Chapter 2 – Timemaster

Nyssa turned a lever in the dimly lit passageway and a door sprang open leading into a luxuriously decorated chamber. Shortly after leaving the large room with the pool where Sara had been reborn, Nyssa had opened a panel leading into a secret passageway. As soon as they had moved into the hidden corridor and the door closed behind them, Nyssa had visibly relaxed. Obviously, Ra's and his men didn't know of this secret route.

As Nyssa moved quickly over to the room's main entrance and lifted a heavy bar into place to reinforce the door's lock, Sara let her eyes sweep around the chamber. The room's furnishings were predominately dark and heavy, the colors mostly burgundy with a trimming of gold. Only scattered items showed a feminine touch – a small vase of flowers, a modest vanity with an array of perfumes and ointments, a framed photo of Nyssa and a girl with blonde hair laughing together. Sara felt drawn to the photo and as she moved closer she passed the large mirror on the wall behind the vanity. Her gaze flicked to it and it wasn't until she saw herself that Sara realized she didn't even remember what she looked like.

Blue eyes, high cheek bones, full lips, a dimple on the chin, and a scattering of freckles not dissimilar to Nyssa's – Sara felt more than a hint of surprise when she realized she might actually qualify as attractive. The eons spent in Hell had left her believing she must look like some kind of monster.

Sara picked up the photo from where it rested on the vanity and looked at it more closely. It was only after seeing her own reflection that she realized the blonde in the photo was her.

"That photo was taken when we were on an assignment for the League in Paris. Does it bring back any memories?" asked Nyssa, as she moved to a large, heavy, old trunk at the foot of the bed.

Sara's eyes flicked from Nyssa back to the photo. If she hadn't seen her reflection in the mirror, she wouldn't have known it was her. The picture of them together proved Nyssa had known her in her old life, but it didn't spur any memories. Sara took in her own bright smile and guessed it meant she had been happy, but try as she might she got nothing else from it. Oh, she seemed to have access to some generalized knowledge as she simply knew Paris was the capital of France and home to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but she had no recollection of ever having been there.

"No, I'm afraid the photo doesn't bring back anything," Sara said. "Sorry."

Nyssa frowned, but said nothing and just continued to pull things from the trunk. A pile of carelessly stacked clothing formed beside her until she had emptied at least three-quarters of the trunk's contents. Then she lifted out a large tray revealing a small, almost secret compartment. From this compartment she withdrew a small bundle wrapped in a piece of burgundy velvet. Carefully, she unwrapped it. Inside was something made of silk, the color of old, long faded bones. She carefully lifted the item to her face and inhaled deeply of its scent.

"This is the only thing of yours I still possessed after I found out you had died," she whispered. As she rose to her feet and moved in Sara's direction, Sara could see her eyes were again filled with tears.

This had to be the negligée she had mentioned before. It was folded into a small bundle many layers thick, but Sara could still clearly see Nyssa's fingers straight through it. It had to be the sheerest, most gossamer thing she had ever seen. The simple existence of such a delicate thing almost boggled her mind, which was still filled with harsh, hard memories of Hell.

Carefully, Nyssa unfolded it and then helped Sara slide it down over her head and onto her body.

Once Sara's hands were lowered to her sides, she looked down and then moved back over to the mirror. Nyssa's earlier remark had been accurate. Wearing this negligée wasn't much different than being naked.

Nyssa stepped up close behind the other girl. In her heavy, heeled boots she towered a full head taller than Sara. She rested her chin on top of Sara's head and then casually wrapped her arms around Sara as though she had done it countless times before.

"Does it bring back any memories?" Nyssa asked to Sara's reflection in the mirror.

Sara closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, taking in Nyssa's scent and that of the negligée.

"Do you have a matching one, only in burgundy?" Sara asked before the image of the two of them performing the dance of love in the adjacent bed had even fully coalesced in her head.

"Yes," Nyssa replied softly. Then she leaned down and lightly kissed Sara's right ear before whispering. "Do you remember the last time we wore them and then how we removed them?"

Sara's body was responding to her words, to her light caresses. An image of them laughing and teasingly removing each other's gowns using just their lips and teeth was just forming when a harsh pounding on the room's door abruptly brought her back to reality.

The pounding quickly escalated from the sound of fists to the sounds of large bodies throwing themselves against the obstacle. Even heavily braced, the door wouldn't withstand that level of abuse for long.

With just one lingering, regret-filled glance at their reflections, Nyssa sprang to the far wall which held a huge display of weapons where any more normal girl would have had a large display of shoes. Quickly, she grabbed several small weapons and added them to the sword she already was wearing at her belt. Then she grabbed a fighting staff and a sword, both of which she tossed in Sara's direction. Somewhere between there and the pool room Sara had discarded Ra's personal sword, something she clearly shouldn't have done.

"We've got to go," Nyssa said while moving to where the entrance to the secret passageway still stood open.

"Does that lead to a way out or just back to where we started?" Sara asked.

"It has several exits, but none are all the way outside the fortress. But we stand a better chance popping out somewhere unexpected rather than just standing here and fighting."

Sara had just started to move in her direction when she noticed how the air in front of the room's main door began to shimmer. Quickly, within a couple of seconds, it coalesced into a solid white sphere six feet in diameter. Then, after a couple more seconds, the solid, opaque white faded, revealing a clear, transparent sphere. Inside sat a man in a reclined chair, surrounded by a plethora of hardware, some of it optical in nature and glowing in an array of colors while other portions were mechanical in origin and spun and whirred like something from a bad steampunk novel.

Nyssa and Sara could do nothing but gawk as a large hatch in its side popped open and the man leaned over until his head was clear. With a grin, he gave Nyssa a quick once over and then gave Sara's near-naked state a more lingering inspection before his expression sobered under the ever increasing sound of multiple men attempting to break through the door.

"Come with me if you want to live," he exclaimed before breaking into a fit of laughter. When he got himself more or less back under control he added, "God, you don't know how long I have been waiting to use that line."

"Who are you?" demanded Nyssa before Sara could react. And she already had her sword out and was holding it in a menacing manner.

The man raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm Rip Hunter, Timemaster. I'm here to rescue you. Well, actually, I'm not here so much to rescue you as to recruit you to join a team I'm pulling together to help me with a little project. Well, not such a little project, it's more along the lines of saving the bloody planet, both now and in the future. Well, and in the past, too, probably."

The man had blue eyes, a mop of tawny blonde hair and spoke with an accent that sounded vaguely, but not exactly, English. He was oddly dressed with a light tan leather duster over a brown tweed suit with a poorly matched black and grey striped shirt adorned with a 19th century cravat. He looked like someone attempting to appear steampunk but not quite fully grasping the concept.

"Well, are you coming?" asked the man. "If you stay here, there is an extremely high probability you will be dead in the next, ah . . ." he paused to glance down at some instrument inside the sphere, "next fourteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds."

Sara glanced at Nyssa. The brunette made a gesture with her hands and shoulders that implied his estimate of their life expectancy was probably about right.

Sara started moving towards the sphere. "How does this work?"

"You are going to have to get in the sphere with me," he responded. After seeing the dubious expression on Sara's face, he added with an infectious grin after sweeping his gaze up and down her near naked body again, "It will be a tight squeeze, but I guess I can make the required sacrifice."

From somewhere deep inside an unexpectedly sharp retort came bubbling to the surface of Sara's thoughts. But before she could let it escape, the room's door started to give way to the repeated pounding. Ra's and his men would be in the room in only seconds.

Sara hit the hidden catch which broke the fighting staff down into two smaller pieces, thrust them and her sword through the opening towards the far side of the sphere, and dove onto the guy's lap. Nyssa piled in on top of her, further crushing Sara up against the man's body.

The sphere's hatch slammed shut and then the man began worming his hands around the girls to reach the controls.

"Watch the hands, mister," snarled Nyssa. "Or you'll get a personal demonstration of my mastery of the art of the Death of a Thousand Cuts."

"Sorry, no offense meant, ladies," he said and Sara could still hear the humor lacing his words, "Just trying to reach the controls to get us out of here."

The humor of the situation struck Sara, too. Her near-naked breasts were firmly pressed against his left arm from one side and Nyssa's leather clad breasts were pressed against his arm from the other side. As the sphere returned to the solid, opaque white she had initially seen, she started to laugh for the first time since her return.

Sara had no idea where they were going or what was going to happen next, but it was wonderful just to be alive.

End of Chapter 2

Coming Soon – Chapter 3 – Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-Ara, Guardians of Ancient Egypt