Time Travel - Fixing the Future

[Gifted]

"I could go back and find someone from my own time..." The man sighed. "Look... this is something that has to be done. But you don't have to be the ones to do it. If you're willing to take on such a task knowing the consequences then you are very brave kids and I have nothing but respect for you. But I'm not going to ask you to do that for me. And if you decide to do it now and change your mind later, yo an always come back to this time and place. I'll always be here."

[Raven]

"At least we'll know what happened. It's not like we have any question whether it's going to get bad, and if we change things, maybe we won't be stuck in a world where we'll probably be caught and held in government prisons," Kailen said. "It happened, so clearly whatever led up to that ended in us getting the rings, so just tell us what we need to know already."

[Gifted]

The man nodded. "I've been working within your parents... grandparents lifetimes. That means mostly within the original Gifteds struggle. I'm assuming you know the history. To get to a specific place and time you turn the band with the place, date and time in your mind that you want to appear at. You can also use it to find specific people, but this is a little riskier. You need to know their full name and what they look like, you still need an exact date and time and you never know exactly how close to them you'll end up, so if they see you arrive, depending on what side they're on when you get there they might have a lot of explaining to do. Also, don't let the rings crack. Whatever you do."

[Raven]

"Alright, but how do we know what we need to change?"

[Gifted]

"That's where knowledge of history is helpful. Sometimes it's trial and error. No one catalyst will work on its own, either."
"My great-uncle Rick!" it occurred to Stephanie suddenly. "He was propaganda minister for the government head during the gifted hunts, he wrote all the speeches and stuff. If we could stop him from helping them, then-"
"Yes, Rick Martinez is and has a catalyst. I was actually going to deal with that one next after I dealt with the Villein family. I can provide you with a time and place for that one." He pulled out a pen and paper and scribbled down a date and location on a piece of paper."

[Raven]

"The Villein family? What did they do?"

[Gifted]

"Red Villein once tried to take over the world, Ruby Villein is a murderer, and they've rasied their entire family of... God, they have a lot of kids. Amber, Rory, Autumn, Garnet, Scarlett, Crimson, Flare and K- no no he's... okay so... seven kids to be just like them. They're all lost causes except for the youngest still-living child and one other who seems to have grown up into a halfway decent person despite her families best efforts. Red Villein is my target right now, because he becomes a serious problem in five years or so and there's no way to stop him but to kill him... but that whole family is really messed up and needs to be stopped eventually."

[Raven]

"Another criminal named Ruby?" Kailen asked, shaking his head. He didn't know that much about Leia's kidnapper, but he'd heard a bit about her. "How can people like this even take care of kid- wait did you say still-living?" Kailen looked horrified.

[Gifted]

"Yeah, they train their kids to be killers, I told you. There was a misunderstanding, they wanted to have thier youngest cut up a guy they have locked in their basement and she doesn't realize who they're talking about and accidentally kills her younger brother. They're a horrible family. You see why I'm resorting to violent means to kill Red? At any rate, it's not important. I'm the one dealing with this family."

[Raven]

"It's still good to know. We might accidentally run into them in the past," Kailen said.

[Gifted]

"Yeah well, Red is fairly indirect with his methods, but he runs a huge network so I wouldn't get on his bad side, Ruby's maiden name is Crockford, and her sister was alright but she's a psycho."

[Raven]

"Her maiden name was what?"

[Gifted]

"Crockford. Ruby Crockford. Why?" He answered his own question. "Oh, right, your sister. Sorry, I get the timelines mixed up a lot. Doing this as long as I have that tends to happen." He laughed. "Yes. Yes it's the same person. So it really shouldn't surprise you how her family turned out."

[Raven]

"Yeah, good luck with that. Steph, let's get going," Kailen said.

[Gifted]

"Alright." Stephanie nodded. "By the way, how do we get back to our on time? Wouldn't it constantly be different every time we got back? I mean I couldn't tell you what time it was when we left."
"Oh, you just think of the present. You don't need to be specific for that, it teleports you automatically back to your exact present you left. I've been twenty-five and about to go to a birthday party for three years, I have."