"Here we are," Ness announced as they spun into the room that had been Sister Mary's prison. Now that he was in his own body he could feel just how cold and sterile the room—the safe felt as he looked around, feeling sick from the strong feeling of wrong all around him as the creatures and objects in jars looked at them with hope or baited breath.
"Do you always spin?" Tracey asked before she froze and grabbed Ness's arm, probably feeling just how off the beings locked in the safes and glasses jars felt as Paula and Jeff gasped in horror.
"It's either that or running." Ness answered, as he moved to the giant metal door and stopped when he didn't feel the powerful and ancient aura that had greeted him and Sister Mary.
"They took him, I don't feel anything." Ness said, backing up and looking at Paula who was hovering protectively around Tracey while Jeff was examined the tags with a grim expression.
"I can understand their concern but…this is a bit overboard." Jeff stated, straightening and flinching as Widow spoke up, "Well, considering how all of us have some corrupted power that comes in different shapes and forms, you can't blame them."
"Corrupted?" Tracey asked, "Did the Unspeakables experiment on you?"
"Something like that." Something gurgled. "Up here," it called when everyone started to look around.
"I think the slime's talking." Jeff offered, pointing to a glass jar on a shelf high above their head filled with neon pink slime with shards of glass floating inside its' body. "I'm Goo." The slime introduced, "Pleasure to meet you all."
"Nice to meet you as well," Paula replied before asking, "What do you mean, something like that?"
"Well, after Master—our first Master was defeated we wandered off and recruited more to our cause after hearing he had been locked up. But of course, people noticed and fought us with those…sticks. And they left unsavory side effects on those who survived." Goo explained.
"Not all of us are products of freak accidents though," Window interjected, "Some of have been created in this twisted department with our master's…help and have been born corrupted."
"That sounds horrible." Paula murmured, fiddling with her bow as Widow bobbed in agreement, "It is, they call us 'Jinxed Cosmos."
"Another space term…" Jeff murmured, "For a society built up on magic and moonshine they certainly like using astronomy terms."
"Probably has something to do with the Unspeakables' belief that the Nova Enigma is a God from outer space." Ness offered as he looked around the room for a file drawer or something that stood out in this crazy room.
"A god?" Paula repeated before she scoffed, "Crazy cultists, probably don't even consider the idea of aliens."
"They don't." a static filled voice deadpanned, "They're very close minded."
"So, it seems." Jeff hummed as Ness asked, "What happened to the Nova Enigma? Did the Unspeakables take him somewhere?"
A hush fell over the Jinxed Cosmoses before someone with a choppy voice answered, "They took him into the room. It's normally where he creates more of us but…"
"Do you have an idea of how to get to the room?" Jeff pressed, looking around the room for the source of the voice when someone else spoke up, "Pad can take you, he broke out so many times that they had to put three locks on his safe."
"I'm surprised they ONLY put three." Someone else muttered as they looked around for the safe in question and frowned at the amount of scratches it had around the edge of the door followed by rusty red marks. "Blood." Ness's mind supplied as Paula read the label aloud, "Paddington Killer."
"He's very…violent." Widow supplied, a tremble in his voice as Pad banged against the safe door and gave a low menacing growl.
"All in favor of NOT freeing Pad?" Paula telepathically asked, edging away from the door as Ness pulled Tracey away.
"Aye." They stated before Jeff made an excuse to try and find the keys to free Pad and they hurried out of the room, entering a long hallway with wooden rails and inky black darkness surrounding them.
"Wait…this is the hallway I took to find the exit." Ness realized.
"So, that means they've hidden the other rooms connected to the Jinxed Cosmoses' existence." Paula said, "Maybe even with invisibility."
"Well, seems like a good time to try the Magic Damper Field Gun." Jeff stated, pulling one of the bulky laser blasters out and aiming it up into the air.
The gun fired a bright yellow beam accompanied by a nasty sounding buzz and slammed into something invisible. The invisible object flickered in and out of visibility before it revealed a door that fell from the sky and landed with a thunderous thud.
"It works." Tracey whispered as the door opened and a group of people in black robes came spilling out.
Ness's party is attacked by five Unspeakables!
"Oh, that's helpful." Tracey muttered as Ness pushed Tracey behind him. Their 'command' list firing off with Flash Gamma, Fire Alpha, Jeff firing a Magic Disrupter Ray gun and Tracey being amazed by the swift defeat of the five Unspeakables.
"Wow." Tracey managed as Ness nudged one of the fallen Unspeakables to ensure that they were knocked out before gesturing for the others to follow him into the room.
It was another room designed to look like the inside of a safe, only instead of Jinxed Cosmoses it had a single telescope facing the wall and a collection of quills writing on pieces of parchment that slid into a waiting basket before being replaced by a blank piece of parchment.
"Weird." Paula murmured, adjusting her grip on her frying pan as they closed the door behind them and walked around the room. Studying the moving quills and the telescope which peered into a dull grey observatory like room with a giant steel door.
"This must be how they observe the Nova Enigma." Ness realized.
"It looks so…dreary." Paula noted, shuddering as Tracey grabbed a used piece of parchment from falling into the basket. "Apparently, the Nova Enigma can't normally be seen by the human eye or most wizard tools. So, they're using some sort of 'Emoto-Scope' to track it's brain patterns and emotions."
"A crude mimic of an EEG." Jeff noted, sounding annoyed as Ness grabbed a parchment with nothing but a straight line.
"Giygas was reduced to nothingness…" Ness's traitorous brain reminded him, "But it looks like even nothing can feel emotions."
"I wonder why they left it on…" Paula murmured, "I mean, the Nova Enigma's in another room, right? So, shouldn't they turn it off?"
"That is a good point…" Jeff agreed before he frowned, "But maybe we stopped them from turning the EEG off by disrupting whatever magic was keeping the door up in the air."
"They did come out in a rush." Tracey agreed as Ness put the parchment into the basket and peered inside. "Hey! This leads to another room you guys!" he exclaimed leaning back as Jeff hummed, "Probably where they keep the examinations of the Nova Enigma."
"Why couldn't it have just been in the next room over…" Paula grumbled, "It would make everything so much easier!"
"But then they wouldn't be wizards." Ness joked, lightly tapping his shoulder with his bat before they left the observation room to try and find where the Unspeakables were keeping the Nova Enigma's records.
Of course, the moment they stepped out of the room they were almost bombarded by spells flying into the air aimed at their heads. "Get down!" Ness ordered as they got an alert stating.
Ness's party is ambushed by twenty Unspeakables!
"Twenty?!" Paula exclaimed as Ness unleashed Rockin' Gamma and Jeff fired at the group in front of them.
"Paula! Over there!" Tracey yelled, pointing above and behind them to reveal shadows moving backwards from the force of Ness's attack, grabbing their heads in pain as Paula fired off several Freeze Betas at the figures lurking in the shadows.
"Jeff! Find another door! We need to get out of here!" Ness yelled as two Unspeakables fired off a stun jinx of some sort.
"Already on it!" Jeff yelled, firing above the door where the Unspeakables were pouring through and grinning as a door appeared and fell out of the sky after a moment of flickering. Slamming into the door the Unspeakables were rushing out of and almost crushing it as it bounced off and landed on the ground.
"Just in time!" Paula exclaimed, "Some more Unspeakables are coming through the doors behind us!"
"I should have made an MDF bomb." Jeff lamented as he and Ness pushed swung and fired their way through the wall of Unspeakables.
"Maybe you can refurbish one of your guns into a bomb." Ness offered as he threw the door open and attacked the Unspeakables behind them with Flash Omega before slamming the door shut behind him.
"Everyone safe?" Ness asked, going over their status and surprised to see that no one had been damaged from the swarm of magic attacks.
"We're good." Paula answered, using PSI Shield Sigma to protect them from anymore sneak attacks as they caught their breath and looked around the room they had entered.
It was furnished with a few benches and had dark hardwood floors and a pitch-black wall lined with shelves lined with books that shimmered in the dim lighting. "They're probably hexed to prevent people from freely reading them." Ness thought as he spotted two doors in front of them.
"Jeff, fire your MDF before you read any of the books, I think they've been hexed." Ness warned.
"They hexed the shelves." Paula said, "Unbelievable."
Tracey replied with some witty comment, but Ness tuned her out in favor of thoroughly exploring the room. It looked like a weird reading room of some sort, but he couldn't shake the feeling something was off as he approached one of the shelves and tilted his head to read the title.
His heart leaping into his throat as he was greeted with the year '1982' and the bare bone title of 'N-E records.'
"Jeff, can you disable this shelf?" Ness asked, his voice sounding faint as Jeff looked up, "Hm? Did you find something interesting?"
"Yea, I think so."
"Are you alright?" Paula asked, joining him and giving his hand a tight squeeze as Ness pointed at the book title, stepping back as Jeff fired the MDF and grabbed the book off the shelf.
"What's it about?" Tracey asked as Jeff thumbed through it, his eyes widening in shock.
"It…it appears to be the Unspeakables reports of the Nova Enigma's brainwave activities." Jeff explained, "There's nothing much of importance since they don't list the year the activities happen but…apparently, the Nova Enigma violently woke up and attempted to break out of its prison on September 29th before eventually calming down, it's brain patterns indicating that it had given up hope for a moment."
"September 29…that's when Giygas first attacked the earth." Ness recalled.
"So…that means that the Nova Enigma could be a left over solider from Giygas's attack." Paula theorized, fiddling with her hem as Tracey tried to read around Jeff's arm. "What else does it say?" she asked as Jeff turned the pages.
"Well…on August 15th-I guess after the September event, the Nova Enigma went through a change, growing more docile yet oddly growing in power."
August 15…That was the day Ninten defeated Giygas and sent him back into space and the day they had traveled through the Cave of the Past to defeat Giygas's past self and reduced him to Nothingness. Did time travel somehow interfere with the Wizards view on the world?
"Hold on, they also mention another event that involves time traveling." Jeff said, interrupting Ness's thoughts he continued, "Apparently, on October 3rd, there was a war dubbed The War Insanity and Nonsense which was when they captured the Nova Enigma after his ship crash landed and lost a good number of wizards to his PSI abilities."
They mulled that over before Tracey spoke up, "That makes no sense. Great Grandpa defeated Giygas before September ended! How could his ship crash after he was defeated in the same year?"
"Great?" Jeff repeated, throwing Ness an annoyed look as he sheepishly adjusted his hat, "I don't really like adding on all the greats to grandparents' names." Ness admitted.
"So, I see." Jeff huffed as Paula spoke up, "Maybe the time travel event was the Unspeakables causing Giygas's ship to crash."
"But…that would imply they knew Giygas was coming." Ness pointed out, feeling sick as they looked at one another, the silent question of 'How did the wizards know about Giygas.' hanging over their heads before Jeff resumed flipping through the book.
"Other than those two events, the Nova Enigma has been surprisingly docile." Jeff stated, putting the book back where they found it.
That was…unsettling to think about. The Nova Enigma only reacted when Giygas was on earth which implied at the Unspeakables had somehow captured a powerful minion of his. Maybe a Starman who had been reduced to grey smog from the Unspeakables experiments.
"If they turned a Starman into smog…what did they do with the PSI users' bodies after they died?" Ness wondered, leaning heavily against Paula as she tightened her grip on his hat.
"Let's sit down for a moment." She murmured, gently leading Ness to the bench as Jeff pulled out two notebooks, handed one to Tracey and began studying the books in the room.
"It's alright, whatever is trapped in that vault isn't Giygas." Paula soothed, leaning against Ness as he focused on breathing, focused on the present, focused on Paula's presence as they sat there. Watching Tracey and Jeff flip through books and scribble down notes.
"We…may have a problem." Jeff announced after a long moment of note taking and reading.
"Of course, we do. Because nothing can ever be simple." Ness grumbled, getting to his feet as Jeff walked over to them with Tracey's nose buried in a thick starry blue book labeled Records.
"According to several books, they all imply that PSI users came before Giygas." Jeff explained, "Apparently, PSI has been around in Europe since the 1950s'. Or so the Unspeakables think."
"For once, can SOMETHING be simple?" Ness thought as Paula looked at Jeff in disbelief, "That's impossible! We're the youngest PSI users—well, that we know of in years!"
"No," Ness interjected, "We're not."
"We aren't?" Paula echoed as Ness fiddled with his hat, "Professor Kale and his friends—I think they're all PSI users and Professor Kale is in his early thirties."
"Where is Kale from?" Jeff asked his eyes narrowing as Ness answered, "America." Prompting the bespeckled boy to begin pacing and muttering while looking at his notes. With Jeff thoroughly out of reality Ness focused on Tracey who was looking pale, almost sickly.
"What's wrong Trace?" Ness asked, getting up to comfort her—and steal the book away before she read something really disturbing-when she whispered, "They've been spying on American muggles."
"What?" Paula questioned as Ness tried to figure out why the Unspeakables would be interested with muggles. Especially Muggles from America.
"In the year 1902 they were spying on a man named George Mother who was researching a new form of magic."
"That's…That's our Great times three grandfather." Ness whispered, feeling sick as Tracey nodded, "They took a bunch of notes. Saying how two years prior he and his wife had vanished from Earth and he had appeared back without her and was very secretive, his own daughter going so far as to say that he was like a completely different person."
"Then what?" Paula probed, "Did they kidnap him? Wipe his memory?"
"No, they stopped observing him after a while and focused on a warning an Unspeakable had discovered about a powerful presence coming to earth."
"Giygas." Ness guessed as Tracey confirmed it with a nod, "But it starts to get a little…weird here, the Unspeakable sensed Giygas's return but then they did something that's classified as 'Irreversible Time Manipulation Act 305.' And use 'Star Pegasus' to attack Giygas before he landed in our time."
"Time paradox." Jeff spoke up, sounding thoroughly annoyed as they looked at him, "They somehow created a time paradox that somehow interfered with our time travel and created some sort of ripple."
"If that's the case, then it would explain how we have PSI users in the 1950s'." Ness said, "But, how big a ripple did the wizards make?"
Frowning as Jeff polished his glasses and said, "Apparently, a very big one. One of the books implies that Giygas or the Nova Enigma has been on earth for almost the entirety of the 19th century. Which, is very impossible."
"Did it mention anything else?" Paula asked.
"It mentioned a secondary race known as Cosmic Squibs, which were infected Muggle born wizards thanks to a hereditary virus they labeled 'PSIG' that came from America and settled in Europe."
"Cosmic Squibs is what they call PSI-Wizards. Or I guess, PSI users in general." Ness explained when Paula and Tracey gave Jeff a confused frown.
"It's an…unsettling report of them," Jeff added, "The Unspeakables believe that the virus wiped out all of the American wizards and magic completely in the year 1971 and that they have several experiments in the works to try and reserve or destroy the virus using human test subjects and the Jinxed Cosmoses before an event labeled 'America Versus the Ministry' happened in 1973 and they were forced to sign a deal with someone named Alice Earthbound."
"That's grandma!" Tracey exclaimed as Ness wracked his brain, trying to remember if he had read about America Versus the Ministry before he gave up, "Well, if it happened they didn't put it in the wizard history books."
"Probably because they lost." Paula grumbled before she asked, "What happens next?"
"It doesn't say. Research was halted in 1975, when the Wizarding War started and then the book ends." Jeff answered, "It's all…very unsettling to think about."
"And we haven't even checked what's behind door number 1 and 2." Ness lamented, not wanting to see what other twisted or illogical secrets the Unspeakables had hidden away.
"Probably more research," Jeff theorized, "Or, more through research. Even if this room is supposed to be hard to find it makes no sense for why they would keep all of their records in one place."
"But what else could they have researched?" Tracey asked, tapping her golf club on the floor as they looked at the two doors in question, "Other than observations of the Nova Enigma and their…experiments I can't think of anything else they would need to find."
"Just because you can't think of anything doesn't mean they stopped after that order." Jeff said looking pensive as he walked to door number 1, "Researchers and Scientists always find an answer to their questions. Even if it means taking an immoral route to find it."
Ness paled and was about to tell Tracey to stay in the records room when Jeff opened the room and revealed a room of pure insanity.
There was a pathway made up of floating jagged rocks and the walls and floor wasn't floor or a wall, but a swirling abyss of inky black darkness speckled with stars and faint pink lights.
"It…looks like space." Jeff breathed as they slowly entered the room, flinching as the cold chill and itchy feel of magic lingering around them increased to an unbearable level.
"Stay back Tracey," Ness ordered, already backing out of the room and grabbing her hand as his head started to pound.
"It feels like I'm being suffocated." Tracey wheezed as Paula hesitated inside the room before grabbing a thick book and scurrying back into the record room.
"I actually feel fine." Jeff admitted but his voice sounded off, as if he were distracted by something but didn't want to admit it.
"You don't sound fine." Paula argued as Ness checked Jeff's status, frowning when it informed him that Jeff had disrupted concentration.
But why would he have that—Oh. OH!
"Jeff! That room is warded to keep muggles out!" Ness yelled as Jeff moved forward, somehow not hearing Ness as he yelled back, "There's some sort of orb here. It appears to be a…crystal ball? It's showing some images of…of."
"Jeff! Get out of there!" Paula yelled as Ness braced himself before running into the room and grabbing Jeff by the scruff of his winter jacket to pull him out of the room when the boy dug his feet in.
"Just a few more seconds!" Jeff protested, fighting against Ness to lean closer to the crystal ball, "It's showing…It's showing!"
"Jeff." Ness said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice as spots began to dance in front of his eyes. The wizard's blasted charm screaming at him to leave as Jeff slipped out of his winter jacket and touched the crystal ball.
Three things happened. First, the Crystal ball glowed a deadly purple the moment Jeff's hand brushed against the glassy surface. Second, Jeff let out a horrible scream of pain and began losing HP by the second, prompting Ness to give a yell of surprise as he yanked Jeff outside and began using Lifeup Alpha until whatever was attacking Jeff disappeared.
Third, there was a burst of light from the crystal ball followed by the room violently shaking as they heard several heavy objects land on the ground outside.
They watched the door with bated breath as an eerie silence followed before slowly relaxing and focusing on Jeff. Who was pale but wasn't unconscious, just asleep.
"What was that…?" Tracey asked, stealing a glance at the crystal ball as Ness folded Jeff's winter jacket up and placed it under the blonde's head, "Was that some sort of alarm?"
"Maybe…That room must be pretty important if they hexed the crystal ball." Paula murmured, fiddling with her bow as Ness sat down and leaned against the wall. His head throbbing with pain as he tried to focus on breathing.
"Jeff said he saw something in the crystal ball…But I didn't see anything." Tracey said, "Do you think it was some sort of trick?"
"Who knows? Wizards have a bunch of spells to seemingly do everything." Ness huffed, adjusting his hat as Paula shuddered with revolution, "They even use magic to prepare food. And it tastes horrible."
"Really?" Tracey questioned, the girls slowly falling into a casual yet nervous conversation as Ness watched Jeff's status and tried to banish his headache away. "I should probably just use Healing Alpha to wake him…"
But that felt wrong, as if waking Jeff up early would do more harm than good. So, Ness decided to wake the boy up once someone barged into the records room. They could risk a small break after stumbling upon such disturbing and worrisome records.
How could Grandma be in a war? Why did the Nova Enigma act up at certain times? When did Nova Enigma act out aside from those two outbursts in 1982?
"We need a timeline…" Ness realized, getting up to grab a notebook and pen out of Jeff's bag as Tracey began wandering around, still chatting with Paula as she snacked on a cookie. "Thought of something?" Paula asked, joining him on the floor as Tracey examined the other door, cautiously poking it with her golf club as Ness started to write down what they knew and the years.
"Trying to make a timeline of our adventure versus the Wizard's records." Ness explained, shooting Tracey a warning glare when she tried to use the golf club to open the door, "Maybe figure out when exactly everything went off the rails."
Paula nodded, "Good idea, do you want me to grab those books?"
"Not yet, I really don't want to stumble onto any other disturbing records." Ness admitted as Tracey opened the door and called, "Hey lovebirds! I found the scroll room!"
"The scroll room?" Ness repeated.
"Yea! Those scrolls that were monitoring the Nova Enigma's emotional state landed in here!" Tracey replied, pausing before she added, "But I think something messed up the emotion study room since they aren't any scrolls dropping."
"You don't think we somehow disabled the magic that kept those invisible rooms up…do you?" Paula asked as they reluctantly got up to join Tracey, frowning at the lack of magic in the room as they cautiously stepped inside and studied the room.
It looked like a normal storeroom with open bins filled with scrolls neatly wrapped with black ribbons, shelves overflowing with binders and a table covered in unwrapped scrolls.
"Looks like a mail room." Paula said, moving to the table as Tracey and Ness examined the binders which were organized by color, year and season.
"A lot of these binders are grey." Tracey noted, standing on her tippy toes to grab a binder labeled 1993, Spring while Ness grabbed a bright red binder labeled, 1996, Winter and opened it to December 1st.
At first, the reports were completely the same. The Nova Enigma was docile until December 18th-the night when Mr. Weasley was attacked, and Ness had been inside Sister Mary's body.
According to the report, during the morning it was calm but when evening rolled around it began getting antsy and at night, excited and 'reaching out' to something. "Probably when I escaped Sister Mary's jail cell." Ness thought, flipping through the pages and pausing on February 13 which showed the Enigma being thoughtful and compulsive after a long string of restlessness.
"Why was it so active after Christmas?" Ness wondered, putting the binder away just as Paula spoke up, "Ness, do you remember when you had your last nightmare?"
"Huh?" Ness frowned but answered, "June 2nd, right before the big Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw game."
"Did you find something?" Tracey asked, putting away a binder labeled 1995, Fall as Paula looked up from an open binder resting on the parchment covered table.
"Yes, it appears that the Nova Enigma was active when Ness had a nightmare, last night and when the Nova Enigma contacted me this morning." Paula explained, biting her lip as Tracey grabbed 1996, Spring to see for herself and Ness moved to join Paula.
"I didn't have a nightmare last night." Ness said a knot of fear settling in his stomach as he saw the Engima's thought pattern shift from fear and anger to a calm cunning and finally a spike of panic which had a note over it saying the panic seemed to be a crude replica of what panic should look like on their records.
"Fake panic? Did the Nova Enigma lure us out here just to cox us into freeing it?" Ness wondered, jumping as Tracey exclaimed, "You guys! According to this the Nova Enigma was highly active in the spring."
"I did have a few nightmares but-," Ness started when he paused and gasped, "Potter…" before swiftly asking, "Tracey, is there a mood change on April 5th?"
Tracey nodded, looking a little worried as Paula shot him a look, "Ness, what happened on April 5th?"
"Potter had a nightmare, one that left him with a PSI status aliment." Ness explained, his mind connecting the dots as he continued, "The Nova Enigma had been trying to encourage Potter's dreams into seeking him out and when that failed, he moved directly to you Paula."
"But…if that's the case then who did they send a dream to last night?" Paula asked, "I mean, Potter's a given but if this is a trap to free itself-,"
They jumped as the door suddenly opened in the main record's room and they rushed back out just in time to see Jeff slowly sitting up and a person in a black robe with an ugly scarred face and a wand pointed at Jeff prepare to cast a spell.
"Don't touch him!" Ness yelled, moving to perform a home run swing on the man as Tracey tried to yank Jeff to his feet and Paula set the man on fire with Fire Gamma.
The man screamed with pain, frantically moving to put himself out when Ness swung and watched as he crumpled into a heap on the floor. "That wasn't an Unspeakable." Paula noted, paling as Ness grabbed the wand and looked the man over before saying, "I've seen this man before…at the graveyard."
"One of Voldemort's men?" Tracey asked, "What are they doing here?"
"Voldemort can send Potter dreams as well." Ness recalled, "Which means he may have also set a trap up for him as well!"
"So, we have the Nova Enigma scheming, the Unspeakables out for your head and the Undead Snake Cultists?" Paula questioned, muffling a frustrated groan as Ness nodded.
"The Nova Enigma's scheming?" Jeff slurred, rubbing his eyes and hissing something under his breath.
"He may have tried tricked us into accidentally freeing him." Ness explained, "But we can worry about that later. For now, we have to see if we can find Potter before Voldemort's men do."
"Great plan," Jeff groaned trying to get up but almost falling over, "But I think I'm staying back. Whatever that Crystal Ball did gave me a serious headache."
"What did you see in that crystal ball?" Tracey asked.
"I…I don't know." Jeff admitted, sounding a little frustrated with himself, "It was mostly darkness and stars…but I could have sworn that I made out the shape of a person—no, three people and…a headband."
Paula looked at Jeff in disbelief while Ness weakly joked, "Well, obviously we need to beware of headbands."
"Ness, knowing our luck that will happen." Paula retorted, throwing him an annoyed glare as Ness held his hands up in surrender before focusing on the big problem. With Jeff staying back to recover from his headache they wouldn't have a back liner to help keep an eye on Tracey.
Plus, with the addition of Voldemort's cultists group that meant more fighting and adding a second group actively looking for them.
"Alright, here what's we're going to do." Ness started, "Tracey, you're going to hide out in the PSI jail room with Jeff until his headache and disrupted concentration goes away."
Tracey pouted in protest but didn't argue.
"Paula and I are going to try and find Potter and convince him to get the heck out of here before we regroup and head back home."
"Since I don't have PSI, it won't take long for me to recover." Jeff said, patting Tracey's shoulder as Ness snapped the wand in half to slow the man down if he somehow woke up moments later. "I'll keep in touch with you two with my telepathy." Paula promised them as the group packed up and hurried back to the PSI vault.
"Stay safe," Tracey said, trying to appear brave but failing as Ness finished giving his orders to the Jinxed Cosmos and turned to his little sister.
"Hey, we defeated an all mighty alien. We can handle a few wizards." He assured her, giving her a bright grin as Jeff nodded in agreement, "They'll be fine, and once my headache clears up and I can focus again we can join them."
"I'll keep an eye on him." Paula promised. shooting Ness, a teasing grin as she added, "After all, I would like to go on a second date with your older brother."
Tracey nodded, looking a little more comfortable of the idea of her older brother and his girlfriend delving deeper into the mysterious department than before as Paula and Ness waved and closed the door behind them.
"Well, if we follow the trail of destruction it shouldn't be two hard to find them." Ness noted, adjusting his hat one last time as he studied the hallway now littered with fallen doors and an Unspeakable lying on the ground in front of one of the doors.
"Thank goodness for that." Paula grumbled. The pair slowly making their way inside the room and looking around for any hint of Potter and his friends.
They didn't have to search for long as they entered a room filled with clocks and cabinets and a fallen plump woman lying on the ground besides a slender woman, both of them knocked out.
Ness was going to investigate the two and snap their wands when a distressed hoot from underneath one of the cabinets made him pause.
"Sawdust?" Ness bent down and reached under the cabinet, pulling out a ruffled and spooked Sawdust who hooted, "Ness! Ginny in danger! A man with a clock attacked them and then ran after some Death Eaters showed up!"
"Death Eaters." Paula repeated, face palming as Ness moved to ask, "Which way did they go?" when the plump woman behind them groaned and rolled onto her back. Revealing herself as Umbridge as she sat up.
It was sort of surreal to see the woman in pitch black robes instead of her gaudy pink ones and that ugly hat she wore sometimes but not as surreal to see Umbridge alive and clearly working for the Death Eaters as she blinked and gave Ness a hate filled glare.
"You." She hissed, reaching for her wand with the full intent of murdering him as Ness blinked and turned to Paula, "This is the woman who has given me a horrible time at school this year."
Umbridge blinked and looked at Paula as if she had just noticed the girl standing beside him.
"Hello!" Paula chirped, her smile a bit too sharp as she smacked her frying pan against her hand, "I'm about to give you a concussion, you filthy cultist."
Umbridge opened her mouth to argue when Paula slammed divine justice down on her head and knocked her back out.
"Wow. She really was like Porkey." Paula noted, looking a little disappointed at how easy the woman had gone down as Ness gave her a hard kick after searching her for her wand only to find that someone else had taken it.
"So, you were saying something about the Death Eaters, Sawdust?" Ness asked, giving Sawdust his full attention when he got a loud warning message of an attacker coming from their right.
"Another cultist!" Paula yelled, attacking with Freeze Alpha as Ness used Flash Gamma just as the Death Eater yelped, "Hold on mates!" and got bombarded by their attacks, falling to the floor like a destroyed doll as Ness rolled her onto her back and frowned at the unfamiliar face.
"I don't know her," he announced as Paula stayed back, just in case the third woman had a trick up her sleeve. "So, another Death cultist?"
"So it seems," Ness replied getting to his feet after he couldn't find a wand on her, "We should move on and try and find Potter and the others."
"Right,"
Sawdust gave a small, worried hoot as they moved for the door the third cultist had entered and navigated their way through a series of rooms revolving around time and frozen objects or creatures.
"Creepy…" Ness thought, frowning as they heard the sound of fighting and glass exploding. "Hopefully, we aren't too late."
So, I had an ENTIRE time line set up for that information dump Team Earthbound minus wizards found with added notes to explain things in further detail if I forgot something, but I never properly saved it to my computer since I used my web browser and ended up erasing it when I cleaned it.
So NOW the only solid reference point I have for that timeline is looking at this chapter and getting a headache since time travel ISN'T FUN TO WRITE AND MAKING SURE EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE IS A PAIN. Whoever designed/created Time Travel as a story plot deserves an award for giving people headaches. -_-
