Janus picked at a loose thread in the hem of his collar as he lay bored on his bed. Rain pelted fiercely at the windows, which was keeping everyone in the palace from going anywhere for the time being. With more people indoors, being out in the corridors would be bothersome and loud dealing with the nobles.

It took him a while before he suddenly brightened up at a thought and quickly sat up, which startled Alfador who sat at his elbow. She meowed in protest, not knowing what had come over her master all of a sudden. Janus stood from the mattress and wandered over to his dresser, opening the bottom drawer and fishing through its contents with his hands. His fingers brushed against a firm object, which he immediately grabbed and pulled out into clear view.

He still had no idea what the item was, turning it in his hands to view it from all possible angles. He wondered what it was for, what it could do. Schala had come so close to snatching it the last time he had looked it over, having caught a brief glimpse of it herself. Since then, he had been forced to hide it and make the excuse that he had finally decided to pass it over to Gaspar.

Whatever it was, not knowing greatly fascinated him. He was proud of himself for having discovered it. The images were still clear in his mind as he replayed how he had come across the item.

He had only been playing a simple game with Alfador, but one that she enjoyed very much. Using the rubber ball that he had received earlier on, they were passing it back and forth in a short corridor of the royal guest chambers.

Janus rolled the ball across the floor, watching with amusement to see how far it would travel each time before Alfador would capture it. She would take a few moments to paw it back and forth on her own before batting it back toward her master. They continued this for a long while.

But Janus made a careless toss that was much more forceful than intended and it whizzed by so quickly that Alfador didn't catch up to it in time. It rolled underneath a bookcase at the end of the hallway, one thats structure was so low to the ground that Alfador couldn't squirm underneath to retrieve her toy.

Alfador mewed desperately, swiping her paw into the space only to claw at open air.

"It's okay, Alfador. I'm gonna get it," Janus reassured her.

He bent down on his hands and knees and reached in himself, his whole arm disappearing into the small nook. Likewise, all he was finding was emptiness, until his fingers finally curled around an object. It felt rounded, yet it also didn't feel right, for it certainly had no rubber to its texture. Curious, he pulled it out to examine his new finding. What was this?

Alfador meowed loudly, impatient to get her toy back.

"Sorry about that." His other hand dove back under and returned much sooner than beforehand, this time the ball clenched triumphantly in his grasp.

The kitten's glowing eyes dilated at the familiar sight and she lowered into a half-crouch, expecting her master to resume their game.

"I think we should continue this another time, Alfador. We don't want the ball to try and get away from us again." Really, the prince just wanted to take a closer look at the mystery object. So he had returned to his bed chambers, kitten in tow, and kept in his room for the remainder of that day.

He now turned to Alfador sitting on the bed, not having moved from her seat, and smiled gratefully at her. Alfador was the one to thank for having led to finding the object, after all. He pushed the drawer closed and scrambled back up next to his companion as he continued to investigate the device.

One part of it was round, which had been the part he had initially touched when he was searching for the cat toy, but a mini rod protruded from the side. Whatever it might be, the rod was definitely a very important item, for it was embedded with a number of buttons. Janus had no idea what would happen if they would have worked. He had already experimentally pressed a few of them, but nothing had happened. He supposed it was broken, which he decided made it a bit safe to mess around with it.

He now pressed some of them again, making a small game of pressing them each in turn, but repeating the process in a different order each time. Two together here, the next one at the opposite end... A furry paw extended from his peripheral vision and tapped the rounded end of the object.

"Meow?"

Alfador must have thought it to be another play thing, as well. Part of it did resemble the ball, so she must think this to be like her play toy as well, the prince deducted. He laughed as the kitten grasped it in both paws and tried to pull it out of his hand.

"Sorry, Alfador, but this is my toy."

Yet he allowed her to continue to try and wrest it from him ineffectually.

"Janus?"

He could hear his sister calling from the next room across the hall. Not good. If she came in right now, she would undoubtedly discover that he had lied about giving the device to Gaspar. Hopping down from the bed, he hurriedly put the item back into its hiding place in the bottom of the drawer. He would take it out again later.

xxxxxxxxxx

The Fiendlord woke from his nap to an unexpected noise. Since he had just stirred from his sleep, he inferred that it must have just been his imagination. Regardless, had he heard it right? An uneasy feeling began to take root in his stomach.

Something wasn't right. For some odd reason, he felt that there was something that he had missed. Sighing, he stood up and headed to the closet to retrieve his cloak, but stopped dead in his tracks as he stared at the door. Or rather, what was underneath it.

No, it couldn't possibly be...!

The sound that had woken him hadn't been imagined. He had heard right. But, how? Not here. Please, anywhere else! That noise had been unmistakable, something that he had hoped to never hear again while he still lived in this timeline.

Then the strangest thing happened. He heard the noise again, then suddenly what had caught his attention at the door disappeared. Confused, he swung the door open, only to be met by his cloak and scythe, right where he had left them. Nothing else was there. He reached for the cloak and slipped into it, his gaze continuing to linger in the empty space, waiting for something more to happen.

Although he had to wait for several moments, he wasn't disappointed.

The noise came again, a hissing of compressed air as it was expelled, followed immediately by the reappearance of something greatly familiar. There it was, exactly what he had dreaded to see.

A Time Gate.

But where had it come from? And why was it flickering between materialization and nonexistence? He had never seen such a thing happen before. And, like it or not, he had to get to the bottom of this dire situation.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Yes, your grace?" He turned to make eye contact with the prince who strode across the room to meet him.

"There she is!" Janus exclaimed.

Alfador, who had sniffed out the Oracle seated in the back of the library, lifted her head from her paws to greet her master happily. She did not think she had done anything wrong. In fact, she waited for the prince to commend her for having succeeded in playing "hunter" like he normally would.

Janus strode forward and placed his hands on his hips as he watched his pet. "Well, just look at you," he stated to the kitten. "You certainly look comfortable."

Alfador didn't move from her place curled on the Mystic's lap, returning her young master's stare. Indeed, she was certainly content where she was. Magus touched his fingers to the bases of her ears, gently caressing them. Alfador closed her eyes to further express her enjoyment.

"Come on, Alfador," the prince commanded.

Though reluctant, the feline complied, stepping off the mage's lap onto the sofa to be picked up by her master. Janus offered the Prophet a disarming smile before turning to leave. Well, any smile from the prince would usually be considered disarming unless it was intended for his sister or his feline companion. Otherwise, he normally wouldn't smile for anyone. He would meet almost everyone else with either a frown or just plain indifference. Why he would even want to smile for the Oracle was still a confusing matter.

Magus' gaze followed the prince's back as the boy approached the door, surprised when Janus stopped and looked back over his shoulder to meet his stare. There was a hesitant pause as Janus began to reconsider. He finally made up his mind, backtracking to stand in front of the man again.

"Prophet, I want to ask you a few questions." Though the words were statement enough, his tone was inquiring.

The Mystic gave a small nod of his head, silent in his consent.

Janus planted himself on the sofa next to the Prophet, a gesture that brought confusion to his companion's face. So much for a few quick questions, the boy was making himself comfortable to be there for a while yet. "Well, I found something the other day while I was playing with Alfador, and I have no idea what it is."

Magus' ears perked in eagerness. Finally, he was going to find out what had driven Schala to become so upset with her brother the previous evening. "Yes?"

"It's... odd. I don't know exactly how to describe it."

"Let me take a look." He expected the prince to be hiding it in his pocket again, like he had witnessed before.

"I don't have it right now. It's in my room. I want to get some advice on whether I should take it to Gaspar or not. He keeps a lot of strange things that he's always creating, so I've been considering it. But if I take it to him and he's interested in it, I might not get it back."

The Oracle narrowed his eyes. "You don't know if it could be dangerous or not. It's probably best that you don't keep it."

"But I think it's broken. It doesn't seem to do anything."

"It still needs to be looked at." Magus was starting to panic inwardly, afraid that he now knew what it was. He tried to shake the possibility from his mind. If it were true, then it would explain why he had uncovered the disturbance in his chamber earlier. "If you show it to me, I might be able to help."

This seemed to relieve the prince considerably, enough that he smiled once again.

That's something that he should never have found. But just how did he find it?

xxxxxxxxxx

He waited impatiently inside his chamber, ready to snatch the device from the prince at the first chance that presented itself. He stood waiting in front of his closet with the door open, his Hurricane scythe now appearing much deadlier after having given it an afternoon cleaning.

He thought he heard soft footsteps outside in the corridor, turning expectantly. Janus entered the room, fiddling with the buttons on the object much to the Mystic's horror. "Janus, don't!" he warned sharply.

Too late.

The Gate yawned open just as expected, its light flooding the entire room with its ethereal glow. Magus turned in dismay to see the prince's expression, taking the opportunity to recover the Key from Janus's hand that was now frozen in place. He hurriedly closed the Gate, determined to make the prince forget whatever he saw. The light had been so sudden that perhaps it had blinded him from seeing the source.

"Are you all right, your grace? That sure was startling, to say the least."

A curious expression crossed Janus's fine features.

"Janus?"

After a moment's silence, the boy smiled in wonder. "So that's what it does! If it's supposed to make things disappear, then why did nothing happen earlier, I wonder?"

Magus cocked his head to the side, wondering what Janus was getting at. "What did you see?"

"A blue light. It just came out of nowhere, and now both it and your scythe-thing are gone all of a sudden."

The Mystic looked back at the empty space, horrified to see that the words were true.

I know that it's been a while, and I promised to update this sooner. But seeing as how much content is in the following already-written chapters, I've been doing some major revisions in the past few weeks. The chapters were getting way to long, so I've had to replace some events into shorter chapters, thus pushing them even further ahead to make extra chapters. Hopefully, this should be the last time I will have to say that more is on its way and then take what seems like forever to actually post it. I DO promise that the next chapter should be up by the end of next week at the very latest. Please review and give criticism were it's needed for the next chapter, because it finally begins the major plot of the story! ^^ (As if you haven't already figured out part of it already...)