I was up and ready to go early the next morning, heading down to the storage room shortly after the sun rose. I'd already warned the others last night that Julia and I were leaving again, so at least I didn't have to worry about freaking anyone out with a surprise disappearance. Olivia was planning to head back to Redstonia later in the morning, and would probably already be gone by the time we got back.

Julia had a point- we really didn't know enough about the timelines, and Ivor was the only person that we knew of who could help us.

It just seemed typical, somehow, that our only hope had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.

But Julia said she had a plan to find him, which was good enough for me.

The other Prime was waiting in the storage room, closing a chest just as I walked in. I considered making a remark about her stealing my stuff, but I didn't really have the energy. She grinned at me, looking more eager for the next leg of the journey than I was.

"You ready?" she asked.

I nodded. "Ready as I'll ever be. Let's get this over with."

We headed into the treasure hall, which was one of the only rooms I was comfortable making a gate in since the ceiling was so high. I didn't know why the gates had to take up so much space, but they did.

Radar walked in right as Julia began forming the symbols that would open the gate. He was known for being an early bird, so I wasn't exactly surprised to see him.

He gave me an apprehensive glance, but didn't say anything other than, "Please, try not to be gone forever this time?"

I shrugged. "It's not like I tried to disappear for days. It just sorta happened."

I was rewarded with an unimpressed look. "You know what I mean, Jess. That also goes for making decisions that could lead to you being trapped somewhere for days."

"Sure, yeah, I'll do my best."

As always, the downward slash of Julia's sword opened the brilliant ivory gate, flooding the room with light. She gave me a brief over-the-shoulder glance, before stepping across the threshold.

"Good luck." I heard Radar quietly say as I followed her.

The abyss of white faded quickly as I stepped out the other side into the In-Between. It looked nearly exactly the same as it had last time, though the cracks in the blocks seemed larger. Always a good sign.

Julia was already heading towards her gate. She was strangely reserved this morning- although she'd seemed energetic as normal, she was unusually quiet.

She made an inviting motion towards the gate, but I shook my head. "You should go first, so you can visualize where you want us to be." I said.

Julia smacked her open palm against her forehead. "Right, of course! Well, then I guess I'm going. Just…don't go investigating any 'monsters' this time." she admonished playfully, referencing the lie I'd told the day before.

My eyes widened, and I wanted to kick myself. I'd never told the others about the interaction with Essa! I'd been so distracted by Olivia, and Julia had been the one to tell Radar, Lukas, and Aiden about the 'control' timeline, so I'd completely forgotten!

Before I had the chance to say anything about it, Julia had already disappeared through her gate. I sighed aggrievedly and trailed behind, vowing to tell her as soon as I could.

This thought completely disappeared as I emerged on the other side and saw where we were, though. I was standing in a vast, open room, the broken stone walls lined with gold. The ceiling was far, far above my head, and several large chunks of gravel had fallen down, disrupting the relative emptiness of the place.

We were in the map room of the old Order's temple.

Julia set the amulet on the wooden podium, then turned to me. "Flip that lever, and let's get this show on the road." she ordered.

"Uh…which one?" I asked, looking at the five levers on the quartz blocks in front of me. She shrugged.

"Can't remember. Just try any."

I hesitantly flipped the one on the right end. Looking up at the stained-glass blocks surrounding the map, I saw that the green and white ones had turned on, but no others. Another lever turned the blue and red ones on, but switched the first two back off. I sighed.

"Why are we here, anyways?" I asked.

Julia gestured to the amulet, like it was obvious. "Tracking Ivor."

I looked up at the map. "Uh…what if he's not in the Overworld? Or elsewhere in the Portal Network? And didn't Romeo kinda tamper with the amulet? Are you sure it still works?"

"Well…we're about to find out, aren't we? Wait, not that one!" she exclaimed as I reached for a different lever. I froze. "I just remembered. The one on the left end, then the one on the far right, then the one in the middle. I think. And your left, not my left!"

I flipped the levers in the order she said and was pleasantly surprised when the rest of the lights turned on, triggering the Redstone lamp in the center of the table. Its beam of light shone through the center of the amulet, activating the tracking system.

I walked over to where Julia stood in front of the map. The red and white lights were nowhere to be seen, but Magnus's green light was on Boomtown, and Gabriel's teal was on an island in the southwest. Ivor's blue one, on the other hand…

"What the hell? How is that…how is that possible?" Julia mused quietly.

"Isn't that…where Champion City is?" I checked. The map was too old to show it, but I was fairly certain that was where the ruins stood.

Julia nodded. "Good, I'm not going insane. That's definitely where it was."

"But how…w-why would he…" I stammered, unable to even sort my confusion into coherent questions. "The place is destroyed, right? Why in the Overworld would Ivor go there?"

"Yeah, partially. And I have no clue." she replied, running her fingers through her hair. "But I guess the best thing to do would be to go there and check it out."

I nodded distractedly. It didn't make any sense. Ivor left his Far Lands lab and abandoned all his research when he knew Julia was going there, just to travel to a ruined city that he didn't even like? There had to be something else going on, some missing piece that we didn't know about.

Julia grabbed the amulet, then started heading down the stairs to the library. I trailed behind, still thinking hard about the lack of logic in this scenario as we left the temple.

To my surprise, there was a Nether portal right outside, which Julia headed towards.

"A couple years ago, I got sick of having to walk or ride long distances, and set up a better minecart system in the Nether. The one the Order made is still there, but I added onto it. Now we'll be able to get back to Beacontown in only a few minutes instead of having to walk the rest of the day." she explained.

"Smart." I said. The rest of the Order and I had made something similar in our world, though we hadn't bothered to make a rail that led out to this temple, since we didn't have reason to visit often. I wondered what had changed in Julia's timeline that gave her the idea to make one.

We went through the portal, being immediately assaulted by the dreadful heat of the Nether. Distant monster noises and the faint popping and sizzling of lava reached my ears, and I shuddered. Though it may be an admittedly fascinating place, the horribleness of this lower dimension far outweighed any good qualities it might have.

Julia was already getting into one of the minecarts on a nearby rail. I quickly followed suit, wanting to be out of this place as soon as possible.

The trip was thankfully uneventful, whizzing through Netherrack tunnels and over lava lakes at top minecart speed. Though we saw plenty of monsters here and there, they at least had the decency to leave us alone.

It wasn't long before we were jumping out of our minecarts, facing the portal labelled 'Beacontown'.

"Is it weird that, after all our crazy dimension hopping, I'm actually relieved to be going through something as simple as a Nether portal?" I asked, only partially joking.

Julia laughed. "Nope, not weird at all. Now, if you asked that to someone who hadn't spent the last week or so dimension-hopping with you, they might have a different answer, but…not me."

She waved a hand towards the purple-and-black portal. "After you."

I squared my shoulders and walked through the portal, feeling my senses blur and my knees go slightly weak just as they always did. It only lasted a few seconds, though, before I was stepping out the other side. I found myself looking out at Beacontown, albeit the version of Beacontown as it had been three months ago.

I still wasn't used to the whole time difference thing.

Judging by the sun, it was nearly noon here, and the streets were full of people going about their daily lives. Julia was right behind me, gently pushing me aside as she glanced happily around the town. "There we go. This is the Beacontown I'm used to."

"Hey, my version of it isn't that different." I objected. She shrugged.

"Yeah, but this is home. You know?"

I nodded mutely. It was hard to explain, but I did know. We'd travelled through a lot of different versions of Beacontown recently, but only the one in my own timeline really felt like home.

Julia and I headed for the gates of town. I could see from her wistful expression that she wanted to stay longer and sink back into her normal life for a little while, but there were things that needed to be done. She waved to people as we walked, most of whom I vaguely recognized. I watched her expression becoming slowly more pained, and I remembered what she had said the day before about wanting to avoid going home until she would be able to stay. This had to be hard on her.

We were passing the mines just inside of town when I heard a woman's voice calling Julia's name. I glanced around, trying to match the voice to a name.

Julia closed her eyes. "Ohhhh man am I in trouble. I was really hoping she wouldn't find out I was here."

"Julia! Jules, sweetie, where have you been? It's not nice to just dump a town's worth of responsibilities on your girlfriend and just disappear."

Julia slowly turned around, coming face to face with a stern-looking woman with blonde hair that seemed too light for her olive skin. "Heeey, Stella. I, ah…"

Stella crossed her arms. "Don't give me excuses, hon. You've been gone for two weeks, with not so much as a whisper! When you told me to 'look after things for a little bit', I didn't think you meant 'make sure my town stays afloat while I disappear into thin air forever'!"

I tried not to laugh as Julia cringed, her eyes darting around as she scrambled for an excuse. I'd never been more glad to have a reason to steer clear of romance. Stella turned her muted green eyes on me.

"And who are you?"

"Ella, this is Jess. He's a friend. And Jess, this is my partner Stella, whom I'm ever-so-grateful to for managing my hectic little town while I'm away." Julia introduced, grinning hopefully at her girlfriend.

Stella rolled her eyes, but she let a gratified smile slip through her upset exterior. "You'll have to do more than that to get back into my good graces." she admonished. "Honestly, one little compliment and she thinks she's out of the doghouse. Nice to meet you, by the way." she said to me.

I replied with a crooked smile, still heartily amused by their classic couple's banter. "Likewise."

"Stella, I'm sorry, but I'm actually…not back to stay yet. Jess and I still have some things to take care of. I know I never managed to explain what was going on, but I swear it's important." Julia said hesitantly.

Stella arched a dark brow, giving her a very clear are-you-serious-right-now sort of look. "Important, huh? More important than your town or your friends or your long-suffering girlfriend?"

Julia winced again, clearly feeling guilty. "Yes. It's like…fate-of-the-universe level of important."

"We can't really tell you what's going on, but she's right. It's that important." I added.

Still with her arms crossed, Stella eyed us both with pursed lips. After a moment, she said, "Alright. Then I'm coming with you."

"What? No, you're not." Julia objected. "I told you this clear back before I left: I am not letting you get wrapped up in this. Not to mention that this is some top-secret stuff, and I can't tell you what's going on."

"Okay, then don't explain anything and let me be confused. But you're not getting out of this. I'm coming." Stella said.

"No. I don't want to drag anyone else into this. I feel bad enough that I've already gotten so many others involved." argued Julia.

Stella gave her a falsely sweet smile, and proclaimed in a singsong voice, "If you didn't want to involve me, you shouldn't have come back here."

This prompted yet another sigh from Julia, who seemed to know she was losing the fight. She glanced over at me, trying to silently ask for help, and I raised both hands in a surrendering gesture.

"Ohhh, no. This is absolutely not my problem. Look, it doesn't matter to me whether she comes along or not, but we should get moving." I said. Stella gave me an approving look.

Julia tossed her hands into the air in exasperation. "Fine! Fine. You can come with us for this, but you're not getting involved in anything after that, get it? Not this time."

Her girlfriend replied with a winning grin and a toss of her head that made her long bleached-blonde hair swish. "Excellent! Where are we going?"

"To Champion City." Julia said concisely, turning back towards the gate.

Stella raised her eyebrows. "Well, then it's a good thing you have me along, since I know the place better than anyone. And, ah…what are we looking for there?"

"It's not a what, but a who." I corrected. She gave me another curious look, but Julia was the one who replied.

"We need to find Ivor. There's…something suspicious going on, and he has information. We're not sure why he's in Champion City, but the amulet hasn't been wrong yet."

Unless Romeo tampered with it more than we thought. I mused, but didn't say it aloud, since Julia was still speaking.

"By the way, Ella, have you seen any…weird stuff around lately? Like…things not behaving how they should?"

Stella huffed in an annoyed sort of way. "I'll say. Everything has been weird. Mobs aren't acting normal, both hostile and passive ones. Time had been weird, too. Stuff happens too quickly, or too slowly, or…I don't know, it's just not right. And that's just the beginning, the list could go on for days. Most of the things are small, but it's still weird, and I don't like it."

Julia and I both made similar wincing motions, and Stella gave us both a distrustful look. "You didn't have anything to do with this, did you? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you did."

"…Yeah, we kinda did." Julia muttered. If Lukas were there, he probably would've made some comment about the technically incorrect 'we', but luckily he wasn't.

The blonde woman rolled her eyes. "Just typical."

I mostly tuned out of the conversation as we walked towards the ruins of Champion City. Stella informed Julia on all that had been happening in their Beacontown while she'd been gone. From the sound of it, Stella wasn't as miffed about being put in charge as she'd been acting, though she wasn't happy to have been sharing power with Radar. She had many, many complaints about him.

I noticed that this version of Champion City didn't look quite as wrecked as the one I knew, and I guessed that was due to Julia's Admin powers granting her the ability to fix things quickly. I tried to remember if Julia had said Stella knew about the powers or not, then surmised that she must. Julia didn't seem like the type to keep a secret like that from her partner.

Then again, she was keeping a pretty big one from her right now.

Surprisingly enough, Stella didn't seem too put out by the fact that we couldn't tell her what-all we were up to. She tried asking Julia a few more times, but I thought that was more for the purpose of bothering her girlfriend than actually trying to get answers. I already knew Stella was weird like that.

It wasn't long before we were entering Champion City. The outside wall had been mostly repaired, but there were still a few large gaps here and there. The interior of the city was mostly the same- some things were repaired, and others weren't, in a fairly random pattern.

The whole place was strangely quiet. In my version of the place, I knew that a lot of people were still living in the less-damaged sections while the rest was being repaired, but apparently everyone was gone from here.

Julia shuddered slightly. "I hate when such huge places are quiet like this. It creeps me out so much."

"Right there with you." I muttered.

Stella glanced around thoughtfully. "Well? Where is he supposed to be?"

Julia frowned slightly. "I don't know. The map was too old to include Champion City, so we just have a rough approximation. It seemed like he was on the far side of town, though I'm really not sure."

"We'll have to split up and do our best. It's quite possible he's hidden or trapped somewhere." I said.

"Right. Holler if you find anything suspicious." Julia ordered.

We went separate ways, searching for any sign of the eccentric potion master. I wasn't really sure what to look for, since I had no idea if he'd come here on his own or was abducted and brought against his will. I was hoping for the first, but strongly suspecting the second. The only question was…who would do that?

Alright, so maybe that wasn't the only question. As soon as I mentally asked that one, my brain reminded me that also required a why and a when and a why here, and more.

I wandered for a while, searching carefully in every empty building. I was on the very edge of town, just barely inside the wall. There was no sign of life anywhere, no birdcalls echoing from the fallen spires or little plants springing up between cracked blocks. It was like an apocalyptic wasteland.

The one thing I found was a partially broken fountain, still spitting water out the top that didn't reach the pool that made up the lower half. I narrowed my eyes as I realized the bottom of the fountain was made mostly of carved quartz- internal shudder -with one iron trapdoor tucked discreetly away along the side where no one would see it if they weren't already looking.

I knelt on the edge of the large fountain. I could see nothing but darkness through the gaps in the trapdoor…but there was a hidden space under there.

I quickly opened my inventory and crafted a lever. I placed it next to the trapdoor and quickly switched it, opening the iron grate. I could see a ladder leading down into unknown territory below.

I hesitated slightly, before pushing my doubts aside and clambering in. There was, of course, the chance that this was nothing more than a weird hidden room made by someone who had absolutely nothing to do with anything that was going on. There was also the chance that this led to a secret underground prison.

My descent down the ladder was swift, almost hasty. It was extremely dark, and strangely cold the lower I went. I pulled a torch from my inventory as soon as I touched the ground, squinting in the sudden light and blinking in surprise at the scene in front of me.

The room I was now in was small and strangely shaped. Large paintings covered each of the six walls, with little to no room for torches or anything else. The images were simple and stylized, each of a different biome. One was of a desert temple, another of a witch hut in a marsh, another of…wait a minute.

I found myself looking at one that definitely did not fit with the others. At first glance, it seemed like a mostly empty plains biome, but I saw otherwise.

It was unmistakably the In-Between, or at least what it used to look like, with the perfectly flat ground and brilliant eternal dusk sky. I stared at it suspiciously, then switched the torch to my left hand.

I had to punch at the large painting twice before it broke, revealing a small two-block space in the wall.

"Ha!" I exclaimed, collecting the canvas from where it had fallen. "I knew there was something here."

I stepped into the newly exposed tunnel. If I'd been any taller, I'd have to duck, but luckily I wasn't. I could see very faint light coming from somewhere ahead of me, and I hurried towards it.

The low tunnel soon opened up into another small room, though this one was very different. A Redstone torch had been placed in each corner of the room, and several chests lined one wall. The other five walls were iron bars- the front of a quintet of prison cells. Four were empty. One was not.

"Ivor?" I asked in a hushed voice, peering at the huddled shape in the corner of the cell. The person twitched suddenly, like they'd been yanked out of a fitful sleep, and stared up at me in surprise. I felt relief wash over me as I registered the faintly hostile dark-blue eyes and the messy mane of black hair.

"Ivor, thank god. Don't worry; I'll get you out." I told him, placing the torch and retrieving my pickaxe from my inventory.

He gave me a suspicious once-over as I began chiseling away at the bars. "Who are you? How did you find me?"

"I'm a friend of Julia's." I said. His eyes widened.

"Julia? She's here?"

I nodded as the last of the bars broke. "Yeah, and she'll be glad to see you. We, ah…kinda need your help."

He stood swiftly, and though he quickly stepped out of the small cell, he retained his dubious expression. He was wearing the same getup I'd seen when he left Beacontown, the gold-trimmed olive coat and brown trousers, though now significantly more disheveled. His hair was the familiar loose and stringy mop that I'd grown used to in years prior.

Ivor took a half step away from me, his expression falling into one of recognition and horror. "Oh…no. Oh no oh no. You're…you're a Prime. You're the one she was thinking about finding. Oh, no."

I stowed the pickaxe in my inventory. "Uh…yeah. I'm Jess."

"This is even worse than I thought. Why are you here? Where's Julia?" he inquired, shaking his head. I gestured to the way I'd come.

"We came to find you, since there's some things we don't know that we probably really need to. And she's somewhere aboveground. Come on, we should go."

"One moment." He said, regaining his cool for the time being. He hurried over to the stack of chests and opened one, transferring several items to his inventory before following me through the tunnel.

We quickly made our way up the ladder, and Ivor scowled at the tall city around us, blinking in the bright daylight. "I wondered where I was. That little witch, having the nerve to kidnap me from my own secret lab just to bring me here. No decency!"

"Wait, who?" I asked nervously.

Before he could answer, I heard a shout of triumph and turned to see Julia running towards us. Ivor immediately smiled as she hugged him tightly. "Ivor! Oh my god, I was so worried! What happened?"

He pulled away from the relieved embrace, now glowering darkly. "I was double-crossed, that's what happened. I trusted the wrong person, and it turned around to bite me."

"Who?" I asked. I had a very nasty feeling I already knew who, but wanted to hear it said aloud.

He spat on the ground. "Giselle. Traitorous little imp. I don't know why on earth I trusted her, because I sure as hell shouldn't have."

Julia looked like she'd forgotten how to breathe. "W-what? Giselle?!"

"Yes, her. She's the one who told me about the timelines in the first place. We'd been associates for years; not really friends, but trade contacts and general allies when needed. I didn't think twice about trusting her when we began research on the timelines, but she had ulterior motives." he snapped.

Julia and I exchanged a panicked look. I'd suspected it was her, but I didn't know how to explain my hunch. Who the hell was she?

"How do you know her?" he asked, frowning up at Julia. "As far as I know, I've never mentioned her."

"Uh…we kinda met her…but in a different timeline. She was…problematic." Julia hedged.

I snorted. "That's putting it lightly."

Ivor cursed. "Dammit. And you're right about that- she is not a simple person. She's been around for a long time, and she's ridiculously smart. She's part of a bigger plan, and I don't know what it is or who's behind it. Hell, maybe she is behind it."

A shudder overtook me as he said that. Giselle had definitely been a part of Essa's plans…but that didn't include the Giselle of this timeline.

Did it?

"But who is she? What's her story? Why does she know about the timelines, and everything?" I asked.

"I don't know. She never offered that information." Ivor said.

Julia made a small outraged noise. "And you never asked?!"

"Of course I asked!" Ivor snapped back. "But she wouldn't say anything, or gave me some incredibly unsatisfactory half-answer. Some people like their anonymity, you know. But that's not the point. You two need to fix the timelines now."

"Ivor, we don't know how. We don't know what we're looking for, or how to use it, or…anything, really. We've been learning stuff as we go along, but it's not enough." Julia admitted.

"What do you mean, 'as we go along'?" Ivor echoed. "What have you been doing?"

Julia suddenly looked hesitant. "Uh…going through different timelines. Talking to the Primes. Learning random shit, some of which I didn't want to know."

"There's another Prime who's working against us." I started. "Actually, I guess it's us that's working against her, but whatever. She's got some plan for the timelines- she wants to use them to turn back time, to put it simply. But we can't figure out how she's gonna do that, or how to stop her, or…like Julia said. Anything."

Ivor grumbled and began pacing a path along the wall. "Oh, we're in it deep. So many Primes involved, with so many different plans and motives…this is bad. And you know that things get thrown even more out of balance every time someone new learns about the timelines, right?"

"Yeah, we got that." I said. "We've been careful to only tell the other Primes and a few close friends from my timeline, but there's a lot of people from Essa's timeline who know."

"Essa?" he asked.

"The evil bitch of a Prime who's messing with the timelines to fix things she fucked up in the past." Julia filled in bitterly. "That doesn't matter. What matters is, how do we stop her? How do we fix everything?"

Ivor paused in his pacing. "I don't know how to deal with the rogue Prime, since I don't know her or her plan or her motives. You'll have to figure that out on your own. But no matter what she's doing, she must not have interfered with the missing constant yet, or things wouldn't be this bad."

"The missing constant, right! We found something about that in your research in the Far Lands!" Julia said. Ivor nodded.

"I still don't know what it is, but I know that removing it will put everything back to normal. The timelines are incredibly fragile, and impossible to fix once they've been broken. But if you act quickly enough, you can save this before everything is too out of control. This Essa…her timeline will still be a mess, but it won't be throwing off the balance of the universe anymore."

"So does that mean the missing constant is from her timeline?" I asked.

"Not necessarily." Ivor told me. "Logic says it probably is, but I really don't know. All I know is that it's something connected to the Prime, and that it can be removed. It's not like a past event that did or didn't happen. It can be fixed…if you can figure out what it is."

Julia sighed exasperatedly. "Well, how do we do that?"

"We use the other Primes." I said, thinking fast. "We need to talk to Jacek and Jo again, and lay out a 'map' of each of our timelines. Figure out where they're similar and how they're different. Look at all the deviations and variables, and see where things changed."

Julia bit her lower lip. "But that won't tell us anything about Essa's…"

"Yeah, I know. But if the missing constant is from any of our timelines, we'll find it. And if it's not, we'll know it's from hers and we'll be able to take steps towards finding it." I replied.

Ivor was pacing again. "For now, that might be the best way to do it. But I don't like the idea of so many Primes working together. You're a dangerous kind of person, and you never know what could happen with so many of you in one place."

Julia rolled her eyes. "Ivor, there's only four of us. And we're not creepers- we're not gonna randomly detonate just because we're around each other."

"You never know." Ivor muttered, then quickly cleared his throat when Julia shot him a disdainful look. "What do you mean, there's only four of you? Aren't there six timelines?"

"Yeah, but Essa's from one, and the other…I dunno, isn't fully formed yet." Julia said.

I smacked my palm against my forehead, cursing my forgetfulness again. "Julia, I completely forgot to tell you! Essa's in that timeline, the newest one!"

"WHAT?!" she screeched, and I winced.

"I'm sorry, I know, I'm the worst. But yes, yesterday when we were heading back to my timeline, she…showed up, and went through the gate to that one."

Julia didn't speak for several moments, her mouth opening and closing like she wanted to yell at me but couldn't find the words. "You tell me this NOW?! What the hell, Jess! This is important!"

"Hey, you kept your Admin powers a secret from us, I'd say we're even." I muttered. Julia made a frustrated motion with her hands, looking like she wanted to strangle me. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I just got distracted yesterday, and there was other stuff to deal with this morning and it just…slipped my mind."

She let out a loud huff. "It doesn't matter now. There's nothing we can do, anyways."

"You got that right." Ivor said. "Do you know how much damage this is going to do? If this Essa is as bad as you say, she's not going to be merciful."

"She's going to push things even more out of balance. We know." I said. "We've got to stop her."

"Damn right we do. There's only been little changes so far, but I have a feeling life in the Overworld is gonna get a lot more complicated if we don't fix this soon." Julia muttered.

Ivor nodded. "You bet it is. The timelines aren't meant to be messed with like this, as I'm sure you two already know. Things are going to keep getting worse and worse, and even I don't know the end product. Though I do know it involves something along the lines of eternal darkness and horrific boss monsters and a lot of prolonged death. The entirety of the universe could be plunged into pure chaos if you don't fix this soon."

I sighed. "Great. That's encouraging."

"I'm not here to be encouraging, I'm here to tell you what you need to do, which is fix this mess before we're in too deep to get out." the potion master informed me.

I hesitated for a moment before asking, "What…what if we're already in too deep?"

Ivor gave me a chillingly serious look. "You'd better pray, to anyone who'll listen, that you're not."

On that disturbing note, we headed back through Champion City the way we'd come, meeting Stella along the way. Julia said goodbye to them both as I began making the gate. I'd memorized each of the 'exit codes', but remembering the symbols and actually drawing them (in the air, using a sword as a pen) were two completely different things.

Stella seemed to know she'd been left out of an important conversation, but for the moment accepted Julia's rushed explanation of, "There's a lot of different dimensions and we've gotta save the universe before everything goes crazy, I love you and I swear I'll be back soon."

"Be careful." Ivor warned us as I slashed the sword downward, opening the gate. "I don't think I need to remind you of the forces you're dealing with."

"No, you don't." I said. Haunting images of Beacontown fallen and overrun with monsters flashed through my mind. I didn't fully know what-all 'plunged into pure chaos' entailed, but I sure as hell didn't want to find out.

Julia asked Ivor if he wanted to go with us, to keep us on track and provide more information should we need it, but he'd very adamantly declined. He claimed to be very worried about paradoxes and the effect of ordinary people travelling to different timelines, but I caught a glimpse of unfiltered terror in his eyes at the prospect of going to another dimension.

"Remember, even if there's things you don't think you know…you're Primes. You're a lot more connected to all of this than the rest of us ever will be." he said right as we were about to leave.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Julia asked hesitantly. Stella's expression seemed to imply she was thinking much the same thing.

Ivor smiled grimly. "That's up to you to decide. Now go! You have multiple dimensions to save, and not a lot of time to do it!"

We found ourselves back in the In-Between, which looked much the same as it had before. Julia sighed.

"What are we supposed to do now?" she asked. "Just…go find Jacek and Jo, and hope we can scrape together some answers?"

"Not yet." I decided, heading towards the gate to my timeline. I'd just had an idea. "We may know more about what we're supposed to do, but there's some questions I'd still really like answered. This whole thing with Giselle isn't sitting well with me, and I want to know more."

Julia hesitantly trailed behind me. "But how? She's obviously a total wildcard- who in the Overworld would have any answers about her?"

I shot her a sly grin as I stepped across the threshold, picturing very clearly where I wanted us to go. "You'll see."