Chapter Three: Bureau of the Occult Organizations 

Benji groaned as he ran forward, chasing a strange little circle thing that kind of looked like that thing he saw on a book, by some man called Douglas Adams before, but that didn’t matter what mattered was that there were two of them. Every thirty seconds one would disappear and a new one would appear before the old one went back after a minute and became the new one.

Benji tried to wrap the time travel around his head, or maybe they were good at hide and seek he thought, or maybe he was a duplicate. Either way, the newer one always seemed to know exactly what to do to slow Benji down or stop him in his tracks.    

As he skated down the hallway formed by the large cubic, wooden boxes of crate that he oh so often found himself in between, suddenly he off put by an oil slick, barely picking himself up in time as the old one disappeared and suddenly on top of the boxes a new one appeared. The one behind him followed him, as Benji jumped up, before the box lid opened and he fell down onto the ground.

“Why you little rotten!” The shark yelled, angrily like an old man as he tried to get the two to stop. He landed hard on his back but hopefully he could function until his next death and all was fixed. He pulled himself up as the two things laughed at him.

He could shift into the other dimension, but bringing one along might rip a hole in the time-space continuum or something like that. He formed his metal shark mask and put that on his face, the metal supporting his back as he stood up taller, jumping to the top of the box as the old one disappeared.

He chased the new one, which had become the old one as it floated along, float jumping along crates. The new one still not appearing, maybe time had finally sorted itself out.  The old one jumped onto a crate suspended by a crane and Benji followed suit, except the crate was quickly raised by the crane, more or less leading to Benji jumping into the crate and crushing his face.

A few teeth knocked out Benji quickly recovered, hopeful that some sort of horrible death would come to him and fix himself. He jumped up, grabbing the crate and started to climb it as the old one disappeared surely to go make sure his face was promptly smashed. He looked around, climbing the wire up towards the crane but figured that thing didn’t travel back yet.

The crane, wobbled in the window as Benji climbed up it, finally reaching the metal part as the sphere thing, became increasingly worried and time traveled back. He looked behind him and one was in front and one was in back of him. He groaned and jumped as both ran at him.

“Ok, taking this thing down” Benji yelled as he put his metal fins forward, landing in the solid steel beam and slicing both parts as he took the new one with him, the new one time traveling and leaving Benji alone as he smashed into the ground, alone and useless.

Benji picked himself up out of the rubble both of the demons standing in front of him and laughing. He had an opportunity, and in his hand he formed a base guitar. They both laughed harder at this, before Benji, angered, ran at one hoping that his actions would help him again.  

The shark smashed the guitar into the things head, the spherical body thing time traveling away as he figured out which was the new one. He looked at it knowing he couldn’t cause a paradox, or did he.

“So then, your help won’t arrive for a while or will it, either way, I now have the gun in my hand.” Benji said as his hands glowed and he formed a shotgun in his hand, pumping it as he prepared to fire. The sphere thing backed up against the wall.

“Now you can’t move, because if I kill you, you can’t time travel and if you do and I see your future self, that’s a paradox and do you feel like dealing with those today?” Benji said as form the corner of his eye, he saw a yellow dot. “I guess you do.”

Benji fired, the shells ripping into the things spherical body, killing it and preventing it from traveling back in time. However, that was where the logical loop formed. The universe broke down into a strange paradoxical blurry whiteness, as the universe tried to decide how the sphere traveled back in time.

As the universe reformed, the sphere creatures were gone and instead the one that traveled back, feel dead on the floor. Thus the universe solving itself, however the universe did so with an almost gleeful irony. The air around the sphere best as teleported back, as did the shotgun shells.

Benji shot himself in the back, as the shotgun fragments from the corner of his eye traveled into his body and quickly made work of his inner organs like a blender. Benji fell to the ground dead as his body began to rejuvenate itself and heal.

However, two shadows enveloped Benji’s body as they looked down on the dead soul. One shook his head in for shame, and disappointment. They moved the metal structure out their way as they walked closer to Benji’s dead body and viewed him. He looked pristine and clam, how someone should at death, had they only known.

“Shame we could have learnt so much from a smart young man like him, we’ll back to the lab with him boys.” One of the shadows said, as more appeared before grabbing Benji’s body with real hands, we’re not dealing with living shadows that’d be crazy, and dragged him away.

…

Koji gasped for air as he realized he was in another lab. His chest wasn’t open, his body was sealed. His back personally felt better than ever and his nose wasn’t broken. All his teeth were in their sockets like they should have been and his eyes no longer felt sore, he felt better than he was at the beginning of the night.

“Ok, waking up in mysterious places seems to be the norm now. Maybe I can do something about that next time I die, like a death forcefield or something.” Benji said as he thought about how he could or would protect himself in his most vulnerable state. “No, that wouldn’t be as fun.”

Benji pushed himself off the table onto the ground, his legs wobbling as he checked himself, making sure all his original clothes were on. After patting himself down, he looked at the table and his phone was charged. He grabbed it quickly hoping to stop any downloads of files.

“Ok, first things first, if this the realist, where am I?” Benji said as he held his phone up and attempted to get any signal, however as he looked around, it became more apparent that the room he was underground. He looked at the walls, between each metal plate there was a sealed bar and what had to be five inch screws drilled into the wall.

“Ok, we’re underground a bit, worse than under the sea, can I escape from here?” Benji asked as he opened up his phone, quickly finding that there was a massive warning on the screen. “Blocking mass, shifting not allowable.” Normally a warning wouldn’t stop him, but the pop up window reading this, blocked the switch as well.

“Ok, I can’t escape, but exploration?” Benji asked as he walked forward towards the door and suddenly forcefields. Benji was knocked off the invisible forcefield and landed on his butt. Groaning as he did so, he realized that he wasn’t getting out that way either.

“Air vent?” The shark asked himself as he quickly emptied his list of ways to escape a room and looked above. Finding an air vent, Benji jumped up onto the table, shivering as his feet landed on the cold metal. He grabbed the vent cover and sild it off, looking into the passage.

He pulled himself up into the passage, his head fitting through and pulling his shoulders up until he reached his belly, where all progress quite quickly pulled to a stop and he wasn’t just stopped in his tracks, he was stuck on the tracks. He shook himself around as he tried to dislodge himself from the vent, shaking his feet and his hands, trying to pull himself out.

“Well, this is quite the situation; ok how can escape from this one?”  Benji asked himself as he suddenly felt a bar of solid matter in his hands, which quickly started to melt from the heat of the vent. “Oh great butter that’s going to really help me.”

…

“As you can see we are quite the professional group, making sure that there is no way out of hospital rooms so that no one can disturb the dead.” Walking down the corridor of their base, the leader of BOO, Mark Harkness lead a group of students behind him.

He was guiding them down the halls they would one day manage, hopefully. As he walked up to the window of the morgue; he looked in and his smile on his face sunk down, quicker than a brick in water. He blocked the window with his face, trying to keep the students behind him from seeing the company’s embarrassment.

“Why don’t you lead the students down there and go look at our extensive medbay?” Mark said as he quickly sent the flow of children down the hall before looking into the room and wondering what was happening in the morgue. A shark appeared to be hanging from the ceiling, stuck in the air vent with butter or something in his hands.  

“Security get down here, I think our little warehouse exploder has arrived here. Also wasn’t he dead a few hours ago, well immorality is becoming more common, and quite annoying.” Mark Harkness said as he blocked the view of the window waiting for security to come and remove the shark from the vent, he would have quite a few questions for him once he was out of the vent.

…

“Oh, well then thank you for getting me out of the vent.” Benji said to the security troops as he was sat down in a simple interrogation room. They said nothing and shut the door probably groaning on the other side. Soon enough from the other side of the door, Mark walked in, the second meeting of fractions.

“Well then hello, nice interrogation room you have here, and thank you for letting me keep my phone, even though her it is practically a brick, I can’t even shift.” Benji said as he pulled the phone out and attempted a shift, his body glowing before it failed and the energy dispersed into the air. “Don’t worry, I am completely harmless.”

As Benji said that he quickly formed a gun in his hand, waving it up in the air, before throwing it and forming a base guitar, strumming a few strings on it as the gun disappeared as well. Mark groaned knowing there was a certain lack of professional acting from the shark.       

“Well then, I know you wouldn’t shoot without collecting information. Are you with the outsiders, and what do you mean by shifting?” Mark asked as he tried to get information out from Benji, hoping the shark would respond without force. Benji laughed a bit as he knew he had control over Mark and he had answers.

“How about first, where are we, what is your fraction’s name and tell me what you can do for me?” Benji asked as he folded his legs over the table, making sure that Mark knew he was not a prisoner, he was a guest and was to be treated like one.

“We are BOO or Bureau of the Occult Organizations, we examine, collect and store strange and supernatural objects, our greatest collection is a series of masks that we find after strange and amazing times.” Mark said as Benji took note of that, hoping he could either borrow or seal a few masks, either taking them for himself or preventing Greg from stealing them upon his return.

 “Interesting, now you stole my dead body from the construction site, why should I trust you, what do you have to offer me?” Koji said as he decided to make himself get all he could possibly get from whatever deal might be formed between both of the groups. Benji smiled and Mark knew what he was going after.

“Well you are a very smart shark, we train normal people and super powered people in case the city ever is invaded by say an army from hell.” Mark said as Benji looked flabbergasted, Mark was nearly on point with what he was saying, almost like he knew. Benji needed to get deeper into the organization figure out what they knew.

“Interesting, now how can this benefit me and how can I benefit you, quid pro quo as they.” Benji said as he tried to push some buttons. The door behind him opened and guard brought out a blackened case. It was presented before Benji, who looked at it with interest.

“If you provide us with simple information as it comes up, and simply make an active effort in our organization you can be our liaison between fractions. You can have these masks and will have access to our weapons, not that you need them; a squadron of soldiers you could call out, and facility and information access.” Mark said as he grabbed the case and presented them to Benji. The shark looked at the three masks, viewing them and trying to figure out what powers they granted.

The first was a simple mask four feathers covering the face like a mask, he wounded what kind of powers they would embow. The second was a mask like face, with two drills covering the face, with no eye holes and that might have suggested he would be blind in that form. The third was a wolf face and what that form was obvious, to simply say.

“Well then, this is quite literally a deal I can’t refuse, so I believe that I will take you’re deal.” Benji said as he stuck out his hand and shook it with Mark, knowing that he had just made the second deal. He was now affiliated with two groups and have to deal with the problems between the two.    

“Now then, you should perhaps become affiliated with our group and take one of the classes we give to our members, so that they can learn about the supernatural. I’d suggest a potions class, as that can teach you quite a few survival skills.

“Doesn’t sound half bad, I think I’ll have to take you up on that offer.” Benji said as he signed himself up to a class that gathered on the weekends, in the morning and general out of prime demon hunting times.

…

And that’s how Benji ended up in a somewhat dark, Hogwarts like class room at ten o’clock in the morning. Quite to his surprise and the teachers and the students surprisingly too, he was good with potions; being able to find knowledge of the magical ingredients

He found himself sitting next to a lizard with a breathing mask, apparently Martin grew up in some sort of underground cult that breathed highly pressurized air and he needed the mask or his lungs would collapse on themselves when the air tried to balance itself out. 

Either way in the class he found himself being quite good with making potions, as he could create mass that didn’t disappear for it seemed that when the materials underwent chemical reactions they became stabilized. The other mass must have been taken from some sort of star or something, he doubted that he would figure where it came from.

“Now then we’ve talked about hypothetical potions, real life potions and potions we’ve seen the effects off, but never one that we know existed but went out of use. Back in revolutionary times in order to treat people, there was a potion that could heal most systems. However, the leaf used to produce it went extinct because of its over use and was nearly forgotten to history, except for a few parchments that mention it use.” Their teacher Mr. Jones said, speaking of the potion as if it was a godsend.

“When did this leaf happen to go out of existence?” Benji asked as he smiled subtlety knowing he might be able to do something interesting, which you would know is obvious. The teacher looked at him, as if he was a bit crazy but decided to entertain him anyway.

“Well some time before the revolutionary war, but after the seven year wars, there were probably a few left even then. So who knows, history is very interesting, what we could have changed or what we could have done better.” Mr. Jones, said as he almost thought about what would happen if he could have the leaves, how much that could change current life.

“What if I told you, we could well not travel back in time, but go to a different era of time, back before the revolutionary war. A time shifted dimension only known to so many people, how would you like to visit?” Benji said as he pulled out his phone and showed it off.

“What are you talking about, that’s impossible.” Benji turned his head over to Martin, the lizard speaking through his mask with a slightly electronically processed voice in order to facilitate his speaking, without it his voice would come out like a mess of garbled sound.

“Were in an underground bunker, with a shark that can form base guitars in his hand at a moment’s notice, impossible is being a bit vague.” Benji said being sarcastic with the lizard, as he groaned at the shark. 

“And what does that mean, are you suggesting that its possible for stuff like that to exist do you have any idea how maddening that sounds.” Mr. Smith asked as he realized that their might be more to what the shark was suggesting. He walked over to his desk looking at Benji’s phone.

“Once again, shark with a base guitar, we’re stretching the definition of possible here. So really follow me, up to the base level. That way we don’t teleport into the ground about 300 years ago in a different dimension.” Benji said as he jumped up with excitement in his life.

“Come on lets have some fun and adventure, no super powers or fighting evil demons; we only have to go in find the plant and we can take a few of its seeds back with us and re-establish the plant here, we can undo on of our past mistakes and how often do you have the chance to do that.” Benji said as he walked towards the door, leaving out of it as he hoped to get the class following him as well.

“We’ll move along, I’m going with him too.” Martin said following him as he walked out the door, briefly speeding up with a green blur as he caught up with Benji. The rest of the class followed him and with an empty class room, Mr. Smith followed him as well. 

“So, this is how we’re going to do this, we’re on the outskirts of town and we should be able to go in through a rift without attracting too much attention. We go in explore the sites, stay out of trouble hopefully, and get back in time for demon hunting.” Benji said as he closed the elevator door, with the whole class in; the elevator quickly shooting up the whole of the facility and placing them in a random shed outside of Boston.

Benji opened the door and walked out of the shed, looking around as he walked to the back of the shed, the class following along like a lost puppy. Benji knew he was in charge and he could give the folks an adventure of a life time.

“Ok, stand back, we’re going to form a rift.” Benji said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pointed it forward at the ground. “Now then get ready for a rift in 3,2,1.”

Benji clicked on the button and instead of flashing and glowing, before disappearing; this time a green light shot out of his phone and hit the ground, before a window formed before them with the view of revolution Boston. The class stood and looked amazed.

“That’s real, I can see it and it moves. It stays in angle with me, can I breach the void?” Martin said as he walked forward trying to put his hand on the window, but fell through the void flashing a green light, and continuing to flash.

“Ok, Martin ruined the experience, everyone get through we only have a minute until the void closes now.”  Benji said, Martin popping up on the other side of the portal, looking back at them as well. Benji popped through and the class followed, all of them including Mr. Smith climbing through until the portal closed.

“And see what did I tell you, well come to pre-revolutionary Boston, no time travel involved, we are just in a different, a time shifted dimension.” Benji said as he presented the town to the people, all of them looking in amazement as they could see the now tiny town ahead of them, he could smelled their air, the lack of carbon dioxide in the air, everything so pristine.

“What, how is this possible?” a student cried out from inside the crowd, and Benji gave him the evil eye.

“Ok, only Martin and Mr. Smith are allowed to talk from this point on, no one else cares about your amazement or feelings.” Benji said as he looked around at the rest of the class and forever made then supporting characters.

“Well then, class this way, we should be able to find the tree with the leaf if we follow it into the woods this way.” Mr. Smith said as he lead the group into the past, the rift shutting behind them and leaving them trapped in the era, on the whim of a mad man.

…

“Well then, shark you have made the mistake of returning back to our little town, watch your back devil creature you not going to sacrifice those children.” Absalom said as he compared his vision with the photos of Benji that were taken. He looked at them and compared making sure that Benji was the shark he was looking for. Absalom didn’t want to take in a random shark, through the green rift would probably be cause for alarm.   

He stood up and continued forward walking after the group as he continued waiting for the right moment to appear and to take him in. Absalom followed them in the forest grabbing the rifle off his back and making sure it was filled with gunpowder and ammo.

He walked forward, making sure his weapon was pointed at Benji as he examined the situation. In his simple mind it appeared that the shark was leading an innocent group of people into the forest, a very dangerous place for the times. He could be selling them to Indians or sacrificing them but in the end it couldn’t be a good thing.

He viewed the group, watching, following them, stalking them as he traveled through the forest. Every once in a while they paused, taking a look at a tree or brush on the ground. Surely the shark trying to distract the group with the joys of learning about the forest.

“Hey, you yeah you, Benji, theirs some strange….” The same student said as he tried to get Benji’s attention on the strange priest following them into the forest. He noticed that he was following them and thought to alert the shark of the happenings.

“What did I say about talking, are we’re here to find leaves or not.” Benji said as he delightfully shot down the kids request, instead giving him the silent treatment as he ignored what he said and that of course meant he ignored the information that the student presented, Benji was being a bad teacher.

“Ok, this looks like it might be the tree right here, green vines growing down its side. I think we found ourselves the healing tree, let us get the leaves and get us out of here before we do something like change this dimension’s future or something.” Benji said as he looked up at the leaves, they shined in the light of the new night, glowing as the sun went down and the chlorophyll gave off the most beautiful green.

“Ah yes, let’s see if this tree has any seeds, see if we can make this plant less extinct in the future, disobey the laws of time.” Mr. Smith said as he searched around the tree until he found an acorn, its edges laced with a green glow, anyone would be attracted to what it brought.

“That is amazing, how wonderful nature is, too bad we’re destroying it, giving it a long and painful death.” Martin said to Benji as suddenly he felt something poke against his back, he stood frozen as he recognized the feeling of a gun on his back. Standing frozen, he waited for the man to do something, before he would move out of the way.

“Benji, it appears that we have a visitor, someone wants to join our class as it appears.” Martin said slowly, as the class turned around and saw Absalom pointing a gun at his back, having him trapped as they looked at him, as a hostage.

“Hello there little devil child, it seems that your friend has a gun on his back and you should come with me if you want him to live.” Absalom said as he twisted it a bit in Martin’s back. The lizard grimaced as he tried to deal with the gun in his back. He shifted around, trying to see if he would be able to speed out of the way before Absalom could pull the trigger.

“Well then, you’re new here. I haven’t see you before, now then who are you and what do you want?” Benji asked knowing that gathering information would be the key to understanding the situation, he needed information, and any more gathered would be useful.

“Well, I am the chief priest of Boston on loan from the Vatican. Due to a few mysterious disappearances, that have been occurring, and bouts of demonic activity they thought I could do God’s work for these people.” Absalom said as he smiled almost sadistically as he pushed the gun into Martin’s back.

“Ok, no need to do anything risky, I’ll go with you, if you leave him alone.” Benji said as he reached into his phone and formed a rift back into the regular world, he wasn’t going to abandon the class in the revolutionary era without help. The rift formed and he traded places with Martin, as he nodded, felling respect for the lizard.

“Thanks for the help.” Benji said giving a sign of his respect to Martin, the lizard could have run away or tried to do something stupid, but he recognized Benji’s sign to stay still; helping the shark a million by letting him collect more information.

The students started to pass through the rift, as Benji was taken away, pushed forward by the officer and his gun, walking up the hill out of the forest and back towards revolutionary Boston. Benji knew he could easily escape, melt the bars or teleport out but he wanted info on what they knew about demons.

“Quickly, class through the portal before it closes.” Mr. Smith said as he pushed the class through the portal hoping to get them through in time and away from the revolutionary world. However, Martin didn’t go through the portal, he stayed right in front of it making sure no one would follow him.

“What are you doing Martin, come through we need to get out of here. Benji accepted his fate, and yours is to come through this portal with me.” Mr. Smith said as he held out his hand, but Martin, didn’t grab it and come through he stood their silent.

“Are you kidding, someone needs our help, we need to help him, this is what this class is for, teaching us how to heal people, how to make them feel better, this is a class about helping people and I intend to do that.” Martin said as the flashing on the portal intensified, before it shut down leaving him trapped in the revolutionary era until he could save Benji.

He turned around and his foot touched the ground, his powers activating. He ran forward, his body being engulfed with blue light as he quickly ran out of the forest and caught up with Benji and Absalom. The priest never saw it as Martin, hit Absalom, knocking him away from Benji.

Benji quickly turned himself around faced Absalom as he decided to join the battle, he figured that he managed to escape from his bonds earlier than expected. He was a bit angry at Martin for preventing him from getting sweat revenge on the priest, but he wouldn’t say that. His respect for the lizard did increase, that he was willing to come back with risk and save him.

Benji stood around for a second before forming an item in his hand, with the power of randomness an axe formed in his hand. Pulling it up as he defended himself getting ready to face the priest and all the revolutionary era weapons could bring up.

“Hey you, Martin double team!” Benji yelled as he prepared to attack Absalom. He raised his axe, barely holding it up on his own. He slashed down at Absalom, the officer doing a twist around the blade and grabbing it, pulling it out of the sharks hand and continuing on his journey off arrest.

Koji disintegrated his axe as he stood by Martin, hoping to give him a plan and allow them to work together.

“Distract him, I’ll go in for the kill.” Benji said as Martin nodded, quite quickly the lizard ran at superspeed, running past Absalom and turning the officer towards him. Benji put his hand out and formed a shining silver sword, gleaming in the sunlight. He ran forward quickly slashing his sword down, before Absalom noticed and pulled a sword out of his sheath, the metal clashing on the field.

Benji kept his sword straight and steady, keeping himself against Absalom’s sword as both of them, two forces clashed in the battle field.

“You’re stronger than you look Shark, demon powers have given you so much more, too bad I will have to take them away from you.” Absalom said as he twisted his sword a bit, trying to put his sword into position that he slip and trust into Benji’s body.

Benji nodded and let his sword disappear, ducking under as the sword disappeared into a swarm of red energy. Benji ducked as the sword passed over his body, forming a shield and pushing himself onto Absalom. The officer was knocked down on his body.

Martin grabbed Absalom’s body and pulled him up. Absalom pushed back against Martin and escaped, turning back towards him with his sword and pulling out a pistol in his other hand, and pointing it at Benji. The two stood still, Benji was willing to take a bullet knowing he could survive one, but he wasn’t so sure about Martin.

Benji had his shield in his hand and wondered if his shield was metal enough to survive a gunshot. He ran forward, waiting for Absalom to fire. Luckily he did and the shark tried his luck as the bullet fired. Pushing his shield forward the shark twisted his protector around the bullet and barely dodged it.

He formed a sword out of his powers and pointed it at Absalom. All it would take was a flick of his wrist and he could slowly cut of Absalom’s limbs, carefully and delicately slicing the, until they were nothing. Enjoying his pain as he screamed out as more of his body was sliced into pieces.

“Do it, kill be and prove my cause, the cause of the human race will always be better and greater.” Absalom said as he smiled, knowing what would happen after his death or so he thought.

He slimed as he looked at Martin and he saw the look on his face, the face of innocence. Someone who had never seen death, someone so pure, never touched or visited by the devil. Benji asked whether or not he wanted to take that away. He should have been given that choice, but it was taken away from him; he decided to give Martin that choice.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Benji said as he put his sword away and instead pulled his phone out pushing Absalom to the ground and grabbing Martin’s hand and shifting them back into the real world.

Looking around it appeared that the class has disappeared back into the bunker and the two were alone. Benji blushed, he felt something a bit like an admiration for lizard, staying behind in an unknown world just trying to save someone. He could appreciate that notion and knew he would repay the lizard one day.

He blushed a bit and had no idea what he was feeling. He felt warm and embarrassed and he never felt like that before. He tried not to show his blush and hid his face with his fins. He looked around and avoided eye contact with Martin, who he was sure was blushing a bit as well.

“So, Martin…” Benji said as he tried to decode his feelings, he didn’t know what he was feeling. Was it respect, was it admiration, was it love? He didn’t know how to handle his emotions, but maybe Martin could help him figure that out. “It was very brave of you to stay in the revolutionary era, and I respect you for that, so maybe I could treat you to a dinner?”

Martin looked a bit confused as he handled the information given to him, he blushed a bit and looked at Benji.

“I think I would enjoy going with you, don’t go crazy on me though.” Martin said as he decided to take a risk and leaned in giving Benji a peck on his cheek. The shark blushed at the affection and Martin smiled at him. “I have no idea what we’re rushing into but I think I like you.”

Martin put out his hand and Benji grabbed it, smiling as he got to hold the lizard’s hand as the two walked off into midday sun.