Aeon Legion: Labyrinth (6 page)

Terra's eyes narrowed. “I
find that hard to believe.”

“Let me show you,” Alya
said as she snatched Terra's rock hammer. Before Terra could protest,
Alya held it in her right hand, the same hand with the strange watch
like device. The glass orb in the watch began glowing before the
hammer started to levitate the air. Terra's eyes widened as the worn
edges and dents faded from the hammer's surface. Alya handed it back
to Terra, who inspected the hammer. It looked new, like the day she
had first bought it.

Terra stared at Alya. “How?”

Alya
pointed to the watch like device on her right forearm. “It's called
a
shieldwatch
.
It's singularity technology that controls time. Everything I did in
the library was all singularity technology. Well, also a lot of
training and experience.”

“So time travel is real?
Those were real Nazis?”

“Making a time machine is
easy. People have built time machines as far back as 1895 AD in your
continuum’s dating system. Most are scientists and explorers
wanting to witness history, but others like Hanns cause trouble by
changing things.”

Terra's mouth hung open for a
moment. She then put the hammer in her bag before turning back to
Alya. “Um. Silverwind is it?”

Alya glided closer. “You may
address me as Alya if you wish.”

Terra leaned back when Alya
drew close. “Well then, Alya. Um. So why are you here exactly?”

Alya again moved closer to
Terra. “I wanted to thank you in person for helping me stop Hanns.
If not for you, Hanns would have gotten away with the book and things
would have escalated.”

“Um. You’re welcome?”
Terra said, raising her hands in front of her and stepping back.

Fortunately, Alya backed off
before studying Terra with narrowed eyes. She put her hand under her
chin while regarding Terra. “I suppose I need to do a brief
physical examination and check a few other things. I'll be back in a
few hours.”

“What?” Terra asked before
another glowing ring formed around Alya, moving clockwise. The ring
left a trail of light which formed a sphere around Alya that
dissipated, leaving no trace of the silver haired woman.

Terra stood for a long moment
and stared at where Alya had stood.

“I'm still not sure,” came
Alya's voice from above.

Terra looked up to see Alya
pacing on the top tier of the quarry. “That wasn't a few hours.”

Alya ignored Terra and
continued speaking while staring at the glass face of her
shieldwatch. A small holographic disc glowed above the glass face.
Alya's finger traced the surface of the disc as though it were a
touch screen. “No medical conditions a shieldwatch can't fix. Good
vision too. Still, she is physically unfit and will need to work hard
to catch up in that area. Her grades are good. Could have been better
I think. Excellent history score. Slightly above average sciences and
math. I will have to ask her teacher about that. Minerva, give me a
list of good times to interview her teacher and parents. Also, will
removing her from the continuum affect its integrity?”

“No,” came a female voice
from Alya's shieldwatch. “No significant changes will occur even if
she is removed from this continuum.”

Terra tried to see what the
small holographic disc said, but she didn't recognize the text.
Instead, Terra tried to regain her composure. What did this strange
woman want? Terra knew Alya had wiped out a platoon of trained
soldiers by herself. If she wanted Terra dead, it would take little
effort on Alya's part. But, Terra knew Alya wasn't evil. An evil
person would have let the hostages die in the library. This woman put
herself in danger to save them. “What are you after?”

Alya looked at Terra as though
she had forgotten about her. She then smiled and jumped down in front
of Terra. “Oh. Apologies again. I wanted to ask a few questions.”

Terra scowled. “You want to
ask questions? You interrupt my day, invade my quarry, violate my
personal space, tell me you are a time traveler, and then you want to
ask questions?”

Alya smiled and nodded.

“Fine,” Terra said before
crossing her arms.

“First. Who in Aion's origin
were those people at the library? The soldiers with silly red
armbands. I asked Minerva, but she lectured at length about the
history of Continuum Lambda.”

Terra's brow raised. “You
don't know who the Nazi's are?”

“Nazis? What an awkward
name.”

“Haven't you ever heard of
World War Two?” Terra asked, putting a hand on her forehead.

“You mean the Great War?
Continuum Alpha doesn't have another one of those.”

Terra stared while her brow
lowered.

“Well your continuum is
rather strange. It's one the few where European civilizations become
dominant. It's like... how would your culture put it?”

“Backwater,” came a female
voice from Alya's shieldwatch.

“Thank
you, Minerva. Yes. The Legacy Library is the only interesting thing
from this continuum. The Time cartographers from the Eighth Cohort
haven't mapped this part of Time
well. This makes it rather difficult for me to find and arrest
Hanns.”

“So are you some kind of
time police force?”

“Let's see. What is a good
way to describe it from within your culture's context? What are those
people called in those colorful picture books? They don capes and
masks to fight crime for justice.”

“Superheroes?”

“That's it! That's what we
are. We are good guys and we stop bad guys from destroying history.”

“Why not tell everyone this?
Wouldn't it be easier to tell everyone about the dangers of time
travel rather than charging into libraries and beating people up?”

Alya
frowned while waving dismissively. “Oh yes. That worked really
crashing well. After the First Temporal War, we decided to use a
different approach. Keeping time travel somewhat secret makes
temporal traffic manageable. Less traffic, less fools who try to
change history and cause Temporal Crashes by
accident.
I already explained all this to Hanns and he is still trying to abuse
time travel.”

“Why show me any of this?”

Alya smiled, leaning closer.
“In truth, you caught my attention. I made a mistake when I
underestimated Hanns. If it wasn't for you, then Hanns would have
escaped with the book. However, Hanns made a mistake as well. He
underestimated you. Now I wish to know why. Why did you try to stop
Hanns?”

Terra felt a spike of fear.
Had she done something wrong? What if she had damaged history by
accident?

Alya stood, expectant.

Terra clenched her fists and
faced Alya, deciding that she had done nothing wrong. She wouldn't
flinch in the face of a time traveler or whatever this strange
delusion was. “I don’t know why I did that. It's not like a
wanted to. I was really scared, but at the moment I was the only one
that could stop him. For a moment, I thought I could be a heroine.”

Alya's eyes narrowed in a
piercing stare for a long moment. Then she smiled. “Infinite! That
is exactly the answer I was looking for. I still need a little more
information, but I can get that elsewhere.”

Terra tensed, waiting to see
what Alya did next. To her surprise, Alya turned and jumped onto the
top of the quarry as though gravity were more a suggestion than a
force.

Alya looked over her shoulder
at Terra. “Okay, Terra. I will return in a couple of months once I
take care of a few details,” she said, silver hair streaming in the
wind. A ring formed around her, moving clockwise to form a glowing
sphere. She vanished with the sphere of light.

Terra stood alone in the
quarry for a long moment. The breeze faded, leaving her surrounded by
silent stone.

“Huh. That was kind of
weird,” Terra said, her tone calm. Then her heart jumped when the
ring formed at the top tier of the quarry, dissipating to reveal Alya
once again.

“Ages, Terra!” Alya said,
smiling. “Sorry it took longer than I expected. I meant to be back
last week, but I got sidetracked.”

Terra scowled. “You were
just here!”

“Oh. Right. I am accustomed
to Edge time. I keep forgetting you are in the continuum’s time
flow. Regardless, I have wonderful news! After much consideration,
interviews with your parents, and high praise from your history
teacher, I have decided to extend you a formal invitation to join the
Aeon Legion as my squire! Isn't that infinite!”

Terra's brow furrowed. “When
did you talk with my... wait! What was that last part?”

Alya moved closer, once again
getting too close for Terra's comfort. “Your single brave act in
the Library was enough to get my attention. After that, it was a
simple matter of checking to see if you meet a few other minor
additional qualifications. Congratulations. You meet all of them! Now
all we need to do is get you a shieldwatch and registered in the
Aevum Academy.”

Terra stepped back. “The
what Academy?”

“The Aevum Academy. It's
where the Legion trains new squires. They perform basic training.
After that, I finish up advanced training. Simple.”

Terra stared at Alya with a
blank expression.

Alya
squinted. “I
seemed to have confused you at one point?”

“At the part about time
travel,” Terra said before taking a deep breath. “Okay. Excuse me
if I seem slow. Still trying to process this. To be clear, I hit a
guy on the head with a rock because he tried to borrow a book and
this makes me qualified to join the time police?”

“Aeon Legion,” Alya
corrected. “Also, we do a lot more than police time travel. Besides
you don't just join the Aeon Legion, you have to pass the training
program at the Academy first.”

Terra was about to say no when
another ring formed around Alya, again instantly shifting her pose.

As the ring faded, Alya's
expression changed. Her smile vanished and Alya now stood stoically.
“Let's try this again. Before you say no, consider this.”

Terra glowered, but listened.

“Joining
the Aeon Legion grants many perks,” Alya
explained.
“The biggest is that the shieldwatch makes you immortal.”

Terra raised an eyebrow.

“Well biologically immortal,
technically speaking. The shieldwatch gives you eternal youth.”

Terra opened her mouth to
speak again when the ring formed around Alya a second time.

Now Alya frowned slightly and
had taken off the shoulder pads of her armor. “You also get to see
historical events in person.”

Terra
grimaced, raising a finger to interrupt when the ring formed around
Alya a third time, again shifting her pose. Now Alya stood without
her torso plate
and her hair was more frayed at the edges.

Alya glared back at her. “You
get a device that controls time! What more could you crashing want?”

Terra clinched her jaw,
preparing to argue back when the ring formed around Alya a fourth
time. Now she wore only the form fitting suit under the armor while
her hair had become untamed.

Alya scowled, pinching her
upper nose with her eyes closed. “Really crashing brilliant Alya,”
she said as though to herself, “bringing up the training's fatality
statistics.”

Terra's eyebrows raised.
“What?”

“Never
mind,” Alya said, shaking her head. “Do you have any idea how
stubborn
you are? At first I liked the challenge, but now you are just being
obstinate. Smith said you were willful, but good Aion! I've met
Manticores more agreeable.”

Terra scowled. “Stubborn?
You haven't let me get a word in!”

Alya sighed, pacing in front
of Terra. She then faced Terra. “Did I mistake your courage? Are
you not a heroine?”

Terra perked up. “A
heroine?”

Alya's slight smile returned.
“Yes. That's what I'm offering you. That's what I'm looking for.”

Terra stared at Alya,
confused. “But I'm not a heroine.”

“Oh really? So anyone would
charge a trained soldier armed with only a rock?”

“But I'm just an average
person. I don't have crazy time powers or anything.”

“So average people can't
become heroes and heroines then?”

“Well yes, but...” Terra
trailed off as the ring formed around Alya again.

Alya's smile was wider this
time and her hair better kept. “Now we are making progress!”

Terra frowned. “Stop time
traveling to win arguments against me!”

Alya leaned closer. “Which,
by the way, is another perk of time travel.”

“Why are you trying so hard
to recruit me?”

Alya's
smile widened as if she expected Terra to ask that very
question.
“Because, Terra, I like you. While you have just met me, I have
spent a lot of time getting to know you. You are honest, direct,
loyal, much more clever than you appear, and most importantly,
courageous when it counts.”

Terra was going to say
something about flattery not working on her when the ring formed
around Alya again.

“What's
holding you back is fear,” Alya said, her expression neutral again.
“It's why you hide in
this quarry. Why you avoid your mother's insistence on finding a
college or your father's attempts to find you employment. It is the
main reason you never tried hard in school or competed with Hannah.”

Terra remained silent,
wondering how Alya knew all this even with time travel.

Alya's expression turned hard
as the wind picked up around the quarry. She spoke with a quiet
intensity. “But I have seen the steel in you. When everything else
has failed, the real Terra steels herself and fights! I want to take
that Terra from this quarry and purify her, turn her into steel. That
Terra could be amazing. That Terra could be a great heroine!”

“But I can't do any of those
things you did in the library.”

“Training and technology,
Terra. Exercise isn't exactly singularity science. The rest is simply
the shieldwatch. This is the power I offer; power over time itself.
That power should be wielded by the worthy, by those who desire to be
a hero or heroine. You are worthy, Terra Mason.”