Hey all. Good to have you with us. I'd like to thank my first reviewer for her very helpful input. I will try not to disappoint.

Disclaimer: Well, the mummy lawyers are gone, as King Henry requested, (yes, that was a Shakespeare joke; and yes, I know I'm a dork) but they still aren't mine.

Chapter 2: The Tower

Even after so many years, the building was still such an incredible structure. The great, glass panels nearly covered its entirety, making it beautiful. Yet the strong holdings made the place imposing, even after all these years it had spent without its still more amazing former occupants. No one had ever dared to approach it, and no one had ever dared to try and find some evidence of the strange persons whom had created it.

That is, until tonight.

"Oh, come on Art! Don't be such a baby!"

Art looked up at his friend in complete and total disbelief.

"You drag me out here in the middle of the night to rent a boat and go chasing after some fairy tale you heard from some old geezer, and you're the one calling me a baby?"

"It's not a fairy tale Art! These were real people. What, you're not the slightest bit interested?"

Art continued to stare at his friend. She was standing with one foot already in the small, unsafe looking rowboat, ready to cross the bay to attempt a brake-into an allegedly haunted house, and she was looking at him like he was the crazy one.

"To tell you the truth Ella, I'm really more interested in that Bio test tomorrow, which I know for a fact you aren't ready for. Now why don't you get out of that wooden death trap right now and we can go cram 'til it's time to catch the bus."

And then he turned around. He knew that if he kept looking in her direction, it was like it always was. She'd flip her raven-black hair back and give him that look, the one that so clearly said, "You're going to come with me, and you're going to have some fun, even if I have to drag you by your abnormally large ears into the scene." Then he'd continue trying to argue, and she'd continue giving him that look, and he'd finally cave, only to realize that he should have just walked away when his grandmother was starting to scream at the both of them. But not this time. No, this time he was going to look the other way until she finally got bored and gave in.

"I don't care about Bio! When are we ever gonna use that anyway? Look, I'm going, with or without you."

"Then you'll just have to go without me, 'cause I'm not setting foot on that thing."

Art smirked. He knew he'd won this time. Ella despised being alone. She had never once gone off on any one of her schemes without an accomplice. And he wasn't going to budge, not this time. Soon she'd just forget this insane idea and go back to caring about normal stuff, like tests and chores.

But then he heard her sigh.

"Fine."

Arthur blinked. Surely he had heard wrong.

"Huh?"

"I said fine. I'll go without you."

Art stared at her. She was dead serious.

"Ella…"

The girl cut him off.

"Art, I really don't care if you want me to go or not. I really don't care if I have to go alone or not. I just have to do this."

He was missing something; he had to be.

"Ella, why?"

She looked at him.

"I donno. I just do."

-----

From within a small fishing boat just a little off shore, the silent figure of a woman watched the strange exchange between the two friends. Her cruel, slanted black eyes surveyed the scene; completely aware of everything that was happening. The night was bright enough to see, but that didn't mean that there were no dangers to her mission. The target might yet change her mind.

But then again, no. She was far too much like her father. She wouldn't rest until she had the answers she sought.

The woman smirked, the expression looking all too natural on her tan skinned face. After all, what was she here for, if not to give the girl the answers to her questions?

The woman brushed her pitch-colored hair out of her eyes in order to better see the scene across the bay. The two had separated, and the target was now rowing across to the Tower, alone.

Kormand'r, Empress of the Great Crusade of the Known Galaxies, Mistress of Chaos, Ruler of the Farthest Reaches, slipped out of her raincoat and began to make her way to the Tower. Time to get what she came for.

-----

Ella hated being alone.

She'd never gotten into anything like this without Art or Vic or somebody at her side; but she had to do this.

Why she had to, she wasn't entirely sure. But she knew she did.

The only way she could accurately explain the sensation, even to herself, was with a memory from something that happened when she was very small. She had been in the middle of a tug-a-war over an old toy with Art when everything had gone black. A lamp had fallen from the shelf above her and hit her on the head. When she woke up, she couldn't remember everything right away, but the toy they had been fighting over was still in her hand. She had immediately started to pull again. She had still been dazed, and unable to remember what it was she was fighting for, but she had known that it must be something important to her, so she began to pull.

That was how she felt now; like in spite of the fact that she had no clue why she was doing what she was doing, something inside of her was begging her to do it; like there was something that must be important to her that she needed to get, even though she didn't know what it was; like she still needed to fight, even if she'd forgotten what it was she was fighting for.

So she'd gotten in the boat and began to row across the bay without Art or Vic or anyone else at her side.

There was a leak in the boat; the bottoms of her overalls were getting soaked. It'd be hard to walk when she got to shore, but she didn't care. The tower was getting closer.

-----

He should have known this was coming.

"The boy just left the shore. I've lost visual of her, but I think she took the old boat."

Andie's voice was more than a little worried as she reported what she was seeing from her position near the bay.

She'd told him not to worry. She'd said that the girl would just forget about it and move on to other things, like she had before. She'd been wrong.

This was what he'd been waiting for, what he'd been so worried would happen.

"Do you want me to move in Wing?"

If the girl was caught, there could be trouble. Big trouble. And that was if she was caught by the Jump police. But at least then she could worm a way out, after all, she was just a kid. But what if…

"WING!"

He forced his mind back to the transmition he was getting from Andie.

"Do you wand me to move in or not?"

It was time for something to happen. She was about to find the answers to so many questions, and what would he do then? Should he allow Andie to stop her, it would only delay the inevitable. But there was also a great amount of danger involved. Something or someone could hurt her if she went out alone as she was.

But it was still time.

"Head for your quarters. I'll go."

Andie nodded and the transmition was cut off.

He sighed. It was bound to happen. He couldn't stop it. So, he supposed, there was only one thing left to do.

-----

It was dark.

In her hurry to answer the pull she'd felt toward this place, she hadn't bothered to pick up a flashlight. Now she was heading blindly down a dark, abandoned hallway with no light source and no knowledge of where she was going.

Maybe Art had been right.

"No," she heard herself whisper out loud. She had to be here, even if it was dark.

Her hand slid along the dusty wall, guiding her. She kept going until she felt a door. It opened without her probing.

She continued to feel around, looking for something that might help her see. She tripped.

It was an old candle, caked with dust and half burned, but still unable. She found a box of matches only a few inches away.

As her eyes adjusted to the new, flickering light, she looked around her. She was in a very large room, with a very large, semi-circle couch and windows on either size. There was a rather small kitchen area in the corner, with old dirty plates still piled up in the sink. She remembered what Charlie said about teenaged meta-humans not being very neat, and almost laughed in spite of herself.

The place certainly wasn't very well kept. Bare wires hung from the ceiling, looking somewhat ominous. Several rusty metal parts littered various places. An old remote lay on the floor, almost unrecognizable through the cake of dust.

There was dust everywhere. It was caked on the walls, the floor, and every other object in sight. It had obviously been a while since there had been anyone in here.

Ella's eyes then fell on the window.

She almost stopped breathing. The view was incredible; she could see the entire city, it's lights illuminating her face. It occurred to her to wonder how she hadn't noticed them when there had been no other light, but shrugged it off as unimportant.

There was another door near the kitchen, and she was eager to see more. So, candle in hand, she headed out to see what other wonders this abandoned castle had to offer.

-----

"Arthur?"

…

"Arthur, are you in there?"

…

"Arthur St John!"

"Yeah Gram, I'm here."

'But I shouldn't be'

"Well then get to bed for goodness sake! You have school tomorrow!"

"Yeah, sure."

But he wasn't listening. His mind was preoccupied with other thoughts, most of them rallying around a certain raven-haired troublemaker.

'You really shouldn't have left her.'

'What was I supposed to do, drag her by the ankles?!'

'She could have used your help.'

'There's no way I'm ever going anywhere near that place.'

'Now, don't tell me you believe in those silly ghost stories.'

'Of course not! The place just gives me an edgy feeling, that's all.'

'Like the one you got when Ella had you in the science lab with those frogs?'

'No. This was more like… like when that earthquake hit a couple years ago. I just got the feeling that if we went in there, something horrible would happen.'

'So you left Ella to walk into a place your instincts deemed dangerous all alone.'

'I didn't think she'd really go.'

'You think she thought you'd really stay?'

Art sighed and flopped down on the bed. He could hardly believe he was having an argument with himself about what had just happened. He knew he shouldn't have gone in there, everything in him had been screaming against it, but what if something happened to her? What would he do then?

He sighed again and fell into an uneasy sleep.

-----

She looked around and decided that she must be in one of the bedrooms.

It was the neatest room she had entered so far, but just as abandoned. The bed was made, but it smelled distinctly of mildew. There were a series of yellowed newspaper clippings on the wall, all baring pictures of many strange sorts of people and creatures, including a man in an odd mask and something that resembled a very large, pussy zit she'd once had. There was a desk baring a neat stack of old papers, and a vanity with an assortment of perfumes and cosmetics.

Ella's eyes swept the room. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something in here just seemed out of place.

She finally saw it. There was a candle on the nightstand, still burning. Nothing else in the room or in any other part of the Tower had been touched in a very long time, the thick layers of dust everywhere answered to that, and yet the flame was still going strong, like it had only just been lit.

Her eyes fell just a little in front of the candle, on a small picture frame. Her heart stopped.

-----

The target was in the Tower, unaware that she was being followed. She had only looked out the window once, at which time Kormand'r had been forced to hide herself above the girl's line of sight. Elsewise she might have seen the unwanted intruder.

She had been wandering around the place for a few hours now, why it had taken her so long to reach the room she needed to find was more then the woman would ever understand. But she was there now. She was looking at that useless candle, probably wondering who had lit it, the little human fool. Had her father taught her nothing?

Kormand'r shook the question off. It was none of her concern what the girl's parent had bothered to let her know about the universe. She had a job to do.

She began to feel around the glass for the familiar point at which to press.

-----

There were two people in the photograph, both equally strange. There was a man with neck length, jet-black hair, not unlike her own, and a simple black mask. He had one arm around a woman with long, fire-red hair, tan skin, and crystal green eyes. She was holding a small child, just a baby. The little one had a small growth of midnight black hanging in her eyes, which were the same green as her mother's. Around her wrist there was a strange birthmark: a chain of red fire.

Ella's head snapped down to her own wrist, to her own birthmark. It had been there as long as she could remember, like her eyes themselves.

Her crystal green eyes…

Her brain had shut down for the moment. She couldn't comprehend what might be going on. As soon as she could manage to form a coherent thought, a memory sprang up.

She had been in the shop, working on another of Carol's insane investments, a fifty-year-old Harley Davidson that had never started to run. Charlie had been telling one of his stories, about where the Titans came from.

"Now some might take the wrong meaning to that, but I say if you were on a strange world and in shackles you'd feel like blowing up a few city blocks to, wouldn't yah?"

Ella had laughed at that.

"You liked that one, didn't you Charlie?"

"What was there not to like? The girl was a good fighter, and a good friend. It's a shame not to have her around anymore."

Charlie had then looked at her, a small smirk on his face.

"You know, now that I think of it, she was a lot like you, El."

"Don't even joke."

"No, I'm quite serious. Why, you even look like her. Now I hope I don't see you falling out of the sky all glowie any time soon."

"Please, like that could ever happen. There's nothing special about me."

That grin was back.

"You'd be surprised."

"Why do people keep saying that to me?"

Charlie had just continued to grin as he stood up and brushed himself off.

"I'll see you next week. Good luck with Alaster here."

That had exasperated Ella. For one thing, Charlie had never finished his story. For another, he hadn't answered her question. And of course there was the very idea of naming a motorcycle "Alaster".

But more than anything, there was the fact that he always gave her the impression that he knew more than he was willing to tell.

Ella's eyes flicked back to the candle, yet another of Charlie's stories suddenly coming to mind.

"Ta And'r du X'al," she voiced the words carefully.

"Lovely, so you do have a brain after all. I was starting to worry."

Ella swung around to the source of the voice, coming face to face with the most dangerous person she'd ever met.

Thank you for sitting through that. Does the fact that I'm typing more mean I'm getting better at this? I don't know I'm still new here. Please, please, please Review. I only beg because that seems to be what it takes for a response. Thank you.