Trouble: Yes, H/T is much better, right, Holly?
:)
Great story, I love it! Please update soon! (Of course, I won't be able to read it for a while- vacation. But anyway!)
LEP Major T. Kelp
Holly: Oh Frond.. Trouble, I don't know what you're up to, but: NO!
Goldie: Arh, come on, Holly.. Trouble is a nice guy! :D You would make a great couple.
Holly: Last warning, mud girl: Shut up, if you value your brain cells.
Goldie: Yeah, whatever. Anyway, everyone: I JUST WROTE ANOTHER CHAPTER! (wohoo!) I really feel like I'm getting my inspiration back.. :) So I might actually finish this. Enjoy. ;)
Oh, and by the way: I'm still sorry that the chapters are so short, and I'm also sorry that this whole time-travel thing isn't all that easy to understand.
Chapter 11 – Back and forth
T. Imekiller's best's old warehouse –Haven City –Year 2106
Holly fell on a big pile of boxes in the old warehouse. She crawled silently towards the edge of the box she was lying on and looked carefully down at the floor underneath her. She saw a group of Richter's mesmerized soldiers hiding beneath her.
Suddenly someone was entering the warehouse; a group of six people. She couldn't hear what her past-I was saying, because of the soundproof helmet she was wearing, but she remembered how she'd noticed the lack of dust on the floor.
Then it all happened very fast, but this time Holly was ready and had a good grasp of the situation. She could see it all from her hiding place.
The soldiers suddenly surrounded the small group that quickly moved into a close circle.
Holly saw Richter entering the warehouse out of the corner of her eye, but she was busy trying to locate the soldier who was going to kill Commander Root.
"Aha," Richter's voice rang out. "Commander Short has come to see me. And she has brought some friends. How… pleasant."
Then she heard her own voice, amplified by the helmet's loudspeakers: "You'll never get away with this Richter. My officers won't give up!"
Holly on the boxes shut her mind to the rest of the conversation, still looking for that one soldier.
The fight began beneath her and she had to duck a couple of time to avoid some stray laser beams.
Then, finally, when almost all Richter's soldiers had been knocked out, she saw him: A small pixie with black hair. He was hiding behind a box in the opposite end of the warehouse, ready to surprise the six friends as soon as the shooting stopped.
Holly made a quick decision and jumped down from the boxes. "Commander Root, watch out!" she yelled, as the pixie fired his gun from behind his box.
She pushed the Commander aside just before the beam hit him.
Then she saw a portal open in the air above her, and she was sucked up. The last thing she saw was the two Hollys in the warehouse shooting down the pixie behind the box.
Police Plaza –Operation's booth –Haven City –Year 2106
Holly tumbled out of the portal and landed on the hard, white floor of the Operation's booth. She heard surprised gasps around her and looked up: There were Trouble, Foaly, Artemis, past-Holly and past-Trouble. It was such a relief to see them looking healthy and young again.
"Holly!" Trouble from her own time gasped, as he rushed towards her to help her up.
Holly hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. "Was I gone for a long time?" she asked.
Foaly shook his head. "No, it's only been five minutes or so since you disappeared. The Timetraveller 5000® just sucked you in of its own accord. I've been trying to find out where you went and fix the Timetraveller 5000®, but it's a very complicated piece of machinery and…"
"I went to the year 2116," Holly broke in. "It was absolutely horrible." She told them everything.
"But there's something I don't understand, Foaly," Holly said. "Didn't you say that time stops, when someone is removed from his or her own time? Then why didn't time stop here when I disappeared?"
Foaly rubbed his forehead. "The rules of time travel are extremely complicated, Holly," he said. "No one has been able to fully understand them yet. I think that there's a difference between going back in time and getting someone from there, and travelling directly into the future. There's a difference between being a time-traveller and the time-traveller's guest. The time only stops when the guests are removed, not when the time-traveller himself disappears. I know it's confusing. As I said: No one really understands why this is. But what happened after we fixed the Timetraveller 5000®? You said you didn't go directly back to your own time."
"No," Holly replied. "You probably don't remember this, because it never happened, but Julius died back in the old warehouse. I went back to the time Julius was shot and saved him and then I was suddenly thrown back here. When I saved him, there was no longer a reason for me to go back in time in the first place, and I think that's why I was sent back here. And that's probably also why you can't remember that the machine didn't suck me in of its own accord; because it never happened. By Frond, this is complicated." Holly became silent as she realized that she didn't see Julius Root anywhere.
Artemis, Trouble, past-Holly and past-Trouble looked weird. As if they were all having a déjà vu at the same time. "I remember something!" past-Holly said. "You saved the Commander. But then where's he. I mean… where are they?"
"When Julius from the past died, the Lieutenant Colonel disappeared from the conference room," Holly said.
They were all about to run to the conference room, but this wasn't necessary: Just then the door to the operations booth opened and in came the two Julius Roots.
"What's going on…" Lieutenant Colonel Root stopped when he caught sight of the tired and ragged Commander Short. He had the same expression of suddenly remembering something he had long since forgotten. But this time Holly felt the same way. She felt like her head was a computer and all her memories were updated so that she remembered all that her past-I had seen and done since she had been brought in from the past.
"Holly!" Julius' (from her own time) voice sounded a little hoarse. She knew he remembered what had happened. She ran forward and gave him a hug, and for the first time she let her feelings run away with her and started crying. Before she had had to suppress her sorrow and grief at his death, squeeze it all together until it was all a small pellet hidden in the back of her mind, so that she was able to focus on the mission to save him.
But now, standing here hugging him and feeling him hug back and stroke her a little awkwardly on her bag, the pellet grew bigger and bigger, and together with the relief of seeing him again it filled up everything and she couldn't stop the tears from running down her cheeks and soaking the shoulder of his uniform jacket.
She remembered what it had been like to lose her father so many years ago, and realized that she had felt the same way when she had lost Julius. He was like a father to her, a mentor and a role model, and she didn't know what to do if he wasn't there to help and guide her.
He seemed to understand all this, even though none of them said a word. He just kept holding her tight and stroking her trembling back with his hand.
Finally she found herself able to draw back from his embrace. She dried her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled. "Good to have you back, sir," she said in a low voice.
He gave her one of his rare smiles. "Thank you, Commander Short."
Holly turned to the others. "I have seen what will happen, if Richter wins this battle," she proclaimed. "And I can assure you that it's not very nice. We need to stop him at all costs, and I think I have a plan."
Holly grabbed a microphone on Foaly's desk. It was connected to all her officers' helmets. "Listen officers, this is Commander Short speaking. I have found out how Richter mesmerizes his people. If you can break the trance they're in, they'll turn over and fight for us. We desperately need more people, so this is what you're going to do: Stun your opponent and find the small mark on his wrist. Use your gun or a knife to make a small hole in his arm and take out the little chip inside it. Then heal him and he should soon wake up and be able to fight. It's very important that you follow this procedure whenever it is possible! Copy that?"
"Affirmative!" said a choir of voices.
"Over and out," Holly said, and turned off the microphone.
Goldie: Remember to review, or Holly will fry you with her Neutrino, or something.
Holly: You've got it, mud girl!