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: Accountability
Part 21: All Good Things
Part 22: Mental Gymnastics
Part 23: Shadow Tactics
Part 24: Timeline Descynchronization
Part 25: Resurgence
Part 26: Doomsday Cult
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. But after much turmoil, Victor has accomplished his goal. With a time and place to target the so called True King of Time, all that remains is to finish what they started.
Victor outlined the plan. “We have a couple venues of attack. The first we could try is direct infiltration. We have someone join the Legion, and work their way up the ranks until they reach the King. Then, they either capture or eliminate. It’s possible they could also acquire the rank of King, but that seems even more difficult, and might not be practical. So those first two possibilities would be most likely.”
Shuck shook his head. “All of that is a lot easier said than done…”
Mira agreed. “That’s an understatement. It could take years, maybe decades, to successfully infiltrate an already openly hostile organization like that. I’m sure they have all kinds of methods to hide from us as well as detect traitors, both before and after they join. Someone could very easily spend a long time undercover only to be caught before they accomplish anything. There has to be a simpler way.”
Shuck commented. “We know the time and place. Why don’t we just attack?”
Victor looked up at the ceiling, leaning back in his chair as he let out a deep sigh. “The issue is any secret organization would have contingencies for something like that. We might capture some more members, but they would likely not have much more of use than what we already have. Their operational security isn’t impenetrable, as we have seen firsthand, but it’s certainly resilient. All sensitive information would be moved or destroyed, and the King would be long gone before we could reach him, no matter how overwhelming our forces might be. We would accomplish nothing in that instance.”
Victor sat back up, as if realizing something. “It just occurred to me that their single point of failure might not be a weakness as I originally thought. They have one spot which they devote all their resources to defending. We can’t easily whittle away at their hierarchy because of it, but that makes me wonder how they handle the day to day operations… surely, a single leader can’t direct all of their actions. There are too many decisions to be made. How-”
Shuck interrupted. “Focus, Victor… we can’t go off on irrelevant tangents. We need a plan of attack. If both direct attack and infiltration have low odds of success, what else is there?”
“Well… there is one other option I know of. But it has its own risks.”
“Let’s here it, then.”
Victor grimaced, and began to explain. “We have a time period. Even if the organization remained through the centuries, they must have changed locations eventually. And I doubt they can have anything resembling security around an abandoned, ancient ruin. Why would they care if some random travelers wander through?”
Mira’s eyes lit up. “Of course! We can learn about our enemy from what they left behind!”
Victor continued. “Better than that. We can probably deduce where the throne room is physically located, and time jump to the precise time period where the Legion was still active. If we start with an educated guess and slowly fine tune the time of day we jump in, we could also increase the odds that we will run into the so called True King of Time. Once that happens, the hard part is done. There is nothing I’ve seen that suggests their leader is a master of combat, as he is the one agent they would never put on the front lines.”
Shuck interjected. “That has similar problems to a frontal assault, plus one new. If the King has some elite bodyguards, we would need to defeat those. It’s also very likely their fortress prevents time travel out of it, so we would be trapped.”
Victor thought for a moment. “Well… there is one option I could think of. If we are in a location and are able to be undetected, we can just accelerate forward in time.”
“I just explained they will definitely have safeguards against that.”
“No, not jump. Accelerate. An important difference, as one is local and does not actually leave the time period entirely. We would be like statues simply existing as we experienced time at thousands of times the speed of normal people. I have some ideas on how to actually accomplish this, but I will need to contact some old acquaintances… without specifics, there is little point in going into detail on this. Just trust me, if we aren’t dealing with a world ending superpower that would annihilate the landscape itself, then we should be able to figure something out.”
Shuck frowned, tapping his finger on the table as he thought. “I don’t like not knowing about our available contingencies, Victor. It makes me worry that the plan isn’t as well thought out as people would like to believe.”
“The plan isn’t well thought out, and we can only do so much about that. Even though an archaeological study of the ruins will be a safe way to gain crucial information, it will be far from detailed information at the end of the day. On the bright side, though, we might find evidence of what actually happened when we jumped into the past, creating a self fulfilling prophecy on how we can succeed.”
Shuck laughed slightly. “I suppose no plan has guarantee of success to begin with. But trying to study the scene of a battle after it has chronologically happened… what a novel concept.”
“Not really, you’ve done this before.”
Shuck gave Victor an odd look, and Mira suddenly broke in with an almost panicked tone. “Father! He hasn’t actually done any of that yet. Don’t say anything else about it!”
Victor felt a chill run down his spine. The room spun, and he only barely managed to remain sitting in his chair. He had only felt such an effect once before, and as such the cause was unmistakable. If he had said anything further, he would have died of a time toggle. With cold sweat gathering on his face, he regained his composure as the other two watched in concerned silence. Though they had previously talked freely, it became startlingly clear yet again that they were all from different time periods and took part in complicated interactions throughout time. One wrong word could shatter the time traveler who allowed the paradox to occur.
The food they almost forgot they had ordered arrived.
The next day, week, month, and even year was uneventful. Mira, Victor, and Shuck all went separate ways, though Shuck still stayed in frequent contact with Mira. Victor kickstarted the archaeological expedition, which was far less expensive than paying for warriors, as most were volunteers simply interested in furthering academic fields. Mira, who was practically never at the dig site for long, claimed she was honing her techniques for the upcoming battle, as they would no doubt be in constant danger during the planned operation. Victor was convinced she was simply anxious to get it over with, though, and was making jumps through time to approach the fateful day faster.
Shuck was directly involved in the excavation. He kept the necessary funds flowing to the right hands and directed the efforts, even going as far as to write up progress reports. Victor was surprised at his efficiency, but reminded himself the man was an electro caster. Such casters were known for being especially well organized and detail oriented, so even though he never saw the man as a leader, it made sense he could fulfill the role well when necessary.
Victor did not tell anyone what he did in that time. He spent all of his time contacting his old contacts, people who even his usual informant Gerald was unaware of. Though they had no information on the Legion, as he expected, they provided a great deal of specialized equipment. As he considered their options, he narrowed down the tools to a handful of devices, as he could hardly bring an entire armada with him into the past. Better yet, taking only what was necessary meant he could keep it hidden on his person without being conspicuous.
But finally, the day came. Victor, Mira, and Shuck regrouped above the ruins while the excavation team worked on packing up their tools and cleaning up their workstations. Victor opened the map, leading the group to the proper room.
“Here. This is the throne room, no doubt about it. As luck would have it, every single entrance to this room has heavy fortification, and there are multiple emergency escape routes. There are also traps of all kinds, some of which whose nature was not even recognized by our experts on such things beyond them being a countermeasure.”
Shuck crossed his arms, looking critically at the highlighted portion of the map. “I hardly consider that lucky…”
“The lucky part is virtually all of this exists outside the room. If we are standing right inside the room, and jump to the proper time period, we won’t have many issues.”
Shuck nodded. “I see… what if they have a time cage around them? I’m told you’ve seen something similar before. It might prevent us from jumping directly in at all.”
Victor rolled up the map. “We will know that once we try to jump, and if they do have that, we will simply think of something else. Nothing gained, but nothing lost. However, some of the archaeologists think that they had Meta traversing through this room somewhat regularly on business.”
“Isn’t that an issue, then? Won’t they have countermeasures or be otherwise prepared?”
“We don’t know that for sure. They used blackmail on Meta, which suggests they don’t have a direct countermeasure against us. Also, the fact that they have Metas appearing there routinely means we might catch them off guard, and not be attacked on sight. It’s a gamble, obviously, but-”
Mira interrupted, yelling with surprising volume. “Enough! I can’t take this anymore! Let’s just do this, and be done with it!”
Shuck and Victor, stunned into silence at the outburst, nevertheless eventually agreed. Victor tucked the map into one of his many pockets, and turned to Mira. “Very well. We have done all the preparation that we can without devoting our lives to it. I’ve given emergency instructions to Janet in case I fail, and I can safely assume you two have done the same to whoever you deemed necessary in these past few months. There is nothing left to excuse our delay. Mira, please take us to the previously discussed time code.”
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