"What's the plan?"

Julia hesitated, seeming caught off-guard that Jo had agreed so quickly. "Plan. Yes. That. Um…."

Jo crossed her arms, looking amused. "You guys don't actually have a plan yet, do you?"

"We wanted to wait until all four of us were together, so you guys could help. Julia and I are prone to making pretty stupid decisions on our own." I explained.

"Essa currently isn't in her own timeline." Julia added. "She's in the newest one, probably messing with things and creating more deviations. We need to draw her out somehow."

"But…" Jacek started, voice quavering ever so slightly. "We need to kill her Reuben. Is he in that timeline with her?"

I shook my head. "No. He's still in her timeline. But I don't think we can just go in there and kill him- we've been in her fortress, and we know that it's fairly well-guarded and impossible to navigate. There's almost no chance of us being able to sneak in."

"Plus, she's probably hidden Reuben somewhere. From what I've heard about her, she seems really careful, so if she knows that Reuben is the missing constant, we can assume she's done something to protect him." Jo put in.

Julia gestured to her. "Right! I didn't even think about that. That's exactly why we needed you two."

Pressing his hand against his chin, Jacek thoughtfully said, "So we're hinging on the idea that we'll need Essa to get to Reuben. Could we go into the new timeline and just…threaten her a lot?"

"No. We can't go into that timeline, especially not with her in it. Us Primes hold a lot of power over the timelines; it wouldn't be a good idea to have all of us in one. It'd throw things off even more." I said. "Not to mention that we don't know where Essa is. She could be anywhere in that timeline."

"Well…hm. How far along is this newest timeline?" Jo asked contemplatively.

I paused, thinking. "I don't know for sure, but I think it should be right at the beginning of the whole Witherstorm mess. Why?"

Jo didn't say anything, but Jacek's head snapped up to look at her. "You don't think…?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, it seems right. If we're thinking the same thing here."

"Wait, what?" Julia asked.

Jacek glanced over at her. "Well, think about it. If Essa is in the new timeline, right as the Prime's whole adventure is starting…could she manipulate it so that she's part of the quest? I'm just saying, that's what I'd do if I was trying to screw up reality. If she gets the new Prime to trust her, she could manipulate them throughout the whole adventure, steering them towards making one decision over another."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too." Jo nodded.

Julia pressed a hand against her forehead. "Dammit. Of course she'd do that."

"So we've gotta stop her before she wrecks it too badly. The only question now is how." Jo put in. "We need to lure her into the In-Between, contain her, and somehow force her to bring her Reuben to us."

Her voice became increasingly despondent as she continued, clearly not believing that we'd be able to pull something like that off. I shot a glance at Julia.

"Actually…I think we may have more of an advantage than you two think." I said pointedly, still giving Julia a significant look.

She shifted her stance, looking uncomfortable. "I…wasn't planning on telling them that." she muttered.

I crossed my arms. "Well, either you tell them, or I will."

"Tell us what?" Jacek asked, a hint of distrust leaking into his voice.

Julia sighed begrudgingly, glaring at me out of the corner of her eyes. "Fine, fine. This is gonna sound bizarre, but I have…ugh, I guess I have to call them magic powers. I can't tell either of you where they came from-" she added quickly, seeing Jo's expression lighten into a curious, about-to-ask-questions face. "but I should be able to, at the very least, trap her when we get her into the In-Between."

Jacek's expression was pure suspicion, but Jo seemed interested. "Ooooh. What can you do? How long have you had them? Will one of us get powers too? Where did they…wait, oops."

Another sigh from Julia. "I can mostly just build and destroy stuff, but I also have the ability to levitate and move things around. I can probably transform mobs as well, but I haven't tried and don't want to." she summarized halfheartedly.

"Also, Essa is kind of afraid of Julia, so that in itself is an advantage." I added. "So we have steps two and three figured out…but we still don't know how to get her to the In-Between."

"Maybe…just one of us could go in and talk to her?" Jacek suggested. "I'm not sure what we would say to make her go with us, though."

Julia snapped her fingers and pointed at me. "That's actually not a bad idea. You or I could go in and pretend like we want to accept her alliance deal. Preferably you, since I kind of threatened her when we saw her last, and she seems to like you more."

I hesitated. "I don't know. I think she'd be too smart for that. And besides, if we went into that timeline, we'd run the risk of someone else seeing us. If she's with the Prime or that timeline's version of Petra or Olivia or Lukas or anyone else, we wouldn't be able to talk freely. Plus, there's the we-don't-know-exactly-where-she-is problem, and the whole appearing-out-of-thin air thing if we were to go in."

Jacek and Julia glanced at each other with matching expressions of distress. "Then what are we supposed to do?" Jace asked.

Jo didn't seem to share their defeatist attitude. She tapped a finger against her chin, frowning contemplatively. "Well, we could wait, and talk to her some time when she's separated from the others. There were a few times during the Witherstorm quest that the group split up."

"Sure, but how would we know?" Julia pointed out. Jo nodded in acknowledgement and said, "By watching the gate. Little flashes of the Prime's adventures can be seen in the gates, and if you watch long enough, they become more detailed and chronological. We could use that."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "How the hell do you know that? You'd never been to the In-Between before."

Jo's grey-brown eyes widened, and her face fell into a guilty expression. "Uh…I, um…"

Julia crossed her arms sternly. "Wait, did you follow us? When we left your timeline?"

"No! Not, uh…not exactly?" Jo said awkwardly. "I just…I paid attention to the symbols you drew to open the gate, and a couple days after you left, I just got too curious, and I…made a gate myself, and checked out the In-Between. I didn't go to any other timelines, and I didn't mess with anything, I swear!"

Julia sighed yet again, but Jo wasn't done yet. "But listen; I found something else out when I was there. I was watching Essa's timeline, trying to see if I could find out anything else about her, and I realized that I could kind of…I don't know, sense her? Like, I could just sorta feel her presence in that timeline. She was somewhere in Beacontown, and she was really happy about something. It's hard to explain how I knew that, but I did."

"Wait, okay, what?" Jacek asked, alarmed. "Are you talking about telepathy?"

Jo shook her head. "No, not quite. It was just that when I was near her gate, focusing on it, I just…got some sort of intuition about her, I guess. I don't know how else to describe it. It was kinda freaky."

"Huh. That's…pretty weird." Julia murmured thoughtfully.

"And here's another thing. I tried doing the same thing with Jess's gate, trying to just sort of feel where he was or what was going on, but I couldn't find him. Him or you, actually." Jo said to her.

I nodded towards Julia. "That must've been when Essa trapped us in that weird 'control' timeline. She'd gone back to her own dimension and was all smug about trapping us there. It fits, in a weird way."

Jace shuddered. "This is all too creepy."

"Yeah, but we might be able to use it." Jo argued.

"Doesn't make it less creepy." Jacek returned, and she shrugged.

Julia was scowling, and began pacing. "You're right, Jo. I think…this could be helpful. If we can figure out where she is and what's going on, maybe I can use my Ad- uh…powers to like, send her a message or something."

"Then when she comes to the In-Between, you can trap her, and the rest of us will talk her down and get her to tell us where Reuben is, or something like that." I said slowly. It was hardly a foolproof plan, but we didn't have a lot of time.

"Right. We should go now, then." Julia said, seeming like she'd heard my thoughts.

"Now?" Jacek echoed, sounding alarmed.

Julia nodded. "There's no time to work out all the details. If anything goes wrong, we'll improvise. You can manage that, right?"

Jacek smiled, a little arrogantly. "I'm the king of improvising."

"Wait." Jo said in a small voice as Julia pulled her diamond sword from her inventory. "If this works…who's actually going to…to…oh, you know. Kill Reuben."

Julia and I looked at each other for a moment. I let out a long, difficult breath. "I can do it. It won't be easy, but I'll manage. If we have the fate of all reality on our hands, I think I can handle facing some past demons."

"I'll help." Jacek offered. His green eyes were nervous but sympathetic. "It'll be easier with two of us."

Julia exhaled shakily. "Okay, good. Thanks. I don't think I'd be able to manage it, so I hope you two can."

"We will." I said. "Now let's get to the In-Between, and pray to god that Essa doesn't manage to outsmart all four of us."

Julia lifted her sword and traced the exit symbols in the air. I noticed Jo watching her intently, probably committing the white designs to memory.

With a downward slash of the diamond blade, the brilliant white gate was opened. Julia waved her hand towards the shimmering abyss. "After you."

I wasn't sure who she was talking to, but Jo took it upon herself to go first. Jace followed, and I went right behind him. Somehow, the perfect void of white seemed different than all the times before. It felt…it felt like if you could touch static. A strange uncomfortableness, almost like an itch, but not, swept over me as I stepped out into the In-Between.

I hadn't taken the time to really look at the place when Jacek and I had come through earlier, but now it was impossible to notice. The sky had darkened to a horrible reddish-grey, streaked with brighter touches of crimson like splashes of blood. The odd lumps of the ground beyond the ring of gates had worsened, becoming disfigured spires in a range of dark greys.

I took a step forward, and my horror only mounted as my foot sank a few centimeters into the ground. The blocks below my feet were shot through with cracks, widening ever so slightly as I moved. I could see nothing but shadows in the larger cracks, so there didn't appear to be anything to fall into, but it was still discomforting.

"It didn't look like this when I was here before." Jo commented in a low voice, just as Julia came through behind me.

I shook my head absent-mindedly. "It's gotten a lot worse. We need to fix this as soon as possible, before this whole place falls apart."

"Literally." Jace added, scuffing the toe of his boot against he cracked ground.

Julia wasted no time in walking over to the gate to the newest timeline. The rest of us followed, looking at the gate curiously.

Sure enough, I saw a few flashes of colour, little images showing us that Prime's adventure so far. This one appeared to be a pale boy with fluffy auburn hair and kind, innocent teal eyes. My heart went out to him immediately. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

The images were too swift and faded for me to see much, but I caught a glimpse of him following Petra through a cave, talking to Ivor, and walking with Axel and Olivia towards the building competition.

"They're out of order." Jacek commented gruffly.

"Wait. They'll even out." Jo told him.

Julia suddenly pointed at the gate. "There! Did you see that? That was Essa he was talking to!"

"Oh, no. Looks like we were right." Jo said nervously.

As I watched for longer, I noticed that the scrambled images did start making more sense. It was like skipping through a film, only looking at each scene for a few seconds. I watched him running through EnderCon, then it jumped to the Wither forming.

It was downright surreal to see someone else going through the same experiences that I remembered from seven years ago. Gabriel's temple. The Nether. Lukas and Axel arguing in the treehouse.

The only difference was, Essa was among the group the entire way.

I glanced away, pressing a hand against my forehead. The flashing images were making me dizzy, and I didn't like having to watch things get worse and worse for us by the second.

Julia, who was still looking intently at the gate, said, "It looks like the Prime and Axel are heading to Boomtown. Which means that the others, including Essa, are still at the old Order's temple. That poor kid. He has no idea who she is."

"Jasper." Jo said softly. The rest of us looked at her. "What?" I asked.

"Jasper. That's the Prime's name. Don't…I'm not even sure how I know that, so don't ask." she told us.

Jacek was frowning. "I went to Redstonia, not Boomtown. If this timeline stems from mine, why is it different?"

"I'll bet you anything it was Essa who told him to go there." I said. "This is exactly what you guys were talking about earlier. He trusts her, so she's able to manipulate his decisions without actually seeming like she's manipulating him."

"Everyone stand back. I'm going to try the thing." Julia ordered. We did as she told, watching her cautiously.

None of us spoke as she shut her eyes and reached forward, so her fingers were brushing the chasm of white. She rose up slightly above the ground, her hair blown back by a breeze none of us could feel.

Jo was watching in pure awe. "How…?"

I shook my head. "You already know we can't tell you that."

Several moments passed, before Julia settled on the ground again and opened her eyes. To my relief, they were her normal brown instead of Admin-red.

"Well?" Jace asked.

Julia gave him a confident look, though her eyes held a tinge of grim uncertainty. "It worked. Now, all we have to do is wait."