Chapter 9: Temporal Re-Connection
Jupiter Knight and Doc followed the King and Rini as they entered a corridor that led to a control room of some sort. Neo-Queen Serenity adjourned to the throne room leaving the others to focus on the situation. Guards were placed at every access point. The King walked to the crystal-themed control panel and began speaking to someone that was also at the panel. She had short blue hair and was wearing a blue and aquamarine skirt and sailor bib over a white leotard. She took notice of the king and gave a status report, "The timelines are starting to fluctuate again. Has the next part of the plan started?"
"In progress," the King stated as he began accessing the computer system, "Guardian Mercury, we have guests." The woman at the panel stood straight in surprise then turned on the heels of her blue knee-high boots to look at the Knight standing at the back of the room with the old white-haired man. She looked bewildered at first, speaking softly to herself, "Jupiter Knight?" The Knight walked closer and stepped into the light of the room. The blonde hair was a near dead giveaway as she spoke louder, "Jupiter Knight?!"
He nodded.
A look of abject joy came across her face as she screamed out, "Dan!" She ran toward him and wrapped her long-gloved arms around him and hugged him. The Knight laughed a bit as he returned the hug, "It's good to see you too, Amy." He heard two more women's voices call out his name. A blonde-haired woman in orange and blue and a raven-haired woman in red and violet came rushing at him. He let go of Guardian Mercury and backed up a bit, "Woah! Wait!" The two of them tackled the man to the ground. Guardian Mercury giggled as Guardian Venus and Guardian Mars enthusiastically greeted their old friend. The Knight groaned, "Mina, Raye, I'm glad to see ya but the palace guards just kicked my ass. Go easy on me!"
Guardian Mars backed away a bit to kneel beside him, "I'm sorry, it's just we haven't seen you in so long!" Doc walked up to their position and looked down at the two girls, "I'm sure my friend here would have appreciated you greeting him with less inertia." Guardian Venus stood up and backed away as Doc and Guardian Mars helped the Knight up, putting her hand to the back of her head in embarrassment, "Sorry, Dan! I guess we got a bit carried away!" The Knight quipped, "The only one that just got carried away was me - from my feet to the floor."
Guardian Mercury giggled again, "Yep, he's Dan alright!" Guardian Venus agreed, "Yeah, he still has that Ghostbuster sense of humor." The Knight looked among the women in his presence and noticed someone missing, "Where's Lita?" Almost as quickly as the joy came across their faces it left. The Sailor Guardians became guarded in their demeanor. He noticed immediately, "What?" The three of them started looking at each other, a silent conversation taking place. It alarmed the Knight, "Is she okay? What happened?"
Guardian Mars stepped forward, "She's okay, but…" She quickly averted her eyes as stress echoed through her voice as she spoke, "It took a few years, but she had been helping us ensure your arrival to the point in time you're currently from." That wasn't very clear, shown on Jupiter Knight's face. All his face did was make the Guardian become more stressed, "Dan, she missed you badly. She had to go back to convince you to go back to New York." "'Go back'?" he asked, "What in the hell are you talking about?"
The King turned from the control panel and joined in the conversation, "The only thing that can travel back and forth through the corridor of time in realtime is energy. Specifically, high bandwidth radio and data transmissions."
The Knight looked at the King blankly, "…That's nice."
The King sighed, "What I mean is, the fastest way to better convince you without completely interrupting time was to send a hologram back in time to convince you of something. It had to be subtle, but it was effective nonetheless." He took a moment to think of the King's words, clearly trying to tell him something. What would a hologram have to do with Lita? The only thing that drove him to even think of Lita - when he looked out of the corner of his eyes - was an image of her near…
It just hit him.
"Hold on!" he yelled, "You're saying it wasn't my imagination or me hallucinating?" The Guardians fell silent again as even the King looked ashamed of what he did. The Knight was furious, "You mean you made Lita…" "We didn't mean it to hurt you, Dan!" Guardian Venus said as she tried to calm him down, "Guardian Jupiter missed you, too. This was one of the few ways she could, and…" "You mean she wasn't just some computer generated thing?" the Knight asked, "That was…" All of them nodded with hesitation. He looked to the King for an explanation, "We used an imaging system that recreated the world in your time for her to interact with while allowing you to see her in your time. It allowed us to…" he was about to say it but hesitated to find another word, but it was futile, "…push you to wanting to talk to Lita and come back as a Ghostbuster. She had to appear at strategic places and times to motivate you." Jupiter Knight squared his jaw and gritted his teeth as he closed his eyes. He was clearly angry at what he just heard.
He felt a hand grab his. He looked to his side and saw Rini holding his hand, "I know this is hurting you, but it wasn't meant to. Guardian Jupiter - Lita - was hurting after she saw you in the past. That's why she isn't here right now." "She's right," Guardian Venus said as she approached the Knight, "It was just as hard for her as it is for you hearing she had to do it. For the last year she's been breaking down and…" "She needs closure," Guardian Mars chimed in. Jupiter Knight looked at all of them making all of them nod in agreement. He could see that it was a two way exchange. He started to think of what it had to feel like - especially after he kept hearing that he was dead from the guards - for her to see him again. He had to know, "Where is she?"
It was a dark set of chambers. It was a large space made of crystal with a sprawling bed and several pieces of furniture. At the end of the bed was a hope chest. Sitting on the chest was a woman with brown hair in a ponytail wearing green and pink. The sounds of soft whimpers and crying could be heard as the woman was hunched over holding onto a piece of cloth that looked like it had dress buttons on it. Her white-gloved hands clenched the fabric with tenacity as she was very distraught. Guardian Jupiter had been in this state for some time. She looked at the fabric with her green eyes, again seeing it was as green as her eyes. She remembered the night he finally returned.
A knock came at the door. She looked to the sound as she started to stand from the chest, "W-who is it?" "It's Rini! Can I come in?" Her eyes went wide then went to the chest and opened it to put the cloth inside of it as she called out, "Hold on! Just a minute!" She closed the chest and turned away from the door as she stood, clearing her tears from her eyes, "Come in."
The door opened, the light from the hallway shining in showing the outline of the teenage girl in the doorway, "Jupiter? Are you okay?" The Guardian of Lightning turned and cleared her voice before speaking, "I-I'm okay, Small Lady. How can I help you?"
"There's someone I wanted you to meet!"
"Oh?" Guardian Jupiter said as she put her hands on her hips, composing herself, "You met a new friend today?" She could see Rini nodding in the silhouette before she spoke again, "He's a new friend to me, but you know him…" A look of confusion came over her face before another person walked into the doorframe. It was clearly a man. He was tall and wearing a long coat. He walked into the room a short distance before stopping short. At first she was timid. It was uncommon for her to be so, but since it was a friend of Rini's she was just generally unsure.
Until he spoke, "Lita?"
That voice. She knew that voice, "Dan?" He nodded. She watched as her eyes started to glass over again, choking up as she spoke, "Dan!" She rushed at him and wrapped her arms around him, him doing so in kind. They kissed before breaking with Guardian Jupiter starting to break down into tears again, "Dan, I missed you so much! I thought I would never see you again!" She put her head on his armor chest plate and held onto him, "I lost you so long ago…" "It's been a long five years for me, too. I'm just glad…" Guardian Jupiter's eyes shot wide open as he said that. She pulled away from him and looked up to only still see the shadow of his face.
Physically turning him so the light from the doorway shined onto Jupiter Knight's face she looked at him in surprise, "Y…You're young?" Jupiter Knight had an expression of confusion on his face as he looked at his lover, "Young? You don't look like you're a day over 18; why are you so surprised?" Guardian Jupiter looked to Rini and asked her, "When is he from?" He knew something was wrong when she stopped looking overjoyed and began looking alarmed to the young princess with pink hair. Rini froze up a moment before looking to the floor in shame, "September 2000. It was time to…"
Guardian Jupiter growled at the teenager, "I told the King not to bring him here! Why…?" "You know why!" the girl stated, interrupting her. The look of pain worsened on the Guardian's face as now she was angry. She released the Knight and walked further into her bedchambers, back turned and arms crossed. Rini waved her hand and illuminated the room allowing the Knight to see his girlfriend guarded and cold. After a moment of silence he spoke to the teenager softly, "You might wanna leave us for a little while, kiddo. I think we have some things to sort out." That statement was delivered with a very somber face to the teenager in the room. Rini nodded and turned to walk out. She stopped at the door and looked back one last time as Jupiter Knight placed his hands on his princess's shoulders from behind with her lowering her head in pain. She stepped out leaving the Guardian and her Knight alone.
Back in the control room Doc was watching enamored at all of the computer images being generated on the crystal faces. Guardian Mercury was giving him a bird's eye view of the city as the ripples took effect. He watched as the destruction temporarily disappeared, but was soon returned to the dead city that surrounded the palace. He looked on in fascinated consternation, "Unbelievable! It seems to change with each temporal wave! How are we not affected inside the palace?" "The Imperium Silver Crystal is currently holding the palace in a type of time stasis," Guardian Mercury explained as she switched views, "The power of the crystal can only hold for so long before it succumbs to the power of the universe itself." "You mean," the scientist surmised, "total temporal collapse?" The Guardian nodded. Doc rubbed his forehead a moment, "Paradoxes are the least of our worries, I guess."
"They're still important to monitor," the King stated as he walked beside Guardian of Ice, "and there's something that needs to be done to restore history, especially in your circumstance."
"My circumstance?" Doc asked.
"There was a reason you were summoned here with Jupiter Knight. When we realized the two of you were going to come together in a new timeline of our making, we had to seize the opportunity to correct several things at once. The speed of travel in your time machine is more efficient than the time corridor." Doc was shaken by that. The amount of control that was placed over both him and the Ghostbuster-turned-soldier was one that made him resentful. Now he understood why Dan was angry, but he attempted to take the personal slight out of the situation. He grabbed the bridge of his nose as he mumbled to himself, "My God, I never thought things would come to this."
"Neither did we, Dr. Brown," Guardian Mercury said sympathetically, "but we're running out of options." "We need to supply you with a set of devices," the King said as he approached, "each being programmed to blank certain sections of the mind and lock certain memories…" Doc's eyes suddenly went wide as he became enraged, "Wipe people's memories?! Are you absolutely without ethics?!" He yelled as he started to pace the control room, "The human mind is not something to toy with! It was already wrong of me to change the course of history by meddling in time, but you want me to change someone's memories?!" Guardian Mercury and the King looked at each other knowing this was a difficult request to make of someone.
The Guardian spoke softly to try to make the Scientist understand, "Doctor, we understand what it means, but like we said, we're running out of options. After all, how are you going to prevent this Biff Tannen from knowing your friend Marty was responsible for the upending of his life?" Doc stopped pacing, back turned to the both of them. They watched as Doc put his hands on his hips and lowered his head. They could hear the stress escape with his sigh. It was the part of the plan he wasn't sure how to deal with. Guardian Mercury approached him and put her hand on his shoulder, reaching up to do so because of his tall frame, "I know this isn't something you want to do, but to properly restore time and not risk any more lives it's the only way."
"Never did I think I would violate my own principles so many times," the older man lamented, "but it can't be helped, I guess."
The King also approached the man's side, "The trouble is you'll have to do the nullification not only with Tannen." Doc snapped his head around and looked at the King, "You'll have to do it with Sir Daniel as well. That's what the second device will be used for."
"Sir Daniel… Dan?" Doc started again…
"Please, Dr. Brown," the Guardian pleaded with him, "there's a reason." "Correct," the King said, "Sir Daniel's memories were always scattered, since the day we originally met in this life at Starlight Tower in Tokyo. At the time, I was injured and dying after he accidently trapped not only a demon possessing me, but part of my own life force energy. It was an accident. For years we both thought it was because of my lack of strength that failed to unlock everything. It was believed that if I didn't unlock all of the memories, they were forever lost. We learned I was wrong, and that this moment in time was responsible."
Doc was still not understanding. The idea of unlocking memories, locking memories… magic in general… it felt like something from a fantasy Disney story to the point it made his head hurt. A Jules Vern story this situation was not, "Then, how do these devices correct the situation?"
"When it comes to Sir Daniel," the King produced two different crystal spheres in his hands, "we saw enough ahead to see the things he learned in this place were going to make him stray from the proper path. We needed a way for the Ghostbusters to communicate with us and your Flux Capacitor device was the most viable way. The trouble was getting to you."
"You mean," he was starting to get it, "in order to get in contact with you to get the exact time they needed help, you needed to tell me to build a new Flux Capacitor and help him do so?" The King and Guardian Mercury nodded, the King adding, "History doesn't have the exact date of the disaster, and with the changes in this wave of time it makes it near impossible to narrow the scope of the date. We needed to have them call us in order to know when to send help." Doc took another logical deduction, "And this device," he pointed to one of the two crystals, "will erase his memory?" "No," the King corrected, "the crystal for Tannen will erase memory; the one for Sir Daniel will simply lock it for a time."
"They look the same. How will I know the difference?" "I had anticipated that," the man in the white tuxedo stated, "If I may have the sleep generator in your pocket?" Doc's eyes bugged for a moment as he took a half-step back. He wasn't sure how this man knew, but he did. He reached into his cargo pants pocket and produced the Sleep Generator he used on Jennifer when he, Marty, and her visited 2015. He looked down into his own hand at the device as the King explained, "Your original plan was to knock Tannen out with the sleep inducer and take him back to 1985 where he belonged. Problem was, he ended up knocked out from the retrieved Ectoplasmic Destabilizer pistol and he still knew Marty and you had ruined his life. Unable to find you, he thus killed Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker."
Doc's heart skipped a beat, "What?!"
Guardian Mercury delivered the last of the explanation, "You see, the reason why the timelines are frayed this far into the future is because… well…"
"You've done this several times!" the scientist hollered as he became animated, "Of all the irresponsible…" "Dr. Brown," the Guardian attempted to get him under control, walking beside him as she spoke to him, "this is the last phase of the alterations to time to benefit all of us! There's a high possibility the world would be saved, but only if you cooperate!" Doc stopped and looked to the blue-haired woman to his side as she spoke in a more hushed voice, "This is what you wanted to do with your time machines: To gain a clearer perception of humanity." Doc heard his own words spoken to him. He saw the young woman's eyes start to glass over as she saw the expression on his face change. He knew exactly what she was trying to say, a reminder to what he believed when he created the time machines. The world was on the verge of collapse and the alterations that had to be made had to be drastic.
She spoke even more softly, above a whisper, "We believed what you and Dr. Spengler were doing. Without that, we would have been lost long ago."
The King approached behind him and spoke frankly, "Dr. Brown: the sleeping device." Doc turned and found the King's hand outreached for the sleep inducer. Once again he looked at the device he pulled from his pocket and proceeded to hand it to the man before him. Taking the crystal sphere in one hand and the sleep inducer in the other, both devices started to glow in the man's hands. After a moment and a flash of light the sphere disappeared and another sleep device was in its place. He walked toward the scientist and handed him the altered crystal device, "You can dismantle this device and attach it to the vehicular display goggles linked to your DeLorean. It will clear anywhere close to three days worth of memory once activated."
Doc looked at the device. He was uneasy. After another moment, the King produced the second crystal, "For this one, all you have to do is have it with you when you break the temporal barrier. It'll activate the moment your Flux Capacitor is triggered." Doc looked at the crystal and took hold of it with hesitation. He looked at the strange crystal as the King gave one last instruction, "When the time comes, you'll have to deliver the crystal back to the Ghostbusters along with the Flux Capacitor. It will happen when my younger self is present. He'll know what to do from there. We're counting on you, Doctor." He looked back to the two people before him. He looked uncomfortable.
Jupiter Knight had his arms around his Princess. Even though she was upset at his presence, she wasn't upset at him. She stroked his arms as he stood behind her holding her. The feel of the fabric of his coat; the hard armor underneath. It was like something from a dream, but she also felt like a nightmare was about to start. She spoke with a broken voice, "You don't know how this makes me feel, Dan. I missed you so much, but…" she couldn't say more. All she could do was put her head against the arm she was holding. The Knight was noticing after she realized how old he was she refused to look him in the face. He spoke softly, "Why can't you look at me, Lita? What happened to me?"
She pulled away from him and kept her back to him, her arms crossing coldly again. He could feel there was pain in her heart, especially when she spoke, "It's like you're back from the dead. It took me so long to forget you and hide the pain away," she turned to face him, "You were with me for so long; by my side ready to serve and care for me. I watched as you aged and became wiser, but physically weaker. Still, you stayed with me. That was until you grew so old you…" she started to clear tears from her eyes again. The Knight was confused at what she was saying, "Wait a second," he asked, "Are you saying I'm gonna grow old?" "The power that all of us Guardians possess, you only have the defensive and offensive powers," she said again in her broken voice, "The Knights could only fight. You were nothing more than regular humans from Earth."
"You mean…?"
"I have the power to stay young for a very long time," she choked out, "the Solar Knights don't." It was becoming more and more difficult for her to talk. He became upset, "Let me guess: I got so old you rejected me?" The pain on her face intensified as she took a step back a moment, gasping at the accusation, "No! No, it wasn't that! Dan, I loved you no matter how old you became! It was… It was you rejecting me."
"What?!"
"I don't hold it against you," she explained as he started to look upset more, "You aged and felt like you were taking advantage of me. Here I was, never getting older. You felt like you were some kind of creep for still being in love with me. You didn't do it because you grew tired of me or hated me; you started to hate yourself for it."
"What happened to the other Knights?" She was not ready for that question. It was clear he wanted to know what happened to him, but she also knew the Queen had mentioned the two Knights. The Knight asked to drive the conversation away from a painful topic for him; he knew immediately why he would do that. She sighed, "Venus Knight was killed shortly after he was discovered as a Knight. His brother and his nephew had a horrible fight and it caused his nephew to join the enemy side. He also lost someone he cared about and it caused him to become suicidal. Mercury Knight lived for a long time after the emergence, but in a desperate attempt to stop one of the beasts he performed a sacrificial move that…"
"Froze the Earth." The Knight knew of the disaster that caused the current world to be what it was; Lita told him what she saw when fighting Nemesis. It was clear Mercury Knight's power caused a massive frigid wave that kept everyone asleep for a thousand years. Guardian Jupiter nodded, the pain on her face turning to sorrow. It was too much too fast. There were a few last things he needed to know, "Why is Garrett missing? Why did you have to motivate me back to New York?"
Guardian Jupiter put a hand on her upper arm and bit her lower lip as she tried to think of a way to explain it. She only had one answer to give, "We saw what happened when you learned there were other Ghostbusters. The moment you found out, you became enraged Egon didn't try to get ahold of you. You had just lost your job the month before. You saw it was an opportunity to go back, but then you wondered why you didn't get a call from Egon. You felt you didn't matter to him, remembering what he did when you were here last. You had been under a lot of stress. Your brother was insulting you and treating you badly; like an idiot. You went back to work at a vacuum cleaner shop in your hometown. You were so depressed and angry. After you stopped getting my letters you fell into a deep-seeded anger that I've never seen in anyone before. Your mom was mad at you; your brother thought you were crazy; you felt so alone."
Jupiter Knight was starting to calm down when he found out what could have happened. He realized the changes in time were threatening the world, but it was because of what the natural outcome was going to be that doomed it worse. The Kingdom was taking the risk of nearly destabilizing the space-time continuum just to make a better world, and he was at the center of it. What he lost in anger he gained in stress. He stated what sounded obvious, "But I did come back."
She nodded as she continued, "Right. In another timeline a ghost named Tempus split into two different points in time and began the beginnings of the Ghost Wars. He managed to destabilize your containment unit and released the ghosts in one timeline. We're not entirely sure what happened to that timeline, but there was something that didn't exist in that line that it did in another. We noticed one other man in the firehouse in a wheelchair, but somehow…"
"Garrett!" he shouted, "I read the caselogs when I came back and learned that the kid that switched places with Kylie had no idea who Garrett was! Kylie, Roland, and Eduardo were revered in the Ghost Wars that happened, but no one remembered him! That might be why Serena didn't know his name! Something must have crossed over and contaminated the timelines outside of you."
Guardian Jupiter never understood how her Knight's mind worked. It always found really unusual connections that managed to yield results. She didn't quite see what he was seeing, but she encouraged it, "T-That's possible. Is this 'Garrett' a friend of yours?" "No," he said as he rolled his eyes, "he hates my guts." Her eyes widened, "Then he might be the Knight of Mars!" He recoiled in confusion at that as she started walking toward the door to her bedchambers, "We may have to…" The Knight grabbed her arm and stopped her, "Wait!" he pulled her toward him, "What about me?!" He saw it in her eyes. She tried to use the revelation to avoid the rest of the story. It was painful but she knew she couldn't pull a fast one on him, either.
The Guardian gathered herself. She gave him the look of pain as she bit her lip, same as before. The Knight turned her loose as she finished the tale, "When the Order of Asatro started to shatter the world, the Scouts hadn't fought evil for a long time. When Guardian Mercury - Amy - scanned the monsters long enough she found they were Negaverse monsters." "Order of Asatro?"
"A cult. They thought this flute they were using was Norse or something. When Mercury scanned the planet we found the largest amount of these things were in New York. Amy contacted Egon and offered to help. He told us it wasn't the first time this flute was used. Dan," she started to look distraught, "we needed the Knights. We found out you never came back, but we found Roland and Eduardo. Eduardo didn't survive after they turned his nephew against him and killed Kylie." The Knight was surprised at that, "Kylie?! She was the one that he… Holy shit!" She nodded, "I thought to you; I thought to you as hard as I could. I had to reach you. We needed you," she was having difficulty continuing the story, but she tried her hardest, "You and Roland were all that was left. Egon stayed with us and acted as a paranormal advisor with Mars and Mercury until he died. The real culprit behind the cult continued the war after releasing the Negaforce. It continued on for years until Sir Roland used a sacrificial move that froze everything."
"And me?" It was the worst part. She put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, turning away. It was hard to recall these things. She looked to him apologetically, "You survived the freezing. The Queen revived the Earth. You lived several more years, standing beside me through it all. When the Negamoon Nemesis attacked after the Silver Crystal went missing, you tried to counter the attack on Earth, to give the Guardians time to protect the Queen and the Palace; you sacrificed yourself again for us. You were so weak. Your body was so frail going in. After casting the Queen in quartz we ran out to find you. Mars found you in the courtyard. I held onto you until the end. The last thought you had was that night in Starlight Tower, when we first kissed. I watched as the image faded in my mind, and… and…" She finally broke down crying.
Jupiter Knight pulled her in and held onto her. She grabbed a hold of his coat and sobbed heavily. After a few moments of feeling her pain he could only say one thing, "I'm so sorry, Lita. I wish you were never put through that." After a few whimpers he heard her speech turn harsh, trying to fight the sadness to talk, "I'm not going to," she looked up to him, her eyes red from the crying, her face wet with tears. She spoke like the hard leader she was as she straightened herself up, "When the time comes and this crisis is over, you're going to do something. This isn't a request; I'm not politely asking as your girlfriend; as your princess, I am ordering you to do this one task…"