Preface: This is a sci-fi action adventure story that takes place in the Dragon Booster world. The story takes place some time after the events seen in "Return of Drakkus, Part 2" which means Connor Penn is back in the picture. I got the idea for this story and started it in mid-March 2006. One of the things I would like to see more of in the show itself is more episodes where the dragons are driving the plot. As it is, the story usually revolves around the humans with the dragons just along for the ride. Propheci is pretty much the only dragon that directly drives the episodes he is in. I've been trying to think of stories where other dragons could take the lead role and this is the result. I hope you like it.

Rating: I rated this story "Teen" just to be on the safe side due to a few images of violence. 95 percent of the story is suitable for all ages. The description of the violence is pretty mild, so I'm just being ultra-conservative on the rating.

Credits: Dragon Booster is the property of The Story Hat. My thanks to them for creating such a great show and a fun world to explore in our fan fictions.

The title for my story is a variation of the title of a short story by Larry Niven called "There's a Wolf in My Time Machine." My story is completely originally and has nothing in common with Larry Niven's story. I just like the sound of the title. :-)

I also borrowed a few time travel concepts from the book/movie "Millenium." Similar ideas were also used in an episode of "The Outer Limits" once, so I think they're fair game.

There's a Dragon in My Time Machine

by The Furox

Chapter 1

What was that? I opened my eyes and lifted my head to look around but everything seemed OK. Sort of felt like the floor shook a bit. Guess I must have been dreaming. It was still early and I could see through my window that dawn was just beginning. Plenty of time to get more sleep, so I rolled over and shut my eyes.

After a few moments, I felt it again. OK, I wasn't dreaming it this time. The room really shook.

An earthquake? We didn't have earthquakes in Dragon City, at least not that I had ever heard of. Was it a group of dragons running by on Connor's practice track outside? He hadn't said anything about practice runs today and it was way too early besides.

Before I could figure out what was happening, an even larger jolt hit. Whatever was going on, it was getting worse.

I heard running footsteps approaching my room and Connor's voice calling out in near desperation.

"Beau! Beau! Are you there?" he yelled.

I could hear in his voice that he was deadly serious about something. I had known Connor all my life and one thing was certain: when Connor was serious about something, it was serious.

I leapt to my feet as the door to my stable slid open. Connor ran in carrying some sort of gear pack under his arm and a smaller unit in his other hand. The expression on his face and tone of his voice made it clear he was desperately worried about something but relieved to see me. He said, "Beau! Thank the Magna Draconis you're still here!"

Still here? Why wouldn't I be here? I cocked my head and said, "Huh?"

"Beau, we're all in grave danger. You especially. And we are literally out of time."

This wasn't starting out good at all.

"Those jolts you felt? Those were time-quakes," he said.

Time-quakes? What the heck was a time-quake?

"A time-quake is the shock wave caused by a change to our past," he said, having guessed that the questioning look on my face meant I didn't know what a time-quake was. Connor had raised me from a pup and knew me well enough that he could generally deduce what was on my mind. Plus he had gotten really good at reading my facial expressions. To be sure, this was a rather crude way to communicate, but it seemed to suffice. Most of the time, anyway.

Speaking quickly as though he had a lot to say and little time to say it, he continued, "When something alters the past, the present reality has to adjust to fit the new past and this generates a shock wave as the change ripples through time to our present. It's like throwing a stone into a pool of water. The magnitude of the shock wave corresponds to the degree of the change in the past. Minor changes generate only small tremors. Large changes, the kind that literally change the course of history, cause massive shock waves as reality adjusts to accommodate the change. Look here," he said as he held out the small device in his hand for me to see. It was a data pad of sorts with a display read-out that showed a pulsating circle moving towards the center portion of the grid. He continued urgently, "This ancient sensing device was given to me by the Dragon Priests. Among other things, it's capable of sensing temporal disturbances. This pulsating circle is a massive time-quake approaching our present time. When it hits, our entire reality and what we know as our history will change. After the shock wave passes, a new reality will be in place and no one will remember the previous one. It will be as if it never happened."

Believe it or not, this was making some sense to me. Artha and Lance both liked science-fiction movies and I had watched a couple with them that had involved time travel. The movies usually went along the lines of someone traveling into the past, changing something to suit their interests, then returning to the present to benefit from the change they had made. Unfortunately, I had devoted more of my attention to the bucket of popcorn Artha had given me than to the plot of the movie, and that's about all I could remember of the story. Sigh. I really must learn to stop thinking with my stomach. But how was I supposed to know that I'd have to understand time travel some day? They didn't exactly make it a point to teach quantum and temporal physics to dragons, you know.

"Only one person can be behind this," Connor said distastefully.

Let me guess, Word Paynn?

"Word Paynn. He must have found a way to travel into the past and is making changes so that he can rule the world in the present. Only one thing has ever stood in Word's way, and that would most certainly be his target in the past." Connor then looked at me with the grimmest expression I had ever seen on him."It's you, Beau. Only the gold dragon of legend can stop Word's plan for a dragon-human war and his domination of the world. Therefore, he must have planned to eliminate you by altering the past." Connor looked back at the data pad. "Whatever he's done, it's massive. He may have had me murdered before I could start the breeding program that lead to you, or perhaps he smashed your egg before you hatched. I'm afraid there's no way to know. When the time-quake gets here, you and I could both wink out of existence and Word will be free to carry out his plans and plunge the world into war."

These were pretty shocking thoughts. Connor was like a father to me and the thought of him dead or my egg being reduced to a pile of goo on the ground were both shocking and nauseating to me. How on earth could I do anything about this?

"This gear may be our only chance, Beau," he said as he pulled the gear pack out from under his arm. I could see it was made of gold draconium, which of course meant it must be ancient gear. I had never seen any gear like it before and I had no idea what it did.

"This is ancient defensive armor. It was used to make a dragon both invisible and impervious to any attack. None of the Dragon Priests who raised me knew exactly how it works since it can only be powered by gold draconium energy. And, as you've probably noticed, we don't have a whole lot of gold dragons around these days."

Tell me about it. I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"During my studies with the Dragon Priests, the ancient texts I read made reference to the gear and talked about how it generates an isolation field by forming an independent pocket of space around the wearer. The pocket of space is then isolated from effects in normal space and anything inside it is therefore impervious to anything outside it. Or so the texts say. I'm hoping that the pocket will also isolate the wearer from the effects of time-quakes as well, but I can't be certain about that. Clearly, it would never have been designed with that in mind, but it's our only hope."

A faint rumbling could now be heard that was slowly growing. The time-quake must be very close to the present.

"We are quite literally out of time, Beau. Mag the gear and drive it with as much power as you can. Hopefully, the pocket it generates will be strong enough to protect you."

Just me? Worry and concern for Connor showed in my eyes.

"The gear only generates a field around the dragon using it. If you survive the time-quake, I'm afraid you'll be completely on your own. I wish I could help you more, but I will most likely cease to exist in the next few moments. Among other things, that means Artha and Lance will probably never have been born either."

I was in shock. The three people I cared the most for were about to become non-existent. If I could talk it wouldn't have mattered since I would have been speechless. There were about a thousand questions I wanted to ask right about now, but had no way to ask them and no time. Note to self: If I manage to survive this, I have to find a better way to communicate with humans. Maybe I can make some sort of arrangement with Propheci some day. I did save his tail once and he still owes me.

"And whatever you do, don't stop powering the gear until you have corrected whatever was done in the past. If the gear shuts down sooner than that, you'll be subject to the new reality. And if you aren't supposed to exist in that reality, then you will immediately vanish from existence and all will be lost. The outcome of this lies solely with you, Beau. Do whatever you have to do to restore the proper reality." The data pad in Connor's hand started beeping urgently. "We're out of time, Beau. Hurry!" he said as he held out the gear.

I quickly magged the gear to my forehead. From the shape of the gear, that looked like where it was meant to go, plus that was where my energy was the most concentrated. If I had fingers, I would have crossed them for luck the way the humans did. I took a deep breath and powered-up the gear with all the energy I had.