“Okay, you know that book you picked up that Codex has been complaining about being a waste of money and time since it took you forever and a bunch of points in Intelligence just to use?”

  “What?” I asked, staring just a bit blankly at Freak as he rubbed his hands together.

  “The paradox one that we were talking about… oh, yeah you were with Swan that night doing… well, nevermind you two are still being prudes about it…” he explained and Swan noticeably blushed and looked down to the floor. “Not the point. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how the hell paradoxes could be applied in like, any of this shit or why it was even a book in the first place. I mean, that specific bit of knowledge can’t be relevant to that many powersets, right?”

  “That’s… okay yeah, I have the book absorbed, what about it and what does it have to do with this plan of yours? Don’t get me wrong Freak, I appreciate theatricality as much as the next dude with super powers, but we are on a bit of a clock here… Um… Angie, do we happen to know just how long we have until that thing hits the ground?"

  “Well for what it’s worth, its “terminal velocity” doesn’t seem to make sense for how big it looks, because it should be traveling a lot faster. But I think that’s because the shape is probably causing a lot more drag than necessary. As far as I can tell, the structure is relatively hollow outside of a few key components, so its mass may be lower than expected. A rough estimate is around seven and half minutes or so, though I don’t think it crushing Perry will be enough to stop the core from blowing New York City off the map.”

  “Yeah, why exactly did you make this core that powerful? The last time we were dealing with this mess, it told us we stopped just Lower Manhattan from being destroyed. Why the hell does this one need enough power that it could do that much damage?” I asked, looking back at Mr. Factory. He was leaning over to pick up his fallen welding mask before he placed it on top of his head and looked at me with a raised brow.

  “It’s the same power… Maybe it doesn’t seem launching all those scales you destroyed takes a hell of a lot of it. By the time the self-destruct sequence had gone off, it should have spent nearly half of its storage… Had I had the time to refit Perry with those again… well unfortunately I’m kinda locked out of all the systems here, and there’s really not a whole lot I could actually do to make it seep off… Unfortunately, that means this core is… well as the lady said, “enough to blow the city off the map.” Heh… kinda lost sight of things… didn’t I…” Mr. Factory muttered.

  “Please, you were just about to let half the city get destroyed, cause countless pointless fucking death, all to help Hydramental kill me. Don’t give me this shit about “losing sight of things” if that’s how far you were willing to go to help him. If we survive this, I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re held responsible for everything you’ve done and I’m sure I’m not the only one,” I spat, unable to hold back the vitriol. While I had been ready to fight Mr. Factory if I needed to, the fact that the man had more or less given up made that unnecessary. Even then, I wasn’t about to just ignore the fact that he had been directly responsible for the vast majority of destruction across the city just through the presence of the droids. Mr. Factory held up his hands in surrender, his expression completely unchanged.

  “Hey no need to snap, you’re the one who asked. I fucked up. Admitting it doesn’t fix anything even if I did believe that Axio was after the tool I had suspected Christopher had given you. Axio took everything from me… it only felt fair that I took what he was after,” Mr. Factory explained. I stared at him for a minute, his sunken eyes staring back unflinchingly. “Just tell me what you need me to do. Like you said, we can figure out what comes next if we survive… I can’t die if Axio is still alive….”

  “Fine whatever,” I said, turning away and looking over to the others. “Now, Freak, my paradox knowledge, what were you thinking?”

  “Uh, wha- Oh!” Freak said, jumping just a bit as he remembered what we were talking about after getting distracted by the slightly uncomfortable tangent. “Okay, so you know that one whole thought experiment where the dude talks about putting a cat in a box and how you can’t know if it’s alive or dead? The whole thing is a big paradox, cause the cat literally can’t be both alive and dead at the same time.”

  “His name was Schr?dinger, but yeah I know the concept,” I explained, opting not to bring up the fact that I had a skill named after the guy.

  “Okay, so we do that. You fly me up to that node, I gather up all of the metal from it and surround Perry with a big ol box. While you fly me up, create a new ability that’ll let you mess with things like yah did when you swapped the explosion from Dusk to me last time,” Freak explained.

  “Couldn’t you just absorb the metal of Perry and do the same thing? Would that node even have enough metal to cover this giant thing?” I asked and then looked up toward the overhead. “Hell… could you surround it with it being down here and submerged? I can’t imagine directing the explosion down and into the ground is that much of a better idea.”

  “I think I could absorb Perry with enough time, but I don’t know if it would get rid of the bomb if that thing isn’t made of the same stuff. It also probably wouldn’t do anything about that falling node either. With that, I could at least make a thin box around the whole thing. Couple that with some sort of power from you making the explosion both happen and not happen at the same time. The problem with big booms like this is that the damage hits you in at least two ways, with the fireball and then a concussive blast and I can only survive one of those at a size like that. If you paradoxing it could somehow limit the explosion to one big hit, I should be able to take it,” Freak said, crossing his arms over his chest and shook his head solemnly.

  “Obviously it’s a long shot and honestly this is all gonna rely on Swan either way we go. Once I have the armor on me, it’s there until it gets destroyed or I shed it for speed, but I have to drain Stamina for every bit I absorb. If she’s singing that song of hers that keeps us from draining, then I think there shouldn’t be a limit to how much I can grab… Though… yeah it being this deep might be a problem, is there any chance to get it back up to the surface?”

  “I’m kinda locked out of all of the systems here, can’t even change the damn camera feeds,” Mr. Factory said, clearly just a bit annoyed as he muttered, “God damn asshole A.I. has just been toying with me the whole damn time.”

  “Shit…” I said, trying to think through it.

  “Loophole, can you add Mr. Factory to the raid group like you did with Tempest? Angie had been keeping me filled in on what’s happening and I believe I might be able to assist in regaining control over some of Perry’s functions,” BrainCraft spoke up. Instead of questioning him, I just listened and sent the request, prompting Mr. Factory to look over at me with a raised brow.

  “Just accept it, we’ve already wasted way more time than we should have and Brain thinks he can help,” I said, looking over at Duskbreaker as Mr. Factory accepted the request without arguing. “Okay, let’s do it. I can’t think of a better idea and honestly, me trying to make the decision on my own has only led us deeper and deeper into shit. Dusk, get us back topside and then come back down here. I doubt Mr. Factory here is going to try some bullshit, but if he is, maybe you can drop him into the shadow realm.”

  “On it,” Duskbreaker said, slowly pulling the shadowy portal together before BrainCraft started speaking rapidly.

  “Mr. Factory, would I be right to assume that your printers are all intrinsically connected at a base level? It’s how you’ve been spying on us, correct?”

  “God damnit… of course you guys knew,” he said, reaching up to rub his temples. “Yes, they all technically interface back with me, though it’s easier to watch multiple locations with an actual monitor display to use.”

  “And in theory if you had a printer there, could you connect it to Perry’s mainframe or network? Basically I need to know if it can act like a network printer.”

  “Yes, that’s how I generally have them set up at the various bases we had at the start of this, though I’d need to deploy a new one here now to do the same… I’m not sure how that can help though,” Mr. Factory said.

  “Well it’s taken me some time, but I do think I’ve finally cracked the networking encryption your printers use. I believe I can piggyback off of your printers to remotely try to take control of the droid’s most basic functions. Anything with enhanced security might be more difficult but it’s better than nothing,” BrainCraft explained just as the portal finally emerged fully out of the ground.

  “I’ll leave you two to figure that out. Get it to the surface, we’ll do the rest,” I said and then proceeded into the darkness. My mind was already racing as I tried to start generating a new ability using my paradox assessment knowledge.

  The biggest problem with Freak’s plan however was… well the size of it. If he did make a box around the entirety of Perry, unless I was inside the box, there was no way I could feasibly do anything to create a situation where the core both does and doesn’t detonate. Nor was I even sure if that would work in the first place.

  I was just starting to worry about that when I heard a small voice clear its throat.

  “Um… if… if we’re looking to keep Freak’s stamina regeneration maxed out as long as possible… then we should probably try to activate the Perfect Resonance form of my ability,” Swansong said, staring right at me. “It would give us the best chance and Codex had kind of explained how easy it is to proc since we know the exact requirements for it.”

  “Am I going to like where you’re going with this?” I asked tentatively, my gut turning uneasily.

  “I’ve been trying to make an ability for it the last few minutes here but apparently I can’t just make a song that will deal damage to myself… So… I need you to hit me with enough damage to take me below 5% of my total, that’s about 2630 points of damage and you and I both know you can do that pretty easily… You do that and then Freak will have all the stamina he could ask for,” Swansong explained, her expression giving away no sense of hesitation.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “That’s…” I started to say, swallowing hard at the idea and knowing I was only hesitating because of the relationship that we had only just started. If Pinky had come to me with the same request, for a similarly valid reason, I wouldn’t even think twice about it… Though she was also a frontline fighter. The spiral to have us exit the portal was just starting to open when I gave her a quick nod. “You said 2630? I can do that… you as close to it as I can manage.”

  “A Mass Driver with 1250 points of Stamina would do the trick as it would allow you to do 2632 points of damage,” Peter offered just as I started to worry about trying to figure out how I’d figure it out without a calculator on hand.

  “Really? Sheesh you’re already more helpful than Angie was,” I said and heard Angie immediately scoff in disbelief.

  “No need to be rude about it,” she grumbled as we all stepped out of the portal and back onto the island.

  “BrainCraft, I know it’s been less than half a minute, but how sure are you that you can get Perry back to the surface?” I asked, looking up toward the node plummeting above us. The bottom of it was starting to glow with a dangerous looking red and while I didn’t like the idea of this one falling right toward us, I was sure as hell glad it was the only one still plummeting.

  “98% sure. If I can crack the encryption for a biologically based computing system that shouldn’t even have a code, a simple droid will be child’s play,” BrainCraft said, sounding oddly smug. “Mr. Factory is deploying a new printer now, I should have Perry back to the surface in a few minutes tops. Which… if I’m watching the clock correctly, is roughly how long we have until the core overloads.”

  “Give or take a few seconds,” Angie added.

  “Then we don’t have time to lose,” I said, still not sure how I was going to make this work out. I knew my local area was meant to be a constraint for a reason, but in this particular case… it might just mean our goal was impossible. For the briefest of moments, I actually envied Hydramental’s ability to be in multiple places at once. I mean, sure, it was true I could theoretically be in those places and try out…

  My eyes grew wide as a new window popped open, glowing in a way none of my notifications had before and Peter jumped at the chance to speak.

  “Powerset Synergy Discovered! Thanks to your recently acquired Paradox Assessment knowledge and just a bit of desperation, you’ve created a new subpower for your Timekeeper’s Control.”

  “Timekeeper’s Control: Echo Variant created! When activated, leave a lingering aspect of your presence everywhere you’ve been for the duration you have the skill activated. Everywhere your presence has been during this time, your Local Area will continue to linger and act as if it were in your regularly sized location. This effect counts as one instance toward triggering the start of Temporal Sickness or an additional stack of the debuff for every minute of time in your time bank used. ”

  It wasn’t quite what I needed necessarily to cancel out the effect of the explosion but it was one hell of a start and my mind began to race as I formulated a plan.

  “I think I have the start of an idea here..." I said, rubbing my chin and looking over at Freak. "If I get you up there… are you gonna need me to get back down?”

  “Not if the droid’s in the way. I’ll come down on him like a giant net and fuse around the damn things legs to contain the bomb, if Swan's song is still going at full power, I might even be able to make a good portion of his shell a part of my shell. Also, Brain if you’re listening, now that I think about it, the moment you got that shit under your control you should tell Dusk to get the two of them out of there.”

  “Already on it,” BrainCraft responded. “I’ve gotten into the systems, I’m activating the ballast controls to start bringing it back up.”

  “Well then we sure as shit don’t have time to lose,” Freak said, slapping his hands together and looking over at me and Swansong and I knew that meant one thing.

  “Ready?” I asked her and she nodded. “It’s just a concussive blast, it might-”

  “Just throw it, thinking about it just makes it worse,” Swansong cut me off with a smile.

  “Okay,” I said, pulling my arm back… and throwing the punch. Her health plummeted as she was sent flying backwards toward the edge of my local area, stopping abruptly when she hit it before she caught herself in midair. “Are you okay?” I asked tentatively and she held a thumb up at me even though I could tell she was breathing just a bit heavily. “No more time to lose then,” I said, taking in a breath as I activated my Luck Bomb hoping for the best possible outcome.

  Once that was done, I wrapped the others in my Gravitational Field and launched us up and toward the falling array node. Swansong began singing the moment we took to the sky, a brilliant golden light shining out and around her as I used the suddenly massive gains to my stamina regeneration and decreases to ability cost to ramp up our speed. With my speed increased to an amount that might have left me with almost no stamina after only a few seconds of flight, it took us less than fifteen seconds to reach high enough that the absolutely massive node was nearly parallel with us. I looked over at Freak, a smile cutting across his face as he stared at the node like it was his lunch.

  “Your time to shine buddy,” I said and without more than that we zipped toward it and I dropped him from my power, letting him plummet down and onto the node as he quite literally cannonballed into it, causing a literal ripple effect to pass out and over the structure of it the moment he hit. I looked back to Swansong. “Stay with him and stay safe…”

  She squeezed my hand briefly before I let go of my flight and started falling back down toward the ground. As I was plummeting, I eyed my Time Bank, seeing it refilled over a minute and a half of time thanks to Swansong’s hidden power. Between that extra time and the two minutes I was still sitting on… well it just might be enough. And… luckily me, my Temporal Sickness debuff had disappeared in the brief few moments that I hadn’t been paying attention to my status bar. Silver linings I suppose.

  I activated Earthbound Impact and my descent back to the ground suddenly tripled in speed as I went hurtling down and toward the water below us. I quickly lost sight of the cube of metal slowly malforming from Freak's power. The moment I hit the water, my momentum stopped and I reactivated my flight, burst up and out of the freezing water. Apparently my Pocket Climate didn’t stop me from feeling the cold because of the water temperature and I shivered slightly as I looked around.

  There was a large section of water only a few dozen yards away from me that was bubbling up something fierce and I immediately started to get to work. After activating the newest version of my Timekeeper’s Control I began flying just a bit wildly, creating a crisscross pattern over the entire area that should place everything that entered the space within what would count as my temporary local area.

  The whole time I was moving, my mind continued to race, trying to figure out how I could use the tools I had on hand to fix this. As much as Mass Volume Dynamics might have been useful, unless I could suddenly shrink the bomb, that avenue felt largely pointless. As did the idea of trying to make the mass of Freak’s armor heavier. While it might be enough to let him take the blows without fully triggering his Hidden Power, it was a gamble and one I might not have time to fix if the explosion managed to hit me too.

  “I’m extracting Mr. Factory and myself. I’ll hold us in the shadow realm until you tell me where to drop us off,” Duskbreaker announced. Perry was easily at least thirty percent out of the water at this point, rising from the depths as water poured off of its giant body. I continued circling, expanding, moving myself into every conceivable spot I could reach… and still found myself coming up blank on an answer or ability.

  A massive shadow started to fall over me as a metal barrier extended outward in all directions and I knew I was running out of time. Freak had to have been onto something, right? The one ability I did have named after Schr?dinger really only fit the idea if you squinted at it the right way which had always bothered me just a bit, but it wasn’t like I had been in charge of naming the abilities either.

  Before I knew it, the giant sheet of metal guided by Freak had reached its target, draping down and over Perry as I hurtled my way down, under Perry's legs and past the sheet before I accidentally got myself trapped inside of it. Having my Local Area expanded this big was a feeling I hadn’t expected to feel… well probably ever but even then it still wasn’t overwhelming. I could feel the hum of the electronics, the movement of Perry, even the way the metal of Freak’s temporary armor acted like a sheet drifting down and around the droid.

  Freak’s metal disappeared down and into the water as I heard Freak muttering “stretch faster” over and over in our internal chat. I didn’t need Angie to speak up when the detonation started. The sudden array of movement happening inside of Freak’s metal curtain telling me everything I needed to know. I was out of time, and Freak had been absolutely right. The explosion that was rattling outward was going to do far more than one wave of damage. Somehow, it was that thought that made it all click and another new window finally opened in my vision.

  “New Ability! Schr?dinger’s Impact! You have identified a catastrophic event that resolves through multiple destructive outcomes. While within your Local Area, that event is forced into a paradoxical state where it both occurs and doesn’t occur simultaneously for five seconds. When the paradox collapses, all damage from the event resolves in a single simultaneous wave. This ability costs 90% of your Stamina and has a three day cooldown.”

  I didn’t wait a second longer, activating the ability just as the core fully overloaded. Reality itself seemed to shake, the world in the entirety of the metal blob surrounding Perry shaking and tearing in a way that made me feel… nauseous as it shook the echoes of my local area. After five seconds finally passed, a wave of concussive forced ripped outward and I could feel the chaos as the powerful blow blew everything outward and into Freak’s makeshift armor.

  His shell shook, rattled, and after just a few seconds, burst. I was just about to jump, maybe even rewind with the last minute of time left in my Time Bank, when I noticed the sudden popping wasn’t accompanied by a massive fireball. Instead, a wave of pressure echoed outward and I held up an arm in defense as metal came pelting toward me. With Orbit Me activated, anything that got close started to spin around me like the rings of Saturn and once I was sure there wasn’t any more… I let the debris drop.

  Freak popped his head up and out of the water and Swansong finally stopped singing as the smallest sound of metal hitting water filled the ambient noise. Nobody said anything for a moment, all of us trying to figure out if this was actually the end of it or not. Even in the distant city though, not a single new explosion suddenly went off. Even off in the distance where there should have been a Giant Cockatrice stomping along, the horizon was free from chaos. Finally, Freak let out a whoop of a cheer, hitting the water hard with his palms as the raid sirens that had been subtly hollering in the background finally shut off.

  “Now that’s what I call fuckin’ teamwork!”

  Happy Wednesday! If you're enjoying the story, don't forget to leave a Rate, Review, or Comment!

  Here we are! Six months since the start of Book 3 and we are just arriving at the end of the book. While I originally thought this was going to be the final chapter before the epilogue, I realized it needed one last, possibly slightly shorter chapter, to wrap up a few details before we jump into the epilogue perspectives which will take up next weeks chapters.

  Thank you guys so much for reading and sticking with me week after week. As promised there will be a bigger update on the status of the story in the coming chapters but the short version is that I will be starting a hiatus on the series following the epilogue to complete an edit pass through this book. There are quite a few sections that I feel could be tightened up to work better for this specific book as a whole. There's still so much more to tell to and like I said, we still got a good few epilogue chapters to get through to wrap up some final details for this book.

  And, as of now I have settled on Book three's name being: The Fractured Code as voted on by many of you. It had long been a frontrunner selection for me and it's overall popularity in the poll back in chapter 61 really confirmed that for me.

  Come on over to my Discord to talk about the story, see advanced news, and just talk nonsense!