"Well, if I knock the guy unconcious, that'll give us time to get Ileyna in range," Matt said.

Julius finished off a long pull of his flask, then twisted the cap back on. "Whatever plan you have, you should act on it now and get moving."

"He's right," Hugo said. "We'll figure out the details as we go."

R.D. hauled up his satchel and slung it back around again. "Let's get going then," he said. "I'd rather get out of here before Re-Tuul decides he's not afraid of Soma."

As Matt and Helena cleared their admittedly halfassed campsite, Julius stood and said, "I'm afraid I can't stay around to help you. I need to investigate another area of the castle. But if what Soma says about you is true, then you'll be able to handle yourselves."

"Can we call you if we get into trouble?" Helena asked.

"Not likely. But if the candidates are too powerful, don't risk your lives trying to defeat them."

"We won't," Soma said. He held out a hand and Julius shook it. "Thanks for helping out."

"So, we've got to get up there, huh?" R.D. said, looking up the tower they were in. Through the various broken floors, they could see the building span up into blackness.

"The stairs outside take you to the next floor," Soma said. "It keeps going from there. We'll just have to watch out for the gaps and the demons."

"I'll be off, then," Julius said. He opened a flap of his jacket, revealing a mess of buttoned pouches and strapped weapons, especially a red one-handed axe near the jacket's rim. He slid this axe out of his holster and flipped it around so the blade pointed down. "Good luck."

Matt slung his pack on. "No problems. Thanks again." With a nod, Julius ventured out of the tower, under the stone archway and into the snowy terrain.

"Why not just fly up to the top from the inside?" R.D. asked. "Pretty sure I can bring up you guys one at a time. Or just head up myself, familiarize myself with the area, and warp us to the top with Chaos Control."

"What's Chaos Control?" Soma asked.

"R.D. can teleport around, basically," Matt explained. He glanced up - even looking through the gaps in the floors above, the ceiling was blurred by darkness. "Not sure how tall this is, though."

"Do it," Soma told R.D.. "The less demons we have to fight, the better."

"Back in a few," he remarked, rearing back before jumping high. He landed on the rim of the broken floor. Balancing for a moment, he quickly turned and jumped high again, landing on the next, so on and so forth. In a couple jumps, he had disappeared from sight.

After a moment, Ileyna said. "He's getting stronger, isn't he?"

"Hmm?" Alasea looked over at the girl.

"Since his power... Lumiya? Since it got damaged by the Essence," Ileyna clarified. "I think he's starting to get stronger again."

Matt stayed in his pose - looking up into the darkness, knuckles on hips. "That's good. We need all the power we can get."

"Well, you've got me now," Helena said. "I'm getting a lot stronger, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Matt said. "You're definitely kickin' a lot of ass out there." The way she had been slugging their enemies lately...well, Matt did not want to learn what a blow from her felt like.

A few minutes passed as they waited for R.D. to get done familiarizing himself with the upper corridors of the two towers. Soon, though, he returned--by plummeting straight down the tower, landing hard on his feet in the center of the bottom floor.

Alasea winced as the crashing noise it generated, but R.D. looked mostly unhurt. He did, however, have--

"Feathers?" Ileyna asked, looking confused. R.D. stood and brushed some of them off of his shirt.

"Harpies," he said simply. He offered no other explanation as he dug into his satchel before pulling out the cyan-colored Chaos Emerald.

"They'll bite if you let them," Soma said.

Well, no shit, Matt thought. They're fucking harpies, not kittens. "You're not gonna teleport us in the middle of a pack of them, are you?"

R.D. paused in his movements, looking at Matt. Slowly, deliberately, he pointed at the feathers now on the ground. "That is all that's left of the pack," he said dryly. "There is no pack."

Alasea noted that he sound annoyed that they'd even suggest he'd put them into danger like that. Or at least walk away from a potential fight.

"Now, get yourselves ready," he said. "Soma, brace yourself. Chaos Control's a little disorienting for people who haven't experienced it a couple times."

Once the others had gathered around them, he tossed the jewel up into the air, and snatched it with a thrust as it came back down. "Chaos Control!"

Light flared as rings of energy were drawn into the gemstone, and with a crack of thunder, they warped.

Matt could handle Chaos Control by now. Even Helena got used to it quickly. Guess nausea meant nothing when compared to growing wings. But, even as they shot up the tower as a flash of energy, Matt could've sworn he heard Soma cry out in utter panic.

They appeared outside, and the cold here was even more apparent now that they were so high up in the castle. R.D. stepped forward as the Chaos Control warp ended, and everyone else saw previously-settled feathers fluttering up everywhere, disturbed by the blast.

"Like I said," R.D. commented, looking about at them. "There is no pack."

"You alright, Soma?" Alasea asked, looking at the young man.

Soma clamped his hand like a steel trap over his mouth, eyes bulging. Then he dashed over to the side of the bridge they stood on and unloaded his chunks.

Eeeeeeew. Matt figured it was time to look away and pretend something else caught his attention.

"You better now, Soma?" R.D. asked after Soma was done throwing up.

"No," Soma growled, using that kind of gasping, blunt tone similar to how Matt sounded after he has finished throwing up during an attack by a stomach virus.

Helena walked over to Soma and crouched next to him, laying claws tenderly on his shoulders. "You'll be okay in a moment. Matt, come over here and heal him. Can I get you anything, Soma? Anything at all."

"He's sick, not bleeding to death," Matt said. He pulled down his sack and reached in. "I'll give him some soda, that should help his stomach."

"Soda's just going to make it worse," Hugo said.

"You got any of the pink stuff?" Matt asked. "No? Then we do it my way."

Alasea sighed. "The men I hang with are useless," she muttered as she walked over to Soma, a minor healing spell at the ready. "Here. This should take the edge off your nausea, Soma."

She quickly cast the spell, causing a bluish-white ring of light to sweep up and down Soma's body rapidly for a second before disappearing.

"Thanks, Alasea," Soma said after a moment. "I feel a lot better."

"Yeah, well, come back to me next time you're bleeding or something that requires real healing," Matt remarked.

Hugo smacked the bridge with the end of his pickaxe, causing a metallic clang. "Let's go. Come on."

They crossed the bridge, Matt making sure to look straight ahead at the wooden double doors of the tower ahead. Sure, he could fly, but he wasn't chancing a nausea attack of his own at these heights. The sound of toiling machinery grew louder as they approached.

"These doors are huge!" Helena said. She had whipped out the camera again - the resulting flash looked clear against the darkness.

Matt was more interested in the heavy steel lock tying the door handles together with fat chains. "R.D.," he said, snapping his fingers. "Pop it."

R.D. walked forward and pressed a hand against the door, channeling earth energy through it. Using the flows, he probed about its interior, seeking out its mechanisms to manipulate.

After a moment, he removed his hands. "Its been warded," he said. "Its resisting my energies."

"Need me to try my hand at it?" Alasea asked, stepping forward.

"No," R.D. said as he pulled his fist back, causing the Godhand to activate.

Alasea's eyes widened in surprised at what R.D. was going to do, and quickly threw up a hand and a minor shield--R.D.'s fist pistoned forward, and the door exploded in the impact. The giant wooden doors had splintered into dozens of fragments, most of which went flying forward into the Clock Tower proper. The lock was now no more than a twisted wreck bent inward at R.D.'s blow, and the chains were strewn about on the floor.

Debris bounced off of Alasea's shields, and as she lowered her hand, she sighed in exasperation. R.D. was already headed through the doorway, clearing the fragments from the floor with tiny bursts of power. "That was a little unnecessary, R.D.."

Helena leaned near Alasea. "What's his problem?" she whispered.

"I don't have one," R.D. answered for her, having been just close enough to hear it with the destruction of the door already settled down.

Alasea sighed again, her shoulders slumping. He just doesn't know subtle, she said telepathically to Helena.

I told you to quit that, Helena thought back.

They walked into the tower proper. Massive gears sticking out of the walls revolved, clanking like a metal orchestra backed up by churning pistons and levels. Solid ground stretched before them, but even the floor was broken up by machinery.

"Is this really all for a single clock?" Helena asked.

"Nobody uses this many gears for a clock, even a massive one," Hugo said. "It's probably for show."

"Looks too much like the Clock Tower in Dracula's castle," Alasea noted, looking around the chamber.

"And because of that, I need to reiterate," R.D. said, turning to Matt. "I know it was a joke beforehand, but with all of the other similarities we've come across here, keep your eye out for werewolves, Matt. Talbain nailed both of us pretty good last time."

"Who's Talbain?" Ileyna asked Hugo.

"A wolfman. The last time we were in a place like this, he got the jump on us. Turns out he was being mind-controlled by the master of the castle, but Matt freed him from the spell."

Matt raised a finger. "And he was from another dimension. One that I went to beforehand, actually." He rested his chin on his fist, using his other arm to support his elbow. "And Arikado said he'd help Talbain get home...hmmm."

"Then he's definitely not normal," Helena said. "If what you said is true."

"Either way, its not something I want to have happen again," R.D. said. "We don't want to get stuck between gears in this mechanical deathtrap."

Scaling the tower was a total bitch, as expected. They climbed tons of stairs, shooting down disembodied heads that lurched towards them, snakes extending from their scalps and waving behind them like hair. Medusa-heads, basically. Pain in the ass. Not to mention more damn harpies. R.D. took care of those just as easily as he handled the others. Hell, interior decorates could come in here and wallpaper the whole place with feathers, considering how many harpies they had to tear up.

But then Matt saw the silver and gold gears circling overhead, the only real way they could continue going up. "Ah, forget this," he said. "I need a breather."

"You alright?" Alasea asked, stepping up next to him.

Behind them, they heard R.D. call out. "Harpy!" he shouted. His alert was punctuated by the sound of plasma sizzling through the air, followed by an outraged shriek and an explosion.

Overhead, four or five feathers swept over them before slowing and fluttering down to the floor.

Hugo looked up. "Nice shot," he said, pleased with the results.

"I'm fine," Matt said to Alasea. "I'm just sick of climbing stairs."

"Like it or not, we have to keep moving," Soma said. Even though he said that, he crouched a moment to rest, resting the flat of Claimh Solais's blade across his lap. "So don't take too long."

"Yes, Mom."

"Those gears are moving kinda fast," Ileyna noted, looking up. It wasn't a problem for her, since she could fly about through the mess with ease, but for the others... "You sure you can maneuver through it?"

"We can try using the other Chaos Control function," R.D. suggested, rejoining the others. "Slowing down time might help us somewhat."

"You think that'll work?" Alasea asked.

"Worth a shot," R.D. said. "I just don't know how long I can maintain the slow-down. Never have gotten the chance to test it out much."