Whoa. It's like we stepped into an alien world.
The atmosphere, the landscape, and the sky are all tinted an unnatural blue. Even the snow bubbles like seafoam as dyed sunlight shines through the stained glass frame of the dome. The lanky trees that thrived outside are spread far apart from each other, their turquoise leaves eight times the normal size, and their normal shapes twisted and warped nearly through the top of the dome.
But apart from these thriving evergreens, the inside is lifeless. No animals, not even a single bug in sight. The only moving thing, and the most worrying part of everything in here, is a giant cerulean clock projected in the sky far ahead. Its two hands spin wildly around Its face like a helicopter's propellers taking flight.
"I'm glad you finally made it, isn't this so cool!" Jessie's so excited they don't even turn around to look at us. They're too busy gazing off into the foreign country. A gust of wind miraculously blows their cape as they stand atop a small hump of snow. Beside them, the cast that hugged their arm is lying on the ground.
"I don't think the word I'd use to describe all of this would be cool." It all feels more foreboding than anything else. "And why aren't you wearing your cast?"
"It healed when I came in! And look at my costume!" The strangely tinted sunlight is making the white portions of Jessie's costume the same dark shade of blue as the snow at our feet. "The best superheroes need at least one costume change, and The Blue Phantom has a nice ring to it! But my name change can wait, we have a clock tower to knock down!" They say, pointing skyward toward the aforementioned spinning clock.
"That's the clock tower!? It's in the sky, how do we break it?"
"The clock in the sky isn't the main part of the Antique. That clock just signifies how fast time is going right now. The actual tower is directly below its center." They leap off the snow mound, gleefully diving through the air and landing in front of us.
"So we're walking all the way there?"
"Most Curators can walk five times that distance! Don't be such a pussy."
"That's easy for you to say Victoria! Do you want to get off my back and show me how it's done!?"
"I'm fine up here thanks." Victoria nestles her claws further into my shoulders and another vein bursts out of my head from the inability to shake her off.
"Don't worry Ren. Walking the entire way would take too long and the nice people from town can't wait!" Jessie fiddles with the bullets in their revolver and raises it in the direction of the clock's center. "Instead of walking, we'll be traveling as heroes should!" They fire, and the bullet cut through the cold air high out of view.
"What are you..." Jessie grips my arm with an eager ear-to-ear smile.
Oh, this again.
The world shifts positions. The elderly spruces are replaced with different, but still mangled-looking trees. Judging from the clock's increased size and the white particles gracefully floating down around us, Jessie teleported us far ahead of where we once were.
"Look how easy this will be! That tower's as good as toppled!"
"You never explained exactly how we're going to break the tower."
"I've got a plan all picked out for us. But let's focus on the getting there part first!" With that non-answer, another fiddle, another gunshot, and another arm grab later, I ready myself for the world to transform again.
Hm? This isn't right. Instead of my feet landing firmly on the warm ice below me, my stomach drops and howling wild wind is rushing violently under me. Turning around, the ground is… rapidly approaching.
I'm falling! I flail my arms wildly trying to slow my fall with something and find relief in the form of another ailing tree directly to my left. Splinters dig into my forearms and bark sheds off its body as I hug around the trunk and finally start to decelerate.
Suddenly, an electric shock erupts in between my legs, flows up to my chest and down to my toes, and finally shortcircuits my brain, nearly knocking me unconscious. The wilted arm my balls fell onto buckles under my weight, resuming my tumble through the air until I face-plant into the frigid snow.
Damn it, that hurt! And why is the snow cold again!?
Still reeling from the fall, hardly able to move, something else plops against the snow right next to me.
I find the strength to sit up from the fall and see Jessie doing the same. Clumps of snow fall off their face and hair. "The bullet teleports us the first time it hits something." Jessie wobbles to their feet and their heavy breath bellows frozen exhaust into the air. "It must've landed in a tree."
"You think?"
"A level 4 Curator and you can't even aim." Victoria's voice shrieks above me. I look up to see where her voice is coming from just in time for something heavy to fall from the treetop and crush me into the ground.
I swiftly push Victoria off my stomach and into the snow before springing to my feet. "Stay off me Victoria!" Wait, if I can push her off of me, that means-!
"Cold!" She whines. "Where did my card go!?" Victoria scurries along the snow at the roots of the tree, then everywhere under its mature green leaves. "Found it!" She holds up the Command Card from the snow and lets out a relieved sigh. "Close one. They would've fined me if I lost this." She sighs again then turns to me. "Alright Ren, since I dropped the card, I know you have control of your body again, so why don't we make this easy and just let me use you as my horse for the rest of the mission?"
"Look, the snow isn't as deep here! You're not sinking anymore, so you shouldn't need to ride me!"
"Yeah, but why would I strain my beautiful soles if you could do it for me? Why are you even complaining, men love it when a woman's on top of them right?" Victoria takes a step closer to me and I retreat one step in turn. If I run, I might be able to get away, she may be stronger than me, but her short legs in the snow might mire her down.
"Now is not the time for fighting you two!" Jessie implores us. Even in the cold, sweat is dripping down their face like we've been stranded in the blistering sun. The costume they're so proud of looks like it's three sizes too big and hangs off their shoulders as it would hang on a clothing hanger. "Those people are relying on us. We can't fail them over something so unimportant!"
"Phantom, are you alright?" I ask. "Ever since we fell out the tree you look… odd."
"I don't know they look the same to me!" Victoria comments. It could just be me, but Jessie's hair looks longer than it was before, and at the same time portions of it are shining gray-silver.
"I'm fine, a fall like that would never be enough to down The Blue Phantom!" Jessie meanders towards me, pulling me closer to Victoria. To be honest, I nearly don't recognize their hand when they grasp my arm for the third time. It's so bony, and the skin feels so loose against me that I could be convinced a skeleton's touching me. They free me from their clutch to fire another shot into the blue sky and take both our hands as we shift for the third time.
The blue clock is watching overhead with an even bigger eye, and we're seemingly so close to our goal. It's kind of disconcerting. I don't even know what to say, it's like the moon is hanging over us. The sooner we're done with this the better I'll undoubtedly feel.
I turn to my right, expecting Jessie to get us another step closer to going home, but their arms, the arms they should proudly be pointing their gun in the sky with, are slumped to the side. Their head sways from shoulder to shoulder while they look off into nothing.
"Uh... Phantom?" My concern draws Victoria's eyes just in time for The Phantom to melt into the snow. I slide down to their side to check on their condition.
"I guess I took too long basking in the view." They chuckle. "The Antique's aging is starting to take effect on me."
"So that's what's been going on with you. I thought you looked a little better." Victoria snickers.
"Victoria! Not the time!" I turn to Jessie, who looks physically drained. "Are you saying you're dying? Are we aging too?"
"Yeah, we've been under the Antique's influence the whole time. A little crazy you're just noticing it." Victoria says in a condescending tone as if I should somehow automatically know this "Check your right cheek where your cut was."
I stroke and prod my cheek and find the course scab that previously stretched along my cheek is completely gone. "What the-"
"That's why your arm healed in here too isn't it Phantom?"
"You're right. My arm healed itself the instant I came in."
"I know, I'm always right!" She strokes her chin's underside like a detective who'd just solved a crime. "That's the type of perception you get when you're a level 5 Curator."
"Level 2." Jessie coughs out.
"Even when you're about to die you can't just let me have this one!"
"Have you ever heard of a hero dying of old age? No. A hero dies desperately fighting against villains to protect those who need it. So, I'd never die like this, not when people still need me. But... Ren, Victoria. I may not have enough strength in me to finish the mission with you." Jessie takes their revolver and holds the handle out to us. "Use this and take these." Jessie reaches their arm under their cape and holds out three bullets to us as well.
"What do we do with these?" I ask.
"Load two of those bullets in the fourth chamber and teleport the way we've been going. There will be a hill that you can climb to get a better view of the tower. Then, once you can see the tower, load the other bullet into the sixth chamber and fire it at the tower."
"Do you have any more in case we miss?"
"Don't worry you won't miss." I'd like to believe their faithful grin, but I don't think their faith is being put in the right place.
"No but seriously, do you have any more?"
"No. I was going to restock tomorrow" Great.
"I'll take it." Victoria reaches her hand for the revolver's grip before I snatch it and the bullets out of Jessie's hands before she can touch them. I've never held a gun in my life, but the idea of Victoria with a gun is a nightmare I never want to see come true.
"After you collapse the tower the aging will reverse. I'll return to my normal age and I'll be as healthy as I was when I came in. Those kind people believe in you two. I believe in you two. Go and make me proud!" With that, their eyelids crumple in on themselves and they let their head rest on the soft snow.
They looked so peaceful. Almost like they were… dead. "Jessie?"
Jessie's eyes shoot open and stare viscously at me. "Who told you my name?"
Damn it. "Let's go Victoria, we need to help save The Phantom and all the people of the town nearby!" I nervously spit out.
"Who's Jessie?" Victoria questions.
"Ren! Ren come back!" Jessie's ghastly voice and decrepit look scare me senseless. Whatever retribution they have for me knowing their name, I don't want to deal with it right now.
"How do I make the cylinder thing pop out?" No matter how hard I hit or tug at it, the thing Jessie always loaded bullets into won't come out.
Victoria appears at my side, grips the gun's barrel, and forcefully pries it out of my hands. "If you don't know how to use a gun don't grab one, it's dangerous."
Forcefully grabbing a gun from someone is arguably more dangerous, but maybe she knows what she's doing for once. "Are you sure you know how to use a gun?"
"Of course, I do! You just hit this little thing here and then..." She's so confident about this, maybe she actually can get it... Before I can even finish my mental praise, she wraps her hand around the handle and the gun clicks about three times in response.
"Did you just pull the trigger to try and pop the cylinder out?"
"Obviously you don't know anything about guns Ren. A good gun owner always checks if the gun is loaded before unloading it. I was just making sure it was empty."
"Give me the gun back."
"No wait, give me one second, I almost got it!" Whether by sheer luck or her miraculously remembering what to do, Victoria clicks something on the revolver to make the cylinder detach itself from its hiding place. Inside, each hole meant for a bullet is marked by a number from one to six. "See, simple! Now I just load the bullets in like this and we're ready!"
"You know where to load them right?" I ask as she takes the bullets from me and feeds two inside.
"One in the fourth chamber, one in the sixth, and the last one in my pocket. I know... I know... A middle school dropout like you shouldn't be questioning my skill." She mimics Jessie's one-handed shooting technique and blasts the sky with what was hopefully the right bullet. "Come here, Ren!"
I reluctantly allow her to grab onto me, knowing that this was the only way to help save Jessie's life. Looking back, Jessie must have fallen again as their face is buried in the snow and they lay like a motionless corpse.
"Jessie!?" I step to go check on them but they disappear before my very eyes, along with everything that was previously around me. Maybe it's for the best that we shifted before I ran to check on them since us knocking down the tower is the only way we can help them now.
The trees are scarce where we land, only a field of slick flat snow before the sapphire titan. For the first time, the clock looms fully above our heads. Its twirling hands are probably enough to make anyone dizzy just by staring at it. Not only is the clock watching us from high above, but the hill Jessie was also talking about stands between us and where the tower should be. But "hill" can't be the right word to describe this...
It looks like a mountain! I can just barely see the top from here!
"A perfect shot by me! One more and I'll get to rub it in The Phantom's face that I completed a mission they never could!"
"Are you sure one bullet is enough?"
"Maybe not, but if it isn't and we can't get there before The Phantom kicks the bucket, that just means I get a bigger cut from the mission. Actually-"
"We're not letting them die so you can get more money."
"Calm down I was joking. Now just gimmie a minute to find that extra bullet they gave us and..." She reaches into her pocket and the look on her face after putting her hand in told me enough.
"Did you lose it!?"
"No, I know exactly where it is!" She moves from her right pocket to her left then she starts feeling around the inside of her sock. Her face crumples the longer she digs, and won't unfurl no matter what pouch she checks.
I can't believe she just lost our only chance at saving Jessie!
A crackle below the snow under my feet steals my focus and saves Victoria from being buried six feet under the snow. "Did you just hear that?"
"Probably the wind."
"Wind doesn't crack, Victoria!" Another crackle reverberates under my legs and shakes me to my core. "I don't think the ground here is stable, we should move," I whisper.
"Are you chickening out? Calm down, we'll move as soon as I find this bullet in my pocket."
"You already checked there! Just admit you lost it and-" Another crack hidden underneath the snow forces me to pause and I step as lightly as possible away from where I was. But the second I move the aching ground screeches and suddenly shatters like glass under me. For the second time today, I'm falling to my doom.
The blue light from the sun quickly disappears, the howling wind rushes along my face, and an ice-covered abyss surrounds me. "Aaaaahhh!!!" I knew it! I knew it wasn't safe Victoria! And now I'm going to die because I didn't move sooner!
I instinctively flap and flail my arms like a newborn bird thinking it'll help. It doesn't. Maybe if I stretch my arms and legs as skydivers do, I can slow my descent. And it works, maybe. But slowing it isn't going to save me from whatever is at the bottom of this seemingly never-ending pit.
A gunshot echoes from above into the icy ridge, probably from Victoria but I can't know for certain. If it is Victoria, she's found the bullet and left me to die. Maybe she wasn't joking about collecting Jessie's blood money. Maybe she's thinking the same thing for-
"Weeehoooo!" A faint voice screams above. The voice exponentially grows louder and bounces off the walls until it feels like it's right on me.
Is that...? No, it can't be.
A familiar leech-like grip latches onto my waist mid-fall and holds me tightly. "What's up?"
"Victoria! What are you doing!?"
"Despite how you feel about me, it'd be a real mood killer if you died!"
"Why..? Why did you kill yourself to try and save me? Especially when you treat me like your personal doormat!?" If we're going to die anyway, I might as well get closure!
"I want to live a fun life full of adventure and excitement with no responsibilities! But to do that, I need money. A lot of money. Like boatloads of it. And originally I planned to just make you a Curator to siphon the money you made to get rich quicker."
"You've told me this already Victoria!"
"But, what I haven't said is that having you at my house has been the most excitement I've had since getting that dog that disappeared somewhere in the living room! If you die, I'll have to find someone else to excite me while I work to save money, and all the other Curators are either boring or really old!"
"So, after realizing how much you need me, you've grown to respect me and have decided to stop treating me like a servant?!"
"Nope! You're just the most fun to tease. The other Curators don't scream as much as you."
"You won't even give me that respect when we're both about to die together!?"
"Calm down we won't die. Just give me a minute and I'll save us."
"A minute!? We'll be dead by then! All you did was kill yourself!" I let out one final scream with my fate sealed and closed my eyes in preparation for impact with the end of the crevasse.
Then it changes. My stomach stops dropping, the wind dulls its wails, and through my closed eyes, blue light illuminates the pure blackness that previously surrounded me.
"Never doubt me again!" Victoria shouts victoriously. I open my eyes and instead of the bottom of a deep pit, we're high up on the side of that massive snow mountain that stood in our way. Not at the top yet, but closer to that than the bottom. The odd snowflakes falling around me means she must have found the bullet and shot it to save me. She pulled through for us.
"Victoria, thank you." Just saying that feels weird. "If we hurry, we can still help The Phantom stay alive!"
A mighty yawn bursts from Victoria as she lays her head in a bed of snow. "You can get the rest from here. I'm gonna take a nap."
"What are you talking...?" She's aging just like Jessie, I just didn't notice until now. Victoria's black hair is infested with gray strands, and her form-fitting suit just barely catches her bony frame. Unfamiliar wrinkles and cracks make themselves at home on her face and hands.
"You finally noticed, you cheater."
"Cheater?"
"How else can you explain a crusty old man like you not rapidly aging."
"Twenty-six is not old!"
"And The Phantom's thirty, at least that's the going rumor. You should have aged around when they did, and you definitely should have aged more than me."
She has a point, why am I the only thing not being affected by the Antique? "Maybe it has something to do with my Antique. It might stop aging!"
"No, you're still aging. You have more gray hair than you did before, and your cut healed itself. You're just aging slower. But you're right about it probably having to do with your Antique." Victoria deeply inhales the frosty air through her nose and peacefully closed her eyes.
"Victoria!?"
"I'm only napping, calm down." She responds, eyes still peacefully shut. She seems so much more docile now that she's older. "But if you don't hurry up and I somehow die, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life."
She's not lying either. If she gets the chance of heaven or haunting me, she'll choose me every time. "Don't die before I get there alright?"
"I'll try. But to make sure you don't botch this and kill me..." She holds the Command Card and Jessie's revolver and motions for me to come closer. I take the revolver from her hands and for some reason, willingly allow her to roll up my pant leg and swipe the card along my ankle. "Your body can't feel the cold, now you don't have an excuse to climb all slow. Thank me later. Now go and destroy that tower so we can get paid!"
The cold around me vanishes just like she ordered, but my feet aren't beholden to her commands. I'm the one pushing them forward this time. I'm already more than halfway up the mountain, I can make it! My first step battles the steep slope, then my second, and my third... I can already feel my lungs burning. I can't believe Jessie got my hopes up by calling this a hill!
The higher I get the steeper it becomes until simply using my feet isn't enough to push me forward. I have to dig my hands into the snow or grab against any exposed rock for any semblance of traction. If not for Victoria I wouldn't have even tried digging my hands in this ice.
After just a minute of this, my arms are pleading for me to stop, begging me to take a break. My legs feel like they're collapsing in on themselves. The higher I go the hazier my head gets. It's getting harder and harder just to take in the thin air. But both Jessie and Victoria have risked their lives to save me, I can't leave them to die. And the top feels so close.
Ten minutes of rapid climbing pass, it feels so close. Gripping on unstable cliffs of ice and losing my footing in the deceptively soft ground. Until it is that close. Until the peak is one foothold away. Until my fingers grasp the head of the white giant, and with all my remaining strength, I roll myself up onto the flat peak.
Finally! Finally, I made it! "Yessssss!" I scream with the little air I have left.
But now's not the time to celebrate. I'm not done yet. I still owe them! Come on body! Move!
I fight to my shaky feet and look at the bizarre form nature has taken due to the Antique. Other snowcapped titans stand alongside mine, almost forming a crater as all the land before me is miles below the peaks of the hills. One step and I'd fall into their aquamarine teeth.
It feels like I was on top of the world.
Everything is so small from up here. If I look behind me, I can't even see Jessie. Just hang on, I'm almost there.
I survey the land below for any sign of the Antique among the trees and snow. It all looks the same from up here, I can't... there! So far away that it looks like an ant, I can see the faint image of what looks like a clock tower directly below the blue clock's center.
That must be it. But I don't have another bullet to get any closer! Jessie said that when I can see the tower, I need to fire a bullet from the sixth chamber to destroy the tower. But it's too damn far, I can't hit it from here! Damn it what do I do? They don't have enough time left to wait for me to climb down to it! I might not have enough time to climb down to it!
I just have to trust Jessie. They said that if I see it shoot the bullet, so I'll do it! I don't have another option anyway!
I take the revolver, grip it in both of my damp hands, and point it the best I can at the tower. But will this hit? Maybe I should aim a little bit up so it doesn't drop off and miss? Or maybe I can just aim directly at it and the bullet will take care of the rest? No with a normal gun you have to account for gravity. But then again this isn't a normal gun...
They don't have time for indecision, I just need to shoot it!
I take the revolver and aim it straight at the spec.
Please let this work. Please let them live.
I pull the trigger, the gun flies out of my hands as it recoils upwards, and a deafening bang kills my ears as the final bullet soars through the cold air and quickly disappeared far below. When will I know it worked? I should've checked Victoria even loaded it into the right chamb- Wait, what's that?
A faint prismatic sparkle flares near the tower. That light then grows in prominence, gradually encompassing the clock tower so I couldn't see it. Is that it? Did I do it?
Then it swallows the trees and stumps around it. Everything it touches serves as greater fuel for its accretion.
It's unstoppable, eating the land and hurling the dirt below making the reason the land below is shaped like a crater start to make more sense. The rainbow dome expands its territory until it touches the base of each of the major hills and proceeds to plume upwards making the fearful mountain tremble and shake with me on top.
Jessie could have warned me that the sixth bullet was a bomb! I need to get off, if I don't, I might be swallowed along with everything below me!
BOOM!
That massive sound tremors inside my head and a gust of steam erupting like magma knocks me down before I can turn around to escape. I close my eyes bracing for the worst, but that seems like it was it.
From where I'm sitting the light looks like it's not moving further into the mountain. It's even receding a little. The mountain calms its trembling and what was once a ravenous area of light shrinks into a cloud of dust and smoke.
Is that it? Did I do it? I can't see anything through the smoke!
I look to the sky as a sign, the clock and the entire blue atmosphere fracture and crumble like broken glass. The jagged shards gracefully fall from their place in the sky and dissolve into tiny sparkles amid their descent. The sun beams its normal shade of yellow onto my forehead, then my entire body. The few bulky trees and stumps that were narrowly out the explosion's radius miraculously return to their lanky selves and have their blue leaves shrink to evergreen before my eyes.
"Ah!" A sharp pain erupts along my face. Wiping my hand along it I find crimson blood leaking.
My cheek wound must have opened again! I did it!
But did Victoria and Jessie live? Did I make it in time? If they die from old age do they come back if I destroyed the tower?
As I lift my head and force my spent body to go down to check on Victoria and Jessie, a snowball plops itself over my nose and covers my eyes.
"Bullseye." Even if I can't see who did it, Victoria's mischievous snickers and impish voice give her away.
I wipe my face and see I'm right. Victoria's puffed hair regains its jet-black hue, her suit looks as tailor-made as it had before, and her wrinkles iron themselves out. Thank goodness she's alive.
"Think fast!" Another snowball blasts my face, but I won't get mad. I'm just grateful I made it in ti-.
A third snowball hits squarely on my nose, and at this point, I'm half mad at her, half impressed with her precision. "What are you doing Victoria?!"
"It's snowball fightin' weather, Ren. I'm doing as nature intended."
"I'm not going to have a snowball fight with you-" Another snowball smacks my jaw.
"You little..." Like so many times before, I leap at Victoria, chasing her down the sheer mountain over the snow and rocks. But this doesn't feel like before. Strangely enough, I don't feel like killing her. It'd be wrong to strangle her after I went through all of that trouble to save her.
Shoot, I just remembered, Jessie's older than Victoria and the aging hit them first. Just because Victoria's okay doesn't mean they-
"Ren!!" That's Jessie's voice, they're alive!
To the right of the foot of the mountain, Jessie stands fully recovered! At least partially, because their broken shoulder is out of its cast, and if my cut reverted itself, the break did too. But they seemed more focused on me than any broken limb.
"Ren! Who told you my name!?" Shoot, I forgot I slipped and used their name!
Victoria turns to Jessie and chucks their revolver back to them before she continues sprinting away from me. She must have gotten a hold of it when it flew out of my hands.
Jessie's free hand catches it midair "Ren! Ren come back!!" They cut through the snow after us, their injured arm might be slowing them a bit, but their speed is still staggering!
So, over the newly restored land hammered by heaps of ice and sleet, under a beaming yellow sun somewhere in Alaska, I used what little energy I had to chase down the fleet-footed Victoria with a partially restored Jessie biting at my heels.