A Leap Into Destiny
Darkness Falls
478 AD.
Slowly, Al backed away as the Saxon warriors closed in on him.
"So, what do we have here?" one of the brusque warrior stepped forward. "A Roman consul?"
"Well not exactly," Al replied, "though I am Italian on my father's side."
"He can't be a consul," another Saxon warrior offered. "Not even the Romans would wear clothing this bizarre!"
"Hey, I'll have you know I'm wearing fine polyester!" Al protested.
A crossbowman stepped forth and grabbed Al by the scruff of his neck.
"I don't recall giving you permission to talk!" the bearded Saxon growled.
At once, Al shut up, realizing the dire situation he was in.
"You gonna teach him a lesson, Sabert?" another Saxon warrior leered.
"Yeah, let's see if he squeals as loudly as those Romans we gutted three days ago!" a large obese Saxon grinned.
"Not just yet," Sabert finally let go of Al. "Let's see what rewards this strangely dressed man will yield."
Al looked around him. Thus far he was surrounded and there was little chance of escape with all the Saxons surrounding him. And even if he were able to find some distance and run away, the crossbowman Sabert could simply shoot him in the back.
"Now I give you permission to speak," Sabert smiled. "Tell me, where do you come from?"
"Gee, where do I even begin?" Al glared at Sabert. "I live in New Mexico right now but I've been all over the place more or less."
The look on Sabert's face indicated that he was not pleased with Al's answer.
Rearing back, he punched Al across the face, knocking the observer down.
"That's not the answer I'm looking for," Sabert growled.
Al shook his head trying to clear the sudden shock of being punched as the Saxons closed in on him.
"Roman or not, you clearly have no idea who we are," Sabert aimed his crossbow at Al.
"Consider yourself lucky Sabert is putting you out of your misery," the massive Saxon next to the crossbowman grinned. "Our leader would cut out your tongue and make it a lot slower!"
"After I put an arrow through his skull, the rest of you search him and see what valuables he has," Sabert ordered.
Before Sabert could pull down on the trigger, an arrow whizzed through the air and struck him right in the shoulder.
"Agh!" Sabert spun around, being knocked off balance.
Just as he spun, he fired the arrow from his crossbow right into the skull of the large Saxon next to him, incapacitating and killing the massive brute in one blow.
As Sabert fell to the ground clutching his injured shoulder, two more arrows whizzed through the air, piercing the hearts of two of the other Saxon warriors.
"What the?" Al looked up at the direction of his savior.
It was a woman dressed in green garbs. She had short red hair and was armed with a bow and several arrows, in addition to a sword hanging by her waist.
"Get her!" Sabert shouted at his remaining warriors.
The two Saxons attacked the woman, who took out her own sword and deflected both their swings.
Sabert got up, reaching for his crossbow with his good arm. Just as he did, however, Al stepped down on the weapon.
"Looking for this?" Al taunted.
Al kicked Sabert straight in the face, knocking him on his back.
Just as Al had incapacitated the crossbowman, the woman who had saved him disarmed and cut down the two Saxons who had been attacking her.
"My name is Alia," she turned her attention back to Al. "Now come with me quickly!"
Al did not need to be told twice to leave the burnt ruins all around him.
oooo
At some point, Al Calavicci finally realized that his own age was catching up to him as he had to lean himself next to a tree to catch his breath. His savior, on the other hand, was sprinting much faster than him by several yards.
Luckily, she noticed he was trailing behind and went back to him.
"Are you alright?" Alia asked.
"Just peachy," Al breathed. "Give me a moment to catch my breath, will ya?"
Alia looked down the trail they had run from. There was no hint of any Saxon warriors chasing after them.
"I think we're safe for the moment," Alia told him.
"Thanks for saving my bacon," Al told her.
"Bacon," Alia smiled. "Now there's a welcome image. Too bad it won't be invented for several more centuries."
"You," Al stared at her incredulously. "You're from the future, aren't you?"
"I could ask the same of you," Alia looked at Al more seriously. "Your clothes come from modern times."
"That's right," Al confirmed.
"What's your name if you don't mind me asking?" Alia asked.
"I'm Al," the former naval officer replied. "Al Calavicci."
"You're him, aren't you?" inquired Alia. "You're the observer for Dr. Sam Beckett, right? I never saw you but he always talked to you, and about you."
"I am," confirmed Al. "You were also that young woman Alia that Sam helped save from those evil leapers, weren't you?"
Alia nodded.
"Ziggy told me you had been sent somewhere safe," Al told her. "I just had no idea you were sent back in time well over a millennium ago."
"It came as just as big of a surprise to me as it did you," Alia admitted to Al.
"That's one way to avoid Project Chronos looking for you," Al grinned slyly. "Leap beyond the time range they're capable of calculating! Just brilliant!"
"And it worked," Alia confessed, "though coming back to the early Middle Ages had its own set of challenges… like trying to survive day to day without being murdered, robbed, or maimed."
"I bet!" agreed Al.
"Even with Project Chronos off my back, surviving in these times was a challenge," Alia told Al. "Lucky for me, I had help from a woman who found me and aided me in surviving these harsh times."
"Who is she?" asked Al.
"Her name is Nevena," Alia replied. "She's a Celtic sorceress."
"She's a witch?" Al raised an eyebrow. He had had enough of witches and warlocks to last him a life time.
"I wouldn't have thought it possible back in our time," Alia nodded. "But having seen her and what she can do, the magic she works is all too real."
"Fair enough," Al sighed. "So you think she can help us? Maybe give us some shelter until I figure out how to get back to Sam?"
"Actually, I think there's a chance she can help the both of us," Alia said excitedly. "I've been working with her on special time magic which could restore me to my original time. And now that we're both here, we can both go back."
"Let's hope she can get it done as soon as possible," Al said nervously.
"Why?" asked Alia. "What's going on?"
"It's Sam," Al admitted. "He's not exactly in a very good spot right now."
"Is he hurt?" Alia looked worried.
"I don't know," Al confessed, "but what I do know is that he's being held captive by Project Chronos."
"In that case we'd better hurry back to Nevena's place," Alia got up. "Please tell me the rest along the way."
oooo
Present Day.
"Look at you," Dr. Oliver stared at Sam Beckett pitiably in his jail cell. "You're pathetic."
"You try losing someone you love," Sam said quietly and despondently.
The rest of Sam's friends had been locked away in separate cells, far away from the quantum physicist. Though Sam was responding back, Dr. Oliver noticed how Sam had become nearly lifeless in almost all his replies. But then again, losing a loved one had that kind of effect on a person.
"And all the fight's been taken out of you," Dr. Oliver frowned.
"All the people you've taken from their own times," Sam told Dr. Oliver. "Take them back to their own eras… please."
"That's not my decision to make," Dr. Oliver admitted. "It's Kairos and Zoey who are in charge now. It's funny… even now you're trying to be a do-gooder after all that's happened to you."
Sam did not reply. He only stared blankly into the ceiling. By now, the tears on his face had all but dried up.
"It probably would be entertaining to watch you suffer some more," Dr. Oliver acknowledged. "But then again, without your research, Project Chronos wouldn't be around today. I'll go see if I can convince my superiors to put you out of your misery and deliver a bullet to your head. You've earned that much at least!"
Sam still said nothing.
"It's a shame really," William Oliver said aloud. "Believe it or not, there used to be a time when I admired and respected both you and your work. But now? Now I see you're just a lovesick fool who can't stand on his two feet without a woman to hold his hand!"
With that, Dr. William Oliver chuckled and walked away leaving behind a near-lifeless Sam in his jail cell.
Before he reached the door that led out of the dungeon, he felt a buzzing sound in his pocket.
"Dr. Oliver speaking," he said.
The voice on the other side said something that made his eyes brighten.
"The funds have been delivered to my private accounts?" Dr. Oliver beamed. "Excellent!"
oooo
478 AD
"It's just right over there beyond those hills!" Alia pointed out.
"Looks picturesque," Al admitted.
Before them was a small cottage surrounded by layers of stones. In spite of the Saxon presence, this area seemed like it was relatively spoiled and untouched.
"So this is where Nevena lives, huh?" asked Al as he continued to walk with Alia.
"Yes, she lives here with her two children, a boy and a girl," Alia replied.
"I'm afraid to ask what happened to the father," Al confessed, remembering the high mortality rates of the Early Middle Ages.
"He was a Roman soldier stationed here but he was killed by the Saxons," Alia told him mournfully.
"I know the feeling," Al confessed. "At a young age, my mother abandoned me and my sister Trudy. And because my dad was so busy with his work, we became as good as orphans."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Alia looked down.
"Ah, it's all water under the bridge now," Al waved it off. "Hopefully her two kids will be able to grow up and have a better life in spite of what's going on during this time."
"I think these two will do just fine," Alia smiled. "After all, when your mother is a powerful witch, there aren't a whole lot of things that can scare you."
"Speaking of which, after you were leaped here, did you finally figure out who you were and why Project Chronos had you leaping about in time?" Al asked out of curiosity.
"I did," Alia confessed. "After I leaped out of that women's prison, I regained all of my memories in this era. Do you know who Professor Lothoman is?"
"Yes," Al answered her. "He was the one who created Project Chronos after he and Professor LoNigro worked together to build upon Sam's theories."
"Nathaniel and I were to be engaged," said Alia softly. "I was his fiancée."
"Whoa, you mean you and Dr. Lothoman were…" Al trailed off.
"In a romantic relationship?" Alia said honestly. "Yes."
"You learn something new every day," Al muttered in surprise.
"Do you also know who Vincent Wellington is?" asked Alia.
"Unfortunately I do," Al grimaced.
"Nathaniel died under suspicious circumstances," Alia told her new companion. "I was grief-stricken and Zoey was there for me at the time. She told me there was a chance I could save his life if I stepped into the quantum accelerator and leaped back in time. At the time I believed her so I did what she told me."
"That lying bitch!" Al cursed, not watching his own language in that moment. "She and Wellington were counting on you going back in time and being so Swiss-cheesed in your memories that you would forget why you had leaped back in time!"
"After I realized everything that had happened when I came to this era, a whole bunch of emotions came flooding back," Alia confessed. "First I was in shock, then in grief, then enraged… but I couldn't hold on to those emotions for long. An era like this would not have been kind to a woman like me from modern times. However, with Nevena's help, I managed to slowly piece my life back together."
"I can see that," Al looked at the sword at her thigh, along with the crossbow she held in her right hand.
"Here we are," Alia arrived at the door finally.
After knocking on it, the door opened up to reveal a woman in her late twenties along with a brunette boy and a blonde girl.
"Alia!" Nevena greeted her friend with a hug. "How art thee?"
"Doing good, Nevena!" Alia smiled.
"I see thou hast brought a friend," Nevena ushered Al in.
"Al Calavicci, at your service," Al gave her a polite nod.
"Al… also comes from my era," Alia told Nevena. "May he be allowed to stay here for the time being?"
"Yes of course," Nevena ushered the two in.
The young boy went over to Al and gave him some bread and a drink.
"Thank you," Al smiled.
"These are mine children," Nevena told him. "The boy is Sanctus and the girl is Sabina."
"I'm pleased to meet all of you," Al told them.
"Their father was a Roman soldier named Regulus," Nevena told Al. "Ever since his death, I've been raising the two on mine own."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Al said to her softly.
"Under ordinary circumstances, raising two children without a father would be a problem for any woman," Nevena raised up her hand.
At once, a ball of fire appeared in her hands.
"Holy Toledo!" Al fell back on his seat.
"You'll get used to it," Alia assured him. "Nevena is no ordinary woman."
"I learned these abilities from mine own mother," Nevena said to Al. "We come from a long line of witches."
"Isn't it amazing?" Sanctus asked Al.
"Yeah," Al finally agreed. "Yeah, it certainly is…"
With the fireball in her hand, Nevena lit the cauldron on fire from underneath.
"I am certain thou art tired and hungry," Nevena said to Al. "Please, tell me all about thy situation after dinner."
oooo
Present Day.
"So I see Dr. Oliver has been embezzling money from Project Chronos for his own private offshore accounts," Zoey sat cross-legged at the table.
"Y-Yes ma'am," the accountant said.
He was a frail, nervous man and his anxiety was made even worse by the fact that Zoey had found him out.
"How long has this been going on?" she asked him.
"He began doing this sometime last month under Vincent Wellington," the accountant told her. "Today was the first time he did it this month."
"I always knew he was a rat," Zoey growled.
She got up, turning her full attention back to the accountant.
"Zoey, please," the accountant begged. "Dr. Oliver tricked me into doing this. He told me it was for an offshoot of Project Chronos in the Caribbean. I had no idea it was for his personal benefit!"
Zoey, however, would not have any of his excuses, sincere or not. In a rage, she grabbed the man by the throat.
"Aagh!" the man cried.
Squeezing down, Zoey drained the man of all his energy and youth until he was nothing more than a zombified corpse. When the last pulse left the account, Zoey let him go.
"It would appear that I will need more dependable enforcers for our project," she said to herself.
After a brief moment of contemplation, an idea came to her. It was utterly risky and had the potential to jeopardize the timestream but it was still a brilliant plan in her mind.
Quickly, Zoey grabbed the hourglass on her necklace, enveloping herself with its powers and teleporting herself directly into the dungeon where she stood before a shocked Vincent Wellington.
"Zoey!" cried Wellington. "What the blazes?"
"Hello Vincent," she told him. "I imagine at this point, you are growing tired of your drab jail cell?"
"You're here to finally kill me, aren't you?" asked Wellington. "I can see it in your eyes!"
"Nonsense!" Zoey told him with a gleam in her eyes. "I've finally come here to set you free!"
"I can see it in your eyes," Wellington told her. "That magical artifact and the warlock have made you unhinged!"
Zoey calmly opened up the door and strolled over towards Vincent Wellington.
"Mr. Wellington, I would like to personally thank you for all your years of service and all the great things you've done for Project Chronos," she told him.
With that, she grabbed Vincent Wellington and embraced him in a kiss. As she locked lips with him, the hourglass glowed and surrounded Wellington with a red leaper's aura, transporting him back in time.
Zoey let go finally and backed away as the red leaper's aura finally faded, revealing a different man standing in Vincent Wellington's place.
"What is this?" the man demanded. "Who are you?!"
He stared at Zoey in utter disbelief, his eyes revealing the composure and disposition of an utterly stone cold killer.
"Welcome to the future, Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald," Zoey greeted with a warm smile.
At once, Lee Harvey Oswald reached for his gun. However, with a wave of her hand, Zoey froze him in place, leaving nothing but his baleful eyes moving.
"You're not with them, are you?" demanded Oswald, his mouth being the only feature on his body that wasn't frozen.
"You mean Project Quantum Leap?" Zoey scoffed. "Fortunately no… but I do know that you've crossed paths with them in the past. In fact, I would like to offer you the chance for revenge."
"Revenge?" Oswald's lips twisted into a smile. "I'm listening."
oooo
November 24, 1963.
By the time the leaper's aura had cleared, Vincent Wellington found himself being escorted by several policemen and a throng of other people.
"What the—" Wellington stared ahead.
In front of him was an armored car. It appeared that he was a prisoner being taken somewhere for federal custody.
"Where are you taking me?" Wellington demanded.
"Save it, Oswald!" the policeman next to him stated gruffly.
"Oswald?" Wellington murmured to himself.
From out of the crowd, a man in a dark suit and hat stepped out.
As Wellington turned around, he noted with great alarm that the man was holding a revolver in his hand.
Vincent Wellington tried to shout but before he could, the assassin fired a shot into his abdomen, fatally wounding the former head of Project Chronos. As Wellington crumpled to the floor, the police immediately subdued his assassin.
Quickly, the police moved to collect the man's ID.
"Jack Ruby, huh?" the police officer held down the assailant.
"You killed the President, you rat!" Jack Ruby shouted as blood began to flow from Wellington's body.
Vincent Wellington looked up into the sky as his vision grew dimmer. After all his life's hard work, it was coming down to this? In bitterness, he clutched his wounded side, a part of him refusing to accept the fact that he was dying. In all this time, he never thought he would have fallen victim to the wiles of time travel itself.
"Can't… believe this," Wellington cursed, watching the blood flow from his abdomen.
Soon, darkness began to close in on him. But to everybody else in the crowd, they did not see Vincent Wellington dying. All they saw was the wounded body of Lee Harvey Oswald slowly fading away. The leaper's aura surrounding him made sure that even though he was soon to be a corpse, his appearance from his hair all the way to his dentures looked exactly like that of the infamous Mr. Oswald.
This time, the leaper's aura that Zoey had cast upon him made sure he would maintain the appearance of Oswald's corpse even after his death.
oooo
478 AD.
"Thank you very much for your hospitality," Al Calavicci said to Nevena after they were done with their meal.
"Thou art very gracious indeed," Nevena noted.
"Hey, I still have two drumsticks left," Al noted, picking one up with his utensils and giving it to Sanctus.
"Thanks to thee!" Sanctus said to his new friend.
"Oh, and one more for you," Al took one final drumstick and placed it on Sabina's plate.
In return, Sabina smiled cheerfully at him.
"I have been working upon a magical item which may aid thee in returning home," Nevena said to Al and Alia.
"The time staff," Alia told Al.
Al froze in fear.
"The what now?" he asked.
"The time staff," Alia repeated, confused at Al's sudden trepidation. "Nevena has been working to unravel the secrets of time and space."
"Something is troubling thee," Nevena realized.
"I come from the future and… there's this dark sorcerer," Al admitted to the Celtic witch. "Somehow he got a hold of your time staff and twisted it for his own uses. It's how I was sent back here in the first place."
Nevena's face looked troubled at the revelation.
"What kind of sorcerer is he?" she asked.
"I don't know," Al admitted. "But he's one nasty piece of work."
"So in the future my time staff will fall into the wrong hands," Nevena looked down.
"Nevena?" asked Alia.
"Perhaps… after I send the two of thee back, something will have to be done about the time staff," Nevena looked up at the future time travelers. "If what thou says is true and my staff falls into the wrong hands, I will have to prevent it somehow."
She looked down at Sabina and Sanctus.
"But even so, my children deserve to have their father back," Nevena looked forlorn.
"You won't destroy it, will you?" asked Alia. "All this time you've been wanting to use it to bring back Regulus."
"Perhaps I will have no choice but to destroy it after I bring Regulus back," Nevena said a bit more resolutely. "After all, interfering with the fabric of time too much can yield disastrous consequences."
"Maybe when we do that, we can prevent that time mage from coming about!" Al's face brightened.
"Be ready for tomorrow then," Nevena told the two of them. "We head to the standing stones to perform the ritual."
Outside of the home, unbeknownst to the five people inside, there was a stranger standing very close to the wooden door, listening in on the entire conversation.
Sabert smiled as he held his crossbow in the air. All this time he had been trailing Al and Alia until they finally reached Nevena's place. Thanks to his skills as both a hunter and a tracker, he had avoided detection from the two the entire journey in spite of his own injured arm.
"Wulfsige will want to hear of this," Sabert whispered.
Without another word, Sabert left the scene, making his way over the stone walls and back into the forests.
oooo
Present Day.
"What is the meaning of this?" Kairos demanded.
The time mage stood there angrily deep in the dungeons with several of the soldiers. They were in a lower chamber of the dungeon where a round center of the room connected to seven prison cells surrounding the center like planets orbiting the sun.
Right in front of him were Zoey and Lee Harvey Oswald himself.
"What hast thou done?" Kairos pointed his finger at Lee Harvey Oswald.
"Well since I figured Vincent would no longer be doing us any good, I'd pave the way for his successor," Zoey answered matter-of-factly.
"Thou hast disposed of Wellington without mine permission," Kairos raged. "And thou hast also tampered with time by bringing an interloper from a different time period into this modern age!"
"I could argue the same for you," Zoey said to Kairos. "You don't belong in this time era anymore than the infamous Mr. Oswald does."
The whole time Lee Harvey Oswald could only stare at the two in wonderment.
"Thou hast tried my patience far too many times," Kairos raised a hand.
At once the necklace around her neck carrying the hourglass shrank and wrapped itself around Zoey's neck like an assassin's wire, strangling the life out of her slowly.
"K-Kairos!" Zoey rasped.
"Thy pleas will do thee no good!" Kairos growled.
Soon, Oswald forgot about all his fears as a new emotion overtook him. He saw several soldiers taking a familiar man out. It was none other than Sam Beckett of Project Quantum Leap. Sam's face was a face he recognized from the waiting room when he and Dr. Beckett switched places.
"You!" shouted Oswald.
Sam barely raised his head up in time as Oswald rushed towards him, knocking the guards aside and punching Sam with enough force to send him crashing against the wall.
Ruthlessly, Oswald punched Sam in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him. As soon as Sam had fallen on both knees, Oswald kicked Sam in the ribs repeatedly until the soldiers grabbed him and dragged him away.
"You ruined everything!" screamed Oswald. "You ruined the revolution! You took my life away from me!"
Finally, Kairos stopped his magical stranglehold on Zoey and allowed the necklace to loosen itself from her neck. The level of brutality Oswald had shown towards Sam Beckett was strangely appealing to him.
"Perhaps I had misjudged thy actions," Kairos told her. "This man may make a good enforcer for us yet."
Seething, Zoey glared at Kairos for what he had done to her. Inwardly, she was furious at having been treated that way.
"You!" Sam looked up in shock at Oswald. "It can't be. You died!"
"They were both supposed to die!" Oswald declared. "Kennedy and that bitch he calls a wife! Then the proletariats would overrun this festering capitalist society!"
Without warning, Oswald elbowed a guard in the face while grabbing his gun at the same time and yanking it out. The assassin pointed the gun at Sam but just as he blinked, the gun went missing from his hands.
To the side was Kairos with the gun in his hand. Having frozen time, he moved fast enough to be a blur and took the gun from Oswald's hands like it was nothing.
"I assure thee, Sam Beckett shall meet his end," Kairos promised.
"Then why not let me pull the trigger?" demanded Lee Harvey Oswald.
"Because," Kairos answered, "why deprive Dr. Beckett of the suffering he has so rightfully earned?"
At hearing that, a sinister smile crossed the face of the infamous Lee Harvey Oswald.
oooo
478 AD.
After crossing the moat, Sabert entered into the dining halls of the fortress he and his fellow Saxons had erected.
He walked past several guards who were sleeping on their duty. Normally he would have reprimanded them for that but for the moment, he wished to speak with the leader even more.
Several dogs began barking at him but he ignored them. Sabert opened up the doors of the dining halls and entered. Inside were multiple Saxon warriors, feasting and drinking.
At the far end of the table was a man dressed in both armor and wolfskin. He was a powerfully built man with long gray hair and an eyepatch.
As soon as Sabert came in view of the Saxon warlord, he knelt down and bowed.
"Lord Wulfsige," Sabert acknowledged.
"What do you want, Sabert?" asked the Saxon warlord brusquely. "Were you not my nephew, I would have you impaled for interrupting me at this time."
"I bring you news of a Celtic farm I had discovered," Sabert told his uncle, Wolfsige. "They are housing a man and a woman who managed to slay some of our warriors recently."
"Then they will pay," promised Wulfsige. "But not at this moment. Tomorrow we are preparing to besiege a Roman settlement that has reneged on its payments."
"I overheard some of the conversations in there," Sabert informed the Saxon warlord. "The woman who possesses that property is the widow of Regulus."
At once, Wulfsige's interest was piqued.
"Regulus, you say?" Wulfsige smiled. "I remember personally cutting him down. I was unaware he had a family."
"From what I overheard, she has two children," Sabert went on. "Once they come of age, it is only natural they would try to seek you out for revenge. Why leave any loose ends?"
"Very well then," Wulfsige got up. "The siege will have to wait. Tomorrow I wish to pay my condolences to a grieving widow and her lovely children!"
Author's Note: This is just me taking a bit of artistic license/liberties but in my particular story, the Saxons will be speaking in a far more coarse and rough way without any Old English terms or phrases to put more emphasis on them being barbarian warriors.