Chapter 53: Feeling Blue

A/N: Whoop, sorry for the somewhat later upload. I was busy with a few things. Next chapter should come out at a usual time.

We returned to the ship shortly after, and I sat in my hammock and proceeded to stare at the new mark on my hand.

I was expecting something special from this badge, but not for it to freaking brand me. It was actually pretty cool.

Contrary to what Badge Seller said might happen, I didn't hear any more voices.

At the end of the day, I was a tad bit worried that the new perception might cause me to lose sleep, but thankfully it didn't.

I woke up the following day feeling ready to go back to work.

Hopefully we could clear out the rest of the Metro and get back our Time Pieces by the end of the day.

So, I got up and got ready, and the kid woke up soon after and got ready herself.

And then we went back down to the lab and I stood on the manhole cover.

"So, wanna see something cool?" I asked.

"Okay?" She said curiously.

"Hopefully I don't break something..." I muttered, then raised my baton up into the air.

The badge activated and slammed down on the edge of the manhole cover, launching it up into the air and allowing me to fall through into the weird storage room.

A couple seconds later, the kid fell down, and she seemed very surprised, or impressed, or both.

"You can thank Badge Seller for that little trick," I said.

"Thought so," She muttered.

We walked over to the telescope, which for some reason had a mound of cash beneath it.

"Uh," I said, "Was this here before?"

"I thought it'd be fun to keep all of this 'money' stuff in one spot," She said, "We can make money angels!"

Money angels?

That earned a laugh out of me.

"Sounds awesome," I replied, "I don't remember Empress giving us that much money though."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"That's the amount I found," She stated.

"Huh, weird. I'm not complaining, though," I thought aloud, "Not like I'm complaining, though... but we can talk about this once we're done."

The kid nodded and hopped up to the telescope. We both teleported down to the Metro, and this time we took the easy way and hopped on a train (not literally) to get to the main station.

When we got there, we quickly made our way to the Empress' jewelry store and entered. She was waiting for us and grinned her menacing, sociopathic grin.

I walked up to the counter.

"You're back. And slightly sooner than expected," She said.

"Well, we always like to get an early start to the day," I replied.

"I can see that. I believe that is one more thing we can agree on," She muttered, "But, talking doesn't get a job done, so get back to work."

I nodded, turned around, motioned for the kid to follow, and we left.

"So, if I remember correctly, we need to get to the Bluefin Tunnel," I muttered, looking around for anything blue.

"Mhm," The kid said, "I think I saw something blue when we first came here. Come on!"

She took off, and I ran after her. We ran past a food vendor and down into a tunnel with two conveyor belts or something on the floor.

There was a green holographic wall at the end, but we had the metro passes, so we phased right through with ease.

I stopped and looked around.

"Yep... this is the place," I said, "Blue was always my favourite colour... you gonna check for Time Pieces?"

"Mhm," She muttered as she closed her eyes, "Hmm... where are you hiding?"

She opened her eyes.

"Huh," She said, "I didn't find a single Time Piece, but I found a bunch of weaker signals concentrated in one area. I don't know what that means, but the only thing that can imitate a Time Piece's signal is a Time Piece or- oh."

"What?" I asked.

"The Time Piece is broken," She grumbled.

My heart jumped into my throat.

"It's what?!" I shouted.

"Not that way. Sometimes, if a Time Piece is broken in a really weird way, it won't rewind time because its energy was released slowly," She explained, "Which means we have to go find the pieces and repair it."

"Fun," I said, "But hey, I guess this means we get to stick together for once."

She grinned from ear to ear.

"Yay!" She beamed, "Let's go!"

She hopped over some railing and fell down deeper into the tunnel.

All I did was shake my head and follow her.

I saw that she had stopped and that she was fighting some... blue cats? They looked like the cats in Alpine Skyline but were wearing blue clothing and were being aggressive instead of stealthy.

I jumped down and swung my baton downward, colliding with the top of a cat's head forcefully and knocking it out instantly.

"Well, hope that didn't cause a skull fracture," I muttered.

The kid had taken care of the other one and I turned around.

There was a small section of train track in front of me, and I could see that the path ahead was under it. So, I waited for a train to pass and jumped down through the holographic track and landed further down.

"Good thing we can't stand on those," I chuckled.

Some more cats were waiting, but it didn't take long for us to deal with them.

We walked through a smaller tunnel and stopped at another train track.

The tunnel that the train track ran across was only big enough for a train to fit in, and the only way through was to run across the track and hide in little alcoves to let trains pass by.

Good lord.

"Mark my words, I'm going to have heart problems when I'm older thanks to this adventure," I grumbled.

A train passed by.

"Here we go," I muttered, then made a mad dash for the first alcove. Another train passed by, and I ran to the next one.

The kid beat me to it thanks to her fancy Time Stop hat.

When the next train passed, I ran and dove out of the tunnel, barely making it.

There were a couple weird rats waiting for us, but it only took a single baton or umbrella whack to make them not a problem.

We advanced forward to a little area with a hole in the ceiling. I almost jumped up but stopped when a train passed right over us.

"I'd like to have words with whoever designed this stupid place," I said, then hopped up after a train passed.

I jumped up to a wall and quickly pulled myself up, then waited for the kid, and we both continued forward, hopping up to another platform, running across a train track quickly, and then stopping.

I saw a train track ahead with an oddly placed puddle smack dab in the center of it, and there was another cat-rumbi off to the right.

I looked up and to the left, and sure enough that's where we needed to go. But the kid was ten steps ahead and was already leading the rumbi over to the where we needed to go.

So, off we went again, running into a vent, across a train track, jumping up to a ledge, and stopping once again at a set of two train tracks.

There were trains coming toward us in a strange alternating pattern, and I didn't need to look to know what we needed to do.

I sighed.

"I'm not even gonna say anythings, words are useless at this point," I grumbled, "Well, it's now or never, I guess."

I told my heart to be still and we ran across. It wasn't actually difficult, but that didn't make me want to panic any less.

We got to the other side, ran through a vent... or rather, I did, the kid slid down it like, well, a slide, hopped across a few trains, and eventually stopped at another ticket vendor. Unsurprisingly, there was, like, nobody here.

I quickly bought two metro tickets and handed one to the kid, then we hopped on top of the train behind us, then used it as a platform to jump across onto another ledge, evading a trillionth train as we did so.

I felt a weak energy coming from something on the floor, like a Time Piece, but, well, way weaker.

I looked down and there was a small shard of white glass inside of the busted remains of a Time Piece.

"Well, kid, you were right," I said, "But, uh, handling broken glass without thick gloves seems very unsafe. Especially considering it's been on the dirty floor for who knows how long."

She giggled.

"Time Pieces aren't made with glass!" She exclaimed, "Glass is way too weak, it wouldn't be able to keep in all of that energy!"

"Then what's this stuff?" I asked.

"A weird crystal or something that I don't know much about," She explained, "But it's not sharp, even when broken."

"I'll be the judge of that," I grumbled, picking up the shard and carefully rubbing my thumb across it. Sure enough, it didn't cut me. It did scratch me a bit, but that's way better than what glass would've done.

"Told you," She said, picking up the remains of the Time Piece and stashing them away.

"Is there any sand that we need to collect?" I questioned, "I mean, Time Pieces are magic hourglasses."

She gave me a disapproving glare.

"It's science," She said, "Magic is just science that you can't comprehend."

"What about the badges? Your hats?" I countered.

She didn't respond for awhile.

"Okay, maybe there is magic," She admitted, "But Time Pieces aren't magic. And also, no, there is no sand. It gets absorbed into the remains of the Time Piece."

"Alright," I said, "How do you know all this stuff, though?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I was taught this stuff," She muttered dismissively. She seemed a bit uncomfortable.

"Okay then," I said, "Anyway, we should probably fix this Time Piece."

She nodded and ran off.

All of the shards were easy to get, they were scattered haphazardly throughout the small area we were in, and in the end I gave my shards to the kid, who took out all of the shards and the broken Time Piece and brought them closer to eachother.

They flew out of her hands and into the air, getting closer and closer, as a bunch of bright lights flashed around and eventually got sealed inside the Time Piece as it repaired itself. Back to normal, it flew into the kid's hands.

I waited for the annoying duo to come and take the Time Piece from us, but they never showed up. It was probably too dangerous here for even them.

But how would we get out of here easily? I certainly didn't want to go all the way back.

Fortunately, we found an elevator that took us all the way back to the main station.

We walked over to the Empress jewelry store, and I turned around to face the kid.

"So," I whispered, "Those two bozos didn't take the Time Piece from us. But Empress will still know that we found one. So we should give it to her, it'll probably please her."

She nodded.

"We're gonna get them all back somehow anyway," She stated.

"Exactly," I agreed, "Now let's not keep her waiting."