Chapter 12

After Luke and River finished their little game of twenty questions, he removed the force field for her to leave. Tim stood up to leave as well. "Sit back down," Luke said pulling him back down.

River was confused as to why they were back under the force field. 'Maybe Luke wants to talk to Tim,' she thought.

"What is it?" Tim asked in confusion.

"There's something I have to tell you," Luke said seriously.

"Is this a confession?" Tim teased.

Luke didn't find this amusing, his eyes were even duller. "Stop that," he said coldly. "This is serious."

"Geez, you could at least show a different reaction," Tim said scratching the back of his neck.

Luke simply squints his eyes at him. "Whatever," he said,

Tim felt a bit awkward about this. 'Why is so difficult for you to try to get along with me?' he thought.

"I don't know how I can create a device that can send us back home," Luke said.

Tim began chuckling secretly hoping that Luke was joking. "Stop it, Luke, this is not the time to joke," he said light-heartedly.

"That's because I am not joking," Luke said seriously.

Tim became too stunned to speak. His heart nearly beat out of his chest out of fear. "You're joking right?" he says grabbing Luke's shoulder fiercely.

Luke looks at his hands uncomfortably. He's touching his bare skin and his hands feel a bit too hot. "I am not joking," he repeats removing Tim's hands from his shoulder.

"But I thought you said it would only take you a few years," Tim said looking a bit depressed.

"I did, but I met the Demon King twice," Luke said. "He told me we were seventeen thousand worlds away from home," he said. "It's not just an alternative world from our own."

"What does this mean?"

Luke stares at him blankly. "Do I have to explain it to you?" he says leaning back lazily.

"Quit being an a** and explain already."

"Fine," Luke groans, throwing his head back dramatically. "It means that I'm not just trying to break through the space-time continuum to travel through space and time, but I'm trying to break through dimensions, or in short reality itself."

"But isn't that what happened?" Tim said puzzled. 'Why can't he just try to recreate the accident?' he thought.

"Well, you know what happened was an accident, but the malfunction wasn't from me, rather it was from me trying to travel to time before David's time machine exploded and he ended up here. Somehow, my time machine was affected by the David's like some sort of riptide, we never traveled in through time, we traveled through dimensions, universes, to be exact," he said.

Tim understood, but at the same time, he was quite confused. "So are you saying that we never traveled through time?" he asked.

"We might have," Luke replies. "I mean we aged three years backward, I'm nineteen again," he said.

"I'm confused," Tim said brushing his hair back with his fingers. "Did we travel back in time or not?" he asked.

"I'm saying we did and we didn't. We may have traveled through time, our bodies obviously aged backward," he said. "However there's a factor we must consider," he said.

"And what is that?"

"David, he aged backward by at least twenty-three years," Luke said.

"How could you guess that?"

"He said he was fifteen years younger, he's been trapped here for at least eight years according to River, and he looks the same way he did when I met him fifteen years ago," Luke said.

"You've known David for that long? I thought you said he adopted you when you were thirteen?"

"He adopted me when I was thirteen, I've known him since I was a fetus. He was friends with my biological father," he said.

"Was your mum not friends with David?" Tim asked out of curiosity. Then realized he must be insensitive.

"I was grown out of a test tube like thirty percent of the world's population today."

"Right," Tim says.

"We've gone off point," Luke says "As I was saying earlier, if we ever want to return to our world we must either find a god who is willing to do so, or we help dethrone David and make him take us back."

Tim raised an eyebrow. "But you are connected to the demon king as well, can't he help us?"

Luke raised an eyebrow at him. "You are already practically wanted for being the 'Angel of Darkness'" Tim said. "Which is a cool nickname, I am so jealous."

Luke blinks at him in surprise before laughing slightly.

This surprised Tim. This was a genuine smile, not a maniacal one, or snarky smirk that he so desperately wanted to wipe off his face. "Aw you're so cute," Tim said, and almost immediately Luke stopped smiling. "And now it's gone," he said looking a bit sad.

Luke deactivates the force field and gets up to leave. "I'm done with this conversation," he said then walked away with Tim just watching him.

"Hm..."

River and the others left them alone after a while. It was quite obvious they didn't want to be with them any longer.

Luke began a little project and began sketching on something, while Tim went to forage for something to eat. "There's no way I'm eating that thing again," he said when he was leaving. 

'Hopefully, he doesn't die,' Like thought when he finished sketching.

It was the sketch of a humanoid animatronic. It looks like the one he built from his childhood. His mind slowly wanders to what Tim had said earlier when he called him the century's genius.

He hates that title. It reminds him of who he is and where he came from.

He knew he was being watched from the bushes by a total of six people, they probably wanted that bounty of five thousand gold coins placed on his head.

He's a bit disappointed by David's poor choice of pricing him. He's worth a lot more than that.

He hears footsteps and then feels a change in the air around him.

He sees the sunlight light bounce off of a large sword, and he closes his eyes...