The Past Ahead - an Empires SMP AU

Chapter 6 - Everything's wrong

           Sausage and Pearl were staring at a cathedral apparently built to honor her. And then his future self had mentioned a mural and statue of her in the Ancient Capital. He knew his neighbor well enough that she felt a little embarrassed from all the attention. After all, she was just a farmer queen and all of a sudden she found out that after her death she was revered as a goddess. Still, despite all that drama, Sausage wasn't really thinking about that part. He was thinking of the part about her death.

           It wasn't that long ago he and Pearl had tried to escape the fires ravaging Gilded Helianthia by taking shelter in atop her beanstalk only to find out that when her land burned, she did too. He had tried every spell he knew. Every. Single. Spell. But nothing worked. And Pearl was moments away from her death when Gem's magic had teleported them here.

           For some reason, Pearl had stopped withering and was able to eat and heal and all that stuff now. But, Sausage wondered, what happens when they were sent back to their proper time? Would Pearl just start dying again? He didn't want that to happen. Maybe his future self could help with that. After all, if he really remembered all his past lives, surely he remembered that one and would eagerly help save her. Sausage snuck away from Pearl, who was busy trying to talk to the weird humanoid rabbits that were everywhere in Sanctuary, and went to look for his future self. Sanctuary was huge though, and he wasn't entirely certain where to look, so he figured a little spell couldn't hurt.

           Within seconds of using the staff of Mythland, a magic arrow pointed and shot in the direction of Sausage of Sanctuary. Sausage followed quickly, knowing that he had to catch the arrow before it tried attacking his future self, which was a weird thing the spell always did; trying to stab the thing it was locating, and found it batting against a locked door trying to get it. Sausage deactivated the spell and was about to knock when he heard voices inside. His gossipy personality kicked in, and he couldn't help but eavesdrop.

           "Pix?" It was his future self. "Whatcha doing here?" "Sausage, look at this. I was going to do a little reading on those other emperors, because a little knowledge couldn't hurt and I'm not too familiar about that era anyway, but just look." He slid something that sounded a bit heavy across the table to his future self. There was silence for a little bit, and Sausage was considering using an x-ray vision spell to see what they were looking at when Pix spoke up.

           "It's all blank. This history book tells us about the emperors and their reign, but when it gets to the part about the Rapture, it's got nothing. And it's not just this book, I've checked almost every history book in my library, it's happening to all of them." The other Sausage made a nervous noise, and Lord Sausage began to worry. What did this mean? What was wrong?

           "I was worried about this. Since those emperors are here instead of there, and they were taken before the events of the Rapture really took place, if I understood Gem right, they're not doing what they were supposed to be doing, and that's why the pages are blank. And time travel is hard to explain; you understand what I'm trying to say, right?" "Time travel is hard to understand too," Pix admitted.

           "Well, let me just say this. Every little decision we make causes enormous changes in whatever timeline they're on. And right now, twelve very important emperors have just vanished off of their timeline completely, and that's a very big change that will cause even bigger changes. Who knows what that will do to our timeline, a thousand years ahead of theirs?" "That's why you want to wipe their memory, right? So they won't make any different decisions other than what they're supposed to have done?" "Exactly, Pix. And this is why you're the brains of team L.O.R.E."

           Lord Sausage backed away from the door, feeling sick and sad. His future self wasn't going to help save Pearl. He was too worried about the overall fate of the multiverse and its timelines. But he wasn't about to let go of Pearl that easily. It was just so wrong! Couldn't his future self see that? He teleported straight to Pearl, bypassing any walking he had to do to get to wherever she was now. He liked magic. It was very convenient.