January 14, 2004: London Terminal

London, England

10:02 am GMT.

She watched his dust coated chest heave steadily up and down before rebandaging his burns for the third time in the last hour.

Everything about the boy was covered in dust, really. Dust from the debris of London. From his vibrant red hair, which Ingrid was still trying to justify whether it was natural or not, and his pale, freckled skin, down to his gangly legs and sharp chin, he was scraped and beat up pretty much everywhere. She took notice of a pink scar that ran from the bottom of his nose to his lower lip.

The boy was in worse condition than Ingrid, judging by his smoking jacket and the holes the burned various places on his jeans. Not to mention that half his shoes had been burned to his skin by the between walker's poisonous fog. After the walker's death, Ophelia had found him face down in a patch of snow, third degree burns up his forearms, and she claimed he must have fallen from a building.

"Six stories down?" Ingrid had asked Ophelia. Matus were tough beings, but not invincible.

The Sayidat had seemed to be in disbelief as well. Her mentor had her face scrunched up in deep thought, but Ingrid couldn't read her mind.

"Well, that's where I left him. His powers exhausted him, and he fell. It's just a theory."

Ingrid recalled how Ophelia's expression lightened curiously while she seemed to have reached a realization of something. "I wonder..." and her voice trailed off.

Ingrid knew better than to question the Lady when she got like that. It only led to more questions and confusing answers, and Ophelia was likely to keep her in the dark about 'Council matters,' which was what this whole thing was probably about.

Ophelia was making a 'private call' in one of the many demolished buildings (Ingrid had no idea which), probably speaking of the same 'Council matters' with her fellow Sayidat officials. At least that was what she said. Ingrid had been put on babysitting duty; that didn't mean Meiren, who slouched tiredly against a phone booth, but the passed out boy lying on a park bench.

The same boy she had drastically underestimated and taken for a fool, when he really turned out to be one of the most powerful Matus she'd ever seen.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see the deep crater that had been the remnant of what damage he could really do. It proved the boy was real, and that he was someone important, judging by the way Ophelia had acted. It was the proof the between walker had been there, the first she'd seen in years. It proved its demise, the only thing that remained of it in this world.

Well, that and the burning city. But London's destruction would soon become just another forgotten arc in time, after backup Sayidats closed off the destroyed time zone and created a parallel.

Ingrid's head always began to spin when she thought of the process of closing time. That was what the Council referred to as covering up their tracks; she knew very little about it, but it was when Ladies of Time disabled a chunk of time, in this case January 14th, 2004, 8am to 9am in London, England.

They would segment off the hour of destruction and create a copy that didn't have two Underworldian creatures involved. Time for mortals would be as normal, with no supernatural deaths or destroyed buildings, their lives and time zones would go on, and they wouldn't realize a thing.

Closing time didn't always work as expected. It wasn't a perfect process. It wasn't always big mistakes that were made, small ones, like maybe a Dunkin Donuts sign never got fixed and people wondered what on earth had happened to it, or the rare world changing mistakes...like that one time when Ingrid just began training and a couple of newbie Sayidats forgot to bring some random South African politician back to life after a shadow killed him.

They did bring him back to life, later on after realizing their mistake, but the news had already been out that this man had died in prison, only then for mortals to later found out he died a second time, which they of course manipulated themselves into thinking it was just some sci-fi phenomenon. They had called their theory the 'Mandela effect,' Ingrid remembered.

Which, in that case, they hadn't been too wrong.

Again, it was confusing and messed up, so Ingrid tried not to think too hard about it. It gave her a headache, and they were out of ibuprofen.

"Where is backup?" Meiren whined. She hit her head against the booth's glass door. "I just want to sleep."

Ingrid felt the same way. "I dunno," she sighed empathetically. "The Isle is kinda far from here." Technically speaking, the Pacific Isle, home to the Council, was across the globe. But being a Lady of Time didn't make that too big of a problem.

"Do you think that Chinese buffet has mediocre food?" Meiren nodded her head across the street. A neon sign flickered over the restaurant's sagging roof. Another building that had been victim to the shadow. It read in obnoxious bright letters, Number One Chinese. Ingrid rolled her eyes.

"If their food is good, I doubt you want to eat sweet and sour chicken with roof debris as a side dish."

Bang, bang. Ingrid didn't have to look back at the ten year old to know she had just totaled herself for a severe head injury.

"Ugh, I'm hungry."

"Hello, hungry. I'm Ingrid."

Another bang. "Shut up."

It went on like this for minutes. Meiren groaned and complained, and Ingrid sat on the snowy sidewalk listening to Meiren groan and complain. It began snowing harder, and her butt went numb. As each snowflake fell, Ingrid got more impatient. Ophelia had better show up, or else--

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

"Oh my--"

Ingrid whipped her head around, ready to snap the little girl's neck, but the anger faded when she saw the boy stirring.

"Ingrid, he's waking up."

"Yes, I see that," the older girl scowled at Meiren. She's so annoying.

The ginger haired boy clutched his hands on the sides of the bench. His face twisted into a painful grimace, and he breathed in quick, raspy intakes of air. Both girls took his side, Ingrid taking a seat next to him. His knees were tucked into his chest as he rocked back and forth, like he was a little kid experiencing a night mare.

"Hey," she whispered as his eyes fluttered open. His jade irises grew as his pupils shrunk, and he lazily shut his eyes once again.

Meiren obnoxiously poked his cheek. "Wake up, I'm tired of watching you sleep. It's boring."

Ingrid glared at the younger girl's antics, but didn't chastise her. "Maybe he doesn't understand English."

Phenomenals were universal, meaning this boy could be from any arc across the world. Ingrid couldn't assume he was from an English-speaking zone. That was what made learning Arabic a mandatory requirement as a Sayidat. How else would other Matus and Sayidats communicate?

"Hey!"

Ingrid snatched Meiren's slim wrist that was inches away from poking the half-conscious boy in the cheek. Again.

"Poke him again, and I'll freeze you," she threatened. 'Freezing' was another perk of being a Sayidat, or a trainee at least. It gave her the ability to trap an individual or group in time, making them immobile until let go.

"Freeze me, and I'll tell Phee."

Ingrid's nostrils flared at the child. Touché, she thought. She was already on Ophelia's bad side. Meiren was always the suck-up, and it wouldn't surprise her if their teacher took her side.

The girls ceased their bickering and turned their attention back to the mysterious boy. His eyes were half-open again, going cross-eyed, then shifting from side to side. He kept his stare on the both of them. Ingrid noticed his breathing had steadied significantly.

"Well?" Meiren looked to Ingrid, tapping her little foot impatiently (her little foot that still possessed Ingrid's boots). "Ask him where he's from."

Ingrid internally groaned at the girl's bossiness. "Can you tell us who sent you?" she asked the boy softly. She guessed a Sayidat in a nearby arc had sensed trouble and sent her most powerful Matu. But she needed answers to confirm her theory.

Blank emerald eyes blinked back emotionlessly. His blond eyelashes were thick with dust. Ingrid took a deep breath. "Alty qus 'ant min?" she began again slowly in arabic.

He stared blankly again at her. His cracked lips opened and closed, and he swallowed with difficulty.

"Does he have a concussion or something?" Meiren squinted at the inaudible boy.

"Mmm..." It was likely. "He did fall kinda far." More like deathly far.

She was about to question him again, when the boy sucked in a heavy breath and bobbed his head. His eyes widened, and he tried sitting up, only to give up and rest back down on the bench. He looked more awake than seconds before, giving Ingrid hope.

"Am...am I dead?"

His accented voice sounded like an average teen boy's, minus the damaged lung rasps that made him sound more like an ancient Pharaoh that had been cocooned in itchy wraps for thousands of years.

"You aren't dead, but you should be," Meiren deadpanned. She scrunched her nose up at him like he was some foul creature. "Why aren't you?"

Ingrid sharply elbowed her in the stomach.

"Ow! What the he--"

"--Do you know what happened?" Despite Meiren's incompetency, Ingrid was still determined to get answers.

It might give her some clue as to what Council secrets Ophelia had denied her to know.

To her dismay, he shook his head. "I feel like I was thrown off a cliff," the boy groaned.

"Yeah, not far from it," Meiren grumbled, dramatically cradling her core. Her speckled wings ruffled in distaste.

He turned his head to gaze at the destroyed and abandoned streets. "There was something here," he mused.

"Do you remember?" Ingrid pressed on, her voice getting lower. "Do you know what you did here?"

He shook his head again. "I...I think I killed it."

"Duh," Meiren interrupted from her time-out spot by the phone-booth, "I figured that out way before you did." She ran her fingers over her axe's jagged edge.

"Okay, that's enough from you," Ingrid hissed in exasperation. She gave the boy a sympathetic smile. "You did," she told him. "The between walker? You killed it."

His lips lifted in some sort of smile. "I killed it," he breathed. "My green thumb did it."

"Sure," she said, though she wasn't exactly certain what he had just whispered. She was a little unnerved by his unwavering stare.

"You have wings," the boy slurred numbly. His face was slack in awe.

He reached a hand out as if he were to touch her golden feathers. Ingrid, not countering the move, flinched instinctively. Her wings rippled as fingertips grazed over the sleek coat.

She cleared her throat, getting over the weird gesture. Who was this boy?

"Have you never seen a Sayidat?" Ingrid inquired gently.

His green eyes widened then dimmed. "What?" he yawned.

From a few feet away, Meiren scoffed. "He doesn't even know what Sayidats are?" She stifled a giggle. "He really did hit his head hard, didn't he?"

Ingrid ignored her. Her brows furrowed as she sat next to the confused teenager. How could he not know what a Sayidat was? He had clearly been trained, based on the way he'd used his Phenomena.

"Oh..." she began, "Did you not have a Sayidat in your arc?" That had to be it. Sometimes Matus independent of the Council resided in old arcs made by Sayidats long ago. They were sheltered to the rest of the Phenomenal world. Rogue Phenomenals were rare, but Ophelia had claimed before that she knew a few.

But, alas, with the boy it seemed not the case. "I really don't know what you're talking about," he breathed. He seemed worn out by talking and genuinely confused.

"Why do I hurt everywhere?" he asked. The boy glanced at his bandaged arms.

"You broke three ribs, got bit by walker venom, fell six stories," Meiren droned. She held a charred newspaper inches from her face. Ingrid couldn't stand her any longer. By the end of the day, she was going to kill the kid for sure.

"And there's no sign of a definite fracture, but Phee's like ninety percent sure you twisted your ankle," the girl topped it off.

"Thanks, Dr. Meiren," Ingrid said sarcastically.

Meiren looked over her paper. "You're genuinely welcome."

"It burns," the boy groaned. Ingrid don't think he'd paid much attention to Meiren's diagnosis as much as he had his aching body.

"Here," Ingrid rummaged through Ophelia's med kit. She produced the enchanted ointment Phee always carried in case they ever did run into between walkers. Not for them, but Phenomenals that weren't immune to walker fog. This boy was one example.

She carefully unwrapped his bandages. The burns had turned almost purple red, but the blisters had gone down significantly. He had charred skin where the poison had got him the most, which would likely result in scars, but other than that he was on the road to a quick recovery.

The boy hissed as she applied the thick lotion over his arms. "It'll sting for a few minutes," she said after she'd finished. Ingrid let the ointment air out and absorb into the skin before putting the wraps back over the boy's forearms.

Meiren found him a water and after minutes of digging in the med kit, the little girl scavenged a close to empty aspirin bottle.

So Meiren wasn't a complete nuisance after all. She could be mediocrely helpful at best.

The pain medicine seemed to lighten the boy up a bit. He sat upright on the bench. Ingrid swelled with pride. She had fixed him for the time being.