Anachronous

Chapter 8 - Momento Frui

Had anyone told Ivori during her childhood that hourglasses would be time machines and donut-flavored liquid would be the key invention to teleporting anywhere in the world, she'd have called them crazy. Apparently, this is the silliness that the world has come to. It made Ivori genuinely curious as to how the future in twenty years would look, and it certainly would be quite different from the portrayal of it in films such as Back To The Future and Meet the Robinsons. It was now 5 AM, and the sun was barely beginning to set. The sense of urgency was hanging in the air as the group had arrived at the Parthenon, ready to pick up the final hourglass piece and outsmart the mercenaries into handing over their piece.

Serafina let go of the throttle on her motorcyle, and smiled wickedly at the group. "I would like to thank all of you for assisting me in my journey to make time travel a reality." She said with a pretentious, supervillain-ish type of voice.

"What?!" Ivori, Firuzan, and Ramin all exclaimed.

"It was too easy. I mean, you humans and your desire to relive the past. Your overall obsession with nostalgia. What a perfect way to cash in on your worldly desires to achieve the very goal that will make me the richest archaeologist in the world!" Serafina cackled. "This will be revolutionary. An archaeologist who has done more work than the literal scientists ever have! Think of what this will do for archaeologists everywhere. No more having to do thorough excavations of sites using forensic evidence of the past, when we can time travel to the precise moment it happened! You know, Ms. Clovis, your father was so passionate about his job that I just knew I could send him on a quest to find what I desired most. I couldn't just risk doing it on my own without being sure whether or not the artifact truly worked, however. Your father became a useful guinea pig, and now so are you three. As for Zane, he has been helping me to achieve this goal all along."

Ivori gave a death glare to Zane. "You BASTARD!!!" She screamed.

Zane pulled out a pistol of his own. "Careful, little missy. You pull one move and all three of you will be dead. HEHEHE!" He pointed his pistol at the trio as he continued giggling like a deranged lunatic.

"Boys! You can come out now!" Serafina ordered. A group of mercenaries came out from hiding behind various columns of the Parthenon. They were all holding assault rifles, looking ready to attack anyone who didn't comply. Zane pulled out the hourglass that Lucian had used from out of his backpack. It was him who had snatched the first hourglass from Lucian all along. "Now, here is what is going to happen..." Serafina threatened. "You are going to hand over the pieces you found in Mexico, and I will put the hourglass back together. Do so quickly, or my men just won't be able to restrain themselves." She laughed wickedly.

Ivori sighed. "They're already in your backpack... remember?" She responded with a mopey, yet slightly sarcastic tone of voice.

"Oh, of course!" Serafina laughed. "How silly of me." She unzipped her backpack.

"No, they're not!" A familiar voice shouted.

Ivori looked back to search where the voice had come from. Much to her complete surprise, it was Annabelle. Yes, Annabelle Coefield, the same girl she had defeated with a mere social media block and a chocolate horse lollipop.

"Oh?" Serafina responded. "And who might you be? Don't you know it's rude to interrupt others when they're giving a speech?" She crossed her arms in disdain.

"Those pieces you have aren't real. They only put together a useless decoy. My mother is Carolina Vásquez, and she works with Ivori's father, Lucian Clovis. I can confirm that my mother and I both have the real second hourglass. She did some thorough investigation of the map, and it turns out that whoever wrote that map many years ago was trying to fool the explorer into finding a decoy. Why, you might ask? The second hourglass gives you the ability to not only go back in time, but also revisit a time period within a one-year range without consequence. It can also take you back in time during any time that it's used, not just during a cloudy full moon. My mother attempted to warn Lucian after he left for his journey, but he went after the less valuable hourglass in Peru instead. That's the only legit hourglass location on the map. Don't even waste your time!" Annabelle advised.