Part 1: Quarantine
Part 2: Odd Jobs
Part 3: Shuck
Part 4: The Old North
Part 5: Dirty Dave
Part 6: Multipliers
Part 7: Kilogold
Part 8: Analysis
Part 9: Reversal
Part 10: Miss Meta
Part 11: The Fourth Consortium
Part 12: Young Ghost
Part 13: Dungeon Diving
Part 14: Puzzles
Part 15: Calm Before the Storm
Part 16: Eventual
Part 17: Changing History
Part 18: The Gaze
Part 19: Panic
Part 20: Panic
Part 21: All Good Things
Part 22: Mental Gymnastics
Synopsis(spoilers ahead if you want to read the story from the beginning)
Victor Meta is a time traveler who lived with his wife Janet and his young daughter Mira in a quaint timeline on the edge of obscurity. However, one day he was ambushed by soldiers of the Legion, and was forced to ally with a con artist named Shuck to save them from certain doom. By carefully manipulating time, he was barely successful, thanks to additional help surprisingly provided by his own daughter, now an adult time traveler.
But all of that pales in comparison to the revelation that Mira brings. They were not alone in being targeted. The time traveling family of Meta has been attacked throughout history. Ghost, another Gatekeeper who helped Dante Meta escape the coordinated assault, has joined the effort alongside that same Meta to find the masterminds behind the attack. And now, they all are working together to unravel the mystery of the Legion's ability to coordinate throughout time.
They now find themselves in the middle of a veritable warzone, facing contorted monsters called Vorpals. With few options left and other lives at stake, they throw in with a group of survivors to try holding back the encroaching horde. But it proved too much, and with their backs against the wall, Shuck played his trump card, ironically in the form of a summoning card.
With the overwhelming power of Panic, the group is now safe. For the moment. However, their suspicions have finally turned their attention to apprehending Shuck. After losing track of his now traumatized daughter, Victor now flees from a homicidal Ghost.
Victor collapsed on a deserted bridge in Pause. He gasped for breath as he tried to regain control of his faculties. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow, trying to understand what had happened. Was Ghost really about to kill him over something so trivial?
Just as Victor stood up, he felt a fist connect with his stomach. He doubled over in pain as the wind was knocked out of him. Another invisible fist to the side of his head sent him tumbling over the gravity bridge, landing roughly on the other side. He groaned, coughing as his head spun.
He saw the image of adult Ghost fading into existence, apparently having been the invisible force who had punched him twice. “Did you think I was lying, Vic? I don’t make empty threats.”
Victor struggled to stand up. “H… how…”
Ghost drew his staff, holding it with both hands as he pulled it back for a full swing right at Victor’s head. “How? It’s child’s play. All I need to do is-”
Victor jumped time periods again while Ghost was talking. Once could simply be a coincidence, a play to appear more powerful than he actually was. Victor limped along with short breath through a random village in ancient times, drawing some strange glances from the local population. After he finally managed to calm his nerves and regain control of his gravity casting, he flew a short distance at the absolute maximum speed he could muster.
He time jumped multiple times, going in different directions each time. If Ghost was somehow tracking him, he was not about to make it easy. But as Ghost failed to appear again, Victor finally slowed down, out of breath. He time jumped back to Pause, and went to see his wife and young daughter.
Janet looked at him with surprise as he suddenly burst into the shelter. “Victor! You’re back! Have you sorted everything out? Can we go home now?”
“No, but we need to go somewhere else, right now. Someone’s after me, and they-”
Victor froze mid-sentence as the room’s occupants settled into his mind. His daughter was playing with some toys on the carpeted floor. The walls had bland posters with information about Pause, like where to go for different services or who to call. And his wife sat at a table, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, with Ghost sitting across from her. “If someone is after you, Victor, then maybe you should ask Ghost here for help? He tells me that he knows you from somewhere, though he says the details need to be kept secret. He’s been here waiting for you for several hours, so we’ve just been chatting.”
Ghost took a sip of his own coffee, setting it down before standing up to face the terrified Victor. “Good to see you finally made it back, Victor. Should we take this outside?”
Victor looked at his wife, who seemed to be slowly realizing that Ghost was the one after him. However, the time traveler was not willing to put his wife or daughter in unnecessary danger if offered a way to avoid it. “Very well…”
Ghost and Victor stepped outside. Victor faced Ghost, and immediately threw a gravity charged punch before Ghost could say anything. Ghost vanished, and the punch instead took a large chunk out of the building he had been standing in front of. As Victor expected, Ghost appeared behind him, so he grabbed some rubble and threw it behind him with gravity acceleration applied to give it lethal velocity.
It glanced harmlessly off of Ghost, who knocked Victor to the ground with a single strike of his staff. Ghost walked up, and kicked Victor again before he could get up. Victor coughed hoarsely as he tried to get control of his gravity casting, but froze when he saw Ghost standing above him. His staff had etchings now glowing with brilliant light, bringing a very disturbing realization to Victor’s mind. That staff had been painful to be hit with even before it was charged, but while charged, it would likely cut through flesh and bone.
Rather than finishing him off, though, Ghost offered a hand. “I think that’s enough… I need you to understand, Victor. I do not take any form of aggression against me lightly. Consider that just a taste of what happens to my actual enemies. Now, stand up and brush yourself off. We need to finish the conversation you started two weeks ago.”
“Two weeks? I-”
“I mean two weeks by my time, of course. I had to put out some requests for information, and I went about my usual business while my people looked into it. I had to take even more time when you ditched me the second time, but I felt this whole business was worth the effort. You and all the other Metas still don’t seem to understand how tracking can work.”
Victor accepted the help as he was pulled back to his feet, though he still didn’t understand what Ghost was saying. “That… shouldn’t be possible!”
“Tell me, Victor… how did you find Shuck?”
Victor didn’t take kindly to the change in subject, but he also wasn’t interested in angering Ghost again. “I don’t know… I went to a contact I had. He keeps records on that stuff.”
“Gerald, right?”
“Why the rift are you asking me questions that you already have the answers to?”
“Because… you don’t seem to realize that they are the answers to the questions you are asking.”
Victor looked at Ghost incredulously. “Are you saying that Gerald is the one informing the people kidnapping Metas? Why would he do that?”
Ghost laughed. “Maybe not Gerald specifically… but definitely Meta like him. I realized this many years ago when I found out how easy it was to get in touch with any specific Meta given enough prior notice and money to pay for it. If you avoid the more conspicuous activities like cold-blooded murder, you can always find someone willing to sell you the information. The ones who have been facilitating the victimization of Metas… are other unscrupulous Metas.”
Victor paced, unsure what to do with this new information. “Fold it… then we need to shut down those businesses, but at the same time, we Metas need that information! We are all blind without it, and would be left to scour history books endlessly to acquire even a scrap of useful info! We keep track of things like Eventuals, civil wars, everything… so that we can avoid them, preserve important artifacts, and pick up the pieces afterwards! We are the guardians of-”
“Don’t flatter yourself! What have you done, Victor? Not Metas in general, but you, specifically?”
Victor paused, thinking for a second. “Well… I’m not much of a combatant myself, so I’ve mostly earned money giving the occasional passage and tour to notable points in time, or-”
“So you are a glorified tour guide.”
Victor felt that saying he was glorified was disingenuous. He hardly demanded respect for what was indeed a rather unimportant profession. He never tried to pretend it was otherwise. “Is that really a problem? Not everyone can play an important role in history.”
Ghost shook his head. “It’s absolutely a problem… because too many of you Metas still think yourself entirely outside the reach of non time travelers, as if your power makes you special when compared to everyone else. I’ve just demonstrated that is absolutely not the case, and the fact your family was tracked down not once, but twice, should be a wakeup call. This is a very dangerous position to be in, Victor. Thinking yourself untouchable while being quite vulnerable is a recipe for disaster.”
“Well, what do YOU suggest, Ghost? I’m all ears for a solution.”
Ghost tossed Victor a notebook. Flipping it open, he was stunned at the sheer amount of information. “This is…”
“Suspected locations for Legion terrorist cells, along with accompanying access information. It’s been a side project of mine for awhile.”
“Just a side project?!?”
“Again, Victor… you misunderstand your own significance, as well as the significance of most Metas. This problem is hardly the worst one I’ve faced, especially given it’s diluted over centuries with only a very small presence in my native time. But working on it provides me multiple advantages. Information on how Meta time travel works, different Meta contacts that I can use for information gathering, and even the classic compensation. Cold, hard, gold. But you want to know how me and Shuck know so much about time travel? There’s your answer. You Metas told us.”
Victor looked at Ghost with confusion. “Wait… us?”
Ghost looked behind Victor, calling out to someone. “Mira, I think we are done here. Ready to go?”
Victor turned around slowly, and saw adult Mira. She looked different, and he realized she must have aged at least five years since he last saw her. Moreover, there was a different aura about her. Confidence, but not the brash, hasty kind. The kind that came from crushing one’s own ego repeatedly, allowing one to grow as a person. “Ready, Ghost. Hello, father. Long time no see, at least for me. I understand this all has been a rather chaotic day for you, but we aren’t finished yet. So… are you ready to meet my husband?”
Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy some of my other published work on Amazon! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.
Gatekeepers, Book One: Unquestionable Truth
Gatekeepers, Book Two: Order of Gravitas
Same post on Minds