The Unsanctioned

The tired voice of the martial artist travelled through my ears like a death sentence. I was done for, a goner, and unfortunately, Marcie was going to be dragged into it. Gazing into his sleepy, gold ringed, eyes, my first instinct was look away, yet I couldn't bring myself to do it.

For some reason, the fear of looking away from him overwhelmed the fear that came from peering into the man's eyes.

"Who are you?!" I surprised myself with the shout that came from the deepest part of my being. It was everything I'd been holding back since the first Timepiece incident. And if this was only a day's worth of stress…

"I'm Virgil, Mr. 'Timekeeper'." His words were slow, and I could hear the sarcasm when he called me a Timekeeper.

The now named Virgil stood in front of me and his figure was imposing, to say the least. I'd thought he was tall before, but with him right there, I could tell he was nearly two meters tall, above 6 feet for sure. He had good muscle definition, as expected of a martial artist from what he knew of them, but there were also a few things that were off.

Virgil's attire was ever so slightly disheveled, in ways that showed he wasn't too used to wearing the clothes he was currently in. It looked like they were slightly loose on him as well, they probably weren't even his clothes at all.

"You're a Timekeeper too, so what's the big deal with me being one?" I slowly backed away, lightly grabbing hold of Marcie's arm while I did. She was frozen, and it was a strange sensation to feel the absolute lack of resistance in a living body, if being frozen in time could count as living.

Virgil only chuckled at that, a tired drawl still in his voice. "I'm technically not a "Timekeeper". Just wearing a watch doesn't make you one, despite what that thing is telling you."

As if responding to Virgil's taunts, U27's voice rang in my head.

"Refueling complete, estimated 10 minutes left until refueling is needed." Ten minutes. That was all the time I had to get myself out of this situation without somehow dying.

"So I'm not a Timekeeper? What makes one then?" All of that with the slight bomb that had been dropped on me made me a little slow to notice the playful glint entering Virgil's eyes.

"Take a seat with me kid, I'll give you a rundown of your situation." Virgil sat down, and for a second I was tempted to throw Marci over my shoulder and use Acceleration, but something told me that it wouldn't be enough. Unlike me, Virgil didn't seem worried about any time constraints, and limits within the length of his time stopping abilities. And if that was really the case, since no one was there to distract him, I would end up caught in no time. So, I listened and sat down on the ground of the Ros Forest.

"I'm not going to go into crazy detail here, but you and I are different to Timekeepers. The correct term for us is, 'Unsanctioned'. As an Unsanctioned, we have a Timepiece, but aren't connected to the Timekeeper's Bureau, or Timekeeper's Commission, as in we're Unsanctioned users of Timepieces. In my case, by choice, and in your case, I'm guessing you didn't have a choice." Virgil's face split into a lazy grin, something I felt was common for the man. I chose to ignore how he hit the nail on the head about me.

"Unsanctioned… I was guessing this, but there's a whole bunch of these guys just running around?" My question was rhetorical, and Virgil seemed to pick up on that or simply didn't care what I was asking, seeing as he ignored what I said and continued on with his train of thought.

"In other words, since you have one of the limited resources both of these factions covet, you're a living target." The lazy grin turned into a full on smirk as the man's gaze trailed to my watch. "So how did you even get one of these? They're not exactly easy to come by and you have no idea what you're doing with it."

I almost didn't want to tell the man in front of me, but I wasn't exactly in a position to refuse anything he told me if I wanted to get out of here in good shape. Even if the man wasn't killer, he was definitely a fighter, and I wasn't.

"I was at the Upper Stratum's new exhibit and some rich looking guy had the watch. He was causing a bit of a scene, yelling at the watch like it could hear him and then he shoved it in his pocket. I may have grabbed it when he walked past me, and he didn't seem to notice anything. So I brought it home and fixed it up." As I told my story, the smirk on Virgil's face turned more humorous.

"So you stole it off of a Bureau or Commission member!?" At this point Vergil was visibly struggling to stop himself from laughing. "What's this about fixing it up though?"

I sighed at the man but answered regardless. "When I took the watch, it was all messed up. The front glass was cracked, there were broken gears, and it was filled with some sort of silver gunk that was a pain to get out. I just used an old watch I had for parts and fixed it up."

Virgil's laughter and smile disappeared.

"You're telling me you fixed a broken Timepiece?" Virgil's expression was unreadable, and I couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Yes? It's still a little broken, can't connect to the Timewire or something like that, so I wasn't able to learn how to use it properl-"

"What do you say to working with me kid?" Vergil stopped my rambling with his offer, an offer that was strange, to say the least. "You're talented, I know it, I can tell. And if either the Bureau or the Commission get their hands on you, the best thing they'll give you is death seeing as you stole from them. Not to mention your little story."

"What do you mean work with you? I'm not exactly qualified for any type of work, and I still have school to go to, y'know?"

"What's your name kid?"

"…Knox."

"Knox, become a mercenary."