Previously, with Roxa, Sean, and Avalon! The group ended up in a snowy mountain range near a rundown cabin. They had to run down into the canyon to find Gidget and save her from a giant monster that was using a power that screwed up their perceptions with some sort of storm. After that, Flick explained the situation to the others, and they started to set off to find the rift.
Well, obviously the first place to search for this rift was that canyon where the monster had been. The forty-foot tall gorilla-mammoth-centaur who had been creating that perception-altering storm. I still wasn’t absolutely certain what that was about, though I did feel fairly confident in assuming it had been one of those Rift Guardian creatures that had been mentioned. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing if that would be the only one. Hell, it might not even be the strongest one. For all we knew, that thing was the baby of the group and there would be much, much more dangerous things ahead. We were just going to have to take the whole thing step by step and be ready.
Hah, ‘be ready.’ As though I’d ever actually been ready for anything that had happened to me over the past couple years. My entire life had become one long series of rolling with the punches and barely managing to hang on. Like careening down a snowy hill on a toboggan, unable to control the direction or anything other than clinging to the sled. At least now with the whole Roundabout school thing, I was starting to try to gain some ability to steer where we were going. But this was still a very steep snowy mountain.
And speaking of snowy mountains, we were descending back into that canyon together, having found a narrow path that actually led that way rather than having to jump down. Sean and Roxa were having their own quiet discussion together while I looked over at Avalon. Despite everything, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. Seriously, it had been months since I saw her, and now… now I wanted to drag my girl off into a cave somewhere. Or maybe that cabin we’d just left. Either way, I wanted to have some time for just the two of us to catch up. I had so much to tell her, so many thoughts and feelings and--just stuff. I had so much stuff that had been building up.
Even as those thoughts passed through my mind, Roxa spoke up from a few feet away, where she and Sean had been whispering a bit. “Okay so we’re in the Rockies a few hundred miles south of Laramie Falls, but you don’t know exactly when we are. That cabin isn’t much help since there wasn’t a lot of technology, and what there was could’ve been old. Hell, we could be even further back than we think if the cabin was made by someone who wasn’t human. Maybe we’re in dinosaur times and the cabin was built by some alien here on a safari or something. Gidget and Vulcan might be able to tell what year it is when the stars come out tonight, but until then we’re stuck on that.”
Her words were accompanied by a low, mournful noise from both the cyberforms, confirming that problem. They obviously both wanted to help any way they could, even if it was just by using astronomy to check the date.
“That’s about the size of it,” I confirmed with a soft sigh. “Hopefully we’ll run into something that can actually give us some idea of what--hang on I’m an idiot.” Even as I interrupted myself with that, I was smacking my own forehead before cursing myself.
“Uh, what do you mean, Flick?” That was Sean, though the others looked just as confused. Including Vulcan and Gidget. They were all staring at me, as we stopped just short of the actual entrance into the canyon. Far ahead, we could actually see the area where we had fought that monster. We hadn’t even gone that far in, it had just been that weird storm the thing created that had made it seem like it was so far away.
“I mean I can call for help to find out when we are, exactly,” I replied before amending, “Or at least, I can call and see if help is there and that’ll answer part of the question.”
The others watched then, while I focused on using the spell I’d found to actually summon the Cryptseeker. I wasn’t even sure if we were in a time when the thing was both extant and under my control. It wouldn’t come if it didn’t have the matching part of the spell attached to it already. But assuming whatever time period we were in was later than when I had first acquired the ship, it shouldn’t take the thing long to make it here.
“I still can’t believe you have your own spaceship,” Sean was murmuring. “I mean, I should believe it. If anyone asked me, ‘hey out of your entire group, who do you think would be the first to get their own spaceship?’ I’d be like, ‘Oh, Flick, definitely.’ Still, this is a bit faster than I thought you’d manage it. I figured you’d wait until at least our fourth year in school before you decided to go ahead and become a space pirate.”
“Shh,” Roxa quickly put in. “Come on, you know if you say that too loud, Savvy’ll burst through the time-space continuum like the Kool-Aid man and demand to join the crew.”
While I smiled at the thought of the Seosten kid, not to mention her friends, Avalon spoke up. “Join the crew? I think you mean she’d take over the ship. She is the captain, after all.”
“As if any of us could refuse her,” I noted with a snort. “But yeah, maybe keep the ace-spay irate-pay on the downlow for the time being just to avoid tempting fate. Savvy’s pretty great, but I really don’t want to think about how her--oh here it is.”
The others looked up along with me, staring in disbelief at the sight of the ship. I considered the image from their point of view. Here was a thing hovering a few hundred feet over our heads. It was about five hundred feet long, and looked sort of like a long Y. Except now the walls of the ship had been made to look like bone. The diagonal slants of the Y were skeleton arms, complete with actual bone-hands to grab things. What had once been a simple orb at the spot where the diagonal slants started was now a skull. And it had the long cloak-like energy shield hanging off it, appearing to drift and flutter in the air. The whole thing definitely set a certain mood, for sure.
For a long moment, we all just stood there and stared up at it. Finally, Avalon found her voice. “Felicity…” Her hand moved to find mine, squeezing it a bit while she gave a very soft chuckle and interlaced our fingers. “I guess you’ve embraced the Necromancer thing a bit more, haven’t you?” Her voice was dry, and she gave me a sidelong smile, an expression that made my heart skip a beat as my tongue tied itself into knots. Seriously, she expected me to actually be able to say anything when she looked at me like that? I couldn’t even think straight, let alone talk. It was totally unfair.
Finally, I found my voice. “Ahem, um, right. Yeah, well, Laein’s definitely helped with that. She’s--she’s a trip. But she’s also great, and--and yeah, she helped me embrace the Necromancy thing even more. She’s the one who helped settle on Jacob having a certain style. It differentiates him from me, and… and playing that up is kind of fun.” Admitting that, I blushed just a little. It was true though, embarrassing as that might’ve been to admit. I enjoyed acting out Jacob’s whole thing, both in his clothing, his attitude, and even in this ship. The way Laein had put it, having attitude didn’t have to mean really being evil, and sometimes the enemies deserved to be called out like that. Plus, it made Jacob more of a target for them, taking the focus off others around us. In the middle of a fight, if I made myself the most obvious thing for the enemies to attack, it would leave others open to do some real damage. Not to mention it had a real tendency to make people angry so they stopped actually thinking and just reacted. I couldn’t argue with the idea of pissing off people like Crossroads loyalists the second they saw Jacob show up and recognized ‘him’ so much they threw tactics out the window and just attacked. On the other hand, I actually had to be able to survive those attacks. Which was a whole other thing entirely and meant actually training a lot.
Either way, the point was, I had started to understand the benefit of building a reputation, expressing a sort of style that would make people react a certain way, and all that stuff. And part of that was having a ship that was so incredibly stupidly over the top like this one was. Besides, to be honest, it was also just pretty damn fun to look at.
Roxa finally turned to look at me while the others were still staring upward just to take the whole thing in. “Well, from what we’ve read, you definitely end up embracing the style thing.” She gave me a little wink before adding, “And I think some of what we heard makes sense if you were actually focused on getting to those rifts over everything else. Or just--you know, you had a much greater goal in mind. Something you couldn’t sit around and explain to people like Crossroads.” Her face twisted slightly then into an annoyed grimace. “Not that they’d’ve listened. Or will listen, whatever.”
Okay now I really wanted to know what sort of stories they’d heard. What exactly had those other split-off versions of me done? Or what would they do? Or what will they--time travel was weird. The point was, apparently I was doing/would do/had done enough things throughout time to have made a pretty big impression on some people.
I really shouldn’t have been surprised by any of that. It was like Roxa said, if I had to get to these rifts, it would obviously mean sometimes having to go through people who didn’t understand who I was, why I was there, or what was going on. It wasn’t as though I could explain the whole situation to them. These rifts probably gave off energy. Energy that could be detected. If someone else, like Ruthers or another of the Crossroads loyalists spotted them and managed to go through the rift to--yeah. That would be bad. So I had to expect that there were times when I would’ve had to be a bit… intense about things. Which was another reason for why the style bit worked.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Shaking that off, I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess some of those rift trips probably get a bit intense. Or, you know, maybe some of it ends up getting exaggerated.” Saying that, I glanced up at the skull ship hovering over our heads. “Definitely can’t imagine why anyone would look at Jacob and exaggerate anything about him. Or me, whatever.”
With a thought, and an added warning so it wouldn’t take them completely by surprise, I teleported all of us up onto the bridge. I’d needed the ship to be in view to do that. Or I would’ve needed to know exactly where it was at this point. Which would’ve been a bit difficult since I hadn’t even known if we were in a time period where it existed.
As soon as we arrived, the others split off to look around the bridge for a moment. Sean whistled low while taking the whole thing in. “Okay, you’re definitely doing pretty well for yourself, Flickster. And this is really just the little ship you’ve got access to?”
“Well, the other one isn’t really a ship,” I pointed out. “It was a piece of a ship shaped like a tower. And now it’s shaped like a school. Or, you know, a town with walls around it. Not really a spaceship at the moment.” Somehow I didn’t think that was downplaying it. Especially considering the looks that everyone, including the cyberforms, gave me.
“Part of a Reaper ship,” Avalon noted simply. “You came back into the past and managed to bond yourself to a piece of a Reaper ship. Not even just a Reaper ship, the sister piece to what the Reaper leaders use as their command structure, Flick.”
To be honest, I really wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Um, I didn’t do it on purpose?”
For some reason, that made Avalon tug me over by the hand, turn me to face her, then kiss me. Which--oh. Oh wow. Everything else in my mind completely shut down for that moment. None of it mattered. I didn’t even remember that we were even on the ship, let alone what I was supposed to be doing there. My arms wrapped around the other girl and I held her tightly while leaning into that and losing myself for a few seconds. Gods, I needed that so much. It had been a very long, eventful few months.
Eventually, after what could have been a few seconds or a few minutes, we both came up for air. I found myself gazing up at the slightly taller girl and giving her a goofy little smile. “I--um, I guess I missed you a lot.” My cheeks were warm and I giggled softly.
Yeah, tell us about it, Hot Type murmured inwardly in a voice that was somewhat dazed. Apparently even they had been just as affected by that kiss as I was. Which said a lot about how good it was, really. They couldn’t even come up with an innuendo.
“Did you now?” Avalon’s tone was a little teasing. Her hands cupped the side of my face, fingers gently, tenderly brushing through my hair as she gazed at me. She visibly and audibly swallowed then after our eyes met, admitting, “I missed you too, Felicity. And I’ve only been away from you for a couple weeks. I can’t imagine six months.”
We kissed one more time, before I remembered what was going on and that we weren’t alone. Both of us blushed, looking over at where Sean, Roxa, and their two cyberforms were studiously staring at various control consoles or monitors, giving both of us as much privacy as they’d been able to in that moment considering the situation.
Oh right, yeah, I was supposed to be doing something up here. That was the whole reason I’d brought the ship to us. Realizing that, I stepped over to the nearest console. “Okay so we know this has to be some time after I acquired the ship, which was around the sixteen hundreds. Which means we’re not in prehistoric times, sorry, Roxa. No dinosaurs for us. And it’s post… post a lot of other things. But as for when we actually are…” I had been working my fingers over the controls, bringing up the date. Upon seeing it finally come up, I blinked a couple times. “Oh. Huh. It’s 1799. Does anyone know of anything special going on around now? Cuz I’m drawing a blank.” Not that the rifts had necessarily shown up during important dates or anything, it would just be nice to have some frame of reference for what was going on around this point.
“I think Napoleon’s big war is going on right now?” Sean offered with a shrug. “I know that was at some point close to 1800 anyway. That’s the big one. Though I guess that wouldn’t really affect anything over here in the middle of North America. Hey, do we know anything about whether he was just a normal guy or something, uh, special?”
“He was a normal guy,” Avalon replied before amending, “I mean, is a normal guy. Total Bystander, nothing supernatural about him at all. Except for the fact that he managed to almost supernaturally mess up a lot of plans that both Boschers and Alters had. The guy has absolutely no connection, as far as we know, to anything in the… Heretic world. But he still ends up doing a bunch of stuff that makes life difficult for them, and forces everyone around that area to adjust everything they’re doing.”
“That makes sense,” Roxa muttered. “Napoleon managed to screw things up for a lot of ordinary people too. So sure, he might as well have complicated life for the rest of the world. But yeah, probably not all that relevant to this area. Unless I really messed up in Bystander history class. Which isn’t impossible, come to think of it. Crossroads was the first school I went to since I was nine.” That last bit came with a thoughtful frown before she shook it off.
“Unless we’ve really ended up changing history, yeah, no Napoleon around here,” I agreed. “Especially if he really is supposed to be a normal warmonger guy doing normal warmonger guy things. So we’ll just leave him over in Europe to do all that. Which leaves us with… finding that rift. Maybe the ship can help us with that too.”
Unfortunately, the Cryptseeker may have been able to immediately tell us what year it was, but I didn’t have as much luck on the next part. After taking in the report, I exhaled heavily. “Okay, so it’s managed to narrow down the energy readings for the rift to… somewhere within a hundred mile radius of this mountain range. It can’t get any clearer than that. And those areas down there are too narrow for the ship to fly through. Between that and the way its scans are being muddled, probably by the rift itself, we’re just gonna have to go down there on foot after all. Sorry guys.”
Sean offered a shrug. “Hey, we got to come up and see your spiffy skull spaceship. That’s a win in my book. And something tells me we’ll have a chance to see it in action before this whole situation is over, so maybe keep it handy just in case, huh?”
Yeah, he had a point. No reason to send the Cryptseeker back where it came from just yet. Especially if there were more of those giant monsters down there. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we weren’t done with those things. So, I simply told the ship to remain cloaked and ready, before teleporting us back down into the middle of that canyon.
“Okay! After that little detour, I guess we just start walking and see what we can find.” Saying that cheerfully, Roxa took Sean’s hand and started to walk ahead of us, with Gidget and Vulcan bounding that way as well, sniffing everything they could find. I knew what she was doing, giving Avalon and me a little privacy to walk together and talk.
So, that was what we did. There wasn’t that much we could do about the actual situation until we found this rift, or at least found something trying to stop us from getting to it. Instead, Avalon and I talked about other things. She told me about her and Aylen managing to have a meeting with the so-called Wandering Woman. Or Sawyer, as she had introduced herself. One of the most powerful people on the planet, and she had offered them Starburst candies. And, of course, told them a bit about how to find Gaia. They had to get blood from Chadwick’s (Arthur’s brother’s) descendant, as well as from two of her heirs. Avalon counted as one of those, while Dare was the other.
Oh, and they needed blood of a full Reaper. Which apparently wasn’t an issue either, given they had actually met one named Jones. Yeah, that was a whole thing.
Which meant, with those things combined with the spell instructions that this Sawyer had given them, the last thing they needed was the blood of a Chadwick descendant. Unfortunately, that part was easier said than done. It turned out the Seosten kept very close eyes on anyone they thought could be one of those, just in case that person ended up being the Merlin Key. Little did they know. And they kept them hidden. It wasn’t exactly easy to find someone directly related to Arthur, let alone actually get close enough to them to get some of their blood. It was difficult and dangerous.
So, they were still working on that. And I promised to help as soon as I managed to get through all this. Getting Gaia back… that was important. It had been entirely too long since she was locked up by Crossroads.
No sooner had Valley gotten through explaining that, than we were interrupted. In this case, however, the interruption didn’t come in the form of an attack. Instead, a small bird came flying down out of the sky. It looked sort of like a bluejay, but instead of having a white belly and face, those parts were red, while the part that would’ve been blue was sort of bronze colored. A bronze and red bird about ten inches long. It flew right down, hovered in front of Avalon and me before fluttering over to Sean and Roxa. The thing chirped cheerfully, then flew… right into the nearby mountainside. We all watched as the bird literally flew through solid rock like it wasn’t even there. A second later, it flew back, chirped again, and went out of sight once more.
“Um.” Roxa stepped that way, hesitantly reaching out to put her hand against… and through the rock wall. “It’s an illusion or something.”
“And that was probably a Theriangelos,” Avalon noted. “It had the red they always have, plus bronze. Do we know anyone whose aura color is bronze? Besides Roxa’s since I’m pretty sure it’s not her.”
“Tristan,” Roxa pointed out. “We have the same color. But that’s not his Theriangelos. He has a Siberian Tiger. And Erin, but it’s not hers either. She has a goose. Maybe it’s someone else helpful though. What was Gabriel Prosser’s? Wait, has he been born yet?”
“Barely, I think he was born in the 1770’s,” I replied. “And his Theriangelos is a mouse, not a bird.”
“Okay, so this is probably a trap, right?” Sean put in. “Some Theriangelos bird comes out of nowhere just to show us where to go? It’s a trap with a capital T.”
“Probably,” I agreed with a shrug. “But what else are we gonna do? We just need to be ready. It’s not like we can ignore this.”
We all looked at each other, collectively sighed, then walked that way.
Together, we walked through that illusion and into the mountain.