[NaNo 2021] - An Anachronistic Aye

It was a magnificent sight, in the same way that the eye of a hurricane about to destroy an entire city is a magnificent sight. The Ether itself was an entire black ring of almost pure darkness, according to legend the darkness had been created and provided by the Prince of Darkness himself. In the center of this nothingness shone the one singular opening. It wasn’t necessarily a bright opening by itself, the underworld itself being rather dark, but there was an array of lighting runes that circled the opening, caught up in the ever swirling vortex of The Ether and that created a brilliant spinning disc of light that shone in the darkness like a beacon of hope.

The demon gently glided inside through this spinning disc, taking care to ensure that the souls he was transporting did not accidentally get caught on either the ether or the edge of the disc. Managing three strings at once wasn’t a particularly easy task but he had plenty of years of practice and soon he was descending down onto arguable the most magnificent view you could ever get of the underworld here at its highest point.
Below him there stood a magnificent castle, shining brightly with light, and so massive that it was visible on the planetoid that it was built on even from so far away.

Bordering it was the brightest point within the underworld, The Rethe which functioned as a sort of interdimensional sieve sorting souls so that they arrived at the point they were meant to go. Beyond the Rethe, there were rings of planetoids gently orbiting around the central planetoid which was the largest of them all. These rings continued out about as far as the eye could make out and it made for a wonderful sight especially with each planet shining with its own mix of light.

The woman came to a sliding stop next to them as she took a few seconds to gather her breath. “Steven. Goons. Get out. Possible Attack. Run. Dodge.”

She only managed to spit out a few words through her heavy breaths but Terry got the gist and from the looks on Harry and Rose, they did too. Terry tossed the key to Harry who took it with a nod and tucked it into one of his many pockets.

“We got the first part anyway,” said Rose,” let’s all go back to the area outside the apartment complex and we can find a way to analyze the last riddle there.”

Her memory of those moments were blurry and marred by her sleepiness but now that her brain had gotten ample time to process it while she’d been unconscious it was spitting out images that all seemed to add up to the fact that their car had gotten into a crash somehow and whatever had happened during that had somehow injured her enough to kill her. That meant that the feeling of something warm running down her side had been… She nearly gagged then realized that she physically couldn’t. It made for an very odd feeling in her throat and she fought down the thoughts that flooded her mind.

The last thing she needed was to try and vomit due to imagined images of her own dead body, which just so happened to be a sentence that she’d never ever imagined she would be thinking, not even in her wildest dreams. Susan let out a sigh, except once again it lead to a weird feeling of her facial muscles moving to complete the action but her lungs not actually having any air in them to expel.

As the was trying to wrap her head around all of that another thought struck her like a sledgehammer. If she was dead…did that mean, Daph, Jess, her parents? What could have possibly happened to them? Were they here with here, wherever here happened to be? Had they died? Had they survived? A bucket load of thoughts dumped themselves into her brain.

“But, this will be handled. Its not the end of reality or the timeline. Problems like this can and do happen and they’ve happened before. I will personally assign a few members of The Alpha Pack to deal with this, this can’t be handed to just anybody, but I’m sure they will take care of this with anyone barely even noticing it. So, yes, thank you for the duty you’ve done here. Keep at it. Keep us informed of anything more you get. Now don’t worry yourselves over this and get back to work. I will reset the emergency code now so that the screens return to their normal color.”

An interesting mix of expressions passed through the demon’s faces. There was awe at the mention of The Alpha Pack, slight fear and worry but mostly relief. It seemed they were glad the problem was being taken care of and they could move on.

They both proceeded to bow.

“Thank you your Highness,” echoed Catalan.

Jason acknowledged it with a nod. “It is I who should be thanking you. Well enjoy the rest of your day.”

Harry jogged up right to the very center of the intersection. This particular one happened to be a three way junction, where a small structure stood in the center. The other streets were packed mostly with small business advertising one thing or the other proudly on multicolored signs. The area was in much better shape that it had been on the other side of the city. The smell was far better and there wasn’t any rubbish scattered all over the place. The age of the area was visible in the faded paint and cracked sidewalks, but it was definitely maintained in much better condition despite the lack of renovation.

He focused on the center. It wasn’t a particular big structure, with it being a fairly small roundabout that was maybe around eight feet in diameter. It was little more than a section of dirt that had been packed inside a small concrete basin of sorts.

The grass was doing surprisingly well despite the heat that normally baked a lot of these public intersections to the point that they were almost bare. It seemed that at least the spells that kept the grass from being destroyed were renewed from time to time.

His decision made, he flashed a winning smile at the pirate captain and the captain somehow looked even more confused if that was possible. In one fluid motion, Harry grabbed both weapons by the barrels. In a rather predictable fashion, the captain fired both of them at once as Harry tight clasped his hand around the opening, freezing the gun in place.

The bullet struck his hands at nearly four times the speed of sound before its kinetic energy was quickly absorbed by Harry, the translucent veins that ran through his rather pale hands glowing an iridescent blue as he absorbed their power. The sound of two completely squashed lead bullets falling inside the barrel of the gun echoed over the ship. The recoil of the gun promptly caused the captain to lose his grip on them as he staggered back and fell on his posterior.

Harry tossed the two guns towards the captains head, connecting with his forehead with a small “THUNK” as the captain was instantly knocked out cold. Instantly about ten swords, all vying for space were placed right on his throat, creating a rather ticklish sensation as the sharp blades ghosted over the skin of his neck. Harry raised his hands to stretch, causing all twenty crew members to almost lose their minds as they seemed to have no idea which body part of Harry’s to point their swords at.

Harry stretched out right to his toes and let out his third yawn in the past two minutes as he felt the nitrogen in his elbow joints pop with a satisfying crack. He punched the air, upwards, loosing up his arms, as the crew members now took a couple of steps back from the man they clearly thought was a deranged and rather dangerous alien out to cause them bodily harm. Well they weren’t too far off if that was their assessment.
The celestial burst into action in the blink of an eye as he reached out with both hands, grabbing two swords securely by their blades. As he gripped them, his hands easily squashed the hardened stellanium, molding it to fit his grip.

He proceeded to yank the blades out of the hands that were holding them before whirling around and backing up a few steps so that he could see all twenty crew members at once.

“What are y’all waiting for? A signed invitation,” he challenged, brandishing his two swords.

It had been a rather uneventful walk and Rose had simply allowed her mind to wander. She’d let Evelyn and Terry, both of whom were slightly agitated take the lead as they walked, while she hung back, trying to let her mind simply relax after the back to back stressful days of riddle solving. Harry had also fallen into step behind her. She’d unconsciously let her hand brush against his a few times and before she even realized it, she was holding his hands. Then he proceeded to intertwine their fingers gently and Rose didn’t even dare look down.

Pretending like this was all perfectly normal and her heart was trying to beat itself out of her chest, she’d let herself relax and soak in the atmosphere. Harry’s comforting and rather solid presence next to her helped out quite a lot in that endeavor and he didn’t speak a word either. He was either trying to relax just like she was or more likely he’d noticed her trying to relax her mind and was allowing a comfortable silence to fall across them.

“Harry? Again? Lemme guess. You’re not sure what to take?” she said, already sounding like she was about to go off on a bit of a rant. She was probably still mad about not getting to yell at him about the pirate thing.

“Heyy, Jen, well kind of. Sorry to disturb, but I wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to go there together, or do you want to just fly in all by yourself. I don’t know. I think I’m just going to go empty handed anyway, I can always get whatever I need once I know what I need.”

“That makes enough sense that I think you can work with that,” said Jennifer, “I do have my weapons with me, but ehh, not like you use yours all that often anyway. As for going, well aren’t you going to be using the Eternal Midnight? I’m in The Thorn right now. Harry, tell me you didn’t go on vacation all the way to that corner of the light realm on foot.”

“Look, I’d tell you that,” began Harry, already smirking. He’d most definitely walked here. It was nowhere near far enough to merit busting out the old ship. “But that would be a lie, and you know how I feel about lies in general.”

“Since we’re potentially at the cusp of an apocalypse, I’m not going to waste time telling you how horrible that decision is, so, do you want me to pick you up. Or are you going to walk to the underworld? Its kind of far. I don’t think you want to arrive that late. You know how Jason gets when you keep him waiting for too long.”

“Sadly I do,” said Harry, “I’ll fly out to somewhere near Andromeda. Pick me up by Renevexia. I’ll probably be on one of the moons.”

“Okay, I can probably do that without going too far out of the way,” said Jennifer. He could hear her typing the new coordinates into her console. “Be there in fifteen.”
“Sure thing,” said Harry, “Byeee.”

“Bye,” she said and the line quickly went dead.

“Ohh,” said Terry, letting out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t their magic malfunctioning from some malicious force. He’d completely forgotten about that particular spell.

“Well now we look very stupid,” said Harry, “and I used that burn and everything, oh no, this is bad. I genuinely don’t know if either of us can make it out of this situation alive.”

“Truth be told, yes, this is looking extraordinarily bad for us,” said Rose, “oh my goodness, it just had to happen this way. Okay, you know what, we can’t lose our heads. You two are good at fighting too. We have to try something.”

Evelyn nodded. “Oh I’m ready. I know half of these clowns. They won’t be able to do much once we get rid of those stupid guns. The monkeys are worrying me though. I do not like the look of these. I had no idea Steven even had anything like that under his control, and I stayed there for nine freaking months.”

“Those things are nightmares,” said Terry, “okay what’s our game plan. That idiot will attack any second now.”

“Run for the dead end, get into the trees,” said Harry, “the faster the better. I’ll cover you guys with a distraction. Once in there, Rose, you know what to do.”

“Summon the Eagle?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Harry nodded and turned.

“What the hell is that?” asked Evelyn.

“In this highly unlikely event, the lord of the dead at the time must perform the following procedure to return the dead in question to their normal living state should there be no logical alternative that could replace the effect that they’ve had on this timeline.

The dead must be allowed to return to the land of the living, but only under one simple condition:

They must have completed seven trials designed to test their wit, endurance and strength all of which are to be administered and judged by the Celestial of Darkness by his own decree and he will then pronounce them worthy of return to the land of the living.

Following this, they can be returned to whatever point in time the lord of the dead sees fit accounting for any all permutations that may arise depending on the individual incident in question.”

She could see Terry busting out whatever those crazy whips things he’d used the other day were and attacking the monkeys. She’d seen him take out about half of them and it seemed he was trying to hold the other half at bay before the wind and fire completely died out.

Then the center of the battle erupted in a volley of gold and white as Johnson and Stevenson seemed to be engaging each other, their fight creating a different type of distraction for a moment as Johnson proceeded to hurl Stevenson, bubble of white energy and all off the road and into a hedge, causing said shield to shatter on impact. Clearly Johnson was no slouch in the magic department either. Heck, everyone in that agency could probably summon storms for fun much like Harry had done that time in the courtyard.

She tried not to focus too much on that as her wind began to fizzle out once again, although this time it was definitely due to loss in magic. Sighing, she poured a final burst into it, knocking a few monkeys on the far end down and she vaulted over in that direction to join Terry as Rose herself joined in the effort. Behind her, the now disarmed agents were getting pummeled left and right by the three agents that had arrived alongside the man named Johnson. It was very clear that the goons were no match for the sheer training of the agents who didn’t seem to even require magic as they punched and kicked the goons into submission despite being outnumbered almost four to one against the goons that had not being taken out by the lighting or fire from earlier.

“Well, I just take myself completely off the time travel team, Harry can handle that with Vankous and Stean,” said Jennifer, “I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Hmm,” said Harry, “I can potentially get someone else in there two. Maybe James or Ray, someone who can match their more human abilities and help them without raising too much suspicion around it. I can definitely arrange something based on how these things pan out…but so that means, seven trials are going to end up happening then, no way around it whatsoever.”

“Yes,” said Jason. His tone was very clear that this was not just him agreeing as Jason, this was the Celestial of Death officially giving his verdict on this particular case. “These three will be subjected to seven trials that test them on wit, endurance and strength. Once they are cleared they will be returned to whatever time period is deemed most suitable.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Terry. “I guess this was always coming from the moment that Johnson mentioned that this particular thing would be buried.”

Harry nodded. “Well yes. But we will also be getting under than thing to provide support should it end up being necessary. You’re not going in there completely on your own.”

“Well that’s a relief,” said the man, “the temperatures here could complicate matters a little more than they otherwise should be.”

“Yup,” said Harry. He walked up to the window and pressed his palm against the top right corner. A small beep sounded as the system recognized a registered agent and the window gently swung inside and up as it opened at an almost ominously slow pace.

He focused, immersing himself in the flow of time as he slowly left the three spatial dimensions behind, immersing himself filling in the time stream and then in the telltale flash of green, he was swimming through the endlessly swirling green void that was time in its purest form. It was not a sight many beings got to witness and it was truly breathtaking in its own right.

The void around him was a neutral emerald green that reminded him of the greenest of grasses on planets where plants used chlorophyll as a primary photosynthesis agent. It was the sort of green that you didn’t mind looking at for ages, unlike certain shades that rhymed with time.

The green wasn’t stagnant like you’d expect something called a void to be. No, this particular void was in constant motion, swaying from one beat to the next, rippling across in endless concentric circles, going in endless spirals, zigzagging across eternity. There were a lot of patterns one could spot if they cared to pay attention and a being with a lesser processing power could easily lose their mind within this wondrous but also treacherous landscape.

At the exit, which was the lounge area, one of the few places authorized personnel could teleport in and out from, Terry and Harry were waiting. They were using this because the traditional door was not to be used with civilians like Terry and Evelyn. They were considered to be trusted parties, but that did not mean they were simply going to be allowed to know the location of arguably the best kept secret location across the entire country if not the world.

With a quick nod to the two men, the four of them teleported out, where Harry led them to the nearest restaurant to grab a quick dinner. Their little stop to grab the key and then the slightly longer stop to freshen up and restock on weapons had taken a surprisingly long time which meant it was now past eight and darkness had properly fallen. The moonlight that would shine through soon was going to be of zero use in the darkness of the forest.

Their meal went by relatively quickly, with only a bit of small talk being made. All four of them were very aware that this was about to be the final phase of the mission that all four of them had embarked on weeks ago or even years in the case of Terry. Steven and his goons had all been very securely locked up by now and none of them would be leaving their imprisonment for a good long while. It was now upto the four of them, unopposed by any forces they knew of, to travel to the door, step inside of it and close the rift that had caused so much mayhem and had the potential to end their world by plunging it into the eternal darkness of that hellish dimension forever.

He peered down to look at the anachronism below. It stood out like a single black ink stain on the crystal clear blue waters of Vantaxia, and against the backdrop of time, its temporal signature flared bright green, indicating this was very far out of its place. Harry squinted a little closer, trying to track down an exact date and he managed to calculate that this was likely from the Milky Way or one of its neighboring galaxies. He couldn’t be a hundred percent sure without looking at its full history but a year did jump out to him. This ship had been displaced over a millennium from the time period that it had been built in.

This ship needed to be investigated and dealt with. Everyone board including every piece of equipment on board had also been displaced through the same amount of time. At first glance it seemed like it had just been a ship that had gone through the wrong wormhole at the wrong time, but a closer inspection made it very clear this was anything but.

“I see,” said Terry, “That’s not ideal, but I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. It had been quite some time and the magic used was unstable according to the journal.”

“Yes, that is certainly true,” said Carrick, “it was very much an act of sheer desperation that led the four of them to make that choice and do what they did. They built their chamber, but realized the being that seeped from that rift were far too powerful to be contained with a guard or two. They had almost no choice but to try such a highly experimental procedure, and well it worked, but the side effects have arrived, as everyone predicted they would.”

“That’s ridiculously dangerous,” said Jennifer for what must have been the eighth time as Harry finally finished his little makeshift plan.

“Agreed,” said Jason.

“But logically, it makes a lot of sense, and its honestly better than a lot of alternatives that I can think of,” defended Harry.

“Agreed,” echoed Jason.

The door opened outward this time, causing them to take a few steps back as there was a loud hiss and the sounds of air rushing in to the cavity as air that had probably not been exposed to the outside world in a good decade or two was finally let free all at once.

They peered around the door, opening it all the way so that they could see inside. At first they saw nothing but emptiness, a vast blackness that seemed to encompass a space they simply couldn’t even judge the size of due to the complete lack of light.

Then Terry saw it, a shimmering circle right at the heart of the vast blackness. It was mesmerizing. A rapidly spinning circle of a dark greyish light, like a whirlpool of some sort, eternally spinning. The light itself was also rather strange. It wasn’t exactly bright, but whatever little brightness it did have was doing nothing to light up the area around it.

Then he spotted the eyes.

“Yes,” said Jason, getting up from where he was seated on the couch. “I’m going to help Harry out with all of those calls and help make sure this timeline isn’t going to fall apart, you get to those girls, see what can be done for them, and transport them to that location you cleared up. It doesn’t have the best facilities just yet but I’m sure it can be eventually fixed up to be a pretty good spot for them to spend the time of the trials in.”

Jennifer nodded, vanishing in a quick flash of light.

“Harry,” said Jason, giving him a rather pointed look.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Let’s get started. You don’t need to give me that look.”

“So, I do know how to do it, which means I’ll get on that. The three of you keep this monster distracted and try not to get…well, to be fair I have no idea if it can breathe fire, spit poison or whatever, but it looks like it can potentially do both, so be careful.”

“Well that’s great,” said Terry, “maybe we should’ve asked Carrick that before charging in here.”

“Probably,” said Harry, “now let’s get moving.”

Neither one of them responded. Susan was much too basking in the feeling of reuniting with Daphne and Jessica again to really be worried about why two very good looking angels of some sort were standing there looking rather awkward and apologetic.

Then it suddenly struck here that her parents weren’t here. Which meant...they hadn’t died. Or…Susan found her mind engulfed in all the wrong thoughts yet again as it grappled with trying to make sense of everything that had happened sense that moment in the transport.

“I’m sure you’re all confused,” began the other one. Susan noticed this one was female, she was almost identical in every aspect to the other one, but the voice was distinctly more feminine. The angel continued. “We can explain. Just try to listen, I know you three must be feeling truly terrible right about now, but things will soon make a whole lot more sense.”

Cold. Dark. Pain.

Evelyn’s brain was stuck in a loop as it continued to experience the very same thing, over and over again. She awoke to a vast blackness, as a feeling of intense cold struck her, penetrating the state of the art armor she wore as if the protections wired into it simply didn’t exist. Her brain was barely moving and she was having trouble figuring out what was happening. Why is it so dark? Cold. Why? Where am I?

Her brain ran in circles as it tried to answer these questions, unable to see or feel anything with the darkness around her. This darkness felt heavy, almost as if it were a tangible thing, and not just the absence of light. It was powerful and oppressive. Then it finally clicked as a series of images flashed through her mind. Green eyes. Sharp fangs. A scream. A grey swirling mass.

“I’ll answer all of that,” assured the being, before he then proceeded to clear his throat. “Jen, you want to start or…”

“I think you should start,” said the other being, that Daphne assumed was called Jen.
“Of course, I never should’ve asked,” said the male one with a sigh. He turned back to them and began. “Well, good morning, evening, afternoon or night, its really hard to tell down here, actually I think technically neither of those three things exist down here at all.” Daph could see Jen roll her eyes as if going off on random tangents was a common occurrence.

“Sorry,” apologized the being before continuing, “I tend to do that sometime. So, getting back to the topic at hand. Greetings, humans, earthlings, terrans, I have no idea what you guys call yourselves these days, its hard to keep track sometimes. Anyway, so, you’ve well, I guess let that slip already, but all three of you have died and been escorted by our lovely crew of demons to the one and only place for all deceased souls: The Underworld. Not the most creative name, I know, but in my brother’s defense, things were a bit rushed when this place was being named.”

One of the creatures had its hands on Terry’s shoulder, holding whatever Terry had turned into at bay with barely any effort. It’s not like the thing that was Terry didn’t try. There was clear strain in Terry’s eyes and the legs were starting to kick out wildly but the being simply lifted Terry up by the shoulder, looking like it was exerting about the same effort as one would exert to hold up a couple of grapes.

The creature not maintaining the chilling hold on Terry, turned to stare at them, focusing its eyes on Evelyn. Evelyn stood frozen in place as she realized with a chill that those were certainly not normal eyes. Where it should’ve been white, a brilliant dark blue color was visible, while the area that should’ve been the pupil was an eerie dark cyan color. Both of those eyes were glowing and Evelyn got the feeling that the creature was looking right into her soul, seeing every single thing there was to see about her.

Then suddenly, the creature seemed to relax. Its posture changed from a threatening stance to a more relaxed one, almost as it was letting out a sigh of relief. It nodded to the other one that barked a spell in a harsh language that Evelyn couldn’t even begin to understand. There was a bright flash of pink and suddenly the struggling mindless thing that Terry had become reverted to a shivering and very confused looking Terry who was put down with surprising care.