Nya's POV

Auntie said these guardians weren't good fighters, but she was surely wrong. No one has been able to get to the gemstone for several minutes, each of us in our own little battle. We're slowly running out of time, seeing as the smell of smoke has flooded the room by now, and I can see flames start to appear along the corners of the room.

Surprisingly, no one has made use of their elemental powers yet. It's as if we know that if one of us does, all of us will, and then the already weak building will come crumbling down.

"Jay, what happened to Cole? We sure could use his help right now," the guardian in green asks the one in blue who PIXAL is facing.

"Well, there was a girl he thought was cute, so I encouraged him to go get her," he explains, landing a blow against PIXAL, but since she's an android, she doesn't feel it, and he's left shaking his hand out in pain.

"Considering we're on a mission, that was highly illogical," the one in white explains. She one in blue scoffs.

"I realize that now! I've just never seen Cole interested in anyone before. Besides, I thought he'd be back by now," the one in blue defends himself. The flames beside us roar.

"I think Skylor is doing a bit too good of a job," I announce, looking at the inferno forming around us. "We need to get the gemstone quick."

"I can not find a possible opening," PIXAL explains.

"The fire is too strong! We need to slow it down!" Seliel shouts, going head to head with the one in green.

Deciding it's needed, I create a jet of water from my hands, sending it soaring at one of the flames. It hisses, steam coming off. We need more time to find an opportunity.

"Nya?" at the sound of a deeper voice saying my name, I turn away from the flame in the direction of the voice. The blue guardian looks at me, his eyes wide under his mask.

"How do you know my name?" I ask roughly. Seeing an opportunity, PIXAL strikes a blow behind his knees, causing him to collapse. The green guardian looks over at his teammate, so Seliel disappears, reappearing in front of the Scolecite of Ice.

To my right, there's a loud crash, the floorboards snap, leaving a huge gash in the floor. The building is starting to collapse. We need to get out.

The white guardian shoots ice out of his hands, trapping Seliel to the ground. She struggles for several seconds before materializing next to me. "We need to get out! PIXAL, what's the safest...ouch!"

A flash of lightning cracks across, the room, zapping Seliel. She squeals out in pain, dropping the gemstone. Quickly, the green guardian slides in and takes it. The three of them run off.

"The safest route does not matter! After them!"

---

Kai's POV

I race through the building, knowing the building could collapse within minutes. "Lloyd! Zane! Cole! Jay!" I yell, racing through one of the many hallways. My breath is heavy, and the smoke is nearly suffocating. I hear the footsteps of the other ninja behind me, fueling me to run faster. Finally, through a burning hole in the ceiling, I spot blue, green, and white trapped behind a wall of fire. Glancing for a way up, I spot a fallen beam. Knowing it could easily collapse, I run up it, making a jump to the floor above.

I part the fire, pushing it to the sides of the building, revealing me to the three of them. "We have to get out of here, fast."

"According to my scan, all exits on the bottom floor are currently either blocked or engulfed in fire," Zane explains.

"We're on the third floor. We can jump," Jay suggests. When we all look him weird, he throws his hands in the air. "Come on! We've done crazier than that!"

"Jay is right. It is the only way. I can attempt to make an ice slide if Kai keeps the fire away from it," Zane points towards the closest window. I look behind them, and I see someone in a grey and black ninja gi running towards us.

"Cole!" I cheer. He runs towards us, panting as when he finally reaches us.

"Sorry, I stopped for cake and...," he drifts off, seeing the gemstone in Lloyd's hand. Quickly, he grabs it. "You guys are so gullible." He runs off, and as he leaves, I see him transform into a different ninja with a purple gi.

"We need to go after her," Jay urges, but Zane shakes his head.

"The building could fall any second now. That gemstone is not worth the risk. We must leave immediately," he reasons. We rush towards the window, all of us coughing from the smoke. I focus, pushing the fire away from us as Zane creates his ice slide. He goes down first to test it's integrity since if he fell, it wouldn't cause injury. Next, Jay goes down. As Lloyd goes to slide down, I hear a scream of pain and fear. I recognize the sound of the voice. It's the girl from earlier.

"I need to go save her. Go down without me," I instruct Lloyd. His eyes widen.

"Are you crazy? The building is falling apart," he gestures around us.

"I'm the only person who can safely make it through the fire. What type of ninja would I be to leave someone in a burning building, even our enemy?" I reason with him.

"I'm not going down there without you," Lloyd tells me sternly.

"Yes you are," I push him down the slide, watching as he reaches the ground. As soon as I see that he's safe, I run towards the direction of the scream.

---

Seliel's POV

When Chamille comes back with the gemstone, we're all relieved. I thought pretending to be Cole would work, but you can never be sure. Now, all we need is an exit and Skylor.

"Thank goodness," I sigh when Chamille pants next to us, the gemstone in her hand.

"Did you see Skylor?" Nya asks her, hopeful. Chamille shakes her head.

"Nope, but the fire guardian was there, so she must be close," Chamille says, and the rest of us sigh. We all know that if we don't leave soon, we won't be leaving at all.

"Seliel, when Skylor comes, you need to smoke us to outside the building," PIXAL instructs me, and I nod.

"I need to have contact to teleport us though, so all of you need to be touching me," I instruct them, and they nod, each grabbing a part of my arm.

"Seliel, Chamille, Nya, PIXAL! I'm over here!" we here a call further down the hallway. We all run that way, and we find Skylor in the floor below us. It's engulfed in flames except for where she's standing since she's pushing them away. Standing in front of her, there's a beam that looks like it's almost collapsed. That's what she's protecting from the fire, not herself, just in case we were up here, so she could reach us. "If this collapses while I'm going up it, I need one of you guys to catch me," she informs us. Chamille steps forward, nodding with a hand still on my arm.

Slowly, Skylor walks up it, focusing so she can still deter the fire. She slowly speeds up, trying to get up it as soon as possible. Once she nears the top, Chamille grabs her hand. When she's nearly at the top, the beam snaps, causing the beam to fall from below her. Not having a tight enough grip, Skylor falls with it, falling into the small area where she was standing before. She lets out a scream as she falls.

"Skylor!" Nya yells, looking down at her. She groans.

Suddenly, I hear a crack above me. As I look up, the ceiling gives out. Before it can fall on us, I close my eyes, focusing all of my attention on my powers. When I open my eyes, I'm outside of the burning building. I look to my right, and Jay, Lloyd, and Zane are all sitting together solemnly, looking up at the building. They never see us come out.

Nya lets go of my arm and frantically looks around. "Where's Skylor?" The other girls look around as if they'll find her, but I know she's not out here. She wasn't touching me. "Where the hell is Skylor?"

"She's still in there, Nya. She wasn't touching me," I answer sadly. Her face is full of rage. She was the closest to Skylor out of all of us.

"We have to go back in and save her!" she urges. "We can't leave her in there to die!"

"Going back in there would be a suicide mission," Chamille tells Nya, wrapping her arms over Nya's shoulder, but Nya pushes it off.

She throws her mask on the ground before sitting down, curling her knees to her chest, and sobbing.

---

Skylor's POV

The fire gets closer and closer, filling the hole I created. I tried to make it bigger, but I couldn't. Chamille was the last elemental master I touched. I no longer control fire, and I'm not invincible to it anymore either.

I stay on the floor, hurting from the fall. There's a large, deep gash across my arm from where I cut my arm against the floor, a pile of blood forming next to me. The fire flares up above my head. Smoke floods the room, leaving me coughing. I rip off my mask, making it easier to breathe. I throw my mask into the fire and lie here.

The fire closes in on me. The heat prickles my skin, making me sweat before it slowly starts to hurt more and more. I try to make myself more compact, but I feel my brain getting foggier and foggier. The smoke is polluting me. Slowly, I feel myself losing consciousness, the pain growing greater and greater. I take it. It's fitting my end is caused by fire when it nearly was years ago.

As my eyes slowly flutter shut, I hear something behind me, probably a pillar falling. It makes me wonder what's going to kill me first, the fire or the building collapsing on me. I let out a hoarse cough.

"Shhh, you're going to be okay," I feel a hand softly press against my neck. I'm flooded with warmth, and the pain disappears, with an exception from the gash on my arm. I'm still weak from the smoke and blood loss, but I gain the willpower to open my eyes. "You have a pulse, that's good."

I look up, and the master of fire is kneeling down next to me, scanning over me. He takes a long look at my face, staring into my eyes. I feel chills run though my body. "M-my arm," I cough. He looks at my right arm, his eyes widening. He rips off his red mask, tearing it in half before using it to wrap my arm.

Usually, I would try to fight him, to push him away from me, but now I not only can't, but I also don't want to. Fighting to keep my eyes open, I look at his face. It's all I can focus on. His eyes are light brown, nearly hazel, and are filled with concern. His skin is flawless, not a single blemish in sight. He bites his lip in concentration as he wraps my arm. My chest feels tight, but not from the smoke.

"I'm going to get you out of here," he tells me, reaching under my knees and back, lifting me up like I'm nothing. I let him, the weakness throughout my whole body taking over. "Just keep your eyes open."

"W-what's your name?" I ask, needing to focus my attention on something to stay conscious.

"Kai," he answers, and the name echoes in my mind over and over again. "I think I found an exit."

---

Seliel's POV

All of us have tears in our eyes, and they all break out when the side of the building Skylor was in collapses. Nya sits on the ground, watching the burning building, while the rest of us cry and hug in a circle.

The ninja are also crying. Lloyd is sobbing as Jay and Zane comfort him, tears coming out of their eyes as well. They stare at the building too, the other side of the building looking on the verge of collapse.

"We should've never listened to Auntie's stupid plan! Why did we need a fire anyways?" Nya stands up, letting anger take over.

"The plan technically did work. We obtained the gemstone," PIXAL looks for the bright side.

"But we lost Skylor! Our leader! Our sister!" Nya rages. In a burst of anger, she lets out a large gust of water at the building, making the fire temporarily lessen.

"Auntie is coming with our ship. We need to leave before the guardians find out we're still here," PIXAL changes the subject, trying to avoid the pain. I stare the building, squinting my teary eyes when I see movement.

"Wait Chamille, you said that you saw the fire guardian earlier, but he's not out here," I realize, seeing only Zane, Jay, and Lloyd.

"He was with them when they were about to escape," she confirms, wiping her tears away and smearing her mascara.

Nya sees the movement I saw earlier, focusing on the front of the building. PIXAL does soon after, and so does Chamille. All of us stare at the back and forth inside the building.

Finally, the door opens. Kai rushes out of the building covered in ash, Skylor in his arms. Quickly, he rushes away from the building. It starts to collapse completely just several seconds after they make it out.

When he reaches the rest of the ninja, he's bombarded by hugs, even though Skylor is still in his arms. He looks down and says something to Skylor, who nods. He brushes her hair away from in front of her eyes.

I try to refocus myself, so I can teleport over there. When I finally can, I appear right in front of them, surprising them all. "I'll be taking her," I hold onto Skylor's hand before thinking about where I was just standing. Opening my eyes, I find myself back over there. Skylor is now lying on the floor. She looks horrible, covered in ash and a bloody cloth around her arm, but there's comfort in watching her chest rise and fall. She has mild burns on her body, but those will go away.

Nya rushes over to her, giving her a hug and crying into her chest. Even in her weak state, Skylor manages to give her a smile.

If this is how the first gemstone went, I can only imagine the other three.

A/N: I feel like that worked as it's own chapter. Having it on the last one just made it a bit too long (even though last chapter was even long as it now is)

Hopefully a double update makes up for what you guys didn't get over the vacation

Thoughts on this chapter?

The scene with Kai and Skylor was one of the first scenes I created in my head when I thought of this story. I had been itching to write it for a while now, and I was finally able to. 

Thank you guys for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed the double update