He did it! Marvin finally did it! He built a time machine and all it took him was highly skilled team, an IQ of 320, twenty-five years (he was 43 and he started the project at 18), many lost hours of sleep working late on the time machine, three million pounds and he just about managed it. Of course he was ecstatic but after all it took, spending all the money his parents left for him (1.6 million pounds) and he still had to loan money and so now he was in serious debt. So he had to wonder, after all this time, if it was worth it. “Professor!” yelled an annoying intern named Timothy, breaking his line of dark thoughts before he began to delve too deep into it ” Should we send an animal now or maybe a camera?” asked Timothy “No, I’m going in.” exclaimed Marvin triumphantly “But sir it’s too dangerous!” whimpered a young engineer named Hubert. Marvin didn’t listen, he grabbed a camera and ran straight into the time machine. “Remember only send me a minute forward in time!” He ordered Timothy and, of course, Timothy groaned loudly and said “Obviously! I’m not dumb.” and when he looked up from the tablet he showed Marvin exactly why he was still an intern after a year and a half of “working” with him by saying: “Uh sir, I accidently made it send you to the 1600s instead of sending you 60 seconds in the future” and at that moment there where two questions going through Marvin’s mind: 1. How did Timothy text the 1600s instead of 60 second in the future and 2. How could someone with an IQ of 320 like him actually put Timothy in charge of something. There was no time to ponder any longer so Marvin grabbed the door and started pushing it, trying to open it while Timothy pulled it from the other side. It was too late, the last thing Marvin saw before everything went dark was Timothy away running as he heard the machine starting up.
Marvin woke up in the time machine, which could not even be called that anymore, it was ripped in various places (just like his clothes) and it was unrecognisable on the outside. Luckily he escaped with just a few cuts and bruises because of the amazing safety system he had installed. Apparently, the time machine drops you in the exact place you were earlier but in a different point in time and the building in which the time machine was before he used it was a 30 meter (roughly 98 feet) high building, so he definitely wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t thought ahead and installed a safety system. He looked to his right and saw a destroyed camera and a translator he invented. Marvin turned on his translator, in case there were some words in old English he didn’t understand and so he didn’t sound weird to people, and then got up and left the time machine but as soon as he got out he was met by 5 soldiers clad in steel plate armour.
“There was someone in the big rock that fell from the sky. Just as if he was inside the boulder when the catapult launched.” said the one at the front “With those dull clothes he looks like a peasant, sir. Plus he is wearing tatters just like any peasant would” said a second and before Marvin could speak up a priest came from behind them “He is a sign from God, maybe even a messenger of his, how could he survive that fall if not with the help of God?” after this everyone was silent, mulling over the things the priest said. The one at the front asked, in a much softer but still stern tone this time: “Who are you and why are you here? Is what the priest said true?” Marvin realised that his best chance of not being called a wizard or anything that could get him killed was playing along with what the priest said so he grabbed two speakers from a safe compartment in the time machine, which he always kept with him to celebrate in case the time machine worked, connected a microphone to them and threw them around the soldiers, which were just standing there and watching him because whenever they tried to move, the priest chastised them. He then spoke into the microphone “Does this answer your question?” they were all in awe and the soldier kneeled while the priest moved up to him and bowed “Hello, I’m bishop Alexander. Allow me to take you to the church.”
While walking along the road he managed to get the date from the bishop (since the guards didn’t know or care about it). March 30th 1625, three days after King Charles I was crowned. He also found out that the king was passing through their town in two days to gain popularity since many people didn’t approve of him being king because of his selfish and spoiled nature. They arrived at a church and he was shocked to see a massive crowd waiting for him. There were possibly hundreds of people surrounding him and trying to get a good look at him. Apparently one of the soldiers ran ahead without him noticing and alerted everyone that a messenger of God was coming. Marvin was really worried because while his religious knowledge wasn’t that great, everyone here, maybe even everyone in England would be able to cite most of The Bible of by heart and even if he somehow managed to convince them that he was a messenger of God after intense questioning he didn’t want to mess with Christianity, the biggest religion in the world back in the present so he just went along with it until he could figure out what to do.
He entered the church, the inside was quite lavish for the small town they were in but then again judging by their colourful clothes, powdered faces, and huge wigs they were quite rich (which was also probably why the king was passing through here) the bishop sat him down and then started going through a whole speech about how he was sorry for every sin he ever committed and then asked Marvin why he came down to earth. It was at that moment that Marvin had a great idea “Well you see bishop, I hope I can trust you with this since you have been such a great person all of your life and don’t need to be tested but….” stated Marvin “Tested? What do you mean?” interrupted the bishop “Well, you see, Alexander, God is angry with people and is thinking of a second great flood. I’m here to show him that humans are benevolent after all. I hope I can trust you to tell no one about this since the test needs to be carried out in secret.” Alexander nodded and scurried away, probably to warn others to do as Marvin says just as he had planned. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen which he kept in his backpack in case any ideas came to him while on the road and wrote the exact materials he needed to fix the time machine. He would give it to Alexander when he came back to and tell him to get other people to get the materials and he would use them and the tools and blueprints stored in a safe compartment in the time machine, which he had built in since he was always a pessimistic guy and then he would go back home.
Everything was going smoothly and just when he thought he was going to go back to to the present soon, king Charles came in and messed it all up. He just woke one day to Charles and four soldiers fully armed standing next to his bed. “You are charged with blasphemy, treason and impersonating the king.” said a soldier to the right of the king. Before he could even react he was dragged outside by two of the guards and humiliated in front everyone. He could see the anger on their faces, this new king who they didn’t even like came in and started assaulting their saviour and possibly ruined their chance of stopping a second great flood. They just needed a one more little nudge and they would start revolting, he had to say something but he only had one change before the soldiers put him in Charles’s carriage so he had to say something meaningful, “Is this what you want the British legacy to be? Killing your saviour?” the soldiers tried to shut him up but it was too late, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People running like wild animals towards the king and his soldiers, even the town guards joining in on the action. When the soldiers holding Marvin saw this they dropped him and ran towards the carriage. They killed three soldiers and captured two while on their side there were only injuries which, with Marvin’s moderns medicine (which he also had stored in a safe compartment in the time machine) were not a problem. Everyone pledged their allegiances to Marvin as their sole leader and that was when he realised he started a war with the king of Britain. He had some of the town guards interrogate the two soldiers they captured while he went to get breakfast.
He came back to a horrific scene of the two soldiers they captured dead, he felt like throwing up the breakfast he just had. Apparently, when he said interrogate the guards understood torture for information. After he reprimanded them he asked them what they found out and was shocked. King Charles knew he wasn’t that popular and when he heard of Marvin becoming more and more popular to the point of nearly surpassing him he decided to copy him to gain popularity. He said he was the true messenger of God and that Marvin was a devil in disguise, when not many people believed him he decided to show them by killing Marvin and if God didn’t intervene then Charles was the true saviour. Now that people saw him running away without Marvin even defending himself stories about angels coming down to strike Charles and his soldiers down spread around the country and while Charles’s popularity hit a new low, more and more people were coming to help Marvin and he thought he was going to be able to go back in a week but he was obviously wrong.
Charles came back three days later with an army of 2000 people. Sure, a lot of people joined Marvin but not all of them could fight and even if they could they would still only have 1000. “Defensive positions everyone. I want the musketeers ready to shoot when I give the order and I want people on the walls ready for when the ladders come up, remember the pikes attack until they get within a meter and then the axes. GO GO GO!” shouted Albert. He was the leader of the guards before Marvin came and since he wasn’t sure what a good general would be like, he kept him as a general but in his opinion Albert seemed good enough. Everyone was getting ready for the attack, Marvin debated grabbing the gun he kept in the time machine in case he arrived surrounded by wild animals or maybe even dinosaurs. He didn’t want to kill people but someone would die anyway plus the people serving Charles were not the best people, as he learned from the people in the town. They were stuck-up knights and nobles who stole from the peasants who barely even had anything in the first place. He grabbed the pistol and the ammo from the time machine, which they moved into the town and then he rushed to the wall. While the gun was only a pistol Marvin had trained with it and became quite good and it was still hundreds of times better than the muskets the guards had. He went up to one of the towers of the wall and entered it. He went up to the second level of the tower and started shooting through a hole in the wall which was probably made for muskets but worked with his pistol just fine. Their soldiers were falling like flies, their thin plate or leather armour not managing to defend their owner much at all. After the soldiers saw this some started to run away thinking they actually were fighting a messenger of God. It was going great on this side of the town so he went to the other side where what he saw shocked him. His guards were getting massacred, some of the soldiers who ran away from the side of town he was defending ran here and were now destroying them. Marvin and other soldiers who were on his side of the wall were shooting Charles’s troops as fast as they could but there were just too many of them and just when Marvin was about to surrender and give himself over to Charles to stop the massacre the gates to the town exploded open.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse the gates exploded open. He started moving towards the king’s troops to hand himself over when he saw that the guys who opened the gate were attacking Charles’s troops. In the end they manage to kill 1200 troops, 200 captured, 250 ran away and the other 350 joined them. These obviously weren’t the exact numbers but they were close enough when especially when only 40% of the people in his army could even read, so they didn’t need exact numbers because those were too complicated for them. The captured soldiers were interrogated, not tortured, and he found that Charles sent 3000 people to attack but a full 1000 deserted since they didn’t want to attack their ‘real’ saviour and those 1000 are the people saved them. He also found out that Charles was planning to just throw waves and waves of people at him while he just sat around in the comfort of his own home. Marvin was honestly disgusted and understood why people would revolt against him and execute him in 1649. After a long discussion the captured they still didn’t want to join them so he allowed his people to keep them as ‘unpaid servants’ as long as they treated them nice. He was starting to run out of first aid kits and since Marvin now had an army of nearly 2000 people and 2750 residents in total he would need some trained doctors and nurses. He went to the time machine to grab some first aid kits and he saw a note there. It read: “Marvin, This is what you get for not promoting me from an intern all this time. Hope king Charles kills you! from Timothy” Of course the only time Timothy does his research is when he tries to kill Marvin. He was furious. How stupid could Timothy be? He was altering history for a grudge!
When Marvin came back to the town he was still pretty annoyed so when he heard what the messenger running towards him had to say he felt like shooting him “Great saviour” yelled the messenger “What now?” snapped Marvin making the messenger flinch “W-Well you see sir…” stuttered the messenger “SPEAK!” shouted Marvin “It says here we need one and a half tons of silver and we don’t even have a quarter of that” cried the messenger “Where could we find that much silver?” mused Marvin “Well…”
“And that is why we need to invade Charles’s castle” announced Marvin “I’m sorry but it’s impossible, I would rather drown than be tortured to death by Charles’s troops knowing I failed all my men by accepting your request.” declared Albert, his general “Would you rather be tortured for eternity in hell though?” asked Marvin and everyone had their eyes on Albert at this point, waiting to see what he would decide “Alright.” softly agreed Albert and everyone cheered. By this point Marvin had 10,000 soldiers an amount which shocked him immensely. He knew these people were very religious but he didn’t know they were this religious Charles would only have 5000 soldiers guarding him since he sent most of his army to attack their town. Marvin assured the soldiers that once the king’s troops saw he wasn’t there they would do nothing to the innocent residents of the town. It took a bit more convincing to get Albert to leave his wife and kids but he managed it after a while.
It took a day and a half for them to reach the highly fortified city. It’s defensive position was exactly what worried Albert. What Albert and everyone else didn’t know until they agreed to siege the castle with was that Marvin had a plan. Because of the deserters from Charles’s side they knew exactly when the guards would switch who’s patrolling. So they went towards the wall at the exact time the switch happened, hidden by the darkness shrouding them, climbed the walls and had people silently assassinate the guards coming on patrol on this side of the wall. That should give them about 8 hours before they would be noticed. So they all got their shovels out and started digging placing wooden supports along the way. When they hit a rock wall they took out their pickaxes and started whacking it with all their might praying that no one would hear them. Through all this Marvin just stood back and watched. After a few hours they made a hole big enough for them to fit through and they slowly trickled into the sewers. Once most of the soldiers were inside they started moving through checking every now and then to see how close they were to the castle. When they were close enough they all got out the sewers, got into formation and started marching towards the castle. They knew they would have already been spotted so they got their shields up because they knew that Charles didn’t have guns anymore since he gave them all to the soldiers he sent to the town. Marvin knew Charles would still give long range weapons like bows a try so the shields were on point and because of them no one died and there were only minor injuries they marched up to the castle gates which were open and had soldiers streaming out of them trying to attack them but Marvin’s group had guns while Charles’s didn’t. It was a massacre so they cleared out the entrance in less than an hour. They all relaxed when nothing happened after a while so when arrows started shooting out of nowhere their reflexes were sloppy and tens of people died before they got their shields up and more died before they managed to shoot their attackers through the small holes in the walls of the castle which they used to shoot their bows outside. They then managed to enter the castle.
Marvin had someone lead him and some of his soldiers to where Charles would be hiding and they led him to a very luxurious bedroom full of expensive paintings and tapestries. Marvin didn’t even realise Charles wasn’t there, all he could think about was how he could live here and have everything Charles had and more if he didn’t go back to the 2000s. Marvin went around the castle and admired everything and when he reached the treasury he felt tempted to stay in 1625 forever. That’s when a three soldiers came in to talk to him. “3000 of our men died but we managed to kill or capture most of their 6000 troops.” those were big numbers, and they were all his fault. He sat down and thought about that for a minute when he was interrupted by the same soldier “So how many slav…” he stopped when he got stares from the other two “unpaid servants can we have?” Marvin could see the hunger in his eyes and felt horrible. He let them have slaves. SLAVES. He needed someone to talk to. “Where’s Albert?” he asked “Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you about that. He’s dead.” Marvin felt shell-shocked. “How?” he muttered “An arrow to the eye” Albert didn’t want to come. He wanted to stay back with his family. Albert’s death was Marvin’s fault. “Sir” said the soldier pulling him from his stupor “So how many unpaid servants can we each have?” this shook him even more. He let the power go to his head. He was as bad as Charles, maybe even worse since he didn’t have any training to lead a country. He made all his soldiers pack as much silver as they could, which was more than enough to fix the time machine and have some spare in case something went wrong. He made the army march back to the town as fast as they could. He needed to protect Albert’s family. He died for Marvin so Marvin would die for his family if need be.
He was too late. It was aflame. All of it. “No…” whimpered Marvin “Does anyone know where Albert’s house is?” a few people raised their hands so Marvin grabbed the nearest one and told him to run towards Albert’s house. Marvin ran at his top speed while the soldier slowed down to allow Marvin to catch up with him. They arrived at the house and when Marvin saw it was mostly intact a spark of hope lit up inside him only for it to be blew away when they entered. There was blood all over the floor. Marvin searched everywhere around the house but there was no one there. He failed Albert. He failed everyone.
It took a while for him to fix his time machine but he did it. He finally did it. During the time it took he didn’t speak with anyone since he thought that he failed each and everyone. He only ever went outside for food and water. His life was boring cycle of waking up, getting enough food and water for the rest of the day, fixing the time machine, thinking about Timothy and then going back to sleep. Now he could finally get back to the present. He hoped it wasn’t too different. He got into the time machine, clutching his pistol in his hand, he turned it on, set the time he wanted to go to and everything went dark yet again.
Marvin woke up in an even worse condition than last time and when opened the door to the time machine he could only say one thing “Oh no!”
THE END! For now…
