Ross was startled by this and took a giant step back. "W…what?" he asked in disbelief as he saw Bien's sword pointing right at him. The narrow blade seemed to glare at him as he made direct eye contact with it.

"You think you can handle whatever comes your way?" Bien repeated, basically challenging what Mike just said. "Then let's see it."

Bien ran over to another sword on the wall and threw it at Ross, who caught it without too much trouble. He got a pretty good grip on the sword and noted that it actually seemed very light. It was very maneuverable and it almost seemed weightless.

"Ross, you want to go first?" Bien asked, getting his sword in position.

Ross looked at the sword. The blade to it was very thin, and yet it had a very thick cross section. Most of the blade looked like it would snap easily if it was smashed against anything solid, except for one part that was located near the tip of it.

"What is this?" Ross asked, still feeling very awkward about everything going on.

"It's a rapier," Bien said, getting in a fighting stance. "It's been in my family for generations now. Well, come on; let's see what you've got."

Ross nervously put up the blade in a fencing position. He started slowly taking a few steps towards Bien and pushing the blade a little closer to him, but just by looking at him, you could tell that he was nervous. (when it came to hiding thoughts and feelings, Ross never really was too good)

Ross tried taking the first swing. It was very awkward, and he tried lunging for Bien with it.

Bien countered by taking his rapier and viciously slashing back and knocking Ross's onto the ground, leaving him completely defenseless.

Ross looked at Bien with fear burning in his eyes. He slowly started walking towards his sword as it lay on the ground but never once took his eyes off his opponent.

Bien continued approaching Ross with the rapier and ready to strike, but Ross made one quick dive and lunged for the rapier on the wooden ground. He did a quick role and picked it up and was back on his two feet and in the match.

Bien didn't seem too nervous of this, though. He ran over to Ross and faked a jab in the gut with his rapier, and when Ross was still recovering, Bien dropped on the floor and swung his legs around, tripping Ross.

Ross fell backwards on the floor with a hard thud. Bien was soon back on his feet and pointed his rapier at Ross's throat.

"Hmmm," Bien said with a smile. "One thing you should know about rapier fights: they're not all about sword-to-sword combat."

Ross moaned as Bien pulled the blade away from Ross's throat.

"I find it hard to believe you guys think you can take on anything when you can't even take me on in a fencing match with a rapier," Bien said.

"Yeah?" Mike said as he got up and picked up Ross's rapier. "Well, why don't you try fighting me? I'm a lot faster and have more agility than Ross does."

"Mike, there's more to a rapier fight than being fast," Bien said. "It's about being precise and being aggressive, but maintaining caution at the same time."

Mike looked a little confused. "I knew that," he said in an unconvincing tone. "Come on, let's get this fight going."

The fight started. This time, between Bien and Mike. Bien took the same approach and tried taking a few practice swings at Mike before Mike finally got nervous and tried hacking down on Bien like he was swinging an axe.

Bien simply grabbed the blade of the rapier and put the point of his own right into Mike's stomach. (But he didn't push it in. It was just supposed to be a friendly fight, after all)

"Mike, didn't you know rapiers aren't meant to be giant, powerful swords?" Bien asked with a pleased and somewhat cocky smile on his face.

"H…how did you do that?" Mike asked as he saw Bien was holding the rapier blade and didn't seem to be suffering any pain at all from it.

"Mike, it's not that hard to grab a rapier blade with your bare hand without getting hurt," Bien explained, still smiling pleasantly.

Mike just let go of his sword, meaning Bien won. He didn't last nearly as long as Ross did, nor did he even come close to putting up as much of a fight.

"Well, what did you expect?" Mike said, not grappling well with the fact that he lost. He wasn't used to losing, so he didn't handle it very well when he did. "We haven't been handling rapiers like you've been. And I suppose you've never lost a fight in your life?"

"Well, it depends what you mean by 'lost'," Bien said half cryptically. "Years ago, I was in a fencing match with one of my friends, and he accidentally got me in the eye."

Bien pointed to his right eye and now that Ross and Mike looked at it, they could tell that there was an injury there.

"Ouch," Ross said. "What happened?"

"I got blinded," Bien said. "It's very difficult for me to read now."

"Sorry to hear that," Ross said.

"Thank you," Bien said, appreciating the care his two new friends were giving to him. "But I'll manage somehow. Life is full of tragedy, and I've known that for a while. It doesn't make it any easier having to live with it, but I'm used to it."

Ross and Mike could tell Bien had probably had a few rather unfortunate moments in the past, but they figured he didn't want to talk about it too much, so they just dropped it then.

"Hey, what say I teach you guys a few special moves and techniques I learned when I was training with a rapier?"

Ross and Mike both looked pretty nervous. Neither of them were really in the mood for a self-defense lesson, but Bien had been so good to them that they really thought they had little choice.

So Bien proceeded to teach Ross and Mike several moves, with and without rapiers. He taught them some special moves on how to trip opponents in the heat of battle, how to counter some of their attacks and several other things that would quickly turn the tide of battle.

Ross and Mike, however, were very skeptical that they would ever need to know any of those moves or that they would ever get into a fight that required them. Their adventuring days were pretty much over, it seemed. (that is, until now)

The rest of the day wore on very uneventfully. In a short while, it was time for all of them to go to sleep for the night.

Ross and Mike slept on mats on the floor, which was the best they had. Bien offered them his bed to sleep in and he would sleep on the floor instead, but neither of them felt right about doing that. They said they wouldn't mind sleeping on the floor, and truthfully, they didn't.

The morning soon came, and Ross and Mike were the first ones up. They saw it was still pretty dark out, but the sun was beginning to rise and was making some of the clouds sport a shade of lavender. The ground and everything in front of them was becoming more and more visible.

Ross woke up and he looked to the side. He saw Mike was staring up the ceiling and didn't seem to be making any effort to try and go back to sleep.

"Mike, what is it?" Ross asked. "How come you're not trying to get some shut-eye?"

"I can't sleep," Mike said, softly shaking his head but still looking up at the ceiling. "I'm starving."

"Me, too," Ross said sorrowfully. It was true that neither of them had eaten a thing since before they mysteriously went through the portal in that cave and wound up back about 250 years in the past."

"Maybe we should ask Bien to make something for us," Mike suggested, turning his head to his best friend for the first time during the conversation.

"We can't do that," Ross said. "Why don't we go try to find something to eat on our own? I'm sure there's some place around here that will give us some grub."

Without waking Bien, Ross and Mike quietly made their way out of his house. They saw the morning dew glistening on the dark green, flourishing grass on the side.

Ross and Mike also looked to the side and saw that Kline and Sandra were still standing outside the temple and at attention, just like they were when Ross and Mike last saw them the night before.

"Sheesh, you think Maverick makes them guard that temple 24/7?" Mike asked.

"I dunno," Ross said. "Anyway, we're out here to find something to eat now."

"Ross! Mike!" called a voice coming from the direction of the Temple of the Finis Tempi. Both kids turned around and saw Kline yelling at them.

The two boys started running quickly over to the two temple guards, curious about what it was they wanted.

"Ross, Mike," Sandra said, "Maverick said he wanted me to bring you two here the next time he saw you. He says there was a room in the temple that he forgot to show you yesterday."

"Oh," Ross said. "Well, it's not really a big deal. We don't care, right Mike?"

"Please, Maverick insists upon it," Sandra said. "And that's the one room you're sure to want to see."

"Really?" Mike asked. "Where is Maverick now?"

"He's already inside. He gave us permission to let you enter," Kline explained.

"Uh…thanks," Ross said, unsure what to say. He and Mike both started running up the stone stairs to the temple and went inside.

The mazelike structure of the temple soon turned out to be very confusing for the two teenagers. They looked around for a very long time before they stumbled across a giant door that had Maverick's name on it.

"Maverick!" Ross called as he started banging on the loud door.

The door suddenly opened and Maverick walked out. The first thing Ross saw was the necklace that he wore. That heavy linked necklace with the circular blue pendent in it. Ross knew there was something about hat necklace other than that he was wearing it yesterday morning when he woke up, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Hello, Ross and Mike," Maverick said friendly. "Have you come to see what I forgot to show you yesterday?"

"Yeah," Ross said. "Sandra and Kline said that you wanted to show us something pretty interesting."

"And indeed I do," Maverick said. "Please, this way."

Maverick started leading Ross and Mike through the long hallways of the temple before he stopped at what appeared to be a giant pedestal in the middle of a wide open room.

"This is where the Finis Tempi's power can be harnessed," Maverick said. "Right here on this pedestal."

"Uh…what does it do?" Mike asked.

"The power of the Finis Tempi can send you back in time," Maverick said. "I thought you might be interested in reliving your childhoods again."

Ross looked pretty excited, as did Mike. "You mean we can time-travel here?" Mike said. "All right, sounds cool!"

"Splendid," Maverick said. "You may do whatever you please once you go back in time. There's only one rule: don't do something that would otherwise change the course of history in any way."

"Yeah, yeah," Mike said. "I've seen movies with that plot before. Don't worry, Ross and I won't do anything to mess up anything from the past."

"Splendid," Maverick said.

As Maverick said that, a wind started blowing through his robes and the blue pendent on his necklace started glowing.

The pedestal Ross and Mike were on started glowing. In a matter of seconds, a bright light shot up and engulfed them, and in just a few seconds, they were gone.

When the light cleared, Ross and Mike were no longer in the place that they were before. There were long fields of crops all around them, and the air seemed very hot. A soft wind blew through the rows of crops they were in.

"Wha?" Mike asked. "Where the heck is this?"

Ross, on the other hand, looked very shocked and like a million things were going through his mind at that one moment. "This…is this really?..." he stammered.