time may change me

What was it that made me and the frozen urchin stand there slack-jawed like a Japanese tourist who stumbled into a Caledonian Burns Supper?

"'Oh hell no?' Is that any way to treat your Regent, Koen?"

Floating in the air. Gold and crimson robes. Red demon wings. The crest of House Bloodwing on the chest.

"Would you expect any less from me?"

An exquisitely decorated staff from an estate sale at the other side of the galaxy.

He descended as quiet as a thought in sleep.

"Yes, Koen. This is my doing."

A gold headdress of a bent circle perched on his shoulders and fanning out behind his head.

I cautiously padded forward. "When did you decide to become Regent?"

Gray fur with traces of black. Bags under his scarlet eyes. Slightly trembling paws with overgrown claws. I won't even think about the teeth.

He let me come close enough to scent him. I lurched back. He ignored my response as he ambled towards Wren. "I had no choice. A construct can't become Regent..." He lay his paw on her shoulder, and her flame danced again. She looked up at him with a quivering lip and frightened eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Regent. He chased me..."

"It's alright, Wren. He's unharmed. That's what matters."

I scratched the back of my head, trying to wrap my head around what he was telling me. I couldn't even put together the words. I was afraid to.

"You understand now, don't you Koen? Why a reconsolidated version of your Qli-Nova just happened to be right under you when you arrived from a fifty-year jump?"

"That was you..."

"Yes. Yes it was."

He scratched the back of his head. Looks like he never quit that habit. Still a bit of red on those silver ears.

"In this timeline..." He leaned over on his staff. Was he exhausted from the giant Void bubble? Or was the headdress or his wings the heavier burden? "The Bloodwing's Revenge crashed before it got to Babbage. It didn't get to Qlippothic in time..."

"The most likely outcome..."

"Yes, Koen. You saw how it ended. No one was there when the Vesprium broke through. No one to hold them back at the hellgate. No one to raise the alarm..."

Wren embraced him while he sank to his knees, leaning on his staff for support.

"I miss Father..." Wren whimpered.

"We didn't even have time to finish mourning and rebuild the Foundation before we realized the Steamlands were being overrun!"

I knelt down next to him, whispering as I shook my head. "Why? Why are you telling me all this? We're not supposed to change..."

"You already changed it when you watched this world through the Time Window! The first thing I did after becoming a Time Lord was to trace those energies back to your ship and devise a rescue! LISTEN TO ME BOY!"

He gripped my shoulder with his other paw.

"Don't end up like me! Trapped with a legacy on your shoulders and nobody left to pass it to!" He looked up at me, trembling with bitterness growing in his eyes. "Look at you, aging yourself in a timejump! You can get those years back with the turn of a dial! I'd give up my last moments just to spend a do-nothing day in Kittiswitch one last..."

"FOR THE LOVE OF BAST WILL YOU JUST STOP!" I broke his grip and leaped to my feet. The bunnies at the other side of the building snapped back into land-piranha mode, converging on the space where I had been cowering moments ago. Theirs ears perked and I saw a hundred pair of green beady eyes staring at us. I assume it was the sight of the Regent that made them leap down to the fire escape.

I felt my back arching and the fur on my neck standing on end. "What do you want me to do?", I snarled.

The old, sad, bitter, weary version of me rose and tilted his staff towards me. I looked down at Wren as she pulled a yellow and tattered old newspaper from under her jacket....

frozen

There's a giant fuzzy tidalwave of serious bionic pain bearing down on me. I spin and run like hell (on all fours no less!) back towards the fire escape, but there's a line of gaslamp bunnies already waiting for me haunched up in a row, all fuzzy wuzzy cute except for those steel uppers and beady radioactive eyes staring at me like I'm a giant carrot. These lop-eared rodents are hopping circles around me! I draw on what little magic I already recovered and hurl a Void bubble as they stretch out their shiny claws and...

...freeze in midair?

Yeah. All of them. Just floating. Lines of bunny drool trailing from their carnivorous bunny mouths. Even their gas flames in their little glass tummies are frozen in place. Except for the one that was caught in a Void bubble the size of a Caledon football. It's scratching furiously at the inside of the bubble, trying to get out.

"What the...?" If I had Qli pouring time-energy into me maybe I could pull something like this off. But my powers don't work that way!

So I carefully slip out from under the bunny-avalanche and look around. I still see the neon signs of Seraph City blinking in the distance. I look up and the stars are twinkling, probably from the clouds of exhaust from the airships. At least I know I didn't freeze this whole freakin' dieselpunk world.

Ah, there's Wren. She's frozen too, just like her pets. She's pointing towards where I was. But she's got this surprised look on her face? She's not looking towards me at all. She's looking up at...

OH. HELL. NO.

smackdown

I kinda like this Seraph City, once you get over the exhaust fumes. But you really gotta watch your step. It seems anybody who's anybody has a horseless carriage and drives like a maniac! But the clubs! They got these crazy new kinda sounds called jazz and swing...wow, how do I even describe them to a Caledonian?

But anyway, at dusk I was struttin' down the street in my new black pinstripe suit and matching fedora en route to the next juke joint when I hear this girl shouting,

"PAPER! GET YOUR NEWSPAPER!"

Aw man, what a letdown. Of course, they would still have urchins in the future. Just look at her in her white blind-glasses and blonde ponytails and her smock glowing from the light in her...WAIT A GODDAM MINUTE!!!

She saw me alright! She ripped off her glasses and smock and dashed for the alley. I bolted after her. Yeah, she's still small and probably knows this city like the back of her hand. But I'm a neko. She covers her light, but I can still see in the dark. She hurls garbage cans at me (note to self: Mason hydraulics) and I leap over 'em.

"You almost cut my FOOT off you psycho little BRAT!"

"That was FIFTY YEARS ago! Get over it!"

"For YOU it's fifty years! I've still got the STITCHES!"

I turn the corner and it's a dead end. She's not there. Then I hear the clatter of the fire escape above. She's zigzagging from one level to the next. I'm jumping from railing to railing. I reach for her ankle as she hoists herself over the rooftop. I grab her ratty old shoe which slips off in my hand.

"WREN! I got a nine letter word for what I'm gonna lay on..."

I land on the gravel of the rooftop. She's standing there, her heart burning under the night sky, her beady eyes glowing a reanimation green...no wait, that's the bunny on her shoulder. And a bunny on her other shoulder. And the dozen at her feet. And another twenty behind her. Here comes another hrair of them. She's surrounded by what, a hundred...gaslamp bunnies?

They've got shiny teeth. Razor-sharp steel I must assume. Aw crap, the claws too?

"Hey..." I chuckle, "Y'know...fifty years is a long time..."

She just points at me.

"GET 'IM!"

Now if I was Doc Mason I'd write something like, "as one, the leaping legion of lepuses advanced upon me" but really the only words that came to mind were "OH SHI--"

Caught!

It was a perfect jump! Why the HELL did the deck explode? The decompression sucked me clean out of the ship, and now I'm headed straight downwards.

Alright, don't panic...magic? Nope. I'm spent. Okay, I just have to land on all fours. I'm a cat. I can do this. I can do this. I can...

"OOF!"

Well that was unexpected. I've landed on the deck of another airship, in the arms a female android who is certainly not my sister. She had a windup key. How very retro.

"Well hello, kitty!"

"Hi. My name's Koen, but thanks for the catch. And you are?"

"I'm pleasure unit SX-069, but you can call me Six."

"Okayyy...like I said, I'm glad to meet you, but would you mind moving your hand please?"

"Why certainly!"

My fur bristled.

"I meant the other hand!"

"SIX!" Shouted a familiar voice from the helm. "Stop groping my brother and secure the tethers on this wreck!"

"Wait, what...brother? I...Qli-2? Is that you?"

"I was Qli-2, yes, but I'm calling myself Nova Sakigake again. We merged."

I shrugged. This is pretty run-of-the-mill for reunions in my family. I peeked behind Six's shoulder and saw the smoldering shell of the Revenge sitting in some sort of steel mesh attached to this ship (SIXES AND SEVENS according to the paint job on the deck.)

And there's the original Qli at the bow. She must have finally disconnected from the Revenge, what's left of it.

"KOEN" She shouted. I waved back with a relieved smile. "KOEN! YOU'VE AGED!"

Yep. My black fur was back. "Puberty was bad enough the first time! I arranged a controlled leak in the zero chamber! I've got from fifteen to thirty, give or take a few months!"

I'm sure she was gonna give me hell for it later. But I knew exactly what I was doing. I'm getting better at this time travel thing. I could make a career out of it?

I tapped Six on her flesh-painted chin. "Speaking of puberty, I asked you to stop..."

She didn't move.

"Oh Hell...you wound down didn't you? ANYBODY GOT A CROWBAR? MINERAL OIL MAYBE?"

nowhere to go but...

Damn wasps. Demon wasps. Demon airship-flying wasps. And the Bloodwing's Revenge just popped up in the middle of a damn fleet of these bastards! Everywhere I turn the periscope, there's more of them!

I'm below deck. We're too high up for me to be on the bridge without insulation and a rebreather, which the airship-pirate vampire who owns this clockwork antique doesn't need. He's got a deep-sea diver suit in the closet, but I can't even lift the brass helmet!

Speaking of whom, Aleister is manning the weapons cockpit upstairs. It sounds like he's got some rotating cannons blazing from all sides of the ship. Look at that smoke. Black powder? Really? Please tell me you don't expect me to reload all of those myself?

Qlippothic's fused herself to the helm. I've got my toeclaws digging into the dusty old carpet with each step because she's got the ship jerking around every which way. Is she trying to shake more wasps off the ship?

I hear buzzing outside the porthole. BAST! That yellow-striped buzzer tried to stab me through the glass! Why is he holding a plank of rotted...oh BAST that's part of the damn HULL!

I turn on the intercom. "Guys! They're trying to rip open the ship down here!"

Qli responds. "I'm trying to keep them of off the main airbag! We've lost half our ropes already! I can barely manage a controlled descent..."

"Deploy the side balloons?"

"Not yet. They will block the chain cannons. Beginning distress signal. Mayday-mayday, invasion fleet intercepted at following coordinates..."

There has to be something I can do...wait...all this machinery...why is this so familiar? I've got it! The Time Window!

I hope Aleister doesn't mind that I'm scratching sigils through his moth-eaten carpet...there...black plumes of energy spreading through and around the ship...

"KOEN! Vat are you doink down zere?"

"I'm using my Void Alchemy to negate the weight of the ship! That will keep us from crashing long enough for us to tesseract the ship to safety!

"KOEN! I do not have the energy to tesseract this entire ship! Even if I wasn't busy with evasive maneuvers..."

"You shake off the bugs! I'll use the Time Window to find a safe timestream to jump into and the void-aura will negate the mass of the ship for you to carry us through!"

"You are turnink mein vessel into a TARDIS?"

Operating the dials...not enough energy for anti-paradox to make a back-jump...has to be the future...

"Und you zink you are some kind of TIME LORD?"

A future full of giant steel hives dotting the landscape? Not good...

"SCHTOP zis instant! I declare it VERBOTEN..."

"Pipe down you bloodwyne-swilling old coot! I can't build Mason techno-magic but I can sure as Hell use it! I figured out my Dad's Retroactive Continuity thing before, didn't I? Sort of? And I've been a Companion for Purdie Uggleh and Professor B!"

There's a city...too much static! Is that a demon with six wings on the tower? Still too blurry! Fine-tuning the fateline axis. No, not a demon...

"Ammunition depleted! Ejecting cannons! Deploying siderail balloons!"

Not a demon... That looks like...

"I've got a lock! Qli! Prepare to jump! Fifty-two-years-one-month-twelve-hours-thirty-six-seconds!"

"Koen! You can't! You'll age squared to the jump!"

"VOID ALCHEMY!"

I've got that angel in my sights...

"Explosions off der pert und starboard! Balloon rails destroyed!"

"TESSERACT IN THREE! TWO! ONE! WARP!"

The ship is pulled through a swirling nimbus of Nothing laced with galvanic torrents of liquefied time. Currents in directions I can't point to tugging at my insides. The Void protects me like a cloak. My personal zero chamber. My black fur is growing back in. My nails are growing longer and sharper. Some currents are getting through, enough for me to see the light of that gleaming metropolis that is hopefully not full of wasps.

Next stop...Seraph City.

this whole bloody ship is a huge creaking wreck

I woke up tied down someplace dark. Could be worse I suppose. Smells musty in here.

"You are very lucky I vas en route, Koen. You vould have bled to death uzzervise."

"So now I'm bit to undeath?"

"Ach! Nein! I haff no need for an apprentice!"

"Then why am i tied up?"

"So you don't roll off. Zee gyrostabilizers are still a bit vobbly. Vat are you feeding on anyvay? Your blood smells terrible!"

"Canned fish, mostly. Gyro-WHA? We're on that flying jalope of yours?"

He ripped off the ropes on me. My ankle was bandaged up. Still a little sore.

"Ja, I finally got the Bludving's Revenge out of mottballz! It's all I haff left really, aside from some stores of bloodvyne..."

"Why did you save me, Aleister?"

I heard some clicking and a circle of light blinked on. I could see a guy in goggles and a labcoat working on a boatload of machinery. There was also a little girl in a black dress pushing more machinery around. BIG machinery.

"Ach! Too bright! Let me adjust...there...the Consulate."

"That's...umm..."

"Ja, your vader."

"My what? Oh, my Dad. I'm starting to remember...hey is that girl on FIRE?"

"Another vun of his Dolls. A gas powered innovation. If she vas clockvurk I could readjust..."

I snuck for the exit.

"Zat's zee clozet. Pleez hear me out first? Zen I vill let you go."

"Fine...fine..."

trapped

I can't believe I stepped in one of those fucking claw traps I didn't even fucking see it oh shit I can't get this off I'm bleeding all over this roof I can't pry this off this isn't fair I just wanted one life without demons and mad scientists poking and prodding me do I cut my foot off with this knife no I just dropped it too weak...

Staring up at the beautiful sliver moon. Mom? I'm ready.

Oh will you get that fucking sky-galleon piece of museum shit out of the way! I don't wanna die with that ticking in my ears!

Damn. That's a huge fucking bat crouching over me. Turning into...

Oh crap. Not you again.