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Fantasy The Passage of Time

Charlie exhaled heavily in frustration as Aaron and Caroline left "'Boy you sure do change your mind on a dime,no?'" He said trying to imitate Caroline's voice in attempt to mock her, "I only changed my mind because you were unhappy with my first idea, ugh, stupid people. Whatever, we're better off without them really." Charlie said in a huff. Miyu simply passively nodded and waited for his temper to subside. "Anyway, let's start looking around this place, there are a lot of buildings around here so be on the lookout for...well a girl and a man." Charlie said starting to walk off, Miyu thought it best to keep her garb on so that she wouldn't expose herself if they came across trouble.

The two were persistent with their search, Charlie went into a lot of shops that specialised in musical instruments that generated synthetic sounds- it was the only thing he could fathom that would match the description Aaron gave. The two also spent a bit of time stalking some official looking people, yet no matter how many times Miyu told Charlie they were wasting time he continued to insist on following them. Both attempts were fruitless. Charlie was becoming impatient and Miyu was also beginning to become desperate for a lead or some help.
"This is hopeless Miyu." Charlie said sitting on the curb of a quieter street. His companion nodded in thought as Charlie sighed, "you know, we might need Felicity's help. We have zero leads and she can give us one." Charlie said carefully, Miyu looked at him with the same shock she did last time but then slowly her expression changed as she realised her lack of other options.
"I don't like this one bit, but you might be right. We have literally nothing to go off right now, ugh, I can't believe I need her help." She paused for a while clearly conflicted. "We need a way to approach her without the risk of her attacking us." Her silence in the area continued as Miyu thought to herself for a while with an idle minded and exhausted Charlie beside her.

"Alright I got it." Miyu said quietly "I'm going to approach her in her place of work so that she can't attack without exposing herself. I'd say you should come to but I know you won't take your mask off and I doubt they'd let in someone in dressed like that." Charlie opened his mouth as if he was going to object but then closed it, he really didn't want to take his mask off.
"Fine, just hurry up- I'll wait here and get some fries or something..." Charlie only really compliant to this idea because he was tired from all the searching he did as well as not wanting to take his mask off. The two set off in different directions, one to a fast food restaurant and the other to a nearby primary school.
 
Caroline walked carefully onto the roof, staring intently at the two who so nonchalantly revealed themselves. "And I should care what you think because...?" Caroline shot back, her gaze still piercing them as she evaluated them on appearance alone. The girl raised an eyebrow, "Oh isn't that just rude of us to show up unannounced and barge in on your personal lives? Can you believe people would do that just based on fleeting suspicion?" she taunted, so obviously referring to their hypocrisy. Aaron winced in response, though he dared not respond himself.

"Well when you put it that way, wouldn't it be rude to do almost anything under that loose context?" Caroline responded, her eyes now locked firmly with the girls'. "Au contraire, it is specific enough that you understand the negative connotations surrounding the circumstances."
"That is, only if you make it as obvious a threat as you have."
"Oh have I made one? I don't recall."
"We both know you did."
For a moment, neither conceded the silence, but neither did they concede the argument. "So what are we doing here?" Aaron asked, he himself feigning no respect for their squabble. The man answered him plainly, not through context like his partner. "To be quite frank, we know you've been to see Kale and we know of what you're doing. We're here to tell you to back off." "And," the girl interjected, "this is a situation for adults anyway. Go skip some rocks or play double dutch or something," she huffed, not satisfied with the man's delivery of their message.

Caroline rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we'll be sure to keep that in mind," she said before making her way for the door. Aaron glanced at the duo and began following suit. "Oh so that's how it's going to be," the girl said. She began to glow a soft white as a light mist surrounded her. "I can see you've no sense to heed our generous offer. Isn't that unfortunate." The man spared her a second's glance before a bright beam of light shot down from the sky like a beacon. "You have one last chance to mind your own business. Then it gets personal."
 
"Yeah I'll have the Big Mac meal, large with a coke." Charlie said fishing around his clothes for some loose change, he was afraid he didn't have enough.
"That'll be..." The cashier's expression of exasperation slowly changed into one of curiosity as he broke eye contact with Charlie and looked through the front window of the store, a huge beacon of white light prevailed through the sky. Charlie followed his gaze and too saw the beacon, he sighed knowing that this was probably somehow connected to his current situation meaning that he'd have to ditch his McDonalds meal for it.
"Cancel that order please." Charlie said before rushing off to the doors of the building, making sure to steal a couple of french fries from a kid sitting near the exit on his way. The streets were crowded the two stores as many were gazing idly at the beacon, Charlie shoved through these people and entered through the same door that Aaron and Caroline did before him. Out of sight of the bystanders he levitated himself up the stairs at a faster pace than he could've ever run, making it to the roof in little time with a certain adrenaline pumping through his blood.

The first thing he spotted upon reaching the top of the building was his familiar companions, then he spotted two more people he didn't recognise. He gave Aaron and Caroline an acknowledging nod "Oh, hey guys- I missed you both...not really. Who are the two over there?" Inspecting the newcomers' and facial expressions a bit more, along with the presence of the beacon, Charlie concluded they weren't very friendly. "Well," he said addressing the new two "my name is...uh...Ronald, and depending on your relation to my two associates here I will either aid you in whatever this is or kick your asses." Charlie has been itching for a fight all day- a lot of stuff that annoyed him had happened and he was ready to release all of his frustration here. Although, he wished Miyu was here for backup. It then occurred to him that she was dealing with Felicity right now~
____________________________________________________________________________________

"Damn it," Miyu muttered to herself as she saw the school gates, she had forgotten that school had ended at this point of the day. The area was rather deserted, the school was located in a rather discreet area- only a single figure was there closing the gates. Dressed in her black blazer with a white buttoned shirt under it, her skirt, tights and shoes were too all black. Even her long hair and fringe with shoulder length bangs was black. The only colour on the twenty two year old was her striking green eyes and the tie she wore which matched them in colour. Miyu's eyes desperately scanned her surroundings from the bush she hid in, she confirmed that there really was no one else around. Then, a voice- one that froze Miyu over with the dread it inflicted on her.

"Hiding is no use Miyu, especially not over there."
 
The girl looked at him unamused, her eyes a light shade of bluish grey normally attributed to blind eyes. "Look, we already know who you are and vaguely what you're capable of - you're not the only ones who consult the telepath. What I can tell you right now is that you're going nowhere near that who you seek." The man's golden eyes glanced at his partner. "We still have a few hours until sunset. What do you suggest we do until then?" he asked in is low, slightly grovelled voice.

Caroline answered for him, tired of magic cropping up so much more than usual in one day. "Look, I don't know nor care who you are." she shot back, fighting the urge to roll her eyes are their superfluous extravagance. "What I do care about is our safety, which is clearly not well here," she mumbled to herself. Aaron mostly stood wide-eyed at their bizarre magic abilities that made them look so much cooler than the rest of them. He thought about making a flower crown to compete but ultimately decided against it.

"Oh no, I'm afraid I can't allow thiat," she responded with a smile, flicking her wrist to cover the exit door with a transparent barrier that glimmered in bands of various colors. "We have so much fun to have and so very little time to cover it. And we simply must reminisce about our short time before the passage, don't we?" she added, a faint glow emanating from her right hand as a long, narrow object grew from it.

Aaron tilted is head slightly. "I thought no one knew anything about that?" he replied, his fears temporarily forgotten. The golden man winced slightly at his words as if it hurt to hear that, but said nothing in return himself. The woman next to him, however, was happy to oblige. "Now, while that may be true for some poor unfortunate souls, it isn't the case for the rest of us who simply had the best connections," she responded, still mostly hauteur in demeanor. Caroline glared in response, but wasn't sure where this was going.

"We might be obliged to share, if you're willing to do us a favor in turn," she offered, her eyebrow raised. Aaron and Caroline looked at each other, both still reeling from the conversation that seemed to progress so fast and without warning.
 
Charlie was rather surprised by how the claimed to already know who he was. But he didn't comment on it but rather mentally decided to stop using a fake name because it never seemed to work. But the words that came out of their mouths along with their tone and demeanour definitely inspired some interest in him. It was obvious that they knew something about the couple they were looking for, he wanted information about that from them and nothing else, he spoke when he noticed Caroline and Aaron had nothing to say to the mysterious couple's proposal. "Oh great, more about this 'passage' garbage. Sorry to say but I'm pretty uninterested in any information regarding that, so go ahead and forget about any favour from me, that is unless you're gonna spill something about the people you two freaks regard as 'who we seek'. Their location would be nice."

Charlie was rather ignorantly nonchalant about their talk of violence, his violent encounters with ancients were limited to a single encounter with Felicity- so far their demonstrations of their powers didn't seem too impressive to Charlie and thus his attitude was as it was. Spotting the object growing in the unknown female's hand, Charlie shifted his gaze to a metal pipe that was coming out from the ceiling of the building, most likely the end of a chimney of sorts. He was ready to fling that at his supposed opponents at a heartbeat- the only thing stopping him was what his companions had to say. _________________________________________________________________________________________

"What do you want Miyu? You're here to ask for a favour aren't you?" Felicity said with disdain. Miyu was petrified, she had really counted on this place being more crowded. Felicity was unpredictable, she wasn't safe at all. "You're usually a little mouthy Miyu, what's up?" Miyu felt a cold hand on her shoulder as this softly spoken yet threatening sounding sentence ended. '
Damn it, how'd I forget she can teleport through shadows?' Miyu thought as she turned to face Felicity's rather bored looking expression.
"Y-yes Felicity, you owe me remember?" Felicity rolled her eyes and nodded passively.
"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you right now." A smirk emerged on her face as she said this "so what is it? Homework issues? Boy problems? You need a job? Sorry, not hiring here. You better hope that last one wasn't the favour you wanted cause that means you wasted it and since I wouldn't owe you a thing if that was the case then you might as well consider yourself dead." She was laughing to herself at this point. Miyu loosened up slightly, she sensed that she was joking through her tone of voice, though Miyu didn't forget who she was dealing with.

"I need your help finding a few people, that's kind of your thing right?" Miyu said getting up from her crouched position, she was quite a lot shorter than Felicity.
"Yes it is, and without any details I can promise you that over there has something to do with it. You and your little friend are always getting mixed up with the wrong people." Felicity pointed to the beacon while shaking her head as she said the last part, Miyu was shocked to see such a thing but figured she was probably right. Even if she wasn't there were virtually no other leads to go off, so this was worth a shot.
"I'd say teleport us there but I have a feeling there'll be a lot of people there right now. Let's walk." Felicity scowled.
"Ugh, setting me on a wild goose chase and then making me walk, you're so lucky I owe you." Felicity said following Miyu who had already began to trek to the beacon at a fast pace. She was surprised Felicity was so willing, but she had a feeling that she'd flake out at some point. So Miyu intended to use her as much as possible.
 
The woman frowned. "Look, this would benefit literally all of us standing here right now. You can only be with us or against us, so you're really forcing our hand if you can't help us out," she warned, her bleach blonde hair beginning to sway in the wind. It brushed past her arm and landed lightly on the hilt of her mystical weapon, almost highlighting her threat for her.

Caroline decided against either backing or subjugating Charlie to see reason. Aaron's biggest goal since reaching modern day was to reclaim his memory, and his eyes reconfirmed her suspicions. "You're being awfully vague. We're going to need to know more than that you want something from us," she responded carefully, trying to remain as neutral as possible. Aaron nodded lightly in agreement, his eyes flickering back to the two.

The man ran his hand through his charcoal black hair, letting it spring back into place once it passed. His jaw lightly bit his lower lip as he fidgeted lightly with his feet. "We have to establish trust, don't we? It's so obvious that there is none between us since you keep rejecting us so lightly," she shot back. Caroline closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself; the woman said nothing but fluff to give the conversation back over. "How can we trust you if you won't tell us anything?" she asked as friendly as possible. It wasn't exactly hard for her to be so fake, but this was more curiosity than apprehension.

The woman smiled and began to open her mouth, but the man was already ahead of her. "We need you to save our tether," he blurted out, receiving a death glare from his partner. His eyes avoided hers as he waited for literally anything to happen next. Both Caroline's and Aaron's eyes lit up at the new information that turned the power to their corner. His partner was beside herself with such a play, her visage obviously baffled.
 
Charlie snickered rather audibly at the male of the mysterious pair's sudden outburst, the expression of confuddlement and slight irritation on that of the female only made it funnier to Charlie.
"Heheh, I'm guessing you weren't supposed to tell us that. Oh well everyone makes mistakes," his tone much more relaxed than before, he paced around and used gestures as he spoke, walking in front of Aaron and Caroline he began again "okay, well since it'll benefit everyone and neither of these two behind me are trying to match your little taunts then I guess I have no choice but to help you save your tether." He said clearly directing his last word at the man, no doubt with obnoxious intent. He began laughing slightly again as he thought back to what had just happened, this adventure was turning from a simple task to one which was much more complex than he originally thought. Charlie wanted to know why exactly he seems to be in a different place now then what he remembers about his life before, this little adventure with all these people would've been too much effort for Charlie usually, but he felt like he'd somehow find out a little something about why he's here now if he stuck around.

"Hey shorty, still wearing that ridiculous outfit I see." Felicity's voice said with its same soft tone as she stood directly behind Charlie with Miyu beside her. They both had just seemingly materialised from Charlie's shadow, who in response jumped up and yelped in shock. Felicity smirked slightly in response and looked in front of her to see the two ancients. "Miyu, are these the two you're looking for?" Felicity said pointing at them, in response Miyu shook her head and looked carefully at the two. They were certainly not who they were looking for, their appearance told her that much.
"Don't call me short you...Felicity." Charlie trailed off at the end, seeing it in his best interest not to insult her at all given how willing to help Miyu she seemed- this was a surprise to him.
"Chuck, what's going on?" Miyu said wanting to clear things up, not breaking eye contact with the two strangers.
"Long story short: these guys know stuff that'll help us with our search, and stuff about some passage everyone seems to knows about that I don't, but we gotta help them by saving their tether first." Miyu seemed content with the response and decided it best not to ask any more questions with everything already seemingly decided. She sighed out of a slight frustration at what she knew she had to say next:
"Felicity, I'm willing to let you off the hook with our little deal here. This seems like we're not going to reach a conclusion any time soon so I doubt staying with us is something you're interested in." Miyu said mostly concerned with the safety risk involved in forcing her to travel with them for too long.

"Did you say passage?" Felicity said with a surprising tone of interest to Charlie, seemingly ignoring Miyu. Charlie nodded in response. "Hmm, don't worry about it Miyu- I'll stay for a while to help you all out. I owe you a lot, Miyu, and I'm not going back on that." She said with a more genuine but excitable tone than normal, Miyu was slightly wary of Felicity's sudden change of attitude from reluctantly forced but still complaint to simply wiling. But she said nothing in response. Charlie didnt think anything of Felicity's comment as he was rather uneasy with her around and every time she spoke to him directly was a chilling experience. Felicity turned to face Aaron and Caroline, she waved at them with a soft smile on her face- she had really only just noticed their presence. Charlie followed her gaze and just remembered that Aaron and Caroline hadn't given a response to anything yet.

"You guys wanna help these two out with their little problem too? Don't worry about the trust problem, if they try anything we outnumber them severely. It seems like we are the ones really doing them a favour here." He said slightly passive aggressively awaiting his initial pair of companions' response.
 
The man glanced indifferently to the kid, almost as if his mind was already drifting somewhere else.The woman was still glaring at him with scorn, but it didn't seem to bother him despite her equal height and intimidation. His radiant aura faded with his concentration, not longer interested in using its benefits. The girl followed suit. "Look, you can tease us all you want, but this is more dangerous than you give it credit. Leaving aside our tether's . . . unfortunate position, this brings about a threat to all sorcerers." She glanced at her partner, who nodded in turn.

"What she's trying to say is that we can't be too sure what else besides their government is trying to contain or destroy us." His demeanor seemed concerned, but it was mostly directed at Caroline and Aaron. Caroline's eyes narrowed in suspicion while Aaron remained oblivious to their nonverbal cues. "As I'm sure we've all figured out, all the sorcerers here today are from our time, suggesting that sorcerers do not exist, or did not exist, in this time."

Caroline interrupted him, "Get to the point, dude. Where is your tether?" The man was briefly shocked before he nodded lightly in response. "In short, we're being blackmailed by a coven of witches in the north who are simultaneously in a sort of civil war themselves. Apparently, they practice magic in secrecy in modern times, only publicly using it when they can easily get away with it. Our disturbances have made them question the need to keep it secret, with the more traditional witches concerned about how the humans would react and poach anyone that uses magic. I don't really understand it all, but we are sort of on a time crunch."

Aaron squinted softly. "Wait, if there was no magic before us, how are there witches?" The man looked at him a moment before responding. "Witches practice a different kind of magic, one that is learned rather than drawn from within. I believe they draw their power from somewhere else, but we don't know where. I don't think they have tethers since they aren't sorcerers like us." Aaron nodded in affirmation. "We'll do whatever it takes," he responded, almost as if he were saying it for the group. Caroline thought she saw the faintest of smiles from the man; she couldn't tell what was going on in his mind.

"They're demanding that we bring the government's latest technological weapon against magic to them by the day after tomorrow since it was apparently developed because of us. Unfortunately, we don't know where it is or how to get it - only that it was kept in a time safe to monitor stability and prevent any unauthorized use before today. The two you were looking for managed to stop the timer, but it won't last forever. Once they get the electrical grid up and running again, there is a short time before the weapon is tested on an unfortunate sorcerer. We have been using all the information given to us to try to stop this, but we have run out of ideas and subsequently time." The woman was looking at the horizon to her right as he spoke, dwelling on their last few days of hard work.

"I don't even care if that sociopath Felicity helps," she responded absently. "We didn't want you involved in this mess, but we didn't meet anyone else since staying low after the passage."
 
Both Miyu and Charlie looked at each other with some concern as they heard the last few words of what the mysterious woman had said, annoying Felicity was something they wanted no involvement in. But it was rather true what she had said about her- a sociopath wasn't a completely wrong way to describe her. To their surprise, Felicity smiled a little bit "I have a feeling you know what I'm capable of, that means you also know that I'd be extremely useful. So I guess that means deep down you do want me to come. Besides, I can't leave, I just told Miyu that I'll stay and, knowing her, she won't let me go back on my word." She paused and took note of Charlie's stance "Count yourself lucky not meeting anyone after the passage, I met these two and they've given me far more trouble than they're worth." The way she spoke to the woman, and indirectly Charlie, seemed to be in a patronising manner that would surely rile Charlie up if it came from anyone else. But he said nothing.

"I take it these northern witches are too plentiful for brute force to be effective without casualties." Miyu spoke but remembered something that Aaron had said earlier about how her getting hurt would really affect him. They probably didn't mind casualties occurring, so long as they got what they wanted. She hoped that she hadn't planted that idea into their heads. "Or maybe they'll just kill your tether if we used brute force, which we don't want." Felicity said pretending to be deep in thought as she tried to put them off her idea with her words. Another thing that bothered Miyu was the weapon that was intended to be used on the ancients and the so called witches, "Also, what exactly is the weapon that they want? Some sort of anti-magic device or is it just a simple killing machine." Miyu figured that this weapon would eventually need to be destroyed, and if non magic beings were immune to it then she would try and do it herself. Charlie sighed as he prepared to speak what was on his mind.

"Would it benefit us to try and seek Kale out again? He must have an idea of their whereabouts, and surely we can convince him to help us if it'll benefit him- which it will seeing as the two we were originally seeking out were delaying the use of this 'Ultimate Weapon'. Then perhaps contacting them may give us an idea of where the weapon is, they clearly know about its existence so who's to say they won't know, or at least have an idea, of where to find it. It's not like we have any other leads anyway." As far as he could tell if they tried to blindly find the weapon (regardless of if their intention was to appease the witches or just to destroy it) like they did when trying to find the original mystery duo that Kale showed them, they would fail- just like they failed back then. To him this was their only option.

"We don't have much time left though," Miyu responded "Kale is probably going to be impossible to locate." Felicity laughed aloud, interrupting her.
"It's not hard to tell when he's nearby is it? You can feel it, with all of us looking for him it won't take long." The trio stood amongst the group now waiting for a response on what their course of action would be. Miyu and Charlie were rather uneasy still about working with Felicity, she could turn on them if something went wrong. But hearing what they were up against, a weapon to end all magic users, they decided it was best to try and keep her as an ally for now. Similarly Felicity had an inkling that they didn't trust her, they didn't really have a reason to. Though she was rather surprised that the mysterious man and woman knew something about her, probably meant they didn't trust her too. But to her, if working with them meant learning more about the passage then she would do so.
 
The two looked uneasily to each other. "We thought you might have a better idea than that," the man responded plainly. "As we said, we've already been to see the shady bastard and have gotten nothing out of him," the woman snorted, her eyes cross with reminiscent anger. "Either he is absolutely opposed to our mission to stop the weapon's use, or he doesn't know. Either way, he was less than helpful aside from leaving your whereabouts. Not that he cared to mention Felicity," she grumbled the latter to herself.

"What I think she's trying to say," he chimed in, "is that we have to go back to the witches to glean more information, but we cannot just show up alone and empty handed. Chances are, that wouldn't be received well." Caroline, uncomfortable with the new arrivals, decided now was a good time to nonchalantly walk over a little closer to their new companions, or so she assumed from all their talk of planning. The woman's eyes got narrower while the man's widened in response, but not for long. Aaron hesitantly followed and got a better look at the two.

"I don't know how you would mange to find Kale, but we could always try again," the man suggested, not wanting to rule out any option. "Or we could just go beat 'em up like she said!" the woman interjected. "I'm tired of this endless fetch quest for those snobby bitches - I mean witches." She started to form almost icy gauntlets on her fists, prompting Aaron to slowly shy away from her and towards the other two. Everyone was being either belligerent, creepy, or both and he wasn't having that.

Aaron began to glow a soft yellow, much to his surprise. The man next to him glanced in his direction, smirking. "Just in case she gets any ideas," he said with a wink. Aaron nodded in appreciation for... whatever it was, but he was still apprehensive around what seemed like a half dozen girls waging war on literally anything that moved. He glanced at the woman whom he'd never met, raising his suspicions and his anxiety further. What happened to quiet days at the edge of his pond? Caroline inched her way next to him herself, telling Aaron that she'd felt the same chill.
 
"If that's the case then forget Kale, he's not going to be of any use." Felicity said lulling over the other options everyone had suggested- though she clearly had her mind set on one "I'd love to just kill them all really, let's do that. It'll be so much fun, right Charlie?" She targeted him knowing what he was like, someone who talked a big game but wasn't particularly fond of when he started to lose. Charlie pondered over this for a little while but was cut off by Miyu.
"No, they want to save their tether. Attacking them will reult in death for our side or death for their tether as a deterrence to continuing the attack if we begin to win. Either way that route is fruitless."
"Yeah I agree with Miyu. Who's to say five ancients and two humans can take on the amount of witches involved in a civil war. Kale is our only bet given we, once again, have no leads." Charlie sighed, this quest seemingly kept turning up with nothing. They just kept coming across too many mysteries and it was all starting to feel like everything they did cleared nothing up. He wanted answers and who better than the supposedly omniscient telepath to ask. Plus, if need be he was certain he could beat Kale in a fight.

"I don't think Kale would be against potentially getting his hands on a weapon that is supposed to end ancients. Maybe he's unaware of what it can do or whatever. He doesn't know everything, but you two, and only offence intended towards you Mr. Mess-up, aren't exactly the best at getting information out of anyone." Charlie said clearly talking to his two anonymous companions, almost sniggering at the man as he once again remembered and visualised how he had messed up and how his partner reacted. Miyu nodded in agreement.
"There must be some information he's withheld or something, the encounter we had with him proved he was someone that was hard to get information out of unless you had something he really wanted- threats of violence didn't work on him." She said rebounding off what Charlie had spoken of.
"Something he wanted? Like the whereabouts of the weapons and access to it?" Charlie said looking over at Miyu, it was clear that the pair were set in trying to find the telepath. Felicity sighed, she clearly wasn't so keen.

"It's less fuss just to go over there and kill the witches. You two are thinking too far ahead, the weapon we can deal with when it shows up." Felicity's tone had lost its normal unsettling playfulness, she was set on what she wanted to do too. "Let's go you two. I'll help you get your tether back in exchange for the fun I'll have doing so." She too said to the two anonymous ancients, "anyone who wants to join us can but I'm not promising you'll have the opportunity to kill them."

Miyu and Charlie said nothing in response, not knowing what she'd do if they continued to disagree with her.
"What's going on?" Charlie said looking over at Aaron who'd began to start glowing. "Is that your power buddy? To glow? I guess that's useful very situationally. Though probably not useful most of the time." Miyu rolled her eyes wishing he'd be a little less blunt with things. She noticed that the two of them looked somewhat uncomfortable.
"Are you two alright? Do you have any suggestions on what we should do?" She'd gathered Aaron was somewhat shy all the time but for Caroline to be quiet like this was unusual. Something was up with them.
 
At this point, most of them seemed to shrug off Charlie's comments without much thought. There was too much at stake for them to consider petty squabbles anyway. Aaron shifted uncomfortably at the clear dichotomy splitting the group. He looked from Caroline's unreadable expression to the man that made him slightly shiny. The man's look of concern directed mostly at his partner, whose smile told a story he obviously didn't wish for his own. "Lulu, this isn't the time for confrontation. We have to consider what Harriet said," he said carefully. "That naive girl will get what's coming to her," she replied bluntly, her eyes lazily glancing to the side. "It's not like we agree on much anyway, so why don't you take Luis with you and save me the trouble?" she asked Miyu.

She received silence as an answer from Luis, but not from Aaron. "Fine by me," he said curtly, becoming impatient with their lack of action despite the given circumstances. "Let's get started, shall we?" Without another moment to spare, his hand found Luis' wrist and began leading him back to Caroline, expecting to be on their way briefly. Caroline caught him and stood to his side. "You go on ahead. I think these two might actually get themselves killed and I would like to be able to actually learn about these witches beyond 'they do magic and we fought them' nonsense," she murmured to her companion. "Alright one more for the witch patrol I guess," she announced with an almost fatigued disposition.

Aaron wasn't quite sure what to make of her makeshift plan, but he wasn't about to argue with her stubborn personality. Lulu's eyes remained squinted as she reviewed potential strategies through her mind. Caroline glanced uneasily at her newest companions that actually bore a threat. Seeing Aaron's tether, a precious connection to have, join the other squad caused Luis to scuffle closer. The two were on their own little island just off the coast of the pacifist squad, a clear division between the groups. The glow faded from Aaron given their immediate distance from potential threats, causing Aaron to look at himself out of instinct. He looked at Luis, who seemed more relaxed now that he was no longer standing with the murder fest squad. "Well, I'm ready whenever you guys are - although I have no idea how we intend to find this guy," Luis stated to the smaller group.
 
Miyu and Charlie swiftly followed both Aaron and Luis, both of them were rather relieved to leave Felicity behind them but Charlie was somewhat worried about how Caroline would fare with her new companions. He knew Felicity was volatile and Lulu didn't exactly give off a peaceful vibe either. He was brought away from his thoughts when Luis opened his mouth to ask how they'd go about finding Kale.
"My guess is as good as yours, all I can tell you is that we'll know when he's close. Given that information the most efficient strategy would literally be to spread out and cover as much ground as possible. Problem with that is we're more vulnerable to attack individually. I wouldn't be surprised to run into someone not particularly friendly." Charlie said wondering about their options here. Finding Kale would be difficult without Felicity's insane ground coverage speed through rapid teleportation, but given Kale's hurtful aura when he is nearby it was something he deemed wouldn't be impossible.

"Where did you find him previously, Luis, is it?" Miyu asked him "and Aaron, have you had any other previous encounters with Kale other than the one where Chuck and I accompanied you? With this information of where you've all seen him maybe we can get a pattern of where his usual haunts may be and start searching those areas." Charlie had a different idea however.
"Miyu, let me use the power up. We can cover more ground that way." Miyu shook her head instantly on this idea.
"No, if we find Kale and he's not being cooperative by trying to escape then you can use it. You won't be much use if you're passed out when we find him." Charlie was going to respond but decided that there was no need for any verbal conflict between them. They'd find him with or without the use F his ultimate.
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"Oh welcome to our little group,
you probably already figured but I'm Felicity. Since you've been with Charlie I'm sure you've heard of me beforehand, hopefully he didn't say anything too bad." Felicity said with a small smile as she saw Caroline walking towards them to join up with them. She wasn't overjoyed to see Caroline as she hadn't been so forward with wanting to attack the witches, unlike herself and Lulu. Felicity thought she might get in the way.
"Well since you know where they are then you might as well lead the way." Felicity said glancing over at Lulu, her tone eager to get going and begin the slaughter. She chuckled to herself quietly as a smile grew on her face, she hadn't been able to do anything out of the ordinary ever since she was dumped into this time by the passage, unlike her life before it where she spent a good deal of it terrorising others. Conforming to the rules of this time's society was draining on her, this was the perfect outlet for her.
 
Luis shrugged. "I suspect that he would be in this area or in Central. From what I understand, North, East, and South are all occupied by other factions." Aaron looked at him and raised his eyebrows. "Other factions?" "I really don't know much else other than the witches are a fairly obvious faction that I am most concerned with." Aaron nodded. "He likes quite places where he can focus more with his mind than with any of his other senses. Maybe there's something around here like that, but I would be damned if I knew. This whole place is so dense with people it would be a wonder if he was. Then again, Central is metropolitan too..."

"What about the beach?" Aaron inquired. Luis' dubious look gave him pause. "Think about it. People wouldn't be there if it gets cold or dark, the sounds of the waves and the birds are fairly constant and considered soothing, and some parts are restricted from public access. All that and it's in a place not even we as people intentionally seeking him would look." Luis nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "I suppose it couldn't hurt. Do you know where it is?" Aaron shook his head. "I only heard about it through Caroline."

"Will you take us Miyu?" Aaron asked, his brainstorming session over. Luis' eyes remained on Aaron a few moments longer before looking up at Miyu in anticipation.


Lulu glanced at Felicity and Caroline, then nodded lightly. She wore a somewhat blank expression as she silently made her way to the streets and on her way to the coven. Caroline was soon to follow, making sure to keep up as best she could.

---

As the crowds thinned and the architecture more resembled the Victorian era, Lulu slowed into a cautious pace. "They could be anywhere around here. They know what I look like so I doubt they'll be long." She paused for a moment. "It feels so - strange around here. Perhaps I was in the heat of the moment earlier," she commented, mostly to herself. Caroline silently looked at Lulu, then back to the buildings. The area was weirdly quiet compared to the bustle of the dense crowds. Now with sparse citizens scurrying about, she no longer felt the same safety as she had in the sea of many. It was almost too exposing.

"And how do we plan to proceed with this plan?" Caroline thought aloud. Lulu did not answer, but started to look around more frequently. Caroline, instinctively, did but did not see anything particularly out of the ordinary. Then she way a strange, black cylinder on a sidewalk. "What is that?" she asked, pointing to the object. Lulu followed her gaze and stopped. "I have no idea," she replied flatly. It didn't look particularly interesting to her, but Caroline felt uneasy about its ominous presence. "Well I've certainly never seen anything like it," she murmured. Lulu shrugged and kept walking.
 
"The beach? Sure, there no harm in trying. Luckily it's not too far away." She said as she walked off before anyone else, leading the way for her little group to their sandy destination. "Aaron are you aware of why some parts are closed off?" Miyu said as the group continued to move forward "I've heard things about tides coming in higher and faster in certain parts making drowning a serious hazard there, I've also heard cases about missing people who were supposedly last seen on that beach. It's pretty freaky, it's like the ocean is sentient and trying to catch people or something." Miyu didn't really think much about those reports and always assumed it was just a coincidence, but a second reason on why those areas were closed off was something she wanted. Plus conversation was always nice.
---
Soon enough their ragtag group of three ancients and a human ended up on the beach. It was getting pretty dark outside now, the beach was virtually deserted as Miyu felt a rather chilly breeze blow by on the exposed areas of her face.
"No sign of that telepathic moron or his lackey." Charlie said scanning the area after levitating himself off the ground to get a better look.
"The restricted areas are close by, let's g-" Miyu cut herself off when she noticed what seemed like a person floating on the sea in the distance, it motionless in the quiet water. "Is that person okay?" Miyu said pointing the floater out. Charlie floated himself over the the body and looked at it for a while before coming back.
"She looks asleep, I even prodded her a few times but she wouldn't budge, but that's probably not a good place to sleep." Charlie said nonchalantly on his return.
"If she's asleep then we better bring her over here. She could drown or float off into the distance." Miyu responded.
"Well. Miyu, Aaron, Mr. Mess-up. It's up to you, wanna disturb her sleep for her safety? Because I don't wanna be yelled at for doing the right thing." Charlie glanced over at the other two ancients and his tether as he said this. "you guys go help her." Miyu rolled her eyes and immediately got into the water and began to swim to the girl. "One of you two go help her, I'm not gonna delay our search for Kale for this." Charlie said floating away from the group
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Felicity followed the group through their new surroundings. She wasn't really interested in getting anything from the witches. Initially she had hoped that in exchange for help Lulu would give her more information about the passage but now her main motive was based off wanting to survive. The witches and the weapon that they wanted to acquire was a threat to that. Though, like the others, she was feeling more uneasy about their chances with the suddenly ominous atmosphere. "The plan is based on how many show up initially, probably to confront Lulu here about her possession of the weapon they want, I either teleport us all away from here to safety or we destroy them." Her voice was very soft and quiet, only loud of enough for her two companions to hear clearly. She had said 'they' but really she was willing to cut her losses and just save herself if necessary.

She too was darting her eyes around the progressively eerie location, the time of day didn't exactly boost her confidence either. The prominence of shadows made escape easier for her but the lack of a bright light source meant she couldn't attack anywhere near her full potential.
"Afraid I'm not sure what that thing is either." Felicity said eyeing the black cylinder. It didn't look hostile but it was certainly odd. She was curious about it though. So, utilising her abilities, Felicity's shadow seemed to expand on the ground, covering up the surrounding dimly lit ground with a shadow of pitch black. From that shadow emerged a small black hand, with that appendage she prodded the cylinder a few times, waiting to see if there was a reaction from it.
 
Aaron squinted his eyes in an attempt to focus his sight on the blob beyond. He wasn't sure what to make of such a seemingly random occurrence, but he certainly did not share Charlie's indifference on the matter. From what Miyu stated earlier, it seemed as though this could be one of those bizarre occurrences happening around these parts. If he knew anything, there was a 50% chance this was magic related considering nothing nowadays has been coincidence.

"I guess I'll stay here since I don't mind getting wet. That and I'd like to know what's going on. Why don't you go with Charlie?" Aaron suggested, glancing at Luis. Without waiting for a response, he began walking into the tide, mostly to gain a little distance towards Miyu should she need help. Instead of following suit, Luis shook his head. "Given these trying times, splitting further will only decrease our safety further. It's a dangerous era in our lives, as well as a dangerous time of day. I find it foolish to spread ourselves too thin," he responded candidly, not bothering to hush his voice in such a location. Aaron glanced back at him with a dubious visage. "I'm sure we'll be fine. It's not like we're defenseless." Luis closed his eyes. "I'm not leaving you again, and that's my final decision," he replied tersely.

Aaron's eyes briefly widened at such conviction, but he only nodded in response. It was clear to him that this was a battle he would never win, and there was no point in redirecting his focus away from Miyu's mission. "What if I traded you? You could always stay here while I go-" "Not happening," Luis interrupted, his arms crossed to signal his closed attitude. "And you," Luis continued over his shoulder, "feel free to do what you want, but we're staying right here." Aaron simply stared on into the waves with no response.


Caroline eyed the magic suspiciously and with high regard as her muscles tensed in response. This certainly wasn't the bunch of flowers she was used to, and even then it was still strange to see even after all the time she'd known Aaron. Lulu was less affected by the situation, casually leaning on one leg and crossing her arms in an indifferent stance. Once nothing happened, she gave it another few seconds before calling it. "Well that was a fine red herring wasn't it?" she declared, huffing lightly to herself. "Time to move on," she followed up curtly. Caroline glanced at her with bewilderment. "We're just going to ignore something new and might I add suspicious in a time like this?" "You betcha," Lulu replied, already rearing to go.

"Can't you do something to interact with it?" Caroline pointed out. "Quite frankly, I doubt anything I do would be of any help. And besides, even if it did trigger some sort of effect, would we really want to risk finding out first hand?" Caroline's silence provided Lulu with all the validation she needed. "Thought so. Now can we-" she stopped, and her head immediately snapped to look down the street. "She's here."

A woman, appearing to be somewhere in her 30s, rounded the corner and walked silently towards them. She bore exotic clothing that almost made her look like a gypsy, a scarf flapping in the breeze behind her. Despite the lowering sun, a pair of large sunglasses complimented a neutral expression. Her casual strut almost made her seem disinterested by the strange group of women before her.
 
"Do what I want? Great! See ya." Charlie rushed off in a hurry, disregarding Luis' whole safety in numbers concept. He had considered just levitating one of them and force them to be with him but he figured it'd be more hassle than it'd be worth. Miyu had already reached the girl who was floating on the water, she was still but her stomach movements implied breathing. She was clearly asleep, Miyu questioned how Charlie didn't make this observation before remembering how little he cared about this girl. The girl herself was rather young looking, older than Miyu herself but younger than Felicity- perhaps twenty. Her skin had been darkened from its suspposedly lighter shade through tanning and she possessed a very slim build. Her obviously artificially blue hair seemed rather well kept, though obviously the hair on the back of her head had been misplaced by the water. She wore a flowing, knee-length blue skirt and a backless blue halter crop top that tied into a blue sash ribbon on the back of her shoulders. The clothes didn't look very casual at all. Miyu theorised she was an ancient because of it.

That theory was confirmed when a huge pillar of water shot up from underneath Miyu and engulfed her whole body from her neck down. Miyu tried to swim away but there seemed to be an absurdly powerful current keeping her in the pillar. Miyu's eyes followed the once sleeping girl, her eyes weren't closed anymore and she was now standing up straight, her feet on the surface on the water. She too rose up on a pillar of water, though this mysterious girl was standing on the pillar, until the two of them were eye level with each other.
"I heard you on the sand, you're looking for someone." The girl studied Miyu's appearance "your clothes...aren't normal," her tone was rather uncomfortable despite her position in this situation. Her eyes rather quickly flicked to Aaron and Luis standing on the beach and back to Miyu again, the girl's expression was one of fear and in an even shakier and tired voice she spoke "I knew it, Jerome followed me. Why can't you witches just leave me alone!"
"J-Jerome?" Miyu spluttered in confusion, this only seemed to anger the girl. In response she forced the pillar of water holding Miyu to jolt to the side speedily as removed the current keeping her in place, this flung Miyu far away from land.

She turned her attention to Aaron and Luis on the shore, "You made a big mistake Jerome. Coming to chase me here in my element!" She said in anger as she walked towards them, pillars of water appearing under her feet with each step. When she had gotten a bit closer she summoned another pillar from the sea and forcefully moved it forward, trying to hit the duo of ancients.
________________________________________________________________________________________

Felicity eyed the newcomer, she didn't dissipate the shadowy hand on the cylinder and instead moved it to rest upon a stone behind her. Thrown with enough force and making impact with the right place and this stone would probably be able to knock someone out or injure them seriously- Felicity wasn't willing to take any risks with any of the witches around here. "Perhaps it was a distraction," Felicity continued, looking directly at the newcomer but otherwise acting as if she wasn't there. A few more small shadowy shapes appeared at Felicity's feet, some hands and other just simple seemingly sharp tentacle like appendages. They were small enough to signal that she wasn't going to make the first move but their presence signalled a warning at the very least.

"Can you tell us what that cylinder over there is? I'm guessing you'll know." Felicity asked with some bravado in her tone, she showed no intention of acting afraid- she began plotting a way to do the most damage with the stone she intended to throw as she waited for in inevitable conflict between the two parties to arise.
 
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Aaron's head tilted in a mixture of confusion and thought while Luis' eyes glowered in suspicion. Neither of them predicted Miyu's misfortune, both in initial shock from such a peaceful scene turning violent in the snap of a finger. The girl was much more threatening than either of them had anticipated, vindicating Luis' suspicions. Her swift movements caused their predictions of what they should do to minimize the damage to fluctuate rapidly.

As soon as she approached, Luis pivoted and locked his arms around Aaron. His back emitted a soft glow as he clenched his eyes shut and braced for the impact. A nearby seagull swooped and squawked loudly, its cry heard barely above the torrent. Just before it arrived, Aaron caught on to what was happening and grabbed Luis in return, pressing his face into Luis' collarbone.

The force knocked the two back further into shore, forcing them to release their grips and fall onto the wet sand. Aaron coughed up some ocean water he had the misfortune of inhaling, taking a moment to regather himself. He looked over at Luis' barely moving body and paused for a few moments in his daze. Once the ringing in his ears subsided, he shuffled over to him and checked for vital signs, though he did not know what he was looking for. "Luis? Are you okay? Can you hear me?" he asked frantically, not sure how to handle such a critical situation. His eyes searching wildly for something he could do, he barely noticed the man's eye open slightly.

Luis smiled bleakly, "You always were concerned about me; that's what I loved about you," he muttered. Aaron's face fell from alarmed to relieved all the way to unsure. "Wait, what?" he asked. Luis gave no response as he fell back into his previously unresponsive state. Aaron stood up, now aware of his companion's at least decent health. He swiveled his head to face back into the ocean, eyes narrowed.

His arms rose slightly as he held his flat palms up. As he raised them, his fingers curled, causing the ground around him to become supernaturally fertile. Flowers of multiple colors sprung up, mostly the colors of deep violet lilies and yellow daffodils. "You wanna hurt my friends? How about we make it personal?" he yelled, his voice unwavering and unrelenting. His left hand yanked up in a fist, causing a group of daffodils to rip out of the ground. With no hesitation, he pushed them towards the girl in a shotgun-shell of pointed stems to rain down on her.


The woman barely made any indication that Felicity was heard at all. "Now do my eyes deceive me or is that Lulu? I almost didn't see you what with you blending into the shadows so well." Lulu's nose twitched in aggravation of the woman's comment, but didn't respond otherwise. "You and I both know that taking on the humans alone was a task too far for me. Why bother putting your faith in me when you don't have faith you can take them yourself?" Lulu challenged.

The woman simply stared at her for a few moments. "First off, you weren't alone. We sent that tall dark and handsome fella with you too, yes? Don't tell me you already got him offed?" Lulu's patience with the woman was already wearing thin, and already showing. Caroline ran her hand down Lulu's back a few times in a forceful yet gentle manner. "Even if we wanted to, we couldn't make it past their security. We don't have the appropriate abilities to do so and you know it. Isn't there some ritual or potion that would at least help?"

The woman responded swiftly, "Look, if we thought it would be easier to do it ourselves, we would have. The most we got is a recipe for invisibility potions, but even that would take a considerable amount of time and resources we simply don't have. We both know you have some sort of hierarchy within your faction, so why can't you just go to the top?" Lulu looked at her bewildered. "What? The elders? Literally none of us even know who they are, let alone where or what they're capable of!" Her bewilderment with the wild assumptions the witches made now showed unimpeded.

"You have some new friends at the very least. Surely something you have is sufficient for getting the job done. Figure it out," she retorted. She began fishing around in her bag for something, then produced a pocketwatch. "We don't have time for you to complain. You've clearly been busy, but if you stop gaining momentum, you'll never succeed. We're all running out of time."
 
The girl was rather unamused by what Aaron had to say, though what seemed to break her concentration was Aaron's ability. She wasn't used to seeing a witch with an ability that was activated almost instantaneously, causing her to pause a bit and doubt that she had the right target. Whilst it distracted her a little she came back to reality just in time to drop the pillars holding her up and fall into the water- avoiding the attack. She resurfaced but didn't attack again, instead only brining up a wall of water in front of her to protect her from any other projectiles.
"Are you Jerome?" She stuttered annoyed and slightly guilty sounding. She stood on the water waiting a response before she was struck by a clump of sand being forced towards her, Charlie appeared beside Aaron.
"So this is the girl Miyu wanted to save huh? Looks like you ended up being the one who needed saving, Mr. Mess-up was no help as I can see." Charlie said to Aaron, he had been made aware of her presence and threat by the loud sounds of their battle on the beach, he turned to the girl. "You're lucky I can't find anything but sand here brat, but perhaps that's all I need to bring someone as weak as you down." The girl dropped her expression of guilt.

She looked at Charlie with an unimpressed demeanour before turning to Aaron again, "you're even using children now? Brainwashing them into helping your voracious hunger for power Jerome? You're supposed to be human, but there is no humanity in what you do!" Charlie scoffed after she had finished.
"Gosh, Jerome? What're you even talking about?." He said aloud before moving eighty kilograms worth of sand over her, trying to crush her under it- but this attack was far too telegraphed and the girl formed another protective barrier above her head and slowed the sand's fall before getting out of its way. With a grit of his teeth Charlie figured ranged attacks wouldn't work with such a large body of water nearby, he hovered over to her and tried to fight her with melee attacks, she simply put a large bubble of water around him before he could reach her and left him in there, currents from the inside of the bubble keeping him in place. He was drowning in there. She ignored his presence after that and turned her attention to Aaron once more.

"Enough with your underlings, and how dare you have the audacity to call them friends. You don't have a clue what a friend is Jerome. You use people, you used me!" Charlie had clearly put her in an angrier state than before he arrived, she was no longer questioning Aaron's identity. "I'm going to give you one chance, because I'm not a monster like you are- stop following me. I don't want anything to do with your stupid witch cult, I don't want any 'power' that you can promise me, I don't want to hurt anyone anymore. Just please Jerome, get out of my sight..." Her wrathful passionate tone had trailed off the more she talked, though it seemed like she wouldn't hesitate to attack Aaron if he didn't oblige. She looked over at Charlie and sighed, she undid Charlie's bubble and dropped him to the ground where he spluttered and gasped for air. He could barely move with the amount of pain he was in. Originally she intended to suffocate him but she couldn't bring herself to do it. "What's it going to be? You keep going and try to get rid of me or you take your witches and leave?" Her tone was stern yet shaky, she stood plainly on the water again, awaiting a response whilst definitely moving Miyu over to the shore.
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Felicity withdrew her shadowy appendages, the elders were always a topic she didn't like to think about. She had never met one but she had no doubt that their power would dwarf anything she could do. This didn't bode too well with her and the mere mention of them was wearing her patience thin. It was clear that this older woman had no interest in anyone but Lulu and that they were wasting their time here if they weren't going to attack. "Why don't you accompany us? You sound like you want this task completed too. It'll go faster with all of us contributing." Given how this woman had presented herself Felicity had about zero expectations for her to agree to this, but she hoped that the woman did agree and came alone. They could use her as cannon fodder or at least elimate her once they got the weapon.

"You and I both know that trying to contact the elders would be too risky and would take too much time, if those who are impeding the tasks' completion are only humans then surely we can take them down as a group. How many witches do you have at your disposal?" Felicity was still trying to get some information about their northern group too, the idea of an attack on them wasn't completely out of the picture, or at least that's what she hoped. She thought about the elders again, wondering if Charlie or Miyu knew anything about them or their location. She was going to ask Caroline if Aaron had mentioned anything about them before but thought it to be too suspicious looking in front of their new adversary.
 
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Aaron wasn't too thrilled that Charlie threw in his input where it wasn't needed or wanted, but he was in no mood to argue with the people who were supposed to be on his side on top of the weird witchy woman. Now wasn't the time to deal with that anyway; the conversation could wait for when a less volatile conversation was over. He reasoned that the woman was too hysterical to actually listen to him regardless of what he said, so he resigned to taking his team and leaving this previously peaceful area.

Without a word, he turned and trotted over to Miyu (who is definitely on shore). He knelt down and inspected her vital signs to make sure urgent care wasn't particularly necessary, then tried his best to lift her. He wasn't too strong, so he grabbed her under her arms and clumsily dragged her inland. Luis was finally up and about, though he was not in too stellar a condition. He grabbed Charlie and threw him over his shoulder, taking him to follow Aaron in a smoother transition.

Once they were out of sight of the ocean, the two silently set their comrades on the ground with no sounds aside from the distant ocean waves. Luis inspected the two more carefully, making sure everything was fine. In his opinion, they were generally okay. He put them both on their sides in case they started coughing up water since he couldn't be sure whether or not they swallowed any.

"So.... plants?" Luis asked simply, glancing up at Aaron. He nodded lightly. "It's not a whole lot, but I at least like the way they look. I've been experimenting with different toxins so they might be actually useful in the real world." Luis took a moment to process. "Well if it makes you feel better, I'm not very offensive either. I'm basically a human shield," he joked, trying to smile in light of the circumstances. "Lulu was always the power behind our duo. We actually work really well when we aren't arguing or otherwise. What about the other two?" Aaron shrugged. "I'm not sure but Charlie levitated or whatever. Who knows."


The woman stared at Felicity for a few moments, only blinking. "Your elders are prophesied to wield almost absolute power in your time. There's no doubting that their powers are still considerable even in our time. I don't care which one you find; any will do. and can't you connect with them somehow? There has to be a network of some sort; we know there is," she explained sternly and clearly.

Lulu interrupted her before she could keep babbling on. "We don't have that kind of power and if you think we do, you probably don't know anything true about us. As we've established, we don't practice the same kind of magic. And I've noticed that you're still trying to pin this on us like it's our responsibility to take care of the people from your time. Not ours, yours." "But it's the people from your time that got us into this mess in the first place. We can no longer practice real magic without it being at risk of being on every government radar from here to the capital," she shot back as if she already knew how to respond to such a claim.

"We can't just look aimlessly if we have a deadline, and I think you know that," Caroline interjected, not willing to see hostilities turn to violence. "Can't you at least tell us where to go?" she asked, trying to be as neutral as possible. The woman inspected her carefully before tsk'ing. "We could do some sort of locator spell, but it might not be accurate since there are many major sources of magic here," she warned, almost hesitantly. Caroline nodded immediately. "We would be grateful for the assist," she responded before either of the other two could. "Follow me," she said curtly, beckoning them to follow as she walked down the alley. Caroline glanced at the other two, and they began their journey to find the elders.
 
Miyu started coughing up a some water before sitting up surprisingly swiftly and taking in the different surroundings. They were no longer at the shoreline, and more importantly, no longer interacting with that violent ancient. She looked back at the distant ocean, she thought she could make out a distant figure sitting cross legged atop the ocean. But Miyu quickly took her attention away from that, hazily remembering what happened to her. She looked beside herself to see Charlie laying there still. She sighed knowing what had happened to him without even asking about it.
"Well, I take it we shouldn't go over there to look for Kale." She said rather jokingly in an attempt to lighten the mood noticing Aaron's rather blank expressionless face."At least we know where to lead the people who try to use this ultimate weapon on you guys, sharing a common enemy with her would be amazing." She said mostly thinking out loud at this point before she jerked her head to face Charlie who was coughing rather violently, she was about to help him get it all out when he stopped and sat up sluggishly almost in a daze.

"Okay...new plan. We go over there and rush her all at once. I don't care how much water there is, we can take her. C'mon." Charlie said struggling to get up, Miyu put her hand on his head and forced him down again, she could tell even from his attempt to stop himself getting pushed down that he was feeling really weak.
"No, there's no point. There's no way we can beat her on the ocean and even if we could what's the outcome?"
"Revenge?" Charlie said monotonously, as if he was pointing out the obvious.
"Yes, but pointless revenge. Let's just carry on looking for Kale and avoid the beach." Before Charlie had a chance to disagree heavily there was a rather expressive voice behind the group.
"Kale? Oho, it seems we're looking for the same guy." The man who was speaking behind them resembled Aaron quite accurately. From his build to his face and hair colour, everything. It was uncanny, the only real difference was that this mystery man looked a bit older- around mid to late twenties at most. The duo looked at him with some suspicion. Miyu didn't want anything to do with this man instinctively, but on a deeper level she was intrigued by how he knew of Kale and knew that their situation was pretty desperate- they needed all the help they could get.

"Who are you?" Miyu asked only to be greeted with a smile.
"That's not important right now," he fished in his pocket for a while, only breaking eye contact with Miyu to look at his phone. "What's important is that my companions tell me they've found Kale, and he's close by too. You guys wanna see him? I suggest you follow me." He said walking off, clearly not waiting for them. While Miyu wasn't sure if they should trust him or not she considered following him, knowing this might be their best chance to see him. Charlie was rather indifferent as he wasn't really listening, he was still redundantly thinking about fighting the woman on the beach. Miyu looked at her other two companions rather bewildered.
"Well? We going?" The Man's voice called from a distance, he was still in sight but if a decision wasn't made soon he'd be gone for good.
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Felicity was kind of enjoying the conflict, it was amusing to watch the arguments stem both from underlying desperate feelings. She didn't enjoy how the woman seemed to have no interest in her, but quite frankly she assumed it was because of the very limited time slot they had for their task as well as her want for it to be done as soon as possible. The woman seemed to be very keen on finding the elders despite being told multiple times no one had their location and Caroline seemed very keen on being nice and polite with this woman. Strange of someone who came to the group who literally aimed to come and destroy these witches.

She shared Caroline's glance for a moment before following the little group down the alleyway. After walking in silence for a little bit and a few thoughts floating around in her mind she spoke "Say we're able to find one of the Elders, how exactly are we going to get them to help us out? I doubt we'll be able to use force on any of them given what they can supposedly do and I honestly don't know if anything the government has been doing concerns them or not." She was concerned about where this task was going, from a simple murder mission against a group they should've been able to steamroll to an encounter with a being with unknown intent and extreme power. Her life was being put at risk for this mission far more than she intended to be. But she wanted to learn more about the passage and that was the reason she was helping in the first place, she also wondered when the information Charlie said Lulu and Luis had about the passage would be passed onto her. But she didn't ask anything about that at the moment as she didn't want to get too far ahead of herself. There were problems they had to deal with first before she could even think about the passage.
 
Aaron and Luis exchanged glances, not quite sure how to feel about the abruptness of the man's entrance. Aaron was concerned that the man said nothing of himself, and Luis questioned why they would give their trust to someone they just met after their previous engagement. "W-wait, didn't we just get out of a fiasco a few moments ago? Can't we afford to take a break?" Aaron argued, not willing to go into potential danger with their defenses weakened. Luis nodded. "I really can't believe that after all we've gone through that we would blindly trust someone who has almost no credibility or identity," he pointed out, his eyebrows raised and his arms crossed. "Besides, we have a duty to make sure that you're okay before we do anything too rash," he added, sternly suggesting that neither of them would be fighting fit just because they woke up.

Aaron watched the man walk away without a care in the world and instinctively took a step. Luis grabbed his arm and held firm, preventing any further steps. In response, Aaron simply retracted his foot and stood silently next to his Latino companion. "I say we let him go for now. After all, the girls are working on getting to the source of the witches anyway. I'd rather be prepared as backup in case they find us in need instead of risking our own safety for the sake of potential guidance from a sketchy person in an unknown place we don't know anything about after following a stranger at night in the midst of a magical civil war."


Caroline shrugged silently, she herself unaware of how any of this worked. Lulu stayed silent as well, her eyes boring into the witch. After a short time following her, they arrived in a plaza almost completely enclosed by buildings with nothing but a small fountain at its center. Caroline looked around at the grey bricked architecture and scrunched up her face in confusion. "Why are we here? This doesn't look like it's going to be any help," she asked, her face still frowning. Lulu nodded in agreement. "Yes, this does seem fairly peculiar. Why are we here?" she asked cautiously, still untrusting of almost everyone.

"Well, if you must know, I'm not taking you to residence due to obvious reasons," she shot back, eying each of them with regard. "This will have to do for neutral ground in the meantime. Now, I'm going to need something from you," she announced as she stepped closer to them. Caroline flinched and Lulu tensed in anticipation. The witch lifted her hand and plucked a hair from Lulu's head. "OW!" she yelped, not expecting the witches actions. "Why?" she asked plainly, her pride recovering from such a feeble yell. "I need something magical to scry for," she replied plainly. With a snap of her finger, a workbench appeared in the plaza with presumably whatever she needed to scry.

She snipped off a small piece of hair and put it onto a large piece of parchment paper that had a grey dust scattered around it. She held her hands over the parchment and concentrated on the dust. The wind howled and blew through the plaza, whisking the girls' hair with it. The breeze settled over the parchment and began to move the dust into intricate patterns. Once it was complete, a star made of the dust was left on the parchment. "Well that doesn't seem right. It's as if they're-" "Hiya!" a shrill voice called from behind. Caroline and Lulu whipped around in astonishment to find a girl of about 7 years old beaming up at them. "I'm Father Time! Nice to meet you!" she announced, still overjoyed for an unknown reason.
 
"Sounds reasonable." Miyu said agreeing with Aaron and Luis, they were in no condition to fight at their full strength and this man supposedly had others with him- their chances of being able to defend themselves if he turned out to be a liar and just wanting to attack them was very very low.
"HEY GUY GET BACK HERE!" Charlie yelled over to the leaving man, no doubt leaving the whole group bewildered by his decision. Miyu visibly showed her confusion and annoyance as Charlie said this by clenching her forehead with her hand and sighing. The man stopped and turned back around and walked back to the group.
"Mmhmm?" He said rather less jovially than he was before "you changed your mind?"
"No no, I just wanted to tell you that we saw someone on the beach also looking for Kale. I'm gonna assume the reason you asked us if we wanted to join you was for extra muscle just in case the telepathic bastard tried anything funny. So if you need muscle, go over to the beach." The man gave what Charlie said some thought before nodding with a smile and walking off to the beach.

When he had walked far enough Charlie laughed quite loudly knowing what was probably going to happen to the man, Miyu shook her head and looked at Charlie with an annoyed expression knowing what was going to happen too.
"Before you ask why, Miyu, I did it to eliminate competition. So long as his companions have located Kale then we can go and find him at our leisure, we also know we're in the right place."
"We don't know if he was telling the truth or not Chuck. Also, that poor man is going to be killed." Miyu said rather plainly, trying to get Charlie to empathise. He shrugged and laughed again as a response.
"Oh well, his fault. Maybe if he had a better haircut I wouldn't have sent him to a deathtrap," He glanced at Aaron realising they had the same haircut. "Your hair is great." He said to Aaron after his revelation. Afterwards he stood and stretched his body out a little. He turned to Luis before speaking again.
"Well we could sit here and wait for the competent member of your duo, Aaron's aggressive tether and that shadowy sociopath to call for help or we could get some answers from a nearby Kale. I'm up for Kale, Miyu you're up for Kale right?" She shook her head. She wanted to rejuvenate her energy, but characteristically Charlie ignored her silent protests, she went with it knowing he wasn't going to hush if she didn't- hoping one of the boys could get him to shut up and sit down. "Sounds great Miyu, what about you two? Aaron? Mr Mess-up?"
____________

"What even," Felicity muttered in confusion as she saw the girl behind her claiming to be the dumulation of an abstract concept. This girl was rather unnerving, the joyful expression and tone didn't sit right with her. She was going to turn back to the woman to ask what the girl was but instead she concluded that she wouldn't get much of a response. Instead she looked back at the child with a far more friendly demeanour than normal "Hello there Father Time, nice to meet you too" Felicity said in the same softer tone she used to speak to the students at the primary school she worked at "do you want to tell me who and what you are really? A witch? An ancient?" She questioned. She knew that children could be ancients, she had had her abilities for as long as she could remember and Charlie was living proof of an ancient child. Whilst a watch was a possibility it seemed unlikely that was the case, she probably wouldn't have had to be summoned in such an intricate way if that were the case.

Felicity was put on edge by this girl's sudden intervention. As much as she wanted to just attack and carry out their original plan to end the confusion the trio must've all been feeling right now Felicity decided to wait just a little longer just so they could milk the witches for their resources, ideas and information. She patiently waited, with her hands on her knees and her stance bent over to move her head closer to Father Time's, for a response.
 
Aaron glanced nervously at Luis, trying to gauge if he had any support in his decision. Luis didn't need to reciprocate to finalize his decision. His eyes glowered at Charlie, ignoring the man almost entirely. "Look, we can't just do whatever and expect everything to turn out fine. You just tried that not five minutes ago and look where that got you. This isn't a game, and you can't treat it like it is. This is real, and so are the consequences for making a wrong move," he said sternly, an all serious tone surrounding him. Aaron's eyes lit up at such a deterministic response, but he had nothing of particular interest to add.

[/divide=thick][/divide]

The two girls almost didn't respond to such an entrance, certainly not expecting someone else to be here in a ghastly vacant part of town. Or at least it seemed fairly vacant. The witch said nothing and reserved herself solely to observing. "What's with the sudden change in attitude," Lulu murmured to Caroline. Caroline shrugged, but didn't mutter back.

"That's really cute of you! You're almost precious!" the little girl insisted, her eyes lighting up in excitement with a hint of mischief. "And I already told you, I'm Father Time. You even said it yourself!" she huffed indignantly. "I'd think that name carried a little more weight around here, don't you?" she asked, her ever standing smile directly contrasting with the atmosphere of an empty plaza with minimal sounds at dusk.

"Wouldn't you rather now why I'm really here?" she inquired, to which Lulu immediately nodded her head. Caroline stepped forward, though she wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to say. "That would be nice. I for one am very curious," she responded gently. The girl looked at her jubilantly in a way that almost reminded Caroline of a song she'd never heard. "Yay! Well, sort of," she said, though her face fell slightly to a perplexed expression. "You see, I've seen something rather strange that I felt you should warn you about. It seems as though the seekers are coming. Here."

Before any of them could respond, the witch behind them started positioning her materials on her table and threw a ball at it. It was sent up into smoke, then disappeared. "Yeah okay thanks for the tip. Time for me to prepare then," she said in a rushed pace as she made her way past the group and down the corridor. "What a weenie!" she girl proclaimed, her giggle back and as strong as ever.
 
"Well one day we're not gonna have a choice and we're gonna regret not taking her out, I guarantee it!" Charlie declared and was about to make another point before he was cut off by the sound of footsteps again. Fast footsteps. It was the man again, scurrying from the beach, trying to dodge shots of water being blasted at him with full force. Charlie and Miyu were extremely alert at the situation, knowing very well who had followed the man. The woman from the beach was floating above him, standing on a large semicircle platform of water. The fighting duo were quite close to the group.
"You're not getting away that easy Jerome, honestly I thought you'd put up more of a fight." She said almost arrogantly before blasting him again. He barely dodged in time, he was only struck in his right shoulder which pushed him back, he muttered some sort of sentence before a darkly coloured purple chain attached to the ground shot up and wrapped itself around the girl. She struggled for a little bit and the man ran away- straight towards the group.

The man had a scowl on his face. "You bastard!" He roared at Charlie as he reached them before muttering the same sentence as before and binding Charlie in the same chain. "You knew she was there didn't you! Didn't yo-" Miyu had already got up and swiftly kicked him square in the gut, winding him and cutting him off. She was still not in a prime condition to fight but in that moment she had adrenaline rushing through her, it almost negated her fatigue. The man grunted and was knocked off the ground as the chain around Charlie dissipated into nothing. Miyu stood there ready to fight but only saw the man curse under his breath as he looked back at the water woman, her chain had dissipated too. She was already looking for him and it wouldn't the long till she found him.
"You guys have to help me, you got me into this mess!" He pleaded desperately, already on his knees. He was scared for his life. Charlie looked over at the man with a sense of pride before using his telekinesis to lift his legs up and effectively throw him into the ground. The man didn't respond aggressively and just kept pleading.
"Ha, shut up moron. I'm not gonna help you fight her. You're on your own." Charlie said arrogantly, this didn't stop the man who focused his pleas over to Miyu, Luis and Aaron.

"That woman is hysterical. She'll come over here and attack all of us." Miyu said to Charlie trying to get him to change his mind, he didn't respond. "I don't know what's going on here but she's very capable of killing, I'd rather not watch this man die. I say we run." She said to the group, the man excitedly responded.
"Running won't work. We need to deal with Lacey now. She's further from the water so she's not going to be as strong. Lacey needs that platform she's on to actually attack us with water, we can beat her if we just keep her here." Miyu looked over at Aaron and Luis after hearing his words. Miyu was curious as to how he knew what she assumed to be the woman's name and of the history, if any, between them but now wasn't the time for that.
"What do you guys want to do?" She asked "whatever it is we need to do it quick." Miyu said as she had turned her head to see that the woman was looking in their direction.


Felicity was completely baffled by the situation at hand. There was a young girl claiming to be the personification of an abstract concept created by humans speaking of some sort of seekers.
"Would you mind telling us what seekers are Father Time?" She said still rather suspicious about this girl. She didn't really feel safe in her presence. Although she seemed jovial and harmless Felicity didn't trust her for a second. Someone parading around as a child calling them Father Time and not really worrying about a seemingly dangerous event that she had foretold.

She turned to her companions "don't you think we're getting a little off track here?" She asked wondering why none of them had seemed to question it yet, "I mean if the time limit for our task is so important then why are we are here standing around and preparing for some seekers instead of carrying out the task. I hope the others have made some progress with finding Kale at least, because to be honest I'm not sure what's going on." It's not that she was getting annoyed, just impatient and confused. she also said this as a sort of test for Father Time, she wanted to see how she'd respond to some negativity without directly threatening her.

Felicity didn't know what was coming but one thing she did know was it was bad if that aloof woman from before had fled at the mention of the seekers.
 
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