Chapter 20: Friday Night Fight

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When I got home, the monsters wanted to have a movie night, and invited me to join. It was already Friday so I said yes. We were watching it in Butterfly's room since she wanted to watch too. There was a huge screen that came down and a projection already to go. Susan and Doc made the popcorn, B.O.B. was supposed to get the pillows and couches but apparently ate them all, so we had to ask Monger for some more. Link stuck to Future Bat like the love sick puppy he was. I'm not going to say I wasn't jealous. I was very jealous.

Future Bat seemed super tense. She didn't look relaxed at all. Link was the one who suggested the movie idea, to calm her down. He was trying to talk to her, but she kept moving around. He finally grabbed her shoulders and made her look at him.

"It's ok. It's just a movie night. There's nothing to worry about," he assured her. Her eyes were wide and full of stress and fear.

I noticed Butterfly watching the two interact with each other. I couldn't tell what she was thinking. Butterfly didn't seem to look at me as much, but mainly at Future Bat. It was the same blank look. The one she always gave me, and I couldn't tell if she was angry at me or jealous of me. I'm guessing she didn't like seeing Link near either of us since Link was her best friend. I had a feeling she was afraid that we were taking Link away from her. Her eyes flickered to me when she saw me looking at her, then quickly looked away.

Future me nodded then looked over to me. I pretended to be interested in the movie choices. There were a lot of trailers playing on TV for Twilight. Apparently Twilight was hot right now, which was why Future Bat's merch was going out of stock super fast. Everyone thought she was a vampire. I had tried reading the book and found it kind of boring. The girl always needing to be saved. Vampires sparkle. Blah.

Link felt the same and made a face when he came up next to me, seeing the movie on the screen. "Man. Modern monsters suck," he said. I felt that was a jab at me since he looked over to me. I felt my face burn and gave him a look. "I'm not a modern monster! I don't suck," I threw back at him. Link smirked. "That's right you don't. You don't like blood."

I looked away when he started laughing. I stuck out my tongue at him in jest. When I looked over at Future Bat, she was looking down. She seemed so far away in her thoughts. Link gave her a nudge and sat down next to her. "What would you like to watch, Future Girl?" he asked. She looked over to him, then back to me.

"...Revenge of the Creature," she said. I felt a weird feeling go over me. Something seemed wrong.

Link smiled and nodded. "Alright! What do you guys think?" he asked to the others. They all seemed to be ok with the movie choice. Butterfly stared down at Future Bat. She made a chirp noise. Future Bat looked up at her and nodded. Did she understand what she said?

"Batsy, you want to get the movie ready? You have it," Link said. I nodded and got up. I opened my wings and flew to my room. My wings were feeling cramped from so many days of being smooshed into a backpack. I had to stop to stretch them for a minute before continuing my journey through the large, ominous grey hallways that lead down to the monster rooms.

I finally made it to the end and grabbed the Creature From the Black Lagoon Movie Collection from the bare shelf and looked down at it. Why the second one? I was more of a fan of the first movie, but I usually watch the second one if I'm showing someone the trilogy.

I turned back around and jumped. Future me stood right there in front of me. I took a few steps back. "Hey, I didn't see you there," I said. She narrowed her eyes a little. "You went into the Science building," she said. Busted. Future Bat crossed her arms over her chest. "Care to tell me why you ignored me and went in there?"

I stood there awkwardly in the middle of my room. I didn't know what to say. I promised myself I wouldn't go into the Science Building, and I did. "...How did you know I was in the Science Building?" I asked, wondering if she somehow just predicted the future.

"I chose today to go and sneak in myself. There were no alien invasions today, and today was the only opening day to get inside and sabotage John's work...but you were there."

I felt bad. I made my older self angry. It was scary. The red glowing cyborg eye didn't make it any better. She continued to talk to me like a mother scolding a child.

"I trusted you, and you just went in with October like it wasn't a big deal! I trusted your word you would listen to me." she said, her voice raising and getting sharp. I narrowed my eyes at her. "You trust me? Did you think that I trusted you back? You can trust me because you know what's going to happen. I have no idea what's going to happen yet you act like I should know! You haven't told me everything of what's going on! Why you are really here? It feels like it's not just John you are here to fix. You here to take Link for yourself or something?" I shouted. I felt my face burn saying that, but it was one of the things I felt she was doing. He already seemed to like her. An older me. Not a younger me. I was too young for him. Then she would take him away with her time machine.

Future Bat stormed up to me but stopped a foot from me. I'm glad she believed that if we touched the whole world would collapse. I wouldn't want to have a one on one fight with my future self. I'm pretty sure future me could kick present me's ass easily. Which I don't know if that's just pathetic on either end.

"I'm not trying to steal Link from you!" she shouted angrily, but her face was starting to turn a few shades of pink. Link was obviously still a tough subject for older me to talk about openly. "Link is a big part of the reason why I'm here. I'm trying to fix what I fucked up in this time."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah, sure. Every time I came home you are sitting on the couch with Link. You haven't tried. You keep flirting together." Future Bat looked like I just slapped her in the face. "I have tried several times! But you kept intervening every time I tried! I tried today and you were already there talking to that asshole!" Future Bat snapped at me. I blinked in surprise. "Wait. You saw me with Kennith?"

"Stay away from him, he's an idiot," Future Bat spat, ignoring my question. "I told you to not find John. I told you to just focus on school. Just be a normal kid-" That's when I lost it. All the built up anger and rage just came out.

"I can't be normal!" I shouted. "You should already know! We are monsters! I am a monster! There's no "normal" anymore! I am not a normal teenager! I can't do normal teenage things! It's all gone!" I continued yelling and screaming at my future self. All my angers and frustrations. I felt water coming down my face and realized they were tears. I stopped and wiped them away. Future Bat stared down at me, not saying a word. I turned away from her.

"Kennith is the only normal thing that's happened to me. He's nice to me. I don't get why you are against him," I finally said. Future Bat sighed. "He's going to hurt you. That's all I'm going to say," she said. I turned back to her. "Then why don't you just say how you know I was talking to him?" I asked taking a step forward. Future Bat didn't back away.

"I snuck into the school. I saw you go in and went after you. I was going to stop you, but I guess...Kennith saw me go in, thinking I was you...younger me," she admitted. Ah, that explained it. She was going to stop me. So that meant if she didn't come, Kennith would never have seen her go in, and I would've gone through with sabotaging John's plan in that room.

"Ok, fine. I'll stop hanging around Kennith if you stop flirting with my Link," I said. My Link. God what the hell. He doesn't even know I have feelings for him. He's not even mine. Future Bat was quiet about that. I narrowed my eyes at her. "What? you cant stop flirting with this Link?" I threw at her bitterly. I knew it. She was here for Link. "Do we get with Link?" Future Bat was quiet for a minute. "...No."

"Why?"

"..."

"Does he not like us? Why are you flirting with my Link then?"

No answer. But I could tell anger was building inside her. I could feel it inside me too. I decided to keep pressing her buttons. "Well then why don't you go back to your time and get your Link to like you! Leave this one alone-"

"Because Link from my time is dead! John kills him!"

My heart skipped several beats in my ribcage. The whole world seemed to tilt sideways. My legs turned to jelly but I stayed up. Dead? He...Link dies in the future? He...he dies...Tomorrow?

Future Bat sighed angrily, glaring down at the ground. "I went into the building with October this exact same day in my time. We got to the door and I used my scream on the door. The door crashed open and we went inside. Inside was a bunch of alien tech and a strange alien column with lights blinking and wires all connected to it. I tried destroying it. I ended up losing a part of myself..." she said. I looked at her future cyborg enhancements. I didnt say anything. My whole world was tilting. I couldn't think straight. Future Bat continued.

"Jump ahead to the night of the dance, Link is in the same room with John. John had his arm he lost turned into a cyborg arm that could turn into a gun. I moved in front of Link and screamed, but I wasn't fast enough. The shot hit my eye. I collapsed to the ground. Then John fired a few more shots, hitting Link...He died before he hit the ground...I wasn't the same after that night. John went through with his plan and the whole world fell into darkness. Years of torment and isolation. It was horrible. But then Doc told me he had secretly been creating a time machine. He gave it to me and told me briefly how to use it. John's men came in and killed the rest of them. I was able to escape and was lost travelling through time. I was twenty six when I left my original time."

Future Bat finished and I was in horrified shock.

"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want this affecting you. I wanted to fix all this by myself and not let this happen again." I finally found my voice. "What did you mean by "lost travelling in time?"" Future Bat shrugged off her backpack and showed me the time machine Future Doc made.

"Doc's inventions don't work...this one is the closest...but it kept taking me to different places. I've been to the Jurassic Age, the Renaissance times. All different timelines...except this one," she explained.

"...How long...were you lost to time?"

"...Lost count. This is the closest I've been."

Math isn't my strong subject but Saying she was twenty six...She's been trying to get back to her time for 4 years. that's why she was shocked when she heard her age when Doc attached wires to her from his computer. She was now thirty years old. Everything was starting to make sense and piece together.

"So that nightmare I had...with everyone dying...Was that the future?" I asked her. Her eyes got big. "You had the same nightmare?" she asked. I nodded my head. "I've been having nightmares...I think ever since you arrived," I admitted. Future Bat was quiet for a long time. She hesitated before nodding. "Yes...that's the future..." A horrible nauseous feeling came over me. I couldn't process the information. The nightmare was real. Or...was going to be real. We both saw a vision of the future.

Future Bat turned back to me. "I didn't want to reveal a lot to you...Because I didn't want my past self to know about the horrors...I just want to fix it on my own so my past self doesn't have to deal with the pain and torment in the future."

I didn't respond to my future self.

"I'm sorry," was all I could say. Future Bat was silent.

Both our ears flicked when we heard a sound. It was Doc. He knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right. Future me and I exchanged glances. "We are ok. Just talking," Future Bat said, but her eyes told me not to say a word. I didn't understand why my older self wanted to do this all on her own. It felt like such a burden. So much stress and work put down on my older self. I wish she would just open up and tell everyone what was going to happen. She couldn't do this all on her own. I wondered if it was because I didn't feel like part of the team as of lately. I've been stuck in school learning about pointless things while everyone else gets to fight aliens. I just felt like I didn't belong anywhere. I was an outcast with my own kind, and I was an outcast with the monsters.

"We are all waiting to watch the movie," Doc said. I looked down at the Creature movie in my hands. Future Bat nodded her head. "We are coming." Doc gestured for us to go ahead of him first. All three of us left my room and walked back to Butterfly's room. Susan smiled and waved to us. "Hey! thought you guys got lost," she teased. B.O.B. turned to us in shock. "You got lost? What happened?"

"We didn't get lost...just had to talk about things," I said. Link's finned ears flicked outwards. His eyes flickered between the two of us. "Is everything ok?" he asked. Future Bat glanced at me, then back at him and nodded. "Yeah. Everything's fine," she said. The hybrid's eyes fell to mine. He could tell we were lying. Link just slowly nodded his head and gestured to the DVD player. "Ready to watch the second movie...Oh yeah, we both watched the first one together. I guess we get to finally watch the second one now," he pointed out. I felt my stomach do a few flip flops before sitting down on the couch.

The movie started. Doc and Susan made bowls of popcorn. B.O.B. finished his batch of popcorn in seconds, bowl and all. Link and Future Bat shared. Susan had her own big bowl. Butterfly had her swimming pool sized bowl. Doc was eating out of a trashcan. I held mine in my lap. Untouched.

I didn't feel so hungry for popcorn. I looked over to Link who was watching the movie. I blinked away the tears that were starting to appear in my eyes. I felt sick to my stomach. I wasn't able to save Link from John. This was why future me was here. She felt so responsible for Link's death, and John taking over. I couldn't let that happen. I wiped the tears away from my eyes and tried focusing on the movie.

I wasn't going to let John kill Link. I was going to fix the future. No matter how many times I was going to have to use the time machine to go back to the past.

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