The Time Stone, Third Edition (Extended Version)
Chapter 64

The moon shone brightly over the night skies in Miami, Florida, a boyish face looks up into the pale light of the darkness, his eyes twinkling in the midst of the moon’s light. He wears a bright red turtleneck under a brown jacket and jeans.

“James,” yells Tina’s voice from the distance as she ran over wearing a denim jacket with her sleeves rolled up and a pair of ripped jeans. “Hey buddy, great news. I got a few hundred dollars in cash and some food and water for us.”

“Huh?” James turns from his still trance and smiles, “what? That’s great. Where did you get all that money?”

“Does it matter?” She smirks.

“Oh no, you didn’t do what I think you did?”

“I just met a guy who could help us out, but don’t ask, don’t tell.” She shrugs. “We need to get going” says Tina.

“I know. I am thinking about how far we have come so far. There has been so much.” James says looking up at the bright starry sky, the constellation Orion directly above them shining brightly.

“Can you believe we made it all the way to Florida? That little raft is a tough little ship, but good thing that yacht picked us up.” Tina says.

“Yeah, that is quick thinking with that cover story that we were newlyweds on a brief escapade out to sea.” James adds.

“Yeah and then we were headed to Florida for our honeymoon,” she smiles wide eyed.

“The same place they were headed to… and we got these nice duds, how weird huh?” asks James rhetorically.

“Is that any weirder than sliding and riding along the time way in style?” She joked gesturing to the keen and funky disguises they were wearing and grimacing at the fact that they had faked their way through their rescuer’s delivery of them to the Florida Keys.

“Any weirder than trekking the Earth to discover the mysteries of the universe?” he looks up at the stars and his eyes glisten.

“Yeah, we have a pretty cool relic here. I wonder what it is completely capable of?” wondered Tina.

“We might soon find out, dear friend, but first we have to clear our names or beat feet down south.” James says.

“Why don’t we just use the vortex like we did in Brazil? It looks like it moved us through a vast distance and maybe time.” Tina speculated.

“I think we should wait before we go playing with forces we don’t fully understand.” James says.

“True… I got a contact I made through my John, I mean Good Samaritan…” she smirks “I think he knows who set us up.”

“How can you be so sure? This is Florida, quite a ways from Chronix Bay.”

“He mentioned having some ties to our ‘good old friend’” she gestured to James knowing he knew who she meant by the glare in her eye, glinting with a desire for revenge.

“Are you sure it is him?” James inquired.

“There are some faces you never forget, you can count Broad Staffnight as one of them. I saw a picture in his office and brought it up.” Tina adds seriously.

“Cool good sleuthing buddy, you might make a good detective in another life.” James complimented her.

“Stranger things have happened. Let’s go.” Tina says.

As they walk down the street with their new disguises, the night sky shining above the clean semi-suburban streets, there is not a soul in sight. Tina’s spine shivers as they walk.

“Are you cold, Tina?” asks James.

“Just a bad feeling is all.” She held tight to him, unknowingly grabbing his arm.

Then suddenly as they approached an intersection, as if out of nowhere, six figures jumped out of the darkness. They wore black glistening cloths around their bodies and faces, shining in the pale moonlight like ninjas. They have red bandanas around their heads and waists, and a strange symbol made of an unearthly metal shining off of their waistbands resembling an ancient oriental character. Their eyes were dark and beady, sinister, cold and calculating as they approached and surrounded the duo in a pernicious showdown. They menace the duo with their assault weapons; one with a Japanese sword, another with a medieval mace, another with a bow and arrow, and the rest with crescent daggers. The three with daggers were trying to stab their prey, acting as pawns utilizing their initial plan of attack. The duo is meticulously dodging the attacks, and running, evading, and trying to hide.

“Where did they come from?” screams Tina.

“Wish I knew!” yells James.

“You know what you have to do buddy!” She retorted, as she dodged a blow from a large sword which barely missed her head as she rolled onto the ground. James flung his hands up into the air and waved them around feeling like a crazy person but the six figures flew backwards simultaneously as if struck with a heavy force causing them to soar through the air and into the streets behind them, their baggy uniforms flapping in the breeze as they went backwards and hit the pavement. “Wow!” screams Tina.

“Let’s get out of here before they come to.” James yells and grabbed his friend by the arm helping her up and the two headed down the street running as fast as they could. The six men got up and composed themselves.

The apparent leader picked up his sword and yells in a fierce and determined voice in Spanish, “kill them!” They ran after the duo in a triangular formation. The six chased them down halfway to the next set of blocks and one of the men grabbed James by the scruff of the neck and held him down with a dagger pinned to his throat. Two other men came up behind him and grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back, tying them with a knotted rope quickly before he could think to use his power again. Tina turned and ran towards them, but is apprehended by one of the other men who now pinned her down and bound her arms behind her back with rope as well.

“Uh” she muttered as the man with the sword approached and reached into her pocket pulling out the green emerald object, its light reflecting brightly off the clear starry sky.

“This is what we want…this is what we want” he speaks in Spanish with a dark and sinister voice as his cold dark eyes glared into the centered five orbs within the object shimmering in the light pole on the street corner.

“What do you want this for? It’s just an old family heirloom.” Tina says jokingly.

The man looks at her and nodded, “I says that this is what we want and we will take it.” Now he speaks in English. He held his scimitar to her throat.

“OK, you got it.” she yells frantically, “now let us go.”

“No. You know too much.” He adds harshly. “You will die.”

“No.” Tina yells as she and James struggled for freedom helplessly. “James, do something.” She beckons for him to try his powers again.

“I can’t” he tried to move his hands, but is restricted by the ropes.

“This is the end, I guess” she yells as the man with the sword pulls it out and struck her in the face and she dropped to the ground.

“Tina,” yells James trying to run to them, but is held back by the others. The man with the sword approached and James kicked out with his right foot to the man knocking the symbol off of his tunic, but the man, being pushed back slightly, kept going forward angrily.

“Now you die… now you die!” He yells as he raised his sword with his right hand and holding the object with his left hand. He brought his armed hand down towards James and as the sword came down to James’ face about to make contact, a large force interrupted the blow like a blur of yellow and red light knocking the man with the sword back. Within seconds, a figure jumped into the fray and danced around kicking each of the masked men, knocking them back and then standing between James and Tina in their bound and helpless forms, and the duo’s would be assassins. The figure wore a red suit that glistened in the streetlights, similar to the suits worn by the ninja warriors, the figure wore a red mask with yellowish stripes and he had a yellow bandana around his head and waist. On his head he wore a blue set of goggles.He held a large curved sword with a handle on each end that extended with a flick of his wrist and he curved it at will as he battled with those that subdued the duo, as he came to their rescue. He has a strange symbol on his chest that resembled the mark on the tunic of the ninja warriors, but it is slightly different. He grabbed the arm of one of the ninja warriors as he tried to attack and swung him about over his head like a rag doll, quickly tossed each one without cutting them with his weapon, merely knocking them back using his blade as an implement to defeat them without killing them. In a further array of roundhouse kicks and extended fist and foot maneuvers that appeared mechanical and artificial to the duo as they watched, he circled his way through the group and dropped them all. He stands over them with a proud sense of accomplishment and then turns to James and Tina to untie their hands.The duo got up confused. The mysterious figure then picked up the green emerald object that fell out of the swordsman’s hands and onto the ground.He handed it to Tina and then with a smile he stepped back.

“Wait who are you?” she asked, too late, as the man held a squared device his wrist and pressed a trigger causing him to instantly vanish in a haze of yellow and red light as quickly as he arrived.

“Who was that?” asks James.

“I wish I knew” remarked Tina, “but thank God for him.”

Then suddenly the six men also vanished in a quick flash of darkness and light combined.

“Whoa”, Tina looks at James as he walks over to where the unconscious forms of the ninja warriors once lay and picked up the metal character that fell from the swordsman’s uniform. “I wish we could get some info on what this is all about, who these men are and why they are after this thing and why they would kill us.”

“I think this may be a clue” replies James holding up the metal character.

At local library, James and Tina sit in a back room of the basement level with several old books scattered out on the table before them.

“Are you sure we should be wasting time like this?” asks Tina.

“We should try to research this symbol. It may be important. The librarian says the symbol should be in one of these books. Not that I think the lead you obtained from a common criminal is of value,” he smirks, “but we can check it out later.”

“A common criminal.” she mutters.

“Look” he pointed out as he turns the page of a treatise on the occult and symbolic phenomenon. “This looks like the symbol” he speaks softly. “The origins of the ancient order of la Culto de la piedra tiempo...hmm.”

“What?” Tina asks rhetorically.

James read the passage before him in the old book. “And those who transcended reality and are the core purpose behind the religious mythology surrounding the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures, the signs on the monuments of the people, they call themselves protectors of the people, we call them El Culto de la Piedra Tiempo, the symbols of the holy order.” He looks at it in a concerted pose and sudden silence.

“Piedra Tiempo???” asks Tina. “I remember from my high school Spanish classes that this means… Time Stone” they both looks down at the large green emerald in her hand and its curious abilities that they have had the opportunity to witness first hand. “This is what they are after,” says Tina and the two thought the same thing looking at one another now.

“This is what they have killed for and would stop at nothing to obtain, the ultimate power that the ancient peoples of the Yucatan worshipped and the source of control over the entire world in the future, the key to time travel” says James. “So this rock we found is some sort of actual time machine?”

“The ancient cultures have been known as masters of time” says Tina. “The ancients had a whole mythology on it; they believed it is connected to the black hole at the center of the galaxy,” continues Tina. “Wait a minute, so that symbol of the ancient Culto is the same one worn by these men, that’s why they want this” she holds up the time stone.

James nods in response. “Do you think we could travel in time with this thing? I mean, we did travel in time with this thing?”

“Well, they say time is like a river so if it is possible, it could revolutionize everything.”

“Wow.” he says in response.

“So what do we do now?” asks Tina.

“I don’t know, but it is interesting.”

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.