The Time Stone, Third Edition (Extended Version)
Chapter 46

“Why are you doing this?” asks Tina.

“My dear, this is only the beginning. We have opened portals to another world. The experiment has moved ahead unplanned, but its purpose is fated by higher powers than us. We are after complete control of everything and we have no rival who can match us toe to toe on our best day, not even the legendary holder.” He looks at James and shakes his head, “a mere bum of a man.”

“Wait, you’re forgetting one thing” says Tina.

“What is that?” Asks Broad annoyed.

Tina walks over to him and caressed his face and pinched his cheek. “Maybe you want to take me for a ride.” She speaks seductively and provocatively. “I don’t want to go back to jail and will do absolutely anything to avoid it, you know? I don’t work for this bum of a man,” gesturing to James.

“Tina, what are you doing?” asked James curiously.

“He tried to get me to do some horrible things. He is abusive, vile, and disgusting, using his power he threatened to kill me if I didn’t work for him. He made me get on my knees for him.” Tina shakes her head pitifully as she speaks openly and Broad turns to her and grabs her wrists.

“I may enjoy …having my way with you, but now….”

Tina frowns then hides a smile as she beckons to James. He saw her cue and started to make his way towards the sunstone.

Broad saw him and released Tina as he reached out to grab James and the two men grappled with one another as they became locked in a silent struggle.

“You fool” utters Broad croaking.

“I’ll show you who the fool is” James swung at Broad and connected with his face. Broad quickly recovered so James punched him again. The two men then exchanged repeated blows. Tina ran to the sunstone and removed the emerald from the back of the sunstone simultaneously shutting it off and stopping it from spinning and lighting up.

“I got it” screams Tina.

“Get it away from here,” yells James as he struggled in his fairly evenly matched fight with Broad. James realizes he is not the stronger man physically, but tried his best to withstand Broad’s blows.

Tina quivered, “I can’t leave you.”

“Go!” yelled James.

Tina ran down the stairwell, all the way to the first floor and exited the building. A young blonde girl with curly hair, about ten years old, sits in the nearby building’s courtyard, interestedly observing the chaos, as she was missed during the army’s sweep of the area for civilians. Tina stands outside of the building and looks around and sees the military checkpoint not too far away. She saw the harpy approaching and got ready.

“Oh, so it’s this that you want huh, you overgrown canary? Come and get it!” She yells as she runs with the object towards the army squadron, and the harpy began to accelerate towards them too. Davis and Ramrod see Tina approaching.

“Who is that, Sir?” asks Davis.

“I said clear all civilian personnel! Arrest her,” screams Ramrod.

Tina ran only to replace Davis and a dozen armed soldiers were pointing guns at her head. She put her hands up and stopped running. “Wait a minute.”

“Madam, you’re under arrest by the United States Army. Drop that… whatever it is,” says Davis.

“You don’t understand…” Tina says beckoning to the armed soldiers as the harpy ran towards them and they all dropped their attention from her and aimed at the harpy who posed a much larger threat, literally.

“Fire” says Davis and they all shot up at the harpy simultaneously without effect.

“Let me try,” Tina says as she held the emerald up and twisted it slightly concentrating it towards the sun’s rays, and a beam of golden yellow spiral energy light emerged and shot up past the harpy, and opened the portal vortex once again. “Damn, missed” says Tina.

“Wow,” says Davis. All of the men were shocked.

“Take this, you birdbrain.” Ramrod pressed his detonator ignoring the portal vortex. An explosion erupted from the C4 in front of the towers, and knocked the harpy back. Tina and Davis took cover with the other soldiers. Ramrod pressed the detonator again and again and again, causing multiple explosions and knocking the harpy back towards the portal. Ramrod laughed as he pulled the explosive device triggers with a chuckle for each blast. Then the explosions stopped. “Damn, we have blown up all of our charges,” Ramrod yelled as his detonator did not function. “I say use more C4 next time, damn it”

“Next time?” questioned Davis.

“We are screwed” says Tina as she saw the harpy furiously roar into the sky and begin to fly up so as to swoop down upon them. Then suddenly, as the harpy is swooping down towards their position, a bolt of hot white lightning flew out of the cloudless sky opening another portal and striking the harpy and knocking her backwards into the portal opened by Tina waiting behind her. As she flew back, her gigantic body and wings battered the air and caused cars to topple over, buildings to fall, and the young girl with blonde curls hiding in the alleyway between two buildings nearby is suddenly lifted by the gust of wind and knocked into the portal with the harpy. The young blonde girl let loose a blood curdling scream as she fell into the portal as it subsequently faded.

“Yes!” yells Ramrod and all cheered the vanishing of the beast.

“Awesome!” yells Tina who takes off and runs towards James as he is coming out of the building.

“Who is that girl?” asks Davis.

“The prisoner?” asks Ramrod rhetorically, “you let her get away.”

“Oh crap. No Sir, the little girl in the light portal.”

“Time holds no bounds, young man. This town is safe. We’ll leave it up to the politicians to deal with the other stuff.”

Tina and James hurry up the stairs to the office again. “What happened to Staffnight?” asks Tina.

“He is um… resting comfortably.” He beckons to the form of Broad Staffnight lying on the floor unconscious.

“Nice fighting kiddo” says Tina admiringly.

“Let’s go.” says James.

“Yeah, we still have warrants on our heads...but I got this…” says Tina as she held up the emerald, waving it in front of James.