Part 1: Quarantine
Part 2: Odd Jobs
Part 3: Shuck
Part 4: The Old North
Part 5: Dirty Dave
Victor took a single step as he made his way around the cell, each time stopping to observe his watch. Shuck watched with no small amount of confusion. “Um… what are you doing?”
Victor stopped, turning to Shuck. “Oh, nothing really… just… THIS!”
At once, in each spot where Victor had stood, a copy of him appeared. They all looked around at each other, then began making their way to the door. There were now ten Victors, including the original, all standing near the door. Shuck was slightly startled. “Whoa, WHOA! This is madness! You are going to time toggle yourself for sure with that!”
One of the Victors spoke as the remaining nine waited patiently. “Ah, so you know about time toggling. Good, but this won’t cause that. Each of my copies will say nothing, and only act on my current orders. This will keep the timeline consistent, at least if I don’t use it too long or make things more complicated than they need to be. This is a fairly common technique for temporarily increasing maximum immediate energy output… hence, why we call it a Multiplier.”
Each of the Metas faced the door as Victor dissipated the time bubble and gave the order. “The door is too sturdy for one gravity caster to break, at least one of my caliber… but ten using full power all at the same time? No problem. All right, all of me; gravity pulse… NOW!”
The Metas all focused on the door with a single outstretched hand, and the metal groaned as it bent and contorted before the door was completely pushed out of it’s hinges, clattering to the floor. The Metas stepped back into their original positions from which they appeared, disappearing one after another until only one Victor Meta remained. He had sweat on his brow and was clearly exhausted, but managed to limp out of the cage with Shuck right behind him. He groaned in exhaustion as more Draaconians rushed in at the commotion. “I don’t have the strength to make a jump yet… Shuck, would you kindly-”
Shuck was already between Victor and the guards, lightning arcing between his fingertips. “Naturally. Dirty Dave might be beyond me, but his minions are not a problem.”
Dashing in between them with blinding speed, Shuck left them paralyzed and limp on the ground as he threw palm strikes and chops at any he was close to, moving with expert precision. Victor was more than a little surprised, as Shuck was not a listed combat specialist. Despite that, he clearly had considerable skill behind every strike he landed.
With the final Draaconian on the ground, Shuck turned back to Victor. “All right, caught your breath enough? Can you get us to a different time so we can escape this infernal place?”
Victor thought for a moment. He was still weak, but in a few minutes he could make a jump. That was for last resort at this point, though, as he had a much better idea. “Not yet, I have a score to settle now… Dirty Dave is clearly in possession of Anti-Meta technology, which means I’m cleared to use extreme force against him.”
“Really? And that would be…?”
“I’ll show you rather than tell you. But I need you to get those chains off him, I’m certain they will prevent my time manipulation powers in the same way the shackle did. Can you do that?”
Shuck stopped short, giving Victor a long hard look. “Vic… he’s a class seven. I had thought his classification might have been an exaggeration initially, but it clearly isn’t. I might be talented, but I’m only class four with my casting. I won’t survive long in a fair fight against him. Sure, I can probably magnetize those chains long enough to separate them from him, but after that… he’ll kill me. If whatever you have planned doesn’t work, it could get ugly real fast.. You are asking for quite a lot of trust.”
Victor shrugged. “It’s that, or we go back to square one of looking for a different job. Are you in or not?”
Shuck was grimly silent for a spell. Then he cracked a smile. “Sure, why the rift not? I didn’t plan on living forever anyways.”
Dirty Dave walked into the room, and grew enraged when he saw the empty cage surrounded by unconscious Draaconians. He grabbed the one who had walked in next to him by the throat, slamming the fellow scaly humanoid against the wall. “Find them! Bring them to me, NOW!”
He let his unfortunate subordinate drop to the floor and scurry away as he walked closer to the cage. “Meta… you can’t hide from me, or the Legion.”
Shuck dropped from the ceiling, covering Dirty Dave’s eyes. “Peekaboo, Davey! Guess who?”
Dirty Dave flailed about before Shuck back-flipped off of him, a short distance away. The lumbering lizard man tried to chase after him, but found himself struggling against his chains as they got tangled together and stuck magnetically to the iron-rich wall. Shuck taunted the now mostly immobile slaver. “Ah ha! Regretting such a ridiculous wardrobe now, aren’tcha?”
Dirty Dave dispensed with the chains, pulling them off as he let them cling to the iron-infested walls, various metal cages, and ceiling. “I’ll kill you for this!”
Victor’s appearance from behind a stalagmite only took a second to elicit terror from Dirty Dave before the time traveler snapped his fingers, ending the man’s existence. “You just got a one-way ticket, Dirty Dave. Hope you enjoy wherever you end up.”
The malicious Draaconian vanished, a black card sitting on the ground where he had been only moments ago. Shuck looked at the card in mystified wonder, while Shuck casually picked it up and put it in one of his many pockets. Shuck had enough with the lack of explanation, and let Victor know it. “Ok, that’s enough. I demand to know what you just did. I’ve seen summoning cards before; the person never permanently leaves his timeline like that. That’s the rule. What the rift did you do?”
“It’s called a one-way summoning card. Normally, a person is just borrowed from a time period when making a summoning card. They always must be returned, alive, otherwise the created card simply won’t work. The purpose of that rule is to maintain the integrity of timelines. But a one-way doesn’t have that requirement, and their usage is tightly restricted because of it. If I hadn’t of observed crimes being committed with my own eyes that involved the usage of Legion technology, I would be prosecuted for even considering this, even if I did eventually return him to the proper time.”
Shuck scoffed. “I’m not sure how a time traveler would ever face consequences for his actions. Surely, there is enough history to hide forever…”
Victor smirked right back. “Well, I could explain to you how you would be so very wrong to think that… but I believe I have given you enough forbidden knowledge for one day. Ready to go?”
As more Draaconians ran in looking for a fight, Victor decided not to wait for an answer, and pulled Shuck along with him through time just as jets of fire began to fill their vision.
The two travelers found themselves in Pause, Shuck eventually realizing why. They had been moved to a different physical location, so the easiest way to jump directly to the settlement in the Old North was by walking there through Pause. It was a quiet journey, neither individual talking much, which contrasted sharply with the hectic scenario they had just been part of.
Victor led Shuck to the proper platform, which looked exactly the same as all other platforms, and jumped back to the settlement. It was only hours since they had first talked with the bartender, and an earlier time version of Shuck was still at the Saloon, but Victor assured him that was not a problem. “We just need to quietly collect the reward, and tell them not to release any public statement for a few days. That will maintain the timeline.”
Shuck shook his head. “That’s stupid. Just jump a week ahead, and then we can turn him in.”
Victor was about to quip back, but after a moment of thought, decided the idea wasn’t bad. “Oh, very well… I suppose you could say… timing is everything.”
Shuck gave Victor a strange look. “Was that supposed to be a pun?”
Victor sighed.
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