TWENTY-SEVEN: MARCO

Time Unknown.

This has happened before. Last time something like this happened, I didn't know how long I was out. But when I came to, I was in a different place.

After that, my friends and I discovered we were thrown back to when dinosaurs were alive.

So I panicked when I opened my eyes. We weren't in a dark, underground, secret Yeerk vault. It was bright and trees were everywhere.

(Where are we?!) I hollered. (When are we?! Guys?!)

(I'm here,) Rachel answered.

Everyone was there. One by one Jake, Ax and Cassie rose up from the ground. All of us still in battle mode.

(It happened, didn't it?) Cassie asked.

(We can only assume a Sario Rip was present,) Ax pointed.

(Ok,) I started. (At least this time, we didn't get separated.)

(I beg to differ. We are short of one member.)

(Tobias,) Rachel called out. We heard his voice in the vault so logically, he should have been nearby.

No sign of the red-tailed hawk boy. No silhouette in the sky.

(I'd say he's lucky. He didn't get dragged back or forth in time like us,) I droned.

(The question is when is this time period,) Ax said.

(Wait a minute! What about Visser Three?) Jake uttered, suddenly spinning around in his tiger morph.

(What about him?) He didn't answer me. We looked around. But there wasn't any sign of him.

He sighed with relief. (Ok. Good. It didn't happen again.)

(Visser Three wasn't at the submarine last time.)

(No, no. I mean the other Sario Rip. The one that didn't happen.)

(Ok... You're freaking me out, man.) I wanted to ask him exactly what happened the last time we supposedly went through this other Sario Rip.

He calmed himself down. (Alright. First thing first. We need to know how far into the past or future we are in.)

(We're surrounded by trees. You guys don't see a volcano around, right?) Cassie asked.

(And there's animals,) I pointed, cupping a hairy hand to one of my ape ears. (Birds. Bugs. Everything.)

(This does look like the forest I stay in,) Ax remarked. (But I don't recognize the landmarks.)

(So we're not in the Amazon,) Jake said.

(And nowhere in prehistory either. That's good,) Rachel added.

(Yeah, good. We narrowed it down. Another 65 million years to go,) I droned.

(I can narrow the timeline further. I know it is three twenty-two p.m.,) Ax said. (But not what day or year.)

Andalites have the ability to keep track of time natural. It's kind of like having a useful, internal clock. More useful whenever you're in another time.

(Let's go,) Jake exclaimed. (We'll get our answers in the air.)

No questions asked there. All of us morphed from fur to skin to feathers. We took to the sky and well, it took some aimless gliding till we spotted clear water and sand.

(There's the boardwalk!) Cassie pointed.

I couldn't help but feel relieved. The hot dog stands were there. So was the Ferris wheel. And the arcades! All the buildings were where they were supposed to be. That was the beach we were supposed to go to relax.

And there were people! Oh, man! Was I happy to see people! They walked along the boardwalk and the shoreline. They were everywhere!

(This is home, right? We're in the right time period?) Cassie asked.

(I don't see any difference,) Rachel said.

(Perhaps we were only thrown forward several hours instead of several days or weeks,) Ax proposed the idea.

(Really? For some big Sario Rip, it really came out underwhelming,) I admitted.

(What? You wanted to be tossed around in time for a second time?) Rachel uttered.

(Third,) Jake corrected.

(Why can't we ever travel back to some place we want to travel? Like travel back to before the Yeerks found Earth, stop the invasion before it starts and call it a day?) I said.

That was a lie. If I could pick one time period, I'd go back three years. When Mom was still around. Before she became a Controller.

(And what? Give up these morphing powers?) Rachel rebuked. (Then we wouldn't have exciting lives.)

(At least, we'd be alive. Not watching our backs every waking second.)

(We can't be sure we're still in the right time,) Jake put us back on topic.

(Newspapers. We can check the newspaper stand for the date,) Cassie proposed.

Seems like a simple idea. We swooshed past the boardwalk and into the city to find the closest newsstand.

(But of course. Has to be out of newspapers,) I pointed at the empty box.

(They usually run out by late afternoon, right?) Jake said.

(Yeah but still doesn't help us. Which afternoon is this? Last Tuesday's?)

(Why last Tuesday?)

(It's gonna be something stupid,) Rachel said.

(It's not stupid. It's having my arcade privileges back. Thanks to Ax-man getting me banned for a week.)

(And I am sincerely sorry for that,) Ax apologized.

(Of course you would want that,) Rachel droned, almost sounding like she was rolling her eyes.

(Ok. We're not out of the woods until we know the time. We split up and meet back at the barn in an hour.)

(What about our other selves? I have said this before. It is impossible for one individual to exist in the same time line as the other,) Ax reminded us.

(Yeah. So we don't let our other selves see us. It's like the Marty McFly movie, right?)

(I, uh…have watched what you speak of… So it is possible-)

(Alright. We'll go with that.)

(And what if we come across our doppelganger Andalites?) I asked.

Jake groaned. Louder than I ever heard him groan. Almost like he wanted to strangle one of us. (We avoid them too! C'mon.)

We went our separate ways for answers. But it was easier said than done. Everything looked exactly as everything should look. There wasn't any big difference I could tell from the time line I came from. It wasn't a weekday - roads are usually packed with people on weekdays.

I decided to head back home. That would be the easiest for me to find out. Could be the todays' papers Dad was reading or the TV news, anything.

I still had to be careful. Who knows if we were thrown back weeks ago and I'd meet my other self in person. And faint from the whole experience.

My bedroom was empty. I flew right through the window and demorphed. First thing I went for was Dad's computer downstairs. That took forever to turn on. So I hurried to my kitchen instead.

The clock said twenty minutes to three. I checked the calendar. Just to be double-sure.

The year was this year. The month, this month. This week too. Nothing changed.

I sighed with relief. Then I laughed. Ax was right. We probably went forward a day later.

That should be ok, right? We disappeared from history for a while and reappeared later. So we couldn't meet our past selves. Tobias might be angry, worried, that we didn't get out of the T'usli for hours.

In the end, everything came out fine.

"Marco? You're here early. And why are you in those clothes?"

"Hey, Dad." I spun a bit too fast when he suddenly walked right in. But he didn't see it. "Oh, this? It's a hot day." I smiled.

Dad almost didn't buy it. Almost.

I quickly opened the fridge's door. "Do we have any juice left?"

I think that did it.

"We do but don't overdo it with the sugar. Remember last time."

"Dad, that was Halloween. When I was four. You had the responsibility to keep me off sweets."

"Uh-huh. And the little smart-alek managed to climb his way up the counter to steal his candy bag back."

"What? I don't remember anything like that," I feigned ignorance.

"Sure, you don't," he laughed. "I won't be cooking tomorrow. A meeting came up so you'll be defending yourself for dinner."

"Sure."

He browsed through the brochures on the fridge. At first, his hand stopped at the pizza pamphlet but then took the Yan Fú Wok menu. "Fried rice or noodles?"

I didn't answer right away. Having a Controller deliver food to your house made my stomach turn. But I couldn't say no either.

Come to think of it, we've ordered from Yan Fú Wok for the longest time. Even the menu was so old and wrinkled. Price was decent and it was the easiest to eat when your father didn't want to leave the couch for most of his time.

We ordered a lot more after Mom disappeared. But I don't order the pork chop rice anymore.

That was Mom's favorite.

"I'm feeling...noodles," I told him. "Oh and no extra veggies, please."

"I've never asked for extra. But on the contrary, I think that's good for you. Soy sauce and scallions on the side?"

"Always," I said. "So what's the meeting for? Work-related?"

"Actually, it's your school. I have to meet your Maths teacher," he answered while he took the phone off the receiver. "Really, though. We're gonna talk about your grades one of these days."

"You're meeting Ms Robbinette again?"

Dad gave me a puzzled look. "Again? This is the first time I'm meeting her in person."

That wasn't right. That shouldn't be right.

"You didn't have dinner with her last night?"

Dad's eyes widened. He coughed to clear his throat. Why did he need to do that? "It's not so much a dinner. I...just want to show my gratitude to her that she's looking out for my son's education. And it wasn't last night. It's tomorrow night."

Tomorrow night. The dinner night happened on a Saturday night.

"Dad. What day is today?"

"It's Friday. Did you forget? I was surprised to see you here early." Then he frowned. "You didn't skip school, right?"

I felt complete dread rush over me.

"Hey. Everything alright? You look pale."

Oh, it wasn't alright. We weren't in the future.

We were two days in the past!

"I-I just remembered. Left something in my locker." I staggered. My mind was too wrapped up in the realization. "Homework. I'll be back!"

"You plan to go back to school like that?!"

I was already out the door.

Oh man.

Oh man, oh man, oh man!

This was bad. Very bad!

I had to stop myself from running. I got so frightened, I almost forgot I had morphing powers. Once I found a hiding spot, I morphed into my Osprey form and took off.

I only hoped the others had figured out before the worst possible outcome could happen!

Please, let it be they scream and faint if they see their other self!

A/N: Next chapter's up, with a bit of sadness for our good boy and a lot of confusion and fear. I really enjoyed writing this chapter! :D

More upsy-turnsy for our Animorphs on the way!

15/11/21 - First upload.