A/N - A couple more snippets yet to come, but first we'll have a few regular chapters to keep things moving!

I wasn't sure where this final rift exit was supposed to take us, honestly. After everything I'd been through in all those other rifts, then that rush of getting to the Fomorian homeworld to grab those survivors and escape, I hadn't really had much time to think about it. Were we about to end up in my actual present day, or back in the spot and time where we'd gone through the original rift with Ehn (it felt like a million years ago in my own chronology), or somewhere and when else? I didn't know. All I knew, just as I passed through the rift, was that we had to get the hell out of there before Cronus did something that none of us would either like, or be able to stop.

In the end, once I came through that rift and made it to the other side, I… still wasn't sure when or where we were. Not yet, anyway. It wasn't the same place we'd gone in at, I knew that much. We were standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep blue ocean, with tall waves crashing down against rocks. Behind us, as I looked around, was a thick jungle. The sun was in the midst of setting, casting those trees into dark shadows, while the quite frankly gorgeous orange and red glow illuminated the ocean. For a couple seconds, all I could do was stand there and stare.

A sound from nearby made me snap out of it, turning a bit to find those Fomorians and the Patchworks all arrayed out just a little bit further along the cliffside. All of them were staring at the ocean and the setting sun in awe, making soft noises that required no translation. The Fomorians had all realized, without any explanation, that they were on a new world. Which really wasn't surprising, considering it wouldn't even be their species' first time going through a rift to escape an evil dictatorship by settling on a new world. Except last time they had a lot more to work with.

From her spot crouched by my feet, Penny Dreadful gave a soft chittering noise of delight, tugging at my sleeve while gesturing to the sun. I found myself rubbing the top of her head with a nod. "Yeah, it's quite the view, isn't it? Those guys seem to like it, anyway." I was referring to both the Fomorians and the Patchworks, actually. All of them seemed pretty enthused about it. Which, I supposed, made sense for the latter as well. After all, until now they'd spent most of their existence being used in lab experiments and as simple slave labor by Jack the Ripper. I doubted he gave them much time or opportunity to watch beautiful sunsets across the ocean.

Nearby, Percy and Cerberus also seemed content to look out over the cliffside as well, with the Revenant girl whispering something to her robotic canine partner that made his tail wag with excitement, all three of his heads glancing in every direction to take in the entire view at once.

As for Eurso, the armored raptor had caught himself some sort of small deer that had been unlucky enough to be standing right here on the cliffside as we came through, and was quite contentedly chewing on the thing. If he cared about the sunset at all, he didn't show it. His long tail thumped against the ground repeatedly, like a dog's, as he happily scarfed down his treat.

Even Mekkta was quiet for a moment. She wasn't looking out at the ocean or the sky though, her attention was on the jungle behind us. I caught what looked like a hint of nostalgia in her eyes. When she noticed me looking, our gazes met briefly before she quickly looked away.

Where are we right now? Tabbris asked hesitantly from inside me as we all stared at that water below. The further the sun set, the darker the water became. Yet even then, the view was still somehow just as beautiful as it had been with the orange glow, just in a somewhat different way.

Let's check, Locke put in, before using our location distance finding power. Except when she tried to find out how far we were from Laramie Falls, there was no reaction. The same thing happened when we checked for distances from London, New York, even that motel place where the Eden's Garden rebels had been staying in Panama City, Florida. Plus about half a dozen other locations. None of them came back with an answer. It was like those places didn't exist at all. Was that-- wait, was the power just being thrown off by all that rift traveling and the repeated time changes or something? Please, for the love of all gods, let it just be something like that. If I had gone through all of that and made it back to Earth just to find out all those places had been--

Wait, hang on, maybe we're too early for those places to exist, duh. Tabbris abruptly pointed out with a tiny, obviously anxious giggle. Let's just try something else, like…. uh, wait, what about that spot you guys entered the first rift from before, that should probably still work, shouldn't it?

That was a good point. Though I had to think about it briefly to remember where that rift had even been. Seriously, a lot had happened since then. I had dozens of memories of different me's going through things at all those other rifts, not to mention the four months of memories of being on vacation. It was a lot to sort through. Eventually, though, I had it. That first rift had been in a forest in Indonesia, back in the year 305 BC. The specific date shouldn't really matter though, all I had to do was focus on the particular spot of ground where the main rift itself had been, right?

Apparently not, because I was getting no reaction from that either, no answer when I tried to ask my location power how far away that spot was. I was getting absolute bupkis no matter what spot I tried to check. Which was not exactly filling me with warm fuzzies right then. And really, was that fair? Was any of this fair? The problems were supposed to be over now. We'd made it through the rifts, escaped the Fomorian homeworld with a bunch of survivors, and now we were back here… somewhere that I just couldn't use my location tracking power on. What the hell?

Something about all this was tickling the back of my brain, something that felt like it should've been very obvious if I wasn't still dealing with absorbing all those other memories. It was really annoying, actually. I knew I was missing something, or just not considering an answer that was probably incredibly simple. And it wasn't just that we were hundreds of millions of years in the past so all those specific land masses didn't exist like that right now or anything. At least, I really hoped that wasn't it. Sure, I didn't know how we were going to time travel back to the present if we were even a hundred years in the past, but I had to assume that it would be a good bit more difficult to find a way to get back from dinosaur times. Please don't let us be in dinosaur times. The nearby jungle was making me nervous on that front.

I was still trying to figure out what was going on there and why I couldn't tell where we were when Mekkta turned away from the jungle to focus on me. Her voice was basically light, but with a tiny bit of an edge to it that made it clear she wasn't going to be happy if I dodged any of her questions now that we were away from the Fomorian world. "Right, I think it's time you explained just what happened. Where is Ehn? Who are they?" She gestured at the Patchworks. "How is she here?" Her hand waved at Miranda, who was over there with that group. "What happened?"

Okay, well, here went nothing. After giving a quick glance to the Patchworks and Fomorians to make sure they were still occupied staring at the sky and ocean for the moment, I turned back to Mekkta. Might as well rip the bandaid off and be completely up front about it. I doubted she'd appreciate me beating around the bush. And I really didn't want to deal with a Mekkta who was annoyed at me. "Ehn's dead," I announced flatly. "He died as soon as we went through the rift."

There was a brief moment of total silence from Mekkta, as the woman just stared at me. Her eyes narrowed, seeming to gaze straight through into my soul. It was like every part of me was an open book, like she could see everything I had ever done, knew every lie I had ever told. She gazed at me with frankly frightening intensity before finally speaking a single, soft word. "What?"

Yeah, that was a fair reaction. I honestly wasn't sure how I'd react if the positions were reversed, and I hadn't exactly known the man that long. Mekkta was one of his lieutenants, so she had to be even more aware than I was of just how powerful he was. Was being the operative term there. No wonder she didn't exactly seem ready to immediately believe me when I said he was gone. She wasn't angry or anything, not yet anyway. She just looked like I had said something that was total gibberish. Actually, when I thought about it, she probably would've understood gibberish better than my actual words. It was like I'd said the thing and her brain refused to process it.

Miranda had wandered up by that point. Well, one of her did anyway, she left a few more down there to help keep the others distracted for the moment, promising that we'd explain things soon. Not that the Fomorians understood the actual words, but I was pretty sure they got the general idea. At least enough to stay where they were for the moment. I was gonna have to deal with that soon enough, but one thing at a time, and right now Ehn's (former) lieutenant had priority.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

So, I launched into the whole story, from the moment we stepped through that first rift and I'd felt myself being torn apart, to the Ankou intervening and telling me exactly what had happened and the risk of what could happen, to going through all those other rifts as my separate selves all across the timeline, before being brought back together at the end on the Fomorian world just a few minutes ago. I told her everything, with Miranda and Tabbris (the latter through my mouth) chiming in now and then to talk about the London rift. That included telling Mekkta what had happened with Jack the Ripper aka Charles Lechmere, about Invidia taking over Joseph Bell aka Bedivere (the old knight of the round table who founded the Atherby clan), and where those Patchworks had come from. For other rifts, we just gave her a general summary.

Percy had clearly been listening the entire time, because she gave Cerberus a pat a minute or so into it and stepped over to join us. Through the rest, she just stood there and stared at me, looking like she almost wanted to say something now and then, but kept stopping herself. She just stayed quiet, absorbing all that in silence. When we were finally finished explaining the whole story, or as much as we could get into right then, she gave a low whistle before chiming in with, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help you, Flick. If you want me to find the Ankou and punch them for not sending me with, I would be glad to do that." A brief pause followed before, "But I don't think my punch would do much to convince them to mend their ways. True repentance might require three or four." After getting that much out, she gave me a somewhat hesitant smile, as though checking to make sure I actually got her joke, then giggled audibly when I did.

Only then, after smiling at her words, did I realize what the Revenant girl had actually been doing right then. The sneaky woman had been checking to see if I still could smile or laugh after everything that I'd been through. Maybe even making sure I was still myself, and that I hadn't been irrevocably changed by all that rift business. She was making certain I was still me in the end. Which… yeah, I was, even if I still wasn't anywhere near finished sorting through all those separate memories. At least, I was as much myself as I had been before we went in that first rift. Between the Ankou-Fae situation and the Flique and… and all that, I'd sure changed a lot since we went into the past. And now maybe, hopefully we were finally about to go back home.

Or maybe we already were back. Goddamn it, why wasn't my location finder power doing any--

"Assuming this is all right," Mekkta finally started, cutting through my thoughts, "I still find it very difficult to believe he is actually gone for good." When my mouth opened, she held up a hand to stop me. "I'm not saying you're lying. Honestly, I don't think you would. No, I believe you are just repeating what these Ankou said, and they may even believe it themselves. What I am saying is that Ehn has a tendency to be far stronger and more tenacious than anyone gives him credit for. I would not be at all surprised if he finds a way to bring himself back when all is said and done. For all we know, he may have a backup plan for this very thing." She hesitated, grimacing. "Yes, it may be rather doubtful that he planned for this specific thing, but he may still have a way to come back from it."

I honestly wasn't sure how to respond to that. Sure, it was possible, however slightly, that Ehn might have put together some magical way to bring himself back from basically being completely atomized and having all his energy sent cascading through the timeline. Anything was possible. Especially for a Dragon-Bonded. Hell, what about Arthur? There was an entire thing about him being brought back from what had apparently been a pretty definitive death. That was the whole reason Aylen had that Merlin Key thing with the-- oh right. That particular memory kicked in right then. Aylen was supposed to be waiting at the final rift or something to grab the Ehn energy--

Ehnergy! Tabbris put in with a giggle before catching herself. Aww, I wanna tell Shiori that one.

Don't worry, I sent back, as soon as we get back to the others, you can tell her all about it.

Right, where was I? Oh yeah, Aylen. She was supposed to be grabbing that Dragon Ehnergy to bring Arthur back. I really wasn't sure how that would go over with Mekkta, or the rest of the lieutenants if and when they found out. They were loyal to Ehn, right? They might object a bit if there was any chance at all that all that Ehnergy could be used to bring the man himself back.

Before I could think too much about that, Miranda spoke up. "Well, now probably isn't the best time to worry about whether Ehn is or isn't coming back. How about we figure out where and when we are? And then we can figure out exactly what we're gonna do with all those guys." She gave a slight nod toward the Fomorians before abruptly snapping her fingers as her eyes widened in sudden realization. "Wait, hang on a sec, you don't think the whole Fomorian banishment spell from the Desoto bit would keep them away from Earth in the present, do you?"

The suggestion made me stop short, mouth opening to say no before I caught myself and stared at the Fomorians over there. It wouldn't work that way, right? The Fomorians that had been banished were too different from the ones we had with us right now. The Cronus ones had altered themselves so much, on top of just being very different to begin with. It was a magical banishment, surely something like that would be able to tell the difference between that type of Fomorian and these ones, wouldn't it? I felt like it should, but couldn't say for certain. Plus, there was the fact that we were here, wherever and whenever here was, and I couldn't locate any other locations on Earth. Something weird was going on, so maybe it was because of that spell.

"Okay, first things first before we get too far down that rabbit hole," I finally made myself say. "I think we need to figure out where we are. And when. Then we can go from there. Uh, Mekkta, I know you're probably upset about the whole Ehn, uh, situation, but do you mind… I mean, if you want to tell us to deal with this on our own and go do your own thing, I feel like we'd all get it."

The woman gave me a long stare before speaking carefully, "Well, like I said, I'm pretty sure there's still a good chance he might just come back, odds be damned. And until he either does, or I've seen enough to believe he won't, I'm gonna go ahead and keep fulfilling my agreement with him. Which, right now, means making sure these Fomorians you've rescued make it back to where someone can thoroughly check them out for weaknesses in the Cronus versions, or ways to separate their Seosten halves from the Fomorian halves. So, if you've got an idea about how to figure out where and when we happen to be right now, I'm all ears. I mostly just punch things."

"Pretty sure you do a lot of lifting and throwing too," I pointed out lightly, not adding that I wasn't going to be stupid enough to actually believe she didn't have plans of her own or that she was just some dumb muscle. It didn't really need to be said, we all knew what we were thinking. For the moment, I just added, "But yeah, my location tracker power is sort of on the fritz, it's not telling me anything. I think we might have to do this the old fashioned way and just walk around a bit until we find something to give us some answers. But we probably shouldn't do that with a whole entourage of those guys." My head nodded toward the Fomorians and Patchworks, who had just turned away from the setting sun to stare at me as a group, like they knew I was talking about them. Yup, it was a bit intimidating. Especially when I heard them start whispering in awe.

"You wanna send them into the Archive for awhile?" Miranda put in, sounding just a little tense as she glanced that way. And who could blame her? We hadn't exactly had much in the way of positive experiences with Fomorians. Even if these ones looked different, (mostly smaller) than the Fomorians we knew, they were still recognizable. And just knowing they were very different didn't make it easy to completely shut out the reflexive fight or flight instinct. An instinct that I was pretty sure was just part of our DNA or whatever. Maybe Grandfather had put it in there to convince us to run away from any Fomorians who tried to take us. Or maybe it came from Godfather messing with our ancestors. Hell, it might just be a general instinct. Whatever it was, I felt it, and I knew she did too. Especially when we were looking at a full group of them like this.

But the fact was, these were not the same Fomorians. Not in the least. They were refugees who needed help right now. I pushed the feeling aside as firmly as possible and nodded. "Yeah, I'll talk to them, tell them we need to figure out where we are and where to go from there, but that they can wait in a safe place for the time being. The Flique and the Patchworks can help. First, I think there's a spell we can use to cut through the language barrier."

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to do that, or even say anything else for the moment. Because just as I was about to ask Locke to have Story come up with the spell we needed, another voice spoke up, a voice that was incredibly familiar despite only speaking a single word. "What?"

We all turned that way. Mekkta, Miranda, Percy, Cerberus, Eurso, the assorted Patchwork creatures, and all those original yet still recognizable Fomorians. We turned and saw the person who had said that, the person who was hovering in the air above all of us, staring down at the scene before him. The person who was staring at me and these Fomorians. Immediately, the second I saw him, I knew where we were and why I hadn't been able to sense the location of any other place.

We were at Crossroads.

And we were looking at Gabriel Ruthers.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.