A figure cloaked in metal plates stood overlooking the city. The wind was fierce, threatening his balance. He was right above a cliff, but that didn't scare him.

"How painful this existence can be. Knowing what will happen and yet being unable to change it is simply the worst."

He got ready to pounce forward.

"Oh well. It will only be a little while before my waiting is justified."

He looked up at the sun and judged its angle.

"My next appointment is approaching; I guess I better head out."

The man known as Prometheus leapt off the cliff, leaving a crater where he had stood.

No matter what you pull, Odin, I will stop you.

-----

"Hurry! This way! There's been a sighting in an alley!"

The three of us sprinted so fast that we almost tripped at every step. We had been searching for the suspect for several days now, covering almost the entire city in the process, and had found nothing. We had found nothing, but now, thanks to a tip from the information network, we had a lead.

I had memorized the city's layout and lead my squad members towards the alley in question. I dug my heels into the ground to stop myself. Ariel and Buddy collided into my back.

Ariel opened her mouth to complain, but I glanced back and motioned not to speak. "This is the place," I whispered.

The other two nodded. I held up three fingers.

3... 2... 1...

We jumped out into view. I held my knife tightly in my hands. An array of bubbles erupted from the space around Ariel and were held poised to shoot forward. Buddy's shirt came apart and formed a sword.

In the dark corridor in front of us were two things: a man, and a can.

The man was sitting down, but stood up as soon as he saw us. He wore a black suit, which clung to his body tightly to make as little sound as possible.

Buddy stepped forward. "Are you the one called the 'Passing Wind'?"

He looked stunned. "It's you three from before! I'm surprised that you managed to find me. What do you need?"

"I think you know exactly what I 'need'!" He charged forward with his sword raised high above his head.

"I guess it doesn't matter or not if you're involved if you come at me," said the man.

In that instant he vanished.

"Get back Neuman!" Ariel pushed me and I shot backwards, almost hitting a building behind me. "Stay there! This guy is a lot more dangerous than we thought!"

I saw him. He was just nonchalantly standing right in front of Buddy.

"Get him Buddy!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"I don't see him!" Buddy yelled back.

"What do you mean?! He's literally right in front of you!" How can he not see him?! Is this his power?!

Buddy looked down and darkness clouded his face. "Is that so? How far in front of me is he?"

"Like ten feet! Just swing at him!"

Buddy ran forward and swung his sword, but the man sidestepped the attack.

"Sorry," apologized the Passing Wind. He swung his arm down in a karate chop and swatted Buddy to the ground.

Buddy was just hurt enough to be incapacitated. "Sorry, Ariel, Neuman. This is going to hurt." A single tear fell down his face, and his anger finally boiled over. He screamed into the ground and every hair on my body stood on end, then, as if put in a straight jacket, I felt my clothes constrict and bind me, making me lose my balance and fall over.

I rolled over and saw that the man and Ariel had met the same fate.

Buddy's shirt's threads wiggled from their posts and ran to new spots all along his body, looking more like veins than clothing. The threads moved and pulled him along with them, and like a puppet being controlled by its master, he stood up. "I'll make you pay for what you did to Berk!!!"

"I see, so that's how his power works. That's far enough, newbies."

Two chains flew from behind me and wrapped around our opponent. They constricted him more than his clothes had before. He looked like he was about to pop. His pupils shrunk when he saw his second captor. "Juno?!"

A woman in a robe walked towards the Passing Wind.

Step.

Far away at the Squadron's headquarters, the leaders were in a panic. "What do you mean our information network couldn't pick up on it!"

Step.

"Quickly! We've got to stop Juno before the Squadron's reputation is ruined!"

Step.

"It's going to be too late!"

Step.

Juno stood above the Passing Wind and looked into his eyes.

"No!!! Please no!!! There's got to be a misunderstanding!!!" cried out the man.

"How so? One doesn't simply murder ten people on accident." She reached out to touch him.

The man screamed at the top of his lungs and tried his best to break free, but couldn't do anything. Juno was just too powerful.

She touched his forehead. "100 years sentence."

It looked as if the life of the man evaporated, and his eyes turned lifeless. He put up no more struggle. He started to fade and turned transparent until he had disappeared completely.

I felt my clothes relax, and saw Buddy collapse in pain. His mission had been carried out for him, whether he liked it or not, and he had lost the will to resist his pain.

Ariel and I struggled to stand up.

There was movement from around the corner, and a suit of armor emerged.

"Promeeeeeetheus!" Juno squealed in joy, forgetting the situation and running up to him, wrapping herself around his arm. Her previous cool and collected demeanor seemed to vanish into thin air at his arrival. "What are you doing here? I thought you had important business somewhere?"

He didn't resist her embrace, but he didn't seem to really react positively either. A sigh echoed through the suit. "Can you not grab onto me every time you see me?"

"Nope! It's a must! No one else shares the same burden as me! You understand me~"

"At this moment, I'm not sure that I do understand you. Would you take a look at their faces right now?"

The casualness of the two frightened us, and it was apparently visible.

"Fiiiine. Though only this time because they are here." She shifted back to her calm self, though it was obvious that she didn't want to. "So why are you here?"

"Because there's been a mistake, a leak in our information network."

"Is that a big deal? We get mislead all the time."

"Not like this. That man, the Passing Wind, was not a killer."

Even Juno froze. "W-what did you just say?"

"That man was not a killer."

"I-I don't understand. Helen detected ten disappearances that happened around him."

"And you just assumed those disappearances were deaths? They were not."

Buddy's confused face rolled in the dirt, hardly able to move, to face the two of them. There was hope in his eyes.

"Don't tell me," Juno's pupils shrunk. "That was his ability?"

"Yes, not one too unlike your own. It appears that he had two abilities: the ability to conceal himself and the ability to conceal others. His main power was one where he could hide his presence completely for a certain range, but anyone outside that range could see him. He could also put others into a sort of pocket world, a world that was outside of the reach of Helen's power. He was rather well known in other parts of the world for it."

"Then how did we not know about him?!"

"Remember that information leak I mentioned?"

Gloom hung over her head. "I don't believe it. Have I killed an innocent, an innocent that I should've protected?"

Prometheus said nothing.

Buddy struggled to talk. "Does that mean... that Berk isn't dead?"

We all looked to him, looking for an answer.

"I'm afraid even I do not know that. For all we know, they could've died upon his death, been released somewhere else, or, worst case scenario, they could still be alive in the pocket world with no escape."

The hope flashed from Buddy's eyes. It was like experiencing Berk's death a second time.

Juno started to walk off with her head looking at the ground.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked Prometheus.

"I'm going to find out who failed to purposely mislead us."

"Don't bother. I already know that it's Odin."

She stopped walking. "That son of a--! Why'd it have to be another Sentinel?! The most powerful of us are supposed to protect, not destroy!"

Prometheus stood there with his helmet pointed at the woman. "I won't stop you from going. Feel free to take a break from the Squadron. We're going to lose a lot of our membership thanks to this event anyways."

Ariel, Buddy, and I did not budge. If there was something that could scare them, then that meant that we should be terrified.

"What are you going to do?" asked Juno.

"Same thing as usual. Probably struggle for a few thousand more years then finally arrive at the goal line."

A sad smile formed over the woman's face as she walked off. "You really are the man for me Prometheus. I'll get you one of these days."

"You keep telling yourself that, Dream Prison Juno."

She acknowledged him with the back of her hand held up in the air, then pounced so fast the eye could hardly catch it, leaving the jingling of chains behind her.

It was my turn to question the enigma standing before me. "There's a lot that I don't understand, and that's okay, but there's something I must know, for the sake of Buddy. Why did this Passing Wind guy put Berk in his pocket world thing?"

"Do you really think you'd believe me, the one who seems to know everything? The one who could very well be pulling the strings beneath everyone's noses? I know you're having those doubts."

He was right, I was having those very thoughts. His entire persona seemed suspicious to me from the very beginning. Who would trust him when just shows up exactly when I need him? Clothes? He was there, and even guided my way. Here? He has a perfect explanation almost everything it seems. I even suspected that he was the one who assigned us this task through the Squadron in the first place. He obviously knew too much, and was definitely up to something, but right now that didn't matter.

"That doesn't matter. Even a lie is fine. Right now what Buddy, no, we as a squad need is to hear an explanation. As it stands now, Berk could've gotten into this at the fault of the Passing Wind, or even because of a bad choice of his own, and we wouldn't know any different."

The armor seemed to ponder behind the mask. "Well said. I will tell you what I know. The Passing Wind, as he chose to go by, was involved in the world championship of the game 'kick the can.' That's what that can over there in the alley is for."

We looked at the can that had been sitting there from the very beginning. Buddy now had the strength to push himself off the ground, and slowly but surely began the process.

"He was 'it' in this competition, and had to capture anyone who tried kicking it. I would imagine that your friend Berk was actually in town to play this game."

You've got to be kidding me.

Out of nowhere, Buddy started laughing, dusting himself off. "Do you know where this competition started by chance?"

"On the top of a mountain about a quarter of the world away I believe. They kicked it really hard."

Buddy was laughing so hard that he started crying. Or maybe he was just crying and laughing at the same time, I couldn't tell. "On top of a mountain? It all makes sense now. He was definitely a participant then." He stopped laughing and wiped the tears away from his face.

Ariel, who had stayed quiet the entire time, spoke up. "If there's something that I've learned from my time here in this world, it's that there are ups and downs, just like the real world. But this isn't that world, this is Insomnia Wake for crying out loud! We're here for adventure, for fun, so no matter what we go through, no matter how much it hurts, we should still laugh, because that's what's fun, and we shouldn't let ourselves get down when there's so much fun to be had!"

We just kind of stood there and looked at her for a second, then Buddy and I burst into laughter. I think I even heard a chuckle from inside the suit of armor.

"D-did you," I retorted, gasping for air, "Ariel, just say something profound?! I never would've guessed in a million years that you would be capable of something like that!"

I should've seen it coming, but there was soon a bubble wrapped around my face. We all laughed some more, but then Prometheus turned away.

"I'm afraid it is time for me to go. Keep those attitudes of yours and you'll be sure to get far. Especially you, Ariel. You're a keeper. I'm sure our paths will cross again." Just like the previous Sentinel, he jumped and was gone in a flash, but wasn't as graceful as Juno, as he left a small crater behind.

It had been a crazy day, that's for sure. Things happened that I wish never did, but there was no changing the past. I was still suspicious of the man that we called "Prometheus" though. Who was he? What was his ability that granted his status? I had many more questions about him, but I wouldn't get the answers as I was then.

"Now what?" asked Buddy. "I was so concerned with revenge for an event that never happened that I lost sight of everything else."

"Now we go out and have fun, just like we always do! We need to keep smiling for Berk, remember?"

"Not just Berk, but this Passing Wind guy too."

Ariel and I shot him a puzzled look.

"Perhaps even more for the Passing Wind. You heard the big guy, Berk could still be out there. Actually, I believe that he is out there, and I will find him if he is, but Mr. Wind doesn't have that possibility. He is most certainly gone, and while he was just doing his part in a game too. We need to do our best to enjoy the time that he would've have, even if it is a pitiful attempt at making amends. Unfortunately, Odin is out of our league, so this is as much as we can do."

"Wrooong!" announced Ariel to the world. She smiled brightly. "We can get better. We will get better, right?"

We all nodded in agreement. I didn't know who this Odin guy was, but from the sounds of it he was a Sentinel. Who were these Sentinels, and was there really no way to keep them from having their ways?

Right then, I resolved to eventually reach the top of the Squadron Squad, to be at a position that would allow me access to such information. It wouldn't be easy, but hey, I couldn't die of old age, so I had all the time in the world.

A kick the can world championship eh? That's definitely Insomnia Wake for you. Sounds fun.

***

A/N: Wow, I think that's my longest chapter on this site yet. So how was the first story arc? I'm sure that you, just like Neuman, have many questions, but those questions will be answered in time (some even next week).

Any of you have any idea what Prometheus's ability is, and why it keeps him from changing what is to happen? What about Juno? Or even Neuman, whose ability I've hinted at? Is Berk still out there? Who the heck is this Odin guy?! What was up with Berk's ability back there? Give me your ideas in the comments, and see you next week in Insomnia Wake :D