Heroes Rising Fiction: Grandfather Time Part 3

 Chase and Gar followed EB through the station to a set of elevators near the detention area. Each had to put in their own personal security code and then have their id checked by sensor. Once cleared, they were allowed in and zoomed down to a lower level deep in the bowels of the station.

The air hung thick in the dark corridor that lit up at their presence. Only one door was secured at the end, with yet another double security check system. After clearing their id’s a second time, they were allowed into the sparsely filled room. Pedestals were set around with items on them under heavy security glass, which was only one layer of the security for each item.

“I have not been down here before. What is this place?” Gar looked at a sword that had flames flickering up and down the blade.

EB hopped along. “Nova’s personal trophy room.”

“No, it’s not.” Chase stated. “These are special, powerful items that have been secured by BADGE over the years.”

EB said, “most of which were obtained by Nova during one of his many exploits. OOOH, looky, it’s the Star of Astoroth, now that’s a story I’d love to hear again. Hey, this is the Eye of the Storm, a ruby that once caused the biggest hurricane ever. Like, I...”

“We aren’t here to chat about all the other items. We need to move the clock.” Chase stopped at the large watch-like clock on a pedestal in the back."

Gar asked, “I thought the vaults with all the super secure stuff were at the old BADGE HQ in New York?”

Chase said, “most of the stuff is still down there. Nova wants to gradually bring it all up here. A lot less likely anyone will break into an orbiting space station. Even though the HQ security is incredibly firm I...” she touched the glass and all at once she was standing in the middle of Rome. It was on fire and there were giant cracks in the sky. The cracks each revealed a different sky than the real one. Suddenly, she was standing in a different place. Shadowy figures stood around a small crib. One had to be Santa, but she did not recognize the other. A voice said, “so, you named her Angela?”

“Chase!” Gar called out, and she found herself once again in the vault, with Gar holding her arm. She had been yanked away from the case.

“What just happened?” She asked.

EB frowned. “You just stopped talking and then stood still.”

“I was standing in Rome, and it was on fire. The sky was strange, like it was made of glass and someone had broken it. Then I saw...I don’t know what I saw, something about my past, I think?”

Gar asked, “did you see the future? Is Rome in danger?”

“I can’t see the future, only the past.”

EB casually said, “no one can see the future. What she described was the time when we broke Rome. Well, we didn’t really mean to. It was Jinn. He fought us and there was a big time reversal we had to use, and that caused time to fracture. I was a scary time, like so scary I thought we were all gonna die.”

Chase said, “wait, you told me this story before. Jinn tried to take over the world centuries ago, but you guys had to stop him. He had wrecked most of Europe in the process, so the Mythics all used a special power to reverse time back enough to undo the damage.”

“Glad you were listening.” EB smiled.

Gar said, “Chase told me that story. But she forgot the breaking sky part.”

“I didn’t tell you that because EB didn’t say the sky broke.”

EB shrugged, “it was after all that happened. And it was kinda too scary. Besides, we got it fixed. The clock saved us.”

“The clock?” Chase asked.

EB looked back and pondered this for a moment. “I suppose Santa won’t mind me telling you this much. Besides, I like story-time with you. Can I sit in your lap when I tell it?”

Chase said, “no. Just tell me about this clock.”

EB pouted for a second, but continued anyway. “Fine. Well, time magic is very, very dangerous. Like SUPER dangerous. No one of my kind has the power to truly mess with time. Humans that have time based morphon powers are limited to small shifts, or local stuff. The big stuff, like reversing all time, is too much for anyone to handle.”

Gar said, “but that Father Time guy was doing it?”

“Don’t interrupt.” EB said. “Like I said, it isn’t for any one Mythic. However, after Jinn totally messed up half of your world, we had to do something. We couldn’t allow anyone of our kind to do this much damage. It would have taken years and years for your people to fix it all. So, it was decided that we would culminate our powers and reverse time just enough to reset the world to just before Jinn messed it up. It worked and everything seemed hunky dory. But then time fractured. Those fractures turned into more fractures. Time was overlapping in places and stopping in others. It was bad. There were like dinosaurs walking around Egypt, and some Roman soldiers trying to take over Beijing. This one guy was sailing and went right through a fracture and ended up crashing into himself as a boy and that was a big time explosion. It was worse than the time I hid all the eggs two days early. I know, it was a mistake, but I had so much on my mind that year, and then the chocolate companies were behind on stock, and...” he could see the looks on their faces. “Sorry, rambling. Anyway, Lord Jade had a good idea. We craft an object that would be just outside of normal time and use it as an anchor for time. That’s when we created the clock. Santa made it, he’s really good with the metal smithing and jewelry making. The rest of us pooled our magic and created a spell that fixed time.”

Chase frowned, “so, this clock keeps our time from falling apart?”

EB laughed, “oh, no, no, not like that. Once we had finally fixed time, this clock was no longer needed. We just needed something that was outside of the fracturing time. However, the clock is still extremely powerful and holds a great deal of time altering magic, which is how Father Time used it.”

Chase said, “I didn’t know about that. But...”

“But, what?” EB asked.

“I saw something else. I saw...my past, I think. Santa was talking about me with someone. I don’t want to believe it, but I think the voice I heard was Father Time. Do you know what that means?”

EB became nervous. “I...uh...well...I can’t say.”

“But, I can.” Santa replied, walking into the vault with Nova behind him.

“Father? What did I see?” Chase asked.

Nova said, “Santa, are you sure about this?”

“Yes. She deserves to know. Chase, my dear, Father Time....is your grandfather.”