A Stable Loop In Time

Chapter 5

Somewhere in Pangaea, in the Carboniferous Period…

Destiny Rose, Alan Venus, and Xan Futran were right in the middle of a humid swamp. The plants were mostly huge fern-like things. And there were giant, five-foot long bugs crawling everywhere.

“Geez, what is the deal with these giant centipedes?” Alan asked.

“High oxygen content in the air allows for arthropods to grow much larger,” Destiny answered. “I forget what they’re supposed to eat, though. Hope they don’t eat recently time-traveled meat.”

“I don’t remember giant insects in history class!” Xan yelled.

“Yeah, weird, huh?” Destiny finally found time to take a really deep breath to recover from the shock of the attack from the mystery man. “Hm… Weird, instead of feeling calm, I feel… Energized when I take a deep breath. Must be the oxygen.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome, isn’t it!” Alan exclaimed, taking several more deep breaths and jumping up and down. “Woo! I hope that guy comes back to try to take our time machine again, cause I am PUMPED!” A giant dragonfly tried to land on Alan’s head, but he quickly punched it in the abdomen and it flew away. “WOO!”

“Okay, insane boy,” Xan said, sighing in exasperation as the three of them started to walk out of the mushy swamp and onto dry land. A small lizard crawled across the pathway that they were walking down. “So what are your thoughts on the person who attacked us? Why do you think he wants our time machine?”

“Well, he obviously has one of his own, so… Who knows, honestly?” Destiny said in response. “All we really know about him is that he’s definitely a dude. Because I totally kicked him in the balls. A girl wouldn’t be that sensitive.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

A hairy, brown spider took this opportunity to crawl out from behind a fern at this point. It wouldn’t be so horrifying if the spider weren’t about a foot and a half wide.

“Oh god, a spider!” Xan yelled, kicking the huge arachnid weakly.

The huge arachnid reacted by attempting to jump onto Xan’s chest.

Xan scrambled back, freaked out, and barely dodged the leaping arthropod. Destiny, however, thought faster, and picked up a stick. She proceeded to stab the thing right in its thorax. “Take that, ancient… Thing!” She shouted victoriously.

…

“That was… Totally awesome!” Xan exclaimed.

“Ah, it wasn’t much,” Destiny responded. “I’m sure you’d stab a spider for me, too.”

“Um… Yeah, I guess.”

Destiny laughed.

Meanwhile, Alan was extremely high-energy, jumping around and blathering crazy nonsense sentences: “Hey everybody let’s fight that centipede I think he’s stylin’ on you Xan and also I’m PUMPED and-“

“Oh, crud,” Xan sighed. “Alan’s gone insane.”

“Worse,” Destiny said, getting agitated. “He’s suffering from oxygen toxicity! I should have known from the moment we saw that lizard, we’re in the late Carboniferous, not the early! The oxygen levels are way too high here, he’s starting to twitch already, and he could have a seizure if we stay too long! Fire up the time machine, Xan!”

Xan reached into the pocket that should have contained the silvery device that would save them, but to his surprise, it wasn’t there! “Oh, gosh, Destiny, it isn’t there,” he desperately sighed. “We have to find it, it must have dropped out somewhere after we got here, let’s head back to the swamp! Keep an eye out!”

The three of them started to run back to the swamp, but just as they reached the edge, Alan had a particularly big shudder, and he collapsed, his brown eyes wild.

“Oh, god, he fainted. He’s having a seizure!” Destiny said, panicked. “Here, help me pick him up, Xan.” She crouched down and started to pick the fainted boy up.

“Um, Destiny? Look out!” Xan yelled.

“What? Ah!” Destiny yanked her hand off of Alan’s chest s a black boot dropped down square on his sternum. As she looked up at the body attached to the foot, the person she wanted the least to see was revealed to her eyes:

The cloaked man had the unconscious Alan pinned under his enormous foot.

“I thought I kicked your ass already, why are you still following us? And how?” Destiny demanded.

The man was silent and unmoving.

“Answer me!” Destiny screamed, slamming her own foot on the ground in anger.

The man’s cloak shifted, and his pale arm revealed itself. His hand was outstretched and opened, as if to receive something.

“What do you want?” Xan asked.

The man just slightly clenched and unclenched his hand.

“Whoever you are, I don’t have the time machine, okay?” Xan stated calmly, walking closer to the man, next to Destiny. “So if you would just release my friend, that would be real nice.”

“What are you doing?” Destiny whispered frantically.

Xan smiled faintly.

The man put more pressure on Alan’s chest.

“Hey, whoa, man,” Xan said a little less calmly. “I really don’t have it. I lost it in the swamp. Actually, we have no way back to our time right now, so could you just send us back and- Oh, you’re just going to look for the machine. That’s cool too,” Xan finished as the man took his foot off of Alan, who Destiny immediately ran over to. Xan watched as the shadow of a figure walk towards, and then into the swamp. The shadow saw the shiny tube, evident even in the murky water, and picked it up.

As the man examined the time machine, Xan smiled and Destiny looked at him, puzzled.

And the forest around the cloaked figure just exploded with clones of Xan.

As Destiny watched open-mouthed, the dozen or more shouting Xan clones leapt onto the cloaked figure, pushed him into the water, and yanked the time-travel device right out of his hands. One of the clones threw the cylinder to the Xan standing next to Destiny, and that Xan disappeared. Another Xan stepped out of the rainforest right behind Alan and Destiny, grabbed a hold of them, and the three disappeared again, with the signature crack-and-a-flash.

The other Xans disappeared one by one. The man, finally released, burst out of the water, coughed a few times, and just stood there for a second, recovering. A giant dragonfly landed on his head. He swatted it away and vanished into another time.