Chapter Text
Damn it.
“Damn it! Why isn’t she back yet?!”
“Kronii, calm down!”
I was freaking out over Watson’s delay. She shouldn’t have been long. And for some reason, I couldn’t get back there, nor could I get into contact with her, despite her having the watch. Bae was trying to calm me down.
“The hell even happened?”
“Another Watson came for the watch again, we fought for a while, I couldn’t kill her, then I got kicked out of that universe by that timeline’s Kronii. I couldn’t get back there ever since.”
“How did she get to the watch in the first place? Isn’t it, like, heavy guarded?”
“I asked the same thing. She just said ‘the same way you did’.”
“No way she coulda.”
“Regardless, she should be back by now. I was going to forgive her and work with her and everything. I swear to god, if she ran off, I’ll-”
Suddenly, I could feel a tear in time forming somewhere distant. In a city a country away. I immediately knew what it was. Watson.
“She’s back. Come with me, Bae.”
“Right.”
I reached my hand out and Bae grabbed it. Together, I transported us to the city I felt her appear in. New York City.
The moment we arrived in New York City, I could feel something was off. Things weren’t right. I quickly noticed what it was. Bubbles of time had been created around the city. Essentially, different places in the city were in different periods of time, all flowing at different paces. Except, only those with time abilities or above time could notice this. Everyone else only experienced their times as normal, and couldn’t cross these bubbles. It did make things dangerous for me, though, since I could.
Even so, I had to go in to look for Watson. Bae was accompanying me, and as the embodiment of chaos, she was able to guide me down the safest path possible. When we neared where I felt Watson coming from, I started running ahead of Bae. As I got close, though, I could feel her start to run away. Since she started running away, I had to chase after her.
Twisting down alleyways, roads, dipping and dodging cars of various ages, and even zipping from the prehistoric age to the future before coming back to the present. I was just about to catch up with her when she was suddenly in another location entirely. With an exasperated sigh, I turned to go to the new location. Bae was having difficulty keeping up.
I was en route to her location when a giant explosion went off in the city. I growled before running towards its source. Arriving there, I found a giant crater in the city in an area free of traffic. Similar in make to a science lab mixed with the sewers. Probably had to do with another time bubble. Still, I jumped in without regard to look around for Watson.
I spent some time digging through the rubble before I heard a noise. Looking over, I could see a pile of rubble moving. I moved over to it slowly, being careful not to startle whatever was there. Slowly, I picked up the rubble to find what was there. To my surprise, it was Watson. Except it wasn’t. She was distorted, phasing in and out of time. Almost as though she didn’t belong.
“Warden…”
Hearing her speak, I jumped back to put some distance between us. I didn’t know what state she was in, so I couldn’t trust her to not attack me.
“Kronii…”
“. . . Learned my name, I see.”
“Kronii… You…”
I kept my distance from her, even as she shifted to start picking herself up. I could hear some sliding from behind me. I turned to see Bae coming down to join me in the pit.
Watson chuckled. “Oh Kronii… How happy I am to see you… Aren’t you?” Her voice was distorted like she was, almost phasing in and out of time. I could hear her fine, though.
“What happened to you?”
“What happened to me? You did, Kronii.”
“Me?”
“Yes! You! It was your watch that did this to me! Your efforts to contain me that pushed me this far! After abandoning me in that timeline, that Kronii was no help either! She just told me to run, never helped any! So when the timeless monster attacked me and destroyed my watch, this happened .”
My face contorted in shock. What the hell had happened?
“So when you look at me and see… this hideousness. This ugliness that no one could ever accept. This look that my friends will always come to hate, remember that you did this to me. It was because of you I became this. You created me.”
Bae looked up at me. “Why’d ya create this gal, Kronii?”
“I-I didn’t create her! In fact, I tried to stop her! But you know how our powers are when we enter other timelines.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it was intentional or not. It was our actions that led to this. So why don’t you take responsibility for it? Why don’t you pay for turning me into a nigh omnipotent monster that could destroy this universe solely through existing, even if I didn’t want to?” Watson began to pick herself up, slamming the ground and slowly starting to make her way towards me. Bae and I put up our defenses as I summoned my clock hands. “You can pay for turning my existence into a hellish torture of omnipotence. I always wondered what it would be like to be God. Now that I know…”
Watson fully picked herself up, now picking up the pace as she got ready to run at Bae and I. I was ready to strike her the moment she got close to me.
“I want to BE MORTAL AGAIN-!”
Suddenly, Watson tripped. As she did, a time bubble opened beneath her, causing her to fall into a time pit and transfer to another dimension before it quickly closed after her. She likely wasn’t used to her powers yet, but this posed a new problem for me.
“Good goin’, Kronii. She got away.”
“Listen, I always fix time problems. But, I feel like this is about to become something far worse than I had initially expected.”
“Ya don’t say, do ya?”
I was silent for a moment. Then, I spoke up. “Bae, do you know what we Kroniis call people like Watson? One’s who become anomalies who no longer belong in any universe regardless, and are at our top priorities of elimination?”
“Uh, no. Why?”
“Go call the Kronii Lobby. Tell them we have a Timebreaker on our hands.”
“Threat level: Alphaω.”