Gem Chasers

Kado & Mo in GEM CHASERS

prologue: Mistress Time 

exercise 2

saving time: write a short story or poem about "saving time." Get creative! have fun!

example:

so i wait. 

the seconds fade into thick minutes 

lifting off the page is hours 

being added to my age 

i look up at my numbers decreasing 

and force a smile

cause her smile flashes in my head 

i’m doing this for her i said 

aloud 

but the loud ego voice inside told me it was for him instead 

that we always wanted to be a hero 

even if it brought my time to zero 

a martyr 

i craved a great ending 

cause i was never a self starter 

but i never liked it when things ended 

the bank teller interrupted my thoughts 

“sir, to confirm, you’re sending this amount of 42 years, 10 months, 7 weeks, 8 days, 5 hours 29 minutes and 2 seconds to a Ms. Time?”

yes i reply

“great. but you know that if you do this, you die” 

yes i say with a sigh, 

as long as she gets another try.” 

he then asks me to to sign the rest of my life away

to Miss Time 

who had been my world and my space 

she was always the perfect time and place for me

she only had a few days left 

she had been hit by a theft 

 

 

Environment: Time Forest or time jungle 

Black Hole Spring

Watchmakers cabin

Framers 

Tino the electrician 

 

Mistress Time

Ms. Hed

 

Go to the future to take an idea and bring it back to the present.

Negotiate with time

Saving Time.

 

Pushaman goes on an adventure to save Mistress Time. He plans on sacrificing his remaining “Time alive” to save her. She had become infected by the Tickers who slowly eat away seconds inyour life. 

As Pushman signs the rest of his time to her, she reveals that this was a ploy that this is how she is immortal by playing on the hearts of good time beings and siphoning their time. She’s created an entire planetary organization to trick Time Beings.

On Mo’s Find Your Fire Journey, he encounters Kado. Kado reports that Pushaman has been missing for a while and that this is their next mission. They are informed about Pushaman’ssuicide mission by Mr. Yellow. Kado, using his time manipulation powers, tracks Pushaman’s residual time stamps. Which leads to The Time Jungle. A point at which every timeline connects. When they find the Watchmakers cabin, we find another version of Pushaman trapped inside. Come to find out Pushaman foresaw the possibility of him getting tricked and created this time double of himself and left him there. Except he wakes up every day at a different age so the information he provides is shaky. 

Kado, being formerly trained by Pushaman persuades Mo to wait until Pushaman wakes up an age that can give them information. While they wait, they are visited by the Framers who provide Mo with his next Champion that creates portals. They do a lot of meditating. When the right Pushaman burst through the cabin with the information, and two items for each of the boys, Mo uses his new portal powers, and they end up where the current Pushaman’s is dead and the Time Mistress now at her prime again openly attacks the brothers. 

The boys angered at the death of their sensei rage into battle. Not really inflicting much damage on the Time Mistress, Kado comes up with an idea. He throws his pocket watch at Mo which sends him into the future. 

 

Mo wakes up in the future with Kado’s watch. A few moments later the watch rings. An alarm. Then projects a message from Kado: “Mo, sorry I had to send you off on a side quest without warning but it’s the only way I know we can beat this lady. You’re in the future. If we’ve beaten her and my idea is a good one, then what we’ve beaten her with is in the watchmaker’s cabin. It’ll be in a bag labeled IDEA. Bring that back. And be quick about it, without my watch, I don’t have a lot of control over time”

Mo grumbles portals to the cabin. A gravestone for Pushaman is erected in front of the cabin. He walks in and find another large man inside raiding the IDEA bag. After a back and forth the man introduces himself as Tino the electrician. He’s on a grand adventure to find the perfect gem for the ring for his girlfriend. He’s about to propose to. In that moment the cabin is surrounded by the Council of Mistress Time, and the cabin is blown up.

Tino and Mo exit a portal not too far from the explosion. A few of the Council members spot them and they take off running. Mo notices that Tino still has the IDEA bag in hand. He opens a portal a few feet ahead of them and they fall in and end up where Mo was originally transported. 

“We don’t have a lot of time before they reach us and I don’t have time to explain that what’s in that is more than just some wedding ring thing. So, open it up and pour everything out.”

Tino looks at Mo reluctantly and pours the contents from the bag on the ground. A sapphire shield and some assorted gems. “I just one that I can cut for her ring.”

“Yeah, and I need to save all of time and space from a manipulative time goddess who feeds on people.”

“Love and war.”

“I don’t know if that’s supposed to be something I understand.” In that moment a force field surrounds the two and Council folk surrounds them again with their weapons trained on them. Mo tries to portal out, but it doesn’t open. Then the force field starts to shrink compressing the two together. 

“You’re way too big of a man. But listen, I believe in love more than I believe in war. But my brother is fighting that war. And I love,”

In that moment the council folk are attacked, and the force field goes away before crushing the two. In the distance its Doris the Green Witch from the framers. And they both cry out to her DORIS!! 

They both look at each other confused at how they each know the savior. 

She emerges from the dust and smoke with a giant gun and ajoint. She winks at them and begins shooting at the council folk and using her plant controlling powers to strangle and whip others AND controlling a giant spirit bear that is ferociously attacking the council folk. 

She lowers her weapon and walks toward the 2 while the plants and the bear go to work. “You idiots!” she smiles and helps them up. Tino towers over her in height but her energy scales above his. Mo looks at the two. 

Tino turns to Mo “This is my girlfriend. Who I mentioned earlier.” 

“OOOOHHHHH the one you’re going to propose to?”

Doris blushes, “YOU IDIOT!”

Tino sends a thunderous look at Mo. And Mo shrinks. “My bad…” then looks down at the gem items, then back at Doris, “Hey Doris! Pretend I didn’t say that. He turns back to Tino and offers his hand to shake. “I have an idea, but I need you to trust me. Love and war right?”

Tino sighs, he collects the items and places them back into the idea bag and hands it to Mo “Love and War.” 

“Say hi to Lisa for me!” as soon as the bag drops into Mo’s hand, he disappears.

“So, how’d you find me?”

“The plants told me you and Mo were here and in danger. Between the two of you I don’t know which of you is the most knuckleheaded.”

“You looked really sexy coming out guns a blazing like you did.”

“You did too my damsel in distress,” she jabbed. “I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear it from Mo, but you know you don’t need to put yourself in harms way for that. I don’t care about big fancy gestures. I just,”  in that moment Tino kissed her and sparks surrounded them. 

 

Mo zapped back to the present. Kado passed out, slightly older than when he left. “Bro!” he ran to him but was knocked away by Mistress Time. 

“Fool! You’re Mine!” She hovered over him and smashed her hand into his head and began draining his life force. But nothing happened. Mo was hurt by the attack, but his age remained the same. “Huh? But how? No matter, I’ll just kill you and take the rest of your brother’s age.

Mo tried to squirm free but couldn’t move under the weight of the Mistress. “DIE BOY” she went in with the finishing blow but then her claw had broken. She screamed and fell over, giving Mo the opportunity to escape and notice Kado, barely on his feet, had thrown the Crystal shield that broke her claw. He grinned. “That’s one helluvan idea.” Kado coughed up blood “the rest is on you Mo” then passed out. 

Mo nodded, quickly grabbed the shield and raced toward the IDEA bag. 

He poured out the contents of the bag. “So what the hell do I do with these?” He pocketed the gems and held his shield toward the Mistress who was now recovering. 

“Oh, now you’ve gone and pissed me off.” She raged making Mo flinch a bit. He drew his sword. Giant clocks appeared and surrounded her and aimed at Mo. Time moved differently on each, some slow, some fast, some started slow then zipped fast, some skipped times. “I am a time Goddess. You wanna know how hard I hustled to get that title? How many millennia it took to terraform my own planet? Collect and manipulate all those time warriors for my cause? How many lives ive drained!”

“I don’t.. Are you going into villain monologue. If you, Do, just make it quick.” Mo lowered his shield and sat.

She cocked her head confused.

“Go ahead. I like a good backstory.” He opened a portal that dropped popcorn into his lap. “But like I said make it quick, I got people to save and if this all ends well, a wedding to go to.”

She chuckled, “you twerp.” She descended back to the ground and sat. the giant clocks still aimed at Mo. “If you try anything I’ll kill you in an instant.”

“Story time lady!” 

She shook her head. A mug of tea appeared in her hand and she sipped and sat. “I wasn’t always a Time Mistress. I was just a woman. My father Papa Tan shared bodies with one of those Anthologists. But as I grew in her womb, I aged her, siphoning her life force into my own. She had known this but cared for me, knowing that it would be her demise. And at my birth, she died. I was left on the last planet she visited wrapped in the anthurium plants that. The industrial ghetto of that solar system, there were no plants except the one I was wrapped in. The planet was dark and everyone was poor except for a select few. The plant would’ve fetched a high price. Luckily my foster parents weren’t greedy. But they were weak. When I was 12, they had been killed right in front of my eyes. Which activated my time manipulation powers I was gifted by my father. I probably could’ve reversed time to revive them, but I had no control. Out of fear and self-preservation I simply aged the criminals that did it out of existence. When I got to safety, I realized my plant revealed a hidden story that activated only at the onset of my powers. Explaining my origin. I knew I was destined for more. So, I time-manipulated my way to the top, stealing moments from people, aging and deaging. I noticed every time I aged others it made me younger. So, I lived for centuries on that planet gradually taking over everything. To the point where I learned how to monetize time. And those people so feeble ate it up. They were still cruel and violent toward each other, it was still the ghetto. It was just my ghetto. Until one day Papa Tan realized how long I had been alive and decided to investigate. He didn’t like what he saw on our little planet and allowed the tickers to invade. I put together a council of my most trusted members, and we were able to keep them at bay for another century or two, but we knew time was running out. One had gotten to me and began eating its way through my time force. What I had done to others began happening to me. But I was the source of all the time-energy. So, if I went they all did. Most of them at least. The ones who lived under my reign. Others who refused my time infusions lived short lives, but they rebelled. While others who supported my cause kept them at bay. We called it The Great Time wars of my little ghetto planet. Then finally one day as I lay on my death bed, one of my subordinates had donated all his remaining time to me. His time force was different than the rest. I later learned he was from the time dimension where Papa Tan keeps his Watchtower Planets. He had been commissioned to spy and kill me but instead he began to fall in love with me. I refused him, not having any time for romance, but he was persistent. And his final act of love was to keep me alive.”

“Time Goddess not having time for romance?”

Annoyed at this interruption she continued “then on I vowed to destroy Papa Tan and everything he’s created. Starting with his Time People. Luring them away with grand quest and false stories about me that gets written by my anthurium leaves, to me to fuel me until I reach immortality so I can finally exact my revenge on Papa Tan.”

Mo sighed. And gave a questioning look. “Yes, I am done, spit out what you have to say.”

“Can I have some tea?” She snapped and cup of tea appeared in Mo’s hand. “Thanks.” He sips. “it’s really good. I gotta get my fire back from Beelzebub. He ripped it out my body and stole it. It sucks what happened to you. Makes for a great story. With all that I can’t let you kill Kado. Or the Watch Tower planets. That’s where all his family lives. You already crossed the line by killing the Pushaman. And I know he doesn’t just come back cause I been to the future.

“Don’t make threats you can’t keep child”

“I haven’t threatened you yet,” he cut her off. “I’m not at full power without my fire. But I know I can still beat you. Normally I’d rush into battle, but Kado’s been telling me I need to slow down. Think things through like he does. Sometimes at least. So, I want to negotiate with you, Mistress Time. What can I give you in exchange for letting us go and you not going after Papa Tan.”

She laughed and crushed the teacup that Mo had been sipping on with her thoughts. “How interesting. I do know who you are. Mo offspring of Everything and Nothing. Creator, storyteller, adventurer. My anthurium receives downloads of your adventures every now and then. It’s a shame what had to be done to Everything. Do you know where he is?

Mo now alert and offended. “No. I can’t tell without my fire. Do you know?”

“Of course I do. I AM MISTRESS TIME AFTER ALL.”

Mo stood shield back in hand and the other hand in his pocket. “Where?”

“It seems like I have all the things you want, and you have nothing I want that I can’t just take. You know I know where Beelzebub lives too? You want to know what is funny? Desire. Wanting. The act of wanting equates to ideas of lack. You know what desire feels like? Heat. Pressure built up in a vacuum. The beauty about your journey, Mr. Mo is that you feel as if your current goal is your purpose. But you’re anxious. You don’t know if you’re going to actually get your fire back or not. IF YOU EVEN HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO DEFEAT BEEZELBUB.” Her voice began to twist “IF YOU LOST TO HIM BEFORE, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’LL WIN AGAINST HIM IN YOUR CURRENT STATE!!! I AMISTRESS TIME, GODDESS OF TIME AND DESIRE! I HUSTLED MY WAY TO THIS STATE