When I woke up, it was already sunset. Anyone who was tracking us would have a very hard time to at night, so I decided to let Thalia sleep a little longer, but we would have to try to run back to our village once night came. I sat and watched the sunset, savoring the last moments I had left.

I watched as the battle for the sky raged on. There were bright, brilliant streaks of color, each one more vibrant than the last. Blues merged with pinks, reds merged with purples. It was absolutely beautiful. Shafts of light poked through each of the clouds onto the blue sky. The blue got darker and darker, the reds got brighter and brighter until red filled the entire horizon. The light slowly faded and the blues turned into purples which turned into black. Small salt flakes of starts started dashing the sky, peeking up one by one. It was serene and beautiful.

As the last line of red disappeared behind the horizon, I turned to wake up Thalia to start walking back to our village, yet as I turned around I saw she was already sitting up in the sand, looking out with me. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I told her.

"Yeah," She replied, sounding very uninterested."

"Thalia? Is something bothering you?" I asked, worried for her.

"No, it's nothing," She replied.

"Thalia, I've known you for 10 years and I've learned to know your emotions," I told back.

"Well, as we were falling down off the cliff, I heard a voice call out my name." She seemed deep in thought. "It sounded like my mother's, and if we just missed out on a chance to save her..."

I put a hand on her shoulder. " It'll be okay, We're going to find her." I tried to comfort her as much as I could, yet I knew I couldn't much. It pained me seeing someone normally so energetic, so sad and depressed.

"Okay," she replied, "In the meantime, we should get back to our village before the sun comes up so they won't be able to track us. I think I remember playing up her when we were younger. This way." It kind of struck me how she figured out exactly what I did, but I followed her downstream toward our little town.

************************************

As we ran farther and farther into the trees, buildings started coming into view. One by one, houses started popping up on the horizon. As we ran closer, the grass under our feet got more and more flat, as many others have stepped on it before. I saw that there were a lot of people, mostly monsters, flowing into the town for some reason. I couldn't afford to think of that right now, though. Running into the town, I ran to my house, hoping I would find some answer to my problems there. Yet, where my house should have been, was gone. It was ashes. Almost all of it. There were a few stone tablets and glass dishes here or there, but besides that, it was all ash. I walked up to the rubble but dared not get too close for it was still very hot.

"We should go try to find my parents, they'll know what happened," I exclaimed and started running. I didn't really know what to do because something like this never really happened before. I ran along, looking for some sign of my parents until I suddenly lost my balance as someone pulled me into an alley between two houses.

"What the heck? Who are you? What happened?" I demanded, looking around until I saw a face. It was... Gabriel? The old orphan boy who worked for scraps?

"Gabriel? Why did you bring me here?" I asked as Thalia rounded the corner, following after me. Gabriel was another bipedal monster with two large ears that looked almost like bunny ears. He was covered in a thin fer, aside from his bare face. Every one of his light brown fers had a dark black tinge on its edge, a side effect of working at the blacksmith's for so long.

"You dropped somethin' a littl' bit ago." Gabriel replied and slowly pulled something out of his pocket. It was... a red crystal? Just like the one I had, but clearer. I slowly took mine out too.

"If this is mine, the what's this?" I asked, holding up my crystle.

"Fake," he exclaimed, then quickly took it and threw it against a wall. It shatter, and I saw that the inside of the rock was nothing but regular grew stone.

"But how did you..." My question was answered before I finished asking it.

"Meh, twas a bit of raspberry juice and flower and a few oth'a things. Somethin' I thought of on the spot to replace the real thin'."

I was very confused, if that was the real thing, how had my magic gotten stronger since I left? Yet there was one big question that was looming.

"So, why are you giving this back to us?" Thalia asked, "If you went to all the trouble of making a new one, why give us back this one?" He looked terrified after she said this.

"Well, 'things' started to 'appen after I got this, weird things."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, uh, let's just say I was watchin you look at your 'ouse, from the window of the 'ouse across the street."

"What? This was the fastest way to get here, though. How could you have gotten in front of us?" He sighed then closed his eyes. He then, disappeared from right in front of us! I looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen, until,

"Hey, I'm up 'ere!" I looked up, and he was on top of one of the buildings making this alley. "So, I can kinda say where to go," He yelled, climbing down the side of the house, "but I wanted to go be'ind you, but instead I ended up going way up on a roof be'ind you."

"So, why tell us?" Thalia asked. We were both fitting pieces together in our heads, but this was one space still not filled.

"I wan' it to stop. I wan' it to go away. It's messin with the way I do things, and it's scarin' me. I don't wan' this prob'em!"

"Then why don't you just stop using it?" I asked.

"It goes off at 'andom times and it's messin' with everythin'."

I thought about how to solve it. Tareche taught us how to use our powers, not remove them. "We could teach you, kinda" I replied. I didn't know if or how it would even work, but it was something.

"OK," he replied, "If it'll stop it from goin' off at random times, I may as well try it." I thought to the first thing Tareche taught, mind exercises. We didn't get to actually using our powers until much later. I was about to speak, when suddenly a booming voice called out.

"Alexander Ravos! Come out, I want to talk." I'd know that voice anywhere, Tarran. I peeked my head around the corner and through the black of night, I saw him and his men were slowly walking up the streets, running in and out of houses and alleys, looking for someone, me.

"Gabriel, can you teleport us out of here?" I asked, hoping

"Yeah, as long as ya both touch me, that seems to be 'ow it works with things." He reached out his hands and I reached back until Thalia spoke up.

"Wait, I want to meet this guy face to face, get some answers, you know." she said, and before anyone could do anything, she started running into the street. I did the only thing I could, and followed, Gabriel behind me. I looked up and saw that the moon was at its zenith in the sky, yet there was a feeling in my stomach that was as sunken as it could have been.

"I have Alexander Ravos!" She yelled, absolutely crazy, "But not one step closer! We outran you once, we can do it again!" He shouted a few orders for his men to come to his side. We watched very carefully.

"We mean you no harm, and we're sorry about your mother, we just need Alexander Ravos and you never have to see us again, and you can get you mother back." He yelled back from about 6 houses down the street.

"And what if we try to take you down with force?" I shouted back.

"Oh, please, the Red Sun Stone only works during the day, there's no way you're gonna beat when I have the Midnight Stone, and yes I do have the Midnight Stone." He laughed at the sound of rebellion, yet even I could tell he was worried.

"Why do you want him?" Thalia asked.

"We need his help. There are seven magical artifacts out hidden in the world. Most people have never seen someone who's seen someone who's seen an artifact, and yet you, Alexander, seem to have found quite a few. All we want is your help." I was very, very suspicious of this. He wouldn't have kidnapped and tried to kill me if he just wanted my help. "I myself have only come in contact of one, they seem to be drawn to you somehow, and I just want you to help me."

"Why did you kidnap then?" Thalia asked.

"What?" he yelled back.

"If all you needed was Alexander's help, why did you kidnap my mom and attempt to murder us? If what you needed was Alexander's help, it wouldn't do much good if he was dead." He looked shocked, and very scared. He moved his hand behind his back, but that did not shield all of the blue light coming from it. I saw he started whispering orders, and it was when he picked his hand up, just as a large patch of drt and grass did, when Gabriel put his hand on mine and Thalia's back and suddenly, time stopped.

I saw the stone, inches from hitting my face, suspended in mid air. I tried to move, but I couldn't. Suddenly, everything felt cold, so cold. My vision started becoming blurry, everything being enveloped in a bright white light. The rock in front of my face turned from black, to grey, and then white, like everything else. It was this point when the freezing cold was replaced with a piercing hot. It felt like every cell in my body was on fire. The white then slowly went away into a lush green. I probably would have curled up in a little ball to try to escape the pain at this point, if I could move, but I stayed frozen in place. As my vision turned into a static river and a forest instead of the blank white, the heat started to cool down, and the water in the river started to flow again. Slowly, I got control back to all of my limbs as I realized we were right outside the village border, a thin line of trees between us and the town, and an open field on the other side.

"Oh, my goodness, what was that, did we just teleport, I saw the rock, but then, what?" Thalia was freaking out again, but I did agree with her, that was too close.

"Sorry, we had to do somethin' quickly and that was the only thin' I could think of." Gabriel apologized.

"It's fine, we needed that, badly," I replied, "Thanks, by the way." He looked surprised at what I said, as if something as out of place. "Is something wrong?" I asked.

"Well, I guess I'm not used to people sayin' please and thank you 'round me. It just ain't somethin' I deserve, most people say."

"That's horrible!" Tali replied, astonished, "Everyone deserves, at least, a please and thank you!"

"Meh, I'mma orphan with no money, it ain't really my place to say otherwise" This really made me think, about what my life was and how it could be. He came from so low and had so little, and yet he didn't grieve, in fact, I could barely remember one time I had ever seen him without a smile.

"So," Thalia chimed, breaking the silence, "What do we do now?"

"Well, he said you had three artifacts, ain't he?" Gabriel replied, "Let's see em." I pulled out the Red Sun Stone. That was obviously one, the first one I got, but what about the other three? Racking through my memories, I pulled out the teacup Tareche gave me as we were scrambling to leave his place.

"There would be no reason to give this to me to protect if it weren't for this." I reasoned out loud, and put it next to the crystal. I thought again, trying to think what could be another. Suddenly, a memory came back. Though it may have been brief, I did see something glow. A book, that's what it was! I pulled out the diary I found at the cabin. "I saw this glow, just a bit, but I really don't know if this is really one."

"Well, only one way to find ou'!" Gabriel remarked, then quickly grabbed the book and soaked it in the river.

"What the heck? What did you just do?!" I yelled.

"These trinkets can't be broken. I dropped the crystal once, while climbing dow' the side of a house. It should 'ave broken, but 'ere wasn't even a scratch when I got 'ack to it." He took the book out of the water and flipped through the pages. The pages were wet, yet they were still impossible to tear apart and the ink on it wasn't smudged or damaged at all!

"Well yep, this is 'efinitely one!" Gabriel replied, "Anything else ya might 'ave?" I looked through my pockets, yet everything I had in them was things I had had before the magic started coming.

"No, this must be it, I literally don't have anything else," I replied.

"Well, I don't really know what 'ese do, but I know one thin' . They can't get into the 'ands of Tarran and his buddies." Suddenly, we heard something on the other side of the tree line.

"I think I heard voices!"One person said, "I'll go check it out." I quickly gathered up all the artifacts, hearing crunches getting closer and closer. Not a second after all of them had been put safely back in my pocket, two men came out of the trees.

"Hey! They're here! Get Tarran!" He yelled and we took of sprinting. "Hey! Get back here!" He started running after us, but we ran as fast as we could across the grassy plane, Gabriel running remarkably fast, and far in front of us. I looked back, and could see more people joining the two in the chase. Suddenly, Gabriel stopped straight in his tracks.

"I'm about to have another random teleport!" He yelled back at us, "I can't stop it, you have to get to me, now!" We ran to him, and he ran to us, but he looked and sounded urgent. I saw him become a bit more transparent for a second, but he kept running. Just then, I heard someone call out Thalia's name. I stopped and looked back to see Thalia, frozen looking straight at her mother, one of the many monsters walking through the streets toward some unknown goal.

"Thalia, you have to get here, now!" I yelled and kept running, yet Thalia stood, frozen.

He became even more transparent and right as I touched his hand, time froze. I somehow looked back, and I saw the men standing right behind us, yet so was Thalia. She wasn't close enough. She wasn't touching Gabriel. The darkness started to fade, the edges of my vision being blocked out with a white light. Thalia was standing right in front of me, and yet there was nothing I could do. I know it was impossible, but somehow, I shed a tear while frozen. As my vision started filling up with more and more white. I felt so cold, yet I knew it wasn't from teleporting. I tried to reach out and touch her, but I couldn't move. As the darkness of night was replaced by the bright white light, the last thing to go was Tali. I couldn't let go of her, yet I couldn't hold her.

As the whiteness enveloped the entire picture, the cold went away and was replaced by a burning rage. I hated this, I hated Tarran, I hated being too slow. I should have been there with Thalia. The white light began to fade, as I saw the forest from atop a mountain. The whiteness faded, and time began to move again. I fell to my knees and screamed in rage. In my fury, I unconsciously sent out two powerful electric blue streams into the air, them going straight forever. I looked down and could see the field where we were, where Thalia was. I could see her getting dragged away by Tarran's men, kicking and screaming. I saw Tarran walk up, looking down on her condescendingly. I turned away to a formation of rocks, I had places many months ago. Moving them, an iron sword was hidden beneath, along with a meddle scabbard I had saved a long time ago. Grabbing them, I turned back to Gabriel and proclaimed, "I'm ready to face this idiotic narcissist in person."