AEONA
THE
WAKE OF TIME
Compendium 2020 – Story 7
By Andrew Hawnt
Her chronometer chimed. Aeona had arrived at the edge of time.
“Aeona Gardinier,” boomed the voice of the Gatewatcher. “What is it this time?”
Her body was still coalescing from the swirling cog shaped portal she had arrived through. She straightened her top hat and cleared her throat. Beyond the portal, the Gatewatcher could see an army rushing towards it. Their energy weapons blazed, but none could cross the boundary. Aeona glanced back at her pursuers, stuck her tongue out and waved. The portal span shut, leaving her alone outside the gigantic bronze entrance to the Eight's fortress.
“Spot of bother in three eras at once,” Aeona said, almost looking pleased with herself. “I think that's a personal best. Can I come in?”
The Gatewatcher sighed. “Aeona Gardinier, the Eight are expecting you, I take it?” He shifted in his robes, giving Aeona a glimpse of the strange amalgamation of stolen human limbs and machine parts that had long since replaced his original form. He pulled a data slab out of a hidden place beneath the robes and thumbed across its screen. “You're not due for another three cycles. What are you doing here now?”
“I'm here because I made a lot of people angry in three times, tried to stop some wars, toppled a government, blew up a moon full of guns and made a nightmare god turn into rainbows. Now half the galaxy wants me dead across history. The cumulative effects of three simultaneous instances of temporal war breaking out have caused a chrono-schism at the heart of time.”
“Bloody Hell, Aeona,” the Gatewatcher grumbled. He tapped on the screen. “I'll let the Eight know you're already here.”
Aeona span. The air behind her undulated and crackled with light as another portal opened, right where hers had closed. Energy blasts hurtled at her the moment it was opened. The armies were almost upon her, and at their forefront she saw one of their number had a temporal disruptor, clearly tuned to the portal she had escaped through.
Two more portals erupted either side of the first. Armies stretched out to the horizon of distant worlds. Ships and tanks and huge bipedal robotic monstrosities.
Shots zinged past her as she ducked, one blasting straight through her top hat and almost setting her violently red hair alight. The Gatewatcher sighed and raised his personal shield. Shots bounced off it, burning black marks into the outer walls of the fortress. He swiped a control on his wrist and the heavy doors moved apart.
“In you go,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Don't make a habit of this.”
Aeona grinned and bounded into the fortress with a trilling “Thank yooooouuuu!”
*
Night fell, and as it did so the grounds surrounding the fortress of the Eight became ever more crowded. The purple sky was blackened by countless warships and drones from different worlds. Chants had built to madness, and energy weapons battered the outer walls of the complex, chipping away at shields and heavy walls of steel coated in layers of randomised time. Targeting beams danced over the main spire at the heart of the complex. The armies of time knew their prey was within. After generations of chasing her down, they had Aeona trapped.
*
“The fortress is surrounded by your enemies,” said One from her levitating throne. “They have traversed galaxies. Times. Dimensions. All to chase you down once and for all. You have brought this upon yourself, Aeona.” The rest of the Eight hovered in silence, glaring down at the hyperactive form of Aeona. Smoke curled up from the hole in her hat.
“What was I supposed to do? Just flit around, watching history unfold like a big TV? How could I do that when so many people needed helping?”
“The order of things has been twisted now,” said Two from his own throne. “Your interference has caused ripples through time, a wake that has affected much of reality.”
“I wasn't going to let so many innocent people die. Wherever I went I found suffering. I found wars and killers and maniacs, many of which were in the wrong time periods or the wrong universe entirely. I stand by what I did.”
“Then consequences must be faced,” said Three from behind his magnificent beard, the grey mass shaking as he spoke. “The choice is clear. You either face judgement by the Eight, or you face your enemies out there.”
“Hear, Hear,” said all of them around her.
Aeona poked her tongue out at Three, then began to pace. “So you, the guardians of all time and space, allow me, a lowly bit of mischief with wicked style, to go unchecked while I have adventures for decades across all of reality. Then I come here looking for a bit of help with a few disgruntled natives-”
“A few?” Four barked from her vantage point.
“Okay, bloody loads of disgruntled natives,” Aeona said, “and you decide to tell me I've been in the wrong since day one?”
One scowled. “Aeona, we have been there with you. Every step of the way. Did you know that?”
Aeona patted her smoking hat distractedly. “Eh? Oh, yes. That. Don't think I hadn't noticed you in corners and hanging around in orbit in those silly spheres you have. I know what you've been up to.”
“No you don't,” growled Five.
“Aha,” Aeona grinned, pointing at the grizzled man floating to her right. “So you have been up to something.”
One scowled and stood from her throne, staring down at Aeona from the floating platform it sat upon. “You are trouble, Aeona, and we took steps throughout history to ensure you did not break the continuum entirely.”
She raised her hands and holographic displays leapt into being around the vast hall. Images of the warriors and vehicles and generals and hatred outside the fortress illuminated the structure.
“Central,” One called to the AI of the fortress. “Identify these people.”
"Certainly, One," came the serene, echoing voice of Central. “The armies surrounding the fortress at present number approximately two hundred thousand, eight hundred and twelve, yet they are not what they seem. They are the Eight.”
Numbers began to glow over the people surrounding the complex, showing which of the Eight they were made from.
Aeona stepped back, horrified. She looked at the faces on the displays. It made sense. Her enemies across time and space, the monsters and tyrants she had faced for so long, all of them were the Eight themselves, and she had ended up here at their stronghold with no way out.
“Oh. Oh dear. Oh bugger.”
“Armies gathered from across realities,” One said with a grin. “Armies made of the eight of us from different periods, different species, but always the eight of us. The battles you fought all of your life? They were against us. Your masters.”
“Why? Just tell me why. I deserve that much.”
“Because time is ours,” barked Two. “You and your meddling came close to breaking our grip on all things. Freedom? It would be chaos. We are the rightful heirs of time. You had to be observed. If others followed you, became like you, then our pupil would become our enemy.”
Aeona thought about this for a moment. “It seems to me that you always saw me as your enemy anyway.”
The Eight were silent.
The adventurer raised a middle finger to them. “Swivel,” she said. She marched out of the auditorium.
The Gatewatcher stared in astonishment when Aeona strode out of the fortress again. The armies fell silent, just as shocked. Targeting beams focused on her from ships overhead, from heavy vehicles on the ground, and from thousands of soldiers from across time. They knew her well, and thus waited for the inevitable trick up her sleeve.
Aeona raised her hands in surrender. “This is it,” she shouted to the amassed throng. “This is the end. You're all here for one thing. To kill me. So do it. The times you're from have already been altered. You can't un-save the lives I saved. They are fixed points. All you'll do is stop me from messing up your futures. But what futures would they be anyway? Eons spent controlling worlds, playing at being gods without ever really living. I'm not like you, despite what my DNA may say. At least I made those ripples. I hope they keep people fighting you forever. Go on then you time-travelling cowards.”
She paused. Took in the sight of countless enemies bent on her destruction.
“Do what you came here for. Fire.”
They did. The crowd pulled their triggers. Ships let fly with missiles, cannons, plasma weapons. Ground vehicles pumped heavy weapons at the unarmed young woman. Explosions rocked the fortress entrance. The Gatewatcher cried out in horror as Aeona vanished in a haze of gunfire and devastation.
Then she laughed. The sound rang out around the ships. Across the armies. It rained from the heavens like glittering snow. Along with the laughter came the song of countless shimmering portals, holes in time and space that swallowed every single shot aimed at Aeona.
She glanced around at the portals that had sprung up around her in a perfect sphere. Each of them carried her own energy signature. Each of those portals had been made by her.
Or at least versions of her.
Aeonas from across countless realities laughed together as the barrage from the armies of the Eight were swallowed, siphoned, redirected. She winked at numerous versions of herself, some male, some female, some like her, some completely different. They winked back. The ripples had indeed been felt across the multiverse, and those ripples had become realities in their own right.
The armies of the Eight began to scream. Their war machines crumbled into strange, warped rubble. Ships fell from the sky with apocalyptic impacts. Soldiers burned and blazed with blinding light. Their onslaught had been transported inside the fortress itself, annihilating the core of their being. The Eight had been obliterated by their own hands.
The portals winked out one by one. As the last one vanished, Aeona stood alone by the ruined stronghold. Devastation surrounded her. The heart of an empire had been wiped out by its own weapons. Its own people. They had vanished into glittering stardust, and the universes that knew would ring out with songs of liberation.
A little distance away, the Gatewatcher let down his shields.
“You knew, didn't you?”
Aeona grinned and shrugged. She tipped her hat to him and circled a hand before her. A portal shimmered into being, and she took a couple of steps back, ready to jump into it.
“Now that you're free,” The Gatewatcher said, dumbfounded, “Where are you going?”
“I have no idea,” Aeona said with a grin that had been the last thing so much evil had seen in her life. “I'll send you a postcard.”
She jumped.
The End
Aeona will return
===
© Andrew Hawnt 2020
About Andrew Hawnt: You can find Andrew on Facebook at facebook.com/andrewhawntauthor and on Twitter and Instagram as @andrewhawnt. Formerly a musician and DJ, Andrew is known for his books, comic book writing, music journalism and more, including fiction in Doctor Who Adventures, the Judge Dredd Megazine and others. Look out for his film work and new books soon.
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