And the Time after Time - for Ezekiel Jones

[bookbrawler]

He's been doing this a long time, and with every jump came the promise of a chance to get what he'd lost back.

Get it all back.

Magic, being magic, and time-and-space travel, being time-and-space travel, weren't exact sciences, and it's not like he had Cassie with him to help fix things.

He didn't have anyone.

Jumping from time period to time period was a bittersweet adventure. He got to see the Pyramids in the midst of being built, he got to see a glimpse of the Renaissance, got to shake Leonardo Da Vinci's hand, but as the years passed he could only hold onto the hope that he'd make it to where he needed to be--

--it was also sad, in a potentially devastating way, that this might be the last witness to humanity's accomplishments. That he was the last witness to a world he saw being destroyed--absorbed by that--that destruction, that horrific bluish blob that killed everything, and worst of all--

--the last thing he saw before being dragged into the time stream by Flynn's spell was the Library being overtaken, crushed, walls crumbling--being anchored to the planet, to humanity, despite its extra-dimensional properties meant it was not immune to the destruction of earth itself

He never forgot Flynn's face as he wished him good luck, before the blue surge got him, too.

He promised Ezekiel he was coming for him.

He fought Vikings and pirates and met the first people to cross the Bering Strait and he never, ever stopped hoping, never stopped preparing--

--he knew that when he finally sees him, things might be different.

He might be different.

But that doesn't matter.

He's going to save him.

He made a promise.

There's that familiar tug in his chest and Jake feels himself being yanked through time, through space, and he knows immediately, when he appears in a burst of blue smoke and gold, crackling energy, that he's not on earth.

This is it.

This is Quill's planet.

He's prepared for anything, had to be, he never knows where or when he is. There's a bagful of weapons and tricks and two swords strapped to his back, as he approaches the nearest structure in the distance.