Chapter Twenty-One
Like a Chicken Nugget
With an explosion-like sneeze, Tom rocketed up, fully awake.
There had been something tickling his nose – a piece of grass, held in the hand of a girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, and wearing the most bizarre clothing he had ever seen. She wore a tan leather jacket, and combat boots. There was dark make-up around her eyes, making them look much larger. She had bright red streaks in the left side of her hair, and purple on the right. The grass she was holding, for whatever reason, was partially made out of cheese.
He wasn't going to ask.
Behind her was a crowd of kids, ages ranging anywhere from ten or eleven, like him, some even younger, or below college age. They were on a balcony, over looking a grayish river. There was a pool, with something long, white, and filled with teeth swimming around the bottom, only popping up when the blonde girl threw in a piece of bacon at it – a crocodile. They had a freaking crocodile in their balcony pool, and he liked bacon.
"Who are . . ." Tom was about to ask "who are you" until he saw another blonde girl (only several years younger) drawing on a piece of paper and making her crayon drawings of unicorns with snakes stabbed through their horns come alive. His voice fizzled and died. He had seen some crazy stuff in the past few weeks, but a unicorn with a dead snake on its horn? That was new.
"Who are you?" the blonde girl asked rudely.
Tom snapped out of his daze. "Tom Riddle. . . . Who are you?"
"I'm Sadie Kane," said the girl. "The dork behind me," she stabbed a finger at the dark-skinned boy behind her, "is my brother, Carter. He only thinks he's older."
"Sadie!" Carter hissed. He turned to Tom. "I am the older sibling."
Well, duh. He was taller and older looking than Sadie. Tom refrained from saying that out loud. "Where am I? I was in that lab, and now I'm here . . ."
"You're in Brooklyn, New York," Sadie explained.
How did he get from the lab to – you know what? He didn't even care anymore. " . . . Okay."
He looked down at his hand. He hadn't made that portal open. Was it even possible for him to control the darkness? It had to be. He had felt it stirring inside him before, and he had seen it flicker to life on his hands. Thorne couldn't have orchestrated all of that. . . . Could he have? It stood to reason that if Thorne could control his own darkness, then he could put it into others, even if only temporary.
Meanwhile, Sadie muttered something about an "angst bucket" and said, "You're one of those time travelers, aren't you? Have you heard from Percy, or Annabeth? Or Harry, Ron, and Hermione?"
"Yes," said Tom. He shakily stood. He felt as though he had been knocked in the head by a rogue bludger. "They're fine. The others I'm not sure about: Nico, Piper, Jason . . . They're not here. Where did they go?"
He was half talking to himself. There was so much new information spinning around in his head, things he had learned in that ICE lab. He felt like he was treading water, and if he had to carry around another major load, he'd be in over his head.
Where would he be if he hadn't joined the demigods and wizards, if they had never appeared at Wool's Orphanage? He had been looking forward to finding out which parent was magical, or if they both were. He had been worried about his blood purity. Now he was just worried about making it out of these crazy situations with his head and life intact. One had priorities when there was a monster with large teeth chasing after them.
Altered in a lab, though? He had always been a wizard, he reminded himself. That wasn't fake. But these "demigod genes" were fake. The "magician genes" were also fake. For all he knew, the only reason he was such an extraordinary wizard was because he was unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of ICE as a child – something which he didn't remember.
"You okay?" asked Carter. He offered a glass of iced water. "Here, this might make you feel better."
Tom accepted the drink without hesitation. The icy water did indeed make him feel a lot better. His heart, which had been racing, settled into a normal pace. He set the glass down a table. "So I'm in Brooklyn. . . . Where were the others? "Nobody else landed here?"
Sadie shook her head. "Nope, you appeared here by yourself in a big cloud of darkness. It looked a bit like black candy floss . . ."
Tom wasn't sure about comparing the darkness to candy floss. "What year is it?"
Sadie answered his question, and Tom felt as though his insides froze. He knew that Percy and Harry and his friends came from far in the future, but it hadn't really struck home until that very moment. He was over seventy years in the future. They all looked like the people did back in Tom's time, yet at the same time they were so . . . alien. There were certainly no girls with monster boots in the 30's (with the exception of Katelle, but she was the exception of many things).
He shook the last bit of disorientation from his head, breathing deeply. There had to be reason he was sent to this particular time, in this particular location. The numerous kids and teens without guardians more than likely had something to do with it. Sadie and Carter knew Percy, Annabeth, Harry, and everyone else.
Something rang loudly, and Tom jumped a good foot off the ground. His eyes locked on Sadie, which was where the sound was coming from. The blonde girl laughed at his stunned expression and pulled a device out of her pocket. "It's a phone, Tom, dear. Welcome to the twenty-first century."
Now that he thought about it . . . "Do you have any of those anomaly detection devices?"
"Eh?" Sadie shot him a blank look. "What?"
He sighed. "Must be past this time." Now that he really thought about it . . . how from into the future did Katelle come from? With how bitter she could be at times, it must not have been a good future. That was probably why she was traveling through time – to change everything. He shuddered to think how horrible it must have been that she would be willing to tamper with the time line and throw the lives of every human being into danger.
"So where . . . or when, I guess, do you come from?" Carter asked.
They were now sitting on a glass table on the porch. In the back ground, the baboon (what was its name again?) was holding a piece of bacon over the water, and jumping back away from the snapping teeth of Philip of Macedonia every time the crocodile tried to eat the treat. Tom thought that the baboon (Kerchu? Kuster? Buster?) was playing a dangerous game.
"Khufu, do you want to lose your fingers?" scolded a petite blonde girl lightly, holding an armful of books.
Ah – Khufu!
"Er – 1928, last I knew . . . However, we've skipped around quite a bit, and I don't know what the year was in the last one. . . . We were in a research lab," Tom added at their questioning glances.
Sadie shivered. "Mad scientists. They're mad."
"That's why they're called mad scientists," Carter said with a long suffering sigh.
"So what is this place?" Tom asked.
Sadie drew herself up proudly. "This is the 21st Nome. We're magicians, all with the blood of the pharaohs of the past. We do magic."
Tom rose an eyebrow. "Like wizards, you mean?"
Carter crossed his arms. "Well, there's many difference between Egyptian magic and the wizard's magic. For one, your magic seems to be inexhaustible as long as you're not doing any physical activity with the magic. Our magic, on the other hand, is extremely taxing on our bodies if we over use it."
"You can spontaneously combust," Sadie chipped in.
Tom's eyes narrowed. "Isn't spontaneous combustion –"
"Yeah, yeah," Sadie interrupted. "You can't put smelly undergarments and wheat in a jar and make mice."
"Once a magician uses up too much of their life reserves, they've got nothing keeping them alive, basically," Carter explained. "It's sort of complicated, but in laymens terms, if you use too much of your life force, you'll turn to dust."
Tom blinked slowly. " . . . And you crazy people are willing to practice such magic?"
"It's not so bad," Carter assured him. "We can build up our reserves. It's kind of like building up stamina – actually, it's just like building up stamina. If you try to run ten miles when you've never ran in your life, you're going to drop dead at some point when your heart fails you. But if you build up your stamina and train your body, you'll make the ten miles and more."
"I guess that's not so bad," Tom said. I could probably do this magic, knowing what those freaks in the laboratories did to me. . . . But why can't I remember anything? Was it all so tramatizing that I literally blocked out the memories?
Off to the side, a Japanese teen with long, dark hair tied up in a high pony-tail was holding a place stacked with an enormous amount of food above the head of another short, skinny teen with white hair and gray-blue eyes. The Japanese teen had an amused smirk on his face as he kept the plate out of reach from the shorter teen.
"Give it up, moyashi," said the Japanese teen.
"It's ALLEN!" yelled the white-haired boy. "Not beansprout!"
Carter sighed, dropping his head in his hands. "Are those two going at it again?"
"Yep," Sadie said. "Have fun, big brother of mine!"
Carter shot a glare at her. "Not funny, Sadie. I don't feel like being skewered by that ridiculous sword of Kanda's."
Tom looked at the two arguing teens – Allen and Kanda.
At one point, Tom would have assumed the two were bitter enemies. However, after being around Percy and his friends, and hearing their friendly bantering and recognizing real arguing from the friends stuff, he could see more than that. It was strange, now that he thought about it, what a profound impact they made on him. He could see the camaraderie between Kanda and Allen – despite the arguments, in the end of the day, they had each other's backs.
"Someone should go break them up," said Carter unenthusiastically.
"Like I said," Sadie replied, "Have fun!"
Carter grumbled under his breath unintelligibly and walked over to Kanda and Allen.
Sadie laughed, a fiendish glint in her eyes. "It's always funny watching Kanda and Allen fight. It's even funnier when Carter tries to stop them."
Tom backed away from her slightly. "You're brutal."
"I know," Sadie said with a wistful sigh. "In another life, this world might have been mine . . ."
Tom considered the quickest exits: the door, or the edge of the porch. He might just choose the latter. He could survive falling into the Hudson, right?
"What about you?" asked Sadie. "Once this is all over and you fix all the time anomalies – what are you going to do?"
Tom scratched the back of his awkwardly. He had never really thought about it too much. " . . . Go back to Hogwarts? Maybe run for Minister of Magic . . . or become a professor."
"Meh, being a teacher's overrated," Sadie said. "And if you really want to, good luck. No adult's gonna take you seriously."
Tom's shoulders slumped. "Probably."
"Jeez, I didn't know you'd act so emo," Sadie said, rolling her eyes.
"I – I am not –"
"AAAAAARGGGHH!"
Tom and Sadie leapt out of their seats and ran for the mansion. Carter, Allen, and Kanda were right behind. They were met by the confused and slightly afraid faces of the other Egyptian magicians.
A boy with shaggy brown hair and gray eyes stumbled down the stairs, where the bedrooms were. The side of his shirt was sheered off, along with a good portion of his skin. He was gasping for breath, sweat coating his forehead and dripping down his face. His eyes were wide in fear. "There – there's something – it's big – fast . . ."
A girl with blonde hair and blue eyes ran through the crowd and helped the boy the rest of the way down, muttering under her breath. "Calm down, you'll be okay. I'm going to help you."
"Do have you have it under control, Jaz?" asked another kid, reaching into his bag.
Jaz nodded. "Yeah – I can stop the bleeding. Luckily, the wounds aren't that deep. . . . You'll be okay." The last part was said the trembling boy. "Can you hear me?"
The boy nodded. Then he looked at Sadie and Carter. "You need to – to get rid of that thing! It's – it's a monster!"
Behind the cluster of Egyptian magicians, Tom's shoulders slumped. No one noticed his slightly afraid, slightly annoyed face. He knew exactly what had terrified that boy, and he hoped the magicians were as good as they made themselves out to be, because they were going to have to be. The monster he just knew he had the misfortune to have been followed by (not the whale, by the way) through the portal Thorne created.
More than once, Tom had wondered how demigods could look so nonchalant about things. They could have a building explode in front of them, and most of them probably wouldn't bat an eye at it. Their world was so much different than his, yet exactly the same. There wasn't a single wizard or witch who hadn't been stuck by some kind of odd calamity, and there wasn't a single demigod who hadn't literally been struck by a weird calamity.
The only difference was that one world was much more violent than the other. And that the one Percy and his friends came from was in the future, but Tom liked to just ignore that fact. It tended to give him headaches.
Sadie and Carter parted from the group of magicians, creeping up the stairs. Tom followed behind them, pulling out his wand even though he knew it would do next to nothing against the Predators. It wasn't that his magic wasn't effective – quite the opposite, Tom knew exactly how powerful his magic was – it was just, he wouldn't be able to use a spell of any kind fast enough to be useful. He would have to be incredibly quick – and use non-verbal magic.
"I think I know what we're up against," Tom stated quietly as they reached the hall. He absently noted whoever owned this place had to be well to-do, because he nearly sank to his ankles in the carpet (though there were a few burnt spots).
"Do explain," Sadie demanded.
"They're called Predators," Tom replied. "They're big, and they're kind of blue –"
Sadie snickered. "Big and blue . . . I knew it!"
Carter swatted the back of her head. "Save the movie references for later, would you?"
"– and they're superhuman, basically. Impossibly fast, strong, and they can see sound. Like echolocation." Tom paused. "They kind of sound like dolphins, too."
"Any weak spots?" Carter asked.
"Er – really loud sound will repel them. They can't handle it because too much sound is sensory overload."
Sadie grinned. "Leave this to me."
"Horus, why?" Carter muttered. "No – not you, Horus – just shut up –"
Tom watched Carter cautiously as the older boy seemingly talked to himself. Someone had issues . . .
"Perfect," Carter snapped to thin air. "Thank you, Horus. Now Tom thinks I'm insane – what? – how dare you – just shut up!"
Before Carter could complain to the voice in his head anymore (what Tom didn't know at the time was, Carter was literally speaking to the voice in his head, better known as Horus), Sadie elbowed the back of his head ("Ow, what the heck, Sadie?"). "A nutter, he is."
"Right, because you're one to –"
A series of popping and crackling noises permeated the air, echoing off the hallway. They froze, subconsciously stilling their breathing and waiting. Tom's fingers twitched, wishing he still had his dagger (how had he lost that thing, anyway? He couldn't remember). He knew how little it mattered that they stood still. They could stand stock still and hold their breath, and while that might help a bit, in the end it would make a difference. The Predators could hear their very heartbeats.
And Tom wasn't very keen on stopping his heart anytime soon, either.
He was stricken, his limbs frozen and his feet glued to the floor. There was no way he could move – he was too terrified. Those things could kill him, they would eat him. They were so fast, he wouldn't even see his death come upon him. With one swipe of their claws, or maybe a chomp of their teeth, it would severe his spinal cord at his neck and he would die. That would be it – the end – no more Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Nothing feared him more than the emptiness of death. The loss of one's self, the fallen memories. There was no imprint on this world, no sign he ever existed. The planet would spin and another day would come, just without Tom. He couldn't bear being forgotten and lost, just like that. Death was truly the worst thing that could happen to a person.
"Did you hear that?" Carter whispered.
Don't talk, Tom moaned in dismay. They'll see the sound waves, moron!
"Yeah," Sadie replied quietly. "Tom, what, exactly, are they capable of again?"
"Very fast, agile, strong," Tom snapped, giving up on silence. The Predator already knew exactly where they were. It was just taking its time. They liked to play with their food, it seemed. "And if it gets to us, it will try to eat us."
"It eats humans?" Carter asked, shocked. He shouldn't have been, he had dealt with demons that did similar things, but still . . .
"Like a chicken nugget?" Sadie added.
"What? Sadie – this is last time to worrying about chicken nuggets –"
"What's a chicken nugget?" Tom mumbled.
"You see, my apprentice –"
"Not the time!" Carter hissed. "Something's coming – I can feel it."
Sadie stopped, and shuddered. "You're right. The Duat – there's ripples."
There was a flash of blue – something latched onto the roof and jumped behind them. By the time they whirled around, the Predator was already lunging at them, its mouth gaping open, beady black eyes set on them.
Carter lifted his khopesh just in time, the blow ringing at the creature's claws raked across the blade. It jumped back, twitching and jerking around. Its head twisted to the side, mouth opening and closing, popping and whining growls emanating. The Predator's movements were as bizarre and unpredictable as usual. It acted like it either had way too much sugar in its system, or it was suffering from a mental illness.
Tom personally thought it was both.
"Sadie – sound – you think you can . . .?" Carter asked without really asking, leaving Tom spitting fire and waving his arms around, wondering what the heck he was talking about.
Sadie grinned. "Oh yeah, leave it to me. DJ Sadie coming right up!"
AN: Dear gods. Has it really been a year? I think it has. What can I say? Life catches up to you. Just so you guys know, I haven't forgotten this. We've just been having technical difficulties with Festus's wiring. But now I'm back and running again! Woo-hoo!
~ LunaEtSidera