"Stop! You haven't held up your end of the bargain yet!" I shout, slapping his hand and pushing it away before it can go any higher.

           Mangone punches me in the face, and says, "You belong to me now! I will touch you however I please, whenever I please. As my future wife, you better get used to that. Or were you lying to me? You weren't planning on betraying me, were you?" He grabs my chin and jerks my face so that I am forced to look at him.

          Fear floods my mind and I temporarily panic. I feel a river of blood running down my face. I hear the sounds of a fight behind me and Mangone let's go of my face.

           "Kill them both!" he shouts, grabbing my arm in an iron grip.

           I turn around in time to see one of Mangone's thugs pulling a knife out of Amancia's body. She collapses in a lifeless heap beside Amlican dead body. I scream and scream. Mangone's hand shoots out and slaps me across the face, very effectively cutting off my scream.

         "What have you done?!" I hear a familiar voice shout.

         "General, sir! I can explain." Mangone exclaims, letting go of me.

         "Astra! You are still alive? Thank goodness. You know what to do!" the general shouts.

          I take advantage of his distraction, kick off my heels and run full force out of the bar. I don't stop until I am far away from the bar. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! That didn't work at all. I have to go back and stop myself from trying that. He is too big of a slimeball. I double tap on the sleeve to make the monitor pop up, then I enter in thirty minutes ago and try again.

          Everything goes black and when my vision returns, I run barefooted towards the shop. I find the shop and look inside. No sign of myself, Amlican, or Amancia. Good, we have not gotten here, yet. Now what can I do? I walk around the shop trying to figure out how to close this place down, when I spot a small section of wiring sticking out from behind a small display monitor. I grab the wiring and jerk it with all my strength, finally pulling the wires completely loose. This causes a system-wide failure, and the power goes off. Thank goodness the owner took shortcuts. I hear the owner cursing as I run out of the shop.

           I hide behind a mannequin of the shop next door and wait to see what happens. I watch as the owner hangs a handprinted closed sign in the window. After a few minutes, Amancia, Amlican, and I show up.

          "Aw, man! It's closed. Now what?" I hear Amancia say.

           "I don't know. I'm out of ideas. I guess the whole Mangone thing was pretty stupid anyways. If he's as dangerous as he sounds, the whole plan could have been blown apart. We will just have to think of another way to get rid of Malum." the other me says.

          "I think it's for the best." I hear Amlican saying, as my vision starts to fade to black. "I didn't like the idea of you dressing in that kind of clothing."

          "Yeah, I know." I say. Suddenly, I feel as if I got punched in the gut, and I fall to my knees. Tears fill my eyes as a vision of Amlican and Amancia, dead, fills my mind. What the? Did I just time travel, again?

          "Are you okay?" Amlican asks. Concern fills his face as he reaches down and helps me to stand.

         I look up at the shop, again, and see the closed sign. Yep, definitely time traveled. I can see everything that would have happened had I stuck with the original plan. I climb unsteadily to my feet. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just tripped over a lose piece of flooring or something."

         I hear a lot of noise and see a crowd gathering a few hundred feet away. "Let's go see what's happening." I say. We make our way towards the gathering crowd. And suddenly a loud booming voice fills the air, and the crowd goes silent.

         "We are wanting the Nova princess. She is here, we know. The Talfarian has her. Bring to us the Talfar princess or everyone will die." 

          The Talfar princess? That has to be mother! Oh, no! We are too late! My eyes frantically search the crowd. Where is she? Where is she? Aha! I spot her standing off to the side. She looks to be about my age. My heart is filled with warmth at the sight of her. But then I notice someone who fills me with rage. Malum. And he is leading mother away from the crowd.