Time After Tyler: Second Leg

Tlyer could hear footsteps approaching him as he stared up at the ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors, still stunned from his last encounter. They sounded familiar, and looked much like Tom Davidson's foot wear. This was all confirmed when Tom started talking at him, as if nothing at all was wrong.

"There you are!" He bent down and helped Tyler to stand up. "I told myself I'd find you here. Come on, you've got work to do."

"I do?" He put a hand to his head, it still felt weird inside of his own head. "Where are we?"

"At the Castle Beyond Time and Space. Neat, huh? I might have my next birthday sleepover here!" Tom lead Tyler around through hallways of tattered, futuristic artifacts, or mint condition, freshly painted classical art.

"Keep you guests away from those mirrors, Tom." Tyler glanced back at the hallway warily.

"Oh, right. You shouldn't touch those."

"...Thanks for the warning."

It was a short walk through all of the hallways before Tyler followed Tom into a gigantic library...where another Tom in a fishing vest stood next to a glowing swirling portals inside of some sort of fancy frame on top of some steps

"It's about time: You're late." The vested Tom mock-scolded.

"No later than you were when you were me."

"There's two of you?" Tyler made no attempt to hide the surprise in his voice.

"Kind of. We're the same Tom Davidson, except from different time periods." Vested-Tom bent down and shook Tyler's hand. "I'm Tom from the near-future. Pleased to 'meet' you."

"Okay..." Tyler shook gingerly, what the heck was going on? "Um, nice vest."

"Okay, I brought him here, now what?" The Tom from Tyler's present looked to his later version.

"He goes through the mirror portal!" Vested Tom grinned.

"Another...Mirror?" He felt panic knocking on the door, and it brought it's friend apprehension along for the stay.

"Relax, this one doesn't do what the other ones did." Future Tom reached and dug around inside a pocket of his vest. "Now Tyler, you've got a really important job: You have to stop Zodon from messing around with time travel."

"Me? Why?" Tyler tried pleading with Tom waving his arms, he did NOT just ask that. Panic was settling it, and it was inviting it's friend Hysteria over for a house party. "Isn't that your department, what with you time travel powers and everything?"

"I can't. Zodon's equpiment might detect me if I try to interfere, and he needs to be taken by surprise." He found what he was looking for and held out a small three-pronged device out to Tyler. "Also, if he knows I'm involved, he'll think he must be on the right track to inventing time travel. If he tries long enough, he'll probably junk up history.

"Look, all you need to do is take this little gizmo and attach it to the back of his chair."

"That's it?" Tyler held out his hand to accept whatever the heck that thing was, and looked at it warily.

"That's what Angie told me." Future Tom crossed his arms smiling smugly.

"Angie built this?" Tyler held the gismo like it was going to explode on him or something. That's what most of Angie's inventions did.

"Yes, some time in the future."

"Are you sure it won't explode or something?"

"Trust me, we want this thing to cause havoc." Then Future Tom turned towards the portal raising his arms and doing something..complicated to it. "I've set the portal to about a year from when you left. Zodon is about to go back to the year when Excelsior School was being built to plant some kind of techno-gadget that will let him past the PS238's security system.

"You'll appear right behind him. just slap that gismo on his chair, and everything will be fine."

"Then I'll get back to my own time? Back to the school library?" Tyler asked apprehensively, something about this did not seem right.

"You have my past and future word on that." The Tom from his present stated smartly as his future version turned around to face them.

"Remember: You'll pop right behind Zodon. He should be too busy to notice you."

"And I just... Stick this on his chair?"

"Yeh, but he's getting ready to travel so you'll have to be quick, ready?" Present Tom added.

"I guess so." Tyler was feeling all kinds of apprehension about this.

"Then walk through the mirror." Future Tom coaxed him along as he reached out his free hand and walked through the swirling mirror portal into another time and place...

Time After Tyler: Time Travel for Real

After stepping through the portal that the Toms had made, Tyler found himself right behind an extremely busy Zodon. Feeling the familiar sensation of doom as he snuck up on the crabby super-genius, he composed a mental goodbye letter.

My name is Tyler, and I attend PS238, the first public school for superpowered children. I don't have any powers, but that didn't stop my folks from sending me here. They're superheroes, and I guess that means they're used to getting their way.

I get to take some classes in the normal public school three miles above PS238, and I always figured I was safer up there. Well today, I fell out of the library during study hall, and landed someplace called "The Castle Beyond Time and Space."

Tom Davidson was there, he can travel through time. He's sent me on a mission to mess up Zodon's time machine, while he'll build sometime in my future.

Ahead of him Zodon quietly muttered through a checklist of protocols. "Activating interlock... Dynotherms connected... Infracells up..."

Just thinking about all this makes my head hurt. Anyhow, all I'm supposed to do is put a little metal thingie on the back of Zodon's chair before he travels through time. So here goes... Tyler thought as he reached forwards, eyes focused on the back of Zodon's chair.

Light started swirling around the chair as he heard Zodon speak, and he could hear the maniacal grin in the super-genius' voice...

"Destination is set. And... HERE WE GO!"

The world blurred around him once again, as the evil technical genius made his first portal into the past. Tyler found himself in the middle of a construction area, with the yet-unbuilt Excelsior school to his side, and the back of Zodon's chair, gizmo attached in front of him.

Oh boy... This most definitely fell into the category of 'Not Good' and set the tone for the rest of the little experience.

--------------------

"--Or Anything." Zodon muttered angrily at his equipment, as Tyler hopped off the back of his chair. Once you froze the supergenius in time and highjacked his travelling rig, getting back was easy. "Hey! Looks like this FLUFFY piece of SEESAW finally stabilized! I'm only about a year away from where I started.. But I've drifted across the schoolyard a bit.

"Let's see, setting four-dee coordinates..." Zodon went back to trying his amchine just as Tyler reattached the gizmo. "Wait. 'Power instability detected in..' Aw, EARWA--"

The genius' rant cut short by the sudden portal, Tyler worked his way on sneaking back into the school library from the outside, cradling the Stopwatch Gun he had picked up. It was handy, but it could be a real pain in the butt if it got into the wrong hands.

After sneaking through the hallways, and in through the secret passage into the library, Tyler peered around a divider wall to see is he was in the clear. He started tiptoeing back to the table where this had all started. So far so go--

"TYLER!"

He froze in his tracks realizing he had forgotten about the danger of Mrs. Metcalfe's wrath.

"What are you doing out of your seat?" She marched up to him, and made sure he was headed back to his table. The aggravated librarian put her hands on her hips, glaring at the mess he had left behind at the start of all of this. "Tyler Marlocke. This is completely unacceptable. I can't have students disappear and leave messes like this.

"And sneaking out of study hall without a pass. That's a revocation of bathroom privileges for a week. I hope you have a sturdy set of..." The elderly harpy of a librarian trailed off as he tried to hide the gun from her. "What are you hiding from me? Turn around..."

Mrs. Metcalfe snatched the gun away from Tyler and examined it, though not closely or thoroughly. "Tsk! Bringing toy guns to school! That's detention, young man! If you're very lucky, I'll return it to you before you go home. Bring it again and it vanishes forever, are we clear?"

"Yes, Mrs. Metcalfe..." Oh great... Just what he needed. He watched her walk away back to her desk and sighed, it was all over no--. Oh no. "Wait, Mrs. Metcalfe, don't point it at yoursel--"

-BZORT!-

Tyler facepalmed and groaned inwardly as he walked up to the crotchy frozen Mrs. Metcalfe. He was going to get in more trouble for this..

-BZOWNT!-

"Tyler! Let go of the toy this instant! I said you could have it back after school!"

"I know but--"

"But you can't go without two days in detention?"

"No ma'am."

"Then sit down!"

"Yes, ma'am." Resigned, Tyler tidied up his seat and table before sitting back down again. He asked himself what else could go wrong today when a hand clapped down suddenly on his shoulder.

"Glad you made it back." Tom. Ofcourse it would be Tom.

"YIPE!!" He yelped out of sheer worn nerves and reflex.

"Tyler? This is a library you know!" Came the voice of Mrs. Metcalfe again.

"Yes ma'am. Sorry."

"So how was your trip?" Tom asked, now wearing a vest like his future counterpart, as he sat down.

"Oh great.." Tyler said, laying in as heavily as a ten-yearold could with sarcasm. "I got lost in your castle floating in space, got to see nightmares about possible versions of me, bounced around with a guy who thinks he's two people, hitched a ride back on Zodon and almost got Mrs. Metcalfe frozen in time."

"Sounds like you did about a hundred and fifty comic books worth of work. What do you think?" Tom brought up a large, long box filled with comic books.

For a moment Tyler stared at it wondering and thinking, then looked up and grinned, bargaining. "I got detention for sneaking back into the library."

"Okay, one seventy-five."

"And I got exposed to the fourth dimension. That can't be healthy." He was going to milk this for all it was worth.

"Fine, two hundred and I'll throw in some 'giant-sized' books from the seventies."

"Deal."