This is a collab I am doing with The Princess Maker.

Also: this story takes place in my ARCHANGEL Chronicles universe, before Everybody Hurts (but after Only The Strong, which this gives moderate spoilers for). However, as not much of it is going to take place here, it doesn't matter XD

…

Mavis's POV

I never usually run from my troubles but sometimes they overwhelm me and I just have to leave or I say things I'll later regret.

I sit outside on the bench, watching the agents' kids playing outside on the lawn. I often wish I was as young and innocent as those children: no worries or problems or fears. No boyfriends being thick, no siblings being annoying, no fathers telling them they aren't suitable for the field anymore just because they have a short temper and they might have disobeyed a few fairly important orders on the last mission.

Yeah, that's not specific to anyone at all, I think bitterly.

I don't understand why Major Monogram, my father, pulled me out of the field. I do have a short temper at times, but so does Agent D, and Major Monogram lets HIM stay out in the field. And I did disobey a few orders on my last mission, but so does Agent P—much more frequently than me—but has HE ever been pulled out of the field? Of course not.

He's OWCA's top agent, says a nagging voice at the back of my mind. You're just the major's spoiled and favoured daughter.

"I am NOT favoured!" I accidentally snap aloud.

Luckily, nobody hears me.

I decide to stop moping and get up off the bench. As I head inside to find my boyfriend, I bump into him in the doorway.

"Hey, I was just coming to find you," Kane Kennedy says. "You seemed upset earlier."

"I don't get upset," I say automatically. "I was just annoyed with you."

Kane frowns, looking hurt. "Why me? What did I do?"

I let out an exclamation of frustration. "Kane, you saw me coming out of my dad's office looking cross but you still tried to talk to me! You know there are periods where I don't want to talk to anyone!"

"I don't understand how I was supposed to know that you were annoyed," Kane says defensively.

I stare at Kane. "We've been going out for how long? A year? And you still haven't figured out how to tell if I'm too annoyed to talk to you?"

"You have too many different annoyed or cross or moody expressions for me to keep track of which ones mean "talk to me" and which mean "definitely don't talk to me"."

I literally almost cry, and I never ever cry. "Oh, just forget it!" I snap, turning to walk away.

Kane automatically reaches out and grabs my wrist, pulling my sleeve up and exposing the beginning of the scar on my left arm. I hurriedly pull my arm away and pull down my sleeve but my boyfriend has already seen the scar. "What is that?" he asks, eyes narrowed.

"It's nothing," I say quickly.

I try to walk away, but Kane takes hold of my wrist again and pushes up the long sleeve of my coat-like dress, exposing the red scar that runs the length of my arm from my wrist to the inner part of my elbow.

"Where on Earth did you get a scar like this?" Kane demands.

"The Nightmare Dimension…" I reply quietly.

Kane stares at me in shock.

"I was attacked by a creature with poisonous fangs. It cut me like this and I almost died from the poison. It left a scar there. That's why I always wear gloves or long-sleeved tops nowadays: to hide it."

"You're ashamed of it?"

"I don't want to keep having to explain where I got it," I reply. "Well, that, and…I don't need people's sympathy and pity over it. I don't need anyone saying "oh that must have hurt" or "you poor thing". It doesn't hurt anymore. It just sits there. That painful part of my life is over. But people don't get it, so I covered it up to stop people from worrying about it."

Kane looks sympathetically at me, and then pulls me into a hug. "I completely understand," he says. When we break apart, he adds, "If we're being honest about scars…"

He pulls up his trouser leg and displays a harsh-looking scar that looks like three claw marks. I stare at it. "That looks horrible."

"Yeah. I was on a mission once, fighting robots that had cat-like claws. I followed the last one to a rooftop and we had a battle. I kicked it off the roof, intending for it to fall twenty storeys and be destroyed, but it grabbed my leg and dug its claws in. It had such a heavy weight that I almost fell too, but I managed to get its claws off me. But now I have a scar from that encounter. I don't mind it, though; it reminds me that I'm strong. I saved myself when nobody else could. It's a message of inspiration."

I fall silent, gazing sadly into my boyfriend's face.

At that moment, however, there is a scream. We whirl round and find that one of the agency children has collapsed on the ground. As we hurry over, they all begin swaying and collapsing, to the extent that when we arrive at their playing spot, none of the half a dozen children are conscious. As we examine them, I catch sight of Monty Monogram, my brother, coming running across the lawn towards us. "Dad's passed out!" he shouts, before he spots the kids.

"So have they," I say worriedly.

"And so have the dozens of agents I passed on the way here," Monty adds, frowning in worry. "What could this be about?"

Kane suddenly points into the sky. "Look!"

A giant metal machine is flying slowly through the sky towards us. We all quickly get to our feet and race into the safety of OWCA HQ, where I find Monty's statement to be true: the bodies of unconscious agents are littered everywhere. I see at least six agents I recognise.

"Everyone's unconscious," Kane states, looking worriedly around. "How?"

"And why are we the only ones not being affected?" I ask, peering out the window at the metal machine that is coming closer.

I don't know that my brother is in distress until I hear Kane cry my name. I whirl round and see that Monty has collapsed on the ground. Horror flowing up from my stomach to my heart—and making both ache—I race to my brother's side and check for a pulse. To my intense relief, he is breathing and he has a pulse. "He's just been knocked out, somehow," I say, my worry evident in my voice.

At that moment, a man dressed in a long coat and futuristic clothing hurries into sight. Kane and I both stare at him as he catches sight of us and runs over, clearly breathing heavily. "Oh, thank goodness. You're Mavis Monogram and Kane Kennedy, right?"

"How do you know us?" Kane demands suspiciously.

"There's no time to explain," the man says, reaching out to me. "Come with me. I know a safe place to hide."

"From what?" I fold my arms.

"That," the man replies, pointing out the window at the metal machine, which has just landed on OWCA's lawn.

"Okay, fine," I snap. "But you're helping us take Monty."

Kane and the man together pick up Monty, and I follow them as the man leads the way to…somewhere.

He brings out a remote and clicks the switch on it, revealing a hole in the wall. We go through it, into total darkness, and the man makes the door close again. A moment later, light floods the small room we are in as the man switches on the light.

It is a small room, about the same size as a standard living room, with a bed over in the corner, a desk in another corner, a bookshelf in the corner opposite it, and a table and four chairs in the middle of the room. The man and Kane place Monty on the bed and gently cover him with the duvet.

"What is this?" Kane demands.

"And more to the point, why didn't we know about it before?" I demand.

"I'll answer both of those questions soon, but first I have a warning." The man sits down at the table and invites us to join him, which we do. "But first, my name is Farren Hunter. I'm…from the future."

We both blink at that. "I'm sorry, what?" I say.

"I'm from the year 2132," Farren offers as explanation. "But that's not important. What's important is the crisis you're having."

"Yes, why are people falling unconscious?" I ask.

"And what is that metal thing in the sky and why is it coming here?" Kane asks.

"I'm not entirely sure of the answers to either of those questions," confesses Farren. "I've been doing some investigating but LOVEMUFFIN's been right on my tail and I've only-."

"LOVEMUFFIN?" I interrupt. "Is that who's behind this?"

"Yes, but please wait a minute before you interrupt," Farren said. "I've only managed to gain the intel that it's something to do with a Coca-Cola plant in a town called Thneedville."

"That's a weird name," comments Kane.

"What does it have to do with the plant?" I ask. "After all, LOVEMUFFIN can't exactly take over OWCA with Coca-Cola."

"I'm sorry but that's all I know," Farren replies.

"Wait, everybody here has drunk Coca-Cola at some point," Kane points out. "Could LOVEMUFFIN have slipped something into it?"

"It's possible," I admit.

"My intel also suggests that whatever happened to the plant, it happened in the year 1999."

I stare at Farren. "So we have to go back in time?"

Farren takes a small metal sphere out of his cloak. It has a hole bored all the way through it. In the centre of it, electricity crackles and jumps. "This is a time sphere," he says. "It can allow portals to another time, but it can't exactly work unless people can create portals in the first place…"

Smirking, I snatch the sphere and click it on. A moment later, I create a portal that looks different to my normal portals, and I know that I have opened a portal to a different time.

"How…?" splutters Farren.

"Friend named Diana Fay transferred some of her power to me," I reply. "She's the daughter of the Greek goddess of magic."

"Right." Farren shakes his head to clear it. "Anyway…are you ready to go back in time?"

I grin. "Absolutely."