Chapter Five: Past and Present Collide
By: nike13

   David was in his room, donning the royal robes he wore before he came to this place. It had been just a few days and nothing would ever be the same again, but he didn’t care, he was going home. Sure, they didn’t know how long they were going to be there but he was going to have a chance to see his family again, and his father. After the strange events of the past few days, it comforted him to think he was going back to familiar, and far simpler times. Altogether, it seemed like it was to be a very good day.

    "Ugh," Teresa muttered in disgust as she looked at the puffed out dress she was wearing. Since the three were to go to the 16th century, they were to dress the part and, unfortunately for her, that meant she had to wear the almost impossible to get on outfit of the times; long skirt, low collar, tight shoes, and all. After taking nearly and hour to get into the dress, she was not happy. Now she just had to deal with the look of it. The skirt of the dress reached the floor, covering her ankles and shoes so as not to be deemed ‘inappropriate’ to the 16th century court.

    The cloth itself was made in shades of green, the skirt starting at the bottom with a forest green color and turning into a light, pale green color for her torso. The collar was too low, in her opinion, and showed a little too much of her petit chest with a small, white lace pattern along the edges. The shoulders were puffed up and gathered around the middle of her upper arm and then left to flow nicely over the rest of her arms and cover most of her hands, showing just a little bit of her fingers and nothing else. “It sure is form fitting around the waist,” she said to herself as she studied her image in the mirror, "Oh, why’d it have to be green?"

   "Are you sure you three are ready for this?"

   "Yes sir, we're as ready as we'll ever be at this point," Waren said to the council before him. His attire had also been modified for the mission, with clothes that match his royal position as a prince. It had been decided David would convince his court to let himself and Teresa stay within the castle, Teresa promising to be on her best behavior. How David was to finish his task, Waren could only wonder since David left almost immediately to get ready. Now Waren had to convince the United Planet’s Alliance, UPA, of their readiness and necessity to go on the mission. "To be honest, delegates, if we do not leave soon for the distortion point, we might not continue to exist for much longer. We all know that if the distortion is not corrected before the temporal shockwave connects with our time, any hopes of fixing anything will be wiped out along with our society. As it is, Teresa's time is beginning to feel the effects as we speak, if we continue to question our readiness we will lose our only offensive member of the Triumvirate, leaving two passive powers which would not be enough to combat anyone, let alone put back time."

   "Yes, that is true, but if your group does go while they are not well trained to handle the situation, we would lose all three of our saviors," the elder of the South American continent, Leader Teotecua, argued.

   "Wouldn’t it be better to try than to not do anything? If we wait until you feel that we are ready it could be too late."

    "So you agree that your team does not meet our standards?" the minister of Eurasia countered.

    "I believe that it would be important to, at least, attempt to repair the timeline, Minister Dimitri. The young man is right, if we fail, it would be no different then if they stayed here to gain more training,” Prime Minister Chang told the gathered and turned back to Waren, smiling, “Waren, young man, you have the permission of this council to proceed, but I do believe that even without it, your team would travel back anyway, if I have read the personality reports of you three correctly that is. Wouldn’t you?"

    "I thank you, Prime Minister, but since we do have your permission, I cannot tell you what we would or would not have done without it," he replied as he bowed to the gathered officials. Chang’s smile grew as the other ministers and representatives murmured and then he left. He will make a very good leader when the time is right, Chang thought, he might even replace me.

    The three youths met in the main hallway outside their joined rooms, each in authentic 16th century garb and very excited. They walked to a room down the hall that was cleared away for their transport, electricity seemed to jump off their skin as they walked, either that or Teresa was still a little upset over her clothing. Once inside the room, the doors shut and locked behind them so there would be no intrusions as they concentrated on their duty. This time jump would be different from the one Waren had done to retrieve David and Teresa. At that jump, he had had their temporal signals, their auras sort to speak, to tune into while this time they each had to concentrate on a place in time they each had to concentrate on a place in time which would have several different auras over the many centuries. During the first attempts at time travel, some years before Waren was born, this problem of focusing onto the correct aura was a horrendous hazard. If one choose the wrong signal, they would be lucky to just end up in the wrong time. There were cases of when a person’s body would appear in the correct place and time but without any essence, without a soul, leaving an empty shell. Other cases were even less fortunate, leaving their body spread throughout time. Even now, time jumps were used only in extreme cases of emergencies due to these ‘accidents.’ But at an early age, Waren had shown a temporal aptitude, a unique ability to discern one temporal aura from another, which, combined with his empathic talents, lead people to believe in the Temporal Triumvirate and in him. This time jump would not only be important to save David’s time from tampering but also to prove that they were the protectors of time ancient texts spoke of and that travel without technology through the Temporal continuum was possible.

    "Alright, so how do we do this?" Teresa said calmly as they moved to the center of the room. David turned to Waren, anxiously awaiting the response.

    "Well, we each should be very temporally inclined so if we pool together our powers and focus we should be able to concentrate on the correct time."

    "I have a feeling he’s just making this up as he goes along," David whispered to Teresa, who started giggling behind her hand. "Would this be an example of BSing?"

   "Very good questioned," she murmured back.

   "So, how do we pool together our powers exactly?"

   "That's a good question, I guess -."

   "You don't know, do you?" David interrupted.

   "You've been around Teresa too long, David," Waren muttered.

   "But he's right, isn't he?" Teresa joked. "Well, how about we just hold hands in a circle and concentrate on David's time," she suggested, holding out her hands.

   "One gets the feeling you've done this sort of thing before," David said, holding her and Waren's hands in his.

   "Just intuition really, that and Charmed."

   "Is there anything you know that isn't from a television show?" Waren joked, grasping her hand in his own.

   "Just math, grammar, you know...nothing deathly important."

   "Uh huh," the two boys mumbled while looking at her as though she were insane.

   "Aw, come on guys. Waren, you and I should concentrate out powers on David, so shouldn't we try now?"

   "Why me?" David squeaked, worrying that the power would electrocute or barbeque him.

   "Because it’s your time we’re going to and since you’re the only one who’s been there, you can visualize the tiny details of the place. With that we should be able to pin point a time line to jump to."

   "More from television?" Waren kidded.

   "Nope, to be honest, I don’t know where that came from."

   "Alright David, you heard the lady, imagine the courtyard we brought you from and we’ll work on getting us there after you left, but not too long after, hopefully."

    The three closed their eyes, David picturing the vast courtyard with its green trees and lush grass; empty as it was when he was there. He remembered the flying banners of his and the visiting countries, the gray stoned castle he had called home his whole life with a light green hint from the moss growing along the sides. Teresa and Waren worked on putting all their powers into where David was thinking of. As they concentrated, their mind's eye began to envision the picture David had formed in his mind; Teresa could almost smell the wind as it blew through the leaves of the vast trees. Waren reached out with his mind to reach this beautiful place, each of them put every fiber in their being to wanting to be there at the exact moment in which David had envisioned. As this yearning grew, so did the power flowing through the image in their shared consciousness. Light began to envelop their forms and their bodies took on a light all its own, their forms turning a brilliant white as the encircling power changed from light blue to gorgeous green to a subtle yellow hue. Wind came from no where as the colors grew brighter and their bodies less distinct, it picked up their hair and sent it billowing as the last of bodies lost their solidity and vanished into the light, into the powers of their own existence, becoming one with time itself.

    After the archer's discovery of his lost charge, he had called upon some of the other guards to help him search, of course, only the one's he knew he could trust. After scouring the courtyard dozens of times and finding nothing they took to searching the roads not too far from the castle, warning the maids that if they were to see Prince David that they should send a trusted messenger to find him and tell him of the prince's discovery. The archer was in a panicked state, worrying not only for the prince but for his own hide as well.

    The winds in the courtyard once again picked up as three forms became to take shape in the center, blinding lights flooding from the center of the shapes. As the winds and light faded three people emerged, two boys and a young woman in well dress. The two men were dressed as royals as the girl seemed to be a well-off peasant, lucky for them that no one seemed to be in the courtyard at the time. As they were, there would be much explaining to be done since they could not come back right after David had left since the courtyard was not empty until quite some time afterwards, a few hours difference at least. David looked around excitedly, happy to be home again.

   "Wow that was cool! Can we do it again?" Teresa said excitedly and then took a look around the courtyard, "This is gorgeous, just like the picture I saw. Very cool place, David."

    "Thank you," he said quietly as he looked around, thinking how long it felt to be away from here when his thoughts were interrupted abruptly by a shout from above.

   "Your highness!!! Your alive!" yelled a young servant girl from the second story, looking out through a window to the courtyard at her beloved prince and then let her eyes wander to the others below her, "INTRUDERS!!! INTRUDERS!!!"

    "This can't be good," Teresa muttered and moved closer to Waren, both moving strategically behind David.

    This is exactly what I had hoped to avoid, Teresa heard Waren say to her mind and then heard people rushing behind them.

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