Alright, this is where I might end this if no one seems to be really taking all that much interest in this.

Then again, I might just continue to see where I go with it. Even I'm not sure at present.

In any case: enjoy.

The "Lucky" Black Cat

Chapter 2

Sissel

I willed time to rewind and soon, it felt like we were rushing backwards.

"Alright Artemis, let's see what exactly happened."

-Four Minutes Before Death-

Artemis and his bodyguard were seated in the restaurant. The bodyguard looked less-than comfortable. It wasn't that he was actually seated, as he was standing by the table, attempting to eye all the customers to make sure they weren't doing anything that looked hostile. He was trying to make sure they weren't about to murder his charge.

"Artemis… It's been too long… I feel I'm forgetting something…" Butler said, his voice strained as he attempted to recall what he was forgetting. Artemis looked up from the menu he was viewing.

"Butler, this is a perfectly innocent venture, not anywhere near illegal. I hardly see what anyone would want me dead for here."

The bodyguard wouldn't let up his guard though…

A minute passed as Artemis continued to look over the menu. Someone was talking on something across the restaurant.

Having finished, the man talking got up and left.

About another a minute later, something on Artemis made a noise and he pulled out the thing and started speaking into it after looking at it.

"Hello Mother." He waited "Yes, I'm fine. It's merely a school trip to Temsik Park to look at the meteor." Another pause "Mother, you don't need to worry about me. Butler is with me, I'm perfectly safe."

Then there was a loud crack and Artemis fell to the floor as Butler yelled.

The four-minute review was over.
"Well, that was interesting…" I commented dryly. One thing was on my mind from all that.

Artemis looked thoughtful.

"So you can go back four minutes into the past…" he mumbled, apparently putting together what I could do.

"You're here because of the local park?" I said. Artemis looked up and looked a little sour for a moment but his face reverted to its neutral expression again.

"Yes, like I was telling my mother: just a school trip."

"I get the feeling you're here for more than that."

The boy shrugged.

"My business, black cat. None of yours."

I accepted his point, realizing that I wasn't going to draw any information from him concerning it.

"So what was that thing you were talking to her through?"

Artemis blinked, his face one of pure disbelief.

"You don't know what a cell phone is?"

I considered the fact that he had called it a phone…

"Um… no… it is like a regular phone?" I asked.

Artemis covered his face with one hand, shaking his head with that look of disbelief still there. He sighed before speaking.

"Very well, I suppose being a cat, you wouldn't understand technology… yes, a cell phone is like a regular phone… except considerably more portable." Artemis said in a tone that seemed to imply I was an idiot.

"Hmm…" I couldn't hold back a smirk… which Artemis noticed.

"What?" he said simply.

I shook my head, he'd see once we got started trying to reverse his death.

"Time to avert a fate." I said coolly and rewound time back four minutes.

###

We started where Artemis's body had been. This was how things worked with undoing a death like this.

"Alright, so I trust you can do more than send us back through time?" Artemis started.

"Yep." I looked around the local area and moved to the menu in the living Artemis's hands. I looked some more from there.

I let time go by a bit. Then it came time for Artemis's cell phone and he pulled it out. I moved into the phone.

"What are you doing?" Artemis asked, curious.

"I'm just experimenting with something briefly." I said.

Living Artemis answered the phone and I looked at the phone again from Ghost World.

I wasn't the same as what I'd seen in the past, but I could see waves coming slowly off of the phone. It seemed very familiar to what I had seen with normal phones.

I then tried using it.

Immediately, I could see on the other end of the connection.

A woman, who I assumed was indeed Artemis's mother, was on the other side.

"Hello Arty. I hope things are well over there."

Living Artemis responded "Yes, I'm fine. It's merely a school trip to Temsik Park to look at the meteor."

The Artemis accompanying me was clearly stunned at what he was seeing.

"You can see through phone connections?" the boy finally said.

"More than that…" I said, suppressing a chuckle.

Before Artemis could ask more, I dived into the connection and within the second, we were on the other end of the line with his mother.

The boy's shock had increased and he was silent.

"I've been able to travel through phone lines for the longest time now as a soul." I explained "When you told me that a cell phone was like a more portable version of a phone, I figured I could probably travel through the connection as well, though it is probably very different."

I looked around the room we were now in… it looked like we were in a mansion of some sort. I spoke up again.

"It looks like there's nothing I can do for you from here though so let's go back and try this again."

I rewound time again before Artemis could speak. Strangely, I found myself feeling a certain level of satisfaction at Artemis's speechlessness.

We were soon back at the restaurant of four minutes before death.

Armed with this knowledge about cell phones, I moved from the living Artemis's menu, to the table's salt shaker, to a passing waiter's tray, which I rode over to the other side of the room. I was pretty sure I'd seen another cell phone to use. I figured I might as well try it out and listen… I never knew where I'd end up seeing. It had really surprised me once in the past.

I jumped out of the waiter's tray to another table and over to the man who had been speaking.

He soon pulled out that phone and started speaking into it. I quickly possessed it and looked in.

"Are you in position?"

"Yeah, I've been in position for several minutes. I'm getting a promotion for this."

I found myself feeling my hair would've stood on end again if I had had it at the time. I recognized the fellow on the other end.

It was a hit man I had dealt with in the previous time before I had fixed things. His name escaped me at the time but I remembered his face. The man was blue (don't ask me why, I don't know), and wore a black hat and glasses.

Artemis picked up the thoughts.

"So… you're thinking he's my murderer?" the boy said.

"Yeah…"

"Good, and don't be getting ahead of me Tengo." The man on the phone continued "The boy the boss wants you to get rid of is here. He's investigating that meteor… he doesn't want him finding anything out about it or he figures he'll find someway to steal it."

"Roger. Promotion, then I'll be the boss after that."

The man muttered about more "getting ahead" and hung up, but not before I traveled through the phone connection. On the other end, the assassin was sitting in a hotel room, hanging his silver sniper-gun out of the window. A quick look around the room and I could tell there wasn't anything I could use to even hinder the assassin's attempts with.

"Alright… just one shot and the kid 'll be headed for heaven. Or my name's not 'One-step-ahead Tengo'." He muttered and took aim. However it was still going to be a minute or two before death, I knew that so there had to be something that delayed this guy…

And indeed there was. A man with a briefcase opened the door of the room quite suddenly, making the assassin jump.

"Criminy!" he yelled and the man in the door jumped as well.

"Whoops, sorry, wrong room." The man said quickly, apparently not able to see the gun from where he was and quickly closed the door.

The assassin groaned, muttering curses before growling.

"Lucky him, I didn't shoot him right there since he didn't see my gun. I hate extra work. But now I gotta take aim again…"

I barely caught that though because I jumped from the assassin's cell phone to a lamp, to a picture on the wall, to the light-switch next to the door and finally, to the man's briefcase from through the wall.

"Now where is my room? Maybe one more floor up?" the man mumbled to himself, scratching his chin. I got the impression this guy wasn't all that smart.

He walked upstairs and I felt myself wishing he'd hurry… time was running short now.

Artemis was getting tense next to me.

The man went up to a door at the top of the stairs (which didn't go up any further) and opened it. He found himself looking at the roof of the building. Artemis rolled his eyes at this guy's obvious stupidity. I was wondering myself why the guy hadn't gotten proper directions to his destination.
Then I noticed something that looked handy. There was a crane on a rooftop across the way from the building, and it had a large load suspended over the building. There weren't any cores for me to traverse through to it though. But I had an idea.

I manipulated the briefcase I was possessing, causing it to pop open.

"Blast it!" the man roared as several papers flew free into the wind and he attempted to quickly re-close his case. I quickly jumped into one of the papers… only about three seconds left…

The paper flipped through the wind and came close to the crane.

I jumped into the crane controls, which were nearby and I quickly manipulated those. The crane swiveled so the load was directly over the point I desired; over the assassin's head, who had his head out the window so he could aim.

Artemis could see what I was about to do as I moved from the control panel to the joint of the crane, to the gripping claw; he smirked.

I couldn't help smirking as well as I caused the claw to open with a loud clank.

The weight dropped, straight down.

"What was- AGHHH!" the assassin below screamed as the load knocked him out of the window and flattened him below with a loud crash.

I glanced at Artemis.

"I think that handles that…" I said smugly.

"I little close there, but I must admit… you have done impressively well." Artemis said calmly and then got back to business "Now that you've stopped my death, I presume this is where I… wake up back in my new present?"

"Shall we?" I offered. The boy nodded and we rushed forward through time.