Chapter 65: Caiyi

A little girl walked out from behind Artemis, followed by Artemis's hunters. "What in the world are you doing?" she asked, then time seemed to screech to a halt. Deftly, the girl dragged Artemis away from our attack (which had frozen like a movie on 'pause') and moved the familiar gaping black hole from which they had emerged to another location. Suddenly, time started again and we collapsed to the ground while our attacks uselessly crashed into the trees. . . Kronos. Who else but Kronos had the power to stop time? But why would Kronos help a goddess?

"You-!" Bhavana yelled at her. "I thought you were in the pits of Tartarus, where you belong!" and charged, waving her sword menacingly, at Kronos.

With an almost bored flick of her- or should I say his? finger, time was stopped again. "Why don't we all have a seat and calmly talk this out?" he said, with a disarming smile. Moving over to Bhavana, whose face had an expression of horror, Kronos firmly pushed Bhavana down to a sitting position. I opened my mouth to yell at her- or tried to, anyway. I was frozen there on the spot just like everybody else.

"Now. Let's talk. Fotistica foni !" Illuminating Voice. Bhavana meant illuminating. Suddenly, Bhavana could talk again, and what she was saying wasn't pretty.

"You-!" Bhavana said again. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the bottom of Tartarus!"

"Calm down. I'm not Kronos. I'm Alcyone. In fact, I am radically different from my grandfather." she replied. "I have sworn, and will swear now, that by the River Styx I am on your side. Though I can't guarantee that I won't harm you. That would be impossible."

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed from above. "I am here to help." the girl told us with a smile. Then, she said, "Y'know what? I'm getting tired." and suddenly time started again.

I expected someone to lunge at her and try to kill her, but her swear upon the River made us stay our hand. "So," I said, plopping down onto the ground. "let's go then, and see if Krono's grandchild can be of any use to us."

"The prophecy," said Ruidi, "May time be in your favor."

Tim slumped, disappointed. "So she is on our side. I suppose there will be no killing then."

"No, there'll be plenty of killing. On our way monsters, machines, and phantoms will try to stop us. That's exactly why I brought this along." Showing us her bow, Alcyone drew an arrow back-and it flew, flaming, into the sky.

Moments later, a duck fell out of the sky, feathers all burnt off.

"Roast duck, anyone?"

Chapter 66: Pranu

After eating an entire duck all by myself to satisfy my hunger (since nobody else trusted Alcyone enough to not suspect her of poisoning it) I was still a bit hungry. Night had come and the forest was still. Too still. I turned back to look at my friends. My quest members.

"I'm going to do a night round. Things in this forest are too quiet for me." I said, and nobody objected.

"I'll come with you." Alcyone offered. The rest of the group shot each other glances, as if saying Uh oh. You think she's going to murder Pranu?

" But you don't have wings." I said, then unfurled my sand-colored wings, turned purple by the moonlight. She looked surprised.

"Well, I could follow you... if you taught me how to fly." Alcyone said.

"What?" I turned to her. This time I was the surprised one.

She sighed, as if exasperated with me, then towering brown wings slowly appeared on her back. "I store these in the Void. I don't even know how to use them." Alcyone said sadly.

While the rest of the group gaped at her wings, I pulled her sleeve and said "Come on, I'll teach you!" and lead her to a cliff, which, conveniently, happened to be there.