Author's Note: Just a heads up that this chapter takes an unhappy turn.

Also, if there's anything in this chapter (or story) that is confusing, please let me know.

PART TWO: A VILLAGE OVERTURNED.

Chapter thirteen.

Looking back much, much later, Brainy was able to piece together much of what must have happened that day – as well as the chain of events that probably took place for things to turn out as they did. He was able to make an educated assumption on what it must have been like for Roesia, too.

The glowing smurfs' luminescence finally became visible to the average eye, and said smurfs were propelled by magical force into Roesia's special little part of the forest, a portion of the ground waiting for each of them. Before long, they were all lined up in place, forming a circle around her with each smurf equally spaced apart.

Papa Smurf and Hefty were the first glowing smurfs to arrive who were not already present, apparently. Vanity and Clumsy's sudden hope for a rescue was quickly quashed upon realising that those two were just as trapped as they were. He was there too, of course – Brainy was trapped just like them, but his enchanted glasses meant that it was a fact hardly registered by his conscious self. No, only a subconscious force reigned at that time – one the other smurfs would describe to him as having been "eerie".

But once all of the glowing smurfs that Roesia sought were finally in place, Brainy could imagine that she probably started getting very excited, perhaps as giddy as a child on their birthday. She did not think, after all, that this was going to be her last day. No, as far as she was concerned, she was close, so very close to getting exactly what she wanted.

It was Vanity who'd had the bright idea of throwing a rock at Brainy's head. Well, at his glasses, to be more precise. None of them could safely move from their spots on the ground, and it was obvious that continuing to wear them would be bad news. Needless to say, Vanity succeeded in knocking the glasses from his face in a rather painful manner, and that's the point where Brainy's properly fleshed-out memories finally rejoin him, for better or for worse. Upon being separated from those cursed glasses, he was back – back to normal, and with no clue what was going on at that. It was all a confused mess – without his glasses the world was a blur. He didn't quite know where he was and there were voices all around him.

He took a single step forward as he tried to gather his bearings, and then immediately leapt into the air with a howl. He'd stepped outside the designated markings on the ground that he wasn't even aware of and could not see, and retaliation had been swift in the form of searing pain. Luckily it was over as quickly as it had begun once he was back in place, confused and not daring to try moving again.

"Why are you still conscious?" someone had demanded of him. It had been Roesia. Brainy could hardly know how to begin answering such a strange question.

"The markings, you should have…" her voice trailed off, and then, after that, evidently she had turned her attention towards other matters instead.

"You know, Roesia," Vanity's voice had cut through the cacophony of everyone present, "I have been meaning to ask about this glowing. I know I tend to have a natural shine about me, but something tells me that this is a little more than that."

"Oh, well, it's from a vast build-up of accumulated temporal magic! I've never seen such huge concentrations in a single being my entire life, let alone a group like this… You all must have had quite some experiences among yourselves." Roesia's reply made it sound as if she were excited to share this knowledge. She really had been getting ahead of herself.

Vanity ploughed on, probably in an attempt to distract her so that someone would perhaps come up with some way of escaping this mess. "You never did answer our question, either. Why did you give Brainy and I the insight?"

A quick laugh. "Well, why not? Isn't sharing a good thing?"

Obviously, she had given them insight in order to help with furthering her own goals, although it ultimately wouldn't have made a difference in the end. It had been an easy way to make sure that all of the smurfs she needed were accounted for… which would have been more difficult if she couldn't see the whole village and its occupants with her own eyes to verify who glowed and who didn't. That, and she had no doubt been genuinely curious what effects passing on the insight to them would have - a fun little experiment from her point of view.

If there were more words exchanged between Roesia and Vanity, he hadn't heard them at that time, because Clumsy had addressed him directly. How had the conversation gone?

"Brainy? You alright?"

"Oh, the insight," he whispered to Clumsy miserably once he heard the nearby voice, "I never even got to see myself with it."

"I wouldn't worry too much, Brainy, I don't think that's such a big deal," Clumsy tried, replying gently.

"Oh, but it is! Vanity is so stubborn sometimes. If only you had been given the insight…"

"Ah, I'm not sure I'd have use for a fancy thing like that. I feel like, maybe the stuff in other smurfs' minds, should probably stay there, you know?"

"You could've told me what you saw, if you had it…" Brainy insisted.

Clumsy smiled. "I don't need a special vision to understand my friend – you don't need special powers to figure yourself out, either. That's somethin' you're 'sposed to do on your own."

Silence followed, as Brainy took those words in. "That was so… profound of you to say."

It was just after this exchange that Roesia started to make her intent clear. She wanted all of their time magic, wanted it for herself. The stuff that had become attached to their essences, presumably as they put the time crystals to use, which was not normally visible to the average eye. But for Roesia, with her special vision? They might as well have been stars burning brightly in the night sky.

"Are you connected to Balthazar?" Brainy had heard Papa Smurf demand as he felt around for his glasses. "We know very well that wizard is obsessed with seeing into the future."

"I've heard of his exploits, but no, I don't work for anyone. Why restrict yourself to the future, anyway? Time goes out in all directions. Well, it's been nice talking to you. Sorry to cut the conversation short, but it's all finally ready – time for you all to hand over the rich resources of temporal magic you all have."

There'd been two smaller circles marked out within the greater circle where the sixteen smurfs, and Smoogle, lined the circumference, all equally spaced apart.

Finally, his outstretched fingers made contact with the familiar feel of his fallen glasses – he could tell that the lens was cracked and damaged a little. How annoying. Unthinkingly, he'd slipped them back on again before it could properly click that oh, that's right, the insight was still attached to them, and given its negative side-effects, he probably shouldn't have done that. But something was different about this time.

Because now, he could see into Roesia, too. It must have been due to the crack in the lens… so she had merely blocked herself off from being accessible all this time, along with the other "blocks" she had put in place… and with good reason. He was just in time to see her slip her necklace off and lay it in one of the inner two circles before going to stand in the other.

A loud gasp had escaped him, heads had turned in his direction.

"It's going to kill us," he said. "We're going to die."

"What… what?" Snappy looked about fearfully, wide-eyed.

"It's not possible to extract temporal magic non-lethally," Brainy explained flatly, "and as long as we're alive and it's bound to us, no one can ever make any actual use of it, least of all ourselves."

Yes, he could finally see with clarity exactly what she'd been playing at.

Roesia had made no attempt at denial.

"Bound temporal magic… kind of like a piece of decoration for the soul… ultimately useless," he remembered Roesia saying, before Sassette's pleading voice rang out:

"Say it isn't true! Say it isn't true!"

They were all gazing at her in horror, but still she refused to deny Brainy's accusation. "Sorry, I didn't want you to find out beforehand."

Vanity spoke next. "...Say, Clumsy, could you toss me my mirror? If this really is my last day on this earth, I want to make sure I look my best."

"No… No, Roesia, you won't do this," Papa Smurf spoke up firmly. He was surely thinking very fast, intent on finding a way out of this, for all of them. "Was it not you yourself who said earlier that you had never seen such huge concentrations of temporal magic in a single being your whole life? I can see very clearly how much I'm glowing – isn't that more than enough temporal magic for you? So you can let everyone else go."

"I'm really sorry Papa Smurf. It's very noble of you for offering, but I've already got you all here, so it's not much of a bargain… There's so much that can be done with this magic, interchangeably, when it's extracted. Almost like magic currency. And there's a lot of things I want to do. I hope you can understand."

"But with everyone here, you still surely have more than enough, several times over. At least set the two smurflings free right now. Please." Brainy didn't have to think too hard to realise that he was aiming to at least get the smurflings out of harm's way first, and then he could focus on freeing everyone else.

"I really wish I could, truly, I have nothing against any of you. But I'm afraid I can't risk it. The structural integrity of the entire extraction strictly requires a full set, working together, all in the correct placements. All your temporal magic is alike and therefore connected… so this set-up I've done here maximises that."

It was then that Brainy saw Papa Smurf's expression change, as if something had just clicked together in his mind.

"…But you don't have a full set." She hadn't captured everyone with temporal magic who had been time travelling all those years ago.

She was missing Baby Smurf.

That meant the "structural integrity" of the entire extraction and the magically binding markings on the ground were already compromised. Roesia claimed that she needed a "full set" of everyone for her plan to work at maximum capacity, but she didn't have it. Perhaps that was why Brainy had not fallen unconscious upon stepping outside of the markings' confines.

If Roesia had heard him, she gave no indication. She was already chanting, at that point. As far as she was aware, she wasn't missing anyone. But even if she didn't have everyone she needed, she would still be able to perform the temporal magic extraction.

She'd already started the process. He could feel it, could feel something being sucked out of him, he was losing energy.

"No," Papa then announced loudly, "not my little smurfs." And then he took a step outside of his circle.

The retaliation from the binding magic must have been immediate. Everyone could see it in Papa's pained expression – he was in pain, no doubt. But unlike Brainy, who had leapt into the air upon being greeted with the sensation, Papa stayed outside of the circle – and then took another step forward instead. With obvious effort, he kept moving one foot in front of the other, exploiting the weaknesses in the set-up's defences caused by Baby's absence. If it weren't for that, the binding markings would be too strong.

Roesia broke off her chanting when she noticed and instead began demanding that Papa return to his place. That's where she needed him, after all. But Papa ignored her and gradually continued shuffling onwards, crawling agonisingly forward when his legs gave out. The closer he got to the circle that contained the necklace, the more Roesia's shouts took on a pleading note. She even tried to swat Papa away, but such a thing required leaving her own circle. She unthinkingly tried to take a step forward, to go and swat Papa away, anything, only to shriek in pain and step back as she was assailed with the very same searing sensation for leaving her place. She couldn't afford to leave her place anyway; anyone out of position would make the whole process more and more unstable. That was not in her interest. None of this was.

He was moving towards the necklace that was lying on the ground. He must have realised the sheer amount of power running through it: how it operated as the focal point of the entire extraction process. It was simultaneously the weakest and most sensitive point, yet holding the most power. If it were to be disturbed, the careful structure that Roesia set up would abruptly collapse, and with everything thrown so out of balance, the markings on the ground would no longer be magically binding.

"You don't know what you're doing! No…!" Roesia cried.

It looked like Papa Smurf knew exactly what he was doing.

"Set us all free," Papa commanded.

"I will."

"She's lying," Brainy found himself saying. He could see now how intent she was in finishing what she'd started. How she wouldn't hesitate to double-cross Papa the moment he no longer posed an immediate threat to the extraction process.

Papa was close to the enchanted necklace, now. He was close enough to touch it. And Brainy was close enough to a realisation that came just a little too late.

He saw Papa Smurf reach out and wrench the necklace out of position, and

Everyone was thrown off their feet by the magic-infused explosion that followed. Brainy landed roughly on the hard ground, the lenses of his glasses now having been shattered completely.

After a few stunned moments, he was able to note that he was relatively unharmed. The rough landing may leave some bruises, but nothing more than that.

He then had no choice but to try and rely on his ears to make sense of what was going on, since the world was nothing but a great blur to him once more without the aid of his glasses. But listening did little to clear up the confusion – there were so many sounds all around him. Sounds of distress.

Words started to get filtered through. But he didn't want to listen. They were saying the wrong things. There were scattered cries, both distant and close by. Some weeping.

"No… No!"

He began to see… something. Even though he could not see anything clearly, even with his terrible vision he could still distinguish the difference between light and dark, and there was something brightening in his vision – ah, was this it, then? Was he dying? Was he supposed to "move into the light"? No, when he moved closer he found that the light was not connected to him at all. He tripped over another smurf – Clumsy, it was Clumsy, he'd know that voice anywhere… He tried asking Clumsy what was going on. He was so glad to hear his voice and know that he was right by his side. Clumsy told him they were safe, but there was something else in his voice. He trailed off mid-sentence, his attention so focused on something else that he failed to help inform Brainy just what it was.

"Papa. Papa…" that was Grouchy. He kept saying it again and again.

"I've seen this before," said Grandpa softly. Weakly. "There's nothing… Nothing left to be done."

"That not true! I hate…!"

"Papa Smurf saved us all, but he… He…" Smurfette's voice trembled.

The others would later help explain to Brainy that it had been Papa who was emanating all that light, when no one else had been glowing anymore after the explosion. It was a light that was different from the glowing caused by the temporal magic. A natural light that would take hold of a smurf's form once the soul had dissipated, according to Grandpa. And then the body would dissipate too, not leaving behind a single trace. That's how it worked when it came to smurfs. Not that anyone present apart from Grandpa had ever had a chance to discover this before.

Brainy didn't get to see Papa's form disappear. He only got to hear the reactions to it all around him as it happened in front of the very eyes that could not properly see it. It was actually quite a beautiful sight, if anyone's words to that effect could be trusted, but no sight could ever be beautiful enough to alleviate the excruciating circumstances behind it.

All he really got to see was the bright light slowly dimming, fading, as Papa faded along with it.

If only his glasses weren't damaged beyond repair, maybe he would have been able to see Papa one last time.