Chapter 4: A Time and Place for Everything
Eric yawned.
"So, class, you must know that all Iterants are soluble." Their Alchemy teacher said. He saw Eric with his mouth wide open and asked. "Eric, is Nadium Iterant a soluble compound?"
"Erm… yes." Eric answered, not sure of what he was saying.
"You have obviously not been paying attention at all." The Alchemy teacher said in a disappointed voice. "I just said five minutes ago that Nadium now does not exist. It has been found out to be an isotope of Modusi."
The bell rang.
"Alright, you may go."
"Goodbye Mr. Juicing." Everybody said as they made their way out.
"Just call me Noah, it'll do." Their Alchemy teacher said. "And don't forget to do the assignment."
Bernice and Eric walked out of the school and as they were doing so, everything suddenly froze, including themselves.
A shadow leapt down from the roof of the school.
"He he he!" The person with blue skin and a turban said. "After the dramatic failure of X-Cannis and X-Chattus, the time has come for me, X-Tempus to defeat Bernice Cicero and absorb her powers." He looked around and realised that no one was listening to him. He raised one hand and a stream of blue energy gathered in his hand, moving towards Bernice." Suddenly, the stream stopped.
"What happened?" Tempus asked himself, smoothening his moustache.
"Froze ya beam!" A girl around the age of sixteen standing in front of Bernice said fiercely. "Did you say you want to absorb Bernice's powers? She's my classmate!"
"Get out of my way!" Tempus shouted. He raised one hand and a blue ball of energy appeared. He threw it at the girl, who raised her hands and froze the ball of energy, and also slowed down Tempus. Everybody unfroze again. Immediately, Bernice saw the blue ball of energy floating in mid air. She stared at the ball of energy and it moved backwards, hitting Tempus. Tempus unfroze and decorporealized, shouting "I'll be back!"
"What happened?" Bernice asked Eric. "Why did a blue ball of energy suddenly appear in mid-air?"
"I don't know." Eric said.
"Bernice." The girl said.
"Oh, hi, Cathy." Bernice smiled.
"I know what happened." Cathy said. "A man with pale blue skin and a moustache appeared. He called himself X-Tempus and he wanted to absorb your power, but I stopped the absorption."
"X-Tempus?" Eric said incredulously. "Could it be from the same clan as X-Cannis and X-Chattus?"
"What are you talking about?" Cathy asked.
"A month ago, I was attacked by two people who looked like a cat and a dog in metallic armour. They called themselves X-Cannis and X-Chattus. One of them was the chairman of the Alchemy Club." Bernice explained. "So do you want to come over to my house to do the Alchemy Group Assignment that Noah assigned us?"
(Attic)
Bernice poured the chemical inside the test tube. "A potion to defeat any general monster. Lets' see… We require Modusi Iterant as well as Minerva's Alloy."
"Do you need any help?" Bernice's mother walked into the attic. "Cathy's getting a few cookies down at the kitchen."
"I think we need..." Eric said. Suddenly his face was frozen in an expression.
"Are you alright, Eric?" Betty asked. Eric did not respond and he was still frozen.
"Bernice, do you have any idea what's wrong with Eric?" Betty asked. Bernice did not respond. She, too was frozen.
"Cathy!" Betty shouted.
"Yes?" Cathy asked from the stairs.
"Bernice and Eric seem to be frozen! Any idea what's wrong with them?" Betty asked.
"X-Tempus?" Cathy said nervously. She ran up the stairs quickly.
Suddenly a blue ball of energy came crashing through the attic window. Glass splinters flew everywhere. Shocked, Betty raised her hands and the movement of the glass splinters slowed down. She waved her hand and a yellow glow radiated through Bernice's, Eric's and her body. The movement of the glass splinters sped up again, hitting everyone, but causing no harm. Bernice and Eric were still frozen. Cathy ran up to the attic just in time to see Tempus dive in through the window.
"Hi, everyone, I'm X-Tempus." He greeted cheerfully before raising his right hand and throwing out several blue balls of energy. Cathy waved her hands and the blue balls of energy froze in mid-air. Betty folded her arms and the blue balls of energy flew back at X-Tempus.
By then, Bernice and Eric were already unfrozen. Bernice saw the situation, held Eric's hand immediately and cried "Monster!" Tempus turned into several dark violet spirals of energy which Cathy froze. The blue energy balls flew towards the dark violet spirals and as they intersected the spiraling energies, Cathy unfroze the dark violet spirals, which combined to form Tempus.
"Oh, I feel quite unwell." Tempus said groggily. All of a sudden, the energy balls exploded from within and caused him to decorporealize again.
"What was that?" Bernice asked.
"X-Tempus, one of the Fantastic Four in the X-Men. The X-Men consists of 13 members. There are 4 groups of 2 of the weaker members, X-Cannis and X-Chattus was one of the groups, and 4 individual powerful members, called the Fantastic Four. The leader of the X-Men is called X-Calibur and he is the most powerful one." Betty explained.
"Oh well, if he comes again, I know what to do." Bernice smiled. "Lets' continue with our potion. Anyone got Minerva's alloy?"
(Cave)
A blue beam glowed within the cave and X-Tempus appeared.
"How's it going, Tempy?" A woman with butterfly wings asked.
"Thanks for your touching concern, Papillon." X-Tempus said sarcastically. "It's going very well. I'm going to trap them in a time and space in the future."
"Good luck then." X-Papillon disappeared into thin air.
X-Tempus raised his hand, chanting a spell.
"Powers of the X-Men I gather,
Bring Bernice and I into the future."
A whirlwind of spiraling light appeared and absorbed X-Tempus.
(Attic)
The same whirlwind of spiraling light surrounded Bernice.
"Bernice!" Eric, Cathy and Betty shouted and jumped towards Bernice at the same time. They were also sucked into the whirlwind of spiraling light and disappeared.
(focus on the empty attic)
The same whirlwind of spiraling light gathered in the attic and the four of them just suddenly appeared.
"Where are we?" Bernice asked. "Where's my Minerva's Alloy? I was just holding it a while ago."
"This sort of looks like the attic." Betty said.
"Erm… what just happened?" Cathy asked nervously. Eric walked out of the room and came back quickly, saying "Oh. My. God."
"What happened, Eric?" Bernice asked.
"Look at my watch." Eric said.
"Oh. My. God." Bernice said as well.
"What's the matter?" Betty asked.
"Oh. My. God." Bernice and Eric continued saying.
"Oh. My. God. Has some Oh My God demon taken control over their minds?" Cathy wondered.
"Look at the year." Eric said, raising his watch.
"It's 2008!" Betty shouted. They heard the stomping of feet walking up the stairs.
"It must be the demon!" Bernice shouted. A seventeen-year-old boy surfaced. "So all of you are here!" He said menacingly.
"X-Tempus!" Cathy shouted and waved her hands. A block of ice appeared around the boy but he waved his hands, causing the ice to erupt in a burst of flame.
"What X-Tempus? He has long been vanquished." The boy said. "I was quite disappointed in him too."
Eric closed his eyes and tried to fugamove. Two white wings slowly formed around his right hand and he disappeared in a flash of blinding white light. Behind the boy, two wings appeared and Eric reappeared behind him. Eric punched the boy. "Who are you, and what do you want with us?"
"Eric, what did you just do?" Betty asked incredulously.
"I just punched X-Tempus." Eric said.
"And before that?" Bernice asked.
"I teleported behind him." Eric said.
"But you did not teleport. See, you grew wings and reappeared behind the boy." Cathy said.
"Really?" Eric asked.
"Hasn't that been how you teleported since, like, a year ago?" the boy asked. "And why are you punching me, anyway? You don't act like this normally."
"See, we might know you in the future, and that is now." Betty explained, "But we did not know you in 2006, which is where we came from."
"Betty, you don't normally joke. Well, it seems to be a marked improvement." The boy said.
"But, she's telling the truth!" Cathy shouted. "We came from 2006."
Suddenly, it all seemed to make sense to the boy. "2006… when I was still X-Calibur." He said to himself. "Oh no! X-Tempus is after you!" He shouted.
"What do you mean?" Bernice asked.
"I remember that 2 years ago, X-Tempus asked for the use of a Future Spell." The boy said. "He wanted to wipe all of you out, but somehow he was vanquished in the future and you returned back to the present."
"So what do we do?" Eric asked.
"I do not know, but I do know that the spell was only meant to work for one person, which means the others will return to the past within twenty-four hours, but that one person will remain in this realm until X-Tempus is defeated." The boy said.
"Can you tell us whether, you know, the stock price of CAL rises in the future?" Betty asked interestedly.
"No, I'm not supposed to tell you that." The boy said. "But I will have to tell Bernice about her powers in the future. It will help her greatly in this fight against X-Tempus. Bernice, shout out the name of any object."
Bernice spied a potion bottle lying on the floor and shouted "Potion Bottle!" A mini-tornado surrounded the potion bottle and it disappeared, reappearing in Bernice's hand.
"What happened?" She asked. "I thought this power would only surface with the combined effort of Eric and I."
"See, at first it was. Then Eric … OK, this significant event occurred and you somehow got this power. Don't ask me anything else, OK?" The boy begged. "Your second power," He continued. "is the power to move your soul through time and space. Now, imagine yourself beside this table."
Bernice did as he suggested. A yellow glow radiated through her body and her soul reappeared beside the table. "Wow!" Bernice said. Immediately, she was sucked back into her body.
"Looks like you still need to improve on this power." The boy said.
"Hi! Nice to meet you again!" X-Tempus shouted as he crashed through the window. Cathy raised one hand. X-Tempus froze, but he started to break through the freeze.
"Lets' see if my original power still works!" Bernice shouted. She concentrated on a wave moving through space. A tremendous tsunami of air unleashed itself on X-Tempus, causing him to fall to the floor.
"You will not defeat me so easily!" X-Tempus shouted. Then he saw the boy. "X-Calibur?" He said, shocked. The boy clicked his fingers and a burst of flame appeared in front of X-Tempus.
X-Tempus raised his hands. Everybody froze. A blue beam of energy was emitted from X-Tempus' heart and it moved towards Bernice. Bernice's body lay slumped onto the floor. Suddenly, X-Tempus felt a strong force holding him above the ground. At the same time, Cathy froze X-Tempus. A yellow pulse of energy radiated through Bernice's body and she stood up again. "Astral projection is fun, isn't it?" Betty shouted cheerfully before she recited a spell.
"Powers near and powers far…"
X-Tempus started to fight through the freeze.
"Concentrate on this lump of tar…"
X-Tempus fought through the freeze.
"Create a vortex strongest here."
X-Tempus raised his hands.
"Destroy this demon with no fear!"
A swirling black vortex appeared beneath X-Tempus. He looked at it, confused, before he was sucked into it and destroyed for eternity.
Immediately after, the same swirling whirlwind of light appeared, sucking Bernice and the others into the past.
"I forgot to ask. What's your name?" Bernice asked the boy.
"Alec!" The boy shouted as they disappeared.
(Present)
A whirlwind of spiraling light appeared again in the attic and the four of them appeared.
"Seems like I'm pretty strong in the future!" Bernice said cheerfully. "Now to get on with our Alchemy Assignment."
(Cave)
"What? X-Tempus has failed?" The fifteen-year-old said in a cold voice.
"Will it be us next, X-Calibur?" Papillon asked.
"Yes. You and Langostas will attack next." The fifteen-year old said.
(close in on the fifteen-year-old – it is Alec)