Same Place, Some Other Time



Same Place, Some Other Time is the sixteenth chapter of the Main Story.

Note(s)
Any dialogue that is not being spoken in English is represented with italics and bold text.

Plot
After asking for somewhere with less of a crowd, Zack and Bethany took the three Oviphomos with a Technosume to a nearby park with a large park, where they all sat under a tree. Bethany was excited, thinking that Samantha was about to reveal what she is and explain everything. Samantha sighed.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked her two friends.

“Of course I can,” smiled Bethany.

“Yeah. Why are we here again?” asked Zack. Bethany gave him a sharp blow with her elbow.

“Let Samantha explain herself!” she snapped. Kaysaph and Xenia were surprised by Bethany's sudden snap.

“Let me guess, you're an alien?” asked Bethany, having calmed down. Samantha gave a very heavy sigh.

“Yes....me, my two cousins here, are Oviphomos from the planet Anoterra.”

Zack and Bethany went wide eyed as Samantha started talking about the galactic community, with millions of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy with intelligent races living on them and many of which being all part of a massive community, much larger than Earth ever knew. And it's made even larger when she mentioned communities in other galaxies.

Samantha talked about Oviphomos and Anoterra, telling the humans about how she is a princess with her parents being the king and queen, and the fact that the queen, her mother, is on Earth too.

Samantha told them about what Anoterra is like, telling them about the tall trees all over the place that Oviphomos used to inhabit in the old days and some still do today. With the help of Kaysaph and her linker, they showed the two humans pictures of other Oviphomos, some Anoterran Cats, major places on Anoterra and their moons, as well as some other alien species. Samantha also revealed to them about how Oviphomos lay eggs and hatch from them instead of giving birth like humans. She also talked about how Anoterran Cats are evolved from Earth cats that were introduced to Anoterra.

To finish it off, Samantha gave a brief explanation about Amalgem Humans and Amalgem Oviphomos, which are an artificial sub-species of humans and Oviphomos with superpowers, bred from normal humans and Oviphomo who were exposed to unexplainable torture and horror to produce modern Amalgems. She felt that it was appropriate for Zack and Bethany, as humans, to hear about Amalgem Humans.

“Oh my god, I wanna be an Amalgem Human, that sounds totally awesome!” said Zack excitedly.

“Having a superpower might be cool, but I feel terrible for them going through all that,” sighed Bethany. By this time, evening was approaching and most of the people in the park had left.

“But, there's something I don't understand. Why doesn't the galactic community come to Earth?” asked Bethany.

“Mizhults show you!” Mizhults called out, having been wanting to speak ever since the conversation began. She started glowing a bright blue.

“Wait, what is that thing doing?” asked Zack as the glow blinded everyone.

“'''What's going on? Mizhults stop!'''” shouted Xenia, trying to be heard over everyone's shouts in fear as they felt what felt like an extremely strong wind, causing them to move. Before they knew it, they all suddenly fell a very short distance, like they had just fallen out of bed, and the glow disappeared and Mizhults fell on top of the pile of humans and Oviphomos.

“Urgh, what.....happened?” asked Samantha, looking around.

Everyone was still in the park, but everything was incredibly damaged. Almost all the trees had been uprooted, the play equipment in the play area was mostly destroyed, the whole area was covered in what appeared to be ash and the sky was dark with extremely dark clouds.

“'''Mizhults, what did you do? You destroyed everything!'''” Xenia said in panic.

“'''Mizhults no destroy! Bethany want know why aliens no come Earth. Mizhults help.'''”

“Samantha, what happened?” Bethany asked in panic, grabbing Zack in fear.

“Mizhults said she wanted to show you why aliens don't come here. But....what did she do?” asked Samantha.

“Mizhults bring everyone to another world. Where aliens come Earth,” Mizhults replied happily.

“I don't like it! Take us back, take us back!” said Bethany, coughing a bit due to the dusty air. Everyone stared at Mizhults, waiting her for to take them back.

“No can go back. Mizhults no have energy.”

“Well, we'll just have to find some more,” said Zack, puffing up his chest and giving it a quick strike with his fist. “I'm taking charge here!” But before he could give any orders, he was interrupted.

“This is Authorce of the Oviphomos! Humans, do not panic, we are-” said Authorce as he came running, but stopped when he saw Samantha.

“Princess Samantha! You're alive!” he said in shock, getting down on one knee.

“Um, yes. What's going on here?” she said in a confused voice.

“Aren't you aware? You and Queen Ellenseren crash landed onto land when you flew to Earth. It caused a frightening earthquake which killed all the humans within 500 miles! We didn't think there was any way you could have survived!” Bethany went wide eyed as she heard this. Samantha gave a weird look.

“Um, I don't think I'm the Samantha you think I am. I just came from another world thanks to my friend here.” Authorce gave a surprised look.

“I'm sorry Princess Samantha, or, another world Princess Samantha. You must return to your own world!”

“Alright, alright, you don't have to call me that. I think my friend needs some help to take us back,” said Samantha, looking to Mizhults.

“I would give anything I can to help you!” announced Authorce.

“Yay!” called Mizhults, extending several limbs out and poking them into all the devices on Authorce's body, absorbing power from them all and creating a bright blue glow and strong winds towards herself again.

Authorce backed up in shock, fearing that he's been tricked and is under attack. He reached for his weapon, but found it was gone, along with all the other pieces of technology he should have. The glow died down and he realised that everyone before him had disappeared.

Everyone had been sucked into the portal Mizhults had created before being landed back in a field again.

“Oh my gosh, are we home now?” asked Bethany in desperation.

“Um, I don't think so,” said Zack, pointing to the area that the play equipment should be, instead being just a bare area of grass.

“Oh, no. Are we in another world again?” asked Bethany.

“No. Mizhults bring us back,” said Mizhults innocently. Bethany looked around at the area. It did indeed look similar to Bath, but most of the buildings looked different. Zack looked to his phone.

“Urgh, there's no signal here!” he complained.

“You're not going to have signal in another world!” snapped Bethany. Kaysaph and Xenia looked at each other, not understanding the conversation, but realised that something was wrong.

“Wow, look at that old phone that guy's got,” said Zack, pointing out a man talking on a rather old style phone, not like the smartphones most people own today.

“Hey! I think Mizhults took us back in time!” he said, rushing off. Everyone else gave chase.

“Zack, don't get us lost in this other world!” Bethany shouted. Zack ran out of the field and into a corner shop, picking up a newspaper.

“Hey, look at this! 13th July, 1999! We're in the past!” he announced as he pointed to the date on the newspaper. Bethany was shocked to see that he was actually right while the shopkeeper gave a weird look when he heard that Zack was saying.

“This is so cool!” Zack said, rushing outside. “I can't remember what it was like when I was a baby, this is awesome!” he said as he looked around. Samantha was translating to her cousins about what Zack and Bethany were saying.

“Be careful Zack! Think, we're in the past, we better be careful not to change anything or else the future might change!” said Bethany, trying to calm down and think about their situation.

“Oh, crap! We might disappear if we come from a future that doesn't exist or we might cause a paradox and cause all of time to implode or something!” said Zack.

“I think we should go back to that field and wait until everyone's gone, then get Mizhults to take us back to the present!” said Bethany.

The two humans led the way back to the field where they appeared from, watching every step to make sure they didn't step on anything, avoiding any insects on the ground, stepping away from any stones they could move and dodging any litter they could step on, fearing that making any change could change the entire future. The three Oviphomos didn't take as much care as they stepped on the litter and nudged rocks with their feet as they followed Zack and Bethany back to the field.

Once at the field, everyone sat down and Bethany took some deep breaths, trying to calm down. She reached for her asthma inhaler from her pocket and took a puff from it.

“Calm down....count to ten....1....2.....3....” she said between breaths while Zack looked around in amazement.

“It'd be cool to go out and explore a bit. You know, it's not everyday that it's the 90s,” he said.

“Hey, Mizhults still has all that stuff that man had,” said Xenia, finally noticing all the technology Mizhults had taken from Authorce in the other world was still on her limbs, which had been dragged loosely behind Xenia as they had been walking.

“'''Um, Mizhults, I don't think that you should of taken these. That's stealing,'''” said Kaysaph nervously.

“He say he help us,” said Mizhults. Kaysaph thought for a second.

“Well, I guess that's true and since he's in another world, he can't arrest you,” shrugged Kaysaph.

“'''Hey, cool! A walkie-translator!'''” said Xenia, picking a walkie-talkie-like piece of technology off Mizhults like a piece of fruit from a tree. She put it to her mouth. “Hi! I can speak Earth language!” she said through it. Zack and Bethany looked up at Xenia as she said this.

“Oh, that's awesome! Lemme me have a go!” said Zack as he reached out. Xenia set it to translate to Anoterran language and gave it to Zack.

“'''Hello aliens! You are really cute!'''” Zack said with a wink. The three Oviphomos looked surprised with Kaysaph blushing slightly.

“Zack. What did you just say?” said Bethany sternly.

The five friends messed around with the walkie-translator until evening came and everyone else had gone home.

“Mizhults, I think you should take us home now,” yawned Bethany. “We've been awake for two days straight pretty much.”

“Mizhults take us back again,” she said, glowing brightly again, causing the same strong winds and landed everyone in a pile again.

“Are we back?” asked Bethany.

“The park's here now. Looks a bit odd though,” said Zack.

“I'm going to the corner shop to check,” said Bethany, hurriedly walking while avoiding to step on anything again, followed by Zack also being careful and the Oviphomos, who aren't trying to be careful at all.

“Hey, it's the same guy from 1999! He's gotten older and gone grey!” smiled Zack, looking at the shopkeeper.

“Excuse me?!” he shouted.

“Urgh, we're still not back! We're in 2004 now!” complained Bethany, looking at the newspaper.

“If you're not going to be showing respect to your elders, young man, you can get out of my shop immediately!” said the shopkeeper.

“Uh oh, he's mad!” said Zack, dashing out. Bethany, Samantha, Kaysaph and Xenia quickly followed.

“For goodness sake! Mizhults, why can't you just take us back to our own year?” moaned Bethany.

“Mizhults try! Mizhults is good Technosume!”

“I guess we just have to wait for evening to try again,” Bethany said as she led the way back to the field. She glanced at the park across the field, then stopped.

“Hey, you alright Beth? You're just getting tired and cranky, aren't ya?” smiled Zack. “Bethany?” he asked as she walked over to the park and looked at the young children playing, focusing on one of the girls.

“Yeah, I'm an astronaut! I'm gonna explore space and meet tons of space aliens!” the little girl announced happily as she stood on top of the climbing frame.

“You alright Bethany?” asked Zack, putting his hand on her shoulder and giving her a little shake.

“Um....yeah,” she said, walking back to the Oviphomos with Zack. “Well, guess we gotta wait again,” sighed Bethany.

Suddenly, everything around them froze, as if time suddenly stopped.

“'''Huh? What happened?'''” asked Xenia. “Why did everything stop moving?” asked Zack, looking at some leaves that had been blowing in the breeze, which were now just suspended in the air.

“Waiting is not necessary,” came an incredibly calm and relaxed voice. Everyone turned around to see a being or some kind standing there. This being was unlike anything Samantha, Kaysaph, Xenia, Zack or Bethany had ever seen.

“If you tried to return to your time with Mizhults as a Techno-Temporal Crystal, you'd never make it. You'd always be too soon or too late, never on time. There's even a slight probability that you may end up in an alternate timeline, like the one you were in where Samantha and Ellenseren crash landed onto England and killed the entire population of the United Kingdom. You may end up in another timeline where humans discovered the galactic community in 2008. You might even end up in an alternate timeline where someone is writing about these events as a story-”

“Um, who are you?” asked Samantha, stepping in front of her friends and relatives as she interrupted him.

“Aren't you aware? Oh! This must be our first encounter then, from your perspective,” he smiled. “Bethany, you seemed to feel something while looking at your past self pretending to be astronaut, am I wrong?” Everyone just looked at him in confusion.

“Forgive me, I'm not very good at meeting people since I have already met the majority of them. Come along, I'll take you back to your time.”

The next thing everyone knew, it was suddenly evening and the being had vanished.

“Oh my gosh! Are we finally back to our own time?!” said Bethany, as she and Zack ran to the corner shop, which was just closing.

“Wait! We need a newspaper!” Zack said to the elderly man who was closing the door. The man gave a stern look.

“My shop is closed!” he snapped, slamming the door and turning the notice to CLOSED.

“Why does that man hate me so much?” Zack said out loud. Bethany looked through the window, using her phone's light to illuminate the stock of newspapers, squinting hard to see the date.

“Yes, we're back!” she squealed, grabbing Zack for a hug.

“Oi, leave my shop alone!” the man shouted through the window, causing Zack to run. The others dashed after him as he went back to the park, with Zack and Bethany happily exclaiming them being back home, to which the Oviphomos got excited about too.

"Mizhults wanted bring friends home....." came a quiet, angered voice.

“Well, celebrations aside, I think we should go home. It's getting late and we've been awake for two days, sort of,” yawned Bethany.

“Yeah, I'm out! It was a fun trip today Mizhults. See you later aliens!” Zack said, quickly rushing off.

“They do have names,” muttered Bethany. “Oh my gosh, I'm sorry! We need to get back home! Look, I'll pay for you to get on the bus. You should probably go back with Samantha to your aunt,” said Bethany, rushing off towards the bus station.

“'''Yeah, come with me back to mother Ellenseren. I think we better explain to her what happened today.....or, for the past....however many years it was,'''” said Samantha leading her cousins.

Bethany kept replaying what her younger self said over and over in her head. She wanted to be an astronaut, but as she grew up, she gave up on the idea because of how difficult it's been for humans to travel anywhere in space. But maybe, just maybe, her chance to explore space could come true yet....