Chapter I: Into the Future / Behind Blast Door 6
Far away from Transylvania, in the American Deep South, Mississippi River, in native Natchez land, there was a door. This door, labelled "#6" by its makers, was made from the ancient but powerful material known in whispers as "reinforced steel", an olden commodity from the Old World that was said to have once lined Ancient America's cities and castles.
In it were strange artifacts and ancien-tech rarities that most Southron people assumed to have been lost after the Deluge. One such artifact had been made nearly seven centuries prior to today.
Dusty, but rust less – from what Old World scholars called "chromium-plating" – in spite of the near half a millennium of age, this artifact was a strange mix between platform and cage. Built as if to house someone or something of great statuesque, but more so to transport it than anything.
Though, it did not resemble either too closely; it was too immobile to be a platform for transport and too open-aired to be a cage for capture. Its purpose remained a mystery… until now.
For the first time in centuries, the center of the platform sparked bright blue light. Like fireworks, the platform's surface lit like the ancient holiday of July 4th, growing from a collection of blue sparks to a maelstrom of light, encompassing the full extent of the platform's area. Then, it grew in height, becoming taller and taller, matching the vertical length of the support beams that kept the roof of the artifact from falling. Twelve seconds after this all started, voices could be heard emanating from the strange light source. Gears that had been left untouched for eternity suddenly sprung to life, measuring this strange process for any discrepancies.
Then the orb imploded, several people popping from it, being flung to the corners of Room #6. A boy with frizzy red hair and a cape, a pair of floating glasses being held in place by unknown means, a hairy girl (who seemed more dog than girl) and what seemed like male versions of whatever the girl was.
Dennis, Griffin, and a few of the Wolf Pups groaned in pain. A resounding "Oowwww…" could be heard echoing across the room.
"That was painful."
"Worst game of Hide-&-Go-Seek-Sharp-Objects ever!"
"Zing-Zing, are you okay?"
"HEY, who's stepping on my TAIL," could be heard from the pile of youngling werewolves.
"Oooooh," groaned Dennis as he nursed his head. "I'm fine Winnie," he looked around, surveying the situation. "Is everyone okay?"
"I can't see my legs!" Griffin screamed before getting up and wiping his glasses. "In other words, yeah, everything's okay."
Strangely for the Invisible Man, that did not gain so much as a snicker as almost everyone was still trying to figure out what had just happened.
"Huh," Griffin uttered, drawing the attention of Dennis, Winnie, and Wilson – rest of the pups still seemed too disoriented. "This isn't Van Helsing's lab."
His remark ran true. The rest of the squad looked around, realizing that this looked nothing like the place where they were hiding during Hide-&-Go-Seek-Sharp-Objects. In fact, Griffin realized, they were not even at the Hotel.
"This doesn't look anything like a room from the Hotel."
A loud yelp suddenly echoed across the room, drawing everyone's attention.
"Wally bit me!"
"Wade started it!"
"Not true!"
"Your dumb tail smacked me," Wally countered, pointing an accusing finger at his brother's wagging tail.
"DUMB, why I oughta!"
Griffin, Winnie, and Dennis quickly sprang into action. "No, Wade, stop!"
"Yeah, stop it Wade!"
Enough fighting, kids," spoke Winnie, Dennis and Griffin, respectively.
Though, before Dennis and Winnie could break up the fighting between Wade and Wally, the only door in the room swung open. This got everyone's attention, even making the two brothers cease their fighting just to see who had opened the door.
"Who summons me," spoke a kid who could not be older than ten.
Behind him was a male toddler and two prepubescent kids (one a girl, the other a boy). Shortly after the first kid spoke up in what seemed like a bad imitation of a deep, commanding voice, he quickly lost any sense of ferocity when he saw (or rather did not see) Griffin. "What in the Blessed Columbian Confederacy!?" he squeaked out.
He looked ready to faint. He started backing away before the other boy (not the toddler) stood up and made a declaration. "DEMONS! You shall have no mercy from m-"
He could not finish his threat. For the sole girl in the group quickly yanked him and screamed, "Run, it's not safe!"
Everyone remained shocked from the sight of the four humans… everyone but Griffin. He quickly made a beeline for the strange kids.
"Hey, wait up! Please, we mean no harm!"
Griffin was fast, nearly covering half of the distance between him and those four. Until the toddler in the group screamed bloody murder. "THE GHOST IS COMING FOR US! AAAAHHH!"
That made them all run with the energy of a sugar-rushed rabbit, forcing Griffin to sprint harder. "Gaah," yelled Griffin, already feeling annoyed with having to chase after four random kids.
This just wasn't his day. Luckily, he was taller, could cover more steps than the rest of them, and they had a toddler in the group. They started slowing down after a while, prompting Griffin to take his chance at catching them.
Then they bolted to one of the side doors. Griffin almost missed them… fortunately, the toddler was too slow, and he managed to snap the little scaredy-cat. "Gotcha, kid!"
The other kids were about to close the door until the girl of the group screamed, "It got Neptune!"
That made Griffin snicker. "Neptune!? Hah! Who names a kid, Neptune?" Way too fancy name for this little baby, he thought to himself.
The mad chuckles of little children filled the vast and ancient hallways. The incessant proclamations of "Tag, you're it!", "No, you're it!", and "No fair!" echoed through the olden concrete walls – from an era long forgotten.
Then, it all came to an end. A sudden screech that overpowered all other sounds, forcing the children in the chamber to turn around and face the source of the noise.
"Sssssshhush guys, we aren't even supposed to be here!"
"Pfft," uttered Marc nonchalantly. "You're such a goody-goody, Wade."
"Yeah, Wadey, loosen up," exclaimed Sarah. "What's the worst that could happen anyways?"
Wade was hearing none of it, those idiots could get them all killed! "This vault was locked up for a reason. We shouldn't have gone inside in the first place."
Wade turned around, expecting the others to follow. "Let's return back to the gardens." He took three steps forward before stopping, realizing that no one was following him. "Guys?"
Silence. Then. "We aren't leaving, 'Daddy's Boy'," spoke Marcellus. "We're staying."
"Yeah! Come on Wadey, it'll be fun," Sarah perked up, still incessantly hopeful that cousin Wade would see her and Marc's side.
"Neptune?" Surely Little Neptune would follow Wade and not those two troublemakers… surely?
Neptune did not move an inch. Instead, he kept switching back and forth between Wade, Marcellus, and Sarah. "I don't like this game…" he said glumly, his eyes already tearing up.
"C'mon guys, you made Little Neptune cry." Wade walked back to Neptune, kneeling down to carry him. "How am I supposed to explain this to Bishop Louis, hmm?"
"You gonna snitch on us now, Emperor's Pet?"
It was then that everyone froze. Wade stared at Marcellus, feeling his blood boil with rage. Marc stood his ground, staring back at young Wade, not backing down.
As Little Neptune looked back and forth between the boy-dukes, Sarah was the first to speak up. "Oh honestly you two, lighten up! No need for name calling!"
She sounded annoyed, but truth be told she was afraid of what might happen. Her brother, Marcellus, was not one known for his calm or patience – quite the opposite. "Right," but he had his moments.
"Sorry Wade." Marc budged, breaking his stare by looking to the left. "But," he returned his gaze, "I honestly think you're taking the rules a little too serious. Where's your sense of adventure?"
Neptune was still torn between the two older boys, but his eyes lit up at the sound of the word "adventure". Marcellus saw opportunity in the toddler's reaction. "You like adventures, don't you Neptune?"
"Yes, yes I do," Neptune replied, sniffling.
"See, even Neptune knows how to loosen up, and he's four for Pete's Sake!"
Wade did not know how to respond, he had remembered his father's words to him about this specific vault, like many others… He knew that his father's secret group of guards used this vault – among others – to store and catalogue strange and dangerous antiques from antediluvian times…
As the Emperor's son, he had to set an example that his kinsmen would emulate. He looked between Marc, Neptune, Sarah and the empty hallways of the vault.
Personally, he had always been curious about what his father – Willian "The Talker" – had kept hidden and catalogued in his many, many vaults. Considering the lack of security and the uneventful nature of today… so far… he figured that a little exploration would not be the end of the world… would it?
The boy bit his lip. "Gosh guys, I don't know… Father would surely disprove of this action…"
Marc rolled his eyes at that. Then Wade did the unexpected. "Making it mighty thankful that I ain't snitchin on any of us."
Little Neptune cheered at that. "Yay, adventure!" He quickly ran around Wade and Marc with his arms spread, as if he were an eagle soaring through the skies.
Marcellus nodded at that. "Not bad, Daddy's Boy. You're more to meets the eye than the Emperor's prim and proper son."
Sarah, on the other hand, merely sighed in relief. She then proceeded to smile, as if nothing had been amiss earlier.
"Let's go," Wade announced, leading the way forward as the other three laughed at their antics, being merry and having fun like the children they were.
"What in the Blessed Columbian Confederacy!?" Wade squeaked out, losing any veneer of authority or control he had attempted to produce before seeing the strange things behind an ancient steel door named "#6".
The children had been playing around, exploring the vault as Wade kept careful watch of everyone – still fearing the possibility that something like this could happen (minus the ghost man). Marc had been eying a collection of ancient ranged weapons known as "guns", Sarah was trying on Pre-Event plastic jewelry (now almost as rare as diamond itself, since the Deluge) and Neptune was gawking at an ancient lava lamp (its once fluid and lively blobs of wax having been left frozen for centuries since it was deprived of an ancient power known as "electricity"), suddenly they had heard a sound coming from another one of the vault blast doors.
Curious, and a little scared, they investigated the source of the sound. When they were near Blast Door 6, they had heard a very loud call for "Wade" by what sounded like children, making the four Littlepages (their royal house) confused.
Wade had assured in hushed tones that he did not know anyone else in the vaults, or who sounded like that and quickly opened the door. He tried to muster up all the depth in his prepubescent larynx, managing to demand that the intruders state why they had summoned Wade II of Natchez, son of the Holy Columbian Emperor.
Which brings us to now when Wade squeaked in fear at an invisible ghost man. Marc, feeling it his place to play the role of the hero, tried to muster up all the rage he had for the heathen and the infidel, and declared that he would vanquish his demonic foes… before Sarah snatched her brother and yelled out "Run!"
The four of them quickly broke into a mad sprint, the ghost man close behind them (as evidenced by his floating glasses – spooooky). At first the kids had hoped that they were making progress, but then Neptune got tired – as toddlers often do get after such a sprint – and the ghost took his opportunity to seize Neptune.
"I should've known this would happen." Granted, Wade could not have known that a ghost man, some strange hairy babies and a ginger would pop out of room 6… Still, he expected himself to expect these things – what good was paranoia if it could not protect you from the unknown?
"Gotcha, kid," the ghost declared triumphantly.
The kids were about to close another vault door until Sarah screamed, "It got Neptune!"
That made the invisible man snicker. "Neptune!? Hah! Who names a kid, Neptune?"
Its chuckles did not phase Wade, for he knew what he had to do. Entrusted with Natchez to rule, with the royal blood of an Emperor to bear, with his cousins to protect and Neptune to care for… He needed to negotiate.
"Leave Little Neptune alone! He has done you no wrong!"
Marcellus, on the other hand, had a more direct way of making his wants heard. "If you so much as harm a hair on my cousin's head, by God, I will make you vanish for reals!"
"Woah, ho, ho," the ghost man spoke. "Cool it hot stuff." His glasses angled themselves at Wade, presumably to talk to him. "I just want to talk; I don't want to hurt 'King of the Sea' over here."
He placed Neptune on the ground but held him tight. Neptune tried to run away, but could feel an invisible hand on his shirt, impeding him from making a get-away. "Just tell me, where am I?"
There was silence at first – save for Neptune still trying to escape –, as both Wade and Marcellus tried to guess what this creature's game was.
"You don't know where you are?" The boys scowled at Sarah, who seemed oblivious to their distaste for her willingness to believe the monster's statement.
"No, I don't," replied the invisible man. "Not me or the kids back there know anything about where we are."
As if planned, Dennis and the wolfpups made a return, after finally having caught up with Uncle Griffin. "You ran so fast Uncle Griffin, we thought we might lose you," spoke Dennis. He then looked down, noticing the humans in the room.
"Oh hello, I'm Dennis."
"Hello Dennis, I'm Sarah!"
This kind of cramped Griffin and Wade and Marcellus' attempts at intimidating the other party… "Kiddo, I'm gonna need to ask that you and the pups stay quiet for now, Uncle Griffin's working on getting us home."
"Okay!"
"Sarah…" Wade and Marcellus hissed.
"What? I'm just being nice."
"We're not supposed to be nice to monstrous intruders!"
After they were done, the three males returned to their standoff. Wade was the first to speak up, "His name is Dennis, yes?"
He gestured at the ginger, the invisible man somehow managing to float his glasses above Dennis' head. "So, what if it is?" He let go of Neptune, letting the little toddler scurry back to his family.
As Sarah tended to Little Neptune, Wade narrowed his eyes at Griffin, refusing to be intimated… again. "That name isn't a common Southron name. And neither is yours, Griffin." Wade looked at the glasses of the invisible man, noticing how those glasses looked suspiciously like the sunglasses he had heard about in legend… except without the shaded area. "And your glasses look like that of Old World shades…"
"Old World?" This kid was not making much sense to Griffin. He seemed to be throwing around weird terms, like "Southron", "Columbian Confederacy" and now "Old World". Was the kid a lune or something?
"Are you from the West Coast?" They seemed Californio, maybe Angeleno or Coloradan… well, this 'Griffin' and 'Dennis' at least, Wade was still questioning what in tarnation were those strange hair balls with misshapen noses. They looked more like dogs than children.
"West Coast? You mean like California?"
"Yeah!" The invisible man seemed to get it, maybe Wade was getting somewhere with these negotiations.
"Ooo, California, my daddy's from there!"
Griffin sighed. "Dennis, quiet, Uncle's working."
"Right, sorry." Dennis backed a bit before Winnie hugged him from the back.
"It's okay Zing-zing, I don't mind hearing about your dad's homeplace," she whispered.
"Ummm…" Dennis was unconvinced. He had a feeling that she was still trying to get him to zing with her. "Later Winnie, Uncle Griffin's working."
As Sarah stared at the weird dynamic between Dennis and Winnie, Griffin and the boy dukes handled geography. "No, we aren't from California. But since you mentioned California, is this America, then?"
"Old American lands, yes – some call Columbia the heartland of the Founders."
Now this weird kid was just making things up. "Old American lands? What do you mean? Look kid, is this the United States or not?"
"Uh," Wade was not sure how to answer. "Yes?"
Marcellus whispered to his cousin then, "Wade, I don't think they even know what year they're from."
"You don't think so," Wade asked back quietly.
"No, they don't seem to know anything about America as we do. They speak of it as if it were still a real place."
Marcellus might be right. This 'Griffin' did speak of America in the present tense. Wade could use this to his advantage…
"America? So fast?" "Did Van Helsing's machine teleport us here?" This was crazy. How did a game of Hide-&-Go-Seek-Sharp-Objects go so wrong so fast? "Right, I think I get it!"
"Sure you do," Marcellus said, sarcasm dripping from his tongue, though Griffin seemed not to care.
"Right, I'm sorry fellows. I'm not sure how it happened myself, but a friend of mine from Transylvania may have accidentally teleported us here… Somehow." Griffin seemed genuine, like he actually believed the nonsense he just said out loud. "Sorry for getting in your hair guys. So, if you could just take us to US customs and immigration, we'll take care of the rest and be on our way."
What Griffin saw put him off just ever so slightly. At first the two boys looked at each other, as if an unspoken understanding had dawned on them both. "What," Griffin asked, puzzled by their weird behavior. "Was it something I said?"
The two boys looked up, Wade nudging Marcellus to speak up. "Mr. Griffin, is it?"
"Yes?"
Marcellus gulped, not sure how to cushion this creature's fall. "May I ask for the date, as you remember it?"
"Uh, okay, kid?" Those boys were strange… "Um, July 12th, 2015."
"Yep, called it," Marc thought to himself. He had read enough antique folklores, story snippets taken from ancient color books called "comics", to know that the Pre-Event Era had sometimes entertained themselves with stories about characters entering different eras and changing history. However, he did not know how to familiarize this invisible man with the concept so soon, since it was likely he would lose his mind.
"What was with the calendar testing," Griffin asked impatiently, getting tired of watching those boys act so suspicious and guarded – were kids always this prone to paranoia? "Is there a reason why I'm still not on a plane back home?"
"Mr. Griffin, you did not teleport here – well, not exactly." Marcellus racked his brain for the words, finding a phrase from another one of his favorite folklores. "You are in a different time."
Wade nodded at that, "Welcome to the 28th century, In the Year of Our Lord 2710. You and these children are visitors in the Holy Columbian Confederacy – one of the remnants of the ancient United Empire of America.
"I am Wade II of Natchez, Son of Emperor William I." Wade brought his hand out, hoping to initiate the first of friendly contact between him and Griffin. "I guess I'm your guide?"