The Song of Time 5/23
Title: The Song of Time (Chapter 5)
Author: rose_of_pollux
Rating: PG13
Summary: Sequel to Somewhere Back in Time. The Monkees find themselves under siege again by Zero, who is out to guarantee his victory once and for all by rewriting their future. With everything falling apart around them, the quartet will have to struggle just to stay together... leading to some desperate measures, from both sides.
In this chapter: The quartet try to come up with a plan to stop Zero, but, as always, he throws them another curveball.
Warnings: There will be perilous situations in later chapters. Also, this is a Doctor Nez fic, so wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey elements will be ahead, as well.
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Pairing: None
Main Character(s): Mike, Davy, Micky, Peter, Mr. Zero
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except for the OCs), and the story is; fictional personas from the TV show.
Notes: Behold, the fic lives! Apologies again for the late update, but my muse is getting stronger for this fic, so I hope to be able to update this semi-regularly again The two people at the end of this chapter are meant to be the weirdo villains from 33 1/3, and the Zeckenbush-Zero thing is my personal headcanon that they are the same person
Notes: Behold, the fic lives! Apologies again for the late update, but my muse is getting stronger for this fic, so I hope to be able to update this semi-regularly again The two people at the end of this chapter are meant to be the weirdo villains from 33 1/3, and the Zeckenbush-Zero thing is my personal headcanon that they are the same person.
***************************************
The quartet materialized on the dusty floor of an old warehouse.
“Safe!” Micky declared, hugging Davy, who was the closest to him, in relief. “We made it!”
“That was a little too close,” Peter said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Let’s just hope we don’t run into Zero again soon… Hey, where’s Mike!? Miiiiiiiiike!?”
“I’m right here,” a Texan drawl intoned. “You’re sitting on me.”
“Oh, sorry,” the blond said, helping him up. “Well, we’re all here-that’s good!”
“Wherever ‘here’ is…” Davy said, looking around with a shudder. “This place gives me the creeps. Are we still in California?”
“According to this we are,” Micky said, checking the date and time on the Vortex Manipulator. “We’re a few days ahead of when Zero tried to cast his spell on us.”
Mike swore under his breath.
“Great. Just great,” he said. “Anything could’ve happened to our future selves in that amount of time, and knowing Zero, it probably did!”
“Sorry…” Micky said, the triumphant smile vanishing from his face. “But Zero’s spell was right about to hit us… I just…”
“No, no, no,” Mike said, beginning to pace the length of the warehouse floor. “You did good, Mick. I’m just worried about what happened to our future selves.”
“Well, let’s think for a minute,” Davy said. “Our future selves would’ve seen that red light, and they would’ve known to get the heck out of the Pad.”
“So, your plan of us… I mean, them… being on the run worked after all!” Peter said, grinning at Mike.
The Texan managed a wan smile in response to the blond.
“Great,” he said. “Now we just gotta find out where we-they-went.”
“I’ll tell you what else we oughta do,” Micky said, opening a few crates that were scattered around the warehouse floor. “Wear some sort of disguise, or at least change out of these eight-button shirts-if people see two sets of Monkees running around, it could lead to problems.”
He glanced back at Mike, staring as he saw him suddenly dressed in his blue-and-white sparkly cowboy suit-Stetson and all.
“Way ahead of you,” the Texan said, invoking the Monkee quick-change magic.
Davy shrugged and settled on the striped shirt that he usually shared with Micky and Peter, and Micky settled on his blue long-sleeved shirt. Peter somehow ended up with Mike’s denim jacket; Mike looked as though he was about to comment on it, but dismissed it as low-priority.
“Okay, now that we’re out of uniform, we oughta go look for our future selves…” the Texan began, but he trailed off as he glanced into one of the crates that Micky had opened a moment earlier.
There were machine parts nestled among newspapers that served as packing material, but something on one of the pieces of paper caught Mike’s eye. He quickly pulled the wad of paper out and unfolded it, a frown crossing his features as he read it.
“What is it?” Davy asked, his expression sinking.
“‘Yesterday, four young men calling themselves the Monkees caused a disturbance in local factory owned by… Mayor Zeckenbush?’” Mike read, still frowning. “‘The same four youths also loudly interrupted a bridge dedication this morning, being done by Zeckenbush’s deputy mayor.’”
“Zeckenbush?” Peter asked. “You mean that guy who was funding the campaign against you when you tried to run for mayor against Mayor Motley? …Now that you mention it, he did look an awful lot like…” The blond’s eyes widened. “Zero!?”
“Zeckenbush… Zero…” Davy said, slapping his forehead. “How did we not see this sooner!?”
“That explains so much!” Micky exclaimed. “He probably wasn’t planning on calling you out on accepting his campaign funds like he said he was; he was probably going to let you become mayor and then go after your soul!”
“Mike would’ve had to sign something,” Davy pointed out.
Mike paled.
“The back of the check,” he said, turning to Peter. “That check that you tore in half-I would’ve had to sign it to endorse it, and the terms and conditions were probably all in invisible ink or something.” He grabbed the blond by the shoulders. “Shotgun, I think you done saved my soul.”
Peter looked stunned for a moment, but then managed a smile again.
“Guess we’re even?”
Mike smiled.
“No debts between the four of us,” he said.
“But if Zeckenbush… I mean, Zero… is the mayor now, what happened to Mayor Motley?” Davy asked.
“Well,” Mike sighed. “Knowing Zero, he probably collected on a debt. And Motley didn’t have the power of love to help him get out of that. We can’t help him, but we can at least help our future selves; now we know what we gotta do!”
“…We do…?” Micky asked.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “As long as Zero’s got that page from the Book of Ages, he’s got our fate in his hands. We need to get that page away from him, and now we know where to go. Best of all, with our future selves giving him the run-around, he won’t be expecting us to throw a Monkee wrench into things.”
“I know we’ve snuck into the mayor’s office before,” Davy said. “But do you really think Zero will leave that page in there? He’d be carrying it around with him everywhere he goes.”
“I know that,” Mike said. “That’s where you come in, Tiny.”
“…Huh?”
“Zero will be having that page with him, as you say. But he still won’t be expecting us to be in his office,” the Texan plotted. “Davy, do you remember how you used to do your Artful Dodger routine during our Lone Star and Union Jack days?”
“You want me to pick Zero’s pocket!?”
“He walks through the door, I’ll confront him, and you grab the page, pass it to Micky, who will pass it to Peter, who’ll give it to me.”
“What’s to stop Zero from stealing the page back?” Micky said.
“The first thing I’m gonna do when I get my hands on that paper is rip it to shreds,” Mike declared. “Things can’t happen if they’re not on that page, right?”
Davy, Micky, and Peter stared at him for a moment.
“That sounds brilliant and terrifying at the same time,” Micky said. “If you’re undoing all that Zero did by tearing up the page… what’ll happen to this version of Malibu? It’ll just… vanish from existence.”
“And us along with it!” Peter said, nervously.
“Which is why Micky will have that wonderful little space-time-hopping wristwatch at the ready to get us out of here the moment I shred the page,” Mike said. “We go back to our time and live out our lives the way we choose!”
The other three exchanged glances, as though trying to figure out of this was the best idea.
“It still sounds like we’ll be making one heck of a paradox,” Micky admitted. “And that could be dangerous.”
“Yeah, but a paradox sounds a whole lot better than Zero becoming mayor and ruining our future selves’ lives,” Peter said. “Our future selves here will be erased from existence, but it’s… probably better that they don’t suffer.”
“I’m with Peter,” Davy said, nodding. “This way, we can go back to our original plan of going on the run together, singing in all sorts of different places-just us and the Monkeemobile. That beats this, any day.”
Micky still didn’t look convinced.
“Why does my scientific sense tell me that it’s not gonna be that simple?” he sighed. “Still, I guess you’re right-whatever could happen then is probably better than what we’ve got here. Let’s go for it.”
Mike nodded, placing the piece of newspaper with the article in his pocket.
“You’re keeping that?” Davy asked.
“It’s our way of making sure we succeed,” Mike said. “If we rewrite time, this paper will have vanished-or, at least, have another article. Now let’s get going!”
He led the way through the warehouse as the others followed right behind him, but it was as they approached the exit that they heard a sound up ahead.
“Sounds like a forklift,” Micky said, freezing in his tracks. “Someone’s bringing something in; we gotta hide!”
“Behind those crates!” Mike ordered, ushering the other three ahead of him to safety before joining them.
Slowly, the quartet peeked out from behind their shelter as the forklift drove by. That was when they saw what the forklift was carrying-
“No…” Micky whispered, going pale.
It was a large aquarium tank, and their future selves were trapped within it, desperately pounding against the glass walls.
“We lost…” Peter said, shaking his head. “How could we lose? We have the power of love! We…”
“It’s not over yet,” Davy said, clenching a fist. “We can still get ‘em outta there! We can have them distract Zero long enough for us to snatch the page from him-”
“Shush!” Mike hissed, now dragging Davy and Peter back behind the crate. Micky soon saw why and followed suit.
Mr. Zero was following the forklift on foot, flanked by and man and woman dressed in bizarre orange robes.
“You see them, don’t you?” he said, smugly. “Four specimens of… questionable musical talent, shall we say? They’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble, but I have them here now-and I’ll soon have them on ice. Unless, of course, you think you could have some use for them, in which case, our original deal still stands…”
“Yes…” the man said, smirking as he surveyed the captive future-Monkees, still struggling. “Yes, they will do nicely for my mind-control experiments-if I can brainwash them, I can brainwash anyone who listens to them sing! You would give me that power-that mind-control organ!”
“They are quite… spirited, aren’t they?” the woman commented, seeing future-Davy fruitlessly throw punch after punch at the aquarium’s glass, the water causing his movements to be slowed down considerably. “It seems there would be great difficulty in trying to control them.”
“I am confident you could break them,” Zero said. “If you agree to the proposition, of course.”
A contract appeared in his hands. The man and the woman exchanged glances for a moment before nodded, and the both of them signed the contract.
“Done!” Zero said, folding up the contract and tucking it away in his suit. “Now, come with me; I will show you your new mind-controlling organ. You can conjure up your newly-acquired Monkees whenever you wish; they’d be best off here until you have some method of restraining them-take my word on that…”
“Duly noted,” the man said.
Zero snapped his fingers, and he and the two robed people vanished. The forklift operator didn’t bat an eyelash at any of these happenings; he placed the aquarium tank down and drove off.
“…What the heck just happened?” the younger Micky asked, a tremble of fear in his voice.
“I don’t know for sure, Mick,” Mike said, quietly, as he and the others continued to watch their future selves beating against the glass. “But whatever happened, something went horribly wrong.”
Author: rose_of_pollux
Rating: PG13
Summary: Sequel to Somewhere Back in Time. The Monkees find themselves under siege again by Zero, who is out to guarantee his victory once and for all by rewriting their future. With everything falling apart around them, the quartet will have to struggle just to stay together... leading to some desperate measures, from both sides.
In this chapter: The quartet try to come up with a plan to stop Zero, but, as always, he throws them another curveball.
Warnings: There will be perilous situations in later chapters. Also, this is a Doctor Nez fic, so wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey elements will be ahead, as well.
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Pairing: None
Main Character(s): Mike, Davy, Micky, Peter, Mr. Zero
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except for the OCs), and the story is; fictional personas from the TV show.
Notes: Behold, the fic lives! Apologies again for the late update, but my muse is getting stronger for this fic, so I hope to be able to update this semi-regularly again The two people at the end of this chapter are meant to be the weirdo villains from 33 1/3, and the Zeckenbush-Zero thing is my personal headcanon that they are the same person
Notes: Behold, the fic lives! Apologies again for the late update, but my muse is getting stronger for this fic, so I hope to be able to update this semi-regularly again The two people at the end of this chapter are meant to be the weirdo villains from 33 1/3, and the Zeckenbush-Zero thing is my personal headcanon that they are the same person.
***************************************
The quartet materialized on the dusty floor of an old warehouse.
“Safe!” Micky declared, hugging Davy, who was the closest to him, in relief. “We made it!”
“That was a little too close,” Peter said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Let’s just hope we don’t run into Zero again soon… Hey, where’s Mike!? Miiiiiiiiike!?”
“I’m right here,” a Texan drawl intoned. “You’re sitting on me.”
“Oh, sorry,” the blond said, helping him up. “Well, we’re all here-that’s good!”
“Wherever ‘here’ is…” Davy said, looking around with a shudder. “This place gives me the creeps. Are we still in California?”
“According to this we are,” Micky said, checking the date and time on the Vortex Manipulator. “We’re a few days ahead of when Zero tried to cast his spell on us.”
Mike swore under his breath.
“Great. Just great,” he said. “Anything could’ve happened to our future selves in that amount of time, and knowing Zero, it probably did!”
“Sorry…” Micky said, the triumphant smile vanishing from his face. “But Zero’s spell was right about to hit us… I just…”
“No, no, no,” Mike said, beginning to pace the length of the warehouse floor. “You did good, Mick. I’m just worried about what happened to our future selves.”
“Well, let’s think for a minute,” Davy said. “Our future selves would’ve seen that red light, and they would’ve known to get the heck out of the Pad.”
“So, your plan of us… I mean, them… being on the run worked after all!” Peter said, grinning at Mike.
The Texan managed a wan smile in response to the blond.
“Great,” he said. “Now we just gotta find out where we-they-went.”
“I’ll tell you what else we oughta do,” Micky said, opening a few crates that were scattered around the warehouse floor. “Wear some sort of disguise, or at least change out of these eight-button shirts-if people see two sets of Monkees running around, it could lead to problems.”
He glanced back at Mike, staring as he saw him suddenly dressed in his blue-and-white sparkly cowboy suit-Stetson and all.
“Way ahead of you,” the Texan said, invoking the Monkee quick-change magic.
Davy shrugged and settled on the striped shirt that he usually shared with Micky and Peter, and Micky settled on his blue long-sleeved shirt. Peter somehow ended up with Mike’s denim jacket; Mike looked as though he was about to comment on it, but dismissed it as low-priority.
“Okay, now that we’re out of uniform, we oughta go look for our future selves…” the Texan began, but he trailed off as he glanced into one of the crates that Micky had opened a moment earlier.
There were machine parts nestled among newspapers that served as packing material, but something on one of the pieces of paper caught Mike’s eye. He quickly pulled the wad of paper out and unfolded it, a frown crossing his features as he read it.
“What is it?” Davy asked, his expression sinking.
“‘Yesterday, four young men calling themselves the Monkees caused a disturbance in local factory owned by… Mayor Zeckenbush?’” Mike read, still frowning. “‘The same four youths also loudly interrupted a bridge dedication this morning, being done by Zeckenbush’s deputy mayor.’”
“Zeckenbush?” Peter asked. “You mean that guy who was funding the campaign against you when you tried to run for mayor against Mayor Motley? …Now that you mention it, he did look an awful lot like…” The blond’s eyes widened. “Zero!?”
“Zeckenbush… Zero…” Davy said, slapping his forehead. “How did we not see this sooner!?”
“That explains so much!” Micky exclaimed. “He probably wasn’t planning on calling you out on accepting his campaign funds like he said he was; he was probably going to let you become mayor and then go after your soul!”
“Mike would’ve had to sign something,” Davy pointed out.
Mike paled.
“The back of the check,” he said, turning to Peter. “That check that you tore in half-I would’ve had to sign it to endorse it, and the terms and conditions were probably all in invisible ink or something.” He grabbed the blond by the shoulders. “Shotgun, I think you done saved my soul.”
Peter looked stunned for a moment, but then managed a smile again.
“Guess we’re even?”
Mike smiled.
“No debts between the four of us,” he said.
“But if Zeckenbush… I mean, Zero… is the mayor now, what happened to Mayor Motley?” Davy asked.
“Well,” Mike sighed. “Knowing Zero, he probably collected on a debt. And Motley didn’t have the power of love to help him get out of that. We can’t help him, but we can at least help our future selves; now we know what we gotta do!”
“…We do…?” Micky asked.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “As long as Zero’s got that page from the Book of Ages, he’s got our fate in his hands. We need to get that page away from him, and now we know where to go. Best of all, with our future selves giving him the run-around, he won’t be expecting us to throw a Monkee wrench into things.”
“I know we’ve snuck into the mayor’s office before,” Davy said. “But do you really think Zero will leave that page in there? He’d be carrying it around with him everywhere he goes.”
“I know that,” Mike said. “That’s where you come in, Tiny.”
“…Huh?”
“Zero will be having that page with him, as you say. But he still won’t be expecting us to be in his office,” the Texan plotted. “Davy, do you remember how you used to do your Artful Dodger routine during our Lone Star and Union Jack days?”
“You want me to pick Zero’s pocket!?”
“He walks through the door, I’ll confront him, and you grab the page, pass it to Micky, who will pass it to Peter, who’ll give it to me.”
“What’s to stop Zero from stealing the page back?” Micky said.
“The first thing I’m gonna do when I get my hands on that paper is rip it to shreds,” Mike declared. “Things can’t happen if they’re not on that page, right?”
Davy, Micky, and Peter stared at him for a moment.
“That sounds brilliant and terrifying at the same time,” Micky said. “If you’re undoing all that Zero did by tearing up the page… what’ll happen to this version of Malibu? It’ll just… vanish from existence.”
“And us along with it!” Peter said, nervously.
“Which is why Micky will have that wonderful little space-time-hopping wristwatch at the ready to get us out of here the moment I shred the page,” Mike said. “We go back to our time and live out our lives the way we choose!”
The other three exchanged glances, as though trying to figure out of this was the best idea.
“It still sounds like we’ll be making one heck of a paradox,” Micky admitted. “And that could be dangerous.”
“Yeah, but a paradox sounds a whole lot better than Zero becoming mayor and ruining our future selves’ lives,” Peter said. “Our future selves here will be erased from existence, but it’s… probably better that they don’t suffer.”
“I’m with Peter,” Davy said, nodding. “This way, we can go back to our original plan of going on the run together, singing in all sorts of different places-just us and the Monkeemobile. That beats this, any day.”
Micky still didn’t look convinced.
“Why does my scientific sense tell me that it’s not gonna be that simple?” he sighed. “Still, I guess you’re right-whatever could happen then is probably better than what we’ve got here. Let’s go for it.”
Mike nodded, placing the piece of newspaper with the article in his pocket.
“You’re keeping that?” Davy asked.
“It’s our way of making sure we succeed,” Mike said. “If we rewrite time, this paper will have vanished-or, at least, have another article. Now let’s get going!”
He led the way through the warehouse as the others followed right behind him, but it was as they approached the exit that they heard a sound up ahead.
“Sounds like a forklift,” Micky said, freezing in his tracks. “Someone’s bringing something in; we gotta hide!”
“Behind those crates!” Mike ordered, ushering the other three ahead of him to safety before joining them.
Slowly, the quartet peeked out from behind their shelter as the forklift drove by. That was when they saw what the forklift was carrying-
“No…” Micky whispered, going pale.
It was a large aquarium tank, and their future selves were trapped within it, desperately pounding against the glass walls.
“We lost…” Peter said, shaking his head. “How could we lose? We have the power of love! We…”
“It’s not over yet,” Davy said, clenching a fist. “We can still get ‘em outta there! We can have them distract Zero long enough for us to snatch the page from him-”
“Shush!” Mike hissed, now dragging Davy and Peter back behind the crate. Micky soon saw why and followed suit.
Mr. Zero was following the forklift on foot, flanked by and man and woman dressed in bizarre orange robes.
“You see them, don’t you?” he said, smugly. “Four specimens of… questionable musical talent, shall we say? They’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble, but I have them here now-and I’ll soon have them on ice. Unless, of course, you think you could have some use for them, in which case, our original deal still stands…”
“Yes…” the man said, smirking as he surveyed the captive future-Monkees, still struggling. “Yes, they will do nicely for my mind-control experiments-if I can brainwash them, I can brainwash anyone who listens to them sing! You would give me that power-that mind-control organ!”
“They are quite… spirited, aren’t they?” the woman commented, seeing future-Davy fruitlessly throw punch after punch at the aquarium’s glass, the water causing his movements to be slowed down considerably. “It seems there would be great difficulty in trying to control them.”
“I am confident you could break them,” Zero said. “If you agree to the proposition, of course.”
A contract appeared in his hands. The man and the woman exchanged glances for a moment before nodded, and the both of them signed the contract.
“Done!” Zero said, folding up the contract and tucking it away in his suit. “Now, come with me; I will show you your new mind-controlling organ. You can conjure up your newly-acquired Monkees whenever you wish; they’d be best off here until you have some method of restraining them-take my word on that…”
“Duly noted,” the man said.
Zero snapped his fingers, and he and the two robed people vanished. The forklift operator didn’t bat an eyelash at any of these happenings; he placed the aquarium tank down and drove off.
“…What the heck just happened?” the younger Micky asked, a tremble of fear in his voice.
“I don’t know for sure, Mick,” Mike said, quietly, as he and the others continued to watch their future selves beating against the glass. “But whatever happened, something went horribly wrong.”