The sun was about to rise over Voronezh: the night military patrols all over the city returned to their barracks, while the daytime ones were just exiting the barracks where they had stayed.

The patrols, here to uphold the law during the night, were instructed that night to shoot on sight a certain man: Grigor Stoyanovich, aka “The Crocodile”, a dangerous criminal that had been the top dog of the criminal world in the past, but, after failing to get elected, was now a simple runaway, a prisoner on the run from the firing squad; and now he was in Voronezh. It was imperative to find him before he fled.

Meanwhile, in an old house in the western part of the city, the young Grigor Stoyanovich was sleeping on his busted couch in the main room. Grigor was used to that kind of lifestyle, since he had always been a runaway from the law for his illegal activities, like the selling of drugs and his old racket of prostitution.

The sleep of the so-called “Crocodile” was interrupted by the noise of the door opening violently, and a familiar voice yelling, “Grigor ! Grigor ! Your life is in danger !”

Grigor slowly woke up, saw what time it was on the low-end wall clock, realized that was dawn, and sat on the coach, then he said: “It has been for months, if not years, Pyotor. What is it now ?”

Pyotor leant on the main wall with his arm, breathing for few minutes, then he said: “The authorities in Moscow know that you are here in Voronezh, and they have alerted the security forces.
We must leave before they find you !”

Grigor got up from the couch, put on some clothes from the pile in the middle of the room, dressed himself up very quickly with black trousers, military boots, a gray shirt, a black coat and said with a sneer on his face, “My only surprise is that the so-called “authorities” did not try to find me sooner. It is just as well... however, colleagues in Volgograd have sent word that the whole city is ready to rise in support of me if I join them there”

Pyotor said: “Alright then, we will go to Volgograd, right ?”

“Yes, so...help me to take with us some essential supplies and some other things.” Then Grigor started to place in the first box available all his most precious possessions, such as his golden watch, his little stash of Orthodox icons and his gun.

After ten minutes, everything was set up for the journey: a few clothes were put in the badly-repaired suitcase; the box was stuffed up with some old newspapers and closed, and Pyotor finished gassing up the car with an old canister. He said to the black-coated man, “My car is ready. It has plenty of fuel, so we won't have to stop in the middle of road and be hunted down by raging guards. If you hide in the trunk perhaps, we can slip past the guards of the gate.”

Grigor shrugged and said, “The trunk, Pyotor ? Isn't that the first place that guards always check ?”

Pyotor placed an arm behind his head, and said, “Yeah, is not so effective, but for now it's all we have, so, enter in the trunk, before a patrol can find us. We will eventually find a better way to escape from here.”

Grigor nodded, opened the trunk's door, and placed himself in, then Pytor turned on the car, and moved towards a potato farm in the southeast of Voronezh: maybe they could find something better to slip past the guards....

A few moments later, two little electrical blue spheres appeared near Grigor's house: in the spheres, it was possible to see the shape of a half-man, half-machine hybrid, with an arm shaped like a cannon, and the shape of a woman that had a some kind of helmet that covered her eyes and some assortment of cables that extended into the air.

When the vortices disappeared with an electrical sound, the two shapes finally revealed themselves: they were Sergei Molotov and Molly Ryan.

Sergei Molotov was a famous lieutenant under the rule of Grigor I of the Novaya Russia, and, later, a general under the rule of Grigor II. He had been a cyborg ever since an accident that happened during the attack on China, where Molotov was “infected” by the Time Machine built there and almost died. However, the artificial mind of Grigor II recognized in Sergei a very good and loyal general, so he gave him the implants to survive and keep on fighting for him.

But Sergei changed his colors after the attack on Cuba, where he got the order from his ruler to exterminate the whole population of Havana. Molotov was so disgusted by the order, that he changed flags after meeting the agent Molly Ryan, and fled to a part of the USA, who had previously been trying to fight back the mechanical menace through standard means. But with Molotov on their part, they could build their own Time Machine to try to erase Grigor Stoyanovich from the timeline.

The woman was Molly Ryan, a mysterious agent working for the United States during their darkest hour against Novaya Russia. She managed to convince Molotov to defect to her side, and she found a new way to fight the enemy, thanks to the treason of the cyborg: erase the enemy before it had even been born, through the Time Machine.

When Molotov finally regained awareness, he looked around him to find out where he was. However, it didn't take a long time for him to realize that he was already near the safehouse of Grigor, in Voronezh.

Sergei ran to the door, only to see the inside of the house already lifeless and devoid of all things, as if it had been carted out for a transfer... he had arrived too late; he could no longer talk to Grigor and end this peacefully.

Molotov returned to his comrade, and said: “It seems that we have arrived too late: the safehouse is empty and cleared out. I wonder where is he?”

Molly smiled. “Did we arrived here to have a talk with him? I don't think so: we traveled back in time for kill him.”

Molotov casted a peeved gaze over the agent, and said, “Grigor wasn't and isn't a mad man: after all, his intent of rebuilding the state was and is noble and right, but his methods turned out to be wrong: he pointed the way to global domination with cybers.”

“Maybe. But now it's time to move on...” with that said, Molly and Molotov walked towards the gates of the city, looking for the guards.

Molly Ryan moved slowly towards a couple of tired soldiers carrying a machine gun, and asked, “Excuse me sir... are you the guards of this gate ?”

One of the soldiers stood, a bit upset in front of a woman wearing a metal helmet covering her face, and a man that seemed to be from the “Terminator” movies due to his... “implants”. The other soldier answered sarcastically, “No, we are here carrying a machine gun because we love doing it every day at dawn”, then he giggled.

Molly said offended, “You will be less inclined towards hilarity, once you know that you have let a criminal escape in a potato truck.”

The soldier answered, shocked, “Are you serious? It cannot be !”

“I'm dead serious. After all, I am an American agent coming from a future where Grigor, aka “Crocodile”, has left the command of a big army to a robot, and that robot is conquering the world."

“Just like an old sci-fi film, eh ? Well, I don't know where he is.”

Molotov spoke up, “He is in Volgograd. Now bring us to the commander of this garrison, and we will find a way to kill Grigor.”

“Why, you need an actual army to bring him down? How sucky are you?”

“Because he is going to cause a big uprising in the near cities, and I'm certain that you don't want to know how you die..."

The soldier nodded and escorted the two visitors to the Capitol, where the local Commander was stationed.

The local commander was on the verge of laughter. “So, Yuri, you say that a so-called “cyborg”, and a woman dressed with a strange helmet, claiming to come from the future, asked to hand over my command to them? Ahahah, Yuri, you are so funny!”

The soldier said, “I am serious, sir. If you wish to see them, I can carry them to you.” Then the soldier exited from the little bunker under the Capitol, only to see the cyborg again.

The hybrid said with an inpatient voice, “So, how long it will take ?”

The soldier answered, “Just follow me.”

The commander saw the soldier who came before enter again, but this time he was followed by two figure. One was an hybrid between a machine and a man, while the other “guest” was a woman, with her head covered by a strange helmet.

The hybrid spoke. “Good morning, commander, I'm Sergei Molotov, general of the future Russia, aka “Novaya Russia”, a nation who arose from a riot caused by Grigor Stoyanovich.
Now, I am guessing that you think we are here to speed up the process... well, no. Because Grigor died of old age and without sons, the command has passed into the “hands” of a robot, called “Grigor II”, who has launched a brutal campaign of expansion all over the world, killing millions.
Since it's an AI, anointed as his successor by the human Grigor, we need to find Grigor and capture him."

The woman interrupted, “Or kill him, if doesn’t change his mind.”

The commander scratched his chin a bit in doubt, then said, “I don't know... I'm not totally sure... but since I have never seen a cyborg, half-flesh and metal, in front of my eyes, and I'm certain that the medicine hasn't arrived yet, I can safely assume that you are telling the truth.”

Then the commander called a secretary, and told her to call Moscow about what was going on here. It was going to be a long month...

Three weeks later, the “Novaya Russia” dream was no more. The city of Volgograd was razed to ground by the outnumbered, but more skilful armies of Voronezh and the “old” Russia, who managed to kill off cybers, armed with lasers and high-potential rockets from the far future, using mostly bullet weapons and tank shells, even if, sometimes, the soldiers scavenged the corpses for some advanced technology brought by the enemy.

The only building still standing undamaged in the city was the Stoyanovich Mansion, not too far from the northern border of the city. Molotov said to his wounded companion, lying on top of the ruins of a building, “Don't worry: I will do my job in that Mansion, and I won't hesitate to kill him if he refuses to surrender.”

Molly replied, “I hope so. I don't want to come back home in a world where we are both dead, or where YOU are the wannabe conqueror.”

That said, Molly was carried in the arms of a Russian soldier off to a transport helicopter.

Molotov regarded the facade of the mansion: it was a very big mansion, its walls made of stone and its glasses colored. It was almost a pity to break one of the windows in order to enter into it.

But it wasn't time to think about the artistic damage that he might cause: he needed to act.

Sergei climbed the wall of the mansion, looked for a passage, then broke with his arm cannon one of the windows, which shattered into billions of colored pieces and caused some minor wounds over the flesh part of Molotov's body. But he didn't care about that, since he survived a direct hit from a rocket, and so the glass pieces had the same effect as a feather on his skin.

Molotov then climbed down the wall and moved towards the dungeons of the mansion. During the walk to the target, Sergei took a look at the things stored in the room where he was. The room was a quite big dining room, with a table that could fit ten people. On the walls, tapestries with various subjects improved the overall look of the already good-looking dining room.

The next room, without too much surprise, was the kitchen, which was surprisingly small for the needs of ten people. Molotov, at first, wondered how that could be, but soon that thought was taken over by his sense of duty. That sense forced him to touch the walls and the floor with his good hand to see if he could find hidden doors.. and he found one, on the floor, near the fridge.

After pulling away the heavy plate that covered the trapdoor to the dungeons, Molotov prepared himself for his speech to Grigor. It wasn’t going to be easy, especially because, in his youth, Molotov lacked the foresight to think something like, “I should get along with Western Europe, once I rule and they begin to show concerns about my leadership”.

When Sergei finally managed to open the trapdoor, he started to walk down the stairs. He could hear from below a series of beeps and the sound of supercomputers, and along with those mechanical noises, Molotov could hear the voice of the young Grigor. “Who is there ?”

Grigor was beaten... again, and quite badly too. Despite the number of followers ready to fight for him, despite the better, illegal laser weapons bought with criminal money and help coming from some kind of future robots, claiming that they were there to speed up his victory, he was beaten.

Grigor asked himself if he was doomed to be beaten, no matter the odds, no matter how hard he tried, no matter if he had the upper hand.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise coming from above the ceiling: they had found the trapdoor that led to his bunker underneath the mansion!

Grigor immediately took his gun, and prepared it for firing: if he was going to die, he was going to die along with some pitiful enemy soldiers.

But he didn't expect what was coming for him: from the stairs, a hybrid between a machine and a man was coming down, an expression of annoyance on the fleshy part of his body.

Grigor screamed, “Who are you ? A failed experiment of the government, or a future cyborg come to save me?”

The cyborg spoke,“I am Sergei Molotov, your future lieutenant. I come from the future in order to warn you from a terrible event.”

Grigor sat down on the chair. “What is it ?”

Molotov said,“Listen carefully: I understand that you want to bring Russia to a new golden age, and that's good and right. But don't try and expand into the east, because you will find there a scientist offering you the power of the “cybers”, or rather AIs, like the ones that helped you until a few hours ago.

When you find the cybers, you will appoint as your successor a robot, and that robot, called “Grigor II”, will attempt world domination, trying to enslave everyone, and that's no good, because you will be seen as a dictator that started the machine's domination over all humanity. So, let me give you a chance: I will protect you, and let you rule Russia, but promise me that you won't try to expand its borders.”

Grigor defiantly smiled, and pointed the gun at Molotov, hoping to be a faster shooter than the cyborg. “My name might be tainted by blood... but I will still have some slaves to use as long as I live.”

Then Grigor shot Sergei, but the bullets bounced off the metal, bruising it a bit, but overall not doing any damage.

Then Molotov charged the cannon by moving his arm. His last words before shooting were, “I'm sorry to have to do this, but I will do this for everyone on Earth...”

A laser blast exited from the cannon, and was going to hit Grigor in the stomach... but something unforeseen happened.

Just slightly before that laser hit, the whole room trembled, the lights shut down suddenly with a very strong sound of electricity turning off violently, the radar dishes in the room started to bleep at random, and, finally, Grigor and Molotov were engulfed in two blue sparkling spheres.

Grigor screamed in surprise and in pain, since while the laser hit him, it didn't hit at full force, just enough for burn part of the skin. “What's going on, mixed bag of scum and metal ?”

Molotov answered with a panicking voice, “I have no idea !”

Then, a blinding light hit Grigor's eyes, causing him to faint due to the pain in his stomach and because of the light.

When Grigor regained awareness, the first thing that he did was slowly open his eyes, and see where he was.

When Grigor opened his eyes, he found himself at the base of a tree on a hill. When his vision finally adjusted, he saw that the tree was an apple tree, and that it wasn't the only one there: there was an entire orchard, spanning for kilometers and kilometers.

The first thing that Grigor thought was, “This isn't Voronezh... where am I?”

Then he tried to get up on his feet, but failed. He was too weak for getting up, and the fact that a laser had hit his stomach didn't improve the overall situation.

Since he was desperate, Grigor called for help, in the hope that a pious soul might help him, instead of trying to kill him.

After a time that seemed infinite, Grigor finally saw something moving... but it wasn't a man, or a human, for that matter: it was a small, white horse, with a horn on its little head.

Grigor sighed, and said “Why is my mind trying to trick me into believing that I am in a different place ? I'm still in my bunker in Volgograd, bleeding and dying.”

Then he put his head down, and he fell asleep. The last words that Grigor heard before sleep were, “Applebloom, look, htere is something under a tree, what is it? It seems like a hurt animal...”

Molotov didn't foresee this: after shooting his laser, the whole mansion seemed to collapse into the time vortex... but it wasn't a time vortex, since it should have happened only once when the time line was messed up enough, and hitting non-mortally Grigor with a laser wasn't such a big event...

After experiencing again the pain of time travel, Molotov looked around him, and saw something very... weird: a purple-colored equine with wings and horns was standing in front of him.

Molotov already knew that he wasn't in Volgograd anymore, nor in Voronezh, but the question still remained: what the hell happened ? Was Grigor II so “smart” as to sabotage everything by sapping the Time Machine in a weird way ? Either way, he needed to know where he was, so he tried to move away... but he was stopped by a feminine voice.

“Where are you going ?”

Author's Note

It will be appreciated by your part if you leave a comment about this story, over to some suggetsions for the deleplov of it.