Chapter 14 – Ride the Lightning
----Realm of the Gods----
Alone in his room, the Time Keeper grabs anything and everything he can think of that will assist him on his mission. A knock at his door brings him out of his self-induced packing trance. He opens the door, revealing Syn, Goddess of Death. She gives him a small smile, her pale skin accentuating her lips. She slides past him, slightly moving him out of her way. She slowly walks around his room, glancing at his things, as well as the preparations he had been making, a wrapped package in her hands, held behind her back. After several seconds of watching her, the Time Keeper loses his patience.
“Can I help you?”
Syn stops moving and faces the Time Keeper, the same little smirk on her face. Her eyes appear to sparkle as she speaks her next words.
“I come bearing gifts.”
Syn turns around and sets the package on the Time Keepers’ bed and steps aside, offering it to him. The Time Keeper rolls his eyes and steps forwards. He grabs the package and rips the paper off it, revealing four items. Syn grabs a set of scales and holds it up, feeling the power radiating through it.
“The Scales of Justice. Able to duplicate any item placed in one of its scales, down to its every flaw. Also quite heavy, heavy enough to knock someone senseless, if you should so require.”
She sets the Scales with the rest of the Keepers things and grabs a torch handle, shaped like a familiar cylinder.
“The Eternal Flame. Once lit, only the wielder can extinguish its flame, and nothing else, not water, wind, nothing. You can also control the length of the flame, watch…”
Syn grabs the Torch with both hands and, almost immediately, flames erupt from the tip. She allows it to hover at a small flame for a moment, before the flames spread up into a thin beam. She waves the Torch around a bit, a soft whirring sound emanating from the flames, before retracting the flames back into the Torch. She tosses the hilt with the Keepers things, grabbing another item. She holds up a belt buckle, silver, with a dark red circle with black dots in the center of it.
“A Disguise Field. When activated, you will not appear as you do now, but as any form you can imagine. It will look and feel as real as any other person feels. It also has the handy ability of being able to teleport you to anywhere you can see. If you can’t see it, you can always give it a try, but I can’t promise you won’t end up in a wall.”
She tosses the Keeper the Disguise Field and he clips it to his belt, watching as Syn grabs the fourth and final, as well as the largest item, a Shield. Luminescent black, it shimmers, blood red shadows drifting across its surface. She looks down at the Shield, her pale reflection staring back at her.
“The Shield of Orion, gifted to Freyja by Orion himself. He died shortly thereafter, forever entombed in his constellation. Nothing can penetrate this Shield, be it of earthly or spectral means. It’s also quite bouncy, it can be refracted off of several surfaces to strike a target hidden by other means, and returns to the Wielder once it strikes, for convenience, it shrinks down to an old-style records size.”
Syn shrinks the Shield down and sets it with the Keepers other items. She turns back to the Time Keeper, her small smirk back on her face. She clasps her hands in front of her and slowly steps up to the Time Keeper. She stands on her toes and presses her lips against his, sending a chill through the Keepers body. She pulls away a few seconds later, leaving the Keepers lips blue, his skin slightly more pale, her own having taken on a more human tinge, the smirk still on her face.
“And that was my gift, along with this.”
Syn opens her robe, revealing a skintight and somewhat transparent body suit. She grabs an item from her hip, revealing it to the Keeper as a regal-looking sword. She hefts the sword, flipping it around, holding by the blade, offering the hilt to the Keeper. He grasps the handle, feeling another jolt of cold run through him. Syn releases the blade, her eyes sparkling once again.
“Tap the pommel.”
The Keeper does as he is instructed and watches as the sword warps into a dark scythe, its blade silver, stained with the darkness of decades-old reaped souls. The room appears to dim slightly, and grows colder, each of their breaths showing in the air.
“Now, tap the bottom of the scythe on the floor.”
He does as he is told once again, and the scythe reverts to its sword form.
“My scythe. I have reaped…countless souls with that blade. It draws life force from anything and everything around it. You have felt its other effects already.”
The Keeper looks at the blade, also stained with souls, and gets an idea. He walks back to his bed and begins to sift through his things, finally finding what he had been looking for: his old sheath for a shotgun long since lost. He straps the leather sheath to his back and slowly slides the sword into it. A perfect fit.
“Like a glove. Thank you, for everything.”
“Don’t thank just me, each of the Elder Gods and Goddess’ provided a gift to you. You still have four that you will receive once you arrive on Earth. Now, I must go. I wish you a safe journey, and may you succeed in your mission. I do not wish to see you again anytime soon, so be sure you do not get yourself killed.”
Syn starts to leave, but is stopped by words from the Time Keeper.
“Hold on, I’m done here. Care to see me off? I’d hate for the last face I see here to be Thor’s ugly mug.”
Syn smiles once more, her back still to the Time Keeper.
“As you wish.”
The Time Keeper tosses the rest of his things into his bag and glances around his room one final time, checking to be sure that he retrieved everything. Once he finalizes his search, he steps up beside Syn. He motions to the door.
“After you, milady.”
Syn opens the door and steps through it, the Time Keeper quickly behind her. He shuts the door and watches as it flashes, sealing itself until a time when another Keeper can claim it. Syn and the Time Keeper walk side by side down a long spiraling hallway, to the room Thor had specified beforehand. The Keeper steps into the room, first this time, Syn stepping in behind him, shutting the door. Thor stands in the center of the room awaiting the Keepers arrival. The keeper walks to Thor, staring at him expectantly. Thor grabs Mjöllnir from his belt and hefts the mighty hammer in his right hand. He stares down at the Keeper, his eyes hard as steel.
“There is a closet to your left, inside you will find the proper attire for the method of travel you are about to use.”
“Aww….do I have to?”
“If thou doth not wish to be disintegrated.”
“Fine…”
The Time Keeper walks over to the door and opens the closet, revealing a black containment suit with ice blue lines running across it, a white light tracing along the lines. The keeper quickly puts it on, thinking at how similar it was to a suit he had previously owned, then heads back to Thor.
“Art thou ready?”
“For...what, exactly?”
“Why, to Ride the Lightning of course.”
The Keeper rolls his eyes, nodding his head in response. Thor raises his hammer high in the air, before swinging it down, towards the Keepers head. Just as the Hammer impacts against his skull, the crack and flash of thunder and lightning fill the room, the Keeper hears Syn say a final goodbye.
“Good luck, J---“
His name is cut off, the thunder and lightning drowning her out. The next thing he knows, his vision goes white, and the Time Keeper is no more.
---Sanctus Ira City Limits, January 1st, 2009, 1:13 AM---
The heavy rain, having picked up greatly, pelts the teenagers as they huddle close together under a makeshift umbrella, formed from Evans Dragonskin. Evan and Amy fight the wind and rain, marching further and further away from the city, having given up on obtaining a ride, with less and less cars passing them in the rain. Suddenly, a golden light erupts behind them, startling them greatly. They turn around to find themselves nearly plowed into by an aged GTO Judge. The car screeches to a stop near the two teens, the drivers’ side door swinging open before the car stops moving. A figure shrouded in darkness steps out, its eyes barely visible in the downpour. The figure shouts to the two teens.
“What the hell are you doing out in this shitstorm?! Get in the goddamned car!”
Evan and Amy glance at each other, before rushing to the car, Evan quickly retracting the makeshift umbrella back into his arm, hoping the stranger hadn’t noticed it. Evan opens the door, allowing Amy to climb into the backseat, while he sits in the front, pulling the door closed, immediately shutting the rain out. The stranger immediately steps on the gas, pulling back into the street, his windshield wipers going full strength, the soft whosh-whosh filling the silence, until the stranger speaks up.
“Instead of this evil silence, how bout a joke? Okay, here goes. What color were Kurt Cobain's eyes?”
Evan simply raises an eyebrow, while Amy attempts an answer.
“Um…green?”
“No, blue. One blew this way, one blew that way.”
The stranger immediately cracks up, his laughter filling the silence, Evan quickly joining him, as Amy nervously leans back in the seat, finding the joke to be in poor taste.
“And now that that’s out of the way, my name is Shane Murphy. And your names are?”
“I’m Luke and this is my…sister, Leia.”
Shane raises his eyebrow, hardly believing Evan, but choosing not to go against his word.
“Okay then ‘Luke’, mind telling me why you and ‘Leia’ were out in the rain at this time of night?”
“It’s...kind of a long story.”
“I’m sure there’s a short version.”
“Yeah…sure. We don’t really have any family left in Sanctus Ira, and the house we had been in, our old family home, was just sold out from under us, so we’re going to look for a friend of our parents to see if we could stay with them for a bit.”
“Well, I’m going to Springfield, that close enough to this person?”
“Yeah, that’ll do just fine, thanks.”
After their discussion, silence once again fills the vehicle. Shane turns on the radio, immediately finding a news broadcast.
“—repeat, if you see two teenagers answering to the names Evan and Amy, one with dark hair, the other with red hair, alert the authorities, do not approach them. They are considered armed and extremely dangerous. Now onto sports-“
Evan nervously glances at Shane, hoping the man wouldn’t put two and two together, when he gets a sideways glance from the man.
“Now, I pride myself on not being an idiot, so, ‘Luke’ and ‘Leia’, or should I say, Evan and Amy, I’d like to know what the two apparent criminals I’m travelling with did.”
“It’s a long story and I come off looking really bad in it, but, if you must know—“
Before Evan can speak another word, a bolt of lightning crashes against the hood of the car, sending it tumbling through the air, end over end, finally coming to a stop after several rotations, landing on its hood, wrecked beyond repair. From the wreckage of the car comes no sound, the radio destroyed by the lightning and subsequent impact, its passengers in no condition to make a sound.
---Lightning Bolt, Thirty Seconds Earlier---
The Time Keeper, having narrowly avoided being bludgeoned by Thor's hammer, thanks to the quick activation of a unique form of travel, looks around him, surrounded by a blue-white light, what he assumed was lightning. He can feel himself move, but he cannot see anything, save for the walls of light, until…
CRASH!
The bolt finally impacts, planting him in a small crater created by Thor’s immense bash of the lightning bolt. On one knee, attempting to gain his bearings, the Time Keeper looks around, the still-smoking ground hot to the touch. He sees a car several feet away, demolished, also smoking. He climbs out of the crater, singing his hands on the crushed and burned asphalt, checking himself to make sure everything came with him and survived the impact. Before he can take two steps, he feels something else, something inside him, make itself known. He feels an immense power, limitless and incredible, allowing him to do near anything his mind could think of.
‘The OdinForce…’
Beside that power comes the crackle of electricity. It spreads throughout his body, small bolts of electricity arcing between his fingers.
‘Thor’s electrical affinity…’
The Time Keeper snaps his fingers, a spark of electricity jumping from them. Deciding to explore later, he jogs over to the wrecked car and grabs the handle of the door. He presses the release, but the door refuses to budge. He grabs the handle with both hands and gives a mighty tug, ripping the door free, tearing it from the hinges in the process. He tosses the metal door to the side and looks into the wrecked vehicle, seeing only darkness. Out of nowhere, something darker than the night itself jumps out at him, knocking him backwards as it pounces on him. He attempts to roll the thing off him, but is having a bit of difficulty. He finally manages to grab onto an appendage and give it a good toss, hurling it away from him. It rights itself in the air and lands on its feet. The thing, humanoid, looks to be covered in a thick oil, except for the red markings around its torso, and the whites of its eyes. The Time Keeper looks closer at the red markings on the creatures’ chest, noticing the swell of what appear to be breasts and long red hair. It was female.
---Inside The Judge, Twenty Seconds Ago---
‘Wake up, girl!’
Ugh…a voice in her head. Ignore it…return to the darkness…warmer there, no pain there…
‘Wake up goddamnit!’
Amy manages to open an eye, looking for the source of the voice.
‘Good, hurry up, put on Evans watch. Quickly!’
Amy’s eyes repeatedly focus and unfocus themselves, confused at what the voice was telling her to do.
“Who’s ‘ere?”
‘There’s no time for this…damnit, fine! It’s me, Nightshade, the Dragonskin. When I fixed your brain, I left a piece of myself there. I can’t wake up Sleeping Beauty here, so you’ll have to do. If you put his watch on, you can wear me like he does, and we can stop whatever kicked the shit out of us, now hurry up!’
In her confused state, Amy’s judgment isn’t what it could be. She manages to right herself in the wrecked vehicle, unbuckling her seatbelt and falling to the hood in the process. She stumbles to the front of the vehicle where Evan and Shane still dangle, their seatbelts keeping them in place. She removes Evans watch and straps it to her own wrist. Almost immediately, she feels a great warmth run up her arm and soon, over her entire body. The pain quickly fades to nothing, as the voice in her head grows stronger.
‘You’ll have to do, now, be ready, I’ve got the feeling that we’re not dealing with a run-of-the-mill person here, that was some serious shit we got hit with.’
Just then, the door to the car is ripped loose, revealing their apparent attacker. After several seconds, Amy leaps at him, letting Nightshade do most of the work.
---Now---
The former Time Keeper stares at the creature before him, trying to find a weak spot, a way to incapacitate it, to figure out what it was, anything. Unable to find anything, he resigns himself to going the usual route for him: beat it until it stops moving. He tosses down the pack he brought with him, not having the chance to grab anything out of it to combat the creature, settling for drawing the blade from the sheath on his back. As soon as the blade is removed, the air surrounding the Keeper grows colder and darker, the blade seemingly drawing warmth and light into itself.
Unbeknownst to the Keeper, Amy is slowly regaining her senses, though Nightshade remains partially in control, still allowing Amy to dictate most of the decisions. Seeing the Keeper draw his blade, Amy forms a blade of her own out of her right arm. She leaps at the Keeper, her hair swinging wildly, slashing with the black blade that was her arm. The Keeper blocks it with his own blade, hiding his surprise at her ability to change her body so easily. He had known only one other being who could do that, and he had powers stolen from the Gods themselves. As Amy attacks again, sounds begin to fade up from nothing, emanating from the suit itself. Fast drum beats and speedy guitar riffs replace the rain pounding down around them. The Keeper vaguely recognizes the beat, but ignores it, focusing on blocking Amy’s attacks.
The Keeper manages to duck under one of her attacks, leaving her wide open for an attack of his own. He slashes up with the blade, cutting a long gash up her torso, right down to her own skin, a thin line of blood replacing the black. The Keeper immediately spots this, and now knows that whatever the creature is, it wasn’t invulnerable to a good old-fashioned sword to the face. The Keeper happens to glance down at the blade and sees the blood dissolving, being sucked into the metal itself. The air around the sword grows even colder, the drops of rain freezing a good ten feet around the blade. He swings the blade in a wide arc, shattering rain and ice crystals, the spray flying towards Amy, the tiny crystals cutting into the suit, drawing tiny droplets of blood to its surface. Amy leaps away from the Keeper, attempting to let the suit heal her as she tries to formulate a plan, her head becoming less foggy all the time.
“He’s strong…”
‘Yeah, too strong.’
“Any ideas?”
‘Sorta. I don’t recommend it.’
“I’m up for anything, let’s hear it.”
‘Well…you remember the giant monster Evan turned into? We could do that, and I know we could overpower him, but I’m not sure your body could handle it, since you're not bonded with me, I doubt you could control it, even Evan has trouble with that.’
“Let's save that for a last resort.”
The suit slowly closes up Amy’s wounds, and she jumps back into the fight, dodging another burst of rain and ice from the Keeper. She lashes out with her left hand, a tentacle streaming from it, wrapping around the Keepers ankle. She whips him into the air, hurling him back towards the center of the highway. He lands hard on his back, his sword clattering out of his hands mid-flight, clattering to the ground several feet away from him. Amy leaps on top of him, wrapping her hands around his neck.
She begins to squeeze, using the strength given to her by Nightshade to choke the life out of the former Time Keeper. As his world begins to go dark, he summons Thor’s gift, charging his right hand with electrical energy, bolts charging all over. He clenches a fist, before slamming it into Amy’s face, catching her jaw, knocking her off him, the bolts of electricity transferring to her, shorting the suit out temporarily. It slowly melts off her face, sliding off her the farther the electricity travels. The Time Keeper gets back to his feet, staring down at the rapidly revealing teenage girl, charging up another burst of electricity. From the wreckage comes a plea from Evan.
“W-wait! Don’t hurt her!”
Evan crawls out of the wreckage, attempting to stand, but trips over his own feet instead. The Keeper looks back down at Amy, just as the remaining Dragonskin pulls itself back into the watch on her wrist. Amy manages to fight off tremors brought on by the Keepers electrically charged punch and rips the watch from her wrist, tossing it in Evans general direction afterwards. Evan bounds from his hands and knees, pouncing on the watch, quickly wrapping it around his wrist. As soon as it makes contact with his skin, black tendrils sprout from the watch and spread over him in an instant. Evan immediately stands up, rejuvenated by the suit. Before Evan can do much, he is lifted into the air by an unseen Force, unable to move, followed shortly by Amy. Evan looks over at the Keeper and sees that he has his right arm pointed at them, his hand clenched into a fist, directing their movement. Still keeping his fist closed, The Keeper steps closer to the two teens. He looks up at them, before speaking.
“Before this goes any further and one of us does something they might regret, I’m putting a stop to it. I didn’t mean to land on the car. I wasn’t in control of my transportation. I didn’t come here to fight, I came here to help. I’m going to let you down now, but if you move against me, know that I can have you right back up there….or I could just give you a little shock.”
He raises his left hand and flexes his fingers, lightning crackles up and down his forearm, emanating from the tips of his fingers. He lets the lightning fade away as he lowers them to the ground. Evan calls the suit back to his watch. The Keeper pushes a button on his forearm, and the two teens watch as his blue and white armor is drawn into that same forearm, leaving an off-white wristband with a blue lightning bolt on it tightly wound around the Keepers wrist.
“Now, I’ll explain everything…”
THEN THERE WERE ROBOTS!
Six robots, all different makes and models, materialize from nowhere, each firing dozens of rounds per second from cannons mounted on each of their arms. The Keeper, having been preparing as the robots were materializing, unleashes a wave of energy, knocking the bullets, as well as the robots, backwards, most of them sent sailing off the side of the highway, crashing to the ground below, save for one. The Keeper sends a small bolt of electricity at it, temporarily shutting it down. Breathing heavily, he turns towards the two shocked teens. Straightening himself up, The Keeper speaks.
"My name is James, and I'm here to stop you from destroying the Multi-Verse."
