3.10 Interference

Apollo admired his new bedroom. It was definitely his style. Ambrose knew him well. He only glanced at the decorations and furniture before plopping into his bed. He planned to place the painting Ambrose gave him on the wall when he could keep his eyes open. As he twisted his body, he found himself falling into a deep sleep.

“Wakey wakey, Apollo!” A male voice sang happily. “It’s time for us to play a little game!”

“Five more minutes dad…” Apollo grumbled, barely awake enough to comprehend the situation.

The voice let out a hearty laugh and poked Apollo in his shoulder. “You’re really a deep sleeper aren’t you? I’ve been here for at least a half an hour.”

“Stop touching me, I’m trying to sleep.” Apollo lifted his arm up to shoo the hand away from him but his eyes caught a glimpse of purple. He rubbed his eyes, hoping they’d adjust faster to the darkness in the room.

“Is this what you want?” Apollo heard someone fumble with something and then he saw the light pour into the guest house. “Morning sunshine.”

“Mason?” Apollo blinked. “What the hell are you doing here? I must be dreaming.”

“Dreaming? Don’t make me laugh. I don’t need to mask the truth to protect your society’s ignorance. But, hey…what a warm welcome. I don’t even get a hello. I mean, I know it’s only been a few hours since our official departure from university, but come on…I just couldn’t wait to see you again. We had such a great time.”

Apollo lowered his eyes. “How the hell did you get into my house!?” He demanded to know.

“I guess that is important information. Maybe I should tell you from the beginning.”

“Don’t you dare, Mason. This isn’t under your jurisdiction.” Frost Bite said coldly.

“I’m not exactly part of the Guardians, so your little ‘jurisdiction’ plea means nothing to me.” Mason shrugged nonchalantly. “Try again. I’ll give you one more shot to shut me up before I tell Apollo everything you guys are hiding from him, and I mean everything.”

“You can’t! There’s more of us, we’re stronger than you are. You have no chance.”

Mason didn’t say anything but displayed a prominent smirk. “Wait a minute! Who the heck are you? How are you people getting into my house? Why are you blue? Your whole body….is it frozen?” Apollo blurted.

“Is that really more important than your family history? Big deal, she’s made of ice. Let’s throw her a party.”

“You know what Mason, shut up. Nobody cares about what you have to say. You’re a traitor.”
Her eyes softened as she turned to her objective. Apollo had shifted into a more comfortable position but still lay facing the two “magicians”. “Apollo, you have to ignore what Mason says, he’s a bad guy! You have to believe me. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. My name is Frost Bite. My skin is blue because I’m an ice person. You guys don’t have us  in your time period, we aren’t invented until later on. I’d say about 100 years at least, so a couple more generations of the Gray family.”

Apollo studied her for a moment. He did feel some cool air emanating from her direction. She was standing by the door though, there could have been a draft coming in…He tried to rationalize this entire situation. He had been quick to dismiss Mason’s fake kindness. He didn’t know why, but what Damian told him seemed trustworthy and he just felt like he had to believe him. Now, this blue lady was telling him the same thing and going on about some sort of ice colony. Hopefully he would wake up soon before it got any weirder. Mason’s interruption broke him out of his thoughts. “You’re not even a real person, you shouldn’t even exist, and you have the nerve to come in here and try to brainwash Apollo.”

Frost Bite frowned and looked away. “So what…I shouldn’t exist because I wasn’t here a couple thousand years ago? I shouldn’t be allowed to live because I was created in a lab?”

“She has feelings and emotions, regardless of how she was created!” Apollo interjected. “She’s different, but that doesn’t make her worthless. She exists now and that’s all that matters.”

“You know so little about the world dear Apollo. I’m really not the bad guy in this situation at all. It’s the guardians, They’re the control freaks. That cold creature you’re defending is one of them. Just ask them what they did to your poor Uncle Caleb.”

Frost Bite lowered her eyes at him but nervously tugged at the bottom of her jacket. “We wouldn’t have to if you didn’t interfere and mess around with the founder.”

“Mess around with the founder? The love I had for Athena was real. I didn’t lead her on to destroy the future. When I saw her crying at the cemetery, I didn’t know she was the girl you freaks were all obsessed over. So, excuse me for ruining your plans. It was you guys who took her away from me. This should have been my family. You couldn’t have left well enough alone, could you? Who knows, I might not have been so bitter if she had stayed in my arms instead of running to my freakish little brother, who’s so utterly old and decrepit now.”

“Enough Mason. Stop spewing these lies and get out of here. Apollo doesn’t need to know any of this!”

“Wait a second…if it’s about my family, don’t you think I have a right to know?” Apollo looked from the ice girl to Mason, waiting for a response.

“You do have a right, and I’m going to tell you everything you want to know. Isn’t that we she said a few minutes ago? Who’s the liar now?” He curled his lips into a smirk and continued speaking despite Frost Bite’s many attempts to stop him. “Your grandmother Athena accidentally stumbled upon Emit Relevart, the Time Keeper one evening when he accidentally landed in her front yard. The guardians, a group of different races, joined together to create a new future because the one they have now is utterly destroyed. They tried everything they could to stop the future from decaying but they’ve failed every time. This here is their last attempt to get the future they always wanted. They think ten generations of the Gray family will make enough of an impact to change the course of history. Athena, she had four kids. Caleb, Noah, Kayden and Daisy.”

“Mason…don’t,” Frost Bite warned.

“Your aunt and uncles, their parents gave the same speech to them that Noah gave to you and your brother. To the guardians’ relief, Athena and Levi chose Noah as the heir to the legacy and not Caleb. But, why is all of that important anyway, who gets chosen as the heir, right? I’m sure either of them would have fared just as well as your father, you know the guy who abandoned his family for ten years.”

“Shut up! Don’t talk about him like that! You don’t know anything about my father!” Apollo shouted.

“I’m more woven into your family history than you know. I was married to your grandmother and we had a child together. That child was Caleb. She later divorced me for my stupid little brother, Levi, and had the three other little brats. The guardians are so afraid of me that they’ve cut off any ties that lead to me. My son had a girl that he loved more than anything in the world. She was everything to him, but these guardians didn’t feel like he should have a family. He’s got my blood inside of him so they killed her. They caused her car to crash. That’s why your uncle doesn’t have a family of his own. That girl he married, she was carefully scoped out by that girl over there herself.” He pointed towards Frost Bite. “Hope can’t have any children. Tell this to your leader, Frost Bite, I won’t stop trying to destroy the future. I’ll be here for every generation to foil your plans. You guys have meddled for far too long.”

Apollo placed his head onto the bed and let out a loud scream into the sheets. He let his frustrations tangle in the linen under him. “What the hell is going on here? I don’t trust either of you! Mason, you tried to destroy my relationship with Tommy, so there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re a terrible human being. And you, I…I don’t know who you are but I can feel the negativity seeping off of you. This all seems so ridiculous. I think you guys need to just leave so I can wake up from this freakin nightmare.”

“Apollo…listen to me. Mason is the bad guy, just ask your father. The guardians, we aren’t trying to hurt your family. If you saw how bad the future was, you’d understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

Apollo stared at her angrily. He hated that she was talking like this. He didn’t even know who the guardians were, let alone what they were doing. He hated that Mason and her were talking so heatedly about his family.

“Forget about all of that. I didn’t come to tell you about their deceptions. She just happened to show up, so I took the opportunity.” He sat at the edge of Apollo’s bed and turned to him. “I am the same person that you spent time with in University. Obviously, that guy wasn’t really me. You’re a clever one, destroying all three of my plans. You declined Katherine’s attempts at flirting. She isn’t who you end up with in the timeline, and apparently you stuck with that. Then, you somehow get Lynette to break up with me. Kudos for that one, because I’m irresistable, so I don’t know how you could pry her off of me. She wasn’t part of the plan but I sort of just went with it, just in case. The biggest screw up was with Tommy. You two were supposed to become enemies and yet you two are sort of lovers now. Hmm, I mean I could just mind my own business and let you guys be together. I mean, it obviously works out in my favor, but what fun would that be? I plan on being here for ten generations, and Tommy just doesn’t factor into either mine or the guardian’s goal.” That was when Mason turned to Frost bite with a sinister grin. “I’m going to play with the timeline a bit.”

“What? That’s impossible. Only the time keeper can do that,” Frost Bite protested. “You don’t know how.”

“I learned a lot as Emit’s apprentice. He taught me so much more than he did my little brother. I’m the reason he was so hesitant in passing the torch to Levi. I can do so much with time, but again…what fun would it be if I just ended it all right now? I want to squish you guys one generation at a time.” He turned back to Apollo who was looking on with a bewildered expression. “I apologize that what we’re saying makes no sense to you, but it doesn’t have to. At least not yet. All you need to know is that your time line isn’t going to be the same when you wake up tomorrow. Don’t ever say I never did anything for you Frost Bite, I’m throwing you a bone on this one. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow. Besides, Apollo you should be happy. Your parents, they were going to send you to a shrink anyway. They think you’re crazy. I’m doing you a favor, because I believe in you.” He winked before disappearing into a cloud of dark smoke. 

“Damnit,” Frost Bite cursed. She didn’t know what Mason was capable of and she really doubted anything he did would be beneficial to her or the guardians in any way. She cautiously approached Apollo and let her hand linger above his head for a few seconds. he was so deep in thought he failed to recognize what she was doing. How much of what Mason said was the truth? He concluded that none of it was and he was just having a peculiar dream, one he was conscious through…what did they call that, lucid dreaming? His parents wouldn’t send him to a psychiatrist because he didn’t have a problem, he told himself over and over again. He was normal. In a few minutes, Frost Bite’s powder settled in and Apollo fell back into a deep slumber.