"So this team Aether-"

"Never been heard of", Tucker said, interrupting me.

The heat was scorching hot, making me more cranky and them more cranky. Everyone had this bitter tone to them when they talked now because we were in this god forsaken desert.

The place didn't even have cactuses and the rare lizard. It was bland.

"You don't seem to happy about that", I said, trying to make light conversation. I didn't want Tucker and Tom fighting again.

Tucker sighed, "Well no, it kinda sucks being out here".

"Yeah...", I paused, "I'm not good with heat, nor am I used to it".

"Hope doesn't seem to good with it either", Tom joined in.

I turned around to see Hope right behind me on the horse. She had never learned how to ride and just rode with me, which I had no problem with. When Hope is bored she escapes in her own make believe world and doesn't talk or make nit picky jokes.

She was staring right up at the sun, making her 'I'm trying to do basic math face'.

"Hope", I snapped.

She continued to stare at the sun. "Yes"

"What are you doing?", I asked, trying to make it sound like I didn't think she was insane.

Her head stayed upright,"You know when people say that if you stare at the sun you go blind?"

"Well you do go blind so stop it",I nudged her.

She whipped her head down glaring at me.

I glared at her back.

She hit my arm. "Steeeer"

She stayed quiet for awhile, probably mad that I told her to stop burning her eyes out.

"Hey is that it!", Sonja gasped.

I turned my train up to the huge temple that was growing over us. Sand poured off of the clay colored stone.

"The Wizards need a hobby", Tom stated sarcastically.

After getting farther towards the Wizards home there was actually a water source with three ponds under the pyramid temple.

We jumped off our horse when we reached stairs that started to give shade because the place was humongous.

"The Wizards are builders", Tucker said,"At least that's what Mianite told me".

"How do they do that", Hope said running towards the top of the staircase.

"There imagination becomes a reality", Tucker stated,"As long as the gods allow it".

"Allow it", Sonja asked skeptically.

"Yeah they bound there powers down before anything reckless happened"

"Are they a fan of the gods then"

"They don't have a choice", Tucker tried to force the smile on his face down.

As you walked down, everything around the temple got lusher and looked more like the jungle.

"Why don't they live out by us?", Hope questioned gleaming at the rail of the stairs.

"I don't think they want to be by us or the gods", Tucker said, answering the fifteenth question like he was an encyclopedia.

Hope was still smiling mischievously at the rail way not following us down the stairs.

I turned around, glaring at her. "Hope don't you da-"

She slid down the railway speeding past all of us and landed on the ground safely.

"Beat Tucker to the chase", she grinned,"Now he can't tell us to be careful or whatever".

She didn't hesitate to throw another foot forward on a sand block.

As the block slipped down slowly her face turned an even paler ghost white, "oh uh".

The temple started to shake moving the ground and energy with it.

"Hope", for the first time Sonja lifted her voice at Hope. "The Wizards are manipulative, you should be careful".

Everyone was ready for the temple to fall flat on us until a door started to slide open.

"See", she pointed to the new opening,"safe".

I sighed going down the stairs.

"You can't yell at me, right"

I grabbed her arm, dragging her into the temple. "You are not getting out of my sight".

There was so many cool and expensive things that no one would let me touch as if I'm a thief or something. Oh wait! I am a thief.

Though I'm not stupid enough to steal something of the Wizards. The Wizards aren't to compassionate. I'm pretty scared of them when there mad.

"Hello", Tucker yelled, "Team Aether".

No answer.

"Maybe there out shopping", Sonja snapped.

Tucker continued to walk forwards with his eyes behind him on Sonja. "Well someone's in a bad moo-"

Hope pointed to a crystal ball on a cement pedestal that Tucker was about to run into, "Hey, watch out".

The pedestal tipped and fell leaving the crystal ball in the floor in tiny glass pieces.

"Well", I puffed out, "So much for the Wizards".

The tiny pieces melted, turning into a swampy blue liquid.

It immediately became boiling gas with steam rising up turning into a smoky blue haze.

The smoke turned into different colors as everyone backed up, clasping each others hands.

The colors started to organize each other turning into a picture of a old warn out village in a desert, still inhabited by people.

Everyone watched the smoke intently like it was a play.

The village in the picture turned into sand being swept away by the wind. The screen then turned back focusing on four men side by side.

The black screen turned into a sand dune. Bland and barren, just like our desert.

The sand dune parted the wind getting stronger, but clouds didn't form.

A skeleton sort of creature rose only showing its torso and up, legs still stayed under the sand.

He had on a cloak, red and worn and torn from time. His hood was off showing a skull with no eyes.

Only seeing the back of the men in the picture I couldn't tell if they were frightened or not.

The bony hands raised up.

His jaw opened and words came out.

"You poor brothers"

The words echoed from the smoke in the temple.

"I have taken from you, your village is gone"

Clouds started to appear in the sunny sky.

"The monster, he has told me that I no longer can control my power"

He lent his index and thumb together.

"You are part of a destiny now. The fate of fate itself. I can not explain how important your role is"

The skeleton snapped his fingers, letting a strike of lightning down. The ground started to pulse as the skeleton was ripped to shreds by the wind and all that was left was his cloak.

The smoke dissipated.

"And there they are"

We all turned around. The four Wizards were standing in front of us.

It looked like they were in a cloak for every element.

The one that had spoke was in orange. His hair was yellow with a brown fade to it and his eyes were yellow as well.

The second one wore green. Brown goggles covering his eyes, with brown curly hair.

The third and fourth one kept there hoods up. The blue one had his eyes gleaming sapphire and looked happy.

The last one had a grey cloak and looked younger then the others. He kept his head down sorta shyly. No facial features could be noticed, except for pale cheeks that had what looked like red tear stains down them.

"Team aether", Tucker continued properly.

"The gods have called us", The orange one started up, "Haven't they?"

"Yes"

The orange one laughed making Tucker annoyed and confused.

"What makes it so important that the gods would ever want to speak out our names".

"Your the guys that built Dianites temple, right?"

"Tsk", the green one let out,"Everyone remembers us for the bad things, no one asked how the Mainite temple was put there".

Sonja raised an eyebrow, "You work for Dianite and Mainite"

"Yeah", I butted in. "That does seem kinda against the point of separate teams".

"We're team Aether", the orange one spoke again, "We don't petty with your worthless wars and battles of the best God"

Tucker let out a big deep breath, as I watched and waited for him to crack. "Okay well I guess there is something important in the temple. We need to know every cranny and crease. We thought you would be the best place to go, the builders and all".

"Well we can't help you there all of our memories from past builds have been stolen, and I don't find this coincidental at all", said the orange one.

"How did your memories get stolen", Hope asked.

The blue one looked up and spoke, "Some sort of creature. Black as night. Blacker then night".

"Shadows", the orange one said.

Sonja looked at Tucker a little scared. "Are those the things that attacked us".

"Ok woah", Tucker put up his hands,"What are the shadows".

"Shadows are the darkness", the green one said. "As there is a power of the light there is a power of the dark".

"You believe that Dianite is your biggest fear, but heroes to the shadows Dianites work is child's play", The orange one said, "The only reason they haven't slaughtered any of us is because we are part of fate".

"Part of a fate".

"We're are cogs to there machine, like it or not".

Hopes eyes lit up,"What if we don't help them. What if we write our own life".

The orange one loomed over hope, "That is exactly what they would want".

"What makes you say that", Hope continued on, "Why can't you try to stop them".

"It's impossible, all of the gods would have to work together and we all know they're to stubborn for that".

"What if we got the gods together, you could help". Jordan tried to grab Hopes arm to tell her to shut up, but nothing would stop her from proving her point, and the more and more she talked the angrier the wizard got.

"The gods are a lost cause", he motioned his gaze to team Ianite, "You to would be quite farther in your mission if you let Ianite go".

Hope looked like she was about to skin someone.

"Ok we're leaving!", Jordan finally opened his mouth.

He grabbed Hope before she could get an arrow out of her quiver.

"Tucker these people are obviously no help. We might as well just go back to the gods ", Jordan started out the door. "That's my opinion follow me or not I'm going back to the jungle where everything isn't on fire".

The Ianites walked out slamming the door.

The orange one looked back at us, like he didn't just insult half of our team.

"Stubborn", the green one let out. "That little girl is very stubborn".

The orange one lent out his hand to Tucker. "Sorry we have been no help, but I am IFires. The one in the blue is Tom. The one in the goggles is brute, and the younger one is Wagglington. He doesn't say much".

Tucker stared at his hand as IFires backed up. "You should go now, we are busy".

Tucker turned around and moraines to us. He seemed disappointed and angry. "Cmon guys, let's go catch up to Hope and Jordan".

When we got outside the Ianites were waiting in the shade.

We could all hear them faintly complaining about the Wizards, which everyone felt like doing right now.

"Well they were a joy weren't they", Jordan said, greeting us from up the stairs.

"I'm glad you weren't taking any of there shit", Sonja got Hope up.

Tucker laughed a little louder then he meant to. "I think I get why the gods bound there powers, they must be a pain".

"The one in gray was pretty quiet", I butted in.

Hope crossed her arms. " I should have put a arrow through his skull".

"Yeah you should of", i said as Tucker nudged me on the shoulder.

"Why are you encouraging her to murder people"

"Oh please", I said. "We were all hoping that she would do it. We all wanted to kill him by the time he called us cogs".

"Yeah", Hope jumped up the stairs. "I think we've all done a good job of making our lives ours and only ours".

"See Hope", Sonja said, "That's why you should be the leader of the group".

Hope got a stupid little smile on her face.

"Your joking", Jordan asked, "Right, because that's an awful idea".

We all jumped on our horses and were about to finally leave this desert until we heard a Wizard.

I turned around. It was the one in the get cloak, the only one that hadn't completely made it on Hopes list.

"Wait", he was running up the stairs. "Heros wait".

"Huh", I shrugged on my horse,"We're heros now".

He ran up the states tripping on sand and trying to move against the wind.

He finally made it up there stairs and with a big huff he said, "The other Wizards", he huffed put again, "They were lying we do remember the Dianite temple".

"You do", Hopes little voice sneaked out.

The wizard took his hood of showing light brown hair. The place where the bloody tears were was stained a pink. "Every detail".

He fumbled through a pocket and lent out a scroll of paper. "Just sign my name on this and then I know when you will be ready to find Ianites heart".

Jordan looked genuinely surprised. "Thank you".

"Your very welcome", he put his hood up as the wind started to get stronger. The tears on his cheeks went back to red. "Oh and don't worry about them. After 700 years of no heros and then finally finding the last piece to a puzzle, it's a lot to take in. I have a way to get them to change there mind".

"Ok", Tucker answered slowly.

"You should be off then it's getting windy", he saluted us off.

We started awkwardly home and from a safe distance away from the Wizard Wagglington's ear I said, "Well that was very nice of him".