Satyr flapped his wings in the distance having observed the entire event and flew off, “there will be another time.” He flapped off flying into the distance of the cloudy sky above the disaster prone city.
Drax looked up at the fading lights and sighed. He reached for the object and looked back at Roy and Marina nodding in gratitude at them for their participation but he then looked down in sudden relief. His head sunk then as he looked at the sky as the beasts were gone. He succeeded at defeating his oldest friend and mentor turned foe with the help of some new friends but even in having Broad defeated he helped him having succeeded. He wanted a quest and in having his dream fulfilled he lost a lot. He wished that things were different but he knew destiny sometimes has in store for each of us what we can hardly even imagine.
In the nearby docks, a tall yacht designated the Crimson Tide sailed out, as evidenced by the name on its hull, and rode the waves. Aboard were Broad and Elizabeth sipping champagne wearing classical sailing clothes and sharing a platter of shrimp cocktails as men in captain’s uniforms and white suits serve them. There was a tall screen on the main mast arching downward and the same shadow figure silhouette as before, speaking in a crinkled tone.
“The last time is yet to come.” The voice echoed from the screen.
“We suspected as much” said Broad.
“You have passed the ultimate test, Broad Staffnight, and we anticipate you will enjoy the next task very much. It is the strongest pursuit and the greatest challenge.”
CHAPTER 63
Milton Drax walked along the darkness into an empty room. He tried to go back to the castle alter with Roy and Marina to bring the object to the altar as he figured it fit the insert on the altar being pentagonal shaped. But the altar was not accessible as the corridors to the castle they discovered secretly were covered with rock and debris from the attack, this secret powerful treasure was now buried, lost to the eons of time. He left the object with Roy and Marina and headed to an anonymous location in the middle of the desert miles from any towns, in a single structure in the middle of nowhere. The door closed behind him. He shuttered as he looked behind him and walked forward again in the dark room, a pale blue light in the center. He walked towards the blue light and a voice was heard in the distance.
“Did you come alone?” Said the voice.
“Yes, I got your phone call and I am here.” Said Drax. “What is this about?”
“Did you bring the object?” Asked the voice.
“No, I didn’t… It’s safe.” Said Drax.
“It is not your property. You’re an officer of the court and owe a duty to return stolen property to its rightful owner.” The dark voice emanated more harshly.
“I would… if I knew who that was.” Drax said.
“….” The voice was silent.
“Open the door now” screamed Drax.
“You will remain here. We need the object,” said the voice.
“We?” Asked Drax curiously.
“The destinies of many are overwhelmingly overcome with the thoughts of the one. We have a new mission for you to find the object’s purpose. You must travel to the State of Florida where once Spanish explorers searched for the fountain of youth, you will find the object’s true purpose there. It is life altering.” The voice echoed.
“I guess I have no choice” Drax stood tight fisted before the blue light where the voices came. He sighed a heavy breath. “Here we go.” His thoughts melded into the silent walls now as the blue light faded leaving him alone in the darkness and the door opened electronically, leaving him a single and lone warrior adrift in emptiness.
PART 4
OMNIA FAMILIA EST
CHAPTER 64
The moon shone brightly over the night skies in Miami, Florida, a boyish face looked up into the pale light of the darkness, his eyes twinkling in the midst of the twilight. He wore a bright red turtleneck under a brown jacket and jeans.
“James,” yelled Tina’s voice from the distance as she ran over wearing a denim jacket with her sleeves rolled up and a pair of ripped jeans. “Hey buddy, great news. I got a few hundred dollars in cash and some food and water for us.”
“Huh?” James turned from his still trance and smiles, “what? That’s great. Where did you get all that money?”
“Does it matter?” She smirked.
“Oh no, you didn’t do what I think you did?”
“Just met a guy who could help us out. Don’t ask, don’t tell.” She shrugs. “We got to get going.” Said Tina.
“I know. I was thinking about how far we have come so far. There has been so much.” James said looking up at the bright starry sky, the constellation Orion directly above them shining brightly.
“Can you believe we made it all the way to Florida? That little raft was a tough little ship but good thing that yacht picked us up.” Tina said.
“Yeah, that was quick thinking with that cover story that we were newlyweds on a brief escapade out to sea.” James added.
“Yeah and then we were headed to Florida for our honeymoon,” she smiled wide eyed.
“The same place they were headed to… and we got these nice duds, how weird huh?” Asked James rhetorically.
“Any weirder than sliding and riding along the time way in style?” She joked gesturing to their keen and funky disguises they were wearing and grimacing to the fact that they falsified their way through their rescuers delivery of them to the Keys of Florida state.
“Any weirder than trekking to discover the mysteries of the universe,” he looked up at the stars and his eyes glistened.
“Yeah, we have a pretty cool relic here. I wonder what it is completely capable of” wondered Tina.
“We might soon find out, dear friend, first we have to clear our names or beat feet down south.” James said.
“Why don’t we just use the vortex like we did in Brazil? It looks like it moved us through a vast distance and maybe time.” Tina speculated.
“I think we should wait before we go playing with forces we don’t fully understand.” James said.
“True… I got a contact I made through my John, I mean good Samaritan…” she smirked “I think he knows who set us up.”
“How can you be so sure? This is Florida, quite a ways from Chronix Bay.”
“He mentioned having some ties to our ‘good old friend’” she gestured to James knowing he knew who she meant by the glare in her eye angered with a desire for revenge.
“Are you sure it was him?” James inquired.
“There are some faces you never forget, you can count Broad Staffnight as one of them. I saw a picture in his office and brought it up.” Tina added seriously.
“Cool good sleuthing buddy, you might make a good detective in another life.” James complimented her.
“Stranger things have happened. Let’s go.” Tina said.
As they walked down the street with their new disguises they stole, the night sky shining above the clean semi-suburban streets, there was not a soul in sight. Tina’s spine shivered as they walked.
“Are you cold, Tina?” Asked James.
“Just a bad feeling is all.” She held tight to him unknowingly grabbing his arm.
Then suddenly as they approached an intersection, as if out of nowhere, six figures jumped out of the darkness. They wore black glistening cloths around their bodies and faces, shining in the pale moonlight, like ninjas, with red bandanas around their heads and waists, a strange symbol made of an unearthly metal shining off of their waistbands, resembling an ancient oriental character. Their eyes beady, dark, and cold, calculating as they approached and surrounded the duo in a pernicious showdown reaching out menacing them with their assault weapons, one with a Japanese sword, another with a medieval mace, another with a bow and arrow, and the rest with crescent daggers. The three with daggers were trying to stab their prey, acting as pawns utilizing their initial plan of attack. The duo was meticulously dodging the attacks, and running, evading, and tryin
g to hide.
“Where did they come from?” Screamed Tina.
“Wish I knew” said James.
“You know what you have to do buddy!” She retorted as she dodged a blow from a large sword barely missing her head and she rolled onto the ground. James flung his hands up into the air and waved them around feeling like a crazy person and then the six figures flew backwards simultaneously as if struck with a heavy force causing them to soar through the air and into the streets behind them, their baggy uniforms flapping in the breeze as they went backwards and hit the pavement. “Wow!” Screamed Tina.
“Let’s get out of here before they come to.” James yelled and grabbed his friend by the arm helping her up and the two headed down the street running as fast as they could. The six men got up and composed themselves.
The apparent leader picked up his sword and yelled in a fierce and determined voice in Spanish, “kill them!!!” They ran after the duo in a triangular formation. The six chased them down halfway to the next set of blocks and one of the men with a dagger grabbed James by the scruff of the neck and held him down with the dagger pinned to his throat and two other men came up behind him and grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back tying them with a knotted rope quickly before he could think to use his power again. Tina turned and ran to them but was apprehended by one of the other men with the bow and arrow who pinned her down and bound her arms behind her back with rope as well.
“Uh” she muttered as the man with the sword approached and reached into her pocket pulling out the green emerald object, its light reflecting brightly off the clear night starry sky.
“This is what we want…this is what we want” he spoke in Spanish with a dark and sinister voice as his cold dark eyes glared into the centered five orbs within the object shimmering in the mesmerizing light of the street corner.
“Why do you want this for? It’s just an old family heirloom.” Tina yelled jokingly.
The man looked at her and nodded, “I said that this is what we want and we will take it.” Now he spoke in English. He held his scimitar to her throat.
“OK, you got it” she yelled frantically, “now let us go.”
“No. You know too much.” He added harshly. “You will die.”
“No.” Tina yelled as she and James struggled for freedom helplessly. “James, do something.” She beckoned for him to try his powers again.
“I can’t” he tried to move his hands but was restricted by the ropes.
“This is the end, I guess” she yelled as the man with the sword pulled it out and struck her in the face and she dropped to the ground.
“Tina,” yelled James trying to run to them but was held back by the others. The man with the sword approached and James kicked out with his right foot to the man knocking the symbol off of his tunic but the man, being pushed back slightly, kept going forward angrily.
“Now you die… now you die!” He yelled as he raised his sword with his right hand and holding the object with his left hand. He brought his armed hand down towards James and as the sword came down to James’ face about to make contact, a large force interrupted the blow like a blur of yellow and red light knocking the man with the sword back. Within seconds, a figure jumped into the fray and danced around kicking each of the masked men knocking them back and then standing between James and Tina in their bound and helpless forms and the would be assassins. The figure wore a red suit that glistened in the streetlights, shining similarly to the suit worn by the ninja warriors, the figure wore a similar mask completely red with yellowish stripes and he had on a yellow bandana around his head and waist, a blue set of goggles and held a large curved sword with a handle on each end that extended with a flick of his wrist and he curved it at will as he battled with the sub doers of the duo as he came to their rescue. He had a strange symbol on his chest that resembled the mark on the tunic of the ninja warriors but it was slightly different. He grabbed the arm of one of the ninja warriors as he tried to attack and swung him about over his head like a rag doll, and he quickly tossed each one without cutting them with his weapon but merely knocking them back using his blade as an implement to defeat them without killing them. In a further array of roundhouse kicks and extended fist and foot maneuvers that appeared mechanical and artificial to the duo as they watched as he circled his way through the group and dropped them all. He stood over them with a proud sense of accomplishment and then turned to James and Tina and untied their hands. The duo got up confused. The mysterious figure then picked up the green emerald object that fell out of the swordsman’s hands and onto the ground. He handed it to Tina and then with a smile he stepped back.
“Wait who are you” she uttered as the man held a squared device his wrist and pressed a trigger causing him to instantly vanish in a haze of yellow and red light as quickly as he arrived.
“Who was that?” Asked James.
“I wish I knew” remarked Tina. “But thank God for him.”
Then suddenly the six men also vanished in a quick flash of darkness and light combined.
“Whoa”, Tina looked at James as he walked over to where the unconscious forms of the ninja warriors once lay and picked up the metal character that fell from the swordsman’s uniform. “I wish we could get some info on what this is all about, who these men are and why they are after this thing and why they would kill us.”
“I think this may be a clue” replied James holding up the metal character.
At the Seneca Falls Public Library, James and Tina sat in a back room of the basement level with several old books scattered out on the table before them.
“Are you sure we should be wasting time like this?” Said Tina.
“We should try to research this symbol. It may be important. The librarian said the symbol should be in one of these books. Not that I think the lead you obtained from a common criminal is of value,” he smirked “but we can check it out later.”
“A common criminal?” She uttered.
“Look” he pointed out as he turned the page of a treatise on the occult and symbolic phenomenon. “This looks like the symbol” he spoke softly. “The origins of the ancient order of la culto de la piedra tiempo...hmm.”
“What?” Asked Tina rhetorically.
James read the passage before him in the old book. “And those who transcended reality and are the core purpose behind the religious mythology surrounding the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures, the signs on that monuments of the people, they call themselves protectors of the people, we call them El Culto de la Piedra Tiempo. The symbols of the holy order.” He looked at it in a concerting pose and sudden silence.
“Piedra Tiempo???” Said Tina. “I remember from my high school Spanish classes that this means… Time Stone!!!” They both looked down at the large green emerald in her hand and its curious abilities that they had the opportunity to witness first hand. “This is what they are after,” said Tina and the two thought the same thing looking at one another now.
“This is what they have killed for and would stop at nothing to obtain, the ultimate power that the ancient peoples of the Yucatan worshipped and the source of control over the entire world in the future, the key to time travel.” Said James. “So this rock we found is some sort of actual time machine?”
“The ancient cultures have been known as masters of time.” Said Tina. “The ancients had a whole mythology on it; they believed it was connected to the black hole at the center of the galaxy.” Continued Tina. “Wait a minute, so that symbol of the ancient culto is the same one worn by these men, that’s why they want this” she holds up the time stone.
James nods in response. “Do you think we could travel in time with this thing? I mean we did travel in time with this thing?”
“Well, they say time is like a river so if it is possible, it could revolutionize everything.”
“Wow” he said in response sheepishly.
“So what do we do now?” Said Tina.
“I don’t know! Hmm.”
CHAPTER 65
“Sometimes I wonder what time has in store for us. I know it’s a complicated stream of consciousness and thought mixed with our own inner emotions of anger and fear, pride, lust, rage, sloth, gluttony, envy, greed, wrath. George Orwell once wrote ‘he who controls the past controls the future and he who controls the present controls the past.’ Are we doomed to repeat our own fates as to that which makes us question our destiny?” James thought as he sat outside of the library waiting for his partner to return. He thought of the possibilities with the time stone they had in their possession and what they already went through to get it, being only scratching the proverbial surface. “From the past to the future the arrow of time shoots,” he thought, “is it really possible to shoot from the future to the past?” He looked up into the clean dawning air. He wondered what it was all about. Then suddenly Tina comes running towards him with a large box under her arms. She is being chased by several of the ninja warriors, “la culto” James yelled getting up and catching up to his friend as they ran together into the desolate alleyways of the urbanized community.
“Let’s get going!” She yelled and they ran passed the turned over garbage cans and bags in the alleyway. The group of six men ran after them in synchronism formation knocking over the dumpsters and stomping on the bags emptying trash onto the floor.
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About a half mile away, Mercedes Gonzalez exited a taxicab in the middle of downtown Seneca Falls. She paid the driver with some crumbled dollar bills and slammed the door. Looking up at the commercial buildings nearby, she sighed, pushed up the sleeves of her brown sweater, and walked down the sidewalk. She carried a large purse around her shoulder patting it gently as she veered inside and saw the green emerald was still there, its five orbs center shining in the partial light from the daylight. She walked and wondered what to do next as she felt bad about what happened to Juan Carlos and his mother in Mexico and she knew she had to get out of town before those men in dark suits came after her and found her. She thought how dreadful it was, the entire ordeal, and wept uncontrollably as she kept driving the carrier as fast as she could until she ran clear past state lines in Texas, Georgia, and ran out of gas on a small suburb nearby. She stayed there and did odd jobs for a while saving up some money before it dried up and she wound up leaving and wandering around until she found her way into a small dirt town on the outskirts of Florida and called for a taxicab to Seneca Falls where she was told there would be more solid work and she figured it would be far enough away from the men in dark suits where they would never find her. She walked down the street hearing a sudden commotion in the distance, a loud roar of individual screams and wild laughter followed by dark crinkled voices screaming in Spanish, “kill them”, “find them now!” Mercedes saw two young people in their mid-thirties run out of the alleyway near a bank, a man and a woman, the woman had a box under her arm. Six men in black and red ninja suits ran out of the alleyway after them. She jumped back in shock and gasped as she saw them and recognized them from her last encounter with them.
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