{Author's Note: This is the 'published' version of part c with only one word added to it because I'm always tinkering with stuff that should be left alone...}
The air pressure normalized and he turned back to the open space. The combatants were locked in battle even though they were frozen in time. He knew every move to come in the struggle, that was why he chose this precise moment. Once they where loosed it would be essential to let the natural course of events unfold up to a certain point before things got out of hand. He took a deep breath and released them.
Mychala's growling roar shocked her opponent but did not keep her from letting loose a barrage of barbs. Mychala ignored the pain of the tiny projectiles and launched herself into the air at her opponent. Her claws tore at the side of her opponent's head causing a stream of sparks and fluid to erupt from the impact point. Mychala turned as she hit the ground, ready to finish her opponent off.
"Stop!" Mychala realized she was no longer on the street where she and her team had been fighting the hordes of drones, the one she was fighting was particularly tough and intelligent.
This place they were in was definitely somewhere else. It was grey and bland with indistinct shapes. She and her opponent were in the lowest level while the person who cried "stop" was above them and several yards off to the side.
Before she could even ask the man began, "You're in what I like to refer to as a time hole, Mychala. And yes I know who you are and where you're from and that you have a suspicion that this is your sister- whom you have long thought died when the Hive destroyed Earth."
Mychala blurted out "What the crap? Who-"
The man interrupted her knowingly, "Call me North, I answer to it most of the time. Back to your sister-"
"That is not my sister. She's just another drone from the Hive. Everything is gone because of them. She's a good likeness but it's just another Hive trick..."
"Oh, I forgot that you've travelled through time to figure out a way to undo the destruction of our planet and find the two key players that can make it happen then snatch them out of time at the precise moment one of them frees the other from the Hive network... Wait, that was ME!" He took a second to catch his breath as Mychala tried to wrap her mind around everything. "I'm sorry I snapped, but we've been through this song and dance too many times already. It gets frustrating dealing with your skepticism over and over. You seem to love the argument, even after you're convinced."
Suddenly Marissa let out a piercing scream and fell to her knees. "She's getting her memories back. And the last memory she has before the Hive brought her back is when the air burned and the ground melted around her. They sucked everything up into their ship and separated it and used it for everything. They reconstituted her when they got a sample of your DNA to throw you off balance. She had nothing to do with the end of the world."
Before Mychala could decide whether or not to believe him Marissa shakily stood up. "What he's saying is true- at least some of it. I can sense that time is not affecting us here. We are effectively outside of the timestream..."
"Whatever, drone-girl. Like I'm going to believe you over this guy? I would probably believe him first because at-"
"Enough! You both need to take a breath and listen to me!" He had to keep it from getting out of hand again. This could be his last chance to set things right. "We can go back over 700 years to the other side of the galaxy and make the Hive change direction so they'll never bother, let alone destroy, Earth. It'll be like it never happened but there's not much time left. Now who's with me?"
Marissa and Mychala looked at each other. Mychala looked back at North with a twinkle in her eye, "Tell me more about your plan..."
No comments:
Post a Comment