"Hm. Guess that he's not coming after all," said Juno in a disappointed tone.

I think that I would find it weirder if he did show up in such a remote place.

"Well alright, time to go to Celestia then."

I shifted my weight in the snow. "How exactly are we getting there anyways?"

She looked at me like I had asked a stupid question. "Jumping of course."

Jumping?!

"Here, I'll carry you." She walked over and picked me up with one arm as if I weighed nothing.

How humiliating... I could feel my face turn red.

"Let's go," she said. She leapt, no, soared through the air with enough acceleration to make me think that I was on space shuttle.

The skin of my cheeks flapped in the sudden strong wind, and so I clenched my mouth just to the best of my ability. We went higher and higher, almost like we would never stop. This was on an entirely different scale than when I leapt off of that tree.

I looked back, only to find that the place that we had just been was now nowhere in sight. I now looked down and saw that the trees below us had faded into a sea of green from the sheer height of the jump, and we were still going up. I was terrified.

It was then I noticed that we had already moved out of the icy tundra climate. Instead, we were racing above completely green forests. I couldn't see a trace of ice anywhere behind me.

Just how fast are we going?!

Finally, we reached the top of our arc, and we started to make the descend. The feeling of freefall overtook me and it quickly became as an even more terrifying experience. I knew that we were going to hit the ground at the same speed that we lifted off. That same mind boggling speed was to be our impact speed. I braced for the worst.

"Hold on," Juno shouted at me.

We flew right over... Was that a city? It went by so fast that it seemed almost small. Now we were really about to hit the ground. I cringed and closed my eyes, preparing for the worst. Instead of crashing to the ground though, Juno sprung off of it as soon as she hit it, doing several flips this way to distribute her deceleration. I spun and tumbled around like I was in a clothes drier.

At last, we came to a stop. I lost all the rest of my momentum, and it made Juno's arm feel like a bar coming to run into me. I about collapsed. It was then that I noticed that her grip had been unbelievably too tight during the entire ordeal, and I was being unintentionally crushed.

"Oh sorry about that," she said. She let go and let me fall to the ground. "I sometimes forget how strong I am." She looked at the city that we just passed over. The buildings shot way higher into the sky than the last city that I had visited, and it was a wonder that we went right over it. "Drat, I overshot. Here, let me carry you again."

"Actually, can we just a walk?" I asked, still on the ground.

"Oh, okay. Sure." She looked at me and seemed to understand.

I picked myself off the ground and brushed myself off. We then walked the remainder of the distance to the magnificent city. Its skyscrapers were far more organized than the ones in Selenium City, as they all seemed to be made out of the same semi-reflective black substance. The monoliths of the other, shorter buildings also seemed to be made of a similar substance for the most part.

We kept walking through the city, gathering strange looks all the way there, until we reached the tallest building of all.

"This is the Squadron Headquarters," she explained, pressing the door opened with a delicate touch. Just like the building in Selenium, this one seemed to have a sort of waiting room on the first floor, and had a clerk manning the front desk. "I need to go see Helen."

That's who she wants me to meet?!

"She's where she always is," said the clerk. He squinted at me, probably suspicious of my presence.

"Relax," said Juno. "He's with me."

"Very well."

We stepped into an elevator and the door closed behind us. Juno pressed the button for the top floor: floor 71.

It goes that high up?! As if I hadn't had enough of heights today...

The elevator made its slow ascension into the sky, but the sluggish nature of it comforted me. It was better than the jolts and massive changes in speed that I felt during the jump-flights.

We didn't say a single word as we made our way up, and there was no elevator music to break the silence. There was only the creaking of the elevator's mechanical aspects.

We reached the top, and stepped out into the floor. There was a single black door in front of us and nothing else. The rest of the floor was whitewashed, so the door seemed like it was a door to nowhere. Juno walked up to it and knocked.

"Come in!" beckoned a girl's voice from inside.

Juno pushed open the door to reveal an incredibly dark room which was only lit by crystaline ball on a desk. Hanging over the sphere was a short girl with long, unkept grey hair. She had her hair covering her eyes so only a little bit of her hazel eyes were exposed to the light. "Oh it's just you two."

You say it like we've met or something.

"Hi Helen, there's someone that I'd like you to meet."

"Meet?" She spun around in her chair and looked at us. She burst into laughter. "No way! No wonder I've been so confused as of recently!"

"So it is him, huh?" Juno looked at me and smiled. "Who would've thought?" Her grin didn't fade away; she was genuinely happy.

"What do you guys mean?" I asked. "You seem like you've met me before."

The two girls giggled.

"In a way we have," said Helen. "Though I never thought that I'd meet you like this."

"I'm so confused..." Then something hit me. I could be asking the important questions right now. "Does that mean that you know my power or something?"

The girls continued to giggle amongst themselves.

"Yes, though I can't tell you," said Juno.

"Eh?!" I was shocked, but in both a confused and super excited way. I now knew that I have a power! I just didn't know what it was. "Why can't you tell me?!"

"We mean that we physically can't. Time works in a weird, paradox avoiding way here."

"When has this ever had anything to do with time travel?"

"It has always had to do with time travel," she said. "I will tell you that it's a wonderful power that you have."

Have? "Do you know when I get my power by chance? You're making me sound like a time traveller or something. Ooo, that would be a cool power!" I was getting way too far ahead of my imagination. I mean, who could blame me? I had spent far too long in this crazy world as an incapable person, so it was only natural that I got ahead of myself. "Time travel would be sweet!"

Helen brushed the hair out of her face and leapt out of her chair. "Once again, we can't tell you what it is, but we can tell you that you likely already have, and have always, had your power."

"How cryptic can you get?" I complained. "Why can't you tell me? If I had it, then wouldn't I know?!"

"Not with yours you wouldn't," said Juno. "As for the other question, let me explain. Neuman, have you heard of the grandfather paradox?"

"Ah, so Neuman is his name... Interesting."

I thought you knew me already? "Yes, I have. It's the one about what happens if you go back in time to shoot your grandfather, right?"

Juno got some sort of smirk on her face. "Well that theory is wrong. If you go back to shoot your grandfather, which I don't think is a very sane idea in the first place, yet I digress, then the fact that you are still there means that you failed carry out the deed. Something inevitably stopped you from finishing off your grandfather, otherwise you wouldn't have had the chance to exist in the first place."

"Huh?"

"There can't be paradoxes. The universe is this way simply because everything leading up to this point is a certain way. It's not a very fun aspect of time, but it's just how it is."

Suddenly time travel sounds rather boring. "Doesn't that mean that the future is unchangeable then? What's the point?"

"Well, you don't know what the future is until you reach it," she said with a wink. "Now stop complaining, don't you have something more pressing to worry about?"

"Oh shoot, I forgot." I couldn't believe that I had let myself get this distracted. I had to focus on meeting back up with the others and finding Arlen! "Errr, what am I supposed to do about that though?"

"You just sit tight, we'll summon your friends back here. If they were smart they went back to their base in Selenium."

If they're smart... That's what I'm worried about.

"Oh," said Helen, realizing something. "Do you mean the blue girl and the black guy?"

"Huh? What do you mean? I mean that's the colors of their hair and clothes, but that's it. And since when have you seen them?"

"Oh no," she explained, "I mean the colors of their souls! I can see them."

Juno turned to me. "That's her power. Her aspect is 'sensation.'"

"Yep! I can see souls and their strengths, even if they are half a world away!"

"She can 'see' further when she's up this high, so she is a little bit of a recluse and never leaves this room."

"Hey!"

"I'm just saying the truth! When was the last time you left this room?"

"Errr... Point taken. But who can blame me? It's so cool watching everyone carry out their lives! Sure, I can't see what they're actually doing, but it's fascinating to watch them move around."

She's starting to sound a little creepy.

A light flashed up on Helen's desk. "Oops! Duty calls!" She hopped back onto her chair and turned away.

"I guess that's our signal to leave," said Juno. "Let's go see if we can get your friends to meet up here. That is, unless you'd rather travel with me again."

"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll wait. They'll like visiting here anyways."

"Alright then. Let's leave little Helen alone then."

We left the top floor and I sat in the waiting room for what must have been well over a day.

I kind of regret not taking Juno's offer now. This is a LONG wait. Well, at least it gives me time to think.

There were far too many questions swirling around my head. What was my power? Did I already have it? Can I trust the Sentinels after all? And most importantly, what has become of my brother Arlen?