Because of how short the Prologue was, here's chapter 1!


"Come, Efreet!" Klarth F. Lester yelled as the red circle beneath his feet disappeared. Out from the Earth a little ways in front of Klarth a large, red, fiery body appeared. The large spirit turned toward Klarth, then froze.

"Efreet? Efreet answer your summoner!" Klarth demanded. A piece fell off of Efreet. Klarth jumped, and started leafing rapidly through the pages of his book.

"Milard!" Klarth yelled. "Milard come here!"

The door behind Klarth banged open, and a tall, blue-haired woman stood in the doorway.

"Klarth," she said softly. "I was just in the middle of-"

"Shhhh! Milard look at Efreet."

Milard did as she was told. Another piece fell off the fire spirit. Milard gasped. She ran inside, and then reappeared a few seconds' later, arms full of books. She kneeled to the ground and started flipping through them. Again a chunk of the frozen Efreet fell and disintegrated before it hit the ground. Klarth was pacing around Efreet mumbling to himself.

"How strange, perhaps it's because he was summoned in a time other then the one in which the pact was made. But that shouldn't matter. I summon thee, Sylph!" Sylph appeared, already frozen. All that remained of her was her rapidly disappearing hair. Klarth was in a near state of panic. What if all the spirits were disappearing? What was the cause? Could he fix it? What became of the spirits already gone? Could they be restored? Pieces of Efreet started to disintegrate faster and faster. His body collapsed into nothing. Klarth swore loudly.

"Damn it! What the hell is wrong with the spirits? What if- the Eternal Sword! Cless had better be aware!"

"What if it's only in our time?" Milard asked. "Cless is fifty years ahead." She put her hand on her husbands' arm. Klarth shook his head.

"Something has gone wrong with the spirits, and they transcend time."

Then something more happened.

"Klarth, look!" Milard exclaimed. She pointed towards the multitude of books on the study's shelves. They too were disappearing. Klarth ran to the bookshelves.

"Everything about the spirits is vanishing! All of my research, gone!" He could not believe what he was seeing. One book only diminished in size. Klarth gingerly picked it up.

"All of your pact rings are gone too!" Milard called from their bedroom. Her voice drifted to Klarth as if he were far away. He looked down at the finger he kept the diamond pact ring on. It was still there. Origin had not yet been touched.

"Make good choices!"

"Yeah, yeah Dad!" A girl with long, bushy pink hair bounced out of a cabin near a cliff.

"Don't do anything reckless!"

"Sheesh Dad, I'm just going flying!"

A man walked out of the cabin.

"Arche-"

"Dad! I've saved the world already! I'll be fine!"

"That is sort of recklessness I'm talking about, Arche."

Arch rolled her eyes. She yelled, "See you tonight, Dad!", as she ran down and away from her house. She pulled out her broomstick and flung one leg over it. She jumped, and stuck in the air.

"Oh, come on!" Arche pulled up with all her might. The broomstick slowly ascended.

"Come on, I didn't eat that much!"

The broom still struggled up. Arche kicked the broom multiple times. Slowly, up and up it went. Finally it was at a respectable distance from the ground.

"Tch, I don't weight that much." Arche complained.

The ride was very jerky. The broom would fly straight for a while, and then suddenly drop tens of feet. Then she would have to struggle to get the broom back up. Fed up with fighting for a smooth ride, Arche decided to stop by Klarth's house in Euclid village for answers. When she arrived at the house, there was a tangible panic in the air.

"Klarth?" Arche asked uncertainly as she stepped through the open front door. Milard had always kept the front door shut. "Milard?"

"Arche." Milard came out of the bedroom in the back and clasped Arche's free hand. "Is, everything all right?" Milard asked tentatively. Arche could tell that something terrible had happened here from the question.

"What's up?" Arche inquired, forgetting about her broom troubles presently.

"Why don't you tell us?" Milard pushed. She was defiantly hiding something.

"My broom was acting up earlier. I came to ask Klarth if Volt was if a mood or something."

"Volt. Is gone." Came a shaky voice from behind one of the bookshelves.

"Klarth?" Arche pulled her hand from Milard's grasp and moved towards Klarth. He was sitting near an empty bookshelf, a thin book in hand. "Did someone steal your books! Who'd wanna do that!" she exclaimed.

"No." Klarth's voice came dryly. "they're gone because the spirits whose information was contained within them, have disappeared."

"Ha Ha Klarth. Very funny." Arche said. Although an icy hole inside her told her this was no joke.

"No Arche. They're gone. All gone. We watched as Efreet and the rest of Sylph disintegrated." Milard said.

"But-."

"Not all of them. Origin is still around." Klarth whispered.

"So we need to get to Cless. Let's head to Thor while my broom still sorta works."

"Thor won't work. It needs Aska's power to send us through time. And Aska's gone."

"But Cless is less sensitive to the Mana around him then a rock!" Arche exclaimed. "And Chester is even worse then he is!"

"Mint should have noticed, she is a healer after all." Milard helped.

Klarth shook his head. "Not unless lack of spirits in this time makes an noticeable change in her time."


Yeah. I married Klarth and Milard. You all are going to have to deal with the pairings that I like, but don't worry nothing weird. I do not own the people or places, Namco does. Reviews are welcome.