Pnaktous Ruins,
April 5th,
2:32 Pm,
2013 AD:
"A perpetual eclipse has settled over the ruins of the Yithian's library, and Flying Polyps from ancient times haunt the present day. Delta Green and Yithian agents alike are seeking to investigate the source of this spacetime anomaly..."
A solid rock face shuddered, as though caught in an abrupt heatwave. The very surface ruptured, becoming caught in a silver and blue light. Three figures stumbled out onto the cold sands underfoot, a silvery glimmer fading from their forms. With the whining and grinding of complex mechanisms, the gateway closed, segments snapping back together .
'Aha, here we are. The year 2013. In the ruins of the Yithian's city.' Theodore explained.
'Is it night?'
'No... It's... Just after midday. I think we're in the middle of an eclipse.'
An archeologist was nearby, he was busy excavating a portion of the ruins that was sticking out of the sand.
'Excuse me, sir?' Kara rushed over to meet him.
Sensing someone to talk to, the archeologist finally freaked out. 'It's night! All the time! I can't deal with this!'
After taking several deep breaths he finally calmed down. 'Oh... You're the ones he was telling us to look out for.'
'Huh?'
'Over there.' He pointed to a small encampment a short distance away.
'What in the blazes of Carcosa have you done?!'
A figure, dressed in a smart suit most unsuited for the desert climate. Those hellfire golden eyes, however, stirred the most vile of memories from Kara's first day of moving to her new school. Their science teacher, Mr Nathaneil Tepp... Otherwise known as-
'Nyarlathotep.' Kara spoke, shivering.
He was not a happy shapeshifter.
'You fucking morons! You mother fucking sons of bitches! You-!'
His seemingly endless tirade of profane insults continued until he finally burned out and slumped into a chair. 'This-!' He gestured to the area beyond the canopy. '-is your doing!'
'We... Caused the eclipse?'
'NO!' his roar was a truly terrifying thing, it shook the earth and darkened the skies further. 'Someone who should be here is not...'
He gestured to the empty space before him again. 'It's your doing. So, you three... Will get your asses back into the past, and sort it out. Or I'm going to get really nasty...'
'Have you not noticed? Who is missing here?'
'... Alex?' Kara made a wild guess, recalling another rather... voracious rumour regarding those two that had spread during the latter school years.
'Hmph. Very good. Yes, Alex is not here. After you selfishly left him behind... He perished from septic shock.'
'W-we... killed him?'
'Oh, there is a flicker of intelligence after all!' His voice was bitterly sarcastic and venomous. 'Indirectly, but yes, his blood is on your hands.'
'W... Why do you care?'
'Hm?'
'Why do you care that Alex died? One little human in an impossibly broad universe... Why?'
Nyarlathotep turned away, eyes glinting. 'I have my reasons, little human.'
'What are they?'
He snarled sharply at Kara's question, baring his teeth and looking positively feral.
'Um, Kara... Best not.' Ceaser stated. 'Don't piss him off any more then he already is.'
'Why are we doing what he says-?! I.. I want to have Alex back as much as you do, but surely... if we continue down this path it will only lead to destruction!' Kara continued to complain as they made their way back to a place where Theo could open the time gate.
Now, to save Alex...
All it took was a timely shout from Kara to draw Alex's attention away from his determined end, and-
...
Data corruption.
File "2012" has suffered from a Paradox Effect.
Deconstructing Paradox Effect.
Finding start of new timeline to continue reconstruction of events for Sothoth Facility archives.
...
Pnaktous Ruins,
April 5th,
2:32 Pm,
2013 ADX:
"The trio of temporal travellers return to the Pnaktous Ruins. The eclipse still darknes the skies, and polyps are being held back by technology of both origins. However, this world is not like the ruins of 2013 AD. Things have changed."
Alex did not want to come. He complained of feeling tired.
'This... Is an alternate time stream.'
'Huh?'
'Look. See?'
Kara leaned over to read the display on his wrist computer as he held it out to her.
"Silver Gate Matrix:
Destination: 2:32 Pm, 03/ 05/ 2013 ADX"
'You see that? "ADX", it indicates that this is an alternate time stream to the one we first arrived in.'
'What happened to the other one?' Kara asked.
'Well... Theories are debateable. But, most likely, when a timestream leading up to the now no longer makes comprehensive sense, it ceases to exist. Imagine time as a piece of string. When the events down the middle do not make sense to the ending, that bit of string is cut off and a new one is tied on. That becomes the new future.'
The perpetual eclipse still hung over the skies of the excavation site as they returned. The camp was still up, and Nyarlathotep was still waiting for them. However, now waiting along with him was-
'Alex!' Kara cried out, running forwards to hug him.
Alexander Gale, one year older.
'Hi, guys. We knew you'd be coming.'
Kara looked over Alex's shoulder at the shapeshifter behind her- Did... Did he just give her the evil eye?
Why was a cold, manipulative alien acting like this...?
'Now... What's causing the eclipse?'
'I think... ' Alex mused over the representation of the geography. 'The cause of such a thing could be within the ruins themselves. Such a powerful infulence on the timeline is bound to cause some sort of strain.'
'Meaning...?' Kara wondered.
'Meaning, little girl-'
'Little girl?!' Kara demanded, she recieved another dark glare for her efforts.
'Do not interrupt me again. Learn to control your tongue or I will tear it from your mouth. It means that a Yithian punched this hole in the timeline, and now it's causing this disruption.'
'Why... Are you here?' Ceaser asked.
'I'm here because I have what I want.' The Crawling Chaos stated with an absolutely playful smirk.
'Ignore him.' Alex muttered, shaking his head. 'I'll come with you. It'll help make the Race calmer. I'll help you seeing as Nyarly's being an uncooperative ass!'
'Tch. Filthy hybrid!'
'Calamitous ass!' Alex called back. The Crawling Chaos leant back in his chair, seeming content and fit to idle away all the time he had.
'It's been a year since I saw you, but for you it's been mere moments, hasn't it?'
'What have you been doing, Alex?' Kara asked the question as they trekked across the cold, dark sands. 'Are you and... Him- It... like...?'
'Together? Well, I did say that something was watching me, didn't I? He'll probably kill me for saying this, but... Humans wear masks because they protect the weaker self from the harshness of this world. He wears masks because he's so terrified of appearing weak. Even the prospect of "love" confuses and frightens him. Like how a person would behave when they were a child that was never hugged by their parents. I hugged him... And he freaked. Out.'
'Why?'
'Compassion scares him.'
'Ok. How long have you been together?'
'13 months.'
'That would be... Shit. Not long after we left you.'
'Mhmm. I got a reply from my... Blind date search. The real one turned up a short while after he did. It got confusing, and embarassing, and half the resturant customers and staff lost their minds... Not pretty.'
'No, you listen to me, Yithian, I'm talking and I'm trying to save the goddamn timeline from total collapse! Big paradox, big distortion! It rips a hole in the fabric of spacetime and swallows up this area entirely, past, present and future! You lose everything! All your texts and knowledge gone! Poof!'
Alex continued to yell loudly at the glassy eyed, alien in a human body.
'Um...' Kara looked to Ceaser. 'Is it just me, or does Alex seem more... Wild?'
'OK, it seems to be coming from in the central chamber beneath the city. Problem is; that's where the Ployps are getting out from. I hope you're ready for a fight.'
'Nope.' Kara stated.
'No.' Ceaser chimed in.
'Hmph. Always.' Theo withdrew two loaded, futuristic looking handguns from their holsters.
'Great, shall we go and stop this thing before it blasts a great big crater in history?'
The corpses of dead Polyps were left in their wake as they slid down the path to the cental chamber that had been carved out. Theodore sliding down on his feet to land professionally on the ground below. The rest of the party slid down on their backsides, Kara and Alex laughing, and Ceaser screaming.
'Oh, what is that then?' Theodore was immediatly drawn to the only source of light in the darkened chamber. A large veritcal crack, a split in the wall that shed a most unholy white light.
'Seems to be something stuck in there...'
Squinting into the light, Theo reached into the crack, gritting his teeth sharply as the glove and sleeve of his uniform began to smoke and smoulder, burning from the intense heat and light.
'It's... It's... Almost... Gah!' He pulled his arm free, dropping a smoking, heated object onto the floor before him. Alex gave him a canteen of water to allow him to put out the small fire that had broken out on his sleeve.
'Ah, t-thanks.'
'What is this...?' Alex crouched next to the object that Theo had withdraw from within as the Detla Green Agent began to stick more of that strange blue tape over the crack in the wall. It was metal, or stone, or some strange composition that he had not seen before. It appeared to be a fragment of a much larger object, curved slightly, smooth on the outside, yet ridged on the inside.
'This looks like...' Theo's voice faded as he laid eyes upon it too.
'..?'
'Nothing. Now, with that distortion closed, things should revert to normality and the eclipse should end.'
'Aha!' Theodore was almost blinded by the sunlight as they returned to the surface. 'There we go, that's a lot better.'
'Ugh... Now it's too hot.' Alex complained, sharply wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
'One year in the future, and he still hasn't changed much.' Kara tutted, shaking her head with an amused smile on her face.
'Hmmmm? What did you find, Gale...?'
The Crawling Chaos quickly snatched the strange material from Alex's hand the moment he was in range. With a strange curiousity, he began to look it over, tapping fingers against it to check the sound resonance, sniffing it.
'Please, don't do what I think you're going to-' Alex began.
Nyarlathotep sharply licked the object before nibbling on it, testing it's strength and endurance.
'You did...' He turned away, running a hand down his face.
'It's... It is... Ugh... It's disgusting.' Yep. Horrible taste.' He tossed it aside, onto a table. 'Bleh, now I have to find something to get rid of it...'
'Here. Try this.' Alex passed him a bottle of aged scotch. The Outer God had downed it in seconds flat and a few deep gulps.
'Hmm... Bit better.' he licked his lips lightly, looking around with hungry eyes.
'I'd... Say you should leave, that look in his eyes means that what comes next won't be pretty.' Alex examined his fingernails
'He's looking for food.'
'F-Food?'
'The last time it was some poor guy's heart and kidney.'
'Ok! Let's go!' Kara grabbed Theo and Ceaser's arms, dragging them away.
'Bye! See you soon!' Alex waved them off, only for Theo to effortlessly drag them back.
'Wait. You're a future version of our Alex, you know all that happens next. You've already lived it.'
'I have, yes.' he nodded. 'I know where you take us, and I've seen it all.'
Theo had dropped them off back in 2012 before returning back to whenever it was he had come from. He returned only a day later, stating that his boss had ordered him to bring them with him. Alex's excitement over time travel was only dulled by his more recent experience.
'Last night... I was sure I... Sensed something invisible, sitting on the end of my bed, just watching me.'
With books, food, water, medical kits, weapons, and equipment packed within their rucksacks, the party set off, following Theo through time.
