Today was not going as expected for Xavier, it wasn’t even close to his wildest dreams, or his most frightening nightmares after what had just happened. In the middle of a random field outside a city, a minefield of metal scrap that all looked like they had come from different corners of the universe lay after a large explosion or implosion, maybe even a mix of the two. Some of the metal was glowing white hot, others were condensing and freezing the air on their surface. Some pieces were polished like new and others appeared to have been sitting there for the past ten thousand years. The only two things that every piece had in common was that they were all warped in ways simple human language can not describe, and that they were all once part of a stolen time machine. In the middle of the discordant shrapnel field lay two unconscious teenagers, mostly unharmed in a seemingly untouched circle of grass.
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A few relative hours earlier…
“Xavier, get up, it’s time for breakfast.” Xavier’s mom said in a not so quiet and impatient tone as she tried to “gently” shake him awake. Xavier, not used to being woken up in the middle of autumn break, was slow to get up and activate his last two remaining brain cells.
“Huh?... Breakfast?... Y-You're never… you never make breakfast Mom, w-what's the occasion?” Xavier drearily asked his mom, still mostly braindead after waking up only approximately 10 seconds ago.
“Take a guess, old man, you too old to remember now?” his mother teased lightly, clearly able to go further, but restraining herself. ‘Old man?’ Xavier thought to himself, ‘ who does she think I am, I’m only fift…fifteen? That's not right…’ then it hit him like a drunk step-dad's belt to an unsuspecting step-child.
“Wait a minute, is it my birthday?” Xavier asked with new life as all sleepiness left in his excitement, barely able to stop himself from jumping out of bed in pure happiness. He was all smiles now, in complete contrast to his appearance. Xavier was a fairly average height boy with long, dyed hair that would flow off to the side normally, but now was tangled in a big lump on top of the boy's head, nearly causing his mom to burst out laughing as he abruptly sat up to look at her.
“Yes Xae! Happy sixteenth birthday! Now come out and get your breakfast before it gets cold!” His mother told him with a kiss as she left the room.
“Nice hair ‘Xae’ go brush it before some horny ass bird comes in and makes a nest out of it or should I say cums in.” teased Xaiver’s older brother, Charles, who only occasionally acted like he was an adult and not an early pubescent middle schooler in a man's body.
“You’re not looking much fucken better, crooked ear!” Xavier retorted, his brother's left ear had been placed back wrong when he was young during a surgery.
“Ooohh, you're lucky it’s your birthday or those would have been your final words nerd.”
“Weeb!”
He and his brother had a bond that to others looked like constant fighting, but either brother would take a bullet for the other if he was in trouble. Literally, they had both been shot before, mostly because a skinny child's body is not enough to actually stop a bullet. Now two skinny children’s bodies? That is apparently enough to stop a low caliber bullet.
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Eventually, it was time for his birthday party, though only some of Xavier’s friends were actually able to show up, as most had plans for their autumn break, one of these friends was his best friend, Reggie. Reggie is quite tall for sixteen and has really long blonde hair, as in even long for a girl, but that was just his style and he rocked it. Currently, Xavier and Reggie were in the back of the house playing with his new MP3 player that could also connect to any radio station in the area and even came with its own solar panel to charge it! This was by far his favorite gift of the day, though Reggie had not yet given him a gift yet so that might yet change.
“Boy’s, come back inside, it's cake time!” Xaviers dad called to them, he practically sang that last bit of the sentence too.
“Your dad is so weird, dude.” Reggie whispered to him, as if his dad was right next to them and not behind a thick wall and a closed door.
“Yeah, he is a bit strange, but make absolutely amazing cake! Or at least knows where to buy it, but either way, let's get inside!” He called to his friend, already halfway to the door he had to be quite loud.
When they got inside, the smell of cake emanated through the whole house, though he could not see it just yet. However, he knew what was happening as soon as he was ushered to sit down at an empty table. When people came filing into the room, he finally saw it, an unassuming two layer cake with simple frosting, but he knew that dessert so well his mouth was instantly watering. He knew this was the best thing that this world had ever produced, he would take this cake over all the sex in the world, mostly because he’s aroace, but also because the cake is amazing!
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He was then distracted from the cake and the singing for a moment as he saw what looked like himself out the window for a moment before Charles stood in the way, when he moved there was nothing there. ‘Damn, I really need to tell someone about this, I think I’m hallucinating now!’ Xavier thought to himself, before he continued to watch his friends and family honor him in song, resuming that awkward stare of not knowing what to do.
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After a few hours, the main festivities were over and people were just eating what was left of the food and chatting. Many of the people that were here had left the party leaving it quite empty, and Xavier was eating some of his mom's deviled eggs when Reggie came up to him.
“Hey, Xavier, I know I didn’t give you a present yet, but that's because we have to go outside to see it, follow me.” Reggie told him, now slightly more serious than his usual demeanor. He followed him out the door, curious as to what the present might be, maybe it was a car? Maybe some famous celebrity? He didn’t know so he just decided to follow and listened to his friend.
“So, you know how I always said I was from out of state, and I moved here with my family last year?” Xavier nodded, not wanting to cut him off, cause this was clearly serious.
“Well, I actually ran away, though my family probably does not know yet, actually, they haven’t even been technically born yet, any of them.” he continued, what was he talking about, “them not being born yet”, if his parents weren’t born yet, then how was he here?
“Are you saying you’re some sort of time traveler or something?” Xavier teased, but his friend did not smile like he usually does at his jokes.
“Actually, yes I am if you would believe it, though I am without my Time Travelers License, so I shouldn’t even technically be here at this age.” Reggie, his most normal friend until now, said completely nonchalantly, as if time travel was no big deal, he must be joking though.
“You’ve gotta be joking, right? If you aren’t, then I've gotta see some proof. You got any future tech to show me or your time machine?” Xavier asked incredulously, his friend had never pulled a joke like this before, so maybe he was just pulling some birthday prank, if so, he should just go with it.
“I'm not joking in the slightest, the time machine is actually just in the woods over here, and that brings me to my final thing, you wanna take it for a ride?” he said as a white painted metal, something, appeared out of thin air as soon as Reggie touched it. Its shape was… undefinable. The only thing he could tell was that it was mostly a slightly flattened sphere but it seemed to change in shape a bit every different angle he looked at it.
“Consider me impressed, and absolutely! Where can it go?” Xavier asked, absolutely sure that this was his best gift today, the MP3 player could suck it! Though he would still keep it as it was still kinda cool.
“Ah, ah, ah! Do you mean when can i-” Xavier slapped him before he could finish that horrible cliche that was in every story with time travel, and he was damned sure it wouldn’t be in this one!
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry, I’ve just wanted to say that ever since I saw it in a 21st century movie, they don’t have many time travel centric movies in the 26th century.” Reggie joked to him, really, how was he so calm about time travel? Fucking time travel! Though he could sort of get it, he wasn’t super excited about literally soaring through the air in a metal tube with wings since it was commonplace and had been for over one hundred years now.
“Can we go to 3022? I’m curious how the world will change in 1,000 years!” he asked his friend, he was so excited and somehow he had already adapted to the idea of time travel being a real fact in such a short time. The human brain really is an amazing thing, able to make the completely bizarre and foreign into something that is completely normal and not strange at all in a very short amount of time.
“We sure can! I have just never gone that far in this thing on one trip, so just a warning, also, before I forget, you should probably take this pill.” He held out a small medicine capsule that seemed to be made of the same oddly bending metal as the time machine.
“What does it do?” he asked Reggie
“It is a universal translator, it basically is just a mini time machine. It runs speech coming into your ears into what they would have said if they were born in your time and in your country. It can also change your speech so that others understand what you are saying, imagine an ancient Roman trying to talk to you in Latin, no matter how good their English comprehension is, they can only talk to you in pantomime, and this fixes that.” Reggie explained.
“But just take that and we can get on the time-highway asap!” Reggie said excitedly with a huge dopey grin, surely nothing could go wrong effectively getting into someone’s stolen car who doesn’t have a license, and then getting onto the highway with them.
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“Are you sure you know how to drive this thing!?” Xavier asked in alarm as the machine he was in suddenly shook violently again for the 7th time now.
“Eh, not really, I watched my parents drive it before, and you don’t have to worry, this thing is equipped with the super advanced technology known as a forcefield that will protect us if we crash into any of the time machines here, though not everyone appears to have that luxury since I just saw some random kid sitting in what looked like a wooden barrel of all things!” Reggie called out from the driver's seat, too far away for the time machine to be the same size on the inside and the outside.
“What do you mean not really!? How did you get to 2022 if you can’t drive this thing!?” Xavier asked in far more alarm this time. He thought he at least had some equivalent of a learners permit for this thing, but he apparently only drove it one time!
“Wait a minute, sorry about this, but I have been going the wrong way this whole time, we were going backwards, not forwards! I just need to turn us around real qui-” his voice was abruptly interrupted by a sound like crunching and ripping at the same time. He suddenly flung off in some random direction as the whole thing started spinning. There was some eclectic blue looking thing glowing around him and Reggie as he blacked out from the intense forces. Unbeknownst to them, they were flung forwards and ripped through the spacetime tunnel they were in and crashed into the year 2359. To everyone already in the year, they saw a massive explosion or implosion, it seemed like both at the same time, as metal shrapnel rained down or flew up depending on where you were at the time.