I liked Master's home. It was nice, and quiet. It had many scrying mirrors to look upon the time streams hanging from the walls in the front room. It also had many floors. Seventy, to be exact, or so he told me.

Master lead me to the eleventh floor. "This floor will be yours. Your personal quarters."

My expression brightened. Eleven was my favorite number. I had absolutely no idea why this was, the the fact remained prominent. Of course, Master must have known this. Master knows everything.

The eleventh floor was almost like a checkerboard. Every other room was all white or silver, and all the rooms between those were black. The furniture in the black rooms was silver, and the furniture in the white rooms was black. The large hallway that ran through the center of the floor, adjourning all the rooms, was half white, half black. The doors for the black rooms were white, and the doors leading to the white rooms were black. At one end of the hallway, the northern end, a white staircase spiraled up, and a black staircase spiraled down at the opposite end, the southern side.

I sighed, completely content with the balance of shades. No grays. Perfect. I detested grays. They were neutral. I liked my world in black and white.

I nodded at my Master. "Thank you."

He nodded. "Of course. All is as it should be."

I loved it when he said that.

"Chronos, I am going to the first floor, to have a meeting with some Observants. I must not be disturbed, understand?" I nodded quickly. By his tone, I could tell that Master did not like these "Observants", whoever they were. I he didn't, neither did I. "Good. I will explain to you about the Observants once I am finished. Why don't you explore the tower, until that time comes?"

I nodded. "Most certainly, Master."

He nodded once more, and disappeared through a giant clock. I had to learn how to do that. It wasn't like a portal. It was more of a doorway. A solid, tangible doorway you could touch and feel.

I decided to follow Masters suggestion. This is what I found out:

Floor #1: Master's study. Keep out, at the moment.

Floor #2: This floor was just a very long hallway filled with scrying mirrors. Spares, perhaps?

Floor #3: There were only four rooms on this floor. One held clocks, seemingly from every era in time imaginable. The second was filled to the brim with spiritual energy. Portals glowed on every space of wall there was. I politely skipped that one, slamming the door shut loudly. The third appeared to be a messy gear closet. The fourth had more scrying mirrors. Maybe if the second floor ones broke... Well, you couldn't be too careful, could you?

Floor #4: Rec room. One side of the hallway was a rather large gymnasium. The other half was separated into two rooms. One held an air hockey table, a pool table, and many other fun items. The other room was a miniature golf course.

Floor#5: Half the floor was a pool, that joined with a hot tub which took up one fourth of the other half. The last space was a steam room. Cool.

Floor #6: It appeared to be a science lab of some sort. I decided not to dwell, crossing to the other side of the floor immediately, trying my best to avoid all sharp, for-cutting objects. They made me jumpy...

Floor #7: Mice. In cages. Lots of them. I literally ran to the staircase at the end of the room.

Floor #8: Snakes. I stopped here, taking a break. I loved snakes. They were beautiful, scaled reptiles, and were fast, agile, and accurate in their hunts.

Glancing around, I stepped up to a cage. It held a black snake with solid silver eyes. It looked like an anaconda, but much smaller, like the size of a corral snake, but without any marking whatsoever. I wonder if it was venomous...

I caught the intelligent gleam in it's eyes as the reptile looked up at me with interest. Without another thought, I lifted the lid off the glass tank. The snake hissed happily as I held it in a tight fist, watching it whip around and twist it's well-muscled body. I set it on my shoulder and watched as it wrapped itself gently around my neck like a chain, resting it's head in the hollow of my collar bones.

"I am going to name you Shadow. Is that alright?" I asked it, after a moments thought.

Somehow, I wasn't too surprised when it hissed back at me, and I heard a smooth, echoic voice sound in my mind. "Well, I like it. Agreed."

I smiled happily.

Floor #9: The kitchen. A white tiled room with silver cabinets, purple walls, and a large, long, black dining table. I grabbed a kiwi from the large white bowl full of exotic fruits from every era of time, and all over the world, and then fed Shadow some chili. Apparently, he's rather taken with the dish.

Floor #10: This was a strange room. It was filled to the brim with blankets, pillows, and Temperpedic foam mattresses. I played Hide and Seek with Shadow for a while before moving on.

Floor #11: Mine. I took the time to choose a room. The largest one in the center of the black-sided Hallway. It was a solid white room, with a white framed, king-sized bed that sported black sheets and pillows. A large black dresser stood on the opposite side of the room. I set down the glass of water I had taken from the Kitchen on the black nightstand. I could come back for it later.

Floor #12: This was Master's quarters. I decided not to mess with anything. He might get angry with me. Shadow agreed. I didn't want master to be mad at me.

Floor #13: This floor held filing cabinets. After some digging around, I found a profile on every ghost in the Zone, and even some information on some of the more ancient areas of the dimension. After a while, I got bored, and my legs had fallen asleep from sitting in one position for two long.

Floor #14: This floor confused me greatly. A very large, purple tube spiraled down from the ceiling in one corning, did a few loops around the large, darkened room, then disappeared again into the wall on the opposite end. The tube glowed slightly with light, and I could hear the sound of rushing water, like a waterfall, inside of the tube. I cast Shadow a puzzled look when he hissed in confusion, before shrugging and moving. on.

Floor #15: This floor made so much sense of the one below it. I walked past the gaping mouth of a huge, high-tech looking water slide. It probably ran the whole length of the Tower before dropping out into the pool on Floor #5. Brilliant.

Floor #16: A movie theater. Black leather recliners with a huge popcorn machine off the the back of the room. Only kettle corn. My favorite.

Floor #17: This floor was a huge armory. With swords. And guns. And grenades. And scythes, and spears, and javelins, and daggers, and slingshots, and every other type of weapon you could imagine.

Floor #18: An art studio. Paint, clay, blank canvases, marble, stone, jewels, chistles, brushes, welding torches. You name it. It's there.

Floor #19: A huge office with high-tech, state of the art computers, and laptops. And nooks. And Kindles. Ipods, I-Phones that I'm sure haven't even come out yet in the present time. Heaven for Geeks. Wi-Fi included. Awesome.

Floor #20: A giant library. Imagine the national one Washington D.C, North America. With books. On everything. 'Nuff said.

I decided this was where I would stop for the day. Seventy floors was a lot to go through, and even though I had all the time in the world, I didn't want to see them all at once. Doing nothing for a few eons, centuries, millennium, and then suddenly go somewhere that has everything in the world that you've missed while you were doing nothing... Well, it gets pretty overwhelming.

Anyway, Master was probably done with his meeting anyway.

I giggled, chasing Shadow back down to Floor #15, where the mouth of the waterslide loomed. We both looked at each other.

Shadow blinked. "I am not a water snake..."

I stared back at him. "I know..."

He hissed. "Well then..." Suddenly, Shadow grew, morphing into a completely pitch black, humanoid, tangible shadow. He look like a ninja. He wore a black cloak like mine, with the silver C.W engraved on it. His silver eyes gleamed over at me.

I breathed in sharply. "Brilliant."

His voice was audible this time, but still sounded the same, smooth, echoic tone it had before. "Shall we?" He held out a hand.

I grinned, grabbing it. We both jumped in.

- - C*W - -

I sat in a patio chair on the fifth floor, waiting for Chronos and his new friend to come down.

There was a loud splash, and I suppressed a quiet chuckle. I leaned back, my eyes closed, as my Apprentice flew out of the water and grabbed a towel, wringing out his soaked cloak. After a moment or two, he gave up and went intangible, letting the water fall back into the pool below him.

I smirked as Shadow the... shadowkhan went intangible as well. He stretched silently before joining Chronos at the food bar. The two friends caught up in a quiet discussion.

All is as it should be.