As the landscape of a bustling New York street puckered into view, Z, X, N, and A transformed their heads back into the disguises.
They looked at eachother and smirked.
"Keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary, we have to work out what this time and this place has to do with Lilly and Ashley."
As Z spoke, a bus sped around the corner they were on, knocking them each to the floor.
"Goddamnit!"
The driver of the bus slammed on the breaks, quickly running outside to see if they were okay, followed by a crowd of passengers.
Z, X, N, and A closed their eyes and suspended their pulses. Hopefully, by playing dead, they could get to the hospital and begin asking around for anything out of the ordinary.
One by one he checked their pulses.
"Nothing..."
An ambulance was called and the four of them were taken to the hospital, just as they had hoped.
After they had arrived at the hospital they kept themselves 'dead' for a further six hours until the change between the day and night shift.
They woke themselves up, changed their clothes into doctors uniforms, and walked right out the front door entirely undetected.
"Alright. 1999, something's gotta be significant about today. Think, what do we know." N mumbled to the others as they walked down the busy street, now back in their normal clothes.
"Ford bought Volvo, the human population surpasses six billion, and my personal favourite, the first episode of Spongebob." Z ranted, keeping his voice down as to keep all the spoilers from the people surrounding them.
"He meant significant events you imbecile." A groaned.
"You say that as if Spongebob isn't significant." X laughs.
"Well if we're going to work out why we're here we need tech. Let's go get ourselves phones."
They continued to walk around the city until they found an electronics store, and purchased a Blackberry 3310 each.
They sat on a bench in Central Park and set up their new phones, loading eachothers numbers into their phones.
As they sat confused as to how the phones work for a while, they unwittingly pulled up the contacts list.
"Wait a second... Why do I have four phone numbers in here" X asked the other three.
"What? What's it listed as?" A replied, confusion filling her voice.
"Wait I've got it too! It just says 'P'?" N piped up.
"On top of that, they're calling me now," Z stated, as he answered the phone and spoke into it quietly.
"Hello? Is this P?"
"It's Predator, you idiot."
"You really are like a bad cold aren't you. We just can't seem to shake you."
"Do you want my help, or would you rather stumble around in the dark like usual?"
"Touché."
"Your phones have tracers in them. Focus your fold modulation to the frequency of the phone. It'll take you where you need to go. Do this job, and I'll tell you where to go next."
"I don't suppose you'll just tell us?"
"Goodbye, old man."
The line goes dead as the others are left confused.
"Right, I should probably explain, I forgot you guys can't read along." Z laughed. The others laughed confusedly.
Z explains the situation and they adjust their fold matrices to the phone.
They pucker from the park bench and appear in a police station.
"Z, X, N, and A?" One of the officers asks as they walk from out of the closet.
"Predator must have told you lot we were coming then?" X growled.
The police found themselves intimidated into obedience. X had that effect on people. When he wanted to.
"Uh, y-yes sir." One of them stuttered.
"What's the situation." Z barked at them.
"We were just about to raid a suspected terrorist's home in the south, bought enough explosives to level the entire city." Announced one of the police officers towards the back of the room, trying her hardest to remain calm.
"Give us precise coordinates, you lot remain here. If Predator comes back, tell him where we are. We should be done with it by the time that old bugger catches up." X bounced back.
A few of the officers begin muttering between themselves and pointing around the room. One of which then runs off towards a corridor and disappears from view, only to return a few minutes later with a slip of paper containing the coordinates.
A takes it from him aggressively, they each punch the coordinates in and pucker from view.
When their vision puckered to that of a large barn filled wall to wall with crates of explosive, they raised their weapons, preparing themselves to fight.
They gripped them tightly, shuffling quietly around the barn.
Z quickly grew impatient of the silence of the barn and spoke to fill it.
"We know you're here. Explosives for the whole city, really? It's almost pathetic. Come out now. Come out now and we won't kill you. Just turn you in. That's all." As he said this, a man in his early 40s slides awkwardly into view. "That's it. Come on then. On your knees, hands behind your back."
The man complied with Z's demands.
"Very good." Z replied, a sinister tone overtaking his voice.
Before anyone knew what had happened, and with no particular change in Z, the man, or any of the others, a sharp sword was sticking through the man's chest. A large wound showed where it had been thrown and sliced down into its cavity. The man remained on his knees, his eyes glossed over, dead.
"200,000 years of this bullshit. I am no longer an empathetic man." Z growled at the corpse. The others looked at him disapprovingly.
They shook it off after a few long moments of deafening silence.
A slow clapping arose from the depths of the silence.
"Very good Z. Keep that energy up for as long as you can." Predator emerged from the blinding light of the outside of the barn.
"What can we say, Z tends to go off the rails when he's upset." X pointed out to him.
"I can see that." Predator mocked, gesturing towards the corpse.
Z turned around harshly. His hair blew in the wind, his eyes all but glowing a deep residual red from his burst of anger.
"What do you have for us now." He growled at Predator, causing everyone else to jump a tad.
"Your final task is a familiar one, Orcali. An old friend, a powerful enemy, lurks in the darkness. Upon besting them yet again, they will reveal all you need to know. Good luck."
Within the blink of an eye, and with no movement, sound, nor breeze of any kind, Predator was gone and their Fold Matrices were blinking fantastic colours.
They pushed their buttons and at once were in what seemed to be a detective's office. Judging by the newspaper neatly aligned on the desk, 1921 New York.
All around the room was the same print on the walls. A print so disgustingly vile and grotesque to them that they shuddered and recoiled.
The Butterfly turned in her chair and grinned at them.
"Pleasure seeing you here. Please, sit down. We have much to discuss."
YOU ARE READING
Tales of the Oracli - (almost) COMPLETE EDITION
Science FictionI was writing this book for many years and have since decided to turn the series and all my plans for it into a comic series. As such, I have decided to publish all the work I had done on this story for the world to see. I hope everyone enjoys!
