Second Chances: Legends

Chapter 32

"Okay, here we are." Sara said as she and Nora exited a time courier portal into the Oculus Wellspring.

"Why do I feel like we drew the short straw?" Nora asked Sara.

"Because this place is probably the most highly secure section of the Vanishing Point, since it's the Time Master's most valued asset. Which is why you need to cast a glamor spell on us, since I get the feeling that our uniforms won't be enough to fool security here." Sara said, since they were both dressed like Time Council guards.

"I got something even better." Nora said as she muttered the same kind of gibberish Sara remembered Constantine often saying when he performed his magic and suddenly they both turned invisible.

"Invisibility spell. Nice." Sara said approvingly.

"Yeah, but one thing." Nora said as she cast another spell and suddenly they could see each other again.

"What happened?" Sara asked, wondering why Nora lifted the spell.

"I just made it so we could see each other. To everyone else, we're still invisible. It's better to make sure that we won't lose track of each other." Nora explained.

"Fair point." Sara agreed as they headed towards the entrance to the Oculus Wellspring, but Sara was surprised at what they saw, since the Oculus definitely looked different than it had the last time she was here and she didn't just mean it because it was intact.

"What is it?" Nora asked.

"The first time I was here, the Oculus looked like a giant machine. Not like this." Sara said, since it was still on a round platform in the middle of the room, all she could see was a bright golden light.

"Yeah, I can sense something magical inside there." Nora agreed.

"Come on, let's see if we can get a better look at it." Sara said and Nora nodded as they moved to get closer to whatever the Oculus was in this reality, since the time masters had clearly employed something magical for it this time.

"Something about this feels familiar." Nora said as she could sense a familiar magical aura in the center of whatever the new Oculus was.

"What do you mean?" Sara asked.

"I don't know, but something about whatever is running that device is familiar to me, I just don't know why." Nora said.

"Well, hopefully when we get closer, you can find out why." Sara said as she put her hand over her eyes to block the bright light.

"Yeah, let's hope." Nora agreed.

At the same time as this was happening, Rip and Adrianna were in the main server room of the Vanishing Point, where Adrianna was hacking her way through the firewalls into the system.

"How much longer?" Rip asked as he kept guard.

"I'm going as fast as I can without tripping any security alarms, since if the time masters realize that I'm trying to access the system, the entire mission is blown. We need to do this subtly so they don't know we're in the system." Adrianna told him.

"Okay, but still." Rip said.

"I know. I'm working as fast as I can while keeping the system blind to what I'm doing." Adrianna said.

"I know, but it's only a matter of time until they realize what we did to the guards." Rip said, referring to the guards who'd been killed when they arrived.

"Would you like to do this yourself?" Adrianna asked him, annoyed.

"No, you're the computer specialist." Rip said quickly.

"Then stop bitching and let me work." Adrianna said to him, giving him a look that clearly read shut up.

Back at the Oculus, Sara and Nora had finally managed to make their way to the center platform and when they saw the Oculus had become, Nora realized why the magical signature had been so familiar.

Because it belonged to one of them, since sitting restrained in the center of the platform was one of their missing Legends, Charlie and it looked like she was being forced to power the Oculus somehow, which didn't make any sense to Sara or Nora, since Charlie was just a shapeshifter. It didn't make any sense about how they were using her to control time, but they'd figure that out later.

"What are they doing to her?" Sara asked.

"I don't know, but chances are Charlie wasn't entirely honest with us about who and what she is." Nora said.

"We'll figure that out when we rescue her. But we can't do that now. No matter how much I don't want to leave her behind, if we try unplugging her, we'll blow our cover." Sara said and Nora nodded, though it was clear that neither of them really wanted to do that.