"You're… you're alive…" I said, my hands immediately going up as he pushed the gun further against Swansong's head. "What are you… put that down!"

"Did you mourn me when you thought I died? Or were you happy about it? Were you just fuckin' ecstatic that I was finally out of your way?"

"What… you disappeared off my Friend's List… you were inside of a Dead Zone," I said, moving to take a step forward when Hydramental pulled the hammer of the gun back.

"Uh uh uh," he tutted at me, turning the gun into her skin. "It's not time yet. I did all this work, pulled every last string I could to put the pieces into place all just to get the exact outcome I wanted. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I don't want to make a mess of your pretty little girlfriend's head before you've confessed."

"Confessed? Hydra what are you-"

"DON'T PRETEND LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT!" Hydramental roared, his eyes going wide as his mouth turned into a snarl for the briefest of moments. He froze, his eyes closing for only a minute before he took a deep breath. "No, no, I can't lose control just yet… he wants to play games?"

Hydramental turned the gun down toward Miss Mist, firing it twice into her back. She let out a yelp of pain as he stared directly at me, ignoring the Guardian's cries for an injector as she reached a single hand toward me.

"Tick Tock Loophole, this ringing any bells?" he asked, his head cocking to the side as he turned the gun back on Swansong. "Is this how you did it when you KILLED MY BROTHER!?!"

"That's… Okay that's not what happened Hydramental, you need to hear-"

"Hear what?! How you gunned him down?! How he begged for you to save him just for you to place a bullet right in his fuckin' heart!? You call yourself a Guardian. You act like your so god damn high and mighty, knocking out the fucking blow up dolls that precious fuckin' A.I. creates for us to play this stupid fuckin' game, just to kill a man begging for fuckin' help! HOW FUCKIN' DARE YOU LOOPHOLE!"

Hydramental's eye was twitching, his mouth curling into a snarl as he yelled. I could feel my heart starting to race and I looked around my HUD. Everything was still grayed out, still inaccessible to me as I desperately wished I had the ability to rewind time, or yank the gun from his hand, or… or anything when- the EMP! My B.E.L.T was still inaccessible, but I had anticipated that. While I had been able to use it when dealing with SnakeBite, there had been no guarantee it would work the same way twice, so I had pocketed it, just in case. I slowly moved my hand toward the pocket of my jacket.

I just needed it to keep him from pulling the trigger, I needed to back things up, stop him from killing Clockwork Tyrant and gaining any more extra levels… or… I needed to pull the gun free from his hands. I could get close enough and take him out in a hand to hand fight if there wasn't a risk to Swansong's life… I wasn't sure what the right choice was, but I had to make it.

"It... it didn't happen that way! He asked me to do it!"

"HE ASKED YOU!?" Hydramental roared, turning the gun back on Miss Mist and firing again, her body collapsing to the ground. Even without the lights and fanfare, I knew what had happened and the robotic voice that was used when I was disconnected from Angie confirmed it.

"Hydramental. Level 37 Elemental Everyman. Squad: Droids R' Us."

"Why the fuck would my brother ask you to fuckin' kill him!? He would never leave Giada, he'd never fuckin' leave Ozzy! My brother was a greater hero than you could ever fuckin' dream of pretending to be!"

"I don't know what you heard but you're being lied to!" I said, searching the device for the activation button. My finger just found it and I went to– a sharp pain ripped through my hand as I felt a bullet graze me, tearing a hole in the pocket of my jacket as the EMP fell to the ground and I wrenched my hand back.

"What the fuck is that?! Pick it up, SLOWLY!" he ordered, pointing the gun in my direction. I held my hands up, the left one stinging with a sharp pain as blood drizzled down the shredded fabric of the glove barely holding onto my fingers.

I followed his instructions, moving downward, never breaking eye contact as he kept the gun trained directly on me. His eyes were wild, unlike any bit of the composure I had seen from him in the last day. As I reached for the EMP he cocked the gun again.

"Slide it over here," he ordered. "Finger off the fuckin' top of it."

I clenched my jaw, watching him carefully as I rested my hand on it and pushed it over toward him. It hit his boot and he quickly reached down for it, grabbing it with his free hand.

"The fuck is this supposed to do? Stop the Dead Field? Think that little nerd you've been palin' around with can build something stronger than the coders themselves?" He asked, almost amused as he turned and threw the device into the wall as hard as he could. He looked at me again, turning his gun back on Swansong as he reached down and into his own side pocket. A moment later, he pulled out a large device with multiple faces. It was almost round, but the sharp edges made it clear it wasn't. "It's amazin' the technology they've been hiding, holding behind just in case one of us gets out of hand. All the access in the world to their little stockpile and all I gotta do is deliver you to them. The little Loophole Axio snuck into the Wave to try and circumvent the bars they've put on him. But not… before… I get my confession."

He slid the device back down and into his pocket, his lips curling up in a smile as he cocked the gun back and shoved it up and into Swansong's gut. Her eyes went wide with the pain, and she struggled against her bonds. I couldn't be sure, but it seemed like she was screaming into the mechanical muffle placed over her. He wasn't listening to reason, he wasn't going to believe me unless I told him what he wanted. I swallowed hard, hoping beyond hope that Hydramental wasn't so far gone.

"I… I… I killed him… Okay!? I did it! Is that what you wanted to hear?!" I shouted at him. This made him pull the gun back. Swansong was staring at me, her eyes watering ever so slightly.

"Why!? Did Axio tell you to!? Was it because he was done with him and wouldn't do the job himself!?"

"No! Axio wasn't behind this! His blood was being used to unleash a horde of Vipers on our neighborhood and I stopped it! But it was because TechWarden was using him! He's trying to use you-"

Hydramental pulled the trigger. Swansong's eyes went wide, a scream leaving her lips with such force I could hear it even past the muzzle. I clenched my jaw, rushing to move forward when he turned the gun upward, moving from the wound he had left in her stomach and aiming it into her head. Then he pulled the trigger. Everything seemed like it had frozen as my heart skipped a beat, my vision went white with rage, and briefly, ever so briefly, I was almost positive that my HUD went bright with colors.

Five Minutes Earlier

The monitors had been blank for at least three minutes as No Signal flashed across the POV cameras of both Loophole and Freakenstein. Jon brought his fists down on the desk with a force that an Augment would be impressed with.

"DAMNIT!" Jon yelled, reaching up, running his hand through his hair as he pulled his beanie off and tossed it to the side. "Come on guys… one of you EMP already… disable that fucking field… what's taking so long…"

"It's still a long shot… There's no way of knowing if the effect of the EMP will work until one of them uses it," BrainCraft muttered, having been pacing on the other side of the wall since the operation had started. While he could have gone in with the rest of them, Duskbreaker did have a limit to the amount of people he could portal at one time and Red Lasso was clearly more of a combatant than he was.

"Positive thinking Brain, we need all the good vibes in the universe right now," Jon grunted, turning his attention to the monitor he had permanently kept on the back-end databases that his access gave him. He had become rather proficient at searching through it for what he needed, but no matter how many times he looked through it, there simply wasn't a damn thing in there about any way to negate or work past a Dead Zone. "Duskbreaker, are you still connected or did you get trapped in the zone too?"

"I… I'm here," Duskbreaker replied. "I am still in the in between, I can't find an exit spot in Perry… I might need to turn around, being in here makes me-"

"Hold it together Dusk, you're out extraction plan right now. Loophole believed in you, I need you to get your shit together and hold on, they are going to get out of this an then you're going to get those hostages out," Jon ordered through gritted teeth, his eyes sweeping across his monitors for anything he could use.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Is everything going to be okay? I do not like being unable to communicate with Freakenstein," Herb, Freak's P.A.I. said his voice raising half an octave.

"Pinky's gotta be okay right? Ain't nothin can take out my girl even without her powers," Frank boasted, though even Jon could hear that same unease in his tone that was enveloping Herb.

"Guys, come on let's work the problem," Jon said, trying to quiet the myriad of voices coming from each of the P.A.I.s.. He wasn't necessarily sure why the system had been designed to let him easily communicate with all of them like this, nor why they were still activated while their presumed hosts were cut off from the systems entirely. "Why are you all still able to talk if they aren't connected to the system any more? You guys come from their Personal Matrixes, right? Use that… look in your databases, find something that can help them. Can you guys activate their powers even if they can't? Is it just their access being cut off or is it their powers as a whole? Angie? Can you… you know?"

"That's… no we aren't designed for that, we act as a bridge Codex, you should know this," Angie said.

"There's gotta be something," Jon pleaded. "We need a backup in case those EMPs don't work. We need something. Tina, you work with Brain, do you have access to some other technology database that the others don't? Can't you guys like, link up and compare notes?"

"I do have additional notes. Technology Augments require specific code access that allows them to protect their technology from others while interfacing with the outer shell of the main system operating the game. But there is little in there that I think would help-"

"Can you share it anyway? Maybe there's an angle you're missing…"

"I'm a P.A.I. designed for this, I don't believe I would make that error, but if it would provide you some ease of mind. Others, please connect with my signal, we shall run a quick comparison," Tina instructed.

Jon could see five distinct orbs made of various colored light floating in the Command Center overhead. He was relatively sure the others couldn't see these, Nate would have said something by now if he did. There was a white one, a pink, a light blue one, an orange one, and the deep purple one that had appeared only shortly after Freakenstein had joined the squad. It didn't take him a far leap to assume these somehow represented the various Augment's P.A.I.s.

The colors began to move in a rapid circle, spinning up into a blur. Jon started to feel on edge, watching as the lights moved for what felt like an eternity but was in reality only about a minute.

"We have conferred," Tina announced.

"We all triple checked the databases, there's not a single mention of Dead Zones or Null Zones to be found outside of The Common Ground, same thing we all have," Herb explained.

"It is interesting to see the headache you have to deal with Tina, I'm glad Pinky just likes to take the direct smashing route," Frank said, the pink light in the air buzzing. "Huh, that's odd. Hey Angie, did you know you got some sort of encrypted folder? How'd you do that, what're you hidin'?"

"Encrypted folder?" Angie asked. "What folder?"

"Huh, that is odd," Herb agreed, his purple light shimmering. "It's attached to Loophole's orientation completion notes. Why would you link a folder to that? There's next to no reason to look back at it after you get out of the Tutorial."

Jon turned to his keyboard, waving the database window away as he started digging through the folders that acted as Angie's master storage. Sure enough, right in the orientation folder he had ignored over and over, there was a folder lacking any sort of name. He tried to click on it and ACCESS DENIED flashed over the screen.

"Hmmm, this is… I didn't put this here and I am positive it wasn't here upon completion of his tutorial…" Angie murmured. Jon's screen went fuzzy as the orange light overhead blared with light. "Hmmm, enter command… let's see… Bypass_Field_0; NeedActionBarForAbilities_1 hmmm wait, no, let's make that _0;. There… that should- that should- that should-"

Angie's light started to fade, blinking and sputtering as the edges of her orb became fuzzy. Her voice started to stutter as Jon saw a screen flash in the corner of his eye. He looked over in time to see as Hydramental pulled the trigger of a gun pointed right at Swansong's head when-

Jon was staring at the screen as No Signal flashed across his screen. His fists slammed down and into his desk with a force that would have made an Augment impressed.

"DAMNIT!" He yelled, reaching up and running his hands through his hair as he pulled his beanie off of his head and threw it to the side. "Come on guys… one of you EMP already… disable that fucking field… what's taking so long…"

"So umm… I'm not entirely sure what happened, but it would seem Loophole has rewound time… Normally I'd be aware of what occurred prior to the rewind, but for some reason I am missing the last few minutes. My system seems to have done a soft reset… This may have occurred due to him rewinding himself back into a Dead Zone after briefly escaping it," Angie spoke up before BrainCraft could vocalize the doubt he had for his invention's efficacy. "That said, although I am unable to communicate with him, I can feel his Personal Matrix is still activated within the Zone. I believe something must have happened in the last few minutes because he is certainly about to live up to his name."

Present

I needed my powers, I NEEDED MY POWERS. I wasn't sure what happened, I wasn't sure why I could feel the burst of power that came with my increased stats, but I didn't hesitate. I activated Timekeeper's Control and rewound as far back as I possibly could, needing every last minute I could scrap out of the power to fix this. I grit my teeth together, unable to stop the actions already in motion.

Hydramental turned the gun down toward Miss Mist, his finger moving quickly as he fired it twice into her back. She let out a cry of pain, her hand reaching out toward me pleadingly.

"Tick Tock Loophole, this ringing any bells?" he asked, his head cocking to the side as he turned the gun back on Swansong. "Is this how you did it when you KILLED MY BROTHER!?!"

My HUD was grey yet again, my breath ragged as I took in my surroundings. Miss Mist was still alive, and a quick scan of Hydramental confirmed he was back down to Level 31. I had rewound every bit of five minutes, surprised that it only sent me back this far. I had to be careful, I couldn't send Hydramental off the deep end lest he finish Miss Mist off and jump another 6 levels. I couldn't let him hurt Swansong, her eyes staring at me with a desperate plea.

"I… I'm sorry Hydramental," I said, my shoulders dropping. I needed to keep him calm, but for some reason this felt different than just knowing what not to say. My HUD was still grey. But I could feel my power coursing through me, I could feel my Area Sense reaching out and around the room, a 50% Positive Zone centered directly on Hydramental's body. I wasn't sure what about this nightmare of a room made it that way, but it was there.

I couldn't hear Jon. I couldn't hear Angie. But I could feel my powers. And as I mentally pinned the Zone in place with a Vibe Anchor to remove any possible good luck effects from Hydramental, I knew I damn sure could use them.

"I killed your brother… and I should have told you days ago, I... I didn't know how you would react... so I just didn't tell you… that's not what a Guardian should have done… that's not what you or his family deserved," I said slowly, staring directly at him, meeting his eyes as he took in a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes. His jaw tightened and as his grip grew tighter on the gun still in his hand. Even then, it still dropped lazily to his side as he tilted his head backwards, his knuckles going white as his grip grew tighter.

"That was easier than I thought," He snarled, his lips curling up with a smile, letting out his breath as his eyes opened and he stared at me with a sadistic amount of glee. "Now I get to do it to you."

His hand darted up, aiming into Swansong's chest. I activated Center of the Universe, cranking the power up as high as I possibly could, aiming for the inanimate objects around them.

The muzzle around Swansong's mouth ripped off of her face, the loose Velcro holding it in place giving way to the force of my ability. An object in Hydramental's pocket that I now knew was there yanked forward, tearing through the loose fabric of his pants. And although he had a nearly iron grip on it, the gun in his hand started to wrench forward… but not before he managed to squeeze the trigger one last time. The gun went off, striking Swansong in the chest as it came hurtling toward me.

I couldn't rewind any further, even as I tried to do it, the power wouldn't activate. I wasn't sure if that was because I had simply used up the last bit of time I had left or if the Zone was negating it in a way that it wasn't affecting my other powers. I tried to materialize a healing injector, rushing forward and hoping I could inject Swansong as blood started to stain her white costume. Nothing appeared when I tried to wrench it from my deactivated Action Bar and try as I might, I couldn't open my B.E.L.T., even just to look. The sharp edged object Hydramental had showed off as he bragged about the field we were in was hurtling toward me still and as little as I wanted to, I planted my feet, striking downward as the object got close enough. I threw a 25% Gravity Punch into the strike, rocketing the device down and into the metal grating beneath us with a metallic CRUNCH as my HUD flashed to life.

I immediately materialized a Superior Health Injector ignoring Jon as he began shouting in my head as I rushed toward Swansong. I was only a foot away from her as she collapsed to the ground, her health bar bottoming out before a sudden bright, gold light erupted outward from her body. The force of the light actually knocked me backwards and I had to catch myself before I tripped over my feet. A blaze of song erupted from her lips and echoed throughout the room as I shielded my eyes from the light.

And all at once. The room went dark.

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