your little escapade is going to cause? And what exactly did you accomplish by that, huh? What-" Roy was cut off by Dahle, who put a hand to his chest pushing him back.

"Sir, I think the kids need first aid, and some rest. Perhaps we can discuss this later," his tone made it clear he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Roy opened his mouth and had started speaking, but Nathan didn't register the words.

Because just then, his body decided it had reached peak exhaustion and simply gave out, as he collapsed onto the ground, everything blurring itself to darkness.

~.~.~.~.

A/N: I know, short chapter, but here it is!! Their abilities are finally revealed! What did you think of them?????? And yeah, I know none of them have done much, but don't worry, the story ain't even close to being over. I got a lot in store for these kids.

Obviously every chap aint gonna have full fledged battles and stuff, but there is going to be a lot of training and there will be fights, don't worry. It's not just the Darkness these guys are battling, its also the darkness within them.

Hmmm....

I should make than a quote.

ANYWAY.

Lemme know what you guys think! And should I do short chapters like these or should I do longer chapters like the one before? Seriously, every read and vote and review matters so much to be so please tell me what you think!

Until next time then,

Wizard