Metastasis, Part 29: End of Time
Table of Contents available here.
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.
***
Mira spoke quickly, keeping an eye on the extra pocket watch she now had, which was a duplicate of her own pocketwatch taken from her own future self that was now standing right in front of her, but who also still had her own pocketwatch because she hadn’t used that specific pocketwatch to create the summoning card, and was in fact a time compressed version of the current Mira’s pocketwatch.
Victor, struggling to even keep track of how Mira could summon a future version of herself in his own head, only muttered as he tried to think of a way to explain it to Shuck. Then, he noticed Shuck seemed surprised, but not to the same extent. Victor spoke to Shuck in bewilderment. “You knew about this?”
Shuck struggled to answer. “Well, knew is rather strong. I’ve had an inkling, I suppose. I still don’t know how Mira manages to move multiple people through time simultaneously. That’s supposedly against the rules… but summoning herself? It was more theoretical, and I didn’t quite understand the difference compared to multipliers. I only helped with some of the practical problems she asked me about, but-”
Victor stammered. “You compare this to multipliers? Multipliers are just the temporary looping of an individual instance over a short period of time. It’s like living the same minute or so multiple times in a row, one after another, until you reach the end. This? This is connecting distant and non-sequential parts of time with itself… the temporal contradictions alone should collapse upon itself immediately upon attempt. Time toggle is not the proper term in this case… it’s more like a temporal logic bomb.”
Original Mira, annoyed at the two talking about her while she had been attempting to speak with Summoned Mira, turned to shush the two. “Be quiet! I’m on the clock, here. I’m not keen on having to listen to both of you, twice!”
Original Mira turned back to her duplicate. “So, did you get all that? Please repeat it back to me.”
Summoned Mira nodded, writing down some notes. “Yes, we need information on the surrounding combatants. Any information on that one with the crown is also highly desirable. I will be ready next time you call.”
The duplicate disappeared, and the lone Mira attempted to explain. “You remember how we can’t time jump through the Legion’s shielding, and certain other phenomena, like certain passive Vorpal abilities during an Eventual?”
Victor nodded. “Of course, otherwise we would hardly be standing here. We came here far less prepared than we should have.”
Mira smirked. “Speak for yourself… I found a way around any sort of time travel restriction.”
“Are you suggesting summoning cards? That’s only one time use, so once you use it, that’s it… you still need to bring enough summoning cards before being trapped.”
Mira crossed her arms, growing more smug. “Do you not see it? I summoned myself. Do you know what that means?”
“...That you’ve once again broken a cardinal rule of time travel?”
Mira sighed. “No! It means that not only can I get the information of our situation OUTSIDE the time cage, but it’s held by someone with access to virtually all of history! Because a summoning card is a pre-bundled round trip, no time bubble or time cage can stop it. It doesn’t actually reach through time, it opens a stored pocket of time. Like a time capsule! But the useful part is not simply bringing myself here, it’s being able to send myself back out, and have myself return after having gathered all necessary information!”
Shuck spoke up. “But Mira, if that’s the only requirement, surely you don’t need to summon yourself, right? That’s making things unnecessarily complicated!”
“I can’t trust anyone else with what I’m doing, Shuck. I need maximum control over the situation so no lethal mistakes are made. Did you see that circlet? It does two things. Everything I see while wearing it will be completely deleted once I remove it, and restored should I don it again. I’ve already done everything that needed to be done, I just don’t remember it. Protecting causality, and all that.”
“Yes, but there is no way you alone could remember every inch of-”
“I’m not done! It also scans the area, allowing the creation of a holo file. Is this starting to sound familiar?”
Victor froze. “Wait… holo files?”
Mira frowned as she looked at Victor. “You know, you never taught me about those… you hardly questioned them yourself. Complete holographic recreations of a quarantined piece of time? Surely, such things must have been developed by the Meta at some point, right? And given our history is self referencing to a hopelessly confusing degree… why couldn’t me and Shuck be involved in their development?”
Victor was speechless for a moment. “…you’ve known all this, the whole time? And never told me?”
“That’s not even the half of it. I know a lot more I can’t tell you two. But for now, our course is clear…”
Mira pulled out a deck of cards from a locked, opaque case. “This was my designated place to put everything we need. I had my future self meet my past self just before we came here in the first place to give it to me. Traps, maybe extra hands if necessary, and, most importantly…”
Mira dropped another card, and her previously summoned version appeared again. She looked substantially older, with noticeable creases beginning to appear in her face, and much more tired than she had been before. “Hello again, my past self. It took longer than I thought it would, but everything is in order.”
Young Mira laughed. “Of course it is! If I can’t trust myself to get things done, who can I trust? Now that you are here again, you can run through all relevant information”
Older Mira let slip a slight smile before walking around to each of the opponents. “This one is John Geyser. He specializes in hydroplosion, but has a notable lack of restraint. Keep him off balance, and you can easily redirect his blasts. The one next to him, Fyrst Geth, is the main one you should focus on. He’s a thermal caster who specializes in defense, and you won’t be getting to the king unless you stop him first.”
Young Mira frowned. “Wait, why not? He’s all the way across the room.”
“Yes, but he has a long range and very high amounts of control, even at such a distance. He can create ice shields all around the room to protect the king and his other allies.”
There were a few more comments about the remaining combatants made before the Older Mira disappeared, her preset amount of time having run out. Traps were set using the deck of summoning cards that Mira had. Most contained equipment or energy fabrications specifically meant for the hostile that they were placed near. The only one that they didn’t have a countermeasure for was the king.
Victor was not happy when that fact was collectively realized. “Mira, you made a critical error. He’s the biggest threat in the room.”
Mira looked in her small card holder, hoping in vain to see something she had missed earlier. But it was undeniably empty, the cards all properly deployed already. “That can’t be right… I had pretty much my entire life to prepare for this. Me, and everyone I must have talked to… we couldn’t have missed something so obvious. I guess we are supposed to fight him the old fashioned way?”
Victor sighed, walking up the man frozen in time just outside their little bubble. “I guess I’ll fabricate a gravitational redirect field. That should keep him off balance long enough for the rest of his forces to fall to our traps. Then, we hit him with everything we have.”
With everything set, Mira let the time bubble dissipate. Time returned to normal, though it was far from normal for the their opponents. Two light casters had sparkling boxes of confetti explode into their faces, and they fell backwards in shock and panic. A kinetic caster unwittingly stepped on a matter transfusion tablet, then sealed his fate by stepping on it with his other foot. He fell forward, and just when he was about to attempt using his arms to take a more unconventional approach towards his enemies, the transfusion tablet melted him halfway into the floor before also dispersing knockout gas. Yet another caster, this one a thermal caster, was trapped in a sudden vacuum vortex, suffocating him until he passed out while also preventing him from transmitting any changes in thermal energy beyond the vortex. Similar scenarios played out for the other guards, until only three Legion members remained.
Geyser, the Legion gravity caster, was already pulling water from a nearby receptacle, creating a spinning orb as he gained momentum. A projectile from a small cannon was shot at it, and pulled into the coalescing mass before Geyser realized what was happening. The package exploded, but rather than escaping the bounds of the liquid, it was kept within, swirling about in the water. Geyser smiled viciously, ready to begin his first attack, assuming the tactic had been unsuccessful.
But when his blasts of pressurized water did not materialize when he willed them to, he looked back at his source. It had turned solid, the package having been some kind of quick drying cement. Now lacking the water to perform his usual techniques, and knowing that remaking the ball of water would take time, he simply lobbed the boulder at Mira.
Mira caught it with her own gravity casting, and sent it immediately flying back. With Geyser already being put off balance, he couldn’t react in time, and took the entire projectile’s impact to his head. It was an understatement to say he was knocked out.
Last was Fyrst. The ever so slightly elderly man looked behind hawkish eyes at his opponents, now outnumbering him and his remaining ally, the King. He frowned, though he showed little indication of concern at his predicament. “How unfortunate. Our forces have fallen. However… reinforcements will come in short order. We have contingency plans, as we keep telling, so your efforts are meaningless.”
Mira responded by dropping one of her last two cards, summoning a Draaconian. To Victor’s great shock, it was none other than Duralmin. Though he was now dressed a bit differently, and the fact that he appeared to recognize Victor without immediately attacking suggested something had changed. Could he have been reformed? Victor barely had time to question it before Duralmin roared at Fyrst. As frost collected in the air, the Draaconian charged at the enemy thermal caster. Before Victor could see the result, an electrically charged fist entered his vision, knocking him dazed to the ground.
The King was now confirmed to be an electro caster.
Victor’s head spun. Electro casting allowed attacks that discombobulated not just the body, but the mind. As he struggled to get back up, he realized Mira was also down, and Shuck was fighting the King. It took longer to realize the latter, as they were jetting around the room at fantastic speeds, running along walls as electricity helped them cling to any solid surface, and their overclocked minds allowed reaction speeds far beyond what a normal human could achieve. But Victor had his own techniques, and sped up his own timeflow so he could at least see the battle, if not move fast enough to help.
He caught sight of it just in time. Even at one sixteenth speed, they were moving incredibly fast. But Shuck was clearly losing, and a knife pulled from it’s sheath and lunging directly at Shuck’s chest promised to put an end to the fight. Victor sucked in his breath, focusing as hard as he could, and tried to pull the knife from the King’s hand.
The amount of energy he poured into it, with very little noticeable effect, was discouraging. The knife barely moved. But just before hitting its mark, the dagger did shift, and while it didn’t leave the King’s hand, it did throw him off balance, only slightly slicing Shuck’s chest as he fell backwards in pain. The King noticed Victor’s intervention, and in an instant was moving towards him at remarkable speed. Victor tried to push the hostile away as he struggled to move as fast as he could through the hyper restricted time flow, but the King moved far too quickly, and soon had Victor by the neck, raised in his grip. His other hand still held the knife, and Victor knew exactly what King planned to do as he pulled back the deadly implement. King smiled menacingly, before his expression suddenly changed to that of confused pain, then blank apathy as he released his grip and fell to the ground.
Victor returned to normal time flow, gasping as he struggled to comprehend what happened. Looking over, he saw Mira being helped up by Shuck, and Ghost nearby with hand still outstretched. Ghost lowered his hand, and walked over to Victor. Ghost gave the now dead King a slight kick, and that was when Victor noticed a hole burned through the dead Legion leader’s head. Ghost scoffed. “Not much of a king anymore, huh?”
Victor rubbed his neck, still bruised from his near murder. “Heh… I guess you could say their figurehead is… figured dead.”
Ghost looked at Victor disapprovingly. “Don’t make me kill you, too.”
Ghost and Duralmin vanished in short order, their own time stored in the summoning cards having run out. Victor looked around at the damage. Some hostiles were still alive, but all were incapacitated in one way or another. Victor looked at Mira in disbelief. "You lied! You said you didn't have a card for King!"
"I had to say that. It was one of the conditions Ghost stipulated, though I don't know why. Also, I only had him for fifteen seconds, so we had to make it count."
Victor, grumbling about the unwelcome surprise, grabbed the King’s book, and after a moment of thought grabbed the crown as well. Mira frowned disapprovingly. “Looting dead bodies, now?”
“No, I assume this crown has more to it than just being an accessory. Perhaps it was the memory management device he was using to imitate Shuck, but I hardly have time to investigate right now. We need to get out of here.”
Shuck, limping towards the small group after having hastily bandaged himself, asked the obvious question. “How? We don’t exactly have many places to hide… they probably weren’t lying when they said people would be coming. Traps are going to be everywhere here.”
Victor pulled out a small cylinder, dropping it to the ground. It began spewing smoke at their feet, and Victor answered the questioning glances. “Brace yourselves.”
The floor became ethereal, and all three fell through the floor. They fell for what felt like hours, until they slowed down and stopped, arriving in a dark space underground. Victor pulled out a light, showing that they were in a perfectly cylindrical room with no exits or entrances, deep underground. Victor spoke quickly. “Matter Transducing Gas. Quite expensive, but I'm willing to eat the cost if it means we live. But this is the end of our mission. We were successful. Now, we simply must wait for hundreds of years, and hope no one finds us before that time cage is disabled or breaks down. It can’t last forever, otherwise we would have found it in the ruins.”
Victor applied the time stasis field to Shuck before he could even object. It would deactivate if anything touched him or if they surpassed the same time period as the ruins they had excavated. He then applied the same to Mira, and was about to apply it to himself when he hesitated. He looked at the crown he still held, and curiosity got the better of him. He put it on.
He tore it back off a fraction of a millisecond later. It wasn’t a mind mask. It was a knowledge repository and hyper co processor. In that split second, he had realized things that would have previously taken him years to understand by mulling over the information he had learned.
Victor waved his hand over the crown, looking at his pocketwatch as time turned backwards on it. The crown vanished, replaced by the card, which he then picked up and put in his pocket. The crown was dangerous, far too dangerous, to simply hand over to anyone.
Perhaps it could be still useful, though. In the right hands.
***
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