Chapter 151 - 150 - Time Trouble(Part 9)

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier One: Load Point 01>."

Alright, I'm back in Director Silva's office, a few seconds before she was to teleport me back to the Academy. I should play it cool, there's no need to rush her, that might make her suspicious. I have plenty of time...meaning that I'll freeze time the moment I get to the Academy. 

"Well, I'll see you later, alligator," She remarked with a straight face, before breaking and letting out a snort of laughter...ugh, can't believe I had to hear that dumb joke twice... 

"Yeah, yeah, just send me back already," I sighed, rolling my eyes. 

"Come on, that was a good one," She grinned, before tapping on the teleportation platform controls. 

I'm not gonna reply...if I do, this might end up as a long, drawn-out conversation, which is something that I absolutely cannot afford. 

"Alright, sending you now...see you later, Kilzachs."

"Yeah, see ya," I replied, as she activated the teleportation. 

A second later, I found myself in the training hall, before quickly checking the time...a bit later than I was last time, but only by a few seconds, so it should be fine...

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Pause>."

Even with time stopped, I have no time to waste, I need to hurry...mainly for my peace of mind, I just want to get all this undoing over and done with. I rushed out of the training hall and headed up the stairs to the first floor, making a beeline for the Level J classroom. 

I pushed the door open and went in, heading straight for the desk at the front of the room, opening the bottom drawer as I went around to the front of the desk, looking for the bomb...bingo! 

There's three different settings for this bomb, each setting triggers the explosion in a different way. The first setting is a timer, a standard countdown type. The second is impact-based, or in other words, like a grenade, it explodes when thrown at something or if struck. 

And the third and final setting is remote detonation. When this setting is chosen, you need a detonator to trigger the explosion, and the range is a radius of approximately one kilometer. Grey chose the third option, but now that I'm here, that doesn't matter anymore. 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Three: Cut>," I chanted, focusing on the bomb, which vanished as I chanted. 

There, that's taken care of, and I can figure out how to get rid of it later. And more importantly, now it no longer matters anymore that Grey's going to pull the trigger, because there's nothing there to explode. 

Now, then, I guess I should go find him, huh? There's not much of a rush anymore, so I can probably afford to unfreeze time for a bit. I left the classroom and, after making sure no one was in sight... 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Play>." 

I then headed for the bathroom, which wasn't too far away...the first floor bathroom is kinda small and isn't very well-maintained, so people rarely use it, instead preferring to use the much larger, and cleaner, ground floor bathroom. 

In other words, it makes sense why he'd pick the first floor bathroom to hide and wait in. I quietly pushed the door open and walked in, looking around...there were two stalls in this bathroom, and sure enough, one of them was occupied. That's gotta be him. 

<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Pause>."

I then peered over the stall, just to make sure I wasn't mistaken...nothing to worry about, it's definitely him. 

I reached down and grabbed his collar, before pulling him up and out of the stall...I really like the way physics works when time is frozen, it can be pretty convenient, especially as far as weight is concerned. 

Now, then...before, when I got close to triggering the Anomaly version of Manifestation Overdrive, it wasn't just Tier One that had gotten a boost...Tier Two had also gained a new trick. 

Specifically, when time is frozen, if I touch someone before activating Play, only the person I'm touching will be unfrozen, everything and everyone else will still be frozen. I then held onto his wrist, as I chanted... 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Play>."

"H-huh, wha-...what's going on!?" He exclaimed in surprise, as I swiftly slipped behind him and pinned his arms to his back, not giving him a chance to see my face. 

"Calm down, I'm not your enemy...and just so you know, you succeeded. They're all dead. So you don't have to trigger the explosion this time," I informed him, changing my voice a bit. 

"Huh? Nothing you're saying makes any sense, what do you-?" He began in confusion. 

"I'm saying that you already killed them, and you were about to get convicted for it...," I trailed off, before continuing hesitantly, "I...I came back in time, but doing so doesn't bring back the dead. Their bodies won't be destroyed this time around, but there's nothing inside the bodies...they're nothing more than empty shells. In other words, you haven't done anything yet, so there's no crime to accuse you of...well, there's the identity fraud you used to break into the underground facility, but that's only if someone finds out."

Why...am I telling him all this? The moment I took the bomb out of the equation, I could easily have just left him alone and things could possibly have worked out without needing any further interference from me, but...for some reason, I couldn't help it. 

The fact that I'd promised him that I would save him is only a part of it, it's more that, in a lot of ways, I see myself in him. And because of that, I couldn't help but want to save him. 

"Time travel? You really expect me to-!?" He began in disbelief. 

"I'm here because you asked me to save you. But...also because I relate to your situation and can empathize. You also told me that this was revenge for what your classmates did to your cat, which was the breaking point following months of bullying, just because you were better than them despite having weaker XFE abilities. And when considering where to trigger the bomb from, you initially planned on leaving the Academy before pulling the trigger...am I wrong? Oh, and let me also add that I knew not only where to find the bomb, but you as well," I pointed out. 

"...okay, that's pretty convincing. So, wait, let me get this straight...you went to the trouble of time traveling to save a mass murderer? You sure about this?" He inquired in bemusement. 

"Yeah, I am. I said this to you in the future too, but I applaud what you did...it's not like you indiscriminately murdered a random bunch of innocent people, no, you rightfully targeted people who deserved to die, and I can respect that. Yeah, so I think you deserve this...the opportunity to avoid committing a crime while still getting the desired results. So, once I'm gone, just walk out of here and act normal, got it? Oh, but first, smash up the detonator and flush it or something."

"Oh, uh...yeah, okay. I'm...not sure what to say. But if nothing else, I guess I should at least say this much...thank you," He replied with a tone of sincere gratitude, before asking, "Hey, by the way, who are y-?" 

Before he could finish his question, I froze him in time again, and then walked out of the bathroom...I might have given away a bit too much, I can't believe that I revealed my time travel powers when I don't plan on undoing this. 

It may have been anonymous, I'm quite sure I disguised my voice well enough, but that was still a huge risk...after all, something like time travel isn't a power that fits Prodigies, and with only five known Anomalies in the Sanctuary, the suspect list isn't very long. 

Well, whatever, that's a concern for another day, for now...fuck yes, I've prevented both the Mutant attack and the bombing! Though, uh, I kinda indirectly caused them by going back in time, so it's more like I cleaned up messes that I was partially to blame for. 

Well, I guess it doesn't really matter though, it's not like anyone knows about it. Huh, that's actually a little bit discouraging, in a way...I mean, I worked pretty hard to resolve those incidents, you know. To think that there's no one who knows about any of it, is a little disappointing...but then again, it'd probably work against me if people knew about this, so it's just as well, I suppose. 

Oh, right, I should probably set a Save point here, just in case...definitely won't be using it unless a really emergency comes up. 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier One: Save Point 01>."

Still, it's pretty concerning that such devastating incidents occurred just because of minor changes to events...the amount of damage to the central generator was the factor that triggered the blackout and subsequent Crocsnek attack. And the factor that triggered the explosion was Grey's decision as to where to trigger it from. 

Neither of those are drastic deviations from how things went the first time around, and yet, those minor deviations resulted in severely, drastically different outcomes. 

The bell to signify the end of the lunch break then rang, and I began making my way to the training hall, a sense of relief about me. There was a fair bit of commotion going on all around...well, I guess the collapsed bodies of Grey's classmates were being found. 

I bet a few others died in the explosion too, so there's probably more than fifteen veggies, maybe around twenty, more or less. I let out a sigh as I reached the training hall and began to enter...I feel completely and utterly emotionally exhausted, here's hoping that nothing else goes wrong today... 

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