Here it is! :) please be nice and review! I worked on this for 3 days exactly.. but these days were sandwiched in between weeks of SCHOOL. and work, etc... Anyways, this is more of a filler chapter D: sorry to disappoint or anything, but all the REAL good stuff happens next chapter (up sometime in October, hopefully). So keep watch! 3
Jim and Dimitri immediately sprang to action, rushing around the house and grabbing items that they might have needed for such an adventure. Jim ran to his room, leaving a surprised and confused Doctor sitting on his couch, while Dimitri hastened to the kitchen and began emptying out the cabinets of the food.
Jim pulled his duffel backpack out of his closet, and threw a variety of clothes and tools in there, including his father's pipe. Although he had mixed feelings about the man, he still felt comfort whenever he had the pipe nearby. It was his last reminder of him even having a father, and he held onto that as a treasure of greatest importance.
He reached under his bed and pulled out a cardboard box. He lifted the lid, and pulled out a laser pistol that he had smuggled off of the RLS Legacy on their adventure. He never expected to have the need to use it come so soon. He shoved the pistol in his bag, grabbed his solar surfer and headed out the door. His brother had his bag packed, and was dividing the food supplies into two piles
"Take these" Dimitri gestured to a pile of different assortments of dry, packaged food and a few purps. He then filled up two large jugs with water, handed one to Jim, and went to pack his own food.
"Boys, where do you think you are going to go?" Doctor Doppler finally interjected, after many minutes of babbling to himself and spastically twitching on the couch.
"Jim has literally just completed an Inter-Dimensional traveling device" Dimitri said matter of factly, although with a twinge of forced conviction underlying the confidence. The Doctor, of course, nearly fell out of his seat.
"An Inter... But that's... It's never..." he struggled to find the appropriate expression of skepticism and incredulity as the boys continued to prepare for their imminent journey.
"It will work. I know it, and you will all see that I was right," Jim said firmly, stuffing the last purp into his bag and zipping it up.
The Doctor, for once, stopped twitching. He sighed, and shook his head slightly.
"Boys, I know that the loss of one parent can be dreadful... Losing the second is even worse, yet nothing you can do will be able to bring her back! It would take eons of time to discover how to travel between dimensions, and whoever inhabits the dimension that took your mother must have had much more advanced equipment and technology... But it simply cannot be done!"
Jim smiled bitterly, and patted the Doctor on the shoulder. "Doc, you'll see" he said, and slung his bag over his shoulders, the surfer clutched under his left arm. "Dimitri, we have to stop at the Academy before we leave. I need to talk to Professor Filomenus."
Upon their arrival at the Academy, almost no one was there, for it was dusk. Jim knew that his professor was at the Academy since he seemed to never leave his room. Jim had been in detention once for the entire night for not paying attention in class (for he was brainstorming his little at home project), and as he passed the Professor's room on his way out, he saw the feline asleep with his head propped in between a book.
Jim scanned his palm at the student entrance, while Dimitri scanned his on the visitor's pad. They were both allowed access, and proceeded through the doors. The classroom they looked for was on the first floor, and they reached it before they received too many questioning looks from faculty members walking along the hallways.
Jim knocked on the slightly ajar door to the Professor's room, and then pushed it open before a reply was given. The feline looked up from a holographic project that was being explained to him by the voice of one of Jim's classmates. He saw who was entering his classroom, and in the way that his pupil's face was set, he knew that there was something more than makeup assignments to be discussed in the next few minutes.
"James. Dimitri," he said, aknowledging the two. "What brings you here...and equipped in such a way?"
"Professor, I've accomplished the Inter-Dimensional travel device. I made it over the past two weeks" the spacer said, holding up the device by the small chain he used to loop through it. The professor blinked slowly, then reached out to touch it, but Jim pulled it out of his grasp.
"Please don't touch it until I explain how it works" Jim said politely, then continued. "It creates a wormhole that pulls the traveler through it into another dimension. It doesn't specify which, therefore it can be any dimension. It has a gravity chip that pulls the traveler to whatever gravity the new dimension has so one doesn't float around in space. I want you to witness me as my brother and I execute the first test run of the device."
Filomenus caught his breath in his throat. "Jim..." he began. However Jim, in somewhat of a hurry, cut him off again.
"Sir, listen. My brother and I have to go. We are kindof in a hurry so just agree with me. If it doesn't work, you can laugh at me all you want. But, since that won't happen, I'm just asking you to see us off."
The professor took a skeptical glance at the necklace in Jim's hands, sighed, and pushed his spectacles up to the bridge of his nose.
"All right. Proceed."
Jim nodded, an apprehensiveness creeping into his confidence. He walked over to his brother, who gave him an encouraging look. They linked arms, and Jim began to twist the dial fully around the orb shaped device. It began to get hot in his hand, and he clutched it in his fist, his arm outstretched.
The professor's eyes widened, and he leapt out of his chair. The floor around the brothers seemed to be dissolving, creating a black hole type rip in the ground.
Dimitri yelped in surprise as gravity disappeared around him. He was being pulled into that black chasm, yet there was no ground to be anchored to anymore.
The last thing Jim saw before going under into the wormhole was his professor's face, a mask of awe and glee. Then the blackness closed around him.
They were whizzing through everything. They traveled so quickly that Jim strained himself to see it all, but that would have been an impossible task. It felt as if they were making their way at an extremely fast speed through a type of gelatin, yet they sliced through it like a knife.
All around them the fabric of everything flew by. Metals, liquids, colors, steam, faces, and so much more impossible things that Jim could not distinguish. He thought he saw a million stones in passing, all a different shade of grey, some that his eyes had not even seen before.
He also saw many a grotesque sight, such as people burning in what looked to be liquid, flecks of blood spraying by, and so much more that he had to close his eyes. At this point, the device was ice cold, so cold that it had frozen to his hand, so even if he tried to let go, it would have been stuck.
And then it all ceased. The motion of flying through that gelatinous substance had stopped, and he felt as if he was an insect trapped in amber.
"Welcome to the InterDimensional Traveling Port. My name is Eris, and I am the goddess of Chaos. I will be directing you onward from this point, for it appears to me that you are new to this method of transportation..."
The voice sounded dry, sarcastic and bored. Jim stared at it's owner, a woman of grey skin and long flowing black hair. She was wearing a smoky purple dress, and across her chest was a pulsing blue scar in the shape of an X. Jim, puzzled, realized that as they were floating suspended in the midst of the millions of things flashing by them, he, Dimitri, and Eris were the only ones there.
"Uh... Eris, right? Could you explain... well, everything? I've never been more confused in my entire life" Dimitri gasped, clutching Jim's arm tighter. Eris rolled her eyes, but the scar pulsed brighter and she flinched.
"You two have somehow managed to make that Interdimensional traveling device and pass through the skin of your dimension, which was basically the surface for you, into these 'veins' that connect all parallel dimensions. Right now you are just floating around in them, since this is your first voyage and you need to know the rules before going any further."
Dimitri nodded, but Jim wasn't satisfied. "How can we tell which dimension we're going to?" Eris laughed.
"You can't. It all depends on fate. Where your machine decides to take you is up to it completely. You won't find out where you are until you get there. Speaking of which.. Your machine needs repairs. Hand it over so I can fix it"
Jim clutched the device in his fist tighter. "No! If I let go, Dimitri and I will get hurled into who knows where!"
Eris rolled her eyes again, and floated over to Jim. "Put it around your neck then, and I'll fix it from there. I honestly can't harm you in any way. I'm not allowed... this damn contract binds me to helping all those who travel through here" she said, pointing to the glowing blue X on her chest.
Jim relaxed his hold on the device, and slipped the leather band over his head. He slowly pried his hand, painfully, from it's death grip on the machine, and he realized that it took some of his skin with it, like ice does when one holds it for too long out in the cold. Eris immediately began tinkering with it as it hovered in the space between it, some sort of gold string flying from her fingers to warp and solidify Jim's creation.
When she had finished, the machine looked somewhat the same, although it had a new dial that was much smaller at the top of the orb, and a golden "5" engraved on the side, with five small dots on the side. Three were glowing gold.
"What does that mean?" Jim asked, pointing to the dots.
"Those show how many passengers this device is carrying with it across dimensions. Only five are allowed with any one party of travelers, and it seems that three are traveling with it right now" Eris explained. Jim looked curiously at the object in his hand. Who else was traveling with them? It was just him and Dimitri, wasn't it?
Eris must have noticed his puzzled expression. "That little pink shape shifter in your bag counts as a traveler" she said.
"Morph!" Dimitri and Jim exclaimed, and the pink blob in question squeaked from inside Jim's bag.
"It doesn't matter. Once we find mom, that will be four people and we'll be fine." Jim said. Eris snorted.
"That other dial is the one that will bring you back to me once your quest is over. I figured it would be more convenient to send you home myself rather than you wandering aimlessly between galaxies and dimensions wreaking havoc which I will have to fix... But that's it. Oh, you can only twist that dial once. When you find your mother and wish to return home, twist it and it will take you back to me. But it only works once, so be careful."
Why Eris was being so nice to them, Jim couldn't fathom. A few minutes ago she was sour and rude; her mood only seemed to change when Jim noted that only four people would be returning... Yet Jim lost track of those thoughts completely, and Eris seemed to be dissolving, and he and Dimitri were moving now at lightning speed past all the colors and items whizzing by them.
They were approaching some sort of curve heading to the right in the tunnel, and they were going to smack right into the tunnel's side unless they turned. Jim and Dimitri yelled, trying to turn themselves away from the impact that was sure to happen, yet the device in Jim's grasp suddenly wrenched itself free from his hand and dragged Jim, holding tightly to his brother, headfirst through the side of the tunnel wall.
It felt like resurfacing from being underwater. They plummeted through the 'vein' of dimensions, as Eris had called it, into blackness. The device lowered them to the ground, giving off a strange aqua color as it did so. The second Jim's feet touched the ground, something whipped past his face, leaving a deep gash in his cheek. Dimitri cried out as something similar happened to him, blood welling to the surface of his forehead. The slicing and cutting then multiplied, and the blackness continued to attack them.
They had landed in the middle of a battle between shadows, and there was no way for them to find their way out.
Reviews? Those would be much appreciated :D
