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Sethos was running down a street. He turned left, and continued running. He turned left again, then made a quick right. "I'm almost away from him," he muttered as he ran. He jumped at a ladder above the ground and he barely latched on. He climbed up it, and then turned. He started climbing the steps on the side of the building, trying to get to the top. He looked down and saw a man beginning to climb the ladder, but by now Sethos had reached the top. He was on the roof of a building, but he didn't have time to take in the sights. He started running again, jumping to a lower rooftop. He looked back, but swore when he saw he was still being followed. He jumped off the building, grasped out and caught a flagpole, then swung himself on it to create some momentum. He jumped and smashed through a window. He rolled and got back up, running as he did so. He opened the door and burst down the hall. It appeared he was in some sort of high class hotel, but again, he didn't have the time to take in the sights. He got to the main hall. He had three options - take the elevator, which would give him a rest, jump down to the lobby (a few floors below), or take the stairs. He pressed the elevator button, waited a few seconds, and then just said "screw it" as he jumped down the stairs, landing on the banister and sliding the rest of the way. He got a few looks as he jumped off, then went and ran to the other side of the lobby. He jumped a couch as he made his way for the side door. He opened it, but stopped immediately. The man who he had been running from stood there, smiling at him. A wind blew, causing the man's long hair to glide with the breeze.
The man reached out his hand and hit Sethos's chest.
"Tag, you're it."
The man then bolted the other direction.
Sethos paused, swore, and took off after the man.
* * *
BEN
I'm not one to rush recklessly into unknown situations. That just isn't my style. I either approach with caution or wait until I know more. I'd love to equate this to Yu-Gi-Oh, but I'll skip the obvious nerd reference. Thus, naturally, when people ask me "Hey Ben, when are we going back into the portal," my natural response is something along the lines of "Honey, we have to wait until we know more about the portal so we don't blindly walk into a lethal environment."

I say that my typical response revolves around Honey because she is the only person who desperately wants to go into the portal. Not even Tim, the most eager person in the world about his powers and using them, wants to go back into the portal.
Honey would argue that's because he has powers from being in the portal once. She doesn't, which is why she needs to go.
Then my line goes something along the lines of "I'm sorry Honey but I'm not taking anyone back into the portal for a while until we know more about it, and that is FINAL."
And then she storms out of my room in a huff for about five minutes, then comes back to hang out some, or maybe ask me again, or to try and teach everyone on the floor to Tango (because my room is now a dance studio...).

Or at least that is how it went for a few days. But one Monday night, when I guess I was a tad more adamant than normal, she stormed off in a huff and didn't return in five minutes. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I even went to sleep thinking it might have actually sunk in. Of course, I was wrong.
I awoke at the normal time, went to breakfast, and then back to sleep. I woke up to a loud pounding on my door. Naturally, this isn't how I really want to wake up in the morning.
I rolled out of bed (fully clothed since I already showered and ate), and opened the door. Fabrizzio rushed in. "BEN! HONEY IS GONE!"
"Now Fabrizzio," I said, still partially waking up, "I'm sure you're just over-reacting. She is just somewhere else..."
He moved my door so I could see my dry-erase board. Instead of the lovely phrase I wrote on it the previous night, written upon my board was a note from Honey. It said "Ben, if you won't take me to the portal, I guess I'll go by myself. I'll be back soon, with awesome superpowers to show for it. Also, I am taking a few friends so I don't get lonely (or eaten). Bye, Honey."
I paused after reading it, taking a second to process the information.
"So she is gone. Okay. Well, I'm sure she'll be back soon, like she said."

He looked at me. Well, stared actually. I think he couldn't believe that I would just leave her there. Truth be told, a part of me couldn't believe it either. In fact, I knew that, if Jenny was awake inside my head, she'd be giving me hell about this. Thankfully, she was still asleep (she accustomed herself to sleep through my classes and my sleep cycle), so I didn't have to deal with her.
Still, I felt that it was Honey's fault for going against what I said in the first place. In fact, I said just that to Fabrizzio.
"So maybe it was her fault," he responded. We were sitting in the lounge now - it was more comfortable than standing. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't go and save her."
"Yes," I said, "but how will she ever learn to avoid dangerous situations and listen to the people who know what they are talking about if we bail her out every time she gets in trouble?" It felt like I was talking about some troubled teen in jail.

"But if she wasn't in real trouble, wouldn't she have come back by now?"
"Not necessarily," said a voice from the hall. It was Tim. He must have been listening to our conversation. He came down and sat with us. "It may take a while for them to get back out of the portal. We don't know how our time relates to time there."
"Yeah, but last time we came out at almost the exact same time we went in. Why would it be different?"
I tried to think of how to explain it, and I realized I had the perfect way. "A series of books I read," I began, "is based upon there being two universes - ours and a demon universe. That universe has countless worlds that time affects much differently. For example, in one realm time could be sped up greatly, while it could be slowed down by twice as much in another."
"Yeah, but does the portal really work like that?"
"Who knows? Certainly not me..." Fabrizzio looked at me again, this time with a somewhat sad stare. I felt like he was trying to guilt me into going, even though I had no clue if we could even go to the same place that Honey went, and what time we would get there relative to her. We didn't even know where she went...
"Fine...gather the troops."

We didn't have the amount of troops I wanted. We had substantially less. Still, I suppose we had to make do. This was a Tuesday - people have class and homework they want to do. They don't have time to go on rescue missions for reckless people.
I was happy that we were able to round up a decent amount of people. We had Derek, Tyler, Casey, Lori, JoHanna, Ashton, Rachel, Ashley, Becky, Kyle, Charles, Tim, Fabrizzio and myself. Fourteen people was good enough to make a few teams to go and rescue a person or two...at least I hoped so.
Either way, we headed to the portal. We got to the pub, and I touched the hieroglyphic and muttered "Sptoeretlael," and we shot downward again. Those who had never experienced this were a tad shocked and disoriented, but in general, I think they enjoyed the ride. We were back in the chamber, and it looked exactly as we last left it...except for one thing.

You can skip this part if you want. It's totally boring and will never be used or referenced in the series. So yeah...you can skip down a few paragraphs if you want and resume at "The five who hadn't yet seen the Sptoeretlael..."

The thing that I noticed I didn't even realize until weeks later. However, when I looked at the portal, I saw that, on the stony rim around the Sptoeretlael, there were eight odd symbols on the top. They looked like octagons with intricate little drawings inside. The truly odd thing about it was that two of them were subtly glowing a purple color.
Now, when I realized I had noticed this, I also realized that I noticed that, when we were sucked into the Sptoeretlael, only one was glowing. I don't remember seeing any glowing the first time we went to the ruins. This was supported by the conclusion I made when I realized that I had noticed this.
Of course, telling you when and why I realized this would inform you about future events, which is something I would never do. Thus, if you bothered to read this little sidenote, you can have time to ponder it for a while, because the answer won't be here any time soon.
Back to the adventure!

The five who hadn't yet seen the Sptoeretlael were amazed. Then again, I was as well. They looked around in sheer amazement and awe at the ruins. They were completely enthralled...well, not completely. I am sure that they had other things on their minds, like their powers, but not being them, I wouldn't know. Fabrizzio, JoHanna and Rachel were pointing out some of the cool things they had noticed.
Meanwhile, Tyler turned to me and asked "So, how exactly are we going to follow her?"
"Well," I said, "I think we should split into teams. We need a recon team, since we're exploring a brand new place. A larger rescue team will be stationed where we land, to rescue the recon team or help rescue Honey when she is found. That team can also use the portal to go back if we need reinforcements for any reason."
"That's not what I meant. I mean, how do we assure that we go where they went?"
"Well," I said, pulling out The Hero's Guide to Superpowers, Ancient Portals and Ultimate Evil, "this book might just tell us."
Tim looked at the book for a second. "Wow," he said. "I completely forgot about that, since you haven't used it in a few episodes."

I ignored him and scrolled through the book. However, much to my chagrin, I came up with nothing; I put the book back in my pocket (it was almost always there anyway, in case I ever needed to reference it). I sighed angrily.

Hey, Sethos, do you have any ideas?
You should figure it out yourself. Why do I have to be the knowledgable one?
Because...well, I don't know.
You'll figure it out. Just trust your instincts...well, in this case at least. Don't do that in real life - I would like to stay alive.

I then looked at the Sptoeretlael. "Sptoeretlael," I began, speaking to it directly. It got me some odd looks. "We believe that a friend of mine may have run in here earlier today or last night." The void of Sptoeretlael lit up, and we saw a picture of Honey going into the portal, dragging Reilly and being followed by Kathryn. "Great," I said, turning to everyone else. "She brought people with her, just like she said she might. How fun. Well, now we definitely need to rescue. Sptoeretlael," I said, speaking to it directly again, "would you please allow us to follow them?" It whirred affirmatively (at least I thought it did) and it lit up again. I turned to everyone. "We ready to go in there and rescue three silly girls?"
I got a bunch of nods (though I think Derek wanted to protest), and I then ran in. I guess everyone followed, because we all were being sucked to a new world, time, or both.

DANIEL
Hey, I get to narrate. Sweet!
Anyway...
Well, after I got back from class that Tuesday, I began looking for people. It seemed like half of our floor was missing, possibly because half of our floor actually was missing. I knew Ojash was at art, but I couldn't find anyone else...except for Paul and Eric. The three of us couldn't figure out where they went, until Eric noticed a note on Ben's door. It said "Hey guys, we went to rescue Honey. Be back in a while, Ben P.S. Tim, Fabrizzio, Derek and Tyler are with me, as well as a few others...talk to Murray if anything comes up. He's a robot, he can handle it. Ben"
We took his suggestion (after grabbing Hiro, just getting back from class), and went to Murray's room. We knocked, but got no answer.

"Where could he be?" Hiro asked.
"I bet someone tried to break the fourth wall and Murray went after 'im," I said.
"Sounds reasonable," Eric said. "Well, what do we want to do while waiting for them?"
"We should go and practice our powers," Paul suggested. It sounded like a good enough idea to me, so we departed. Michael found us before we even left the building.
"Where are you guys going?"
"We're headed to the prairie to practice our powers," Eric answered.
"I'll be there in a bit."

On our way there, we ran into Ojash, who had left class early after creating illusions of good artwork (he could never create good artwork in real life though), and he agreed to come with us and practice. Michael joined us shortly after (he had ran to follow us, though I can't imagine why he would think he had to). The six of us made it to the entrance of the prairie, where we met up with Jordan. "Hey guys," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"We came to practice with our powers," I said. "What about you?"
"I saw some odd stuff over here, so I decided to investigate it. Although, practicing does sound good too." We all continued along the path, heading to the outdoor classroom.

We got to the entrance of the prairie and saw that someone was already there practicing her powers - Meghan Raebel. I wasn't really sure if she even saw us at first. She was doing random things that I couldn't quite tell what they were. She did a few more random things that I couldn't quite understand (like throwing a ball that then returned to her hand), but I then remembered that her power was some kind of reversal thing - Ben had her reverse his power to cause the volcano to implode instead of explode. Happy I remembered this, I chuckled softly. I don't think she knew we were there until then, and she turned around and saw us.
"Oh, hey guys," she said. She then paused. "Where is everyone else?"
"We aren't quite sure," I responded.
"Yeah," Eric said. "Something about rescuing Honey and stuff like that..."
"Honey would need rescuing," she said in response. "So I take it you're all that he didn't take?"
"Well, we aren't quite sure," I said. "We keep finding more people...like Jordan and yourself."
"Ah."
There was a bit of a silence, and then we got to practicing our powers...for all of about ten seconds. After those ten seconds, there was a large explosion by the other end of campus, followed by another two in close vicinity.
"So," I said, "do you think Ben's back yet?"
"Probably not," Paul said, "but let's check anyway."

The eight of us headed back down from the prairie. I don't think any of us actually believed that Ben was back and causing explosions, seeing as he is the one who had wanted us to keep our powers below the radar. However, whether it was him or not, we kinda did have a responsibility to check on the situation. After all, if something was going down, we were the ones who had to stop it. Ben wasn't there to stop it, as was the case last time something went down.
I paused for a second, thinking about how Ben had been acting differently since finding the book, and even more differently since finding the portal. And then last week with the whole almost change of personalities when he fought that shadowy guy...he was acting different, that's for sure. I wonder if we just haven't ever seen these sides of him, or if it was something else. Then again, other people, like Ojash had also been acting strangely as well. It seemed he was becoming more mischievous than ever...

I put it all out of my mind though and tried to think of what could've possibly caused these explosions. Tries and failed actually. But it didn't matter. We got there (after a bit of walking, since none of us wanted to run and we couldn't think of a better idea) and could see that, along with Ben's sister and an army of squirrels already on the scene, there was a man in a red skull mask. The man saw us (at least I think he did, he was wearing a mask, after all) and an explosion erupted in front of us. This wasn't Ben. Ben made explosions by snapping. This guy didn't. However, again, that didn't matter. It was now nine of us against one of him. He stood no chance. I changed my arm into a sniper rifle and slowly took aim. Ojash was protecting me with an illusion and Jordan was preparing to transform into his defensive mode. None of this was necessary though. The man paused, turned, and then ran. An explosion at his feet shot him up and he shot through the skies via explosions.

"After him!" I shouted.
All nine of us ran after this masked man, and I had to wonder who this masked man was and how he had Ben's powers. Then again, I also had to wonder how this man got his powers too. Surely he didn't get them from the portal, but then from where did he get them? However, the most pressing concern in my mind was how the heck we were going to follow this guy!

BEN
We were in a somewhat wet climate. It felt a tad swampy. However, I saw only a few trees, and they were all dead. What I did see was buildings...buildings made of stone and crumbling. They were impressively large and intricate, and they very much reminded me of Mayan temples, or at least the images we had of them. I also noted that we seemed to be in an overly dead place. Excepting the trees, it seemed as if no life was here. In fact, there wasn't even vegetation on the ground...there was just rust-colored soil. I knew we couldn't be on Earth now. The two reasons for this were that there was a giant asteroid moving across the sky (rather slowly) and the soil wasn't just rust-colored, it was red. I paused for a second, realizing further where exactly we were. It all made sense...in a way. Red soil, wet and swampish climate, little life, giant asteroid that appeared to be orbiting the planet - we traveled through both time and space. I realized this because I realized we had traveled to Mars's past.