Book 5

## Chapter 1

“COME BACK HERE YOU DISGUSTING ALIEN!” Hop screamed at George, who they had just discovered, was an alien under disguise as a landlord.

He ran with their ring, sprinting as fast as he could. However Ice bear couldn’t help but wonder, Do the bad guys not know we have a diamond now? They keep stealing our ring…

Well, at least that was in her favour.

Ice channelled all her energy to her legs, trying to catch up with George, and suddenly she sped forward, narrowing the distance between them every second. She stretched her arms out towards the ring; she was so close to getting it back! George tried to keep the ring away from Ice bear, but she wasn’t gonna lose that easily. She lunged for the ring, but as she did, George had an evil idea. He whispered something to the ring just as Ice bear grabbed it, and just like that all traces of him and her ring disappeared in a white flash.

“He must have time-travelled away!!!” Ice thought.

“But.. to where?” Hop asked, starting to panic. The GOT was for sure gonna kill them if he found out that their ring went missing- AGAIN.

“Hey wait!” Ice bear called, recalling a piece of the information that the ring gave her a long time ago. “We can track the ring with the diamond!”

And George didn’t know they still had the diamond, so they could play that to their advantage. She lifted up her diamond, getting ready to track the ring.

All she had to do was whisper to the diamond, “Locate ring” and then the diamond would tell her. However, the pale blue words that shone across the diamond were: NOT PRESENT IN CURRENT UNIVERSE

What was that supposed to mean??

“Wait… did George jump to another alternate universe?” Hop asked quizzically.

“Hmmmm…” she pondered. “Maybe… but how would we jump through universes? The ring didn’t give me the info!”

Hop thought for a while.

“Maybe… to travel to another universe with this ring, we must make a tear in the fabric of time, maybe by travelling to a moment when time doesn’t exist?”

Wow, Ice thought. Hop’s deduction skills never failed to impress her.

“Yeah! That’s a good idea, Hop!”

Ice thought for a while: when did time not exist in our universe?

Suddenly, strings of information learnt from her old school textbooks flooded into her mind. The universe is currently about 13.7 billion years old. So before that, the universe wouldn’t have existed therefore time wouldn’t affect it! But just as she was about to whisper the final command to her diamond, her conscience pulled her arm back like she was a string puppet. Wait… speaking of school, I haven’t been to school in nearly a week because of this whole time travel adventure! Wouldn’t I get into trouble?

However, a soothing piece of information rushed through her mind and calmed her nerves. Although she’d spent the last week travelling, it was still the 1st of June, 2144. So, she could technically spend the rest of her life not going to school and it would still be the same day!!

Ice bear broke her train of thought abruptly. Focus on the mission! Sigh she should really work on being less scatterbrained…

“Diamond!” she commanded. “Take me to 13.8 billion years ago!”

Now, if everything worked out, since the universe wasn’t even that old, they should be able to travel to the next alternate universe.

The diamond hummed to life and glowed a vibrant blue hue, and as the milky bubble splashed from the ground and wrapped around them, she closed her eyes and crossed her fingers. Please work, if not we have no way of finding George…

It had already been 5 seconds, but the bubble was still whirring away. Did she break it? Slowly, she opened her eyelids to take a quick peek, scared of what the outcome would be. However, the scene before her was confusing.

The number displayed across the bubble was… glitching?

It was weird.

The number displayed was (-)0

A nonexistent solution, Ice bear thought. Does it all end here?

The number kept right on glitching and glitching until suddenly, the bubble’s glow became even brighter. It went from a bright blue bubble to a radiant white bubble to…

Something else.

Another colour, so bright and vibrant and magical that Ice bear couldn’t even place it. A high pitched hum resonated all around her as the opalescence of the bubble suddenly faded and it… was hardening?

The soft strings of light orbiting around the bubble crawled away and subsided as the bubble became solid to the touch.

This would actually be kinda cool, if they could make it out of this.

Suddenly, all the humming and glowing ceased and the bubble started crystallising.

Fear wrapped around Ice bear and spiked through her blood like sharp shards of ice. Are we gonna die?

“WE’RE GONNA DIEEE!!!” hop shrieked, flailing his arms wildly.

Ice sealed her eyes shut, and hoped for it to all end quickly.

But suddenly, a loud shattering sound gushed down her eardrums and when she opened her eyes to see what was happening, she saw the

crystallised bubble, shattering into tiny, precise, equilateral triangles.

She immediately shielded her hands over her face and closed her eyes but when the shards came into contact with her skin, they dissolved into it like cold, misty water. As she slowly opened her eyes, she was greeted with a huge sight.

A towering spacious and sparkly castle stood before them, its beautiful crystal structure twisting into the clouds. Shades of pink and purple faded into the crystal walls and the massive looming marble gates were surrounded by a huge wall that was a blinding shade of gold.

As the massive gates slowly opened, they got an even better view of the castle before them. The windows and archways in the palace were also lined with the same gold, and situated in the sprawling garden, streams of opalescent water shot out of 2 arches on opposite sides to create a beautiful rainbow arc of water overhead.

“Icy, are we in heaven?” Hop asked, his knees trembling. Just then, a figure wearing a shiny white veil strutted out of the gates. Her tiara and silk dress lined with diamonds on the top and bottom of it glinted and sparkled with her every step. Ice and Hop bear stood gobsmacked, gaping at the beautiful stranger in awe and silence. But as she walked out of the gates and pulled back her veil and Ice bear got a glimpse of her features, shock crashed over her as their eyes locked.

The beautiful princess standing in front of them was…

Her?

## Chapter 2

“Wait…” Hop shrieked. “Is that you Icy? And how come you’re so pretty? Since when did that happen??”

Ice scowled at Hop’s comment.

However, she could see the same disbelief and shock in Hop’s eyes that had dawned over her a few moments ago too.

But now, realisation hit her as she realised that if she was seeing 2 Ice bears, that means the interuniversal travel must have worked, and the princess before her was indeed her alternate self from an alternate universe!!

“Yes!!” Ice cheered. “It worked!!!”

“Why don’t we explore this beautiful alternate reality Icy?” asked Hop, bouncing up and down.

“YAY SURE I’ LOVE T-” Ice bear cut herself off when she suddenly remembered about George.

“Hop! We got sidetracked!” Ice groaned, dragging her palm down her face.

“Oh yeah I totally forgot about George too! Well then, I guess we’d better catch him!”

“But… where is he?”

Awkward silence followed as a piece of golden sparkly tumbleweed blew by.

“Hmmm, maybe he travelled back to our universe!” Hop suggested.

“Wait, do you know how to get back?” Said Ice bear. “I think if we travel to before the universe existed again that’ll just take us to the next alternate universe. And if we repeat that again, it’ll just take us to the next after the next!”

“Uhhh, do you know how many alternate universes there are, Icy?” Hop asked.

Ice tried to recall what she’d learnt from all those science fiction books she used to read. Usually they would talk about how there’s an infinite amount of universes in existence. She really hoped that wasn’t true or else she’d have to travel to the next alternate universe an infinite amount of times and she would never get home!!

“Icy?” Hop asked. “Why do you look like you wanna roll on the floor screaming?”

Ice bear shook herself out of her train of thoughts.

“Ok, I’m not sure what to do or when we’ll be able to get home but, tearing a hole in the fabric of time and going to the next universe is our best bet. You with me?”

Ice held the diamond out with her hand stretched towards Hop.

He stared at it for a while, and placed a shaky paw on the diamond as he replied, “Yeah.”

## Chapter 3

A loud shattering signified that they had arrived at the next universe already.

“George!” Hop squealed. “There he is!!”

Sure enough, George was sitting at a nearby bistro, drinking a cup of tea.

But as soon as he heard Hop’s shrill voice, he spat out all of his tea in shock. Somehow, they’d managed to follow me here! George thought to himself, fumbling for his newly stolen ring. However, Hop decided to take advantage of the situation and lunged for the ring in George’s hands. Unfortunately, George anticipated the attack and swiftly stepped to the side, making Hop fall flat on his face.

“Owwwww!”

“WAHAHAHAHAHAA!” George laughed evilly. “Now that I’ve stolen the ring from you pesky bears, I can finally time travel back to 2079 and EAT SOME TASTY EARTH ANIMALS AND COMPLETE THE MISSION!!!!! They’re definitely gonna give me a medal for that!!”

“Hm… now how does this work again,” George muttered to himself, trying to figure out how to use the time travelling ring.

“Hop!” Ice screamed. “We need to stop him right now or he could undo all the things we did to save the DOTs parents!!”

Hop nodded and quickly turned around and jumped onto George to tackle him.

“GIVE US BACK THE RING OR I’M GONNA EAT YOUR LEG!!” Hop threatened threateningly, baring his sharp teeth at him.

“Oh please, I’ll manage without a leg.”

“NO YOU WON’T!” Hop countered. “Believe me, I should know.”

“But you’re just a pathetic little bear. Surely me, a superior alien like me could definitely survive without a leg. In fact, I think losing a leg would even make me MORE powerful!!” George retorted.

Ice bear smacked her face. This conversation surely was the most pointless one in the history of pointless conversations…

“OH YEAH?” Hop replied. “WANNA BET?!?!?”

“OOOOKAYYY,” Ice sighed. “I think that’s enough, guys.”

When neither of them decided to stop their bickering, Ice had no choice but to drag a flailing Hop away from the fight.

“NOOO!” Hop screamed, thrashing his arms and legs, trying and failing to break free from Ice’s steel grip. “Just let me punch him once!!!”

“No,” Ice told him. “Okay, now let’s settle this like civilised people, okay? The random citizens from this universe are starting to stare at us.”

Ice could’ve even sworn that one of them recorded the entire thing and posted it on tiktok.

“George?” Ice said calmly. “Could we please have the ring?”

“Hmmmm. This is such a tough decision! Let me have a looooong think. Maybe you guys could close your eyes for 10-30 seconds while I decide whether or not to give you the ring!” George said.

“Okay!” Hop replied cheerfully. “See Icy, at least now he’s finally acting rationally! Come on, let’s close our eyes!”

Ice bear found that strangely suspicious of George to be rational, but still begrudgingly closed her eyes.

This better not be a trick, she thought.

However, immediately after closing her eyes, she heard stifled laughter and somewhere around 9 seconds, she heard an ear piercing shattering sound.

Ice forced her eyes open.

“Hop!!” she screamed. “We let George escape again!!”

Sure enough, George was gone and there was a small purple shadow where he was standing just now.

“Oops,” he said. “Wait, but why didn't he just time travel here? Why did he decide to change universes first?”

Ice thought for a while.

“It was probably because if he time travelled here, he’d be brought to the 2079 of this universe, so he can’t do anything.”

“Oh yeah!”

Ice groaned. “We’re wasting time!!”

Without further ado, she grabbed Hops arm and ran to the same spot George was at just now as she got ready to jump to the next universe.

However, just before she said the command, she accidentally crashed into 2 random citizens.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” a scraggly voice choked out.

The two bears jumped back in shock as they saw…

Yet another Ice bear.

And another Hop.

But this time, their alternate selves looked starving and were dressed in tattered clothes. Like they were homeless orphans. And they both looked so… poor.

“Icy!” Hop cried, pulling her out of her trance. “We have to go!!

“Yeah yeah sure,” she said, still shaken.

Quickly, she used the diamond to tear a crack between the universes to travel to the next one.

However, she still couldn’t stop thinking about their poor alternate selves from just now. Could that have been her future if she’d never discovered time travel?

Alone, poor, and homeless?

She buried the thought as they arrived in the next alternate universe.

Luckily, George was still there and he was trying to ask a random citizen how many other alternate universes there were cause he was getting tired of travelling universe after universe.

Ice was relieved to know that George knew just about as much about universal travel as they did.

However, she really was starting to worry when they still hadn’t gone back to their original universe. Maybe there really was an infinite amount of universes, and the only way to get back to theirs was to travel an infinite amount of times. They’d never reach home!

Just then, she saw their doppelgangers again, causing her to break her train of thoughts. But this time, they had an evil grin smeared across their face as they pushed everyone in their way onto the floor. Alternate Ice walked up to a tiny citizen and demanded, “GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY!!” The tiny citizen’s scrawny frame shook wildly in fear as some sort of shock yet realisation had washed over him. Were their alternate selves infamous here?

When the citizen didn’t budge, alternate Hop yelled, “Didn’t you hear her? Why aren’t you emptying your pockets?!?!?! We want money to buy socks!!”

The citizen let out a meek cry, “S…sorry… b…but I don’t h…have much money right now…” Alternate Hop shot alternate Ice a nefarious looking glance as they both lunged for the citizen and proceeded to beat him up. The citizen’s screams of pain and cries for help stabbed at Ice bear’s conscience. She had to help that citizen!

But for some reason, she realised none of the other citizens were trying to help that poor citizen. Instead, they all just stood by the sidelines, watching the scene unfold in front of them in fear. Even the police were hiding under a cafe bench and quivering like a leaf. Ice was appalled at what was happening. Without hesitation, she walked up to the police and shouted, “Hey! Why aren’t you helping??”

However the police officer wouldn’t budge as he whispered, “ I suggest you don’t mess with these 2. They have some sort of ultimate power source that can defeat us super easily! I think it’s like a… ring or something?”

Just then, Ice reeled away in horror. Is this what would happen if the ring got into the wrong hands? Limitless power, being able to rule over everyone with an iron fist? She had no words. Except for the fact that…

SHE HAD A RING TOOOOO!!!

Just as alternate Hop was dangling the citizen by his foot and shaking him as alternate Ice emptied his wallet, Ice stalked up to them and said, “LEAVE THAT CITIZEN ALONE!” A plethora of gasps rippled through the crowd for no one had dared challenge these people before.

“Uhhhh Icy?” Hop interrupted. “Not that I don’t care about that citizen but, how are we gonna take them down?”

“Cause,” she started. “We have the element of surprise.”

“HA!” Alternate Hop scoffed. “YOU DON’T HAVE THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE IF YOU’RE TELLING US-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Ice whipped out her diamond and froze them both in time.

As soon as the solid crystallised around the 2 bears, the crowd erupted with applause.

“Wow!” the police officer exclaimed. “You guys managed to put them in their place!!”

Ice and Hop smiled as they both said, “Thanks!”

“Aaaand I’ll be keeping this,” said the police officer, confiscating their alternate selves’ ring and diamond. “Now they can’t wreak havoc on our city!”

Unfortunately, all this cheering caused George to try to find out what was happening. And as soon as his eyes locked with Ice bear, he started charging away.

“Get him!!!” Hop shrieked.

George yelped and kept running as fast as he could. But just then, George threw several slippery banana peels in Ice bear’s path to try to slow her down. Luckily, she managed to easily dodge the banana peels. Unfortunately for her brother Hop bear though, he walked right over them and slipped backwards and knocked Ice bear off her feet as they both slid away until George was no longer in their vision.

“Argh we lost him!” groaned Ice bear.

“Sorry…” Hop muttered.

“Don’t worry Hop, we all make mistakes!!”

But this time, Ice bear wasn’t sure they could afford making more mistakes anymore. Just as she was about to panic again, the GOT suddenly materialised in front of them, still cowering in his bubble.

“GOT!” the 2 bears exclaimed.

“How did you find us?” Hop questioned questioningly.

“Well, as you know, I can see all moments of time from the void,” he said. “And I noticed you guys disappear sometime at 4:51 pm