Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 21st March 2022

"Your planet must be so incredible," Eli said to the alien princess standing beside him.

Aja smiled. "It is. But Earth has its own wonders, too. You should not discount it just because it is not as technologically advanced."

Eli sighed, looking back at the floor. Even that looked high-tech, shiny and black with nearly invisible lines of what he assumed were circuitry running through it, visible like onyx shot through with silver. "Maybe. But it sucks growing up here as someone who's different."

"Oh, Eli." Aja laughed and put an arm around his shoulder. "Believe me, I am well acquainted with not fitting in. I spent most of my life running away from the palace because I did not feel like it was where I belonged."

"And then?" Eli hated that his voice cracked.

Her hug tightened. "And then, I found that my people were worth fighting for. And that my core's desire-who I was-was not so unsuited to royal life after all."

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen to me."

Aja smiled. "I think it already is, Eli of the Pepperjacks. Do you not have friends now? Who listen and see you? Do you not have something you find worth fighting for?"

"I mean, I guess?" Reflexively, he ran his hand through his hair. "I mean, it's nice not to be stuffed into lockers every day. And learning about magic, and, well, Akiridions is really cool and all..."

"But...?"

"But I don't really feel like anyone really needs me for anything," Eli said. "I mean, I don't have magic like Douxie and Mary and Claire. I'm not a good fighter like Jim and Toby and Steve..."

Aja laughed. It sounded almost like a bell ringing. "Do not worry, Eli. You will find your place among us. You have done it before, and you will do it again."

"I did?" Eli couldn't help the hope welling up inside himself.

"Indeed. You were instrumental in helping Akiridion-5 recover from General Morando's destruction. And," Aja told him like she was imparting a secret, "you are a most brilliant designer of Gun Robots."

Eli's eyes felt like they were wide as saucers. "I did? I was. Wow..."

Aja patted his back kindly. "You are not the least among us, Eli. I have learned about your Earth history, and about the 'round table' of Camelot, where all were equals. Trust me," she said, her black-blue eyes close in front of him. "You are fully our equal."

Eli looked into her fathomless eyes and his breath caught. He swallowed. And for the first time in his life, he screwed up the courage to talk to a girl. "You know," he said breathlessly, "you're really pretty."

Toby lay flat on the blessed cool stone of the Forge, his heart pounding loud in his ears. "Do you ever think," he finally said, once he could breathe without it catching in his chest, "that there's got to be more to life than training, training, training?"

Draal, seated not far away and idly turning over and over a bit of quartzite in his hand, laughed. "I did not used to think so," he said. "Though I will admit lately my feelings on the matter have been changing."

Toby levered himself up on one aching arm. "Oh?"

"Nomura has seen fit to accept my courting gift," Draal admitted. He caught Toby's gaze, smiling.

Toby's eyes widened in delight. "Awesome, buddy! Well, I mean, she terrifies me, but if that's what you're into, I'm happy for ya!" Then he collapsed back flat again. "In the words of somebody else, 'everything hurts'."

"You are getting stronger," Draal said mildly.

"Stronger but no thinner," Toby retorted. "And I'm eating more than ever." He poked idly at his armored midsection. "Maybe it's time to accept that I'll never be a skinny beans like Jimbo. I'm going to be a tank. My whole life."

"A... receptacle for holding water?" Draal asked, sounding puzzled.

Toby laughed. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? Nah, tanks are this big armored mobile weapon. Like a giant gun stuck on an armored car, right? And they're called tanks because when people started making them, they had to come up with an excuse for needing all these big sheets of metal, so they let it leak they were building tanks to catch rainfall instead of, y'know, armored weapons."

"Fascinating."

"Yeah, turns out history class isn't all that boring sometimes, even if Jim's more into it than me."

"Being a tank," Draal said thoughtfully, "sounds like no bad thing to me. To be big, and strong, armored and powerful..." He left the words hanging in the air before concluding, "Trollish."

"Huh. Yeah." Toby gazed up at the distant ceiling of the Hero's Forge, thinking. He wasn't going to actually be a troll, the way Jim had the option to, and, frankly, he wasn't entirely sure he'd want to be, given how the thought of enjoying eating sweaty gym socks made him shudder, but...

...But in some ways, he felt like he understood trolls better than Jim had. Jim just wasn't interested in the geology and mineralogy that were a troll's bread and butter. Toby was. They were the simple, solid, literal people of the Earth, and... well, honestly? Toby was never going to succeed in climbing the social ladder of high school.

But Trollmarket, and all the people in it, made him feel like he mattered. They always had, even before he'd been the Trollhunter.

This was where he belonged.

Sighing at the epiphany, Toby let his body relax back into the stone, becoming one with it.

Which was when the Soothscryer rose from the floor. The gargantuan stone column spun and unlocked each level until at last the carved troll's head atop it stood at its height, facing Toby.

"Well," said Draal, "it looks like someone wants to talk with you."

Toby gulped. "Yeah."

The alien boy, Krel, looked worriedly back at the corridor. "What is happening?"

Zoe snorted. "Douxie's having a panic attack."

"I do not understand. What is a panic attack?"

"It's... what happens when your fear overwhelms the rest of you and you get a nasty chemical cocktail bomb dumped into your brain and body," Henry explained. "I take it your people don't get them?"

Krel shook his head. "Not that I have ever heard of. Of course, biologically, we are quite different from humans." He hesitated. "I have never seen Douxie have a panic attack before."

"Me either," Henry admitted. "I didn't know he got them."

Zoe snorted and poked at the daxial array schematic with a finger. The hologram zoomed in on the bit she touched. "He's always had panic attacks, as long as I've known him. Immortal PTSD's a bitch, and he's been through a lot of shit." She paused, then added, "Haven't seen him have one in years, though."

"You know," Claire said thoughtfully, "it feels like forever since we've been on a real date, just the two of us."

"Huh." Jim considered it, fingers lacing with hers as he leaned back and took in the view. And not the one of the city laid out before them, either. No, the view he was interested in was a good deal prettier, and wore hair clips. "You're right. We've been so busy dealing with everything, it's been a while since it's been us alone."

Claire leaned over and kissed him, her lips soft and smelling of something sweet. "I've missed it being just us." There was a particular light in her eyes...

Jim didn't protest as she bore him down onto the picnic blanket, with delicious, deliberate kisses all the way. "I miss touching you," Claire confessed, her deep brown eyes right above his. "I miss being able to cuddle together at night."

"If we do anything, your parents will kill me and then ship you off to private Catholic school," Jim warned, but he couldn't help smiling up at her. He stroked his thumb across her cheek.

"They don't have to know," Claire sassed back. But she relented and shifted away. Only to lie down next to him, heck, half on top of him. "Did you ever read the Narnia books?"

"Mmm. I don't think so?"

Claire sighed, melancholy crossing her face. "In the first one, four children go to a magic kingdom and fight a great battle against an evil witch-"

"Sounds familiar," Jim said with a chuckle.

Claire laughed too. "Yeah, a little," she admitted. "Anyway, they win, and become the kings and queens of the magic country, and spend years there. They grow up, until they can't even really remember that they ever came from anywhere else. But then they stumble through a door back to their own world, and all of a sudden they're kids again, in their old bodies, and the whole thing took less than half an hour of real time."

Jim frowned. "That sucks," he said. "You mean they just lost everything?"

"Mm-hmm." Claire propped herself up on one elbow. "And I know what we've got going is nowhere near as bad as that. I mean, we've only lost two years, not decades. But..." She sighed. "It kind of feels a little bit like that?"

Jim turned it over in his mind. "I can see that, I guess," he admitted. "I mean, you're not emancipated anymore. Your parents still think you're a kid, when you're not."

"Yeah." Claire nodded. "I can't be what they expect me to be, but I don't know how to make them understand that. At least your mom understands."

"I think it helps that I have Douxie under the same roof, confirming things for her."

Claire snorted. "I bet she'd understand we're two years older right up until the point we started having sex again and she found out about it. Then she'd be all 'protection' and 'teenage pregnancy statistics'."

"You say that like she wasn't the first time," Jim muttered.

Claire grinned, smug.

"You managed to avoid The Talk altogether," Jim grumbled. "I'm going to get it twice, just watch."

"Thus is balance maintained," Claire said, gravely and seriously.

Jim looked at her for a second, then shoved his hands into her armpits and started tickling.

"No-Jim-stop!" Claire laughed, rolling and trying to evade him, fruitlessly.

"Not until you take your fair share of The Talk!" he told her, grinning, following, wriggling his fingers furiously.

"Nooo~!" she wailed.

"Yes!"

They ended up heaped together, having rolled onto the dirt and scrubby dried mostly dead grass, both of them breathing heavily. Claire weakly slugged Jim's good shoulder. "Jerk," she accused, but there was no heat behind it.

"Maybe a little," Jim admitted, smiling. "But I made a picnic lunch for you."

"Romantic jerk," Claire corrected herself. "I love you."

"I know." Jim leaned down and kissed her. "And, trust me, it's only because I love you that I'm willing to go through the utter humiliation of having my-mom-the-doctor talk to me about sex again."

"My knight in shining armor," Claire teased. "Literally."

Douxie entered the room so quietly that none of them noticed he was there until Henry was enlarging a part of the holographic subspace manifold, studying it with his hand on his chin. "What did you say this was made out of, again?" Henry asked the air.

"The element is unknown to Earth science-" Mother began, but was cut off by Douxie's soft laugh.

"We're wizards," he informed the AI. "Don't think we're limited by the periodic table most humans use."

Zoe, meanwhile, was poking at her tablet and barely spared him a glance. "Okay, I can maybe source the plutonium for the fuel cell," she announced, "but I gotta know what isotope and what kind of quantity we're talking here."

"Wait, HexTech is dealing in nuclear options?" Henry asked, wide-eyed.

Zoe snorted. "We deal in everything, smith-boy. I'm personally not convinced nuclear power is the wave of the future, but that doesn't stop some of my cohort from believing it."

"Akiridion technology does not require the same precise isotopes as your power plants and primitive weapons," Krel said, taking the tablet from her and looking at the list of options. "In fact, a possibly better idea might be... hmm, yes. I think we can take some of your planet's 'nuclear waste' and substitute it into an appropriate container for a power cell instead."

"That should be functional," Mother concurred with Krel's assessment.

"Hmm." Zoe pursed her lips. "Less easy to get, riskier for the retrieval team, but definitely within the realm of do-ability." She eyed Krel's glowing blue form. "How able to interact with radioactivity are you?"

"Radioactivity? Psssh." Krel waved a negligent hand through the air. "Akiridions are made of energy, we do not have the problems with it that you humans do."

Zoe's expression turned speculative. "In which case, at some future point, my planet might be willing to do some dealings with yours. We've got way too much nuclear waste, and no way to dispose of it."

"I will have to do more research, but a joint radiation containment and energy production endeavor is not out of the realm of possibility," Krel told her.

"Shake on it, princey," Zoe told him, extending her hand.

Krel sealed the deal easily, without hesitation.

"You okay?" Henry murmured to Douxie meanwhile. The elder wizard looked a little paler than usual.

"I'm fine," Douxie said softly in reply. "Thanks for the concern."

"I... always thought you were a rock," Henry confessed. "Nothing's ever seemed to shake you."

Douxie shrugged. "I put on a good front. And, honestly, by now? I can handle most things."

"But not the Arcane Order." Henry shifted his weight back to his good leg, crossing his arms as he looked at Douxie, assessing.

Douxie swallowed and looked away. "You trying being brave in the face of a threat that's killed you, tortured you, and murdered two of your good friends, not to mention your mentor, and let me know how you get on."

Henry's lips drew into a line. "And yet you're not running."

Douxie snorted. "To where? There's literally nowhere I /could/ run from them."

"Well, there is Akiridion-5," Krel put in, frowning and enlarging the fuel cell hologram. "Mother, can we get the construction specs for this, please?"

"Of course, my royal." A screen of blue glowing Akiridion characters sprung up beside the fuel cell.

"Thank you. Anyway, I do not think that the Arcane Order's reach could extend to Akiridion-5, if you truly wished to sit this one out," Krel offered to Douxie.

Who shook his head. "Running just lets the enemy shoot you in the back," he said. "And if I'm not here... well, do you really want to have Merlin as your magical interface?"

Krel pulled a face. "I only encountered him briefly during the last timeline, but that, and the words of our friends, left a lasting impression. No, I do not want to be dealing with the cranky old man."

"Can't blame you there," Zoe groused.

"Zoe," Douxie chided softly.

She pointed a sharp nail at him. "You're still on thin ice, Casperan. Don't push it."

"What did the old man do to you?" asked Krel.

Exasperation crawled across her face. "Ugh. Don't get me started. There's a human phrase that goes 'death by a thousand paper cuts' - ever heard of it?"

Krel shook his head.

"A million microaggressions, centuries ago."

"And she's never let go of one," Douxie agreed. "I love Merlin, but I completely admit he's as elitist as anything, and just barely not as sexist. Though that I lay at the feet of Morgana having been so very good at magery."

"You forgot classist," Zoe added on.

Douxie shrugged. "He did take me on as apprentice," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but only because you've got a stupid amount of magic," Zoe sniped back. "Do you think he'd have ever looked twice at you if you didn't?"

"I do not understand," Krel cut in. "What are 'microaggressions'?"

"Oh, you understand them all right," Douxie told him. "Anyone ever doubt you were as capable as you are, just because they couldn't see beyond what they thought you were?"

"Ahh." Enlightenment showed on Krel. "My father," he said. His face twisted into a frown. "Seamus' father. Colonel Kubritz. Many others."

"Exactly."

Krel looked at Zoe with new respect. "And Merlin subjected you to that?"

"Me and every other hedgewizard he ever came across," Zoe said.

"Ugh."

"You said it, brother."

Steve bounced his basketball against the cement of his driveway, back and forth, one hand to the other, trying to think. The repetitive motion helped calm his brain down, unwound the knots. He wasn't good at thinking. Give him something to do and he was okay. But thinking? Ugh. That was for other people. Brainy people, like Pepperjack, or Nuñez. Geeks.

He could deal with the whole magic thing. Okay, it was a little weird, but so was high school. And it meant that he had more things to hit! Socially approved ones, even. Plus he got a sword, which he totally made look better than Lake or Dumbzalski did. No contest. The Palchuk was the man, man.

And, okay, so some of the others were from the future, which was... well, Steve knew all about time travel. He had totally watched all seven of the Future Warrior movies! They'd only stopped making them because the director had run out of new twists for how time travel worked. Steve had seen the interview, and been deeply disappointed because the romance in Future Warrior 7 had seemed... well, unresolved by the end of the film. He'd wanted Nonya and Grater to get together, dammit!

Huffing with annoyance, he looked at the net hung over the garage door and took a shot. The basketball sailed through the air, hit the backboard, rebounded. Steve loped after it, catching the ball before it hit the street. He dribbled it back across the sidewalk and onto the driveway proper.

Okay. So. Like half the people in on this magic stuff were from the future. Which, he could deal with that. It was only two years, they'd said. So, fine. But then the new kids were also from the future? And from another freaking planet? And one of them said she was his girlfriend?

Oh no no nono no. The Palchuk was way too much man to be tied down to any one girl!

Even if she did have an awesome right hook.

And was a freaking princess.

Well, put that way, he could maybe see the appeal.

Steve frowned and threw the ball overhand again without looking. Once more it rebounded and he had to chase after it.

So. Future alien princess girlfriend who could kick his butt. He could deal with that. It didn't hurt that she was hot and cute whether she was blonde or glowing blue. In fact... He puffed up with pride. She clearly has good taste, picking the Palchuk as her boyfriend. I mean, who else is Aja going to pick? One of those losers?

Steve threw the basketball one more time. This time, it sailed cleanly through the air and dropped neatly through the hoop, making the net dance.

"Hey, uh, nice shot," Coach said from where he was standing by the side of the driveway, on the pavers that led to the house.

"Yeah, well, a little after-practice practice never hurt anyone, right?" Steve asked, stooping to retrieve the ball as it rolled to his feet.

"Yeah." Coach nodded. "Just be careful you don't overdo it, okay? Don't want you throwing out your arm. We're gonna go all the way to the state championships this year." His hand painted the air with that glorious picture, his gaze distant and hopeful.

"Yeah!" Steve pumped his fist in the air. "The Arcadia Oaks High Moles are totally going to rock it!"

"And beat the pants off of those weenies at Arcadia Oaks Academy," Coach agreed with a glower and a nod. "Now come on. Your mother says lunch is ready."

"Yes, sir, Coach!" Steve saluted, falling into step beside his mother's fiance. Then, as a thought occurred to him, "Hey, Coach. How do you, you know, woo girls?"

A heavy sigh. "Son, if I knew anything about that, believe me, I'd tell you."

"But you're gonna marry Mom!"

Coach stopped and considered it. He shrugged, scratched at the back of his baseball cap, and eventually nodded. "Believe me, I have no idea how I got that lucky."

"Huh." Steve thought about that for a minute as they mounted the steps, then nodded himself. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can see that. So girls do the picking, and us guys have to scramble to keep up."

"Truest thing I've ever heard," Coach agreed, and closed the door behind them, leaving the basketball sitting on the porch outside.

"Oh, my, Varvatos!" Nancy said, feeling a bit flustered. He had already given her roses once this week, on the day they met, and now another bouquet? "You're going to have me feeling like a young girl!" The days of boys giving her roses were long, long past. Almost a hundred years, in fact. But the fact that this man was so ardently pursuing her, only a few days into their acquaintance...

Well, she hadn't had a man that interested since Horace! And she was hardly the slip of a girl she'd been then.

"Varvatos hopes you will accept this expression of his esteem," the man said, still holding out the flowers to her.

Nancy blinked, then took them from him.

"Varvatos also hopes you will continue to spar with him in chess," he said. "It is... a most amusing battle simulation. It has been a long time since Varvatos was so thoroughly vanquished."

And then he seemed to run out of words, because he just stood there mutely, looking hopeful and lost.

"Well." Nancy took a beat to think about it, then opened her door wider. Horace had explicitly told her, on his deathbed, that he expected her to live her life to the fullest and let herself be open to other suitors if they happened to be worth her time. "Won't you come in? And perhaps join me for some lunch?"

His face lit up like a Roman candle. "Varvatos would love to join you," he said, walking in, leaning on his cane for balance.

"My grandson would usually be joining us," she said, leading him to the dining room, "but he's out with his friends right now. Not to worry, though! I always cook for an army!"

"Varvatos knows," he said quietly. At her sharp glance, he amended with a smile, "Varvatos has met young Tobias. He is a fearsome warrior, and a good friend of Varvatos' charges."

Nancy smiled, turning from the sink with a vase of water, into which she placed the blood-red roses. She walked to the table and set them in the center. "Oh, those look lovely here," she said. The others he'd given her were on the dresser in her bedroom, which he didn't need to know yet. She took a seat opposite him. "The bread will be ready in about ten minutes and then we can eat. Why don't you tell me about yourself, Varvatos? Where are you from?" You could learn the most interesting things about people from what they did-and didn't-say.

"Well." He shifted in his seat. "Varvatos comes from very far away..."

The man talked, and Nancy Domzalski listened carefully, hiding her thoughts and realizations behind a pair of glasses and a smile.