Chapter 17 – Why Time Machines are Awesome

"Get out," Silk shouted. "I need privacy and if I try anything you can just kill Lucy." Silk shooed them away.

The others didn't trust Silk but did what he said anyway. It was surprising how often giving off an air of superiority worked even if you weren't superior.

Silk's first order of business was changing from white to his black and brown. The white suit had too much blood on it. Silk knew the weakness of the suit, it had a tendency to catch fire easily which could be countered with an enchantment but he chose not to. The white suit turned to ash quickly.

Silk suddenly remembered the keys, scrambling he tried to grab the glove but it was already ashes. He knew that he could access that space another time so he was fine but then he remembered Bronze had a key. Bronze had put so much effort into them that leaving it like this would be disrespectful to her.

Silk ran to the door and opened it. Maya was waiting outside.

"What do you want?" She asked agitated.

"There should be a key on Bronze's body. Could you get that for me, with it I can disable the time machine."

"You had better not be pulling my leg," Maya warned.

"I am in no position to pull your leg," Silk retorted and closed the door to be back in the room with the time machine.

He was truly impressed by the magic configuration. The lines were made from a crystal that stored magic and effectively became a magical circuit, all it needed was enough energy to use but gathering that much energy was a fool's errand for most. Silk was known to be a fool.

Silk studied the magic amplification, it was a decent attempt but didn't compare to Silk's white suit so the magic to use this time machine was extraordinarily large. This amount of magic would not do.

Silk started studying the actual time travelling part of the magical array. It was complicated and when he looked closer he could tell it had also been encrypted, he was an expert when it came to this sought of thing so he could decrypt some of it but he was not hopeful that he would be able to understand it all.

The time machine seemed to rip apart space to travel in time using anchor points, he didn't know how it did this though. Anchor points were guided by magic and memory which limited the time you could travel to. Silk could make a guess on how this worked so know he just needed to wait for his key.

A man barged into the room, he was in black. "Here," he said throwing the key at Silk.

Silk checked and it seemed to be the original. "Thanks." Silk placed the key into his pocket. The man in black was about to leave but Silk stopped him by calling out. "Hey, I am about to do something stupid. Do you know how much of a beating reality could take before a paradox destroys it?"

The man in black showed alarm and burst out the room shouting for back up.

"Of course, you don't," groaned Silk. He could sense fear coming over him but he needed to do this. Silk let out strings of magical energy which added itself to the magical array. The amplification areas in particular seemed to see the most change, the time travel part was left unchanged. The amplification areas suddenly had layers of strings of magical energy on top of it complicating it by many factors.

The sight was very strange to anyone who saw it. Silk had multiple strings of magical energy coming out of him forming in areas touching nearly every part of the room.

Sweat was streaming off Silk's face as the precision in his magic had to down to the minute detail. The mental strength to maintain the array was enormous ad he had a splitting headache in seconds. After another few seconds he felt like an axe was through his head and he knew what that felt like.

Maya ran into the room furious and shouting but Silk heard nothing. She suddenly took up a weird stance and using magic conjured up a storm of magical energy, every part of the storm could split Silk apart but didn't. The storm seemed to dissipate into the magical array in the room.

"You just signed your death warrant," Silk panted. The energy multiplied several folds but kept going, the energy became abominably powerful. The energy started leaking from the amplification circuits and into the time circuit. The energy steadily circulated int the time circuits and no one in the room could go further in as the sheer amount of magical energy was enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone and physically repel them.

The energy started to convulse in the time circuits, it seemed to be losing control, the magic strings in the room started to shake uncontrollably and the circuit seemed to fall apart. At that moment the magic energy stopped convulsing and erupted.

Maya took cover using magic to block debris. "The hell," she exclaimed in confusion. The room hd experienced no damage but was in the same condition it had been at the beginning. She looked at the array to find it broken and in bad condition with cracks all over but this was a good thing for her as it meant the time machine couldn't be used.

"Ma'am, you had better see this," the loyal man in black informed.

"Show me then," Maya said. The man in black showed a magical projection of the world, it was changing. War torn areas seemed to be healing. Maya looked outside to see the demons and she saw some disappear and others appear from up in the tower. It seemed to be happening all over the world to everyone but her and the man in black.

"It can't be." Maya started feeling faint. "I can't believe a back-street world like this has lost me so much." She supported herself in the wall she eyed her hand, it was disappearing. "Goddammit," she shouted angrily. She took a knife outside and pierced t in the air and seemed to rip space apart, she walked through the hole, the man in black followed. The hole seemed to close itself and at the moment it was about to close a streak of colour sped into it.

Silk hadn't done much to change time. All he had done was infiltrate the Heron and take photos and then tipped off the police. It had been exceptionally easy and boring. He had met his idol Harvey the detective but that was before he had gone through his exceptional experience so he was dull. Silk didn't know if he should be happy for him or sad the world lost someone so exceptional.

He had noticed since after the whole police matter people seemed to ignore him more an more, it got so bad that people completely tackled him in the street and the tackling party wouldn't even know what had been hit to trip him/her up. He became increasingly lonely.

The day of his transformation was coming up, he had been disappearing bit by bit and he had predicted this would be the point in where he would disappear.

Silk was leaning against a lamp post in Edinburgh watching people stroll by in their peaceful lives, the dream he had forever wanted was now in place. In the months that had passed since the time travel he had aged years in days. He now sported a long beard and a walking stick for support. IT looked just like the one he had used to beat the intruder in his head at the beginning.

Silk watched in blissful silence until he saw a family of four walking past. His eyes widened in astonishment, the teenage boy looked at where Silk was and looked at him curiously. An impulse came over his body and the teenager ran over to the old man.

"Hey," he grunted in usual teenage fashion.

"Hey, do you want to know something good?" Silk asked.

For some reason the teenager trusted the old man, "Hit me."

"James, remember this. When adversity befalls you smile, always smile for…" At that moment the old man disappeared.

James walked back to his family. "What was that?" His dad asked. His dad had come over to see him for once and while James did not like him he did not say it outright. Missing every but two Christmases tends to sew hatred in a child.

James smiled and the answered, "I don't know." James puzzled over his actions but could not remember anything but looking at a lamp post. James noticed he was smiling instead of using his usual disregarding shrug and grunt. He didn't know why but he felt like this was the right thing to do.

James looked back at his phone and grinned so widely he looked like a madman, not even Silk needed to grin that much. He had just received homework for tomorrow by a teacher, it did not look easy.