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Sunday, December 5, 2021. The day the aliens attacked. All the stories that Firey Jr's dad, Firey Sr, had told about life before the aliens all concluded on that very day.
Despite it being two years since he last saw his dad, and double that amount of time since he had last heard those stories from his father, he could still vividly remember the world that was captured within those stories. It made him wish he could see the world before the aliens came.
He knew it wasn't possible. After all, Firey Jr was only born after the aliens had taken over. But for a few moments, he'd like to think he was living in that world, where they weren't constantly oppressed by the alien overlords. The same overlords that forced his dad to leave.
After the aliens had taken his dad, Firey Jr was dumped onto the orphanage until he was taken in by a young man named Bomby. He was a nice, if fairly quiet guy. The only thing is he could be very irritable when it came to bananas. Firey Jr had learned that the hard way once before.
Anyway, if you had told Firey Jr that he would wind up traveling back to the date when the aliens attacked, especially if you mentioned that it was one of Bomby's banana raids that got him in that situation, he would have laughed and called you a liar. But... well, that's exactly what happened.
For some reason, Bomby had thought the best place to raid for bananas was this old laboratory that had long since been abandoned. Even though Firey Jr still didn't get why Bomby was so obsessed with bananas, he volunteered to help out as he had nothing better to do. Besides, since the laboratory had been deserted long ago, there were no aliens or innocent civilians who could get in the way of the banana raid. Still, Bomby had warned him to not touch anything except the banana plants they were raiding from. Unfortunately, Firey Jr ended up overestimating the amount of bananas that he could carry by himself, causing him to trip and accidentally press a button on some strange device. Now he was here, Bomby was nowhere to be seen, and the time travel machine hadn't been responding to his button presses, so really there was only one thing for him to do.
Firey Jr would make sure the alien invasion is unsuccessful. He didn't know how, but he was in the past anyway, so he might as well try to destroy the aliens' rule from the very beginning.
As Firey Jr was thinking this, he was heard a voice yelling, "Firey! Hey!"
Firey Jr turned around to see the person who was calling him. Standing there was a young man with golden brown hair. He looked oddly familiar.
"Maybe I met his adult self back in my time?" Firey Jr thought to himself. "Well, as tempting it is to pretend to be my dad, he's probably in the same area if this person here knows him. I shouldn't risk it."
"Who's Firey?" Firey Jr asked, quickly lying. "My name is Flame."
"Oh," the brunette boy said, taking a step back. "Huh. Now that I think about it, you do look just a tiny bit younger than my enemy Firey."
"Uh, don't you mean your friend?" Firey Jr asked, confused. "You were about to chat with me before I said I wasn't Firey."
"No, I meant enemy. I was going to fight you, but then I realized you're not Firey," the older boy admitted. "Oh right, let's start over. Hi Flame, I'm Coiny."
As Coiny reached out his hand for a handshake, the pieces started clicking into place for Firey Jr.
"Oh yeah, Dad would often talk about this guy named Coiny who would always fight him," Firey Jr thought. "If only that was the only reason why I know him."
Back in Firey Jr's time, the only two humans who managed to keep their wealth without completely sucking up to the alien overlords were a pair of influencers and socialites who called themselves Copy and Paste. They were wild cards in the struggles between the oppressed humans and the alien overlords. The aliens relied on them for entertainment, so they would constantly push the limits of what they could and couldn't do in their Virtual Spherez. Firey Jr didn't know Paste's real name but pretty much everyone knew Copy's true identity; Coiny Cents, who just so happened to be his dad's childhood enemy.
"You're Coiny Cents," Firey Jr blurted out before he could stop himself.
"Yeah, I am," Coiny said proudly.
"Have you signed up for the Virtual Spherez thing yet?" Firey Jr asked. Maybe if Copy and Paste's virtual spheres thing took off quicker, the aliens would be so focused on them that they wouldn't try to take over the planet.
"Well, duh. My dad created Virtual Spherez. Of course I'm signed up," Coiny bragged. "It's kinda boring right now though. My dad and I are the only ones active because we're still testing it out. My dad tells me that if all goes well, it'll be opened up to the public by September 2022."
Firey Jr's face fell. Copy had mentioned before that his dad died a few weeks after the initial alien invasion. Not that it mattered anyway. 2022 would be too late to truly stop the alien invasion. "Are you sure there's no one else who has access to the Virtual Spherez right now? Perhaps a friend of yours?"
"Well, there's my younger cousin Nickel, but he just does weird stuff like tell people to dab," Coiny replied. "Although... my dad said I could invite one friend of mine to get early access to Virtual Spherez. Except, I'm not going to invite a friend. I'm going to invite my enemy, Firey, so that we can fight each other on Virtual Spherez."
Firey Jr felt his eye twitch. "What are you, an idiot?" he thought, annoyed.
"Excuse me?" Coiny asked, looking slightly hurt.
Oh. He had said that out loud. Well, that's just great...
"Listen," Firey Jr said, "do you know any girls with red hair?"
"Yeah, there are two in my calculus class. Why? Are you looking for a girl?" Coiny asked.
"What? Ew no!" Firey Jr yelled. Even though he went back in time to be only a few years younger than Coiny and his peers, it didn't change the fact that they were literally his dad's age.
"Oh man, sorry!" Coiny quickly amended. "I shouldn't have assumed you're straight. Maybe I can introduce you to a guy with red hair? I know this guy, his name is Blocky, you might like him."
"No, I'm not looking for a date. I'm literally twelve!" Firey Jr yelled. "Anyway, I just want to know which of the two redhead girls that you mentioned earlier you're closer with."
Coiny tilted his head. "Neither, really? Match is too much of a spoiled brat, which coming from me, one of the richest teens around, really says something. As for Pin, well, she's friends with Leafy, who is also friends with Firey. So if I hang out with her, I'll have to hang out with Leafy too, who I know will bring Firey along too and insist that we get along with each other."
Firey Jr tried to remember any other information about Paste. "Uh, do either of them kinda talk in a weird way? As in, they pause between every word?"
"That would be Pin. Why, do you know her?" Coiny asked.
"No, just give the early access thing to her!" Firey Jr yelled. "Just trust me. Believe it or not, the fate of the world could depend on this."
Coiny looked skeptical. "...That's an awfully big imagination you've got there, kid... Anyway I need to, uh, get to school for my next class..." With that, Coiny turned and ran the opposite direction.
"I know you're lying, you idiot!" Firey Jr yelled after him. "Today's a Sunday!" But Coiny was already out of earshot.
Firey Jr sighed. "Fine then, we'll just do this the hard way. I'll just bring down the aliens myself! Now if I can only find a place that would sell a twelve year old a high tech gun."
And thus begins the story of Firey Jr's time traveling journey.
