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Chapter Text

The Prime Macula was an interesting point in time. Not much information was found of this strange and interesting sickness. Only two holders of this were ever documented, but only one of them has had their name found. Two of these holders had gotten terrible fates due to this colossal supernatural disease.

The holder that had his name revealed by some researchers, was Hugo. The original holder's name is yet to be discovered.

We don't have much history of it, but what we do know, was that this wasn't any ordinary plague.

It's written down that there will be a third holder, but we have yet to see this sickness come back from all those years ago.

Old texts suggest that the Macula can only be completely eradicated if all three holders are gathered under one roof. However, such a reunion seems implausible, leaving the fate of the Macula uncertain until its potential resurgence.

***

Callum sighed and closed the book. He needed to know who that first holder was. The quest to discover the identity of the first Macula holder consumed him. Or.. he'll never get the answers he needs, for his journey he wants to do. He got up from the dining table and then pushed the book aside.

He left from the dining room, then down the hall, into his bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror, then at his neck.

He traced the black veins with his finger. Sometimes it comes on, sometimes it doesn't. "What the hell is this thing..." It's been bugging him for a few months. Even longer than that, since he was very young, but he never took any notice of it. He thought all those fevers were just the standard flu or a cold... But it seems to be something more.

Doctors and nurses never seem to know what's going on with him, and every time he goes to see them, the black veins in his neck go away. He tried to take pictures of it, but every time he showed the Doctors, they never believed him.

Callum has two brothers, Marcus, and James. Only them have seen it. They gave him so many medications, but nothing seemed to work.

Callum thought it was over for him since he was getting no help, but then something just was nagging him to research about it. After a bunch of mindless searching through web pages, he found a book about different plagues throughout time on Earth.

And that was what he was reading just before.

"The Prime Macula..." Callum spoke out loud in the mirror. He rubbed his neck again. There were so many black veins, and they were all over his face by now.

He looked down. "I need to find a way to cure this..."

****

And that was what he did. Callum is somewhat of an inventor. He invented a time machine. And only for the sole purpose of ending the Macula.

The time machine wasn't that fancy, just a decent-sized metal rectangle, a box of metal. With a dining chair as a seat for him to sit in.

"Maybe I should use a gaming chair..." Callum said as he was inside the machine, getting some things ready. "Because if I sit in this chair too long, my back is gonna give out,"

The panel was made from homemade things, such as a keyboard from a computer, a button panel from a microwave, and a scroll wheel from a mouse. And a lever he got from a junkyard that was used for a Union Pacific Locomotive's brake.

But that wasn't all.

Behind him, there's a curtain that borders off the cockpit and a little entryway to finally end up to a door that leads out of the machine from the back, but also, in the hallway, there is a glass case, that holds the machine's battery. The battery that powers it all, and the battery that makes the machine... travel through time.

Magnets. With enough speed in rotation, and enough electricity running through it, it'll generate enough power to make a wormhole outside of the machine.

Callum has tested the machine before, to try it out before he did anything drastic. And everything went smoothly. There were no casualties.

Callum adjusted himself on the chair and got out the book he got from the library. He flipped to the page that talked about the Macula.

"1300s Aquitaine, France? Alright... here we go..." Callum looked at the keyboard, then typed in "Aquitaine" then he looked over to the microwave panel, and typed in "1348" Then, he pressed the start button.

The machine rocked, as the magnets started to rotate slowly in the glass case, the sound of sparking could be heard coming from behind. All the lights came on inside, and the gaming keyboard glowed. Callum looked up, directly outside the front window, and he saw a spark. The spark turned into a vortex, as it seemed like the garage the machine was in, was warping.

Then, it felt like the machine bounced forward, as it was now traveling down the wormhole.

Callum set the book down near the keyboard. "Time to get some actual answers," He said to himself.

****

As the time machine was traveling down the wormhole, now and then, it would make a violent shake. "Holy shit!" Callum yelled. He adjusted the chair he was sitting down in. "I should have nailed the chair down..." He looked out the window, "Why is it so shaky? It was even shaky when I tested it out... I hope that doesn't mean anything..."

Little did Callum know, but the time panel malfunctioned and was about to send him to a time he didn't place.

The colorful wormhole started to slowly diminish, as he could see trees and green grass warping into view. Then, after one violent shake: "AHH!" Callum was sent flying out of the chair and landed on the side of the ship.

"Ow..." Callum grunted as he got up. "I really need to nail that down..." He turned his head after dusting himself off, at the window. "Huh... I'm here?" He looked at all the trees. "Beautiful landscape..." He said in awe. He looked around out the window. He needed to find anyone. But, he knows he can't go around and say he's a time traveler. That probably won't be a good thing to do.

"Wait... shit... I'm in France aren't I?" He got out his phone to quickly look up words he could say in French, but then he remembered he was in the 1300s.

"What am I thinking? I can't use this anymore..." Callum sighed and shoved the phone back in his pocket. "I just have to go out and try my best-," But then he remembered something else just as he was about to step outside. "Oh, crap! My new clothes!" He ran back inside.

He knew he was going to the 1300s beforehand, so he bought some clothes that resembled medieval times.

After changing into them, and tossing his other clothes on the floor, he was ready to go out.

"I hope no one sees my time machine..." After stepping outside, the warm sun hit him. Then, he realized he made a mistake wearing all these clothes. "How did they survive back then in this heat? Damn..." He walked through the grass, making sure he was going to be able to find his way back, and not lose his machine.

He then saw smoke going up in the air in the distance. "Is that... what I think it is?" Callum was hoping it was going to be a campfire. But he didn't just want to spring into this person's land, so he slowly walked up to them.

He saw a girl, sitting by herself, wearing very medieval-like clothes. 'Is that a blue cape behind her? What is that?' Callum said to himself. He walked up to her.

"Um... hello?"

The girl slowly looked up at him.

"Uhh?" She said.

Callum was about to say something, but then she spoke-

"Oh salut? Qui es-tu? Je vous connais?" She asked.

Callum froze. He had no idea what the hell she just said. He knew it was French, but he didn't speak it. He'd use his phone to translate it, but it doesn't work right now.

Callum took a deep breath and looked directly at her. "I...." He pointed to himself. "Am... not from here..." He pointed to the area around him. He spoke slowly, so she could at least understand him. He could see that she just arched her eyebrow at him.

Callum tried to speak again. "I... am..."

"Why are speaking like that?" She asked.

Callum was about to say something else, but then he froze. "W-Wait... You can speak English?" Callum asked, confused.

"Yes, I can," The girl said, "I can speak French and English just fine. I asked, where are you from? And... do I know you? I don't remember ever seeing you before..."

"I'm... uh..." Callum didn't want to mention he was a time traveler, definitely. But, he did want to mention Hugo, and possibly the Macula.

"Um... Do you know of a Hugo?"

He saw something like a shocked expression on the girl's face for a split moment.

"Hugo? W-What do you want with Hugo?" Her voice sounded as if it was on edge.

"I...well, there's this thing called the Macula... and..."

The girl shot up from the long she was sitting on and started to yell at Callum. "What do you want with that?! Hugo is dead! Whatever you could possibly want with him, it's not happening!"

Callum was startled and stepped back slightly, the stress he was feeling at this moment, was bringing the Macula out inside him, and his neck turned black.

"I..." The girl froze as she saw. Her eyes widened, and then she looked back up at Callum.

"Un détenteur de Macula..." She said.

Callum blinked. "W-What?" He asked,

"A Macula holder..." the girl clarified in English. "You're a Macula holder..."

"Um... Yeah... I am," Callum said. "I guess. To be honest, I'm not too sure, but I'm pretty sure I am,"

"That makes no sense. Hugo just died... if a new holder was going to take place, it wouldn't be for another 500 or so years..."

Callum blinked. 'She thinks I'm from this time...' Which, now that he was thinking about it, was a good thing. He didn't want to get out of being a time traveler, but... he remembered something she said before.

"Wait... did you say Hugo died?" Callum asked.

He could see the sadness swept on the girl's face from him asking that, "Y-Yes... he did. Lucas... he... I can't even talk about it..." She looked away wiping her eyes.

"Crap... I thought I came to the right time..." Callum thought. Well, he actually said it out loud, and the girl heard him.

"Huh? What did you say?"

Callum looked at her. This girl apparently knows who Hugo is. And she seemed to have a connection with him. He decided to let her know his secret. He needed the help.

"Come with me-," he said to the girl, gesturing for her to follow.

"Huh?" The girl asked, still standing in the same location Callum left her in. "Why? Where?"

"Just follow me," Callum insisted.

He could see her stamp out the fire, then, she came to join him.

"What's your name by the way?" Callum asked.

"Amicia..." She said.

"Okay, I'm Callum," Callum said as he traversed through the grass, "Where is it? It was over here? Wasn't it?" Callum just hoped he hadn't lost his machine.

"Where was what exactly?" Amicia asked.

"The thing I need to show you," Callum responded as he pushed through the grass. "It should be—" Then, he spotted his time machine in an open space adorned with flowers. "There she is," Callum said, relieved.

Amicia was still behind Callum pushing through the grassy area. "Where who is?" But once she entered into the open area, she took a step back. "What? Wha-?" She blinked, standing in place. She looked down at Callum walking ahead of her over to this... thing. She had never seen anything like it.

"C-Callum? That was your name right?"

Callum stopped and looked behind him. "Yes... if you're wondering what this is, just... come with me inside. I'll explain,"

Callum walked to the back and opened the door.

Amicia just stood there, staring at what was happening, not moving at all.

"Amicia just come... we don't got all day. I mean, we technically do, but just come..."

***

After practically dragging Amicia over to the machine, both she and Callum were inside.

Amicia just stared and looked around the interior of the time machine. She had a look of bewilderment on her face. And also a hint of unease. "What... is this?" Amicia said as she looked closer at the panel.

"Okay, so... everything thing is here is basically far from your time at all... I... well, I think I should just come out and tell you everything," Callum walked over to her and sat in his chair at the control desk.

"My name is Callum De Rune. I have a strange sickness that-,"

"Wait... wait... hold on...." Amicia said cutting Callum off. "Did you say... De Rune?"

Callum blinked, then turned his head and looked up at Amicia standing over him. "Um... Yes? Why?"

"My name... my name is Amicia De Rune..."

Callum squinted his eyes. Many thoughts were racing through his mind. "You... You're? Wait... but you said you know Hugo?"

"Hugo was my brother,"

Callum shot out of his chair. "I'm related to you and Hugo?!"

Amicia just looked at Callum. "Who... are you?! I don't know who you are. I would have known someone in my family who looks close to Lucas's age,"

"Lucas? Who's... Lucas?"

"A friend I met a while ago... but we kind of parted ways for a bit," Amicia looked around at the machine again. "Who are you, and what is this?"

Callum sighed. "I believe I'm a Macula holder,"

"I can see that," Amicia said pointing to Callum's neck. "But that's impossible. Two Macula holders can't exist at the same time. Hugo... is no longer with us, but it's only been a year. A new holder could never show up that quickly. And there's been no rats,"

Callum placed his hands on the desk. "I'm... not from this time Amicia."

Amicia tilted her head. "Not... from this time? What do you mean?"

"I'm a time traveler. Well, if you'd want to call me that,"

Amicia blinked at Callum. "I still don't understand what you mean." She said folding her arms.

"I'm from the future," Callum bluntly stated.

Amicia stood there for a while. "From the future? I don't... understand..."

"I'm from the future. I'm not from this year. What is it, like 1300 something?"

"Uhh... Yes?" Amicia said.

"Well, I'm from 2023,"

Callum saw Amicia freeze for a second. "2023? That's... more numbers than 1300..." Then, her eyes widen. "Wait... that's impossible!" She yelled. She looked down at Callum. "How is that possible?!"

Callum gestured his hands all around at the interior of his machine. "This... is why it's possible,"

Amicia looked around with a very baffled look. "Okay... so... let's say that... you did come... back in time... why?"

"As I said. I have the Macula. I wanted to visit the past to get answers. And to... see if I can break this curse,"

He saw Amicia just looking at him with a nervous expression. "Is that... safe?"

"So far, it's been going good. But I need to find Hugo. It is why I asked you about him,"

Amicia sighed and looked away. "Hugo died... a few years ago,"

Callum placed his hands on the panel. "What year did he die?

Amicia quickly looked at Callum, then at the panel. After making a shocked expression she looked back at the boy.

*****

After punching in the dates, on the microwave panel, he punched in the years, then typed in the location into the keyboard. Then, he took the brakes off.

The machine shook-, and Amicia nearly lost he balance. "Woah!" She exclaimed.

"Grab hold of the back of my chair, I wasn't planning ahead of me eventually having more than one person in here," Callum said, pulling Amicia closer up to the chair back.

The outside of the ship started to warp, the trees started to distort. Amicia was startled at seeing this, and she let go of the chair and backed away.

But then, the ship made a sudden jerk forward, and Amicia got thrown back and landed on the floor.

Callum gasped from hearing the thud. "A-Amicia! Are you okay?!" He quickly turned around, then saw Amicia getting off the floor.

"Ca c'était quoi?!" Amicia yelled.

"W-What?" Callum aksed, not understnading.

"What was that!!" Amicia yelled.

"I'll be here all day if I had to explain it to you," Callum said, as he got off the chair, and helped Amicia up.

Callum then sat back at his desk, looking out the window.

The area warping around them looked pretty at least. And Amicia was the one to mention that. "Why... does it look... nice?"

"No idea. But that's... time. The 4th dimension," Callum said. A smile grew on his face. "It was fairly easy to make this machine. I don't know why I never heard of most doing something like this, Time-travel more or less is something no one knows exists... But... I've made this pretty simply..."

Amicia stayed silent as Callum spoke. She didn't understand most of what he was talking about, but then the ship made a jerk. "Ah!" Amicia yelped grabbing the back of the chair. "What's happening now?"

Callum looked out the window and saw the warped area started to form into something. "We're almost here..."

After a few moments, the area finally appeared, and the time machine made a sudden stop.

But in the window, made Callum very confused about what he was looking at. "The heck is that? What am I looking at?" He turned his head to Amicia, only to see she was staring at it with a look of horror on his face. "A-Amicia?" He said, concerned.

Amicia shook her head. "That's it... that's where Hugo is in..."

Callum squinted at her, then turned his head back out the window. "What? What do you mean?! Why is Hugo inside this thing that looks like the building in Epcot?"

There was a sound of rumbling. Callum was the first to notice it. He placed his hands on the panel. "What's that rumbl-"

Then, the entire machine, rocketed forward, letting out a scream from Amicia.

Callum quickly placed his hands on the desk to get balance, but looking up, he saw a sea of rats running toward the white Dome. They were running, and they slammed into the time machine and moved it slightly.

"What in the flying hell?!" Callum yelled out.

Amicia quickly looked up and saw them. "Oh no! The rats! I forgot they were all over!"

Callum blinked. "What?! Why are there so many rats?!"

Amicia looked over at Callum with disbelief. "How do you not know this? You're a Macula holder!"

"What does that have to do with anything?!" Callum yelled.

"The rats! They're connected with the Macula!" Amicia said.

Callum was about to say something, but then the rats cleared out from outside the ship. Callum quickly looked out to the window, and saw. "Are they gone?"

But then after a good 30 seconds, the rats came storming again.

"Come! If we want to get to Hugo, we have to go when they clear out!" Amicia yelled to Callum.

****

It took a long time, but they finally reached the Dome. The rats kept on coming in swarms, and they had to hide behind boulders and rocks. Callum has never seen anything like this. And Amicia was very confused about it. She couldn't understand how Callum could have the Prime Macula, and never encountered this in his life.

"Careful," Amicia said as they both approached the Dome. "I remember entering this last time... and... it messed with my brain..."

Callum took a deep breath but then coughed from the stench of the air. "Okay, if you say so..."

***

"What is this..." Callum said as he walked inside. He stayed close to Amicia. All around them looked like a nest, the walls around them were red and glowing. The sky looked like it had a weird red hue.

"Amicia... are we in the Upside Down? What the fuck is happening?" Callum said.

"Hey, watch your mouth," Amicia said to Callum. "Stay close to me..."

They walked for a bit more until they came up to a huge, area that had what seemed to be a tree at the end of this very strange path.

Amicia froze. "Oh my..." She started to tear up a bit.

Callum looked at it, and he saw what seemed to be a... boy stuck in the tree. Callum had many questions about what he was seeing, but then he saw something. A boy, possibly around his age holding a crossbow, and a girl who looked shockingly similar to Amicia.

It didn't take Callum any longer to realize that this was Amicia's past self.

But then he saw his Amicia running towards them. "Lucas! Arrêt!" Amicia yelled to both the people as she ran to them.

It zapped Callum pit of his daze, and he panicked as he saw Amicia running over to her past self. "Amicia! Wait!" He took off running to her.

But Amicia wasn't listening. "Lucas! Ne le faites pas! Ne fais pas de mal à Hugo!" She yelled out.

The two people heard Amicia's yelling, and quickly turned around to see who was making all that racket.

"Quoi?" The boy said.

"Amicia!" Callum yelled. He quickly ran up to Amicia, but then he tripped, fell, then slammed into Amicia and both of them fell over. "AH!" Both Callum and Amicia yelped as they dropped to the ground face-first at the feet of these two people.

Callum lifted his head, and coughed, because whatever nest-like material the ground was, got into his mouth, and he spat it out, "Ugh, that is disgusting!" he groaned. He looked up at the boy and Amicia's possible past self. He was about to get up, but then his Amicia got up before him.

"Lucas! Ne s'il vous plaît!"

The boy gasped, and stepped back, slightly aiming his crossbow at the future Amicia. "Qui es-tu?!"

The past Amicia looked terrified. "Pourquoi me ressembles-tu?!"

Callum quickly stood up and got in the middle of them. "Everyone calm down!" Callum yelled. He quickly looked over at the boy. "And you! Lower that crossbow,"

The boy slowly lowered it down but still kept an eye on them.

Callum then quickly looked over at his Amicia. "Amicia, never do that again! I had no idea your past self was going to be here!"

"Past self?" The other Amicia said. She looked at Callum, then at the other Amicea. "You speak English?"

"What do you mean by past self?" The boy then asked.

Callum looked at them. "Look, I-" Callum then noticed the tree-like structure that had a boy embedded into it. "What the..."

"Hugo..." Callum heard the past Amicia say, with sadness in her voice.

"That's... That... that's him???" Callum asked with confusion.

"Yes..."

"Okay, how can I take him off?" Callum said while he walked toward Hugo.

"What? Where are you going?!" The boy yelled.

"Let him!" Future Amicia yelled to the boy.

"But the rats!" The boy yelled.

But, there were no rats at the moment. At all, it was all clear for a moment.

As Callum walked closer up to Hugo trapped inside this strange object... He tried to pry him off. But it was hard. "Guys I need some help,"

Amicia, Callum's Amicia, quickly ran over to him. "Oh, Hugo..." Amicia said as she tried to also help to take him off. But it was hard.

Callum tried to take the weird vines off of Hugo, but it was difficult. "What the heck is this?"

"The Macula," Amicia said.

Callum blinked, then stopped. He looked over at Amicia. "The... the Mac-... This is the shit that's inside me?!"

Feeling very disgusted from this, only made Callum want to get Hugo out of this thing faster. But the vines were starting to stick to his hands. They weren't sticking to Amicia's.

"Let me do it, protect yourself!" Amicia yelled, and then she completely tore Hugo away from the overgrown Macula.

"There!" She then quickly ran back over to the area where her past self and the boy were.

Both of them were just standing there, seeming like they didn't know what to do.

Amicia panted as she held onto Hugo, who wasn't even wearing any clothes. "Ah... damn, all his clothes got torn," She said as she looked at Callum who came to join them. "We have to get him new clothes, or he's gonna be cold..."

"Excuse me, but who the heck are you two?!" They heard the boy yell.

Callum looked at him. "Now is not the time to explain-,"

But then, there was a loud rumble. The weird tree Hugo was stuck on, started to vibrate. They all gasped and looked toward it. It seemed like the Macula didn't like that they took Hugo away from it, and it wanted revenge. In the distance, they saw a sea of rats coming to chase them.

"Run!" Callum heard his Amicia yell out.

They all started to run, "Come on! You too! Both of you!" Callum said. He grabbed both the boy and the other Amicia's hands.

****

They bolted out of the Dome, and Callum took the lead to guide them to the machine.

All of them were right behind Callum, but so were the rats- Who were gaining on them.

"Guys run faster!" Callum yelled. He could see his machine in the distance. He tried to run faster to get to the door.

"What is that?" The boy said.

"Never mind that! Just get to it!" The future Amicia yelled.

Callum made it and quickly opened the door. "Come on! Get In! All of you!" He shoved them all inside, then jumped inside, just as the rats caught up with them, and rocked the time machine from side to side.

Everyone was out of breath.

Callum sighed, but it wasn't over. They had to leave the time. The rats were too powerful, and they were overtaking the time machine. They were so strong, that they were starting to move, and they felt it going backward. Callum wasn't sure what was behind them, and he didn't want the back of his time machine to hit something and get damaged. He ran over to the panel, quickly placed it in the time zone he lives in, and unlocked the brakes.

The machine vibrated, and the area outside the window started to distort, and they launched forward into the wormhole.

****

Once they were flying comfortably in the wormhole, Callum sighed. Well, that was an experience.

He looked behind him and saw his Amicia standing behind him, grabbing onto the wall, seeming like she nearly had fallen from the jerk of the wormhole, but was still holding onto Hugo. But the boy and the past Amicia looked like they'd seen a ghost.

"What. The. Hell." The boy said.

"Where are we?" The past Amicia said, looking around.

"Okay... let me explain..."

****

"So... You're someone who can travel through time? And this girl over here who looks like me... is literally me but from the future?" The past Amicia said.

Callum nodded.

"How is that possible?" The boy asked.

"It just is... Lucas," The future Amicia said to him. She sighed and looked at Callum. "He has the Macula,"

Lucas gasped, "What? How... How can he? Two people can't-,"

"Remember, he's from the future. He's just here for answers. He wants to fix it..." Amicia said. She looked at Callum. "So... where too? What now?"

"I need to find out about the original holder," Callum said.

"The original holder of the Macula?" Lucas asked. "You mean...Basilius?"

"Yes. I need-," Callum's eyes widen a bit after his brain catches up to what Lucas said. He looked back at him. "Basilius? That... That's his name?"

He saw the past Amicia nod.

Callum blinked, then looked back at the panel. "Okay, we need to get to him,"

"I don't know the time when he was alive..." Past Amicia said.

"Neither do I. Sophia is the one with most of that knowledge,"

Callum didn't know who that was, but... either way, he needed to bring his machine back to his time to refuel it, or they're gonna be stuck in a time that wasn't theirs.

Chapter Text

Callum was silently navigating the ship through the wormhole as the few people he had picked up, stood around him. These people are from the Middle Ages, they have never seen technology, much less a time machine. Callum thought they were taking it rather well, despite them still looking surprised.

As Callum had his hand on the brakes, in case anything were to arise, looked behind him at the Amicia he had met first, holding Hugo, who was still knocked out. She was talking to him in French, seeming like she was trying to wake him.

"Is... he ok?" Callum called out to her.

"I... think he is. He's just knocked out..." Past Amicia said.

Her future counterpart looked at her. Lucas, also observing the scene, interjected, "You shouldn't have ripped him off the Macula like that. There was no telling what was going to happen."

Amicia looked at him, made a slightly annoyed face, picked up the sleeping Hugo, and turned away from him. Upon seeing this, Lucas sighed and walked away to a different side of the machine.

"Look," Callum said. "I can tell both of you have... something going on between you both," He said. "And I know it's because of the Macula. I'm trying to fix it, and... I'm going too." Callum said. He grabbed onto the brake handle. "I have to fix it... " Then, his voice fell into a whisper: "I don't want my family to worry about me anymore..."

Lucas was leaning on the wall and looked over at Callum. "How are you even going to fix the Macula? Even if you really are this.... time-traveling man, how will this work?"

Callum turned his head towards Lucas. "Because legend states that the Macula has a breakable curse that'll get killed if all three Macula holders are under one roof,"

Amicia, the past Amicia, gasped slightly. "Wait... You're actually serious with that?"

Lucas stopped leaning on the wall. "Are you certain that will work?"

"What other choice do we have? I have the resources to move through time. Might as well do it," Callum said.

"Right," Past Amicia said. "So... we'll have to visit Sophia,"

Callum nodded. "Yes, but first... I need fuel," He said, looking at the gauge he had made from an old spare stopwatch. "The tank's nearly low,"

Lucas blinked a bit then shared a look with Future Amicia.

"Uhh..." Lucas looked back at Callum, "What's a fuel? And what do you mean the tank's low?"

"I'll explain it to you when I reach my time,"

***

The area around them zapped and started to warp and shape-shift into something familiar to only Callum. His garage. The time machine came to a sudden halt, and Lucas lost his balance. "Woah!" He gasped, fell forward, and slammed into Callum who was sitting in the chair. His crossbow dropped to the floor once he fell on Callum's back.

"O-Oh Sorry," Lucas said bashfully once he realized his face was inches from Callum's. After he stared awkwardly at Callum, he stood up straight and then picked up his bow that had fallen on the floor.

Past Amicia walked past Lucas and looked out the front window. "Where... is this?" She said looking at the garage.

Callum's garage had many things that would look extremely foreign to the 4 of his new acquaintances. He has the charging dock for the time machine as one of them, and also a 3D printer. Not to mention the light bulbs and ceiling fan, and just the overall look of the garage.

Callum turned around to them in the chair. "Okay... well, this is the future. The... present for me. I'm going to let you guys step out since this garage leads to where I live," He said. He realized he didn't really want to let them explore, and get out of his sight, because they'll most likely get lost, and scared. "There is this thing known as Culture Shock. It's when you go to a different country, and they have a different culture than your own, so you feel out of place. You guys might experience what I call Time Shock. There's a lot of things from my time, you wouldn't understand,"

"Well, I already don't understand how this Time Machine as you called it, even works, so I guess you're not wrong there," Future Amicia said.

Callum stood up from his chair, then he reached over to the control panel and flipped a switch, and the machine powered off.

"Uhh... Why did it just go dark and quiet?" Lucas asked.

There was a slight humming sound inside the ship, and some lights were on inside. So once Callum turned it off, it all shut down.

"I just turned off the machine. You guys can go into my home, it's through the door," Callum opened the door to the time machine, and walked out. Once he stepped out, he pointed to a door that led to the living room. "Through there-," He said still pointing.

"Oh..." Past Amicia said. She picked up Hugo who was still sleeping, and held onto him tightly.

Callum nodded. "I'll fill up the machine with more fuel, but let me just show you what the inside looks like," He decided, then walked over to the door.

Once he opened it, he heard them gasp behind him.

"What is this? This... is a house?" Amicia said as she stepped inside. "Why does... why does it look so... strange?"

"Yeah it does look rather weird," Lucas mentioned.

Callum was about to say something, but he heard someone speak.

"Amicia...?"

Past and Future Amicia gasped. Past Amicia looked down at Hugo she was holding. "Amicia, c'est toi?" Hugo asked as he rubbed his eyes.

Both the Amicias's eyes widened and smiled greatly as they heard Hugo's voice.

"Oui Hugo! C'est moi!" Both the Amicia's said at the same time. "O-Oh..." Future Amicia said as he looked over at her past counterpart.

Hugo now fully opened his eyes, and looked at Amicia. He smiled sweetly. "Amicia? quand as-tu autant laissé pousser tes cheveux?"

Past Amicia blinked, Hugo was asking her about her long hair and was confused as to why it was so long. But then Hugo's eyes drifted over to Amicia's past self. And then his expression fell into confusion.

"Amicia? Pourquoi... P-Pourquoi... vous êtes deux?"

"Uhhh...." Future Amicia slowly looked at her past self.

Callum watched Amicia and Hugo corresponding with each other. He didn't understand the French language they were speaking, but judging by Hugo's and the two Amicia's expressions, Hugo was confused as to why there were two Amicias.

"Euh... Hugo... Ce sera étrange mais-," Future Amicia pointed to Callum, then turned a little so Hugo could see him.

"Le garçon là-bas s'appelle Callum. Il vient du Futur. Il a la Macula comme toi. Callum a voyagé dans le temps pour vous rencontrer, pour voir s'il pouvait se débarrasser de la Macula une fois pour toutes..." She spoke in her language to Hugo.

Hugo's eyes widened a bit, and he looked over at Callum with a shocked-like expression. He quickly looked back at Amicia. "Sont-ils vraiment Amicia?!"

"W-What did you say to him?" Callum asked as he looked at Amicia.

"I... told him the truth. You're from the future, and you have the Macula like him..."

Hugo tugged at Amicia's shirt. "Amicia... c'est Basilius?" Hugo asked as he looked up at his sister. Amicia looked down and shook her head. Hugo asked if Callum was Basilius. The first Macula holder they had told Callum about.

But he's not. "Il n'est pas," Amicia told him.

Hugo looked at the other Amicia. And he pointed to her.

So, Amicia told him that was herself from another time.

The past Amicia looked at Hugo. She couldn't help it, and she ruffled his hair. Well, she was about to lose Hugo if her future self didn't get in the way.

Hugo looked a little confused and uneasy about there being two of his sisters, but he didn't seem to say anything about it.

But then Amicia nearly forgot that Hugo didn't have any clothes on, because they got torn off the Macula. She looked up at Callum. "Callum... Do you have any spare clothes for Hugo?"

Callum nodded, "Yes I do, I have my younger brother's clothes. They're in a room, I'll be right back," He stepped away, and went into his younger brother's bedroom. He was sure one of his clothes would fit Hugo. He found a white shirt that had the Batman logo in the middle and a plain black shorts. And also a clean underwear in one of the drawers.

He came out of the room, then walked over to Future Amicia who was still holding Hugo. Judging by her reaction, she was very confused upon seeing the shirt and shorts.

"What is that? That's clothes?!" She asked confused.

"It looks... thin?" Lucas said as he stopped leaning on the wall, and then came over to them.

Callum sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I know. People in the future doesn't wear a hundred piece of clothing anymore," He said as he handed them to Lucas, so Past Amicia would be able to set Hugo down on the ground. After she did that, she looked behind her at Lucas and took the top, the pants, and the underwear.

After Hugo put them on, you couldn't tell he was from the 1300s. He fit right into the time Callum's from.

"Do they feel comfortable?" Callum asked.

Past Amicia translated it for Hugo.

Hugo nodded. "C'est confortable ! J'aime vraiment ça!"

Both of the Amicias smiled. The future one looked up at Callum. "He says he likes it," She said.

Callum smiled back. He was glad he did.

"So... What's the plan now?" Lucas asked. "We go to Sophia?"

Callum was about to answer Lucas, but then he realized that Hugo wasn't next to Amicia. Then he saw that he was walking around, he was near the dining room, which had the kitchen table.

That wasn't a problem, but then he saw Hugo reaching for one of the apples in the fruit bowl.

Callum's eyes widen. "Wait! Hugo don't eat that!" He yelled and ran over to Hugo, and nearly tripped.

Even though Hugo couldn't understand Callum's language, his outburst made him startled and he dropped the apple on the table.

"Woah... what's wrong? Why can't he eat the apple?" Lucas asked.

Callum took the apple from Hugo and put it back in the bowl. "Fruit in my time has so many preservatives. You guys aren't used to that at all, Hugo and even you guys could get a horrible stomach ache,"

"Preservatives? What the hell is a preservative?" Lucas asked.

Just at that moment, Callum heard a slight rumble sound. He turned his head and looked at Hugo, and saw him rubbing his belly. Hugo was hungry, and his stomach was growling. It made sense, who knows how long he's been stuck to that Macula tree thing. The poor baby was starving.

Callum sighed, "Ok, I don't normally buy organic food, because they're overly expensive, but I'll go and get some for you guy's sake," He looked at the rest. "But I can't leave you guys here alone. You'll have to come with me," He stepped closer to them.

"Come with you? To get food? To a market?"

"Yes... a market," Callum said. "There's this market that's below Grand Central, and I've heard they have some good organic foods," He said. "But you guys are going to have to wear the type of clothes I gave Hugo,"

Past Amicia raised an eyebrow. "That thin thing?"

Callum sighed. "I can't let you guys be walking around in public looking like people from the 1300s," He expressed. But then, he tilted his head, "Well, then again, this is New York, and New Yorkers never give a damn about anything they see... but I won't take any chances,"

Chapter Text

So, Callum went into his room, and then his older brother's room. He got some of his older brother's T-shirts, and some of his own. His older brother's was for the two Amicia's, and his own were for Lucas. He came back out from the hallway with three sets of clothes. "Alright, all of you'll have to wear these," Callum said as he handed them each a shirt and shorts.

Past Amicia blinked as Callum handed her a blue shirt. "You folks... actually wear these?"

Callum signed. "Yes, just go into my room and change," He said as he handed the other Amicia the other clothes, she took them blinking at them just like her past counterpart.

He then gave the final piece to Lucas. "Oh..." Lucas said, taking it. "Thanks,"

"You can all take turns in my bathroom," Callum said.

Lucas blinked and looked into Callum's eyes. "Bathroom? What's... a Bathroom?"

Callum stood there for a good second, but then he sighed. "Okay, never mind, scratch that. You can take turns to change in my room. Just leave your clothes on my bed,"

So, they started to change into Callum, and his older Brother's clothes, but there was a slight rumbling coming from outside Callum's house.

The group from the past was wondering what it was, but Callum recognized it just fine. "Don't be alarmed. That's just the sound of a diesel," Callum told them. "Only just an invention of my time. Probably a truck or something,"

The rest looked at each other, and shrugged, then continued to wait for Lucas to come out of the room.

But then Callum thought-

"Wait a second..." He spoke to himself. "Trucks don't typically traverse this narrow Brooklyn road..." Callum looked towards the window of the living room. "The only thing that has that sound that comes here is a Shcool bus-," He thought. Then Callum gasped-

"Uh oh..." He spoke out loud.

"Huh? What?" Future Amicia said as she looked at Callum.

Callum left them, walked over to the window, and pulled back the blinds, and indeed spotted the small school bus.

'Ah crap...' Callum muttered. It was his younger brother, James.

The thing is, his two brothers know that he has built a time machine. And they know that he wants to travel time to solve his sickness. But he never told them when he was going to do it. He knew his older brother, Marcus, wasn't going to be home for the next couple of hours, and he most definitely couldn't leave his 5-year-old brother all alone for him to take his newly formed friends to the market.

Soon after that, there was a knock on on door.

They all turned their attention to the front door.

"Who's that?" Lucas asked, who had just come out of the room, with his new clothes on.

Callum sighed. "My baby brother," He spoke as he walked towards the front door. He opened it, and sure enough, there was his 5-year-old baby brother standing there with his bookbag behind his back.

"Callum!" He smiled happily. He stepped up into the house. "Is Marcus home?"

Callum looked behind him. "Uhh... no, but—"

James had already glimpsed Amicia and the others through Callum's legs and gasped. "Callum... are they...?"

Callum signed. "People from the past? Yes..."

James giggled with delight and gently pushed Callum aside. "Hey, w-wait—!" Callum began.

They all watched as Callum's brother walked up to them.

"Hello!" James said smiling.

Well, he was adorable. And was definitely melting all their hearts.

But then James noticed Hugo.

He gasped at seeing him, then ran up to him. "Do you play Minecraft?!" he inquired, his smile as wide as ever. Hugo just stood there staring at James, not knowing what to say. He didn't understand his language, and moreover, didn't know what Minecraft was.

Callum had shut the door, then turned to them. "James, he's from the past he doesn't know what Minecr-"

"I wanna show you!" James grabbed Hugo's hand and pulled him to his room.

Hugo just went along with it, smiling a little at how energetic James was.

Callum just stood there, blinking, then looked back at the two Amicias and Lucas.

Then they all started to laugh a little.

"Well, something tells me they'll become best friends," Lucas laughed softly.

The two Amicias laughed softly. "Well, Hugo has been needing a friend his age to talk to... Even though they can't speak the same language,"

Callum laughed A little. "Yeah, James is the same way," He went and sat on the couch. "I need to take James with us while we go to the Market. I can't let him stay here alone, because Marcus is gonna be working late,"

"Well, I wouldn't mind if he came with us," Lucas said with a small smile.

"Yeah, me neither," Past Amicia said.

"Okay," Callum said. He then walked down the hallway, to James's room. Once he opened the door, he walked into the room and saw both James and Hugo sitting on the bed, each of them holding video game controllers. Well, if you want to call it as Hugo "holding it". He was twirling it around like it was a foreign object.

"No, don't hold it like that," James said, then took the controller from Hugo's hands, then sat it properly in his grasp. "Like that,"

Hugo stared at it, then when he moved the knob on the controller, the screen shifted.

Hugo gasped, and his eyes widened. "Ah! Ça bouge!" Hugo yelled. James giggled, laughing at Hugo, despite him not knowing what he said. "You're funny," James giggled.

"See, look, place blocks like this..." James reached over and pressed the buttons on the back, and a bunch of the blocks got placed. Hugo was amazed at what he was seeing.

"Comment ça bouge...?" Hugo said.

"What's your name by the way?" James asked.

Hugo looked at him, tilting his head. He didn't understand.

Callum was just sitting there, leaning on the door frame watching them. They didn't know he was there the whole time. "Hey, James, we need to go,"

James gasped and looked at Callum. "Awww why? I wanna play Minecraft with him,"

Callum chuckled. "You both can play Minecraft when we come back,"

James got off of the bed, then walked up, Hugo followed him.

"His name is Hugo by the way," Callum whispered to James.

****

"Alright... so... you all are ready?" Callum asked as he stepped out from the hallway with Hugo and James.

"I guess..." Past Amicia said.

Callum nodded and then got the house keys. "You all will need to stay close to me. Brooklyn... well, New York as a whole can be very, very... busy," Callum told them.

"New York? Is that the name of the... city?" Future Amicia asked.

Callum nodded.

On their way out towards the door, out the garage, Callum decided to tell them where he exactly was located. "Well, I live in the borough known as Brooklyn. But the town I live in is called Fort Hamilton. It's just south of Bay Ridge," Callum looked at them. He knew none of them knew anything he just spoke off.

Callum sighed. "Just come with me,"

Once they stepped out of the house, looking towards the street- All of them except Callum and James looked incredibly shocked.

"What the... what... wow..." Amicia spoke.

"C'est une ville?!" Lucas gasped.

Hugo looked around, then hugged Amicia's legs a little scared.

"This is 9th street, just follow me... we walk on that," Callum pointed towards the sidewalk. He locked the door and then continued to walk.

He noticed they all just stood still behind him, they had barely left from the front porch of the house.

"Guys, just come on, the city isn't gonna eat you," Callum spoke.

They all started to walk a little bit forward, but then a car went past.

"Que diable?! What was that?!" Future Amicia yelled.

"It was moving!" Lucas yelled after.

Callum sighed. "That was a car..."

James was getting a kick out of the entire situation and started to giggle at them gawking at everyday things.

"Come on, I know it's overwhelming," Callum said. "But you can't give away that you're from the past like this. Just stay close to me,"

They all looked at each other.

"O-Okay," Lucas said.

So they all slowly walked down the street. Passing by the houses on 97th Street.

"We make a left up there," Callum said pointing in front of him. "That's the main road, 4th Ave,"

The rest were basically sucking up to him with how close they were. But Callum didn't mind. He knew this was probably going to happen. They come from a time when windows weren't even a thing yet. And here they are. But he knows Hugo is hungry, and he needs to eat. But he can't eat the food from his time. He needs to get organic foods, and the only one he's aware of is in Grand Central.

They turned left on 4th Ave, and now there were more vehicles on the street.

Hugo hugged up Past Amicia's legs from seeing the cars.

James noticed and walked up to him. "Hugo, it's okay..." James said placing his hand on Hugo's shoulder. Hugo was startled by the sudden touch to his shoulder, and from instinct he pushed James's hands away.

"Oh..." James said a little sadly and looked down.

Hugo didn't mean to push him away and knew he made him feel bad, so he stopped clinging to Amicia's leg, then walked alongside James. "Je suis désolé," Hugo said to him.

James tilted his head.

Amicia had overheard them, so she looked down at James. "Hugo said he's sorry," She translated for him.

James looked up at Past Amicia. "O-Oh..." He looked back at Hugo. "It's okay," He said smiling.

Past Amicia translated that back to Hugo, and he then smiled at James shyly. Then Hugo continued to walk alongside James, rather than clinging to Amicia.

Walking past a few other small streets, and a few stores, with the occasional cars passing by, Callum told them to make another left. One at a diner. 95th street.

There was a green staircase that went into the ground.

Then they saw Callum stop at it.

"Uhhh...." Lucas said as he walked up towards it and looked down the stairs. "Whyyy... does the stairs go down into the ground?" He said while pointing down it.

The two Amicias and Hugo looked down at it. Hugo got scared again and clings to Amicia's legs once more.

"Subway!" James said smiling.

"Sub... what?" Lucas asked looking back at James.

"It's the subway," Callum spoke after. "We can take it to get to the market,"

"Take it...? What do you mean, 'Take it'?" Lucas asked confused.

"Well, it's this thing that moves... it... okay, think about a horse carriage moving without the horse," Callum said.

He saw them all blink at him.

"What?!" they all exclaimed in unison.

"Just..." Callum groaned. "Ugh just follow me. Just stay close to me, and when we reach down there, don't stand on the tracks,"

So, they didn't ask any more questions. They just followed James down into the weird staircase they led deep into the ground.

Once they finally traveled the full steps, they entered a big area- That had gates.

Callum fished into his pockets, to get out the MTA passes he had gotten from his older brother. "Follow me guys," Callum said as he walked up to the gate, and slid the passes into a slot.

All of his friends just stood there, staring at what was happening very confusedly. Then even more confused with the gate when it opened by itself.

"Why is everything moving by themselves all of a sudden..." Lucas spoke with unease in his voice.

Callum and the rest walked inside, then went down another set of stairs...

Until they reached the platform.

"What is this place?" Future Amicia spoke.

"It's... it smells weird..." Lucas said. He walked down the stairs and went close to the platform edge. "What on earth is that thing?" he questioned, pointing to the tracks.

"The subway tracks," Callum said, then walked closer to Lucas, and pulled him close. "Don't stand too close to it,"

Hugo was clinging to Amicia's legs still, but James was trying to comfort him again.

"So... what is this? Why are we here?" Past Amicia asked.

"As I said. We use this to get to the Market,"

"What do you mean by use? Use what exactly?"

Lucas looked at Amicia and noticed her hair moving.... as if there was a lot of wind blowing. "Amicia, why is your hair..." Lucas then noticed that her future counterpart also had her hair blowing in the wind. He looked down at Hugo and saw his hair was moving around a bit too.

"Uhhh... why is it suddenly windy?" Lucas questioned.

Then there was the slight sound of clanging and banging.

Blinking, Amicia stepped back a little bit.

"What was that?" Lucas asked.

Then the clanging and banging got louder.

The noise intensified, and a light shone through the tunnel that the tracks traversed. Something gray and rectangular emerged, speeding past them, producing a cacophony of clattering, banging, and screeching.

All of their eyes widen at seeing this. Hugo gasped out of fear and hid behind Past Amicia.

It then came to an abrupt halt, its doors swinging open to release a flood of people.

"This is the subway!" James said to them smiling.

"Douce mère de-..." Future Amicia muttered in shock.

"What do we do? Do... do we go on it?" Lucas asked.

"Not this one. This is heading to the workshop. We have to wait for the next one," Callum told them.

-Stand clear of the closing doors please-

-Dig-Dong-

"What the? Who... who said that?" Lucas said looking around.

Shortly after the doors of the subway closed, there was one singular bang, that made Amicia gasp, and then a screeching sound echoed through the platform, followed by a humming from the train itself.

After a series of clanging and banging, the subway left the station.

Both Amicias and Lucas, and Hugo just stared at the spot the train once was, then slowly looked over at Callum.

A smile slowly grew on Lucas's face. "That... that was epic..."

Hugo slowly poked his head from around Amicia's leg.

Callum just softly chuckled. He was happy they weren't all freaking out too terribly at this.

Shortly after, their train came on the other platform. "This is the one we need," Callum said to them with a small smile. "Come on!" He said gesturing for them to board the subway.

Chapter Text

Callum was slightly having second thoughts about bringing all of them out here like this-, All of this was all new to all of his acquaintances. Once the subway announced that the doors were closing, they slammed shut, and the subway car shook, and they started to move forward. Future Amicia got spooked and almost fell over if she hadn't grabbed her past self. "Oh!" Her past self grunted from getting grabbed.

Future Amicia gasped and stood upright. "Oh! S-Sorry... um... Me?..." She said looking at her other self.

Callum watched the two Amicias, who were just staring at each other. They looked so shocked and confused. Well, he'd be too if he ran into his past self in ways like this.

Lucas, who was next to them, was already one step ahead of all of them and was holding onto the grab poles located in the metro cars. The car made a rough shake because it was going over a switch.

"What is going on?!" Lucas yelled out, as he held onto the pole tighter.

Callum looked at Lucas freaking out, then at the only few people who were on the train. There weren't many people on the train in this area, since Callum lives near the first stop of this line. But those few people were giving strange looks to his friends from the past. Callum just awkwardly smiled at them. "H-Hi..." He said quietly, as his eyes darted over to James, who was just finding the entire situation hilarious. Callum just softly grunted when he saw his younger brother giggling to himself. James laughed more when he saw Callum looking at him.

"What is this? Why is it so loud?!" Lucas asked, clinging to the pole like his life depended on it.

"Yeah," Future Amicia said. "It's... like shaking back and forth,"

"Guys, just hold tight," Callum said. "We'll be on this for a while. I think we need to get off at...." Callum looked up at the little map overheard on the ceiling of the car. "Let's see... Court Street... No-... 23rd street? Nah... that's not it... Ah! There it is, Times Square, 42nd Street!" He turned his head to his new friends, but they all looked confused.

Callum just sighed. "Okay, just follow my lead," He said. "I seriously cannot let any of you get lost in Manhattan."

The subway had stopped at a few more stations, and each station had more and more people bored.

The two Amicias looked around at the others coming onto the subway, a little shocked. "I... Never seen this many people in one area in my life," Past Amicia mumbled to herself.

Future Amicia had heard her. "Me neither...." She said. Hugo was clinging to Past Amicia's legs and didn't want to move. James had noticed Hugo's timid look, so, he tapped the empty seat next to himself. "Sit with me, Hugo!" He said with a big smile.

Hugo drew in more and hid behind his sister's legs.

"Aww, please?" James pouted.

After a few moments, Hugo shyly walked over to the seat and sat next to James. The train had come to another stop, people came off, and people came on. Hugo got timid again and snuggled up to James since he wasn't near Amicia to hug her.

Someone bumped into Lucas; he tripped, then he unfortunately landed on top of Callum. "Oof!" They both grunted once they hit the floor. Callum opened his eyes and repeatedly blinked at seeing Lucas up in his face. They both laid there on the ground, staring into each other's faces for a moment, both of their faces got red.

Up until Past Amicia pulled Lucas from the floor. "You okay there Lucas?" She had asked.

The other Amicia helped Callum up.

Lucas snapped out of his daze. "Y-Yeah... Yeah, I-I am,"

Past Amicia smiled and then looked around. Her smile faded, as she started to look a little anxious. "This is surely a lot of people... isn't it...?" She said quietly to Lucas.

He nodded. "It really is... What happened? Us humans had a lot of free time...?"

Past Amicia chuckled. "I guess so...,"

She looked up at the map that Callum was looking at before. "Callum... Where you said... we are going? I... I-I don't understand,"

Callum was now sitting on the chair, he looked at Amicia. "Well, It'll just be a few more stops," He said. "I'll let you know when it's ready for us to go, alright?"

He saw his friends look at each other.

"It'll be fine!" James exclaimed with a smile. "You'll love New York!"

****

They had finally reached their stop.

"Next stop-, 42nd Street,"  the train's intercom announced, signaling the passengers about the upcoming stop. "Come on," Callum said as he stood up. "We get off here,"

Lucas was looking up, and around "Who is speaking that?" He said with a very confused tone in his voice. He had his eyebrow arched as he was looking around the area around them. "It was doing so for a while, but I got to know who-,"

Lucas got cut off by the screeching brakes. It echoed throughout the subway station as the train came to a halt. Past Amicia nearly lost her balance and almost fell into Lucas.

The doors had opened, and all of the people inside the subway car started to pile out.

Callum wasted no time, swiftly ushering his friends. "Come on, this is New York, move with the flow or they all trample you," Callum said as he tried to gently guide his oblivious friends out of the car. "Let's go, James!"

James had quickly gotten up, Hugo, who was still sitting next to him, was going to cling to Amicia's leg again, but James had grabbed his hand. "Walk with me!" He said with a smile. Hugo was having trouble understanding what James had said, but he understood the gestures James was making.

"Okay, this... this is way too many people here," Past Amicia said in disbelief as Callum pushed them out of the car.

"Doors closing," The intercom said.

Then, the train screeched and started up, and rolled away.

Callum quickly checked over his friends to make sure everyone was with him. The two Amicias, Lucas, Hugo, and James were all accounted for.

Callum sighed. "Okay, so right now, we are still underground," he said to them. He gestured around them "This is 42nd Street. Up on the ground level is a part of Times Square. What we are gonna do, is walk down 42nd and make our way to Grand Central to get to the organic market there..." Callum sighed, he knew this was going to be hard. Times Square is one of the busiest places in all of New York, if not the world. He knows it's gonna be crowded. It's always crowded. This is the city that never sleeps, after all. If his new friends were already freaking out with the people in the subway, he knows they'd probably pass out and drop on the floor if they saw Times Square.

"What is all this made of," Callum heard Lucas say. He was looking around. Callum figured he was talking about the walls. Or... maybe the ceiling.

"What?" Callum asked, arching his eyebrow at Lucas. "Oh! Mostly concrete," Callum said. "Let's go, follow me," He said trying to get them to come with him. "And stay close to me,"

Callum found his way, towards the turnstiles, then up the steps to get to the surface. He looked behind him, at his friends following him up the staircase, the two Amicias walking together, with Hugo now clinging to James, and Lucas absorbing the unfamiliar environment.

Facing forward, Callum took a deep breath as they approached the exit.  The sounds of New York—taxi honks, emergency vehicles, and a sea of voices—filled the air.  Callum walked up the last step and entered into the busy landscape of a part of Manhattan. Callum felt his heart sink as he looked down the street at the looming skyscrapers, nervous about what the rest was going to think.

Sure enough, he heard multiple gasps behind him.

"What in the-?!" Past Amicia yelled out.

Lucas couldn't believe what he was seeing. He couldn't even form words, and he wasn't looking where he was going and collided with Callum.

Hugo got scared and zipped behind James. "Ahh!" He muttered out.

Callum bit his lip, and turned behind him, and saw 3 shocked expressions, and a scared Hugo.

Their eyes were just darting around the area. Lucas turned around and saw that there were more buildings behind him. "Ahh! There's more??"

"Callum, where are we?!"

Callum took a deep breath. "Welcome to New York City,"

They looked at him.

"C-City?" Past Amicia said.

"You're saying these are buildings?!" Future Amicia yelled. She stared in disbelief at the tall structures before them all. She pointed in front of her. "T-Those... People are inside those?? All the way up there?!"

"What are they trying to do, reach the heavens?" Lucas wondered.

Callum was paying attention to them less now, and was trying to see where they had to go to get to Grand Central. New York is like a maze, and you can get lost. Especially if you're new, or have people new with you. His instincts told him to turn around, walk past the subway entrance, then make a right down the street. He looked up and took a glance at the street sign, and saw that it was the right street.

He looked at his friends and saw that they were talking amongst themselves.

"Amicia... I can't believe where we are right now, this feels surreal...." Lucas said.

"Yeah..." Past Amicia said, then she gasped when more people started to walk out from the subway staircase. She gasped a little and backed away to let them pass. She was just staring at them like she had never seen people before. "Lucas look, I just realized many of them are wearing those very thin clothing Callum had given us..." She said, turning her attention to Lucas.

Callum sighed and looked down at James. "This... This was a mistake wasn't it?"

James looked up at him and shrugged.

Callum then noticed that Hugo was clinging onto James, and not Amicia. But, he was still keeping his eye on her, wasn't taking her out of his sight.

"Well, seems like Hugo has gotten a liking to you," Callum said with a small smile. Then he saw Hugo hide behind James as more people came by to enter the subway stairway.

James reached behind himself and tried to touch Hugo "Hugo, it's okay, it's just... people going to work," He said.

Hugo stopped holding James but then looked at him with a confused expression on his face.

"James, remember he doesn't speak English like the others," Callum told him.

James nodded, "Oh, right,"

The rest were still talking, and gawking at the little bit of New York they saw around them, Callum realized he had to butt in or they were never gonna do what they needed to do. "Guys-," he began.

They were still talking, they didn't hear him.

Callum sighed, then: "GUYS!" He yelled.

The two Amicias and Lucas gasped, shut up, and turned around to Callum.

"O-Oh... W-What?" Lucas asked.

"Look, I understand this is very overwhelming. I shouldn't have taken you all out from the 1300s and dropped you in the middle of the 2020s right in the heart of Manhattan. But we are here now, we have to make the best of it," Callum walked up to them.

"New York is one of, if not IS the busiest cities on earth. But that doesn't mean it's unsafe. As long as you all stay near me, and don't stroll off, we'll quickly get our things from the market, and head back home on the subway. If you all aren't comfortable with taking the subway, we can take one of the MTA buses," Callum tried to explain all this the best he could. It seemed like they were following along, but then Lucas asked: "What is an... MT...A... Buses?"

Callum blinked. "You know what, we'll just cross that bridge when we get to it," He was about to continue, but then, "You do know what a bridge is right?"

He saw they looked at him like he was stupid.

Callum shook his head. "Wait, never mind-," He spoke. "What we need to focus on now, is the market. Stay close to me, we'll walk around this corner, and find ourselves at Grand Central, okay?"

He saw them all nod. "O-Okay... let's...just do it quickly..." Lucas said.

****

On the walk down the street to get to the terminal, they had to walk past a few places, such as the Grace Building, Bryant Park, and the New York Public Library, which were all located on 42nd Street before Grand Central. It wasn't much of a long walk, the terminal station wasn't that far from the subway staircase they had exited from.

Callum made sure to keep them near him. He didn't want them to wander off. He made sure that James and Hugo were safe most of all.

"Oh my... all of these people..." Future Amicia said. "We were saying that... subway place had a lot but... oh god," She was looking around at the people going by, then her eyes drifted over to a park next to her. "What's that a forest?"

Callum heard her, arched his eyebrow wondering what she was talking about. But once he turned his head, he saw Bryant Park. "No, that's just a park, Bryant Park to be specific,"

Lucas, puzzled, asked, "Park? What's that?"

"And what's a Bryant?" inquired Past Amicia.

Callum looked at them. "Well, a Park is a place where you just... go and relax. To take a breather from the city," He gestured over to the people in the park, who were walking up and down and sitting on benches. "People go in there just to escape the busy New York,"

Lucas tilted his head. "Escape the busy New York? But Callum it's just as crowded in there as out here,"

Callum froze when Lucas said that. He couldn't deny that he was wrong. "Well, you got a point there," He laughed. "You're right, it... It still looks rammed," Then he mumbled: "You haven't seen Central Park,"

Past Amicia chuckled. "I don't think I could live in a place as... packed as this,"

"Many people feel the same way," Callum replied. "You just have to get used to it."

"Hold on," Lucas interrupted. "Get used to it? So... people in your time aren't used to... all these people? Is it just this area alone that's busy like this?"

Callum shrugged. "Well, there's a lot of busy places, but New York is one of the most crazy packed. But some places are very quiet, like the countrysides,"

As they were walking, they were about to come up to the Library, Callum was about to mention it. "This over here is the Lib-,"

"Woah, what's this-?" Callum heard Lucas say.

"Hm?" Callum arched his eyebrow, turned around, and saw that Lucas and the rest had stopped, and were staring at a hotdog stand.

"What in the world is a hotdog...?" Future Amicia said.

Lucas sniffed the air. "Wow... it... smells really good..."

'Oh no...' Callum said to himself. He knew they were going to want to try it. But he doesn't know how their bodies are going to react to food like this. This was the entire reason why he wanted to give them organic food. But... maybe one hotdog wouldn't hurt them. Plus, he knows they were all starving.

Lucas after smelling the hotdogs, placed his hands on his stomach as it grumbled. He blushed a bit, then looked back at Callum. Then, at the same time, Hugo's stomach growled as well. Since James was the one near him, he heard it more clearly. He turned his head and looked at Callum. "Callum, Hugo's tummy is growling,"

Callum sighed. 'Fine, I'll let them try it,' He mumbled to himself.

"Okay, I know you guys are hungry, I'll... just get a plain hotdog for each of you," Callum said as he walked up to the stand.

"What is a hotdog anyway?" Future Amicia said.

"Meat.... that... has been mashed into a tube...uh... You don't wanna know," Callum said. He didn't want to explain the entire process of how hotdogs are made. Callum fished into his pocket and pulled out 20 dollars. He was going to get each of them a hotdog, including himself and James. Also with drinks, but he was going to share one with his brother.

Callum handed the hotdog stand worker the 20-dollar bill. "Um," He looked behind him at his friends. "Six hotdogs please," He said. "And 5 Sprites,"

"Sprites? What... what is that?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah?" Past Amicia said squinting at the menu.

"You'll see,"

The stand worker overheard them. "You all new here?" he asked.

"You could say that," Callum mumbled. He was about to speak, but the man asked another question. "You two twins?" He asked, looking at both Amicias.

Both of them looked at each other for a brief moment. "Uhhh...."

Callum had picked up the tray of hotdogs but nearly dropped it from the man asking that question to them. before any of the Amicias could speak, Callum quickly thought of what to say. "Yes! They're... twins! They're friends with me, they're... they're from France,"

"Ah, I figured. I heard the accents," the man said with a small smile.

After having relief from that close call, Callum now picked the tray up. "Come on," He said to them. "Let's go find a part to sit at in Bryant Park,"

*****

"What.... the heck... is this? How do you even eat this?" Lucas asked, just stating at the hotdog in his paper try. They were sitting at a park bench and table in Bryant Park. At least the hotdog stand was nearby for them to have a place to sit.

"You eat it like this," Callum picked it up with his hands, placed the end of it up to his mouth, opened it, and bit down. "Like that," His voice was muffled a bit from him having the food in his mouth.

His friends blinked at him. "O-Oh..." Lucas said. "Okay..." He reached down picked up his hotdog, and copied what Callum did. He bit into it and chewed. His eyes widen a bit.

"How does it taste?" Past Amicia asked.

"Woah... that...It's good! Like... really!" Lucas said.

Encouraged by Lucas' response, they all tried theirs.

Callum just watched all their surprised faces after biting into the hotdog. 'Well, they at least like it so far,' He said to himself, smiling softly.

Hugo was taking small bites of his. "You like it, Hugo?"

Hugo looked up at him but didn't say anything.

Future Amicia looked at Hugo and translated what James had said to him. After hearing it, Hugo quickly looked at James and nodded smiling a lot.

"Wow, you all really like it?" Callum asked.

"Yes! It's... a weird taste, it tastes like meat, but... different? It's strange," Lucas said. "But," He started. "What's stranger is this... what the heck is this?" He picked up the can of soda. "What am I supposed to do with this?" He arched his eyebrow looking at the can.

Callum picked up his. "You open it like this," He placed his nail under the soda cap and pulled it up, and a fizzling sound could be heard after it cracked.

Lucas, Hugo, and the two Amicias looked at what Callum just did, wondering what the heck was happening.

Callum then started to sip from the can. "And you drink it like this," He said.

They all looked down at their cans.

"Alright..." Lucas said. He tried to do what Callum did, and he opened the soda can first try. "Oh! I did it!" He quickly went to take a sip of the soda, but then he started to cough after taking a sip. "Woah... what the hell?!"

"A-Are you alright Lucas?" The two Amicias asked with concern.

Lucas blinked. "I... I think so... why.... guys, taste the... 'soda',"

The two Amicias blinked. "Okay..." They said.

They tried to open theirs, and once they did they took a sip.

Both of them froze. Furtue Amicia's eyes drifted down to the can of Soda. "Why does it taste like it's on fire, but it's not..." she said.

Callum couldn't help but chuckle at them. "It's Soda. It tastes like that. It's carbonated, that's why,"

"Carbonated?" Lucas asked.

"Yes," Callum said.

"Alright, well, I... guess it tastes spicy," Future Amicia said. "Hugo doesn't like spicy things that much," she turned her head to her brother. "Hugo, you might not like the so-," She froze as she saw that Hugo was practically gulping down the soda from the can. Hugo made a small squeak sound as Amicia looked at him, and he took the soda from his lips. He burped after, then blushed, and covered his mouth.

"Excusez-moi.." Hugo said, still blushing.

"Oh wow," Callum said. "I guess he really loves the soda," He laughed after saying that, and his friends laughed along with him.

"So...why are we going to the Market again? You said we could only go to that specific one, but why?" Lucas asked after he took a sip of his soda. "Woah... yeah that does taste weird, but... it's good,"

Callum realized he never exactly explained himself properly when it came to that.

"Like you said something about... a persea... active?? Is that what you said?" Past Amicia asked.

"Preservative," Callum said. "Alright, so basically in my time, humans have made it where some foods can last longer than usual without spoiling," He said to them.

"Oh..." Lucas said.

"Why?" Future Amicia asked.

"Look around at all these people," Callum said gesturing his hands at the people in the park. "They had to think of something to be able to feed all these folks,"

"Oh... yeah, that... that makes sense,"

"It's just that some of those preservatives don't agree well with some people. Especially people who've never experienced them before. That's why I didn't want Hugo to have eaten that apple earlier. He might have been fine, but I didn't want to take a chance of him getting sick," Callum said. "Happened to my parents when they moved from living in a very rural area in France and came to America for the first time,"

"Oh..." Lucas said, not know what else to add to that.

Callum sighed and stretched a little. "Yep, so that's why I'm taking you guys to the market," Callum said. "I'm not sure how long you'll be here with me... I-, Maybe by the time we reach back to my house it'll be night time and you'll all be too tired to continue our quest to find that Sophia person you talked about," Callum definitely didn't want to tire them out, especially Hugo. A spare bed in his room, and the couch can work as a bed for one of them. He also had a clean spare mattress he could maybe just put on the floor. Tomorrow they can continue. He was sure his older brother wouldn't mind them staying over. He knows it'll be too help his brother. His plan was now to get some breakfast things from the market, and other things to sustain them for the rest of the night and the next morning. They already had eaten, so, for the time being, everyone was fine. Plus, none of them looked like they were having a stomach ache, so that was good. 'Maybe they have iron stomachs or something,' Callum thought to himself.

Lucas sighed, then arched his back, and looked up, skyward at the looming buildings overhead. "This place is so... unreal..." He said. "To be honest it's very epic,"

"I'll agree, it is..." Future Amicia said as she bit into her hotdog.

"How did you all learn English, anyways?" Callum asked.

"Oh... well, my... my father taught me," Future Amicia said. "Then, I taught Lucas a little bit, he caught on well,"

Lucas smiled. "Yeah,"

Then, Past Amicia sighed. "But my father didn't have time to teach Hugo. He... well, I don't want to get into it right now, but anyway, Hugo was a little slow with it. He's very rusty with it,"

Callum nodded. He could see both the Amicia's expressions had changed when they talked about their dad, but he didn't want to press on it further.

So, after they finished up their hotdogs, they went on their way to Grand Central.

Chapter Text

Walking through the streets of Manhattan, the group of the oblivious time travelers were taking in the city as they moved through. Looking around, still nervous about their surroundings. Callum tried his best to keep them all together near them. He didn't want any of them to get lost in this place.

"Look at that building with that pointy top-," Lucas spoke as he pointed in the distance, at the Chrysler Building. As they were walking down the street.

"Oh? That-?" Callum asked as he looked at it. "Yeah, that's the Chrysler Building. It's one of the older buildings here," He said.

"Huh..." Future Amicia said.

"Wait..." Callum said quietly to himself. "That must mean that Grand Central is nearby." And it was. Located to the left of them, was the popular Grand Central Terminal, home of the Metro-North, and home of that market.

"There's Grand Central," Callum said as he pointed to the building.

"Wait... really? That's it?" Lucas asked. He stopped for a second, looked at the station, then up at the other buildings looming over it. "Is it just me... or... does it look... older than the other buildings?"

"Yeah... You're right," Past Amicia joined in on the talk. "There's something about it, it just looks more... like run down,"

"Well, you're not wrong at all," Callum said as they crossed the street. "Careful," He said to them, just to make sure none of them got run over by the mad people of New York City.

"Yeah, it's pretty old. They should do better care to the outside, but it is what it is," Callum took them up to the doors and pushed them open, and all of his friends were amazed at what they saw.

The big open space with two large stands for tickets, a round stand to get information about the trains, with a medium-sized clock at the top, the giant three windows on the very tall wall, with a pretty mural on the ceiling. "Welcome to Grand Central Terminal," Callum said with a smile, as he turned to them. He saw the amazed look he expected to see on their faces. Hugo was very fascinated by the mural. "Amicia, regarder!" He exclaimed, pointing up to the top of them. He was so amazed by it, that he wasn't even clinging to her leg anymore, not even to James.

"I-I see Hugo," Amicia said, so stunned at the size of this building. "And you said this one of the older places here?" She said with slight shock in her voice as she looked at Callum.

Callum nodded. "Yep. New York never shied away from going big. Even in their early years," He turned around and looked behind him. He looked at the stand, then to the right at one of the doorways, that was opened, that led to the station to get the Metro-North trains. "Hmmm... Now where the heck was the market?" He spoke, as he scratched the back of his head.

"You forgot where it is?" Lucas asked.

"... Slightly," Callum said. "I guess we'll just have to do some walking around,"

Callum sure didn't mind walking around just a bit, he surely did want to let them explore Grand Central a bit. "Okay, follow me guys," Callum said, as he moved his hands toward him, singling his friends to follow him.

"This place is so huge..." Future Amicia said.

"It really is," Past Amicia said.

They all started to walk off, but then there was a deep grumbley sound, that sounded like popping bubbles. Callum blinked and turned his head. It was fairly loud, as Callum thought, to have been heard in the busy station. "You guys heard that?" Callum asked as he looked at both Amicias, Lucas, James, and Hugo.

"Yeah, I heard something, but I'm not sure what it was," Future Amicia said.

The sound played out again, the same grumbly sound.

Callum's eyes darted down to Hugo, his face seemed a bit scrunched up, and he was rubbing at his belly. At first, Callum's mind put together that Hugo was still hungry, and that grumble was his stomach growling again. But then the realization booted in once he fully noticed Hugo was looking uneasy. Maybe the food from the future wasn't agreeing too well with at least one of them.

"Oh, Hugo?" Callum asked.

Past and Future Amicia looked down at him.

"Est-ce que tu vas bien Hugo?" Past Amicia asked if he was okay.

Hugo just rubbed his stomach as he looked up at his sister. Then... at his other sister.

"I think he needs to use the toilet," Future Amicia said.

Past Amicia nodded at her, then she arched her eyebrow and looked at Callum. "Uhh..." She blinked. "What... does a Bathroom look like in these times?"

Callum quickly scanned his eyes around the terminal, trying to find where the restrooms could be. "Go there!" Callum quickly pointed to a sign, that pointed to a small hallway. "It's down there,"

Past Amicia nodded, then quickly picked her brother up.

****

"Now where the hell... is it?" Past Amicia asked out loud as she walked down the hallway. She saw the doorway to the restroom. "There it is," she said to herself.

She squeezed Hugo's hand gently. "Just hold on a little, okay Hugo?"

She walked up to the door and pushed it open. She blinked looking into the restroom. "What in the..." She said looking around the modern bathroom. Hugo was also amazed by it, but he was in no mood to just sit there staring at the weird room in front of them. He tugged onto his sister's shirt. "O-Oh... Sorry," Amicia said as she walked into the room, future. "Where the heck is the toi-," She turned her head to one of the stalls. Her eyes widened a bit, as she walked up to it, and pushed the door open.

She stared at the toilet. "It's not wood?"

By then, Hugo couldn't wait anymore, and practically jumped out of Amicia's hand, and ran into the stall, and shut the door.

"Oh, sorry Hugo," She said, chuckling a bit.

As Hugo did his business, she took that time to look around the bathroom, she gasped as she looked at the mirror. She wasn't shocked at the mirror itself, since she's seen some in her time lots of times. She even used to have one in her drawer. But this one... was massive.

"That's a mirror? Why is it so... Huge?" She blinked as he placed her hands on it. She then looked down at the sink. "Is that a sink?"

"Where are the... knobs?" She asked herself. She placed her hands under the faucet, then the water instantly turned on. She gasped at this and jumped back. The water then shut off. Eyes widen: "What is this wizardry?!" She muttered.

She looked down at her wet hand, then, walked back to the sink, she placed her hand back under the faucet, and once again, the water poured out. She didn't gasp this time, but she was still shocked. "It's... water? Well, it's just a sink. But how is it running on its own when I place my hands there?" She kept on playing with the sink and was about to turn it on for the 4th time, but then there was a very, very loud windy type sound, then the sound of Hugo screaming, and he bolted out of the stall, nearly tripping over his loose pants, and dashed behind Amicia's legs.

Amicia had gasped, "H-Hugo?! What was that?!" She looked at the toilet, just before the stall door had shut from Hugo running out from it, it had bounced and shut. Turns out the toilet was also automatic just like the sink, and as soon Hugo stood up it flushed loudly.

"Was that the toilet flushing?" She wondered out loud. "Geez, why it had to sound like a damn demon," She looked down at her timid brother. "Hugo, it's alright, I believe it was just the toilet. It's just... loud," she spoke that in her language to Hugo.

She crouched down, then placed Hugo's legs right, so she could pick his pants up, and hoisted it back up to fit his waist properly. "These thin ass clothes from this time, so... strange," Amicia muttered as he fixed her brother's shorts.

As she fixed it, she then fixed his shirt, but then something caught her eye. "Wait a second," She said quietly. She looked up at Hugo's neck. His neck... looked pale. It was... fine. There was nothing abnormal about it.

Curious, Amicia pushed up Hugo's shirt, past his navel, and up to his chest. Amicia's eyes widen. "W-Where is the Macula?" She said in disbelief. Just before they had left the house, Hugo had the Macula veins all over his chest and abdomen. And now... it was gone.

"Hugo, tu te sens bien?" She asked. "Pas de maux de tête?"

Amicia had asked Hugo if there were any headaches he was feeling at the moment; A huge symptom of the Macula. But to her shock, Hugo had said no.

"What?" Amicia said quietly to herself. "It went away?" The Macula has gone away a few times to Hugo, but never that quickly.

Amicia still had Hugo's shirt up, keeping him there, and Hugo was just getting impatient because he just wanted to get back to the others. Amicia could only just feel warm from her brother's annoyed attitude, before putting Hugo's shirt back down, she gave him a little tickle on his belly button, to which Hugo giggled with a smile growing on his face. He playfully pushed his sister's hands away from his belly. "Non! Ne me chatouille pas le nombril!" He tried to angry pout, but it was just making him look adorable.

Giggling, Amicia fixed Hugo's shirt, and picked him up, placing him over her shoulders. "Come on, let's get back to the others,"

****

All of them were waiting for Past Amicia and Hugo to get out of the restroom. But they were far from bored. Lucas was leaning on the information stand, watching the people walk past all around them. "All of these people are just... moving. Not even talking to anyone," He spoke, shaking his head.

"Yeah," Future Amicia said.

"As I said, that's New York for you," Callum said. "You just gotta move with the flow,"

"I hope Hugo is alright," James spoke, as he looked at the hallway to the restroom.

"I'm sure he's alright," Callum said. "Probably just had a stomach ache, that's all,"

James sighed, then nodded, then he looked back towards his older brother. Then, he saw that Lucas was very close to James. "Why you two so close?"

"Hmm?" Lucas asked, then he looked down and saw that his shoulder was practically rubbing against Callum's. He gasped and quickly scooted the other way. His face went entirely red.

James blinked, then, he giggled. "You two like each other~"

Future Amicia tilted her head, as she looked down at James. "Wait they do?"

"W-What no I don't!" Lucas yelled.

"I-I... um... the...," Callum didn't know what to say, due to him not being able to speak at the moment, he felt shy all of a sudden.

Seeing this meant that James wasn't done with the teasing anytime soon.

"Callum and Lucas sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g!" James teased.

Lucas's face went completely red.

Future Amicia's eyes quickly darted down to James. "T-That... That thing is still a thing?"

Callum rolled his eyes, "Ugh, shut up bro," He said to James.

"Never~" James giggled.

"Well, you clearly like Hugo! Ha, top that~" Callum smirked.

James gasped and looked away with his face red.

Future Amicia blinked, then looked at Callum. She walked up to him. "James?" She whispered to him. "I thought you said your last name is DeRune?"

James blinked. "Yeah? It is, why?"

"James is a DeRune? And he has a crush on-,"

Callum shook his head. "Nah, James isn't a part of the DeRune family," He whispered. "He's adopted,"

Future Amicia gasped, not expecting that.

"But you don't gotta whisper," Callum said. "He knows,"

Furtue Amicia nodded.

"But..." Callum pulled her closer. "He doesn't know the full reason why he is," he said quietly so James wouldn't hear. "His parents were bad people, and they wanted to... uh... use him to make something. Long story short, his parents are out of the picture, but we told him that they just... passed away,"

Amicia blinked as Callum whispered this to her.

"Yeah it's a very long story," He said quietly.

"What are you two whispering about?" James smirked. "Taking about Lucas, Callum~?"

Callum sighed, then looked at James. "No, we're talking about you and Hugo."

James blushed slightly and looked away with a pout. "S-Shut up!"

Future Amicia chuckled, then turned back to Callum. "So he's not a DeRune?"

"No, he's... a Yamamoto as much as I can remember. He came from a Japanese family. I mean, I guess legally he's a DeRune, but by blood, nah, not even close," Callum said.

Future Amicia nodded.

"Hugo!" They heard James exclaim.

Both Callum and Future Amicia, and Lucas turned to the left to see Past Amicia walking out to them with Hugo on Past Amicia's shoulders.

"Here we are!" She said. "Hugo's feeling better now," she took him off of her shoulders and placed him on the ground.

James smiled and ran up to Hugo. Hugo was startled for a second by seeing him run up to him. James stopped, then started to laugh a little a Hugo's surprised reaction. Hugo felt embarrassed and then pouted at James.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Callum mentioned to Past Amicia about the whole thing. "Either it was the hot dog or the soda, I'm not sure. Either way, this usually happens to anyone once they eat new food,"

Past Amicia nodded, "It's fine!" She said. "But..." She turned around at Hugo and was about to mention to Callum about the lack of Macula on Hugo's body, but she got distracted by James quickly jolting Hugo on his shoulder, and he took off running. "Tag your it!"

Hugo just stood there, staring at James like he was an idiot. James had run behind Callum's legs thinking that Hugo was chasing him.

"James, place don't play tag in Grand Central," Callum said to his 7-year-old brother. "Look around at all these people, you wanna get lost in this human sea?"

James pouted. "Fine...." He grunted.

Callum looked back at Past Amicia. "What were you gonna say?"

Past Amicia nodded and continued. "The Macula... It's gone from Hugo-,"

She reached down and pulled up her little brother's shirt. Hugo gasped, and quickly pulled it back down pushing his sister's hands away.

Future Amicia and Lucas blinked. "Huh? What?" Lucas said in disbelief.

"Wasn't his stomach and chest covered in it just a few hours ago?" Lucas asked.

Future Amicia walked up to her brother, then also pulled up her brother's shirt, by then, Hugo just left it happened and looked away pouting.

"Where... is it?" She asked. She looked at Hugo and asked if he was feeling any headaches.

"I asked him that already... um Amicia, uh... me," Past Amicia said, still seeming like she was weirded out by talking to herself.

Future Amicia pulled her brother's shirt back down and covered his stomach. "That makes no sense, they never got away that quickly,"

"I used to feel the headaches, but for a while, they've left too," Callum said.

"Wait... that's right, you have the Macula too, don't you?" Past Amicia asked.

"Well, it's the entire reason why we are here in the first place," Future Amicia said. She looked at Callum. "And you haven't felt anything? Since you brought us here?"

Callum nodded, "That's right,"

"Strange..." Lucas said.

"We'll probably figure it out later," Callum said. "Come on, let's do what we came here for, then we can continue on our journey,"

"Right," Lucas said.

Chapter Text

Callum wanted them to focus on getting to the market, but his friends were getting interested in the other parts of this old building. To the left, were doorways that entered to a few of the platforms where you can get the trains.

"What's that? It... looks similar to those things we were on earlier," Lucas said.

Callum looked at Lucas, then looked at the doorway. "Yeah, those are more trains. They're to get to New Haven,"

"New Haven?" Past Amicia asked. "What's that?" She asked as she looked at Callum.

"Another city," Callum said, but then, Lucas rang in with, "Can we visit it?"

"W-What? That's nearly a 2-hour ride," Callum said.

Lucas tilted his head. "How far is it then?"

"To be honest, further than you guys probably ever traveled in your lives in a single day," Callum mentioned. "But, come on, let's just head to the market... It should be..." He was looking at a map of Grand Central, trying to find the market. "Damn, why does this station have so much crap? Then again, I'd get lost in Penn Station if I'm nearly lost here,"

"Penn?" Lucas asked.

"Another Station that's a few blocks down," Callum spoke as he traced his fingers along the map. "Wait... ah! There's the market. We have to..." he looked from the map, and ahead of his friends. "Over there!" He said. "We just gotta head down those steps, and a sign should be there," He started to walk off. "Follow me," He said, "And stay close, this definitely isn't the place to get lost at all,"

****

They traversed down the stairs to a little area that led to different spots. One direction led to a few of the subways, one led to a restaurant, and the path directly in front of them led right to the market. "Oh! There it is," Callum said as he walked forward getting off the last step. "Well, I was definitely making that harder than it needed to be, it was just right there,"

"You always do that," James mumbled.

Callum just grunted and looked over at James with an annoyed expression, that elicited a giggle from his younger brother.

"Oh... O-Oh..." Future Amicia said, as her head moved around as they entered into the market. "It... Kinda looks like a market from back home," She mentioned. Past Amicia agreed with her. "Y-You're right..." she said. "It's just... indoor?"

"Indoor market? That's a little weird," Lucas said.

Hugo was behind Past Amicia's legs, as he was now a little nervous about all the people there. He's used to going to busy markets, but Manhattan's market made those look empty.

Future Amicia came closer to Callum's ears, and said: "Jesus! Where are all these people coming from?!" In his ears. It scared Callum, making James giggle at the moment.

"I-I told you, this is New York one of the busiest cities in the world," Callum said.

"Wow, look at all those... spices, I never seen so much at once," Lucas said.

"Yes," Callum turned his head to Lucas. "They have a lot of things here, spices, candy, various ingredients and-,"

"Pizza?" Callum heard one of the Amicias say. Turning his head, he saw Past Amicia had a confused look on her face. Following her gaze, he saw her looking at a stand that was selling homemade New York-style pizza. "What... is Pizza?" She asked, as her head tilted.

Lucas blinked. "Yeah, what is that? It looks strange..."

"Pizza, one of the most amazing foods ever!" James exclaimed at them.

"R-Really?" Lucas asked. He then looked at Callum. "Can we try?"

Callum looked at James, then at Lucas, then he sighed. "You guys have never eaten this much sodium before in your life," He mumbled.

"Fine, yes, I'll get a slice for each of you," Callum said as he walked up to the stand.

"Yay!" James exclaimed.

"Slice? I thought it was called pizza?" Lucas questioned, with a puzzled look on his face.

Callum froze. "Wha-What? No, the..., ugh, never mind," He said as he walked up to the stand. He ordered 6 slices of pizza, and once he got them, he handed them to his 5 friends.

"What the..." Past Amicia said as she held the pizza up. "What is this exactly?"

"An ungodly amount of tomatoes and cheese, and grease on bread basically," Callum said.

James snorted. "Oh shut up! But it's so good!"

Past Amicia handed her little brother his, and he took it, and bit into it shyly.

James smiled as he watched Hugo. "Is it good?" He asked, still making his little smile.

Hugo looked at him, as he was chewing the pizza, not understanding what he was saying of course, so his sister translated for him.

After she did, Hugo looked over at James, and nodded, with a shy smile.

"Okay, but why does this taste so good though?" Lucas blinked repeatedly. "Like, this is insane," He looked over at Callum. "Who invented this... food? I assume it's baked,"

"To be honest, I'm not sure," Callum said, shaking his head. "But it's an Italian food,"

"Italian?" Future Amicia asked while tilting her head. "Wow, really? Interesting," She said.

Callum chuckled. "Yeah,"

"You guys finish off your pizzas, I am gonna look around for breakfast ingredients for tomorrow morning," Callum said.

"Tomorrow?" Lucas asked. "I thought we were gonna head back on your... time thing to get so Sophia?"

"Well, I'm sure by the time we reach back to my house, all of you are gonna be deadass tired," Callum said bluntly. "So, we'll do what we need to do in the morning,"

The two Amicias looked at each other. "Y-You... You have a place for us to sleep?"

"Well, our house literally has four rooms, each with a bed, plus the living room couch," Callum said. "James got two beds in his room, Hugo can take one of them. And I know David is not going to be home tonight probably, so one of you can take his bed, and others can take the couch,"

They looked at each other. "Oh... okay," Lucas said after a while, as he took a slow bite of his pizza.

"Yay! I get to share a room with Hugo! I can play Minecraft with him all night!"

"Don't even think about doing that," Callum said, which resulted in James pouting. "You and Hugo need sleep,"

Callum then looked at the others. "So, yeah. We can continue our journey through time tomorrow,"

****

They had made their way back to the subway and were now riding in one of the cars heading back to Callum's house. Callum wanted to let them explore New York, but it was getting late, and he didn't want to drain all of them out too much. Either way, most of them were tired.

It was pretty clear that the entirety of New York, the little they'd seen, made all of them pooped out.

Lucas was having a hard time keeping his eyes open as he was sitting in the seat, as the subway bounced around on the tracks as it moved. Callum looked over at his younger brother and saw both Hugo and him leaning on each other asleep in a seat.

Future Amicia noticed that, and she couldn't help but smile. "I'm glad Hugo's found a friend after all of this mess,"

Callum looked up at her. "He hasn't had many friends, has he?"

Future Amicia shook her head, with a sad expression. "No... there was this one boy, but... but that went to shit really quickly," She said. "Hell, he hadn't many friends even before the problems with the Macula started,"

"Hmm," Callum said. "James is the same. He's good with people his age, but they're not good with him. If... that makes sense,"

Future Amicia nodded. "Some kids can be cruel,"

Callum faced forward, looking at the other wall of the subway car, but then he felt someone lean onto his shoulder. He gasped slightly, then looked over to his left, and noticed that Lucas was leaning on his shoulder, asleep. It seemed he couldn't hold it in anymore, and he passed out.

Callum's face went red as he looked forward. He felt shy. His eyes darted to the right and saw Future Amicia giving him a little smirk. Then, she giggled once she saw the deadpan expression on Callum's face.

"Oh ha ha," Callum grumbled.

Future Amicia chuckled.

The subway car went over a switch, and it bounced up.

"Good lord, what was that?" Future Amicia said, as she made sure Hugo or James didn't fall off their seat.

Lucas nearly slipped off of Callum, but he was still asleep. Callum shyly, but managed to pull him back up to his shoulder.

"We-We probably went over a switch," Callum said.

"A switch?" Past Amicia asked.

Callum looked over at her. "That, or a flat wheel. Probably a flat wheel. The Big Apple needs to take better care of their subway fleet," Callum looked up and noticed on the map overheard, that they were coming up to his hometown.

"Okay, we're almost there," He said. He looked down at Lucas. "Lucas? Wake up," He said, gently nudging him.

"Hmm?" Lucas asked. "What? Wa-what's... happening?"

"Where's almost there," Callum said.

***

"Oh wow... that was definitely something..." Lucas said as they walked down the street to get back to the house. He rubbed his eyes, as he was still a little sleepy.

"It definitely was," Past Amicia said. "I can't believe... this place exists,"

"Yeah... The... Sink turned on by itself," Future Amicia said, shaking her head. "That wasn't normal. Also, the toilet somehow turned on itself as well,"

Callum heard them talking amongst each other. "It's... mostly electricity," he said.

"Electricity?" Lucas asked.

Callum nodded. "Okay... how can I explain this in simple terms...? Alright; Basically, humans figured out how to harness the power of a bolt of lightning," He figured that was the best analogy to go with. He looked at them as they walked.

Lucas shook his head. "Wow... al-alright," He said.

"And that power... makes water run by itself out of a pipe without you moving anything?" Past Amicia asked.

"Well, yeah. There's a sensor that senses your hands, and the "power of the bolt of lightning" makes the faucet turn,"

"So... when did all of this... start?" Lucas asked.

"Well, they say it was Benjamin Franklin, but apparently he only further advanced it. I'm not aware of who actually invented it. Inventors really skyrocketed around the 1600s-1700s, and made all sorts of things that we either use now or is a remembrance of it something that's slightly altered," Callum said.

"Well... You... You got that time thing. You can travel all around to view things in the past, right? Learn about your history," Lucas said.

"Right? You can do that can't you?" Past Amicia said

Future Amicia nodded. "He's right. You can visit different times,"

Callum shook his head. "No... I'm planning to destroy the time machine once we kill the Macula,"

"What? Why?" Lucas asked.

"I don't feel safe keeping a machine like this... in my garage. I only made it so I could get rid of this sickness that plagues my body, not to hop all around time like I'm The Doctor. If a time machine falls into the wrong hands... who knows what could happen,"

"Doctor? What doctor are you talking about? Doctor who?" Lucas asked.

Callum could only just chuckle at what Lucas said, but he changed the subject. "So... yeah. I'm going to destroy it,"

"Well, that's a little wise," Past Amicia said. "You did tell me before that... crossing paths with each other can... destroy everything,"

Lucas looked at her. Then, at her other self. "But this still doesn't explain how you two are together then,"

"It's like you're both twins!" James giggled.

"Yeah..." Past Amicia said. She looked at her future self, then over at Callum who was walking ahead of them. "Callum, how?"

"I don't know," He responded.

"Maybe it's the Macula?" Lucas questioned.

"Hmm..." Past Amicia said. She looked down at her brother, who was walking close to James.

"The Macula hasn't been on his body since the start of today..." She mumbled. "Maybe it does have something to do with it..."

****

They finally arrived back at Callum's home. And just like Callum expected, his older brother, nor his parents were home.

"Does your family... just never come home?" Lucas asked as he walked over to the couch.

"They all work late. Like, very late," Callum said. "They'll be back later. I sent them all a text..." Callum looked down at his phone.

'Have some people over... Time thing' was all he sent.

They all are aware of his plan. So this wasn't a big surprise to any of them.

Callum got a text a second later, and they all told him they'd be staying at a hotel, while they all can use the beds in the house.

Callum sighed in relief. "Okay, they're on board with it," He looked up, but then he saw the two Amicias and Lucas staring at him.

"What is it?" He asked.

"The hell is that?" Lucas asked pointing to Callum's phone.

"And what's a... Text?" Past Amicia asked.

"Well... it's a communication device... I can talk to anyone simultaneously around the... world,"

Lucas blinked. "... you sure this all isn't witchcraft?"

Callum rolled his eyes, "Oh yes definitely. I'm a witch and I got a big pot of green liquid brewing as we speak in the kitchen,"

Future Amicia snorted a little. "I take that as no,"

"He's probably brewing some love potions for someone in the room, if... you know what I mean~," James giggled.

Callum gave his younger brother a grave expression.

Lucas looked clueless. "W-What?"

Callum just ignored them and went to put the groceries in the kitchen.

****

It was night now, and everyone was in a room for the night. The two Amicias stayed out in the living room on the pullout bed. Lucas stayed in Callum's older brother's room. And Hugo stayed in James's room, which had two beds.

They were going to go to bed, but James wanted to play Minecraft with Hugo. "Hugo?" James whispered to him. "Wanna play again?"

Hugo looked at him, and tilted his head. He still had a hard time understanding any words in English.

So, James tapped the bed next to him. "Sit next to me," He smiled.

Hugo looked at the TV screen, which was displaying the popular block-building game, then looked back over at James. He stood up and walked over to him. He sat next to James, then had a game controller handed to him

Hugo looked back at the screen, then back down at the controller.

"Cela le déplace?" Hugo asked as he shifted the joystick. Steve in the game moved sideways.

"Remember... that moves him all over," James said reaching over to Hugo. He pointed to the other analog stick. "And that turns the camera,"

Hugo, not understanding a single word, was only picking up on what James was pointing at.

He moved his thumb over the right analog stick, and turned the camera.

But, unlucky for him, a Creeper was behind him.

Hugo's eyes squinted at the approaching creature. "Hein?! Qu'est-ce que c'est?" But before Hugo could even finish his sentence, the Creeper looked up at Steve, hissed, and then exploded.

Hugo blinked. Then, he slowly looked over at James. "James, que vient-il de se passer?"

James giggled at Hugo's reaction. "That-," He pointed to the screen. "Was a Creeper,"

"Creper?" Hugo asked.

James giggled. "No, Creeper,"

"Creper," Hugo said.

James snorted. "Hugo..." He said trying to laugh quietly. "It's Creeper,"

Hugo tilted his head, he just couldn't say it.

James just smiled, then looked back at the screen. "Let me show you how a master plays this game," James started to move Alex, but James wasn't looking where he was going, and fell into a deep cavern. "Oh frick!" He said quietly, then he slammed onto the ground at the bottom and all of Alex's inventory fell out.

"Uh oh..." Hugo said quietly. He looked over at James, then giggled when he saw his reaction.

"Don't laugh at me," James pouted. "I lost my diamonds,"

Hugo looked up and saw something on James's dresser. "James, qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"Hm?" James asked. He looked at Hugo's pointed finger and saw him pointing at something on his dresser. "Oh, that's embarrassing, I should clean my room," He stood up and walked over to his dresser. "It's a wrapper for some Oreos,"

Hugo stood up and walked over to James. "....Oros?"

James giggled. "Yeah," He looked at the wrapper, then at Hugo. "Wanna try some?"

Hugo tilted his head.

"Come with me, Callum wouldn't know," James took Hugo's hand, "Follow me,"

James dragged Hugo out of his room, with Hugo making a slight grunt sound as James yanked his arm. "Shh, be quiet," James said quietly, as he stood at the edge of the hallway that connected to his room, and the rest of his brother's room.

"This way," He said, pulling Hugo along. James took him into the kitchen, but his eyes darted over to the living room, and in the darkness, he saw the two Amicias asleep on the couch's pull-out mattress.

"Qu'est-ce que nous faisons, James?" Hugo asked.

"Shh!" James quickly said. "Let's not wake them,"

James walked over to the pantry and opened it. He looked for the cookies. "Okay..." He said quietly. "Where are they?"

"There they are-," James said as he took the Oreos down, but accidentally dropped them, and they slightly banged on the counter.

"Oh crap," James said, as his eyes widen. He darted his attention over at the two Amicias. One of them just rolled over.

He sighed in relief, but then he saw a humored expression on Hugo.

"What is it now?" James giggled softly. "Stop laughing at me,"

James took Hugo's hand again. "Let's go back before Callum comes back out,"

****

Hugo stared at the wrapped Oreos. "Ehh...?" He made a sound and looked at James.

"You open it silly," James said as he reached over to the wrapping, and tore it open. "Like that,"

Hugo looked at the exposed cookie.

He took one out, and his face scrunched up looking at it.

James smiled. "Try it,"

Hugo put it up to his mouth, opened his mouth, and then bit down on the Oreo. James watched him chewing. "Do you like it?"

Hugo swallowed, then took another bite, then pulled out another out of the pack.

James giggled. "I guess you do then,"

"Wanna play some more, before we go to bed? Callum... might check on us to make sure we're aslee-,"

James slightly gasped and got cut off as he heard a room door open down the hall.

"Quick! Quick! Get in the other bed-!" He said quietly to Hugo and pushed him gently. Hugo jumped into the other bed, pulled the cover over him, and James got in his and pretended he was asleep.

Callum walked inside the room and looked down at James snuggled up in his blanket, and Hugo snuggled up in his.

"Guess they're asleep," Callum said. He looked up and saw James's game on. "Come on James," He said quietly. "What I told you about leaving the game running," He picked the controller up, saved the game, and turned it off. After that, he left the room.

James looked up and looked at Hugo. "Well that was close," He chuckled. "Guess we should just go to bed, we can play more Minecraft tomorrow maybe," He smiled.

Chapter Text

Callum stretched as he walked into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for all of them. He knew that all of them were asleep still, it was in fact, still very early. But Callum just wanted to get the day ready and over with it. He turned on the kitchen light, then dimmed it so it didn't bother his guests in the living room, and got ready.

After he got the things he needed out of the cupboard, he noticed something looked off with the Oreos. "Huh? Why is it half opened..." He sighed, already suspecting the culprit. . "James..." He grumbled. "What was that kid doing last night? I knew he was up to something. I knew he couldn't have just left his game running," He rolled his eyes, then continued to make the breakfast.

The two Amicias on the pull-out bed, started to smell the eggs that were being cooked. "Should I make coffee?" Callum debated with himself. "Coffee was a thing back then right?" He questioned himself. He knows that for some people coffee doesn't do too well with their digestive system, making them have to use the restroom. "I don't have any restrooms in my time machine, I'll skip then coffee. Hopefully, orange juice can energize everyone for the day,"

"Ah, I need salt to add to the eggs after," as Callum grabbed the salt from the upper cupboard, he looked to the left and saw one of the Amicias. "Oh, A-Amicia!" He uttered a little surprised. He looked at her closely to remember which one this was. He realized it was the one he picked up first. Which was...

'The one from the future? Of the other one? Yes... I think,' He said to himself.

Future Amicia rubbed her eyes, "Bonjour Callum," She said sleepily. Then, she caught herself. "Oh, I mean, good morning Callum," she said shaking her head. She chuckled. "Sorry, I forgot you only knew English,"

Callum let out an amused chuckle. "That's alright Amicia. 'Bonjour' is probably the only word I know in French,"

"So... Those are eggs?" she asked, eyeing the pan.

Callum nodded. "Yes, and bacon and sausages," He said. "I'm sure this... might be a little different than what you normally had for breakfast, but-,"

Future Amicia chuckled. "Yeah, way different. I normally had a lot of meat, a lot of bread, a lot of fruit, some pies, and-,"

Callum nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like the Middle Ages alright," He said with a small amused smile,  as he continued cooking.

"What does that mean? I heard you said it before,"

Callum looked at her. "What? Middle Ages?" He saw Future Amicia nod, confirming.

"Well, it's what we people of this point in time, call the era you guys are from. Although, there are a lot of names. The Renaissance, The Dark Ages, Medieval, The Alchemist Era," Callum shook his head. "Too many names for one period, if you ask me." He saw Future Amicia softly laugh at what he said.

"The Alchemist Era, huh? Fits Lucas perfectly," she said.

"Oh, it does?"

"Lucas is into Alchemy," she explained.

Callum smiled warmly. "Well thanks to people like him, we have many cures for diseases. Although, some certain people still try to hold us back," He mumbled that last sentence.

"Ugh, I see," Future Amicia said. "Still happening, huh?"

"Not as bad, but we're getting there. But this Macula doesn't seem to be a normal disease. It's something... Supernatural to say the least," Callum said.

"Supernatural? What does that mean?"

"Something that's beyond our understanding. This Macula, it seems like it's a curse. Controlling rat's minds? That's not something that's exactly common by the laws of physics," Callum said as he finished up cooking.

"I see," Future Amicia said.

****

All of them were sitting around Callum's table, in the dining room. James was sitting next to Hugo, the two Amicias next to each other, and Lucas was next to Callum. "Good thing my family has this big table," Callum said.

That made James laugh a little. "Yeah, no one would fit if we didn't,"

"So... we go to Sophia, right?" Past Amicia asked. "I haven't seen her in a while," She said.

Callum looked at the two Amicias. "Okay, both of you know Sophia. Right?"

The two Amicias nodded.

"Okay, so... which one should we go to?" Callum asked. He saw they looked confused.

Callum tried to explain it in simpler terms. "Should we get the Sophia from the timeline of the Amicia I picked up first, or the Sophia from the Amicia from further in the past?"

Lucas nodded. "I understand you," He said.

Future Amicia nodded. "I think we should get the one from my time," She said. "We've been studying more about how the Macula works after... uh, you know," She tilted her head to Hugo. "So I'd assume she would have more knowledge about Basilius than Sophia from a few years ago,"

Callum nodded, as he sipped his orange juice. "Smart choice,"

"All we need is the exact year Basiallus died right?" Lucas asked.

Callum confirmed with a nod. "Yes, but we need to go back a year or two before his passing. We can’t go to the exact date he died; I don’t think that would work. Plus, he’d likely be very sick in his last year, unable to do much."

They finished their breakfast and prepared to head back to the time machine.

****

"It feels strange being back in this thing," Lucas said.

But James was too existed. He had never been inside Callum's time machine before. "Okay, James, please behave yourself," Callum sighed. "I can't leave you here home alone, so please, stay close to me or either of the two Amicias when we're going into these different time periods. Please, I don't want you to get lost in the past and get hurt by something and have your gravestone say ‘born in 2017, died in 1300.’"

Lucas snorted softly.

James sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever,"

"Why you cannot leave him? As you explained how time works, you could just come back... One minute later?" Past Amicia asked.

"Yeahhhh..." James said crossing his arms.

Callum sighed. "I could, but time machines can be unpredictable, what if this exact time got locked out of the time warp network? Better safe than sorry, okay?"

James closed the airlock, then walked up to the front of the machine and sat in his chair. He turned his head to the keypad. "It would be best to have everyone here with me," He said. "Okay..." He tapped a few things on it. "I'm going to bring up... the... history of where I've been. Or... well, when I've been,"

"Huh? Why you're doing that?" James asked.

"Because," Callum said as he tapped the keys. "We are going to the time period Future Amicia is in. I've been there already, so I just gotta find it in the history list,"

"You don't remember it?"

"No, I remember the year. But I don't remember the exact hour down to the exact minute and down to the exact second. I don't want to make a mistake and slam into a second copy of the time machine," Callum said. "Or, run into myself meeting you,"

Future Amicia gasped. "Wait... Oh my lord... Wait that's how it works?!"

Callum gasped at Future Amicia's outburst. "What? What do you mean?" He took his hand off the keypad and turned in his chair to face her.

"That's how this... Time traveling works? You're literally invading into a timeline, you can invade into your own... see yourself... and..."

Callum nodded. "Uhhh, Yes, Amicia. That is why there's a second version of you, right next to you. We did go over this,"

The two Amicias looked at each other. Future Amicia blinked. "Oh god..." She said. Then, she smiled. She looked at Callum. "Callum, this is... interesting,"

"Yes, and also dangerous. It's been theorized that running into yourself, as I've said before, can cause a paradox. But you two being here seems to... debunk that theory as false. But, I still... I have to be careful,"

"Better safe than sorry, right?" Lucas asked.

"Yes, and no. I don't want to accidentally slam my time machine into the time machine from a different time. That might cause a paradox because the time machine will literally be destroying the time machine in a time that's not my own, while two versions of me are there... That'll probably break everything it'll be as if the time machine never existed,"

"I kinda didn't understand a single word you said," Lucas said shaking his head.

Future Amicia shrugged. "I understood it just fine,"

"Let me just... ah! Found it," Callum brought up the time he had gone too. He punched it in, then made some changes. He changed the hour to one hour. "Is an hour good?" Callum asked Future Amicia. You know Sophia during this time; do you know what she was doing an hour before I left with you?"

"Well... We live together... uh... She was out getting something from a shop, but that shop was a two-hour walk away. So, four hours," Future Amicia said.

Callum nodded. "Okay, so this hour skip would be useless," He adjusted the time to skip ahead 4 hours. He took a deep breath. "Okay, everyone hold on something,"

Callum looked behind him and saw everyone grab something in the machine. Lucas, was behind him holding down on the bolted chair.

"Everyone ready?" Callum asked, hearing a collective yes.

Callum pressed the enter key on the pad and lowered the lever.

The machine shook, and a red light flashed inside.

'Warning, Warning, Time Machine Activated' A voice said through a speaker inside the machine, located just the wall at the left. It was connected by wires that strung down and connected to the monitor.

'Destination: Year 1350 A.D 03/12 14:23:12'

All of Callum's passengers were looking around, astonished. They've been in this before, obviously, but there was just something surreal about this for people from the dark ages. It's surreal for anyone from any time.

"Wowww..." James said to himself smiling. He looked over at Hugo, who just shyly smiled back.

The outside of the front window zapped with a spark. The garage gave an illusion that it was being stretched away from them. It then launched forward right into a swirling vortex.

"Oh god!" Lucas gasped holding the support beam that was on the wall. "That was more bumpy than the damn subway!"

James slightly giggled as he heard Lucas's outburst.

"Guys, don't forget to hold on, it can get kinda shaky inside of the time warp,"

"What do you think we're doing?!" Lucas snapped, scared at the speed of the machine, and the vibrations happening inside.

The time machine was traveling down to what seemed to everyone as a long blue tube, that was made of a cloud-like substance. It was spinning around the capsule as they were flying through.

Then, the vibrations slowed. As the clouds started to diminish around them, the sight of trees started to materialize around them.

"What? Trees?" Past Amicia said.

"We're almost there," Callum said as he pulled down the lever.

The machine came to a quick halt, making everyone stumble.

'You have Arrived in 1350 A.D,'

'Weather outside the machine is... calm, no storm detected... No anomalies were detected... No... Paradoxes detected...'

Callum blinked, then looked at the screen. A small puzzled look grew on his expression. "Huh?" He said to himself. "I didn't... What?"

Lucas looked at Callum, then back at the screen. Then, at Callum again. "What? You confused, why do you sound confused?"

"That... That never happened before," Callum said.

"You're right," Future Amicia said. "It doesn't remember it talking at all,"

"No, not that-, It's supposed to talk, but I don't think it was working before. I programmed the machine with A.I. state of the art. It's supposed to speak about what year and location you are in... But talk about anomalies? I never set something like that-," Callum said, as he scratched his chin.

"Could it have been the A.I. language I used? Did something on its own?" He mumbled to himself.

He was pressing some keys on the keyboard until he heard one of them say something. "Uhh? What the hell A.I.?"

Callum blinked, then looked behind him only to see it was Lucas to ask that.

"That is something I'm not going into right now," Callum said. He turned back to his keyboard and muttered: "Not even people of my time understand it much less people of the middle ages," To himself.

"Alright," Callum said as he stood up. "Let's get out and get this-," He turned to the Amicias.

"Sophia," Future Amicia said.

Callum nodded. "Right. So, all of you stay close to me-, and hold my hand James," He said grabbing his little brother's hand. "Off we go," He said, as he walked to the rear end of the machine, and opened the door.

He let all of them out, then he was the last with James.

He closed the door, debating with himself if he should lock the door.

"Should I lock it?" Callum said.

"Yeah, why wouldn't you?" James said.

"I don't know, not many people around here would want to steal this, but then again, someone could get curious and accidentally start it... yeah. Let me lock it," Callum said as he pressed a button on a controller he had.

"There, it's locked now," He turned his attention to his other friends. "So which way to Sophia?"

Future Amicia looked around. "This way, just down that path over there," She said, pointing to a small path that was made from moving people's feet.

"Okay, let's go then,"

"Come on Hugo, upsies," Future Amicia said as he picked Hugo up, and put him over her shoulders.

But inside the Time Machine... something was running. Something was scanning, as it stayed stationary.

Warning... one anomaly dectected... Acitivativing Emergecy Warp In one hour...

Chapter Text

"Wait... So, I end up living here?" Past Amicia said, her eyes fixed on the log cabin in front of them.

"Yep," Future Amicia nodded, glancing at her younger self. "You.. er, We do."

Callum stood between them, his brow furrowed in thought.

Lucas folded his arms, "Well, it's a nice cabin," he said casually.

Hugo clung to Past Amicia's leg, but then he turned around and saw a beautiful mountain in the distance. It was topped with a white pillow of snow at the summit. He made an amazed noise, as he slowly drifted from his sister's leg, to go near a bolder to rest at to look at the mountain.

Callum walked up to the door and tried to open it. "Uhh... It's locked," He spoke. He turned his head to Future Amicia. "You have the key right?"

"I think so... I better..." Future Amicia fumbled through her coat pockets.

Callum inspected the lock closely. "Because I don’t think I can pick this thing."

After digging around a few, she took out a key.

Callum blinked. "Wow, that's an enormous key," He said.

"Hey! Wait up Hugo!"

Callum looked down, then saw James running towards Hugo, who was heading to the small bolder. "Where you're going?" He asked Hugo.

"Hey, don't go too far!" Callum said. "We're literally in the middle of nowhere in France, okay?" Then, he looked up and saw the mountain. "Oh... " he blinked. "Wow, that's... that's a view alright,"

Lucas turned to meet his gaze, "It is..." he said, with a soft smile.

Past Amicia looked up at the mountain, then back at the cabin. "This... This is what my future is going to be...," She had a soft smile on her face, but Callum didn't see it. His eyes darted to her. He thought what she was saying, was something negative. "N-No! The... T-The future can be... whatever you want to to be! It doesn’t—,"

"No," Past Amicia shook her head. "It's fine. I don't mind it," She said, looking back up at the mountain. "It looks peaceful,"

"It is," Future Amicia said. "I'm... we're still recovering from..." She looked at Lucas and then at Hugo.

"Huh?" Past Amicia said once she saw her other self look at Lucas.

Future Amicia sighed. "Uh, you know, our brother,"

"Oh," Past Amicia nodded. "Right. Still...."

Callum watched them. He stepped closer. "Well, there's no more of this 'recovering'," He said. "Because once we meet up with Sophia, we get the right year, and all of us Macula holders will be saved,"

The two Amicias nodded. "Yeah," She said. "We will," They sounded determined.

Callum looked out to both Hugo and James, who were still at the bolder. "That's a very beautiful mountain isn't it Hugo?" James said. He looked over at Hugo, and saw him picking up an Iris flower which was near on the ground.

Future Amicia smiled fondly. "Hugo always loved his flowers,"

"First it was feathers," Past Amicia added with a soft chuckle.

Hugo looked over at James, then he looked over at the Amicias. Then, he took the flower, and came closer to James "Hmm? Hugo, what are you doing?" James asked, tilting his head, then Hugo wordlessly placed the flower in James’s hair.

James froze, blinking in surprise, before a shy smile spread across his face.

Hugo smiled softly.

The two Amicias exchanged a look. "They’re adorable," they both murmured at the same time.

Callum smiled at the scene, then turned to Lucas. His eyes fell on a patch of roses nearby. He plucked one, not realizing it was wilted, and awkwardly handed it to Lucas. "H-Here."

Lucas glanced down at the sad-looking flower, just as the stem broke and the bloom drooped. "Ah, crap!" Callum gasped.

The Amicias stifled a laugh.

Callum quickly tossed that one, and picked another. He let out a embarrassed noise, as he smiled awkwardly, as he held the flower for Lucas to take.

Flustered, Callum quickly tossed the rose and picked a fresh one, smiling sheepishly as he handed it to Lucas again.

Lucas chuckled, accepting the flower. "Thanks."

But then...

"Qui êtes-vous les gens?" A new voice said.

They all collectively turned their heads and saw a Lady with a red headband, with golden markings approaching them.

Future Amicia slightly gasped, "S-Sophia!" She spoke out.

"Amicia..." Sophia spoke. "Qui sont tous ces gens avec toi?" She got closer, then she looked over at past Amicia. The look on her face said it all. It was a growing shocked expression. Her eyes darted back to Future Amicia, then back at Past Amicia. "Est-ce que... As-tu un jumeau?"

Future Amicia took a deep breath. "Je-je... je peux expliquer Sophia," She said.

Sophia shook her head. "Amicia que se passe-t-il pourquoi y a-t-il un autre toi... ?" She said looking up at at the two Amicias.

"Ah... Vous voyez, il y a une machine à remonter le temps, et nous sommes venus ici pour sauver Hugo et sauver-,"

"Uhh... Can you guys speak in English... 'cause I don't know what you're talking about at all," Callum said.

Sophia looked up at Callum. "English?! You speak English?" She asked. She looked even more confused. "Who even are you?!"

"Sophia, please just let us expl-," Past Amicia said, but, just at that moment, Hugo had spotted Sophia. He was with James standing at the bolder putting more flowers in his hair, but then he saw her. Hugo gasped delighted.

"Sophia! SOPHIA! Voici une fleur!" Hugo said happily, giving Sophia one of the flowers he had given James.

Sophia smiled. "Oh thanks, Hugo, you're always so sweet," she smiled, taking the flower. She looked back at the rest, but then the realization kicked in.

Her eyes widened and she quickly looked back down at Hugo. She slowly looked back at Future Amicia. She blinked, and so did Future Amicia.

"Ok, qu'est-ce qui se passe, putain?!" Sophia cursed out.

"Sophia, don't curse in front of Hugo! And... speak English! Callum won't understand anything!" Future Amicia said.

"I-," Sophia looked at Hugo. "C-Curse in front of Hugo?? HOW IS HUGO EVEN HERE?! And why do I need to speak English?!" She yelled.

"Uhhh..." Past Amicia said, tapping her legs awkwardly.

"And why are there two of you?! You never told me you had a twin!" Sophia asked after. "And who is this guy, and the kid Hugo's age?" Then, she turned her focus to Lucas. "And how are you back?" She asked, her eyes squinting in confusion. "You left to go into town far from here, you shouldn't be back now, you should be here at least in another half hour,"

"Uhhhhh..." Lucas said awkwardly.

Just then, the remote in Callum's pocket started to go off.

"What the hell is that?!" Sophia asked looking around.

Callum reached into his pocket and took out the remote. "What's that? What's it doing?" Future Amicia said.

"I don't know," Callum said looking at it. "It's..." The remote was speaking something. "It's saying... Anomaly..."

They all looked at each other. "What?" Lucas asked.

They heard a voice behind them. Callum quickly turned around and saw... Lucas. But the same Lucas.

Callum gasped. "Okay... This about to get problematic,"

The other Lucas looked shocked and terrified. He was just staring at his past self.

Callum realized he had a lot of explaining to do.

*****

After finally getting through to them about their goals—the time machine and their mission to gather all the Holders of the Macula—Sophia and the other Lucas seemed stunned, caught in a daze.

"This doesn't make any sense," Sophia murmured.

"It doesn't make sense... But it's happening. So that makes it real, even if it doesn't seem like it is," Future Amicia said.

"I'm staring at myself..." the other Lucas said, his voice trailing off. "It's like looking into a mirror..."

Lucas let out a small, awkward chuckle. "Heh..."

Callum sighed heavily. "So yeah... We need to get the exact dates," He looked at Sophia. "We need the exact dates of Basilius's death,"

Sophia blinked and nodded, her thoughts still swirling. "I... I saved the scrolls. They’re with me in... this, uh... house." She stood up and began searching for them.

While she rummaged through her belongings, Lucas—the Lucas who had traveled through time—broke the silence. "So, what do we do now?" He gestured vaguely at his future self. "We’ve got... well, me?"

"We leave him here," Callum said, "They'll be enough people in the machine with Sophia as it is,"

"Oh, we're bringing Sophia?" Future Amicia asked.

"Yes," Callum confirmed, glancing her way. "You did say she's the one with the most knowledge. Plus, Hugo seems to really like her, so having her presence will be good for him,"

Future Amicia nodded. "Yeah, Hugo did like her a lot,"

Past Amicia smiled. "Yeah, she is good to him,"

Just then, Sophia returned, holding a stack of old scrolls. "Okay, I’ve got the scrolls. They show everything—the year, and some information about the Macula—,"

Callum stood up quickly, cutting her off. "What’s the year?"

Sophia glanced at the scrolls. "He was born in 534 A.D. He died when he was seven... around Hugo’s age." She paused, her expression somber. "So that would make it... 541 when the poor boy passed away."

Callum nodded. "Then we travel to 540," He said.

Future Amicia blinked, puzzled. "540? Why a year before?"

"Well, I'd assume during the year of his passing he could be incredibly sick, and maybe we wouldn't even find him because we may overshoot the year, and he could pass away when we reach. Best if we go a year before and find him," Callum said. He looked at them. "So... You're all ready?"

Everyone nodded in unison.

***

As they strolled through the small forest beside the wooden house, Sophia turned to Callum, her curiosity piqued. "So, the future? What's... what's it like?" she asked hesitantly. "I'm... I'm a little curious about it all."

"Well, it was... a little different, to say the least," Future Amicia chimed in.

"Little? That was way more than just 'little'!" Lucas interjected, shaking his head. "I don't think I ever want to go back."

"You probably never will," Past Amicia teased, nudging Lucas with a playful grin. "You'll be dead by then," she added with a smirk.

"Yeah, thanks for that. Really uplifting," Lucas grumbled, rolling his eyes.

Sophia let out an amused sound and shook her head. "Wasn't expecting my day to go like this,"

Future Amicia chuckled. "You think it's crazy now? Wait until you see the thing that's used to go through time,"

And there it was. Sitting in a patch of grass, was Callum's time machine. Dirt was a little torn up around the machine since the machine had to slide into place.

Sophia stared in amazement at the metal rectangle. "Mon Dieu..." She blinked. "A-Amicia... er... or, well... Amicias... This... This is... what is this?"

"What we'll use," Future Amicia said.

Callum was inspecting the machine, eyeing the uneven dirt beneath it. "Hmm... I really should build some sort of suspension underneath. If this thing hits a rock, well... that wouldn't end well."

Lucas was near him and heard what he had said. "Huh?" He looked at Callum. "But you said you'd destroy it once you accomplish what we need to do,"

Callum blinked. "Oh, right...I-," He looked at the machine. He took a deep breath. "I haven't really decided what I really want to do with it," He said shaking his head.

"Part of me wants to destroy it to prevent someone possibly stealing it," Callum said. "But another part of me wants to keep it. I went through too much blood sweat and tears just to destroy this thing I put so many hours into,"

"Well, maybe you don't have to?" Future Amicia said. "I'm sure if you keep it somewhere safe no one can find it, right?"

Callum put his hands on his hips as he looked at the machine he had built. "Well, it wasn't just this I was trying to make. I also was trying to make a portal that could open into an alternate dimension. A dimension that has nothing there but endless rooms," He shook his head before saying, "But after making the frame of the portal, it backfired and nearly opened a black hole. Almost destroyed the entire damn house,"

He sighed. "That would have been a disaster," He looked at his friends. "Maybe I can try again, and just chuck the time machine..." He saw everyone staring at him. "-In there..."

Callum blinked as he saw all of them staring at him. James giggled softly as he covered his mouth.

"What?" Callum asked, confused. Then it hit him. "Oh... none of you understood any of that, did you?"

"No..." Lucas said shaking his head.

James giggled, "I did! Kinda... I mean, I was there when you did that," He said.

"What in the world is a black hole? And why it sound very dangerous?" Sophia asked.

"Yeah... I'm not going to get into that. Maybe later," Callum said, he turned around to head to the back of the machine. "Let's just—"

There was a thump sound coming from the time machine. "Huh?" Callum quickly backed away. His eyes widened when he saw the exterior lights flashing. He promptly ushered all of them to back away from the machine. "Everyone move away! Go!"

They all scrambled back just in time as the time machine zoomed forward and vanished in a flash of light, leaving only a swirl of disturbed air behind it.

James blinked. "B-Bro...?" He looked at his older brother. "What just happened?"

"Callum... Did it... Did it just go without us?" Future Amicia questioned.

Hugo seemed to have gotten scared from the loud noise and hid behind James. "It's alright Hugo," James said, looking at him.

"I don't know what happened-," Callum spoke. But then he reached into his pocket. "-But it's a good thing I brought this!" He took out the remote.

"Phew," James exhaled. "You can bring it back with that?"

"How the hell are you gonna bring it back with that? The heck is that anyway?" Lucas asked.

Sophia, looking dazed, mumbled, "Can someone explain what I just witnessed?"

"Not now Sophia," Callum said, as he pressed a button on the remote. "Just gotta call it back..." He looked up. "Okay," He told them to back away again. "The machine is going to appear here in exactly 5 seconds. Don't stand in this spot if you don't want to get hit,"

***

The machine had come back, thankfully, and Callum quickly rushed them inside. He was unsure of what exactly caused the machine to warp on it's own, and he didn't want it to happen again. Thankfully, it hadn’t.

Now, Callum was sitting in his chair, searching through the monitor. He was scrolling through the logs, of where, and when they had been. "Okay... 1350... That's earlier in the last day when I came to get you all," He said to Future Amicia. "Then... 1348 that is when it got your past counterpart... then 2023... When we came to my time..."

~Time log~

Reference Time Set in 2023 @ Dec. 12 13:00 and ongoing...

Started: 2023... Dec 12 13:00

Visited: 1350... / 1348 / 2023 /

~Second Day~

Visited: 2023 / 1350 .... *Anomaly Detected* {Emergency Warp Initiated} / Set Course: 200 .... >Error<.... >Error< *MASSIVE ANOMALY DETECTED*... [Machine Diverted on Time path... {Year 541}... ] Enter: 1350

"I... I don’t really get what I’m looking at," Lucas admitted.

"Same," James replied. "All of that’s a little too nerdy for me."

Lucas blinked confused at what James had said. "Nerdy?" He titled his head. "What's... What's nerdy?"

Callum was intently studying the screen, trying to make sense of it himself. "Anomaly? Wait," he said, suddenly looking at Lucas as something clicked. "I think I get it—at least the earlier problem." He tapped the screen. "The machine went into emergency warp because..." He glanced at Lucas again. "Because of the two Lucas's."

"The two Lucas's?" Past Amicia asked.

"Yes," Callum said. "It's gonna be something that I'd have to sort out..." He said. "So far it hasn't been a problem having two of the same people from different points in time next to each other-," He gestured his hands over to the two Amicias. "So it isn't a problem... I guess," He tapped his foot. "-I'll just have to make sure I always have my remote with me, in case it decides to do another emergency warp again,"

The others looked at each other.

"Yeah," Lucas said as he nodded. "If that 'remote' as you called it, can somehow bring it back, you mustn't misplace it,"

Callum tapped the screen to scroll up on the log. "But that wasn't the only problem-,"

Lucas arched an eyebrow. "What's the other problem?"

"Look," Callum gestured to the screen.

They all leaned closer from behind Callum looking at the monitor.

"The rest of the log..." Callum started. "For the emergency, the machine seemed to have jumped to a year that was planning to be very, very far away from the 1300s,"

"The 200s..." Future Amicia said.

"Right," Callum said. "But it didn’t make it."

Lucas tried to read the words. "S-Sorry, It's... it's kinda hard to read English..." He said shaking his head, "I can speak it, but I can't-,"

"It says ‘massive anomaly,’" Sophia cut in.

Past Amicia blinked. "Massive Anomaly?"

"Yeah, but that's not all," Callum said. "Look at the year that it supposedly counted as an anomaly,"

Sophia’s eyes widened. "541?" She blinked again, glancing between Callum and the others. "That’s—"

"The year Basiallus died..." Future Amicia finished, sharing her shocked expression.

"Something’s off about that year," Callum said. "For some reason, the machine didn’t want to pass it to reach the 200s."

"So... what do we do now? We can't go?" Lucas asked.

"Oh no, we're going alright," Callum said. "We have to see what the problem is. Worst case scenario it just sends us to a different time or something," Callum slid down the brake. "Alright, everyone—hold onto something."

Future Amicia nudged Sophia. "Quick, grab something!"

"Uh... Okay," Sophia grabbed onto a support beam next to Lucas.

Past Amicia was holding Hugo, and Future Amicia was holding James as they tried to grab what they could.

Callum quickly punched in the dates-

'Warning, Warning, Time Machine Activated'

Callum gradually raised the lever up.

'Destination: Year 540 A.D 01/02 15:45:11'

"Who's that talking?" Sophia asked, looking around frantically.

"We don't know," Future Amicia let out a soft snort.

"We just go with it," Lucas said shaking his head.

Then, the time machine launched into the warp.

Sophia gasped as she saw the exterior of the machine's window stretching, then turning into a blue vortex. Of course, she was surprised. The ship launched forward into the warp.

"Just hold on," Callum instructed.

"What do you think I'm doing?!" Sophia yelled.

"How long until we reach?" Future Amicia asked.

"Well, given that every 100 years takes somewhere about 10 seconds for us in the machine, a little while. Won't be too long," Callum said.

The machine felt like a subway—if the subway were traveling at 90 miles per hour. It was stable but incredibly bumpy, shaking as it tore through the time tunnel.

"Christ, why does it have to feel like this?!" Lucas yelled, gripping the pole tighter.

"I don't think I like this at all..." Sophia said quietly, as she looked at Past Amicia, who was chuckling.

"Hey, it's loud and scary, but it'll save Hugo. And not only him but all who suffered from the Macula. What's a little fear? We suffered worse that,"

"That... That I can agree on," Lucas said, nodding.

'Warning... Anomaly Detected...'

Callum’s eyes darted to the log.

'Warning... Anomaly Detected... Cannot Proceed... Planning to Divert Warp... '

The machine was attempting to warp back to where they had come from. "I have to override it," Callum muttered, nervous about tampering with the machine in this way. He had never tried it before.

He tapped a few keys, attempting to hack into the log and force the machine to continue. "Come on... don’t turn back... just go..."

'Machine... Overwritten by Admin... Proceeding..'

Callum let out a sigh of relief, but the sigh turned into a horrified gasp as he looked out the front window.

"W-What the hell?!" Sophia shouted.

The machine had entered the interior of a massive sphere of swirling blue clouds. The same as the time tunnel, but these clouds formed a giant ball. In the center was a strange nest-like structure, with branches jutting out and connecting to different tunnels across the sphere.

As they drew closer, they saw rats crawling all over the nest.

Callum quickly tried to stop the machine, but it beat him to it.

'Overwrite FAILED... MASSIVE TIME ANOMALY DETECTED... Diverting warp to 1350...'

The machine slammed into the nest. "OOF!" they all cried out, before the ship backed away and began warping back to the previous time they had left.

They were left speechless.

Then, "Bon sang!?" Sophia yelled.

"Callum?! What... That... THOSE WERE THE RATS!" Future Amicia screamed.

Callum shook his head. "How are they... They're literally inside of the 4th dimension..." He looked over at the log. "That... That was the anomaly the time machine had detected..." Callum diverted the time they were heading, from 1350, to 2023. "We need to discuss what we just saw—and we need to press on. That nest seemed weak, whatever it was. I'm sure we could have blasted through,"

"A-Are you sure?!" Amicia asked.

"Yes, I'm going to head back to 2023, and hook my laptop up to the machine, I'm going to rewrite some code to allow it to bypass that emergency warp. I don't know... how long it'll take," Callum said.

****

"Where are we now... this doesn't look like... home?" Sophia asked.

"I think we're back in Callum's home," Future Amicia said. "What you said it was? The garbage?"

Callum sighed, because his garage really did look like a trash bin. "Garage..." Callum corrected her. "Yes, that's where we are. For me to be able to see if we can bypass that... thing, I need the resources from this time period," Callum powered down the machine, "Might as well charge the machine while we're at it,"

Sophia gasped and looked around as all the lights turned off. "What just happened?"

"Everyone, please take Sophia into my home and make her comfortable," Callum instructed. "I’ll stay here to... work on the machine."

Both Amicias nodded in agreement. "Come on, Sophia," the one from further back in time urged.

"And James... Take Hugo into your room and play your games with him,"

James nodded with a big smile. "Yes!" He said excitedly. "Come on Hugo!" He said quickly grabbing his hands, pulling him.

Lucas blinked, then turned back to Callum, who sat in the chair.

"Uh... Do you need any help?" He asked tentatively.

Callum regarded him thoughtfully. "Uh...," He chuckled, "I don’t mean to be rude, but this is complex for you. You’re from the 1300s; you wouldn’t be able to—"

"But I'm experienced with the rats," Lucas said. "And... your weird year or not, those... those were the rats," He said.

Callum turned his head and looked back out the front window, "You know what the rats are right?" Lucas asked.

"What? Of course, I do. Well, not everything, but I saw them when we... came to get Hugo," He shook his head. "Rats are normally cute to me... But... Not those,"

"Yeah," Lucas said. "But... What was that?" He gestured to the front window. "What was that thing exactly?"

Callum leaned back in the chair. "Well, looking at it... Those rats can somehow enter into... time warps. Which would mean that... The rats have... powers,"

"They do have 'powers,'" Lucas added. "Hugo too! He can control them with his mind."

"Remember Amicia mentioning something like that..." Callum mumbled, adjusting his position in the chair. "But traversing... into time warps?"

"Why would they even?" Lucas asked.

"I don’t know. That nest appeared to completely block our path. It’s—wait a moment..." Callum suddenly stood up.

Lucas looked at him. "What is it?"

"Lucas..." Callum blinked, turning to face him. "This means... what we’re doing is the right thing," he stated, locking eyes with Lucas. "The curse... we’re on the right path to break it."

"It is? By getting all the Holders together?"

"Yes! And the Macula knows that! Why do you think it was literally inside of the fourth dimension? It's not just because they have possible time travel powers, that nest isn't just a home for the rats. It's a blockage. It's blocked off the year 541 from all possible entry points!"

Lucas's eyes widen. "It's trying to seal us from getting to Basilius..."

Callum quickly grabbed Lucas's hand, "Come on, we have to tell the others," He said as he walked to the rear end of the machine.

Lucas felt his cheeks flush slightly as Callum held his hand. "But what can we do? It’s a blockage; we can’t do anything about it, can we?"

"It looked weak. It didn’t seem like a strong nest. But the machine sees it as a hazard and won’t go through. I’ll have to try to force it by coding something in. It might take a few hours... or a day or so," Callum explained.

"A day? Are we going to have to spend the night with you again?" Lucas asked, a hint of disbelief in his tone.

"Possibly," Callum nodded.

Lucas sighed. "Just don't take us out into that.. 'New York' again.." He said.