by TheTimeTrust and Grimm
Two huge, wooden oak doors suddenly appeared before Tobias Christopher, M'xy, and Lance Lorenzo, whom they rejoined. The doors looked like they were built for twenty-foot-tall giants. One said A and the other B.
Lance remarked, "Well, there's something you don't see every day."
Tobias replied, "I dunno. Is it me, or is this place getting stranger by the minute?"
M'xy said, "It's you."
T.C. opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.
M'xy added, "No, you're right. The weirdness is rising. It almost feels like home."
Lance asked, "What's that clicking sound?"
They all looked up and saw a counter counting down from 12:34... 12:33... 12:32...
"Hey," said Lance, "what do you think will happen when that counter reaches zero?"
T.C. said, "I don't want to stick around to find out, frankly. That Tempus guy said something about us having to get out of there before then."
"Through these doors?" asked Lance. "But... which one should we take?"
T.C. shrugged. "I don't know..."
BING! A sign suddenly lit up underneath the counter. It said:
"You must choose the door of exit. Once that choice is made, you cannot choose the other. Choose wisely, and choose quickly."
Lance shook his head. "Well, that's just great."
Tobias turned to the others. "We'd better get the rest of the guys and blow this taco stand..."
Chance left the comatose body of Ma Kalunga sleeping where she lay, and he went off in search of his teammates. He had seen M'xy nearby, but somehow the landscape had changed again, and he was separated before he had a chance to rendezvous with him.
Maybe that was for the better. The issue of Shirley Francis was weighing heavily in his mind, and he knew that, when he finally got back to his own world, one of them would have to break the truth to Mick Harrison that the two of them were in love. It would not be easy.
The possibility that there was no going back to his own timeline never even occurred to him.
He began to return to the place where he had left Danny Hearn, Tobias, and Lance, but all the corridors and walkways had changed and altered since he'd left them. He couldn't recognize anything.
Okay. No more relying on my skills, he thought. I've got to just trust my dumb luck. Chance closed his eyes and began running blindly, his hands reaching out to skim along the doors through one of the hallways in the Castle of Crossed Destinies. He figured that somehow he would find the right place to turn and begin his search.
And somehow, it worked.
"Hey! Uh... you?!"
"Danny!" Chance said as he was reunited with his friend. "Found you at last. Where's T.C. and Lance?"
Danny stood there with a confused expression on his face. "Do you have any idea who this guy is, Hal?" he said to his inner voice. He saw the man earlier, along with a ghostly looking Pete Glover, just before Danny fell into unconsciousness, and again afterward, when he sent him off to fight Ma Kalunga in the heat of the moment. But the man remained a stranger, one who seemed to know him and everyone else in the team. Danny looked more closely at the tall, muscular blonde man. "Thanks for saving my life earlier... but just who are you?"
"It's me, Dan... Kristofer Schanz... Chance!"
"Right," Danny said, recalling an earlier conversation. "Pete was calling himself 'Chance' for awhile, when he was possessed by..." A look of realization passed on Danny's face, as if he had discovered a clue pointing to the answer, if not the answer itself. "Oh, so you must be that dead guy Pete always sees. Where is Pete, anyways?"
Chance looked around. "Uh... I'm not sure. He was hovering around a minute ago. Perhaps he's just sulking."
Danny threw up his hands, rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever. Let's just go and try to find the others. I thought I heard Dirk and Grimm fighting the Scorpion brothers, and Knell is somewhere around here. Sam's gotta be around here somewhere, too. I'm sure Pete will show up just in the nick of time, as usual. T.C. and Lance went missing a while ago, and I haven't seen M'xy, Naecken, or Turkish for some time."
"Just stick with me, Daniel," said Chance, taking off again. "We'll find them just as easily as I found you."
"There is/was/will be no need for that, Kristofer Schanz," came the metallic voice of Tempus, the Time Trust talos. "My alternate future/past/present selves are bringing/will bring/will have already brought them here by the time you locate them all."
As they spoke, multiple doorways appeared, each with an identical Time Trust talos walking out from behind one of them. Followed by the androids were Grimm, Sam Dawson, and Dirk Bell from the first door, Tobias Christopher, M'xy, and Lance Lorenzo from the second, and Turkish Stringfellow from the last.
The three new Time Trust taloses walked to the center of the room where the original awaited them. They continued walking, merging together until they walked into the original Time Trust talos, becoming one with him.
"And now, my friends--" The android designated Tempus called them "friends" more out of programming than actual politeness or friendship. "--which door will you choose?"