The blue energy kept moving back as they ran, getting faster the closer it got to the clearing. Vil, looking at it closely, had guessed that the attacker had a Pure Technology Module. The colour and look of the blast was apparently very close to what he used to see when he used Voice of the World.

  “To think that people were able to use abilities like these, while I got the worst possible skill!” He screamed, keeping a hand on his sword to stop it from shaking too much.

  “Vil!” Elle shouted, “Vil, are you stupid?”

  “What? What have I done now?”

  “Use your goddamn horse and go check what’s going on!”

  The knight gave him an annoyed look and then snapped his fingers. A quick breeze sent shivers down their spines as the horse appeared from the darkness and started galloping beside the knight. Vil exclaimed with happiness to see it, but before he could say anything, Knuckleduster Joe took one look at the massive blast of energy and started neighing.

  “No, Knuckleduster Joe! Not this time! Every horse must conquer its fears once in its life. This is your chance!”

  The horse neighed once more, got on its hind legs and reared, before turning and disappearing into the shadows once more.

  “Do you have your answer now? Or have your tinted glasses stopped you from witnessing the truth?”

  Elle scoffed, adjusting his sunglasses purely out of spite, “So much for striking fear in the hearts of its enemies.”

  “Are you doubting the power of my eternal steed, Knuckleduster Joe!? Do you doubt its name?”

  “No, I don’t. Because I never overestimated it in the first place!”

  “I will make you eat those words, do you understand? You shall face our wrath and rue the day that we ride into battle together and teach the enemies an important lesson!”

  Arthur finally broke out into the clearing, but the blast kept on going back. Running behind it, he noticed Dee and Celia standing at one end of the open field and staring at them.

  “Where’s the enemy?” He asked.

  “There’s no enemy. Not yet.” Dee boomed, “How are you doing that?!”

  “No enemy?” Elle screamed and immediately turned to run straight towards them.

  “Alright then, friend. I trust in you and your incredible talents to handle the rest.” With that, Vil also turned and started following the suited man back to the dragon.

  “Where is he going?” Celia asked as they got closer.

  “Oh, just…science or something like that.”

  Arthur huffed, still running behind the withdrawing blast. He took the chance to look back at Elle and screamed, “I’m gonna kill you!”

  Instead of learning from his mistakes or offering his help, the subject of his anger just gave him a little salute and sat down on the ground. Celia slowly kept walking to the left to keep up with the running Arthur. Even then, she maintained her distance from him and the withdrawing blast.

  “You know, there’s eventually a cliff there.” She casually mentioned.

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah. Did you not notice on the way here? If you keep running, you’re gonna fall off the cliff. So, just let it go? I don’t know what the experiment is, but it can’t be that important, right?”

  “Celia?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Shut up!”

  She stopped, frowned, and put her hands up with frustration and confusion. Giving him a ‘whatever’ shrug, she headed back to the rest of the group. He did not have time to explain it to her. That if he let go of his skill, it would just revert its momentum and blast right through him. He also did not have time to explain to her that he was busy looking at her on the way here, so he did not know anything about the surroundings.

  Either way, Arthur shook his head and focused on his HUD. He could walk around the blast and keep the ability running, but that idea was too risky. The blast was longer than it was wide from the front. From the current angle, he could cover ‘all’ of it with his ability because he couldn’t see the rest. If he changed the angle, he wouldn’t be able to fit it all within the five meters. Too much of this entire system ran on perception.

  But he did have an idea.

  “Celia! On second thought, come back here!”

  He needed someone to rant at. The thoughts were in his head, but there was nobody to throw them all that. The more he spoke, the more he would be able to figure it out. And he needed someone who would listen right now. Thankfully, Celia kept her puffed face but actually came back up to him and kept up.

  “What?” She asked in a monotonous voice.

  “The blast…is moving backwards.” He explained.

  “Yeah. That’s…obvious. Although Dee was wondering how you even did that.”

  “It’s moving back in time.” Arthur nodded, “But as far as spatial positioning is concerned, it is moving forward.”

  He was figuring it out. First, with the sword in the forest, and now, with this blast. He wasn’t just figuring out how he really needed to use his powers, but also how the entire base was formed. It was like repairing Vil’s blade had opened his eyes to the possibilities of how much these abilities would bend to your will as long as you asked them to. Just how much fun they were.

  “What?” She asked, “I think now you entered the not-so-obvious territory.”

  He laughed, “All I said is that it might be moving backwards, but if I were to reverse the object once more, it would go behind me instead of moving further back. Do you get that? Because, as far as the space it was taking up is concerned, that was behind me just now.”

  “I guess. What are you going to do, though?”

  “An experiment within an experiment!”

  Arthur put his second hand forward and held his breath. This should work. There was nothing that said that it should not. Because he was not cancelling Time Reversal at all. His first hand was still raised. He was just activating Object Reversal at the same time. He switched the skill, and the blast did not stop moving back. Good. This was it. He laughed and closed his eyes.

  This would be all about timing. One.

  The perfect timing, at this very moment. Two.

  He let go of his first hand and stopped Time Reversal. Three.

  Skill Activation

  Object Reversal

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Arthur fell to his knees as soon as his eyes opened. Considering that he was still alive and that there was no blue light anywhere in front of him, it had worked. He looked back and, sure enough, the ball of electric energy had completely skipped him and blinked right back to its position from three seconds ago. Exactly what he had set it up to do.

  The blast hit the trees once more and disappeared somewhere into the forest.

  “Cool!” Celia laughed and gave him a hand. He took it and stood up, standing beside her, “You could have just used a rock, though. Why did you have to use the enemy’s attack for an experiment?”

  Arthur sighed, gave her a pat on the shoulder, and kept walking towards the others. Elle really needed some lessons on how information and subtext were supposed to be parsed and communicated.

  _____________

  “Multiversal Laws.”

  Dee spoke up the moment that Elle interrupted the entire story about what had happened with Vil’s parasite and the research lab in outer space.

  The suited variant had mentioned that it was supposed to be impossible to bring people back to life. That no matter what, the world would not allow something so powerful to happen, especially because death was the one rule that everyone was supposed to follow. But the dragon apparently had something else to add. He continued to explain.

  “You are not wrong, Elle. But Multiversal Laws would apply on top of the idea of death. Normally, if he were to bring someone else to life, it would not work. They would remain dead. But there were three more versions of Arthur Cross present in a very, very close proximity. In the universal scale, of course. About a hundred kilometres, and it can’t differentiate between variants very well.”

  “So, you’re telling me…”

  Arthur tried to piece it together, but before he could say it out loud, the dragon nodded and put it into words.

  “The multiverse just got confused and allowed it. Because one Arthur Cross was dead, but three more were alive, it let the revival slip. Because normally, this should not happen. The multiversal barriers are not supposed to be weak enough to allow travel. Whatever made them weak and introduced the parasite everywhere, indirectly allowed this.”

  “So, you mean, as long as we are within a certain distance of each other, I can keep using Time Reversal to bring people back.”

  “If you get them within half an hour, yes. But pass that limit, and well, no.”

  “Yeah, but the limit can be increased.” Arthur mentioned.

  “It can?” Elle inquired.

  The teacher nodded, “The upgrade points. I mean, they don’t tell you what the upgrade is before you get it, but for something that so explicitly states the numbers in its descriptions, the logic makes sense. Any game, and that’s how it would work.”

  Celia nodded, “So, for example, maybe the area of effect goes from 5 metres to 10 metres, and the time goes from 30 minutes to an hour. It will keep getting stronger.”

  “But only if I eat another parasite.”

  Elle sighed and sat down, “I’m sure other people have tried that, though.”

  “I have tried it.” Dee mentioned, “I ate another parasite, and it just crawled out. It didn’t work.”

  “But it was not just anyone’s parasite. It was my parasite.” Vil added.

  The entire group looked at him with disdain for a second. Arthur cracked a smile. It was nice to know that he was feeling well enough to say stuff like that again.

  “Alright, Vil? Not the time. We’re running out of time, actually.”

  “No! No! I am incredible, yes, but that was not my intention with the statement. What I meant was that the parasite belonged to another Arthur Cross. Perhaps, just like the Laws of the Multiverse got confused about my death, the parasite got confused about its host.”

  “Vil?”

  “Not another insult, Elle. I will not tolerate it.”

  “Nah. You’re a fucking genius.”

  The knight scoffed at first, but then burst out into boisterous laughter as he patted him on the back.

  “I mean, I’m sure they mentioned that in the tutorial you skipped. But you, well, skipped it.”

  “Yeah, go on and rub it in. I had other things to worry about.” Arthur replied.

  Once that was said and done, everyone went quiet again. Everything had been shared, and there was not much else left to do. According to Dee, the range of the blast suggested that the new assassins would be here in another twenty minutes. Even Celia needed time to escape, so it would probably not be a wise idea to stay here for too long.

  Right now, she was rather comfortably standing alongside all of them and discussing everything that had happened. She had insisted that she wanted to know how Arthur pulled the trick with the blast of electricity off. Now that that was done, though, all that was left to do was say goodbye.

  To the credit of the others, they made that quite easy. Once Dee slowly retired to the side and closed his eyes to form the portal, Vil and Elle also followed him as they continued discussing the implications of the discovery. And bickering with each other, too, of course. Always bickering.

  “Right, so,” Celia started, nodding.

  “You could come with us.” Arthur suggested, “You go well with the team.”

  Skill Activation

  Wormhole

  “Oh, it’s the team now, is it? Interesting. Took you one day.”

  “I mean, it took us, what, a minute? To become friends.”

  “True. But I do have that undeniable charm.”

  “It’s not fair if you ask that to the one person who’s told you that he’s loved for the last two years. The answer’s always going to be yes.”

  “True. But Dee said that too, so I win.”

  “Yeah, but Dee is also me.”

  She nodded and looked at the dragon, who was standing in front of the warp in space and waiting for them. It did not have any border or obvious entry point. It just looked like a weird warp in space-time itself. About what Arthur would expect a portal to look like. Just a bit strange and alien.

  “Well.” She coughed, “I am…going to miss you.”

  “Not gonna lie, I think I might too.”

  “You might?”

  “Yeah, I might. Or I might meet a completely different Celia, and she will be so cool and awesome, and I’ll fall in love with her too.”

  “And then…never mind.” She chuckled, “Some jokes are better left unsaid.”

  “Ooh, yeah. Dark. Don’t verbalize it. Just…good idea.”

  Her chuckle turned into a full laugh, but then she stopped and wiped a tear from her eye, “You should go. We’ll never stop talking otherwise.”

  “True. The portal might close. And then there will be more assassins to fight. Not in the mood, really. So, uh, see you?”

  “You better.”

  “Yeah, now that I can cheat death, you know. The chances of me not coming back are quite low.”

  “If you die, then who uses your abilities to bring you back?”

  The realization suddenly hit Arthur. For a second, he had been confident that they were immortal now. That they were all going to get out of this without any major wounds. But she was right. It was everyone except him. He had no self-healing mechanics.

  “We’ll…try not to think about that. But anyways, see you.”

  “See you.”

  He turned and started walking back towards the others. Elle waved at him, and he waved back to confirm that he was done.

  “Arthur!”

  He looked back, and she pursed her lips.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry. I should not say this, I don’t know…what came over me.”

  “What happened?”

  “Just…” She took a long blink and continued, “If you had asked me, like, six months ago? The answer would’ve been yes. But…not right now. I have other things to worry about. But then, you know…”

  “Six months from now…”

  “Six months from now…” She repeated with a smile.

  He laughed, gave her a wave, and continued to walk towards the portal. This was it. He did not want to look back. He had tried to act as normal as possible, but his heartbeat had quickened when she said that. He was going to make sure to hold her by those words. There was no telling how long it would take him to come back, but he could just ask her again.

  He could ask once more, and once more, and once more. As long as she was happy to give an answer.

  The others also waved goodbye to her, and once that was done, they started stepping into the portal. Elle first, then Vil, and then Dee. As the portal started to slowly close behind the dragon, Arthur took one last look at Celia, and then walked in.

  -ARC 1-

  -THE LOVE OF THEIR LIVES-

  -END-