Silence, an unusual companion for the three of them, settled around their steps, the waking sun stirring bring light back into their realm. They’d left the city Stenyae with little word to each other, a quick series of portals and scans that had left all three of them exhausted. But nothing could be done, they were facing off against two enemies, the hunt for the white winged Lieutenant Jung and escaping whoever… whatever their attacker had been. No one seemed too eager to discuss what had happened, or to ask questions, they’d all simply agreed that continuing on to the Holy City of Torbinas would be the best course of action.

As the military capital of all of Kynaseul, even someone as formidable as their cyborg attacker would have a hard time causing a scene. And no matter if they’d been chasing a shadow or not, in the end Lieutenant Jung would have to bring his stolen information to the city. Catching him before he had the chance to transfer the data would be a long shot, but it was better than nothing, as Hakyeon had said in a defeated tone.

Eyes on the ground, Ravi kicked a pebble along with his toe, setting it farther ahead of them until he could catch up to kick it again. Conflicted didn’t even begin to describe just what he was feeling. He hadn’t come back to the past expecting everything to fall into his lap, but he’d certainly though he’d be helping, making things better, doing good. Had that all just been… hopeless ideals? Since making the leap back it felt like he’d only facilitated a quicker end to the era. History said that the war between the 3rd Holy Empire and Arxist was long and drawn out, with massive destruction on both sides. If the Angels of the time had access to the defense codes, then a swift victory would have been all but assured. Was that his fault? If they got them and attacked, had it been because of his intervention?

What’s more, had he destroyed his own timeline? The image of the nameless ancestor slumped against a pillar haunted him whenever he closed his eyes. No, of course not, he kept telling himself, if she died it would have… he would have known wouldn’t he? That sort of thing would create a paradox, and he wouldn’t… wouldn’t exist if that happened. But research into that matter was speculative at best. It was true that certain actions left ripples that corrected themselves and realigned with the time stream and others had ground shaking consequences that gave rise to new problems and solutions all together. But everyone had been too fearful of whatever killing an ancestor might cause to their own timelines. So in the end, he didn’t know.

“So…” Hyuk’s voice cut through the fog in his brain and he turned to look at the younger technomancer. “Are we just not going to talk about how I saved all our asses back there?”

The familiar smug lilt in his voice was almost comforting. For the first time in what felt like an eternity Ravi cracked a smile, cheeks bunching up. “Thank you, Hyuk.” He reached up and ruffled the blond hair, his hand getting batted away playfully.

A very defined and obvious clearing of the throat sounded on his other side and he turned with an equally bright grin to bow toward the knight who had kept his innards from becoming mush. “Thank you as well, Hakyeon.” It was enough to make him snort out a soft laugh, the tight ache in his chest loosening slightly. How could he ever possibly have faced this alone?

“Still,” Hyuk raised his finger to draw the attention back to him, “I know I’m not really one to talk about odd technical marvels,” considering Ravi knew for fact that the Technomancers had an entire world hidden from view inside their “Network” and that they could disappear into it from specific server entrances that was an understatement. “But are we really not going to talk about the mechanical man for lack of better terms?”

Curious, Ravi bit his lip. If anyone was going to know about the android… no cyborg, he’d have expected it to be Hyuk. “A-are they not known in this time?” He asked cautiously. The 2nd and 3rd iterations of the Holy Empire had been a time ripe with stories of the automatons. He’d have expected them to at least have heard a legend.

Hakyeon tutted twice through his teeth, head shaking, “Silly boy who thinks he’s from the future,” it had become the affectionate nickname Ravi got every time he’d mentioned anything of the sort, “robots exist, of course, mostly in Network hubs like Rinsha but that wasn’t just a robot.” The knight’s face grew more serious and contemplative, “Robots don’t bleed, they don’t have that sort of… personality. And they certainly don’t attack people like that.”

“Hate to say it, but he’s right.” Hyuk chimed in, stretching his arms up and resting his hands behind his neck. “I’d seriously know if something like full bodied cybernetic augmentation had hit the market, and it hasn’t. People have tried, and the only thing that happens is they wind up dead. The body just can’t handle that invasive of a process. Replace an arm? Sure, hell even some innards are replaceable, but that guy back there? That’s impossible according to everything we know now.”

Ravi laughed, he couldn’t help it, “As impossible as a man from the future?”

“Sounds about right.” Hyuk snorted.

“But that’s the problem isn’t it?” Hakyeon looked deep in thought, brow furrowed, “He shouldn’t exist… but he was looking for a… chronomancer, was it?” Ravi nodded and waited for him to continue. “Another impossible thing. More importantly, he was looking for you, Ravi.” The thought was there, he could see it on Hakyeon’s face, but the other man didn’t seem to want to let the truth escape his lips. It was hard, having everything you thought you knew get flipped upside down. “Could he be from the future too then… if we considered the possibility that you are, in fact, a time traveler.”

“Not likely,”  there wasn’t anything like that from his timeline either, and it probably didn’t come from after his time either. But that did beg the question, if not from his time, how could he possibly have known who Ravi was. It was possible that he’d somehow overheard him speaking about it if he’d been following them since Mergeu, but even that raised its own problems. No one should have been able to predict where Ravi would surface in this time.

A sick feeling filled the pit of his stomach as another thought struck him. The only other person who could try and predict something like this would be another chronomancer. And that should have been impossible. Even with everyone in the college rallying together, there were no two chronomancers that had overlapping time periods. So how could someone from this time even know about chronomancers without him telling them? They didn’t emerge until the 8th Holy Empire.

Realizing that he hadn’t finished his thought, Ravi continued, ignoring the strange looks both of his traveling companions were shooting him. “I’ve told both of you, from when I am there aren’t the kind of resources required to make something like that.” So that meant it either came from the current timeline or someone else, another chronomancer, had sent it back from a later point in the timestream. Sent it back with instructions to kill Ravi.

“So,” Hyuk started biting the corner of his lower lip, “let’s say, for fun, for like one second, that I believed you were from the future, which I don’t,” he qualified, “then could you please explain what it is, exactly, that you’re trying to do here? Or why some cyborg killing machine would be after you?”

“I told you already, I’m here to stop disaster from shaping this world.” He still wasn’t sure how deep into the details he should go, especially since neither of them seemed ready to budge on believing him.

“Yeah, okay, but how? Even if you could control time, which is ridiculous by the way, you’re still just one person. One man versus disaster? Got a pretty high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” Hyuk scoffed and shrugged, already dismissing the idea.

“Because it’s not me.” Ravi muttered.

“What?” confusion was written all over Hakyeon’s face. “So, you’re here to watch?”

Taking a deep breath, Ravi made up his mind. He’d been trying to avoid sharing too much of the truth with them, afraid it would somehow influence something. Not to mention that the chances of them believing him were slim to none. But he just couldn’t see the point in keeping it hidden; already he was feeling like he’d disrupted the course of history, what was one more drop in the bucket? “Sort of,” he started, quietly, pausing in his step, “something really bad is going to happen, soon. Originally there was a group of people who tried to stop it, legends so to speak, nameless, faceless, forgotten heroes who died too young.” He watched their faces to look for the tell tale signs of scrutiny and disbelief, but just found rapt attention.

“They tried their best to stop the… the bad thing that’s coming, but they failed. It isn’t even until the next iteration of the Holy Empire that they’re even remembered. That the story emerged about them. At the time, they were just people who fought for what was right. No one even could appreciate what they’d tried to do until they were dead. Which leaves me in a bit of a predicament, you know?” Ravi sighed, and began walking again, no point in wasting time they could be traveling. He could do both. “I’m supposed to find them, help them.”

“Do you even know who they are?” Hyuk asked, for once the tone of sarcasm absent from his voice.

“Not precisely…” Ravi admitted quietly, “I know the legends. I know general ‘facts’ about them. Listen,” when he said it all out loud, even he had a hard time believing he was ever going to do anything besides screw up the world worse than it was. “I know this sounds crazy. And I know you guys don’t believe me about the future, but… I’m telling you it’s all true. War’s gonna break out, soon, and it’s not even supposed to happen like this. The 3rd Holy Empire didn’t reach the Grand Court for months, and they certainly didn’t have defense codes. But it is coming, and I need to find the heroes… to help them.

“You haven’t seen the future I come from. It’s horrible. Everything’s ruins, nothing works the way it should, population’s at an all time low. People have just given up hope, nothing grows. I can’t let that happen. Even if it’s a fool’s errand to try and fight fate, to fight the laws of time. I have to try. At the end, and it is the end where I’m from, all that matters is what you’ve done with your life.” The same thought that had kept him going thus far, but it rang a little empty along the lonely road to Torbinas. “And, if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it some place where I can get a decent last meal, right?”

“Dude…” Hyuk shuffled over awkwardly and nudged him with his elbow. “I don’t know if you just have a really bad case of overactive amnesia or if you’re really from the future, but I’m sorry man. That’s rough.”

“I believe you.” Hakyeon had stopped in his steps, and they with him. “It’s hard not to, even a crazy notion like being from the future. I believe you, or I believe that you believe it. You didn’t have to come with us to try and help me, but you did. So, I believe you.”

Ravi’s eyes burned, the dirt in the wind he told himself, certainly not tears. A pent up breath exhaled and he felt years worth of anxiety crashing on him. “It’s not that simple.”How could he tell them he thought they were the heroes of old? That history said their deaths would happen within the next few years? “I told you that I know general ‘facts’ about the ones I’m searching for, right?” The both nodded and waited for him to continue. “It was a very diverse group, you see? A void knight, a technomancer, an angel, a necromancer, and a defector from the Tacom company.”

“The electronics company in Rinsha? Really? Why would they need to have a defector?” Hyuk snorted before sobering up, offering a small shrug by way of apology.

Ravi knew he was gambling a bit, revealing too much history, but it was only fair. Trying to keep them in the dark simply felt like he’d be leading them on. “Because they orchestrated the war.” A grim line of determination creases his brow. “And they’re responsible for the destruction of leadership inside both the 3rd Holy Empire and the Starlit Kingdom. And when the ashes are blown away, two superpowers were destroyed and the only real strength left in the world was the neutral third party, the last free city. I believe that’s what they call a coup.”

“When you say the destruction of leadership…” Hakyeon’s face had gone slightly pale, “you don’t mean… the Grand Court… the Queen, the Prince?”

He didn’t need to go into detail about, but Ravi nodded solemnly. The royal family of Arxist and the Holy Emperor were all eliminated during the war, even more, no full resolution ever came to light for any of their deaths. Suspicions of assassination abounded though, and honestly, Ravi tended to agree with the notion.

“We have to warn them! The royal line cannot fall, I swore an oath to protect them. It’s my duty, it’s all I have.” Panic bubbled into Hakyeon’s voice, his grip on Ravi’s arm almost crushing in strength.

“I thought you couldn’t go back.” Hyuk sneered and shrugged, much less invested in the well being of either nation.

“I…” An anguished look crossed his face as he released Ravi’s bicep to wring his hands together. “They have to know. They have to prepare.”

“You don’t have any proof, dummy.” Hyuk snapped, “besides Ravi’s word which, no offense, isn’t going to be taken as ing sterling. Most people are going to think he’s crazy, and they’ll think the same of you if you start talking about unverified assassination attempts.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it did little to soothe Hakyeon’s fretting. “That’s why I’m here though,” Ravi offered what he hoped was assurance. “To stop this, all of it, to correct it. And…” he breathed deep, trying to settle his racing heart, “I think that… that the two of you? I think you’re… you’re the legends I’m looking for.”

“Me?” the technomancer snorted derisively, “I think you’re running in the wrong circle, friend. It might not have occurred to you yet, but I’m not one for causes.”

“And while I’m flattered,” Hakyeon added, “I… I really don’t think I’m the knight you’re looking for. I can’t… I can’t show my face there just yet.”

Of course they wouldn’t believe him, Ravi didn’t expect that they would. “I know you think that, but I think otherwise. I… there are facts, certain knowns.” He probably sounded crazy to them, but that was nothing new. “Such as a renegade technomancer who operates outside all laws?” He glanced to Hyuk, “or an outcast Void Knight looking for redemption?” Hakyeon choked quietly. “Those were two of the heroes of old. Heroes I see before me.”

“Didn’t your ‘heroes’ die in this story?” Hyuk’s face was no longer amused, a slightly sour look twisting his lips.

“That’s what I’m here to change.”

A/N: I cannot believe how long this fic is getting and I haven't even got all the characters properly introduced. Why do I do this to myself? /pines for missing Hongbin