Grain... Null-time Zone...

Amaretto tried to feel something, perhaps a little bit of remorse and regret, but found that she could dredge up neither emotion. Looking up, she saw her aunt had been frozen in time as well. Her parasol had been tented outwards and rigid spikes and small blades had come out of the parasol's edges. They were so small, that Amaretto would not have noticed them at all, if not for the way her aunt was positioned on the floor. Her mouth was open in a terrible scream of defiance, or at least half of one, and her eyes were filled with righteous indignation, or at least Amaretto hoped that was what it was full of.


Right above Katherine though was a large IronMan himself, poised in the middle of the air as if to crush Katherine with his whole body. Amaretto turned to Tempus. "Tempus, could you please let her go? She has to travel with me!" Tempus simply nodded his head and smiled at Amaretto.

Almost instantly, the yelling came back from Katherine. She had been in full swing when she had stopped, so she continued on her follow-through. There was a sound of a metallic clang and then the parasol seemed to slice through the IronMan at full speed as Katherine screamed at the top of her lungs. Afterwards, Katherine moved into a protective stance, but only then noticed that the IronMan didn't move from his position in the air. Amaretto marveled at how it seemed to stay afloat.

Tempus looked positively mad. "That is going to leave a mark on the timeline for sure. Can't you ever watch yourself and what you are doing?"

Katherine shrugged her shoulders and frowned. "What do I have to worry about. I have you to deal with. I could care less about the timeline."

Tempus' incorporeal form frowned. "Just because you are..." he was cut of by an imperious wave of Katherine's hand.

"I don't want to know Tempus. What is the deal with the Null-time zone?"

"We found the Stone. It has the first coordinate. I figured that I would help you get the first one and then we shall see what happens next."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "What happens next? You mean you don't know?"

Tempus shook his head. "No that's not what I mean. I don't know where the next coordinate is, much less weather you will be transported immediately or if you will have to come back to the room behind the watch shop to have me set the Hourglass off; I just don't know."

Amaretto looked at the stone that was still within the Queen's grasp. "If I take that, and we get the coordinate, what happens to them?"

"Who are you talking about Ama?" Her aunt seemed a little concerned.

Amaretto made a vague gesture around the room. "I mean all of them. Especially Alice and Johanna. What happens to them?"


Katherine looked at them and walked over to where Johanna had her right arm spread out, her fingers spread as well as if throwing a large web of kinetic energy; thought it didn't help that it looked like there were blue strings attached to her fingers at that moment. "Well, it looks like they could possibly win. Once we take the outlying magic from the Stone of Communication, they might not have to worry about anything else. Mother Chime's magic, though she calls it science, is actually a really small base extrapolation of normal magic."


Amaretto blinked. "Could you say that in simple terms?"


Katherine blinked as if in non comprehension and then said in a rather bland tone, "Once we jump, Mother Chime's magic won't work."


"What about Johanna's though?"


Katherine snorted. "Her magic is what is powering Mother Chime's magic in the first place. The Stone of Communication is acting as a siphon. That is what Mother Chime is tapping into to make sure the Queen can transfer bodies."


Amaretto frowned and looked at her aunt with thoughtful eyes. "So there is no scientific way for her to switch bodies?"


Tempus answered her in a terse voice. "Not without the magical catalyst to begin the transformation. Entirely too much energy is needed to do the process, and as you can see, no lightning of any sort is nearby, and the only way to do something like you want is to use a huge amount of energy." Katherine nodded apologetically with Tempus. Amaretto felt helpless. She didn't necessarily want to obstruct the Queen, but she didn't necessarily want the Queen to destroy everything either.

"So then what can we do?"

Tempus shook his head. "Not everyone can have a happy ending Amaretto."

Amaretto snarled. "Everyone can, you just don't want them to."