Non-Canon Omake: Bad Timelines
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
Bad Timelines
Artist hadn't been entirely truthful with the Beta Timeline Kakara who'd offered her creativity in exchange for knowledge. Certainly, she hadn't outright lied, but she'd neglected to mention a great deal. The fact that Chronoa's forces were pursuing her, for instance. The part about the more unpleasant denizens of the Temporal Sphere was true, but she hadn't mentioned that she'd created them. Her initial attempts to alter the timeline had been poorly thought out, extreme, and badly executed, and several versions of herself had paid the price.
First, there was Glitch, so named because she resembled a static video feed more often than not. A timeline she interfered with over and over, until something broke. As the 'protagonist' that version of Kakara was... inflicted with an 'eye of the storm' effect, and left in the white void alone when her timeline collapsed. Artist was unsure how long Glitch had been there, since time's flow was strange in such broken timelines, but by the time she'd overcome her shame at the results of following her impulses (She preferred even bad emotions to not feeling, and she didn't get to pick whether she felt one specific emotion. It was on, or it was off.) Glitch had already started talking to... nobody.
Almost every version of Kakara was a speaker, rather than a fighter. It was unusual for Saiyans to prioritize diplomacy over combat ability, but there it was. Unfortunately, this also made Kakaras across the timelines more social animals than most Saiyans. They handled losing their acquaintances poorly at the best of times, though they tended to bounce back more quickly. Glitch had started talking to herself to pass the time, since the lack of time passing meant her only way out was to commit suicide, as hunger, thirst, and age would not touch her so long as her timeline was gone. While this was unusual, it was as much a result of the circumstances that had protected her from the in initial collapse.
She's started by talking at least. By the time Artist had arrived, she'd been screaming. Presumably, there'd been a transition phase when she'd been shouting. Artist had been hoping to talk Glitch down, as while her own communication skills were poor by Kakara standards, she was still decent. Unfortunately, Glitch's mind had not been so fractured that she was incapable of making deductions. Artist had let slip a few details only someone present for the timeline collapse could have known, and Glitch wasn't stupid. She'd pieced it together quickly, and the last shreds of sanity had disintegrated. Once she finally stopped laughing with maddened hollowness about 10 minutes later, she said only two sentences. "You destroyed everything I ever cared about. So I'll destroy everything you care about." Then she tore a whole in her broken reality, and stepped out to the Temporal Sphere.
It was a while before she met Glitch in person, though she'd observed the person in question for a while. She'd felt a disturbance of some kind, and when she investigated, discovered that several of her works had been erased, the timelines reduced to nothingness. Not even the void of a destroyed timeline left. Glitch had discovered the mechanism by which a timeline could be pushed that far, and followed through on it, as the Temporal Sphere was the one thing Artist truly valued. She wasn't stronger than baseline Kakara, but due to her stamina glitching out, she could pull off Dazarel's field of maximum power blasts, and similar tricks. There was also nothing stopping her from observing alternate Kakaras and learning the tricks they had. Hellzone Grenade was one of her favorite moves, for example.
On the upside, she gained an ally, a Shade of a Kakara from a destroyed timeline, who'd taken the moniker of Remnant, as with her body destroyed, there wasn't much left of her, but there wasn't an afterlife for her to pass on to. The wounds that had killed her were still visible on her Shade, as a consequence of the unique events of her death. Glitch hadn't perfected the process of destroying timelines at that point, so some instances of her alternate selves slipped through the cracks.
Killer was another such Glitch mishap and, well, she wasn't so nice, though the black ooze pouring from her face kind of made that obvious. The timeline collapsing had backlashed directly onto that version of them, and the result was a broken thing that had only one desire. To hurt others. To say that she was still a Kakara would not be entirely correct, as the emotions of the death rattle of a universe mixed in, and the same madness that had consumed Glitch. Unlike Glitch, Killer would enter timelines and just slaughter people for the fun of it. She seemed to hold a special contempt for alternate versions of herself, which artist suspected was rooted in some sort of personal feeling of responsibility for the loss of her reality.
Then the pair of Hope and Despair came into play. After Glitch, Artist had been more careful, but eventually, a timeline had collapsed on her with backlash similar to what had created Killer. Luckily, Artist was able to intervene and stave off the worst of it, which prevented that version from being consumed by the death rattle of her universe. Instead, she was split into a good half, who was more or less the original Kakara with her ability to feel negative emotions stripped out, save rage at injustice and cruelty, and given powers based on positive emotions in return, and a bad half, who was essentially a less insane Killer. Despair was granted powers relating to negative emotions, at the cost of her ability to feel positive ones, save the cruel joy of seeing someone you hated suffer. The problem was that Despair hated everyone because she couldn't like them.
On the bright side, Hope was excellent at salving people's emotional wounds, because she'd retained her original self's communication skills, and gained the ability to sense positive emotions, which further advantaged her. This made her excellent at calming down the more paranoid incarnations of the inhabitants of the timelines. The downside was that Despair was similarly excellent at demoralizing and turning those around her for similar reasons. Despair's encounter with Future Trunks had strangled Artist's own plans to meet them and recruit their aid in stopping her mistakes from destroying the Temporal Sphere, as she'd poisoned Future Trunks pretty heavily against Artist, and Chronoa was likely similarly influenced.
Ever since then, she'd restricted herself to tiny changes. A single event instead of major changes to every era. It drove her insane, but she couldn't risk more negative instances of herself forming due to her mistakes. It drove her insane to be shackled so, but if she wanted to outstrip Glitch, she'd need to make timelines faster than they could be destroyed, and small changes were conducive to that goal.
All of this went through her head as she barely ducked under a sword slash from Future Trunks. She'd been about to visit the Beta Kakara for more ideas, and triggered some kind of alarm. Well, maybe she should give diplomacy a shot. She teleported a few feet back. Enough that Trunks couldn't instantly close the distance without taking a moment to go SSJ. Artist couldn't go SSJ herself, her lack of real emotions making the required need to unlock the transformation difficult to come by, but she'd seen it enough times to know it always took at least a moment. She threw down her Notepad and tossed her bandoleer of pencils onto it. "I surrender." she stated calmly. She could feel her emotions ebbing simply from taking the bandoleer off, but hopefully this would be worth it.
"After all the trouble you gave us, you're just giving up that easily?" Trunks asked, obviously not buying it.
"I'm out of better options. After and Hope can't counter Killer and Nightmare every time, and haven't, and I'm barely stalemating Glitch on the good days." Artists explained, the color draining from her voice as her emotions did.
Truth be told, she'd have asked for help ages ago, but she was pretty sure she'd be locked out of making new universes, or at least her current set of restrictions would become permanent, and she couldn't stand the very thought of being restricted from CREATION to such a degree. Still, at this point, she was running out of options. Glitch was going to find the Alpha Timeline sooner or later. Artist couldn't hide it forever. Chronoa's protections were solid, and Artist had layered some designed specifically for the terrible threesome on top, but they couldn't risk it.
An assessing gaze affixed her. "...I think she's telling the truth." Chronoa said to Trunks. Artist had picked up telepathic interception ages ago, so direct lines between Kais and individuals were little obstacle.
Trunks seemed briefly conflicted, but ultimately sighed and let the argument clearly just under the surface drop. "I'll be taking you to the Time Zone. Don't try anything." he warned.
"Shall I call Hope and After over as well? They're allies of mine." Artist asked, having an increasingly difficult time caring about anything. Normally she felt happy to have comrades-in-arms, but she was having to shake herself out of seeing them as disposable pawns as of now.
"Later, once you've explained what's going on with the timelines." Trunks answered, as he escorted her through a portal. He flew back and retrieved her things before entering the portal again, which promptly closed.
AN: Felt kind of weak to be honest, but I needed to get the idea out of my system.
