Chapter 7

Disclaimer: except for Caroline's crew, all of the characters belong to Impossible Pictures™.

The novelty of travelling through a time anomaly had largely worn off, but it was still quite fun, Abby Maitland reckoned. True, her travelling companion, this time, was not quite her number one – at all. Rather she would have had Connor with her...

Surprisingly, at a mere thought of Connor, Abby felt butterflies in her stomach – but not in a good way. Still, she did not have time to dwell on it, because she got a chance to look around her neighbourhood. "Helen, where are we?" she asked, inquiringly.

"At a house of my ally," Helen replied as she looked at the younger woman with some concern. "Is there something wrong with you?"

"I honestly can't say," Abby shook her head, clearing it. "So, when are we, then?"

"Good question," Helen smiled slightly, "but this time there's no need for it: we're back at your time: apparently, your friends were able to deactivate Philip's invention successfully, so there're some good news, at least."

"Great!" Abby smiled, but to her concern, as soon as she thought about the rest of the ARC's field crew, the queasy feeling returned in force, and there was no doubt about that this time.

"What's wrong?" Helen repeated her question, and this time Abby was sure that the older woman was worried; but there was no time to reply as a door opened, and in walked a new character.

"Genii! Long time no see! What brings you here this time?" asked Caroline Steele.

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There was a pause as Abby carefully observed the other woman while Caroline had not noticed her yet. Ever since the incident with Leek, Caroline had not changed one bit, she looked as glamorous as always, but Abby did not forgot that when the two of them got to a fight in Leek's captivity, there had not been any decisive winner.

"Helen," she carefully ignored Caroline, "what are we doing with her?"

Caroline appeared to have noticed Abby for the first time. "Genii," she repeated her odd title to Helen, "you're keeping strange company these days-"

"My company is usually strange; I'm usually strange," Helen said calmly, "but Caro, I really need your assistance, for you see, my friend here has fallen amok of April – do you remember Vigdis' daughter?"

"The daughter of Vigdis?" Caroline half-hissed, half-snarled, before turning and facing Abby face on. "Then until your feud with her is resolved, my home is your castle, pure-blood!"

"Um, you're welcome?" Abby said in a small voice, unsure what to do next.

"Caro, please, there're no need for such formalities," Helen also replied, more calmly than Abby did. "My companion, after all, is not from your time, she knows nothing of what you do."

"True," Caroline nodded, "but anyone who had fallen victim to a member of that family deserves assistance."

"No argument there, but I thank you for it all the same," Helen nodded calmly. "In any case, I know that something is wrong, because-"

"Um, there's nothing wrong with me, really!" Abby interrupted quickly, "I just had caught a bug or something, because-"

There was a large beeping, and it came from Helen Cutter's time anomaly manifestation device. "A time anomaly has opened somewhere," she said thoughtfully, "an unshielded time anomaly."

"We need to go there! My friends will be there!" Abby said firmly, ignoring the unpleasant sensations that shot through her when she thought about them.

"Very well," Helen said thoughtfully, "I have a bad feeling about this time anomaly too. Caro, can you give us a ride?"

"But of course!" Caroline nodded in reply. "Even if Vigdis' daughter wasn't involved, our debt to you, genii, cannot be resolved with more than just a ride!"

Helen just sighed and stayed silent; though she had plenty of questions, Abby stayed silent too.

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The bathhouse was a mess, or at least its' atrium was. "What has happened here?" Abby said, trying to break the silence after a tense, though not uncomfortable, ride. "I'm guessing that the team had come and gone?" She frowned, as there was something wrong – not in the bathhouse, but in her.

Caroline, meanwhile, leaned to Helen and whispered something quietly into her ear.

"All right, let's go and check," Helen said, in a louder voice. "Miss Maitland, if you're feeling queasy, please stay back-"

"I feel fine!" Abby shot back. "Look, I show it to you!" She walked to a nearest closed door and flung it open – and it was almost the last action that she had ever did, as a massive knife blade flashed before her face, and she almost didn't have time to leap away.

Abby's new attacker... was essentially invisible; more realistically, he was so blurry, that Abby was able to see only his basic body outline, but that was enough. Though she was prone, she was able to dodge the second, descending swing, and kick with both of her legs, hitting the attacker's knee.

The attacker was not only blurry, he was also solid and powerful, as he was able to back away, rather than fall, as Abby expected him to do. However, that was enough, as Abby jumped up and launched several strikes, both kicks and punches, keeping to the outer side of the blade-wielding hand trying to keep her assailant off-balance – and then she got punched.

The punch was solid and powerful, just as the rest of her assailant was, and Abby was knocked quite some distance away, finally falling – and skidding - on her back. On the other hand, her opponent became visible, and it was monstrous, some sort of a lizard man, with a pair of small horns, positioned one after another on its forehead.

And then Helen was before it, blocking its' blade with her own – one of her own – and swinging the other blade at the attacker's own knife – and that blade broke.

The creature flung the broken blade away and shifted into a boxing stance, its' outline becoming blurry.

...And then some barking sound caught Abby's – caught everyone's – attention. Everyone turned around, and saw Caroline drag another one of these creatures out – clearly wounded, very pale, very weak. As everyone observed, Caroline – still effortlessly dragging the much-larger and heavier being – turned to face Helen's combatant and emitted another series of barking, inhuman cries, her mouth, and especially lower jaw distending in a way that human anatomy simply could not allow.

It was at that moment that Abby felt some hot stickiness on her face and realized that she was bleeding. It was too much for her – she fainted.

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When Abby awoke, she was in a bed, presumably back at Caroline's house (if that really was Caroline, and not some shapeshifter pretending to be her), with Helen looking down at her with contrition. "Abby," she said carefully, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Abby responded, equally carefully.

Instead of replying, Helen produced a hand mirror, and Abby stared: the initial knife blade landed just a grazing wound, but it was enough to inflict a long, though a shallow, gash upon her face, including a nicked right nostril. There was going to be a noticeable scar and the... substitute of iodine that Caroline and her people had used upon her face and the rough stitches did not help matters either.

"Why not a hospital?" she asked, weakly, as he face felt numb (her lips had not been sliced, fortunately).

"Caro and her people don't trust hospitals and neither do I," Helen confessed, "plus I wasn't sure if that's the right thing – a knife wound would involve the police, and then what? So, I am sorry for your scarification, Miss Maitland-"

"But there's a 'but'," Abby stated, rather than asked.

"Well, yes," Helen nodded. "The scar is shallow; I'm sure that once this situation is resolved, Lester – or whoever else will be in charge of the ARC – will be able to pay for your plastic surgery; furthermore," she added with a grin, "Caro and her people believe that scars are the signs of maturity and of experience, so I cannot quite find the heart to be cross at them."

"Did they do something similar to you?" Abby asked, a bit flatly.

"No. Life did something similar to me," Helen answered, also flatly. "Want to see?"

"Am I interrupting something?" Caroline looked into the room before Abby could reply.

"No," Abby said slowly, "nothing that can't wait a little while."

"Good, because I want to apologize for mocking your short stature before, Abigail Maitland," Caroline said in full seriousness. "There are few pure blood humans who could stand to one of them unarmed, and you're one of them! I'm humbled!"

"Er, apology accepted," Abby said slowly, before turning back to the older woman. "Helen, what is going on around here? What April dragged me into?"

"That's a long story, and a complex one," Helen exhaled. "Tell me, do you know anything about the future?"

"Well, yes, we fought a number of futuristic monsters, obviously, and Matt, Matt Anderson is from the future," Abby spoke before she could think.

"Really? Matt Anderson, the son of Gideon, half-brother of Alexandra?" Caroline leaned forwards, and there was genuine hatred in her voice. "That Matt? He's here?"

"Um, yes?" Abby said meekly. "He's from the future, he showed me proof when we had to stop Philip Burton and 'New Dawn'-"

"Good," Helen said, smiling though there was little humour in her smile, "then you already got a very brief introduction. So, now why don't you make yourself comfortable and listen to a long and complex story?"

End chapter 7