Time After Time

Into the past

👻🦇🎃 Happy Halloween guys! 🎃🦇👻
I'd just like to thank all of you lovely people who read, like, and comment about my stories. Thank you all so much!
.....................................................................
{NASHI'S POV}
Nova tries to protest, but I don't listen. With me in the lead, we all creep down the little alley, towards the blue light. What I find surprises me.

The man doesn't look like a cliche villain. For one thing, he's shorter than me, with a hunch, and has less hair than Gramps. What little he does have is greasy and brown. He's skinny too. Like, really skinny. I don't think he's eaten in weeks.

The light is coming from a book in front of him. I see a complicated magic circle written on the page, and it's glowing as the man's magic flows into it. With a sound like when Mom opens a gate, the magic circle jumps off the page.

"What the..." I trail off as the man whips his head around, shifty black eyes full of horror.

"No! Run away!" He cries, but it's too late. The magic circle consumes him, then us. I scream when I first go inside it, only to find that I'm not dead. It's a sea of blue lights, and we're zipping through it at light speed. I feel nauseous.

"Don't tell me... this is... transportation." I cover my mouth to avoid barfing.

"Nashi!" I hear Nova call. I turn around to see everyone is also flying behind me.

"Here." I choke out. Nova reaches out and grabs me. Reiki holds her other hand. "Where's... Luke?"

"I lost hold of him." Nova replies.

"I've got him!" Lexi reassures me, as she grabs Reiki's other hand. I reach out on my end and grab Rose. Slowly, we all manage to link hands with each other to form a circle.

"Kori's scared." Kori whimpers almost inaudibly. I see Storm squeeze her hand reassuringly.

"Where's this taking us?" Rose cries from in between me and him.

"I don't know," Nova yells over the whistling of the wind flying past our ears. "But something tells me we're about to find out!"

A speck of white light is rapidly approaching. When the white light overtakes the blue light, I suddenly feel much better.

"We've stopped moving." I announce. We all look around, but we're still in the same back alley.

"Well, that was anticlimactic. All that and nothing?" Gale wonders, readjusting his cap.

"No. Something's not right." Mizu contradicts timidly. She's right. The alley, the air itself, smells a little bit different than before.

"Where's that guy?" Lexi asks, searching around, but he's nowhere to be seen.

"He must've ran away. Anyway, we need to get back to the train station." Nova leads the way out. When she gets to the end of the alley, she freezes, so we all bump into her and fall like dominos.

"What's wrong?" I ask, rubbing my sore butt.

"Uh..." Nova can't even speak, only point. We all file out of the alley after her, one by one. I'm last, and when I see what made her freeze, I experience massive culture shock.

Everything's different. Not totally, and I can tell we're in the same place as before, but all the buildings and the street just seem newer.

We walk slowly to the train station, taking everything in. I see a woman walking with a puppy, and I swear the last time I saw her, the puppy was an old dog, and the woman had more grey hair and wrinkles.

There are other weird things too. Shops that have been there for ages have signs in windows advertising that they've recently opened.

When we get to the train station, it's half the size it used to be. We approach the ticket booth, and ask the lady for tickets to Magnolia.

"I'm sorry, we don't have a train line connecting directly to Magnolia yet. You'll have to take a more roundabout way." She informs us.

"What?!" Rose slams her palms on the table. "We took the train to get here, how can it just be gone?"

The lady sweat drops. "That's impossible. The train line is currently under construction. I'm sure you must be mistaken."

Rose summons a sword, her eye twitching angrily. She doesn't like to be challenged. Mizu and Lexi desperately try to hold her back, while apologizing to the nervous lady.

"Where's Luke and Reiki?" Storm asks suddenly. They're no longer by Nova.

"Not again!" She shouts, and is about to transform to search when Kori spots them.

"Kori sees them over there, Storm." She points to where my idiot little brother and his friend are running away from a big hefty guy. He's waving a newspaper in the air, trying to swat them.

"Stop those thieves!" He yells, and I see that Reiki is clutching a newspaper too. I facepalm.

"Luke! Get over here right now!" I call through gritted teeth.

"Reiki, my dear brother, you couldn't possibly be stealing, could you?" Rose speaks calmly, but a dark aura surrounds her, because she's already super pissed about the disappearing train line. They seem to realize their mistake, and advance the last few feet up to us with sheepish expressions.

The beefy guy catches up and stops, panting, in front of us. "Thank you."

"No, no, we're sorry for the trouble." Nova replies with a forced smile as she extracts the newspaper from Reiki and hands it to him.

"What were you thinking?" I hiss as I drag Luke out of the way.

"Bad paper. Date no good." Luke points at the newspaper. I roll my eyes and look, only to gasp.

"Wait, hold on. Can I see that?" I grab the paper from the man. Everyone stares at me weirdly.

"You read it, you buy it. 10 jewel." The man holds out a hand. I dig in my pocket, pull out some of the jewel I got from the job, and pay him. He walks away, as I read the paper. My heart sinks.

"What's wrong?" Storm asks.

I read the headline for them. "Extra, Extra: Fairy Tail is Back from Disbandment with a Fiery Bang! We blame Natsu."

"What?!" Everyone exclaims. As I read the year aloud, my voice squeaks,

"Year X795." I look up. "Guys, don't panic, but we've been sent 20 years into the past."