"Cyrus was down in training yesterday," Jupiter said as she took her seat at breakfast. "He must have gotten a call or something."

"What makes you say that?"

"He looked normal," she said. "Then the next time I looked over he seemed… speechless."

Saturn hummed a bit. "Must have really been something, then."

I need to know the location of everyone on this list.

Saturn blanched at the sheer number of names.

Cyrus I can't even get out of my chair without permission, Saturn wrote back. I can tell you where one definitely is, maybe by tomorrow one or two more. But that's it.

He tucked the card away and did his best to focus on the work he'd been doing rather than the ridiculous task that he'd just been saddled with. At least, he tried to. His brain was already churning to figure out how to fulfill it because he knew that the next message would be a demand.

Saturn felt his back get jabbed with an elbow, and suddenly the air became thick and hard to breathe. He went to turn around, and he struggled as if he had to wade through gelatin. But he did manage, and found that the elbow belonged to someone huddling over the desk as they wrote on the notecard.

"... Cyrus?"

Cyrus jumped and whipped his head around. "What are you doing?" he demanded with poorly disguised panic in his voice.

"What am I doing?" Saturn asked, more than a touch incredulously, as he stood to match Cyrus. "What are you doing?" He looked down at what had been written on the card, and put a finger on it. "And, honestly? That's uncalled for."

Cyrus ignored the comment as he quickly collected himself back into the posture of the leader he had been. "You've done harder tasks with less."

"I've never been restricted like this, though," he said. "I can't even get out of my chair without the guards getting…" The reality of their conversation, and the fact that there was no noise other than their voices, started to sink in. Saturn took a stunned look around the room. "Why aren't they moving?"

"Saturn-"

"Cyrus, why isn't anyone else moving?" He said more insistently, and waved a hand towards the other occupants.

"Why you are moving is the bigger question," Cyrus said. He frowned and he crossed his arms as he prepared to sink into a deep thinking session. He expected, as he always did, silence while he sorted the issue out.

Saturn frowned and straightened up. "No, it's actually not."

Cyrus looked up with a scowl. "Since when do you talk to me like this?"

"Well… since you tried to kill everyone sounds like a good point."

He paused and grumbled out "fair" before he sighed through his nose. "It's-" He looked down as his watch beeped. "I'll be back."

"Why?"

"Because I'm out of time." Cyrus turned to leave, thought better of it, and looked back. "In a few minutes there's going to be a noise like someone's taking a deep breath. At that point, you have to immediately sit back down and get back to work. They shouldn't notice if you've moved a bit, but they will if you're not at least in your chair."

He was out of the room before anything else could be said.

Saturn took the opportunity to sit back down and rub his eyes. After a few moments of deep breathing, he decided to try and get back into the swing of work. It wasn't because he'd been ordered to, or at least he told himself that it wasn't. But, for as little as Cyrus had proven himself to be trustworthy as of late, he probably did know plenty about this specific… whatever this was.

Saturn dragged his soldering iron up from the desk and through the thick air.

It didn't smoke when it touched the metal. Saturn scowled and tried again and again but there was no reaction at all. He flipped the switch repeatedly, and watched the indicator light refuse to stop saying that the electricity was on when it was clearly off.

Almost like it'd been paused.

Saturn's eyes went wide. He turned in his seat to look at where another grunt was attempting to pour themselves a cup of coffee. The liquid was frozen halfway between the carafe and mug.

There was a sound like a wheezing inhale, and Saturn whipped back around to his work.

His body felt as if it were being dragged, and he had to brace as hard as he could against it to hold his pose.

As soon as the pressure let up, Saturn found himself as surrounded by noise and movement as he normally was. It took every bit of his acting skill to pretend that this wasn't a shock to him.

He picked up the iron, and noted the warmth that indicated that it was once again filled with electricity. He touched the tip to the correct spot, and it obediently smoked and melted the solder.

Saturn took a quick look at the door, and resigned himself to knowing that Cyrus would be back whenever he was capable or more likely felt like it. As there was no telling exactly how long either of those things would take, so it was best to just settle back into work.

In what probably wasn't that long, but had felt like an eternity, Saturn felt a firm poke in his arm.

Cyrus hummed, contemplatively. "So that was what did it."

Saturn stretched to get used to the muted feeling of movement. "All it took was touching someone?"

He didn't add that it shouldn't have taken days to come to this realization. Cyrus likewise didn't answer, in part because he also realized this but in another part a discomfort at the idea of touching people in general.

"You also could have told me at any time that you were using Dialga," Saturn said.

"I thought you were being coy," Cyrus admitted. He clearly understood, but dismissed, the look was being given. "I mean, you knew-"

"I wasn't there," Saturn reminded him. "All I knew was that you didn't catch Palkia like we'd planned."

He paused for a bit for what might have been, but probably wasn't, guilt before he went on. "Anyway, I have fifteen minutes in a shot. It's about a five minute round trip to weave my way between the training area and here considering none of the elevators work. So if you could just agree to do what I ordered-"

"Cyrus-"

"This would be much easier because everything on my end is getting more complicated and I don't need another headache. The least you can do-"

"Cyrus."

"Is one simple task. I'm sure you have plenty of methods to get all of these people's locations. And-"

"You're not my boss, anymore."

Cyrus looked him over with a deep frown. "Yes. I am."

"No you aren't." Saturn sat up a bit straighter to look braver than he felt. "Galactic died at Spear Pillar. And if you want me to do this," he said, with a wave of his hand towards where the notecard had been hidden. "You're going to have to start actually answering my questions."

Cyrus eyed him for a long moment. He took an irritable look at his watch, and finally sat down in a nearby chair with his arms crossed. "You have eight minutes."

Saturn sat back to match his resolve. "Why did you sign us over to this place?"

"I was nearly dead when they dragged me out of the distortion realm," he explained. "I had only just woken up in the hospital when they shoved a contract at me." He looked off to the side as he added, "And I thought you were dead, anyway, so it wouldn't matter."

"Do you regret it?"

"Next question."

"No."

Cyrus tapped his finger against his bicep for a period and finally muttered, "It wasn't my proudest moment."

"So what are you doing about it?"

"I'm getting you out," he said. "All three of you. There's a dock not too far from here that takes passengers to other regions. It should be enough."

"So why the massive list, then?"

"I need someone to cover me between time freezes. Fifteen minutes isn't enough time to do everything I need to do and Dialga needs to rest." His finger tapped again, more irritable this time. "Only as I was arranging this, we were caught by someone else who also wants in. So now I have to collect and transport this glut of people." He motioned to the card's hiding place with a quick jerk of the head. "You seem to be able to chat with others more freely than I can. I have no doubts that you can find them all."

Cyrus took a moment to check his watch. "You have time for one more."

Saturn thought through all of the questions he still had, and finally settled on the right one. "Why did you leave me behind?"

He frowned and again looked away. "The selection process for which region to send you to is so much more interesting."

"This is my question," Saturn reminded him, and forced his voice to stay steady. "And I want an answer. The real answer."

Cyrus readjusted in his chair in a way that was absolutely not a disguised squirm. "Saturn-"

"That's not my name."

"... Daichi."

More gently, but no less insistently, Saturn said, "I need to know, Cyrus."

He thought over his answer until his watch beeped, and he hid his gratefulness with the businesslike mask he'd perfected over the years.

"It's time for me to head back," he said as he stood to leave.

"I'm not finding a single person without an answer," Saturn told him, firmly. "And I bet your friends will turn you right in."

Cyrus' hand gripped the door frame as he weighed his options, which lies he could tell and the risk of saying nothing at all.

Finally, in a voice that was small and hard to hear even in the silence around them, he said, "I couldn't watch you die."

Then, louder and with more resolve, Cyrus ordered, "Have those names within two days" and left the room.

Saturn barely recovered fast enough not to be caught when time restarted.