Four and Counting: Escaping Hell

As Geoff lay unconscious against the rocky wall of Bradley Barton School, his mind began to wonder as the woman he loved lay dying on the other side of the school. His mind wondered to many places in his long, complicated and criss-crossing history, before centring on a specific event that occurred shortly after Tom retreated to the past.

‘I doubt they even managed to take off,’ Leo laughed as he climbed down from the window that he was peering out of. ‘That storm is fierce.’

            ‘That wouldn’t have stopped him,’ Geoff warned. ‘He would do anything to get his daughters out.’

            ‘So you think that he would risk getting zapped out of the sky just to save them?’ Jackie laughed. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

            ‘Leanne can handle a few lightning bolts, Emma the wind, Josie controls the rain, and I’m sure the rest can do something to help,’ Geoff elaborated, staring at his wife like she was stupid. ‘The storm was a minor inconvenience.’

            ‘So, what it they did get away? What are we going to do? They left us behind,’ Matt noted.

            ‘There is something we could try in order to follow them,’ Geoff sighed. ‘But it is extremely dangerous. I’m not entirely sure how it will effect you.’

            ‘We stay here and they will focus all of their energy on us,’ Leo warned. ‘We are the last Protectors who stand any chance of standing up to them. And you are the last person who can help them go back and prevent Tom from averting this future.’

            ‘He’s right,’ Jackie nodded. ‘We stay here and they come for us. We have to try, no matter the consequences.’

            ‘Since when did you care for humanity?’ Geoff snapped.

            ‘I put my family first, and they will torture all of us until we tell them how to go back in time,’ she retorted. ‘And no offence to you Leo, but I don’t trust you to keep your mouth shut during an interrogation.’

            ‘She’s right,’ Matt agreed. ‘Ed tortured Leo for weeks to get those names, there is no way he is going to go through that again.’

            ‘I’d say that I wouldn’t give up the information,’ Leo shrugged. ‘But I probably would spill all the second they started.’

            ‘So, we’re all in agreement then?’ Jackie asked, looking around the room for any opposition.

            ‘This isn’t going to go well,’ Geoff sighed as his teammates grabbed hold of him and he set to work on manipulating the temporal energy around them in order to teleport them into the time stream.

The swirling red vortex tunnel was surprising active. Ahead of them they could see the Time Machine as it manoeuvred to avoid the plasma fire from the Zoombian ships that had followed them into the time stream.

            ‘When you mentioned that you could do this, you said it was instantaneous,’ Jackie noted.

‘It normally is, probably just because I’m dragging you lot along for the ride, plus the trip is far longer than normal,’ Geoff explained as a fireball from the Time Machine missed it mark and struck their time sphere as they rushed forwards.

Without thinking, Matt let go of Geoff and formed a force field between the fireball and his friends. By the time anyone realised that he had let go, he was too far gone, and within seconds, he had been vaporised as he struck the wall of the tunnel.

            ‘Dad!’ Leo called as he saw his father disintegrate, he continued to stare at the spot where his father had perished as they continued to rush forwards. Without warning he was drawn into a dream like state where he saw Geoff, Jackie, Matt, and Kelvin, Leanne’s father, discussing Paris.

‘They want to dispose of you honey,’ Jackie informed Geoff, showing him a series of documents. ‘They don’t trust you.’

            ‘We could always reason with them,’ Kelvin suggested.

            ‘They won’t listen to reason,’ Matt noted sadly. ‘They want him gone, the only way to protect him is to make them gone.’

            ‘Are you insane!’ Kelvin screamed. ‘That’s genocide.’

            ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Matt retorted before turning back to Geoff and Jackie. ‘We need to focus on protecting our kind and keeping our families alive.’

            ‘You won’t get far enough to Paris,’ Kelvin warned. ‘I will kill each of you to ensure we follow our mission.’

            ‘Shut up,’ Matt snarled, swinging around and inserting his fist into Kelvin’s chest before ripping out his heart. ‘We should burn Paris. Anyone who gets in our way will have to be dispatched similarly.’

            ‘Agreed,’ Jackie nodded. Geoff followed suit shortly afterwards, fearing for his life.

            ‘Good,’ Matt smirked slyly.

Leo was thrown back into an intense firefight between the time machine and Zoombian ships. ‘You’re both psychos,’ Leo yelled as he realised that he was nearly in jumping distance of the time machine.

            ‘What?’ Jackie stated as Geoff looked straight into Leo’s eyes in a way that stated Jump NOW!

            ‘I know what my dad did to Kelvin,’ Leo snarled. ‘And I know that you burnt Paris to the ground.’

            ‘You say that like you didn’t know,’ Jackie laughed psychotically before seeing the look on your face. ‘Wait, Tom never told you.’

            ‘Tom kept secrets to protect some of them,’ Geoff guessed. ‘Had he revealed it then he would have had to reveal how Kelvin died.’

            ‘Probably,’ Leo smirked as the time machine came into jumping distance. ‘See ya,’ he smirked before pushing backwards off of the pair, landing in the open hanger bay door where he was caught by a startled Josie. ‘Gun?’

            ‘You’re not on our team last time I checked,’ Josie challenged. He pulled her close to him and kissed her passionately.

            ‘I made a mistake,’ he explained when he released her. ‘Gun?’

            ‘There,’ Josie stated, pointing off to her left and up in the air, out of most people’s reach.

            ‘Thanks,’ he smirked before using his superspeed to get to the ladder quickly before combining his superspeed and wallcrawling abilities to climb the wall and get into the gun and begin shooting at Geoff and Jackie.

Geoff realised what Leo was planning slightly too late, and while he was able to prevent Jackie from being vaporised, he was unable to prevent her head from scrapping the wall, causing an insane amount of images from the past, present and future to fill her head. These images sent her even further over the edge as her mind struggled to process all of the additional information.

After they were out of range of the time machine, Geoff concentrated all of his energy on getting himself and his one remaining teammate to their target destination where he immediately took Jackie to the first hospital that he could find.