Hope

Chapter 5

"Miss me?" Louis shot fire towards Niall which he managed to doge. Niall knows that Louis is tough, and it looks like his powers have grown in the past year, but so have Niall's. The unfortunate part though is that's it's dark. Not when Niall is the strongest. He still had to try to snap Louis out of Serena's mind control. Louis shot fire and Niall again and he tucked and rolled out of the way. That blast though made Niall realize that he can harness the light from Louis's fire to make him stronger. At least temporarily. When Louis shot at him again, he shot his light powers back at him and their powers ended up locked and it was a battle of whose powers were stronger. Both were holding their own with neither power being stronger than the other at first, but slowly, Louis's power started dominating as the fact that it was night was starting to get to the younger boy. If the sun was out, Niall had no doubt that he could easily beat Louis. Just as Niall was struggling to hang on against his opponent, a blast of water came and knocked away Louis. Of course, it was Harry with Liam standing right behind him.

Niall collapsed onto his knees and Harry went to check on him while Liam went over to Louis. "You good?" Harry asked as he knelt down next to his friend.

"You couldn't have done that sooner," Niall joked.

"Well, it took us a bit to realize we had to save your ass," the curly haired boy joked back. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah." Harry stood up and held out his hand which Niall gladly accepted to help him up.

"You three won't be able to beat me," Louis taunted Liam. What he didn't realize was that Liam was using his powers to lift up a pebble behind Louis.

"You know, you have always been so cocky," Liam said in response. "Maybe that's why we'll win."

"What do you mean by that?"

Liam used the pebble to hit the mind control device on the back of Louis's neck which caused him to scream and pass out. "See."

Harry and Niall walked up behind Liam. "He's still alive, right?" Harry asked.

Liam didn't say anything. He just walked closer to an unconscious Louis and knelt down beside him. "LOUIS, YOUR MOM MADE PANCAKES!!!" Liam shouted and Louis sprung up awake. He obviously looked excited for pancakes until he looked around and realized he was outside at nighttime with three of his friends around him.

"Uh, what happened?" he asked. "Last thing I remember was heading home and talking to Zayn."

"On what day?" Liam asked.

"When we went to the water park, why?" Louis said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He didn't miss the look that Harry, Niall, and Liam were giving each other. It was like they were having a silent conversation. He also just realized that Zayn wasn't there. "Guys, what's going on?"

"The day we were at the water park was a year ago, Lou," Liam said gently. He wasn't sure how Louis would react to what they were telling him.

"A year ago?! That's impossible!"

"I'm afraid not. We'll explain the rest in the warehouse. Let's get out of the open." The sun was just starting to rise, and Liam thought it would be best for them to talk where people couldn't see them.

Liam helped Louis up and they all went inside the warehouse. "OK. Someone needs to start explaining," Louis said once they were all settled inside. "How could I have missed a year and not known it and where is Zayn?!"

"That night, Serena found you guys," Liam started explaining. "She used some sort of mind control device on both of you to turn you two against us."

"Mind control?" Louis asked. "But mind control isn't something that can really happen."

"We used to think the same thing about superpowers," Niall pointed out and Louis couldn't argue with that.

"So, mind control," Louis said. "What did we do?"

"You guys attacked us," Harry said. "And we lost. Badly."

"Serena wanted to put opposite powers against each other," Liam added and then looked at Harry, not sure if he should continue. Harry made that decision for Liam.

"You almost killed me," Harry told Louis and the horror on Louis's face said what the oldest boy was thinking. "I know that it wasn't really you, but..."

"It wasn't good," Niall continued. "When I saw Harry in such a bad condition and Zayn sucking oxygen away from Liam, I managed to use my powers to blind everyone so that I could take them and get out. I took them into a forest where I found out that Harry wasn't breathing."

"But he's alright now, so how did..." Realization hit Louis and he pointed to Niall. "You used your healing powers."

"He did," Liam chimed in again. "But he almost died himself from doing that. I was left with both of them unconscious and we found a small town and decided to lie low there. A guy rented me a cabin and we made home there for a little while. Serena had put the whole town under mind control, and we weren't strong enough to stop her as well as snapping you and Zayn out of control. We felt awful about it, but if we wanted to save everyone, we had to become stronger."

"You guys spent a year on your own in some small town. What were you guys doing this whole time while you were there?"

"That's not important," Liam said. "What's important is that we're here now and we are going to save everyone. We still have one more teammate to save and then we can all take down Serena."

"How can you guys still trust me?" Louis asked.

"Because we know that that wasn't really you," Niall said. "Now, let's focus on getting our home back."

The others nodded and they all started planning on how to get Zayn back.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed!