“It’s a day late, but better late than never!” Lyra said to me, fiddling around with that cube thing again. I gotta steal that off of her one of these days. We were waiting outside of the Tower early in the morning. I stared at the mild slow morning crowd of Fallen, not quite feeling up to drawing. After my little adventure inside of the Tower I had come home battered and exhausted. Those Papilutas or Spider-Monkeys had done a number on me in hindsight. Thankfully on the way back I didn’t have any encounters with them. Lucky me.

I asked Lyra to let me join her friends again. To which she surprisingly didn’t give me too much grief. I think being injured two days in a row worried her slightly, if the occasional look she gave me at my bandages were any indication.

“So when are they showing up?” I asked Lyra.

“Soon? We don’t usually meet this early. Why’d you even want to go out at the crack of dawn anyway?” Lyra asked.

“No reason in particular.” I said. I really just wanted to get this done before my time limit was up. The Tower was set to explode later in the day. I figured if I moved really fast I could get the I.D pass, come back, race up to the elevator and then finish this. I’ll be exhausted but hey, at least I wouldn’t have to die.

The familiar blue flame flew towards me and hovered sporadically in the air. Emit’s inability to wait was showing again. For a supposed God he sure is impatient.

Speaking of which, I didn’t really ask him too much about that. I had no idea Emit was a deity. Heck, I didn’t even know we had a God living within the city! I don’t think anybody really did. What does he even do up there all the time?

“Well, in the last couple decades I’ve picked up the hobby of knitting. It’s pretty hard actually. I respect those little old ladies for being able to do it so well.” Emit said.

Knitting? What are you the God of Arts and Crafts?

“No! I’m the governor of all things temporal. The arrow of entropy bends at my will!” Emit said with annoyance in his voice.

Temporal… So what, you're the ruler of time?

“Ooooh ‘Ruler of Time’ That has a nice ring to it. I’m gonna start using that.” Emit mused. “But you’re right on the money, Kid. Glad you understand, even though it should have been obvious with the predicament you’re in. That and the city name.”

Eh? Is the name significant in some way? Chronos…

“Don't you know your mythology? Scratch that I already know the answer.” Emit said.

Rude. I don’t think you realize what you may think is common knowledge really isn’t! See watch this.

“Hey Lyra, do you know why this place is called Chronos?” I asked.

“You don’t know? It’s named after the god of time in old Human mythology. At least, that’s what was retroactively discovered through anthropology. It’s weird since if you look back to the founding of the city there was no real basis for the naming. It just stuck for whatever reason. It’s pretty neat though that there’s a human connection here even if it was likely by chance!” Lyra said, her voice getting more passionate as she had continued.

“Not common knowledge huh?” Emit said.

Oh shut up. You didn’t tell me it was human related. Lyra is a freak when it comes to them. It’s weird though how this place just happened to be named that while an actual god of time had been living here…

I have a feeling Emit had a hand in that somehow.

My idle thoughts came to an end after that. Lyra’s friends had finally shown up. Gruce and Ariel.

“Sup Lyra!” Gruce said.

“Hello.” Ariel said.

"Hey Gruce, Ariel, right on time!" Lyra grabbed me. "Feathers, you remember Gruce and Ariel right?"

I nodded. Third time I’ve been through this. So yeah I remember them. Ariel opened her mouth but I interrupted her.

“It’s a nickname. My parents weren’t mean enough to name me that.”

“They were mean enough to name you-”

“Squirt haha very funny.” I said, cutting Gruce off as well. They both looked at me weirdly. What?

“Anyway…” Lyra began. “Feathers here wanted to visit the ruins today. And since I heard you guys ran Hilt out the group he’s doing us a favor filling out our ranks, so let’s go where he wants as a welcome gift, yeah?”

“I’m sick of the Ruins. Can’t we go to the lake?” Gruce said.

“The lake beast doesn’t exist!” Lyra said.

“I saw it I swear!” Gruce proclaimed.

“Can we not do this and just go already?” I said.

“Well aren’t you in a hurry?” Lyra said. “But I do think Feathers is right. Let’s stop squabbling and go already! To the Ruins!”

"Are we really gonna drag this squirt around? All he’s got is that flimsy string on a stick." Gruce said.

“I’ll have you know I’m a decent shot!” I said. I don’t know what his issue is but it’s really annoying me.

“And even if he isn’t, with Hilt gone we need someone else with a bow anyway.” Lyra said.

“Don’t get caught in my fire. Your bow will burn.” Ariel said.

“Noted.” I replied. That was common sense anyway.

“Anyway, we’re losing daylight. Come on! Since this guy’s in such a hurry we should pick up the pace. Let’s get there in an hour flat this time!" Lyra said, marching towards the gates of the city with a gusto. An hour? Ugh! I trailed behind her, attempting to keep up as the other two did as well.

“And we’re here! Nice jogging guys! How quick did we make it here?” Lyra asked nobody in particular.

Surprisingly, Ariel pulled out a pocket watch.

“An hour and thirty minutes.” Ariel said.

Lyra frowned, but then perked up. “Oh well, not as fast as I’d like, but still way faster than normal.”

Lyra turned to me. “So what do you think Feathers? Aint it beautiful here?”

I looked around. The ruins were as ruined as the last time I was here. In fact I think it got more ruined, if the extra bits of building on the ground were anything to go by.

“It’s wonderful.” I sarcastically replied. I was just mostly glad to be here after the journey. Couldn’t we have gotten a carriage or something? Still, I seemed to be the only one who was tired after getting here.

My eyes turned to Gruce. I don’t know how he even kept up wearing all that armor and carrying that big sword around. Was that guy even a Fallen or some kind of super mutant?

“Probably has something to do with those enchantments on his armor and blade.” Emit said.

Huh? Enchantments?

“You don’t see it? Look closer.” Emit said.

I peered closer. Now that you mention it, I can tell there’s a faint blue pulse coming from beneath his armor, not only that but his sword does have some markings near the hilt. An obvious sign of enchantments going on. How’d I miss that before?

“I dunno but lemme tell you, whoever did it did a shoddy job. Why, I figure a good smack in the right place would destabilize the entire thing.” Emit remarked.

Yeah? Would be pretty funny watching his armor explode. Well maybe not with him in it. I dislike the guy but even I wouldn’t like to see that. Yuck.

Moving on, we began our trek through the ruins. I don’t know where we’d find this ‘lab’. Maybe in one of these tall buildings? It would take forever to check them all though. Especially since half of them almost pierce the sky.

Any ideas, Oh wise god?

“Eh, I’ll know it when I see it.” Emit said.

Lovely. Just what I wanted to hear. For now, I’ll just follow Lyra’s group. So far it’s been pretty quiet though. Last time, If I remember right we immediately got attacked by a pack of rats.

“You guys hear that?” Lyra said, stopping in place. Pitter patter sounds of rocks being shuffled could be faintly heard. I guess I spoke too soon. Lyra pulled out her sword. The other two also grabbed their weapons.

I readied my bow, an arrow already notched.

Several rats came around the corner of the street. Eight of them to be exact. Do they all move in such large packs?

“Get ready! Hope you can keep up, Squirt!” Gruce said, before rushing off to face them.

Excuse me? I’ll show him, I’m not gonna hesitate this time around!

The scene was familiar to the last time I had come here. Gruce swung his sword, crashing into one of the beasts. Another swing, this time his sword cutting the air like a bat. Regrettably though, the attack missed it’s target as the rat surprisingly fell to the ground, dodging the blow. Gruce was left slightly off balance from not landing his swing. The rat who avoided being mushed into paste took advantage of this and leap at the still recovering Gruce.

I took this moment to let my arrow loose, right into the airborne rat. It was a direct hit, piercing it’s neck and bringing it to it’s end.

“Bhuh?” Gruce said.

“Come on, you gotta keep up!” I shouted. Loading another arrow and firing off on another rat. Another perfect shot! Right in the side of the monster. It flinched in pain from my arrow, leaving it distracted for Lyra to follow up and finishing it off! Nice!

Three down, five more to go! Lyra turned her sights the two others who were close to her.

“Keep up the support!” Lyra shouted. I nodded, I notched another arrow and let loose. It failed to meet it’s mark this time around, just shy of hitting one of the rats and landing near its feet. Still, the arrow was distracting enough for Lyra to swipe down on it. It roared in pain and prepared to counter her when another arrow of mine found itself lodged in it’s head.

Yuck. The sight of that rat made me gag a bit. Makes me not want to go for the head anymore.

“You’d be terrible at any FPS kid.” Emit said. I ignored him and refocused myself.

One of the rats clawed at Lyra. She nimbly leapt, completely over shooting above it and landing behind. A deep stab in it’s backside was all it took to end it.

“See that Feathers?” Lyra yelled back at me.

“Show off!” I shouted. That leaves three more… which were now crowding around Lyra. Uh oh.

“Back away!” Ariel shouted. Oh yeah, I forgot about her. Looking over, a ring of red fire was around her. The heck was she planning on doing?

Lyra heeded Ariel’s warning and zipped pass the rats, back towards where me and Ariel had hung back.

“Blazing Wrath!” Ariel said, letting out a massive stream of flames. Lyra ducked as they barely burned off her feathers on her head. The heat was so oppressive that even though I was standing a distance away I could feel it.

The three remaining rats, at the sight of the flames heading straight towards them, attempted to turn their course away from chasing Lyra, but it was too late.

An awful, rotten diseased smell filled the air as they were toasted beyond recognition.

“Woo! Nice work team!” Lyra said, she gave Ariel and I highfives.

“It was nothing.” Ariel said.

“You guys didn’t save any for me!” Gruce said, finally rejoining us.

“You took too long, shouldn’t have fallen over there, buddy.” I teased.

Gruce grumbled. Ha! It’s what you get.

“See guys? I told you Feathers would be a good addition to the team. Did you see those shots? Killer!” Lyra said.

I scratched my head. “Ehehe…” I nervously laughed. I’m not used to the complements, especially from Lyra.

“Oh so he shot a couple of rodents. Big whoop. Next time I’ll show you how it’s really done!” Gruce said.

“I think the real MVP here is Ariel though. That was pretty cool with the magic. I wish I could do that.” I said, I wasn’t even being fictitious either. It was quite impressive.

“Years of practice. If you try hard enough you can do it as well.” Ariel simply replied.

“Really? How?” I asked, curious.

“Learning the state of the world, feeling the mana which enriches our life through each breath we take and knowing how to twist the fundamental powers of the world to make it our own.” Ariel said whimsically.

Mysterious. But it sounds so cool!

“Oh don’t listen to her Kid, she’s crazy. I mean did you hear her shout out that spell name? Completely unnecessary!” Emit said.

Oh come on. I’m sure if you could do magic you do silly stuff like that too.

“Slander! I would never! And besides what do you mean ‘if’? I can do magic, I'll have you know!”

Really? Can you show me?

Emit sighed. “No, I can’t. No body equals no magic. Or at least no significant magic. If I tried I’d probably break apart from the effort. But, since we’re connected you can do some razzle dazzle bolt slinging if you want.”

I could feel my eyes light up at this. “Can you show me how!” I said.

Ariel looked at me. “It’s not something you can learn in a day.”

Whoops. Spoke out loud again.

“But I can give you a quick lesson if you like.” Ariel continued. “A simple skill is just being able to sense the mana within yourself. If you're talented, you could do it within the first few tries. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath and truly peer within yourself.”

“And afterwards I’ll show you something neat.” Emit followed up.

“Okay!” I said to both of them.

I did as I was told, and closed my eyes.

What I saw was… Nothing. Just the blackness of my eye lids.

“Ugh, do I have to do everything for you? Hold on.” Emit said. What is he-

My senses suddenly expanded. The blackness of my closed eyes became a brimming pulse of blue, much like my floating annoyance here. When the flash settled down, I could 'see' even with my eyes closed. The world became a darken outline, Everything was see through, only visible to me by the streams of blues crashing and vibrating off of the various objects.

Looking at my talons, the same effect was there. Completely see through, except tendrils of eternal streams flowed out from my arms and out of my finger tips. Moving my hand caused streaks of the blue energy -Mana- to trace in the air.

I wasn't the only illuminated object in this capacity though. Lyra came over to my side.

"You okay there? Don't tell me you just fried or brain or something." Lyra said, placing her talon on my shoulder. I turned and 'looked' over at my friend.

The same tendrils of Mana were there, only now I could see they extended past the arms. They entered into Lyra's chest, becoming a complex array of channels, each having an exit point at various places in her body. The one thing they had in common though was the fact they all seemed to stem from her left lower back.

I briefly wondered why but then I remembered what Emit said about souls and their location. Is that the reason? Does the soul have something to do with Mana?

Even weirder, looking between Lyra, Gruce and Ariel. The intensity of the tendrils varied between them. With Ariel’s being the strongest and Gruce being the weakest. I could also see the flow of energy within Gruce’s armor. Is that how you could tell it was enchanted so quickly, Emit?

"Hellloooo? Ariel, I think you killed him." Lyra said.

"It happens." Ariel said.

"I'm not dead. Geez. I just got distraced by doing this vision thing. I didn't expect everything to be so… vibrant."

"Everything? You should be able to only see yourself." Ariel said.

"Nope, I can see more than that." I said. Pointing to Lyra, Ariel and even Gruce with my eyes closed. "I think there's even something flying over there?" I said pointing to the sky. It's just a blue blob from this distance though.

Even within this sight, I could tell Ariel’s face scrunched up.

“Okay then, how about this?” Ariel said. Next thing I knew she picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it at me!

I moved out the way. “Hey! What’s that for!”

“You really can see it. Having a mana sense that advance shouldn’t be possible at your level.” Ariel muttered. “Are you pulling my leg?”

“No? I swear I’ve never done this before!” I said.

“Uh huh…” Ariel said.

“So how do I do magic?” I asked.

“You don’t just ‘do magic’. Even if you show talent in one regard you can’t just start slinging spells.” Ariel replied.

Aw… That sucks.

“Don’t listen to her. Remember how I said I’d show you something cool? Try focusing some energy in your hand, Kid.”

What would that even do? It won’t explode on me right?

“Of course not! Just do it!”

Okay okay. I held out my hand. I don’t really know what he meant by focusing. So I just winged it. I imagined the flow of energy coming out of my body and into my open palm. Nothing was happening though.

Lyra began saying something but I tuned her out. Focus. The flow of energy slowly came trickling. It wasn’t much, if my mana sense was anything to go by. But it was something. More and more energy came. I felt like I was going to pop a blood vessel but I kept going.

“No way…” Ariel said.

I opened my eyes for the first time in several minutes. I was briefly blinded by the combination of the light and my sense of the mana around me. Luckly, it wasn’t that hard to stop, just had to stop focusing on it.

And to my surprise, there was a small ball of light in my hand. It swirled, strains of white lights twisting and twirling, seemingly threatening to break apart at a moments notice .I cautiously poke at it with my talon. It didn’t hurt, all that really achieved was dissipating it into the air.

“Feathers! You didn’t tell me you’ve been practicing this kind of stuff!” Lyra said with amazement.

“I hadn’t.” I said.

“Oh who cares. A shiny ball of light. It’s not even a fireball or anything.” Gruce said.

“Come on, Gruce, you even gotta admit that was pretty cool!” Lyra said. “What do you think, Ariel.”

Lyra turned to Ariel.

Ariel simply looked at my palm, where the light had been moments ago. She took her hat and lowered it, covering her face. “Let’s just go.”

Ariel left the three of us and continued down the road.

“Hey wait up!” Gruce said, following after her.

“Did… did I do something wrong?” I asked.

“Nah. I think she’s just hurt. I mean, if you’re serious about not practicing I could understand how she feels. I remember right it took her years to even fire a single fireball. And that was while her family badgered her.” Lyra said.

“Badgered?” I inquired.

“Yeah, same deal with both our folks back home actually. ‘You can’t be a mage, go into the family business! Make medicine like everyone else before you!’” Lyra said in a mocking tone.

Ah. I feel really bad now. I wish I could tell her that it wasn’t really my skill or anything. I just happened to have some help at the moment. But I have a feeling if I did say so she’d think I’m either mocking her or crazy. Probably both.

“I’m sure she’ll mellow out after we continue on for a bit. Let's get going!” Lyra said, walking towards where the others went.

I followed suit right behind her.