Hey guys, here's chapter 2 of Ties Beyond Time. Let's see what happens to Mike today.
So, it turns out yesterday wasn't so bad for Mike after all. He re-met one of his old friends and he actually did pretty well in his classes on the first day. It was his second day now and currently Mike was in his second period class, science. Mike sat in the back middle desk that had a good view of the white board. Currently, he was listening to the science teacher about the lesson he was about to give the class.
"Alright, class, for the next week we will be working on projects based on earth science" The teacher told the class, albeit in a boring voice. Seriously, he had a voice like that one guy from those eye drop commercials. "You'll be working in groups of two, so you'll need a partner" he told them.
"Groups of two?" Mike repeated as he turned his head to the right and looked at the front row.
Sitting there at the left side of the front right table was Leni Loud, the prettiest girl in school and the girl of Mike's affection. He imagined what it'd be like to have her as his partner. His science partner, of course. But what were the chances of that happening? Mike then slammed his head down on to the table. He had barely heard what the teacher was saying at this point.
"And Miss. Loud, you will be partnered with… Mr. Chronos" Mike heard the teacher say.
"Miss. Loud will be partnered with whom now?" Mike shot his head up, not quite sure if had heard that correctly.
The next thing Mike knew he saw Leni approach his table, a warm looking smile on her face. She then took the seat next to him, the very sight of her making the boy blush.
"Hi, I'm Leni, what's yours?" Leni greeted Mike with an extension of her arm, holding out her hand.
"She said hi, you idiot. Don't just sit there, shake her hand and tell her your name!" Mike shouted to himself in his thoughts. "I, uh… I'm M-Mike…" Mike said with a nervous stutter while shaking her soft, beautiful hand.
"Nice to meet you, Mike" Leni said. "Uh, can I have my hand back now?" she asked.
Looking down, Mike saw that he hadn't let go of Leni's hand and that he was still shaking it. Mike quickly released his hand from hers and turned his head in the opposite direction. Two minutes of having Leni as his since partner and he already felt like he made things awkward.
Leni put a hand of her mouth as she attempted to hold back a giggle as she noticed the young man's cheeks turning red. "Aw, he's embarrassed. That is so cute!" Leni thought to herself. "So, do you, like, understand this project thingy?" Leni asked with a confused eyebrow raised.
"Yeah, we're supposed to build a project that represents something found in earth science. You know, the water cycle, plate tectonics that cause the earth to move, weather, and stuff like that" Mike explained.
Leni simply blinked and stared at the boy in confusion.
"Basically, Leni, we make a pretty object we see in nature, like a volcano" Mike said, explaining the project in a simpler way.
"You mean those pointy fire things?" she asked with a tilt of her head.
"Did she just call a volcano a 'pointy fire thing'? Oh man, she's one of those girls…" Mike thought to himself. He replied to her question with a simple nod of his head. "I think making a… pointy fire thing will be the easiest thing for us" he said.
"Ok, we can make it at my house" Leni suggested.
Mike's eyes widened when she heard her say that. Did she really invite him over to her house? Ok then. Not exactly knowing how to respond to that, Mike simply replied with another nod. The rest of second period was a little awkward since Mike tried to avoid looking at Leni due to how nervous she made him feel, but other than that it went by somewhat smoothly.
Just as Mike was about to head to his next class though, he felt Leni tap him on the shoulder. Turning around, she had handed him a folded piece of paper. When Mike opened the paper he saw it had Leni's address on it. When he looked up towards her she gave him a wink, just before she walked past him with her eyes closed. And now Mike's heart was beating with anxiety. Great…
Mike's House…
After six hours of school, Mike finally managed to arrive home. Luckily for him his last period class was social studies so he was able to finish his homework before school ended. Mike would've gone upstairs to relax in his room if it weren't for the sound of barking. The next thing he knew his dog, Sasha, ran up to him and placed her front paws on her master's chest.
"Hey Sasha, did you miss me?" Mike asked while rubbing her head. Sasha replied with three licks to his left cheek which was a dog's equivalent to a kiss. "I'll take that as a yes. I'll feed you once I'm done relaxing" Mike told her as he placed her back on all fours and went up to his room.
[1 hour later]
"Ahh! Much better" Mike said with a stretch of his arms as he walked downstairs, having taken a nap.
Entering the kitchen, he opened one of the cabinets, pulled out a giant bag of dog food and poured a good amount into Sasha's dog bowl. Whistling for her to come over and eat her food, Mike petted her back a few times before walking out of the kitchen. It was then he had the urge to go somewhere else in the house, to the basement to be exact.
Walking to the basement door, Mike opened it and walked downstairs. When he reached the bottom, he saw the water heater and a dusty, old table that must've been there before his family moved in. Mike wasn't sure why he was down here, but when he looked at the brick wall in front of him, he noticed a loose brick within it.
Placing both hands on either side of the brick, Mike carefully pulled it out and placed it on the old table. Inside the hole where the brick once was, there was a small little chest that was glowing. When he pulled it out, he saw it wasn't the chest that was glowing, but whatever what was inside the chest.
Feeling like Link from The Legend of Zelda, Mike held the chest in one hand and slowly opened it with the other. With the chest full opened, he looked at what was in it and saw what appeared to be a pocket watch. It was silver with golden rims. Picking it up, I flipped it open; it had a faint blue light emanating from it, it actually looked pretty cool for something his grandparents might've used. Darting his eyes back and forth to make sure no one else was around; Mike closed the watch and placed it into his front left pocket.
Afterwards, Mike closed the chest and put it back into the hole where it belonged, putting the brick back into its place as well. After walking back upstairs and turning the light off, he was now ready to go to Leni's house. "Be back later, girl" Mike said to Sasha as he walked out of the house, locking the door behind him.
Moments later Mike was walking down the sidewalk, on his way to Leni's house. But first, he needed to pick up the supplies needed to make their volcano. Arriving at the crosswalk, Mike saw there were about 10 seconds left to cross. Taking the risk, he ran across the crosswalk… only trip somewhere in the middle. Mike was about to get up when he heard honking. He looked up to see a truck heading towards him at high speed. Mike closed my eyes and shielded his face with his arms, preparing for what would be an extremely painful impact.
However, there was no pain. In fact, there was no impact. Mike opened one eye, and then the other to see that the truck had stopped just inches from his face. The truck had stopped just in time; he should've considered himself lucky. Letting out a breath of relief, Mike stood up and was surprised that no one was honking at him to get out of the street. He then continued walking across to the other side. Although he soon noticed that the timer on the crosswalk was at 5 seconds and hadn't gone down. Was it broken or something?
What he had also noticed was that the people around him weren't moving and neither were the cars on the road, or the birds in the sky. To make things weirder, everything was all sparkly, it was as if everything was frozen or something. Hold on…
Mike the pocket watch out of his pocket. Looking at it, he saw that the inside was radiating with the faint blue light that he saw when he got it out of the chest. Opening it, he soon noticed a ring of light around the clock part of the watch, the ring acting as some sort of timer due to it shrinking in a clockwise direction. When he closed it, there were holographic numbers reading 9 min 30 sec and they were counting down by the seconds.
"Is time… frozen?" Mike asked himself with a raised eyebrow. "It probably is, considering I'm the only thing that's moving" he said to no one in particular.
How the hell was he going to unfreeze time? Mike looked at the watch again and saw there were 9 minutes left so, in total, time would be stopped for 10 minutes. Now that he thought about it, he had the watch in his hand just as he was about to be hit by that truck. What did he do, exactly?
"Maybe if I…" I pressed the button at the top of the watch. The next thing I knew time began moving again. So the button on the left side opens the watch, while the button on the top stops time… he assumed. "I've got no time to think about this, I've got to get the stuff for the volcano" Mike said while putting the watch back into his pocket, not wanting to waste any time. No pun intended.
The Loud House…
"Ah, here it is, 1216 Franklin Avenue" Mike said, reading the address off of the piece of paper Leni gave him. The exterior was decent, he'd give it that. They should probably clean it up though.
Well, here goes something. Mike gave three quick knocks to the door, waiting for someone to open. After a few seconds, someone did open the door. It was a little girl with blonde hair wearing a red baseball cap and blue overalls. Mike figured she was around 6 years old, maybe.
"Uh, hi there, is Leni home?" Mike asked the girl in front of him.
"Yeah, come on in" The girl said, stepping to the side to let the teenage boy in. "Leni, some guy wants to see you!" the girl shouted up the stairs.
"She couldn't have just walked upstairs to tell her that?" Mike said in his head, facepalmming at the girl's actions.
"Coming, Lana" he heard a familiar voice. The next thing he knew Leni was walking downstairs, a smile on her face. "Mike!"
Leni ran up to Mike, catching him off guard as she threw her arms around him in a hug. Mike would've hugged her back if it weren't for the fact he was holding bags of supplies in both hands. That and the feelings of being so close to her were making him nervous. Especially with her large breasts pressed up against his chest. On the bright side though, her hair smelled like flowers.
"So, you ready to do our project thingy?" she asked Mike as she pulled away.
"Huh?" Mike snapped out of his trance with a shake of his head. "Oh, yeah, I've got the supplies right here!" Mike held up both bags in his hands.
"C'mon, we can do it in the dining room" Leni said. Mike stood there for a few seconds to process what she had just said, and then followed her into the next room
Most guys probably would've made a joke out of what she just said, but Mike had decided against it, wanting to start on the project. The two teens soon sat at the table where they pulled out the supplies to make the volcano. First Mike picked up the two liter plastic bottle and cut the bottom off with scissors. Flipping the bottom over, he placed it down, and then placed the upper half on top of it.
To make the glue, they poured water, flour and a small dose of glue into a bowl and mixed together until it turned into a lumpy paste.
"Alright, first you have to dip the newspaper strip into the paste" Mike began, dipping the paper to show Leni. "And then you apply it to the model. Like so" he put the strip on the bottle.
"Let me try" Leni said, grabbing a paper strip, and then dipped it into the paste. "Eww!" she gave a disgusted look as she pulled it out of the solution. Leni then placed it on to another part of the bottle.
"Alright, see you there, boo-boo bear!" a teenage girl with short blonde hair said as she hung up her phone.
She had blue eyeshadow, pearl earrings, a light blue tank top, and brown cargo shorts and blue slip-on shoes. She was actually quite pretty. Not as pretty as Leni, but still pretty.
"Hey Lori" Leni greeted the girl whose name was Lori.
"Hey Leni, who's this?" Lori asked, looking in Mike's direction.
"Oh, this is Mike, he and I are going to be working on a project thingy for class. Mike, this is my big sister, Lori" Leni introduced them to each other.
"Hi there" Lori said to me, to which Mike replied with a two fingered salute. "So is this the guy that asked you out a month ago?" Lori asked her sister which made the boy raise an eyebrow.
"No, that was someone else. Mike here is my science partner. Right, Mike?" Leni faced him with a smile, to which he replied with a nod.
"Well, I'm off to my date. Good luck with your project" Lori told them with a wink before heading out.
Mike supposed she seemed nice. Turning their attention back to their project they continued putting the pasty paper strips on to the plastic bottle until it was about halfway covered. Mike handled touching the pasty paper like it was nothing, but Leni kept giving a disgusted look every time she touched one. It was actually pretty funny. Either way, they managed to cover at least half of the bottle, so that's some progress.
"Heads up!" They heard a voice as a ball crashed on to the table, spilling the glue everywhere… mainly on Mike.
"Aw, damn it…" Mike muttered as looked at the spilled contents on his hoodie.
"Oh no, your clothes!" Leni looked down with worried expression. "Lynn!" Leni looked behind them at a girl that was near the kitchen door.
She was young teenage girl with long brown hair tied into a ponytail. She wore a long sleeved red and white jersey with a red number one on it, red and white shorts, black cleats and knee high socks.
"Oh, sorry man. You ok?" The girl that Mike assumed was Lynn asked him.
"Mm-hm" Mike replied with a nod.
"Uh, I'll just… be on my way" Lynn nervously grabbed her ball and walked to another part of the house.
"Now we have to make more paste. And now your clothes are ruined" Leni gave a concerned look.
"Ah, it's alright, we can always make more paste. Besides, I can change when I get home" Mike said, waving her off.
"Heh, it's a good thing we still have everything we need right here." Mike motion at the ingredients and grab a bowl, before handing it to Leni, "Why don't you refill this?"
A few seconds passed and Leni came back with another bowl of water. Once again they mixed the contents and made another paste solution and started working on the project again…
That is, until they both reached for a strip of newspaper. Looking down, Mike's mind was racing, his heart was pounding like crazy, and everything seemed to slow down as the realization began to hit him like a ton of bricks…
"I'm touching her hand. Holy crap, I'm touching her hand!" Mike thought to himself, a hard blush burning across his face.
"Oh. Sorry, Mike" Leni pulled her hand away with an apologetic smile.
Clearing his throat, Mike allowed her to take a paper strip first. Once she took her strip, she placed it in the paste and applied it to the model like before. The two took turns applying strips until the model looked like an actual volcano.
After the glue dried they painted the volcano a dark grey color. Mike would've suggested they test out the solution to make the volcano erupt like lava, but he didn't want to make another mess. God, he hoped they got a good grade on this.
The next day at school…
"Up next, we have Miss. Loud and Mr. Chronos with their project" the science teacher said, causing Mike and Leni to head to the front of the class.
Since they finished their project early, they thought it'd best to give their presentation early as well. Mike also wrote a paper on the function of volcanoes just in case.
"For our earth science project, Leni and I have constructed a model volcano" Mike said, gesturing to the model volcano they created the other week. "And to activate the eruption, we decided to use Mentos and soda" Mike explained.
Leni pulled out a roll of Mentos and dumped them into the opening of the volcano. Afterwards, Mike poured in the soda. A few seconds later, the volcano erupted, a geyser of fizz shooting out from it. Luckily they had a bowl underneath it to catch most of the solution. Once the show was over, they heard the sounds of hands clapping.
"Well done, you two. You get a B for the assignment" the science teacher told them.
"AHH! I'm scared of Bees!" Leni said in a terrified tone while covering her head.
"No, Leni, he's saying we got a good grade" Mike explained to her in a reassuring voice.
"Oh. That's much better" Leni smiled.
"Yeah Leni, it's a passing grade at least" Mike smiled as well.
From what Mike gathered, Leni's may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but seem extremely friendly… and he like that about her. He hoped that in the future they could become friends. And maybe something more…
Ok, so Mike was partnered up with and got a good grade with the girl that he likes. And as a bonus, he's obtained this sweet pocket watch that can manipulate time… at least, that's the conclusion he came to. He only planned to use this power if it's absolutely necessary, like helping out a friend or something. Either way, things around here were about to get much more interesting.
And chapter 2 is finally done. If you guys have suggestions for future chapters for this story, let me know in a review.
I thank Omega Ultra for helping me out with this. Thanks, dude.
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