I was starting to get the feeling that we were going to be left in this cell until the Nether froze over.
Which is to say, forever.
At least two days had passed since the Aiden of this timeline had come down to talk to us. We were brought food regularly, but no one new showed up.
Shortly before Aiden had arrived, Lukas and Julia had gotten into yet another fight. She said something snippy and finger-pointing about not wanting to be in this timeline, and he returned with a reprise of the 'you're-the-whole-reason-any-of-us-are-here' argument. It had all gone downhill from there, and now they weren't speaking to each other.
Radar, meanwhile, had produced a notebook and pencil from his inventory and was working on a number of entirely impossible escape plans. Not just improbable, but completely and totally impossible.
He didn't explain them in detail to any of us, which was how I knew that he was indeed aware that they were all dead ends.
Each of us had settled into our own little corner of the cell. It wasn't overly cramped, not by a long shot, but it felt smaller the longer we were in there.
Occasionally, Julia would bang her fist against the black blocks and shout something at Romeo, who was still standing guard outside the iron door. We knew he could hear her, but he never responded. I wasn't sure if this was on orders from Essa or just because he was too haughty to acknowledge us lowly prisoners.
I hated being so completely without information. We'd managed to glean a little bit more about this timeline from Aiden, but we still didn't know enough. We still had no idea what had happened to this place, how it could be so wrecked with the Prime still here. We didn't know why Essa appeared to no longer be leading Beacontown, and we didn't know anything about these so-called rebels, who they were or what they stood for.
Speaking of the rebels, I believed another attack was going on aboveground. It wasn't as loud or explode-y as before, but I heard faint sounds of fighting and people running all through the tunnels, seeming like they were heading up.
I still wasn't sure what to think about Essa and this timeline in general. There were obviously some pretty major deviations- with Lukas being dead and all -but without knowing more about how things had been changed, I wasn't bold enough to make solid theories.
How would everything have been different with Lukas gone? If he'd really died during the Witherstorm, how had that affected the whole Sky City adventure? Or Cassie's mansion?
Something new occurred to me.
If this timeline's Lukas had been the one to lose his life in the fall from the Witherstorm…what had happened to Reuben?
He must not have gone up, right? Could he possibly still be alive?
Or…what if he'd never existed in this timeline?
I couldn't figure out which one was worse.
Across the cell from me, Radar sighed and put down his notebook. "I don't know what to do."
"Out of ideas, huh?" I asked. He nodded miserably, glaring at the floor.
Lukas, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, let out a similar exasperated sigh. "They certainly trapped us good. Without a diamond pickaxe, it would take pure magic to get us out of here."
He said this rather scornfully, but Radar's dark green eyes suddenly lit up, and he lifted his head.
"Magic! Oh my god, I can't believe it took us this long to remember."
Lukas gave him a questioning look. "Huh?"
Radar grinned. "Julia! She can get us out with her Admin powers!" he exclaimed, waving a hand towards the other Prime. Her eyes widened, and she covered her open mouth with one hand.
"Oh, wow we're idiots. I've gotten so used to hiding them that I completely forgot what I can do. Good job, me." she said with an embarrassed shake of her head. "I can't teleport us out, but I can definitely make a gap through the obsidian. Then we'll have to get out of this place before anyone realizes we're missing."
I glanced through the barrier blocks at the iron door, where Romeo was still visible outside. "Keep your voice down. And if you're breaking us out of here, try not to be too loud. We don't want to draw attention."
Julia shut her eyes, and opened them again to reveal her unsettling red-and-yellow Admin eyes. "No promises."
Squaring her shoulders and stretching out a hand, Julia balled her fingers into a tight fist. The resulting thud of the obsidian breaking was luckily not overly loud, and it was partially disguised by the faint battle noises from aboveground. Another hand motion from Julia threw the iron door open, knocking Romeo aside before he even knew what had happened.
She led the way through the wrecked wall, eyes blazing. Romeo had quickly gotten back on his feet and was staring at her in pure shock. "Y-you're an Admin?! How?! Why are you-"
Julia's powers lifted him off the ground and tossed him into the cell, reforming the wall just as perfectly as if it had never been broken. She then turned to the three of us, waiting for her a little further down the tunnel.
In that moment, I will admit that she looked downright terrifying. Julia was levitating a few inches off the ground, and her fierce expression and confident posture were made even more intimidating by the eerily glowing eyes. Her short hair whipped ominously around her face in a wind that only she could feel, and I suddenly wasn't so sure that she wouldn't try to attack us, too.
Then her eyes returned to normal, and she dropped to the ground and smiled a little guiltily. "Sorry. I'm not sure if I mentioned that these powers are a little overwhelming sometimes, but they are."
"No worries. Let's get out of here." I said, beginning to walk swiftly down the tunnel. The others quickly followed.
"Does anyone remember how we get out? Because I don't." Lukas pointed out. "When we came down, I was too stressed about what was going on and focusing too hard on the Prime to keep track."
"Oh, shoot. I…kind of remember?" Radar said.
I didn't pause. "We'll just have to figure it out."
"But we don't have time for a lot of trial and error." Lukas objected worriedly.
"Then let's not make it a lot of trial and error. We only went down a few side tunnels, we should be able to piece it together."
Julia pointed to a fork in the passage. "We came through here. I remember getting my feet tangled up in that grass and almost tripping."
Sure enough, there was a dirt block with a trampled-looking patch of tallgrass in front of the tunnel. This one was slightly narrower than the previous and sloped noticeably upwards.
We hurried through the dim tunnels for several minutes. I desperately hoped we were going the right way, and that we wouldn't run into anyone who knew we weren't supposed to be there. The tapping of our feet on the stone parts of the floor seemed far too loud, and it started making me jumpy.
We seemed to be closer to the surface, though, so we must've been doing something right. It was very obvious that there was something going on up there; we could hear all sorts of crashes and shouts and other conflict-like noises.
The sound of running footsteps came suddenly from a passage in front of us while we were paused, trying to figure out which way to go. There was no time to escape or find somewhere to hide before a man burst out of the tunnel, looking as though he'd been running for a while.
The man froze, nervously looking between the four of us. He was fairly tall, with a goldish-brown beard and long hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. His arms were covered with scars, and he had a patch covering one eye. I recognized him instantly.
"Jack?" I asked warily. His good eye rested suspiciously on me for a moment. Then he glanced at Radar, and his expression cleared.
"You're our…travelers. Good. We need to get out of here; there's not a lot of time." He said, gesturing to the tunnel he'd just come through.
Julia stared. "Wait, what? Are you…you're not working with Essa?"
Jack let out a scornful laugh. "That manipulative lunatic? Not anymore. Hurry, it won't be long before they figure out that our distraction was exactly that."
"Hold on. You're…one of those rebels?" Lukas asked. Jack frowned slightly.
"Yeah, that's what Essa and her crew have labelled us. I don't care what you call us, but we're the ones resisting Essa's grip on the town. That woman's gone crazier than the sorcerers of Aristan, and she's making an enormous mess of things. Now come on; we've got to get out of here. Once Essa realizes the attack was a trick, Stella and Binta won't be able to stall her anymore and she and her people will come storming down here. I can explain things once we're somewhere safer."
With that, he turned and headed back down the passage, apparently trusting that we would follow. Julia hurried after him, and, after exchanging brief shrugs and confused looks, Lukas, Radar, and I went with them.
"How did you know who we were?" Julia asked as we darted down the tunnel.
Jack glanced over his shoulder at her as he said, "During the attack a few days ago, Giselle was boasting about it. Several of us have known about the timelines for a while- it comes with the territory of being close to Essa, since she's absolutely obsessed with them."
"Why?" Radar asked.
Jack took a few moments to reply, and when he did, it was in a very low and cryptic tone. "You'll see."
After a few more minutes of navigating tunnels (or, rather, following Jack as he confidently navigated the tunnels), we found ourselves in the big main room with the staircase. Jack held up a hand, signaling for us to wait. "I'll go up first and make sure there's no one unpleasant around. We can't get caught now."
He hurried briskly up the stairs, pausing cautiously at the top. Lukas leaned close to me, murmuring in my ear.
"Do you think we can trust him? This timeline hasn't exactly been friendly to us so far."
I shrugged. "I hope so. He seems…well, he seems like Jack, while the others we met all acted kinda suspicious. Plus, what he's told us matches up with what we already thought. About Essa being a little off and all."
Before Lukas could reply, Jack waved his hand towards us, the universal signal for 'come on'. This time, I was the first to follow him, with the others trailing behind.
"We need to get outta Beacontown. There's something I think you should see, and I doubt Essa will think to look for us there, at least not right away."
The guards that had been protecting the base entrance when we arrived were now gone. Beacontown looked mostly the same; which is to say, a total nightmare. Jack led the way away from the ruins of the Order Hall, heading for the north wall.
I didn't bother to waste time questioning where we were going, just followed him along the shadows of buildings and through a small gap in the wall. Once officially outside the town's borders, he slowed to a purposeful walk.
"This timeline is much, much different than yours. Granted, I don't know much about either of yours, but I do know that this particular dimension is one of a kind."
"How?" Julia asked.
Jack turned to give her a look. "How do I know, or how is it different?"
"Um…yes?" She replied.
"Well, I know because Essa told me, back when we were still friendly. As for how it's different…you're about to find out." He said grimly.
We approached a small grove of fenced-in trees. Despite the colourful flowers springing up inside the dark-oak fence, the place had a vaguely ominous feel to it. A narrow cobblestone path led through the trees from the gate, and Jack was noticeably careful to stay on it.
"Here. Here is why this timeline is such a mess."
In front of us were two rows of graves. The back row had three tombstones, while the front had four. Two of the graves were noticeably newer than the other five, with nothing but overturned dirt where the others had grass and flowers. They were not exactly fresh, but they had been dug more recently than any of the others.
Radar shuddered. "Oh, great. This can only mean good things."
I heartily agreed with his assessment, though I didn't say anything. I knelt in front of one of the two newer ones, examining the fine carving on the stone. Someone had obviously spent a lot of time on these.
Then the carved name fully sank in.
In simple, elegant letters, it said: Petra.
I reeled back, looking at the other names.
Xara
Olivia
Ivor
Axel
Lukas
Magnus
I was on my feet before I even realized what I was doing, backing away from the horrifying sight. This was straight out of my nightmares. Julia, Lukas, and Radar were looking at the names as well, the shock on their faces evident.
This was not what I'd been expecting.
"'Course, that's not everybody that Essa's gotten killed. She never found Gabriel's body, and there wasn't enough of Ellegaard left to bury." Jack continued gruffly, looking away. "And I didn't want Nurm's grave all the way out here; he's buried near our shop."
Julia's aghast face had been turned back towards Jack. "W-what is this? I-it can't be real…how did this happen?!"
Jack's tone was low and sad as he said, "I don't know how some of them died, as I didn't know Essa before the whole Admin thing. Everyone knows how Magnus and Lukas were killed. Axel died only a few months after them, though I'm not sure how. I dunno about Ivor, either, though I remember Essa saying that Olivia's was a suicide."
Every new word piled another layer of shock onto me. This wasn't possible. This literally could not be possible.
"Petra and Xara were both murdered by the Admin, though Essa still had a hand in their deaths. In the Sunshine Institute, Essa was threatening the Admin, and doing a pretty good job of it too. When he took the gauntlet off Petra, he just…waved his hand, and snapped her neck. Just like that." Jack imitated the movement with his own hand, and Julia winced mightily.
"And then in the Underneath, Xara was getting on all of our nerves, and once the portal was built, Essa basically told her to get lost. Next we saw of her, she tried to take on Romeo with just a sword and a couple a' arrows, and he killed her too."
Jack's dark eye focused on me. "If you haven't figured it out already, Essa is dangerous. She has a way of getting the people around her killed, whether she intends to or not. She's driven this world into the ground, just because she's so caught up in her mad quest."
Lukas was crouched next to Petra's headstone, absent-mindedly tracing her name. "No wonder everything's so crazy here. Not only is every death its own deviation, but it changed things and created even more new deviations. Each new death made this place more and more of a mess. I wonder if…well, Essa has to know about this, right? She and her crew seemed pretty knowledgeable about the timelines, so…?"
"Essa has a plan. I don't know what she wants to accomplish or what she's going to do, but I know it involves the timelines." Jack said. He'd been giving Lukas a curious look. "Hate to be rude, but who are you, exactly? Why haven't we met in this timeline?"
Letting out a hollow laugh, Lukas stood and pointed to the headstone with his name on it. "I'm Lukas. In our timeline, I never went up in the Witherstorm."
"I just…I can't believe this. I kind of feel bad for her now." Julia said, still staring at the rows of graves.
I gave her a sideways look. "Really? Even after hearing that she caused a lot of these deaths?"
"She didn't know, though. I mean, yeah, she made things more difficult, but she didn't really have a way of knowing what her choices were doing." Radar contributed.
Lukas frowned. "I dunno. You'd think she'd have figured out that there's kind of a pattern by now."
"Yeah. You make risky choices; you get people killed." I added.
"Still. I can't help imagining how I would feel if all my friends were dead." Julia said.
Before any of us could reply, Radar looked to Jack and asked, "Why do people keep saying I'm a traitor? Sorry, I know this is off-topic, but the two people we met both said it…?"
Jack nodded. "Right. Well, after the Admin was defeated, Essa never really regained control of Beacontown. Even though people understood it wasn't her, a lot of them still didn't totally like the idea of her being back in charge. Things started getting more intense, and eventually Essa and the people still loyal to her moved underground, you with them. It wasn't long, though, before you started having doubts about your loyalties. Essa got a lot worse in the past few months, and even though you'd trusted her for a long time, you didn't anymore. So you started sneaking away from the base, meeting with us 'rebels' and passing along information about Essa, her base, and her gang. Unfortunately, your role as our mole didn't last very long, because Giselle caught you and you were forced to abandon the base. You've been staying in Champion City with the rest of us, though you don't help with attacks because Giselle made up some story that made everything sound way worse than it was, so Essa and that stupid lackey of hers are out for your blood. Er…our version of you, at least."
Radar shuddered, and Julia said, "So that is a deviation, not something that happens in the future. That dirty stinking liar."
"Hold on." I interrupted. "Who is Giselle?"
"That woman we first met?" Lukas guessed.
Jack crossed his arms. "Brown-haired lady, usually wears purple'n blue, looks vaguely smug a lot of the time. I don't know her very well, since she wasn't with us for most of the Admin mess, but I can't say I'm fond of her. She's basically Essa's second-in-command, and she creeps the hell out of me."
"Huh. We don't have a version of her in our timeline. Or if we do, I haven't met her." I said.
"That's…very suspicious." Jack commented. "But lucky you, I suppose. She's a nasty one."
He glanced briefly back the way we'd come. "I think you guys should get out of here. However it is you travel to the different timelines, you should do that. Essa will probably have discovered that the attack was a ruse by now, and if she realizes you're missing…"
"Right, good idea." Julia said with a nod. She spent a few moments searching through her inventory before finding the paper with all the 'exit codes', then studied it carefully.
"Where do we go now? There's still so much we don't know about this timeline, but we can't stay to learn more." Radar mused.
I let out a small sigh. "I don't know. I'd like to go home, make sure Beacontown is still okay, but with everything that's going on, I'm not sure if we should."
Lukas started to suggest something, but he was interrupted by a loud shout from behind us.
"They're in the graveyard!"
I whirled around, to see three figures charging towards us from the direction of Beacontown. It was unmistakably Essa, Aiden, and Giselle.
We were out of time.
Jack drew his sword. "I'll try to hold them off! You guys get out of here!"
He ran to meet our three pursuers, while Julia was concentrating on drawing the symbols in the air with her own diamond sword.
"Uuhh…Julia, any day now!" Radar prompted nervously. Jack was trying to fight both Aiden and Essa at the same time, and didn't appear to be winning. Giselle had an arrow nocked in an enchanted bow, looking like she was trying to decide which of us to aim for.
"I know, I know!" Julia exclaimed. She slashed the blade downward, opening the pure white gate. "There! Come on, quick!"
Radar leaped through, with Julia right behind him. I was worried for a second that Lukas had frozen in terror, but he swiftly followed them.
Giselle's arrow flew past me, and I looked back just in time to see Jack go down and the three of them start running towards me. I turned and stepped into the gate, praying it would somehow close behind me before they caught up.
I paid absolutely no attention to the appearance of the In-Between, though it had changed since we'd been there last. The other three were waiting for me.
"What do we do?! Where do we go?" Radar asked, clearly sinking into a panic.
"Either of our timelines would be too obvious, right?" said Lukas. "So where are we supposed to go?"
"It doesn't matter; let's just go fast. They'd already defeated Jack when I left, and even if that gate somehow closed, I assume Essa could make a new one." I added.
Julia pivoted away from us, pointing at different gates in turn. "Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a zombie by its toe. That one! Let's go!"
None of us doubted her choosing method as she dashed for the gate she'd picked. Julia launched herself into the white abyss, and Lukas didn't hesitate to follow. Radar bolted after them, apparently more afraid of Essa and her cronies than the idea of leaping headlong into yet another unknown.
I didn't even know what we were headed into, and it didn't matter. I jumped across the threshold, letting the brilliant light engulf me again.
