Causality Hopscotch (RE-POST)

[We Just Write]

So, a while back I wrote a thing and posted it to SV. Then I re-wrote it in an attempt to publish. Then I left SV for a couple months for stupid reasons and deleted the thing as I was leaving.

Anyway, since publishing hasn't gone much of anywhere in the last two-years, here's that thing again. I've already written the entire story out, so I'll be posting a chapter every week, guaranteed. Please note that the following story is primarily set prior to the 2016 election. And in the 2060s. And in the void outside time. Yeah, it's one of those stories.

Without further adieu, here's...

Causality Hopscotch​

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Chapter 1

A walk in the park​

It had rained in a torrential downpour yesterday. It had also rained the day before with just as much ferocity. Today however was bright and sunny, and I'd taken the opportunity to go outside as had many others. In my case, I'd driven to Vilas Park in my old Camry.

I'd considered going to the zoo, but the fact was that between college and everything else I'd rather spend the money on something a bit more lasting. So, I parked at the lot near the tennis courts and got out to stretch my legs.

I walked along the edge of the pond intent on reaching the small island in the middle of the park, passing by people playing tennis, a couple walking their dog, and a grey-haired woman flying a kite. I didn't think about any of them very much, continuing on my way. However, as I passed by a short, wrinkled old man shuffling cards at a small folding table near the playground, he called out to me "It's a nice day, isn't it?"

I answered with a non-committal "Yeah, I guess it is." fully intending to carry on with my present course of movement.

That plan was derailed the instant the man asked "Would you please join me for a game of cards? The person who would have played with me today hasn't quite arrived yet, and I'm awfully lonely."

I looked back at the man, seeing his wrinkled olive-tan skin and grey hair that shone like silver, before I replied "Well… I'd been planning on heading out to the island in the middle of the park and…"

It was the man's next comment of "Ah, I should have figured, you've got things to do and places to be, even though you've got all the time in the world. So, you're not even going to humor a dying old man who's only asking for maybe half an hour of your time at most?" that finally got me to cave.

Slumping slightly, I replied "Yeah, I really don't have anything planned for right now. I guess I've got time for a game."

The old man gestured to the chair across from him, saying "Well, if you're going to play, you may as well sit down."

I obligingly sat down in the wicker folding chair, which turned out to be surprisingly comfortable all things considered. As I sat, the man continued in a cheerful tone, saying "Oh, my name's Marco by the way. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever heard you introduce yourself either." as if everything was right with the world. As he finished speaking, Marco smiled, as if he knew something I didn't.

As Marco finished dealing a hand of five cards for each of us, I answered "I'm Claire. So, care to tell me what game we're playing?"

Marco chuckled, saying "To be completely honest I didn't have any specific game in mind, all I knew was that I had a deck of cards and the person I needed to meet wasn't here yet. Why don't we just make up the rules as we go? I always found that more fun than sticking to what someone else came up with ages ago."

I grinned, before replying "Sure sounds like fun to me, mind if I go first?"

Marco nodded, saying "Well, I suppose someone has to, so it may as well be you. " I looked at my hand; the two of hearts, queen of clubs, four of clubs, six of diamonds, and two of spades. Wordlessly, I drew, adding the ten of clubs to my hand.

I considered my options, at this point, there were almost no rules. After a brief bit of brainstorming, I placed the two of hearts on the table in front of me and declared "My space program makes a great leap forwards with the construction of the first manned station orbiting the moon!"

Marco drew, and played the ten of Diamonds, countering my move as he declared "Even though you built the first space station, I quickly close the gap by being the first to establish a self-sufficient colony on the moon itself, founding the city of Tranquility!"

I responded with the six of diamonds, one-upping Marco as I declared "Thankfully, Tranquility exclusively relies on helium 3 mined by Lunacorp for its energy, and I have controlling interest in Lunacorp."

Marco's turn saw him play the two of diamonds and counter with "Fortunately, an alternative helium 3 company has recently opened its doors, providing an alternative to Lunacorp's overpriced product!"

I felt myself getting sucked deeper into the game, time seeming to stop as we played. On my third turn I drew and played the king of Diamonds, declaring "However, Lunacorp manages to rig Tranquility's next election, installing a mayor who is sure to support their interests."

Marco grinned evilly as he played the seven of spades, saying "Sadly, before he was even three months into his term, the new mayor was assassinated by persons unknown." discarding both the king of Diamonds and the card he just played.

I drew and played, and the game continued from there. Together, the two of us wove a tale of spacefaring corporate espionage and corruption, neither of us managing to keep an edge for long. Far too quickly the deck ran dry, and I asked Marco "So, the deck's run out. Should we keep playing, or should we end things here?"

Marco answered "Ending things now sounds alright, I've got some other things I need to do today. That said, good game." as we shook hands, Marco continued "I'll take care of clean up, but if you'd please stick around a little longer the company would be much appreciated."

As Marco neatly stacked the deck and slid it back into its box, I looked around only to realize that time didn't merely seem to have stopped. It had actually stopped. The tennis ball hung suspended in midair an inch ahead of a player's racquet. The kite's terminal descent to the ground had been temporarily put off, as had the couple's golden retriever leaping up to snatch it out of the air.

As this realization hit home, I panicked, telling the only other person who wasn't affected by the time stop "Marco, you've got to take a look at this, something really weird's going on!"

Marco barely glanced up, before remarking "Oh, the time stop. Don't worry, I'm the one doing that."

My train of thought immediately derailed, the fact that the old man I'd just played a game of cards with could bring time to a halt smashing my worldview like a brick through a window. A muttered "Uhh." escaped my lips as I tried to process the revelation that just hit me.

Marco seemed to take that as an indication to continue, saying "Anyway, that's a technique I've known for about eighty years, nothing too exotic. You can even get up and walk away if you want and time'll snap right back to normal once I release my hold on it. That said, I'd appreciate it if you stuck around for a little bit longer."

I was speechless, I mentally shuffled through a variety of possible responses, but every time I was about to say something it suddenly sounded stupid and hollow to me and I aborted the attempt at communication. With nothing else coming to mind, I eventually managed to force out "So, who was supposed to play with you before I showed up?"

Marco answered "Well, this might sound a bit bizarre, but you were the one I was waiting for. "

This revelation stalled my thought processes completely. As I sat there trying to think of what to say, Marco seemed to take my silence as a hint to continue. The old man said "You see, these powers don't just disappear when the current user dies. No, they go where they're needed and they find themselves a user. I suppose that you could be considered my successor."

I couldn't help but shout "What!?"

Marco made to reply, but then his face scrunched up in pain and he let out a short gasp, as if something important had just broken inside of him. He quickly began digging around in his coat, presumably for some sort of medical device. As he did so, Marco spoke in a distinctly unhealthy, rasping tone "You'd have gotten powers today whether you'd met me or not, but at least this way you've got some idea of what you're getting into." there was steel in the old man's voice as he spoke, even as his face rapidly became pale.

Marco finally grabbed what he was reaching for, and held it out towards me, rasping out "Take... This…" Far from being some kind of medication or life-saving device, what Marco had pulled out of his coat was a thin leather-bound journal titled 'The Concept of Time: A user's manual'. The old man barely managed to shove the book into my hands before his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he began to fall sideways out of his chair.

I jumped up out of my seat and rushed over to Marco's unconscious form. As I leaned down over him I fought to keep my long red hair out of my line of sight. I checked Marco's pulse, pressing my fingers against his wrist. There wasn't any pulse I could detect, and as I looked, I quickly realized that he wasn't breathing either. I immediately whipped out my cell phone to call 911, dialing the number and waiting for someone to pick up. The ringer rang once, twice, and eventually four times before an automated message sounded out saying "Your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try again."

I looked at my phone, seeing that the indicator for reception in the corner of the display was showing a grand total of zero bars. Looking around forlornly, I came to the realization that time was still stopped. The tennis ball was still hanging in the air, the kite was still frozen in the middle of its descent towards the ground, and there was still no chance of anyone realizing what was going on in time to help Marco.

I'm not sure precisely how long I was sitting there, but it couldn't have been much more than a few minutes before I felt a strange warmth suddenly shooting throughout my entire body. I was faintly aware that time had resumed its normal flow, but I couldn't bring myself to do much of anything as tears streaked down my face.

In the distance, I was faintly aware of the woman with the kite calling 911.

After an ambulance picked Marco up, I eventually managed to regain enough composure to drive to see him in the hospital. About twenty minutes after Marco collapsed, I was waiting at Saint Mary's hospital in southern Madison for any news on Marco's condition. Even though I had a nagging insistence at the back of my mind that the man was beyond saving, I still held out for even the slightest sliver of hope that he might have survived.

The beige waiting room I was in was empty save for myself and a stack of old magazines at the moment, which was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing, because no-one intruded on me while I tried to deal with my turbulent emotions. It was a curse for the same reason.

With nothing to do but anxiously wait for the news of what would come next, eventually my gaze drifted to the clock hanging on the waiting room's wall.

The clock went tick, tick, tick.

As I watched the clock's second hand slowly ticking away, I couldn't help but feel annoyed that it was going so slow. I wanted it to go faster, so I could find out what happened to Marco.

The clock went tick, tick, tickticktictititi

Somewhere inside me, the sensation of warmth I'd first felt back at the park bubbled up again, and I just felt that I was slowing down. Looking at the clock again, I realized that it was now moving at ten times the normal rate, at least from my perspective.

It was only another minute and a half from my perspective before a nurse walked in, calling my name. Time snapped back to normal as I stood up and began to follow her. Once we were out of the waiting room, I asked "How's Marco doing?" a gnawing dread at the back of my mind as I did so.

The nurse just shook her head, before saying "It's sad to say, but he didn't make it. If you like, you can go to see him."

I sighed, answering "Yeah, I think that would maybe help me feel a bit better about this."

As we walked down the hospital's sterile white halls towards the bed Marco was in, the nurse asked me "So, did you know him well?"

I shook my head as I replied "No, I only met him an hour or so before he died."

There was an awkward silence for several seconds, before the nurse said "We're almost there." and we made a right turn into the emergency wing.

Almost immediately I came face to face with Marco's lifeless form resting in a simple hospital gurney. The color had drained from his face, and someone had closed his eyes, which were already beginning to sink into their sockets. Staring at him, I could see. As I stood and stared at him, I could feel time distorting and the world around me slowing down. Somehow I just knew that I was warping how fast time progressed, so that what I perceived as five minutes of sadness and frustration passed by in only forty three seconds from an outside perspective.

This came to an end when the nurse put her hand on my shoulder and gently asked me "Did he mention any relatives of his that we might contact?"

I sighed as a few rogue tears escaped "No, I was walking through the park, he called out to me as I passed him, we played a card game together, and then he died."

The woman nodded solemnly, saying "Sad to hear it. Was there anything else at all that might help identify him?"

I racked my brain for anything else that Marco had said that could be relevant and would be believed, feeling my personal time accelerate again as I did so. After a few internal moments, I remembered the book Marco had given me, and I answered "Actually, there is one thing." before pulling the small journal out of my pocket and saying "In his last moments, Marco gave me this."

The nurse accepted the proffered journal and opened it, only to sigh in frustration when she read the introduction.

Confused about why she might have sighed, I asked "Is there a problem with the book?"

The woman answered "Just… Just read it." and passed the book back to me.

I took a look at the first neatly handwritten paragraph, reading 'Don't bother trying to use this book to identify me; I made absolutely sure to not include any information that could indicate who I am. Knowledge of my identity would only make the situation even more complicated than it already is. This book is meant to be exclusively the property of Claire Stevens, who I have given it to in my last moments. Hopefully, it will aid her with the challenges she will soon be engaged in.' I groaned in frustration, glaring at Marco as he lay there lifelessly. I could almost swear I heard him snickering, regardless of the fact that he was currently dead.

The nurse sighed, saying "Sadly, it looks like Marco here is pretty much a John Doe, aside from the fact that we know his name. He's got no ID we can find, no tattoos, and as far as we can tell he pretty much appeared out of nowhere."

I sighed, before saying "I think I should go. It's late, and I want to be well-rested for tomorrow."

The nurse nodded, replying "I'll show you out."

When I got back to my dormitory at Edgewood College, I could hear heavy metal blasting away in the room I shared with Charles. I groaned internally; while I could tolerate his music when I wasn't doing anything important, right now I needed to be able to think clearly.

My roommate Charles was a tall and lanky fellow, so skinny that you could almost see his ribcage if you looked hard at him. He had dark brown hair that came down to his shoulders, and his eyes were a deep blue. He was also jumping up and down on an exercise trampoline and playing an air guitar, managing to look completely ridiculous.

As I shook my head in frustration and began walking across the room, I felt my personal time speeding up again. Charles' bouncing slowed to the point where it looked like he was floating in midair. I swiftly reached the 80s vintage boom box in the corner and flipped the off switch, before allowing time to snap back to normal.

Charles suddenly shouted "Holy SHIT!" as he fell backwards off the trampoline. I felt my personal time speeding up by pure reflex as I darted across the room to catch him, gently setting him down on his bed, time once again resuming its normal flow once I let go.

Charles' gaze immediately snapped to me, as he blurted out "Claire, what the hell!? How'd you move so fast?"

I shrugged, saying "I'm pretty sure I didn't go any faster than normal, it's just that I slowed down time so that it took less time for me to cross the room."

Charles groaned, saying "What. That makes no sense whatsoever! Since when did you have superpowers?"

I thought about it for a bit, before answering "This afternoon, probably."

As Charles sat up, he asked "So, what's your superhero origin story? Did you drink some kind of super serum? Were you zapped with radiation? Or was it a mad scientist stuffing robot parts in you?" his left eyebrow steadily ascending as he asked.

I groaned internally, Charles' coping mechanism of applying humor and pop culture references to tense situations once again rising to the surface. He had to know it grated on me after all the times I'd asked him to stop it, but he kept doing it anyway. With a small hint of frustration creeping into my voice, I replied "None of the above, I met the previous user who passed the powers to me when he died."

Charles nodded solemnly, before asking "So, the powers were passed to you Green Lantern style then?"

I sped up my personal time again and darted behind him, hissing into my roommate's ear "This isn't something to joke about! Marco died right in front of me and I couldn't even call an ambulance because my cell phone couldn't connect while inside a time stop!"

Charles jumped as he turned to look at me, before his expression became serious and he answered "I know that this is serious, and that you've apparently got superpowers now. However, there are dozens of examples across several genres of people getting themselves killed with superpowers they don't know how to use properly. I don't want to see you get killed, so I need to know everything about how you got your powers."

I shrugged, saying "There really isn't much to tell. I met Marco in Vilas Park, we played a card game, he told me about how I was his successor, and then he died."

My roommate put his hand on his chin for a moment, thinking as he stroked his scraggly failed attempt at growing a beard. After a bit, he asked "Alright. So, Marco died and his powers went to you. Did his death look like it was of natural causes? If so, how old was he?"

I answered "Yeah, it looked like a heart attack, or something like it. As for age, he looked like he was probably pushing a hundred, especially given that he mentioned knowing how to do a time stop for around eighty years."

Charles nodded, before continuing "Alright, good. That at least confirms that these abilities probably won't wreck your lifespan. Now, how'd the transfer work? Was there some sort of artifact passed between you, or was it just an instantaneous transfer?"

Thinking about it, I answered "I'm pretty sure the powers are more just something I can do than some sort of magic gizmo. Still, he did give me this." before I took out the thin leather journal and handed it to Charles.

Charles took a quick look at it before reading the introduction. He quickly began reading the book voraciously, muttering to himself as he pored over the volume. I'd seen him go into one of these 'book fugues' before, and I knew that he wasn't going to come out of this unless someone physically removed the book from his hands or he finished.

Given that I would much rather avoid a repeat of the last time I'd interrupted one of these sessions, I opted to simply wait until my roommate finished reading. Still, I couldn't help but smile a bit as I realized that I wouldn't have to spend the whole time waiting. With that thought, I felt my powers activating again, the warmth within me becoming noticeable as I felt time speeding up around me.

Next to me, Charles' motions blurred into unrecognizability as he voraciously devoured the contents of the book. Soon enough, he snapped the book shut, and I released my alterations to the flow of time.

As I returned to normal speed, Charles thrust the book into my arms. With a look that promised pain if I didn't comply, my roommate said "Read the manual. Now. That is an order."

I asked "Now?"

Charles nodded, before answering "Your powers came with an instruction manual. That almost never happens. Reading that and making sure you understand it could save your life, so read the fucking manual. Twice."

And so, I read.

 

[MooGoesCow21]

I remember reading this when you originally put it here im excited to read it again

 

[We Just Write]

Chapter 2

Acclimatization
​

The manual encompassed forty pages of information detailing the essentials of controlling time. It had an in-depth section on the three basic time-altering techniques: namely, time dilation, reversing events that had happened, and jumping through time. Another section detailed what to do in the event of a time paradox… namely that if I just ignored it and carried on with whatever I was doing it would probably sort itself out. Above all else, there was one major theme which was pounded into my head throughout the whole manual over and over again. Namely, as long as it could be achieved with nothing aside from alterations to time, my powers had no limits.

As I closed the manual from my second read-through, Charles asked "So, did you learn anything of use?"

I immediately answered "Yeah. That said, I still think it's crazy that I've basically got absolute chronokinesis. I mean, I've got to have some limits, right? Anyway, yeah, I think I've got this stuff down."

My roommate shook his head slightly and said "I'll be the judge of that. I think it's time for an exam, so can you please pass me the manual?"

I gently tossed the manual to where Charles remained sitting on his bed, and he replied "Thank you, Claire."

I answered "You're welcome." as my roommate opened the book to a random page. A few moments later, I asked "Curiously, since when did you become a teacher?"

My roommate answered "This evening, probably."

I couldn't help but laugh a bit at Charles' echoing my earlier words, before asking "So, what's going to be the first question, professor?"

Charles thought on this, before asking "The first question is: What are the three most basic time control techniques that act as a foundation for everything else?"

I took a few seconds to get my thoughts in order, before I answered "The three basic techniques are the ability to induce time dilation, the ability to reverse events that happen, and flat-out time travel."

My roommate nodded, continuing with "Good. Next question: can you alter a stable time loop?"

It took me a moment to recall the relevant section of the manual, before I answered "Yeah, if I wanted to I could easily beat a predestination paradox. That said, I'd need to know the loop was there in order to change it. Otherwise whatever I'd decide to do would turn out to be whatever already happened anyway."

Charles smiled, saying "Awesome, you're two for two! I'm thinking one more question before we do a practical exam, unless you want to skip straight to that."

I shrugged, before saying "I'm all for more questions, if you want to keep going."

My roommate replied "Okay." there were a few seconds of silence as he perused the menual for something to quiz me on, before he asked "How does an irreconcilable paradox resolve? Like, say, if you wind up killing someone in the past who was already alive in the present."

I immediately replied "The timeline branches, and you wind up with two timelines running parallel to each other. One where the guy's alive, and one where he's dead."

Charles smiled and closed the manual, saying "Good job! Anyway, I do believe it's time for the practical-" before he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

I said "I'll get it." and walked over to greet whoever it was. As I opened the door, I was greeted by someone who I certainly didn't expect, but probably should have. As I stared at my own features, the person who'd just arrived greeted me "Hi Claire, I'm you from a few minutes from now." without even hesitating.

Seeing as that was my face, slightly puffy cheeks, mild case of acne and all, I was inclined to believe her. I invited my double in, closing the door behind… myself as I did so.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the other me asked "Hey Charles, did I pass the practical exam?"

Charles looked up from the manual, and said "Alright, I suppose this is a pretty good indication of what I'm likely to need to deal with whenever you're involved." while gently massaging his temples. There were a few seconds of silence before Charles asked "Alright, which of you is the older one?"

The other me raised her hand in silence. Charles nodded, before saying "You've passed the time dilation and time jumping parts of the test, but I'll still need to see you do a rewind."

Smiling, future me replied "No problem professor!" and charged at Charles in a tackle.

My roommate shrieked as he tried to throw himself out of the way, but it thankfully turned out to be unnecessary, as suddenly time skipped backwards like a DVD with a scratch on it. Once the temporal distortion resolved, my future self was once again standing in the middle of the room, where she'd been before she tried to tackle Charles. Instead of tackling again, she instead began to laugh, putting her hands on her knees as she bent over, practically convulsing with laughter.

I immediately shouted at my future self "Not cool, future me!"

Future me replied "Come on, can you imagine any better way to show off rewinding? Besides, we still needed to pay Charles back for how he embarrassed us in front of our parents during summer vacation."

Charles smiled, saying "Yeah, fair is fair. Besides, in hindsight it was pretty funny. Anyway, Claire the elder: you pass, I'll get you an official time traveler's license by Tuesday, though I expect you to have it by tomorrow at the latest."

My double replied "Alright, that makes sense." as if she'd rehearsed it. She then began bouncing on the trampoline as she asked me "You remember the section in the manual on how to do a time jump, right?"

I replied "Yeah, you're not going to need to walk me through this." with that, I began the mental exercise the manual had suggested for my first few time jumps. I first visualized a timeline in my mind, with one minute increments marked off in blue. Next came a red dot on the line representing my current subjective 'now' followed by a mental image of the hallway where I wanted to arrive. With everything set up, I moved my now dot three minutes towards the past.

The room disappeared as I felt the gentle warmth within me flare up more intensely than it ever had before. There was a moment so brief that I wasn't sure it happened at all when I was in a completely empty lightless void that somehow just felt right to me. As suddenly as it began, my jump ended, leaving me standing in the hallway just outside my room.

Through the door to my room I overheard my past self answering the question about the basic techniques. I waited as Charles asked my past self the next couple questions, when I felt a gentle pressure at the back of my mind that I should knock on the door. I raised my hand to the door without even thinking about it, and was about to knock when I decided that I'd rather do something else and I felt my powers coming to the fore.

I opened the door to my room completely unannounced, and cleared my throat as I entered. Both Charles and my past self suddenly snapped their gazes to me. I felt that pressure to follow along with the loop again, but I once more defied it, informing my past self "Good news; free will still works when time travelling. Also, there's a sort of pull to go along with whatever the loop is, though you can beat it without too much trouble."

Past me nodded as Charles remarked "Well, I guess that answers the question about knowing how to time jump, and I saw you doing time dilation no problem earlier. Still, I'd like to see you doing a rewind, just to make sure you can do those if you need to."

I replied "Sure thing!" and began thinking of how to go about it. I really didn't want to repeat future me's tackle prank, but I still needed to get back at my roommate for that earlier embarrassment. As the idea occurred to me, an evil grin crossed my face and I began walking towards Charles.

My roommate looked distinctly nervous as I came within arm's reach of him, and completely silently, I leaned down and kissed him right on the cheek. A bright red blush quickly flashed across my roommate's face, and I smiled before saying "There's more where that's from if you want it." That done, I focused on my powers, and with a burst of that inner warmth I reversed time for myself until I was standing in the middle of the room.

Charles blushed fluorescently, stammering and stumbling over his own words before he eventually replied "Y-You just kissed me!"

I grinned and replied evilly "Nope, that never happened."

My roommate's blush began to recede, and I asked "So, did I do well on the exam?"

My past self chimed in with "Personally, I'd say you got an A."

That seemed to snap Charles out of it, as he groaned and said "You know what, fine, you pass, especially on the provision that you never speak of this to anyone. Anyway, I'll see if I can make you an official time traveller's license. I'm not sure how long it'll take, but I expect for you to have it by tomorrow at the latest."

My past self picked this opportunity to ask "So, I take it this is about when I should leave?"

I nodded, saying "Yeah, I think Charles only needs to deal with one of us right now. See you again sometime."

Past me replied "Sure thing! See you tomorrow." before they squinted their eyes shut and began muttering to themselves. A few moments passed, before my past self disappeared in a visual distortion that vaguely reminded me of something I'd read about black holes and gravitational lensing. With them gone and the loop closed, I ceased to feel any sort of tug at my actions.

As soon as there was only one of me in the room again, Charles sighed in relief before saying "Claire, it's really late, I'm tired, and I don't want to deal with any more time travel tonight. Please, can we just get dinner and go to bed? It's about the right time for that."

I responded "Sure, mind if I just jump over to some restaurant or other and get us takeout? I think noodles sounds good."

Charles thought for a bit, before answering "In that case I'd like spaghetti and meatballs, as well as whatever soda you feel like getting me." as he handed me a ten dollar bill.

I nodded, and replied "Sure thing, be right back."

I began thinking of the particular venue I wanted, the noodle shop right on University Avenue. Then I moved the dot that was my 'now' squarely to 4:00 PM when they'd be less busy. Another infinitessimally brief trip through that void outside time, and suddenly I was in the restaurant's parking lot, just outside the door. Unsurprisingly, pretty much everyone currently present had turned to look at me suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Honestly, the terms 'stared' or 'gaped' might more accurately describe what they were doing.

I paid them no mind and just walked through the door to the restaurant, getting in line as I waited my turn. When I got to the front, I got a pad thai with chicken, the spaghetti and meatballs Charles wanted, a root beer, and a cream soda. As soon as my food was paid for and ready, I thanked the person behind the counter and jumped back to my room that evening, arriving just to the right of my past self a little bit before my departure.

I cheerfully announced my presence with "I'm back, and I bring food!"

Charles groaned, before saying "I thought you agreed to not do any more time travel tonight?"

I immediately apologized, saying "Sorry! Will hot spaghetti make up for it?"

My roommate facepalmed, before saying "Yeah, I guess."

Past me asked "So, what should I go get?"

I replied "Well, Charles got a spaghetti and meatballs with a root beer, I ordered a pad thai with chicken and a cream soda. Think you can go get that from Noodles and Company?"

My past self replied "Sure thing." and jumped off through time. I was vaguely aware that I now remembered also meeting my future self who'd just come back with dinner, but I had something more important on my mind, namely "Charles, you owe me ten bucks."

Charles looked at me with an expression of disbelief before asking "How in the world does that make sense!?"

I replied "Well, in the original timeline you gave me a ten that I used to pay for your dinner. That didn't happen this go around, therefore you owe me ten dollars."

Charles swore as he passed me the ten dollars, asking "From here on out, can we please agree that debts only exist in the timeline they originated from?"

I passed Charles his spaghetti and root beer, saying "Yeah, I suppose that would be the right thing to do. Sorry for being a bit of a jerk tonight."

My roommate shook his head, saying "Me too." before we began to eat.

Sunday morning, I was gently awoken by someone giving me a backrub. As I blearily rolled onto my back to check who it was, I saw my future self. Honestly, I was going to look like I was nursing a headache and just wanted to go back to bed. I looked at the clock on my nightstand, seeing it was already 11:00 AM. That meant I'd already missed the service up at church, though I could easily rectify that with a bit of time travel. With the brevity that could only come from someone who was still about seventy-five percent asleep, I asked "How far back?"

Future me answered "You should go back about five hours. Now can you please get out of the bed, so I can use it?"

No more encouraging was was needed, and I jumped back to 6:00 AM. The trip through that void outside time was once again infinitessimally brief, but when it came to an end I was feeling significantly more alert than I was before I jumped. Making sure to arrive sitting on the edge of my bed so as not to wake my past self, I began my morning routine.

Without even leaving my room, I could easily perform the stretches I used to get myself focused in the morning. Even better, there was no real risk of alerting either my past self or Charles. Speaking of my roommate, he woke up while I was about halfway through my stretches. As he sat up and yawned, he blearily muttered something along the lines of "No, that can't have been real; there's no way Claire can control time. Must have been a dream."

Seeing an opportunity for a bit of good-natured ribbing, I quietly asked Charles "Please be quiet; I'm still sleeping and I don't want you to wake me up early."

My roommate sluggishly looked between me and the slightly younger me on my bed several times before he groaned and buried his face in his hands. I could hear Charles utter something profane under his breath, before he asked "Could you please not make me think about this stuff early in the morning? I don't like dealing with time travel while I'm still tired."

I replied "Sorry, I'm sleeping in today and I didn't want to miss church. Anyway, I guess we can meet up at breakfast?"

Charles nodded, saying "Yeah, see you then."

A trip through the shower soon transpired, with some time dilation abuse ensuring my hair got dry afterwards a lot faster than normal. With that, I teleported to breakfast. I had just finished serving myself a plate of pancakes when I saw someone walking towards my table. Looking at the brilliant redhead accompanied by a blue-eyed brunette, I came to the realization that I was being approached by a future me with my friend Henrietta in tow.

I turned to future me and asked "So, what caused this loop?"

My future self grinned as she answered "To be completely honest, I haven't got a clue. That said, I just got back from talking with Marco."

My mouth hung just a little bit open as I realized that I could actually do that.

Future me looked longingly at my plate, saying "Anyway, if you would please go talk to him, I think it'll probably help you get over some stuff."

I chuckled, saying "I can take a hint you know. I'll just be leaving the room before porting out so you can eat in peace."

With that, I vacated my seat and walked down the hallway out of the dining hall, teleporting to yesterday's Vilas Park as soon as I was sure no one was looking.

I appeared right in front of Marco as he was setting up the card table and folding chairs. To the old man's credit, he didn't flinch at all, simply greeting me with "Nice to see you again Claire." as he continued to get the chairs and table ready.

Awkwardly, I replied "Nice to see you again too. Do you want any help getting the table set up?"

Marco shook his head and replied "No thank you; I've already gotten everything aside from the last chair ready. Anyway, there's got to be some reason you came back here besides simply wanting to chat."

I began to tear up a bit as I wordlessly nodded, a maelstrom of emotions roiling inside my mind.

Marco saw this, and remarked "Well then, you might as well tell me what you need help with. I don't have much time left, but I'll gladly help you until then."

My emotions surged to the fore and tears filled my eyes as I asked "Why are you willing to die here? You could easily skip to the hospital or off to the far future when they have hyper-advanced medical technology, so why are you willing to die in this park? You yourself said I'd get powers today whether I met you or not."

Marco sighed, before he answered "Claire, this may not make much sense to you, but it's simply my time. I'm easily pushing a hundred, and I might be even older when you account for all the time travel I've done messing up my reckoning of such things. Throughout that, I've saved somewhere on the order of two hundred sapient species from extinction. I'm sick and tired of always being the one who has to save the day, and the only way to pass my powers and responsibilities on to someone else is to die."

I sat down at the now completely set up table, and asked "That's it? You want to pass your powers on to me just so you can stop needing to save the world?"

The old man sat as well, shaking his head as he replied "It's not just that. I'm well past my prime by about forty years. I've had to train constantly just to keep the decline in my abilities from reaching unacceptable levels. For the last few crises I've intervened in, I've been constantly asking myself if this would be the day that I finally slipped up and let a world fall. It's far better for my powers to be in the hands of someone younger who'll be able to use them to their full potential, especially when the threat this time is to Earth."

I could only think to ask the obvious question, saying "What's the threat?"

At this, Marco smiled sadly and answered "I want to tell you, I really do, but the fact of the matter is that the timelines where I told you about the problem in detail just ended in you getting yourself killed. Just focus on developing your powers; you'll be able to instinctively recognize the threat when you first run across it."

I quietly replied "Okay." before I asked "Before I go, do you have any other advice?"

Marco nodded, answering "Yeah, I've got time. My ticker's not going to give out until I let it. That said, I do have one condition." with that, the old man held out the deck of cards and asked "Do you want to deal?"

To this I replied "Sure thing." and began to shuffle.

As I dealt five cards to each of us, Marco told me "Anyway, I've got three major pieces of advice for you. First, there's no need to rush. You've not only got all the time in the world, but all the time in the world distorts at your will. All rushing into things will achieve is screwing things up."

I nodded, saying "Yeah, that makes sense. Do you want to go first?"

The old man smiled, saying "Sure thing." and placing the five of diamonds on the table face up. Smiling, Marco said "Anyway, the second thing that you need to know is that there's never just one Concept involved in a situation like this; there's always at least two. The sooner you find that other Concept's user, the better."

Looking at the card on the table, I asked "Um, don't you have to tell me what that does?"

The old man smiled, saying "Well, it's the five of diamonds, and it's on my Domain, so obviously it's worth five points. Anyway, I do believe it was your turn."

I smiled, saying "That it is." and playing the ten of clubs face up. I replied "Anyway, I add the ten of clubs to my Domain, scoring ten points. Your turn."

Marco smiled, saying "Alright. Anyway, the last bit of advice I've got for you has to do with your powers. Don't think of them as something you can do like you would walking or breathing, think of yourself as having administrator level access to the part of the universe's operating system having to do with time."

As Marco played the four of hearts, I asked "I don't get it. How is thinking of my powers as admin privileges to reality supposed to help?"

The old man replied "Well, first, it means you won't make the mistake of thinking your powers are limited by stamina and exhaustion, which they aren't. Seriously, that's a mistake that's gotten Concept users killed before."

I asked "And the second part?"

Marco smiled, saying "I'm sure you'll figure it out on your own soon enough. Anyway, I do believe we've got a game going?"

Indeed, we did have a game going. Turn after turn progressed with us each adding cards to our domain. Of course, we each kept adding more and more convoluted rules to the game as we went, turning the process of improving our domains into convoluted messes that only got more byzantine as the game progressed. Sadly, the deck soon ran out of cards, and Marco smiled as he said "Well, I do believe that's the game. Time to count up our scores."

In the end, Marco managed to win by a bit more than six thousand points, after all the multiplication and addition was completed. I congratulated the old man, saying "Good game."

Marco smiled, replying "Yes, it was. Anyway, there's still about twenty minutes before your past self shows up, so if you want to stick around for a bit longer that would be much appreciated.

I smiled, saying "Honestly, I'd rather not potentially give my past self conniptions just yet. Is it alright with you if I go back to tomorrow?"

The old man sighed, before saying "Alright. If you want to go now, I won't stop you. Still, I wish you'd stay, just a little bit longer."

I sat back down, saying "Yeah, leaving you alone would be a jerk-ish thing to do. I'll keep you company until my past self gets here."

Marco smiled, saying "Thank you very much. I won't be keeping you long."

As it turned out, when a certain elderly time manipulator said he wouldn't be keeping you long, he really meant it. I felt him greatly reducing our personal time-rate, before abruptly freezing time with a distinctive lurch. As I surveyed the scenery, Marco chuckled a bit as he informed me "Anyway, right now we're about thirty seconds out from your past self showing up, so I won't be alone for very long if you want to leave now."

I smiled, saying "It was nice to see you again Marco."

The old man nodded, silently indicating that it was time for me to go. In the back of my mind, I felt the gentle pressure that was a loop trying to resolve itself form in my mind, and let it guide me through a time jump to the hallway just outside my friend Henrietta's room.

I arrived precisely ten seconds before the door to the room opened and Henrietta stepped out into the hallway, my friend's bright blue eyes lighting up as she greeted me with "Good morning Claire."

I replied "Good morning! Anyway, I've got something I want to show you."

Henrietta asked "Can this possibly wait for breakfast?"

I nodded, and said "Sure, I guess I can wait until breakfast to tell you that I got awesome time powers yesterday."

As we began to walk through the halls of Edgewood College on our way to the dining common, Henrietta laughed a little and asked "Come on Claire, that's ridiculous. There's no such thing as superpowers."

My response to that was to teleport ten feet forwards and about a millisecond into the past, before asking "You were saying?"

Henrietta stopped in her tracks and looked at me silently for a few moments, her jaw hanging open. Eventually, the slim brunette managed to regain her composure as she replied "I stand corrected."

I nodded, and said "Yeah. Anyway, do you want a teleport to lunch, or would you rather walk?"

My friend pointed out "Don't you mean breakfast?" as we began to walk.

I shrugged and replied "If you want. I just got back from yesterday when I met up with you."

Henrietta's immediate response was to loudly ask "Wait, you can time travel!?"

I replied "Yeah. Actually my entire power set could be described pretty much entirely as 'messing with time'. Time travel's only one of the things I can do."

Henrietta groaned, saying "Bullshit. I can buy you having superpowers given that you just teleported in front of me, but I draw the line at time travel!"

I shrugged, saying "Alright, don't believe me. You will when we get to breakfast."

Henrietta shook her head and muttered something under her breath, and we continued to walk to the dining common. When we arrived, I pointed out the table where I was sitting to my friend and said "Anyway, there's my past self."

Henrietta scoffed, saying "Oh really? Let's take a closer look at that." and began walking towards where I had been sitting a subjective hour ago.

I followed my ever-skeptical friend, and as we approached, my past self cheerfully asked "So, what caused this loop?"

I smiled happily as I answered "To be completely honest, I haven't got a clue. That said, I just got back from talking with Marco."

Past me's mouth hung open as she processed that, several moments of silence reigning. Then I felt my stomach grumble, and found myself looking longingly at the plate of food in front of my past self. Hoping for a shot at actually eating breakfast, I said to my past self. "Anyway, if you would please go talk to him, I think it'll probably help you get over some stuff."

My past self chuckled, saying "I can take a hint you know. I'll just be leaving the room before porting out so you can eat in peace."

With that, my past self got up from her seat and left the room on foot. I quickly sat down in the chair I'd recently vacated, feeling the slight disturbance of my past self jumping off to yesterday as I did so.

Henrietta just shook her head and said "Screw it, I'm a believer. I'll just be going to get myself some food now."

With that I ate, delivering fork-fulls of scrambled eggs and hashbrowns to my mouth. Soon enough, Henrietta arrived, with her friend Anbar in tow.

I looked up from my food as the two of them sat down, and greeted them with "Hello there. Welcome to breakfast."

Anbar replied "Hello. I normally don't sit over here, but Henrietta insisted that you had something you wanted to show me."

I looked at my brunette friend, who replied "Don't you have something you wanted to show us? Like, say, time powers?"

I sighed, before I replied "Anbar, you don't believe this ridiculousness, do you?"

Silently, the junior I'd addressed shook her head, her headscarf loosening slightly as she did so. In response, I said "I think I can explain what's going on. Just let me finish eating my food and then we can begin." With that, I brought time to a halt and proceeded to take my time devouring my breakfast.

As soon as I finished, I brought my time stop to an end and informed Anbar "Anyway, Henrietta was telling the truth about my powers, which I will now demonstrate."

With that, I grabbed my knife and teleported into a standing position in the middle of the room and loudly proclaimed to everyone present "HEY! Look at me!" With that, I held out the piece of cutlery in front of me, gave a little twist of my powers, and let go.

The knife stayed absolutely still, which made sense given that I'd locked it in time. Everyone gaped at the blatant impossibility, before one by one they took out their smartphones and began to take pictures and video. After a few moments of this, I proclaimed "I am Claire Stevens, and on the tenth of September I got superpowers." With a thought, I doubled the time-rate for a third of my audience and halved it for another third, saying "What are my powers, you ask? Simple: I have complete control over time."

With that, I released my alterations to my audience's time-rate. I also let the knife fall to the floor, before rewinding it back to its suspended position and grabbing it out of the air, making sure to grab it from a different angle from when I released it.

My demonstration complete, I added "Anyway, I've got places to be." and prepared to teleport to First Unitarian Society. I didn't want to disrupt the service for everyone else, so I opted to instead teleport into a relatively secluded area. In this case, I figured a restroom stall. I teleported, arriving to the sound of a shout of alarm.

Turning around, I saw that I'd arrived in front of someone currently using the stall. My embarrassment was palpable, to the degree that if this were an anime I'd have a gigantic sweat-drop hanging off my face. Regardless of anime tropes the embarrassment I was feeling was something I deeply wished to not have to deal with. I could only think about how much I wanted to have never ported into this stall. My powers surged into a rewind, and I was suddenly back in the university dining hall.

This time I arrived in the stall to the left of the one I'd just undid my arrival into, I stepped out of the bathroom and into the main church building. Today's service was going to be the annual water communion, and I did not want to miss it. I also didn't want to wreck the service for everyone else, so I carefully refrained from using my powers during the service.

I entered the auditorium's lower level and made my way to a seat, realizing as I sat down that I didn't have a sample of water to add to the collection cistern. Thankfully, these services generally had tap water on hand for people who didn't bring any, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be asked to elaborate much on what occasion it was supposed to represent.

Pretty soon, I got to the front of the line to contribute to what would become the First Unitarian Society's holy water supply for this year. I couldn't come up with something to say that didn't sound corny or overly pretentious, so I simply added my water in silence, before walking back to my seat.

After the service I met up with Stephany in the gathering space just outside the auditorium, greeting her with "Hello Stephany! I come bearing good news!"

My friend Stephany was most definitely interesting. She was a few years younger than me at age nineteen, and her long hair was a vibrant neon pink. The young woman still insisted it was her natural hair color, even though I'd found the bottle of hair dye the last time I'd visited her dorm room. As far as Stephany's behavior went, she was a notorious prankster, though she mostly targeted her schemes at people she felt were abusing others. If you cared about technicalities, I was technically a good influence on her, though only by comparison.

My pink haired friend turned to me before remarking "Whenever you say that, it generally means you have some sort of crazy adventure planned that you want me to help you with." a knowing grin adorning her face.

I replied "Not this time, I've got actual news to tell you."

Stephany looked curious, asking "Um, what do you want to tell me?"

I answered "Yesterday, I got superpowers. More specifically, I can control time."

My friend just looked at me with an eyebrow raised, before asking "You're shitting me, right?"

In response, I stopped time and took a step to the left, before restarting time and saying "Nope, I'm completely serious."

As Stephany started in surprise, I asked her "Can you please not make a big deal of this? I'm still me, just with some new tricks."

Stephany's mouth moved as if she was trying to force something out, before she eventually replied "Okay."

I smiled, before asking "So, is there any time you want a trip to?"

Stephany shook her head, saying "Not right now. I need a bit more time to think about this. Thanks for the offer though."

I replied "Alright. Talk to you later?"

Stephany replied "Yeah, I think that makes sense." before she wandered off to get something to drink.

About an hour passed after that, with me talking to various people about stuff that had little relation to the whole 'I just got superpowers' thing. Still, it came to an end, and I left First Unitarian Society.

This is about when my earlier showing off came back to bite me, as the instant I left the building I was faced with a veritable army of reporters and news agents, with television cameras filling the ranks like artillery back in the days of Napoleon. I could make out people from CNN, Fox, NBC and several other news stations I didn't recognize.

As the reporters surged forwards, I suddenly realized why future me had looked so dishevelled. This was going to suck.

 

[We Just Write]

Chapter 3

Immediacy​

It took around two hours, but the various news crews eventually had to leave. About ten minutes in, I'd taken to freezing all but one news crew in time at a time, which reduced the sensory overload factor. That said, it was still a really unpleasant experience, and several times during the ordeal I'd wondered to myself why I didn't just teleport out. Ultimately, the reason I came up with for myself was that teleporting away would just be putting the problem off for later. The fact that I'd never have to actually arrive at 'later' did occur to me, but that struck me as both cowardly and boring.

Still, the instant the various reporters all began comparing footage to try and get at the questions that only one of them had been able to ask, I immediately dived into the relative safety of the void outside time and came out in my room at Edgewood college. As I arrived, I saw past me still occupying the bed, lying on her front. It took a bit for it to click what I was looking at. Not really seeing any reason to change things, I allowed the loop to close as I gently rubbed past me's back.

Eventually, past me woke up and rolled over so she could see me. It took roughly thirty seconds, but eventually she asked, "How far back?"

I answered "You should go back about five hours. Now can you please get out of the bed, so I can use it?" Without any further fanfare, past me quickly skipped off through time, vacating the bed in the process. As soon as the blankets were empty I began getting ready for a nap, and inside five minutes I was fast asleep.

I woke up an hour later, feeling much less worn out than I had when I started my nap. I quickly got dressed again and made my way down to the dining hall to get lunch. I could have just teleported, but I figured that I could use the exercise. Besides, I might meet someone on the way, which wouldn't happen if I teleported. That said, as soon as I reached the stairwell I heard what sounded like… chanting? My curiosity got the better of me, and I diverted my course to investigate.

I easily followed the sound, finding myself right outside Henrietta's dorm room. As I got close to the door I could finally make out what the people inside were saying.

"And thus Claire the savior ascended to the temporal plane, gaining control over..."

As I realized what was going on I facepalmed hard enough that it hurt. Thankfully, the pain didn't last long as I reflexively reverted time to just before I slapped myself in the face and decided against it. The absolute last thing I needed pestering me was a freaking cult.

I brought time to a halt as I opened the door and stepped through, before allowing events to flow once more as the door clicked shut. When I saw who was in the room, my hopes that Henrietta wasn't involved were dashed against the unforgiving rocks of reality.

Seriously, Henrietta, what are you doing!? The room looked to have been converted into an improvised chapel, Henrietta wearing a blue robe as she stood behind a lectern in the corner. There were eight people in the room besides myself, all of whom were wearing stopwatches as pendants.

I had a hunch as to what the people here were up to, but I couldn't confirm it unless the other people in the room could reply. Sighing as I did so, I allowed time to flow again and asked Henrietta "Seriously? Weren't you really skeptical about all this time-warping stuff? Also, what's with the cult?"

In response, Henrietta simply replied "Hey, you're the only verifiably real supernatural being on the planet. As far as I'm concerned, your time-warping abilities are a lot more convincing than any of the miracles from any of the major religions, so I figured you'd be as good a goddess as any. As for the Order of Time, they all pretty much agree with me, given your showing off in the dining common."

I groaned, before saying "But I haven't done anything worthy of worship yet!"

The brunette with delusions of priesthood replied "But we know you will; I know you well enough to know that if you can possibly help save or improve someone's life you'll do it. That probably won't change now that you can wrap cause and effect around your pinky finger."

Hearing Henrietta's justification only increased my indignation over having attracted a cult. I replied once more "Look, I haven't done anything really important, I don't have any big world-changing revelations, I'm just me."

There were a few moments of silence before Henrietta got up and gently put her hand on my shoulder, asking "So you don't consider verifiably breaking reality over your knee to be important?"

I hesitantly replied "Not really."

Henrietta smiled as she shook her head, saying "Typical; you've completely upended the entire scientific consensus on what's possible, and you don't consider it important."

My answer was "Well yeah; it's just that I haven't really gotten around to using my powers for saving the world or something like that. Yeah, people reacting to what I've done is probably going to change the world in big ways, but I haven't gone and actually changed the course of history directly."

Henrietta shook her head, before asking "Can I ask you a question?"

Seeing an opportunity for a bit of wordplay, I said "Well, you just did, so the answer should be obvious."

My friend chuckled as she said "I walked right into that one. Anyway, what I wanted to ask you was a hypothetical question."

I nodded, and the self-proclaimed priestess continued "Let's say that there's some new disease going around, and there isn't a cure yet. Thousands of people have already been infected, and unless they get the cure they're almost certainly going to die in horrible agony. What would you do in this situation?"

I immediately answered "I'd go to the future to get the cure, then bring it back to a few months before the disease undergoes a major outbreak. That way, no-one gets sick in the first place."

Henrietta nodded, before saying "That's a miracle you'd have just performed there by just about any standard. Face it, as far as us mere mortals are concerned, you're a full-fledged goddess."

I briefly considered this for a second before I answered "No, I'm not a deity! There is no possible way that I could possibly be an immortal divine being, especially considering that the previous user of my abilities died of old age. The only difference between me now and me a few days ago is that now I can control time."

Henrietta smiled as she countered "Well that just makes you a mortal divine being, doesn't it? Don't worry, you'll make a better Goddess than pretty much any of the ones with established religions already."

I'd had enough of this. Groaning in exasperation, I told Henrietta "Stop worshipping me. For the last time, I'm not a divine being and I have no desire to be treated like one." before I teleported to the dining hall a few minutes before everyone else would get there to pick up my lunch.

I'd already gotten about a third of the way through my food when Charles sat down across from me. He looked frazzled, there was a certain sluggishness to his movements and his hair was slightly messed up from what had been a well-combed part.

As I saw the state my friend was in I asked "Are you OK Charles? You don't look too good."

Charles shot me an exasperated glare before he remarked "Fucking reporters. They kept asking me questions about you and your powers for over an hour, and they wouldn't go away."

I winced in sympathy as I remarked "Yeah, I got jumped by several dozen of them at once as I was leaving church today; they harassed me for about two hours. I'm not sure why they'd have bothered you though."

Charles sighed sadly before he remarked "I'm pretty sure they bothered me because of you. After all, I'm roommates with the only confirmed metahuman on earth at the moment and they probably wanted some first-hand info as to what living with you was like."

I groaned as I replied "Those scumbags! I can sort of excuse them coming after me given my weirdness, but dragging you into this mess was just wrong!" a hint of anger slipping into my voice in the process.

My room-mate took his turn to speak, saying "Tell me about it. Actually, please don't; maybe it'll go away if I ignore it."

There were a few minutes of relative silence as we ate, with my mashed potatoes blending amazingly well with the gravy that came with my chicken. Sadly, I was too grumpy over the ordeal the media had put me and Charles through to really enjoy it. Eventually though, an idea for dealing with the problem occurred to me and I asked "Maybe we could get a restraining order or something like that?"

Charles gently shook his head as he replied "Maybe, my dad's a lawyer. If we're going to do this, then we should probably talk to him."

Thinking on the matter I replied "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

Once we were done with lunch, Charles called his dad. Thankfully he picked up; I'd honestly thought the hard part would be convincing him that this was real, but he'd probably seen the news already. Soon enough the call came to a close, and Charles told me "Alright, my dad'll be open for the next half hour or so. Do you think you can teleport to his location?"

I replied "Yeah, but I'd have to know where he is first."

Charles' smile brightened as he opened up google maps on his phone, commenting "My dad lives in San Francisco, think you can port to here?" showing me an intersection somewhere between North Beach and the financial district. To be more precise, it was showing the place where the local road named Broadway and a road called Battery Street crossed.

I answered "Yeah." before I jumped to the designated location and a minute into the past, but with one very important change. As I jumped, I visualized a second dot on the timeline representing Charles, and moved him with me.

I arrived on the sidewalk under one of the trees that had been planted for shade, the intersection directly in front of me. Across Battery Street was a grey block of a building with a television transmitter on its roof, and as I turned around I saw a Subway restaurant. I also saw my roommate sprawled on his backside and cursing up a storm.

I leaned down to help him up, and asked "So, did you enjoy the ride?"

As he got up, Charles answered "Screw you Claire, that was terrifying!"

I hurriedly apologized, saying "Sorry! I promise to ask you if you want a teleport from here on out."

Charles shook his head as he replied "Apology accepted. Anyway, dad's going to be coming outside to meet us in not too long. Maybe a minute or two."

Not much happened before Charles spotted his father in the crowd and waved to them. The man who came over had pale skin and grey hair, but his deep brown eyes disproved the idea that he was an albino. His short beard was obviously well cared-for, and his face was only mildly wrinkled.

As he approached, the man asked "Charles? I hadn't expected you to be here; you wouldn't have suddenly developed superpowers without telling me would you?"

Charles shook his head as he replied "No dad, I don't have any powers. It's just that Claire here decided to use me as a test subject for bringing passengers through her teleports without telling me."

At this point I opted to introduce myself, saying "Hello. As your son so helpfully pointed out, I'm Claire Stevens."

The man nodded before introducing himself with "And my name is Andrew, but you may call me Mr. Brown during formal occasions."

I replied "Nice to meet you Mr. Brown."

Andrew nodded before he commented "Anyway, there was something you wanted my help with, and it's best if we do that in my office. Please, follow me."

I answered "Sure." as we made our way towards Mr. Brown's office.

We soon arrived, and as Andrew sat down behind a massive desk that looked to be made out of teak, he asked "So, you've obviously got some variety of problem that needs someone with my expertise. Would you care to tell me what it is?"

Sitting up straight, I answered "Put quite bluntly, ever since news of my powers got out this morning, the media's been hounding me and Charles constantly. Could you please help make it stop?"

Mr. Brown nodded, before he said "Miss Stevens, In order to do as good a job of this as possible, I'm going to have to ask you some questions."

I nodded my assent, and Mr. Brown asked "First, could you please tell me in detail exactly what the various parties that you want to get a restraining order for did to you?

I began to describe what had happened, beginning an hour-long session in which Charles and I discussed every single aspect of our publicity-inflicted ordeal with his father.

As we finished explaining what we had been through, Andrew looked thoughtful before he remarked "I do believe getting an injunction would help, and it would be fairly straightforward to accomplish given the pile of evidence for harassment. With a bit of luck you can probably even wring a few dozen grand out of them, if you're interested in doing so."

Charles and I made eye contact before I answered "Yes, we would very much appreciate that."

At this, Mr. Brown nodded, before asking "Alright, so, which news network are you trying to get an injunction for?"

To this I answered "Ideally, all of them, if that's what it takes to not get jumped by reporters on a regular basis."

Andrew's eyebrows shot up before he answered "I don't think you'll need to go that far, nor do I think you'd win if you tried to sue an entire industry. If you just sue one or two of the biggest offenders to make an example, the rest should back off."

Charles looked at me as he commented "In my opinion, we should just follow my dad's advice on this one; he's the expert after all."



Within an hour, we'd hammered out a plan of action for dealing with the media's harassment. With the end of our ordeal in sight we were in much better spirits, good enough for Charles to jokingly ask "So, about that time traveller's license?"

I replied "I'll go get it right now; I should be back in about half a second."

Just before I jumped, two instances of future me arrived. One of them walked over to Andrew's desk and informed him "Mr. Brown, I'm here to return your revolver after borrowing it." while producing the aforementioned sidearm and handing it across the desk grip-first. I couldn't get a clear look at it from here, but it was painted jet black.

My other future self walked over to me and said "Past-me, you really need to see when we just were, but it's going to be dangerous."

Towards the back of the room, I could hear Mr. Brown remark "Well, this is most definitely my gun, but I don't recall lending it to you yet."

All three of me replied in unison "Time travel."

Curious, I asked "Um, what's the big deal with the gun and everything?"

To this, my closer future self replied "We found the threat. We've also got a lead on the other Concept user."

This is when Andrew intervened in the conversation I was having with myself, saying "If you'll excuse me, it's clear that I've gotten my gun back in good condition and you're probably going to need it, so I see no point in not lending you my revolver." With that, he passed me a handgun, more specifically a large revolver with a matte black finish.

As I turned the weapon over in my hand, Andrew informed me "That is a custom-made .44 Magnum Colt Anaconda with a four inch barrel. I keep it loaded, so please be careful with it."

I accepted the weapon and made sure the safety was on before I pocketed it. As soon as that was done, near future me asked "So, are you ready to go?"

I nodded before saying "Say, you never did tell me when we were going to."

Future me grimaced as she replied "Tuesday, back in Madison. Don't jump on your own, let me take you."

I nodded as future me pulled me into a tight embrace. She asked "Are you ready to go?"

My reply was a simple "Yes."

Future me interjected "Liar. Admit it, you're scared out of your mind about what we're going to find."

I admitted it, saying "Yeah, of course, you probably know that from experience."

Without any further delay, we jumped.

 

[We Just Write]

Chapter 4

Encounter

​

Future me and I arrived in Vilas park near the entrance to the zoo. Even though I'd been here several times before, the place just felt subtly wrong. The air was as cold as if it were the middle of winter, and I could feel a biting cold slowly penetrating the soles of my shoes. Future me immediately began running towards the east, shouting,"Come on, we need to get out of here before we get frostbite!"

As we dashed forwards, I asked "Why aren't we teleporting!?"

My legs continued to pound the ground beneath me as future me answered "Two reasons. First, the things that did this can detect it when we use our powers; that nearly got a previous loop-self killed. Second, we really need to see what the creatures that did this can do up close."

I shuddered, partially from the cold and partially from fear as we continued on. We soon left the park, the ground still driving spikes of cold through my shoes as we ran past a large parking garage. As we continued down the road, I asked, "What about using a car?"

Future me shook her head as she remarked, "Shame we don't have any idea how to hotwire a car. Besides, they wouldn't run properly anyway after what the abominations did to them."

There were a few seconds of delay before future me added "Yeah, they're just… ugh."

The instant she finished saying that is when we started to see the corpses. The sidewalks as we ran to the south were littered with the inanimate forms of those who had fallen, but they certainly hadn't died of any normal cause. They were locked in whatever position they'd been in when they died, most of them running for their lives. Even worse, they didn't bear any kind of visible wound. It was like they'd just… stopped, but that couldn't be the case, seeing as I couldn't feel any distortions of time and some of the dead had fallen over.

Even with this disturbing sight we had to keep running, the cold was penetrating deeper and deeper into my feet and I didn't want to stop for fear that I wouldn't be able to get going again. If it really came to it we could teleport, but that would instantly alert the enemy to our location.

We were running through a residential district now, and I could see something moving up ahead at a T intersection. It was a bright red color with splashes of blue and green, and as I got closer I could see that it was some variety of six-legged creature covered in feathers. Its eyes were large and expressive, and its face was flat and chubby like it had just crawled out of an animated kid's TV show.

I absolutely despised it, and future me seemed to agree as she whipped out our borrowed revolver. The trigger was pulled and the bullet flew downrange, before time skipped back and the bullet perforated the abomination again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The monster ahead of us effectively disintegrated in a puff of feathers as it released a pitiful chirping sound. There were another few seconds before future me suddenly swore "Dammit, you're right! That thing managed to get off a telepathic distress call!"

I was disconcerted by the fact that I would apparently start hearing voices that weren't there in the near future, but I couldn't help asking "Distress call?"

My future self grumbled as they remarked "Short answer, these things can talk to each other directly mind to mind, and they're smart enough to use it. We're probably going to get ambushed; time stops only slow these things down, so don't think you can just blast them all with impunity."

I grimaced as I looked over my shoulder, a sense of foreboding seeping through me as I did so. There weren't any of the abominations there to pursue us, but my paranoia only ratcheted up even further.

This proved justified as we dashed past the end of Short Street, with dozens more of the monsters seeming to crawl straight out of the ground ahead of us at the next intersection. A bit of paranoia had me check to the left, seeing that even more of the creatures had appeared at the end of Short Street.

Reflexively I brought time to halt, only to see that my future self was right and the creatures were still moving, albeit much slower. They slowly opened their mouths as I drew the gun I was carrying and opened fire, reverting it to conserve ammo as I downed three of them. There was a flicker of movement and I instinctively threw myself to the side as transparent pulses of wrongness erupted from the throats of the remaining abominations and I lost feeling in my right arm.

Before I could even look at what had happened to my arm, I reverted time around the affected limb and feeling returned. Now that my shooting arm was usable again I brought the gun up again, and sent the bullet downrange. As the round slammed home, I instantly reversed time to when I'd fired, resulting in me having a fresh bullet, and the abomination still having a hole in it. I fired again and again, sending a spray of a singular bullet towards the horde of monstrosities.

The abominations on our flank went down as future me shouted "Screw it, we're porting! Hold on tight!" and grabbed my hand. I looked ahead only to see dozens of the creatures had arrived, most of which were the size of pickup trucks, bony plates covering their bodies instead of feathers. Yeah, no way was the revolver going to kill those things.

We arrived roughly half a mile south at Bowman Field, and the first thing I noticed was that I could actually feel some warmth in the air. We were right next to the road, and as I looked to the north I could see more of the abominations. Thankfully these ones were being held back by a veritable wall of other creatures and what looked to be several tanks.

Future me pointed to a group of soldiers up ahead and remarked "Those are the guys we want to talk to. Follow me."

I obligingly followed as we approached the defensive line. As we approached, the air gradually grew colder and the sounds of persistent gunfire grew louder. We soon approached within earshot and future me called out to the soldiers "Hello there!"

One of the troops briefly looked at us over his shoulder before he grumbled "I'll deal with the dumbass civilians." and walked in our direction. Soon enough the man addressed us "What are you two doing here? Can't you see that it's dangerous in there!? Go home before you two get killed."

Future me just remarked "Nice to see you too, Tom", before she teleported to right beside him, adding "Good thing we weren't planning on going in there anyway."

The now named Tom looked shocked for a few seconds before recognition dawned on his face and he asked "You're Claire Stevens, aren't you?"

I butted in before future me could answer with "Yep, both of us. She's been through this before, I haven't." suddenly, something occurred to me as I thought to ask "Future me, why in the world did we jump straight into the middle of the danger zone!?" belatedly realizing that I'd started shouting sometime during that.

Future me took a few seconds to respond "We needed to learn firsthand just what those things could do. Just hearing about something isn't the same as seeing it for yourself."

I shot back "You just did it because the previous loop-instance did it, didn't you?"

Future me deflated a bit as she quietly admitted "Yeah, I did."

Tom stepped in now as he cleared his throat and remarked "While all of this is very interesting, unless you have some sort of business being here, you need to leave."

Future me nodded, before she replied "Yeah, there's someone very specific we need to bring back to the past with us; we're hoping to put a stop to this before it even begins, and we'll need their help to do it. Fay, you can come out now."

Tom looked shocked and I felt my mouth hanging slightly open as a glowing green orb floated out of future me's chest and soon resolved into a dark-skinned woman roughly 6 inches tall. The figure proceeded to fly up to eye level and salute as she said "Private Fay reporting for duty!"

Tom took a step back as this process repeated itself with him, a green sphere of energy emerging and coalescing into the very same miniature dark-skinned woman. Fay's apparent past self, was apparently skeptical of this whole situation as she questioned the other her "So, you're supposed to be my future self? What's the password?"

The miniscule figure who'd apparently been inside future me replied "The password's Mitosis. Nice to meet me!" as she floated there I spotted a haze behind her shoulders that looked something like a pair of wings fluttering so fast I couldn't really see them.

I couldn't help but ask "So, you're the first fairy I've ever met. How come I've never heard of you guys before?"

To this the elder version of Fay replied "Well, we were only made yesterday, so that makes sense."

I pushed for a bit more information by asking "Makes sense, but in that case, who made you?"

The version of Fay that had been riding with Tom answered "Oh, we were made by Life, though she kept insisting on being called Marie for some reason."Though she was still talking, the rest of what the little fairy was saying was drowned out by the background noise associated with heavy military hardware in use. To be more specific, one of the large bear-like creatures lobbed some variety of fleshy-looking projectile into a cluster of abominations, and the cannons on top of the tanks followed it up, very loudly reducing that particular group of monstrosities to paste.

As the noise subsided I noted "Sorry, but I don't think I caught all of that. Could you please repeat it?"

Fay nodded and replied "OK! What I was trying to tell you was that I and the other fairies were made by Life, but for some reason Life wanted to be called Marie. I also wasn't ever expecting a visit from Time."

In the background, Tom's commanding officer presumably said something over the radio, as Tom's face went grim before he sprinted back to the fortification he'd previously been manning.

Meanwhile I was still conversing with Fay, replying "Please, call me Claire. Is there any chance we could meet Marie?"

Fay sadly shook her head as she answered "No, Life's dead. The monsters took her out as a priority target, and there wasn't enough left of her Marie-ness to revive her."

Future me chuckled as she reminded past-Fay "That's not going to be much of a problem, we can just go back before it happened and save her!"

With that, the younger of the two Fays nodded and replied "I'll just come with you, then?"

I nodded, and Fay phased into me as that little glowing green orb. There was a small surge of warmth similar to when I'd gotten my powers, and I heard Fay speak in the back of my mind saying "Alright, I'm cozied right up next to your soul, so I should go with you when you jump."

I nodded, and said "Time to jump back, right?"

Future me replied "Yeah, let's go."

I nodded, and jumped back to Andrew's office on Sunday.

As I and future me arrived, I allowed the loop to play out as it had the previous time; I didn't trust myself to not screw up horribly if I deviated. Still, I finally found out why I'd seen myself apparently talking to thin air; Fay was chatty, and I couldn't really help but to reply.

For instance, after my comment about the cars not running, I heard Fay's voice echoing in my mind as she remarked "Yeah, those abominations destroy Life wherever they go, even in inanimate objects"

Soon enough, the loop completed, and I returned Andrew's gun to him just as my past selves departed.

The instant the loop closed with the departure of my past selves, I looked Charles and Andrew in the eyes in turn, and informed them, "If we don't do something, Madison will become a warzone in two days at best. I need your help figuring out how to do something about it, fortunately, I brought back a new friend."

Charles and Andrew were silent for a few seconds as Fay emerged and introduced herself, before Charles broke the silence as he remarked "You know, I would normally be really weirded out by you bringing back a fairy from the future, but at this point if it involves you I just don't care anymore."

Andrew looked significantly more surprised by this whole mess than his son, but he still asked "I'm really not the right person to talk to about military strategy, but I'll help as much as I can. So, what can you tell us about Tuesday in Madison?"

I grimaced, answering "There's some sort of monster infestation that's about to hit. Those things do something that makes machines and living things just... stop working. It was freezing cold in their 'territory' too."

Charles took the opportunity to inquire "What did those things look like? Also, would you please tell us where Fay came from?"

Fay butted in at this point as she flitted around the room "I was made by Life! She's a bit like Time, except that she's Life instead of Time. She also gave me some of her powers."

And thus the conversation ground to a halt. Eventually I asked "Gave you some of her powers?"

Fay nodded enthusiastically as she replied "Yeah! I would've dissipated in a few minutes otherwise."

I looked blankly at Fay, who eventually asked "You didn't know you could do that, did you?"

I silently shook my head, which was answer enough.

Fay perked up as she said "Oh good, that means I get to teach you all about Aspecting. Your friend here should make a good test subject."

Charles silently gestured to himself, a look of silent dread on his face.

The fairy grinned as she replied "Oh don't worry, the worst that could happen is your soul imploding, and that's nothing Time couldn't reverse."

I shared a glance with Charles silently asking my friend if he could think of any possible way out of this.

His silent reply was a firm 'no'.

 

[We Just Write]

Chapter 5

Aspect Ratio​

Charles sat up straight in his chair as I gently placed my hands on his head in the position Fay had told me. I focused on the warmth that I knew to be my powers, and as I felt them surge up I tried to shove some of it into Charles.

I grimaced as the warmth within me stubbornly refused to enter my friend, complaining "Fay, this isn't working."

The fairy who'd been responsible for me, Charles, and Andrew spending the last subjective hour doing this replied "I could have sworn that's how Life described Aspecting. Seriously, it shouldn't be this hard."

I couldn't help but release some of my frustration as I snapped back "Well, this isn't working, so I'm going to ask someone who's certain to know."

Charles groaned as Fay asked "But who would that be? I'm the only one here with any experience with Aspecting."

In response I said "Not for long you won't be." before I shouted to thin air "Hey, Future me! Would you mind telling me how you managed to Aspect Charles?"

My future self obligingly appeared on the other side of Charles from me, my roommate flinching slightly in response to my arrival.

I gestured to my friend, and future me walked over before saying "Past me, you're thinking about this wrong. The way you're thinking about Aspecting isn't quite what you're actually trying to achieve."

I replied "Yes it is, I'm trying to share my powers with Charles."

Future me shook her head and chuckled, asking me "No, think, what's the desired end result here? You're not trying to break a chunk of your powers off; you can't break a set of permissions into pieces."

I thought about this for several seconds, before all the pieces just clicked. I informed Charles "Hold still, this time it's going to work."

My roommate obligingly sat up ramrod straight as I brought my hands to his head again. I felt the warmth surge up once more, but this time I didn't try to shove it into Charles. Instead, I thought back to that admin privileges analogy. Now, all I did was try to give him his own set of login credentials.

Charles gasped as I felt a sort of buzzing feedback shoot through me, before something snapped into place on some level of reality. Charles shot out of his chair in a blur of time dilation, before I stepped in and synchronized his personal time-rate with the rest of the room.

As Charles was brought back to the time-rate Andrew and I were occupying, he exclaimed "Oh, god was that a rush. Seriously, it felt like I was riding one of those big coasters over at Six Flags, but turned up to eleven."

I grinned, and was about to make a comment when my voice came out of thin air, shouting "Hey, Future me! Would you mind telling me how you managed to Aspect Charles?"

I looked at future me, who nodded. I groaned, not really wanting to have to go through telling my past self how to go about Aspecting someone. Still, before I jumped, a truly dastardly idea to both inform my past self and not have to time travel occurred to me. With the merest flex of my powers, I shouted back in time to past me "You're thinking about it wrong!"

Past me obligingly shouted through time at me "Oh really? Care to explain how?"

I shouted back "Trying to shove your power into Charles isn't going to work!"

Charles, Andrew and future me looked on what was going on with confusion as past me asked "Yeah, I got that already, now how about some advice?" while still staying firmly in the past.

At this point, future me asked "Past me, what are you doing?

Both me and my past self responded with "You stay out of this!" simultaneously, before I informed my past self "Think; our powers are like admin permissions. All you need to do is give Charles a user profile."

Past me's voice came back with "Thanks! That worked great!" and the room went silent.

Eventually, future me managed to get out "But… didn't you have to loop around to become me?"

I responded with a deliberately childish "Nah, don't wanna." a shit-eating grin adorning my face as I did so.

The room was silent for several seconds, Andrew having an expression of sheer shock on his face, Fay's mouth hanging open, Charles' eyebrows desperately trying to leave through the ceiling, and even my not-quite-future self looking rather surprised.

Eventually, the mood in the room returned to something somewhat serious as I replied "Alright, now that I've finished doubling the number of Concept users we have available, there's a couple of really important things we need to do. We've got to find Marie, and we've got to get around to teaching Charles how to use his new powers."

Stephany added "Also, we've got to recruit and train me and Henrietta."

I replied "Yes, we've definitely got to do that too." It took several seconds before I realized that something was off and slowly turned around. Sure enough, the pinkette from church was standing there, grinning. A bit confused, I asked "Stephany? How did you even get here?"

The pinkette from church grinned as she replied with the obvious but completely unhelpful answer of "Time travel."

I thought on this for a bit, before I replied "Alright, it's obvious I'm going to Aspect you some time before Tuesday. When's it going to be?"

Stephany smiled as she informed me "You met up with me just after you walked out into the mob of reporters, after that I met up with you and the other two over in Vilas Park for some training."

I nodded, before gesturing to my used-to-be-future-self and asking her "Hey, could you go Aspect Stephany please? I'll handle recruiting Henrietta."

My alternate nodded, saying "Sure, I'll be back now."

There was a flicker as the other me jumped away and came back barely a subjective millisecond later, cheerfully saying "Done! Your turn!"

Looking at the room I nodded, before dispelling the time stop I'd put it in. As I did so I commented "I think it's time for us all to head back to Madison. I'll bring Charles along for the ride since he doesn't have the hang of his powers just yet, but I think the rest of us can teleport on our own."

Andrew nodded, before he informed me "Before you go, I've got some advice."

I nodded, and the lawyer continued "Stay safe, and get yourself a weapon."

I thought about it for a second, before I asked "Can I see your pistol for a few seconds?"

Andrew sighed as he said "Didn't you just borrow my gun already?" still, he passed me the gun, which I gripped by the barrel.

I nodded, saying "Thank you very much." With the pistol safely in my grip, I made a mental note to send the pistol back in time in a few seconds. Sure enough, a second copy of the gun appeared in thin air, which I grabbed before it could hit the ground. That done, I immediately shirked any responsibility to complete the loop, leaving me with two functioning pistols.

With my abuse of the time stream complete for now, I handed back the version of the pistol that hadn't been subjected to any time travel, saying to Andrew "Thanks for the pistol; I'll take good care of it."

Charles' father nodded, saying "You're welcome. However, I have to ask how you're going to store that revolver when you aren't using it."





I replied "Well, I've got an idea I wanted to test for how to use my powers, and if it works I should be able to store this away without anyone ever realizing it's there." With that, I thought of that void I travelled through whenever I time travelled. I wondered - could I actually leave something there? I gave a flex of my powers, and the revolver disappeared outside time; another twist, and the firearm returned.

Stephany applauded as she said "Cool! Nice to see you managed to get hammertime working without any pointers."

I sighed, saying "I hadn't even come up with a name for it yet, and you came up with something that's absolutely perfect for it."

Stephany grinned as she replied "Yep."
This is about when my alternate asked "You stole it from our future selves, didn't you."

The pinkette's grin turned positively shit-eating as she said "Guilty as charged. That said, can you come up with a better name for it?"

I sighed, before I remarked "So, now that I've made sure we can be armed as needed, let's head back to Madison! Charles, could you please come over here?"

Charles nodded, and I pulled him into a hug after he walked over to me. I was about to jump, before other me also came up behind him and made it into a group hug. Stephany also darted over in a blur of time dilation, turning the hug into a four-way with Charles in the middle.

As I prepared to jump us all to the dining hall at Edgewood College, I could hear Charles muttering "I am not a harem protagonist. I am not a harem protagonist." under his breath.

Mentally making a note to tease Charles about that for as long as we lived, I jumped us all to Edgewood College's dining hall about an hour after lunch.

As we arrived, I told my friends "You three go do whatever, I'm going to go find Henrietta." and walked off.

As I was leaving, I heard Stephany mention "Anyway, I need to go close the loop that lead to me visiting you down in San Francisco. See you earlier." before she ported away.

Proceeding, I did some thinking about where to find Henrietta, and my thoughts drifted back to that temple of me she'd turned her room into. Eh, she'd probably stuck around for a while after I left. I ported to the hallway just outside her room just in time to hear my past self say "-and have no intention of being treated like one."

I sighed, having been suddenly reminded of Henrietta's insistence that I was a goddess of some sort. Still, she'd almost certainly be OK with helping me save the world from those abominations, given how supportive she'd tried to be. Having made up my mind, I put the world on fast-forward and waited until Henrietta came out of her room.

As Henrietta left her impromptu temple to me, she asked "Didn't you just go to lunch? As my classmate did so, I replied "Well, that was actually my past self from… a few hours ago, I think? Anyway, I've got some good news."

Henrietta nodded, and gestured for me to continue, I obliged, saying "Your Cleric just leveled up. Now hold still."

Before the blue-eyed brunette could react, I'd brought time to a halt and surged forwards. My hands came up to the sides of Henrietta's head, and I quickly went about the process of setting up my friend with a set of permissions. Once the job was done, I returned to my previous position and allowed time to flow once more.

Much like Charles had, Henrietta spasmed around for a few external seconds in a blur of time dilation before I smoothed out her personal time. Henrietta quickly regained her composure, asking "Claire? What the hell did you just do to me!?"

I answered "Long story short, I gave you superpowers. Now hold on tight, because I'll be bringing you down to Vilas Park." before I grabbed Henrietta in a bear hug and jumped us there.

Henrietta's response to all this was to hold absolutely still for several seconds as she tried to process what had just happened. Idly, I waved my hand in front of her face, only for Henrietta to make no response. Slowly, the brunette pitched backwards.

I darted forwards to catch Henrietta and gently set her down. As soon as she was resting on the ground I called out "Fay? What just happened?"

There was no response, and I facepalmed as I realized that I'd wound up accidentally leaving Fay back in San Francisco. Ugh, I didn't want to go through everything I'd done since leaving again, and stopping by to pick her up after I'd already forgotten her would be really embarrassing.

Sitting criss-crossed next to Henrietta's unconscious form I decided, that no, I had in fact remembered to pick up Fay before leaving San Francisco. I felt my powers surge and could detect a slightly altered set of memories making themselves available.

Fay then commented "Well, this looks like a textbook case of neurocardiogenic syncope. I'll get right on that." as she emerged from my chest and began to emit a green haze around Henrietta.

As my friend began to stir slowly, I asked "Neurocardiogenic Syncope?"

The fairy shook her head as she elaborated "Henrietta fainted."

This is roughly when Henrietta woke up and groaned as she rose to a sitting position. As she did so I greeted Hernietta with "Nice to see you're awake. Anyway Henrietta, this is Fay, a new friend I made on an excursion to the far off land known as Tuesday. Fay, this is Henrietta, my classmate."

Henrietta nodded slowly, before asking "Alright, that makes some amount of sense. Still, what happened?"

I summarized "I stopped by to give you superpowers before teleporting the both of us here, then you fainted and Fay revived you."

She grumbled "Ugh, I thought I'd got that under control! That's the first time I'd fainted in months!"

Fay spoke up then with a distinctive note of cheer in her voice "It's also going to be the last time. While you were out I took the opportunity to patch your autonomic nervous system and slightly raise your normal blood pressure level; you shouldn't have any further episodes."

This is about when my parallel instance arrived with Charles and Stephany, greeting me with "Nice to see you, let's get started, shall we?"

Henrietta looked even more confused as she asked "Get started with what?"

I asked "I thought I'd already told you I'd given you superpowers, along with Charlie and Stephany? Anyway, now we need to practice with them."

Other me grinned, before commenting "Anyway, now that explanations are over, it's time for some learning. First lesson: time dilation!"

It took roughly half an hour for the three friends I'd empowered so far to get the basics really under control; apparently for them it was a lot less instinctive.

Still, soon enough they'd gotten good enough at time dilation, rewinds and timejumps that both of me felt that my friends were ready for something a bit more advanced.

As we all came back together in the middle of the park, I said to the group "Alright, you've clearly all gotten the basics under control. Now, let's have some fun with it."

Charles motioned to continue, and I gestured to the other me, who continued "Anyway, we were thinking that a game of time travel tag lasting a subjective hour sounded like a fun way to really start to get the hang of our abilities. You have to stay between three forty-five and four PM and remain within the park during the game."

Henrietta now raised her hand, and asked "Claire?"

I replied in unison "Yes?/Yes?"

"How are we going to keep track of who's it?"

This is when Fay spoke up, saying "I've got an idea, but it'll take me a few minutes to set up. Basically, I'm going to make a living bandana that'll jump from its current wearer to someone else when you tag them."

Soon enough, Fay had finished making her creation. It somewhat resembled a flat, elongated weasel. I reached down to grab the creature. The instant I made contact, it chirped and scurried up my arm, wrapping itself around my forehead.

I grinned as I shouted "Alright, game on!"

All four of the other players disappeared into the near future which would be our playing field, and I followed. This was going to be fun.

 

[We Just Write]

Chapter 6

Recruiting​

The game of cross-temporal tag, though fun, was absolutely impossible to keep track of. Even I wasn't quite sure what happened in the middle of that tangled mess of timelines. Still, I'd defined it as having a time limit of one subjective hour, thus the game eventually came to a close. Our little group of time manipulators had regrouped on the little island in the middle of Vilas Park, and I'd made a quick stop by Noodles and Company to pick up lunch for everyone, storing it outside time as I teleported back.

I arrived, cheerfully proclaiming "I have returned, and I bring food!"

Henrietta raised a single eyebrow as she asked "But you aren't carrying anything?"

I replied "No, I left our food in Hammertime. It's a bit like hammerspace, but with time instead." as I retrieved the set of takeout bags from their brief stop outside time.

Stephany perked up as she asked "I was wondering how you did that. Would you mind teaching me?"

I answered "Sure thing, it's not really all that hard." as I laid the various orders out

As we began to open up our lunches and consume them, I commented "Good job with the game, everyone. Anyway, I think before we go any further with our mission to save the world we should probably go and find Marie."

Charles swallowed his current mouthful of food, before he asked "I've got to ask a really important question. Why are you leaning on us to save the world instead of getting, say, the National Guard involved? Surely if you Aspected a platoon or two they'd do a much better job than we could."

I stared at him, before I replied "Charles, thanks for suggesting that as a possibility; it never occurred to me. Does anyone else have any ideas they want to share?"

Stephany raised her hand, and I nodded in her direction. The pinkette said "Um, Claire, it's actually really hard to tell the two of you apart. Is there anything you could do about that?"

I thought about this, before asking Fay "Hey, is a palette swap something you can do?"

The little fairy removed her mouth from her cream soda's straw and replied "Yeah, playing with pigmentation levels is a breeze. Any specific requests?"

My parallel instance requested "Could you make me a brunette? Also, I'd like hazel eyes please."

Fay answered "Sure thing." and fired a pulse of greenish energy at my alternate. When it faded, her hair was a dark brown, and her eyes were indeed a vibrant hazel.

I grinned, before remarking "Any other questions?"

Henrietta raised her hand as she asked "Yeah, how are we actually going to find Marie? Obviously we're going to need her help, but she's just one person in a city of around a quarter million."

Thinking on this for a few subjective minutes, my answer was "I figure that there's two ways we could go about it. Either I could shamelessly rip off Groundhog Day and stick us in a loop until we find Marie, or we arrange for her to come to us."

Henrietta quickly noted "I'd rather avoid a groundhog day scenario if at all possible. That said, do you really have any ideas for how to actually get Marie to come to us?"

I simply answered "Publicity. I'm pretty sure we've got at least a thousand Twitter followers and Facebook friends between us, and I'm pretty sure that we can get some airtime on the emergency broadcast system with a bit of explaining and possibly a quick visit to tomorrow."

At this point, Charles opined "I vastly prefer option two. It seems like a lot less of a pain on our end."

I grinned as I replied "Yeah, I figured that would be the case. If you want, you three can handle the social media end of things, meanwhile, Fay and I are going to go get on TV."

My alternate nodded, before she replied "I think I'll stay with this bunch, helping with the internet stuff. You go get some airtime."

I quickly tried to come up with a way to get some airtime, when it occurred to me that I didn't need to get an airtime slot; I'd already been flat-out given one on all the major networks, and all I needed to do was use it. With a thought, I jumped back to the time I'd spent getting mobbed by reporters, arriving half an hour after the session had started.

I quickly turned to my past self, and said to them "Past me, I'll take things from here. You can go do something else now."

The version of me that I'd been not even a day ago sagged with relief as she replied "Thank you, they've really been running me ragged." before she teleported off.

With that out of the way, I turned to the assembled group of reporters and said "Before this goes any further, I've got an announcement to make."

I leaned closer to the microphones as I continued "I am not the only person to have received powers; there is another who can control Life. If you've got the power to do so, and you're watching right now, you need to come to Vilas Park as soon as you can. Your life is in danger, and the sooner we meet, the more likely you'll live to see tomorrow."

With that, I went through the interviews like my past self had done in the timeline I just diverged away from, answering any questions directed at me as I did my level best to stay calm. However, just like my first time through, I quickly reached the point where I just couldn't take it anymore, and I teleported away.

I arrived at Vilas Park just a few milliseconds after I'd left, asking everyone "So I just got back from my interview. Any status updates?

The other me replied "Yeah, Marie arrived about an hour before you left." as she gestured to a young lady I hadn't seen before. She was fairly small, coming in at around 4'9", with short-cropped black hair, deep brown eyes, and dark brown skin.

I introduced myself with "Hello, I'm Claire, I see that you've met my alternate."

Marie replied in a slightly high-pitched voice "Yeah, though I'm still not quite clear on how you wound up duplicating yourself, or how you wound up with different hair and eye colors given that those seem to be your natural hues."

I chuckled, replying "Well, basically what happened is that she came back to the future to help me with something, then I decided I'd rather not loop around to become her. As for the different colors, we got some help from your daughter from the future."

With that, Fay phased out of me and floated up to Marie. As she came in close, the little fairy replied "Hi mom." with a little smile on her face.

Marie stared at the small being for several seconds, her face stoic. Slowly, Marie smiled back as she said "Nice to see you too, Fay."

I didn't expect for the fairy to suddenly burst into tears as she darted forwards in her energy-ball form, becoming a shimmering green aura surrounding Marie.

Fay's sobs soon began to form into somewhat coherent words as she continued to cry, allowing me to make out "I tried to stay positive like you told me, but it's just so hard. Even with the help we've got I can't see any way to win; I can feel those things breeding in the lake, and they're doing it too fast to stop."

Marie's expression went solemn as well as she replied "I know that this whole mess is a major race against the clock, but even if we can't win we've got to at least try."

Before this pessimism feedback loop could go any further, I interjected with "You do realize time is literally on your side, right? I control time, therefore we've got all the time in the world to deal with this."

Marie stared blankly at me as Fay coalesced into her humanoid form and I continued "Look, as long as either of me or any of the people I've Aspected are around, we've got infinite tries to deal with this. We will win against those abominations, even if I have to do it by bringing the entirety of causality crashing down on top of them."

Fay sniffled slightly, her face twitching back to a slight smile. She went back to being an aura around Marie shortly after, but this time with a lot less crying.

Marie nodded, as she asked "So, what now?"

I answered "Now, it's time to go recruit some help of a distinctly military bent." and with that, we teleported to Madison's National Guard base.



It took several hours of identity verification, demonstrations, bureaucracy, politicking, and a corpse from one of the monsters I'd wind up shooting in a couple days, but Marie and I eventually managed to get a meeting with someone who could realistically kick the news of this whole mess up the chain of command in a reasonable length of time.

On the other hand, it was quite clear that Captain Emil Thaddeus Abel wasn't going to make this easy on us; as he made abundantly clear when he took one look at our little group from across his brass-trimmed hardwood desk and incredulously asked "So, what in the world do two kids and a fairy want help with that requires military support?" As he spoke the word 'fairy', the Captain's eyebrow twitched.

This is about when Marie interjected "Quite bluntly, we need your help to save the world. There's a bunch of alien monsters hiding in Lake Mendota, and they want to eat the entire planet, biosphere and all."

The military officer frowned as he asked "What, is this some kind of joke!? You really expect me to believe that there's some kind of alien hive mind is living in the lake and is going to kill us all?"

With depths of seriousness I hadn't realized I had, I replied "Yes, yes we do."

Emil snorted as he replied "You'll forgive me if I want some more proof of that."

Staring into the man's deep, dark blue eyes, I once again answered "I've already provided all the evidence I can, short of bringing you to the future to see the devastation as it happens. By Tuesday these things will have made their move, and Madison will be overrun. We need to start taking action to deal with these things, and we need to do it now."

Captain Abel frowned as he met my gaze, saying "If you're that serious, then I'm going to need to see this supposed future devastation for myself. Otherwise, this has been a waste of time."

To this, I replied "It'll be dangerous; those things can literally come out of the ground and if they hit you with their life-draining attacks, it's pretty much instant death."

Captain Abel shook his head, before saying "I'm trained to risk my life in service to my country. Besides, with the description I was given of your powers, it honestly doesn't sound like it would stick if they did manage to get me."

I sighed, before I said "The fact of the matter is that I really don't want to see you get hurt, and I don't want to bring you somewhen that you might get killed."

For his part, Emil snarked "Well, I suppose I can just wait a couple days and get there without your help."

I shook my head, saying, "You know what, you're right; I'll bring you to the future. But it will be nothing more than a quick errand to pick up some stuff you can use for evidence, such as a few dead aliens, an interview with your future self, that sort of thing."

The Captain crossed his arms and nodded as he replied "Nice to see that you can listen to reason. So, is there anything else that needs to happen before we can go?"

I sighed, before I said "Look, the fact is that I'm just not comfortable bringing you there without any sort of effective defense against the abominations whatsoever. Even though I could just rewind and avert your death should the worst happen, I would still have trouble living with myself afterwards."

There were a few seconds of awkward silence, before Captain Abel replied "Claire, I know that you don't want to see me get hurt. I also know that you're not even in the military, let alone under my command. That said, I am ordering you to bring me to the future."

This is about when Marie chimed in with "If you two are done posturing, I think I've figured out how to make some effective body armor for the threats we'll be dealing with. If Emil would like to try it on, that would be excellent."

The Captain remarked "Lady, if you think I'm going to be wearing that, you've got another thing coming."

Looking across the room to where Marie was, I saw what looked to be a human-sized and shaped crustacean, complete with flexible carapaced fingers. As I continued to look, I eventually asked "So, read much Giger?"

Marie asked "Who's Giger? If you're complaining about the looks, then tough luck. This is the most effective armor composition I can make right now, according to my own empirical testing. Even then, it's only good for a few seconds of exposure."

A look of absolute disgust crossed Emil's face as he shouted "Don't you get it that I'm not going to get inside an overgrown crab suit?"

I rebutted "If you don't wear the crab suit, you're not coming."



As we teleported into Tuesday's cold, dead version of Edgewood College's campus, Captain Abel grumbled from within his crustacean-like suit as he saw the dead students and faculty scattered around the building's doors "Damn. That's just fucked up."

Looking on the array of still corpses frozen in a variety of positions, I replied "Yeah, the things that did this don't really seem to understand the concept of human morality. Either that, or they just don't care. Anyway, let's go get some evidence!" I tried to inject a bit of cheer into my tone as I finished, but I was pretty sure it didn't work terribly well.

I walked forwards in my own suit, picking out a few of the more interesting corpses and putting them into hammertime as I went past. After grabbing a few, I remarked "Anyway, now we wait for a bit so we can pick up the next thing."

Captain Abel groaned as he asked "Presumably, the next thing you'll be grabbing is a few more of the monsters you showed off to get a meeting with me?"

I shrugged as I said "Just a couple. They should be here any minute."

Marie nodded, saying "Yeah, from what Fay said, they can detect it when we use our powers, and they've got a telepathic communications network."

As soon as my fellow Concept user finished speaking, I felt a bit of the distinctive wrongness the abominations emitted approaching, and said "Here they come now."

From our current position in the college's parking lot, the abominations began to close in from the buildings around us, their feathered hides a riot of pastel colors. I brought time to a crawl as I snapped up my revolver and opened fire. For his part, Captain Abel opened up with his M16, but he couldn't put anywhere near the number of bullets downrange that I could. The gunfire was loud and deadly for the groups it hit, but it was quickly overshadowed by the jet of phosphorescent blue flame that swept through the monsters, reducing all but the ones we'd already shot to ash. Strangely, despite its obvious power, the flame did absolutely nothing to the environment aside from the abominations it torched.

I looked back to see that Marie had been replaced by a smug-looking blue scaled dragon. They blew a smoke ring, before shrinking in a haze of that greenish energy as they turned back into Marie. As she completed her shift back to being human, the Life user remarked "Claire, you really need to get better at using your powers to blow stuff up. Now put those things in your storage thingy and let's get out of here."

I replied "Sure thing." as I moved a few of the dead monsters into hammertime. Curious, I asked the Captain "So, do you want to go talk with your future self, or do you just want to go back?"

On his part, Captain Abel said "I think I've seen enough. We should go back now."

I replied "Sure thing!", and jumped us all back to Captain Abel's office. The soldier began prying himself out of the armor, which Marie helped along by melting it with her power and re-forming it on the floor in a neat pile.

As the soldier looked oddly at the suit, he asked "Well, now what?"

Marie nodded as she also de-suited me "You can keep it; just make sure to feed it at least once every two weeks or it'll starve. I've configured its digestive system to work well on a mix of potatoes and onions, preferably run through a food processor first."

The soldier waited a few seconds, before he asked "So, I do believe there's some evidence in your hammerspace that you wanted to leave with me? After all, that was the entire reason for that excursion, wasn't it?"

I noded and replied "Right. Several pieces of evidence, coming right up." as I brought the corpses out of hammertime; four immobilized humans and five perforated abominations landing on the floor.

Seeing this, Abel remarked "Well, I think this meeting is over. Now, if you ladies would just leave me to my job, that would be much appreciated."

As I jumped both Marie and I away, I couldn't help but mutter "It's not hammerspace, it's hammertime."



Fay, Marie and I arrived back at the small island in the middle of Vilas park about an hour after we'd left, my friends crowding around us as Stephany asked "So, how'd your meetup with the military go?"

I answered "They'll probably believe us well enough to get a response ready before everything goes to shit in a couple days. That said, Marie actually raised an excellent point about training while I was there. Namely, I need to come up with some nice, destructive ways to use my powers if I'm going to be able to put down enough abominations to matter."

My alternate nodded as she mused "Now, the tricky part is finding a safe place to test this stuff, without causing a load of collateral damage if things go a lot bigger than they're supposed to."

Charles then took this opportunity to mention "Maybe you could practice in hammertime? Claire alternate actually figured out how to make time flow for stuff in there."

I nodded, saying "That makes sense, still, we'd need a place to practice in there aside from empty void, and I'm pretty sure stealing a whole building isn't a good idea."

Henrietta nodded as she replied "I can confirm the whole 'empty void' thing. Seriously, that whenever outside time was really boring when I was exploring it with your alternate."

Marie grinned as she remarked "I can take care of the problem with the void being empty, at least as long as you don't mind the building being alive."

That comment sparked something in my alternate's mind, as she asked "Curiously, Marie, what does your power define as being alive? It's clearly more than just biological stuff, or your future version wouldn't have been able to make Fay."

Marie looked puzzled as she thought about this. After a few moments, she nodded and asked Fay "Could you please come over here? I need to take a closer look at you. I promise this won't hurt a bit."

The fairy phased out of me and zipped over to Marie in energy form, replying "OK, sure thing mom."

Marie put her hands around her creation's small form, and maintained that position for a couple minutes which I impatiently fast-forwarded through. When she was done, my counterpart with a different Concept nodded and happily stated "I think I've figured it out. Basically, my power has three criteria for deciding if something is alive, and as long as what I want to make hits two out of three, I'm good."

There were a few seconds of silence as everyone tried to figure out who would ask the obvious question. Eventually, Charles broke the silence asked "So, those criteria would happen to be?"

Marie began cackling like a madwoman as she told us, counting off on her fingers "One: Can it make decisions? Two: Can it sustain itself for a prolonged period? And lastly, can it reproduce? Oh, this is so ridiculously versatile, especially since I can substitute for actual biological viability with a specialized Aspect."

I smiled as I asked "So, do you think that a magical sapient castle outside time would be doable?"

Marie's face stretched into a ridiculous-looking grin as she commented "Hell yeah!"