Seeing as we've sort of dealt with characters is order of reveal to you guys, I guess the order now is Ul, Simon, and Damien. So that makes it Ul's turn! Also, I'm going to expand on Arc of Time a bit for Ultear. The Arc of Time we know doesn't have much to it, so it doesn't really matter, right?

Enjoy!

If anyone had climbed up Mt. Hakobe, they would've seen a girl in nothing but her underwear meditating. Now, to the average person that probably would've seem incredibly weird and almost insane, but if that person knew that girl in any way shape or form, they would know it wasn't all that strange.

After all, enduring the cold was sort of tradition in Ultear's family, and she was doing exactly that. For one reason or another, Ultear's father had decided to take her to Mt. Hakobe to train for the Games, which she eagerly accepted. She, probably more than all her friends combined, was excited to enter the Games. She loved to watch them as a kid, and now with the possibility of entering that arena presenting itself, she got really excited.

Maybe a bit too much, as she was sure being out in the cold for twelve hours straight wasn't good for anyone.

"I think that's good for today, Ul." She heard her father say from behind her. "We've been out here all day."

"I know." Ultear replied, eyes still closed as the vicious winds whipped around her. "Give me a few more minutes." Hearing a sigh, Ultear chuckled. She knew her hyperactivity and willingness to train all day wore down on her fathers attitude and patience, which was probably why Ultear ended up by herself into the night. Even her mother, the peppier and more active of the two, usually ended up getting too tired into the night. After another moment of silence, Ultear felt cloth hit her in the face, causing her to lose concentration, become rather cold, and fall over in the snow.

"Put your clothes on." her father said. "Any longer out here and you'd fall asleep."

"I can for a little longer, let me endure the cold!" Ultear replied. He shook his head.

"No," He replied. "You trained with your mother from dawn until noon, and me from then until now. You've been doing this for the last few weeks. Just put your damn clothes on and we'll go back down." Ultear sighed, but knowing her father wasn't going to relent. She didn't want to stop ofr a perfectly good reason, but not one she was ready to voice. Either she put her clothes on and went back down to the camp with him or she got carried back forcefully. She really had no choice in the matter, at all. Sighing, Ultear stood and threw on her shirt, jacket, pants and shoes. She moved her hair out of her face as the wind whipped even harder around them, trying to get it out of her face and mouth.

"It's really windy." Ultear commented, looking around the gloomy atmosphere. Her father nodded.

"Yeah, looks like it's going to be a vicious storm tonight." He said. "We should probably head down now." Ultear nodded and walked after him down the path towards their camp. They were camped out on a far more sensible part of the mountain, where the wind and snow was much less violent. As Ultear descended after her father, she could feel the magical and physical fatigue quite heavily. Her father was right of course, her constant training was an incredible wear on her body. She didn't mind though, a good night's rest usually did her wonders. The wind picked up suddenly making Ultear temporarily lose her balance, almost off of the side.

"Woah..." She hissed, regaling her composure, "That was close."

"Careful." her father said. "Falling of the edge would be rather unfortunate."

"A nice way to put it, Daddy." Ultear replied teasingly. "I'd just turn myself into water on the way down." he snorted.

"Yeah okay, so the wind and temperature can freeze you solid and shatter you into a million pieces upon impact?" Ultear remained silent with the logical hole in her plan exposed, which got a laugh from the elder ice wizard. "That's what I thought."

"Whatever." Soon enough the pair reached their camp, which was really just two tents with a cooking set in between them. It had been a few hours since Ultear had actually eaten, but there was no way she could get a fire going in this weather. Looking over at the tents, a light was on in one of them, the shadowy outline of a figure reading. Her father turned to her.

"Try to get some sleep, would you?" He asked. "I don't like seeing you push yourself so hard for something not that serious." Ultear shrugged.

"I'm just excited." The younger Fullbuster said with a grin. "Can't blame me for that." That wasn't it at all and Ultear knew it.

"Yeah. until your body can't keep up." Ultear nodded as her father retreated into the tent her shared with her mother, and Ultear went into her own. The inside was rather barren, save for where she slept, her bag full of things she'd brought along, and snow blowing from outside. Quickly shutting the tent flap to prevent her bend becoming a snowy mess, she sat down and sprawled out across the fabric, staring up at the rippling fabric as the storm intensified outside. Looking over to her left, Ultear could still see the light going in the other tent, so she really couldn't do anything at the moment. Sighing, Ultear turned to her bag and unzipped it, digging through it for her salvation.

All she found was a single candy bar.

Ultear brought it up close to her eyes and inspected it angrily, partially directed at herself for being such a glutton and eating the other food she'd snuck along, and partially directed at the candy that dared test her diet for training.

Clearly she lived a difficult life.

Shrugging indifferently and ripping the wrapper off of her chocolate treat, She bit into the rock-hard bar and narrowed her eyes at the end of it. It was obviously hardened up by the temperature, so she needed to apply more pressure. Ultear but harder than she ever had before, even harder tan to break the various other types of candy she'd eaten.

"Come on you..." Ultear hissed through her teeth. It was Ultear's jaw or the god damn candy, she wasn't having this.

Crack!

"Ha!" Ultear shouted through a full mouth as the bar caved. "Take that you little...!"

"Ultear you need to rest!" Her father shouted, making her jump.

"S-Sorry!" Ultear replied weakly, pretending to lie down and go to sleep.

As if that's what she was doing.

After what seemed like a millennium, the light from her parents tent finally faded. Sighing in relief quietly as she lifted her head from her pillow, she looked to her left towards the other tent.

"Seriously, you tell me to rest but you stay up all night.." She muttered. Shaking her head, she slowing brought her bag closer to her and looked inside. She dug right to the bottom and found her true prize.

The book her namesake had written about Arc of Time.

She smiled as she, for one reason or another, traced her finger around the words on first page. She felt very connected with the book. The woman she'd been named after had written it and given it to her, the last remaining piece of Ultear Milkovich on Earth. Slowly opening the notebook, Ultear flipped through the first few pages, ones she'd already studied in great detail in order to master the magic.

One thing Ultear had realized during studying the book that it was extremely hard to get the technique down. She assumed this really went for any Lost Magic, which made sense. After all, it was lost for a reason, right? She also got the feeling that despite the difficulty she had learning what she was doing, that her namesake had done her best to simplify it greatly. Finally reaching the portion of the book she'd stopped at last night, Ultear stopped flipping and skimmed the beginning of the page, looking for what exactly she left off on. Finally, she found it.

Freeze

This one word can have many effects. The first and foremost is the freezing or slowing of time in your immediate area. In an Area of Effect spell such as this, one must take care to only target what you want to slow or freeze. If too large of an area is targeted, the caster may run out of magic. If the effect is not powerful enough, it may kill you if you're relying on it.

The basic requirement to cast this spell if to see your intended target area to it's fullest, or at least to be able to imagine it. Then, stop it, all at once. Do not try it with any movements, you need to imagine your whole target area stopped. Completely. Unless you can make that image a reality, you will not be able to cast this spell.

A drawback with this spell is that it requires a great deal of magic to keep active for longer periods of time. it is best used to quickly freeze an object or person and counterattack with something else once you've succeeded.

Ultear reread the section on the Freeze effect, making bad jokes to herself in her head about how she was an ice mage in the middle of a blizzard learning a spell called Freeze.

It just seemed funny.

What she really needed was practice. While she'd been using her sleep hours, at least one, to read the book, she'd yet to practice anything she'd read about since the very basics. Making a face, Ultear looked over at her parents tent. Could she go out and try anything without waking them? She probably could, it wasn't like they'd be able to hear her over the snow and wind. Finally making up her mind, Ultear zipped up her jacket and made for her tent flap, unzipping it and stepping into the blizzard. Shielding her face as she stepped out, Ultear stopped near the cooking pot and looked around at the snow.

"I guess I should give it a go..." She muttered to herself. Taking a deep breath, Ultear closed her eyes and concentrated, allowing the magic to flow outwardly. After a moment and not feeling any different, she tried harder. The sweat on her forehead began to freeze, just not the way she wanted it too sadly. "Come on, how hard can it be...?"

Ultear imagined it. The snow floating in place, the wind slowing down to dramatically blow her hair around. She could see it, she could almost feel it. It was so close, she just had to.

She felt it. A pulse like wave of white magic rolled off of her, and she collapsed to her knees in surprise. She'd been trying just a little to hard apparently, as she'd collapsed from the sudden lack of magic in her system.

"I'll need to work on that," She said quietly, shaking her head to clear the dizzy feeling. Once she managed to regain her composure, she looked up.

The snow was frozen in place.

Ultear slowly stood and looked around, drinking in the amazing feeling of a blizzard frozen in time. She could see the snow still assaulting everything beyond the small bubble of stopped time she'd created, which added even more to the feeling. She slowly reached up and touched one of the snowflakes near her. The small object was frozen in time so completely it didn't even melt when she touched it, just sat there in her hand as she marveled at what she'd done. She'd done it, sh'd momentarily stopped the time flow of the area.

Until she started to feel light-headed, and realized just how much energy that small amount of stoppage had taken from her. She quickly panicked and tried to stop the effect on the area, but it wasn't working. She had to calm down, but the more energy it took the more she panicked. When she finally got it to turn off and the snow around her continued to fall rapidly just like the rest of the world, She was almst out cold. She slowly turned and looked back at her tent, which seemed like a mile long sprint. She took a step, and then another, and another, and when she reached the entrance to her tent, she fell into it.

"Ow..." She murmured as she landed face first in her cot. She tried to summon the energy to turn and close her tent but she couldn't. "Ah screw it, let it snow in here..." And with that, she passed out.

"Come on Ul, pick it up! This isn't like you!"

Ultear knew that, but she was ready to pass out. She was currently working on her evasive abilities with her mother sending tendrils of freezing water at her, but she'd been hit by every single one of them and couldn't work up the strength to do anything.

"I'm...sorry..." Ultear wheezed. "I'm...exhausted."

"Gray told you about training so hard." her mother scolded. "And now your feeling it, aren't you?"

"I...I guess..." She felt like she wanted to throw up and fall asleep. Apparently trying to use some Arc of Time the night before had not allowed her the proper time to replenish her energy. She was running on maybe a fourth of what she usually had, which was basically fumes now with the few hours she'd spent training with her mother.

"If you want to take a break, you can." Her mother offered. "I won't hold it against you." Ultear silently gave a thumbs up and collapsed to her knees, still breathing heavily. She slowly raised her hand and stared at it. It was shaking, and violently. She tried to summon up a spurt of water to try and reassure herself she was fine, but nothing happened. Not even a faint mist. Cursing, Ultear tried to stand, but her legs didn't feel like it. Finally, she managed it, but only just.

"I...Can we keep going...?"

"Ultear..." Her mother said slowly. "You're clearly not well..."

"I don't care!" Ultear shouted, which was the most energetic thing she'd done all day. "I...I need to get better..."

"Why?" Her mother asked. "Your plenty powerful." Ultear looked out over the edge of the mountain, scrunching up her face as she thought.

"I just don't want to be the weakest link..." She whispered.

"Wha...What?" Ultear turned back at this, looking determined.

"I don't want to be the weakest link." She replied, louder this time. That was why she was pushing herself so hard. That was why she wanted to practice her Arc of Time.

She didn't want to be the reason they lost.

"I'm the weakest." Ultear said. "I was third-strongest for a while, but lately... Lately I've been falling behind. I probably did the least against Devil Advocate, I lost to Asuka during her S-Class Advancement, and I got sent after the weakest member of Phantom Dove during the Silverridge incident and just barely got ahold of him to win I just..." She purposefully trailed off, glaring down at the ground. Nashi, Drake, and Elise had surged past her, all of them proving just as, if not more capable then herself, the first two especially. "I just...don't want to be the reason we lose something."

"Juvia is sure everyone feels the same way."

"Everyone else is unique!" Ultear replied. "Three are Dragon Slayers, one's a Demon Lord, the other's a Heavenly Mage..." Ultear gestured to herself uselessly. "Then there's me. That's why I've been training so hard all day, why I'm not easy to convince to take a break. Why I'm trying to learn Arc..." Ultear stopped herself. She didn't want her parents to know that, not yet.

"Well, look at it this way." her mother said with a wink. "You have the least expected of you."

"...What?"

"Think about it. All the others have a legacy to uphold. Maybe not Drake as much as the other four, but he's still got the Dragon Slayer name to uphold. Maybe you have the least unique magic, but if they fail, they're going to feel ten times worse then you." Ultear thought about this for a moment. Her mother did have a point.

"I suppose." Her mother smiled.

"Take today off." She said. Ultear started to object, but her mother turned around to leave. "You need to recharge. So go and take a day, really." Ultear frowned but did not object, deciding to just silently following her mother back down. Once Ultear stopped feeling so sorry for herself, she did realize how tired she was.

Taking a day sounded good.

"Goodnight Ul." She heard her mother say.

"Goodnight." Ultear replied, not bothering to look up. She'd been in bed since early that morning when she'd been told to take a day off. She did feel completely recharged, but neither parent allowed her to leave the campsite, as she clearly might have run off to try and train. She knew they cared, but it still sort of irked her. She stared at the side of her tent as her parents went to sleep. Pretty soon, the noises from the left of her disappeared.

She smiled and lifted the book from underneath her pillow.

She opened the Arc of Time notebook to the page she finished off at the night before, and continued reading.

Ultear didn't care if she had the least to worry about if she lost an event or a fight. She didn't care if her friends disagreed with her views on herself, or her parents, or the guild, or anyone.

If she learned Arc of Time and surprise revealed it at the Games, she'd be able to keep up with her friends. And in the end, that was all she wanted.

To just not fall behind.

Wow Ul, how the hell did I get three thousand words out of your chapter? I was expecting only two thousand if I pushed it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try and get eight!