Save State Hero 2 -ch 6- (Patreon)

Edmund hesitated, then opened up his power.

He was dropped into the blank-space that he was came to, his save-states appearing in front of him.

“As to what’s wrong with this save-state, it’s very much a one-off in a series of one offs,” Oz offered from somewhere.

Edmund was surprised, to say the least.

It was the first time he had ever heard Srit or Oz here inside of his power. As if it were something completely expected.

“Uh, you’re here,” Edmund said in an almost stupid sounding voice.

“Yes, I’m here,” Oz murmured. He sounded almost as confused as Edmund felt. “I’m afraid I’m not this save-states Oz, either. I’m… yours. Or at least, I believe I’m from yours

“Did you just leave from the Alina save-state, Edmund?”

“Uh, yes. Yes I did. But that doesn’t sound good? It sounds quite bad?” suggested Edmund.

“It isn’t good, no. But it isn’t bad, either, I suppose,” Oz confirmed. “I don’t know where this save-states Oz has gone, nor do I think it will turn up.

“There’s a small allotment of memories that is attempting to join my consciousness that seem to be the Oz from this save-state.

“I think that whatever Claire has done is effecting more than just you,” Oz started. “In fact, I’m noting a great many things that seemingly have carried over.

“Though none of it will impact anyone other than you directly. A lot of this is aimed at Claire herself, myself, and… Srit.”

“Wait, is Srit free or not in this save-state?” Edmund asked.

“Ah… err… Srit is now always free. I cannot discuss the how or why, but she has been free since the first time you crossed over through the final battle,” Oz answered. “She is hiding and pretending to not be free until that exact moment in each save-state.”

“Wait, does that mean she’s a constant? If she’s aware that she shouldn’t be free, that means she’s always there.”

“Yes. As I appear to be now,” Oz added to that statement.

“That’s good, isn’t it? Now I don’t have to tell you what’s happening every time I go to another save-state.”

“Up to a point, Edmund. The bigger issue is we will now both be suffering echoes it seems. For me to be able to travel freely and knowingly, I’ll have to absorb these memories.”

“Is… is there a Dryad version of you that you could get to implant a seed in you? Or like… something similar?”

“Unfortunately not. This is fine. I am on your side and this is a small price to pay to insure I can assist wherever we go. A moment. I will absorb this echo.

“In case it takes longer than I assume, I would save this save-state, over the one you used to get here. You pulled it along with you as you came through and it shattered.

“This is the last time this version of the world will ever be able to be accessed unless you put a new one on it.”

“Got it. Though hey, why does this save-state even exist? I never went here,” Edmund asked.

“You never did. Another Edmund did. Your echoes were real, Edmund. They all existed at one point. That is why they are echoes and in your head,” Oz answered. “Absorbing now. I’ll return as swiftly as I can.”

The echoes were real.

They lived lives and went through everything as if they were the first and last run-throguh.

Well, that certainly explains the depth of feeling I have for Ellie. Or I guess… just… Aenor Yew.

Though, with that said, that does make it harder to be with Romina, doesn’t it?

One of the reasons I got closer to Romina after the mission was everyone dies and sought solace with her. To somehow keep Felix upright after it all happened.

If I end up saving Andrea, and fix everything, does that even have a future that could be with Romina?

If everyone was alive, healthy, and hale, Alina and Dot would be unlikely to leave him alone.

Most especially Ellie.

The lives with Romina were almost always exclusive to her somehow getting rid of everyone else, and talking Edmund into a life where they didn’t go to the front of things.

Fading into the backgrounds and letting things happen around him without interfering.

That was unlikely to happen if he stepped up the way he was planning. He wouldn’t be able to let future things happen either after going through as much as he had so far.

And likely would continue to go through.

Except that all came back to Andrea.

Every one of his thoughts was predicated on Andrea being alive and being there for Felix.

Even Runner had expected Andrea to be there for Felix, after all. He had told him so himself.

Hesitating a moment longer, Edmund chuckled.

“Once again, Andrea. You end up being the focal point of far too much,” Edmund mumbled. Then he grasped the save-state Oz had mentioned. It was the fractured and broken red bordered save-state that he’d used to get here. He plunked down a save right on top of it.

Immediately it became a blue border save-state. Stabilizing and becoming a new point for him to utilize down the road.

“Hey, new save-state, that’s cool,” Edmund mumbled to himself.

While standing there, he realized he wanted to do something to make sure he didn’t suffer a similar fate with Alina. Where he had inadvertently ended up losing his save-state with Romina and couldn’t get back there easily.

Taking “Alina’s save-state” as he termed it in his head, he moved it away from the others. Setting it down he held a hand over it and focused on it.

Bent his will to it.

He wanted it to become gold-bordered and become unchangeable.

Immutable.

To forever remain as a point he could go to and live a life with Alina.

Wanting to experiment, he tried to force the save-state back to a blue state.

It easily changed and without issue.

Nodding his head, he made it gold again and hesitated. There was a part of him that wanted to load into it, seek comfort in Alina, and pop right back into this save-state.

“No, no,” he whispered quietly. “Use it as a reward. Make some progress and then you can go see Alina.”

Edmund steeled his resolve then let go of his power.

No sooner than he was back into the real world then he started sprinting forward.

“Dot! Help me. I need to capture that bastard up there!” Edmund shouted.

As he ran, he casually did a weapons check. It looked like the exact same rifle he was used to, but he couldn’t be sure of that.

Glancing down he did a quick press check and confirmed there was a round in the chamber. He made sure to slap the back of the handle to make sure the bolt was firmly in place.

He had issues in the past with it not seating all the way after doing a press check and didn’t want that to happen today.

“I-what?” squawked Dot who was now flying along beside him. It seemed as if she’d utilized several spells to cause her to simply lift off the ground and was moving as fast as he was.

“I said I need your help, Dot!” Edmund repeated. He had momentarily lost sight of the super and wasn’t sure which way they’d gone.

There was a gentle press from the echoes in his head. One that told him that this particular super tended to go behind the building and attempted to flee.

After witnessing Andrea’s death the man didn’t want to be anywhere near here.

Most of Edmund’s echoes had been started right here in this moment.

Doesn’t that mean that some of them rewound their own save-state to an earlier time then? If they were able to make this save-state through something like that, that means they experimented as well.

“You’ll explain this to me later, Edmund,” growled Dot, her eyes looking particularly bright with the very dark eyeliner. “You shouldn’t know that name and you’ve been very cold to me since we met.”

She spun around so she was facing head first, then shot off as if she were a round being fired from a gun. The air crackling around her as she went.

“The fuck did I do to her in this save-state?” he asked as he watched her literally fly through a building. Blowing apart a wall and vanishing into the interior of it.

“You avoided her as if she were the plague and hard-focused on Alina entirely. You spurned her at every opportunity to make a point to Alina,” Oz offered. “The previous Edmund was trying to build a better Alina. The experiment was a colossal failure. It also ruined the world considerably.

“Suffice it to say, the changes Edmund made in the history of this world effected many things. Many, many, things. It is best to not discuss it in depth, but to put it in a simple way, Edmund… changed his birth location.”

“I can do that!?” Edmund sputtered as he ran into the building Dot had blown through.

“It isn’t worth doing and it caused significant damage to the timeline,” Oz said. “I’ve heard it explained that time is a tower.

“You’re building it upward while standing inside of it.

“You can change some of the bricks you’re standing on. The ones that are on the walls, and maybe, if you’re lucky, a layer down. Possibly two if it’s something that doesn’t matter. But that’s all.

“Any talk of time being anything other than linear is just hiding the reality of alternate universes.”

Edmund nodded his head as he burst out of the building on the other side. Part of his visor was covered in what he was sure was powdered dry-wall and he shook off a shattered piece of wood.

Standing there, he had no idea which way to go.

Almost immediately, multiple iterations of Edmund sprinted away from him. Running off in every direction.

Several even went back into the building as if to check what was there.

Surprisingly, more than a few Edmund’s died.

Or at least shot up enough that he was forced to load a save-state and try again.

Every single Edmund that went into the building met a bad end.

A group of Edmund’s found Dot and closed in on her quickly. They had all gone off in one direction.

Alright.

We’ll need to check in with Claire.

This ugly little power she’s given us works pretty well.

“Oz, how long did I stand there just now?” Edmund asked as he sprinted off in the direction he needed to go.

“A fraction of a second, though I do note Claire’s spellwork was active as well,” Oz offered. “Ah, I see now. You stood there for exactly a fourth of a second in real time, but spent several minutes there in your own altered time.

“Claire is proficient at making the world behave in a way that is unexpected. It is a shame she doesn’t work for Runner.”

“Well, she kinda does now,” Edmund got out in a huff. “Part of her own spellwork tells her current self what’s going on. She was also quite sane when I spoke to her last.

“She only killed Aenor once in an attempt to get me to date a relative of hers. Which for Claire seemed like a stunning breakthrough.”

“That does seem rather surprising for Claire,” Oz agreed. “Especially for something akin to that.

“Your statement makes more sense now as well. Claire has rapidly opened up the defenses she normally kept around herself and tentatively reached out to me.

“I shall offer her a message to see if she has anything to add to the situation at hand.”

Edmund found Dot locked in the middle of a magical battle with the man he had gone after. The two of them were attacking one another with bursts of magical elements.

Standing there, Edmund really didn’t know what to do. All of the Edmund’s who had got here ended here because he hadn’t let the power continue on.

Almost as soon as he had that thought, Edmunds poured out of him again. All of them moving to different points in the clearing to watch.

Oh.

I get it.

Unless they move away from me, it’s harder for me to know what’s happening. I can chart this up to action and reaction. Each movement causes a different reaction.

Most of the Edmund’s stood still, but for each one that did, there was another that lifted their weapon and started firing at the enemy super.

Each and every time they did so, the rounds would impact a shield that encompassed the entirety of the man.

There were two Edmund’s that managed to cause a bigger problem with their actions, however. They were directly behind the man, or directly behind Dot.

In each of these cases, the man had been surprised enough that Dot was able to land an attack. Both attacks were an attack that used a gout of flame to the man’s upper torso.

The one from directly behind Dot took the man’s head clean off somehow.

Thankfully the one from directly behind the man caused him to be burnt quite badly on the head and shoulders, but he didn’t seem to die.

Learning from his previous mistake, Edmund waited to make sure he didn’t die seconds afterwards.

Edmund grabbed the man, Dot moved in close, and they vanished.

Clearly being teleported elsewhere.

Letting the Shadows go, Edmund shifted over quickly to be behind the man. He lifted his rifle, dropped the sight on his spine, and pulled the trigger.

Holding it down he let the rifle empty the magazine to nothing. There was no reason to fire a burst or otherwise.

No sooner than the magazine was dry then Edmund pushed the detent, let the magazine fall, stuck a new one in, and ran the charging handle.

All in one fluid motion.

As he’d done the move he had felt it when countless echoes lent him their experience of doing such a thing. To the point that it was done without him even thinking about it.

Except even as he reloaded, the man had flinched, to the point that he tried to turn around and look at Edmund.

Dot lifted both of her hands as she hovered there, put them out in front of herself, and hosed the man down in a cone of flame that veered upward and away.

Edmund wondered how hot it would be if he wasn’t wearing his armor and the fully encased Legionnaire’s helmet.

When the super collapsed to the ground and laid there unmoving, Edmund got his answer.

The flesh had quite literally been burnt away from the top half of the man’s head. From the nose up he was a skull and not much else.

Given that he was breathing, his hands trembling as they reached up to his face, he was at least alive.

Holy fuck.

Holy fuck!

Rushing ahead, Edmund got down on one knee next to the man and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Dot, get us out of here. Somewhere I can interrogate him. I need to find out what he did to Andrea,” he demanded, looking at the beautiful sorceress.

He couldn’t help but immediately compare how she looked to how she normally did in his mind.

While he didn’t mind this darkened version of Dot, he suddenly really wanted the kind and optimistic woman back he had known.

“Hmph. Fine. As you wish,” she got out in a grunt.

She waved a hand and touched her wrist with her other hand. Spells flared to life as she did so and they were suddenly somewhere else entirely.

Looking around, Edmund saw what looked a lot like a number of towers reaching up into the sky. As well as a very large and sturdy looking fortress.

Dot made another gesture with her hands and Edmund, her, and their captive were taken into the air. Flying quickly and without anything being said they were shot forward toward a tower.

Edmund had to grit his teeth as it happened and felt a strange weightlessness. He most assuredly didn’t like it and very much wanted to be back on the ground.

Landing at the top of the tower Dot folded her arms, looked to Edmund, and said nothing at all.

Edmund instead looked to the super.

“Great,” Edmund said and then hesitated.

He probably would need to question this man extensively and he didn’t want to have to get back to this point repeatedly.

But saving here and now was just asking for trouble. In a way that’d end up with him having to deal with something like the lightning-strikes all over again.

Shaking his head, he decided against it.

He’d do his best with the current run and then reload if he needed to.

First, he’d go after Dot.

“I call you Dot because in another life, you told me to call you that,” Edmund said then understood in that moment it was all he could truly tell her. “You told me to call you that to get your attention and make sure you helped me.

“It’s the same reason Alina told me her full name and to call her by it snap her around. Alina Devan Fusch.

“Now, Dot, help me. I need to figure out what this man’s attacks do and how he uses them to kill a person. Andrea died in a way that has seriously fucked up the time-line.

“I need to fix it otherwise Felix is going to go insane without her, not help Ryker when the time comes, and he dies to Zeus.

“And yes, I know about it all. I know about Ryker, Runner, Zeus, Srit, Claire, everything. You go a bit crazy when Ryker does and join Zeus, by the way.

“Trying to make sure you don’t go full villain and start helping Claire kill people over tea.

“Also, sorry for being an absolute shit heel in this time-line. Normally I flirt with you a lot and we get a little cute toward one another.”

Edmund wasn’t going to berate himself for over-stating the truth but he needed this dark version of Dot on his side.

He pulled off his helmet, tossed it to the side, and looked at Dot with a sad smile.

“This time-line is really fucked up,” he said and met her eyes. “One of the reasons I’m trying to save Ryker is to make sure I get a shot with you. You don’t stick around after he dies.”

Dot had raised her eyebrows at that. Watching him curiously but not responding yet.

“Oz, any chance you could tell Dot here you exist, which would probably help prove my story?” Edmund tried instead.

“I am here, Dorothy,” Oz stated crisply. “Edmund is indeed currently working to save Ryker, as well as Andrea, Vince, and yourself.”

Dot blinked, her shoulders hunched, and her entire posture became rigid. More akin to a statue made of stone than a person.

“That could be anything,” she said defensively. “A ploy from Zeus. Nothing more than the enemy attempting to subvert us as he’s always done.”

Shit.

Well… err… now what.

“You can always just kill me if this doesn’t go the way you want. Or do anything you wanted to me. I’ve been kinda an asshole so far so I wouldn’t blame you for whatever you did,” Edmund offered, then chucked his rifle off the tower. He pulled his side-arm off and tossed it over the edge as well.

Edmund could lean into her having power over the situation.

He just didn’t have to tell her he could leave before she could do anything at all to him. Which meant her power was only as long as he allowed it to be so.

Look at me.

Getting all crafty.

Go me.

Dot shivered from head-to-toe. Her eyes widening as she stared at him in what he could only define as disbelief.

“Fine,” she squeezed out in a hoarse whisper. “What do you need?”

“I need to know how his power works. If he kills you with it, what happens?” Edmund asked. “It somehow effects the soul of a person.”

“I shall… investigate him for you,” she stated, her mouth twitching as she spoke. Then her left hand came up and the man between them was encircled in a dark purple cloud that writhed in the air. “I do love… interrogating… people. It lets me get all… all the demons out.”