Save State Hero 2 -ch 5- (Patreon)

The world pulsed around Edmund. Pulsed, vibrated, and seemingly buzzed.

Only to quite literally fold into him in a rush of pale sickly colors.

Endless runes that he immediately recognized as Claire’s work tore the world up and drug it into him. Massive chunks of reality breaking free in a way that reminded him of when the world had ripped itself in half.

The day Andrea had died.

Ahhh shit, Claire.

You weren’t supposed to break reality to do this. It’s going to fuck up my save-states.

Even as runes, the world, and reality, zipped through Edmund like a full magazine of rifle rounds he could feel himself changing.

Being altered second by second.

His vision wavered and the echoes in his mind became real.

Once more endless lives played out all around him, through his mind, and as if he were living through them.

Ellie’s seed that lived in his chest rose up and attempted to corral it all back into place, only to be swept away in it.

New lives came into being.

Endless new lives.

Lives where he quite literally became a lord of a realm, relationships with many women, some he’d never met before, and even of becoming a villain that could make Felix or Zeus look like a boy-scout.

From spending eons paired to an entire Dragon wing, to raising up his own Grove in a world of monsters with Ellie at the center of it.

He was pushed ever further and further from this starting point.

Till memories of the original Edmund were nothing more than a dream of a once upon time. Like remembering a song you heard when you were six and that it’s haunted you for years, but you can’t truly remember it.

Only for the world to snap back into place and Edmund fell into his own mind. Akin to how one might fall down the stairs but catch themselves.

Slamming your ass down several steps as your fingers scrabble along the hand-rail only to grasp it before you truly fell.

“Wh-what?” he gasped, looking around the room. He’d been watching a movie with Iren and Ellie in a trailer nearby. It was, in fact, the same one Felix had been working out of when he’d been in the trailer park.

With all the upgrades Goldie and Andrea had put into it, it felt a lot more like a luxury starting apartment, than a trailer.

“Hm?” Iren asked, looking up from her phone. “Something up?”

Ellie was watching him with her lower lip stuck between her lips. She looked concerned.

Given the way he had just about shot out of his chair he couldn’t fault her for that either.

Because as far as he could tell from Ellie and Iren he was the only one who just saw what happened. Which meant it really was magic from Claire and entirely related to him.

“Claire did her spell,” murmured Edmund, feeling stranger by the moment. As if he were starting to fall. “I just… I just lived a bunch of lives.”

“Oh! Any of us? How many kids did you put in me?” Iren asked quickly.

Even as she asked, he suddenly began living a number of lives this very instant. Lives where Edmund told her no, yes, and maybe.

Only to be talked into going into the bedroom with her, not be talked into it, or her not trying.

Then Ellie did it instead, once more with him being talked into it, not, or otherwise.

Finally, there were a few very rare occurences where they ended up in a three-way, somehow the two of them convincing Ellie to get into it with them.

“Sh-shit,” whimpered Edmund, falling to his knees as it felt like his mind was coming apart. All the lives running through his mind in tandem and causing him to feel as if his head was filled with people talking.

Ellie’s seed was desperately trying to sort it out, and made some progress, but it wasn’t going well.

“We n-need to see, Claire, I think,” hissed Edmund. “I need an-an on or off-f-f switch.”

Once again, endless lives broke away from this moment.

A third of them ended up in the bedroom.

Again.

Another third was him leaving the trailer and going after information about his sister.

The last lives shot straight toward Claire.

Shot toward her plane, broke through it, and spoke to her. Only for her to explain what she’d done, and how it worked.

That he could essentially walk all paths at the same time.

It couldn’t take the place of rerunning the save-state repeatedly to get the best result, but now he could at least determine a direction to take.

The fact that he was even now speaking to Claire about this, while staring at Ellie in the trailer, was a good demonstration of that.

“Go. Must—go,” he croaked out, stumbled over to Iren, took her by the hand, and dragged her outside.

“Far be it for me to fight you on taking me away,” Iren quipped, her fingers quickly intertwining into his. “Were you thinking the grass right outside?”

“Claire,” he groaned. All the lives snapping back into him and leaving him feeling sick. “Please.”

***

The exact second Iren took them through the portal, Edmund weakly pointing the way the whole time with Ellie directing, they ended up on Claire’s couch.

“There you are. I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming to me, or my earlier counter-part,” Claire remarked with a laugh. She was sat down on the same love seat she’d been in previously. “I really had to think about what to share with my earlier selves.

“To the point that I even went and carved up my memories to see how I’d react and then use the spell. Only to put them all back.

“Well, try to put them all back. Doing brain surgery on yourself isn’t exactly easy you know.”

Claire let out a strange yet warm sounding chuckle that made Edmund feel pretty strange.

“Lady Claire, I don’t know what kind of difficulties you work under, but I begin to think that even with as… crazy… as you are, you’re handling it better than many would,” Ellie offered.

Claire winced, her mouth turning up into a frown, then sighed.

She looked to the side and away.

“Yes. As Edmund mentioned previously, Zeus was in my thoughts. Even now I can tell he’s trying to force his way back in,” Claire muttered. “Yet he can’t. I well and truly have fallen into Edmund’s web and it seems I’m now cursed with knowing just how badly I’ve made things.”

Letting out a soft groan, Claire winced, curled up on the love-seat, and put herself into a fetal type position. Though she was upright and leaning against the back of it.

“I’ve lost so much time with Ryker. My sister,” she continued in a much lower tone. “I have nephews and nieces that I’ve only now met this.

“I reached out to my family. To Ryker and… everyone.

“I’ve spoken several times to Shirley since you visited me. Several times. Told them everything that’s happening and what you’re doing.

“Ryker immediately turned and fled as soon as I began explaining what you were doing. Apparently my tricky farmer is aware. Aware, knows, and is deliberately not involving himself.”

Now that was news to Edmund.

He had always suspected that Ryker knew, but he’d never really had confirmation.

“He knows he’s going to die?” Edmund asked, confused.

“Yes. He wasn’t surprised. He did say he thought he had more time, but not that he was surprised. He only came back when I promised not to talk about you,” Claire whispered. “We kissed. Truly kissed. I imprinted some of all this into that spell I gave you.

“It’ll pain me terribly. Wound me. Wherever you go. But… but it’ll do what you need it to. I won’t attack Ryker as you described. If anything I’ll probably end up getting killed.

“But that’s still better than my Ryker dying. Still better than that.”

“Okay… but… what did you do to me?” Edmund asked.

“Ah. I can’t explain what I did. What I can tell you is what it does,” mumbled Claire, putting her chin against the tops of her knees. “Your power lets you move between versions of the world.

“I made it possible for you to now see the different versions of Edmund. Choices you could make.

“Given that you have no idea how to find Andrea’s soul, this is the best I can offer. I don’t know where it is, I couldn’t ever know.

“But as you yourself are aware, with enough chances, enough choices, enough possibilities, you’ll eventually find a way to something.”

Edmund could only nod at that.

He was thinking about how he dealt with lightning strikes and that they’d been an infinite number of edge-cases.

Trying to find Andrea’s soul in the entirety of the universe wasn’t going to be easy. It could take him an infinite amount of time to do it.

What Claire was describing and what he had experienced would certainly give him a valid tool to try things.

“If it’s activating on it’s own,” Claire continued. “It’s because you’re at a point with a lot of possibilities and you’re not sure of what to do.

“As you use it more, you’ll be able to control it on your own and less on it just being related to feelings. You’ll forgive me but I had to… ah… hack this spell into reality.”

Claire said the last with a huff that sounded angry.

“The problem though is you’ll know of these possibilities,” Claire resumed again when he didn’t reply.  “These possibilities create their own possibilities.

“If you’re not careful, if you’re not aware, you could end up losing yourself and never making it back.”

“I think I killed Skipper like that once,” Edmund blurted out.

“Did you? Huh. Then yes. It’d be a lot like that,” Claire said, tilted her face down, and put her eyes against her knees.

“Thank you. I appreciate what you’ve done. This’ll make it easier to figure out what to do,” said Edmund and meant it. He could spend millions of save-states trying to figure out how to make something happen.

Being able to see versions of himself taking those actions would provide him with significant insight.

To get him going in the right direction.

“Try it now. Push at your own thoughts and that you don’t know where to go or what to do,” advised Claire. At this point she looked like she wanted to curl into herself and simply vanish.

Edmund did that.

Immediately several possible Edmund’s sprang to life in his mind.

One comforted Claire, two others left.

The two that left immediately loaded save-states to go elsewhere.

The longer he let those thoughts move, those lives continue, he found that more continued to spring up.

Some were from where he currently was, and some from further ahead.

The details of what they were doing were lost on him, but he got a general sense of it.

One Edmund in particular had taken Iren and Ellie to a hotel and proceeded to bed them repeatedly.

Endlessly.

Never leaving the hotel room for anything other than food or entertainment, then going right back.

Ooookay.

I wonder if this is how Andrea feels sometimes.

All those Others rushing about in her head, wanting to do different things and think different things.

Edmund hesitantly tried to stop the Edmund’s that decided sex was the answer. As interesting as it was, and to have some vague memories of what he did, they weren’t helpful at the moment.

Ellie’s seed had become active as well. As if it were observing what was happening and attempting to learn from it.

To learn what he was doing.

As he watched those lives, there was a sudden explosion of new Edmund’s.

All of them were focused around the Edmund that’d gone to the super fight.

Or more specifically, when Andrea died.

He currently didn’t have a save-state that’d let him go to that location, which meant that something had allowed him to do that.

No sooner than he had the thought that he wanted to fix his save-states, that he had a direction, than all those Edmund’s ceased to exist in his mind.

“I think… I understand,” he said, looking to Claire. “Lady Claire, it may not mean much to you since you won’t remember this, but I promise, I’m going to do all I can to save Ryker.”

“I don’t think you can,” she whispered. “I think he knows it’s his end and expects it. I appreciate your attempts though. That I’ll be given a chance to try and make this work as well.”

Edmund nodded his head, opened up the tunnel of save-states with Alina, and loaded it up.

Instantly he was there, standing amongst endless save-states that he was involved in.

Curiously the ball of light, was gone this time. Despite it having been right next to him when he’d saved.

He vaguely remembered someone telling him that it tended to vanish and reappear. As if they were constantly being eliminated and remade.

Likely due to him saving and loading he assumed.

“Oz,” Edmund said, still feeling rather strange. Claire’s spell had clearly followed him and left him feeling quite odd. “Claire put some new spellwork on me. Things are different.

“Anything you can tell me about it? Anything you can detect at all?”

He had hesitated asking Oz or Srit in the previous save-state because he wanted to hear what Claire had to say first.

“Hm. Edmund is clearly experiencing what I could only be described as  what had once been a home-movie has been replaced with a slide show,” Oz replied. “Or that’s what I can guess at when this spell activates.

“It lets you look at many different viewpoints at the same time, doesn’t it?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Edmund muttered and immediately pushed at the spellwork. Letting Edmund’s pop out of him and begin looking around.

More than half immediately left and went straight to Alina and began spending time with her. Most of them just wanting to be around her as far as he could tell.

Some of them called Ellie and Iren over and hung out with all three of them.

All of those Edmund’s were dismissed. He didn’t think they would offer him much of anything.

The rest of the Edmund’s fanned out and began sorting through save-state nodes. Pushing through them all.

None of them seemed to find or do anything. Looking through them and eventually looking into another.

Until one Edmund walked away from all the nodes. Only to call up more of them.

Each and every one of them was red bordered.

After looking through them for a few seconds, the Edmund vanished.

“I need a bunch of red bordered save-states that aren’t here,” Edmund said, focusing on the present. “Apparently I went over this way and a bunch of red border save-states appeared. I picked one, and left.”

Edmund retraced the steps the previous Edmund had and stopped in the same spot.

“Red border save states that relate to you,” Oz said.

Several seconds later and a series of red bordered save-states appeared.

“They’re all fragmented as the owner died. We won’t be able to utilize them more than once. They are also from save-states that don’t exist anymore,” Oz warned him

Almost the very moment that Edmund had them put in front of them, he saw several save-states that he could certainly use.

As well as one he really didn’t want to see at all.

The latter was Romina.

With her back broken as Edmund blew her head off.

Yeah.

It was most certainly not a save-state he wanted to go into.

The last he remembered of it, he’d ended up alone in this one.

The save-states he was interested in using though, were Gaia killing the super Edmund had provoked her on, the same super dying, and Andrea dying.

Two of these save-states didn’t exist, as even in his original timeline Gaia hadn’t killed the man.

The latter, he didn’t want to touch.

Not in any way shape or form.

He needed to in fact, protect this one.

Once he figured out how to save Andrea, this save-state would be needed. It was the last moment the original time-line existed, before it was shifted with her death.

It’s also, unfortunately, likely the best place to discover where her soul went.

So what do I do?

“Oz, any chance of stabilizing this save-state?” Edmund asked, indicating Andrea’s.

“That is… unlikely. Though I will ask Runner and Srit for assistance,” Oz answered.

“Great. Thanks,” he said, then shook his head. He had certainly found a point of interest. One he hadn’t known existed.

For now, he needed to know more about what killed her.

That meant finding the super that did it.

Grabbing the save-state where the super died, Edmund threw himself into it. Activating it.

“Never harm another again!” Gaia shouted and then stomped a foot down on the super’s head. Crushing it with extreme force and pulping it into something that resembled smashed lasagna.

Gaia then spun around to look at Edmund.

He was shocked.

The once beautiful and vibrant young woman was gone.

This was a mature woman in her middle-age with faintly glowing red eyes. Eyes that promised death and destruction to anyone in her way.

“Wrath of nature and all that,” Edmund murmured, looking away from Gaia. He didn’t have much time to get moving.

Nor did he have the luxury of reloading multiple times, the save-state had most certainly broken when he loaded into it.

Andrea was already collapsing not far off. Dropping to the ground lifelessly.

In the distance, Edmund could see the super he wanted.

Even now they were in the middle of casting out another disgusting black wave of death that’d taken Andrea away.

They were dressed in strange dark clothes, a dark cloak, and were floating in the air above a distant building.

“Right,” Edmund whispered under his breath.

“We’ll kill them all,” growled a voice from his left.

Looking over, Edmund saw it was Dot. She was dressed in a Legionnaire’s armor and carried what could only be described as a staff.

She also was sporting a look at the moment that made her look like a would be edgelord. Heavy dark mascara, lip piercings from one side to the other, and bright red lipstick.

The fuck is wrong with this save-state.